A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder

  Heath considered me with widened eyes, but I didn’t apologize for the outburst. Fuck that. Doc was my baby, and nobody and nothing threatens my baby!

  After a little bit of an awkward silence, Gilley said, “Do you think it was Oruç’s demon?”

  My hands were still clenching into fists and I had to take a couple of deep breaths before I was able to reply. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. It wasn’t here long and I wasn’t focused on its origin so much as I was focused on keeping it away from Doc.”

  Gilley shuffled over and handed the birdie to me. “Here,” he said. “He needs you.”

  I folded Doc into a protective cuddle, tucking him under my chin and cupping his back with my free hand. He made a few clucking noises, then put his beak to my throat and made a loud kissing noise. I could’ve cried with relief.

  Gilley moved to his backpack on the floor and pulled out four spikes. I figured he kept those for emergencies. Bringing them back over to Doc’s cage, he slid two of them into the bottom tray and put the other two on the top of the cage. “I’ll grab my sleeping bag and a pillow,” he said, looking pointedly at the couch.

  If I hadn’t been holding Doc, I would’ve hugged him. “Thank you,” I whispered hoarsely.

  He nodded once, eyed Doc’s cage, and took one of the spikes back, tucking it into his waistband for the trip down to his place. “I’ll be back in a sec,” he said, hurrying out the door.

  Heath went to a chair and sat down. “There’s a trace of something heavy and dark still here,” he said. “It feels a little familiar, but I can’t place it.”

  I went over to sit next to him in the other chair and extended my own senses. There was something still lingering in the ether, and I understood what Heath said about it feeling familiar. I swore we’d encountered it somewhere before, but where? And why was it showing up in my condo of all places?

  “It doesn’t feel like Oruç,” I said after a bit.

  “No,” he agreed. “Which means something else came in here tonight. Something we’ve dealt with before.”

  “Heath,” I said softly, “we’ve locked down tight every bad spook we’ve ever encountered. How could whatever this thing was come here tonight?”

  “You know what it feels like?” Heath said with a hint of recognition in his eyes. “It feels a little like the Slayer.”

  My breath caught. Sy the Slayer was a horror show all unto himself. I wanted to shake my head at Heath because I couldn’t quite face it if he was back to his old haunting ways, but I also couldn’t deny that my husband was right. The energy did feel a little like the Slayer. “If it is him . . . ,” I said, “how?”

  He shook his head and took my free hand. “I want to say that it’s not possible, but we didn’t think Oruç and his demon could overcome the magnets either.”

  “But the Slayer was shut down!” I insisted. “Heath, his portal was destroyed. Beyond repair. How could he come back?”

  “Again, Em, I don’t know. But he has been here before, so if it was him, it was easy enough to find you.”

  I shuddered. And then I thought of something else and shot to my feet. Covering Doc, I raced for the door. “Gilley!” I cried. Sy the Slayer had once gotten inside Gilley’s head, and if Sy was back to visiting old haunts, he could be downstairs with Gil at that very moment.

  As I reached for the door handle, however, it turned unexpectedly and the door shot open. Doc squawked and flew out of my hands while I jumped back and narrowly avoided getting hit in the face by the door. “What’s happening now?” Gilley said, standing in the doorway with his sleeping bag, his laptop, and every article of magnet-stuffed clothing he owned.

  Heath bent down to retrieve Doc and moved quickly back toward the birdcage to tuck him inside. My poor bird had certainly been frightened enough for one night. I grabbed Gil by the collar of his fishing vest—which his mother had also bedazzled for him and lined with magnets—and pulled him inside, slamming the door shut behind him. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  His eyes pinched with worry. “Yes. Why? What’s going on? Did something happen? Did it come back? Is it here? Is it after us? Is it behind me?!” Gilley then shrieked, threw aside his sleeping bag and pillow, and launched himself into my arms, where he proceeded to cling to me and shake like a leaf.

  No way was I gonna tell him that Heath and I thought Sy the Slayer had somehow managed to invade my home tonight. “Nothing’s happened, Gil,” I said, patting him awkwardly on the back. “You were just gone a long time for someone only retrieving his pillow and a sleeping bag.”

