a vast figure, vaguely human in form, with a distended head and long spindly limbs. It opened its black mouth and began to shriek—a sound that was the pure distillation of death and torture, terror and misery, sorrow and despair.
Even Baugh, who owned the ghost, found it terrifying.
Caul, however, did not. Shoving Baugh toward one of his men, he strode toward the atrocity. His impassive face was illuminated by the haunt’s shifting yellow glow. Pulling a two-chambered glass pendant from beneath his collar, Caul thrust it toward the ghost. He began speaking in guttural cadences that resounded against the walls, beating against the howling of the ghost like a base drum contending with a steam siren. He spoke louder, and knives of light shone in the air, threads and wires of gleaming red and black that tangled around the ghost, slicing it into shining blobs of ectoplasm that fell from the air to sizzle and quiver on the floor like spat mucus. The ghost’s shrieks grew fainter and fainter. Finally, they faded away entirely.
“Ghost?” Baugh called softly.
“It has served its purpose.” Caul turned to look at Baugh. “The Warlock from Boston—the one who sold you the ghost—he was one of mine. He put down wards against fire and flood, too.” Caul paused. “We commandeered this warehouse long before the war, Baugh. You just never knew it.”
Caul walked slowly toward him, his hand going to his belt.
“Now, one final sacrifice is required of you.” He drew a long silver knife that gleamed in the half-light of the lanterns. “To exorcise the haunt completely, I must have the blood of its master.”
Caul gave him no chance to scream. The knife’s cold edge flashed up, then down. His own blood, spraying cherry-red in a flash of lightning, was the last thing Baugh saw.
CHAPTER ONE
Ashes of Amour
Lost Pine, California
Wednesday, April 23, 1876
When the sun’s first rays touched the tops of the pines in the creek hollow, Emily Edwards shivered as if thin pink and gold fingers were creeping stealthily up her spine.
She hid for a moment under her quilt, chewing on her lip. The instructions in Pap’s grimoire said the words had to be spoken at first light. No use dawdling over it.
Snatching the little blue and red calico spell bag from the pine table beside her bed, she squeezed her eyes shut and whispered:
“My decision is firm,
My will is strong,
Let this spell bind him
All his life long.”
It was done. The Ashes of Amour were finished.
Emily threw off her covers, sending a pair of raggedy cats into grumpy flight. The chill morning air had a crisp, pitchy smell that mingled with the fragrance of the dried flowers and herbs that hung from the rafters. She tucked the little bag of ashes into a pouch she wore around her neck then dressed quickly, gray wool over scratchy underwear, thick knitted socks over icy toes. Then it was time to face the not-inconsiderable task of brushing and braiding her hair.
Emily’s chestnut-colored hair was thick and shiny as silk floss—an extraordinary female endowment. But like most female endowments, it was generally more trouble than it was worth. In particular, it possessed a prodigious ability to tangle—a perverse genius that could be thwarted only by keeping it tightly braided at all times.
But the grimoire had indicated that the Witch must wear nothing knotted or tied or sewn or fastened while working the spell. That meant unbraided and naked. At midnight. In April. In the Sierra Nevada mountains.
She had built a small fire, over which she’d burned the ingredients in a small brass cauldron, but the spell’s directions hadn’t allowed her to linger by it; she had to complete an intricate series of steps and turns and rhymes around the fire as the ingredients crumbled to a potent ash guaranteed to compel the eternal love of anyone who touched it. By the time she’d gotten back to the cabin, she’d been so cold that all she could do was dive under her quilt and hope that some tonsorial miracle would greet her on the morrow.
Sighing her regret that no such miracle had occurred, she picked up her boxwood comb and began picking the snarls out from the ends.
This was not a good start to what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life.
By the time her accustomed plaits were tickling the backs of her knees, the sun was well up. She climbed down from the attic loft quietly so as not to wake Pap, who was snoring