Shadows: A Bayou Magic Novel

by Kristen Proby

  I do as he asks and glance back to see the writing still there. Cash gets the door open and rushes in.

  “Why did you scream?”

  “I screamed?”

  “A blood-curdling one.”

  I simply point to the mirror. “He’s still here, Cash.”

  “He wrote that?”

  I don’t have time to speak before another word is written on the glass.

  Yes.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “I can’t stand a bitchy chick.”

  - Gerald Stano

  Burn it all down?

  If he could hit her, Brielle would be lying in her own blood right now.

  The rage is all-encompassing but stronger than it ever was when he was still alive. The emotions in the afterlife are intense.

  Brielle, one of only three people he’s loved his whole life, just said that she’d like to burn down everything he worked for. And her sisters didn’t stand up for him. They didn’t even bat an eye!

  How could they? How dare they? Don’t they know how hard he worked, day in and day out, to make something beautiful for them? It’s clear they’re nothing but three entitled, spoiled, horrible girls. He needs to teach them a lesson.

  He won’t be making anything wonderful for them anymore. No, that time has passed. They’ve ruined that with their ugliness.

  Instead, he’s going to punish them in ways they never imagined. The ways he killed his toys will pale in comparison to what he has planned for his daughters.

  He didn’t raise them to be this way, did he?

  If Ruth had given him the chance to discipline them more, maybe things would be different. Perhaps he would have had an opportunity to make it good for his girls.

  But, no. She taunted him with them. Though that’s what women do, isn’t it? They tease, and they condemn, and they open their legs to get satisfied, and then they flick you off like an annoying fly.

  Ruth.

  Maybe he should make a trip to her house to punish her, as well. She deserves it.

  They all do.

  He wandered away from the girls after Brielle talked about burning his things. Not just his things, their things. Everything he did, he did for them.

  But now that it’s theirs, they don’t want it.

  He was so blinded by rage, he was able to spill the tea, but that wasn’t nearly satisfying enough.

  He wishes he were at full strength so he could take care of matters correctly.

  But he’s getting there.

  He spilled the tea.

  He moved the necklace several times.

  And, tonight, he ran his fingers through Brielle’s glorious hair. It calmed him for a moment until she started speaking about him again.

  He was wrong.

  She doesn’t love him.

  And now she’s in the shower. He can see her naked body, the way the water runs over her breasts and her tight nipples. She washes herself—down there—and he feels himself harden, even though he no longer has a physical body.

  How?

  How can he get sexually excited after death?

  It makes no sense.

  Once she gets out of the shower, he sets the necklace on the sink and laughs when she spies it and frowns in confusion.

  That’s right, little girl. I’m playing with you.

  She mumbles to herself.

  He wants her attention so badly, needs to make her understand that he isn’t gone.

  He focuses on the mirror and, with a great deal of effort, writes a message on the glass.

  He’s even able to reply to a question.

  But the effort is too much for him, it drains him, and he fades away.

  He needs to regroup and grow stronger so he can use his power when he needs it the most.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Cash

  “I’ll call Asher.” I reach for my phone, but Brielle lays her hand on my arm, stopping me.

  “I told you before, this isn’t something you can kill with a gun. I’m afraid the police can’t help us with this.”

  I’ve never felt so helpless in all my life. Even the Carlson case didn’t frustrate me like this.

  “What can help us, then?”

  She bites her lip, fiddling with the stone around her neck. Finally, she moves past me and into her bedroom, where she simultaneously drops the towel and reaches for her phone.

  “I have to call my sisters,” she says, absently dialing a number and pressing her cell to her ear as she reaches for clothes to toss on. “He’s still here. Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it, but I’m scared, Mill. We have to figure out how to get rid of this bastard for good. Uh-huh. Okay.”

  She hangs up and tosses the phone on the bed.

  “What did she say?”

  “She’s calling Miss Sophia, and then she’ll call me back. I’m going to call Daphne in just a sec.”

  I quirk my brow as she launches herself into my arms and clings to me, her nose pressed to my chest.

  “Hey, it’s okay, darlin’.”

  “No, it’s not.” She tightens her grasp. “But it will be. And I have a feeling the next few days are going to get scarier, and maybe super weird. So, I want to take a second to say thank you. Thank you for not running away, and for being a rock in the middle of all this chaos.”

  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” I kiss her hair, breathing her in. “We’re going to get rid of this asshole, once and for all.”

  “You’re right.” She smiles up at me, just as her phone lights up. “I have to take that. But when this is all over, again, I want to curl up in bed with you for a few days without leaving it. I want to snuggle and watch bad movies and eat junk food.”

  “Can we be naked?”

  “Sure,” she says with a laugh.

  “And why do they have to be bad movies? Let’s watch good ones.”

  She laughs in earnest, holding her phone in her palm. “Deal. Good movies and nakedness. Any other requests?”

  “As long as you’re there with me, I’m good to go.”

