by Dima Zales
Annie’s voice brought her back to the present. “Any idea when we’ll be able to work in the library?”
“Daniel told me it gets the afternoon sun, which should protect us, but it doesn’t give us much time. As soon as it starts getting dark, we’ll lose any advantage.”
“This murdering asshat won’t show up again while we’re there?”
Claire raised one eyebrow, fighting a smile. “The asshat is hopefully still recovering from our last encounter. She draws strength from darkness. It is when she killed, and I’m guessing when she died.”
“How do you know so much about this?”
Claire held up the grimoire. “Daniel and I did some light reading while you were asleep last night. Meredith was a little obsessed about ghosts, and I found an incredible amount of information, far more than what you read. Daniel was able to help narrow down what was accurate, and what was hearsay.”
“I hope he’s right about this, because we’re betting our lives on it.”
“I trusted Meredith with everything.” Almost everything. There were secrets Claire could never give away, no matter how much she trusted someone. “And we need to trust Daniel now. He has much at stake, so I can’t see him leading us in the wrong direction.”
The first thing Claire did when they reached the ground floor was check all the doors. Still locked—a fact that left her more than a bit unsettled. That meant the spirit’s power over objects, like the door locks, held even when she was not present.
They found the kitchen, after several wrong turns. The floor plan of the mansion wasn’t conducive to easy navigation. Claire would have to become more familiar with it before tonight.
They separated, and started searching the huge kitchen for salt.
“Yes!” Annie appeared in the doorway of the butler’s pantry, holding a ten pound bag of salt. “The cupboard door was wide open, with this inside. I’m guessing that’s courtesy of Daniel.”
“Good. Now we need to find other containers, make it portable.”
Claire opened drawers, and pulled out a supply of storage bags. She set them on the table and they started transferring the salt into bags.
After a long silence, Annie spoke. “Do you think—” She glanced up at Claire, then down at the table, but not quickly enough for Claire to miss the fear in her eyes. “Can we actually defeat this asshat?”
“I believe so.”
“But we’re still locked in—”
“Annie.” She reached across the scarred kitchen table and took Annie’s hand. “I didn’t want to say anything—”
“Thanks for thinking of me, but I’d really rather know the hard truth up front. You don’t need to protect me, Claire.”
“I know, but this time, I want you to stand behind me. We are dealing with a spirit who has been growing stronger for two hundred years. I seriously underestimated her already, and I will not do so again.” She let go of Annie’s hand and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry I put you in this position.”
“Well, I’m not. My life needed shaking up, and this sure did that. Now—I’m going to finish making salt bombs, and then we’re going to get ready to kick some ghost ass. You with me?”
Claire couldn’t help herself; she burst out laughing.
“Yes, Annie. I’m with you.”
The short amount of time Claire allowed for them to prepare flew by, too fast for Annie. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that they’d be fighting a ghost. One that was able to keep them locked up tight in a mansion, and not even be here.
Claire had her lay a line of salt across every doorway and on every windowsill in the library, and the rooms surrounding it, in case the ghost managed to escape the library. Annie also put down a thick line in strategic spots along the corridors. They’d have to open a way for Daniel and Emily, if Claire even wanted them here when the murder happened. Two more emotional ghosts might be too many to handle.
She sat on the convenient chair next to the end of the corridor, her knees threatening to give out as the enormity of what they were about to do crashed in on her.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
“Annie.” Daniel’s deep voice filtered down the corridor. He stood on the opposite side of the line of salt, and even from halfway down the corridor, she could feel his barely suppressed anger. “Is this to prevent me from reaching Juliet?”
“No.” She didn’t think so. “It’s for the asshat we’re going to have to face tonight.”
“Ass what?” He raised his eyebrows, clearly amused.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the expression before. Haven’t you been hanging around for the last two hundred years?”
“In the wrong places, apparently. May I please—”
“No.” Claire’s voice made Annie jump. “I can’t have you here, Daniel.”
Fury poured off him. “You liar—” He moved forward, and slammed into an invisible barrier, hissing in pain. “You promised I would be able to save her—”
“I told you I would try to break her free of her murderer. I never promised that you would be part of it.”
“Claire.” Shock at the flat, uncaring tone in her voice had Annie staring at her. Why was she lying? “What—”
“Come into the library, Annie. That’s more than enough salt to protect us for now.”
Daniel cursed at them as they stepped inside, his shouts echoing through the mansion.
“What the hell?” Annie jerked away when Claire tried to touch her. “Why are you turning on him like that? I was there when you promised to help, and you told him that you needed his help to stop her murder.”
“I did.” Claire sounded exhausted now, and a closer look revealed fear in her silver blue eyes. “And I will allow him to join us, if he can explain this.”
She held out a folded piece of heavy paper, scented with lavender. It must be one of Juliet’s notes. There had been a pile in her desk, all of them now sitting on the library desk.
Annie took it, half afraid to read what was inside. She opened the note, and found only two sentences in neat, beautiful handwriting.
