“This is stupid.”

  “Undeniably.” Reg wheezed, barely able to get the word out as Tera cinched the chest harness impossibly tight.

  She adjusted his shoulder straps to her liking, gave the lower chest band one last lung-crushing tug, and then moved on to attaching the camera. Reg remained stock-still, too frightened to remind Tera that he was perfectly capable of calibrating the equipment himself. He didn’t, though. He kept his infernal mouth shut and tried his best not to squirm. Tera was already on the fence about the job, letting her double-check that the camera wasn’t filming his shoes again was the small price Reg was willing to pay to keep her onboard.

  If only it didn’t involve so much pain.

  “Really, really stupid,” Tera said. Finished securing the camera to the chest mount, she checked the feed on her phone.

  Tera had insisted on the camera. As Reg would be venturing into the residence alone, she wanted eyes on him at all times. Reg didn’t like the idea of recording a crime but sucked it up nonetheless. Technically he had permission to enter the residence from the owner. The dead one whom, regrettably, no one yet believed was dead. Oh well. It wasn’t like Reg would be turned in to the authorities if caught, anyway. He did not doubt that whatever had killed Nick would not hesitate to do the same to him the moment he was discovered. Tera might regret the camera when that happened.

  “Camera’s all set.” Tera made eye contact with him for what felt like the first time since the ride over. The coldness of her stare made Reg miss her former manhandling. “You’ve got your earpiece?”

  He touched the annoying hunk of plastic jammed inside his ear. “Check.”

  “Phone?”

  His hand went to the front pocket of his vest. “Check.”

  Tera raised one eyebrow accusingly at him. “Your notifications?”

  “All turned off.”

  Good gods, Tera was acting like this was his first time sleuthing. Reg had done this hundreds of times before. Admittedly, those instances might have been within the law, but that didn’t affect his ability to pull off a search. Reg knew what he was doing. It would be just like old times. Him, in the field, moving through the spaces deemed out of reach for anyone else while Tera watched his every step through a screen, her disembodied voice buzzing in his ear like a mosquito.

  Having nothing left to adjust, tighten, or smack upside the head, Tera stood back and sighed. “I’m not going to try to talk you out of this.”

  “Because you don’t have a better solution?”

  “I mean, I did offer to kill you myself. Save us the trouble.” Both eyebrows lifted high on her forehead, a suggestion, perhaps, that her offer was still on the table.

  “It was generous of you.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Thank you, again.” Reg patted her shoulder affectionately. “But I think I’ll take my chances with the murderer.”

  They were parked down the street from Nick’s residence. The home in question, a three-story colonial, straddled the outskirts of the city, where urban development gave way to old forest. The giant billboard across the street welcomed Reg and Tera to their future home in Sunny Hills. From the state of things, Nick’s once private stretch of exurban paradise was poised to be swept up in the next wave of expansion. Several lots along the base of the snow-covered hill sat in varying stages of construction, their land cleared of trees. There were three finished houses further down. Show models, likely, given the signs advertising walkthroughs to potential buyers.

  “Reg?” Tera’s voice pulled Reg away from staring at the ugly houses. “Be careful, okay?”

  “Always,” he promised.

  Reg shifted planes and took to the air, floating above the construction and past the dark line of trees beyond. Reaching Nick’s house, he circled the outside, searching for a way in. He spied an open dormer window on the third floor and jetted toward it. The gap was only a few inches high but it was all the space Reg needed. He reshaped his particles as he hurtled closer, flattening his phantom body to pass through unhindered.

  Heat erupted across his skin the moment he reached the window. Sparks crackled and popped as Reg was thrown back in a wave of hot magic. He flipped and flailed like a dry leaf in the wind. Panicked, disorientated, and feeling like he’d just come out of a tumble dryer, Reg reformed his phantom body to its usual shape and checked that all of his parts were still intact. Other than the sting in his fingers and the rancid taste of copper flooding the inside of his mouth, everything was where it should have been.

  His wary gaze returned to the gap in the window. It was charmed, similar to the spell he used in his own apartment, only better. The spell Reg used didn’t protect open windows or door clearances. He had to rely on salt for those.

  How annoying.

  The charm—not the salt. Although he did find having to constantly salt his window sills bothersome, that was a complaint for another time.

  Reg hovered in the air as he considered his next move. The charm only applied to beings in the spirit world, meaning that if he were to switch back to his physical form, he could enter without issue. Well, almost without issue. The gap was far too small for his physical body to fit through, the pitch of the icy roof was dangerously steep, and the ground was very, very far down.

