Dead of Night (Hunters of the Dark #4) Read online

Chapter Two

  Krystal took a deep breath and turned down the hallway near the laboratory, pausing near a door with the painting of a ship in a stormy sea hanging beside it. She cocked her head and gazed down the hall expectantly.

  The overhead lights dimmed and a few of them further up the hall winked off, as she knew they would, as they had done half a dozen times before. She swallowed hard as she heard the sound of something heavy rolling over the carpeting toward her.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Krystal drew in a few shaky breaths, noticing as she did so how cold the air had grown. She had certainly encountered ghosts in her life, but the few she had had a chance to interact with had been friendly, much like her friend Cassandra from Fern Dell. She hadn’t met a horrible, violent death, which made some ghosts cling to this world and reenact the crime over and over, like some sort of dark obsession. Cassandra had died of tuberculosis. Painful, sure, but hardly an atypical way to die at the time of her death. The only reason her spirit stuck around was because she had died so young, and felt that she had more living to die, unable to accept the fact that she should move beyond the mortal coil to what lay next. She was scared of what came next.

  Krystal felt something hit the toe of her shoe and opened her eyes, looking down at the glass ball, a paperweight with a crack down the center of it, a smudge of blood clinging to its smooth sides. She reached down and picked it up, turning the object over to examine it, eyeing the little air bubbles trapped within the heavy glass sphere. Then her eyes wandered to her feet, and she wondered if that’s where her friend’s blood had pooled out of her body. They’d done a marvelous job of cleaning the cream carpeting. Like it had never happened.

  The bulb above her went out, leaving only a flickering light behind her still humming sickly. She looked up and drew another calming breath before she spoke. “Felicia. I know it’s you. You have to stop doing this. You shouldn’t be here and you know it. You need to move on.”

  The light overhead suddenly came to life again and Krystal swallowed a scream as Felicia appeared before her, her normally chocolate skin pale and lifeless, her eyes white and empty, as if seeing nothing. Krystal gripped the paperweight harder in her hand and forced herself to stare her friend in the face, no matter how hard it was.

  “You died violently, horribly,” Krystal said, her voice catching. She licked her lips and began again. “You’re my friend and I know you want to move on. You don’t want to be stuck like this, in this loop. What can I do for you?”

  Felicia stared at her for a moment, as if considering her, then took a step closer.

  Krystal took an involuntary step back, then rebuked herself, forcing herself to stand still as Felicia inched forward again. She’d never seen the ghost of someone she’d known while living and she hated the feeling. She felt the gooseflesh rise on her arms and willed herself to refrain from running her hands over her skin to warm them. “You want something from me,” she said with confidence to the ghost. “You only appear like this to me. Is it because I’m a necromancer? Can the others not see you? Or is there something you need to tell me?”

  Felicia stopped an inch from her and stared her in the face for a moment. Krystal bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out and looking away, and felt the taste of blood spread over her tongue. Then Felicia leaned forward, her mouth next to Krystal’s ear.

  Krystal couldn’t resist indulging a shiver that ran up her spine as Felicia’s cold breath tickled her ear.

  Felicia’s voice was muffled, as if she were speaking underwater, but Krystal imagined she said “The crows are not what they appear.”

  Then the lights all turned back on and Krystal couldn’t help bet let loose a scream. Her heart pounded as she leaned against the wall, staring at the spot where Felicia had stood a second earlier.

  “Krystal?” Brett rounded the corner and regarded her for a moment, his eyes narrowing as he looked up the corridor. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Krystal assured him, sending him a shaky smile. She glanced down at her hand that had held the paper weight a moment ago, but was now empty, the sphere vanishing along with the specter. “Just visiting with ghosts.”