Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) Read online

  Father Anne was waiting for me at the front gates of Magnolia Cemetery wearing a black shirt with a clerical collar over jeans and Doc Martens. She grinned and waved when she saw me.

  “Hi Cassidy,” she said as I pulled up and parked by the side of the cemetery roadway. “Beautiful day for a walk, isn’t it?”

  We left our cars near the main gate and strolled into the peaceful grounds. I had forgotten how beautiful it was there. In the bright sunlight, with the fall flowers, I could almost push my thoughts away from all the weird things that had happened, and the danger that surrounded Sorren. Almost.

  The jewelry box with the hair wreath was in a canvas tote bag. Father Anne and I walked down one of the paths toward the part of the cemetery where we would try to lay Tad’s soul to rest. I glanced around to see if there were people nearby.

  Crazy as it seems, cemeteries can be busy places. Joggers and walkers like the car-free side roads, and the landscaping is gorgeous. On nice days, you might even see someone on one of the benches, reading a book. Most of the time in Charleston, you’ll spot tourists following a map of the graves of famous people, and here in the South, families still come to plant flowers or decorate a relative’s plot.

  Today was quiet. The wind rustled through the live oaks, making the Spanish moss flutter. Teag had already searched for Tad’s grave. We hadn’t found one for him, but there were a lot of Civil War dead buried in Magnolia Cemetery, many of whom were unidentified. Father Anne and I walked to the section with soldiers’ graves, and then Father Anne stepped off the asphalt path into an empty section of yard. “This all right?”

  I nodded, and handed her the canvas bag. Father Anne opened the velvet-flocked case and looked at the memorial wreath for a moment in silence. I guessed she was honoring the grief Tad’s fiancée felt when she made and wore the wreath, and the loss that separated the two lovers.

  “Ready?” she asked. Father Anne and I had a lengthy discussion the night before on exactly what type of service might be appropriate. Apparently, there’s nothing in the Book of Common Prayer for releasing a trapped spirit from an old piece of jewelry. Exorcism didn’t seem quite right, because Tad’s ghost wasn’t a demon. On the other hand, there wasn’t a body to bury. In the end, Father Anne decided to write her own comments, based rather loosely on the 1662 ritual for burial at sea.

  “Ready.”

  I’m used to seeing Father Anne in the wee hours of the morning when we’re covered with blood from kicking demon ass. I’ve never made it to Saint Hildegard’s Church when she was giving the homily. So I had to admit I was a little surprised to see the change come over her bearing as she prepared to say the burial ritual. Father Anne stood a little taller, and her manner was somber and circumspect. There was just something different about her as she moved into her priestly role.

  In the distance, I heard church bells begin to chime the noon hour.

  Given what we do at Trifles and Folly, I see a lot of rituals. Voodoo, Hoodoo, Wiccan, Native American, Christian, and probably all the others as well – there are certain things that we humans need from our sacred space. Words matter, and so do actions. There’s a reason why holy men and women, priests and priestesses, and practitioners, say certain things in a certain way in a certain place at a certain time. Rituals prepare the worker to face the unknown, and they open a thin spot between our reality and somewhere else with a degree of safety. In other words, how you do it matters.

  We were on consecrated ground, within the cemetery walls. Father Anne was a consecrated person, ordained in the traditions of her faith. She had an iron cross on a chain around her neck, a protective symbol. And now, as she spoke words that resonated with more than four hundred years of sacred repetition, I could feel power rising around us.

  “Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord...”

  I don’t think it was my imagination that the air trembled above the box Father Anne held in her outstretched hand. As Father Anne said the words of the burial rite, the shimmer grew a little more visible.

  Father Anne didn’t try to say the whole burial service. That wasn’t why we were here. Tad’s mortal remains were long gone. We came to lay his spirit to rest, and from the subtle iridescence that floated just above the velvet box, I had the feeling that Tad was finally going to be able to move on.

