Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 53428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
The warm air chilled around me.
“Come to us.”
A smarter man would have gone back in the bed and pretended not to hear the voices. But I had swam in death today. My soul, my morality smothered in that fire that I set upon that village.
“Santino. . .come. . .”
I gazed at the metal shutters. “I was told that you play terrifying games with white guests that stay on the property.”
The voice’s whispery voice sharpened. “Not. . .with Santino.”
“Sure.” I formed my lips into a dark grin. “What would make me so special?”
“You. . .are the beginning. . .to the end.”
“The end of what?”
“The end. . .of us. Our final vengeance.”
I blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“Come.”
“Where?”
“Outside.”
I gave that shutter a sad smile. “Even if I wanted to, Kashmere’s men would shoot me in the leg before letting me out the front or back door. So protective of me, she actually ordered them to do it.”
My queen loves me so much.
It suddenly occurred to me that we still had never spoken those magical three words, even though we had surely shown each other through our actions how much we loved each other.
I will have to tell her I love her immediately.
“Go to the library.”
I widened my eyes.
“Place your palm on the front of the Grandfather clock and walk through.”
My heartbeats pounded in my chest. “There’s a secret passage there?”
“Come.”
Then, everything went silent, and the green light disappeared.
Chapter 15
Dead Souls
Santino
I shouldn’t have gone. I should have went back to bed and lay next to Kashmere. Only a mad man would go somewhere at the order of ghosts.
And clearly I was a mad man because I was seized by an insane impulse—an overpowering force—to obey the phantom voice that had called out to me on the balcony. Perhaps, it was because I was so mystified and completely consumed by the eerie mystery entwined with the voice.
I stepped out of the room in only my red silk pajama bottoms. No shirt. No shoes. No common sense.
I left the bedroom before I could further think of the consequences. Outside Kashmere’s men stood up and began to walk with me.
I waved them away. “I’m only going to the library.”
One Black man stepped forward. A grim expression covered his face. “We must still walk you there. Chairman’s orders. It is night. . .”
There was no need to finish the sentence. We both knew that he was referring to the ghosts.
I nodded and walked on. My heart raced as I hit the staircase, hurried down, and got to the library. Five Killer Crows followed behind me.
Once at the door, I turned to them. “You will not need to go into the library with me.”
Another man spoke, “Are you sure, sir?”
“After today, I need privacy.”
He sighed and stepped back. “We will be out here.”
I entered the library, turned on the light, and closed the door. My gaze went to the grandfather clock that stood against the far wall.
Slowly I walked over and studied it further.
The dark mahogany wood of the clock had been carved in a very old-fashioned style that people rarely made anymore. The clock’s face was a cream-colored finish decorated with gold numbers and red letters. A gold pendulum swung from side to side and the ticks almost seemed a heartbeat.
I thought back to what the ghosts had told me.
“Place your palm on the front of the Grandfather clock and walk through.”
Gritting my teeth, I did as instructed. I slowly placed my trembling palm on the clock.
As soon as my skin made contact, a shiver of dread ran up my spine, and the steady ticking of the clock suddenly ceased. The pendulum stopped mid-swing as if time had suddenly frozen in its tracks.
With a loud groan, the front of the clock disengaged and creaked open like a door, exposing a dark tunnel inside the clock.
Jesus. What mad genius put this here?
I ducked my head down and entered the tunnel, creeping forward. My bare feet smoothed against the cold wooden floor that rattled under my weight. My footsteps echoed and the lack of light made it difficult to see.
I should have brought my gun.
But what would it have done, but given me a false sense of security? How did one kill something that was already dead?
I continued forward and sniffed the air. The smell of dead roots filled the tunnel.
When was this built?
Enclosed within the darkness, I walked for five minutes until I couldn’t go forward anymore.
What now?
I raised my hands and touched what was in front of me. Wood pressed against my palms. I slid my hands down and felt the knob on the right.
Okay. Another door.
I turned the knob and pushed it open.
Outside.
The night sky hovered above.
Cool air brushed against my skin, but that wasn’t what gave me chills.
I froze in the doorway, unable to comprehend the supernatural sight before me.