Ghost of an Enchantment Page 4

  Stella huffed out a breath. “Oh, Mr. Pritt. He’s such a kidder. We must have had our music too loud again.” Her tone came out flat.

  Turning his body toward her, Lucas captured her gaze and shook his head slowly. “He wasn’t complaining about music.”

  “No?” She licked her lips and his eyes followed her tongue’s path.

  He tried to ignore the quickening of his heart rate. “He said—wait a second.” Needing to get it right, he pulled out his notebook. Her eyes tracked his movements, putting his nerve endings on alert. “He said it was ‘sort of like a bang, and more like a roar, but less like an animal and more like an explosion, but less of a real explosion and more like a fake explosion.’” He tucked the notebook back into his pocket. “Did you hear anything like that?”

  Stella shook her head, looking at Aubrey. “No. Did you?”

  All eyes turned to Aubrey. The color was still high in her cheeks as she shook her head frantically. “Mr. Pritt must have been mistaken.”

  “Well, that’s just it,” Joe said with a shrug. “We heard a real strange noise only moments ago. Very loud.”

  Aubrey stopped shaking her head. The cat wailed again.

  “That is strange,” Stella said, her face blank. “I wonder what it was.” She cleared her throat. “Our cat made a ruckus when we were moving furniture. Could be what you heard.”

  Definitely not what they heard. She knew something, she had to. The sound had come from the direction of this house and it didn’t come from a cat. He looked around the living room again, his eyes going back to the table at the center of the room. So strange. Another matching table was at the far end of the couch. He took another step toward it, then stopped.

  Underneath it was a perfectly circular burn mark. Head tipping to the side, he considered the black circle. What would make such a mark?

  He couldn’t stop himself from taking a closer look. Stepping next to the table, he crouched down and picked up a green collar, letting it dangle from his fingertip.

  “Who owns this house?” he asked, standing to meet Stella’s gaze once more.

  “We both do,” she replied, snatching the collar out of his hand.

  “And it’s only the two of you here right now?”

  She nodded once.

  “I’m going to need to take your names down to close the complaint file with Mr. Pritt.” He glanced over at Aubrey, who stood rigid, her back almost touching the wall. “I know your full name from earlier today, but I don’t know yours,” he said, meeting Stella’s eyes once more.

  “Stella Campfield,” she said in a low voice. He noted both names under Mr. Pritt’s noise description.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Joe pointed above him. Lucas looked up. A matching mark was exactly above him on the otherwise all-white ceiling.

  When he looked at Stella again, she was staring at the mark on the ceiling, her face devoid of color. Then she swallowed and met his eyes with a fake smile.

  “As you can see, we aren’t being noisy,” she said moving away from him. “So Mr. Pritt has nothing to worry about. I’m sure you have much better things to do than take unnecessary calls from grouchy neighbors.” Marching to the front door, she opened it with a flourish.

  They were being dismissed. He could take a hint. And there wasn’t anything he could do in this situation. She was right. They weren’t being noisy. There was no evidence of what had made such a strange noise. And there was nothing to prove. His eyes strayed to the pair of black circles in the living room. After staring at them a moment longer, trying to figure out what the hell they were, he gave her a nod and headed toward the door, Joe right beside him.

  Another sad meow from the kitchen had him pausing. “Is your cat okay?”

  Her eyes trained on the wall beside him, she said, “He’s had a bad day. All that furniture moving stressed him out.”

  The warble in her voice had him tensing. He knew deep down something troubling was happening with these women. But it was clear they didn’t want either him or Joe in their house. Not every matter was a police matter and he had to remember that.

  “All right, then,” he said, putting on his hat and stepping outside. “Take care.”

  “Thanks.” The door slammed closed as soon as Joe crossed the threshold.

  They walked down the steps together.

  “Wasn’t that the woman who was smelling you at the bar last weekend?” Joe asked, his eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah,” Lucas said as they reached the driveway, his eyes scanning the two vehicles parked there.

  “And did you get the feeling they didn’t want us here?”

