Spell of Summoning (28 page)

Grams gave Rebecca a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

“What is?”

“Focus your thoughts,” Grams advised. “Concentrate on expelling the darkness in him.”

“I don’t know Latin,” Becca reminded her.

“You don’t have to say anything. Holden cut the spell into his skin.”

This magic and necromancy stuff was Holden’s thing. Rebecca might have been possessed by Derek’s demon, though she didn’t remember it, but she wasn’t prepared for spirits and spell circles. She handled marketing and contracts and taxi-ing new buyers from property to property. Casting a spell was so far out of her comfort zone, she could no longer even see her comfort zone.

Her gaze fell upon Holden’s still twitching fingers. He would protect her, despite his own fear or pain or doubt, to the very end. He’d pulled a demon into his body for her. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep her safe. For him she would be brave.

Becca dropped to her knees inside her circle and stared at Holden’s back, picturing her will like a wash of bright, healing light shining upon him.

“I’m ready.” She held her breath and prepared for the spell to knock her sideways.

A tickle started in her fingers. Not too bad. A little uncomfor--

Power, wild and raw, swept through her, bursting from her chest in arcs of crackling electricity. Becca clutched at her ribs, fearing the force would split her in two. She blinked back hazy tears but kept her eyes open and focused on Holden.
I can do this. For him.

His body glowed, spell marks lighting up pink and yellow and orange.

A final pop of light tore from her chest, and the spell finished, leaving the hair on her arms standing at attention. She dropped to her hands and knees, dizzy and disoriented, but she never broke eye contact with Holden, and she witnessed the black shadow inside him vanish like smoke in the wind.

He sat up and dug his fingers into her upper arms, and she saw the familiar man behind his eyes. “Are you okay?” His voice was soft, throaty, and choked with pain. There was a tenseness to his expression, anxiety in each quick gesture.

“Just dizzy.”

“You cast a spell?” he marveled. “A demon banishing spell? Do you know how much power you have to channel to do that?”

“If you hadn’t cut the spell marks into yourself I couldn’t have done it. Don’t you ever do anything so stupid and reckless again.” She yanked him into her arms and squeezed hard. “But you’re safe now, you beautiful lunatic.” She swept his hair off his forehead and kissed him. “It’s all over.”

“That may be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me. Becca, I love you. I’m in love with you. I want you to know that. And when this is over for good, you and I are taking a vacation.” He smiled sweetly. “A long one.”

“Holden.” Becca’s voice quivered. “A vacation sounds really, really nice.” She leaned in and kissed him, lingering for a moment. “I love you, too.”

He struggled to his feet using the sedan as a crutch.

“Go easy,” she warned.

“I will when I know Derek is taken care of.”

The Jeep started right up, and she sped back to Derek’s house.

“Are you okay?” she asked, “Really?”

He studied her face and then his own reflection in the passenger-side mirror. “The demon’s gone. My spell sent it back where it belongs.”

“Did you kill Derek?” The man had lied to her and put a demon inside her, but she still couldn’t find the desire to murder him. Punish him, definitely. If there was some kind of demon summoners’ prison that would be perfect.

“I took his memories away.”

“How many?”

“All of them.” Holden shrugged. “I didn’t want him to be able to hurt you ever again.”

“That’s good.” She parked the Jeep.

“Stay in the car.” Holden got out with a great amount of care.

“Yeah, right.” Rebecca rounded the crumpled hood and slid under his shoulder. “You’re stuck with me, bub.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” They limped carefully into the house and through the last bedroom.

“This is a really small space,” she observed at the threshold of the walk-in closet. “It must have been difficult for you to come back here.”

He dipped his head to her ear. “I’d do anything for you.”

“Thank you.”
For so, so much
. “Thank you.”

Derek lay among the ruined remnants of his summoning spell where they’d left him. He looked harmless, small even.

“Are we going to leave him here?” Becca asked.

“Too many questions. No.” Holden bent and checked Derek’s pulse. “We’ll put him in his car, and I’ll wake him up. When we get to town, you’ll make an anonymous phone call to the police saying you saw a car accident, and the driver needs help.”

“Will he be okay?”

