Free Crushed (City of Eldrich Book 2) by Laura Kirwan Page A

he’s sedated and out of here, the better.”
    Both cops nodded and holstered their guns. The first cop pulled a hex bag from inside his shirt, gave it a squeeze, and muttered something.
    Meaghan led them into the kitchen. The officers saw the sigils carved into Jamie’s back and winced. Approaching slowly, they spoke in low soothing voices.
    The second cop, nearer Jamie’s age, approached Meaghan, eyes wide with shock. He had a receding hairline and a round, plain face. “I went to high school with him. What the hell happened? Is this from the Fahraya thing?”
    Meaghan nodded. “Partly. Plus—”
    “Some kind of spell, right?”
    Meaghan shook her head slightly, taken aback.
    Noting her reaction, the cop said, “I’m Brian Cressley. Kady’s my baby sister.”
    Meaghan smiled for a moment. “Kady’s a good kid. Yeah, a spell, but nobody can decipher the symbols.”
    Brian looked at the shattered windows. “Poltergeist, right?”
    Meaghan nodded. “Did Kady tell you what’s going on?”
    “No, but I’ve seen it before on domestic calls. Where’s his family?”
    “His wife’s around the corner at a friend’s house and the kids are staying somewhere else.” Meaghan noticed Brian’s eyes flicker.
    “The friend around the corner,” he said. “Is that Natalie Segretti?”
    “Yeah. You know her?”
    Brian looked away, blushing. “Big crush on her in high school.” He took a deep breath and got back to business, pulling a small notebook from his shirt pocket. “Wife is Patrice, right? A nurse at the clinic?”
    Meaghan nodded.
    “Her condition?”
    Meaghan hesitated.
    “We won’t recommend charges unless she wants us to,” Brian said. “Those things on him are heavy black magic. I can’t even begin to explain that to the district attorney. We’ll look out for Jamie. Don’t worry.”
    Meaghan sighed. Normally, cops covering for batterers infuriated her, but this was different. It always was when magic was involved. “She has a black eye and a cut lip, but no serious injuries. Natalie will take care of her. The kids are with another witch, Lynette Coffey. You know her?”
    “Yeah, I do,” Brian said with a smile. “She and my mom were best friends. We can leave social services out of it.”
    They heard someone enter the house and a paramedic walked into the kitchen. “Wife’s okay. We checked her out first.” He looked around the room. “What happened?”
    “DV with poltergeist,” Brian said. “Bad shit.”
    “Magic?” the paramedic asked.
    “Yeah.”
    The paramedic shook his head in disgust. “Always with the magic.” He spoke into his radio. “Hector, grab the hex bags off the truck.” He clipped the radio onto his belt. “Which one’s the dabbler?”
    “Neither,” Brian said. “It’s Jamie Smith. That shit back in June.”
    The paramedic grimaced. “I heard about that.”
    While the paramedics worked, Brian Cressley tried to control the growing crowd. A friend from the fire department inspected the house and declared, in a loud voice, that it looked like a gas leak. The spectators quickly backed away.
    Russ showed up right after the fire inspector. “Go help Natalie,” he said in Meaghan’s ear. “I’ll go with Jamie and make sure we get the right doctors.”
    Meaghan nodded, gripped him in tight hug, then walked back to Natalie’s house.
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    B y the next morning, everyone agreed that until they could figure out what was happening to Jamie—given his claims that something was ordering him to kill his family—Patrice and the children needed to be somewhere else.
    Patrice, it turned out, wasn’t as rootless as Meaghan had thought. Raised in the foster care system down in Harrisburg, Patrice had stayed in touch with her last set of foster parents. By the time she’d gotten to them, in high school, she was far too cautious to let them take the place of parents in her heart, and wisely they hadn’t forced it. But Patrice looked to them as friends