Hellsinger 01 - Fish and Ghosts (P) (MM) (25 page)

Sitting three across on the sofa, Wolf let his bare foot stray over Tristan’s, winking at the man when they happened to exchange glances. Next to him, his mother scribbled in a notebook, passing papers and notations to Tristan over Wolf’s lap to verify something she found in Mortimer Pryce’s writing. Across from them, the loveseat bristled with more books as Gidget ran through them, looking for something interesting to hand off to Meegan. Beside her on the floor, Matt fiddled with one of the Hellsinger sensors, working to fine-tune its range to pick up his great-grandmother’s signature.

“Ah, see here! I was right. Your uncle laid out the six points for the Grange.” Meegan turned her book around for Tristan to see. Wolf stared at the diagram she pointed out, catching flashes of Greek mingled in with Gaelic before his mother righted it in her lap again. “There’s three points of entry leading to the front door and three exits for the spirits to leave to their afterlife. The largest of which is centered right in the middle of that pond.”

“Six points?” Wolf wrinkled his nose. “Six-pointed star. Old school, then. Damn. Okay, something to go on then at least.”

“What does that mean? Entries and exits?” Tristan brushed his hair out of his face, and Wolf caught himself before he kissed the slight frown on the man’s forehead.

“It means that he mapped out fey lines along the property and found six nexus points to anchor his spell on,” Wolf explained. “Spell’s kind of a loose term. It’s not like tossing newts into a cauldron or anything. More like a psychic thingy.”

“Is that a technical term? Thingy?” The blond’s slow drawl teased a snort out of Wolf.

“My son’s inelegance is an embarrassment to the family. I would call it more of an arcane procedure.” Meegan flicked her son on the knee. He made a great show of rubbing at the spot, widening his eyes in mock sorrow until she huffed back at him and kissed his cheek. “There. That’s as good as you’re going to get. I’m not bending over. I’ll fall out of my shirt, and as magnificent as my breasts are, I don’t think this is the right audience.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Gidget looked down at her chest. “I don’t even fall out when I’m taking my bra off.”

“Okay, less talk about girlie bits.” Wolf held up his hands in surrender to his mother and Gidget. “More focus on the crazy ghost and what we’ve got to do to get rid of her.”

“So Uncle Morty basically
made
the Grange as a place for ghosts to… leave?” Tristan circled the conversation back. “How does someone do that? And why?”

“It’s a very nice thing, really,” Meegan assured Tristan. “He must have been worried about someone not finding their way out of this life and into the next. He did a lot of research on it, and voila, the Grange became a threshold of sorts. Much like Stonehenge or Kawaiha’o. For a layman, he was surprisingly thorough. I mean, the place works. That’s quite significant.”

“Great.” Tristan’s lower lip edged forward, and Wolf rubbed at his thigh, hoping to ease the blond’s pique. “Why didn’t he tell me any of this? It’s not like he didn’t have any time. We were
always
here.”

“He probably hadn’t counted on anyone breaking it. From what I can tell, it’s keyed to draw in spirits who are tired of haunting and need a way out.” She reached for Tristan’s hand, stretching over Wolf’s legs to touch him. “It’s not very complicated, really. The Grange seems perfect for it. Out of the way and surrounded by forest so there’s not a lot of outside interference like cell phone towers or cable lines. It looks like he hoped to provide a way for trapped spirits to find a way to peace. That’s an extraordinary legacy.”

“So how do we fix it? This incredible legacy I’ve somehow fucked up.” Tristan tangled his Meegan-warmed fingers into Wolf’s when the woman let go. “Draining the pond is probably going to take hours, maybe even days. What do we do with her before then?”

“I don’t know yet, sweetie,” Meegan murmured. “I wish we could send her away, but honestly, right now I think she’s trapped here and can’t get out. It’s probably safer for everyone else that she’s here. For all we know, she’s been terrorizing people for years.”

“Shit, she probably
did
come from someplace else.” Matt whistled under his breath. “People there must be dancing a happy jig.”

“I’d rather be dancing too.” Gidget looked up from the papers she’d gathered and glanced nervously at the door. “Think she’s done for the night?”

