Nightshade (17 tales of Urban Fantasy, Magic, Mayhem, Demons, Fae, Witches, Ghosts, and more) Read online

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Damnit.”

  Killian looked up. “What’s the problem, Maggie?”

  There was a Halloween parade marching down Main Street. I laid on my horn. “Get out of my way! I have a MacKay emergency!”

  “Emergency?” asked Killian.

  “Do you know what my mother is like when I’m late?” I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Pipistrelle’s eyes get as wide as saucers. I forced an unnaturally chipper tone-change to my voice. “Fortunately, I’m bringing you with me, Pipistrelle. She is going to be so happy for your help. Everything will be fine. Just fiiiine.” I bit my thumb’s cuticle and muttered under my breath, “Meaning she’s gonna be fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.”

  “What was that, Maggie?” asked Killian.

  “Nothing! Look at the parade, Pipistrelle!”

  The portal off the Mulholland cliff was an officially sanctioned portal to the Other Side. It drops you off on Main Street, a part of the city that looks a bit like a Dickens-inspired Christmas card. On acid. And today was Halloween.

  All around the car was revelry. Halloween on the Other Side was more along the lines of Mardi Gras. No need to go around looking scary. That was everyone’s everyday face. But a chance to dance in the streets and throw leprechaun gold at the crowd? I knew a chimera or two happy to flash their udders for prizes. Toy horns were playing. Drums were beating. Monsters wore beautiful masks and shiny robes. A few witches were passing out free brew to anyone still capable of standing. Everybody’s gotta have a hobby I guess.

  “MAAGGGIE!” shouted a familiar voice.

  Suddenly banging on my windshield was everybody’s favorite prison-intake-keeper, Lacey. Lacey is as blue as a blueberry. But then you’d have to take that blueberry, stick it in a corset, then top it with a wig-pile higher than a Dole Whip. She came running over to the car and Killian rolled down his window.

  “HAAALLLOWEEEEN!” she shouted. “WOOOOO!”

  She leaned in through Killian’s window and handed four longnecks into the car. Looked like the witches were handing out free samples of this year’s brew—thanks, witches!

  “Sorry! I’m driving!” I said as Killian tried to give me one. “And don’t let him drink one!” I shouted at Killian as he passed one to Pipistrelle. “I’m sure he’s not old enough.”

  Killian gave Pipistrelle a friendly shake as he downed his brew. “Us fair folk know how to hold our potions!”

  I tell you what, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a man-baby in a Victorian dress chug a bottle of brew bigger than his head. I guess I was just glad it wasn’t ambrosia. I would have had to scrape both of them out of the back of my car. “Just be careful. You have no idea what they put in their cauldron. Or if they even washed it out before cooking in it.”

  “MAAAAGGGIE!” shouted Lacey again as I inched the car forward.

  “Having a good time?” I asked, looking for a side street to turn down without wiping out half the population of the Other Side.

  “I LOOOVE you guys SOOOO much!” she slurred, leaning in through Killian’s window again.

  “And I you…” said Killian, booping Lacey on the nose. I guess the brew was hitting him harder than he expected.

  “Listen,” said Lacey, leaning her forehead against the sill of the car door and walking with us as the crowd let me go another foot. “I have a case for you.”

  “The only case I need to solve right now is the case of get me the hell out of this traffic.”

  “Oh, I can help you with that,” she said. She turned around and flashed the crowd. It didn’t help clear the road. At all. She didn’t care. She turned back. “Listen, there’s a ghost that’s causing trouble tonight…”

  I groaned. “I don’t do ghosts, Lacey.”

  “I don’t care. The ghost is causing trouble and someone’s gotta put it to rest before it ruins Halloween. Nobody came in to pick up the case and I was stuck trying to find somebody and now I found YOU and you are ON. THE. CASE.”

  “We would be delighted to take it,” said Killian, his lids getting heavy as he smiled at Lacey.

