A Rose by Any Other Name (Haunted Series Book 18)

by Alexie Aaron

  “I think it’s the lack of people outside. No traffic to speak off, except a few suicidal drivers, like Mike for instance.” Mia pointed to the red sports car that launched itself over the mound of snow and into the drive of the Roustan Rose house. “He’s my investigation buddy tonight.”

  “What about Ted?”

  “He switched with Mike. Ted’s staying, but he’ll be sleeping on the couch in the parlor.”

  “What are you going to tell PEEPs?”

  “I’m going to tell them what Roumain told me. I’ll let them decide if they even want to stay the night. They’ll have to make a decision soon. Night is falling and with it, a forecasted six more inches of snow.”

  “Mia, before we go in, I want to tell you how proud I am of you.”

  Mia turned to her friend, and her face showed how delighted she was. “Me?”

  “Yes, I’m not sure I would have been able to forgive Roumain if I were you.”

  “Murph, I put myself in his shoes. He didn’t do it purposely to hurt me, although it did. He has gone out of his way to help us, and he is one of the few who truly understand how much I value you. And since I’m probably going to be spending some… er… quality time in purgatory for some of my stunts, it doesn’t hurt to be nice to one’s jailer.”

  “Do you really believe you’re going to purgatory? I thought you didn’t believe in the concept.”

  “The more I look at the big picture, the more I see that we all need a little timeout. A time to repent for some. A time to forgive others. Me, I wouldn’t mind the vacation.”

  Murphy started laughing. Mia linked her arm in his, and they headed for the back door along the path, Mia assumed, Cid had shoveled.

  Mia was greeted at the door by Ted. He hugged her while reaching out a hand to Murphy. “So glad you’re both back.” He turned into the room and called, “Everyone, Murphy’s back!”

  The remaining PEEPs were milling around the kitchen. They stopped, looking at the ghost beside her. It was then Mia realized that Murphy was allowing the complete team to see and hear him. Mia placed Bernard’s lasagna on the table. “It should still be warm. It kept me warm on my walk from the bus stop.”

  Mike produced a few bottles of wine and a large antipasto. “There’s some spumoni in the freezer for after,” he mentioned, staring at the attractive farmer, holding an axe, next to Mia.

  Burt carried out the small monitor and set Jake on the counter. “I thought we could eat and have a meeting afterwards. Cid’s sleeping in the parlor. Murphy, if you’d be so kind to retrieve the boy?”

  Murphy nodded and left.

  “Is everything okay?” Burt asked Mia quickly. “I am floored that I can see him.”

  “I almost wet myself when he raised that axe. I think I prefer not seeing him,” Mike confessed. “How is he, control wise?”

  “He’s been Komal and Roumain approved. Murph’s on our side,” she said. “I will warn you, he’s more talkative and sounds a lot like Cid.”

  Audrey arrived with a stack of papers. “I’m going to suggest the next purchase we make should be iPads for everyone. The paper we waste is shameful.”

  Mia nodded. “You’ve got my vote.”

  Cid arrived sleepy-eyed. Mia handed him a Dr Pepper. “I had a dream about you and those cowboy pajamas,” he said.

  Mia blushed and avoided looking at Ted.

  Ted, however, tapped Cid on the shoulder. “What about the cowboy pajamas?”

  “We were eight years old and…”

  “Nevermind, sounds boring,” Mike said.

  “Mia, what did you look like at eight years old?” Audrey asked.

  “I dunno, very short, flat and scabby. If I wasn’t being shoved down on the playground, I was falling down running away from stuff.”

  “Ahem,” Jake said.

  PEEPs looked at the screen to see a picture of Miss Allison’s second grade Christmas pageant. The children were playing the traditional roles represented in most crèches.

  Mia turned beet red. “What the fuzzy bunny?”

  The others milled around, trying to figure out which kid was Mia.

  Mia looked horrified. “I forgot all about that.”

  “There she is,” Burt said, pointing to the child suspended by a harness at the top of the screen.

  “You had wings all along, Cooper,” Mike said.

