Deadly Rising Read online

  Seraphina laid a hand gently on my arm. Even as heavily made-up as she liked to be, there was a natural beauty to her strong features. “Kylie, we don’t know anything about his true motivations. Everything we know about him and his connection to the book comes from him. And we know that demons lie.”

  Everyone was silent except for the sipping of tea and the crunch of a cookie.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stood and gathered the empty plates and leftover teacups on the tray and took the whole thing to the kitchen. Running the hot water in the sink with a few squirts of soap, I began vigorously washing the dishes.

  To tell you the truth, I didn’t know how long I was at it. Only when Nick came in and looked me over did I seem to snap out of it.

  “Hey, Kylie,” he said, frowning a bit. His black-dyed hair drooped over his forehead. “You, uh, done there? ’Cause I think they’re super clean now.”

  I’d been leaning over the edge of the sink with my arms resting in the now cold water. The plates and cups were neatly stacked on the dish strainer. I hadn’t remembered finishing. “Yeah, sure. I just…” I flicked my hands toward the sink and grabbed a towel. “I just spaced out a little, is all.”

  “I just wanted to let you know,” said Nick as I followed him back to the shop, “we’ve got a hell of a spell!”

  I cringed a little. I wished he wouldn’t throw around the “H” word. You never knew who was listening.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Doc hovered over a thick book not unlike my Booke of the Hidden. Perhaps not as old but certainly nothing new. He’d had to make a special request from the Bangor branch. The cover said Daemonolatreia.

  “Now ordinarily,” said Doc, “this would be used to trap witches, but it does have an obscure paragraph that discusses just what to do to protect yourself, including a bit about the Craft. And then I found more in some microfiche. I copied it down.” He was plainly using it as a bookmark. “I used some modified language from the Liber Loagaeth. From my research, I was definitely on the right track.”

  Seraphina and Jolene both nodded sagely.

  I tried to follow his explanation, but clearly it was beyond me. They asked to use some of my herb stash, which I gladly handed over. Anything to keep whatever was out there staying out there.

  Doc produced a piece of chalk and held it up. “I presume you won’t mind if I mark your floor again? And this time, Kylie, could you not cover it?”

  I nodded. My customers would just have to put up with the odd pentagram here or there. If I ever got any customers again.

  Doc began chalking the pentagram in front of the fireplace and Nick followed him, waving a burning herb bundle over each corner Doc marked. But he wasn’t done with one pentagram, creating a seven-pointed star around it. Funny. It reminded me of Sheriff Ed’s badge.

  Once Doc was finished at last, Jolene set a burning white pillar candle in the center and Seraphina placed smooth, flat stones at each triangle of the seven-pointed star. They were black river rocks, the kind you’d see in a Japanese garden.

  They all stood around the chalked marks, joining hands. Doc gestured toward me. “You too, Kylie. This is for your protection, after all.”

  I joined the circle, standing between Nick and Jolene. Everyone bowed their heads and closed their eyes. I tried to follow suit but couldn’t stop peeking.

  Doc lifted his head, eyes still closed, and spoke in an authoritative voice, “Arise! Arise! We call upon the Archangel Sandalphon amid the Souls of Fire and the Angel Nalvage, who keeps the ancient words; we call upon the god Enki and the god Marduk for your ancient wisdom, and upon the mighty Shammash, who lights the way. Command the evil to leave this house, to protect it from that which would cause its inhabitants harm! Guard window and door. Command them, O mighty gods and angels! Bar their way. Hold this place fast in the palms of your hands. Place your seals upon the stones we offer.”

  If I had not seen their powers before or beheld what could come from gateways to the Netherworld, I would have laughed it all off as nonsense words. But now I knew better. I said nothing, not wishing to stop whatever magic they were weaving. And there was magic. My skin tingled with it, the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up, and then I saw a glow. The pentagram and the star around it were glowing with an eerie greenish light. Threads of light—magic—followed the chalked pentagram and the other star, reaching toward the stones. The whole floor beneath our feet was aglow with lit threads and symbols, the stones rimmed with halos. The black surface of each stone had been perfectly smooth, but now as I watched, a tendril of fire etched a different symbol onto all the stones until each stone was glowing too.

