by Isabel Wroth
Kerrigan rubbed circles over her kneecap with her fingertips, letting the silence linger while she tried to think about who could have known about her last failed attempt to find Maksim’s shattered spirit.
Every year on the day he’d died, Kerrigan tried to summon him. For eight years, she’d failed. Then, two years ago, she pieced together what she thought were fragments of Maksim’s spirit, only to discover it was actually his maker.
Maksim told her Austmathr had been murdered by one of his many progeny in 1794. After having spent over eight hours with Austmathr’s spirit, Kerrigan understood why he’d been offed.
Austmathr was the cruelest, most conniving, evil spirit she’d ever summoned. Completely unwilling to help her unless she agreed to give him a taste of her blood, he’d talked circles around her, never answering a single question outright.
Kerrigan spent three days in bed after that attempt, drained to the point where she could barely lift her own head up.
Magically, she’d been so raw she couldn’t quiet the constant whispers of the spirits who flocked to her, begging to be heard, pestering her to the point where it felt like her skull split open.
She’d failed to summon Maksim and suffered unbearably, but it hadn’t stopped her from trying again last year, and she would try again this year.
She hadn’t told anyone about the progress she’d made. Hell, her own coven sisters hadn’t known about Maksim until they’d been told the Silver Wives had all been murdered by Ivy’s father.
Kerrigan could think of only one person who would know about her exploits with vampire spirits: a Romani gypsy by the name of Charani Morely.
Evocation and Summoning were the Morely family business, and Kerrigan approached Charani looking for herbs or special family blends that might help Kerrigan pull a reluctant spirit from the ether.
The year Kerrigan managed to gather all the fragments of Austmathr’s spirit, she’d bought some incense Charani told her to keep burning throughout her summoning.
Last year, Kerrigan went back for more, confessing to Charani she’d gotten close to her goal, not having mentioned anything about a vampire. Her silence honestly meant nothing.
Spirits were everywhere, and someone with the power to hear their whispers would be able to decipher what Kerrigan had been up to. Charani could have very well sent one of her family spirits to spy on Kerrigan.
More than a little annoyed now, Kerrigan decided she would be making sure Charani didn’t discuss Kerrigan’s business with anyone ever again. With a wry smile, Kerrigan pointed at Etienne with her smoking cigarette.
“Did Charani choke when she confessed I was more powerful than her?” Etienne said nothing in response, but his coquettish smile was all the answer she needed. “Bet she did. Bitch.”
“So, you admit you’re capable?” Etienne asked, his tone both charming and challenging.
It was clearly a dig, and if he thought she was easy prey, he was in for one hell of a shock. “It’s not a question of capability; it’s willingness. When my human clients come to me to summon a deceased loved one, all it takes is a candle and something that belonged to the deceased. They come easily, eagerly.
“Once a vampire dies, the magic animating them destroys the spirit and scatters the pieces so far and wide, it takes months of detailed preparation to find and collect them all. The experience is unbelievably taxing, and the days spent recovering are excruciatingly painful.”
“Name your price,” Etienne ordered. “Money is of no consequence.”
Kerrigan drew out the silence, finishing off her enchanted cigarette with one final drag.
“What did Cecilie steal from you?”
Etienne’s eyes narrowed to slits; his jaw worked back and forth while he contemplated answering. She saw the moment the vampire became suspicious something was assisting him in his desire to tell the truth.
Probably smelling something she couldn’t, Doyle sat up to remind Etienne he and Reece were still there.
“I’ve learned to be completely transparent with my clients, chevalier. For what you’re asking of me, I will have nothing but the entire truth from you. No games.”
“I am willing to pay you any sum you name to do me this service, Miss Gray.” The unspoken question of whether it mattered that Kerrigan knew the details hung between them.
“Oh, don’t worry. If I agree, you’ll pay out the nose,” Kerrigan assured him cheerfully. “But you said so yourself: you’ve been searching for centuries for someone who can summon the spirit of a vampire to no avail. So this becomes a Need/Want situation.
