Sachi took over, once again silencing them. “So mote it be!”
A chorus of, “So mote it be!” echoed through the room, followed immediately by applause and laughter.
“I hope that was a new toy,” Mandaline said with a smile as she walked over to look at it.
“Hell, yes. By the way, I took it out of petty cash.” She peeled it off the table, where the base reluctantly let go from the table with a loud pop. With regal posture, she held it out in front of her with both hands, as if passing on a sword. “I give you the celestial spirit tickler, for your safekeeping.”
Mandaline shook her head. “Oh, no you don’t. I’m not taking that thing.”
Sachi wouldn’t be refused. She slapped it into Mandaline’s hands. “Sorry, boss. Your store, your dildo.”
Her face now red, she risked a glance at Brad and Ellis. She hoped Ellis didn’t hurt himself with the wide smile he wore, and she thought Brad might just piss his pants he was laughing so hard.
Mandaline finally stuck it under the counter by the register.
For the final part of the evening, they all filed out the back door to stand in the parking area in a large circle, holding hands under the light of the full moon. In the past, Julie usually said something to close out their evening. So everyone looked to Mandaline.
She took a deep breath and stared up at the sky. “Mother Goddess, Father God, thank you for tonight. Thank you for the blessed full moon. Thank you for friends and family and love and light. Thank you for laughter and joy and the ability to smile, even as our broken hearts are hurting and healing. Thank you for bringing Julie into our lives, and thank you for keeping her spirit alive within us. Namaste. Aho.”
“Aho,” the group repeated back. They broke up, everyone hugging and bidding each other good-night. Brad gladly took part in that, apparently able to make friends wherever he was.
Ellis, she noted, stepped away from the group.
Once everyone else had left except the two men, Mandaline locked the front and back doors and pulled the shades in the front windows.
“Thank you for tonight,” she told them. “I had a great time at dinner.”
Brad grinned and enveloped her in a hug. “Thank you for letting us take you out. This was great. When’s the next one?”
“I’ll have to look at the calendar. Probably dark moon, unless there’s something else first. In two weeks.”
She turned to Ellis, who now looked uncomfortable again. She opened her arms to hug him, wondering if he’d leave her hanging.
After hesitating only a moment, he hugged her, relaxing when they didn’t share one of those sexy visions.
“Thank you for giving me a second chance, Mandaline. I appreciate it.”
She finally stepped back. “It’s the least I could do.”
He looked uncomfortable again. “I respect you have your beliefs, but in all honesty, this isn’t me. No, I don’t know what happened between us. No, I don’t have an answer. But you’re entitled to your beliefs and I don’t fault you for them.”
She folded her arms in front of her. Well, the evening was ending on a far lighter note than it had last night, but she wasn’t feeling inclined to ask them upstairs, either. “I appreciate that.”
Brad looked back and forth between them, a near-desperate expression in his eyes. “Wait, this isn’t good night, is it?”
Ellis apparently found his shoes very interesting as he looked down at them. “If you want Brad to stay, I don’t mind coming back to pick him up later,” he softly said.
She felt her heart soften more for the man. No, she didn’t want to separate the pair. Brad was right. If it was going to work, it would only work with the three of them. She needed more time rebuilding trust with Ellis before she’d be ready to accept them both into her bed.
Who am I kidding? I’ll fall in love with them even more if I sleep with them.
“I…” She sighed. “It’s been a long day and I didn’t sleep very well last night. I think it’s best we call it a night.” She brushed a kiss across Brad’s lips, then leaned in and kissed Ellis’ cheek. “Thank you for a wonderful dinner. I’m glad you both came to coven tonight.”
* * * *
Brad silently fumed all the way home. Julie had remained completely silent evening. He thought for sure after how well dinner went and that Ellis came to the gathering at the store that their evening would end in Mandaline’s bed.
Not driving back to the house before eleven o’clock.
“Are you okay?” Ellis asked.
“Fine,” he shot back. “Peachy.”
Ellis apparently knew enough not to press the matter.
When they returned home, Brad started through the kitchen toward the stairs before doubling back. He took his medicine then headed upstairs. “See you tomorrow.” He changed clothes, then went into the attic, closing the door behind him.
Already, his mood felt darker. It seemed to happen more quickly every time he went up there.
Hopefully he’d have an answer tomorrow.
He sat in front of the sketchbook he’d been working on before. Then he picked up the pencil and let his mind take over.
* * * *
Ellis went to his room, feeling guilty. Brad obviously had other notions about the way the night would end. To be honest, he wouldn’t have minded that, either. But it was his fault he’d screwed everything up. Mandaline was giving him another chance, sure, but it would take a while for her to feel comfortable with him again. He wasn’t a total idiot when it came to emotions. He could see it in her face.
And the abject disappointment on Brad’s when she’d called it an evening.
Can I seriously have a relationship with someone who believes in all that, though?
He wasn’t sure. Then again, he had a relationship with Brad, who strongly believed in it. Although that wasn’t exactly the same.
