Page 80 of Livewire Witch

But I guess I’m pathetically clinging to anything like a sense of recognition.

The air is thick with misty rain and every so often a crack of thunder goes through the sky. I pull my coat closer to my body, warding against the chill coming off the water and from the sight beside us.

It’s quiet here. The docks are deserted.

Creepy as hell.

Especially once the dead start talking to me.

There are a bunch of them milling around. Some are staring at the pile of bodies, but others seem to be actively trying not to look in that direction, just like me.

“Are you—” Dante hesitates, his hands rammed into his pockets where he stands a few feet away from me. “—can you...”

I don’t think the poor guy is used to asking for help. Or maybe it’s the weirdness of calling a necromancer to come see if she can chat with the bodies and see if we can glean any information.

“There are a few of them still here,” I say. Since I never went to school to learn how to talk to ghosts, I don’t want to say anything outright. Like telling them they’re dead, even though they are currently translucent, hovering a few inches above the ground. I feel like that should be Talking To Dead People 101.

“There are ghosts here right now?” Roscoe hisses, his eyes darting around like he’s trying to catch sight of one.

“Hey, uh, I’m Silver.” Always polite to introduce yourself, even when talking to the dead. “I was just wondering if you know what happened here?”

“No.” The ghost nearest to me is a woman in a tiny dress with long hair flowing over her shoulders. “It looks bad, though.”

“We died. I don’t know how they’re not getting it. We died.” Another female ghost puts her hands on her hips and glares at everyone in the vicinity. “They kept us in this weird room for a while and then they brought us here. Would it have killed them to bring us someplace nicer than this? What a dump.”

I step closer, taking in her appearance. She’s a gorgeous woman, dressed also in a tiny top and skirt combination that’s showing a whole lot of translucent skin.

“Kind of wish I’d worn something different that night. Maybe that’s why I’m still here,” she says, tugging her skirt down a little further so that it covers more of her thighs. “Heaven thought I was too fabulous, so they turned me away at the pearly gates.” Her accompanying smile is sad, and I can tell she doesn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

“Do you remember where you were or what... what happened?”

I figure asking a ghost how they died is pretty insensitive, but finding a whole pile of corpses fully drained of blood when we know that the vamps are planning something? Yeah, we need as much information about what happened here as we can get.

“Do you remember taking anything that night by any chance?”

I’m trying to choose my words carefully. What I want to know is whether they were high when they died, but I don’t want to put words in her mouth.

She shakes her head. “I was on a night out. I know that much. We were having a good time. Then the next thing I know, I’m staring down at my body. Dead. It was a mindfuck, I can tell you.”

I step closer to bodies, taking a deep breath and sniffing the surrounding air.

It’s really not something I want to be doing tonight, but needs must.

Dante comes up beside me. “There’s no smell of decomposition. But I can smell something strangely sweet. I can’t tell what it is, whether they’ve been covered in a potion or something else.”

My eyes land on the closest body and right at that moment, there’s a ‘pop’ and it disappears right in front of my eyes, leaving just a pile of dust and bones.

“What the hell?”

Pop.

Another disappears.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Shit. It’s like they’re all dissolving. Disintegrating right in front of my eyes.

“What’s happening?”

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