“And since that night?”
“He keeps coming back, so Bob stays here all the time now.” Hannah smiled at the ghost of the man. “I never knew him because he died before I was born. But he said he’s always been here, sort of keeping an eye on everyone.”
“What else has the father done since that first time he appeared?”
“He doesn’t do anything, as such, but he makes Dave feel uncomfortable every time he comes around here, so now he’s stopped coming.” Hannah nibbled at her top lip for a moment, then went on, “Last night, when I was going out to meet Dave, the father wouldn’t let me leave the house. He locked all the doors.”
Rowena nodded. Locked doors was a favourite of the malevolent spirit, something they used to make the living feel trapped and helpless. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to stop it happening, so Hannah was lucky she had help on the other side of the Veil in the form of her great-grandfather. Rowena had a feeling all the help they could get was going to be needed.
“So what is it you think I can do for you?” Rowena asked softly.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t even sure about calling you. But I’ve heard of your reputation. A friend of mine said you’d be able to get rid of the father. He said you’re the best there is at . . . this kind of thing.” Hannah wasn’t unusual in struggling to define what Rowena did for a living. Most people thought paranormal investigation was nothing but clap-trap.
Rowena’s eyebrow rose. “A friend?”
“Stephen Cornwell. He’s more a friend of a friend.”
“Cornwell.” Rowena smiled at the name. She and Stephen had met three years earlier when his dead mother had returned to make his life a misery, all because she didn’t like the fact he was bi-sexual. At the time, Stephen had been seeing a man and his mother didn’t approve. The fact she had been dead for over a year by then hadn’t stopped her sticking her oar in. She’d scared off the boyfriend with her poltergeist activities, and then Rowena had fallen into an affair with Stephen for a few weeks, in the process of trying to help him get his life back together. It had fizzled out quite soon, and since then Stephen had tried to settle down with another man for a while, but it hadn’t worked out. Now he was single again, meaning Rowena had a habit of ending up in bed with him nearly every time they met, at least once a week. Rowena knew they were taking each other for granted.
“He said you’d know what to do,” Hannah added confidently.
“I’ll do what I can. I need to see where the father appeared first. Once I’ve been able to get a sense of him I’ll do some research into the history of this site and see if I can track down who he was. The house will have to be wired with sensors so I can try and find if there’s an indicator he gives off before he appears. If we can find that, it might be possible to block his manifestations before he has the chance to fully form.”
It was all fairly standard stuff: heat sensors, movement detectors, thermal imaging cameras, and all the recording equipment that logged the sensors findings. Rowena had it all in her car, just in case it was needed. She was an expert at setting it all up, and could get it done in a couple of hours.
Hannah showed Rowena up to her bedroom. The spirit of Bob Tranter was already in there when Hannah opened the door.
He wasn’t the only one there.
Rowena watched the shimmering form behind Bob, the ice slipping down her spine again. The father felt like evil incarnate, but he wasn’t manifesting fully, just lurking on the edge of the Veil between the worlds. Rowena studied the figure carefully, trying to attune to him. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.
“What do you want this side of the Veil?” she demanded, her voice echoing with authority. Malevolent spirits took advantage of any weakness.
The father turned his attention onto her fully. He moved closer, circling around Rowena, prodding at her with his cold-hearted corruption. But he still didn’t take form properly. She forced herself not to respond to his attempt to push her out. Taking a calming breath, she stood her ground, holding him back by centering on the amulet around her neck, the one hidden under her blouse. It was a protective charm, one given to her when she was a child by an old gypsy woman who’d felt Rowena was too sensitive to the spirits escaping the Veil. Rowena had taken it at the time only because it was pretty, but the protection had served her well over the years. She hadn’t ever been able to find out what the funny little shape was, or what it represented, but she wouldn’t part with it for anything.
Rowena looked at the father. “You don’t belong here. This is not your place.”
“Wrong, foolish girl,” he said softly. “This has always been my place. It’s her place too. She will join the others.”
“What others?”
“All the girls who wanted to throw away their purity.”
“You’ve done this before. You know, that just makes it easier for me to expel you. If you’ve sent others through the Veil, they’ll try to hold you there with them.”
“No one holds me.” He moved right up behind Rowena and manifested a solid form to breathe her in. “You are not pure.”
“What do you mean by pure?”
“Untouched. Without the touch of a man. You smell of every man you’ve ever taken inside your body. There’s been a lot of them. That makes you a whore.”
Rowena smiled derisively. “No, it makes me free of men like you. I make my own choices about who I’m with. It’s my right as a child of the Great Mother who guards us all.”
“There is only one God.”
“Rubbish. Before your precious one god drove the rest underground, there were many gods and goddesses. It makes no sense for one god to rule over all countries and all aspects of life. The Goddess watches over me.”
“Lies! There is one God! He teaches us women are weak and must be ruled by men!”
Rowena laughed. “The world has moved on. No woman should be ruled, not by a man, not by anyone. Hannah can choose the course of her own life. Now, it’s about time you returned beyond the Veil.” She closed her eyes and imagined the Veil in her mind, making it thicker and thicker around the father. A near silent pop at her side told her he’d been sucked back.
