Southern Charmed (Hell's Belles Trilogy Book 2)

by Alison Claire

  Shirley Ann wasn’t even sure what to say.

  “So, on March 7th I’m to bury this sack somewhere in our yard,” Shirley Ann said. “Why March 7th?”

  “It’s the solar eclipse,” Virginia replied. “And it won’t happen again for another 47 years. This is our one chance to get this right.”

  Shirley Ann sighed. “This all sounds so silly. I’m a God-fearing woman. Is this really the way to do it? It feels… blasphemous.”

  Virginia ignored her concern. “After you bury it, you and Edward need to… Well. You know. Do what it takes.”

  “Sex,” Shirley Ann said. “You’ll talk to me about roots and burying things in my yard, but you can’t say the word.”

  Virginia laughed. “Sorry. I’m still getting used to modern times.”

  Shirley Ann raised an eyebrow at her. “How old are you? You can’t be older than me. Right?”

  Virginia waved her question away. “That’s not important. What’s important is doing this right. It’s a delicate spell. Every part has to be done correctly. Before you bury it, you need to recite this.”

  Virginia handed her an old piece of paper. She could barely read the calligraphy on it.

  “Read it out loud so I know you have it right,” Virginia insisted.

  “Okay,” Shirley Ann said.

  “Eggs to earth and ashes to ashes,

  Sun is hidden, palmetto moon flashes,

  This sack of love, made right by lust,

  Keep it warm, before it’s dust,

  Love of my womb, I’ll stay even-footed,

  And with our union, let these eggs be rooted.”

  Shirley Ann looked at Virginia, who was smiling.

  “Is that right? What an odd poem,” Shirley Ann said. “And then I bury them and… that’s it?”

  “Yes,” Virginia replied. “But you have to be very careful not to break the eggs. That’s the most important part.”

  Shirley Ann didn’t know what else to say. It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. She’d never tell Edward. She didn’t want him to think she’d gone insane. He wasn’t much for these kinds of things. Edward was too pragmatic.

  “Everything must be done at the right time and in the right way,” Virginia insisted. “What do you think? This will work, Shirley Ann. I promise. If you do everything right, you will have a son in 10 months. Right around Christmas.”

  Shirley Ann’s cheeks flushed. Was she dreaming? How could this possibly be true?

  Even so, she was at least going to try. She told herself it was still in God’s hands. Maybe He’d put Virginia here so this could happen for her. She didn’t want to think of anything else.

  All she wanted was her baby.

  Brian Ayers was born the morning of Christmas Eve. He was nine pounds exactly and Shirley Ann’s pregnancy had been easy and wonderful, despite doctors worrying about her maternal age. She knew people would talk. She didn’t care. She had her baby.

  She’d never been so happy in her entire life.

  Brian was the light of her life. Edward had been a doting father, but it had been a little hard to be the older parents at school functions and baseball games. Shirley Ann and Edward were often mistaken for Brian’s grandparents.

  It was a very small price to pay.

  And Brian, of course, would one day be the father of three girls. A first daughter—Merritt— followed by twins…

  Emma and Briar.

  Chapter 10

  “So Emma’s parents were my parents too?” I asked. It had taken Virginia a good hour to tell me the history of my life. There were plenty of gaps in that history, but it felt good to know something.

  And to know I hadn’t always been alone. That there were people out there thinking of me and protecting me.

  I still couldn’t shake my resentment at being left in the home. Even if Virginia said it was too dangerous to see me, I could have used something to hold on to. It had been so hard being alone.

  I didn’t want to be jealous of a sister I had yet to meet, who through no fault of her own had found herself in this life of secrets and cover-ups.

  But I couldn’t shake it. How hard was her life, really? She’d been loved and wanted. She’d been protected by the Belles, and by her own family. I still didn’t completely understand why I couldn’t have had the same.

  And how had they covered up my existence to my family?

