The Ancient Spirits of Sedgwick House (Grayson Sherbrooke's Otherworldly Adventures Book 3)

by Catherine Coulter

  He watched Mrs. Minor knead the dough and wondered if Nefret had indeed married Sadek the magician.

  He wondered how he could discover if Sadek had become pharaoh, Nefret his queen. Of course her tomb had been plundered, and her golden arm cuff had woven itself through the vast number of centuries, ending up in Lord Lyle’s treasure room. He once again saw Nefret rising from the elaborate sunken bath in that sumptuous bathing chamber and compared it the bathroom upstairs with its simple bathing tub.

  What had happened to Jabari? How could the small sarcophagus have possibly glowed?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Grayson, what is wrong with you? The black clouds have disappeared. Magic, Mrs. Moon called it, and Manu nodded solemnly. The day is sunny and warm, and the nutty buns Mrs. Minor made for our breakfast were delicious, yet you’re sitting there, staring out over the lake, ignoring the swans, the children, and me.”

  He turned to smile at Miranda. They were sitting on a blanket Manu had given them, simply enjoying the warm day, the lovely lake. What to tell her? How much to tell her? Would she believe him ready for Bedlam? She knew what had happened at Wolffe Hall—she’d lived through it all. He’d also told her the truth about what had happened at Vere Castle in Scotland. He doubted she really believed him, even though she hadn’t rolled her eyes. He had to admit, what had happened with the golden cuff did sound like one of his novels. He studied her face, a precious face, really quite beautiful with her high cheekbones and clear soft skin. But now she looked worried about him, and that moved him, deep inside where things counted. He realized no one had really worried about him in a very long time. Well, parents always worried, but that was different, and now, with Pip, he understood that worry would never leave him until he himself left this world. He picked up her hand and held it between his. And always, always, both of them had half an eye on the children, shouting, racing along the shore, the swans chasing them, squawking. Their closest neighbor, Mrs. Braymore, the local furrier’s wife, was standing at the top of the slope watching the children, her own boy and girl now part of their group.

  Miranda said at his continued silence, “It’s the nightmare, isn’t it? Your dream about this Nefret. All right, Grayson, Pip told me he found you in the treasure room, holding a golden cuff. Was it Nefret’s? P.C. told me Pip had talked about a large box glowing, but it stopped glowing. Was it a sarcophagus? Don’t you think it’s time you told me what’s happening?”

  He gave it up and began talking, beginning with the unknown boy’s sarcophagus and the curse, then Nefret. He left nothing out. Miranda didn’t say a word, even when he told her about him and Nefret standing on the banks of the Nile, three thousand or more years ago. He ended and shrugged. “Did Nefret marry Sadek? Did Sadek become pharaoh? What does it matter now after millennia have passed? I do wonder, though, if the young prince, Kiya, is really buried in that sarcophagus, or something else entirely, a demon, as Sadek said.”

  Grayson came to attention and shouted, “P.C., grab Pip!”

  She did, laughing, scolding, pulling him out of a bevy of swans rapidly closing in on him.

  He turned back to Miranda. “There is nothing I can do. I can only know what Nefret, through her golden cuff, shows me, what she says to me, what she thinks to me. There is no more reason for me to go into the treasure room. It is all rather futile.”

  Miranda was silent a moment, then lifted his hand and held it between hers. “Remember Mr. Philpot? How very nasty he was? And then he cried out, ‘Let me out, let me out, let me out.’ You know that had to be a part of this, Grayson, you know it.” She looked away from him, out at Lake Windemere, then up at the bright sun. She smiled, remembering Manu had warned them it would rain after luncheon. And why should she believe him?

  Grayson said aloud, “Let me out, let me out, let me out.”

  Miranda said, “I believe the only way to resolve this is to open the sarcophagus.”

  Grayson felt a spear of cold right to his gut. He was shaking his head, back and forth. “It is too dangerous, Miranda. That curse was written on the coffin for a reason. No, I will leave the treasure room locked. It’s beautiful here, and we have no obligations, no concerns, only our family here, all together, in this special place that perhaps rains a bit too much.” She laughed. He’d thought but days before how quickly they’d become a family, Miranda and the three children, his and hers, all of them here in a special place, together. It was time to break away from the magic held in the treasure room of a long-ago time and place. It was time to stay in the present and enjoy his family. He rather hoped Nefret and Jabari had not been mummified. He knew he’d rather be dust blowing in the desert wind than end up a hideous creature for a future man to gaze upon and be repelled.

