Because you can’t free yourself, he thought, understandingwhy she would feel driven to take up such a hobby. But he didn’t say that aloud.
She had paused as if she were waiting for him to say something, but when he kept silent, she shrugged and led him into a smaller room off the entryway.
“This house was built in 1898 and was restored in the eighties by the grandmother of the current owner. There are plans to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast, but those plans are on hold until they can deal with a restless spirit or two. This is the reception room—where the original owner, one Eben Mercanter Benson, welcomed important guests.”
Asil looked around the octagonal room. It was a fine example of its type—a room designed to impress guests with the wealth and power of the homeowner while also being cozier than the grand entrance hall with its impressive staircase. He counted six kinds of wood in the ornate floor, and the oak fireplace mantel made seven. Arching high ceilings were adorned with painted Italianate scenes. The fireplace had been converted to gas sometime in the past but still had the original surround.
With a little smile, he touched a sparrow carved into the corner of the mantelpiece—it was a charming creature.
Our kind of space, said his wolf.Beautiful and skillfully wrought—as we are.
Asil thought a question at his wolf—a wordless, infinite question encompassing the utter strangeness of speaking to each other once again, the change from broken beast to coherent thought. What had changed?
I don’t know, the wolf answered.But it has something to do with her.
Asil realized abruptly that Ruby had quit talking, and he turned his gaze from the sparrow. She was watching him with an odd look in her eyes. He gathered the things she had been saying when he had been listening and came up with a cogent question.
“Are not ghosts an asset in the world of bed-and-breakfasts?” he asked. “Were you asked here to prove it is haunted? And if you free the trapped spirits here, won’t you be making their enterprise less successful?”
She smiled and relaxed a little.
Appreciating that we are letting her keep her distance, observed his wolf.But we are patient hunters.
Yes, agreed Asil, not at all certain he wanted to take this hunt to the same place his wolf did. But he wasn’t certain he didn’t, either.
Thiswasa date, no? He was careful not to smile at Ruby just then; she might notice his sharp white teeth.
“Well-behaved ghosts are welcome,” Ruby told him. “But apparitions who won’t allow guests to sleep are more problematic. This house is supposed to have a troublesome poltergeist—a spirit who throws things. My team and I aren’t here to provide proof of ghosts. We look specifically for trapped spirits and we find a way to let them rest.”
“So why the cameras and microphones if you don’t intend to prove anything?” He nodded toward the camera in the corner of the room.
“Ghosts aren’t like a mouse infestation,” she told him. “They aren’t always present. We’re going to try to contact something today, but we’ll also leave the cameras in here for a couple of days. If we find a particularly active spot, we’ll comeback for a second try. We are looking, in this case, for a spirit who sobs brokenly or screams in the middle of the night. And whatever likes to throw sharp things like scissors and kitchen knives. A former owner claimed something threw a hammer at him.”
As they strolled through the old, empty house, visiting formal and informal dining rooms, bathrooms, a billiard room and a modern kitchen, a laundry and an old-fashioned butler’s pantry, she continued to educate him about what she and her team did. Not much of it was unknown to him. He disliked being ignorant and had spent a few days researching ghost hunting, watching several television shows, because apparently this was a thriving hobby.
But while she told him about this thing she loved to do, her body relaxed, her voice softened, and she forgot to keep him at a distance. She also forgot to be afraid of whatever it was Alan Choo had gone to great effort—and personal risk—to save her from.
While she talked of EVP (electronic voice phenomena), EMF detectors, and other alphabet soup devices, he took in details of the house. He’d always had a fondness for Victorian architecture—it was as excessively gorgeous as he. This particular house was a grand example of its kind. Every room, including the bathrooms, had a transom window over the top of the door filled with etched amber or ruby glass. Plaster walls were worked into patterns covered with bronze leaf. Ceilings were painted or frescoed. Everywhere one looked, there was attention to detail.
“Our team has a ghost box,” she was saying as they started up the narrow servant stairs in the back of the kitchen. “But wedon’t use it much. We have better luck with dowsing rods and EVP. And all the static hurts Alan’s ears.”
She looked at him and then away, as if mention of Alan reminded her Asil was a werewolf, too.
On the first floor…ah, he was in America…on thesecondfloor, the excesses of the lavish ground floor gave way to common sense. There were two more bathrooms, one modern and one charmingly original, with an odd, spiral-shaped pipe that created a surround shower with rudimentary showerheads placed more or less at random all over the pipe. A person showering in such a contraption would find themselves uncomfortably deluged by water. A ridiculous thing—something he’d never encountered, for all he’d lived through the years when it had been built. Perhaps it had been invented for this house. The thought pleased him.
They returned to the hall and entered the library. The room was well lit and lined with leaded glass–fronted, fumed oak bookcases. A Persian rug covered the red oak floors nearly wall to wall. A few comfortable-looking chairs provided places for visitors to read.
Ruby took a step into the room and paused. As she did so, Asil’s nose was flooded with rose perfume, of a variety he hadn’t smelled for years—ambergris perfumes were no longer common. Ruby’s face relaxed into a real smile, and she reached out to touch something he could not see, though his wolf told him there was something…someone there.
“Well, hello, you,” Ruby said, her voice darker than it had been. Asil’s wolf wanted to roll in that voice. “We aren’t here to bother you, and we should be out of your way soon.”
She glanced at Asil, who nodded. Yes, he knew there was someone here, too.
“Housekeeper, I think,” she told him. “She feels like someone who takes care of the house. She might be a maid, but she carries an aura of authority I don’t believe a lesser servant would.”
“Do they speak to you?” he asked.
She shook her head, her attention still mostly on the spirit, who was starting to fade—if the perfume scent was anything to judge it by.
