The Witching Hour (The Grim Reaper Saga (Urban Fantasy Romance)) (22 page)

“What? See what?” Celeste narrowed malachite eyes, confusion pinched her brows.

Eve blew out a tired breath and sat up, clutching the pillow to her chest and staring at the black and white Humphrey Bogart on the screen. Casablanca, one of her all-time favorite movies was playing on mute. Didn’t matter, she could almost recite every line of that film by heart. Now that was a love story.

She reached into her brown paper sack of old taffy, pulled one out and thought of Cian when she bit down into the Napoleon.

“Celeste, are you sure you belong to this family? You sure can be dense sometimes.”

Tamryn reached over to the coffee table, grabbed the remote and shut off the television, forcing Eve to concentrate on their conversation and not tune them out the way she really wanted to do.

“It’s stronger, Eve, isn’t it?” She paused, searching Eve’s face. “The bond with him is stronger than Michael.”

Celeste frowned and glanced toward her. Eve rolled her eyes, but nodded.

“Well so what.” Celeste stood and began gathering the empty glasses and bowls and headed into the kitchen. She tended to get tidy when discussing Eve’s love life. “Eve, we all know how much you loved Michael, him most of all I’m sure. But--” she dumped the dishes into the sink, grabbed the tea kettle and filled it up with tap water, “it’s okay. You’re one of the lucky ones to find not only one, but two great loves. Cian might just be a rebound and that could be where these feelings are stemming from. But you’re a smart girl and I think we all know that’s probably not the case.”

She twisted her lip, nibbling on it. “You guys wanna hear something pretty heavy?”

“Ya ha,” Tamryn nodded, wavy red hair bobbing up and down, “you know I do.”

“I just bet you do, busy body.” Eve snorted.

Celeste placed the kettle on the stove and walked back into the living room, plopping down on the floor Indian style.

“Whew, okay--” she lifted her hand, her eyes glazing over for a second, “remind me never to move that fast when the room’s spinning.”

They laughed, the alcohol beginning to make even the ordinary funny by that point. Breathless and lighthearted Eve hiccupped. It was always so good to be around her sisters. They had a way of showing her things were never really that bad, life went on, and what happened today need not rule your life tomorrow. Good to be reminded of that sometimes.

“So, you were saying?” Tamryn asked when they finally quieted down. She pointed her blackberry colored toe nails toward the ceiling and waved her hand over them, trying her best to speed up the drying process.

Pressure was starting to build inside the kettle. A low-pitched vibration rattled the stove.

“I think what totally freaked me out about the whole thing was that in that moment I realized Michael could hardly begin to compare with the vampire. And might I add,” she widened her eyes, holding up a finger, “a perfect stranger at that. That’s so unlike me. I’m careful. Play it safe. I don’t fall in love at the drop of a dime. But this is different, as if I don’t have a choice in the matter, and it’s all happening so fast, my heads spinning. I feel like this is totally out of my control and I’m not sure I like that.”

Heavy silence met her statement. Tamryn could only blink. Celeste didn’t bat an eye, just stared.

The teakettle whistled. Its shrill scream snapped them out of their trances.

Eve jumped, heart nearly jerking from her chest.

Celeste jumped up and ran to shut it off. The ‘ice pick stabbing in your brain’ noise died with a pitiful little wail. Then she began piddling around in the kitchen, opening drawers and slamming cupboards.

“Then you shouldn’t ignore that, and as a witch you know this,” Tamryn chided, not missing a beat. “Sounds to me like you’re trying to be the control freak again. We all know life is predestined. What will be will be. You learned that with Michael.”

“I know,” she huffed a stray lank of ebony hair out her eye, “but what if I’m wrong? I could be. I have been in the past.”

Celeste came in carrying a tray with three steaming teacups on it. She handed one to each of them, then took her own and sat in the recliner. The warm, relaxing scent of chamomile circled the room.

“And what if he is?” Celeste asked, taking a tentative sip of the brew. “We can play that what if game forever. You know it. I know it, so let’s do ourselves the favor and not.”

“You know I hate to agree with anything scrooge says, but she’s right, Eve.”

