Page 80 of TBR: Dead But Well Read

“You have to get them out of here.” I turned to look at the guys. “I know you can’t walk through walls and stuff, but if you led them back out the way we came in, could you get them to one of the vortexes and help them get to the beyond?”

“Yes, but we aren’t leaving you here. It will take too long leading this many ghosts out and getting them to safety. Collectors can’t teleport wherever they want, like a reaper, or a certain ghost we all know and adore, but we can teleport them directly to a vortex and return to our previous location. It will take a while, but we will get them all to safety,” Rhodes answered, his face grim.

“It might not take as long as we think.” Evander pulled several papers from his bag and spread them on the table. “This place isn’t on the map, but we should be right in this area. I think the back wall of that room is probably hiding another door that leads to the old mine entrance. If we find that door, it would be easy to get them out of here as a group and then get them to the nearest vortex.”

“You’re amazing!” I squealed, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing his cheek.

“Let’s move fast. We’ll need to cut off the stuff flowing into the pipes, then find the door.” Rhodes turned the handle, and headed into the room, calling over his shoulder, “Axelle, stay in there until we’re sure the containment system is down and you won’t be hurt.”

I stepped out of the way and watched as my men moved like a well-oiled machine as they worked to free the trapped ghosts. Within ten minutes, they’d found the door, broken it down, and had the last of the sludge draining from the pipes.

“Come on, Axelle! It’s safe,” Lochlan called as he started wrangling the ghosts toward the back of the room, where Evander and Rhodes waited in the old mine to make sure none of the ghosts wandered off again.

When they got the last ghost into the mine and I couldn’t see them, I decided I didn’t need to guard the hall anymore and headed toward the containment room.

“What have you done? I’ll kill you for this!” The shout came from behind me and, spinning around, I came face-to-face with a livid Zacharias.

Glancing over my shoulder at the mine entrance, I prayed the guys wouldn’t realize right away that I hadn’t followed them. I threw myself at the button with the label that readLockdown.

A metal panel slid down from the ceiling to block anyone in the confinement area from getting back into the lab. Good.

Now my guys would have to get the ghosts to safety. I could have teleported myself out of the lab, but that would have left my collectors, and the ghosts, open to an attack by Zacharias.

No, I had to stay here and distract him long enough for them to get out of the mine.

Zacharias raised his scythe and rushed at me.

All I had to do was dodge and weave faster than he could swing. It was just like elementary school dodgeball, only deadlier.

Zacharias swung at me as though he were a baseball player trying for a home-run. “You are dead! Matters involving the living are none of your business!”

The whistle of his scythe slicing through the air accompanied his shout, and the black cloak he was wearing spun around him. He looked every bit an avenging reaper.

I teleported across the room before his blade had the chance to slice into my skin. It hadn’t killed me when I’d grabbed onto it while trying to save my men in the tunnels, but it wasn’t something I was eager to experience again.

The moment I re-materialized directly behind him, I grabbed the hem of his cloak and yanked it over his head. Thrown off balance, he stumbled to the side, crashing through a glass-fronted cabinet and sending trays of vials to the floor. A few rolled away unscathed, but most shattered on impact.

Hex, yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!

I might not have known proper fighting techniques, but I knew how to pants a bully.

There was no time to celebrate, because the moment he extricated himself from the cabinet, the moment he got his wits back, he was going to come twice as hard for me.

“Why won’t you die?” he snarled, stepping on an unbroken vial and nearly falling backward.

“I can’t until I see how your story ends. Book girls are downright feral when it comes to finishing our books.” Taunting him was a bad idea, but it was the only one I had at the moment.

If he stayed distracted, he wouldn’t be thinking about the ghosts who’d just ghosted his toxic flat arse.

Zacharias teleported so fast I didn’t have a chance to do more than raise my arms to cover my face before he reappeared in front of me, and his scythe sliced across my forearms.

I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream. Dropping to the floor, I teleported myself to the other side of the room and crouched behind the cabinets. But the moment I re-materialized, Zacharias was looming over me.

His scythe sliced across my back, cutting through my shirt as though it were made of tissue paper, and leaving a deep slash from my right shoulder blade to my left hip. Man, I sucked just as badly at Sidestep the Reaper as I had at dodgeball.

“Are you a witch? Is that how you turned Saul against me?” he snarled, lifting his blade.

I stumbled to my feet, trying not to slip in the ectoplasmic energy that had dripped like blood from my arms to the floor. Using my ghost speed, I blurred across the room, but it was no match for the speed of a reaper.

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