Page 71 of The Vampire and the Case of the Cursed Canine

Mum looked unnerved. ‘How can the gems be that strong? Liv said they were possessed by banshee spirits but banshees, even the strongest like your little friend, haven’t got a fraction of my strength.’

‘The banshees in the stones are the strongest ones of all time, and the gems themselves weren’t normal to start with. They had huge power before the banshees were forced into them. Apparently they were wielded by the archangels themselves.’ No one was supposed to know that, but she was my mum, and we had to fix this somehow; she needed to know the full force of what we were facing. ‘I think one of those stones might have given Liv immortality,’ I admitted.

Her jaw dropped. ‘Good Lord, Elizabeth. She might be unstoppable.’

‘Nobody’s unstoppable,’ I said. ‘Everyone has a weakness. Even Superman had kryptonite.’

‘Superman was fictional, darling,’ she pointed out condescendingly.

‘Yes, I know that.’ I suppressed my eye roll. ‘I mean that Evil Liv must have a weakness, and I think it is probably Good Liv. The gems want to be together and they made her kidnap you as a bargaining chip, but they didn’t understand that Liv has had access to the gems all along. She’s kept that from them. We can’t allow the gems to come together – somehow we need to block their control of Liv. Any ideas?’

‘What are the gemstones in now?’

‘Foot-square iron boxes.’

‘Iron?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Let me think.’ She took out her phone and began to scroll. I hoped it was a powerful ancient grimoire that had been digitised and was ready to be used. That gave me an idea. ‘Mum, that grimoire you bought, do you think it has anything helpful in it?’

Her eyes lit up. ‘I totally forgot about that. Oh my goodness, it might have.’

I ran into her room and retrieved the dusty tome from her dressing table. It was open – she’d clearly been reading it in her spare time. I gave it to her: she’d understand it better than me. I had passed Latin in school but I wasn’t as proficient as she was, plus she understood witchy stuff.

‘Elizabeth, I’m going to skim through this – I was halfway through it already. In the meantime, we’re going to need new boxes for the gems. What kind of fragrant wood grows here?’

I thought it all smelled nice so I texted Connor. No one would know wood like a lumberjack, right? He texted back quickly: Yellow cedar would work best. Have warned the others. On my way back.

‘He said we have yellow cedar.’

Relief washed over her. ‘Perfect. That’s in the cypress family and cypresses are guardians of boundaries. Have your lumberjack prince get to work on four boxes. They need to be the same size as the current ones, and we’ll need to enchant them before we add the gems.’

‘Okay, on it.’ I was about to text Connor again when I heard his truck outside.

I ran out of the door and caught him before he got out. ‘You’ve got to go to Kamluck. Mum needs four yellow cedar boxes, same size as the current gem boxes. We have to get the gems into those after they’ve been enchanted. Mum is still searching for a way to protect Liv from the influence of the gems – she thinks Liv is splitting into two personalities. Subconsciously she’s fighting the possession, but she’ll be too strong for any of us if her dark side wins.’

‘I’m on it. Four boxes coming up.’ He roared off.

Chapter 45

Thirty minutes later, Liv texted: Nearly ready. Collect the gems and meet us at the GPS location.

Shit. Was this Evil Liv or Normal Liv? If she got to the funeral home before us, she’d realise the jig was up as soon as she saw that Mum was gone. I needed to keep her far away until the boxes and the enchantment were ready. OK, I texted back. When? It’ll take an hour to get them all.

I could feel the exasperation in her text, probably because I knew how she operated. In an hour. I need an hour to get everything finalised. That’s why I texted now. I could hear her unspoken ‘duh’.

At least that meant she wouldn’t be checking on Mum anytime soon. I rang Connor. ‘Hey, we only have an hour. Can you have the boxes done?’

‘I’ve got four guys on it; they’ll be finished in twenty minutes. The boxes won’t be pretty but they’ll be functional. I’ll meet you at yours in half an hour.’

‘See you soon.’ I hung up and turned to my mother. ‘Any luck? You only have twenty minutes to be ready to enchant the boxes.’

She looked up from the passage she was reading and tapped the book. ‘This is the answer! But I need a few ingredients I don’t have with me.’

I gave her a piece of paper and a pen. ‘Write them down and I’ll get them.’ Somehow.

When she’d jotted them down, I looked at the list. ‘Holy water? Really? We aren’t religious!’

---