Of Ash and Spirit: Piper Lancaster Series

by D. G. Swank

  The sound grew louder and the hair on my arms stood on end, not just from nerves but from an electrical charge. If Helen really was a ghost, then Abel was right about her being more powerful. I hadn’t felt anything like this from Megan.

  “You wish to do me harm,” a voice called out. “You have the power to steal me from my daughter.”

  I did? But if this power was innate, then perhaps I hadn’t been totally faking with my clients after all. What if I’d accidentally sent away spirits that weren’t yet ready to leave? More guilt to deal with later. “No, Helen. I promise to let you be. I only want to ask you questions.”

  “Why?”

  The more I understood ghosts, the better equipped I’d be to deal with them in the future. How could I get her to talk to me? I doubted she would do it out of the kindness of her heart. I could tell her I’d found her daughter, but that seemed cruel. Then I remembered what Abel had said about her being lonely. “Because I think you need a friend.”

  A shimmering haze appeared beneath the bridge, coalescing into a spectral form wearing a long white nightgown. She hung from a rope, her body dangling as though caught in a breeze. Her face was bloated and purple. I squelched a shriek. This was definitely different than my (admittedly limited) experience with the other ghosts, who hadn’t appeared to bear any of the injuries they’d suffered in life. I had no problem admitting she scared me, but I couldn’t let her see that.

  “Why would you want to be my friend?” she asked.

  I took a step closer. “Because I suspect you don’t have many, and I need a friend who understands. Maybe we can help each other.”

  “Kierannnn . . . ,” she squealed and the name bounced off the tunnel walls.

  Abel stepped forward. “Piper means you no harm, Helen. You can trust her. A new friend to visit you when I can’t. And she can see you like I can.”

  “She’s the one?” Helen asked.

  “Yes,” Abel said.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” she said. Then the figure disappeared.

  Was that it? I cast a glance back at Abel, who stood in the middle of the road about ten feet behind me. His face was carefully devoid of expression.

  I felt a presence bearing down on me from behind. I spun around and came face to face with a young woman who was about two feet way.

  I shrieked and took a step back. I instinctively reached for my purse, meaning to grab a bottle of the holy water Jack had given me, but I realized I’d left my purse in Abel’s car.

  The woman gave me a look that said she found me wanting.

  “An important rule in your new profession, Piper,” Abel said. “Avoid turning your back on a spirit, and never turn your back on a demon. If that had been Valvad, you’d be dead.”

  “Valvad?” I asked as I sucked in a lungful of air.

  “The demon,” the woman said.

  “You must be Helen.” I held out my hand toward her. She was still slightly transparent, albeit a lot clearer than Megan had been before I’d put on the necklace.

  Oh. Crap. In my haste to track down Abel, I’d left the necklace on the table at the restaurant. But surely I wouldn’t need to rely on it forever. Abel had said my strength would continue to grow.

  Helen stared at my extended hand as though I’d tried to offer her a python, but she reached for it nonetheless. Even though she didn’t feel solid like Megan had, I could still feel her.

  The hair on my arms stood on end again. Helen was electrically charged.

  “I can feel you,” she said in amazement. Then she peered past me toward Abel. “She is the one.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. It hadn’t worked out so well for supposed heroes in history who had been declared the one. “Helen,” I said. “Can I ask you some questions about Valvad?”

  Her eyes flew wide, and then she all but disappeared. All that remained was a small white orb floating about five feet from the ground closer to the bridge.

  “Are you afraid of Valvad?”

  She reappeared, but much more translucent this time. “When it doesn’t find enough creatures, it forces me to feed it.”

  “He doesn’t take your soul?”

  She gave me a confused look.

  “Abel?” I called out, keeping my eyes on Helen. “Why doesn’t he take her soul?”

  “Death has protected the souls of Helen and other ghosts from the demons, but they do have energy. A demon would rather get its energy from something living, but if it’s truly hungry, it will feed off spirits or even lesser demons. It’s not in a demon’s nature to starve. It will do what it must to survive.”

