Dweller on the Threshold (6 page)

“Well, you’ll have more. Plus, you have hardship, transformation, magic and power from the mother set. The crone is showing us that you’ll find balance and a really big growth. Internal, not physical—which is a good thing for you, right?” She giggled.

I glared.

She cleared her throat. “Well, uh, so… you have so many from all three sets, maiden, mother and crone and all eight of the maidens, so your whole life is about to change. Everything you thought you knew about yourself will change and maybe some things you didn’t will be answered.”

That I could deal with. Answers. “Are you sure you know how to read these?”

“I read them the way I’m supposed to.”

That was no answer. I frowned. “So, you think I won’t be going home anytime soon?”

Blonde curls bounced with the force she used to shake her poor head.

“Thank Zeus,” Phro muttered.

“I don’t want a new life.” I glared at Phro.

“You don’t have a choice.” Blythe offered a kind smile. “The stones don’t lie.”

“Listen, there’s always a choice and when it comes to my life, only I decide.”

Blythe pointed to the runes. “But the gods have already chosen.”

“Screw the gods.”

The witch gasped and covered her mouth, her eyes darting left and right and up as if she were looking for one of the gods to arrive in a great fiery gust of wind and smite me.

I kind of glanced up myself. Who knows? I’d come across many a strange thing over the years. Hell,
I
was a strange thing. Maybe there
were
gods. Maybe they
could
get pissed enough to smite.

I looked at Phro.

It didn’t make me feel any better to see the would-be goddess glancing up as well.

Chapter Three

 
“They’re dusting the car now.”

Frustration turned Jed’s tone gritty. I tightened my fingers on the phone. I’d picked up a cheap new cell phone because the last one hadn’t dried out yet from the marsh.

Hot sunlight poured through Elsa’s front window, making my black T-shirt cling a bit despite the chill coming from the air conditioner. I plucked the fabric away from my chest before pulling the filmy white curtains aside so I could watch the witch get into her yellow Volkswagen Bug
.

Figured
.

The woman drove off with a good five inches of peach skirt hanging out of the door. Smirking, I turned from the window. I heard metal clatter to the floor at the other end of the line. It echoed like he was in a warehouse. “You doing the work yourself?”

“Some.”

“I thought you guys went over the car on site.”

His sigh was loud. “We did. The site was clean so we brought it here.”

I knew he was going over everything again. They had nothing—no clues, zilch. Frustration crawled through my gut. “I’ll look around here and see if she left any notes. I’ll call later.”

“Beri.” Flinty insistence underlined his voice.

“Yeah.” I started toward Elsa’s bedroom then stopped. Phro had already been down the hall and now she stood, obviously tense and impatient, waiting for me to get off the phone. Normally, she wasn’t that polite. I frowned and glanced around for Fred.
Where had he gone?

“You
will
tell me when you find something. Right?”

I had to give Jed credit for softening that request up at the end. “As soon as I have something you can use, you get it.”

He was quiet a few seconds and I knew he weighed my words. Like me, Elsa had a talent for twisting things to suit her own purposes. Jed had worked with Elsa for years, and I had worked cases with them for several of those years. He knew both of us too well.

“Good.” He hung up.

I blinked at the phone, surprised I’d gotten off that easy. He must have realized it would do little good to argue. It was all he was getting and that was that. I looked at my guide. “What’s wrong?”

A curtain of black hair swung as Phro quickly glanced back down the hall. “Something went down here. I don’t like it.”

“What do you mean by something went down?” I slipped my cell back into my back pocket. Her modern jargon cracked me up sometimes. “You know, I don’t get the point of having all those spirit powers if you don’t ever know what’s going on.”

Phro rolled her eyes and adjusted the thin straps of her ridiculous blue outfit. It looked like she’d put it together out of electrical tape with narrow strips barely covering all the strategic places. I hadn’t missed Frida’s reaction earlier. Those black eyes had locked like missiles onto the goddess’s chest.
Phro was such a slut sometimes
.

I waited for the answer to this often-asked question and—as always—didn’t get one. Old, familiar disappointment tightened my chest. I stared for another few seconds before stomping down the hall.

Notoriously private, Elsa took her paranoid streak further than most and locked up any and all pertinent information. Came from years of living with the constant turnaround of foster brothers and sisters. I wasn’t the only kid who hadn’t worked out in her family. I had been the last, though. Freaked her parents out too much to try again.

Elsa’s bedroom was the last room in the hall and I could see the unmade bed through the door. It was the first sign that something hadn’t gone right here. The thick, black comforter lay bunched up at the bottom, the cream-colored sheets twisted into a tube that fell over the edge of the bed. Elsa always said, “If everything is in its place, you don’t lose track of it.”

I flashed back to how small Elsa had looked on that hospital bed.
Her soul wasn’t in its place.
Fear beat a solid, fast rhythm against my ribcage. I refused to entertain the idea that my sister was beyond reach.

With determination darkening the edges of my vision, I stepped into the room as a wave of strong citrus perfume slammed into my face. My eyes watered and I put a hand over my nose as I looked around for the source. It sure as hell wasn’t Elsa’s preferred scent. Strong as it was, it didn’t cover up that sour odor I’d smelled earlier, either. Trying not to gag, I took another step.

Glass crunched under my shoes and I knelt to look. Pieces of a perfume bottle littered the beige carpet.

The citrus was strong here and all I had to do was follow the path of the shards to see that the perfume bottle had been thrown at the mirror over the dresser. I walked over to run my finger along the cracks in the reflection. They didn’t look random—each disjointed line snaking out in odd, parallel runs that continued in a large circle to the edges of the mirror. If it was a magic symbol, I didn’t recognize it.

