Page 64 of Want Me, Take Me, Haunt Me, Make Me

Ligat was still too human to kill Hazel in a way that would open the conduit or to forcibly drag her into the ethereal. Perthrux’s attempt to enter the physical world directly had failed, causing the demon some discomfort. With overpowering dread, Ligat realized that it had found a middle ground: a creature that could manifest fully, without mortal limitations, however temporary its stay.

That servant would be hideous. It would be powerful. It would rip the vortex open, shredding Hazel’s body and mind in the process, or it would take her back to Perthrux’s lair for further experiments.

Hazel’s car was too far away—if Ligat tried to reach her with a warning, the demon would tire of waiting and yank him back before he could open his mouth. He had maybe a minute before Perthrux grew suspicious.

He kneeled and took Casper’s head between his hands. The dog stared back at him, tense, with the extra edge of sapience death gave to all restless spirits. Ligat could only pray it would be enough.

“Keep Hazel in the house. You understand? In the warded rooms. She can’t leave the wards.” He spoke as distinctly as he could, agonizingly aware of every second it took. “Keep her safe.”

Casper wagged his tail once. Ligat couldn’t wait for another response. He stepped into the ethereal once again, not daring to glance behind him, trying not to hope.

Chapter 34

It was a sign of just how weird the last few weeks had been, Hazel thought later, that her first reaction when Casper ran up to her in a flurry of frantic barking wasn’t alarm or surprise, but justOh, God, whatnow?

“Okay. Okay,” she said aloud. The yard looked basically normal when she scanned it, but the evening was dark. She could easily miss a threat. For a second, she thought she heard rustling in the bushes. It could have been a squirrel; it could not.

Casper sank his teeth into the bottom of her jeans—or tried to, since they went right through the fabric. The chill around her calf made Hazel glance down again, though, and she saw the ghostly dog trying his best to pull her forward. Momentum sent him back instead, which would have been funny, except that his ears were flat back and his tail between his legs. He ran forward again, this time getting behind Hazel and trying to nip her ankle.

“Inside?” She took a cautious step forward.

A low, unsteady hum rose from no particular location. The light shifted, becoming tornadic yellow-green, obscuring the stars above like smog around houselights. Casper threw back his head and howled, and the air at the far side of the yard began to ripple.

Hazel ran for the house.

She didn’t look back. She didn’t want to trip, she didn’t have theenergy, and she didn’t want to see what was happening behind her as the noise got louder. At the door, she fumbled with the keys, scrabbling against the lock. A tearing noise rose over the hum, oddly light compared with the rest of the clamor. Then the smell of burning hair flooded her sinuses. Casper whimpered beside her.

She shoved the key into the lock just as the next sound hit: a low, hugethud.

Hazel flung open the door, and the dog bolted inside. She followed, hurling herself past the threshold only to turn around and immediately throw her whole weight into slamming the door behind her. She turned the lock, threw the bolt—

—and caught a glimpse of the yard from the window.

Trees lashed the sky, bent to and fro by a wind that came out of a rip in the world. The portal—more an open wound than a doorway—glowed a brighter version of the gangrenous shade that had tainted the rest of the sky. An immense shape pulled the last of its many legs out of that hole and into the physical world. It reared up, misshapen head almost reaching the treetops, and roared.

The scar on Hazel’s hip ached at the sound. She glanced down and saw sickly light. It shone through her flesh and her jeans, even though she hadn’t stepped into the ethereal herself, and in her panic-blurred vision the wound seemed to have spread.

“Oh no,” she whispered, and fled for her bedroom with Casper beside her.

* * *

Her shotgun was in the safe. Hazel twirled the dial with shaking fingers, barely remembering the combination, then fumbled the gun out. Immense footsteps shook the earth outside, and another bellow tugged at her wound.

It can’t get in. It can’t. The bedroom’s warded. I’m in a house.

But the walls were thin wood, much closer to the second littlepiggy’s house than the third, and Hazel was a medium who’d squirreled away a few spells, not a wizard in an impregnable tower. Fear closed her throat while she loaded the gun. She shoved her dresser against the window with her free arm and a hip—the monster probably wouldn’t have much trouble moving it, but it might buy her a few seconds—then lowered herself to the floor.

Hazel had just started to get her breath back when she heard the scream.

It rose above the monster’s roaring, high and loud, the sound of a person in the extremes of terror and pain.

Oh no. Oh God. Somebody’s out there.Her stomach clenched at the idea, tightening around a small, dense ball of dread. She started to scramble back to her feet, and then—

—the scream became a shriek of agony, then stopped. An object hit the front porch with asquelch.

Whoever had been outside, they were beyond help now. Hazel resettled herself on the floor, Casper beside her, and couldn’t keep herself from wondering who might have picked that awful moment to visit.

Maybe the monster had killed the axe murderer she’d worried about. That was the best-case scenario. All the others filled her with sick dread, and her heartbeat in her own ears blended with the crashing noises from outside. Maybe some poor traveler had gotten lost and stopped to ask for directions. Maybe Jess had come out to deliver library books.