I put my hand on the marble base, and it warmed against my touch. A slight tingle made me snatch my fingers back. I rubbed my palms together and took a step away from the tomb, the feeling fading a little, sadness flooding through me from my fingertips instead. The sorrow of a lost soul.
An affinity for the dead was all well and fine, except when I was in a cemetery. I could almost feel the pressure of a soul pushing out from the tomb.
“Not tonight,” I said, turning away, and looked down the steps that curled around into darkness as if leading down to the fiery pits of hell. My imagination was getting ahead of me. “Eammon?”
“Yeah, I be here.” His thickly accented voice rolled up out of the darkness, and he appeared in the shadows of the steps moments later, blinking up at me.
Being a leprechaun, he almost always had to look up at me.
“Eammon, I need to talk to you.”
“What, suddenly you want the Hollows’ help?” His eyebrows shot up. “I thought you be too good for us now.”
He puffed past me, swinging his arms a little more than he had to, and smacked me in the process.
“Where is everyone?” I blurted. Suzy had come with me when I’d left the Hollows, but there had been three other recruits. I didn’t see hide nor hair of them, or of the other two mentors, Tom and Louis.
“Gone. They buggered off after you and Suzy left. Luke hangs around a bit answering the phone, mostly hoping to get with Sarge. He’s too jumpy to be of any use except doing office work.” I glanced back at the car where the others had chosen to wait (okay, I’d asked them to wait), and Sarge shrugged his wolfy shoulders in the back seat. Of course, he could hear us with those gigantic ears of his.
I led Eammon farther out into the cemetery, wanting to get some privacy for this conversation, and not even really knowing why. I trusted my friends.
Didn’t I?
“The human police tried to string me up for a murder charge, and not after a fair trial or anything. As in the trial’s tomorrow, and my execution will immediately follow it. I think someone in the shadow world paid them to get rid of me. Shit, I’m sure of it.”
He stumbled and shook his head, muttering something under his breath I didn’t understand.
“What?”
“It’s just . . . trouble comes for those who stand between us and the dark. Your gran . . . your mum.” He looked up at me and grasped my hand between his callused, dry palms. “Celia made me promise not to tell you what you were born to be, what she trained you to be, and breaking a promise to her is not healthy for any man. Even if she is a ghost.”
He adjusted his stance as if his pants were suddenly too tight, and I grinned. “She cursed you?”
“Something like that. She said she knew you’d be coming home soon and if she weren’t around, she wanted me to look out for you as long as I could.” He sighed. “Didn’t last long, did I?”
I put my other hand over his and took a knee so I wasn’t looking down at him. “Eammon, is there anything at all that you can tell me? Like who might want to off me?” I held my tongue about the whole suspecting the council business. I didn’t want to sway him.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, then opened them again. “The O’Seans were tied to a good many people, and none that be the good kind. You’ve upset the world of Faerie by pissing off Karissa, and the council isn’t sure what to make of you. Until you brought it to their attention, they had no idea Davin had gone bad, or that he’d been working with that ding-dong Derek. And while you’d think they’d be grateful, you made them look like fools even if you didn’t be meaning to.” Again he shook his head. “You’ve basically irritated every faction of the shadow world, Breena O’Rylee. What do you want, a damn medal?”
His sharp tone didn’t fool me—I heard the pride in there as if he’d trained me all by himself. Gran was the one who’d done most of my training, but he’d shown me the path back to what I’d been born to do. Apparently born to do.
Speaking of which. Now that I was out of jail, and my life wasn’t currently on the line, I had a job to do.
“I’m going to find my gran, Eammon. Someone took her spirit. Someone powerful, and . . . maybe someone who would know I’d come looking for her.”
Could that be the reason I’d been framed?
He grimaced. “Possibly, but more likely it’s Celia herself they wanted. She knows a lot about every faction of the supernatural world. She wasn’t just a witch, she was a historian. If they can find a way to unlock her memories, they’ll have access to more knowledge than you be having in that book of hers.” He tapped a finger on my hip bag. “Which I don’t think I have to tell you would be downright deadly in the wrong hands—not just for our world, but for the humans too.”
