Chapter Twenty-Eight
We had no trouble getting into Sterling Hills.
The guard in the gatehouse peered into the car, checked his computer screen, and then the heavy gates began to slide open.
During daylight hours when traffic in and out was heavier, they’d leave the gates open and use only a barrier arm to keep out the riffraff.
I was no stranger to gated communities, but Sterling Hills screamed money. It had none of the careful watchfulness of a gated wolf or other supernatural village, but I had no doubt there were many secrets hiding inside the immaculate, stately homes.
And I was about to get up close and personal with one of them. I grabbed my bag of supplies from the back of the car, making a mental note to restock when I got home.
Keith was waiting out front, pacing in his wrinkled designer shirt, looking both hopeful and terrified at the same time. “Leah is with Mila,” he told me, giving Joe a nod.
He didn’t waste time on small talk, but led us over beautiful, dark oak floors toward a modern staircase with gleaming steel railings.
I caught a glimpse of a massive, open-concept great room, gorgeous framed family photos, and the warmth of lived-in spaces, despite the awfulness of a sick child and what may or may not have been an evil demon making her that way.
Mila’s bedroom was a little girl’s fairy-tale room.
Spacious with pink and white colors, a canopy bed draped in sheer, flowing fabric, and what looked like hand-painted murals of whimsical trees and castles on the far wall.
There were stuffies and dolls everywhere, but they were neatly contained and arranged.
A set of French doors led to a balcony. Against the footboard, a Pomeranian sat quietly on a deep, fuzzy dog bed.
A uniformed nurse slipped through a door across the room, where she’d likely stay until Joe and I left.
The room looked lovely, but my sensitive wolf’s nose picked up the underlying scent of sickness.
I’d been wrong in thinking Mila had a demon possession. Their intruder was definitely a ghost, and when I neared the bed and stared down at the little girl, I had to fight to keep my emotions in check.
She was curled up on her side, dark hair like her dad’s, pale skin like her mom’s. And Keith was right. She was fading.
Joe stood a little back, not wanting to be intrusive but close enough so that if I needed him, he could help. Leah and Keith hovered, but they were quiet. I was thankful that they knew to be quiet and let me work.
I sat on the edge of the bed but was careful not to touch Mila. I didn’t want the ghost to feel something or have any idea that I could see him. Not yet.
“Mila,” I murmured. “It’s going to be okay, honey.” I pulled my bag onto my lap and opened it, blindly searching for a ghost trap, which I placed beside me on the bed. I hoped the little dog wouldn’t eat it.
I stood, taking a small bag of salt with me, and began sprinkling it in a wide circle around the entire bed. “Don’t step on this,” I murmured, and the Kellys nodded to show they understood.
The salt circle was a few feet away from the bed, because if the spirit and I fought, I’d need some room to navigate the space. I didn’t want to stand on a bed and try to trap him.
I had to pour some between the headboard and the wall, and I poured it liberally, because I couldn’t see where it was going. I wanted to make sure there was enough to keep a very old, very deranged spirit from escaping.
If he escaped, he would find his way back to Mila eventually. No. This ghost was going to be sucked into a ghost trap and contained forever.
He had attached himself to the girl, wrapping around her like a wavering stole, his teeth buried in the side of her neck. He’d been young when he’d died, but much older when he’d been killed.
Once a human. Then a vampire.
When I’d walked around the bed, I’d seen that he’d been staked, and the point of the wood had gone all the way through him. The hole was still there, gaping and black.
Bastien had asked me once if I’d ever seen the spirit of a vampire. Vampires were divided in their beliefs. Some of them believed they didn’t get afterlives. When they got the true death, they simply ceased to exist in any way.
Some of them believed they got an afterlife of terror, horror, and agony. I believed Bastien was one of those. No matter what they believed, they feared what came after more than anything else.
An eternity of terror, or an eternity in a black void.
There was nothing else.
It was what vampires traded for their immortality.
It made them cling to life with extra determination. They believed they faced punishment for their sin of being a vampire, and it terrified them.
But now, for the first time in my life, certainly the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing happening, I was witnessing something extraordinary.
A vampire spirit.
