“They’re here to see if they can shed some light on the disappearances,” Ronnie said. Hahn raised an eyebrow, but if he wondered how, exactly, he said nothing. “Can you tell them what you saw the night things happened?”
Hahn cleared his throat. “I’d gone to check on the horses,” he said, and I only realized I’d been expecting an English or Scottish accent when he spoke with a Texas twang. “We bring them in every night, of course. I’d gotten out to the north paddock ahead of the handlers, and while I don’t deal with the horses myself, I’ve got the keys and codes to all the gates.” He jangled a large ring at his belt. “For security reasons, very few people have access.”
“And the horses were fine when you got there,” Teag prompted.
Hahn nodded. “Yes. I’d been nearby all day, overseeing some crews trimming up the cemetery over the rise from there and clearing away brush from the access roads. But I keep an eye on the horses, and on the kennels too. We all do. We’re all rather protective of them.”
I understood. I suspected that everyone who made a career with Harrison Stables cared about the animals—except for, perhaps, the foxes.
“What then?” Teag asked.
“The trailers were due right around dusk. I went down to open the gate for them,” Hahn recalled. “I had a bad feeling, like something was wrong.” He gave a wry smile. “My mother would have said ‘someone walked over your grave.’ So I was antsy, looking around waiting for something to happen.”
We stayed quiet, letting him tell the story at his own pace. “The wind picked up, which was odd because it had been still all day. And then I heard hounds howling nearby, which I knew wasn’t right. The kennels can be noisy, and sometimes the noise carries, but it wouldn’t have sounded that close.”
Hahn looked away as if he expected us to doubt his story. “That’s when I heard hoof beats. I thought maybe something spooked the horses I’d come to get, and they were running toward me. But when I looked out across the pasture, I could see them still toward the middle, and no others in sight.” He paused. “The hoof beats got louder, like a whole herd heading for me, and the wind almost knocked me over. The dogs barked and howled like crazy. I was worried about the horses, that we might be having some kind of freak microburst storm and they’d get hurt.”
“What happened?” Teag asked.
“One minute, the horses were there. And the next—the pasture was empty,” Hahn said, leveling a look at us that dared us to contradict him.
“Just, gone?” Valerie asked.
Hahn nodded. “I couldn’t believe it, either. The wind died down, and so did the barking. I ran out across the pasture. I thought maybe that the horses had been knocked over, or lay down to get out of the wind. But they weren’t there. The hoof prints stopped, and there weren’t any more. Just gone.”
“Do you have any theories?” I asked.
Hahn hesitated and then shook his head. “No. But I can tell you nothing normal took those horses—or the dogs.”
“The kennel master tells a similar story,” Ronnie said. “The dogs started barking like they’d lost their minds, and when he went back to check on them, some of the hounds were missing, even though the lock was in place, the fencing hadn’t been tampered with, and he and his staff had been there all night.”
“We definitely need to see that pasture,” Teag said.
“I’ve got a truck ready for you, Mr. Harrison,” Hahn said. “I’ll meet you out at the north paddock.” He looked relieved, I thought, to have the storytelling over with.
I nodded toward the shotgun he carried. “What’s that for?”
Hahn shrugged. “Coyotes, mostly. Raccoons, sometimes. They make a mess of things. And groundhogs.”
“Groundhogs?” Teag asked. I was puzzled, too. They didn’t strike me as much of a menace.
“They’re the worst,” Hahn said. “Burrow under the ground, and then a horse puts his foot down, and the surface collapses, and you’ve got a broken leg.”
I could understand how, at a horse farm that would make groundhogs into Public Enemy Number One.
We got into the truck with Ronnie, and Hahn waved us off. I sat up front with Ronnie, while Valerie and Teag climbed in the back. I looked over at Ronnie. “Do you believe Hahn, about the horses?”
He nodded. “I believe it’s what he saw, or what he can remember,” Ronnie said. “But there’s got to be something else because horses don’t vanish into thin air.”
