Once Upon a Charmed Time Read online

  “Just as I suspected. No answer,” I said as I hung up.

  Just then a knock came at the door.

  “Who is it?” Nicolas jumped up and leaned against the door, trying to see out the little peephole.

  Before anyone answered Nicolas opened the door. Liam and Dalton were standing in front of the door. Liam didn’t look happy.

  “Is something wrong?” Nicolas asked.

  “No, nothing at all,” Liam said through a forced smile.

  Maybe dinner would be a good idea. We could get Dalton more relaxed with a glass of wine and then maybe his memory would came back to him.

  “How about dinner?” I asked. “There’s a restaurant downstairs.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Liam said.

  We headed out of the room and down the elevator. When we reached the restaurant the host led us to a table by the window. The place was full of romantic ambiance with candles on the tables and dim lighting. Soft music played in the background. The four of us sat at the table in silence as we looked over the menu. It felt strange to be here in this situation when a short time ago we’d been trapped in that dark dismal basement. After we placed our orders, the waiter brought over a bottle of red wine.

  “I can totally use this,” Dalton said as he took a drink.

  “I thought you might,” I said around a smile.

  Silence lingered over our table. I supposed I needed to make small talk with Dalton.

  “Are you from California?” I asked.

  “Yep.” Dalton studied his napkin.

  “What’s your profession?” I pressed.

  He stared for a moment as if I’d asked him to solve a complicated math equation. Before he answered the waiter brought our food. Though Dalton never answered, I thought that he was finally starting to relax a bit.

  “I was thinking maybe we could go back to your place tomorrow. Maybe the person who took you left some kind of clue,” I said.

  Dalton tensed up. “Are you sure they will be gone? What if they come back?”

  “Well, you can’t avoid the place forever. I’m sure things will be okay. We’ll be with you.”

  Chapter 15

  The next morning we had a quick breakfast and then we were supposed to meet Liam and Dalton in the lobby. When we got there Liam was just walking up.

  “Hey, have you seen Dalton?” Liam asked.

  “No, why? Where did he go?”

  “I haven’t seen him since I woke up. I figured he came down here for breakfast. But the staff haven’t seen him.”

  “Do you think they got him again?” I asked.

  Liam ran his hand through his hair. “I think it’s a real possibility.”

  “We have to find him.” I rushed toward the lobby.

  Nicolas and Liam followed me as I dashed out of the hotel doors. I sighed when I spotted the car and remembered we had to stuff our bodies into the tiny space.

  “Where should we go first? Maybe he went back to his place?” I said as I buckled the seat belt.

  “After the way he acted about going there last night I’m not sure he would do that,” Nicolas said.

  “You don’t think he went back to the kidnapper’s house? Why would he do that?” Liam asked.

  “Right now it’s the only place I know to check,” I said.

  Liam started the car. “Okay, that’s where we’ll go.”

  After fighting traffic, we pulled up in front of Dalton’s house. It looked just as it had last night. The door was still open. The neighbors would soon wonder what was going on at the house. Liam parked the car at the curb.

  “We have to go in there,” I said.

  “You should let me go,” Liam said as he cut the engine. “Nicolas can stay out here with you.”

  At least Nicolas knew better than to say he would go this time.

  “I appreciate the offer, Liam, but I am the leader. I don’t have to be babysat all the time.”

  He peered into the rear-view mirror at me. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I smiled. “I know you’re just trying to help, but this is my job.”

  He nodded. “You’re right.”

  “We’ll all go,” Nicolas said, opening the car door. “There’s no reason we can’t all go.”

  I opened my door. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  As I got out from the back seat Liam hurried around the front of the car to join us. I had no idea what to expect when we got inside. Would someone try to lock us in the basement in this house too? We took our time walking up to the door. Just in case something popped out at us. I looked around at the neighbors’ houses, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. We stepped up onto the porch as if we were going into a battlefield. Maybe we were.

  “Hello? Is anyone home?” I called out. “Dalton, are you here?”

  I knew I wouldn’t get an answer. The house looked as if nothing was out of place. There was a newspaper on the sofa, as if Dalton had been looking at the paper right before he walked outside and was kidnapped.

  “We should check out the rest of the place,” I said.

  The furniture hadn’t been messed with and everything looked fine. It didn’t seem as if there had been a struggle. All signs pointed to Dalton not having come back here. Though someone had been in his home, because he said he’d left the door closed. Had he forgotten to lock it? How had the person or persons gotten in? We walked around the house looking for anything unusual. The further I got into the house the worse the feeling got.

  “The air is heavy with magic,” Liam said.

  “Well, he is a witch, so I’m sure he was casting spells,” Nicolas said.

  “It seems like more than that,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure if the heavy magic was making me anxious or if it was just my nerves over the whole situation. We neared the kitchen and as soon as I stepped inside the view took my breath away. It looked like a magical bomb had gone off in the room. Bottles of unknown potions sat on the counter. A bundle of sticks sat in the middle of the floor.

