Wild Wild Ghost
by Margo Bond Collins
Wild Wild Ghost
by Margo Bond Collins
Copyright © 2016 by Margo Bond Collins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author except where permitted by law.
Published by Bathory Gate Press
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
* * *
About Wild Wild Ghost
With everyone she loves in the grave, Ruby specializes in the dead.
Trip wants to bring her back to the land of the living.
When Ruby Silver traded in her demon-hunting rifle for a Tremayne PSI Agency badge, she didn't want another partner—losing the last one was too traumatic. But when a new case in the Texas Hill Country pairs her up with the slow-talking, fast-drawing Trip Austin, it will take all their combined skills to combat a plague of poltergeists in this German-settled town.
Wild Wild Ghost
by Margo Bond Collins
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
About the Author
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of all those I have lost. My heart aches with the empty spots they left behind, but their love and support and belief in me echoes through my life and my work. I am forever thankful to have been part of their journeys.
Chapter One
Ruby Silver gently reined in her horse at the end of Main Street in Rittersburg, Texas, taking a moment to scan the newly constructed buildings. Already, some of the wooden structures the German settlers had hastily erected were being faced with the sturdier limestone from the local quarry.
At least, they had been. The mild day boasted a bright blue sky with only a few clouds scudding across it, and a light breeze, perfect for the kind of heavy-duty work that the new construction would require. But no one was working. Not the sound of a single chisel rang out in the spring air.
"This might be worse than we expected," she murmured, then lifted her hat to run a hand across her face. Settling the worn Stetson back on her head, she swung a leg over to dismount, filling in the missing commentary—inserting words into the gaping blanks left behind in the running discussion that had filled her world for almost two years now.
If Flint had been there, he would have suggested a drink first, a way to check out the local landscape without stirring up too much trouble.
Not that he had been particularly cautious.
Not nearly cautious enough, in fact.
But he did like to get the lay of the land before setting out to conquer any new territory.
"Easier for a man," Ruby whispered.
You can do anything you set your mind to, she seemed to hear him say, his blue-gray eyes crinkling around the edges as they sparkled at her. Smartest woman I ever met.
She sighed. So what am I doing in Nowhere, Texas in search of German ghosts?
Right. Collecting a paycheck. Avoiding demons.
Remaining alive.
With Flint’s death, she’d given up on actually living.
The side of a building offered some shelter from any prying eyes, and although she couldn't see them, Ruby felt certain that the denizens of Rittersburg—living and dead—were almost certainly watching her. Lakota followed her placidly, the intelligence in his own eyes half-hidden by drooping eyelids.
Reaching into the larger of her two saddlebags, she pulled out a wrinkled horsehair crinoline, stepped into it, and tied it around her waist. The dark blue and green calico skirt she smoothed over it had been packed more carefully, but it still showed signs of having been folded. Trading her leather jacket for the matching calico bolero covered the worst of the travel stains on the shirtwaist—but Ruby would never be mistaken for a lady in this outfit.
Still, at least she wouldn't be run out of town for dressing like a streetwalker. Or worse, for dressing like a man.
Again.
A smile crooked the corner of her mouth as she recalled the string of blue curses that had rolled from Flint over that incident as they rode away. "And then when you're done, feed 'em fish heads," he had finished. "After you saved their asses from a hellhound, too. Serve 'em right if you let it loose again."
But memories of Flint—even good ones, like this—always led to the church. That was the one place Ruby refused to revisit in her mind.
Ghosts.
She was here in Rittersburg to deal with some strange German ghosts. Real ghosts, not the kind that haunted her own memories and dreams.
Switching her hat out for a bonnet, Ruby shoved her blond hair up inside it. Little about the outfit was fashionable, but it was, at least, passably feminine.
Unless, of course, I am required to run.
Under that circumstance, she might have to drop the skirt and crinoline.
Again.
And it took such trouble to replace them—every seamstress she engaged insisted on attempting to require her to wear a corset.
As if I might be able to run in a corset. As if I’d want to.
Attempting to fight demons while wearing a corset? She would be dead ten times over.
Like Flint.
Shaking her head to dispel the thought, she rolled her shoulders back, stood up straight, and led Lakota back out into the center of the street, where the two of them took up a slow stroll.
Walking down the downtown avenue in the middle of the afternoon should not have sent a cold shiver up Ruby's spine. Nor should it have brought Lakota to attention, his ears perked up to catch any stray noise. The paint horse's eyes opened wide as he swiveled his head from side to side.
Having Flint's horse to warn her of impending danger wasn't as good as having Flint, but she found it comforting, nonetheless, especially with the half-finished buildings looming above her on either side. She watched for a flicker of life behind any of the windows, but the most she saw was a curtain swaying in the breeze.
