Page 12 of Priceless (Return to Culloden Moor #7)

CHAPTER TWELVE

I pulled up my hood against the soft drizzle that didn’t seem to deter anyone from seeing Edinburgh at night.

The Royal Mile glittered. The wet cobblestones reflected the light from the old-fashioned streetlamps.

It wasn’t the bone-deep cold I’d half-expected from Scotland.

It was more of a mild, damp cool that makes you tug your sweater close, not shiver.

Back home in Denver, rain usually came with a warning—a black wall of clouds and lightning.

Here, it just arrived, like another person joining your group.

Gentle. Persistent. And instead of smelling like dust, it carried the scent of stone, like the buildings had been storing it all day just to let it go at night.

I’d been awake nineteen hours and my thoughts felt loose in my head, like someone had tipped them out and hadn’t bothered to put them back right. But I wasn’t going to waste this night. I’d come all this way, farther than I’d ever been in my life. I wouldn’t waste a minute.

The ghost tour office was small enough to miss, wedged between a whisky bar and a tartan shop.

The scarves in the store window looked like they’d been there since before I was born, their colors just a little faded, but still pretty.

In the ghost tour window, a single brass lantern glowed like an invitation to visit the past, which was what we were about to do.

A handful of people huddled outside, stamping their feet against the damp.

Among them was the couple from the restaurant—the ones who’d invited me along.

They smiled when they spotted me, the woman giving a small wave as if to say, You made it.

I moved closer, glad for a familiar face, even if we’d only exchanged a few words.

The door creaked, and out stepped our guide.

Tall and narrow-shouldered, he was wrapped in a dark overcoat that swayed like a heavy curtain.

He carried the big lantern with an ease that said he’d been holding it every night for years.

His voice was deep, smooth, and had that lilt I heard in my head when I read Jocko’s responses.

“Good evenin’ to ye all,” he said smoothly. “I’m Duncan, and I’ll be takin’ ye through the darker alleys of Auld Reekie tonight. If ye’re lookin’ for cheery tales, ye’ve wandered into the wrong place.”

When no one chickened out, we moved down the Mile with the castle at our backs, past St. Giles’ Cathedral with its spire silhouetted against the darkening sky.

Duncan turned us into an alley so narrow my elbows could almost touch both sides.

The misty rain came along for the tour, and the air felt closer too.

I had the crazy idea that we might be walking into a place that remembered things. Pretty bizarre for someone who didn’t believe in anything paranormal.

“This is Mary King’s Close,” Duncan said, holding the lantern so the light scraped along the wet walls. “In the seventeenth century, plague hit hard. The city bricked it up, leaving the sick inside to die. Some say they trapped the healthy with them. If you listen… you might hear them yet.”

Everyone in the group stilled. Above us, I heard footsteps crossing stone, but then—between the echoes—something else.

A faint, papery rasp. Not the wind. The American woman glanced at me, eyebrows lifting to ask if I’d heard it too.

I nodded. And even though those sounds were probably staged, the hairs on my arms prickled.

We moved on. The mist gathered enough against my cheeks to start dripping and a warm drop fell down my neck and made me shiver.

Duncan stopped at an iron gate that guarded a steep descent into shadow. “Down there,” he said, “they found small bones beneath a tenement floor. No record. No name. The wailing stopped after the digging, some say. Others say it only woke them.”

Back home, there were plenty of old houses, old buildings, and abandoned mines with ghost stories.

This was the same idea, but someone had the bright idea to package it all and sell tickets.

Even so, I decided that for one night, I could pretend to be a believer, or at least have an open mind.

When I got back to Denver, I’d at least have something new to laugh about over lunch with Whitney.

We wound into Greyfriars Kirkyard. The place was quiet, the atmosphere heavy with the smell of wet grass and still-thriving, thousand-year-old moss.

The gravestones leaned at odd angles—forward and back and sideways, like so many flat-bodied drunks.

