Wicked Kiss
“Kind of too good to be true, isn’t it?” I said quietly.
“Kind of.” He nodded gravely.
Bishop might be many fantastical things, and we might have next to nothing in common, but at his heart he was a realist just like me. My resurrection was not exactly textbook. Even I knew that. Especially with that after-death dream starring Seth, the fallen angel.
I quickly shared that with Bishop. “Do you think it was just a dream?”
He studied me. “Knowing you, Samantha, I honestly don’t know.”
As the numbness wore off, the realization that I’d literally returned from the dead—which I’d been for at least twenty minutes according to the wall clock—set in.
I was back, with no hunger, no cold, and I’d allow myself to feel joy at that.
The gray part of me had gone into stasis and she’d died twenty minutes ago on that couch.
The rest of me had come back for more. With a sore chest and bruised lips—and grateful as hell for both.
Together, Bishop and I left the townhome and raced down the street to get closer to the abandoned house—which, at the moment, was definitely not abandoned. Noah must have gotten word that it was haunted and decided that would make it a cool new location for his Halloween party. The iron gates were open enough to squeeze through. Some kids were out on the front lawn smoking. Everyone was in costume.
Well, not everyone. I’d been a bit preoccupied to think of something cool to wear.
The most important thing? Everyone was still alive.
My chilling vision had shown a massacre. The aftermath of the bodiless angel’s carnage. It hadn’t happened yet. Which meant we still had a chance to stop it.
“Are you okay here?” Bishop asked. “I know this place gave you problems before.”
“I’m fine,” I said, shaking my head. “Whatever it was...it’s not an issue anymore.”
“Good.” Still, his expression was guarded and watchful as he studied me, as if waiting for something bad to happen. For my head to start spinning, or an alien to burst out of my chest.
It might be Halloween, but I sincerely hoped that my personal horror movie of the night was now running its end credits.
It was crowded here—to put it mildly. The furniture was covered in plastic dustcovers, but that gave it an appropriately eerie feel. Kids milled about. Music blasted from the speakers. There had to be more than a hundred kids from school here, elbow to elbow. Costumes of all kinds—scary, sexy, funny. Some kids wore masks, others makeup.
Seemed like a great party, actually. In another life I would have probably enjoyed myself, if I’d been ignorant to the dangers lurking close by, ready to destroy absolutely everything and everyone.
Yeah, that knowledge put a bit of a damper on potential fun.
Connor caught our eye and waved at us from across the room near the stairs. We went right to him. His gaze was alert, and there was none of the humor I was used to seeing on his face. It had disappeared after Zach’s death.
He’d lost his best friend tonight.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Standard teen fare. Some underage drinking and some weed, but nothing supernatural. And no sign of our friend, Stephen.”
“The angel’s not here yet,” Bishop said.
Connor stared at him. “The angel’s going to be here?”
“I guess you haven’t run into Cassandra yet.”
“No, not yet. Big party. Roth’s around here somewhere, too. We’re ready for anything.” He glanced at both of us before turning his attention to the crowd. “What’s the plan, Bishop?”
“When and if the angel arrives, we need to isolate it. Get it away from the other kids.”
After it possesses someone, I thought. The thought still made me ill, but even I had to admit that we were running out of options.
Was one dead kid worth the lives of a hundred?
Someone caught my eye. Jordan, in full white-and-gold Cleopatra costume and black wig, was quickly making her way down the stairs from the second floor as if she was being chased.
“Bishop,” I said, “I have to find out what’s wrong with her.”
He caught my hand, but not hard enough to stop me. I might have lost my hunger, but the shiver of energy between us when we touched hadn’t gone anywhere. “Be careful.”
I nodded, then without another word, I threaded my way through the crowd of costumed kids and met her at the bottom of the stairs.
She didn’t even notice me until I caught her arm. “Jordan, what’s going on?”
She froze and looked over her shoulder at me. Her face was pale as a sheet of paper, despite her eyes heavily circled in black liner. “You’re here.”
She didn’t say it as an insult, just as an observation.
I grabbed her hand. She didn’t immediately pull away. Her skin was cold as ice. “What’s wrong?”
“I had to be here tonight. Socially, I mean, I couldn’t miss it. But I didn’t know...” Her breath came in rapid gasps.
“Know what?”
“I didn’t know about...the ghosts.”
I stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“This place is haunted. Like one hundred percent total hauntage.”
My eyes widened. The rumors were actually true about this house? “You can feel that?”
She nodded. “It wasn’t too bad when I got here. Just a low hum for me. But then some girls broke out a Ouija board upstairs and—bam. She—she spoke to me.” Her eyes were glossy. “I know it was her.”