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This story was really a collaboration between Repanth and TimbrFalls. Together we write gen stories as Kethrineth. Just a little Halloween prank, as it were. };-)
Standard disclaimer: They aren't ours. Didn't make a profit. Promise to give 'em back... yadda yadda yadda...
Things That Go Bump In The Night by Kethrineth
Alexandra Moreau finally retreated to the control room and secured it against intruders after retrieving Nick’s extra gun from the locked drawer in his bedroom. All things considered, she didn’t think he’d mind the violation of his privacy. Nights like tonight were exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d shown her where he kept the key to his top dresser drawer stashed. He only locked the drawer to make certain Rachel’s daughter, Kat, didn’t accidentally get hold of the weapons he kept there and hurt herself. The Legacy House itself was more than secure enough that none of them had to lock up their valuables. More than secure enough on most nights anyway.
Carefully setting the loaded, cocked weapon on the security panel, Alex began checking every room she could from the safety of the protected location. Next time Nick wants to put security cameras in the bedrooms, I swear I won’t say a word!
The banging that had awakened her had stopped again but the distant sounding moans were still there and there was still nothing on the security monitors to explain them. This was no prank being played by a guest lingering after the masked charity ball the Luna Foundation held every year on Halloween. An especially loud, drawn-out groan that seemed to come from inside the control room itself nearly made her drop the phone.
“C’mon, pick up!” Alex urged the device as it rang a third time.
“Hello?”
“Kat!” The girl’s voice was one of the most welcome sounds Alex had heard since the last party guest’s left just before one but it wasn’t the voice she’d been expecting to answer the phone at Rachel’s place. “What are you doing still awake at this hour?”
“Nick took us out to rent more scary movies right before Mom got back from your party and everybody’s afraid to go to sleep now. Everybody was so scared we screamed when Mom unlocked the door. She told Nick, since he did it, he would have to stay up and deal with us while she got some sleep. This is the best Halloween slumber party ever!” Kat was obviously running on sugar and adrenaline as she rattled on. “I’m so glad you talked Mom into letting Nick chaperone my party while she went to yours. He’s way more fun!”
“That’s great, Kat, but I need to talk to him now.” Alex fought to keep her voice level. She really didn’t want to scare Kat. “This is kind of important.”
“There isn’t anything wrong is there?” Kat asked, sounding worried.
“No,” Alex lied, “I just need to talk with him about some business stuff.”
“Okay. I’ll get him.” Alex could hear Kat cheerfully calling Nick’s name from a distance and the giggles of little girls as the handsome ex-SEAL apparently waded through them to reach the phone out in the hall.
“Hello?”
“Nick!” Alex clung to the phone like a lifeline, now. “You have to get back here, right now. I think something’s in the House.”
“What? You mean like an intruder?”
“No. More like an entity of some kind. I can’t find anything on the security cameras but I keep hearing something moaning and banging around.” Alex lowered her voice, unconsciously. “I think something got loose when that new maid broke the old vase in the front hall!”
“Are you sure it isn’t just Derek playing one last prank?” Nick could be heard over the open phone line stifling a snicker. “He does have a lot of fun with this holiday.”
“Derek left as soon as the last guests had gone. He was going to drive an old friend of his that came to the party to the airport.” Alex was getting a little exasperated by this time. It sounded as if Kat wasn’t the only one who’d been hitting the sugar a bit hard tonight. “That’s why I called you! I checked the house and couldn’t find anyone. As soon as I’d check one room it would start coming from another one. Then it started to follow me! That’s when I got your other gun and came to the control room. I think it’s in here with me but I can’t get it to respond!”
“All right, Alex. I’m on my way home now.” Nick’s voice got serious and Alex could hear the faint sounds of him shrugging on his jacket. “I’ll drive out to the airport and pick up the chopper to see if I can shave a bit off the time. Just stay put until I get there, okay?”
“Ohhh, don’t you worry, little brother! I’m not going anywhere!”
~*~
“Is everything all right?”
Nick turned to find Kat standing behind him with that look she got on her face when she was certain the grownups were keeping something terrible from her. He reached down and pulled the little girl into a hug, holding her close while they talked. “Yea, it was just Alex getting creeped out by spooky noises. You know how people get on Halloween.”
