Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 159050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 795(@200wpm)___ 636(@250wpm)___ 530(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 795(@200wpm)___ 636(@250wpm)___ 530(@300wpm)
Knight didn’t exactly understand the mechanics of it all himself, but in essence, the grounds the building had been erected on were haunted by a demon. Said demon had allowed Laurent to travel through time and skip over two hundred years to join them in 2017. Beast later made a pact with the entity to keep his lover. Knight wasn’t complaining, since it so happened that Laurent was his great-great-great uncle from the time when the Merciers first arrived on American soil, and so he held the key to answers Knight had been dying to hear for years.
Still, he didn’t envy Beast having to deal with the sulphur-smelling being that lived in the endless corridors of the building. It was very rare for anyone else to catch a glimpse of it, but Knight could tell every time Beast was forced to interact with it. He returned grumpy, tense, and somewhat pale. Just like he was now.
Beast cleared his throat and absentmindedly touched the rubies. “At least we showed the cops we can cooperate with them when needed. Hopefully that will keep them away from this place for a while. It might be time for me to pay Mr. Magpie a visit as the new prez, so it’s a good thing that the exhumation ended before that. The trade and transport agreement King negotiated with Magpie still stands, but we have to make sure that the relationship remains personal.”
A few glances slid over Knight, and he couldn’t help but grow tense. This would mean that the important day-to-day decisions would be on his shoulders for a while. And making important decisions was far more complicated than choosing what gun to take on a run or which chick to take upstairs. But he agreed to take over as vice president, and he would not disappoint his friend. He was smart. He could do it.
“Hah, maybe if I’m left in charge, the demon’s gonna try and negotiate a deal with me too.”
Beast’s eyes shot daggers at him. “Just ignore him when he appears. Trust me.”
Knight grinned, spreading his arms wide. “Hey, if I could stay forever young and never worry about getting my cock sucked, it would be a deal worth half the blood in my body.”
Beast opened his mouth but didn’t get to say anything when a frantic knocking ruined the peace of the gatherings room.
“What?” shot Beast in anger.
The knocking stopped, and as the door slowly opened, Jake’s handsome tanned face was revealed. “Sorry to distract you all during church, but there’s an intruder on the grounds.”
The stunned silence that followed ended with Beast standing up so fast his chair barely kept its upright position. “What? Where?”
Jake cleared his throat. “I’d have gotten rid of him, but he looks weird. And he’s lurking by that grave by the giant boulder, where the bodies were found.”
Knight shot up, rushing to the window, which faced the area mentioned by Jake. A brass spyglass—a fancy gift from Mr. Magpie himself—was kept on one of the shelves nearby, and he grabbed it on the way, pushing the window open.
As soon as he spotted the movement and the figure, he froze, unable to believe his own eyes. The white powdered face with artificially reddened cheeks and lips, a pale wig with elaborate curls pinned to the sides, the shiny blue and silver costume, the cane, and finally, the selfie-stick with an Iphone, told him exactly who this was.
Hovering around the excavation area was no one else than The Count—the most despicable man on the Internet. A pathological liar who spread nasty rumors about the Mercier family. Knight’s virtual nemesis.
Now he’d invaded Knight’s territory in real life, and he would not get away with a simple dislike under his videos.
Chapter 2
Elliot took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The weather was perfect.
Gray clouds hovered low above him like a warning that he was in fact all-too-close to death. The dampness in the air threatened that it might rain soon, and yet no wind pulled on his wig, and not a droplet fell on his elaborate costume. He’d waited so long for this moment, and it’d finally arrived.
He stood right next to the patch of dirt where not one but five of William Fane’s victims had been found earlier this year. Elliot could feel it in his bones that these two-century-old bodies had remained hidden for a reason. And if William Fane had been smart enough for his victims not to be discovered for so many years then there surely were many other secrets of his still lurking somewhere around Brecon, Maine.
With each step over the damp ground, Elliot could feel as if he were walking hand in hand with William. As if it was William himself who’d brought Elliot here to show off his handiwork. The skeleton found without an arm was a particularly exciting discovery. As soon as Elliot had found out about that one, all pieces of the puzzle that before had been scattered, fell into place. The incomplete body had been lying on top of the pile of earlier victims and therefore was the freshest. The last victim of Maine’s most prolific serial killer of all time and, material proof that William had experimented with cannibalism.