In the middle of me asking myself those questions he shifted yet again, and it was as though he’d never changed at all. He was back to grinning like a rascally seventeen year old boy, lounging careless as could be against the moon with the hint of a secret glinting in his light gold eyes.
“The answer is in the past. Tell him all, and then you’ll know.”
“Huh?” I frowned. “Tell him? Jules?”
Time snorted as he lazily kicked his leg back and forth, but his gaze held fast to Eerie’s lifeless form.
“Go, ghost. I’ll watch over her.”
I opened my mouth to object, but I was suddenly and quite forcibly snatched by unseen hands from the land of the dead and thrust into the living.
Smack dab into the kitchen, where I saw Jules staring at the screen door with his shoulders flared, his fur raised and his fangs exposed.
“Jules?” I whispered, but he didn’t hear me. I felt a step behind and very lost. Clearly something was happening here, but I was clueless. Where was Blue? Normally she’d be sitting at her kitchen table this time of night drinking tea.
Then I heard a rustling just outside the door.
I frowned and followed Julian’s steely gaze, gasping the instant I saw it. The it was a man. A very, very handsome one at that. And he too was looking back at my Jules, eyes wide, arms held away from his body in a defensive kind of pose. He stood absolutely still, like a deer caught in the glow of headlights, and he was whispering words I couldn’t make out. Where was Blue? Who was this man? What was going on here?
By the time I realized what Jules was about to do, it was far too late to stop him.
“Jules, don’t!” I shrieked, blasting out several light bulbs within close proximity to me just as my guardian sailed through the screen door, jaw snapping, chest rumbling with his heavy snarls.
The stranger turned and ran, moving like a blaze, straight in the direction of dead man’s gulch.
Chapter 4
Dante Martin
“BIG DOG! BIG FREAKING dog!” I yelled as I ran. I wasn’t really even sure what it was I was saying right now, all I knew was there was a beast plowing down on me with fangs the width of my wrist and that it had red glowing eyes like one of Satan’s hell hounds.
My heart was pounding so hard I could taste the bitter tang of adrenaline coating the back of my tongue. It was dark as hot pitch out. The beast snapped its fangs, and the sound resonated like cannon shot in my ears.
There was no way I was looking over my shoulder or stopping for any reason, but I could see the shadow of the beast gaining ground. I had no freaking idea where I was going. I hopped over a tree stump, landing so hard that one of my ankles rolled. Rather than fight the fall, I curled myself into it, rolling onto my side as my body absorbed the impact easily before quickly hopping back to my feet.
I’d done some parkour in college, enough to know how to take a dive. And though I was sure that if anyone had been out here with me and filmed it I’d have instantly gone viral on Facebook for it, the slow down cost me.
I felt the beast’s breath wash the back of my neck. My ankle burned like a son of a gun, and fire was racing up my calf. My body was telling me, “Nah uh, this ain’t happening, bro,” but my brain was screaming, “Mayday. Mayday.”
Blue had told me she’d gotten a dog, but this was so not what I’d been expecting. And where the hell was my sister and why hadn’t she locked the beast up before my arrival? I could kill her. I was so going to kill her. Unless I got eaten first.
“Ohmyfreakinggod!” I hissed as I shuffled awkwardly away.
I wasn’t sure how I wound up on my knees, or when I’d dropped, but I was scrabbling in the dirt with my hands, feeling sharp scraps slide beneath my nails. I hissed but didn’t stop my mad fumble to safety. I’m sure I must have looked like a crab tweaking on meth right about now, but my head was in full-on flight-or-fight mode.
It snarled and I knew my goose was cooked.
When the cops came in the morning to investigate the eviscerated remains of my bloody carcass, I refused for it to look like I was a coward crawling away. Yeah, I’d be dead, but at least I’d be brave about it.
Biting down on my back teeth and with a mighty roar of my own—that I had no idea I was capable of making—I twirled and raised my hands in front of my face.
The black shadow was coiled in on itself, hackles raised, fangs extended.
