Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2)

by Gail Z. Martin

  Anthony hesitated. “Age, gender, location – all different. Other people walked up and down those stairs without a problem, before and after the disappearances.”

  “When you say ‘disappeared’ –” Teag began.

  Anthony met his gaze. “I mean up and vanished. Witnesses said they saw the victims start down the stairs and then just disappear before they reached the bottom.”

  It had taken Anthony a while to warm up to the idea that Teag and I dealt with real magic. Teag believes that the ‘intuition’ Anthony uses so successfully in the courtroom is his own magic skill, but so far, he hasn’t convinced Anthony of that. But the times that Anthony has gone along to help out, he’s seen enough to accept the fact that the spooky stuff is real. He’s also seen Teag and me get pretty beat up fighting off supernatural nasties, and he’s helped us fend off a few surly spooks himself. I can’t blame him for worrying.

  “What kind of explanation are the cops coming up with?” I asked.

  Anthony’s mouth was a grim line. “Nothing to do with ghosts, I can assure you. Mostly, they think the witnesses are mistaken. Or that the victims are either playing a prank or don’t want to be found.”

  The server brought out our pizza, and we fell silent as we ate. My mind kept pinging back and forth between two things that didn’t seem to have a logical connection: Tad’s ghostly stalker, and the disappearances. I’ve learned the hard way that there aren’t a lot of coincidences when you’re dealing with supernatural predators. Unfortunately, sometimes you only see the connections in hindsight, when it’s too little, too late.

  “Heading home?” Teag asked Anthony when we finally finished our feeding frenzy. Teag and Anthony had moved in together a few months ago, a big step forward for them. Even so, with the crazy hours they both kept, it was still a challenge to get a lot of quality time.

  Anthony shook his head. “Not for a while. I have some more files to go over before a case tomorrow. I shouldn’t be terribly late, but that’s why I figured I’d meet you for dinner rather than have you wait up.”

  I could tell Teag was glad not to be the only one working late. Sorren was supposed to be headed back from Boston, and I suspected trouble was afoot. It might be a long night.

  SORREN WAS WAITING for us when we got back to Trifles and Folly. I flicked on the light in the back room, and jumped to find him sitting quietly at the table in the dark.

  “Geez! Can’t you turn on a light or something?” I covered my surprise with some good-natured annoyance. Then again, Sorren didn’t need light. His vampire senses were sharper than mortals’ abilities, and he was stronger and faster, too. I knew he’d used his key to get into the store, but he didn’t need one. Long ago, when he was mortal, he had been the best jewel thief in Belgium.

  “I assumed you’d be expecting me,” Sorren replied, a slight smile letting me know he enjoyed the banter. Sorren looks like he’s in his twenties, the age he was when he was turned back in the 1400s. His hair is an unremarkable shade of blond, his blue-gray eyes are the color of the sea before a storm, and his features are pleasant without being memorable, something that was helpful back in his thieving days. Right now, he was wearing a t-shirt and trendy jeans with sneakers. Since his skin wasn’t unnaturally pale, I figured he had fed recently. Sorren was very good at passing for mortal. But Teag and I had seen what he could do in a fight. Anyone who took him for just another twenty-something was making a fatal mistake.

  “We just went out for a bite,” I said.

  “So did I.” Sorren’s voice was droll, but his eyes held a hint of mischief. Ha, ha. Vampire jokes. Did you hear the one about…

  “The jewelry box I called you about is on my desk,” I said. Sorren walked over, picked up the velvet case and brought it back to the table, turning his attention to its funereal jewelry. The piece that caused me such a jolt had no effect on Sorren. He says that’s because he doesn’t have magic; the Dark Gift is magic. Handling objects with bad juju doesn’t knock him flat on his ass. “Did your trip go as planned?” I asked.

  Sorren looked preoccupied. “As well as could be expected,” he replied. “There was an attack on my Boston operation. Two of my people are in the hospital. The damage to the store was contained, but it required my attention.”

