Nightshade (17 tales of Urban Fantasy, Magic, Mayhem, Demons, Fae, Witches, Ghosts, and more) Page 13

  That got his attention. He took the cloth away from his face. His eyes were red and bloodshot and his skin was as pale as a fresh corpse after a vampire drained it.

  “Ooooh noooo…” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” I answered.

  “MAGGIE!” my mom shouted.

  “And here comes the other end of the world.” I picked up the plate as she came into the room and tried to give a cheerful smile. “I brought in the cookies!”

  She pointed towards the front of the house. “There is something out there that scared my guests half to death—”

  “…because they hadn’t already managed the whole way on their own?”

  She pointed her finger at me. “Stop.”

  I stopped.

  “Now, I went out onto the porch to see who it was, but they were gone, and there was a piece of my porch railing impaled in your car!”

  I looked over at Killian. “Yeah… about that…”

  “WHAT DID YOU DO, MAGGIE?”

  “Me? Why is it always MY fault?”

  “Because people are screaming and my porch is in pieces!”

  “One piece! I did nothing!”

  “No one just goes around impaling things with metal objects.”

  “I do all the time! Impaling things is my job!”

  “My point exactly! YOU do. OTHER PEOPLE don’t. Now, I want you to go speak to this person or creature and find out what you did and apologize.”

  I could barely control the eye-roll. “I was already on my way.”

  “Well, get on your way faster.” She took the plate of cookies from my hands. “And thank you for these,” she added before turning on her heel and walking out of the room with purpose.

  I turned to Killian. “You couldn’t have just gotten up the moment I said we needed to go?”

  “Why is there a piece of metal impaled in your car, Maggie?” Killian asked grimly.

  “There is a ghost captain that thought my car was a white whale and harpooned it using my mom’s front porch railing.”

  “Naturally.”

  “It’s the same ghost, I’m guessing, that you promised Lacey we’d track down.”

  This time it was Killian’s turn to wince. “I was under the influence of witches’ brew…”

  “You think Lacey cares about that? If we show up at the prison tomorrow with nothing better to tell her than you were nursing a potion hangover, you’re going to have to find a new girlfriend, even if she was the one who dosed you.”

  Killian pushed himself up off the couch. “I hate Halloween.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  My flashlight lit up the sidewalk as we walked around the front of the house. I filled Killian in on all the details of my encounter.

  “So, why is there an ancient mariner wandering the streets of the Other Side?” he mused.

  “Looking for someone to remove the albatross?”

  “I do not understand, Maggie,” Killian replied.

  “There’s this old poem… never mind. Just don’t go shooting any birds.”

  “I did not have any plans to do so.”

  “Well, stick to those plans.”

  It wasn’t hard to follow the ghost. There was a trail of wreckage in his wake. Fences uprooted and trees knocked over. I couldn’t believe I had gotten wrapped up in this mess. Lacey knew I didn’t do ghosts.

  About two miles down the road, we ended up at the last house on the block. As in, literally. Beyond it, there’s nothing but graveyard. It’s why my parents picked their place. What’s the saying? Shop local suppliers?

  I hadn’t been here in years. My house was in the opposite direction and there was no real reason to swing by. It was haunted, something I worked really hard to avoid.

  Most of the inhabitants were over at Mom’s place by now, but the darkness was deep enough and the moonlight strong enough that I could see the flickering shapes of a few homebodies. Mom’s the one with the gift. I got just enough genetically to make it a real pain in my backside.

  “They are a miserable bunch,” remarked Killian, staring out at the graves.

  “You can see them?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, but I can hear them.”

  “This is going to make our life so much better,” I replied, slapping him on the back. “What are they saying?”

  “Moaning about how cold the earth is and how no one comes to visit anymore… something about ‘ungrateful offspring’...”

  “Sounds like Sunday dinner at my parents’ house,” I replied. I turned to the house on the hill. “I suppose we should just bite the bullet and go in.”

  “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  Lightning crashed across the sky and the ghost-rain began pelting down on my face. I sputtered out the water. A bedpost came hurling out the top window, bounced, then landed in the middle of the yard. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I pushed open the metal gate and it squealed on its hinges.

  “Just like a frickin’ horror movie…” I grumbled.

  The grass was long since dead and overgrown with things that had also died long ago. There was a concrete birdbath next to the path filled with a sludge I’m sure birthed one or two monsters in its own right. A bicycle lay abandoned, probably by some neighborhood kids scared off in the middle of a dare.

  A couch fell right in front of us and I jumped back. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Killian put his hand on my arm. “I can hear him.”

  I shook my head as I walked around the chair and looked for any sign of the guy we were after. I shone my flashlight up at the window, but it looked like he had skedaddled somewhere else.

  A large grandfather clock fell in front of us. With a mighty crack, the casing split and spilled brass bells and clockwork all over the walkway.

  “Really?” I shouted. “That was an antique! If you’re going to throw shit at us, make sure it’s actually shit.”

