AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That made me nervous. The last time I’d seen him really sweat had been in Lillian Harrod’s basement trying to destroy a fucking revenant. I wasn’t really keen on re-living any part of that experience again now.
“Deepwater—Hephaestus.”
That made no fucking sense to me, but Ward seemed satisfied with the answer.
“Who owns them?” he asked.
Bazan flashed his teeth again, and Ward’s knuckles went white as his hands gripped the arms of his chair.
“Julian… Vidal…”The name was a drawn-out hiss, clearly something he hadn’t wanted to reveal.
Doc, who, although watchful, had relaxed once it was clear that Ward was the one driving things, tensed again, clearly recognizing the name, and Beck sucked in a sharp breath, giving me the feeling something else was happening on a plane I couldn’t see.
And then Bazan let out a scream.
Spirits don’t scream like living people.
To be completely honest, I couldn’t tell you if it’s even something you hear with your ears. But it pierces your fucking brain and makes you wish it would ooze out your nose and ears just to alleviate the pain.
I gasped and grabbed my head, and I heard Beck cursing. Doc was sayingsomething, but I couldn’t fucking make it out over the shriek in my own skull.
“Oh, no you don’t, sonny boy.”Archie’s voice sounded very far away, although I couldn’t exactly tell what else he said, if anything. All I cared was that the damn pain had stopped.
And then I realized I was on the floor, but nobody else was, although Doc was crouched beside me, looking up at something else.
“Fuck.”
Archie’s semi-transparent face appeared about three inches over mine.
“Fuck!” I yelped again.
“Welcome back, sleeping beauty.”
Doc’s big green frown came next. “Hart?”
I ran a hand over my face. “Yeah?”
Large, warm fingers pressed against my forehead. “How do you feel?”
I frowned up at him. “Why are you being weird?”
His eyebrows rose. “You’ve been out for ten minutes, Hart,” he said. “We were trying to decide whether or not to call an ambulance.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Shit indeed, Puck,”Archie remarked.
Doc ignored him. “You were twitching at first,” the big orc explained. “But that stopped pretty quickly.” He frowned. “You’ve never had any problem like this with ghosts before, have you?”
I tried sitting up, the room spun and pain spiked through my skull, so I laid back down. “Fuck. No.” I rubbed a temple. “Not that I’ve ever heard a ghost scream before.”
My first clue that something was extra weird was when Doc looked over at someone else, an odd expression on his face.
“Nobody screamed, Hart,” he said softly.
“The fuck they didn’t,” I retorted, although the fact that Doc seemed genuinely oblivious made me rather nervous.
“You heard Bazan scream?” Beck’s voice asked, although I couldn’t see her from my spot on the floor.
