Excerpt: Spooks!

For paranormal investigator, Will Caudwell, waking up face down in the rubble of a supposedly haunted house was annoying but by no means unusual. In the past year, he had his throat slit by a poltergeist, narrowly avoided being mauled by a werewolf and gone head to head with a genuine demon. He coughed explosively, trying to clear the thick layer of grainy dust coating his throat as he tried to remember where he was. Something must have happened when—he blinked trying to steady the spinning scene—had he really fallen through the staircase? That was a first for sure. Vampires usually kept their house in much better repair.

Thoughts of vampires brought his muddled mind back into painfully sharp focus. His partner, Dwayne Baker was still upstairs, still unaware of the face that they were up against a vampire instead of their typical spook. Will gritted his teeth and tried to push himself to his feet. A sharp jolt of pain spasmed through his left wrist the instant he put pressure on it. He didn’t even have to check to verify that it was broken.

Again

The sixth rebreak since his first case with Twilight Investigations. Fantastic.

He rolled carefully onto his back and sat up. With his good arm, he tugged his glasses from his face and rubbed them on his shirt. They were hopelessly smudged with dirt and the left lens suffering a spider-web crack. This was the last time he ever wore glasses on a case. He must have broken half a dozen pairs this year. It was hard enough to keep the business afloat without the constant cost of replacement glasses. Thank God he’d thought to spring for insurance.

Breathing heavily, Will took stock of his surroundings. The staircase stood out sharply, silhouetted against the light from the door upstairs. The stairs were wooden. The ground was emphatically concrete, Straight overhead was a jagged hole in the floorboard where he’d crashed through. Will could see a small smudge of blood on the floor from his initial landing.

It had to be a basement of some sorts. Will hated basements. Vampires usually kept bodies in basements and in his current state, he wasn’t going to handle finding a dead body with anything resembling dignity.

There was a sudden loud sound in the darkness. Will jerked and stifled a scream before realizing it was his cell phone’s obnoxious ring tone, the sound somehow multiplied exponentially in the silence. Will groped for the phone in his pocket and fumbled it open, eyes still not adjusted to the gloom. “Dwayne!” he hissed. “Where the hell are you? We’ve got a vampire on our hands!”

“No shit,” Dwayne replied, voice crackling over the static. “You don’t happen to have a any stakes on hand?”

“Now, why the hell would I have a stake?” Will snapped. He was lightheaded and dangerously close to blacking out again from the shooting pain down his left wrist. “I thought we were dealing with spooks tonight! I’ve got an EMF and a lighter. Nothing that’s going to do us any good.”

“Where are you?” Dwayne asked evenly.

Will cursed. He recognized this particular tone. The only time Dwayne ever sounded this calm was when he was in his panic mode. Knowing him, he was probably charring on this conversation in the midst of a chase. “I’m in the basement, I think,” Will said. “I think the floor off the main hall was rotten. I took a nose dive.”

“Perfect,” Dwayne said in that same measured tone. “Means there should be some loose wood lying around. Find a stake. I’m bringing him to you.”

“What?” Will croaked. “Wait! Dwayne! I’m not in any condition to—“

A dial tone blared in his ear. Will swore again, feeling around in the darkness for any suitable pieces of wood. Ignoring the pain from his broken wrist, he grabbed the guardrail from the staircase and wrenched a piece free. Overhead, he could hear footprints thundering down the stairs and a second later a second, far more reckless set followed. Ever step sent a rain of dust and cobwebs showering down on him. Will coughed, and squinted through the dust-induced haze, trying to keep his vision clear. Will saw a flicker of shadow pass over the hole he’d left in the flooring outside and a second later there was a crash as a dark shape slammed through the flooring and down to the basement, landing just a few feet from Will himself. Overhead, Dwayne gave a whoop of triumph.

Should they survive, Will was going to strangle him.

Stumbling through the darkness, will picked his way to the spot where the disoriented vampire lay, stake gripped firmly in his good hand.

Will hated vampires. Contrary to popular believe a vampire looked and acted exactly like any normal human being. The only difference was a pair of razor sharp incisors that descended only when the thing was about to feed. This particular vampire was a blonde athletic looking guy who seemed even younger then Will’s twenty-two years. He was just a kid when he’d died. A high school senior at the absolute most.

The only thing that visibly placed him into the realm of the undead was the varsity letterman’s jacket that read Class of ’87 which made him more then twenty years gone. Callope High School’s colors—which made him a local boy to boot. He must have been doing very well to keep hunting the same grounds for so long—especially when Will and Dwayne kept such a close eye on all the town’s paranormal activities.

Will brought the stake down. The odd squelching noise emanating from the blow told him he’d hit home. The vampire’s eyes snapped open. They were clear blue and full of rage. Far too human for Will’s taste. He wished the vampire looked like the monster it was. He wished it had the glazed look of a zombie or the inky blackness of a demon rather then the razor sharp gleam of intelligence Will associated solely with the living.

But mostly, he just wished Joe Twilight was still alive.

“William Caudlwell,” the vampire growled.

Will stepped backward, leaving the makeshift stake standing upright in the thing’s chest. “You know my name? How the hell do you know my name?”

The vampire snarled. “It’s coming for you.”

“What do you mean,” Will choked.

But the vampire couldn’t talk anymore. It had already started. The thing’s flesh was peeling from its body, twenty years of decay happening in twenty seconds. Will could smell the change in the atmosphere, the cloying stench of blood and death. Once a vampire’s borrowed life force was forced from its body that was all that was left: a corpse. A rank, rotten corpse.

Will hated vampires.

“Yo, Will!” Dwayne called. “You still alive down there.”

“Yeah,” Will said. “Yeah, Dwayne, still breathing.”

“There we go,” Dwayne said. “Hold tight. Be there in a few.”

Will heard slightly uneven gait of Dwayne’s footsteps over head and then one, two, three crashes before the locked door above the staircase—the real stairway down, not the express drop from above—gave way. “You get him, Will?” Dwayne asked, moving carefully down the rickety stairs.

“Yeah, I got him,” Will said, swaying slightly on his feet.

Dwayne cackled. “Guess who’s getting paid tonight?”

The room was spinning. Will’s wrist throbbed with a heartbeat all its own. Black seeped into the edges of his vision. “I think I need a hospital.”

His legs gave way and Dwayne only just managed to catch him by his shoulder before he hit the ground. “Jesus, Will. It didn’t take a piece out of you, did it?”

“Nah,” Will said. “It’s the arm again.” He pressed his hand against his head. “And maybe a concussion. I only just got out of that damn splint.”

Dwayne stooped down and looped an arm under Will’s shoulder, offering him support as they made their way up the rickety staircase and into the dim light of the hallway. Outside, the crescent moon, shined its feeble light in through the window. “I’ll come back later and take care of the corpse. I don’t think the buyer would appreciate a dead vampire in their basement. Besides we still need to torch the thing, right?”

“Doubt they’ll appreciate a hole in their staircase either,” Will grumbled. “Maybe we should just save them some trouble and light up the whole place. This building needs to be condemned.

“Hey,” Dwayne said. “It’s their fault you’re a spaz who managed to fall through the floor. I mean who actually does that? I’m like twice your size and I made it just fine.”

It wasn’t his fault. In this case in fact, Will would put the blame pretty much exclusively on the now deceased vampire.

It’s coming for you.

Will really hated vampires.