  “It seems as if he does not wish for us to enter the house,” noted Killian, looking at the wreckage the bastard kept throwing in our path.

  “Which is PRECISELY why we’re going in,” I replied.

  “Have I ever expressed my amazement that you are still alive?”

  “Gotta face your monsters. Nothing to fear but fear itself. And stuff.”

  A side table crashed in front of us.

  “Would you care to rethink this philosophy?”

  “At least the furniture is getting smaller.”

  “I do not believe this is the best course of action…” cautioned Killian.

  “And why might that be?”

  An old hat tree crashed down in front of us.

  “No reason.”

  I gave Killian a warning glare and then shouted at the house. “We’re not going away until you sit down with us and have a little chat. Now, we can do this out on your front lawn or we can come inside and chat by your ghost fire. But one way or another, we’re chattin’.”

  The air became eerily still and it seemed like a great big cone of silence had been placed around the house. I took that as a sign he was thinking it through, but I didn’t have time to let him noodle it through too much. I tried the handle, and when it didn’t release, I kicked it open with my Dr. Martens.

  I shone the flashlight inside. The house was dusty and covered in cobwebs, most likely because the inhabitant had taken to busting open his own windows. But if it hadn’t been for his recent violence, it actually would have been a nice place. It definitely had a seafaring theme. There were telescopes and old diving helmets in the living room. There was a rocking chair by the cold fire that was rocking back and forth like someone just got out of it.

  “You couldn’t have thrown the chair?” I asked.

  Suddenly, there was a blue light from the hallway. I raced out to see if it was him. It was. There was the guy. His mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  “Catching any of this, Killian?” I mutter
ed.

  He was listening intensely and began softly repeating what he heard. “Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “No. What?” he asked, snapping out of it.

  “We’ve got a highbrow poltergeist on our hands who’s decided to do a poetry reading for us.”

  Killian held his finger up to his lips to shush me. He said, “The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs upon the slimy sea.”

  “He’s reciting The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” I shouted. “WHAT THE HELL?!”

  Killian looked at me. “The what?”

  “It’s an old poem. About a sea captain.” I groaned. “Okay, so when ghosts die? The reason that they become ghosts is because they are caught in some sort of loop. They can’t move on until they finish some unfinished business they need to get done. Our ghost, it appears, has an ocean fetish and got caught in the loop of trying to memorize poetry. Or maybe his thing is to LARP as a sailor at pirate conventions. I don’t know! The fact of the matter is, though, that he is going to sit there reciting The Ancient Mariner from now until doomsday unless we can get him out of this loop.”

  The sailor threw a glass fishing buoy between us and the front door. Both Killian and I jumped back.

  “Yeah! If I were stuck repeating The Ancient Mariner, I’d throw things, too. But I’m getting really tired of your destructive qualities,” I said. “Why don’t you come down and I’ll see if I can pull up the poem on my phone—” I patted my jacket pocket and realized I had left it in the living room. All I had was the bottle of witches’ brew, which was only going to do us any good if Killian needed to power up. “—or come back with me to my mom’s place and we can look up the poem together.”

  That was not what seemed to be on this guy’s mind. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he raced down the stairs like a blue streak. He forced his way through our bodies and left me bone-achingly cold. Then he ran out the back door without bothering to open it.

  Killian shivered. “That was a very nice chat. Maybe we should let him go.”

  “No, Killian,” I said, my teeth chattering. “He used my body as an emergency exit. Now it’s personal.”

  We both stumbled our way towards where the mariner left, our little toesies turned to solid ice cubes. It felt like we were slogging through a snowdrift. I blew on my fingers to warm my hands up enough to operate the handle.

  We walked out onto the porch. The backyard was a mess, but the ghost sailor was nowhere to be seen.

  “Be careful, Maggie,” warned Killian. “It could be there are traps in the yard.”

  I swung the flashlight across the grass. It was a mess of old gardening equipment and concrete accessories. Suddenly, my light flashed across several large pieces of broken wood in the far corner of the yard and there was the soft sound of crying.

  “Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink,” I muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “What if he wasn’t talking nonsense,” I said. “What if he was talking in riddles?”

  I rushed over. It was a well. The cover was still bolted shut, but the boards had cracked.

  “The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs upon the slimy sea…” I said, terrified of what I was about to find inside. I shone the light down.

  And there, in the well, in water up to her chin, was a young girl. Her black curls were plastered to the side of her head. She blinked in the brightness of my beam.

  “Hey kid!” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice as much as possible. “You alive?”

  She brushed away her tears. “I am!”

  “Not a monster?”

  “Not a monster!”

  “If I get you out of there, are you going to eat my face off?”

  Killian punched me in the arm. “Shall we get her out of the well and then question her before those answers change?”

  “I’m so cold!” the little girl cried.

  Another pot came crashing down about a foot away from my leg. “I swear to god, ghost, I am going to kill you again if you don’t stop throwing things at me!”

