Page 18 of Dead Vengeance

That raven, still there. And it taps. Tap, tap, tap, but fast this time, and with its beak it’s pointing directly at the chandelier.

Tinkle, tinkle.

“He’s alive!” I move without thought, muscles coiling to tear the thing off him.

But Archer’s hand curls around my biceps and wrenches me back sharply. “Don’t do it.”

I narrow my eyes at him in as exaggerated a manner as I can sum up right about now. “We need to help him! He’s stuck! He’s—”

“Hooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhhh.” The same sound we heard before—the same sound that seemed, to me, as if it were coming from that ghost. Only this time it’s coming from beneath the chandelier.

My tendons seize, full bodily indecision halting me.

Go to him! Help!

Yet something feels… off. Something that holds me back, like a ghostly hand on my shoulder.

It’s more than being in a haunted house where I just watched a ghost loosen a chandelier and drop it on my dickish coworker’s head.

It’s everything. That raven, staring intently at his body. Archer, still holding me firmly by the arm. And that ghost. Where the hell is that ghost?

Another tinkle, only sharper this time, then the whole chandelier gives a shudder, every tiny bauble shifting, knocking together, swaying back and forth.

With one enormous crash, the chandelier rolls to the side then slams down on the floor to reveal the mess beneath.

He’s flat, broken, blood everywhere.

Raul’s dead. There’s no doubting it. He’s smashed to pieces, chest caved in, ribs sticking out, brains on the floor, dead.

Archer steps in front of me, his shoulder immediately blocking my view, his hands reaching around behind him to press me back. It’s like he’s… protecting me?

I’m supposed to be the one fighting ghosts here, protecting him. But I can’t pretend I’m not grateful for it, that I don’t want to dip down behind him, press my head to his handsome back and let him fend off whatever other nasties are lurking in this house.

Which is a slightly odd thought, actually, considering we just met.

And considering my colleague is pasted all over his floor.

But the weirdest thing of all is, he’s still calm. His hands still aren’t shaking. He’s not grabbing me, screaming, trying to run out the door. He’s… holding me behind him.

Registering these billion thoughts as best I can, I dart a foot out to the side, moving fast, because something tells me Archer doesn’t want me to do that, and why not?

Sure enough, eyes on the body, his hand snaps out to halt me, but I’ve already stepped too far for his reach.

“Liam!” he hisses. “It’s not safe!”

“I know it’s not fucking safe!” I hiss back at him. “A ghost just squashed Raul!” I’ve already lunged for the door as I’m yelling, “I’m getting the fuck out of here!” I wrap my hands around the golden door handle and try to turn it, but it barely moves, rattling beneath my hands to no effect. I turn the little button on the knob, but it still won’t budge. “Let me out of here!”

“Kraa!” yells the raven, tapping at the window, and I slam a hand down on the door, trying with everything I have to get it to open.

“Hooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhhh.”

I freeze, every hair on my body standing to attention. There’s a wet, squelching sound behind me. The feeling of being watched slides all over me like molasses. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to look.

“Liam, come to me,” says Archer, voice still demonstrably low and calm, but a little faster, a little more clipped, like he’s implying exactly what I’m thinking. ‘Don’t look. No matter how bad the urge, you are going to regret it if you look.’

But I’m only human.

I turn to Archer, really I do, move for the one person who might actually know how to get out of this place, but when I do, he’s there, in my peripheral vision, and the sight, the understanding, is so shocking, so compelling, that I have to look.