Of Ash and Spirit: Piper Lancaster Series Read online

  Gill’s smile abruptly fell. “Are you trash-talking my junk?”

  I feigned surprise. “Is your junk a problem for you, Gill? How curious that you called it junk.”

  He took several steps toward me, his fists clenching at his sides. “I can’t help it if you’re a frigid bitch.”

  Evelyn gasped behind me. “Manny, I want that man off my property. Now!”

  Manny gave Gill a look that suggested he was having second thoughts, then glanced back at me. “And what do you think you’re going to do in there?”

  “What I always do,” I said, forcing myself to appear like I didn’t want to throat-punch them both. “I’m going to go in and communicate with the spirit or spirits and convince them to move on to the afterlife.”

  Manny stared at me as though I’d just announced I was the Queen of England. “With your cigar?”

  I lifted my chin although he wasn’t much taller than me. Maybe his asshattery was an offshoot of short man syndrome. “With my white sage smudge stick.”

  He snorted.

  “Did you check success rates, Mr. Crawford?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “Did you ask for referrals? You know my name, so you’ve obviously heard about me, yet you chose to go with Gill.”

  Manny looked pissed. “He had equipment.”

  “Maybe Gill’s compensating with all that equipment. He can’t get anything done without it. Or with it.”

  Gill’s face turned red then a purplish hue.

  Then, because I just plain didn’t like Manny Crawford, I nodded toward his cherry red Corvette. “Maybe you two have something in common.”

  Manny’s eyes hardened. “Get off my property.” He pointed at his soon-to-be ex-wife. “Get her off my property!”

  “Your property!” she shouted. “I own half this house, Manuel!”

  “I’m not leaving,” I said. “Not unless Evelyn tells me to.”

  Gill reached out and grabbed my arm, trying to physically drag me toward my car.

  “Get your hands off me,” I said in a deadly calm voice.

  He kept dragging me.

  I brought my free hand up and swung it down hard on his wrist, breaking his hold. He cried out in pain and turned to grab me again.

  “You lay another hand on me, and you’re a dead man, Gill Gillespie.”

  His chest heaved with exertion.

  “You really should work out more, Gill,” I said. “You’re obviously really out of shape.”

  To my surprise, he shoved my chest hard.

  I stumbled backward, staring at him in shock. Though I’d never mistaken him for a saint, the man I’d known six months ago would never have physically manhandled me the way he’d just done—both dragging me and the shove—no matter how angry he was.

  “I hope he was worth it,” he snarled.

  What in the world was he talking about?

  I shot a confused look to Ricky and Ethan, but they looked just as perplexed as I felt.

  “Oh my God,” Evelyn said as she rushed down the stairs. “Are you okay, Piper?”

  I offered her a reassuring smile. “Yeah.”

  She turned her rage on her husband. “You get that man out of here right now!”

  “No. We need whatever’s in that house gone!”

  “That’s what Piper’s here for. To get it out! She has a better track record than the billboard guy. You would have known that if you’d done any research!”

  “I’m not the billboard guy,” Gill protested. “I’m the paranormal science guy.”

  Manny shot Gill a look of frustration before shifting his gaze back to Evelyn. “Fine,” he said, shaking his head in disgust, “I’ll give you a compromise. Your girl gets fifteen minutes. Then my guy goes in with his equipment.”

  Evelyn put her hands on her hips and pondered it for a couple of seconds. Turning to me, she asked, “Can you do what you need to do in fifteen minutes?”

  “Uh . . . I usually spend more time than that,” I said. “I never know how long it will take to find a spirit and communicate with it.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” Manny said.

  Evelyn started up the steps. “Let’s get started, Piper.”

  I followed her, wondering what the hell I was doing. “Evelyn, you haven’t even given me a full account of what’s been happening in your house.”

  “What’s the matter, Piper?” Gill asked. “Afraid you’re going to prove you’re a fraud?”

  “You’re just jealous you don’t have any natural ability,” I retorted as I stopped at the doorway. “You need to hide your ineptitude behind all your expensive toys.” Then I went inside, feigning a lot more confidence than I felt.

  Chapter Four

  Evelyn’s living room was tastefully decorated, the comfortable furniture arranged in front of the stone fireplace. The room was dark except for a single lamp on the end table next to the sofa.

  “I wasn’t sure what you needed,” Evelyn said, her voice shaking.

  “I usually don’t need anything. Can you tell me if anyone has died in the house or if someone close to you has died recently?” I really needed something to work with here. Especially with Gill waiting outside to take over.

  She shook her head. “We knew the original owners, so I know for certain that no one died here. And the last family member who died was Manny’s grandfather five years ago. He was ninety-five.”

  So much for that. “I’d love to know more about what’s been going on in the house. I know you left the house after you became frightened, but what exactly happened?”

  “I told you that things were getting moved in the house. Bigger and bigger things.”

  A loud noise came from a room to my right, and Evelyn jumped. “Do I have to stay in here with you? This place creeps me out.”

  I gave her a reassuring smile. “And that’s why I’m here. To make your home feel safe again, but the spirit that’s attached to your home is more likely to respond if you’re with me.”

