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Mortimer

I should have pushed harder to turn him away. I never should have allowed the lovesick puppy to pass, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around why I had. He was a nuisance, and now he was going to be an even bigger one.

His love for her was clear to see, and it pissed me off.

Not because of his feelings for her, but because I hadn’t considered that my ghost girl would have feelings for him in return.

Now, as we stood on opposite ends of the basement to one another as we watched the scene unfold, my focus was latched firmly onto her, but I wasn’t even sure she was aware of my presence.

Her gaze hadn’t moved from them, not even to check on the newest girl he had strapped to the other side of the room, another addition to his collection.

It made me feel… Fuck. It didn’t matter what it made me feel, because I was fucking feeling.

Ever since I had felt her clench around me, her nails digging deep as she fought me for dominance she would never win, her screams echoing in my ears as I ground her into the dirt of her own grave, my damn cock hadn’t gone down.

In all the time I had been dead, I had never once suffered through the pointlessness of an erection.

The pleasures of the body were inconsequential, especially when it was a biological imperative to procreate, and that wasn’t something us ghosts needed to do.

Our numbers were added to through death, not life.

But perhaps that was the answer. I wasn’t a ghost anymore, I was something more. Something powerful.

And so was she.

She was changing everything. Everything I thought I knew was being crushed to dust just from her mere existence.

And it was him she was staring at with so much love and concern. The pain etched on her face as she watched her killer murder someone she loved stabbed at something deep inside me. Something I thought I had buried too deep to be resurrected, and yet, somehow, this enigmatic woman had.

As the knife slid across the man’s flesh, creating a macabre smile in his throat that was mirrored by the peaceful one on his lips, ghostly tears dripped from my ghost girl’s eyes in a waterfall of silvery essence.

I could feel the power of them from here, the potential calling to that long forgotten part of me she was so painfully dredging up, and I couldn’t stand by and watch for one more second.

I needed to go back to my roots, to the comfort of my existence before her. I needed to kill, to feed on the souls of the damned so I could make myself stronger, to build my power. But more importantly, I needed to erase the emotions seizing my chest, because they were too much. Too overwhelming.

Incapacitating.

What had my little ghost girl done to me?

I wanted more. She was all I could think about. All I desired. All I craved . To feel her wet chill wrapped around my throbbing cock, to see that fire in her eyes aimed at me, her passion and her anger and…

No, that. Anything but that. It wasn’t possible. I wasn’t capable of such emotion. It would be cruel of me to draw it out of her when I couldn’t reciprocate.

So why did I… care?

Fingers and shadows tugged at my hair, yanking the strands in my frustration as I tried to use the pain to pull me back from the edge.

I was teetering on a precipice of unknown consequences.

The worst part was that I just knew that if I ignored it, if I chose to release her from my fixation and move on to let her exist in peace with Loverboy, I knew I would regret it.

Nothing would ever be the same again. I growled, low and vicious, the sound pulled from deep inside my being as I attempted to release this onslaught of feeling.

But of course, it didn’t work. Why would it? The only thing that could save me was returning to my normal routine. Hunt, consume, repeat. There was nothing else more important than that.

The shadows thrummed through and around me, calling to the darkest parts of my battered and broken soul, whispering promises of power and strength the likes no mere mortal would ever know.

I felt my lips split in a malicious grin.

I didn’t want to wait for the right time anymore.

I wanted to act. I wanted to take what would belong to me now .

I needed the rush of energy of eating a soul to consume me, to light me up from within as it merged with my power to create something more.

Something powerful. Something indestructible.

I embraced the ice-cold shadows as they surrounded me, tugging me to my destination with a familiar ease that spoke of trust and synergy. The energy was mine to command, but only because I had proven myself a worthy vessel. Through me, it could flourish. Through me, it had purpose.

And I was about to put it to good fucking use.

I heard her screams turn into pathetic whimpers as she begged and pleaded for it all to stop long before I reached the house.

It was just as run-down and shabby as before, possibly more since the woman could barely inhale, let alone clean up.

They were in the living room, the woman sprawled at odd angles on the floor amid broken glass from the coffee table, a puddle of blood forming rapidly beneath her.

If I didn’t already know she was his wife, I wouldn’t have recognised her through the bruising and swelling.

My prey stood above her, breathing heavily through his nose, snot bubbling out of his nostrils as he wheezed with a bad case of smoker’s lungs, his entire body swaying precariously, no doubt as a result of the countless empty beer bottles littering every available surface, and even the ones that were already occupied.

Fuck, this place was a dump.

I noted the still lit cigarette butt in the chipped ash tray on the windowsill, and decided in that moment to cause a little extra mayhem that usual.

Let the silly little mortals run around like headless chickens as they tried and failed to fit the pieces together.

Eventually, just like they always did, they would wedge them into a shape of their own choosing to help them sleep better at night, content in their delusions.

But this man was going to die. His wife was almost there. Since she would be ripe for the picking, like a perfectly wrapped gift with a pretty little bow on top, I would consume her soul, too.

I licked my lips, eager for the meal.

The woman took her last, gurgled breath, and it was time.

