Chapter 15 #2
There was laughter from the feed Iago was watching, where Mason was just touching down on the hard rock surface of the bottom of the shaft.
God, it was dark down there, even with the lights they’d shone into the shaft.
Thankfully, the guys had night vision stuff, too, for when they needed to start moving away from the kitchen area.
“Don’t forget to rope up,” Gent snapped.
“Don’t worry, Big Boss!” Mason called, his mic clear as a bell. “We won’t. No getting lost down here.”
“You’re right, because you’re supposed to be waiting,” Colton sing-songed.
“We a-are,” Law sang back.
“I can see you both,” Iago added, and Xan had to fight his chuckles.
“Yes, and therefore you can see that we are just walking around in circles, mapping out this area.”
“Law, don’t lie to me.” Gent was growly. He was clearly worried about what was going on.
“Well, I’m not. I’m just standing here.” Law panned the camera up so they could see right up the shaft over the view on Iago’s computer.
“Okay that’s fine. If you’re both roped up, you can move along a little bit, but not too far like we said.”
Iago’s phone chimed, and he picked it up to glance at it, showing it to Xander with a grin. “The geologist is literally thirty-four minutes away.”
“Shit, by then they’ll have to go to the bathroom,” Xander teased.
“We brought down a big Gatorade bottle.”
Gag. Xander rolled his eyes at that. “That is so nasty.”
“It’s what all sorts of professionals do. That is one advantage of being a male explorer rather than a female one.”
“It is nasty. Nas. Tee. I’m never shaking their hands ever again.” Xan didn’t think that this was decent at all. In fact, he was completely opposed.
“We can wash our hands, and we can also hear you.”
“Shouldn’t you guys be filming and doing establishing shots and stuff with the sound on?”
“That’s a good point. Once the geologist gets here we don’t know how things are going to play out.
You guys should be doing your chitter chatter,” Colton said.
“Is there anything interesting around the opening of the shaft? The remains of an old ladder? The marks of a thousand fingernails trying to claw their way out?”
“Dude, you are bloodthirsty.” Xander patted Iago on the back. “I’m gonna go up to take a shower and get changed. I’m not sure I want to listen to this to begin with.”
Iago chortled. “You really are squeamish about ghosts.”
“Totally am. I’ll be back in a mo.” He headed up the stairs toward the bedrooms, stripping off his over shirt as he went. He wore an apron with all the accompanying stuff, not a chef’s coat, but the denim shirt protected him while he was cooking from things like grease splatters.
He got himself all cleaned up, taking his sweet time. In fact, he even took a nap after, because he was warm and dozy, and it was sunny and quiet up here.
Hopefully, by the time he woke up, the guys would have all the grossness out of their system and they’d have found some answers.
When he woke and went back down, the guys were up from the mine shaft. Colton and Gent were gone, and so was his lover.
“Where did Iago go?”
Law offered him a half smile, glancing up from his laptop. “He went to check the cute geologist into a hotel room and get him all set up. He’s our newest contractor. He said he’d be back around dinner time.”
Xander fought his growl, which tried to come up through his chest like he was some sort of werewolf or something. “Why didn’t one of you guys go do it?”
“Because I have to look through the footage and decide what to get to Gent to produce, and Mason is making historical notations.”
“Over here,” Mason called. “There’s some very cool formations down there. They couldn’t get them all to be smoothed out into a nice regular shaft.”
“Did you find anything where I can explain the ghosts?” That was what he wanted, was to get rid of the ghosts, right?
“Ow!” Law jumped back from the table, his chair skidding across the floor as he rubbed his knuckles. “Somebody slammed my laptop on my hands.”
“Shit. Sorry. I was just thinking about banishing the ghosts.” His cookbook slid off the shelf and hit him in the chest. “Stop it. I didn’t invite you here, you know.”
The books started falling off the bookshelf one at a time, like an aggravated cat was pushing them off.
“Ixnay on the anishingbay,” Mason muttered, “Obviously, he feels as if it’s his place too.”
“He who? This is my house, and I want my life back!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, not a good thing to say to ghosts,” Law cautioned. “Especially if something awful happened to this one. Not that this one has told us what’s going on. Mason’s been calling him he, but I can’t be sure. The energy is male, we think.”
“Can’t you guys get a psychic to do that?” Xander flapped a hand. “What happened to that medium who was here working with Sebastian’s house?”
“He’s been out of the country working on a case in England, but he’s due back soon.” Law waggled his eyebrows. “And we were in more of a hurry to get the geologist.”
