Page 46 of The Silence of Hell

“Shit!” I spat as I realised what Chatter had spotted. Tatum’s gift to me! Oops. I grabbed it and shoved it in a drawer as Fanatic gazed at Chatter in consternation.

“Dude, you so need therapy,” Fanatic drawled as he slapped Chatter to wake him up.

“What the hell is going on?” a loud and irritated voice demanded, entering my home.

“Pres, in here,” Fanatic called.

Chance stormed in, looking like a drowned rat and none too happy.

“Explain now!”

“I got a call from Jinx that somebody was in the house, and then he claimed that someone was peering through the window at them. He said he chased after them and put the phone down. Smokey, Chatter, and Wraith were at the clubhouse, and Harlequin was on gate duty with Rascal. I grabbed them and left Rascal to inform you,” Fanatic replied.

Chatter murmured and opened his eyes. He babbled incoherently about spider dolls and closed his eyes again.

“It’s safe, Lavender removed it,” Fanatic said.

Chatter warily reopened his eyes. “Why would you have something like that?” he howled.

“It was a gift from Tatum,” I muttered.

“That’s not a present!” he yelled, sitting up.

Footsteps thudded down the stairs, and the guy who’d been with Fanatic returned. “The doors are locked, and there’s no sign of an intruder.”

No sooner had the words left his lips than two manly screams sounded from somewhere in the house.

“Go!” Chance ordered, rubbing his brow.

A flash of lightning illuminated the room, which blew the lights and plunged us into darkness. Curses abounded through the Manor as men yelled and cussed.

“What the hell is that?” someone shrieked.

“Fuck!” another person shouted. Above my head, footsteps began pounding hard on the floor, and Chance looked up with an open mouth.

“Fanatic, go!” he ordered.

Fanatic used the light on his phone and headed out. Moments later, he shouted down to us. “The door’s locked!”

Chance stared at me as the footsteps hit the floorboards harder, and Fanatic shouted as someone banged on the door he was standing next to. The lights flickered before staying off again, and silence fell.

“Lady, I don’t know what you’ve got going on here, but it ain’t right,” Chance said firmly.

“No shit,” I muttered.

???

We sat in the kitchen, all cupping mugs of hot chocolate. Jinx and Dan had returned down from the widow’s tower and hadn’t discovered a way in, nor any sign of anyone. Fanatic had come down with Smokey and Harlequin, who’d headed for the third floor. Fanatic appeared shell-shocked, but not as much as Smokey and Harlequin, a candidate. Wraith and a guy called Bone came in from the woods, where they’d chased a floating white light. In the meantime, Bear, Chance’s VP, and Sunny had also arrived.

The storm outside showed no signs of lessening and luckily, we’d got the electrics back on.

“Can we start from the beginning? It’s three forty in the morning,” Sunny asked.

“I was woken about an hour and a half ago by the usual footsteps and noises in the room above me. They woke Jinx as well as they tended to. But tonight, they were more. Something was banging on the walls, but there was nobody present. Then there was a massive crashing sound like someone had broken a window,” I explained.

“I’ve got guards out checking the building,” Slaughter said, entering the kitchen. “They’d called me when the activity started. They captured something you’ll all want to see in a bit.”

“Took you long enough to arrive,” Sunny commented.

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