  He stared at the section of roof below the open dormer window. It was steep, yes, but with the right handholds he could stand on it just long enough to get the rest of the window open. Worst case scenario, he’d fall off the roof and shift back into the spirit plane before striking the ground. The worst-worst case scenario simply involved striking the ground.

  You promised Tera you’d be careful.

  Groaning, Reg abandoned the open window and rechecked the rest of the house. He made three more passes before concluding that, shy of ringing the doorbell, there wasn’t any other way inside. Reluctantly, he returned to the dormer window on the third floor. He felt slightly better knowing the camera wasn’t on yet—electronics didn’t work in the spirit realm, after all. Tera wouldn’t have to know how he got in the house until after the fact. Or not at all, in the event he didn’t survive to tell her.

  Mind made up, Reg drifted as close to the house as the charm would allow. He positioned his translucent feet above the steep roof and shifted back into the world of the living. Pops of color flooded his vision as his heels dropped and struck the snow-covered shingles. Reg lurched forward, clawing at the window frame for purchase as his feet started to slip. He caught the corner with his left hand and steadied himself. Still grasping the frame, Reg eased down into a crouch, hooked his free hand under the window lift, and heaved.

  The window didn’t move.

  Silently cursing the stack of unused dumbbells collecting dust back home, Reg tried again. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead and collected on the tip of his nose. His arm shook from the strain.

  Still nothing.

  Defeated, Reg grudgingly accepted that this was a job for two hands. He repositioned his left hand from the house to the bottom rail, alongside his right. Gripping the window for dear life, he planted his feet firmly against the frozen shingles and lifted, utilizing his knees, not his back, as so many workplace training videos had hammered into his thick skull over the years. The window shuddered open with a protesting creak. A triumphant smile pulled at the corner of Reg’s lips. It vanished a split second later when his left foot slipped out from under him, taking the rest of him with it.

  He body-slammed the roof and started to slide.

  No, no, no! Reg clawed at the shingles for traction as he slipped further down the steep roof. His right shoe caught against something. It gave him the foothold he needed to keep from sliding over the edge. Hand over hand, trembling like his stepmother’s angry chihuahua, Reg slowly dragged his wet body back to the open window. A good sleuth would have entered feet-first, utilizing light, cat-like steps. Reg decided that being a poor sleuth was preferable to a dead one and settled for headfirst.

  He dove through the open window and bellyflopped onto the desk situated directly below. The ornate desk was made of solid mahogany and stood strong. Much unlike Reg who slid across its slick surface and crumpled into a sad pile of squishy disappointment onto the rug, knocking over a stack of stationary in the process. He rolled onto his back with a soft groan, watching the crisp white sheets of paper settle around him, like fallen leaves from the mythical office supply tree.

  No rest for the stupid, stupid. Better move before someone comes to investigate the loud thump you just made.

  Reg leapt into action. Granted, it may have been more of an undignified lurch than it was a leap, but the important thing was that he was up and moving. Reg gathered the scattered papers and shoved them back onto the desk as neatly as ten and a half seconds would allow. He turned, scanning the room for a place to hide, before remembering the window. Reg tugged it back into position and commenced panicking.

  Having staked out the house all afternoon, he and Tera were semi-confident that no one was home. Still, there was a good chance they were wrong. If there was anyone inside they were probably already on their way to investigate the source of the mysterious sounds coming from the third floor.

  The room, an office judging from the desk and neat rows of filing cabinets, was severely lacking in the convenient hiding places category. Reg chose the only available option, the closet, and tucked himself inside behind the row of oversized button-downs. He waited with drawn breath for the ominous sounds of approaching footsteps. He waited. And waited. And waited some more, but no footsteps came. Reg powered on his equipment while he waited a few seconds longer, just to be certain.

  “Finally.” Tera’s angry hiss infiltrated his ear. “What took you so long? I was getting worried.”

  The question was rhetorical, of course. Tera wasn’t expecting an answer. Which was all well and good as Reg didn’t intend to provide one. He positioned his hand in front of the camera and gave her a super convincing thumbs-up.

  “You nearly broke your neck, didn’t you?”

  How on Earth had she gotten that from a thumbs-up? Perhaps Tera would have appreciated the middle finger more. Next time, Reg vowed.

  “Everything looks good on my end,” she said. “Ready when you are.”

