Chapter Two
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Jasmine
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There.Are.Demons.In.My.House.
I don't even know how I ended up here.One moment, I was living my best life, with a pretty apartment, a decent car, and a superb collection of shoes.
Now, all I have left is that collection of shoes and zilch else.I went from flying high to magnificently broke and homeless in a heartbeat.
It's that damn mark on my chest, just above my areola.Some people—my parents, to be precise—thought it was a birthmark, but I believe it's my very own doomsday clock.
It's literally a ring on my skin with a single line in the middle, and while I can't be 100% sure, I have a nagging feeling that line is moving, like a hand on a clock.
It used to point to the three on a clock face, but now it's been progressively moving in a clockwise direction.
Now it's closer to the twelve mark.Or has it always been that way?I don't know.I should have documented proof with pictures, but I was too busy enjoying my life.
But my catastrophe is no longer impending; it's happening.I couldn't afford the rent on my apartment or the payment on my car because I lost my job.The company I worked for was raided by the FBI, which turned out to be just a front for a seriously dangerous mafia crime lord to launder money.
If that wasn't bad enough, all the employees received ominous letters in our personal emails.We were being watched in case we talked.But the byline was the real kicker: we were all on a hit list; we just didn't know when we would be taken out.
It's ridiculous because I was just a lowly assistant to the boss's PA.I picked up dry cleaning, brought coffee, and walked his dog.I know nothing.Seriously.But I'm not about to argue with a powerful mafia man.
So now I have a mountain of credit card debt I never planned to pay back.It was supposed to be revolving until the day I died.How else is a girl supposed to finance her shoe addiction?
And that explains why I'm hiding out here in this dilapidated house that belonged to my grandfather, which was left to me just a few days ago.A grandfather I didn't know existed until I inherited the house, serendipitously just a few days ago.
Apparently, my mom wanted nothing to do with her dad and had zero contact with him.When my parents died, my aunt, who raised me, honored that wish, so I still didn't know he existed.
At least I have a roof over my head.Even if it's a house haunted by green demons.My luck just keeps getting worse.And I'm still not sure if I have to hide out here away from the mafia until I die.Decisions, decisions.
But now there are demons in my house.
I'm so petrified that I forget to scream and go straight into fight mode.The baseball bat won't cut it.Panicked, I glance around for something else, anything else.
My gaze skids to a halt on a bunch of dried flowers wrapped with a ribbon.
My grandfather's girlfriend passed away two weeks before I moved in, leaving the house just as it is now.No wonder it's haunted.She died on the sofa in this very living room.
Is this her, manifested as three green demon giants here to torment me?But why?I didn't do anything to her.I didn't know her.Everyone seems to be out to get me.
I drop the bat and pick up the flowers.Petals fall to the floor as half of the bunch disintegrates.
"I'm not afraid of you.Leave right now.This is sage," I say, crossing my fingers with my other hand and hoping they believe I'm armed with sage, on the off chance they don't know what sage is and I can placebo them into vanishing.
I'm desperate, okay?
I hope this is how I'm supposed to use it.I didn't have a chance to search online for how-to tutorials on cleansing my house of spooks.
"Stay away," I shout, waving what remains of the bouquet—just a bunch of crunchy stems.No, I need to say...what's the word?Right, yes, brandish.
"I brandish you back to hell.Go home."
