Page 42 of A Spark of Something (A Librarian’s Guide to Witchery #1)

N oble took a deep breath and walked back inside, eyeing the body as he approached it. The left side of the man’s skull was caved in, and brain matter was showing.

“A ghost…”

How in the hell had a ghost done that? Pushing away the whole slew of concerns that reared their ugly head at the question, as he could worry about all of that later, he examined the rest of the man.

William was tall, likely taller than him, but he was on the thinner side, which was probably the only reason Ollie had gotten away at first. He didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if the man had been as muscular as Noble.

Tsking, he stepped over the bastard and checked the door on the far right, smiling on finding that it was in fact a back door. Noble turned the manual lock and opened it.

Moving back to the body, he hefted the man over his shoulder. It felt like nothing to him, but then, he was stronger than an average human.

Snagging a blanket off the couch as he passed it, he tossed it onto the ground outside. Spreading it out as well as he could with his foot, he then dropped the man on top of it.

Once he was back inside, Noble eyed the rug that was currently soaking up blood from both William and Ollie, before his gaze flicked to the trophy and the knife. The rug would have to be burned separately, but first…cleaning. He’d clean everything as much as he could, and whatever he missed, the fire would take care of.

Pulling a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket, he put them on as he cracked his neck and eyed the room again. “Let’s see if I’m going to have to make a run for cleaning supplies.”

Noble headed for the only place he hadn’t gone yet…the hall at the back of the room, opening the first door he came across.

Drawing in a deep breath as he eyed what looked to be a stockpile containing a mixture of chlorine bleach, oxygen bleach, and enzymatic cleaner, Noble couldn’t help but laugh. “Ahh, that’s not good.”

Leaving the door open, he quickly moved through the house, checking closets, walls, and every space of floor he could. It was only two bedrooms and one and a half baths, so it wasn’t as if there was much space to cover.

After not finding what he was looking for in the rest of the house, Noble walked back into the living room, eyeing the only spot of floor in the entire home that was covered with a rug.

The living room was by far the largest space in the house, yet the furniture didn’t fit it. Everything was small, and it all sat just right, so none of it was on top of the rug. Kneeling down, Noble started rolling the rug back, not stopping or hesitating at the first hint of hinges.

“Yep, yep…” With one last hard shove on the rug, he sighed as he revealed the trap door.

The door was locked, and part of the hardwood floor had been gouged out so it wouldn’t stick up and show underneath.

Clucking his tongue, Noble grabbed the lock and broke it with a hard jerk. As he lifted up the hatch, the familiar smell that hit him in the face told him enough.

Noble waited, just listening, but there was nothing. No breathing, no whimpers, just the overwhelming scent of…decay. Ignoring the ladder he saw rolled up, he jumped down.

Landing lightly, he scoffed as he took in the wall of taxidermied eyeballs, which all appeared to be human. “That…was a decorating choice.”

William certainly had been busy, or…doing this a while.

His gaze flicked to the two dead men that were chained to the wall to his left, sighing as he eyed the rest of the room.

Down there, it was all stone. There were two bodies to the left, the wall of nightmares in front of him, and behind the drop down ladder there was…a wall of tools. Some were just normal, while others were clearly devices of torture. The table against the last wall was filled with tools as well, but they were, he assumed, for William’s taxidermy ‘hobby’.

“Choices…”

If he burned the house down, this would still be found, as most stone didn’t burn that well. And he’d bet whatever the walls were made of, they were meant to withstand quite a bit.

If he burned the three bodies and eyeballs, and then burned the house, there would be…too many questions. And there was no way for him to know how many bodies were buried around this place. A fire would have the police thoroughly searching the area, with a whole slew of questions, even if he did stage it to look like an electrical problem.

The risk of them finding something that would lead back to Ollie was too great, especially since he’d gone down a long ass list of people before ending up here.

But if he left them and the house intact…and took… He hummed as the thoughts turned in his head, before finally coming to a decision. “Maximum cleaning it is.”

Well, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have the supplies.

Ollie just had to help the ghost who was killed by a serial killer, didn’t he?

Kitchen, living room, front hall…those were the only rooms Ollie had been in. If he deep cleaned those, it should be enough.

Ollie gasped, hissing as he jerked awake. The sudden movement sent a surge of pain through his arm.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” Noble said gently as he got in the truck, the man opening the driver’s door being what had woken him up. “How are you feeling?”

Pushing his glasses up slightly, he rubbed his eyes with his uninjured hand, before righting them with a yawn. “My head’s a bit hazy, but not as bad as before…maybe. Arm hurts.” He blinked, his gaze flicking towards the window with a frown on realizing how light the sky was. “What time is it?”