“I just gave him a clean slate.” Holden met her gaze. “And us, too.”

* * *

“I’m sick of being in this place.” Holden sat up, pulling at his thin blue gown but not finding a comfortable position. It was the damned IV they insisted on sticking in him. That, and the heart leads and the finger clip and the blood pressure cuff were enough to make him want to scream. The ER doctor had already cleared him. His heart was fine. So were his reflexes, blood pressure, pupils, and every other part of him they’d inspected.

“It’s only for a few more minutes.” Rebecca perched on the edge of his bed and squeezed his hand. “They’re filling out the discharge paperwork now.”

She smiled, and her eyes twinkled, twisting his heart in a way that had nothing to do with the jolt it had suffered last night. It was her.

All those years he’d wasted locked in his house when he could have been with this incredible woman… If he’d gotten his ass in gear, he could have met her years ago, and they’d have even more time together. Because he could not get enough.

“And,” Rebecca glanced meaningfully at Grams who sat knitting in a plastic chair near the curtain partition, “you have something to do before we leave.”

She kissed him on the forehead like he was a sick kid. No, not good enough. Gripping the back of her neck, he brought her mouth down onto his, kissing her the way he would always kiss her. With love and passion. Yeah, passion would not be an issue.

She drew away, gasping. “Holden.” She flushed pink, and he debated pulling her into the bed and kissing her again. But she backed out of his reach. “I’ll be at the snack machine.”

At the curtain, Rebecca paused to gaze at Grams. “If I don’t see you again, ma’am, it was a pleasure meeting you.”

Without Rebecca, the room turned cold and quiet. He glanced at the shadow of his grandmother, her long knitting needles clicking as she worked on the never-ending sweater.

She caught him staring, stood, and crossed the room to sit on the edge of his bed. Her weight had no effect on the mattress.

“I like her.”

He chuckled. “Me, too.”

“She’s the right girl for you. I look at you two and I see myself and Grandpa when we were your age.”

“I wouldn’t have ever met her if you hadn’t forced me to track her down.”

Grams nodded. “You’ll make a beautiful toast to me at your wedding.”

“Deal.”

She bowed her head, and he was still afraid of what came next. Though he’d been awakened again to life and love and joy, the thought of losing his Grams still hurt.

Her voice was faint, “I’ll stay. If you want me to.”

“No,” Holden rushed to say. “I’m not keeping you here anymore.” He reached for her as if he could grasp her ghostly hand. He couldn’t. “I love you too much to keep you here any longer. Please,” he stressed, “go and be happy. Enjoy your afterlife.”

She stood, her lavender yarn dangling from her fingers. “I love you, you know. I’ve loved you since the day you came into this world and every day since.”

“I love you, too, Grams.” He blinked to clear his vision. “Thank you for looking out for me.”

“You’ll take care of Rebecca?” Grams asked.

“Of course.”

“You’ll take care of Sparky’s?”

“I promise.”

“I’m proud of you, bubba. More than you know.” She smiled bravely. Instead of disappearing, though, a warm light shimmered in her chest and grew until it encompassed her entire being.

Blinded, Holden shielded his eyes.

Poof
.

She was gone.

Chapter Twenty

One week later

Rebecca pulled up in front of Holden’s house. Even though in the last week she’d returned her apartment key, closed her office, and been possessed by a demon, she was happy. Gloriously, deliriously happy.

Maybe because of all those things, and a few others, she wasn’t worried about taking care of anyone else right now. She’d called her dad and Nelly and told each of them that she was taking an indefinite sabbatical from work and moving out of her apartment. She had no doubts they’d be fine without her mothering them for a while.

Popping the hood of her Lexus, she struggled to lift out two oversized wheeled suitcases and two shoulder bags. With the bags crisscrossed over her chest, she rolled the suitcases up to Holden’s front door and rang the bell. From somewhere deep in the house, Buster barked.

She dropped all four bags and waited. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and then Holden whipped open the door.

“You don’t have to knock,” he chided, grabbing her off her feet and crushing her against his chest. He smelled deliciously like freshly cut lumber. “Make yourself at home.”

