The Lurkers Within: (A Havenwood Falls Novella) Read online

  “Hey, Tasha, how many scales do you have filled in now?” Eduardo asked, running his hand along my back, which displayed an outlined tattoo of a Mexican King serpent. It really was an impressive piece of work. My torso held much of the snake’s body as it wrapped twice around me. The tail ended at my hairline on the back of my neck while the black head of it disappeared into my ‘Garden of Eden.’ The individual scales, numbering over a hundred, were outlined and waiting to be fully inked in. A full-body tat like this would likely take twenty or more years to fill in. In its outline form, however, it still made for an epic piece.

  “How many? Um . . . a lot.” I laughed as I watched his eyes rake over my naked body. I’d lost count of how many were completed, since I started with the ones on my back first. I hated needles and really didn’t want to watch it being done, so being face down for as much of the process as possible was ideal. For someone not keen on needles, perhaps a full-body tattoo was stupid, but the idea of it came to me in a dream one night. The fact that I had a birthmark that looked a bit scale-like cemented the design for me. I hated those ugly birthmarks, and they seemed to keep cropping up more often as I aged. This design disguised them perfectly. Even the tattoo artist thought it was pretty badass. Hurt like a motherfucker though.

  I craned my neck in an effort to see the scales he was staring at, but it was useless. I wasn’t as bendable as I was in my twenties. “I’m guessing there’s probably like twenty-five by now?”

  Eduardo shook his head. “That looks like a lot more than twenty-five. I’ll have to count them one day,” he said, leaning over to lick one, “with my tongue.”

  “You always were a stickler for actual data,” I replied.

  He slid off the bed then and tossed a sheet on me, so I wouldn’t get cold. He was thoughtful, that one. “I’m gonna hit the shower.”

  “Mmm,” I said, hugging the sheet around me. His cologne was intoxicating all on its own. Still, not a reason to keep a guy around. After this break, I’d need to be reassigned to a new team. Again. Maybe I’d try the London office. Lots more pasty-looking guys with bad teeth there. Less temptation.

  “Hey, Tasha, get your ass in here with me!” Eduardo yelled over the noise of the rushing water.

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” I grinned. No harm in enjoying him while I could. Though I needed to check in with work. I still hadn’t gotten the official “you’re clear for vacation” message, even though I put in for the time months ago. Sure, the work was easy, but the constant travel was weighing on me. I was looking forward to parking it in one place for the week.

  Yanking the sheet off me, I yawned and walked, buck-naked, over to my phone. It was tucked into the back pocket of my pants.

  As soon as I turned it on, notifications started pouring in, which was unusual. I didn’t have friends or family—at least, none that knew this number—so I knew something big at work must have gone down overnight. Especially when all fifteen messages said the same thing.

  AGENT YOUNG, CALL THIS NUMBER ASAP.

  “So much for being off next week. Asshats.” Blowing out a breath, I glanced at the number. It wasn’t my normal FBI contact, but that happened now and again. An undercover op would need help, so they called my team in. The feds were the only ones with my number, so it had to be legit.

  Tossing the phone on the bed, I went to join Eduardo. Whoever it was, they could wait ten more minutes. Maybe twenty.

  Forty minutes later, thank you very much, I sent Eduardo down to the lobby for coffee. I hated the crap they pawned off in the room. Tasted like caffeinated cardboard. I missed my own four-cup coffee pot, ironically. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept in my apartment back in Soho. Was it weeks now, or months? Ultimately, it didn’t matter since the feds picked up the bill, but there was something about having a space of your own. A space you could claim. With each passing year, I found myself longing more and more for that elusive word—home.

  Sighing, I punched the number given me into my cell and plopped on the unmade bed. The smell of our morning adventure still lingered on the sheets as I lay down, waiting to find out where I was being shipped off to next. This, by far, was the worst part of the job. Always leaving.

  Chapter 3

  “Havenwood Falls?” I asked, pulling out my laptop to search for its location as my contact prattled on. “Where the hell is that?”