The engravings of most would have been impossible to read in the light of day.

I couldn’t be the only one tempted to straighten them.

Duncan stopped and waited for us to cluster around him.

“Auch, gather 'round and pay close heed.

Just there is the Black Mausoleum, resting place of Sir George Mackenzie, better known as “Bluidy Mackenzie.” In life, he was a brutal judge and persecutor of the Covenanters, locking hundreds in a makeshift prison just outside those gates.

Ironic that he should be put to rest so near the place where he committed his worst sins.

“They say his cruelty left a stain so deep, it couldn’t be erased.

And in death? Well, they tried to lay him to rest in that grand stone tomb, but it seems Hell wouldn’t have him and turned him back out again.

Since the 1990s, after a rough sleeper broke in to escape the cold and disturbed Mackenzie’s coffin, reports of violent hauntings surged.

People clawed, bruised, even knocked out cold.

The Mackenzie Poltergeist, they call it.

The only documented poltergeist in the world with its own address.

“Tourists have collapsed right here from unseen blows.” He pointed to his feet.

“And more than 500 attacks have been logged. Cameras die. Bruises bloom. Visitors wake with scratches they never felt. They sealed the mausoleum for a while, but the activity continued. Now, it’s said the angry spirit roams the Covenanting Prison itself, punishing the curious and daring.

“Think ye’re safe in the daylight? Think again.

Some say Mackenzie was never truly human to begin with—too cruel, too fiendish.

” He paused for effect. “If ye lean in close enough to that iron gate, ye might feel the breath of something ancient…and very, very awake. I never advise it, but touch the Black Mausoleum if ye dare—knowing that some folks that do dinnae walk away unchanged.”

Two men stepped forward, egging each other on. I hung back, watching the heavy black door, and suddenly feeling a million miles away from home. Back there, ghosts were costumes and plastic skeletons in people’s yards. TV shows that thrived on lies and overacting.

But I couldn’t promise that what I felt in that moment was only my imagination. And the idea of a Scottish witch bringing the dead back to life no longer seemed so impossible.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but I had to wait for the rest of the group. I had no idea how many of them dared to touch the door. I felt, somehow, that I shouldn’t even watch or I, too, might never be the same.

As soon as we left the graveyard behind, however, the feeling passed. But I still wasn’t willing to accept that I’d imagined it all. I completely believed in the impressive power of suggestion, but now I wondered if I was ready to believe in other things too…

Next, a short, squat door beside a pub led us down slick stone steps and under a sign that read South Bridge Vaults .

The air cooled as we descended, and I had the urge to glance over my shoulder—not because I thought anyone was there, but because this was the kind of place where it felt wrong not to.

“These tunnels were sealed for more than a century,” Duncan said. “When they opened them again, they found bones, pottery, the belongings of the people who’d lived and died down here. Ghosts aplenty.”

The tunnels seemed to swallow every sound, probably absorbed by that dark, ever-present moss that lived in every crack. The lantern’s light caught beads of water clinging to the walls, made shadows jump. Each drip from above landed with a snap that sounded like a footstep.

We entered a small chamber and stopped.

“This one’s the Watcher’s,” Duncan said quietly, then addressed me. “He’s not fond of women. If he’s about, ye might feel a touch on yer shoulder or a whisper in yer ear.” He lifted the lamp and looked around the room, waiting. And we waited for him to give up and move on.

He finally lowered the lamp and started toward the next doorway. I held back so I didn’t catch his attention again. Let someone else get the full brunt of his spooky charm.

While I waited to take my place at the back of the line, the air shifted behind me. My scalp tingled. And then—so close I could feel it—came one word.

Leave!

I spun around. No one stood behind me. When I looked back, the others hurried to get away from me, like I’d caught the actual plague.

Duncan nodded at me. “Looks he’d taken note of ye. Best hurry along I think.” He stood aside and motioned for me to exit ahead of him. I didn’t have to be told twice.

