Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3) (6 page)

“Weird,” I muttered. The text consisted of nothing more than the picture of Priscilla Herrera I snapped at Rainey’s. I could even see the edges of the coffee table around the picture.
Why would a picture I took come to me as a blocked text message?
I hoped my smartphone wasn’t malfunctioning.

I tried switching to the smartphone’s main menu. Nothing happened. The picture stayed there on the screen, Priscilla Herrera’s dark eyes boring into me. I sensed, rather than saw, a movement in the picture. The raven perched behind Priscilla moved its head ever so slightly. Underneath the hum of my car’s engine, I heard other sounds. Muffled voices talking. Horse’s hoofs clopping on a hard surface. I smelled something frying. Priscilla Herrera’s image blinked, and she tilted her head in my direction. The car faded away as I slipped fully into the vision.

“Come with me, Peri Jean Mace.” She stepped toward me. I cringed because there was no way to get away from her. I saw the tattoo on her shoulder without the filter of a hundred-year-old photograph. It was a black bird—a raven or a crow—same as mine. A light, dizzy feeling spread through me, and black spots appeared in my vision. Why did we have the same tattoo? Before I could ask, the tattooed lady grabbed my hand, and the room we were in faded, leaving us to float in darkness so black and complete and soundless, I wondered if I had died.

Fear closed my throat, choking me. Coughing, gasping, and gagging, I twisted in the darkness, hoping to break free of it but found I couldn’t move. This wasn’t so bad, even if I was dying. It was sort of soothing.

Whispers of a million voices saying no words arose around me. I forgot about returning to where I came from focused on where I was. This place felt wrong, heavy and suffocating, as though if I spent too much time here I could get lost. I needed to hurry. I searched my senses, trying to find something I could focus on, something I could use to ground myself. I smelled the faintest scent of spearmint and clung to it. The sound of wind whispering through pine trees filled my ears, and the blackness faded.

The woman who’d shanghaied me was no longer young. She’d thickened with age and wore a frumpy calico dress which covered all her wonderful tattoos. Her hair had grayed and was pulled into a plain bun. The image before me faded in and out like a radio station does on a long drive. Black holes where her eyes should have been made me want to scream and recoil. Teeth clenched, I held in my emotions and focused instead on my hostess. “What do you want?” The words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. It was as though I’d lost the ability to speak, but I could hear my thoughts clearly.

A rush of arctic wind blew back my hair and cooled my face. My heart couldn’t beat fast enough to keep up with the adrenaline coursing through my veins. The black opal sent painful shocks into my skin, maybe magnifying my power so I could see more of this vision, maybe protecting me. I regretted my shamefully limited knowledge of it.

“Why am I here?” Again the words formed perfectly in my head, but my hostess said nothing.

Anger and hurt rolled off her with violence, whipping at me, throbbing in the deepest parts of my soul. In addition to the spirit’s emotions, I picked up her intent. She wanted something from me.

My body experienced the same weightless feeling going downhill on a roller coaster gave me. Doing favors for ghosts never ended well. I had to get out of here. I concentrated on my moving my hand. It was like lifting an anvil, but I managed to pull the black opal from my shirt and squeeze it in one fist. Back in Louisiana, when I first became acquainted with the black opal, it enabled me to hear snatches of words from the ghosts. Maybe it would open my senses further this time as well.

Instead of speaking, the ghost floated toward me. I became aware of a clacking sound in the room and realized it was my teeth chattering. She closed one hand over mine, the cold burning my skin. The room came into stark, painful focus.

“You can’t leave yet.” Her voice, soft and clear as the song of angels, was not what I expected. Her grip on me tightened. “Pay careful attention. I did a great evil in cursing the treasure. For my sins, I’ve been unable to find rest in the spirit realm. The one who stole my book will unleash destruction on Gaslight City. Watch and learn because only you can help me stop this evil and find peace.”

