Page 7

Chapter Seven

Caleb hadn’t sensed anything off, but he’d seen with his own eyes the way Delia had almost taken a header into the empty swimming pool. And since she had way more experience with haunted houses than he did, he knew he needed to take her words at face value.

Still, whatever spirit was lurking here, it must be in extreme stealth mode, because normally his demon blood would have signaled him that something wasn’t quite right about the property.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and Delia nodded.

“I’m fine. Thanks for the save.”

He glanced over at the swimming pool. Since they’d been standing near the deep end, she would have fallen about nine feet.

She could have broken her neck.

Which he guessed was exactly what the ghost had intended, and rage boiled in him.

That cowardly piece of shit needed to be banished to the next dimension, stat.

“I guess it’s annoyed that someone came to look at the property,” she went on. “From what I’ve heard, it hasn’t even been shown for at least a month. The ghost probably thought it had gotten rid of all of us annoying mortals.”

A corner of her mouth quirked as she spoke, and Caleb couldn’t help being impressed by the way she’d taken the supernatural attack in stride.

Then again, she probably had plenty of experience dealing with this sort of thing.

“So…now what?” he asked.

She hefted the big black purse she’d been carrying a little farther up her shoulder. “Now I try to get it out of here.”

This was what he’d been waiting for. The attack had come out of nowhere, but his demon-tuned reflexes had prevented their outing from ending in tragedy.

Now he wanted to see how Delia Dunne handled the obnoxious spirit who clearly wanted her gone.

“Need any help?” he asked, doing his best to sound casual.

“No,” she said at once. “It’s generally better if I do this kind of thing alone. Having someone else around can mess up the vibrations.”

Because Caleb had halfway expected that sort of response, he didn’t allow himself to be too disappointed. However, if Delia thought he was just going to let it go, she was in for a big surprise.

“There’s no way I’m leaving you alone here after what just happened.”

She looked up at him, one thumb still looped in the strap of her oversized purse. “I’ll be fine.”

“Will you?” he countered. “What if this thing decides to throw a pallet of flooring at you or something? If it almost pushed you into the pool, then it obviously can interact with physical objects in some way.”

Now her expression turned doubtful, and he could almost see her ticking over her counter-arguments and trying to decide whether working alone was worth the risk.

“All right,” she said at last, then surprised him by smiling. “I suppose it would be taking too much of a risk to be here by myself. Just…try to watch and not say anything, okay? This can be delicate work.”

“Don’t worry — I’ll shut up.”

Her hazel eyes flickered with amusement. “Let’s go into the pantry. It’s the only place in the house that has anything resembling a tabletop.”

He’d noticed it when they entered the kitchen, a walk-in space that would probably be an awesome addition to the place once it was finished, but now still had the Formica counters and screamingly loud mustard and white wallpaper that once had probably adorned the entire room. Why anyone would choose that color in a space that was intended to whet your appetite, he had no idea.

Thank God that kind of thing was just as out of fashion now as a pair of go-go boots.

Delia went into the pantry, set down her purse, and pulled out a tin that contained a stick of what he thought was palo santo wood, a little bottle of holy water, a small white candle, and an ashtray from Caesar’s Palace.

Sacred and profane ran through Caleb’s head, and he just barely stopped himself from smiling.

“Can you stand at the entrance?” she asked as she rooted around in her purse again, this time pulling out a Zippo lighter adorned with a skull and crossbones, something that would have seemed more appropriate for a night out at a metal club than performing a cleansing in an empty mid-century house. “That way, you’re not right next to me while I’m working, but you’re close enough to help if anything goes sideways.”

“Sure,” he said, and took a few steps back so he was standing just outside the pantry.

Being part-demon, he wasn’t too scared of the holy water, since it only worked on full-blood denizens of Hell, but he was still happy to put some distance between him and the little white plastic vial that waited on the chipped countertop.

