Ghost Maker

by Robin D. Owens

  “I hope so.” Clare paused, rubbing her side. “I think I want to soak in the hot tub.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Just for the soak and the cuddling,” he said.

  Zach had kept up a good face for Clare, and, deep down, he believed what he’d said about the nun. During his career he’d dealt with a lot of people after the fallout of crime; he knew the reactions, especially of those innately decent.

  He didn’t, though, like that Clare had been wounded again, and her flesh over the injury felt cold to his touch. He slept restlessly and with his arms around her. She seemed colder than usual.

  * * *

  Clare awoke and stared at the ceiling. Her etheric wound ached like something gnawed at it with rough teeth. She didn’t want to move. Neither the Other nor any other apparition had visited her in or out of dreams, and while that was good, the sight of the abused boys lingered in her brain. So did the dreadful features of the furious revenant, Jonathan O’Neill, and Julianna Emmanuel’s fear-drenched expression. For the first time in a decade, Clare felt disinclined to get out of bed. This particular case hadn’t ended well . . . or she got the idea that it wouldn’t end well. She couldn’t dredge up enough energy to face failure today.

  Of course she would fail sometime. Everyone fails at some point, especially if they continue to strive to do new things beyond their current reach and comfort zone. And she’d come to accept that in her profession as a ghost seer, every case would present new elements.

  She didn’t know if the Sister of Mercy would scrape up enough mercy to forgive her for killing Jonathan O’Neill.

  Clare had killed—or at least ended—a person. She turned that thought over in her mind because she didn’t feel like a murderess. And this was the second time she’d taken her knife to an evil spirit.

  Evil spirit. Jonathan had been that. Wait, had she killed Jonathan? No, she’d ended his existence as a ghost possessing a human. Enzo had then stepped in to run him out of the gray dimension. Jonathan couldn’t continue to haunt it and wait for another body.

  Perhaps, like Great-Aunt Sandra’s spirit guide, the ghost of John Dillinger, Jonathan O’Neill feared what came next and any judgment. But Clare hadn’t felt any fear, and Sandra had written that Dillinger had stayed to try to redeem himself. O’Neill was angry that he wasn’t allowed to go on his own killing way.

  Ignoring her own mind and evaluating her heart, Clare didn’t feel bad about ending O’Neill’s time here in the real world or the gray dimension. She hadn’t extinguished the nasty spirit he was. As for judgment, she hoped he did suffer the consequences of his own actions.

  And, of course, he’d been trying to kill her, and she hadn’t had any time to think of other options. She wasn’t so accustomed to violence or defending herself that she could do anything but act instinctively. Not like Zach or any of the rest of her new friends. They knew how to act during a fight, make split-second decisions. Another reason to train with the knife, or some self-defense martial art.

  She hoped to explain her actions to Julianna Emmanuel if she got the chance. If the nun would ever accept Clare and heal her wound.

  Rubbing her rib cage where a previous cracked rib echoed the spectral wound, she didn’t figure that anyone else than the Sister of Mercy could heal it for her. Neither the Other nor Enzo could help, and Clare certainly hadn’t come across any other warm ghost. Somehow she’d simply have to survive while it healed on its own.

  Worse was the thought of her failed relationship with Julianna Emmanuel. Would the nun let Clare help her out of the gray dimension and to whatever came next—to the heaven Julianna believed in?

  The fact the girl doubted Clare and because of that doubt would stay in the gray dimension hurt Clare as much as her wound.

  She’d failed. No, she didn’t want to face this day, particularly.

  Zach rolled over and drew her into his arms. “Hey, Clare.” He sounded sweet and sexy and tender.

  “Hey, Zach.” She kept her tone light.

  “You’re thinking too hard. And squirming. If you want to squirm, have I got an activity for you.” He kissed her, his lips firm against her own, his fingers brushing hair away from her face. She moved closer and felt his morning erection against her stomach, and as they rubbed skin on skin, he sucked in a breath and his arousal thickened. That sent a nice spurt of pleasure through her. Concentrate on the now, on Zach, on sex, on the tenderness and love between them.

