“So you brought an audience this time, Teag? I didn’t know our lessons were so entertaining.” Mrs. Teller gave me a big smile and hugged me tight. I got a hug from Niella, her daughter, as well. Mrs. Teller led us into a room she had repurposed as her studio and motioned for Teag and me to have a seat. Niella came in a few minutes later with a tray that held a pitcher of sweet tea and four glasses, and she put it on a side table.
“So are you here to see what this boy’s been up to, or are you thinking to learn some weaving yourself, huh?” Mrs. Teller fixed me with a gaze that seemed to see right down to my bones. She was in her late sixties, with short hair sprinkled with gray, mahogany skin that showed no signs of aging, and piercing black eyes. Niella took after her, in her looks, her lilting accent, and her talents.
“I think I’ve got enough with my touch magic,” I replied. “I’m leaving the Weaving to you.”
Mrs. Teller and Niella are some of the best sweetgrass basket makers in Charleston. They have a regular spot down at the Charleston City Market, and their baskets fetch high prices—for good reason. Not only are they true artists with a difficult craft, but Mrs. Teller’s Weaver magic gives a “little something extra” to all of her creations. Oh, and she’s also a damn fine Hoodoo worker, a Root woman of high regard.
Mrs. Teller laughed, a rich, throaty sound. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
I glanced up at Niella and thought she looked more tired than usual. “Have things been busier than usual?” I left it up to interpretation whether “things” meant the market or the Hoodoo.
“Well now, that’s a tale in itself,” Mrs. Teller said. Out of habit, she picked up an unfinished sweetgrass braid, and her fingers flew while she talked. Teag took down a half-woven basket of his own from a shelf and returned to sit next to me. Where Mrs. Teller’s muscle memory was born from more than a half-century of practice, enabling her to bend and twist the sharp dried grass without slicing up her fingers, Teag moved with careful caution. He’d learned the hard way, and I’d seen him come into the shop with fingers covered in bandages more than once.
“Fill us in,” I begged. Sharing information was essential for those of us in the supernatural community in Charleston, and Mrs. Teller ran in some circles that Teag and I usually weren’t part of.
“Trouble’s brewing,” Mrs. Teller said, and Niella settled into a chair beside her, picking up her own half-done basket to work while we talked. “People can feel it coming, like a storm over the ocean.” The sweet, earthy smell of the seagrass filled the air.
“What kind of trouble?” I asked. Teag’s focus was on his basket, and I knew he juggled both the complexity of working the stubborn grass, as well as the magic he channeled through the weaving. He might be listening, but he had too much going on to talk.
“Don’t know yet, that’s the truth of it,” she replied. Her Lowcountry accent rounded her vowels and softened her consonants, and added a musical quality that I found mesmerizing. “But it’s big. I feel that in my bones, and my bones don’t lie.”
I tried to track how she wove the sweetgrass, but her fingers practically blurred with the speed of experience. Even without handling the baskets, I knew they projected a calm, protective resonance that probably attracted buyers as much as the beauty of her craftwork. The baskets of hers that I owned were some of my favorite decorations because they always made me feel better being around them.
“Just a feeling, or have you seen something?” I pressed.
“What I’ve seen is people making a beeline to my door, asking me for gris-gris bags and goofer dust,” she said. “Folks be saying that they can’t sleep, or that they hear noises but nothing’s there, or they catch a glimpse of shadows out of the corner of their eye.” She shook her head. “Uh, uh,” she tutted. “That’s not good. Not good at all. So I fix them up best I can, show them how to put down the dust or put a dime in their shoe or fix their mojo bag and send them on their way, and the next day, I got twice as many people waiting for me, because they all told their friends.”
While the boom was good for business, I knew that whatever had people unnerved sounded like the kind of problem that landed in my lap, sooner or later. Sorren is part of the Alliance, a secret organization of mortals and immortals that take care of supernatural threats. He founded Trifles and Folly with my ancestor nearly three-hundred-and-fifty years ago, and our store is one of dozens Sorren has all over the world. The stores serve as outposts to get dangerous magical or haunted items out of circulation and shut down things that go bump in the night.