Time jumped again, and it was late afternoon, heading toward dusk. I was in a cabin surrounded by pine trees. The whisper of wind caressing the pine needles came through the windows along with the croak of ravens. One of the huge, dark birds lighted on the windowsill, cocking its head at me and staring at me with one black eye. It let out another deep call. Sharp smoke from the open fireplace burned my eyes and dried out my throat, but the chilly wind coming through the open windows made me want to move closer.

Priscilla Herrera knelt before a long bench, her hands working at something. She hummed words to a song I didn’t recognize in a language unfamiliar to my ears. Her purpose came to me, almost as if it had been implanted in my mind. Someone was coming, and when they got here, they’d kill her. She couldn’t keep from dying, but she could keep her killers from winning in the end. She’d make them hurt.

Priscilla took out a worn book, hand bound in some sort of leather, opened it, and read, her finger moving along with her progress. She set the book aside and leaned back her head, her eyes drifting closed, and took slow deep breaths. The air in the room charged with some sort of power I couldn’t see. The fillings in my teeth ached, and my earrings thrummed with it.

She turned to make sure I saw her place flat stones, polished and carved into geometric shapes, in a circle on the bench before her. She rummaged around on the plank floor at her knees and raised a small object concealed in one trembling hand. She fumbled and it fell to the floor, rolling away from her, and landing ass end up. Best I could tell, it was a tiny chest, no bigger across than my smartphone. On the bottom was a bird like the one I had tattooed on my arm. Just like the one she had tattooed on her body. The hairs on the back of my neck, already standing at attention, stiffened. Priscilla retrieved the box and set it on the table. She gave me a sly smile. A glowing nimbus appeared around the box, its edges vibrating and dancing. Priscilla spoke, still in the sing-song language I could only identify as not Spanish, but I understood every word and felt the power she wielded as though it belonged to me.

“Entity trapped within these stones, go to live in this box and in the thing it represents, keeping it from the eyes of he who does not see and does not hear and does not have the Blood. Find your new home in this box and seek revenge on he who comes to steal that which is not his. Recognize my Blood and remember it from now until the end of time, for you belong to me and do my bidding.”

She picked up a knife and slashed her thumb pad. I flinched, imagining the pain, and reached out to stop her, but it was like grabbing for something underwater. Some force weighed me down and held me away from my hostess. Priscilla squeezed the wound, dribbling blood onto the toy-sized chest. Then she opened it. She pulled her hair out of the bun and used her knife to cut off a lock. She placed the hair inside the chest and closed it. She lifted a glass vial and held it to the spare light filtering into the windows. Though clear, I could see particles swimming sluggishly in the liquid. She swirled the vial and upended its contents onto the chest.

She took several deep breaths and began to speak, her words guttural, her voice shaking with the force of them.

“One of mine, one with power, will return some day to reward you for a job well done and allow you to return to the dark outposts from which you came. You will know it is me from the Blood and from these stones in which you have lived and to which you must return to receive your reward. If one who separates you from this box does not have these stones, you will be forced to wander this plane for eternity. Level this town and destroy all who live within for your revenge.”

Finished speaking, she struck a match and set it on the tiny chest. Blue flame engulfed it, burning so bright my eyes stung and watered. The odor was one of sulfur and spice. As quickly as it started, the fire burned out. The box survived the fire undamaged. Priscilla Herrera palmed the tiny box and made it disappear into the folds of her dress. Then she picked up the stones one by one and performed the same trick with them.

She leaned over the open book and traced a pattern on the open page, whispering words in the same odd language, but this time I did not understand the words. As I watched, the words wiggled and shifted, changing into other words. She closed the book, performing the same ritual, and the book lengthened and flattened, resembling a store-bought ledger like the ones I’d seen in the video of the museum board’s meeting.

Realization slammed into me, squeezing my already abused muscles into even more painful contortions. The book Hannah and the others thought to be a book of folk medicine was actually Priscilla’s spell book, disguised by magic.

The door opened and an adolescent boy with black hair and dark skin rushed inside. He communicated with the woman in gestures. I began to shake as I caught the gist. Whoever was coming was close. The woman yelled, in English, “Samantha!” and a teenage girl appeared.

