“Whoever is responsible must have noticed us checking in and was also informed enough to guess why we paid the library a visit.”
“That’s a big leap.”
“True.” I wiggled my feet in the floorboard. “And yet, my legs aren’t even tired.”
Amusement kindled in his eyes as I settled in with the information that had almost cost us our lives.
Two pages in, I stumbled across the first red flag and checked it against other records in the stack.
“No strange deaths in or on the Oliphant property so far, but entire families go missing like clockwork in this town and the surrounding areas during the week of the cycle. There are several stories featuring the mysterious disappearances.”
“Any commonalities?”
“Aside from the fact they were all tourists? None that I can see.” I compared the lists. “Married couples and their kids, single mothers and their kids, widows and their kids…” I exhaled slowly. “Kids are definitely a theme, but the oldest accounts are framed as ‘Mr. So and So, his wife, and their children’ without much in the way of details. Without those, we can’t draw any links between gender or age.”
“We can’t connect them to the inn, either.” He flipped on the blinker, turning into the driveway leading us back to Oliphant House. “Guests who were attacked might have required medical intervention, but they checked out of the inn with a pulse.”
“Hmm.” I spared a glance through the windshield as the inn came into view but returned to my research with an inward grin at the monster Linus had created when he assigned me all that homework. “There’s one mention of a death involving both a missing tourist and Oliphant House.” I eyeballed the date with a frown. “Looks recent.” I double-checked the information on my phone. “As in the last cycle recent.”
“This person died on the property?” Concern pleated his brow. “Are you sure?”
“A husband and wife with a newborn son were abducted from their hotel room in town. The husband put up a good fight. There was blood spatter on the rug and bedspread.” I switched back to my phone. “He was later found decapitated on the far edge of the Oliphant property.” I wrinkled my nose. “When I say he, I mean his head. It was in a plastic grocery bag. The body was never located. Neither were his wife or their child.”
“Perhaps we ought to walk the property.” He drummed the wheel with his fingertips. “Get the lay of the land.”
The car rocked when he came to a stop, and motion drew my eye to the cottage behind the inn. The Oliphants sat on their back porch, which faced us, with steaming mugs in their hands. We waved as we exited the vehicle, and they waved back. I worried they might have something on their minds, given they had waited up for us, but they appeared content to let us resume our honeymoon activities without interference.
“They keep late hours,” I observed on our way in. “So much for taking a late-night stroll.”
“They must have noticed us leaving.” He led the way to the kitchen, familiar with my bedtime-snack routine. “There seems to be a lot of that going around.”
The fact our hosts were wide awake nearing three in the morning spoke to either odd sleeping habits or curiosity. Neither would make our time here go smoothly if we got caught sticking our noses where they didn’t belong.
“I’m tired, so I’m going to pretend—just for tonight—that they were waiting up for us out of a sense of obligation and not for sinister reasons.”
As owners of a haunted house, little old lady and gent or not, the sinister vibe was unavoidable.
With that happy thought circling my brain, I doubled back and peeked out the window to find the Oliphants standing shoulder to shoulder, gazing out into the night toward the inn.
Not creepy at all.
No siree.
Trailing after Linus, I explored the kitchen. It was nothing fancy or industrial. The two bulky stainless fridges were its only obvious concession to the B&B lifestyle. I crossed to one then snooped to my heart’s content. I located a carton of bright-red strawberries ripe to bursting, stole the whole thing, and bit into the topmost one with a happy groan.
Amusement twitching in his cheeks, Linus wiped the juice from my chin. “I don’t smell anything offensive, do you?”
“No.” I tossed the leafy bit in the trash. “Bread and onions, definitely. Maybe hamburgers. Collards. Oh! I bet it was cornbread and meatloaf with greens on the side.”
“You spend far too much time with Lethe if you can divine their menu from a sniff.”
Seeds and all, I flashed him my teeth in a gwyllgi-worthy smile.
“The basement entrance is located in the pantry, according to the blueprints I found online.” He checked the knob and found it locked. “Do you want to explore it tonight or save it for tomorrow?”
“I don’t want to use up my quotient for fun on the first night.” I rubbed my shoulder where it throbbed from where Linus pushed me to the floor in the library. “We’ll pick the lock after breakfast like civilized people.”
Curious if any missing persons had been reported in the area, Linus put in a call to the team at the Office of the Potentate of Atlanta. With that done, we burned up the predawn hours exploring the inn.
The magic in the air came and went, no stronger in any one part of the house than another. It permeated the walls, the floors, the ceilings. Everything. I tried and failed to track it a few times, but it vanished before I traced it to its source.
Snacking as I went, I hesitated on the threshold to the study. “How long did you say we have before the murderversary?”
“Wouldn’t our earlier findings make it a maulaversary? Or perhaps a demonversary?”
“Nah.” I reached into the carton but came up empty. “Murderversary is catchier, plus the severed head totally qualifies it.”
“Two days left.” He entered the room behind me. “I thought you would appreciate the ticking-clock aspect.”
“You’re really getting into this.” I tossed the empty carton into the trash. “I had no idea you enjoyed playing Sherlock Holmes so much.”
