JACK WAS SETTING UP the table in the formal dining room, feeling more nervous than he’d ever been in his life, when the doorbell chimed. Kiley was in the kitchen, putting away the leftover pizza, stacking the dishes in the dishwasher. So he went to the door and pulled it open.
Chris stood there, smiling. Behind him were two of the psychics Kiley had nailed in her column over the past year. Maya, a thirtysomething witch, blond, blue-eyed and petite, nodded hello to him as he stepped aside to let them in. She wore jeans, a cozy-looking sweater, and a pentacle around her neck. Right behind her was John Redhawk, a shaman. Aside from the turquoise beads and ponytail, he, too, was dressed casually, jeans and a green polo shirt under a denim jacket.
Jack heard Kiley come in from the kitchen. She started to say something, then stopped in her tracks.
To break the awkward silence, Jack said, “I, uh—thought you two couldn’t make it.”
John sent a tight look at Kiley. “If there are spirits trapped here, they need help to get across.”
Maya nodded. “We can’t punish them for her actions.”
“Great,” Kiley said. “They’re on the goddamn ghosts’ side.”
“Fortunately your interests and theirs are the same,” John said, moving farther into the room. “As are your goals and ours—to free them, so they can move on.”
Jack turned to Kiley, knowing she was about to roll her eyes or make some sarcastic comment. But he caught her in time.
“No doubt, Ms. Brigham, you think we can’t be of any help anyway,” Maya said.
Kiley pursed her lips. “I did catch you faking.”
“You caught us being inaccurate,” John explained. “There’s a very big difference.”
“You totally ignored all the times we were dead on target with our work,” Maya added, “and focused only on the times when we missed the mark.”
Chris nodded hard, then put his own two cents in. “You failed to take into account all the people they helped. And the fact that no one was ever harmed by what they did.”
Kiley pursed her lips, lowered her head. “I get it, Chris.” Then she lifted her eyes again, took a breath. “You two just admitted you’re not always right. I suppose I need to do the same.”
John nodded slowly. “Some of the people you condemned in your column were frauds, Ms. Brigham. Some of them were doing harm, and were sorely in need of exposure. I was glad to see them go. They just make the rest of us look bad. But it’s a mistake to paint all psychics with the same brush. And it’s just as bad to hold us up to standards that are impossible for anyone short of a god to meet.”
She nodded. “I’m starting to realize that.” Then she frowned. “But if you’re not batting a thousand, then how the hell can an outsider ever tell the difference?”
“They can’t,” Maya said. “But we can. We know who’s for real and who’s just running a scam to make a buck. Maybe in the future, you could work with us, instead of against us.”
Kiley blinked, clearly stunned. “You…would do that? Work with me? My God, I never thought—”
“Because you never asked,” John said. “But believe me, we’d love to help you put the frauds out of business.”
Kiley shook her head in something that looked like wonder.
“Chris filled us in on the details,” Maya said, changing the subject. “So where are we doing this?”
“I’m setting up in the dining room.” Jack led the way, looking with hypercritical eyes at the stuff he’d set up. Candles around the room in holders, lots of them, all white. Charcoal tablets, already lit and turning slowly white with heat, filled censers in various spots, each with a small dish of herbs beside it.
“Anything else you want to have in here?” he asked.
John lifted a dish of the herbs. “What are you using?”
“Dandelion, sweetgrass and thistle,” Jack said.
“Mmm.” John tugged a pouch from his jacket pocket. “I’ll add a little tobacco. I’ve had good results with it.”
“And vervain,” Maya said, adding a pinch of something from her own knapsack. “To make it go.” She looked around the room. “I’d feel better if we did this within a circle and if we marked the boundary with salt, and placed representations of the elements in the quarters.”
John nodded his agreement.
Chris looked at Kiley. “C’mon, I’ll tell you what we need and you can help me find it.” The two of them went into the kitchen.
Jack sighed, turning to the others. “Thanks for coming. I mean it, I’m in way over my head here.”
“Why?” Maya asked. “It’s not as if you haven’t done this before.”
Jack glanced toward the kitchen. “I always assumed the problem was in the minds of the clients. That’s where I solved it. Hell, I went through the motions, but I wasn’t really doing anything. You know that, you just finished saying you could tell the real psychics from the frauds.”