Kat rolled her eyes as a sudden, girlish shriek came from the living room, followed by vows of vengeance against someone named Julie and the distinct sound of pillows striking flesh. “Yeah, I know. I’ll go wake Mom up and tell her you had to go.”
“Thanks, Kiddo.” Nick grinned and squeezed Kat tight before heading out the door, already digging for his keys. He hoped it was just Alex getting creeped out by the night, but he really doubted it. Alex didn’t do that sort of thing, and around the Legacy House, just about anything could be going down on a night like this.
~*~
“Whoa!” Nick quickly raised his hands, careful to keep his finger away from the trigger of his drawn gun, as his eyes focused on the barrel of one of his own weapons being pointed at him.
“Thank God!” Alex quickly set the gun down and got up to wrap her arms around the welcome sight in the doorway of the control room.
“It’s all right, Alex.” Nick soothed softly as he pulled the thick curls out of his way to nestle his chin into Alex’s neck and hug tighter. For a few minutes, the two simply stood there while Alex regained her lost composure in the strong circle of Nick’s arms. “Tell me what’s goin’ on here.”
Alex pulled back and went to sit down in front of the security monitors. “I went to bed as soon as the party was over while Derek drove his friend to the airport. Everything was just fine and then I woke up to this weird moaning. At first, like you, I figured it was just Derek playing a trick on me, but it wasn’t.”
“You’re sure?” Nick asked skeptically. He wouldn’t put something like this past their precept. Derek had a wicked sense of humor this time of year that most people simply didn’t believe until they witnessed it first hand. If this was Derek’s misguided idea of a joke, Nick was going to have a thing or two to say to his boss when he found him. The scare Alex had gotten thrown into her tonight had obviously passed being funny quite some time ago.
“Positive. I looked for him but couldn’t find a trace. When I tried to follow the noises, they kept moving ahead of me, no matter where I went in the house. Then the pounding started. That’s when I headed for here to check the monitors.” Alex grabbed his arm to pull Nick’s attention back from his own scan of those same monitors. “That’s when the sounds started to follow me.”
“There was nothing on the early tapes from the cameras? It could be a kid from the University that snuck in on a dare.”
“I checked the tapes, Nick! There was nothing.”
“All right. You stay here and I’ll go play ghost hunter.” Nick grinned. The idea of a Legacy House being haunted by something that went bump in the night, on Halloween, was actually pretty funny, even if it had scared Alex. It wasn’t as if anybody had been hurt, after all.
~*~
Two hours later, after Nick had heard the bizarre moans for himself and searched most of the House thoroughly without finding any explanation, he didn’t think it was quite so funny. Now, he was stalking through the front of the House, with his gun drawn, wishing Derek would get home. He was lousy at handling things like this, and could use some of his precept’s knowledge of the supernatural right about now.
Nick jumped as the moans reached a new peak and a rhythmic banging began. It sounded, at first, like it was coming from the library but when Nick got there, the volume faded.
The ex-SEAL moved rapidly through the main floor of the castle, scanning each room and moving on as the tension knotted his muscles tighter by the second. If this was a prank, somebody was going to be in a whole world of hurt when he caught them!
Nick leaned back against the wall, readying himself to turn the corner and cover the room he was about to enter with his weapon. Instead, he jumped about two feet away from the wall, whirling around in midair so that he landed, eyeing it suspiciously. I felt that! The wall had seemed to reach out and kick him just as a particularly loud bang reverberated through the room.
Tucking the gun into the holster at the small of his back, where it was readily accessible, Nick used both hands to feel the smooth, innocuous surface. He could feel the increasingly rapid beat of the sound under his hands now and began to trace the vibrations. They led straight to the heat register that carried warm air up from the boiler room in the basement below.
The odd motion of the sounds suddenly made perfect sense. Nick grinned wickedly and drew his gun again. With the supernatural almost certainly ruled out, he was back in his element again. Somebody was going to get the life scared out of them tonight and it wouldn’t just be Alex and himself.
Paybacks are a bitch, Derek, Nick thought gleefully. He was still betting on it being their warped precept and his sense of holiday humor, not some college kid. A student pulling an annual prank wouldn’t have stuck it out this long before going back to brag to his buddies about what he’d done.