  Right. That. The whole point of breaking and entering. Reg didn’t even know what he was supposed to be looking for, really. Clues, he supposed. Something, anything, to give him a better idea of who or what killed Nick. How the gargoyle had died, maybe? Usually all Reg had to do was locate the ghost and ask, but this case was trickier than most. Reg already had the ghost. All he lacked now was a body, a killer, a motive, and the scene of the crime.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Reg crept out of the closet and over to the door. His soft-soled shoes absorbed the sound of his footfalls as the floor beneath him transitioned from rug to hardwood. The upper floor consisted of an office and spare bedroom, neither of which looked as if they had been touched in ages. Finding nothing of interest, Reg transitioned to the second floor. The first door opened into a library. This room was markedly different from the other. It was messy.

  Books lay scattered about—some face up, some face down, others open with their spines bent at awkward angles. Dirty coffee mugs lined the tops of the wood furniture without coasters. The scene was every bibliophile’s nightmare.

  “It’s a good thing you made Nick stay behind.” Tera’s disembodied voice buzzed in Reg’s ear. “I think he’d have a heart attack if he saw.”

  Technically impossible, but Reg agreed with the overall sentiment. The disheveled state of the library was a far cry from Nick’s compulsive tidiness. Reg doubted the mess was his client’s doing.

  Moving on, Reg slipped out of the library and into the master bedroom. He stifled an involuntary gasp the moment he closed the door behind him. The air was inexplicably cold, like stepping into a walk-in freezer without a jacket. Every hair stood on end as the icy atmosphere enveloped him. Frozen tendrils infiltrated Reg’s mouth and nose and spread into his lungs.

  Cold spot. Never a good sign.

  Reg blinked, allowing his vision to adjust to the gloom. He could see better in the dark than a human, but the transition took time to kick in. The details of the room slowly shifted into focus as Reg’s gaze swept from corner to corner. The blackout curtains along the exterior wall were drawn shut, rendering the room impossibly dark. A giant-sized bed near the middle took up most of the space. Reg’s stare lingered on the bed longer than necessary. Big, beautiful, and undoubtedly expensive, the canopy-style bed didn’t fit the rest of the house. It belonged in a mansion, or a movie set featuring scantily-clad vampires, not here. It even had the dozen or so needlessly decorative pillows and a chiffon curtain.

  Cautiously, Reg inched further into the bedroom. He spied two doors on either side, a bathroom and a walk-in closet, most likely. He’d get to them, eventually. But first, he wanted to snoop through the fancy dresser drawer and mirror combo, currently hidden beneath a mound of personal effects. Reg tiptoed over only to discover the belongings were disappointingly ordinary. Clothes, random socks, the crumpled tissues you fished out of your pockets before collapsing into bed after a long day at work. There wasn’t anything useful. Nary a receipt, wallet, or convenient murder confession in sight.

  Reg’s disappointed gaze lifted to the mirror, taking in his shadowy reflection. The bed curtain rustled behind him. Two glowing eyes lifted into the air like spirits from the grave. The eyes moved, slowly taking in the room until they stopped, staring straight at the back of Reg’s head.

  Reg’s breath caught in his throat. He tried to lift his leaden feet and flee for the door, but his blasted legs refused to budge. They were stuck, frozen in place, shaking like useless twigs in the wind. Reg heaved his uncooperative body around so at least he could look death straight in the eye before it ripped his throat out. The surrounding cold doubled, permeating deep into his lungs as he struggled to take his final breath. This was it. The split second before he crossed into the spirit plane for the final time.

  The glowing eyes drifted closer.

  Reg’s useless legs buckled beneath him. He stumbled backward into the dresser, catching the edge to keep from sliding onto the floor. Not that it mattered. He was already dead. Dead, dead, dead…

  “Meow,” the black cat on the bed said. It slunk to the edge of the mattress and stared unblinkingly back at him.

  “Reg?” Tera prompted, sensing his apprehension. “Dude, it’s just a cat. You’re fine.”

  Easy for her to say! Reg placed his hand over his pounding heart and sank the rest of the way to the floor, struggling to breathe. No matter how much cold air he sucked in, it wasn’t enough. His rasping breath went in and out, uselessly, as if his lungs had forgotten how to filter oxygen. The skin on his face was suddenly sweltering. Normally his mouth would have been unbearably dry, but it felt the opposite. Wetter, somehow? No, not just wet, thick, and viscous, as if he’d swallowed a spoonful of honey and gotten it stuck halfway down.

  What the hell was going on?

  Staggering to his feet, Reg lifted his head and squinted at the two doors, guesstimating which one led to the bathroom. He chose the door closest to the bed and stumbled inside. Like the bedroom, the bathroom was massive. It had a full-sized shower and a separate soaking tub. One of the big round ones that sat atop a raised platform, overlooking a window into the backyard. Reg didn’t care so much for the tub as he did the sink. He scurried over to the cluttered countertop and reached for the tap, desperate to clear the thick mucus clogging the inside of his throat.

