Ghost Castle (The Ghost Files Book 8) Read online

  GHOST CASTLE

  The Ghost Files #8

  by

  Chanel Smith

  Created by

  J.R. Rain & Scott Nicholson

  THE GHOST FILES SERIES

  Ghost College (Book #1)

  by Scott Nicholson and J.R. Rain

  Ghost Soldier (Book #2)

  by Evelyn Klebert

  Ghost Fire (Book #3)

  by Eve Paludan

  Ghost Hall (Book #4)

  by Michelle Wright

  Ghost Crypt (Book #5)

  by Chanel Smith

  Ghost Town (Book #6)

  by Chanel Smith

  Ghost Writer (Book #7)

  by Chanel Smith

  Ghost Castle (Book #8)

  by Chanel Smith

  OTHER BOOKS BY CHANEL SMITH

  THE PACK TRILOGY

  Werewolf Moon

  Werewolf Nights

  Werewolf Forever

  THE HUNTRESS TRILOGY

  The Vampire With the Golden Gun

  The Vampire in the High Castle

  The Vampire Who Knew Too Much

  THE GHOST FILES

  Ghost Crypt

  Ghost Town

  Ghost Writer

  Ghost Castle

  Ghost Castle

  Copyright © 2016 Chanel Smith

  Based on characters created by J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson

  Published by J.R. Rain Press

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved by the authors. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for reading us.

  Ghost Castle

  Chapter One

  Peanut butter and jelly waffles aren’t as bad as you might think, though they are difficult to come by in the French Quarter in New Orleans. The strange look that I got from our waitress when I asked for them was a little bit unsettling. However, after a great deal of persuasion, she finally took on the challenge of serving me my newest craze in eclectic dining; a ten-dollar bill as a tip made it a lot easier for her to loosen up and play along.

  Though my previous craze was chocolate pancakes, the story that Ellen had told me about her friend and bestselling author, Diana Curry, as we wandered around the French Quarter, had captured my interest. Most people who visit New Orleans tend to want to try the Cajun cuisine. We’d had plenty of that over the last couple of weeks and I was feeling adventurous.

  “PB&Js were always one of my favorites growing up,” I told Ellen when the waitress went to see if there was any peanut butter. She’d rolled her eyes at me and given me that look; the one that was a combination of disbelief and exhaustion. “How bad can they be? We’re just replacing the bread with waffles. And what are waffles? Essentially, they’re bread.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said.

  “Would you stop with the look?”

  “What look?”

  “The, ‘I can’t believe that you’re going to embarrass me in public,’ look.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to embarrass me in public… again.”

  She’d always thought that my craving for chocolate pancakes was a bit childish, though she had actually suggested that we try and find some after she’d finished her story. “What’s to be embarrassed about?”

  “This is New Orleans, Monty,” she reminded me.

  “I know,” I replied. “The fact that we have to go inside and allow an air conditioner to blow on us for thirty minutes to get our clothing to stop sticking to us has been a constant reminder.”

  “Hey, at least I let you wear shorts and a T-shirt today.”

  “Will wonders never cease?”

  “Sir,” our waitress cut in, saving me from another argument that I was probably going to lose. She had the beautiful skin tone of the Creole girls that lived in the area and amber-colored eyes that had a similar effect to a lightning strike when she flashed them in my direction. “I was able to find some peanut butter. We have several different jams and jellies to choose from.”

  “What do you have?” I wanted to pick the perfect jelly for my experiment.

  “The usual stuff; grape, strawberry, peach, raspberry and boysenberry, but we also have one that you might not find outside of Louisiana, if you want to be adventurous.”

  “Do tell,” I beamed. I looked across at Ellen and smirked. I was going to be adventurous after all.

  “It’s called mayhaw jelly. It’s made from a berry that grows in the swamps. My mama raised us on the stuff. We didn’t have a PB&J lest we had mayhaw jelly.”

  “Well, now, that sounds intriguing.” The tone I used was like a man selecting an expensive French wine in a ritzy restaurant. I grinned at Ellen as I made my decision. “Let’s go with the mayhaw then.”

  “Alright,” she grinned. “Sounds good to me. Would you like the same, ma’am?”

  “Oh heavens no,” Ellen replied.

  “What can I bring you, then?”

  “To be honest,” she answered, “I haven’t quite made up my mind.”

  “I can give you a few more minutes if you like.”

  “That would be nice, thank you.”

  Our waitress walked away and Ellen started laughing at me. “Never a dull moment with you.”

  “Hey, I walk on the wild side. What boring menu item are you going to order?”

  “Well, I was looking at the shrimp and the catfish, but I was sort of hoping that some wonderful gentleman would treat me to a special night out on our last night here, and I don’t want to have the same thing for lunch and dinner,” she responded, frowning at the menu.

  “Then, why don’t you try the PB&J waffles?”

  “Monty, are you out of your mind?”