  “Yeah,” Lucas said again, opening the driver’s side door to his police cruiser. They didn’t want them there, but his gut told him he should find out why—his gut and something else. If Stella was in some sort of trouble, his whole being screamed at him to help.

  5

  As soon as she shut the door, Stella ran into the kitchen to find Loki. He huddled in his favorite spot, the farthest corner under the tiny kitchen table by the heat duct.

  “Oh, you poor baby,” she said as she crawled under so she could cuddle him. His fur still had a faint burnt smell to it. “We’ll give you a nice bath to get the stink out.” Loki purred the hardest purr she’d ever heard as he coiled himself into her arms.

  Her mind raced with everything that had happened. Lucas was a cop and he’d been in her house. How could the man who attracted her like no other be a cop? Disappointment hit her hard. She’d been hoping to see him again, to bump into him at Bitters and strike up a conversation—but she’d be prepared for it next time.

  Now she knew he was a cop, it changed everything. Nana had always taught her to be wary of law enforcement, that they would bend the truth to suit them, that they would use you then throw you away. She didn’t know where the sentiment came from, but Nana had said it enough to make her tense whenever she was near one.

  And not only had one cop been in her house, but two. His partner’s energy had a steady rhythm, like a bass drum supporting the rest of the marching band. Neither had given off the “cop” vibe she’d been taught to avoid, but it didn’t mean she could trust them.

  “He hates baths,” Aubrey said, crouching so she could see them under the table. “It’ll only traumatize him more.” She hung her head. “But I’m so glad he’s still alive. I really thought I’d killed him.” Lifting her head, she met Stella’s eyes. “Where did he go?”

  Stella buried her face in his side. “I—” She didn’t want to lie to her friend, but she didn’t want to scare the shit out of her either. “I’m not sure.” Yeah, that was much better than saying they might have opened a portal to hell, or some other plane of existence, an otherworld. With Loki clutched in her arms, she scooted out from beneath the table to stand. “But I’ll need to find out. Do you mind if I take the ring with me?”

  “By all means,” Aubrey said, shuffling back into the living room. “I don’t want to touch it again, even to put it in the trash.”

  “We can’t put it in the trash. It’s too dangerous.” Stella transferred Loki into Aubrey’s arms, then stooped to retrieve the metal ring from under the couch. “Who knows what other harm it could do?” Device in hand, she twisted it one way then another. Its energy signature was completely dead again.

  “Of course,” Aubrey agreed, Loki purring into her cleavage. “You can take it with my blessing times a thousand.” Blinking rapidly, she focused on Loki, not meeting Stella’s gaze.

  “Hey,” Stella said, stepping closer to touch her arm. “Everything that happened was an accident.”

  Aubrey sniffed. “But what if Loki hadn’t come back? It would have been all my fault. He could have died wherever he’d gone to.”

  “It’s not your fault. Who sold this to you?”

  Shrugging, she said, “A man, a new customer. I can check his file the next time I’m at the store.”

  Had he known what he had? Perhaps not. It could have remained dormant for centuries, just a funny looking metal circle someone kept on their mantle. The thought made Stella shiver.

  “I’m going to find a safe place for this,” she said, walking to the front door and peeking out the peephole to make sure the police car was gone. She needed to take it somewhere where no one would find it and figure out where Loki had gone to. And find what in the ever-living Goddess had escaped with Loki.

  The street was empty. Both relief and disappointment shimmied through her, and she told herself to ignore the disappointment. Lucas was a cop. There was no way she should feel anything but relieved that he wasn’t camped out in front of her house right now.

  Tucking the ring into her purse, she hung it over her shoulder. “I’m going to visit Nana after I hide this away. Are you going to be okay?”

  Aubrey nodded, Loki still clutched in her arms.

  “Maybe give him some extra of those treats he likes so much?”

  “And I’ll get some essential oils to clear that burnt smell out of here.” Aubrey finally met her eyes fully, her expression intent. “Do you know Officer Martinez? It seemed like you did.”

