by Renee George
“It’s nice to meet you, Tristan. I’m Olivia Madder.”
“Olivia is a beautiful name. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you are, too.”
“Thank you.” I was taught you should be courteous in the face of compliments, but I found myself taking real pleasure from his observation.
“Would you like to come inside for something to drink? You can tell me all about the friendship between you and Gramps.” He strolled onto the porch and opened the door. “Ladies first.”
I only hesitated a fraction of a second before entering the house—and the past I had never wanted to remember.
Chapter 4
David’s kitchen had changed a lot since the last time I’d been in this farmhouse. For one, it had a dishwasher. In the 1950s, our hands were the only dishwashers available. Also, the walls had been white trimmed with plain wood. Nothing fancy. Now the walls were painted a sandy-brown with dark-turquois accents everywhere. The stove was still gas, but it was a more modern version, at least from the eighties. Tristan had washed his hands and wiped a wet towel over his face. The damp hair around his face made his eyes brighter. I couldn’t get over how much he looked like David. If it hadn’t been for the color of his eyes and his youth, I would swear he was David.
“You look a lot like him,” I said.
“Who?”
“Your grandfather.” I looked down at my hands, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. “It’s uncanny.”
He blinked at me. “You mean, minus the wrinkles, the gray hair, and the stooped posture?”
“I meant when he was younger,” I said. And I added, “I’ve seen pictures.”
“Oh.” He walked to the refrigerator, also a more modern upgrade, and opened the door. “Lemonade?”
“Sure,” I said.
“My word.” Eliza giggled and snapped her fan shut. “That man is handsome for a pie eater.”
“This house makes me miss, papa,” said Char. She walked around the kitchen, her bustle rustling with every step.
“Now,” Tristan said, oblivious to the ghost invasion. “How does someone like you know someone like my grandfather?”
“I’m not certain what you mean by someone like me.”
“You’re wearing designer clothes, and your shoes cost more than my grandfather paid for his last tractor. I find it hard to believe you had much in common. Not to mention the obvious age difference.”
I crossed my legs and kicked up my foot to admire my black, patent-leather Louboutin ankle boots. The heels were special, like my red stilettoes, and doubled as weapons. What else was I going to spend my money on? “And how would you know how much my shoes cost?”
“Well, regardless of what I look like right now, I wasn’t born in a barn. And you don’t look like the kind of girl who would spray paint the bottom of her shoes red.” He smiled, and I found myself smiling back.
“You’re right about that.”
“He’s wearing a ring, Liv, but see, he wears it on the right hand, so it’s not a wedding band,” Eliza said.
Now that his hands were washed, I noted the silver ring Eliza had pointed out. Warding symbols have been engraved in the wide band, and it had an oval stone that looked like obsidian wrapped in gold set into the top. I’d never seen David without it, and now that Tristan wore it, I felt David’s loss even more keenly.
“You’re wearing David’s ring.”
Tristan held up his hand. “This one?” He looked at it. “Yeah, the old man left it to me. Apparently, it’s been in our family for a really long time.”
I knew the heirloom had been in the Jensen family since the Middle Ages. At least, that’s as far as David had been able to trace it. The ring had been passed down from father to firstborn son for generations, so I should not have been surprised that Tristan had ended up with it.
“You should ask him if he has a sweetheart,” said Eliza. “Then maybe you can get cozy with him.”
I was not going to jump the bones of David’s grandson. That just seemed supremely skeevy. Besides, the Jensen family had been off-limits for so long, I felt jittery just being in the house. Even with Moloch’s blessing, I felt wrong about returning here. Especially since I was essentially here to steal from the man I had loved.
Okay, still loved. Dead didn’t mean forgotten.
“I’m sorry,” Tristan said as he misinterpreted the reason for my sudden silence. “I wasn’t trying to offend you with my observations about your clothing.”
