“You’ve got your kick-ass shoes on,” I noted with a glance at the Doc Martens she wore beneath her black jeans.
Father Anne grinned. “Heck, yeah. And Father Conroy’s knife, just in case.” She patted a scabbard on her belt. We had worked with Father Anne before, the many-times great-granddaughter of a priest who had known Sorren—and supported the Alliance—centuries ago.
Like her ancestor, Father Anne was part of the Expeditus Society, a secret group of Anglican priests who fought demons and supernatural monsters. The colorful, custom tattoo on her arm included the symbols of three obscure saints known for their protection against evil. Father Anne wasn’t taking any chances tonight. She also wore a simple cross made of iron on a chain around her neck, and a pair of small agate pierced earrings, as well as an onyx ring.
We drove out to Kristie’s workshop, and left it up to Sorren to get us in. Before he became a vampire, Sorren had been the best jewel thief in Antwerp. Centuries had past, but he hadn’t lost the touch. We found Kristie’s studio locked tight and roped off with police tape, and Sorren had the door open before I even noticed he was working the lock. Since Sorren could see in the dark, he made sure the blinds were drawn before we cautiously turned on our flashlights.
“Cute little place,” I said, as we entered, looking around. The building had been a small carriage house long ago, when the big home on the other end of a long driveway had been the residence of plantation nobility. I remembered Kristie being excited about finding the old building for rent, and while I knew about Kristie’s workshop, I’d never been inside before. There was one main room where Kristie had all of her equipment and several worktables. Off to the side was a small closet and a bathroom.
We didn’t dare turn on the overhead lights, but enough moonlight filtered through the blinds that with our flashlights we could navigate. The walls were made of thick stone, with a brick floor. Strewn across tables and counters, I saw lots of works-in-progress, jewelry projects that Kristie would probably never return to complete.
One set of jewelry in particular caught my eye when it reflected from my light, and my breath caught. I had heard Kristie talking about the project down at the Market. It was a commission, her biggest ever, from someone who had purchased many of her smaller items and came back for a special present.
Designed as a gift for a fiftieth wedding anniversary, the piece was a silver candlestick embellished with custom-made charms that incorporated themes—and even old jewelry—from the couple’s life. I stared at the completed piece, and felt sad both for Kristie and for the couple who would not get their special present. Even at a distance, I could feel the strong positive energy from the candlestick.
“Look for the typewriter,” Sorren instructed. He laid the lead-lined box on the worktable. It was heavy, and I was certain that even with his supernatural strength, he didn’t enjoy carrying it. “Just don’t touch it with bare hands.” He set a pair of insulated gloves next to the box, the kind that could protect against a nasty electrical charge.
We spread out, figuring that such a small room shouldn’t be difficult for four people to search. But all of a sudden, a wave of stifling, negative energy washed over me, making it difficult to breathe. I felt as if someone had sucked all of the oxygen from the room, depriving it of life and light. And just behind the first wave of energy came the second: evil, cruel, and hungry for blood.
The door crashed open. I felt a rush of air. Someone screamed, a wild, keening wail. Shadows blurred with motion, and the next thing I knew, a man had grabbed me by the arm and was brandishing a knife. His eyes were wide and not altogether sane. I reacted, bringing my foot down on his instep and my elbow back to his gut. It was enough to break free.
In the dim light, I saw that a second assailant had gone after Teag and Father Anne. Sorren launched himself at the man who had attacked me, and they crashed to the floor, overturning one of the smaller worktables and sending Kristie’s precious jewelry scattering.
“Get the typewriter!” Sorren shouted.
Teag was using his staff to block the second attacker, while Father Anne swung into a graceful high Karate kick that had to have taken years to perfect. Teag was competition-level at mixed martial arts, and his moves should have stopped any normal assailant. Then I remembered that the man who had attacked Sorren had moved with vampire strength and speed, thanks to the spirit possessing him.
