HauntMe (5 page)

Bram

He almost felt human again.

Seven years of watching his wife had been torture. Seven
years of wanting desperately to call out to her, to touch her, to thrust his
cock deep inside her, ejaculating semen farther than he could reach in order to
claim her once more as his—if he weren’t dead already, he’d say the
anticipation had nearly killed him.

What exquisite pleasure to have her again.

He’d observed her over the years. It had broken his heart to
see her standing at his grave, crying, her chest heaving until she ran
helplessly to the cemetery gardens, grief forcing her to puke up her lunch in
the flowers. It caused him no end of pain to hear her curse him late at night,
when she wandered by the pool with insomnia, asking him why he’d lied to her,
gambled away their small savings, betrayed her by his foolish actions.

He’d done it for her.

How ridiculous that sounded, even to himself, but it was
true—that’s how it had started. Poker with a few friends had been harmless.
He’d been good at it. He’d learned from Nerv over the years they’d been
together—she had a natural gift for reading a person that she’d taught him. It
was perfect for determining a player’s tells. He’d won a hundred here, a
hundred there, just for fun. He’d played with coworkers on Fridays, just a way
to pass the time while Minerva was filming TV pilots, and Bram had soon fleeced
the English teacher who had family money to spare. Ms. Henley had taken it
good-naturedly, passing over several thousand in one night, which Bram had used
to buy Minerva’s engagement ring.

Playing at school had soon turned into playing at an
infamous Santa Monica bar. Then the bars had gotten shabbier and more
dangerous, in worse and worse areas of town. The players had gotten better and
the stakes higher. A bad night meant tens of thousands in debt.

A bad month meant they were going to lose the house.

A bad winter led to Bram tied to a marble table that Victor
Grayson called his “altar” as Bram bled, screaming, while his heart was cut
from his body.

Had Minerva truly forgiven him? Could she?

He had to believe it was possible or he would go mad.
Certainly the way she’d gasped in his arms tonight had told him yes—but did she
even fathom that he was real?

Bram lived so much in his own head these days that the
footsteps outside the house didn’t register at first. The quiet female voice of
the alarm saying “Disarmed” simply blended into the night.

It was the low sound of male laughter that finally surfaced
in his mind.

Someone was in the house.

Awakened

Minerva’s dreams were a strange blend of the portentous and
the erotic.

She lay tied to an altar, marble cold against her back,
ropes tight around her wrists and legs, the fraying knots digging into her
skin. She should have been frightened but the pain only heightened her arousal.
Bram kneeled above her, legs resting on either side of her shoulders. His ass
pressed into her chest, holding her down as forcefully as the ropes. She craned
her neck, raising her mouth to his cock. A bead of pre-cum shone eerily blue in
moonlight whose origin she couldn’t see. Her mind vaguely registered that
tonight was a new moon, so if she could see the light she must be dreaming. She
strained forward, parting her lips and releasing her tongue to taste with the
tip. She leaned closer and closer, watching the liquid shimmer in the
moonlight.

Hot damn, she was cold. But it wasn’t the marble at her
back.

She shivered and rolled over, then rolled again, reaching
out to grasp the blankets that should have been covering her sleeping body, the
log cabin patterned quilt passed down from her grandma—

The quilt was hovering three feet above the bed.

Even without any light from her bedroom window, Minerva’s
eyes made out the lighter gray among colorless tones in the room. What the
fuck?

Her left arm fumbled for the bedside lamp.

No.
Bram’s voice was urgent. Terrified.

“What is it?” she whispered, trusting completely in the
moment between sleep and wakefulness that her husband was a ghost and there to
help her, even if her consciousness hadn’t quite accepted it yet.

There’s someone in the house.
Bram’s voice. Certain.
Authoritative.

Shit. Her whole body froze, lying still on top of the bed.
She took a deep breath and sat up slowly.

Minerva’s first thought was of the alarm system, but no, she
clearly recalled touching the buttons beneath her fingers as she’d wandered
back in from the pool, a ritual so familiar that it would be strange
not
to complete, the female “Armed” voice soothing in her normalcy. The alarm had
been set. There was no way someone could have gotten in without setting off a
ricochet of squealing warnings complete with a phone call from her security
company and the arrival of the police if she didn’t answer.

She’d left her cell by the piano earlier but she’d still
hear it. And certainly there were no police sirens.

If she’d been alone, Minerva would have dismissed her
apprehension as that of a paranoid, nightmare-filled mind. But Bram had been
the one to wake her, to warn her.

