Spirited

by C. M. Stunich

  “Shadow whisperers?” Jas asked, cheering up considerably now that her wounds were healed. She flipped dark hair over one shoulder, blue eyes twinkling. “Do you think we could put this exorcism down on our application form?”

  “Application form?” Elijah asked, but he was a spirit and Jas couldn't see him unless I spelled her or she activated the spirit charm around her throat. It only had so much energy, and it was hard as Hell to make it, so she used it sparingly.

  “For the Royal College,” I answered as I sighed and struggled to find my feet. I was exhausted and in need of a good meal and a nap.

  “Who's your friend?” Jas asked as I glanced over at Elijah and found him watching me with keen interest. Jas—unlike everyone else in my life—didn't question me when I started talking to people who weren't there. She was as aware as I was that spirits were real. Flub, they weren't just real, they were our whole life.

  “Elijah of Haversey,” I explained as I groaned and stretched both my arms and wings at the same time. Elijah shifted and flicked his wings out briefly before tucking them in close to his back.

  “The missing student?!” Jas nearly squealed, stumbling to her feet and staring in Elijah's general direction. “Oh, Brynn, this is perfect. We'll get in this year for sure; I can feel it.”

  “I don't want to be exorcised,” Elijah said simply, holding up a hand when I raised my eyebrows in a skeptical sort of facial expression. Of course he didn't want to be exorcised—hardly any ghost ever did. Well, any people ghost. Animals, if they were unfortunate enough to get stuck here, always wanted to move on. “And it's not what you think,” he said with a long sigh, dragging his fingers though the ebony darkness of his hair.

  In the distance, a razor wolf's howl cut the night air in half, making me shiver. Razor wolves were never good news—they ate spirits and kept their souls trapped inside their bellies which, oftentimes, was a span of hundreds and hundreds of years. Imagine that—being trapped in an animal's stomach for centuries.

  I swallowed hard and felt my skin prickle with goose bumps.

  Elijah heard them, too, and his nostrils flared wide.

  “I know you've heard it all before, but …” He paused and looked at me with a slight tilt of his head, sliding his hands into the front pocket of his black Royal College breeches. “I can't leave until I've spoken to the queen.”

  “The queen?” I asked, cocking a single brow. “What business would a student have with the queen?”

  Elijah pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “You have to bring her here,” he told me as I rolled my eyes. 'It's not what you think,' he says, when really he's like every other spirit out there … I was so going to exorcise his bum.

  “There is no flubbing way the queen is going to come all the way out here to speak with a student's ghost,” I said, bending down to pick up the knife. I flashed it at Elijah, moonlight reflecting off the jeweled blade. “Now—easy way or hard way? It's your choice.”

  “What's going on?” Jasinda asked, reaching a hand up and letting it hover around her spirit charm. She hated not knowing what was going on.

  “Nothing,” I said with a smile as Elijah's jaw clenched tight and he narrowed his blue-white eyes on me. That lazy slouch of his did nothing to endear him to me. No way. I wasn't at all interested in him as a man. Eh. Too bad he was a ghost … “He wants us to bring the queen here.” I tried my flubbing best not to roll my eyes, but it happened anyway.

  “I have proof,” Elijah said, stalking over to the chipped marble of the front steps and dropping into a crouch. A good two dozen rat and mice spirits clustered around his ankles; I imagined he'd been the only comfort they'd had for a long, long time. “Here,” he continued, pointing into the bushes with a single finger.

  As a spirit, it was difficult for Elijah to touch anything without putting some effort into it. He could make it look like he was standing or sitting on something, but to actually grab an object, he needed to put forth a ton of energy. Guess he was tapped out because whatever it was he wanted me to see, he didn't grab it.

  Instead, when he saw that I was just standing there, he rolled his eyes and then stood up, stalking over to grab my arm.

  Did I mention that I was the exception to the rule?

  Spirit whisperers could not only touch spirits, but they could be touched by spirits.

  “Come look and then, if you still think I'm full of poop”—Elijah maybe didn't exactly say poop there but I dubbed the word in my head automatically—“I'll wait peacefully while you exorcise me.”

