A Ghost and a Hard Place (A Reaper Witch Mystery Book 3)

by Elle Adams

  “Typical.” I released a sigh. “I mean, it’s possible he did a runner and went looking for Lara’s ghost elsewhere in town, but I don’t know. Seems fishy to me that they both vanished within the space of a few days.”

  “Did you and Drew go to speak to the Reaper, then?” she asked.

  “We didn’t find him,” I said. “He wasn’t at the accommodation where he was renting a room, and we walked all over the town and didn’t find him. Hence why he’s still on my suspect list.”

  Mart scoffed. “If you ask me, he saw you coming and ran off.”

  I frowned at my brother. “He’s not at the place he’s supposed to be staying at, which means he must be somewhere in town. It’s not like we’re in a big city, so he must have tried pretty hard to hide himself.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Drew. “He might be visiting a friend…”

  “A friend?” I snorted. “You think he has friends? If he wasn’t visiting the Reaper, I can’t think who else he’d speak to. We don’t exactly have a ton of tourist attractions.”

  The ghosts were the town’s only feature, but given Shelton’s earlier remarks about wanting to stay away from the spirits altogether, I doubted any of the local ghosts were friendly with him even if he hadn’t been responsible for banishing any of them. He’d have no more friends among the dead than among the living.

  “Fair point,” said Drew. “I need to head back to the office and put away those case files before someone asks why I got them out.”

  “Yeah. I might look over the clippings Debora gave me again,” I said. “I’m not sure Ed James was guilty of their deaths, but it’s weird how both their spirits disappeared in the space of a week, and it doesn’t seem to be linked to how they died.”

  Not if the Reaper was the culprit. For all I knew, though, other local spirits were disappearing, unnoticed by any of the living. Not a pleasant thought at all.

  After Drew had left the inn, I headed up to my room, mostly to get some privacy to think and to decide whether to make a monumentally huge gamble. Shelton plainly did not want to be found. Whether that made him guilty was a mystery, but I wasn’t about to wait one more day and potentially let him go on another ghost-banishing spree.

  I had one way to find him, which Drew would not approve of, but I also wouldn’t be able to bring him along for the ride. Okay, theoretically, I could, but if it went wrong, Drew was the one who’d likely come off worse. Very little could hurt a Reaper, but a human, even someone as capable as him, was likely to end up in some serious trouble if Shelton was working against the law. Then again, the one thing that could hurt a Reaper was another Reaper. Even a half Reaper like me.

  Mart interrupted my contemplation by floating through the wall. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Deciding whether to take a massive risk or not,” I said.

  “You’re going out with the detective again?” he asked.

  “Nope, I’m tracking our Reaper friend using a method I haven’t tried yet.”

  He whistled. “You haven’t done that in a while.”

  “If I do, he won’t be able to run or hide from me. He might get on the defensive.” On the plus side, I’d be able to pull out all the stops against him. On the minus side? It might get ugly.

  Challenge accepted, then.

  Once again, I used my Reaper skills and tuned in to the afterlife. Shadows flooded the world, blanking out everything else, and the inn disappeared along with everyone inside it. But instead of searching for ghosts, I scanned for the familiar chilling sensation of another Reaper.

  At first, nothing pinged on my radar. I was just surrounded by cold, empty blackness, with pinpricks of light indicating the dead.

  Then, on the horizon, I saw a bright spot wreathed in light, which had earned more than one of us the nickname of the Angel of Death.

  There he is.

  Keeping my attention trained on the glowing light, I stepped through the shadows and emerged next to Shelton in one smooth motion. The shadows folded back while I fought the urge to punch the air in triumph. I still had it.

  Instead, I examined my surroundings. It looked as though we were inside an abandoned house. The walls were damp, the floor equally so. No wonder I hadn’t known where he was if he’d been skulking around one of the town’s flood-damaged corners.