This wasn't natural. She had been called in to take care of the town's ghost problem. As a Tremayne agent, she had the authority from the local bank manager, apparently also the town's acting mayor, to exorcise their supernatural problem.
Someone should have been here to meet me.
Stopping in the center of the road, she turned a wide circle, checking every possible angle—the tops of buildings, inside doors, through windows.
"Hello?" she called out. Her voice echoed back at her. "This is creepy," she whispered to Lakota, using Flint's favorite new word—the one he had discovered not long before he died. "I don't think anyone's going to answer us."
When the answer came, then, it was a surprise—particularly as it came from all sides, and in the form of glass projectiles that smashed into the ground, landing around Ruby and Lakota and sending shards slicing through the air.
* * *
When the glass began flying around him, Trip ducked around the side of a building at the end of the street, pulling his horse Bandito behind him. Flattening his back against the wooden siding, he peered around the corner, watching the woman he had followed into town. She wrapped her arms around her own mount's head, t
ucking her forehead against the horse's and standing perfectly still, apparently hoping to avoid being hit with flying debris.
But after a moment, Trip began to notice a pattern in the movement of shattered glass. Instead of slamming into the woman, it first cut through the air past her and the palomino. Then, instead of scoring the buildings it should have hit at the end of its trajectory, the glass shards' paths curved in a circle around the woman and animal, until the broken pieces were swirling in a circle around them.
"What the hell?" Trip muttered under his breath, leaning farther out to get a better look. Realizing that all the broken glass flying past him had been swept up into the whirlwind of glass around the woman, he dropped Bandito's reigns. "Stay here," he instructed. The stallion rolled its eyes at him, but nickered. Trip didn't bother to tether the animal; his horse wasn't going anywhere without him.
If exploding glass didn't startle him, nothing would. For that matter, neither did various ilk of ghosts they had run across together. Bandito was steady, even if he had a tendency to bite strangers.
That thought brought Trip's attention back to the stranger in the middle of the street.
Was this woman really supposed to be his new partner?
When he'd gotten the telegram from the Tremayne headquarters back in St. Louis, Trip had laughed aloud. He knew there were lady agents—he'd even worked with one a time or two—but they had all been stationed back east. No lone woman in her right mind would want to come out here to work.
Not when there were plenty of ghosts to be exorcised in civilized places.
Safer places.
I guess maybe this one's not in her right mind, then.
Might not be a bad idea to remember that.
He watched the glass-cyclone sweep up the dust around her, the cloud of dirt thickening until he didn’t see the woman at all, and reconsidered.
If she can cause something like that to happen, maybe she's plenty safe out here, after all.
As Trip made his way toward her, the glass-and-dirt devil rose into the air. He stopped to watch it ascend. Then, with a noise like a crack of thunder, it was gone. Trip had the vague impression that it had sped away toward the wilds rather than merely disappearing into nothingness, but he couldn't have pointed to any particular evidence that made him think that.
Smoothing her hands down the sides of the painted horse's face, the woman murmured something soothing in a tone that made Trip realize he had been hearing her voice all along, a soft alto hum rising and falling under the whipping and tinkling sound of the glass tornado, somehow more noticeable now in its absence than it had been during the strange events on the street.
The horse huffed out a breath, and the woman laughed. The sound of it sent an odd shiver up Trip's back—not of anxiety, but of interest.
Don't be stupid, man. You haven't even seen her face yet.
And he couldn't tell anything about her body under that horror of a dress.
Reaching up, she untied the bonnet from under her chin and removed it to shake off the dust. A silken fall of blond hair cascaded out of it and down her back, and Trip stopped to stare, frozen by the glint of midday Texas sun off its golden sheen.
By the time he moved again, she had begun brushing dirt off her skirt in sharp, efficient motions.
"Ruby Silver?" he asked when he was close enough to speak without shouting.
As she spun around, it occurred to him belatedly that it might not be a good idea to sneak up on a woman who turned flying glass into a tornado and made it disappear.
Holding both hands up, he took a half-step back. "I'm Trip. Trip Austin," he said. When she didn't respond with anything more than a suspicious glare, he added, "Your new partner."
Her mouth tightened, her stare captured his, and she shook her head the tiniest bit—more a negation of the mere idea of a partner, he thought, than a rejection of his actual claim.
Trip knew he ought to say more, but from the moment her gaze had caught his, he had been rendered speechless. To be honest, he had expected someone harsh, sun-weathered and wind-beaten. Women out here were hard, and women alone doubly so, used to fending for themselves in a land that didn't reward softness.
