He paused, holding my gaze, then pulled me close and stroked my cheek with one hand, his fingers brushing lightly across my lips. “I’m done with Glenda. We were over months ago, but I don’t think I was ready to admit it. I don’t know whether you and I will work. But I want to find out.” Slowly, he leaned in, his lips finding mine, and slid both arms tightly around my waist, holding me close to him as he leisurely, with a cool fire, lightly tugged on my upper lip with his teeth, then pulled me under in a long, dizzying kiss.
My breath caught in my chest as I wrapped one arm around his neck. With my right hand, I trailed my fingers down his back, the chill of his body startling me as I slid my hand up the tail of his shirt to rest it against his lower back.
The next moment, the sound of a car pulling into the driveway interrupted us and I reluctantly pulled away as a gust of wind shattered through, howling as it jostled past us.
Alex glanced toward the driveway. “Looks like Tonya is here. And you’re right, the storm is rising. We’d better tell Patrick to fasten down anything that might blow away.”
A woman emerged from the Mazda—Tonya. She was carrying a large flowered satchel, along with a five-foot-tall staff that had a clear crystal sphere attached to the top of it. As she ascended the steps, I moved forward to greet her.
“I’m so glad you could make it. We’ve got some more information that may be helpful before you start.” I stared at the door, loath to go back inside. But we had a job to do. I introduced her to Alex, then turned the knob, and we gathered in the living room again.
• • •
Tonya set down her bag and I introduced her to Patrick and Chai. She stared at the djinn for a moment, grinning. “I’ve heard rumors of your kind but didn’t know you really existed.”
He blinked. “You know what I am, milady?” Chai was polite to women, that was one thing I’d say about him.
She nodded. “Yes. My mother studied esoteric magical systems and she taught me about djinns and ifrit and, of course, salamanders and all the Elementals. She was a talented witch.”
“Then may fortune be on your home and I will not offer to help you.” Chai grinned. That was the equivalent of someone saying, “I respect you enough that I won’t try to mess you up.” Which, in djinn-speak, was a compliment.
She turned to Patrick. “Strand, it’s been a while.”
“I was sorry to hear about your mother.” Patrick held her gaze. “I really did care about her.” He glanced over at me. “Tonya’s mother was in a horrible car crash last year.”
“She didn’t make it out alive.” Tonya’s smile slid away as she sat next to Patrick. “It’s all right. I always felt bad for you because Mother never treated any man right. I know she dumped you hard, and it hurt, but trust me when I say that you were better off without her. She was a great mother, but not a good partner. I saw more than one man’s heart broken by her—men that didn’t deserve the hell she put them through. Even though I loved her, I can admit that.”
“Thank you for that.” Patrick leaned back. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about coming here tonight. But now that we’re on the subject . . . this place is haunted and I have no clue what to do about it. I’m a vampire, not a medium, Jim.”
Alex, Ralph, Tonya, and Patrick all laughed. Chai and I gave each other clueless shrugs. One of those cultural references I routinely was left clueless on. One of these days I was going to set Ralph down and make him give me a crash course in geek culture.
We filled her in on what we had discovered since talking to her. “So, we not only have a Gypsy curse, but we have at least five dead soldiers and a missing family—and who knows what else went on around this area?”
Tonya opened her bag and set out a deck of cards, a crystal spike, her wand, a smudge stick and lighter, and several other gadgets, none of which I recognized. She closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, then slowly opened them.
“All right. First things first. I need to get a feel for the house from top to bottom. And then I need to walk around the grounds. I’d like for someone to record my impressions—voice is always best. That way we don’t lose anything in translation, and also, if something reacts to me—”
“I have the EVP recorder. We can record with that.” Alex held up the EVP.
“How many people do you want with you?” I wasn’t sure if we’d be too much of a crowd or not.
Tonya glanced at us. “Chai, please stay here. Your energy is so strong you may block out some of my impressions.”
