The Guest House Hauntings Boxset by Hazel Holmes (novel books to read txt) 📕

When Sarah spun around, her senses numbed, and her jaw dropped in disbelief. “Pat?”

Pat spread his arms wide, that same warm grin on display that had first greeted her when she’d arrived in the town alone and afraid. The deeper he penetrated into the room, the larger he seemed to grow. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Sarah.” He laughed, rubbing his hands together slowly.

“I thought you were—”

“Dead?” Pat shook his head, slowly walking around the room, examining it as if he’d been here before, gently running his fingertips over the comforter on the bed and then along the baseboard at the end of the bed frame. “It’ll take more than a bullet in the gut to kill me. Something more…” He swayed side to side. “Holy.” He smiled.

Sarah turned her attention back to Iris, who had kept her head down the entire time. Sarah noticed that the old woman was trembling, silent tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping onto the hardwood.

“Don’t mind her,” Pat said. “We have a bit of a history with one another.” He casually walked over to her and pulled back the bangs that hid her face. “I’m afraid it’s not a very pleasant one though.”

Iris turned away, but Pat caught her chin with his right hand and pulled it back toward him.

“This should be a happy day for you,” Pat said. “Why the tears?”

“Just keep your end of the bargain. You get her, you get your revelation, and I get my daughter back.”

Pat laughed and released Iris, who retreated toward the door but didn’t leave. “Oh, you’ll get much more than that, my dear. Everyone will.” He lifted his hands triumphantly into the air. “I have waited centuries for this day, and it tastes just as sweet as I thought it would.” He closed his eyes and ran his tongue over his lips.

But Sarah’s confused and surprised gaze hadn’t disappeared. “You were a part of this? But… why did you help me?”

“I wasn’t just a part of this, sweetheart. I started it all!” Pat laughed, swinging his hips forward before leaning against the bedpost for support. “That witch that made a pact with Allister Bell over one hundred and fifty years ago?” He spread his arms wide, stretching that smile even wider.

“You?” Sarah asked.

“In the flesh,” Pat answered and then looked down at his form. “Well, not exactly. But this body has served its purpose over the past few decades.” He looked up. “I try on something new every now and again, but now that the jig is up, I suppose I don’t have to put on the front anymore, do I?”

Pat suddenly shrank, the clothes he wore growing smaller as his limbs retracted, the bones just beneath the surface of his skin shifting and reshaping themselves. The features along his face morphed and grew more slender. His hair lengthened, switching from the salt-and-pepper gray to a silky jet black. Eventually the clothes slid right off, and once it was all said and done, there was nothing save a naked woman standing in front of Sarah, wavy locks of hair cascading down her shoulders and clashing against her porcelain skin.

She smiled, wrinkling her nose as she sauntered toward Sarah. “I’ve always been vain, ever since I was little, but damn, do I love this body.” She glanced down at herself, running her hands up and down her smooth skin, and then slightly tilted her head up toward Sarah. One eye was covered by her bangs, while the other one stared at Sarah seductively, the hazel color so bright it was almost amber. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it, right?”

“What are you?” Sarah asked, still gawking at the woman.

“I’m a woman who made a pact with the dark lord centuries ago.” She circled Sarah and outstretched her hand, trailing her finger along Sarah’s shoulder then the top of her back, all the way around to her collarbone. “I’ve seen enough through the years to know that it’s better to be beautiful and powerful than ugly and weak, so I found a man who could give me both.”

“This can’t be possible.” Sarah shook her head, the flesh beneath her eyes hollowing out as she suddenly felt tired. “But you tried to—”

“Help you?” the witch asked, finishing the sentence. “I just needed to keep an eye on you, make sure you didn’t leave Bell. I couldn’t have you sniffing around for the actual cure to your ailment. And I knew that once the curse had consumed more than half of you I could control you and do what I want.” She smiled. “Which is how I got you here now.”

“You were just buying time,” Sarah said, feeling sick at the realization.

“Though I must say I didn’t expect Allister to find a way to send the souls back through the orb to speak to you,” the witch said. “He was more clever than I thought.” She walked to Iris, plucked the wooden sphere from the necklace, and smiled. “It moves, but is always in the same place.” She crushed the wood and exposed a crystal sphere that was the same color as the frost slowly covering Sarah’s body.

The sphere gleamed and reflected in the witch’s eyes. “You’re the last soul I need, Sarah. Number six-six-six.” She cackled, the tone high-pitched. “You see the idea was to keep the Bell’s breeding until I obtained the number of souls needed to be sacrificed until the portal could be opened. But before we reached the halfway mark I realized the number of Bell’s were growing short, so Iris made a pact with me. In exchange for luring unsuspecting victims to her house and offering them to the dark lord, she would save her daughter’s soul.” She turned to Iris. “Feels good doesn’t it?”

Iris trembled. “I didn’t want to have those people killed, but I didn’t have a choice. It was the only way to save them.”

“It’s not too late,” Sarah said. “Iris, please…” She walked closer to Iris and