She gazed into her amber liquid cup. Her sisters were right. This was all beginning to give her a headache. The back and forth and freaking out. Over what? That she found a guy stimulating, not only physically, but mentally. He was a mystery and yet at the same time there was this innate sense that she knew him. He was one of the good guys, vampire or no.

“Well it doesn’t matter anyway. I never got his number or address. And I seriously doubt he’s going to be looking up psycho chick any time soon.”

Eve took a sip of her tea, but wrinkled her nose at the heat scalding her tongue. She’d never liked tea hot, preferring it tepid or even on the cool side. Something her sisters had always called a disgusting habit.

“That’s what you thought the other night and he came back. I think you’d be surprised. If this really is predestined, then nothing under the sun can stop it from happening.”

“Whoa, getting all existential on us now are you, Cel?” Tamryn teased, tossing a pillow at Celeste’s head. It landed with a soft plop, dribbling tea over the cups rim and onto her shirt. Her pink face twisted into a frightening mask of cracks.

“Tam!” she shrieked and threw the pillow back, missing by a good yard. “I swear you act like you’re fifteen instead of twenty five.”

Eve shuddered. “I think you should go take that stuff off now, Cel, it’s starting to drop into your tea. Yuck.”

Indeed little pink flecks were falling into the cup.

With a growl Celeste stalked to the bathroom, slamming the door in her wake.

Tamryn snorted, making Eve laugh and remember the look on Celeste’s face. One of loathing, and uppity snobbery. Her sister was a hot mess.

She held her stomach and wheezed between bouts of giggles, “That was really mean, Tam.”

“Bah. She’s too serious. Needs to lighten up. Anyhow, I was thinking--”

“Oh I can’t wait to hear this one.”

The sound of rushing water filtered through the hallway. Eve tasted the tea again, this time it was cool enough to be drinkable.

“What if we did a séance?”

“For what?”

“To find out his address of course.”

“Yeah well,” she sat the cup and saucer down, “not that I don’t appreciate it, but isn’t that a little Hollywood? I mean we can find it without the hocus-pocus. I’m sure he’s in the phone book.”

“I’m sure we could, genius.” Sarcasm dripped from her words. “But you’re forgetting the little matter of not knowing his last name.”

Eve opened her mouth then snapped it shut, frowning. Come to think of it, she’d never learned his last name.

Celeste huffed and entered the living room. “What’s this about a séance?”

“Bionic ears...” Tamryn shot Eve a quick ‘she’s so weird look’. “I was just saying that we should do a séance to divine where this hot vamp lives.”

At that Celeste perked up and nodded, planting her hands on her hips. “Sounds good. We haven’t done anything in a while, feeling a little rusty. How ‘bout it, sis?”

“If everyone else does, then I guess when in Rome, right?”

“Ah ha.” Both sisters nodded.

Eve sighed, stood and walked to her cupboard full of candles and herbs. Not that she didn’t want to do this--okay... who was she kidding? She didn’t want to do this.

Yet somehow she would, always did whenever her sisters were involved. She grabbed five tall white candles and one thick black one. The dark candle was inscribed with the ritual symbols of power, in its center a pentagram. This would consecrate the magick circle. Finally, she also grabbed a pre-measured packet of sage, cedar, mugwort and sweet grass, cleansing herbs to make them ritually ready to enter the world of spirits.

Tamryn jumped up and ran to the bedroom, she came back out a moment later with a gem-encrusted dagger. Celeste pushed the coffee table and sofa further back.

All three came together. Eve placed the white candles at strategic spots, lit them, and then stepped inside the center of the circle, holding onto the dark candle still. Tamryn lifted the dagger and drew a five-pointed star through the air.

The room grew heavy around them, dense with power. It rippled like the tides of the sea.

“I’m not as good with the ley lines as you are, Eve. But I think this’ll hold just fine,” she said, tip of her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth. With a nod, she sat and the rest followed.

“Now, let’s cleanse ourselves and then do this,” Celeste said with a happy smile.

Eve sat the black candle down between them and pulled the dried, bunched herbs out the packet. Four separate knotted herbs fell out. With a regular cigarette lighter she lit the tip of the sage first. A dark curl of smoke ribboned through the air.

“Sage to drive out the evil and keep out negative thoughts,” all three said, voices going deeper with the invocation of magick.

