by Ron Ripley
He watched for a short time, then returned to his bed. Bekah, he was pleased to see, had kept up her end of the bargain.
Smiling, Stefan returned to the study of death through deception.
Bonus Scene Chapter 5: Mother’s Little Helper
His mother took the news of Diane’s death hard for two reasons. The first, which Stefan had discovered the next day, was that Nicole Korzh had looked forward to the creation of a legacy for Ivan. The second, she thought it was a sign from her deceased husband that he didn’t want anything moved out of the house.
Not even her own items.
Stefan wasn’t particularly upset about the first reason, but the second bothered him, and he wasn’t quite certain why. It might have been the idea of his father reaching out from beyond the grave, or the mere memory of the man. Either way, it had irritated Stefan, and he came to the realization that there would always be the possibility of his mother giving away some item or other to a collector or museum. He remembered, vividly, the beatings he had sustained when he had mishandled an item, or used one for his own entertainment.
The thought that those items would slip away, and that she, like his father, would go unpunished, was nauseating, and Stefan knew that the only way the possessed curios could leave was under his own direction, and by his own decision.
These thoughts had plagued him for the better part of a week, and each time the phone rang or someone knocked on the door, Stefan worried that he would lose his chance at vengeance. His decision had come to him in the shower, and once he had dressed, he went down to the kitchen where his mother sat with the morning paper, waiting for him to cook breakfast for her.
For the first time, Stefan didn’t mind.
In fact, he looked forward to it.
Stefan went about getting his mother’s food ready for her. She preferred scrambled eggs, and she insisted on the addition of cream and vanilla to them before they were cooked. As he took down the vanilla from the cabinet beside the stove, Stefan glanced over his shoulder at his mother. Her back was to him, immersed in yet another catalog of haunted items.
Smiling, Stefan withdrew a small container from his front pocket. The clear, glass vial held dark granules of rat poison, which he had removed the night before from a trap in the basement. His mother despised the wood rats and field mice that managed to get in through the bulkhead, and so they always had a fresh supply of traps and poison.
Still grinning, Stefan opened the top of the vial, tapped out a small amount into the mixing bowl, and then put the poison away. He added pepper and salt to the bowl, effectively hiding the granules. Vanilla went in next, the powerful scent of the liquid disguising any hint of the poison.
Soon the scrambled eggs were done, bread was toasted and buttered, and Stefan poured her a fresh cup of coffee. He placed everything to the right of the catalog, knowing better than to interrupt her, and received a grunt of acknowledgment from her. As he stepped back from the table, he saw his mother had his father’s wedding ring in her hand, turning it over and over again in her thick fingers.
Stefan waited until she placed the piece of jewelry on the table and took up her fork. She ate first one bite, and then another. When she was halfway through the steaming pile of eggs, Stefan left the room.
He put his hands in his pockets and whistled a low tune as he made his way to his bedroom. It would take months, if not years, to build up enough arsenic in his mother’s system to kill her.
But that was alright as far as Stefan was concerned.
He now had something to look forward to.
Bonus Scene Chapter 6: A Drop in Temperature
Stefan woke up shivering, in spite of the thick blanket covering him. His breath rushed out in clouds of white, and there seemed to be frost on the interior of the windows. He sighed and shook his head.
The chill in the air meant his mother had forgotten to put away some of her pieces, and the pieces, in turn, had decided to wander the house freely.
Stefan hated how forgetful she had become since Ivan’s death. At times he contemplated an increase in the dosage of rat poison he administered, but that ran the risk of being found out when she died. Even an overweight woman who died suddenly would probably warrant an autopsy, especially after her husband had been found murdered in a hotel room.
I’ll have to do something about it, Stefan complained to himself, tossing off the blanket. He shook as he climbed out of bed and pulled on his robe and slippers. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Stefan left his bedroom and wandered out into the hall. He tried to judge where the cold was coming from, standing at the top of the stairs.
After almost a minute, he decided the chill had its origins somewhere on the first floor.
Rolling his eyes, Stefan walked down, pausing when he reached the bottom stair. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to sense the next direction. His body tugged him toward the kitchen, so he followed its lead. The whisper of his slippers on the floor was loud and grating, his breath continuing to billow out from his mouth.
When he reached the kitchen, he stopped in the doorway, glancing around and searching for anything that might have been left behind by his mother. He sought out any sort of knick-knack or item that wasn’t usually in the room.
He found it a moment later, and it caused his heart to skip a beat.
On the center of the table was his father’s wedding ring.
Stefan trembled, not from the cold, but from a combination of fear and rage.
He had buried the man. Seen him laid out in a coffin, listened to an Orthodox priest chant above his father’s corpse, and watched as the last shovel full of earth was cast into the grave.
He had buried his father, and Stefan wanted him to remain buried.
Ivan Denisovich had no right to be alive.
“Stefanushka.”
His father’s voice came from behind him, and Stefan jerked around.
The dead man stood in the doorway, wearing the clothes he had died in, a trickle of blood coming from his nose. A grin danced along his father’s face, an expression that caused Stefan to stiffen with fear.
