What a Ghoul Wants (11 page)

Discovering its charm and spaciousness gave me pause, however.
Why
had Merrick put Heath and me in such danger by sending us to the south wing of the
castle? He had to know there was a rather dangerous poltergeist lurking about there.
He’d seemed like such a nice man, who’d genuinely been impressed by Heath and me.
So what was his true agenda, and why had he gone out to the moat in the middle of
the night when he should have known that was dangerous territory too?

I also wondered if the Grim Widow truly had drowned Merrick. Even though I’d seen
her nearly drown Heath, I had to allow for the possibility that Merrick had simply
slipped on the drawbridge, hit his head, and fallen into the water, where he’d drowned.
And once the Widow became aware of his grounded spirit, maybe she’d pounced and had
somehow taken it captive?

I made a mental note to ask Gilley to research one ghost’s holding another ghost captive,
because it was something I’d never heard of and had no idea how to deal with.

John and I left the comfort of our rooms and headed toward the south wing. Along the
way, I filled him in on all the harried events of that morning.

He’d heard about the castle employee’s accidental drowning, and I was quick to suggest
that I wasn’t convinced it was an accident. “Hold on,” he said as we passed the stairs
and saw that Gil was still chatting it up with the male models. “You’re telling me
a
ghost
drowned that guy?”

“I think so. At least I know she’s capable of it.”

John caught my shoulder, pulling me to a stop. “But. . .
how
?”

“She’s unbelievably strong, John. And evil. Or crazy. Maybe a little of both. Either
way we’re gonna have to be really careful on this bust.”

John stared at me hard for several seconds without letting go of my shoulder. “Maybe
we should quit this castle and head to the next location, M. J.”

I offered him a mirthless laugh. “If you can talk Gopher into that, then I’m all for
it. For now, let’s just focus on getting my stuff and Heath’s things out of that room.”

John continued to look at me doubtfully. “Is there anything in your old room that
you and Heath can’t live without?”

I sighed. “My passport, ID, credit cards, money, and phone. Ditto that for Heath.
Granted, all of them are replaceable, but it’s the middle of the day, the humidity
is as low as it’s gonna get today, and this is the best chance we’ll have of getting
in there and out before anything spectral notices.”

I could see John consider all of that and he finally let go of my shoulder, but for
a few seconds I didn’t know if he was going to follow me or make a run for it. I took
a few tentative steps away, hoping he’d come along. Even though I believed everything
I’d just said to convince him, I
really
didn’t want to venture down those dark hallways alone, and at last he seemed to make
a decision and fell into step beside me.

We crept along stealthily, neither of us speaking. John had been on enough ghostbusts
to know how to wield a magnetic spike—which acts like pepper spray should any spook
want to get too close. John was also a big guy like Heath, but he wasn’t my boyfriend.
He had neither the experience nor the same connection to the spirit world that Heath
had, and as we rounded the corner into the south wing, I was acutely aware that if
anything jumped out at us, I’d have to be the one to take charge and get us out of
there.

Remembering the force of the blow against my door that morning, and how strong the
Widow had been to wrestle Heath over the stone wall and into the water, I was feeling
a little less confident than when I’d given John the speech, but my mind was made
up. I wanted my damn stuff back.

We passed through the door leading to the south wing, which was still unlocked from
when Heath and I had gone through it that morning, and I paused in the doorway, waiting
to feel out the ether.

John stood right behind me and I could feel him taking stock of the dimly lit corridors
and the nervousness of his energy.

I sent out my intuitive feelers and found the energy in the south wing to be. . .
well. . . icky. Goose pimples lined my arms and the hair on the back of my neck stood
on end. The atmosphere was alight with dark forces, and it was amazing to me that
the night before I’d gone through that very door with barely a pause. It was likely
a testament to how exhausted both Heath and I were that we didn’t halt and refuse
to go beyond the doorway.

Still, nothing super creepy jumped out at me, and I figured we could get into my room,
grab the stuff, and get out before anything too terrible happened.

After another few seconds of checking the ether, I motioned silently to John and we
continued on.

We moved along the hallways, and I was relieved to see that somehow I remembered the
way. At last John and I entered the hallway leading to my room, which was drafty and
cold—much colder than the hallway feeding into it.

I held up my hand and we both halted so that I could assess the situation. There was
a foreboding feeling that snaked its way through this corridor in particular.

John leaned in and whispered in my ear. “You guys actually
stayed
here last night?”

Obviously he could feel it too. “Get your spikes out and stay close to me,” I whispered
back.

