by M. Pax
Arm around her shoulder, Culver guided Daelin home. “It’s afraid of you now. You needn’t worry. You’re safe.” The rhythm of his words had a soothing quality.
His oddness made more sense now. The oddness of the whole town did if they spent most nights battling ghosts that collected heads. Daelin didn’t pull away from him. “I don’t understand any of it, other than Earl Blacke didn’t murder Susan and Greg.” She wrapped her coat tighter.
He squeezed her arm. “I’d like to explain, but to defeat the phantom we need you as you are.”
“Stupid and ignorant?”
Not a hint of mocking stained his features. “Innocent is a better word.”
“Okay.” What choice did Daelin have but to accept his lack of an explanation as an explanation. This town had no patch of sanity. What had Charming put her in the middle of? “Ghosts shouldn’t be real. More to the point, Haw Shot isn’t just any ghost.”
“Hmm.” Culver said nothing more, picking up her hand, leading her down Settler’s quiet streets. No trace of the battle with a phantom sullied them. She and Culver walked slowly, she chewing her lower lip.
Climbing up the knoll at the end of Madeline Street proved daunting after a beating. At the top of it, Culver swung her around, pointing at the tiny downtown, singling out an old house, the historical marker of Settler’s founding. “We celebrate Patrick this weekend. His arrival in this region changed everything. You heard of his bizarre home? Have you seen the inside of it?”
A lone light illuminated its weathered clapboards. “No. Somebody mentioned the nutty ancestor thing. Wald, I think.”
“The house in 1872 was like any other house. Summers were normal too. Until 1888. Everything changed that year. Now things happen here every summer that bend one’s reason.”
Like ghosts murdering folks and stealing their heads. Daelin crossed her arms, peering into Culver’s face. He remained completely serious. “Most of the town behaves as if they don’t notice. Why aren’t they out here wondering what’s going on?”
“It’s part of life here. Most people have lived here all their lives.” He shrugged. “This is a normal summer night.”
Normal had the most bizarre definition in Settler. “Charming knows better. So do Earl and I.”
The shadow of a smile played across Culver’s mouth. “Charming is one of us, like me, a protector. You saw us all battling Hawley. Earl is Earl. I greeted him when he first came through the gate.” He said it so matter-of-factly.
Of course her sister battled ghosts. And where had Earl come from? “He’s not from here?”
“I’ve said too much. Let’s get you home.” He guided her onto Charming’s porch.
He couldn’t stop talking now. She needed more.“So how many of you are there? People who defend against ghosts?”
He studied the pavement under his feet, sliding his hands into his pockets, hiding the strange watch he wore on his wrist and the odd tattoo around it. “You’ll have all the answers shortly, I promise. But not yet. Can you sleep? I could stay if you need company.” His dark gaze sparkled earnestly under the waning moonlight.
“If the phantom is scared of me, I’ll be fine. I need some time to think.” She needed to ditch him and talk to Earl.
“Of course.”
The strange items on Charming’s workbench in the garage made more sense and the item Earl had taken to Dante. Well, sort of. “My sister does what you do. Is that why she’s not here? She’s off battling monsters?”
The ground continued to fascinate Culver.“I really shouldn’t say—”
“Please. I need to know if she’s okay or not.”
He glanced in the direction of the obsidian pillars then met her gaze. “I don’t know, and I don’t know much. After Haw Shot is dealt with, I promise you’ll have your answers. Bargain?”
What? Daelin didn’t want to make deals, she wanted answers. Maybe she had been shot three weeks ago and lay in a coma in the hospital. That made more sense than scaring off a ghost who collected heads. “If you break your word, I’ll tear off your head.”
His lips curled into a sweet smile. “I’ll sit on your porch for awhile so you can feel safe.”
“No need. It’ll only keep me up worrying about you.” Daelin let herself into Charming’s cottage and shut the door, spying out the window to make sure Culver left.
Getting closer to finding out what had happened to her sister felt awful, yanking off a rotting head awful.