“Take this book and go hide in the woods. Mr. Bruce will be along shortly, and he’ll want to take you to his home. You go and give this book to Mrs. Bruce and tell her it’s full of remedies to help with her children’s maladies, and it’s my gift to her for her friendship.”

“But, Mama,” the girl whined.

“Shush and listen. Thank both Mr. and Mrs. Bruce the way I taught you. Tonight, once it gets dark, you slip away from the Bruce place and walk south all night, never stopping. Sleep through the days and walk at night. Keep walking until you reach Nacogdoches. If someone asks your family name, say it’s Goyo, not Herrera. Bad people may be looking for you. In Nacogdoches, find a man named Bob Skanes. Ask him to help you get work.”

The boy shook his head, ran to the corner, and grabbed an axe.

“No,” Priscilla said. “It’s too late. I trusted the wrong people, overstayed my welcome.”

“It’s not too late,” Samantha yelled.

“It is.” Priscilla rushed to her, grabbed her hand, traced something on the palm and said a few words. She repeated the same ritual on the boy. Then she gathered both children close and hugged them tight, all of them rocking and crying. She pushed them away, ignoring their protests, and shooed them out the door. She followed them outside.

“Remember what you see here on this day. Never forget it. Never come back to this Godforsaken gathering of ignorant, greedy, fools.” She hugged both children again. “Now go. Forget who you are. Never come back.” She stood outside her house, tears running down her face, until she could see her children no more. Then she went back inside.

In the distance, I heard hoof beats, and the first horse came into view within seconds. The man astride it swung off its back and came to the door and knocked. Priscilla sighed deeply. Ignoring the knock, she returned to the bench and sat to wait.

“Open this door, witch,” an ugly, harsh voice shouted. Many birds returned the man’s shout, the sound of their flapping wings filling the small cabin, the noise of them so loud my eardrums rattled.

I woke from the vision gagging and gasping, trying to scream at Priscilla to run, and found myself still sitting in the front seat of my car. My muscles ached as though I’d taken a beating. The smell of smoke from Priscilla Herrera’s hearth fire lingered on my clothes. Had she somehow taken my physical form there? The thought of so much power scared me worse than any ghost ever had.

The words from her incantations replayed in my mind, especially the part about her ordering whatever spiritual baddie she’d assigned to protect the treasure to level Gaslight City and kill all the residents.

What if Eddie was right, and the person who stole the Bruce Journals and the book of folk medicine intended to try to remove the curse? Then I remembered seeing Priscilla turn her spell book into the book of folk medicine and what she told me about stopping her evil from being made worse. The thief already had the spell book used to create the curse.
One step closer to destruction.

Priscilla’s words returned to me, as clear as if she sat in the car with me, whispering them in my ear. I almost felt her breath tickling my skin.
Only you can help me stop this evil.

I did a slow burn. Why did this whole thing have to come along and dump garbage all over the life I was working so hard to normalize? I picked up my phone again and took in Priscilla Herrera’s picture.

A wild hope occurred to me. Priscilla may not have possessed the power or skill to unleash Hell to destroy Gaslight City and its inhabitants. I shook my head. I didn’t even believe it myself. Of course she had power, more than I could imagine. Whatever she intended would happen. Scratch the idea.

I rummaged through my brain for another way out and found one. All the people who hurt Priscilla died years and years ago. Surely she wouldn’t annihilate a bunch of innocents, no matter how much wrong their ancestors did to her. Or not. Facing death, Priscilla Herrera may not have cared who she stomped and squished.

I needed to talk this whole thing over with somebody, and I knew one person who would selflessly help me without considering his own agenda. Eddie had spent his entire life researching the Mace Treasure and all the people connected to it, and I trusted him with my life. I did a U-turn and drove toward his house, using my free hand to call him on my cellphone.

Maybe I could get back to pretending to be just an everyday gal after this whole mess blew over.

