The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance (Mammoth Books)

by Trisha Telep

  “I’d heard it was possible,” Mason muttered, examining the apparition. “But I’ve never actually seen an ecto-impression. It must have been triggered when the orb hit the ground.”

  Seemingly aware of Mason’s inspection, the largely transparent man squared his shoulders and glared. “Young man, it is most impolite to stare.”

  Mason jerked away, his boots tangled in his discarded coat and he sat down heavily, shock and wonder filling his face.

  Ro laughed, but she clamped a hand over her mouth as the phantom focused its dull eyes on her.

  “Hello, my dear.” Something in the lines of the man’s face softened when he looked at her. “Would you mind telling where I am?”

  She slid forward, unsure about moving closer. “You’re in the tunnels beneath Ithe, sir.”

  “Ah,” he exclaimed, reexamining the passages. “That would explain the chill.”

  “Do you remember who you are?”

  “Of course, I do! What a silly question.” He puffed out his chest and tipped his hat. “Lord Everett Duffy, at your service, Miss . . .”

  “Vargas.” She smiled in quiet triumph. “Rosalind Vargas.”

  “Enchanted, Miss Vargas,” Lord Duffy said. He shifted his focus to Mason. “And you, sir?”

  “No one with whom you need concern yourself,” he grumbled, regaining his feet.

  “There’s no need to be rude,” Duffy retorted.

  “I beg your pardon, but Ro and I were—”

  “Mason,” Ro hissed his name in a warning. Heat bloomed across her cheeks. “That’s enough.”

  He grumbled an oath and picked up his coat, shaking it free of clinging debris.

  “My lord,” Ro said, focusing on the phantom. “I was hired by your wife to—”

  “My wife? Where is she? Is she well?”

  “Yes, she’s fine. She’s waiting for you at the Kresa. I was hired—”

  “The Kresa,” Duffy interrupted, scratching his bearded chin. “But that’s a mourning ship. Why would Helena be on board a mourning ship?”

  “Poor bastard doesn’t know he’s dead,” Mason muttered.

  “Dead!” the specter exclaimed. “I most certainly am not, sir! Why I’m . . .” He levitated on a cloud of green and blue mist. “I’m . . .” He frowned and looked at the swirling vapor that comprised his lower legs. “Stars preserve us. I remember . . .”

  Ro brushed past Mason. “What do you remember, my lord?”

  “Dacat . . .” Duffy grabbed his chest as if in pain and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, my dear. Helena is my only concern. She must be worried if she hired both of you to find me.”

  Mason stepped in front of her. “Your lady is very worried, sir. Perhaps we should take you to her straight away.”

  Ro shoved him aside. “We aren’t going anywhere, you rascal. Lady Helena didn’t hire you. She hired me. And we can’t leave yet. Not after you set off that stink mortar. The market will be filled with Peacemakers.”

  “Not up to the challenge, love?”

  She sighed. “We’ll have to find a safe place to stay the night, then go to Lady Helena in the morning.”

  “You want to stay here?” Mason scoffed. “In the tunnels?”

  “It won’t be the first time,” she retorted, searching the ground near Duffy.

  “What are you looking for, my dear?” the specter asked.

  The dark glass orb reflected the light of the churning haze around him. Ro scooped up the fist-sized sphere and Duffy’s apparition wavered. “I’m looking for this.”

  Mason snatched it from her hand. “That belongs to me, love.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Ro reached for the orb. “It belongs to Lady Helena.”

  He juggled it between his hands, keeping her off balance. “I don’t see her name on it.”

  Duffy shuddered. “Be careful with that!”

  “Give it back, Mason, or I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” He dropped it into his pocket and grinned. “Run to the Peacemakers and tell them I filched something you were hired to pinch? Unlikely.”

  What would she do? What could she do? Fighting him for the orb wasn’t an option. Mason stood more than a full head taller and outweighed her. She needed to distract him and take the orb without his knowledge.

  Ro grabbed the lapels of his coat and kissed him.