  He stood and gave Miranda his hand. “Would you care to stroll with me down by the water? Do not forget your umbrella.”

  Let me out, let me out, let me out. Mr. Philpot’s words sounded over and over in his mind. He knew whatever was in the sarcophagus was so powerful, even after millennia, it could take over an old man in a village in England. No, he was not going back into that treasure room.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tuesday night

  Grayson desperately wanted Miranda to come to him. It was her choice—it had to be her choice. After they’d tucked in the children, he’d walked her to her door, and he’d kissed her in front of that closed door with all the pent-up need in him, shown her how much he wanted her, his hands in her glorious hair, cupping her face, kissing her eyebrows, her nose, and her soft mouth. And she’d kissed him, her tongue touching his, making him shake. He didn’t think she’d wanted him to leave, but he knew he had to.

  Did she love him? He knew he felt great caring for her—and lust, limitless lust. Did she feel lust for him? If they married, he would become P.C.’s stepfather. And Barnaby? Yes, he would raise Barnaby too, watch him leave his “barn cat” days behind and become a polished young gentleman, a prerequisite if P.C. was determined to marry him. And Pip adored Miranda—no, he wasn’t ready to deal with all the myriad consequences, the endless considerations if he and Miranda were to wed.

  He thought of Lorelei, his beloved wife for such a short time, only two years when she’d drowned in her own small pleasure boat given to her by her parents when a sudden storm had blown up. She’d been a good swimmer, but she hadn’t managed to get to shore. He hadn’t been there, hadn’t heard her cries for help. He said her name quietly in the stillness of his bedchamber. It was a magical name. Like Nefret, Lorelei was gone forever, a sweet lingering memory. Sometimes he still found himself speaking to her about Pip, a problem, a question about what he should or shouldn’t do. Did he occasionally imagine she answered him? But he hadn’t spoken to her about Nefret; he’d spoken to Miranda.

  Grayson remembered showing Pip his mother’s portrait. He’d commissioned David Benedict to paint her only months after their marriage. He clearly remembered saying to Pip, “This is your mama, Pip. She loved you very much. And she loved me as well.” And he repeated his mantra over and over.

  Suddenly, a deep echoing voice screamed in his head: Let me out, let me out, let me out. He clapped his hands against his ears, but the voice only screamed louder: Let me out, let me out, let me out.

  Grayson slowly got out of bed, belted on his dressing gown, pulled slippers on his feet, and took his lighted candle downstairs. He unlocked the treasure room and walked not to Nefret’s golden cuff, but to the small sarcophagus. He knelt beside it and studied the paintings of the boy throwing the disc to the man, to Menhet, Nefret’s cousin. He read the curse yet again, a meaty curse, one to scare a man to his soul.

  Not a scream this time, no, a low throbbing voice, neither male nor female: Let me out, let me out, let me out.

  Grayson studied every inch of the sarcophagus. He tried to move it and was surprised when it tilted. He gently rocked it back and forth on its base and heard something move within. Ushabti? Only the small figures of workers to accompany the dead t
o the afterlife to take care of him? That was what Lord Lyle believed. But why put ushabti inside a coffin with demons within?

  Grayson rose and studied the coffin. He watched his hand gently feel around the seam between the coffin bed and the lid. He jumped back, his heart pounding hard. The lid had moved, only a bit, but it had moved at his touch. Why? He would swear his fingers tingled.

  Let me out, let me out, let me out.

  He stared down at the coffin, knowing, simply knowing, that whatever was saying those words over and over was there, waiting, waiting for him to raise the lid.

  Grayson heard movement and turned to see Miranda standing in the doorway. She was wearing a pale-blue dressing gown he’d seen before, her beautiful hair long and waving down her back. She looked afraid. “I was thinking about you when suddenly I heard Mr. Philpot saying again, Let me out, let me out, let me out. I went to your room, but you were not there. Then I knew you’d be here. Is that the coffin with the curse? What are you doing?”