“As you will. In fact, I will withdraw to the porch to make things easier.” He graciously took his leave—if a seven-foot-tall djinn can be graceful—and stepped out on the porch, shutting the door behind him.
We prepped the equipment. By now I found myself automatically reaching for the TRU. Alex double-checked the EVP recorder.
Ralph picked up the camera. “Do you mind if I film as we go?”
She shook her head. “Won’t bother me. All right then, let’s get this show on the road. I suggest we start at the top, with the attic. I’m sure you have one?”
Patrick motioned for us to follow him. “Yes, in fact I do. But I forgot to take these guys”—he nodded toward us—“up there, so this will be the first time we’ve checked it out.” He shrugged at Ralph’s stare. “What can I say? I don’t usually think about the attic. I’m more interested in basements.”
He led us up the stairs to the third floor. Tonya was directly behind Patrick, Alex behind her, then Ralph, and finally I brought up the rear. We stopped not far from the door to my room, and Patrick slowly rose to the ceiling—it still never ceased to amaze me when vampires did this—and unhooked the trapdoor leading into the attic space. He pulled down the ladder and it unfolded to the floor, then eased himself through the entry and waited for us, up top. Tonya carefully climbed the ladder, which was a simple step affair, and then once she was up, Alex, Ralph, and I quickly joined them.
Patrick turned on the solitary light—a single bulb hanging near the entrance. The attic was finished. If there was insulation or open flooring, we didn’t see it, and the entire space could easily have been turned into a usable, if creepy, room. The ceiling was high and slanted in the middle, but fairly low near the edges of the attic. The exposed beams were heavy, old wood, crisscrossing the ceiling to create a lattice design.
The attic was full of furniture and trunks that looked like they’d been consigned here throughout the years. A mirror, freestanding and dusty, was pointed directly at the entryway, and it was disconcerting to only see Ralph, Tonya, and myself reflected in it. Alex and Patrick didn’t show up, of course. An apothecary chest rested against the wall. It caught my eye, and there was something about it that made me want to take a closer look. There were several sections to the attic—not exactly separate rooms, but half walls that extended from either side to form partitions.
Tonya cautiously walked toward the mirror. When she neared it, she stopped, closed her eyes, and held her hands out, palms facing up. Ralph circled her with the camera. Alex and I were watching our equipment like a hawk. And Patrick, he stood back, letting us do our job.
The gauge had read sixty degrees when I entered the attic, but now it began to drop. Within seconds, it had plunged to fifty. “We’ve got cold coming in. Ten degrees in five seconds.”
Ralph began to sweep back and forth with the camera, looking for what might be causing the drop. As he did so, Tonya shuddered and her eyes fluttered open. At that moment, a mist formed in front of her and literally shoved her toward the gaping hole leading down to the hallway. She lost her balance and stumbled toward it, but Patrick moved behind her and caught her before she went plummeting through to the floor below.
Tonya let out a startled cry as she righted herself. “I can feel the spirits struggling behind this force. The soldiers are here, and several others, but they can’t get past. It won’t let them pass on.”
“What won’t?” Alex moved toward me and I had the feeling he had just put himself on guar
d duty.
“I need to sit down. If this thing tries to possess me, get me out of this house. If something happens and I need help, Patrick—you remember Lionel? He works at my shop? Contact him and tell him to call Degoba.” She settled herself on one of the chairs nearby. “I need to go into a deep trance to see if I can figure out what the hell this creature is. It’s not demonic, but it’s definitely stronger than any ghost I’ve encountered.”
Ralph sidled over to me. “I caught the attack on camera. We have the mist recorded. Why don’t you take a look around the attic while she’s preparing herself?”
Alex frowned. “I’m not sure any of us should be wandering around here without a buddy. Patrick, you hold this while I go with her.” He handed Patrick the EVP recorder.
We slowly began to maneuver through the cobwebs and dust toward the back half of the attic.
“How much have you explored into this room, Patrick?” I turned around to ask.
He shook his head. “Not much. I glanced up here several times to make sure everything was up to code—that we didn’t have a fire hazard going on. But we didn’t have time to go through any of the trunks, or even really get an idea for what had been stashed up here. I thought it would keep until later since we really weren’t going to use it for the bed-and-breakfast.”
Alex took the lead, stepping over several trunks to reach the first partition. I followed, grateful that the floor was finished. The idea of accidentally stepping between a couple of beams wasn’t my idea of fun, especially when the result could be plunging through insulation and then drywall below.
We peeked around the back half wall. This part of the attic looked almost set up to be a bedroom. In fact, I had the feeling it had been just that. A bed was below one of the small windows overlooking the backyard. The window was barred.
“Look—bars on the window. What about the other windows in here?”
Alex took a quick look around. “From what I can tell, yes, all of them are barred.” He stopped, then, looking at the half wall again. “Look at this—it’s been renovated.” He motioned for me to wait there, then hurried back, sending Ralph up while he took over filming Tonya.
Ralph examined the walls. “He’s right. This was reno’d at some point. My guess is, from the looks of the beams and the walls?” He stood between the jutting walls and stretched his arms. He could just touch the edges of both partitions. “There was once a full wall from here, to here. It looks like it was created to set off this area as a bedroom.”
I walked over to the dresser near the bed and opened it. There were several things inside. Old, delicate lace shawls, a skirt, and a worn, leather-bound journal, which I confiscated. From here, I could see a small nook between the outer wall and the bed, containing a toilet and pedestal sink. While they were still hooked up, the water in the toilet seemed to have evaporated away. A desk sat opposite the bed, and in the desk, another sheaf of papers along with what appeared to be a photograph album. I picked that up, too, along with the papers.
As I stood there, I began to sense a strong feeling of melancholy permeating the area. The sensation grew stronger when I felt a whisper touch on my shoulder. It was light, not at all aggressive, and the scent of lilac wafted past me, like the flutter of butterfly wings.
I turned back to Ralph and motioned for him to lead the way back to the others. Carrying my finds, I followed him.
Tonya was deep in trance when we returned. She was breathing with a slow rhythm, and her eyes were closed. She almost looked like she was unconscious. Ralph took the camera back from Alex, who joined me to watch over Ralph’s shoulder. Patrick remained near Tonya.
A moment later, she opened her lips. The voice echoing out wasn’t hers, though. “Help us. Help us—he wants to keep us. We can’t leave.”
“Who are you?” I leaned forward. “Are you the woman who lived in the attic?”
She paused, then said, “Lacy. My name is Lacy. I want to leave. There are others with me. He frightens us . . .”
“Who is he?” I decided I might as well play the interviewer. Tonya and I seemed to have gotten along.
“He’s here . . . why did they do this to me?”
And then, before she could go on, the voice quieted and another took over. Tonya’s eyes flashed open and she lunged forward, a hideous expression crossing her face. “They’re mine! This is my land, and they belong to my stable. Get out or die.”
She managed to move quickly enough to take a swipe at me, and her hands caught my throat, but she let go as Patrick yanked her off me. Tonya struggled but then—just as quickly—gave up and collapsed in his arms. I felt a gentle brush of fingers on my shoulder, but these were the same I’d felt back by the bed and once again, I heard the whisper of, “Help me . . . I want to leave.”
We hurried down out of the attic. As Patrick pulled up the ladder, then lowered himself to close the door, Tonya leaned against the wall, wiping a cold sweat off her forehead.
“Okay, then. And that was just the attic. Let’s go downstairs. I want to tell you what I found out.” She led the way, but I had the feeling she was rethinking her decision to help us out.
We gathered in the kitchen, and I peeked out the front to call Chai back in. He was staring pensively at the yard.
“There’s something out of alignment here. This house . . . it’s built on bones, Little Sister. It’s built on bones.”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, really. But that thought keeps crossing my mind and it won’t let go of me.” He followed me back into the kitchen.
We sat around the table. Patrick boiled water for mint tea and handed me a box of Oreos to set on the table. As Ralph opened them, my stomach rumbled. I was hungry, too. Tonya reached eagerly for them.
“Pat, you have any cheese?” She glanced over at him. “I need protein and sugar after that run-in upstairs.”
He brought out some sliced cheddar and Swiss, along with a package of turkey breast and a loaf of bread. I figured we might as well get out the condiments, too, so I followed him back from the refrigerator with the mustard, ketchup, and relish.
Alex rolled his eyes but brought over clean plates and knives for us, then rummaged in the refrigerator for bottled blood for Patrick and him. “Okay, impromptu picnic in the middle of a ghost hunt. Anyway, so what did you find out?”
Tonya accepted a soda, taking a long drink before she spoke. “As you suspected, there are a number of ghosts trapped in this house. At least three of them are the soldiers that were killed on this land. Then there’s a little girl and, I think, her mother . . . I’m pretty sure they’re from the family who disappeared. There are a couple others I didn’t recognize, and there’s a woman—she probably died in her midthirties, and she’s very gentle.”
“I felt her. I think she lived in that bedroom in the back of the attic. I found these.” I spread out the journal, the papers, and the sheaf of photographs. “She kept asking me to help her, she said she wanted out.”
“But he . . . whoever he is . . . he won’t let them go. Whatever . . . whoever . . . this entity is, he was never human and will never be. But he’s not demonic, either. I keep smelling the forest when I think of him.” Tonya picked up the journal and shuddered. “Yes, this was her journal. Lacy . . .”
I sorted out the photos. There were seven of them. A pretty woman was featured in all of them, and they all appeared to have been taken in this house, though the furniture was far different than it was now. In fact, I recognized several of the pieces from the attic.
She was dressed in what looked to be a flapper-style dress, and she was wearing the same lace shawl I’d found in the dresser. She looked haunted, though, instead of happy. I flipped over one of them where the name Lacy Buckland, 1931, was written in a shaky hand.
“She was one of the Bucklands, then. But . . . so what happened? She said that they ‘did this’ to her? What did they do to her?” I frowned, trying to sort through.
&nbs
p; “We can figure that room in the attic was probably a full wall. Maybe . . . maybe they locked her in there?” Ralph pulled the papers to him. He flipped through them. “These are old but look—they’re sketches. My guess is she drew them, given where they were found. And look what they’re pictures of.”
Each paper was covered with scribbled charcoal sketches of a dark figure with empty white eyes and a vicious mouth, ringed with teeth.
“Ten to one, that’s the spirit we’re dealing with. The creature who trapped them. So that means he—or one of his kind—was here even back then, and she could see him. But they were a Gypsy family. Why would they lock up one of their own?” Alex looked confused.
I knew the answer to that one. “Because whether it was this creature or another like him, he worked on them. He considered Lacy a threat, so he engineered her imprisonment. And . . .” I paused. “Tonya, is there a way to find out if Lacy died here? Maybe, if they were hiding her—locking her up—nobody else knew she was still around?”
Ralph, who had been hunched over the journal, straightened up. “You’re right. Here—this was her diary. In this entry, she says, ‘They forced me into the attic room today. It’s hot and stuffy but at least the windows open. Screaming won’t do any good though—the nearest house is too far away for them to hear, and Father belted me one when I tried. I have to figure out a way to escape because they told the nearest neighbors that I left for a trip abroad. He’s doing it . . . I know he is. I don’t know if I can fight him, though.’”
“Is that her last entry?” Alex rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Did she die the day they locked her up?”
“No, but the entries seem to get more and more incoherent after that.”
Tonya polished off the last bite of her sandwich. “Let’s go outside. I want to walk the perimeter of the lot before we go through the rest of the house. I have a hunch.”
We followed her out into the rain and wind. As we worked our way around the yard, Patrick in the lead because he knew where the obstacles were and he was carrying a flashlight for the rest of us who couldn’t see so well in the dark, Tonya suddenly pointed to a corner of the lot.