Sage and Spirited
Doing a family favour before a wedding is nerve-wracking at the best of times, clearing out the haunted venue is a nightmare.
Hecate’s social life is looking up. Her sister is getting married, the new brother-in-law-to-be is a really good guy, and his family is helping Hecate fill in the gaps of her knowledge of what the hell she is.
Her grandfather’s ghost is convinced that she needs to become a ghost hunter in her family tradition. She has attempted to tell him that her way is more appropriate, but it is hard to get a new idea into the minds of the deceased.
When her grandfather’s assistant arrives, Hecate is in for a shock. Not only is he pale as marble, but he is also as solid as the stone as well.
She doesn’t have time to deal with the new arrival. Her sister’s wedding venue has had a disaster strike, and the search is on for a new one. Hecate goes with them when they locate a prospective replacement. There is only one problem. It is the most haunted building in the province. It’s a good thing that Hecate has cleared her calendar for the week before the event. She has some work to do.
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Sage and Spirited
Copyright © 2020 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-4874-2829-7
Cover art by Martine Jardin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Smashwords Edition
Sage and Spirited
The Wakeman Grimoire Book #2
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
“You are not serious enough about this, Hecate.”
She looked at him through narrowed eyes and yawned. “About what, Grandfather?”
“About your role as a ghost hunter.”
“I am not a hunter. I am an expediter, extractor, or remover. I don’t hunt them; I go when I am called.”
He muttered, “You should take an interest in breaking the family curse.”
She groaned and sat up, swinging her legs out from under her blankets. “Right now, I have an interest in a carafe of coffee and some hot breakfast. Is it even dawn yet?”
He blustered and got out of her way as she walked through her house and into her kitchen. Making coffee on automatic was something she had been doing for years.
She put pastries into the toaster, verified the setting, and pushed the lever down.
“You do not have a good diet. You consume too many calories.”
She gave the form of her grandfather a dark look as her coffee began to emit its life-giving scent. “I burn eight thousand calories on a day when I work. My body is constantly in a battle to keep itself heated and functioning. Being half-ghost and half-human is not something that comes with a lite grocery bill.”
She poured a coffee and took the cup out to the deck, where she watched the eastern sky turn pink.
In the last fourteen days, she had taken care of a jealous poltergeist that she had almost forgotten about, met her grandfather’s ghost, and been invited to the rehearsal dinner for her sister’s wedding. There were a few more ghosts extracted and released and the daily routine that never seemed to stabilize, but she was getting better at juggling.
“You need a structure to build on your strengths. Your instinct for your skills is tremendous, but there is never an excuse to reject education.”
“I will gladly welcome education. I just need materials to study.”
“Domerik should be here shortly. I don’t understand the holdup.”
She sipped at her coffee and muttered, “I think he had to hire a truck.”
“What?”
“When you made it clear that he was arriving with the furnishings, I knew that he had to bring them properly, at least for this community. I called Domerik back and explained things, so he was transporting stuff over and hauling it here in a purchased sea container. This community is small, and if something simply appeared without any means of approach, people would talk.”
“Ah. What did he say?”
“He would be driving in this week.” She smiled.
Ulysses was shocked. “I didn’t know he could drive.”
Hecate gave her grandfather’s ghost a stare. “I thought he was your driver.”
“No, he is a butler, assistant, and archivist.”
“Oh. Well, your question is answered. He’s about five minutes out. I just heard air brakes from the highway turn.”
“How do you know it is not for someone else?” He crossed his arms.
“You don’t understand how small this town really is. I would have heard if there were any other shipments coming in.” She smiled and headed in to get her toaster pastries and more coffee.
Four minutes later, a semi made its way down her drive with a forty-foot sea container hitched to it. She smiled, got up, and walked in front of the slowly moving vehicle, waving it on to the site that she had prepared for it.
The driver got out, and they discussed the placement of the doors. He made a slow loop around and then backed up until he was in front of the site. The bed the container was on tipped, and the sea can was gently eased into place, settled down with a thud, and when Hecate signed for the receipt, he handed her the keys.
All of the chains were unhitched, the transport bed was locked back in place, and the semi made its way off her property, leaving only the sea container behind.
Ulysses looked at the metal box. “It is most unseemly.”
“This is the country. And the new world, for that matter. Practical wins until I can arrange to have a proper outbuilding built for it.” She flicked through the keys and went to the unit, figuring out which way the key went in the lock before popping the first of three of them.