  Pipistrelle raised his empty bottle in agreement and hiccuped.

  “What’s this ghost’s deal?” I asked.

  “He’s moaning around about something. No one can make out what he’s trying to say. But he’s broken a bunch of windows and keeps throwing things at people. He’s scaring the beejeezus out of folks, all the while harshing people’s mellow. He’s weeping as bad as a llorona.”

  “He’s not a llorona, is he?” I asked, giving her the stink eye.

  “No. But he is one cranky poltergeist. Nobody likes a sloppy ghost on Halloween.” She wiped her nose with her palm, barely able to keep her eyes focused.

  “Swell.”

  “So, you’ll take it?”

  “We’ll take it!” shouted Killian with enthusiasm.

  Lacey grabbed him by the shirt collar and planted a great big kiss square on his mouth. I gave them a moment of privacy as they performed a hands-free dental examination.

  “Look! A break in traffic!” I shouted, grateful for the excuse. “We gotta go!”

  Lacey pulled herself away and patted Killian on the cheek before shouting, “WOOOOO!” and making her way back into the throng of people.

  I pulled us off into an alley and it was blessedly silent.

  “She’s so nice…” smiled Killian, leaning his head against the seat.

  “Unlike you,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “You just committed us to tracking down a poltergeist on Halloween night!”

  “But she asked so nicely!”

  “Quit thinking with your tights, elf!”

  Fucking elves.

  CHAPTER SIX

  We pulled up in front of my mom and dad’s place. It sits in a row of brick townhouses. They have a postage-sized garden in front, surrounded by a white picket fence where Mom grows her wolfsbane and garlic. The front room of the house is her psychic-eye tea shop and my parents live in the rest of the building.

  There were blue twinkle lights wrapped around the fence and she even had a little fog machine spewing out some friendly mist into the yard. I guess ghosts like mist. I don’t know. Like I said, not my people. I pulled up to the front, parked my car, then turned around to look at Killian and Pipistrelle. They were both snoring away and Pipistrelle’s little leg was going like a dog running in a dream.

  “We’re home, boys,” I announced.

  Killian peeled his eyelids open and stretched. “What was in that witches’ brew?” he said, running his tongue along the roof of his mouth like he couldn’t get enough moisture in his throat.

  “That’s why you should never touch the stuff,” I announced. I was pretty tolerant as these things go, but not right before we were scheduled to go hang out in a haunted house while a rogue poltergeist roamed the city beating people up.

  Pipistrelle popped his head up like a little kid at Christmas. “Are we here?” he squeaked with excitement. “Hooray!”

  “The brownie could teach you a thing or two about how to hold your potions,” I said to Killian.

  “What is that taste in my mouth?” he said.

  “Lacey…?”

  He slapped me on the back of the head. “Behave yourself.”

  I hopped out and let the boys roll themselves out of the back. I opened the gate and skipped up the cement stairs to the front porch.

  “Hey Jack!” I said to the neighbor. He was always out gardening. There’s some special moonlight that comes through on Halloween when the veil is thin, and it’s always a good idea to get your harvest in.

  I opened the screen door and walked inside. “Mom! Dad! We’re here!”

  Mom walked through the beaded kitchen curtain with a tray full of cheese and olives speared with twirly cocktail toothpicks. Mom’s orange hair had been freshly permed and sat tightly against her head in that fashionable helmet look that went out of fashion in 1980. Pretty m
uch everything in my parents’ house went out of fashion in 1980, but it was home.

  She was wearing her good kaftan. It was as orange as her hair and as brown as the shag carpet. She was wearing a tigers-eye amulet (I think to help focus her energy? Or something? She told me once, but I wasn’t paying attention) and finished off her look with coral-colored lipstick that matched her nails.

  “Well, I had hoped you would be here earlier, but I’m glad to see you made it,” she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Killian, there is some coffee brewing in the kitchen for you. And I put the bottle of aspirin next to it.”

