Southern Gothic (17 page)

Before he could stop himself, Max said, “How do you know about Geraldo?”

“I’m dead. I’m not completely out of touch.”

“Who’s Geraldo?” Cecily’s lost expression clamped Max’s mouth.

“Nobody. Forget it. Just a reminder that we’ve been promised riches before, and look at us now. So, thank you for the dinner, but we’ll not be working with you.”

Cecily’s fingers curled into fists. “In addition to the gold, I will add a daily stipend to ease your financial troubles until the case is over. How about one hundred dollars a day?”

Waving his hands frantically, Drummond said, “No! Don’t do it!”

But Max and Sandra nodded. “You got a deal,” Max said.

“Damn. What good is having a ghost around, if you won’t listen to me? I’m going to wait in the car. You two can ruin your lives for a few dollars without me.”

As Drummond left the room, Cecily brought out her credit card and tapped it on the table. A waiter whisked in and took the card.

“I recommend that you get started right away. While I’m hopeful that you will be as good as you claim in getting the chest of gold, I know Tucker is quite determined. Understand that if he gets control of the chest first, his wrath, the fierce power he has contained for now, will be unleashed. He won’t play around with asset freezes. He’ll abduct you both, torture you for years, then kill you and have his witch curse your remains. So get to work.”

“No need for the threats. The gold is enough to get us working.”

“Maybe, but you see, what happens to you is nothing compared to what he will do to me.”

Max stood and put out his hand. “I understand. Don’t worry. We’ll find that gold.”

Cecily’s mouth turned upward with a Cheshire grin. “Welcome back to the family.”

Chapter 18

Drummond refused to speak.
However, he also refused to leave. Max and Sandra wanted to celebrate having cash in their pockets and the promise of a fortune in gold, but Drummond hovered in the back of the trailer glowering at them.

Finally, Sandra faced Drummond with a knife sharp glare. “We’re not idiots. We know better than most what the Hulls are capable of. But for this one case, we can use them against themselves. Worst outcome is that we get the
per diem
for a week or so and then we’re back to where we started.”

“Are you crazy?” Drummond blurted. “Did you not listen to her? To what would happen if Tucker gets that gold? He’ll raze you to the ground.”

“All the more reason for us to accept Cecily’s help. You don’t really think Tucker would back off simply if we turned Cecily down? You know better.”

Drummond crossed his arms and looked away. His sourness undercut their party but not enough to stop them. Max cracked open a ten-dollar bottle of champagne, and they drank every last drop before kicking Drummond out of their trailer so they could be alone.

When morning arrived, Drummond returned. “Tell me what I can do.” Max noted the lack of enthusiasm in the ghost’s voice, but at least he wanted to help.

“I’ve got something perfect for you,” Max said. “Go find that witch from the fights. See if you can piss her off enough that she might let something slip. Sound fun?”

Drummond fought back at a smile. “I’m sure Leed would prefer more research, but we’ll manage.”

To Sandra, Max said, “Look into this photo for Trollinger Bridge. And this other one marked NGFS — can you find out where that field is and what NGFS even means?”

“I’m on it,” she said and snatched the photos.

“Good. I’m going back to Baxter House, see what we may have missed.”

They all split off to their different tasks. As Max drove up toward the city, his fingers tapped the wheel with an involuntary shiver. After much thought the previous night, he had come to the conclusion that the creature he had been seeing came from having touched the circle at Baxter House. More importantly, he thought the creature must be an image sent from Cal Baxter.

The house had belonged to Cal and had been built in secret to Cal’s specifications — which included the secret room. Drummond had been unable to locate Cal in the Other which suggested that Cal might still be in the house. These visions that kept coming to Max could very well be a message from Cal — and Max wanted to get a better connection.

He worried about what Sandra would say. In fact, he knew she would be furious when she found out — especially when she realized that he had sent her off looking into that bridge and NGFS not only because they needed the information, but mostly so that she wouldn’t be around to stop his plan. He hated keeping her in the dark, but at least he hadn’t lied. He simply omitted his full intentions.

When he reached Baxter House, he parked a block away again. The last thing he wanted was another pesky neighbor calling the police and alerting Detective Rolson. He walked around to the back of the house and went straight for the door Drummond had unlocked. Slipping inside with ease, he had to hand it to his old pal — that ghost knew a lot of useful tricks.

He moved fast, planning on barreling into the secret room and get to work, but when he entered the study, his legs stopped moving. He stood in front of the desk, facing the open wall, seeing the room beyond with its dark candle, cold walls, false doors, and painted circle. One thought repeated in his mind —
be careful
.

The last time he stood here, Rolson had attempted to arrest him. But all that time, Rolson never noticed the gaping hole in the wall or the secret room. How could he not see it? Could the room be protecting itself somehow?

Another thought entered Max’s head — why hadn’t Hull’s people ripped this house to pieces? They owned the place. For the last bunch of days, they’ve been stuck because of the police, but before Sebastian’s murder, they had free run of the place. With access to their personal witch, they could have easily found the secret room. Best Max could figure — either the Hulls had searched the house and determined the gold was not on the premises or the House employed some type of magic that prevented the Hulls from finding anything. There was clearly a ward preventing Drummond from entering the room, why not others?

It always came back to magic.

And that was why he came back, too.

“Make up your mind, Max,” he said. “Either go in or get out.” He had to assume that Rolson would find out he had broken in again, and that this time, he would be arrested without fail. Time was ticking away.

