It started innocently enough… and if he'd thought that at the time, it would probably have been a huge red flag. But unfortunately, most days started innocently. He'd been working for Happy Homes for four months at this point, and had received a semi-promotion as the driver of the pick-up truck. That meant in the mornings he made his way to Steve's house, greeted Diwata, and picked up the company pickup truck to take to Mrs. Halili's former house, picking up Malory, Loni and Harmony on the way, as well as any supplies they needed for the day's work. He made sure the tires had air, checked the oil, kept the battery charged, and kept the gas tank full, keeping track of every fill-up and giving Steve the receipts at the end of the day so he could be reimbursed. That had added a half hour to his commute at night, but hey, car! He just had to be careful not to get into an accident.

Today wasn't one of those days. As soon as he'd entered Steve's house, there had been the subtle ring of a bell that announced Diwata's presence, or perhaps more accurately her attention. She was the whole house after all, meaning she was everywhere, and from what he'd read while she was aware of what was happening inside her, she needed to focus her attention somewhere to do things.

"Good morning, Diwata," he greeted as he finished wiping his feet. It had rained last night, making the roads and sidewalks wet. Thankfully, he hadn't needed to use his umbrella. "Does Steve need to talk to me?"

There was a slightly louder, more cheerful ring.

"Right, got it. I'm coming, then."

As always, he made a quick detour through the staff room where they'd had their celebration party in case there were doughnuts. None today—not enough people needed to pass by the office, with everyone going straight to the work site—but it was always a good idea to check. After that he headed for Steve's office, knocking on the door before letting himself in.

"Yes, boss?" he said as he stepped in, and immediately noted that Steve wasn't alone. For one thing, the air conditioning was off but the room was too cool for the weather, so at least one of Steve's relatives was in the room as well. Probably next to the electric fan, both for non-heat distribution and to suck up the heat generated by the motor. It was an old fan, heavy and metallic, made before the age of such silly things as 'planned obsolescence'. If they lived in Amatsushima the fan would have been well on its way to becoming a tsukumogami.

Steve waved him inside. Rather than sitting at his desk, he was standing in the middle or the room talking to Norm. The latter was usually at the office most days, going over paperwork or making inquiries to owners of stigmatized properties. In the rare times he wasn't, the paunchy man was showing prospective clients the now-flipped properties Happy Homes owned for sale, lease or rent. Loren only really knew the man in passing, but they were on nodding terms and he'd found Norm to be nice enough.

"Loren, got a special job for you," Steve said. "I need you to drive for Norm today." There was a mildly apologetic tone in his voice. Loren hadn't been hired as a driver, after all. "He's going to be checking a house for us over at Galugod, and Norm's not very good at highway driving. While you're there, I want you to check the place out with your magic, see if you can see, what you can feel, and if there are any problems you can spot that might be more too expensive to be worth fixing."

"Got it, Steve," Loren said. While he wasn't crazy about sitting on his ass driving for most of the day—the traffic was already bad and would get worse, even on the highway south—all things considered the change of pace was nice. While none of the plamo had been left behind in the former Halili house, they had left a lot of the furniture, save for a few that they had given away to friends and relatives. That meant there was a pile of covered furniture they needed to avoid while working, putting in new lighting fixtures, and all that other stuff. It had been a pain when they'd been replacing beams in the ceiling. Getting away from that for a day… well, he'd take it. "Since we're going to Galugod, want me to pick up anything for you?"

Steve paused at the offer. "Well, if there's time, on the way back can you pick up two loaves of raisin bread? There's this place…"

"I know it, we buy from there too." Galugod was a vacation and tourist spot, though mainly for the views and the cool weather, so he'd been there a bunch of times with his family.

Steve reached for his wallet. "Here's the money for the bread. Norm can take care of the gas and toll fees. Use the overpass."

"Gee, thanks," Norm said, rolling his eyes with a smile.

"Hey, you're going to be there already. Don't make Loren have to pay for those too." Steve turned back to Loren. "Remember, you're just checking out the house. Don't go in, all right? Just stay outside and see what there is to see. We don't know what's haunting it, so don't do anything risky."

Loren shuddered slightly at the reminder. After four months of living with Sara, he was comfortable with her—the bathroom notwithstanding, and mostly as a matter of principle—but the thought of encountering any other ghost… well, it didn't actively scare the piss out of him, but it did make his spine crawl. Never mind he knew how to deal with ghosts now, with Flamecraft that was suited for overcoming what he felt was the primary difficulty of dealing with them. His mind always went to that night and the face in the mirror and the cold. Yes, that face was now of… well, not a dear friend, but a now much-appreciated one, but the memory… "Got it, Steve. We'll stay outside."

