That was when I heard a crash downstairs, followed by a horrible crunching sound. It almost sounded like someone had just blasted through the door.

  “Come out, Sandman!” a monstrous voice wailed, sounding like two cacophonic voices striving to be heard at once.

  More crashing followed as I pulled out my cell phone. It marked the first time I was grateful that Maverick was among my contacts. I quickly texted him, ‘SOS! My shop’. Then, I grabbed the Escaping Oil and jammed it into my pants pocket as I ran downstairs.

  The scene I came upon was ugly. Four of my beds were wrecked. My intruder was smashing a fifth one with its bare hands. The interloper whirled around to hiss at me. Although I could detect Sam’s features in the dim streetlight from the window, the flat eyes and glowing fangs in his mouth indicated I was dealing with Jormungandr.

  “The cartouche,” the Sam/Jormungandr hybrid snarled at me. “You took it. Where is it?”

  “It’s not here,” I answered, slipping my hand into my sand pouch as I circled around him. “Shall I assume the presence of Anubis upstairs is the reason we’re having the conversation down here?”

  The intruder hissed at me while it reciprocated my circling. “Do not speak to me of the bastard of Osiris. Had I known he was here, I would never have come to this town.”

  I clutched my sand tightly. “And miss the ideal opportunity to come back to this world? I doubt that very much.”

  That earned me another angry hiss. “Doubt all you wish, footstool of Osiris. Were it not for you, I would have succeeded this very afternoon. But you interrupted the consummation of my most recent host.”

  “Did the jewels trigger that eruption?” I asked, carefully gauging the distance between us. A few more steps and he’d be close enough for me to make a throw.

  A nasty laugh bubbled up from the monster’s throat. “It was you!” Jormungandr shouted. “You ran off the mara that was protecting him for weeks! You gave him sand when his heart nearly broke from love. You poured the sand into my eyes so I could trace my way back to him.”

  My heart sank as I realized the truth in his words. My opponent’s smile widened. “You know I speak the truth. All those things you did are what allowed me to finally take over.” He glanced at my hand in my pocket. “Planning to throw more sand at me? I shall welcome it with open arms.”

  I reluctantly took my hand out of the pouch.

  In order to survive the next few minutes, I needed something else.

  But before I could figure out what that something else was, I felt myself suddenly airborne, flying through the air as my glasses swooshed right off my face. I slammed against the wall before the shadowy creature yelled at me, “Where is the cartouche?!”

  “Don’t you know?” I asked. “Aren’t you telepathically connected to it?”

  That earned me another super-sonic slam into the back wall, rattling my bones.

  “Where is it?!” the monster demanded again.

  “Not here,” I groaned, putting my left hand into my other pocket. I confirmed the bottle was still in one piece when the monster lifted me and this time, smashed me onto the counter. As I cried out in pain, it was barely inches from my face when it yelled, “Where?!”

  “Stop it!” Lizzie’s voice sounded from out of the darkness. “You’re hurting him!”

  I looked around Sam’s unwilling body to see the disowned heiress standing within the shattered back door, her eyes flaring with outrage.

  The monster was cruelly using Sam’s body and it whirled around to snarl at her, “And you’re next!”

  I think not, I mentally said as I finally found the right moment to pull out the Escaping Oil. Popping the cap off the bottle, I threw it on the left side of Sam’s face. It had the desired effect in making the Midgard Serpent release me, and I crumpled to the ground, all the while trying to catch my breath. But the shadows darkened and lightened around Sam, and that, mixed with the alarm I saw on his face, suggested the magical oil had also triggered some unexpected side effects.

  Sam opened his mouth to scream, and the shadowy serpent popped its head out of his throat. I tried to move but couldn’t get my body to cooperate. Lizzie ran over to me and gave me an idea. Pulling out my sand pouch, I tossed it to her.

  When she caught it, I yelled, “Make a circle around him! And hurry!”

