Page 15 of Devils and the Dead
I realized right then that there was a body entombed in this tree. A curse. A horrible, horrible curse that I suspected involved more than the three ghosts in front of me and whoever was trapped in this tree.
Once more, I was in over my head. First Maude with her not-alive/not-dead zombie status and my inability to rectify that situation. Now a major curse, the like of which I’d never seen before. How many were trapped under this spell? And for how long had they suffered?
What did I need to do to release the curse and set them free?
Tinsel, the spirits reminded me.
“I know. And I will do everything in my power to help you,” I told them. “But this isn’t something that can be done with a bundle of sage and a few stones. I need to know the nature of the curse. I need to do some research, to find out how to release all of you from this prison. It might take time, but I won’t rest until the curse is broken and you’re all set free.”
Tinsel, they sighed. Then the ghosts vanished, and the blood on the tree dried into the bark. The chalk runes puffed out in a burst of white smoke.
I carefully bagged the bone, then put away the stones I’d not been able to use.
And I burned the sage—more to make the werewolves feel better than for any real protection. They wouldn’t need protection from the ghosts haunting them. And no amount of sage was going to put those ghosts to rest.
Chapter 8
Babylon
“I’m moving,” Bay announced. “No offense to you, Clinton, but I’m going back to Dallas’s pack. There’s no way I’m going to live in a haunted compound. No way.”
“It won’t be haunted for long,” I tried to assure him and the others. “These are not harmful ghosts. I sense no ill intent from them. They’re trapped. I have every intention of releasing them, but it’s just going to take some time. Please be patient, and soon enough your compound will no longer be haunted.”
“Can we burn the log? Put some of those squiggly chalk marks around the entire compound? Burn more sage?” Clinton asked.
I could see the whole thing had frightened him just as much as it had his pack, but he was the alpha. He needed to put on a brave face and do all he could to solve the problem and keep his people safe.
“I wish it were that simple.” I motioned toward the log. “Burning the log won’t help, and it might just make things worse. The sigils and sage will keep the spirits from entering the compound, but the pack still needs to come and go. I don’t have enough chalk and sage to secure the whole mountain, and I doubt that would even work. There is a curse that keeps the spirits here, and until I can break the curse, I can’t send the ghosts elsewhere. They’re stuck.”
“Let’s just get them their tinsel,” Justelle proposed. “We’ll run into town, buy up all the Christmas stuff we can find, then lay it out in an offering. Then maybe the ghosts will stay away.”
“The ghosts won’t harm any of you,” I repeated. I knew that no amount of reassurance would quell their fears. They were all superstitious, and even benign ghosts were terrifying to them. “Besides,” I added. “The tinsel the ghosts are talking about isn’t a thing, it’s a he. Or she. I’m almost positive that the spirits haunting the compound are the ghosts of the elves who used to live on Savior Mountain. Tinsel is the name of one of the elves.”
I wasn’t sure if Tinsel was the elf trapped in the log or not, but I knew that the key to breaking this curse and setting the spirits free was in finding out who Tinsel was and what the elf had to do with the curse.
“The elves?” Clinton frowned. “But they left a couple of decades ago. No one’s really sure when they went away since they were kinda private-like up here on the mountain. I remember Dad saying one day they were here, and the next day there was nothing but empty houses. Everyone just figured they went back to their fairyland, or elfland, or whatever. It’s not like they socialized at all with the others, anyway.”
Neither did the werewolves up until recently. Still, I understood what Clinton was saying. The fae races in Accident were very different, but the one thing they had in common was a strange feeling of “other” about them. Most of them owned shops, came to town events, hung out at the bar and sang karaoke with the rest of us. But they still seemed a bit odd compared to the other supernatural residents.
“I’m going to help you, and help the spirits haunting Savior Mountain,” I vowed. “But it isn’t something that’s going to be resolved today. Please stay and have faith in me—have faith that I can take care of this. Don’t abandon all you’ve worked for. Don’t abandon your new pack over this. The ghosts won’t hurt you. I’m asking you all to stay put, to trust in me.”
The five werewolves glanced at each other, then looked to Clinton. The pack alpha regarded me solemnly, then nodded.
“We wolves came to Accident centuries ago, trusting that the Perkins witches would keep us safe. Under their protection, we’ve been able to honor our culture, maintain our pack, and live our lives openly and as we wished. The Perkins witches are the guardians of Accident, and they have always kept their word. I trust that Babylon Perkins will break the curse and free the spirits so they may move on to their afterlife. Our pack will remain here, and we will do anything we can to aid you in removing the ghosts who haunt Savior Mountain and our compound.”
I nodded in return, acknowledging the faith Clinton had in me and the importance of my task.
I couldn’t fail—not the werewolves who now called Savior Mountain their home, nor the elves who’d once lived here.
* * *
“Elves?”Cassie shook her head in disbelief.
I’d caught my eldest sister just as she was returning home from picking up groceries, pulling into the driveway right behind her car. I’d explained the situation with Clinton’s pack as I helped her carry in the bags, noting the particularly huge quantity of pork ribs filling several of them. Sunday family dinner had grown with the inclusion of the demon boyfriends of my sisters. That meant a whole lot more food, and quite a crowd at what we’d originally believed to be a huge dining table. Now, that table wasn’t quite big enough. Cassie had been insisting some of us eat in the kitchen, like the “kids’ table” at Thanksgiving.
I often ended up at that kids’ table. Not just because I was the youngest, but because I was the only one in the family still single. Besides our cousin, Aaron, that is.
“Do you know anything about them?” I asked her, meaning the elves. “Did Mom ever mention them? Or Grandma?”