  But as I looked over, there was a glint of something silver. I would have missed it if he hadn’t distracted me. Underneath a gardening bench was an anodized bucket attached to some hinky-looking rope. But I’d take it. I shoved the flashlight into Killian’s hand and crawled over. I tested the rope. It was rotted from being out in the elements, but it was all we had. I ran back to the well.

  “Okay. I have a rope. I’m going to make a loop and I am going to need you to slip it over your head and around your waist like you’re putting on a fancy dress. Do you think you can do that? “

  “You are terrible at rescue, Maggie,” said Killian.

  “I’m not good with kids,” I hissed at him before shouting back down. “Just get the rope around your waist and we’ll haul you out.”

  I hated that the rope was going to have to rub across the lip of the well cover, but there was nothing smooth… then I remembered I had my jacket. Leather was better than jagged edges. Figured I’d charge her parents when I got her out of this mess. I took off my coat and emptied the pockets, setting aside my keys, the brew bottle, and the flashlight, then I draped the coat over the edge.

  “Hang on, kid! We’re almost ready.” I turned to Killian. “You wanna anchor or do you want me to do it?”

  We did rock, paper, scissors and he won. Which meant he got to wrap the rope around his waist. If things went south, he would be another one I’d have to haul out.

  We started pulling. Ever so slowly, hand-over-hand, we brought the rope toward us. The kid was a lot heavier than she looked. Probably because everything she wore was soaked with water. I held my breath as the rope began to fray. The board over the well cracked and she dropped a couple feet. I looked back at Killian, terrified that we were going to lose her.

  But we kept pulling and suddenly, her little muddy hands appeared over the edge. Killian nodded that he had it and I ran forward to grab her.

  I wrapped my hands around her wrists and pulled. The angle was bad. The boards were groaning under my weight, but then Killian was there, catching her beneath the shoulders, and we hauled her out onto the grass.

  Poor kid was shaking and terrified and crying. Killian enveloped her and began rubbing her arms vigorously, trying to get some heat into her freezing body. He thought to ask her what her name was. Ended up being Miranda or something. I was too busy running back to grab my coat. I threw it at him and he caught it in one hand. Faster than a cowhand in a calf-roping competition, he had her bundled up and zipped. “You are going to be all right,” he assured her in soothing tones as he brushed the wet hair back from her face. “You are going to be all right, Miranda.”

  “I didn’t mean!” she blubbered, unable to get the words out. “I didn’t… mean…”

  “You are an idiot!” I shouted at her.

  “Maggie!” said Killian.

  “Do you know how many vampires and werewolves roam The Other Side? You’re lucky you fell into a well before one of them found you!”

  “Maggie…” Killian warned.

  “What were you doing out here, kid?”

  She hiccupped. “I just wanted to see my grandpop,” she said through the snot bubbles.

  “What? There’s no one who lives here!” I replied.

  “But he used to live here,” she wailed. “He told me to come here if I ever missed him and he would make sure to come and seeee meeeeee.”

  And that’s when that fucking ghost threw a small cigar box at us. I looked up at the window. And suddenly it all made sense.

  The poltergeist wasn’t wrecking havoc for havoc’s sake. His granddaughter came out to see him and fell in a gawddamned well and he couldn’t get her out. He was trying to get someone, ANYONE, to pay atten
tion to him. And because it was Halloween, everybody just thought he was part of the revelry. Even the folks in law enforcement couldn’t have been bothered tonight. He hadn’t been trying to hit us with all the things he was throwing. He was trying to get someone so mad that they would follow him.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I juuust wiiiish I could seeee him,” the girl sniffled, running the sleeve of my coat across her nose.

  “You can’t see him?” I asked, pointing at the upper window.

  She shook her head, but her crying slowed down quite a bit.

  “He’s right there,” I said. He looked so sad, gazing down at his granddaughter, knowing she could not see him. “He worked really, really hard tonight to get you safe.”

  “Oh.”

  “He must love you an awful lot,” I said, glancing up at Killian as he continued to rub the little girl’s arms.

  “I love him,” she said.

  It was then that my eyes fell across that bottle of brew I had hauled all the way from my car, as if somehow I was meant to bring it. As if when he harpooned my car he had been trying to tell me something or throw me off my game enough that I would forget to leave it at the house.

  “Would you like to hear him?” I asked.

  She looked at me like I was telling her that the grass was made of cotton candy, but she was willing to buy into my lie. She nodded her head vigorously. I strode over to the witches’ brew and screwed off the lid. Yeah, classy vintage. I brought it back.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” asked Killian.

  “Just a sip, kid,” I said, holding the bottle and helping her tip it so she only got a taste.

  I knew she had enough when suddenly she spun around and stared directly at the broken window where her granddad was standing. Her face broke into a huge smile.

  “What’s he saying, Killian?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I have no idea. The witches’ brew has worn off.”

  I held out the bottle. “Want another hit?”

  “Not for all the leprechaun gold in the Other Side.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE