Inheritance Read online

  “You said she tried to kill you.”

  He nodded. “When I was on the floor, I felt like there was a heavy weight on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. And I heard a voice say, ‘you’ll pay for what you did.’”

  “How did you get away?” I asked, as my theory grew stronger.

  “Thank God one of the appraisers heard all the thumping. Kristen opened the door to check on me, and the weight on my chest vanished. I made up a story about toxic fumes from the glue in the artwork and asked her to put it in the side room. I figured if the ghost went away when Kristen came, she might be able to move it without getting attacked.”

  “Did Kristen notice anything odd about the piece?”

  He shook his head. “No, and nothing strange happened when she moved it. I watched her.”

  Lucky for him, although Kristen would have found it hard to file a workplace safety claim against a ghost if something had gone wrong. I leaned forward, anticipating his reaction to my next question.

  “Have you been unfaithful to your partner?”

  Alfred’s head jerked up, and for a moment before he regained control, his eyes were wide with fear. “What did you just say?” he sputtered, but I already had my answer.

  “Ghosts that cause problems often have an agenda. In this case, Millicent punished her unfaithful fiancée and killed him. I suspect that, if we could find the provenance of the art, it’s caused quite a few deaths over the years. Did the representative show you other pieces you declined?”

  A sheen of sweat dotted Alfred’s forehead, and he refused to meet my eyes. “I…I mean…” He sighed as if all the fight had gone out of him. “Yes. He showed me two or three other items, but once I saw the sailor’s valentine, nothing else interested me.”

  I nodded. “I suspect that Millicent chose you as her next victim. That’s why you felt the strong attraction to the piece.”

  He licked his lips nervously. “I’m getting a divorce,” he admitted. “It isn’t public knowledge yet. I fooled around on my buying trips, and she found out.”

  “With anyone here at the auction house?” I doubted Millicent would take pity on someone she perceived as a homewrecker. Since Kristen hadn’t been touched, I ruled her out immediately.

  “What? No. No one here.” Understanding dawned, and he caught his breath. “Because you think she’d hurt them?”

  “I’m sure she would.”

  Alfred ran a hand through his thinning hair. “And she’ll try to kill me again.”

  “Yes. But we’re not going to let her do that.”

  His phone buzzed, letting him know I had a visitor, and he told the receptionist to send “him” back and then close up. A few minutes later, Father Anne walked in. I knew immediately she hadn’t been what Alfred pictured when I said “priest.”

  With short, spiked dark hair, a clerical collar over a black T-shirt, protective tattoos that peeked from beneath the shirt sleeves, black denim, and Doc Martens boots, Father Anne didn’t fit most people’s mental image. She’s the rector at St. Hildegard’s Episcopal Church, but more importantly—for me—she’s also a member of the St. Expeditus Society, a secret group of priests who take on demons, monsters, and other supernatural riff-raff. Including, fortunately, vengeful ghosts.

  “Thank you for coming on short notice,” I greeted her, and made introductions. “We’ve got a haunted picture with a dangerous spirit attached to it.”

  “Let’s do it,” she replied, with a grin like she was looking forward to the challenge.

  I turned to Alfred. “Wait here.” I walked a circle around him, laying down a line of salt and iron filings. “Don’t leave the circle, no matter what.”

  He swallowed hard and nodded.

  Father Anne had a duffle bag with her gear shouldered, and she stood by the door, ready to go. “Hang in there. We’ll be back,” she told Alfred, and then we headed to have a come to Jesus moment with Millicent.

  On our way, I filled Father Anne in on the particulars.

  “Do you think the ‘representative’ knew the piece was haunted?” she asked.

  “I think the representative knew that the items for sale had a questionable chain of ownership,” I replied. “I’m betting they were stolen—whether by outsiders or from family, by family. Hence the mysterious, vanishing broker.”

  Father Anne snorted a laugh. “Yeah. That’s not sketchy at all.”