I worried at my bottom lip. “Eammon, what does your gut tell you?”
“A big fight is coming,” he said. “Until your gran died, everything here was quiet. Savannah had been the same for years and years. But I guess those undercurrents of darkness never really left our city. In that silence, I think they were growing, strengthening, and the rest of us did what Savannah always does. We pretended not to see them.”
“What do Louis and Tom think?” I asked after the other mentors. I really liked Tom. Louis was a posturing buffoon, but I still asked.
Eammon took a step away from me and leaned against a tombstone. Evangeline’s tombstone. While I’d never met her (she was apparently a friend of Robert’s), I knew her grave. I tried not to take notice of it, seeing as it was where I’d buried the fake fairy cross I’d initially stolen for Karissa. Yeah, it’s complicated. Bottom line: the cross is a powerful magical artifact, and I couldn’t let it end up in the wrong hands.
“Well,” he sighed, “Tom is hunkering down, stocking up on food and toilet paper, of all things, as if we’re about to breakout in a pandemic.” He waved his hands in front of himself. “Louis is . . .well, Louis gave me this.” He turned his hand over, and a ring flashed on his hand. Nothing fancy, just a silver band.
I stared at it. “He made a move on you?”
Eammon guffawed. “Nah, he said it would protect me if anything bad happened while he was away. Said he needed some time off and felt bad leaving the Hollows while things were so unstable here.”
I laughed. “Time off from what? He’s not even training anyone anymore.”
“That’s what I be saying!” Eammon barked and then rubbed a hand on his jaw. “But he be a good one, even if he is a stuck-up Frenchman.”
We were quiet a moment, and in the distance, I could hear the shush of water over the banks of the river. I could almost feel the pull of a siren, the magic a whisper of Corb’s. Like that first night I’d worked so hard to get into the Hollows, I knew this was where I belonged. Maybe not right here, but in this world.
“The dark is darker now,” Eammon said suddenly. “Those that hide their faces from the light, those be the ones to watch for.” He looked down at his hand. “Here, you take the ring. I don’t know that it’ll do much, to be honest—I think you and I both know just how ‘talented’ Louis is—but just in case . . .” He slid the ring off his middle finger and gave it to me.
“Are you sure?” I cupped the silver ring in my palm. “Louis doesn’t much like me.”
Eammon gave me a wink. “But I do. And you be going into danger. This is about all I can give you to help, other than my thoughts.”
I waited for him to say more, but he kept his mouth shut in a thin line as if he regretted saying as much as he had.
I pushed up to my feet, my knees locking about halfway up, making me grimace. Gawd in heaven, I could use some oil in that one knee. “Eammon, thank you. I should go. If anyone comes looking . . .”
“I’ll tell them I fired you and we don’t talk no more.” He took my hand again. “Good luck finding your gran.” He reached up and touched the amulet around my neck, the one from Gran. “She’s looking out for you even now, when you be looking for her.”
P
art of me wanted to linger, feeling a pull to the Hollows like I hadn’t experienced in a long time. I hurried to the car and got in. “A little help,” I said before Corb could ask me what I’d gained. I slid the silver ring Eammon had given me onto the chain that held my gran’s amulet of protection. The two tinkled against each other, like my own personal set of bells.
Feish leaned forward. “Leprechauns can be good for luck. Maybe you just needed more of that. Your luck is terrible. The worst.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Maybe,” I said as Corb drove us out of the cemetery. In the side mirror, I watched Eammon’s figure diminish in size, one hand raised in the air.
“Okay,” Corb said, “let’s get to Roderick’s cabin. That’s the best place for us to hunker down and ride this out until we can figure out who is after you. Sarge can patrol the woods around it. Kinkly can help him. And I’ll stay in with Bree.”