  “…be with us all evermore. Amen.” Father Anne finished the prayer, and the faint shimmering glow rippled once and then winked out. She looked at me and held out the box. “Do you want to see if he’s really gone?”

  I nodded and took a deep breath, then reached out to take the box. I felt a tingle of old power, and dimly, I could sense images from the vision I had seen before. But Tad’s lonely ghost had departed. I slipped the box into my pocket. “He’s gone.”

  Father Anne smiled. “Well, that’s my good deed for the day, I suppose. Tad was long overdue to make it home.” At first, we didn’t say much as we headed back to our cars. Then I had a question that I couldn’t get out of my mind.

  “If you can lay a ghost to rest, how come Charleston has so many restless spirits?”

  Father Anne shrugged. “Monkey’s fist.”

  “Come again?”

  “Didn’t you ever hear the story about how people trap monkeys by putting a banana in a bottle? When the monkey reaches in, his hand fits. But when he makes a fist and grabs the banana, his hand is too big to come out. Unless he lets go of the banana, he’s stuck.”

  Since I hadn’t seen any ghosts holding bottled bananas, I was confused.

  She chuckled. “Some of the ghosts are stone tape recordings – memories, not really spirits. A few, like Tad, got lost on the way to that bright light at the end of the tunnel. And probably a few more are actually trapped by something nefarious, like a cursed object. But it’s my bet that the majority of ghosts are here because there’s something they don’t want to let go of – like the monkey’s banana.”

  Father Anne shrugged. “They might be holding on to memories, or love, or vengeance, or maybe they just want to be heard. But if that’s the case, then they can get free on their own when they’re ready, by letting go and walking away.”

  Put that way, it sounded like the spirits of the dearly departed needed a supernatural shrink more than an exorcist. “Yeah,” I replied. “But do the ghosts know that?”

  “Probably,” she said as we came into view of our cars. “How many times have you struggled with something, only to realize that you actually knew what to do all along?” She gave a sad smile. “They might be dead, but they’re only human.”

  We had parked our cars not far inside the entrance gate, near where the large central pond divides one side of the cemetery from another. Father Anne gave me a hug and said good-bye.

  “Call me if you need something,” she said. “There’s been some strange stuff going on lately. If there’s a way I can help, count me in.”

  I thanked her profusely, then waved as she drove off. That’s when I heard something stirring in the pond.

  I turned sharply. Nothing moved along the banks of the pond, but I saw a ripple in its dark waters. A sign warned visitors not to feed the alligators. It’s the Coastal South. If there’s water, there’s gonna be ’gators. I watched for a moment, and could have sworn I saw something long and black move beneath the water, but it was there and gone too quickly to be sure.

  I decided that now was a good time to leave, so I got into the car and headed out, watching all around me. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual, so I made the turn onto Huguenin Avenue and headed back to town.

  The afternoon’s work had done a real number on my mood. Even though we had released Tad’s spirit, I had been struggling with a feeling of guilt that had been growing on me since I arrived at the cemetery. People are going to die, and it’s all my fault. I’m just not cut out for this. My magic isn’t strong enough. If I’d have been any good at this, Jonathan wouldn’t have disappeared. All my fault –


  Whoa. This is not like me. I was starting to wonder if I needed to see a therapist. I took a deep breath, and then another. The awful guilt receded, but I knew it was at the edge of my mind, waiting for an opening to rush back in and smother me. What’s wrong with me? Is the pressure finally getting to me?

  Even after I pushed away the terrible guilt, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Taking the velvet box with the hair wreath out of my pocket didn’t ease my mind. Huguenin is a lonely road. Low brick walls lined the sides of the road, with cemeteries on either side. Although it was broad daylight, I felt a chill go down my back.

  I blinked, and saw a man coming down the street toward me. He was walking down the middle of the road, and his posture raised a primal fear in me. Tall and raw-boned, the stranger held his hands away from his sides like a marshal in an Old West movie about to go into a gunfight. He wore jeans and a dark t-shirt with a collared shirt open over top. Something about the way he moved was all wrong. That’s when I realized I recognized him. Mr. Super-Handsome himself. Coffee Guy. And I did not think he had shown up here just to chat about a latte.

