Page 6 of Wicked Love
“I think you have a problem,chéri. You are not awake when you do these things.” There was a note of warning in Zelda’s voice.
“Yeah, this is what got my mom into trouble,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “I can’t put them back today.”
“No, that wouldn’t be prudent,” Zelda said. “But use magic to send them home.”
“I don’t know where I got them!” I threw up my hands in disgust. Jasper Hottie Thibodeaux hadn’t said which cemetery or cemeteries were disturbed.
“I can help you with that,” Zelda said.
“It all needs to wait,” I said. “I need to go shopping. I need a manicure,” I rubbed at my scratched hands. “I need to get to work.” I worked as a website designer, and while I worked at home, I had to meet deadlines and clients online throughout the day. At least I’d be able to be around and make sure no one discovered my crazy and completely illegal additions to the back shed. “How in the hell did this happen?” I muttered. I made to leave the shed. I needed to go to the grocery store, too, but it looked like food was down on the important list.
“You can’t just leave me here,” Zelda said.
“What am I supposed to do with you?”
“Bring me with you. I’ve been stuck in the crypt for years. I’d like some company.”
I stared at the box. This felt surreal, insane almost. After everything that happened with my mom, I didn’t step one toe outside the lines. No experimental magic, no creating spells. Nothing but standard, normal, acceptable spell craft.
And still, I ended up with a talking skull in my shed.
“Oh, all right. But if anyone knocks, I’m putting a drape over your box.”
Zelda didn’t reply immediately. Then she sighed—how did a spirit do that? “Very well. I accept your offer.”
“Well, I’m so glad,” I said.
Zelda apparently missed the sarcasm. “As am I. I know this was not your choice,chéri, but I am glad for the company. And it’s exciting to have a mystery to solve!”
“I don’t exactly think of my life as a mystery,” I said, carefully balancing the reliquary as I left the shed. I locked the door. I didn’t need anyone snooping around in there. Not until I could get my grisly visitors back where they belonged.
“But it is a mystery!” Zelda crowed. “Why are you moving when you are not awake? Have you always walked in your sleep?”
I shook my head as I sat the box carefully on the side table in my tiny office. “No, never. I’ve only been waking up with dirty hands for—” I stopped.
“Yes?” Zelda prompted.
“The last three weeks.”
“But you didn’t bring home any corpses before now?” The laughter had faded from her voice.
“I haven’t done laundry in four days and there were no bodies in there when I did my laundry,” I said, my own voice shaky. I sat down in my office chair, feeling a hundred years old and completely defeated. “I’m so screwed.”
“You don’t have to be,” Zelda remarked.
“Shouldn’t you be turning me in to the coven police?”
Zelda made a noise. “Perhaps. But I do not sense harm from you. There is an air of danger about you, although I don’t sense it coming from you personally. It’s more all around you,chéri.”
“That makes me feel so much better.”
“It should. Now enough sulking. We have work to do.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. How was it I was being bossed around by a skull in a box?
“We need to discover what it is that has set you off. Why are you heading out into the night now? What are you seeking? Is this your will, or another’s?”
Her words sent a chill through me. “That’s all well and good, but I need to go out. Then I need to work.”
