Storm Road (Old School Book 3) Read online

  Time passed. He counted the minutes. There was still nine minutes to the hour when she swayed for the first time.

  He took a step forward, and halted as her gaze locked with his.

  She shook her head, no, don’t interrupt, and shuffled her feet to a wider stance. She extended her arms out across the pentagram.

  The candle flames all lent toward her, then snuffed out.

  He glanced around quickly, but couldn’t detect the ghoul. The afternoon sun remained warm on his face. The chorus of insects and birds continued unchanged.

  Beulah pulled in her arms, closing her hands into fists with the fingers down.

  “Nothing!” She opened her fists in a flinging motion, and a smell like ozone burned the air. “I can’t make the ghoul appear. I think I can feel it back toward the cemetery.” She looked toward the town. “But no matter how I try to pull it here, the ghoul isn’t budging.”

  She swayed. “I don’t feel…”

  He ran across the pentagram and caught her.

  “I won’t faint. I don’t faint.” Her argument would have been more convincing if he hadn’t been holding her up.

  He half-carried her to the pickup and lifted her into the passenger seat.

  “I failed.” She looked bleakly at the ruined house.

  “Will you be okay there a minute?” He gave her a water bottle and waited till she nodded. Then he moved swiftly to scuff the pentagram and pour water from the watering can over it and the candles. He’d eliminated the obvious signs of spell-making in the grass clearing by the oak tree in the same way. If anyone looked, they might still be suspicious as to what had been attempted at Aunt Millie’s abandoned house, but it wouldn’t be immediately obvious or scream for attention that there’d been occult activity.

  He climbed into the pickup’s driver’s seat.

  Beulah had her head back against the passenger seat head rest and her eyes closed.

  “Your exhaustion,” he began cautiously, not wanting to offend her or show absolute ignorance. “Is it because your magic isn’t usually used for demonology?”

  Her eyes opened, bleary with tiredness. “You’re smart. Yes.” She drank some water and licked a drop from her lower lip. “My magic doesn’t like the pattern of the summoning, so I had to fight to keep it flowing through it. I used far more magic than a wizard would.”

  She’d depleted herself, and he’d stood by uselessly while it happened. Anger and helplessness bit at him. “I’ll drive us home,” he said curtly.

  Receiving no response, he switched on the engine. Aunt Millie’s farm receded in the rear view mirror. As beautiful as the location was, he was glad to leave it behind and return to Beulah’s cabin. There were too many bad memories at the old farmhouse.

  “You’ll have to go, now,” she said as he drove through the gate onto her land. She’d waited to speak till she felt safe within the ward set around her home.

  He felt safer here, too. “When I go.” And it was when, not if. They needed help. “I want your promise that you’ll stay at the cabin, safe inside the ward.”

  She straightened fractionally. “If the ghoul—”

  “You’re in no fit state to fight it,” he interrupted bluntly.

  “I’m the only person in town with magic. It’s not like there are magic users everywhere.”

  “Exactly.” He parked the pickup in the garage, blinking to adjust his vision to the dimness faster. “Look at it from another perspective. If the ghoul defeats you—and right now, it looks as if a kitten could take you in a fight—then it could possess you. You, with your magic. You’re a prize for the ghoul.”

  He saw her looking thoughtful and pushed his argument. “You chose daylight, when you’re strongest, to try to summon and vanquish the ghoul. It will choose its own time to try and overpower and possess you. I need your promise that you’ll stay safe inside the ward until I return with whatever information your friend Yasmin has for us. With luck, she might even have someone outside waiting to help us.”

  “And if you don’t return? If you can’t get back inside the ghoul’s territory?”

  He clasped her hand. “I’m not magical, I’m just marine-stubborn. I’ll return. I promise.”

  Chapter 8

  Beulah watched the taillights of Dean’s rental car vanish down her driveway before she had a final glimpse of the car through the trees as he drove along the river road away from town.

  He hadn’t wasted any time once he’d seen her safely into the cabin and gotten Yasmin and Vanessa’s phone numbers from her.