They looked at each other, then slowly back at him. John said, “We can, Jack. And you’re one of the real ones.”
Jack stood there gaping, even as Kiley and Chris returned. She carried a bowl of water, and he had a box of salt.
“Good,” Maya said. “Set the bowl in the west—that would be over here.” She pointed. “Move one of those censers so it sits opposite it, in the east, and put one of the taper candles in the south.” She took the salt from Chris, and poured a small pile of it in the north position.
“Ready, everyone?” she asked.
Kiley looked at Jack. He found himself moving closer, taking her hand. “We’re ready.”
John was moving around the room, lighting each candle, and adding pinches of the herbal mixture to each censer. Chris shut off the lights. Then they took their seats around the table, as Maya walked in a large circle around them, pouring a boundary line of salt as she moved. When it was all poured, she set the salt box down and walked the perimeter again, moving her hands like a mime as she created a circle of protection and power.
When she took her seat at the table, all was silent.
John looked at Jack. “Take the lead, my friend. This is your project, we’re just here for backup.”
Jack almost refused, but then he realized how that would look to Kiley. Even though he thought things had changed between them, he wasn’t ready to admit to her that he was a fraud. He was terrified—not that she would expose him. Hell, he didn’t even care about that anymore. No, his greatest fear was that she would turn away from him. And he didn’t think he could stand that.
So much more than his business was at stake now. He cared what she thought of him now.
He took a breath, tried to remember all the usual mumbo jumbo, and said, “Join hands.” Beside him, Kiley slid her hand into his. Impulsively, he drew it to his lips, and pressed a kiss there. She squeezed a reply. He closed his eyes and instructed everyone through several deep breaths in an effort to relax them. Finally, he addressed the spirits.
“Those of us here at this table call out to those of you elsewhere in this house. We know you’re here. We know you have something you want to tell us. We’ve created this sacred space and we invite you in. You are welcome here, provided you mean us no harm. You are welcome here, so long as your intentions are for the highest good. Come now, join us.”
A door slammed.
Jack’s head came up, eyes flying open and he saw the others on high alert as well. They met each other’s eyes around the room, in the flickering candle glow. And then, suddenly, a gust of icy wind blew through, and every candle in the room went out.
Jack felt himself sinking, as if his chair had dissolved beneath him. He fought it, tried to cling more tightly to the hands on either side of him, but it was no use. They fell away and he plummeted downward, right through the floorboards, hitting the basement floor so hard it knocked the wind out of him.
He swore and got up, brushing himself off, rubbing his tailbone gingerly. Looking up, he expected to see the hole above him, but the ceiling was perfect. Flawless.
And then he heard someone speaking softly, and he turned to look.
There in the corner was a man of perhaps thirty. His slicked-back hair and dated glasses made him look like something out of a ’70s sitcom. Knife-sharp crease on his plaid pants, thick belt with an oversized buckle and a tie so wide it was almost funny.
Jack said, “Hey. Who the hell are you and what are you doing down here?”
But the man didn’t hear him. He went right on with what he was doing. And what he was doing, Jack realized, was smoothing new concrete over a portion of the floor. He knelt there, moving a trowel over the smooth, slick gray mush.
Jack strode across to him. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. And when the man didn’t answer, he reached for him, to spin him around and make him talk. But his hand moved right through the guy.
“Jack?”
The voice was Kiley’s. It was coming from above.
“Jack, are you all right? Come on, Jack, wake up!”
He felt her hands on his face, her breath on his skin. And then he was rising again, rising as if on an elevator at top speed, leaving his stomach somewhere below. He jerked his head up, opened his eyes. Kiley was standing over him. The lights were on. Maya, John and Chris surrounded him. “Jesus, what happened?”
“You passed out,” Kiley said.
“He went into a trance,” Maya corrected.
“He left his body, journeyed into the realm of the spirits,” John put in.
“Well? Which is it, Jack? What happened to you?”
He sat up straighter in the chair, rubbed his forehead. “How long was I out?”
“Fifteen minutes or so,” Kiley said.
“It felt like about fifteen seconds.”
She stroked his face. “Are you okay? I knew this was a bad idea. I just knew it.”
Jack licked his lips. “No. No, it was a good idea. I…I saw something.”
She frowned, staring at him. “What?”
“I think it was Mr. Miller. He was spreading concrete in the cellar.”