Chapter 10: The Inheritance Call
The buzz was inside her skull. It drilled through the fog of sleep, persistent and metallic. Ashanti swam up towards it, her body heavy, anchored. There was a warm, solid weight across her hips, an arm slung possessively over her, and a deeper, more specific warmth still nestled inside her. James. They’d fallen asleep like that, tangled and spent, after another round of frantic, wordless stress relief fueled by the strange, hopeful terror of the dog in the other room.
The buzzing came again. Her phone, skittering on the floor beside the bed amidst a discarded condom wrapper and an empty bottle of cheap gin.
“Fuck off,” she mumbled into the pillow.
The arm around her tightened. James grunted, his hips shifting lazily against her backside, still half-hard. “Answer it,” he rasped, his morning voice like gravel. “Might be the bank calling with our million-dollar loan.”
She groaned, extracting herself from him. The loss of contact was a sudden chill. She fumbled off the edge of the mattress, her bare feet hitting the cold, sticky floor. She snatched the phone, her eyes struggling to focus on the screen. Unknown number. A 217 area code. Not local. Not Henderson.
“What,” she croaked, pressing the phone to her ear.
“Is this Ashanti Mbezi?” A man’s voice, clipped, professional, utterly alien in the context of her stained sheets and buzzing lightbulb.
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“My name is Edwin Cole, of Cole and Whittier Legal Associates. I’m calling regarding the estate of Eleanor Mbezi.”
Ashanti straightened, the cold from the floor climbing her spine. The room came into sharper focus: the water stain on the ceiling shaped like a screaming face, the crack in the plaster, the scent of James and sex and decay. Eleanor. Her great-grandmother. A photograph in a dusty frame, a memory of a stern voice singing in a language Ashanti had never learned.
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“I regret to inform you that Ms. Mbezi passed peacefully last Thursday. You are named as the sole beneficiary in her will.”
The words hung in the stale air. Passed. Sole beneficiary. They were clean words, legal words. They didn’t fit. Behind her, she felt James go still, listening.
“Beneficiary of what?” Ashanti asked, her voice thin.
“The property. 1417 Lamont Street, in the Southside district. The house and its contents. The taxes are paid in full for this year. There are no outstanding liens.”
A house. A whole fucking house.
Her knees felt weak. She sat down hard on the edge of the bed, the springs squealing in protest. James propped himself up on one elbow, his dark eyes narrowed, missing nothing. The sheet pooled around his waist.
“You’re giving me a house,” Ashanti stated, disbelief flattening her tone.
“We are facilitating the transfer of the deed, yes,” the lawyer corrected gently. “You’ll need to come to our offices to sign the paperwork. There are some keys, some personal effects. When would be a convenient time?”
Southside. It wasn’t a nice area, not by a long shot. But it wasn’t the Stacks, where gunfire was a nightly lullaby. A house. With walls that probably didn’t have bullet holes. With a door that locked properly. A yard. Maybe a basement where you could set up a proper still, dry herbs without the constant damp, contain a magical dog without the neighbors hearing it puke up tax-free income.
“I… I can come tomorrow,” she heard herself say. She arranged a time, her voice on autopilot. The lawyer expressed condolences she didn’t feel and hung up.
Silence. The buzzing bulb. The dog snuffling in the other room. James’s steady, waiting breath.
“Who was that?” His hand came to rest on the small of her back, his thumb stroking a slow circle.
“Lawyer.” She stared at the cracked screen of her phone. “My great-grandmother died. She left me her house.”
James’s hand stopped moving. The silence deepened, thickened. She could feel him recalibrating, his pragmatic mind running the numbers, assessing the angle.
“A house,” he repeated, no inflection.
“In Southside.”
“What’s the catch?”
“Taxes are paid. No liens.”
“There’s always a catch, Ashanti. Always. Family you never see doesn’t just give you houses. They give you guilt. They give you boxes of old junk and expectations.” He sat up fully, the mattress dipping. “How much it gonna cost to make it livable? What’s in the neighborhood? Who’s gonna come knocking, thinking the old lady left a stash?”
His cynicism was a cold splash of water. It was also right. This wasn’t a fairy tale. This was a transaction. A debt inherited.
“It’s a way out, James,” she said, turning to look at him. Her eyes were wide, a fragile hope warring with a lifetime of expecting the other shoe to drop. “A real one. Not… not this.” She gestured at the room, the apartment, their entire precarious existence.
“We got a way out,” he countered, his voice dropping. He jerked his head towards the living room. “Sleeping on a towel. That’s real. That’s here. A house in Southside is a maybe. A responsibility.”
“So is a magic dog!” she shot back, a flare of temper cutting through the shock. “We’re sitting on a secret that could get us killed if the Aces or anyone else finds out. That dog is a target. Here, it’s a target in a cardboard box. There… maybe we could hide it. Protect it. Figure out what it is without someone hearing it retch up a mortgage payment through the wall.”
