A Rose by Any Other Name (Haunted Series Book 18)

by Alexie Aaron

  “How do you do it?”

  “You’re going to have to get more specific, Cid.”

  “How do you work side by side with Burt? You and he were lovers.”

  “Lust and love are wonderful things,” Mia started. “But Burt and I also had this amazing friendship. It’s the friendship that both of us fought to save. The regard I have for him helped me to ignore the hurtful remarks that were influenced by the flitch and Beth. Burt Hicks will always be my knight in shining armor. He came into my life and woke me up. He turned a hermit into a hunter. I was, and still am, so impressed with the amount of knowledge he has amassed. Remember, he is one hundred percent human. He doesn’t have angel armor, and yet he runs into the fray. He looks after us like a father, even though he isn’t much older than we are. He puts aside his own needs so that PEEPs can be. I have yet to find a more honorable man. Until now,” she said, patting Cid on the shoulder.

  Burt stood looking out the window of the library. Jake had connected his earcom and replayed the conversation between Cid and Mia. He was stunned.

  ~

  Mia, outfitted from head to foot in PEEPs gear, walked beside Mike while they took readings of the third floor. Mike stopped, turned, and spoke to the camera that Burt was holding. “We have been picking up shadows on the stationary cameras. Mia and I are taking readings to see if we can find the source of these shadows.”

  Mia continued down the hallway. She didn’t like talking into the camera. Truth was, she didn’t like being filmed at all.

  Burt watched her through the camera lens. She, by all accounts, should be so royally screwed up, but she wasn’t much different than when he first met her. She had married, had a child, and sprouted wings, but she was still clumsy and laughed at herself. In stark contrast, she was also a warrior. She fought Murphy, very aware that with one misstep, she or her friend could die. He watched her stone cold expression when she finished off the entity that had trapped them in their game. Only after she was sure that no PEEP was in jeopardy did she allow herself to be human and hurt.

  Mia turned around and put her finger to her lips. She motioned to the ceiling of the hallway. Burt watched as a dark stain grew from a black dot. It turned into a full shadow of a human male. It stayed on the ceiling for a moment before it fleshed out, and the shadow became a solid black representation of a man who lifted his head away from the ceiling. It pushed away with its arms and knees and began crawling over to them.

  “Ahem,” Mia cleared her voice.

  The shadow spider man stopped and dropped down in front of Mia.

  “Hello, we’re from PEEPs. Would you be needing our assistance?” Mia asked nicely.

  The shadow man shook his head.

  “Okay. Do you mind if we hang here a while, or are you expecting your friends?

  The shadow man hunched his shoulders.

  Mia looked up at the ceiling, spotting two more black dots. She gently moved Mike backwards. They stood and watched as the shadow man’s compatriots formed. Instead of dropping down, they crawled down the walls.

  “I hate it when they do that in the movies,” Mia commented. “Hey you, turn your head around… That’s a lad. Thank you. Creepy.”

  Mike looked at the three shadow men between them and asked, “Can we help you with something?”

  One of the shadow men made a chopping motion with his hand.

  “Are you looking for Murphy, perchance?” Mia asked. “Does the scoundrel owe you money?”

  The three men looked at each other for a moment. The first shadow man repeated the chopping motion with his hand.

  “I don’t think they understand us,” Mia said. She clapped her hands. She shook her head and made the chopping motion with one hand, while she put the other on the hilt of the sword she had in the scabbard on her back under the hooded sweatshirt.

  The shadow man looked down a moment and then made a motion for Mia and Mike to follow him. The other two shadow men fell into step behind the leader. Mia and Mike walked slowly behind. Mia relaxed her hold on the sword and brought both hands to her side.

  “Careful, Mia,” Ted said in her ear. “The power readings that your instruments are sending back are increasing with every step those things take.”

  Mia put a restraining hand on Mike’s arm. “This could be a trap.”

  “What do you recommend?” he asked.

  “We wait. Let them come back to us.” We can play the ‘I can’t understand you’ game too.”

  Burt focused in on the black images. He tapped his earcom. “Ted, this hallway seems unnaturally long. Over.”