  “It’s a small town in Colorado. Don’t bother looking it up. It’s not on any map. Remote town with lots of mountains. Pack layers. November may be warm in Jacksonville, Agent Young, but it won’t be in Havenwood Falls.”

  I closed my laptop. “How did you know where I am?”

  “I just know, Agent Young. Can we skip the fifty questions?”

  Well then, Captain Dickhead wasn’t a chatter. Great. I worked with men like this all the time. Alpha types who felt they needed to talk down to the female of the species. Damn it all if I didn’t usually find men like that sexy.

  As Dicky spoke, I did a mental inventory of the few clothes I had: Two pairs of black pants, three white button-up dress shirts, two black bras (because why wear a white bra when a black one through a white shirt could be so titillating), three pairs of shoes—two of them heels—and one black leather jacket. I’d likely need to grab something warmer when I got to the airport; something easily left behind on the plane ride back when I left. I traveled light. Lived light. Everything I owned fit in one travel suitcase. Necessities only. That’s the reality I knew.

  “Agent Young, your flight leaves in four hours. There will be someone waiting to pick you up from the airport. I trust that will be enough time to get your team ready?”

  I pulled my thoughts out of my carryon and back into the conversation.

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “The tickets are being left with the front desk of your hotel. Your fee has already been wired to your account. Any questions?” he asked. Now that the details were sorted, he sounded bored.

  “Yeah. Just one. Who are you?”

  Agent Duncan usually called my assignments in. Not that I minded not hearing from Duncan. He was a snore-fest. This guy, while arrogant as fuck, at least sounded sexy as all get out. Hell, this guy might be just the thing to get my mind off Eduardo.

  “I’m the guy paying you to do your job, Agent Young.”

  Well, well, well. I was annoying him. Good. Men like him needed playing with.

  “I meant, what is your name?” I asked, matching his arrogant tone.

  “You’d better start packing, Agent. Let your team know we’re counting on their A game for this capture.”

  Great. This was going to be one of those top-secret missions the feds sent me on where everything was need-to-know, including who was in charge.

  “It’s the only way I play,” I said.

  “So I’ve heard.” With that, there was a click and the call was ended.

  Eduardo came in just then with our coffees and two bagels perched precariously on top. I relieved him of one set.

  “Eat fast. We’ve got a mission. Flight leaves in four hours.”

  “I thought you were off next week?”

  My phone vibrated then, alerting me of an incoming wire. I showed him the screen. He gave a low whistle. I nodded. “For this fee, I’m available.”

  Eduardo nodded. “I’ll call Adam.”

  Adam was staying on the floor above us. He learned the hard way to never be below our room. Eduardo and I were too noisy. Adam was always ready to leave at a moment’s notice, so I had no doubt he’d be here within five minutes, which was a good thing. Four hours wasn’t a lot of prep time, but our cover stories always remained the same: Adam played my husband, and Eduardo, because of his baby face, played our bi-racial son. Leave It to Beaver had nothing on our motley crew.

  Playing Adam’s wife was easy, because Adam was a fine piece of man. Standing at six foot one, he had dark cocoa skin and bicep muscles for days. He was uber religious, though, so he had no interest in me and my “whoris
h” ways. He harped on me a lot about all the men I slept around with, but I knew he secretly wished I’d find someone and finally settle down. He had a good heart, that one. He was going to make some virginal woman very happy one day. It just sure as hell wouldn’t be me.

  At each new assignment, we adopted our roles and played house for a few days until the spirits got close enough to trap them. Older spirits could move around more than the chick we bagged in the attic a few months ago. As awesome as I was at trapping spirits, I couldn’t walk through walls. Playing chase with a ghost was not my idea of a good time. Hence the cover. If we went into a house with Class B spirits with traps blazing, we’d never get as close as I needed to be to bag them. I had to literally be right on top of them in order for the trap to work. Sneak attacks were the only way to land these assholes without all the Tom & Jerry–style chasing.

