“He’s no Hunter.” Jenny touched her necklace. It was an automatic gesture. I doubted she realized she was doing it. “He doesn’t have a god backing him up. I would have felt that. All he has is an old van with an attitude problem.”
I returned to the tracking spells and placed Yorick on the page to keep my spot. The skull chittered in annoyance.
“You say the van had no driver?” I asked.
Jenny nodded. “That’s right.”
I turned to Annette. “Duke told you the van was registered to Ronnie’s mother. Do you know when and how she died?”
“Two years ago,” said Annette. “Officially, she was killed when a tanker truck T-boned her van outside of Atlanta.”
“That van last night didn’t have a scratch,” said Jenny.
“Duke texted me an update,” Annette continued, like Jenny hadn’t even spoken. “Unofficially, Margaret died performing an exorcism on a two-month-old boy. Margaret had a reputation among the body-snatcher set. Possession, mind control, body swap, it didn’t matter. She’d evict you so hard, you left an impact crater in your own body. She worked out of her van, and she decked it out with all kinds of charms and spells. Kind of like if the Ghostbusters did a makeover on a taco truck.”
“What went wrong?” Jenny asked.
“Someone booby-trapped the pacifier. As soon as Margaret took the little monster from his mother, he bit down hard, triggering a little poisoned dart that hit her in the throat. Basilisk venom. She died in less than a minute.” She paused, then added, “She was able to save the baby. He was fine.”
Jenny looked thoughtful. “Ronnie tried an exorcism prayer on me. He probably learned it from his mom.”
“Margaret was in our line of business,” I mused. “Our former business, not bookselling.” I’d never heard of her before. Either her work had been too quiet and small-scale for me to notice, or else she’d been very good at keeping off people’s radars.
I lifted Yorick and turned the page. “Margaret died violently. If she’s anything like us, she probably died feeling that her work was unfinished, which could anchor her to this world.”
“Are you saying I almost got run down by a haunted van?” asked Jenny.
“If we’re lucky, yes.” I skimmed the spell ingredients. It had been a decade since I last cast this one. “Ronald Kensington might be shielded from magic, but ghosts are harder to hide.”
One page contained the words of the spell. The other had a whimsical pencil drawing in the style of Garth Williams, the original illustrator ofStuart Little. Though I didn’t think Williams had ever drawn a rope made of candle smoke lassoing the furious spirit of an old woman.
I took a two-inch-wide green candle stub from the shelves and placed it on the card table. Next, I needed Annette’s coffee mug. I ignored her protests and dumped the contents onto the carpet. The house quickly absorbed the liquid, leaving no trace. Exactly as it was supposed to do.
The speed and efficiency of the housecleaning magic nagged at me. Why did the house’s power work perfectly here but not in the basement, where everything had been soaked and moldy?
I set that thought aside for later and put the candle into Annette’s mug. A snap of my fingers created a spark, which jumped to the wick. A cold, black flame appeared.
I recited the spell. The words weren’t inherently magical, but they helped focus my will and clarify the intention of the magic. At the end, I whispered the name “Margaret Kensington” into the white candle smoke.
Nothing happened.
My brow crinkled so hard I could see my own wispy gray eyebrow hairs. “Margaret Kensington.”
Nothing happened. Again. If anything, this time felt even morenothingthan the first. I glared at the book. The words were right, the candle was right, the spell was right...The only thing that could be wrong was me.
Jenny’s hand touched my shoulder. I jerked away.
“What is it?” she asked.
My face was hot, and my throat was knotted so tight, I couldn’t speak. I hated this impotent shell of the wizard I’d once been. I was Temple Finn, damn it. I’d performed harder spells than this in my sleep. Literally. In my sophomore year at college, I dreamed a fire elemental into existence and nearly burned down my apartment. “It’s not working.”
“Could her ghost be shielded the same way her son is?” asked Annette.
I shook my head.
“What about the van?” Jenny piped in. “We have the license plate. That’s like a True Name, right? Can you find the van that way?”
“A license plate number isn’t a name.” I heard the anger in my voice and hoped Jenny understood it wasn’t directed at her.
