Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead (Toad Witch Series, Book One) (35 page)

When the hot tub scene got old, Lisette and Lucien moved back into the house. You couldn’t go anywhere without running into naked bodies in the throes of passion. And Lucien and Lisette sampled as many people as possible — guests or employees — in every way they could. Especially Lisette. She had her way with everyone. And she had even more stamina than Lucien.

Somewhere in the middle of the orgasmofest, I became seriously worried that my body couldn’t take anymore. How long would it take for an ambulance to arrive in case paramedics needed to restart my heart?

But Lisette ignored me as she continued on her merry way, until she was finally sated. And I was sore as hell. In more ways than one. My body had been abused to its breaking point.

“As soon as I get this body back, the first thing I’m doing is getting it tested. Haven’t you people heard of condoms in the Otherworld? STDs? AIDS? Or am I immune to everything while I’m possessed?”
I snapped at her.

But Lisette was getting very good at ignoring me. At least, I hoped she was ignoring me. Because if my voice was getting so weak that she couldn’t even hear me anymore… Well, that thought led down a very dark road.

As Lucien and Lisette dressed and got ready to leave the party, the hosting couple begged them to come back again, party or no party.

Lisette tossed a smug feeling my way. “
I bet you were never this popular before.”

“I never had to use sex to make friends before,”
I shot back at her.

As the dark moon approached, I started getting really worried. While I’d had more experiences in the last week than most people have in a lifetime, I really didn’t want to be reduced to nothingness, or left to wander the earth for eternity, just so Lisette could get her second go-round at life. And I was pretty sure Paul felt the same way.

Poor Paul. I didn’t even know if any of him had survived the transfer. I mean, I was still conscious, but then, I wasn’t like most people. I had Lisette’s blood in me.

What if there wasn’t a Paul anymore?

But then, if that was the case, Lucien wouldn’t need the dark moon to make his possession permanent, would he? They would just need to dispatch my spirit. The thought that Paul’s spirit was still hanging on, no matter how tenuously, gave me hope.

Lisette and Lucien spent a good part of the week activating the altar room, gathering herbs and sacrificing chickens to strengthen their magic. I tried to keep my eyes closed as much as possible when they were in the throes of their sacrificial rituals, but Lisette and Lucien positively thrived on the amount of blood they spilled. 

Before I knew it, the cottage was humming with power and energy. And the altar room… ! I was surprised there wasn’t a radioactive glow coming from it.

If your body does evil work, while someone else is in control of it, do you still get stuck with the karmic coin?

Finally, the day of the dark moon dawned, and I hadn’t heard squat from Tillie. Was this going to be her revenge? Watching my spirit get torn from my body? And then what happens to me? Am I utterly destroyed? Do I roam the earth forever? Do I go to the Otherworld?

Chapter Forty-Five

While Lucien was out of the house, haggling over a black bull calf, (I shuddered to think why), Lisette was getting the back yard prepped. She gathered large rocks into the shape of a dolmen and set it up as her altar. Then she moved the skull from the hidden cellar temple room to the outdoor altar.

Was she planning to put our spirits into the skull? Were we going to be trapped for eternity in there? Where the hell was Aunt Tillie?!

Lisette planted a large pole in the middle of the yard, with a rope fastened at the top of the pole, so it had free range of motion. She braided the end of the rope into a noose.

A noose?! I shuddered to think what she had planned.

I nudged her, thinking as loudly as I could:
“You really don’t want to kill me. We’re doing such a great job of cohabitating so far. Why don’t we just agree to share?”

But she ignored me.

Damn it. I was so screwed.

As Lisette was putting the finishing touches on the ritual space, I suddenly sensed a change in the air.

Gus walked around the cottage and intercepted Lisette as she was about to enter the back door.

“Hey, bitch, why you don’t answer the door anymore? You get too uppity to be social?” he said, in a fake New Jersey accent.

Aunt Tillie had come through! My heart leapt in joy, but I immediately squashed it. This was going to be my only chance and I couldn’t afford to blow things. I could feel Lisette poking around in my mind, trying to dig up memories of who this strange person was.

I focused on a blank chalkboard.

“Hello, remember me? Your best friend?”

What’s his name?

I could feel the command from Lisette and before I could stop it, the word “Gus” appeared on the chalkboard.

Damn, damn, damn. I ditched the chalkboard set-up and focused on a pointy rock.

“Don’t be an idiot, Gus. Of course I remember you.”

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like, silly?”

“If you ask me, it looks like you’re setting up a bloody acre.”

I could feel Lisette jump in shock. She hadn’t expected Gus to know that.

“How’s Grundleshanks?”

Grundleshanks?

I projected the image of a puppy to her.

“He ran away.”

“Really?” Gus gave me a look. “He must have been faster than he looked.”

Before I could stop it, an image of the real Grundleshanks, wearing a tiny race horse saddle, flashed in my mind.

I felt Lisette relax.
That disgusting thing? He’s in the temple room, preparing to be sacrificed. We have need of a toad bone.

“He’s a toad. He belongs outside. Not cooped up in some tank. He’s around here, somewhere,” she said, gesturing at the garden.

“Well, that’s a pity. He had potential. So… I came all the way from Jersey just to see you. Think you could offer me a lemonade or something. I’m still on the wagon, y’know.”

