Allure

paper from the printer on the desk and jot down a note.

So sorry about your skin. :( If you’re looking for Cooper you can find him and the Beaumont Ruby down at the cemetery. Happy hunting. :)

I hand it to Jack. “Leave this on top of the carcass. That should make our point.”

Jack races into the stone room and delivers the note. We sprint from the study and head toward the kitchen to the side exit. An idea pops in to my head.

I stop short and turn to Cooper. “Do you still have the mojo I made you?” I leave off the part where Taneea made him take it off because it clashed with the hideous new clothes she picked out.

“Yeah, it’s in my bedroom. Do you need it?”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “No. You will. Go grab it.”

He sets his box on the floor and then races down the hall and upstairs. A few seconds later he’s back, his chest heaving for air. “Are you sure it still works?” He extends the little white pouch toward me as his soft green- blue gaze searches mine.

I know what he’s really asking: does it still contain my love? I can’t help but wonder the same. I clasp the white pouch in my hand. It’s soft and worn from lying against Cooper’s skin for weeks. White energy warms my fingertips and dances up my arm. My skin tingles as joy and happiness swell in my chest, and my lips bend into a smile. “It’s still working. You should put it on now. You can never be too safe.”

Fifteen minutes later, after we stop at the caretaker’s cottage for a straw broom, Cooper pulls the golf cart up to the cemetery, the one place we aren’t supposed to be unsupervised, yet where we’ve managed to spend an awful lot of time. Instinct or my spirit guide or the green and white psychic beads on my collier kick in, drawing me deep into the graveyard. Though I don’t expect the boo hag to strike until we near Cooper’s birthday at midnight, we stick close, on high alert, squinting through the cloudy night and listening for any indication that our visitor has arrived early.

Jack sets his box on the ground, then props the old wooden doors of the crypt open and dashes inside. A second later he bolts out, the pirate’s dagger in his grip. He lifts it for us to see. “For cutting the kudzu.” The blade reflects the moon’s glow.

We trudge on, wading farther into the cemetery to the section that abuts the salt marsh. The stones are draped with thick, winding vines, and the ground is a lush green carpet that’s hard to walk through. And since the sky is covered with thick gray clouds, only sporadic beams of moonlight shine through, bathing the hallowed ground in spooky shadows. The faster we find a safe place to build a fire, the better.

Clarissa’s grave is just ahead, near the pile of mullein torches we left stacked on the ground after we broke the Beaumont curse. An awesome idea flashes across my mind. I glance around, but this area is too crowded with graves to set up a boo hag trap.

A short distance away, on the bank above the marsh, we come upon an area with fewer gravestones. My scalp pricks, making me halt. “This is where we need to be. Let’s clear the area and find some wood for a fire.”

Jack hacks at the vines with the dagger while Cooper uses his pocketknife, a less superior, but adequate tool. I gather up the clippings, and with Cooper and Jack at my side, toss the discarded kudzu into the woods until we collect enough kindling and fallen tree branches for a decent fire. Within minutes, Jack has built a fire big enough to provide plenty of light.

I hold up one of the bundles from Clarissa’s grave, then flip the torch over and run my fingers over the spiky, reedy ends. “Miss Delia said boo hags are obsessed with counting things. Especially stuff with bristles. If we shove these into the ground with the tallow ends down, the boo hag will get stuck counting these until dawn. When the sun rises it’ll burn alive, and this nightmare will be over.”

Cooper scratches his head. “So, you’re not planning to do any magic?”

“Um, no? Even if I could use the mortar, the Psychic Vision was a drain. I don’t trust myself to have enough energy to work a spell.”

“But you took a nap,” Jack says.

I nod. “I’m not a hundred percent yet. I learned my lesson with trying to cheat hoodoo. Eventually I’ll build up enough resistance that it doesn’t bother me much, but I’m not there yet. It doesn’t matter, because Miss Delia’s spell book doesn’t contain any charms to kill a boo hag. All she ever told me was to salt the skin and then fry it alive in the sun.”

Their faces hang slack. They’re not convinced. Not by a long shot.

“Guys, trust me, okay? All we’ve got to do is keep the boo hag occupied for a few hours in the mullein cage. The sun has to rise. It always does.”

“What if it gets out and starts to suck Cooper?” Jack asks.

“It won’t. At least it shouldn’t. If it does…we’ll move to Plan B,” I say with all the confidence I can muster.

He snorts. “There is no Plan B. There’s barely a Plan A. But we’re in this together and we’re out of time, so let’s build a boo hag coop.”

A few minutes later, we’ve driven the twelve upside-down torches into the soft soil. They’re arranged in a circle like fence posts, each about a foot apart to give Cooper room to escape after we’ve captured the boo hag.

Cooper wiggles into the pen between the torches. “So I’m just supposed to sit in here? And do what?”

“Wait for midnight, I suppose.”

“And how do I lure it in here?” Hands on his hips, he turns around in the circle inspecting the torches.

“Trust me, I don’t think there’ll be any luring,” Jack says. “Even before we wrecked Beau’s skin, his body was on its last legs. The boo hag needs a fresh victim. It’s not going to wait for an invitation.”

“Jack’s right. You should hold on to this, too. Just in case.” I pass Cooper the broom.

He pulls out his cell phone to check the time, then sets his alarm. “Only ten minutes to go. Not too long to wait to die.” Gripping the wooden broom handle, he paces around the cage.

I frown. “Hey, you’re not going to die.”

He stops short and turns to me. “I know.” His lips twist into a faint smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. His gaze reveals everything he’s not saying: he’s humoring me by sitting in this cage, but on the inside, he’s sure he’s toast.

I reach between the mullein bundles and grasp the mojo out from under his T-shirt collar. “I’m serious. You’re wearing a powerful Protective Shield. It’s called that for a reason. As long as you’re wearing this you’re going to be fine.”

He wraps his hand around mine as his gaze searches my face. “Okay.” His fingers are warm and strong.

As much as I might like to stand here holding his hand all night, there’s work to be done. “I’ve only got a few minutes to figure out what do to with those artifacts we brought over from the Big House.”

He releases his grip. Without looking back, I drag my box near the fire to get a better look.

Jack brings me the other cartons. “So what do you think you’re supposed to do with this stuff?”

Surveying the collection, I sigh. “I’m not sure. My spirit guide made a big deal about me hauling it down here, but now she hasn’t given me any new clues.” I pull out a silver cup and hold it in the flickering light of the flames. Back at the Big House, when this and the other artifacts were glowing, I was sure there had to be something special about them, that they were trophies collected by the boo hag from all its victims. But now, I’m starting to wonder if that’s true. There are no flashes of light, no tingles in my fingers. Not even an inscription etched into the silver.

A screech shatters the cloudy night as a shock of red streaks out of the forest, whizzes past me, and lands in the cell with Cooper. A chorus of shrieks and yelps erupts in a mixture of human and otherworldly sounds that curdle my blood.

It’s the boo hag, red, slick and shining, trapped in a cage with Cooper. “You’re mine!” the boo hag howls.

I scream and nearly jump out of my own skin as I throw up my hands and launch the silver cup skyward. Time seems to slow and my vision tunnels, allowing me to capture every event that happens around me.

The cup somersaults in slow motion as it falls back to earth and then crashes into the fire. Flames engulf the metal, ferociously licking its surface.