Sorren was struggling with the man, and I grabbed the silver candlestick, silently apologizing to Kristie for destroying her handiwork. I remembered what the last person possessed by the Slitter had done to Sorren, even with his vampire defenses, and I intended to stop the spirit from hurting anyone else if I could help it.
“Grab the jewelry if they’re wearing it!” I shouted. “If you can pull it free, the spirit might lose power.”
I raised the candlestick, hoping for a clear shot at the man’s head as he and Sorren wrestled on the floor. But as I gripped the silver with both hands, the memories of the charms and jewelry Kristie had embedded hit me full force, flooding my senses, a clean, pure stream of power like concentrated sunlight.
The blast of light struck the man in the back, not with fire but with a force of energy strong enough to rip him loose from Sorren’s hold and send him half-way across the room. Before I could figure out what had happened, Sorren was in motion, tackling the man and ripping open the cuffs of his shirt, popping the cufflinks made from the cursed typewriter of a serial killer. Without the spirit’s tokens, the man collapsed in a bruised and battered heap.
The second attacker fought like a wildcat, but as I shakily raised the candlestick toward where Teag and Father Anne battled their assailant, I saw Father Anne grab something from around the person’s neck and jerk it free. The attacker dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
With the attack stopped, I turned back to the rest of Kristie’s workshop, looking for the typewriter. The Slitter was still here, lurking in the shadows, sullen at having his victory denied. I knew he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
I moved through the half-darkness with every sense on high alert. I wasn’t quite sure how I had managed that blast of light from the candlestick, but I kept it raised and ready in my right hand, while I hefted the obsidian knife in my left hand, just in case. I figured I would find the typewriter, and then figure out how to get it into the lead chest. I knew I couldn’t carry the chest far, and there was no way in hell I was going to touch that typewriter, or any stray keys.
“I think it’s the landlord and his wife,” I heard Teag say behind me. “They’re going to have nasty headaches when this is all over.”
“Any luck, Cassidy?” Father Anne asked.
Normally, when I sense something with vile psychic energy, I run the other way. Now, I was using my gift to help me hone in on the one thing in the room I really didn’t want to be near. “I think I’m getting closer,” I called back.
One more worktable sat against the back wall, where the shadows were deeper. I could make out the outline of several old typewriters. A shaft of pale light streamed through the windows, and I saw how the vintage machines had been torn apart, keys split off, pried loose from the mechanism that had held them in place. But one typewriter in particular resented its dissection, I knew it just as I knew that the seething spirit that had melded itself with the machine was not going to go down without a fight.
The shadows themselves lurched toward me, sweeping together from the walls, floor, and ceiling into a huge, hulking presence. The Slitter was no stranger to creating terror. Alive, he had been the stranger in the dark parking lot, the shape in the bedroom window, the footsteps in the deserted alleyway. Terror was his foreplay, and blood his release. The people he had possessed had been mere poppets. Whatever the Slitter had done, whoever he had sold his soul to, I knew that the shadow man who loomed over me was the long-dead killer, and he had me in his sights.
Darkness fell. Someone screamed. I felt all hope drain from my soul. And the
n I got mad. I’ve never taken well to feeling helpless. It pisses me off, big time. And I came out swinging, bellowing at the top of my lungs to give myself courage, as the ice cold blackness swept toward me.
I slashed with the obsidian knife, and felt it tug at the shadows as if they had substance. The next thing I knew, Father Anne was beside me, and she had Father Conroy’s demon knife in her hand, a knife that could destroy a vampire’s soul. Did it work on serial killers? I didn’t know, but together, Father Anne and I stabbed and ripped with our knives, while the darkness did its best to press forward and overtake us.
Sorren and Teag had subdued our mortal attackers, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Teag playing wingman with his staff as Sorren grabbed the lead lined chest and headed for the typewriter.
Beside me, Father Anne had begun to chant. “From all evil, deliver us, oh Lord—”
The Slittter surged forward, and I struck again with my knife, struggling to hold back the darkness.