  She’d also given him the contact details for Stag’s headquarters. “Their agents’ reckless actions released the ghoul. If you can’t reach Yasmin or Vanessa, then contact these guys and outline the problem. I don’t like them, but they have their own code of ethics. They won’t ignore the ghoul’s presence.”

  She sank onto a rocking chair on the porch. It wasn’t just the ghoul’s presence that the Stag mercenaries wouldn’t ignore. She’d told Dean to mention her name if he had to contact them.

  When Samuel had died, the head of Stag told her that as Samuel’s widow, she would always have a claim on the agency. The mercenaries who worked for the agency needed to know that if anything happened to them, their families would be looked after.

  “I don’t want anyone from Stag in my home,” she told the wind.

  The air carried the crisp green smell of the woods and a hint of the river. It wove around her, gentle and soothing. She let her magic reach out to it, running through the calm patterns of the fine weather currently blessing the mountains. At the moment, recharging her magic was more important than refueling her body with food and water. Her magic flowed into the weather and returned to her with its energy.

  Some of her depressed sense of failure lifted. She had failed to summon the ghoul, but her magical nature had never been the most likely to succeed in dealing with such an entity. All that she’d had on her side was that she was present.

  She had to believe that Yasmin would have found someone who could help; someone strong enough to enter the ghoul’s territory and vanquish it. Dean would give the wizard all the information she and he had gathered, even from their failures, and the wizard would take over.

  She’d even welcome a Stag wizard if that was necessary. The memories of Samuel’s betrayal and death had been brought rawly alive again, anyway. What more damage could be done to her?

  Her hands closed tight over the wooden arms of the rocking chair. Dean was doing the right thing in going for help. It was what she’d asked of him.

  So why do I feel abandoned?

  The cabin had never felt lonely before. It had been her refuge. She could be alone in it, something that balanced out the close proximity to others that the scientific research missions she went on forced on her. Boats were crowded, with little privacy. The cabin gave her room to breathe.

  She rubbed her chest, as if loneliness could be rubbed away.

  Out at sea, her magic flowed through the robust patterns of wild ocean storms. The violent battering of wind, rain and sea energized her, but there was always a lurking fear that her magic would react to that wildness with its own leap for freedom.

  Controlling her weather magic was essential. When it escaped her control, things like the Brighton waterspout she’d told Dean of happened. People could die.

  Here in the mountains, her magic flowed serenely. The rock of the mountains endured, with the seasons cycling over them. Summer, fall, winter and the renewal of spring. The cycle of life kept her grounded.

  Thinking of it, her magic steadied. The awful emptiness of all that she’d poured out at Millie’s farm in trying to summon the ghoul, refilled. She rubbed at her arms, noticing that she felt cold.

  How long have I been out here? The day was cooling into evening, the shadows lengthening. She stood up and found that her muscles were stiff. She stamped her feet, flexed her toes in her boots, and swung her arms. She clapped her hands together, and a raven gave a sta
rtled croak from a nearby pine tree.

  “Food.” With her magic recharged, her body demanded that its needs be met. Cooking didn’t appeal. The diner in town had the yummiest burgers. Just thinking of their homemade, sticky, sweet barbeque sauce made her stomach rumble approval. But she’d promised Dean she’d stay home within the ward, and her own instincts urged caution. Night would claim the mountains soon, and the ghoul would come into its strength.

  She hoped to heaven that Dean found the help Yasmin had promised to send because the ghoul had proven to be beyond her strength.

  If she couldn’t summon it, she had no hope of vanquishing it.

  Dean drove away from the cabin torn between duty and an instinct to stay with Beulah. He knew that they needed allies, magical ones, and that the more information whoever Yasmin sent had, the better their chances of defeating the ghoul. But he’d had to leave Beulah exhausted and depressed, and that didn’t sit right with him.

  So the sooner I do this, the sooner I can return. He wouldn’t even consider the possibility that, aware of him now, the ghoul might be able to keep him out of its territory. He would return. He wouldn’t leave Beulah alone.

