by Elle Adams
A Wild Ghost Chase
A Reaper Witch Mystery
Elle Adams
Contents
A Wild Ghost Chase
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Thank you for reading!
About the Author
This book was written, produced and edited in the UK, where some spelling, grammar and word usage will vary from US English.
Copyright © 2020 Elle Adams
All rights reserved.
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A Wild Ghost Chase
Welcome to Hawkwood Hollow, where the dead outnumber the living.
Maura left her paranormal life behind years ago. Her ghost-hunting gift has given her nothing but trouble, and she's decided she's better off living outside of the magical world with her trusty sidekick, Mart.
But after she gets fired from her job at the morgue — turns out the living don't generally appreciate it when the dead try to micromanage their own funerals — she receives a message from a teen blogger in need of her assistance in getting rid of a troublesome spirit. Broke enough to give ghost-hunting one last shot, she decides to take on the case.
The slight problem? Hawkwood Hollow contains more ghosts than living people, and they know something isn't quite right about their visitor. Determined to leave as soon as the ghost is dealt with, Maura lands herself in hot water when she clashes with a local paranormal detective and finds herself suspecting the trouble-making spirit was murdered.
Maura's not one to give up without a fight, but it'll take all her skills to outwit the detective and send the ghost packing -- preferably without anyone realising the source of her unique skills.
She'll show them a ghost-hunting witch like her might be just what Hawkwood Hollow needs.
1
The day after I got fired from my job at the morgue, I woke to the sound of a ghost turning on my computer.
“Hey, you’ve got mail.” Mart hovered above my desk, reading something on my laptop screen.
I groaned and covered my head with a pillow. “I thought I told you to leave my laptop alone. If it’s another message from my old boss, I don’t want to know.”
I’d assumed taking a job at the local morgue would be right up my alley, relatively speaking, but I don’t know why I’d thought dealing with dead bodies for a living would make their ghosts less likely to cause trouble for me.
The pillow floated into the air and threw itself at my face. I batted it away, and it flew around and hit the back of my head. Scowling, I pushed the bedcovers aside. “Not necessary, Mart.”
“I beg to differ.” The pillow thumped me on the skull again. “I could do this all day. Sending a picture of you sleeping to your ex in three, two, one…”
“Don’t you dare!” I flew across the room and slapped Mart’s transparent hands away from the laptop.
The day my twin brother had figured out how to operate a computer from beyond the grave had marked the end of my brief aspirations to work in an office. In the regular world, most people didn’t automatically jump to the conclusion that a ghost was responsible for messing with their computers, but after a week of my co-workers’ mouse icons moving by themselves and inappropriate videos randomly playing during important presentations, I’d decided an office job wasn’t for me or the ghost who shared my apartment.
As I’d found out yesterday, the morgue wasn’t much better.
I took over the keyboard and deleted a swathe of emails in case Mart got it into his head to start sending pictures of me sleeping to potential employers instead. I never should have let him figure out how to use my phone camera, that’s all I’m saying. When you’ve been dead for eight years, you get bored easily. Eight years is longer than most spirits tended to stick around, but he was stubborn like that. It ran in the family.
I scrolled through my emails. “Junk, junk… another rejection, a request for a CV from a magical recruitment firm… no thanks.”
“You need money.” Mart stuck his hand through my shoulder from behind, sending a shiver running through my whole body as though someone had just waltzed over my grave. I really hated when he did that. “You didn’t get on with a regular job, so maybe you should suck it up and go back to the magical world.”
“I’d have got on better with regular jobs if I didn’t have an annoying ghost for a flatmate,” I pointed out. “Ghosts don’t need to pay bills, so you don’t get to give me career advice, either. Also, I should at least be charging you for using up all my hot water.”
For reasons I couldn’t fathom, Mart liked turning on the shower and standing underneath the water. He claimed it made him feel alive again. Since nobody else could see or interact with him, I let him have his small amusements, but I did not need the extra water bills at the moment. In fact, I was a month away from getting kicked out of my apartment unless I managed to scrape together enough money to pay the next rent instalment.
Maybe he had a point that the magical world was more fitting for me, but to date, I’d fared even worse in magical careers than I had in normal ones. After all, the normal world just thought I was a little odd. The magical world, on the other hand? Let’s just say that in certain circles, I’m considered a troublemaker at best, dangerous at worst.
I deleted yet another email. “Most of these positions are too far away.”
“You can fly,” Mart pointed out. “So can I.”
I shook my head. “I just settled here. Okay, it’s a bit of a dump, but it’s the best I could get for one person.”
Sharing a house was out of the question with my ghostly companion, but my job history did not make me an impressive prospect for most landlords. Add in the issues Mart had caused for my previous neighbours and it was a wonder I’d found someone willing to rent to me at all. I was pretty sure the only reason I’d been offered this apartment was because the previous resident had been a criminal who’d taken off without paying any bills, and even a live-in ghost was less unappealing to the landlord. Marginally.
