Hello everyone, and thank you for looking at my new story!

This is loosely set about three years after the House of Nightmares case. It is in Mai's - first person - viewpoint.

So, please enjoy and review! And Happy Samhain!

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Revenge is a confession of pain

- Seneca

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I was hurrying to finish up the paperwork that had been piling up for the two weeks that Taka had been on vacation with her family. I didn't want her to think that I truly needed her to keep up on the paperwork, so thus I was fully determined to complete the task before she got back. Tomorrow.

It was almost time for the office to close, and I was trying to beat the clock, otherwise Naru was probably going to lock me in here. All by myself. There was something about a paranormal office deserted at night which was about as spooky as a haunted house.

Well, I guess I don't know if it's that spooky being all alone here. I never decided that I needed to camp out here. I hope I don't have to.

I finished the last file and documented it away. I rubbed my eyes, celebrating to myself internally. Maybe I'll pick up a pint of ice cream for myself on the way home for a job well done.

Though if I had done it a little bit throughout the week, it wouldn't have been such a big deal.

I started packing my little suitcase. It was ten-minutes until closing time and I seriously doubted that anybody would be visiting. Besides, people being haunted normally show up in the morning for obvious reasons. No one likes to travel in the dark when they've seen a side of supernatural they used to not believe in.

Naru and Lin were both in their offices, but generally they left after me, which was always fine. But now, I had a little car waiting for me in the parking lot, with a heater. A long-time savings of mine that had had to wait until I could get my driver's license.

Ahh, such normal things to rejoice in sometimes.

Something caught my eye outside the window. Car lights.

My stomach began crying. I guess that ice cream would have to wait.

If they were even coming in. Maybe they weren't coming in, I told myself. Or fooled myself.

I watched the couple make their way to the door.

Yeah, they were going to come in.

"Mai, close up for the night," Naru called from his office. He must have heard the car or something.

"But Naru, someone's here."

He didn't answer, but I could feel his disapproval in me. I didn't really care much anymore. Besides, he was being very insensitive. This was a business and he was running it wrong when he locked clients out. In my opinion.

When the couple didn't come in right away, I thought maybe I was mistaken. But I was giving them exactly five more minutes to walk through that door before I locked it and said that we're closed.

Eh, I was becoming as cold and insensitive as Naru.

Sure enough though, the couple came in within the five minutes.

"Hi," I said. I hoped they ignored the fact that I was bundled up in my coat and ready to face the cold. They must not have known we were closing so soon. And also, they shot my theory of people not coming to the office in the darkened hours straight to hell. "Can I help you?"

I was just waiting for Naru to call out 'we're closed' from his office.

The couple was young, early or mid-twenties. The woman had long black hair and warm brown eyes. I now felt inferior with my shaggily cut hair and my plain face. Sigh.

"Hello," she said. "Are you the manager here?" She had a refined way of speaking. Very smooth and clear, with a way of being hushed, but could easily be heard from across the room.

"No," I said, realizing how uncultured I sounded. "He's in his office."

Using that fact to my advantage, I asked them to sit before Naru could turn them away. It's much harder to do when they're sitting.

I peeked in at Naru, and he gave me an annoyed look. I smiled back as innocently as possible. I then came back to the clients. I normally would have gone to make tea, but I didn't want to leave the clients alone on the couch.

I got out my notepad, since Lin had very subtly shifted the duty of documenting the case details onto me. And since I didn't have a computer, I had to write it all down.

"May I have your names?" I asked.

"I'm Toshi Deon, and this is my husband, Eikou Deon." She laid her hand on her husband's shoulder. "We were very recently married."

He was handsome, and very lackluster. But there was something about his eyes that warned me to underestimate him, though. They were dark and quick, and I think he saw everything.

"I'm Mai Taniyama," I said, smiling. "It's nice to meet you. Now – would you mind telling me your work occupations?"

"I'm a caterer – I've studied aboard in France, Italy, England and America. I've been running my own catering business for four years now," Toshi-san said. "My husband is a well-known business-owner in the art industry."

I'd never heard of him, but then again, I didn't really study art. It felt slightly uncomfortable getting only information from her. I began to wonder if he spoke.

"Okay," I said, hurrying to write it all down. "Can you tell me when you think this ghost activity started, if it is ghost activity at all?"

"It is ghosts," Eikou-san said, startling me. "There's nothing else it could be."

"Actually, there are many different scenarios that could cause ghost-like actions –"

"Not this," he said.

"Please let us talk, Taniyama-san," Toshi-san said, with that powerful tone in her voice.

I immediately quieted down. "Uh, yes. Please continue."

She swallowed. "There is a ghost following us. We had weird things happening at our house, and they kept getting stranger and stranger. We've been in a hotel for the past two weeks now, researching groups that can help us, and then the same things were beginning to happen again. The same way it happened at our house. You might call us paranoid, but I know it's following us."

I had to stop and digest that. I hadn't really had any experience of a ghost haunting a human. So, I started back to the basics. "Can you tell me when it all started? What was the activity you were going through?"

Toshi-san took a deep breath, and evened out her speech, since her last was a bit rushed. "Everything started once we got back from our honeymoon in Spain," she said. "But they were little things. Missing electronic devices, movement of my cooking utensils, and stray paperwork. We thought we were just being forgetful and laughed at ourselves."

