The three other women exchanged a look.
“We can’t keep anything,” Rhi said, not quite meeting my gaze.
“Wedon’t want to,” Lorel corrected. “Lindseycan’t.”
“So everything inside the building goes up for sale, including your aunt’s personal belongings? All the fixtures, racks, shelves, display cases, and so on? What about your clothing?”
All three nodded, but I could tell they didn’t want to say yes, and I could also tell that they had no intention of enlightening me about the situation. So, of course I decided to push.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to open your own store? Wouldn’t you want to keep some basics to facilitate the new business? Like racks and shelves? And why give up your designs? You won’t get a fraction of the price you should.”
“Rhi and Lorel plan to renovate and put their own stamp on the place,” Lindsey said. “Start with an entire new look, and this stuff just doesn’t fit the vision.”
“Rhi, Lorel,and Lindseyyou mean,” Rhi told her cousin. “This place is going to belong to all three of us.” She looked at me. “Lindsey designs stunning jewelry and accessories. The will stipulates she can’t take anything whatsoever from Mitzi’s estate, so we want to sell it all.”
“Don’t those stipulations include the property itself?”
“We’ve got a plan to get around that, but it will be easier if we follow the letter of the will.”
“Still, dumping such pretty designs for pennies on the dollar is harsh.”
Rhi grimaced. “These aren’t our favorite designs anyhow; our mother always had an opinion and we had to modify accordingly.”
Lorel gave a humorless smile. “Or else.”
I wondered what that meant, but before I could ask, Lindsey broke in.
“There’s some really beautiful amethyst and citrine cathedrals next to the sword display,” she said, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. “Why don’t you go back downstairs to look? We’ll just be a moment.”
Translation: go away so we can talk privately.
I wandered down the stairs and found myself standing in front of a display of rings inside a round glass case on top of a tall stand. They didn’t look like much. Mostly they were thin bands made from silver, gold, or copper, and set with small stones. None of them were worth more than a hundred dollars.
I rotated the case and discovered it was locked. At the same moment, Ajax growled deep in his throat and something yanked on my ponytail. I jerked and swung around, only to find myself and Ajax alone. All the hair on his back stood on end and he continued to growl, his head swiveling in search of the enemy.
A hand in the middle of my back shoved me toward the front door. I staggered forward before catching my balance and whirling back around. Still nothing there. Cold hit me then. Icy and sharp. My breath plumed white and Ajax whined and leaned into me. A soft chortle of laughter erupted around us, sounding smug.
Oh fuck no. Not today, Aunt Mitzi. Or that’s who I assumed the ghost was.
“You really want to play, bitch?” Magic curled around my fingers, but I didn’t really know what to do. How does someone fight a ghost? Damon had said this morning you could bind them to an object, but how? And how did you catch them in the first place?
You make shit up until you figure it out, I told myself with aduhand a mental kick. That’s the way I’d always done magic.
Damon had been teaching me actual spell-crafting, but it was like going back to Kindergarten, and the basics of the traditional witching world’s magic was like reading Sanskrit. Actually, it probably was Sanskrit. Or maybe if Sanskrit fucked Norse runes and had a baby that grew up and fucked calculus. The baby ofthatunholy union would be witch code. Language. Whatever.
Anyhow, I’d always just thought about what I wanted to do and made it happen. I have an obstinate streak a hundred miles wide, which means I don’t know how to give up. Apparently, that’s not as much a good thing as I’d like to think. Some people say I’m pigheaded, or that I have a death wish. I don’t. At least, I don’t walk around thinking I want to kill myself. I just don’t like losing, and failing has never been an option.
I should probably see a shrink one of these days.
Something yanked my hair again. Hard. And then it bit my arm. Bit. My. Arm. It hurt like a motherfucker.
“Fuck!”
I looked down. Blood seeped through my skin wherever the invisible teeth had gouged. Aunt Mitzi had a surprisingly big mouth.
I may have lost it. Power swelled and I shoved it out in a blanket with the notion of flinging it around the ghost and drawing it tight like a drawstring bag with the bitey-bitch inside.
I got lucky. Or maybe it was just that Aunt Mitzi wasn’t as good at ghosting as she thought.
