Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 54305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 272(@200wpm)___ 217(@250wpm)___ 181(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 272(@200wpm)___ 217(@250wpm)___ 181(@300wpm)
“Except she can be unnerving,” Ryder said.
As if to underscore his point, a soft giggle drifted out of the trunk.
Fox jumped, squeezing Winter tighter before catching himself. He laughed and held his arms out in front of him. “Holy shit! I’ve got goose bumps! What else does she do?”
Gideon dropped his face into his hand.
“How do we get rid of the ghost?” Ryder inquired.
“Get rid of the trunk,” Winter said in a blasé tone.
Gideon whimpered and turned into Ryder, pressing his face against his chest. This was not the answer he wanted to hear.
“Gideon loves the trunk,” Ryder stated, his tone flatly announcing that throwing out the trunk was not an option.
“Besides, what about the ghost?” Fox asked. And Gideon was suddenly glad the witch had tagged along. “She’s clearly attached to the trunk. What will happen to her if you toss out the trunk? What if the trunk gets destroyed? Won’t that hurt her too?”
“She’s already dead, babe. How much hurting do you think is gonna happen?” Winter countered, and Gideon nearly rolled his eyes.
With a sigh, Gideon turned to face his companions. “Look, I get that she’s dead, but she’s still a kid…sort of. She doesn’t mean any harm, and she’s being playful, but I don’t think I can live with her constantly scaring the crap out of me. Getting rid of the trunk makes sense, but now that I’ve found her, I feel responsible for her, too. Can’t you talk to her? Find out what her unfinished business is, so we can get her to move on or something?”
Fox and Winter glanced at each other, both of them frowning. That was not a good sign.
“Ghosts don’t have unfinished business,” Winter said.
“Yeah, that’s just a bunch of TV-show bullshit,” Fox added. “They sort of move on immediately or linger until they run out of energy and fade away.”
“That’s depressing,” Ryder muttered.
“Neither of us knows how to get rid of a ghost,” Winter admitted. The vampire at least had the good grace to appear embarrassed. “I was kind of hoping I could talk to it, convince it to not bother you. But this is a kid. I doubt she’d be willing to listen to me. Besides, most ghosts have no sense of time. Tomorrow night, it’s likely that she will have forgotten that we spoke at all and start her nonsense all over again.”
“So, I have no choice. I need to get rid of the trunk if I don’t want to be scared in my own home,” Gideon whispered. A horrible knot formed in his stomach, twisting tighter and tighter. Now that he knew it was the ghost of a small girl, he couldn’t abandon her. The girl and her trunk were his responsibility.
“Well,” Fox drawled. He scratched his cheek with his index finger while wrinkling his nose. “This isn’t my sort of thing at all, but there are some witches who are good at dealing with the dead.”
“Shit,” Winter mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut.
“What?”
“I could try to find you a necromancer.” Fox might have said the words as gently as possible, but all three vampires in the room cringed and hissed as one.
Necromancers and vampires did not mix. Mostly because a vampire began its existence as a dead thing. Not a single vampire trusted a necromancer. There were all kinds of rumors about this special brand of witch who could do spells to take control of a vampire.
Gideon didn’t know if any of those rumors were true, but there was a kind of logic behind them that made them feel true. Of course, as far as he knew, he’d never met a necromancer. Fox was the only witch he’d ever met, to his knowledge.
“Would the necromancer hurt the ghost?” Gideon inquired.
“I honestly don’t know, but you could probably talk to them before bringing them to your place.” Fox shoved a hand through his red hair. “So, this is an ‘I know a guy who knows a guy’ situation. Zelda, my witch mentor, recently got me in contact with this small coven located outside the city. I’ve been talking to this witch named Maddox, who focuses on a lot of plant-based magic like me. There’s a necromancer in his coven. I’ve talked to all of them a little. I’ll reach out to Maddox and see if we can arrange a meeting with his friend at Phoenix.”
Gideon blinked at him for a second. That was not what he was expecting Fox to suggest. “At work?”
Fox grunted. “Yeah, apparently they love drinking there on Friday nights.”
“And the club just became a scary place,” Gideon muttered.
Fox chuckled. “Nah. Sounds like they were going there back when it was Blush. They’re obviously keeping it low key.”
“None of them are about to start shit there and risk pissing off Rafe,” Ryder murmured against the top of Gideon’s head.