Giving Him Hell: A Saturn's Daughter Novel (Saturn's Daughters Book 3) (15 page)

But United States senators did not attend exorcisms involving chicken guts and witches.

An engine with a missing piston rattled up the drive. I returned to the door to watch an ancient VW beetle gasp a dying breath as it pulled up behind Andre’s Mercedes. A short, stout woman wearing a ragbag of shawls, ponchos, long skirts, and—I swear—an apron, wiggled out from behind the wheel and emerged examining her bag of tricks. She didn’t once look at the imposing mansion or me in the doorway.

The professor had been creating a perimeter in the center of the rotunda by scattering fairy dust from one of the many packages hanging around his neck. He stopped to look over my shoulder and snort in disgust. “Not Hagatha. The woman has beans for brains.”

“You really need to develop a better dialect and use fewer clichés,” I said idly, watching the witch check under the hood, presumably for bat’s ears and toad spittle. She added more vials to her apron and bag.

“Eh, mon, dat loco is no mambo,
bwahaha
.” His cackle lacked style.

It was like dealing with competitive six-year-olds—or Andre and Dane in the same room.

While the professor returned to muttering chants under his breath and poisoning any silverfish in the walls, I jogged down the stairs to help the witch carry her heavy load.

“Hi, I’m Tina Clancy. Welcome to Mad Mansion.” I slipped the striped cloth bag over my shoulder and accepted two canning jars of pickled pigs’ feet or worse that she shoved at me.

“Evil,” she muttered. “The house radiates evil. We’ll need . . .” She rummaged in the crowded baggage space and produced a dusty plastic carton. “Still not safe. I’ll need to get busy.”

Okay, without introductions, I’d call her Hagatha, too. I climbed the stairs behind her in case she toppled backward under the weight of the boxes she carried.

Andre arrived to relieve her of the burden, but she wouldn’t release the boxes. On level ground now, she bent forward, and propelled by the weight, trundled onward to drop the stack on one of the chairs.

“Whew.” She wiped her brow with the back of her sleeve, checked her stash for stability, and then finally, turned to look around her. “Agatha Wimple,” she said, nodding at us and then glancing up at the three-story ceiling. “Bad, bad vibes.”

Agatha Wimple and Pierre Nganga, I got it now. They were stage names. Don’t tell the spirits your real name and all that. I ought to come up with a superhero name of my own. Terrible Tina sounded right.

As our witch and voodoo doctor painted their spells on the terrazzo floor, pointedly ignoring each other, I leaned against the wall beside Andre. “Why do I get the feeling that this is just a Vegas magic show?”

“I’m trying to remember why I’m here at all.” He scanned the next balcony up, but I’d already done that. It was impossible to see over the railings into unlit corridors.

“You brought the guests,” I reminded him. “It’s only fair that you stay for the show. There’s food and drink in the kitchen. I’ve already checked for bats.”

He eyed the balcony where we both knew Max/Dane lurked, looked down at me with a smoldering glare that lit my tinder, then, choosing the wiser path, walked away.

Andre had actually helped bring Max’s soul back to Dane’s body, even if he didn’t fully realize what he’d done. But no matter how he felt about that, he didn’t get to kill a senator just for existing. And defying Max by putting the moves on me would send our good senator straight over that railing. I knew they admired my brains, but I had self-esteem issues with my looks, so I didn’t think that out of vanity. For all they cared, I could be an ox with a ring in my nose. They were both just competitive asses.

I didn’t hear our next guest’s car arrive. He politely knocked on the open door, and I had to hurry over to greet him.

I’d left the door open so the winter air could disguise some of the rancid odor emanating from the weird potions now decorating the entry. With the gas heat off, the inside was just as cold as outside. I still wore my coat and scarf. The priest was wearing a long overcoat and homburg. He didn’t take them off as he surveyed the increasingly weird setting.

The professor shook his maraca around the unplugged Christmas tree and hung hoodoo dolls from the branches. Hagatha had drawn an enormous pentagram in chalk on the terrazzo, with the tree in its center. She was currently anointing the points of the star with the contents of one of her boxes. Another of the boxes appeared to be rattling.

I thought guiltily of frogs. Both witch and professor frowned in my direction. Bad, bad mojo if they could hear my thoughts. Or pick up my vibrations.

