Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) Read online

  I knew Valerie wouldn’t even consider giving up the ghost tours. They were some of the company’s most popular attractions, and people came to Charleston just to go for a spooky tour specifically with her. Besides, there was no way I could explain why taking a break might be a good idea, at least until we fought off some psycho ghost-eating monsters and a supernatural predator who could look like an underwear model. Yeah. I can just imagine that conversation. Not.

  Then again, even if we did somehow persuade Valerie not to do her tours, the other companies in town would still be doing theirs, and the risk would be just as real. So we might as well see what we were in for.

  The sun had set, and Charleston glowed with gaslights on some of the historic streets as well as twinkle lights set into trees here and there. The area around the Charleston City Market was busy, but as we turned off onto smaller streets, we left the crowds behind. I walked behind Valerie, with Anthony behind me and Teag bringing up the rear.

  I took a deep breath. Even in the fall, it seems like Charleston always smells of flowers. We headed down a narrow cobblestone street. Brick garden walls rose on either side of us, overhung with crepe myrtles and live oaks, gated with wrought iron. Somewhere nearby, water bubbled in a fountain. This was the kind of experience that drew thousands of people to Charleston and created fond memories and plenty of tourist spending.

  But even as I drank in the historic atmosphere, I could sense that something was not quite right. I glanced back at Teag and he gave me a nod. He was feeling it, too. I noticed him slip a hand into his pocket and pull out a woven ball on a tether of braided twine. It was a jack ball, a Hoodoo protective charm. Teag nonchalantly began to swing it clockwise, and I felt the space around us calm with the talisman’s cleansing power.

  “We’re coming up on the first location where things started to get weird,” Valerie said. Up ahead I saw a brick building that dated from the early 1700s. It had been many things over the years, most of them salacious. Brothels, taverns, gambling houses, and speakeasies had all made the two-story brick building their home. Some people might wonder why certain locations seem to attract dark pursuits, but I believe that at least some of the time it has to do with the natural energy of a site, the currents of power that flow through it and around it, the history and blood that have soaked into its foundations.

  The building’s latest incarnation was as The Wallace Inn. It was a bar that attracted tourists who believed a night on the town wasn’t complete if you could remember it the next day. The Wallace Inn always seemed to be in trouble for something: its liquor license, the health inspector, bar fights, and occasionally, a missing person or two. I got a bad feeling just walking past the Inn.

  Now, that warning prickle was much stronger. There was no way I wanted my back to the place, not when its energy was juiced up. Teag and I practically walked backwards for half a block just to keep an eye on the Inn as we walked by.

  I heard a crack, and saw a small rock bounce away from the wooden fence behind me. More stones flew. Some missed us, while others pelted Teag and Anthony as they ran down the sidewalk away from the Inn. No one else was around.

  “Did you see that?” Teag asked.

  “Yeah. Classic poltergeist move,” I replied. “But I’ve never heard about The Wallace Inn having any dangerous ghosts.”

  Teag shook his head. “There’s a story about a lovelorn girl who hanged herself in one of the upstairs rooms, and a petty thief who haunts the old stables because he supposedly got knifed there two hundred years ago, but those are standard tavern lore.”

  I didn’t like the rock-throwing ghosts. Not only could one of Valerie’s guests get hurt, but when the supernatural begins to take physical action in the mortal world, things are likely to go bad quickly. Doing more than showing up and being seen takes power, and whatever was hanging around The Wallace Inn was both powerful and aggressive.

  Valerie already had us into the next block, and thankfully the angry ghosts from the Inn did not follow. “Well, that was new,” Anthony said. “I’ve been by here a million times and never had anything throw rocks at me.”

  “The next tour spot is the Hallen House,” Valerie said. “Let me know what you pick up.”

  I knew the stories about the Hallen House, how the owner had been a rum smuggler and a pirate, then turned respectable when he gave up his ship and swore off the sea. Rumor said the house was haunted by members of his dead crew who had followed him home, or by ghosts from the islands trapped in cursed trinkets the captain brought back from his voyages. Nowadays, Hallen House was home to an accounting firm. The building was said to have a ghost or two, but so did every old house in Charleston.

  I reached up and touched the agate necklace I wore. Agate is a stone of protection, as is the onyx in my bracelet and the black tourmaline in my ring. Just feeling the gemstone under my fingertips calmed me and stilled my jittery magic.

  No rocks flew as we strolled past Hallen House. But despite the street lights and the glowing porch lights, the house seemed darker than it should be. Something moved in the shadows. I reached for my athame. Its magic is powerful, and not quite as destructive as the cane.

  “You see it?” Teag murmured.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “I feel like we’re in one of those movies where the monster pops out of the shadows,” Anthony muttered.

  As we passed in front of Hallen House, the gate to the walled garden suddenly slammed shut. Shutters began to rumble against the fasteners holding them open. Too-dark shadows gathered around the sides of the building.

  “Look!” Anthony said, eyes wide, pointing toward one of the upstairs windows. We could see a corpse-white face against the darkness, staring down at us. The apparition couldn’t have gotten any clearer if she had lifted the sash and stuck her head out into the night. Valerie gasped as she turned to look. After another few seconds, the ghost vanished.