  “Jake put an overlay of the blueprint up for me, and if Mia and Mike walk two more feet, they are technically walking on air. Over.”

  “Team, you heard that?” Burt asked.

  Mike and Mia nodded and walked back to where Burt stood with the camera.

  “Is it a portal?” Mike asked.

  “It could be, but it could also be an optical illusion,” Mia said.

  Burt reached into his pocket and handed Mia a handful of coins.

  “This is either the raise you promised me, or you want me to toss these down the hall. I hope the shadow men don’t consider this an act of aggression.”

  “Roll them,” Mike said, taking half the coins. He bent down and rolled a nickel along the baseboard.

  They watched as the coin stopped four feet from them and fell over.

  Mia tossed a penny and it sailed through the air and disappeared. She tossed another low and it stopped and fell near the nickel. She repeated the process several times to be certain. “Ted, do we have any powder? Talc or flour? Over.”

  “We have cornstarch. I’ll send it up with Cid. Over.”

  “Send up a multi-spectrum camera too please. Over.”

  “On his way. Over.”

  “His?” she mused until she heard the faint clicking of tiny gears and Curly appeared down the hall. He moved to Mia and waited at her feet. “Curly, I need you to scan the space in all spectrums please.”

  Ted watched as Mia bent down and addressed the machine. To her it was a pet and not a machine. Jake, who was controlling the bot, maneuvered it to the center of the hall and curled into a ball. Curly rotated, training the infrared and the ultraviolet lenses on the space above the fallen coins.

  Cid arrived with the cornstarch. He handed it to Mia.

  She poured some into her hand. “Cid, cut the light to the hall,” she instructed.

  The lights went out. Mia tossed a handful of cornstarch at timed intervals.

  Burt viewed this event through the lens of the large video camera he held. The cornstarch traveled beyond the coins. “Ted, compare the camera feeds. Over.”

  “We have dissimilarities in content. Over.”

  “Turn the lights back on,” Mia called.

  The lights came on, and the ghost hunters were faced with a cornstarch splattered wall.

  “Team, time to regroup at the command center. Over,” Burt said and lowered the camera off his shoulder. He followed Mike and Cid down the hall to the staircase.

  Mia waited for Curly. He uncurled, and Mia lifted him up and allowed him to wrap around her waist.

  Jake presented a Peanuts picture of Linus to the center monitor, and the caption read, “Love is a warm Mia.”

  “Hey now, that’s my wife you’re hugging,” Ted said. “She’s my main squeeze.”

  “Oh hardy har har,” Daffy Duck said, “You, sir, are punny.”

  “Please keep filming, Jake,” Ted requested.

  “Roger wilco!”

  Ted watched the fore and aft feeds as Curly’s lenses continued to send digital images to the computers.

  Mia felt one of the lenses move. “Teddy Bear, could this be considered stalking your wife?”

  “Yes. I would appreciate it if you would catch up to the others. I have a bad feeling…”

  Mia screamed. The camera feeds showed a flash of light before blackness.

  “Team, Mia is in trouble.
I repeat, Mia is in trouble. Over.”

  Cid turned around and ran up the stairs. He passed Burt who had also started back up to the third floor.

  “Stop Cid!” Mia called. “I’m in the fucking wall. He’s going to fall on top of me!”

  “Did you hear that, Cid? Over.”

  “Yes. Mia, where did you fall from?” Cid asked, slowing his progress up the stairs.

  “Watch the third step down from the top of the third floor flight of stairs. It collapsed under me, sending me backwards. The first and the second step disappeared, and I fell. I landed on my feet, but I’m sinking fast.”

  Ted got up and ran out of the pantry and the house to the command vehicle. Audrey slid into his space.

  “Mia, this is Audrey. Ted’s gone for a rope. Over.”

  “Oh my god. I found out where Albert dumped the bodies. Check Curly’s ultraviolet feed.”

  Audrey looked over and saw the open maw of a small skull. “Renee Roustan perhaps?”

  “Most definitely. There are shreds of rusty-colored material amongst the bones.”