  Killian gave her a wave and then painfully walked into the other room.

  “Saw that in your crystal ball?” I asked.

  “I know what happens downtown on Halloween,” she replied with a knowing glance. “AND I saw it in my crystal ball.” She put down the tray and then bent over, resting her hands on her knees, to greet Pipistrelle. “Oh, but Pipistrelle! I’m so glad that you are here! And what a fetching dress!”

  This time, Pipistrelle was only too happy to demonstrate the twirl capabilities of his outfit.

  Mom muttered out of the side of her mouth. “Your sister is going to kill you.”

  “It was a dumb teddy bear!” I groaned.

  “Well, now that you are here, Pipistrelle, I sure could use some help getting ready for tonight’s guests.”

  She didn’t have to ask him twice. In fact, even before the words had left her mouth, he scampered off into the kitchen, and I could hear him merrily humming to the sound of clanging pots and pans.

  “So nice to have such a lovely brownie around the house…” she said affectionately. “He is so much more help than you are in these situations.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sorry I only learned how to tear holes in the dimensions and save the multiverse instead of Party Planning 101.”

  “You can go keep your father company in the backroom,” she said, completely ignoring me.

  “Then why did you want me to come early—” I stopped myself. There was no winning.

  In their shotgun-style house, the psychic-eye room has a beaded curtain that leads to the kitchen, which leads to the dining room, which leads to the living room, and then the back door where there is another little garden and a detached garage.

  I started back, but then stopped myself. “You didn’t by any chance invite any poltergeists to tonight’s shindig, did you?”

  “Of course I did!” she said. “A party just isn’t a party without them.”

  I rubbed my temple. “Great. Listen. There’s one who’s been going around breaking windows and causing a ruckus.”

  “Oh, everyone is in high spirits tonight,” she laughed. And then laughed at herself. “Did you get it? High spirits! And ghosts!”

  “Yeah, I got it.” I moved closer to the kitchen door. “But this one seems to be in distress. If you figure out who that might be, would you mind making sure to cross them over before they leave the party.”

  “Now Maggie, you know that is a violation of the trust the dead place in me. They only go—”

  “—if they want to go,” I finished with her in unison. I thumbed back at the direction Killian had disappeared. “My partner committed us to tracking down this spirit tonight and I’d hate to have to leave your party. Just as a favor.”

  “Well, I am just going to have to see how I feel about that,” said my mom stiffly. “We’ll just have to see.”

  “Thanks,” I said, giving her a salute before heading back.

  Dad was parked on our old brown couch with a beer. He was a scrawny guy with a gray and blonde mullet, but don’t let his unassuming looks fool you. He’s the most powerful World Walker of our time. I can rip portals, but he’s got the mad skillz to actually be able to build permanent ones, single-handedly.

  Killian had a wet cloth over his eyes and a cup of coffee on the hexagonal walnut table beside him.

  “Happy Halloween!” I said.

  “Do not speak, Maggie…” groaned Killian.

  Dad shrugged his shoulders. “Elves. Can’t hold their potions.”

  “Don’t I know it.” I plopped down on the couch next to Dad. “What are you watching?”

  “I have no idea. Nothing that has anything to do with ghosts.”

  “When do they show up?”

  “In about an hour.”

  “Kind of makes you want to go get stuck in an interdimensional portal, doesn’t it.”

  “Yep.”

  We sat in silence watching some documentary about how cauldrons are made, when Killian suddenly piped up.

  “Please, do not speak…” he begged.

  “We weren’t,” I replied, looking from him to Dad in confusion.

  “GUESTS HAVE ARRIVED!” shouted Mom from the front room.

  “There are so many people talking…” Killian groaned.

  “Oh crap…” I said, alarm and shock on my face. “Killian? Can you hear the dead?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “What was in that witches’ brew?” I asked.

  Dad was entirely too excited by this development.

