The Haunting (Immortals) Read Online Free Page A

“This is amazing.” The entire room was bare except for her stripped-down bed, her dresser and a dozen or more boxes. The doors to the closet stood open to reveal a lone twisted wire hanger dangling from the rod. “You packed everything? When did you get here?”
    “A couple of hours ago.” At Mai’s look of disbelief, she shrugged. “What’s the point of having access to all of Darius’ superpowers if I don’t ever get to take advantage of them?”
    “But even I can’t move all of this to the new place without help,” Darius added, coming in to join them. “So Lexi called a couple of people she knows and we’ve got a truck with movers showing up any minute, so let’s finish packingthe kitchen. Tonight, you’ll be sleeping in your new apartment.”
    Mai felt almost giddy with relief. Starting tonight, she’d finally feel safe once again.
    Six hours later, Mai was standing in the kitchen of her new apartment pouring cold drinks. There was nothing left at her old place now but some bad memories and a bag of trash that the landlord had promised to take out.
    She picked up the glasses and carried them into the living room where Lexi and Darius waited. Heather had already left for the airport to catch a flight to Seattle for a Coven meeting.
    After handing out the drinks, Mai sat in her oversized chair and took a swallow of Diet Coke. For several seconds, no one said anything. It was Lexi who finally broke the silence. “Do you want to tell me what’s really going on?”
    Mai almost spilled her drink. “What do you mean?”
    Lexi set her glass down on the coffee table and gave Mai one of those looks. “I’ve known you a long time. You can be impulsive at times, but suddenly changing apartments? In the middle of a lease? Come on. Something’s up. Why don’t you tell us about it? Maybe we can help.”
    Mai considered what to say. She could tell them about Preston and Perone, but she didn’t even know whether the attack on her had been real.
    “You’re not alone, Mai. You have friends who care what happens to you.”
    They might care what happened to her, but they didn’t live here anymore. They weren’t around all the time. Besides, Mai didn’t like the thought of not being able to deal with this problem herself.
    But she knew Lexi and Darius would never be satisfied if she didn’t tell them something. “All right. I think someonebroke into my apartment. The only thing they took were some notes on a story I was doing, nothing else.” She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t go to the police because I have no real proof, but it freaked me out a bit.” She didn’t have to fake the quaver in her voice. “So I decided to move.”
    Lexi studied her closely for several seconds. “Okay. I can understand that. Are you sure there’s nothing else going on?”
    No, nothing much—other than my getting beaten to a bloody pulp by an imaginary man. You can’t see the bruises because…well, I don’t know why. Maybe because they’re not really there. I’m still trying to decide if this is some form of death magic at work or a recurrence of my PTSD problem
. Yeah, that sounded much better, didn’t it? “Really, that’s all it was,” Mai said, shrugging as if to dismiss the entire thing, hoping Lexi wouldn’t press.
    She looked like she wanted to, but then her cell phone rang. With a muttered oath, she gave Mai an apologetic smile, mouthed “I’m sorry,” and answered the phone.
    “Hi, Mom, wh—” Lexi started, and then fell silent as she listened. Lexi’s mother began ranting loud enough that even from where Mai sat, she could almost make out her words.
    “But, Mom, he’s a werewolf,” Lexi said patiently when she finally got a chance to break in. “He’s supposed to shift.”
    There was another long silence and then, “I can’t help that my son is more advanced than the rest of the kids, Mom. No, I don’t think it’s unusual that he can shift at nine months when the others don’t