A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder

  I followed the detective and Gilley brought up the rear. He whimpered once when the building’s heat kicked on, but mostly he didn’t protest, whine, or complain, which, for Gilley, was huge. “You okay?” I asked him over my shoulder.

  He nodded, but his expression was grave. “I just want to get this over with and head back home. This place is creepy at night.”

  “Every place is creepy at night.”

  “Not ice-cream shops,” he said. “Or doughnut shops. Or cookie shops.”

  “Cookie shops?”

  “It’s a thing,” he insisted. “Mrs. Fields.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I stand corrected. Okay, so cookie shops aren’t creepy at night. What else?”

  “Bookstores,” he said. “They’re pretty tame.”

  “Except the Stephen King section.”

  Gilley grunted in agreement. “Well, he’s just disturbing. Candy stores, though . . . not creepy.”

  “I’m sensing a theme here . . .”

  “Sugar, in any of its many comforting and delicious forms, is the cure for creepy.”

  “Right? Oh, also, your mama’s kitchen. That’s as uncreepy as it gets.”

  “Gurl . . . word,” Gilley drawled. “By the way, I know what you’re doing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re trying to take my mind off the fact that we’re in this super-creepy museum where there may or may not be residual ghost essence present.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Is it working?”

  “A little. But an actual dose of sugar in the form of a candy bar would work better. Got a Snickers or anything on you?”

  “If I had a Snickers on me, I’d be eating it, honey.”

  By that time we’d reached the stairs, and we fell silent as Olivera led the way up. We climbed slowly and quietly, tiptoeing up the steps. There wasn’t especially a reason for it other than I think we were all a bit nervous to be here for a multitude of reasons.

  At last we reached the top floor and headed toward the exhibit, which had crime scene tape stretched across the doorway. “Most of the scene has been processed, but I can’t risk you two putting fingerprints on something that didn’t have them before,” Olivera said, pausing at the tape to dig into her purse and retrieve a few sets of black rubber gloves. She handed those to Gil and me and we made quick work of putting them on. She then lifted the tape slightly to allow Gil and me to duck under. “Try not to disturb anything in the room,” she said.

  We nodded, and once in the actual exhibit hall, Gil and I fanned out a bit. I dug into the messenger bag I’d brought along, which housed a few extra spikes, an EMF (electromagnetic frequency) meter, and a couple of flashlights. I took one of those out and handed another to Gilley, and we each headed straight for the display case, which had been smashed open. The display itself had been roped off from the public—out of reach for anyone who might’ve wanted to get too close to the glass. One section of the rope lay limply on the floor, probably left that way from when Heath had cast it aside after the lights were turned back on and he and I had checked on the dagger.

  As we moved past the rope barrier, little bits of glass crunched under our feet. “Wow,” Gil said when we stopped in front of the display.

  The glass had been thick. Like, you’d need a heavy lead pipe or a hammer to punch a hole through it. “Was there an alarm on the case?” I asked.

  “Only if it was lifted up off the base, but that was secured by a latch underneath, which was further secured by a padlock,” Gil said. “The glass itself wasn’t sensored, so it’s not surprising that the alarm didn’t ring when somebody broke the glass.”

  “What’d they break it with?” I wondered.

  “We think a hammer,” Olivera said, coming up to stand right behind us. “Which we also believe was the murder weapon.”

  I winced. “Not the dagger?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “He suffered a skull fracture after three blows with something resembling a hammer.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “What’s ‘huh’?” she asked.

  “If the hammer was the murder weapon, that means that Sullivan was probably killed before the murderer got into the case and stole the dagger.”

  I looked around again, my eyes noting a set of talon marks on the far wall that had ripped through the poster of us from the Ghoul Getters show. “What alarm was tripped in here?” I asked her.

  “The motion sensor at the entrance to the exhibit,” she said, pointing behind her. “It’s one of only two in here, with the other one being in the glass case that housed the dagger.”

  We looked back at the case and studied the damage to it. It appeared to have sustained several blows, most of which were centered right above where the dagger had been displayed.

