Page 4 of Dead & Dating
Someone truly distraught over their sister’s death wouldn’t talk like that, dismissing her life so easily. “I was going to talk to you about cleansing the house before you sold it. Otherwise, you won’t get a good asking price.” Vesper chuckles and then clears his throat. We both know my reasoning is bullshit but I’m not going to let Esme linger here on her own.
Liora blinks and then perks up. “Oh! Your exorcist stuff? I mean, sure, if you’d like.”
“We’ll have to stay here for a little bit.”
Her bottom lip juts out as she sets her hands on her hips. I suppose it’s supposed to be cute, but she just looks like a petulant child. “But I got a hotel…”
“We’ll have all the time later,” I cut her off. “If we don’t rid the house of this energy, it’ll fester.” I push a mixture of my Alpha instincts and Death’s influence into my voice, forcing her to back off. She would easily bow down to Vesper’s Alpha bark but there’s no contest when I step in.
Liora lets out a dramatic sigh, throwing up her hands as she tries to make it seem like it’s her decision to give up on the conversation. “Fine, sure. Whatever.”
Milo saunters over, his eyes firmly planted on the coffee tray. “Did you get a pumpkin-spiced latte?”
She frowns, nose wrinkling up in disgust. I still have no idea how Liora and Esme were sisters. “Of course not. Those are nasty. Just take what I gave you, okay?”
Milo’s green eyes flash with irritation, but he grabs a coffee anyway before stalking back into the room. He flings open her closet door and just stands there. I know it’ll be a few minutes before he even touches anything, Vesper moving up behind him. The chaos demon wraps an arm around Milo’s shoulders before dipping his head to his shoulder, the embrace a little too much to bear as I grab a box and head to Esme’s bathroom.
Liora follows me, going off about something that happened last week, her animated hands flying around. A few weeks ago, I might have cracked a smile to give her some semblance that I was listening. Now? I wish she would just fuck off.
She mentions something about moving in together, my irritation growing at her presence. She has no idea we’re not staying on Earth after the funeral. There’s no reason to. Our lease is already up, and in a week, we’ll say goodbye to humans for good, back to our realms, and settle in our true forms. Liora’s fantasies of claiming us are just that—fantasies.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Her voice echoes against the tile as she stands behind me and I just need it to stop. I whip around and breathe out a demon's curse under my breath. It mutes her instantly, planting the idea in her head to go somewhere else, anywhere but here, bothering me. Her eyes glaze over for a second, then she smiles happily and turns away, heading toward her bedroom to start packing like it's her own brilliant plan.
Milo pops his head in the doorway, green eyes sparkling with mischief. "What happened to not using our magic however we want?"
I just shake my head as I start placing some of Esme’s perfumes in a box. "That applies to everything on Earth except for Liora. I cannot stand her bullshit, and I'm ninety-nine percent sure she had something to do with Esme's death."
Milo frowns as he steps inside and perches himself on the edge of the toilet. "She fell, didn't she?" Unlike Vesper, Milo’s one of the most innocent, hard-loving demons I know. His love of pumpkin is unprecedented and he always chooses to believe the positive. I hate what a few centuries in hell is going to do to him—not that the human plane has been all that nice to him either.
"Yes, that’s what the police have told us but none of the story makes any sense. We still haven't seen her body, and the autopsy report hasn't been released." I refrain from telling Milo that Liora put in a request to have Esme cremated because I don’t need him wilding out on Liora. I have no idea what Esme’s plans were when it came to burial or her funeral because we never got that far.
Milo throws me a grin, that quirky smile breaking through his worry. "That's why you want to stay here. You want to bring her spirit forward and ask."
I nod again, piling more from the cabinet into the box, the clink of glass echoing softly against the tile. "I want to know the truth. Even if I can't save her, I will avenge her."
I look up into the mirror, and there it is. A glimpse of orange hair flickering in the reflection before it disappears. A small streak down the mirror catches my eye, brown liquid drawing a pattern that’s only visible in the spirit realm. I bite back a smile as the pattern ends, a delightfully silly ‘brains’ staring back at me.
Of all the things Esme could have written, that’s one thing that lets me know not only is she still here but that it’sherand not just her spirit.
“I think she’s looking for a way to talk.”
“You saw her?” Milo pops off the toilet and starts looking around the bathroom. “Did she like the coffee? I put too much creamer, I think but I have to know…”
I cut him off as a small smile appears next to Esme’s other letters. It’s less legible than before and I suspect that her ability to touch anything from earth is waning. “Yes, Milo. She loved it. Now, I just have to figure out a way to make her visible.” What I don’t tell Milo is that spirits aren’t really human anymore. They’re beings. Entities that just need to pass over.
If Esme was truly a spirit, she wouldn’t have been able to drink that coffee.
Chapter 4
Esme
I move into my room, my ghostly form flickering through the doorway as guilt settles in my chest. I should have written something more useful on that mirror. Something like "Liora killed me" or "Check the autopsy report" instead of drawing stupid smiley faces and writing "brains" like some kind of idiot.
But I had to make sure Duske knew it was me and not some random spirit haunting the house. Especially since I finally found a way up the stairs. It was more a thought than anything and I'm still not sure it's part of the ghost package I should have been given but it got me closer to Duske.
The last thing I need is for them to think I'm malevolent and try to exorcise me before I can tell them what really happened. That and the fact that my fingers were shaking so any attempt at something intelligent written in coffee would have been a shitshow.