  Gil shuddered against me. “I had to put on my gear,” he whimpered.

  “I know, honey. I see that now. You’re totally protected, so not to worry.” Gilley finally let go of me, but he was still a little pale. “Would some hot cocoa help?” I asked him.

  He shrugged and said, “It wouldn’t hurt.”

  I smiled. “Okay, then, let me warm up some milk while you make up the couch for yourself.”

  “What about the bed in the basement?” Heath asked.

  I sighed, feeling weary down to my toes. “We’ll get it tomorrow,” I said, reaching under the counter for a soup pan. “If Ayden needs a power nap, he probably won’t mind taking the couch. I would rather have had his room already made up for him, but it’s not like he’ll mind if the place isn’t perfect the second he arrives. We can move the bed up from the basement tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What do we do about covering Doc?” Heath said next. He eyed the blanket, still on the floor, a little nervously.

  I set the pan on the stove and headed right for the blanket. Picking it up, I carried it to the door and dropped it on the mat outside. “I’ll take that to the Dumpster in the morning. It might still have spook residue on it and I’m not getting it anywhere near Doc.”

  “Okay, do we have another blanket to cover him with?” Heath asked.

  “We have something better,” I said. Getting the milk out of the fridge, I handed that to Heath and then headed to the linen closet again. Pushing aside all the extra blankets and sheets, I reached for one of my most prized possessions and lifted it out carefully.

  For a moment I simply stared at it, until my eyes watered so much that I couldn’t really see it. “What’cha got there?” Heath said from the hallway’s entry.

  I held it up so he could see it. “It’s a quilt,” I said, clearing my throat, which was choked with emotion. “It was the last quilt Mama ever made. The last thing she ever gave me too. She made it for my eleventh birthday.”

  “Aw, Em,” Heath said, coming to me for a hug.

  I let him embrace me, holding the quilt to my chest to let it feel my heartbeat. Maybe the essence of my mother was still in the fabric of all those panels, sewn by hand with so much love and care. Maybe through the quilt she could feel my heartbeat.

  “Your mom is showing me a heart,” Heath said, and my breath caught. “She’s making me feel like it’s beating with love for you.”

  I swallowed hard, pushing down the sob that wanted to bubble up. For a long time I just hugged Heath and let the beat of my heart drum out the love I felt for Mama. At last I pulled away and wiped my cheeks. I’d been very teary lately, no doubt a result of so much travel and so much drama in one day. Wiping my eyes, I whispered, “Thanks, sweetie. I’m so happy you’re my husband.”

  Heath offered me a warm smile and tilted my chin, about to plant a kiss on my lips.

  “My cocoa is burning!” Gilley yelled.

  I rolled my eyes and laughed a little. Leave it to Gil to ruin a tender moment. With a sigh Heath let go of our embrace and we moved back to the living room. “I’ve got the cocoa,” Heath said. “Why don’t you cover Doc’s cage.”

  I moved over to my birdie, who was cleaning himself and settling all his feathers back into place. Even so, one look at him told me he was very tired. It was g
oing on one o’clock by now and well past his bedtime. I made an effort to unfold the quilt and show it to him before attempting to place it over his cage, lest he be frightened by any covering after the earlier incident.

  He wiggled his tail and fluttered his wings a little, but then he picked up one foot and tucked it underneath him, so I knew he was ready for bed and not bothered by the quilt. Still, I very gently placed it over his cage, tucking it in a bit to make sure no cold drafts could sneak in and chill him.

  “That’s a gorgeous quilt, sugar,” Gilley remarked from the couch. “Didn’t you used to have that on your bed when you were little?”

  “I did.”

  “Is that the one your mama made you?”

  “It is.”

  “Aw, well, that’s perfect,” Gil said. “No spook is gonna mess with something Madelyn Holliday put so much love into.”

  I turned and smiled at Gilley. He’d called it exactly. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “We should’ve brought that quilt with us on a few ghostbusts,” he remarked with a yawn. “It probably works better than a pound of magnets.”

