Lindsey?I might have said her name aloud. I wasn’t sure. What I did know was that if I didn’t start breathing soon, Jen and Stacey were going to kill me.Come on, Lindsey. You wanted to talk to me. I’m here. What’s going on?
I had an impression of her searching for me, that frantic energy stirring the smoke into a bubbling churn. The greasiness stuck to me like I’d gone a week without showering and then rolled around in congealed bacon fat. Eerie noises twisted around me, like they’d been pulled out of shape. It was like being in a house of mirrors, only instead of distorting images, they distorted sound.
The feeling that I couldn’t breathe grew more urgent. My eyes swelled and my heart thundered, a bass drum playing counterpoint to the weird ribbons of noise.
Lindsey!I put all my strength into the mental shout, then remembered I was a witch. How could I help her? She was trapped in some sort of psychic fugue and she’d dragged me in with her.
I couldn’t separate myself. I needed another psychic. Someone who could reach Lindsey and break her free. I only knew of one other and she was as likely to help us as I was to forgive Aunty Mommy. But since I didn’t have another option, I did the only thing I could: I called Mitzi’s rose quartz prison to my hand.
I thought I’d have to crack her bindings, but as soon as the rock hit my palm, Lindsey yanked her into her freakout, too.
I found myself face-to-face with the woman. Except she was a ghost and this was all in my head. How that worked, I couldn’t begin to fathom, nor did I care. Somebody else could explain magical physics. Right now, I only needed to know if she could help Lindsey.
Mitzi looked a lot like Rhi and Lorel. A sixty-year old version. She stood tall and slender, her hair dyed an orangey red. Her face appeared smooth, with few crow’s feet or other lines. But then, most lines required you to smile or laugh. From the glacial chill of her blue eyes, I doubted she understood the concept of humor. Hate, now, that one she had an expert handle on.
Then she smiled and I realized smiles could be malicious and triumphant and didn’t necessarily require humor. If she’d been wearing a fur coat or had black and white hair, I’d have called her Cruella de Vil. As it was, Charles Manson popped to mind.
“Looks like you’re in a spot of trouble,” she said, and her smile widened. It was a Grinch smile, exactly like in the cartoon.
“I always knew Lindsey would choke. Just like her mom. The power was wasted on them.”
It didn’t take a psychic or a psychiatrist to translate that statement. Mitzi hated Lindsey and her mother because they had stronger psychic abilities than she did.
“Course you didn’t bother helping either of them, did you?” I said it like I already knew the answer, which I did. Mitzi probably would have sucked a donkey’s dick before she’d help them.
“Why should I? I had to learn everything myself,” she snarled. “If you expect me to help her now, you’re fatally wrong.” Again, that fat smile. “I know who you are, you know. Your mother and I did a lot of business together.”
“My aunt,” I corrected. “She kidnapped me and claimed to be my mother. I wonder if the universe thought it was funny to pair up two psychopath aunts to torture the children under their power?”
“I was a wonderful mother to Lorelei and Rhiannon. Lindsey deserved nothing good from me.”
“Only because you’re a jealous hag who apparently cheated your own sister out of her half of this store.”
I probably should have tried sucking up, since I didn’t really have any way to force her to help Lindsey. Using honey rather than shit to lure her, but then maybe she liked shit. Maybe I couldn’t scrape up a fuck to give.
I’d begun to feel like giant bubbles were burbling around in my head. An iron band crushed my chest. I probably should have been more worried, but both Mikey and Stacey knew CPR, so they could keep both me and Lindsey alive for a little while, anyway.
I knew that it wasn’t entirely sane of me to calmly rely on CPR to save my life, but this whole situation was insane, and I had to go with the flow. I also knew Mitzi wanted to see me panic, and I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.
“My sister was a good-for-nothing waste of flesh. I practically had to do everything for her her entire life. She burned half her brain up when she was thirteen and never recovered. She was irresponsible and unreliable. She put money into the store, but I planned everything. I decorated, ordered stock, courted artists, and gave readings. I found your mother and she supplied me with magical talismans, curses, hexes, potions, and all kinds of artifacts.”
“Aunt,” I replied automatically. “And that’s how you guarantee orgasms,” I said as realization dawned.
She gave me an ‘are you serious’ look, and then nodded. “Exactly.”
“So let me see if I understand. You hated your sister because she needed you, and you couldn’t be bothered. You hate Lindsey because she’s her mother’s daughter, and you despise her for not being able to learn how to handle her psychic abilities by herself. Wasn’t enough for you to make her life miserable; you died and made her your executor so you could rub her nose in all she could have had if you’d actually cared about her. You’re a gold-medal bitch, aren’t you?”
“Survival of the fittest,” she said. “Neither Lace nor her spawn are fit enough to survive.”
I wanted to punch the smugness out of her. I didn’t have the time and very likely I didn’t have the ability.
“Here’s the situation, Mitzi. You’re bound to that chunk of quartz, and you’re going to stay bound. You do have a choice, however. If you help Lindsey now and teach her what she needs to know, I’ll make sure you get to enjoy your ghost-hood. You’ll get to travel, or haunt people, or whatever makes your stainless steel heart happy. If you don’t help, I’ll put you in a lead box and wrap it so tight, you’ll spend the rest of your existence in darkness and silence. What’ll it be?”
“As if you’ll be able to escape,” she said with a sneer. “You’ll no more survive than Lindsey will.”
“If you want to bet your future on that, go ahead, but you’re risking spending eternity in a black box with only yourself for company. No music, no conversation, no window into the world, just you with your miserable thoughts. Are you willing to take that chance, just so you can continue your petty crusade against your niece? Against a woman who doesn’t deserve it?”
I could feel her wrestling with herself. At the same time, I felt air pushing into my lungs and the dull numbness that had begun to swallow me retreated.