“Well, good,” I told him. “Because you didn’t offend me. Not one bit. I like a man with a keen eye for shoes. It’s a surprise is all. Do you sell shoes or something?”
“Or something.” He placed two glasses of iced lemonade on the table and then sat down across from me. “I’m a corporate lawyer. After Dad died, my mother and I moved to Chicago. Gramps and I were never that close.”
Eliza stopped sashaying through the kitchen and wheeled around. “Oh, the poor boy. He needs to work through his feelings of guilt so he can find peace with his grandfather’s memory.”
Charlotte took one look at my expression and grabbed Elise. “I think it’s time for us to absquatulate and let Liv get on with her business.”
“But I want to help.”
“Come along, now. David was good to Liv, and she should be able to have this moment without us poking around in her business.”
“If you get a chance,” said Eliza as Char dragged her away, “ask him to journal about his feelings so you can discuss—”
They disappeared before Eliza could finish that sentence. I was the last person to offer Tristan—or anyone—advice about how to deal with guilt. I carried mine around like two packed suitcases.
“What do you remember about my grandfather?”
“He was funny. Kind. Smart. Really smart. His only flaw was his love of country music.” I smiled. “There are only two types of music I dislike, country is one of them.”
“And let me guess, western is the other?” Tristan met my smile with one of his own.
I chuckled. “Yeah.” David and I had had this conversation on numerous occasions during our demon-hunting stakeouts. I’d want to tune the radio to rock-n-roll, and he’d want to listen to the country station. Music was about the only thing we couldn’t agree on. “Please tell me someone played Patsy Cline at David’s funeral.” When we did research, he was forever playing Patsy Cline records. I knew the words to most of the songs, too.
“Yes,” said Tristan softly. “Walkin’ After Midnight.”
I swallowed the sudden knot in my throat as my eyes pricked with tears. “That was one of his favorites.”
Tristan’s gaze pinned mine, and I felt my pulse jumped. He leaned forward, opening his mouth ready to say…what?
The next moment, he’d sat back, leaving the words unsaid.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay inside David’s house. The memories were flooding back, and with them, the ache in my heart grew. Shit. How could I explain to Tristan that David had been a paranormal researcher who used to help me track down demons? I cleared my throat. “Your grandfather had some books and journals he used to keep around. I don’t suppose you know where I could find them.” Wherever he kept his stash of research seemed like the most likely place he’d keep Moloch’s prize.
Tristan raised a brow. “What kinds of journals and books?”
“Most of them were about the supernatural world.”
His silence made me realize he had no idea what I was talking about.
“You know, ghosts, demons, possession, and such.”
“Are you sure you knew my grandfather? Because he was salt of the earth.”
No, he was more like “salt all the windows and doors.” I sighed. “He probably kept them hidden. He was secretive about his hobby.” Christ, I sounded like a lunatic, but I needed to find that book.
“His hobby?”
“David was private about his interest in paranormal stuff. He didn’t want people to think he was craz
y.”
“Crazy. Right.” Then Tristan laughed. “I’m just teasing.” There was a slight twinkle in his eyes as he said, “I’ve seen the basement. I think he had an unhealthy obsession with the paranormal.”
I crossed my right leg over my left, my skirt riding up my thigh. And even though I hadn’t been trying to draw his attention to my legs, I watched with some satisfaction as Tristan’s gaze lingered appreciatively. God, he was sexy. As sexy as David had been. Stop, Liv. Stop. My libido was doing the same kind of cartwheels it had when I met Tristan’s grandfather sixty years ago. And I was not—not—going to get horizontal with David’s grandson. That was all kinds of wrong, and I owed David more than that.
“Can I go down and take a look around?” I asked.
“You’re in luck, Olivia Madder,” said Tristan. “I was going to suggest that very thing. My grandfather left you something.” He sipped his lemonade and his gaze softened with something almost like recognition. “You really are here, aren’t you, Olivia?”
