Isla, Hungover. Metaphysically Speaking.

Shit. Balls. Heck. Fairy nips. My. Fucking. Head.

You ever have a soul shredding hangover? A so 'brutal you're afraid you got black out drunk enough to make out with your cousin at the family reunion the night before,' kind of hangover? Cause I officially have. Hot. Damn. My skull was definitely working on smooshing my brain out through my eye sockets like toothpaste. I couldn't even open my eyes. You know, for fear of the brain goo leaking out.

I was hot. Yet shivering. My pits and thighs were sticky and rank with sweat. Hair clung to my forehead. Meanwhile my legs and neck and arms had all broken out in goosebumps. Realizing I was lying on my back, I rolled slightly onto my side. A wave of nausea crested in my gut. My cheek was still pressed to the cold, hard floor as I dry-heaved.

My neck crunched as I slowly lifted my head off the ground. My body felt like I'd just taken a Powerbomb by the Rock like some kind of jabroni.

I needed a cigarette.

Okay, so, that was... weird. I'd never actually been possessed before. Let alone by three bitchy ghosts. I'll tell you, necromancy applicants, zero out of ten, do not recommend. For the aftermath alone. My body ached. The headache! Ugh. Plus I had Pearl's dumbass song stuck in my head on top of it all too!

I guess Greg heard me. In the end. I clung marsupial tight to his neck, cowering in his lap, as the Netherworld seemed to close in on me. Before I blacked out, the room had been spinning. I was dizzy. Weak. Desperate to get my vamp's attention enough to break the circle and untether those ghosts from my body.

Boy came through, I guess.

I mean, heck, is that why every piece of necromancy advice I'd ever gotten urged 'never break a circle?' To purposely trap ghosts in somebody's body? Uh. I should remember that for the future.

Ignoring the throb behind my lids, I peeled open my eyes one at a time, expecting the chandelier light to absolutely wreck me.

But it was dark. Pitch black. As I dragged my stiff limbs upright, my legs scrapped against what felt like broken pieces of glass. It smelled of smoke. And sulfur. And the tang of iron.

Yikes. How long had I been out? Somebody had clearly fussed up the place.

"Greg?" I said, coughing on the lingering smoke.

Where'd everybody go? They having an orgy in the next room without me? Something was happening in the house. There was unintelligible shouting and vigorous thumps echoing throughout.

A glass shard popped to my left. Only feet away. I wasn't alone. Louder than the party in the other room was the wet squelch of tearing meat. Sucking. Gnawing. Squelching. Somebody choked. And not in like, a kinky way.

"Greg, get the unicorn horn out of your ass and help me up."

A moan replied.

My eyes had adjusted slightly to the dark. But not enough, damn it. I could make out the outline of the table, the tipped over chairs surrounding it. Opposite me was a massive, quivering lump.

I patted around the floor, feeling bits of glass and broken candles. Eventually, around the area where I figured my chair had been, I found my clutch. Nice. I snatched my phone out (no texts from Greg) and turned on the flashlight. While my sisters knew spells for igniting candle flames, that's obviously not where my talents laid.

I swung the beam of light around the room. "Greg?"

It landed on the lump. Of bodies.

My spotlight caught Julian's upside-down face. He gurgled. Pink bubbles foamed out the sides of his pale mouth. He'd been bent over backward on the table. With his shirt torn off, the glass edge cut a bloody line into the small of his sweaty back. A grotesque, hellish bat monster on top of him chewed gashes into his neck, chest, forearms, feet, draining his blood in spiraling waterfalls that pooled onto the rug (how wasteful).

The creature had dug its hind claws around the waist of Jules' pants as it feasted, fully crouched atop him. Bloody talons sunk into the joint of his arm, right where it met the shoulder. Needle like fangs dislodged from his neck. The bat hissed at the light reflecting off its catlike eyes and sunk into the meat of Jules' arm.

"M-m-mas-m—" he sputtered from his broken throat.

The bat covered Jules' mouth with its palm.

"Uh, hello?" I whispered.

Julian gasped into the vampire's hand, spittle and blood shooting between the spidery talons, as it unstuck its massive jaws from his arm.

The creature shifted. Its wings beat once, sending a cold gust to my face that made me shiver, as they dissolved into the fabric of a glossy cape. A billowy, white (yet red stained) shirt replaced the monster's leathery chest. Claws rescinded into polished nails, gold and rings and jewels gleaming on elegant fingers. A gnarled snout twisted into the smooth face of a goateed young man, cheeks unblemished—well, you know, aside from the blood splatter. He casually licked a stream of crimson up the length of his arm, ending with a swirl of his tongue between his fingers.

"Ah, wench, you've bid adieu to my lost loves I see. Shame. Would've truly enjoyed a longer catch up."

"Dmitri?"

My hands trembled. So did the flashlight beam on the vampire's handsome face. He smirked, stood up tall and straight, then bowed with a diva-like flourish. Vamp flipped his long, straight sheet of russet hair over his shoulder. A gold earring dangled from one ear.

What a glow up.

"My thanks to thee, Girl Boss," Dmitri said in a soothing baritone. "Tis you who proved my sweet Rosemond's soul rests within a new mortal vessel. None can argue this with me now, after that splendid show! You are very talented."

"Um. Thanks?"

"Ah, and for revealing the betrayal of this traitorous turd!"

Dmitri tore Julian's arm off.

That's it. Quick and simple. With a single rip the bone popped from its socket and flesh tore. Blood sprayed Dmitri's face. He tossed the limb aside. Jules convulsed, eyes rolling back into his head, though it seemed he had no more voice to scream in him.

Dmitri sighed. Bored.

Using the wall for support, I climbed to my feet, only faltering once. "Where's Greg?"

Vamp tenderly dragged a nail down Julian's ripped cheek.