  Unfortunately, there was nowhere to go and no one was in sight, except for Coffee Guy, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He was a little too perfect to be trusted. Maybe a little too perfect to be human.

  Options? Not many. If this guy was faster than a human, he could probably be on me before I could get anywhere to call for help. There wasn’t a whole lot out here besides the cemeteries. Turning around wouldn’t work, since the road that intersected behind me was currently closed for water main repairs. No one had expected a traffic jam at the cemetery, or the need to outrun a renegade underwear model.

  I kept the car moving, picking up speed to be a little more threatening. Coffee Guy kept walking right down the center of the street, and there was no mistaking the fact that his attention was completely on me. He looked like trouble, and not in an attractive kind of way.

  He stared at me, head down but gaze lifted. It made me think of the way a wolf moves right before the kill. People talk about a smoldering gaze like something sexy, but I was pretty sure that the look in this guy’s eyes was more hellfire than attraction.

  I gunned the gas a little, revving the engine and moving faster. Still, the stranger kept walking straight for me. I could run him down, but that could raise awkward questions if he turned out to be a real underwear model. Or, I could speed up and play a game of chicken, betting that he would jump out of my way. I didn’t think he looked sane enough to count on that. Option number three was to get to the cross-street before he did, and hope he didn’t have any tricks up his sleeve.

  Coffee Guy just beat me to the cross-street when a car shot from the side street and hit him at full speed, tossing his body up in the air. For a horrible moment, I saw a young man fly limply from a terrible collision. And then, I saw something even more horrible. Coffee Guy twisted in mid-air like a gymnast from an impact that should have killed him. He landed in a crouch, and the illusion wavered.

  My, what big teeth you have.

  The magazine cover model was gone, and in his place was one butt-ugly monster. Big and muscular, with arms and legs too long to be human, the monster resembled a bloody skinned carcass. He was big enough that the dent in the car that hit him could have been from a deer or a moose. His head was oversized for the body, with a lantern jaw and sharp teeth, cat-slitted eyes that glowed red, and his infernal gaze was locked right on me.

  I couldn’t see a driver in the car that had hit the creature, and I was hoping they had the good sense to get the hell out of there. The monster rushed toward me, and I had a choice to make. Ram him again with a car that was much smaller and lighter than the sedan that hadn’t put a scratch on him, or stand and fight. I didn’t much care for either one, so I came up with Plan C. I decided to do both.

  I have another weapon that’s like my athame but it shoots fire, an old walking stick that belonged to Sorren’s maker, Alard. I’d left it in the car, just in case. Now, I grabbed the walking stick in my left hand so I could level it out the driver’s side window like a lance, bracing my elbow against the window frame. I gripped the steering wheel with my right hand. Then I called up my will, reached out my touch magic to the resonance and memories in the walking stick, and floored the gas.

  A stream of fire shot from the walking stick, striking the monster squarely in the chest. My Mini Cooper peeled rubber as I pushed its acceleration to the limits, swerving past the creature to get clear. I was pretty sure I was going to make it, before the monster leaped toward me, landing on the hood of my car. Its body was blackened and charred with strips of burned flesh hanging down in tatters, and its toothy maw pressed up against the windshield, terrifyingly close.

  He was too close to blast again with my walking stick, and I sure as hell couldn’t drive into town this way. Gravel and loose bits of asphalt crunched under my tires, and I had an idea that was either going to set me free or get me dead.

  Before I could second-guess myself, I picked up speed, then pulled the handbrake and hit the gas. The Mini Cooper started to doughnut, spinning in a circle so hard my seat belt seized up. I had a death grip on the steering wheel. The engine whined and the car went into its second loop, careening into the turn. The monster lost its grip and fell off the hood, leaving a trail of claw marks across the metal. Suddenly free of the extra weight, the Mini Cooper skidded off the road and into the brush, knocking over the white roadside shrine.

