Jackie sighed in disgust. “No,” she mocked him. “I know Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Cinderella… I don’t know anything about any lantern. I think Disney might have missed out on that one, but it doesn’t seem very kid friendly.”
The old man stepped closer to her, and Jackie wrinkled her nose as the smell of cigarettes and stale booze on his breath invaded her nostrils.
“The Devil’s Lantern appears every three hundred years, the unlucky finder will be taken—”
“Taken?”
“By Old Scratch, himself. To be his bride.”
Jackie laughed, but the sound echoed strangely and she felt cold all over.
Mr. Talbot’s face pressed close to hers and Jackie recoiled slightly. “Yer laughin’ now,” he snarled, “but when the Devil comes to collect on his prize, ya won’t have time to laugh.”
“You’re full of shit,” she said, but this time she wasn’t so sure. Mr. Talbot’s pale blue eyes burned into hers.
“Ya’d better get yer work done,” he said casually. “Time’s runnin’ out.”
“You’ve been super helpful,” Jackie said sarcastically as he pushed by her. “Thanks a bunch.”
Mr. Talbot didn’t answer her, or turn around, and Jackie let out a groan of disgust as she looked at the lantern in her hand. “Great. Just great.”
She marched into the funeral home and grabbed her bag. She only had a few hours to complete everything on the list Katie had given her, and now she had even more to think about.
Just fucking great.
She pulled the bag over her shoulder and walked down the corridor toward the director’s office. “Here, kitty, kitty,” she murmured. Mr. Talbot hadn’t seen the cat, and the damned thing had run right past him. Had she been imagining the cat, too?
A meow echoed down the hallway and Jackie gritted her teeth. Nope. Not imagining that.
She pushed the door of the director’s office with her toe and peered inside. The black cat sat on the large wooden desk and blinked at her like a sleepy owl.
“Get your butt off those papers,” Jackie said. The cat jumped down from the desk and ran out of the room, brushing against her legs as he went by. “Hey! You shouldn’t be in here!”
But the cat was gone.
“I do not have time for this shit,” Jackie groaned. She walked down the corridor and into the small chapel where the services were held. She set her bag down on one of the wooden pews and held up the lantern. “What the hell am I going to do with this?”
It didn’t look special. And it definitely didn’t look like it belonged to Satan.
“What a pack of bullshit,” she snorted. She tapped her fingernail against the glass and then shook her head. “Bullshit.”
She shoved the lantern into her bag and zipped it up. “I’ll deal with you later. Maybe Katie will know what to do.”
Her head throbbed and she touched her hairline gently. Dried blood flaked away under her fingers and she grimaced. Before she could get anything done, she needed to wash some of the blood out of her hair.
“Bathroom. Get the cat out of the building. Get your shit together,” she muttered.
Easier said than done, but it was a start.
Three
Blackout curtains would have been helpful.
Any curtains at all would have been better than the nothing she had on her bedroom windows. Jackie had finished her work at the funeral home just as the alarm on her phone had gone off. She had locked the front door and crept around the side of the building as the funeral director had driven through the wrought iron gates toward the staff parking lot.
The last thing she wanted was another run in with anyone else working at that goddamned place. One crazy person spouting nonsense was enough for one night’s work.
She’d fallen into bed when the sun was coming up plenty of times—but when she wasn’t drunk or exhausted from dancing, the prospect of sleeping all day didn’t seem as appealing. Plus, she hadn’t been able to shake off Mr. Talbot’s creepy words. Especially the words he’d read off the lantern. What the hell was that all about?
Jackie had shoved her head under a pillow, hoping to block out most of the noise of people going about their normal lives and the glare of the sun, and it had almost worked. Except for that goddamn dog barking.
Jackie groaned and held the pillow tighter around her ears. Just a few more hours of sleep. Just a few more, you bastard dog.
But the barking didn’t stop.
If it had been a yappy dog she might not have minded. But the bark was deep and vibrated through her bones and she couldn’t drown it out no matter how much of her pillow she shoved into her ears.
“Fine. Fine. FINE!”
Jackie screamed into her pillow and then rolled out of bed. She pulled her blanket around her shoulders and stomped out into the living room. A pair of sliding glass doors led out to a small, unkempt, backyard that hadn’t seen a lawnmower since she’d moved in. She’d always meant to mow it, but had just never gotten around to it.
The dandelions were going to seed, and there would be more of those perky little yellow bastards in a month’s time. The whole lawn would be dandelions by the time her lease ran out.
She peered out into the yard and then stomped toward the front door to see if the dog was within shouting distance. Her neighbors were quiet—she was usually the loud one.
The dog barked again, this time it sounded closer.
The street was empty, and the yard across from her was empty.
She frowned and narrowed her eyes at the street. “Where the hell are you, you mutt.”
The dog barked again, and she spun around and ran to the sliding glass doors.
Between the overgrown bushes at the fence she thought she saw something and she pressed her hands against the glass and leaned forward. “You better not be in my yard,” she muttered. “I’ll call the goddamned SPCA and let your owner sort it out for themselves.”