“A bit?” he said. “The dripping tap keeps me awake and I don’t even need to sleep.”
“You just like complaining.” I closed my inbox. “Nothing worth getting up for in here.”
“Then what’s that notification?” He waved a ghostly hand at the screen, where an icon had popped up in the corner.
“An old email address,” I said. “I didn’t apply for any jobs using that one, so it’ll be junk.”
To placate Mart, I opened my old inbox and came across an email sitting in the junk folder, addressed to ‘Reaper Witch’.
Hi,
You don’t know me, but I need to hire someone to get rid of a ghost and I’m told you’re the best. I’d really appreciate it if you came to help me out.
Thank you,
Carey Forbes.
PS - I can pay.
At the bottom, she’d put her address as somewhere in a town called Hawkwood Hollow. I’d never been there before, which was one point in its favour. Most magical places I’d l lived in wouldn’t have invited me back even if I’d promised them a free exorcism. My ghostly sidekick was only one of the problems I brought with me wherever I went.
“Do it,” Mart said. “It’s easy money. You can banish a ghost with both hands tied behind your back.”
I drummed my fingers on the
desk. “This Hawkwood Hollow… have you heard of it?”
“Nope,” he said. “If we finally found a magical town you haven’t alienated, you should head there right away.”
I gave him a scowl. “It’s not me who usually does the alienating. Not on purpose, anyway.”
Mart was right, though. I needed money, fast, and the odds of finding a new position before my next rent bill was due were low. And while I’d hung up my metaphorical scythe years ago, the fact remained that the best way to make a bit of quick cash was for me to make use of my one dependable skill. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d broken my personal rules to take care of a little ghostly problem for someone—which explained why this Carey person knew my old nickname. Reaper Witch.
“All right.” I closed my laptop and got to my feet. “I’ll go and get rid of this ghost.”
If nothing else, it would be a welcome break from the monotony of job applications and interviews, trial shifts and dead ends. The morgue incident hadn’t been entirely my fault, but it was kind of hard to explain to ordinary people that their loved one’s ghost had been following me around for days, requesting changes to his own funeral plan. After a solid week of pestering, I’d finally agreed to contact his family in order to get him to leave me alone.
Needless to say, it hadn’t ended well.
This Carey Forbes had already heard of my reputation as a ghost hunter, so with luck, the people of Hawkwood Hollow wouldn’t be too surprised when I showed up. If they hadn’t already found someone to get rid of this ghost, then perhaps there wasn’t a local Reaper who could take care of the problem. Officially, each magical community was supposed to have at least one Reaper, but some places got skipped over for whatever reason. Which was good news for me, because a town without a Reaper meant fewer awkward questions.
Namely, the question of who had broken the Reapers’ all-important rule against interbreeding with humans. Not that anyone would dare ask that question to an actual Reaper. Most people had a healthy fear of asking the local Angel of Death about their love life, after all.
First, I had to actually find Hawkwood Hollow, which meant inputting the address into my witching location app and hoping for the best. Most magical towns were isolated, while paranormal communities were usually protected by spells which rendered them invisible on any regular map and prevented ordinary people from wandering in. A necessity, because most magical folk are about as subtle as a troupe of unicycle-riding clowns juggling fireballs.
I opened the app on my phone screen to reveal a route straight from here to Hawkwood Hollow. “Just need to fly north.”
“I’m looking forward to this.” Mart flew beside me as I left the flat and locked the door behind me. “It’s no fun when you’re the only living person who can see me.”
I did the usual check to make sure nobody was close enough to hear me talking to myself. “I thought you enjoyed the attention.”
A fair proportion of witches and wizards could see ghosts, so he’d have no shortage of people to give him the attention he wanted in Hawkwood Hollow. I drew my wand and cast a camouflage spell on myself before retrieving my broomstick from underneath the porch. Then I swung one leg over the side and took off, fixing the image of the route in my mind. The cloaking spell ensured nobody in the streets below looked up and saw me flying over the rooftops and into the cloudy sky.
“Why’re you still using a broomstick?” Mart asked. “I think you should invest in a pair of Seven-League Boots. Much more efficient.”
“They got banned, in case you’ve forgotten.” I steered the broom against the wind current coming in the opposite direction. “The last witch who used those boots took one step too far north and ended up in the Arctic Circle.”
Mart cackled with laughter. “I’d pay to see you do that.”
“If you could pay, I’d charge you rent.” I held my broomstick in a firm grip as the wind battered at me. “Besides, if I freeze to death, there’d be nothing anchoring you here.”
“You can’t freeze to death.” He spread his arms wide. “Reapers can’t die from exposure.”
