“What kind of carpet are you putting in—“
She cut me off with a hand. “Carpet? No carpet! No one likes carpet anymore.”
“I have carpet in my place. It’s nice in the winter.”
“But not in your living room.”
“Yeah, there too,” I said.
She made a face so appalled and contorted it could belong on one of those Japanese masks. “Dear god, man, don’t let them hear you!”
“Where do you live when you’re not doing this?” I asked, once she had finished up a conversation with a store employee about quantity.
I swear her pupils practically dilated like a surprised cat. “Um…I’m usually on the road.”
“Just wondering where home base is.”
“I’ve been trying to decide if you live in a McMansion or a condo where the fees are higher than your mortgage but you picked it for the gym.”
“Well, you noticed,” I said. “So I suppose it was worth the fee.”
“No, no…” She jerked away from me.
“You’re right,” I said. “I have a condo, and it’s just a place to lay my head mostly. It’s messy too. I work too hard, and I suspect you do the same.”
“Yeah.”
I could tell that she missed having a home. It was just right there in her eyes. She said she had a big family. I didn’t know what that was like. She spent all her time making homes for other people, and I had a feeling that she didn’t have any end game in mind. It was just work, work, work all the time.
It couldn’t be comfortable sleeping in a truck.
Meanwhile, my campaign manager Sandra kept texting me, and she was rightfully pissed that I had skipped a campaign event with no good explanation. Of all of my team, Sandra was the one you really didn’t want to annoy. She was a self-described “broad” born and raised in Philly who seemed to be thirty-seven going on seventy, in the sense that she would berate me lovingly and loudly like a mom, and also, that she was a millennial named Sandra.
I felt like I was standing on a precipice. This was my year. My district was hotly contested, but our internal polling was looking good, and by next January I might be walking through the halls in Washington DC on the national stage. From there, who knew? I was young. Senator, governor…
Is it true, what she implied? All my ambitions actually come from a drive to gain magical power?
But as much as I was running toward, I’d also been running away. I’d always known there was something weird about my family, stuff I just wasn’t told and didn’t care to find out. I knew Grandpa had other children, and when he married my grandmother, those kids went to live with their grandparents and they never saw him again. My grandmother had died under some mysterious circumstances. There was Dad’s suicide, with no explanation. And after my parents separated, my mom tried to keep me from seeing my grandfather. She remarried when I was sixteen and while I was in college, she moved to Costa Rica.
My whole family seemed to be running from something.
And whatever it was…
When I went through the house before the auction, I could hardly even cope with
Grandpa’s stuff. I only took a few things. But those books were what hit me. I had the weirdest feeling when I looked them over, although I couldn’t read a word in them.
I should run away from all of this. It was going to ruin me, everything I’d built and worked for. Wizards? Come the fuck on.
I couldn’t deny that this was the best day I’d had in a long time. The time I spent with Helena felt real, and she was stunningly beautiful, but in a way that felt real too. There was no pretension about her, no fuss. She didn’t need me, but I hoped she was having as much fun as I was.
I helped Helena load up her truck bed with boxes upon boxes of tile.
“I’m glad you were here,” she said, slapping dust off her hands. “That makes the job go so much faster. So are you coming back with me?”
“I can’t. I have to get to a meeting tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Her smile was lopsided. “Well, I’m sorry I dragged you shopping, but it had to be done.”
“I’ll come see the house—well, not this weekend, but next weekend.”
“You definitely won’t be able to afford it by then,” she said. “Unless you want to sell your condo.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m making it gorgeous,” she said.
She drove me back to my car, after a coffee break. She told me all her plans for the house. I was glad she didn’t try to talk about ‘magic’ anymore. I wasn’t sure if I could handle too much at once. It had to be real. It made too much sense. It was almost like I’d known all along, in hindsight. But it was also a lot to process. Right now I just wanted to listen to her voice, getting quite loud with enthusiasm as she went on about the new bathroom and what great shape the roof was in and so on.
Before I knew it, we were back at the BMW.
“Well, see ya. Thanks again.” She pointed her eyes forward, and pulled away as soon as I shut the door. She wasn’t going to give a hint that she would rather have company, but I could tell, and for the first time in a long time, I cursed all the obligations I’d gotten involved in when I could have stopped off for a bottle of wine and…well, some takeout diner food. I had no idea how to use my grandfather’s stove.
Anyway, I guess she has company, I remembered. She has a ghost.
Well, as long as it isn’t my grandfather’s ghost, I guess it’s all right. A ghost is no competition.
It was a long drive home. I had time to let some things sink in.
Wizards. Magic. Bats. She claimed that I stopped her truck with my mind.
One part of my brain kept trying to explain it away, but it was quickly getting shoved aside by the reality of what I’d seen, and all the strange things in my family history.
The fact that I had not called Sandra back and skipped a fundraiser was going to cause a small apocalypse in my office tomorrow. I just couldn’t focus on any of that right now. The real world…didn’t seem quite as real.
