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* * *
The wedding is winding down. Everything went perfectly. The father of the bride comes over. “Great job, Miss Zane. My Lila is happy and I can’t thank you enough.” He hands me a fat envelope.
“This isn’t necessary, Mr. Lancer.”
“I insist.” He takes my hand and closes it around the tip.
“Thank you.” I put the envelope in my purse.
Something moves in the corner.
Mantus stalks from the open door toward the movement. Then he breaks into a run and chases something through the kitchen door.
I return my attention back to my client. “I’m just going to make sure all is well with the kitchen. I think your wife has the top tier of the cake already. Let me know if you ever need another party planned. I’m happy to help.”
“I’ve already given your card to my assistant. She’ll be calling about the company Christmas party.” He grins and stumbles over to his wife, waiting by the doors with a cake box.
As soon as he’s gone and it’s only staff, someone turns up the lights.
I run to the kitchen door. Make my way through some broken plates to the back of the building. The door leads to an alleyway.
Looking left, then right, I find Mantus holding a man by the throat. He bangs him against the brick wall. Reaching down, Mantus pulls a knife out of a strap at his ankle. Pulling back, he plunges the knife into the man’s chest.
I scream and cover my mouth. Horror washes over me like boiling water. The man I think I’m falling in love with is a murderer.
The dying man grins as blood seeps through his white shirt around the knife. “I win.”
Mantus turns his head to look at me. “He’s a purg. This is Jorge.”
Jorge’s eyes go dim and his head nods forward.
Pulling the knife from Jorge’s chest, Mantus lets the body fall to the gutter.
In a strange shadowy moment, Jorge’s body disappears.
I run over. “Where did he go?”
“Purgatory,” Mantus says. His voice is steady and there’s no regret as he finds a piece of paper in the trash bin and wipes the blood away from his knife. He slips the knife back into the sheath strapped to his leg, then walks toward me.
I back away. My heart is pounding. “Stay away from me.” It’s hard to breathe.
Stopping, he stares. “Are you afraid of me, Felicity?”
“You—you killed him.” I point to where Jorge was. My mind is a wash of images of the dead man and the way he first showed pain and then smiled when he said he’d won.
“He’s a purg.” Mantus holds out his hands wide. “I sent him back to purgatory where he belongs. You knew that was my job.” His voice is sharp.
“I didn’t know.” I can’t quite form the words to explain what I didn’t know. I run down the alley, gripping my purse in one hand and my chest in the other.
“Felicity.” He calls for me, but I keep running.
At the street, I hail a cab and pay the excessive fair to get him to take me all the way home.
* * *
Without any sleep last night, I’m walking around my house like a zombie. I just want to wipe the memory from my mind, but I saw it and there’s no going back. Mantus is a killer. He has no remorse or conscious about it either. He killed Jorge, wiped his knife, and was ready to go on with our evening.
Pumpkin cries.