  “So how did that work?” I asked. “Weren’t my parents worried about me? Did they call the police when I went missing? That’s the part I don’t get.”

  “They never knew about you,” Virginia said. “We have ways of… manipulating memory. It’s complicated, but Aleta was able to allow your parents and doctors to only remember Emma. And when the time was right, we brought you to Charleston.”

  I was stunned. Stumped. Befuddled.

  “Who is Aleta?” I asked. “And how the hell do you manipulate memories where they can forget about an entire human being? Their own child! It’s evil. And cruel. It ruined my life.”

  I was furious. Not only had I been abandoned, but I’d been taken from people who would have actually loved and cared for me. I could feel the blood literally boiling in my veins. My face heated up and I felt like the room was closing in on me.

  “Aleta is one of us,” Virginia said, suddenly wincing. “Briar. You have to control your rage. I don’t want to battle you. I know you have no idea you’re doing it, but you’re causing me a great deal of pain right now.”

  I looked at her, completely baffled.

  “I’m not touching you,” I said.

  “You don’t have to be touching her,” Calista said. “Let’s take her downstairs. Josephine…”

  “Working on it,” Josephine replied. She touched my arm and before I could pull it away from her I immediately felt warmth go through my entire body. My pulse slowed and I felt relaxed.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, but my voice wasn’t angry.

  Because I was no longer angry.

  “Just helping you calm down,” Josephine said. “We’re going to go downstairs now— where we can explain things in more detail. And no one has to use their powers. No one can. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “And so will we,” Calista hissed. “How can she not know what she’s doing?”

  I shook my head slowly. It felt like it was full of cotton at the moment.

  “I have no clue what any of you are talking about. And right now I don’t care. Josephine, never leave me.”

  She laughed. They walked me over to a bench and sat. Calista pulled down on a coat hook and suddenly we were moving.

  Down.

  “Down here I can’t soothe you,” Josephine explained as we walked through the long corridor of whatever weird secret sanctuary this was. “But Virginia can’t read your mind and Calista can’t throw a truck at you. So that’s a plus.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I mean, I don’t have any sort of alien gifts or whatever y’all have, so why are you worried about me?”

  “Come on,” Calista said, stopping in her tracks. “You know what you can do; what you’ve done. Why else would you be here? A waitress from Goose Creek? Not exactly the most exciting resume there.”

  My anger flared up again.

  “I know that I’ve done things, yes,” I admitted. “But I have no idea what it really is or how it works.”

  “You can manipulate pain,” Virginia suddenly chimed in. “Through bones. When you’re angry, really angry, you can shatter a person all together. Like Marla Muchow. Your anger and fear broke almost every bone in her body.”

  So it had been me, after all.

  I still didn’t feel bad about it.

  “I healed my friend,” I said. “Gina. So I didn’t cause her pain.”

  “Your love can also heal bones,” Virginia stated. “Your twin sister can heal as well. Herself and others. But she can’t make people hurt. Not like you can.”

  I was shaken by this revelation. My mind spun bac
k to other times where I might have unwittingly used this strange ability of mine. Nothing came to mind immediately.

  “That’s why we had to separate you from Emma,” Virginia explained as we continued to walk. “Your power is coveted among the community we’re a part of. There is a man who wishes to take your powers, and Emma’s. So we had to hide you. We brought you to Charleston, but he still found you. That’s when you went to the home.”

  “Why didn’t you take Emma too?” I asked. And then suddenly something else hit me— like a brick to the head from the top of a skyscraper.

  “My parents,” I sputtered. “They’re dead?”

  Calista, who usually had a permanent bitchy smirk on her face, frowned. Josephine hugged me and Virginia said nothing. I mean what could be said?

  “So you took me away and now my parents are dead, so I’ll never get to meet them,” I shouted. “Awesome! The news keeps getting better and better!”