  Without hesitation, she hurried over to Sam and dumped the contents of the pouch on the floor around him. As hoped, Sam remained unconscious, but Jormungandr was contained by the improvised warding circle Lizzie had just made. In the meantime, I slowly picked myself up off the floor. Everything hurt but there was nothing I could do about it. And if I wanted the three of us to survive this, I had to get moving.

  Lizzie backed up from the dark creature, vainly trying to escape the circle. As she helped me get back on my feet, she asked, “What the hell is going on here?”

  “Damn good question,” Maverick replied as he stepped in from the back door. Bailey was right behind him, looking much less exhausted than I expected. I couldn’t help my shock at seeing them together but then figured there might have been more to Bailey than I’d previously understood. Maybe she, too, was in with the Council. I figured I’d soon find out.

  I mustered enough energy to ask him, “The cartouche? Do you still have the cartouche?”

  Maverick pulled it out of his pocket and slapped it on the counter. I painfully braced myself on the counter, nearly falling when I got to the other side. As I looked up again, Lorene had suddenly appeared and was now looking down at me.

  I pointed to the shelf under the counter. “Can you get me three candles?”

  “They’re all the same, right?” she asked as she obediently handed me the trio.

  I was nodding when Lizzie asked, “Whom are you talking to?”

  “Himself, obviously,” Bailey replied as she picked me up. In my ear, she whispered, “Lorene said you were in trouble.”

  “She’s right,” I whispered back as she leaned me against the counter. To my left, Maverick lined up the cartouche with the raging shadows in front of us. I arranged the candles the same way I had upstairs, but with one point of the triangle now aimed at the circle. When my hand trembled uncontrollably while trying to strike a match, Bailey took it from me and struck it on the counter.

  “What are you doing?” Lizzie asked in surprise as Bailey lit the candles. “Sam’s going to die!”

  “We need a sympathetic link on the inside of that circle,” Maverick said, ignoring Lizzie’s panic. “What do you have, Blackstone?”

  I weakly held up the bottle of Escaping Oil. “He was splashed with this.”

  Maverick nodded. “That’ll do.”

  While I poured what was left in the bottle on the cartouche, I heard a new voice from the back door.

  “Sam? Sam, is that you?”

  It was Ashley.

  Lizzie intercepted her halfway to the circle. “Don’t come any closer! It’ll get you!”

  Ashley’s furious eyes turned toward Lizzie before she opened her mouth and screamed, “This is all your fault!”

  Lizzie did her best to hold off Ashley’s assault as she backed away. “It was his idea! He wanted to do the right thing! I didn’t want him to pay for it, so I took the blame!”

  My sand pouch was knocked out of Lizzie’s hand, arcing dangerously close to the candles. I caught it just in time, barely finding the strength to reach inside because Ashley had launched herself at Lizzie and now the two were wrestling. When the women crashed next to me, I flung the sand into their faces. It happily knocked both of them out but some of the grains wafted over to Maverick as well.

  Before he faded away, he said, “Where’d you learn to aaaaaaim...”

  He fell down on the other side of the counter, and I heard a little girl grunt. “I got him!”

  I smiled before noting that Bailey had lit the last candle. “Okay, now what?” she asked, being the sole remaining conscious person in the room. “I’ve got lots of experience with banishing poltergeists and helping other spirits to the other side,” she offered.

  “I’ll take all the help I can get.” I took a deep breath as I reached out and took her hand, figuring the power within both of us would be stronger than just mine alone. “And now… we improvise,” I continued, dragging myself closer to the left candle. The instruction sheet promised to make any spirit leave as long as the ritual elements were in place. All we needed now was a banishment incantation. I muttered a verse from the Book of the Dead before blowing out the first candle.

  Jormungandr snarled inside the circle as the cartouche sprouted a small shadow tendril. It grabbed me by the neck, the prehensile strength of the appendage smashing my face into the counter. Bailey tried to grip it with her bare hands, only for her fingers to pass through it like smoke. I pushed against it hard enough to angle myself towards the right candle flame. One puff of breath and another verse later, Jormungandr screamed again before the tendril tightened its grip on my throat.

