Chapter 15:
SPENCER'S POV
The air on the quiet suburban street grew cold, a chill that had nothing to do with the night and everything to do with the spectral fury radiating from the ghost beside me. Wednesday's gaze was locked on the house, her form shimmering with a palpable, violent energy.
"Who is that?" I asked, though I already knew the answer would be a key to a lock in her haunted mission
"One of my siblings who has her hands in my death," she said, her voice low, clouding with a rage so deep it seemed to suck the sound from the world around us. The simple statement hung in the air, a verdict and a death sentence.
The pieces clicked into place with a sickening finality. My role was no longer that of a mere alliance. I was the weapon she herself could not wield. A cold dread, separate from the fear of assassins, seeped into my bones.
"Okay," I said, the word feeling feeble. I took a step back, pointing to a bench nestled under a streetlamp a few yards away. "I will sit here and wait for you. Go avenge your death." It was the logical conclusion, wasn't it? Let the ghost handle her ghostly business.
Wednesday's head snapped toward me, her eyes blazing with an otherworldly silver light. "Hey! Hey! This is when you help me!" she said, her voice a sharp crack in the silence.
I felt genuinely confused. "Help you for what, exactly? I just said I was going to sit and wait for you to go and come back. Easy peasy." I shrugged, trying to project a nonchalance I was far from feeling.
She folded her arms, and the look she gave me wasn't one of anger, but of sheer, unadulterated disbelief, as if I'd just suggested we fly to the moon. It was a look that instantly made me understand the horrific reality of our situation.
My stomach dropped. "Wait.... wait a sec..... Am I the one that's going to kill your b****?"i asked.
She nodded, a single, solemn dip of her chin.
I let out a disbelieving huff. "What? Why? I thought you said I was only going to help find them?" The plea in my voice was unmistakable. I was trying to renegotiate a deal with the ghost, and the ghost was reminding me of the fine print.
She exhaled, a sound of strained patience. "That's not what I meant. I meant that you were going to help me execute them."
"Once again, why?" I demanded, my voice rising. "Literally, like I told you, I don't kill people!"
"They didn't want to murder me directly!" she snapped, her composure cracking. "They set things up and made something and someone do their dirty work in the cold war! And so, I'm not to kill them myself. I must have to make someone do it! They murdered me indirectly, and so I will avenge indirectly! The spirit world has its rules and consequences!" Her voice rose to a fever pitch. "I didn't just find you cuz I needed someone to do cheap chat with! If not, I would have killed all four of them that same Halloween night I came and gone back that same night!"
Her confession left me in awe. The entirety of our partnership, the protection, the near-death experiences—it was all transactional although I knew it was,I started the negotiations. I was a pawn in a cosmic game of revenge I brought this on myself the day I asked her to be my protector.
"So now you expect me to kill? Something I've never thought of doing before? I don't kill people! If not for this whole assassinating stuff, I'm not ordained a killer. I. DON'T. KILL." I made my last words sharp, definitive, a wall I was building between my soul and the abyss.
"I've been helping you, Spencer," she began, her tone shifting to one of bitter recrimination. "I've been serving you as your protector just to meet ends with my mission!"
"Wednesday, I'm not a murderer," I stated, my voice flat and final.
The change was instantaneous and terrifying.
"BUT WE MADE A DEAL! WE SIGNED A CONTRACT! WE MADE A PACT IN BLOOD!" she yelled. Her voice was no longer just in my head; it seemed to vibrate in the very air, a pressure that made my ears pop. Luckily and unluckily, I was the only one who could hear the roar of a ghost.
Her form began to shift. Her once dark hair bleached itself in seconds to a white-blonde silver, glowing with an eerie, cold light in the darkness. Her eyes lost all their color, transforming into piercing, silverish-white orbs that held no remnant of the girl I'd come to know. This was not Wednesday; this was a Fury, a vengeful spirit in its purest, most terrifying form.
"You wouldn't dare violate our deal," she snarled, her voice a layered, guttural growl that was barely recognizable. "I have killed a lot of people because of you and this mission! And I'll do anything in my power to accomplish it, even if I have to end you too!"
She snapped the last words, and I flinched, physically recoiling from the wave of malevolence that hit me. A moment ago, she had been a quirky, sometimes irritating companion. Now? I was standing in the presence of a beast. I had not seen this girl in this manner before. The true depth of her power and her rage had been hidden from me, and it was terrifying.
"Woah.. woah.. woah.. fine!" I said, the words rushing out in a surge of pure, self-preserving instinct. I let out a shuddering sigh and raised my hands in surrender. "I will do it."
The transformation reversed as quickly as it had come. The silver light faded from her hair and eyes, leaving the familiar Wednesday in its wake. She let out a deep breath, the oppressive energy dissipating, and took a step backwards.
"I'm sorry," she muttered, her voice small again.
I ignored the apology. My heart was still hammering. What was the point of an apology when the threat of annihilation was the only thing that had motivated it? "What weapon will I use? You don't expect me to pull off combat skills there?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly despite my attempt to sound pragmatic.
"Get there first," she said, her gaze drifting back to the house.
