by Emma Holly
Alex shifted on the covers, a frown he wasn't sure what to make of pulling at his lips. He debated getting under the sheets. The room was cool, now that they weren't so busy trying to suck all its air into their desperate lungs. The atmosphere felt thick against the sweat drying on his skin. It reminded him of something he couldn't put his finger on.
Oscar Pruitt, he thought, right before he made paper fly.
His eyes snapped open in time to see the bucket-size boulder hovering above their heads.
"Rock!" he yelled, which wasn't the most informative thing he could have said, but at least he had the presence of mind to grab Bryan's shoulders and roll him with him off the bed.
"Whuf?" Bryan grunted as they crashed to the floor.
The boulder fell with an impressive thump.
It was followed by a hailstorm of fist-sized rocks.
"Hey!" said Bryan. "Who punched a hole in the roof?"
Alex yanked him, still half asleep, into the lee of a tall bureau. "It's not the roof. I think it's a poltergeist."
"I thought you said this room had a ghost."
"Yeah, well, ghosts don't throw rocks."
The rocks weren't just being thrown; they were materializing out of thin air.
"Sheesh," said Bryan as one missile chipped a splinter off their impromptu shelter's door. He wasn't panicking, but his body was all cold sweat, his pulse racing inside his elbow where Alex's hand had clamped onto him. "Maybe we should say a prayer or something."
"Be my guest. I'm going to turn on the light."
The switch shot sparks when he dashed to it and flipped it on, but the overhead fixture worked. As if confused by the burst of illumination, the rocks stopped falling and just hung.
Bryan goggled at their motionless state, forgetting his prayer in awe. "No wonder people only stay one night."
"I don't think this is usual." Not taking any chances, Alex crouched beside Bryan again. Still the rocks hung in the air. Alex was panting with adrenaline, but not quite ready to flee. This was a mystery, and solving them was their job. He cocked his head at a strange, low sound. It was almost too deep to hear, like a whale calling to its brethren beneath the sea.
Assuming, of course, that a whale could sound evil enough to make skin crawl.
"Do you hear that?" Bryan said, suddenly twice as breathless as before.
"I hear it," Alex answered grimly, "and I think it's time we got out of here."
The rocks resumed their pelting mere seconds after they did.
Zoe couldn't immediately identify who was on the phone. She was still fuming at Magnus and his idiotic blather about her offer to sleep with him being a "gift." If she wasn't sexy enough for him to go all the way with, he should just come out and say it. Being nice didn't make things better, it made them worse. It encouraged her to keep hoping. She could have kicked herself for thinking she could seduce him, and could have kicked herself even harder for letting that blessed kitten interrupt.
He'd brought her to the edge so fast it was shocking, as if his fingers had powers her favorite vibrator lacked. If she'd just let him continue what he'd been doing for ten more seconds, she could have had her first non-self-induced orgasm in the last two years. That, at least, would have been slightly less pitiful to share with Teresa—or not share, if she'd decided to be a lady about the thing. Now, whether she told Teresa the truth or not, there'd be nothing but pitifulness inside her. Stupid, maudlin, pitifulness.
"I'm sorry," she said to her caller, pressing her palm to her forehead in an attempt to get her brain to follow a single track. "I'm afraid I didn't catch what you said."
Mrs. Fairfax from the Vista Inn was on the line, her voice so frantic and high that Zoe realized her lack of concentration wasn't the only reason she hadn't understood.
Mrs. Fairfax drew a gusty breath, obviously trying to pull herself together. "You have to come to the inn," she said, her pitch now at a level beings other than dogs could hear. "There's something wrong in Room 410. I think the ghosts have gone mad."
"Gone mad how?" Zoe felt Mr. "Let's Take This Slow" move up behind her and fought an urge to cover her breasts. Somehow, talking on the phone in her kitchen with all the lights on made her nakedness seem a lot less appropriate.
"They're flinging stones at the guests!" Mrs. Fairfax cried. "And I'm not sure they're ever going to stop!"
