Page 86 of Bad Moon Rising
Flynn used Roman’s wrist to lead him down a level to the refectory. He shut and locked the door, punched a code into the keypad on the wall. “The cameras are off.”
A raw, torn cry of utter and absolute anguish ripped from Roman’s throat. He dropped to his knees. Shaking set in until he lay on the floor, curled in on himself. Tears ran down his face unchecked. He was afraid they might never stop.
Flynn rolled him and lifted him upright in order to drape a blanket around him.
“I loved her,” he said hoarsely. “Fucking loved her. She’s gone. I killed her.”
“This wasn’t your fault. Don’t even go there and mess up your head.”
“I should’ve tried harder to stop it. It’s abso-fucking-lutely my fault.”
“I’m sorry. So sorry. This life has to stop. Them forcing us to do these things…” Flynn worked the blanket tight around him, although it did nothing to ward off the chill settling inside him.
“Hurts,” he whispered.
“Please don’t leave me alone to figure out how to get free of this curse. I can’t do what you do. I can’t do this without you and Ky. You must choose life, Roman. They can’t have any more of us.” Flynn wrapped his arms around him and held tight. And didn’t let go.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-eight days. Life had become an endless torture session. Each day, Roman forced himself through the motions necessary for survival, but time dragged.
He locked gazes with the ghost in front of him in the brief instant its orange orb-eyes became visible. Within seconds, it went to vaporous form again.
The ghost was the third vicious preternatural being he’d been ordered to dispatch from the world in the past ten days. He marveled at how fast Gerard could find paranormal creatures that’d gone bad enough they couldn’t wait a few days before being confronted. To get through the missions forced on him, he dulled himself with anything and everything—smoking, drinking, and…okay, the “amnesia” potion bought off a black-market witch had been a huge mistake. He’d turned green for three days. Literally. Green skin accompanied by incessant green puking and the green shits. Which made travel in public impossible and not just because he looked like Kermit the Frog, but also Flynn uncontrollably laughed to the point of tears whenever he looked at him.
Never trust a witch.Sage advice from his father that he forgot in his desperation to smother his memories.
He took a swig from the three-quarters-finished Smirnoff bottle in his coat pocket.
Anger boiled in his stomach, adding to the pressure in his head as the ghost hovered in front of him. Why was this demented asshole that had tortured scores of humans to their death allowed the gift of a second life?
His Nova?
Dead and gone.
Why couldn’t memories bring Nova back? They felt strong enough to lure her spirit from wherever it landed. The concept of life after death as nothing but a void shattered him. She’d simply ceased to exist, gone into the nothingness, because of him. There had to be an afterlife. Case in point: the ghost in front of him.
The reality of death was it left the living to deal with its consequence. For him, that meant to suffer shame over his inability to protect those he should’ve. Nova. Ky. Shane.
He’d searched the hotel where she’d been executed, finding nothing. He’d camped out for three days in the room. Not a trace of her existence remained. He’d tried every trick he’d learned over the years to conjure her afterlife spirit without success.
Mind on what’s going on here. She’s gone. You’re here.
His temper buzzed as he dodged the scythe wielded by the phantasm. Roman wobbled, almost doing a header into a massive stone support column. The being couldn’t get any more generic with weapon choice or venue. From upstairs in the church’s main chamber, the sound of the choir in the midst of a devotional song during mid-morning Sunday service filled the air of the crypt.
His goal was to keep the apparition downstairs. If the hundred or more humans attending upstairs got a gander of this thing, the incident would require time-consuming, personalized memory wipes. They’d had to do similar before, visiting home-to-home until all in attendance of a horrendous event had their memories adjusted. He lacked patience for that sort of tedious and exhausting business right now.
The ghost wouldn’t attack the mass upstairs, but it would lure one or two people to him. More victims to fuel its thirst for death.
He knew too well what he needed to do to destroy the being, but he paused and took another swallow of vodka. The scythe arched dangerously close to his head. If he stayed still, on its next swipe, it would hit its target and likely remove his head from his body. Then his pain would end.
God, he missed her. Every night. Every day. Every fucking second.
The scythe was coming in again. He slammed his eyelids closed, desperate to be free.
Instead of a swift death into nothing, he flew airborne. Another body landed hard on top of him.
“Can’t breathe,” Roman wheezed out. “Get off.”