“I don’t need your money, and I don’t want to spend a month preparing to raise a spirit that will leave me incapacitated and in agony for days afterward. You need Cecilie to tell you where this lost item is, and I want to know what the item is. You see where I’m going with this?”
Etienne pursed his lips, looking very much like a disgruntled teenager, if that disgruntled teenager happened to also potentially be a homicidal maniac.
“I do.”
As his gaze roamed the room, briefly touching on objects before moving on to something else. “Is something wrong?”
“What charm did you use to loosen my tongue?”
Kerrigan gave an appreciative smile. “I give you my word: I’ve used no charms and no spells to loosen your tongue. People just like to talk to me. You’d be surprised the things I hear sitting in this chair.”
Etienne grunted, still not totally convinced, and their time was almost up. When Kerrigan told him so, the facade of politeness faded almost instantly to reveal the predator hiding beneath a handsome, youthful face. The look the vampire leveled on her would have frightened a lesser witch.
Reece sat up to mirror his partner, both lions giving low, rumbling growls of warning.
The menacing sounds caused Etienne to throw himself back with a mulish huff, waving his hand dismissively at the two lions.
“I will tell you everything, provided you and your pets sign a non-disclosure agreement, vowing not to discuss any details of our business together with anyone. Living or dead.”
Kerrigan spread her hands in welcome. “Absolutely, but in that agreement, you will agree not to disclose my part in your business. No bragging to other vampires about what I did, no telling friends or bosses who want to reconnect with dead lovers or offspring, etcetera.”
“Agreed, you have my word. I’ll have the paperwork sent first thing in the morning.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Etienne didn’t respond, prolonging the silence. Kerrigan pointedly checked her watch, unwilling to give him an inch. He finally hissed under his breath and gave up his secret. “I am after a spellbook and a potion that would allow the vampire who drank it to walk in the sun, forever.”
Kerrigan tipped her head to the side. “Impressive, but impossible.”
“It is not impossible!” Etienne insisted with the fervent belief of a fanatic. “There were two doses, and I watched my maker take the first one. He walked into the light and bathed in the rays of the rising sun. After returning to the chateau unscathed, he killed the witch who created the potion, took her recipe and the second vial.
“I knew Rodolpho was getting tired of me, and the chances of his next victim becoming a daywalker was too much to bear. So I took his head, the spellbook, and the potion. I planned to share a bright, beautiful future with my Cecilie, but what Rodolpho did to her turned her against me. She stole the book and the potion from me, and disappeared.”
“How do you know she didn’t become a daywalker herself?” Kerrigan asked, figuring that would have been the first thing she would have done, ensuring she could stay two steps ahead of Etienne and put twice the distance between them.
Etienne smiled a slow, evil smile and spread his hands. “She burned in the sun. And before you ask, no, I did not kill her.”
The ghost of the boy who’d been hovering behind Etienne from the beginning shook his head.
His hands may n
ot have been the ones to drag Cecilie into the light, but he is responsible.
Kerrigan nodded to acknowledge the information. “I assume Cecilie wouldn’t answer your questions when you caught up to her, so some persuasion was in order.”
Etienne merely shrugged. “As you say. You keep looking over my shoulder, why?”
The boy’s ghost smiled every bit as wickedly as Etienne had.
Ask him if he remembers the taste of raspberries.
Kerrigan braced herself for some kind of outburst, sliding her hand down to pat Doyle’s shoulder in their pre-arranged signal to prep him and Reece for a problem.
“The ghost of a young man appeared almost as soon as you sat down. He wants to know if you remember the taste of raspberries.”
The smug look on Etienne’s face was replaced with perfect blankness. When he spoke, his voice was stilted and breathy, uncertain. Perhaps, even fearful.
“Raspberries?”
“Mmhm. He’s cute, dark-haired, somewhere between twelve and thirteen. Pale blue breeches, white lawn shirt. Yay high.” Kerrigan raised her hand to measure the boy’s height.
