The Nanny's Guide to Surviving Demons

In the middle of the night, a deathly pale little boy hung upside down from the kitchen ceiling like a spider, his eyes locked on the refrigerator.

Thats when I realized the filth my new high-paying employer warned me about wasn't just dust bunnies.

My chest tightened.

How starved did a kid have to be to climb up there just to look for food?

I grabbed his ankle and yanked him down to the floor.

The kid was cold as a block of ice, suffering from severe malnutrition caused by long-term abuse.

"You're too old to be climbing around like that. If you're hungry, use your words," I muttered, shoving him down into a chair by the dining table.

He just stared. His pitch-black eyes fixed on me, mouth hanging slightly open as if the words were stuck in his throat.

Figuring he was just too weak from hunger, I pointed a finger at him. "Stay put. I'll make you something."

Chapter 1

I quickly dug out some frozen mac and cheese and butter from the fridge. High-calorie carbs were the only real cure for a teenager throwing a midnight fit.

Behind me, the kid sat motionless. Overhead, the kitchen lights flickered with a rapid, erratic electrical buzz.

I didn't even bother turning around. "Stop playing with the switch! You're wasting electricity!"

The flickering stopped instantly. I slammed the steaming bowl down in front of him, shoving a spoon into his icy little hand. "Eat. Then get to bed. Staying up all night stunts your growth."

He didn't move. He just looked up at me, a weird mix of confusion and panic in his eyes.

I had zero patience for kids going hungry. I pinched his jaw, forcing his head up, and shoved a massive spoonful of mac and cheese into his mouth. "Swallow it. You don't get the privilege of fasting while you're still growing."

The kid's body locked up. He tried to pull back, but I held him in place with the kind of undeniable stare that left zero room for negotiation. After a few tense seconds, he mechanically opened his mouth and chewed.

"Good, right?" I asked.

He didn't answer. His tiny Adam's apple bobbed, and he actually swallowed it down.

Encouraged, I kept loading the spoon. Half the bowl disappeared in no time. Some color even seemed to return to his pale face.

I patted his head. "Good boy. What's your name?"

He stared at me. His lips parted, letting out a bizarre, static-like raspy sound. "Rowan"

"Rowan? Nice." I pushed the rest of the bowl toward him. "Finish it yourself. I have cleaning to do. And rememberno more climbing the fridge!"

I grabbed my feather duster and marched toward the second floor, ready to conquer the mess.

My employer's name was Alistair. We had only met over a video call during the interview. He wore a custom dress shirt with the collar popped open. His broad shoulders and sickly pale skin created this lethal, magnetic tensionlike a weakened but incredibly dangerous apex predator.

A disgustingly gorgeous man, honestly, but his complexion wasn't much better than Rowan's. The guy looked like he was one foot in the grave.

He told me he traveled a lot for work and that there were just a few "unruly relatives" living in the house. He asked me to bear with them.

Looking back, these relatives weren't just unruly. They were neglected, starved, and feral.

At the end of the second-floor hallway, a door was shut tight. A faint, lingering crying sound seeped out from the crack underneath.

My chest tightened.

Great. Another one. I followed the sobbing and stepped right up to the door.

Chapter 2

The door was unlocked. It swung open with a light push. Pitch black inside. The heavy stench of mildew mixed with some sickeningly sweet perfume hit me like a physical wall, making me wrinkle my nose.

The blackout curtains were drawn tight. The silhouette of a teenage girl in a white slip dress sat with her back to me at the vanity, her shoulders heaving.

"Why why did that bitch have to steal him from me"

Hearing that, it clicked. Just a classic American high school cheerleader losing the catfight, venting her frustration.

I walked over and tapped her shoulder. "Hey, knock it off."

Her body stiffened. The crying stopped. The temperature in the room plummeted instantly, raising icy goosebumps all over my arms.

She slowly, excruciatingly slowly, turned her head to face me. Another deathly pale face. Deep, bruised, charcoal shadows pooled under her eyes. Long, matted hair hung loose, obscuring half her face.

"Who are you?" Her voice was thin, drifting like a dying radio signal.

"I'm Reese, the new nanny," I announced, jabbing a thumb at the trashed room. "Guess you're one of Alistair's relatives? What's your name?"

She didn't say a word. Just stared at me. Then, a glass perfume bottle on the vanity slowly levitated off the surface.

I snatched it out of the air without skipping a beat.

"Don't go throwing glass around. Somebody's gotta clean that up," I said, slamming the bottle back onto the vanity. "Look, locking yourself in the dark and looking like a corpse with raccoon eyes isn't going to win anyone back."

She blinked, clearly stunned by my approach.

