Sage and Spirited Page 2

“If it is nightfall and the ghosts rise, things will get weird. Ghosts gravitate to me, and they might not mind harassing some humans or werewolves on the way.”

  “Merfolk, but I will let them know.”

  “Thanks. Now, I have to get some stuff together. And more coffee. Coffee is definitely a necessity.”

  “Call us and let us know how it is going. Please. Esmy worries.”

  Hecate paused. “She does?”

  “She does.”

  Esmy took over the call. “I do. This place looks wonderful and feels weird, but there isn’t anything else that suits both sides of the family.”

  “I understand. I will get my part sorted. Promise.”

  “Don’t put yourself in danger. If we have to, we can move it to your place.”

  Hecate’s eyes opened in shock. “Nope. I will get this cleared up for you. If there are any ghosts left, they will be minty fresh and quiet. I promise. Nothing and no one who can wreck your wedding will be left on the premises.”

  “Thanks, Heck. We are just starting calls to let folks know the wedding moved. I didn’t want to ask you, but Leo said you would have been furious if we didn’t give you a chance to help.”

  “He’s a very smart man, that guy who is going to be your husband in less than a week.” Hecate chuckled.

  “I know. He thinks highly of you as well.” Esmy’s voice had a smile in it.

  “I am so very happy for you. This wedding day is going to be perfect.”

  “I know. Even if there is a poltergeist up my wedding dress, I am going to say my vows.”

  The determination in her sister’s voice sent a ripple of relief through Hecate. Esmy needed someone, she always had. Finding Leo had been the right man at the right time. Knowing that Esmy had someone gave Hecate an overwhelming sense that everything was right in the universe.

  They said their goodbyes, and Hecate promised to call the next day to update her about the site. The directions were on the way.

  She set the phone down and exhaled.

  “You have an assignment?”

  She spun and struck out. Domerik grabbed her fist and raised his brows. “The door was unlocked.”

  “Yes, but not open. Up until today, I have had an expectation of privacy. So, if you are going to be here, knock.”

  He nodded. “You need training. You telegraphed that strike.”

  She frowned. “To be fair, my targets are usually not corporeal. Can I have my hand back now?”

  He let her go. “Do you require assistance on your mission?”

  Hecate snorted. “No. I am going to do some research into the property and fatalities, make sure I have enough poppets, and then check my herb and thermos supply.”

  “Poppets? Thermos? What are you talking about?”

  “I have a system, and that system works very well. I don’t doubt that there are different ways to do it, but my reflexes and awareness of my work is what I have made function for me. Don’t forget, I had to go at this blind.”

  He frowned, and Ulysses walked into the room behind him. “Domerik trains us. He has for generations.”

  “Well, it is a bit of a late start with me, but I will start training as soon as I get a bit of a breather. Tonight, I am rather busy.” She smiled and started to gather her supplies.

  Domerik asked, “What is happening tonight?”

  She counted out a dozen poppets. She was running low and would have to sew more soon. “Tonight, I am going to an old hotel that has been renovated a dozen times. I have to get more details about the deaths, but it is going to be a late night. Don’t wait up.”

  Ulysses frowned, and Domerik did the same.

  “You agreed to a mission before knowing the details?”

  She looked at her grandfather’s acquaintance. “Of course. It’s for Esmy. Her wedding venue was trashed, so the wedding is moving to this property.” Hecate held up her hand. “Before you ask, it is the only one that satisfies our family needs and Leo’s. The werewolves need a place to roam and have their games.”

  Domerik straightened. “Wolves? You are consorting with werewolves?”

  She laughed and went digging for her thermos collection. “Not just wolves. Merfolk and elves and monsters and a Nexus. They are all going to be at the wedding.”

  Domerik blinked and sat down in one of the chairs. “There is a Nexus?”

  “There is. She is very supportive of the couple. Leo’s parents are both members of the Nexus’ Guard.”

  Domerik paled and looked at the shadow who was standing in the kitchen. “Ulysses, why didn’t you tell me that your granddaughter was marrying into the Nexus’ Guard?”

  With her arms loaded, Hecate carried the thermoses to the dining table. “Why does it matter?”

  “That is power, and no Wakeman has ever gotten that close to pure power.”

  Hecate snorted. “I have visited the great archive; I think that counts.”

  Domerik’s expression was filled with shock.

  Ulysses leaned forward, and his ghostly presence asked, “What did you learn?”

  She grinned and kept working on assembling her tools. “A lot, and I am hoping to find more information in those files of yours, Domerik.”

  He continued to look stunned, Ulysses continued to ask her how she was going to use the items she was collecting, and she kept packing. First, plan to capture a bunch of red ghosts and then do the research, as long as she understood who she was going to capture.

  This was one of the rare occasions where a living being was not directly involved, and that required a different plan of action.

  Chapter Three

  When her phone chirped, she checked the information and began her search into the history of the hotel. Carman House was an elegant building that had once been a lovely home for extensive parties and lavish holiday entertaining. When the original owners passed on, they left it to a nephew who turned the sprawling home into a hotel.

