Chapter Ten #5
But Gryphen still didn’t like it. He was from the camp of ‘let sleeping dead lie’, and all of this made him twitchy—again.
Only, now, it was far more amped up.
He missed boring Ceit walking the halls. Coming face-to-face with the dead was unnerving.
And it didn’t look as if it was stopping any time soon.
Because he knew his fiancé better than anyone, Gryphen was well aware that this was going to happen. Ian was chasing a lead, and he was going to do everything to keep Elizabeth safe when she finally came here.
Meaning putting the dead to rest.
Finally.
“I give up. I’m here for the ride,” Gryphen said, backing down.
Ultimately, he didn’t have to live here, so…that was tomorrow Graham’s problem, not Gryphen’s.
He just hoped Ian was right when he said, ‘what could it hurt’? The last thing he wanted was to take this creepiness up a notch or ten and then dump it on Graham when they rolled out of here.
“Do we know if the village has anyone who can help us out?” Ian asked, speaking to the people who lived here and knew the village in question.
That meant two of them.
They were all staring at Graham and Finn.
“Uh, I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but I’m not that kind of caretaker. I can’t hook you up with my psychic friends since I don’t have any. I only have one friend,” he admitted, pointing at Finn.
Graham wasn’t done.
“As for making it worse, no one’s died yet.
That is a possibility since something already tried to drown Gabby and D’Artangnan,” he admitted.
“I don’t really need for this to go haywire.
All of you can go home,” he said, looking at all of them.
“I’ll be the dumbass stuck here in the vortex alone with the dead. ”
Michael glanced over.
Oh, that wasn’t happening.
Clearly, the man wasn’t getting the hint when he had his hand on his ass, saved him from an adder, or was hovering. To get Graham to understand, he was going to have to be much more direct.
Clearly.
Because he was amused, Gryphen snickered—not at Graham being here alone, but at the look on ‘D’Artangnan’s’ face. It was clear that his real name annoyed him.
And Marines liked to annoy each other at any given chance.
“Uh, my eternal torment is funny?” Graham asked.
He pointed at Michael.
“Nah, I’m amused at his name, and he knows it. Such a pretty name,” Gryphen said, and his friend smacked him across the chest with his arm.
“Not amusing, and why I also don’t tell everyone my name,” he admitted. “That reaction. Also, your name is Gryphen, and not even spelled right. Who are you mocking?”
Finn shrugged.
“Someone’s mother liked The Three Musketeers,” he joked.
Michael just rolled his eyes. He wasn’t named by his mother. She’d been long gone when his birth certificate was filled out.
A nun at an orphanage named him.
But that was no one’s business.
“Smartass.”
The caretaker of the castle was saying nothing, mainly because he was thinking about what D’Artangnan had just said.
Did he hate his name?
Should he stop calling him that?
It was when Ian touched his arm.
“You in there?”
Graham had to focus.
“Yeah, I was just thinking about who I can call, if there is anyone I can call.”
Ian tried to help him out.
“Are there any tarot card readers or…?”
He nodded.
“Yes, there are some card readers in the village,” he admitted. “I’ve never gone to them, so I can’t attest if they are the real thing or not.”
Finn clued them in.
He was trying to help.
“My sister, Maisie, went to one of them. She said she was eerily good at what she did. I’ll get her name. Maybe, we can figure out what’s going on with her help.”
Graham was to the point.
“I need to clear that with Callen and Chris first,” he admitted.
“We don’t know if they want some psychic wandering around here looking at everything that has been done in the place.
Remember, this is supposed to be lowkey and a protected space.
Everyone here is tied to the family, with the exception of me—but I work for them. ”
He had a point, with the exception that he didn’t realize that once you worked for the Blackhawks…
You.
Were.
One.
“On top of that, if that stirs the shit up…”
Yeah, that was a good point.
The last thing they needed was more chaos.
“I’m with Graham on this one,” Michael stated. “This is their home away from home. I’d be hella pissed if while I wasn’t home, someone had a ghost orgy with a psychic, a Ouija board, and a bunch of dead people.”
Finn laughed.
“Who hurt you, Lad?” he asked.
He didn’t miss a beat.
“Drill instructors for the US Marines,” he stated.
His buddy agreed with him there, and gave him a fist-bump out of solidarity.
They broke Gryphen, too.
“Any objectors?” Graham asked.
When they all stood there, no one objected, and that meant they’d agreed to at least be courteous and ask permission before opening some psychic gate to hell in the basement of the castle.
That was likely for the best.
“Okay, I’ll go call them, and we’ll put all of these paintings away. Catherine’s note can go to the library, and we’ll see what our next step is.”
Michael was to the point.
“The next step is I have to go back into the water for the bones.”
Oh, Graham was aware, but he was trying desperately to put that off if he could.
His gut said it was a bad idea.
And when you lived in a haunted castle, caretaking it, you tended to listen to your gut.
For survival.