The Halloween Haunting

2. Mountains, Molehills, and a Muscled, Manly Chest

2

Mountains, Molehills, and a Muscled, Manly Chest

My Grand Cherokee wasn’t back from its magical autopsy yet. I cringed to think about its poor magicked brakes. Long story short, Alex needed to date saner women. Or less jealous ones. Or ones who weren’t witches. Any of those things. Probably all of those things.

Wembley’s Vanagon still smelled like smoke from our earlier adventures, so we took Alex’s Tesla. If it weren’t for Mandy, one of the gals that manned Alex’s shop Bits, Baubles, and Toadstools, he would never be able to keep track of his cars, let alone keep them fueled or charged up. And the man owned a used car lot, so that was saying something for Mandy’s mad organizational skills.

Bradley claimed shotgun, which made Alex pause. “No backseat driving.”

“Shotgun is the passenger seat, not the back seat,” Bradley said in his usual details-are-everything way.

Alex squinted and pointed at him. “I’m onto you, buddy. You know exactly what backseat driving is. No backseat driving.”

And I thought Bradley almost smiled. I’d swear I saw his lips twitch. Bradley’s sense of humor was rarely seen, and it gave me a warm fuzzy to see it now, when he’d been having such a rough time. He lived his life according to specific rules, some provided by his former mentor Mrs. A, but most he’d created himself in order to better interact with a world he found frequently alien and sometimes upsetting.

So when his condo had been burgled recently, his scheduled, tidy life had been saturated with the chaos of change. Workmen in his home, a new security system, having to work anywhere but at his well-ordered desk—that was a lot for a guy like Bradley. He could move back into his condo once Alex okayed the security, but who knew when that was going to happen.

Bradley had found a place within our little group, which also gave me a case of the happies. I’d befriended him after Mrs. A was murdered, and he’d been both a good friend and a valuable asset. Bradley aspired to ninja sleuthing status, which he’d believed at one time that I’d achieved. I suspected our subsequent adventures had disabused him of the notion.

“You’re staring,” Bradley said. “Mrs. A said eye contact is good but staring is bad.”

“Mrs. A was absolutely right, Bradley. I’m sorry.”

He nodded, then retrieved a cloth shopping bag from the kitchen counter and headed out the door. That bag had been awfully full. There had to be more than cash inside it. What exactly had this Dot woman’s fee been?

My cell pinged with a text message, and I pulled it from my pocket. Gladys. A former client, but now—now I wasn’t sure how to define our relationship. She’d taken up with a vampire bigot, and his influence hadn’t been positive. I couldn’t believe that she was dating anyone, let alone Blaine Waldrup, Mr. Posh and Outdated himself.

Technically, Blaine was under consideration to assume the newly opened position of CEO of the Society. Seeing as how the Society for the Study of Paranormal and Occult Phenomena was the front for what was actually the governing body of the local enhanced community, I couldn’t let myself believe that the bigoted, narrow-minded twit would ever assume the position of CEO.

I almost didn’t read Gladys’s text, but an image of the gorgeous, statuesque redhead popped into my head and I cringed. She’d been a friend not so long ago, and she was a former client. I sighed and opened the text.

Halloween in a few days, fundraising party at my house. Can I count on your support?

Gladys had been intimately involved in the case I’d just wrapped up, the one that had involved a murdered succubus and a zombie vamp. If she had questions about that, I’d have understood. The zombie vamp had been her friend, after all. And it was Gladys who’d reported Bitsy, a.k.a. zombie vamp lady, missing and presumed dead.

But the fact that she was texting about a fundraising party made me question her priorities, not for the first time since she’d started dating the slimiest vamp in Austin. Her text was also oddly reminiscent of my socialite mother, a mental pairing that made me doubly uncomfortable.

Gladys and my mother—any vamp and my mother—didn’t need to share the same space in my head. Granted, with Wembley and my mom now dating, it was happening with increasing frequency. Wembley might be the exception to the rule, since vamps in general were an unsavory crowd—but he was still a bloodsucking vamp.

My stomach didn’t wobble at the thought of blood. Progress! Blood and I were definitely not friends, and we had a distressing history, what with me being a vamp and living with a vamp.

I glanced out the window to see how far we had until we reached the retirement center and realized we only had three or four minutes. Less time than I’d thought, but more than enough to answer that text. I should really reply.

But I didn’t. Her request for my presence, or my money, or even my support in general hit me the wrong way, and I’d had a rough day. Procrastination won again. Tomorrow was soon enough for a reply. I locked the screen and shoved the phone back in my pocket.

We arrived at the retirement center a few minutes later. It sat smack dab in the middle of a retirement community. One that was vaguely familiar.

Any sense of recognition fled as Alex parked near a tree and asked, “What’s the plan?”

Bradley frowned. “You wait here, and I trade for the results.”

“We can’t provide very good backup if we wait in the car,” I said. But mostly I was worried we’d miss meeting Dot, a.k.a. hacker grandma. I couldn’t say I had legit concerns about him attending a bingo game for seniors.

Bradley didn’t comment.