“How do you even know how to open it?”
She paused and turned to him with a frown. “Unsettled ghosts were often killed in this kind of container. I needed to get in, so I learned.”
Once the locks were off, she lifted the vertical posts that locked the doors into the base of the container via their handles. The metal moved with a hard squeak and a screech. She hauled the door outward, and it swung open and to the side.
Her grandfather stepped toward the door, and he called out, “Domerik!”
A figure stirred in the darkness of the stacked boxes. “Do I hear your call, Wakeman?”
Hecate was standing right in his path with the light blazing behind her. “You hear your old master, and you hear my voice once again. It is good to see you in person, Domerik.”
He stepped toward her, and he was a match to the deep voice that she had listened to over the phone. “Miss Wakeman? You have your grandfather’s eyes.”
He bowed low and looked up with bright, twinkling green eyes. The rest of him was more s
uited to a Nordic bodybuilder than a librarian. His blonde hair was tied neatly at the nape of his neck, and he smiled brightly when he stood straight in front of her again.
“Miss Wakeman, I stand ready to serve you as I have served six generations of Wakemans before you.”
Hecate stepped back. “Uh...”
Her grandfather chortled. “Excellent, Domerik. I knew you wouldn’t abandon us because the heir is a female.”
“Of course not. You are looking very robust for a naturally deceased ghost, Master Ulysses.”
Her grandfather chuckled. “That is all Hecate’s doing. There are many ghosts on this property, and I would ask that you treat them well. They are under her care.”
Hecate sighed. “Guys. I am right here. First, Domerik, call me Hecate, and I will call you Rick. Got it?
“Now, Grandfather, you don’t give orders around here. Amber does. You are not the ghost most familiar with our emergencies and protocols. She is. You wanted to teach me the ways of our family. I want to learn, but don’t forget that I have my own ways of working with the deceased, and my own methods to work with the humans that are affected.”
“Of course. This container is your legacy and Domerik’s home.”
Domerik smiled. “I can make it look like whatever you wish.”
Hecate sighed. “Keep it as a container. I don’t want to pay property taxes on a palace or a keep. There is a crushed limestone base under the container, so it will remain level and dry.”
Domerik gave a courtly bow. “Thank you, Hecate. I can work expansive magic inside and make it comfortable.”
She grimaced. “And we will have to put a few of your clothing items into my home in case anyone comes by. It has to look like you are staying there. This is a very small town. They will notice someone like you immediately.”
“Someone like me?”
She looked him up and down. He was wearing a neat set of trousers, expensive shoes, and a shirt so crisp it looked like it could cut paper. “You are going to need to downgrade your wardrobe a bit. This is a jeans and t-shirt kind of place. Also, I don’t know if your accent is stuck on British, but if you could alter it to something a little more North American, that would be great.”
He blinked and smiled. His voice changed, and the less formal tones rolled out. “I will do my best to blend in. How will you explain my presence?”
She smiled. “I suppose I will have to find something for you to do here. What would you like as a hobby?”
He stared, and his leaf green eyes widened. “No one has ever asked me that.”
“Get used to a lot of firsts.” She winked and looked past him. “Now, can I have a tour?”
“Of course... Hecate.”
She smiled brightly and followed him into the library of the Wakemans.
Chapter Two
The interior of the forty-foot container was neat, and everything was precisely arranged.
“Please, tell me that you didn’t travel all the way from the UK in this.” She looked around.
“No, I entered the country legally, via aircraft. You made it very clear that you wished to have no trouble with any legal issues, in case of law enforcement interference.”
She wrinkled her nose as she read the labels on the boxes. “Well, they do tend to pop up here to ask me questions, so if you are going to reside here, I need you to be able to identify yourself.”
She glanced toward him, and he smiled, handing her his international driver’s license.
She nodded. “Thank you. Things get weird very quickly, so obeying basic rules is usually a good idea.”
“Weird?” He chuckled.
“Yes. Weird. Like having a guy who is well over a hundred looking like he is in his mid-thirties. You know. Weird.”
“I will explain the circumstances another day. For now, you would be better served if you allowed me to do some dimensional magic here. I need to expand things for comfort.”
Hecate turned to him and was facing his chest. “Oh. Right. If I can just get past you?”
He grinned and slowly turned, letting her slide along the rows of boxes as she inched past him at very close quarters. He could have stepped back, but that didn’t seem to be his style.
She stepped out onto the gravel and sighed in relief.
