SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (22 page)

“You have a right, I think,” she said. “You may wish you hadn’t asked, though, once you hear it.”

She seemed to be waiting for something, and I nodded. She nodded back, as if we’d sealed a pact.

“Used to be I lived with a white family. My grandma had been their slave, though they were kind and fair. When my momma was born, they raised her with their daughter. And when Miss Hazel grew up and got married, my momma went with her. Even after the war was over, my momma and daddy kept working for them. I was born the same year Miss Hazel had Elizabeth. Elizabeth and I were brought up like sisters. We shared everything. When her tutor came to teach her, he taught me, too. I loved her, and she loved me.”

Honey’s voice was low, and it seemed to vibrate with pain as she spoke. Chick and I stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue.

“Miss Hazel died when I was twelve. She left my momma and daddy part of her land to work for their own and a house to live in. Her husband, Mr. Walton, asked my momma if she would let me stay with him and Elizabeth. She agreed, and I was happy to stay. Mr. Walton used to take me and Elizabeth everywhere. We were like dolls that he’d dress up and parade around. He never got over losing Miss Hazel, but he poured all his love into me and Elizabeth. I remember once we went into a restaurant and they wouldn’t serve Negroes. I told Mr. Walton I’d wait outside, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He was like that. I was a person to him.”

She grew quiet, and I thought perhaps this tale was too painful for her to continue.

“We were in Atlanta where Mr. Walton had frequent business when Aiken saw me.”

“I remember,” Chick said. “First time he lay eyes on Honey, he say,
I gon’ have her
.”

“How old were you, Honey?”

“I was fourteen. He arranged to meet with Mr. Walton and then casually commented on his beautiful daughter and his Negro. Mr. Walton took offense right off. I was not his Negro. I was his daughter’s cherished friend.” She paused. “Aiken talked circles for a time, trying to find out just how it was. He figured Mr. Walton was doing dirty by me and using Elizabeth to hide his deeds. But Mr. Walton was a pure man. I’ve never met another with such honor. Aiken offered money for me, and Mr. Walton told him I wasn’t a possession to be bartered or sold.”

“I ’member Aiken come back and he so mad he spittin’,” Chick said.

Honey looked down. “I don’t think I slept right until we left Atlanta. I knew, even then, that Aiken wouldn’t take
no
for an answer. A few weeks later, we returned to Atlanta and it was as if Aiken had been lying in wait for us. Once again he approached Mr. Walton and made pleasant small talk. He then invited us to dinner. He said his sister was in town, and it would give him great pleasure to entertain us. He felt badly for causing offense, so he said, and wanted to make it up. Mr. Walton was too polite to decline, though I knew he would have liked to.”

Chick squeezed Honey’s hand gently.

“We met at a restaurant and had a fine dinner. Aiken’s sister was quiet and subdued. She seemed almost unaware of us and barely touched her food. Later I would learn her name was Meaira, and she was not his sister. I’ve seen her many times after her dose of laudanum, but she’s never been as gone as she was that night.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

Honey went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “The next day Elizabeth became ill. We called the doctor who couldn’t determine what ailed her. Her lips turned a dark purple and her skin so white she seemed to glow. I stayed by her side, but there was nothing I could do. She was taken by fits and then she died.”

The silence that followed those words was deafening. “What did she have?” I asked.

“The doctor couldn’t determine the cause. Mr. Walton was stricken with grief so deep he could not get up in the morning. I tried to tend to him, but he refused all comfort. He wouldn’t take food or water. Within a few weeks, he too was dead.”

A sick feeling came over me as I listened.

“I returned to Raleigh, where the Waltons and I were from, to bury them both. Aiken came to the funeral. He told me then that he would have me, and I realized what he’d done to my Elizabeth. I accused him, but I had no proof. The doctor had seen no wrongdoing. I was a Negro woman in the South accusing a white man of murdering my friend.”

She shrugged as if nothing else needed to be said. In truth, nothing else did. My horror was so overwhelming I couldn’t have responded anyway.

“He told me I would regret not taking his offer. I told him I would not.” She looked down, and I saw tears in her eyes. “The next morning we found my nine-year-old brother’s body on our porch. He’d been dragged by a horse until there was nothing left of him to recognize but the shoes on his feet. I have five other brothers and one sister. When Aiken came again, I went.”