The north paddock was a distance from where we’d come in. Flat pastures stretched out in all directions, with neat, white wooden fences dividing them into sections. Feed bins and watering troughs awaited the next horses to enjoy an outing. Teag and I scanned the horizon. We were miles from nowhere, on roads that only ran within the farm, far from public thoroughfares. It shouldn’t have been possible for anyone to be able to spirit off three huge horses without a trailer or, hell, a military helicopter.
Ronnie parked on the road, and we climbed the steel tube gate, leaving it locked. I bent to examine the fastening. No scratches or signs of forced entry, or of a recent lock replacement. I looked down along the fence line, and the wood appeared sturdy and undamaged.
“Over here.” We followed Ronnie as he strode toward the center of the paddock. Ronnie wore the same high Wellington boots as Hahn, but the rest of us picked our way carefully, mindful of the piles of horse manure.
“According to Hahn, the horses were right in this area,” Ronnie said, coming to a stop about two-thirds of the way across the paddock. “And he was back by the gate.”
I looked toward where we left the truck and wondered when Hahn would join us. The distance between where we stood and where we parked wasn’t terribly far; certainly close enough for someone on the road to have a clear view of horses standing where we were. Behind the road rose a slight ridge with a few trees on top, and I thought I made out the edge of an old cast iron fence.
“Is that a cemetery up there?” I pointed.
“Yes, but not for people,” Ronnie replied. “Ian Harrison, my great, great-grandfather buried his hunting dogs up there. He was quite fond of his dogs, and said they’d like a nice view of the paddocks, so they could stay close to the horses and hear the wind in the trees. So that’s where generations of Harrison hounds have their final resting place. The kennel is about half a mile off to the left,” he added, pointing.
The day had grown gloomy, with clouds dimming the light, making it seem much later than it was. It felt colder than when we left the clubhouse, and I looked around at the pasture, alert for trouble, and saw nothing. Teag also had tensed, and I saw him scan for danger, then return his attention, scowling as if he had missed something.
“There isn’t much to get a reading from,” I said, looking at the ground around our feet. “I usually get a clearer image from an object, but I’ll try.” I’d picked up on resonance from the ground before, but that was most likely to happen when something truly terrible had occurred in a location, like a murder or a catastrophic accident. Still, Ronnie and Hahn seemed so worried about their horses and dogs; I had to make an effort.
“You haven’t found any strange pieces of cloth around, have you?” Teag asked. Both Valerie and Ronnie looked perplexed.
“No. Why?”
Teag shook his head. “We’ve had some unusual things happen lately in Charleston, and then found odd bits of fabric nearby afterward that shouldn’t have been there. Don’t know what it means, but thought it might be part of a pattern.”
“Sorry, no,” Ronnie repeated. “My people would have brought something like that to me immediately, because it would suggest there’d been trespassers. And with the disappearances, everyone’s been on edge. We wouldn’t take unauthorized visitors lightly at any time, for the safety of the animals, but now, our security guards are armed.”
I tuned out their conversation, and focused on my gift, concentrating on the ground around me. I walked slowly, moving back and forth across the area until something ping
ed my inner sight. When I felt the tug at my energy, I closed my eyes and gave it my full attention.
Fear, primal and panicked, shot through me. I felt my heartbeat spike and my breathing speed up. I saw the wind whip through the grass, raising dust. Dogs barked, warning of intruders. Then I caught a glimpse of something I couldn’t completely process. A dark, fleeting shadow barreled right at me, and I felt as if I stood in front of a stampede. Nothing could withstand its power, dark and ancient, and while part of my hindbrain rightly feared this energy, another part wanted to be swept away in its wake.
As quickly as it came, the vision vanished, and I realized I was shivering. The temperature had plummeted, and my breath misted, although the day hadn’t started out nearly that cold.
“Did you see anything?” Teag asked, stressed enough that I knew he was still on guard.