Zoe rubbed the side of her face. She'd "read" the infamous room 410 for a local TV station doing a piece on Arizona hauntings. Four spirits were connected to it that she knew. One was a nondescript "white lady" whose origins no one could ascertain. Another was a gambler from Fairyville's heyday as a mining town. He'd been shot in his sleep by a rival card cheat. The third and fourth ghosts were abused siblings from the 1950s, who'd run from their guardians only to die of exposure in the their abandoned shell of the inn. Zoe had helped the children cross into the light, though now and then they came back to visit, perhaps just because they could.
None of the ghosts were malevolent, though the white lady and the gambler probably suffered from the spiritual equivalent of OCD. No matter how many guests ran screaming, they never tired of rattling the headboard or playing with the lights, but that was strictly ghostly footsteps phenomena, unnerving but harmless.
Most definitely none of the four had the juice it took to throw stones.
"It sounds like you've either picked up a prankster or a poltergeist," Zoe theorized to Mrs. Fairfax. "How old is that granddaughter of yours?"
Zoe wasn't sure she bought the theory that poltergeists were the products of the turmoil inside adolescent female minds—though pranks certainly could be.
"She's fourteen," said Mrs. Fairfax. "But it can't be Candice. She's with her mother now. Please come get rid of whatever it is. My guests won't think this is colorful."
"All right," Zoe said, already looking around for her purse. "I'll be there in ten minutes with the big guns."
"I'll drive you," Magnus offered after she hung up. Interest lit his handsome face, the eagerness to embrace new experiences that was as natural to him as breathing.
If he'd been anyone else, she knew she could have stayed mad at him. Hell, she was mad. She just wasn't mad enough to be mean.
"Fine," she said, "but you stay in the lobby until I'm sure it's safe."
This seemed to amuse him. "No problem… as long as you put on more than your birthday suit before we go."
* * *
Chapter Six
Zoe was certain she'd have remembered to put clothes on without Magnus's reminder. She'd remembered the kitten, after all, whom Queen Rajel was insisting was named Corky.
Naked no more, Zoe carried Corky inside, snuggling him—now sleeping—against her nose. She settled him in a cardboard box nested with an old flannel shirt and some newspaper. Raj el and her court cooed quietly over him, utterly besotted with his fuzziness. Samuel the Swift, Rajel's boy fairy, was making grand, whispered pronouncements about the hordes of mice Corky would catch.
It was just as well her fairies were occupied. They'd never been much help laying ghosts. If the spirits were stubborn, they were too likely to laugh at a fairy's order to be gone. Oh, the fairies had sufficient mojo to make them sorry; their power was not proportional to their size, but experience had taught Zoe it was better all around if a spirit decided departing was the wisest choice.
Left to her own resources, she prepared by meditating in the car. Happily, Magnus was driving and did nothing to distract her. Perhaps because she'd deliberately pushed her conflicted feelings from her mind, she was struck by what restful company he could be. Not only did he keep his mouth shut, but his aura was calm and clean, as if he'd been meditating, too.
She felt safe with him, which was odd. She hadn't known she felt unsafe before.
In hardly any time, she'd attained a deep state of receptiveness. She felt positively floaty by the time he parked across the street from the inn. No fear marred her concentration, no doubts that her skill wouldn't be enough. The an
gels she called her "big guns" were gathering already, their presence signaled by subtle changes in the atmosphere—as if the air were pressing tighter around her head. Zoe didn't see angels like she saw ghosts, but her old mentor, Catherine Sweetwell, had taught her how to tell they were there.
Calling them was the easy part. Angels came to anyone who asked. A person didn't even need to know their names for that. The challenge lay in releasing resistance to letting them work their magic on her behalf. That took faith and a little practice, but in an emergency almost anyone could do it.
"We're here," Magnus said, opening her door for her.
She was wearing sneakers, but he helped her down the step from the SUV anyway. His touch was as quiet and reassuring as his company had been. It was as if he knew exactly what she needed to be at her best—though he'd never mentioned any metaphysical leanings. Because the fairies had always avoided him, she'd assumed he had none. Then again, he'd seen her fairies tonight. Not everyone could do that on the first try.
