Bled & Breakfast

by Michelle Rowen

  In the last room, I peered out from the window to the driveway, praying I wouldn’t see Raina’s car pulling back into it. We’d searched for more than a half hour, but we hadn’t been as thorough as I would have liked. This would have been so much easier if Raina had been willing to help. If somebody had come to me asking for help, I’d like to think I would have done what I could, even if I didn’t know them. Unless something was stopping me. The question was—what was stopping Raina?

  Something legit? Or maybe she was just a coldhearted, selfish witch. And I didn’t mean the magical kind.

  At the end of the hall were the stairs to the third floor, which was almost a clone of the second floor, except that up here there were only four bedrooms. I checked the bathroom, the clawed tub, the pedestal sink. This house was like a museum, its fixtures right out of an episode of Antiques Roadshow. Other than a scattering of creepy oil paintings, I found no photos or anything overly personal.

  The history here seeped into my bones. The house felt alive; it squeaked and made other noises that would freak me out at night if I lived here.

  I picked up my pace, checking the first bedroom, quickly peeking under the bed. I tested the squeaky floorboards to see if there were any hidden compartments.

  A chill suddenly brushed down my bare arms. It was a sensation I remembered from the previous night.

  “Thierry?” I whispered.

  “Looking for something?” The voice was as cold as the room had become. And it was not Thierry’s.

  I swiveled slowly to face him. I already had a good idea who it was since I’d heard him say one word to me before. One ominous, scary-ass word: “Soon.”

  Soon had become now.

  Jonathan Malik, the witch hunter, watched me from the corner of the dark room. I willed myself to stay calm and tried to remember what little I knew about ghosts.

  They couldn’t hurt a human. Or a vampire. Or anything living. All they really were was a projection, not quite of this world, stuck somewhere between the living and the dead.

  Bottom line, he couldn’t hurt me. All he could do was creep me out.

  “Yes, I am looking for something.” I forced my voice to remain steady. “Maybe you can help me find it.”

  His black eyes glittered. “This isn’t your house.”

  Fear shivered through me. “No, it isn’t. Do you haunt this place often?”

  The rest of him was slightly luminescent, just as Thierry’s and Owen’s ghostly forms were. His hair was long, to his shoulders, and he had a short, neat beard. He wore clothes circa three centuries ago, all black. I was used to that color scheme, since it was Thierry’s daily choice as well. I had bought him a blue shirt recently that would look fantastic on him, but he refused to wear it.

  But I digress.

  This man was certainly attractive, in a Dark Pilgrim kind of way, but there was something in his eyes I couldn’t ignore. Something cold and hard and unpleasant.

  “This is one of my haunts,” he replied. “Among others.”

  “You’re Jonathan Malik, right?”

  “Malik is fine.” His gaze lit with interest. “You know my name.”

  “Were you trying to give me a message in the café the other day?”

  “Not really. I simply like to make my presence known to those capable of seeing the spirit world.”

  “My husband couldn’t see you.”

  “I don’t make my presence known to everyone.”

  “Why haven’t you moved on to the afterlife?”

  “Why do you care?”

  I considered my reply as a cool line of perspiration slid down my spine, betraying my nerves. Thierry was now a ghost, threatened with eviction from the mortal world in two days. This guy had stuck around for three hundred years.

  “I’m just curious,” I said, my throat tight.

  He drew a little closer and I tried not to take a step back. The cold in the room intensified the nearer he got to me.

  He’s harmless, I reminded myself over and over. He can’t hurt you. He can’t hurt anyone.

  The ghost drew closer to me so he was only a couple of feet away. He was well over six feet tall.

  “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?” he said again, his lip curving downward with disdain. “I don’t like vampires. But they do serve their purpose from time to time.”

  My stomach soured. I would hate to learn what he considered a vampire’s purpose. “Not sure what difference it would make to you, Casper. You were a witch hunter, not a vamp hunter.”

  “True.”