  His shock lasted seconds and then his arms wrapped around her waist, threatening to crush her.

  Duffy cleared his throat and muttered, “Highly inappropriate behavior.”

  The fire that had previously consumed her mind flared to life. She fought to control it, to keep Mason distracted, but her desire eroded her focus.

  By the Stars, she could still feel his excitement and it set her thoughts into a confusing jumble.

  Lady Helena was counting on her . . .

  Mason had never kissed her before despite his flirtations because . . .

  Ro hooked a leg around Mason’s and his hand slid from her waist, over her bottom and down her thigh. She slipped one hand to his neck and the other into his pocket.

  . . . to return her husband’s soul in exchange for . . .

  . . . she was a Dreg, nothing could change that, not even . . .

  The smooth surface of the ecto-orb cooled her fingertips.

  . . . she was just a Dreg . . .

  . . . to return the orb for . . .

  She pulled the orb from Mason’s pocket and transferred it to her own.

  . . . seventeen coppers.

  She broke the kiss, startled by her own overlapping thoughts.

  Mason sucked in a quivering breath. “Do that again, love, and you may not leave these tunnels with your virtue intact.”

  “Give me the orb,” she whispered, her own voice shaky with emotion.

  He smiled and smoothed a lock of her curly hair behind her pointed ear. “Nice try but the answer is still no.”

  She lowered her leg and stepped back. Heat scalded her face. She hoped he would mistake her blush for anger, and not for the confusing mixture of excitement and sorrow she now felt.

  Ro scooped up her fallen glow-rod. “If you’re not going to return the orb, then I suggest we find a safe place to stay for the night.”

  Mason watched her for a moment as though he’d encountered an unexpected obstacle, and then settled his goggles over his eyes. He drew a breath and blew it out in an explosive puff. “We can always go to the Furnace Room.”

  Ro cringed. While she often used the tunnels beneath Ithe as a safe haven, she usually avoided the informal tavern and black market outpost that had sprung up in the cellar of one of the burned-out buildings.

  “Sunset isn’t for another few hours,” Mason said, seeing her reluctance. “We’re going to need food and drink eventually. We can find both there.”

  “You’re right.” She sighed, and gestured for him to lead the way.

  Holding her glow-rod aloft to illuminate the tunnel, she picked her way through the debris piles left behind by the storm run-off. Her steps landed lightly on the tunnel’s brick floor and made no noise as she passed from one passageway to the next, following a series of symbols carved into the walls that shone in the light.

  A chill, sweeping along behind, alerted her that Lord Duffy’s ecto-impression still trailed them. The spirit had fallen silent after her and Mason’s overly affectionate display.

  She wasn’t proud of herself, but pilfering the orb, by any means possible, had been necessary.

  Now the memory of his body pressed to hers quickened her pulse. Her thoughts drifted to her earlier encounter with him in the market, when he’d jokingly implied her company was the reason for his return. An unexpected rush of excitement made her skin tingle.

  She would admit she found Mason attractive, but despite his often bawdy banter, she’d never seen him look at her the way he did other women. She’d never seen the same heat in his eyes or the piercing stare that stole other women’s breath. She’d never had the sense that he
saw her as anything other than a rival or the occasional criminal companion.

  But what did she know of men? No honorable man in Ithe would touch her because of her bastard birth. How many times had she seen Mason diving out of a window when a woman’s husband or lover returned home? It would be easier to count the Stars above . . . and yet he did come back and save her from the Peacemakers.

  And the way he’d held her . . .

  Ro gritted her teeth. By the Stars, she would not allow herself to develop actual feelings for him.

  When they paused at an intersection, she couldn’t prevent herself from opening her mouth. “You never did tell me the real reason you came back to Ithe.”

  His spine straightened and he looked sidelong at her.

  “You weren’t lying, were you? You do have a bounty on your head.”

  Light from her glow-rod highlighted his profile as he nodded.

  “How much?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  He looked away.

  “You’re planning to use the ecto-orb as a bartering chip.”