“Close to 6:30am. You’ve been sleeping for a while.”

“Is the…body…” he trailed off.

“Not yet. Things got a bit more complicated while you were out. I’ll explain on the way to my house.”

“Oh, but my car—” His words cut off when he looked over and found that his ladybug was not where he’d left it.

“I’ve already moved it far enough away that no one should connect it to this place. And, hopefully, in a location that it won’t get towed from.” Noble grimaced. “If it does, we’ll deal with it at that time. I also cleaned up the blood inside, so no worries on that front.

“I actually found your ball of keys under one of the couches while cleaning up the house, in case you were wondering how I moved it without waking you up. When you feel up to driving, I’ll take you to it, but I imagine it might just be better to have a service tow it back to Westerly Heights.”

His keys must have unclipped when he’d been attacked… It was probably time to replace his lanyard, since this was the second time in under twenty-four hours that they’d managed to fall off.

“Thank you.” Ollie wrinkled his nose. “You had to walk back, didn’t you?” He quickly clarified, “From wherever you left my car?”

Starting his truck, the man snorted. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Ollie’s gaze flicked to the house as the man backed the car up.

As Noble drove forward, taking them down the one-lane road that he’d driven up many hours ago, Ollie cleared his throat. “So…w-what happened?”

“Well, I had planned to burn the house and the body, making it look like an accident, but…”

“But?”

“Like I said, things got a bit complicated.”

His brow furrowed at that. “What’s more complicated than a dead body?”

“Three dead bodies, and a wall full of human eyeballs.”

“W-what?!” Ollie squeaked, before groaning loudly as he accidently moved his left arm.

“Yeah, so it turns out, William Parker was a serial killer. There were two dead bodies waiting for me on the other side of a hidden trap door I found under that ugly ass rug soaking up all the blood.”

“A se-serial k-killer?!”

“Yeah, I don’t know if your ghost was his first kill or not, but he certainly wasn’t the last. I’d say you did the world a favor last night by coming here.”

“A serial k-killer, yet he tried to just kill me on the spot with a k-knife?” As the stuttered question came out, Ollie forced himself to take a deep breath before continuing. “Like, surely he had some illegal drugs or something?! Why risk me escaping?”

“Who knows. I’m just glad he didn’t. Then again, maybe things were out of reach, or he could have run out. Or he could have just panicked. He possibly thought you were playing dumb, and that he didn’t have time.”

“Nope, not playing, just straight up dumb,” Ollie groaned.

“You are not dumb, Ollie. You were just trying to help.”

“No, I was just trying to take control of something, as so much seems out of my control right now.”

“I can’t say if that was part of it or not, as I’m not in your head, but we both know you genuinely wanted to help the man attached to your car.” Noble reached over and squeezed his knee

“I wanted to help him. I really did…and I think I did help him. He disappeared after he killed William. Disappeared, as in, his body dissipated. Though, I suppose saying he avenged himself would be more accurate.” Ollie sighed. “Seriously, a serial killer?! I walked right into a killer’s house, just smiling. He offered me water! It never even cr-crossed my mind that something bad could happen… I just—I just thought, maybe the ghost had gotten into an accident at his house and died on the way to the hospital. I never…”

“You would never do something like that, so it would never cross your mind that someone had purposely hurt him. I don’t think it’s in your nature to hurt others. I do like that about you, but I would prefer if you take a few more precautions when it comes to your safety.”

Noble eyed him silently, and Ollie squirmed a bit under the look he was giving him. He really was dying to do something with his hands, to fidget, but he couldn’t because of his injury.

“Ollie, this can’t happen again,” the man stated firmly.

“I didn’t even mean for it to happen this time.” Ollie pushed his glasses up onto his nose and rubbed his face, before huffing in exasperation. “‘Figure it out ’ , it said! I asked for help, and it told me to ‘ figure it out’. ”

“What…? What told you?”

“My book! I asked it how I could help the ghost and it told me to just ‘figure it out’, and so I did. Followed by me almost getting murdered.”

“Hold up,” Noble growled. “Your book, your grimoire, told you to just ‘figure it out’?”

“Yes! No, well, it told me why he didn’t remember who he was, or how he died, but yeah, after that, those were its exact words. Along with mocking me and calling me ungrateful for asking for help.”

Noble’s jaw clenched, but the man didn’t say anything.

“W-why…why does it seem to h-hate me so much? D-do you think it told me that because it knew it would put me in da-danger?”

“I…can’t answer that.”

He eyed Noble. “Y-you’re...really okay with…what I supposedly am?”