I took out four spikes from the containers strapped to the loops of my utility belt
and took a big breath before making my way down to the door of our room. The feeling
of something nasty in the air was getting thicker, settling in both in front of us
and from behind. In fact, I seemed to be feeling it from all directions. By the look
on John’s face I knew he felt it too. His eyes darted all around the hallway and he
held his spikes up like he was ready to charge at anything that might jump out and
go boo.

Then again, the more I looked at him, the more I thought he might chuck the spikes
and make a run for it. He was as scared as I’ve ever seen him, and John doesn’t scare
easily.

“You okay?” I whispered.

His eyes cut to me and he leaned forward to speak softly. “Let’s get your stuff and
get the hell out of here!”

I wanted to tell him to stand guard at the door while I packed, but with my stuff
and Heath’s I already knew it’d be too much for me to carry. “Okay, let’s get in,
throw anything you find that belongs to me or Heath in a bag, and get out fast.”

John’s eyes were still scanning the hallway, but at least he nodded.

I was about to turn the handle on the door when an involuntary shudder went through
me. The awful energy permeating the hallway seemed to ratchet up a notch. I looked
all around again, but I couldn’t sense its direction. It seemed to be coming at us
from all directions. I shivered again, recalling the terrible presence of that evil
energy that’d chased me through the hallways and slammed against our door. In a near
panic, I turned the handle, but it was locked. With my own fear mounting I tucked
my spikes into the waistband of my jeans and searched my pockets, finally coming up
with the old key, which—miraculously—hadn’t fallen out of my back pocket when I’d
gone into the moat. After inserting the key with shaking fingers, I turned the handle,
but the door was stuck. All the while I felt the malevolent energy grow thicker and
more pervasive, and I just wanted to get the hell out of that hallway, because I couldn’t
pinpoint the source or the direction, but I knew that danger was very close.

“It’s stuck!” I told John. He pressed his weight into me and shoved on the door. I
could feel him trembling too, and knew he was just as affected by the surge of evil
all around us as I was. I put my hip against the door and gave it a good hard bump,
and the door opened abruptly, as if it hadn’t been stuck at all.

Stumbling forward with an involuntary squeak, I let go of the handle to catch myself
on the wall. Behind me I heard John cry out with fright and I straightened up and
looked back at him, but he was staring past me, into the room toward the bed.

My eyes darted to the bed, and there, floating just above it, was the figure of the
Grim Widow, pale white, dressed in rags with her wild eyes and even wilder hair. She
sneered at me in the most malevolent way before hissing like an angry cat and flying
toward me as if she meant to grab me up.

I screamed and put my arms up defensively, but John got between us first, and thrust
two of those spikes right into her. She shrieked so loud my ears rang and she whirled
away from the two of us, hissing again as she went.

John looped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me back into him protectively while
keeping his spikes pointed toward the Widow. For a minute we both stood there frozen
in terror. “Do something!” he finally yelled.

I reached for my own spikes, but what I could do against this wretched ghost was anybody’s
guess.

Meanwhile the Widow spat at us and began climbing up the far wall on all fours like
something right out of a horror movie. I’d never seen a ghost do that before and I
felt a new level of fear turn my cold blood even colder.

Behind me, John was trembling so hard that I was convinced he was on the verge of
passing out. “Ma. . . ma. . .
move
!” I yelled at him, hauling up my spikes when the Widow reached the ceiling and began
to climb upside down along it toward us.

But John didn’t budge, so I pushed him hard with my back.
“Move, move, move!”

That seemed to do the trick, and John let go of me and took off out the door. I followed
right on his heels, not brave enough to even look back. We raced through the corridor
and at every step that awful sinister presence dogged us. I ducked low as I ran, the
image of the Widow crawling along the ceiling replaying over and over in my mind,
and I felt close to panic when I thought about her at my back or, worse, overhead.

At the end of the hallway John turned left instead of right and I cried out to him,
but he was too panicked to hear me. A cackling laugh filled the atmosphere—it surrounded
me and seemed to vibrate right through my body.

I stopped at the juncture and shouted out to him again, but he continued down that
hallway as if he hadn’t heard me at all. For a few seconds I watched him anxiously,
trying to decide what to do. He was running so fast I didn’t think I could catch him.
But as I wavered, I saw a dark shadow emerge from the doorway of one of the rooms
between me and John.

It was large and catlike and simply radiated evil. As it came out from the door, it
crouched low before giving chase to my friend.