“What kind of bad dreams?” I asked, although I couldn’t resist a glance in Teag’s direction, but he never looked up from his work. “Is there a common thread?”
Mrs. Teller shrugged. “There’re all nightmares, for sure. Most people won’t speak of their dreams because they think saying it out loud gives the dreams power. Maybe so, maybe not. But the ones who would say told me they were being chased, in the dark, but they couldn’t see what was behind them. Except for red eyes.”
Teag didn’t say anything, but he swallowed hard, and his fingers paused for a few seconds.
I swallowed hard, too. “Yikes,” I managed. “Any idea what might cause that?”
“Lots of things could,” Mrs. Teller replied. “If it were one or two people coming in, I’d say they got someone real mad at them. But so many at my doorstep?” She shook her head. “Uh, uh, uh. There’s something bigger going on, and you and Sorren need to be getting to the bottom of it.”
For the rest of the evening, I sat back and watched Teag’s lesson. Mrs. Teller managed to combine teaching him about magic along with the techniques of weaving complicated patterns with the sweetgrass. I didn’t always follow how it worked, but then again, my magic is different from theirs.
After a particularly frustrating effort, Teag sighed and looked up, angry at himself for not being able to complete the exercise. “I can store magic in knots, and I can weave a general intention—like ‘tranquility’—into a piece of cloth, or protective spells. But I’m not doing very well at countering a spell someone else has woven into something. And to be honest, I’m not sure I want to learn how to weave a compulsion into a piece of cloth.”
I shivered. Teag was probably remembering a run-in we’d had with something evil that had gotten locked into a rug by a master Weaver. That gave me nightmares of my own.
“Just because you know how to do something doesn’t mean you do it all the time. Maybe you know something, and you never use it,” Mrs. Teller replied. “But the things you can do with your magic, they’re like tools. You never know when you’ll need it. You think ‘compulsion’ and imagine something bad, like hurting someone. What if you wove that into a rope and used it to tie up a creature and keep him from fighting or yelling?”
Mrs. Teller coiled the braid of sweetgrass she wove. “The magic itself, it’s not good or bad. Like I’ve told you before, it’s what we do with the magic that matters.” She looked up at him over the top of her reading glasses. “Now, try that binding spell again.”
By the time the lesson ended, I felt worn out, and I wasn’t the one expending magic. Watching the effort Teag put into trying to accomplish his lessons made me tired. Although being around so many of Mrs. Teller’s baskets gave me a Zen-like calm like I’d had a stiff drink.
“You’re getting better at control,” Mrs. Teller said to Teag as we got ready to leave. “And your gift is strong. I been doing this for a long, long time, and no one I ever taught has been as strong as you are.” Before Teag could thank her, she fixed him with a look. “That’s a warning, not a compliment. Power like that attracts attention—usually the wrong kind. Like a big, shiny beacon. You need to learn to defend yourself, boy. You don’t have a choice about it.”
Teag was quiet on the way back to my house. I’d known him long enough to recognize the way he bit his lip meant he was turning Mrs. Teller’s words over in his mind.
“She’s right,” he said after a while. We parked at the curb, but neither of us made a move to get out of the car. “I need to figure out how to do more defensive magic. How to shield, so I’m not easy to find.” The worry was clear on his face. “I know how to fight. But if Anthony got hurt because someone was coming for me…I couldn’t live with myself.”
Teag and Anthony had been a couple for several years now, and I kept wondering when I might find a wedding invitation in my mail. Anthony knows about what we really do at the store and about the Alliance, and he has some latent clairvoyance, but he has no magical defenses of his own, and that makes him vulnerable.
“I don’t think the fox hunters from the Nicholson mansion are going to come after you,” I said, with as much of a smile as I could muster. “And you’re doing everything you can to learn more about your magic. You’ve already come so far—”
“Not far enough,” Teag said with a grim set to his jaw. “Maybe I’ve been lucky that no one’s noticed me so far. That luck won’t hold. And until I know how to shield my magic, so it isn’t so visible, then I’m a threat to everyone around me—you, Anthony, even Sorren.”
