What's a Witch to Do?: A Midnight Magic Mystery (29 page)

I expect surprise but no emotion surfaces. “So he finally told you, huh? Damn, I owe Debbie twenty bucks. I bet he’d tell you right before he left.”

“What?”
I ask, eyes bugging out of my head.

She laughs. “Come on. I had my suspicions from the start. We all did. I mean, why would a guy risk his life otherwise? And the way he looked at you.
Damn
. I’d give my right arm for a man to look at me like that again. Debbie and I got the truth out of him right after you left for the auction. We even convinced him to go, bid you away from that doctor, and confess his love right there. Did he tell you then, I mean before he died and all?”

“He told me last night.”

“A whole day after you slept with him? Well, what’d you say?”

“I … what could I say?”

“Uh, how about, ‘I love you too’? It’s tried and true for a reason.”

“But I don’t … know if I do,” I say weakly.

“Oh bull-fucking-shit girl. It’s written all over your face, has been for days. You light up! It’s adorable. Even Clay noticed for God’s sake.” She pauses. “He’s a good man, Mona. He may not be a doctor, and he may turn furry once a month, but he loves you. Hell, I think he even loves those troublemakers of yours. He already proved he’d die for you. What more do you want?”

Oh fuck. No.
No.
Yes,
that voice says inside my head. Oh shit. She’s right. She is so right. It’s been staring me in the damn face for days, but I just wouldn’t open my eyes. I love him. I’ve fallen in love with him. Hell’s bells. I should be happy, right? That’s the appropriate response. Then why am I petrified?

“I have to get back to work,” I say, stepping away.

“Mona, we are not done talking about this,” she says, following me.

“Oh yes we are. I’m busy.”

She takes my arm and swings me around. “You cannot bury your head in the sand this time. You can’t. If you do, I guarantee you will live to regret it. This is a gift you’ve been given. True love is pretty fucking rare, don’t throw it away cause you’re scared. Sometimes things do work out the way we want them to. Real stories can have a happy ending. You just gotta have faith.”

Faith. The word turns my stomach.

“I have to get back to work,” I whisper. I rub her arm. “Thank you.” This time she doesn’t follow me.

Tamara’s right about one thing: real stories can have happy endings. I just have no faith that mine is one of them. Faith. I used to be capable of it. Faith that Daddy would always be there. That Granny would pull through. That the universe would balance good and evil. Something can only let you down so much before you shun it, even hate it a little. Faith broke my heart and now it’s knocking on my door, begging to be let in again. I just don’t think I can turn that knob. Not for him. Not for anything. I just don’t think I have it in me.

So that’s that. The end.

• Emergency call
  

After the stage is dressed, I move onto stocking the game booths with fluffy bunnies and toy guns. Before I know it, it’s one thirty and I’m starving. Time for a meal break. I start walking up the street when my cell buzzes. “Hello?”

“Mona, it’s Collins. I need to talk to you,” she says, sounding scared.

“What is it?”

“Cheyenne. I—I can’t believe it.”

“What happened?”

“Those agents came and interviewed Meemaw. She called me all upset, so I came over and … I need to show you something.”

“You’re at Maxine’s?” I ask, speed walking toward the shop.

“Yeah. Get here soon. Meemaw called Cheyenne, and she’s on her way too. I have to go.” She hangs up.

“Crap.” I take off in a run to the shop. Alice is behind the counter helping a customer and Billie is replacing our stock on the new shelves when I rush in. “Adam?” I call.

“He’s not here,” Billie says. “He took off a few minutes after you.”

“Shit. Did he take my car?”

“No. An SUV picked him up.”

“Great.” I run into the back, getting an athame and protection amulet before sprinting out of the shop toward the parking lot. When I get there, I peel out of the lot and down Courtland as I pull out my cell and call George, rattling out the facts and Maxine’s address before hanging up. Adam’s next. He deserves to be there for the take down.

“Hello?” he asks, with another man’s voice in the background.

“It’s Mona. Collins found something. I’m on my way to Maxine’s now.”

“I’m with the squad,” he says through the pants. He’s running. “We just heard. Wait for us to get there before you go in, okay?”

“How far are you?”

“Most of us are at the barn. Others might get there sooner. Just wait, okay? Please?”

“I’ll try. Just get there.”