Oh, Emily, I wish you were here, as I have no one else to turn to. Daniel is so angry with me, since I told him we can never marry, and I am frightened that he may harm me.
“Damn. She called off the engagement?”
“Look at the date.”
Annie missed it the first time through—it was printed up in the left corner, so small, but absolutely condemning.
October 30, 1815.
“Daniel told us he died that day—”
“There is no proof, Annie. He was found the day after Halloween, and there was no way to tell how long he had been dead. He could have killed Juliet in a rage, and died himself not long after.”
“How’s he supposed to prove himself to you? And besides, you told me you thought the killer was a woman.”
“I could have been wrong, about all of this. Who has been with us all this time, Annie, since we have been locked inside the mansion?”
Annie lowered herself to one of the big wing chairs, not wanting to believe the evidence Claire was laying out.
“Daniel,” she whispered. “But he seemed to heartbroken, and so desperate to get here, to free Juliet—”
“Heartbroken, or guilty? I don’t know what to believe anymore.” Claire sat on the footstool in front of the chair. “But there is one way to find out. The only problem is that it will take energy I need for tonight.”
“And if Daniel is the killer, you won’t really need it.”
“A dilemma. If he’s innocent, I may not have the strength to face the real killer. If he isn’t, I won’t need it, because we can trap him here before the murder. But I won’t find the truth if I don’t—”
“Expend it. Can I help?” Claire stared at her. “You said I had power. Can you use it for this—whatever it is that will clear Daniel or mark him as the killer?”
“Annie, I don’t—damn it,” she whispered
, lowering her head. “Yes. Your help will make all the difference.”
“Okay.” She stood, and pressed her hands against her thighs to keep them from shaking. “Tell me what to do.”
Annie took a deep breath, then stepped out of the library.
Daniel was pacing in front of the salt line. He spotted her, and his fury almost knocked her against the wall.
“Do not keep me from Juliet! I will not—”
“I’m coming to let you pass, but you have to promise not to hurt me, or Claire. She threatened to take you out if you so much as singe a hair on my head.”
He calmed, the fury fading away as he nodded. “I agree. Now let me pass.”
Annie moved forward, and used her foot to break the salt line. Daniel appeared next to her before she could blink.
“God—”
“I would know the reason for this betrayal.”
“Follow me.”
The last thing she wanted to do was turn her back on an angry ghost. An angry, solid ghost. But Claire had told her to act unconcerned, so she would act like her life depended on it.
Daniel followed her—so close his wool coat brushed her fingers. If he still breathed, Annie would have felt it on her neck. By the time they reached the doorway to the library she was shaking.
She stepped aside and let him enter first—then grabbed the bag of salt hidden behind a chair and spread it across the threshold.
Daniel whirled, his dark blue eyes narrowed. “What is this? A trap?”
“An interrogation.” Claire stepped into sight, carrying one of the fireplace tools. “This poker is iron, and I assure you, I will use it if you provoke me. Sit, Daniel. It is time we talked.”
The desk chair sat in the middle of the floor, next to the dark stain, and almost surrounded by a thick ring of salt. Claire had left enough room for him to step through.
“You threaten me, mean to trap me? What have I done to earn this mistrust?”
“That is what we’re going to talk about. Now sit, or I will banish you from this mansion. For good.”
He stared at her, his fists clenched, for endless seconds. Finally, he stepped inside the salt ring and sat in the chair. Claire pulled a salt shaker out of her pocket, twisted the cap off, and completed the circle. With her inside.
“Claire—”
“You will stay out of this, Annie.”
“I was going to—”
“Offer your power. I know, and you have no idea how much I appreciate you for it. But I need to do this on my own.”
Annie watched them face off inside the circle of salt, ghost and witch. She had never been so scared in her life.
10
“I found a note, from Juliet. One she wrote to her dead sister. The day before she died.”
Daniel looked confused. Claire wasn’t certain whether to be happy about that or not.
“Is that why I am here, surrounded by this foul salt? Because of a note?”
“Juliet broke off your engagement.”
Daniel closed his eyes, and such pain flashed across his face, it hurt to see. “My mother did not approve of the match, and made it known, publicly. Juliet was afraid that if she married me, I would lose everything.” He met Claire’s eye. “When I was attacked, I was on my way here to tell her that my mother had no control over me, or my finances, and even if she did, I would still happily marry. With Juliet at my side, I was a rich man, no matter how much money I possessed.”
“If you loved her as you say, openly, why did she write this?”
Claire held the note up so Daniel could read it.
“Where did you find this?” His voice was deadly quiet, the rage in it leaving goosebumps on Claire’s arms.
“In her secretary.”
“This is not Juliet’s handwriting.”
Claire stepped back. “I compared it—”
“She did not write this. Do you have another sample?”
“I—yes.” Claire pulled another folded note out of her pocket. “They are identical—”
“They are close, but this is where the forger made their mistake. Juliet wrote her thoughts in notes, which everyone knew. What only Emily and I knew was that Juliet always signed those notes.”