Not that he would call this woman soft. Not exactly. Her mouth drew down in a tense, straight line and her blue eyes narrowed in a way that suggested she would eviscerate him if he took one wrong step.
But dang if she wasn’t the loveliest thing he’d seen in a long time. The lines of her face looked as though they had been sculpted, like one of those fine statues he had seen a few times when he traveled outside his home country on Tremayne business, going to places other people considered better, just because they had more people. Because they were "civilized."
He suspected the west's lack of civilization drew Ruby Silver to it the same way it drew him. Deep in her gaze he detected a desolation that matched any desert landscape he had ever seen.
A man might die in those eyes.
But before he did, he would witness a harsh wonder like nothing else he had ever seen.
Perfect, now I'm waxing poetical. I haven't determined if this is Ruby Silver, and already I've got men dying from the mere look of her.
He shook his head, half-amused at his own flights of fancy.
"What do you mean, my partner?" she asked, and Trip had to think hard to recover the conversational thread.
"I’m with Tremayne Psychic Specters Investigations. I can show you my badge, if you'll allow." He waved his hand, still raised in the air, toward his gun belt without lowering it at all.
She nodded suspiciously, her own hand dropping to the gun belt she wore slung around the hips of her skirt.
As he pulled the Tremayne PSI Agency star in its leather case from its position near his waist, he admired the way her belt outlined those hips.
That's a fashion I could get used to.
The fingers that brushed Trip's as she took the badge were cool and dry. She examined the metal star for a long moment, then ran one fingertip across it in a complex pattern. Something mystical, probably. Some way to verify the badge's authenticity.
With a noncommittal noise, she handed it back to him.
They stared at one another for a long, silent moment. Somehow, Trip knew that speaking was the wrong way to go. Instead, he waited for her to nod so they might get started on their examination of the town.
Whatever had sent that glass flying in the first place was big and ugly, and the sooner they got to work tracking it down, the sooner they’d be rid of it.
Instead, Ruby Silver shook her head. "I'm afraid you've wasted your time," she said. "I work alone."
Without another word, she lifted her chin, spun on her heel, gathered her horse's reins, and headed toward the largest, most imposing building in town—the bank—leaving Trip standing in the dust behind her, not certain whether he should chase after her, or simply admire her as she walked away.
Chapter Two
I hope he can't tell I'm trembling.
Ruby was fairly certain the skirt would hide the shaking of her legs, and leading Lakota should keep her hands busy enough.
Not that it should matter what he saw. She had expended quite a bit of energy—anyone would be unsteady afterwards.
Anyone but her, usually.
The cowboy had surprised her when he walked up behind her, and he should not have been able to do so. This had been the first time she had used her special skills since she had given up on reaching Flint after he passed to the other side, and it had taken more concentration than she expected.
Not for the first time, she briefly considered, then put aside, the question of her motivations for avoiding most of her supernatural abilities since Flint's death.
This time the use of her skills had been particularly draining, not merely from lack of practice, but also because she had encountered a competing force, blocking her own. Though far from the most powerful reaction she had encountered in her time, it had been stronger than most she had com
e upon in her days as a demon hunter.
Admittedly, she and Flint had not often focused on the human afterlife, choosing instead to concentrate their attention upon those malevolent forces that might more directly cause harm to the living.
"Broken glass on the wing might injure the unwary," she muttered aloud, much as she knew Flint would have, had she been able to have this conversation with him.
Hitching Lakota to one of the posts in front of the bank—all of which were otherwise unoccupied—Ruby took a moment to tidy her appearance, carefully tucking her hair back inside her bonnet and straightening her skirt. Should she meet anyone inside, it would not do to look unkempt.
Neat but plain.
She concentrated on the phrase, attempting to embody the concept.
It would be even better if she managed to look outright ugly. Grief had done its best in the last months to strip her of vitality, and that had actually made her first jobs with the Tremayne Agency simpler than she had feared.
But as she continued to choose life over death month after month, continued to eat on a relatively regular schedule, to sleep most nights, her natural vigor began to return to her, and she knew it would not be long before men began to take notice of her once again.
The thought caused her to glance over her shoulder at the man still standing in the street, watching her.
Having Flint around to deflect others' attention had been useful.
Then again, her former partner had been a mountain of a man, intimidating and prone to scowling at those he did not know. Few people had realized that the lines around his eyes were as much from smiles as from frowns or the glare of the Western sun.
Blowing out a sigh, she moved inside the bank, welcoming the cool dimness of the shaded interior.
* * *
Ruby considered casting another glance at the man in the street, but she didn't want him thinking about her watching him. Something about his aura bothered her, and she had to wrap her arms around her upper body to keep herself from peering back over her shoulder to examine it more closely.
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