“Not keen on testing that theory.” I pressed myself flat against my broomstick as he swooped overhead, making noises like the TARDIS from Doctor Who. “Can you stop fooling around? How old are you?”
“Technically, I’m still older than you are,” he replied.
“But you’re still as mature as a ten-year-old.” In actual years, he was the same age as me, but he was forever stuck at eighteen and didn’t act a day older than his death. Didn’t look it, either. While we both shared the same curly dark hair, mine bounced to my shoulders and tangled in knots when the wind currents pinned me to the back of my broomstick. We’d once had the same blue eyes, too, though ghosts’ eyes faded out and mine remained as bright as a typical Reaper’s. My eyesight was better than average, but I still had to duck lower than the clouds to keep an eye out for the right town.
After Mart had got bored of chasing pigeons around, he flew in behind me until we touched down on a grassy expanse in the middle of nowhere. A river bisected the field, and a large number of houses popped up out of nothingness as the wards which kept the town hidden recognised the presence of a paranormal visitor.
I dismounted my broomstick, transported it back home with a flick of my wand, and walked downhill towards the town. Magical communities varied as widely as their inhabitants and I half-expected to be accosted by a security guard demanding to know who I was and what I was doing here. Nobody stood waiting, however, so I walked downhill and onto the dirt track leading into the town, checking the address on my phone again. Even from the ground, a thin layer of fog hung over the buildings. Hawkwood Hollow? Haunted Hollow was a more appropriate name.
“I don’t like this place,” Mart announced.
“What do you mean, you don’t like it?” I frowned at his transparent figure. “You’re a ghost. You’re adaptable.”
“It’s cold.”
“So is the afterlife.” It was cold, though. I hadn’t thought to wear thick layers, so I drew my wand and cast a quick warmth spell. Heat spread from my toes to my fingertips, and the two of us, one dead and one living, walked on towards the cluster of houses on the river.
A chill mist swept around us, almost masking Mart from sight. It’d be hard to spot any other ghosts in here, but my plan was simple: walk into town, find the ghost, and get rid of it. Zero drama, zero distractions, and zero trouble from dead people.
Okay. Almost zero. There was no getting rid of Mart—and I should know, considering I’m the only person I know who could get rid of him if I wanted to.
I stopped at a crossroads, using my phone to check the address Carey had given me. The houses seemed to be arranged at complete random, with the numbers running in all directions along crooked lanes spreading outwards from the river like a spiderweb. The buildings themselves ranged from newly built to hundreds of years old. I took three wrong turnings before returning to the river. This is ridiculous.
As I was debating finding someone to ask for directions, a transparent figure floated past over the bridge.
“Hey.” I walked behind the ghost. “Excuse me?”
The ghostly man wheeled around on the spot. “You can see me?”
“Well, yes.” Maybe he wasn’t the ghost I’d been told to banish. With most troublemaking spirits, there tended to be more screaming involved than polite conversation. “I’m looking for Mrs Renner’s house.”
“That way.” He pointed, then leaned closer to the glowing tip of my wand. “Oh… you’re warm. I can almost feel it…”
“Big mistake there,” Mart snickered, while the ghost hovered closer as though hoping to leach some warmth from my living body.
I ignored both of them and walked in the direction the new ghost had pointed me in, past the river and towards a row of detached houses arranged as though someone had pulled random numbers out of a hat. Number five, fifteen, seventy-five… seriously? Who’d designed this place?<
br />
Mart blew on the back of my neck. “Hey, Maura.”
“Not now, Mart.”
“Maura.”
“I said, not now.” I looked up from my phone screen, annoyed. “Stop badgering me.”
Mart cleared his throat. “You might want to look behind you.”
Despite myself, I rotated on the spot and squinted into the gloom. Two more ghosts had joined the first, drawn by the light and warmth of my wand. “Shoo.” I waved a hand at them. “Go and haunt someone else.”
I was far from the only witch with the ability to see ghosts, but apparently, nobody else living was out on the streets today. I turned my back, only to see three other ghosts approaching from the opposite direction. What in the world is going on?
Mart gave a low whistle. “Wow.”
“What?” I looked where he pointed. Then my jaw dropped.
A large number of flickering phantoms filled my field of vision. Adults and children, witches and shifters and countless others.
This was bad. This was really bad.
The entire town was swarming with ghosts.
2
“Let’s get out of here.” I turned away, but there was no ghost-free escape route within sight. Worse, all the spirits had seen me looking at them, and the warmth spell was too much for them to resist.
Of course, that would change when they realised that I was a Reaper who could banish them straight into the afterlife if need be. Most spirits who stuck around longer than a day got a little attached to their continued existence, however insubstantial, and were utterly terrified of anyone who might put an end to it. Mart was an exception, but he’d known me while he was still alive, after all, and he’d rather do almost anything than admit to being terrified of his twin sister.
