by Jane Godman
Declan’s newly replaced sconces burst, sending flames licking across the walls. Smoke thick and acrid burned her nose and her lungs. Dry coughs rattled in her chest. Tears sprang to her eyes. She tugged the collar of her T-shirt over her nose and crouched to the floor.
She had to get out, now. Crawling toward the stairs as quickly as she could on all fours, she was knocked sideways as Miller raced past. He vanished into the cloud of thick gray smoke. Carly crawled forward. Fiery heat singed her skin, sheened her body with sweat.
She had to hurry, or she was going to die in here.
Her pounding heart reverberated through her body, but she forced herself to go on.
A loud howl rose up over the thundering flames. Carly looked up in time to see Miller tumbling headfirst down the stairs.
Fear grabbed her throat and squeezed. Had he fallen, lost his footing in the fire and smoke? Or had something pushed him like she’d been pushed at The Devil’s Eye? She didn’t have time to find out.
She followed Miller, sliding down the stairs on her backside while crouching to stay as close to the floor as she could manage. Flames raced along the banister’s handrail, blackened the ancient wallpaper. At the bottom of the stairs, she found Miller sprawled across the floor on his back, eyes wide and glazed.
Get out! Get out! Get out! Before she wound up the same way. The door was just a few feet from the stairs. Instead of running for it, she froze, her gaze locked on the mirror mounted on the wall opposite the stairs. Reflected in the glass, the burned woman stood in the hall like an avenging angel. She brushed her hand along the wall. Flames trailed from her touch, eating the dried wallpaper like a ravenous parasite. Her eyes met Carly’s bright and clear against her charred flesh.
Everything inside Carly loosened, and a single word filled her head like a scream: Run!
* * *
“You made the right choice,” Warlow said, as Declan pulled on the robe over his clothes. “It can be difficult the first time. But it will get easier.”
The hell it would. Declan stiffened, fists tightening at his sides. Let the bastard think he’s won. Declan just needed the right moment.
“This,” Warlow said, lifting a narrow box, the wood varnished to shine, from the long grass, “is the dagger you will use.” He opened the lid, and nestled on a bed of red satin was a wicked-looking knife. The ivory handle had been carved with swirling Celtic designs. The blade was long, curved and gleaming.
Everything inside him recoiled at the sight of it. “Me?”
Warlow smirked. “Stonecliff is yours. The Devil’s Eye is yours, so it is your duty to present the harvest. Now, help Mr. Leonard prepare.”
“C’mon.” Leonard waved him over to Andy, still crouched on the grass.
Andy’s eyes had cleared considerably since Declan first arrived, his gaze fixed on him as he approached.
“You have to stop this, Declan. Whatever is going to happen you have to stop it,” Andy said, as he drew closer. His body shook and his voice rose with wild desperation. Declan’s insides squeezed.
“You hold him down, while I get his clothes off,” Leonard told him.
“Um…why?”
“He must go to The Devil’s Eye as he was born,” Warlow said. He held a length of wire, stretching it to test its strength.
“This is bullshit,” Declan growled, and he turned to Leonard. “Why are you listening to him? He’s nuts. He’s making it up as he goes along.”
“No one knows the secrets of The Devil’s Eye like I do. Haven’t you guessed who I am?” Warlow asked, drawing Declan’s attention back to him. He smiled, wide and toothy like a shark. “I’m Jonas Worthing.”
“Now I know you’re full of crap. Jonas Worthing died. I traced his records.”
“I didn’t die. My daughter attempted to burn me in my own house and failed. She was caught in her own scheme, but I escaped.”
If the man was telling the truth, Alaina Worthing was the burned woman haunting the halls of Stonecliff. But Warlow and Worthing couldn’t be the same man. The math simply didn’t add up. “You would be ninety years old.”
“I gave my own son to The Devil’s Eye, and I shall live forever.”
Declan didn’t bother to argue further; the man was either delusional or a liar, but whichever the case, Declan was getting out of there.