  The mountain roads curved and swooped, demanding his concentration. Every so often, he slowed fractionally and glanced at his phone. When it finally showed a signal, exhilaration swept through him.

  The signal bar vanished again, but he took heart from its momentary appearance.

  Soon the reception symbol stayed steady, and he pulled off the road into the parking lot of a large hardware store. He parked away from other cars and phoned the number Beulah had given him for Yasmin. If she didn’t answer, he had phone numbers for a woman named Vanessa and the headquarters for the Stag Agency. He’d be calling them one day to call them to account for what they’d done at his aunt’s house, but that had to wait.

  “Hello?”

  He’d gotten through to Yasmin. He introduced himself, leading with the fact that he was calling on behalf of Beulah.

  “I have a wizard in the area,” Yasmin said. “As far as I could discover, there’s only one wizard alive who has vanquished a ghoul, and she’s somewhere in Mongolia. No one quite knows where, and even a finder talent couldn’t locate her. So obviously, she doesn’t want to be found. For all we know, she may be on a task as important as vanquishing your ghoul.”

  He didn’t consider the ghoul his, but there were more critical issues. “Who did you send instead?”

  “Lyall Reynolds. He’s a paranormal energy researcher.” Her tone turned apologetic. “His expertise was the nearest to useful that I could find. I did a little more research and I realized that I’d misunderstood my grandfather’s story. A ghoul is nearer to a construct than to a summoned being, such as a demon.”

  “Nearer to alchemy than demonology Beulah said.”

  Yasmin’s breath hitched. “How is she? Has she had some success?”

  “As far as we know, it has taken—killed—one man, and unsuccessfully attempted to lure a child within its territory and a low level wizard from outside its territory. Beulah tried to summon it to vanquish it today, but it wouldn’t materialize in daylight.”

  “It could resist her summoning? What did she try? No. No, sorry. This would be more efficient if you only reported once and Lyall heard what Beulah’s tried. I’ll call him, then call you back with his location. If he’s near enough to you, a physical meeting would be best. Otherwise we’ll conference call. Where are you?”

  He named the town. “On the western edge.”

  “Okay.”

  Her abrupt disconnect left him listening to empty air. He put his phone down and got out of the car to stretch. He’d driven down the mountain and the lower altitude held a higher humidity. Yet for all that he sweated, he felt freer. The absence of the ghoul’s oppressive presence reinforced the need to vanquish it completely.

  People exited the hardware store, preoccupied with whatever projects they had underway. Across the road, cars steadily entered and exited a drive-thru restaurant and he watched them idly. He wasn’t hungry, but an iced coffee appealed.

  His phone rang.

  “Lyall is twelve miles away from you. He’s hunkered down at an old graveyard.” She gave Dean the directions.

  “Why a graveyard?” he asked as he started up the car.

  “You’ll have to ask him. By his reports, Lyall’s tried numerous times to enter the ghoul’s territory, but hasn’t made it through whatever ward the ghoul has created.”

  Dean headed back into the mountains but veered eastward. “The ghoul possessed a human and used it to sacrifice animals. Beulah mentioned the possibility of a blood ward. Ghouls, or this one at least, seem to gain power from blood. A human has to bleed onto the ground for the ghoul to possess them.”

  “Is it growing in strength?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but…” He braked as a car travelling toward him on the left completely ignored a stop sign. Idiot. It would be ironic if he avoided death-by-ghoul to be killed in a traffic accident.

  Yasmin surprised him when she took up the conversation after he stayed silent. “It wouldn’t be too bad if the ghoul grew a little in strength. Lyall is situated against the ghoul’s current territorial border. When the ghoul expands its territory, which is what the literature on them says they’re compelled to do, Lyall will be integrated into that territory. He won’t have to breach the ghoul’s ward because its expanded territory will engulf him.”

  The glaring flaw in Lyall’s strategy was immediately obvious to Dean. “You said this guy has tested the ghoul’s ward repeatedly?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the ghoul is aware of him. When it expands its territory, what is it to stop it pushing its territory around Lyall in a sort of bubble, trapping him inside the ghoul’s territory but unable to move?”

