by Paige Tyler
He looked as frightening as he had that night in her apartment, only now he had a set of ugly scars running down the side of his face from where she had scratched him. For some reason, they made him seem even more menacing. It was the look in his eyes that terrified her the most, though. They were cold and black and lifeless as they regarded her. Something told her if he got his hands on her this time, there would be no escape.
Presley swallowed hard. Yeah, well she wasn’t going down without a fight.
She darted a glance at the door, trying to gauge the distance between her and escape, when the lights suddenly flickered, then went off. She went rigid, afraid to so much as even breathe. Even more terrified than before, she strained her ears, listening for some sound in the darkness that would tell her where Del Vecchio was. But all she could hear was the sound of her heart pounding.
Then she felt a cool breeze against her skin, followed by the unmistakable ice cold feel of a knife blade graze her upper arm. She gasped and jerked away, instinctively reaching up to see if he’d cut her. She didn’t feel any blood but knew that was probably only a momentary respite. He was toying with her exactly as he had that night in her apartment. He would tire of that soon enough, she was sure.
Knowing she was as good as dead if she stayed where she was, Presley was about to take off blindly for the door when the lights abruptly came back on. She blinked at the brightness, looking around wildly for Del Vecchio, but the apartment was empty. Not wasting any time, she ran for the door only to stop in her tracks when the lights flickered again and Del Vecchio’s ghost suddenly materialized in front of her, blocking her path.
Presley’s first thought was to charge right through him, but then she remembered how solid Del Vecchio had felt when she’d bumped into him before. He wasn’t like the ghost she’d encountered last night. She wasn’t going to be able to run right through him. But there was no way to get around him, either.
She stared at him, racking her mind for everything she’d learned from Logan and Mav that weekend about fighting ghosts as she squared off against Del Vecchio. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a shotgun loaded with hematite and rock salt like Logan did. She had regular old table salt, though. Praying it would work as well as rock salt, she turned and ran back into the kitchen as fast as she could.
Unable to remember which cabinet she saw the salt in, she jerked open almost all of them until she found it. Grabbing the container, she raced to the kitchen doorway and frantically dumped a line of salt across the entryway like Logan had done on the bedroom of the first house they’d taken her to. When she was finished, she retreated back into the kitchen until she was against the counter farthest away from the doorway.
Del Vecchio either didn’t know he was supposed to have an aversion to salt or didn’t care because he strode across the living room toward the kitchen as if it wasn’t even there. Presley’s heart pounded as he came closer. If the trick with the salt didn’t work, she was dead.
But when Del Vecchio got to the doorway of the kitchen, he jerked to a halt inches from the salt and took an uneasy step back. Presley sagged back against the counter in relief.
Del Vecchio glared at her, his lip curling into a sneer. He didn’t say anything, but simply regarded her with an expression of pure hatred. She’d hoped when he couldn’t get past the salt, he’d leave, but now she realized how foolish that was. From the look on his face, it was obvious he wasn’t leaving until he got what he came for.
Presley glanced at her purse lying on the counter. It was a lot closer to the doorway and Del Vecchio than she would have liked, but she had no choice. Taking a deep breath, she slowly inched her way over to it.
Del Vecchio followed her movements as he paced back in forth outside the kitchen. When she got near the door, he eagerly took a step forward, but again the line of salt stopped him. Keeping one eye on him, Presley stretched for her purse. As soon as she got a hand on it, she hurried back to the far side of the kitchen and dug through it until she found her cell phone. She automatically started to dial 9-1-1, but then stopped. What the hell were the cops going to do, shoot a dead guy?
That was when she remembered Logan had called her last night. Finding his number in the recent calls, she thumbed the call button, praying he’d answer.
He picked up on the second ring. “Malone.”
“Logan, it’s Presley. Del Vecchio’s here.”
“Shit. Okay, just calm down. Where are you?”
“Home,” she said, quickly giving him the address and the apartment number. “I did the thing with the salt, but Del Vecchio’s got me trapped. I’m scared he’s going to kill me.”
“I’ll be there in five. Sit tight.”
Five? How the heck was Logan going to get there in five minutes from Sleepy Hollow? Then she realized he must still be in Stamford.
Thank God.
She opened her mouth to tell him to hurry, but the sound of a chuckle brought her head up. Her eyes went wide as Del Vecchio materialized through the wall to the left of her salt barricade and walked right into the kitchen.
Presley’s heart seized in her chest. Crap, she hadn’t thought about a ghost being able to do that.
* * * * *
Logan was just about to hang up when he heard a muffled scream quickly followed by a loud clatter. Then nothing.
“Presley!”
No answer.
Logan’s gut clenched. Cursing, he shoved his cell phone in the pocket of his jeans and floored the pedal on the Hummer, running a red light to get through the intersection. The other drivers honked their horns as they squealed to a stop, but he ignored them. There was no way he was going to let Presley die.