“At the very least, the salt will keep her out, but most spirits don’t like electrical storms so I think we’re okay,” Meegan pronounced with a yawn. “It plays havoc with their ability to sustain themselves. There’s a lot of electromagnetic interference in the air. It’s probably why Wolf can’t see Tristan’s dog, Jack.”

“None of us can see Jack,” Matt quipped. “But Wolf keeps tossing the ball away and it keeps showing back up.”

“I see Jack just fine.” Tristan shrugged. “Well, not now but usually. I told Wolf not to pick up that ball. He’ll bring it back constantly if he’s bored.”

“So you did, and I didn’t listen.” Wolf lobbed the red sphere again, bouncing it toward the kitchen. He yawned, catching the motion from his mother and scowled. “You’re jinxing me.”

“If I could do that, you’d be working for me, not against me,” she pointed out, jotting down a few notes.

“I’m just an observer, Mom. People pay me to find out the truth. That’s all.” He sighed, edging Tristan with his elbow. “Tell her I readily admitted there were ghosts once I had proof.”

“Really?” Tristan cocked his head. “I can’t remember you actually saying, ‘Tristan, I believe you’ve got ghosts.’”

“Trust me, I’ve said it. Probably in between swearing at Matt’s insane granny,” he muttered darkly. “Mom, how about we get an idea of what we’re doing here? So far I’ve found seven recipes for butterscotch brownies right alongside a chant used to ward off purple toads.”

“Are they decent brownies?” Meegan peered over his shoulder, leaning into her son. “Because one can really never have too many good recipes for butterscotch brownies.”

“Uncle Mort made really good ones. I’ll give you the instructions before you leave,” Tristan replied from the other side of Wolf as he shifted on the couch.

“Mom, forget the brownies. You’ll just kill someone with them. What are we going to do here? Now?” Wolf gritted between his teeth, bringing them back on track. The last time he’d picked up one of his mother’s baked treats, it was a fruitcake they eventually used as a doorstop. If he could somehow work out a way to use Meegan’s failed meals to ward off Winifred, he’d be the first one to tie an apron on her and wear an asbestos suit for protection. “Let’s focus on the task at hand, okay?”

“Well, I have a plan of sorts,” Meegan said, closing the heavy book she’d been reading. “I actually think we need to do a séance. It’ll be the easiest way to get a hold of Tristan’s uncle. If you’re okay with that, Tris. I’ve found his notes on how he created the portals to the afterlife but nothing on how he warded it from malevolent spirits. I think Gidget and Matt broke those wards when that ring flew into the pond.”

“Shit, that was on us. Because the pond is one of the spell’s anchors, huh?” Matt interjected. “I swear to God, we didn’t know.”

“Last fucking time I wear something from your family.” Gidget rubbed at her face, smearing the edges of her eyeliner. “From now on, everything I buy is new. I’m swearing off estate sales and thrift stores.”

“Is a séance going to hurt? I mean Uncle Morty. I don’t want to call him here if it’s going to be painful,” Tristan murmured under a roll of thunder. “And I sure as hell don’t want him where Winifred can reach him. Bad enough we have to deal with her. I can’t have her touch him. Not now.”

“I won’t be calling him here.” Meegan pressed her hand on the book, spreading her fingers out over its leather binding. “That’s more than I can do. What I can do is punch through the curtain separating the mortal world from the beyond. I can talk to him through that. He won’t be in any danger. He can maybe tell us how he set up the wards so I can replicate them. It might even be easier if I teach you how since you’re related to him. In case something like this happens again.”

“Okay.” Tristan nodded, and Wolf felt the man’s fingers grow cold in his grasp. “So long as… he’s safe.”

“It’ll be fine.” Wolf hooked his arm around Tristan’s shoulders, holding him close. “Mom knows what she’s doing. I think. Not that I’ve really documented—”

“For once, Wolfgang, don’t make this about science,” Meegan interrupted. “Let’s just try trusting your mother, okay?”