“Unusual,” the priest acknowledged, removing his wire-rimmed spectacles and polishing them. “Am I here to exorcise evil or insanity?”

“Excellent question and one I can’t answer. I’m Tina Clancy.” This time, I held out my hand and the priest accepted it. He’d removed his gloves and his hands were warm.

“Father Ryan Morrison, good to meet you, Miss Clancy. Is Senator Vanderventer here?” He stuffed his fur-lined leather gloves inside his coat pockets and studied the balconies with curiosity.

“He doesn’t approve of witchcraft,” I said solemnly. Heck, I was a lawyer, one step removed from a politician. I knew the drill. “But the servants believe the late Mrs. Vanderventer’s spirit walks uneasily after her tragic death, and the senator wishes to reassure them.”

“I see.” As the others had, he studied me with interest.

I was getting a creepy feeling about the way these weirdness experts kept looking at me.

“Well, I’d like to believe I’m as broad-minded as the next person. I don’t suppose it hurts to have assistance in summoning lost souls.” Father Morrison produced a small Bible and a vial of what I assumed was holy water from his inside pocket.

I hesitated, but I couldn’t send this mild priest into the fray without warning. “Umm, the servants believe the spirit that lingers is . . . demonic.”

He raised his eyebrows to a fine point. “Ah good, then you understand what we face. In her last years, Gloria Vanderventer was possessed by evil incarnate,” he said.

Sixteen

I
sooo
didn’t want to hear about demonic possession from a religious authority. I was just getting used to sort of believing in a maybe scientific hellish dimension. I knew Gloria had warped into something ugly at the time of her death, and so had the bats in her cellar. I just didn’t want a perfectly normal person, a priest yet, verifying that the cause was anything other than chemical pollution.

“You understand that I’m a lawyer, and I really don’t believe any of this?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible.

Father Morrison shrugged, set his Bible and vial on a chair, and removed his coat. “You don’t have to believe. After you’ve been in this business as long as I have, demons are still hard to credit. I would like to blame mass hallucination. But those of us cursed with the ability to communicate with the Other World have no choice but to believe.”

Oh crap. Did that make me some kind of hoodoo woodoo priestess? I had certainly communicated with Max when he’d been Down Under.

“You could see Gloria’s demons?” I asked dubiously.

“Not visually, but spiritually,” the priest said without blinking an eyelash. “Her soul was polluted. It may exist now in limbo and that is the reason for the haunting reports.”

Limbo! A whole new theory to deal with, shudder.

When in denial— “Would you like anything to eat or drink before we begin?”

“Not a good idea,” the priest admonished, just as Andre reappeared bearing a platter of sandwiches and a bottle of Max’s beer. “Save it for later.”

“The gang’s all here,” I called cheerfully to the room at large. “Shall I plug in the Christmas tree?”

All three of our guests sent me identical frowns of disapproval. Okay, I’m Saturn’s Daughter. I get to have my own pagan rituals.

Andre took the tray into the fire-damaged dining room and helped himself to a sandwich. Apparently, when in doubt, Andre eats. Not so very long ago, he’d wig out under emotional strain, so food was an improvement. With everyone paused and waiting, he shrugged, and set down his sub. Crossing the wide foyer, he plugged in the tree.

It glowed red.

Happy Zone to you, too, Gloria.

Andre shoved me back against a wall and stood protectively in front of me as the tree buzzed, crackled, and grew brighter. I drilled my thumbs into his kidneys, but he wouldn’t budge. Feeling kind of safe behind his muscle, I satisfied myself with peering around him to watch the show.

The ebony scarecrow giant began to dance to the rhythm of his maracas. I kind of wanted a drum to join him. His hair bones rattled, and I thought I saw one of Cora’s snakes writhing in his necklace.

Hagatha had candles burning in each point of her pentagram. Chanting, she went about anointing the flames with herbs that sparked and smoked. She intoned incomprehensible gibberish in a rhythm that oddly mimicked Pierre’s rattles.

The priest murmured in Latin and made signs of the cross.

Outside, the snow cloud darkened what remained of the day, and sleet pelted the windows.

The tree began emanating waves of heat in the chilly foyer.

“Good floor show. Need more naked women,” Andre muttered under his breath.