  She slipped her arms around his neck, hooked her upper leg around his hip, and then they moved together and joined, him thrusting into her.

  They loved slowly, thoroughly, until they reached peak and panted in rhythm in the aftermath.

  “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Julianna Emmanuel will heal your etheric wound—yes, I know the bastard O’Neill ripped it open last night—” Zach’s voice hardened on those words. He kissed her hair. “But I have an idea how to fix you even without her.”

  “She’s my major case. And she doesn’t deserve to stay in the gray dimension.”

  “She doesn’t seem to be as affected as much by that place as other ghosts. We can give her some time to get over her distress, maybe even a month two. No problem there.” His voice went gruff. “Would do you good to take a month off. You’ve closed all your cases with lightning speed.”

  Clare thought of the upcoming month, the slide into freezing winter. Denver had been known to get snow on Halloween. “I’m not looking forward to Halloween.”

  He hugged her. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  She hesitated.

  “Are you thinking of codependency again?” Tipping her chin up, his blue green gaze probed her own. “It’s what partners do, Clare, and teams. Keep each other safe.”

  “Watch each other’s back.” She nodded. “Like you all did last night.”

  “That’s right. Sister Julianna Emmanuel can wait. All the damn spooks can wait.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Tell the Powers That Be that you’ve earned a month’s vacation.” He urged her to her back as he propped himself up on his elbow to gaze down at her. She liked his smile, intimate and confident.

  “First we get you healed.” He paused and glanced beyond her. “I can see two big crows outside the window.”

  Clare didn’t bother turning her head to look, the birds might not be there for her, but a small hope welled through her. “Two for luck,” she stated, letting out a sigh. Zach had pretended to be more optimistic than he was throughout this situation. Now she heard the ring of truth in his sentence.

  “Yes.” He squeezed her. “Don’t worry.”

  Don’t worry, be happy! Enzo popped in, hopping up and down their bodies. I heard that song! It is a GOOD song.

  “What’s up, Enzo?” Zach asked, lying back down, stacking his hands under his head and looking at the phantom Labrador, who pranced around on the bed.

  I chased the Evil Bad Spirit-man out of the gray dimension. The dog barked, then opened his mouth to show teeth that appeared a lot bigger and sharper than before. As he progressed to becoming a greater spirit, did he also get greater weapons? Sort of like she got her knife . . . and the defensive shields she’d begun to use.

  I nipped his heels. Yes, I DID!

  “The questioning mind wants to know, did he have heels to nip?” Zach murmured.

  Enzo focused his cloudy stare on Zach. Yes, he had heels. He spent too much time wanting a man-body. Enzo growled. Too much time being bad. NOW he regrets that. He will be Fixed.

  “Fixed,” Zach continued in the same tone. Clare thought he looked at Enzo’s underside to see if the minor spirit had testicles. The real Enzo, Great-Aunt Sandra’s dog that Clare had known in her childhood, had been neutered, of course. Clare didn’t look, herself.

  He won’t want it and won’t like it, but he will be. His spirit is all crooked
up like a crooked house and he will be STRAIGHTENED OUT.

  Zach’s face closed down. Clare thought she went expressionless, too. American individualism particularly celebrated the notion that one should fix oneself, or have help straightening out oneself. Outer fixing should not be imposed on one; that would change one’s spirit.

  “Tough luck for him,” Zach said.

  Sounding more serious than usual, Enzo said, Yes. But he had chances to fix himself and grow and he didn’t do it. Enzo’s face went sad.

  “Good job last night.” Zach sent enthusiasm to her and Enzo both.

  With a grin, Enzo stopped to stand in Zach’s chest and lick the man’s chin. The drool would have been icy swipes for her; Zach probably felt a cool touch of air.