P
ictures
of me growing up nearly hid the cheap, yellowed paneling in Eddie’s living room. He committed to helping raise me because he’d been my daddy’s best friend. His judgment wasn’t always the greatest, he did the best he knew how to do. The contrast between his loyalty to me and my foot-dragging over using my natural ability to help find the stolen items burned at my conscience.

The sweltering living room smelled like the devil’s butthole after six months without any washing, even with all the box fans Eddie had running. He entered the living room bearing a paper plate piled with smoked sausage, cheese, and saltine crackers. He gave half to his dog, Ugly, who’d been lying on top of one of the mobile home’s floor vents. The dog scooted where he could eat the food, a big grin on his face. I took a good look at Ugly and realized where the smell must have come from. The dog’s patchy coat was covered in black smudges.
Gross.

“So what’s up?” Eddie made himself a sausage, cheese, and cracker sandwich and ate it in one bite.

“We’ve got to find the stolen journals and folk medicine book as quickly as possible.” I contemplated Eddie’s hors d’oeuvres and decided against them. “I’ll help all I can with the finding, but I don’t think I can get them back by myself.”

“I feel like I’ve walked into the middle of a movie.” Eddie shoved another cracker sandwich into his mouth whole and chewed as he talked. “Why don’t you tell me what’s got you so upset you changed your mind?”

Shivering, I told Eddie about the vision in as much detail as I could remember. His face lit up as soon as he realized what I’d seen. He set his paper plate on the floor for Ugly. The dog raised his head, waited a beat to make sure Eddie didn’t intend to take it to him, and lazily rose to check it out. He ate the paper plate, too. This close, the smell coming off the dog nearly choked me. Eddie got out a yellow legal pad, scribbling while I talked.

When he finished eating, the dog raised his misshapen head and grinned at me, tongue lolling out of his mouth. I smiled but couldn’t make myself touch his nasty fur. Ugly’s resilience touched my heart. Eddie and I found the dog wandering on the side of the road near death a few years ago. The vet who helped us save him speculated Ugly’d been a bait dog for dog fighters.

“Aw, he’s okay. You can pet him,” Eddie said.

“What’d he get into?”

“Neighbor’s septic tank is overflowing. Ugly found it a few days ago. Figured I’d wait ’til he got it fixed to give old Ug a bath.”

I swallowed my rising gorge and gave Ugly a perfunctory pat. He trotted back to his air vent and flopped down on it. I tried to sit on the couch while touching as little of the ratty floral printed fabric as possible.

“That all you seen in your vision?” Eddie spoke without taking his eyes off the pad.

“Pretty much.”

“Well, ain’t blackbirds you seen. It’s ravens.” Eddie turned his notepad so I could see where he’d sketched a raven while I talked. “I know because I researched ‘em once after seeing ‘em out on Priscilla Herrera’s old place. Only place I’ve ever seen ravens ‘round here.”

I thought of my tattoo, how it matched the picture on the bottom of the box. No need to mention it to Eddie. This whole thing was too big for me as it was.

“I’ll go back in my notes on Priscilla Herrera. See if I can learn anything about her connection to ravens. I ain’t got much information, though.” He made a note on his pad.

“What really matters is what she said when she cursed the treasure.” I worried Eddie would get lost in details and miss the part where removing the curse could unleash hell on earth.

“Right. I was fooling with the dog and almost missed it.” He leaned forward, his gaze fixed on my face. “Tell me again.”

I took a deep breath. “Way I understood, if anybody tries to remove the curse and doesn’t put those demons, or whatever they were, back into the stones or send them back to the dark outposts, Gaslight City’s going to get mashed flat. She said, ‘Level this town and destroy all who live within.’”

Eddie’s mouth went slack, but his eyes didn’t. In their muddy depths, I saw his mind spinning ninety to nothing. “Oh, hell. You seen them things guarding the treasure, ain’t you?”

“Two times, yes.” My body tightened, remembering the experience. “Neither meeting was any fun.”

“You think these…guardians? Ain’t that what she called ‘em? You think they got enough power to do what she says? Level the city? Destroy all who live within?” He chewed on his upper lip.

