Home > How to Survive an Undead Honeymoon (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy #8)(4)

How to Survive an Undead Honeymoon (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy #8)(4)
Author: Hailey Edwards

“That’s one crisis averted.” I sagged against Linus. “Now at least we won’t be flambéed.”

Cletus gave chase for about a mile before circling back, afraid to leave us unprotected.

“Too bad he can’t drive.” I pressed my ear against the wood. “The engine is still running.”

Wraiths were like poltergeists in that they could manifest, but they didn’t have much finesse. I had seen Cletus rip out a vampire’s trachea with a vicious swipe of his claws but drop a crust of bread to feed Keet so many times he descended into frenzy and left crumbs behind. Which, to be honest, Keet didn’t mind.

“We’ll have to let ourselves out, I’m afraid.” Linus cast his gaze around the room before settling on the door. “We need to hurry in case our arsonist friend keeps a change of pants in his trunk.”

Cletus did tend to have that effect on people who could see him. I had almost peed my pants more than once after he startled me with a sudden appearance.

“What are you thinking?” No windows meant no glass to break, and there was only one door. Talk about your fire hazards. “We’re pretty well stuck.”

“Can you locate a sigil that might help?”

With the Marchand collection at my disposal, I didn’t have to rely on genetic memory these days. I studied, practiced, and generally busted my butt to master my brand of magic. But there were still times, like this one, when I was forced to dig deeper than the written word to what lingered on the periphery of my thoughts.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the problem and waited until a sigil presented itself to me. I turned the design over in my head, examining it, but it was a new one on me. Certain I had committed it to memory, I opened my eyes.

“Here goes nothing.” I pushed out a breath and sliced open my finger. I drew the sigil on the door then gave it a second. “Hmm.” The design pulsed once then began to erase itself from the outside in. “That’s…weird.”

Linus bent his head to examine it, but his expression cleared before the design vanished altogether.

“Oomph.”

I hit the carpet with a dull thud, Linus on top of me, just as the sequence completed.

An explosion rocked the building, and smoke poured into the room until the air blackened.

“Well, that was unexpected.” I coughed as he rolled off me. “What’s the damage?”

Rising into a crouch, he squinted through the haze. “You blew a hole in the door.”

“I’m guessing Ms. Ayer won’t love me for that.”

“Probably not.”

Linus gave me a hand up, and we went to inspect the damage. The hole was large enough that either of us could have fit through it, but I made the executive decision that he could go because boobs.

Thanks to a steady diet of Vitamin L infused smoothies, and anything involving bacon, chocolate, or chocolate-covered bacon, I had a lusher figure these days. I finally had my curves back, but that meant ceding ground in covert operations to those who could fit through doggy-door-sized holes without sucking in their stomachs.

As much as the view tempted me, I didn’t even pinch his butt on his way out.

Granted, I immediately regretted the decision once he stood on the other side.

A minute or two later, the building swayed again, and I tested the crumpled door.

As I stepped out, Linus climbed down from the backhoe with grease on his hands.

“Hot-wired.” He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped himself clean. “Not well either.”

“It still got the job done.” I called the cleaners on our way to the car with the address and made a mental note to donate funds anonymously to the struggling library. It was the least I could do for blowing it up a little. “Do you think they followed us from the inn?”

“It seems likely.” He held the door for me then rounded the car and got in. “I don’t have many business dealings this far north. I’m not aware of any enemies we, or the Society, have in the area.”

“Whoever is responsible must have noticed us checking in and was also informed enough to guess why we paid the library a visit.”

“That’s a big leap.”

“True.” I wiggled my feet in the floorboard. “And yet, my legs aren’t even tired.”

Amusement kindled in his eyes as I settled in with the information that had almost cost us our lives.

Two pages in, I stumbled across the first red flag and checked it against other records in the stack.

“No strange deaths in or on the Oliphant property so far, but entire families go missing like clockwork in this town and the surrounding areas during the week of the cycle. There are several stories featuring the mysterious disappearances.”

“Any commonalities?”

“Aside from the fact they were all tourists? None that I can see.” I compared the lists. “Married couples and their kids, single mothers and their kids, widows and their kids…” I exhaled slowly. “Kids are definitely a theme, but the oldest accounts are framed as ‘Mr. So and So, his wife, and their children’ without much in the way of details. Without those, we can’t draw any links between gender or age.”