  He looked down at the velvet box in his hands, and I got the feeling he had said all he planned to say about Boston. “The Victorians had a lot to mourn,” Sorren said quietly as he looked at the hair necklace. “The War killed so many, and then there were the epidemics,” he added. From his tone, I wondered if he was thinking aloud rather than speaking to Teag and me. I knew Charleston’s history pretty well, and the last half of the 1800s was rough by any standards. War, Yellow Fever, earthquake, violent storms, fire... I’m sure the hardy souls who survived must have believed the world was coming to an end.

  “I was going to give Father Anne a call to see if we could set Tad’s spirit free,” I said. “Maybe even help him cross over.”

  Sorren nodded. “Good idea. I’m sure she’ll be up for it. She’s done that kind of thing before.”

  “What about the thing that tried to eat him?” I asked. “That isn’t something we hear about every day. Maybe it’s also causing problems for the ghost tours and Kell’s people – scaring the ghosts and making them more aggressive.”

  He frowned. “I don’t have a good answer. There are plenty of unfriendly creatures that can move back and forth across the boundary between life and death. I’m going to have to ask around.” He gave a lopsided grin. “Sounds like something the Briggs Society might know.”

  When I want to find something out, I go on the internet. Teag digs into the Web’s dark, ensorcelled recesses. Sorren navigates the complicated politics of Charleston’s immortal and magical community, as well as his contacts around the world. The Briggs Society was one of those communities, a place I’d heard Sorren talk about but never visited myself, an organization dedicated to explorers of all kinds.

  “Do you think we’re in danger?”

  “I’m not sure,” he replied. “For now, assume the worst. Don’t take any chances. I’ll have Lucinda strengthen the wardings around the shop and around your houses. You can always relax once we find out there’s nothing to worry about.”

  It was a nice thought. But finding ‘nothing to worry about’ seemed about as unlikely as snow in a Charleston summer.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I got in early to make a phone call. Tad’s ghost was still bound to that old hair necklace, still vulnerable to whatever had taken a bite out of him. After a hundred and fifty years, I figured he deserved better than hanging around a jewelry box.

  If there was someone who would know about getting spirits unstuck, it would be Father Anne, Assistant Rector of St. Hildegard’s Episcopal Church. She was also a member of the St. Expeditus Society, a group of renegade Anglican priests who helped put down supernatural threats. I’d worked with her before, and I thought Tad’s problem sounded like it was right up her alley.

  Unfortunately, I got her voice mail, so I left her a rather vague but urgent message, and chafed at the delay. As I ended the call, I heard someone rapping at the door to the shop, and found Maggie peering in through the window. “It’s going to be a good day, I can just feel it!” Maggie greeted me when she came in the door.

  She’s our part-time helper, and a real god-send. Maggie retired from her teaching job and decided that yoga, travel, and her grandchildren just weren’t enough to keep her busy, so she works a couple of days a week at Trifles and Folly, and helps out when we need extra coverage. She’s sixty and sassy, as she likes to put it, with short silver hair and lively blue eyes. Her fashion sense is pure Woodstock, but her business sense is all Wall Street. Teag and I love having her around.

  “Hi, Maggie!” I said, as I headed to finish the work I had started earlier, re-arranging the front window display. Drea had clued me in to a big tea industry conference in town, so I figured featuring our stock of antique silver tea services would be
a good idea. Charleston has one of the only tea plantations in North America, just down the road, and as Trina and Rick can attest, Charlestonians love their tea as much as they adore their coffee.

  “Oh, pretty!” Maggie said, and went back outside to size up the display from the customers’ perspective. She came back in smiling brightly.

  “I think the big set needs to be moved a little to the right,” she suggested. “It looks off-center. My heavens, those pieces are gorgeous!” She lifted a silver creamer from the set I was just about to put in the display.

  “They are beautiful,” I agreed. One of the occupational hazards of running a shop like Trifles and Folly is that sometimes you want to take the pretty shiny things home with you. I had already snagged a small tea set for myself – paid for at wholesale price – and I had my eye on a coffee set as well.