“Holy shi—”
“Jules, stop! Stop! Stop it, you silly boy!”
The female’s cry was so startling to the primordial fear slinking through me that I blinked.
Silly. Boy? What?
Did she not see the thing was a Hell spawn? There was nothing sweet about this giant tower of drooling death standing like a sentinel before me.
But I’d be damned if her voice hadn’t stopped it cold. It stood there, staring at me. Hackles raised. Pain of violence reflected back in its magma-red eyes.
Again the woman spoke, voice husky and scratchy. As though she wasn’t used to using it often, or speaking at such a volume. She sounded breathless, like she too had been running. And she was definitely not my twin.
Blue could register at a decibel level that was glass shattering when she squawked. This was smoky. Like a Jazz singer’s voice at the end of the night, it made my skin shiver to hear it.
I wanted to look at her. She must be the roommate. But there was no way on God’s green earth I was looking away from the terror while it was still looking at me like I was a ham sandwich and it was starving.
From the corner of my eye I caught a soft wash of glowing blue light up the night like she was shining a flashlight at it. But what I saw next scrambled what few remaining bits of sanity I still had left.
Because now instead of seeing a demon dog growling back at me, I saw an amorphous shadow of what looked more like a demon wolf. It was see through. Like the light bounced right through it and was shining through to the pines beyond and a cliff that I’d not known existed until just now.
My nostrils flared when I heard the terrible sound of laughter ringing out with a hint of madness burning through it.
What the hell? Who was making that godawful noise?
The blue glow drew closer, the demon wolf suddenly vanished into thin air, and I told myself not to look. To just sit still. That I was clearly trapped in some kind of terrible nightmare but that I’d wake up soon.
So, of course, I looked at the glow.
And that’s when I saw her.
Blue’s roommate.
Beautiful. Sultry. With large bedroom eyes a burning shade of vivid purple. Dark, almost inky black hair that glistened like a fresh oil slick. Wearing a silky looking pink robe that fell to just below her knees and thick long socks.
Her skin was firm, tight, and blue.
She was looking at me with worry creasing her brows as she bit her bottom lip with straight white teeth.
I blinked again, knowing my mouth was hanging wide open and vaguely aware of the irritating buzz of something that sounded an awful lot like hyena laughter.
“You...you almost ate it, mister. Deadman’s gulch has been known to take a few lives before. You alright?”
I swallowed, feeling empty of mind right now. I mean, I saw her pretty lips moving and heard the words coming out of her mouth, but I was having a heck of time making sense of anything right now.
“Where’s your flashlight?”
The confusion in her eyes was clear. “Huh?” she asked, as she wrapped her arms tightly around her petite frame and bit down on her bottom lip again, looking spooked and scared.
The irony of it was hilarious.
Easily the hottest girl I’d ever seen was a walking blue glowstick. A demon wolf from Hell had probably made me piss myself—I was too terrified to check—and I was pretty sure that fall had broken something.
The hyena laughter grew louder until suddenly the world just decided to stop moving.
Annabelle Lee
HE P
ASSED OUT.
Just like that.
Like someone had flipped his switch to off, just as it would happen to Eerie. There one second and gone the next.
I stared at the stranger with something I was quite sure was shock. I’d not known I could still be startled, but apparently so because I felt frozen in place with indecision.
I never liked presenting myself to mortals without a little bit of time to accustom them to my presence first. For the exact reasons as what’d just happened. I didn’t want to scare anyone to death, and by the way he kept laughing like he was one bat short of a belfry, I knew seeing me had scrambled his wires but good.
Who in the devil was this stranger? And where was Blue Bonnet? I’d called and called for her to come and help. But after the third cry I knew she wasn’t around.
Jules couldn’t hurt a flea, but the man clearly hadn’t known that. He’d run away like he’d seen the devil himself. Nothing made any sense.
Not Julian’s terrible manners and definitely not this strange man currently lying lifeless on the forest floor.