He knows, Stefan thought, fighting back panic. He knows I’m going to kill her. He knows!
He managed to keep his paranoia in check as he said in a low voice, “Hello, Father.”
“You are not glad to see me, Stefanushka?” his father asked playfully. Their relationship had never been easy, and Ivan Denisovich knew how much Stefan disliked him.
Stefan contemplated a lie for a moment, then he shrugged and said, “Not particularly.”
His father let out a chuckle, nodding his head. “I like you better when you are honest, Stefanushka. It is something you so rarely are. Your mother is asleep.”
Stefan nodded, even though he knew it wasn’t a question.
“I am going to need you to do something for me, my son,” his father continued.
Stefan raised an eyebrow and waited to hear what the dead man had to say.
“Not even a little curious, Stefanushka?” his father asked.
“No,” Stefan answered.
Ivan Denisovich laughed, pleased with the response.
“Good, my son,” his father said. “Very good. Now listen to me. I need you to take my ring up to my room, and place it with my dead.”
Stefan blinked, not quite certain he had heard his father correctly.
“To your room?” Stefan asked.
His father nodded.
“It’s locked,” Stefan said. “I don’t know if mother will give me the key. She keeps it with her.”
“She keeps a copy of the key with her,” Ivan Denisovich corrected. “There is the master key, of which she is unaware. It is what you will use to enter the room, deposit my ring, and exit.”
“And your dead?” Stefan asked. “Won’t they attack me?”
“No,” his father said in a cold voice. “Not when I am in the room. Not when I am anywhere near them. Do you believe me?”
Stefan nodded.
Repressing a shudder, Stefan left the kitchen and hurried up to his bedroom. Even with his father dead, Stefan had no desire to see the man angry.
Bonus Scene Chapter 7: His Father’s Dead
The master key to his father’s room was hidden behind a book about the history of the Russian Revolution on a bookshelf in the first-floor study. With a pair of white cotton gloves protecting his hands, Stefan held the key in his right hand and his father’s ring in the left.
“You will walk in,” his father said from behind him, “and you will go forward to my desk. In the center of its back, you will see a small lion’s head. You will push it in, and a spring-loaded drawer will pop out. Place my ring there and leave the room. I will hold my dead back. Now, repeat my instructions, Stefanushka.”
Word for word Stefan did so, and his father muttered his approval.
“Go now, Stefanushka,” his father said. “I will not speak to you again for some time.”
Never would be too soon, Stefan thought bitterly, but he kept the comment to himself, and his face plain and submissive.
Stepping forward, Stefan unlocked the room and let himself in. Even as he reached for the light switch, his body was wracked with horrible tremors, the cold penetrating his flesh worse than anything he had felt before.
Each step was an effort, every ounce of his physical being screamed for him to flee, to seek warmth and safety.
He crushed those thoughts, seized his primal nature and squeezed it back to where it needed to be, buried deep within him. If he wanted Ivan Denisovich out of his life, Stefan had to put the ring in the desk drawer and seal the door behind him.
Walking across the carpet of the small room, Stefan focused on the roll-top desk opposite from him. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, and while such shelves in his mother’s room were packed to overflowing, his father’s were sparsely occupied. Stefan caught a glimpse of a bayonet on one shelf, and a briar smoking pipe on another. A long hairpin with a jeweled butterfly occupied an entire display case, and a pair of books by Louisa May Alcott stood on another.
Relics of war were scattered about as well. The broken butt of an AK-47, the bandolier from a Viet Cong. An old K-Bar knife from the Marines.
And as Stefan moved towards the desk, he heard his father’s dead.
The words were unintelligible, but their meaning was clear.
They despised Ivan Denisovich Korzh, and they wanted to punish his son.
Fear spiked in Stefan’s heart, but he pushed himself forward. His father’s voice joined the cacophony around him, yelling in a variety of languages as the room shook with unseen violence. Stefan stumbled, caught himself on the edge of the desk and reached out, pressing the lion’s head. The click was barely audible, but the drawer sprang out. Velvet lined the interior and Stefan hastily put the ring in it, closing the drawer when he was finished.
Something or someone struck him in the back of the head, knocking him back into the desk. He struggled to get away, but another blow caught him in the face. The pain was sharp, more from the chill than the actual force of the strike. A pair of hands tried to hold him back as he forced his way towards the door. Stefan felt as though he was wading through mud, and a deep fear rose up. He felt certain he would drown in the room, that somehow he would be dragged down to the floor where the dead would murder him with his own breath.
Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, Stefan reached the door. Clutching either side of the door jamb, Stefan thrust himself out of the room and back into the hallway. He fell to his knees, took several deep, warm breaths, and then twisted around. Seizing the door, Stefan slammed it closed and got to his feet, holding onto the frame and locking the door again.
Shuddering, Stefan took several steps back, breathing painfully.
A heartbeat later his father’s voice came through the door.
“Put the key back, Stefanushka,” his father said, laughing. “Put it away and keep it safe.”