  “You made such an angry angel, Mia,” Audrey said. “We’ve got to show this to Sariel.”

  “Jake, remind me to download a virus,” Mia said, putting her head on the table.

  “Are there any other class pictures of our little darling?” Mike asked.

  Mia moaned in distress. She watched as Jake flipped through photos from the school’s yearbook. He settled on the picture of the curtain call from the spring play.

  The Big Bear Lake Elementary School’s spring play was an all school event. The theme was Peter Pan. Mia smiled. She remembered this play fondly. Ralph had lent his expertise. He was pictured on the right edge. Mia remembered trying to hide the notice from her parents after the fiasco of the Christmas pageant. Ralph found it and took it upon himself to direct and costume the play. He hoped his involvement would help Mia make friends. It only lasted as long as the play, but she did have fun while it lasted.

  “Is that Ralph?” Audrey said. “He hasn’t changed.”

  “I’ll let him know,” Mia said.

  Ted looked over at her and winked. He spotted her right away.

  “That has to be Braverman,” Cid said. “So he’s Peter pan. Are you Tinker Bell? No. Who’s Hook?”

  “Whitney,” Mia said. “He always got the best boy roles.”

  “But Peter Pan was the hero,” Audrey argued.

  “Not in Ralph’s production,” Mia told them.

  “You’re Wendy Darling,” Burt said softly. “A prophesy. Except our Peter Pan is Ted.”

  It was Ted’s turn to blush.

  “I happen to like Peter Pan,” Mia said. “He’s always been my hero.”

  “Thank you, Wendy,” Ted said, hugging his wife.

  “Now if we could stop this, so I can regain my appetite, I’d appreciate it,” Mia said.

  They ate, sharing stories about elementary school pageants.

  Ted and Mia eased back. She held her husband’s hand while Cid told them about Ted getting caught cheating at a Cub Scouts’ race car event at. Evidently, his design was so superior that he won every race. They assumed he cheated when he didn’t.

  “My sisters protested, and eventually, they had to give me the trophy,” Ted said. “You don’t get in the way of the Martin sisters wanting justice.”

  “I think that is so cool. See, your sisters aren’t witches,” Mia said.

  “Red hair – sorry, Audrey – secret meetings in their room. We even had a black cat. Witches, I tell you, witches.”

  Audrey laughed.

  “If they were witches, then Raedelle would have landed Tom Braverman. Excellent casting as Peter Pan by the way,” Cid said.

  “He just likes living at home,” Mia defended.

  “Nope, he’s never going to leave his mother,” Burt said. “He’s got it too good.”

  “I think Tom will leave when the right woman comes along,” Mia said in defense of her friend. “His mother isn’t pressuring him anymore to get married and have children because she’s been enjoying taking care of Brian. She shows him off to everyone.”

  “In the meanwhile, the town thinks that Brian is Tom’s lovechild,” Ted said. “Is he?” he teased Mia.

  “Nope, Mike’s,” she said without missing a beat. “Okay, enough of this. Can we start the meeting before I have to call my lawyer?”

  Burt stood up. “Murphy.”

  “Here,” Murphy said, walking into the kitchen.

  “Thanks. By the way, good to have you back. You were sorely missed.”

  “I ended up in a wall because you weren’t here,” Mia admitted.

  “Thank you, I’m happy to be back.” />
  “While you were gone, we encountered these entities…” Burt went on to discuss the findings while Jake showed the prepared footage. “They were asking for you. I don’t know if they want to communicate or are just keeping track of where you are.”

  “Would you like me to try to talk with them?” Murphy asked.

  “Yes, but not without backup. No one goes anywhere in this house alone,” Burt said sternly, looking at Mia.

  “I’ll go with him,” she volunteered.

  “Actually, I’d like for Cid and Murphy to pair up, and you keep an eye on Mike.”

  “K.”

  “This way, we have a sighted individual with the…”

  “Handicapped,” Mia filled in. She was rewarded by glares from everyone, including her husband. “Ouch. I take it back.”

  “We are going to investigate for one more day. The basement has yet to be filmed with an investigative team. I’d like to run Mike and Mia through there before the early shift clocks out.”

