Chapter Ten #4
It was about to be spooky.
All around them, they heard voices, like someone was murmuring to someone else. It was static-y and they couldn’t make out the words.
Michael braced for it.
“Incoming,” he muttered, scanning the crypt for anything out of place.
Oh, and he felt it.
“Holy shit,” Michael said, looking around. He felt like someone was right behind him.
When he turned, they saw something in the corner just barely there.
As it stepped forward, everyone stepped back.
It was Duncan.
Alone.
He was pointing at the pile of paintings and nothing else. It was clear he wanted their attention on them.
But for what reason?
That was the question.
When Ian moved forward toward the ghost and paintings, his man, once again, grabbed him by the back of the pants.
Yeah, hell, no.
His mate was trying to play apparition whisperer, and Gryphen really preferred that he didn’t.
Yeah, this place was amped up now that they’d moved the painting and journals out of the corridor.
The mood had switched, and they needed to figure this out, fast.
Ian went there.
“Duncan, did you want us to find the painting?” he asked point-blank.
The apparition lowered the hood on his cape, and they could see him, but he was mostly translucent. He had a beard, and there was a slash down his cheek from a sword wound that had healed with a scar.
His body was clothed in his tartan plaid with a sword on his hip. This was the closest they’d gotten to his ghost. Oh, he appeared, but he faded away more time than not.
Duncan continued to point at the paintings.
So Ian kept asking questions. He didn’t know when he’d get another chance.
“Where are your lover’s bones?”
As soon as he asked the question, the lights in the crypt went out, and the energy spiked.
Michael felt Graham being yanked away from him, and he yelped.
“Graham!” he shouted, as they tried to get the portable lights to go back on.
“I’m okay,” he said, not next to them.
When the lights came on, of their own recognizance, Graham wasn’t in the room with them. He was on his ass in the tunnel they’d just come out of.
“Did you fall?” Gryphen asked. “All the way back there?”
He wished.
“I was shoved. Hard.”
Normally, no one would bat an eye, but as of late, since with Gabby and Finn, the ghosts were getting…rough.
Truthfully, that wasn’t a good thing because someone was going to get hurt.
Now, Gabby was curious.
“Do you think Duncan pushed you?” she asked.
He wasn’t sure.
Only, he was freaked out.
“Whatever pushed me was strong. It felt like it ran into me, and slammed me to the ground.
Know who was worried?
Michael.
“I felt you being pulled away from me, and there was a cold breeze,” he admitted.
When he held out his hand, Michael reached for it, and that’s when they heard the sad sobs of someone crying.
Everyone looked around.
Duncan was gone, the chill in the air was gone, and the people there were worried.
As Michael helped him up, he had a suggestion.
“Maybe we should put these paintings someplace safe, and regroup away from that corridor and this crypt. I don’t like that this whole thing is taking a turn for the worse. Something is getting rough.”
AGAIN.
On that, they happened to agree.
“We could put them where the other paintings are,” Graham offered, getting pulled up to his feet by D’Artangnan and against his body.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly, holding the man against him to be sure.
No, he wasn’t.
Against D’Artangnan, he couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t…do anything.
Instead, he just nodded like an idiot when no words were coming out of his mouth.
Gryphen pulled out a knife, and the lights flickered.
“Hey, calm down. I was just going to cut open the back to see…”
The lights flickered again.
He was confused.
“Does that mean it wants me to or doesn’t?” he asked. “Because I’m confused by the signals. A yes or no would be helpful.”
When nothing happened, he moved closer to the one painting.
“I won’t hurt it,” he promised.
Ian explained to the others who weren’t there the first time they’d found a painting with a note.
“We found a note in the back of the painting that had Duncan’s son on it. Maybe there’s something in one of these,” he offered.
Oh, well, as far as Michael was concerned, or anyone else, the paintings needed to be inspected. He was just going to hold onto Graham in case something got shove-y with him.
Again.
With gentle fingers, Gryphen sliced into the painting backings, and nothing was in the first three.
It was the fourth and last one that netted them something.
Ian slipped his fingers into the back, and Gabby held one of the now-working portable lights over the painting so they could see what he’d found.
“It’s a note, and it looks to be part of the journal,” he admitted.
“From?” Michael asked. “Because this whole thing is getting weird, and I’m not a fan of having to play this kind of a game if lives are in danger.”
Spoken like a true Marine.