“Was he worth anything today? He seems to have come and gone pretty quickly.” Xander didn’t mean to be snappish, but he didn’t like the idea of Iago going off with this guy they knew nothing about. “What if he is a pervert, or, like, a serial killer?”
“He’s not a serial killer.” Mason stood and came walking back into the kitchen. “He’s a respected scholar from an accredited college.”
“Yeah, and people said Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy were the nicest people they’d ever met.”
Another book came flying down, and this one hit him in the back of the head.
“Ow!”
“I agree with the ghost. You’re being an idiot. Look we just need to figure out who the ghost is and what they want. We’ve tried to get voice box stuff, but nobody’s talking so far.”
“Do you really ever get anything on that or is it all fake?” He’d watched the show a couple times, mainly through his eyelids or his closed fingers, but he knew that that was part of the shtick.
The talking box thing talked, and the meters went off, and people got touched, and there was lots of whoaaaaa and hey!
“We actually really do. I don’t know whether it’s because Colton attracts that kind of energy? It would make sense when you think about it. He attracted Sebastian, who grew up with that kind of energy, but we really do get hits on those machines. We don’t have to fake it.”
Xander stared at Mason, completely nonplussed. Sometimes he thought these guys were way too smart for him to be hanging around with.
“You know, just because they’re ghosts doesn’t mean they’re evil. It’s just a person, just an energy.” Law seemed like he was humoring the lunatic.
“He doesn’t seem very friendly.”
Mason shrugged. “You’re not being very friendly. You’re trying to get rid of him. Seriously. Notice how Sebastian lives with his ghosts, no problem.”
“Sebastian grew up with those things, and they damn near drove him out of his house.”
“Only one,” Law pointed out. “The other ones were trying to protect him, and they protected him against Colton’s parents.”
“Don’t confuse the issue with logic.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “No one has to protect me from my parents. They’re very nice, except for the fact that they left me this house and didn’t warn me not to renovate the kitchen.”
Mason shrugged. “Maybe he’s just been trapped down there in the dark for a really long time. He just wants to live up here where there are books, pots and pans, and television.”
Oddly enough, nothing flew at that. “But things started happening before we opened up the mine shaft, right? I guess a ghost could squeeze through the cracks, and when I started doing renovating it could have shook things up. Shaken things. Whatever.”
“It could have. Or get this.” Mason warmed his subject, his eyes lighting up. “Maybe it’s like an old married couple and one of them threw the other one down the mine shaft and now they’re worried that since the mine shaft is open…”
“Did you find bones down there today?” Xan deadpanned staring at Mason, who slumped over a little bit, his shoulders deflating. “And if that was the case, the bones would probably still mostly be right there at the mouth of the shaft where we went down.”
Law shrugged. “That’s assuming no animals got to them.”
“What?”
“Seriously, what if coyotes got down there? Snakes? Bears? Mountain lions? Bobcats? Dogs? Hell, really big bugs. It could happen.”
He stared at Law. “I kind of hate you.”
Law raised his arms and cackled. “Hear that, Mace? Another one bites the dust. I have another hater.”
“Good for you man. That makes at least three this week.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s kind of cool.”
“Ha ha, it is to laugh. When did you say Iago was coming back?” Xander was starting to get a headache again. His nap had taken care of all of that before.
“Here I am.” Iago breezed in, coming right to him to wrap both arms around his waist. “Do you feel better?”
“Yeah. Did you guys eat yet?”
“Nope. you said you were bringing food, so we waited for the cook.”
“Did your geologist get settled?”
Iago nodded and smiled. “Yeah, he did. He has all sorts of ideas. He’s gonna hook up with everybody in the morning after he takes some notes and then makes a plan from what he saw when he went down.”
“Cool. Is it weird I’m a little jealous?”
Iago craned his neck to stare at him. “I don’t know. Kinda weird. Kinda hot.”
“Mostly weird,” Law murmured.
“Still hate you,” Xander clapped back.
“I know. I live for this shit.” Law beamed at him, and Iago rolled his eyes.
“Be nice, children. Don’t make me wash y’all’s mouths out with soap.”
They all looked at each other for a moment, and then their laughter started — deep and real and a little raw.
“Are you hungry, sweetheart?” he finally calmed down enough to ask, and Iago nodded.
“I heard you say that there was soup. I’m always hungry for your soup.”
He loved that. It made him feel necessary. “That’s because this is my baby.”
Iago shrugged, winking at him. “Or maybe it’s just because you make magical soup. One way or the other, I’m hungry. Is there still cornbread?”