17

T here was a note stuck to my forehead when I finally managed to open my eyes the next morning.

Gone to get supplies.

It was scribbled in Wes’s horrible handwriting. I crumpled it and chucked the paper to the side. We wouldn’t see him for at least a few days. After challenging hunts, he would disappear under the guise of making sure we were safe. He’d walk his six-four frame with his perfectly coiffed, honey blond hair and hard, hazel eyes out the door of wherever we were sleeping and wouldn’t come back until he shook free of the nightmares. And only after he knew we would survive whatever had happened. He must have determined Clay to be in a decent enough state to slip away in the middle of the night.

Clay was still sleeping on the couch where we had dropped him.

I managed to stop the bleeding with a handful of sloppy, sleep-deprived stitches as he passed out cold. He was going to be pissed when he woke up to find out I maimed one of the delicate fine line tattoos that ran the expanse of his bicep. It would heal okay but the tattoo would suffer from scarring once it did.

I stumbled to my feet and wiggled them into my Converse before pressing my fingers to his throat to check his pulse. He stirred at my touch and that was good enough for me. I messed my fingers through his dark curls, saying a silent thank you to whoever was listening for protecting him. I looked around at the room we had thrown ourselves down in for the night. The light from the sun peeked through the cracks of thick curtains that covered a set of east-facing floor-to-ceiling arched windows.

I turned in a circle, admiring the once rich blue wallpaper, now dull, peeling, and cracked. Dust and dirt settled over the furniture and the floors.

“I’ll be back.” I patted a sleeping Clay on the shoulder and flipped my knife through the air into the palm of my hand, just in case.

In the dark, I would have bet my life that no one had lived in the Manor for nearly a hundred years; in the light I’d have doubled that bet. I tapped the blade of my knife against the solid oak bannister and stared up at the high ceilings in amazement. Even in disrepair, the house’s architecture alone was incredible; gothic and extravagant. It was a mystery as to why it was empty.

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash echoing down a hallway to my left.

An intelligent man would have woken Clay but curiosity ate at my good sense and I was already walking towards the sound before I had fully decided not to wake him. I rolled the sleeves of my navy shirt over my forearms and shook out what was left of the sleep from my sore muscles.

Every hall of the Manor was the same; crumbling wood and dusty floors. Each step toward the source of the noise only fueled regret at leaving Clay to sleep. It was probably a large rat. I looked closer at the holes in the baseboards. A colony of large rats, more like. I hated the things. Disease carrying, no good rodents…

“Hello?” I called out, but it was stuttering and weak. Get your shite together, Koen. Wes would take the piss out of you if he knew you were this out of sorts.

I had been hunting monsters with Wes for as long as I could remember. One of the first memories I had was being in the backseat of the car with Wes, sharpening his father’s hunting knives with the utmost focus.

He had always been like that, dedicated to the hunt. I wasn’t sure if he even had personal hobbies outside of killing monsters. It was just Wes. Dedicated, driven and focused. He tried to raise me with those same values and the jury was still out if I managed to uphold those ideals to a satisfying level yet. He had been stuck with me more often then he would have liked when we were young. I knew he had had an older brother, Wyatt, who he never spoke about by choice, and his parents weren’t around often. And when they were, they weren’t very nice. They missed birthdays and holidays. By all accounts and from what I could remember, his father brought me home, but it had only been Wes and me from the beginning.

The sound thumped through the wall again. Totally a fucking rat. It was coming from just beyond the dark corner ahead of me. The hallway led in both directions, covered with moldy framed artwork and fading intricate floral wallpaper. There were heavy brass sconces every few feet that I wasn’t even sure had working bulbs inside, but when I stepped to the edge of the hall, they all flickered on simultaneously. But they weren’t bulbs…they were candles .

“That’s super chill,” I whispered, running my hand through the messy ends of my blond hair. “I’ll take ‘haunted house' for three hundred, Alex.”

Clay would have snorted at the joke. Hours had been spent arguing over reruns of Jeopardy until the three of us melted into shitty motel carpets with our eyes half open.

Again, two loud crashing sounds. Thunk, thunk.

“Is anyone there?” I said louder that time, and the sound abruptly stopped. “That answers that question,” I huffed, wishing I had brought something other than the small, steel hunting knife.

At the end of the hallway was a large ornate glass door that stood out against the crumbling architecture. I looked around at my surroundings once more with confusion and then back to the glass. It was pristine. The glass was polished and the iron frame that twisted around it came to a peak.