  Gil bent to inspect the base and I cast my gaze all around the floor, seeing that the magnets I’d lain on top after the lights came back on had been removed and cast aside. All the other magnets adhering to the sides were still in place, though.

  The base of the display itself was metal, and stuck to it were a dozen refrigerator magnets all with the Ghoul Getters logo on them. Gil studied the magnets, and as I watched him, I saw his brow furrow, and then he used his fingertips to pull at one of the magnets, which held tight to the display despite his efforts. “What the hell?” he said. “M.J., look at this!”

  I squatted down next to him and saw what he was pointing to. Upon closer inspection I could see that the magnet wasn’t even a magnet, just a piece of plastic with our logo glued onto what looked like cardboard, and that was glued onto the metal pedestal of the display to make it appear as if the base was covered in our magnets.

  “Shit,” I hissed, standing up and taking a long look all around. “Are any of the magnets in this room real?”

  The exhibit had a ton of magnets all strategically placed around it. I could see that Gilley had gone to great lengths to make sure that Oruç’s dagger was completely surrounded by them. By my estimation, there were several dozen in various sizes and shapes.

  Gil stood up too, and after digging through his backpack to pull out a screwdriver, he moved with haste to the nearest wall to tap it against the first spike he encountered. It was a dud. Then he went to another, and another, and another. None of them pulled at the screwdriver’s head. “How is this possible?” he asked me after he’d gone all around the room, testing at random, trying to find even one that held a charge. “I personally set this room up, M.J. I mean, how could someone come in here and demagnetize all of these in full view of the staff?”

  “Are they all your magnets, Gil?” I asked, pointing to the ones on the display.

  He turned back to the wall and lifted a metal spike away from the nails supporting it. “I can’t be sure,” he admitted. “I mean, our spikes are simple railroad spikes. You can buy them in bulk online and I never put anything distinctive on them, because why would I need to?”

  Pointing to the tennis racket across the room strung with magnetized piano wire, I said, “What’re the odds that’s a duplicate?”

  Gil headed straight for it. The racket had been placed on a shelf and Gil had to stretch to get it down, but the second he did I saw his expression darken. “Son of a bitch,” he swore again. When he brought the racket to me, I immediately saw what he was so angry about. The racket wasn’t strung with wire; it’d simply had its original nylon strings coated with silver metallic paint. Up close it looked sloppy, and obviously not part of our gear, but from the shelf, it’d looked real enough. “Somebody went through this entire display and carefully replaced every magnet with a dud to mirror your original setup, Gil,” I said.

  Gilley shook his head in disbelief. “How? I mean, M.J. . . . that’d take hours.”

  “There’s only one way,” Olivera said. She’d been absolutely silent since we’d entered the ro
om.

  “How?” Gil repeated.

  “With the cooperation of one of the staff.”

  Now, that made sense. Turning to her, I said, “Any theories as to which employee it could’ve been?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “Before I came to see you and your husband this morning, I’d been poring over the credit reports of all the museum staff. Nobody came back with anything suspicious, and while I haven’t pulled financials for all the employees, there’s nothing in any of their backgrounds to indicate that they would agree to risk their job over something like this.”

  I frowned. I felt like we were missing something. It was Gilley who sort of put it together. “Did you ever look into Sullivan?” he asked.

  Olivera’s eyes widened, and I knew immediately that she hadn’t. “No,” she said. “There was no reason to. He was the victim of an apparent robbery in progress that went bad.”

  “He was also the one who set up the security system, which fed all the cameras to a laptop on-site,” I argued. “And he was here late the night the dagger went missing. He’d also have access to every room in this museum, and could’ve let someone in to switch out all the magnets for dummy props.”

  Olivera’s lips pressed together and she eyed the tennis racket in Gilley’s hands. “But why kill him?” she said. “And for that matter, why smash the display case? Why not just get Sullivan to disarm the alarm for it and take it?”