He kept saying my name weird as if testing the word to see if it was real. “Yes,” I said. I saw a flicker in his gaze—yearning? No, no. I was imagining reactions. A reminder to self: Tristan was not David.
“What did David leave me?” I hoped he’d put all his research aside for me. He had to have, right? That’s the only thing I could think that he would want me to have.
“A very fancy, weirdly carved chest.”
That sounded promising. At least it would get me in the right area of the house. “Have you opened it?”
He sat back and smoothed his wide, farm beaten hands over his thighs. I wondered how long he’d been at the farm because those were definitely not the hands of a corporate lawyer. “No. I don’t get into things that aren’t mine.”
It was my turn to raise a suspicious brow. “Really?”
Tristan smirked. “It’s locked, and it needs a special kind of key.”
“That makes sense. Your grandfather loved puzzles. How about you take me to the fancy weird chest, and I open it.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then I guess I’m the wrong Olivia Madder.”
“And if you can?”
“Then I will tell you everything.” I gave him the full weight of my stare. “If you really want to know.”
He nodded and stood up. “I really want to know.”
Chapter 5
As I followed Tristan to the basement, I was surprised that he didn’t seem freaked out in the slightest about his grandfather’s supernatural leanings. I think most unaware folks would be shocked by the contents of the place I’d deemed “David’s Dungeon.”
I’d spent many hours in the dungeon. Truth was, Clarissa didn’t know her husband was neck-deep in the paranormal—his family’s other business—and she didn’t seem to mind that he was alone in a basement with another woman.
Granted, David told her I was his cousin and that we were doing genealogical research for a family book. That had been enough of explanation. Besides, Clarissa was the opposite of a night owl. She was pretty much asleep before ten o’clock thanks in part to mother’s little helper: Valium. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, doctors prescribed so much anxiety medication to women they should’ve handed out Pez dispensers.
I looked around at the crowded bookshelves. Some were about the size Moloch had described, but none were leatherbound. And most of them didn’t look old enough to be considered ancient. My graze tracked around the room, and I noted the piles of crates filled with the necessary accouterment for demon hunters, the spell casting table still coated with soot and wax, and … whoa. The two desks that David and I had pushed together still occupied in the same corner. I sat at one, and he, at the other, facing each other as we poured through old scrolls and manuscripts looking for ways to either kill Moloch or free me or both. In the meanwhile, we did everything possible to trap and remove the demonic from this world.
My desk was empty—clean and dust-free, but David’s was just as cluttered as I remembered. Once again, grief kicked me in the stomach.
This was the place where I fell in love with the man I could never have.
Then I spotted the record player—in the same location it had always been, the corner behind David’s chair. The stack of records was in the same place, too. The powder blue Dansette record player sat on four spindly wooden legs and its white lid was open. I couldn’t help myself. I walked to it and looked down at the vinyl currently on the turntable. Patsy Cline’s Sentimentally Yours. I’d bought it for him when it was first in stores. A frivolous expense, but worth it to see David’s joy.
Memories threatened to overwhelm me. To keep control of myself, I strolled to my desk and sat down. I glanced at David’s desk piled high with opened books and scattered Post-It Notes. Back when I worked with David, he’d tape notes he’d penned on paper, napkins, and gum wrappers. I had no doubt the introduction of Post-It Notes in the 1970s had made his inner research nerd ecstatic.
“You look comfortable there,” Tristan said. “Like you belong.”
I straightened in the chair. “Trust me when I say I don’t belong here.”
“Olivia—" He stopped then shook his head. “I’ll get you the chest.”
He went off into another part of the basement and returned a couple minutes later with an ornate wooden box about the size of a watermelon.
Tristan handed it to me, our fingers grazing as the container passed to me. That light touch sent a shocking amount of thrill straight to my groin.
Nope. No. No way. I was furious with myself for feeling anything for Tristan—even lust—given how I’d felt about his grandfather. Apparently, my hormones didn’t give a damn which of the Jensen men were in the same room with me.