“That can’t be good,” I whispered, and the candles flared against the wall.

I started slowly toward the door, each step revealing more and more of what I might be in for. The glass reflected soft morning sunlight in rays and illuminated what looked like a greenhouse. It didn’t explain the sound, which rang out again in three quick thumps, nearly scaring me off my feet.

“Don’t be a rat,” I whispered as my hand wrapped around the doorknob.

I wandered into the bright space and took in all its beauty. I looked back at the hallway, still dark with nothing but a quick flicker from the candles to remind me that it was derelict and abandoned.

“But not you,” I murmured as I studied the high glass ceiling, the curved panes soaking up the sunlight and reflecting them back onto the lush garden that grew within its walls. Flowers in every color, shape, and size bloomed around the floor in planters, and climbed up the iron that framed the entire conservatory. In the center a massive old tree grew tall, nestled into a concrete pool of still water. It was magnificent and unnerving all at the same time.

The sound banged again, loudly and from my left. I turned with my knife forward, waiting for the attack, to find a hanging planter swinging against the wall. It spun in lazy circles, only hitting the wall every so often; thunk, thunk. I stepped toward it, reaching my hand out to slow its motion and leaving it still. The sound quieted but my mind was still running rampant with questions.

A stream of light caught my eye and pulled my attention to a dainty hanging decoration, a suncatcher, that shone in the sunlight and created a pattern of refracted colors that danced across the floor. My eyes followed the skittering colors along the stones and over a mass that took my brain longer than it should have to register what I was seeing.

“Mother of–”

Dark copper hair was tangled in the vines on the floor. A soft round face, deep in sleep as the plants seemed to overtake her, blanketing her in blossoms and vines. She didn’t look dead…

Her skin was pale but still held a considerable amount of color in her cheeks. She certainly didn’t look dead.

“Not a ghost?” I said, confused, still holding the knife. I knelt down beside her, hovering my hand over her lips, a perfect cupid's bow that matched the color of the blossoms around her still body. “ Maybe a ghost?”

As I took a better look at her, I noticed she was wearing a pile of skirts and— “Is that a corset?” I said out loud.

Vibrant green eyes whipped open.

My grip on the knife faltered suddenly, shocked that she was alive.

She stared at me with fear in her eyes and I could confidently say I returned the sentiment. She flexed her fingers and started to wiggle free of the plants’ confines. I kept my knife pointed at her, unsure what her next move might be, but she remained silent, observing me with every tiny movement she made.

With a tiny whimper she shifted off the floor to a sitting position, scooting backwards to create space between us. Her loose curls fell as she tilted her head to the left and raked those doe eyes down my body. Delicate features and blushed cheeks complimented her scowl and furrowed brow line. Her curves in the corset left nothing to the imagination and, suddenly, I was made aware again as to how long it had been since we had taken a break long enough to touch someone .

Heat licked at my neck.

Okay, don’t get turned on by a ghost. You’ll never hear the end of it.

The feeling washed from me as quickly as it had built, as the plant pot nearest to her flew from her hand and hurtled just past my head.

“Okay, okay!” I yelled, dropping my shoulder to the left, barely missing the terracotta pot that smashed against the floor.

She responded simply by throwing another pot. It clipped my shoulder but didn’t hurt; it startled me enough to push to my feet and walk backward toward the door away from her, hands raised in submission.

She clambered to her feet, shaky and off balance, but picked up another plant-filled clay pot. It smashed against the wall behind me, just inches from making a direct hit to my face.

“Will you stop throwing shit at me!” I dodged another and managed to wrap my hand around the doorknob.

The pot shattered against the wall behind my head, a splinter that mimicked the spidered, cracked glass of the atrium biting at the skin on my cheek as I popped the door open and slid out of the room.

I slammed it shut behind me and held it there momentarily as quiet fell over the house. I counted the seconds before she appeared on the other side of the glass and started to rattle at the door knob. I gripped it tighter when she began kicking the door and looked around for anything that might help keep her trapped while I ran for Clay. He’d know what to do.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” I mocked Wes’s voice as I spotted an old high-backed chair at the end of the long hallway. “Gotcha.”

I waited for a pause in her panic and took off, sliding on the thin soles of my shoes against the old carpet, my hand gripping the back of the chair clumsily. I shoved the entire thing up against the knob and watched as she tried it again without luck.

Emerald eyes widened with crippling fear.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted as an odd guilt weighed on my chest. I backed away, never taking my eyes off the glass door until I reached the corner and ran at a pace that matched my racing heart all the way back to Clay.