“What’s happening in town?” Liz asked.
He rotated to face her. “Headless beings. Very creepy.” Headless? Why me? “Also hangings,” he continued.
“They are hanging people in the town, and you can’t decide if it’s a three or four pineapple situation?” I said as I jerked to my feet.
“Not living people,” he replied with a huff.
“Most hanging victims aren’t alive,” I pointed out as I leapt into action and collected my coat and keys. Aunt Liz followed me as I strode through the house. Dave and Hudson were back at the pack house, sorting some new mini crisis out. I sent Hudson a text, telling him where I was going, so if he was stalking me through my phone, he wouldn’t freak out.
Sebastian looked up from his phone, his gaze sliding over my coat, and he raised a brow. “Supernatural shenanigans?” he asked, ever so hopeful.
“Yup. You coming?”
He was already moving to the door as I opened it, and we spilled outside. I glanced over my shoulder at Liz. “You too?” I wondered. It wasn’t like her to insert herself into drama. Not that she wouldn’t come and help if needed.
She shrugged. “My day was a little dull.”
My aunt missed Dave and needed a distraction. We piled into Sebastian’s SUV, and Harry launched himself into the rear of the car next to Liz. She slid him a curious glance.
“Are you going to explain the fruit?” she asked as Sebastian sped out of my drive toward the town.
Harry turned to face her. “It’s our safe word.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, realizing how that sounded. Liz slid me an amused glance. “You need safe words when dealing with my niece?”
“Well, she ignored my other, more obvious cries for help.”
Now I sounded like a bad Dom.
“So you found a mutually agreeable word which would get her to stop?”
I was going to murder Indigo for gifting these people the sight.
“We decided on a pineapple rating in order to quantify how urgent the situation was.”
“I see.”
Help me.
They lapsed into quiet conversation and ignored Sebastian’s lips twitching throughout it. Everyone was having a hoot at my expense.
He slammed on the brakes, and the seatbelt dug into my stomach as my hand hit the dash. What in the ever-loving?—
My eyes widened as a huge black horse came cantering down the road toward us, a cloaked figure on its back. He held a sword, and his severed head was tucked under his arm, grinning maniacally.
“You see that, right?” Sebastian whispered.
“That is very creepy,” Harry declared. The phantom didn’t slow down; it rode straight through the car, and the horsemanlaughed, the sound like nails on a chalkboard. It should be considered an omen when your resident ghost freaked out.
We continued our journey into the center of town, stopping at the edge of the crowd gathering around the town hall. The residents of White Castle had come out in their masses to discuss their ghost problem. Nothing like a brief brush with the afterlife to bond folks.
Robert stood on a raised portion of a wall with a microphone. “If everyone could calm down, we can put together a plan.”
I pushed open the car door and exited, joining the throng at the back, flanked by Sebastian and Liz. Interestingly, nobody seemed to see Harry. There was something different about these ghouls; they weren’t your run-of-the-mill ghosts, and they appeared slightly more sentient than the remnants we’d seen at The Pit.
“The town is haunted,” a woman cried out at the front. “What are you doing about it?” There was a rumbling agreement in the crowd. Robert rubbed a hand down his face. What were they expecting him to do about it? Arrest them and send them back to their afterlife?
“My daughter woke up to find her dolls moving around the house. It traumatized her,” a guy declared.