  I stared down at the pale blue-white color of his fingers, their icy cold grip locking me in place. Too bad he'd used up all his energy trying to help me; I'd preferred it when he was warm.

  “Fine.”

  I flipped my snow-white braid over one shoulder and gestured for Jas to follow.

  Elijah took me to the edge of the overgrown bush, its dark green tendrils threatening to consume what was left of the sagging front porch, and then thrust my hand into the brush, closing my fingers around a leather wrapped scroll.

  Pulling the item free of the thorns —and entertaining several nice, long gashes in the process—I held the scroll in my hands and stared at the dried, cracked surface of the leather. Each end was tied with fraying purple, red, and white twine—the colors of the royal family.

  “That doesn't mean anything,” I muttered as Elijah released my arm and I turned the scroll toward me, finding the chipped remains of a wax seal. And not just any wax seal, mind you, but the queen's.

  “What's this?” Jas asked, snatching the item from my hands and thrusting hers right through Elijah's chest. They both shivered and instinctively stepped away from one another. Jas would be feeling an icy chill traveling up her arm, while Elijah would be experiencing an almost agonizing sort of warmth.

  My handler unwrapped the ruined leather from the scroll, yanking the single piece of paper open so she could read it, the sapphire blue of her eyes shimmering brightly.

  “Brynn,” she choked out, sending a small flicker of … either excitement or dread, I wasn't sure, skittering down my spine. “Do you know what this?” she asked and I noticed Elijah's full mouth twisting to the side in a smirk.

  “It's a decree from the queen,” he said as Jas flashed a bright grin and flicked her eyes up to meet mine.

  “It's a decree from the queen,” she repeated as Elijah adjusted the loose sleeves of his Royal College uniform, torn at the shoulders—no doubt from the whole being ripped limb from limb thing. In his spirit form, Elijah could choose to remain whole, but the clothing he wore reflected the way he died. “Brynn, this is an order of free passage. Do you have any idea what this means?”

  I did, but I didn't know how to feel about it.

  Finding the queen's decree … exorcising the Grandbergs … and running into Elijah of Haversey—that basically guaranteed us a spot at the academy.

  “Told you,” the bum-hole (or asshole as Jas might say) said as he leaned one muscular shoulder against the crumbling edge of a marble column. Okay, so he was really leaning more inside of the column, but I wasn't one to be picky. “You need to tell the queen that I found out what she needs to know.”

  “Just tell me then,” I said, crossing my arms over the front of my leather vest. Jas was too busy reading and rereading the scroll to notice me arguing with a spirit.

  Elijah's smirk deepened three shades more infuriating.

  “Not a chance,” he told me, one sleeve of his jacket sliding down his arm and exposing a whole flub of a lot of muscle. His white-blue eyes crinkled in a way that both made my heart pound and my fists clench tight. “Take that decree back to the queen and tell her you saw me.” Elijah bent down and picked up the spirit of a tiny mouse, standing up and holding it close to his chest. “Trust me—she'll want to know what it is I have to say.”

  With a tightening of my lips, I used the tiniest inkling of magic I had left to heal the scratches on my hand, turned, and promptly tripp
ed over a blackberry bush.

  Elijah's laughter followed me all the way off the property and onto the street.

  Brynn of Haversey stormed off in her leather boots and breeches, her handler tagging close behind her.

  I stood at the edge of the Grandberg property watching them, wishing with every ounce of my soul that I could follow. I was tired of being alone; I was fucking done with being dead.

  Fortunately, the information I had to tell the queen was good. Excellent. It was hope lost in the pages of an old book. It was a chance to escape the Hell I'd been stuck in for the past year.

  A second chance at life.

  Curling my fingers around the edge of the outer wall, I watched Brynn's long white braid swinging behind her as she walked, leather satchel slung over one shoulder. I tried not to stare at the rounded curve of her ass, but I'd been alone for a long time and Brynn of Haversey was exactly my type. I'd have been interested in her even without an entire year of forced celibacy.

