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He raised a second finger. “Pain?”
“Why would I want pain?”
Reaper held up three fingers. “Blood?”
The spirit crossed his arms and turned away. “Ahhhhh, fuck.”
Reaper’s smile spread wide across his face, dark and malicious. “You want blood, little specter? I can get you blood.”
The ghost grimaced and tried not to look at us. We ignored his tortured demeanor and waited for his response. The atmosphere grew heavy with anticipation until, finally, he peeked. “Okay, fine. You have three choices. You can hand over your most beloved to me.”
I gasped. “Our most beloved what?”
It peered at me with a sneering air as if I was the stupidest person he’d ever had to deal with in his afterlife. “Relation. Friend, family, pet.”
“No!” I yelped. I would never give up Addie. She was all I had, and I’d rather die than put her in any danger. It was out of the question completely.
Reaper gave a sharp nod. “I agree. What else?”
The specter rubbed its hands together, a glint in its eyes telling that this was its favorite option. “For the past hundred years, there’s been the spirit of an annoying child running around here. It’s maddening to hear it sobbing and whining all the time. I want you to find it and trap it in the basement for the Zagreiver.”
“What’s that?”
“Devourer of souls,” explained Reaper.
I gasped. “No way!”
“It’s not a happy soul. You’d be doing it a favor.”
I thought about that. The soul of some child, trapped in this place for who knew how long. Surely, someone should have helped it by now. But no. Not a single compassionate soul had passed through in all that time. The thought of this sad kid lurking endlessly didn’t sit right with me. An end to the poor child’s suffering would be better than its continued torture, but I couldn’t do it. “No. What else?”
The spirit groaned begrudgingly. “You both bring me the head of a contestant.”
The magnitude of its words coiled around us like a boa constrictor, filling me with a sickening sense of horror. I didn’t like it, but I knew I’d have to kill people in here. I had to get used to it. I stretched my fingers, wiggling them to try to loosen up. Or at least make a start at it.
“We can do that,” Reaper declared. He turned to me. “That’s what we’re here for anyway, right?”
I nodded, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The room seemed to spin as I struggled with the burden of our decision. Fear and uncertainty seeped from every corner, joining with the metallic tang of blood that seemed to stain the very walls of the haunted mansion-turned-hotel.
Warring with the impossible decision and with a heavy heart, I knew that any choice we made would come with dire consequences.
With dread coursing through my veins, I agreed to the last option. But as we prepared to rush off to complete our grisly task, the asshole specter stopped us. A chilling command that made my skin crawl. “Each,” it intoned, voice dripping with malice and hanging in the air like a death sentence.
Realization hit me like a gravestone, filling me with a sickening sense of trepidation as the extent of the entity’s demand seeped in.
Reaper and I exchanged a silent glance of resignation, and without a word, Reaper stepped forward, confidence and determination etched in his face. “I won’t be long,” he told me. Then he turned to the ghost. “You must agree to keep her safe while I’m gone.”
The ghost frowned at first, but the expression quickly morphed into an ironic, malicious grin. “I’ll try.”
“I’ll find a way to end your miserable, tenuous existence if she’s harmed.”
“I should be so lucky. As a contestant, she should be capable of protecting herself.”
That’s when the light in my eyes flared a bright white.Reaper at the end of a long tunnel of shadow, covered in blood, gripping the hair of a stark white head dripping with crimson liquid, its eyes hazed and unseeing, tongue hanging out. Reaper was stalking toward me, a triumphant look in his eyes.
I nudged him with my elbow. “It’s fine. Go.”
Reaper peered at me, a glimmer of understanding relaxing his shoulders. “I need to make sure you’ll be okay. Are you sure? What did you see?”
