A Little Bite of Magic Goes a Long Way (BxB)

2 ~ Matt

~Two weeks earlier~

"He's trying to kill us."

"He's not trying to kill us. He's just...having fun."

I leaned over the back of Ben's chair, watching the grainy night-cam footage of our bedroom.

Ben had installed the cameras after the third time we woke up with a haunted doll between us. He said it was clearly possessed by some sort of pervert ghost. I said it was probably just lonely.

We tended to disagree about these things, just like we were disagreeing now, although I had to admit that, this time at least, the evidence might be in Ben's favor.

"Fun?" Ben repeated, a trace of frustration and anger underlying his tone. "Matt, you could have died. If I hadn't come in when I did..." He put a hand over his mouth.

On his computer screen, I watched myself sleeping. The time stamp showed it was only half-past nine, but I'd been tired and Ben (as usual) had been working late, locked in his office.

In the recording I tossed and turned a few times and then lay still, finally having drifted off. Then, the closet door opened a crack, and something long and thin snaked its way out and towards the bed.

Later, we'd identified it as an extension cord.

It moved, seemingly propelled by its own power, up the side of the bed, where it proceeded to loop itself several times around my neck. The other end then lifted and wove its way through the unmoving blades of the ceiling fan overhead, which then turned itself on.

The blades moved in a slow rotation, and the length of cord gradually lost its slack as it was wound up by the fan.

Fortunately, it was a long cord, and when a moment later the video showed Ben entering the room, stopping in confusion, and then rushing to wake me and free me from its coils, there had still been several loose loops lying across the top of the bed.

"How is trying to hang you in your sleep fun, Matt?" Ben asked, sounding bewildered. "When are you going to admit that Pete is—" He stopped and lowered his voice, obviously worried the poltergeist might be listening even now. "When are you going to admit that Pete is dangerous?" he finished in a whisper.

"No one's been hurt," I protested. "These are just...pranks." I shrugged.

But to be honest, Ben had a point.

Pete had played little jokes on us since the day we moved in—silverware in the toaster, switching the sugar for the laundry detergent, smearing butter over the top step on the second floor—silly things like that.

Like I said, no one was ever hurt, and I took it as simply Pete's way of saying hello.

Recently, though, things had escalated.

Last week I'd fallen asleep in the bathtub and woken up underwater. I'd have chalked that one up to a simple accident if not for the hand-print that showed up on my chest. Then, I'd been tending the flowerbeds along the side of the house, when a box of Christmas decorations somehow made its way out of the attic window and narrowly missed my head.

Last night's incident would be Pete's third 'attempt,' and Ben didn't even know about the other two. I'd been afraid to tell him, because I knew he'd run straight to Ari Lorenfield and ask to have Pete exorcised.

Ari owned the house, lived here most of his life, was a powerful mage-witch, and also happened to be Ben's ex-boyfriend. Ben still went starry-eyed whenever Ari was around, and the only reason I wasn't jealous is that I loved Ari, too (as a friend, of course) and he was in a rock-solid relationship with a hot vampire.