The Gray House Novels & Stories

If youth seconds into the drive are you spotted a grey mansion ahead— my safehouse. I wasted no time jumping out of the car and helping Anita out. “Clayton, she exclaimed. “is this another of your properties? How come you own this place?” “Come inside Anita, there‘s a lot I have to say to you." I let her gape at the magnificence of the building for a few seconds before scooping her into my arms and taking her straight into the nearest living room. This was the only Grayson Owen property that wasn‘t on the luxury houses, magazine hadn’t been featured in movies and has no security cameras.

I look around the majestic corridors of the Gray's mansion to distract myself from my racing thoughts and heavy guilt, which proves to work like a charm as I'm soon mesmerized by its grandeur. The floor is covered in vintage tiles, the walls made of deep brown shiny wood, and the ceilings as high as a rich person's ego. The walls are covered in an array of beautiful and weird paintings probably worth more money than ill ever see or touch in this lifetime. Fascinated and mostly confused about why a painting of a monkey licking its privates would be expensive, I don't sense Fiona Gray's presence until her voice, mere inches from my ear, almost makes me jump out of my skin.

Finally getting to the Gray mansion, Eve stopped the car right in front of the main mansion not bothering to part rightly before cling out of the car followed by Ella. “Welcome back, Miss Gray.” “Welcome back.” The servants greeted them as they walked into the mansion. Staring at each one of them, she nodded. Their innocent faces would make it so hard for her to find who the offender was but no matter what, she was going to find out who it was that tried and is still trying to send her father to the afterlife.

Every step and movement you make, is in perfect sync with the sonorous beats and resounding underlaid music as you dabble over to the window, to watch the performance of a little bard: a bird, chirping it's sweet melodies, in rhythms that leaves you wrapped in a very familiar reality of pink and gold. Fortunately, background choirs, singing Nightingales, and a good day, are only the fairytales princesses get to live in, unlike Adrian McCleron. The only montages he heard every other morning were the sounds of his beating heart, quarrelling neighbors, or a scurrying rat. Today, what brought him to his unverse with nothing but the smell of dirty laundry, and a mold-growing over due popcorn, was

"They pulled a liter of fluid out of your pleural space. They said the cells they found weren't just inflamed. They were... changing. Crystallizing." "The Grey," I whispered. My voice was a ghost of itself, a raspy tear in the quiet room. "My body is turning into a monument to a pack that hates me. Funny, isn't it?" Silas finally looked at me. His amber eyes were flat, devoid of the pity I’d grown to loathe. "It’s inefficient. You’re no use to me as a corpse, Elara. We have a bridge to build and an empire to dismantle." He stood up and walked over, placing a thin, sleek laptop on my over-bed table. He didn't offer a hand to help me reach it. He knew I’d rather crawl across broken glass than

Not even myself. I just… went. One train. Two connecting cars. A half-day of silence and cold air blasting through tinted windows. I wasn’t sure what I was chasing. Closure, maybe. Or a ghost. The Grey House stood far from the world. No billboards. No road signs. Just a lonely driveway choked with weeds and soot. I climbed the rest on foot. My shoes hit gravel that used to be a red-carpeted entry. My hair whipped against my cheeks. The sky above was choked in gray — fitting.

I love the cold air and the changing leaves, the smell of the vendors’ honey-roasted nuts, the rumble of the subway beneath my feet. We have left Gray behind in the brownstone, affectionately referred to as the money pit. We bought it cheap by New York City standards, but we’ll be renovating indefinitely, tearing it apart inside to re-create it, to make it ours. This is something with which I’m quite familiar. In the meantime Gray is using the top floor as the office for his private-investigation firm. He already has a few clients. I’ll be happy if his desk doesn’t fall through the ceiling onto our bed below.

were disinterested. - Track taken? - asked the red wolf. - Not x * d was to take! - Gray answered him, returning to duty. - Their car all farted, and then the cops stinked and stole everything! he added, and spat angrily on the ground. How many have you checked? - Few! - Gray spat again and took out a cigarette from behind his ear. “Four blocks from the house in all directions,” he added, lighting a cigarette. - What house? - said the wolf.

Strange how fast a house can start feeling like somewhere you live. Gray was in the kitchen with his apron on. Crew was at the table again, laptop still open, existing in the kitchen for reasons I had stopped trying to understand. Then Gray's phone rang. He looked at the screen. "It's Dad." He looked around, hands full, and held out the pot handle toward Crew. "Can you watch this for me? I'll be right back." Crew opened his mouth. Gray was already gone. Crew looked at the pot. Then at me.

Cyrus was always like that growing up, he treated Kyle and I like crap and always got our dad to follow every word he said. Gray looking down at me with a smile snaps me out my thoughts, I just send a tiny one back as we pull up to a row of quite big houses, they had steps leading up to each door with black railings. The bricks were a deep red colour with huge windows at the front, they looked rather Victorian era type houses, but also with a modern sense to them.