  “Now that you’ve been trapped in Salem for over three hundred years, have you seen that witches are not always bad? Not always deserving of death?”

  His lips stretched. I almost expected him to have razor-sharp teeth to go along with his nightmarish reputation, but no, they were regular teeth. And a regular, if cold, smile. “Do you think vampires go to Heaven or Hell?”

  “Depends on the vampire.” I suddenly wondered how I’d gotten stuck in this conversation. I cast a fearful look toward the window and the driveway beyond. Still no sign of Raina.

  He searched my face, as if fascinated by whatever expression I now wore. “You’re different from the other vampires that have come to Salem recently. None of them could see me.”

  My breath caught. A ghost would be the best watchdog—invisible, silent, able to spy on unsuspecting witch activity. “Do you know what happened to them? Any of them? A vampire was killed the other day remotely by a witch’s death spell.”

  “You want me to help you?” He laughed. The sound slithered unpleasantly. “Are you sure this is what you want my help with?”

  He was playing with me now. I wasn’t a fan of being an amusing toy. “What witch did you piss off to get stuck in this town forever, Malik? She must have been really badass if you’re still here.”

  His amusement vanished and the room grew colder. “You know my name, vampire. It’s only fair that I know yours.”

  “Sure,” I said. “My name is Bite Me. Now, why don’t you make like a good ghost and disappear?”

  “Very well.” His cold smile returned. “By the way, what you’re looking for isn’t on this floor. Follow me if you want to find it.”

  He turned and walked straight through the bookcase behind him.

  I surveyed the shelves of books I’d already looked at, but I looked at them again, trying to see if the grimoire was hidden among them. But no, there was nothing here that hadn’t been printed by a publisher at some time in the last hundred years.

  Grimoires—I knew this much for sure—were handwritten. Like scary, hocus-pocus scrapbooking projects. And due to the paper cut from hell, I was not a fan of scrapbooking projects.

  “Sorry, Malik,” I mumbled. “But I can’t exactly follow you through a solid bookcase.”

  Or could I?

  There were fewer rooms on this third floor than on the second, but this last room wasn’t any larger to make up the difference. So what happened to all that extra space?

  I felt around on the bookcase, pulling out books as I searched. I felt along the frame, along the top. My hands came away dusty, and I swear I touched a big, furry spider.

  “Are you just messing with me some more, ghost boy?” I said under my breath. “I’m going to call 1-800-EXORCIST. See how you like that.”

  This wasn’t working. I had to go back to the inn and come up with a Plan B. I should have guessed Plan A wouldn’t work. It never did. Luckily there were twenty-five other letters in the alphabet.

  But then I leaned against the bookcase.

  And it moved.

  I jumped back and looked at it warily for a moment. I’d been looking for a hidden lever. This was just as good. I pressed my hands against the edge of the bookshelf and pushed. The entire unit began to swivel like a revolving door.

  One that led to another staircase in a hidden fifth room.

  I hesitated for a full minute before moving another inch. I’d been given this particular
tip by the ghost of a malevolent witch hunter. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to be choosy about my informants.

  The stairs led to another door, which I pushed open.

  It was the attic, full of boxes and books. And also a glowing ghost with an extremely devilish look on his face.

  “You can find the grimoire up here,” he said, then nodded to the left. “Over there, actually.”

  I didn’t take another step. “Why are you helping me?”

  “Do you always question those who wish to lend assistance?”

  “Usually.”

  “Not the trusting type?”

  “Unfortunately, I’ve trusted too many people who don’t deserve it. Have the scorch marks to prove it from the times I’ve been burned. Kind of like the witches you tied to the stake and set on fire.”

  His amused expression didn’t flicker. “You’re thinking of England. We didn’t torch witches here in Salem. We hanged them.”

  I shuddered. “Thanks for the history lesson.”

  “It’s in the box with the red lid. Use it well, vampire.” And then he disappeared into thin air.

