Wicked By Any Other Name Part 7

"Nothing's happened yet and there's no court date set, so I'm not worried." Of course she was, but she wasn't about to admit it. Plus, she didn't really want to see him again. Not as long as he had those red hearts over his head.

"Pull the other leg," Blair scoffed.

Stasi sighed. She should have known she couldn't fool her.

"I know what. Let's see if Jazz can come up early. She might have some ideas for us."

Stasi looked toward the window and watched a gust of wind pick up a piece of paper from the sidewalk and send it flying. Ed Ramsey, who owned the video store, pulled his jacket up around his ears and trudged down the sidewalk.

"We'll have snow soon," she said, without thinking.

Blair looked up. "We're not due to have any snow for at least another month. It still isn't cold enough."

She shook her head. "No, we'll be having an early snowfall, and it could be a heavy one." It wasn't a gift, but Stasi was almost always accurate when it came to reading the weather. If she said they'd have an early snowfall, they would. "Maybe it's due to the retrograde, but the air feels heavier and out of balance."

"We can't make the world perfect, Stasi," Blair said gently. "It's not our job and I'm very grateful it's not."

"But something's going to happen," she insisted. "I can feel it deep within me."

"That's the lawsuit and nothing more," Blair argued, then relented. "All right, Mercury retrograde isn't helping, but let's not read something into it that isn't there. We can't be paranoid, Stasi." She sighed. "I'll close early and fix dinner."

Stasi nodded. She finished her sandwich and her share of the fries. Once they cleaned up the table, she returned to her shop.

But for once her heart wasn't in it.

"The air smells heavy," Horace announced, watching Stasi finish emptying the cash drawer.

"Air can't smell heavy."

He drew in a deep breath, his chest expanding until it looked as if it would burst then he blew it out with one fast exhalation.

"Heavy air. Not good."

She shook her head. "Have you been sneaking upstairs and watching horror movies again?"

He rolled his eyes. "Oh puleeze! Those filmmakers don't know what true horror is. No, this is our world, not the humans'."

Stasi felt a faint skittering over her flesh as if spiders crawled up her arms. She quickly put away the moneybag and headed for the door.

When she opened it, something lying against the door fell backwards onto the floor.

Stasi felt a chill chase across her skin as she bent down and picked up the object.

"Put it down!" Horace's order rang out so loud she dropped it.

"How can you see what it is?" she asked.

"I don't need to." Within seconds, he was beside her. His face was scrunched up as if he smelled something incredibly bad.

"Destroy it," he ordered, backing away. "Don't hold it again, don't study it. Just get rid of it. It's not good."

Stasi didn't question Horace's command. She was aware he knew more about magick than he generally let on.

"Pretty dolly oh so sad. Pretty dolly oh so bad. Pretty dolly I say nay. Pretty dolly go away if you please." She waved her hand over the object and it sizzled and sparked before turning into a pile of dark ash. "It should be white," she murmured, knowing any time she turned an object to ash it was grayish-white, not the dark gray she was staring at.

Horace looked on from a distance. "Not with this kind of magick."

She looked at him. "What kind is it?"

He shook his head. "I'm not sure, but I do know it's not something you should be around."

As Stasi stood up, a chilling blast of wind blew past her and she s.h.i.+vered.

Once upstairs, Stasi thought she'd never been so happy to be in the warm, brightly lit kitchen with Blair. She said nothing about the incident to her friend.

She knew this was something she had to deal with herself. Because she was positive Carrie was somehow behind this. Anyone who could hire a wizard lawyer could also hire someone to cast dangerous spells.

Chapter Six.

"Ma'am? Miss Stasi? Please wake up!"

Stasi groaned and rolled over. "Oh Fergus, please don't!" She opened one eye a slit and saw darkness out her window. "It's not even dawn."

"Please, ma'am, somethin's real wrong and we need your help."