“Yeah, but let’s get out of here. I’ll tell you all about it back at the clubhouse.” Instinct told me we needed to get the hell out of there.
We headed back to the road, going through the fence gate a short distance from Ronnie’s truck. I heard a low growl, and then the wind carried the smell of rotting flesh. Teag and I moved in front of Ronnie and Valerie as a dozen nightmarish hounds came over the hill. Their howl sent a chill down my back, and for a moment I thought we might be facing zombies. Then I realized that I could see through their ghastly, emaciated bodies. The ghost hounds’ skin sank between their ribs and pulled tight across their skulls. Eyeless skulls turned toward us, fixing us by scent, or maybe our heartbeats.
The ghost dogs came at us in a gray horde, rushing down the hillside from the cemetery, heading straight for us. I let my athame drop down into my hand, and sent a blast of force, scattering the hounds, but only for a moment. Teag snapped his silver whip, but iron worked better against ghosts, and the specters barely slowed.
“Oh. My. God,” Valerie gasped, her voice trembling. “Those are ghosts. Real ghosts.”
“What the hell is going on?” Ronnie demanded, and I figured anger covered his fear. “What are those things?”
“Dangerous,” I replied. “Stay back and let us handle this.”
The ghostly dogs snapped their teeth and lowered their heads, and while I wasn’t sure how solidly they could manifest, I didn’t want to find out close-up. I blasted them again with my athame, and hurled a handful of salt, forcing them to slow their advance. Teag laid down a salt line between them and us, but the revenants were between us and Ronnie’s car, so trapping us in a circle wouldn’t do much good.
The boom of a shotgun made me jump. I heard the slide of the reload, and then another blast, right into the thick of the ghost hound pack. The spirits vanished, leaving behind nothing but a spray of iron buckshot.
Hahn came tromping down from a path near the dog cemetery. He glared at the empty place on the road where the dogs had been, as if to dare them to re-materialize. When they did not, he lowered his shotgun but did not break it over his arm. “Get in the truck,” he ordered, planting himself between us and the cemetery, gun in hand.
Teag and I hustled Ronnie and Valerie into the truck. Valerie looked dangerously pale and her hands trembled. Ronnie had gone gray, but the set of his jaw and the spark in his eyes told me he had channeled the fear into anger at the mistreatment of his precious animals. Hahn jumped into the bed, and we roared out. I kept checking the mirrors, expecting the spectral pack to give chase, but to my relief, the road remained clear.
“What the hell happened back there?” Ronnie demanded. He had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, and from the tension in his jaw and how rigidly he held himself, I suspected he didn’t like not being in control.
“The kind of stuff Cassidy and Teag deal with all the time,” Valerie replied before I had a chance to speak. Her voice quavered a little, but I heard steel beneath the fear.
Ronnie glanced at me. “Really? This is normal for you?”
I grimaced. “I’d say ‘common’ more than ‘normal,’” I replied because being chased by rotting hounds wasn’t really “normal” in anyone’s experience. “And we’ve seen worse.”
“Why did they go away when Hahn shot them? I didn’t think you could hurt a ghost.”
“Iron buckshot,” Teag replied. “Something about iron seems to scramble the ‘signal’ for ghosts. Salt can do it, too, but we didn’t have enough of it.”
“Why did something disturb the dogs?” Ronnie’s anger had begun to fade, and now he seemed genuinely distressed over whatever had interrupted the animals’ final rest.
“I think it’s all connected.” I was hesitant to say too much without having an answer. “The missing horses, the strange noises and odd winds, the vanishing hunting dogs. Some very unusual things are going on—here and in Charleston, maybe elsewhere. We’re trying to put the pieces together to stop whoever’s doing this before it gets even worse.”
“The horses and the dogs—do you think we’ll get them back?”
I could tell from his voice that Ronnie cared about more than the animals’ dollar value. “If we’re lucky,” I replied, although I thought the odds were against it. “We’ll do our best to find them.”
