by Ani Gonzalez
"We did a ghost hunt there a couple of months ago and got some amazing evidence," The vampire male noted. "Our cameraman almost fainted."
The girl nodded. "The marble turned red as blood."
"You can check for yourselves." The guy grinned ghoulishly. "That place is definitely bad news. I'm glad they're finally doing something about it, even though..." his voice trailed off.
"Yes?" the interviewer prompted, leaning forward.
"It's just a bit hard to believe, you know?" The guy scratched his head. "That all you have to do to break the curse is get married."
His girlfriend frowned at him, probably experiencing the beginnings of buyer's remorse. "Marriage is important."
Liam sighed as the PRoVE interviewer asked the costumed couple if they would agree to share their data. The last thing the Hagens needed was more "proof' that their family homestead was a hotbed of hostile paranormal activity. He looked at Kat, who'd finished her makeup routine and was now straightening her blouse.
She looked elegant and self-possessed. Sure, there were little bats dangling from her small, veiled hat, and the flowers in her bouquet looked like they belonged to carnivorous plants, but, other than that, Kat seemed positively regal.
The door to the ceremony hall opened and the "I'm With Spooky" couple came out giggling, followed by one of the PRoVE cameramen. The Spookies, like the Vamps, had agreed to appear in the show and act as witnesses in exchange for free filming of their vows.
They were next. Liam relaxed. The PRoVE guys liked to joke around, but they were consummate professionals. Their taping would not slow down the wedding. The ceremony would be over shortly.
Kat glanced at him and a mischievous smile crossed her face. "Ready to rumble?"
He laughed, the sound slightly tinged with relief, and took her proffered arm. "Absolutely. Let's do this."
They headed for the ceremony hall, Kat's heels click-clacking on the wood floors. The steady drumbeat was strangely comforting. Together, they walked through the benches slowly, cameras circling around like metal vultures.
"I'm surprised they didn't provide us with music," Kat whispered.
"They'll probably add that during editing," he replied.
"Probably a funeral march," she said, giggling. "Or the Dracula soundtrack."
"More likely the Bride of Frankenstein." Funny, he'd pictured this moment dozens of times during the past few weeks and not once thought he'd be smiling as he walked down the aisle.
The celebrant was already there, holding a thick book. Judge Hawthorne was a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair and a no-nonsense demeanor. She didn't even blink when she saw the cameras and costumed witnesses.
This was Banshee Creek. She'd seen much worse.
The judge greeted them, reviewed the papers Liam handed over, and aimed a questioning glance at Kat.
"Hagen and Ramos Santelli?" she asked. "Is this what I think it is?"
"We have standing permission to film, Your Honor," the PRoVE cameraman said.
"I'm not talking to you," the judge replied. "I'm addressing the young lady." She turned toward Kat. "Are you sure you want to do this, dear?"
Kat nodded, smiling. "Yes, I am."
"Very well." The judge opened her book. "I suppose you want the traditional ceremony, then?"
"The quickest one would be best," Liam blurted.
"Oh, c'mon, man," the PRoVe guy interjected. "Let's use the fancy words. They sound better on film."
"Fine," Liam said through gritted teeth. He knew it was a losing battle. "Just get it over with."
Kat aimed a curious glance at him, but he ignored it. He just wanted to get married. How hard could that be?
"Very well." Judge Hawthorne raised her book and the cameramen aimed their cameras. "Make sure you get my good side. Ready?" She smiled broadly.
Liam fought the urge to hurry things up. The ceremony would take a couple of minutes at most. They were almost done.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here ..." The judge read the words with relish, the cameras catching every nuance.
Kat nudged him in the ribs and winked. Despite all the chaos, she seemed to be enjoying herself.
Once the preamble was over, the judge went on to talk about responsibilities and companionship, and blah, blah, blah. Why had he acceded to the traditional script? It was not relevant to their situation.