And now she heard the hardwood floor creak directly below
her.

Yes. Footsteps—no mistaking them. Minerva took a breath and
held the oxygen deep within her lungs, forcing herself awake and focusing
solely on her sense of hearing.

Two creaks, heading northeast toward the stairs. Whoever it
was, he was coming upstairs.

In her mind she pictured the last location of her cell
phone. Before she’d gone outside to the pool, she had tossed it haphazardly on
an end table by the piano. She didn’t have a landline, believing them to be
outdated and useless. There was no way to summon help from anywhere on the
second floor.

Minerva slid one foot off the bed, touching her toes to the
plush area rug below. Another creak. She slipped a second foot down to join it
and clenched her core muscles, pulling her body to the edge of the bed. She
reached down, fumbling in the darkness for her prize—a baseball bat she kept
secreted beneath the bed.

Her hand at first met solely air and rug. She leaned
farther, grasping desperately at the blank space where her weapon should be.
When her manicured nails touched the aluminum of the bat, she sucked in a sigh
of relief.

She grasped the bat in both hands, curling her fingers around
the metal weight of it. She rose to her feet, steadying herself, the last
vestiges of sleep gone. How long had it been since she’d played baseball? Her
heart rattled in her chest. Her hands felt numb and bloodless. Would her body
remember the experience of swinging a bat properly, her hips thrusting to the
right and filling her arms with energy? How long had it been since she’d taken
a self-defense class? Would she know the right time to drop the bat and go for
a man’s eyes with her nails, for his throat with her teeth?

Minerva felt a small gust of wind against her back, warm and
steadying. Bram. Whatever she had to do, he would be with her, guiding her.
He’d woken her, warned her. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark and she knew
the house—she could see the stepstool by the open bedroom door, a potential
tripping hazard, and she could see the steep flight of stairs less than six
feet past the door. Whoever they were, she knew the house better than they did.

She knew the sound of feet on the third stair. A squeak
almost silent to ears other than hers. Someone was coming up to meet her.

Her mind flashed back to the vision she’d had at the
studio—a dark-haired man with sunken cheeks, his hands soaked with blood,
holding a beating heart high in the air.

Minerva’s hands tightened on the bat. She wanted to whisper
to Bram but she couldn’t risk giving away her position. With luck the intruder
would stumble into the upstairs bathroom first and she could surprise him. The
footsteps on the stairs moved higher.

A flicker of light passed over the hallway
floor. Whoever it was, he had a flashlight, so Minerva’s advantage wasn’t a
hundred percent—but he didn’t know she was awake.

And he doesn’t know you have me. However
faint my powers might be.

If only Bram were strong enough to creep to
the stairs and find out what was going on! What good was a ghost who could
barely protect his wife? Just as Bram had promised to be the provider but
gambled their money away, now even in the afterlife he was letting her down.

What a horrible thought. Minerva was glad
he couldn’t read her mind. She told herself it was the stress and not her true
feelings.

The light trickled through the hallway and
into her bedroom. Within seconds the intruder would see her.

You have to move now!

She knew! Damn it, she wasn’t an idiot.
Minerva rushed forward, swinging the bat high. As she stumbled into the hall,
leaden-footed, she grasped the bat in her hands, twisting at the waist for
power, and began to swing—

“Wait! Nerv, it’s me!”

Minerva stopped suddenly, confused. The bat
jerked from her grip, though she kept hold of it with one hand. The intruder
held the flashlight to his face.

“Don’t hurt me!” It was a high male voice,
more a child’s than a man’s.

Light glinted off a tangled mop of red hair. His hands held
the flashlight high above his hand, both arms raised in surrender. It was Greg,
his pale, guileless face making her laugh out loud in relief at her
foolishness.

“Greg, what the hell are you doing in my house? You scared
the shit out of me!” Minerva Silence, Sex Psychic, never used profanity unless
it was in describing something fantastically dirty, but she let the words
escape her mouth now. She dropped the bat and her lips formed into a smile.
Thank the spirits, it was just Greg.

“I’m sorry, Nerv. I didn’t mean to scare you—” he continued,
but her overstressed mind couldn’t focus. Her stomach was doing somersaults
with fear and she couldn’t rein it in.