Dirt and ick covered Daelin’s hands. The rest of her couldn’t be any better. A quick spit bath and change of clothes was all she could manage. She didn’t want to leave Earl in the closet much longer.
She hadn’t expected his silly crystal bullet to lead to a fight with a phantom and the discovery the town had secrets deeper than the thoughts of a philosopher. “In all the dictionaries.”
hapter
Daelin rushed to the library, keeping out of the beams of the street lights, making sure she wasn’t seen. By expecting the closet to be where she had last seen it, it materialized. Right. This was Settler after all. She greeted Cordelia and opened the door.
Handing the bullet to Earl, she told him everything in one hurried breath. “I scared away the ghost. Everyone knows you didn’t kill Susan and Greg. You don’t have to hide anymore.”
“I’m cleared of the crime, but I still have what Haw Shot and its master wants.”
“Master? Ghosts don’t have masters. What you have to do is make a deal with me like Culver did. He promised to tell me everything he knows about Charming after tonight. You’ll tell me everything too. You owe me.”
“I’ve told you all I can.” Eyes twitching, Earl studied her. “What’s tonight?”
“Don’t try to change the subject. You’re always evading me—”
The front door opened, whisking in a gust of cold. It was still pitch as ink outside. On the chill wind’s tail came Sabina Staley. Daelin slammed the closet shut. It didn’t fade fast enough.
Sabina tossed two books on Daelin’s desk then strode straight over, peering at the vanishing door, adjusting the bubble lenses perched on her long, steep nose. “Mr. Blacke, this space is for emergencies only and not for just anyone.” She patted Daelin’s shoulder. “This is your domain. Take great care with how you use it.” She spoke to the closet again. “Despite the irregularity of your hiding here, I’m glad to run into you, Earl. I can take care of my business twice as fast.”
Surprise over disappearing doors or a murderer in the closet didn’t mar Sabina’s brow. Like Culver had mentioned last night, such events were normal in Settler, and as county commissioner Sabina set the standard. What did she want with Earl?
By holding up her hand, Sabina stopped Daelin from asking. “You had a great accomplishment against Haw Shot. The town needs the both of you to rid us of Hawley’s menace. Daelin, you’ll finish what you started. Earl will be your bait.” Her mouth quirked to one side, perhaps her version of a smile.
The invisible door rattled. There was no point in denying it or playing dumb. Daelin opened the closet. Earl stepped into the library. Bracing one hand on a hip, he stood as a gentleman from another time. Perhaps a clue as to where he came from, or when.
“You’re wanting to set a trap for Haw Shot?” Earl asked Sabina.
Her gaze never left his face. “Near the gate makes the most sense. Don’t you think?”
Earl combed his fingers through his normally finessed curls. They had gone wild since his encounter with the phantom. “Not if that spook is trawling for another head. It told me the heads increase its powers. Actually, I think the heads increase the hold the thing inside Haw Shot has over him.”
Sabina’s lips pursed. “Are you suggesting something controls the phantom? What have you seen?”
“Haw Shot materialized in my jail cell with Susan’s head on one shoulder, George’s on the other, and a beaked thing where Haw Shot’s head should have been. So I assume there’s a being inside the ghost. Most likely
from the rift. That makes the most sense.”
Sense? Daelin didn’t see any sign of it. She couldn’t shut her mouth. The two of them talked about all the strangeness so casually, as if it were mundane and every day. “Rabbit hole.”
Sabina’s features quivered like a bird’s. Her narrow nose and eyes added to the resemblance. “Tonight determines your future in ways you have yet to fathom.” Her fingers summoned Earl forward. “Let’s discuss this outside. She must remain innocent.”
They strode out of the library, standing in front of the window, whispering intently. Daelin tried to read their lips. Periodically she could decipher her name. The rest remained fuzzy except for the gesture mimicking the tearing off of a head. There was no doubting that meaning. What was so innocent about that?
hapter
Planning to defeat a rift creature with Sabina would make Charming scream. She had stressed over and over how her team couldn’t be placed in jeopardy with the Governors. Earl had promised a thousand times.