“Pretty sure Sorren can take care of himself,” I joked, although I knew that even with his vampire abilities, Sorren wasn’t invincible.
“I know,” Teag said, and slumped. Where he had looked ready to charge into battle a moment earlier, now he looked tired and overwhelmed. “It’s scary to think about. And with the dreams, I haven’t slept well.”
“Did you tell Anthony?”
He shook his head. “Not everything. Nothing he can do about it. So I said I’d had nightmares, but didn’t get into the details. We don’t know there’s anything to them, yet. But…I wish I could sleep.”
I reached over and squeezed his arm. “We’ll figure it out,” I said. “And in the meantime, maybe Rowan or Lucinda could help with a charm to make your power a little less visible.” Rowan’s a powerful witch, and Lucinda is our friendly neighborhood Voudon mambo. They’re both strong in their abilities and lucky for us, they’re good friends.
“That’s a good idea,” Teag said, and I knew it bothered him to admit how much Mrs. Teller’s comments had troubled him. “I’ll call them tomorrow.”
I moved to get out of the car. My house is warded with strong magical protections by Lucinda, Rowan, and several of our other allies. Once I’m past the gate, the bad guys have to be pretty damn powerful to do any harm. The house Teag and Anthony share is also warded, though the protections there are newer, and being strengthened over time. Teag laid a hand on my shoulder.
“Thanks for going to the lesson with me,” he said. “I didn’t want to go by myself tonight, not after what happened at the mansion.”
I gave him a supportive smile. “I understand. You’d do the same for me. Now go home and get some sleep. We’ll call Rowan and Lucinda in the morning.” I knew Teag would watch to see that I got inside the wall that surrounded my little backyard garden, and I turned to wave before I pulled the door shut after me.
The next morning at the shop was a blur. We were swamped with customers, and while that’s a great problem to have, it made doing our real job—busting bad spooks—hard to do. But a nice day brings people out, and a stretch of beautiful weather meant plenty of tourists. I couldn’t complain about ringing up sales, but I itched to contact Rowan and Lucinda and get something to ease Teag’s worries.
By mid-afternoon, the shoppers had moved on down King Street, and we could finally take a break. “Go on,” Maggie said. “I’ll be fine here for the afternoon. I can tell the two of you have places to be. And besides, Mrs. Morrissey called.”
Maggie is a godsend. She’s a retired teacher who got bored with too much free time and works for us part-time. She’s a bundle of energy, and since she has a penchant for changing the color and style of her hair on a whim, we never know what new look she’ll be rocking. Maggie knows the real scoop about us, and while she dresses like Woodstock, she has a mind for business straight out of Wall Street. When the chips are down, she’s exactly the person you want handling the details.
“Thanks,” I said, licking the last of the pizza sauce off my lips from the takeout we’d gotten for lunch. “When did Mrs. Morrissey call?”
“Right when that busload of Canadian tourists turned up and bought up all the tea sets,” she replied. “I heard it go to voicemail. I think it’s important; didn’t sound like she wanted to chat.”
I pulled out my phone and walked into the back room, a little kitchen behind the shop where we had a table and coffee maker. Usually I didn’t need the privacy of my office to talk to Mrs. Morrissey, but Maggie’s comment worried me.
“Cassidy? Thank you for calling back so quickly. I know how busy you are.” Mrs. Benjamin Morrissey remained the epitome of social grace, no matter how dire the situation. She’d been a friend of my Uncle Evann, the relative—and fellow psychometric—who willed me Trifles and Folly. I suspected she knew more about what we did than she let on, but she definitely knew about my ability to read objects.
“Never too busy for you.” I meant it. I considered Mrs. Morrissey a friend, although I guessed her age to be in her mid-seventies, a good half-century older than Teag and I. “What can I do for you?”
Trifles and Folly, as an antique store, has plenty of reasons to collaborate with the Historical Archive, run by Mrs. Morrissey. Sometimes we work together on charity fundraisers or special exhibits. But from the tone in my caller’s voice, I suspected she wasn’t going to hit me up for a donation.
