The Voodoo Killings (21 page)

“Wait—what, me?”

“I’ve never seen someone do a seance like that,” he said, and reached up to bat away the string of lights the wind had knocked into his face. “I’ve seen them done with a ton of shaking, yelling, calling all spirits. But that,” he said pointing to the stage, “was awesome. Can you do Halloween? You could bring Nathan again, or call a bunch of other ghosts.”

I stared at the kid, dumbfounded.

“Look, you don’t have to answer now. Just think about it.” Kelvin patted my shoulder, then pressed one of the drinks into my hand and darted off again before I could refuse it.

I sniffed. Whisky sour. Credit where credit was due, the kid was astute. I settled back into my spot and nursed my new drink.

Nate started into the first chord of “Just Enough Rope.” Not one of his hits, but one of his better pieces.

“What the—? Ow!” I’d reached into my jacket pocket and pulled my hand out fast: my compact was burning. I wrapped my hand in my sleeve and reached back in before the plastic melted into the leather. I dropped the compact to the grass and it popped open. I could just make out the foggy script as it scrawled across the mirror.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you
.

Good thing I don’t believe in the whole seven years of bad luck thing. I raised my boot to break the mirror.

“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep, male, slightly accented voice said. Nordic or Dutch maybe?

I jumped, dropping my whisky sour.

“You might need it to negotiate a ceasefire,” the voice said, clearly amused.

“Yeah, well, you want to talk, call my office,” I said, and crushed the compact under my heel.

I covered my ears as a grating laugh echoed around my skull. A massive wave of nausea hit me and I grabbed the fence to stop myself from falling over.

“Still don’t want to play nice?” the voice said.

“Go to hell,” I said, not really caring who heard me.

“Suit yourself, Kincaid Strange,” the voice said.

And just like that, the voice was gone from my head, and the pain too, leaving me with the question of how the hell the ghost had pulled it off. A ghost talking without a mirror was a poltergeist trick…but I didn’t get a chance to mull over the answer.

The wind picked up, rustling the leaves of the trees. The canopy over the bar tables started to flap, and so did the bamboo blinds covering the screen doors. Chilled air carried the scent of burning sage mixed with burnt hair. Something struck the back of my head—the string of dragonfly lights.

The hairs along the back of my neck stood up—it felt like one by one. Regardless of what ghosts were supposed to be able to do, this one broke the mould.

Nate was mid-song, but he was staring straight at me, trying to
get my attention. He nodded and I turned to see what he was worried about.

On the frat house porch, two different wind chimes were swaying violently…in opposite directions. I swore and glanced up at the nearby library tower. The flags at the top were dead still. Any lingering hope that this wind was simply the weather vanished.

I made a slashing motion across my throat at Nate, and looked around for Kelvin. Where had I seen him last? The porch. I caught sight of the guy he’d been talking to, a frat boy sporting an impressive beard and the start of a beer gut, who’d been serving.

I ducked around the crowds converging on the beer tables to reach him. “Where’s Kelvin?” I must have turned up the don’t-mess-with-me vibe, because he stumbled back into a pile of empty kegs.

“I don’t know. He went out front to talk to some guys—” He glanced nervously back at the house.

I headed for the screen door. When I stuck my head inside, I caught the tail end of a heated debate between Kelvin and someone I didn’t recognize coming from deeper in the house.

I turned back to the beer keg with a beard, who stood there fiddling with the taps. “You know what I do for a living? Spill. Now.”

His eyes went wide. “Okay, fine. Some cops showed up to ask some questions about the noise. Kelvin’s handling it.”

Cops. Here. “They’ll want to come in and check for underage drinking.”

The guy shrugged. “They always want to check for underage drinking. Kelvin will get them to go away. He always does. Besides, this is Beta Kappa property. They need a warrant to come in.”

I snorted. I remembered being in university and thinking that too. Why was it university students were always so damn sure the cops couldn’t stroll into their parties on campus?

Beard guy leaned over to grab his backpack.

“If you’re so sure the cops can’t come in, why are you getting ready to bolt?”

