The Curse Keepers (Curse Keepers series) (11 page)

“How did you get that address?” I asked before I’d shut my door.

He gave me a lopsided grin. “Some things are better left unknown.”

But I knew that Collin had to have slipped into the back and gotten the name and address while I was talking to Oscar. I felt sleazy and slimy even if I hadn’t done anything wrong. If Oscar ever found out, he might think I’d been part of Collin’s scheme. And while I didn’t care what the jackass next to me thought of me, I
did
care what Oscar thought. Nevertheless, there was nothing I could do about it now, and we really did need to find the cup.

This was what really paved the way to hell: bad deeds reasoned away as good intentions.

No, the spirits being unleashed upon the world were what paved the road to hell, and it was up to Collin and me to make sure that didn’t happen. And that included getting the cup.

“So it’s in Rodanthe.”

“That’s who he sold it to, a Mrs. Evelyn Abernathy in Rodanthe, North Carolina.”

“Since Rodanthe’s on the beach, it’s going to take forever to get there with the tourist traffic.”

He shrugged. “At least we have a lead.”

We drove for ten minutes of agonizing silence. I knew that Rodanthe had to be over an hour drive with the traffic. I was never going to be able to stand the quiet. “Does your radio work?”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“The radio.” I pointed to the dashboard. “Does it work?”

“Well, yeah…”

I leaned over and switched it on, turning the knob when static burst through the speakers. I tuned in to a Top 40 station.

A frown pinched his mouth. “I don’t really want to listen to that.”

Still hunched forward in front of the radio, I looked up into his face with an expression of mock innocence. “Does that mean you’d rather chat? Want to tell me what you know about the curse?”

His face scrunched with a grimace. “By all means, listen to the radio.”

I sat back and grinned. “Thanks, I will.” Then I began to sing along with the song. I laughed at Collin’s pained look. “Perhaps you’d rather listen to country?” I shouted over the wind and the music.

“I prefer the silence,” he shouted back.

I shrugged with a grin, singing the rest of the way to Rodanthe, as loudly as possible and with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. Collin appeared irritated by the curious looks of passengers in the cars passing by, but I didn’t care. Life was too short to go out acting all stuffy and self-important. I’d rather go out singing, even if I was slightly off-key.

When we drove through Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, my stomach twinged with butterflies. We were close to Rodanthe, and we had a name and an address but no plan on how to go about retrieving the cup. I turned down the radio and looked at Collin. “So I take it you have some kind of plan?”

“What?” His eyes widened in mock surprise. “I think you said something, but I’m deaf from being trapped in this truck with loud music and bad singing.”

“I’m not that bad.”

“Tell that to those dead birds on the side of the road. They heard your singing and dove out of the sky, head first into the pavement to escape the torture.”

I looked behind us at the multiple seagull bodies lining the road. I hadn’t noticed them before. “Very funny. Why are they really dead?” When I thought about the dead birds on my porch, the hair on my arms prickled.

“Honestly?”

“Of course, honestly. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

His mouth twisted in uncertainty. “The impression you give me is that you want to know as little as possible. Otherwise why would you hardly know anything about the curse?”

I started to protest but stopped. I could see how he’d come to that conclusion. And if I were honest with myself, there was a bit of truth to his statement. “You haven’t made it easy for me.” I held up a hand when he started to protest. “It’s not a condemnation, just a statement of how I felt. I’m on the defensive with you.”

He was silent for a moment before he shifted his weight. “We haven’t exactly gotten off to a great start.” He grinned. “Maybe we should start again.”

“You said that this afternoon. Right before you tried to prove your superiority over me.”

Amusement filled his eyes. “It’s not difficult to demonstrate my superiority over you.”

“And this is your way of starting over?”

“Okay, let’s try again.”

“Or we just call it hopeless and tolerate each other until this thing is done.”

He smirked. “That works too.”

Why did I get the impression that was his intention all along? “You still need to explain the feeling I got from touching you yesterday.”