  I spotted the box easily. It was the only one that didn’t have a thick coating of dust on it. I had two choices. Leave now or check out the box, which could very well have a larger version of the bookcase spider lying in wait inside it, ready to chew off my hand.

  I went directly toward the box and opened it up. No spiders. Instead, there was a large black book covered in worn leather, with parchment pages filled with writing and illustrations. I flipped through it quickly, my eyes widening with every page.

  Raina’s ancestor’s grimoire. This was it. Thank you, evil dead witch hunter!

  I thundered down the stairs with it clutched against my chest. Out of the corner of my eye, through a window on the second floor, I saw Raina’s car pulling into the driveway.

  The witch was back. And if she found me here attempting to steal her property, I had no doubt clucking like a chicken would be the very least of my problems.

  Chapter 9

  I thundered down the rest of the stairs until I landed on the first floor.

  “Heather!” I yelled.

  Heather appeared. Her face was smudged as if she’d been searching in dirty places. “What?”

  “Raina’s back. We need to get out of here. Now!”

  Her eyes went very large. Then she grabbed my sleeve and we hurried through the kitchen toward the back door. She flicked the lock and we burst out into a fenced-in backyard.

  “You have the grimoire!” she said, amazed. “How did you find it?”

  “I’d say it was divine intervention, but I think that might be giving the credit to the wrong place.” I clutched the large, heavy book tightly to my chest. “Malik’s ghost helped me out.”

  Heather gaped at me. “Malik, the witch hunter?”

  “Is there another one around town?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then yeah, Malik, the witch hunter. He’s extremely helpful, if seriously creepy.”

  We climbed over the back fence and swiftly made our way back to the car. My heart pounded hard, but I tried to focus on the future—not the past. And not the fact that I’d just stolen a grimoire from a witch’s attic.

  My mind raced, making plans. “We get this book back to the inn. We go through it and hopefully find a spell to fix Thierry. Then I’ll come back and return it and give her some cash for the damages.” I nodded, going over every Choose Your Own Adventure outcome in my head. “Simple, right? My karmic scoreboard of shame will be wiped clean.”

  She nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  We got in the car and Heather wasted no time in peeling away from the curb. I checked the rearview mirror and relaxed a fraction to see there was no raven-haired witch chasing after us shaking her magic wand and yelling “avada kedavra.”

  My knowledge of magical spells extended only as far as Hogwarts.

  “Even if Raina knows it was us who broke in,” Heather said after a moment, as if she too had been frantically imagining the outcomes of our actions, “there’s a protection spell on the inn meant to keep away anyone with dark intentions. She won’t be able to enter if she’s . . . uh, really upset with us.”

  I looked at her with surprise. “I don’t care what you say, you are seriously witchy. And I meant that in a good way.”

  She twisted her necklace. “My grandma helped with that one. And—I mean, I don’t even know if it works.”

  I sighed. “Can you at least try to be confident here, Heather? Just a little?”

  She grimaced. “Sorry.”

  Five minutes later, Heather pulled into the Booberry Inn’s driveway and we hurriedly went inside. My heart twisted to see the unconscious Owen-possessed Thierry still sleeping on the couch.

  “Welcome back, girls!” Rose sat in a rocking chair nearby, knitting.

  “So,” I began, “any reason why there’s a toad sitting on his forehead?”

  Rose put her knitting down as Heather sat on the arm of the large chair next to her. “Hoppy is being a good little guardian toad, watching over the sleeping vampire. Aren’t you, Hoppy?”

  Hoppy let out a small croak, as if in agreement.

  “Good boy,” Heather said fondly.

  I shifted the grimoire in my arms and tensely studied my amphibian-laden, possessed husband. “Do me a favor and don’t get him all slimy,” I told Hoppy, while I shivered a little from how chilly it suddenly seemed in this room. “I’m very fond of that forehead.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Thierry!” I spun around to see him standing in the corner.

  The fear I’d felt since the moment he’d disappeared last night vanished like . . . well, a ghost. I hadn’t let myself dwell on it, but deep down I’d been afraid he was gone forever.

