“Yeah.”
“Then trust me. This”—Cait rubbed the chills from her arms—“isn’t right.”
“What’s going on?” Brandon set his large camera crate down next to Anne’s feet as he rejoined them. He and Jamie had gone out to set their DVRs and cameras for the night.
While she and Anne were slight of frame, Brandon and Jamie were well bulked, Brandon more from beer and channel surfing, but Jamie from hours spent in the gym. Even so, with his blond hair and blue eyes, Brandon was good-looking in a Boy Scout kind of way. But Jamie had that whole dark, brooding, sexy scowl thing that made most women melt and giggle whenever he glanced their way.
Anne indicated her with a jerk of her chin. “Wunderkind over there is already picking up something.”
Brandon’s eyes widened. “I hope you mean spiritwise and not some backwoods bug we have no immunity to. I left my vitamin C at home.”
Cait shivered as another wave of trepidation went through her. This one was even stronger than the previous one. “Whose bright idea was this anyway?”
Anne pointed to Brandon, who grinned proudly.
He winked at her. “C’mon, Cait. It’s a ghost town. We don’t get to investigate one of these every day. Surely ye of the unflappable constitution isn’t wigging out like a little girl at a horror movie.”
“Boo!”
Cait shrieked as Jamie grabbed her from behind.
Laughing, he stepped around her, then shrugged his Alienware backpack off his shoulder and set it next to the camera case.
She glared at the walking mountain. “Damn it, Jamie! You’re not funny!”
“No, but you are. I didn’t know you could jump that high. I’m impressed.”
Hissing at him like a feral cat, she flicked her nails in his direction. “If I didn’t think it’d come back on me, I’d hex you.”
He flashed that devilish grin that was flanked by dimples so deep, they cut moons into both of his cheeks. “Ah, baby, you can hex me up any time you want!”
Cait suppressed a need to strangle him. All aggravation aside, a martial arts instructor who was built like Rambo might come in handy one day. And still her Spidey senses tingled, warning her that that day might not be too far in the future.
“We’re not supposed to be here.” She bit her lip as she glanced around, trying to find what had her so rattled.
“No one is,” Brandon said in a spooky tone. “This ground is cursed. Oooo-eeee-oooo …”
She ignored him. But he was right. At one time, Randolph County had been the richest in all of Alabama. Until the locals had forced a Native American business owner to leave her store behind and walk the Trail of Tears.
“Louina …”
Cait jerked around as she heard the faint whisper of the woman’s name; it was the same name as the ghost town they were standing in. Rather cruel to name the town after the woman who’d been run out of it for no real reason.
“Louina,” the voice repeated, even more insistent than before.
“Did you hear that?” she asked the others.
“Hear what?” Jamie checked his DVR. “I’m not picking up anything.”
Something struck her hard in the chest, forcing her to take a step back. Her friends and the forest vanished. She suddenly found herself inside an old trading post. The scent of the pine-board walls and floor mixed with that of spices and flour. But it was the soaps on the counter in front of her that smelled the strongest.
An older Native American woman, who wore her hair braided and coiled around her head, straightened the jars on the countertop while a younger, pregnant woman who had similar features, leaned against the opposite end.
But what shocked Cait was how much she looked like the older woman. Right down to the black hair and high eyebrows.
The younger woman—Elizabeth; Cait didn’t know how she knew that, but she did—reached into one of the glass jars and pulled out a piece of licorice. “They’re going to make you leave, Lou. I overheard them talking about it.”
Louina scoffed at her sister’s warning before she replaced the lid and pulled the jar away from her. “Our people were here long before them, and we’ll be here long after they’re gone. Mark my words, Lizzie.”
Elizabeth swallowed her piece of licorice. “Have you not heard what they’ve done to the Cherokee in Georgia?”
“I heard. But the Cherokee aren’t the Creek. Our nation is strong.”
Elizabeth jerked, then placed her hand over her distended stomach where her baby kicked. “He gets upset every time I think about you being forced to leave.”
“Then don’t think about it. It won’t happen. Not as long as I’ve been here.”
“Cait!”
Cait jumped as Jamie shouted in her face. “W-what?”
“Are you with us? You blanked out for a second.”
Blinking, she shook her head to clear it of the images that had seemed so real that she could taste Elizabeth’s licorice. “Where was that original trading post you guys mentioned being here?”
Brandon shrugged. “No idea. We couldn’t find any information about it, other than it was owned by the Native American woman the town was named for. Why?”
Because she had a bad feeling that they were standing on it. But there was nothing to corroborate that. Nothing other than a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
In fact, there was nothing left of this once-thriving town other than rows of crosses in a forgotten cemetery, and a marker that proclaimed it Louina, Alabama.
That thought had barely finished before she saw Louina again in her mind. She was standing a few feet away, to Cait’s left, with a wagon filled with as much money and supplies as she could carry. Furious, she spat on the ground and then spoke in Creek to the men who’d come to confiscate her home and store, and force her to leave.
