Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) (16 page)

“Look!” Anthony said. Several blue-white orbs glowed dimly as they bobbed and wove through the darkness of the lawn beside the jail.

Coming for us.

All four of us heard the voice that time, and I could see from their expressions that Valerie and Anthony had had enough.

“Let’s go,” I said, a little more sharply than I intended. We vamoosed, right back to the main street and the safety of bright street lights. Even so, I kept a white-knuckled grip on my athame, and I saw that Teag held his staff as if ready for trouble.

“You’ve seen what I mean, right?” Valerie asked as she headed us back to the stables.

“Have you heard anything from the guides at other companies?” Teag asked.

“Everyone’s scared. Some of the guides are saying it’s pranksters, but I don’t think they really believe it.”

“How are the other guides handling it?” I asked.

“What can they do?” Valerie replied. “We’ve tried to let people know when they book that the tours are ‘intense’. Some people think it’s all a big joke. Others leave the tour and want their money back. It’s been getting steadily worse over the last two weeks. You should see the comments we’ve gotten online.”

Valerie stuck to main routes on our way back, and while I spotted a few shifty shadows and we passed through some odd cold spots, we saw nothing like the ghostly activity from the main sites. “I cancelled tonight’s tours so I could show you around,” she said as we came back to the stables.

“Do you have any ideas of how to make it safer for my customers?” she asked. We followed her into the barn, where the horses looked up in curiosity, then went back to their hay.

“Other than the rock throwing, none of the ghosts actually did anything that might cause harm,” I mused. “Could you avoid the Inn, until things calm down?” If this kept up, Mrs. Teller was going to be a rich woman making charms to soothe the ghosts. Worse, if all the spirits were restless because of the Reapers, Charleston’s ghosts could be in real danger, and so far I had no idea of how to stop them from getting eaten.

“I can,” she said, giving a round of fresh water and carrots to the horses. “But what if the ghosts get bolder? What if they do more than just rattle the gates and windows?”

“We’ve had some weird things happen at the shop lately too,” I said. “Have you tried putting a root on whatever is making the ghosts bonkers?” Here in the Lowcountry, wise people take the idea of having a Hoodoo woman like Mrs. Teller ‘put a root on’ someone very seriously. “I bet she’s got some charms you can use when you take your tours around that might help, until we can figure out why the ghosts are acting up.”

Valerie nodded. “I know Mrs. Teller. I’ll go down tomorrow morning and see what she can do. At least it might make things calm down until someone can get to the bottom of the problem.” The look she gave me said I was on her short list of people who might do that.

“I’d be grateful for anything you can figure out on how to stop the disturbances,” Valerie said. “I’m afraid this is going to ruin the ghost tour business – or worse, someone will get hurt.”

Despite Valerie’s protests, we insisted on sticking around until she had finished checking on the horses. Her car was parked near Teag’s and Anthony’s, in a side lot one block up. The parking lot usually seemed well lit, but tonight, the security lights gave a dim glow, and the shadows around the lot’s edges were darker than I remembered.

Valerie got in her car, but when she turned the key, nothing happened. “Darn,” she muttered. “I’ve been having problems with the battery. I guess it finally gave out.”

I hoped it was that simple. “Why don’t I drop Valerie off at her house?” Anthony volunteered. I held my breath when Anthony tried his key, but to my relief, the engine roared to life. Valerie accepted Anthony’s offer gratefully, and we watched them head out of the lot.

That’s when the shadows engulfed Teag’s car. “I really don’t like the look of that,” I said. I held the athame in my right hand, walking stick in my left, and jangled the dog collar. Bo’s ghost appeared at my side. Immediately, he began to growl.

“Neither do I.” Teag held his staff defensively. It’s almost as tall as he is, made of ash, solid enough to give bad guys a solid thumping. Even without magic, Teag can whup ass with a fighting stave. But he’s enhanced the stave with carved runes and woven charms imbued with power, making it even more dangerous to bad things that go bump in the night.

“Let’s move toward the car and see if the shadows draw back,” I said. “Maybe it’s a warning, not a throw-down.”

We moved slowly, me facing forward and Teag behind me, facing away. The air grew colder, and there was a sense of foreboding that made me want to run away. I kept going, one foot in front of the other, until we were nearly to the car.

As I reached for the door, the shadows surged forward. For a moment, they nearly blotted out the overhead light. I closed my hand tight around the handle of my grandmother’s wooden spoon and tapped into the warm, safe memories. A cone of cold, blindingly bright white light flared from the athame, forcing back the darkness.

Teag began to murmur under his breath. He reached down to several macramé knots that hung from his belt loops, and loosened one of them, sending a surge of stored magical power through his staff. He swung the staff in a semi-circle behind us, and the darkness crept back, just beyond the reach of his staff.

My teeth were chattering. Light frost glittered on the windshield. Murmured voices were all around us, so many that I couldn’t make them out clearly, only a word here and there.

Help us… save us… beg for mercy… hunting us… destroyed… feed on us… mercy…

The speakers might have been long dead, but there was no mistaking the cold terror in their voices. Something had frightened the dead out of their wits, scared them badly enough to beg the living for help, to use what precious energy they hoarded to make themselves seen and heard to us.

“We’re trying to help,” I said, addressing the darkness. I’m not a psychic. For all I knew, talking out loud without being a medium was like yelling at your cell phone without a signal.