I put the box on the desk and examined the lock. It had a serpent, an apple, and a naked woman carved into the front. The woman’s mouth was shaped like a large “O” and inside it, the hole for the key.
I grimaced. “It’s an unholy lock. The Devil’s temptation of Eve,” I said to Tristan.
“I get it,” Tristan said. “The woman with the big mouth is Eve. Do you know how to open it?”
“Maybe.” I’d seen an unholy lock once—about eighty years ago when I’d hunted down the jinn that had started the 1929 Hebron massacre in Palestine. Jinns were a rare demon variety that could attach a part of their essence to an object—usually a container like a glass bottle or a stone box. Even if they were forced to leave their human receptacles, they would not return to Hell. Nope. Those bastards would return to their magicked vessels and await the day another foolish human would free them once more.
And the jinn who’d thought that starting a killing spree was such a fun idea had secured his little gold lamp with an unholy lock. Hmm. That lock had been much smaller—made of onyx in the shape of a pomegranate with four tiny irregular holes drilled into the fruit’s center. To unlock it, I had to yank the jinn’s back, bottom right molar and place the roots into the perforations. I destroyed the lamp and the jinn’s connection to this world, and since it’s damned near impossible to obliterate an unholy lock, I chucked it into the Dead Sea.
As I studied the lock in front of me, I hoped there wasn’t any dentistry involved with this one. So, what was its trigger? “The apple is the fruit of knowledge, the serpent is the devil, and—”
“The key hole is Eve’s mouth,” Tristan said.
I brushed my thumbs across some stick-figure-looking letters scribbled under the carved scene. “This is Aramaic.”
“You know Aramaic?” There was something in his voice—amusement, I realized. The same amusement I’d heard in David’s voice when he’d learned I could read Aramaic and some Hebrew. A girl could learn a lot in fifteen decades if she had a mind to do so.
He pulled the chair over from David’s desk, and he sat down next to me. “So, what does it say?” he asked.
“Dema.” I leaned back in the seat. “Blood. Well, that’s simple enough.” Scientists thought DNA locks were th
e epitome of security, but let’s face it, blood had been used for binding and releasing objects and spells since ancient times. I retrieved a push dagger from a leather-lined pocket in my purse and used the very sharp tip to prick my finger.
Tristan stared at my finger and then looked up at me. I couldn’t discern the expression on his face. I returned my attention to the box. I tilted the lock up and carefully filled the small opening, effectively feeding Eve my blood. The mechanism inside clicked twice and the lock released.
He scooted closer as I took the lock off the hinge and prepared to open the container.
The heat of his breath made the fine hairs on my neck stand up. I tried to ignore the stir of longing inside me. Instead, I concentrated on the task before me. “My blood was the key to an unholy lock. Are you sure you want to stick around and find out more? It’s probably safer if you walk away now.”
“I’m not walking away,” he said. “Not now. Not ever.”
I looked at him and saw familiarity in those storm-gray eyes. You’re the wrong Jensen, I thought. And if I couldn’t have David…well, I didn’t want anyone else.
I flipped the lid open. On the very top was a picture of myself and David standing outside a Five & Dime. I was wearing a pair of men’s jeans, rolled up at the bottom, and a white tee-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve. Everybody smoked back then. My hair was short and full of thick curls, as was the fashion. David had his arms crossed against his chest with his own pack of stogies in his front pocket. He’d loved those front pocket tees. I had my hands in my back pants pockets, where I kept my push knives ready for action. I remembered that day as if it were yesterday. We’d just taken down a demon outside of Hannibal, Missouri, a town famous for being the childhood home of Mark Twain, and we were commemorating the moment with a photograph.
I picked up the picture and ran my thumb across David’s young face. I glanced at Tristan. Jesus, the resemblance was scary. I looked at the picture again. Moloch had insisted I keep no reminders of David, so I’d had to walk away without a single memento of our time together.