Well, the companionship bit was. They were embarking on an adventure together, and he had to admit the fact that he had Kat by his side as he confronted the Hagen curse was encouraging. She seemed like a strong person with a good sense of humor, two qualities that would come in handy as they tackled their haunted house.
The judge paused, breaking his reverie. "If anyone should know of any impediment," she intoned slowly, heightening the drama inherent in the traditional script.
Oh, rats. He'd forgotten about this part.
"Speak now," the judge continued, "or forever—"
The door to the ceremony hall slammed open. The cameraman's eyes widened in delight.
A slim woman with tortoiseshell glasses and flashing eyes stood by the door. She was wearing a plaid skirt and a green twinset adorned by a pin that read "Trust Me, I'm a Librarian." She did not look happy.
"Have you completely lost your minds?" she asked.
CHAPTER FIVE
THIS WAS definitely more excitement than she'd bargained for.
The woman in glasses walking down the aisle amid gapes and stares was Liam's sister, Holly Hagen. Kat recognized her instantly from her research. She was the assistant librarian at the Banshee Creek Library and she had a toddler son called Ben. Kat had noted Holly's absence during the ceremony, but that hadn't been a surprise. After all, it wasn't a real wedding.
But she'd expected Liam to invite his sister to the wedding or, you know, at least inform her that it was happening.
"You didn't tell her?" Kat hissed at Liam. "What were you thinking?"
Liam glared at her. "Don't you start. Let me handle this."
Holly stopped directly in front of him. She didn't look like a mild-mannered librarian right now. She looked like a blazing fury. Everyone in the suddenly quiet ceremony hall stared at her. The PRoVE crew was still filming and the witnesses were transfixed, eyes wide open with excitement.
The judge, however, stood by, regarding the proceedings with an impassive look on her face. Nothing seemed to faze Judge Hawthorne. This kind of chaos seemed to be par for the course in the Banshee Creek courthouse.
"That's your problem, Liam," Holly shouted. "You always think you can handle everything, the business, the house, the stupid curse." She threw her hands up. "The house is a death-trap. Deal with it."
Liam's face darkened. "Nothing has happened—"
"To you," Holly interrupted. "The house has done nothing to you. It has, however, hurt two of your workers—"
"Jake and Walter always get hurt," Liam replied, between clenched teeth. "That doesn't mean—"
"It dropped a fan on our first real estate agent, Mary Hunt. She quit on the spot."
"That thing wasn't properly installed," Liam ground out. "Walter messed up—"
"Caine's guys were almost electrocuted."
"Walter again." Liam rolled his eyes. "The water main broke. And the PRoVE guys are borderline suicidal anyway."
"Hey," the PRoVE cameraman exclaimed. "We're not—"
His companion elbowed him in the ribs. "Shut up. This is television gold."
"We're just committed to our craft," the cameraman muttered.
Holly ignored them. "It crashed your sub-contractor's truck into a pile of landscaping rocks and totaled it."
"The truck was old and the brakes didn't..."
His voice trailed off as Holly glared at him.
"Okay." He threw up his hands in surrender. "So the house really didn't like Walter. You didn't like him either. No one did. He was a jerk."
"It's not just Walter. Elizabeth and Gabe were almost flattened by the
chandelier."
"Your best friend's a raging drama queen. Literally, she's a horror movie actress."
"She's also our current real estate agent," Holly said with an exasperated huff. "And she hasn't had one showing without an incident. Not a single one. The house stagers made her take out insurance on their furniture."
"Everyone's out to make a buck."
Holly raised a brow. "And you aren't?"
"Nothing wrong with that." Liam ran his hands through his hair, leaving it a mess. "This is our best chance to sell the house, Holly. Yolanda says it's foolproof."
Holly snorted. "That's what she said the last time and the time before that. This is the third time we've tried to break the curse. Each time the house reacts badly. Face it, the house doesn't want to be sold."
"It doesn't?" Kat asked, trying to keep the skepticism out of her voice. Was Liam's sister saying that the house was sentient? That sounded ridiculous. "Most of the stuff you're describing sounds like bad luck." She gave Liam a sidelong glance. "Or shoddy workmanship."
