Mojo Queen (2 page)

I kept repeating my command for the ghosts to leave, trying to watch for changes in that haze, evidence the banishing was working, or not.

As we entered one of the children’s rooms I got a big
not
upside the head. I cried out in surprise more than pain, though it certainly hurt.

Daniel picked up what hit me, holding it up for me to examine before tossing it back on the floor. “Toy truck,” he said. “At least it’s not one of the big old metal ones.”

I rubbed the side of my head then went back to sprinkling salt water. “You are not welcome here.” My voice sounded more forceful now. “And you need to leave!”

The bedroom door slammed shut. Toy soldiers and children’s books became missiles aimed at our heads. Curtains and blinds in the room’s only window shook, snapping at me as I tried to spread my salt water. Toy cars zipped out from under the bed, nearly tripping Daniel. The indistinct screaming became louder, more focused around us, as if we were surrounded by invisible forces, which, actually, we were. Except I could see them; pockets of swirling gray haze, appearing and disappearing throughout the room. I spotted some of it by the bed again, right before it was lifted off the floor and flung at Daniel.

It caught him square in the back and knocked him down, his head cracking against a corner of a chest of drawers, the tray and its implements lost in the mess. With luck the candle was snuffed. A bright splash of blood shone through the auric murk and that small cone of energy in me expanded. It twisted through me and out of me, until I could see a wave of yellow crash into the gray haze. “Get out!”

My body jerked, sending the bowl of salt water to the floor. I dropped to my knees, placing my palms flat on the ground, reaching for something to hold on to while my head spun so much I thought I might vomit.
Ground and center, ground and center, pretend you’re a tree with roots and shit that never works
.

Something cold came close to my face, so close I wasn’t sure if it was touching my skin. I raised my eyes from the floor, looking deep into the gray. No faces, no forms, but definitely a presence. I spoke to that presence, but without shouting this time.

“This is not your home.” My voice was barely above a whisper. “You need to leave. You
can
leave. You’re free to go.” I sat back on my haunches, glancing around at the smoke-like ribbons curling around the room. “You’re free to go. You’re free.” I kept repeating it until it was almost a chant.

The spinning in my head slowed to a crawl as I watched them leave, energy dissolving into emptiness. The temperature returned to normal with a rush. I fumbled my glasses out and put them on, hands shaking. I felt exhausted, much more so than after a normal ghost eviction. My guess was it had to do with all that energy I’d used.

Daniel sat up, dabbing at his forehead with his fingers. The cut was deep enough to need stitches, if he were human, but since he was a vampire, the torn skin had already begun to knit, blood soaking back into his flesh. It grossed me out a little but fascinated me at the same time.

“Did I just get my ass handed to me by a ghost?”

I shrugged. “Kinda, yeah.”

He came to his feet, taking my hands to pull me up. “I can honestly say that’s a new one for me.”

“Cool.” I offered him a weak grin. “Something you can blog about.”

He laughed, but got serious again real quick. “So what was that?”

“I did some research on the property. The land, I mean. I know the house is just a couple of years old, but sometimes spirits will hang around a piece of land.” I started to pick through the toy debris for our supplies. “There was a plantation here, before the Civil War. Right where this house and a few of the neighbors are now was the slave cemetery. I thought that might have something to do with the haunting.”

He nodded. “That’s why you kept using the word free. Okay, I get that. But what I meant was what did you do? I can’t see things the way you can, but I can feel it when somebody cracks open a can of magic whoop ass. I didn’t know you could do that.”

I didn’t say anything for a long moment. He was talking about the yellow light, of course, the energy that had come out of me and knocked those angry ghosts around like a strike through bowling pins. Not just knocked them around, but subdued them enough to finally listen to me. I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t known I could do that, or how I did it, or if I could do it again. His surprise had nothing on my shock.

The home owner came to my rescue and kept me from having to answer by flinging the door to his son’s room open and greeting us with a baseball bat held high. “I know you said to wait outside but it sounded like World War Three breaking out.” The poor guy looked terrified, but I had to give him props for being brave enough to come back in.