  “That was never part of the plan,” Virginia said. “We did our best to cover our tracks. We assumed they’d given up on finding both of you. And we still haven’t figured out how they found Emma. Saying sorry seems absolutely ridiculous and tasteless, but I cannot express to you how very sorry I am about what your life has been. The Ayers are a good family and they didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

  “Were,” I snapped. “They were a good family.”

  Virginia nodded, acknowledging my correction, but saying nothing else.

  “Who is they anyway?” I asked. “Who wants to find me and who killed my family?”

  Because if it’s the last thing I do I’m going to kill them, I thought. I was glad Virginia couldn’t read my mind down here.

  “‘They’ is many people, but they all answer to only one man,” Calista said.

  “And who is that?”

  “Ezekiel Walker,” Virginia said, and we were all quiet again.

  Chapter 11

  EZEKIEL WALKER

  It was true, Ezekiel wasn’t a real Walker.

  He liked to think of himself as a surrogate sort of prodigal son. The one who came back.

  But in this parable, Ezekiel wouldn’t be asking for forgiveness.

  He was here to make people pay.

  He thought about his plans as he sauntered around his garden. Ezekiel didn’t love many things in life, but he indeed loved this green piece of heaven. Every season he changed the shapes of his beloved holly bushes. He’d fly in the best landscapers and horticulturists in the country every few months to transform his backyard into something new and exciting. His neighbors couldn’t keep up. They’d long since given up on trying.

  The garden is where he did his thinking. And he’d been having to do a lot of that lately. The time was close. All he needed was to make sure Emma was dead and there’d be nothing to stop him. As if he didn’t have enough power already…

  His phone buzzed in his linen silk Tom Ford blazer. He glanced down at the caller I.D. and when he saw who it was, he smiled.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice genteel and kind. “It’s so good to hear from you. I’d been so worried after hearing the news about that poor girl jumping off the Ravenel. What can I do to help? Does she have family here?”

  Of course he knew the answer to that.

  It was the chief-of-police calling, a man named Ron Legare, an old friend of his that benefited from Ezekiel’s abilities. Ezekiel would be so delighted when he didn’t have to act anymore.

  He hated pretending to care about people. But it was how he’d survived. Really, wasn’t it how everyone did? He was just more self-aware than most.

  “’Fraid not,” Chief Legare said, pulling the phone away to cough. “Sorry, Mr. Walker. Horrible cold. She was staying with Virginia Embers of all people, and the woman is distraught. She won’t leave her home. Calls me every five minutes to see if anything’s changed.”

  “I do hope you feel better soon,” Ezekiel said between gritted teeth. “So there really has been nothing? Is this normal?”

  “It’s definitely not, but it’s happened before,” Legare replied. “About five years ago a feller jumped, he was real sad over a break up or something. Anywho, we never found him until about a year later. At least, what was left of him. Washed up on Bull’s Island. Real sad. His family had reported him missing. They were from Pawleys Island…”

  Legare kept talking and Ezekiel zoned him out. Ezekiel didn’t give a damn about any of this.

  Where was she?

  Ezekiel had been living in downtown Charleston since the early 1900s. Just in the South Carolina Lowcountry, he still had Stoneberry Place, an estate tucked away in the Francis Marion National Forest, the Walker Plantation, and a stately home out on Sullivans Island. All of his developed properties had been featured in Architectural Digest.

  But the bulk of his time was spent downtown in his East Bay home. It’s where he felt most like himself. His staff were loyal and well compensated for their services. To any Charlestonian, he was the mysterious, kindly, rich bachelor. The Post and Courier adored him. He was always giving his money away, so of course they were enamored. They did profiles on him every other year or so, always noting how, “Mr. Walker never seems to age.”

  Idiots.

  He’d been many Ezekiel Walkers, of course. He had to keep up the façade of a long lineage. It was a real pain in the ass and he’d be glad when it was over. With new technology and social media, it was becoming harder and harder to hide his secrets. Money bought a lot of things, but privacy was becoming something that was getting more and more expensive.

