What the hell was going on?
Suddenly, a man stepped into the flickering light that bled out of the exposed bulb hanging in the center of the room. Don’t ask me how I could tell he was a man and not a spirit. Chalk it up to experience. Once you knew what you were looking for, it was like an instinct, telling apart the living and the dead.
This man was massive. I wasn’t a short guy, and he had at least two inches on me. His broad shoulders were draped in the heavy cotton of a black hoodie, and his matching jeans were slim fit and ripped at the knees. He had scuffed combat boots laced up at his ankles and a bandana with a skeleton mouth pulled up over his nose. Piercing brown eyes slammed into mine, and his mop of dark hair swept across his forehead in thick, soft waves.
His hostile gaze fell to the sage stick I was currently brandishing like a weapon, and he cocked his head to the side in a strangely endearing way.
What the fuck, Ryan? This man is an intruder! You should be fucking running for your life!
But I couldn’t. I was frozen in place. Maybe I was in shock? What was this man doing in my house? And even more importantly… why the fuck did he have, like,twentyghouls hanging off of him like demonic Christmas ornaments?
Of course, the man didn’t seem to know that he was dragging a gaggle of ghouls around with him, but they were there. Stroking him, wrapping their hands around his throat and wrists as if they could drag him down to hell with them.
What had he done to piss them all off so much?
“Your little burning stick isn’t going to save you, ginger snap.”
“What?” I asked dumbly.
The stranger’s eyes were burning with a rage that I didn’t understand.
“You want to hurt little kids?” he growled, taking a step toward me, and I frowned, instinctively taking a matching step back.
“Hurt little kids?” I asked, reaching behind me to put the herbs down on top of the mini-fridge.
“You think I don’t know what you did to that little boy?” the man snarled.
Little boy? Was he talking about Caleb?
“Dude, you have it all wrong. I didn’t?—”
But he didn’t let me finish. He lunged for me, and I reflexively found myself on the balls of my feet. He didn’t waste time with a one-two; he came in hard with a three-two-three, and I was barely able to block him.
His cross was devastating. If it had connected, I had no doubt I wouldn’t have gotten back up.
Jesus Christ.
I took on the immediate defensive. I dodged, blocked, and only retaliated when I wassureI would connect. The first punch I landed was a face shot, and it barely seemed to phase him. If anything, it seemed to egg him on more.
What the actual fuck was happening right now?!
The only positive in this situation was that the sage my mother had given me had burned enough to fill the small, concrete room, forcing the phantoms back out the door. It was just me and the intruder in the gym now, which made it easier to concentrate.
For someone so tall, he was lightning fast. I ducked out of the way, barely missing a left hook, just in time to catch his right directly to my gut. It winded me, and I buckled.
No. No, no, no.
This wasn’t like sparring with Theo. Something told me I would lose more than this fight if I let this man overpower me.
I would be losing mylife.
Of course, the second that thought shot through my fucked up brain, my traitorous body kicked into high gear, and I felt myself harden in my jeans.
For fuck’s sake…
Not only was I going to be murdered at twenty-seven in my own house, I was going to die with a goddamned fear-boner.
Great.
