A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder (9 page)

“So it had to be Oruç and his demon,” I reasoned.

“Afraid so,” Gil said. “But how, I still can't figure out.” He went back to pacing again, and after a moment he added, “I need to get into that building! Something's super fishy about this whole thing.”

“The police will have the crime scene sealed until
they're through investigating,” Heath said. “I doubt they're going to let us walk in and take a look around.”

“We still have to talk about Ayden,” I said next.

Heath sighed heavily. “I hate to get him mixed up in this, but I don't know how else to convince the Boston PD that we're not making any of this up.”

“It bothers me that he had to leave the force because of the panic attacks,” I said. “How is he surviving?”

“I asked him that too,” Heath said, “and he told me that his dad passed away a year ago and left him a nice inheritance. He's also got his pension, which probably isn't a whole lot, but he insisted that he's doing okay. Plus, he said that he'd just gotten his PI license, so I don't think he's given up the investigative life.”

“Do you think there's any truth to his theory that the demon left something behind in his mind?”

“I don't know, Em. I mean, it's possible, but have we ever encountered something like that?”

“Maybe with Lester,” I said, referring to an old case we'd worked. The memory of all that made me shudder again.

“Why did Ayden think Oruç's demon is still in his head?” Gil asked.

“He's been having really bad nightmares for the past couple of years,” Heath said. “Ayden didn't go into detail, but he said they were graphic and always involved murder. He said the nightmares were what brought on the panic attacks, and he's seen every shrink in town and hasn't been able to get them to go away.”

I frowned. “Lester had nightmares too,” I reminded them. I didn't like the coincidences.

“We should call him,” Gilley said. “Ayden, I mean.”

I nodded and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly midnight. “It'll be close to nine on the West Coast,” I said. “Ayden should still be up, right?”

We made the call and our friend the former inspector picked up on the third ring. “MacDonald,” he said formally.

“Ayden?” I said. “It's M. J. Holliday. How are you?”

“I don't know any M. J. Holliday,” he said gruffly. The tone of his voice threw me a little, and as I had him on speaker, I looked around at Gilley and Heath, who also appeared taken aback.

“Don't know me?” I said. “Are you kidding?”

“Nope,” he said curtly. “Like I said, I don't know any M. J. Holliday.” There was a pause as I tried to figure out what to say to that, when Ayden suddenly said, “Now, I
do
know an M. J. Whitefeather. Would you be any relation to her?”

I couldn't help it; I busted out laughing, as did Heath and Gilley. “Funny, man,” I said to him. “You had us all going.”

“Who's us all?”

“Gilley is here, along with my husband. Heath Holliday.” I winked at Heath and he grinned at me, enjoying my little joke.

“Oh, yeah, I know those guys. Heath owes me a beer the next time he's in town. I'm gonna hit him up for a double-malt scotch, though, 'cause he didn't invite me to his wedding.”

“Nobody was invited,” I was quick to say. “Not even Gilley.”

Gil narrowed his eyes at me. I could tell he was still miffed about it. “I think the thing to do is to hold a reception and invite all our family and friends,” Heath said. That was news to me, but I liked the idea. “After Gilley's wedding, of course.”

“Am I at least invited to that?” Ayden asked.

“You're invited to both,” I said, ignoring Gilley's pointed head shaking. I knew he already had a bajillion people he planned to invite, so what was one more?

“Awesome,” Ayden said. “Count me in. Anyway, I figure you're not calling me about the weddings so much as you're calling me to talk about what happened at that museum tonight, right?”

“Ayden,
how
do you know anything about what went down at the museum?” I asked.

“Hey, I Facebook,” he said coolly. “And I'm a fan of your show's page. It's all over social media, how you two got married and there was some sort of crazy publicity stunt that nearly caused a riot. I was about to send you guys an angry e-mail when I recognized Oruç's dagger in one of the photos posted before the lights went out. What the hell is that thing doing on display anyway?”