  Noticing me, Shelton spun around so fast that I took a step back in case he swung his scythe at me. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.” I did my best to ignore the instincts telling me to dive for cover. “A local ghost has vanished. That’s two of them now.”

  “I thought you weren’t an active Reaper.” His eyes narrowed. “Unless that was a lie?”

  “You showed up in town right before two ghosts vanished from the inn where I live,” I said. “No ghost has ever gone missing here before now.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” he insisted. “And how do you know no other ghost has vanished in town before now? You haven’t lived here that long.”

  “Have you been asking about me?” Defensiveness crept into my tone. “Who told you that?”

  “Everyone knows you’re new in town,” he said. “Though I’m hearing from the local coven members that you’re a meddling troublemaker.”

  “Hey!” I said indignantly. “The former coven leader was a criminal involved in covering up two murders. I won’t apologise for getting her kicked out of town.”

  And I’ll do the same to you if necessary.

  Whatever he was doing here, it didn’t exactly look innocuous. Most people did not go traipsing around old houses in their free time unless they were looking for trouble. Or ghosts.

  “It sounds to me like you’re a busybody who had no business getting involved in coven affairs to begin with,” he said. “And now you’re doing the exact same thing again.”

  “Look, you’re lurking in an old house,” I pointed out. “Give me one good reason you might be in here that doesn’t involve breaking the law.”

  “I notice you don’t have your detective friend with you,” he said. “Haven’t you told him what you are? Or do you pretend to be human?”

  Okay, that was uncalled for. “He knows perfectly well what I am, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt before I called the police to come and haul you in for questioning.”

  “I don’t think that’s what you did,” he said with a nasty smile on his face. “I think you wanted to keep him away from this side of your life because you’re afraid he’ll run if he sees the truth of what you are.”

  Anger flared inside me. Who the hell did he think he was?

  “Okay, first off, you have no business making judgements about my personal life,” I said. “And second of all, maybe I left him behind so I could confront you without the police being involved. I’ve given you more than enough chances to explain yourself, so…”

  I pointedly pulled out my phone. At once, shadows flooded the room, folding outwards from Shelton’s feet. “Don’t force me to act against you, Maura.”

  “Don’t act as though you weren’t trying to provoke me,” I warned. “Even if you were being polite, you’re the one who’s skulking around a flood-damaged house and not offering up an explanation. Two victims of the floods have vanished. Did someone hire you to get rid of their ghosts, or did you act of your own accord?”

  “Did someone hire me?” He sounded disgusted at the very idea. Maybe I’d got the wrong end of the stick after all. “What kind of nonsense is that?”

  “I assumed you were a rogue, since you won’t admit who you are or what you’re doing here,” I said. “If I’m wrong, who are you working for? It’s not like there’s a Reaper equivalent to MI5 or whatever. The council won’t strike you down for telling me.”

  “Maybe I don’t trust you.”

  “Wow.” I arched a brow. “And that’s supposed to make me believe you have benign intentions? If you won’t tell me who sent you, then why are you in this house? I didn’t see any g
hosts.”

  Not that the ghosts had been the priority when I’d hopped through the shadows. I’d been more focused on landing next to the Reaper. But I hadn’t seen any other glowing presences nearby. Surreptitiously, I let the shadows fold around me, keeping my eyes open for any spiritual presence. Shelton took a step forwards, the scythe in his hands again.

  “Hey, I’m not threatening you,” I said. “Just checking out the scenery.”

  He didn’t lower the scythe. The threat was as clear as daylight. Unfortunately, now was not the time for a fight. Using my Reaper skills to step halfway across town had taken some energy out of me, and I was in no shape to fight with someone who had access to the full arsenal of Reaper talents. Most of mine were still dormant.

  Instead, I let the shadows drop. “All right. You get on with whatever you’re doing. I’ll do my own thing. Go on.”

  He took a step back, and when I moved in the same direction, he scowled. “You can’t follow me around.”

  “I’m not following you,” I said. “I’m doing my own thing, like I said. Put the weapon down, and I’ll step away.”

