Helens-of-Troy (44 page)

“Way ahead of you, dude,” Tom smiled.
“We’ve got the formula.”

“Spell,” Jacey corrected him, “dude,
we’ve got the spell.” She reached into her pocket and brought out
the three items that had been tucked deep inside.

Ryan eyed the goods with suspicion.
“You brought a candle, a fat-boy bottle and some dirt? That’s
supposed to get me out?”

Jacey sighed. “Who’s the knob now? What
you see before you is incense, holy water and consecrated ground.
Singularly, they’re just stuff, but together they are like dynamite
for a vampire killing spree.” She pulled her phone from her pocket.
“I’m just going to surf the web, enter those words and hit search,”
she smiled. “Then all your troubles will be over.”

Ryan looked at Tom. “You’re not
seriously buying this?”

Tom shrugged. “I don’t know if we need
a spree, exactly.”

“Here we go,” Jacey said. “A perfect
spell to set you free, courtesy of Google. Just give me a moment.”
She placed the items on the ground. “Does anyone have any
matches?”

Ryan shook his head. So much for
Jacey’s preparation. “You didn’t think of that? Like wouldn’t that
have been the easiest of the things to get?”

She ignored him and walked over to the
emergency kit hanging on the wall. Inside the cabinet, she found
what she needed. “Fire!” she said excitedly.

“What are you doing, Jacey?” Ryan asked
nervously. He didn’t want the jail to catch on fire while he was
locked inside the cell. He instinctively backed up from the
bars.

“Come closer, Ryan” Jacey said,
lighting the incense.

“I’m okay where I am, thanks,” he
replied.

“I said COME CLOSER TO THE BARS,” she
screeched. “Everybody do what I say. I’m going to stretch my arm,
with the palm down, like this,” she demonstrated. “Now Tom, I want
you to place your hand the same way, over mine without touching
it.”

“Okay,” he said, following her
directions.

“Now Ryan,” I need you to do the same
thing. Get over here and put your hand over Tom’s.”

“Jacey,” Ryan said with false patience,
“we don’t have time to play séance.”

“No séance involved, I promise,” she
said. “I had this dream. It told me to go get specific items…that’s
why Ellie and I left you and Stan alone, Tom.”

“No dreams!” Ryan yelled at her. “I’ve
had enough of other people’s dreams for like, FOREVER!”

“Just DO IT!” Jacey yelled
back.

“Okay, okay,” Ryan caved, and followed
her orders.

“Good,” she sighed with satisfaction.
“Now we do the same thing with our other hand,” she said, placing
her left hand above Ryan’s and waiting for them to follow her lead.
“Now repeat with me… attero parietis, attero parietis, attero
parietis.”

“Jacey,” Ryan sighed, “this idea is
baked.”

“I said REPEAT WITH ME,” she shrieked,
her facial features distorting grotesquely as she did
so.

“I’ve never seen this banshee side of
her before,” Ryan said to Tom. “You’re okay with this?”

“Let’s just do what she says,” Tom
said, more than a little frightened. “It’ll be easier that
way.”

“Attero parietis, attero parietis,
attero parietis,” they chanted.

Nothing happened.

Ryan looked at Tom. Tom looked at
Jacey. Jacey got nervous and her foot hit the Buddha bottle. It
tipped over, taking the incense to the floor with it. The holy
water spilled onto the ground, and the flame that should have been
extinguished, intensified.

“Holy shit,” Ryan said. “This is no
time for a miracle of water turning to oil. Jacey, what are you
doing?”

“Attero parietis, attero parietis,
attero parietis,” Jacey continued. “Keep going…”

“Jacey!” Ryan begged. “You do realize I
can’t get out of here?”

“Just a little more… attero parietis,
attero parietis, attero parietis!” she said, pushing the burning
water away from Ryan with her boot. The liquid splashed up the side
of the prison wall.

“Will you please be careful, Spacey?”
Ryan begged. He detected a smell in the air that reminded him of
spent firecrackers. “This is not going to be good,” he said
nervously, staring at the liquid that had turned from clear to a
red-hot.

