Snowbound With Ghost

by Ani Gonzalez

  But that meant he still had one tiny little detail to take care of.

  He turned to Ariel. Caine's second-in-command had left with the rest of the group, and she was left arguing with the PRoVE CEO.

  She wasn't having much success.

  Caine, however, seemed to be enjoying himself.

  "I don't care about your stupid hunt," Ariel huffed. "This is private property."

  "Lady," the biker said, eyes twinkling with amusement. "I've been following this critter all night. I'm not about to give up now. And you can't kick me out of this land. It doesn't belong to you."

  "It belongs to my fiancé," Ariel screeched.

  Caine raised a brow and turned to Sebastian, a "I knew you were stupid, but I didn't know you were this stupid" expression on his face.

  Great, it had taken him two years to figure out that Ariel was using him to promote her career, and his friend figured out in mere seconds. Then again, Caine's business was exposing frauds and debunking myths. He wouldn't be fooled by a pretty face, not even Ariel's.

  Sebastian shook his head, and Caine seemed relieved.

  "Excellent," he said. "That means it's critter hunting time." He scanned the area. "I know that was you on the radio, Franco. You may have fooled the radio guys, but you can't fool me. A three-toed print? You guys saw something and it wasn't anywhere near town. It has to be around her somewhere."

  Ariel's fists clenched and she glared at them. Well, glared at Sebastian. She didn't really care about Caine or his monster hunt. She cared about her little charade.

  "We're not engaged anymore, Ariel," he said firmly.

  Her jaw tightened. The photographer noticed the tension in the air and raised his camera again.

  "You don't mean that," she said, her eyes wide with genuine fear. But the fear wasn't for her broken engagement. No, it was for her career.

  "I don't know, mate," the photographer, said, smirking. "You guys seemed pretty close a couple of minutes ago."

  Sebastian fought the urge to land a punch on the paparazzo's jaw. He controlled himself, but barely. He had to defuse the situation. Lily already hated all things Hollywood. A huge scandal could jeopardize his entire future with her. Beating up a tabloid photographer was not the way to go.

  Unfortunately, Ariel wasn't going to be cooperative.

  "Don't do this, Sebastian," she pleaded. "Think of everything we've built. Our lives, our careers. You can't just throw it all away."

  Her arm swept out enticingly and Sebastian couldn't help but notice that she'd carefully positioned herself so that the camera would capture her best angle. The photographer leaned forward to capture the shot.

  That was Ariel, everything thought out in advance, planned to the last detail. She was no dumb Hollywood blonde, she knew how to execute.

  Caine looked on admiringly. The leader of the paranormies was no stranger to theatrics, and he knew talent when he saw it.

  Ariel's gaze was firm, her spine straight, and Sebastian knew that expression well. Ariel would not budge until she got what she wanted.

  He clenched his teeth. He really didn't want to have this conversation in front of the press, but he had no choice.

  "I have a life, Ariel. I have a career. And I had them both before I met you."

  He kept his face expressionless, knowing the photographer was waiting to take a killer shot.

  But Ariel did not see the need for self-control. She grimaced, her eyes flashing.

  "Yes, you did," she hissed. "You had everything. People were offering you prime roles and you were turning them down to film Spanish Civil War ghosts in Barcelona."

  "Hey," Caine interjected. "That movie was awesome."

  "Yeah," Ariel scoffed. "I hear it was a box office hit in Hungary."

  Sebastian smiled.

  "I like Hungary," he said, wondering if Lily would be interested in a trip to Budapest. The way this trip was going, he was going to need a vacation to recover from his Christmas break.

  Ariel's cheeks reddened and her eyes filled with tears. These, he noted with rising alarm, were real crying. Shit, he hated it when Ariel cried.

  "You never understood," she sobbed. "There's maybe three guys who can do what you do. Do you know how many tall, skinny blondes there are in Hollywood?"

  Sebastian didn't dare answer. He sympathized with her, he truly did, but Ariel knew as well as he did the price of working in Hollywood.

  "Thousands," Ariel screamed.

  "I would think tens of thousands," Caine chimed in.

  Ariel glared at him.

