I cringe. “I’m only half human,” I correct him softly.

A crooked smile touches his ghostly lips as he says, “Yes ma’am, I reckon you are at that, but none of ‘em have reckoned that…yet.”

My hand tightens on the bottle in my hand. “You mean all these dead people are here to see me?” I whisper in bewilderment.

“Yes, the old bat that lives in the Fine Arts building saw your reaction to me on the porch and told everyone she knows that there’s a seer on campus. It’s no wonder her husband killed her,” he mutters in displeasure, “she can’t keep her mouth shut for a second. Most of the souls want you to contact their loved ones for them…the ones that still have loved ones, that is.”

My eyes lift to his as my jaw tightens in fear. “I can’t do that, Will. I’m trying really hard to keep a low profile here,” I say helplessly.

“Yes, I reckoned that, too. Reed told me. You need to pretend like you can’t see us. The other souls don’t know who you are; they’re just hoping to stumble across you,” he replies sagely. “You should go hide until they give up looking for you. This is gonna attract attention. Attention you don’t want,” he says significantly, allowing his eyes to rest on me briefly, to see if what he’s saying is getting through to me. Judging by the way my legs have gone numb with fear, I’d say I get the picture.

“Thank you for the warning, Will. I’ll be leaving as soon as I can,” I reply. Will nods, and then he disappears through the exterior wall of the fraternity house.

Intent on leaving, I sneak by Brownie and Buns. I don’t know how to explain to them sufficiently that I have to leave the party tonight because the dead want to commune with me. I will have to think of something to tell them later, after I am safe.

Leaving the billiard room, I turn the corner to head out the front door, but I stop when I see two young men just beyond the threshold of the entrance. Neither one of them is wearing a costume, but that’s not what gives me pause. What gives me pause is that they both have that shine to them that is becoming familiar to me. By shine, I mean unbelievable beauty, the type of beauty that humans rarely possess, the type of beauty that I’ve only seen in the faces of angels.

They haven’t seen me, not yet anyway, and I am grateful that someone has started the music because the thumping of the bass is probably helping to camouflage whatever it is that my heart likes to do to give me away. Creeping down the hall, I crouch down in order to keep several people in the angels’ direct line of sight. As the crowd gets thinner toward the end of the hallway, I straighten up, trying to appear to be walking like a “normal human” if the angels happen to glance my way.

Making it to the end of the hallway, my blood pounds in my ears, and I am having trouble breathing evenly. Intense fear washes over me. Every cell in my body screams for me to turn around and check where the angels are in proximity to me, but I resist doing so.

Rounding the corner hurriedly, I walk right through a soul who must have had his head beaten in with a baseball bat. His jaw hangs askew, and he has lost most of his tongue. His left eye is out of its socket and is sort of hanging there, still very much attached. He looks atrocious. I can’t contain the gasp that the sensation of being inside of him elicits from me. It feels like I am in a freezer and I am being shocked by static electricity; it isn’t really painful, it’s just scary.

Noticing my reaction, he turns back around and says, “Hey! I’ve been looking for you!” but it doesn’t come out very clear because he has a lisp from only having a partial tongue.

Pretending not to have heard him, I hurry down the back stairs to the rear exit. I move supernaturally fast in my haste to get away, hoping that no one is around to observe me. I make it through the exit and into the parking lot in back.

“Red! Just the gal I was hopin’ to find and lookin’ heavenly might I add. Freddie just went inside to look for ya,” Russell grins at me under the soft yellowish-glow of the floodlights.

Russell is wearing a white toga and looks every inch the Greek Senator with the red, theatrical cape, a green-leafed laurel in his hair, and leather sandals, but playtime is over for me. I have to escape the warriors that stalk the house in search of the creature that has attracted the souls to it. I don’t intend for them to find me here.

Feeling ghostly pale, I say, “Russell, listen to me carefully and don’t interrupt. I’m about to have an occasion to use that birthday present that you gave me today. There are two Sebastians inside, and I think they’re looking for me. I have to leave. Call Reed; tell him I’m going to his house. Do you understand?” I ask him, while my voice trembles in fear.

Russell stares at me for a moment before he nods and all signs of the grin vanish from his face. Moving toward me, he catches me up in his embrace, squeezing me hard. “I can drive ya, let me get a car,” he says, but I shake my head.

“I’ll be okay. I have to go now before they find me,” I whisper in his ear. “You do know that I love you, right?” I ask him softly. “You’re my best friend.”

He squeezes me tighter, burying his face in my neck for a brief second before setting me back on my feet. “I know,” he replies. “Go,” he says with fear in his eyes. I go, and I can only imagine what Russell must think as he watches me disappear in an instant from his sight, leaving behind the fake pink wings I had worn for the party.

Gliding through town silently, my feet make almost no noise as they hit the ground lightly, propelling me nearly effortlessly forward at a dizzying speed. Fear spreads through me, making this run less than enjoyable. I constantly look over my shoulder to see if I am being pursued. I run up the long drive of Reed’s house, only slowing to open the front door and enter at a normal rate of speed because I am conscious of the fact that Andre might be around. I think briefly of knocking, but I am too freaked out to rest on manners, so I barge right into the foyer.

“Reed,” I call loudly, even though I know full well that if he is in the house, he will hear me, even if I whisper his name. I recognize right away that he is not home, since there are no butterflies taking flight in my stomach. Damn, where are you? I wonder.

A soft rustle of fabric coming from the library down the hall, alerts me to the fact that someone is here and has gotten up from a chair in the library. Walking forward and hoping to speak to Andre, I only make it to the front of the staircase when I stop dead in my tracks, because it isn’t Andre that I heard in the library. It isn’t even human but angelic.

I scan the perfect figure of the angel in front of me. He looks to be around twenty. Dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, he manages to make the simple outfit sexy. He is tall and well proportioned with thick brown hair and ice-blue eyes, the kind of eyes that are seen once and never forgotten because they are impossibly blue. The scowl registering on his face as he scans me, however, detracts somewhat from the beauty of the whole package, leaving me with the impression that I would prefer ugliness, any day of the week, to this reaction from perfection. When he speaks to me in his angelic language, he uses a commanding tone. Of course, I don’t understand a word of it, but it is lovely, whatever it is he is saying.

Hesitating, I see that he is waiting for a response from me, so I lift my shoulders in a shrug. Slowly, his dark-brown eyebrows pull dangerously close together over his ice-blue eyes. Then, my fear doubles as a low, primal growl accompanies his severe frown.

I quickly try to speak past the tightness in my throat. “I’m sorry,” my voice shakes, “I don’t understand your language. You’ll have to speak English.”

His eyes widen as one eyebrow arches a little. It takes a moment before his brows draw together again. Realizing my situation is bleak, I glance over to the front door, gauging the distance to it. It is too far away for me to escape. Looking over my shoulder, I notice the staircase leading up to the second floor. Without premeditation, I start inching my way backward toward it, deciding to try to flee upstairs. I have to at least attempt to escape, even though I’ve already surmised that it is nearly pointless to do so. The angel in front of me is a lethal killer; I probably don’t stand a chance. Please, God…I need a distraction.

The phone in the angel’s pocket begins ringing; I flinch at the sound of it. Never taking his eyes from me, he pulls his phone from his pocket, answering it. He doesn’t speak to the caller, but instead, he’s listening to whatever the caller tells him.

My heart aches in my chest as I continue to inch my way back toward the staircase. Putting my foot on the first step and my other foot on the second step, I climb backwards up the stairs, still facing the predator in front of me. The angel’s blue eyes follow me, but he hasn’t made a move toward me yet, even though he is assessing everything that I do.