Southern Charm (9 page)

"I doubt that's the whole problem. Look at yourself. You're a drunken slob. You're falling apart."

Raising her torso, breathing deep like an animal preparing to battle, she bared her yellow teeth. "You are a demon sent to me by order of Hell. I know how your kind thinks. I know your plans. And I won't be your pawn in any of it. I defy you demon from the North. I defy you. You want to kill me? Fine. I'll take your bitch with me and make you watch."

Sandra stepped forward and slapped Dr. Connor so hard that the woman fell to the ground. "For a witch, you sure are a fool. You were the killer, not us."

"Don't bother," Drummond said as he poked around the office. "She's out of her mind. Or just plain drunk."

"She has a book," Max said. "At least, she had one when I was last here."

"She's a witch. She has lots of books."

"This one's all about curses."

"I'll check on it." Drummond stepped through a wall deeper into the office.

With a garbled chuckle, the witch raised her head. "You want to know more about curses, eh? You want to know about a specific curse." Her eyes struck upon Max with an intensity unmatched by her slovenly appearance. Her youth returned to her eyes. "And a painting, I think."

Max's fears resumed their play on his nerves. "What do you know about Jasper Sullivan? How was he cursed?"

Still chuckling, Connor's eyes slipped away from Max and fell upon the half-empty Jack Daniel's bottle. She crawled over moldy pizza to the bottle and suckled it with wet, slobbering noises. With a relieved smile, she said, "I know all about that man and that painting. You may have ruined me, but I've still got contacts. I still have opportunities. Witches are like cats. Nine lives. You watch yourselves because I know everything you want to know."

"I'll bet you do. Your mother was the witch in charge back in William Hull's day, right?"

"Oh, yes. She was dangerous."

"And William Hull was angry that he had been duped on that painting. So he wanted her to hurt Jasper Sullivan in revenge."

"You sound like you know it all, but you don't."

Sandra leaned toward Max. "She's nuts. Let's just go."

Max squatted in front of Connor. He looked at her expectant face and knew the time for payment had come. She had acknowledged that she knew something and, by sharing this fact, that she would be willing to tell it — but no witch does anything for free.

"Honey," he said without looking away from the witch. "Go to the ABC store and buy two, make it three, bottles of Jack Daniels." To Dr. Connor, he added, "Will that be enough?"

Connor swung her bottle upward and guzzled the remaining alcohol. "It just might."

She refused to say another word until Sandra returned. Drummond flew in, listened to what had happened, and said to Max, "You keep impressing me. If this were back in my time, we would've made a great team."

"We're barely partners."

"If I were alive, I'd make us a team, but I guess we do okay. I found the book back there. It's in pretty bad condition. Her private office is every bit as messed up as the rest of this place and keeping care of her books doesn't seem to have gotten any priority. Looks like she's been living back there for some time now."

"I'll look at it later. I don't want to leave her alone for any length of time."

Dr. Connor pointed at Max with a curved index finger that wavered in little arcs as she said, "Smart man. I still can do amazing things if I want to. Just takes a little focus and then that's it for you." She gazed in the vicinity of Drummond. "I know you're there, ghost. I feel you. I can still hurt you, too. Don't even think about touching me with your cold hands. I'll bind you back before you know I've even moved."

Drummond yawned. "Your wife better get back quick. I'm already tired of drunken witch-rantings."

Twenty minutes more passed before Sandra arrived with the whiskey. She handed the bottles to Max, gave the witch a vile glare, and stepped back near Drummond. Max handed one bottle over to Dr. Connor who broke open the seal with practiced efficiency and drank.

"Now," Max said, "if you want the rest of them, you'd better start talking. Why was Jasper Sullivan cursed, what kind of curse, and how do we break it?"

"Don't forget the painting," Drummond said.

Max motioned for patience. Connor flashed her best insanity glower, and said, "You've got the whole thing wrong. Jasper Sullivan was never cursed. Executed, yes, but not cursed. After all, William Hull was not a bad man, not an unfair man. He understood why somebody like Sullivan would do what he did. This was the Great Depression. Times were hard and everybody needed money."

"Except Hull," Sandra said under her breath.

"Even the Hull family fell hard," Connor said, turning toward Sandra. "When the market goes bad, it goes bad for anybody with money. Now it's true that the Hulls did not suffer like a Sullivan or a Smith or even the Connor family — but they did have to go without many of the things they had become accustomed to." To Max, she continued, "William Hull would never order Jasper Sullivan to be cursed. But when they decided, in those uncertain times, to spend their money on a painting and then discovered they had lost their money and the painting both, well, Hull's anger could not be matched. Those responsible would have to pay. So, Jasper Sullivan ended up dead. Howard Corkille, however, became another matter entirely."

Max handed over another bottle. "Tell us all about it."

"I wasn't even born, remember. I only know what my mother told me when I took over the family business. It's important to keep track of curses and bindings and such. So she told me all about Howard Corkille in case I should ever have to deal with him or his curse. Very sad tale actually, but I suppose money will make people do sad things.

"In the case of Howard Corkille, he had done well as an art forger for almost a hundred years by the time he met Jasper Sullivan. Didn't know that, did you? It's true, though. Corkille was born in 1841. He was just over ninety when they met. I doubt he had done any forgeries in decades." Dr. Connor pulled more whiskey into her mouth, swished it around, and swallowed. "Whatever possessed him to help out Sullivan also brought back the thrill of screwing people over through his profession. Still, you'd think living around North Carolina for ninety years should've told him enough about the Hulls to dissuade him."

"So your mother bound him?"

With a snorting laugh, Dr. Connor stumbled to her feet and weaved her way down the hall toward her back office. Max and Sandra exchanged confused and curious looks as they followed the drunken witch. Drummond flew ahead through the wall.

