Chapter Text
As she picked her way towards the doorway leading to the rear of the house, clouds obscured the moon and plunged them back into darkness. Something brushed against her. She bit her lip to keep in a yelp before she realized it was only his arm reaching around her to open the door. She took a deep breath before leading them through it. She needed to get a grip on herself, honestly. She was never this jumpy, certainly not over some mortal vagrant or a silly ghost.
In the inky blackness, the only thing she noticed was the cold. The hand still holding Faustus’ tightened but she forced herself to keep striding forward following the noise as it grew louder and louder. She paused outside of a door faintly glowing around the edges, and she could now see her breath in front of her, coming out in short gasps. She turned the handle and it opened silently on oiled hinges. However, as she crossed the threshold, no costume-clad children nor lost ghosts hid in the pristine kitchen. Instead, there was only an unlatched window banging into its frame with each gust of wind.
She let out her breath in a relieved sigh and Faustus brushed past her again to latch it tightly, a devil-may-care grin replacing his scowl.
“It appears we won’t be ghost hunting tonight,” he said as he stalked back toward her, she leaned back against the island in anticipation, no longer concerned she’d technically lost. When he reached her, his hands pressed along the curve of her spine and then her ass, all but lifting her onto the counter. His breath came hot and quick against her jaw and neck as his lips and teeth grazed her skin.
“Sorry to disappoint, dear—” As he claimed his victory, though, the scream from before cut him off, only this time it sounded closer. Like it had moved. Like it was now in the house.
He growled his frustration and turned towards where he thought he heard it come from. She followed his gaze through an archway leading deeper into the bowels of the house. Pushing off from the counter, she trailed a hand along his waist. When he turned his burning gaze back to her though, she removed it. Despite whatever was going on in his house tonight, if she started touching him now, she didn’t trust herself to stop. Letting out her own huff of frustration, she turned toward the arch and strode toward it. Whoever had decided to come to the manor for a holiday scare had picked the wrong house.
As she stepped into the next room her breath caught, the remnants of it clouding out in front of her like cigarette smoke. She couldn’t figure out why, though, as all she saw was the dining room. Although, in her peripheral, it seemed to shift and change with the swaying of the trees outside, but whenever she turned to look the table and chairs remained stable.
Faustus trailed a hand along her back before stepping around her into the room to go around checking the locks on the windows. She gripped the back of one of the chairs and continued to look around but still, nothing emerged from the shadows.
As he rattled the last latch, rain began to patter against the house. Starting with a few droplets and growing steadily. Briefly, she lamented her ride home and their permanent loss of moonlight. Faustus came up behind her and gripped her hips.
“Well, no one in here but us…” She nodded before turning in his arms and leaning into him. The moving shadows continued to unnerve her and continuing to blunder around in the dark wasn’t doing her blood pressure any favors. Satan, she sounded like Hilda. Truthfully, she was sick of this ghoulish or mortal prank.
“We could just seal off this room and use the table…”
“I thought you wanted to find out what was going bump in the night?” he chuckled, though he happily held her more securely against him.
“And I thought you didn’t?” A quiet thump resounded from the hallway. “Speak of the false god…” she muttered, her forehead resting on his collarbone in annoyance. He squeezed her thigh through her skirt before walking toward the door, leaving her to trail after him this time.
Despite his posturing, he moved carefully down the hall, his hand running along the wood moulding. She followed close behind so as not to collide with anything. They turned a corner and Faustus guided her around him to look back the way they came. Trying to distract herself from how far down on her back his hand had gone, she searched the dark hallway ahead of them.
A flash of lightning illuminated a figure further down the hall and her voice caught in her throat. She tried to blink away the temporary blindness after the flash of light to see where it had gone, but when her night vision returned the shade remained. As she started to weave a banishment spell together, the figure remained immobile. Leaving her hands up, she crept towards it but still, nothing moved.
When she was within arms reach of it, she slowly reached toward it. Instead of passing through, her fingers pressed against hard metal. An old suit of armor, she realized, mentally chastising herself. Faustus never would have let her hear the end of it if she’d banished a suit of armor into the nether.
Feeling a little braver, she made it to the end of the hallway and the large French windows. She ran her fingers along the edges of the panes but it too remained tightly latched against the weather.
A roll of thunder in the distance nearly obscured a gentle scratching on the hardwood behind her. She turned sharply, eyes darting back the way they’d come to the other end of the hall and all the dark doorways in between.
“Faustus…” She searched the empty hallway. His fingers traced up her spine and she jolted away from them before turning back to glare at him. When had he snuck up behind her?