I suddenly found the American couple standing on either side of me. The woman put her arm around my shoulder and gave me a look that said she was sorry, that she felt responsible for me being there.

I chuckled and shook my head. “This is what we came for, right? For a little adrenaline rush?”

She relaxed and smiled back. “Exactly.” But she didn’t remove her arm until we were outside again, where the air was fresh and almost warm in comparison to the vaults.

As we walked along, I tried to sense whether or not some presence was following me.

But either my senses failed me, the ghost had stayed put, or it was all just a hallucination.

I tried to appreciate the fact that each store I passed was new to me. Each step I took, each breath I pulled into my lungs, was brand new. And I muttered under my breath, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

And in this new place, where the existence of ghosts seemed possible, even plausible, I wondered how long I would last before I tucked tail and ran back to the airport.

Duncan took the lead again and we wound our way farther down the Mile, past pubs glowing warm with light and happy voices, past buskers tucking away their instruments for the night.

At home, streets quieted when the sun went down.

Here, even the rain couldn’t dampen the energy, it was just part of it—a little shimmer at the edge of my vision.

Our next stop was Canongate Kirkyard. I might have stayed back if not caught up in the flow of bodies.

The gate creaked open, and we poured inside.

The gravestones here were spaced farther apart, the grass long and wet enough to soak the hems of my jeans.

Duncan’s lantern skimmed across names carved in neat serif letters, dates worn too shallow to read.

“Ye know,” he said, “not all spirits stay in the kirkyard they’re buried in.

Some roam. Some linger close to the people they loved in life.

Others follow strangers for reasons we can’t guess.

” His gaze flicked toward me then, just for a second, before swinging the lantern toward a weathered monument.

“This here is the grave of Adam Smith, the economist. We’ve had many an experience at this spot. ”

Again, he waited. We all looked around, wondering who would be accosted next, like a bunch of sailors trying to stay afloat, waiting for the next shark to choose its victim. I wasn’t the only one who was relieved when nothing happened.

Despite my hood, my hair was damp enough to curl by the time we moved on, but I was warm enough.

Otherwise, I might have ditched the others and popped into one of those warm-looking pubs or gone back to my hotel.

I was reasonably sure we had turned around somewhere and were heading back to home base.

Duncan ducked into another narrow alley.

The path was so steep I had to angle my feet sideways to keep from slipping.

When we were all bunched together again, Duncan told us about Burke and Hare, the infamous body snatchers.

“Some still see shadowy figures carrying their grisly cargo through these very lanes.”

Apparently, the spirits of Burke and Hare were holed up in a pub that night, and the shadows remained shadows.

We didn’t have to go far from there to end where we’d begun, near St. Giles’.

Duncan gave us one last smile. “Mind ye should all say yer prayers tonight…in case someone follows ye home, hoping for a bit of comp’ny.” He doffed his cap and held it out for tips.

I said my prayer out loud when I dropped in ten euros. “If any spirits are listening, I pray they’ll follow the money instead of me.”

Duncan laughed and gave me a little bow. “Touché, love. Be certain to leave a review, and mind ye mention the Watcher!”

The group laughed, relieved I think, for a chance to lighten the mood.

After a nod or two, we quickly drifted apart into the night, heading in different directions.

The American couple waved goodnight before turning down a side street, their silhouettes swallowed quickly by a gathering mist that I would have avoided.

Now that I knew where I was, I turned in the opposite direction.

Every so often, I caught myself glancing into an alley, half expecting to see Duncan’s lantern swinging in the dark. Or something else.

By the time I reached the lobby, my eyelids were heavy enough to make the floor sway.

My room smelled faintly of clean sheets and furniture polish.

I didn’t bother unpacking. I was so wiped out that I only spent a minute drying my hair, then fell asleep easily.

My brain had shut down and my body with it.

If a ghost, or Jocko, wanted my attention, they were out of luck.

Even a wicked set of bagpipes couldn’t have woken me.