Because he couldn’t quite forget that one time when he and his father and the rest of the Greencastle demons had confronted Rosemary and her minister boyfriend and the rest of Rosemary’s family, and the holy water they’d flung had raised welts on the part-demons. However, Caleb had always chalked up the unusual damage to their power combining and working together.

Delia, on the other hand, was obviously working alone…and since she thought he was just an ordinary guy, she’d have no reason in the world to throw holy water at him.

He wanted to ask her what she knew about the ghost that resided in this house, but since she’d told him to stay quiet, any questions would have to wait until she was done and the spirit had been banished. Besides, he had to believe if she’d had any real information to give him on that topic, she would have relayed it already. This wasn’t her listing, so she probably didn’t know anything more than he did.

She lit the little white chime candle, followed by the stick of palo santo. The acrid scent reached Caleb’s nostrils soon enough, but he didn’t flinch. While he wasn’t entirely of this earth, the sacred wood didn’t really affect him…except for maybe making him feel like he’d cough his head off if he inhaled too much of it.

But while he had no problem with the tools Delia was using to get the spirit to move on, he could tell the ghost had a different opinion on the subject. When they’d first walked through the house, he hadn’t sensed it at all, and neither had he felt anything when they went outside. The attack that had almost broken her neck had been a surprise to them both.

Now, though…now he could feel it, sort of like the first thunderheads that began to build up on a hot summer afternoon, not a threat so far, but something that could change at a moment’s notice.

Well, not a threat to him, anyway. The ghost might not have known exactly what he was, but it seemed to understand he wasn’t quite like the woman who stood a few feet away, now with the palo santo stick in one hand so she could wave it around and let the smoke purify and cleanse their immediate surroundings.

“I know you’re here,” she said, and her voice now was soft, almost pleading, very different from the brisk, businesslike tone she’d employed ever since Caleb first walked into her office. “And I know change can be difficult. But there’s no reason for you to linger here. There is so much waiting for you, so many opportunities that don’t exist for you on this plane. It’s time for you to move on.”

A wave of cold hit his body, and he realized the spirit had passed right through him, heading toward Delia.

In that moment, Caleb knew far more about the home’s resident ghost than he’d ever wanted to.

And he understood exactly why it had lingered here rather than moving on to the next phase of its existence. While Delia’s motivations were pure, and he was sure she only thought she was helping these earthbound spirits relinquish their former lives so they could ascend to the next plane, in some cases, they remained behind simply because they didn’t want to go to Hell.

Having spent a few years there, he could sympathize…but that didn’t mean he wanted this murderous bastard hanging out in a property he wanted to buy.

Although she no longer stood at the edge of an empty pool, Caleb knew Delia was still in danger.

A word of warning would only let her know that her new client was a little bit more than he claimed.

Better to handle this himself.

Because although he couldn’t be banished like a regular demon might, that didn’t mean he couldn’t attempt a banishing of his own.

No words spoken, no cajoling to get the ghost to relinquish its grip on this house. After that brush-by with the spirit, Caleb had seen everything…and now knew that the lower-level bonus room he’d already imagined turning into a man cave hid its own terrible secret.

The bodies of the five women the ghost had lured here during his lifetime, strangled and then buried.

He’d have to do something about that once the house was his.

In the meantime, this was all about brute psychic strength.

Flaming fingers grasped the ghost by its neck. For one horrible second, the spirit glared into Caleb’s eyes, all its hatred burning as bright as the fire that even now began to envelop him.

Go to Hell, you bastard!

The intention, the thought, was all he needed to employ. Shrieking, the spirit vanished, sucked down into the water-stained subfloor…heading much deeper than that.

Delia’s eyes widened for a second, and then she looked around, the confusion in her pretty features shifting into something like relief.

“I think it’s gone,” she said.

Oh, the spirit was definitely gone. Maybe it could take Caleb’s former spot in Hell.

He sure didn’t need it anymore.

“How can you tell?” he asked, doing his best to act as if he had no idea of what had just transpired.

She looked around them, then picked up the piece of palo santo from where it rested in the ashtray and gently blew it out, followed by the white chime candle, although she extinguished the candle by stubbing it against the ashtray rather than blowing on it.

