Chapter 8
Lynx
One blink, then a second, and on the third, the girl is still face down in the dirt. My head tips. What the fuck just happened? One minute she’d turned to me and used that breathy voice of hers to attempt an apology, then the next, she tumbled not so gracefully to the ground.
I didn’t even try to catch her.
Her clumsiness reminds me a lot of someone I haven’t seen or spoken to in a long, long time—a memory I push aside, breathing deeply.
Maybe that’s why I feel the need to check her pulse.
Like I’m seeing a younger version of myself, hearing an innocent voice asking me to tie his shoes.
Or maybe the sentiment is because I haven’t interacted with a human in a while, outside of Hell, and her soul reminds me of life.
The dead are normal to me now. The living are the minority. Not that she’s living. But she’s freshly dead, so it’s basically the same thing.
I sniff and avert my eyes to the canopy of the trees, caging us from the morning sun.
Huffing, I crouch down, using my middle finger to poke her side, and of course the fucking human-turned-dead-girl is unconscious.
“I’m not going to carry you back to the manor,” I warn, hoping she’ll groan and sit up.
I wait for a long, dragged-out beat before I roll my eyes and shove my sleeves up to the elbows. She’s not heavy when I lift her from the dirt—even with the deadweight and lolling head, I can’t help but pause as I stare at her.
“If you can hear me, you’re an idiot.”
Nothing. I don’t think she’s even breathing.
Whatever’s going on here, I don’t like it.
It’s been a few hours since I was summoned, and I have next to no answers as to why the fuck I’m here—all this girl is doing is crying, dying, or passing out. If her plan was to bring me here and piss me off for a bit of fun, then it’s working.
The irritation in my gut intensifies when I look down.
And I especially don’t like the fact that I’m carrying her back to the house.
My foot hits a branch, and my arms tighten around her so I don’t drop her. A tick starts in my jaw. I should’ve let her fall.
My gaze drops to look at her, tucked against me. A strand of hair is trapped between her lips. They aren’t blue yet, but since I’ve never met a ghost before, I’m not sure if that will happen. She’ll still be pretty though.
I nearly trip over my feet at that thought and how it’s now my second time thinking it. But I’m not fucking blind. She is pretty. If we met in the real world and weren’t both categorically dead, I reckon I’d try to talk to her or stare at her—either works.
I throw her over my shoulder so I can’t see her face. There’s a solution to everything.
At this time of day, the sun shines on the long glass windows of the building—some are stained with colors, designs I only ever saw on the rich houses back when I was alive.
Typical I’d be trapped here.
The place is spread over numerous wings and four floors, its stone painted black. And why do they need so many chimneys? Who sweeps them? It would take them a decade.
For being abandoned, the yard is littered with flowerbeds. I can smell the plants as I carry her through the back entrance of the manor, up to a room with boarded-up windows and a single cot in the middle. Weird, but everything about this situation is fucking weird.
An abnormally large clock stands in the corner of the room, ticking louder than necessary. The glass face is smashed, and the wood is coated in dust.
I set her down on the sheetless cot and start to look for a blanket, but then I pause and shake my head at the idiocy. She can’t get cold. She’s dead.
My gaze drifts from her face, all the way down to her dirt-covered boots.
She isn’t vertically challenged, yet she only reaches my shoulder.
Other than getting my dick wet or gripping it hard enough to hurt when my roommate is out, I haven’t gotten much pleasure in years—that must be why my heart rate is starting to pick up its pace and make me step back.
I can’t find her attractive. I can’t imagine what her bare legs look like under her pants or acknowledge the way her covered tits are catching far too much of my attention to be healthy.
Against my need to keep staring at her, to move the hair from her face or run the pad of my thumb across her plump lips, I fist my hands and turn my back to the girl, leaving her lying on the cot as I head back to where I was summoned.
I search the surroundings once more, hunting for something that could indicate a way for me to be released from this prison. My attention snags on a brown wooden box beside the girl’s body. It’s the only thing in here that isn’t broken.
The lid doesn’t give, but one whiff is all I need to know it’s burnt human remains.
Grimacing, I set the urn back where I found it. Safe to assume that’s the sister ghost girl mentioned before fainting.
I frown at the physical version of her. The corpse’s neck is still at the same crooked angle, but her skin color has changed. There’s something not right about leaving her body there.
Shaking my head, I step over her slowly decaying corpse and leave the room. It’s not my problem. My footsteps echo around the manor until I reach the dining room.
The grimoire mocks me from its place on the table. I flip through its pages, searching for some type of reversal, or a spell to set me free, but given the mix of languages and symbols, I have no idea what I’m doing.
When I find the page she used, I read through the text, my brows knitting together as I try to sound out the incantation. My Latin is piss-poor on a good day, but I’m at least slightly better at hearing it than reading it.
From my limited understanding, the symbols create a safe portal through the dimensions, allowing a spirit to come to this plane. That’s all I get. There’s no fine print, or caution notes, or a proper explanation of what the spell does beyond “calling a spirit.”
My chest fills with air as I close my eyes and say the words again, peeking one eye open to see absolutely nothing happening.
I kick the closest thing to me, sending a basket filled with blankets across the room.
She needs to wake up and do the spell. She did it once—she can do it again. Presumably. Her being dead and all might pose an issue.
There’s a chance when she does, a portal will open, and a soul sucker will come for me. I’d rather rip my own balls off than deal with one of them again.
