Page 16 of Safe in Shadow (Pine Ridge Universe #22)

G race came barreling up the stairs. “Okay! Listen, did you know this? So, like if a vampire never kills an innocent person to drink their blood—or maybe at all—they can keep their soul, while still being a vampire! It’s like a demon-y thing is lurking, waiting to take possession and kick the mortal soul out of the immortal shell and become the new owner.

Mr. Minegold’s never done that, and neither have some other vampires in town.

There are at least three because he told me about his two ‘sons.’ Oh, and get a load of this!

He said he felt there was something dark and deadly about this place, not in the house, maybe, but in the air.

Like it was tainted by death. Like that was you!

I had to point out that this was a hospital, and so, yeah—death.

He said that was probably it, but I think he. .. hey? Nyx!”

Grace left the room, voice softer. “Nyx?”

He wasn’t there. In a way that she didn’t understand, she could feel the lack of him, could sense that she was the only presence. The house felt colder. Emptier.

After putting on actual “appropriate for meeting people” clothing, she slid on her sneakers and went outside. “Nyx!” she shouted this time, and crows departed from the trees.

Bridle path.

He said there used to be a bridle path. What is that? Like for horses? I guess everyone used horses back then, so was that just a road?

She stopped at the ring of birches. Her feet were frozen and heavy, as if they were reluctant to penetrate that leaf mulch kingdom encircled with the curiously white trees.

Like a cage of bones.

Don’t be so fucking dramatic. I tell you, you meet one little vampire and start sleeping with one undead ghost-type, and you start imagining all kinds of things.

Grace forced herself forward, edging towards the woods she kept saying she would explore when she had time—but she’d never made time.

So Cynthia died in there?

Sad, but not the end of the world, at least not as a property owner.

Lots of people died here at Hilltop. It was a hospital.

Like I told Mr. Minegold, hospitals are where you go to get better—and where you stay when they can’t cure you.

Tuberculosis was so deadly before they had antibiotics and an effective vaccine.

Grace shuddered, but not because she was afraid of being in a place where people had died.

Heck, the place where Nana lived had an ambulance parked beside it at least three times a week, and everyone would hold their breath to see if a person came out of the building strapped to the gurney and wearing an oxygen mask or covered in a sheet as someone scribbled on a clipboard.

Death didn’t freak her out. It made her sad.

But she shuddered again, recalling Nyx’s words.

He killed her. He said he killed her.

But I don’t think he could kill her. He scared her, okay, maybe, but that’s not like... murder. I don’t think he could hurt anyone. Like, how could he physically hurt anyone?

The memory of the warm, solid coils of his shadowy form holding her thighs apart so he could plunder her sopping center made her ache to repeat last night, all the while making her heart lurch.

He could have.

But why would he?

Cynthia was his brother’s wife, wasn’t she?

Poor Nyx.

She walked along the treeline, this time braving the oddly dark woods.

Not oddly dark, idiot. Stormy weather is coming.

Shit, flashlights. I need flashlights for all the rooms. And I think a first aid kit should be in every bathroom. Plungers. Oh, my God, what if someone clogs the toilet in the middle of the night, and I don’t have a plunger?

Grace turned and moved back to the house, her shoulder easing as she did so. “I’m going to go put all those Pine Ridge Welcome Wagon people in my phone. Starting with that plumber!”

NYX FELT THE HOUSE turn colder without her. He crept out in inches, drawn out like a starving animal in the presence of meat. He knew it was dangerous. Might cause him to be trapped in a whole new way, but he couldn’t deny himself her company after so long alone.

Without her, his memories twisted and swirled. With her, everything became more and more solid. Memories came back, even the ones he didn’t want.

“Please don’t leave. Not truly,” he whispered to the empty window, watching her little blue car disappear down the road. “Please come back.” His hands touched the glass and rested on it, his darkness spreading until it seemed as though a shadow were being cast over the house.

GRACE KNEW WHERE THE grocery store was. Her car seemed to have a mind of its own.

Her mind rattling with a list of everything from furniture polish to batteries, she found herself pulling into the small parking lot next to the library.

After a second of surprised-at-herself silence, she marched in, waved at Louisa at the desk, and marched up to the archive room.

This time, she saw him.

Gray. Bespectacled. Transparent. “Mr. Ghost?”

He started and dropped the card catalog drawer he was holding—only to levitate it back into place before it hit the floor. “Mortimer, please. You’re the young lady who wanted to know about Hilltop House!”

Grace watched the wooden drawer slot neatly back into place. “You can touch things? I thought ghosts couldn’t.”

“Lots of variation from ghost to ghost, just like person to person. The longer you practice, the better you get. Also, I believe Pine Ridge is a uniquely gifted place for the supernatural. I’m not sure that ghosts in other parts of the world have an abundance of energy to draw on to fuel their corporeal manifestations. ”

Grace spent a few seconds processing that before her brain finally made a blanket statement. Makes sense. Smart person. Ask questions. “Could you help me find out something about Hilltop House and who owned it? Or maybe about the family of James and Cynthia Cameron?”

“Cameron. Cameron.” Mortimer nodded and sat down at one of the gray computers in the corner.

“I think the parish records might be the best bet. Marriages, births, deaths... Cameron! You know, I remember James Cameron. He was quite an old man when he passed, if I remember him being quite old when I... Hrm. Well, there is a record of his death in 1900.”

“His land was reclaimed by the county in 1901.”

“There was often a period of time where relatives could come forward to reclaim land. Now, I do recall my mother saying that he had been widowed very early on in his marriage and gone abroad for many years. Some said he had another wife in England at some point during his life, but that was never recorded in our archives. I don’t remember him living at the house, only visiting it.

Mind you, he was just a rather odd old gentleman on the edge of town.