"Look at the state of you," I scoffed, grabbing the brush from the table and forcibly ripping it through her tangled hair. "That bastard is just setting you up. It's not even gaslighting. Turning yourself into a tweaking junkie over some trash guy is beyond stupid."

I kept tearing the brush through her matted mane. Her hair was freezing to the touch, damp with a weird, creeping chill.

"You desperately need a wash. It's practically glued together," I muttered, scraping the bristles down. "And this slip dress? Cute, but you're going to freeze to death. Put on some fleece before you catch hypothermia."

She sat there, rigid, letting me manhandle her. Once I finally smoothed out the knots, she spoke, her voice hollow. "Gemma."

"Gemma. Got it." I tossed the brush down and yanked open the heavy blackout curtains.

Harsh moonlight flooded the room, illuminating her aggressively pale face.

"See? Clean yourself up and you're a ten," I said, totally unfazed. "Stop crying over a zero. Come on."

"I'm warming up some milk. You drink it, you sleep, and tomorrow we deal with reality."

I grabbed her icy hand and dragged her out of the room.

Downstairs, Rowan had polished off the mac and cheese. He sat perfectly still, blinking those pitch-black eyes as we descended. I shoved Gemma into the chair next to him and pivoted to the kitchen to warm the milk.

By the time I came back with two steaming mugs, the vibe in the dining room had turned toxic. Rowan and Gemma sat directly across from each other, not making a sound. But the air around them practically crackled with invisible, high-voltage static. The tissue box on the table was vibrating, jittering across the wood.

I slammed a mug in front of each of them. "What's the problem now? Family feud?"

"Rowan is the younger brother, Gemma, you're the older sister. Cut him some slack."

Gemma gripped her mug, keeping her mouth shut.

Chapter 3

Rowan shot me a look and silently clutched his mug.

Staring at these two juvenile delinquents, a weird sense of maternal responsibility kicked in. Looked like my ridiculous six-figure salary wasn't just for scrubbing floorsI was officially their live-in therapist.

The next morning, I got up before dawn, ready to cook a massive breakfast to fatten up these two malnourished skeletons.

The second I stepped into the kitchen, I froze.

A towering figure stood with his back to me, blocking the fridge. It was my employer, Alistair.

He wore a black silk robe that clung to his lean frame. His dark hair cascaded all the way down to his waistlonger than Gemma's.

"Morning, Alistair," I called out, skipping the formalities. "When did you get back?"

He turned around with agonizing slowness. In the dim morning light, his face was too flawlessly handsome to be real, yet too deathly pale to belong to the living. He fixed his gaze on me, his eyes like two bottomless, pitch-black wells.

"You haven't left?" His voice dropped the room temperature faster than Rowan and Gemma combined.

"Leave? And go where?" I scoffed, baffled. "It's literally my first day on the job."

Silence.

"Move, Alistair." I rudely bumped him aside with my hip, forcing my way to the fridge. He stared down at me from his towering height, the air around us instantly dropping to freezing.

I let out a heavy breath. Great. Another one.

Was being a total freak a genetic requirement in this family? I pushed past him to grab my ingredients.

"Your blood sugar crashing? You look like a corpse," I tossed over my shoulder, digging out the eggs and bacon. "I'll make an extra plate. A guy your size needs actual fuel to keep functioning."

His intense glare practically burned a hole straight through my spine. I couldn't care less. For the kind of cash he was paying, I'd treat the boss like a misbehaving toddler if I had to.

For breakfast, I whipped up a massive stack of buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs, and crispy bacon. I slammed the three loaded plates onto the dining table. Rowan and Gemma were already glued to their usual seats, silent as ghosts.

Alistair sat at the head of the table. He didn't touch his fork. He just watched me. His gaze was heavily calculating, stripping me down like a scientist dissecting some bizarre, undiscovered alien species.

"Why aren't you eating?" I shoved a plate of steaming hot food right under his nose. "Look at your face."

"You're drained of color. Get some carbs in your system before you pass out."

He ignored the food. Instead, he asked a bizarre question. "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Slept like a rock," I mumbled, biting into a piece of bacon. "Your guest mattress is stiff as a board, though. I'm going to look into ordering a memory foam topper later."

A tiny, almost imperceptible muscle twitched in Alistair's jaw.

"You didn't hear or see anything strange?"

"Oh, I definitely did," I nodded.

He leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table. For the very first time, a fracture of genuine tension cracked through his icy exterior.

I jabbed my fork toward Rowan and Gemma. "I saw your two relatives. One was practically scaling the refrigerator at midnight, and the other was sobbing alone in the dark."

"Alistair, I'm just going to say itas the adult in the house, you need to step up. Rowan is obviously acting out from neglect, and Gemma is having a total teenage meltdown. They need actual parenting."

