“Wonderful. Are the ghosts inside the house, or out here?” Carson asked.

  “Both,” I said, suddenly catching a glimpse of a swing hanging from an oak bough. There was a young girl on it, swinging, ignoring me. But as I began to move toward her direction, she vanished, along with the swing. “Did you see that?” I asked.

  Penn nodded. “Yeah, but she’s not just some little girl. She’s dangerous.”

  “What? What little girl?” Carson asked.

  “Just a spirit,” I said. “Come on, let’s ring the bell.”

  I led them up the stairs, toward the door. The porch itself looked like it had been recently repaired. There was a large patch on the floor—fresh wood alongside the old. The wood had probably rotted through in that area.

  The porch was wide and extended the full width of the house. A porch swing was fastened to the left side of the door—our left—and it was swinging gently without any breeze to make it sway. The chains creaked softly. I tried to catch a glimpse of whoever might be on it, but they were keeping themselves from my sight.

  I turned back to the door and reached out, ringing the bell.

  After a few moments, a man answered. He was tall and stocky, and looked to be somewhere near sixty. He stared at us, unsmiling, with bags lurking beneath his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and he was wearing a sage green cardigan over an old Black Sabbath t-shirt and a pair of worn jeans. He looked comfortable and tidy, if exhausted.

  “Konstantine Crow?” I asked.

  He nodded. “And you’re Shadow Blade Investigations?”

  “Yes. I’m Kyann Sarasan, and this is my partner Dante Franco, co-owner of the agency. And this is our head of IT—Carson Dreyfus, and Penelope—she’s a witch. May we come in?”

  Konstantine started. “I’m sorry, I totally spaced out there. I don’t mean to be churlish. Yes, please, come in.” He opened the door and stood back, allowing us to enter.

  As we entered the house, I quickly realized that the house had to be close to its original state. We stood in the foyer, and there was a pocket door that was half-open, leading to a powder room. To the right of the powder room was a narrow hall, leading through to more of the house. To our direct right was a large arched opening into the living room.

  Konstantine ushered us into the living room, staring intently at me. “Excuse me, but have we met? You look so familiar.”

  He wasn’t coming on to me, that much I could tell. But I’d never met him. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry, I must be mixing you up with someone else. Please, have a seat,” Konstantine said. He led us into the living room and bade us to sit down.

  The living room was as faded as the rest of the house. The red velveteen sofa had lost its luster, the matching chairs were threadbare, the end tables and coffee table hadn’t been polished in a long time, and the books on the built in shelves were covered with dust. The room felt like it was suspended in time. There were no signs of clutter, everything was in its place, but I suspected that Konstantine kept clear of the space.

  As we sat down, something zapped me on the arm. I jumped a little, expecting to see a mosquito or some other bug, but there was nothing there. As I frowned, trying to focus, I caught a shimmer over by the fireplace, right next to it. Immediately, a feeling of despair washed over me, and I felt weighted down, almost unable to move.

  “Kyann, there’s something very odd going on here. Something about Konstantine feels familiar, but I can’t tell you what,” Penn leaned over to whisper in my ear.

  I glanced at her, nodding, but said nothing. Turning back to Konstantine, I said, “Tell us about your problem, please.”

  “The house is haunted. It’s been that way since my mother bought it, but the past couple of years, since she died, it’s been getting worse. My family has always had a string of bad luck—maybe it’s because of that. But I can tell you, if I wanted to live my life in sorrow, this is the place to do it.” He shrugged, frowning.

  “How long have you lived here?” I asked.

  “Since I was a child. My mother brought us up here—us being my sister and me. Our father ran off when I was born. My sister was seven years older than me. She vanished when she was twenty-two. We never heard from her again.” He sighed, staring at his hands.

  There was something about him, something that made me want to scurry over and give him a hug. Now, he felt familiar to me, but I couldn’t place why.

  “Do you think she’s alive?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I used to. In fact, I’d have talks with her, even though she was nowhere to be found. I always thought that maybe she could hear me. We were close, Erin and me.”