  Mia raised her hand.

  Burt looked at Mia. “Yes.”

  “I have information that we may want to take into account before proceeding.”

  “Go on.”

  “As all of you know, in 1871, there was a fire that destroyed most of residential and a lot of commercial Chicago. This house was built in 1873, using the existing foundations and some rescued materials from the house that originally stood on this lot. It was owned by Dr. Samuel Rose and Richard Thorn. They called it Thornrose. The name Roustan Rose isn’t from the color of the bricks as your mother was informed, Mike, but as a reminder of who once resided here. The sounds I picked up after the chandelier fell, possibly, were echoes from the mental hospital they established here. Dr. Rose, with the help of Richard Thorn, developed a procedure that, in theory, should have curbed the negative and impulsive behavior of Rose’s patients. Instead, the treatment exacerbated it, turning the relatives of the rich into monsters. If their problem was overeating, they would become cannibalistic. If they had overt sexual urges, they acted out similar to succubi and incubi.”

  “Surely their relatives would have noticed and been outraged,” Audrey said.

  “Unfortunately, in those days, the relataives would have been more afraid of their peers finding out about the crazy relatives than their treatment. In short…”

  “They locked them up and threw away the key,” Cid finished. “Perhaps the amount of money spent on them eased their minds.”

  “There had to have been escapes. You can’t live in a place like that without neighbors and the merchants supplying food not taking notice,” Audrey pointed out.

  Mia had waited until Audrey was finished before resuming her explanation, “Thorn invented a way, using interdimensional portals, to keep the monsters from escaping. Dr. Rose was the gatekeeper until he fell prey to his own experimentation. Richard Thorn locked away the good doctor, sealing him and the monsters in the dimensional jail he created.”

  “How could they survive?” Audrey asked. “If it’s anything like what Miss Renee was using, they would have starved.”

  “The speculation is that they devoured each other. The house was supposedly only lived in by Richard Thorn when the fire took it. He survived, rebuilt the house, and left to work for Edison before he disappeared from history.”

  “If he survived, then he must have left some record of his work,” Ted said. “No inventor, no matter how mad, wouldn’t have recorded his experiments for posterity.”

  “The journals of Richard Thorn can be found in the Dark Vault,” Mia said. “Orion or Angelo can read them to confirm our suspicions, but the journals are too evil to leave the vault.”

  “Maybe if I knew what Thorn had done to create the portals, I could stop them from opening,” Ted said. “We still have your old friend Billy’s work. With our adaptations to it from when we opened up the game for you and Murphy, I’m thinking that we could find a way of moving between dimensions.”

  Mia looked at her husband proudly. “Audrey, please contact Orion. See if it’s possible for my husband to visit the Dark Vault?”

  “Whoa,” Ted said.

  Mia reached for his hand. “Remember when you said it was time for you to join in the fight to protect the humans? I feel that this is a perfect opportunity for you. Cid and Jake can cover for you here. We can only hope to plug holes until you find a way to seal them forever. Otherwise, I’m going to have to go in there and butcher the monsters within. I’d rather not do that.”

  “If it comes to that, promise me that you and Murphy will not go alone. You have resources at your call. Ed, Sariel, Altair, they all could help you. Don’t be proud, Mia. We all need help from time to time,” Ted reminded her.

  Mia nodded, her eyes watering. She looked over at Burt. “What do you think?”

  “So far we only have the three shadow figures to deal with. They appear to have found a way into our world through the ceiling in the third floor hall. They seem almost to be in a loop, very similar to a residual haunt.”

  “They may not be part of Rose’s patients. Maybe they’re Thorn casualties,” Mike offered.

  Mia nodded. “Let’s hope so. I hate to think that those monsters have already found a way out.”

  “One did,” Mike said. “Renee Roustan.”

  “But she wouldn’t have been born yet when Dr. Rose was treating patients,” Cid argued.

