“Something’s coming,” Tabitha said, breathing heavily as she watched the doorway.
In my arms, Asher muttered something that sounded like “You.”
“What was that, buddy?” I lifted him carefully, so I could hear him better. “You?”
His eyes flew open, the sockets filled with sickly green light as they swiveled towards the front door.
“Uriah Everett.”
28
The floorboards in the living room exploded, sending up a geyser of splinters and dust and stone. We’d gotten out just in time, but that didn’t mean we were going anywhere. We were going to make this asshole pay for injuring Asher – and probably also for renovations. Time would tell.
A globe of bluish light rose from the crater in the living room, stretching into five points, assuming the faint shape of a humanoid: head, arms, legs. The light flickered, and within seconds the ghost of Uriah Everett was standing before us in all his ancient, horrible glory. White hair fell in wisps past his ears and his beard, his leering grin exposing rows of wicked teeth. He looked like a historical re-enactor, and not even a great one, or maybe that was just my hostility coloring my judgment.
I backed up a few paces, slowly settling Asher down on the grass. Tabitha went to his side, placing a hand on his chest. He nodded at her, giving a weak smile. He was going to be okay. Somehow I knew it, or maybe I just wanted to believe it so badly.
“How wonderful it is to be among the living once more,” breathed the shade of Uriah Everett. His voice was a rough, rasping whisper, only too loud, and almost painful to listen to. The founder of Silveropolis had been hailed as a wonderful man, a great boon to society. This apparition reflected nothing of the pretty words written in Uriah’s journal, or on his gravestone.
Everything about him dripped with malice, an aura of taint lingering in the air. He bent low to the ground, groping among scattered planks and splinters, sighing with satisfaction when he found his bloodied journal. Uriah riffled through the pages, not seeming to look for anything specific, but cackling as he browsed nonetheless.
“You’re the founder of Silveropolis?” I said. “I was expecting something more impressive.”
Uriah snapped the covers of his journal shut. He hugged it against his chest, covetous, possessive. When he glared at me, I could swear that jets of burning cold slammed into my skull. “Fine words from something as tainted and corrupt as the blood-cursed. Though I suppose I should thank you for squatting in my old home.”
“Squatting,” Gil grumbled. “You hear this asshole? We bought it, fair and square.”
“Ah, yes, from my beloved granddaughter. It was part of the conditions of my return, after all. Blood must be spilled on the grounds of the Everett House, to water my corpse and help me rise again. And not just any old blood. Outsiders. Strangers.” The final word, he said with a sneer. “Supernaturals.”
Cold dread clenched in my chest. Then she was in on it from the beginning. She sold us the house, then gave us the journal. She knew and had put us all in danger.
“Olivia knew all along,” I muttered.
“The fruit stand girl?” Bastion shouted. “Are you kidding? This whole time.”
“A sweet child, she is,” Uriah said. “She only meant to help her poor, beloved ancestor return to the world of the living. For these hills must be cleansed, you see.”
“Cleansed of what, old man?” My fists shook at my sides. How could I have been so stupid? “Was it you who killed all those people?”
Uriah tilted his head at a grotesque, unnatural angle, then chuckled. “I do tire of these questions. There is still so much work to be done. But if you must know, it was my pets who killed them. Perhaps you should ask them yourself.”
Howling emanated from inside the house, the walls shaking once again. Something was running up from the same hole that Uriah was standing in, stamping against the earth from what felt like dozens of feet down. Had there been a tunnel down there the whole time?
And then there it was, a paw, reaching up and over the edge of the cratered floor. Another paw, and with powerful legs rippling with muscle, a great beast pulled itself up to the surface. It was a dog, only bigger and angrier than a wolf, its head as large as a grown man’s thigh, its body as long as I was tall. The dog’s coat was oily black, reflecting the same ghostly blue tinge as Uriah’s body when the light struck just right. It bared its teeth, its jaws dripping with bluish slaver. It barked, a deep, feral threat that echoed around the cabin, right out the door. The walls shook. The trees trembled.
“What the fuck is that?” Bastion said.
“I don’t know,” Gil growled. “But you’d better get ready to fight.”
Another hound leapt out of the crater, then another, each one a mirror of the first. Think jet-black mastiffs, only larger, more vicious, and with eyes that burned ghostly blue. The froth that formed around their open jaws faintly glowed, almost like pale, ghoulish fire.
“So these were the murderers,” Gil whispered. “These were the things that killed the seven victims. They bit off their faces.”
Loyal hounds in life, no doubt, and now warped into Uriah’s servants, bound in death. I hated to think that Uriah had chained these animals to his will, trained them into savagery.
“And no tracks in the woods, no traces of saliva left behind, because they’re specters,” Bastion said. “They can shift their physicality at will.”
From somewhere behind us, Asher chuckled bitterly. “Oh, those are definitely in the physical realm right now. You guys best get your butts ready.”