Frowning, I picked up a white onion sitting on my sister’s dresser, careful not to prick my fingers on the pins. I lifted it to my face and sniffed, grimacing when the fresh pungent sting hit my nose. It wasn’t the source of the sour odor—too fresh. At least a hundred red and black headed pins stuck out from every rounded edge.

Pinpricks of unease layered atop the ones already scampering over my skin. The pins in the onion were a simple spell of protection. I knew that much. But why my sister had this was the big question. Almost as big as why it was on the dresser and not in the window where such a thing was usually placed to block the entry of evil.

A dull pain started in my chest. This looked bad.

I set it back down and leaned over to sniff at the few puddles of perfume still shimmering on the dresser. Most had dried. In fact, it should have all dried by now. I stuck my finger in the largest spot, lifted it and saw the faint traces of pink.

Blood
.

I didn’t remember seeing any wounds on my sister. The blood might not be hers.

I didn’t bother to smell it. The perfume would cover any scent I could have picked up. Creatures of power had a different odor to their blood—a kind of natural smell and it was different depending on the breed.

I started to wipe my finger on a tissue from the box beside Elsa’s bed, and the movement must have shifted the chemical composition because another stronger scent wafted through. Old blood. No one who’d ever come across a murder scene could forget that smell. And though I had yet to cross a demon, I’d heard they smelled like old blood.

But why would a demon have been in my sister’s room?

I started to wipe my finger on my shirt then changed my mind.
Needed soap for this crap.
I went into Elsa’s overly orange and black bathroom, grabbed the giraffe dispenser next to the sink, and started washing.

Phro followed me inside, shuddering at the décor as she always did. “Did you notice the pattern in the mirror?”

I nodded as I squirted an extra big dollop of the soap onto my fingers then scrubbed harder. The vanilla-scented soap was a big improvement over citrus perfume and old blood. “I saw it. Don’t know what it is, though. Do you?”

“No. Neither does Fred. He went to see if he could find someone who does. Think the silly twit would know?”

Phro obviously referred to the witch. “I thought Fred was the silly twit.”

She shrugged. “Now we have two.”

I didn’t bother to argue the point—I was too worried about what had happened in this room. My stomach churned like I’d eaten bad fish. “She might know. I’ll grab my sister’s digital camera and take a few shots. Did you guys find anything else?”

“Well, since we can’t open any drawers or cabinets…”

Phro’s inability to move the small things around drove her insane. I didn’t blame her. “I’ll keep looking.” I frowned at my fingers. “This smell isn’t coming off like it should.”

Phro came closer, sniffed. She pulled back quickly, her nose wrinkling. “Demon.”

“That’s what I thought. Why would a demon have been in my sister’s room? Doesn’t make sense. There isn’t a scratch on her. Demons don’t have the kind of control to reign in their fury—she’d be covered in wounds.”

“No, she’d be dead.”

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn’t wanted to say that aloud. Phro was right. Humans rarely survived demon attacks. I finally got the crud off my fingers and was drying my hands on the orange and black towel when something occurred to me. “Did you get a good look at that page Blythe showed us?”

“The
big special man
page?”

My lip twitched. “Did you see the victims lying in the picture? The two main characters looked like poorly drawn stick shadow people, but did you notice that the victims around the bottom had more detail? One was on his stomach and had a small red slash across the back of his neck. What if Elsa has that wound?” I put down the towel and straightened the silver comb and brush set next to the sink. “But Jed would have said something—if he’d known. We have to go back to the hospital now.”

Phro nodded. “Why don’t you check her hiding place first?”

“Planned to.” Crunching over the glass again, I went to nightstand and turned it around. Elsa had small cabinets installed into the backs of her bedroom furniture. You’d never see the openings if you didn’t know to look. If Elsa’s notes hadn’t been on her, they were here. Jed might have found her in her car, but whatever happened to her happened in this room. How she got in that parked car was another mystery.

I found the notebook and took it into the living room and away from that smell. I sat on the couch and opened the book to the last entries.

I read over Elsa’s observations about the comatose people. They had been found in odd places like cars, on sidewalks…one was in the changing room at a local boutique. She didn’t mention any neck slashes but she had noticed strange symbols in mirrors.

The last line read, ‘Go talk to Nikolos again.’ That was it.

Elsa’s air conditioner clicked on with a noisy rumble, and I glanced over to find Phro admiring herself in the antique mirror I had helped wrestle into this house years ago. That sucker was heavy—even for me. I’d bitched like crazy, but Elsa had been right. It matched the Victorian, walnut demi-card table under it perfectly with its elaborate wooden frame. Elsa was a certified antique nut and saved every bit of her cop-salary to buy one fine piece at a time. Something nagged the back of my mind but I was distracted as I watched Phro turn and twist her neck in front of her reflection. I could see Phro’s reflection. She could see it, yet if Elsa were here, she wouldn’t be able to see a thing. Trippy, that.

Phro was looking at her own ass.

“Jeez.” I briefly closed my eyes. “Phro, you don’t eat.”

Phro shot me a glare then moved to a shelf full of photographs. “Bite me.”

I could thank Elsa for teaching Phro that particular phrase. Okay,
maybe
I was guilty of using it a time or two. “Does the name Nikolos ring any bells?”

Phro tilted her head. “I know the name but I don’t remember Elsa mentioning it.”

“Me neither.” I tapped my fingers on the closed notebook. “Something’s bugging me but I don’t know what. Let’s go back to the hospital and check my sister’s neck. Maybe the witch will find that spell for the larvae and meet us there.”

“Maybe we should find a non-pyromaniac witch.”

I snorted. “You’re the one who said we should keep her.”

“It’s a goddess’s prerogative to change her—”