“I trust you,” he conceded. It was a long-standing argument. He defied his family’s trust in the occult and arcane, wanting more solid proof than feelings and intuitions, while they looked on in amused sorrow at his skepticism. “So long as you’re not in the kitchen or trying to do any plumbing. Other than that, we’re good.”

“Plumbing? Really?” Tristan eyed the woman sitting next to Wolf.

“She blew up a toilet. At a national park. We had to decamp in the middle of the night before they hunted us down for destroying federal property,” he whispered into his lover’s ear. “And she’s a really fucking shitty cook. I am
not
lying. Bach became a chef just so we could survive childhood. Do not put anything she’s made into your mouth. You’ll regret it until the day you die.”

“You sucked out any cooking skills I had when you were in my womb,” Meegan shot back. “I could cook entire four-course dinners before you came along.”

“Mom, I can barely grill a steak without setting my hair on fire, so it wasn’t me,” he replied. “I learned how to read so I could figure out how to make blue box mac and cheese until Bach could reach the stove. Thank God for ramen and peanut butter.”

“Bah, your aunts helped with the food. I had other things to do.” She yawned again, exposing the silver stud in her tongue. “Okay, I’m going to crash on the couch. No arguments. The children have the library and you two can go off to Tristan’s room. Boris and I will be fine.”

“You sure?” Tristan leaned forward, his shirt riding up his back and exposing the dip of his spine. Wolf let his fingers roam over the line, stroking at the soft skin until Tristan smacked his leg. “We can sleep out here. I’ve got sleeping bags someplace.”

“No, I didn’t stop at the drugstore and pick up three dozen condoms and a quart of lube for you two to sleep out here.” Meegan shooed them with a flick of her hand. “Go on. Pretend you can give me grandbabies, but for God’s sake, keep it down, Wolf. I know how noisy you get. I don’t want to wake up thinking you’ve been possessed or something.”

“G
OD
… I….”
Tristan fell onto the bed, burying his face into the pillows. “Just kill me. Now. Please.”

Despite the coolness of the sheets, his face burned hot from embarrassment. A plastic bag sat empty on the bed next to him, its contents laid out in mute evidence of Meegan’s claim she’d emptied the store of prophylactics and lubricant. With the door closed, he wondered if she was a heavy sleeper and if he could sneak out to drown himself in the pond some time when no one was looking.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” The bed dipped down near his hip, and he felt Wolf’s hand touch his bare back, his fingers skimming along the edge of Tristan’s briefs. “Honey, your shoulders are turning pink.”

“I want to die.” He didn’t know if he could be heard through the linens and pillows, but he did his best. “You’ll take care of Boris, right? Sure he eats a lot, but….”

“You’re not going to die,” Wolf laughed, pressing his lips on the small of Tristan’s back. “This isn’t a dying kind of thing. Mom and I have a… special kind of relationship. Our family’s kind of open about things like sex and… brownies.”

Wolf’s mouth traced the path started by his fingers, and Tristan turned his head, looking over his shoulder at the man bent over him. His skin prickled, and a shiver began down his arms and legs. Despite his mortification, his cock was responding to Wolf’s touch, thickening enough to push at the bed beneath him.

“Shit, you’re driving me… crazy, Wolf.” He gripped the sheets in his fingers, panting when Wolf’s teeth began a lazy gnaw down the back of his leg. His ass twitched, and his skin shivered again when some primal part of his brain recalled the feel of Wolf piercing through him.

“How about if you turn over, baby?” Wolf licked his way up Tristan’s back to nibble at the spot between his shoulder blades. “And we can take turns working our way through these condoms my mom brought us.”

Chapter 15

T
RISTAN
FUMBLED
, struggling to open the foil packet Wolf pressed into his hand, and it slipped away, tumbling to the floor and wholly out of reach. Swearing, he dove after it, only to be caught about the waist by his lover’s strong arms.

“Leave it, babe,” Wolf whispered into his shoulder. “We’ve got lots more.”

The
more
was what worried him. It was a mocking of his sexuality and prowess. He’d only had one night with another man—a hot, sexy man—and he was already wondering about his ability to bring the man off like he’d done before. When Wolf pressed him down onto the bed to kiss him, Tristan hooked his arms around the man’s neck.