A Honeybun in Hell

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

EDRIC HONEYBUN STOOD in the street, staring up at the El Diablo Hotel. The famous, haunted hotel had multiple turrets that were cut from black granite and topped in aged copper. Shadows clung to the building’s dark surface, creating a cold, unfriendly aspect that seemed to warn visitors away rather than pull them in. Warped windows looked dark and empty from the street, with only the occasional wisp of movement behind their streaked surfaces to imply habitation.

The hotel was typecast perfectly for a town called Hell, Indiana. In fact, the entire, front façade reminded Edric of Dracula’s famed castle. All it needed was a few vultures shrieking in circles overhead and a bolt of lightning or two to liven things up.

He peered up at the overcast, charcoal gray sky and thought he just might get his wish on the lightning. A thunderstorm would be unusual at that time of year, just a few days away from Halloween, but not unheard of in Indiana.

Edric eyed the highest turret of the hotel, which rose into a roiling sky from the back of the structure, and realized a narrow, rickety looking catwalk clung to its entire, visible circumference. The rail of the catwalk had a slightly crooked aspect that made it look like it would crumple away from its moorings at the slightest touch.

“Good place for a murder,” he murmured, jotting down a few thoughts, some observations, and possibilities. A cold, damp draft slid over him and he shivered, yanking the zipper on his sweatshirt higher and pulling it close around his throat. He should have worn a coat after all. October in Hell, Indiana was usually fairly mild, but, in Indiana, the weather was a constant and not always pleasant surprise.

“Have you checked out the cemetery yet?”

Edric turned to the hotel’s manager and shook his head. “That’s next on the agenda.”

With the gray, somber attitude of a funeral director, William Plaithe nodded, his slicked back, brown hair plastered, immobile, over the top of his head. Like it was made of plastic. Edric barely repressed a grin at the idea of Plaithe slipping it over his head in the mornings, sideburns and all.

The manager started walking toward the side of the hotel. Edric quickly jotted down a few more notes and followed. They stopped at a gate in the short iron fencing that bordered the sidewalk and Plaithe unlatched it, pulling it open with a horror movie creak. “This isn’t the original cemetery of course. The bodies were moved when the hotel was built.”

Edric stopped. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me El Diablo was built on top of a burial ground?”

Plaithe nodded and kept walking. “Yes. Of course many of our guests are of the spiritual variety. They’ve taken exception to having been moved from their final resting spots and regularly haunt El Diablo’s halls.” Plaithe slanted a look toward Edric, his small, brown eyes looking like river rocks under dark, bushy eyebrows. It was obvious he was assessing the effect of his words on the ‘city feller’.

Edric glanced away to hide his smile. “How fascinating.”

Plaithe inclined his head in agreement. The cracked, vegetation-strewn sidewalk was so broken up in spots the two men had to walk carefully to avoid tripping over uprooted chunks of concrete and aggressive tree roots. Away from the street, the hotel walls were a dark, aged brick that was more black than red, and had large windows at equidistant intervals along their considerable length. “So...do you have a lot of ghosts at El Diablo,” Edric asked in the way of polite conversation.

Plaithe nodded. “We reserve the entire third floor for our uninvited guests. It minimizes unplanned interaction between the specters and the flesh and blood guests.”

Edric lifted a dark red eyebrow. “Unplanned?”

They rounded the back corner of the old hotel and a small, neatly-kept cemetery unfolded before them. Plaithe turned to him and smiled. Edric had to repress a shiver at the sight. The man was truly spooky. “Around Halloween every year, we have nightly tours of the third floor for interested guests, Mr. Honeybun. It’s far and away our most popular offering at El Diablo.”

“I’m sure it is, Mr. Plaithe. I’d definitely be interested in doing that myself. Will you sign me and the rest of my family up for that event please? Let’s say tomorrow night?”

Plaithe rubbed his hands together as if trying to warm them. He probably was. Edric suddenly wondered if he was in the midst of one of Plaithe’s unplanned interactions. The man looked like he’d been dead for weeks. Undoubtedly his extremities were icy with lack of blood. “I’ll see to that immediately, Mr. Honeybun.”

Edric watched Plaithe scurry off and then turned back to the cemetery. He smiled. It was absolutely perfect. Creepy...but perfect. He could make great use of it in his book. The cemetery appeared to be about a half-acre square and was completely bounded by shoulder high, black, iron fencing with skulls serving as finials for its many posts.