  “So Valvad is feeding off the animals. And then he fed off of Gill last night. How many souls does he need?”

  “Valvad is an it,” Abel said. “Demons have no gender. And the ghost hunter should leave it satisfied for several days.”

  “But Thargos is still hungry,” Helen said.

  Abel was by my side in an instant. “Thargos?”

  “The other demon,” Helen said. “It crept from the gate before the sun rose and fed on me. It’ll wake soon if it hasn’t already.”

  Abel grabbed my hand and pulled me backward. “Thank you, Helen. Tomorrow I will bring you a gift for your information.”

  Her face lit up. “Anything for you, Kieran.” With that, she faded away.

  Abel’s first name was Kieran? I’d heard her say it earlier, but it hadn’t registered as a name.

  When I turned to look at him, he already had his phone out and pressed to his ear. “Carl. I need you here in five minutes.” Having delivered those terse instructions, he hung up and stuffed the phone into his pocket.

  “There’s another demon?” I asked as I jerked my hand up to examine the mark. “My hand’s tingling.”

  Abel exclaimed a word in a language I didn’t understand. “Your necklace should protect you.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  His eyes flew wide, but instead of yelling at me as I’d expected, he wrapped an arm around my back in a protective gesture. “I suspect the mark on your hand acts like an alarm. It lets you know when a demon is close. Can you sense it watching us?”

  “I don’t know,” I said breathlessly. Even though Abel had said we could send a demon away, I had no proof it would work. Besides, if we did have that ability, why did he seem so concerned about this Thargos?

  “Concentrate, Piper,” he insisted in a calm voice. “Take the energy you feel in your palm and send it outward, like a sonar. Find the demon before it finds us.”

  “Can you sense it?”

  “No, Kewasa. That is not a gift of mine, but I am sure it is one of yours. Find it.” His voice was surprisingly soothing, but I sensed an undercurrent of urgency.

  I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that he’d called me a strange name. I closed my eyes to focus, but they flew open when I felt Abel tilting my chin up to face him.

  “Never close your eyes when your enemy is near. Look at me and concentrate.”

  My hand began to burn and my panic grew.

  His dark eyes held mine as if in a trance. “Stay calm, Piper. Panic will make you reckless. The demon is out there. Tell me where.”

  I concentrated on the mark on my hand, then did as he’d asked—sent energy outward from the mark as Abel continued to hold my gaze. I sharply inhaled when I felt the hint of something. It was a presence of hunger and evil, and I instinctively knew it was a demon.

  “I feel it. On this side of the bridge, but up in the woods. To my right.”

  He dropped his hand from my face and grabbed my hand again. “Come. Now we find it.”

  I resisted, leaning backward. “What? No! I’m not chasing a demon.”

  “If we don’t, Thargos will feed from Helen. Valvad has killed too many animals in the area—other animals have sensed evil and will stay away. Besides, I hear Thargos is a lesser demon. If it only made the journey this morning, it will still be weak. This is good practice.” He pulled harder on m
y hand, dragging me back to where his driver had let us off.

  I thought he might have changed his mind, especially since he was heading in the opposite direction of where I’d felt the demon, but he started up a road on the side of the hill.

  “Abel!” I protested, yet I didn’t try to pull away. While part of me was terrified, I was also excited to find out what I could do. Besides, I’d demanded answers. I was getting them in spades. How could I complain? I may have lost my mind, but at least I finally felt like I was getting somewhere.

  The fading sunlight was gone now, but the moon was nearly full overhead, providing us with enough light to see that we were heading toward the top of the bridge. Thankfully, we hadn’t had a recent rain and the ground was hard enough that my heels didn’t sink into the earth. We reached a chain-link fence with an open gate. Just beyond it lay the dirt-packed bridge.

  Abel leaned into my ear and whispered, “Do you feel it?”