“Can we come in if we’re unobtrusive?” Alex asked.

Bradley looked at me.

“What? I can be unobtrusive.”

Wembley snorted.

Like I was somehow more obvious than two tall, built, hot men. It might make me cringe to admit that Wembley had become a hottie since dating my mom, but he kinda had.

“I’ll be quiet as a mouse.” Not possible, and Bradley was good at detecting lies and obfuscation. I leaned in between the front seats and tried again. “I promise to do my best to be unobtrusive. Can we please come inside?” I smiled at him. “Please?”

“Fine,” he said, but he didn’t look the least bit happy about it. “I’ll go first. Dot usually sits in the back until I’m done.”

Done? Done with what? But before I could ask, Wembley distracted me with a comment about the game’s location. “Uh, Wembley? How do you know what room the game’s in?”

He shrugged with an innocent look. “So I happen to know there’s a regular bingo game here. A guy can’t have the 4-1-1 on his own city?” He waggled his trimmed eyebrows. “I even raided my cash stash in the kitchen.”

Since when had bingo game locations become a part of Austin’s “4-1-1”? And the only stash I knew about was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. “Wait. Your cash stash in the cookie jar?”

He nodded.

Exactly how expensive was the buy-in for this seniors bingo game? Then I thought about a bunch of bored retirees all living in one place, and then the article on s*x, drugs, rock ’n’ roll and seniors that I’d read recently. “Hey, Alex, do you have any spare cash I can borrow?”

He didn’t answer, just c****d an eyebrow at me then said, “If you’re ready, Bradley?”

Whatever. Not like I really needed to gamble with a bunch of boring old people.

Bradley replied to Alex, “Give me a few minutes to get set up without you guys bothering me.”

Alex nodded, and before I could ask what exactly Bradley was setting up for, he exited the car and closed the door behind him.

Alex turned around in his seat. “This place is unsettled. The spirits aren’t happy, and there are ghosts trying to appear to the living.”

Whoa. That came out of nowhere. I glanced in Wembley’s direction. Alex had recently let a few highly trusted people into the circle of knowledge about his secret, and Wembley was one of them. Even so, I wasn’t certain how comfortable Alex was with sharing spirit and ghostie info.

“It’s fine, Mallory,” Alex said. “I just wanted you both to know. Just in case. It’s been a long day, and I’m a little tired.”

And I was a complete i***t. I hadn’t thought about Alex’s particular condition when I’d insisted on tagging along. He wasn’t about to watch me waltz out the door on another adventure when I’d almost been burned alive a few hours ago. Partners had each other’s backs.

Alex did the right thing, just about always, even when it wasn’t the best thing for him. Endearing, yes, but also frustrating as heck. Especially now, because of Alex’s super-secret condition.

He’d bound himself to a variety of nasty critters: spirits, elementals, and demons. In exchange, he could communicate with them and had some influence over them…unless he was tired. Or sick or drunk or otherwise less than his normal superhuman, wizardly self. Weakened, he was vulnerable to those same creatures—possession vulnerable—and those nasties liked to joyride in flesh-and-blood bodies and do terrible things.

Yeah, binding himself to some evil nasties was a stupid thing to do, but he was a kid when he’d done it. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem the ties faded over time—even hundreds of years—and he was stuck with his youthful indiscretion.

And that was about all I knew. We’d never had a long sit-down about the particulars; he was a tiny bit touchy on the subject, seeing as how he’d broken some rules creating those bonds. “Wait a second, ghosts?” I said. “You don’t usually see ghosts, do you?”

“Not unless they want to be seen, but they share space with some things that can see them—and don’t like the company.”

Interesting. Ghosts had once been people, but those other things hadn’t. Maybe that created some kind of tension.

Wembley didn’t dither, just got down to business. “Do we need to watch for anything in particular? Besides you getting, uh”—he blinked at me—“hijacked?”

Alex’s eyes crinkled in that way he had of smiling without smiling. “I’m not that tired, but good to know you’d notice if I was possessed.”

That he could be amused was a little shocking. He’d always been so touchy about the bound creatures and especially about being possessed.

Diet, sleep, exercise, even s*x—Alex was careful to meet all his physical needs, because he’d been possessed before and very bad things had happened. He was like the poster child for living a moderate life. I knew that, and I knew why (when I remembered). I was one of the few people familiar with the details of his murky past, which made forgetting all the worse.

We should have all gone home and let Bradley run his own secretive, marginally illegal errands. It was official. Tired Mallory did not make the best decisions, and her memory was craptastic.

“Quit worrying, Mallory. I’m fine, or I wouldn’t have come.” Alex rubbed his jaw. “Call this an overabundance of caution. I’m only commenting because there are more than a few otherworldly creatures running around this place, and they seem especially active. Probably related to the approaching All Hallows’ Eve.” He opened the car door.

He might have ended the discussion on a confident note, but that didn’t make me any less worried. I wanted to hover, which would drive him batty.