I held out my hands in a relaxed gesture. “It’s okay, Mr. Newman. It’s all over now.”

He lowered the bat, eyes cutting back and forth between us. “You mean, uh, the house is, uh, clean?”

I gave him my best
don’t worry, I’m a professional
smile. “Yes sir, it is.”

His shoulders slumped. “Oh, that’s…that’s great. That is so great.” He took in the chaotic condition of his child’s room then noticed the blood on Daniel’s shirt. “Hey, are you okay?”

Daniel gave him a dazzling smile and a little bit of vampy mind fog. “I’m fine, just fine. Sorry about the mess.”

Mr. Newman seemed to forget where he was for a moment, a bland smile on his face. Then he shook his head and looked at me. “Uh, the Toomeys.”

I gave him a questioning look.

“Our neighbors. We were talking to them about all this.” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “Well, it’s just that ...”

Was I going to have to pull it out of him, whatever he was trying to say?

After a moment he stopped hemming and hawing and got to the point. “It’s happening at their house, too. They’d like you to help them. If you can.”

All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed. It must have shown on my face, because Mr. Newman decided to get sneaky with me. “I told them you’ll take a check but you prefer cash. He should be back from the ATM any time now.”

Daniel and I exchanged a look. He raised an eyebrow, as if to say,
it’s up to you
. My bank account made the decision. I smiled at Mr. Newman. “Let’s go meet the Toomeys.”

* * * *

I flipped on the light switch, yawning into my cappuccino. My office was located next door to a metaphysical book and supply store called The Broom Closet. I rented the space from the Wiccan couple who owned the shop--they owned the whole building. The office was two rooms, one for meeting clients and one for private use. The front room was the smaller of the two. It had an arrangement of chairs and an old but clean loveseat grouped around an oval coffee table. The door to the back was kept open when I met with clients, so they could see the desk, computer and filing cabinets. People who came to me wanted a professional, needed to see I took this work seriously. But they also needed things they couldn’t quite quantify, and a human touch helped, so the front room was relaxed. I kept flowers on the table, and dark curtains over the wide commercial windows offered privacy.

I took a deep breath of the nag champa scent wafting over from next door as I straightened the flowers. Carnations and various other blooms were starting to wilt and they’d need replacing in a day or so. No appointments on the book for me today, but for a change I didn’t mind. We’d cleaned five houses in that little cul-de-sac last night, working until two in the morning and earning a very nice chunk of cash. And I do mean
cash
. As often as I get paid in cash you’d think I was running some kind of sex business. Better than a bounced check, though.

Daniel refused to let me pay him, having investments going back at least decades. I didn’t know the details of his finances, but I knew he did not want for money. So I’d stopped at the bank on the way to the office and planned on spending the whole rest of the day not worrying about money for a change.

A day I didn’t worry about money was rare. I’d been treading water for a while, barely making ends meet. Just regular living expenses seemed to go up all the time but my biggest problem was the medical bills from breaking my arm on a job last year. I couldn’t afford private insurance, so I was still paying astronomical bills for a trip to the emergency room and the follow-up visits at a clinic. Paying them as best I could, whenever I had the extra scratch, which didn’t happen every month. Calls from collectors had already started. I lived in terror of broken glasses. Daniel had no idea the reason I let him buy me dinner so often was because frequently it was the only way I got a decent meal. I didn’t like to think about that.

Instead of worrying I went to The Broom Closet’s back room to make candles. After getting the double boiler going on the stove I gathered supplies: soy wax, dye chips, molds and wicks. Four-inch altar candles in a few different colors were needed. Usually I only did this once a week, unless there was a major Pagan holiday coming up. It earned me a little extra money. Being busy also gave me a chance to relax and let my mind wander. This time I had plenty of wandering mind while I worked but not a whole lot of relaxation.