He entered the cemetery beneath an ivy covered archway and looked around. The grass under his sneakers was thick and well-tended and the faint smell of lemons wafted toward him from somewhere. He peered around looking for the source.

And he spotted her.

She sat in the center of an ornate concrete bench, her feet stretched out in front of her and her hands resting on either side of her hips. She wore an oversized, cream colored sweater and jeans. Matching leather boots climbed her legs to mid-calf and were scrunched softly over her jeans. Her hair fell past her shoulders and was a rich auburn color. It was carelessly bunched at the back of her head, captured in some kind of plastic clip, like she’d shoved it there just to get it out of her face.

She sat perfectly still, as if she were focusing hard on something. Or listening carefully.

Edric started toward her, feeling as if a line extended from her to him, reeling him inexorably in.

She turned when he was only a few steps away, fixing gorgeous, dark green eyes on him. When she smiled, it was if the dense cloud cover had parted and the sun shined only on them. “Well hello there.” In just those three words Edric could tell she was a Southern Indiana girl. But she’d put her own special brand on the distinctive accent. It was husky and warm, like honey drizzled over warm biscuits, and it made him want to keep her talking.

Edric offered her his hand and she shifted on the bench to clasp it. Her face was pale, with an exotic olive tone, her skin flawless and her cheeks touched with pink. Her mouth was bow-shaped and tinted to match her cheeks. Her hair swept back from a wide, unlined forehead. A few, soft tendrils trailed down the sides of her round face. She had the prettiest dimples in her cheeks when she smiled.

“Edric Honeybun.”

Her pretty green eyes widened. “The Edric Honeybun? Of Smart Investigations, Inc.?”

Smart Investigations, Inc. was the series name for Edric’s well-known thriller books.

He lifted her soft, white hand to his lips and bowed over it. “I would be that scoundrel, yes.”

She squeezed his hand and stood, looking up at him with wide eyes fringed in long, mahogany lashes. “Bella Rawnie. It’s an honor to meet the man who created Mathew Smart. Fictional or not, Smart has single-handedly won the hearts of more women than all of Hollywood’s hunks put together. And he did it just by kissing his little wiener dog, Max, on the nose in Smart versus the Hot Dog Cart-ell.”

Edric laughed. “Max is a pretty special character. I based him on my Brother Alastair’s doxie, Jaws.”

“Jaws must be some dog. I’d be willing to wager that sales of wiener dogs tripled when that book hit the bookstore shelves.”

“I don’t know about that, but poor Smart was definitely upstaged.”

Her wide grin made Edric’s body tingle with pleasure. She had the prettiest, whitest teeth. “Mathew Smart could use an ego adjustment anyway.” She c****d her head, her perfect teeth capturing the soft fullness of her bottom lip. “Does he get his ego from his creator by chance?”

Edric’s eyes widened in feigned innocence. “Me? No way. I have seven brothers, if I ever even thought about getting cocky one of them would beat the bat snot out of me just to shut me down.”

“Seven brothers! Oh my Lord! Your mother must be a saint!”

He touched her arm and started walking. Bella fell into step beside him. “More like a tyrant. But a beautiful and loveable one.”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “I have to wonder what it would be like to have that many siblings. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

“It can be exciting at times. Especially during feedings.”

She snorted and covered her mouth with a hand, embarrassed. “Sorry. You caught me off guard with that one. Feedings huh?”

Edric nodded. “It’s not for the faint of heart let me tell you. Digits have been lost, lives threatened.”

The pathway they walked forked in two directions and Edric glanced at her, lifting an eyebrow in question.”

Bella pointed to the right. “The better tombstones are this way.”

“So what about your parents? Do they still live in Hell?” Edric laughed, shaking his head. The question sounded strange.

When she didn’t chuckle with him, Edric glanced at her. She looked sad. “They’re dead.”

He frowned. “God, I’m sorry. How did they die?”

A shadow passed over her pretty face. “Somebody ran them off the road.” She stopped in front of a pair of newer-looking marble headstones. The names on the stones were Dennis and Clarice Rawnie, the date of both their deaths was the same; January 25th, 2000. “I always find myself walking this way when I’m in the cemetery. As if I’m drawn here.” She looked as if she wanted to say more but, biting her bottom lip, she resisted.

