If You've Got It, Haunt It - SIGNED hardcover luxe edition

Prologue

"What’s this stone good for?”

The perky-breasted teenage strumpet interrupts her reading. Vera hides her scowl with a demure little cough, closes her spell book for the eighth time that hour, and turns to the annoying customer.

I’m in the wrong business. She should have started that goat farm, like she wanted to, but her friend Mabel Ellis over in Argleton insisted that she share her gifts with the world. Mabel isn’t good with the word ‘no’ (which happens to be Vera’s favorite word), so before Vera knew it, she’d sold her prized goat, paid for a year’s lease on a High Street storefront, and stocked up on tacky dreamcatchers.

That was seven years ago now, and in her time running a New Age store, Vera has encountered approximately three truly gifted magic workers and an innate number of annoying teenage girls, sulky goths, and sad housewives looking for a magical sign that they should leave their husbands.

“Well? Is it for attracting love? Protection? Deepening friendship?” the girl prods her impatiently. Behind her, two of the girl’s equally annoying friends flip through the fantasy artwork, giggling over the bare-breasted Lady of the Lake.

“That orange one? You shove it up your cootchie, dear.” Vera turns back to her book, hiding the tug of her smirk behind the page as the girl registers her comment.

“You…what?”

“Oh yes. It’s an ancient Druidic practice. Women push those stones up their vah-jay-jay and keep them up their foof for a few hours or overnight. They center your yoni, tighten the muscles in your bajingo, and turn your panty underworld into a salacious tunnel of untold pleasure.” Vera pauses for dramatic effect. “Praise the goddess.”

Vera loves that humans have created so many silly euphemisms for a woman’s anatomy just to avoid saying cunt – an ancient word that carries so much true power that uttering it in the company of the wrong spell book can unleash the next apocalypse. She likes to see how many euphemisms she can use before customers back slowly away and stop annoying her.

“Oh, well…” the girl stares down at the stone. “That sounds amazing. I have this new guy and I really want to steal him off his hag of a girlfriend. If my, ah, salacious tunnel is better than hers, then…”

“Say no more, my dear. Just place that stone inside the petals of your abyssal flower and he will be completely under your spell.”

“Okay! Thanks.” The girl chooses the largest piece of orange moonstone and plonks it on the counter. “How much?”

“Wait, we want some too.” Her two friends crowd around, choosing the largest stones and shuffling through the saint cards on the counter before purchasing a few of those, too. Vera charges them double her usual price because she doesn’t believe stupidity should be rewarded. The bell tinkles as the girls leave the shop in a giggling gaggle.

Happy yeast infection, you silly girl. Why anyone believes that shoving a porous stone into your abandoned uranium mine of carnal knowledge is a good idea, I’ll never know, but I’ll happily pay the rent on their ignorance. Praise the Goddess for Goop raising a generation of gullible fools.

“That was mean,” says Lottie, folding her arms across her see-through chest as she emerges from behind the Buddhism display.

“I thought it was hilarious.” Agnes clutches her stomach, her shoulder still trembling with laughter. “Some people are too silly to exist.”

“Hmmmph.” Vera nods her agreement and returns to her book. The three witches move toward the back of the store, discussing the various uses of henbane and who they want to win The Bachelor, which Vera lets them watch on her TV sometimes.

She is used to their chatter by now. They treat the shop as their own personal headquarters, but they are at least far more tolerable than her Living clientele.

Vera checks her watch. Just fifty-six minutes left until closing time. She massages her bad hip and thinks longingly about the herbal tea and pot brownies she has waiting upstairs, when the store bell tinkles again.

A chill runs down her spine.

The temperature in the shop drops by precisely six degrees.

“What…what is that?” Lottie gasps.

Vera doesn’t look up from sorting the saint cards that the girls messed up. She knows exactly what it is.

“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” she mutters, placing Saint Ignatius down in front of her. Poor Ignatius, fed to the lions at the Colosseum in front of a roaring crowd. That Christian god certainly liked to put His most loyal servants through some heinous torments.

“You know that I am not here for you,” the creature rasps.

He moves toward her, his footsteps nearly soundless on the thick Oriental carpets scattered in a patchwork style across the store. Vera sneaks a look at his shoes – shiny black boots paired with white-button gaiters. Old-fashioned.

Hmmmm.

She didn’t expect that. They usually send someone more modern. They like things to be efficient. Neat. The old ones never had the tools to be neat.

The creature stops in front of the counter. His presence sucks the air from the room. Vera hears one of the witches gasp.

“I think you should run, Vera,” Lottie says slowly. “This fellow looks to be no good.”

“Rather dapper, though, don’t you think?” Mary adds. “That smart hat and elegant cape…”

“Did you get a new boyfriend, Vera?” Agnes asks in her sharp tone. “You might’ve told us. If you think we’re going to leave so you two can canoodle in peace, you’ve got another thing coming. We’ve already been banished from loitering around Grimwood Manor and we need a place to conduct our important ghost business—”

The creature lets out a low, terrifying hiss, like a tea kettle boiling over, that shuts Agnes right up.

“If you’re not here for me, and you’re not going to buy anything, then I have nothing to say to you.” Vera shuffles the Saint Agatha cards to the front of the display.

“I am here to deliver a message.”

“Do I look like I have ROYAL MAIL stamped on my forehead?” she snaps.

“You are not the messenger. You are the parchment.”

Vera jerks her head up, because if she is truly to die today, then she will stare death in his face.

It is a rather dapper hat…

“Oh,” she breathes. “They sent you. Bringing out the big guns, I see.”

And then everything goes black as the monster begins his grisly work.

Grimdale Graveyard Mysteries
Book 1 - You're So Dead To Me
Book 2 - If You've Got It, Haunt It
Book 3 - Ghoul As A Cucumber
Book 4 - Not A Mourning Person