Speaking of spirits, was there a something forming behind
Greg? A body seemed to coalesce in the air, the faint outline of a man
shimmering behind her assistant. Yet this one triggered no fear. Towering over
Greg at at least six-two, Minerva could see a mist forming, gray lighter
against the blackness of the hallway, Bram’s height…was it him? Could she
finally see him? Her smile grew bigger, until she realized he was pointing,
holding his arm outstretched in front of his ghostly body, shaking it,
desperately gesturing behind her—

That’s when the hand clasped at her mouth, pressing a cloth
to her lips and nose. Minerva inhaled involuntarily, noxious fumes traveling
down her airway, and her last dizzy thought was a ridiculous plea that the
intruder not harm Greg, he was just a kid, really, and one of her best
assistants.

Bram

He was helpless as they tied her down.

Why was he still here, tied to the Earth, if there was
nothing he could do to save her?

There must be something.

There must.

Power

When she woke up, Greg’s twisted grin was the first thing
she saw. Well. She didn’t have to worry about his safety, then.

Her mind didn’t bother playing justification games, puzzling
out benevolent reasons why Greg might have had a friend drug her. No, he’d
betrayed her. The situation wasn’t okay.

Minerva closed her eyes quickly, keeping her body limp. She
was fastened to the chair from her makeup table, hands cuffed behind her. The
wooden back of the chair dug into her spine through the silk of her robe. The
thin, pink fabric didn’t protect her from the chill in the bedroom.

How long had she been there? She was freezing.

What was he doing there? Her assistant had violated her
bedroom, her most private space. How had he gotten past the alarm? She wanted
to thrash and fight, throw herself forward in the chair, bite at him, yank at
her arms, breaking the cuffs.

If he hadn’t seen her awaken, better to take a few moments
to figure out the situation. The room reeked of sweat. The overhead light had
been turned on. It hurt Minerva’s eyes but she focused on not blinking or making
any sudden movements. She kept her eyelids low, peering out beneath long
lashes.

Greg loomed over her, red hair glinting clearly in the room
now with the light turned on. Greg’s eyes were bright and frantic with
excitement rather than fear. He wore black from head to toe. Farther back,
leaning against the wall, was another man, Mexican and also clad in black,
wearing a bored expression, his eyes lazily tracing up her bare legs.

Instantly Minerva thought,
He’s the experienced one. Greg
is the weak link.

She could beat this.

The next thing she noticed was the bulge under his T-shirt,
at his side. He might have been happy to see her but she was pretty sure that
was a gun. Her evaluation of the situation moved from “bad” to “dire”.

Minerva focused her attention again on her own body. Her
shoulders were thrust forward awkwardly with her arms restrained behind her
with a pair of handcuffs. The metal was cold against her skin. She couldn’t
feel her fingers. She slowly wiggled her toes, making no sudden movements. Her
bare feet, buried in the plush rug, were the only parts of her that felt
normal. The rest of her body was bruised and sore. Likely she’d fallen before
they’d hauled her up onto the chair, treating her without any particular
consideration. Her wrists ached. She imagined they’d been rubbed raw but she
didn’t crane her neck behind her to see them. She wouldn’t take her eyes off
Greg.

He was silent, standing three feet away, towering above her,
staring. His eyes roved over her arms, flicking quickly over the cleavage
exposed where her robe gaped at her breasts. Unlike the Mexican, Greg’s staring
wasn’t of the bored, seen-it-all-before variety. That smile twitched at his
lips. The fingers of his right hand drummed frantically on his thigh. His left
hand held a switchblade, gripped lightly between the fingers, but awkwardly, as
if it were unfamiliar in his hand. She wondered if he was on something.

What were they going to do to her?

How was she going to get out of there?

She squeezed her eyes shut, sucking in air through her nose,
trying to calm herself. She felt her pulse hammering in her neck and wrists.
Her body began to shiver.

With her next inhalation came the scent of citrus and tea.

Bram.

She felt light, warm fingers rubbing against her shoulders,
flicking lightly through her hair, massaging her temples. Her body stopped its
shivering. Her pulse slowed and relaxed.

He was still here, then. She hadn’t dreamed the encounters
in the shower and in her dressing room. His warning tonight had been correct.

Minerva didn’t believe in the afterlife but she had to
accept that her husband was now a ghost.

Because having a ghost on her side might be her only
advantage.

Greg’s pocket exploded into noise, a recording of Neil
Diamond’s
Cherry Cherry
playing. He pulled out a cell phone, read a
text. He smiled and texted back, one-handed, his other still on the knife. He
chuckled to himself as he typed. Then as he moved to put the phone back, it
rang with a different tone, an old-fashioned telephone ring. He read it, frowned
and put the cell away again.