  “I just want it to keep Doc safe,” I said.

  “Here,” Heath said, and we both looked up to see my hubby holding two mugs. One he handed to Gilley and the other he handed to me. I took a whiff of it before indulging in a sip. “Peppermint?” I asked. “I didn’t know we had peppermint-flavored cocoa.”

  “We don’t,” he said, grinning. “But we do have some leftover peppermint schnapps from last Christmas.”

  “Did you make mine a double?” Gilley asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Heath said with a bounce to his eyebrows.

  Gil took a sip and sighed. “Ahhh,” he said. “Perfect.”

  I took my hot cocoa into the bedroom, and Heath came with me with just a shot of schnapps. We fell into bed and I blew on my cocoa while he rubbed my shoulders and assured me that everything would be okay. “We’ll figure this out. Don’t worry.”

  “Yeah, well, until we do, Doc can’t stay here,” I said sadly. “He’s too vulnerable.”

  “Mama Dell?”

  Mama Dell was a dear friend of ours who’d looked after Doc almost the entire time we’d been in Europe shooting our cable show. “I’ve imposed on her so much, though.”

  “How about Teeko?”

  Teeko is my other best friend. Her name is actually Karen, but she’s such a knockout that Gilley had nicknamed her TKO, which had morphed into Teeko.

  With a sigh I said, “Yeah. I’ll call her tomorrow. Until then, I can’t leave Doc here alone.”

  “We could take him to the office,” Heath suggested.

  I brightened at the idea. My office had plenty of magnetic spikes driven into the walls and covered in plaster. It was a precaution Gilley and I had taken when we’d first started out in the ghostbusting business. Back then we’d thought that, if anything followed us back to the office, it wasn’t gonna hang out for long. “The office is perfect. I’ll keep him there until Teeks can pick him up. Thanks, honey.”

  “Anytime,” he said with a yawn. I felt my eyelids begin to droop and I set the cocoa aside. I was so tired that I’d taken only one or two sips. “I should brush my teeth,” I said, sliding farther under the covers.

  “I think you can go one night without a squeaky-clean mouth.” Heath chuckled.

  I believe I mumbled something in reply, but I don’t have any memory of it. That night, I slept like the dead.

  • • •

  The next morning I woke up while Heath was still sleeping and found Gil rolling up his sleeping bag. “I didn’t get a text from Ayden,” he whispered with a yawn. “I think he made the plane, so I’ll head over and pick him up.”

  I glanced at the clock on the DVR. It was a minute or two before seven.

  “Do you want coffee?” I asked him as he shuffled toward the door.

  “I’ll pick some up on the way,” he said. He paused at the door and said, “I checked on Doc when I first woke up. He’s still sleeping like a baby.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, honey.”

  Gil left and I put on the coffee, hoping that Heath would wake up and join me, but that man can sleep through anything.

  Around eight I got a text from Gilley who let me know that, apparently, Ayden hadn’t made the flight. Gil said he was heading to his favorite coffeehouse and he’d call me later.

  With a sigh I got up, uncovered Doc, fed him some breakfast, and then put him in his travel carrier. After leaving a note for my husband, I headed to the office with Doc.

  It’s a very short drive to my office—hell, I could easily walk there, but I didn’t want Doc exposed to the cold, so we drove.

  Once there he settled into his cage beautifully, and I retrieved my wedding and engagement bands from the safe. “No sense pretending it’s a secret,” I muttered.

  Just as I was about to leave again, my cell rang and with an excited squeak I answered the call. “Abby!” I sang. “How the hell are you?”

  She laughed. “I’m great, M.J.! I’ve just had you on my mind for a couple of days, and then I heard that my sister was going to be helping Gilley out with his wedding and I wanted to call and lend my support, because, as the best person, you’re gonna need it if Cat is getting involved in Gil’s wedding.”

  I sat down at my desk and shook my head. “Oh, I remember the cray-cray that was your wedding, Abs. No way am I getting involved in that hot mess again. Gil’s on his own. Although I have a feeling I’ll be talking Michel down from the ledge between now and September.”