Max pulled out his phone and texted Sandra:
Hey, Hon. Find anything?

A few seconds later, his phone chimed.
Nothing yet. Only just started. You?

He typed back:
Nothing yet.
But that made the decision easy. They needed the case to move forward. Max puffed up his chest, and though his bowels gurgled, he entered the room with the painted circle.

Though the room had not changed from his previous visit, everything about it seemed different. The black candle looked darker. The walls looked colder. The paint looked thicker. Even the barren furnishings looked more barren.

Perhaps the change had resulted from his own anxiety, but Max doubted it. Magic behaved strangely, and he had become accustomed to its unpredictable nature — well, he had learned to live with it, even if accepting it proved more difficult. Mostly, though, Max knew that he didn’t know enough. If given the choice, he would rather deal with ghosts. That, at least, made sense.

“Great,” Max muttered to the empty room. “Now I’m thinking ghosts make sense.”

He walked around the circle, looking for any hint of what he should do. He had seen several magic circles before — mostly drawn by people trying to kill him — but the symbols had never been consistent. He guessed that the different combination of symbols produced different results. The symbols at his feet meant nothing to him, though. The majority, he had never seen.

“Cal?” His voice sounded hollow against the stone walls. He looked at the stern portrait on the wall and waved. “Cal Baxter. My name is Max Porter. I’m the one you keep trying to contact. I’m here in your house. Tell me how I can help.”

Silence.

Max squatted next to the circle. He considered touching the paint again, even dangled his fingers over it, but pulled back.
I just don’t know enough about magic
. Following a hunch when researching worked fine, but doing so outside of books, in the practical world, often led to undesirable consequences — death being chief among them.

He pulled out his phone and brought up Sandra’s number. She would know the answer. “Or she’d yell at me, tell me to get out of here, and nothing would be accomplished but the start of an ugly fight.” Except he had nobody else to call.

Call?
He looked at his phone. He didn’t have to call anybody. Instead, he did a quick search for websites dealing with magic — the real thing. Tapping from one site to the next, he rushed through them until he recognized one of the sites Sandra had used before.

Reading for a few minutes, he found a lot of basic information he already knew. Then he saw the links for Spells, Curses, and Circles. Circles led him to a long scrollable page filled with symbol after symbol after symbol.

He didn’t see how the images had been organized, and part of him thought they hadn’t been organized at all, but at the bottom of the page, he found another link that led to an explanation of how the symbols could be used. Basically, one constructed a sentence around the circle. The key symbols had to be at the key compass positions while the less important symbols filled in the gaps. Materials used in making the circle were important, and what the spellcaster said while standing over the circle was equally important.

“That’s it?” Max closed his phone in frustration. He knew that somewhere on the Internet, maybe even on that specific site, he would find a more detailed and useful explanation, but he lacked the time for such research.

He stared at the circle. It seemed to shimmer — as if it had become a warm pool inviting him in for a dip. Maybe it would work. If he stood in the center and called out for Cal, maybe they would connect. Merely touching the circle had started this; perhaps jumping in fully would complete it.

Max.

That had not been his own thought, yet it echoed in his head. It had a complex voice as if more than one person spoke. A gentle, feminine voice coupled with a harsh, graveled masculine voice.

Come to me.

“Cal?”

Reach down.

Max looked at his feet. Though he had no recollection of moving, he now stood in the center of the circle. His head lolled and he rocked as if he had been drinking for hours. Part of him screamed to get out of the circle, but that scream grew quieter every second until he heard nothing but a steady hum.

He bent down, his hands swaying over the circle like a bad orchestra conductor, and he squinted against the bright shimmering. It never stopped. Back and forth the light played on his eyes, and his body flowed with the rhythm.

Reach down.

The multi-voice spoke over the steady hum and it made sense. He should reach down. He should touch the circle.

So, he did.

With a painful jolt like a kick to the head, Max’s brain ignited with images. He saw the horned-beast hovering a few feet away. As the voice had been more than one voice, the image of the beast comprised other images, too.

He saw a scrawny character, hunched over with a weasel smile, and at the same time, he saw an overweight fellow, full of pride at his wealth. He saw an anklet of a gold cross and a leather bomber jacket. A fuzzy image, out of focus, hung in the back of his sight — a red and black checkered pattern. Separate, these images meant nothing, but together they formed the horned-beast. Yet Max could only see the pieces by turning his head one direction or the other. If he looked straight on, he only saw the intimidating visage of the horned-beast — large, hairy, angry.

Another jolt struck him simultaneously in the head and the gut. Max doubled over, gripping his stomach. He strained for air that didn’t burn while hearing a long wheeze from his lungs.

He looked up. The horned-beast had vanished. For a second, Max’s head cleared. He put a foot firmly in front, ready to launch out of the circle. He knew he was in trouble. But he could do that. He could get clear of the circle. All he had to do was push off —

Images flashed rapidly in his head — each one a bolt of lightning, bright and painful. Gold. Stacks of gold bars. Trains rolling. A man in the tropics scribbling over a piece of paper. A woman carving a circle into the ground — a witch. A battlefield of the Civil War — blue and gray racing toward each other, shouting, firing weapons. Gold, again. The horned-beast.

Max clutched his aching skull. “I don’t know what you want!” He yelled to hear his own voice above the unrelenting hum.

You!

The word vibrated in his bones. He fell to his knees, and his body arched backward. Locked in a steady stream of cramped muscles and fiery jolts, he found it impossible to focus on any one thought.