Separating from her body, her spirit gazed upon the grizzly scene of her murder with a resigned sadness, but also relief. That relief was short-lived when she found me watching in the corner. She tensed, then forcibly relaxed and cocked her head as she studied me curiously.

Stupid little mouse.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, then flinched involuntarily when her husband spat on her corpse and proceeded to kick her, screaming at her to get up to make him his dinner. He only became more incensed when she didn’t move, too dumb to figure out he’d killed her.

‘I’m here to take you to where you belong,’ I answered her, enjoying the way she shivered with revulsion at the sound of my voice. It was nothing like the way my ghost girl responded to me, and I was glad for it. The only creature allowed to enjoy my presence was her.

No… Shit. I needed to focus. I needed to purge her from my mind, if only for a moment, and this was supposed to be it. The husband would die soon. It was the only way.

‘Are you an angel?’ she asked, trepidation tainting her hope. She thought she would be carried away to heaven, did she? That wasn’t how this shit worked.

‘No,’ I said, and took even more pleasure when she tried to step away, only to find herself rooted in place, still tethered to her bones.

‘W-What do y-you w-want?’ she stammered, her fear such a sweet taste in the air. Though not as sweet as my ghost girl.

Damn it!

My shadows lashed out in my frustration, latching onto the terrified spirit with their chilling tendrils, wrapping around her, squeezing her, digging in.

A few dipped inside of her, using her mortal-shaped orifices to enter her body.

She may have been incorporeal without her body as a vessel, but she was tangible enough for me.

I dragged her to me, pulling her close to get a better sense of the energy coursing through her.

It was dim, her soul just as broken and battered as her decaying body, and I wrinkled my nose in disgust. She would be more like a bland snack than a full- on meal, but at least she was better than nothing.

A tasteless side dish to accompany the shitty main.

Her eyes widened, her fear lapping at me enticingly as I shoved her energy to merge with mine, cutting off her screams.

I breathed in a deep breath that didn’t quite hit the spot, and turned my attention to the worthless waste of space still attacking his wife’s corpse. I didn’t wait.

Even when I materialised in front of him, it took him far too long to notice me. Up close, his stench was even more revolting. His stale breath that reeked of tobacco, beer, and halitosis wafted over me, and if I my stomach had any contents, I would have expelled them immediately.

‘You couldn’t even brush your teeth,’ I muttered in disgust, finally drawing his attention.

He stumbled away from his dead wife as if putting distance between them would somehow prove he was innocent, but his shock quickly turned into a threatening glare as he levelled me with a look of pure hatred.

‘Who the’fuck are you, ‘n wha’ you doin’ in my house?’ he slurred angrily.

‘I am your end, you pathetic cretin,’ I sneered, then lashed out with my shadows to gag and restrain him.

I didn’t want to hear another word come out of those thin, cracked lips.

He struggled weakly, but even if he weren’t drunk out of his mind, he never would have had the strength to resist. I was Power. I was Death.

He was my prey.

I had chosen this territory as my hunting grounds for one particular reason, and that was the river that wound through the land. The majority of the landowners had a section of the river to themselves, and I always killed my prey in the same way. The way I had been killed.

Drowning.

My nerves were wrought enough that I didn’t have the patience to play with him like I might have done.

I liked watching their fright, knowing I was the cause, and that I would feed on it, but now I just needed the rush of the hunt.

The reward after the kill. I needed to remind myself who and what I was, to purge these new thoughts and desires from my mind and body.

They were nonsensical. Purposeless. What use did I have for that sort of thing now?

I had made a mistake. My ghost girl was supposed to be entertainment. Another being that could keep me sane throughout the endless passage of time. Yet, she had somehow become more.

I didn’t like it.

And so, I took my anger out on this miserable weasel of a man.

I let my shadows have free rein as they held him beneath the water, swishing him back and forth, up and down, but never letting his face breach the surface.

His limbs thrashed in their grip as he tried desperately to grasp onto something to haul himself out of danger, but it was a useless endeavour.

I heaved a long-suffering sigh. Why couldn’t he just hurry up and die already?

Finally, blessedly , the thrashing slowed to a stop. A few moments later, the idiot’s spirit rose above the water, still spluttering like there was some in his lungs. Idiot.

Without any further fanfare, I urged my shadows to drag him closer.

This time, he didn’t try to fight. He may have been a little too stunned and was struggling to process, but I didn’t care.

As soon as we touched, my energy reached out to encompass his before both sucked back inside of me, filling me with the additional power absorbing his soul granted mine.

I breathed a little easier, the breaths filling my lungs not for oxygen, but peace.

It was a familiar action that brought comfort, a reminder of a time when life ran through my veins.

It still brought peace, and oftentimes clarity, but I found that despite that, my thoughts were still drawn to a white-haired ghost girl that had completely and irrevocably captured my attention.

There was no getting rid of her now, was there? I had made my bed, and now I had to lie in it. I had set all of this into motion with my own actions, and now it was coming back to bite me in the ass.

Or… was it? I couldn’t know for certain until everything played out. Whatever the result, I knew I would forever be changed.

The real question was, for better or for worse?