There wasn’t anyone I could talk to about this. I had no one. My mother had pretty much checked out of my life years ago. And she didn’t know anything. This was on dad’s side. I knew my grandfather had another family, my dad’s half-brothers, but they had every reason to resent my dad, and besides that, a few half-hearted attempts to find information about them had gone nowhere. If they were wizards or whatever—I still had to shake my head thinking about it—then it made sense. They might live as off-grid as Grandpa.
So I had three names. The rest of the Sons of Pandora.
One of them was already dead, for sure. Byron. He was an extremely charismatic librarian. What library, I had no idea. He died around the time I was born so I had no memory of him.
Last I knew, Sam and Deveraux were still alive. But it wasn’t like I ever asked Grandpa about them. And they’d also be past a hundred years old. What were the chances?
Sam was a lawyer from California, or so I understood, but he was an incredibly handsome, Brat Pack-charming sort of guy, which was one more reason I thought maybe my grandfather was in the mob. I assumed he was like Tom Hagen, the lawyer in the Godfather movies.
Deveraux. Deveraux Greenwood. That was definitely a warlock name if I ever heard one. He was a southern gentlemanly type, impeccably dressed, a nice guy but borderline alcoholic. Once a year for many years he made a pot of gumbo.
I only met them a few times as a kid. They were my grandfather’s best friends, but all I knew was that my dad hated them. Apparently they saw more of Grandpa than my dad did. Even though they lived in different parts of the country, they were always visiting, or my grandfather would visit them and be gone for a while.
It did always seem weird that Grandpa was so close to these three. I had always guessed they met in the military, if my mob theory wasn’t true.
Now I had no idea. What the hell were those guys doing?
I got home late, beating a nighttime st
orm to walk into a cold, dark apartment. Times like this I wished I knew how to take care of a pet, but I always felt like I didn’t have time. I ended up staying awake through the night digging through old files trying to find information. I might as well have gone back to Lockwood House if I was going to waste a night like that. I would have had Helena, and the flickering candles of the old house. Plus that bottle of wine I would have brought.
In the morning, I tried to call a phone number I found for Deveraux.
“Oh, cher, Deveraux’s gone,” a sweet older woman’s voice said on the other line. I guessed she was a maid or nurse just because Deveraux was so old.
“When will he be back?”
“I mean, he’s gone. He’s passed. Just last night.”
“He died last night?” That was so strange. Or maybe it was just strange that he was alive in the first place.
“In his sleep, very peaceful. He’s one hundred and six this October, so God bless him, but he’s ready to move on. I’m sorry. The funeral’s on Sunday.”
“Does he have any heirs? Maybe I could speak to them. I’m the grandson of one of his friends, so I—”
“He has a daughter but she’s living in Paris. I just don’t know what they’re gonna do with this house. It’s a shame. This house has been in the family since I don’t know when, but it’s haunted and it’s just falling to pieces now.”
“Can you give me her number? Or vice versa? I would love to buy that house.”
The words came out of my mouth before I had given it two seconds of thought.
Chapter Eighteen
Helena
I got back to the house and unloaded box after box of tile, half upstairs and half downstairs, until my muscles were screaming. Curses that the new tub wasn’t installed yet. A cup of chamomile tea would have to do. I lit the candles on the dining room table and collapsed into the chair, watching candlelight play on the pink wallpaper with the beautifully painted flora and fauna.
“Angel…” I heard Byron’s disembodied voice melt through my ears. “I hope you will sleep well tonight. The anticipation…is killing me.”
I wanted to tell him to stop calling me cheesy names, but…man, he sold it hard.
I had almost forgotten about the dream sex as I was dragging all those boxes around. Now I remembered. Big time.
I felt a little ridiculous for getting myself in this situation, but didn’t I deserve a little fun once in a while? You can’t have all work and no play. I would finally find out what it was like to be with a man whose dick was as impressive as my dildo. I mean, except for the fact that presumably, Byron didn’t vibrate in ten different patterns.
He appeared in front of me, taking the form of a human for the first time. I mean, sort of human. Freakishly sexy, and still actively smoldering, with eyes I could hardly tear away from and tousled black hair that I wanted to tousle some more. But, no demon bits. I assume this was because his wings wouldn’t fit in the chair. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said.
“Oh, you wish.” I smiled gently at the glinting eyes across the flickering flame. The soft light played across his handsome face but made him look older and more ghostly, in a dignified way. In the dreams he seemed as alive as I was. I thought it must be very sad to be caught between living and dying. But until recently he had been keeping his old friend company.
Now he was my problem. My very appealing problem, but a problem nonetheless. I couldn’t keep this house. I wondered if there was a way to transfer ghosts.
Yes, I’m sure Byron wants to haunt your pickup truck.
I had to admit I wanted more than sex. I wished he could sleep beside me. Hold me, maybe. Strong arms folding around me in the darkness.
“You’ve had a hard time sleeping here, haven’t you?” Byron said.
“Ehh.” I hated to admit insomnia or suggest I might be afraid to sleep in big old houses.
“Should I keep watch? When I was a child, I used to feel better when my father read me stories. I could read to you.”
“I’m not a little kid.”
He vanished, and came back very shortly with one of the battered old paperbacks. “One morning, James Bond was called into the office of his boss, M, head of the British Secret Service,” he said, pitching his voice into an even more seductive and soothingly low tone. He glanced at me.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I guess you can read me a bedtime story, although I know you’re not just being nice. You want me in your dream bed.”
