Of Ash and Spirit: Piper Lancaster Series

by D. G. Swank

  I hadn’t thought about that before, but it made sense. Just like the demon had contended everyone had a title. “I told you my name. You don’t have power over me.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’re special.” His gaze shifted to Jack. “But he’s not. He wants to make me leave.”

  Instinctively, I stepped in front of Jack. “He wants to help you too.”

  “No,” the ghost said. “He wants to help you.”

  He hopped off the table and took a step toward us.

  “Can you see him?” I asked Jack in a low voice.

  “No.”

  “You need to go upstairs, Jack,” I said, growing more anxious as the ghost took another step toward us. “Now.”

  “Better listen to her, Jack,” the ghost said with an ominous chuckle. “This is your only warning.”

  I kept my eyes on the ghost as I said, “He said—”

  “I heard him.” His tone implied that he was accepting the challenge.

  “Jack!”

  He screwed the cap off his bottle of holy water and tossed it onto the floor. “I’m not leaving you down here to do this alone.”

  The ghost was next to us in an instant, shoving Jack into the concrete wall.

  Jack let out a grunt and holy water sloshed out of the bottle onto the floor.

  “Should have listened to Piper, huh?” the ghost said.

  “Jack, protect yourself,” I said.

  He stepped away from the wall.

  “You won’t tell me your name,” I said to the ghost, “so I’m going to give you one. I’m going to call you Jimmy Dean.”

  “That isn’t my name,” the ghost snarled.

  “Well, now it is, Jimmy Dean.” I reached into the messenger bag slung across my back and pulled out a white sage stick and a lighter. I quickly lit it, tossed the lighter in the bag, and pulled out a large abalone shell and a feather.

  The ghost growled and shook the shelves.

  “Uh, Piper,” Jack said. “I won’t claim to know what you’re doing, but you seem to be pissing him off.”

  I stubbed out the flame and rested the sage stick in the shell. “I have a plan.” I needed to make the ghost answer to a name.

  Starting toward the staircase, I held the shell filled with the now-smoking smudge stick in my left hand and waved the smoke with the feather in my right hand to block his exit upstairs. “Fire, earth, air, water. Cleanse this place of negative energy.”

  “That won’t work,” the ghost said. “You’re wasting your time.”

  Ignoring him, I smudged the staircase wall until I reached the back corner. “Fire, earth, air, water. Cleanse this place of negative energy.”

  A paint can flew past my head, smashing into the concrete wall and bouncing off. The lid popped off, splattering sky-blue paint all over the floor.

  Jack began chanting in Latin, and I recognized the meaning of some of the words—Saint Michael, Christ, evil . . . flesh. Your typical exorcism fare, or so I assumed.

  “You don’t belong here, Jimmy Dean,” I said. “It’s time for you to go.” I wafted smoke along the wall and into the opposite corner.

  “You can’t make me go, ghost hunter,” the ghost snarled.

  I concentrated on the corner. “Fire, earth, air, water. Cleanse this place of negative energy.”

  “I can hurt your boyfriend,” the ghost shouted.

  “Ignore him, Piper,” Jack said. “Keep going.”

  I turned to cleanse the wall to the left of the stairs, waving the smoke with the feather—air and fire. The shell—water—caught the dropping burnt herbs—earth.

  I repeated my phrase several times, and the ghost became increasingly agitated.

  “It’s not too late, Jimmy Dean,” I said. “You can let me help you.” I’d made it to the back corner and repeated my mantra.

  “Leave me alone!” he shouted, reaching for the shelves on the right side of the basement, the part I hadn’t yet smudged.

  “Piper!” Jack shouted, diving for me as the shelving flew into the middle of the room.

  The furniture kept the unit from landing on us, but we dropped to the ground anyway. Somehow I kept the smudge stick from hitting the floor. The shell was broken, but it could still hold the ashes.

