A Viking Ghost for Valentine's Day (Gambling Ghosts Series Book 2)

by Jo-Ann Carson

  “Bring it on.”

  Azalea stared into the candle and chanted, words Abby didn’t understand in a language she had never heard, an ancient tongue whose reverberations made her nerves dance. “I call the ancestors of Louis Lamentain.” Azalea’s other-worldly voice vibrated in the stillness of the night.

  When Azalea raised her arms and looked upwards, the candle flickered, the door slammed shut, the window rattled and the air cooled.

  Abby’s scalp tingled as if a horde of spiders crawled across it. The spirits had arrived. She gripped the edges of her chair.

  A white shadow manifested behind Azalea. Abby’s spine straightened. She pointed.

  “Are you related to Louis?” asked Azalea.

  “Y … e…sss.” The spirit’s voice sounded distant and muffled.

  “How did Louis die?”

  Another white shadow shimmered. The two spirits floated on either side of Azalea.

  Abby wanted to shout out to them, beg them for help, but she held her tongue.

  Azalea spoke: “Louis has lost control. He hunts children to feed on them. He has to be stopped. Tell us what happened to him, so that we can free his tortured soul. Together we can give him peace.”

  Abby tightened her grip.

  “My son was a troubled boy.” The man’s voice came through Azalea’s mouth. “Other children picked on him.”

  “Did one of them push him?” Abby couldn’t stay quiet a moment longer.

  “No.” A woman’s voice, this time. “I couldn’t prove it, but I am sure, ”—the air turned icy and the flame of the candle shot straight up— “it was the stranger.”

  “The stranger?”

  “Louis was raped,” the father said.

  The mother sobbed.

  “We made sure they didn’t put that in the paper. But he was violated.”

  The sobs increased.

  “It had to be that stranger. The other children wouldn’t have done that.”

  “My son. My poor son.” His mother’s voice.

  “Couldn’t you do something?” Abby asked.

  “I tried.” It was the man’s voice. “I hunted for the stranger, but he left town without a trace.” His voice broke.

  The mother cried. “I want Louis with me.”

  17

  Some Things Aren't Done

  “ENOUGH,” SCREECHED BRUNHILDE, as she sucked Eric into her netherworld. “Enough, you idiot Viking.”

  “What now?” He landed on the rock floor of the cave.

  “You are getting too involved in the lives of mortals.”

  “And a poltergeist.”

  “Well, him too. You don’t need to be bothering with him either.”

  “He wants to suck the life out of innocent children.”

  She tilted her head and scowled as if to say, “so what,” but she didn’t say a word.

  “I can’t stand by and let that happen.”

  “What if I told you, you should. The affairs of mortals are not our concern. I need not tell you what happened to the last ghost of mine who got involved. The way she said “involved” made it sound like poison. “It didn’t end well for anyone. Live humans don’t understand us. They think we’re cute, like puppies they can kennel when they get bored. But they don’t really care for us.”

  “Abby’s different.”

  “So you tell yourself. But my dear Viking, you’re in for a big fall. She needs a real man, not one she can see through.”

  He wanted to say he was a real man, but he wasn’t. He just wanted to be. He wanted to be a real man more than he had ever wanted to be a man, since his death. Because he wanted to be everything for Abby. So he grunted.

  “In the name of Odin, don’t grunt at me, barbarian.”

  “I am a royal Viking, not a barbarian and you’re pissing me off.”

  “Hah!”

  “I care for Abby. She cares for me. What could be more simple?”

  “Let me make you a list.”

  “Nej.”

  “On the top I would put, “limp” as in limp.”

  “Dra åt helvete.”

  “Next, I would write “ice cold,” as in you’re dead. Remember?”

  “Dra åt helvete.”

  “Third on the list, is—“

  “I said, dra åt helvete, death bitch. Go to hell. I love her. I want to be with her.”

  “Ja, ja. So you say. But you’re not thinking.”

  “You’re so crude and cold. I don’t need to hear your rants. I want to be with her. If she wants to spend time with me, what is the harm? We can be … companions.”

  “Just what every young widow needs.” The old shrink circled him again and again with her menacing spirit and her obnoxious stench, an unholy union of rot and disinfectant. It was a good thing he hadn’t digested food for hundreds of years, because one sniff of her would make him throw up.

  Eric held himself still. “You’re just jealous, old woman.”

  “Jealous?” She stopped and stood before him. “You think I’m jealous of a mortal?”

  “You have not found anyone to console your restless spirit since your passing. Ja, you are jealous.”

  Her eyes blazed red for a second and then mellowed to swamp green. “We all find solace in our own ways. You seek a woman to love. Me … well, let’s just say it’s more complicated. I do not seek redemption, or transcendence, or love. I am happy for the solace I get helping others.”

  Bullshit. But he wouldn’t call her out on that. No one wants to hear that their life is pathetic. He really should pity her. She married an overbearing man and had a hard life and now she spent her time nagging ghosts. Surely there could be no—What did she call it? Solace?—in that. He folded his arms across his chest. “I am who I am. I know what I want. I want to be with Abby as long as she will have me.”

