Dead Vengeance

W. H. Lockwood

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Haunting #389: Gravely Stables.

Number of ghosts: Catastrophic.

Location: The picturesque English village of Big Spanking cum Bottomly-on-the-Wold.

History: Converted 1600s stables. No confirmed deaths. Current owner ‘has no idea what’s causing any of this but it’s definitely not him.’

Wanted: ‘Just please get someone over here before everyone in this village dies horribly.’

The ExorSquad Team: New recruit, Liam Locke, first day on the job. (Company note: try to find someone - anyone - to go with him. Whoever’s still alive will do.)

The Complication: Archer Gravely. Too-hot-for-words antiques dealer who keeps distracting Liam on the job. Not that Liam seems to know much about ghosts. While, weirdly, Archer seems to know rather a lot…

Liam Locke

A chronically unemployed high school dropout, living with my overprotective mum at the age of 25, I didn’t think things could get much worse.

Not until I got a job with The ExorSquad. The hours are bad, the boss is weird, and the work itself… Well, let’s just say I might make a better ‘Spirit Extraction Expert’ if I actually believed in ghosts. But this is the first job opportunity I’ve been given in years, and I’m determined to not mess it up.

So what if it’s nothing more than soothing paranoid people with overactive imaginations? That’s important work! And, as an added bonus, my first client is actually super hot.

Shame he’s also, clearly, stark raving mad.

Oh well. What’s the worst that could happen?

Archer Gravely

Everything is massively, catastrophically, irrevocably screwed. I cannot overstate how screwed we all are. This is a disaster from start to end and back again.

So yes, maybe I’m a necromancer, and yes, maybe I slightly, kind of, very much opened a gateway for spirits to enter my home/this astral plane. But I did NOT give permission for whatever that THING is to cross over. Or to bring with it whatever THAT is.

But it’s okay. Help is at hand. I’ve called The ExorSquad, and they’re going to put these spirits back in their bottle. Or so they say.

The problem is, one of these guys looks incredibly dodgy. And the other? Very cute, very sweet, and very, very naive. So despite the catastrophe that awaits, I can’t help but keep an eye on him, while also trying to hold this evil at bay, while also trying not to let on to either of them that this is all my fault.

Because if they find out, and if I go out of business, the consequences could be worse than even The Exorsquad could imagine.
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