I’d never seen him before and didn’t know him from Adam. That was for certain. I might never be able to leave my property, but I knew all who regularly inhabited this cursed land, and he was definitely not one of us.
For a fact he was human. So he must have crossed in when the veil dropped, but what would give him cause to come all the way out here to the shrieking shack—as my home had become more commonly known amongst the locals. Julian liked to serenade the moon sometimes.
My brows lowered as I found myself gliding forward. What should I do now?
I was alone with a stranger. Granted he couldn’t harm me, but... I stared at the woods, the trees that were still unfamiliar to me even after all the years living here.
I’d never left my home, not since the day I’d moved into it.
But I’d never even questioned leaving it when I’d seen this stranger running pell-mell toward the gulch. It’d been imperative I stop him. And so I’d gone. Without a second’s hesitation.
Except now I was out here. Alone. In the dark. And as I became aware of that, I began to feel the leeching cold moving on the breeze, drawing ever closer and beckoning to me.
I trembled. “Wake up, mister. It’s not safe out here,” I pleaded with him, not wanting to leave him out here alone, but knowing I would eventually have to.
My hands started shaking. Something dark and terrible lived in these woods. Something...evil.
Ghosts had adrenaline and I was quickly burning through mine. Even my glow was starting to dim.
He groaned, yanking me back swiftly from the fear starting to infect my phantom body.
Cutting my eyes to his, I moved swiftly as thought and was now kneeling beside him, reaching out a hand to him even though I knew he’d never feel anything but cold from me.
And like that same light switch flicking back on, suddenly his eyes shot open and the terrible darkness that’d been creeping in on me vanished like smoke over still waters.
He looked at me, and I at him.
Our gazes held and something queer took hold of me. There was song in the air. Light and airy, like an aria, it was lovely and squeezed my throat tight.
I didn’t know if he heard it too, but he sucked in a soft, trembly breath.
The music was soon gone, but I knew I would never forget its melody. It was the song of lovers. The Aunts’ magick had shown me my mate. Julian had once told me he’d heard the song the moment he’d clapped eyes on me.
I trembled, blinking back tears as my throat squeezed tight. I’d never heard anything so beautiful in all my life, or anything more tragic. Julian had heard its song when he’d seen me, but I’d not heard it in kind. What if this male hadn’t heard it either? I’d never before considered the magick cruel, but I did now. The feeling of need and desire blazing through me was almost too painful to bear, because as badly as I wanted to brush my fingers over the handsome lines of his face I could not. I never could, in fact. How had Julian born this for me? I thought of my silly musings back then that I could make him happy. How naïve I’d been. Because the feelings consuming me now, if I imagined for a moment that this male was thinking “he could someday care for me,” well, it was soul crushing.
His eyes were as blue as a clear Kansas sky. His hair was dark and thick. His nose was long but not too long. His jaw was sharply square and bristled as though he’d not taken a razor to it in some days. His skin was clear and slightly dusky in color. In the chaos of the moment, I’d not noticed just how truly striking he was. And tall. Very, very tall.
My lips parted, and I felt lost for words.
His nostrils flared. “God, did I faint?” He squeezed his eyes and moaned.
I cocked my head as I watched him shuffle slowly to his bum before rubbing his hands over his hair and shaking loose debris and dirt from its thick, wavy strands.
“Blue told me that the house ad said it might be haunted, but I was sure she was joking just to get a rise out of me.”
He swallowed hard as he stared at me askance. Butterflies swarmed my belly, and I clenched my fingers on my lap, still feeling the terrible, impotent need to touch him.
“My ankle burns like a sonofagun, and my head is pounding like a gang of giants are hammer fisting at it. So I’m pretty sure I’m not sleeping, or even dead for that matter, but you definitely are. Aren’t you?”
I blinked when he looked at me full-on, and for just a second I expected to hear that strange, beautiful song fill my ears again, but the world was strangely hushed. Only the gentle chirp of crickets and the sway of pine boughs remained. I frowned.
