Things She's Seen Read online

  The coven’s under investigation. Its future is in peril. And for one troubled young psychic, the coming battle will threaten her newfound freedom—and brings back a dangerous desire . . .

  Exploited as a child medium, Emily Adams escaped to grow up on the streets—and hit rock-bottom. She took shelter with the prestigious Northern Circle, intent on staying only long enough to get back on her feet. But the Circle is still reeling from a devastating supernatural attack and betrayal. And vengeful High Council of Witches investigator Gar Remillard is determined to make Em surrender the truth—and disband the Circle forever.

  When Em’s psychic ability allows her to see Gar is haunted by a formidable ghost, her attempts to free him challenge Gar’s rugged French Canadian heart and rancorous loup-garou instincts. But even as their new alliance and past connection kindles into raging desire, a malevolent force rises up to destroy them—the Circle and even the High Council.

  With all she’s grown to love on the line, Em must draw on her darkest nightmares and alliances with the dead to outwit and out-magic a force who can imprison souls with a flick of the fingers and command legions of wraiths with one word. . .

  ALSO BY PAT ESDEN

  The Northern Circle Coven series

  His Dark Magic

  Things She’s Seen

  The Dark Heart series

  A Hold on Me

  Beyond Your Touch

  Reach for You

  Table of Contents

  ALSO BY PAT ESDEN

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Up next in the Northern Circle Coven series

  Things She’s Seen

  A Northern Circle Coven Novel

  Pat Esden

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Patricia AR Esden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018. Attn. Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. US Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: October 2019

  eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0632-5

  eISBN-10: 1-5161-0632-6

  First Print Edition: October 2019

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0633-2

  ISBN-10: 1-5161-0633-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For those brave enough to change paths and start again.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank everyone at the New Orleans writers’ retreat, especially Melissa and Kelly for inviting me. Spending time on the bayou with an amazing group of authors was exactly what I needed to bring Things She’s Seen together. I truly felt blessed to be a part of the group.

  As always, a million tons of gratitude goes to Jaye Robin Brown for your sharp eyes and brilliant suggestions. Enough said, you’re the best.

  Special thanks to K. Bird Lincoln for coming to my rescue at the last minute. And to Casey Griffin for reading quickly and all your support. Thanks to Vikki Ciaffone and Suzanne Warr. So much gratitude for you all.

  Extra special thanks to my editor, Selena James. You’ll never know how much your patience, wisdom, and especially your faith in my books means to me. A special nod to James Akinaka. And a huge round of cheers for the rest of the Kensington gang. I’m privileged to have such a wonderful team behind my books.

  I’d like to give a nod to my sister Ruby Rice for listening and brainstorming. And to Meghan W. for a couple of amazing real-world suggestions that were beyond perfect.

  Finally, a huge thank you to readers, booksellers, librarians, reviewers, and bloggers everywhere for supporting books so authors like me can continue to write and share our stories.

  Prologue

  I walked in the mist between worlds,

  a ghost among the dead,

  a child more lost than those I freed.

  —Journal of Emily Adams

  New Dawn House. Albany, New York.

  Before

  Slush splattered the police cruiser’s windows. Em focused on the schwup-shuwupp of the windshield wipers and tried not to think about the stench of vomit coming from the seat beside her.

  Her stomach cramped. She folded forward. The floor. She needed to hit the floor this time. But the target was a narrow space, and the wooziness in her head and the handcuffs biting into her wrists made it impossible for her to lean far enough forward.

  Relax. Breathe deep, she told herself. Sit still. Stay quiet.

  She swallowed the taste of bile and turned slowly toward the side window, swiveling only her shoulders so the seat wouldn’t squeak and the handcuffs wouldn’t rattle. Beyond the slush-coated glass, motels flickered into view, darkness returning as they passed. An inn materialized. A life-size statue of a horse. Old-fashioned streetlights glimmered in the haze. Wet snow. Empty streets…

  Her head bobbed, eyes closing. Her thoughts wavered toward oblivion. How much had she drunk, anyway? A bottle. Two. Wine. Vodka. Gin. She remembered them all. She remembered. A concert. They were going to one. Or everyone else had. No money. No ticket. Tired. Cold. A stretch limousine. Unlocked. She needed to lie down. Sleep for a minute. She’d be gone before the owners returned. The limousine’s overhead light flashed on. Someone screamed. Security. Police. She didn’t remember having drugs on her. No needles. Never needles. The cop had asked her about that.