He undressed and lay on top of the covers with the TV on. He flipped through channels until he found a movie he didn’t mind watching.
It would be a long, lonely night.
* * * *
Mandaline walked Pers one last time after the men left. She’d felt badly enough about the desperation on Brad’s face that she’d almost changed her mind and asked them upstairs for a little while.
Why torture myself?
Who even knew if Ellis would ever be able to accept her or her beliefs, or the things so obviously happening around them that were out of his control? What if he had another one of his hissy fits the next time something magickal and wondrous happened? Could she handle living walking on eggshells after she swore she’d never do it again?
She knew the answer to that.
I can’t.
She wasn’t sure at first if she’d easily fall asleep. But before long she found herself back in the dream, of chasing, or being chased, through grey and dreary woods. She felt no fear, just a tugging anxiety that there was something she needed to know, and the only way she’d figure it out was to see the dream through to its conclusion.
She emerged from the woods once again outside Ellis and Brad’s house. Again, she glimpsed the familiar shock of red hair as Julie disappeared through the side door.
Mandaline followed behind, not bothering to call out to her. She was supposed to follow her, to catch up with her.
She found her in Brad’s bedroom. “Believe,” she said to Mandaline.
Just as Mandaline stepped forward to hug her, the closet door flew open and a blizzard of paper exploded into the room, filling it and separating her from Julie.
She pushed her way through the storm of paper. “Julie!”
From in front of her, she heard Julie say, “Believe.”
Mandaline blindly headed toward her voice and found herself in the closet again, falling out into the attic. As she stumbled and headed for the attic floor, she awoke gasping for breath, her pulse racing.
Above her, rain pattered down on the roof.
She sat up in bed and found th
e remote control. It was 4:39 in the morning, and the radar showed the remnants of a tropical low-pressure system that was ripped apart going through Cuba drifting over them.
It would likely rain all day.
She sighed. “Great.” She curled up in bed with Pers tucked against her side and tried to go back to sleep. The shop didn’t normally open on Sundays in summer. Not unless one of the teachers had a scheduled class, which today, no one did.
She tried to go back to sleep, but found herself stuck in the dream again with similar results. This time when she awoke, grey light struggled to fight its way through the rain despite it being after seven in the morning.
She knew further sleep was futile. After getting the coffee started, she hunted up Pers’ little raincoat Julie kept for him and took him and her mug of coffee on a slow morning walk. She opted not to take an umbrella or her raincoat. She still needed a shower anyway, so it wasn’t like getting wet was a big deal, and walking through the rain might be the thing she needed to help soothe her aching soul a little. Rain pattered on her head and trickled down her arms as Pers took his sweet time sniffing around.
They walked all the way down to the library, where she let Pers sniff around the base of Julie’s tree.
“That’s Momma’s tree,” she wistfully told him. “That’s for her.”
He looked up at her and wagged, making her smile. By the vet’s best guess when Julie found him, Pers was now close to three years old. Julie, single and childless, had treated him like her baby.
And now, he was Mandaline’s baby.
Once he finished his business, she bagged it and tossed it in a nearby garbage can before scooping him up with one arm. “I’m taking pity on you, rugrat,” she teased him. “Your short little legs, you’re liable to drown in a puddle on me.”
He wagged his tail and licked her on the nose.
She was back at the apartment and had toweled Pers dry when her phone rang a little after eight. Libbie.
“Hey, cookie,” Mandaline said. “I don’t know about you, but I might need to build an ark.”
She heard the pain Libbie tried to hide in her laugh. “Might need to at that. You feel like coming over for breakfast? I wanted to make some pancakes but I didn’t want to eat alone.”
Mandaline couldn’t contain her smile. “I’ll be over as soon as I have a shower. I’ve got fruit salad to contribute.”
“Perfect. I’ll leave the downstairs door unlocked.”
She hung up and refilled her coffee. At least she wouldn’t have to keep looking at the remnants of the fruit salad in her fridge from dinner the other night. Libbie probably needed the company as much as she did.
Normally, Mandaline and Julie had brunch together on Sunday mornings. Last Sunday, she’d turned down Libbie’s offer, wanting to do nothing but curl up in bed and cry.
I need to return to the land of the living.
* * * *
Brad awoke with a start on the attic couch. He wasn’t sure what awoke him at first, only that the light looked grey and weird.
Then Ellis knocked again. “You okay in there?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. His lips felt thick, dry, a scuzzy film coating his tongue and cheeks. He licked his lips and tried again as he sat up. “I’m good.” Except his throat felt sore.
“Did you take your medicine this morning?”
He let out a yawn. “Not yet. What time is it?”
Ellis opened the attic door and stuck his head in, concern painted on his face. “It’s after eleven. Are you all right?”
Was he? He wasn’t sure. He also felt a dull throbbing in his head. Maybe I’m coming down with something. “Just overslept is all.”
Ellis studied him for a moment. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Instead of leaving him alone, Ellis opened the door all the way and stepped in. “Is there anything you’re not telling me?”