I poked his kidneys again. I needed the touch of solid reality because I could
feel
the bad vibrations our resident witch doctors were raising.

I wanted out of there. If the Force started wailing and sending bat shadows, I had my exit plan ready. I checked to be certain we’d left the front door open. That was best. The staircase to the next floor was beside us, but I didn’t know if I could find outside exits up there. The kitchen door was furthest, but it led to the cellar I already associated with hell.

This damned well better work. I had no clue what an exorcism entailed. I just wanted Gloria and Dane’s evil souls gone.

Nervously, I watched the devil tree flicker and glow hotter.

The priest’s Latin phrases grew increasingly insistent and louder. Pierre started shouting, leaping, and flinging his bony arms into the air. Hagatha adopted a yoga pose on the floor with her palms turned heavenward while she spoke in garbled verse. The stench of her candles and herbs swept the room on the winter wind.

I didn’t realize I was clutching Andre’s jacket until I crushed his cell phone beneath my fingers. He had a special lining sewn into his pocket for his damned phone.

Pierre’s curses reached a crescendo. Hagatha shouted something resembling “Thou Wilt be Done!”

The priest splashed his holy water on the gleaming red tree.

All hell broke loose. Literally.

The tree burst into flame and shot upward as if rocket propelled. I swore I saw Gloria’s cackling demonic face in the fiery trail. Steam rolled out of the flames, fogging the foyer.

Andre flung me toward the front door and ran back to haul Hagatha’s dumpy form off the floor.

Max bungee-jumped—men are so damned predictable—from the railing into the back of the hall—

Just in time for the kitchen to explode through the swinging doors.

I was pretty sure I was shrieking. Andre thrust Hagatha at Pierre and ran for the senator, whose clothes had caught fire from the kitchen blast.

I couldn’t think. As flames licked their way up the wall separating us from the kitchen, I couldn’t even summon red rage and damn someone to hell. For all practical purposes, Gloria was already there. I grabbed the stunned priest and pushed and elbowed him toward the door until his feet began moving of their own volition.

Heat couldn’t melt terrazzo, but I had the awful notion that the beams and flooring beneath it could internally combust. My boots felt like they were melting as I ran to where Andre was rolling Max on the floor, using his jacket as a blanket to smother the flames.

I threw my leather jacket onto the last of the sparks. Andre looked at me then, through eyes so deep and dark, I could have sworn they reflected another dimension. Or one of his nasty predictions. “I was afraid this would happen, sorry,” he said.

And then the blast vacuumed air backward, and we were sucked into the kitchen inferno.

***

Maybe I blacked out. Maybe my brain couldn’t accept whatever took place. I just didn’t have a clear memory of what happened between the foyer and when I opened my eyes next.

It was damned dark and hot wherever I had landed. I couldn’t see a thing and wondered if I’d gone blind. I took stock of my surroundings as best as I could with muffled senses.

I wasn’t experiencing any pain. The flames that had shot through the foyer must have blasted themselves out. I didn’t appear to be on fire.

I wasn’t certain I appeared at all.

“Justy?” A hand groped my breasts and I sighed in relief that I could feel
something,
even if it seemed more memory and sensation than physical contact
.
In the dark, I could pretend this was Max and not Dane.

I scooted closer, groping his thigh. At least, I thought it was his thigh. I wasn’t entirely certain that I felt my own hand. “I’m feeling kinda insubstantial here, Max,” I whispered. “Where are we?”

“Hate to say this, babe, but it seems familiar.” He wrapped his arm around me and continued to knead my breast.

My horniness level escalated. So did my fear. Strange combination and maybe a factor of this dimension or hell or whatever was happening here. I wasn’t pushing off his hand anyway. “You went up in flames again, Max. You should be in pain.”

“Not feeling a thing but you.” He rolled my nipple until it stood at attention. “You feel good, but you’re right, a trifle insubstantial.”

“Not liking this, Max.” Well, I liked what he was doing, but coherency wasn’t happening in these circumstances. “Where’s Andre?”

“Montoya!” Max shouted into the darkness. “I owe you. You’d better be alive.”

Huh. I hadn’t known Max knew Andre’s real name.
Dane
had. They’d gone to school together. Maybe Max had gained access to some of Dane’s memory cells. I shivered despite the heat.

Andre didn’t answer.