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Before they left, there was a call that Loren needed to make.

The phone on the other end of the call rang for some time before the accept button was finally pressed. Despite this, there was no voice on the line. Loren had expected that. "Hey, Sara," he said, knowing she was probably listening. "I might be late coming home tonight, I need to drive to Galugod. It's not an overnight trip, but the traffic going and coming is probably going to be really bad."

Through the speaker, he just barely heard the sound of windchimes ringing. Thankfully the mic of the brick phone he'd bought was sensitive enough to catch that.

"That's pretty much it," he said. "If I have time I'll see about buying some strawberry jam. We can try adding venecite to it." That caused another ringing to come from the phone. "Well, gotta go. You and the squad take care now."

He was just about to end the call when he heard something come over the speaker. Frowning, he put it on speaker phone out of habit. "What was that?" he said before he remembered who he'd—

"…be careful…" a voice that might have been a trick of the static said.

"I will," he said. "Bye."

There was no reply, save for more windchimes.

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Loren cut the call and walked over to the where Norm was standing next to the pickup. "Sorry about that," he said, pulling out the car keys. "Just making sure my roommate wouldn't worry. Let's get going."

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Norm, it turned out, was the kind who easily fell asleep in cars. Thankfully, he didn't snore.

Most people would be annoyed by this, but Loren was glad for the silence. It meant he didn't have to handle small talk and driving. He was able to play his music—in one earphone only so he could hear the engine and any incoming cars—and hum along as he drove, which was good because the next three hours had him stuck in traffic, moving in bursts and starts. Even on the highway, they were basically stuck at 40 kph—50 kph for two-second bursts if they were lucky—for a lot of its length until the highway finally opened up from three lanes to eight.

That gave him plenty of time to send a text to Harmony telling her where he was going and if she'd be willing to keep Sara company until he got home, since he foresaw hitting traffic on the way back. It probably wasn't necessary—Sara had the plamo keeping her company now, as well as some illustrated encyclopedias he'd gotten her that he'd actually seen her leafing through—but it just seemed like common courtesy to see to it she had company.

The mountain ridge of Galugod was rising up in front of him by the time Norm finally woke up, rubbing his neck where it had slipped down and leaned against the window. The older man looked out the window in bewilderment for a moment, clearly trying to figure out where they were before turning to Loren.

Loren nodded at him. "So, where are we going, Norm?" he said. "You just said the house was in Galugod, but not exactly where."

"Where are we?" Norm asked.

"Uh, still in Symbola Lilia, on the Famy highway." he said, "so you didn't miss much."

"Oh, good," Norm said, pulling out his phone. "Just keep going until we get to Galugod ridge, then turn right into the Galugod highway…"

Loren followed the directions—well, he did when they eventually got to the Galugod highway an hour later—and as he drove he kept a passive eye on the houses on their side of the road. Ever since he'd started working at Happy Homes, he'd found himself looking closer at houses and buildings. His mind had begun noting those that were merely in disrepair from the ones that were abandoned, or at last unoccupied. On either side, he saw many of both kinds. Houses where the walls were covered in overgrowth and shadowed by trees, but had little signs of life like a clean bicycle next to the door or clean curtains. Buildings that stood empty, the locks on the door rusted and seemingly fused, a layer of dirt on anything left outside. Once he thought he saw one of the windows swing open against the wind, and couldn't repress a shudder go up his spine even as they passed that house by and left it far behind.

"There, that house over there," Norm said, pointing to a building ahead of them on the left side of the highway. Behind a wall covered in creeping vines was… well, it looked like a house.

"Hang on, we need to find a place to park," Loren said, giving the building a glance as they passed. Tall trees cast their shadow on the house, and the walls facing the road were covered in dark green creepers.

Fortunately, a little way down the road was a shopping arcade. They were able to park in front of a convenience store, and nonchalantly walked back towards the house. It was the afternoon, and the sun was refreshingly hot as it shined down on Loren, and he took the opportunity to soak in the head to add to his stores of magic. Norm for his part winced at the heat and hurried to get under the shadow of one of the trees on either side of the highway.

They walked until they were in front of the house, taking a moment to observe if from the other side of the street. At three stories tall, a young child might have considered it a mansion. As an adult, it seemed like an indulgent vacation home that might have been okay as a quaint hotel but far too big for a modern family unless they really needed a lot of space. Loren noted that given its height, it probably commanded a view of Ipil Lake, the volcanic caldera lake filling Ipil Volcano. When the still-active volcano erupted, whoever was in the house would have a wonderful view of the ejecta before it started raining ash.

