Out Of The Dark (11 page)

That's when a scream made both of us jump and
drop the mail.

"Rhonda!" and Dags was running into the
bedroom with me close behind him.

The bedroom was about the same size as the
living room, with a walk-in closet (the door was open), a
queen-sized bed, nightstands, dresser and small flat-screen
television, which looked more like a computer monitor. Everything
was decorated in burgundy and green. Rhonda was standing in the
farthest corner by a nightstand.

No, correction. She looked like she was
backed into that corner.

"Zoë, do you see it?" Dags said.

I looked around Rhonda--who appeared more
frightened than I'd ever seen her--but didn't seen anything out of
the--and then it was there out the corner of my eye and gone. A
fleeting shadow about three feet high that seemed to vanish just as
my eyes focused on it.

Shadow People.

"It's gone," Dags said.

I doubted it. I could feel something again,
like I had in the loft. And this time it was the same malevolent
undercurrent I'd sensed when we first stepped upstairs.
It's
still here. Angry apples!

Dags moved past me to Rhonda and held out his
hand. She took it and then folded herself into his arms. I was
amazed how they were the right height and build for each other. And
even the same hue of basic black. "What happened?"

Rhonda disengaged and looked over at me. "I
was looking in the closet--and it just sort of melted right out of
the shadows and came at me. I was--god I feel like such a girl but
I've never had anything happen like that before."

I moved to the closet myself--oh it wasn't
that I was brave--I just wasn't in the mood to let some three-foot
spook get in my way. I was bigger, and I was Wraith--and that was a
good thing. Right? I stood in front of the closet. It seemed
unnaturally dark in there and I flipped the light switch on the
outside of the door. Nothing happened.

"I did that, too."

With a glance around the room--taking in the
fact that I wasn't picking up any stray misty shadows like I
usually did--this place was picked clean--I moved to the bed and
lay back on it. I pointed to Dags.
You watch this
, and then
pointed to me.

I went OOB and stood up. Everything changed.
The closet no longer looked like a closet but more like a hole. And
there was that spidery misty stuff, only it was concentrated in the
closet. What the hey? How B-horror movie was this? And why couldn't
I see this when I was in my body?

I moved toward the closet and stepped inside,
expecting there to be like a cave interior with a fire pit. Nope.
Looked like a closet. Clothes hanging to my right, shoes below, and
then cardboard drawers stacked three high on the back wall. Those
seemed to be the only thing of interest so I moved toward them.

And abruptly there were three of them, misty,
shadowy little people that wavered in and out of sight, standing in
front of the boxes. I put my hands on my hips. Oh
please
.
Move out of my way.

As I stepped forward the middle one launched
itself at me, and I mean sprouted a shadowy mouth like the The
Scream painting and then I saw teeth. I instinctively reached out
and caught it around the neck with my right hand and it hung there,
wriggling to get loose. What did it feel like? Kinda like I'd
caught air. There wasn't anything to it except a sensation that I
had something in my hand.

But I wasn't paying attention to the other
two. One grabbed at my upper left thigh while the third one went
for my arm holding their little buddy. They started biting me with
their shadow teeth. There was pain, but it was more of an echo. And
it was starting to get annoying. I figured there was something in
here they didn't want me to find and I'd had enough of the whole
chew-on-the-Wraith game.

Like I've always said, I don't know how this
stuff works, but sometimes it seems to be keyed to my emotions.
Anger, happiness, hatred, irritation. And I was irritated at the
moment--how would you feel if you had shadow munchkins chewing on
your body? I looked at the one in my hands and caught its
attention. It looked at me--and by that I mean I could make out two
holes I thought were its eyes. And then it trembled and opened up
some garish hole below the eyes and screamed.

A similar feeling of euphoria came then,
warmth tingling up my arm it vanished in a spray of gold dust. The
feeling evaporated as quickly as it came, but what happened wasn't
lost on the other two. They let go and jumped off, their own sets
of hole-eyes wide and their mouths open as well. I motioned for
them to move and I went to the boxes, opening each one of them.