  “Millicent is powerful enough to make herself visible and throw objects. She knocked Alfred around and kept him pinned. If she’s been killing unfaithful lovers for a century or more, she might feel like she’s on a mission. I’m not betting that she’ll be excited about going into the light.”

  “There’s a rite for that,” Father Anne replied. We stopped a few doors down from the storage room, and she set the duffle on the floor and unzipped it. I already had my iron knife and athame handy, and while I’d left my tote in Alfred’s office, I had salt in my jacket pockets and some small bits of iron, too. I wore a silver and agate necklace and an onyx and silver bracelet, since I never left home without my protective jewelry,

  Father Anne took out a piece of rebar, a flask of holy water, and the sacramental stole she wore to administer Last Rites. She tucked that last item into a pocket and pulled a silver cross on a chain from beneath her T-shirt, putting the protective charm in full view.

  “Ready?” I asked, moving to the storage room door. She gave me a curt nod in reply. I opened the door, taking care not to break the salt line. I didn’t want Millicent getting loose.

  The room was quiet when we entered. Millicent’s sailor’s valentine sat on its easel, deceptively pretty, waiting for the next victim.

  “It’s time to move on, Millicent,” Father Anne called out. “We know what happened with Joseph. He hurt you, and you killed him, then yourself. Other people too, since then. Now it’s time to rest.”

  I didn’t trust Millicent. Whatever had turned her spirit vengeful meant she wasn’t likely to go quietly. Especially if she saw herself as the protector of wronged women, carrying out a trail of vengeance, one dead lover at a time.

  “He deserved it.” The disembodied voice sounded scratchy, like a bad recording. Ghosts didn’t usually have the power to say much, if anything. I guessed Millicent saved her energy to tell us what mattered the most.

  Father Anne and I watched as Millicent’s ghost took form. She stood beside the shell art, and her face contorted in rage.

  “Joseph was wrong to lie to you. He hurt you. But you didn’t have the right to kill him—or any of the others. There have been others, haven’t there?” Father Anne asked, refusing to let the ghost bait her.

  Instead of trying to reply, Millicent charged at us, arms outstretched, hands clawed. I sliced through her form with my iron knife, and she blinked out.

  “Start the rite!” I yelled. “I’ll keep her busy.”

  Father Anne spread a handful of salt around where she stood—not as secure as a circle, but better than nothing on short notice, and pulled the ceremonial stole from her pocket. She placed it around her neck and began the prayers to break Millicent’s connection to this world and send her to the next.

  “Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world; In the Name of God the Father Almighty who created you…” Father Anne began the litany.

  Millicent shrieked and appeared again, this time in front of Father Anne. She tried to close the distance, but the salt on the floor held her back, so she wheeled on me once more.

  I didn’t need to hear Millicent’s voice to understand the fury in her eyes. Joseph had betrayed her, and so she had made vengeance for wronged women the cord that bound her to this world. Since Father Anne and I were trying to stop her, that made us betrayers, too.

  I blocked out the rise and fall of Father Anne’s voice. To keep Millicent from killing me, I needed to stay focused on her, without distractions. Millicent circled, watching the iron knife in my left hand. That meant she wasn’t considering the wooden spoon, gripped handle-out
, in my right hand to be a threat.

  She came at me from the right. I focused my touch magic, drawing on the resonance of all the love and memories of my grandmother that her spoon represented and felt the energy spark. Millicent’s ghost lunged for me, but the cone of white light from my athame reached her first, shining through her and scattering her image like cinders in the wind.

  “Hurry!”

  Father Anne gave me a look, wordlessly reminding me that sacred rites can’t be rushed.

  For as many times as I’d heard Father Anne read through the liturgy, I couldn’t remember how much more she had to go. A spirit as stubborn as Millicent’s wouldn’t leave quietly. I turned slowly, alert for tricks.

  The easel with the sailor’s valentine crashed to the floor, taking the artwork with it and shattering the glass. In the next moment, shards of glass and loose shells rose into the air, and I knew what Millicent intended before I saw the glass hurtle toward us.

