The Urban Fantasy Anthology (Peter S. Beagle) (Kitty Norville 1.50)

Tanya hated to back down, but he had a point. She negotiated 20 percent off for the unfinished work and another 15 for the inconvenience—unless they wanted her spreading the word that grown men were afraid of ghosts. They grumbled, but agreed.

The human mind can be as impressionable as a child. Tanya might not believe in ghosts, but the more stories she heard, the more her mind began to believe, with or without her permission. Drafts became cold spots. Thumping pipes became the knocks of unseen hands. The hisses and sighs of the old furnace became the whispers and moans of those who could not rest. She knew better: that was the worst of it. She’d hear a pipe thump and she’d jump, heart pounding, even as she knew there was a logical explanation.

Nathan wasn’t helping. Every time she jumped, he’d laugh. He’d goof off and play ghost, sneaking into the bathroom while she was in the shower and writing dirty messages in the condensation on the mirror. She was spooked; he thought it was adorable.

The joking and teasing she could take. It was the other times, the ones when she’d walk into a room and he’d be standing or sitting, staring into nothing, confused, when he’d start out of his reverie, laughing about daydreaming, but nervously, like he didn’t exactly know what he’d been doing.

They were three weeks from opening when she returned from picking up the brochures and, once again, found the house in darkness. This time, the hall light worked—it’d been nothing more sinister than a burned-out bulb before. And this time she didn’t call Nathan’s name, but crept through the halls looking for him, feeling silly, and yet…

When she approached the kitchen, she heard a strange rasping sound. She followed it and found Nathan standing in the twilight, staring out the window, hands moving, a skritch-skritch filling the silence.

The fading light caught something in his hands—a flash of silver that became a knife, a huge butcher’s knife moving back and forth across a whetting stone.

“N-Nathan?”

He jumped, nearly dropping the knife, then stared down at it, frowning. A sharp shake of his head and he laid the knife and stone on the counter, then flipped on the kitchen light.

“Really not something I should be doing in the dark, huh?” He laughed and moved a carrot from the counter to the cutting board, picked up the knife, then stopped. “Little big for the job, isn’t it?”

She moved closer. “Where did it come from?”

“Hmm?” He followed her gaze to the unfamiliar knife. “Ours, isn’t it? Part of the set your sister gave us for our anniversary? It was in the drawer.” He grabbed a smaller knife from the wooden block. “So, how did the brochures turn out?”

Two nights later, Tanya was startled awake and bolted up, blinking hard, hearing music. She rubbed her ears, telling herself it was a dream, but she could definitely hear something. She turned to Nathan’s side of the bed. Empty.

Okay, he couldn’t sleep, so he’d gone downstairs. She could barely hear the music, so he was being considerate, keeping it low, probably doing paperwork in the office.

Even as she told herself this, though, she kept envisioning the knife. The big butcher’s knife that seemed to have come from nowhere.

Nonsense. Her sister had given them a new set, and Nathan did most of the cooking, so it wasn’t surprising that she hadn’t recognized it. But as hard as she tried to convince herself, she just kept seeing Nathan standing in the twilight, sharpening that knife, the skritch-skritch getting louder, the blade getting sharper.

Damn her sister. And not for the knives, either. Last time they’d been up, her sister and boyfriend had insisted on picking the night’s video. The Shining. New caretaker at inn is possessed by a murderous ghost and hacks up his wife. There was a reason Tanya didn’t watch horror movies, and now she remembered why.

She turned on the bedside lamp, then pushed out of bed and flicked on the overhead light. The hall one went on, too. So did the one leading downstairs. Just being careful, of course. You never knew where a stray hammer or board could be lying around.

As she descended the stairs, the music got louder, the thump of the bass and the wail of the singer. Seventies’ heavy-metal music. Hadn’t the Rowe kid—? She squeezed her eyes shut and forced the thought out. Like she’d know seventies heavy metal from modern stuff anyway. And hadn’t Nathan picked up that new AC/DC disk last month? Before they came to live here. He was probably listening to that, not realizing how loud it was.

When she got downstairs, though, she could feel the bass vibrating through the floorboards. Great. He couldn’t sleep, so he was poking through those boxes in the basement.

Boxes belonging to the Rowe family. To the Rowe kid.

Oh, please. The Rowes had been gone for almost thirty years. Anything in the basement would belong to the Sullivans, a lovely old couple now living in Florida.

On the way to the basement, Tanya passed the kitchen. She stopped. She looked at the drawer where Nathan kept the knife, then walked over and opened it. Just taking a look, seeing if she remembered her sister giving it to them, not making sure it was still there. It was. And it still didn’t look familiar.

She started to leave, then went back, took out the knife, wrapped it in a dishtowel, and stuck it under the sink. And, yes, she felt like an idiot. But she felt relief even more.

She slipped down to the basement, praying she wouldn’t find Nathan sitting on the floor, staring into nothing, nodding to voices she couldn’t hear. Again, she felt foolish for thinking it, and again she felt relief when she heard him digging through boxes, and more relief yet when she walked in and he looked up, grinning sheepishly like a kid caught sneaking into his Christmas presents.

“Caught me,” he said. “Was it the music? I thought I had it low enough.”

She followed his gaze and a chill ran through her. Across the room was a record player, an album spinning on the turntable, more stacked on the floor.

“Found it down here with the albums. Been a while since you’ve seen one of those, I bet.”

“Was it…his? The Rowe boy?”

Nathan frowned, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. “Could be, I guess. I didn’t think of that.”