“Very bloody well,” my mother agrees with a smirk.

In the next instant, swords clang, and I meet my father head on, as Amos tends my back. This is going to have to be quick. My chest is aching, my mind is racing, and the world is barely a blur around me.

My instincts demand I find Violet. Even if I have to litter the floor with the heads of my own kin to reach her.

Just as my sword swings against my father’s, Vanzuela Van Helsing crashes into the room, barely saving me from a brother attacking me from behind.

“Never thought there’d come a day when I was fighting alongside Marta Portocale, let alone Damien and Amos Morpheous,” Zuela grunts through a mystifying amount of swordsmanship, making the shit look easy. “At least not in a real battle.”

My father uses the distraction against me, and at the last minute, I bend backwards, narrowly dodging his nearly lethal strike. Kicking out a leg, I knock him backwards, and spin in time to slice through the neck of Theodore, my least favorite cousin.

His eyes are almost wide in apology, as I watch the light fade from his gaze. My attention slants back toward my father’s direction.

Just as I’m about to charge him, a cry of pain is wrenched from my throat, and I drop to the ground, as my skin starts sizzling. The feeling isn’t unfamiliar. It’s fucking Van Helsing silver that seems to be growing on me, which makes no damn sense.

Zuela’s garbled, pained noise is almost immediately alongside mine, and his eyes dart over toward me, as my cousins move in on us. I struggle to lift up, fighting against the searing pain, but nothing moves. It feels like my body is being coated in the damn silver.

My family circles us, grins lighting up their faces, as Marta releases a shaky breath, looking between us with worried eyes.

“I told you we just had to wait for this curse to take effect. They died for no reason,” Gabriel, my youngest cousin says to my father, glaring over at him.

My father smirks at me, and then his foot slams across my face. My neck feels to nearly snap off my shoulders, and my ears ring. For a brief moment, all I feel is the jarred sensation.

The full brunt of the pain catches up to me in the very next instant, and my vision goes speckled.

“You really don’t want to hurt him,” Marta says on a shaky, somewhat worried breath.

Just as a drop of blood drips from my lip, my gaze settles on a ghost that appears in the room.

She grins, and the sound of glass crashing all around sings through the air. The fragments of it spray into the air, almost as if in slow motion, as my ears continue to ring, the hit I took leaving me damn near woozy.

With some disbelief, I witness every adversary blown through the walls, almost tearing the cabin apart, as the ghost starts dancing.

“I’m Diva, bitch!” the ghost shouts, as she fist-pumps the air…and then shakes her ass at someone.

My brow tries to furrow, but the pain is so severe in my chest. I’m brought back to the reality that I’m slowly being painted in Van Helsing silver.

Marta swallows thickly, and she shuts her eyes, startling when Diva comes to sniff her hair. The ghost releases a dark grin.

Ghosts can’t smell, so it’s all for show.

I don’t know what show I’m watching, though.

I spy the silver spreading up Zuela’s neck, quickly approaching his lips, as Diva stretches and pumps her hips toward me. She squats and grins right in front of me.

“Don’t worry, pretty boy. I’ll save you until help can come. Don’t forget my name, or I’ll spank you when I’ve got a body,” she tells me with a wink. “Isn’t this like soooo much fun?”

Even if I could speak, I’d have no idea what to say. A ghost just threw several alphas around. Sure. Why the fuck not?

Right now, I’ll take any breaks I can get.

“Someone salt that fucking ghost!” my father yells from what sounds like a terribly far distance.

Diva straightens, before she dirty-dances her way to the front, and then I hear her shout, “Bring it on, bitches! Diva’s gonna whoop some alpha ass tonight!”

A female ghost appears before me so abruptly that I would startle…if I could move. She’s dressed in a hypnotically dizzying, black-and-white pattern, while the bells on her jester’s hat jingle.

“We’re all a little mad here,” the ghost says, as her neck swivels all the way around on her shoulders.

Her elven shoes jingle at the ends of their curled toes, which isn’t possible. Ghosts don’t make sounds when they move, even if they did die with bells on them.

Bloody fucking hell.

“Damien, what is this sorcery?” Amos asks in a hushed whisper, moving several feet away from the dizzying ghost.

My eyes dart to Marta, as the new ghost laughs and joins Diva doing whatever in the hell it is that they’re doing. Marta stands there with her eyes closed.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask the crazy woman.

“I’d rather not rile it. It doesn’t particularly like me, since I worked damn hard to suppress it for all those years,” Marta says, swallowing thickly as she gives a small tremble.

“What are you spewing on about?” I grind out, feeling my throat starting to close, the next words evading me.

Marta’s eyes open and land on mine, and the fear in their depths shines too freely.

“Violet loves me more than it, and I’m terrified of it,” she says, her hands shaking.

My eyes ask the question my lips can’t form, as even my mouth becomes immobile, paralyzed by the silver’s effect.

Something burns deep inside me, almost as though it’s crashing through me with the same, yet uniquely different pain.

I’m forced to endure it without making a single sound, as the silver stops stretching across my body.

“I have more sway over my daughter than it does, or at least I did. Therefore, I’m the one person it’s jealous of,” Marta says, eyes brimming with tears. “Lucky me,” she adds with a humorless, shaky note.

The two opposite pains that are pinning me to the ground begin to war against each other, as the chaos increases outside.

I’m not sure how or why, but the unnatural silver assault seems to be lessening. I watch as it recedes from Zuela, whose face is contorted in more confusion than agony.

“Prepare yourself, fellas,” Marta says on a shaky, chilly breath. “It’s just getting started.”

Chapter 38

EMIT

An echo of laughter has me jerking my head to the right. The woods are empty, and not a sound stirs from that direction.

Another echo of laughter has me jerking my head to the left, and I barely catch a glimpse of a woman in a long, white gown disappearing inside of a tree.

Ghosts?

Why are ghosts haunting me?

I start sprinting again, warily glancing around, when I hear more laughter. The white-gown ghost moves from left to right, her laughter drifting through the woods, nearly surrounding me as I rush on.

Just as I turn my head to look in front of me again, I damn near trip over my own feet, my eyes widening, as the ghost blocks my path.

I stumble to a halt right in front of it, my hair raising on my body for no particular reason. Her dark hair is oily and tangled, as well as draped in front of her face, hanging down to her waist.