Greg made a sudden movement toward her, raising his
switchblade high. “Wakey-wakey.” Minerva jerked her head backward, her body
rocking in the chair, kicking out at Greg with her feet, nearly toppling
herself over. So much for keeping her cool. She yanked at her arms. The cuffs
held her in place.

To her credit, Greg jumped a little in return. The man by
the wall didn’t even move. “Looks like she’s already awake,” he said.

“Yeah, I got that, Jose.” Greg sniffed and rubbed at his nose
with his fingers. He kept the hand with the knife raised. “Welcome back to the
world of the living, lady psychic.” He laughed nervously, looking back at Jose.
“Get it? ’Cause she sees ghosts and stuff.”

Jose rolled his eyes. If it were possible, he looked even
more bored than previously. Even another leer and Minerva’s legs didn’t seem to
interest him.

“Let me out of here.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen.” Greg had dropped the deferential,
awed tone he’d used with her back at the studio. His voice was full of disgust.
“Vic has big plans for you.” He laughed cruelly, snorting back air.

“Vic?”

Minerva remembered the name written on her mirror in
lipstick. Bram’s warning.

Victor Grayson.
Her husband’s warm voice filled her
mind.
The one who killed me.
For the first time Bram’s voice sounded
worried. It was quiet—too quiet, as if he stood at the end of a long tunnel.

What the hell did Victor Grayson want with her?

I don’t know.

But Greg and Jose seemed to. They grinned at each other and
some excitement finally crept into Jose’s eyes. He still languished by the wall
but directed his next words at Minerva. “Boss-man said to wake you, get you
nice and worked up, all ready for his arrival.”

Minerva swallowed. “And when will that be?” She pictured the
man in the studio, dark-haired and thin through the face, cheekbones
protruding. His cold eyes staring up at her. His hands filled with blood, a
beating heart pressed between them, the bodily fluids leaking out and dripping
from his fingers. Bram’s heart. She knew it now as a warning about whatever
this was. A kidnapping? Another murder?

It’s okay, Nerv. I’m here. We’ll beat this.

She trusted him but he sounded so far away. And Victor had
killed him once already.

“When will it be, hmm?” Jose pretended to consider the question.
“What do you think, Greg? When she’s good and scared? How much work will it
take us to get her ready?”

“Not too much if I get first crack.” Greg’s face was boyish
and eager. He held the switchblade high, fumbling with it as he tried to set
the blade free.

Jose’s laughter in response was short and cruel. “Don’t get
too excited, lady. This little boy isn’t the one you have to worry about.” He
raised his T-shirt just high enough to expose his gun. A revolver? Minerva
wished she knew more about firearms. If it would help. “Nor am I,” he
continued. “We’re just the first course. The croutons on the salad to get you
nice and hungry for pain. By the time Vic is done with you, you’ll be begging
for an ending.”

She needed information. Minerva allowed her eyes to widen
with fear. It didn’t require any of her acting talent—the fear was natural.

“Who is he?” They didn’t know that she already knew.

Greg began to move, pacing, as if bored with her questions.
His voice bounced out of his mouth. “Oh, Vic has been talking to me for a long
time. He wants you. More than anything. He’s going to have so much fun with
you.” He turned and stopped his pacing, staring at her. His pupils were almost
completely dilated. How could he even see in the bright bedroom light? “He’s the
one who killed your husband, sucked up his life like snorting coke through his
nose. And apparently it’s an even bigger high. He’s going to show us. He’s
gonna show me, in exchange for getting close to you.”

How had Minerva not seen this side of Greg before? Was she
totally blind?

She’d only ever focused her talent on her audience. Reading
them, manipulating them.

And she’d been the one manipulated.

It’s not your fault, Nerv. You didn’t even know you were
psychic.

But she wasn’t.

Well. Except for the fact that she was talking to a ghost.
And seeing visions. Well shit. Who knew?

“What’s in it for you, exactly, Greg?”

“A fuck ton of money of course. And the opportunity to watch
you bleed.”

Jose, still against the wall, watched them with amusement.
He was the quiet one. Hired muscle? She wouldn’t get much out of him unless it
got to the point where Greg’s talkativeness annoyed him. Maybe she could work
with that. A ghostly, comforting hand touched her neck. Just as quickly as she
felt it, it was gone.