Edric stared at the headstones for a few moments, taking note of the open plot of grass beside them. He barely repressed a shiver. The spot was probably reserved for Bella. He felt an irresistible inclination to wrap an arm around her shoulders and give her a hug. He didn’t, figuring she’d find that strange, but he realized he really wanted to move on, away from that open plot of grass.

He took her arm, gently urging her down the path. As they moved on, past well-established trees and neatly trimmed bushes, Edric was surprised to see the size and richness of the stones dropping quickly off, until cracked, plain limestone headstones with barely legible inscriptions lined the neat, rock path on both sides. Stopping beside one of them, he crouched down and smoothed a thumb over the dates. “Seventeen Twenty Five?”

Bella nodded. Her face held a shadow that hadn’t been there when he’d met her a few moments earlier. “These are the old souls. I like them best. They’ve moved beyond their anger and lie peaceful in their graves.”

Edric felt a chill run up his spine at her words. He stood up and started walking again, saying nothing.

He heard a soft sigh and felt her warmth as she caught up with him again. “Sorry. I was talkin’ crazy, huh?”

Edric shook his head, trying a smile, though he was afraid it didn’t look very sincere. He was sure of it when her cheeks heated with embarrassment.

“It’s okay. Most of Hell’s residents think I’m a bit loopy. I try not to tell them most of what I know, it makes people a bit...uncomfortable.”

Now he was intrigued. “I’m not uncomfortable.”

She stopped, turning, and flashed him a smile filled with doubt.

“No really!” He reached to grasp a soft arm. “You surprised me, that’s all. Please, tell me more.”

Her wide, green eyes locked onto his for a moment before she nodded. “All right, but remember, you asked for it.”

Edric chuckled. “I did, yes.”

Bella started walking again and Edric fell into step beside her. “I practice a religion called Wicca.”

“You’re a witch?” Edric’s eyes sparked with interest.

Bella shook her head so hard the silken strands of her hair exploded from the plastic clip. “That’s a common misconception. Being Wiccan doesn’t make you a witch.” Reaching back, she released the remaining strands of hair from the clip and it fell in a thick curtain around her shoulders. The soft, clean scent of lemons and rich cream filled the air between them. She twisted the long strands ruthlessly and twisted them into a knot on the back of her head, snapping the clamp over it to hold it in place. Then she turned to him. “Wicca is a religion. We honor nature. We’re connected to the ebb and flow of things in the natural world.”

“And that includes spirits?”

She narrowed her eyes to assess whether Edric was being flippant. He wasn’t, he was actually curious. “No. That’s just me. I seem to have an ‘unnatural’ sensitivity to other planes of existence.”

Edric stopped and turned to her. “Really? That’s fascinating. How long have you been this way?” He grimaced. “Sorry, that sounded odd. But, you know what I meant, right?”

Bella looked toward the hotel. “I felt my first spirit when I was five.”

“That must have been terrifying.”

“Not at all. It was the spirit of a little girl. She and I had great fun together for a while...” Her pretty, round face grew sad.

“What happened?”

Bella sighed and dropped onto a nearby concrete bench. “My parents got tired of people calling me names and accusing them of harboring a ‘scary’ child. We moved away.” Her pretty face brightened. “To Hell. Folks around here don’t worry too much if I talk to spirits, it’s kind of a hobby here.”

Her laughter rolled through him like well-aged whiskey, leaving a warm spot in his gut.

“Yeah, I noticed they play up the whole haunted hotel thing here.”

When she smiled her eyes sparked with mischief. “Wait until you take the tour.” She stood up and placed a hand on his forearm. “You are taking the hotel tour right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

She actually clapped her hands together. “Good! I’ll be your spirit guide!”

Edric opened his mouth in surprise. “Oh! I don’t want to put you out.”

She laughed. “I give all the tours here at the hotel. My favorite is the cemetery tour on Halloween night.”

Edric’s eyes lit up. “Now that sounds like a great place for a murder.”

“I’m so glad I know you’re a writer, or that statement would really concern me.”

Edric took her arm and they started walking back toward the hotel. “Not to worry, Miss Bella, I work out all my aggression in the pages of my books. Now tell me more about these tours.”