He studied her face. Saw the desperate calculation, the sudden, terrifying glimpse of a door swinging open. He reached out, traced the line of her jaw with his knuckles. His touch was unexpectedly soft. “You want it.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
He nodded once, a decision made. “Then we look. We go see it. We don’t tell Jackie yet. You know how she gets. She’ll have it painted pink and rented out as a brothel within an hour.”
A ghost of a smile touched Ashanti’s lips. “Logan?”
“We tell Logan. Tonight. He needs to know. It’s territory. It’s security. He’ll scope the perimeter, know what we’re dealing with before we step foot inside.” James swung his legs out of bed, his muscular frame unfolding. “Get dressed. We’ll take the dog’s morning profit, go get some real food. Think this through with full stomachs.”
He padded out towards the kitchen, naked and unselfconscious. Ashanti heard the soft thump of the dog’s tail, a quiet exchange she couldn’t make out.
She stayed on the edge of the bed, the lawyer’s words echoing. Sole beneficiary. The weight of it was immense. It was more than a structure. It was an anchor. It was a claim. A thread connecting her to a lineage of witches she’d deliberately ignored, to a past that smelled of dried sage and dusty soil, not stale weed and desperation.
In the other room, she heard the familiar, grotesque, beautiful sound of the dog’s body convulsing. The wet plop of currency hitting the floor. James’s low, incredulous chuckle.
Two miracles in one morning. One on the floor, one on a piece of paper, waiting in a lawyer’s office. The air in the awful apartment seemed to crackle with potential, thick and dangerous as storm-charged ozone. They were balanced on a knife’s edge between ruin and something she didn’t dare name. The house was a door. But doors, she knew from old stories, worked both ways. You could step through into something better. Or you could let something in.
The thought coiled in her gut, cold and familiar. Doors were never just doors. She pushed herself up, her body feeling both heavy and electric. In the kitchen, James was scooping the morning’s yield—two damp fifties—into a mason jar they now kept by the sink. The dog watched, its head tilted.
“Pancake mix,” James said without looking up. “And the shitty syrup that’s basically corn syrup and brown food coloring. A celebratory breakfast.” He finally glanced at her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have,” Ashanti said, pulling on a worn sweatshirt. “A ghost who owned real estate.”
The fridge door screeched open. The light inside had died weeks ago, leaving the interior a mysterious, humid cave. She pulled out the half-empty carton of eggs, the expiry date a faded memory. “We test one more thing with him first. Before we tell Logan. Before we get our hopes up.”
“What’s left to test? It eats food, it pukes money. It’s a disgusting, beautiful little miracle.”
“We test the input. We’ve given it simple food. What about… something already valuable?” She held up a single egg. “Not as a meal. As an ingredient. A raw ingredient. In my work, that’s a fundamental difference.”
James leaned against the sticky counter, arms crossed. “You wanna feed our golden goose a raw egg?”
“I want to see if it understands the intrinsic value of the thing itself, or just the nutritional content. It’s alchemy, James. The principles matter.” Her voice was low, intense. This was her territory, the place where her practicality and her magic met.
He shrugged, a ‘why the hell not’ gesture. She cracked the egg into a chipped saucer, the yolk wobbling, whole and vivid yellow. She placed it on the floor before the dog.
The creature sniffed, once, twice. It didn’t lap it up. It regarded the egg with what seemed like scholarly focus. Then, with a delicate precision that unnerved her, it extended a rough, pink tongue and lapped the white only, leaving the yolk completely untouched in the center of the saucer.
It sat back. Its sides heaved. The process was quicker this time, less violent. It made a soft, almost polite hacking sound.
A single, pristine silver dollar slid from its mouth, ringing clear as a bell as it spun on the linoleum before settling.
Ashanti and James stared. It wasn’t modern currency. The coin was cool to the touch, deeply stamped with the head of a woman, the year 1887. It smelled of clean metal and, faintly, of ozone.
“Okay,” James breathed, picking it up. “That’s different.”
“It’s transmutation,” Ashanti whispered, awe stripping her voice bare. “Direct conversion. The egg white was the carrier. The yolk… the potential remained. It knew.” She looked at the dog with new, profound wariness. “It’s not just metabolizing. It’s judging. It’s performing actual magic.”
The front door slammed open. Jackie stood in the frame, shielding her eyes from the weak morning light filtering through the dirty window. She wore last night’s sequined top and a pair of Logan’s sweatpants. “Why is the vibe in here all scholarly and intense? It’s too early for your witchy lab sessions.”
“We’re conducting important research,” James said, palming the silver dollar smoothly. “On… canine nutrition.”
Jackie shuffled in, beelining for the coffee pot, which held yesterday’s sludge. She took a gulp straight from the carafe and grimaced. “Tastes like despair and motor oil. Perfect.” Her eyes, raccooned with smudged mascara, landed on Ashanti. “You. You’re vibrating. What happened? Henderson finally propose?”
“My great-grandmother died,” Ashanti said flatly.
Jackie’s smirk vanished. “Oh, shit, Ash. I’m sorry.” The genuine sympathy was there, quick and bright beneath the layers of sarcasm.