  “Maybe Sullivan argued with the thief,” I said. “Maybe he wanted more money, or was experiencing a change of heart. Or maybe the murderer simply didn’t want to leave a witness behind, and to make it look like Sullivan had interrupted him during the robbery, he’d smashed the case with the same hammer he’d used to kill the director.”

  Olivera crossed her arms and tapped her foot, thinking. “Sullivan’s computer is still in his office,” she said. “Downstairs.”

  Gilley turned to grin knowingly at me. There wasn’t a computer in the world that could hide its user’s secrets from Gil. “What’re we waiting for?”

  And that’s the moment all the lights winked out.

  Chapter 11

  Gilley was the first to scream.

  Okay, so maybe he was the only one who screamed, but he screamed loud. Like, loud. And with Gil, it’s always a challenge to tell whether he’s screaming in outright fright or because some spook has just taken him as a hostage. (It’s happened before.)

  For several seconds, I couldn’t see a thing; my eyes were trying to adjust to the sudden loss of light—even our flashlights had died—but finally I saw a shape next to me and reached for it. Gilley screamed again. “It’s me!” I hissed.

  He responded by latching onto my arm and pulling me to him. He then wrapped himself around me like a koala hugging a tree. “Something’s here!” he blubbered.

  I wanted to shush him, but then I heard it. A beeping sound that sounded all too familiar. And it seemed to be coming from me, or rather my messenger bag. With a jolt I realized that the beeping was our EMF meter. And it was going off like crazy. Using my free arm, I dug it out of my messenger bag and clicked the backlight on the device. The meter was in the red zone.

  “What the hell is that?” I heard Olivera ask. Her footfalls told me she was coming toward me, drawn to the EMF meter as the only source of light in the room.

  “It’s a meter that measures electromagnetic frequencies,” I told her. “It tells us when a spook is close.”

  I saw the shadowy figure of the detective stop in front of me. “I take it there’s one close to us?” she said, a quaver sneaking into her voice.

  “There’s one right on top of us!” Gil shrieked.

  “Gil!” I said firmly. His freak-out wasn’t helping. “We’re wrapped in magnets here. We should be fine.”

  Olivera moved even closer to me. I wondered if she was going to take up Gilley’s koala pose. Meanwhile the EMF meter continued to go off, and it set us all on edge. “Can we get out of here?” Gilley whispered. “It’s in here, M.J.! I know it!”

  Although Gilley didn’t identify the “it” he was referring to, the hair on the back of my neck had risen high and goose pimples had already broken out along my arms. Gilley was right; something was in here with us. From the corner of the room there was a low rumbling. It reverberated off the walls, traveled along the floor, and vibrated under our feet and along our skin. My breathing was coming in quick pants. I knew that rumble. I knew that presence, and I also knew we were in deep, deep trouble. “Gil,” I whispered. “Let go and get behind me. You too, Olivera.”

  Gilley scooted around to stand pressed to my back, his head knocking the space between my shoulder blades. He was trembling so much that I wondered if he’d be able to walk—or run—out of here. Olivera, however, hadn’t moved other than to fumble with something at her waist. I knew that only because her elbow bumped me and I heard the slight rustle of clothing. “If you just took out your gun,” I whispered, “I will leave you behind when Gilley and I make a break for it.” I was serious too.

  “What the hell was that?” she asked me. I could hear the chatter of her teeth as she tried to speak. She was absolutely terrified. Which meant she’d shoot first and ask questions later. Great.

  “Detective,” I said firmly. “Holster that weapon and get. Behind. Me.”

  For another few seconds I didn’t think she’d comply, but finally she bumped my elbow with hers again and I knew she’d tucked the gun back into her shoulder harness. She then sort of shuffled backward a few steps, but she seemed reluctant to get behind me. I figured it was because she wanted a clear shot in case the demon across the room came at us. Which it was sure to do unless I did something first.