  My ears were ringing from the impact of the sudden stop, and I was pretty sure my neck would be sore tomorrow, but the airbag didn’t inflate and I wasn’t dead. Stunned, it took me a moment to struggle with my seatbelt. Blood was running down my face from a cut over my left eye. I reached for the walking stick and my spoon-athame, prepared to fight that thing once more.

  Shots rang out. I didn’t need to see the gun to know it was big, and the noise was deafening. My head was spinning. The car door refused to budge and I had to kick it open. When I crawled out, I stopped cold at what I saw.

  Daniel Hunter stood in the middle of the street in a wide-legged shooting stance, plugging the monster with bullet after bullet. The creature staggered, but it did not stop. At this rate, if Daniel didn’t have any other tricks up his sleeve, we were both going to die.

  Something crunched under my foot. I looked down, and saw part of the broken white memorial cross. The air around me shimmered, and I could make out the faint images of two young men in their late teens. They were watching me as if they could see me, but I couldn’t hear what they were trying to say. My hands shook as I raised the walking stick, determined to go down fighting, although I wasn’t sure I had enough juice in me to send another blast.

  The ghosts moved closer, and I was aware of the broken memorial under my foot. Even through the sole of my shoe, I could sense the deep emotions of the person who had placed the marker. Wrenching grief, dark loneliness, and deep, true love.

  Terrified, bleeding and out of good ideas, I plunged my magic down into that broken marker and pulled hard.

  An orange jet of fire streamed from the walking stick and hit the monster in its head and shoulders. The creature shrieked and writhed. Filled with the borrowed energy of the shrine, I kept him bathed in flame too bright to watch. Smoke and the smell of burned and rotten meat filled the air. Daniel produced a shotgun from somewhere, and aimed for the thing’s knees.

  The monster tottered for a few seconds before collapsing onto the roadway. It jerked once, then went still. The monster’s head was a charred skull, and most of its upper body had been burned away or shot to pieces. Daniel sauntered up to the body and pumped one more round into it for good measure. As I watched in stunned silence, the corpse vanished.

  The ghosts of the two young men turned to me with sad smiles and disappeared as well.

  Daniel bent down and picked up something from the asphalt, and I realized he was gathering spent shells. I collapsed against the side of my wrec
ked car. Now that the crisis was over, I felt drained and light-headed. And I didn’t even want to think about the Mini Cooper.

  After a few minutes, Daniel loped over. “You all right?” he asked, giving me a once-over from head to toe. He frowned as he saw the blood on my face, and stepped closer. I wasn’t in the mood to fight about it as he checked my scalp.

  “Looks worse than it is,” he said. “You can move everything?” I nodded. “Seeing double?” I shook my head gingerly. “Headache?” My nod was imperceptible. “Neck hurts?” I had the feeling from his questions that Daniel had been in enough fights and wrecks to have some experience with the subject.

  In the distance, sirens wailed. “Look, I’ve got to get out of here,” he said. I moved to argue, but he shook his head. “No buts. You’ve got a reason to be here. I don’t. Tell them a deer jumped out of the woods. If they ask you about the charred mark on the road, play dumb. Tell them you didn’t see it. Don’t worry – that thing isn’t coming back soon.”

  Maybe not, but it’s likely to have friends.

  Daniel sprinted away and drove off. I dug my cell phone out of my purse and called Teag. He nearly had a conniption when I told him what happened.

  “No, don’t come out here,” I said. “I’ll have them take me to St. Francis. But I’ll need a ride home from there. And someone’s going to have to tow the car.” Despite the headache and the sore neck, I was with it enough to bemoan my poor mangled Mini Cooper. I was sure it had given its all for me.

  Teag reluctantly agreed to meet me at the hospital. I shifted in my seat, and saw the broken bits of the memorial by my foot. A pang of guilt shot through me for ruining the shrine.