He poured. The foam rose, then settled. I took a long drink, chasing the bitterness down. Haunted house duty. That was the Guild’s way of sayingwe can’t fire you, but we wish we could.
They sent washed-up hunters to babysit cold spots, chase creaky pipes, write reports that no one would ever read. It was meant to humiliate me.
Maybe it would’ve worked, if I still had anything left to lose.
I reached into my jacket, thumb tracing the worn grooves of my hunting knife’s hilt. Donovan’s voice came back, unbidden.A hunter without conviction is just a man with a knife.
Well, he’d been half right. These days, I wasn’t much of either.
2
KIT
By the timethe order came through, hand-delivered by some messenger who couldn’t even look me in the eye, I was halfway through sobering up.
The message was simple. “Investigate reports of unusual activity at the old Ashford property, outskirts of town. Possible haunting.”
Haunting. Right. The Guild didn’t believe in ghosts. None of us did. Spirits weren’t our jurisdiction. But apparently, sending a washed-up hunter to chase creaky pipes was cheaper than firing him outright.
So I went. It was midnight when I reached the place. The Ashford house loomed at the end of a weed-choked drive.
It was three stories of sagging timber and boarded windows, roof half collapsed on one side.
“Haunted,” my ass. The only thing likely to kill anyone here was tetanus.
I stood by the rusted gate for a minute, staring at the silhouette against the clouds. Part of me wanted to turn around, head back to The Black Dog, and finish what I’d started with that bottle.
No one would know. No one cared.
But another part, the stubborn, stupid sliver that still remembered what pride felt like, said no. If the Guild wanted a report, I’d give them one.
They could shove their ghosts, but I wasn’t going to hand them an excuse to brand me useless. I pushed the gate open. It shrieked like a dying thing.
The path up to the front door was more mud than stone, and the air smelled of rot and wet wood. When I stepped onto the porch, one of the boards gave a groan deep enough to echo. I snorted.
“Yeah, definitely haunted,” I muttered.
Inside, the house greeted me with the stale breath of dust and neglect. The entryway was a graveyard of broken furniture, wallpaper hanging in tatters.
My boots left prints in the gray film covering the floor. Somewhere in the dark, a rat scurried.
“Boo,” I said flatly, and my voice bounced back from the walls.
If I’d been sober, maybe I’d have been more cautious. But after enough whiskey, even the supernatural starts to lose its teeth.
I dragged out my hunting knife, the familiar weight of it settling into my hand. The metal caught what little light seeped through the cracks in the boards, flashing dull silver.
Still sharp and still mine.
I swept the beam of my flashlight across the hall, half expecting to see some idiot kid trying to film a ghost video. Nothing but debris. I sighed.
“Easy pay, easy write-up,” I told myself. “Haunted by bad plumbing and raccoons.”
The stairs groaned under my weight as I started up. Halfway to the landing, a crash sounded from above. It was a sharp, splintering noise that sliced through the silence.
Instant sobering. I sent the Guild an update, telling them there might be some possible supernatural activity and that I’ll update them soon.
Then I tightened my hand on the knife. Adrenaline burned away the last traces of alcohol, and for the first time all evening, I felt alive again. Something moved up there. Something real.