Where any other person would naturally look around to try and catch sight of the ghost haunting them, Etienne didn’t move so much as a muscle. In fact, he sat so still, he might as well have been a statue.
“Our time is nearly up, Miss. Gray. Name your terms and help me find my lost treasure.”
Kerrigan had no desire to work a summoning for him, but the rubies he wore taunted her. “To perform the ritual, I will need something that once belonged to Cecilie, a physical item.
"Considering the length of time she’s been dead, it will take me anywhere from one to four months to gather all the pieces of her spirit.
“To store the pieces as I collect them, I’ll need some kind of vessel. Precious stones work best; crystals of flawless clarity will do in a pinch. You can’t pawn this part off on some flunkie. You have to choose the stone personally, hold it in your hands, and remember the moment you fell in love with Cecilie.”
“Is that all?” Etienne drawled with a hint of sarcasm.
Kerrigan smiled sweetly. “Thirty-five million US dollars.”
Etienne’s brows flew up into his hairline, an incredulous laugh bursting from his rosy red lips.
“You must be joking.”
“You said you’d pay me any sum I asked, and that’s my price for courting an aneurysm. I can summon Cecilie’s spirit, and you can communicate with her, but that’s where my guarantee ends. I can’t force her to tell you what you want to know, and if you don’t get the information you want, that’s not my problem.
“Should you choose to purchase my services, I’ll send you a weekly update via email to keep you apprised of our progress and answer only one email from you in return, weekly. If you call to pester me or to rush me, we’re done. You don’t have to decide tonight, but those are my terms.”
He grimaced, pushing a hiss of breath through his teeth, and rose stiffly to his feet. He gave a short, mocking bow, his accent thickening with irritation as he said,
“I will be in touch.”
“I’ll be here,” Kerrigan responded, allowing him to make it to the door before calling out to him. Etienne turned on his heeled shoes to face her, the long tails of his blood-red coat flaring out dramatically around him.
“I’m fairly partial to rubies. The ones you’re wearing are exquisite. Where did you get them?”
A smug, triumphant smile curved the vampire’s lips, his fingers moving to Maksim’s tie bar.
“They were a gift from an old friend. Until next time, mademoiselle.”
Kerrigan got up once the door shut behind him and turned the deadbolt, peering through the picture window to watch Etienne climb inside the fancy town car waiting for him.
The young ghost followed with a jaunty wave for her, and Kerrigan couldn’t help but smile, hoping it caused Etienne untold discomfort to know the spirit of one of his victims followed him everywhere.
“Can you actually do what he wants?”
Kerrigan didn’t turn around when Reece stepped up behind her, hugging her arms around herself to keep from running after Etienne to force him to give her back Maksim’s things and tell her exactly how the items had come to be in his possession.
“Yes. Victims always want to be heard.”
Reece gave a low grunt. “And the thing about his jewelry?”
“I summoned the rubies up out of the ground when I was eighteen years old and had that tie bar and those cufflinks made as a gift for someone I loved. He would never have given them away, especially not to someone like Etienne.”
“You sure?”
“Dead sure.”
A tingle of power whispered against her back when Doyle shifted. “It’s been a while since we did some off-book hunting, but I don’t like his face or his prissy-ass coat. I’ll kill that vamp and get your stuff back, no problem.”
Kerrigan gave a ghost of a smile. “Not until after I get his money. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“Thirty-five million is pretty damn steep,” Doyle told her appreciatively. “Think he’ll pay?”
“Oh, he’ll pay,” she drawled, watching the red glow of the taillights disappearing down the road. “He’d pay me whatever I asked for to get that potion. If it’s real, it will make him the most powerful vampire alive.”
*****
Two weeks after her appointment with Etienne, Kerrigan woke up to find thirty-five million dollars in her bank account.
The same day, a delivery man brought her a box of what turned out to be all the items she’d requested from Etienne.
