The Taking (Seven Deadly Sins #3)(35)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Hardly. But who cares about him? Just eat the chocolates and burn the note. So, are you going to call the voodoo guy to celebrate your divorce going through? And does he have a name, by the way? I’m tired of calling him voodoo dude.”

“His name is Felix.” Regan unlocked her front door, juggling the envelope under her arm. “And no, I’m not going to call him. What the hell would I say? Hi, I do want you?”

“That seemed to be your plan back there over dinner.” Chris leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. Taking a deep drag, he said, “Regan, something strange is going on here in this house.”

“I thought you quit smoking,” she told him.

“I did. This is just a vacation from quitting. And don’t avoid the subject.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Regan shoved the door open and turned to him, hand still on the knob. “Yes, something strange is going on. Is it paranormal activity? Is it me, drinking too much wine? Being completely stressed out over my divorce? I don’t know. But I’ll go crazy if I just sit around thinking and freaking out about it”

“I’m just worried about you. Remember that movie Poltergeist? What if they’re punching a hole into this world with the intention of taking you back to theirs?”

Great. Just one more thing she needed to worry about, being sucked into her walk-in closet and disappearing into the world of the dead. “Good night. I’m going to bed. I love you.” She kissed him on the cheek.

“Love you, too.” Chris blew smoke to his right. “Call me if you need me. Or if you have hot sex and you want to tell me all the juicy details.”

“When have I ever given you details of my sex life?”

“When have you ever had sex with a voodoo practitioner? There’s a time to start everything.”

“True that.” Regan smiled and started to walk into the house. “Bye, sweetheart.”

“Bye, babe. Talk to you later.”

Regan paused, glancing up and down the street. She had the unmistakable sensation of eyes on her, watching.

“What?” Chris asked, following her stare curiously.

There was only a man walking his dog a few doors up and he wasn’t even looking in their direction. Looking up at the balconies across the street, Regan saw they were all empty. “Nothing.”

Just paranoia, her new best friend. She closed and locked the door and went up the stairs, determined not to turn on every single light she encountered. The moonlight was streaming through the entryway windows, illuminating her ascent. She didn’t want to be afraid of her house. She wanted to believe that Camille was reaching out to her. Maybe the dead woman just wanted someone to acknowledge what she had suffered in her young life. Maybe she wanted to comfort Regan or at least share in their mutual pain of having lost a sister.

Or maybe Camille was simply what people referred to as an imprint—a ghost who was trapped in the house reliving her last days on earth over and over. There was no purpose to an imprint, they weren’t even aware of what they were doing.

Yet somehow she knew that wasn’t what Camille was. The monkey on the bed, the image behind her in the doorway, the rash … those weren’t repetitive flashes, they were intentional actions.

Heading to her room, Regan decided to take the chocolates with her. She would watch a little bit of TV now that she had hooked up her flat-screen, and eat the candy in bed. That seemed like a perfect way to thumb her nose at Beau’s gift. He would be appalled at the idea of eating messy melting chocolate in bed. Maybe she would even smear a little on what would have been his pillowcase, just because she could.

Childish, maybe. But she had earned her petty defiance.

Ten minutes later she was in her pajamas, a romantic comedy playing on the DVR, the box of chocolates open in front of her, a glass of red wine on the nightstand. She was debating a cream-filled versus a cherry-covered dark chocolate when she decided she needed to rest her eyes for just a second. Dinner had given her a full stomach and the sleepless nights were definitely catching up with her.

The remote sliding out of her hand, she fell asleep.

Camille filled the crystal flute with water and set it on the chest of drawers. Her parents’ old room was dark, the only light that of the moon streaming through the French doors. She was in her shift, straining to see the parchment paper in front of her as she wrote in bold, large letters “COURAGE” in dragon’s blood ink. Rolling the paper and then dipping it into the glass, she watched the liquid darken, the ink washing off the paper to swirl into the water.

The blood of her enemies, that’s what it was, everyone who had betrayed her, who had spoken out against her, the very rules and conventions of society themselves, and her biggest foe of all—disease. She concentrated on the water, on focusing all her fears into that glass, all the things, people, emotions that had ruined her life.She would ruin them in return. Make them powerless by making them a part of her. She would triumph in the ultimate victory, that of death.

Picking up the glass, Camille drank her bloody courage.

Two swallows and it was gone, inside her, flowing throughout her whole body.

She stepped over to the French doors and flung them open, pushing the doorstops with her bare feet to force the doors to stay. Feeling the power already, she climbed onto the wrought iron railing of her balcony and perched there, arms flung wide.

The breeze kicked up her hair, her shift, and she closed her eyes, her head sinking back. The night, the moon, the other world kissed against her cheeks, and she laughed, embracing it.

Soon she would be with her family again and she wouldn’t be alone in this big empty house anymore.

Felix took the corner of Ursuline Street for the fifth time, intending to walk past Regan’s house yet again. He had no idea what he was doing. He had been pacing and stalking the outside of her mansion since right after his meeting with Alcroft. He had no idea what he was expecting to see or why he didn’t just go up and ring the damn doorbell, but he just kept trolling the block, again and again, waiting for something.

The only thing he’d seen so far was the FedEx guy deliver a package and Regan return home with a blond man in a red golf shirt. Felix had hung back and watched them chat for a second on the doorstep, the guy smoking a cigarette while they talked. They gave each other a cheek kiss for good-bye, and Felix had wondered if it was the friend she had mentioned, the one who had spent the night with her the day she had moved in.Then she had paused before going in and Felix had instinctively known that she had sensed his presence. He had ducked into the doorway of an art gallery and cursed himself. When she’d gone in, he’d started another circuit around the block.