"Hey, wait a minute," Liam interjected quickly. "My guys do good work. Well, except for Walter..."
Holly shook her head. "It's not Walter. None of your other houses have had these problems, not even the ones with certified poltergeists. That place by the creek, for instance."
One of the PRoVE guys nodded. "That place is scary."
"Lots of noises," Holly continued. "Lots of banging and lights and what not, but no damage. Even Walter's crazy fuse box held."
"Now that was supernatural intervention."
"You don't get it," Holly said. "It's the house. Look, Ms. Santelli—"
"It's Ramos, but you can call me Kat."
"Okay, Kat it is." Holly took a breath. "Our family has tried to break the curse multiple times. They brought in a priest in the fifties. That's when the fireplace backed up and the living room caught fire."
"There was a nest of squirrels in the flue," Liam muttered.
"They had a tent revival pastor come in and do a blessing. The house was invaded by snakes."
Liam sighed. "The guy brought them. He was the head of a snake-handler sect."
"A New Age group came in the seventies to do a blessing. They were all found unconscious and were rushed to the hospital for emergency detox."
"The police found that their incense was tainted. It was the Age of Aquarius. Who knows what was in that thing?"
"They said they saw a woman's face, contorted with hatred. They could feel the rage."
"They were on LSD."
The Hagen siblings kept on arguing. Holly had an impressive list of mishaps and accidents that had occurred in the house. Liam, however, offered a rational explanation for each creepy occurrence, and they all had occurred long before either was even born. Kat listened to the exchange in horrified fascination. Liam had told her about the house's history, and she'd done her own research, but this ongoing list of misfortunes was still intimidating. Kat Ramos didn't scare easy, and selling this house was her one chance to get her own jewelry store, but Holly's recitation gave her cause for concern.
She still had one question.
"Did anyone actually die?" Kat asked, practically. She was willing to risk a limb or two for the sake of her dream, but her life was a different story.
Liam and Holly turned to look at her.
"No, not in—""
"It has killed before," Holly interjected. "There have been a couple of suicides. Old Hickory Hagen killed his brother-in-law. Larissa Hagen drowned her babies."
"If you'd let me finish," Liam grumbled. "No one has died in the past fifty years or so."
"Ever since our family moved out," Holly added. "No Hagen has lived there since the fifties. The last death was Penelope Hagen."
"She didn't die. She had a lobotomy."
"Technically alive, but not really." Holly shrugged. "Penelope was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. She kept moaning about the 'evil woman with the black eyes' that wanted to push her down the stairs. The family felt that the lobotomy would calm her down."
"What happened to her?" Kat asked.
"Nothing," Liam answered testily. "She lived to a ripe old age in a mental institution in North Carolina."
"The house is not just dangerous," Holly said. "It's downright deadly."
Kat considered her words "But it's deadly, it seems, only to Hagens." She glanced at Holly. "Am I right?"
That made a weird kind of sense. After all, Violetta Santelli had been the witch who'd laid the curse upon the Hagen House. She hated the Hagens, so it would make sense that the victims would be members of the family.
Holly gave a reluctant nod. "That's why we abandoned the house."
"But nothing has happened to me," Liam retorted. "And I've been working and living in the house for more than a year now."
"Nothing has happened yet," Holly clarified. "Our family left the house for a reason. People kept trying to break the curse, but it never worked. It actually made things worse. The house kept attacking whoever tried to end the curse. Almost like it was defending itself."
"But it didn't kill them," Kat noted, focusing on the important stuff.
"No," Holly admitted.
"There you go," Liam said.
"The point," Holly frowned at her brother, "is that no one has been able to break the curse, no matter how hard they have tried."
Liam wrapped his arm around Kat's waist. "They didn't have the Santelli heir, did they?"
Holly gave an exasperated sigh. "Kat, think about it. Do you really want to do this?"
