Chapter 1
Samhain Eve St. Nicholas Kirkyard Aberdeen, Scotland, 1812
Greyson Merrick didn’t knowwhat caused him to pause outside the ancient churchyard’s gate, but hedid.
He’d learned long ago to trust hisinstincts.
The back of his neck prickled as he’d passed the ever-growing throng of Hallowe’en revelers. Such crowds were unavoidable. For the Celtic people of old, this night marked the arrival of winter – and the ancient NewYear.
He didn’t expect to see any witches or warlocks flying about on broomsticks, but he also knew that many folk in the city would be celebrating the ‘Cult of the Dead.’ Small fires had been lit here and there in the streets in honor of the ancestral spirits. And more than a few men carried torches. Most just drank and danced, probably not even remembering that not too long ago, darker, more serious acts transpired on Samhain Eve. Offerings and sacrifices made to the Otherworld, even attempts to pass through the so-called veil between the realms. Living in Gannet House, he knew better than to doubt the existence ofghosts.
He’d seen and heard too much to question thepossibility.
What were they, after all, beyond souls without a body? They’d once walked this earth as he did now. As long as they left him in peace, they could do as they wished. In his home or elsewhere, it was all the same tohim.
So the chills on his nape surprised him. His pulse had also quickened, and his heart now beat faster. These were signs that had spared him unpleasantness more than once in his sometimes interesting and too often hazardousexistence.
He was grateful for he enjoyed life, having no desire to yet depart from thisworld.
As an adventurer, he also couldn’t resist achallenge.
So he ignored the Samhain revelers milling about the street and peered into St. Nicholas’s grounds. Moonlight streamed across the park-like expanse and cold sea mist curled through the autumn-bare trees, adding to the eeriness of tilted tombstones, moss-grown burial vaults, and the oddmortsafe, the name given to the low, ironwork ‘cages’ that surrounded some graves and were meant to keep grave robbers atbay.
Stepping closer to the gate, he narrowed his eyes as he searched the silvered lawn and paths, the deep shadows filling the spaces between tombs. His brow furrowed as chills spilled down his back, along his arms. Something was inthere.
And not just old stone, tombs, and cold, brittle bones. But nothing stirred, living orotherwise.
The emptiness wasn’t puzzling. St. Mary’s Chapel at the Kirk of St. Nicholas had a sinister past, the chapel having been used as a holding room for witches during the Great Scottish Witch Hunt in the late 1500s. Unfortunate souls spent their last hours there, waiting to be tortured and burned. Scots are superstitious and so the good folk of Aberdeen tended to avoid the kirk and its burial ground at night – especially this late on SamhainEve.
The revelers on the street were content to parade about, while others gathered outside the pubs, surely finding more entertainment there than in akirkyard.
Or so Greyson thoughtuntil…
He spotted something behind the crumbling corner of one of the burial yard’s oldest monuments. Better said, he saw a flash of silvery-blue, gone as quickly as he’d recognized the spark of light as a dartingmovement.
Greyson frowned, his gaze on the monument. The moon shone on its engravings of fierce-looking, trumpet-blasting angels, skulls, skeletons, and other morbid images he didn’t care to ponder. He did watch for theflash, and was rewarded when it reappeared, albeitbriefly.
His frown deepening, he unlatched the gate, winced at its creak, and then stepped onto the graveledpath.
The kirkyard was known to be haunted, not that he’d ever encountered one of its manyghosts.
There was always a firsttime.
And the odd glint of silver-blue stood out among the shadows. So he made a swift decision and left the path, choosing to approach the monument over the damp, noise-softening grass rather than allow his footsteps to crunch along thewalkway.
If the spirit meant to flit about in stealth, so wouldhe.
Though he preferred to stroll purposely rather than ‘flit’ anywhere. He wasn’t a particularly vain man, but he did have his dignity. And so he kept on, taking care to make no sound and with his attention fixed on themonument.
That changed when he became aware of a soft rustling that was anything but otherworldly. Indeed, it was a sound he knew well – the telltaleswishof a woman’sskirts.
A flesh-and-blood female, and nowraith.
His deduction proved correct when, in that moment, the woman’s shapely, cloak-covered bottom peeked out from behind the edge of the mausoleum’swall.
Greyson stared, his eyes rounding as her hips bobbed in the air, stirring themist.
GoodGod!