His amusement turned to a seductive look. “I don’t usually have to explain my effect on women.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, Lordy. Please. Spare me the horrific details.” I shifted in the seat so I could get a better look at him, pulling my skirt down to cover my thigh. “You said it’s from the power in our blood.”

His grin turned wicked.

I put up a hand. “
Please
. I really don’t want to hear anything pornographic, so let’s stick to the
Curse Keeper
power in our blood. I take it we need this power to close the gate?”

The teasing look on his face turned to a scowl. “What the hell
do
you know? Anything?”

I opened my mouth to answer with a snappy retort but caught myself. As much as the man sitting next to me irritated the shit out of me, I needed him. He had all the answers, and I had none. Considering his position, his condescension was justifiable. I only had to endure him until we closed the gate, and then I never had to see him again. I paused.
I never have to see him again, right
? Crap. I couldn’t begin to consider what my responsibilities might be after we closed the gate. Now didn’t seem like a good time to ask. I was sure Collin was eager to get rid of me too.

Traffic slowed to a crawl, and Collin glanced at me before returning his attention to the road. “We need our combined power to shut the gate and/or contain the gods of creation and the four wind gods. We’ll be able to contain the lesser spirits on our own. Or at least I hope.”

“Oh.” This was real. Spirits were emerging from their realm, roaming the earth, and I was really part of containing them. I gulped.

He sighed and shook his head. “We need to work on getting the cup back.”

I took a few seconds to calm down. “So why do you think those dead birds might have something to do with all of this?”

“I don’t know for sure, but the storm last night was probably caused by one of the wind gods. He’s probably who unearthed the Lost Colony.”

“So what does that have to do with the dead birds?”

“I suspect the wind god sucked the life out of them.”

I grabbed the dashboard. “Wait. What do you mean
sucked the life out of them
?”

“Ellie, these spirits have been locked up a long time. Not much is known about them, but we do know that they were meant to straddle the earthly and spiritual worlds. They should never have been locked up in one realm or the other. Perhaps they’re weak from being gone so long and need the life force of the animals to renew their energy.”

“What’s to keep them from sucking the life out of humans?”

“Honestly?” He paused, and I held my breath, waiting for his answer. “Nothing. Again, this is speculation. Lots of information has been passed down the Manteo line, although we’ve known all along it wasn’t gospel. But
we suspected the spirits would reenter the world in weakened states and need to reenergize.”

“And they reenergize by killing things?”

“Energy is never created, Ellie. It flows from one object to another. It’s a simple law of physics. For an object or entity to acquire energy, it has to come from somewhere.”

This suddenly became very real, very fast. “So we have to keep the spirits from killing people?”

“We have some time. They’ll start with weaker creatures, creatures they can control, and work their way up.”

I swallowed, letting his words settle in my head. I was
way
out of my element here.

“My grandmother believed that’s the real purpose of the week the Keepers have to renew the curse. That it would take the gods a week to recover their full potential, but once they reach their full potential, nothing could close the gate.”

“So you’re telling me that the sooner we send these things back, the less havoc they’ll cause?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“And the dead birds on my porch? They were in a pattern.”

He sat up, twisting his mouth. “I think it was a message to you.”

“What kind of message?”

“I think it’s a countdown. Six birds—six days. The robin signifies today and the blackbirds are the five remaining days. The cardinal…” His voice trailed off.

I didn’t want to think too hard on what a red bird signified. My mouth turned dry and I swallowed. “So one of the gods left the birds?”

“One of the gods or maybe a spirit, but it was definitely a message.”

“Did you get one?”

“No.” His mouth puckered, and he actually looked unhappy about it.

We rode in silence the rest of the ten-minute drive. I didn’t feel like chatting, and Collin didn’t seem inclined to share any more information. Not that I could have handled any more information. I was overwhelmed
with the little he’d shared. I needed to focus on retrieving the cup. Then I could think about confronting life-sucking spirits. I tried not to think about what would happen if we didn’t recover my artifact.

