Magick Rising (13 page)

She leapt up with a cry of dismay when I arrived. “What happened? Did

the vagrant from Sorrow’s End knife you?”

I’d covered the now-bandaged cuts on my arms with a long-sleeved

jersey. A butterfly bandage couldn’t quite hide the one across my jaw.

“Because I will track him down,” she continued, clenching her tiny fists

like a four-foot-ten, Korean-American pugilist. “And I will kill him. But not

fast, like shooting him or breaking his neck. That would be too good for

him. I’ll do it slowly. He’ll
wish
he was a ghost! Not that it looks so bad,

really. But still. That bastard is
toast
!”

Only because she stopped for breath was I able to intercept her. “No.

Pemberley didn’t attack me.” But he
had
been a really good kisser.

“You were attacked by the ghost, then?” Of course Dawn, being Dawn,

kept talking. And threatening. Dawn has bobbed black hair and huge brown

eyes straight out of a manga comic. To look at her, most people wouldn’t

think she could hurt a mosquito.

Most people would be so, so wrong. As she continued her threats, I felt

sorry for whatever ghost or ghosts had attacked me at Sorrow’s End. I’m

just psychic. Dawn knows some earth magic, and she’s a healer—not a

warm-fuzzy-bunny

healer,

but

one

of

those

take-no-guff,

smack-down-danger kinds.

I waved at the barista for my usual, a sweetened iced tea, then sank into

one of the straight-back chairs just as my friend popped up again. “Oh

good!” she exclaimed, interrupting herself. “They’re here!”

They?
I’d asked her to invite her boyfriend Teddy. Was another of our

part-time paranormal investigating friends available?

Then I followed Dawn’s gaze and . . . thud. “Nooo,” I moaned, better

than some ghosts would.

Lance.

My cheating bastard of a former boyfriend, Lance.

“Teddy invited him,” admitted Dawn, who in her complete dissertation

since my arrival hadn’t bothered to mention that. “I tried to tell him no, but

you asked me not to give Teddy any details, and you’re always hiding your

real feelings behind jokes, so he didn’t believe me.”

Not all girlfriends will keep your secrets from their own fiancé, so I

couldn’t be too angry with her. But still.

Crap.

Lance.
One of the biggest mistakes in my life.

Dawn crossed The Bibbidi, arms wide, until her shaggy fisherman

boyfriend grabbed her up in a bear hug. Teddy, aka Teodoro, is as big as

Dawn is small. She looked like a doll in his embrace. Their affection filled

the coffee shop.

And there stood Lance, almost vibrating with his need to apologize.

Again.

But apologies aren’t magical reversal spells.

We’d met looking into the same haunted house. Lance was a real,

talks-to-the-dead medium. We hit it off—as friends. Since he was moving to

Galveston from nearby Houston, my gang and I happily absorbed him

That had been about when Teddy, our brawn, and Dawn, our little

bruja, got engaged. Love was in the air. Whenever everyone went out

together, it had been Dawn-n-Teddy, Lance and me. And it’s not as if I

hadn’t liked Lance! He was slim, graceful, and very handsome in a

fallen-angel, tragic-hero way but with a great, self-deprecating sense of

humor. It’s hard not to like a guy like that.

Maybe it was inevitable that we’d become a couple. We’d joked about it

then given it a try. Then the other face of Lance, the hidden one that I’d tried

not to seek out psychically, started to show. He had a desperate side. A bitter

side. He needed me to make him happy, and as we got closer he grew

increasingly less willing to do it himself.

I wouldn’t call him malicious. He hid his damage out of fear not malice.

Dawn has mused since that he’s an energy vampire, always charged around a

group of people but greedy for every bit of attention possible from his

significant other—and willing to supplement that energy with whatever else

he could get. Including drugs. Even if he had to steal from said significant

other to pay for them. Even if, when that didn’t work, he had to sleep with

his dealer . . .

And here he stood, taking the other high-legged chair and watching me

with his deep, pained, needy eyes.

Just fan-freakin-tastic.

But Lance
was
a good medium. He hadn’t faked that. Maybe working

together, no longer as a couple, would help both of us move on. So, while

Teddy and Dawn dropped into the orphaned sectional, I told the gang what

had happened. I placed the key from the house on the table so anybody who

needed to sense energies could do that. I passed around my phone with the

pics I’d taken of the house, especially the before and afters.

“See? That porthole window? It looked just fine when I left, but when I

was inside I saw it smash.”

“So the ghost played mind games,” noted Lance, carefully impersonal.

That was good. I began to relax. “That’s not unusual.”

I pushed my sleeves up to show off my wounds. “More powerful mind

games than I’ve ever seen.”

Dawn covered her mouth. “Oh,
Penny
!” Teddy swore under his breath.

And Lance took my hand in his.

I knew he meant the gesture to comfort me. But I knew him too well,

now, and could physically sense his remorse, bone deep, at having driven me

away. His sorrow, his need, nearly suffocated me, and I yanked my hand

free.

He wasn’t my responsibility anymore!
Just because he wanted me didn’t

obligate me to want him back!

Even now, he said, “I’m sorry, Penny. I’m
sorry
.”

But every “sorry” felt like an attack. They came with a hidden, “so just

give me one more chance.” But I’d given him too many already.

“Just—let’s concentrate on this ghost, okay?”

“Hey!” Dawn proved her best-friendness yet again by jumping into the

dangerous emotional undercurrents and drawing his attention her way.

“You know what would be great, Lance? If you could figure out how many

ghosts we’re dealing with and what kind. I drove by the house on my way

here, and I’d swear there’s something black magicky going on there.

Actually, something black magicky
went
on there. But it’s not like magick is

bound by chronological time. I’m not talking a few burnt candles and a dash

of sage. I’m talking dead animal, pure evil, spill-your-own-blood-curses

magick.”