  My ghostly form might not have had actual needs, but my soul remembered what the touch of another person's hands felt like on my skin, fingertips skimming over sweaty flesh. I craved it almost as much as I craved a fruit and jelly roll, one of those thin chocolate pancakes with sugary fruit wrapped up inside.

  Turning back toward Grandberg Manor, I felt this pull inside my chest, a tug that yanked at the very core of my being. It was a sickening, lurching rip, like my spirit was being torn apart from the inside out.

  Against my own will, I found myself being dragged backward, out the gate I hadn't been able to pass through since the day I died and down the broken cobblestones of the old street. If I'd been alive, I might've felt nauseous, might've thrown up on the toes of my boots. Instead, I just felt like I was on fire.

  “Brynn, stop!” I choked out, the words garbled and broken. Had I been speaking to a less powerful spirit whisperer, I doubt she'd have heard me. Instead, my spirit came to an abrupt halt, and I looked down to find my hands disappearing and reappearing like clouds passing over the moon, shadows and then silver, shadows and silver.

  Spinning around, I channeled my magic—because magic was always there, regardless of whether or not it had a body to go with it—into my form, making myself as solid and corporeal as possible.

  Brynn was staring at me from around the curve in the road, past the burnt-out shell of an old carriage. There were blackberries fucking everywhere and for just a split-second, I was glad I was a ghost so they didn't catch on my breeches and scratch my legs to Hell like they were doing to Brynn.

  “Flubbing mother flubbers,” she snarled as she kicked off spindly arms and crushed big ripe purple berries under her boots. The cloying sweetness of overripe fruit filled the air as I made my way toward Brynn and her handler, each step a careful experiment. I'd tried leaving the Grandberg Manor before, but as a spirit whisperer, I'd known that where I was bound was near absolute.

  Near absolute.

  Unless of course, a powerful spirit whisperer just happened to stumble along and … unbind you.

  “How did you get off the property?” she asked me, putting her hands on her generous hips and then flexing her wings in irritation. The right one smacked another old carriage—this one made of enchanted glass that lay in shattered pieces on the moonlit cobblestones. Only the heavy glass frame was intact.

  Brynn cringed and curled her wings in with a wince. They were beautiful, ebony black and glossy as the night around us, ringing the moon in charcoal velvet. An angel's wings could come in any color, but black … that was rare. Brynn must've had a minor blessing from the Dark God, Hellim—Haversey's on-again, off-again lover.

  Maybe that was how she'd managed to beat the Grandbergs?

  “I don't know,” I said, spreading my palms wide and then kicking what looked like a skull on the ground beside my foot. Of course, my toe went right through it, but on closer inspection, I saw that it really was a skull. Probably human, too. “Maybe you freed me?”

  “Ghosts can't be freed,” Brynn said, her voice husky and warm. I quite liked the sound of it. “They can only be re-bound to a different place or to—”

  “A person,” I said, letting a smile work its way across my face.

  “What's going on?” the sapphire-eyed Amerin woman asked. Brynn had said her name before. Now what was it … That's right—Jas.

  Brynn flicked her gold eyes from her handler and then over to me. I couldn't help it; when she looked at me with a pinched brow, I wanted to smirk. And the more my expressions infuriated her, the more I wanted to keep doing them.

  I really was an asshole, wasn't I?

  “Let's keep walking, shall we?” I said, reaching out and taking Brynn by the arm before she could protest. I loved that she let me touch her. It'd been a long time since I'd touched anything so … lively. Touching Brynn of Haversey sent warm thrills through me that made me feel alive again. Heat pooled in my stomach as I ran my tongue across my lips. The only 'living' things I'd been able to touch since my death had been mice and rats—and only then as they lay bleeding on the manor's dirty floors. Mrs. Grandberg quite liked to tear their throats out and drink their blood. For fun, of course, because she didn't gain much from it otherwise.

  “I didn't unbind you,” Brynn said, but she didn't sound particularly convinced. Her tanned skin glowed under the moonlight and her wings rustled as she shifted them, her much taller handler standing next to us with her brows raised. She was Brynn's opposite in a lot of ways—dark hair to light, white skin to brown, tall to short, thin to … curvy and round in all the right places.