  Two natural deaths occurred, but nothing that would cause a major haunting happened for four decades. There was a massacre at a wedding with seven dead, including the bride.

  “That was probably it.” Hecate sipped at her coffee and got as many details from the mentions in memoirs and other stories of local haunting. The building was popular with ghost trackers, but they never stayed overnight.

  The accounts of folks being injured due to unexplained attacks were varied, and while several men spoke about the spectral bride, the women on the teams noticed the jealous husband.

  There had been a few owners over the decades, but right now, it was owned by a developer who had an eye toward destroying the building. They had been unable to get zoning for any new developments, but as the nearby city continued to expand, the eventual capitulation of the municipality was inevitable.

  She didn’t know how Leo and Esmy had gotten permission for the wedding, but she had the funny feeling that her own skills were part of the reason. There was no sense in fearing a haunting when your sister could extract the remaining souls.

  “So, this is how you work, you get a call and do your research?” Domerik was sitting nearby and watching her.

  She shook her head. “No, usually I get the information from a living person, and then, I go in, knowing a little about their life and death. When I find a ghost who isn’t tethered to a living soul, things are more complicated. All of the family members of the deceased seem to be dead and gone. This is going to take a lot of typing and at least two visits to the site.”

  “Why do you need multiple visits?”

  “There are more than half a dozen of them. I want to release the ones that I can, but for this kind of thing, I am pretty sure that there is at least one red in the area holding the other ones in.”

  He frowned. “Why don’t you destroy them as you go?”

  She looked away from the computer and stared at his bizarrely handsome features. “I don’t destroy ghosts unless I have no other choice. They are bound by the most human of things. Emotion. T
earing them to pieces and sending them to the afterlife that way just confuses their path. Even the reds can very occasionally be unwrapped.”

  He snorted. “There are no records of such an event.”

  Hecate glared at him, stood up, pulled out the Wakeman Grimoire, and flipped through the pages. The fifth page, the stolen child. “She came around. I helped her to visit the child that had been ripped from her decades earlier. She turned blue and faded away.”

  Domerik gave her a long and sober gaze. “Tell me about her.”

  “Margaretta Rain-Runner. She was an abused child who turned to drugs and alcohol. Child and family services took the child, gave it to a couple, and Margaretta drank herself to an early grave at the age of twenty. Her ghost attacked mothers with daughters, holding the little ones tight until they suffered contact burns.” She sighed. “One of the mothers called me, and I went out, using a poppet as a surrogate for a child. She grabbed it, and the poppet pulled her in. I corked her into a thermos and brought her out of the city. We talked. She was bound to her purpose, but I offered her an option. If she could give up her anger at other families, I promised to help her find her child as long as she would not try to take her.”

  “She agreed?”

  “She did. It took me five days to locate her daughter. I scoured the internet and all social media, but I managed to match the child and the birthmark on her neck. The next day, I took Margaretta to the coffee shop where her daughter was working behind the counter. It had been nearly twenty years since Margaretta died, but she walked up to the counter, and she ordered a small coffee with a wobble in her voice. I kept her energy high enough to pass for someone living, and her daughter looked at her with a strange smile. They knew each other on sight. A few minutes of light chatter and Margaretta left with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. She told me how proud she was of her daughter, and then, she simply broke into thousands of tiny pieces, blowing away on the wind.”

  “That was it?”

  She closed the book. “That was it. From what I have learned in the last few weeks, the deceased makes a deal with a demon, and as long as they are given what they bargained for, they remain red and hostile. Margaretta wasn’t given what she bargained for. She wanted her daughter back, so the deal was broken when that didn’t happen.”

  “So, you negotiated with her.”

  “I gave her what the demon promised. That broke the deal.”

  Domerik blinked, and a slow smile crossed his lips. “That is an interesting technique.”

  “It wasn’t a technique; it was what needed to be done. She wasn’t lashing out of malice. Her daughter was taken, and she deeply regretted the circumstance. She was willing to sell her soul for the possibility of seeing her daughter again. The magic that turned her into a monster, that was an outside force. Once the initial problem was dealt with, she was free to seek out her afterlife.”

  He cocked his head. “You believe in an afterlife?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Of course. I am dealing with ghosts and fighting demons. The human soul can’t be a valuable commodity unless there is another phase to our lives. If it is useful, then it has a purpose, and a soul without a body is on to another life of whatever nature. Life after life.”

  He sat back, and a deep frown covered his features. “What do you mean, fighting demons?”

  She set the grimoire back on the shelf. “There is a local demon, and he is the one brokering these deals. Demler. Based on the age of some of the red hauntings, he has been around for over five decades. Well, in this area, at least.”

  “You fought off a demon?”

  Amber spoke from the doorway, “She kicked his ass, eventually.”

  Domerik turned and stared. “I do not believe we have met.”

  Amber chuckled and remained in the doorway. “I am Amber. One of the locals. That is a pretty nice setup you have in the sea can.”

