Death and the Girl Next Door

“Actually,” he said to him matter-of-factly, “that was a poltergeist.”

Cameron walked—no, strolled—over to Brooklyn as she huddled behind the sofa with a throw rug over her head. He fought a smile. “An angry poltergeist,” he said in agreement. “And as ingenious as your disguise is, I’m fairly certain it knows you’re here.”

“Of course it knows,” she said through gritted teeth, “with you standing there giving my position away to every poltergeist in the country.”

He shrugged and turned to walk away.

“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice suddenly shrill.

He chuckled and stayed put by her side.

I rose cautiously to my feet, searching the corners of the vaulted ceiling, trying to control my panic. “It disappeared,” I said, bewildered. Then reality sank in. “Wait, how exactly are we able to see it? I’ve never seen a ghost in my life.”

“It must want to be seen,” Cameron said, searching the ceilings as well. “Ghosts tend to make themselves scarce. You can thank your boyfriend for that little show. It’s like an animal who puffs up when it feels threatened. This entity feels threatened with the reaper close by. It’s making its presence known.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Seriously. And just like a cornered animal, it will do anything to survive.”

I was actually referring to the part about your boyfriend, but nobody needed to know that.

Jared stepped to me as I turned in a circle. “See it yet?”

“No,” I said, trying to sound brave. I caught his scent, clean and earthy, and inched closer to him. “Can it hurt us?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Only if it wants to.”

“Nice. You might have mentioned that.”

“And ruin the surprise?” he asked, his expression playful. He had taken off the jacket in the car and his muscles were doing that flex-with-every-movement thing that mesmerized me into a trance.

“I think we should just get out of here,” Glitch said as he walked to the fireplace to grab a poker, “and come back when we actually have a plan.”

Before I could reply, I heard something from an alcove behind me. When I turned to investigate, I had to admit, the last few days had certainly been the most surreal of my existence. I’d been hit by a truck and brought back to life, seen the world freeze around me, gotten pulled back in time through someone else’s eyes, and fallen in love with a supreme being.

But all things considered, the massive grand piano that had been upended and thrown at me as though polter-thing were playing fetch-the-Steinway with some massive ghost dog pretty much iced the cake. And tossed a cherry on top.

At least when the truck hit me, I didn’t see it coming. Maybe once someone was supposed to die, that person couldn’t escape it. Maybe no one could cheat death. Not for long anyway.

As the piano grew larger, Jared placed his fingers under my chin and turned my face toward his. He flashed a smile that could make grown women beg, and my heart faltered as a surge of longing enveloped me.

A warmth took hold, a strange euphoria. I had fallen in love with an angel, with a celestial being as old as time itself. How weird was that?

He pulled me into his arms—a place I had wanted to be for some time now—and let his eyes drift shut. When he lifted his face toward the heavens, a floodtide of energy cascaded over us. I could feel it, powerful and electric.

“Be still,” he whispered to the universe. And the air thickened. The earth slowed. He opened his eyes as I wondered at the sparkling world around us.

“You can still do it,” I said, transfixed.

He was enjoying my fascination.

And my fascination grew, because the piano, once solid, passed harmlessly through us. Hammers and strings flowed through my body. Keys and pedals floated past my eyes. I raised my hand and watched as an E-flat swept through my fingers.

“They fear my darkness,” Jared said.

I glanced back at him. His eyes had become blazing pools of fire, as though an inferno were engulfing him from the inside out.

“They always fear the darkness.” His mouth tilted up at one corner in a devilish grin. “But the light,” he said as he lowered his head, “the light is so much worse.”

I froze as his sculpted mouth descended onto mine.

A kiss, soft as a summer breeze.

A flash of light so bright, I could see it through my closed lids. Like a nuclear blast. Purging. Cleansing. Setting things right.

Then the world rushed back with hurricane force. I heard the piano crash against a wall, splintering into a thousand wooden shards. The house shook. The entity screamed.

And Jared’s hand on my back pulled me closer, molded me to him. The kiss deepened. He slid his tongue along my mouth, and I parted my lips to let him enter. When his tongue slipped inside, a tingling sensation raced through me. It pooled deep in my abdomen, liquid and hot.

The entity’s screams echoing off the walls kept rhythm with my pulse, with the blood and energy pulsating through my body, until the screams ebbed and faded into nothingness. A thick silence settled around us and I realized Jared’s light had banished the entity. It was gone.

He pulled me tighter and walked me back to a wall, pushed me against it and pressed into me. His body, solid and strong, felt like molten steel against mine. His lungs labored as he explored my mouth with his tongue. I savored his taste, sweet like candy.

Bracing one hand against the wall, he tore away from the kiss. But he didn’t let me go. Instead, he placed his forehead on the wall beside me, panting, his muscles constricted as if in pain. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice husky and soft.