The flickering flames used the liquid
like a fuse, running from the bottom of the concrete floor, through
the brick mortar, finally reaching the ceiling where they could
move upward no more. Instead they turned the corner, fanned out,
and ran across the back wall of Ryan’s cell.

“Jacey!” Tom screamed in
terror.

“Uh-oh,” Jacey said. “Attero
parietis!”

“Jacey,” Ryan pleaded, “for the love of
God, shut up!”

What happened next would leave the town
of Troy whispering for years.An explosion blew up two walls of the
Troy jail, leaving Ryan, Tom and Jacey standing debris covered, in
a pile of rubble that once was the jail.

“Holy fuck,” Ryan stammered, his mind
having a tough time understanding what had just happened. “Did you
throw a little gunpowder in that dirt?”

“What did you make us say?” Tom
asked.

“Tear down the walls,” Jacey said
softly, looking at the damage that had been done. “Are you guys
okay?” Tom had bits of concrete stuck to the gel in his
hair.

“Yeah,” Ryan nodded. “But next time
Jace, next time maybe you could try chanting ‘open the door’. Just
sayin’.” He wondered what the Chief was going to say when he saw
his non-existent jail. “Mike Webster’s next invoice is gonna be
totally insane,” he chuckled.

The sound of the explosion had woken up
half the town, and it wasn’t long before they heard the sound of
fire trucks in the distance.

“What do we do now?” Tom
asked.

“We run,” Ryan answered, making a path
through the pile of rubble that had once been his cell. “Jacey,
I’ve got to hand it to you. This may go down as the greatest Trojan
escape of all time.” He took her hand to help her maneuver through
the debris. “But if there’s a mark on the Toyota because of this,
I’ll kill you,” he said, squeezing her hand harder than he needed
to.

The three of them ran to the back of
the police station parking lot, where like Tom had said, Ryan’s
Toyota was waiting for them. The fence surrounding the impound lot
had come down in the explosion.

“We need a gun. Tom, I forgot to tell
you to get a gun. And some silver bullets,” Jacey said while
running towards the vehicle. “Do you have the keys to the hardware
store?”

“I stocked the shelves this morning and
we were all out of silver bullets,” Tom replied, taken aback by
Jacey’s request. “Couldn’t you ask for something a little easier to
get? Like sulphur?”

“She just had sulphur,” Ryan said,
trying to open the car door. It was locked. “Look what happened.
Kaboom! No sulphur.” He reached under the car’s frame for a
magnetic keyholder he had hidden beneath it.” He took the spare key
and unlocked the doors. “Get in,” he ordered.

“Well, let me Google…” Jacey offered,
jumping into the back seat as Tom took his place beside
Ryan.

“No!” the boys cried out, turning
around to look at her. “No Google!”

They tore out of the parking lot, just
as Purdy’s police car was arriving on the scene, the lights
flashing as he brought the car to a stop.

“What the hell?” the officer yelled to
them. He couldn’t believe his own eyes. The police station was a
smoldering mess.

“Purdy,” Ryan yelled back at him
through his open window. “We’re okay, but we’ve gotta go,
dude.”

Purdy shook his head in confusion. Part
of him knew he should chase after them, and part of him needed to
control the scene in front of him. “Fuck it,” he said. “I saw
nothing.”

Tom noticed Jacey reaching into her
pocket. “What are you doing, Jacey?” he asked nervously.

“I’m going to try to call Ellie,” she
said, reaching for her phone.

“Tom,” Ryan said sheepishly, “do you
have any gas money?”

“She’s not answering,” Jacey said,
reaching back into her pocket and pulling out a platinum credit
card. “I have this for emergencies,” she offered. “I’m thinking
this counts.”

“Jacey,” Ryan began, “when this is all
over I’m going to give you a big fat kiss.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Helena took a key from her pocket and
opened the door to her office. She had slipped away from Helen and
Stan under the auspices that she had left the cottage door
unlocked.