“What about me?” Feish leaned forward. “I can stay with Bree, and you can patrol too. Probably better that way so you stop trying to get laid by my friend.”
I made a choking sound, Kinkly laughed, and Sarge let out rather large wolfy yawn.
Corb frowned. “Yeah, no, that isn’t going to—”
Feish burbled at him. “You don’t get it. I’m not just here to help. I’m here to keep you away from her. I know what you can do, Mr. Siren of the Ocean Can’t Keep it in Your Pants. I know why, too, so that’s a big nope, nope from me.”
The veins in Corb’s neck popped up under his skin. I found myself just watching this back and forth between the two of them. They both had a connection to the water, which only seemed to fuel their rivalry. Which one was stronger though? The river maid or the siren?
Kinkly perched on top of my left boob so she could watch. “This is fascinating.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but I did rather enjoy seeing Feish give other people shit, and not just tell me how it was as bluntly as possible.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Corb said. “You can patrol with the others.”
Feish blew a rather loud, long raspberry. “No. I am Breena’s friend, and friends don’t let friends get laid by men that just want one thing. A cat.”
I had to blink a few times to put together what she meant. “You mean pussy?”
She bobbed her head, big eyes blinking at me with complete and total innocence. “Yes, I said cat. That is what I said.”
Cat. Pussy. Holy Dinah, I was going to hell in a handbasket for suggesting she read romance books to get a feel for how to flirt. I could just see her going up to her intended date.
You want to see my cat?
I have a cat. It’s very nice, but it does not meow.
I hear men like cats. It seems strange, but I have the best of all the cats.
And in my mind I could see her holding up an oversized tabby cat with green eyes that would be about as confused as the man Feish was flirting with.
Sarge started to shake, huffing through his teeth in doggy laughter as if he could see inside my head. More likely he’d come to the same conclusion: Feish really didn’t know what she was talking about and had taken a romance book totally out of context. I took note that he had not shifted back to his more human shape.
“Coward,” I grumbled at him. Corb shot me a look, and I shrugged. “She’s looking out for my cat. How can you deny her the rights of a good friend?”
Kinkly giggled. “Feish, will you look out for my cat too?”
She smiled. “Of course, girls must look out for their bitches’ cats.”
And that was it. I broke into a laugh I couldn’t hold back, Kinkly joining me. Feish joined us, even though I doubted she knew why it was so funny.
Corb just drove with his hands wrapped around the steering wheel, scowling at the windshield while we hee-hawed like a herd of donkeys.
“Let’s just get to the cabin. We can figure things out once we are there,” he finally said as we came up to the highway exit.
My laughter froze in my chest. I leaned over and put a hand on his leg, feeling the tension in his thigh. “Here’s the thing. We aren’t going to the cabin,” I said. “Get on the highway and head southwest for Montgomery.”
Corb’s frown deepened, which I hadn’t thought possible. “No, that’s not the plan. Wait, why do you want to go to Alabama? That makes no sense. There’s nothing there, no place to hide.”
I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes. “We aren’t going to Alabama, we’re just stopping there for gas. And I’m not hiding. I can’t.” I paused and put a hand on my bag, which held Gran’s book, my knives, and the book of curses.
“We’re going to New Orleans.”
6
My announcement about going to New Orleans instead of some cabin in the woods that belonged to Roderick was met with silence for about 3.2 seconds.
“Are you insane? The council knows that’s where you were headed before you got arrested!” Corb barked the words as if a raised voice would make me back down. The boy had lessons to learn about strong women. The thought caught me off guard, and I smiled to myself.
Other people had told me I was strong, but this was the first time I’d really believed it. Okay, let’s be straight, I believed it in that moment. And then the rest of his words sank in. “Wait, so the council really does want me dead? And how the hell do they know I wanted to go to New Orleans?”
Corb gripped the steering wheel and twisted his hands around it a moment before shifting gears again as he took us onto the highway. Not headed toward Alabama. Damn it, this was going to get rough if he was going to be pig headed.