Brad didn’t want to have this conversation when he wasn’t even awake yet. “You know better than to ask me stuff you might not want answers to.” He desperately didn’t want to tell him about Julie’s voice in his brain.
“Did something else happen between you and Mandaline that you haven’t told me about?”
Relief and guilt warred for supremacy, but better to spill this truth than the other. “Yes.”
Ellis stared at him. Brad knew his friend was trying to decide if he wanted to pull that trigger or not.
Brad was tired of keeping it a secret. “When you came home the other day, we’d already had two of those whatevers,” he said. “The visions. We were up here in the attic when we thought a third happened, only it went all the way.”
“What?”
Brad realized he really needed to use the bathroom. He tried to push his way past Ellis, but the other man stuck his arm out, barring the way. “Don’t make me tell it if you can’t handle it,” he said to Ellis.
“Just tell me.”
“She gave me a blow job, all right? We thought it was another of those fantasies or hallucinations. Until you walked in downstairs and we heard the door close, we thought it was happening in our minds.”
Ellis dropped his arm. Brad beat feet downstairs to the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He heard Ellis walk downstairs and stand outside the door.
“So that’s why you were both acting so flustered?” he said from outside the door.
Brad inwardly groaned. “Yes. There, happy?”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Oh, yeah. There’s a great idea. ‘Hey, dude, she accidentally blew me.’ Like I was really going to tell you that. You freaked out when you had the vision of kissing her. I suspected it wouldn’t have gone over well.” He finished and washed his hands. When he opened the door, Ellis still stood there, a dark scowl on his face. “So does it make you happier knowing that now?”
“Do you think she’s going to give me another chance?”
“I don’t know. Frankly, right now, I don’t know what end’s up. I’m in a foul mood and I’m starving and need to take my meds.”
He tried to push past Ellis, but Ellis caught his arm—
And then they were back in Mandaline’s bed, together, with her naked between them. Ellis lay on his back on the bed. Brad knew Mandaline was impaled on Ellis’ cock, too, because he could feel every stroke with his own cock buried in her ass. She let out a cry as her orgasm started and her muscles clamped down on both of them—
Ellis ripped his hand free of Brad’s arm and held it as if burned. He backed away, cradling his hand and fear on his face.
Brad advanced on him, tired of these games. He pinned Ellis against the wall on the other side of the hall and placed his hands on either side of his head. “Quit fighting it,” he said, anger rushing through him. “Quit being afraid of it or you’re going to screw this up for both of us. She needs us the way we need her.”
“We don’t need a woman. Want, yes, but we don’t need to share—”
Brad pounded both hands against the wall on either side of his head. “Stop it! You’re like a child who thinks he saw Santa in the changing room and doesn’t want to believe he’s not real!” He grabbed Ellis’ collar and yanked him close. “Do not fuck this up for us,” he rumbled dangerously. “She’s perfect for us whether you want to see it or not.” He slammed Ellis against the wall before releasing him and heading downstairs.
He needed coffee, his meds, and to clear the nasty sludge out of his brain.
And now, after that sexy vision, his cock screamed for relief it didn’t look like it’d get for a while.
Possibly a long while.
Chapter Fourteen
After getting back from Libbie’s, Mandaline fought the urge to strip and dance skyclad in the parking lot behind the store. Her rented trailer had been old and crappy, but at least it’d been out in the middle of nowhere, with no close neighbors and plenty of trees around it.
She wasn’t a nudist, but there were few things mo
re satisfying to her soul than twirling around naked under a summer rainstorm.
Instead, she went to the office and dug through the boxes of things brought back from the Corey house after Julie’s death. Most of the equipment she’d use for the investigation at Ellis and Brad’s was there. She needed to recharge the batteries on a couple of items, but the rest were ready to go.
A wave of nostalgia washed through her. She’d performed dozens of investigations with Julie over the years. Many times they were able to debunk what was going on and discover nonmystical origins for phenomenon.
Rarely did they deal with intelligent, much less malevolent spirits. In the past, the few like that they’d dealt with hadn’t been able to do anything more than scare residents of a house. They’d also easily been dispelled by a thorough house cleansing ritual with the help of the residents.
It figured that with the worst-case scenario Julie had gone out to tackle it alone.
She grabbed her phone and called Sachi.
“What’s up, boss?”
“Are you busy this evening?”
“No. Skeet’s a wash with all the rain. Whyyyy?”
She sat at the desk and looked at the boxes of equipment. “Want to go check out a house with me?”
“Um, what house?”
She closed her eyes, preparing for what she suspected would follow. “Ellis and Brad’s house.”
There was a moment of silence. When she next spoke, Sachi’s voice sounded serious, devoid of snark or teasing. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
She let out a sigh. “Nothing’s happened. I just thought maybe I should have…you know, backup.”
“Armed backup?” Sachi asked with a hopeful tone.
“You don’t have a concealed carry permit, so no.”
“I don’t need a concealed carry permit for a 12-gauge skeet gun. So sayeth the mighty State of Florida.”
“I sayeth no. I don’t think we’re going to have any problems. I just think it might be better to have backup.”