About the third cardboard drawer I found a
set of journals, a pen, a manila folder and beneath those I found a
book wrapped in a velvet covering. I pulled everything out,
stacking it into the crook of my left arm. The two remaining
shadows watched me but didn't make a move to stop me or prevent me
from leaving the closet.

Dags and Rhonda were right where I left them,
but no longer arm-in-arm. Instead they too had wide eyes as I came
out.

"What are those?"

I put them all on the bed beside my body.
These were in a cardboard drawer--you know the kind you can buy
at Wal-Mart or Target? And these little fuckers didn't seem all
that enthused on letting me get to them
. I turned and pointed
to the closet where the two shadows lingered.

Rhonda shook her head. "I can see them--but
then not see them."

"You have to look at them almost out of the
corner of your eyes--like peripheral vision." Dags turned his head
to the side. "Zoë, you can see them just fine?"

Uh huh. Just like in the restaurant.

Keeping an eye on the two by the closet,
Rhonda moved to the bed and picked up the velvet covered book. Dags
and I picked up a journal. As I flipped through it I realized
that's exactly what it was. A journal. A diary that Maureen kept. I
moved to the back of the book to the last entry. March 22, 2007.
She moved to Georgia and was scheduled to do the Starbucks
Experience that night. She was going to be a barista.

I tossed the book back on the bed--that
apparently didn't work out since she'd been a hostess at the
restaurant.

Dags started reading and then sat down on the
edge of the bed. Rhonda moved beside me. "Zoë--this is a Book of
Shadows."

I raised my eyebrows. Hadn't Mom mentioned
one of those?

"And--I can't make it out. I can't even
figure out whose it is--" she looked up at me. "But I don't think
it's Maureen's."

I pointed to the two watchers and then the
book and then made an attack motion. I also rubbed my right arm--it
was starting to ache where that little fiend bit it. Which in
itself should have been clue-bell number one.

"If you're asking me if I think they were
trying to prevent us from finding this book then I'd say
definitely. But we have to figure out why."

Dags spoke up, the journal in his hand.
"According to Maureen's last few entries in this," he looked up at
us. "She and someone named Alice found the book and hid it." He
looked back at the journal and frowned, then smirked. "A friend
named Dags McConnell put a protection on the apartment."

Rhonda and I dropped our jaws. "You did a
what?"

Dags shrugged."Hey, she didn't tell me why or
what for. She said her apartment had things in it--that it was
haunted. So I did a blessing on this place. That was two days
before she disappeared."

Did you do that?
I pointed to the
closet--but the little shadows were gone. Where did they go?

"I don't know," Dags said. "But I don't feel
them at the moment--not anymore. But I can tell the blessing I put
on the apartment is corrupted. It's there--but it's got some
serious holes in it. Kinda like something was beating on the
outside trying to get in."

"Does it say whose book this is?" Rhonda held
it up.

"No--but maybe we should like get out of here
and back to the shop so Nona can look at it?" Dags closed the
journal and smiled.

"How come she asked you?" Rhonda said. "To
bless her apartment?"

"Because she saw me do what you two saw me
do--at the restaurant--when the little fuckers upstairs were
breaking bottles."

Rhonda stared at him. "So she knew you had
power? And it didn't freak her out. Instead she asked you to use
it," she touched her lower lip. "So maybe she was a part of the
Cruorem as well?"

"I dunno. I dunno anything anymore," Dags
said.

Rhonda took up the velvet cover and the other
journal and slid them into her shoulder bag. "Let's go."

I handed my book to her and then slipped back
into my body. I would have screamed if--you know--I could have.
Fire burned in my left thigh and my right fore-arm. I curled up on
the bed and held both of them, almost moving into a fetal position.
My god that hurt!

"What is it?" Rhonda was beside me, pulling
my left hand from my arm. Her eyes widened. "Oh god--is that
blood?"

"Blood?" Dags was on my other side and
between the two of them they had my coat off and my blood soaked
right sleeve pulled up.

"What the fuck?" was all Rhonda said, echoing
my thoughts exactly. "What the hell did that?"

On my right forearm was a bite mark as big as
the Cheshire cat's smile and was bleeding pretty bad.