The back office looked as if it had not been repaired since Max destroyed it over a year ago. The hole in the wall formed when he had broken her attempt at cursing him, the disheveled books and papers, the burned circle in the floor all flooded memories upon him — memories of the most harrowing time of his life. Max suspected she had brought them back here just for that reaction. The selfish amusement on her face supported this notion.

"You're very narrow-minded," she said, her speech clearing despite the bottle in her hand wetting her lips every few moments. "All three of you. You think that a binding curse is the only kind? You really think somebody who would employ a witch would be so uncreative in their choices of revenge?"

"You admire Hull," Sandra said.

"Of course, I do. The whole family is made of brilliant minds that don't fear the powers of life but accept them just because such things are — and they're willing to make use of it all. The trees, the sky, the water, the earth — all filled with great, untapped powers. Howard Corkille didn't understand any of that. He does now. All this time later, every day, he understands it. I'm sure Mr. Drummond understands it, too."

"Shut up," Drummond yelled as he soared at her. He slashed his hand through her body, and she let out a yelp. She shivered so hard, the bottle dropped from her hand and shattered. Then she began a long, sadistic cackle.

"Guess he doesn't like the truth too much," she said. "Shame I lost the bottle, though."

"Stick to Corkille," Max said, his eagerness for information the only thing keeping his distaste for this woman in check. "What kind of curse did your mother use?"

"She gave him immortality."

Max's eyebrow raised. "You can do that?"

"Do a little math — my mother was the Hull's witch during the Depression but I was born in 1973. She looked to be about thirty-five. If a spell can slow her aging, why not a spell to stop dying?"

"And this is a bad thing?"

"It is when you don't couple it with eternal youth. He's about two-hundred-years old now. I'd imagine every bone in his body aches. Food is tasteless. His eyesight, his hearing, even his sense of smell have all faded. Everyone he has known and cared about has grown old and died. But he is still here. Forever. I think that's quite cruel and imaginative."

Max's initial reaction leaned toward disbelief. But if ghosts, witches, and binding curses all were true, then why not immortality? Why not anything? The rules of the world he had been taught were wrong. Though he knew this to be true, he still struggled with it every day.

"Is this the curse?" Sandra asked. Max had not been paying close attention to her, and now saw her holding a thick, bound book — a book of curses.

Dr. Connor nodded without looking at the page. "There's only one in there that would match what I've said. You'll find it without any trouble."

Sandra flipped through the pages. Max watched her face reacting to the different words and images that passed under her gaze. Drummond, reading over her shoulder, jutted out his hand and said, "There. That's it."

"You're sure?" Max asked.

Sandra turned the book to face Max. Under some text he could not make out from that distance, he saw a clear, hand-drawn picture of a decrepit, old man — one who had to be centuries old. "We're sure," Sandra said.

Turning back to Connor and ignoring the snickers coming from Drummond and Sandra, Max asked, "What does the painting have to do with this curse? Is it like the binding curse — attached to an object?"

"I'm done talking. No more," Connor said.

"You've got —"

"Out! Get out!" Waving her hands, she moved toward Sandra as if shooing cats away. "And take your ghost with you."

Sandra and Drummond backed out of the office. Dr. Connor turned to Max and with surprising speed, rushed close to him, her face so near his that he could smell her mouth washed in whiskey. Whispering in a hoarse voice, she said, "Come back here tonight, midnight, and I'll tell you exactly what you need to know about Hull. He's messing around with very dangerous magic, and we're all going to pay for it."

"Tell me now."

"Tonight. Midnight. The witching hour," she said and backed off with a sloppy, sinister grin.

"This is a bad idea," Drummond said as they left the office parking lot. "Whatever she wants to tell you is not worth meeting her at midnight."

"She could barely stand up."

"I don't care. A witch is not to be underestimated. If she had drunk herself into a coma, I'd still be worried."

Making a baby face, Max said, "Aw, are you worried about little ol' me?"

"On second thought, go get yourself killed."

"I promise I'll be careful. And the first part of that is being prepared. I think we should go visit with Melinda Corkille again. And this time around, I don't intend to leave without some answers."

"Good idea," Sandra said. "While you're doing that, Drummond can help me find that painting."

With a lecherous purr, Drummond said, "I love how you keep finding excuses for me to be with you."

"I need somebody who can go to the ghost world. You know any other ghosts that can help me, I'd be glad to work with them instead."

"If my heart were still beating, you'd have broken it."

"Wait a second," Max said. "I need you to come with me."

Sandra's odd expression told Max he teetered close to a fight. "You need me there?" she said, and even Drummond quieted down. "Every time you've gone there before, you refused to let me come along."

"Do we have to keep dredging this up? I made a mistake about that before, and I'm trying to do this the right way now. You understand?"

"You really just want to keep digging yourself deeper? No, don't bother saying anything. We are either in this together, husband and wife, or we're not."

"What are you talking about?" Max said, exasperation painting every word.

"I've tried sitting back and letting you be the boss, but that's just not us. We don't rule over each other. So, while I appreciate your consideration, the fact is that I've got a few ideas on how we can find that painting. Going to Corkille's is a good idea. You can use her to locate — what is he? — her great-great-great grandfather? If the curse is real and he's still alive, you can find him. Drummond and I will get the painting, and you'll have all the leverage you need when you see that witch tonight. Now, if you've got a better plan, then I'll be happy to listen, but if you just want to boss me around ..."

"That's not fair," Max said. From the shocked look on Sandra's face and the echo in his ear, he realized too late that he had shouted the words. With a little more control, he went on, "I know I haven't done the best at any of this, I'm learning as I go, but you've got to cut me some slack here."