She’d been expecting a piece of jewelry or a comb, some kind of trinket belonging to Cecilie that would help Kerrigan focus to find the vampire’s shattered spirit.
What she got was an ornate glass jar full of ash. Immediately, Kerrigan called her client.
“Chevalier, why am I holding a jar of ashes?” she asked in disgust, really hoping she wasn’t holding what she thought she was holding.
The vampire gave a delighted, boyish laugh. “You needed something of Cecilie’s, did you not?” Kerrigan made a face, glad he couldn’t see her gingerly set the jar down on the nearest table. “When will you begin?”
Etienne had chosen a marquise cut sapphire to hold Cecilie’s spirit. The football-shaped stone was large enough to fit perfectly in the palm of Kerrigan’s hand and would be easy to hold while collecting the scattered pieces of Cecilie’s essence. With everything she asked for, Kerrigan didn’t really have an excuse not to go ahead.
“In three days when the moon is full.”
“Bonne chasse, mem’sell. I am counting on your discretion.”
If the potion was real and the recipe written in the spellbook was legible, Kerrigan was certain Etienne would attempt to kill her as his maker had done to the creator of the potion.
Which was why she’d gone to Rowena before signing Etienne’s NDA and told her things might get dicey with Etienne after she finished contacting Cecilie.
Practical as the day was long, Rowena’s response still had the power to put a smile on Kerrigan’s face.
“Things will not get dicey so long as he doesn’t put us in a position to show him how ruthless we can be. Move that money into a secure account just in case he makes a play to get it back.”
With the money moved into an offshore account, Kerrigan’s first order of business was to go on a little shopping spree. The second was to buy the land around the house Uriah had been building for her from Rowena.
A few months ago, Uriah went out to survey the plot, helped her pick out the perfect spot for what she had in mind, and his crew went to work. In the span of a week, they’d cleared the space, dug a basement, and poured a concrete foundation.
The following week, they’d started building. At the pace the work crew was going, Kerrigan was confident she’d have a completely finished house by the end of the month. It wouldn’t be huge or fancy, but i
t would be hers and hers alone.
Kerrigan already had three pieces of Cecilie’s spirit captured inside the sapphire, and things were going well, which meant something had to go wrong to keep the balance.
CHAPTER TWO
It happened as she was walking down Main Street with Astrid, her hands full of shopping bags after having gone a little overboard on supplies for Ivy’s upcoming wedding. Astrid was complaining about what a hassle it was trying to plan a wedding when the groom wouldn’t give any input other than to say, ‘whatever Ivy wants.’
Kerrigan thought it was a good problem to have, and unbidden, thought of Maksim.
As attentive as he’d been, Kerrigan could imagine commenting on the wedding of her dreams in passing conversation, and waking up one day to find Maksim had taken care of everything, the entire event planned down to the last place setting, exactly as she’d envisioned.
The wind blew a lock of hair across her face, and Kerrigan turned to get it out of her mouth. She saw him across the street, standing there in broad daylight, watching her with a soft, familiar smile on his face.
His gorgeous lips shaped a single word, and she wouldn't realize until much later, he'd said, "Orpheus."
He looked exactly as she remembered the last time they’d been together. She felt the surge of blood as it rushed from her face to her legs, the bags she carried fell from her nerveless fingers, and Astrid was at her side in a flash, demanding to know what was wrong.
Kerrigan blinked, and he was gone. “Noth-nothing. It’s nothing. I just thought—”
Astrid gripped her arm tight enough to get her attention, snapping Kerrigan out of her daze. “It’s not nothing. Talk to me.”
Tears trembled on her lashes as she shook her head, searching up and down the street for one more glimpse, one more smile.
“Ever since I told you and the others about Maksim, I’m seeing him everywhere. I’m dreaming about him almost every night, and the client I took a few weeks ago was a vampire. I don’t know how he got them—he said they were a gift—but he had on the tie bar and cuff links I gave Maksim on our last birthday together. Maksim told me they were a priceless treasure; he would never have given them away.”