  “Erin? What a coincidence,” I said. “Erin was my mother’s name.”

  “Yes, well…I suppose it was popular. Anyway, I always thought she would come home, but then…one day…I just knew she never would.”

  “You said the house has always been haunted?” Carson asked.

  Konstantine gave him a nod. “Yes, even back when we were little. My mother knew it was haunted, but she engaged a witch to protect us. The spirits were always around, but they never bothered us. At least, most of them.”

  “Did the spirits ever try to hurt you?” Penn asked.

  “Not when I was young. I remember one night when I had to go to the bathroom, and I walked past the spare bedroom upstairs and glanced in. There was a woman in the room, staring into the mirror, primping like she was going out for a date. I yelled and she turned around and raced at me, like wind blowing through a piece of cloth. There was blood flowing down from her throat, but I don’t know if she realized it.”

  “You said your mother engaged a witch to protect you?” Dante asked, then pointed toward the desk. “What the⁠—”

  A letter opener had risen off a desk resting against one wall. It began to spin in mid-air.

  “Watch out!” I leapt out of my chair and jumped forward, knocking Konstantine off of the sofa to the floor. He yelped as the letter opener sailed past, above us at head-height. It sailed past, hitting the marble around the fireplace. It careened off the marble, spinning until it abruptly fell out of the air and landed on the carpet.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, jumping to my feet. I extended a hand to Konstantine. He accepted my help and I pulled him to his feet.

  “Good gods, you’re strong. And thank you. Yes, I think I’m okay,” he said, patting his chest and thighs. “Nothing broken.”

  “Do things like that happen often?” Penn glanced at the desk.

  “Things like that happen all the time,” he said. “I’m used to it, but they’re ramping up in frequency and now, the energy is changing. It always felt melancholy, but now I sense an antipathy—a lot of anger.”

  I walked over to the mantel and bent to pick up the blade. It seemed a standard letter opener, and didn’t feel magical. And then, I glanced at the photographs on the mantel. There were several pictures of Konstantine when he was younger. In one, he—I guessed it was him—was about nine, standing with a girl who looked to be sixteen or seventeen. They were on the shore of Puget Sound, by the docks, and her hair was blowing long in the wind.

  But the location wasn’t what threw me. There, staring back at me from the picture, was my mother.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “What the hell?” I grabbed the frame. “Where did you get this picture?” I whirled on Konstantine. “When was this taken?”

  He looked puzzled. “I was about eight. That’s my sister, Erin. She was fifteen. Why?”

  I stared at the picture, hard, then looked at Konstantine. And sure enough, now that I studied his face, I could see the resemblance.

  Dante and Penn both crossed to my side.

  “Are you all right? What’s wrong?” Penn asked.

  I showed them the picture, barely able to speak. Reeling, I tried to make sense of why Konstantine would have a picture of my mother and insist it was his sister.

  Penn looked at it, then froze. Dante peeked over my shoulder and gasped. Both had seen the pictures of Erin that I had kept.

  The color drained from Dante’s face. “Oh good gods. That can’t be…”

  I showed Carson the picture and he blinked, but said nothing. Turning to Konstantine, my heart raced as I tried to find the right words. “You said Erin vanished when she was twenty-two?”

  He nodded.

  I mentally did the math. My mother had been thirty-seven when she died. I’d been fourteen. She had me when she was twenty-three, in 1984.

  I’d never met any of my family on her side—I didn’t even know their names. She told me that they had abandoned her when she got pregnant, but I’d looked up all the Sarasans I could, and none of them fit the bill. In fact, most of the Sarasans I came into contact with originated from Thailand.

  “Konstantine, have you ever met anyone else besides me who has the last name of Sarasan?” I asked. “It’s important.”

  He frowned, thinking. “Actually, my grandfather was named Sarasan. But it was his first name. Sarasan Crow. He was an odd duck. Why?”