Stasi opened both eyes and stared at the wavering figure standing at the foot of her bed. While she could always see through the ghost, this time he was nothing more than a vague shadow. She sat up, s.h.i.+vering at the chill in the air.

"What's wrong?"

"We don't know," he replied, twisting his hat between his hands. " 'Member Cyrus? We were talkin' and he just up and disappeared."

She pushed her hair back and struggled to think, but sleep was pulling her back. She mentally zapped herself awake and reached for her soft fleece robe lying across the end of the bed, accidentally upending Bogie who had snuggled inside it. He uttered a soft growl of protest and moved over to curl up in a pile of warm blankets.

"Perhaps he was tired of barely existing here and moved into the next realm." She wrapped the robe around her and stood up, teetering back and forth a bit as her bleary brain tried to wake up.

Fergus shook his head, "No, he wouldn't move on, not if he could help it. Cyrus always said there was no reason to go elsewhere. That all he knew was here. And Rena's gone, too. And some of the others look like I do now. There but not there."

Stasi searched her memory banks, then recalled the woman who had once worked upstairs at Lil's. Rena liked crossing the veil during October because she enjoyed the company of men. More than one man during the Halloween season revealed that he'd felt the icy chill of a small hand on his private parts. Others woke up convinced someone was having s.e.x with them and it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences, either. Stasi couldn't believe that Rena would move on. She enjoyed her trips here too much.

"I suppose you couldn't wake up Blair." She knew how much her friend adored sleeping. Waking Blair up was a major project.

"She sorta woke up and threw a book at me. I guess she forgot it'd only go through me." He grinned. "She's not going to be too happy when she sees she broke a vase."

"Serves her right." She looked at Bogie and nudged him back awake. "You know the drill, baby. Go wake up Auntie Blair while Mommy makes coffee."

Bogie yapped once and took off like a streak of light ... literally.

Stasi muttered a few choice words when she saw that the clock blinked two a.m.

"Why can't anything happen in the middle of the day, or even early evening?"

By the time Blair's curses and mutterings died down and she showed up in the kitchen, Stasi was sitting at the table drinking coffee and warming a coffee cake in the microwave oven.

"Honestly, Fergus, maybe you don't need sleep on your realm, but we still do," Blair grumbled. "d.a.m.n, it's cold! Heater, turn on. Make it so!" She waggled her fingers in the direction of the thermostat. A moment later the furnace kicked on. She poured herself coffee and plopped down in a chair. "What's going on now?"

"Cyrus, Rena, and some others have left their realm," Stasi said quietly.

"Like a vacation left?"

Stasi shook her head.

"You mean they're gone gone?" Blair chugged her coffee in an attempt to wake up.

The microwave timer dinged and Stasi got up to collect the coffee cake, which she set on the table along with a knife and forks.

"Fergus!" She spoke sharply when the ghost started to dim. "You need to concentrate on remaining here."

He bobbed his head. "Yes, Miss Stasi, but it's not easy. It's as if I have this feelin' I'm goin' away too."

"Why would this be happening?" Blair forked up a bite of coffee cake.

"I don't know." That was what worried Stasi. She was presented with a problem she couldn't solve. She enjoyed problem solving, especially with romance, but this was much more important. She considered the ghosts friends. For them to lose what little existence they had was frightening.

"Ma'am." Fergus's eyes were wide with fright, which wasn't normal for a ghost, who shouldn't experience the emotion. But Stasi knew when realms grew unstable anything was possible. And that was what she feared was happening now. She sipped her coffee, hoping the caffeine infusion would push her brain into some sort of alert mode.

"I don't know why this is happening to some of you," Stasi said, glancing at Blair, who yawned widely and nodded her agreement.

"You said there was all this stuff goin' on. Retro something," he said.

"Mercury retrograde, and the upcoming lunar eclipse." Stasi rubbed her forehead, wis.h.i.+ng she could easily conjure up answers, but she knew it was never that simple.

Fergus opened his mouth to say something, but a plaintive howl from outside stopped him.

