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“Actually, we’re here to make you an offer.” Samantha wondered briefly what she looked like. Amaliya looked like a death goddess, so did Samantha look like some sort of ghost goddess? Was there such a thing?

“So what is this offer?” Roberto lowered his arms slowly. The lost expression on his face was slowly fading into a hopeful one.

“I need a ghost minion. Someone who can help me.”

“You don’t look like you need help.”

Samantha studied the bleak world around her. Maybe Roberto was right. Now that she was at full power did she need him? It wasn’t doubt, but her own instincts born of her magic that whispered in her soul that she did. “Yeah, true. But I thought you might want to get out of your limbo and get some revenge on The Summoner.”

A subtle smile crept onto the ghost’s lips. “I would like that.”

“But not against her,” Samantha said, pointing to Amaliya. “She killed you because you were a dick.”

The ghost’s body sputtered as he slid off the tombstone, his black eyes boring into the vampire. “I thought you would be Cian’s death, you know.”

“Yet you were willing to betray him and torture him to get what you wanted, weren’t you?” Amaliya retorted.

Roberto chuckled, a dark sound in the barren world. “Love and hate are close siblings.”

“If you’re a psychopath maybe,” Samantha sniffed.

“I will help you, Samantha, but only if the past can be laid aside and forgotten.” Roberto was staring squarely at Amaliya.

A delicate thread of Samantha’s power curled around his head, not quite touching him, but close enough that she could detect the tumult of emotions and thoughts filling him. “He means it, Amaliya.”

The vampire’s glowing white eyes studied the radiant halo of Samantha’s power pulsating around the ghost’s head. “I will leave the past behind if you don’t do anything to fuck us over. Understood?”

Fear, loneliness, and desperation vibrated through the faint connection between Samantha and Roberto. Roberto was half-mad from the isolation of this terrible limbo. Unable to leave the graveyard, he was in his own hell.

“I understand,” Roberto said, not a hint of malice or cockiness in his voice or manner. “And I accept.”

Samantha plunged her magic into the ghost, the threads of her power weaving around him. Resting her hand on his shoulder, she faced toward Austin. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter 16

Jeff pushed at the zombies, but they wouldn’t relent. They stood in such a dense formation that he couldn’t squeeze through. If not for their glowing

eyes, they would have resembled living humans wearing zombie costumes for Halloween.

“You cannot pass,” the zombies spoke as one.

“They’re talking!” Jeff gasped.

From amidst the throng, Aimee’s voice rose. “It’s okay, Jeff. Amaliya and Samantha are fine. I’m with their bodies.”

“Their bodies!” Panic filled Jeff and again he tried to plunge into the undead horde. The zombies did not budge.

Cian’s cold fingers gripped Jeff’s shoulder and dragged him backward.

“The Summoner-” Jeff gasped.

“They’re fine!” Aimee called out again. “Samantha and Amaliya finally tapped into their full power. They’re alive, but spirit walking. Astral projection, Jeff. Amaliya raised the dead to protect them. There are ghosts, too. I’m sitting with their bodies. It’s okay.”

Frustrated at not being able to see Samantha, Jeff paced before the zombies. Cian stood in silence, arms folded over his chest, watching both Jeff and the protective circle of the undead.

“I don’t like this,” Jeff muttered.

“It’s fine,” Cian said with annoying confidence. “I can see their power rising above the zombies.”