It was only a temporary measure. He would come back through once he’d broken free of the thickening.
Rowena opened her eyes again and looked at Hannah with a tight smile. “He’s gone for now, but it won’t last.”
Hannah swallowed and nodded. “Do you know who he is?”
“No idea, but I’ve never let that stop me before.” Rowena pulled her jacket down by the bottom hem, mentally preparing herself to do battle with an evil from beyond the Veil. None of the evil spirits ever went back without a fight. It was those who’d just missed their path somehow that went willingly. All they wanted was for someone to point them in the direction of their way through the Veil and off they toddled, happy as Larry.
~* * * *~
After setting up the sensors all over the house, in every room, regardless of whether the father had manifested within them or not, Rowena ran through everything with Hannah. Bob had walked around behind her the whole time, asking her questions about the equipment, about her beliefs, about what she thought she could do to help Hannah.
Rowena rarely had the opportunity to communicate with one from beyond the Veil so much. But she didn’t get a chance to ask anything herself, barely managed to get enough words in to answer his questions.
Once all the equipment was connected up and routed through Hannah’s computer to relay all the readings to Rowena’s, so she would be able to track what went on in the house via her phone, Hannah seemed more settled. It might be a relief that someone not only took her seriously, but had actually seen the father too.
“This is going to escalate,” Rowena warned Hannah and her great-grandfather solemnly. “When he breaks free, he’ll be back, and he’ll be pretty peeved, to say the least. So you’ve got a choice: you can get the hell out now, leave this place forever and let some
one else deal with this in the future, or you can stay and fight him. I’m not here to tell you which you should do. You don’t have that long to think. Let me know by the morning what you have decided.”
She left them to think things over without her around. Really, any decision was Hannah’s to make, but Rowena hoped the young woman would listen to the counsel of her dead relative, and that he would give Hannah good advice. Personally, if Rowena was in Hannah’s shoes, clearing out might well be the option she’d take. The father seemed the kind who would put up one hell of a fight, meaning he would make Hannah’s life a misery. But, suspecting as she did, that Hannah wasn’t the kind to run from a fight, Rowena was pretty sure this case would go through to the bitter end.
Shutting the car door, Rowena checked the sensor feeds were coming through to her phone, then brought up Stephen’s number, pausing for a second before ringing it, wondering if it was such a good idea getting hold of him. Talking to him, however briefly, always turned into sleeping with him. He was a hard habit to break.
“Hi, Rowena. I take it you’ve heard from Hannah Tranter?”
“A bit of warning would have been nice. You know, just a heads up I was walking into a genuine haunting.”
“I didn’t think you’d want me prejudicing your opinion like that,” he responded in a neutral tone. “I know you like to go in with an open mind. Besides, I wasn’t even sure it was a genuine haunting. Dave just said there was some funny stuff going on. He was rather vague about it all though.”
“She said you’re the friend of a friend. You know her fiancé, don’t you, Stephen? Is there something going on between you and him I should be wary of mentioning? I don’t want to go putting my foot in anything messy.”
“God, no!” Stephen laughed. “Dave’s as straight as a man can get. I’ve never even tried to seduce him. I know when not to waste my time.”
Rowena smirked at the windscreen. “Really, Stephen? You honestly expect me to believe that?”
“Scout’s honour. Dave’s not my type.”
“I assume that he has all his body parts in the right place? That makes him your type.”
Stephen chuckled and didn’t deny it. “Are you coming over later?”
“Stephen Cornwell, I’m not just here to fill up the nights you can’t get someone else in your bed.”
“That wasn’t why I was asking, actually.” He managed to get the offended tone just right, but Rowena wasn’t convinced by it one little bit. “I thought you might want a bit of a sounding board for what’s happening. I take it you’ve set up your sensors and stuff already?”
Rowena replied that she had, while pondering the wisdom of giving into Stephen yet again. She felt they were falling into the sort of habit that could rule their lives, and didn’t want things to go sour in the future. But he did sort of understand her work, so he would listen while she ran possibilities by him, help her research the house if he had time, and wade through online census results with her.
Stephen had become a sort of assistant investigator in the time Rowena had known him. Maybe that was why his ex had bailed in the end, because Stephen and Rowena spent so much time together, often excluding anyone who didn’t understand the paranormal.
What she should have said was, “No, I need to do some research,” but what came out was, “I’ll be around at about seven.”
Rowena hung up and brought up the sensor results since she’d left Hannah’s house, seeing the young woman as she moved around her home, doing laundry, washing dishes. The recording devices picked up her talking, and the familiar buzzing that indicated Bob was responding. The voices of the departed nearly always sounded like static.
Mulling over what the father had said about Hannah, that her purity had to be maintained, Rowena assumed that meant Hannah was a virgin. Though not that common, Rowena respected the other woman’s decision to wait until marriage. It took courage to resist the pressures of modern society, so maybe Hannah would stand up against the father. Maybe the answer was for Rowena to hold the father back long enough for Hannah to get out of the house, then she could meet up with her fiancé and do something about her virginity. But if she’d waited this long, she wasn’t likely to give it away just to get rid of a ghost. It might be worth bearing in mind though.
