Chills crept up my spine. “That was a real place?” I’d figured it happened on another plane of existence or in another realm or maybe just in my head. The fact that it was right across the street from where I spent hours every day made my hands sweaty all over again.
“That depends on your definition of real,” Doc said.
Cooper still watched me. “There was no miner’s lamp, though.”
So what had happened to the lamp when I threw it at the lidérc? Had I destroyed it in that blast of blue flames? Or was it back at the bottom of the Hellhole below Calamity Jane’s? I wasn’t sure I wanted to go down there anytime soon to find out.
“We’ll need to go over there with Violet and check it out,” Doc said.
I grimaced, not sure I wanted to be part of that scouting adventure either.
“What did the ghost show you?” he asked Cooper.
“Nothing. He just stood there in the doorway to the boiler room, watching me with those dark eyes.”
“Do you know who the wispy was?” Harvey asked.
“No.”
Doc’s eyes narrowed. “But he knew your name.”
All eyes turned back to Cooper. “Yeah.” He didn’t look thrilled about it either.
“What about me?” Harvey asked Doc, switching gears. “Did you like what I showed you?”
Doc’s cheeks darkened. “Christ, Harvey.” He chuckled, squeezing his eyes closed, as if in pain. “I’ve heard guys talk, but never really believed that could be done.”
Harvey hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. “I used to be a lot more limber in my youth.”
Cooper groaned. “I don’t think I want to know what he showed you.”
“Trust me, you don’t.” Doc opened his eyes and returned to Prudence. My gaze followed his. Only it wasn’t Prudence’s white eyes looking back at us anymore.
Zelda smiled at me, looking tired but still chipper. “Was Prudence able to help you with your mirror?”
“I’m not sure.” I looked to Doc for the answer. “Was she?”
“I think so.” He caught my hand and stood, pulling me up with him. “Please thank her for me, Zelda.”
Zelda sighed. “She says you’re welcome.”
Doc still held my hand. “So, are we going to use the mirror to catch a lidérc?” I asked him.
“I don’t know.”
“Prudence says that you will have to use Violet as bait, similar to how she showed you today.”
“Bait?” I frowned. “Does that mean I have to get the lidérc to stand in front of the mirror with me somehow?”
“Well …” Doc hesitated, his dark eyes clearly troubled.
“No, Violet,” Zelda answered for him. “Prudence wants me to make it clear that the mirror will only work as a trap if the lidérc attaches to you first and then you look in the mirror.”
“Attaches?” That was how the Executioners in my line had died violent, painful deaths in the past. But something didn’t add up. “If that’s the case, why didn’t Cooper or Harvey have to attach to me?”
Zelda tipped her head to the side for a moment, apparently listening again. “She says that they are human. The rules are different for them. You will have to allow a parasitic embrace if you want to use your mirror to capture the lidérc.”
A strangled wheeze leaked out of my throat. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but there’s nothing I like more than embracing soul-sucking parasites.”
Doc’s worried brow said plenty about his feelings on the matter. “Maybe we can come up with another way to trap it.”
“Or not. We’re running out of time, Doc.” Chewing my lower lip, I glanced around at Harvey and Cornelius, stopping on Cooper. “Does anyone have any better ideas?”
When nobody offered up any other solutions that would save me from possibly burning to death from the inside out or tearing off my own skin, I turned to Zelda. “So, I’m the chum bait that we use to lure that smoky bastard into the mirror. Then what?”
“According to Prudence,” Zelda said, “after the lidérc has attached, you have to try to lock it away with the others.”
“What others?”
Zelda looked to Doc for the answer, so I did, too. “He knows,” she said.
Doc scrubbed his hand down his face, leaving a lot of frown lines behind. “The other entities that are imprisoned inside of your mirror.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Later that afternoon I sat at my desk, holding down the fort at Calamity Jane Realty. Outside, the sun slipped behind the hills, pulling the horizon up over its head for the night. I would have liked to follow its lead, but I had another forty-five minutes to play desk jockey before I could close up shop.
I checked the clock on my phone for the umpteenth time, hurrying the day along. Jerry and Ben had left a half-hour ago to head to Rapid City and meet up with the producers of Paranormal Realty over dinner and drinks and finalize this coming Saturday’s release party details. Mona hadn’t come in at all today, taking some time off for once.
My chair complained as I leaned back. Resting my purple boots on one of my open desk drawers, I picked up my cell phone and scrolled through old messages, my thoughts returning to Zelda’s place this morning.
As we’d headed out to our vehicles, Cooper had pulled me aside.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
“Uh-oh. Who programmed you to have your own thoughts? Is this a sign that your mainframe has a virus? Should I worry about you short-circuiting and shooting at me?”
His gaze narrowed. “You should always worry about me shooting you.”
“I said shooting at me.”
“Given the
