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and he’s a
kid and he’s been trapped for a few decades so he’s the spirit world version of
crazy.”
    “Awesome!” I said and stomped my foot.
    “Van, shush,” Sean said and smacked my ass. If I hadn’t been
afraid of dying at the hands of a malicious child spirit, I would have been
turned on.
    Roxy, chewed her purple lip-glossed lip and nodded. “So he’s
gathering sixteen souls. The number has taken on special meaning for him. Sort
of like OCD patients have certain numbers for ritual. He needs sixteen souls
before he unseals the house. And the only one who can stop it, who can step in
and try to shut him down is the last woman to enter the house. And that would
be—”
    I could feel it coming so I started shaking my head no, no,
no…
    “You,” she said and pointed to me. I tried to step to the
side away from her pointing finger, but damn if she didn’t keep it leveled at
me. “You’re sort of a psychic surrogate.”
    “No!” I yelped.
    “I was watching the door just before we all started the tour
and you were the last one to enter.”
    “No I wasn’t,” I lied.
    “Yes, you were,” Sean said in my ear. Despite my fear and
annoyance, the feel of his hot breath on my skin made me shiver.
    “What the fuck does that mean?” I asked. “What can I
possibly do?”
    “You need to be her. You need to step in and act out and
give him some kind of closure.”
    “No.”
    “Then he collects sixteen souls and that’s on you.”
    “That’s not fair,” Sean said in my defense. I nearly kissed
him.
    Roxy Morton shrugged. “They’re ghosts. They don’t deal in
fair.”
    “Look I—”
    I started to say something but her big brown eyes grew wide
and she said in a spooky hushed tone. “Quick, he’s coming.”
    She darted off and we barely made it into a small powder
room before the black smoke rounded the doorway. A woman who must have been
hiding on the stairwell came tearing out and right before our eyes, the smoke
enveloped her and poof she was gone.
    Sean shoved me back, slammed the door. “But Roxy!” I said.
    “She went in the next doorway. She’s probably better off
than most of us. We’ll catch up with her in a minute. Give him a minute to
clear out.” He shoved some guest towels under the door and I thanked the Martha
Stewart gods that our host, a single man named Patrick who might have doomed us
all with his taste in real estate, had the good manners to put out guest towels
for his parties.
    “Why is he sealed in a box in the basement?” I asked. “Why?
This makes no sense. That woman is a crack addict. She’s crazy. She cannot,
cannot, cannot be right!” I shrieked.
    Sean held a finger to his lips and shook his head. “Shh.”
    “Do not shush me!” I yelled and he smacked me.
    Not hard enough to hurt me, just hard enough to shock the
shit out of me and when I swallowed my next yell he clamped his hand over my
mouth and said, “I really kind of like you, Van. I’d like to get to know you
when we’re not in a supernatural lockdown and I’d really like us both to be
alive to do that. So you need to shut the fuck up, okay?”
    I nodded.
    “I’m going to take my hand away and you’re going to be
quiet. Okay?”
    I nodded again.
    He took his hand away. “Asshole,” I breathed. But then I
kissed him. Really, really hard. I didn’t just kiss him, I tried to climb him.
If I could have climbed Sean Tierney like a tree, I would have. “I’m scared,” I
said into his mouth.
    “I know.”
    I pushed my hands under his shirt to feel his warm body. I
found the rubbers in his jeans and yanked one free. “I’m really scared. And
that revs me up and I—” I shook my head, kissed him again.
    “What?” He grabbed my hair in his hands and tugged so that
my mouth couldn’t reach his. His big green eyes stared me down and I felt as
naked as hell under his gaze.
    “Can we do it one more time? I think we’re going to die and
I don’t want to die a virgin.”
    “You are so not a