  Something banged against the kitchen door. My head snapped up. I looked at the others, but they seemed in a trance, swaying together, eyes closed while Doc chanted his indecipherable names and commands again.

  The kitchen door banged once more and I jumped. All at once it burst open and the Booke was there. I tried to pull away, but Jolene and Nick had death grips on my hands. They didn’t even seem to know I was there, struggling to get away.

  The Booke hovered. It was not pleased by what was going on. After all, I supposed it was evil, too, and didn’t like the command for it to leave. It fought. It glowed under a purplish halo that grew darker and angrier, like a bruise. I didn’t want to interrupt Doc if what he was doing was working, but I also didn’t want to piss off the Booke.

  “Doc,” I rasped when he seemed to have paused. “Doc!”

  He slowly opened his eyes, but they were unfocused, as if he wasn’t really there.

  “Doc!” I cried again. The Booke was hovering closer, menacing. I tried to tell it to back off, screaming in my head, but it wouldn’t listen.

  He shook his head and looked at me, eyes slowly returning back to normal. His gaze darted toward the Booke. With the cessation of the chanting, the Booke fell to the floor with a loud report, startling everyone else awake in the circle.

  “Whoa,” said Nick, edging away from the damned thing.

  I knelt and gingerly picked it up. I felt nothing from it—no vibrations, no ill will. Setting it on the nearest table, I stared down at the Booke.

  “Did it work?” asked Seraphina, swiping her hair out of her eyes.

  Doc picked up one of the stones. Must have been hot because he tossed it like a hot potato from one hand to the other. I could clearly see the symbol etched on it.

  “Looks that way,” he said. Once it had cooled enough to hold in his hand, he examined it closely.

  I studied the stone over his shoulder. It was engraved with what looked like a stylized bull. “What does that symbol mean?”

  “Mithra,” said Doc softly. “Renewal, creation, immortality.”

  Nick cradled one in each hand. “And those?” I asked. One looked like a horse’s head, the other a goat. The goat reminded me too much of our old pal Baphomet.

  Nick shook his head and deferred to Doc.

  Doc looked them over, then the others in Seraphina and Jolene’s hands.

  “The horse…see these Gaelic symbols? I’m almost certain that this refers to the ritual bath in horses’ blood that the ancient Irish kings took to imbue them with strength and agility in battle. And the goat—see the Hebrew glyphs—is the scapegoat. These others…” He touched the two in Seraphina’s hands. “Hmm. Greek. Ἰφιγένεια. Iphigenia. Her father sacrificed her so that his ships could sail to Troy. And this one is Aztec…”

  I was sensing a pattern here that was making me nervous.

  “Never mind,” I muttered. “They all have to do with sacrifice, right? From every culture and time.”

  He nodded.

  “I guess we know who that’s directed at, then.”

  “Now Kylie, I wouldn’t read anything into it.”

  “Are you kidding me? These are the symbols your angels and gods chose to protect me. But it’s also a little message, right? It’s all about sacrifice. And I’m the o
ne being tied to the stake!”

  “Now Kylie…”

  I grabbed the Booke without meaning to before stomping out of the room. When I noticed it was in my hands, I slammed it down to the nearest flat surface. “You know what? I don’t intend to be anyone’s sacrifice. Opening that Booke was a mistake. I never meant to. And I think it’s rude of the Powers That Be to make it my fault and then punish me for it. I’m just not going to be sacrificed and that’s final.”

  I was breathing hard and hadn’t noticed that my face was wet with tears until I wiped angrily at them.

  Doc’s hands suddenly closed over mine. He held them fast while looking me in the eye. “Kylie, we will not allow anything to happen to you. We’re here to help.”

  “Yeah,” said Jolene in a small voice. “But how?”

  She was always the one with answers. A whiz at research and tech, Jolene could always be relied on to find solutions. But if she wasn’t sure, what chance did I have?