It was an idle threat. She loved dogs. They just didn’t love her.
“Shut. Up,” she growled as the dog barked again. She stared into the yard, looking for any sign that something was there, but she couldn’t see anything through the undergrowth and chaotic mess of trees and bushes.
She was about to drag herself to the bathroom when the bushes moved.
Jackie let out a thin scream as a massive dog emerged from the bushes. It was brindle, striped like a miniature tiger. Its shoulders were powerfully muscled and foam dripped from its muzzle.
She skittered back from the glass doors and fell on her ass on the hardwood floor as the dog approached.
“Get the… What the fuck!”
The dog sat down on its haunches and stared into the window at her. Jackie scrambled to her feet and left the blanket on the floor where it had fallen.
“Get out of my yard,” she shouted.
The dog tilted its head, but didn’t move.
“Get! Get the fuck out!”
Panic thundered through Jackie’s limbs as she paced the living room floor. The dog watched her, not moving.
She didn’t recognize the dog, and it didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen. A rottweiler? A pit bull? Whatever the hell it was, it was big, and scary, and she didn’t like the look in its eyes as it stared at her.
The dog growled, low and deep, and then barked again. Jackie jumped back from the window and raised her middle finger at the dog. “Stop that! You don’t belong here!”
The dog’s teeth were long and sharp, and spittle flew as the creature barked again. The sound lanced through her chest and Jackie jumped back.
She looked around the living room desperately for something to throw at it and finally settled on a phone book that she never used. Who the hell uses a phone book anymore?
She stepped slowly toward the glass doors and carefully opened one of the windows. The dog’s growl was louder now, and the sound of it sent shivers up and down her spine. It didn’t sound natural, and she finally admitted to herse
lf that she was terrified.
“Get out of here!” she shouted. Her voice sounded high and thin and she cleared her throat. “You don’t belong here, get out of my yard! Go home!”
The dog approached slowly, its head lowered aggressively. Jackie tightened her grip on the phone book and threw it out the window at the dog’s head. The dog moved out of the way easily and the thick book bounced harmlessly off the patio tiles.
“Fuck!”
Her cellphone vibrated on the kitchen counter. Finally charged from the night before. The dog lifted its head, its ears twitching, and Jackie closed the window quickly before she dashed to the kitchen to grab the phone.
Katie’s face was on the screen and Jackie swiped her finger over the call button to answer it, but she’d missed the call and the screen went black.
“Fuck!”
She looked back at the sliding glass doors, but couldn’t see the dog. She approached cautiously and lifted the phone up. “I’m giving you until the count of three to get the hell out of my yard and then I’m going to call the SPCA,” she shouted. “They’ll come and take your stripey ass away and lock you up until someone comes to collect you and your stupid bark!”
She peered into the yard, but it was empty. The wind moved the leaves and branches of the overgrown bushes, but there was nothing in them. No red eyes staring at her.
“What the goddamn hell was that,” she muttered.
Her phone vibrated in her hand and Jackie let out a surprised scream.
A voicemail.
She gritted her teeth and rubbed a hand against her cheek.
She needed a shower. And something to eat.
A shower was cheaper.
Jackie groaned and dropped her phone on the kitchen counter. She glared out into the backyard again, and then satisfied that it was empty, she dragged herself into the bathroom. Maybe a shower would clear her mind and she could start to forget some of the bullshit that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
Showered and dressed, Jackie searched her apartment for a coupon she’d saved from a pizza place down the road. Pizza was the solution to almost every problem, and she hoped that would still be true for the one one she had now.
Katie’s voicemail blinked on her phone, and she’d called twice more since she had gotten out of the shower. Jackie knew that she had to call her friend back eventually, but only after there was food in her stomach.
Then, then she could deal with whatever Katie had to say, which wouldn’t be anything she wanted to hear.
She scraped up the cash she needed and peered out the window beside the front door to make sure that the dog hadn’t come back. When she was satisfied that the street was deserted she opened the door and slipped out into the sunshine.
She pushed a pair of large sunglasses onto her face so that no one could see how shitty she looked. She’d only slept for a few hours, and what little she had slept had been full of weird dreams about the graveyard and the black cat that had followed her around the funeral home all night while she did her cleaning.
She walked down the street at a quick pace with her hands shoved deep into her pockets. The street was quiet, and it was the middle of the day which meant that all of her neighbors were at work or in the city. The only upside of being around at this time of the day was that there was no one to wait behind to get her pizza.
But the farther she walked, the more she felt as though someone was watching her. She checked over her shoulder, but saw nothing. And then, from behind a car, the massive dog stepped into view.
“Shit,” she whispered.
Jackie increased her pace, but the dog followed at a distance, staying just far enough away that she could not throw anything else at it.
She darted into the pizza joint and closed the door behind her. She stared out at the street nervously.
“Uh… everything okay?” the kid behind the counter asked haltingly.