  “Glad I don’t have to polish them before every holiday dinner,” Maggie said, as she went over to tuck her purse into a cubby in the office. She emerged a few moments later with her own hot cup of tea in a big yellow mug that had a giant smiley-face. That was Maggie’s style – retro wonderful.

  “Well, back in the day, folks had servants to do the polishing,” I replied, maneuvering the other set into place. Here at Trifles and Folly, we didn’t have the luxury of servants, so Teag, Maggie, and I all knew first-hand the joys of silver polishing.

  “Oh, my mom had a set when I was a kid,” Maggie added, grabbing the duster and making the rounds of the shelves. Her broomstick skirt twirled and swished with every movement. “I felt like a princess every time she used it for her card club when the meeting was at our house. She’d make those little tea sandwiches without the crust, and some special cookies, and my sisters and I got the leftovers.” Maggie chuckled.

  “When I went to that antiques conference in London, I did high tea at a swanky hotel, the Grosvenor House,” I said, adding a bouquet of silk flowers in a silver vase and some pretty vintage napkins to the window scene. “I felt like I’d been dropped into the lap of luxury.”

  I straightened and dusted off my hands, then went outside and gave my tableau a critical eye. Arranging the front window was one of my favorite things to do at the store, and I was well aware of the fact that by setting up a new window display, I was deliberately not thinking about soul-eating spirit-bullies and strange disappearances. Until we had a better idea of what was going on, there wasn’t anything Teag and I could do, and I was resolved to not let it bother me.

  Maggie was just finishing the dusting. Trifles and Folly has been in the same location since the store’s founding. We’re right on King Street, in the heart of downtown. The store has a big front window in a black, wooden facade with the name of the store painted in big, gold letters overhead. On either side of the shop are two huge, ornate antique lamp sconces that look opulent and very 1800s.

  Inside, Trifles and Folly looks well-worn. Our treasures are displayed on open wooden shelves, in glass jewelry cases, and in a big, glass cabinet. Paintings and old portraits hang on the walls, along with an antique rug or two. Behind the scenes, my Uncle Evan brought the store into the modern world with computers, but out front Teag and I try to keep an old-world feel to the place.

  “Isn’t today your day for the nursing home visits?” Maggie asked as she took the trays of jewelry out of the safe I had opened and began to arrange them inside the glass cases.

  “Yep. And I swear, Baxter knew it from the moment he woke up this morning.”

  “That dog is a real go-getter,” Maggie laughed. “Mark my words, he’ll be on the cover of a magazine someday, and then there’ll be no living with him!”

  Baxter may look like a six-pound cotton ball, but he’s got sixty pounds of attitude. He’s all waggles and licks for people he likes, but I’ve seen him tear off like a maniac after someone he thinks is dangerous, and his high-pitched bark could make your ears bleed.

  “He absolutely loves being a therapy dog,” I said, and stopped by the register to take a drink of my coffee while it was still warm. “And you should see the residents’ faces when we bring in animals. Even the ones who don’t talk light up and pay attention to the dogs and cats.”

  Baxter and I had only recently begun working with Animals for Alzheimer’s, a local program where therapy animals came into nursing homes to help residents reconnect with the world. The program had been so popular that patients outside the Alzheimer’s ward began insisting we bring the animals over for them to see as well. I always got teary-eyed when I saw the sheer joy on the residents’ faces as they petted Baxter’s silky white hair. He seemed to like it too, and he was always on his best behavior.

  “I think Bax honestly enjoyed the therapy dog training,” I said, finishing my coffee in a gulp. “Maltese have always been companion dogs. I wish I could bring him to the store with me. But since I can’t, this helps make up for him being at home.”

  Dogs are sensitive to the supernatural. I had tried to bring Baxter with me on several occasions, but every time, he’d find the Spookies and decide it was his job to guard them and growl at them all day. Then again, it was the same reason I hadn’t been able to stay in the apartment on the second floor that we now used as storage. Even though I wasn’t handling the objects, just being close to them all the time had really set my nerves on edge.

  Maggie chuckled. “You really ought to try him out in doggie daycare again.”