He took the utmost care in the words he chose with Sabina. When reunited with his girl, he wanted her to be pleased about what he’d done, not disappointed like his wife and daughters. This time would be different.
“The outlaw can’t stay.” Sabina tugged at Earl’s collar. “Neither one. Once you send the other packing, the other has to go too. I’m sure you understand me.”
When had she figured out who he had been? He wouldn’t own up to it, like he wouldn’t own up to another name when arrested in 1883. This version of his bones was Earl Blacke, but not much longer. The things from the other worlds would keep coming for Charming and Dante. Earl would have to give up this world to spend the rest of his life in that damned closet.
“I’ll be your bait, then I’ll go because I choose to.” Earl scrunched his brow, mirroring her leer. She needed a good deep look at his notorious side.
She shook a lithe finger at his nose, filling his nostrils with her lilac perfume. “Earl Blacke can stay if he’s your true nature.”
No one knew his true nature. He had tried to show Charming, but couldn’t do it. His nature was to keep himself to himself. “And how many times will you threaten to out me if I stay? Plenty of people heard Hawley call me another name. How do I explain it?”
Her brows rose, getting lost in the ebony frames of her eyeglasses, which encircled a pair of startling green eyes. “Who can take him seriously? If you run off, it’s your doing not Settler’s, not mine, and not Hawley’s. Who would believe you’re a man from the 1880s anyway?”
“I don’t want to talk about him. I’m not him. Not anymore.” He shrugged his shoulders, shoving his past aside. “What do you intend for Daelin? Answer me honestly, and I’ll be your sacrificial lamb for Haw Shot.”
“You’re no innocent. Don’t try that on me, and you know what I intend for the new librarian. She’ll join her sister and surpass her. Look at her. Undeniably, she’ll become one of my best if she sets her mind to it.”
To save her sister, Daelin would put every ounce of determination she had into excelling as Sabina’s minion. Daelin and the rift were meant to be. “Take good care with her and vow you won’t come searching for me.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled upwards. “One of these days, you’ll sit down in my parlor, and I’ll know all of your secrets. Every last one of them.”
His jaw stiffened. “Don’t be so sure.”
Sabina’s fire and steel would either save this world or doom it. “When this world is done with me, you’ll come.” She brushed her snow white curls behind her ears. “See you at sundown. Right here.”
“Fine. Bring Daelin one of your Rifter gadgets to get the gem out of Haw Shot’s throat. We’re guaranteed a victory if she can remove it.”
“I’ll send something over.”
He watched her walk away then went back inside the library. “Sabina says we’ll meet here tonight.” Two books sat on the librarian’s desk. The top one snagged Earl’s attention. The Notorious of the Wild West. An old photo of him graced the cover. “No way in this era or the next.” He slid the tome off the desk and behind his back, slipping it under his shirt.
Beneath the book on outlaws laid a leather-bound journal, aged, cracked, the robin’s egg blue fading to bland. Earl grabbed it as well. It could destroy Daelin’s innocence and the only shot at vanquishing the pesky Haw Shot.
“What are you doing?” She reached for the journal before he could hide it away. “I have to log books before you check them out. Library policy.”
Having no choice, he handed over the journal so she wouldn’t notice the other he hid. His past had no place here. What good would it do? It’d do nothing but cause him grief and get in the way of helping his girl. “Sorry.”
Her fingers brushed over the cracked leather, then she checked the spine. “There’s no title.” The cover wouldn’t open. “It’s stuck. Hmm.” Her brows furrowed. Her fingers pulled at the pages. They didn’t budge. “How odd. I’ll have to research how to unstick it. What’s the title? What’s it about?”
How much longer until she accepted odd as routine? Settler had heaped it on since her arrival. “Sabina left it.”
“Oh, I’ll ask her later.” Daelin sat down at her desk, opened the top drawer, and dropped in the book. “Now the deal we discussed earlier, are you ready to promise?”
No. Not even if stagecoaches raced around the west again. “When the time is right. It’s not now, Daelin. Honest. In the meantime, I’ll tell you something to insure your victory against Haw Shot. Did you notice the jewel in its throat?”