“We’ve had a theft,” she said. “And it’s one of the pieces you told me was ‘special.’ Could you come by when you have a chance? Bring Teag—we have a new textile exhibit, ‘Under Wraps’ that he might appreciate.”
“We’ll be there in an hour,” I said, glancing at the clock. That would let us cover all but the tail end of the afternoon rush at the store, so I wouldn’t feel too guilty about leaving Maggie to lock up. And we’d still get to the Archive before they closed.
“Thank you. I’ll be waiting.”
I slipped my phone back into my pocket just as Teag wandered into the break room. “Problem?” he asked.
“Sort of,” I replied, frowning as I tried to figure out what Mrs. Morrissey thought we could do about her theft. “Something’s been stolen, and apparently I had told Mrs. Morrissey that it had juice.”
Teag looked puzzled. “If it was malicious, she wouldn’t have had it on display. So why would someone take a piece with good mojo?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. And I’m not sure what she’s thinking we can do. Any evidence we might find probably wouldn’t be something the police would accept. But she did say there was a new exhibit you’d like, so do you want to ride shotgun?”
Fortunately, we were only reasonably busy instead of slammed for the next hour. Even so, we’d sold enough tea sets and trinkets that we’d close out the month with a tidy profit. Sorren not only pays Teag and me well for running the shop, but we earn an additional stipend for the risks of our “extracurricular” Alliance activities. So the shop would stay open even if we didn’t break even. But since Trifles and Folly has been in my family for so long, it’s a point of pride for it to turn a profit.
The time continued to fly, and before I knew it, Maggie was shooing us out the door, promising to close up. We walked, despite my crack about “riding shotgun” because it was a nice night and trying to get parking near the Archive was a real pain. Charleston raises “strolling” to an art form, and on a pleasant evening, tourists and locals rub shoulders on the sidewalks. Walking tours, shoppers, and foodies check out our world-class restaurants and keep the streets busy until all hours. Even in residential areas, tourists stroll through the historic district long after the carriage tours are done for the evening.
So it seemed odd that fewer people than usual were out. “Where is everybody?” I asked, glancing skyward to see if I’d missed out on a warning about rain.
“I don’t know, but something’s up,” Teag replied, and while he tried not to rubberneck, I could see his gaze flitting from person to person as we walked. “People seem a little tense.”
That also seemed strange. Charleston’s lifeblood is tourism, and we’ve aced hospitality. It’s not just good business; it’s Southern manners bred bone-deep. Not that everyone is happy all the time, but even when we aren’t, Charlestonians make a damn fine effort to be friendly and welcoming. It’s the kind of city where people say “excuse me” if they bump someone on the sidewalk, “thank you” if someone holds a door, and might even make eye contact and smile at a total stranger.
Today, good humor was in short supply. Passers-by kept their eyes averted, and they walked like they were all late for work. No smiles, no greetings, and when a few people bumped shoulders, I actually heard a snappish exchange. What the hell was going on?
“Did something happen? Have you seen the news?” I murmured to Teag.
He looked bewildered. “Nothing popped up on my phone. Maybe Mrs. Morrissey will know.”
I could almost feel the tension radiating from the other pedestrians, and it was getting to me. I felt keyed up, and that wouldn’t help if I needed to rely on my touch magic once we got to the Archive. Impressions flow best when I’m relaxed, and although I’ve used my gift under very dangerous and demanding circumstances, I’d prefer not to feel out of sorts. Especially when I had no reason for my mood to suddenly tank.
The Historical Archive occupies a restored old mansion in the ritzy area known as “South of Broad.” Mrs. Morrissey is one of the quiet movers and shakers in Charleston, especially in the non-profit world. Her husband died quite a while ago, leaving her bank account well-endowed. She leveraged the most valuable currency in Charleston—connections—and emerged as a doyenne. Fortunately, she likes Teag and me a lot.
I didn’t see any visitors milling around when Teag and I entered, but since it was nearing the late dinner hour, that didn’t surprise me. We went right back to Mrs. Morrissey’s office, and her administrative assistant waved us on.