  She winks at me as she answers the phone and presses it to her ear. “Yes. Oh, that’s so nice of her. Okay. Did you call Daph? Awesome, we’ll meet you there in thirty. Thanks. Love you, too.”

  She hangs up and turns to me.

  “Millie talked to Miss Sophia, and she wants all of us to come to her house right away. This is good news, Cash. She’s powerful and knows so much. She can help.”

  “Are you sure you want me there?”

  She grabs my hand and presses it to her face. “Yes. I want you with me.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  The drive to Miss Sophia’s takes longer than the drive to the women’s mother’s house. Miss Sophia lives even deeper in the bayou. Her cabin is warm, even from the outside and in the dark. Smoke billows from a chimney. Plants and flowers line the porch, hang in boxes under the windows, and cover every available surface.

  It looks like something out of a fairy tale.

  But Miss Sophia is the good witch, not the one that eats little children.

  “Come in,” the woman says from the doorway, ushering us in. “Your sisters are already here. I also called in some help.”

  I feel my eyes widen in surprise when we cross the threshold. The house doesn’t look big enough from the outside to hold this many people.

  I recognize Mallory. The rest are strangers to me.

  “This is my granddaughter,” Sophia says, gesturing to a beautiful, blond woman sitting at an old, wooden dining room table. “Lena, this is—”

  “Cash,” Lena finishes for her with a smile.

  “Are you psychic, too?”

  “Absolutely,” she says, her pretty smile widening. “But also, Mallory and Grandmama have told me about you. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  I’m introduced to other men and women of different ages and races, and then I finally sit by Daphne and let out a sigh.

  “It’s a l
ot to take in,” Daphne says with a nod.

  “Am I sitting in the middle of a coven?”

  Daphne grins. “Several, actually. Don’t look so surprised. This is Louisiana. There are a lot of people here.”

  “And a lot of witches, apparently.”

  “That, too,” she agrees. “Millie’s over there with a woman named Harmony, still poring through our grandmother’s book.”

  “Why is it taking so long?”

  “Because a good chunk of it is written in languages we don’t understand,” Daphne explains. “But Harmony does, so she’s helping Millie.”

  “Who’s the guy on the opposite side of the table? He looks…angry.”

  “That’s Lucien. He’s not angry, he’s brooding. He’s a brilliant warlock. He’s only thirty-five but has the wisdom of an old man who’s been studying his whole life. Magic comes naturally to him, but then again, it should. His family has been in the lifestyle for hundreds of years.”

  “Interesting.” I watch as Lucien glances up from the book in front of him and takes a couple of seconds to study Millie, and then, as if he catches himself, he looks back down at the pages on the table. “He has a thing for Millie.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Daphne agrees, nodding. “He’s for her. She won’t admit it, though.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we tend to be stubborn women.”

  I chuckle and shrug a shoulder. “I will admit to no such thing.”

  “Smart man.” She laughs as she watches her sister and Lucien. “They’ll figure it out when the time is right.”

  “Now you sound like your sister.”

  “What a lovely compliment.” She pats my arm. “I like you, Cash. And I like you even better for my sister. Speaking of which, I’d better see what she and Miss Sophia have cooking over there.”

  She stands and leaves me, and I watch her cross the room to Brielle and Miss Sophia. They’re not just cooking up ideas, they’re literally cooking in the kitchen.

  I glance around the room again and realize that I don’t have anything to offer these people in way of help. At least, not right now.

  And I’m antsy.

  And more than a little angry.

  It’s in my nature—and training—to investigate. So, that’s what I’ll do.

  “Brielle,” I say as I approach her. “I’m going to call Andy and see if he can go over the crime scene with me tonight.”

  “Tonight?” She turns and stares up at me as if I’m nuts. In fact, the whole room has gone quiet. “But it’s almost midnight. It’s dark.”

  “Andy will be with me,” I remind her. “No one is there, Brielle. Aside from some wildlife, there’s nothing there that can harm us.”

  “But, I—”

  “Let him go,” Miss Sophia says, watching me. “But please, take these. And ask your brother to drink his. It’ll protect you both.”

  She passes me two bottles, cold from the fridge. I don’t even ask what’s in them.

  I’ve learned to just do as asked without asking questions. And, most of the time, it’s delicious anyway.

  “Please be careful.” Brielle clings to me. “Be very careful.”

  “We’ll be back here before you know it.” I kiss her hair. “I have to do something while y’all work. I have to work.”

  “I know.” She smiles bravely. “It’s fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “You’ll be safe,” Sophia assures us all. “Please return here when you’re done. And bring Andy with you. I’ll cleanse you both.”

  Once again, I don’t ask questions. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What in the hell are we doing out here in the dark?” Andy demands as we get out of our cars and meet at the porch. The light is on. The last investigators out here must have left it on.

  “I want to do some digging,” I reply simply. “And I didn’t want to do it by myself.”

  “It’s creepy as fuck out here,” my brother grumbles as I slice through the police tape over the front entrance with my pocketknife and open the door. I flick on the lights inside.

