Anger detonated across Milo's face. He jerked her to her feet, ripped open the cellar door, and flung her down the steps, padlocking the door. Encased in darkness, she had no way of knowing how many days passed. When he finally released her, she was starving, weak, covered in blood, suffering from claustrophobia, and babbling hysterically. His solution was to drown her in the bathtub until she stopped screaming. Then he fucked her, hard, and left her barely conscious on the bathroom floor.
As she stared into the cellar's wide black mouth, she struggled to keep the bile from rising to her throat. James had moved the garden tools to the cellar without asking. When Lara succumbed to a panic attack at the thought of retrieving them, he agreed to move them back behind the house, but he'd not gotten to that task prior to his unfortunate demise.
“Milo is miles away.” Her soft voice rebounded from the cellar, filled with fear. “He cannot touch you. Don’t think. Just run down the stairs, grab the shovel, and run back.”
She took a deep breath, exhaled, and raced down the steps. Yanking the shovel from the wall, she kept her gaze on the open cellar door, praying it would not slam shut. Before darting back up the staircase, she grabbed a black plastic garbage bag to transport Milo's skeleton to Ethan's house. Relief bubbled through her body as she burst out the cellar.
Slinging the shovel over her shoulder, she marched to the first sunflower, then peeled open the garbage bag, and set it by her feet. The dirt, already disturbed from when Milo forced her to dig up his hand, gave way easily as she rammed the tip of the shovel into it. She moved the scoop aside, shoveling three more times before the metal blade made a strange clang. She lifted the shovel, inspecting the mound of dirt. Soil spilled from the sides, revealing two deep eye sockets... Milo's skull.
“Hello, Milo,” she said to the skeleton. “Nice to see you again.”
“Is it?”
Lara screamed, and spun around, brandishing the shovel. The skull dropped to the ground, rolling to a stop in front of an eerie glowing blue outline. “Milo,” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“I missed you. You know I don’t like to stray too far from you.” He circled her, his eyes pulsating black. “Imagine my surprise when I woke in Detective Carter’s body, bound to a chair, and discovered you and that bloodsucker were missing.”
“Cassius,” Lara growled. “His name is Cassius.”
“Is that your new thing? Dead guys? Because I should be at the top of that list.” He reached out, and she flinched, dancing away from him.
“Stay back.”
“Or what, you’ll wave a shovel through me?” Milo snickered. He stopped, hovering over the hole, and gestured at the dirt. “Not your most brilliant plan.”
“I’m putting you where you belong.” She stabbed the shovel into the dirt, and knelt, her eyes locked on Milo. With one hand wrapped around the shovel’s handle, she grabbed the skull, then rose and darted backward.
“And where’s that?” His low question held an unspoken threat. He floated closer.
“In your grave.” She ripped the flask from her back pocket but couldn’t uncap it. Milo flew at her, solidifying just long enough to knock her over. Both the flask and skull flew out of her hands, vanishing in the darkness. Her head smashed into the ground, catching the hard edge of one of the stepping stones, and she slipped into blackness.
Something cold, and hard pressed against her mouth. She moaned, her head throbbing. Her eyelids fluttered open, her vision obscured by a gritty, pale blob, which rubbed itself back and forth across her lips. The world sharpened, and she screamed, smacking away the skull as she scuttled in reverse. Her shoulders crashed into the side of the house.
“No kiss for your husband.” Milo swirled around her. He settled on her legs; his heavy weight pinned her to the ground. “I did you a favor while you were napping.”
“What was that?” She glanced down, an automatic reaction. Still clothed.
“I dug up the rest of myself.” He jerked his head toward the bulging plastic garbage bag. “However, I have a tiny tweak to your plan. It’s not my bones that will be going into that empty casket.”
Lara jutted her chin out. “If you kill me, you won’t be able to haunt me anymore.”
“I’m not going to put you in the box. I’m going to put your boyfriend in it.” He jabbed her in the chest.
“He’s not my boyfriend.” She narrowed her eyes, plucked Milo’s icy finger from her skin, and flung it away. “And I doubt you’ll be able to beat him.”
“We’ll see how much strength he has after I douse him in that holy concoction you stole from a church—”
“I didn’t steal it.”
Milo had to be bluffing; he couldn’t possibly know how to kill Cassius... but Detective Carter did, and Milo now possessed his memories.
“I bet the priest that gave you the flask wouldn’t mind if your bloodsucking lover lost his life in the process of putting my spirit to rest.” Milo tilted his head. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
Lara pressed her lips together and folded her arms across her chest, arching an eyebrow, a silent protest which always infuriated Milo. He snarled and shimmered, the weight on her legs lessening.
“Fine, stay silent. The vampire will come here on his own, once he discovers how I left the Carter brothers.”
“Ethan is unpossessable,” Lara murmured, dread settling in her stomach. “What could you have done to him?”
“He’s also weaker than his older brother.” Milo’s form flickered. “His children watched while their uncle beat their father to death, and then slit his own throat, just as you’re going to watch while I use your body to murder your lover.”
Milo placed his hand flat on Lara’s chest, his bluish light flowed into her, overtaking her limbs, and shoving her self-control into a tiny portion of her mind. He rose, or rather, forced her body to stand, and walked over to the discarded skull. Lifting it from the ground, Milo made Lara bring the head to her lips with a resounding smack.
“Looking good, Milo,” he crowed, in a deeper version of her voice. “After I dispose of the vampire, I expect this rebelliousness to be finished. You are still my wife, seeing as death has failed to part us, and I expect you to resume all your duties without question. All of them.”
He strolled to the garbage bag. Peeling it open, he set the skull on top of the stack of bones, lifted the sack, and slung it over his shoulder. After collecting the flask from the grass, he headed toward the open cellar, humming a funeral dirge.
CHAPTER 12
I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you. I will think of you always.
Women. They were all the same. No wonder he had never gotten married.
But there was one who hadn’t been like all the rest. He had been close to marriage before, very close. His first love, Mary Elizabeth Sinclair, was the most precious thing in his life, and God, was she a beauty.
She was kind and faithful, and she had been his whole world that year they were together. They’d spend their time hidden away from the rest of the world, making love at any chance they got, spending hours upon hours rolling around in bed. But she had been taken from him, slayed until the scarlet-red blood ran from her neck to the ground, once the word got out that she’d been in love with a vampire, back when vampires weren’t socially acceptable in a God-fearing world.