He snatched up the wooden knife box Warlow had left forgotten in the grass. Gripping the smooth wood with both hands, he swung wide. The edge of the box caught Leonard in the side of the head. The man yelped and tipped sideways, a deep gash splitting his scalp.
Warlow growled and stormed toward him, eyes brilliant and fevered. “That’s the last mistake you’ll make.”
Before the butler reached him, Declan winged the box into the bog. The gleaming wood bobbed on the slick surface for a moment before tipping sideways and starting to sink.
“No!” Warlow howled, ripping off his robe and wading into the black waters, Declan and Andy momentarily forgotten.
“We have to go.” Declan grabbed Andy’s arm and yanked him to his feet. He ran as fast as he could, half dragging Andy up the path back to Stonecliff.
“I can’t keep up,” Andy said, panting.
“You have to,” Declan told him. “We have to find Carly then get out of here.”
Andy stumbled and fell on the leaves scattered over the forest. Declan grabbed his arm and pulled him up.
“I can’t,” Andy whispered. “I’m too dizzy.”
“Just keep going. We’re almost there.”
And they were running again. Declan held on to Andy’s arm while he stumbled along the path, then burst from the tress into the courtyard.
“Oh, God, no.” Mind-numbing fear nearly dropped Declan to his knees. He stopped running, the rubber soles of his sneakers slipping on the gravel. Stonecliff stood before them, smoke streaming from the roof. Flames licked from broken windows as if hell had exploded inside.
“Carly,” he murmured, his chest squeezing. She couldn’t be in there. She couldn’t be. His feet carried him forward, the single impulse to find her, to get her out driving him on.
The door swung wide and Carly came tearing out, throwing herself into Declan’s arms with a sob. Relief turned everything inside soft. He held her tight and staggered to pull her away from the heat radiating from the huge building.
“No!” The keening wail rose up behind him. Declan turned, Carly still wrapped tight in his arms. Warlow stood behind him, clothes soaked, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, his gaze wild and fixed on the flames consuming Stonecliff. He didn’t so much as glance at Declan as he staggered forward.
“Stop it. Have to stop it. Have to.” He reeled forward through the open door and into the flame-engulfed foyer.
Then the door slammed shut and the house swallowed him.
* * *
Carly woke slowly, a dull pounding beating in her forehead, her throat scratchy. Her eyes fluttered open, gaze fixing on an unfamiliar ceiling. Where was she?
Yesterday’s events washed over he like a wave. Miller. Warlow. The fire. The burned woman. Her insides trembled. She still could barely wrap her head around everything that had happened.
After Warlow had gone inside Stonecliff, Declan had called for help from Miller’s car—he’d left his jacket with Carly’s phone in the pocket on his passenger seat. The fire brigade had arrived with paramedics. She’d been treated for mild smoke inhalation, but she’d been fine. Andy, badly beaten and drugged with God only knew what had been taken to the hospital to be examined properly and kept for observation. Once she and Declan had finished answering the endless questions from the police, they found a hotel in Benllech, about fifteen minutes from Cragera Bay, and practically fell into bed.
Stonecliff had burned nearly to the ground before the fire brigade finally managed to control the blaze. There’d been barely anything more than foundation remaining. Would the forest one day swallow it the way it had the Worthing home, or would the wind and salt
spray off the sea erode it to nothing? The thought of Stonecliff vanishing was strangely comforting. Not surprising, really, when she took into consideration all that she could have lost. The fear that Warlow would kill Declan at The Devil’s Eye like he had so many men before was still fresh inside her.
Her hand slipped out from under the blankets, searching for the warmth of Declan’s body, for reassurance that he was alive and safe next to her. She’d drifted off to sleep with his solid chest pressed to her back, his arm holding her tight against him. Relief that he was with her, that they were both safe had mingled with frightening images of how it all could have gone so wrong.
Her questing fingers found only cold, empty sheets.