I couldn't quite imagine Eikou-san laughing. He looked too solemn.

Or maybe he was just too scared.

"Bigger things started to happen later, that could never be mistaken for our forgetfulness. I own a baby grand piano, and one morning, we woke up to it playing by itself."

I wrote it down. And being a good investigator, I kept my face emotionless, like I see this stuff all the time. But actually, I had yet to encounter a solo playing piano.

"My favorite spatulas and spoons would end up outside, buried in the dirt in the flowerbed. And my bowls would end up in the fountain or in the basement. We found paperwork burnt, scattered around the house when we got home from a meeting with a client, and any calls we try to make is disrupted by heavy breathing noises in the background."

She clenched her hands.

I suddenly felt a shiver playing up and down my spine, and I looked to the door, expecting someone to come in unannounced. But no one entered. It felt funny, though, like something was waiting outside the door.

Naru exited his office, shaking me from my childish notions. He sat down on the couch that I was on. When Toshi-san hesitated, he waved her on and offered her no words.

"The last week we were at our house, the stove went haywire, and the flames got massive and scorched the area around it. We would hear pounding on the doors and running sounds in the upstairs rooms. And I think it's needless to say that no one was there.

"One morning, all the piano keys went missing from my baby grand. I've seen faces outside the windows at night, and glass objects will shatter inside of the cabinets. Dishes, water glasses, knickknacks. But while some of that stuff had been spared, every single one of our wineglasses broke. And –" she paused, "we've both on occasion have heard strange chanting noises from outside, whenever the windows happen to open on their own accord."

I quickly wrote it all down, not wanting to miss anything. Lin had come out of his office and was listening at the doorway, which I thought was strange.

"We've shut down the house of its electricity, gas and water," Eikou-san said. "To keep things safer…"

I finished copying down the story, and then looked at Naru, hoping that this case would interest him. But he wasn't on the couch, and I had to wonder if he had even sat down or if I was imagining things. I looked around and saw him talking to Lin in hushed tones. He must have gotten up when I wasn't paying attention.

"And then," Toshi-san said, mostly watching the two shady people talking in whispers, "we went to the hotel, and after the two weeks, it started again…"

That reminded me of the case with Ayami-chan, when the ghost children had followed her to the hotel and tried to drag her out the window. She had been on the fifteenth floor and the only thing that had saved her and John (who had been holding onto her) was the fact that the closed window had been so well built. Strong and steady. Probably hadn't been built like that for a ghost attack, but all things matter.

If it was following them, you could obviously rule out the possibility of it been a land-based spirit. I eyed the two sitting stiffly on the couch.

And I wondered, why them?

Naru folded his arms and narrowed his eyebrows, thinking hard about something. "If the spirit is indeed following you," he said, "then you have at least a few days before things take a turn for the worst."

I don't know if I really liked the fact that he was telling them to just go back to the hotel, but I really wasn't in a position to say so. I trusted Naru's judgment, and I – hoped – the ghost would give us a little time.

"We need directions," Naru said, sliding the file out of my hands and rereading it. How rude.

I got another piece of paper and handed it to them for their address. She wrote it down readily, but with a steady hand.

"I would like to discuss the issue of payment," Eikou-san said.

"But I don't," Naru told him. "We'll discuss it after. I still haven't said I would take the case or not."

Toshi-san's hand faltered, but she quickly recovered.

"We'll see you tomorrow morning," Naru said softly. I could see no movement of his eyes, so he was thinking more than reading. He then gave Lin a pointed look, and his assistant came forth and handed the clients each a paper.

"These should keep you safe, or a little while, at least," he told them. "I recommend going to another hotel for the night, to confuse the spirit. Do not return to the hotel to retrieve anything, just go somewhere else."

"But, my things –" Toshi-san started, but Lin cut her off.

"Please do not take this warning lightly. You will be able to return to your hotel to gather your things, but now, I advise staying somewhere else tonight."

She nodded, and so did her husband.

"Thank you," Eikou-san said, and bowed.

They both exited.

That cold feeling in my spine went with them.

Naru watched them from the window. "Has it gone?"

I had no idea what he was talking about, and then I realized he wasn't talking to me, anyway.

"It left about mid-way through the conversation," Lin said, "I think it went to lie in wait at the house, because it believes we'll go there tomorrow."

"What?" I asked.

"The spirit." Naru laced his hands together.

My eyes widened, "There really is a spirit following them?"

"Yes, Mai."

"Holy shit," I said. No wonder Lin had come into the room to listen. He probably wasn't listening; he was most likely keeping track of the spirit. His shiki must have alerted him the moment they came.

I said, "Wait a minute, you sent them back out there even though they have something following them?"

"I wasn't going to let them camp in the office," Naru said.

"Hmph," I said. "That's awful."

"They'll be all right, Taniyama-san," Lin said.

I remembered the charms he had given them, and I felt a little better. But I also couldn't help the mixed feeling of dread that maybe the papers weren't going to work.

"How come it didn't try to come inside the office?" I asked.

"This space is too well protected by our amount of energy – also, my shiki kept it at bay."

"Mai, call Monk and John, schedule them to be there tomorrow," Naru told me, getting his coat. We were fifteen minutes past closing time.

"Yes, sir."