Page 29 of Spooked (31 Days of Trick or Treat: Biker & Mobster #13)

“Shut it, Blade,” Mouse snarls. “Hound is fine. Leave him alone.” As my hands smooth up and down Maeve’s back, I glance around at him, only to see his nostrils flaring, and his eyes open wide. “Brothers, don’t you feel there’s an existential presence? Or a strange odour in the air?”

“I can smell rotten eggs,” Drummer replies.

“Sulphur,” Blade corrects.

“Get out of here now!” It seems Siobhan’s chauffeur wasn’t able to corral her into the car, as she appears, with her driver running behind her. “You’ve no business being here. I’ve called the cops.”

I might be holding onto a woman whose physical form is lying elsewhere in a hospital bed, but I still have some wits about me. What other reason could Siobhan have for wanting us out of the house, unless there’s something here that she doesn’t want us to find?

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” The unnaturally high-pitched scream from Blade is so unusual that it makes me spin around.

For a moment, my emotions are completely in tune with his as the shimmering image of a woman appears, gradually solidifying in front of my eyes.

She’s got the same colouring and eyes and could be the twin of the woman I’m holding.

Adding two and two together, I come up with the answer that she might well be the mother of the woman I’m comforting, evidence added when the newcomer’s face softens as it rests on her daughter.

My thoughts are confirmed when Maeve gasps, “Mom?”

The sound of furniture overturning shifts my focus. Swinging around, I see Siobhan has stumbled back and lost her balance, falling into a table. Is it wrong that I feel some satisfaction seeing her lying on her back, floundering like an upturned turtle?

There’s nothing wrong with her eyes, though, or her mouth. “You’re dead!” Siobhan cries out.

“So am I.” It’s a new voice, deep and somehow musical. At first, there’s nothing accompanying it, then slowly another form appears.

Drummer’s, “Oh fuck,” Peg’s gasp of horror, and Blade’s sudden step back complement the new apparition.

But it’s this form that has Siobhan screaming and covering her face with her hands. I recognise it immediately as Emerald, one of the participants in the X-rated display I’d been subjected to the last time I was in the house.

Except for the strangeness of the situation, deep in my gut, I know the ghosts haven’t appeared to terrorise us.

Instead, they seem intent on targeting Maeve’s aunt, which they are doing a great job of.

Siobhan scrambles backward to get away from them, while holding her hands over her face as if to deny what she’s seeing.

I stiffen. The appearance of Emerald has triggered a memory in my brain and planted a seed of excitement in my head.

Something so imperative I just have to act on it now.

While my companions are distracted, probably trying to come to terms with seeing spirits from beyond this world, while nothing now would surprise me, I take Maeve’s hand and rush her out of the room.

As I approach her gramma’s bedroom, Maeve hangs back, her head shaking rapidly side to side. “I don’t want to go in there again.”

The overwhelming sensation that I have to do this has me tugging at her hand.

“I won’t let anything hurt you.” I hope I say it convincingly, but a loud rumble of thunder rattling the house unnerves me.

Is it a warning not to go inside? Dismissing that notion, having a whole-hearted belief it’s the right thing to do, I follow my gut and continue on.

Ignoring the other doorways, stepping over the gaping holes in the floorboards—one in particular proving a challenge for my crutch, needing me to leave my fragile masculine side behind momentarily—I accept Maeve’s hand to help me over it.

The door to my destination is closed, and I hesitate before opening it with my hand hovering over the knob, unsure if I want to see it in its current derelict state or in all its magnificence as I’d seen it before.

My hand at the ready to hide Maeve’s eyes from any ghost peepshow, I pluck up the courage, turn the handle, and expose the room behind the door.

There are no ghosts here, kinky or not. The room stinks of musk, the furniture covered in dust and cobwebs.

Only the frame of the bed remains. Bird droppings cover the floor, and a bat swoops close by before ascending and disappearing via the hole in the ceiling that must lead to the upper floor.

I clasp Maeve tight as she squeals and ducks her head.

“I don’t like this,” she confides.

I eye the dressing table that had been here before, but the elegance has faded, and it still lies shattered and discarded on the floor.

The delicate wood inlays can still be seen on the surface, along with dust and fingerprints galore.

The main drawer lies open and discarded.

It’s obviously been searched. Feeling downcast for a moment, I surmise whatever I expected has probably long gone.

Not ready to give up just yet, I close my eyes for a second, delving into the vision I’d had, the one I’d tried so hard to forget, of Bertie approaching the dressing table and how he made the hidden compartment appear.

As I recall the details, I open my eyes once more and see, while toppled and drawerless, that part of the furniture is still relatively untouched.

My heart rate speeds up in anticipation. It can’t be that easy, can it?

I don’t let go of Maeve’s hand as I approach the once handsome antique. Keeping hold of her with my left hand, I twist my right into the space where the drawer used to sit, and try to find the mechanism Bertie surely triggered that night.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice steadier now we’re alone.

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” I reply, frustrated that I can’t feel a button or anything. I’m now glad I hadn’t raised her hopes. But I’m loath to give up. Trying again, I squeeze my fingers together and push in further.

I can feel something. Wincing as the wood compresses my fingers, I reach as far as I can. Then suddenly, click, and a secret compartment is exposed.

Beside me Maeve gasps, and I, too, hold my breath as I draw out what I’ve found, an amazing array of an elaborate emerald necklace, brooch, earrings, bracelet, and ring.

I’m no jeweller, but I’m sure they must be worth a fortune.

While the woman at my side is marvelling at the treasures I’m holding, my eye is caught by papers bound in ribbon that have fallen to the floor.