“If Kelvin’s wrong and the cops do come in, my parents will drag me back to Alaska.”

Not as clueless as he looked. I let the kid go and headed over to the gate. Peering through the gap in the slats, I noted only one cop car in the driveway, and the lights weren’t even going, probably so they didn’t cause a panic. A thousand drunken students fleeing a party were multitudes more dangerous than any underage drinking that was going on.

I ran back to the screen door and into the kitchen, creeping silently towards the front hall.

“Look, you can’t come in without a warrant,” Kelvin said.

“You’re selling event tickets and booze. Out of our way.”

Definitely not a voice I recognized.

I headed back outside. The wind was now so strong it was picking up discarded hoodies. I shielded my head against a string of dragonfly lights that had come loose. They bounced off and skidded across the beer table before wrapping around two girls, who squealed as they tried to untangle themselves. The sooner I was out of here, the sooner the crazy ghost would leave, without hurting anyone.

I waved to get Nate’s attention and tapped my wrist.

He held up his pinky finger with a pleading look on his face. One more song.

I shook my head and mouthed the word, “Cops.”

Two more strings of dragonfly lights came loose from the fence and launched themselves like rabid sea snakes into the crowd.

I tapped the Otherside. Sure enough, the lights took on a ghost-grey shimmer.

I heard the scream just in time to duck as a lawn chair sailed over my head and crashed into a table, upending it and sending drinks flying.

Someone yelled, “Tornado,” as another yelled, “Cyclone.” Great, panic was setting in.

The wind picked my hair up and whipped it into my eyes. I tied it back in a messy ponytail and ran for the stage. The band had stopped playing and were dodging beer-cup projectiles. Nate was staring blankly at the unfolding chaos as if hypnotized.

“Nate!”

He looked around, trying to pinpoint me. The Otherside unleashed
in the backyard was disorienting him. He couldn’t tell the sky from the floor anymore.

I leapt onto the stage as another lawn chair sailed overhead. People were screaming now, which meant the cops wouldn’t be far behind.

The chair went straight through Nate before crashing into the drum set. I waved my hand under his nose. “Nate, here!” I yelled.

He blinked twice then managed to focus on me. “What the fuck? It’s like the Otherside is bleeding through.”

I glanced at what was left of the party. A table lifted this time, chasing a group of students. Shit. I was going to have to figure out a way to shut this down before someone got really hurt.

“I’ll explain later. Right now I need something big and reflective.” Just then, the drum set crashed over and one of the cymbals rolled across the stage, spinning until it collapsed in a slow circle. Bingo.

“Nate—cymbal, now!”

He blinked at me, then scrambled out of the pentagram and grabbed it for me. I flinched as he fumbled it. He was fading, but this was an emergency.

People were running for the gate and forest now, trying to get the hell away from what they thought was a flash windstorm. If I could funnel the Otherside fuelling this freak show back across the barrier, I could stop this mess.

I knelt down by the back of the stage where there was some shelter from the wind. I could smell burnt hair over the sage now—the scent of unfiltered Otherside. And it was getting stronger as more of it flooded through. I started polishing the cymbal with the hem of my concert T. When it was as shiny as I was going to get it, I pulled a black china marker from my bag and drew the first symbol I needed along its edge. Nate came up beside me.

“K, what can I do?”

“How much juice do you have left?”

“Not much. Ten minutes, maybe?”

“The best thing you can do is go get my bike and bring it around back of the stage.”

Nate stared at the grey fog filling the backyard.

“But only if you think you won’t get lost in that fog.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.”

That was doubtful. Nate was all about self-preservation.

“I mean, what if you get hit by something?”

“That’s why I need this,” I said, pointing to the cymbal.

He glanced down at it, now half covered with china marker, and frowned. “Shit, K, how many globes have you pulled in the last couple of days?”

“Not now, Nate. Besides, I’m not doing anything fancy,” I lied. “Just sending the Otherside fuelling this disaster back where it came from, that’s all.”

“How stupid do I look?”

“Just go get my bike. If that fails…I don’t know, stall the cops so I have enough time to fix this.”

