Ghost

by Charmaine Ross

  “That’s what Dr Campbell told me. I mean, I’m dying. Got leukaemia, but I’m okay to go back home for a while. He gave me something in my IV tube and told me to rest while my taxi got here and he’d take care of the paperwork.”

  “Didn’t you have anyone to take you home?” I asked.

  The man shrugged, “No one living. My wife died a couple of years ago. I don’t have any children.” This founded eerily familiar.

  “Who are your lawyers?"

  The man frowned, looking clearly confused, “What?”

  “Your lawyers. Tell me who they are.”

  “Elder and Slate. John Slate is my old friend from University. When I was told I had leukaemia, he personally asked his son to treat me. Told me he was the best.”

  I frowned. “George Campbell is John Slater’s son?”

  “George doesn’t like to use his family name. Uses his middle name instead. Says he doesn’t want his real name to impact his career. Wants to be a success on his own.”

  “I bet he does,” I muttered.

  I glanced at Elliot. He wore a fierce expression and his eyes had turned almost black. “George Campbell Slater. Do you think George was working in conjunction with his father?”

  Elliot nodded, “It’s likely. George tells his father who has come into his office with a terminal disease. Helps them get their earthly affairs settled. The father writes their will. George injects them with massive doses of Valium and John re-writes the will. No-one’s the wiser.’

  The hospital alarm system sounded at the nurse’s station. As he spoke, George Campbell walked past my door. He was holding a paper bag clenched in his fist. A nurse stopped him. He greeted her gruffly and walked away from her although she clearly needed him. My mood darkened.

  “What is it, Jane?” I called.

  Various personnel dashed past Jane as she peered into my room. “The man in the next room has arrested. I need to go.” She turned and ran.

  I glanced at Elliot, “No coincidences.”

  I swung my legs over the bed, snatched my robe and said to Elliot, “Can you help this man find the light?” I waited until he nodded before I left.

  I found my way into the corridor. It was easy to find the room I needed. Nurses worked over the man I’d spoken with, but I couldn’t tell them no matter how hard they worked on him he was never going to be revived. After half an hour of watching them work, the time of death was called. I wished him peace and slipped from the room, leaving it to the nurses to deal with the body.

  “Poor man, he had everything to live for,” Karen, another nurse said to me when she saw me looking in. “He just told us he’d won the lotto a month ago. He was really excited about going on the trip of his life before he got too sick. Was telling everyone about it.”

  “I bet he was.” I wandered back to my room, “We have to find Campbell.”

  Elliot shot up out of the chair, “Stay here, I’ll come back when I find him.”

  One good thing about having Elliot as a helper, he could go a whole lot faster and more places than I could ever go. He returned within a few seconds. “He’s in the cleaning closet on this floor. You’re not going to like what you find.”

  “No doubt I’m not,” I muttered.

  It was a short walk to the cleaning closet. Anger welled inside me. To think a doctor could take life when all we were meant to do was save lives. And he was doing it for pure greed. The thought left a heated simmering in my gut. I was going to make sure he wasn’t going to take anyone else’s life.

  I yanked open the door and gasped. Jane had her arms thrown around Campbell’s neck and they were engaged in a lengthy kiss. Jane jerked out of his arms, quickly buttoning her uniform up.

  “How dare you barge in here!” George said.

  “It’s a cleaning room. Nobody knocks to come into a cupboard. The question is, what are you doing here?”

  Campbell sent me a slow smile that made me shudder. He made a show of zipping his pants up. I grimaced in disgust. What I ever saw in the man, I’ll never know.

  “I know what you’ve been doing,” I said, anger lacing my tones.

  He smiled his hundred-watt smile, flirting with me, while Jane was still buttoning her blouse, “Kissing isn’t a crime.” His gaze flicked to my breasts.

  “I’m not talking about that,” I folded my arms over my chest. Standing in front of him in my nightgown without a bra wasn’t making me feel very confident. Elliot stepped close to me, his steely reserve melting into me.