“And I had no idea you could devour an entire carton of strawberries without a chocolate chaser.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head. “We’re still learning all sorts of interesting things about one another.” His kisses drifted lower, turned slower. “So far, we’ve checked into our suite, almost gotten checked out at the library, and depleted the fresh fruit stores. What’s next?”
“I left the rest of my ideas up in our room. Specifically, on the bed. Come with me, and I’ll show them to you.”
The pinkening skin beneath his freckles made me want to taste them, but there was no rush. For once, it was just the two of us—plus Cletus—and we had nowhere to be and nothing to do but love one another.
And, you know, hope we didn’t get maimed or murdered in our sleep.
Four
The creak and groan of old wood broke Linus’s concentration. He glanced up from his book to check and see if Grier had heard what sounded like footsteps on the stairs, but her eyes were shut, her lips slightly parted. The clock on the nightstand flashed the time in red numbers. Just after dusk. Most necromancers would still be sleeping at this hour. Most, but not all. Not him.
Setting his e-reader aside, he slid out of bed and padded across the room. Careful not to wake her, he exited into the hall and shut the door behind him. He drew a protective sigil on the frame with his modified pen before going to investigate.
This particular phenomenon was a well-documented one, but he had never experienced it for himself. Intrigued, he walked the length of the hall to the stairs and waited with his ears primed for the slightest noise. He could see ghosts, but not all ghosts could be seen. Residuals weren’t powerful enough. They were mere echoes of past events, usually traumas, doomed to repeat forever as flashes, scents, or noises.
Positioned as he was, he kept an eye on the door leading to their room as well as on the stairs. It was his attention on the bedroom that earne
d him his first glimpse of the otherworldly since their arrival.
A long shadow broke from the darkness clinging to the corners and took a step toward the door. The instant it made contact with the sigil, it shrieked in a high-pitched yowl that raised the hairs down his nape. Whirling on him, the thing identified the true danger and hissed, baring tiny fangs.
Hands in his pockets, calm mask in place, Linus strolled toward it. “Who are you?”
The creature snarled and spat but made no intelligible sounds.
Having performed an exorcism or two in his day, he moved down the list. “Why are you here?”
Curling in on itself, it dug into the pockets of darkness around it as if searching for the hole it came through.
Close enough to catch a whiff of brimstone, the rotten-egg scent Kylie had complained about, Linus wished for his phone and its flashlight. “What do you want?”
A keening noise rose from the creature, who hunched as small as it could get.
Peculiar behavior for a ghost and far too skittish to be a poltergeist. “Are you…afraid?”
The thing blinked at him then, its eyes yellow and its pupils elongated, as if it understood him.
A sharp slice of pain swiped him from shoulder to hip, and Linus spun to find another creature in retreat. Reaching behind him, he touched his back, and his fingers came away bloody. When he turned to check on the original creature, it was gone.
“Interesting.” Giving the hall one last glance, he murmured, “Very interesting.”
Grier woke as the door to their suite shut behind him, and she snuggled deeper under the covers. “Hi.”
“Hello.” He approached the bed. “Did you sleep well?”
“I was out like a light.” She twisted onto her side toward him. “Did I miss anything?”
“Footsteps on the stairs and this.” He untucked his shirt, exposing his back. “What do you make of it?”
The yawn stretching her mouth transformed into a gasp. “What happened?”
Grier shoved the quilts aside and rose onto her knees, hauling him close to examine the wounds.
“I met one of our resident spooks.” He probed the edges with his fingers. “How does it look?”
“Honestly? Like a cat scratched you.” She popped his hand to get him out of her way. “There are five rows.” She traced the curve of muscle beneath them. “The centermost ones are deepest.” She mapped the length of them with her fingertips. “The reach is impressive. No house cat could have done this.”
“It hissed and spat at me.” He let her guide him onto the bed on his stomach. “Its eyes were feline as well.” Her warm fingers traveled over him, and his gut tightened beneath her touch. “The one I saw, anyway.”
Her exploration paused. “There’s more than one?”
“Apparently so.”
“That wasn’t in the brochure,” she murmured. “I’m taking a reference photo, and then I’m healing this.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“You could be missing your spine, and you’d still claim it didn’t hurt.” She slapped him on the butt, and he didn’t mind the sting. “You have to take better care of yourself.”
Several clicks later, she had their evidence recorded on her phone.
“Hold still.” She straddled his hips and yanked the cap off her modified pen. “This won’t take but a second.”
The tickle of the pen nib sent skitters racing over his skin, but there was no familiar tingle from her magic.
“Um.” She traced the bottommost scratch with her finger. “This isn’t healing.”
Cranking his head toward her, he soaked up her adorable bafflement. “There must be a toxin.”
The analgesic qualities of some venoms might explain why it didn’t hurt as much as it perhaps should.
“Of course, there is.” She blasted out a sigh. “You get in the worst trouble when left unsupervised.”
The same was true of her, but even a new husband knew when to keep his mouth shut.
“I’ll have to break out the big guns.” She sat back, and her weight shifted. “Hold very, very still.”