Heath and I looked pointedly at Gilley. He gulped and said, “Hey, Ayden. So, in a moment of serious weakness, I agreed to loan out the dagger to the museum for the exhibit. It was stupid, but in my defense I personally loaded the room with enough
magnetic spikes to build a railroad. There's no way the dagger should've been active, and we're still trying to figure out what happened and what to do.”

“Well, for starters, how about taking the dagger out of that exhibit, like, right now?”

Again we all looked uncomfortably at one another. “About that,” I said. “Ayden, the real reason we're calling is because the dagger has been stolen from the museum.”

There was a very long pause, and into the silence I even called out to Ayden to make sure he was still on the line. “I'm here,” he said. “Just taking that news in. And now I need details.”

Heath filled him in and ignored the parts where Ayden cut loose a swearword or six. “So, one man dead, one missing dagger, and one loose spook and his demon, is that about right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Only, the Boston PD suspects that we must've had something to do with it, which is actually why we're calling. We explained to them that we're legit and that the dagger is super dangerous and we need to get it back, but they're not buying it. We were hoping to have you—a former inspector with the San Francisco PD, vouch for us.”

As I finished speaking I heard some distinctive clicking sounds in the background. “How about I do you one better, M.J. There's a direct flight to Logan from SFO, no tickets available online, but I might be able to squeeze on going standby. It leaves in an hour and forty-five minutes and gets in at seven thirty a.m.
It'll be tight getting to the airport in time, but if I don't make it onto that flight, there's the first flight out at six that I'll nab, and that'll get into Logan at three p.m.”

“We'll pick you up,” I said immediately, and pointed at Gilley. Let the fool who put the dagger on display get up early and pick up Ayden.

Gilley scowled at me.

“Great,” Ayden said, and in the background I could hear what sounded like dresser drawers opening. “I pack light, so I won't be checking a bag. Where am I staying?”

Gilley shook his head furiously again and I waved my hand dismissively at him. “With us, of course.” I had a full-sized bed in the basement storage room for just such an occasion. We'd have to haul it up four flights of stairs, but I could have the spare bedroom ready by the time Ayden got here.

“Excellent. Hopefully, I'll see you at seven thirty a.m. Barring that, I'll see you at three.” With that, he hung up and we all looked around at one another, a little stunned.

“What the hell just happened?” Gil said.

“We got ourselves some true investigative help,” I told him. “And we'll be thankful for it.”

Gilley stood up and stretched. “Yeah, okay. So, I guess I'm gonna turn in since I have to be up at the butt crack of dawn. Good night, you—”

“Don't even think about it, mister,” I told him, stepping in front of him. “You're going to help Heath bring up the spare bed from the basement.”

Gilley groaned. “Ugh, but it's so
heavy
, M.J.!”

“Get over it,” I said. “If Ayden makes the flight out tonight, he'll be exhausted by the time he gets here, and he'll probably need a power nap before we head to the station. I'm not going to make him sleep on the couch, and no way are Heath and I getting up at six a.m. to haul that bed upstairs. So that leaves the two of you to do it tonight.”

“But, M.J.—!”

“Oh, shut it, Gil,” I snapped. “The sooner you guys head downstairs to the storage room, the sooner you can drop off the bed and go get some sleep. It'll probably take you all of fifteen minutes, unless you continue to whine about it.”

Gilley pouted his way over to the door, and Heath followed with a slight chuckle. In the meantime I headed to the linen closet to root around for clean sheets and pillows. Once I found them, I brought them to the spare bedroom. As I set them down on the side of my desk, however, I heard Doc in the other room let out a horrible screech that had me racing out of the study to the living room.

Doc's cage had been covered for the night when we got back from the precinct. I use a big green blanket to cover his cage. It's there to prevent any drafts from chilling him during the night, and to make him feel safe.

When I came around the corner into the living room I saw the blanket . . . bulging and moving as if an unseen force was beneath it. Doc continued to screech at the top of his lungs, and as I took in the scene I screamed in both terror and rage. Lunging for the
covering, I tore it off the birdcage and threw it aside. My beloved bird was clinging to the far corner of his cage, staring at the blanket behind me and panting in fear while continuing to scream in small frightened bursts.

