Chapter 6
Lynx
She won’t stop fucking crying.
The girl has been ruining my already sour mood for what must be hours.
My ears are fucking ringing.
Strolling around the top floor didn’t drown it out—not even when I went to the opposite side of the manor to keep hunting for a way out of this shithole. I was seconds from walking past the property line at a different angle, then appeared right back in front of the girl.
Like every other time, she was kneeling beside her corpse, sobbing, muttering a string of unintelligible words to herself.
Even with her swollen eyes and messy hair, I can acknowledge that she’s pretty.
It’s not often I come across someone who makes me look at them for longer than a second; someone who makes me feel something other than disgust or fear.
But it’s not something I’m going to think too much on given I feel like ripping out her vocal cords so she shuts the fuck up.
Leaning back in the armchair, I cross my ankle over my knee and watch the halfwit lose her shit—I manage a few brain-bleeding minutes before I feel like cracking her skull open. I screw my eyes closed and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“If you don’t stop crying and start talking, we’re going to have a serious problem here.”
I need to leave this place. I’ve likely left enough demonic residue from using my powers for a Tor’Oth to sniff me out. If the soul sucker doesn’t track me down and drag me back where I belong, I’m certain I’ll randomly burst into flames and appear there anyway.
In the meantime, I watch my little summoner and contemplate what I should do next. She’s afraid and confused and, shockingly, won’t look me in the eye. Me. Her killer. The reason she keeps walking through walls and blubbering even more about it.
What I want to know is why?
Why summon me? If she was just messing around, playing with forces she doesn’t understand, I might just kill her again for her stupidity. It wouldn’t be hard—I barely used much of my strength to snap that pale, slim neck of hers, and her head all but went rolling.
Yet again, she stumbles to her feet and dashes from the room. My head tilts to the side as she drifts back into the room through the wall after a few minutes of trying to leave.
Frozen in place, she stares at her hands, trembling in horror. Words seem to fail her as her pretty, pouty lips move yet make no sound.
Finally. Silence.
She should keep this up.
Unfortunately, I’m the one to break it.
“It seems we’re both trapped here,” I say.
The dead thing flinches, her frantic stare snapping up to me.
Fuck. Even her eyes—light brown—are pretty. They aren’t quite dead like her soul has left her body, but they almost look empty, like she’s never had a soul. They glisten with tears, and I watch as another one slips down her cheek, tracing her pale skin before curving into her lips.
Then the worst happens.
She lets out a single, nauseating, irritating, absolutely fucking ear-bleeding sob.
Hell was preferable to this.
Making humans cry was only enjoyable when I was actively causing their torment. This inconsequential-tears nonsense is rather… unrewarding, one might argue.
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here, or are you going to keep running around this godforsaken place and assaulting my ears?”
Her mouth opens and closes, and she looks between the wall she came through and me.
As she moves, dark strands of hair fall from her shoulder to cascade down her back, thick and grabbable.
Not that I would attempt to fuck a ghost, as much as Tony would love the gossip and the details.
He’d probably high-five me for the rest of our miserable existences.
When I was down there, I didn’t have the chance to properly look at people—I’m more focused on surviving minute to minute, as one might expect is required when one lives in Hell.
They play games down there. Torture for fun. It’s a constant fight for survival, with the occasional orgy.
So this teary-eyed girl—all innocent looking and full of fear—is probably the only person who hasn’t tried to kill me in the last few decades. It’s rather disappointing. Tony has even killed me a couple of times while in his hellhound form.
I’ve done the same to him, as friends do.
We’ve learned to get along, since we bunk together. But he’s a pain in my ass, and the annoyance running through me right now reminds me of all those times I’ve had to sit with him while he ranted about his past life and how he doesn’t belong in Hell.
His kill record before he died begs to differ.
As was his copious consumption of the Devil’s lettuce—a ridiculous name.
It doesn’t grow down there.
“I can’t be dead,” she repeats for the hundredth time.
I sigh. She’s as dumb as Tony too. Probably dumber. Maybe I can summon him here, demand he shift into his hellhound form and maul her. That’d make for decent entertainment.
She disappears from the room again, and her crying turns into hyperventilating screams. I press my fingers to my ears then bring my hand in front of my face. Not bleeding.
Could’ve fooled me.
My gaze drops to the stuff beside her body—a book catches my attention. It’s thick, tattered, and looks like it’s hundreds of years old.
I pick it up, brows furrowing as I open it to a page about blood rituals, summoning spells, and ways to speak to the dead.
We were told in Hell that sometimes we might be called into the world of the living to carry out a task, and if we completed it, we would be rewarded. With what? Fuck knows.
Tony likes to call it Hell’s version of jury duty. He went into great detail about what exactly that is and bored me to death. Regardless, what the fuck is this girl doing with a book like this? She hardly looks like a witch or like she had a death wish, despite her graying body at my feet.
