Reapers of the Dark (Cora Roberts #4)

Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Would you really want that peach cobbler?

E verything was going swimmingly. I had a steady stream of uncomplicated patients who didn’t require my sex therapist skills. Go figure. The bed-and-breakfast was full—mainly because of an increase in the number of long-term guests—but the small number of rooms we still had left were now booked out for the next five weeks. I could pay bills without obsessing over where next month’s money was coming from.

The world might be ending, but the power company wouldn’t be cutting me off anytime soon. As I sat in the kitchen with my aunts Liz and Sophia discussing bridal bouquets—we decided on low-pollen blooms due to my allergies—I felt accomplished, which was stupid given the universe’s interest in kicking me any time I got semi-comfortable.

Of course, the moment I thought that, Harry arrived—appearing through the kitchen ceiling—to deliver bad news. I knew it couldn’t last. Liz jerked back in her seat, making me chuckle at her expense.

“Pineapples,” he declared.

“Is he partial to tropical fruit?” Liz asked.

“Who?” Sophia asked, glancing around. Given she had met my ghostly friend many times in our super secret club, she was acting brilliantly. Although her sight was limited to those meetings, so it was fair she wouldn’t understand the context.

“Harry,” I said, gaining his attention while answering her question. “How many pineapples?” We’d been over this several times, but he still forgot. I needed a rating.

“Can ghosts eat pineapples?” Sophia asked.

“Three, potentially four, depending on the town’s reaction,” he stated, floating upside down between me and Liz. His hair didn’t move, given he surpassed the laws of gravity.

“What’s happening in town?” Liz asked.

He rotated to face her. “Headless beings. Very creepy.” Headless? Why me? “Also hangings,” he continued.

“They are hanging people in the town, and you can’t decide if it’s a three or four pineapple situation?” I said as I jerked to my feet.

“Not living people,” he replied with a huff.

“Most hanging victims aren’t alive,” I pointed out as I leapt into action and collected my coat and keys. Aunt Liz followed me as I strode through the house. Dave and Hudson were back at the pack house, sorting some new mini crisis out. I sent Hudson a text, telling him where I was going, so if he was stalking me through my phone, he wouldn’t freak out.

Sebastian looked up from his phone, his gaze sliding over my coat, and he raised a brow. “Supernatural shenanigans?” he asked, ever so hopeful.

“Yup. You coming?”

He was already moving to the door as I opened it, and we spilled outside. I glanced over my shoulder at Liz. “You too?” I wondered. It wasn’t like her to insert herself into drama. Not that she wouldn’t come and help if needed.

She shrugged. “My day was a little dull.”

My aunt missed Dave and needed a distraction. We piled into Sebastian’s SUV, and Harry launched himself into the rear of the car next to Liz. She slid him a curious glance.

“Are you going to explain the fruit?” she asked as Sebastian sped out of my drive toward the town.

Harry turned to face her. “It’s our safe word.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, realizing how that sounded. Liz slid me an amused glance. “You need safe words when dealing with my niece?”

“Well, she ignored my other, more obvious cries for help.”

Now I sounded like a bad Dom.

“So you found a mutually agreeable word which would get her to stop?”

I was going to murder Indigo for gifting these people the sight.

“We decided on a pineapple rating in order to quantify how urgent the situation was.”

“I see.”

Help me.

They lapsed into quiet conversation and ignored Sebastian’s lips twitching throughout it. Everyone was having a hoot at my expense.

He slammed on the brakes, and the seatbelt dug into my stomach as my hand hit the dash. What in the ever-loving?—

My eyes widened as a huge black horse came cantering down the road toward us, a cloaked figure on its back. He held a sword, and his severed head was tucked under his arm, grinning maniacally.

“You see that, right?” Sebastian whispered.

“That is very creepy,” Harry declared. The phantom didn’t slow down; it rode straight through the car, and the horseman laughed, the sound like nails on a chalkboard. It should be considered an omen when your resident ghost freaked out.

We continued our journey into the center of town, stopping at the edge of the crowd gathering around the town hall. The residents of White Castle had come out in their masses to discuss their ghost problem. Nothing like a brief brush with the afterlife to bond folks.

Robert stood on a raised portion of a wall with a microphone. “If everyone could calm down, we can put together a plan.”

I pushed open the car door and exited, joining the throng at the back, flanked by Sebastian and Liz. Interestingly, nobody seemed to see Harry. There was something different about these ghouls; they weren’t your run-of-the-mill ghosts, and they appeared slightly more sentient than the remnants we’d seen at The Pit.