“Yes, Zelda?” He wore an infuriating smile again but Satan if it didn’t also make the muscles in her stomach clench.
“Did you hear that, behind us?”
“Are you certain it wasn’t me?” Her eyes fluttered closed as he leaned against the window to be eye level with her, effectively trapping her against it. She finally gave in to the temptation to touch him and let her hands wander down his abdomen.
“Do you often scrape your own floors?” She questioned when she reached his belt buckle and had to pull her hands back. There was still something amiss in the manor tonight, she needed to remember that.
“Depends. If I say yes, do we go back upstairs?” He leaned down further and kissed her, toying with her lip before tracing down her jaw to her neck.
A door slammed back down the hallway and she grabbed his arms over her head. “Surely you at least heard that?” Her voice came out higher than she wanted but at this point, the range of the noises, the power outage, and the lack of any apparition to blame had worn on her nerves. He sighed and rested his head against hers.
“For the hundredth time, no.” Although she did catch him looking in the direction she thought she’d heard it come from. It didn’t seem to distract him from his intended goal, though, when he returned to marking up her neck.
He slid his arms out of her grip and intertwined his hands with hers, using it to guide her arms around his neck. After she wrapped them firmly around him, he released her hands and started to undo her blouse again, button by button.
“There now isn’t this more fun than wandering my house in the dark?” he rumbled.
“Quiet or they are going to hear us coming,” she whispered though she closed her eyes at finally having his hands on her skin.
“I don’t think there is anyone down here and if there is a ghost… well why don’t we show them what they are missing without the living flesh?” She whimpered as his warm breath tickled behind her ear.
She swallowed before attempting to speak, not daring to open her eyes. “And if it's Constance coming back to haunt us?”
“I spent twenty-five years in that marriage with her, she had her chance to have some fun. If it is somehow her, she is far, far too late.” He nipped her neck and pulled her against him, her blouse completely undone. A thump a few rooms down froze them.
“I told you someone was here,” she hissed, pulling her shirt closed around her. She practically jumped into his arms though, when the next sound came from right behind them, outside the window. “What is happening?!”
“I don’t know, stay behind me.” Not waiting for her to move, he put an arm between her and the window, forcibly stepping in front of her.
He threw open the large window, wind and rain whistled into the hallway. He slit his eyes against it and leaned out, ignoring the heavy water droplets drenching him. As he looked around the only culprit in sight appeared to be a broken tree limb now lying beside the house. He slammed the window shut and locked it, wiping the water off his face with his hand.
Another inhuman scream made them both jump, Faustus twisted sharply one hand still out to keep her behind him.
“That was the study!” she pointed. It had been where the last few noises had come from as well, she was certain of it. Faustus stalked towards the door, and this time when she shoved open the door the culprit stood outlined in the window.
“Salem?!” The cat screeched in response and she pressed a hand to her chest, nearly laughing at the absurdity and the rush of her fleeing adrenaline. Faustus repeated his spell from before and the ritual candles scattered around the room flared to life so they could finally see. Salem hopped down from the liquor cabinet and thankfully didn’t knock over any of the ornate glass decanters sitting on top of it.
“Well, that was not what I was expecting,” Faustus chuckled, looping his arms around her waist.
“Nor I. How in Lucifer’s name did he get here?” she asked, looking around as Salem wandered over and weaved between their legs.
“He must have followed you.”
“Whatever for?” she pondered, but the cat made no response, merely padding over to investigate a corner of the room. He drew her attention back by kissing underneath her jaw where a bruise had already begun to blossom.
“Now that we know it is only your niece’s familiar lurking in the shadows, shall we get back to what we were doing?” She hummed as his body curled around her.
“Oh, and what was that?” she feigned. His laugh rumbled around her, mingling with the thunder outside.
“Careful, dearest, or you will be the one getting a trick instead of a treat.” She turned in his arms, her lips dangerously close to his.
“Is that so?” Her fingers walked up his chest and over his shoulders. “But I still have an unsatisfied sweet tooth...”
“Oh? Am I not being sweet enough for you, dearest?” She angled her head up for him and wet her lips, drawing his eyes to them.
“Not by half.”
“Is that so?” he mimicked. He leaned down so their noses brushed but didn’t kiss her. Yet. “Well, why don’t you let me finally let me take you back upstairs and we can remedy that.”
She nodded and let the motion close the nearly nonexistent gap between them. His hands pressed into her back until it arched and she melted into his embrace. Somewhere behind them, Salem made a sound, Faustus drew back slightly in confusion.
“What was in Satan’s name was that?” She pointed a spell at the cat and teleported him back to the mortuary.
“The wind,” she said before crushing her lips to his again.