Chapter Three
Chapter
Three
“Goliath! Kill!”
I swing frantically around at the ringmaster’s bellowed instruction and I start to run as an involuntary scream bubbles up in my throat.
“Lion!” I shout, already making for the open ballroom door. “Run!”
I don’t stop running until I’ve bolted through the castle’s narrow passageways and made it safely back outside into the sunshine.
I can barely breathe and my heart is banging so hard against my ribs that I’m almost certain I’m going to die.
Marina and Artie barrel out a few steps behind me and she lays her hand flat on my back as I double over, winded.
“I’ve never seen you like that before,” she says, perplexed. “You know there wasn’t a real, live lion in there, right?”
“He looked bloody real to me,” I say, wiping beads of sweat from my brow.
The rational side of my brain knows it was a ghost lion and couldn’t have actually harmed me, but you know what?
It was still one heck of a shock, because I don’t see ghosts as wishy-washy phantoms. I see them as living flesh and blood and fur and teeth and claws, and five minutes ago my eyes were telling me there was a high likelihood of being mauled to death by a bloody great big beast of a lion.
I’ve been to the zoo plenty and I’ve watched lions prowl the plains of Africa with David Attenborough, but sweet baby Jesus, that’s nothing like unexpectedly coming across one in an almost-empty ballroom.
You know how intense a really terrible nightmare feels even though realistically you know it can’t hurt you? That’s how I feel about Goliath.
“Melody?” Marina’s giving me a look like she thinks I’m crazy, which I don’t often get from her—everyone else, maybe, but not her.
I try to slow my breathing. Now that I’m outside, I’m clearly not in mortal danger.
And I wasn’t before. And I won’t be when I meet the lion again.
I have to get my act together—make like my gran would if she found herself in this situation.
Or my mother. They’re both pretty kickass, and given that they can see ghosts too, they’re the closest thing I’ve got when it comes to role models.
“I really wish I didn’t have to go back in there,” I say, hating the obvious shake in my voice.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Marina says, instantly on my side.
“Maybe the ghosts will come out here and talk to you instead if you ask them politely?” Artie says, trying admirably to salvage the case from the brink of collapse.
From what I’ve seen of the ghosts inhabiting Maplemead Castle so far, I highly doubt they’re going to stroll out onto the steps and accept their fate.
There’s a hot-tempered strongman, a beautiful, silk-leotard-clad woman, and a haughty ringmaster with a killer pussycat for a pet.
They were clearly circus performers when they were alive, and death doesn’t seem to have robbed them of their love of performing for an audience, even one they don’t think can see them.
I sit down on the top step and take a few deep, calming breaths. It’s quiet out here; there is an air of peace and serene grandeur.
“Water, honey?” Lois appears behind me with a glass of iced water and I accept it with a small, apologetic smile.
I’m over my attack of the vapors now and am starting to feel ever so slightly foolish.
What kind of a badass businesswoman am I if I run around like a five-year-old girl shouting lion?
I must have looked like a complete idiot.
I gulp the water down gratefully and then get to my feet and wipe my clammy hands surreptitiously on the back of my jeans.
“Lois, I’m so sorry,” I say. “I never normally behave like that, I promise you.”
Marina jumps to back me up. “She really doesn’t. She’s usually the coolest cat on the block.”
I shudder at the mention of cats, and Artie nods, then shakes his head, unsure of the correct head gesture to offer support.
“Am I going crazy, or did you just say lion?” Lois frowns.
I shudder and nod. “So far I’ve spotted five human ghosts and then, umm, a lion. It just caught me off guard for a second, that’s all. From what I can see, they’re members of some kind of circus.”
Lois genuflects. “You saw five ghosts in there already? Oh my Gawd, Barty, get out here!”
How can she be more disconcerted by the human ghosts than by the lion? Barty appears in the doorway a few seconds later, winding up a telephone conversation.
“Interesting,” he says, still looking thoughtfully at the cellphone in his hand as he clicks to end the call. “That was a TV company. Have you guys ever heard of anyone called Leo Dark?”
Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse. Artie winces and looks at Marina, who lets out a low-frequency growl. I shrug, noncommittal. “We’ve come across each other, yeah.”
I cringe at my own euphemism, because we have come across each other in the past, usually in the backseat of his car.