  Stella flushed. “Um…” She didn’t really want to answer but knew her friend wouldn’t stop until she got to the truth. “He was the guy I was talking to at the bar the other night.”

  Aubrey’s eyes widened. “Oh man, I knew he looked familiar this afternoon, but I couldn’t place him. He was across the room when we were at the bar and the uniform must have thrown me.”

  The uniform had thrown her too. Not what she’d hoped for the profession of the guy she’d been obsessing about for a week. At least, her body had been obsessing about him. Cops were always so serious, controlling, close-minded, the sort of people witches should stay far, far away from.

  And she’d had a relationship with a person like that before, controlling with a side of possessiveness. She knew well enough to stay away from those types and ignored the part of her hoping Lucas was different.

  Her eyes strayed to the circles in the living room. They’d need to paint the ceiling, but there was little they could do to the hardwood except a full-on refinishing, and that would take too much time and resources. “I’ll see if they have any rugs for sale at the thrift store,” she said, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Good idea.”

  With one last hard stare at her friend to make sure she could keep it together, Stella said, “And you’re going to need to give me a full accounting of the call you made to the police today.”

  Aubrey fixed her stare on the ceiling. “Seems so long ago, not a few hours away.”

  “You’re still going to need to dish the dirt,” Stella said over her shoulder, closing the door, then jogging to her car.

  She paused, that feeling of someone watching her making the fine hairs on her arms stand up. Glancing up and down the street, she opened her senses wider, trying to pinpoint the strange presence.

  It wasn’t Lucas, she knew that much. His energy was far different than the one she felt now. This energy was the same one she’d felt outside Bitters Tavern a week ago. The one she’d felt after her car had died.

  And still she couldn’t place it, couldn’t figure out from where it emanated. Frustrated because she had no time to investigate, she tossed her purse on the passenger seat.

  Bessie purred to life when she turned the key, then Stella shifted into reverse to back out of the driveway. The little sports car ate up the road as she drove to the other side of town.

  Nana’s house was located on the outskirts of Wickwood. Long ago, it was out of town, but with the growth of the city came sprawling suburbs. The brightly painted cottage-style home looked out of place among the beiges of the newer homes, but Nana had refused to sell, and the city’s land developers had been forced to plan the new neighborhood around her.

  After parking in the driveway, Stella hopped out of her car, then winced at the sight of the potted plants on Nana’s front steps. The wilting blooms had needed to be watered several days ago. Stella unlocked the front door, grabbed the mail from the over-stuffed mailbox, and strode inside.

  The place felt cold and empty, the energy stagnant. She’d grown up here, but had moved in with Aubrey in college, wanting her independence. Then she and her friend bought their house together three years ago.

  Guilt ate at her. Maybe if she’d stayed with Nana, her grandmother would never have fallen out of bed. The resulting subdural hematoma accelerated her early stage Alzheimer’s. It had all been so sudden. Stella thought they’d have years to figure out what to do with Nana’s house and get all her finances in order.

  She knew she should have dealt with more of this by now. It had been two months. Ignoring it wouldn’t make it go away. And now Nana’s house sat neglected. Stella was failing her—failing the woman who raised her.

  On a defeated sigh, she walked past the photos on the wall in the foyer, the graduation ones where they’d tried to be serious, and the ones where they’d held bunny ears behind each other’s heads. The collection of three camping pictures Stella and Aubrey took from a couple years back hung beside those.

  Tossing the mail on the dining room table, she crossed into the kitchen. The state of Nana’s herbs in the windows had her wincing a second time. Wilted and waiting for water, worse than the ones outside. Nana would hate to know all her herbs were dying. She’d been cultivating them for years.

  But first thing was first. Stella set her purse on the counter and pulled out the portal device. The best place to hide it was with Nana’s important things. Turning on the basement light, she tromped down the creaky wooden steps and into the cool of the cellar. The place had always creeped her out a bit, and she’d hated coming down here to retrieve canned goods as a child. But things weren’t always as they seem. At the far end of the cellar, a narrow door opened into another room. This one was a bit warmer because Nana hung tapestries against the wooden slat walls, creating a cocoon.

