Hope rose in Eric’s chest. “And the cost? There has to be a cost.”
A light flashed behind the sorcerer’s gaze and he stretched his arms out towards Eric. “Again, I assure you, there is no cost for this.”
“I’m not stupid. Everything has a cost.”
“Consider it an appetizer to the grandest banquet of your future life. A free experience of what you could have. You see, I believe once you have tasted life with Abby, you’ll agree to my contract.”
“And if I don’t want to become your assassin?”
“My loss. Every good business offers free samples. That is all this is. Don’t worry, Eric, there is no hidden clause to this arrangement. No fine print that will damn you to hell.”
A snowy white owl flew between them and alighted on the sorcerer’s arm. They stared at one another for a moment.
As the sorcerer silently conversed with the owl, Eric stole a look around the grand hallway and noticed it had changed since he arrived, as if a dozen invisible servants had whisked in and changed the paintings and the rug. What else had the sorcerer changed without his noticing? Guiden’s power was unfathomable. Had he got into his mind? Or heart? Or soul? A shiver stole up Eric’s ghostly spine.
The mästare turned his back to Eric and raised his open hands to the sky. His sonorous voice broke into an ancient chant. Purple mist rose from his fingers. Thunder rocked the room. “Voco super deos terrae. Voco super deos terrae.” The floor beneath Eric’s feet shook and the smell of a verdant garden swirled around him. The sorcerer’s low voice rumbled, “Nocte . . . nocte . . . nocte.” His voice lowered to a mumble and Eric couldn’t understand. And then in English the sorcerer said, “Let the lovers be one.” Another clap of thunder struck and all was still. The sorcerer turned to face Eric and handed him two oval-shaped jade amulets on silver chains.
With great trepidation Eric held them in his hands. They were heavy, roughly hewn stones. He looked at Guiden.
“I will keep these amulets here to season them. When they are ready, they will appear at Azalea’s house. At the first night of the next full moon, you and your lover must wear them and the magic will begin.
As Eric handed the amulets back to the magi, the surface of his ghostly hands burned. It was as if the amulets didn’t want to leave him. “That’s it?” Eric asked.
“Magic, as old as the earth, will take care of the rest.”
4
It didn’t matter how many times I told myself to be calm, gloomy Graystone Manor held me, with a gothic vengeance, in its creepy-as-ten-horror-movies embrace, making breathing difficult, and clear thinking impossible. Its gruesome charm chilled me to the bone. Why did I ever think coming here alone would be a good idea?
English ivy crept along the arched stone entrance, which might look romantic on a bright, sunny day, but in the gray drizzle it looked downright sinister. How many creatures hid within its parasitic growth? Would its roots make the walls crumble as I crossed the threshold? I knew these were crazy thoughts, but I was about to enter a haunted house, alone, and I needed to think of something concrete.
I glanced around, taking a quick inventory of the place. Once upon a time, a garden had been planted here, but only blackberry bushes, Canadian thistle and dandelions survived. On the far end, to my right, a patch of tall grass struggled between stalks of decaying plants. A slug slithered through it. To my left were three rhododendrons in different stages of neglect. Perhaps there had once been a verdant garden of flowers and shrubs, but that was long gone.
The manor was made of limestone, which gave it an unyielding presence. Cold and smooth to the touch, it was uniformly gray, giving it a solid and solemn aura. As in graveyard solemn.
I sighed. Blame it on the hounds. My mind had definitely taken a disturbing edginess since I heard the howling chorus. And the freaking-wet weather didn’t help. I brushed more rain off my face.
I needed to get on with it. It really didn’t matter how I felt about this place, what it was built with or what plants died on its doorstep, I needed to get in there and get to the bottom of the diamond mystery. That was my job.
I climbed the stone staircase to the entrance and stared at the door. The cat at my feet meowed. If I was serious about being a PI, I needed to handle fear, but my gut wanted to go home and have tea and cookies. I sighed. It was normal to feel fear. Right? After a couple seconds of dreaming of chocolate-chip cookies, I put the key in the lock.