  “Where are we headed?” Eduardo asked after he hung up with Adam.

  “Havenwood Falls. Ever heard of it?” I asked.

  He shook his head, making his lush curls bounce as he did. “Should I?”

  I shrugged. “No. I guess it’s somewhere in West Bumfuck, Colorado.”

  “Great. Adam and I will blend right in.” He smirked, showing off not only his cute-as-fuck dimples, but his golden Puerto Rican skin.

  “That town will be crazy jealous of the white chick with two colored studs on her arms.”

  He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me to him.

  “I’d do her,” he said.

  I laughed. “You have. Twice just this morning. Unfortunately, we don’t have time for round three. We have to get to the airport.”

  “Party pooper,” he said playfully, but promptly went to pack his things. I watched his backside as he walked to the dresser. I think we’ll need to squeeze in a mile-high-club visit.

  Chapter 4

  When my team was picked up at the airport in a cheesy-looking tourist bus that would have put the Mystery Machine to shame, I couldn’t help but think that bus was going to be the weirdest thing I’d see all day. I was so, so wrong.

  After a four-hour drive, the little bus that could managed to haul our asses up the windy, snow-covered, and fog-ridden mountainside. We were driven into a town that looked like a replica of Mayberry. Not even joking. For starters, the center of Havenwood Falls looked more like a movie set than a real place. It just looked too perfect. Magical, somehow.

  In the middle of town was a squared off section that held a park area with a fountain dead center and a gazebo off to the right of it. Like a proper, old fashioned gazebo. What town still had those? It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and there were Christmas decorations everywhere. No respect for Thanksgiving. I wanted to hurl. Towns like this were so not ready for the likes of me and my crew. I dug out my cell to check the time, and only then did I realize what day it was—Black Friday. That’s why there were so many people out and about. I missed Thanksgiving completely while traveling here to this bullshit assignment. How pathetic was I that I forgot a major holiday like that? It was just one of the many ways my job consumed every aspect of my life.

  “Hey, we missed Thanksgiving,” I said to Eduardo.

  He shrugged. “I don’t really like turkey anyway. Besides, this place makes up for it. Check out those slopes!” His eyes were still focused outside the window on the mountain beyond. I was about to scold Adam for not reminding me, but then I remembered he was Canadian.

  Surrounding the square was an odd assortment of businesses. Your typical things like coffee shops, town offices, and hair stylist and such, but they all had hippy-dippy names like Into the Mystic and Shear Magic. I knew cannabis was legal in Colorado, but these store names were out there even for a pothead.

  That’s when we passed by the Haven Saloon.

  “Praise Jesus. We’re saved. They have a bar,” I said, to no one in particular. Eduardo and Adam were too busy looking at this bizarre little town with far more wonder than I was. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something about this town felt very, very wrong, while at the same time, a little bit right.

  “There’s a ski shop! Tasha, we have to go skiing,” Eduardo beamed.

  “Um, we’re only here for a week. I don’t know how much skiing time there will be.” I looked up at the mountains, though, and was surprised to see whitecaps when there were only a few inches on the ground. “Have you ever been skiing?” I asked Eduardo, raising my eyebrow.

  “No! Which is why we should try it!”

  Adam and I exchanged a glance. Eduardo, though he was great in the sack, was not known for his athletic prowess outside of the bedroom.

  “Let’s just focus on the assignment first, shall we?” Adam said, taking the pressure off me to tell him no.

  “Fine, but then we are so all going!” he said, bouncing up and down in his seat like the teenager he was about to portray. It made me laugh despite the surroundings of this bizarre little town.

  The small group on the bus filed out one by one. Adam and Eduardo grabbed our gear while I looked around for where the hell we were supposed to go to now. Dicky hadn’t exactly been clear, and he wasn’t returning my texts.

  “Agent Young?”

  I spun around and saw a man dressed in black holding a sign with my name on it.

  “That’s us,” I said.