Linus shut his eyes and rested his chin on top of his hands where they were folded in front of him.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
The blade of his old pocketknife snicked free of its handle, and Linus caught the faintest whiff of copper.
Murmuring softly, she painted his back with the warmth of her blood. The gentle caresses told him she was outlining each scratch to ensure maximum coverage. With that done, she pressed her palms flat against his shoulder blades and pushed magic into him with effort that left her trembling.
Pins and needles stabbed him, and a bubbly sensation filled his stomach. His skin took on a luminescent quality, and he turned his hand this way and that. He never grew tired of watching Grier work her brand of magic. It amazed him, even now, what miracles she could perform.
“Ha.” She bent down and kissed his spine. “All better.”
“Thank you.”
“Well?” She leaned forward to check in. “How does it feel?”
“The pain is gone.” He twisted around to face her. “Do you think it will scar?”
A reminder of the incident didn’t bother him, but it was a gauge to hold up against how powerful the toxin must have been.
“Normally? Yeah.” She ducked to kiss his cheek. “But you won’t.”
Warmth that had nothing to do with her magic spread through his chest until it hurt to breathe. “I love you.”
“Hmm.” She pretended to consider him. “I suspected as much.”
Happy to play along, he asked, “How could you tell?”
“Oh, you know. Feeding me, saving my life, feeding me, seducing me with your freckles, feeding me. Then there was the whole agreeing-to-marry-me thing.”
“How did I seduce you with my freckles?”
“They’re just there.” She pointed a damning finger at his nose. “All adorable and kissable.”
A frown pinched his forehead. “That counts as seduction?”
“I have trouble keeping my hands to myself around you.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Whose fault do you think that is, Mr. Woolworth?”
With a calculated twist of his hips, Linus flipped Grier onto her side then her back and climbed over her. “Not mine.”
“Are you implying it’s my fault that you are so gorgeous I can’t stop touching you?” She widened her eyes. “How rude.”
“No one else thinks I’m gorgeous.” He smiled down at her. “Perhaps you should borrow my glasses.”
“Pfft.” She jabbed him in the ribs with her thumbs until he laughed. “You’re not that blind.”
“No one saw me until you.” He slid the length of her dark hair through his fingers. “Others wanted my title, my fortune, or my influence. No one wanted me.” He closed his fist around the silky strands. “No one but you.”
“People are dumb.” She cradled his face in her palm. “Trust me, I was dumb for a long time too.”
The reminder her heart had once belonged wholly to Boaz Pritchard throbbed like a sore tooth at the oddest times, but it had grown fainter over the years. The ring on Linus’s finger had helped more than the passage of time. His wedding band was a tangible reminder that Grier had made her choice for all to see.
A loud crash followed by a dull thump brought her jerking upright, almost unseating him, and an eager glint kindled in her eyes. “Let’s go see what we see.”
Linus rolled aside and pulled on dress shoes while she wriggled into holey jeans, a faded tee, and broken-in sneakers.
Out in the hall, he gave the corner where the creature had cowered a long look, but there was no hint of it now. The stairs, which had failed to produce anything of consequence earlier, provided them with an answer for the ruckus.
In a tumble of limbs at the bottom sat Kylie. Dressed all in shades of blue, she had layered her clothes for an ombré effect similar to yesterday’s ense
mble. Her hoodie concealed her face, and she brandished her flashlight like a weapon until she could shove back the fabric and gain her bearings.
“Goddess,” Grier breathed. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” Kylie jerked at the sound of Grier’s voice, startled. “I’m good.”
Grier hit the stairs at a clip, and Linus followed close in case whatever shoved Kylie tried again with Grier.
“Don’t move.” Linus knelt beside the teen. “Let me check to see if anything is broken.”
The tension in her body shouted a warning she didn’t handle touch well. “Are you really a doctor?”
His medical training was more than sufficient to care for a human. “Yes.”
With as little contact as possible, he coached her through a few movements to determine whether she had broken or sprained anything during her fall. From what he could tell without closer examination, she was lucky to have escaped with a bump where her forehead hit the railing.
Grier, who hovered behind him, rested her hands on his shoulders. “What are you doing here?”
“I…” Kylie worried the piercing in her lip but must have remembered what Grier told her about Linus being more willing to pay for honesty. “Things aren’t great at home. Mom has her panties in a wad about her boyfriend running off with her best friend, who she stole him from in the first place. Grams and Gramps are cool, but I hate putting them in the middle.” She sighed. “I come here to hang out when there are no guests. There were only two of you, so I figured I could stay out of your way. I didn’t mean for you to know I was here.”
At check-in, Kylie had implied she lived in the cottage behind the inn with her grandparents. Her mother wasn’t mentioned. Granted, she could have moved home, or perhaps she never left, but Kylie’s fidgeting made him wonder if she wasn’t editing her story to fit her audience.
Grier, who tightened her grip on him, put the most pressing question to Kylie gently. “How did you fall?”
“The ghost shoved me.” She glared at the staircase. “Again.”
“Can you remember if anything about this time was different from the last?”
How to Survive an Undead Honeymoon (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 8) Page 3