~*~
The basement door creaked softly as Nick eased it open and slid down the first few stairs, ducking low to peer into the cavernous basement. The area near the stairs was clear, but then he’d expected that. The heating pipes ran along the high ceiling at this point. His culprit was most likely near the back wall where the pipes came down to pass under the supports and into the new boiler room beyond.
It had better be Derek making all the fuss. That Renaissance exhibit they had scheduled for the Winston Rayne Hall of Antiquities was being kept back in that corner until the new wing, where it was to be displayed, was complete. The precept would be furious if some kid was messing with it. Nick’s frown eased slightly as he remembered that the basement door had been locked. Those old locks didn’t have buttons to turn to lock them. Regardless of which side of the door you were on, you needed a key to open it. He’d had to go to his room for his own key to search down here. It had to be Derek!
Nick could hear the noises getting louder as he crept close to the last bank of crates separating him from the stored exhibit and the prankster who was definitely hiding there. He froze for a second, psyching himself to really throw a scare into his boss, and then whipped around the corner, gun drawn, with his hand held so that it hid the fact that he had put the safety back on to avoid actually hurting anyone over a bad joke.
“Hold it right there!” Nick yelled as he leveled the weapon, doing his best to sound as if he really expected to find some hostile and dangerous stranger and was prepared to fire.
The sight that greeted him was not what Nick had expected! Derek actually was doing most of the moaning they had heard, but it wasn’t a prank. Their normally reserved precept was on his hands and knees, naked, in the middle of the big bed, reputed to have belonged to one of the Borgias, sweating and straining as a man Nick had never seen before pounded his cock deep inside Derek’s obviously willing body. The banging had been the big bed knocking against the pipes that came down from the wall right there as the force of the lustful activities going on in it rocked the heavy piece of furniture into both the heating pipes and the crates of artifacts that surrounded it.
Nick could feel his face going crimson as both men looked up and the stranger jerked backward with a startled gasp at the intrusion just as he was reaching his climax. Not even the gun wavering in his vision could stop the man’s ejaculation and Nick suddenly got very busy reholstering his gun as sticky, white globs of semen splashed against Derek’s upturned rump.
“Nick.” Derek croaked as he sat back on his heels and covered his immediately flaccid organ with his hands, regretfully eyeing the small pile of clothing just out of his reach. “I can explain. Charles and I were in school together. I wanted to show him the collection, but he locked the door and then the key fell and, well...”
“Hey, no need to explain.” Nick backed toward the exit, his hands raised to fend off the threatened tale. He really didn’t want to know what was going on here. He’d already learned a lot more about Derek in just a few seconds than he’d ever bargained for. “Been there, done that, won’t say a word!”
With a quick zipping motion of his finger across his lips, Nick mimed swallowing a key and ducked behind the shelter of the row of crates, running the rest of the way to the stairs before collapsing at the top, laughing almost hysterically. The look on Derek’s face had just been too priceless, crouched there wearing nothing but his ‘friend’s’ cum on his bare ass. The Luna Foundation’s head of security sobered slightly but continued grinning as he got up to go reassure Alex that the noises had, indeed, been their precept having a little Halloween fun. He’d keep the nature of that fun to himself, as promised, but he’d also keep Derek on the hook, for a little while at least.
~*~
Charles Tappley leaned forward to kiss Derek’s shoulder and reached around to roll the small, hard nipples between his fingers. “Do you think he’ll tell anyone?”
“No, but I’ll likely never hear the end of it. You have no idea the power we’ve just handed that young man.” Derek closed his eyes and leaned back into the arms enfolding him, wondering just how far he could let things go before dealing with them. Nick tended to be somewhat immature at the best of times and wasn’t above enjoying a little innocent blackmail at his precept’s expense.
“So, as long as I’ve already missed my plane and the damage is done, why don’t we relax and enjoy the rest of the night?” Charles suggested.
Derek’s only answer was a deeply impassioned moan as he reacted to the fingers that had invaded his ass and begun twisting and thrusting inside him. He couldn’t believe Charles was already prepared to take him again, but Derek could feel his body being urged forward to allow easier access to the hard cock nudging against him. When they were youngsters in boarding school together, just discovering their sexuality, it had been perfectly normal to spend half the night pleasuring one another, but neither of them were young any more. Derek had gone soft right after his own climax earlier in the evening and had only begun to recover when Nick burst in on them.