Inside I could no longer hear the unholy baying of the hounds of darkness, or at least not as well. I left the door open a bit to let the natural light in. I felt safer seeing my exit. The cat sat in the space, waiting for me.
I turned my attention to the inside of the manor. The floor of the front foyer, which was larger than my living room, was marble. Directly in front of me stood a grand staircase, wide enough to drive my Mini Cooper up. On the ground floor ran two wide corridors, with doors on either side. Judging by the doors I could see, there had to be at least six rooms on this floor.
Taking inventory steadied my mind a smidge, but it didn’t stop the creepiness of the place from invading my senses. I felt as if I had stepped into a tomb with a myriad of dark doorways, thresholds to who knew where, an ungodly domain saturated with dark shadows and cobwebs. A shiver stole up my spine.
Looking up I could see three levels, and at the very top was darkness. There was probably a skylight, blacked-out like all the other windows. But why?
The house smelled dusty, but not old. Another odor I couldn’t name hung around like an unwanted guest. Decay? Possibly. Where was my Lysol spray when I needed it?
Shadows collected around me. At least, that’s how it felt. Images were hard to discern in the gathering darkness. Were they ghosts? The ones I knew didn’t look so dark, or feel so empty. Poltergeists in training? Perish the thought.
“Hello,” I called out. “Anyone there?” Did I really want an answer?
The sound of a chain rattling came from above me and I turned my head towards the central staircase. Chains? Really? How clichéd. Maybe, I would die a cliché death. How B-movie.
My gut churned. Fudge the sarcasm, dear Abby. You could be in real trouble. I could pretend to be brave to others, but it never worked on me. I was scared, plain scared. From the tips of my toes to the top of my scalp I was crawling-with-the-heebie-jeebies scared. Some Amazon detective I turned out to be.
Thunder clapped in the distance and the windows rattled. I brushed a large cobweb out of my way, taking a moment to consider how large a spider would be needed to create such a sticky mess, and walked to the foot of the wooden stairway. Part of me wanted to run up the stairs to check out the chains, but I hesitated. In such a deserted place the steps might not be secure. And if the diamonds had drawn thieves, as diamonds do, they could have booby-trapped the place. I needed to proceed with caution.
I looked up, but all I could see was more shadows and cob-webs.
How much would a drone cost? One would come in handy in this business. It would make this search a lot easier and I could probably write off the expenses on my tax return. Of course, that was presuming I had some income. Drones aren’t scared of the unknown. Drones don’t smell death or evil. It would take me a couple days to get one, and I didn’t have any money to waste, but I stored that idea away for later, swallowed and headed for the stairs.
I had never thought shadows could be thick, but these were; thick like molasses and menacing. This place had an edge of un-believability, a nasty surrealism, as if the decorator had tried too hard to create a haunted look. Good old-fashioned suspicion quieted my nerves. I’ll call it kitschy-gothic nouveau.
As I reached the first step, the front door slammed shut. I jumped. Uh-huh. I blew out my breath. The doors in Azalea’s teahouse moved on their own, so I shouldn’t have been surprised if the manor had its own supernatural abilities. And there was a storm outside. It could have been the wind.
Yeah, right.
I pulled out my flashlight,
the one detective tool I had brought, from my purse and flicked it on. I swallowed my girly-scream. Surely there would be a light switch at the landing above.
Taking inventory of the place would calm me, keep my mind occupied, so I ignored the rattling chains, which started up again, and looked around one more time. The largest cobwebs had been spun near the entranceway.
Coincidence? Detectives never believe in coincidence.
How many movies had I watched where the bad guys made a place look spooky to keep others away? Heck it happened all the time in Scooby-Doo, my six-year-old’s favorite cartoon. That could explain the overly creepy feel of the manor. Some people, bad people, go to great lengths to protect diamonds. Right?
This is a story of greed, not the supernatural. Or so I told myself.