Stefan nodded and made his way to the stairs. His legs trembled and his arms shook as he held onto the railing and descended to the first floor. By the time he reached the study, he had regained most of his control. He paused in the doorway, breathed in through his nose, let it out, and then smiled.
Stefan slipped the key into his front pocket and turned away from the study. He would keep the key safe, but he wouldn’t return it. That, as far as he could tell, wouldn’t be safe at all. A smile crossed his face as he walked towards the kitchen.
It was almost time for breakfast, and his mother was going to need her eggs.
* * *
Blood in the Mirror
Haunted Collection Series Book 3
Chapter 1: Waiting for an Opportunity
Ariana sat beneath the bows of a fir tree, her breath slipping out in twin plumes from her nostrils. She was relaxed and patient, a thick poncho with a liner wrapped around her. From her position in the forest on a slight rise, she could see down into the house’s kitchen. A small light was on over the stove, and the room was empty. She didn’t know how long it would remain so, and it didn’t matter.
Ariana could wait.
It was something she was good at.
Her father had taught her a great many things, and one of them was patience. She had learned to wait for his visits. He had shown her that doing a task correctly, sometimes meant doing it slowly.
Ariana loved her father dearly, and she took every lesson to heart.
Waiting in the chilly night air was easy. A simple task. One her father had entrusted her with, and one she wouldn’t fail.
She reached into her pocket, withdrew a small bag of dried cranberries, and ate a few of them. Each was chewed thoughtfully and thoroughly. When she finished, she took a drink of tea from her thermos.
Feeling refreshed, Ariana took the message she was to deliver out of her pocket and turned it over in her hands. It was a small mirror, no larger than the palm of her hand. It was held in a small oval frame that was worth far more than it appeared. The silver backing was old, spots and stains appearing behind the glass and small tears were visible.
Ariana smiled, ran a finger lovingly along the silver leaf of the frame and with a reluctant sigh, she put the mirror away. For a little while longer, it would be in her possession, and then she would deliver it and see what the recipient of the message would make of it.
She smiled at the thought, and tried to imagine the look of horror that would appear.
That expression of fear would be worth all of the hours she spent in the cold.
Ariana pulled her poncho tighter around her, tucked her chin into it, and stared into the house. She wondered when the target might drift into the room, when the need for a drink or a bite to eat might propel them into the kitchen.
No need to worry about that, she told herself.
Smiling, Ariana settled back against the trunk of the fir tree, and watched and waited for a moment.
It would come soon enough.
Chapter 2: A Debilitating Lack of Sleep
Stefan awoke groggy and unrefreshed.
His father was on the opposite side of the bedroom wall, screaming out a song in Russian that Stefan couldn’t translate. Furious, he shouted for his father to stop, but the dead man paid him no mind. Cursing, Stefan threw his alarm clock at the wall which did nothing more than break the device.
With a groan, he climbed out of bed, careful to step over the tall ring of salt he had poured around it several weeks before. And as he did every morning, Stefan walked around the bed, inspecting the thin, mineral barrier to ensure there were no breaks.
He felt miserable as he left the safety of his bedroom and made his way to the kitchen. For the past few nights, he had resorted to over-the-counter sleep aids to drown out his father’s incessant noise. Ivan Denisovich screamed when Stefan closed his eyes and scre
amed when he opened them. And made sure he was screaming in between as well.
Bleary-eyed as he entered the kitchen, Stefan came to a stop. He blinked, looked around and muttered in a depressed voice.
The clock on the stove said it was 7:39. And not in the morning.
He had taken his sleeping pills at seven on the evening of the twelfth, and Stefan hoped it was almost eight o’clock of the thirteenth, although he doubted it.
Walking to the table, he picked up his phone, turned it on and saw he was right.
It was still the twelfth.
Sighing, Stefan collapsed into a chair and wondered if he should drink vodka with the pills the next time he took them. Anything to help him sleep.
He shook his head and checked his email through his phone. A ‘Sold!’ notification caused him to straighten up in the chair. Someone had purchased a gold, Cross pen. It was an implement possessed by a Freudian therapist, a man who believed that truth was good for the soul, even if it was bad for a relationship.
The truths he helped people reveal tended to encourage the confessor to commit suicide or murder.
He wasn’t particular about which.
Stefan smiled for the first time in days, and for a moment, he was able to forget about his father howling on the second floor.
However, a piece of furniture crashing brought his father’s existence forcibly back to mind.
Disgusted, Stefan got up and went to the sink. A bottle of generic cough medicine was there, and he eyed it for a moment. Then, with a shrug, Stefan opened it and drank half of the container, the taste bitter and tongue curling.
Resisting the urge to spit it out, Stefan got himself a drink of water, then rinsed his mouth and swallowed the water.
Sleep, he told himself. Get some sleep. I’ll send the pen out in the morning. Figure it all out then.
Stefan shuffled out of the room and walked back to his bedroom, holding onto the railings and then leaning against the wall. The world spun around him, and his thoughts became fuzzy and hazy. His father’s howls and laments became less significant, and Stefan’s bed beckoned to him.
