So Gardenia Landing might have a few resident ghosts, I mused. I’d have to do some digging into its history. Beneath many a charming façade lay tawdry tales of mayhem and murder. Some places played up their checkered history, while others tried all the harder for respectability. Gardenia Landing wasn’t hawking ghost tours, so I guessed that its owner wasn’t viewing supernatural activity as being good for business.
“Got them!” Teag sang out as he burst into the shop, sending the strip of sleigh bells on the front door jangling. “Two tickets, Grand Tier. So we’re in the first balcony, but up against the railing with a good view of the stage.” He was grinning ear to ear.
“Technically, the show is sold out, but the theater manager is a friend of mine, and I wheedled a favor out of him, for old times’ sake,” Teag added with a conspiratorial wink.
“What’s it going to cost us?” I asked with a smile. Teag could work social connections – real or online – better than anyone I know, but there was usually some quid pro quo involved.
Teag shrugged. “I might have said we would consider loaning a few pieces for one of their upcoming plays – with proper credit in the program book, of course, so it’s almost like free advertising.”
I chuckled. In my opinion, Teag had been wasting his talent on a Ph.D. in history. He had the instincts of an impresario coupled with the social finesse of a master fundraiser. Turns out it wasn’t just his magnetic personality: some of it was magic. Fairly recently, Teag discovered he had a supernatural gift as a ‘Weaver’, someone who could work spells into woven goods – and into the ‘web’ of the Internet.
Teag had an uncanny talent for following information strands, either offline or online, to find and piece together bits of data and weave it into valuable intel. Now we knew it wasn’t all luck.
“We’ll need the insurance paperwork and receipts, but that’s easily done,” I said. “I’m excited about the play.”
“You need to get out more, Cassidy,” Teag said, sounding like a big brother.
I shrugged, afraid to answer because it was true, and switched subjects. “Have you ever heard of Gardenia Landing?” Teag frowned, thinking. “Bed and breakfast?”
I nodded. “I just got a rather desperate email from the owner begging me to come stay – for free – and help her with a problem with an item she got here.”
Teag scratched his head. “I don’t remember selling anything to a B&B owner.”
“She may have gone through a decorator.”
“Okay. I can go through our list of regulars and see which designers have made purchases lately.”
“Please. I’d like to have a clue about what I’m walking into before I go out there.”
Teag raised an eyebrow. “You’re going? Just like that?”
“Baxter and I need to get out of the house for a couple of days while the hardwoods get done over – remember?”
“What about the owner’s ‘problem’?”
I shrugged. “If she bought something here, it couldn’t be more than a sparkler. Maybe the B&B has its own ghosts, and they amped up the new piece so it’s acting out. At best, I find it and figure out how to neutralize it. At worst, I offer her store credit and a replacement and bring it back for Sorren to deal with.”
Teag fixed me with the kind of stare my grandmother used to use if she caught me in a fib. “You know, and I know, that ‘at worst’ can be a whole lot worse than that. Be careful, Cassidy. Sorren’s not going to like you going out there by yourself when we don’t know what you’re up against.”
I grimaced. “I’ll figure something out,” I muttered.
What Teag said was true. Sorren was the mastermind behind Trifles and Folly, from its beginning nearly four hundred years ago. He had been the silent partner with the shop’s owner – always a relative of mine – down through the centuries. Sorren was also one of the early members of the Alliance, the group that got rid of dangerous magical items. “Maybe you should let Sorren know about this before you go,” Teag said, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s probably nothing,” I said. “I don’t want to bother Sorren until we know for certain.” When I inherited the store from my great-Uncle Evan, I inherited the ‘real’ family business: protecting Charleston against supernatural danger. Sorren was part of that package. The Alliance was the other piece.
Sorren’s maker had brought him into the Alliance in the 1500s when Sorren was a century old. The Alliance has been busy since then. When we make a mistake, lots of people die. Plagues, floods, earthquakes – fewer of them are natural than people think. Often, there are supernatural or magical fingerprints all over them, because someone very powerful made them happen. I didn’t want that on my conscience. On the other hand, the Alliance included some very powerful magic users and immortals.
They didn’t get involved in routine hauntings.
“Speaking of Sorren,” Teag said, “This came for you.” He held out an overnight mail sleeve and I ripped it open to find a letter in Sorren’s distinctive handwriting. “Hasn’t he heard of email?”
I chuckled. Sorren used email just fine, and we both knew it. But with my gift, a letter carried far more information than what it actually said, information that couldn’t fall into the wrong hands if it were intercepted.
“Let’s see what he has to say,” I said, and sat down before I touched the envelope. But as soon as my fingers touched the crisp paper, I knew we were in for trouble.
“He’s worried about something,” I said. In a nod to the old ways, Sorren still used a drop of sealing wax embossed with the imprint of his signet ring to seal the envelope. It wasn’t an artistic flourish: there was magic in the wax that kept the letter eyes-only for the recipient.
I broke the seal and pulled out the short note. “On my way,” I read aloud. “Be careful. Something’s up – not sure what. Big players involved. Details soon – Sorren.”
But the paper told me much more. Death and danger had gotten the Alliance’s attention, and Sorren was worried. His warning was clear. Something very bad was heading our way.
Sorren took his commitment to my family – and to me – very seriously. And if I thought Teag was overprotective, he couldn’t compete with a six hundred year-old vampire.
Chapter Two
I FELT RUSHED and flustered as I bustled to answer the front door. It was Saturday evening, and I’d spent the day rushing around. Baxter scampered back and forth underfoot, and barked up a storm when he knew we had a visitor.
“Ready to go?” Teag asked, stepping inside. He looked good in a sport coat and slacks. His dark eyes held a hint of mischief, and he was wearing his trendy glasses instead of contacts, which added to the dashing young professor look. For once, his hair was tamed enough to stay out of his eyes. Since Teag tended to favor jeans and t-shirts, I suspected Anthony might have had a hand in selecting his wardrobe for the evening. He was more dressed up than I’d ever seen him, and I grinned. He bent down to scoop Baxter into his arms and tousled Bax’s ears.
“Anthony’s going to wish he’d joined us,” I said. “You clean up well.”
Teag laughed. “So do you.”
I was wearing a sundress and heels, a tribute to the spring weather. A light wrap was slung across my shoulders, in case the theater was cold. Given Charleston’s hot and humid weather, odds were good that the difference between the outside air and the A/C on the inside would be enough to fog my sunglasses.
“Here’s hoping that the opera glasses don’t pack much of a psychic wallop, so we can both enjoy the show,” Teag said.