Leo and I have a complicated history, but if you wanted to sum it up, you might say that we were friends, then lovers, and then he dumped me when he thought he was going to be the nation’s favorite ghost hunter on morning TV.
I guess you could call us frenemies these days.
I’m mostly over him, but every now and then there’s that old sizzle and it confuses the hell out of me.
Marina, however, cannot stand the sight of him; even the mention of his name is enough to send her a tiny bit feral.
It’s that loyalty gene again; he pushes her kill buttons.
“Say no. Whatever Leo Dark wants, say no,” she says.
“He’s coming over to see us tomorrow with his producer,” Barty says. “They mentioned a feature on TV. Imagine the business that could generate!”
Lois’s ecstatic face tells me straight up that she’s a media whore.
This is not going to end well. Leo is going to swashbuckle his way in here tomorrow and bewitch the Lettermans with his glossy black waves and promises of stardom that he cannot keep.
I need to act sharpish to get this job back on track and show them that I’m their woman.
“Can you just excuse me for one tiny minute?” I say. “I left my mobile phone in the van and I’m expecting a call. Be right back.”
Marina shoots me a quizzical look, because she knows full well that my cell is dead on my desk back in the office.
I smile brightly and ignore her completely, then turn and make a quick dash across the gravel toward Babs.
Throwing myself inside, I lie across the seat out of sight and whack the glove box hard.
It pops open obligingly; Babs is a good-time girl, she appreciates a firm hand.
I reach inside and pull out my father’s beloved Magic 8 Ball, clutching it to my chest for a second with my eyes screwed tight.
It might seem crazy to other people, but I never knew my dad and this is the closest I get to asking him for advice.
“Should I go back inside the castle right now, even though there’s a ghost lion in there that made me almost pee my pants ten minutes ago?
” I whisper, knowing the answer in my heart already.
I turn the ball over once and peer into the window to receive its wisdom.
“It is decidedly so.”
“I know,” I say, sighing heavily. “You’re right, as always.” I push the ball back into the glove box and slam it shut, pull up my metaphorical big-girl pants, and slither back out on to the gravel, running my hands over my hair to smooth it as I jog back up the steps.
“Sorry about that. All sorted.” I rub my hands together in a way I hope suggests I’m champing at the bit to get on with the job. “Let’s get back inside and finish that tour, shall we, Barty? We’d only just gotten started.”
The Lettermans exchange glances as he clears his throat, then looks at his watch. “Actually, honey, I’ve got a tennis lesson in a few minutes. I guess I should run…” He trails off and looks to Lois to take over the conversation.
“We’re just not sure this is gonna work out, darlin’,” she says in a kind but steely way.
I’m stricken. This is only our second job and I’ve blown it within fifteen minutes of getting here.
I feel the weight of failure press down heavily on my shoulders and I’m 100 percent furious with myself for acting like a batshit crazy fool instead of the levelheaded, cool, calm lady boss I want the world to think I am.
“Wait, please. It was just the lion…” I mutter, and then clear my throat and turn my voice up from mumble to clear.
“I’ll go back in now and I promise I’ll stay calm.
I see ghosts all of the time. This isn’t my first rodeo, Lois; I can get this done quickly and thoroughly. ”
“I’ve known Melody for over twenty years, and I’ve never seen her react badly to a ghost before,” Marina says, stoic beside me. “She’s usually as cool as a cucumber.” She stops and then starts again on the same breath. “No, cooler than that. She’s ice woman.”
Artie half raises his hand as if he’s in the classroom and doesn’t actually want the teacher to see him. “I haven’t worked for Melody for very long, but I think the same. She’s an icy cucumber.”
Marina flicks sharp eyes toward him and he shrugs and grimaces helplessly. He’s doing his best.
Barty moves alongside Lois and slings his arm casually over her narrow shoulders, and suddenly they don’t seem quite as fabulously friendly and welcoming. In fact, I think they’re subtly barricading the door. I decide to make a tactical withdrawal.
“Well, it was terrific to meet you both.” I glance up at the castle facade.
“It sure is a fascinating old place.” I shoot them a warm, sincere smile.
“Why don’t we head back to the office and research what we’ve found so far and maybe I could give you a call in a day or two? No obligation, of course.”