  “That wouldn’t be hard to fake,” Anthony said, although from the uncertainty in his voice, I think he was trying to convince himself.

  “No,” Teag replied thoughtfully. “But why would they? It’s an accounting firm. I could see where a bar might benefit from being haunted, but accountants aren’t supposed to be interesting. I wouldn’t think their clients would like the notoriety.”

  “Now you see what the problem is,” Valerie said. “Visitors want to get a thrill, not get scared out of their sneakers.”

  I suspected that Teag and I were taking this all better than the average tourist because we had faced down much worse. Anthony might be spooked, but he was used to keeping a poker face in the courtroom. Tourists looking for a mild shiver wouldn’t consider this fun. Are the ghosts amped up because they’re afraid of the Reapers? Is that why they’ve suddenly gotten aggressive, because they’re scared of being eaten by wraiths?

  I knew most of the ghost stories that Valerie told, but she was such a good storyteller I didn’t mind hearing them again. Charleston had more than its share of pirates, rogues, gamblers, tragic love affairs, and scandals, so tales of dirty deeds and tawdry goings-on made for thrilling fare. It’s all fun and games until someone ends up as a ghost…

  Valerie took us past St. Philip’s Church and its beautiful cemetery. Behind crumbling brick walls, tombstones stretched off into the darkness. These were old graves, some dating back to the early 1700s. The cemetery had long been said to be haunted, and it seemed right out of Hollywood’s idea for a horror movie: stones that were sometimes crooked or barely legible, lonely corners shadowed by huge trees, and a Southern Gothic moonlight and magnolias vibe that was the real thing. But tonight, none of those ghosts showed up, not even an orb. “Consecrated ground,” I murmured to Teag.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” he replied.

  When we reached the Old Slave Mart, it was a different story. Charleston is a beautiful city with a bloody past. Tens of thousands of enslaved Africans and people from the Caribbean were auctioned like cattle at the Old Slave Mart. Anyone
with a hint of a psychic gift finds the building very uncomfortable because of its stone tape images and the impression so much grief and misery left in every inch of its construction. Although the building has been converted to a museum and gallery, I couldn’t bring myself to visit after the first time, which went badly, to say the least.

  Moans rose from the darkened building. As we passed in front of the big stone façade, I heard screams and wails. Something invisible and angry shook the huge iron gates at the building’s arched main entrance. Dark, human-shaped shadows slipped along the walls. Inside the darkened building, momentary bursts of light were visible, as if camera flashes were going off. Impossible, since the building had been closed up for hours.

  “Definitely more than your guests bargain for,” Anthony observed, looking rattled by the ghostly noises.

  “One more stop,” Valerie said. We walked in silence for several blocks, thinking about what we had seen. So far, the ghosts had been unusually active. Yes, Charleston is one of the most haunted cities in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that every night looks like something out of a horror movie. Charleston is a city of subtlety, manners, and decorum (at least in public), and our ghosts are subtle, too. Usually, they’re not out to scare anyone. They’re just trapped in an infinite memory loop, or trying to get a message across a gap in time they can’t bridge. Some of their stories are tragic, others are horrific, but fortunately most of them aren’t dangerous.

  Now, the ghosts were restless, and I don’t think they were practicing for Halloween. There was an edge of desperation about the hauntings we had seen, and it squared with what Tad’s ghost had told us about the wraiths and what I had witnessed with the ghostly bike riders. That made me even more curious about these Reapers and whether they and the Watcher had anything to do with Sorren’s other problems.

  Valerie turned down Queen Street. The Old Jail was a tourist favorite, especially for evening ghost tours. It once held Charleston’s most notorious criminals, including Lavinia Fisher, a female serial killer who ran an inn. I usually steered clear of the Old Jail. The psychic echoes of the long-ago executions were unpleasantly strong even if I took pains not to touch anything, and the malice of the long-ago inmates left an indelible impression.

  Someone vanished on the steps here just a few days ago, I thought. Did the Reapers have a hand in it?

  Traffic was quiet tonight. I wondered if people without psychic ability could still sense that something was wrong and avoided places where the ghosts were active. We drew alongside the Old Jail, and right away, I could feel a wave of cold air completely out of place in this season. It was like stepping into a meat locker. A foul smell hung in the air, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  Have a message for the devil? I’ll be seeing him soon.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  “Not clearly,” Anthony replied. Teag nodded, and so did Valerie. We all recognized the words. It was the statement Lavinia Fisher made moments before her hanging a century ago.

  I eyed the open area around the Old Jail. Once, it had been a potter’s field, the place criminals and vagrants were buried when no one else wanted them. Now, I could feel the gaze of all those spirits watching us. Ghost hunters like Kell have often talked about how angry some ghosts seem, jealous of the living. Tonight, I was certain that if those ghosts could have hitched a ride with us, to somewhere safe and warm, they would have done so in a heartbeat.

  The sudden sound of a metal cup against iron bars made me jump. I looked to the jail’s gates, but there was no one in sight. We had barely moved forward when I heard a snap, a thud and a creak that sounded suspiciously like a weighted rope swinging back and forth against wood, though no one had been hanged here in over one hundred years.

  “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 a
s 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.”