  Jack lifted the shelving up and shoved it toward the stairs, then grabbed my elbow and helped me to my feet. “It’s working, Piper. Keep going.”

  “Jimmy Dean,” I said. “Let me help you!”

  “Curse you to hell, exorcista,” the ghost said in a guttural tone.

  “Jack,” I said, “pick up the clock and put it in the center of the room.”

  He snatched it off the still-upright table, then held it under his arm as he shoved the shelving aside, freeing up a path to the last wall.

  “Jimmy Dean,” I said. “Will you leave this place?”

  “I’m not going anywhere!” he shouted.

  I couldn’t hide my grin of triumph. He’d just answered to the name.

  “Fire, earth, air, water, cleanse this place of Jimmy Dean.”

  He released a shriek.

  “Fire, earth, air, water,” I repeated louder. “Cleanse this place of Jimmy Dean.”

  He screamed this time, an agonizing sound that shook the walls.

  Jack had placed the clock on the floor and pulled another bottle of holy water from his backpack. “Tell me when he’s in the clock.”

  I finished smudging the last corner. “Fire, earth, air, water. Cleanse this place of Jimmy Dean.”

  I turned to face the ghost, wafting smoke in his direction. “Jimmy Dean, return to the object from which you came!”

  His face twisted in agony and he tried to reach for me, but he began to shrink.

  “Jimmy Dean, return to the object from which you came!”

  He became a puff of smoke and seeped into the crevices of the clock.

  “He’s in there now!” I said.

  Jack poured a circle of holy water around it on the floor.

  “Fire, earth, water, air,” I said, “cleanse this dimension of Jimmy Dean.” I wafted smoke around the circle while Jack followed behind me with more holy water. Then I dropped the sage stick on the clock. It burst into unnatural flames and a loud scream pierced the air. A stream of black smoke shot up from the clock and toward a half window partway up the wall, slipping through the cracks.

  I stared at the window. After several seconds, I turned to face Jack. “Did we do it?”

  “You did it,” he said with a grin. A trickle of blood trailed down his cheek from his temple.

  I sucked in a breath. “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, swiping at the blood and wiping it on his jeans.

  “I don’t know what to do now.” I ran a shaky hand over my head. “I guess I need to clean up.” The room looked like a tornado had swept through it.

  “You don’t charge for this, do you?”

  “Well, no. But sometimes they give me gratuities.” I gave the room a long look and grimaced. “Although I’m more than a little worried she’s going to charge me for the mess.”

  “If you don’t mind skipping the gratuity, then I suggest we get out of here so we can talk about what just happened. How’d you know to trap him with the name?” Jack asked as he picked up his empty bottle.

  “A combination of things. Thargos said everything has a title, and then Jimmy Dean implied I’d have power over him if he told me his name. Maybe a bit of instinct too.”

  “Thargos?”

  “The second demon. I’ve successfully gotten rid of a ghost. Now it’s time to move on to the demons.”

  His gaze darkened, and I could see that whether I’d asked for it or not, Jack was with me to the bitter end.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Since I still had two hours before I could go back to the bank, we picked up some lunch and took it back to my house. It was cooler than it had been, so we sat on my front porch on two wicker chairs.

  I filled him in on wha
t had happened last night with Abel, all the way up to Abel admitting that he’d had me followed.

  “That man is dangerous, Piper,” Jack said.

  “And yet he still has answers.” I gave him a soft smile. “But so do you. Thank you for your help today.”

  “I didn’t do much.”

  “But you knew things I didn’t. And having you there helped me stay calm. I’m not sure I could have done it without you.”

  “You would have figured it out.”

  “Is it wrong that I was glad you didn’t leave me down there?” I asked.

  “No.” He glanced down at his sandwich. “I think I’m supposed to help you.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “The voice,” he said, leaving it at that. He didn’t need to say anything else. I understood.