  He frowned. “You can go inside it?”

  “No, but you left the door open, and my eyes still work.”

  Hecate smiled. “Amber is in charge when I am gone.”

  “Ulysses is far better—”

  Hecate looked at Ulysses, and she smiled sadly. “He is a ghost hunter and now a ghost himself. He has no seniority here, and Amber has the loyalty of all of those who are here, even if she is currently diverting some energy from the emergency fund.”

  Amber cleared her throat. “Just a little.”

  Domerik frowned. “Emergency fund?”

  “On days I don’t work, I store extra energy for later use or emergency purposes. Fighting a demon qualified.”

  She returned to her laptop with the list of the names of the dead. She worked on the identities and images of the deceased from the property. The need to know who she was going to be speaking with was imperative, especially if they were hostile. A few of them had surviving family, but it was all two times removed. They wouldn’t know their own, so they had no attachment to the living. Something else was holding them at the house. The first visit was going to let her find out what that was. If she could extract anyone, she would.

  She kept eating as she worked. Anything heat and eat was always welcome in her freezer. She burned a few things as she used the same settings for just about everything, but when her alarm went off to warn her, it was time to go. She needed to be there before the ghosts got to full power.

  She gathered her gear, hefted her bag on the other shoulder, and looked around. She was alone. She had no idea when the others had left, but she had a moment of silence before she gathered her courage to go face the ghosts. If she had her sister’s complexion, she would have been considered pale. As it was, she knew her skin had a greyish cast. Facing this many ghosts at once was not something she had ever considered to be a possibility.

  When she was out and loading her car, Domerik came up to her with a small orb on a chain. “Here. This is a seeking orb for those you call reds. The demon-touched ones. If they are in the vicinity, it will glow. In the case of an emergency, it will serve as temporary storage.”

  “Okay, so if I run out of thermoses...”

  He smiled. “Correct.”

  She put the chain on, and the orb was nearly to her navel. “Thank you. Any help I can get to identify the ghosts is helpful.”

  “When I have had a chance to do a skills assessment on you, there are many more options for magical assistance. I am just unsure as to what would suit you.”

  She looked at him, and she smiled. “I have to take a test?”

  “You do. I have trained generations of Wakemans and have to admit that you have a unique way of looking at the ghosts that is going to take a new plan on my part.”

  She had a thought she wanted an answer to, and she asked him straight out. “Did you train my father?”

  He smiled. “Yes. He was a good pupil.”

  Hecate looked into the man’s eyes. “Can you tell me about him when I get back?”

  “When we begin training, I will give you one story for each correct exercise.”

  She grinned. “In that case, see you in a few hours.”

  She got in her car, felt that the ghost load was high, and smiled. It seemed everyone who could fit in was there.

  “Right. Well, let’s put in the coordinates and get ourselves on the road. Since we have a full car today, you can pick the music.”

  She felt the silent laughter around her, put the car in gear, and started the drive to the venue. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but she was going to get it done.

  Chapter Four

  The first thing that Hecate noticed was that the drive was well over an hour. The music choices were good but varied dramatically in origin from classical to hip hop.

  The sunlight was turning red when she pulled onto the property. Three other vehicles were there, and she pulled the SUV in next to them.

  The moment she opened the door, the static that the ghosts put out crackled through her system. There was a lot of death and a lot of
anger in the area. Most of it was in the building, but there were traces on the outskirts of the property.

  She went to the hatch and got her bag. It would have been more convenient to leave the bag in the car and reload, but her previous experience with multiples told her that she was going to need everything at once.

  Hecate checked that her whip was snug at her hip and her knives were settled and safe. Her bag went over her shoulder, and she looked toward the house.

  It was a palace in the prairies surrounded by gardens that showed the bright new growth of the wedding preparations and pillars that stretched upward into graceful arches that supported the upper balcony. Despite the years of what should have been decay, it looked wonderful.

  As she headed for the main entrance, the doors opened up and a group of six who were stamped with the Fisher genes came toward her.

  “Good afternoon.” Hecate inclined her head.

  One of the young women smiled. “You must be Esmy’s sister. We were told you were coming.”

  “Here I am. Were there any incidents today?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, one of us kept watch while the others worked. They don’t like it when you can see them coming.”

  “What were you working on? I don’t want to trash anything accidentally.”

  “We were doing a power clean of the carpets and were doing patches in the plaster.”

  “I will endeavour to not wreck your efforts.” She inhaled and exhaled, “Here I go.”

  One of the men frowned. “You are going in alone?”

  “I am.”

  The others looked at each other. The woman who had first spoken said, “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure. I have done this before. Not with this population, but if anyone sees my car here during daylight tomorrow, they should call my sister.”

  They looked at her, and she gave them a small smile. They laughed in relief and walked toward their vehicles while she went inside.

  The interior smelled clean, but the crackle of ozone was starting in the air.

  She had had the entire drive to work out the method that she was going to use. Catching them all was her current plan or, at least, as many as she could.