I’m about to hang up but he says, “I love you.”

“I lo—” I stop myself. “Bye.” I hang up.

A minute later, I pull into Maxine’s driveway, the only free space for blocks, and cut off the engine. There’s no sign of Cheyenne. I beat her here. I guess now I wait. They better—

The front door is tossed open, and Maxine barrels out, scowling as usual. “You get the hell off my property, Mona McGregor!”

So much for waiting. I climb out of the car, all smiles. “Hello, Maxine.”

The scowl grows. “Troublemaker! Liar! Get out of here!”

Collins steps out. “I called her, Meemaw.”

“Collie, how dare you invite this viper here! You know what she’s been saying!”

“With reason,” Collins says. “Come in.” I don’t think I have a choice now. I walk up the driveway, past Maxine’s death stare, into the house. It reeks of cigarette smoke and cat pee with shabby furniture scattered around. This must be where Cheyenne learned to decorate.

“Collins, what is going on?” Maxine asks.

Collins leads me into a small bedroom with only bunk beds and a small TV on a rickety stand. She immediately moves to the closet, bending down inside. “Cheyenne used to keep stuff Meemaw wouldn’t like in here. Drugs, booze, you know.” She pulls up a floorboard and extracts an athame, books, charm bags, potions, and a small notebook with red splotches on it. Blood. “I found this.”

The books are worn, one on black magic, another on necromancy, and the last about demons with a page marked. Lilith’s page. It gives her biography, powers, and there’s even a picture of her in her true form with six breasts, fangs, and twisted body. Dang. The notebook is what really draws my attention. There are some pretty serious spells in here. Love potions, memory erase charms, hexes, spells to paralyze, raise the dead, kill, and raise a demon. “I leafed through it,” Collins says. “I can’t believe she would do this.”

“Meemaw?” the wicked witch of Goodnight says in the front room before the door shuts. “Are you okay?” Crap. Adam, get your ass here
now.
I follow Maxine into the living room where Cheyenne stands. I take one step out of the door and our eyes lock, stopping me dead. “You bitch. Get out of here!”

I’m the bitch? My blood boils, and I have to fight the urge to leap across the room and slug her. “We found your secret stash.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she asks.

“The notebook. The demonology book. I know you summoned Lilith.”

“What?”
she shrieks. “Notebook? What … ? Meemaw?”

“My granddaughter would not do that,” Maxine shouts. “You get out of my house!”

“Stop covering for her, Meemaw,” Collins says behind me. I turn. She’s almost next to me, leaning in the doorway. “You know she’s a bad seed. Always was.”

“Fuck you, Collins,” Cheyenne spits. “You’re just a jealous bitch.” She glares at me. “Both of you. What, because your cousin would rather screw me than put his dick in your cobwebbed vag, you’re framing me? Why the fuck would I summon a demon?”

“Because you want me dead, and you’re too much of a coward to do it face to face. First you got Alejandro to do your dirty work, and when that failed, you brought in a demon!”

“My Cheyenne didn’t do any of that,” Maxine shouts. “You’re crazy. Why would she?”

“Because she’s tired of being the town whore,” Collins says. “High Priestess has a better sound to it.”

Cheyenne’s eyes narrow. “What?” Her eyes dart behind me. “I don’t—”

“Stop lying,” Collins cuts in. “No one’s buying your bullshit anymore. Goddess, are you so fucking dumb you don’t get that?”

“Will you shut the fuck up!”

“It’s over,” Collins shouts. “Like everything else in your life, you’ve failed!”

“Shut up.”

“Collins,” I warn.

There’s no stopping her. “You’re not going to lie or fuck your way out of this one! You’re going to prison for the rest of your miserable life!”

“What? No!” Cheyenne shrieks.

“They’re gonna come here with guns … ”

“No,” Cheyenne whimpers.

“Slap those cuffs on you … ”

“No … ”

“That’s if they don’t shoot your dumb ass on sight!”

“No!”

It’s so tense in here the thump on the front door makes all four of us jolt and scream. Collins leaps behind me, pressing against my back and clutching onto my shirt for protection. I momentarily close my eyes, and when I open them across the room I see Cheyenne’s hand raising out of her purse with something shiny. My instincts know what it is before my brain catches on because all my muscles clench. Oh hell. The small revolver points at me first, then Collins, then back to me as its owner breathes heavily, eyes bugging out of her head. “Nobody fucking move!”

