Dangerous Women (75 page)

He heard Jamie sigh, from somewhere deep inside, and opened his eyes. Without speaking, they went out, leaving the candle to keep watch.

“Did ye not mean to go to confession yourself?” Jamie asked, stopping near the church’s main door. There was a priest in the confessional; two or three people stood a discreet distance away from the carved wooden stall, out of earshot, waiting.

“It’ll bide,” Ian said, with a shrug. “If ye’re goin’ to Hell, I might as well go, too. God knows, ye’ll never manage alone.”

Jamie smiled—a wee bit of a smile, but still—and pushed the door open into sunlight.

They strolled aimlessly for a bit, not talking, and found themselves eventually on the river’s edge, watching the Garonne’s dark waters flow past, carrying debris from a recent storm.

“It means ‘peace,’” Jamie said at last. “What he said to me. The Doctor. ‘Shalom.’” Ian kent that fine.

“Aye,” he said. “But peace is no our business now, is it? We’re soldiers.” He jerked his chin toward the nearby pier, where a packet-boat rode at anchor. “I hear the King of Prussia needs a few good men.”

“So he does,” said Jamie, and squared his shoulders. “Come on, then.”

Author’s note: I would like to acknowledge the help of several people in researching aspects of Jewish history, law, and custom for this story: Elle Druskin (author of
To Catch a Cop
), Sarah Meyer (registered midwife), Carol Krenz, Celia K. and her Reb Mom, and especially Darlene Marshall (author of
Castaway Dreams
). I’m indebted also to Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s very helpful book
Jewish Literacy
. Any errors are mine.

Be careful what you search for—because you just might
find
it.

New York Times
bestseller Sherrilyn Kenyon is one of the superstars of the paranormal romance field. She’s probably best-known for the twenty-two-volume Dark-Hunter series, including such titles as
Night Embrace,
Dance with the Devil,
Kiss of the Night,
and
Bad Moon Rising,
and extending to manga and short stories as well as novels, but she also writes the League series, including
Born of Night,
Born of Fire,
Born of Ice,
and
Born of Shadows,
and the Chronicles of Nick series, which includes
Infinity
and
Invincible
. She’s also produced the four-volume B.A.D. (Bureau of American Defense) sequence, three of those written with Dianna Love, including
Silent Truth, Whispered Lies,
Phantom in the Night,
and the collection
Born to be BAD,
and the three-volume Belador Code sequence, again written with Dianna Love. Her most recent novels are
Born of Silence,
a League novel, and
Infamous,
part of the Chronicles of Nick series. There’s a compendium to the Dark-Hunter series,
The Dark-Hunter Companion,
written by Kenyon and Alethea Kontis, and Kenyon has also written nonfiction such as
The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages
and
The Writer’s Digest Character Naming Sourcebook
. She lives in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and maintains a website at sherrilynkenyon.com.

“I don’t think we should be here.”

“Oh, c’mon, Cait, calm down. Everything’s fine. We have the equipment set up and—”

“I feel like someone’s watching me.” Cait Irwin turned around slowly, scanning the thick woods, which appeared to be even more sinister now that the sun was setting. The trees spread out in every direction, so thick and numerous that she couldn’t even see where they’d parked her car, never mind the highway that was so far back that nothing could be heard from it.

We could die here and no one would know …

Anne, her best friend from childhood, cocked her hip as she lowered her thermal-imaging camera to smirk at Cait. “I hope something
is
watching you … Which direction should I be shooting?”

Cait shook her head at her friend’s joy. There was nothing Anne loved more than a good ghost sighting. “Anne, I’m not joking. There’s something here.” She pinned her with a caustic glower. “You brought me along because I’m psychic, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then trust me. This”—Cait rubbed the chills from her arms—“isn’t right.”

“What’s going on?” Brandon set his large camera crate down next to Anne’s feet as he rejoined them. He and Jamie had gone out to set their DVRs and cameras for the night.