On the other hand, I could get her to summon Dylan to find out for certain whether or not he’s alive.
To do it or not to do it? Decisions, decisions.
But I can’t leave this godforsaken place until I sever the curse tying me to her. If she weren’t stuck on the property, it’d be easy enough to haul her around to where I need to go. Obviously, that isn’t a possibility though.
All she needs to do is break the link between us and I can be on my way. That’s all. I don’t know what year it is or how long I’ve been stuck in the limbo of Hell, but my brother might still be out there.
A lump builds in my throat. This is the closest I’ve been to answers. When I was in Hell, I had nothing to go off. Now, I’m in the same world as him. I can find him—if he’s still here.
Two things need to happen right now. First, I need a weapon, in case a demon comes to drag me back to Hell. And second, I need to try not to kill this girl again when she starts crying about… whatever the fuck she’s been crying about.
My eyes dart around the room and land on a chair. That’ll do. I break the leg off and use the rough edge of the brick wall to sharpen it into a point.
I press the pad of my finger to the tip, pulling away at the sting. Fine, it might not be sharp enough to take out a Tor’Oth, but at least it’ll slow them down.
I grip the grimoire in one hand and the stake in the other, and storm through the house to return to the room where I left the ghost. My feet pause in the doorway, and I watch her rub her arms as if she’s cold, scared, worried about what I may do to her.
She looks mildly irritated that I’m still here.
Fucking ditto.
But it’s good. She should be fucking terrified of me and the situation we’re in.
“Last chance to talk,” I say, snapping each word and making her jump to her feet. “You’re one more excuse away from me splitting your skull open. I don’t have enough patience for this—”
“You were supposed to be my sister!” she cries out in frustration, interrupting me. “I wanted her, and I got you.”
My brows rise at the way she sneers the last word. She’s got fire. “Keep going.”
Her lip trembles, her glassy eyes dropping to the makeshift weapon in my hand.
“Are you going to kill me again?”
“Undecided. I could be convinced into not hurting you if you give me something other than vague, useless answers.”
Great. She’s going to cry again. Can I kill myself instead?
“M-my—” She clears her throat tiredly, and suddenly all the emotion on her face melts away to nothingness. Interesting. “My sister is dead.”
“As are you,” I add, making her flinch. I kind of regret it.
“Let me guess. You thought you could speak to her using, what? Witchcraft bullshit? Instead, you summoned a demon and now you don’t know what to do about it.
” I grit my teeth. “If you say yes, I will kill you again because that means you have no idea how to break this fucking curse and free me from being stuck here with you.”
I hope I’m wrong. Because if she can do a summoning spell, I could at least find out if Dylan is alive or dead. He was, or is, a good kid; he would never have ended up trapped in Hell, so if a summoning spell didn’t work, it would mean his heart is still beating. That I could find him…
My lips nearly part. I want to ask her the year, but the look on her face stops me.
Her hard eyes flicker to the ground, and there goes all my hope of getting away from her.
“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think it would even work. I-I—” She clears her throat, and my forehead wrinkles watching a trickle of venom etch into her features. It transforms her into another person. “I had no idea what I was doing.”
So much authority for such a pathetic slip of a thing.
I hate that I felt an ounce of hope and she squashed it in just eight fucking words. She didn’t know what she was doing, so the likelihood of her being able to do it again—and for her killer no less—is extremely low.
Tony’s going to be losing his mind by now. I’m his only acquaintance in Hell and the only one who puts up with not only his shifting, but his bubbly, social-butterfly personality. He might even kill this girl himself if he ever lays eyes on her.
I narrow my gaze at that thought. No. If anyone is going to kill this insufferable girl, it’s me.
Again.
Permanently.
Somehow.
But that’s a future me issue.
“Fix this.” I nod to the heavy book in my hand.
Her pulse is hammering in her throat. I can see it fluttering away; see her deep swallow. Why the fuck am I staring?
“How many more times do I need to tell you that I can’t?
” she yells, waving her hands about like it’ll drive home her point.
“I can’t, okay? I don’t know what the fuck I did or why the fuck you’re here.
I. Don’t. Know. Throwing threats around is a waste of your breath and a waste of my time.
So either get off my back with this shit or give me back my book so I can finish what I started. ”
I straighten at her tone. No lesser being has spoken to me like that since I was human. They haven’t dared. She’s either bold or stupid. Probably both. Entertained is the last thing I should feel, yet here we are.
“No,” I reply simply.
Her brows jump, incredulous. “No?”
“Can you break this fucking link between us?” I snap, stepping forward.
Her shoulders rise in a shrug.
A shrug.
Fuck. This fucking girl. She doesn’t even grace me with a verbal response before trying to grab the book from my hand. I lift it above my head, so unless she wants to climb me like a tree, then she’s screwed.
“How do you expect me to break the link if you won’t give me the grimoire back?”
“How do I know you’re not going to open another portal and let them come for me?”
That gets her interest. “Who?”
“None of your goddamn business. I don’t trust you. I don’t like you. I don’t want to be fucking tethered to you and leashed like a bloody fucking dog, so unless you can guarantee you can break it, then you’re shit out of luck.”
Her shoulder hits into my side when she pushes past me, leaving me in the room with the book still raised above my head.
I stare at the space she occupied. I’m not sure which I prefer—a dead girl who’s scared of me or a ghost slowly realizing she can terrorize me back.