  She gave a nervous look around. “I’ll stay for now.”

  “I need to check out the loud noise in the other room.”

  Shaking her head, Evelyn took a step backward. “No. I’m not going in there.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “The kitchen.” Her eyes widened. “And knives. Most of the activity’s in there.” Then she spun around and ran out the front door.

  Well, crap. I had a strong urge to follow her. Then I heard Gill shout through the open door. “Ten more minutes!”

  Asshole. There was no way I could leave now.

  I eyed the open doorway to the dark kitchen and took a step toward it before changing my mind. I didn’t really believe ghosts were throwing knives around in Evelyn’s house, but something had made that noise. I wasn’t ready to go in there yet.

  Instead, I walked toward the dining room and started checking out the air ducts and tapping on floorboards. I needed to find the source of the noises. I wished I’d asked Evelyn if the kitchen was the only room where she’d seen moving objects. Or how exactly they’d moved. I had to presume things were falling off shelves, which meant something was causing vibrations under the kitchen.

  I needed to see if there was a basement. While I searched for a staircase, I pulled out my phone and called Rhys.

  “Are you done already?” she asked in surprise.

  “No. I need you to check if there have been any kind of earthquakes or tremors or fracking around here,” I said, getting excited at the idea. That would definitely cause tremors.

  “On Beaucatcher Mountain?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but something is knocking things around in the kitchen.”

  “I know there were a few very minor earthquakes last year. How far back did you want me to search? What was the most recent one?”

  “Objects started to move in here about a month ago. The most recent occurrence was about three minutes ago.”

  “What?”

  “Just look.”

  “I
don’t know how fast I can do this, Piper. I don’t know if it’s something you can find readily on the internet. I have a friend who was an environmental studies major. I can ask him, but I don’t know how quickly he’ll get back to me. Where are you anyway? In the bathroom?”

  I opened a door and found a dark staircase leading downstairs. “No. I wish. Call me if you find something.”

  I hung up and flipped the switch on the wall. Light flooded the stairs, making me feel a fraction better about going down there. The space was unfinished and the Crawfords used it for storage. A stack of boxes lined the wall to my right, while a few larger pieces of equipment—an older washer and dryer and a furnace unit—sat to the left.

  I took a second to orient the basement to what was over my head. To my right was the kitchen. To my left was the dining room. But that meant the boxes were under the kitchen, and it was highly unlikely they were the source of the shaking.

  I walked over to the washing machine and opened the lid, lifting my hand to stave off the mildewy smell of wet towels left to molder. The towels would be a perfect test of the washer. Old machines could cause a racket, maybe even loud enough to create the disturbances upstairs. I closed the lid, turned the load to small, then switched on the machine. Water started to fill the tub, and I wandered over to the furnace. The electricity and gas lines went out the side of the house behind the dining room. The furnace wasn’t likely to be the source of any vibrating, and it was highly doubtful it was the air-conditioning.

  The washing machine had filled enough that I could turn it to the drain cycle. Moments later, the machine started to spin and I waited for it to shake and maybe hit the concrete wall, making the whole house vibrate. Instead, it barely shimmied. The washing machine wasn’t the source I was looking for either.

  And now I had five minutes. Crap.

  It was time to suck it up and visit the kitchen.

  I headed to the base of the stairs and came to an abrupt halt when I saw a small girl standing at the top of the stairs. She wore denim shorts, a pink tank top, and bright red sandals. Her blond hair was in two short pigtails.

  Squelching a shriek, I put my hand on my chest to ride out my jumpstarted heartbeat. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Does Evelyn know you’re in her house?” If she was scared to be in here, I couldn’t imagine her letting a small child inside.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” the girl said in a tiny, sweet voice.

  “What?”

  “It’s looking for you. You need to leave. Now.” Then her body vanished, turning into something resembling ash. The particles fell to the floor and a wisp of smoke floated into the dining room.

  My mouth dropped open as I tried to process what I’d just seen. It was similar to what had happened with the woman this afternoon, only I hadn’t seen her vanish before my eyes. But there was one big difference between then and now—Gill was standing right outside the front door.

  He was behind this. I was sure of it. Had it been a hologram? Where would Gill have gotten technology like that? Then it hit me.

  He’d gotten it with my money.

  More pissed than I’d ever been, I stomped up the stairs. It didn’t take a genius to see how a hologram would help his business. While I saw results with my cleanings, I never provided any actual proof of a haunting. If he could video images of ghosts and show them to the owners, he’d be the one who snagged a ghost-hunting show.

  The pile of dirt at the top of the steps caught my attention, so I bent over to examine it. It looked like ashes, and when I leaned closer, it actually smelled like burnt toast. I had to give him props for the movie-quality special effects. I glanced around for the camera that was projecting the image, but couldn’t find anything.

  But I wanted to check the kitchen before I went out to confront him. This would be so much sweeter if I could catch him red-handed and show the Crawfords conclusive proof that he’d rigged their haunting. I knew he’d set up people in the past so they’d let him come investigate their houses for an initial consulting fee of five hundred dollars. Ricky worked for a heating and cooling company, and according to Ethan, Gill had convinced him to plant a device in a homeowner’s air ducts to release sounds at various times. Then Gill and the crew had gone in and used their meters and equipment to show there was a presence. But while no one was looking, Ricky had removed the device, thereby “freeing” the house of supernatural activity. I knew there were other instances, but Gill had shut Ethan down after that one story. God only knew what those three had done to other people.

