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“Pax, we’re supposed to be quiet,” Ambrose hisses. He tries to disentangle me from his bed, but I burrow deeper.It really is quite warm and cosy under here.
“It’s Ozzy. He tried to attack me.”
“Oh.” Ambrose shudders against me. “What’s he doing now?”
I peel back the edge of the blanket and look. “Nothing. He’s just standing on the piano, staring at us.”
“Oh.” Ambrose slowly lowers the blanket. His chin quivers. “Hello, Ozzy. We’re sorry for bothering you. We’ll only be here a night, and I promise Pax won’t make any more annoying sounds—”
“Sssssh.” I clamp my hand over Ambrose’s mouth, my eyes fixed on Ozzy.
The fuzzy little devil is movingnow. He jumps up and down. He grabs his throat with his own hands. He makes a face with his tongue poking out and topples backwards off the edge of the piano. I lunge for him, but he rights himself mid-fall and floats to the floor, holding his ass.
Right in the spot where a glass shard stuck out of Edward.
“I think…I think that Ozzy is trying to tell us something.”
I lean forward.
Ozzy starts his dance again, his wings spread out as he hops from one foot to the other, waving his tiny fingers around. He kind of looks as though he’s pushing an invisible person. Then he jabs his wingtip at the window, where Grimdale Cemetery slumbers beneath the pale moon, while his other hand wraps around his neck so that his eyes bug out.
He’s choking himself.
No. He’sbeingchoked.
And then he falls off the piano again.
And again.
I’m a warrior – I recognise an attack, even if it’s been badly acted by a furry little woe wizard.
“I think Ozzy is telling us that he saw Edward’s death,” I say as I lift up Ambrose’s blankets and snuggle down inside. “Edward didn’t just drunkenly fall out the window. He waspushed.”
17
Ambrose
“We have to tell Bree.” Pax thumps his fist on the floor, rattling the beams.
That’s exactly what I’m thinking.
The real, corporeal human heart I now possess is racing. This isbig. Monumental. In all the centuries the three of us have been together in this house, we have never had a clue about Edward’s unfinished business. But we’d never thought to ask Ozzy before.
“Thank you.” I hold out my hand toward where I think Ozzy is. A moment later, my skin tingles where two little clawed ghost feet hop across my hand. How strange to be on the other side once again and feel a ghost!
“What are you doing?” Pax demands. “Why are you being friendly with that fuzzy demon?”
I reach out with a finger and gently, warily, stroke the top of Ozzy’s head. He leans into me, nuzzling my hand with his. His face goes a little bit of the way inside my skin, and he makes a contented little squeak.
He feels warm and tingly and soft and…quite nice, actually.
Ozzy’s body vibrates and he lets out another little squeak. His head falls deeper into my hand and suddenly, I feel ashamed of how we treated him. If Ozzy saw Edward’s death, then he’s been in this house at least that long, up here in the attic, all by himself.
When we all moved up to the attic, Edward tried to shoo him away, and ofcourseOzzy reacted violently to protect the only part of the house that was his. I feel a pang of regret that we’d spent so many years being terrified and cowering in fear of him when really, all he wanted was for us to be his friends, too.
“Thank you, Ozzy,” I say, scratching him under his ghosty chin.
“I cannot believe you’re making friends with that servant of Hades.”
