The Prophet. Amanda Stevens

then, despite my best efforts, dropped. Where his shirt parted, I could see a strip of chest and against his pale skin, the gleam of his silver medallion. The talisman of the Order of the Coffin and the Claw, a secret society with a membership chosen from the city’s oldest and most influential families. Devlin had shunned the constrictions of his upbringing, turned his back on his grandfather’s legacy and expectations, yet, he still wore that symbol. He was still tied to his past in more ways than one.

       All that strobed through my mind in a flash. In the next instant, I tossed another anxious glance over my shoulder toward the street.

       He seemed to pick up on my urgency then, because he said sharply, “What’s wrong?”

       “I just saw something…I don’t know what it means, but it frightened me.”

       “Come in.” He took a step back so that I could enter.

       Memories assaulted me the moment I stepped into the foyer, and my gaze went immediately to the staircase. I saw myself slowly climbing those steps, Mariama brushing by me, frightening me with her coldness, teasing me with a glimpse of her eyes in the mirror. I could almost hear the beat of those drums and the thud of my heart as I walked down the hallway to the bedroom. Her bedroom.

       “What is it?” Devlin asked. “Tell me.”

       I turned. “Someone was in your yard just now. I saw him watching the house.” I moved back to the door and pointed to the bushes where the man had been hiding. “He was there.”

       Devlin’s demeanor instantly altered. “Wait here.” He pulled open the drawer of a console in the foyer and removed a gun. I heard a series of snaps and clicks, and then he took another glance out the front door. But he didn’t exit that way. Instead, he disappeared through the tall archway into the front parlor. I followed him, hovering just outside in the foyer as I watched him slip through the French doors into the side garden.

       It was getting noticeably colder in the house. Devlin’s ghosts were near. I could feel them. Fear shot through me.

       An errant draft rustled paper on the console behind me, and the light in the foyer flickered, though the storm was still some distance off. I could feel a strange heaviness in the air and a pulse of electricity that tingled my nerve endings. Slowly, my gaze traveled through the parlor, probing dark corners.

       I’d glimpsed this room once before when I came to see Devlin. I’d thought then as I did now that the weighty antiques and gilded frames were not at all to his taste. This room was Mariama’s. I was certain of it. The lush decor belied the more common scent of lemon verbena stirred by that draft.

       Over the mantel hung a portrait of Mariama dressed in a simple black dress that covered her arms and throat. The plain attire was no accident. Nothing detracted from those almond-shaped eyes, those cheekbones, that bewitching smile.

       The only light in the room came from the chandelier in the foyer. It swayed gently, throwing shadows across the walls and over the painting so that Mariama’s face alternated between dark and light. The movement was hypnotic, and it was only with some effort that I resisted the trance.

       At one end of the room, a large window faced the street. Shani’s ghost was there, motionless, as she peered out into the night. Watching for Devlin. Waiting for him to come back just as she had on the day of the accident.

       Ethan had told me once that Mariama and Devlin had had a terrible row that day. Shani kept tapping on John’s leg to get his attention. I think she was trying to console him, but he was too angry…too caught up in the moment to notice. He stormed out of the house, and when he drove off, Shani was standing at the window waving goodbye. That was the last time he saw her alive.

       She was still at the window waiting for him, still trying desperately to get his attention. She must have sensed my presence—or felt my warmth—because she glanced over her shoulder with a finger to her lips.

       My breath accelerated as I turned and lifted my gaze to the top of the stairs where Mariama’s ghost hovered, the unnatural current stirring her hair and the hem of her gossamer dress. She was pale and cold, but her eyes were lit with an inner fire as she moved down the stairs, her feet floating inches from the steps. The papers swirled on the console, the light flickered and the air grew so frigid I could see the frost of my rapid breaths.

       I looked down to find Shani at my side, nearly transparent save for the faint glimmer of her aura. She clung to my hand and I sensed Mariama’s rage as she drifted ever closer.

       Icy terror raced through my veins as my heart hammered against my chest. I wanted to back away, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t tear my gaze from the perverted beauty of her manifestation. I had no idea what she might be capable of, how much power she wielded from the other side. I thought of Devlin trapped in this house with her ghost, his energy waning, his youth stolen by a woman who had once claimed to love him.

       Still loved him, it would seem.

       She put out her arms to Shani, and my first instinct was to step between them. Despite my fear, I might have done exactly that, but when I looked down, the glimmer of Shani’s aura blurred and then vanished, as if something had pulled her back into the ether.

       Not so Mariama. With Shani’s fading, she seemed to grow stronger, colder, hungrier. And I was already getting weaker. The place in my chest where I imagined my life force to be felt hollow.

       Mustering the last of my strength, I backed away from the stairs, then turned to flee. Devlin had come in silently through the front door, and I ran straight into him. He caught my arms to steady me.

       “Are you okay?”

       “Yes…I thought I heard something,” I said on a gasp.

       “Inside?”

       “I’m sure it was my imagination.”

       His gaze searched the stairs and the hallway behind me. “I left a window open upstairs. The wind may have knocked something over.”

       “That was probably it,” I said shakily. “Did you find anything outside?”

       “Not a trace. Whoever you saw is long gone.”

       “I heard a car start up and drive away. It might have been him.”

       “Can you describe him?”

       “I only saw him briefly when the moon came out. He was black. Very tall and thin, although—”

       Devlin’s hands tightened on my arms. Something burned in his eyes. “How tall?”

       “It was hard to tell. The shadows distorted him…” I trailed off, alarmed. “Why? Do you know who he was?”

       “No.”

       He was lying, I thought. I wanted to ask him about Darius Goodwine, but I couldn’t without giving my eavesdropping away.

       “I heard the nightingale again,” I told him. “It wasn’t a mockingbird. I’m sure of it.”

       “There are no nightingales in Charleston,” he insisted.

       “Then why do I keep hearing one? Who was that man, John? Why won’t you tell me?”

       “I didn’t see him. How would I know?”

       “He blew something toward the house. It was like a shimmering blue powder. Don’t you find that odd?”

       He said nothing to that, but his hands fell away. He was still standing very close to me, gazing into my eyes. I had the strongest urge to lift my hand to his face, trace that scar with my thumb, assure myself that he was indeed real and this night was really happening. It wasn’t another dream. We were here together. But Mariama was there at his side, stroking his arm, smiling at me over his shoulder. Taunting me because she possessed what I never could.

       I glanced away.

       “Why did you come here tonight?” Devlin asked. “Don’t tell me you were just driving by.”