  I raised my athame and let loose a blast of cold, white energy, intercepting the sharp glass and sending the pieces flying toward the other side of the room. I slowly moved to put myself in front of Father Anne, and she turned to face the opposite direction, so we were standing back to back. Since she knew the rite by heart, her hands were free to use the iron rebar or splash holy water.

  We just had to keep Millicent at bay until the rite ended, and her spirit moved on. Maybe Millicent thought her work on earth wasn’t finished, or perhaps she was afraid of where she might end up on the Other Side. But no sooner had Father Anne and I positioned ourselves than the glass shards rose again and were flung toward us like a hail of knives.

  I got off another blast from my athame, but some of the shards got past me. I closed my eyes and threw one arm in front of my face, but splinters lodged in the sleeves of my shirt and my hair, opening tiny cuts where they reached skin.

  Millicent tackled me before I could safely see, and we crashed to the floor. I felt glass and sharp shells crunch beneath me and knew I was bleeding. A heavy weight pressed me down, making it hard to breathe, each inhale more difficult than the last.

  “Deliver Millicent, O Sovereign Lord Christ, from all evil, and set her free from every bond; that she may rest with all your saints in the eternal habitations; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen!” Father Anne’s voice rang out, defiant and commanding.

  Abruptly, the weight on my chest vanished. Millicent let out one long, furious wail at being denied her vengeance, and then the sound cut off, and the energy in the room shifted.

  Millicent was gone.

  “Cassidy!” Father Anne’s boots ground the glass beneath them to powder as she squatted next to me. “Are you okay?”

  “I need to pick the glass out of my skin and rinse it out of my hair,” I replied, hesitant to move and scared to open my eyes.

  “Stay still,” Father Anne commanded. She’d had her back to the last rain of glass, and I hoped that meant she had avoided quite as much exposure. I heard her leave the room, and several minutes later, she returned.

  “I’m going to pull you up,” she told me and reached down to grip my wrist. Once she had me on my feet, she guided me out into the hallway and into the bathroom.

  “Let me clean you up.” From the concern in her voice, I stayed still and didn’t argue. Blood trickled down my neck and cheek, and I felt like a pincushion.

  “I’m going to wrap a wet towel around your hair until you can shower and get any glass out.” Moments later I heard water running.

  “Let’s rinse your arms under the water, and your face, too.”

  The water sluiced away the splinters, and I resisted the urge to rub, not wanting to push more shards into my skin. Father Anne helped me splash my face again and again until I could run my fingers over the skin without finding anything sharp. Only then did I dare open my eyes.

  “Wow.” Thin trickles of blood mingled with the water on my face, arms, and hands.

  “Give it a minute, and you’ll stop bleeding. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like you’ve got any serious gashes.” Father Anne produced a stiff brush that she’d found somewhere and began to whisk it over my clothing, followed by a quick swipe of another wet towel.

  “There. I think that should do it,” she said.

  “Are you all right?”

  She chuckled. “Thanks to you heroically throwing yourself in front of me, I’m fine. I also had my back to the worst of it.” Father Anne handed me the brush, and I dusted off her back and shoulders, just in case.

  “Is Millicent really gone?” I asked, as the adrenaline from the fight drained away.

  Father Anne nodded. “Yeah. You couldn’t see it, but when I finished the rite, she vanished, and the whole room felt cleansed.”

  “Thank you.” I blotted my face gingerly, removing the worst of the blood.

  “All in a day’s work. Unfortunately, the shell art didn’t survive.”

  “I didn’t think we should leave it behind. A century of being haunted by a killer ghost has to leave a psychic stain,” I said. Of course, explaining that to Alfred might not be quite so easy.

  “Come on. Let’s clean up the pieces, go report to the auction guy, and get out of here. I think we could both use a shower.” Father Anne shouldered her bag, and we headed back to the office.

  We found Alfred sitting where we’d left him, and he had obviously been freaking out.