  "You're not helping," Sebastian told him and Caine shrugged.

  Ariel sniffed and wiped her tears away.

  "Well, it doesn't matter anyway," she said, glancing at the photographer. "I have a picture of the kiss and that's all I need to prove our reconciliation."

  The paparazzo recognized his cue, aimed his camera and started clicking.

  "You can't be serious," Sebastian said, raising a hand to block the annoying flash. But he was pretty sure that she was, indeed, very, very serious. How many times had he seen Ariel plant a story in the tabloids, then pretend to be appalled by the intrusion?

  Too many to count.

  "You can always have your publicist deny the story," she sneered. "But that would be below you, wouldn't it? You've always refused to use the tabs."

  Her voice was thick with bitterness, and Sebastian felt a twinge of sympathy. The truth was, he'd never needed to use the tabloids. Not the way Ariel needed them.

  But he had to stop those pictures. He didn't want Lily subjected to a barrage of magazine covers featuring that kiss.

  He glanced at Caine, trying to catch his eye. The photographer was still bouncing around, taking pictures. If they rushed him, they could grab the camera and erase the memory.

  But his friend wasn't paying attention to the drama around him. He was staring at the tree, his mouth open in shock.

  "No freaking way," Caine shouted.

  Sebastian heard a sharp, snapping sound. A branch breaking? As he turned and felt something slam onto his back. Something heavy, wet and cold.

  And clawed. Definitely clawed.

  A tree branch crashed on the ground next to him and Ariel screamed.

  He turned to her. She was covered in snow, but her scream had more to do with anger than with distress.

  "There it is," Caine shouted. "Shit."

  He pointed to a snow-covered ball of...fur? It jumped over a snowbank and ran, or maybe rolled, into the woods. They stared, immobilized, at the pile of snow.

  The eldritch screech of a barn owl pierced the stillness. The snowbank moved and Ariel screamed again.

  The snowbank shook the powder off. It was the photographer and he appeared none too happy. He got up on hands and knees and looked around, trying to orient himself.

  Ariel stopped screaming.

  "Did you see it?" Caine asked, staring at the forest. His question was half longing, half heartbreak.

  "I don't...know," Sebastian said carefully. "It could have been a wounded bird or something."

  He kept an eye on the photographer, who was crawling around, squinting at the snow.

  "It was a bear," Ariel said, voice trembling. "It could have killed us."

  "Don't be crazy, girl," Caine said. "Bears don't climb trees."

  "Then it was a squirrel," she said brushing snow off her hair. "A giant, rabid flying squirrel."

  Caine glanced at her, eyes narrowed.

  "Have you always been this daft?" he asked. "Or did the branch hit you on the head?"

  Ariel lunged at him. Sebastian stepped forward and intercepted her strike. The last thing he wanted was a brawl caught on film. He grabbed Ariel's arms, holding tight.

  "Let me at him," Ariel gasped, struggling in his grasp.

  Caine turned toward her, a concerned look in his face.

  "I think she really did hit her head, Bastian," he said. "We should take her to urgent care."

  Sebastian seriously c
onsidered letting go of Ariel so Caine could find out exactly what kind of damage a West Hollywood manicure could do to a man's face. But he held on. He couldn't let her rip into Caine, at least not in front of witnesses. He could imagine the headlines tomorrow: "Screen Siren Ariel Henderson Mauls Semi-Innocent Bystander."

  Unconcerned, Caine walked away, his head bent down. He paused and pointed at the ground excitedly.

  "Three-toed print," he said, taking out his cell-phone. "That wasn't an obese flying squirrel. I have to call the gang."

  But an anguished scream stopped him.

  They all turned toward the photographer. He stared at the ground, stricken. His eyes were wide with distress and his goateed chin trembled.

  "My camera," he sobbed. "That...thing took my camera."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "I WEAR the chain I forged in life! I made it link by link and yard by yard! I gartered it on of my free will and by my own free will, I wore it."

  Vincent Price's deep voice carried over the speakers and Lily winced as a loud cheer erupted from the attendees. WPRV's annual broadcasts of the 1949 Christmas Carol special was not, strictly speaking, interactive, but the fans let their feelings be known anyway. And Jacob Marley's first ghostly appearance was particularly popular.