He stared out the window, checking his rearview mirror more than he really needed to.
“I don’t know for sure, but they have the power and connections to make something like this happen. When Rod brought it to the council’s attention, they denied his request for help. Officially, the numbers were against you, like he said. So if they find out he helped anyway, he’ll be in as much trouble as we are. So I trust him when he says you’ll be safe at that cabin. He wouldn’t risk it otherwise.”
“You didn’t say who told them about New Orleans,” Kinkly said. Feish nodded.
“Yes, who spilled those fish guts to the wrong people?” Feish looked hard at Sarge, who shook his head, ears flapping.
Corb blew out a slow, heavy breath, and I looked at him. He didn’t, did he? “Before I realized they might be behind it . . .I told them we were headed that way. I was trying to convince them to help by pointing out that Celia’s ghost is missing.” Well, shit, he did.
A chorus of groans escaped me, Feish, and Kink. Feish slumped back in her seat, and Alan scrunched up to one side. I was impressed he’d stayed mostly quiet the last few minutes.
Feish on the other hand . . . “You are not going to get her cat after that. Idiot. What a fool!”
She wasn’t wrong on either count. Why in the world would he have offered up that kind of information? Then there was Corb’s belief in Roderick, which wasn’t necessarily misplaced, but if the council found out the Boy Butter spell stuff was connected to Roderick, his cabin was one of the first places they’d look.
“Pull over,” I said.
“No, we’re going to the cabin,” he said, giving me a quick glance. “I can keep you safe. I know what I’m doing, Bree.”
I was no longer sure he did.
So I put a hand on the stick shift, and forcibly geared the car down while Corb yelped and the engine gears ground rather unhappily.
“Goddamn it!” he roared. “You’re going to kill my car!”
I jerked the stick shift hard and he hit the clutch so I wouldn’t do more damage.
He put his hand over mine and pulled over to the side of the road, his whole body shaking.
Once we were stopped, I looked him straight in the eye.
“Since you trust him so much, you can go to the cabin and wait for it to get burned down by a rogue dragon that spits acid, or whatever other weird shit
will inevitably happen. Now get out of the car. I’ll drive, because I’m not going that way.” I pointed down the highway in the direction we were facing.
He gave me a hard look as I tapped the stick shift.
“I’m doing this for you, Bree. To keep you safe,” he growled. “Why can you not let others help you?”
I didn’t take my hand off the stick shift. “I didn’t ask you to keep me safe. Did I? And I do let other people help me.”
Alan snickered from the back. “A lover’s spat? Oh, this is too good. She used to fight me on stuff like this too. When she complained about not going out more, I told her I’d take her more places if she spruced herself up and lost some of those extra pounds.”
Corb and Alan were cousins, which apparently allowed Corb to see his ghost. I don’t think anything could have slowed him down faster than realizing he was pulling an Alan on me—making a decision that was not his to make, even if his heart was in the right place. He lowered his head on the steering wheel.
“Jesus. I’m sorry, Bree. I was just trying to help . . . honestly, I didn’t think . . .”
I put a hand on his shoulder and felt him tense and then slowly relax under my palm as I gave him a gentle squeeze. “Look, I know it’s coming from a good place. I get that. I do. You saved my life. All of you did.” I swept a look at everyone in the car, including Alan , which seemed to surprise him almost as much as it did me.
“But there is something bigger going on in Savannah. Roderick said so. We can’t just let that slide, we—no, not we, I—have to find out who killed Gran and why. Why is NOLA so important to all this? What connections are we missing? My parents, Gran, and Alan were all killed there in the same fashion. Which brings up another point. If Alan was killed in NOLA, why didn’t the Savannah PD hand me over to their police force? Everything is pointing me toward NOLA, and so there I will go. Carefully, of course. Very carefully. And if y’all don’t want to come with, I do understand. But I have to go. For Gran.”
Midlife Ghost Hunter: A Paranormal Women's Fiction (The Forty Proof Series Book 4) Page 5