Mrs. Morrissey perched behind her expensive antique desk with the rigidly perfect posture instilled from boarding school. Her St. John knit suit skimmed her slender frame, and the understated pearls in her necklace and earrings were real. She looked up and gave us a tired smile. “Cassidy. Teag. I’m so glad you’re here.”
I had almost skipped bringing her a latte—our usual “bribe” for information, but she looked so weary I was glad I’d gone ahead and gotten one despite the hour.
“Bless you,” she murmured as she accepted the hot drink like an offering. “It’s been quite a day.”
“What’s going on?” I settled into one of the chairs in front of the desk.
“You know what it’s like around here when we’re getting ready for a new installation,” she sighed, raising a bird-like hand to smooth her perfect, silver bobbed hair. “Utter insanity. People coming and going, boxes in and out—hard to keep track of everyone.”
“You thought something had been stolen?” Teag pressed.
Mrs. Morrissey nodded. “The exhibit is on field sports—hunting and fishing. Fox, deer, quail, duck—all the usual things people in these parts like to hunt. We’re focusing on the sporting aspects, and the Museum of the Lowcountry is putting their emphasis on the ‘Rural Gentry’—the families that have been noted for their hunts, horse breeding, field dogs, that sort of thing. That way we don’t duplicate.”
I gave her an encouraging nod and decided that we needed to give Alistair a call at the museum tomorrow and drop by to see.
“One case shows how sporting apparel has changed down through the years—what the well-dressed gentleman wears for a day in the field,” she went on. “Many of the outfits were on loan from the families. And the Nicholson family lent us one of Geoffrey Nicholson’s duck-hunting jackets. With the jacket was a brooch that they’ve lent us before—do you know the one? It’s very Celtic.”
The mention of “Geoffrey Nicholson” sent a chill down my spine, given the events of the night before. But now that I thought about the brooch, I remembered one in particular that she’d shown me from the Archive’s collection, a pretty silver clasp, very old.
“The man’s cloak pin? The family said it dated to the Vikings.”
Mrs. Morrissey nodded. “That’s the one.”
I frowned, trying to remember details. “I didn’t do a reading on it, but from what I could see, they might be right,” I replied. “It held a lot of power, partly from its age, but I didn’t pick up anything dangerous.”
“That’s what I recall,” she replied. Mrs. Morrissey stood. “Come with me. I’ll show you where it happened.”
Museum exhibits are a toss-up for me. As I’ve gotten more control over my psychometry, I’m better able to protect myself from objects with a lot of resonance. I’ve also learned which exhibits to avoid, like those commemorating disasters or tragedies, because of the nature of the stored impressions. If I’ve got no choice about being in the midst of a lot of emotionally fraught objects, at least I can rally my defenses to keep me from being knocked on my ass. Although that still happens, more often than I’d like.
In the past, the Archive hosted some exhibits that accidentally included pieces with strong dark magic. Some of those spawned nightmares that are likely to be on permanent repeat in my brain for the rest of my life. But most of the historic objects, fortunately, have little to no resonance, and some have a very positive, calming vibe. Thank heavens, or I’d never be able to visit again.
“We also have a nice exhibit on quilts,” Mrs. Morrissey said as we passed one of the smaller display rooms. “I thought Teag might like to have a look around.”
“We’ll check it out on the way down,” he promised, and with the way his eyes lit up, I knew he’d make sure we did.
A mannequin in a traditional fox hunting outfit astride a life-size “horse” welcomed visitors to the gallery. Enclosed in glass cases throughout the large room, I saw a selection of rifles and shotguns, duck calls, hunting horns, traps, and even a tree stand. Taxidermy trophies illustrated the prowess of long-ago hunters, although the glassy-eyed stuffed creatures made me equally sad and uncomfortable.
Along one wall, winners’ cups vied with framed photos to celebrate notable hunting and racing events. That’s when I noticed the jockey uniforms and realized that the exhibit spanned more than hunting, taking in riding and racing as well. Charlestonians like their dogs, their horses, and their fishing boats. Amid the cases with saddles and riding tack, I glimpsed some fishing tackle, old-fashioned rods, and some wooden canoes. Mrs. Morrissey knows how to put on a great exhibit.
