“No, don’t shoot,” Gail ordered and I halted with my finger on the trigger.
Seconds passed as the apparition became more stable and began to float towards the bathroom door.
Gail said something that sounded like mumbo-jumbo and I heard glass shatter as she threw the bottle into the center of the pentacle.
The specter burst into flames. Its mouth opened in a silent scream and then it turned and flew directly away from us like a … well, like a specter that just burst into flames. It crossed the bedroom and hit the opposite wall, disappearing into it.
“Holy crap!” I said.
“What do you know, it worked. Now we’d better put the fire out,” Gail said.
It hadn’t really registered with me, but the carpet and the bedspread the specter had contacted were aflame.
I clicked the Mossberg’s safety on and ran for the bed. Grasping the un-flaming part of the blanket, I flipped it upside down onto the flaming carpet. The covered flames died quickly, but the edges of the blanket were already igniting where they touched the uncovered parts of the burning carpet. I stomped on the bedspread for a few seconds to make sure it was out and then dragged it across more of the carpet. In a minute, I had the carpet fire out.
“Hoss, you missed a spot,” Gail said.
I looked up to see her standing in the bathroom door, flanked by Professor and Mrs. Nichols. Gail pointed and I turned to see the curtains on the far side window burning.
“Hell,” I muttered and crossed the bedroom with the charred bedspread. I gripped the bottom of the curtains and yanked them down, pulling the curtain rods down with them. They hit the floor in a pile and the flames shot higher. My face felt like a hamburger patty on the grill, but I swung the bedspread atop the curtains and proceeded to stomp on the mass until the last of the flames were quenched.
“My beautiful bedroom,” Mrs. Nichols whined.
I looked around. Okay, sure we’d shot out one window, burned the carpet, the bedspread, the curtains, blasted their TV into smoking ruins, and some kind of vase was shattered into an indescribable pile of shards. Hey, it could have been worse.
Through the broken window, I heard sirens.
“Gail, I think we should call it a night,” I said.
“I’m with you. Get the van started.” She turned to the professor. “I can’t guarantee it won’t be back tomorrow night, but give me a call later and we’ll work something out.”
She offered him a business card.
I trotted out, down the stairs, and through the broken front door to Gail’s van. I had the motor running and my seat belt on when she climbed in. I had shifted into drive before she had her door shut. We were a block away when the first responding police car flashed past us.
“Well, that was fun,” I said as I watched the flashing lights receding in the side mirror.
“Not bad, though the fire was unexpected,” Gail said as she removed her earplugs and returned them to their case.
I followed her example and stored my own plugs. “What was in that jar?”
“It was a potion, yeah, yeah, a magic potion,” she added when I frowned. “I got the recipe from an old Romani woman I helped out last winter. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it did the job.”
“I’ll say. What exactly did it do?”
“It’s supposed to make the local environment inhabitable for spirits. I thought it would just banish it from the Nichol’s house.”
“It did that, barbecued its butt,” I said grinning.
“Yeah, that was a surprise. We were lucky.”
“Well, yes, but we got the fire out and banished the spirit. What more can you ask for?”
Gail frowned and leaned back in her seat, lifted her feet, and planted them on the dash. “We could have excised it, but exorcism doesn’t always work right. The best thing is to find what anchors them to our plane and destroy it.”
“Marta’s brother, Javier, started an exorcism. Would that have banished it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It depends on the strength of the spirit, the faith of the exorcist, and the strength of the spirit’s link to our world. Javier could probably have pulled it off, but I’m not certain.”
“Then how ‘bout you?”
“Me, I can do a pretty good one, but I have failed a time or two. Failures mess with your faith, not with your faith in God, but faith in yourself. My last one worked, but it wasn’t a really powerful spirit. This one seems a lot more powerful.”
“What does faith in yourself have to do with it?”
“I’m not certain. The way Dad explained it, faith in yourself is like willpower, but at the same time, it’s like what powers any magic you attempt. If you believe strongly enough, a spell will work, assuming it’s done correctly. If you don’t have faith, it may only partially work or fail altogether. It’s like when you make a promise or swear an oath, you actually have to believe in what you’re saying. Paying lip service to a commitment works the same as not have enough faith in your ability to perform magic and especially when you’re trying to perform an exorcism.”
I mulled Gail’s words and then fished out the card Marta had given me. I held it up so that I read it in the dashboard lights. It was a simple white card with a phone number and no other printing. “Perhaps we should talk with the Morenos.”
In the light from passing streetlights, I could see by Gail’s frown she wasn’t pleased with my suggestion.
“What?” I asked.
“The Morenos aren’t easy to deal with. I don’t trust them at my back.”
“I understand your reluctance, believe me, I do, but I trust Marta. She was a stand-up soldier and would never let a colleague down.”
“Marta, that’s your