“It’s hard to explain…a sort of lightness, I guess. Something in the atmosphere of the house has shifted.”

“That’s good,” Caleb said. “So, it’s safe now?”

A pause, and then she stepped out of the pantry so she could stand in the middle of the kitchen, arms outspread. With her coppery hair falling loose over her shoulders, she looked like some kind of pagan priestess.

Well, except for the gray suit and black pumps she wore.

“I think so,” she replied.

“Perfect,” he said. “Because I want to make an offer.”

They went back to the office so Delia could put together the paperwork. On the drive over, she’d suggested an offer of $475,000, which sounded fine to Caleb. If the current owners were desperate enough, they’d take it. Otherwise, he was fine with some back and forth.

“And now we wait,” she said after the files had been sent off to the listing agent. “It’s late on a Friday afternoon, though, so we might not hear back for a bit.”

He was okay with that. After all, he’d mostly manufactured this quest to buy an income property to get closer to Delia Dunne and learn a little bit more about what made her tick, so waiting to hear whether the offer had been accepted was no big deal. True, he’d had to step in to protect her during the banishing, but he had no doubt that if they’d been dealing with an ordinary spirit and not a sex-crazed serial killer, then she could have managed on her own just fine.

“That’s all right,” he replied, then paused. This was the time when he should thank her for her help, say goodbye, and head home.

But it was Friday night, and he didn’t want to sit in his house by himself yet again. Sure, he could have headed to the casinos, but he thought a much more interesting challenge stood in front of him now.

“How about I take you to dinner to celebrate?” he asked.

A flicker of doubt showed in her eyes. Then she smiled and said, “Don’t you think we should hold off on the celebrating until we know whether the sellers have accepted your offer?”

Caleb only shrugged. “Let’s just say I have a good feeling.”

Delia’s lips parted — possibly to tell him it was a little early to have a good feeling about anything — but then her phone, which was sitting on her desk, let out a soft bing to let her know she had a new text message.

She scooped it up, looked down at the screen, and offered him a smile of her own. “You must be psychic. That was the listing agent letting me know the sellers have accepted our offer. Their only stipulation is that it has to be an as-is sale with no inspections, but I assume you’re all right with that?”

More than all right. Honestly, Caleb didn’t see how a home inspector could have even done much with the place, considering its current condition.

“That’s fine,” he said, and she gave him a nod before sending off a quick text. A moment later, her phone binged again.

“They’ll sign off on the offer tomorrow morning,” she told him. “On Monday, you’ll need to get proof of funds from your bank, but I assume that won’t be a problem?”

“None at all,” he assured her. Probably the biggest issue would be deciding which accounts he wanted to empty, but he had the weekend to figure that out.

And to collect some more winnings at the casinos to replace what he was spending on the house, although he wasn’t about to mention that particular detail to her.

“So I guess we have something to celebrate after all,” he added, and Delia’s expression turned almost too neutral.

“That’s very kind of you, Caleb, but — ”

“But what?” he broke in. “It’s getting toward dinnertime, and we should eat. Unless you have plans, of course,” he added.

He didn’t think she did, but he figured he should offer her that way to decline his invitation, just in case.

For a second or two, she didn’t reply. Then she shook her head.

“No plans. Well, unless you count hanging out with the fish and nuking leftovers.”

“‘Fish’?” he repeated, and this time she smiled — an expression that looked completely genuine.

“With the hours I work, having a dog or a cat didn’t seem like a very good idea. But the fish don’t seem to mind that I’m gone most of the day, and when I’m home, at least it feels as if I have someone there to keep me company.”

Her existence sounded almost as lonely as his. But no, she was on her home turf here, and presumably had family and friends she could spend time with when she wanted to. After a long day, though, she probably just wanted to head home and put her feet up most of the time.

“And the fish won’t mind that you didn’t go straight home after work?”

Now she grinned. “I think they’ll survive.”