Kat was suddenly keenly aware that the whole room was waiting for her answer. The PRoVE cameras were trained on her. The witnesses were smiling expectantly. The judge stood by, still holding her book, open to the ceremony at hand.
She considered Holly's revelations, the poor, lobotomized lady, the snakes, the unconscious hippies in their LSD fog. She thought about her vindictive ancestress and the trail of death and tragedy she'd left in her wake. She thought about Liam, who was, all things considered, risking a lot more than she was. She thought about Yolanda and the botánica and the feeling of power in the store. She thought about magic and curses and gods.
She also thought about her store, the dream she'd held on to for the past five years. This was her one chance to get her hands on a large chunk of money. If she didn't go through with the wedding, it was back to designing hipster lariats for mall rats.
She fought down a shudder.
"I do," she said, firmly.
CHAPTER SIX
"TO HAVE and to hold until death do you part?"
Liam waited for Kat's response with bated breath. Would she change her mind? He wouldn't blame her. Holly, curse her well-researched meddling self, had really put a wrench in his plans.
He should have told his sister about the wedding. Angry Holly was a frightening sight indeed. She'd done her best to scare the bejeezus out of Kat.
And her best had been pretty good.
Kat, however, had not been swayed. She'd asked the judge to continue the ceremony without missing a beat, and now she grabbed her bouquet, raised her chin, and stared into Liam's eyes.
"I do," she repeated.
A wave of relief washed over him. The tight knot between his shoulders unwound. Kat wasn't afraid.
The rest of the ceremony was a blur. A couple of questions and a couple of answers. Then a ring exchange—thankfully, he'd remembered the rings—followed by a quick signature and...
They were man and wife. A ray of morning light pierced the old windows—Caine was right. They should bring back the stained glass—and landed on the amber-color pendant around Kat's neck. The golden glow was hypnotizing.
Suddenly, he realized he had no idea what to do next. He couldn't kiss her.
Could he?
For a moment he felt a strong temptation to do just that. Luckily, the PRoVE crew started snapping pictures, breaking the spell. Kat smiled and stretched out her hand. They shook hands under the glare of
PRoVE flashes.
There. They were done.
The witnesses cheered. The camera crew broke into high fives. Holly glared. Kat blushed.
She looked lovely when she blushed.
He shook the thought out of his head. Where had that come from? He didn't care about her looks. One of the things he most appreciated about Kat was her businesslike attitude toward all things, particularly cursed houses. He'd been a little wary when he'd found out she was a jewelry designer, but had been gratified to find that she was rational and clearheaded and did not seem to have a drop of artistic temperament in her body.
He felt a hard slap on his back.
"Congratulations, buddy," Caine exclaimed. "This is a grand day."
He frowned at the PRoVE leader. "It's not that kind of wedding."
"I mean about the house." Caine smiled broadly, blue eyes twinkling. "After all these years, you finally get to sell the house."
Liam laughed. "That's true."
"And we get to film it," Caine continued, looking positively jubilant. He walked off, giving his crew a thumbs-up sign.
"Great," Holly mumbled. "That's just great. Maybe the curse will hit them. That would be a silver lining."
"Hope springs eternal," Liam replied.
Kat laughed at that. "I'm glad to see you two have made up."
"Don't get your hopes up," Liam said. "Holly never gives up."
Holly shrugged. "I tried my best. If you need anything, Kat, just let me know. I have heaps of research material in the library. Our Hagen House collection is, as you might expect, quite extensive. We're missing one of our books, but the rest is all there." She put her arms around Kat and hugged her tightly. "Remember, you can always change your mind. If something happens, I have a guest bedroom and a freezer full of Ben & Jerry's."
"Thanks," Kat replied, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Forewarned is forearmed and all that jazz."
"Not a problem at all." She aimed a warning glance at Liam. "You keep that in mind, big brother. If she wants to leave, she can leave."
"Of course," he replied, one hundred percent certain that Kat wouldn't run away. He had a feeling it would take more than a curse to scare off Kat Ramos.