  Dead silence answered him, long enough for Dean to check that his phone hadn’t lost reception.

  Yasmin swore quietly. “I never considered the counter-strategy. Hopefully, Lyall has. Perhaps the consecrated ground of a cemetery will hide Lyall’s presence from the ghoul or perhaps the ghoul won’t be able to resist the lure of a graveyard?”

  It was Dean’s turn to consider in silence. “Possibly the latter. The ghoul has established its base in the town’s cemetery. We encountered it there this morning. Still…”

  “Raise the issue with Lyall,” Yasmin agreed.

  He reached the cemetery and noted a rental car with the same company logo as the one he drove parked out of sight of the road behind a clump of dogwoods. The pretty flowers seemed utterly inappropriate.

  A man waited inside the cemetery

  Dean parked his car out of sight of the road and got out, moving deliberately. His instincts were spiking out in all directions, shouting about the possibility of an ambush. A glance at his phone showed the signal bar. That he still had reception meant he remained outside the ghoul’s territory.

  He should have asked Yasmin for a description of Lyall Reynolds. Rationally, who else would be here in this obscure spot? But in a rational world, ghouls didn’t exist, and he’d been proven wrong on that point.

  “Name?” the man in the cemetery called. His voice was raspy, and the cigarette held in his left hand probably contributed to that harshness.

  “Dean Fortescue.” Dean entered the cemetery, walking between the neglected graves. Grass brushed against his jeans.

  “You look like your photo.”

  So at least one of us has done his homework, Dean thought ruefully. His instincts stayed on screaming high alert. Beulah trusted Yasmin, and he was inclined to do the same, but the whole situation with the ghoul made him doubt everything. Everything except Beulah.

  “Lyall Reynolds.” Lyall nodded in greeting rather than offer a handshake. He appeared to be in his fifties, skinny, with graying brown hair in need of a cut around a shiny bald patch at the crown of his head. His light blue eyes assessed Dean in quick peeps, as if he couldn’t hold ano
ther person’s gaze. Nervous habit or guilt? “I have Yasmin on the phone.”

  “Hi, Dean.” Yasmin’s voice came from Lyall’s vicinity.

  “Hi, Yasmin.”

  Lyall half-turned, gesturing awkwardly with his cigarette. “I’m set up over here.”

  Dean nodded and waited to follow him. He could see the corner of a low tent behind a second clump of dogwoods.

  “I just got here this morning.” Lyall might have been excusing the rudimentary nature of the campsite. The tent was a cheap single person one that sagged in the middle. Beside it was a folding chair.

  More interesting was the patch of ground just beyond it.

  Dean glanced toward the road. The dogwoods and other weeds, wildflowers and trees screened the patch of ground from anyone passing by. A rake leaning against a pine tree indicated that Lyall was responsible for clearing the ground. Remembering how Beulah had marked out the space for the ghoul’s summoning, Dean’s question was more of an observation. “You set your spells here?”

  Lyall ground out his cigarette. “I tried breaking into the ghoul’s territory.” He sat in the folding chair and held his phone on his knee.

  To ensure Yasmin could be part of this conversation Dean stayed close.

  Lyall glanced up at him and away, frowning. No doubt, from his perspective, Dean loomed.

  I need this guy’s help. With his instincts on edge, Dean couldn’t bring himself to make the tactical error of sitting on the ground. If anything happened, pushing up from the ground could take a vital couple of seconds. He compromised by gripping an overhanging branch in an attempt to look casual.

  Lyall muttered the rest of his explanation. “When I couldn’t get into the ghoul’s territory, I found a forgotten graveyard, this one, and tried summoning it from here.”

  Do ghouls have a special connection to graveyards?

  “That didn’t work either.”

  “No, Beulah couldn’t summon it when she tried today. She thinks that the ghoul has strength enough to resist coming out during the day when it’s weaker.” The idea wasn’t as contradictory as it sounded. The ghoul could be weaker in daylight, but still able to resist a summoning. “Unless…could two different summonings have cancelled out each other?”