  He looked down at the coffin, at his hand hovering over the lid. “Let me out—it comes from here, Miranda. I think I’m going to open it.”

  “No,” she said, running lightly to him. “No, Grayson, I do not think that’s a good idea.” Then she pulled up short. She looked closely at the boy’s golden face, at the vivid lapis lazuli, the turquoise of his headdress. “It’s beautiful.” She reached out her hand and lightly laid her fingers on the nose. “He’s beautiful. Do you think the boy Kiya is within? Not demons? Mayhap he is the one who wants out?”

  “Miranda, you are touching his nose. Do you feel anything?”

  She nodded. “A warmth. It feels welcoming, which sounds strange, but it’s true. The warmth, it makes me feel good.”

  She looked up into his face, never lifting her fingers from the nose. There was something different about her, something he couldn’t begin to explain. She smiled at him, then turned and shoved hard at the lid of the sarcophagus. It sailed three feet and landed on the floor, not hard, a sort of settling motion. Grayson couldn’t believe it.

  They stood together over the open coffin, saying nothing, looking inside. There wasn’t a mummy; there were only scattered bones and shreds of dark cloth.

  “The bones are large,” she whispered. “They aren’t a boy’s bones, Grayson.”

  Did a demon have bones? They watched as a black shadow slowly began to sift up through the bones, weaving in and out, as if trying to bring them together. The shadow thickened, drew together, became a sort of smoke that enveloped the bones, covering them entirely. It looked oily and smelled, strangely, of coriander. Suddenly the black smoke coalesced and whooshed upward, into their faces, and they heard the bones rattle as if trying to come together and rise with the black smoke. The smoke roiled and hissed, kept dipping back over the bones, as if willing them to knit themselves together into a whole.

  Silence. The black smoke hovered a moment, then lifted straight up, and they saw the outline of a man wearing only a ragged loincloth. They watched the smoke go into his gaping mouth, fill him, then spiral out, only to funnel back into his mouth until the smoke seemed a part of him, as if he was breathing it in and using it to keep himself upright.

  The man rose straight up in the coffin, the black smoke now wreathing him, framing him, and he opened black eyes lined in thick kohl and stared at them. Then he opened his mouth. But words didn’t come out, only threads of black smoke. Then he raised a nearly fleshless arm and looked at it, appeared to study it. He threw back his head and shrieked. And they heard a gravelly voice come from deep within the smoke, sharp as rusty shard of metal striking on glass, a voice that hadn’t spoken for millennia. “No. It cannot be. I must be whole.” Then his arm dropped and the smoke enveloped him completely until they couldn’t see him.

  Suddenly the smoke flew out of the coffin, carrying the nearly fleshless creature with it, and swirled through the air around them.

  The smoke faded, and there stood the man. One of his legs was only bones, and flesh hung off the other leg. He howled and shrieked, and then he turned to Miranda and Grayson. He screamed, “You!” and he was lifted by the black smoke and was flying toward them, screaming words neither Miranda nor Grayson understood.

  Then, “At last you opened my prison, freed me. At last I am of this earth again. But look at me! I am no longer a man. I am no longer whole and able to move about. I must have my black smoke.” He shook a skeletal arm at them. “Look at me! I am a monster! It is your fault. I know you for what you are—a sorcerer. You heeded my cry to release me, but all along you meant to destroy me.” And he was coming toward them, threads of black smoke dripping from his mouth like black blood.

  Grayson raced to the stand and grabbed Nefret’s golden cuff. He shouted, “You were entombed with a curse to hold you forever. You are not Kiya, you cannot be. You are indeed a demon. Who are you? What are you?”

  The voice shrieked, “I am Sadek the magician! Nothing could hold me, nothing. But why am I not whole? Why am I—” No more words came out of that gaping mouth, only black oily smoke, but it seemed to be hurling itself at them.

  Grayson held up the cuff like a shield. “It is Nefret’s cuff, come whole through the millennia.”

  Grayson hadn’t thought it would work, but to his relief, seeing the cuff made Sadek pull back into the smoke, hovering there, and they could hear a heart beating, coming through the smoke, loud and louder still, and then a loud moaning cry. “I will not die! That arrogant little girl will not end me!”