  The Holy City and its people assumed the Walkers’ money came from real estate. Which wasn’t completely wrong. It definitely had a huge impact on his net worth, no doubt. He had homes in West Palm, Manhattan, and a beautiful Malibu mansion right on the Pacific Coast Highway. He rarely visited them, but it was nice to have them if needed. Plenty of people in his pocket had visited them, at his insistence of course.

  Ezekiel Walker was a generous man. To all.

  But most of his money came from people who needed him. They needed his abilities to attain their own dreams and desires. They were more than willing to pay. And he was more than willing to accept their money.

  But the price was high. It always is when you cut corners.

  Ezekiel would go online sometimes and laugh at the conspiracy theorists. The ones obsessed with the Masons and the Illuminati. If only they knew how close, they were to the truth. That it wasn’t so impossible.

  That it was all much more sinister than they could ever imagine.

  Chapter 12

  “Why would he want to kill me?” I asked. “And my sister? I don’t even know who he is.”

  My stomach dropped a bit. To know some mystery man was out there, intent on taking my life away, was altogether a disturbing notion. And also unbelievable. No one knew me outside work and the home. I hadn’t collected any friends in high school. I’d been a loner in every sense of the word. And that meant leaving others alone too.

  Having an enemy just seemed… impossible.

  “He wants your power,” Virginia said. “Or, if he can’t have it, he doesn’t want anyone else to have it either.”

  My power. It was still so strange to think I had any of that. I had always felt completely powerless.

  “Can we stop him?” I asked. “Before he can hurt us. I mean, he made Emma jump off a bridge!”

  “The Sirens did, but they work for him so. Yeah. You’re right,” Josephine replied. “But it didn’t work. She’s safe!”

  “Where is she?” I turned to Virginia. “Is she down here?”

  Virginia shook her head. “No. This would be a very dangerous place for her to be right now. But you’ll meet her very soon.”

  “And we can’t use our… abilities?” I asked.

  “Not down here,” Virginia said. “No one can. It’s how we keep what we have here safe. It makes it a more… even playing field. But it’s also protected. No one has managed to break i
n here. We want to keep it that way.”

  “How is it protected?” I said, looking around me.

  “Dr. Ibis has a root on the house,” Virginia replied. “It’s too much to explain for now. But trust me. Nothing is coming in here. And if anyone did, there are… guardians. Somehow we have been able to keep its existence from Ezekiel, and we want to keep it that way.”

  I nodded. I didn’t understand, but if she said we were safe, I knew we were.

  “So, anyway,” Virginia started speaking and we were walking again. “This is called the Montagu house. I know you haven’t seen the outside of it, but from the outside it looks like a dilapidated home that’s in desperate need of a makeover. It’s a nice way to hide in plain sight.”

  We were stopped now, in front of a large door. It was like a bank vault.

  “This is what it looks like,” Virginia said. “It’s a vault.”

  “Okay…” I said. Virginia started punching numbers into a keypad in the wall beside it.

  It slid open to the side and we stepped forward, where another door awaited us.

  Virginia put her hand on something that scanned her palm. It looked like an iPad.

  The door behind us closed and the one in front of us opened. But it was pitch black. I couldn’t see a thing.

  “Virginia Embers with Calista Embers, Josephine Berkshire, and…” Virginia looked at me as she said, “Briar Givhans.”

  Suddenly lights came on around us and I realized I was standing on a platform looking down at a warehouse. Something unseen brushed past me and I felt a chill go through my body. The momentary distraction, however, was instantly forgotten as my eyes adjusted to the light and scanned the warehouse.

  A warehouse filled with what looked like treasure.

  “Oh my God,” I muttered, taking in the scene in front of me. “This looks like the inside of that cave in Aladdin. With all the treasure he’s not supposed to touch.”

  Calista laughed. “Your sister said it reminded her of DuckTales. I like your comparison more.”