  “Someone has been doing a lot of magic here. Maybe there are a few details that Dalton forgot to tell us,” I said.

  “I think he was in over his head. That’s probably why someone kidnapped him. And that’s why they called us out here,” Nicolas said.

  Now I had to find Dalton and get to the bottom of this. I moved in for a closer look at the bottles.

  “These are like the ones we found in the bag.” I held the bottle up.

  “Are you sure?” Nicolas asked.

  The guys stepped over to me.

  “The bottles aren’t marked so I have no idea what the contents contain or what they might do. Though the bottles are the same. This isn’t a coincidence. There’s a connection with Dalton and the man who gave Victoria his card. Carter Cobbs, Bart House, whatever his real name is.” I set the bottle down.

  I wasn’t about to touch them any longer until I knew what I was dealing with. How I would do that I wasn’t sure. There was an alchemist I could call who helped me with these things within the Underworld. He was back in New Orleans though, and I wasn’t sure he could get away to come to Los Angeles. That was when I realized I knew just the person to figure out the potions.

  This person had tons of experience with potions. It was what she did every day. How would I could convince her she needed to come here though? Plus, who would look after the shop if my mother came here?

  “I’ll check the rest of the house,” Liam said.

  “Be careful,” I said.

  When Liam stepped out of the room, I looked at Nicolas. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  “No, never. Nor have I ever sensed anything like this.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this.” I studied the mess of bottles and leftover witchcraft.

  I wanted Nicolas to say I was imagining things, but he didn’t disagree. That wasn’t a good sign for us. Liam came back downstairs.

  “Anything up there?” I asked.
>
  “Nothing,” he said.

  “What do you all think about my mother coming out here to help us figure out what these potions are?” I asked.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Nicolas said.

  “I love your mother.” Liam winked.

  My mother would be thrilled to hear that. She adored Liam.

  “I’ll call her as soon as we get out of here. Plus, I need to call Victoria. We need to find Dalton so we can secure his house. He might have a logical explanation for all this.” I waved my hand.

  Though I didn’t think that was the case.

  On our way out I happened to glance over and noticed a card sitting on the counter. I reached down and grabbed the card.

  “What’s that?” Nicolas asked.

  “A card. There’s an appointment time.”

  “What for?” Liam asked.

  “A psychic. The meeting is in ten minutes.”

  “Do you think it’s Dalton’s?” Liam asked.

  “It has to be, right? If we hurry maybe we can get there.” I checked the time on my watch.

  “Do you think that’s why he left the hotel, so he could make this appointment?” Nicolas asked.

  “I can’t imagine he would have after what he’d been through, but anything is possible.” I stepped out the front door.

  “We need to hurry.” Liam motioned for us to pick up the pace.

  We hurried toward the car. I jammed my body in and Liam took off. I gave him the address from the card.

  “Do you think we’ll make it in time?” I asked.

  “It will be close. I’ll try to get us there in time.” He punched the gas.

  I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Now Liam would speed. I held out as he zipped around traffic. He was making good time considering he had no idea where he was going. It was lucky for us that the house wasn’t far away. I studied the card for any other clues. It just looked like a normal business card. Nothing out of the ordinary. Well, other than it was for a fortune-teller.

  Chapter 16

  We arrived at the craftsman-style house. It was well-maintained, with a landscaped yard. There was an old car parked out front, but no sign of Dalton. Unless he was already inside.

  “Shall we go early?” Liam asked, shutting off the car.

  “There’s no time like the present. Maybe we can get our fortunes told,” I said as I got out of the car.

  “We may not want to know,” Liam said.

  “Man, you’ve been negative since we got here. What’s the deal?” Nicolas asked.

  “I’m just being realistic,” he said.

  Nicolas was right. Liam wasn’t usually like this. He was always the first to tell us things would be fine. Maybe there was something else going on with him.

  We walked up the flower-lined path to the front porch, then up the wide steps to the front door. I had high hopes that we would find Dalton here. I was worried about him. He had been in no condition to leave when he did.

  Marianna Osbourne answered the door. She was wearing a long black dress with her hair up in a twist. She had lots of gold jewelry and beautiful, mesmerizing blue eyes. She stared straight at us.

  “How may I help you?” she asked.

  “We’re looking for someone who may have had an appointment with you,” I said.

  Marianna frowned. “I can’t give you a client’s information, if that’s what you want.”

  “Oh, no, we think he’s here right now and he’s probably looking for us.”

  “I don’t have any clients here right now.”

  “You don’t?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

  I pulled out the card and showed it to her. “We found this card. We believe it’s from the person. We know that he has an appointment with you today.”

  “Yes, I was supposed to have an appointment, but the person didn’t show up,” she said.

  “Was his name Dalton?” I asked.

  Marianna moved the door slightly as if she wanted to close it. “I said I can’t give information.”

