Page 57 of Dead Vengeance

“Great, then.” My foot comes down hard on the next step. It’s not an angry sort of hard. It’s determined. Final. I’m here to hunt ghosts. I knew there would be supernatural things. I knew it would be scary. I agreed to do it. So I will do it.

And, what’s more, I just got a massive bonus for one day of spirit hunting. What will I get if I actually catch this thing?

From Gerald, a bigger bonus? A proud thank you? More work?

And from Archer…

I’d honestly just like to go for a pint with him. Somewhere sunny. One spring garden. Or some cosy fireplace. Or… or anything. Maybe if I could impress him by doing this job well, the idea of him ever seeing someone like me wouldn’t feel quite so ridiculous. If I held some worth for a man like him…

My mind’s turning over the possibilities as I climb up and up. The staircase is incredibly steep, and I feel like I’m higher already than it looked like it could get from the bottom.

It’s wooden, painted white, and there are gaps between the stairs where you can see right down to Archer’s gorgeous floorboards below. I notice the rug from yesterday is gone—the one that soaked up all Raul’s blood. There are no bloodstains on Archer’s floor. I wonder how long he spent cleaning that.

I’m glad it worked out for him. And for Raul.

I attain the top step with a bounce, encouraged by all I’ve got to gain, trying not to think too hard about what I’ve got to lose. Archer’s up, a second behind me, then he’s by my side here in the long, creepy hall.

“See how dark it is?” he says.

“Couldn’t hurt to turn on a light?” I suggest, a touch of humour in my voice.

Archer throws me a grin, a knowing look in his eye. “Watch,” he says. He reaches out, flips a light switch, and it comes on, it does, but it’s like someone pulled a shade screen in front of it. It comes on orange but dark, barely illuminating anything.

“And watch,” he continues, then steps off to the side and opens a door, revealing a bedroom. I can see the two tall windows that look out onto the glorious British countryside. I can see the blinds are up, the sun is shining. But the light… It’s a suggestion of light. It’s like the light itself is being gobbled up, stolen away.

“How is it doing that?” Because I assume it’s the creature taking the light somehow.

Archer, looking long down the hall to where all light disappears into a single void of pure black at the end, replies, “I don’t understand it. I don’t think we’re in an illusion, not yet. But it’s been like this since the day it arrived. This darkness, metaphorical and literal. Look.” He reaches across in front of me and opens another door, and it’s the same thing. Huge windows that should let in so much light, but it’s fading out before it reaches us, leaving just a suggestion of what should be there.

Even so… something about this bedroom catches more attention from me than the last room. That one was sparse, white, and clean, very nice, but it had the feel of a guest bedroom.

This one… The walls are a deep green, the rug thick and floral in pinks and greens to match. The furniture is old and wooden, as antique as everything else in this place, I guess. And the bed… the bed is enormous. Four-poster (of course), twisting carved beams reaching up and up to the slanted ceiling, all exposed wood again. The blankets look thick, the pillows soft and fluffy.

It’s a world away from where I sleep every night. A single bed in a small yellow room, sad and cold.

Part of me shrinks from it—the difference between our ways of living.

But another part of me wonders what it would be like to sleep in there. With him. Wonders what he sleeps in. I wonder if he sleeps with anything on. I wonder if his body is just as fit in the flesh as it looks through his clothes. I’d be willing to bet money he’s all soft skin and hard curves, all pure masculine heat on linen sheets. I wonder what his chest is like. His nipples. How he might respond if I bit them.

“Liam?” Archer’s voice, even as softly spoken as it is, shocks me back into the hallway. I actually jump and shout at the same time. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“The… Your… Your bed. You…”

Wrong fucking answer.

He moves even closer when he leans past me to look at it. “What about it?”

Fuck, the smell of him. His sweater brushes my hand and fuck, yes, it is very fucking soft. Soft, like I just know his sheets are. “You um…” I tilt my head back a little to stop myself from sniffing his neck. “You sleep… there?”

Me and my incredible wit. Here we go again. Nothing’s going to catch a guy like Archer better than this mouth of mine.

“Yes. I…” For a moment he pauses, like just he’s realised I’m some lovelorn employee he’s asked over to do a job but who’s thinking about him in his bed, and all the things I would like to do with him in his bed. Yes, it’s exactly that look on his face. I’m sure of it. Until he says, “Oh, no. It’s… Come inside.”

His hand brushes mine as he moves past, and I wonder if it’s deliberate. It can’t be. But it pulls me like a chain, like it’s beyond my ability to let there be any distance between us.

I step straight after him, and… into the light?

As we cross through the doorway, we seem to cross some invisible threshold, out of the dark. It’s absolutely flooded with light in here. About a metre from the door, and you’d never have known the shadow lived in the hall. I turn back. The doorway is black. So black I don’t want to go out there again.