  “Right this way.” He gestured to his black car with tinted glass that screamed FBI. Way to be inconspicuous and likely blow our cover, jackass.

  “Damn, girl. We’re being treated like royalty,” Eduardo sang as he hopped into the car. “Who is this dude, anyway?”

  “No clue. Someone who clearly doesn’t understand the concept of working undercover.”

  Adam and I exchanged a glance. He felt it too. There was something unusual about this mission. We never got wined and dined this much. Something was fishy.

  As our driver took us out of the center of the town, we realized he wasn’t going to speak to us. Every question we asked went unanswered, which meant he must have been given specific orders to keep quiet. Fine by me. The sooner we got there, the sooner I could find out the assignment, finish the job, then get the hell out of dodge. This place was making my skin itch. It was too perfect, which meant it was hiding a secret. It didn’t help that all the tourists and hippies were gawking at us, I just knew it. Didn’t matter where I went. People always stared at me. Yes, I am a freak. Move on with your lives, people!

  We made a left on Thirteenth Street, which seemed fitting considering the supernatural twist to our jobs. We stayed on that road until the car pulled up beside a light sage-colored house. It didn’t look like a haunted house you might imagine in a book or movie, but houses with the most demonic spirits didn’t. They looked like normal, cute little houses.

  Just like this one. The hairs on my arm went up. This was bad. Very bad. Whatever was in that house wasn’t something we’d been up against before.

  Once I got outside of the car, my suspicions were confirmed. In that moment, I knew exactly why our team had been called in. My stomach lurched. This was no Class B spirit.

  “Tasha? You okay?”

  Adam had a bag in his hand, while Eduardo was pulling out the rest from the trunk. The driver stayed in the car, the engine still running. He must have known what we were up against, because he had no plans to stick around.

  “Everything’s hunky-dory, babe,” I said, making direct eye contact with Adam to make sure he understood. “Just got a little carsick is all.”

  Hunky-dory was a code word. It warned the team that all was not, well, hunky-dory. It told them that I’d felt the presence of intense dark energy. There was something predominantly evil oozing out of that house. If my senses were right, and they always were, there was far more than one baddie inside, to boot.

  “You have the key, Mom?” Eduardo asked, slipping into character and letting me know he got the message. Normally, we didn’t have to put on our act until we got inside, because ghosts couldn’t see that far, but this was old energy, poss
ibly the oldest I’d ever come up against. The older the spirit, the farther they could see.

  I took the small carryon Adam had, which held one of our five traps. They were hidden among our belongings for ease of access. They had to be close by, but also hidden, lest we spook what we were hunting. I had a sinking feeling that what we were packing wasn’t going to be enough. Whatever spirits were lurking within were a patient group. They were gathering for something. Something big.

  My muscles tensed in anticipation as I put on a plastic smile. We were being watched. Better make it convincing. Since our contact wasn’t providing me with the information I needed to formulate a plan, I would have to figure it out myself, which meant seeing exactly what we were up against with my own eyes before I called headquarters and reamed someone’s ass out for sending us in here so unprepared.

  “Let’s go see our new home for the week,” I said, sounding way more chipper than I felt.

  Chapter 5

  From all outward appearances, the inside of the house looked like any other you might find listed in an Airbnb ad. The appliances were new and all stainless steel. All the surfaces had been dusted. The path to the house had been shoveled and sanded. The sun beamed inside through large bay windows, doing its best to remove the shadow that hung over the place like a living, breathing beast.

  Everything inside looked like it had been handpicked by an interior designer, save for a creepy-ass wooden doll perched on the mantle. She had on a green dress from what looked like the 1700s. The paint had chipped on the nose and neck, making her look like she’d been smudged with dirt. The dress she wore had yellowed from the sun. She had an apron and bonnet over the dress. A servant. Not the sort of doll you’d usually see kept over the years. It was the eyes that made her creepy, though. No color to them. Just black orbs that seemed to follow me as I walked. I had to turn it around. It gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I didn’t scare easy.