  A tiny hand punched the tendril from the right side, jolting it hard enough to loosen its grip on me. Standing on top of the counter, Lorene punched it again, adding a swift kick for emphasis. The tendril let go of me and swept over Lorene’s arms and chest in a tight vise. But the little one didn’t resist, she just locked eyes with me and yelled, “Do it!”

  “No!” Bailey protested in horror, flying across the counter to grab the attacker of her sister. She sailed right through both of them as I struggled not to pass out. My unfocused eyes barely zoomed in on the sole remaining candle flame as I deeply inhaled.

  “Get thee gone!” I exhaled, blowing my breath hard at the fire.

  The candle winked out like a dead star. The interior of the circle instantly lightened and the unconscious Sam became visible on the floor. But the tendril continued to tighten around Lorene, crushing her in its ebony coils.

  “Oh, my God, it’s dissolving her!” Bailey cried out in despair.

  I reached into my pouch one more time. “Strike the match when I throw this!” I yelled. I didn’t know if it would work as well as Maverick’s finger snaps but we had nothing better at the moment.

  I made a weak toss in the tendril’s direction before falling off the counter completely. The grains engulfed both the tendril and Lorene. Bailey didn’t hesitate. She leapt over me, striking the match on the way. The sand flared in the spark, sending the flames blazing through the shadows like a trail of kerosene.

  Jormungandr screamed one final time as the last of its anchored essence was burned away. Then I fell completely unconscious myself.

  Epilogue

  Wakefulness returned to me slowly.

  The first thing I became aware of was the constant beeping in my right ear. It made me open my eyes. Even without my glasses, I could see well enough to know I was in a hospital room.

  A couple of blurry shapes moved on my left, the nearest one saying, “He’s awake!” Then someone grabbed something off the nightstand and placed it above my eyes.

  I blinked a few times and little by little the scene around me started to come into focus. As I looked up, Bailey smiled down at me as she adjusted the top half of my bed upwards.

  “You freaked us out, Syd!”

  I ached all over and groaned, “How... long have I been out?”

  “About twelve hours, give or take a few,” Ethel replied from behind Bailey. “Dr. Gruff insists you stay in the hospital for more than one night, though.”

  I groaned again. “Ugh. The store isn’t ready yet.” Images of the destruction caused by Jormungandr in Sam’s body visited me anew.

  “Already got RJ working on that,” Bailey answered.

  “The damage,” I started.

  Bailey shook her head. “I got the place all cleaned up and once RJ finishes installing the rest of the shelves, he’ll start on the bed frames. The mattresses were okay so they’re all ready to go.”

  I looked at Ethel. “What about Lizzie and Ashley?”

  Ethel cackled. “They’re having a nice little chat with Maverick.”

  I didn’t envy them that but figured Maverick could more than take care of whatever he needed to. I carefully scanned the room. “Where’s Lorene?”

  “I... I don’t know,” Bailey admitted with a sigh. “I can’t feel her anymore.”

  I closed my eyes and suddenly caught a glimpse of Melody standing in the doorway of the room. Her hands were resting on Lorene’s slim shoulders and both of them were smiling. Melody put a vertical finger on her lips and I opened my eyes, feeling completely calm and at ease—not only with the current situation, but with everything.

  “I believe Lorene’s gone to the other side, Bailey.”

  Bailey nodded, and her eyes shone with unshed tears. “I feel the same thing—there’s just this lightness inside me that wasn’t there before.” I reached out and took her hand, patting it consolingly as she just smiled back at me. I had a feeling she was experiencing the same feelings of contentedness that I was.

  “And Sam?” I asked. “What happened at the end?”

  “I blame myself for a lot of this,” Ethel sighed while shaking her head. “I knew Sam and Ashley loved each other. But not as much as Sam loved Lizzie. According to what Joe told Maverick, Sam was trying to help Lizzie get out of the doghouse with her dad.”