Five minutes later, he slid into the parking lot outside her apartment, running over an ornamental fence and a flower bed to come to a screeching halt a few feet from the front door. Jumping out of the SUV, he ran around to the back and grabbed his duffel bag full of gear. Throwing it over his shoulder, he raced up the steps and charged through the door into the building, scaring the hell out of two women carrying laundry baskets.
“Where are the stairs?” he demanded, not wanting to waste time with the elevator.
The women timidly pointed around the corner.
Logan didn’t thank them as he ran in that direction. He hit the steps hard, taking them three at a time. Once on the fourth floor, he ran down the hall, checking the room numbers on the doors as he went. When he came to the right apartment, he didn’t even bother to slow down. Instead, he kicked the door in as hard as he could, reaching into his bag for his shotgun as the frame splintered.
He looked left and right as he entered the apartment, but there was no sign of Presley. Logan’s blood ran cold at the scene that met his eyes. The living room looked as if a cyclone hit it. The couch and throw pillows were sliced to shreds, stuffing still floating through the air. The coffee table was lying on its side, as were the two end tables. The standing lamps alongside them had been on them were smashed to pieces along with practically everything else in the place. Even the walls had been slashed.
What the hell…?
“Presley?” Logan called.
“In here.”
Logan followed the sound of her voice until he came to the kitchen. Presley was standing in the center of the room inside a wobbly drawn circle of salt, ready to throw a handful of something in his face. She sagged with relief at the sight of him, letting the stuff in her hand trickle out onto the floor. That was when he realized she was holding a big container of oregano.
“Is he gone?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. Come on. I’m getting you out of here.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but simply slung the shotgun over his shoulder by the strap, then walked into the kitchen and swung Presley up in his arms.
She put one of hers around his neck. “Is it safe for me to leave the circle?”
“Yes. I’ll keep you safe. Trust me.”
Apparently, she must have believed him bec
ause she wordlessly cuddled the container of oregano close to her body and relaxed against his chest.
“You did great with the salt circle. It saved your life without a doubt,” he said. “But what’s up with the oregano?”
She looked at him with big, blue eyes. “Isn’t it what you use to get rid of ghosts?”
His mouth twitched. “That’s sage and garlic. You can ditch the spaghetti spice.”
“Oh,” was all she said.
Resting her head on his shoulder again, she let the container of oregano tumble to the floor, then put that arm around his neck, too.
Giving the place one more look to check for Del Vecchio, Logan carried her out of the apartment and right past the alarmed neighbors who’d come out into the hallway to see what the ruckus was all about. Logan imagined they got their money’s worth seeing a big guy with a shotgun and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder carrying a beautiful woman in his arms. He abruptly realized he probably should have taken a few minutes to let Presley grab some clothes. But then the lights in the hallway flickered and he decided he could get her whatever she needed later. Right now, all he wanted to do was get Presley someplace safe. And he knew exactly where to take her.
* * * * *
Presley didn’t relax until Logan pulled the Hummer out of the parking lot and they left Stamford in the rearview mirror. It occurred to her that she should probably ask where he was taking her, but right then she didn’t care. She wanted to get as far away from Del Vecchio’s ghost as she could. She’d never been so scared in her life, not even the night that bastard had tried to kill her the first time. For some reason, the fact that he was a ghost made him even more terrifying. Maybe because he seemed unstoppable in this new form. Thank God Logan had gotten there when he did because she wasn’t sure the salt would have kept Del Vecchio at bay much longer.
She let out a shiver at that and wrapped her arms around herself. That was when she realized she was only wearing the tank top and shorts she’d put on earlier. She hadn’t even thought to slip her feet into a pair of sandals before they’d left. Logan must have seen the movement because he reached in the back with his free hand and grabbed his leather jacket from the seat.
“Here, put this on. You must be freezing.” He gave her an apologetic look as he handed it to her. “Sorry I didn’t think to get you something else to wear before we left the apartment.”
Presley shuddered at the thought of spending one more second in that place. She would have run out of there naked if it meant getting away from Del Vecchio’s ghost.
“Don’t worry about it,” she told Logan as she put on the jacket. It was big on her, but it was warm and she pulled it around her gratefully. She caught the faint whiff of a masculine scent along with the that of leather and she couldn’t help but smile as she realized it smelled like Logan. “You saved my life and that’s all I care about. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t answered the phone. How did you get to the apartment so fast anyway?”
“I was still in Stamford.” He explained what he’d learned about the murders from his friend in the police department, adding he’d already been on his way to her apartment when she called him. “The moment Muncie mentioned the light bulbs had been blown out in all of the victims’ homes, I knew we were dealing with something paranormal. Something that has a heavy EMF signature like a ghost, though not like any ghost I’ve ever heard of. Then Muncie told me the victims looked like you and I knew you were in deep trouble.”
She frowned. “What do you mean, they looked like me?”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “They were all tall and pretty with long, blond hair. Del Vecchio must have been using them as a substitute for his rage until he could finally get to you.”