  I sighed. “I know. But the last time, he kept stealing the big dogs’ toys.”

  “Baxter likes to be king of the hill,” Maggie replied. “But he’s such a love. And he really does like the other dogs.”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to try again. I just feel like the parent of ‘that’ child, the one that throws blocks or something.” I flipped the sign on the door to ‘open’.

  The morning was slow. Customers didn’t wander in until closer to lunch. I could tell from the way Teag acted that he was mulling over what Anthony had said about the stairway disappearances. Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out to see a call from Father Anne.

  “Cassidy! Wonderful to hear from you!” Father Anne is definitely not what most people think of when they picture an Episcopalian priest. She’s in her thirties with a short, edgy haircut and a custom-designed tattoo of the three patron saints of the St. Expeditus Society on her arm. I’ve seen her wear a clerical collar with a black t-shirt, and she’s partial to Doc Martens boots when we’ve got some ghost-whuppin’ to do.

  “Great to hear from you, too,” I replied. “You got my message?”

  “Suitably cryptic,” she replied with a chuckle. “You gonna tell me what’s really going on?”

  “In a nutshell: Civil War ghost trapped in a piece of Victorian death jewelry being menaced by bullies from beyond. I wanted to see if you can help send him on his way.”

  “Ooh, that sounds like fun,” Father Anne replied. “I’ve been tied up in vestry meetings, and I’m so ready for a change that I’d say yes if you wanted to do a girl’s night out two-for-one root canal.”

  Yikes. “Hopefully, it won’t be exciting at all. Can I count you in?”

  Father Anne laughed. “Absolutely. Tomorrow? Then we can go set this poor ghost on his way.”

  “It’s on the calendar.” We got the place and time straightened out, and I put the phone back in my pocket. “Looks like we can at least get Thaddeus squared away,” I said. “And with luck, whatever came after him, won’t come after us.” Yeah, right.

  BY NOON, I had already decided to do some digging for information on my own. “Why don’t I pick up lunch and bring it back?” I suggested. “How about take-out from Forbidden City?” We all liked Chinese food, and offering to go grab lunches from our favorite place guaranteed no one would mind me stepping out for a while, even if we did get busy.

  Teag raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to go see Mrs. Teller, aren’t you?”

  I grinned. “Busted. Of course. Who else might know something useful about restless ghosts?”
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  “Just don’t let the food get cold,” he added with a grin. “How about you see Mrs. Teller on the way over, then bring lunch back while it’s still hot?”

  “Geez,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. “You mess up one time and no one lets you forget it.”

  Teag and Maggie gave me their orders. “And don’t forget the egg roll!” Maggie added with a grin.

  “Got it!” I replied, heading for the door. “I won’t be long.”

  I stepped out of Trifles and Folly’s air conditioning into the warmth of fall in Charleston. The sun was bright, the sky was clear and my mood began to lift despite the sweat that was beading my forehead.

  The thought of restless ghosts and ghost-eating monsters had kept me awake last night. I’m still fairly new to running Trifles and Folly and working with the Alliance, so I haven’t gotten used to knowing about all kinds of terrifying supernatural threats that normal people are lucky enough not to believe even exist. I accept the responsibility that comes with my magic and inheriting the shop, but sometimes, I really think that fate picked the wrong person when it aimed its fickle finger at me.

  The attack on Sorren’s Boston operation also bothered me. I knew he had other stores like Trifles and Folly all over the world, helping the Alliance keep people safe from dangerous magic and haunted objects. Beyond warning us to be careful, Sorren had said little. I could tell he was worried and guessed that he blamed himself for what had happened. Teag and I had done some digging online. According to the news, a gas leak had caused an explosion in the old store. The building was badly damaged, and the store’s two managers were in the hospital.

  The Boston fire department hadn’t considered it suspicious. On the other hand, the fire department didn’t know about the Alliance, or the many supernatural enemies Sorren had made over the centuries. I tried to convince myself that bad things can happen without involving hell spawn. Gas leaks happen. But we didn’t believe the report, and I didn’t think Sorren did, either.