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Colin lifted his brows. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.” Bishop’s crooked smile broadened. “Beer it is.” The time—11:03 a.m.—glowed on the microwave,
It was right then, right there, when the house decided to breathe. Colin heard the soft, gushing sound of lived-in beams and thin walls expanding like a lung.
Colin hadn’t earned his place yet, but he typically didn’t have to: haunted places never failed to recognize haunted people.
For years, Colin Hart had searched for oddities and spirits, ripped unwelcome breath from between the bones of crowded houses, braced for fangs and claws in demonic dwellings, but he’d never managed to scrape the inconsistencies out of himself. Hips, too wide. Shoulders, too narrow. Wrists, too small. Testosterone be damned, he still felt half-framed and hollow. As if his body was a home with too many unused rooms, too much open space. A place still under construction.
There was always something or someone that caused a house to want, to ache, to make itself known. There was always a reason for anger and lust and becoming lonesome.
Fear sometimes happened all at once—seeping into his skeleton, rushing fast in his veins—and sometimes it happened slowly. A spear sinking through the soles of his feet, sliding behind his kneecaps, burrowing into his stomach.
“C’mon, exorcist. Don’t make me beg.”
GIRL. STAND UP.
What the hell do you say to the person who’s shared a house with you, built a whole goddamn life with you, and still managed to slip away?” “You say goodbye,” Colin whispered.
“Oh my God, Colin. I’m Mexican,” they blurted, gesturing wildly to themself. “I’m half-Catholic by design.
“You can’t handle a few ghosts?” Witches. Colin’s small smile tightened. Arrogant as the devil.
“All gods require payment,” she said. Her eyes fell to Colin’s chest where his rosary sprouted from beneath his scarf. “Especially yours.”
“What kept waking you?” Bishop asked. You. “I’m not quite sure.”
There was a frightening thrill to it: being in the same room as Bishop Martínez and their magic. Especially then, especially there, on the cusp of undoing their own haunting.