  He gestured with his rock. “We’ve already done it. Our spell. Now you and Seraphina take your four rocks and put them at the cardinal points of the house. These last three.” He put them on my open palms. “Put one in the bedroom, one in the kitchen, and the last in this room. Doesn’t matter where. It’s your protection.”

  “The Booke didn’t like it.”

  “As well it shouldn’t. It knows we’re fighting back. That should reassure you.”

  It should but it didn’t.

  I slowly climbed the stairs and opened the door to my bedroom. When I saw the four-poster, I immediately thought of Erasmus, who had taken me right there on that quilt. Where was he? “Erasmus, I could really use your advice about now.” But of course, he wouldn’t be answering. Either he was long gone or…or this spell would keep him away.

  I stuffed one rock under the mattress.

  Back downstairs, I tucked one rock on a kitchen shelf so it would be unobtrusive, and then came out to the main room, where my Wiccans watched me with anxious faces. I steered clear of the pentagram, put the last rock by the coal scuttle I used to hold kindling, and wiped my palms down my sweater as if rubbing away something distasteful.

  Rain angled down, streaking the window glass. The bedroom was cold in the morning so I quickly grabbed my bathrobe and wrapped myself up. Downstairs, the coffeemaker was brewing. The promise of coffee sent me into the shower.

  There were going to be customers today, I vowed, scrubbing my hair with citrus-scented shampoo. Lots of customers, and then I had a date tonight with Ed. Everything was going my way, right?

  I let the water rush over me. Apparently, I had been standing there for a long time. Longer than I realized because the water had turned cold. I had never been one for particularly long showers, especially coming from droughty California, but the feeling of the water and steam was intoxicating. With a shiver, I quickly turned off the shower, listening to the music of the old pipes as they creaked and banged, before toweling off.

  Dressed, hair combed out, earrings in place, amulet hidden under my oatmeal heather sweater, I trotted downstairs, got my cup, and began brewing teas for my samovars.

  I walked around to each window to open the curtains and let in what sunshine there was to offer. The room sprang to life with the scents of spicy herbs and aromatic teas. Shiny tea things, colorful towels, and gadgets caught the light. I walked toward the fireplace but paused at the brink of the chalked pentagrams. Screw it. I strode right over it and knelt on the stone hearth to light the kindling under a stack of birch logs. Once that was going merrily, I placed the screen in front of it and readied the samovars and the bite-sized pieces of pecan loaf.

  It was still early. When I glanced out the window, the rain had stuck the autumn leaves fast to the street. The trees across the way were still in full fall bloom, with bright yellows, oranges, and burgundies. Their vibrancy was only slightly dampened by the drizzle. I could even forget for a moment that those were the woods where I had hunted a succubus. I wondered what was out there now, for surely the Booke hadn’t been idle.

  I also took a cursory glance around for a familiar figure in a long duster…but saw no one.

  The next time I looked at my watch, it was time to turn over the closed sign to “open.” As luck would have it, there had been enough intrepid tourists coming off the highway to pop in and make purchases. One woman even bought the expensive English tea set that I had been beginning to think was a marketing mistake.

  The customers were all so cheerful, but some wondered why I didn’t have pumpkins on my porch or Halloween decorations in the windows.

  “It’s so Sleepy Hollow here in this little village,” remarked one woman from Texas.

  She didn’t know how right she was. I just didn’t feel Halloweeny when every day was Fright Night. But when I grabbed my broom to sweep the leaves off the front stoop and gazed down the street to other houses and businesses decked out for the fall and Halloween, I began to feel as if I was letting the village down in this second week of October.

  I was feeling better about Halloween in general, though, especially after my good morning of sales. I grabbed a quick bite for lunch and rinsed my dishes, luxuriating in the dish soap, the warm water, and got back to the shop later than I realized.

  I happened to glance out the window and there was Jolene, standing on the porch. I expected her to come through the door, but she was just standing there. Looked like she was staring at the rain.