  “Why? Normally you spend your time flirting with women. Why attach yourself to this plain-looking widow?”

  “Abby is not plain. Her strength shines through her. I love the person she is, strong and caring and pure. Do you know she sings her baby to sleep every night? She can’t afford books, so she makes stories up for the other two. Every night they are tucked into bed with more care than any royal child.”

  “But she is mortal.”

  “Life and death are never fair.”

  “That we both know. So I have a plan for you.”

  Oh great. Words no ghost wants to hear from a death-shrink.

  “I have been asking around on your behalf, and I may be able to secure you a place in the Christian heaven. You have adequate criteria.

  “Heaven? With harps and angels?”

  “Ja and when Abby dies she will find you.”

  “Heaven feels wrong to me. I am a Viking.”

  “Who missed Valhalla.”

  “Ja, but truly I am not ready to go anywhere. I will stay and haunt and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Brunhilde growled low and deep. Her vibrations rattled through the cave bouncing back and forth between the walls, like foul smelling ping-pong balls. “Go then. Make a fool of yourself. But remember, when your heart breaks, I warned you, and I offered you a ticket to heaven.”

  18

  Battle On

  ABBY CLIMBED THE LADDER to put up the last Valentine heart. It had taken two days but when she got down and looked around, she felt her time had been well spent. The decorations transformed the haunted teahouse from scary to festive. Amazing what hearts could do. She stood and looked at them for a moment thinking back to all her Valentine celebrations. As a child her father would spoil her with treats, but her boyfriends had never been as thoughtful. Even Ben, as good a man as he was, had never been romantic about Valentine’s Day. A shame really. It’s the one day of the year when love is celebrated. Commercial crap aside, the real sentiment expressed on Valentine’s Day could not be more perfect. She sighed. True love, makes life worth living.

  Eric shimmered into view in front of her. He didn’t need to say
a word. The softness of his blue eyes told her how he felt. She swallowed. How could her feelings for him develop so quickly? She bit her lip. “Do you think Louis will appear tonight?”

  He nodded. “He’s hungry.”

  The woman screamed in the third room but it didn’t rattle Abby. She checked her cell phone. 12:13, the same time as last night. Heck, she could start telling it was her break time by the woman’s otherworldly shriek. Amazing how quickly one adapts to the strange. Ignoring it, she said, “I just wish we could trap him.”

  They moved to the kitchen and had tea. She told him about the séance and her research. He told her he had asked around, but hadn’t come up with much. At two in the morning they bundled up the kids and headed for Abby’s home.

  Eric used his kinesthetic ability to float the two older children to their Mom’s bed. Abby carried the baby and put her in the basket next to it.

  After fussing over them for a few minutes, they went down to the living room and sat on the sofa together, close, but of course not touching.

  Time passed slowly. Abby wanted to talk about something other than Louis. “Did you have a family?”

  “Ja. I had four brothers and three sisters.”

  “And a wife?”

  He hesitated before he spoke. “Ja, I was married at sixteen to strengthen the ties between my family and hers. She was nice.”

  “Nice? Just what I would want my husband to call me.”

  “We spent little time together. That was the way it was back then. I was always away fighting battles. If we had had more time, maybe we would have fallen in love.”

  “Children?”

  He shook his head. “Two pregnancies, but neither came to term. That was not uncommon then, but I wondered.”

  “Wondered?”

  “There was an herb women used when they didn’t want to carry a baby to full term and I think she used it. She said she didn’t mind losing the babies, that it was a sign she wasn’t ready to be a mother.”

  Abby couldn’t think of anything to say to that. How sad. A woman not wanting to have her husband’s child.

  He shrugged. “Life was not easy and she was very young. I don’t think she felt herself ready for the responsibility.”

  “But you love children.”

  “Ja.”

  “Did she know that?”

  He shrugged and looked towards the door, but there were no sounds.

  “If I was her I would have had your babies. Lots of them.”

  “Ja. I know you would.”

  He blew air towards her so the hair swished away from her face. “I planned to give her more attention, but we never had time. I don’t blame her. I don’t linger in the past.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His eyes softened. “It makes our time together sweeter.”

  What could she say to that. “There is nothing more important to me than my children. I wish you could have had that.”

  “I have this moment with you. That is all any of us have.”

  “So you like hanging out with me because I have kids?”

  “Nej, I like hanging out with you because you are you.”

  The air temperature suddenly plummeted. Black mist seeped under the front door.

  Louis had arrived.

  Eric stood and motioned for her to stay put. Like hell.

  The damp, dark cloud gathered before them and manifested into the form of a boy.

  Abby’s heart jumped into her throat.

  ***

  “ENOUGH POLTERGEIST.” ERIC FACED LOUIS. This had to stop.

  It was a final battle. Only one of them would survive in this dimension. If Louis won, Eric would meet the ultimate death. One with no afterlife. Eternal darkness within and without, a darkness that pressed in until there was nothing but darkness. All essence would be vanquished, leaving a spiritual, black hole. If Eric won, Louis would join his mother in heaven. It didn’t seem fair, but death never was. This was what Eric had learned from his friends that he didn’t share with Abby. He was risking everything for her.