  And her companion screamed the loudest. Cassie, the girl with the teal nail polish, turned out to be a social anthropology professor at UVA and she was teaching a class on, of all things, the Banshee Creek paranormal scene.

  Which was why she'd dragged Lily to the PRoVE Ghosts of Christmas party instead of taking her home after their wild ride from Sebastian's cabin. Which, in turn, explained why Lily was not holed up in her house, eating brownies and crying her heart out over Sebastian. Instead, she was wandering around the rambling Second Empire building that housed the paranormies, drinking Chupacabras Christmas Punch and listening to WPRV's live broadcast of Charles Dickens' masterpiece.

  Well, trying to listen to the broadcast. Lily's enjoyment of Christmas-themed Victoriana was hampered by Cassie's impromptu lecture on how Michel Foucault's theory of discourse applied to alternative societies.

  Well, it was better than crying over eggnog ice cream, right?

  "It's a self-enclosed parallel community," Cassie explained. "With its own social structures and status symbols."

  She pointed to a life-size Cthulhu doll attired in a Santa Claus suit, which didn't exactly fit in with the ornate wallpaper and intricate moldings on the wall. The house had been meticulously restored, in accordance with the Historical Restoration Committee Regulations, and every detail was painfully accurate. Well, except for the mounted jackalope with the red nose and the "Merry Christmas" sign around its neck.

  "Sure," Lily said, giving the decoration a skeptical look. "The tentacles are very, um, realistic."

  She personally didn't think that a Yule-clad Old One constituted a status symbol, but she kept that to herself.

  "It's appropriating a mainstream symbol and imposing an alternative meaning." Cassie fingered a stray tentacle as she gulped down her fifth cup of punch.

  Lily was starting to get concerned. The Chupacabras Christmas Punch seemed to be mostly 151 proof rum with barely enough sweetened cranberry juice to give it a festive red tinge.

  The result? Cassie was getting seriously sloshed.

  "And you get paid for this?" Lily asked.

  A tentacled elf swept by with a tray of red cups. Lily hesitated, but finally gave up her now-empty cup and reached for another. If you can't fight them, join them.

  Anyway, this was only her second cup of punch. Or was it her third?

  "Paid?" Cassie exclaimed, spilling punch on her Scooby-Doo t-shirt. "Are you kidding? Academia doesn't believe in money. But I did get a paper published and in a peer-reviewed journal, no less."

  Her brown eyes grew dreamy.

  "I might even get," she paused dramatically.

  Lily smiled, trying to pretend that she understood what her new friend was talking about.

  "Tenure," Cassie hissed.

  Lily gulped down the punch. If ever a situation called for copious amounts of alcohol, it was this one. She'd been stalked by a supernatural creature—well, somewhat supernatural, although it was probably a mangy raccoon—and scared out of her mind. She'd found the love of her life and lost him, again, all in less than forty-eight hours, and, finally, she'd been shanghaied by an itinerant band of monster hunters.

  All in all, an exceedingly wild, weird, and wrenching experience.

  No amount of punch, even the mighty Chupacabras Christmas Punch, could make it worse.

  "At least I will once I return from Peru," Cassie continued.

  "Well, congratulations," Lily said. Maybe Cassie could drop her off at home on her way to Peru. She was ready for some quality time with large quantities of chocolate.

  "So," Cassie gulped more punch. "Are you ready to go?"

  Lily choked on her drink. Cassie leaned over her, a concerned expression on her face, and slapped her back energetically.

  "Peru?" Lily said, between coughs.

  She wasn't planning to go to Peru. She was planning to go home. But her car was still at the lake, which meant that home was as unreachable as South America right now.

  Cassie frowned.

  "Aren't you coming with us? I thought that's why we had to drive up and get you. The prop person got knocked up and we desperately need someone to finish the alien relics."

  "Alien relics?" Lily was getting the feeling that she'd drunk way too much punch.

  Cassie beamed.