  Campbell’s brows raised, “Then what do I have the pleasure about this interruption?”

  The bag he’d been holding was on the floor at his feet. “I want to look in that bag.”

  The air in the room changed from insolence to something more chilly, “That’s none of your concern. A test I need to get to pathology.”

  “And you thought the fastest way to get it there was by pashing Jane?”

  Jane snorted. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Oh, I think it is when people are dying in this hospital caused by massive doses of Valium. Or are you just mis-measuring?”

  Jane paled, “What are you talking about?”

  “You should be more careful what you sign, Jane. Forging your name on another nurses shift is a cause for serious concern.”

  I was confusing Jane, “She doesn’t know,” Elliot said.

  “My thoughts, too,” I said. Now they both looked confused. “Ask your boyfriend what he’s been signing your name to, Jane. Or shall I ask him myself?”

  “What’s she talking about, George?” Jane asked.

  Barely contained fury made his face red, “How dare you come in here and accuse me of something so low. You need to stop these allegations, Doctor Hunter.”

  “Careful, Cassie. This man is capable of anything,” Elliot said. “You can’t take him on your own. Give him space to run and he will. If you block him in, he’ll hurt you.”

  I noticed the patient’s chart on a shelf behind Jane. I snatched it and flicked it open. “He was due to be released today. One night of observation after a fairly easy procedure. Would have made it too if he hadn’t had the serious complication of winning the lotto.”

  “I’m a doctor. I can prescribe whatever I think best for a patient's care.”

  “Death is not a cure for having too much money in the bank, Doctor Campbell, or should I say Doctor Slater,” I said. I barely contained the tremor that shook my voice. “And you dare to call yourself a doctor.”

  Campbell crossed his arms and looked down his nose at me. “Anything you might have on me is insubstantial.”

  “Oh, I’m sure your father’s given breaking the law a lot of thought.” I couldn’t prove he’d murdered anyone and he knew it. Any connection between the patients and Campbell had been well and truly covered. The evidence was sketchy at best. But he knew that I knew. I saw it in his eyes, the sneer of his mouth. It sucked that I couldn’t do anything about it. And he knew it. “If you don’t hand in your resignation and leave this hospital right away, I’ll get my evidence. Even if it takes me ten years, you’ll pay.”

  The top corner of his mouth lifted. “You wouldn’t dare. You want me.”

  I barely held the bile that rose in my throat. “I couldn’t think of anything worse,” I ignored Jane’s outranged gasp and hard stare.

  “You’ll be sorry for this accusation, Hunter. Watch your back.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll have my lawyers draw up a restraining order against you. I think you’ve heard of them. Elder and Slate.”

  He stepped towards me, using the height of his body to menace. He knocked my shoulder as he passed, enough to crush my spine against the frame. He stalked down the corridor. Jane rushed past me, calling his name. He didn’t turn back to her. I almost felt sorry for Jane. Almost.

  A stench burned my eyes, making my skin crawl. I knew what that meant, I stiffened, looking around me. A dark shadow floated past me down the corridor, its mouth gaped in
a slack, black smile. The Soul-Eater reached for Campbell, snaking out its clawed fingers. They caught the tail of his coat.

  “George!” I yelled.

  He turned, the fury on his face making me blanch. The anger was quickly replaced by horror. His eyes focused on the shadow creature. It uttered a screech that tore through my bones. Its fingers slashed into Campbell’s chest, cutting off the scream that was pushing up his throat. Campbell’s body crumpled, lifeless, to the ground. Jane screamed and rushed to his side.

  The creature smiled as it impaled Campbell’s soul on the tips of its claws. George struggled, but there was nothing he could do to escape. The Soul-Eater glided down the corridor, taking the struggling George with it. George’s eyes found mine and opened in surprise, before he disappeared through a wall. The stench dissipated and the world came back to me with the sounds of staff trying to resuscitate Campbell.

  They didn’t have a chance.

