Nothing But Bones

21: The Aforementioned "Threat"

Over an hour later, Elton and Tiff load back up into his car.

"That was as mediocre as it always is. I hope the experience was devoid of any extreme feelings in either direction as it was for me. But hey, stakeout donuts!" He grins, holding up their bag of assorted donuts. "You ready to go spy on a necromancer?"

"Yeah, for sure." She shakes off the umbrella before dragging it into the car after her. "I should warn you, though— it might not be Boris Covington. It might be his brother. I really don't know."

She fumbles with the seatbelt again. The buckle keeps eluding her.

Elton doesn't have the same issue. "Someone raised our friend Fred up from the dead. Necromancer either way."

Once Tiff figures out the seatbelt, Elton pulls out of the Tim Hortons parking lot and heads off for the house. He frowns at the rain. He hoped, while they were eating, that it would have slowed down. It doesn't show signs of stopping, though.

"Guess it's gonna be a wet mission."

She wrinkles her nose. "Gross."

He rolls his eyes. "Double gross."

Within the hour, Tiff and Elton pull onto the road that leads to the manor house. It takes Elton a few minutes to find a suitable place to park and hide the car, but he finds one— albeit, further away than he would like.

Turning off the car, he turns to Tiff and drums the steering wheel. "This is your area of expertise. What's the plan?"

"I don't know! I've never done a stakeout before. I think we should..." She considers it, making noises in the back of her throat. "We should go into the house and wait for him."

"Okay, that's a good first step. What if we run into him?"

"Then I get weird and threatening." She shrugs. "We can plan as much as we want, but it's not going to do much. It always goes wrong immediately. Like, your cousin gets slashed by a weird horse or you get stuck in a car and die. Planning is good and all, but— the truth? The truth is, it all comes down to improv."

"I've seen enough episodes of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' to feel comfortable in my improv skills. Guess let's go break back into the house!"

Elton opens his car door to the rain and steps out, his umbrella coming with him to block as much of it as possible.

It takes about five minutes to walk the trail and the gravel path to the house. The sun has set; the only light comes from Tiff's flashlight and the occasional flash of lightning.

"Hold on." She pauses at the front door. "I want to try to get in this way— and then try something else if the knob doesn't work."

"Like what? Picking it?"

"I don't know how to do that." Truth be told, she's thinking about portals, but she isn't going to tell him that. There's no point in freaking him out. "Who knows. Maybe Fred left it open for us."

"Guess there's only one way to find out, really." Elton reaches past her, grabs the doorknob, and turns it. He smiles when it creaks open to the foyer where the stairs are, with the family room to the right and another room to the left.

Movement to their left startles Elton. he jumps back and slips on the water under his feet. He only keeps himself from falling by grabbing onto Tiff. Fred's grinning skull peers out of the darkness at them, bones bright against the black.

"Hello again," the skeleton says, with a small wave. "Do come in."

"Hello, Fred!" She bows her head to him and closes the door behind her. "Has anyone dropped by since we left?"