Ulysses smiled. “Domerik is a very competent mage. We are lucky to have him bound to us.”
“Um, how did that happen?”
The doors began to swing closed, and she stepped back quickly.
The container began to hum, and her grandfather chuckled. “He is making a new home for himself. At the family property, he had an old cottage that he used as the library. It was much like this, but only a true Wakeman can enter. His little tour was a challenge.”
“Wonderful. More tests.” Light was flickering through the crack of the door. It wasn’t fully latched.
“Our job, your job is to deal with one challenge, one test after another.”
Hecate yawned. “Well, it seems like I am in desperate need of another cup of coffee. You can let Domerik know when he gets out of there.”
“It will take him a few hours. Magic is effective, but it is not usually fast.”
She nodded and headed back to the house. There was coffee in the pot, and she was the only one who was going to drink it.
Amber was sitting next to her on the deck. “So, the new guy is kinda hot.”
“There is a story behind him that I am interested in learning, but yeah, he is very pretty.”
Amber smiled. “If I was alive, I would totally be taking photos of him and pretending to my friends that he was a charming guy I met at a coffee shop.”
“He’s well over one hundred years old. So, if I let you hang around with him, your mom is going to have words with me.”
The giggles of the ghost teen lifted Hecate’s spirits. When she calmed, she asked, “Why is he here?”
“He comes with the Wakeman inheritance. It is starting to sound like the family owns him.”
Amber gasped with a hand over her mouth. “Can you do that?”
“I didn’t do it. Someone did it a few hundred years ago, and until he finishes playing in his dollhouse, I can’t find out how to set him free.”
Her grandfather was still over at the container, pacing slowly.
“Ulysses doesn’t seem very concerned over the situation. He does seem very happy to see Domerik again.” Hecate sighed. “This is complicated.”
Amber smiled. “You will figure it out, or you won’t. Either way, he is fun to look at for now.”
“I am not going to ogle him. He basically came along with my grandfather as part of his estate. I have no idea how it works, but I will ask him when we have a moment of privacy how his attachment to the family was created.”
“How do you think?”
Hecate chuckled as her phone started ringing. “I think they found him on the side of the road and just picked him up.”
“You don’t think a ghost was involved?”
She chuckled. “Probably.”
She answered the phone. “Hello?”
Her sister’s voice was tense. “Heck, I need your help.”
“Esmy? What is it?”
“I have an emergency, and I think that it is right up your alley. Will you help?”
“What do you need?”
Hecate listened as her sister blurted out, “Our venue had a sewage backup.”
“Damn. How can I help?”
“Well, we have found one alternative site that will fit the bill and provide plenty of room for the werewolf activities. There is just one problem.”
“What?”
“It’s haunted.”
She perked up. “Haunted?”
“Yes, Heck, right up your alley.” Esmy sighed. “Hang on, Leo wants to talk.”
Hecate paused, and then, her soon-to-be brother-in-law said, “Good afternoon, Hecate.”
“Afternoon, Leo. What is the situation?”
; “Lovely building, old hotel, wide-open spaces for the games after the service, but no one can set up in there, and the cleaners had to storm the building in groups for safety. There are ghosts, they throw things, and they are determined that we will not have our wedding there.”
Hecate pinched the bridge of her nose. “How long have you known about it?”
“Three days. We have crews setting up the parking area and working with the plant life, but we need someone to extract some of the dozen ghosts in that building... so we are calling you.”
Hecate grimaced. “None of the other side of the family can deal with this.”
“That is correct.”
“Send me the address. I will let you know when it has been cleared.”
“Do you need help?”
“No. How many do you think there are?”
He huffed into the phone. “There have been at least six simultaneous events recorded.”
“Right. Okay. I will get my supplies together and get out there to do an assessment. If I can help ease any of them free, I will.” She mentally tried to figure out how many poppets she had on hand.
“Will you keep us posted?” He sounded a little nervous.
“Sure. Send me the details on the location, and I will go there tonight for the initial assessment. I haven’t extracted more than three at a single event yet.”
“Do you need our help?”
She smiled. No one had ever offered to help before.
“No, the living tend to agitate the ghosts. I will be fine. I won’t take too many risks, and I will let you know what the status is.”
“You are going at sundown?”
“I am.”
“You might meet some of my cousins. They are trying to get the plants and flowers ready for the weekend.”
“As long as they know I am coming, things should be fine.”
“Why do they need to know?”