“John!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs, and took off after him. The black shadow loped
along, gaining ground on John. As I ran, I brought up one fist to eye level, and saw
that I still clutched two spikes. With grim determination I put on a burst of speed,
gained a little ground, then threw my spike right at that black shadow.

It struck the thing dead center and the effect was immediate. It was as if my spike
had blown it into a dozen smaller pieces. It broke apart in front of my eyes and there
was also this terrible sound accompanying the dissipation. The best I can describe
it was that it was like a shriek from something definitely otherworldly.

The black pieces of the shadow flung against the wall, and for a minute I thought
that I’d vanquished it, but then the most terrible thing happened. . . . Those individual
black little blobs began to scurry along the walls and floor and even the ceiling,
moving like inky spiders after John.

“Oh, sweet Jesus!” I cried, hardly believing my eyes. “What the hell
are
you?”

I’d never seen or heard of anything like it, but one thing was for certain, and that
was that John was in very real danger. Putting on another burst of speed, I charged
forward, raising my remaining spikes high as I shouted out a primal war cry.

At last, John heard me, and I saw him glance over his shoulder. His eyes took me in
first, then the little globs of black evil chasing after him. He shrieked in fear
and lost his footing. I watched him reach out instinctively and grasp at the wall.
His hand connected with a small sconce and for a moment he was able to prevent himself
from hitting the floor, but then the sconce gave way and there was a grating sound.
The next thing I knew, John’s upper body had disappeared from sight!

Chapter 5

I shouted out to John for a fourth time as his feet lifted up off the ground and followed
his torso into the wall. I heard him cry out as well, and watched in horror as all
those black little globs dived after him.
“John!”
I screamed, running as fast as I could to close the distance between us. As I came
abreast of him, I could see that he hadn’t actually disappeared directly into the
wall; he’d fallen into a narrow gap that had opened when he’d pulled on the sconce—a
secret passageway, no doubt—and as I came to a stop, I could see that the newly opened
gap led to a circular staircase. John’s feet were at the top of the stairs and he
was sort of sprawled out on the next few steps leading down. There was no sign of
the little black demons, but that might have been because the staircase was barely
visible by the dim lighting in the hallways and I couldn’t see much in the darkness.

I bent to grab hold of his wrist, but my palms were sweating and I was shaking with
fright. He slipped out of my grip and I had to reach for his waistband and give a
tug on it. “Get up!” I commanded. “John, get up!”

He groaned and I knew he had probably hurt himself, but his limbs were moving, so
I didn’t think he’d been hurt too badly. “What the hell ha—”

A sad low moan cut him off and that was followed by another, then another, until there
were too many moans to pick out individually. They echoed up from somewhere down the
stairs, out of sight, and filled the hallway beyond us. Among the moans were whispers
and cries of pain and pleas for help. It sounded as if a dozen tortured souls had
suddenly become aware of us in their vicinity, and they were crying out to us, but
we were in no position to help them.

John reached out and clutched my arm and with a determined pull I hauled him up so
that he could get his feet under him. Still, he was wobbly on those feet and I threw
his arm over my shoulders, gripping his wrist to keep him upright. I then wrapped
my other arm around his waist to move him out of the hidden doorway and back into
the hallway.

Once we’d cleared the door, I reached with my free hand and pushed up on the sconce.
The hidden panel closed, shutting off the noise, and we were alone in the hall.

For several seconds we both stood with our backs to the wall, taking in great lungfuls
of air. I kept my eyes peeled for any sign of the Widow or the black shadows, but
as if some switch had been thrown, all sense of the malice that had haunted us from
the moment we stepped into the corridor leading to my room disappeared.

“We gotta get out of here!” John whispered.

“Totally,” I agreed, and indicated the hallway to my left. “You took the wrong turn
back there.”

John nodded at the barely visible outline of the hidden doorway next to us. “And another
one right there.”

“Are you hurt?” I asked him, hoping he could walk, because I was now so drained I
knew I wouldn’t get far if I had to support him.

He shook his head. “No, I’m okay. You?”

“I’m fine. Let’s get out of this wing before we’re attacked again.”

John and I made it back to the safe side of the castle without further incident, and
when we went through the door, I had him help me move a medium-sized bureau in front
of the door. Heath was the last person with the key, and I didn’t want some wayward
guest of the hotel taking a wrong turn into that wing.

After the bureau was in place, we headed in the direction of our rooms. Just as we
turned the corner to our section, Gopher came running down the hall toward us. He
didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked quite pale.

“What’s happened?” I asked straightaway. I knew it was bad by his expression, and
I wondered if the Grim Widow had ventured past the south wing and perhaps gone on
the attack again.