"That d.a.m.n dog," Blair muttered. "There's not that much of a moon out there to howl at."

Stasi c.o.c.ked her head and listened. "No, that's not a howling at the moon sound." She stood up and moved to the window over the sink that gave them a prime view of the woods. She frowned at an odd light that flickered in the distance. "There's something out there." She rushed to the back door and pulled it open, running out onto the small deck. She looked back inside. "There's odd lights over the lake."

Blair shot to her feet and followed Stasi as she practically flew down the stairs.

"There's nothing magickal in the woods," Blair said, running to keep up, grateful she'd slipped on her favorite fuzzy duck slippers and not her stiletto mules.

"Nothing that we sensed." Stasi dodged low-hanging branches and bushes as she continued running toward the lake.

What was usually a peaceful ten-minute walk was a four-minute dash as the two witches ran along the path they'd taken many times before. As they broke past the stand of trees to reach the open area surrounding the lake, they found the Border collie barking and howling as he ran along the bare dirt.

"Okay, boy, we got your message, what's up?" Blair called out.

The dog stopped and ran back to them, continuing to bark.

"Sheesh, you'd think he was La.s.sie warning us Timmy fell into a well." Blair tried to grab for his collar, but he danced out of their reach and ran closer to the lake, then stopped short.

The lights they had seen from the house appeared brighter and danced over the surface of the lake.

"What is this?" Stasi moved forward toward the rock outcropping they walked upon each month when offering up to the moon. Blair was fast on her heels.

"Oomph!" Both witches suddenly bounced off an invisible barrier and fell backwards onto their b.u.t.ts.

"What was that?" Stasi slowly got to her feet, rubbing her rump, which had struck a sharp rock when she fell.

"I don't know." Blair stood up and this time walked a great deal slower until again, she hit the barrier. Stasi followed her and both raised their hands, feeling what they couldn't see. They jumped back when dark green sparks flew off the barrier and burned their palms.

"Barrier we can't see. Barrier we refuse to flee. Barrier reveal thyself, make it so!" Blair shouted, throwing her hands out.

The barrier s.h.i.+mmered with her power, then threw it back at her with enough muscle to send her flying backwards a good ten feet to land on her back.

"d.a.m.n it!" Blair lifted her head and glared at the barrier as the dog ran over and licked her face. "Ick! Dog germs! For Fates sake! You're licking my face after you probably spent most of the evening licking your b.a.l.l.s." She tried to push away the dog, but he kept coming back to lick her face again.

"Are you all right?" Stasi asked, helping her up.

"Nothing's broken." She brushed leaves and dirt off her robe. She stared at the barrier and the green light orbs hovering over the water, sometimes moving closer to them, then dancing away. "Where did this come from? There was no sign of it two days ago when I was out here."

"I don't know." Stasi approached the barrier with tentative steps. After what happened to Blair she wasn't about to take any chances. She kept her power under control, not allowing even one spark to appear. If it could throw Blair that far, she didn't want to think what it might do to her if whatever fueled it got really angry.

"Let's see if it goes all the way around the lake."

"Then can we go back and put on warm clothes? It's freezing out here!"

Stasi nodded. "Good idea. Whatever this is, I don't think it's going anywhere."

They didn't run back to the house, but they did hurry and changed into warm clothing in no time.

Stasi pulled her jacket hood up over her hair as they returned to the lake. Even with her fleece pants, wool gloves, and heavy jacket she could feel the hint of snow in the air.

"We've never had odd lights float over the water before," Blair commented.

"That we've known of," she replied. "We only knew about it tonight because the dog was howling and we were already up."

"Maybe that's why Fergus was feeling odd." Blair kept a respectful distance from the barrier as they walked the circ.u.mference of the lake. The dog kept pace next to her, his tongue lolling, as if they were out for a middle of the night stroll.

As they walked, Stasi cast periodic glances toward the woods. She sensed something unsettling among the trees, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. Since she didn't feel any malevolence, she didn't mention anything to Blair.