“From sudden and unprovided death, from wrath and the lust to shed blood…” Father Anne continued, not even out of breath, although I was shaking like a leaf with every knife stroke.
Our knives had forced the Slitter back, but he wasn’t giving up. He surged forward, and I brought the candlestick down, letting my fear flood through it, meeting the hope, love, and commitment of the trinkets melded into its being. Blindingly white light shot from the end of the candlestick, punching through the darkness.
“From the snares of the devil, from the claws of the Evil One, and the traps of the Fallen—” Father Anne was chanting the rite of exorcism, and fighting the shadow man at the same time. Damn, they grow them tough in seminary. The tattoos on her arm glowed with inner light, patron saints against evil. She and I were standing shoulder to shoulder, forcing the Slitter back toward the wall.
“I command you, unclean spirit, along with all your minions, depart! Be gone from this place, unclean spirit, along with every dark power of the enemy, and all your fell companions,” Father Anne chanted, her voice rising and strong. For a moment, I glimpsed the shimmering images of the patron saints from her tattoo, and others, a glowing cloud of witnesses, standing with us, and I saw the long-departed Father Conroy among them.
“Depart, transgressor! Depart, seducer, thief of lives and eater of souls, drinker of the blood of the innocent. I adjure you, depart!” Father Anne’s voice had reached a crescendo, and the white light that flared from the candlestick was too blinding to watch, shredding the shadow being’s darkness and driving it back.
The Slitter gave a howl of utter rage. The white light flared once more, and this time, Sorren, Teag, and I raised our mirrors, the hexenspiegel, to capture the spirit in its faceted reflections. Father Anne’s spirit knife had weakened it, and as the light from the candlestick blazed, and the shadow grew less opaque, shrinking before our eyes, pulled inexorably into the endless reflections of the hexenspiegel.
In the blink of an eye, the shadow of the Slitter vanished and with him, the piercing light from the candlestick. The feeling in the room lightened, as if a deadly thunderstorm had just passed us by. Sorren took the hexenspiegel from us, dropped them into the lead-lined chest and then used the insulated gloves to put the typewriter in on top of them. Teag swept up the keys that had been knocked to the floor along with our attackers’ discarded jewelry and used a dustpan to put them into the chest without touching the items. Sorren slammed the lid down, and Teag wrapped a knotted cord around it, imbuing the binding with his magic.
Only when Father Anne gently pushed my arm down and pried the candlestick from my fingers did I realize I had been rooted to the spot, shaking from head to toe.
“How—did the candlestick do that?” I asked in a faltering voice.
Sorren gave a tired chuckle. “The candlestick didn’t. You did. It must have had very strong positive energy, and your gift was desperate for a weapon. The candlestick itself acted like an athame to focus your power, and you channeled all that Light energy against the darkness.”
My knees felt shaky, and I might have fallen if Teag hadn’t pushed a chair under me.
“What are we going to do about the mess?” Teag asked, eying the trashed workroom critically. “The cops are going to know they didn’t leave it like this, and with all the fighting, we’re bound to have left enough DNA for the forensics folks to have a field day.”
“One step at a time,” Sorren said, running a hand back through his hair. This time, it didn’t look as if he had taken any damage, although Teag was sporting a black eye and Father Anne’s arm was beginning to bruise where the attacker had struck her.
“As for the landlord and his wife, I can glamor them, change their memories,” Sorren said. “If Teag can help me get them outside, they’ll remember that they heard noises coming from the workshop, right before the explosion.”
Father Anne raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, sheathing her knife.
“Explosion?” I managed.
Sorren shrugged. “Necessary, both to remove any trace of our presence, and to melt down the typewriter. A magical pyre, if you like.”
My heart ached for all of Kristie’s lost jewelry, but there was no way to know what might have been tainted by the Slitter. I looked down at the candlestick in my hand. “If there’s a way to get my prints off it, do you think this could ‘survive’ the fire?” I asked. “It was a commission for someone’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, and the energy I’m getting from some of the trinkets tells me one of the people doesn’t have much longer to live.”