  When he lowered the scythe, I did exactly that, scanning my surroundings. The dilapidated room wasn’t exactly a stunning vista, but maybe I could get a clue about what he was doing here from within the land of the living. I walked through the room, not quite daring to turn my back on him. I didn’t trust him not to strike me down if I did so, and despite his outrage at my suggestion, maybe he was a rogue. No Council Reaper would set foot in a place like this unless they were doing grunt work for another—

  Uh-oh. Had someone more senior sent him here? Would a higher-up Reaper show up in town next?

  As I was turning around to look at him again, I spotted the residue of some kind of herbal concoction on the floor. I crouched to examine the remains, and suspicion flared up inside me. I knew the smell of that particular concoction… someone had summoned a ghost.

  Which ghost? I hadn’t considered it before, but it wasn’t impossible that someone had used a summoning spell and drawn Eric and Lara’s ghosts into this house before banishing them. It’d certainly explain why we’d found no clues at the inn. Not that I could see any traces of a banishment spell, but maybe it was elsewhere in the house.

  I trod around the room, then I jumped into the air with an exclamation as the Reaper appeared out of the shadows beside me.

  “Did you set up that spell?” I shuffled away from him, my heart racing against my ribcage, and jabbed a finger down at the smudged remains of the spell. “Did you summon a ghost in here?”

  He scoffed. “If I wanted to summon a ghost and then banish it, I wouldn’t need to waste money on herbal concoctions, would I?”

  “I guess not.” Which meant someone else had been here. A witch or wizard, no doubt. But who? And which ghost had they summoned?

  The Reaper studied me but didn’t speak. I tilted my head on one side. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

  “No reason.”

  “There is,” I said. “Like there’s a reason for you being in town to begin with. If you’re not here to play vigilante against the local ghosts, then why? Did you know someone had conducted a summoning or banishment here in this house before you came here?”

  “No.”

  Finally, an answer. Maybe not an honest one, but at least he’d said something that wasn’t an insult or an evasion. It was an improvement of sorts.

  “Then what were you looking for?”

  The question hung between us, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped into the shadows and was gone.

  I stared at the spot where he’d vanished for a moment. The Reaper might be a nuisance, but despite his attitude, it seemed he wasn’t responsible for our missing ghosts after all.

  9

  I wasn’t inclined to take the Reaper’s word for it that he wasn’t up to anything nefarious, but there was no point in sticking around the old house with nothing else to be found.

  Instead, I returned to the inn, using the shadows as a shortcut with my Reaper skills. This time, I misjudged a little and landed outside the inn instead of in my room. I realised my mistake the instant Carey jumped a foot in the air and dropped her schoolbag. “Where in the world did you come from?”

  “Reaper trick,” I said. “I can hop through the shadows from one place to another. Sorry I startled you.”

  “Where’d you go, then?” she asked.

  I hesitated for a second before deciding I might as well tell her. I had to face the fact that I was lost, and I could use a bit of perspective from someone who wasn’t as biased against Shelton as I was. “I may have followed the new Reaper to see where he was hiding out.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “Where was he?”

  “Turns out he was skulking around an old house.” I walked with her into the restaurant. “He wasn’t best pleased with me for ambushing him, but it’s his own fault for being so elusive.”

  “Who’s being elusive?” Allie called from behind the bar. “Maura, I didn’t see you go out.”

  Carey and I walked to her usual table, where she put down her schoolbag. Casper bounded onto a chair, purring.

  “The Reaper,” I answered, resigned to telling Allie as well. It wouldn’t do any harm at this stage.

  I gave them both a rundown of my confrontation with the Reaper. While I tried to downplay how close we’d come to swinging scythes at one another, neither of them appeared to be fooled. Allie had to go off to serve a customer as I was finishing my story, but Carey’s mouth was open by the end of it.