Evidently, as she mulled this over, she spent too long staring up at him.
"What?" he asked, his smile gentle and warm. He appeared to have forgotten they were at odds, and that might have been the most disconcerting thing he'd done yet. An argument didn't seem to keep him from liking her, not even a little bit.
"Nothing," she said, shaking herself. "Thanks for driving."
He offered his elbow to lead her in, a courtly gesture she couldn't bring herself to refuse. She was grateful for the support the moment they stepped into the inn's lobby. Magnus's energy was a boulder in a pool of chaos. At least three babies were squalling, and it looked like half the inn's capacity had left their rooms to huddle on the lobby chairs. Most seemed grumpy rather than afraid, but their presence said that more than headboards had been rattled.
A spirit had to make a lot of noise to empty so many rooms.
Mrs. Fairfax circulated among the crowd, trying to put a calm face on the disruption while looking frazzled herself. She rushed to the door as soon as Zoe and Magnus came in.
"Mr. Monroe!" she exclaimed, taking his hand as fervently as if he'd been the one she called. "How good of you to bring Zoe. I swear I don't know what I'm going to do if this doesn't stop."
Zoe fought a smile. Even a hysterical, ghost-plagued woman couldn't ignore Magnus's appeal.
"Where are the guests from 410?" she asked, hoping to get a preview of what she was up against.
"They're in the fourth floor hallway, making sure no one else goes in."
Zoe's brows shot up. "That's brave of them."
"They're nice gentlemen," Mrs. Fairfax said, her forehead furrowing as if some part of her wasn't sure of this. "Very handsome and polite. I can't imagine why the ghosts, or whatever this is, would take offense at them."
"Well, I'll go see," Zoe said. "You'll take care of Magnus while I'm gone?"
"Oh, absolutely," promised Mrs. Fairfax, then blushed a little bit.
It was good to approach the coming task with a grin. Humor was a big part of the angels' nature, though some people liked to think they were serious. The more Zoe could match their joyous vibration, the easier accepting their help would be.
She took the stairs rather than the elevator, not sure what electrical devices the purported poltergeist might affect. She was breathless when she reached the fourth-floor landing, which made it all the easier to see her exhalations puffing white in the air. The floor was frigid, as if an entire ghost convention had gathered there. Zoe could hear the rain of rocks from where she'd paused to gather herself. She understood why guests had been disturbed. It would have taken quite a talent to sleep through that racket.
Room 410 was a left turn from the landing, at the end of a narrow, wainscoted hall. The two men Mrs. Fairfax had mentioned waited outside the door. One was bundled in a sheet, and the other in a fringed coverlet. Their bare feet suggested they were naked except for that.
Zoe wondered if the poltergeist had interrupted these two in the act. Even from a distance, they had the flushed and rumpled look of lovebirds. Opposites must have attracted, because one man was blond and lean, and the other dark and muscular—like a runner and a wrestler thrown together by the hand of Fate. The thought of them working out their differences between the sheets caused her tender bits to heat, despite her many excellent reasons not to be aroused by the thought of two buff males getting it on.
She pressed her temples between her thumb and fingers. It was perfectly understandable if she had sex on the brain right now, but she needed to let it go. The perversity of her personal kinks was not the issue at hand. She continued down the hall in what she hoped were confidence-inducing strides.
"It's okay," she said when the fair-haired man moved forward to intercept her. "I'm the ghost buster."
Her heart knew before her eyes did. Her sneakers slowed on the flowered carpet, her face suddenly too hot for the icy air.
"Zoe?" said the fair-haired man. "Zoe, is that you?"
His palm was pressed to his chest, like a prince about to swear an oath. Zoe took in his appearance with a single blink. To her dismay, he hadn't lost his hair or grown a beer gut. He wasn't shorter than she remembered or less handsome. Truth be told, he looked better than he had when he was eighteen. More adult. More male. His eyes were still the blue of a tropic sea, and they still begged better than any eyes she knew.
