Page 54 of The Devil and His Ghost

And that was for the best. Better now while I still had my wits about me instead of after my demons caught up to me, which I still expected to happen. My mental state balanced on a tight rope over a burning candle. The heat promised to snap each fray a strand at a time until the flames consumed too much, snapping the rope in one wretched blow.

I didn’t want to be around Xander when those final frays split down the middle.

The door to the inn behind me opened, and Bethelma’s high-pitched voice followed. With a sigh, I closed out of the video and slid my phone into my jeans before getting to my feet and joining the newly arrived people in the foyer.

Spending the past few days with Xander had cracked my hard shell in a way only he seemed able to manage. The world with him almost felt separate from this one. Being alone with my coworkers, the weak spots in my armor reinforced as the cracks filled in. Any freedom and bliss I’d felt from Xander’s influence became lost to the dullness of real life.

Alex was the first to spot me leaning against the archway that connected the front sitting room to the foyer. He smiled brightly and waved after setting down his gear.

“Kendyll,” he greeted and drifted closer. “How was the stay?”

“Kendyll,” Bethelma screeched before I could answer. She drifted over in her lacy black gown. Her many rings clinked on her bony fingers as she waved them at me. “You haven’t checked in at all, stupid girl! What have you been doing these past three days?”

“Working?” I retorted with a raised incredulous brow. “What else would your slave do, hmm?”

“Watch it,” she hissed, pointing her sharp nail at me.

“Easy, easy,” Alex soothed, waving us both down. He patted Bethelma’s hand, which still shook at me, and tried to calm the star. “You know certain places can keep Kendyll too busy to check in often.” He looked at me. “So was it … lively here?”

“Nope,” I answered flatly, popping the P on the word. I smiled icily at the old woman. “There’s nothing here, so you’ll have an easy time pulling whatever lies and bullshit you want out of your ass.”

“Then just what have you been doing?” she huffed with a dramatic eye roll.

I tapped a finger to my chin while pretending to ponder. “Now that you mention it, I did slack off a bit to fuck around with a demon I found.”

Bethelma scoffed and shuffled away in a flurry of skirts. “You’re an obnoxious little girl. Now where’s that innkeeper woman?” She swept down the hallway leading to Wendy’s quarters.

“Thank you,” I shouted sweetly at her back, breathing a little easier after she’d disappeared.

Alex shifted on his feet and flashed me a nervous grin. “You two are as lovely together as always.”

Alex often played mediator between Bethelma and I. He was a calm, happy guy, and he seemed to really love being the cameraman who followed Bethelma and caught her in action as she “conversed and interacted with” the spirits of the locations we shot at for Haunted Days and Nightmares. He worked with production, too, so I supposed he was a natural at mediating.

Ignoring him, I went in the direction Bethelma had gone, grabbing some of the bags on the way. “Wendy, the innkeeper, said we can make her room the safe room. I’ve already moved my stuff into there.”

“Was it okay sleeping here all on your own?”

I looked over my shoulder. “I’m a big girl, Alex. What is there to be scared of? Things that go bump in the night? You know who you’re talking to, right?”

His cheeks turned pink, and if his arms and hands weren’t loaded down with bags, he probably would’ve been rubbing his chestnut head sheepishly. “Right. I guess the dark and ghosts don’t really scare you.”

No. The things that made normal people quiver in fear brought me comfort and peace. I clung to all things spooky in my moments of fear. I much preferred the undead to the living.

Wendy and Bethelma were in the middle of chatting when we walked in. Bethelma was laying it on thick, pretending she already felt a presence within the inn, and Wendy hung on her every word with stars in her eyes.

Alex and I set up monitors and our various equipment in the sitting area of Wendy’s space. Since I’d interviewed and filmed Wendy this morning for the show, she left the three of us to go to the hotel that the network had set up for her while we filmed here. Meanwhile, Bethelma stood over top of me, reading over the material I’d typed up and reviewing the photos and videos I’d taken during my time here.

“Hmph,” Bethelma huffed with her nose tilted up and lips pursed. That was the face and sound she always made when she was impressed with me but didn’t want to admit it.

“These are amazing,” Alex praised, scrolling through my photo shoot with Xander. His bright eyes met mine. “How’d you get such clear photos of a spirit if nothing’s here?”

I smirked, admiring the still image of Xander’s golden eyes peering through the cracked door of a dark room. “Someone owed me a favor, so I cashed in.”

Catsper suddenly appeared in Bethelma’s white hair. His black see-through body settled into her updo like it was a nest made for him, and he meowed at me as though asking who these people were.

“Ahh,” I suddenly piped up. “There is one ghost here. A cat.”

“A cat?” Bethelma shouted with a curl of her lip.