“Who said anything about a bed?” he replied, crossing his arms on the table, his skin even more warm and golden by candlelight.
I finished my tea and settled onto my air mattress. It was heavenly to shut my eyes and drift off to the sound of that sexy voice wrapping around me like a blanket. The only tragedy was that sleep came all too fast and heavily, but he would be waiting for me there…
I was jarred away by the sound of the flash and crack of a spell.
Shooting out of bed, I fumbled for my wand under the pillow. As I came awake I realized I could definitely hear footsteps going up the stairs.
“Byron?” I asked nervously.
I sensed the presence of some thick spell cloud, invisible to the naked eye but pricking at my witches’ intuition.
“Dévolier…” I was barely whispering the spell to unveil the fabric of the spell to me. A flimsy ward spell flashed across my eyes, like a spiderweb draped over the rooms. Someone had cast this spell so that ghosts couldn’t get in. It wouldn’t last long, but it meant I was on my own with an intruder. Byron had been pushed out of the house. This was intentional.
Oh shit. Who could this be? And I’m all alone out here. My heart was jackhammering now, and I also had to pee because I sucked down that tea before bed.
I slid a chisel and the hammer from my tool belt and stuck them in the deep pockets of my pajama pants while keeping my wand at the ready. The intruder had reached the second floor. I could hear their footsteps moving through the rooms and the creak of old doors as they peered in one room and then the next.
Were they looking for the Thing?
I started creeping up the stairs. I was halfway up before I questioned the wisdom of what I was doing. Maybe I should just let them have it.
It was hard to judge without knowing what the mystery object was. If it was a Pandora’s Box, so to speak, maybe I was supposed to keep it from being opened. Or maybe it would save me a lot of trouble if I never had to worry about it again.
But the idea of anyone stealing something out of my house right from under my nose was too infuriating to let stand.
I was moving very slowly to keep from making noise, and I could hear the person moving around, hesitating. They were probably casting a searching spell. They didn’t know where to find the Thing, so at least I had this much time.
Then, I heard the sound of the heavy floorboard being dragged up out of its slot.
I reached the landing and held my wand out into the bedroom. “Put it down, motherfucker!” I shouted in my best low, intimidating voice.
Suddenly I heard them move more quickly. They were moving to the window.
“You aren’t escaping with my shit!” I dashed forward and shot a bolt of energy at the intruder, but I pumped it up with some illusion that made a sound like a very loud sizzle and looked like their clothes had melted and their skin was burned.
Witches aren’t taught very powerful attacks, so I had to improvise a little and use some placebo affect. If a spell sounded loud and a wound looked nasty, most people freaked out before they even noticed they weren’t actually in pain.
The intruder was a tall, muscular man dressed in head to toe black with a sock hat and a mask like a ninja. The sandy hair poking out of the cap was my only clue as to who it could be—so it wasn’t Graham, Jake, or Jasper. They all had darker hair.
He was trying to push open the old window, but it was stuck, and as long as he was holding the bundle, he only had one free hand. He banged on the frame with his pa
lm to try and loosen it. No luck. He tried to shoot a few deterrent zaps at me but I threw up a defense. It was a feeble defense but I hoped he didn’t try too hard to breach it. He couldn’t focus on escaping out of a two hundred year old window and fighting me at the same time.
I blasted him again, socking him in the stomach. That one had more real power. I was gathering my focus.
“Put. It. Down. Then get out of my house,” I said. “I’m not playing around. I’ll burn your damn balls off.”
“Sleep!” he said.
“Dissiper!” I countered. The spell scattered without hitting me full on, but I was already sleepy, so I started feeling some brain fog.
“Sleep!” he said again, seizing on my weakness.
“Forget all you know of this house!” I countered again, suppressing a yawn, but I fought it off and pulled out the chisel, rushing up to him and pressing both chisel and wand to his windpipe, with enough force that he would feel it.
“One move out of you and I jam this into your throat!” I growled.
“You’re good at attacks for a witch!” he said. Oh, how nice of the home invader to give me a backhanded compliment.
I’d be fucking awesome if they actually taught girls to fight.
I thought I recognized this guy but I couldn’t place him. High school? Annual wizard gatherings?
His arms started to move and I jabbed him. He made a surprised choking noise.
“I’m dead serious,” I assured him. “I’ll draw blood and then some. I’ll eviscerate you.”
“I surrender,” he said in a relatively good-natured tone. “Wow, Helena, I’ll never mess you with again.”
Now I placed him.
It was Caleb. Stupid puppy dog Caleb. And I had actually scratched his throat with the edge of my chisel. I took a step back and he rubbed his throat.
“You were trying to rob my house!?” I shouted. “Get the fuck out of here!”
“Let me explain—“
“I don’t want to hear it! There is no explanation that would make any sense!”
“I thought we were friends,” he said, in his aw-shucks voice. “You think I’d try to hurt you or rob your house? I was trying to keep you out of harm’s way.”
Demons in the Bedroom (Paranormal House Flippers Book 1) Page 10