  This was going nowhere. Perhaps if we hung around Dalton would show up for the appointment.

  “Well, since you don’t have a client right now, maybe we could have a reading?” I asked.

  She looked at all three of us as if she was suspicious of our motives. All I wanted to do was get Dalton back, nothing else.

  “Sure, I could do that,” she said hesitantly. “Won’t you come in please?”

  The house was dark inside despite being sunny outside. I supposed that was to add to the ambience and mysteriousness of the situation. To the left was a living room where she had the television tuned to a soap opera. She went over and turned it off.

  “Would you like to have a seat in the dining room?” She pointed across the hallway.

  There was a table in the middle of the room with six chairs around it. She had candles on the top of the table in the middle.

  “Please have a seat around the table,” she instructed.

  Nicolas and Liam looked at me as if I had lost my mind by suggesting that we come inside. I hoped soon they’d realize that I was just stalling until Dalton possibly showed up.

  We pulled out the chairs and sat around the table. I didn’t know what we were getting into with this reading, but I assumed that she would just be making up things that she thought we wanted to hear.

  She moved the two extra chairs to the wall and then sat down next to me. She pulled out a match and then started lighting the candles in the middle of the table. It looked as if we were about to start a séance. All I’d thought she was going to do was read our palms. When she had all the candles lit she looked at me and said, “Now what exactly would you like today?”

  “Well, what do you offer?” I asked.

  “I read palms, read Tarot cards, and also channel the departed through séance.”

  Just as I’d suspected. It looked as if that was what she wanted to do. I figured that would probably take the most time so I decided to go for that, even though I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. I’d been known to bring back a few of the dearly departed myself through my magic. Though that wasn’t the case now, so I shouldn’t worry. I wasn’t doing magic so everything would be fine. Plus, my magic had been better lately anyway. I felt pretty confident that we were safe in doing this, although I had no idea who might come through to talk to me.

  I looked at Nicolas and I wondered if he was thinking about his mother. She had been killed not long ago. I had replaced her as the leader.

  “I suppose we could do a séance,” I said.

  “Very well,” the woman said. “Please give me your hands.”

  We held hands and the woman closed her eyes. I wasn’t sure that I was prepared to go that far, so I decided to keep my eyes open. I wanted to watch what was really happening. For some reason I didn’t trust her and I wasn’t sure why. Now that I thought about it maybe someone had left that card on purpose, knowing that we would find it and come here exactly at the time they wanted us here.

  She started talking about clearing our minds and opening up to the spirit world to anyone who wanted to talk to us and come through. If she was counting on me to have a clear mind for this to work then that was probably not going to happen, because I couldn’t stop with the thoughts, always thinking of something different. She kept her eyes closed and then stopped talking. Nothing was happening. Liam gave me a devilish grin as if to let me know he’d expected this outcome.

  Just as I was about to give up and tell her that it wasn’t necessary to go any further, the table started to shake. It was just a little bit, nothing too major, but I felt it. I looked at Liam and Nicolas.

  “There’s a spirit here with us,” she said, opening her eyes.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet. They’re far away. They’re moving closer and closer now. He’s in the room with us now,” she said.

  I wasn’t expecting that. I’d thought for sure it wou
ld be Nicolas’ mother.

  What was I thinking? None of this was real, so Marianna she was just making up whatever she thought we wanted to hear. I wouldn’t have let her go on with this, but I’d assumed she was faking.

  “What does the spirit want?” I asked.

  “Do you have a message for us?” she asked the spirit.

  Liam shifted in his chair. He looked as if he was uncomfortable. I wanted to get out of there too. We probably should leave soon anyway. It didn’t look as if Dalton would show up.

  “His name is Niwde.”

  “I’ve never heard of that name before. I have no idea who this person is.”

  It was odd that she’d given me the name. I had expected her to just give an initial and then allow me to fill in the name when I thought of someone with that same initial. But I’d never heard of anyone with this name.

  “I’ve never heard of this name at all. As a matter of fact, what does this person want?” I asked.

  I was beginning to become uncomfortable. Maybe this was all for real.

  “He says that he followed you.”

  “He followed me from where?” I asked.

  Now I was getting the creeps.

  “He doesn’t tell me where, just that he followed you.”

  “What does he want?” I asked.

  “He wants something that you have,” she said.

  What could it be? This was creepy. Was it the book that he wanted? A lot of people wanted that, but what was the spirit going to do with a book? I could tell him one thing for sure, he wasn’t getting the book.

  “He’s going away now,” she said.

  Well, that wasn’t telling me much. Just that he had followed me and he wanted something. And now he was gone. I let go of her hand.

  “Oh, no, don’t break the circle,” she said.

  Just then things started shaking violently. Candles blew out and the chairs started to move with us sitting in them.

  “I’ve never felt anything with such power. Is this an earthquake?” I braced my hands on the table.

  Finally everything settled down.

  “This was no earthquake,” she said. “It was the spirit. Someone here is angry.”