Panic surged inside her. She imagined Hugh Warlow sneaking into their hotel room and snatching Declan away while she slept. It was impossible, of course. Hugh Warlow was dead. Burned to death in Stonecliff.
A fact confirmed by Reece. Whatever force at Stonecliff that had kept the men Warlow sacrificed tied to the estate, also kept Hugh Warlow earthbound.
Reece and Brynn had arrived as the fire brigade managed to bring what was left of the house under control, Eleri and Kyle with them. Brynn’s attempt to keep her sister from returning to Cragera Bay had clearly failed.
Carly sat up in the bed, her gaze darting from one end of the bland hotel room to the other, falling on Declan perched on a chair near the window, his distant gaze fixed on something through the glass. Every muscle in her body turned to rubber and she collapsed back onto the mattress.
Would she always feel like this—like she’d narrowly missed some terrible accident—every time Declan left her sight?
She better pull it together because he’d be leaving soon, and she’d never see him again. Her throat shrank, a painful lump lodging inside.
If yesterday had taught her anything, she couldn’t let him go.
The mattress dipped next to her. Declan sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. “Hey.”
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Just after ten.” Gently, he brushed back her hair from her forehead. Her heart swelled in her chest. Nope, she couldn’t let him go. She’d been crazy to think she could.
Of course, she’d flat out turned him down. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe he wouldn’t want her with him, after all. Her pulse fluttered in her throat.
“Did you get any sleep at all?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’ve only been up for about an hour. I have a lot to think about.”
The weightiness of his tone left her uneasy. She sat up in the bed they’d shared. Her hands itched to touch him, to run over his skin and feel his body, to press against his chest and feel his heart thud beneath her palm. To reassure herself that he was really there and safe and not some wisp of her imagination or wishful thinking.
“I was so scared when I realized Warlow had taken you to The Devil’s Eye. If he’d killed you—” Her voice caught, eyes growing hot.
Declan cupped her face and brushed a kiss over her mouth. “I knew I would get away from him. I had to get to you.”
Warmth welled in her chest. Maybe there was hope that they could be together yet. Still, she couldn’t quite work up the nerve to ask him, to tell him how she felt.
“Why did Warlow do it, murder all those men?”
“I think he believed giving The Devil’s Eye human life would give him power, and the people who followed him believed it, too. That somehow the men they killed were bringing good fortune to the village. He claimed to be Jonas Worthing.”
“That’s impossible, isn’t it? How old would Jonas Worthing be if he were still alive?”
Declan shot her a pointed look. “Ninety.”
“Granted, no one seems to know how old Warlow was, but I don’t believe for a second he was ninety.”
“He claimed that he’d killed his son in The Devil’s Eye, and so he’d live forever.”
A chill whispered through her. “Reece says he’s seen the ghost of a child at Stonecliff.”
“That doesn’t mean he was Jonas Worthing’s. I found a record of the man’s death, and all accounts of his son’s death describe him as an infant, not a child. If I were to guess, I’d say he could have been a descendent of Worthing’s. He found the man’s journals and either deluded himself into believing he was Worthing or lied about it to impress his followers.”
She supposed that made more sense than that a ninety-year-old man had nearly killed them both yesterday—granted, not without help. Detective Miller was dead and Sean Leonard arrested. Leonard’s mother and wife had denied any knowledge of his involvement in the murders, or Sean’s father before him.
“Do you think there were others following Warlow that we don’t know about? People involved in the conspiracy, if not the killings themselves?” she asked.
“I think there’s a strong probability that there were others, but Warlow was the driving force.”
Still, that didn’t mean someone who’d bought into Warlow’s dogma wouldn’t step up and take the man’s place. The idea turned her cold. “Reece’s uncle told me that the longer The Devil’s Eye goes without a death, the energy will continue to neutralize.”
“Is that what’s happening? Is that why the activity’s increasing?”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t say for sure. Not without further investigation to continue to monitor the phenomena. But I think my research into The Devil’s Eye is done. It’s too dangerous, and the fewer people who know about it, the better.”