On hearing that, I felt cold from a lot more than the iced tea.

Teddy tightened his big arms around her. “I’ll protect you, baby.”

“I know you will, Bear.” She snuggled her head back against him, and

there it was again. Pure, true love. Teddy, as they both happily admitted, was

the most pragmatic, not-distracted-by-energies guy Dawn had ever met. But

opposites had attracted. It made him, in her words, a bad-juju repellant.

Sometimes, what you don’t believe in can’t hurt you.

“See if this helps.” I played the recording of the screams, the pounding,

the sound of my own distressed breath. Luckily for the few other patrons at

The Bibbidi, my phone volume doesn’t go up too loudly. Mostly, it sounded

like weird white noise—until a deep voice called through the chaos, “Come

with me! Now!”

I’d had my Bluetooth earpiece on, recording to the phone.

All three of the others sat back at that.

In the midst of the recorded cacophony, we heard the direction of

sound change slightly, the earpiece hitting the floor—and a sudden,

crunching end. One of us must have stepped on it.

The others looked at me.

“The voice was Pemberley,” I explained. “The guy who warned me

about the ghosts.”

I worried that Lance would pull some jealous, threatened crap. Instead,

he chuckled with startled recognition. For a moment, he was the Lance I’d

known before. The confident one, not the train wreck waiting to happen. It

was a relief, this sudden return of good cheer.

Then he said, “You mean, the ghost of Sorrow’s End.”

I frowned. “No, Richard Pemberley. He’s human—that’s why you all

can hear him. I met him outside the house, and he warned me about the

ghost of Sorrow’s End.”

“He was probably warning you against whatever
other
ghost is there, the

one who attacked you. But he’s a ghost too.”

But he’s corporeal
! I didn’t want to make that argument, though, because it

would remind me too sharply of just how corporeal Richard had been as I

kissed him. How corporeal I kind of, in the back of my mind, hoped he’d be

if I found him again.

“Why do you think the guy’s a ghost?” asked Teddy while Dawn and I

met each others’ gazes, not for any psychic communion so much as a shared

ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod
. “She’s right. Even I heard a voice.”

Teddy prefers being deaf and blind to magic, so he generally is. The

universe tends to adapt to a person’s impression of it.

Lance’s grin started to bug me. “Because, Teodoro, he’s been watching

Penny since before we got here. Right over . . . there.” He shrugged his

shoulder toward the back corner of The Bibbidi. “Dude’s a ghost.”

I hated to look. I didn’t want it to be true. Then again, I’d initially

overlooked what I didn’t like in Lance, and look how well
that
had worked

out.
Never again.

I didn’t try to be subtle. I turned in my chair and
looked
.

And there stood Richard, my savior from Sorrow’s End, staring back at

me. His could-be turn-of-the-wrong-century clothes seemed especially

anachronistic beside a Formica table. His pant legs were still sandy. His jaw

was still bristly. And his eyes were still fierce.

No cuts showed on his face or his so-recently-stained shirt. But that

wasn’t the dead giveaway.

It was the fact that I hadn’t seen him standing there until this moment.

If he’d physically existed, I would have.

Also, Dawn asked, “Who? Right over where?”

Even when her gaze went right past Richard, her eyes didn’t register

him. Neither did Teddy’s.

My former boyfriend made a tah-dah flourish of his hand.

Classic ghost. And yet, by playing the corporeal card, Richard had

fooled me. Fooled me so deeply, I’d
kissed
him!

Sure, I owed him for rescuing me. But not . . .

Damn
it!

Friday, September 7, 1900

AS HE OFTEN DID when troubled, Richard walked to the beach. This

evening carried an extra benefit of getting him out of his rented rooms. He

had received five scrawled notes from Manon since yesterday. Five! He had

sent the first two back unopened last night. When the Boulanger’s servant

boy brought the third this morning, he’d begged Richard to keep it.

The boy’s swelling eye proved more compelling than his pleas. Richard

took the note. And the next, at midday. And the last, only an hour ago. He

tore up each, unread, freeing them into the surprisingly strong wind. He’d

been a fool to keep company with so unstable a woman as Manon.

Now, for better or worse, he was free.

So why did he feel so terribly, darkly guilty?

He barely noticed the almost deafening roar of the surf or the brown

waves, sure proof of the sand stirred by the Gulf of Mexico’s tumult. He

hardly marked the presence of the storm flag, red with a black center,

snapping in the wind atop the Levy building as he passed.

Richard would later remember that he’d seen the surf and the flag,

both. Just as he’d seen the warning signs about Manon—without them ever

registering.

Either he would need to sharpen his powers of observation, or he

needed more straightforward people and events in his life.

Present Day

I WAS OUT OF my chair and dodging old furniture, aiming for Richard

Pemberley, before I’d thought it through. I got my moment to think it

through on my way. I didn’t change course.

But with one last, disapproving look at me, he vanished.

Damned ghosts!

I stopped and stared at the empty corner, unwilling to turn back just

yet. First I fell for Lance’s façade, and now I’d made out with a dead guy?!

“This time,” I hissed into the air, “it’s persona—”

But a hand on my shoulder cut me off in the middle of my super

dramatic moment. I gasped, spinning. But it was just Lance.

Worse, he was wearing his needy,
I’m so sorry please forgive me
face again.

The one that made me feel like a heartless bitch for not being what he

wanted and needed me to be.

“I can help,” he offered now, entreating. “I’ve
got
to help. That place is

obviously dangerous, Penny. I’ll die if anything happens to you, if I can’t

make things right.”

That line seemed a lot less romantic in real life than it might in

old-fashioned books. Especially out of someone you
broke up with
.