  Beside me, Elliot gasped. “Do you see that?” he pointed to a spot at the end of the corridor. I squinted in the direction he indicated, but saw only the blank wall.

  “What?” I asked.

  “A...hole.” He ran to the end of the corridor. I wanted to shout his name, run after him, but I couldn’t with a corridor full of fellow staff members. Elliot disappeared through the wall where Campbell had disappeared and then-nothing.

  The more my eyes bored into the wall, the more spots danced in front of my eyes with the strain. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring into space, but Elliot didn’t return. Someone behind me spoke to me. It barely registered.

  “Elliot, where are you?” I whispered. On the inside, I screamed it out. I paced to the end of the corridor, walking back and forth the area he’d disappeared into. Time stretched and became disproportionate. A second became an hour, a minute was a year in hell.

  What if’s spun in my mind. Worry bounced them back around. Heavy heartbeats kept them alive.

  Beat.

  What if he doesn’t come back?

  Beat.

  What if something had happened to him?

  Beat.

  What if I never see him again?

  Beat.

  Where the hell had he gone?

  Elliot!

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was thankful. Yet I wasn’t. I lived bouncing from one aspect of my situation, to the other extreme.

  I could now see ghosts. Ghosts I didn’t want to see.

  As a doctor, I could help people to stay alive, yet I was being accused of malpractice. As a person who could see ghosts, I could help them find their afterlife, yet I wasn’t asked if I wanted a gift like that.

  I had my family back, something I always wanted. My parents had returned from the outback. My sister was a new part of my life. Yet, they were driving me crazy.

  I had Elliot. A man I was fast falling in love with. Yet I couldn’t tell him.

  I could talk to him. See him. Yet I couldn’t touch him. Kiss him. Make love to him.

  I was living a life my mother went out of her way for me not to have, and now angels have decreed I have a mission. Yet I had no idea what that may be.

  Everything I have worked for, all the hard years of study, hours and hours spent working, studying, practising were for nothing. My life was upside down and inside out.

  Yet I had Elliot. If I didn’t have him, I know I would go mad with it all.

  I had Elliot.

  I could see him.

  Talk to him.

  Be with him.

  It was enough.

  It had to be.

  The story continues in...

  The Damned Series Book 2

  Spirit: a Paranormal Ghost Romance (Damned Series Book 2)

  Thrown against a sinister threat, Cassie Hunter must race to save the soul of her sister.

  The Grey-Mists, the dimensions between dimensions, are filled with perilous danger. But what’s a girl who can see the unimaginable to do when souls are annihilated right in front of her eyes?

  Cassie and detective Elliot Stone are thrust into a world between worlds. The place where souls are trapped for all existence. And Cassie and Elliot are trapped right alongside them.

  Although they can still touch, kiss, and love each other, things are not as good as they seem. When the villain that has ties to Elliot’s life captures Cassie, bad turns to worse. An evil force has plans to open a portal with enough power to decimate life on Earth and everything in between.

  How can a ghost and a living soul ever hope to overcome such dark power?

  Spirit is the second instalment in the Damned series. Follow Cassie on her journey through perilous dimensions of reality to fight for the love of her life.

  Spirit

  Chapter One

  All I got for my effort of worrying was a headache that made me nauseated.

  “Dr Hunter, are you ok?”

  I managed a smile and gestured the nurse away as politely as I could as bile rose up my throat. I didn’t know her name. She wasn’t a part of the surgical staff at The Alfred, the hospital that had me under investigation about the death of my patient, Henry Davis who, upon his death, I’d helped find his will for his lawyers.

  He hadn’t left me alone after he’d died, giving me one hell of a fright and then continuing to nag me until I helped him. I saw his spirit find his eternal peace and his place, his Heaven with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, the same peace hadn’t followed me. I was still alive and facing the problems his death had brought about.

  “I’m okay. Just a bit tired.” The nurse didn’t look as though she totally believed me, but she left my room, shutting the door behind her and I was left blissfully alone to worry myself senseless.

