Soul Inheritance by Honey A. Hutson Read Free Book Online

seemed to beckon from its place on the floor. Reaching down Katherine drew the zipper slowly open. There had been loose photos, birth certificates, death certificates and other vital papers in the box. The top photo drew her attention. It was of a large family, posed in front of a familiar house.
    The Victorian manor stood authoritatively in the background. It looked warm and inviting, well kept, the grounds immaculate and the people just as pristine. Some sat, some stood in rows. Gentlemen in waist coats, bow ties, hat in hand. The women in long dresses that swept the ground, some with hats, some leaning on parasols with their hands neatly crossed. No one smiled. Their faces were gloomy, serious, eerily stony.
    Katherine found the picture disturbing. She laid it aside and looked at the others. Some were of individuals in similar pose, some were of the house, others were harder to discern. There was one in particular where the participants were sitting on blankets by the lake – and she had no doubt that it was The Lake . They seemed to be having a picnic and frolicking.
    “ Family. These are my ancestors. I have family.” She paused, “Had family, I suppose. Right Dad? You said there was only one left. But there are so many here. This couldn’t have been more than the late 1800s, maybe even early 1900s. How could so many people have not left children? Cousins? Nephews? Nieces?” She looked at him as he lay unresponsive. “What happened?” Katherine continued to sift through the photos and papers, studying them carefully.
     
    ‡
     
    Mitch felt himself being drawn out of the darkness where he had lain silently screaming, able to hear and feel everything around him. Light came in around the edges, then he was in a hospital room, with Katherine sitting by the bed, drawing old photos from her gym bag. The window was cold at his back as he reached around to close the back of the hospital gown.
    “ Katherine.” He reached out, but found he could not advance forward.
    “ She can’t hear you,” a deep guttural voice spoke from the corner.
    The familiar voice froze Mitch to the spot. It had been nearly thirty years since he’d heard that growling baritone. A heavy arm came to rest across his shoulder, then a claw-like hand grasped his upper arm. He looked up into the face of the thing he feared most. Greystone stood, his gaze fixed on him as a predator watches prey. The smile gleaming there showed rows of long, white teeth.
    “ Aren’t you pleased to see me, old friend?”
    Mitch looked again at his own body lying in the bed. The heart monitor jumped, then returned to normal. Katherine looked up, paid close attention, then turned back to what she was doing.
    “ You’re not dead. At least not yet.” His arm slipped from Mitch’s shoulders, claws grazing his skin, drawing blood. “She’s quite the looker. No wonder you’ve gone to such pains to keep her to yourself.” Greystone shook his folded wings. “Ohhh, what fun I could have with a body like that. What pleasures I would show her,” he drawled the words as he circled behind Katherine, breathed deeply of her hair.
    Katherine shivered, looked around, returned to the papers.
    “ And so full of power she doesn’t even know she has, much less learned how to use, even to defend herself; thanks to you.” He glanced sideways at Mitch with a smirk. The father in him struggled to gain control. “That’s it, fight. Feed me with your fear. Make me stronger .” He ran a taloned hand along her hair, neck, shoulders, never quite touching. She shivered again, laid the papers in her lap.
    “ Ummmm… I’ve slumbered far too long. I’ve got to gain my strength back, but once I do…Ummm…Yes, I think we will make a nice pair, Miss McKalister is it? She and I. We’ll remedy that, bring back the line. Stronger. The blood of demi-gods mixed with pure power.”
    Mitch struggled, his voice tumbled free. “You can’t… have her. She does… doesn’t know. She…