The house itself… well, it seemed all right. Needed a cleaning on the outside, but what he could see of the roof seemed mostly intact. All the windows were closed, which meant he couldn't see how things were inside, but hopefully that meant there wasn't any damage from rain getting it or something.

"So… do we go inside?" Loren asked. There really wasn't much they could see from the outside, much less from across the street.

Norm frowned. "I guess it should be safe to look at the house up close as long as we don't go inside. The bank said the gate isn't locked."

That… sounded so sketch and vaguely disturbing.

The two of them glanced to either side, looking for a pedestrian crosswalk or something. Not seeing anything, the two sighed.

After a refreshing dash across the highway, the two of them stood in front of the front gate. Tentatively, Loren tried the gate. It was in fact not locked, although it creaked with the grinding of rusty metal, making them wince. Looking at Norm one more time, Loren called Flame to his hand, cupping a little flickering tongue in his palm as he pushed open the gate enough for him to squeeze through.

The yard on the other side was a mess. Rotting leaves covered the ground, interspersed by fallen branches and dead weeds. He eyed the branches of the trees above warily, but none seemed about to fall on them. Still, he kept one arm up, covering his head as he entered warily.

This close, the house seemed even bigger, and Loren frowned as he saw several windows on the first floor were hanging open, hidden from view by fence and gate. Ugh, that means things would have gotten inside…

Looking around, he spotted the corner of the house and began to walk that way, intending to see how far back the house went.

"Careful," Norm cautioned him. "There might be snakes."

Loren twitched. While he was reasonably sure that snake venom was one of things he was immune to, be it a coagulant or nerve toxin, but being bitten was still going to hurt like a bitch. "Got it," he said.

He managed to move though the yard without being bitten, letting him look around the house. Despite it being noon on a bright sunny day, the trees blocked enough sunlight that he shifted his Flame towards Light so he could see where he was stepping better. Reaching the corner, the house turned out to go a long way back, and there seemed to be something behind it… was that a deck? It looked like it, although the wooden planks were dark with age and exposure, and there were a lot of leaves rotting on top of them. There was also some kind of balcony railing facing toward the view of the lake.

The Flame mage shook his head. Yeah, this wasn't a house, at least not for a normal family. It was far too big. Maybe they can sell it to someone really loaded with money, but anyone with that much bash would probably prefer to build their own house and not buy second hand. Although it might make for a good inn for vacationers, provided there were enough bedrooms, or another of the many restaurants lining the highway. Despite that, the structure itself seemed in decently good repair. He didn't want to think of what kind of mess it might be inside, though.

"Looks good from here," Loren said, turning back to Norm as one of the windows banged open in the wind. "Though we won't really know if this place is worth buying until we've seen inside." He looked towards the window, which was just grinding to a halt. "Should we look inside? The windows are right there."

Norm frowned, looking reluctant. "I don't know… I've had bad luck with houses."

"How so?" Loren asked, walking towards the window and keeping his gaze down to watch for snakes. Reaching the wall and windows, he peered inside. Wow, the place was trashed. Just in view there was a bookshelf—or perhaps just a shelf, since there weren't any books in it at the moment—standing half-toppled, resting against a sofa that probably hadn't been there originally. Its contents, a mix of photo frames, cute little Symbol figurines and what looked like the remains of a decorative bowl were fallen on the floor all around it. There were fewer leaves than he'd thought there would be…

"I just have weird luck with these things. A lot of the ones I pick out have violent ghosts in them, so I don't go inside one without Steve around."

Loren blinked, turning to stare at him. Violent? "What?"

Cold pressure grabbed his head and pulled him back violently, slamming him into the metal bars of the window. His head rebounded, clear for the moment, before it was violently wrenched to the side, slamming into the open windows as he was violently dragged along the length of the wall. The cold grip on his head threw him down, and he slammed into the ground, barely managing to catch himself with his arms. Pain bloomed on his elbows, forearms and palms, and that was when his head started to join in about how much it hurt. Groggily, he realized he had fallen before the front door.

Disoriented, he tried to push himself up as he heard something slam into a wall. Cold pressure grabbed his feet, and he let out a panicked cry as something pulled at him, dragging him painfully over the pebble-washed landing and through the now-open door.

He heard Norm calling his name as he felt something grab the back of his shirt and throw him deeper into the house.