  Her forehead thumped the window, snapping her back to her senses. Slush and haze. Slush and haze. The rhythm of the windshield wipers. The world dipping and reeling—

  A voice touched her ear. You stand at a crossroads, my child.

  She jolted fully
awake, her sixth sense screaming for her to look out the window.

  In the haze, a ghost stood on the sidewalk at the entrance to a city park. Congress Park, the sign said. An older woman. Modern. Not someone from the distant past. Statuesque. Stylish coat. Boots. A cashmere scarf flowing out from around her neck. Her gray hair piled on top of her head, defiantly exposed to the elements.

  The ghost of a witch.

  Em knew that’s what the woman was with profound clarity, a lucidness that defied her drunken state. A lucidness that was as strong as Em’s gift for seeing and speaking with the dead.

  The witch’s gaze locked onto Em’s—and across the distance she offered Em a choice to either be accepted or refused. In that frozen moment there were no second chances. This was it. She could stay on the road she was traveling or take a new one. No promise the new road would be easy—it wouldn’t be. But what Em chose to do would make all the difference.

  Not just for her, but for the ghost on the sidewalk and for others as well, the living and the dead.

  Chapter 1

  A ghost followed me home from the school bus stop.

  We had a home back then, not an endless string of hotel rooms.

  I can’t recall the ghost’s name. Mine was Kate,

  back before I became Violet Grace.

  Before the beginning. The middle. And the end.

  —Journal of Emily Adams, age 22

  Memory from second grade. Massachusetts.

  190 days later

  Em lengthened her strides, hurrying to get ahead of the crowd leaving the A.A. meeting. The last thing she wanted was for someone to offer her a ride home. Not that she didn’t like the group. Since she’d left the halfway house in Upstate New York less than a month ago and moved to Vermont, they’d made her feel more than welcome.

  She picked up her pace, jogging through the slush, across a narrow street, and down the sidewalk. She totally got why the group didn’t like the idea of a woman walking home alone at night, especially someone as small and skinny as her. But she’d lived on the streets in much larger cities. She knew how to handle herself. She had a phone—and a knife, if worse came to worst. Besides, walking in the dark and slush was a good reminder of the night she’d bottomed out, of what life had been like before she chose to live sober, a choice that had led her to join the Northern Circle coven and live at their complex here in Burlington. On top of that, there was an even more vital reason for her to walk alone: During the A.A. meeting a spirit had reached out to her, begging for help. She needed to locate it and find out what was going on.

  Em stopped on a curb, shifting her weight from one foot to the other while she waited for the crossing signal to change. Damp leaves shone in the gutter, their bright autumn colors darkened to brown and black. Some people might have thought this time of year gloomy, but she found comfort in everything about it: the lengthening nights and leafless trees, the pumpkins and cornstalks on the front stoops of homes and shops, all the witch decorations. She smiled. If only those people knew that all the powers they imagined around Halloween were real, that witches and psychic mediums with powerful inborn gifts were right here in their midst.

  A lifted pickup truck with four doors and oversize tires rumbled up to the intersection. Country music thudded out from the open driver’s window. The driver glanced her way, camo cap pulled low over black curly hair. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel the intensity of his stare, studying her as if she were someone he knew. But her gaze only stayed on him for a second before it flicked to the occupant of the passenger seat, an apparition so misty it was almost imperceptible, even to her.

  A haunting, her sixth sense murmured.

  Sadness gathered in Em’s chest. It was impossible to know in such a brief encounter why the ghost was haunting the guy, but she had no doubt the ghost was in turmoil over something it couldn’t resolve. That was the heart of all hauntings. In turn, the ghost’s unrest would reflect in every aspect of the man’s disposition—spikes of frustration, seething anger, restlessness…. It was a horrible situation, and the fact that hauntings weren’t common didn’t make that any less true.

  As the truck moved on, the ghostly outline swiveled to watch her out the back window. Em sighed heavily. If only she were in a position to help them. But the truck was already disappearing around a corner and she needed to focus on the troubled spirit who’d reached out to her at the meeting. She was certain they weren’t one and the same. The spirit at the meeting had felt small, young—and frantic.

  Traffic slowed to a stop and the crossing signal changed. Em dashed across to the other side, past a bookstore and a jewelry shop. She let her sixth sense draw her down Church Street, with its restaurants and boutiques. The tug grew more insistent, the small spirit’s pull becoming even more desperate with each passing moment.