And Archangel.
Ian carefully opened the letter.
“It’s from Catherine,” he said, seeing the signature on the bottom.
Ian opened it, and Gabby and he inspected it in the light. Then, she couldn’t wait any longer.
Thankfully, it was in English, and she could read it.
‘Dear Father,
I can’t bear to be here any longer. The curse my sister has put on the place is making it more difficult to live here than I expected.
She haunts us.
There’s no peace.
So I must go. I must leave so I can have some peace. I wake in the middle of the night with her standing over me, and she is angry. I’m here raising her child, and she is dead.
Until the curse is broken, no Granndach will have peace. I’ve tried to get you to find a witch, but you won’t do it. I must go.
Thank you for everything.
Much love,
Catty.’
When she finished reading it, she was confused.
“Who is her father in this letter because we all know that when Ceit told her father she was leaving Duncan, he showed up here, and might have killed her. That’s not to the same father unless he liked this daughter a whole lot more than he liked Ceit.”
She had a point.
Ian was considering it.
“I think we need to figure out some things, and I don’t think the dead are going to be on board with that,” he said, going there.
Oh, well, that was ominous.
Ian’s fiancé warned him.
“Tread lightly, Ian,” Gryphen said. “This place is getting more dangerous. I think we might have problems if we stir it up. My gut says to do this minimally, so as not to piss off everything dead here so someone gets hurt.”
Oh, he understood that, but they had to get this handled before Christmas, and their wedding.
“Do you want our nuptials haunted?” he asked, going there.
Gryphen stood there with his mouth open.
Well, shit.
He had a point.
That was the last thing he wanted.
“When we came here, the problem we encountered was the curse. We found out that Ceit cursed them,” Ian admitted. “She went to a witch, and she made sure that anyone who came after her was not living a long life.”
Gryphen agreed.
“I think she said something like the Granndachs would be forced to walk in blood their whole lives and never know peace.”
Ian nodded.
“That’s exactly what she said. Good job, my love,” he offered.
Gryphen laughed.
“Uh, Ian, it wasn’t that difficult to remember. How can one forget a curse by a dead woman who is haunting a castle? It kind of haunts your head.”
That it did.
The other Marine was confused.
“Where are you going with this?” Michael asked, curiously. “You’re clearly thinking about something,” Michael added.
And he was.
Everyone was listening, so he went there.
“What if we stopped worrying so much about the history of everything, and instead, we leapfrogged that and got the curse removed?”
Everyone considered it.
“Maybe the reason Duncan and his lover are trapped here is the curse, and not us getting the answers. What if we get the curse removed and everyone can be at peace?”
For all they knew, he could be right.
“It’s a good thought, Laddie,” Finn admitted. “Will it work though?”
They wouldn’t know until they tried.
Right?
“What if we had a psychic come in here and get some help with removing the curse, or figuring out exactly what the dead want?” he asked.
“None of us can handle removing a curse. We know that the Granndachs had a few on them. Duncan would never have a daughter, and death would always haunt this bloodline.”
Gabby pointed one thing out.
“Not having a daughter could just be a genetic thing,” she admitted. “The father’s DNA determines that with the sperm.”
They all stared at her.
“What? It does. Women got blamed for not delivering an heir, but when you have multiple generations of men only producing one gender child…that’s not on the woman, now is it?”
No one went there.
She was the only woman there, and Hell hath no fury like a woman blamed for EVERYTHING in history—especially since men were guilty of a lot.
After all, when they were burning witches, who really weren’t witches, it wasn’t women doing it.
PERIOD.
Gabby continued.
“There has to be someone in this country or village who can talk to the dead. It’s clear that they want to communicate, and we’re not understanding them. What if we went to town, found a psychic, and paid them to come here and help us out?”
Ian stood there.
“I mean, it’s a good plan.”
Finn, Gryphen, and Michael stared at him.
“It’s a horrible idea,” Gryphen stated. “The second we bring a psychic into this mess, I’m pretty sure it’s going to go sideways, south, and off of the rails. Call me crazy, but do we really need to speak to the dead?”
Just as he said it, the gate to the crypt slammed shut again, making EVERYONE jump.
Well, shit.
Ian was to the point.
“See? Honestly, Gryph, what could it hurt? It’s not like the place could get more haunted. It’s already spooky, and now the dead are getting shove-y and slam-y.”
Jesus.
He had a point.