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Except this time wasn’t different.
It never was.
CHAPTER1
The parking gods had smiled upon me today. I snagged a spot right outside the grocery store, which meant I could dart in and out without passing too many people. As an extra precaution, I wore a baseball hat and sunglasses. If anybody noticed the newcomer, they didn’t let on. I was back behind the wheel of my truck in fifteen minutes. It would’ve been ten, except the self-checkout lane was closed due to technical difficulties and only one register was open.
I’d managed to live a quiet life for my first six months in Fairhaven, a small town in Pike County, Pennsylvania, until I helped locate a missing young woman by the name of Ashley Pratt. Now it seemed that all three thousand residents knew my name. I would’ve avoided the whole affair, if not for the fact that Ashley’s grandmother was one of two ghosts I hadn’t ejected from the neighboring cemetery. Nana Pratt and Ray Bauer had appealed to the gooey center of my hard shell, and I’d begrudgingly allowed them to stay as long as they followed certain rules. All the other ghosts had crossed over with a little help from yours truly.
The squealing sound of the truck’s brakes startled the blackbird that was perched on the finial of the wrought iron fence that separated my property from the rest of Fairhaven. I retrieved the shopping bag from the passenger seat and passed through the gate and over the moat to Bluebeard’s Castle, the place I now called home. It was a fixer-upper in every sense of the word. The five-thousand-square-foot house had been built during the Gilded Age, a time of great excess for those with means equal to their moxie. Joseph Edgar Blue III, the original owner and industry tycoon, had been more than happy to build his vacation home beside a cemetery. He capitalized on the location by hosting fashionable seances to the delight of all those who attended. He lost interest in the Castle following the death of his wife (and his failure to contact her spirit) and never returned. The house eventually passed to their gambling-addicted son, Joseph Edgar Blue IV, also known as Quattro. Thanks to Quattro’s vices, the house fell into disrepair and became a financial albatross, even for the bank that ultimately claimed it. The Castle was abandoned to squatters and teenagers and was destined for the wrecking ball, until I used the money I’d earned in London to take yet another chance on a new location.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I set the bags of groceries on the walkway and marched to the cemetery where a man levitated in the air, stiff as a board, while another man watched. The moment I saw the tarot card in his hand, I knew exactly what I was dealing with.
I cleared my throat loudly. “Didn’t your friends tell you this is an assassin-free zone?”
The cardholder spared a casual glance over his shoulder. His face reminded me of an upside-down penis, with close-set eyes that rested on either side of the bridge of a wide nose. “Who are you?”
“The owner of the Castle.”
The penis scoffed. “You mean the Ruins.”
“No, I mean the Castle. The very large building next to you that I’m in the process of renovating. Now be a good boy and let the nice man go, then get the hell off my lawn.”
The nice man in midair said nothing, because he couldn’t. Whatever tarot card the assassin was using to wield his magic, it seemed to involve controlling the man’s movements.
The assassin pointed to his victim. “This is not a nice man.”
“Gee, I’ll just take your word for it. Carry on with your torture then.”
He looked at me askance. “You’re being sarcastic.”
“One of my superpowers.”
“I don’t like sarcasm. It’s just thinly veiled contempt.” He turned back to his victim, still frozen in midair.
I moved to stand beside the assassin. “What’s your name?”
“Charles Diamond.”
“Any relation to Gun or Camryn?” Gunther Saxon and Camryn Sable were cousins and the only two members of the Assassins Guild I’d met so far. They were also members of La Fortuna, a society of mages that channel their magic through tarot cards. For all I knew, maybe all La Fortuna members were related, like a tarot-wielding mafia family.
Charles grunted. “Do I look related to those two? My bloodline goes all the way back to the Italian Renaissance.”
“Congratulations. Do we have your family to thank for the Black Death?”
Charles gave me an appraising look. “Your bravado is impressive for a human.”
I didn’t bother to correct him. “I have a ‘No Trespassing’ sign on the gate in very bright red letters, and I told your friends this property is now off limits. Don’t make me register a formal complaint. I hate paperwork.”
Charles released his hold on the man, and the victim tumbled to the ground. Charles pulled a second card seemingly from thin air and said, “Forget.”
The man struggled to his feet and blinked a few times, as though regaining his bearings.
“Your car is through the gate,” Charles told him. “You were never here.”
Trancelike, the man wandered away and left us standing in the cemetery.
“What did he do?” I asked, mildly curious.