  “Yes, but I’m still with you,” I replied. “You mean to tell me that all of those times that you fed PB&J waffles to Diana’s kid, you didn’t try them?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even once?”

  “Not even once.”

  “That is simply amazing to me.”

  “I’ve always amazed you, haven’t I?”

  “‘Try them, try them, you will see; try them, try them, Sam I am.’”

  I received the full, disgusted and exhausted combo expression with the slow head shaking added in. “I can’t eat PB&J waffles.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “But this is the French Quarter.”

  “And because of that, we’re getting them with mayhaw jelly.” I tried to make it sound even more exotic than it probably was.

  “Are you ready to order yet?”

  Ellen sighed. She still hadn’t decided on a menu item. She lowered the menu and stared straight at me. There was a daring twinkle in her eyes. “I’ll have the PB&J waffles as well.”

  I waited until the waitress was gone to turn the tables on her. “I can’t believe that you’re going to try something new.”

  “I try new things all of the time,” she protested.

  “Yes, but you never travel all of the way over to my side; the side of the daring and dangerous.”

  Ellen was just about to respond when her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, made a strange face and then answered the call. “This is Ellen.”

  I watched her wrinkle her brow and lean slightly forward like she did whenever she was concentrating really hard on understanding whoever was speaking to her. “Yes, we are ghost… well, actually, we prefer to be called paranormal investigators.”

  She listened a few moments longer, looked up at me and mouthed the words, “I don’t understand him very well.”

 
; “Where did you say you were, again?”

  She paused and then made a different, confused face.

  “Medellin? The one in Colombia?”

  She paused again and looked at me as though she was already in fear for her life.

  “Well, I suppose we are available but are you sure it’s safe?”

  She listened for several moments longer.

  “How much?”

  Whoever was on the other end repeated their offer and I saw her eyes widen.

  “Well, yes, certainly, that is more than enough, but, again, I’m a little bit concerned about our safety.”

  As I watched her and picked up the few pieces of the conversation that I could hear, I was as skeptical as she was. Throughout the 80s and 90s, all you heard about Colombia and more specifically, Medellin, had to do with narco-trafficking, drug cartels, bombings and the war against the police. There hadn’t been much about Colombia since the mid-90s, but it still hadn’t ranked on my top 10 destinations in the world—or even in my top 100. I started shaking my head as she continued listening to the caller.

  “I never knew all of that,” she said. “All I ever heard about Colombia had to do with crime and drug cartels.”

  She shrugged and stared at me as she concentrated on listening to the caller.

  “We’re in New Orleans right now; we’d need to go back to our home in California first and then we could see if we can get a flight.”

  There was another long pause.

  “Okay, then, we’ll be ready to roll out of L.A. tomorrow morning. Thank you. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “You took the job?” I asked, somewhat surprised that she had agreed to go to Medellin, Colombia. “You do realize that ghosts will be the least of our problems in Medellin, right?”

  “Not from what Ariel just told me,” she replied. “I guess Medellin has done a lot of changing in the last 20 years.”

  I was about to raise another objection when our waitress arrived with our plates.

  “Enjoy,” she beamed as she turned away and tended to an adjacent table.

  “I should have gotten the shrimp,” Ellen said, looking at her plate.

  “Ah, it won’t be that bad; besides, I promised you a nice dinner.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “And that is going to have to be put on hold as well.”

  Chapter Two

  I was expecting jungle heat and humidity when I stepped through the doors of Jose Maria Cordoba International Airport and into the cool, mountain air of the Andes. I’d done some homework, but hadn’t really considered the fact that, though we were only a couple hundred miles from the equator, we were nearly 7000 feet in elevation.

  The flight in was nothing short of incredible. For as far as I could see, out the window of the plane, there were sharp green ridges and mountains with jagged valleys cutting their crooked paths between them. Cut out of the green slopes were farms and small towns that were clinging to the steep slopes and appeared on the verge of tumbling off of them.

  Always the skeptic, I had started to lighten up a little bit when I saw how beautiful that particular portion of the Andes was. It came back in full force when I saw soldiers with PM on their armbands and armed with automatic rifles standing guard over both the immigration and customs officers. They were also very conspicuous throughout the airport. With that type of military presence, they must be expecting trouble.

  “I hope you packed a jacket,” Ellen commented, interrupting my thoughts.

  It was something of a jab that she was taking at me. She really didn’t need to say much more. We’d had a fairly heated discussion concerning what I was going to wear in Medellin, especially after the discomfort I’d endured in New Orleans. Again, I’d pushed for polo shirts and khaki shorts with flip-flops or loafers and, again, I’d lost; though I’d snuck a couple pair into my bag anyway. I was a grown man. I could wear whatever I wanted. It was a little lie that helped me feel better about myself. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I kept my mouth shut. That isn’t easy for me.

  “Ellen?” A man with skin about the same color as mine, with dark hair and green eyes approached us. The only thing about him that said that he wasn’t a gringo like us was the way that he pronounced Ellen.