“The bright green patch?” She pointed to her neck. “About there?”
“That’s it. It’s the key to defeating Hawley. You have to take it from him.”
“By sticking my hand down his throat and grabbing it?” She crossed her arms, snickering. “Right.”
The library door swung open. Culver strode in, waving, his wrist glowing purple. He reached into his mail pouch. “Sabina sent me. I’ve just the thing for dislodging jewels from ghosts.”
hapter
Daelin stared at the crystal knife in her hand. Copper coils wound around the handle, forming a trigger. A trigger on a knife. She would press it once to power the weapon then press it again when plunging it into Hawley’s neck. Her. “Right.”
“Put it away until you need it.” Earl lounged in the middle of the street in front of the Sparrow Roadhouse. He lay on his back with his hands behind his head, staring up at the sky.
Daelin crouched in the shadows of the dry cleaners with Culver. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”
“It’s a ghost.” Culver adjusted the strange watch on his wrist. “It’s already dead. So, you’re not killing it, you’re returning it to where it belongs.”
She scratched at an itch on the end of her nose. “Which is where?”
“Sabina gave you the book. It’ll open when she commands then you’ll have your answers.” He stared straight down the road as if Daelin didn’t kneel beside him.
The book would open on Sabina’s orders. The answers would mysteriously appear. The ghost was no ghost. The list of bizarre grew endless. Daelin glared at Earl. Earlier he had told her the phantom wasn’t exactly a phantom, that another creature controlled it. He couldn’t say what kind of creature.
Of course not. No one said a whole lot about anything in this town. How could a ghost be possessed? Didn’t they usually do the possessing? “I went insane after the robber shot at me. That’s it.” She ran her fingertip over the blade. The honed edge sliced her skin, biting with a tang of heat, welling up droplets of blood. Daelin stuck her finger in her mouth.
Culver took the knife. “When Haw shot shows, I’ll give it back.”
She grabbed at his wrist. The device strapped to it burst with soft flares of gold and aqua, pulsing in time with the tattooed circuitry covering his arm. She marveled at its gentle violet flickers. “What’s all this?”
“Later.”
Of cour
se.
The rest of the protectors hid up and down Brucker Avenue. Periodically, they flashed signals Culver could interpret. So far, all was quiet. Francine and Tiny squatted in the shadows of the general store. Moses plastered himself like a shadow against the cars at the dealership. Wald concealed himself on the porch of The Sparrow Roadhouse across the street. Vance crouched in the blackened window of an empty storefront ready to pounce. Their ineffectiveness against the ghost last night didn’t make their presence comforting. Tumbleweeds could do as much for Daelin.
A coyote howled, piercing the stillness of nightfall, adding to the expectation. Mayhem would come. Pandemonium sparked in a green flash over the manhole cover in front of the mercantile down the avenue. Like a bizarre weed, Haw Shot sprung up from the depths.
Daelin’s breath caught. She reached for the knife. Culver gave it to her.
“When the opportunity arises,” he whispered, “don’t hesitate. You can’t. You might only get one chance.”
“No pressure.” In all the dictionaries, he had some nerve. Daelin scowled.
Like a runaway freight train, Hawley barreled at Earl, pouncing on him, lifting him by his hair into the air. “I hate you, Bart.”
Who was Bart? The faint breeze dried Daelin’s lips. She gripped the knife tighter.
Earl struggled, kicking his feet, swinging his fists futilely. “This ends tonight, Hawley.”
“Haw, haw. If that’s the way you want it.” Haw Shot slipped its hands into Earl’s, swinging him around. “Let’s go into the Roadhouse and get us some heads. I need a replacement for Susan’s.” Greg’s bounced sickeningly with Hawley’s every twitch.
The ghost pivoted, showing its back to Daelin. She couldn’t swallow. Culver nudged her then pushed harder. Daelin stumbled into the street. Oh boy. Did she dare? She raised the knife. Two inches from Hawley’s neck, she stepped on a pebble. The soft crunch blared like twenty-seven car horns.