Diablo Springs: Chapter Nineteen

Gracie dozed in Reilly’s arms for awhile, lulled by his even breathing. He’d fallen into the kind of sleep that made her think of the shadows under his eyes and the exhaustion she’d seen on his face. She suspected it had been a long time since he’d really slept.

Her body was sore in places she’d forgotten existed, and she wanted to stretch like a cat and snuggle into his warmth and sleep as well, but fear of being caught in Reilly’s bed—naked, no less—kept her awake. The last thing she wanted was for Analise to awaken and come looking for her.

Face aflame at the thought, Gracie carefully eased from his side. Reilly shifted but didn’t wake, thank God. Now that the heat of the moment had passed, doubts began to crowd in, and her brain—which had disconnected the moment they’d kissed—began a barrage of reasons why his bed was the last place she should be.

Quietly, she searched for her clothes and dressed. Juliet watched from the door where she’d been asleep, too, and lumbered to her feet when Gracie tried to open the door.

The hall outside was as silent as it had been when Gracie had made the monumental decision to knock on Reilly’s door. She crept to Analise’s door and peeked in. Both Analise and Brendan were still sleeping. Tinkerbelle and Romeo still lay behind the beanbag. Their heads popped up but neither moved.

Alone but for her sentry, Juliet, Gracie tried not to think too much about anything as she entered Grandma Beck’s room. Especially Reilly and what they’d just done. That was hard to do when his scent was on her skin, tantalizing and mysterious as the man himself. She kept discovering a tremulous smile on her lips and misplaced hope in her chest.

She caught sight of herself in the mirror over the heavy dresser and stared, hardly recognizing her own reflection. Gracie Beck may have been a foolish young girl, but she’d grown to a responsible, if staid, adult. Not the kind of woman who jumped into bed with a man she hardly knew—regardless of their history. But she had, and despite her misgivings, she was pretty sure she was glad she’d done it.

“It was just sex. Nothing more,” she said under her breath.

But she couldn’t align the words
just
and
sex
in the same thought with Reilly. Everything about him exceeded
just
.
He could light her up with
just
a glance and she’d still be burning hours later.

After all this time.

And now that she knew he hadn’t abandoned her, all those self-defense mechanisms she’d fostered were failing. He’d been protecting her. If Grandma Beck had told him where she was, he would’ve come for her. But her grandmother had lied to them both. And Mrs. Graham, who’d taken her in and cared for her, had obviously been an accomplice, stopping her mail from coming or going. How else could she explain why no one knew where she’d gone? Why no one had written her back?

She sighed, fishing her cell phone out to check the time, wondering how different her life might have been if Reilly could have simply texted her back then instead of relying on house phones and the post office.

She needed to call Young’s Mortuary to find out when her grandma’s body would be released and arrangements could be made for her burial, but there were still no bars, no signal of any kind, on her phone. She’d also need to call Mr. Lassiter who handled all the legalities of the Diablo. He was the only lawyer Grandma Beck had ever trusted, so Gracie couldn’t imagine that she’d used anyone else for her will.

She also needed to get a tow truck out to haul her car out of that ditch, but the booming thunder and torrential rain mocked that idea and told her it wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. She wouldn’t risk driving in this weather, anyway.

She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The box she’d brought upstairs earlier waited on her bed beside the stack of newspapers. Faced with going downstairs and having to deal with Chloe and her consorts, making funeral arrangements, or staying here and packing Grandma Beck’s possessions, she decided to go with the latter. Maybe it would give her some insight into the enigma who’d been her grandmother.

She had her back to the door when she heard a tentative knock. She turned, heart thumping as she braced herself to face Reilly, but it was the priest she found hovering just at the threshold with an apologetic look on his face.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Ms. Beck, but I wondered if I could speak with you for a moment?”

Gracie nodded, but her reluctance must have shown on her face.

“I won’t keep you from your packing,” he said. He had a kindly smile and warm eyes. Had he not arrived with Chloe, Gracie might have liked him on sight. He came in, turned the straight-backed chair at the desk around, and sat. “I wanted to offer my services.”