  “Ariel?”

  “Yes, yes,” he grinned. He took her hand then drew her to him for a kiss on the cheek. “It is very good to finally meet you.”

  Wasn’t Ariel the Little Mermaid? I wanted to ask the question aloud, but I knew that I’d get “the look” if I did.

  “This is my husband, Monty,” she said as she stepped away from his embrace.

  I really hoped that he wouldn’t hug and kiss me, so I extended my hand and greeted him with a solid grip. “Good to meet you. Ariel, did you say?” I grinned. I caught Ellen’s “look” from the corner of my eye. No doubt, she had already read my mind concerning the guy’s name.

  “Yes, I am called Ariel. It is a pleasure to meet you, Don Monty.” His teeth were too straight and too white when he grinned at me. “I hope that the flight wasn’t too long?”

  “All flights are too long,” I replied.

  “That is true,” he laughed. “I’m afraid that you will have to sit a little bit longer. We still have to drive to Medellin.”

  “We’re not in Medellin?” Ellen asked.

  “We are actually in Rionegro,” he smiled. “When Medellin built its new international airport some years back, there really wasn’t room down in the valley, so they built it up here.”

  He motioned for us to follow him to an SUV that was parked next to the curb. To my surprise, it was a brand new Mitsubishi Montero. I guess that I’d been expecting a beat up, 1974 Subaru or something like that instead of a car that you might actually see driving down the street in L.A.

  Ariel insisted on taking our bags at the curb. He opened the hatch, loaded our things and then turned back to us. “Are we ready to go, then?”

  Ellen and I had taken a few trips up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains to go camping and had always enjoyed the cool air, the mountains, valleys, trees and grass, but to see all of that, but covered in lush greenery instead of different shades of brown was fascinating.

  The road wound in switchbacks through the trees as we rose up toward the top of a ridge. Every so often, there were breaks in the foliage and a farm with a modern sized house would appear and then disappear. Though the houses and properties were decently kept, there was a lack of landscaping and décor. “We’re certainly not in Kansas anymore,” I commented to Ellen.

  “Aren’t these mountains beautiful and these quaint little farms along the road,” she smiled.

  It wasn’t surprising that she took a more positive view of things. I enjoyed the landscape, but I still had drug cartels and narco-trafficking stuck in the back of my mind. The “quaint” little farms and their Third World feel kept my skepticism in play. We’d been assured that Medellin was safe; probably safer than Chicago, Miami or L.A., we’d been told.

  “The farms are called fincas,” Ariel informed us. “Some of them are working farms and others can be rented for the weekend or longer. Many Colombians, especially Paisas, rent fincas for a weekend getaway with friends and family.”

  “Paisa?” I asked.

  “Paisa, Antioqueño, Montañero; that is what they call the people who live here. Antioqueño and Montañero are older and not used as much anymore. So, mostly, we are called Paisas,” he explained.

  “So, you can just rent a farm for a weekend?” Ellen asked. It was sort of an odd concept and I was as eager to know as she was.

  “More like a country getaway house,” he chuckled. “They typically sleep anywhere from 6 to 50 people. They are great for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays or just to have a big party. Better than people driving home drunk, don’t you think? Believe me, Paisas love to party.”

  I’m not sure what Ellen was thinking as we wound our way up toward the top of the ridge, but I was having a great deal of trouble balancing everything out. I jus
t wasn’t feeling the possibility of a castle in the surroundings and things weren’t adding up for me.

  Ellen and I had spent time doing paranormal investigations in and around London and in Germany. We had seen estates, great houses and castles while we were there. What we had witnessed from the Medellin countryside, so far, was little better than some of the shacks we’d seen out in the swamps around New Orleans. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but the likelihood of finding a castle seemed extremely remote.

  “You said that your ghost was haunting a castle?” I decided to ask. I might as well get my doubts out in the open. “I’m just not getting the castle feel here.”

  Ellen, knowing my skeptical ways, gave me another of her looks, which I brushed aside.

  “El Castillo, The Castle, is pretty unique to Medellin,” he chuckled. “You won’t find anything else like it around here. The plan for it was inspired by the castles of the Loire Valley of France. In fact, the original owner brought the plans from Paris in the mid to late 1920s.”

  1920 wasn’t a date that one thought of when talking about castles either. That didn’t help my skepticism. I directed a smug look of my own in Ellen’s direction; however, I really didn’t have a response for that little bit of information available. It didn’t matter, though, because we had broken out of the trees and crossed the ridge and the city of Medellin began to spread out before us in the valley below. I’ll have to admit that I was, again, fascinated by the view.

  “Welcome to Medellin,” Ariel said when he heard Ellen’s gasp.

  “This is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen.” Evidently, it had affected her the same way that it had affected me.

  We had plenty of time to take in the city as it filled the valley floor as we descended toward it via another series of switchbacks. As he drove, Ariel began to fill us in on the history of El Castillo.

  Chapter Three