Spooky Business (The Spectral Files #3) - S.E. Harmon Page 0,116

a portal, which you would then use to return the excess energy from the spirits to the earth. And voila.”

“Voila,” I agreed, as if it wasn’t the craziest thing I’d ever discussed.

“There just happens to be one that crosses through your property. It’s probably why the ghosts are so comfortable there. They gravitate toward ley lines without realizing it,” he said. “Maybe one day, you could create a portal in the backyard.”

“An energy portal.”

“Yes.”

“In my backyard.”

“Yep,” he confirmed, an undercurrent of excitement in his tone. “Well, what do you think?”

“I think I had plans for a pool out there,” I said dryly. “And I think creating a portal to hell would mess with the feng shui.”

“It’s not a portal to hell,” he argued. “And it’s safer than the way you did things with Joseph. Or maybe you want the news reporting on freak lightning storms anytime you decide to vanquish a ghost.”

I winced. “Maybe you have a point.”

“So we’ll work on it this Saturday. I have a test in the morning, but I’m free after one,” he offered. “How about you?”

I pulled up the calendar on my phone and scrolled through it quickly. “Two thirty,” I finally said, albeit a little begrudgingly. “I have a dental appointment in the morning, and I….”

I spotted a shadow out of the corner of my eye that nearly made me drop the phone. I watched the man touching the knickknacks on my shelf, almost too thrown to make a sound. Dakota’s concerned voice asking if I was all right finally shook me out of my momentary stupefaction, and I cut him off.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “See you Saturday.”

I hung up, and Kane turned around with a smile. “So, this is where you live. I always wondered.”

“I guess now you know,” I said coolly.

I wasn’t afraid of him, per se, but I couldn’t deny that my heart rate kicked up a notch. And I couldn’t help but think about Danny, half sleeping and watching TV in the next room. Sitting at his bedside in the hospital and praying that he’d open his eyes—just one fucking time—I’d silently made a lot of promises. One of them, the most important of them, was that none of the paranormal parts of my life would ever threaten him again.

I meant it then, and I meant it now.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Nervous?”

“Not especially.”

He laughed. “You always were an overconfident little shit. I knew that from the first day you sat across from me.”

“Thanks, I missed you, too. I wasn’t sure I could scrounge up enough postage to send you a letter in hell, though.”

His expression turned less confident and mocking and more mulish. “You have no right to judge me, you know. I’m the way God made me, and if that makes me a fucking monster, then so be it.”

“You would reference God after all you’ve done?” I wasn’t angry. Just curious. He’d taken the lives of so many—what kind of comfort could he draw from traditional religion?

Kane shrugged. “Why not? You know, somewhere along the way, I realized a little something. Good isn’t supposed to win. There is no winning over evil. We merely coexist. And that’s just the way it’s supposed to be.”

“And your reckoning to the victims’ families? Any prolific thoughts on that?”

“No reckoning made but sent to my account. With all my imperfections on my head.”

I stared at him, not sure why I was surprised he would be casually quoting Hamlet. He wasn’t a stupid man, just an evil one. I thought of Hamlet’s belief in his father’s ghost’s fate, neither in hell nor heaven, but in some kind of middle world. Stuck in a state of unrest because he was murdered before he could repent his sins.

“I think it’s time for you to go,” I said coldly. “Past time, actually. And I’d hate to force the issue.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “And I’d hate to make a mess in your nice, little office.”

I stared at him for a few moments, contemplating my next move. I might not understand everything about my skills just yet, but I’d come a long way. That was nothing to sneeze at. For the first time in my life, I felt less like the passenger when it came to my skills, and more like the driver.

I analyzed the energy in the room silently, focusing on his body. Everything inside him was fetid and rotten, and it made spotting the glow hiding behind his liver easier than I’d expected. I tugged gently