“We have until one a.m. to get some usable footage or the network brass says we’re
all fired,” Gopher said bluntly.

My mind had been going in a completely different direction.

John and I looked at each other blankly for a minute, and then John said, “I’ll be
in my room, updating my résumé.”

Gopher reached out and grabbed him by the arm. “Hey, hold on there, pal! The fat lady
hasn’t sung yet. We’ve still got until one a.m., and who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky
and something creepy will happen.”

I had half a mind to tell Gopher to take his handheld camera and go pull on a certain
sconce in the south wing, but I held back. Instead I said, “Dude, we’re done here.
I quit.” I’d start doing readings for clients again. Hell, I’d even take some sort
of day job in corporate America before I’d go back for one minute of playtime with
Kidwellah’s ghostly freak show.

“What?”
Gopher cried as I began to walk away. “M. J.! You can’t be serious! You
can’t
quit!”

“Watch me,” I told him over my shoulder, and motioned for John to fill him in.

Gopher called after me a couple of times, but I ignored him. All I wanted was a few
hours’ sleep and then I’d go visit Heath in the hospital and deliver the bad news
that the show was over and we were headed home. I hated to think what that would mean
for our relationship, but I had faith in us, and that somehow we’d make it work.

It wasn’t until I was through the door to my new room that I realized all my personal
belongings and identification were still back in the old room. Heath’s stuff was also
still there and we’d need our passports at the very least to get back to the States.

I could call the U.S. embassy, I knew, but my credit cards were also still back in
the south wing, and I had only about a hundred quid on me. Not enough to carry me
through until we got replacement passports. “Dammit,” I swore. “How the hell am I
gonna get our stuff out of there?”

I looked down. I was still carrying three of the four magnetic spikes I’d taken into
the south wing. Then I thought of something; there was another secret weapon we had
at our disposal—Gilley’s sweatshirt.

A while back we’d come up with the brilliant idea to glue thin refrigerator magnets
to the inside of an extra-large sweatshirt so that Gilley could be protected from
the various poltergeists that found him so oddly irresistible.

Over the past several months we’d made a few of those sweatshirts, because they kept
getting ripped or worn out from overuse. We hadn’t thought to make more than one at
a time, and right about then I was wondering why we hadn’t made a whole wardrobe of
them.

Well, one thing was for sure; if I had any thoughts of retrieving our stuff from my
old room, I wasn’t going to do it unless I was covered in magnets head to toe, which
meant I’d have to convince Gilley to part with his sweatshirt without telling him
the full story behind why I needed to borrow it. If he knew any of the details, he’d
put it on and refuse to take it off again until we were out of Wales.

With an exhausted sigh I entered my new room and lay down on the bed. I’d worry about
all of that later. For now I just wanted to rest.

Just as I was beginning to set the alarm on the small clock by the bed, I heard yelling
through the walls. It was muffled, but it was loud enough for me to glean that some
man was angry at a woman named Fiona for booking him into such a miserable old place
like Kidwellah. I listened for a minute and could hear a woman’s voice feebly trying
to defend herself, but she was cut off by the overbearing man.

With another sigh I got up from the bed and trudged over to the wall, pounding on
it as the yelling got louder. The man fell silent immediately, which gave me a tiny
measure of satisfaction, but then a few seconds later I heard the door of the room
next to mine slam hard. “Bastard,” I muttered, and shuffled back to the bed to fiddle
with the clock again. I set the alarm for late that afternoon. I planned on going
back to the hospital after I’d had some rest. Hopefully, Heath would be almost back
to normal by then and we could talk about what to do next. I then turned onto my side
and fell immediately to sleep.

About four and a half hours later, I awoke to the
beep
,
beep
of the alarm, and as I sat up, I was famished but better rested. With a big yawn
I pushed myself up from the bed and looked around blearily. Even though I’d had a
great nap, I was still a bit sluggish and muddle-brained.

It took me a couple of minutes in the bathroom to freshen up, and once that was taken
care of, I went in search of someone from the crew. Leaving my room, I nearly bumped
right into the woman staying next door, and I recognized her as the mousy woman from
downstairs with that bloated bastard of a husband who’d yelled at Mr. Crunn.

The woman backed up quickly, apologized, her face flushing crimson, and because she’d
jumped back so quickly, her head struck the wall with a little thump.

“Oh, ma’am!” I said, stepping forward. “That sounded like it hurt, are you okay?”