“Let me put it this way. It’ll be like when you step on one of these roaches I keep seeing run across the floor.” I paused to let Eddie think about it for a few seconds, then continued. “So if you’re right about the thief planning to undo the curse, the shit is about to hit the fan and splatter. But there’s no way I can fight someone so powerful.” I stared at Eddie, waiting for him to tell me how it could all be fixed.

“What you mean? You faster’n two-dollar pistol when you set your mind to something.”

“This person’s way ahead of anything I can learn in time to help.” I barely resisted the urge to scream the words. There was no way I could do this. It wasn’t like some miracle was going to come along and transform me into someone who knew about this kind of crap. “Whoever this is can control ghosts. If we’re right, they know enough magic to think they can undo Priscilla Herrera’s curse. It’s beyond me.”

“Tell me the vision again from the beginning,” he said.

“How many times do I have to repeat it?”

“When’d you get to be such a smart ass?” He furrowed his bushy gray brows. “You used to have better manners.”

“Gee, I wonder where I learned bad ones.” I went through the vision again, this time stopping to answer Eddie’s questions and repeating bits and pieces until he had them straight.

“Now, I don’t know much about magic, so I might be wrong.” He caressed the stubble on his cheeks as he thought. “But you said Priscilla Herrera put the demons into the little box with the raven on the bottom.”

I nodded.

“My thinking is if someone wanted to undo the curse, they’d need the little box.” A smile grew across his grizzled face. “So what you got to do is find the box, Peri Jean Mace, before they get to it. You don’t need to be no ace magic practitioner to do it, either.”

I snorted. “The box is gone. Got lost a hundred years ago when those assholes hanged Priscilla Herrera.”

“You saw her put it in the pocket of her dress, did you not?”

Frustrated, I nodded.

“Either it’s with her dead body or whoever buried her took it.” He patted the loveseat next to him, and Ugly ran over and jumped on it. The smell hit me again. It was all I could do to stay still. Eddie patted the dog’s head, either used to the smell or not caring. “Thing is, the little box sounds so familiar to me. For the life of me, I can’t remember where I heard about it. The mind is like a rubber band, munchkin.” He tapped his temple. “It loses its snap as you age. Give me some time to think about it. I got another plan we can try first.”

I hated to ask what.

“I want you to contact the ghost we seen on Miss Hannah’s surveillance video.”

I actually groaned. For all the wiggling and dancing I’d done on this awful, long day, I was right back where I started. Forgetting where I was, I sat back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. What I saw there gave me an idea what to get Eddie for his birthday—a house cleaning.

I tried to picture the ghost I’d seen on the video and sorted through everything I knew, which wasn’t much at all, about contacting the dead. The black opal sent a little tingle of magic into my skin, as though telling me it would help. I drew in a deep breath of the foul air and called up the ghost’s voice begging for help.

“
My friends. Can’t do this. Please make it stop.
”

I recalled the desperation and sadness I’d felt when I heard the voice, trying to pull those emotions to me, in hopes they’d make the ghost come.

The humid air in the trailer cooled, chilling my sweat-dampened skin. I shivered and pulled my arms tight around myself for warmth. The black opal warmed on my chest and waves of its power radiated through me.

Don’t let her come. Don’t let her get hurt.

The ghost’s voice. Was it talking about me? I might not like visiting with ghosts, but they rarely did me any lasting harm. I pushed harder and reached out my mind to latch on to the spirit connected with the voice. It was like chasing myself through a maze. Down one row and up against a dead end. Around another corner, but the shadow stayed ahead by a fraction of a second. This ghost asked for help. Why wouldn’t it let me help?

The black opal, which had become my only source of heat as the room grew frigid, suddenly stilled, growing cold as a block of ice against my chest. I gasped, my eyes flying open, and pulled the awful thing out of my shirt. I looked around for Eddie but found myself back in the dark place where I’d gone before I had the vision. Priscilla Herrera stood watching me, hands on her hips.

