Mitch (Justice, #3)

Horrie hated the meddling necros. If it were up to him, he’d rid the world of them once and for all. In fact, that was his plan. After he got rid of his daughter. And if his wife didn’t get on the ball and help him out with that, he was going to take her out as well. He had plans, and she was messing them up royally. Horrie thought of the day he’d been murdered by his bitch of a girl and what he’d done to preserve himself. His wife had been no more help back then than she was now, but he’d found out how Victoria had gotten into his borrowed lair.

Horrie thought back on when he’d been taken too. He’d been in his resting place, deep within the belly of someone else’s home. The locks, he knew, were the best and would have taken a great deal more than anything a simple human could have had on his person to get to him. It was why he stole into the house during the day to be safe. He’d just never counted on his whore of a daughter having the combination. He’d even asked his wife how she’d done it, and she’d come up with a story that just made him madder than ever. His daughter was a thief.

“She took my diary that you gave me. The one I had all the important things in that you told me never to forget. I didn’t even know she knew where you rested until she told me what she’d done. I told you that you needed to get us a better home. One we could be safe in. So now, while I’m resting in my own bed, she steals in and finds my personal things and done this to you.” He’d asked her why she’d let her do such a thing to him. “I had no idea until you were there. The council made me come and watch you. They said it was to teach me to listen when they speak. They said you must pay, and they wanted me to know that you were. They even built this structure for me to stand in so I’d be safe from the sun. But they also warned me that, should I look away, then the shelter would open and I would join you.” He’d screamed at her then, telling her that her daughter had had no right to do this to him. As her mate, she could not harm him. “I didn’t, Horrie. I was there to do what I was told or join you. Vin...Victoria is the one that did this to us. And her hatred of you makes everything that the laws of the vampire have written down seem like nothing in comparison. They told me that either you die and I watch, or I was to be staked out beside you to die as well. I just couldn’t do it. I’m so sorry.”

Horrie had been lucky in his death to have been to see this great witch the week before Victoria had caught him. The woman had told him how to keep himself from dying...actually, what she’d told him was that she could keep his mind alive, that his body was going to be shit out of luck. And when his daughter, his own flesh and blood, had staked him out like nothing more than an ant under a magnifying glass, he’d cursed her and had nearly forgotten the spell he’d needed to say to keep his mind awake. What he hadn’t counted on was that he’d be nothing more than a ghost with not much in the way of power. But he’d taken care of that as well. The witch, sadly, could teach him no more, as he’d killed her in a fit of rage a few days ago. Horrie looked at the man with him, his only ally in all this, when he spoke.

“They’re leaving the house. Can we get in again?” Horrie looked up at the house he’d been at until today, and sneered at the two women that had banished him from his fun. Horrie knew he’d not be able to enter the house, and even if he could the people in it were off-limits to him. The fucking necro had worded things just right for that to be taken from him.

He’d been watching the young woman of the house in the shower earlier in the week when he’d been told another ghost had been snooping around. Today was the first time he’d been able to catch him at it, and now he could no longer go there. Not even to scare the kid, which had been fun too. He glanced over at his familiar, Crocker, and smiled.

“Go with them. Make sure they have something befall them. Could be that one of them can come to my side sooner rather than later.” Crocker moved along the sidewalk, but just far enough back so they’d not catch on. Humans, especially human women, were as stupid as dogs as far as Horrie was concerned.

As he made his way to the place where he’d been murdered, he thought about his daughter and her poor life choices that day. Horrie looked at the ground where he’d been staked out, but never got close enough that he could touch the area. Something about it made him feel weird, like he was dying all over again. He remembered her words to him as if she was speaking them to him now.

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