Faith Hunter: Have Stakes Will Travel

“He was accused of having rabies. The kid was,” she clarified. “He bit several people, tried to chew off the arm of a little girl in town. No one got turned, but the kid disappeared and the doctor stopped practicing and went into seclusion. He wasn’t seen by the townspeople often, but when the war started in 1861, he totally disappeared.”

“The Civil War?” Evan asked.

“Yeah. And when he reappeared in Hainbridge in 1870, several years after the war ended, there weren’t enough people there to remember him. Sherman did a number on the town.”

“Is it true that Sherman was a werewolf?” I asked.

“No such thing as werewolves,” Evan said firmly, raising up the foot of his oversized recliner and pushing back. “No such thing as weres at all.”

Jane and I looked at each other and said nothing. There were witches and vampires and at least one skinwalker. Who can say about werewolves? “Anyway,” Jane said, “when he came back to town, he was all into treatments for lunatics and research.”

“His son was still alive,” I guessed.

Jane shrugged and curled her legs under her. She was long and lean, dressed in a T-shirt and worn-out, skin-tight jeans, her boots left at the door and striped socks on her feet in shades of fuchsia and emerald; the socks were a gift from me. I doubted that she ever wore them unless she came here. Jane Yellowrock didn’t have the most jocular of natures, but she was desperately appreciative of any small gift, which made my heart ache for her.

I shook my head as I remembered the storm that destroyed the mobile home we had lived in until a few months past when Angie’s power awakened way too early and ripped the place apart. Jane had saved us all that night by turning into a mountain lion and calming Angie long enough for Evan and me to bind Angie’s powers tightly to her. As if she knew what I was thinking Jane met my eyes, glanced at Angie’s room, and shrugged as if it had been nothing. It hadn’t been nothing. If I believed in miracles, I’d say that was one.

“So, then he involved some witches who had come over from Ireland—a woman by the name of Ester Wilkins, her daughter Lauran, and her sister Ruth. They’d started a coven, under the covers, so to speak, out of sight, but they provided the doctor with herbal tinctures, decoctions, and concoctions.” She tilted her head. “There’s a difference between decoctions and concoctions?”

“Big difference,” Evan said. I had thought he was asleep, sitting in his big chair, fingers laced over his middle, ankles crossed, and eyes closed. I laughed and he smiled, opened an eye, and blew me a kiss.

“Yeah, okay,” Jane said. “You two need me to leave?”

“Nah,” Evan said, his belly moving with silent laughter. “We took care of that before you got here.”

“Ewwww,” Jane said, shuddering with a breathy laugh.

I threw a couch pillow and hit him squarely in his beard—which just made him laugh harder. “Back to the vamp and witches,” I said, trying to sound prim, but likely not succeeding.

“I don’t know what happened next, but I do have hypotheses,” Jane said. “I think the doctor kept on with his research for decades, coming and going to protect his identity. And then he involved the witches in a more personal way. I think he either tried to get witches to create a conjure to cure his son’s lunatic-ism, or tried to get witches to let the kid drink witch blood to cure it, or he was trying to cure the leukemia that made his son sick in the first place. Or something along those lines. I think he went to a witch one night and tried to force her to help. And of course the witch had warded her house. I think the ward transferred to the stethoscope when she tried to stake the vamp or he tried to drain her.”

“Lots of unknowns in any of those situations,” Evan rumbled.

“True, but any of those scenarios explain what I remember about the smells—” She stopped dead, still not sure what Evan remembered of the mountain lion who saved the day when Angelina had her awakening. “I have a really good nose. I can smell some magics and some vampires.”

Big Evan nodded, his expression unchanged, and Jane went on. “Any of those scenarios explain what I remember about the smells in the house, and the odd way the stethoscope protects the house. But, really, none of the specifics matter,” Jane said. Evan widened his eyes in surprise. Jane leaned forward, turning her body directly to his, her elbows on her knees, her clasped hands hanging between her legs, partially mirroring his posture. “All we need to know for sure are the following.” she held up a closed fist and one finger went up. “Did the stethoscope get the ward by accidental—or even by deliberate—transference?” Another finger went up. “Is the witch’s ghost still in the house, which I don’t think, but is important to know?” Followed quickly by a third finger. “Is the vamp still living or did she kill him true dead with her spell? If she killed him then that makes it blood magic, and much stronger and more unpredictable, right? And blood magic changes how you guys get rid of the spell.”

Big Evan was staring at Jane intently, now. Jane’s lips went up slightly. “What? You didn’t think I was smart enough to figure all that out?” When Evan didn’t reply, Jane said, “The most important thing to figure out, though, is how you guys get paid.”

“We don’t,” I said automatically.

“Why not?” Jane asked, still holding Evan’s gaze. “You get rid of the ward and the apparent poltergeist affect, or the house can’t be used. If the house can’t be used, then somebody is out a lot of money spent on renovations so far. Getting rid of the scary stuff sounds like part of the renovations to me.”

Evan smiled, showing teeth between moustache and beard. “You think the Hainbridge coven is getting paid, but knew that Molly was an easy mark. They planned to let her do the work and they get to pocket the money.”

Jane sat back, her tiny smile in place.

“I am not an easy mark,” I said.

Jane made a snorting sound. Big Evan said, “Sweetheart, you are the biggest mark alive. And that’s why I love you so much. If you weren’t so easy to fool, you’d never have married a big galumph like me.”

“You’re not a galumph,” I said.

“See?” To Jane, Evan said, “What’s the name of the construction company and what’s the house going to be used for now?”

“Hainbridge General Construction. And it’s owned by and is going to become a lawyer’s office.” My husband started to laugh.

The next morning Big Evan called Shadow Blackwell, the Hainbridge coven mistress, and suggested that I take over the job, informing Shadow that her coven could get a finder’s fee, if one could be properly negotiated. Shadow Blackwell was not pleased, but it wasn’t like she had much to fume about. She had tried to get the job done in an underhanded way, and had been caught.

Once the local coven was out of way, Evan contacted the owner of the construction company, speaking in my name. The contractor had an ironclad agreement with the owner of the property that he would not be responsible for “acts of God” above and beyond what his company’s insurance covered, and that insurance did not cover what amounted to an exorcism. Unfortunately, he had not told the client that his office was haunted.

Lastly, my wonderful husband called the lawyer, one Chauncey L. Markwhite II, who was not a very cheery-natured man and refused to pay one red cent to me for my services. When it was explained to him that all construction had ceased on his property, and would not be starting again until the little matter of magical flying mallets was resolved, he accused Evan of extortion. Which totally ticked off my hot-tempered husband. Evan suggested that it was possible to prove the problem to Chauncey and a meeting was set up for the next morning before the start of business—meaning we were to meet him at his haunted house promptly at 8 a.m. “Promptly,” was the lawyer’s term, and he expected Evan to abide by that. He clearly did not know my husband, who was not one to take orders.