Cait knew it was Creek, a language she knew not at all, and yet the words were as clear to her as if they’d been spoken in English.
“I curse this ground and all who dwell here. For what you’ve done to me … for the cruelty you have shown others, no one will make my business prosper, and when my sister passes from this existence to the next, within ten years of that date, there will be nothing left of this town except gravestones.”
The sheriff and his deputies who’d been sent to escort her from her home laughed in her face. “Now, don’t be like that, Louina. This ain’t personal against you.”
“No, but it is personal against you.” She cast a scathing glare at all of them. “No one will remember any of you as ever having breathed, but they will remember my name, Louina, and the atrocity that you have committed against me.”
One of the deputies came from behind the wagon with a stern frown. “Louina? This can’t be all you own.”
A cruel smile twisted her lips. “I couldn’t carry all of my gold.”
That piqued the deputies’ interest.
“Where’d you leave it?” the sheriff asked.
“The safest place I know. In the arms of my beloved husband.”
The sheriff rubbed his thumb along the edge of his lips. “Yeah, but no one knows where you buried him.”
“I know and I won’t forget …” She swept a chilling gaze over all of them. “Anything.” And with that, she climbed onto her wagon and started forward without looking back. But there was no missing the smug satisfaction in her eyes.
She was leaving more than her store behind.
Cait could hear Louina’s malice as if they were her own thoughts. They will tear each other apart, questing for the gold my husband will never release …
It was Louina’s final revenge.
One paid tribute to by the eerie rows of cross-marked graves in the old Liberty Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery.
The weakness of our enemy is our strength.
Make my enemy brave, smart, and strong, so that if defeated, I will not be ashamed.
Cait felt Louina with her like her own shadow. A part of her that she could onl
y see if the light hit it just right.
Louina whispered in her ear, but this time Cait didn’t understand the words. Yet what was unmistakable was the feeling of all-consuming dread that wouldn’t go away, no matter what she tried.
She sighed before she implored her group one more time. “We need to leave.”
All three of them balked.
“We just got the equipment set out.”
“What? Now? We’ve been here all day!”
“Really, Cait? What are you thinking?”
They spoke at once, but each voice was as clear as Louina’s. “We should not be here,” she insisted. “The land itself is telling me that we need to go. Screw the equipment, it’s insured.”
“No!” Brandon adamantly refused.
It was then that she understood why they were being stubborn, when Brandon had spent his entire life saying that if you ran into a malevolent haunting, you abandoned that place because nothing was worth the chance of being possessed.
Only one thing would make him and Jamie forget about their own beliefs.
Greed.
“You’re not here for the ghosts. You’re here for the treasure.”
Jamie and Brandon exchanged a nervous glance.
“She is psychic,” Anne reminded them.
Brandon cursed. “Who told you about the treasure?”
“Louina.”
“Can she tell you where it is?” Jamie asked hopefully.
Cait screwed her face up at him. “Is that really all you’re concerned with?”
“Well … not all. We are here for the science. Natural curiosity being what it is. But let’s face it, the equipment’s not cheap and a little payback wouldn’t be bad.”
His choice of words only worsened her apprehension.
“Can you really not feel the anger here?” She gestured in the direction of the cemetery; that had been the first place they’d set up the equipment and it was there that her bad feelings had started. “It’s so thick, I can smell it.”
“I feel humidity.”
Jamie raised his hand. “Sign me up for hunger.”
“Annoyed,” Brandon chimed in. “Look, it’s for one night. Me and Jamie are going to dowse a little and try to find a place to dig.”
How could he appear so chipper about what they were planning? “You’ll be digging up a grave.”
They froze.
“What?” Brandon asked.
Cait nodded. “The treasure is buried with Louina’s husband, William, who was one of the Creek leaders during the Red Stick War.”
Jamie narrowed his gaze suspiciously. “How do you know all of this?”
“I told you. Louina. She keeps speaking to me.”
Brandon snorted. “I’m laying money on Google. Nice try, C. You probably know where the money is and you’re trying to scare us off. No deal, sister. I want a cut.”
Laughing, Jamie chucked him on the back, then headed to the cooler to grab a beer.
Anne stepped closer to her. “Are you serious about this?”
Cait nodded. “I wish they’d believe me. But yeah. We shouldn’t be here. This land is saturated with malevolence. It’s like a flowing river under the soil.”
And with those words, she lost Anne’s support. “Land can’t be evil or cursed. You know that.” She walked over to the men.
Cait knew better. Part Creek herself, she’d been raised on her mother’s belief that if someone hated enough, they could transfer that hatred into objects and into the soil. Both were like sponges—they could carry hatred for generations.
Louina was out there, and she was angry.
Most of all, she was vengeful.
And she’s coming for us …
Cait felt like a leper as she sat alone by the fire, eating her protein bar. The others were off in the woods, trying to summon the very entity that she knew was with her.
“Louina?” Jamie called, his deep voice resonating through the woods. “If you can hear me, give me a sign.”
While it was a common phrase, for some reason tonight it bothered her. She mocked him silently as she pulled the protein bar’s wrapper down lower.
