Page 3 of Haunted Heart (Things that Go Hump in the night #1)

THREE

The sun has fully set outside, but the candles along the perimeter keep the room bright with a warm haze.

The house was never hooked up to the power grid, but Julia’s murderer had installed several electric fixtures before she killed him. The antique bulbs in them are dark… for the moment.

My friends look at them with suspicion now.

“Ready?” I ask.

“No,” Margie says, chewing on her thumb. Everyone else—except Dylan—says yes.

The answer has to be yes.

I have to finish the spell that will fix what’s broken with Dylan.

He’ll stop doing things like sitting too close, he’ll stop being a jerk to other people when he thinks I’m paying too much attention to them, and he’ll go back to just being my friend. A few more words, and no more romantic feelings ever again.

I strike a long match and light the candle in front of me, before passing it around the circle for each of them to light a candle of their own.

And once it’s back to me, I snuff it in one of the piles of sand inside the circle and sit up straighter.

The circle, pentacle, and borrowed bits of Ouija trappings won’t do anything. It’s all just a show piece for our audience.

The conjuror’s trick . Making everyone look at what Julia’s doing while I do the real magic on Dylan.

Closing my eyes, I set my hands on my knees, palms turned upward.

And flinch when Dylan’s hand takes mine. I pull my hand back from his grip.

“It’s not a hand holding kind of spell,” I say quietly, but not quietly enough.

Perry snorts into his soda can and Dylan scowls. First at Perry, then at me.

“Sorry.” I am going to be so happy when this spell is over and things are easy again.

Returning to my pose, I start to speak the fake incantation.

Half of the Latin is nonsense, and as the lights flicker, I know Julia’s laughing at me.

“ Ignis ardeat. ” I feel the flames jump and hear the antique bulbs crackle as I grab more random words that will sound like something they’d expect in a summoning. “ Salire leporem et natare anguis.”

Julia throws the front door open and the wind moans through the house.

Our audience makes the appropriate sounds: screams and a spooked oh! or two. Even one appreciative oooo from Jonas on my left.

I open my eyes and see Rose has all but crawled into Perry’s lap.

He doesn’t look disappointed. His hand between her wings, her face buried in his neck…

Dylan leans over to me. “Remote control puppetry?”

“Nope, just a regular poltergeist.” The lights surge a little. And maybe she’s right to be offended. Julia’s not regular .

“Julia?” I ask, trying not to smile and give myself away. “Are you here?”

A little dust swirls around the place where I’ve written “yes” on the floor in chalk.

“She’s here!” Margie says, hushed, but with eyes wide.

Dylan snorts and takes another drink of his beer, downing the last of it and setting the second bottle with the first.

At least I shouldn’t have to worry about its effectiveness.

“Do you have a message for us, Julia?”

Another little swirl around the yes, and then, in the pile of chalk dust at the center, she starts to draw her letters.

Even Dylan seems to take that seriously.

The message is simple, and I let the five of them parse it out.

“G,” Margie says, spelling out the word as it forms in the chalk dust. “E-T. Get?”

“O-U.” As Perry says “T,” all of the antique bulbs burst in their fixtures, candles flaring. The shutters rattle and the curtains fly away from their windows.

Rose screams, Margie and Perry scrambling away from the circle.

I say the second half of the spell under my breath, as quickly as I can. “Take its soul far away, never to see the light of day. Deliver me from it without delay. Whatever the price, it’s his to pay.”

Julia goes a little overboard, tipping the table over so the drinks and ice spill across the floor.

Rose’s wings move like Julia’s tugging on them and the woman bolts for the door. Margie and Perry are right behind her.

I get up and follow after them, watching as they scream all the way back to Perry’s car.

I bite the inside of my cheek so that my smile doesn’t turn into a laugh, and a moment later, my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.

I pull it out and see Rose’s face, sticking her tongue out at the screen before I answer.

“Hey,” she says, breathlessly. “That was… amazing, but I’ve seen too many movies. We are not coming back.”

I laugh, because I can’t argue with her practicality. “That’s okay.”

“Tell Jonas he has to get a ride back to campus with Dylan.”

Perry has already pulled out of the makeshift lot—there are two more cars now—heading back toward the road to town.

“Will do.” I look back inside, the silence unsettling me. “Tell Perry to drive safe.”

“Thanks!” She makes a kissing sound and then hangs up.

I pause there, putting my phone away and listen for movement… but there is none.

Walking carefully back inside, I stop on the threshold of the drawing room.

“Shit.”

Dylan and Jonas are on the floor, down for the count.

Something went terribly wrong.