Page 21 of Dead Vengeance

He taps ghost ashes to the floor, performatively disdainful. “Do you know how long it took me to figure out ghost props like these?”

My head drops to the side in pure disbelief. “Do you think I care? You just killed my guest! Would you look at this mess?”

“Then a little cigarette smoke should be the least of your problems,” he counters.

Asshole. Wish I’d never brought him in.

“Kraa!”

“Could you at least open the window for him?” I bark at Simon, then mutter, “It’s the least you could do.”

He doesn’t need to breathe, obviously, but he huffs out a dramatic breath anyway, then flutters a hand upwards, opening the window with his poltergeist powers.

There’s an immediate flap of large black wings, and relief sweeps over me with the knowledge that finally I can start to fix this. “Edgar, I need something big this time,” I tell the raven. “Not a mouse or a bird. I need… maybe a rabbit? Can you do that? Really, really quickly?”

“Kraa!” He nods his great, glossy head once, and he’s back out the window.

Weirdo. He’s entirely too excited about this. Every single time.

“Now, about my revenge,” Simon starts.

“Does it look like this is the time for a discussion?” I shout at him.

He stomps his foot, as petulant as a child. “It’s never the right time with you!”

“I’m working on it!” I seethe. “If you could help at all?”

A tsk of his tongue, a wave of his hand, and the chandelier wobbles, shakes, then rises up, the same wires that snapped and sparked before melting seamlessly together, the base of the thing screwing itself back into the ceiling, with all the broken plaster settling around it as if it the whole scene never happened.

This ghost is scary-powerful. I guess that’s what two-hundred years of wandering gets you. Good thing he’s still on my side. Mostly.

“I don’t suppose you can do anything about these bones, can you?”

“He had it coming,” he offers uselessly, fiddling with the lace at his cuff.

“Yes, but I didn’t! What did I ever do to you to deserve a broken corpse on my floor, leaking all over my carpet?”

“You invited him in. You let him point that gun at me when you know guns trigger me. So I’m afraid you’re on your own with this one.”

He dissolves into the atmosphere, the pure essence of smirk filling the room for a moment, before I’m left alone, me and this dead body, and a whole world of fucked.

Fucking prick.

It’s then I hear Liam down the hall. “Archer? Mr Gravely!” The door handle rattles and his hand slams down on the wood. “Please let me out!”

“It’s okay, Liam! Never to worry!” I try to make my voice cheery, but I’m pretty sure it comes out shrill.

“Mr Gravely, please!”

Mr Gravely. Why is it so cute that he calls me that?

Cuteness aside, I feel like six litres of hot shit right about now. Poor guy, trapped in there. But what am I supposed to do? He was going to faint, or hurt himself, or run all the way back to the village and tell them I’ve killed a man. They’re suspicious enough of me as it is, without that adding to it.

And lord knows, I’d believe him if I were them. One look with those big brown eyes and I’d believe just about anything he said.

A snap of wings whips me out of the completely inappropriate reverie I’m about to fall into, some daydream about a too-handsome handyman in his overalls come to fix all my problems, and it’s already turning into the bad dialogue at the start of a porno.

Thankfully, or not, Edgar drops a fast, writhing mass of fur down at my side. “Kraa!” Then he snaps it up again before it can escape.