  Thank you! We were a great team!

  “Yes, and now it’s time to get up and at them.” Zach sat up.

  To help Julianna Emmanuel move on, Enzo agreed.

  Zach stood and crossed to the master bath. Clare watched the flex of his very fine butt.

  “All right,” Clare said. She could rarely hold out against Enzo, and never Enzo and Zach. She sat and picked up the phone she’d set on do not disturb when they’d gotten in last night. She scrolled through texts from Harry, who’d stayed at the hospital all night, updating her and Zach on the condition of the boys. Both were getting treatment and in better shape. Social services had descended and taken over their cases. “I should have done this before,” she muttered.

  Zach stopped, turned, and pointed a finger at her. “Cut yourself some slack, Clare. We left the boys in good hands.” He jerked his chin at his phone. “I haven’t looked at mine yet, have I? And I won’t. Not until we’re ready to go.” His voice softened. “They’re no longer our responsibility, and we have to trust those who come after us to follow through.”

  “Harry says everything’s fine, and that he e-mailed you a longer report about Tyler and your client.”

  “Good to know.” Zach shrugged. “People will take it from here.”

  “You’re used to that in your career. Doing your job, then having others come in and take over.”

  “That’s right.”

  Clare grimaced. “We get the job with the dead, and others care for the living.”

  He strode back to her, set his hands on the side of her face, and gave her a quick kiss. “We were damn lucky to find the boys alive. That’s a win.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” She kissed him back, then stood and placed her phone back down on the table, straightened her shoulders. “I’m a ghost seer.”

  Linking fingers with her, he said, “And that made all the difference in the world. Without you being able to talk to Julianna Emmanuel, we wouldn’t have discovered what was going on—”

  “You were already on the trail; you would have.”

  “Not soon enough to save the boys, for Tyler. And we wouldn’t have found the earlier graves or the perp.”

  We did our job well! Enzo’s whole back half wagged with his tail.

  “Yes, we did.”

  “The first stage,” Clare said. “Now onto the next.”

  Chapter 33

  After they ate breakfast, Zach drove into Manitou Springs with the light traffic usual on a mid-morning weekday. As they neared the Garden of the Gods entrance, Clare wanted to ask him to stop so they could walk around since they hadn’t gone through the red rock park at all during their stay. But that was ducking duty. She just steeled her spine and loosened her jaw since her teeth hurt from clamping so tightly.

  Like the roads, the town showed fewer Colorado Springs and Denver visitors down for the weekend, and more of the local residents out and about collecting their water from their favorite spring.

  “There aren’t as many ghosts here as there were before,” she said, examining the sidewalks where the phantoms had promenaded.

  Enzo, enjoying the back of the truck, stuck his head into the cab.

  Not only ghosts of our time period have left, but lots of others, too. He sniffed long and hard. Some spirits were afraid to move on because they thought the bad one would grab them and eat them like that other evil ghost did. Evil spirits do that. Or suck their energy. And some people who died lately were afraid the bad specter would jump from the boy’s body to theirs. He could do that.

  “Ick,” Clare said.

  “On the whole, I wouldn’t want that to happen, either,” Zach said, parking on the main street just beyond the arcade.

  A bunch of locals sat in the small park near Cheyenne Spring. As Clare walked with Zach to the shop and the pillared open space, she overheard excited gossip about what had happened in a cave the night before.

  Julianna Emmanuel wasn’t near the wall, or on the opposite side of the area, sitting on the rock, and the cool and shadowy space was empty. No one ate at the red picnic tables, not one child clambered to sit on one of the amusement rides.

  Clare walked over to the ride directly across from the spring, a bull, that Julianna Emmanuel had eyed occasionally as if the girl inside her wanted to perch on it. Clare crossed to the spring trickling in the mosaic wall. Nothing. Not one sway of gathered folds of a nun’s habit, the lighter shade of her wimple. And no other shades of gray apparitions. Sighing, Clare said, “I hope we don’t have to go back to Miramont Castle and Montcalme, where she lived. I know that castle is haunted with at least one or two spirits from my time period.”