  His hand froze midair, hovering over the calcium-spotted metal, suddenly remembering himself. This was the lair of a magical monster. The ominous array of objects scattered across the stone countertop practically shouted ‘Touch anything and your grandchildren’s children will be cursed’. Filthy, unmarked glass vials lined the counter in no particular order, filled with crushed powders, dried twigs, feathers, and bones.

  The cold dissipated, as did the uncomfortable lump in Reg’s throat. He threw his head back, filling his lungs with a loud, gasping breath.

  “You alright?” Tera asked.

  Stupid vestigial magic! Reg would fill Tera in later when he’d regained the ability to talk. Until then, he settled for another enthusiastic thumbs-up.

  “Great,” she said. “Now give me a spin. I want a good look at the room.”

  Reg spun, slowly. Tera pointed out the claw marks in the wall near the door and several cracked tiles. Whatever hypotheses she was forming, she kept to herself. Her voice crackled back over the earpiece. “Alright, back to the counter. Show me the book.”

  Reg turned, confused. He hadn’t seen a book but, sure enough, there it was lying haphazardly in the center of the clutter. It was old and crusty, bound in a faded material that was eerily reminiscent of skin. Reg stepped closer but refused to touch it.

  “You’re wearing gloves,” Tera reminded him impatiently.

  Says the woman not about to curse her grandchildren’s children.

  Gingerly, Reg lifted the cover using just the tip of his index finger. The book fell open, revealing a page of handwritten scrawl. Reg couldn’t read it—and not just because it was cursive. Judging from the unusual characters, he suspected it was a different language altogether. He leaned closer, noting the bookmark jutting out between two weathered pages near the back. He turned to the marked section and revealed yet another ancient page of illegible handwriting.

  “Hold on. Let me see if I can get a rough translation.” Tera worked her virtual black magic from the other end of the camera feed.

  Reg would forever be mystified by his partner’s innate ability to feed a combination of text and symbols into a search engine and get an actual answer. He only ever got clickbait articles and messages from hot, lonely singles in his area trying to swindle his money. That, and the occasional virus. Totally unrelated to the hot, lonely messages he clicked on purely out of morbid curiosity—is what he told Tera each time she had to wipe the malware from his computer.

  Tera soon had her answer. “It’s a drowning spell.”

  She explained that this particular spell worked on dry land, no large bodies of water necessary. Once the spell was triggered, the victim’s lungs would fill with water, unable to breathe, until the victim succumbed to aspiration. An uneasiness settled over Reg as a missing piece of the puzzle fell into place. Gargoyles were notoriously difficult to kill. Their stony hides were damn near impervious. They couldn’t be shot, they were resilient to fire, and when faced with extreme starvation, simply went into a state of status as a means to conserve energy. Drowning was one of the few ways to kill a gargoyle.

  Sleuthing be damned, that was worth mentioning. Reg opened his mouth to say something when the front door slammed shut below, rattling the rest of the house.

  Tera cursed, mentioning something about not seeing a car go by. Her next words were directed at Reg. “Get out of there, now!”

  By force of habit, Reg tried to shift planes and jet to the third story of the house. He jumped into the air only to land back down on his two regrettably solid feet.

  Crap. He’d forgotten all about the lousy protection charm. Apparently, it worked on the inside of the house as well as it did on the outside.

  “Reg, hurry!”

  Reg wouldn’t make it up to the third floor in time without being seen. Time to try a different window. He’d have enough time to shift back into the spirit realm before he hit the ground, right? Or, at the very least, survive the fall? Surely tumbling two stories out of an open window didn’t guarantee death.

  Yeah, maybe you’ll flail around a little bit first before you bleed out.

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs, spurring Reg into action. He darted across the slippery tile and clambered into the ceramic tub. The rusted window lock put up a fight, but so did Reg. He won in the end, at the expense of the skin on his fingertips, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He gripped the window’s sliding frame and pulled. He pulled and pulled and pulled and still, the damn thing remained stuck in place.

  Was every blasted window in the house impossible to open? Did Nick not regularly oil his creaky-ass old house? Talk about oversight! Reg expected better from someone who color-coded his file cabinets.

  The footsteps entered the bedroom.

  No, no, no! Reg gave up on the window and searched for an alternative escape route. The only other option was the door which led to the bedroom and, inadvertently, the monster lurking just beyond.