  I knocked on the window glass until she suddenly looked up at me. She seemed puzzled for a moment before she shook off her raincoat on the porch and hung it on the hall tree by the door.

  “It’s wet out there, I’m tellin’ you,” she said, wiping her glasses on her sweater.

  “What were you looking at?” I asked.

  “Huh?” She replaced her glasses on her nose and blinked.

  “Never mind.” I walked past her to the hall tree and grabbed my own coat.

  “Was it something I said?” she asked, watching me button up.

  “I’m going over to the market to get some pumpkins. We need to Halloween up this place.”

  “Oh. I never mentioned it because…well. Because I thought you had enough real Halloween on your hands.”

  “Me too.” I grabbed a few bucks from the register. “But I’m getting over it. See you shortly.”

  Like a real “Maine-ah,” I decided to eschew the car and walk. But as I got several yards from the shop, I began to regret my decision. I hurried my pace, hunkered into my mackinaw, and ducked my head.

  Soaked and chilled, my feet splatted through the market. I chose the roundest pumpkins I could find in the bin, ones with good stems, and loaded them in my cart, along with some mini pumpkins. I even picked some witchy things, like twig brooms, pointed hats, and four cornstalk bundles that I planned to tie to the front porch posts. I sniffed some pumpkin spice candles and it gave me an idea to make my own pumpkin spice potpourri to sell.

  I rang it all up with the cashier, dumped the miniature pumpkins in my coat pockets, and carried the two round pumpkins under my arms. The rest would be sent on in an hour or so.

  Trotting with my awkward bundles, I finally ran the last few yards. I plopped both pumpkins on the porch. They were going to look very picturesque with the cornstalks. I went inside, sighing at the warmth.

  “You didn’t come back with anything,” said Jolene, staring at me, arms akimbo.

  “Yes I did.” I pulled the little pumpkins out of my pockets like a magician performing a trick and she laughed. “I thought we could put these around. More is being delivered from the market. And I thought we could make our own pumpkin spice potpourris. Put them in those gold voile bags and tie them with a ribbon. Would be a nice impulse buy.”

  She seemed delighted to be doing something. “I’m learning a lot from you.”

  “Planning on going into retail?”

  “My parents are in it. But I was never excited about the nursery. M
aybe because I had to work there. And it was always cold, being outside and watering plants. It’s nice and cozy in here.”

  “Choose your retail wisely, I always say.”

  “So you did this before, right? In California?”

  “Yup. I was business partners with my boyfriend, Jeff. Ex-boyfriend. Never go into business with a boyfriend. Unless you have lots of written contracts.”

  “Was he a jerk?”

  “He was the dictionary definition of a jerk.” She and I assembled our herbs and spices as we talked, pulling out the cubbies and laying them on the counter. I got out a wide wooden bowl for us to mix all the ingredients together, and soon our conversation mellowed with the aromas of cinnamon, cloves, dried shredded ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. I added star anise for looks.

  “He cheated on me,” I went on, “he stole from my checking account, pretty much all the things you don’t want in a boyfriend.”

  “Do you think Mr. Dark is better than Jeff?”

  I pulled up short, the small bag hanging limp in my hand. “Um…Mr. Dark is…different. Anyway, I’m dating Sheriff Ed.” I slowly began filling the bag again.

  “I approve.”

  “I’m so glad.” But her mention of Erasmus put a damper on my enthusiasm. I had been looking forward to tonight. I mean, I still was but…well.

  I let her talk about high school, the various boys that were in her classes—all stupid, apparently—until we tied up the last bag. We’d done ten. I figured that was enough to start.

  I checked my watch. We had a few hours till closing. I worried that the rain would keep customers away, but these Mainers were made of heartier stuff. Several ladies—even some from Ruth Russell’s knitting circle—came in. They didn’t seem to care about my hijinks at her house, or maybe they secretly applauded it. I got the impression that Ruth Russell wasn’t as universally adored as she liked to think. They each bought a potpourri and some flavored herbal teas that I had blended myself. I also managed to talk them into a tin of herbs for roast rubs.