Ow.

*****

CHAPTER EIGHT

This was one hell of a Saturday--and it
wasn't going to slow down.

Once home Mom did two things: first she
grabbed the book and started pouring over the content and saying
she could decipher it and second--

She called Dr. Maddox.

The last person I wanted to see was Melvin
Maddox--the family physician. And it's not that I really disliked
my doctor--but he had an obvious thing for my mom.

Ew.

Oh, and he had a personal ghost--his creepy
dead son that always hung about.

I went to school with Joseph Maddox. We
didn't really hang with each other--he'd been catered lunches at
school and I'd been more tuna-fish samiches. He had money--me and
mom--not so much. He and his mom were killed in a car accident and
unfortunately Melvin's attachment to his son kept Joseph's shade
fettered.

To the physical plane. Now I don't pretend to
understand any of this, I only knew I could see Joseph, and he was
always hanging around Melvin. Usually. Mom and Rhonda didn't see
him.

Just me.

Oh joy.

Because of the bites--they were deep and I
was bleeding--Mom felt Melvin needed to be there. So I was
subjected to an evening of alcohol and a couple of stitches. I
wanted to take a long soak in the tub upstairs at Mom's house--but
that wasn't going to happen since one of the bites was on my
leg.

No warm bubbles for me--I got bandages and a
needle in my ass.

Mom and Dags ended up in the kitchen as
Rhonda tried to explain to Dr. Maddox how I ended up with bites
those size on my body--while she was reading one of Maureen's
journals.

Even I was a little grossed out by the
appearance of the bites. Shadow People had some serious dental
issues.

Eventually the smells of something good came
from the kitchen. We were in the Botanica. When we came into the
Tea Shop, I was a bit shocked at the spread on the table. Nona
stood by Dags and put her hands on his shoulders. "Zoë--he can cook
Japanese food!"

And he had. There was--well--what was this
stuff? It smelled heavenly. And to my happy delight Dr. Maddox got
a page and had to leave. Yay!

"It's easy, guys," Dags started pointing to
each of the dishes as Nona showed Melvin out the door. "This is
Tonkatsu--deep friend pork with Panko breading. Over here is sticky
rice--and I used Jasmine rice because I like the taste better. Over
there is edamame, seaweed salad, cucumber salad, Teriyaki chicken
marinade with orange slices, and miso soup." He snapped his finger.
"Oh, and I have oolong tea steeping in the kitchen."

I grinned as big as I could.

Rhonda whistled. "Will you marry me?"

Everyone laughed. I looked at Rhonda--and was
sure the quip wasn't all just a joke.

We sat down for a nice meal--I ate till my
jeans were too tight--drinking more tea than I should have. I had a
buzz that wouldn't stop and I couldn't sit still. So while everyone
else talked I got up and moved into the Botannica.

The room itself was the house's converted
living room, complete with fireplace and mantel. I stuck my tongue
out at the stone dragon on mantel and moved to the section of books
in the back of the room. Books, statues, rune bags, candles, all
manner of oogie was in this room.

"What are you doing in here?"

Tim's voice scared me and I gave a silent
yelp. I turned and glared at the ghost--he wasn't corporeal at the
moment but I could still see him.
Don't do that.

"Sorry--but you rarely come in here without
someone else with you. So--" he held out his long thin hands and
gestured at the room.

Too much tea.

He laughed. "I think coming from you, it
makes sense."

I pointed to the books.
So where in here
would I find out stuff on ceremonial magic?

"Why in the hell would you want to learn
about that? It's a commanding and compelling art. Something you
need stay away from."

I crossed my arms over my chest--and then
winced at the pain in my arm and uncrossed them. Damned Shadow
freaks.
Why would I need to stay away from it? I don't do this
stuff.

"No, but you being a Wraith makes you more
susceptible to their commanding circles. Ceremonials draw a circle
to contain and compel, not to welcome in. If you're in Wraith
form--I think if you got too close you could get sucked in. Kinda
like Dags—only I don't think there's a way to mojo up a
invisibility bracelet for you."