“This was once a good place. But now it’s bad. Bad! Bad!” the child shrieked. The black pupils of her eyes swallowed the irises, then the whites. The rounded flesh of her cheeks went sallow and hollow, beyond the cast of illness. The curls unraveled into ratty string as the girl’s height seemed to stretch upward.
Layla closed her eyes and willed the specter away. This wasn’t happening. She was exhausted and stressed, was all.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” a woman said.
Layla’s eyes snapped open. Young. Black hair, dye job fading and growing out. Bad mood written all over her face. Zoe Maldano.
“Ghost,” Layla said, gasping, though the apparition had vanished. When Layla was a kid, she’d told grown-ups about some of the odd things she’d seen. No one had believed her. No one ever believed her.
“Well, duh,” Zoe said. “Place is fucking haunted. What kind of shitty reporter are you not to know the first thing about Segue?”
“It—She—” Zoe acted like the ghost was a matter of course. First Shadow, now this.
Zoe raised a dismissive hand as she walked away. “And weren’t you going to out Adam and Talia to the world? Wasn’t that our deal?”
Layla hurried after her. No way she was going to be left in that hallway, alone again with the demon child. “Can she hurt people?”
“I don’t know,” Zoe said, slapping a swinging door open. “She doesn’t bug me.”
“She hates me.” Layla followed her into the kitchen.
“You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.”
No, she most definitely was not. And if this ghost was real, was near ready to spin its dolly head around on its neck, then Khan’s magic was real. The awful gate, too? But she’d been dreaming. Khan’s place was full of all that expensive furniture, not an anvil and a gate.
Nothing made sense.
“Tray ready?” Zoe asked another woman, who was fussing over the stove. The woman was petite and curvy, her short red hair pulled back into two cute pigtails at the base of her head.
“One sec,” the woman answered. She lifted a frying pan and scraped some decadent-looking pasta onto a waiting plate. The savory smells of butter and garlic made Layla’s mouth water, in spite of the continued pounding of her heart.
“Thanks,” Zoe said, but she didn’t sound all that grateful. She lifted the tray and moved back to the door, using her hip to ease herself out into the series of connecting rooms. Zoe had to have nerves of steel to cross through those haunted rooms. Nerves of freakin’ steel.
The cook put her hands on her hips and regarded Layla. “Adam called and said you’d be over.”
Layla pointed toward the door. Zoe didn’t care, but maybe this lady would. Somebody should. “There’s a ghost out there.”
The cook laughed. “Which one?”
“Little girl?”
“Ah. That would be Lady Therese Amunsdale. I’ve heard of her, but never had the pleasure myself.” She walked over and held out her hand. “I’m Marcie. I keep people fed around here. You hungry?”
A normal question. Layla liked normal. She grabbed hold and went with it.
“Starved, but I can fix something for myself.” She glanced back at the still-swinging door. Could the ghost child come in here, too?
Marcie waved at her with a dishcloth. “Just sit down. I live to cook.”
“She always that unpleasant?”
“Which one? The ghost or Zoe?” Marcie opened the fridge, pulled out bunches of green herbs.
Layla shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
“The ghost is supposedly a mean piece of work and can appear as a child or as a grown woman. The child version sounds creepier to me. I’ve been assured she can’t act on the physical world, which means she can’t hurt you unless she scares you to death.” She looked up from the herbs she was chopping and splashed some of the pasta water into the pan, sloshed it around with more butter and garlic.
“Zoe . . .” Marcie continued. “Well, if you’re going to be staying here, you might as well know. She’s a sad case. Her sister Abigail is very ill, going to die, I hear. So yeah, Zoe might have an attitude problem, but no one holds it against her. Anyone can see how much she loves Abigail.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Layla put a hip up on a stool.
Marcie shrugged. “I don’t know. Like everything else around here, it’s top secret. This place collects odd sorts. And when I say odd, I mean scary. Abigail is special.” Marcie leaned in. “I’ve heard that she can foretell the future, and that it’s killing her. I don’t know what she is, or her sister, for that matter, but they aren’t like you and me.” Marcie straightened again, her voice rising. “But Zoe takes up the trays and she brings them down again. Sits by Abigail a good part of every day. Sleeps in the same room. She’s got a foul mouth, but she’s a good sister.”
So Zoe’s bizarre aura a couple days ago might have been real? Layla didn’t know what to think about that.
Layla swallowed hard. “Are there more ghosts?”
“A few. But they’re the least of your worries. The wraiths, for one, will scare your hair white in a matter of seconds. First time I heard that screech I just about wet myself. And then there’s the fae—” Marcie lifted her gaze. “Well hello, handsome.”