“This is where it happened,” she said, leading us to a long glass case. Inside were faceless display dummies wearing hunting outfits that dated from the 1700s through the early 1900s, showing the shifts in both style and materials. “The brooch was pinned on the red jacket in the middle,” Mrs. Morrissey said. “And when we came in this morning, it was gone. I don’t know what I’m going to tell the Nicholson family.”
“You’ve reported it to the police?” Teag asked.
“Of course. And to the insurance company. But since Cassidy had picked up on some of its…resonance…I was hoping maybe she’d notice something the investigators didn’t,” Mrs. Morrissey added.
She sounded hopeful, and I didn’t want to disappoint her, but my magic wasn’t like a supernatural security camera that could back up and see footage of the crime. On TV, ghosts speak in complete sentences, visions provide clear images, and fortune tellers give detailed warnings. In real life, ghosts often can’t speak or are just “stone tape” recordings—a few seconds of strong emotion trapped in an infinite loop. Visions are usually jumbled and muddy, and even fortune tellers with real clairvoyance rarely get a complete picture. Part of having a psychic gift is learning how to fill in the blanks without blindly rushing to conclusions. But for Mrs. Morrissey, I’d give it a try.
I moved closer to the case and held a hand out so that my palm hovered as close to the glass as possible without touching. Faint images bound up in the collective memory of the objects inside buzzed like background noise in my mind, and I concentrated, trying to tune the signal to pick out new impressions. I bet on the fact that whoever stole the brooch had touched the case, and any residue left behind from that contact mattered more to me than the blurry memories of long-ago hunts.
When I found it, the impression confused me. I must have frowned or tilted my head because Teag stepped closer.
“What did you find?”
More often than not, the resonance I pick up communicates in feelings or pictures, and sometimes I struggle to put it into words.
“The thief has magic,” I murmured, parsing out information from the tangle of sensations. “Female…I think. And the intent seems all wrong. Not greed.” I surprised myself as I listened to my own words. “Anger. Desperation. And…loyalty. Or love. I can’t tell, but it’s fierce and frightened.” I opened my eyes and pulled my hand back. “I sure hope the cops got fingerprints because what I could pick up isn’t going to help find your thief.”
“Well, it was worth a try,” Mrs. Morrissey replied. “Thank you for making the effort. I know that sometimes our displays have given you a rather disconcerting impressions.”
I’d picked up glimpses of long-dead serial killers, hanging judges, and scary-as-hell Nephilim from prior exhibits, which went way beyond “disconcerting,” but Mrs. Morrissey didn’t need to know that.
A call over the intercom sent Mrs. Morrissey hurrying downstairs, but as she left, she thanked us again and insisted we take time to walk through the quilt display, even though we were already past closing time.
The “Under Wraps: Quilts and Community” exhibit exuded a happy, peaceful vibe, and I relaxed as if I’d snuggled into a warm blanket. Quilts of all sizes, patterns, and colors hung in glass cases, but they were close enough that I could get a look at the tiny, intricate stitching.
“They’re beautiful,” I said. I’ve always been in awe of the time and attention to detail it takes to create a quilt, as well as the exquisiteness of the colorful designs.
“And powerful,” Teag added. I looked over at him, startled. He grinned. “Can’t you feel it?”
Now that he mentioned it, when I paid attention with my touch magic, that tranquil vibe definitely was due to more than the calm music playing over the speakers. “Does Weaver magic work for quilts?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s really about all aspects of making or working with fabric. Magic can be part of making the thread or yarn, weaving the cloth, or stitch work.” He pointed to a white-on-white quilt where the very small stitches created a pattern. “That kind of detail requires a lot of will and intent. Whether the quilter knows it or not, focus like that marks the cloth. If the person doesn’t have magic, then it’s more like the kind of thing you pick up—the dominant emotions the crafter felt when he or she made the quilt. But for someone with Weaver magic, it’s basically like tracing sigils and runes with thread.”
I thought about that for a moment, remembering the quilts my mother had on all our beds when I was growing up, and how they always made me feel happy and safe. “I’m impressed,” I said, and I didn’t only mean by the beautiful handiwork. We made a slow circuit of the room, admiring the original designs and craftsmanship, and when Teag headed for the door, I paused for a moment to soak up a little more of the serenity radiated by the quilts.