  “Is it over? Is she gone?” He looked at me with wide eyes, and I guessed I hadn’t washed off all the blood.

  “Millicent is gone,” I reported. “She attacked us, trying to stop the rite, and in the fight, the art piece got broken.” I shook the garbage bag that contained what was left of the shell valentine.

  “I never want to see that awful thing again,” Alfred replied with a shudder. “Please, take the pieces with you and…burn it or bury it or…just make it go away.”

  “We can do that,” Father Anne said. She shot me a satisfied glance.

  “Thank you.” Alfred looked from one of us to the other. “I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”

  I smiled and shrugged. “Happy to help.” From the abashed look on Alfred’s face, I didn’t think I needed to add any warnings about buying art from shady brokers or avoiding pieces that “spoke” to him. He probably wouldn’t be handling any new acquisitions himself for a long time.

  We found a box to safely transport the ruined art.

  “I’ll get rid of this,” she said, taking it from me when we walked out to the parking lot. “Thanks for having my back in there.”

  I grinned. “What are friends for?” I groaned when I glanced at the time. “Crap. I need to get home and clean up. I’m supposed to have dinner with Kell tonight, and it would be nice not to look like an extra from a horror movie.”

  My boyfriend knew about the other side of my work, and he’d been part of some big showdowns. It didn’t hurt that he ran a paranormal investigation group, meaning I didn’t have to convince him that spooky stuff was real.

  “Go. Have fun. I’ll burn what’s left of the art while I write my homily for Sunday,” Father Anne said. “I’m thinking that this week’s message will be about keeping your promises,” she added with a wink.

  “Sounds like a winner. Might be a nice touch to add something about letting go of grudges,” I replied with a wan smile. Given what we deal with, if we couldn’t share some dark humor, we’d probably all go nuts.

  “Good idea. Now go—get cleaned up for your date. And call me if you find out anything else about the artwork. If it’s stolen, there might be more where it came from.”

  I felt a chill at her words, despite the warm Charleston temperature. As I waved goodbye and got in my car, I had the feeling she was right—and that trouble was headed our way.

  Chapter Two

  “The food is fantastic—and I love the atmosphere.” I looked around Elwood’s and felt right at home. The restaurant where Kel
l had gotten us a reservation was located in a converted old house just off King Street and named for the owner’s childhood dog. A statue of a Shetland sheepdog sat on the front porch, and dog pictures, paintings, and cartoons hung on the walls. Shelves displayed dog-themed bric-a-brac, and the menu assured us that asking for a “doggy bag” was no problem.

  Kell grinned and gave my hand a squeeze. “I know how crazy you are about Baxter,” he replied, naming my adorable Maltese, “and I figured you’d enjoy it here.” He leaned in as if to share a secret. “I bet Bax would appreciate it if you brought him some of your meal in one of those bags. Just sayin’.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I replied with a laugh. “And if we let him have some popcorn when we watch a movie, I think he’ll get over not being invited to come along.” Baxter loved snuggling on the couch with us while we watched TV, and popcorn was a favorite treat.

  Kell Winston and I had been an item for over a year now, and I liked how comfortable we were together. It helped that Kell knew the truth about my “side gig” stopping spooky threats and that he’d been a believer in the supernatural before we met.

  “How’s the video business?” I asked. By day, Kell ran a production company that shot commercials, corporate training films, and even some independent TV shows. At night, he ran SPOOK, the Southeastern Paranormal Observation and Outreach Klub, a team of paranormal investigators that chased ghost stories all over the Lowcountry. That was how we met, since Teag and I ended up running into the SPOOK folks more than once tracking down dangerous haunts.

  “It’s been good,” Kell replied, doing his best to stifle a yawn. He downed his cup of coffee and signaled the server for a refill. After a terrific meal of fried green tomatoes with homemade chutney, award-winning fried chicken, and house specialty mashed potatoes that had local foodies all abuzz, we were waiting for dessert—a Sundrop pound cake that promised total sugar overload.