  Louis expanded until his power took up a quarter of the room, a cloud of swirling black energy, kinetically whirling all objects in its path into a cyclone. Eric watched. There had to be a way to stop his insanity.

  Louis laughed, a maniacal sound that would churn the gut of a mortal Viking, but made Eric madder. The poltergeist threatened the life of the woman he loved and her children. He had never had children, so they would become his if he had his way. He could not have any of them harmed.

  “Enough.” Eric pulled a sword from the harness on his back, wishing the spirit had some flesh he could slice and dice.

  “No Viking. It will not be enough until I have at least one child.”

  “Nej.”

  “Oh yes. You can’t stop me. I will take one child and then another. In fact, I think I’ll take the woman while I’m at it, just to spite you.”

  Eric’s jaw clenched. “How inclusive.”

  “I’ve never been inside a woman before. In her body I’ll have fun with the men in town. With those full breasts. Mmm. I wonder how many will want to hold them. And then there’s her ass …”

  Eric had been a distinguished warrior, trained to still his anger for battle. He tried as hard as he could to hold his temper, but it wasn’t working. He wanted to crack a skull or two and unfortunately Louis had none. There had to be a way to end this spirit-asshole.

  Abby got up from the couch and moved beside him. For the love of Odin, what was the woman thinking?

  “Louis,” she said.

  The poltergeist moved towards her.

  “Oh settle down, I’m not afraid of you.”

  Eric couldn’t believe his ears. Had the woman no sense? She should be terrified. He had more power than all of the gambling ghosts put together.

  “You’re just a big baby,” she said to the evil spirit, ignoring Eric’s stare.

  Louis stopped in front of her.

  “You are a ‘little man.’ That is what your mother calls you. I talked with her. She cried and cried. She misses you. She wants you to be with her. It’s time for you to join her.”

  The spirit force drained from his human form and congealed into a puddle on the floor. “Momma?”

  Eric moved towards him. Louis’s face could be seen in the puddle.

  “Yes, your mother misses you,” said Abby

  “Momma?”

  “She remembers rocking you in her arms. She remembers your sweet laughter. She remembers …”

  “Stop.” Louis lifted an arm out of the puddle. “Please stop.”

  “She remembers the good in you Louis. She can’t change anything about your horrific death, though she wishes she could. But she can be with you now.”

  Oh Valhalla. Like that’s going to work on a badass.

  “I am no longer her child.” Louis’s voice took an ugly tone.

  “You are, and always will be, her baby.” The softness of Abby’s voice melted Eric’s heart. It was the voice of a mother: simple, calm and filled with an eternal truth about the bonds that unite us all. Even though they cut the cord between a mother and child at birth, the bond never dies.

  “I can’t go back. I can never go back.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Eric said. “The universe and all its realms are greater and more pliable than your mind could ever imagine. You know in your heart what the unifying force is. You just have to let it in.”

  The puddle turned a translucent blue, like water on a sunny, spring morning. It swallowed up what was left of his face.

  “Louis, your mother wants you.” Abby looked down at what was left of him. “Go to her Louis. Prove once and for all that you are the little man she believes in.”

  “But…”

  “But what Louis?”

  “I’m not finished here.”

  Silence fell for a moment and Eric worried that they had lost him.

  His puddle became bluer and the smell of an ocean breeze
hit the air. “My death wasn’t fair.”

  “No,” said Abby, “it wasn’t. And I’m sorry for that. Truly sorry. But hurting others, will not right that. The evil man who raped and killed you is dead. Long dead.”

  “I suffered. Others should suffer.”

  “Does it make you feel any better?” said Eric. If someone had told him he would be counselling a poltergeist to the far side, he would have told them they were crazy. Yet here he was doing just that. Abby was good for him. It seemed to be working. He would see his enemy die without any blood being shed. A true first for him.

  “I see a light.” Louis’s puddle glowed.

  “Be a man. Let it in.” Eric said.

  Louis sighed.

  19

  Valhalla

  AS THE PUDDLE EVAPORATED into tiny light bubbles, the room warmed. Eric started towards Abby, but Brunhilde appeared between them and an instant later he found himself once again in her cold, damp chambers between the realms.

  “Let me go,” he said.

  “You vanquished a poltergeist.”

  She looked softer around the edges than usual, but he didn’t care about that. All he cared about was being with Abby. “Let me go.”

  “I have heard from the gods, from Odin himself, in fact.

  “I don’t give a shit. Let me go.”

  “You have done good in the world, when you were alive and afterwards and now you have saved a family.”

  He grumbled.

  “You are a soul of the light.”

  He grumbled louder. Loud enough that his voice rumbled through the cave.

  “Odin says after this battle you have proved yourself worthy of Valhalla. He is making an exception for you, giving you a special entry permit. You will rise in your beloved Valhalla as a wounded warrior, victorious in battle.”

  “Nej.”

  “What?”

  “Nej.”

  “Have you lost your mind? Odin. The Odin, has given you the green Viking light.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to be in Valhalla.”