  “You’ve seen way creepier than this,” I assure him as we slip inside, and I shut the door behind us.

  “Uh, I don’t think so. I don’t spend much time in the bayou. Especially at night.”

  “So, the bastard’s dead, but he’s not gone.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means his spirit is still dicking with my girl, and it’s pissing me the hell off. Brielle and her sisters are currently with the rest of their witchy friends, trying to find an answer to the billion-dollar question of how to get him gone for good.”

  “And you decided to bring me out here.”

  “I wanted to look around, yes. Maybe there’s something here the investigators missed.”

  “It looks like they took everything,” Andy says, looking around the small cabin. He’s right, it doesn’t look anything like it did last week when we were here. Even the furniture is gone, most likely taken into evidence.

  We walk the space, using the flashlights on our phones to light up the areas under the sinks, and in the cabinets.

  “Damn it, my phone died,” Andy says with a scowl. “I had a full battery when I got here.”

  “Odd,” I murmur, checking my phone. I’m down to ten percent.

  I also arrived with a full battery.

  I turn the flashlight off to save power.

  “Come on. This is the really fucked-up room.” I lead Andy to the back of the house, where Horace used to hold the girls.

  I flick on the lights.

  “Jesus Christ,” my brother breathes as he walks in behind me.

  “They took the beds.” I gesture to the wall opposite us. “There were three toddler-sized beds there where he tied them up. Over there was the workbench and all of his tools, and in that corner was an electric chair.”

  “The blood on the floor,” he whispers. “Jesus, Cash, there must be gallons.”

  I nod, taking it all in. I don’t know why we’re here. I don’t know what I expect to find. The police took everything to test for blood and other bodily fluids, and to discover hairs…anything.

  “The smell is still rank,” I say as we pace the space. “I would think that after they took out the girls and all of his tools, the smell would lessen.”

  “It should,” Andy agrees, then stops and sets his hands on his hips.

  I walk toward him, and then he holds his hand up. “Stop.”

  “What?”

  “Walk that path again.”

  I do as he asks, and when I turn around, I see him eyeing the floor.

  “Do it again.”

  I walk back and forth several times.

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s not what I see, it’s what I hear. I think there’s something under us.”

  The hair stands up on the back of my neck. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  We walk to the door that leads out of the room then out to a tall deck that hovers over the swamp.

  “It’s water,” I point out when I turn on my flashlight and shine it on the swamp below. “No door to a basement. I don’t think there could be a basement.”

  “I’m telling you, it sounded hollow in one spot when you walked over it.”

  “This is an old house,” I remind him as we go back inside. “It’s bound to sound weird. Make odd noises.”

  He shakes his head and walks back and forth. He’s pushing against one board with his toe when, suddenly, the board pops up as if it’s loose.

  “Bingo,” Andy says triumphantly.

  We pry the board out and reveal a trap door. It fits so seamlessly into the floor of the room that there’s no way anyone would know it’s there unless they put it there.

  “Do you have enough battery in your phone for this?” Andy asks me.

  “I hope so, because I’m not going down there in the dark,” I reply, just before we
pull up the door, revealing a ladder that descends into a deep, wide room.

  “There’s a switch.” He flips it, and lights come on below. “Cash.”

  “I see it.”

  “My God.”

  We’re both lying on our stomachs, staring into the room below.

  “It has to be lined with iron or something strong that keeps the water out,” I murmur. “And I’d love to know how he got all of those freezers down there.”

  “Dozens of them,” Andy says then looks up at me. “You get zero guesses as to what’s in them.”

  “Looks like we’re going down.”

  I put my phone in my pocket and head down first. The ladder is sturdy, not creaking in the least as we make our descent.

  The freezers run along the perimeter of the room, side by side, on all four walls.

  I haven’t even thought about what could possibly be in the cupboards above the freezers.

  Once Andy’s beside me, I flex my hand and then reach out for a handle.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Bodies? Yes, but cut up into parts in this one. It looks like this is a freezer full of hands. The next one is legs. And then heads.

  Dozens of heads, staring forward but missing their eyes.

  In one massive chest freezer, we find three intact stacked bodies.

  “Cupboards,” Andy says with a grim sigh. “The smell is worse.”

  “You open it.”

  He shakes his head but does as I ask.

  Jars of hearts. At least, that’s what they look like. One cupboard has nothing but intestines.

  Not in jars.

  Another cabinet has rows and rows of containers of blood.

  “It looks like when someone’s mom cans tomatoes to get through the winter,” Andy says. “Blood-style. Was he a fucking vampire?”

  “No, he was collecting the blood for Millie. At least, that’s what he said in his diary.”

  “Sick fuck.”

  I open another cabinet, but there are no body parts. There’s nothing but a huge, black book.

  I take it off the shelf and pass it to Andy.

  “Don’t open that. I don’t know what’s in it, or if it’s spelled. I’m going to take it back to Brielle and Miss Sophia. Maybe it’s something they can use.”