Free Mojo Queen by Sonya Clark Page A

speed and covering her completely. Heat slammed into me, knocking me down, wind whipping the cheap hospital curtains. In seconds the flames collapsed in on themselves, tunneling into a ball before disappearing in another rush of hot wind.
    There was no sign of Delia. After a few shuddery breaths I got to my feet. So much for my theory about her being a Cherokee raven mocker. Raven mockers didn’t do that . I didn’t have time to think about it right now, about her threats or anything else. I had to get Seth and Levi safely tucked away at Daniel’s, pronto.
    I shoved the mojo hand in my jeans pocket and headed out. One foot nearly went out from under me and I glanced down to see what I had slipped on. Sand. There was a scattering of sand on the floor, in the spot Delia had stood before disappearing in a ball of fire.
    The what the hells were really adding up.
    * * * *
    I waited in the car while Seth went to his room to pack a bag then collect Levi. I waited partly because I still didn’t feel like walking around, and because members of the opposite sex were not allowed past the lobby of the dorms. I slumped in the seat, leaning against the door with my forehead on the window, watching all the college kids--lots of tanning bed tans, preppy clothes, manicures on the girls, clean-cut boys like Seth and his friends. Nicelooking kids, like the nicelooking families in the ghost-filled cul-de-sac.
    I didn’t think of my parents often anymore but this brought them to mind, knowing this nice, clean, normal life is what they wanted for me, what they expected of me. I glanced down at my ripped, grubby jeans, black Nine Inch Nails t-shirt over a white long underwear shirt, stained boots. They didn’t like it but they were able to handle it when I had gone to work for a private investigative agency. When I started my own business, and had the poor taste to call myself a paranormal investigator--that’s when I lost them. I heard from them less and less, and now we were down to a few holiday cards a year, maybe one visit. They were embarrassed by me.
    They wanted--needed--a daughter who could be like the sweet-faced girls walking around this campus. Like the young mothers in that subdivision, letting themselves be swallowed by a tidal wave of diapers and toys, soccer games and play dates. That wasn’t me, would never be me, and I’d had sense enough to know that early on. It hurt, knowing I was not what my parents wanted, knowing I was nothing but a symbol of regret and perhaps even shame to them. I couldn’t help that, though, couldn’t change their opinion of me, of my life. What I could do was throw everything I had--magic whoop ass, my vampire ancestor, whatever else I could come up with--at keeping Seth and Levi alive, and stopping the demon in Delia.
    We drove to Daniel’s in silence. He lived in an outlying community called Stone Fort, in an antebellum home with acreage and only woods for neighbors. When I first started hanging out at his house I alternated between calling him Lestat and Scarlett, until he flashed fang at me in a fit of pique. It made me giggle but I stopped teasing him, figuring I’d poked the bear with a stick enough.
    After depositing Seth and Levi in the living room, I found Daniel in the kitchen, one of the few rooms in the house without any windows. We hashed things out over iced tea at the table.
    “So now you don’t think she’s this Cherokee raven thing?”
    “The way she disappeared, the fire and all, that doesn’t fit with a raven mocker. But the way she killed Gabe and that first boy does. Sorta.”
    “What do you mean, sorta?”
    I refilled our glasses. “I don’t know. I mean, it seemed to fit, but not really. And now there’s fire.”
    “I don’t like fire at all.”
    “And sand. Why was there sand?”
    “Wait, there was sand?”
    “After she disappeared. There was sand all over the floor. I nearly slipped on it.”
    “Is there anything else, clue-wise?”
    I thought about