Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

now. You can play with me,” a child’s voice said.
    Layla stopped dead in her tracks, the fine hairs on her body standing on end. The little girl ghost, ringlets perfectly in place, stood before her. Pinafore pressed. Bows perfect.
    â€œWho’s gone?” Layla managed.
    The ghost put a hand up to her mouth to tell a secret. “The dark man. He follows you.”
    Layla looked at Zoe’s apartment door. But then she remembered ghosts couldn’t act on the world. She should move on down the hallway and get back to her side of the building, and as quickly as possible.
    â€œPlay a game with me?”
    Layla ignored her. She sidled by the apparition, trembling with cold sweat, and headed for the elevator, hating the west wing. How anyone could live there was beyond her.
    Then she stumbled to a stop again. The hallway was morphing before her eyes. Green striped paper appeared in place of the beige paint on the walls and the floor darkened, the carpet replaced with a brown runner. Light in the passage dimmed to a soupy murk. Layla glanced back. The ghost girl, strangely, appeared more solid. Layla could almost smell the sticky sweetness of her.
    Not act on the mortal world? What the freak did they call this?
    Layla took two steps forward, but doing so seemed to enhance the effect of the change. She turned back, uncertain. If she screamed now, would anyone hear? “Zoe!”
    â€œPlay with me.” The little girl sat cross-legged in the middle of the hallway, and she tucked her skirt over her knees.
    Layla retraced her steps to Zoe’s apartment, as if she could adjust time by where she stood in the passage, but the illusion didn’t shift. She was stuck. “Khan!”
    The girl shook her head, curls bouncing. “The dark man isn’t here.”
    Layla swallowed hard and finally acknowledged her host. “What’s your name?”
    â€œTherese. Sit down, silly, so we can play.”
    Layla didn’t want to, but the child might be her only way back. Even as Layla lowered herself to the floor, her stomach turned. She sat cross-legged, too. “I’ll play just as soon as you return me to my time.”
    â€œDo you know the words?”
    Layla wasn’t going to get sucked in to her game. “I want to go back to my time. Can you help me?”
    â€œSay the words.” Therese gave her sweet smile, then shrieked, “ Now! ”
    Scuttling back, Layla said, “I don’t know the words.”
    Therese leaned forward, intently. “Yes, you do. Dead man, dead man, come alive . . .”
    Oh. Layla had heard that somewhere before.
    â€œCome alive by the number five.”
    Layla recoiled from the madness in Therese’s expression. Sitting had been a mistake. She stood, headed for Zoe’s apartment. Anywhere was better than the company of the ghost child.
    â€œSay it!” Therese screamed behind her, then added in singsong, “I’ll let you go. Just say: Dead man, dead man, come alive!”
    Not likely. Layla wasn’t stupid enough to go along with anything about a dead man coming alive, especially on the instruction of a disturbed ghost of a child in a haunted hotel that imprisoned wraiths. There had to be other options.
    Layla’s skin crawled as she rapped on what had to be Zoe’s door.
    Please, open. Her heart hammered, tripping over its rhythm. She flushed with heat, then cold. The rhyme was bad news, had to be.
    In an overlap of time, a translucent version of Zoe flung open her door and looked both ways down the hallway. She didn’t acknowledge Layla.
    â€œZoe!” Layla called, right in her irritated face.
    But Zoe cursed and shut the door again.
    â€œOne, two, three-four-five!” Therese chanted.
    Okay, Zoe was oblivious, but maybe a fae would be different. If Layla could just find Talia or Khan, maybe one of them would see her and get her out. Right? Was there another way? Fear fuzzed her mind like electricity, her thoughts almost breaking apart into panicky, incoherent bits, but she held on. She couldn’t stay here. Here was bad. Real bad. She had to get back to the elevator and the east side, where the ghost couldn’t follow. Then find help.
    Therese was up on her feet. She stamped her foot, hard. “Dead man, come—”
    The space in front of the elevator suddenly punched black. Shadow reached, swirling into the long hallway, like octopus arms in a swim of darkness.
    Oh, thank