This time the dark wasn’t as dark, and I looked around. I was in a room with a wood floor and no windows, bare of furniture except for a rough table and chair. A few toys lay scattered on the floor. I could see two doors, one on each side of the room.
Where am I?

I recognized some of the toys as ones I’d played with as a kid but hadn’t seen in years. The table was cluttered with a tangle of junk. I made out a pack of cigarettes, the extremely strong ones I’d smoked during a dark time in my life. My wedding ring, the one I’d thrown in the Trinity River after my divorce was final, sat beside the cigarettes. My heart thudded dully.
What is this place? How can I leave?

I walked toward the door closest to me, but a cold hand grabbed my arm. Priscilla Herrera shook her head no and gave me a light push toward the other door. I hesitated, wondering if she meant me harm since I knew her secrets. She smiled as though I’d asked the question out loud, shook her head again, and shooed me toward the door.

I took halting steps to the closed door, hand reaching for the worn brass knob. It felt warm under my hand as though heated by a hot summer day. Maybe it would take me back to Eddie. I turned the knob and opened the door and took a step into the blackness. I fell fast and came down on something soft, sucking in air and half screaming.

“Peri Jean, you all right?” Eddie’s hands gripped my arms. His face was so close I saw the veins threading their way under the skin of his nose. Ugly barked in the background. Eddie gave me a hard shake. “You okay? Want me to call the ambulance?”

I forced myself to come to life. “No. No. Don’t want the ambulance or a doctor.”

“Hush, Ugly, and come here.” Eddie held out his hand and the dog came to him. His horrid odor hit me like smelling salts. I woke up in a flash.

“Didn’t see anything useful. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Jesus wept, your eyes rolled back in your head, and it scared the shit out of me. Never realized you’d roll up your eyes like that. Won’t never stop seeing it, don’t imagine.”

I stood, wanting to get away from Ugly’s stench even though I usually loved him.

“We’ll just focus on getting the box,” Eddie said.

I nodded, my head swimming and my knees weak.

“Give me long enough, and I’ll remember where I saw it or heard about it.” Eddie kept petting Ugly. I noticed his big hand shook. I had scared him, and I owed him an apology.

“I’m sorry I scared you, Eddie.” My voice sounded sluggish like I’d been asleep.

“Never apologize for doing what I asked you to do, Munchkin. You caught me off guard is all.” He tried to laugh. It came out flat and insincere.

My cellphone buzzed, indicating I had a text message. It was from Hannah.

Where the blazes are you? Dean is frantic you aren’t here yet.

The campaign barbecue. People’d been reminding me all day. It was scheduled to start in ten minutes, and I looked and smelled like hell.

“The barbecue,” I said to Eddie. “I’m going to be late.”

He ushered me to the door and said something nobody but Eddie would have said or thought. “Just go like you are, baby. You look all right.” We hugged, and I gave Ugly a goodbye pat. “Tell Dean I’m feeling a little under the weather but I’ll make the debate, I promise. I’ll stay here and research and think on this box, see what I can remember.”

We said our “I love yous” and I went to my car and looked down at myself. There was no way I could show up at Dean’s barbecue in dirty jeans and a t-shirt. I started my car and headed toward Memaw’s.

* * *

I
hadn’t gone
a mile before my cellphone dinged again. Couldn’t Hannah give me a few minutes to get it together? I’d have to wait to look at it. I pushed the button on the side of the phone so it wouldn’t keep alerting me.

A sound came out of the phone’s speaker, a low hiss. Had I somehow turned on video or music? The message bell dinged again. Then again. And again. I whipped off the road, the car leaning on the gravel shoulder, and grabbed my phone. If this was Hannah Kessler acting a fool, I’d get her good.

The hiss played again over the phone before I could get it up to eye level, so I went into my messages, automatically tapping Hannah’s name to get her message thread up. To my surprise, there was nothing since she’d asked where the hell I was. The messages button at the upper left of the screen indicated I had ten messages. 10? I clicked the button. All the messages were from an unknown number, and all of them were videos. I tapped one of them.