  I slowly lowered myself to the nearest chair. “What year did your sister vanish?”

  Konstantine scratched his head, then said, “It was 1983. She called my mother one day and told her she wouldn’t be coming home again, but not to worry. She said there was something she needed to do, and she’d be back when she could. That was the last we ever heard from her. I remember the exact day, because it was my grandmother’s birthday, and we were supposed to go over to visit her. Then Erin called.”

  “Where was she?” Penn asked.

  “By that time, she had moved out on her own. She didn’t want to go to college, so she got a job and moved into a small studio apartment a couple years before that,” Konstantine said. “When she called, Erin said she was moving and that she refused to give us her address. My mother started to cry. It was September 2, 1983.”

  “What did your mother do?”

  He shrugged. “There wasn’t much she could do. Erin was twenty-two, an adult. So, we went to my grandmother’s birthday, but Erin’s call acted as a damper over everything. After that, my mother told me she had a bad feeling that we’d never see her again. She was convinced that my sister had joined some cult.” He frowned. “Why do you ask? What’s going on?”

  I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Okay, here goes. I think your sister, Erin Crow, was my mother, Erin Sarasan.”

  Konstantine looked like he’d seen a ghost.

  “My sister…” He looked me up and down. “Your mother? How…” He sounded as confused as I felt. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “I’m positive. That’s her. I have a picture from that same time, on the same shore, but she’s alone in it. I can tell you why she vanished. My mother was pregnant with me when she called to say goodbye.”

  “But why would she do that? Why vanish like that just because she was pregnant? And who is your father?” Konstantine ignored a rumble that set the house to shaking. The ghosts again, but right now, neither of us were focused on them.

  I tried to calm down. This was all so overwhelming. “My father is a demon. I don’t know who—she never told me—but she was probably afraid she’d put you and your family in danger by being affiliated with anything connected to the Demonkin. I never knew about you. She told me that her family threw her out. She brought me up as a Sarasan. And she never told me my father’s name, only that he was a demon.”

  A flurry of emotions washed across Konstantine’s face, and then he said, “That means you’re my niece. I’m your uncle.” The tone in his voice shifted from sorrow to joy, and he stood, staring down at me. “I’m an uncle.”

  I glanced at him. “You still want to claim a connection, even though I’m part demon?”

  He worried his lip, then shrugged. “We can’t always choose our relatives, and sometimes the ones who seem the nicest are hiding the darkest secrets. I’ve been alone for so many years. My father disappeared and then my sister disappeared, my grandparents are dead, and my mother died a few years back.” He froze. “Is Erin still alive? You said she was…”

  My heart sank. By the look on his face, I could tell that he still held some spark of hope, even forty-some years later. And I was about to extinguish that little light for good. I didn’t want to answer, but I owed him the truth.

  “I’m sorry, Konstantine. My mother was murdered by a serial killer when I was fourteen.”

  As I said the words, that light of hope in his eyes faded. He let out a long breath, then nodded. “I think I knew when she died, but there was no proof. And not knowing for sure…”

  “Gives you that glimmer of hope to hang on to,” I answered. “I can tell you about her, about my childhood with her. You’re the only relative I’ve ever met, so I’d like to know more about my family and bloodline.”

  “I wonder if it was fate that made me come to your office,” he said. “Yes, we have a lot to discuss,” he said. “But maybe not here. The ghosts listen in, and I’m not sure they’re safe to have around when we discuss sensitive matters.”

  “We’ll set up a time. Meanwhile, we should go on with our investigation, since we’re here.” Inside, I was cautiously joyful. The thought that I had finally met someone I was related to made me want to rush out somewhere with him and pick his brain. But we had a job to do, and while the ghosts had been benign when he was younger, they weren’t minding their manners now.

  “All right,” he said, adding, “I feel like I should give you a hug, but would that be weird?”

  I grinned, understanding exactly what he was saying. There was this awkwardness, an in-between space that felt like limbo. “Maybe later? Once we’ve sorted through the timeline?”