I began walking across the road, my legs feeling like lead. "Why can't you find someone else to hire as your assassin?" I asked, a last, desperate attempt to find a way out.
"I wish I could! I would have done so since and left you to handle your life and killer! You are so frustrating!" she said, her petulance returning, which was somehow more comforting than her cosmic rage. She hummed, a thoughtful, dark sound. "At times I regret even choosing you. I would have chosen Allen or even Megan. I get to pick one person to indirectly kill them."
That got to me. "Hey! Leave my best friend and my girlfriend out of your mess!" I replied sharply.
"Why are you so bent on killing these people?" I asked, the fundamental question of morality echoing in the quiet street.
"The same way they were so bent on killing me!" she replied, her anger flaring, but this time it was human, familiar.
I breathed out, accepting the twisted logic of the ghost world. There was no way out. "I will be needing a gun. I can't swing the butcher's knife the way you do, or I'll get my legs chopped off."
"Here," she said.
I turned to look at her. She was holding a sleek, black pistol, materializing it in her palm as if it had been there all along.
"Where did you get that from?" I asked, curious despite my terror.
"From your car. After the accident, I found it in your car," she said.
I slowly took it. The metal was cold and unnaturally heavy in my hand. "I don't kill. I only keep this for safety reasons," I said, more to myself than to her.
She offered a thin, fake smile. "I know. Now go."
I continued walking, each step feeling like a march to my own execution—or my damnation. I reached the front door, my palm sweaty around the grip of the gun. I took one last look at Wednesday, who was watching the house with a deep, hateful frown.
"Well?" I whispered.
"She's the one,"Wednesday confirmed, her voice a low growl. "My younger sister."
I looked back at the door, my temper rising at the injustice. Your younger sister? The concept was grotesque. I rang the doorbell.
Almost immediately, the door opened, revealing a woman in her late thirties. She had sharp, calculating eyes and a perpetually displeased twist to her mouth. I quickly hid the gun behind my back.
"Ummm.. hi," I began, my mind racing for an opening.
"Say what you want to say and f*** off," she retorted, her voice dripping with a rudeness that was both instant and profound.
I gaped. "So rude?" I muttered, glancing at Wednesday. "You call this woman your younger sister?" I asked the empty space beside me, my disgust growing.
Wednesday just shrugged, her expression grim. This lady really deserves to die.
"Who are you talking to?" the woman—Casrina—asked, her eyes narrowing.
I smiled, a tight, nervous expression. "Oh, it's Wednesday. The military girl," I said, pointing vaguely in Wednesday's direction.
Casrina looked at the empty spot and then busted into harsh, humorless laughter. "Wednesday died 17 f****** years ago!" she said, her laughter echoing in the night. But suddenly, she stopped. Her face turned serious, and she looked at me with a new, keen intensity. "How did you know she's my elder sister?"
I shrugged, a non-committal gesture that seemed to confirm her worst suspicions. Her eyes widened a fraction, and then she slammed the door in my face with brutal force.
I looked at Wednesday, puzzled. "What was that?"
But she just grinned, a predator's smile. "Get ready to run."
I shook my head, a stubborn refusal to accept this was ending in a chase. I rang the doorbell again.
This time, the door flung open with violent force. Casrina stood there, no longer annoyed, but lethally focused. In her hands was a short, compact gun, already leveled at my chest.
"Oh s***!" I muttered, throwing myself to the side and bending down as I scrambled for cover behind a low, decorative mini-fence in her yard.
"You m***********!" Casrina snapped, firing twice. The bullets whizzed past, splintering the wood of the fence near my head. The sound was deafening in the quiet neighborhood.
Then, a click. A blessed, momentary click. She was reloading.
It was the only chance I would get. This was no longer a philosophical debate about murder; it was a firefight, and she was trying to kill me. A cold clarity washed over me. I stood up, raised my pistol, and found my target. I didn't aim for an arm or a leg. In the split-second logic of survival, I aimed for the center mass, for the threat.
I pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was a sharp, final crack. The bullet went straight, hitting Casrina squarely in the forehead. The force threw her back, and she fell to the ground just inside her doorway, a marionette with its strings cut. A dark circle bloomed on her brow, the gun slipping from her lifeless hand.
I walked up to her, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. I looked down at the woman I had just killed. "That was easy," I muttered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. And somehow, in the adrenaline-fueled aftermath, I didn't feel the immediate, crushing guilt I had expected. There was only a numb, hollow shock.
Wednesday materialized beside me, rolling her chain, a butcher's knife now in her other hand, dripping with fresh blood.
"What did you do?" I asked, my voice hollow.
She nodded towards the back of the house. "Well, actually, it's only a child I killed. She has no children and no husband. At least in the future, this child doesn't grow to become like its mother."
The casualness of her statement, the cold, utilitarian murder of an innocent, sent a fresh wave of horror through me. This was the beast I had made a deal with.
Then, we heard it. The distant, but approaching, wail of sirens. Our time was up.
We exited the premises immediately, melting into the shadows of the night, two killers bound by a bloody pact.
As we fled, Wednesday's voice cut through the darkness, calm and determined.
"One down...three more to go."
To be continued...