Through a Séance Darkly
Through a Séance Darkly
by Logan Zachary
Genre M/M Paranormal/Historical Erotic Romance
Tags Time travel, séance, ghosts, gangsters, paranormal
Imprint/Series: Wild Darkness Calls - MuseItHOT
Release December 16, 2014
Editor Susan Davis
Line Editor Greta Gunselman
Cover Designer Shirley Burnett
Words 5127
Pages 25
ISBN 978-1-77127-639-9
Price $2.50
Back Cover
Moving into his dream home, Ben Masters quickly uncovers a ghost haunting his halls. He holds a séance to contact the ghost and gain answers.
As a storm rages on, lightning flashes, and the lights go out, Ben finds himself in the past dodging bullets, gangsters, and guns.
He soon learns what is threatening in the past may have repercussions in the present. Before the night ends, the deadly past may add another ghost…
Excerpt
I had moved into the perfect dream home, or so I thought. My house was an English cottage, including a butterfly garden, a bay window with a comfortable seat, and a grapevine archway entrance for the cobblestone walkway to the house.
But the biggest bonus of the home was my own personal ghost.
At first, I thought it was just noises of a new home or the settling of an older house, but footsteps on wooden floors, plus silhouettes of a man standing in the doorway and walking up and down the staircase, quickly let me know I wasn’t alone.
One night, soaking in the old claw-foot bathtub, I saw someone walking back and forth outside of the bathroom. His feet could be seen passing by in the space between the door and the floor.
My dog, Shadow, saw him. She’d sniff under the door as he walked by. Sometimes, I’d hear her barking and chasing him downstairs as I was working on something. At least, they got along together.
I never felt threatened or scared, only startled when I’d step out of the bathroom naked and someone walked in front of me, or the sheets and blankets pulled off my feet on a cold night. Games, tricks, and pranks from a bored ghost.
One night, not sure if it was a dream or a vision, I thought I saw a man hanging from the ceiling. A rope was wrapped around his neck as he fought to pull it away from his skin so he could breathe.
I gasped for him as a cold sweat broke out over my body. The vision made me sit up in bed and decide I had to know more. After months of looking on the internet, asking neighbors and real estate agents, I discovered nothing about my ghost, but I knew there was something in my house and something had happened here.
* * * *
It was a dark and stormy night, a perfect evening for a séance. The medium had us hold hands as we sat around the dining room table. Candles flickered in the center of the circle. Thunder crashed and boomed, shaking the house with each roar. Lightning streaked across the night sky. The ceiling light dimmed and flickered as the storm raged around us.
“We are gathered here tonight to contact the restless spirit that walks in this house. Oh spirit, do you hear us?” Larry Latour asked the cosmos. He looked around the room and checked out each corner of the ceiling.
Jeff and Robert, my two drinking buddies, sat in the other two chairs around the table. They didn’t believe in the life hereafter, but they had been over to my house enough times to feel a presence inside. They both sensed something in the bathroom, my bedroom, and the dining room. They’d heard noises they couldn’t explain and had seen Shadow staring at something and even followed it through the house.
“Ben Masters owns this house, and he wants to make contact with you.” Larry closed his eyes and turned his head from side to side to hear anything.
“I know what Ben wants to get in contact with,” Jeff said under his breath.
Robert laughed, but they didn’t break contact.
Larry opened his eyes and winked at me from across the table.
I squeezed Robert’s hand and rubbed my thumb across the hair on the backside of Jeff’s hand to stop their noise.
“Oh spirit, come to us on this wild night. Show us a sign. Let us know you are here.”
The house creaked and shook from the storm, but no otherworldly signs appeared. The wind picked up outside and the electricity in the air tingled across my body. The curtains fluttered in the dining room.
Shadow’s body lay across my feet under the table. She hated storms, but as long as she was touching me, she was fine.
“They had tornado warnings all day,” Jeff said nervously.
“We’ll be fine,” Robert said.
“Shhh.” Larry peered around the table. “We’re trying to make contact.”
“Hopefully, we won’t die in the process. That’s not the way I want to make contact with the dead.” Jeff relaxed his hold with me, but didn’t let go.
There was a flash of light right next to the window and the wind whistled through the room. It swirled around and blew out all of the candles. There was a thunderous boom and the whole house shook, then the lights went out.
After a moment of total darkness, lightning flashed so bright it blinded me and consumed me