Which made me think of something. “Did anything strike you as odd on the walk over?” I asked as we headed down the stairs. By this time, almost all of the Archive staff had gone. We waved goodbye to Mrs. Morrissey, and let ourselves out, making sure the door locked behind us.
“You mean how everyone was in a lousy mood?” Teag answered my question. “Yeah, I noticed. If looks could kill…” He frowned. “Why? You think it’s important?”
I wasn’t quite sure how to wrap words around the gut feeling that wouldn’t leave me alone. “Yeah. Maybe. Strange that it was everyone, don’t you think? Did you start to feel out of sorts?”
Teag considered for a moment. “No…did you?”
I shook my head. “And I didn’t notice anything wrong once we got to the Archive. So maybe it’s a fluke.”
The look in Teag’s eyes suggested he didn’t agree. He glanced at the agate and silver necklace I wear most of the time, and the silver and onyx bracelets. They’re not just pretty, the metal and gemstones protect against evil. Teag wears an agimat charm and a hamsa on cords around his neck. “Maybe we were protected against whatever’s causing the mood shifts.”
“Could be. Assuming there’s something supernatural afoot, more than a collectively lousy day.”
I could tell that Teag kept turning the idea over in his mind as we headed back to the shop, where both our cars were parked.
“What would someone—or something—get out of making people cranky?” he mused. “Where’s the benefit for spending that kind of power?”
“Maybe it’s a side-effect of something else, not the main goal,” I suggested.
“So why didn’t people at the Archive seem to be affected?”
I thought about it. “If our amulets protected us, then maybe the benign heirlooms at the Archive create some kind of protective field,” I speculated. “The way the quilt exhibit made us feel peaceful. White light. Or static that drowns out the bad mojo.”
“Speaking of mojo,” Teag said, “do you think what Mrs. Teller said might be related? About people being afraid, having bad dreams, and wanting gris-gris bags?”
“Could be,” I admitted. “But what would bad dreams have to do with people being in unusually foul moods while they’re awake? How about the ghosts at the Nicholson mansion being stronger than usual—how’s that connected? Or the missing brooch from the Archive?”
Teag opened his mouth to answer when we heard a low growl from the alley we passed. We exchanged a glance and reached for the weapons we never left home without. I pulled my spoon-athame from my purse, and let the dog collar jangle down around my wrist. Bo’s ghost shimmered and fell into step beside me, giving me a big doggy grin.
“Maybe it’s a stray dog,” I posed, although both of us knew better. Teag loosened two of the knotted cords tied to the belt loops of his jeans. The knots stored magic, helping him charge up his power quickly. He reached into the backpack he always carries and withdrew a thin metal coil. The silver whip played havoc with ghosts and supernatural creatures, although I hated to think what a cop would make of it if we got stopped.
The street seemed unusually deserted. No one in sight for blocks—a rarity for Charleston so early in the evening. That meant trouble.
The growl came again, closer this time. I felt my hackles rise. The air around us grew cold. A dog howled, and then another and another. A whole damn pack of dogs, in the middle of a city with strict leash laws. Something was definitely wrong.
“Run or fight?” Teag asked in a low voice.
“How about a little of both?” I wasn’t about to turn my back on whatever headed for us from the alley. I’d much rather stand my ground and face a threat head-on than be run down by wild dogs. If something supernatural did lurk down that dark street, we couldn’t walk away and leave the next jogger to pay the price.
I glanced around once more, but the streets were empty and the houses around us dark. “All right. Let’s see what’s going on.”
We approached the entrance to the alley warily, weapons ready. The wooden spoon in my hand once belonged to my grandmother, and it held a lifetime of strong positive memories imprinted in its grain. Bo padded along beside me, and while most people think of Golden Retrievers as happy-go-lucky, they’re also fiercely protective of their people, and ninety pounds of solid muscle with sharp teeth is nothing to sneeze at.
Shit. Three pairs of red eyes stared back at us from the shadows, and when the darkness stirred behind them, I could make out another three sets farther back.