I focused on a field of daisies. I didn’t want to register shock at anything Gus said. He was feeling Lisette out and I didn’t want her passing his tests because of my random thoughts.

She shrugged. “Sure, but you can’t stay long. I have a date.”

As they walked into the kitchen, Gus threw Lisette into a chair and handcuffed her hands behind her back. It all happened so fast, there was no time for her to react.

“What are you doing, Gus? This is nuts. Let me go.”

“No way in hell. I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re not Mara.”

I felt a choir start singing in my heart. I loved Gus. I could hear him thumping around the kitchen, doing something, but Lisette refused to turn her head and show me. She stared straight ahead, fit to be tied. If she could have popped out of my skin and throttled him, she would have.

“That’s ridiculous. Of course I’m Mara. Look at me. Ask me anything. Go ahead.”

Don’t screw with me,
Lisette flashed a warning at me,
or I’ll send your spirit into eternal torment.

“Where in Jersey am I from?”

Hoboken
, I thought at her.

“Hoboken.”

“Yeah, good guess. I’ve never been to Jersey in my life.” He dropped the phony accent and set a small, brass vessel on the ground in front of Lisette. Then he drew a sigil at her feet. “Mara would know that.”

“I’m going to destroy both of you.” Lisette hissed, all pretense gone.

Gus took a vial of dark grey powder out of his pocket. “Then it’s a good thing I came prepared. I’m getting you out of the body, one way or another. Even if I have to kill it.”

“What?! Wait! No!!!!”
I screamed. Had this been Aunt Tillie’s plan all along? Was she finally going to have her revenge?

“I call upon the dread Queen of Fate and all her minions to free me from your grasp!” Lisette intoned into the heavens.

Electricity coursed through my body and the handcuffs popped open.

Gus uncorked the vial and threw the powder in my face, just as Lisette was inhaling, before she could get the rest of her incantation out.

The powder seized my lungs and I fought to keep breathing. I couldn’t move my hands, my feet, nothing. It was like I was trying to communicate with my limbs through concrete.

Cold…

Cold…  

I was so cold…

I could hear my heartbeat slowing down.

Thump…

Thuuump…

Thuuuuump…

The blood in my arteries slowed their movement.

Swiiiiiiissshhhh…

swiiiii… shhh…

swiiiiiii…

Gus drew a circle around me.

“By the Devil and the Dame of Old, I Banish You.”

His words were distant and muffled. Like I was underwater, trying to hear someone yelling at me a block away.

I could feel Lisette seething, furious, looking for any way she could destroy Gus.

But my body was a useless, broken suitcase.

I remembered the cards I pulled.
Death, destruction and sorrow
. Was it only a few months ago? It felt like a lifetime.

I remembered the first time I met Gus. It was at a Halloween party. He was the only one there wearing his normal clothes and yet, he fit right in with all the costumed party-goers.

I always thought I’d spend the rest of my life with him. Even if it was platonically. I just never expected it to be because he was the one who would end my life.

He drew a sigil to my right. “By Robin Goodfellow and the Whore of Babylon, I banish you.”

He drew a sigil to my left. “By Lucifer and the Fallen Angels, I banish you.”

My body thrashed forward and back, in slo-mo, like a human Barbie. I have no idea how. The impulse for movement didn’t generate from me.

I focused on breathing. But I was barely able to get any air into my lungs.

How long had it been since my last breath?

Muffled screams and moans of pain squeaked out of my mouth. I didn’t think it was from me though. It must be Lisette.

He drew a sigil behind me. “By the Queen of Fate and the Hags of the Eight Winds, I banish you.”

She squeezed out what air I had in my lungs, in an attempt to use my voicebox, to counter what Gus was doing.

I needed to take another breath.

I struggled to remember how to breathe.

Open mouth, inflate lungs…

Something between open and inflate wasn’t working…

He walked around in front of me and took a second vial of powder out of his pocket. “Begone, Witch. Return to hell and leave this girl be.”

And he blew a handful of powder in my face.

My body went into spasms and an unearthly screaming echoed through the room — as if Hell itself was protesting.

It couldn’t be coming from me. I didn’t know where it was coming from. I just wanted it to stop.

My vision went black and my heart stopped with a thud.

And then Lisette was gone.

I felt a lightness as I rose up, out of my useless body. I was still in the kitchen, watching Gus hovering over my body.

I looked around to see if Aunt Tillie or if my mom or dad were going to come for me. Isn’t that how it goes? Family members show up at your death and escort you to a tunnel of light?

But there was no one.

No one.

Was this what the afterlife was going to be for me? Trapped in the cottage for eternity? Where was everyone?

I looked down at my broken body. The pendant I was wearing glowed with an ethereal light, like a lit ember between my breasts.

Gus ripped the rose necklace from around my neck, breaking the clasp. He dropped it in the brass vessel and slammed the lid shut.

Then everything went dark.

Chapter Forty-Six

When I came to, I was on the couch, wearing an oxygen mask and my arm was sore as hell.

I inhaled deeply, drawing the oxygen deep into my lungs.

Wait. I inhaled. Deeply. When had that started? Last thing I remembered, I was dead.

“She’s coming round.”

Was that Aunt Tillie’s voice? I opened my eyes and pushed off the mask.

“What happened?” I croaked.

“Oh, thank the Gods. You’re alive.” Gus said, kneeling next to me. “I was about to call an ambulance.”