  Whatever he saw on my face made pain slide through his gray eyes. He was at my side a moment later, reaching for me, before his hand dropped as if he’d suddenly remembered he couldn’t touch me. “Sarah, don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying,” I insisted, wiping at my cheeks. Despite my stinging eyes, I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear. “I’m glad you’re back. When you disappeared . . .” Another chill went through me that wasn’t caused by the ghostly presence in the room.

  His dark brows drew together. “I now see I must better control my emotions if I want to remain in the mortal world.” His gaze lowered to the grimoire in my arms. “What is this?”

  I looked down at the spell book that currently held the promise of an answer between its leather-bound covers. “A grimoire we stole from a local, book-clubbing coven leader named Raina Wilkins. It allegedly belonged to a very powerful witch once upon a time, so I’m hoping rather desperately there’s a spell in here that can help us.”

  The truth seemed the best story to tell—warts and all.

  His expression tightened. “May I speak to you in private?”

  Uh-oh. “I broke laws for you, Thierry. No reason to get upset.”

  “I’m not upset. If I was, I’d probably disappear again. Our room. Please, Sarah.”

  “Okay, fine.” I handed the grimoire to Heather, reluctant to let it out of my sight. “Start looking for a spell, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Will do.” She gave the cover of the spell book a wary glance.

  “Now that you’re back from your quest, Heather,” Rose said, “I’m going to do some more gardening. Please keep an eye on the vampire and holler if he starts to wake up. Come on, Hoppy.” She picked up the toad from his current perch.

  “Stay close to the house,” Heather warned.

  “Why?” Then Rose grimaced. “Oh dear. The protection spell? Well, better safe than sorry, I suppose.”

  Better safe than sorry. Yup, that pretty much summed it up.

  With a last glance over my shoulder as Heather settled into the armchair near the slumbering Owen and Rose headed toward the backyard, I followed T
hierry up the stairs to our room. He watched me, his arms crossed, from the side with the window. The sunlight brushed across his handsome but stern, ghostly features.

  “I didn’t only steal her grimoire,” I said, feeling the need to confess everything, “but I went all Chuck Norris on her front door, too.”

  “I see.”

  “You will see. That grimoire is going to help us . . . if Heather can find a good spell in it. It wasn’t easy, you know. It’s not like Raina just had it lying out on the coffee table. It was hidden up in her attic in a box.” I didn’t know why I felt so defensive—breaking, entering, stolen property. Oh, right. That was why.

  But I’d gladly break more laws if it meant we could fix this mess. Just watch me.

  Thierry cocked his head. “Then how did you know where to find it?”

  “Malik showed up. We had a little tête-à-tête at the witch’s house. I think it’s one of his daily haunts.”

  His expression grew strained. “The witch hunter.”

  “The dead witch hunter.” That ghost still gave me the heebie-jeebies. “No idea why he helped me, though. It’s not like he’s a stand-up sort of guy. But he’s harmless—a scary barking dog with no teeth. Anyway, why did you want to talk to me? Are you mad about me stealing the grimoire?”

  “You don’t know how powerful this Raina woman is.”

  I raised my chin. “I can deal with her.”

  “I’m sure.” This feigned confidence had coaxed a half smile to his lips before it faded. “However, we need to discuss what happens next if we can’t fix this in time.”

  I held up a hand. “I’m going to stop you right there. Because we’re not going to fail. We will figure this out.”

  He met my gaze full on. His had turned stormy. “I know you mean well, Sarah.”

  “I mean very well. The wellest. The grimoire plan—”

  “Might not work. And very soon what’s happened to me will become a permanent—”

  “Stop it, right now.” I glared at him. “Did you eat your pessimistic cornflakes today? That won’t happen because I won’t let it happen. Got it? You’re not escaping me mere days after we get married. It’s just not going to happen. And if you’re even suggesting that I stay with Owen and see if we have a love connection—”