I didn’t want to go into the alley after the ghostly dogs, but the idea of battling them in the middle of the street didn’t appeal to me, either. I felt in my pocket for salt and found a small bag, but hardly enough for a pack of hellhounds, or whatever they were. My mind raced, trying to think of what kind of demon-dog creatures might be loose in the city.
The lead dog raised his head and howled, and then I knew. Not grims or hellhounds or the “black dog” of legend. These were hunting dogs. And we were the prey.
The pack moved forward, but we had an advantage if we could keep them bottled up in the alley. They couldn’t chase us, and they couldn’t surround us. We might win this fight without too much effort.
Then I heard more howls from the alley on the other side of the street. This was about to go wrong in a big way.
Teag and I stood back to back, knowing that running would be the wrong move for dogs trained to chase their quarry. Didn’t matter whether they were banshee beagles or ghostly greyhounds, they could probably outrun us, and a trained hunting pack could harry and herd its target. Screw that.
“Go for it,” I murmured to Teag.
The dogs sprang forward, growling and snapping. They looked solid enough to do damage, with black bodies and hellish, red eyes. Lips drawn back into snarls and heads lowered made their body language completely clear. I didn’t know whether those teeth were solid or spectral, but I learned a long time ago that something doesn’t have to be “real” to be dangerous.
I raised my athame and sent a blast of bright white energy streaming in a brilliant cone of power at the dogs attacking from the left. One of the dogs tried to duck to the side, and Bo leaped toward it, snapping his teeth. The blast from my athame forced the demon-dogs to retreat. I motioned for Bo to stay beside me because I didn’t want to accidentally hurt him while I was aiming for the hunting hounds from hell.
Teag’s silver whip snapped, and the black dog it hit vanished. I didn’t have any silver, but I did have salt, and when the ghost hounds surged forward again, I hurled a handful of Morton’s best right into their midst. Their shapes wobbled and faded, like the image from a weak TV signal, and I doubled my effort, throwing more salt. Then while they looked staticky, I blasted them with the white light power.
The dogs vanished, with a howl that made my skin crawl. Bo wagged his tail, bumped against my leg, and blinked out.
I turned and saw Teag warily reeling in his silver whip; the spectral hounds were nowhere in sight. Without needing to discuss it, we both moved to lay down the rest of my salt in lines at the mouth of the two alleys. It might be gone by morning, but for now, it would deter the ghosts from coming back right away.
“What the hell?” Teag said, as we finally began the walk back to the shop. Instead of the leisurely stroll we’d had on our way here, we kept a brisk pace, shy of a jog. The streets were still too empty for my comfort, although if demon dogs were prowling around, maybe that was for the best.
We made it all the way back before a low growl sounded behind us. Where the dogs from the alley had been indistinct, hard to figure the breed, the huge shadow-cur that burst from the darkness stood as tall as an Irish wolfhound, and probably weighed as much as a full-grown man. Hunting dogs came in all sizes, including extra-large.
The ghostly dog growled again, a low, dangerous rumble. I seized on a plan.
“The warding,” I said. “Get to the doorway!”
I ran, with Teag sprinting beside me. We hurled ourselves into the alcove where the door to Trifles and Folly is nestled a few feet deeper than the shop windows. The huge black dog lunged, stretching out to its full length, and bared its sharp teeth, going for the throat.
Teag and I backed deep into the alcove, weapons ready if it came to another fight.
Before the ghost dog came within a foot of the store’s windows, light flared almost too bright to look at, and a curtain of shimmering power sprang up between us and the specter. The hound was already airborne, with no way to change its trajectory. It hit the light barrier and vanished in a spray of sparks, like the world’s biggest fly in a magic bug zapper.
“I guess Lucinda’s wardings are still good,” I said, a little breathlessly.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Teag replied, sounding as weirded-out as I felt.
We nosed out of the alcove warily, then edged beyond the warding and hurried to our cars with the promise to figure things out in the morning. But as I drove home and the shakes hit me, I had the awful feeling that the storm Mrs. Teller predicted was about to break loose.