  Tera’s shrill voice squawked in his ear, but Reg couldn’t make out what she was saying over the drum of his heartbeat. The tub shuddered as the heavy footsteps moved closer. He was out of the time. With nowhere else to hide, Reg crossed his arms over his chest and laid down, making his body as small as possible. The tub’s tall, ceramic sides rose up all around, obscuring his view of the bathroom. Reg’s wide eyes stared at the blank ceiling, praying the steps would turn right, in the direction of the toilet.

  The footsteps entered the bathroom and then stopped.

  Why did they stop? Reg was certain they couldn’t see him, not from the doorway at least. And it wasn’t like he’d made a mess. He’d gone out of his way to not touch any…

  The book, his incessant thoughts reminded him. You touched the spell book.

  Good gods, he’d left it open! Reg silently kicked himself. It was rule number one of sleuthing—leave everything how you found it! They knew. Whoever it was, whatever it was, they had irrefutable proof that something was amiss. A matter of steps was all that separated Reg from death. Oh gods. He pressed his trembling shoulders flat against the bottom of the tub. His heart beat so fast it felt like it was going to burst out of his ribcage.

  Could the murderer hear it too?

  The footsteps started up again, agonizingly slow, one after the other, moving in his direction. Reg winced. This was it. He was going to have to fight. The very thought rendered his churning insides into a solid lump. Him? Fight? Reg couldn’t throw a punch to save his life! He didn’t have any weapons, either. The only thing in reach was the bar of soap sitting on the edge of the tub. What was he supposed to do? Throw it at the intruder? Scrub the assailant to death? Wash their mouth out?

  Ding-dong! The rancorous chime of the doorbell rang from below. The approaching footsteps halted, caught off guard perhaps, by the unexpected intrusion.

  Reg held his breath and listened. Three seconds slowly crawled past before the doorbell chimed again, more urgently than before. Whoever was outside was pressing it repeatedly. A heavy sigh issued from near the sink. The assailant altered course, their heavy footfalls growing fainter as they moved out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Reg heard the front door creak open with a groan.

  “Hi! Hello,” Tera’s voice flooded the inside of Reg’s ear. She used the overly sugary-sweet voice normally reserved for imitating people she didn’t like. “I’m sooooo sorry to bother you, but Hubby and I just did a walk-through down the street and I wanted to ask some questions about the neighborhood. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Reg shook his head, vowing to never complain about her overuse of voice ever again, as he leapt out of the tub and scurried free of the bathroom. He sprinted past the giant bed and the black cat still perched on its pillows. He reached the far and threw back the blackout curtains, revealing a pair of balcony doors. Figures. He’d nearly gotten himself killed wasting time with the bathroom window when he should have tried here first!

  The balcony door eased open without a sound. The smell of fresh snow washed over him as Reg stepped out into the sunlight. Free from Nick’s stupid home and its stupid cursed walls, he shifted planes and took to the air. He passed over the front of the house and spied Tera on the doorstep below. He didn’t dare leave her there on her own. Reg touched back down near the base of the driveway behind an overgrown shrub and ripped his phone from his pocket. He dialed, never once taking his eyes off of her.

  Tera’s fake accent carried all the way from the front doorstep. “Oh, this is Hubby now!” She exclaimed, reaching for the phone in her back pocket. “Thank you sooooo much for your time, but I should probably get going. Hubs is getting hungry. I need to go make him a sandwich.”

  Tera turned, already halfway down the steps, when the phone fell from her hand and bounced into the open doorway.

  The open doorway was obscured by shadow. Reg watched, horrified, as a large shadowy figure bent down and picked up the phone. They moved into the light, allowing Reg his first unobstructed view of Nick’s murderer. Sunlight bounced off the monster’s gray, stony hide, revealing not only the friendly, grinning face of a gargoyle, but a gargoyle that looked just like Nick. Except not yellow, or ghostly, or days away from corrupting.

  Reg blinked, unwilling to believe his eyes. Nick’s killer was…also Nick? Another gargoyle he could understand, but this wasn’t another gargoyle. This was the same one! There were two of him! Double Nickabott Dares!

  Nick’s double studied Tera’s phone for several agonizing seconds before a bigger, friendlier smile pulled across his chiseled features. He offered the device back to her, wishing her good luck with the house hunt.

  “Thanks, doll! Lovely to meet you!” Phone in hand, Tera waved goodbye over her shoulder as she strode casually back down the pathway. Reg met her at the end of the driveway and, without a word, the pair broke into a run.