  Cid lay along the landing and shone his flashlight downwards. “Mia?”

  “I can hear you, Superman, but I’m not getting any light. I’m going to flash my penlight.”

  “Can’t see it. I think your descent path has angled you away from the entrance and into the structure of the house.”

  “So I’m in the wall, fucking fabulous,” Mia cursed. She looked around her and tapped her com and spoke, “Audrey, I’m going to shine the light on the side where Curly has the normal spectrum lens. Are you picking this up?”

  “I’m seeing bones… Is that right? I’m seeing six, no, seven skulls.”

  “There should be eight or nine, I imagine. I’m guessing Renee, Mrs. Roustan, Robert Simons, and three sets of impostors. I can see why Albert used this space, but it doesn’t make much sense for Renee to hide the game players, unless she drew power from them?” Mia asked.

  “Mia, this is Burt. Did you hurt yourself in the fall?”

  “I appear to be in one piece. I’m not happy with the amount of spiderwebs I went through on the way down though.”

  “Inventory your equipment. Over.”

  “One robot, one sword, and a knife I can’t get to in my boot. Pockets full of salt stars. A penlight and half a box of cornstarch. I’m getting a headache. I suspect the air is foul in here. The quarters are close. I can get to my sword, but I have no room in which to wield it. My first instinct is to cut my way out of the wall. Can we drop the overs because I’m getting dizzy.”

  “Can you cut through brick and mortar with the sword?” Burt asked.

  “Don’t know, never tried it.”

  “Ted just passed me with the rope. I’ll stay off the channel so he and Cid can talk.”

  “K.”

  “Swee’ Pea, I’ve got enough rope to pull you out of the Grand Canyon,” Ted said in his Popeye voice.

  “Thanks, Popeye. You’re going to need to tie a weight to it to get it to me.”

  “Cid’s given me his measuring scale. He suggests, when you receive it, that you hook the loop around something, a skull for example, and ease the measuring tape out as we pull you out.”

  “Smart man. This way you can see how deep in this wall the bones are resting. Ted, we have one smart wife.”

  “Do you think Father Santos will let us marry him?” Ted teased.

  “The wedding night’s going to be interesting,” Mia said.

  “You sound too pleased. No Cid for you.”

  “Mia, you should be seeing the rope any time now,” Cid, said ignoring the couple’s teasing.

  Mia shown her light upwards and smiled. “I see it. It’s ten feet over me.”

  Ted and Cid waited for Mia to fashion a harness. Cid looked over at Ted. He was putting on a pair of work gloves. “Mia is amazingly rational at the moment, dude.”

  Ted looked back at Cid. “I noticed she seems to have taken being in a boneyard pretty well. It’s going to be the spiderwebs, we have to pull her through on the way up, that will tell me if indeed Mia’s evil twin is down there.”

  “If Mia has an evil twin, can I have good Mia?” Cid asked.

  Ted looked at his best friend. “You don’t think that you could handle evil Mia, huh?”

  “I was just thinking, if there are two of them…”

  “Sorry, Cid, Mike called dibs on evil Mia. I get good Mia.”

  “Last to the party again,” Cid lamented.

  “You bozos realize you’re still on com with me,” Mia grouched.

  “Audrey, that little minx,” Ted said. “You’re fired, Audrey.”

  Audrey responded with a giggle.

  Mike who leaned against the second floor landing wall looked over at Burt and shook his head. “Can you imagine two of them?”

  “Two of whom?” he asked, stalling.

  “Mia.”

  “I could franchise PEEPs. Ted, do you think we can have Mia cloned?” Burt asked.

  This brought on another giggle from Audrey.

  “Just ya wait till I get out of ‘ere ‘icks,” Mia said dropping her H’s. “There’ll be ‘ell to pay.”

  Burt couldn’t help snickering.