He frowned a little, as if something she said didn’t sit well. “I’m sorry all that work you did is going to waste.”
She grinned. “Not everything was a waste. Did you mean it when you asked me to go home with you?” She plucked at a wrinkle in the bedding, nerves leaving her fidgety and unable to sit still.
“I did,” he said, his expression annoyingly inscrutable.
“I want to go with you. I don’t want to lose this, to lose you.” She’d already come too close.
“There’s been a change of plan,” he said.
Her heart squeezed. He’d changed his mind. He’d meant it then, but not now. The back of her nose tickled and her eyes grew hot. “I see.”
“I’m not going back. I’m staying here at Stonecliff.”
She was certain she was gaping, but she couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward. “There is no Stonecliff.”
Unless he planned to camp out in a tent amongst the smoldering ruins.
“There’s Morehead, the lodge.”
“But what about your family, your business?”
He shrugged. “They’re going to have to stand on their own. I can’t keep fixing their problems for them, not now. Jayne and I will either work something out so I can work from here, or I’ll start over again, but I can’t leave you. I love you.”
Warmth expanded in her chest. “I love you, too. I would have gone with you.”
She leaned in to kiss him, but his hands closed around her upper arms, stopping her.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, carefully. “But someone has to keep The Devil’s Eye from falling into the wrong hands again. You said it yourself—there could be other people out there who were involved with Warlow. People willing to start this mess all over again. I have to stay at Stonecliff and you’re right, it could be dangerous there. After everything that’s happened, it would be a lot to ask anyone to stay with all those ghosts—both literal and figurative.”
She shot him a teasing grin. “You should know me better than that. Haunted places don’t bother me at all.”
Epilogue
December
One year later.
A light dusting of snow covered the uneven ground as Declan followed the narrow drive to Stonecliff—or what was left of it. The flurries he’d woken up to had tapered off, but swirling gray clouds over the churning waves hinted there was more to come.
He steered the black Land Rover—he’d bought a new one since the old SUV he’
d inherited died over the summer—between the coach house and Stonecliff’s rubble. It had been more that year since the fire had taken the house, and the memory was as fresh as if it had all happened last week.
He dreamed about it sometimes. The house engulfed in flames, smoke wafting from the roof. The door opens and Carly is about to run out to him, but then it slams shut, trapping her inside. He’d wake up, cold sweat coating his skin, and reach out for Carly on the other side of the bed, relief turning his insides soft when his hand brushed her warm, living skin.
“Hard to believe that’s what’s left,” Reece said, from the passenger seat, facing the blackened, broken stone poking from the snow-covered garden.
Declan had had the debris from the fire carted away, so only the stone foundation remained. Over the summer, as the garden had grown wild and the lawn went uncared for, vegetation slowly overwhelmed what little of the house remained. Soon Stonecliff, for all its enormity, would resemble the Worthing house. A few crumbling walls poking out from the greenery.
The official report for the fire claimed it started from faulty electrical. A bad wire had ignited in the wall, spreading quickly over the aged plaster and dried wood until almost nothing remained. Whatever the official findings were, Declan knew better. Carly had seen the burned woman, after all, the sweep of the phantom’s hand spreading waves of flames over the walls and ceiling until the entire house had glowed like a massive ember.
He didn’t believe that Hugh Warlow and Jonas Worthing were the same man, not really, but if there was any chance that they were, Declan supposed there was a certain irony in the fact that the man had finally been caught in Alaina Worthing’s fire so many years later—if the burned woman was indeed Alaina Worthing. No one had ever seen her again after that night, not him or Reece or anyone else.
Reece believed she’d crossed over.
Declan popped open the car door. “Let’s get this done.”
He climbed out of the SUV, zipped up his coat and bent his head against the icy wind whipping in off the sea. The frigid temperatures fed his growing anxiety. He and Reece made this walk through every few months and he hated every minute of it.