“Why me?” She let the hurt seep into her voice. It was real
too. Hadn’t she been good to him, letting him work his way up from intern to
assistant, from fetching coffee to playing an integral role in her show?

“You’re a fake, Minerva Silence.” Greg’s lip curled as he
sneered at her. “You’re nothing like Victor. He’s real.”

A cold, leaden weight dropped into her stomach. What the
hell did he mean by that? The cuffs around her wrists felt like ice, burning
her skin with cold.

Where the hell was Bram? The more scared she became, the
farther away he seemed. She couldn’t feel him at all now.

Jose rolled his eyes. “There are ways of hacking alarm
systems that don’t involve being psychic.”

Greg whirled at him, eyes flashing with rage. “You haven’t
seen everything I have, man. Vic is real.”

“He’s like me? Sees ghosts?”

Greg laughed derisively. “Vic knows full well there’s no
such thing as ghosts. He thinks your act is ridiculous. Nah, Vic’s skills are a
lot more practical. He’s got a way with numbers. Alarm codes. Passcodes. I’ve
seen him do magic you can’t imagine. Pull them out of thin air.”

“So why doesn’t he break into a bank?” Jose said. “Why pick
this chick?”

“My husband owes him money,” Minerva realized out loud. “I
suppose this is payback. Steal it from me. But then why not just be here
himself, ask me for my account numbers? I have plenty to spare. I’ll transfer
it now if he wants. Just let me go.”

“Ah, he doesn’t just want money.” Jose shook his head
ruefully. “Sorry to say.”

That didn’t sound good.
Bram?
she asked the air. No
response. Her teeth began to chatter in the cold. “What does he want with me?”

“Pain. Vic doesn’t get his abilities from trickery like you.
Using me as your spy. Having us listen in on the audience during commercials.
Making Rachel share your lies in front of the camera, whoring herself out there
with you. It’s disgusting. You feed on their pain but pretend you don’t. You
don’t understand them but pretend you do. Vic feeds on pain, literally. You’ll
be alive when he cuts your heart from your screaming body and he’ll suck up
your soul.”

Shit. Either Greg was off to crazytown, far enough gone to
be extremely dangerous, or his boss really was a psychic sadist.

Which was worse?

Did it matter?

Where the fuck was Bram?

Greg continued to rant. The name
Rachel
stuck out to
her and she wondered what her friend had to do with anything.

Greg’s cell rang again.

Minerva knew that Melody.That was it—Rachel’s
favorite oldie, a Neil Diamond song. The women had sung it together at karaoke
one night for Rachel’s thirtieth birthday, stumbling onto the stage drunk,
caterwauling the chorus.

She had a flash in her mind, an image of Rachel riding Greg
cowgirl style, pleasure visible on her face. Her breasts bounced beneath a
purple bra. Her blonde hair was in disarray, falling out of her bun. They were
on the chaise longue in Minerva’s dressing room. Greg grunted like a horse
rolling in the dirt.

Vision or extremely vivid imagination?

Was Rachel involved? The sense of betrayal Minerva felt upon
seeing Greg increased tenfold.

No. It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t believe it. She’d get out
of here and ask Rachel herself what the hell was going on.

Was Victor Grayson really a psychic? She asked herself
again, did it matter? Maybe not—but what mattered was that Greg believed it.
And he believed Minerva was a fake. She could use that. She could get out of
here.

She thought of Bram. Closed her eyes, keeping her other
senses alert in case the men in front of her moved. She ignored the aching in
her wrists, the cramping in her legs, the cold in the pit of her belly. She
thought of Bram, his warm hands running across her skin, cupping her breasts.
His mouth teasing the nipples, his curls tickling at her chin. The scent of
Earl Grey. The warm chuckle building in his chest as he aroused her.

She could almost feel him.

And then she heard him again.

Nerv. I can’t reach you. I’m so close.
I love you.

That was it. The more scared she was, the more distant he
became. But thinking of him, loving him,
lusting after him
—that brought
him closer.

Minerva struggled in her handcuffs, putting on a show for
the goon watching her. She didn’t think of him as her assistant anymore. It
hurt too deeply. She channeled that rage, letting it build inside her, throwing
it into her performance as a woman in hysterics.

“Let me out of here!” She thrashed her shoulders, kicking
out with her legs as if she were trying to topple the chair. She was careful
not to move around too much, since she was still only wearing that pink silk
robe and nothing underneath—Greg didn’t need
that
kind of show.