I was distracted by guilt and worry, and I was flat-out tired, so it took most of the length of the parking lot for the familiarity of the place to register. “Whoa! This is where Great-Auntie Lula lived when I was a kid. They must have been bought out, because it has a different name.” The arches we were walking through, even the color of the trim on the building, were the same.

“You’re sure?” Alex asked.

“Yes, I am now. I thought it looked familiar, but they expanded the parking lot and added some landscaping. There weren’t any trees before.”

Wembley scanned the parking lot and then the façade of the building. “The same Great-Auntie Lula you see every time you get high on coffee?”

“You make it sound like I’m taking drugs.” My frown was replaced by a fond smile. “But yes, that Great-Auntie Lula. I adored her as a kid. She died when I was around twelve or thirteen.”

“You don’t see her, do you?” Alex paused at the entrance, waiting for an answer.

“That’s your talent, Alex, not mine.” Maybe he was too tired to be here.

“Usually. Haven’t you noticed that I never see her when you do?” He opened the door.

“No…yes, I guess so. I mean, I never thought about it, but now that you mention it, yes. Except I thought I was hallucinating the first few times. Ack!” I smacked a cobweb away from my face. I’d run into it when I stepped inside, and it was sticking to my hair and face.

“At this rate, we won’t find Bradley before tomorrow,” Wembley said. “He better not be in trouble, because you guys are backup duds.”

“Shut it. You don’t have sticky web in your hair.” I glared at him through a filmy haze. “And besides, we’re in a retirement center. He’s meeting someone’s grandmother during her weekly bingo game. How much backup could he need?” I picked at the strands of web in my hair, and I’d swear they just squished in more, which made me groan in frustration. “A little help with this nasty mess…anyone?”

“Hey. Mountains and molehills.” Alex held me still and started to pick the stuff out of my hair.

When my vision cleared, I could see that the fake web material was strewn throughout the lobby.

“I can’t believe that Halloween snuck up on me this year. I love Halloween. And what the heck do spider webs have to do with molehills?” Alex was less than a foot away, and his freshly showered scent tickled my nose. It was making me nervous, and nerves made me chatty. Possibly incoherent.

He tipped my chin up—a shame, since I’d been staring at his rather nice chest. “You’re making mountains out of them. There, all gone.”

Wow, I must be tired. Because he sounded like he was talking gibberish, and I just wanted to cuddle against his chest. Neither of those things was normal. Mental note: aim for at least one good night’s sleep after every attempt on my life.

“Huh.” With his hand on my chin and standing so close, I thought my brain might be melting out of my ear. Then I caught a glance of a shadowy figure over Alex’s shoulder. “Auntie Lula?”

Alex pivoted and scanned the room. “Where?”

“She’s gone.” I pointed to a space next to the rec room’s doors. “But she was there. I think. Wow, maybe I am hallucinating. I did drink that pot of coffee by myself.”

Alex cupped his hand under my elbow. “Come on. We’re late, and I want to make sure that Bradley’s all right, and then get you home.”

Arguing seemed silly, given the fact I was hallucinating.

When we walked into the rec room, a man was calling out numbers.

“B-15.”

I scanned the back of the room for Bradley or anyone who looked shady and hackerish who might be Dot. Because that was a look; I was sure of it.

No Bradley.

No hackerish, shady lady.

“O-63.”

“Wait a minute.” I knew that voice. I looked at the podium and there was Bradley, calm as you please, calling out bingo numbers.

Bradley…in a kilt.

Bradley in a kilt…with no shirt.

I felt like I’d swallowed my tongue. Must have sounded like it, too, because Alex thwacked me solidly on the back. And that was when I noticed that Bradley had an assistant whose eyes were glued to his surprisingly muscular chest. Yuck. The guy was like a little brother. I did not need to see anyone lusting over him. Ick-ick-ick.

“Looks like it’s ladies’ night,” Alex murmured. He spoke quietly, but that didn’t hide the humor in his voice. “Wembley, any chance you saw this online and failed to mention it for some reason?”

Wembley shook his head. His gaze was pinned to the large banner across the stage that read, “Naked Bingo Night.”

Scanning the room, I discovered that Alex had hit the nail on the head with his ladies’ night comment. The room was packed with an over-sixty crowd of mostly women.

“It’s not funny, Alex.” When he lifted his hands and tried to look innocent, I said, “I can see you smiling.” Except he wasn’t. Not outright. It was that persistent crinkle at the corners of his eyes that gave him away.

But when I commented on it, he actually grinned. He leaned close and murmured, “Most people don’t notice.”

The rumble of his voice in my ear made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. In a good way. A really, really good way.

“Bradley would have had backup if you lovebirds hadn’t stopped to flirt.” Wembley shot me a censorious look.

I frowned at him and denied it, though the hairs standing on the back of my neck made me a huge liar. “Anyway, it’s not that bad. He’s just calling bingo numbers.” Half-naked and surrounded by ogling women old enough to be his mom…but still.

And then the chanting started.

“Take it off!” a woman from the crowd yelled, followed by another woman shouting, “Show us the goods.” And then a third: “Get naked, you hunk of love!” Applause and catcalls followed.

Okay, that was bad.