“The town is haunted,” a woman cried out at the front. “What are you doing about it?” There was a rumbling agreement in the crowd. Robert rubbed a hand down his face. What were they expecting him to do about it? Arrest them and send them back to their afterlife?

“My daughter woke up to find her dolls moving around the house. It traumatized her,” a guy declared.

I shuddered. Dolls were terrifying on a good day.

“There’s a monk in my kitchen guarding my peach cobbler,” another one shouted. Odd, even for a ghost.

A cowboy on another horse raced through the crowd, his lasso whipping through the air. Everyone grimaced, but they weren’t screeching and running. Wait, no, there went Mrs. Hill. The cowboy was clearly too much.

“What about the witch? Can’t she help us?” Frank, the town’s fire chief, asked.

Witch? What witch? Robert’s unnerving gaze found mine. Oh, shit.

“Maybe it’s her fault they are here. If we get rid of her, they might follow.”

Welcome to the twentieth century witch trials. Sadly, it couldn’t be overlooked that this was probably loosely linked to me, but they didn’t know that.

“I can’t live like this. There’s an old woman’s head with milky eyes in my refrigerator,” Helen, the ex-school principal, snapped. “I can’t get my bacon without shoving my hand in her head.”

My phone dinged in my pocket, and everyone turned to stare at me. I slid out my cell phone and tried focusing on Hudson’s message.

Hudson

Stay safe. I’ll be there in twenty.

I was safe until your message drew attention. Maybe everyone had forgotten about me? I glanced up. Nope. The townsfolk had shifted to stare at me, not Robert. Great.

“I have a ghost problem too,” I declared, trying to fit in and be one of them.

Harry bristled. “I resent the implication I am a problem.”

Liz chuckled softly.

“But you are good with weird, Miss Roberts,” Helen said, pushing her way through the crowd to stand in front of me.

“I don’t shy away from it, but I can’t tell you what’s happening here. I’m sorry.”

That was true. At least for now.

“What about her fella, the big dude with the scary eyes?” Miranda, Helen’s daughter, asked.

“You want Hudson to stare menacingly at the ghosts and hope he scares them away?” I checked.

“So they are ghosts?” Helen said as she folded her arms.

Oh, well played. “If you have a better theory, I’m all ears.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t play coy, Miss Roberts. Your family has long been at the center of everything strange that happens here. You think we don’t notice the larger than normal animals that roam the outskirts? Or the naked guys that appear on the edge of your property?”

I told Hudson to stop shifting at Summer Grove House.

“Then there’s him.” Helen jerked her head at Sebastian. “Whatever the fuck he’s got going on, it’s not a miracle skin care routine that has prevented him and his parents from aging a day in the last five years.”

I slid my glance to Sebastian. If they wanted to know if he sparkled in the sun, I was out.

Sebastian straightened his tie. Oh boy. “Your failing eyesight is painting me in a soft light, Helen, but I can assure you, I age.”

True, just at the speed of molasses.

Helen huffed and pointed at me. “You have a constant stream of strangers on your property.”

“Brothel,” someone muttered.

Wonderful. Now I was a sexually deviant witch. “Occupational consequence of owning a bed-and-breakfast, Helen.”

She fisted her hands at her sides. If we were in a cartoon, there would be steam pouring from her ears. “You cannot fool me.”

I smiled at her like one might smile at a senile relative. I felt bad making her seem like she was insane, because everything she said was true. But we didn’t need to add vampires, shifters, and elementals to this powder keg. One supernatural species was already a lot for them to deal with.

I could try to at least help.

“I do, however, have some knowledge of the history of White Castle, as well as an understanding of various religious practices. I will meet with the sheriff and we will come up with a plan. For now, it’s best that you go home and rest. If a ghost has taken up residence in your house, stay with someone else.”

“Ignore them, and they will go away? That’s your master plan?” Helen snapped.

There were mutterings in the crowd, a shift of tensions as people wanted to escape, take the easy road, anything to pretend the mysterious world of spirits wasn’t currently infecting their town.

Robert raised his microphone. “You heard the lady. Back home. If not your own, find somewhere else. Town meeting here tomorrow at noon. We’ll have a more defined plan then.”

This was the thing about mass hysteria. People wanted to take the path of least resistance. Robert was leading them and warding off the rising panic with his calming but firm presence.

The problem was that, come noon tomorrow, everyone would expect a solution. And Lord help us if one hadn’t presented itself, because it would take divine intervention to prevent the folks of White Castle from descending into madness. This was a tiny taste of what my grandmother was hoping to achieve, which led me to a simple yet obvious conclusion. What have you done now, Eloise?