“There’s something you don’t hear a Vampire say very often,” Wyatt quipped.
“Oh, I do!” Gem rustled her dress, and when a click sounded, her dress lit up like a Christmas tree.
Cardboard boxes were stacked against the white brick walls. A tarp covered what looked like furniture, and a few cases of wine sat on a workbench. Overhead were all the pipes keeping this old place running.
Lenore walked over to another sconce and pulled it. “Hurry, before the others follow.” She wiped away sticky cobwebs from a dark entryway. “I don’t want anyone else finding my escape tunnel. It leads to the back of the house.”
Gem’s dress faintly illuminated the narrow walls. We moved quickly down the tunnel before coming to a grinding halt.
“We’re toast.” Wyatt turned around and kicked the ground.
A wall of light moved slowly toward us. Only instead of the electric blue that’d fried a few guests, it was the palest gold I’d ever seen.
Lenore spun on her heel. “That was our only chance to escape. I don’t know what else to do.”
Shepherd heaved a sigh. “Fuck it. I’ve gotta get my kid.”
Gem reached out and touched his arm. “But you could die!”
“I can’t leave him alone.” He gave Viktor a curt nod and then stalked toward the light with more courage than I’d ever seen.
Gem clutched Claude’s arm as Shepherd neared the golden wall. When he passed through, I wanted to look away, not ready to see someone I cared about turned into pixie dust. There was no screaming, no smell of burning flesh either.
Shepherd crossed back through to our side. “I don’t feel dead. Do I look dead?”
Blue pointed, her eyes widening. “What’s that on your hand?”
Shepherd glanced at his palm before making a fist. “I guess you’ll find out in a minute.” Seconds later, he disappeared into the light.
CHAPTER3
Lenore’s secret tunnel wound around the property and opened up near the front. We climbed a few rungs on a ladder and opened a heavy, watertight hatch. The tunnel led to a cluster of bushes a good distance from the house.
Blue was the last one out and shut the hatch, which had fake groundcover glued to it.
Winded, I sat under a large oak tree and noticed the energy wall was gone. I hadn’t felt this exhausted and weak since I was human. “Does anyone feel different?” I asked, staring at the hourglass light tattoo on my palm. Everyone seemed to have one exactly like it.
Gem squatted and hugged her knees. “I’m not sure yet. Passing through the wall felt tingly and all wrong.”
Claude bent over, out of breath. Sweat glistened on his bare chest beneath his white jacket. Where the hell was his dress shirt? Gem abruptly stood, desperately trying to switch off the lights on her dress. Click after click, but nothing happened.
Blue yanked on her cloak. “Shep, give me a hand.”
He tried removing it without success. “I can’t get it off.”
“Break the clasp!”
“It just keeps reattaching.”
Wyatt sat across from me. “Sorry to break the news, but say hello to your forever clothes.”
I glared at him. “Ourwhat?”
“Your ghost outfit for all eternity.” He leaned back on his hands. “The guy in there with the horse’s mane said when we passed through the light, we’d be living between the realm of the living and the dead. Hope nobody had to pee.”
I rubbed at the blue hourglass on the palm of my hand. A thin hair of light dripped from the top to the bottom. “Do you think this is permanent?”
Viktor clapped his hands together. “We must get Miss Parrish to safety. Shepherd—”