  “You think it was that witches’ brew?” he asked me.

  Killian just groaned. “So much noise!”

  “I need to get me some,” Dad replied. “Can you imagine? If I could hear your mom’s clients? Where’d you get it?”

  “It was down on Main Street,” I replied, seeing where this was going. “The empties are in the backseat of my car. Lacey was passing them out and can tell you where she found them. You know, if she hasn’t passed out already.”

  Dad ran to the hall closet and got his jacket. “Tell your mother I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t you abandon me at her haunted open house!” I hissed.

  “I’ll be back in just a few minutes,” he replied. “She won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  And with that, he dashed out the back door.

  “MAGGIE? Where’s your father?” asked my mom as she came in with a plate of Pipistrelle’s cookies.

  “He just ran out for… refreshments…” I said, not wanting her to figure out things were not sitting right with Killian.

  “I told him we had a perfectly stocked fridge. Especially since the dead don’t drink.” She held out a plate to me. I took a cookie and bit into it.

  “Um… Mom?” I said.

  “What, dear.”

  “These are terrible.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mom took one of the cookies and tasted it. “He mixed up the salt and the sugar,” she replied horrified.

  It was a mistake very unlike Pipistrelle. “I bet it was that witches’ brew,” I said. “I bet he’s still seven sheets to the wind.”

  “Oh dear… OH my party!”

  “Don’t worry, Mom!” I said. “I grabbed some cookies he made at Mindy’s. They are in my backseat.”

  Before she could say yea or nay, I headed for the front door. I kept my head down and marched towards the front, ignoring the cold spots I passed through.

  “Maggie! You walked right through Mr. Howell!”

  I heard my mom apologizing for me but I didn’t stop. I opened up the door and took a deep breath. The faux fog Mom had spilled into the front garden was swirling around pockets of nothingness. I’d rather wade through a thicket of spiders than brush shoulders with the dead, so I guess it was nice to know where to avoid. I tightened my leather jacket, made a run for it, opened the gate, and jogged to my car.

  My door was unlocked and the cookies were still on the backseat. I opened the door and saw that Dad had grabbed most of the empties, but there was a single unopened longneck wedged in the doorsill. I figured that I should stick it in the refrigerator in case Dad was unsuccessful. I jammed it in my pocket and turned back towards the house. That’s when the front gate was ripped off its hinges.

  Fucking poltergeist.

  “Excuse me,” I shouted. “Is that the way for a guest to behave?”

  The gh
osts who had been hanging out on the lawn suddenly disappeared. Whoever or whatever ripped the hinges off the gate seemed to be riffraff they’d rather not associate with. He was busting up my mom’s party, literally and figuratively.

  “Listen, every party loves a pooper and that’s why we invited you, sir,” I said with false bravado, impotently holding the plate of cookies in my hand and SO not wanting to lay down the hammer on this guy. “But if you got a beef, you hash it out with me.”

  Out of nowhere, the fog in the front yard began to boil as if it was water on a stormy sea. The wind began to pick up and I had to spit my long, dark hair out of my mouth. It was a hot October evening, but I could taste the salt in the air and the stinging rain on my cheeks.

  On my parent’s porch, there stood a man. He wore a navy blue turtleneck sweater and a white captain’s hat on his head. He had a beard, peppered gray, but no mustache. His eyes were wild and he pointed at me, shouting something. And then he ripped a post off my parent’s porch and harpooned my car.

  I decided maybe I’d sneak in through the back door.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I hustled around to the back door and ran into the room. Killian was still sitting there with the washrag over his eyes.

  “Killian!” I whispered loudly, trying not to attract my mom’s attention. “Killian! Get up!”

  “The world had better be ending…” he groaned.

  I put the cookies down on the coffee table and ignored the cold chills that kept washing over me, informing me I was encroaching a bit too much into the personal bubble of some of Mom’s guests.

  “It had better IS!” I hissed.