Thunder rumbled, rattling the windows and my brain cells. I grabbed the beautifully carved banister. The chains rattled again. I took a deep breath and carefully made my way up the last few steps, keeping my mind on my mission. Who would want to make this place appear haunted? Had Charisma Dubois told me everything? In books clients never did.
The landing on the second floor opened on both sides to a hallway as wide as my bedroom. There were at least five doors. It would take a couple days to check out all the nooks and crannies of the manor.
Not to mention the chains. There was nothing normal about chains.
Call me crazy, but I decided to go to the door closest to the rattling.
The door-knob felt ice-cold. Gritting my teeth, as if that would somehow help, I turned it to the right. The door sprang open as if a hurricane grabbed it and tore it off its hinges. My jaw dropped.
A creature, the nature of which I had never seen, floated in the air. Dressed in a glowing, white gossamer gown, she stared at me from a decaying face framed with long, raven-black hair that had not been washed in a very long time. Chunks of blackened flesh hung in strips from her cheeks. Thick chains, wrapped around her ankles, fell to the floor. As she twisted they rattled against one another.
I stared at her, trying to make sense of her image. She looked back at me through black orbs. My stomach turned. She smelled of rotting flesh. As with most supernatural creatures I had met, I felt her presence more than I saw it. A scream caught in my throat, and I had to look away to capture my grit.
“Why do you come to me,” she said with a slight Scandinavian lilt.
“I’m sorry if I disturbed you.” I looked at her again, willing my face to show respect.
“Why?” She raised her voice as thunder broke above the house.
I focused on her nose so I didn’t have to engage in the drama of her soulless eyes. “Charisma Dubois, the new owner of the manor, is scared to come in, so she sent me. My name is Abby. I work in the teahouse in town.” Hopefully Azalea’s teahouse would mean something to her. I wanted to add that I was not afraid of ghosts and could call more than one of them friend, but I stopped myself. Having token ghosts in your friend circle wasn’t exactly admired by anyone dead or alive in our town.
“I know nothing of owners. Owners mean nothing to me.”
Mhm. That made sense. I guess. But why did she listen to me? If she were really menacing, she would have simply killed me. It wasn’t really that hard. Perhaps she was lonely. I knew a lot of lonely ghosts. Separation-from-life anxiety and all that.
I cleared my throat. “The story goes like this. A lovely lady by the name of Charisma . . .” I didn’t think she was lovely, but I wanted to spin an enchanting story, so that the creature wouldn’t kill me. Was I entertaining the devil to stay my execution? Possibly. I continued, “Her great-grandmother Louise Dubois lived and died here many years ago. They say she hid a stash of diamonds somewhere in the manor. My client wants the diamonds.”
Thunder struck again and the soft fabric of the creature’s dress flowed as if an invisible wind blew on her. She opened her mouth as if she were about to speak, but she didn’t. She repeated the motion three times, giving her the appearance of a fish out of water. Her scent strengthened: decay and death.
“Are you a ghost?” I asked.
Her eyes turned fire-red and she shook her head. “No, I am Aslog, a draugr from Sweden.”
“A draugr?”
“I live beyond the grave.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat was sandpaper dry. I should carry an illustrated dictionary of the weird and wonderful with me to identify those I meet. Aslog looked more bestial than human, and more dead than alive. I had never heard of a draugr. It sure would be nice to know what I was up against. “Why are you here?” I asked.
“I am on a quest. Do not get in my way.”
“But your feet are bound.” My words tumbled out before I could catch them. Words have a nasty habit of doing that to me.
The rotting corpse of a woman harrumphed and flew about the room with the dexterity of a hummingbird. “I don’t need feet. My husband bound mine when I died, hoping to keep me in my grave. He did not want me to rise and cause him trouble. But I did.” She laughed a truly evil laugh. “I found him with his lover.”
“You haunted them?”
Her mouth quirked up on one side. “I didn’t bother with haunting. I am a draugr, a creature of action. I took revenge, sweet revenge.”
I hoped she didn’t hear me gulp. I stared at her, unsure if I wanted to know more.