  "Yes," she breathed. "They're doing Alien Founders of Macchu Picchu or maybe it's Alien Gods of the Incas. I'm not sure." She grinned. "I'm so thrilled. This is real, honest to goodness modern myth making."

  Cassie's excitement was contagious and Lily found herself smiling even though she had no idea what they were talking about.

  "We'll be staying in a Quechua village while we make the documentary. Can you imagine?" She grabbed Lily's arm. "We'll be covering the pishtaco legends and..."

  "The what?" Yep, way too much punch. "The fish taco legends?"

  "Pishtaco," Cassie corrected, with only the tiniest hint of a slur. "It's a type of vampire, but it consumes fat instead of blood."

  "Oh." Lily drank some more punch and considered her upcoming brownie debauchery. "I could use one of those."

  Her cup was now empty. A kind young man with reptile contact lenses and reindeer antlers handed her another one.

  "It's not a joke, Lily," Cassie said giving her a sharp glance. "It's a cultural response to colonial trauma and persecution."

  "Oh, right." She drank more punch. "Sorry."

  "That's how humans deal with what they don't understand." Cassie swirled the punch in her cup. "It used to be natural disasters and diseases, but now it's cultural clashes and power imbalances."

  Lily perused the room, admiring PRoVE's collection of paranormal rarities. There were weird skulls, hazy black and white photographs, and sepia-toned newspaper articles. There was a small shrine dedicated to Arthur Conan Doyle's spiritualist investigations. In addition to the Lovecraftian Santa Claus, there was a replica of the Nautilus decked out in Christmas lights.

  "Does Caine know you're studying his organization?"

  Cassie smiled sheepishly and took a sip of punch.

  "No," she drawled. "Not really. He thinks I'm studying the local legends." She glanced at the giant map on the wall. "And I am, sort of."

  "He'll blow a gasket if he finds out."

  "He won't. It's a great apporsh... opporsh..." Cassie shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "O-ppor-tooonity."

  She smiled, pleased at having found the correct word through the punch-induced fog.

  "But," Cassie held up a finger then paused to squint at it, as if trying to identify the appendage. She nodded, satisfied, and continued, "I can't do it without the skulls."

  "Right," Lily said, even though she had no idea what the skulls had to do wit
h anything.

  Cassie shook her head.

  "No. You don't understand. The skulls are essential. No one will fund a trip to Peru to research contemporary folklore as a response to cultural appropriation." Cassie dug her finger into Lily's collarbone. "But you know what people will pay for?" Another dig.

  Lily winced. Cassie's colorful manicure hid razor sharp nails.

  "Extraterrestrial Phrenology," Cassie exclaimed.

  Lily stared, completely lost.

  "Alien crystal skulls," Cassie explained. "Well, they don't have to be crystal. They can be anything. As long as they are impressive."

  Lily blinked. She truly didn't know what to say.

  "We need them for the movie. People won't pay for An Anthropological Inquiry Into Cultural Trauma as Evidence by Narrative Folklore, but they'll shell out serious money for Alien Splendors of the Inca Empire."

  "Founders," Lily corrected. "I think it was Founders."

  "What?" Cassie tried to lean toward Lily, but she stumbled. Lily caught her arm and steadied her.

  "Or maybe Gods." Lily's head swam and she could swear that Santa Cthulhu's tentacles were moving. Wow. This was seriously strong punch.

  "Whatever." Cassie brushed away Lily's petty concerns with a wave of a blue-nailed hand. "The important thing is that I need the skulls."

  "Of course you do," Lily agreed. It made perfect sense now. Of course, Cassie needed her skulls. She inspected her cup. The punch was all gone. This made her sad.

  Not to mention thirsty.

  "So will you help us out?" Cassie pleaded.

  "Sure," Lily said quickly, searching for the punch guy.

  Wait. What was she helping out with? Crystal skulls?

  "You're out of punch," Cassie said. She stared into her cup, a glum expression on her face. "And so am I." She raised her arm "Hey, Rudolph. Do you have more..."

  Her voice trailed off.

  "What?" Lily peered into the crowd. What was Cassie looking at?

  "Is that who I think it is?" Cassie whispered.