Sorren nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”
Father Anne drove me home. Teag and Sorren stayed to clean up. Late that night, I heard sirens, and saw the news report about the fire. A week later, Trina called to tell me that an anonymous benefactor had created a legal fund for Kristie and Karen, enough to get them both the best lawyers in Charleston, and that it looked as if the court would bargain down to temporary insanity.
I was pretty sure who the ‘anonymous benefactor’ was, and I knew it was the best that could be done. Two people had been murdered, and although the Slitter had possessed Karen and Kristie to do it, there was no getting around the fact that their bodies did the crime. Two people dead, two ruined lives. It was cold comfort that what was left of the Slitter’s spirit after Father Anne’s demon knife was through with it had been destroyed along with his anchor object.
I went by to see Kristie after the trial, before they transferred her to the penitentiary at Ridgeville. It was heartbreaking to see how resigned she was to her fate, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. I promised to visit her. I will. And I will mourn the future she might have had.
We’re the Alliance. We protect people from the bad stuff in the shadows. But we can’t protect everyone, all the time. I know that, dammit. But this time, it was personal.
It’s over now, but it’s going to be a long, long time before I take in another old typewriter at Trifles and Folly.
Collector
“I’d like Trifles and Folly to handle the auction for my Aunt Dorothy’s estate,” the caller said. “I’ve heard you’re very good at specialized collections.”
My gut screamed at me to hang up the phone right then. I somehow knew it would save me a world of trouble, death, and new nightmares. But that’s what I do.
So, of course I said yes.
“I’ll be happy to take a look at your aunt’s collections,” I replied. “Once I know what we’re dealing with, I can give you an estimate for the auction and appraisal services.” I wrote down the address as the woman on the phone repeated it.
“How soon can you be here?” Her voice had an odd urgency to it.
I checked my watch. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the store was quiet. My assistant store manager, Teag Logan, could come along since Maggie, our part-time helper, was working today. She’d worked at Trifles and Follies longer than I had. “I can be there in about half an hour.”
�
�And if you agree to handle the auction, how quickly could you have the items out of the house?” the woman pressed. That was definitely unusual.
“I should be able to give you an idea of timing once I see what you have,” I replied. “Oh, and you haven’t told me your name!” This was definitely one of my stranger phone calls.
“Abby Sondergran,” the woman replied. “I’ll be watching for you.” She hung up, leaving me staring at my phone, perplexed. All my instincts told me that this phone call was the beginning of big problems.
I’m Cassidy Kincaide, owner of Trifles and Folly, an antique and curio shop in beautiful, haunted Charleston, SC. Since the store has been around since the city was founded over 350 years ago, lots of people think of us first for estate sales, antique auctions and selling the family silver. We’re good at all those things, but we’ve also got our secrets. The big one is that we’re not what we seem to be. Sure, we sell fancy trinkets, but our real purpose is to get dangerous magical items off the market and out of the wrong hands. When we succeed, life goes on as usual. And when we screw up, the death toll usually gets blamed on a natural disaster.
I’m the second secret. I’m a psychometric—someone who can read the history of objects by touching them. Not every object, or I’d go stark, raving mad. But if there’s a lot of emotion connected to an object, or it’s just downright evil, haunted, or demon-possessed, I can tell by touching it. My business partner, Sorren, is a nearly six hundred year-old vampire who runs the Alliance, an effort by mortals and immortals to get dangerous magical items out of the wrong hands. Needless to say, my vampire boss and our ties to the Alliance are just a few more of our secrets.
Teag walked into the office and tilted his head to one side like a beagle listening for a dog whistle. “Trouble?” he asked.
I sighed. “Probably. Got a call from a lady who is so sure she wants us to handle her ‘special collection’ that she forgot to ask for a price or give me her name.”
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