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Nate ended the call without another word.

Chapter

Fifty-One

As promised, Caleb’s car came up the drive about twenty minutes later.

Leo moved to the kitchen window. “He’s here.”

“I heard.”

Nate went to the front door, with Leo close behind him, and opened it before Caleb reached the steps.

His cousin looked tired. He’d looked tired the last time he’d come here too, and at Nate’s mother’s house before that. Nate had occasionally wondered whether someone should make him take a vacation.

Now he just wondered what the hell was going on with the man.

“Hey,” Caleb said.

Nate stepped aside. Caleb came in, then stopped, his attention shifting toward Leo.

“Hello.”

Leo chose not to say anything.

Nate didn’t make him. He led his cousin to the kitchen table instead.

Leo took the chair opposite Caleb, and Nate sat beside him. For a moment, Caleb seemed to be waiting for someone to ask a question.

“Start talking,” Leo said.

“Right.” Caleb rested his hands on the table, looking in Leo’s direction. “A few years ago Walt contacted me because he was worried about you. The house was empty, and he didn’t understand why you were still in it. He wanted someone to help you leave.”

“We already know that part. Skip ahead.”

“All right.” Caleb straightened. “I couldn’t move you. You were attached to the house, and you fought me when I tried to exorcise you. You were stronger than anything I’d dealt with. I knew pretty quickly that I couldn’t do it.”

Nate remembered his own first attempt. He’d expected to clear the place after buying it. Leo had thoroughly ruined that plan.

“So what did you do?” Leo asked.

Caleb looked down at his hands. “I tried to bind you to a vessel.”

Nate stared at him. Had he heard that right? Caleb had tried a binding? To what end? “You tried to bind him?”

“I thought if I could just get a fraction of that power…”

“Jesus Christ, Caleb.” Nate leaned back, needing a little more space between them. He’d been expecting to hear about an exorcism that had gone wrong.

Not this.

His family had spent years telling him he wasn’t treating their work with enough respect. Buying haunted houses was selfish. His gift deserved better. Caleb had come here and asked who would do the work if everyone followed Nate’s example.

And yet his cousin had been willing to take another person’s power because he wanted more of his own.

“What does that mean?” Leo asked. “What was he trying to do?”

Nate turned toward him. “He’d have kept you bound to the vessel and used your strength to do his work.”