He kissed her, his mouth warm and insistent. He kissed her in that fierce way of his, like this might be his last kiss ever.

“I missed you,” he growled.

“It’s only been three hours.” But she’d missed him, too.

“Okay,” Rebecca said, putting distance between them and waving at her luggage, “This is everything I own. Well, everything that’s not in storage. But symbolically it’s everything. I want to be honest with you.” She laughed throatily. “I put my brand-new, never-even-lived-in Raleigh McMansion up for sale. I’m basically unemployed and homeless.”

Holden folded his arms, the muscles in his chest bunching. “No problem. I own my own place, and I know of a diner in town looking for a new co-owner who loves waiting tables and accounting.”

“That’s great news,” she said, bouncing on her toes, “because Sparky’s has all kinds of franchise potential. I have big plans for that place. I thought I’d have to talk you into it.”

His eyebrows shot up. “It’s a what now?”

Laughing, she said, “I’m a lucky girl.”

He pulled a matching pair of plane tickets from his back pocket. “Ready to get even luckier?”

“Have I told you how much I need a vacation?” She clapped her hands together.

The sound brought Buster padding across the foyer to investigate. When he spotted her, he burst into a run. Becca dropped to one knee and gladly accepted his big, messy, doggy hug.

“I missed you, Buster.” And she realized she meant it.

He licked her throat and wagged his tail until his back feet nearly came off the ground.

After a final pat, she stood and caught sight of a beautiful little girl in Holden’s shadow, the fingers of one hand resting uncertainly over her mouth.

“Hello, Olive,” Rebecca greeted. “Have I told you yet today that you’re one of my favorite people in the whole world?” Without the little girl’s help, they never would have found and stopped Derek.

Thanks to her former assistant, Rebecca would spend the rest of her life seeing the spirits of the dead. It wasn’t so bad, though. Casting was the hard part. Holden had promised to teach her the basics, but she wasn’t ready yet. The memory of all that channeled power burning through her was enough to make her wary of necromancy.

Olive burst into giggles and vanished.

“Oh, that reminds me.” Becca closed the narrow gap between her and Holden, wrapping her arms around his waist. “There’s one more piece of business we have to take care of before we leave.”

He checked his watch. “It better be quick. The plane takes off in two hours.”

* * *

The doorbell rang, but Jessa must not have heard it, because she was too busy banging around his kitchen looking for a skillet to make scrambled eggs. Which he didn’t even like.

He opened the door to a tall, blue-eyed man and a yellow-haired woman. He’d learned colors recently in therapy. Red, blue, yellow, black. He couldn’t say the words. His speech hadn’t come back after his accident. But his doctor was optimistic it would return in time.

“Hello,” the woman said. “How are you?”

She must not know he was mute.

The blue-eyed man took the woman’s hand and held it, forming a human wall on the doorstep.

Jessa grabbed the door out of his hand and pushed around him like he wasn’t even there. In a lot of ways, he felt invisible, though he knew he had substance. The not-real people, on the other hand, had no substance.

“Rebecca! Holden. It’s so good to see you both.”

“How is he?” Rebecca asked.

Jessa spoke for him. “He doesn’t seem to remember much, but we’re not sure, because he hasn’t said a word since the—” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Accident.” Jessa frowned in an exaggerated way. “And he’s relearning a lot of things. Forget about tying his shoes or working the remote or using the stove. Baby steps, you know.”

The man and the woman nodded. Behind them stood a little black girl with pigtails and bright eyes. But she was one of the not-real people, so he ignored her. Real people got uncomfortable when he paid too much attention to the not-real people.

“Well, we just wanted to check on him. Call me if anything changes, will you?”

“In Raleigh?”

“No, I’m not moving to Raleigh after all. I—”

Holden squeezed Rebecca’s hand, and she amended, “I’ll be in touch.”

“Sure.” Jessa smiled, probably not noticing the couple’s body language. Like how they looked at each other. Not with fear. No, what was the word?
Worried
, that was it. They looked worried.

“But we’re taking a vacation for the next couple of weeks or so. We might stay longer. It all depends on if we like it there,” Rebecca finished. “Well, take care, Jessa. Take care, Derek.”