Ruby Gloom House Novels & Stories

When they saw Alpha Thomas's car, they opened the gates instantly, bowing low. We drove up a long, winding driveway until a giant wooden mansion appeared through the trees. It was the Blood Moon pack house. It looked like a luxury castle made of dark wood and stone, with dozens of windows glowing with warm yellow light. But tonight, the house did not look peaceful at all.

Its enormous webbed hands clenched the muck, pulling its bloated body through the floodwater with sickening slurps. Lightning forked overhead, illuminating the monster in stark detail. Its bloated throat expanded like a bellows, glowing faintly green as foul gas hissed from its nostrils. Two bulbous eyes, the color of rotting moss, rolled grotesquely as they locked on the figures in its path. Junie’s stomach twisted. Even from where she stood beside Rio, she could feel the weight of its presence pressing on her chest. Rio wiped blood from his jaw, his golden eyes hard. “That thing is big enough to level the house if it gets too close.”

Malakai's room had black walls, no surprise, grey and black furniture. The walls had a ombré effect, it's started from black at the top to grey to silver and white near the floor. There was a large double bed that had a cushioned grey headboard, and silk sheets. There were also double glass doors that led out to a balcony. And finally a walk in closet. The whole room screamed Malakai, it was just him. "I can just go home." Eden said but she'll admit, if she drove there was an 80% chance she'd crash. She was so tired.

A poison sac planted directly in our spiritual heart. The moment it was exposed, the Gloom intensified. The air grew heavier, colder. I heard a sharp intake of breath from one of the warriors, a muttered curse from another. A wave of irrational irritation washed over me-a sudden, sharp anger at the clumsy sound of digging, at the moon for its pale light, at Adrien for his grim silence. It's the Gloom, I thought, clinging to the knowledge like a lifeline. It's not real. It's the poison.

“Look. Whether he’s a spirit, a residue, or a trauma echo we need evidence. If that room exists in any way, I’ll find it.” She crouched, spreading blueprints on the gravel. “There’s a sealed crawlspace under the east library. If the coordinates are right, that’s where the foundation gap starts. No cameras, no motion sensors.” Liam stared at her like she was insane. “You’re actually considering this?” “I’m saying we go in daylight,” Mara countered. “If the anomaly’s there, it’ll register. If not we stop chasing ghosts.” But Lola barely heard them. Her fingers had slipped around the shard again, warm now, pulsing faintly like it recognized something.

We all stared at one another wide eyed as a huge fissure came shooting out from the west side of the house, shooting right at us, veins and ribbons spreading out across the ground. “What the hell?” I asked, not sure what Grimly Grouse was up to now. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it, not because I was afraid for my team but because I was afraid for my home. Did he know he was going to lose so he was trying to destroy Brookstone--forever?

I kicked the iron gates. The lock shattered. The gates swung open with a screech of rusted metal that sounded like a scream. We burst inside. The interior was lit by construction work lights, casting harsh, long shadows against the marble walls. In the center of the room, a group of humans...Heriberto's thralls....were swinging heavy sledges at a central stone tomb. Their eyes were pitch black, void of whites or irises. They moved like robots. Flanking the tomb were two Void Golems, towering eight feet high, made of jagged cemetery stone and purple static.