  “Somehow in 1891, Renee Roustan fell under the influence of Dr. Rose,” Mia said. “Her psychotic need to remain the only child of the Roustans drove her to plan the murder of her mother and the boarder. She drove her father into madness, and even after her death, she continued to repeat the incident for her own perverse enjoyment. My source said that hell rejected Renee. She was too evil for them.”

  The group let Mia’s information sink in.

  “When hell rejects a soul, what happens to it?” Audrey asked.

  Mia looked over at Burt for an answer. He slowly shook his head.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the Dark World? I hate to think of them having a free pass in our world,” Mia worried.

  “So this Dr. Rose is still controlling his patients. Why did he let Renee run wild?” Mike asked.

  “Power,” Murphy said. “Spirits take power in many different ways. Dr. Rose is locked in his dimension. Renee played her little games in the same dimension. When the people died, their souls were locked in there for feeding. Mia said that the skull she held did not have a spirit attached to it. This is because it had already been consumed by the doctor.”

  “So are we dealing with someone like Morris Steel?” Mike asked Mia.

  “That I can’t answer, but I know it wasn’t associated with the Hellfire Club. The people who came here never left,” Mia reported.

  “When you say they never left, what exactly do you mean, Mia?” Mike asked.

  “They never left. There is no record of anyone, with the exception of Richard Thorn, who entered the house that stood upon this spot prior to the fire, ever leaving.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You mean they all died?” Burt asked for clarification.

  “It seems like the most likely answer. Dr. Samuel Rose was the head of the sanitarium. Richard Thorn… He was an inventor, and like Edison and Tesla, he experimented with electricity and other forms of energy. Thorn professed to be able to travel from one dimension to another using electricity. He also fooled around a lot with the brain. His theory was concerned with what happened when you altered the consciousness. He and Rose were a natural fit. They used magnets to direct electricity to deaden or heighten areas of the brain. Rose let Thorn experiment on his patients,” Mia said.

  “Where does this information come from?” Audrey asked. “I could find nothing prior to the Roustans.”

  “I have an informant who would like to remain confidential.”

  “Mia has a CI,” Mike said. “How reliable?”

  Mia turned and looked at Mike a moment, pushing Roumain’s name into his
mind. “Very reliable.”

  He nodded.

  “It was also brought to my attention that by taking care of Miss Renee, I may have opened the door for the Thornrose monsters to enter our world.”

  “The shadow men,” Audrey acknowledged. “Mia, Renee Roustan was an evil entity and would have killed us all.”

  “That’s what I thought. I hope I didn’t worsen the situation.”

  “Gee, let me think. You killed a serial murdering ghost. Why is this a bad thing?” Mike asked.

  “While she was here, she kept something worse from happening.”

  “What?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t know. It depends on the type of experiments Rose was doing. If you mess with the brain too much, you could possibly create a monster,” Mia offered.

  “Well, that’s vague,” Ted said. “Did your informant tell you what kind of monster?”

  “Sometimes getting information from entities is like trying to milk a bull,” Mia said frowning.

  Mike’s face lit up. “Impossible and dangerous, no fun for anyone, except for the bull.”

  “Exactly,” Mia said. “In their eyes, Miss Renee preyed upon three people every generation. This house, left unchecked, will possibly do more. It’s a numbers game.”

  “Kind of an insensitive way of looking at things,” Audrey said.

  “It’s not humane, but it is what it is. It’s not safe here for any of us, sighted or no,” Mia stressed.

  “Mia, I appreciate your information and concern,” Burt said. “Let’s get the basement filmed and get out. Sorry, Mike, but this place is too dangerous for us.”

  “If not us, who?” he argued. “Mia, can you in good conscience leave this place, especially after you uncorked the bottle?”

  Mia frowned. “I can ask you guys to leave and let Murphy and I handle things here.”

  “And if you disappear?” Ted asked. “Together, we are something Thornrose has never dealt with. Why was this house banned from being divided or torn down? I think it has something to do with the foundations. I think we target our search there.”

  “No one goes anywhere unless they are wearing rubber gloves and rubber-soled shoes,” Mia ordered. “Those shadow men may be all that’s left of a human being once Thorn got his mitts on them. They could be solid electricity.”