While she and Anne were slight of frame, Brandon and Jamie were well bulked, Brandon more from beer and channel surfing, but Jamie from hours spent in the gym. Even so, with his blond hair and blue eyes, Brandon was good-looking in a Boy Scout kind of way. But Jamie had that whole dark, brooding, sexy scowl thing that made most women melt and giggle whenever he glanced their way.

Anne indicated her with a jerk of her chin. “Wunderkind over there is already picking up something.”

Brandon’s eyes widened. “I hope you mean spiritwise and not some backwoods bug we have no immunity to. I left my vitamin C at home.”

Cait shivered as another wave of trepidation went through her. This one was even stronger than the previous one. “Whose bright idea was this anyway?”

Anne pointed to Brandon, who grinned proudly.

He winked at her. “C’mon, Cait. It’s a ghost town. We don’t get to investigate one of these every day. Surely ye of the unflappable constitution isn’t wigging out like a little girl at a horror movie.”

“Boo!”

Cait shrieked as Jamie grabbed her from behind.

Laughing, he stepped around her, then shrugged his Alienware backpack off his shoulder and set it next to the camera case.

She glared at the walking mountain. “Damn it, Jamie! You’re not funny!”

“No, but
you
are. I didn’t know you could jump that high. I’m impressed.”

Hissing at him like a feral cat, she flicked her nails in his direction. “If I didn’t think it’d come back on me, I’d hex you.”

He flashed that devilish grin that was flanked by dimples so deep, they cut moons into both of his cheeks. “Ah, baby, you can hex me up any time you want!”

Cait suppressed a need to strangle him. All aggravation aside, a martial arts instructor who was built like Rambo might come in handy one day. And still her Spidey senses tingled, warning her that that day might not be too far in the future.

“We’re not supposed to be here.” She bit her lip as she glanced around, trying to find what had her so rattled.

“No one is,” Brandon said in a spooky tone. “This ground is cursed. Oooo-eeee-oooo …”

She ignored him. But he was right. At one time, Randolph County had been the richest in all of Alabama. Until the locals had forced a Native American business owner to leave her store behind and walk the Trail of Tears.

“Louina …”

Cait jerked around as she heard the faint whisper of the woman’s name; it was the same name as the ghost town they were standing in. Rather cruel to name the town after the woman who’d been run out of it for no real reason.

“Louina,”
the voice repeated, even more insistent than before.

“Did you hear that?” she asked the others.

“Hear what?” Jamie checked his DVR. “I’m not picking up anything.”

Something struck her hard in the chest, forcing her to take a step back. Her friends and the forest vanished. She suddenly found herself inside an old trading post. The scent of the pine-board walls and floor mixed with that of spices and flour. But it was the soaps on the counter in front of her that smelled the strongest.

An older Native American woman, who wore her hair braided and coiled around her head, straightened the jars on the countertop while a younger, pregnant woman who had similar features, leaned against the opposite end.

But what shocked Cait was how much she looked like the older woman. Right down to the black hair and high eyebrows.

The younger woman—Elizabeth; Cait didn’t know how she knew that, but she did—reached into one of the glass jars and pulled out a piece of licorice. “They’re going to make you leave, Lou. I overheard them talking about it.”

Louina scoffed at her sister’s warning before she replaced the lid and pulled the jar away from her. “Our people were here long before them, and we’ll be here long after they’re gone. Mark my words, Lizzie.”

Elizabeth swallowed her piece of licorice. “Have you not heard what they’ve done to the Cherokee in Georgia?”

“I heard. But the Cherokee aren’t the Creek. Our nation is strong.”

Elizabeth jerked, then placed her hand over her distended stomach where her baby kicked. “He gets upset every time I think about you being forced to leave.”

“Then don’t think about it. It won’t happen. Not as long as I’ve been here.”

“Cait!”

Cait jumped as Jamie shouted in her face. “W-what?”

“Are you with us? You blanked out for a second.”

Blinking, she shook her head to clear it of the images that had seemed so real that she could taste Elizabeth’s licorice. “Where was that original trading post you guys mentioned being here?”