Maybe she is a witch?
My nostrils twitch. She doesn’t smell like one.
Either way, I deserve to know why she summoned me and how she plans on sending me back with one of her spells. Or better yet, let me get the ever-loving fuck out of this house.
I slam the book shut and realize the crying has finally stopped.
Good. I need answers—only then can I plan my next move.
I search the manor again, growing more and more impatient until I walk into the dining room and find her staring at a chair in silence.
The thump of the grimoire landing on the already cracked oak table doesn’t make her jump. Nope. She’s still staring at the chair, shaking, and I sigh at her bloodshot eyes. I’ve never come across someone who cries so much. She could fill the damn Styx with her tears.
I snap my fingers in front of her face. “Hello? Anyone home? Earth to dead girl?”
Nothing. The lights are on, but no one’s home.
I scoff. “Of all the spirits that could’ve haunted me, why did it have to be you?”
“I can’t sit on the chair,” she says, voice quiet and despondent, as if sitting on something is the biggest issue right now.
Tough shit, princess.
I ignore her dramatics and stab the book with my finger. “What the fuck is this?”
The threat of violence laced through my tone does nothing to get her attention.
She reaches out to touch the table, only her hand doesn’t make contact, going right through.
Her bottom lip quivers, and my patience snaps.
I flip the table—big enough to fit at least ten people—catapulting everything on it across the floor.
Then I round on her, getting right up in her face.
“Why the fuck am I here? If you don’t tell me or give me some sort of explanation, I will kill you again. Don’t call my bluff because I’m in no mood for games.”
Her eyes widen as I barge into her with my chest, pushing her back a few steps. “Words. Now.”
She lifts a trembling hand between us, attempting to place it on my chest, but I capture her wrist before she can touch me.
“Am I not making my threat clear enough?”
“You… y-you can touch me?” Her watery gaze slips from where our skin is touching to my eyes.
My grip falters. I let go of her and back away. “Unfortunately.”
Was it not obvious when I snapped her neck those several times? I’m stuck here with the most dim-witted ghost in existence.
She pissed me off when she was alive, and somehow she’s worse now.
“I’m going to count to ten, and you’re going to tell me what I want to know. Nod if you understand.”
She doesn’t. Because of course she doesn’t.
Her nostrils flare like she’s going to cry. Again.
“Ah, ah, ah.” I cover her mouth with my hand before she can make a sound. “No sounds. I said… nod.”
She does.
Was that so hard?
“Where did you get the grimoire from?” I ask, wanting to start light before I get into the deeper stuff. “Are you a witch?” Or was she, before I killed her.
Despite being scared, she scowls at me. “Of course not.”
I grab the chunky book and wave it in her face. “Where did you get this?”
Her lips press together, and she looks away.
God. I want to throttle her, but I also enjoy this attitude—there’s not only annoyance running through my dead veins but also a touch of excitement. No one has given me this shitty behavior in a long time. I want more, but more importantly, I need fucking answers.
“Why summon me?”
Nothing.
A Tor’Oth could be on the way given the number of times I’ve used my powers and left demonic residue in my wake—I’ll be dragged away before I can figure out how to get free from this prison.
I need answers. And I need them now.
“I can’t finish my deed unless I know why I’m here.” Not that I want to return to Hell, but she doesn’t need to know that. Also, there’s a huge chance this is a test. I could be stuck in mental torture right now, and I need to focus.
Instead, I press my thumb down where it’ll hurt. “How does it feel to be dead?”
Her small hands fly up to my shoulders, and I don’t have a second to react before her knee rams between my legs, making my stomach twist and my body collapse to the ground.
Despite the pain in my groin, I grab her ankle before she can get too far from me. She falls forward. My plan of strangling her quickly goes to shit as I watch her vanish through the floor.
Annoyance has my shoulders rising. This girl is a goddamn headache.
It takes me ten minutes to find her. She didn’t fall through one floor. No. Being the dramatic ass she is, she decided to plummet all the way to the fucking basement.
Her body lies limp on top of a broken table she’s obviously smashed through. Her back is at a funny angle, arched up so much I know she’s broken her spine.
So her body isn’t entirely impervious to the real world. Maybe she fell unconscious and it’s the unawareness that had her colliding with the table?
Not that I care.
Huffing, I lift her into my arms, light as a feather either from her ghostliness or the fact that I’m stronger than anything natural.
Her hair hangs over my arm, the strands long and a mix of contrasts, and I find myself inhaling, surprised by the evidence of strawberry-scented shampoo that’s followed her past the grave and the way I feel myself relaxing somewhat.
She groans against me as I take her upstairs and into the nearest bedroom, her small hand reaching up to grip at my shirt, but I drop her just before she can make any form of contact.
There’s no thump.
It takes me a long second to realize what’s happened. I stare at the empty space on the ground where she should be.
My jaw tenses.
She fell through the fucking floor. Again.