Eve waved the herb through the air, allowing the smoke to filter under noses. They didn’t want to breathe it in. Only have the essence pass along their skin. The rest would take care of itself.

“Cedar to bless this home.”

She repeated the same process. Then lit the sweet grass.

“Sweet grass to welcome in good influence.”

Lighting the mugwort, Eve didn’t wave it under noses, but rather let the plant burn down in her hand. Its smoke was a hallucinogenic, not much was needed for its effect. This was what opened the portal between the physical and spiritual realms.

She closed her eyes already lightheaded from the drinking and now becoming a little groggy from the herb. One last step, then the spirits would speak with them.

“Light the black candle, Eve,” Tamryn hissed.

A chill zipped up her spine. Already Eve felt the spirits around them, she couldn’t hear them or see them, but they were definitely there. The air itself was thick with the presence of beings. The room was growing steadily cooler, making her break out in goose bumps. What if Michael showed up?

Her heart lurched. He might not, there was no way to know who would and wouldn’t show, just depended on the whim of the spirit.

“Won’t this make me look stalkerish?” Eve asked, anything to stall and give herself a little more time to gather her courage.

Celeste laughed. “A little.”

That was the last thing she wanted. Maybe there was another way, and one that did not involve the possibility of seeing her dead husband.

Fingers yanked the lighter from out her hands. She opened her eyes to see Tamryn lighting the black candle. “Too late to back out now, Eve. You’ll thank me later.”

The last wick flared to life and the room gave a loud shudder. Floorboards groaned and a spiraling helix of iridescence opened before them. Many, nearly translucent bodies spewed forth.

Old, fat, young, thin. Boys, men, girls, woman. They all came. Some yawning, others glaring murderously at the women.

“What do you want?” A woman, looking to be in her mid-twenties demanded. Fat curls bounced around her head, she was dressed in colonial period garb, an old soul. Usually only the more recent dead choose to speak and they tended to be the most unreliable sources.

Spirits were naughty, no other word for it.

If there was one thing in life Eve was good at though, that was her magick, speaking with the dead was a particular specialty of hers.

She narrowed her eyes. “One thing. Where can I find the vamp called Cian?”

“And what do I get in return for this bit of information?”

Always tit for tat, you’d think the undead wouldn’t be so stingy. Greedy little buggers.

“How ‘bout bespelled into a doll, wench?” Celeste snapped. She’d never had patience for the folly of the spirits. What was so ironic was that Celeste actually loved to séance.

The spirit huffed and stomped a dainty foot, her skirt flouncing with the movement. “I don’t like you, witch. You get nothing from me.”

The air was growing colder, crisper, as more and more spirits surged through the portal. Eve’s teeth clattered. She was ready to get this thing over with.

“Don’t pay attention to my sister, spirit,” Eve said. “What is it that you want?”

The spirit turned cold blue eyes toward her, her austere face impassive. A harshness twisted the delicate features of the woman. She opened her mouth to speak, then paused before uttering a word and cocked her head.

“You’re Michael’s, aren’t you?”

Eve’s heart felt like it literally was going to rocket through her chest. She forgot the cold altogether. “You know him?”

The woman bobbed her head, her curls bouncing becomingly. “He’s nice.”

“Does he... does he talk about me?”

Tamryn squeezed her fingers, in sympathy or to urge her to hurry it up, she didn’t know.

“Not much. A little. He likes Cian.”

Shock didn’t even begin to describe it. This conversation had gone from weird into the realm of Twilight Zone category.

“Because of that, I won’t charge you. You can find your Cian at 2166 Baker.”

***

Eve was putting away the candles, her mind consumed by the conversation with the spirit.

“Man that went surprisingly smooth tonight, didn’t it?” Tamryn asked, placing the dagger on the coffee table and then helped Celeste to right the furniture once again. Already the apartment was warming. “Guess it helped that we just happened to bump into a spirit that knew Mickey, eh? Wish we could have learned more about him.”

“Yeah,” she mumbled, only giving her sister half an ear. The only thing she could think about was the fact that Michael liked Cian. A sign? A signal? Had Michael somehow known that she needed to hear that? That hearing it had instantly freed her from her doubts, panics, and fears.

Celeste grumbled, pointing to the window. “How long were we entranced?”