“Who’s doing this? Who is trying to hurt you?” The spirits remained silent, but I took it as a good sign that they had not surged toward us. “Is it the Reapers? We’re trying to stop the things hunting you. Please, help us do our job.”

Teag and I exchanged a glance. If it came to a fight, he and I had the skills and the weapons to do some damage. I hoped it wouldn’t get that far. “Do you think they heard me?”

Just then, the darkness rolled back like the tide, away from the rental car and back toward the edges of the lot. “Thank you,” I said. “We will find an answer.”

Hurry…

K
ELL HAD INVITED
Teag and me to come out with his group and see the havoc the ghosts were causing, so here we were at the place everyone called the ‘murder house’.

The big white house on the outskirts of the city was stunning in its day. Teag and I had called up everything we could online. It didn’t take us long to find details. The Blake house was built in 1936, and the white-columned mansion was large and impressive. A brick and wrought iron fence faced the street, opening onto a long curved driveway. Even now, after years of neglect and vandalism, I could imagine what the old place must have looked like in its heyday.

“Given the nickname,” Teag said, “I guess restless ghosts aren’t surprising.”

Kell grinned. “Nobody’s surprised that the Blake house has ghosts. We’re surprised how much the ghosts have changed.”

I had the floor plan to the house in a pocket of my jacket. The Blake house had been on and off the market for a long time, so details were easy to find. Once I read the house’s history, it didn’t surprise me that the house hadn’t sold. Some stains don’t wash clean.

“I’m surprised the place is still standing,” I commented. The front door and the large French doors on the first floor were boarded up. Upstairs, some of the windows were broken and the rest were filthy. Knee-high weeds and overgrown bushes nearly hid the house from the road.

“Must have been amazing when it was built,” Kell said, looking up at the big home.

“I heard it had its own movie room, back in the 1930s.” Pete was a short, wiry ginger with the look of a welter-weight wrestler.

“I heard it had air conditioning, even way back then,” Calista added. She was rocking a goth librarian vibe, even dressed to explore.

Tarleton, as the Blakes called their new home, was once a showpiece. Magnolias flanked the wide front porch, an old live oak graced the front yard and there was a swimming pool in the back. The mansion was meant to impress.

“They bombed with the name,” Kell sniffed. “The only worse thing they could have called it would have been ‘Sherman’s Acres’.”

I couldn’t resist chuckling. Kell was right. Charleston has a long memory, and doesn’t forgive easily. Banastre Tarleton was a British general who laid siege to Charleston during the Revolutionary War and tried to burn Middleburg Plantation, a local historic treasure. That made him about as popular as Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, who burned his way through the South on his march to the sea. Folks are still a mite touchy about all that, even now.

“You ready to go in?” Drew, a tall skinny young man with black hair tied back in a ponytail looked around, bobbing up and down on his toes with nervous energy. “I don’t like standing around out here.”

“For all the bucks the Blakes sunk into this place, they didn’t live here long,” Teag observed.

We had found out a lot about Manfred and Bethanne Blake, and the information ranged from sad to sordid. The Blakes made their money selling automobiles and managed to hang onto it despite the Great Depression. They were new in Charleston and eager to earn a place in the local social register. That’s easier said than done.

Charleston’s old money families have been around since Blackbeard sailed the seas. They know each other, marry each other and see each other for golf and benefit dances. It’s clubby and close-knit, so breaking in to that crowd, even with a wad of cash, takes patience and finesse. The Blakes were short on those two traits. They didn’t even know that the natural habitat of Charleston blue-bloods is South of Broad Street. The Blakes were screwed before they ever set foot in their new dream house.

“Before we go in,” I said, rummaging in my messenger bag, “I have something for each of you.” I pulled out four agate necklaces and four smooth pieces of onyx, one for each of them. “And once we’re done, I have those charms to help calm down the ghosts that I promised we’d get for you,” I said to Kell. Teag patted his messenger bag.

“Take these,” I said, distributing the onyx and agate pieces to the team. Kell and Pete put their necklaces on immediately and tucked the loose piece of onyx into their pockets. Calista looked at the stones skeptically. Drew shoved his in his pocket without a second glance.

“What are they?” Calista asked, examining the stones in the moonlight.

“Agate and onyx are good for protective energy,” I said, and lifted my right hand to the necklace at my throat, while fluttering the fingers of my left hand to show my bracelet. Teag held up his hand to show a silver and onyx ring as well.

“Just for good measure, I had the pieces blessed by a Voudon mambo – and an Episcopalian priest,” I added. “They aren’t a bullet-proof vest, but they should have enough juice to make most ghosts want to give you some space.”Drew’s expression let me know he didn’t believe a word I said. Calista looked like she was debating the idea, then slipped the stone into her pocket and put on the necklace.

“You read about the murder?” Kell asked as we walked toward Tarleton. Long ago, when lights blazed through its windows and the grounds were manicured, it must have been a beautiful place. Now, the ruined home was silent and brooding.

“Yeah,” Teag replied. Houses have personalities. Some houses have a personality disorder, especially when the house is the site of a tragedy or horrific crime. Tarleton was one of them.

“It didn’t happen right away, did it?” I asked. “The Blakes owned the house for fifteen years, but they traveled a lot. Then he retired and they decided to get to know the neighbors.”

Kell nodded. “Fancy society dinner, lots of local big-wigs invited, caterers brought in from Columbia, even some famous movie stars were supposed to show up,” Teag continued. “Then everything went wrong in a big way.”