  A warm breeze washed over us, but his breath on my neck stirred something else inside me again. I quickly brushed it off. Abel was the most infuriating man I’d ever met, and I needed to deal with this demon, not my nonexistent love life. “Yes. On the other side. Toward the castle.”

  He didn’t respond but instead released my hand.

  Having him at my side made me bold. I didn’t run away. I didn’t even want to.

  The hair on my arms stood on end, and I knew Helen was near. I couldn’t see her, but I heard the barest hint of whispering. Abel must have sensed it too because he murmured, “I told you she would be a friend, Helen. She will help you.”

  I only wished I knew how. I’d figure it out later.

  I stepped onto the short expanse of the bridge and started to cross, but then felt another presence stirring behind me, several hundred yards away. This one was stronger and more evil. Hate and a desire for violence rippled from it in suffocating waves.

  “The other demon—Valvad—is awake,” I said in a low voice.

  His body tensed. “You can sense it?”

  I didn’t answer, just continued across the bridge. I had to find Thargos and deal with it. Helen was a ghost, sure, but she’d been through enough agony. She didn’t need this demon to dish out another helping for her.

  Abel followed me, staring into the woods ahead of us as though searching for Thargos.

  “The larger demon senses me.” Curiosity was now mixed with everything else I felt rolling off it.

  “We must quickly find Thargos and leave.”

  The lesser demon was close, about twenty feet away and hiding in the woods. The energy it emitted was a lot weaker than the one behind me. But this one was both hungry and intrigued.

  “Thargos,” I said as I walked on a path winding through the woods. “Come out.” I was terrified. I was purposely calling out a demon, but part of me was curious about what I could do. And, like it or not, there was no denying I felt safer with Abel standing behind me.

  A small creature emerged from behind a tree. It looked like an upright dog, but fangs extended past its bottom lip on either side of its mouth. I tried not to think what it could do with those as well as the claws extending from its front paws.

  “What are you?” it asked in a low growl. Its eyes glowed red.

  My confidence wavered, but I could feel Abel’s presence behind me, and he had enough confidence for the both of us. “I am a woman.”

  “You are more, but you are not a curse keeper.”

  Did that have to do with the curse in the codicil?

  “She needs no title,” Abel rebuked harshly.

  The demon’s head quickly jerked around to stare at Abel—actually jerked, in a movement so fast it looked painful. It studied Abel for a moment, then grinned. “You’re special too.”

  “What I am is of no concern to you.”

  It jerked its attention back to me. “What are you?”

  I really wanted to know the answer to that as well, but I wasn’t about to commiserate with this . . . thing. “Abel’s right. I need no title.”

  It took a step closer, as if drawn to me. “You are the hunter Valvad spoke of.” It turned its head sideways—literally—something that shouldn’t have been anatomically possible. “Yet you are more.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” I said, “but I do know that you’re hurting my friend Helen. You need to leave her alone.”

  “The lost spirit?” it asked. Suddenly, it looked less cocky. “You can speak with her?”

  I could obviously see it, so why was it this surprised I could also see Helen?

  “Piper, you need to bind it,” Abel said.

  I resisted the urge to glance over my shoulder at him, remembering my earlier lesson with Helen. “Bind it? How do I do that?”

  “Everything else has come to you; trust that this will too.”

  The demon took another step forward. “She is young and inexperienced.” It sounded even more intrigued. And excited.

  This whole binding thing better work.

  “She is stronger than you think,” Abel called out to it. “You would be wise to be wary.”

  “Okee will be interested in her.”

  Abel released a guttural sound, and when he spoke, there was a power in his voice I hadn’t heard before. “You will speak of her to no one.”

  The demon’s body stiffened, and its limbs drew in as if an invisible band had wrapped around it. “I will speak of her to no one,” it repeated. I could sense a vibration in its voice. Somehow I knew it had just made a vow it couldn’t break, and Abel had made it do it.

  “What is Valvad’s status now?” he asked me, but he seemed more anxious than before.