  His eyes were hidden behind his lighted goggles, but she felt his gaze skip from her to Lord Duffy and back.

  “You would so willingly trade another man’s life for your own?”

  Mason’s face twisted in anger. “He’s dead, Ro!” He jabbed a finger at Duffy. “He has no life. I do.”

  “He has a right to be at peace in the Well of Souls.”

  “And I have no right to freedom?”

  “You can’t barter another’s soul for your own, Mason!”

  He punched the wall, making Ro jump.

  “There’s no honor in such an act, and you know it,” she whispered.

  Mason braced his palms against the tunnel wall, his chin lowered. “You and your Stars-cursed principles,” he growled. Sighing, he set off down an adjacent tunnel.

  “Where are you going?” Ro called after him. “The Furnace Room is the other direction.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Mason?” She watched as the brightness of his lighted goggles reflecting on the walls disappeared around a bend.

  An eternity filled only by the sound of her anxious breath seemed to pass before Lord Duffy spoke. “He cares for you, Miss Vargas.”

  She glared at the ecto-impression. “Mason Beck cares for no one but Mason Beck.” With a final quick look after Mason, she headed up the opposite passage. “He just proved that,” she murmured.

  Duffy floated along beside her. “His actions may seem selfish, but a man’s heart is a complicated creature and is often at odds with his head.”

  “You’ll forgive me, my lord, if I disagree.”

  “You only see one side of him, my dear, but my gaze penetrates much deeper.” He fixed his dull eyes on her. “Like all men, your Mister Beck must resolve the incongruity between his heart and head. I wager when he returns it’ll be with a much different outlook.”

  “Mason doesn’t change his mind easily.”

  “Not even for you?”

  “Especially not for me.” Her own words echoed back to her, cutting more deeply than she’d believed possible.

  Duffy seemed to ponder this for a moment. “He is your betrothed, no?”

  She laughed, sharp and bitter.

  “Forgive me, but I thought, with the—”

  “I’m nothing to Mason aside from a rival thief.”

  “But you and he—”

  “A game of one-upmanship, my lord. He and I want the same thing – your ecto-orb – and we’re both willing to do what we have to do to get it.” Ro shook her head. “Besides, Mason is human. I’m half Fae. Even if Mason were marriage-minded, it’s forbidden for Dregs like me to marry, and I won’t consider a common pair-bonding.”

  Duffy offered no further observations, and they continued on in silence, allowing Ro to reconcile her newest misery.

  They passed through several more tunnel intersections before reaching a section that had been boarded over. Standing before the patchwork of planks, Ro knocked once, paused again, knocked once more, paused, and then rapidly three times.

  An answering two knocks came from the other side of the barrier and a panel slid open. A pair of dark eyes peered at her through the opening for a moment before disappearing. The panel shut and, a few heartbeats later, a series of locks tumbled and clicked, and a hidden door swung open on silent hinges.

  Ro stepped into a makeshift alcove. What had once been another tunnel had been sealed off after a minor collapse several years prior. Now the guard’s bulk consumed most of the space, and the scent of stale bread and sour whiskey made her stomach churn. Glowing glass tubes, similar to the one she held, were suspended from wires strung along the ceiling of the entry and along an adjacent corridor.

  The guard closed the door and slid a massive bolt into place. Hidden gears clanked, and the thump of locks turning echoed up the passage. The guard waved her through the entry, seemingly unaware of Lord Duffy’s ecto-impression hovering behind her, and settled his sizeable bulk onto a steel-reinforced bench.

  Ro entered a narrow earthen channel and soon reached a set of spiraling stone stairs. Climbing the steps, she emerged in what had been a spacious basement beneath a warehouse. When the building had burned and collapsed, the entrance to the basement from the street level had been blocked. The darker side of Ithe’s population quickly seized the abandoned space, permanently cutting off access to the basement except through the underground network of tunnels, and established a thriving tavern and black market.