“Sure, that door you lock,” Helen had
noted. But she remembered her mother had not used a key to secure
it when they had left. “Maybe you’d better check to make sure. Just
hurry back. This house is giving me the creeps.”

Helena knew damn well that the door had
automatically locked behind them when they took Stan back home. She
had thousands of dollars of non-prescription medicine locked away
in her cupboards, so there was no way in hell she was going to
leave it open. That would be irresponsible and she could lose her
naturopath license as a result. No, there was something she needed
to do alone, and she knew that her alone time was all but
gone.

She opened the door, stepped inside and
took a deep breath. She had always tried to keep negative energy
out of her office, but she knew that this time she might not be
able to help it. It would need a good smudging of sweet grass and a
prayer to the spirits of the earth before she could ever bring a
patient back into the room. That was the least of her worries at
the moment.

Slowly, she began to rock her body back
and forth. At first there was no rhyme or reason to the tempo, but
after a few moments, a steady rhythm began to take over. She
started to hum a melody, Beethoven’s ninth symphony, more commonly
recognized as Ode to Joy. It was a particular favorite of hers. She
took a deep breath and tried to whistle the tune, but she had never
been very good at whistling, even though the tune needed neither
sharps nor flats. She took a tissue from her desk and wiped away
the spittle that involuntarily appeared upon her lips as she
impatiently tried to get to the end of the song.

“Oh, to hell with it,” she cried out
loud. “Willie, get your ass on in here. I’m going to count to
three. One…two…”

The Shadowman instantly appeared before
her.

“Hells,” he smiled. “How’ve you been?”
He tipped his cowboy hat to her in a formal gesture of
greeting.

It was hard for Helena to tell whether
he was happy to see her, or whether he was being sarcastic. She
opted for the latter. “Cut the crap, Willie,” Helena snapped. “What
the hell’s going on?”

Willie walked over to the leather couch
and casually lay down on it, his well worn Fry boots upon the far
armrest, his hands propping his head up against the other. He
turned and looked at her with a look of smug satisfaction on his
face. “Aren’t you going to offer me some tea? I’m all
cotton-mouthed.”

“You have not begun to know the meaning
of the word,” Helena threatened.

“I’m dead thirsty,” he
bantered.

“That’s because you’re
dead.”

“Humor me. It’s been ages since I’ve
had anything warm run through my veins.”

“Fine. But if you find anything isn’t
working in that life form of yours, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
And I want something in return.”

“Hells,” he explained with no sense of
urgency, “you know the rules. I’m not supposed to interfere. The
man in charge frowns upon that. I want to get out of purgatory
sometime this century. I’m not getting any younger you
know.”

He looked at her and sighed. Their
relationship had gone back more years than he cared to remember.
Perhaps that was why, even though the woman was his polar opposite,
she was somehow beguiling to him at the same time. “You called me,
but you’re not looking too happy to see me. What’s the matter? Did
Helen tell you about our little rendezvous in your bathroom? I love
the tile, by the way. It just screams Mediterranean blue. Did you
get it on sale at the end of the Greek Mycenaean period? Or was it
that big Roman fire-sale?”

“Let’s cut the small talk, shall we?
You are interfering with my family,” Helena scolded him. “You are
well aware how much we LaRose’s despise that. Do I have to remind
you of the time you tried to double-cross my mother?”

Willie sat up. “God no,” he shuddered.
“How is Elaine, anyway? Still alive and kicking in jolly old
England?”

“Of course,” Helena replied. “I take it
you’re not sending her a Christmas card this year?” She walked over
to the little sink, ran some water into the electric kettle and
plugged it in. Willie wasn’t the only one who was
thirsty.

“You know, I think I lost her address.”
He paused for a moment, taking time to choose his next words
carefully. “I can say this,” he offered. “That dead spot in your
lawn has to go.”

“I know,” Helena sighed. Willie clearly
knew about the vampire that up until a few days ago had lived on
her property. She reached for a couple of mugs at the end of the
counter. “I have a pineapple/coconut herbal tea blend that I’d like
to use up. Is that okay?”