She looked at the second note. “I didn’t see a signature when I compared them, and I don’t see one now.”
Daniel let out an impatient sound. “After the last word, in the second note. She always ended them with a hand drawn sprig of lavender. Sometimes she wove it into the lettering of the last word. Hold up the bloody paper—there, right there.” His finger stabbed at the paper. “Check all of her notes, and you will find the same. She did it on all her correspondence, whether it was notes to herself, or a letter to a friend. I found it charming, and clever. Her middle name was Lavender.”
He looked at her, defiant and scared. Claire met his eyes, hoping that what he just told her was not some smooth lie. “Annie—please bring me the pile of papers on the desk. Wait until I tell you to hand them to me.”
She watched Annie sprint to the desk and gather up all the correspondence she had pulled out of Juliet’s secretary, then turned to Daniel. “Move one inch while she is passing the papers to me over the salt, and I will drive this poker straight through you.”
“Understood, witch.”
It hurt that they were back to the barely contained animosity. Even as she suspected Daniel, she still liked him, wanted him to be innocent. Keeping her gaze on him, the tip of the poker leveled an inch from his chest, she held out her free hand, careful not to cross the salt. Annie laid the papers in her open hand and backed away quickly.
Daniel didn’t even blink.
Glancing up at him every couple of seconds, Claire scanned the other correspondence. Every single one had the sprig of lavender, sometimes cleverly worked into her name, other times a small drawing at the end of the note or letter.
“Have I passed your damn fool test, witch?”
“I’m sorry. I had to know, before I left my power wide open.” She broke the salt circle with her foot and stepped away from Daniel. He glared at her as he stood, as he walked past her, finally freeing her from that vengeful, powerful gaze. Her next words stopped his furious stride. “Someone was meant to find that note, Daniel.”
He swung around—and disappeared, reappearing in front of her, so close she almost stumbled backward. His hand caught her wrist, his icy grip burning into her skin.
“I would seek to learn who wrote it, from one who would know.”
He studied Claire, like she already had the answer…
“Oh,” she whispered. “You think—”
“I do. Which means she has known, all these years, who murdered my Juliet.”
Annie cleared her throat. “Care to let me in on the joke?” Claire held out her hand, and pulled Annie down to whisper in her ear. “Holy sh—” She cut herself off, and met Claire’s eyes. “How?”
“Just as we did with Daniel. A trap.”
11
Rage and grief burned through Daniel as he waited for the trap to spring.
How? How could she stand by and watch Juliet walk to her own death?
Her transparent figure appeared in the bedroom doorway, and he watched her drift over to the secretary before he blocked the way out. Behind him, he felt the noxious salt as Claire sealed them in. Neither would leave until he had the truth.
Emily turned, one hand at her throat. “Daniel? Why are you—I thought—”
“That I had been removed from the game? Claire doubted enough to question me first, before she believed that I lied to her, and murdered Juliet.”
He shot across the room, so fast Emily did not have time to do more than stare. She tried to disappear, but he was ready for her, and dumped the bag of salt he held, trapping them both in the corner. Even with the bag doubled, the salt still burned him, and he felt heat under his skin for the first time in two hundred years.
“Daniel—what are you—”
“I want t
he truth, Emily. Neither of us will leave until I am satisfied.”
“You would stay, miss the chance to save your beloved Juliet?”
There it was—the anger he had expected. “I know you saw who wrote this note. That your jealousy condemned your own sister.”
“She was supposed to marry first! Instead, our father gave into her whining pleas, and I was forced into a marriage with a man I could barely stand to look at.” Emily lifted her chin, fire in her blue eyes. “I blamed Juliet, for years. But we reconciled, and when year after year passed with no proposal, I knew she would become a spinster, and an outcast, despite her looks. I died with that knowledge as comfort, stayed to watch her live a solitary life. The years softened my animosity, and I enjoyed spending time with her, listening to her talk about her life, as if she knew I was in the room with her. I did love her, Daniel, before she met you.”
“Who wrote the note?” When she kept silent, he leaned in, bracing his hands against the wall. “Do not test me, Emily. I have lost everything that is dear to me, but I will give up my last chance to be with Juliet to condemn her murderer to Hell.”
Her eyes widened. “You would not—”
“If you refuse to tell me, I will leave you here, trapped. Tell me, and I will not have Claire send you the way of Juliet’s murderer.”
Emily stared up at him, silent for so long he nearly gave up. When he began to turn away, she spoke.
“It was Bea.”
Surprise left him speechless for several moments. “Juliet’s chaperone?”
“Aunt Beatrice has been jealous of Juliet from the beginning. She looked—happy, when she was writing it. I thought nothing of it then.”
“How could you not—”
“I thought it was another of her spiteful messages to Juliet! But now, after what you’ve told me, and that I was trapped here the night of her death, when I had always been able to wander freely—”