Alistair's expression froze. He stared at me, then slowly turned his head to look at the two "kids" who were silently stuffing their faces. He sank into a prolonged silence.

Chapter 4

After polishing off breakfast, I tackled my actual job: deep cleaning.

Alistair wasn't kidding about the "filth." The dust was thick enough to carve my name into, and the corners were choked with thick webs. I rolled up my sleeves and started on the ground floor, aggressively vacuuming, mopping, and scrubbing the windows down to the glass.

Halfway through the living room, I noticed a massive black clump dangling from the giant crystal chandelier in the center of the ceiling. It looked like a giant, matted hairball, and it was twitching slightly.

I dragged a step ladder over and climbed up to pull the trash down. Up close, I realized it wasn't hair at all. It was a woman in a black dress, her limbs contorted and wrapped around the chandelier like a pretzel. Her head snapped one hundred and eighty degrees around to face me, her lips curling into a raspy, jagged grin.

She had no whites in her eyes. Just solid, pitch-black voids.

I jumped, my grip slipping as I nearly ate dirt right off the ladder.

"Lady! What the hell are you doing?!" I snapped, regaining my balance and instantly pissed off. "That's a massive safety hazard! Get down!"

The woman's creepy grin froze.

"You aren't terrified of me?" she rasped, her voice sounding like crushing gravel.

"I'm terrified of you breaking your neck!" I yelled. "You're a grown adult, why are you climbing the fixtures like Rowan? Get down right now before I call the cops!"

She looked even more bewildered, her twisted grip on the crystal loosening a fraction. Taking the opening, I reached out, grabbed her arm, and yanked hard to drag her down. Her skin was freezing and grotesquely clammy.

She thrashed against my grip. "Let go of me!" her voice ripped out like scraping metal.

"Get off the chandelier and I will!" I barked back, treating it like a tug-of-war.

During the struggle, a rancid wave of pure resentment hit my nose, mixed heavily with the distinct stench of unwashed scalp grease.

I gagged. "Lady, when was the last time you washed your hair? This chandelier is filthy. Aren't you grossed out rubbing all over it?"

The woman just stared. My insult seemed to choke her out, her pitch-black eyes going wide. Finally, she actually floatedno, crawleddown from the ceiling fixtures on her own.

She stood in front of me, towering over me by a full head, glaring down through a rolling haze of ominous black smog.

"My name is Annette," she stated, emphasizing every dead syllable. "I was hanged from this very chandelier."

It hit me like a ton of bricks. Psychological trauma. She had been attacked here, so she compulsively returned to the scene of the crime. Classic PTSD.

My annoyance instantly melted into sheer pity.

"Hey, it's in the past," I said, reaching out to pat her shoulderonly for my hand to swipe right through empty air. Her form glitched, slightly transparent.

Huh? Was my own blood sugar crashing so hard I was seeing double?

"You have to move forward," I said earnestly, pulling my hand back. "You can't start a new chapter if you keep dwelling on the worst moment of your life. Come on, I'm taking you outside to get some sun. Some Vitamin D will do wonders for your mood."

I locked my fingers around her wrist and marched her toward the backyard. She tried to resist, but my blue-collar grip was like a vice.

She dragged her feet, tearing at my hand. "No! The sunlight will burn me!"

"Bullshit, sunlight doesn't burn people. You're exhibiting classic depressive paranoia caused by severe Vitamin D deficiency," I lectured, dragging her out onto the lawn and shoving her down into a patio lounger. "Just sit here and soak it up for thirty minutes. I'm going to cook you something packed with iron to get your blood pumping again."

I turned on my heel and marched back inside, leaving Annette sizzling loudly in the broad daylight, making a horrific hissing sound like plastic melting under battery acid.

Chapter 5

See? Her osteoporosis was so severe her bones were literally crackling in the sun. This entire family was a massive, walking liability.

By the time I marched back out with a steaming bowl of high-iron beef liver stew, Annette was gone. A scorched, charcoal-black human silhouette was burned directly into the patio fabric.

My stomach dropped.

Crap. Was it melanoma? A reaction that extreme to UV rays couldn't be normal. I sprinted back inside to track Annette down and drag her to an oncologist for a full-body scan.

But the second I burst through the front door, I froze.

Alistair, Rowan, Gemma, and Annette were all lined up dead-center on the living room sofa.

The tension in the room was thicker than concrete, like a hostage negotiation gone wrong. Four pairs of eyes snapped directly to me. For the very first time, an expression resembling an actual migraine fractured Alistairs usual icy deadpan.

"Reese." He dragged a hand down his face, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "We need to talk."