I turned and pressed my back to the cage, spreading my arms wide as I eyed the blanket. It continued to undulate and roil, moving this way and that as it swished across my bare wood floors, sometimes flattening out, sometimes bubbling; it never stopped moving, and it moved like a predator playing with a cornered prey. Here's the part where I also admit that the scene was absolutely terrifying.

As I tried to fight through my own fear, my right hand went instinctively to my waistline, but I wasn't wearing my belt with the spikes. That belt and the rest of my usual ghost-hunting gear were in the front hall closet, clear across the condo. The blanket suddenly stopped undulating and began to slither on the floor, snaking its way toward me, which meant that I had two choices. I could sprint across the condo, heave open the closet door, grab some spikes, and run back to stab it, which would leave my bird totally vulnerable, or I could face whatever was under the blanket head-on, which would leave me totally vulnerable.

In the end, the choice was easy. “Come on, you son of a bitch!” I yelled, shielding Doc the best I could. “You wanna dance? I'm right here. So, let's dance!”

The blanket rose a little, like a viper, and a trail of ectoplasmic fog rolled out from underneath. I ignored the fog and focused on what appeared to be the head.
It swayed back and forth and then shot up and at me, spreading out the edges of the blanket as if it were going to smother me.

I didn't duck or turn away; instead, I lifted my right leg as high as I could, kicked the head of the blanket away from my face, then brought the other leg up to land with both feet right on the fabric. There was a hissing sound and some resistance to the weight of my body, but then the blanket flattened out and lay still.

For a few seconds I just stood there panting, but then I began to stomp on the fabric as hard and as quickly as I could. “Ha!” I yelled at it. “I might not have any spikes on me, but these boots are packed with magnets, you motherfu—!”

The front door suddenly burst open and Heath and Gilley rushed in. “We heard screaming!” Heath said, while I stomped around on the blanket several more times for good measure. “What happened?”

“Something tried to attack Doc!” I yelled, still stomping and kicking the blanket across the floor.

“I think you got it, M.J.,” Gilley said drolly.

I paused long enough to glare at him. “Not funny.” I then pointed to the small puffs of ectoplasmic fog around the room that were quickly dissipating.

“Holy shit,” Heath swore, marching across the room to inspect the fog. “That's ectoplasm!”

“I know.” Working up the courage to bend down and pull up on the blanket, I lifted it with two fingers and flung it away from me to see if something might shake out.

Nothing did.

Meanwhile Gilley crossed the room and went straight for Doc's cage. Opening the door he cooed to my parrot and got him to step onto his fingers. Snuggling him close he said, “He's not hurt, M.J. Just scared.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the trembling bird before I kicked the blanket several feet away from me. I was so furious that Doc had been terrorized. Lifting my chin, I shouted,
“Whatever showed up here tonight, I swear on my mother's grave that I will not rest until I kick your spook ass straight back to hell!”

Heath considered me with widened eyes, but I didn't apologize for the outburst. Fuck that. Doc was my baby, and
nobody
and
nothing
threatens my baby!

After a little bit of an awkward silence, Gilley said, “Do you think it was Oruç's demon?”

My hands were still clenching into fists and I had to take a couple of deep breaths before I was able to reply. “I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. It wasn't here long and I wasn't focused on its origin so much as I was focused on keeping it away from Doc.”

Gilley shuffled over and handed the birdie to me. “Here,” he said. “He needs you.”

I folded Doc into a protective cuddle, tucking him under my chin and cupping his back with my free hand. He made a few clucking noises, then put his beak to my throat and made a loud kissing noise. I could've cried with relief.

Gilley moved to his backpack on the floor and pulled out four spikes. I figured he kept those for emergencies. Bringing them back over to Doc's cage,
he slid two of them into the bottom tray and put the other two on the top of the cage. “I'll grab my sleeping bag and a pillow,” he said, looking pointedly at the couch.