  Conversations ended and heads turned in her direction. Anyone entering the tavern was bound to an oath of neutrality and non-violence so as not to attract the Peacemakers. However, this didn’t prevent the Furnace Room’s patrons from looking at her with suspicion or whispering insults under their rank breath.

  She ordered a mug of honey water and some bread from the barkeep and handed over a few brass mites, remainders of the coppers Lady Helena had given her. Ignoring the glares directed at her, she sat at a small corner table opposite the doorway.

  Lord Duffy’s specter bobbed and dipped and finally settled in a chair beside her. “Do you always receive such a warm welcome here?”

  Ro glanced at the occupied tables over her mug as she sipped the sweetened and spiced water. No one noticed Duffy’s question or returned her gaze. “Not only here,” she muttered. “It’s all of Asthega.”

  “Because you’re half Fae?”

  She nodded as she chewed a bite of bread.

  Duffy sat mute for several minutes while Ro finished the last of her meager meal. “Have you ever thought of leaving Ithe, even Asthega? Perhaps going somewhere that is more tolerant of your people?”

  Ro sighed and raised her mug to hide her moving lips from the other patrons. “Ithians are my people, my lord. I’ve never met a Fae, nor do I wish to.”

  “Surely your life would be better somewhere else.”

  “My life is what I make it.”

  “Don’t you tire of always being alone?”

  “I don’t need anyone’s company or approval to be happy.” She sipped her honey water.

  “Not even Mister Beck’s?”

  Anguish pricked her and drew her anger. She didn’t want to desire Mason. She certainly didn’t want to miss him. Her gaze drifted to the empty doorway.

  Stars burn it all. Ro cursed herself for allowing Duffy’s questions – and Mason’s departure – to unnerve her. She gulped the last of her honey water and stood. Striding for the exit, she didn’t wait to see if Duffy was following, and part of her hoped he wasn’t.

  The scrape of shoe leather on stone pulled Ro from her sleep.

  After leaving the Furnace Room, she and Duffy had navigated the tunnels and ended up at a section known as the Narrows, which ran beneath Ithe’s aristocratic neighborhoods. Here the tunnels constricted so that you were forced to travel in single file. The area also offered a host of niches and a variety of cha
mbers that could be used by the high-born citizenry to escape the occasional sandstorm that assaulted the city.

  Now, she forced her breathing to remain steady. She opened her eyes a crack to locate the source of the noise.

  Flickering candlelight illuminated the entrance to the small chamber in which she’d taken shelter for the night. A dark shadow lingered behind the flame. A malevolent gaze raked over her huddled form, assessing and calculating.

  Ro quietly slipped her hand to the curved wooden grip of her pepperbox revolver. She had been sleeping with her back to the wall, her knees drawn to her chest and her short coat draped over her like a blanket. Whoever blocked her only exit from the chamber was too short and bulky to be Mason. Lord Duffy’s ecto-impression was nowhere to be seen.

  The shadow stepped into the chamber.

  She repressed the urge to pull her revolver. If she missed, she wouldn’t have time to twist the multiple barrels by hand in order to fire a second shot before the stranger reached her.

  Leather scuffed along the stone floor as the shadow slid forward. It stopped a few strides from her and eased into a crouch, setting down the candle stub it held.

  She could see more details now: a bearded face, tattered clothing and piercing black eyes. A vagrant using the tunnels for shelter. Just like her.

  He stayed in his crouch, studying her, and when he did spring forward, it was with more agility and speed than Ro anticipated. His hands were on her shoulders, pushing her to the floor before she could raise her revolver.

  She landed an awkward punch on his jaw.

  He grunted and pulled back, surprised.

  Ro pulled her revolver. The drifter knocked her hand aside as she squeezed the trigger. The booming crack of the shot deafened her. Her attacker cried out and reared up. She kicked him in the stomach and scrambled to her feet.

  A heavy weight crashed into her spine and carried her to the floor. Twisting, she landed on her back with her attacker on top of her. She lost her grip on the revolver, and it skipped over the stone and out of the chamber.