"Good." I slammed the stew down on the coffee table. "Because I have some notes too. Annette, your dermis condition is critical."

"We are going to the ER right now. And the rest of you look like reanimated corpses. I'm highly suspecting lead poisoning from the pipes in this old house. Do I need to book a toxicologist for the whole family?"

Nobody made a sound. Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose, physically struggling to string a sentence together.

"First, I want to thank you for your dedication to this household," he ground out. "Your mac and cheese, your milk, and your stew they are all very acceptable."

Rowan and Gemma gave slow, almost involuntary nods. Annettes glitching silhouette actually seemed to anchor itself harder to the couch.

"However," Alistair cut in, his tone dropping an octave. "Things here are not what you assume."

"No kidding they aren't." I crossed my arms, my jaw tight. "I thought this place just needed a deep clean, but your family's lifestyle choices are a total biohazard!"

"Alistair, you're the adult on the lease. This level of neglect is entirely on you."

Alistair inhaled sharply. The air pressure in the room immediately flatlined, suffocatingly still.

"Reese. Let me finish." His voice was a lethal, low rumble.

"This house is not a normal house. And we are not normal people."

He slowly raised a hand. The heavy ceramic bowl of liver stew jerked off the coffee table and levitated, suspended dead in the air.

My eyes lit up. "Oh, nice trick! You do close-up magic on the side?"

Alistairs hand froze dead in the air.

Sitting next to him, Gemma lost her patience. She swiped her hand viciously toward me. Every piece of furniture in the living room began shuddering. Framed canvases ripped themselves off the walls and shattered into jagged splinters against the hardwood.

She pointed an accusing finger at me. "Open your eyes! This isn't a magic trick!"

I threw myself over the coffee table to shield the decor.

"Hey, back off, Gemma! Use your words, stop trashing the place! Do you know how much a security deposit is?!"

Rowan decided to tag in. He opened his mouth and vomited a thick, rolling stream of pitch-black smoke. The fog slithered around my ankles, emitting a piercing, high-pitched screech like a dying infant.

I squatted down and poked the black smoke with my index finger. "Is this a built-in humidifier system? Pretty high-tech. Love the surround-sound audio."

Chapter 6

Finally, Annette.

She took the most direct approach. Her physical form suddenly exploded into a cloud of pitch-black fog, only to reassemble herself on the far end of the sofa. She gripped her own hair.

"We are ghosts! Vengeful spirits! Do you understand?!"

I watched their unhinged, try-hard performance without saying a word. After a long beat, I let out a heavy, exhausted sigh.

"I understand."

The tense line of Alistair's jaw finally relaxed, a faint, almost imperceptible glimmer of satisfaction settling in his dark eyeslike a professor who finally got through to a slow student.

I stared them down, dead serious. "Your conditions are way worse than I thought. You're exhibiting full-blown mass hysteria and shared delusions."

The four ghosts collectively turned to stone.

Without hesitating, I dug into my heavy-duty toolbox and pulled out my ultimate weapon: an industrial-grade percussion massage gun.

"Don't panic," I said, snapping the largest, most brutal-looking attachment onto the barrel. My gaze locked onto them. "I'm a professional. You're all suffering from deep tissue inflammation, lactic acid buildup, and severe well, atmospheric toxicity."

"It's cutting off the oxygen flow to your brains and making you hallucinate. Alistair, you're the head of the lease, so you're up first. I'm going to tenderize you from head to toe. I guarantee it'll clear your head and help you distinguish reality from cheap parlor tricks in seconds."

Alistair stared at the heavy machinery in my hand. For the very first time, the flawless, icy mask of his face cracked, revealing a very real, physical flinch of panic.

He tried to back away, but my blue-collar reflexes were faster. I closed the distance in a single stride, slamming my hand down hard onto his shoulder before he could even register the movement.

"Hold still, Alistair!" I barked. "For your own health and the structural integrity of this household, you are getting this deep-tissue release whether you like it or not!"

His body was rigid, cold as cast iron beneath my palm. An explosive shockwave of dark energy erupted from his frame, whipping my hair wildly around my face.

"Insolent!"

The sheer force of his voice vibrated with a crushing, centuries-old weight, rattling the floorboards and making the entire house hum with pressure.

I just dug my fingers deeper into his collarbone, pinning him in place.

"Still speaking in delusions! Let's see if I can vibrate that nonsense right out of your system!"

I drove the vibrating head of the massage gun directly into the pale, tense muscle of his neck, bearing down with all my weight!

"Buzz" A heavy, muffled sound of bone and muscle vibrating echoed through the room. As the high-frequency percussion hammered into Alistair's neck, a thick, dark plume of smoke billowed out from his skin