“Yeah. Yeah it’s fine,” Jackie said without turning around. The dog trotted up and seated itself on the sidewalk across the street from the pizza joint. It stared at her through the glass and Jackie made a face at it. “Goddamn dog,” she muttered.
She pushed away from the door and slapped her coupon and cash down on the counter. “Pepperoni, and don’t skimp on the cheese.”
“This coupon expired yesterday,” the kid said in a bored voice.
Jackie pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead. “Can you just pretend it’s yesterday?” she pleaded. “I want to forget it even happened, can we just pretend it didn’t happen and that it’s yesterday all over again?”
The kid sighed. “Yeah, sure, whatever. It’ll be fifteen minutes.”
“You’re my hero,” Jackie groaned. She sank down on one of the hard plastic stools that stood against the window and glared out at the dog.
It hadn’t moved.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
She had left her phone at home on purpose, but now she wished she’d brought it.
“Hey,” she called out.
The kid looked up from his phone with a bored look on his face. “What.”
“Can you call the SPCA or something?”
“For what?”
She pointed at the window. “For the dog. The damn thing has been following me, and it was in my yard earlier.”
The kid craned his neck to see what she was pointing at, but then he shook his head and looked down at his phone again. “What dog?”
“What dog?” she blurted out. “That dog! The big fucking black one.”
The kid didn’t look up. “There’s nothing out there.”
“Yes there is,” she snapped. “Right there! I’m staring at it right now.”
“Maybe you’re seeing things,” he replied.
“I’m not— I’m not seeing things....”
The kid shrugged. “I see things sometimes, but I’m usually tripping out when I do.”
“I’m not on drugs,” Jackie said tersely.
“Sure.”
“Is my pizza ready yet?”
“Ten minutes.”
Jackie groaned and rubbed her hands over her face and glared at the dog. It was definitely sitting there. Broad and angry looking. Unmoving.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
When the pizza was finally ready she grabbed it off the counter and then paused at the door. The dog was still sitting there, waiting for her.
Her stomach growled and she gritted her teeth and pushed open the door. “You’d better stay the hell away from me,” she muttered as she pulled down her sunglasses and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
The dog didn’t move.
She balanced the pizza on one hand and pulled the shop door closed. First a cat that no one could see… and now a dog.
A dog that got up and began to follow her again.
“You keep your distance,” she shouted at it.
The dog kept the same pace, following slowly behind her as she stomped toward her house. The street was empty, and by the time she reached her neighbor’s gate, she was panicked and she ran the final steps to her front door. The dog did not increase its pace, but its presence was enough to make her nervous.
She leapt up the stairs and dashed inside the house. She threw the pizza onto the kitchen counter and peered out the window. The dog sat on the sidewalk in front of her house and stared at her through the window.
“I’m gonna do it,” she shouted. “I’m gonna call the SPCA!”
She stomped over to the kitchen counter and grabbed her phone. Three more missed calls from Katie.
“Fuck! I just want to eat my pizza in peace!”
She ran back to the window and held up her phone threateningly, but the dog was gone.
“The hell…”
As she stared out the window, a man walked past her house and looked up at her. He had dark hair struck through with stripes of orange as though he’d tried to bleach it and lost patience with it before it had finished processing.
&nb
sp; “What are you looking at,” she muttered.
The man smiled at her and Jackie stepped away from the window. She looked like hell, and he was kind of hot… Only a badass, or a moron, wore a black leather jacket in the middle of a hot day. She had a weakness for badasses. And morons. It was a curse.
“Pizza. Eat your damn pizza,” she muttered.
She went back to the kitchen and opened the pizza box. The smell of the pepperoni and extra cheese made her stomach growl loudly and she was just about to bite down on a piece when there was a knock on the door.
“Seriously?” she moaned. “What now?”
She took a hasty bite and chewed quickly as she walked to the front door. Whoever was outside knocked harder. “Yeah, yeah,” she said around her mouthful of crust. She wiped her greasy fingers on her shirt and then opened the door.
“What?”
She looked up into the face of the man who had just walked past her house and her mouth dropped open.
“Uhhh.”
“You have something I need,” he said.
Jackie felt her cheeks get hot. “I doubt it.”
“You’ve found something that belongs to my master.”
Jackie blinked at him. “I don’t have anything. And if Joe sent you to collect the rent for last month, that’s a really creepy way to ask for it and I am so not cool with it.”
The guy shook his head and chuckled, and Jackie saw the flash of sharp white teeth. Something prickled at the back of her neck and she moved to close the door, but it hit something solid and wouldn’t close. She looked down and frowned. The guy had his foot in the doorway, blocking her from closing the door.
“Move your goddamn foot,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Do you have what I’m looking for?” he asked.
She slammed the door against his foot and glared up at him. He was so much taller than her. Fuck.
“Look, if you can’t take a hint I’ll call the cops and they can give you a hint,” she snapped.
The man standing in her doorway smiled. “You have the lantern, don’t you.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 127