  “Wow,” Carey said in a hushed voice. “What was he doing in that house if not banishing a ghost?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “As he rightly pointed out, he wouldn’t need to use a complicated spell to conjure up a ghost. Or to banish one, come to that. He wouldn’t carry a scythe otherwise.”

  “I guess not,” she said. “Weird. You were so sure he was the one who got rid of the ghost…”

  “Two of them have vanished now,” I said. “Turns out the guy who asked me to find the missing ghost is now missing himself.”

  “No way,” she said. “You mean the second guy who used to be at the academy?”

  “Yeah, him,” I said. “It’s bizarre. On top of that, the Reaper is weirding me out. I can’t think what else he might have been doing in that abandoned house if he wasn’t after a ghost, but he refused to tell me a thing, including whether he was working for the Reaper Council.”

  She blinked. “Does it make a difference if he is?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The Reaper Council… let’s just say they wouldn’t be pleased at the situation in Hawkwood Hollow. They’d give old Harold a stern talking-to for letting the number of ghosts here get so far out of hand, arrange for as many as possible to be banished, and then come after me. If they found out about our ghost-hunting missions…”

  Her face fell. “They wouldn’t ban you from going ghost hunting altogether?”

  “I’m not supposed to use my Reaper skills if I’m not an acting Reaper,” I said. “Ghost hunting, the way we do it, is kind of a grey area, but the Reaper Council sees things in black and white. That’s one of the reasons I left them.”

  “They can’t stop you from doing whatever you like,” Carey protested.

  “They can try,” I said. “If they just gave me a warning to quit looking for ghosts in my spare time, I’d just argue that I wasn’t using my Reaper skills or doing any harm. It would be a pain, but it’s not like I’m a high priority with them like I would be if I was a rogue.”

  “A rogue?” she echoed. “What does that mean?”

  “Basically, a Reaper who acts outside the jurisdiction of the council,” I said. “An independent ghost hunter who does make use of their Reaper skills, for good reasons or bad ones. If Shelton is working with the council, it throws up a bunch of complications I don’t need, but if he isn’t with them, it’s almost worse, because it means he’s a rogue himself. Either way, it’s sa
fe to say the council won’t be far behind him.”

  And then? They’d see the number of ghosts in town and draw their own conclusions. Old Harold would face the worst of it, but I’d take some of the backlash, too. Especially if they found out about Mart.

  “So either way, the council is coming here?” she said.

  “Not if I can help it,” I said. “If he is a rogue, I’ll recruit Harold, and we’ll team up on him. If he’s with the council… I’m not sure. He hasn’t acted against me so far, so I have no idea what they sent him here for.”

  Aside from our argument, he hadn’t reprimanded me for ghost hunting or even for using my powers to sneak up on him. Instead, he’d taunted me over my potential relationship with the detective, an odd decision for someone who worked with the Reaper Council. Admittedly, Reapers weren’t known for their social skills, but my money was on him being a rogue. An odd one, admittedly, but a rogue nonetheless.

  “Is he really that much more powerful a Reaper than you are?” she asked. “I mean, if he was about to banish a ghost, could you stop him?”

  “I’d give it a fair shot.” I didn’t want to alarm her, but there wasn’t much point in underplaying what we were dealing with here. “I mean, he has a scythe and I don’t, but otherwise, we have the same skills. I might be able to get the upper hand on him if I got lucky.”

  “But you’d need Harold with you to force him to leave town,” she concluded.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “If I borrowed Harold’s scythe myself, we’d be evenly matched. Not that I expect he’d let me do that without causing a fuss, but I bet his skills are even rustier than mine. He probably hasn’t banished a ghost in years.”

  Odds were he hadn’t seen a fellow Reaper for equally as long; otherwise, the council would have discovered he’d been neglecting his duty and sent someone in to take care of things. Though maybe that was what this was. Who even knew at this point?

  Carey bit her lip. “It’s better if you wait until he leaves of his own accord, then. If you’re sure he’s not the one banishing the ghosts in town, I mean.”