The poor woman appeared very rattled and her hand flew to her head to rub the spot
where she’d bumped the wall. “I’m fine!” she insisted, her face flushing a shade deeper.
“I’m a silly woman and I should be more careful.”

I wanted to say something to put her at ease, but my attention was drawn to the inside
of her wrist still raised to her head. There was a terrible black bruise in the form
of a handprint clearly marked there. I stared at that bruise in alarm, and she seemed
to catch on, because she quickly lowered her hand and dropped her eyes. I studied
her face, and to my disgust, I could see that her nose looked as if it had been broken
at least once, and her lower lip appeared to be a bit puffy on one side. Also, there
was a very faint bruise on the side of her cheek hidden carefully by makeup, but the
shadow of it was still there. Her face flushed even more and she said, “Please excuse
me,” before shuffling past me to her door.

I watched her with a feeling that I should say something to her, like tell her to
get away from that horrible bastard of a husband, but even as the thought formed,
I knew it would be useless. I was pretty sure lots of people had begged her to get
away from him over the years.

My shoulders sagged when her door closed. I felt like I’d just missed the opportunity
to help her. And then I had an idea and vowed to myself to offer her a free reading.
If she wouldn’t let me do one impromptu, then I’d give her my cell number—assuming
I got my cell back—and assure her that she could call me anytime. Sometimes the power
of hearing from our deceased loved ones is more than enough to help us find the courage
to move forward with our lives. It was the only thing I could offer her that I thought
might help. Well, other than introducing her husband to a certain Grim Widow.

I snickered to myself at that thought while heading down the stairs. From that vantage
point, I had a good view of the front hall, which was filled with models, bright flashes
of light, and light screens. Michel was at the center of all the action, clicking
away on his camera while the beautiful people struck poses. Well, most of the beautiful
people. There was a short guy in the middle, wearing tons of makeup and a fedora and
a rooster tail pinned to his butt. The short guy was striking the most awkward poses—Madonna-vogue-type
poses—while all the other models kept spinning around him like a top.

As I descended the stairs, I couldn’t help but duck my chin to hide a smirk—clearly
the short guy didn’t realize he was the foil in the photo shoot, and I wondered what
modeling agency had thought to send him over. Still, there was something a bit familiar
about him. I looked up at him again as he pranced to the side and stuck his bum out—wiggling
that rooster tail and playing up the flamboyant gay for all he was worth. . . . I
stopped in my tracks, realizing why he looked familiar.

“Gilley?”

The name escaped my lips before I could stop myself. Michel and the others paused
to look up at me, but Gil ignored me and struck another couture-looking pose—all elbows
and rooster tail. “I’m a little busy, M. J.,” Gil called, like he was all that and
a big box of Froot Loops.

I shook my head and continued down the stairs. Obviously Gil wouldn’t be able to tell
me where the rest of the crew was, as he looked like he’d been at the modeling gig
for at least the last few hours.

With a sigh I reached the landing and moved over to the counter, but Mr. Crunn wasn’t
around.

I rang the bell, but no one came into view. Eyeing the clock, I could see that it
was now nearly five thirty, and I wanted to get to the hospital before visiting hours
were over, so, taking one of the bus schedules displayed on a nearby table, I set
off out of the hall. As I stepped outside, however, I happened to catch a glimpse
of two figures embracing under the cover of a low-hanging tree. I didn’t think they
knew they weren’t truly concealed, because as I moved onto the cobblestones, I could
clearly see who they were, and my brow rose in surprise.

Having a really good snog fest was the fashion designer André Lefebvre and the model
I’d seen attach himself to Michel. I quickly averted my eyes to give them some privacy
and continued on my way, but as I walked across the large open area, I happened to
spy Mrs. Lefebvre sitting on a stone bench, her eyes narrowed and the most angry look
on her face as she watched her husband make out with the model.

I winced when I saw her, not able to imagine how upset I’d be if I caught Heath making
out with another guy. Cheating is cheating. It’s a betrayal of the worst kind.

I averted my gaze from her too and tried to appear like I hadn’t seen a thing, but
when I snuck a glance in her direction again, it was clear that she had eyes only
for her cheating husband and the model. Or she was patently ignoring me, because she
never once looked in my direction. I moved on quickly and made for the bus stop.

The sun was waning as I made my way across the drawbridge. When I got to the hospital,
I’d call the castle and leave word with Mr. Crunn about where I was so that he could
pass that on to Gopher and the others. I didn’t think they’d worry about me, but in
light of the serious creepy events of the past twenty-four hours, I thought it a good
idea to let everyone know where I was just in case.