  I shuddered and Brynn gave me a look.

  “What's going on?” Jas asked, forcing her long-legged strides to match Brynn's much shorter ones. The handler pushed strands of dark hair from her face, blood speckling her white skin, a reminder that not fifteen minutes earlier, she was dying from her injuries. Seeing her, tall and dressed in an Amerin silk shirt … reminded me of my own handler and the brutal death I'd led him to at Grandberg Manor.

  Once again, I shuddered but it wasn't out of joy.

  Not everyone left a ghost and my handler … he'd fled this world as quickly as the blood had left his body, leaving me completely and utterly alone. I supposed I deserved it, after having gotten him killed.

  “Elijah of Haversey again,” Brynn said, not even bothering to control the rolling of her eyes. “He thinks I unbound him; I didn't.”

  “Well, someone must have, little spirit shouter,” I whispered, leaning low and using magic to make my breath stir Brynn's hair. It took effort—a lot of fucking effort—but it was worth it to see her shiver. Goose bumps pebbled her bronze skin as I teased her flesh with my fingers. She shoved me hard enough that if I'd been alive, I'd have gone sprawling off the cliff to my death.

  On our left sides, a row of mansions and their once glorious grounds stretched out and backed up against the forest and the mountains. But on our right, the navy dark of the Canary Sea glimmered under silver moonlight. It was clear that at one time, a decorative and probably much needed safety fence of some kind lined the edges of this cliff.

  Not anymore.

  Now it was simply a tumble past thick succulents clinging to the rocky side, jutting boulders, and a rough splash in a warm, warm sea—one that would kill a human instantly. An angel would survive the fall, but a half-angel like Brynn? That was only a maybe.

  I made sure to keep myself between her and the crumbling edge of the road. While I found her clumsiness charming, it was a definite health hazard on the narrow, shattered street, especially with debris strewn about like a hurricane had passed through. I'd seen the girl trip not just once, but four times already.

  “Maybe your point of binding just shifted?” Brynn mused, using a technical term to reference the center of the circle in which a spirit was bound. She used her left arm to push long, white bangs from her forehead, those gold eyes of hers a signature feature of the Nomaid people. Her short curvy body, that bronze skin, those eyes, large but
slanted at the edges … there was no mistaking her heritage. Half-angel, half-Nomaid. I'd never seen that combination before and I was spellbound.

  “Maybe,” I said, blinking to bring myself back to the conversation at hand. “Or maybe you accidentally bound my spirit to you?” I paused, tapping my lower lip and liking the way Brynn's eyes followed the motion. “What if it wasn't so accidental?”

  “You're a … mother flubbing bleeding blatherer,” Brynn growled out under her breath, tearing her arm away from mine and rubbing at the spot where our elbows had touched.

  “Are you cursing out a spirit again?” the handler asked, moving up on Brynn's other side and picking her way carefully over giant lumps of broken stone, clusters of blackberry bushes, and the bleached white skeleton of a horse.

  In more ways than one, this neighborhood really was dead.

  “I might be,” Brynn said, glancing up at me with narrowed gold eyes. “But he deserves it.”

  “Do I? I saved your ass back there, didn't I? Maybe I deserve more than an insult … maybe I deserve a kiss?” I leaned in close and Brynn swatted me with one big, glossy wing, rolling her eyes yet again. Maybe it was her only defense against my charm?

  “You're a pain in the rump and a cocky, arrogant son of a blitz,” she threw back at me as we hit the end of the cobbled path and found ourselves at a crossroads. Brynn paused to examine the faded wooden signs, turned on her heel, and started walking in the wrong direction.

  “Honestly,” Jas continued, grabbing onto Brynn's shoulders and turning her around to face both me and the road that lead to the nearest occupied town this close to Amerin's western border. I flashed a cocky smile and slouched against a signpost, Brynn's eyes catching on my biceps as my tattered shirtsleeve slid down my right arm. “Your made-up words have gotten so ridiculous, it's impossible to actually decide if you're trying to insult someone … or if you're writing a very strange children's book.”