He gave a curt nod, and I figured that he knew their chances were slim. “Thank you.” He paused. “How do we protect the others?”
“I’ve heard that horse folks are superstitious,” I ventured. “Is that true?
Ronnie chuckled. “Oh, yeah. The colors riders wear, how many white ‘stockings’ a horse has, how horses are named…the list of superstitions goes on and on. Why?”
“Because some people might consider the kinds of protections we can put down to be ‘superstitious,’ but they’ve been handed down through generations for a reason. They work,” I replied.
“What kind of things?” he asked, and Valerie leaned forward to hear.
“Tell me, too. Drea and I can use them at the barn to protect the carriage horses,” she said.
“Go buy some big canisters of table salt. Set down a line across the doors to the barn, and across the stall doors,” I said.
“Iron buckshot works on the ghosts, but so do shells filled with rock salt,” Teag added. Normally, he’d have offered to leave behind some spelled cords or pieces of cloth with magic woven into them. But now, with the possibility of a rogue, malicious Weaver witch, calling attention to any link with his magic might increase the risk.
“Silver and agate are protective,” I continued. “Agate is pretty easy to get in bulk, especially if you’ve got a shop nearby that caters to people who make jewelry for a hobby. Those stores sell gemstones by the strand. If you can put some silver and agate on each of the horses, it could help. Might protect the people guarding them, too. And if you can’t put a charm on the dogs’ collars, then at least put something on their kennel.”
Ronnie laughed. “As superstitions go, those are pretty tame. Do you think they’ll help?”
I sighed. “I think that whoever’s behind this is very powerful. But I’ve seen salt and charms stop some very scary things, so while it’s not foolproof, you’d be better off than you are now.”
“We’ll do it,” Ronnie promised. “I’m sure right now my folks will do damn near anything to protect the animals and keep people from getting hurt.”
“Drea and I will make sure we put all that in place back at the barn as well,” Valerie promised. “Thank you both.”
“You’re very welcome,” Teag replied. “And when we stop whoever’s behind this, you’ll be the first to know.”
Chapter Eleven
“Find anything new?” I asked as I came into the shop in the morning. Teag was already at the break room table intent on his laptop, and the smell of fresh coffee wafted to me as soon as I opened the door.
“Actually, yes,” he replied. “I did a little hacking after work last night before Anthony got home, and I found out that Harrison Stables isn’t the only place missing a few horses or hunting dogs under mysterious circumstances. Not only that, but there�
��s been a spike in missing persons’ reports around Charleston in the last month.”
“Oh?” I poured myself a cup and came to sit next to him.
“Yeah. And when I looked at what the victims have in common, they’re all men, all from families of some prominence, and all equestrians—different kinds of riding, but especially fox hunting.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I murmured, and sipped my coffee. “So what’s the link between our Weaver witch and the horse thief? Or between that dark-haired woman and tall man Marcella saw in her vision? I don’t get the connection.”
“Neither do I—yet,” Teag replied, and I could tell from the look on his face that he was taking this whole thing personally because of the Weaver connection. Since Teag had recognized his magic and begun to hone his craft, he’d come to see it as an extension of himself, something almost sacred. Watching someone do harm with that power or use it for the wrong purposes, made him determined to stop them.
“Drea and Valerie put all the protections in place at the carriage horse barn,” I reported. I’d stopped by the night before to check over their preparations. Their barn holds such positive resonance; I didn’t have any trouble using my own mojo to juice up the power of their charms.
“Any word from Sorren?”
I shook my head. “No, and his voicemail must be full from my reports. All I can think of is that he’s onto something, and he’s chasing down his own set of leads.”
Teag leaned back and stretched, yawning wide.
“You look beat.”
He shrugged. “I was up late. Mrs. Teller and Niella and I have been working overtime to weave pieces to replace the cursed fabric Ryan’s been finding, and put some good mojo back in circulation.”
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