* * * *

My auric vision started around menarche, which scared the hell out of me at the time but made a certain amount of sense now. I didn’t understand what was happening to me and my parents certainly didn’t either, and I wound up on medication--meds for attention deficit syndrome, meds for depression, meds for anxiety. As an adult I realized I never had attention deficit syndrome, probably not clinical depression, either. But
take your pills and shut up
is a popular child-rearing technique.

It took a few years for me to figure out what was happening, to learn how to deal with seeing a world that was invisible to others, how to control the ability and how to train myself to turn it off and on. How to fake swallowing pills and spit them out the first chance I got. How to sneak out at night in search of quiet places to practice control over the impressionist miasma that swam in my vision.

That’s how I met Rozella, the woman who taught me root work.

Since I didn’t want to scare anyone, least of all myself, I left some of my abilities alone, packed away in a corner under a sign reading
danger
. Every once in a while, there were things I could do with nothing but the focused energy of my will. Last night, the unfocused energy of my will had brought a houseful of angry ghosts to heel. It left a bad taste in my mouth--a medicinal taste of fear, of being out of control and alone in a whirlwind. I never wanted to go back to that.

I placed the new candles on a shelf to cure, trying to find something else to think about. Howlin’ Wolf always made for a good distraction so I hummed
Spoonful
as I cleaned up my mess.

* * * *

After finishing the candles, I spent some time chatting with Maura, the shop’s owner, before returning to my office to mess around for awhile. I locked up and called Daniel. We set up a time and place to meet and I walked out into the approaching twilight, bundled against the cold.

Daniel took me to his favorite restaurant, an Italian place with a terrific wine list and great espresso. Not that he could eat, but he liked to watch me. He told me once a lot of vampires were foodies. He drank merlot while I tucked into a plate of pasta bigger than my head.

“How’s the red sauce? Is the sauce good tonight? I can’t remember. Have you had that before?” He looked obscenely eager for information.

I waved a hand dismissively as I swallowed a bite. “It’s great. I’ve never had this.”

“Smells like they went a little heavy with the garlic in the sauce this time. Does it taste very different?”

My fork hung in midair as I tried to figure out how to explain to him he was lucky I could tell the difference between this semi-fancy meal and what came out of a can. “It tastes great. Really.”

Frowning at my lack of detail, he poured more wine and asked, “Got any more work lined up?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.” I ate in silence for a while, becoming gradually more aware of Daniel watching me.

“Roxanne, why haven’t you ever asked me for help with this?” His blue eyes had an intensity I recognized and had learned to dislike.

I didn’t need to ask what he meant. “Because you’re a vampire, Jim, not a wizard.”

He smiled at my feeble attempt at humor. “I know people, Roxie. I know people who know people.”

I laughed. “What are you, mobbed up? In deep with the magic mob?”

“I’ve got a few contacts, people who can help you. Answer your questions. Provide you with some guidance.”

That did not sit well with me and I let him know with a sharply raised eyebrow. My eyebrow, sharply raised, has been known to make grown men cry. At least, that’s what I liked to tell people. “I’ve been a padawan without a Jedi master for a while now, and I’m doing fine.”

He seemed not the least bit impressed with my eyebrow. “What happened last night is likely to happen again. You know that, right?”

Crap
. I looked down at the white tablecloth and took my glasses off to clean them on my shirt tail while keeping my eyes focused on my lap. I had no idea how to respond.

“I just think you would be happier if you understood more about yourself. About what you can do.”

What I can do, why I can do these things. What else can I do? I did want answers and I believed I would learn them eventually. I put my glasses back on and looked at him. “We’re good friends. Hell, you’re my best friend. I don’t need you to be my daddy.”

“Believe me, I know that,” he said, a sharpness in his voice I didn’t hear often.

“Then let me see if I can work this out myself.” Full all of a sudden, or maybe tired of eating, I set my fork down and pushed the plate away.

“I’m not trying to boss you around.”

“Good.” I wanted to drop the whole subject. “I know you’re not that kind of person.”

He signaled the waiter, ordering two espressos. Then he leaned across the table and kissed my cheek. Smiling, he said, “I’m a vampire, Jim, not a person.”