Quickly passing the jewels to her, I reach down and pick them up.

Smoothing the documents flat, my eyes are immediately caught by the title page.

Last Will and Testament of Emerald Sullivan.

Quickly, I flick through the papers, easily making sense of the meagre contents.

She left the whole estate and all her worldly possessions to her granddaughter, Maeve.

Pulling Maeve closer, my voice is an octave higher than normal. “The house is yours. The jewellery too.” Excitedly, I point to the document, my tone taking Maeve’s attention away from the shimmering jewels. “Siobhan never had rights over any of this.”

“Give that to me!” a deranged voice screams.

Seeing it’s Siobhan standing in the doorway holding a gun, I spin, putting Maeve behind me. I notice her aunt’s hand is shaking and unsteady, never a good sign with what I have to assume is a loaded weapon.

She advances a pace, and I step back, taking Maeve along with me, wishing like hell I’d come armed. But I’d been prepared to meet with ghosts, spirits and ghouls, not a flesh-and-blood enemy. I wonder why I was so worried earlier, when it’s now that I’m facing the real danger.

“Give me the emeralds and that will,” she snarls, still holding the gun in both her hands. “Throw them to me. They’re rightfully mine.”

“Not what this says,” Maeve says from my rear, her hand reaching around me to point to the new will.

“Pah.” Siobhan snorts. “Emerald said she’d changed her will when she believed the pack of lies Sian told her.

She luckily died before she could file it.

I’ve wasted all this time trying to find the updated version, then decided it was better to demolish the house so the will would be destroyed.

” She takes another step forward, madness blaring from her eyes.

“I tried to burn the house down, but the fire wouldn’t catch.

I tried to get contractors to knock it down, but none wanted the job after they made an inspection.

I’ve waited for far too long to get what I’m owed, so give me that will now, along with the jewels!

” Her voice has risen so high, she’s screeching.

“I don’t give a damn if I have to kill you to get them, and I’ll take that damn paper as well. ”

Suddenly, I feel a chill seeping through my bones, and I shiver as though I’ve been shoved into a refrigerator.

Maeve wraps her arms around me, probably in an effort to keep us both warm.

A wind blows in even though the windows are closed, and dust swirls up, spinning in ever-quickening circles until it forms an almost solid wall between us and her.

Suspecting it’s not enough to stop bullets, I don’t lower my guard.

The dust packs together so tightly it forms a figure. Then colours appear, the dress covered in peacock feathers, the body of Emerald taking form just after.

“No!” Siobhan shouts. Wryly, I focus on the gun in her hand, especially seeing her finger tighten on the trigger. “You’re not real.” I take her distraction to move Maeve further back out of her sight.

Then another figure appears beside Emerald. It’s Bertie, and fuck me, he actually turns and gives me a wink. In a low voice, he addresses me. “Knew you’d been paying attention when you saw us. Knew you’d know where to look.”

Christ! It seems ghosts have a sense of humour as it dawns on me their erotic show had been to imprint this room on my mind so I would know where to find the jewels when I came back.

The Emerald I’d seen before had been absolutely gorgeous, a beautiful face and a figure that would leave no one in any doubt why Bertie had had to have her.

Now she starts to contort, the peacock feathers turning black, and a red aura surrounding her features.

After his words to me, Bertie, too, begins to change, his form transforming into a huge, threatening monster.

“You disappointed me,” Emerald roars, rising a foot off the ground as she does. “You lied and betrayed the Sullivan name.”

“You tell her, Mother.” I think we all jolt as Sian arrives at the door. Siobhan swings around, and while distracted, Bertie's ethereal arm elongates and removes the gun from her hand. That it drops by my feet is probably a coincidence, but I waste no time taking it into my possession.

“You robbed my daughter, sent her out on her own in the world when she was barely more than a child.” Sian now appears beside her mother.

What the fuck is it with this family, as honest to God, she looks at me, and just like her father, she closes and quickly reopens one eye.

Her image flickers, then appears much younger, and hell, she’s the spitting image of her daughter.

That’s not the only change. The room has once again transformed back to its former glory.

Just as I’m wondering how this is going to play out, Bertie’s black shadow finger rises up, pointing at Siobhan. “Did you never wonder why you couldn’t destroy this house? It was because of the true legacy that was within it. The real inheritance you tried to rob from my granddaughter.”

Siobhan actually spits at him, then gives a demented laugh. “This house, despite your efforts to keep it standing, is falling apart around us. She has no fucking inheritance left.”

Emerald cackles and backs up her husband.

“The house was never worth anything more than what it meant to us. It only stayed standing to protect the treasure held within. It’s the emeralds that have the real value.

As you well know. You’ve spent your life trying to get a hold of them one way or another.

Do you really think I missed you sneaking around, prying into the drawers and closets all under the pretence you were looking out for me? ”

“They’re mine. I deserve them.” Siobhan’s not backing down. She tries to charge through the ethereal figures in front of her, only to find they form a solid barrier.

“You’re going to hell for all the lies you told.

” Bertie and Emerald stand arm in arm, now less human than demon as they stare at their errant daughter.

Fire seems to burst from their eyes like laser beams. Expecting the worst, I turn my body and pull Maeve in hard against me, burying her face against my chest while keeping my eyes locked in her aunt’s direction.

Light flares, Siobhan screams, and a blue flame seems to consume her.

She dances a death dance, her voice growing ever more shrill as the fire grows fiercer, then drops to the floor.

Smouldering ashes are all that remain, and after a minute, as I watch dumbfounded, even those disappear, leaving not a mark on the floor.