  Besides the tapestries, a stool and a locked cabinet were the only two things in the room. Stella retrieved the small key from her key chain and unlocked the cabinet. The door pulled down to make a desktop. Hidden inside were all of Nana’s Wiccan belongings. Candles, oils, mortar and pestle, crystals, enchanted sea salt—everything had its rightful place.

  The most important item in the cabinet was Nana’s Book of Shadows. Everything Fleur Campfield learned as a practicing witch was in this book. Stella set the ring beside it with a resounding thunk and lifted the hand-bound book with both hands.

  There had to be something in there that would tell her where Loki had gone and what had escaped with him—and how to get rid of it. She thumbed through the pages, the scent of aged paper comforting her.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d looked through the book. Nana had always allowed her to use it, to touch it. Stella had helped with a couple of the entries when she was a teenager, and every time she did, Nana would tell her she should make her own Book of Shadows. But Stella hadn’t gotten around to it yet, only keeping a small notebook in her purse. Her grandmother had an artistic eye too, and had made diagrams and illustrations to compliment the spells and other entries. Stella knew she’d never be able to live up to such a standard and relied mostly on her memory.

  Nana’s book was filled with spells, both the ones that worked and the ones that hadn’t. Any of the ones she’d found useful, she’d marked with a star in the top right corner. Any of the ones that had failed, she’d marked with an X in the same spot. If there wasn’t a notation, then she’d had no evidence either way. Nana always said she’d get around to trying them again so she could mark them properly, but Stella knew that would never happen now. Some days, Nana didn’t seem to know where she lived, and those days were getting more and more frequent.

  Letting out a ragged breath, Stella thumbed through the last quarter of the book. When her eye caught the words “chaotic” and “mischievous” she paused. Brownies. Nana had drawn a small, willowy form without too much of a distinct shape. Could this have been what had escaped with Loki? Stella hadn’t seen what they were, so she was looking for something invisible to the human eye. In the book, Nana hadn’t written brownies were invisible, only that they were rarely seen. Which otherworld they came from hadn’t been noted either, maybe because Nana hadn’t known.

  Stella frowned but kept searching. Nothing else came close to the kind of energy she’d experienced at her house. She perused pages depicting four different types of demons—air, wind, fire, and earth—each with their own characteristics. Another page described a chimera in detail, a beast with the two heads in front, a lion and goat, then its tail was a third head, a serpent. It had a gilded tongue and self-serving agenda. Another page described classes of warrior fey. Another described centaurs, the next banshees. Stella didn’t know where her grandmother had gotten all the information for her book, but the drawings were detailed, the descriptions vivid.

  The images made her think of another Book of Shadows, one she and Nana had looked at a long time ago. A witch in Langport, Eileen, owned it and would allow other witches look at it for a fee. The ancient volume was almost ten inches thick and had been re-bound numerous times. Would it have what she needed in it?

  Shutting Nana’s book, she closed her eyes and let her hand rest on the cover for a moment, absorbing the past energy her grandmother had given it, the love. At the same time, she touched the pendant at her heart. With both energies feeding into her, she felt more recharged from the events of the day.

  But she couldn’t hide in Nana’s basement forever. Securing everything inside the cupboard, including the portal device, she lifted the desktop, and locked it. Visiting Nana was still on her list of things to do today, and there were chores she needed to complete here before she could leave. She owed Nana that and so much more.

  First came watering the indoor plants, then the outdoor ones. She’d need to return later to mow the lawn. Maybe she could hire someone to do the yard work? But she’d just lost four website clients, and that wasn’t an expense she could justify right now, no matter how much she loved Nana’s house. She wiped down the kitchen counters and dusted as much as she could in the living and dining room. A quick look in Nana’s bedroom upstairs showed everything in its proper place, if a little stale. She’d need to return tomorrow to give the linens a wash.