"I Ike dee kay."

That was helpful.

Julian's shaking grew weaker and weaker. Same with the brief torrent of blood that spilled out his empty arm socket. It slowed to the pace of a leaky faucet.

I needed to get the heck out of here.

"Do you know where he went?"

"No."

"Did he say..."

"Woman!" Dmitri rasped. "Do you not see I am trying to conclude my meal before it expires!"

Julian's body gave one final twitch. Dmitri must've noticed. He kicked the body a few times in the shin, to which it gave no reaction.

"Curses!"

He was dead. The sudden warming of my anklet confirmed it. Backing toward the swinging doors, I tripped over something hard. Rosemond's skull rolled out into the hall and out of sight.

"Okay, you know, I'll leave you be, but if you have any—"

Dmitri's transformation was quick. In a blink, he was a bat monster again, wings pumping. Obviously annoyed at my completely reasonable and absolutely justified questions, he took to the air and soared straight out the open window, clipping glass with his one wing as he did.

"'Aight, fuck you too, buddy."

Unsupported, Jules' body rolled off the table and toward my feet.

"Did he do it?" he said from behind me.

I spun.

There stood Julian. Whole and clean. No blood. All his limbs. A radiant smile gracing his lips.

"Have I been turned? Am I a vampire now?"

Big yikes.

"Uh," I stepped aside to reveal his abused corpse. "Sorry, guy."

Rage spilled into his face. "Mother fuc—"

Shadows surged forward. The last vestiges of the Netherworld entangled Jules' thrashing ghost in an instant. The tendrils wrapped and yanked and pulled the spirit into a void black spill in the wall. A kraken devouring a ship. His soul bent completely in half as the shadow sucked him out of this realm and onto the other side of the veil. And with him, the shadow reabsorbed itself, and was gone.

Welp.

Time to go.

I stumbled through the swinging doors of the dining room and back into the wood paneled hall. The house was dark. Musty. My head pounded so hard I could barely stand up straight. But at least my anklet cooled a tad. I couldn't quite remember the layout of the house. The hall I emerged in was narrow and lined with abstract paintings. Shit. Which way was out?

I went right.

With a guiding hand against the wall, I crypt forward, tripping over the rug. "Greg?" Troll balls, my throat hurt.

A chair with a missing leg had been thrown into the hallway. I climbed over it gingerly. Eventually the corridor opened into the elegant sitting room. White sofas and gold trimmed wallpaper and a brick fireplace. Crap, I'd gone the wrong way. Beyond this was the sunroom. I passed through it earlier.

As I turned, my flashlight swept past another heap on the floor. Oh, come on? Was that another body? Isn't this reveal getting tired? I can picture bored audiences booing me in the theater now.

"Greg? Is that you?"

I focused the beam on the body. It was, in fact, not Greg.

It was Sloane.

The room had been ransacked. Vases and knickknacks were shattered on the carpet. Furniture knocked over. The leg of the chair in the hall had been snapped off.

Whomever redecorated had left it poking out from Sloane's motionless back.

A few feet from her laid Caleb.

Heat pulsed through my anklet, but I didn't need it to determine that Caleb was dead this time. Chunk of his face had caved in around one eye. A bloodied and heavy-looking candlestick had been discarded not far from his body.

What the ever-hexing heck happened here?

None of the other donors were in sight, likely either hiding deeper in the house, or they'd gotten of dodge. Just beyond the sitting room was the sunroom. Its doors to the graveyard were opened again. Sloane had closed them when we reentered the house earlier. They slapped against the wall with each frigid gust of wind blowing into the house.

"Greg?" I whispered, seriously doubting I'd get a reply.

The house creaked and thumped.

I shone the flashlight back on Sloane. Though the wound appeared to be sizzling, she wasn't moving. A silver chain, wrapped around the wood, had been partially imbedded into her body.

"Sloane? You okay, honey?"

Stupid question, skank.

I could remove it. Try to, at least. She'd pop back up after that, right? Stakes put vamps to sleep but didn't totally turn them to dust? I've have to bob and weave between overturned furniture and Caleb's cooling corpse though. Not like I had a lot of time. Could you pull prints, or auras, from a wooden stake?

Nah, screw it. Everyone in here was dead and I was about to be hexed. My anklet was hot. I needed to scram before the Magistrate showed up and pinned this bloodbath on me.

"Good luck," I murmured.

I spun and ran down the hall. The Magistrate was on its way. Whether Sloane and Dmitri kept a security system or not, my anklet alerted them the moment Julian expired five feet away from me. Once they did arrive, chances are they'd be too distracted by this wild mess to go hunting for me.

Probably.

Halfway to the main foyer, I stumbled over Rosemond's skull, kicking it across the floor. It scraped loudly against the wood, spinning around and eventually settling outside the library door I'd seen Dmitri drag Greg through when we first arrived.

It also happened to stop at the foot a woman. She pulled off the flapper look better than I had, in her beaded dress and feathered hair piece. A jet-black bob and blunt bangs perfectly framed her pretty face. Beneath pencil thin eyebrows, her almond eyes were ringed in enviable black liner. She went to tap the skull with her high heel, but her toe passed through it rather anticlimactically. She pouted.

"She ain't going to like this, smokey eyes."

Pearl's familiar, melodic voice struck a chord in my ears. Like a shittier case of tinnitus.

She vanished in a blink.

Behind the library door, something crashed. Lots of somethings. Books getting tossed off a shelf, most likely. Someone was inside.

I wasn't sticking around to find out if it was the same someone who'd just staked the baddest bitch I'd ever met. Luckily, my coat was on a hook by the front entrance. I snatched it, quickly double checked that nothing was missing from my pockets for the Magistrate to find a trace of and dashed out the door into the cold night.

Rest in peace out, babes.