~*~
Alex Moreau was already composing what she was going to say to her boss in the morning as she headed back up to her room to recapture whatever was left of her beauty sleep. She couldn’t believe he’d taken a stupid prank so far, and was more than a little upset that he not only hadn’t returned with Nick to apologize for his conduct, but was actually keeping it up now that he’d been discovered.
A quick look out her bedroom window showed that the moon was only at about its first quarter so that didn’t help to explain things. Nick had actually been giggling when he came to tell her that the noises were being caused by Derek moaning in the basement and banging on the pipes down there.
It had to be some sort of male thing, she decided. All men were insane. Every woman knew this. Alex crawled into her bed and pulled the pillow down over her ears. The renewed banging was going to drive her as crazy as they were, she just knew it!
~*~
“Good mo’nin’!” Nick piped up from his perch atop the counter in the small kitchen, deliberately changing his pronunciation to get a not so subtle dig in.
Derek contented himself with shooting a dirty look at his subordinate as he got his morning coffee and went to lean against the window to enjoy the view while he sipped the hot liquid. He was actually a bit too sore to sit comfortably and would have to be careful if he was going to avoid explaining his problem to anyone. Charles had slipped quietly out of the House earlier to catch the first ferry to the mainland but not before a vigorous farewell. He’d said it would have to last them both until they saw each other again. Derek grinned ruefully. It might take him that long to recover from last night. Charles was as energetic in his forties as he’d been in his late teens.
When Alex came downstairs and fixed herself a light breakfast, without speaking to either of her companions, Derek began to get nervous. All Nick would do, when he finally caught his eye, was grin and try to look innocent. The precept suddenly had his doubts concerning Nick’s ability to keep his mouth shut about what he’d seen last night.
“Derek?” Alex’s voice was saccharine sweet and dangerously calm when she finally spoke. “I just wanted to let you know how much I didn’t enjoy your little prank last night and to warn you that next year, I’m getting even!”
With that, she sailed out of the room, breakfast in hand, muttering something about going back to bed if certain people were through with their second childhoods.
“Hey, Derek?” Nick began, a little too casually for his precept’s peace of mind. “I’ve been thinking. You remember Mike McCready? That guy I was in the SEALs with and used to run with when I was kid? With things so slow around here, I was wondering if it would be okay if I went to see him for a few days? I talked to him on the phone before you got up and he said we could still get in some good deep sea diving this year. You guys don't really need me for that antique auction in Carmel.”
“We’ve planned for this auction for four months, Nick. I need you there with the rest of us.” The protest was weak and Derek knew it. The truth was that Nick was as often a burden as an asset at such affairs and needed someone to keep a constant eye on him. The last time he’d been allowed to handle something like this alone, during that phone auction a few months back, the security chief had paid exorbitant prices for some mediocre works of art. His usefulness tended to be afterwards, arranging for the shipment of the pieces back to either the Legacy House or the Hall of Antiquities.
“Okay.” Nick shrugged and hopped down off the counter where he’d been eating a breakfast that seemed to consist of toast heavily coated with cinnamon and sugar. “I guess I’ll go see if Alex really went back to sleep. She’s pretty mad at you. If I explain what was really going on last night, I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“Nick, wait!” Derek stepped forward, hating himself for giving in so easily to the expected blackmail. It wasn’t as though Nick were shirking his Legacy duties, after all, and he had encouraged the ex-SEAL to try and mend his friendship with the only friend he still had from his childhood. Too many of the people who had been important to Nick had disappeared from his life. “That’s not necessary. I’ll handle Alex’s temper. You go see your friend. Just keep your cellphone on in case we need you.”
“Sure, Derek!” Nick was grinning broadly as he slid out the door and headed up to his room to get his gear together. This was going to be way better than being stuck in an auction getting poked in the ribs every two seconds by Alex because he’d missed something she thought he shouldn’t have. It looked like he was going to be able to get away with murder around here, at least until they had another Legacy case to investigate.
The End
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