  “Might I recommend alcohol?” Abby said. “In a pinch, some heavy doses of chocolate also help to take the edge off.”

  I chuckled. “Noted. So what’s new and exciting?”

  “Oh, nothing much, actually. At least not much since we last talked right before you went on vacation with that hot man of yours. And I’d ask you how that went, but I can already tell that congratulations are in order!”

  My eyes widened. Abby’s a damned good psychic, and sometimes she blows even me away. Of course, she also could’ve read it on the Internet, but Abby’s the type to confess if she’s cheated or not. I took it as her turning on her radar and picking our wedding up out of the ether. “Yes, they are,” I told her. “Heath was so sweet. He proposed on the beach and we got married a week later.”

  There was a pause, then, “Hold on, you got married?!”

  I blinked. “Yes. Isn’t that why you were congratulating me?”

  Abby paused again, but I’d heard her suck in a breath. “Uh, no. Actually, I was congratulating you on the baby. Please tell me you know you’re pregnant, M.J.” Blood drained from my face and I slid out of the chair and right onto the floor with a thump. I think she heard me because she said, “Oh, crap. You didn’t know.”

  I put a hand on my belly and looked down. Gilley was right; my décolletage was impressive as of late. My boobs were definitely swollen and tender to the touch, and come to think of it, they’d been that way for a couple of weeks. I was also a bit thicker around the middle, but I’d attributed that to being on vacation and indulging in all the great restaurant food. And I’d been eating a lot lately. It seemed I was hungry all the time.

  Pulling myself back up into the chair, I skimmed my desk calendar and realized I was well over a month late. Which normally wasn’t a huge deal for me. My cycle had never, ever been normal, and it wasn’t unusual for me to skip a month. I’d had a burst appendix when I was in my teens, and the doctor had once told me that I might have difficulty getting pregnant. I wasn’t on the pill, because the added hormones just made me crazy, and as Heath and I had been together for a couple of years now, it wasn’t like we practiced safe sex a hundred percent of the time. “Oh . . . my . . . God,” I whispered. I hadn’t really paid my cycle or the tenderness in my boobs much atten
tion because I’d been having too much fun with Heath on the beach. I’d figured it was just a blessing that my period hadn’t happened while we were on our vacation/honeymoon.

  Now I realized, it really was.

  “M.J.?” Abby said. “Honey, are you there?”

  “I . . . we . . . it . . .” I was still so stunned that I couldn’t really think. Holy shit . . . I was pregnant. Pregnant!

  “M.J.,” Abby said again, “I’m not a medical intuitive. You might not actually be pregnant yet. It may be that you’re just really fertile and that’s what I’m picking up in the ether.”

  “No,” I said quickly. Even I knew that Abby didn’t believe that. She’d picked up baby, not fertility. “No, Abs, I think you’re right. I think I really am pregnant.”

  “Is there a drugstore nearby?” she asked calmly.

  “Uh, yeah. Why?”

  “You can go get a home pregnancy test and make sure,” she said. I could hear the worry in her voice. I think she thought that maybe I wasn’t happy about the situation. But I was. At least, I thought I was. Wasn’t I?

  Children had always been a part of my plan, and Heath had mentioned them once or twice in the “Someday when we have kids” kind of way, but I knew that neither of us had planned on it happening so soon.

  “Yeah,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ll do.” And then I thought about that whole process: peeing on a stick, sitting there waiting for the results. I didn’t want to do it alone, but I didn’t really want to bring Heath into it until I was sure I was pregnant.

  “Do you want to call me back when you get the test? We can wait for the results together if you want a friend to talk to,” Abby said, as if she’d actually read my mind.

  “Call you in ten minutes?” I said.

  “I’ll be here,” she said.

  I hung up and raced for the door. There was a Walgreens at the corner.

  Chapter 5

  Fifteen minutes later I was sitting back in my desk chair, on the phone with Abby, and I was staring at the little pink positive sign on one of the five sticks I’d peed on. They’d all come up positive. “Congratulations!” Abby sang. “Are you okay, honey?”