  Grayson began to walk toward the writhing man, only bones occasionally clear through the thick smoke, the cuff held in front of him.

  “No!”

  Miranda moved to stand beside him. “I know you made me open your sarcophagus. I let you out, but it will do you no good. You are nothing now but bones and smoke. There is nothing you can make me do now.”

  Grayson said, “You are thousands of years beyond death, Sadek. I know you murdered Nefret’s brother, he boy, Kiya. You enchanted the disc, and you paid an artist paint the panels on the side of his coffin, to immortalize what you had done, but no one else would ever guess. Your tale about demons taking Kiya, changing him into one of them, it was nonsense, just as your curse was nonsense. But something happened. You did not marry Nefret, and you did not become pharaoh. You were cast into a cursed tomb forever, not Kiya. Who overcame your magic? Who imprisoned you? Who laughed at the curse you wrote because now it will hold you forever?”

  Sadek’s voice was a whisper now. “Give me the cuff, and I will let you live. Give it to me now, or I will take the boy. I will take your son.”

  “You will not touch my son. You already tried to kill Kiya, but you failed. You are nothing now, nothing except black smoke to blow into dead air. You are nothing at all, Sadek.”

  He held up the cuff, and Miranda closed her hand over his. Together they walked directly into the smoke, into that hideous creature. The black smoke heaved and twisted, and Sadek howled.

  There was a great shriek. Slowly, so very slowly, the black smoke shrank, tightened into a ball that swirled through Sadek, and moved to hover over the coffin. “No!”

  They watched the smoke sink back into the sarcophagus, watched the lid lift from the floor and fly to land gently on top of the coffin.

  “Grayson.” Miranda licked her lips. She wasn’t about to let go of the golden cuff. “Is he gone? Sadek?”

  “Yes.” He turned and lightly stroked his hand through Miranda’s hair. “Here, you hold Nefret’s cuff. Tell me what you feel. What you see.”

  He watched her hold the cuff tightly and close her eyes. She became perfectly still. Finally, he watched her draw a deep breath. He watched her smile. She opened her eyes and gave him back the cuff. “It is now your turn.”

  He saw Nefret, an older Nefret, perhaps twenty years old. She was lying on her side on a magnificent chaise, a servant holding out a tray to her, laden with fruit. She was heavy with child. Her black hair hung long and lustrous down her back,
held off her forehead with a golden circlet. He watched her select a date and slowly chew on it. Then she turned to smile at him. No, not at him, at a young man coming into the room.

  Grayson knew it was Kiya, now a man, and as was the custom among royalty at the time in Egypt, brother and sister had married.

  Nefret thought to him, The king of Nubia protected Kiya so Sadek couldn’t kill him. He gave Sadek a coffin with the body of a dead old man within. It was Sadek who returned to tell the pharaoh about how demons had taken Kiya and made him one of them.

  Kiya remained in Nubia, a favorite of the king, until he was twelve years old, old enough to lead the king’s men to fight Sadek. And so he came back with soldiers and they captured Sadek. The pharaoh made him disclose where he’d taken Kiya’s sarcophagus, and when it was brought before him, Kiya killed Sadek the day he was to wed with me. Sadek’s body was broken apart and stuffed into the sarcophagus, the same sarcophagus he himself had brought back from Nubia, the same sarcophagus upon which he’d had the panels of Kiya chasing the disc painted and the curse inscribed, the same sarcophagus he’d had buried deep in a cave.

  But Sadek was strong, able to sense your magic and come through to you.

  Nefret looked from Grayson to Miranda. You and the strange-looking woman standing next to you—thank you. She nodded to them and took the hand of the young man who was smiling down at her. Slowly, she seemed to fade until she was no more.

  The cuff was cool to the touch. Grayson knew it would now remain cool, no matter who touched it. He looked over at the sarcophagus. He doubted Pip would see it glow again. Sadek was finally gone.

  Grayson set the cuff back on its velvet-covered stand. He took Miranda’s hand, and together they walked back to the small sarcophagus. “Did you see she was wearing the cuff?”