Proof that perhaps vampires were like humans. They died, they went to their afterlife, they lived on in the spirit world. Not in lakes of burning fire and not an end.
Proof. Ghosts who wandered this physical realm, looking for food if they failed to cross over.
I wanted to talk to him so badly I could hardly contain myself. I wanted to ask him questions. Why was he the only vampire ghost I’d ever seen? What did he know? Did all vampires get that opportunity?
I couldn’t ask him, though, because saving that little girl’s life was more important than my curiosity or Bastien’s desperation.
I’d tell the master vampire what I’d seen there that night.
Maybe that would give him some peace.
I wanted to talk to the ghost, but I wanted to destroy him even more. He clung to Mila, his teeth in her flesh, and he was draining her dry. He was killing her, the monstrous bastard.
God help us all if more vampires managed to become ghosts and wander our realm after their true death.
God help us. And the longer I thought about it, the more horrified and less amazed I became.
Would every vampire ghost that failed to cross over need to attach to the living and drain their life force to… what? Remain a spirit?
Maybe all vampires crossed over after their death, just like the rest of us. Some of them could have gotten stuck here. But because he was the first vampire ghost I’d seen, it must have been a rare occurrence.
He appeared to be mostly comatose, at least while he drank. I doubted he ever stopped drinking. I activated the trap with my thumb, automatically reaching for my demon blade with my free hand.
But my demon blade wasn’t there, of course. I started to pull my hunter’s blade from its sheath but changed my mind. I’d thought of something else.
Something that might be, at least when it came to ghost trapping, even better.
Lennon’s wand.
Lennon’s wand could do to a spirit what a stake did to a living vampire. I believed the wand was essentially useless to me. It had belonged to a witchwolf, and it would only have worked for her.
I’d kept it hidden in a locked case for the longest time after Jared had given it to me, but then I’d put it in my bag after I’d lost my magic. I’d secured it with one of the leather bands attached to the bag so it wouldn’t get lost in the other items, and I had no trouble finding it.
I might not have magic, but the wand sure did.
Awful magic, true, but magic. And right now, I needed that.
I wouldn’t dwell on the fact that the wand needed Lennon powering it to make it more than a pretty but battered little stick.
Because of the witchwolf’s lingering power, it should at least be able to stake a vampire spirit.
Then I could suck him into the trap, put him away, and let him quietly fade into oblivion. Sort of like what he was doing to Mila.
“What do you see?” her mother whispered when I stood there silently staring a little too long. “Can you help her?”
I still didn’t want to alert the vampire, so I gave her what I hoped was a comforting smile over my shoulder and nodded. Then I put a finger to my lips.
Her eyes widened and she stepped closer to her husband. He put his arm around her, and they gazed at Mila, waiting. Hoping.
“Keith,” I murmured. “Get your little dog.”
He did, immediately.
Joe took another step toward the foot of the bed, his stare intense. He watched Mila too, but I didn’t think he was really seeing her. He was feeling the vampire, even if he didn’t know exactly what he was feeling.
He’d be affected by the news of a vampire afterlife, too.
I tossed what was left of the salt to Joe. “If any of it gets disturbed, refresh it.”
“Got it,” he replied.
And then, carrying the wand and the trap, I walked once again around the bed and sat down behind the ghost.
It felt like the whole house was holding its breath. There was a heaviness in the room, the heaviness of darkness smothering all the light, and it was tenacious, determined, and old.
But maybe, just maybe, I could handle him before he became aware and fought me.
With the trap in one hand, ready to suck the bastard to hell, I slid the wand across the bed and positioned it at his back. Not touching him, not yet.
I needed to center myself.
I put my stare on the gaping hole in his back. That was where I’d stake him. And as he yanked himself away from Mila and writhed in what I hoped would be severe agony, I’d shove the trap against his head. It would vacuum up the trash, freeing the child.
It took me a second to react when he flipped open his eyes, ripped his teeth from his chosen human’s neck, and flew into the air, hovering above the bed.
He didn’t try to escape, though. He didn’t want to leave the girl, as though to do so would end his afterlife.
He didn’t want to run.
He wanted to kill me.
And honestly, I felt his power, and I wasn’t too sure that he wouldn’t succeed.