“Yeah, I get that now.”
“It took you long enough.” She kissed him. “Now let’s go kick some ghost butt!”
Chapter Twenty-two
“I hate this invisible shit,” Ronan bit out with obvious fury. “How am I supposed to fight something I can’t see?”
“By letting me help you because I can see them,” Sierra said.
“Right. And that just worked out so well, nearly getting you killed just now.”
“I’m more likely to twist an ankle on one of these holes in the backyard here,” she said as she looked around. “You weren’t kidding when you said you dug it up. It looks like giant mutant gophers attacked. Not that I am comparing you to a giant mutant gopher.”
He frowned at her. “Did you hit your head on that balcony?”
“No. I always sound a little flustered when I fly through the air, first propelled by a poltergeist ghost and then saved by you.”
“You should have stayed in the basement.”
“Okay, enough of the I-told-you-sos. You can let me go now.”
He did so reluctantly.
“How badly is the photograph damaged?” Sierra asked as Ronan plucked it off the ground.
“It’s seen better days.”
“Haven’t we all,” she said, brushing off the rust from her hands that came from her grab on the balcony railing.
Pulling her close, Ronan paused a moment to hug her before zapping them down to the secure site in the basement.
He set the frame parts on the large table he’d been using. The wood had broken into pieces. There was also a large tear in the wide mat and the backing on the photograph.
Sierra turned the picture of Hal facedown. She couldn’t stand to look at him at the moment.
“He used up a lot of energy sending me out those French doors, but he will rebound in time and he’s going to start smashing my furniture. Normally I might not be that upset but I really like that Liberty Arts and Crafts sideboard in the dining room.”
“I’ll get it.”
“It weighs a ton,” Sierra said, but Ronan was already gone.
He reappeared and set the sideboard near the bed. He wasn’t even out of breath.
“Feel better now?” he said.
She nodded, still amazed by his abilities.
“Careful with the wood,” he said as she moved one of the pieces of Hal’s photo frame.
Only then did she realize it looked an awful lot like a wooden stake. She’d never use it on Ronan but it might come in handy should that evil vampire-demon hybrid show up. “I could use this on Gregori in an emergency.”
“It wouldn’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Because the only way to annihilate him is to sever his head from his body.”
“That’s probably above my skill set,” she said.
“It’s not above mine,” he said grimly before returning his attention to the stuff in front of them.
Obviously Ronan was faster than she was at going through the pieces of matting and backing. “I found something.” He peeled away the matting and revealed something in between. “This is it!”
He set the small piece of paper on the table along with the other two.
“That’s great!” She leaned over his shoulder to look at it. The piece definitely completed the map. That was the good news. The bad news was that it still made no sense.
Ronan swore under his breath.
“Maybe if we turned it another way,” she suggested.
They tried turning it every possible way.
She really was concentrating on deciphering the symbols on the map but the bottom line was that she had to pee real bad.
“I just need to use the bathroom,” she said apologetically. “You keep trying to figure it out. I’m sure we can do this. The map thing, I mean. Okay, I’m leaving now. I’ll be right back.”
Sierra rushed to the bathroom and emptied her bladder. After she flushed, the water kept running longer than it should have. She knew enough about home maintenance to remove the lid to the tank and check inside. As she did so, she couldn’t help wondering if maybe Hal had hidden his treasure or the key to it inside the plumbing fixture. Probably not, since odds were that someone would have checked it in the intervening decades. Still, she did look but found nothing.
Meanwhile the water kept running. At this rate it was going to overflow and flood the bathroom.
Bending down, she turned the water shutoff valve while jiggling the toilet handle. To her surprise, the handle went way up and as it did she heard a click.
Great. She’d just broken the only safe toilet in the house.
But no. The click didn’t come from the toilet. It came from the wall behind it. Peering in the tight space, she saw a lever. She pulled it. She thought nothing happened until she noticed one of the large tiles on the floor was elevated.