“Cheyenne!” Maxine shouts.

“Don’t move, Meemaw. I’m sorry,” she says through the pants.

“Cheyenne, put the gun down,” I say calmly. Collins clutches even harder.

“Shut up!”

“Cheyenne, the police were following you and agents are on their way. If they see you pointing that gun at us, they will shoot you on sight! Do you hear me?”

Her hands shake violently. “No, no,” she whimpers.

“Right now all you are guilty of is attempted murder. If you kill one of us, that’s murder. You will never get out. Is that what you want? Put the gun down.”

“Put it down, doll,” Maxine says. “She’s right. Put it down.”

With a whimper, Cheyenne’s tear-filled eyes move to her grandmother’s. She’s still that scared, angry little girl I used to try to play dolls with twenty years ago. I think she might listen. She lowers the gun halfway, but then that pitiful gaze moves back to me and the fear morphs into anger as if a switch was flicked. “Stop looking at me like that.”

I avert my eyes. “Sorry.”

She’s quiet for a second. “You … ” she whispers,
“you
did this!” she shouts. “You bitch! I fucking hate you!”

“Cheyenne … ” Collins says behind me.

“Fuck you!”

It’s true: the world slows to a crawl when you’re about to die. My cousin raises the gun again, and I can see the dust particles in the air shift in her wake like flakes of silver in the light. My brain works in overdrive trying to figure out a solution in the second before death. Rushing her, trying to grab the gun, just running are all discounted because of the distance. She’s too close. I’m done. That’s it. I’m going to die.

My eyes close, and my life flashes by like I was flipping through a picture book. Mommy pushing me and Ivy on swings. Us all dancing in our old living room, with Daddy dipping Mommy and kissing her nose. Mommy’s coffin lowering into the ground as I held baby Debbie. The last time I saw Daddy as he waved goodbye from the driveway. The first time I saw Adam as he was walking inside a party with Jason, that bright smile turning to shock when he laid eyes on me. Granny and Papa doing dishes together side-by-side. Cuddling with Debbie after Papa’s funeral. Opening the front door and finding Ivy and the girls on my porch, all haunted by whatever they had just escaped. The first time Sophie hugged me after months of shrinking away from my touch. Adam gazing up at me the night of the auction as if I was the only woman in the universe. I stop there. That’s the moment. That’s the moment I fell in love with him. When he made me believe I was beautiful. It’s the image I want to take with me. One brimming with love.

Okay. I’m ready.

“Excessum!”

My eyes fly open just in time to see Cheyenne’s eyes roll back into their sockets and her body crumple to the carpet, the gun dropping beside her. What the … ? My head whips to my left where Collins’s arm is still outstretched over my shoulder with her finger pointed right where her sister was. A curse. She cursed her. She’s dead.

A bloodcurdling scream fills the room as Maxine falls to her knees beside her granddaughter, touching her dead skin. I spin around. A trembling Collins is staring at her sister in disbelief. “I had to,” she whispers. “I had to. It was the only one I remembered from the notebook.”

I take her in my arms, hugging her tight. She doesn’t respond. “It’s okay. It’ll all be okay.” I lead Collins past the sobbing Maxine and out the front door. Away from the crime scene. We make it all the way to the sidewalk when the police car down the street starts its engine and guns toward us. The Gardenia Sheriff’s Department will not be getting a donation from me this year, that is for damn sure. Two dark SUVs also round the corner, reaching us a few seconds after the police get out of their cruiser. “She’s in shock,” I tell the police as I help Collins sit on the curb.

“Mona?” Adam shouts. He bounds out of the barely stopped SUV and starts running toward me. I leap up and do the same, all but crashing into his open arms. I close my eyes and savor this. His wonderful smell, his beating heart, those arms that hold me tight enough to believe as long as they’re around me nothing bad can touch me. That I am loved. “Baby, are you okay? What happened?” he asks desperately.

“Cheyenne’s dead. She was going to shoot me, but Collins stopped her.”

“What?”

“Just hold me, okay? Don’t let me go.”

He showers kisses all over my face. “Never.
Never.”

I believe him.

• Go home