  “By gathering up all the valuables she stole,” I deduced.

  “Ashley was his partner in crime, apparently,” Bailey said, taking up the story. “Lizzie’s dad charged them with getting the cartouche back. So, they were masquerading as a married couple on their honeymoon to track it down.”

  “But Sam bought all the valuables Lizzie sold him behind Ashley’s back,” Ethel said. “And somewhere along the way, Ashley became attracted to Sam and eventually voiced her feelings.”

  “Sam didn’t return them though,” I said as the truth started to dawn on me. “Or at least, not like he did for Lizzie.”

  “If only poor Lizzie left that darn cartouche behind...”

  Fresh pangs of pain jolted up my neck as I shook my head. “Jormungandr would never allow that to happen. It sought the daughter or granddaughter of the one cultist who got away from that botched ritual at Haven Cemetery. Jormungandr planned to use it as the perfect opportunity to come back into the world.”

  “And it nearly succeeded,” Ethel interjected. “Apparently, last night was pretty touch and go from what Bailey’s been telling me.”

  I looked at Bailey again. “And let me guess—you’re in on the supernatural happenings in Haven Hollow, too?” I figured as much, based on the fact that Ethel was talking about everything so freely.

  Bailey smiled. “I have been for a while. Got sworn to secrecy by the Council, oh, maybe a year ago.”

  I sighed again. “Looks like I’ll have to delay the grand opening of Sandman Syd’s by a few days.”

  “I can handle all of that,” Bailey assured me, cupping my face with her hand. “You getting better is the only priority right now.”

  I smiled and held her eyes as I realized there was definitely something there—something between the two of us and it had been from the moment we’d laid eyes on each other. And now there was also an understanding within me that I was free from the guilt that had paralyzed me before. Melody was where she needed to be and I was still alive.

  And that meant I was going to live my life.

  The End

  ~~~~~

  Return to Haven Hollow in:

  Ritzy Business

  ~~~~~

  Return to the Table of Contents

  RITZY BUSINESS

  Haven Hollow #22

  (Spook Society)

  by

  J.R. RAIN

  &

  H.P. MALLORY

  Ritzy Business

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2022 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Ritzy Business

  Chapter One

  I felt like a real, honest-to-goodness gumshoe when a handsome fella stepped into my office and said, “I need your help.”

  Not that Marty Zach was just any handsome fella. He was the main squeeze of Poppy Morton, who was in turn, one of my closest pals. He was also a graphic designer whose side-hustle was spook busting. Which was the exact reason why the fact that he was standing here, in the middle of my office at Spook Society and asking me for help, had me a little bamboozled.

  Not that I was gonna turn him away, of course. See the aforementioned ‘main squeeze of my friend’. Not to mention Marty was also the buddy of my sorta sweetie, Henner Tayir.

  Sometimes it was a little hard not to giggle over the fact that Marty, the ‘ghost hunter’, not only couldn’t see spooks, but that he’d been hanging around a haunted house (Poppy’s) for months and didn’t even know it.

  After his abrupt entrance, Marty didn’t seem to be in no big hurry to tell me what exactly he needed my help with. Instead, he started wandering around my office, like he was trying to find his reason for being there.

  It was hard not to preen, just a little. I was proud of my office and everything I’d accomplished since I’d been hired on with Spook Society. After wrapping up a case involving a serial killer who was targeting housewives and homemakers, I’d been gifted my own office and told I could decorate it however I saw fit. Now everything was all done up in what Poppy called ‘Art Deco’ which apparently was the term for everything that had been just jake back when I was a young gal.

  My desk was a glossy black lacquer with chrome legs, the walls had some minimalist prints done up in black and white, and sitting across from me were two chairs for my clients, both in a bold black and white chevron pattern to match the room’s monochrome color scheme. I was the only splash of color and that was just how I liked it.