Presley’s stomach churned. “How is he even able to do what he does? I thought ghosts couldn’t take physical form.”
Logan’s hand tightened on the wheel. “They usually can’t. The simple act of appearing in a crowd of people like the one in the newspaper photo without causing a riot is unheard of but attacking women with a knife shouldn’t even be possible.” He glanced at her as he merged onto the highway leading to upstate New York. “Tell me exactly happened when Del Vecchio showed up at your apartment.”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to think about it much less talk about it.
“Presley, I know it’s like asking you to relive the horror again, but I need to know what kinds of things Del Vecchio’s ghost is capable of so I can figure out how to stop him,” Logan said softly.
Apparently, the cop in Logan was still underneath that ghost hunter exterior somewhere because he sounded like the police who’d come to talk to her about what had happened the night Del Vecchio had murdered Darla and tried to kill her. As much as she didn’t want to talk about her encounter with that psychopath’s ghost, she knew Logan was right.
She took a deep breath and told him exactly what happened at Jennifer’s apartment, starting with seeing Del Vecchio’s reflection in the screen on her laptop and finishing with how the ghost had gone absolutely crazy and trashed the living room when she’d made a circle of salt around herself and he couldn’t get at her.
When she was done, Logan shook his head. “He acts like a ghost with the electrical disturbances and his ability to pass through walls, but the thing with the knife has me doubting myself. Your normal, garden-variety ghost can’t do something like that. In order to cause physical harm, that knife would have to exist in our world. But the very definition of a ghost is something that doesn’t have solid form on this side of Darkness. It’s as if Del Vecchio is existing on both sides at the same time.”
“What do we do then?” she asked.
“First, we get you somewhere safe. Then I start doing some research and find out what the hell we’re dealing with.”
Presley sighed. She’d been hoping Logan would say it’d be a piece of cake to get rid of Del Vecchio. That all they had to do was whack him with some salt, enlist a priest to exorcise his ghost and he’d be back in hell where he should be. Apparently, it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Where does a ghost hunter go to get information on a ghost?”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “To another ghost hunter, where else?”
CHAPTER FIVE
PRESLEY SUPPOSED THAT made sense. It wasn’t like they could Google the stuff after all. She was a little surprised when they pulled up to a wrought-iron gate outside a warehouse on the outskirts of Sleepy Hollow thirty minutes later instead of going to Logan’s office, though.
“Where are we?” she asked as the gate opened.
“My house,” he said as he pulled the Hummer into a garage. “It’s the safest place I could think to bring you.”
She blinked in surprise, her gaze going to the warehouse again. He lived in an industrial building?
Presley made no comment when he came around to open the door of the Hummer for her. As he unlocked several deadbolts on the metal door leading in from the garage, she noticed it was painted the same red color as the door to his office. She wondered if it was his favorite color or whether it held some other significance. She’d have to remember to ask him.
She thought the inside would look a little less like a warehouse than the outside, but she was surprised to see it looked exactly the same, right down to the exposed brick and mortar walls. At least he’d painted the place. If was off-white, of course, but still better than red brick. While the living space was essentially one long room, he’d partitioned it off with a series of sheetrock walls that made it seem a little more like a traditional house. There were even a few throw rugs here and there on the concrete floor in the living room. There was a sectional couch and a big-screen television, too, as well as two huge bookcases jammed with hundreds of books. Presley lifted a brow. Funny, Logan didn’t strike her as the type of guy who liked to read.
Behind her, Logan closed the heavy metal door with a clang and she turned to look at him.
“It’s very… i
ndustrial looking,” she said.
He tossed his keys on the table beside the door. “It’s why I like the place. There aren’t any windows and the entire building is made of brick, concrete, and metal. The walls and floor are reinforced with steel re-bar and the ceiling is covered in heavy-duty sheet steel, which acts as a barrier against ghosts. It’s damn effective at keeping other bad guys the hell out, too.”
She tensed. “What kind of other bad guys?”
“None that you have to be worried about. The important thing is that you’re safe here. The metal and steel will keep any ghost out.”
“Even a ghost like Del Vecchio?”
Logan nodded. “Even him.”
Presley pulled Logan’s leather coat more tightly around her and let her gaze wander over the rest of the warehouse. Next to the living room was a kitchen with a small table and a long counter that separated it from the rest of the open space. It didn’t look like he used the table much since it was piled high with what looked like car parts. She assumed he must eat at the counter instead.
She changed her mind about what the parts on the kitchen table belonged to when she noticed there was a half-assembled motorcycle parked in one corner of the living room, along with an assortment of workout gear and a punching bag. If that didn’t tell her Logan spent little time in the presence of the fairer sex, the big stack of empty pizza boxes on the kitchen counter would have.
Logan must have noticed the direction of her gaze because he gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry about the mess. I didn’t have a chance to clean up. I wasn’t planning on having visitors.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She smiled. “I think the pizza boxes add a nice touch to the place.”