Two
“Anything yet?” Stephen asked as he filled Rowena’s wine glass for a second time.
“Only Bob. It’s hard to get my head round the way she lives with the spirit of a man she never knew. The way they interact is like Bob’s still alive; he sort of feels it too. They talk all the time, just every day stuff. He sits at the table with her when she has her meals. The only time he’s not in the same room is when she’s in the bathroom.”
“What does he look like on the sensors?” Stephen asked as he moved behind Rowena, his hand resting on her shoulder. She tried to ignore the way it made her feel. She was there to work, not to hump him senseless. Again.
“On the heat sensors, he’s a cool patch. On the motion sensors, he just registers as moving around, meaning he’s never fully crossed the Veil since his death. The recorders pick up a static sound when he speaks. He doesn’t come up at all on the thermal imaging though. It’s a bit inconsistent, but fairly normal.”
“Even though I had all that shit with Mum, I still can’t believe Hannah lives with the old man’s ghost.”
“He feels warm, solid. She probably feels a lot safer with him there.”
Stephen returned to his seat opposite her and took a mouthful of the cannelloni he’d made for them. The way he slowly sucked it off the fork made Rowena think of things that had nothing to do with work. She knew exactly how his lips felt as they teased her into an orgasm. The fact that same mouth was just as happy to suck off another man did nothing to dampen Rowena’s lust. Quite the opposite, in fact. There was something irresistible about the thought of two men together. Rowena often titillated herself with gay porn. She had taken to watching it on her phone when she was in bed at night, letting her fingers work through any sexual frustration she had.
Tall, toned, blond and handsome, Stephen was nearly impossible to resist. He had the sort of face that should grace magazine fronts. But he was also a real slut. The only two proper relationships he’d had had been the two men either side of his affair with Rowena. She knew she was only one of many who kept him going, but as long as they practiced safe sex when they were together, she made no fuss about who else he did. Stephen was very careful about that though, so she didn’t worry about him giving her anything nasty.
She concentrated on her laptop and the meal, trying not to watch the way Stephen seduced her with his food. But it was no good, not when he knew all the buttons to push.
“You shameless bastard,” she complained when his socked foot ran up the inside of her shin. “You said you’d be a sounding board so I could run through the job.”
“And I have been. Now I want to get you into bed. Isn’t this what we do? Talk for a while, then have sex? Come on, Rowena. I want you. You want me. You, me and a bed. It works out perfect every time.”
“Stephen, what is it you want from me?” she asked, pushing her chair back so he couldn’t reach her. “Whatever this is, it’s not going anywhere, is it? I’m not what you want.”
“Right now, you’re exactly what I want.”
“And in the morning? Face it Stephen, there’s nothing but sex. You’ve had two serious relationships in your life and they’ve both been with other men.”
“Rowena, don’t over analyse this. It is what it is. You like sex and so do I, and it’s always good between us, isn’t it?”
“That’s not really the point and you know it. This ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement is a dead end for both of us. Maybe it’s time we accepted that and stopped jumping into bed because neither of us has anyone else.”
Stephen sighed heavily and leaned back from the table. “What do you want me to say? That I’m in love with you and I want to settle down? That’s not
going to happen. I do love you, but not in that way. You’ve been my best friend these last few years.”
“Who you just happen to like shagging at every opportunity.”
“Because you’re hot, Rowena. You could have anyone you wanted, but you only ever socialise with me. I’m stopping you getting out of practice between the sheets. If the sex isn’t lively enough for you I can find someone else to join us sometimes.”
Rowena rolled her eyes. It wasn’t the first time Stephen had run the idea of a threesome past her, pointing out he didn’t mind if it was a man or a woman. Sheer curiosity had nearly got the better of her more than once. The thought of being in bed with two men was a huge turn on. She’d get to see in the flesh some of the stuff she had only seen in porn. What stopped her wasn’t a lack of inclination but a lack of confidence. Doing that would be taking a big step into the emotionally unknown.
An alarm sounded on her laptop, giving her a much needed excuse to avoid responding.
One of the movement sensors had picked up something in Hannah’s bedroom while she and Bob were both downstairs. Rowena checked all the other readings for the room and found the temperature had dropped to barely above freezing. “Shit! He’s broken back through already. How the hell has he done that?”
“How long did you think he’d be tied behind the Veil?” Stephen asked, all his desire to get her in bed forgotten for the moment. He was fascinated by Rowena’s work, always getting involved in her cases, when he had the time. His work as a self-employed graphic designer meant he could work the hours he wanted a lot of the time.
“Until at least tomorrow night. This makes no bloody sense at all. There’s no way he could get free that quickly. Not without help from this side.” Rowena scowled at the sensor results. Something weird was going on: the temperature in all the rooms was rapidly plummeting, except the one in which Hannah and her great-grandfather sat. They seemed to be completely oblivious to the danger closing in around them.
Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance Page 152