  Very slowly and carefully I reached into my messenger bag and felt around until I had what I wanted. Gripping it tightly, I pulled it out and held it at both ends. “Listen to me, you two,” I began, keeping my voice low and steady. “I’m going to set up a distraction. The second my distraction hits, we bolt for that doorway and go until we’re out of here.” Neither Gil nor Olivera replied. “Tap my shoulder if you understand,” I said. I felt two taps. Good. They were on board. “Gil, get your spikes out. If that thing comes at us, throw all you’ve got at it. I’ll be right behind you.” When motivated, Gilley could outrun me. He wasn’t often motivated, except at times like these. Or when the smell of freshly baked doughnuts scented the air.

  I tightened my grip on the thin tube in my hands and said, “We’ll go on three. One . . . two . . .”

  Just as I was about to shout three, a high-pitched roar filled the room and was so deafening that it nearly knocked us all over. The three of us staggered back, Gilley pulling me along as I tried to hold myself upright. And then there was a sort of pounding of feet heavy enough to compete with an elephant. Olivera screamed. Gilley screamed. Even I screamed. On reflex I tore at the top of the tube I was holding and threw it at the approaching monster. The darkness shrank as the road flare I threw at the demon blossomed into red bubbling sparks that shot outward and hopped along the floor. Within the light of the flare was a creature at least nine feet tall. Beady, recessed, glowing red eyes focused on our quivering forms, and a snout as long as my arms, with fangs that dripped black sludge, inched hungrily toward us.

  Oruç’s demon had just crashed our party.

  “We are so screwed,” I heard Olivera whisper.

  At the sound of her voice the beast charged forward on two legs, with limbs that resembled a human’s, but the skin of the beast was thick and gray, gnarled with bumps and ridges. The arms of the beast were thin and elongated, as were its three fingers, each tipped with what looked to be razor-sharp talons.

  The sight of Oruç’s demon coming at us was enough to take Gilley’s screams to a pitch high and loud enough to pop my eardrums.

  Olivera also screamed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her go for her gun again. With one hand I hit
her hard across the forearms and wrenched the spike clutched in Gilley’s fist away from him only to then throw it right at the demon. It struck and stuck in the beast’s snout, and that stopped its charge long enough for me to grab both Olivera and Gilley and wrench them to the right and over toward the exit.

  Gilley kept screaming the entire time. I barely noticed. I was too focused on the six-inch fangs of the beast and the razor-sharp talons swiping at us as we dashed by it. We got by unscathed, although I could see Olivera kept reaching for her gun, and I kept reaching for her arm, which made it impossible for me to draw out another spike. Gilley gained the lead and darted ahead of us out into the open room leading to the front stairwell. The spike in his right hand was still firmly gripped, which did us no good.

  Olivera kept looking over her shoulder as she battled my attempts to thwart the drawing of her weapon, and at one point she stumbled and fell down. Here’s the part where I admit that I almost left her. The fear coursing through my veins at that moment was so intense and the instinctual urge to run from a massive predator and leave anyone else in my wake was nearly overpowering. Reason returned, however, and with a snarl I stopped, retraced my steps, and grabbed her under the arm. “Get up!” I roared.

  With my help, she did, and we barely escaped the downward swipe of the demon’s claws.

  By now, Gilley had gained the stairs, and I saw his head disappear as he hurtled down them. I let go of Olivera because holding on to her was slowing us both down, and we raced after him. She had much longer legs than me, but I’m a serious runner, and we reached the top of the stairs together. It was so dark that it was impossible to see the steps individually, but that didn’t stop me from launching myself down them. Breaking a leg was nothing compared to possibly being ripped apart by talons and fangs.

  Behind us the beast kept coming. I didn’t dare look back; I was too focused on my feet, trying to guess where each step was. Gilley reached the bottom while we were still in the middle of the stairwell, his screams echoing throughout the massive front hall of the museum. In the back of my mind I wondered if someone outside might hear him and call the cops. Then I realized that if the demon caught one of us, it would likely shred us within a matter of moments, and then the police would have to deal with it, and how were they supposed to handle a demon that couldn’t be killed, with talons that could tear apart human flesh?