“We can’t connect them to the inn, either.” He flipped on the blinker, turning into the driveway leading us back to Oliphant House. “Guests who were attacked might have required medical intervention, but they checked out of the inn with a pulse.”

“Hmm.” I spared a glance through the windshield as the inn came into view but returned to my research with an inward grin at the monster Linus had created when he assigned me all that homework. “There’s one mention of a death involving both a missing tourist and Oliphant House.” I eyeballed the date with a frown. “Looks recent.” I double-checked the information on my phone. “As in the last cycle recent.”

“This person died on the property?” Concern pleated his brow. “Are you sure?”

“A husband and wife with a newborn son were abducted from their hotel room in town. The husband put up a good fight. There was blood spatter on the rug and bedspread.” I switched back to my phone. “He was later found decapitated on the far edge of the Oliphant property.” I wrinkled my nose. “When I say he, I mean his head. It was in a plastic grocery bag. The body was never located. Neither were his wife or their child.”

“Perhaps we ought to walk the property.” He drummed the wheel with his fingertips. “Get the lay of the land.”

The car rocked when he came to a stop, and motion drew my eye to the cottage behind the inn. The Oliphants sat on their back porch, which faced us, with steaming mugs in their hands. We waved as we exited the vehicle, and they waved back. I worried they might have something on their minds, given they had waited up for us, but they appeared content to let us resume our honeymoon activities without interference.

“They keep late hours,” I observed on our way in. “So much for taking a late-night stroll.”

“They must have noticed us leaving.” He led the way to the kitchen, familiar with my bedtime-snack routine. “There seems to be a lot of that going around.”

The fact our hosts were wide awake nearing three in the morning spoke to either odd sleeping habits or curiosity. Neither would make our time here go smoothly if we got caught sticking our noses where they didn’t belong.

“I’m tired, so I’m going to pretend—just for tonight—that they were waiting up for us out of a sense of obligation and not for sinister reasons.”

As owners of a haunted house, little old lady and gent or not, the sinister vibe was unavoidable.

With that happy thought circling my brain, I doubled back and peeked out the window to find the Oliphants standing shoulder to shoulder, gazing out into the night toward the inn.

Not creepy at all.

No siree.

Trailing after Linus, I explored the kitchen. It was nothing fancy or industrial. The two bulky stainless fridges were its only obvious concession to the B&B lifestyle. I crossed to one then snooped to my heart’s content. I located a carton of bright-red strawberries ripe to bursting, stole the whole thing, and bit into the topmost one with a happy groan.

Amusement twitching in his cheeks, Linus wiped the juice from my chin. “I don’t smell anything offensive, do you?”

“No.” I tossed the leafy bit in the trash. “Bread and onions, definitely. Maybe hamburgers. Collards. Oh! I bet it was cornbread and meatloaf with greens on the side.”

“You spend far too much time with Lethe if you can divine their menu from a sniff.”

Seeds and all, I flashed him my teeth in a gwyllgi-worthy smile.

“The basement entrance is located in the pantry, according to the blueprints I found online.” He checked the knob and found it locked. “Do you want to explore it tonight or save it for tomorrow?”

“I don’t want to use up my quotient for fun on the first night.” I rubbed my shoulder where it throbbed from where Linus pushed me to the floor in the library. “We’ll pick the lock after breakfast like civilized people.”

Curious if any missing persons had been reported in the area, Linus put in a call to the team at the Office of the Potentate of Atlanta. With that done, we burned up the predawn hours exploring the inn.

The magic in the air came and went, no stronger in any one part of the house than another. It permeated the walls, the floors, the ceilings. Everything. I tried and failed to track it a few times, but it vanished before I traced it to its source.

Snacking as I went, I hesitated on the threshold to the study. “How long did you say we have before the murderversary?”

“Wouldn’t our earlier findings make it a maulaversary? Or perhaps a demonversary?”

“Nah.” I reached into the carton but came up empty. “Murderversary is catchier, plus the severed head totally qualifies it.”

“Two days left.” He entered the room behind me. “I thought you would appreciate the ticking-clock aspect.”

   
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