When we reached Rodanthe, Collin turned down a side road, toward the ocean. On the Outer Banks, you didn’t have to drive very far on either side of the highway before you reached the ocean or the sound. But it soon became apparent that Mrs. Evelyn Abernathy had money. Her two-story house sat right on the beach, and if the structure had been damaged from the storm months earlier, it had already been repaired.

Collin parked his truck across the narrow lane and leaned over his steering wheel, watching the house.

“Got a plan?” I asked. “Because I don’t have enough money to buy it back. How much did she pay anyway?”

“Eight hundred dollars.”

Eight hundred dollars. I thought Oscar was being kind when he gave me five hundred. “Do you have eight hundred dollars?”

He gave me an amused look. “What do you think?”

I wasn’t sure why he looked so happy. We were screwed. I bet she wouldn’t take a hot check, not that I could write one. I’d run out of checks months ago.

Collin pointed toward the house. “Look, there’s no car in the carport. I bet she’s not home.”

“So we wait?”

“No, I’ll go up and check it out. Stay here.” He opened the door.

Something about the way Collin answered set me on edge. “I’m coming with you.”

He stopped and pinned me with his dark gaze. “It would probably be better if you wait in the truck.”

We had a momentary standoff before I lifted my chin. “It’s my cup. I should go with you.”

Turning his back to me, he mumbled, “Suit yourself.”

I followed him up the steps to the back door. When we reached the deck, I stared at the ocean, taking in the sea breeze and whooshing sound. Daddy used to say that we were born of the sea. Despite living next to the ocean my
entire life, I’d hardly been on it, yet every time I was next to it like this, I felt
something
, a sense of belonging and rightness. But whatever the feeling was, it was even stronger today, and the mark on my palm tingled, especially the closer I stood next to Collin. Could my connection to the sea come from the curse?

Collin knocked on the back door and stuffed his hands in his back pockets as he glanced around the beach. While my gaze was focused on taking in the scenic view, I could tell his was methodical. What was he up to?

We waited for several seconds before Collin knocked again.

“She’s probably not home,” I said, stating the obvious.

He continued his scan of the area. “Looks like it.” He then peered through the large glass windows overlooking the sea.

Against my better judgment, I glanced too. I’d never been inside a beach house, though it was my dream to live in one. My financial path made that dream nearly impossible and despite all my teasing with Oscar about marrying for money and my wasted efforts with boring men, I knew I’d never settle for anything less than what my parents had. My mother and Daddy, not Myra. Before Daddy got sick, he and Myra had had a comfortable relationship, which as an adult I realized was exactly what Daddy needed after Momma’s death. But Momma and Daddy had had fireworks. Even as a little girl, I’d known their relationship was different than my friends’ parents. What my parents had was special.

But I didn’t see any men with money waiting to set me ablaze, so when the opportunity presented itself for me to get a look inside the house, I couldn’t resist the temptation.

The inside was neat and tidy, the walls lined with white wood paneling. Pale blue and white furniture filled the living room. The kitchen in the back had white cabinets and pale gray marble counters. Bookshelves flanked one wall of the living space, stuffed with books and knickknacks. One in particular caught my eye, and I sucked in my breath.

Collin jerked his head in my direction. “What is it?” But one look at my face told him everything. “You see it? Where?”

I pointed toward the shelf, second from the top on the right side. The ugly pewter cup sat on the pristine white shelves looking old and out of place.

He lowered his voice. “Ellie, why don’t you go back to the truck.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “Why?”

“Will you just do as I ask?”

“No.”

“
Ellie
.”

“No. What are you going to do?”

He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his forehead. “You really don’t want to know.”

I leaned toward him, my eyes wide. “You’re going to steal it!”

“Shh!” He was next to me in half a second, his hand on my arm. He stepped in close, pressing me back against the door. I was acutely aware of his chest against mine. My body tingled with expectation. Both physically and supernaturally.