“She doesn’t like me overly much, I guess, or what I am.” Vinnie didn’t answer him, but he could see the worry on her face. “Just let me know. Like I said, this court thing is coming up and...well, if I have to leave, then I’d like to know that I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder for the rest of my long life.”
When she left him to go back and rest, he stood where he was to think. He’d been doing too much of that already, he knew that. But things were spiraling out of control, and he had no idea how to slow them, much less ask to be let off at the next stop. If there was one. When the ghost came to stand next to him, Mitch waited for her to speak, knowing full well she could if she wanted to. It was the same woman he’d been fighting with earlier.
When she pointed to the house, he looked that way and watched the two men going in and out of it. They were dead as well, and even from this distance he could tell they were confused. Mitch looked at Steele when he stood beside him.
“Something’s going on here. This is a weird haunting, or whatever it is. These people have been gone for a while, and they’re acting as if they only just died. Why is that, do you think? There are four men and three women here, including the one you were trying to work with. None of them seem to know what is going on, and even less about what happened to kill them. This is one of the strangest things we’ve done, and that’s saying a great deal.” Mitch nodded, watching the woman as she stood there, waiting for something, he supposed. “She wants you to go and find something, buddy. Perhaps we should—”
“Her mom hates me. Well, not me, but the fact that I’m a necromancer. And she’s going to do something to get us apart.” Steele said nothing, but Mitch just needed him to be there for a minute so wasn’t upset. “I don’t know if I love this woman or not, and I have no idea what to think of her being a vampire and me, what I am, but...well, I like the idea that we’re together. Does that make any sense whatsoever? Because I have to tell you something, it doesn’t to me.”
“Then tell them to back the fuck off. It doesn’t matter what they want or think, so long as you’re happy.” Mitch looked at Steele now. “You can do it, Mitch. I’ve seen you tell people to get out of your life before. You even tried with me.”
“Yeah, look how well that worked out for me.” Steele laughed, and Mitch looked at the woman again. “I’ll talk to her. I don’t know why she has this thing for me when you and Nick are the heavy workers here.”
“Maybe she just loves the way you look, all tousled up and all.” Mitch put his hand to his hair and tried to smash it down again. He’d seen himself in the mirror when he’d gone in the house and he was sort of a mess. Like he’d gotten laid recently and had enjoyed it a great deal. “Go and see what she wants. Then later we’ll talk about this business with your mother-in-law.”
“Yeah. Right.” As he moved toward the woman, he thought of his mate. Mate? Who would have thought he’d find someone to love him. Of course, she could kill him with just a bite, but there were worse things to think about.
The woman pointed to the house again, and he nodded. Going into the house, he followed her, without going through the walls, until they were in a room he’d never seen before. He looked at the small dark space and asked her if there was a light. When she pointed again, he walked to it and flipped it on.
“Christ.” He looked around the room twice before his mind let him take in what he was seeing. He looked at the woman again. “Is this where you’ve been? Where you met your death?”
It was a chamber of sorts. Not a house of horrors, because this place was much worse. Someone had set the place up to kill, and to take their time with it. And they had too, if the things on the walls were any indication…body parts, fingers, toes, even a few things he thought were tongues. Knives hung at different points in the room. A chainsaw was sitting on the makeshift counter with blood, old and dried, on the chain.
He looked at her and she pointed again, then moved to a wall that looked like it was just that, a simple wall. But when she moved through it, he walked to it too, careful where he stepped. There was...this place was a playroom of major proportions. But unlike the one he enjoyed, this one had been set up for death and not pleasure. Pulling out his cell, he wasn’t surprised to see he had no service. But he did need the others to come and help him. When the woman came back, he told her what he had to do and moved to get the others. But she stopped him again.
“I don’t know what you want of me.” She pointed to the wall again. “I can’t go in there without help. I’m sorry.”
She took him. She didn’t just move into his body, as had happened to Nick and Steele. This was...well, pretty fucking sickening.