"Alex," she said, his name coming out too hoarse for comfort.
"Uh, I can go," said the other man. "If you two want to be alone with the rocks."
She remembered what she'd assumed when she first saw them and abruptly knew it was true. Room 410 had one bed, not two, and Alex's color was way too high for them to have been sharing it as friends. Come to think of it, that wasn't just a flush on his face, that was a whisker burn.
Her old pain rushed back with stomach-turning force. That she hadn't been enough for Alex. That no matter what he said, he hadn't truly loved her. She thought she'd moved past this, but it seemed not. Her humiliation might have happened yesterday, instead of fifteen years ago.
The thing was, on this day, she had no right to be hurt or angry about who Alex took to bed.
"There's no reason to leave," she said, her vocal chords thankfully under control again. "Unless you'd rather not stick around while I work."
"Oh, I'd love to watch," Alex's lover said, his smile diffident but charming. "Lately, I've been getting quite the education in supernatural phenomena."
Alex wasn't watching him. His gaze was running over her somewhat haphazard outfit: bright green silky short shorts, running shoes with no socks, and a belly-baring white tank top with a moth-eaten, pink crocheted sweater dragged over the top. Not having expected an audience, she hadn't put on a bra. She was small enough to go without one… except when she really wished she were covered up.
Her gratitude that she'd shaved her legs this morning wasn't something she wanted to think about.
"We got you out of bed," he said dazedly.
Zoe didn't bother to contradict him, because the hint of judgment in the flattening of his mouth made her pride bristle. Let him think she'd been yanked from just as warm a pair of arms as he had.
"If you didn't want to disturb anyone," she said, "maybe you shouldn't have taken room 410."
The set of his mouth turned sheepish. "I didn't think it would be this bad."
She almost snapped something about other decisions he hadn't thought through any better, then blew out her anger on a breath. She'd forgiven him for her sake, for her own peace of mind. Now was not the time to be forgetting that.
"It shouldn't be this bad," she admitted, her voice still a little clipped. Then, preferring to avoid bumping against any more of their ancient history, she reached for 410's doorknob.
Alex caught her arm before she could turn it. The warmth of his hand was an unwelcome shock, as was the way his heat slid over nerves he shouldn't have been able to excite after all these years. "Those rocks are big, Zoe. You might get hurt."
She wished he didn't sound so caring. It dissolved her anger too handily. She turned her eyes to the worn carpet. "It's all right. I can do whatever I need from the hall."
Reluctantly, he released her. He rubbed his palm down the coverlet, as if touching her had been equally uncomfortable for him. "There's something else in there, something… not nice."
Zoe nodded, not telling him she'd already sensed it. "I'll be careful," she said.
She drew a deep, slow breath to center herself before opening the door. A few, small pebbles were all that were falling now, but the entire floor and most of the bed were covered in a layer of gray rocks. If she'd known how to whistle, she would have. She'd never seen a disembodied spirit accomplish anything like this.
Curious, she turned her inner vision around the room, wondering what the white lady and her buddies thought of this incursion into their space. But the usual specters weren't about. More surprisingly, she sensed none of the purposeless anger that was a poltergeist's calling card. The "not niceness" Alex mentioned had what she could only call a professional feel, as if someone had sent this energy to wreak havoc.
"There's a noise," Alex's friend volunteered helpfully. "Like the buzz from an electrical transformer."
Zoe had noticed it. Now she tried to listen with her nonphysical ears. There were words in the low, hair-raising vibration, but she couldn't make them out. She wished she'd thought to bring her tape recorder. If this sound was an EVP, an electronic voice phenomenon, the tape might pick up details her ears could not.
Since that option was out, Zoe took one last look at the rather interesting materializing pebbles and sank into a lotus position in the doorway. The posture served the same purpose for her as a bell did for Pavlov's salivating dog. Calm fell around her like a blanket of angel down.
"I call on Archangel Michael," she said, the words firm and sure. "Cleanse this room of violence. Heal whatever fear or anger is troubling this being's heart."