  She headed into blocks of apartment houses, bars, vacant lots. The distance between streetlights lengthened. Her focus narrowed, her vision of the world constricting into a tunnel. As late as it was, she was grateful the tug was taking her closer to the coven’s complex, closer to home rather than farther away. But what if—

  She shuddered as she remembered last week, when she’d been at an A.A. meeting and felt a similar tug, only to discover the other coven members had been trapped in a fire at a nightclub. She should have left that meeting—and this one—sooner.

  Something low to the ground slapped her ankle, claws digging in.

  She wheeled around, backing up and glancing down.

  A kitten. A ghost kitten. The small spirit that had reached out to her, she was certain of it.

  It vanished into the roadside darkness, a vacant lot of rain-soaked weeds and tall grass. She followed, the tangle of plants taller than she’d expected, the darkness more encompassing. Muck sucked at her feet. Her teeth chattered from a sudden drop in temperature. Her breath became white vapor. Something was wrong here. Very wrong. One small spirit couldn’t affect the temperature like that.

  The kitten circled back, its ethereal glow urging her on. Another glow joined in. Then a third. A fourth. All ghostly kittens, their mews wailing in the darkness. Their tails swished like eerie torches, leading her farther from the street, past a shack, and up a coarse gravel bank to a line of railroad tracks.

  Something black lay on the tracks. The size of—

  A trash bag.

  Kittens.

  “Fuck!” Em shouted, running to the bag. No need to look for trains. The only light came from the kittens’ glow. There had to be a live kitten in the bag. Why else would the ghosts have reached out to her?

  She dropped to her knees, and the railroad bed’s sharp stones stabbed through her jeans. She clawed at the bag’s drawstring, struggling to rip it open. It didn’t give. She tore at the plastic with her fingernails, panicking until she remembered her knife.

  She pulled it from her peacoat and flipped it open. Carefully she cut the drawstring, then worked her way down, slicing the bag from top to bottom like a coroner opening a corpse. Garbage and stench spewed out. Milk cartons. Banana peels. Balled up paper towels. Rags. Meat wrappers—

  A dead kitten. Its body covered with coffee grinds, stiff and gray.

  Another kitten. Dead. Cold.

  Her stomach lurched. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she rifled through the rubbish.

  The ghost kittens’ yowls circled her, panicked sirens, bringing on more tears. She winced as one of the ghosts batted her hand, claws slicing. Above their cries another sound caught her ear. The whistle of a distant train. Approaching. Quickly.

  She grabbed hold of the bag to drag it to safety. But she’d sliced the bag in half and the contents tumbled out onto the rails. She dove her hands into the pile, feeling her way through the garbage. It was too dark to see well, just dim outlines—and stench.

  Her fingers found damp, cold fur. Another stiff body. What if the
re wasn’t a living kitten? What if the ghosts just wanted their murder discovered?

  The clang of lowering railroad-crossing arms echoed nearby. Another whistle sounded. Louder this time.

  A soft mew reached her ear, barely discernible. Not ghostly.

  Her fingernails caught on wet things, hard things.

  The train’s rattling vibrated through the tracks on either side of her. The brightness of its headlights reached her, widening and surrounding her, moving closer.

  Please, please, she prayed. Please. Let me find it.

  Light brightened the wasteland all around her, the tracks, the garbage bag. Brightness growing stronger by the second. Rattling echoed in her ears.

  She touched something tiny and warm. Her fingers found a second one. Lukewarm, gritty fur. Unmoving.

  The train’s whistle shrieked. The ghost kittens scattered into the weeds. She scooped up the warmer body, then the cooler one. Not wriggling, but maybe alive.

  Another mew came from the rubbish.

  With one hand, Em claimed the third kitten, then she slid down the gravel bank and away from the tracks just as the train’s engine screamed past.

  The ground shook, the train clattering and clanking behind her as she wiggled out of her coat and bundled the kittens up in it. She was sure they were alive. But how close to death they were, she wasn’t certain. They were far too still and quiet. And small.

  She got out her phone and called the Northern Circle’s complex.

  Chloe—another recent initiate—answered. “Hello.”

  “I need a ride,” Em blurted. “It’s an emergency.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m okay. Sort of. I found some kittens. They’re in bad shape.”

  “Is that a train I hear?”

  “Yeah. Hurry. I’ll be on Pine Street. The north end.” Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t certain where she was. Sometimes when she was with ghosts it was like that, time and space evaporating as she reached into the ethereal. “If I’m not there, look down by the ferry docks.”