“I made him watch me drink the blood of his lover. She was all skin and bones and tasted of cows. You know the type.” She made a slurping sound that made my blood run cold. “Then I let my husband go free and I stalked him in his dreams until he went mad.”
Okay, a woman scorned. But yuck. Just yuck. “I guess he deserved it,” I said with a forced smile.
Aslog’s eye sockets burned. I guessed that meant yes. Time to change the subject. “Uh, maybe we can help each other.” Is her nose falling off? It certainly drooped.
“The only way you, a mere mortal, can help me, is if I feed on you.”
I gave her the stink eye, an expression I learned from my Italian grandmother. “That would not be wise.”
The creature chuckled, a dark, unearthly sound that made my body squirm. “What have I to fear from the likes of you?”
“My Viking boyfriend would not be pleased if anything happened to me.”
“Viking!” She flew around the room three times and came back. “Ah, I have known many Vikings in my days. They make formidable enemies, yes, and even better meals. If you are so confident your Viking can handle me, bring him to me.”
“I will. I would be happy to make formal introductions, but first tell me about the diamonds.”
“What diamonds?”
“The ones hidden here.” So much for my fancy storytelling. Had she listened to any of it, or had she spent the time calculating the volume of my blood?
“I know nothing about diamonds in this house. They are shiny stones, nothing more to me.”
“Have you looked around the place?”
“I do not have to answer your questions, breather.”
“My name is Abby.” Hopefully she would be less likely to kill me if she knew my name. I wasn’t sure where I got that idea from, but it made sense to me.
“Abby, I do not know where your diamonds are.” The beast pushed her black hair away from her face, and a tangled clump of it fell to the ground. “I suggest you go, before I get hungry. I had a hound for breakfast, but I am feeling a bit peckish now.” Thunder cracked outside, reminding me that a world spun beyond this room. A much safer world. One in which my children played hopscotch. “Actually, I will be missed. I should go now.”
Aslog grinned. “Would you like some help with that?”
I ran down the stairs and out the front door as fast as I could, slamming the door behind me. Aslog’s laughter chased me all the way.
5
Eric slid through dimensions to return to Abby, but before he could land a magical current he had not anticipated swept him away. Somersaulting through a long narrow tunnel, he
lost all sense of direction. He had no choice but to let the energy take him where it would.
För fan I helvite. “For the devil in hell,” he swore, hoping he wasn’t heading for the last place in the universe he wanted to go, but knowing his landing was inevitable.
He landed hard on the stone floor of his shrink Brunhilde’s cave, in her domain hidden between realms. Perpetually cold and damp, the place smelled of her pet black bear and hair oil. Her screechy voice hurt more than the impact of his fall. “Have you lost your mind?”
A ten-foot-tall, gangly specter with long blond braids and a horned Viking helmet looked down on him. Wiry black hairs sprouted from her nostrils. It wasn’t her size that gave her power, though it was imposing, it was her other abilities. She had a serious, supernatural moxie, a breath that smelled like a sewage pit and a wicked disposition. “What in your herring-loving mind do you think you’re doing pursuing a mästare in Egregore?”
“You know my intentions.”
“Haa!” The Valkyrie turned purple with rage and her hands shook.
Eric sighed. Odin had commanded Brunhilde to fix him centuries ago and her failure to do so bothered her. Deeply. On more than one occasion, Eric had told her he didn’t like being a crochet project for a soul-eating witch, but he was too tired to argue tonight. He just wanted to go home and tell Abby about their midnight date.
He rose to meet her eyes. “I know you think you know what’s best for me . . .”
“You’re an idiot. An idiot, a fool and a . . . a . . . an idiot. I don’t know why my daughter ever married you.”
Refusing to rise to her bait, he stood and folded his arms across his chest. “I love Abby.”
“That’s so yesterday’s news. I keep telling you, love between a ghost and a live human never ends well.”
Midnight Magic (A Ghost & Abby Mystery Book 1) Page 3