“You know Blue?” I asked. Changing the subject, mostly because I wasn’t yet ready to confess to being dead, though it was clearly obvious.
Wrapping his arms around his legs, he leaned forward with a world-weary type of sigh and said, “Yeah, she’s my twin. And who are you exactly?”
Blue’s twin? Blue had a twin? A brother at that? And then I vaguely recalled Eerie’s catcall from the other day and was shocked that I could have so easily forgotten that.
Though, to be fair, I’d expected a short, slender ginger, not this robust and strapping young Marlon Brando lookalike. My heart fluttered and I found myself toying with the tips of my short hair, feeling this nonsensical need to primp. His lips twitched, as though in amusement.
Realizing what I was doing, I quickly dropped my hands.
“I’m...my name’s Annabelle Lee,” I said it haltingly.
His grin grew slightly wider. “Annabelle Lee, I’d offer to shake your hand.”
I giggled, and rolled my wrist. “Dead.”
His eyes twinkled. “Yeah, I see that.”
I laughed, which was rather startling since I’d never really thought my situation all that funny before. But the irony of this moment wasn’t lost on me.
I was flirting. And so was he. A man who’d just moments ago had passed out from the shock of seeing me was now teasing and grinning up at me, and I hadn’t felt this alive in a very long time.
“You don’t seem all that scared of me anymore.”
He shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure what that was a second ago, but it was definitely not my brightest moment. Let’s just call it a serious lack of sleep, way too much garbage food and coffee, coupled with being sacked at a place I gave nearly five years of my life to, and having a ghost demon wolf try to eat me. I’m pretty sure there’s more, but I’m too tired to think clearly right now.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a rough week...erm—”
“Dante Martin,” he said with a nod to make our meeting official.
Even his name sounded like a movie star name. I might have sighed, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off his face that only continued to grow more handsome by the minute.
I wet my lips. “Annabelle Lee,” I whispered.
Another heart-stopping smile blazed across his handsome face. “I know. You just said that about a minute ago. Altho
ugh, if you want to tell me one more time just to make sure it’s really sunk in there,” he tapped his forehead, “I wouldn’t exactly mind.” He winked.
And I twitched with embarrassment, realizing I had already introduced myself. “Oh, well...blame it on my being dead. My memory isn’t what it once was.”
His look was frank and assessing. “Annabelle—”
I shivered at the way he rolled the vowels of my name, and my heart leapt in my chest.
“Do you know if Blue’s in the house? I know I got here a little late, but I decided to drive through the night and my twin sleeps like the dead. No offense,” he said with a dip of his head.
I grinned. “None taken. And no, she’s not in. But you’re certainly correct. She does snore like a bandsaw.”
He chuckled. “I’ve always told her so, but she’ll deny it to her dying breath.”
I smiled. “Most women would.”
“Thing is,” he said, smile suddenly slipping, “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to walk to the house without some support.” He eyed me hard. “You wouldn’t happen to be able to—”
I winced. “’Fraid not.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Didn’t think so, but being as how you’re the first ghost I’ve ever encountered, I figured it didn’t hurt to ask.”
Nodding, I said, “Wish I could help more.”
“Well, you did just save me from becoming nothing but a splat on the forest floor. So there’s that.”
I snorted. “Yeah, there’s that, I guess.”
Leaning against the stump of the tree that’d been felled ages ago, he sighed deeply and rested his chin upon his chest. After a minute his breathing became deeper and steadier, as though he were slipping into a trance. The lines around his mouth were pinched, and his forehead was dotted with beads of sweat.
He’d hurt himself badly enough that he clearly wouldn’t be able to walk to the house on his own. I bit my upper lip, sucking it between my teeth as I worried it.
I wanted to beg him not to fall asleep and leave me alone out here in these woods, but I could clearly see the exhaustion scrawled over his features. I’d seen him roll his ankle earlier, and I just hoped he hadn’t broken anything.
Holly, Curses, and Hauntings Page 6