  We were quiet for a few moments. I wasn’t sure what Jack was thinking, but even if he had been encouraged to stick with me, it was too dangerous. Shouldn’t I try to stop him? “I don’t think it’s safe for you, Jack.”

  “And it’s not safe for you either, but as you just admitted, I helped you today. We can do this as a team.”

  I shook my head, speechless and in disbelief.

  He misinterpreted my reaction. “Just hear me out, okay? You didn’t know that spirits can attach themselves to objects. And I helped keep him in the basement and then the clock with my prayers and holy water.”

  “Jack . . .”

  His mouth tipped into a lopsided grin. “Okay, so I don’t have a cool tattoo on my hand that tingles when a demon’s near, but I have extensive knowledge about exorcism and demonology. We can be partners in this.”

  “Why would you do that, Jack? A demon almost killed you. Why would you purposely put yourself in danger again?”

  “Why do you? You can walk away from this.”

  I shook my head and stared out into the street. “I don’t think I can.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s my calling. It’s what I’m supposed to do.” As cheesy as it sounded, I knew it was true.

  “Why do you think you’re the only one?”

  I lifted my hand to show him my palm. “Because it looks like I inherited this job.”

  “And maybe I did too,” he said. “The voice says this is my calling, and I believe it.”

  “You know how crazy that sounds, right?” I asked with a grin.

  He grinned back. “Yep.”

  Maybe I should have tried harder to dissuade him, but I was scared and he did know things. Plus, who was I to argue with the potential voice of God? “What about your ministry? I know you’re on sabbatical, but what happens when you go back to a parish? What if it’s not in Asheville?”

  “It won’t be. The bishop said he’s sending me to Charlotte.”

  “Oh.” I was surprised by the feeling of fear and disappointment that washed through me. How had I come to rely on him so heavily after a mere twenty-four hours?

  His gaze held mine. “You don’t have to worry, Piper. I’m not going.”

  The breath was sucked from my chest. “What? Jack!”

  He shook his head. “I can’t go. My work’s not done here yet.”

  “The voice told you to stay?”

  “No. I told me to stay.” He sounded emphatic.

  I suspected he was interested in me. Was that playing into his decision? I couldn’t let him put his career in jeopardy on my account. “If this is because of me . . .”

  “I’d be lying if I said you weren’t part of my decision, but you’re not solely the reason.”

  “And if I told you I didn’t want your help?”

  He looked surprised and slightly hurt by my question, but then his eyes hardened. “I’m not going, Piper. My work here isn’t done yet.”

  His answer gave me some relief, but I still worried about his reasons for staying. As much as I liked Jack, we hardly knew each other, and I couldn’t consider starting anything with him . . . not when a glimpse of Abel had been enough to send me running away from the dinner table at Othello’s. Did I owe him that insight? “Jack, I don’t want—”

  “I’ve made up my mind. With or without you, I’m going to stop that demon.”

  Then he’d be interested in my next piece of news. “I think I found the daggers.”

  “Are you kidding?” he asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.

  I told him about my visit to the office, Miriam Peabody’s interactions with Dad, and the daggers that had possibly come from her. “He put them in a safe-deposit box and opened the account with two names.”

  “Can you access it if you explain that he died?”

  “Jack, one name is my father’s, but the second one is mine.”

  “And he opened this shortly before his murder? He put his ten-year-old daughter’s name on the box?” He paused for a second. “He knew there was a chance he’d be killed.”

  “What?”

  He shifted to turn toward me. “Think about it. Why would he do that? Why not keep them in the house? Why make the codicil and leave such specific instructions for it? Maybe he knew about your potential, but he wanted you to be old enough to handle it.”

  “What father purposely puts his daughter in the path of a demon?”

  “But he didn’t put you there. Your bloodline did. He must have suspected the Guardians would kill him and he prepared for that possibility. I’m guessing he wanted to make sure you had the tools to face this, but he wanted to give you the chance to grow up first.”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I guess you’re right.”

