Page 2 of Death Trap

“Well, I’m here to get you back to where you belong.” I held out my gloved hand and offered her a small smile, an attempt to seem trusting to a complete stranger. “Come on. Let’s get out of this dirty water.”

She stared at my hand, hesitant. “Do you know Simon?” she asked me, completely out of the blue.

Well, if she trusted Simon that much, then maybe she’d trust me. “He was my mentor actually. And now he’s my boss. He’s more of the silent and mysterious type.”

And me? I can’t shut up apparently.Looked like I was still bad at these types of small-talk situations.

“But he taught me everything he knows.” There. That was better. Made me sound more like I knew my shit.

She continued to stare at me for a long moment, unsure. But finally, she gave in and took my hand. With me doing most of the paddling and pulling her along, Stephanie and I swam to the surface. I climbed onto the dock first and then helped haul her up.

Although both of us were completely dry, I had to rub the chill of the water off of my arms. My skin was crawling with goose bumps, so it took a while to make them go away. Beside me, Stephanie shivered.

After reaching into my jeans’ back pocket, I pulled out my piece of chalk. I squatted down and began drawing the spirit door symbols right there on the wooden boards of the dock.

As I continued to draw, I couldn’t help but think to myself what a quiet and well-mannered spirit Stephanie was. Most of the spirits I encountered, either newly deceased or not, were more difficult to get through the door. The spirits who had found a way through the veil again didn’t want to go back to the afterlife. And I didn’t blame them either. It was nice to be able to see your loved ones again after spending so much time apart from them. But Stephanie stood next to me silently. Waiting. No fuss.

It was a relief, really.

When I glanced up to check on her, I noticed that she was standing there as rigid as a statue, her gaze focused on something ahead of her and across the street. Her brows were knitted, as if she was trying to make out what the thing was.

Looking that way briefly, I saw nothing but some bushes along the side of an old Victorian house with a For Sale sign in the window. Maybe she was interested in real estate? Who knew? But I went back to drawing the symbols on the dock.

In the next second, she was pounding on my back, panic pushing her words out in a high-pitched jumble. “Whatisthat? Whatisthat?”

I whipped my head left just in time to see two glowing red eyes emerging out of the shadowy crevice in between the bushes of the house. Slowly, it climbed out of its hole, gaining more of a form and density with every move.

When it was fully on the sidewalk, I jumped to my feet. Twisted limbs jutted out of its crooked body in odd, unnatural angles. Even its head was misshapen and too small for its Doberman-sized body.

Ah, shit. Not this again.

“That ugly S.O.B. is a Halfling,” I said, gesturing Stephanie to get behind me.

Ugly as sin and unmistakable. And believe it or not, this was the third Halfling to cross my path this month alone. They kept popping up unannounced and unwelcomed like this, and I was starting to think these weren’t just coincidences. Even with the veil thinned.

Glancing at my unfinished spirit door, I cursed. So much for a quick getaway.

As the creature charged us, I reached into my boot for my gun—the only good thing to come out of my relationship with Cole, or whatever it had been.

I pointed the thing, aimed, and shot, but the Halfling bounced side to side and dodged the bullets with ease. At least they all seemed to have the same attack method—charge like a raging bull. No strategy or clever plan I had to be one step ahead of. Just full speed ahead.

It looked like I needed to work on my aim more with moving objects. A gun wasn’t useful if I couldn’t hit a damn thing.

As the creature drew near, I spun around at the last minute and lashed out with a foot, striking it in the side of the head. It crumpled onto the ground. Sometimes old-fashioned worked the best, especially when it came to fighting. And if worst came to worst, there was always my white light power, but after my fight with Xaver, I had managed to keep myself from using it again. It left me too weak, and a deadly situation, like this one, wasn’t the time to be vulnerable. Especially when Halflings were looking to drag you to Hell and never let you out.

The only downside to not using it was that I had stayed in spirit form these last few months. Even when on the living side of the veil. My guess was that I wouldn’t go solid again until I tapped into that part of myself. A real catch-22.

“Is it…dead?” Stephanie asked, peeking out from behind me. Her question brought me back to our current crappy situation.

I looked over the Halfling’s unmoving form. “Just knocked out, I think.”

“You hit it pretty hard,” she said. “I even heard a crunch.”

“Yeah, but these things weren’t exactlyaliveto start with,” I explained.

So far, I knew of only two things that could take them down. My light or the blessed iron bullets Cole had specially made and gifted me with the gun.

“Let’s just get back to where we belong before he wakes up.” I grabbed the chalk I had dropped during my moment of panic and continued to draw the rest of the spirit door.

---