  I pushed a wave of energy toward it, and to my relief, it was still in the same place. “It hasn’t moved.”

  “Bind the lesser demon and let’s be gone.”

  “I still don’t know how to do that,” I said in an undertone.

  The demon released a sound that reminded me of a giggle. “Release me from my oath, Abel. Do you know what she is? Is she a witness to creation?”

  What in the world was a witness to creation?

  Anger rolled off Abel. “The only thing you need to know of her is that she has power over you.”

  The demon laughed. “She has so much promise. The reward for her would be great.”

  “You will speak no more,” Abel said in that same powerful tone.

  I stared in amazement as the demon’s mouth closed and its eyes widened in fear.

  “How did you do that?” I whispered.

  “The source of my power is different than yours, so it doesn’t matter. You need to concentrate on what you can do.” He moved closer and his mouth hovered near my ear, his breath washing over my neck and sending a wave of lust through my body. In a moment of madness, I wanted him to kiss me there, where his breath fell. But I could sense a hint of supernatural power in my attraction to him, something totally absent from my interactions with Jack, and I resisted the urge to give in.

  His hand rested on my hip, and my attraction to him increased tenfold. The way his fingers dug into my flesh through my dress told me he felt this too. Power rolled off him in a surge, making my thoughts foggy with need. This was no natural lust. The power he’d used to keep the demon quiet was still rolling off him, only now it was affecting me in a completely different way.

  I elbowed him in the stomach, releasing his hold on me, and the power shut off like a switch had been flipped. “Stop that right now, or I’ll knee you in the crotch. Got it?”

  His body tensed, but he didn’t address my statement. Instead, he asked in a gruff tone, “Where does your power originate?”

  Ten seconds ago, I would have told him—if I’d actually known—but that weird little supernatural zing had reminded me that Abel had his own purpose for me. Could he control me like he did the demons? That little demonstration suggested he could. Maybe he intended to hand me over to someone for a reward. Of course, he’d done just the opposite at this poi
nt, but it was possible he was waiting for me to come into my full power first.

  I threw his words back at him. “The source of my power doesn’t matter to you. Now let me concentrate.”

  I could feel my own power surging through my body—boosted by my surging emotions—and while it seemed to come from my hand at first, when I pushed a little harder, I realized it came from deep within my chest. From my soul. But I still didn’t know how to bind the demon.

  Valvad was more alert now—it had sensed the power we were emitting and was on the move. We didn’t have much time.

  “Valvad is coming.”

  Abel cursed and held up his right hand toward the demon. He spoke words in a guttural language I didn’t understand. White light glowed from his palm, and when it washed over the demon, Thargos released a strangled cry and then disappeared into a gray cloud. The light coming from Abel’s hand faded.

  Thargos was gone, but the larger one was quickly gaining on us.

  Abel didn’t waste any time. As soon as his light faded, he grabbed my wrist and began to drag me across the bridge.

  “Abel, slow down.” It wasn’t that I wanted to run slower, but I had a few physical impediments working against me—my dress didn’t give me the wide leg span available to Abel, and even if it had, I was wearing low heels. Running this fast wasn’t really an option.

  He jerked to a halt but paused only long enough to bend down and toss me over his shoulder, leaving my upper body dangling down his back.

  Part of me wanted to protest the indignity of it, but mostly I was thankful. Especially since I sensed the demon closing in on us. “It’s moving quickly, Abel.”

  Abel picked up speed, running faster than I’d thought humanly possible. When he reached the bottom of the hill, his car was waiting. Abel opened the back door, unceremoniously tossed me across the seat, and scrambled in behind me.

  Slamming the door behind him, he barked out, “Leave this mountain. Immediately.”

  The car tore off, running through the stop sign and heading down the hill.

  I sat up and stared out the back window, catching a glimpse of the larger demon. It was standing in the middle of the road, watching us drive away, and I knew that the display of power I’d just shown had put me in even more danger.