  He grimaced. “Sorry, Piper. I keep forgetting that you didn’t believe in demons a few days ago.” He set his half-finished sandwich on the table between us. “What are you going to do about being a person of interest in the two murders? Have you hired an attorney?”

  “No. I was going to use one of the guys at my dad’s firm, but Linda made it clear that was a bad idea. Abel was a great alibi for Gill, but I negated it when I admitted that Abel and I were on Beaucatcher Mountain last night during the early part of the window of the murder. It didn’t help that Hudson, Rhys, and I called in a car accident with a fatality a few hours after I was questioned for Gill’s death.”

  He gave me a questioning glance.

  “The ghost I met yesterday morning outside of Waffle House. One of the ones who left a pile of ash. I knew from my experience with the other two ghosts that he had to be nearby. We just had to find him.” I took a sip from my water bottle. “I still need to talk to his girlfriend.”

  He shifted in his seat. “Why?”

  “I promised Austin to tell her that he had planned to propose last night. He hid the ring somewhere she’d never find it on her own.”

  “That’s a heavy burden,” he said.

  I turned to face him. “Why do I think you know this from your own personal experience? I’m sure you’ve dealt with your fair share of bereaved parishioners.”

  He looked sad as he said, “I’m here to help you through that too, Piper.”

  I wasn’t sure anyone could help me through that. I needed to change the subject. “Abel said to let him know when I had the daggers. He thought I’d be ready to face the demons in a week.”

  “Do you plan on calling him?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know.”

  He just nodded in response, and we finished our lunch before he spoke again. “Do you plan to go after the demons, Piper?” he finally asked.

  “Yeah,” I said without hesitation. I was scared shitless, but I knew I had to do it.

  “Do you think Abel can help you?”

  “I’m sure he can help me and he wants me to kill the demons, but he says he’s more concerned about my safety than with what happens to the demons.”

  “Because he has some purpose for you.”

  “Exactly. So he’ll help me until he doesn’t.”

  “I’ll help you, but I don’t have the power to bind a demon.”

  “Neither
do I.”

  “But he thinks you will,” Jack said. “So maybe you should wait to try to kill these things until you’re sure you can.”

  “But I have no idea if I can unless I try. Which means I need to be near them,” I said, getting agitated. “And the longer I wait, the more innocent people have their souls damned to hell. I can’t live with that.”

  “Nevertheless, you don’t have to decide right now. Even if you get the daggers today, there’s nothing saying you have to face them tonight.”

  “And give them the chance to kill again tonight? No. I already feel like I’ve let too many people down.”

  We both knew I’d face the demons tonight, whether I felt ready or not. The real question was if Abel would help.

  I walked through the bank doors promptly at four, with Jack by my side this time. The bank manager had returned and was expecting me.

  “We’ve had this box for fifteen years,” she said. “And it’s only been used once.”

  “When Piper’s father opened it?” Jack asked.

  “Precisely,” she said as she retrieved the signature card from the box. “I’m presuming your signature is different now. I’ll need to see your ID.”

  I’d already pulled my driver’s license from my wallet and handed it over. Sure enough, my loopy, immature signature was on the card she provided. I barely remembered my father asking me to sign the card fifteen years ago.

  “Did you figure out who’s been paying for the box?” I asked.

  “Yes. Your father paid for the first year, but a group called the Guardians have paid every year since.”

  I inhaled sharply as I shot a glance to Jack, but he kept his cool.

  “So what happens with the box now?” he asked.

  “We’ll drill out the lock, which we’ll have to charge you for; then you can retrieve the contents. Will you still be needing the box?”

  Jack gave me a questioning look.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll be taking the contents with me.” I wrote a check for the one-hundred-dollar fee, and we sat in two chairs in the lobby while we waited for the locksmith.

  “Piper,” Jack said in a low tone after a few minutes. He reached over and covered my hand with his own. “Take a deep breath.”