  I will look there! Enzo loped away up the canyon.

  But as Clare breathed deeply, appreciating the mountain air and letting her mind calm from squirrelly thoughts of what she should say to the young sister to help them both, she suddenly remembered a previous conversation. “I think I know where she went,” she said as Zach, in full alert mode, scrutinized the area.

  “Where?”

  And in recollecting, she smiled, because the notion was just what she needed herself. “Our Lady of Perpetual Help.”

  Zach grunted, pivoted on his heel, and struck out toward the car.

  Enzo appeared and trotted beside them. She was not at the castle or the parking lot where Montcalme was. And none of the ghosts there had seen her, the dog reported, stared at Clare, then continued, We are going to a church! The pretty and peaceful place.

  “Yes,” Clare and Zach said in unison.

  * * *

  They found her at the church near Miramont Castle. Easy enough to remember that serene piece of road Zach had noted each instance he’d driven it. He took the narrow turnoff to cross a stream and parked near a white, unassuming wooden building. In the minister’s—no, priest’s—spot, since the place looked empty and deserted.

  She is here! Enzo’s mental yip sounded in Zach’s brain.

  From what Clare had told him, Sister Julianna Emmanuel had banned herself from the chapel due to ghost guilt. A beautiful spot, with a nice yard dotted with boulders, and an outdoor shrine. The serenity of the place acted on Zach and his tension eased. He smiled and began to hope. The merciful nun would embrace the idea of perpetual help and would heal Clare of her wound, and Clare would assist Julianna Emmanuel onto the road where whatever just and merciful reward awaited her next.

  Eight crows flew down to perch on the low stone wall, preening. Eight for heaven.

  Yeah, that sounded right for a nun.

  A happily-ever-after ending for Clare’s case, and maybe they’d be back in Denver for a late lunch. Tonight they’d sleep at Clare’s house.

  He frowned as he thought she might want to talk about their relationship, but decided a brood wasn’t appropriate right now. Stepping out of the truck, he stood in the sunshine and grabbed for that serenity again.

  Time to watch Clare’s back, and her show, and be there if she needed him.

  Though a notice posted on the small building stated the only open hours were for one Sunday mass, the door gaped ajar a few inches. No living
being lingered in the sun at the church or the house next to it, though ghosts thronged the area. Zach got the distinct impression that those who could move from all areas of the town had followed the nun. He thought some of the many shades had stayed in Manitou Springs over the decades because they knew the sister and loved her. At least he felt a warmth of affection emanating from the chill mass of phantoms milling around the beautiful front area of the church.

  Clare had gotten to the bottom of the steps of the church before she realized Zach unaccustomedly lagged behind. With that door slightly open, he wouldn’t want her to go into the place first in case danger lurked, so she stopped to stretch and said a prayer of thanks for the beauty of the day and for a good resolution to the situation that had brought her here—for her wound to be healed and for Julianna Emmanuel to pass on from the gray dimension to whatever awaited her spirit.

  As Clare rubbed the injury that had torn again last night, she thought that the touch of sunlight on her torso made it feel better. Why hadn’t she figured that out before? Perhaps the brief attentions of Julianna Emmanuel and the Other had stimulated the healing a bit. A good sign.

  Zach pushed the door open with his foot, his hand holding his weapon that he holstered at his back today. He stepped in, blocking her from following.

  It’s all right, Zach! It’s all right, Clare! No bad people are here! No live people at all, Zach! PLEASE come in! Soon! Enzo caroled.

  Her lover stood, probably letting his eyes become accustomed to the dimness of the church with its two rows of small windows, and trying to check out the shadows under every pew. Then he reached back for her hand and clasped her fingers and made a surprised noise. She came up next to him, and saw even more phantoms in the chapel than there had been in the yard.