I’m by no means an authority on— ah. Here we are. Married in 1850 to Miss Cynthia Snell.”

Grace’s cheek twitched.

“Something wrong?”

“Uh. Just not a big fan of the name.”

“Well, Mortimer is hardly all the rage at the moment, is it?” the ghost said drily.

“I didn’t mean the—”

“We cannot help what we are born to. Oh, dear. Died, 1851.”

“Who did?”

“Cynthia.”

“So... She didn’t die anywhere near her husband?”

“Apparently not.”

“I need to know about James Cameron’s brother. He has one. Had one.”

To Grace’s relief, the ghost at the desk didn’t ask how she knew. His fingers moved with great force on the keys, sometimes having to make several strikes to get one letter to appear.

“Do you want me to take over? You could tell me how to search.”

“That would be a relief, thank you. I can manage to manipulate physical objects and even hold a somewhat solid form, but it’s exhausting.

My wife will have words with me this evening if I can’t move the Scrabble tiles.

Ha! Bit of a pun, I suppose. ‘Have words.’ We’ve been in a grudge match since last weekend, and both of us are determined to make a seven-letter word and get that fifty-point bonus! ”

“Wait, you’re married?”

“Yes! To the lovely Mrs. Louisa Ashcroft. The librarian?”

Grace staggered a little. “Like, legally married? Ghost to non-ghost?”

“As legal as is possible,” he said haughtily. “It’s manageable, at least in this town. Now, you’re going to assist me, are you not?”

“Sorry, this place is just full of surprises. It takes a while to get used to, okay?” Grace pulled up a chair next to Mortimer. “Show me what to do.”

“All right. We’re in the transcribed parish records—a scanned PDF is available for cross-referencing—”

“Of course it is.”

“And we’ve entered ‘Cameron’ in the search bar.

You can see that the Cameron family’s first mentions in the parish records are.

.. Wait, here we are. Silas and James Cameron, aged 27 and 24.

New members. 1848. Goodness, they were here when the town was quite barebones, mainly empty land and farms. A few stores and a church, by most accounts.

Did you know Pine Ridge was only granted official ‘town’ status in 1840? ”

Grace shook her head, mouth parted in surprise. “My boyfriend is almost two hundred years old! I mean... Wait, if he was twenty-seven in 1848—my boyfriend is technically two hundred years old.” Grace clutched her knees. “That freaks me out more than the whole splitting into shadowy shrapnel.”

Mortimer coughed. “Well. Many happy returns to him. Shadowy shrapnel? Is he a ghost? One of the Camerons, I take it?”

“He has to be Silas. Has to be. And no, he’s a shade.

He says it’s not the same, but I’m not sure what all the rules are.

I just met my first vampire today. He brought muffins.

” Grace’s lips twitched. Her chin wobbled.

“Um. If I have hysterics... Don’t do anything. Well, slap me, if you’re up to it.”

“Indeed. I wonder if he would be amenable to a spirit bottle?”

“ A what now?” Grace swallowed a giggle.

My life makes Alice in Wonderland seem boring. Vampires with muffins. Ghosts playing Scrabble and working at the library. My boyfriend...

Is he a boyfriend? We live together. Sleep together.

“A spirit bottle lets a ghost move from place to place as long as they always return to their home base, so to speak.”

“I don’t know the rules for shades. Where do I get a spirit bottle?”

“Ooh, you’ll have to have one made, but there are a few powerful witches in town who might—”

“Witches? Of course. What’s the weatherman? A poltergeist?”

“Werewolf,” Mr. Ashcroft said apologetically.

“Naturally.” Grace flopped her head onto the desk. “Ow.”

“Shall we try the next record? I— Ah.”

“What?” Grace lifted her head.

“I’m afraid Silas Cameron didn’t live in our town for long—or, that is, he was not long a member of the local parish. Did you know that parish was more of a general term for a locality, not so much—”

“What happened to Silas?” Grace hissed, cutting him off.

Of course, she already knew.

“He passed in 1850. March. His brother married Cynthia in June of that year.”

“You didn’t have to mourn for years and stuff?”

“I imagine it was a simple, quiet ceremony. I wasn’t even born yet.” Mortimer gave her a melancholy smile. “I, too, have been dead longer than I was alive. Ooh! I could pay a visit to your Mr. Silas Cameron if my wife drives me over. In my bottle.”

“Jesus, there is so much to learn,” Grace muttered. “Scoot over.”

“NYX. I DON’T CARE IF you’re upset, you gotta come out. I found out stuff! I don’t think you could have hurt Cynthia! Not on purpose!”

Nyx drifted in like nightfall, slowly slipping his arms around her as he turned from smoke to solid. “You came back.”

Grace dipped her head to rest it under his chin.

“Of course, I did. I live here. You’re here.

And hey, not that I think you have anything to worry about, but,” Grace turned towards him and looked deep into his eyes, her fingers slowly tracing up his arm until her hand cupped his face, “whatever you did was well over a hundred years ago. You were born over two hundred years ago.”

Nyx dipped his head to kiss her. “Whatever I did, I am still a danger. If there is some way to make me leave without ruining all you’ve worked for, perhaps the strange people in this town can help you find it? But not before I say goodbye properly.”

His tongue stroked hers, and he felt himself unraveling at the edges, while his center became more solid.

His unspooling shadows made silk nets around her muscular arms, wrapped around her hips.

With Grace in his arms, he remembered what it was like to be a man—but forgot all the trials and hardships his life had given him.

As his arms were ensnaring her further, he suddenly broke off the kiss, letting her breathe.

“Just a moment. Grace, how do you know how old I am?”

“Because I know who you are. How old you were when you arrived in Pine Ridge. You’re Silas Cameron.”