Page 16 of Dead Vengeance

“What did you think I was going to do with it?” Raul yells back.

“Can we talk about this?” I attempt. “We don’t need to do anything just yet. Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”

But as if it’s trying to prove me wrong, the darkness shifts again. It moves faster, sweeping over every surface, until it enshrouds us completely.

“Kraa!” yells the raven.

A cold descends. A thick, damp chill that seeps through my clothes, into my bones. And it builds. It’s heavy and it’s freezing, and then suddenly, I’m flying through the air. It’s like a burst of icy wind just hit me, blew me off my feet. Pain cracks through my hip, my shoulder, as I crash down onto the floor. Then a weight, warm and heavy, smelling quite good, when Archer slams down next to me.

“Fuck!” he exclaims. His nice hand falls on my hip. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah?” I don’t know why I said it. I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on, and I’m scared shitless. But I’m not injured, and something very weird is happening, and I don’t know what else to say.

“Raul, put the gun down now!” Archer yells. He tries to climb to his feet, but that ice wind hits us again, and he slams back into me.

“Not a fucking chance,” Raul responds, and he steps forward into the centre of the room, the chandelier swaying over him in the weird breeze.

His voice turning ragged, Archer throws his gaze on the stairwell. “Please go. Please. Please leave us, and we will fix this!”

“Hooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhhh,” comes some deep and horrifying sound. Not words. Some moan that I feel deep in my gut. And then that darkness on the stairs begins to glow.

I’m transfixed. This is really happening.

Some human-like form comes into view, from a shoe, a nice one, a pressed trouser leg, and up. A male form, a man wearing a blue suit like… like he’s stepped straight out of a Jane Austen adaptation. He’s tall and he’s blond, hair looking like it’s been carefully curled for a ball.

I push up to sitting, my mouth open at the sight, though not a word breaks free.

He comes forward, to the very bottom of the stairs, and he’s… he’s smiling. He’s smiling a lopsided and goading smile, exactly as if he’s saying to Raul, ‘Go on. I fucking dare you.’

Archer’s thinking exactly the same thing as I am. I know he is because he says, “Raul, if you don’t put that gun down right now, he’s going to kill you.”

But Raul, too smug or too stupid to heed the warning, smiles back at the ghost. “You think I’m giving up that under-two-hour-kill bonus? Not a chance in hell.”

His fingers squeeze on the trigger. The chandelier tinkles overhead.

“No!” shouts Archer.

There’s a deafening crash and a deluge of dust, and the next thing I know, the chandelier’s on the floor and Raul’s blood is at my feet, seeping across the rug like an ocean of red.

six

Well, Fuck

Archer

That’s not a good start to the day.

seven

It Gets Worse

Liam

Bright white panic takes me.

Raul’s dead. Raul’s fucking dead. And a fucking ghost just killed him.

Ghosts are real, and Raul is dead, and how the fuck did I get here in the middle of it all?