Brandon shrugged. “No idea. We couldn’t find any information about it, other than it was owned by the Native American woman the town was named for. Why?”

Because she had a bad feeling that they were standing on it. But there was nothing to corroborate that. Nothing other than a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

In fact, there was nothing left of this once-thriving town other than rows of crosses in a forgotten cemetery, and a marker that proclaimed it Louina, Alabama.

That thought had barely finished before she saw Louina again in her mind. She was standing a few feet away, to Cait’s left, with a wagon filled with as much money and supplies as she could carry. Furious, she spat on the ground and then spoke in Creek to the men who’d come to confiscate her home and store, and force her to leave.

Cait knew it was Creek, a language she knew not at all, and yet the words were as clear to her as if they’d been spoken in English.

“I curse this ground and all who dwell here. For what you’ve done to me … for the cruelty you have shown others, no one will make my business prosper, and when my sister passes from this existence to the next, within ten years of that date, there will be nothing left of this town except gravestones.”

The sheriff and his deputies who’d been sent to escort her from her home laughed in her face. “Now, don’t be like that, Louina. This ain’t personal against you.”

“No, but it is personal against
you
.” She cast a scathing glare at all of them. “No one will remember any of you as ever having breathed, but they will remember my name, Louina, and the atrocity that you have committed against me.”

One of the deputies came from behind the wagon with a stern frown. “Louina? This can’t be all you own.”

A cruel smile twisted her lips. “I couldn’t carry all of my gold.”

That piqued the deputies’ interest.

“Where’d you leave it?” the sheriff asked.

“The safest place I know. In the arms of my beloved husband.”

The sheriff rubbed his thumb along the edge of his lips. “Yeah, but no one knows where you buried him.”

“I know and I won’t forget …” She swept a chilling gaze over all of them. “Anything.” And with that, she climbed onto her wagon and started forward without looking back. But there was no missing the smug satisfaction in her eyes.

She was leaving more than her store behind.

Cait could hear Louina’s malice as if they were her own thoughts.
They will tear each other apart, questing for the gold my husband will never release …

It was Louina’s final revenge.

One paid tribute to by the eerie rows of cross-marked graves in the old Liberty Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery.

The weakness of our enemy is our strength.

Make my enemy brave, smart, and strong, so that if defeated, I will not be ashamed.

Cait felt Louina with her like her own shadow. A part of her that she could only see if the light hit it just right.

Louina whispered in her ear, but this time Cait didn’t understand the words. Yet what was unmistakable was the feeling of all-consuming dread that wouldn’t go away, no matter what she tried.

She sighed before she implored her group one more time. “We need to leave.”

All three of them balked.

“We just got the equipment set out.”

“What? Now? We’ve been here all day!”

“Really, Cait? What are you thinking?”

They spoke at once, but each voice was as clear as Louina’s. “We should
not
be here,” she insisted. “The land itself is telling me that we need to go. Screw the equipment, it’s insured.”

“No!” Brandon adamantly refused.

It was then that she understood why they were being stubborn, when Brandon had spent his entire life saying that if you ran into a malevolent haunting, you abandoned that place because nothing was worth the chance of being possessed.

Only one thing would make him and Jamie forget about their own beliefs.

Greed.

“You’re not here for the ghosts. You’re here for the
treasure
.”

Jamie and Brandon exchanged a nervous glance.

“She
is
psychic,” Anne reminded them.

Brandon cursed. “Who told you about the treasure?”

“Louina.”

“Can she tell you where it is?” Jamie asked hopefully.

Cait screwed her face up at him. “Is that really all you’re concerned with?”

“Well … not
all
. We
are
here for the science. Natural curiosity being what it is. But let’s face it, the equipment’s not cheap and a little payback wouldn’t be bad.”

His choice of words only worsened her apprehension.

“Can you really not feel the anger here?” She gestured in the direction of the cemetery; that had been the first place they’d set up the equipment and it was there that her bad feelings had started. “It’s so thick, I can smell it.”