After some flipping past random words and drawings, Helen paused on a page with a graphic. On the warped, stiff parchment, a staircase rendered in sumptuous black ink dipped down and soared up, the ends meeting in an infinity loop. Pretty cool, like an M.C. Escher drawing. Some text wasn’t in English, but she could make out enough to apprehend meaning.
For the advanced practitioner of the spirit element, seamless merging into and out of the astral highway can become akin to teleportation. Once mastery of this travel method is achieved, practitioner may enjoy such abilities as limited corporeal levitation and telepathy. Proceed with caution, always using personal talismans to minimize byproducts and harmful aftereffects.
Helen snorted. The boat had already sailed on minimizing byproducts and harmful aftereffects, but she’d still involve her special crystals as much as possible. She laid the yellow stone on the top of the page, right above the staircase. With any luck and a little skill, she could use astral projection to find Joe, scare the crap out of him, and extract every drop of info.
She tapped her foot. Was she an advanced practitioner at this point? The book didn’t clarify what distinguished one level from the next. Whatever. She had to be close. “Let’s do this.”
Seated crisscross on the floor, she fixed a soft gaze on the crystal and slowed her breathing to a meditative rhythm.
Helen fell into meditative bliss, toasty and perfectly spaced out. She’d done a memorable meditation like this years ago, at the beginning of yoga teacher training, and saved her life, her sanity, her health. Guided meditation taught her how to appreciate herself and purge a lifetime’s sludgy backup of negativity.
Time passed, a hazy blue and pink tint soon lightening dark skies outside the hotel. Helen’s perception looped and spun, fading in and out, merging dreams and wakeful impressions until she couldn’t be sure if she was awake or asleep.
She jerked, an abrupt and involuntary twitch that shook off the stupor of her trance. Helen swung her legs in empty space, the movement propelling her upward. She bonked the crown of her head on something hard.
“Ow.” Rubbing a swelling lump, she flailed for purchase, drifting like a man overboard in the ocean. But she wasn’t in the ocean. Helen swum in the hotel living room, hovering near the ceiling. Excellent.
She flipped, planting palms and soles against smooth plaster. From its spot on the floor, the crystal shone with the muted glow of mellow sunlight. Recognizing the rock’s sentient quality, a friend looking out for her, Helen nodded at the personal talisman.
Using hands and feet for traction, she crawled upside-down across the ceiling.
Cool, cool. Pretty witch-tastic. Her vision changed, apprehending in the murkiest of senses what lay beyond the walls and door of the hotel room. The confines had become semi-translucent, formed out of blocks resembling gray gelatin.
In other rooms, maids fluffed pillows, people channel-surfed. Jelly walls and hallways wobbled, coming into focus and revealing an expanding array of visuals. Empty wine bottles, beds, someone replacing a coffee filter.
As she swam through semi-solid space, muscles burning as she worked to push past barriers, a certain objectionable someone came into view. Apparently he’d slipped away from Thom.
Same sloppy clothes, bald head, frantic mannerisms, Joe shoved a credit card into the crack of space between a hotel room door and the jamb.
The card broke, falling to the floor in two halves. Joe doubled over, howling. Drifting closer, Helen sucked her teeth, embarrassment gunking up her insides.
She’d never met a worse train wreck of a person. And Joe’s off-the-rails behavior made him pathetic, yet troublesome. He was the same as a junkie in the full bloom of addiction, willing to stab his mother for a fix. And by stab his mother, she meant cut open Brian. Which begged the question: what did Joe stand to gain from all of this crazy?
One way to find out. She shoved her way through gelatinous slabs until she broke out into the hall, golden ball of light spinning by her solar plexus acting as a beacon of strength. She could beat this guy. She was tough, smart, vital. Had this in the bag.
Stuck to the ceiling of Joe’s hallway, Helen concentrated on drifting down until she floated to the floor. Her bare feet hit nubby industrial carpet designed to withstand repeated shoe traffic. Strange, the physical things one notices after spending a fair amount of time ungrounded.
“Hi,” she said.
Joe shrieked like a little girl. His eyes blacked with hate. “Quit creeping up on me, you dumb bitch.”
“What’s your problem with me? Are you a generic misogynist, or do you have a personal grievance?”
“Lick my nuts.” In a futile, impotent gesture, he slapped the closed door. He cussed, jiggling the handle.
“Are you frustrated that your magic isn’t working, so you resent me because mine does?”
Joe slid Helen an apprehensive glance of interest, wrinkling his nose in a childish, pouty tell. “No.” A juvenile whine fit his expression.
She laughed. “Liar. I get it now. But what’s in that room you want so badly?”
“I’m not going to stand here and tolerate an interrogation by Brian Shepherd’s groupie whore.” He scratched his ass, and she scrunched her nose when a rank odor fouled the air.
Helen pinched her thumbs and forefingers together into mudras, closing her eyes and bending her head to the ceiling. “Okay, that’s fair. Unfortunately for you, I have something you want, being the hex generator and all. But never mind. Whore, out. Beam me up, astral highway.”
She chanted a long “om,” pretending like she’d dematerialize any second. Hook, baited.
“Wait.”
Helen tilted her chin down and opened one eye. Nibble, nibble, good little prey.
“Can you get in there? With your magic?” Contempt a slimy film on the word “magic,” he nudged the door
