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“You need to get everyone out of this house.” I got up, rubbing my sweaty hands on my pants. “Now.”
The girl down the hall only had eyes for Tansy, staring at her intrepid leader, as if hoping the curvy blonde would contradict me. “What’s she talking about?”
“Genie, I didn’t see anything in there with you,” Cash said. “Are you sure?”
“Big. Pale. Spider. Guy.” Wilder said each word slowly, as its own statement, trying to get Cash to understand him. I nodded along with each word.
“Why was the door locked if you didn’t know what was in there?”
Tansy went from ashen to furrowed-brow annoyance in a heartbeat. “You heard the voices. The things falling on the floor. It was all coming from that room. What would you have done?”
“I can tell you what you should do,” I countered. “And that’s get everyone the hell out of this house. You have a goddamn demon in one of your bedrooms.” Then, upon hearing myself say goddamn demon, I tittered openly at the absurdity of it.
Clearly I was toeing the line of becoming hysterical, but who could blame me? An eight-eyed demon had been chasing me. I was amazed I hadn’t wet myself.
The door thumped loudly behind me, and the wall rattled so hard a framed photo crashed to the carpet, the glass smashing in spite of the padding.
Tansy and Cash stopped doubting me.
The other girl ran back into her room, and the sound of a suitcase zipper followed.
At least someone in this house had some common sense.
Tansy’s eyes were wide, fixed on the door. “What was—?”
“A demon,” I finished for her.
Wilder was standing now, and the wolf aspect of his personality had started sneaking into the foreground. He was edgy, with barely constrained energy that caused him to shift from one foot to the other. He wanted to bolt.
So did I.
“Will it get out? I mean, the thing you did to the door, what was that?”
“It’s a holding charm. It should keep the thing in that room, but—” The door thumped again, and I felt the rattle inside my bones.
A creaky voice, not human, not a whisper like Heidi’s, said, “I know you.”
We all went still. The girl in the other room came back into the hall, her eyes huge and wide.
“Believe me now?” I asked.
No one replied.
“I know you, Eugenia.”
Oh, hello. That was unexpected.
“Did it just say my name?” I asked Wilder.
Tap, tap, tap. The sound of a fingernail on the other side of the wood door called my attention back. Tap, tap, tap. I was already listening; it didn’t need to keep doing that.
“I can smell you, wolf. I can smell your fear, and your desire, and your guilt. I know you.”
“Sorry, wrong number.”
I ushered Tansy and Cash towards the stairs, neither of them letting my hands rest on their skin for long. I noticed the way they twisted and hustled to get away from me. I would try not to take it personally if it meant getting them away from the door, and me along with them. If they were freaked out by a demon whispering my name, it had nothing on the way it made me feel.
“Please, please, please,” Heidi’s disembodied voice begged.