Suddenly, a scream rang out.
Cait shot to her feet and listened carefully. Who was it, and where were they? Her heart pounded in her ears.
“Brandon!” Anne shouted, her voice echoing through the woods.
Cait ran toward them as fast as she could.
By the time she found them, Brandon was on his back with a twig poking all the way through his arm.
“He said he wanted a cut …”
She jerked around, trying to pinpoint the voice that had spoken loud and clear. “Did you hear that?” she asked the others.
“All I hear is Brandon whining like a bitch. Suck it up already, dude. Damn. You keep that up and I’m buying you a bra.”
“Fuck you!” he snarled at Jamie. “Let me stab you with a stick and see how you feel. You the bitch. Asshole!”
“Boys!” Cait moved to stand between them. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Brandon hissed as Anne tried to see the wound. “I was walking, going over the thermal scan, when all of a sudden I stumbled and fell into a tree. Next thing I knew … this!” He held it up for her to see.
Cringing, Cait averted her eyes from the grisly wound. “We need to get him to the hospital.”
“Not on your life,” Brandon snarled. “I’ll be all right.”
“I take it back. You’re not a bitch. You’re insane. Look at that wound. I hate to agree with Cait, ’cause I doubt there’s a hospital anywhere near here, but you need help.”
“It’s a flesh wound.”
Cait shook her head. “Anne, you should have never let him watch Monty Python.”
“I should have never left him alone to go to the bathroom,” Anne growled at him. “They’re right. You need to see a doctor. You could get rabies or something.”
Yeah, ’cause rabid trees were a huge problem here in Alabama. Cait barely caught herself before she laughed. Anne hated to be laughed at.
“I’m not leaving till I find that treasure!”
Greed, pride, and stupidity. The three most fatal traits any human could possess.
A sudden wind swept around them. This time she wasn’t the only one who heard the laughter it carried.
“What was that?” Jamie asked.
“Louina.”
“Would you stop with that shit?” Brandon snapped through gritted teeth. “You’re really getting on my nerves.”
And they were getting on hers.
Fine. Whatever. She wasn’t going to argue anymore. It was their lives. His wound. Who was she to keep him safe when he obviously had no interest in it?
Arms akimbo, Jamie sighed. “What do you think are the odds that, assuming Cait’s right, and Louina’s husband has the gold in his grave, that it’s in the cemetery? Didn’t most of the Native Americans in this area convert over to Baptist?”
Cait shook her head. “He won’t be there.”
“What makes you say that?”
“If it was that easy to find, it would have been found long ago.”
“Yeah, good point. Square one sucks.” Jamie glanced back at Brandon. “You sure about the doctor?”
“Positive.”
“All right. I’m heading back out. Cait? You coming?”
“You can’t go alone.” She followed as he switched his flashlight on and went back to his EMF detector and air ion counter.
“You want to take this?” He held his full-spectrum camcorder out to her.
“Sure.” She opened it and turned it back on so that she could see the world through the scope of the small screen.
After few minutes, he paused. “Do you really believe any of the bullshit you’ve been spewing?”
“You know me, James. Have I ever spewed bullshit on site?”
“Nah. That’s what has me worried.” He narrowed his gaze at her. “Did I ever tell you that my great-gran
dmother was Cherokee?”
“No, you didn’t.”
He nodded. “She died when I was six, but I still remember her, and something she’d always say keeps echoing in my head.”
“What?”
“‘Listen, or your tongue will keep you deaf.’”
Cait was about to compliment her wisdom when she glanced down at the screen.
Holy Mother …
Gasping, she dropped the camera and jumped back.
“What?” Jamie turned around to see if there was something near.
Terrified and shaking, Cait couldn’t speak. She couldn’t get the image out of her mind. She gestured to the camera.
With a stern frown, Jamie picked it up and ran it back. Even in the darkness, she knew the moment he saw what had stolen her tongue. He turned stark white.
Right before he’d spoken about his Cherokee great-grandmother, a huge … something with fangs had been about to pounce on him. Soulless eyes of black had stared down as its mouth opened to devour him. Then the moment he’d repeated the quote, it had pulled back and vanished.
Eyes wide, he gulped. “We have to leave.”
She nodded, because she still couldn’t speak. Jamie took her arm gently and led her through the woods back to where they’d left Anne and Brandon.
They were already gone. Jamie growled in frustration. “Brandon!” he called out. “Anne?”
Only silence answered them.
“All who dwell here will pay …” Louina’s voice was more insistent now. “But I hurt those I should not have cursed.”
Cait flinched as she saw an image of Elizabeth as an old woman in a stark hand-built cabin. Her gray hair was pulled back into a bun as she lit a candle and placed it in the window while she whispered a Creek prayer.
Oh, Great Father Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind-
Whose breath gives life to all the world and with whom I have tried to walk beside throughout my days.
Hear me. I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the glorious sunset you have provided.
Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice even when it’s nothing more than a faint whisper.
Dangerous Women Page 59