  One of the problems Henry’s death had brought about was re-awakening my ability to see spirits, something my mother was adamantly against and was going to put an end to, if it was the last thing she did, and my meeting the man I’d fallen wholly, totally, stupidly, and completely in love with.

  The man who had died seventy-eight years ago.

  The same man who was now causing me to stalk the width of my hospital room because he’d disappeared through the wall after a Soul-Eater, who had stolen the one piece of ‘evidence’ who could prove beyond a doubt that I didn’t kill Henry. The soul of one doctor George ‘slimy-bastard’ Campbell. The man who had orchestrated Henry’s death and the upheaval in my brilliant career as a cardiologist. That was only one part of the mess I was in. I also had the Soul-Eaters to contend with.

  The Soul-Eaters were pure evil. I was starting to get a clear picture of what they were doing here on Earth, but I didn’t know why. They took souls, actually forcibly tore them out of bodies, because the souls they took weren’t ready to depart. From what I’d seen, they very much wanted back in their bodies. They were certainly kicking and screaming when they were taken. Abducted against their will. And a Soul Eater had just taken George Campbell in front of my eyes not one hour ago and Elliot had disappeared after him.

  I was a patient in my own hospital after nearly being ripped apart by a Soul-Eater in the Grey-Mists myself. It was only that I managed to somehow ‘imagine’ myself away that I was able to escape it. I still wasn’t sure what I had actually done.

  The Grey-Mists was a confusing place to exist, a place between places, where there was nothing but indistinguishable shapes, and the ability to create whole worlds somehow. There was no entry and no exit. A maze of nothingness that went on forever. Elliot has been stranded there for seventy-eight years after his death, and now he could be stranded there again after going after George.

  The Soul-Eaters were stronger in the Grey-Mists. Maybe even too strong for Elliot to fight. It had taken both of us to free ourselves when Elliot was taken. I’d seen Elliot nearly become nothing as the Soul-Eater had sucked the very essence out of him. It had been a fluke we’d gotten away that time.

  My gut hit my toes with that thought, the rebound threatened to empty my stomach of the little I�
�d eaten. I was still healing from my assault with the Soul-Eater. The wounds that I’d been inflicted in the Grey-Mists, had also affected my physical body.

  I had to get back into the Grey-Mists to find him. What if he was fighting another Soul-Eater? What if, at this very moment, his life essence was being sucked away?

  I’d need Laura, my sister. She was the only one who could guide me out of my body so I could disengage from its physical field. But Laura was with Mum, who was not letting either one of us out of her sight. There was no way Mum would allow Laura to help me into the quasi-relaxed state I needed to separate my soul with my body. And Henry, who had led me into the Grey-Mists, had now well and truly moved to his next life. All I could do was pace the room and yell Elliot’s name into the empty space. Each passing second moved with agonising, empty slowness.

  I bit a fingernail clean off, the stinging pain bringing clear thinking back. God, I had to bring him back. Somehow. Someway. How? Think, Cassie!

  The angel—Ariel.

  She’d come to us when Elliot had brought me back to my body and told us that we’d actually asked for all of this nonsense to happen. Strange, since I didn’t remember asking for my life to be reduced to pieces.

  Ariel told Elliot that he’d asked to come back to right his wrongs, instead of moving to his afterlife. She also told me that we were linked and that we had a teeny-tiny job to do. What was that again? Oh, yeah, save the human race. Easy-peasy. She told us that we were a part of a ‘Grand Plan’. Well, Elliot going MIA wasn’t a part of any plan I wanted to be a part of.

  Ariel also told us to call her when we needed her help, but only if it didn’t go against free will. There had to be some sort of catch to getting untapped angel-power I guess.

  She was the angel responsible for my latent capability to see dead people, or spirits, as they prefer to be called. Mum always had the gift, but it had gotten the best of her and she moved into the middle of the outback to cope with it, when my sister and I were just kids. In the outback, there were little to no ghosts or anything else for that matter, and as soon as we were old enough to leave home, Laura and I had moved to the city.