  He looked disappointed, but then nodded. “Sure, that sounds appropriate.”

  “So, setting the family reunion aside for the moment, tell us more about the ghosts and when they began to act up again,” Dante asked, readying his tablet for notes.

  Carson and Penn kept quiet, taking everything in.

  “They started acting up after my mother died, but even then, it wasn’t anything dangerous. Cupboards opening, doors banging, footsteps in the hall. Then I began to see shadows where there shouldn’t be shadows. As I said, the house was always haunted, but I never felt threatened. But when the shadows started to appear, I noticed that I constantly felt on edge. It was like my body was expecting the worst and I couldn’t sleep very well after that began.”

  “Do you know when the house was built?” I asked.

  “Yes, actually. It was built back in 1908. My mother bought it in 1968, a few months after I was born. My father abandoned us right after my birth. He didn’t want to be a father, and I was one kid too many. Grandpa—your great-grandfather—Sarasan Crow—was so embarrassed over his son’s actions that he bought the house, and sold it to my mother for far less than market value. He let her pay it out in monthly installments—rent, basically—and it was never more than we could afford.”

  I sat back, realizing that every person he was talking about had a blood connection to me. That felt incredibly odd.

  “Did anything tragic ever happen here?” Penn asked.

  Konstantine took a deep breath and let it whistle through his teeth. “Yeah, in fact something horrendous happened here. My grandfather and mother didn’t know when they bought it, they found out shortly after. This house belonged to a man named Christopher Longworld. He was a wolf shifter.”

  Dante stiffened. “You’re not talking about the Christopher Longworld?”

  Konstantine nodded. “Yes, I am. You know of him?”

  “Who is he?” Carson asked.

  Dante, pale as white on rice, said, “Longworld was a rogue wolf. He’d been exiled from his Pack, like me, but for good cause. He was harassing several of the women in his Pack, and the Alpha excommunicated him. And you say he lived here?”

  I didn’t like the energy that was spiraling around us. The air felt heavy and dense.

  “Longworld bought this house,” Konstantine took up the story. “He bought it in 1958. During the next six years, he went on a killing spree. He raped, tortured, and murdered twelve women and young girls, and hid their remains in the basement. When he brought the thirteenth victim home—she was twelve years old—he didn’t know she was a witch. A prodigy, actually, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her name was Riana, and she was extraordinarily powerful. While she couldn’t save herself, with her dying breath she cursed him.”

  I stared at my uncle in horror. “What happened?”

  “Longworld had a heart attack while burying her in the basement. The cops were on his trail—he’d gotten sloppy—and they traced him to the house. They broke in and found him on the floor, dead. Riana’s corpse was next to him, near a hole in the basement floor.”

  I let out a slow breath. “Holy fuck.”

  “You can say that again. The cops dug up the entire basement and found twelve more victims.” Konstantine shook his head. “I didn’t know about it till later, not until I was ten years old and heard the neighbors talking about it. But as I said, the ghosts weren’t dangerous…not until my mother died.”

  “I wonder what changed,” Carson mused. “Did anything else happen around the time of your mother’s death?”

  He thought back. “Yes, actually. The furnace failed a few months before she died, and we had to have it replaced. At the same time, they noticed a couple cracked timbers down in the basement. I hired a contractor to come in and fix them.”

  Carson frowned. “Often, repairs and remodels can stir up the psychic energy in a house.”

  “I thought about that, actually,” Konstantine said. “I tried to calm down the ghosts, to placate them, but it didn’t work. Over the past few years, the hauntings have gotten worse, and now they’ve reached a level where I’m afraid.”

  “What do you do?” I asked. “Work-wise, that is.”

  Konstantine shrugged. “I’m a researcher. I’m fascinated with the paranormal, especially having grown up in a haunted house. I write books about famous hauntings. I’ve been thinking about writing a book about the Longworld killings, given I own the house the victims were killed.”