  Mia took a last look around before calling, “I’m ready, dudes.” She watched as the slack was taken up. When she began to rise, she noticed that she had picked up a hitchhiker. Stuck on the toe of her boot was a complete skull. The connective tissue had yet to rot away, dropping the lower jaw. Long strands of hair still clung to the patchy pieces of scalp. “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day.” She took special care in making sure she didn’t connect the skull with the wall on the way up. When she approached the angled chute, she twisted around to turn on her back. She felt the scabbarded sword push against her. Mia would bear this discomfort in order to bring the unknown woman’s head up in one piece.

  “Hey, Mike, see if you can find a large plastic box or bag? I’m bringing back a souvenir,” Mia asked. She turned off her penlight and prepared to climb out of the chute.

  Ted’s and Cid’s arms burned from the exertion, but seeing Mia’s smiling face emerge from the staircase was worth the physical pain. She caught the edge of the landing and pulled herself up, turning slowly. “Thanks, guys.” She handed the scale to Cid. He noted the measurement, retracted the tape, and pocketed it before he lifted her up and onto the landing.

  “Swee’ Pea, are you aware you have a head stuck on the toe of your boot?”

  “Yes, Popeye. It’s not that old. Poor lady.”

  Mike walked up the stairs with Burt. He had taken an empty file box from the command vehicle. He reached across the hole and handed the box to Ted. Ted and Cid looked at each other and played Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock until Ted had won two out of three. Mia looked at the horrific expression on Cid’s face as he bent over to remove the head from Mia’s foot. “Stop. Sorry, I’ll do it.” Mia pulled her leg as close to her body as she could, keeping the head off the carpet. She reached down and gently pried the head off of her boot. She turned it and stared at the head a moment before she placed it in the basket.

  “What were you looking for?” Ted asked her, helping her to her feet.

  “I don’t know exactly. I just thought, if she was tied to her bones, that maybe her ghost would appear. It would help in identifying her.”

  “Team, I have the coroner’s office on the line,” Audrey interrupted. They will be unable to come out tonight. I told them first thing in the morning will be fine. No one’s going anywhere in this snow.”

  “Snow?” Mia asked.

  “While you were lounging in the wall, Ma Nature dropped another few inches on us,” Mike told her.

  “So are we staying the night?” she asked Burt.

  “If we do, I’d like to stick together.”

  “Like the ski resort minus the broken bones and murderous humans,” Ted said.

  “How about your ma, Mike?” Mia asked.

 
“She’s at my house. Probably drinking all my wine.”

  Curly squeezed Mia. She undid the leather tie and set him on the floor. She watched as he maneuvered down the stairs, hugging the inside wall.

  Mia got on her stomach and shown a light inside the trap in the stairs. “Who in their right mind would do this?” she asked. She saw a series of metal bars and followed them to the wall. “What’s on the other side of this?” she asked.

  Ted got up and walked down the hall. “There’s an empty room. Too small for a family bedroom. Maybe a cell for a nanny?”

  Mia reached under and knocked on the area where the rods would lock into place. Ted listened and walked into a small closet. Inside, he lifted up a few loose floorboards. He found three levers.

  “Mia, can you hear me?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Pull your arm out of there and stand away from the staircase. If anyone is on the stairs at all, I think they should move to solid flooring,” he warned.

  Mia pulled herself up. “Clear the stairs,” she shouted.

  Ted waited for the all-clear.

  “Ted, go ahead,” Mia said.

  Ted moved the levers.

  Mia and Cid watched as the top two stairs resumed their position with a whirl and a grinding sound. Lastly, the third stair moved back upwards. It too seemed to lock into place.

  “Mia, give me a minute, and then drop something heavy on the third step,” Ted instructed.

  Mia looked around but didn’t see anything to fit the bill. She ended up taking off her boot and tying it to the rope. She dropped it on the third step and watched as the step dropped away, followed by the top two folding backwards. She pulled her boot back up. “Clear!” she shouted.

  Ted reset the steps and replaced the floorboards. He made a note to come up later and set a Rem-Pod on the floorboards. He walked out and joined Cid and Mia on the landing. “The steps will hold, but I recommend the mandatory use of hands on the rails and walking to the outside of each step. I’m going to check each flight and the adjoining room for other traps.”

  “What kind of funhouse is this?” Cid asked.