“I’m not a very religious person, Father. I don’t need—”

He held up a hand. “Call me Michael. I am not ordained by any church. I am a man of God, though, and I wear this collar to remind myself of that.” He looked around him for a moment, as if unsure how to continue. Juliet padded over to him, sniffed his feet, and then flopped on the floor, completely at ease with his presence. Michael reached down and scratched her behind the ear before continuing.

“My father was a Baptist reverend and my mother an Episcopalian priest,” he said. “There were always heated conversations in my house about theology and worship, but never about some things. Never about faith or God. And it was a given in my house that people like Chloe Lamont, people with psychic abilities, were nothing more than heathens. The devil’s children. There were no exceptions. When I realized that I was one of them, that I had those same abilities, I believed that made me an abomination. While I don’t often see eye to eye with her, Chloe taught me that we have a gift, not a curse. She helped me come to terms with what I do while still considering myself worthy of God’s love.”

Gracie didn’t know why he was telling her this, but the gentle sincerity of his words kept her quiet and listening as she wrapped frames in newspaper and put them in the box.

“You see,” he said, “my gift is that I can see things that happened a long time ago. And sometimes I see things that haven’t happened yet.”

She looked up. “And this is the service you’re offering me? I appreciate the gesture, Michael, but I’ve had a glimpse of my future. I think that’s all I can take right now.”

“The baby?” he said.

She nodded, beyond questioning how he knew.

“Ms. Beck, there is a reason why Chloe has come here.”

Evidently.

“She tells me she wants to end a cycle, a curse that has been on her family and yours for over a hundred years.”

The curse. Yes, Gracie knew all about the curse. Her grandma had lived in fear of it. It had warped her sense of reality in the end. The curse had been part of her reason for sending Gracie away until the baby was born. No doubt, the curse was the reason she’d cut off all contact with Gracie afterward.

“I see you know what I’m talking about.”

“My grandma believed all the women in our family were cursed. She thought sending me away was the only way to save me and the baby.”

“Because the curse is connected to Diablo Springs?”

She lifted her shoulder. “She was never sure. She was afraid to stay and she was afraid to go.” Gracie gave him a sad smile. “She believed my mother’s soul was trapped in the springs where she died. She didn’t want to leave her.”

Michael listened with rapt attention.

“Crazy, huh?”

“On the contrary. But I think there’s more to it. I would like to know what that
more
is, before I become a participant in it.”

His quiet reasoning soothed her stretched nerves, despite the controversial subject. If she was honest, Gracie had to admit he intrigued her.

“You think you can tell me why my grandmother was so convinced it was true?”

“I would be honored if you’d let me try.”

Gracie hesitated. “What do I have to do?”

“If you would allow me to touch you—just your hand—and also an object of this house? Something your grandmother owned, perhaps? One of these pictures?”

Gracie had found a small snapshot on the dresser. In it, her mother held an infant Gracie, with Grandma Beck standing just at her shoulder looking down at them both. Even then, she looked worried. Gracie swallowed a lump of emotion and handed it to Michael. “Will this do?”

“Yes.” He indicated the bed. “May I sit?” At her nod, he settled on the edge and carefully removed his gloves. Then, with a shy smile, he lifted the picture in one hand and reached for Gracie’s fingers with the other.

She didn’t know what she’d expected, but the soothing warmth calmed her. She sat beside him and watched his face as he closed his eyes and let the silence stretch until Gracie should have been uncomfortable, but in his stillness was a sense of something coming. Something that snapped into focus as he began to speak in a rapid, stream of consciousness flow.

“Her name is Carolina, and she’s at a funeral. Her mother’s funeral. Ella? Yes. Carolina is Ella’s daughter. She’s crying, but inside she’s relieved. She’s glad her mother is dead.”

“Why?” Gracie asked.

Michael went on as if she hadn’t spoken, and Gracie realized he’d put himself in some sort of a trance.

“Ella was always fearful. Superstitious. She kept such a tight watch that Carolina was afraid to breathe sometimes. She was crazy. That’s what she’s thinking. Her mother was crazy. Even on her deathbed, she’d been screaming about a curse. A family curse. A man named . . . Jason . . . Macon . . . Aiken? Yes, Aiken. Carolina is frightened. Ella said he was in the Dead Lights. He didn’t stay dead. He didn’t stay dead.”