“She left me her house.”
The coffee carafe hit the counter with a clatter. “She what?”
“A whole house. In Southside.”
Jackie’s face cycled through shock, delight, and immediate, calculating mischief in under three seconds. “We’re rich! We can sell it! We can throw the most insane, legendary party there first, then sell it! Does it have a basement? I’ve always wanted a dungeon. Professionally speaking.”
“We’re not selling it,” Ashanti said, and the finality in her voice quieted Jackie. “And we’re not throwing parties. We’re going to look at it. Today. Just me and James. And Logan needs to know.”
“Why does Logan get to know first?” Jackie pouted, then her eyes narrowed. “Wait. This is about the dog, isn’t it? This is a secure-location-for-the-asset discussion. I’m not just the fun, sexy roommate, I’m part of this fucked-up pack too.”
“You are part of it,” James said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Which is why you’re staying here with the asset while we scout. Can you do that? One job. Guard the dog. Don’t feed it anything. Don’t let anyone in.”
Jackie looked insulted, then resigned. She saluted with two fingers. “Aye aye, Captain Pragmatic. I shall defend our puking piggy bank with my life. Or at least with very sharp heels.”
Logan returned as the last of the pancake batter sizzled on a hot griddle. He entered silently, but his nostrils flared, taking in the scent of food, of their collective anxiety, of the silver dollar James had left on the table. He saw the coin. He saw their faces.
“Out with it,” he said, shrugging off his leather jacket. A fresh bruise, yellowing at the edges, colored his jaw.
Between bites of rubbery pancake, Ashanti told him. The lawyer. The house. Southside. She didn’t mention the egg test, not yet. That felt too big, too specific to share in the open air of their chaotic kitchen.
Logan listened, his dark eyes never leaving hers. He didn’t interrupt. When she finished, he took a long swallow of orange juice straight from the carton. “When?”
“This afternoon. James and I will go. Jackie stays with the… apartment.”
“I’ll go with you,” Logan stated. It wasn’t an offer.
“Two scouts are quieter,” James countered. “Three’s a crowd. Draws attention.”
“Southside isn’t our territory. It’s Aces-adjacent. Not friendly, not enemy. Gray zone.” Logan’s gaze was level. “You two look like a couple. I look like security. Which is what you’ll need if anyone’s watching that house, waiting for the old lady’s next of kin to show up.” He had a point. A grim, street-smart point.
Ashanti felt the decision settle. “Okay. All three of us. After sundown. Less eyes.”
The day stretched, taut and strange. The normal chaos of the apartment was muted, undercut by a new, humming anticipation. Jackie painted her nails a violent glitter purple, periodically glaring at the dog napping on its towel. “No snacks for you, you weirdo,” she muttered. James cleaned a gun methodically at the kitchen table. Logan slept, his body a dark mound on the couch, recharging for the night.
Ashanti tried to read, but the words blurred. She kept seeing the silver dollar. The untouched yolk. Her great-grandmother’s hands, remembered from a single childhood visit, gnarled and quick, sorting dried leaves on a sunlit table. That house wouldn’t just be empty. It would be full of those memories, that history, that particular kind of silence.
Dusk finally bled the color from the sky. They dressed in dark, nondescript clothes. Logan handed Ashanti a small, sheathed knife. “Just in case.”
The night air outside was a slap of cold and diesel fumes. Their breath plumed as they walked to the beat-up sedan James hot-wired on heavy days. The streets of the Stacks melted into the slightly wider, slightly less broken streets of Southside. The tension in the car was a physical thing, a fourth passenger squeezed between them.
Lamont Street was a row of narrow, two-story homes with sagging porches and chain-link fences. Number 1417 looked no different, a silhouette against the sodium-orange streetlight. The porch light was dead. One shutter hung crooked.
James killed the engine two blocks away. They sat in the dark, watching. No movement. No curious curtains twitching nearby.
“Feels empty,” James murmured.
“Doesn’t mean it is,” Logan replied, his hand already on the door handle. “We go in fast. You know the layout?”
Ashanti shook her head. “No. But the key the lawyer gave me is for the front door.”
“Old locks are easy. We don’t use your key unless we have to. Leaves a record.” James pulled a slim set of tools from his pocket. “Logan takes the back. We give him two minutes. Then we walk up like we own the place. Because technically,” he said, glancing at Ashanti, “you do.”
Logan vanished into the alley shadows between the houses, soundless. They counted seconds. Ashanti’s heart hammered against her ribs. This was it. A threshold.
“Now,” James said.
They walked up the cracked concrete path. The air here smelled different—damp earth, old brick, the ghost of honeysuckle from a long-dead vine. James knelt at the front door, his tools probing the lock in the dim light filtering from the street. There was a soft, satisfying click.
He pushed the door open. It swung inward on silent, well-oiled hinges. Darkness waited, smelling of dust, dried herbs, and time.
Ashanti stepped across the threshold first. The floorboards creaked a welcome, or a warning, under her weight. She fumbled for a light switch, found it, and flipped it.