Nate looked far from convinced but dissolved into fog.

I focused on the cymbal, scribbling with the marker to create a reversed mirror.

I heard Kelvin shout, “Dude, you can’t come in! This is a private party!”

He was still trying to save his ass, which might save mine.

I finished, then double-checked my work. I’d exorcised enough poltergeists while working with the PD to know what I was doing. I just hoped it worked on this Otherside wind.

I mentally crossed my fingers and pulled a globe, bracing for the nausea that hit me full force. At least I didn’t pass out.

Before I could siphon Otherside into the cymbal to catalyze my inscriptions, the cymbal fogged up, and across it scrawled:

Had enough yet?

Smug bastard. I wiped the message off with my sleeve and replied with the marker.

Yup
.

Students were either fleeing or using the tables as windbreaks. No one was looking at the stage. Good. I crawled to the centre of the pentagram, carrying the cymbal. There was still some Otherside left from burning the sage, and I used it to stabilize my globe.

Crouching in the pentagram, I held the cymbal over my head and flooded the inscriptions with Otherside. The entire cymbal flared gold and the ghost-grey wind shifted course, rushing towards me.

Shit.

I braced myself against the cold as Otherside shocked through me. I held on to my globe for dear life as more and more Otherside rushed into the cymbal turned portal. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but it worked; the wind began to die down.

I just had to last long enough as impromptu conductor to get rid of the wind. I forced a second wave of Otherside into the cymbal, hoping to speed things up. The funnel picked up speed and more Otherside wind rushed towards the pentagram, along with a chill that went straight to my bones and set my teeth chattering. A smarter person would have let go, but I have a stubborn streak. Sharp pain built up in the space behind my eyes as unfiltered Otherside filled my head.

Okay, maybe faster wasn’t such a great idea….

I screamed as the pain behind my eyes thrummed through my whole skull.

“This is getting us nowhere.”
The ghost’s voice was in my head.

“Speak for yourself.”

“Look, I’ve been dead a long time, but I’m fairly certain it’s not a pleasant experience. You’re getting dangerously close to the end of the road.”

I fought to keep the siphon going. “Let me guess. I wipe off the china marker and you give me a running start? No deal.”

I thought I heard the ghost sigh.
“Fine. Have it your way.”

And just like that, it was gone. Again.

I didn’t have time to celebrate, though, as a string of dragonfly lights whipped towards my head. I almost dropped the cymbal as I ducked out of the way.

Then another set wrapped around my throat. I managed to wedge my free hand between my neck and the cord, giving myself a little breathing room. I clenched my teeth and held on to the cymbal for dear life. A few more seconds…

The cord tightened, cutting off the circulation in my fingers. My vision clouded. If the ghost kept this up much longer…

Like hell was I going to be killed by a ghost.

Miraculously, I hadn’t dropped my globe yet, and with a last burst of adrenalin I threw every ounce of Otherside I had left into the cymbal.

Nausea overran all my senses and the funnel kicked into overdrive. All I could do was sink to my knees and keep a death grip on my consciousness. At last the cord loosened, and I pulled it free and tossed it across the stage. I pushed myself back up to standing and gasped as I surveyed the backyard. Though the place looked as if a tornado had touched down, all traces of the Otherside-fuelled storm were gone.

Score one for me against the crazy ghost.

There was a tug at my globe. I glanced down at the cymbal in my hand. It was still trying to funnel Otherside. When I attempted to turn it off, the cymbal just pulled harder at my globe. Shit. In all Max’s drawn-out lectures and lessons on how to corral Otherside into bindings and back through to the barrier, he’d never said a damn thing about people being dragged through with it. And he used to wonder why I kept pushing for answers. Exactly because of situations like this!

As the last trace of my globe was siphoned off, the funnel latched on to me. It stripped life force, energy, whatever the hell you want to call it, off me in thin, painful layers.

I started to panic.

“Gotten yourself into trouble, I see?”

The damned ghost in my head again.

“Fuck off.”

A hollow sigh sounded in my mind for the second time that night.
“Unfortunately, you’re no good to me dead.”