  And now they’d upped their game. Well, I was calling them out as the frauds they were . . . while conveniently overlooking the fact that I was a fraud as well.

  As I walked across the living room, I said, “I know what you’re up to, and I’m going to prove it, you asshole.”

  A book flew off the bookcase, landing two feet away on the floor.

  I stormed toward it, picking up the book and looking it over. No strings or wires. Nothing to clue me in on how Gill had done it. I checked out the spot where the book had been, looking for some device that might have pushed it forward, but all I saw was the back of the bookcase, which felt solid. The books on either side of the flying book remained perfectly upright. I pulled them out to see if they held any clues. Nothing.

  Dang it. I needed proof.

  Evelyn had said most of the activity was centered in the kitchen, so I headed in there, flipping on the overhead light. It flared to life for a moment; then sparks shot out of it and it shorted out. Before the room plunged to darkness, I caught sight of something at the opposite end of the room—a dark gray creature that looked slightly human with long arms, shorter legs, and an oversized head.

  My heart raced, but I told myself this wasn’t real. This was Gill trying to make me look like a fool before he cleared out his hologram projectors and declared himself a hero.

  No way was that happening.

  “This isn’t funny, Gill,” I said as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on the flashlight. Steeling my back and reminding myself Gill was probably filming all of this, I shined the light toward the “creature” and gasped.

  It was still there.

  Okay. Two could play this game. “I don’t know who you are, but you need to leave,” I insisted.

  “You are the one we have been warned about,” the creature said in a gravelly voice. “The one who wishes to destroy us.”

  A canister on the counter scooted toward the edge.

  I had to give Gill props. The thing looked pretty real. This couldn’t be a hologram. The only logical explanation was that he’d hired someone to wear some kind of suit, but I had to admit that I had no idea how he’d made it look this realistic. He had to be dating a makeup artist, someone else he could use to further his career goals. But how had he moved that canister?

  No matter. If I was dealing with a real person, I could film this and get the big guy to admit he was working for Gill. I quickly turned on the video camera in my phone and held it up.

  Gill’s stooge was still studying me as if I were a curious specimen.

  I put my hand on my hip. Injecting all kinds of sassiness into my voice, I asked, “Can you say that again? I don’t think I heard you.”

  Its eyes glowed red and it released a low growl, a rumbling noise that made a deep vibration I felt in my bones.

  A cabinet door opened, and a plate flew ten feet across the room, smashing into the cabinets on the other side.

  My heart was racing again, but I forced myself to stay snarky and sound uncaring. “The gig’s up, dude. I know you’re a friend of Gill’s, and I’m capturing everything on video so I can have all kinds of experts pick this crap apart.”

  “You are the demon slayer,” it said louder, its voice producing more vibrations.

  Two cabinet doors on opposite sides of the kitchen flew open. Drinking glasses flew out of one cabinet while serving bowls flew out of the other. They met in the middle of the room, over the i
sland, shattering into hundreds of pieces of glass and porcelain that shot through the air like projectiles.

  I ducked, lifting my arm to cover my face, but several pieces of glass pierced my forearm.

  Now I was really pissed. I stood upright and pointed a finger at him.

  “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m pressing charges,” I said, taking a step forward. The broken glass and porcelain crunched beneath my Toms.

  “Pressing charges?” it asked in its rumbling voice. “Is that a challenge?”

  The canister on the edge of the counter fell off.

  “A challenge?” I practically shrieked. “Oh, it’s a challenge all right, buddy. I’m part owner of the best law firm in Asheville, which means I’ve got all kinds of resources at my disposal! I’m coming after you with everything I’ve got!” I’d let Gill get away with plenty of crap, but now I was done.

  The thing puffed out its chest and its growl-rumble vibrated the air again, making my insides feel as shaky as they had the one time I’d sat on my unbalanced washing machine. (Rhys had told me she’d tried it during a dry spell between girlfriends.) The rest of me felt the same way too—extreme unease, a healthy dose of skepticism, and a whole lot of irritation for what was ultimately a complete waste of my time.

  “So you are the demon slayer?” it asked.

  The refrigerator door opened.

  I snorted. “Is that what Gill wants to call himself now? Fine, he can have the title. I’ll stick to ghosts and spirits, and he can have the demons. You know what? It seems like a perfect fit for him.”

  “Time’s up, Piper!” Gill shouted from the living room. “Time to let the experts get to work.”

  “This Gill is the demon slayer?” it asked.

  A carton of milk fell out of the fridge.

  “Is that what this is about?” I asked. “You want me to outright say Gill is the demon slayer? Sure.” I waved my free hand toward the guy in the demon suit and said flippantly, “Gill Gillespie is the demon slayer.”

  Then the thing vanished into a wisp of smoke, leaving a pile of ash where it had been.

  These smoke and mirrors tricks were really starting to piss me off.