by Myers, AJ
That was just too great. For the first time in days, I was actually getting some good news. Tyler couldn’t sense me. Nathan couldn’t trace me by my scent. That meant no one would be able to pierce through my ectoplasmic bubble of ghosts. If they couldn’t, the hunters couldn’t either.
I really love my dead people sometimes.
“We’re ready to leave when you are, Skipper,” Zan said, clearing his throat to get our attention. “I think we should leave soon. I don’t relish the thought of hanging around and hoping for the best, if you get my drift.”
“Huh?” I said, trying to make sense of the nonsense coming out of his mouth.
“We’ll explain later, baby,” Nathan murmured, coming to wrap his arms around me when my teeth started clacking together.
I was shivering so hard my body was starting to ache, and Nathan wasn’t exactly warm. Being pressed up against something cold—no matter how hot it looked or how delicious it smelled—wasn’t doing a lot to regulate my body temp. Nathan must have realized it, too, because he let go of me reluctantly and backed off a little. Tyler immediately rushed forward, like he was going to take his place, but Kim saved the day by beating him to it.
“Come on, Em, let’s get you inside before your friends freeze you to death.” I gave her a grateful smile and she winked. She led me toward the door, completely surrounded by the ghosts, and yelled over her shoulder, “Don’t you boys have something to do? Move it!”
When she slammed the door shut behind her, I stopped mid-step and stared back at it. What had she just said? That they had something to do? Oh, hell no! They were not making plans without me! Unh-uh! No way! I turned to look at her and Kim held up her hands and took a few steps back, grinning like a loon.
“Wh-where did y-you s-send th-them?” I stammered out, trying to make my teeth stop chattering so I could yell at her.
“They’re on a mission.” Her grin suddenly turned kind of evil, making me really wonder what Nathan and Tyler were up to. “Let’s just say they’re going to fetch us some insurance.”
∞§∞§∞§∞
“Are there always that many of them?” Kim asked, tucking another blanket around me as Grams handed me a huge mug of steaming-hot coffee—laced with some kind of bourbon she had gotten from God knows where. “I mean, there had to be a lot of them out there to keep me from finding you.”
“Yeah, unfortunately there are always going to be that many of them,” I told her, sighing as the warm liquid and the blankets started to warm my frozen body. Muscles I didn’t even know I’d had started to relax…and ache like crazy.
It took me a little while to explain and Grams kept the coffee coming while Mrs. Val found me some dry clothes in the boxes that someone, probably Skippy, had stacked neatly against the wall in my room. I didn’t blame Kim for being curious. It had taken me years to figure it all out, questioning the ghosts that came my way looking for a road home. Apparently, death, like life, comes in stages.
Stage 1: Denial. Those are the really sad ghosts, the ones who don’t know they’re dead. I’ve met a few of them, and they all made a very lasting impression. The worst had been the little girl I’d had to break the bad news to when I was eleven. She had only been five years old when she died, and she didn’t understand no matter how hard I tried. She eventually wandered away, as most of that kind do. I had always hoped she would come back someday, but she never had.
Stage 2: Anger. Once these souls realize they’re dead, they get a little upset. Those are the ones I typically refuse to acknowledge. Not only are they highly unpleasant, they can actually be dangerous. They operate under the ‘I’m dead so I’m taking you with me’ mentality. Not exactly Casper material, that bunch. I’ve toted more than my share of bruises and scratches, even a few bite marks, because I was unlucky enough to be able to see them.
Stage 3: Depression. You know the stories about ghosts moaning and rattling chains and all that crap? Well, if ghosts actually did that kind of thing you can guarantee it would be this group waking you up in the middle of the night with haunting wails. After the anger fades, they become depressed. At that point, they’re only dangerous to themselves. Some actually become so despondent they simply fade away. I always wondered where those lost souls ended up, wondered and shuddered.
Stage 4: The Purpose. Those who make it through stage three suddenly become driven to discover some hidden purpose in the whole death thing. They are the most hopeful and the most annoying at the same time. They become convinced that the living have the answer they seek—yeah, they’ve conveniently forgotten they didn’t have it when they were alive—and they ask more questions than a toddler. The only thing that makes them bearable is that once they figure out there is no answer, no higher purpose, they reach the final stage of ghosthood.
Stage 5: Acceptance. This is the stage when a ghost is truly ready for my help. They have come to the end of a long, hard journey, and all they want is to go on. They usually have a request, something small like a family member they want to say goodbye to or a deed they desperately wanted to accomplish that they never got to complete. Then they fade away in a burst of glowing light. It’s beautiful, and, for those I’ve helped find their way, a very emotional experience.
Some ghosts make the journey from stage one to stage five in a matter of days or even weeks. Others it may take years to reach that level of enlightenment that finally allows them to let go and move on. I’ve gotten more of the hard cases than the fast learners, but I think that may have more to do with me than the ghosts. Maybe I attract them because, to be honest, I’m kind of a hard case myself.
Some, like my friend, Charles, and Nathan’s friend, Gabriella, I had even hated to see go. The dead are still people and you can become attached to people. Gabriella taught me that. Before her, I tried to distance myself from the poor souls who would seek out my help. Once I lost the ability to see them, I missed them. Now, I wanted to be the one to help them. I had been given my gift for a reason, and I fully intended to make the best of it.
“So they just…disappear?” Kim asked, looking disappointed. When I arched an eyebrow at her, she grinned sheepishly. “Well, you have to admit that it’s kind of lame after all the buildup. Kind of like fireworks with no boom.”
“That’s just because you’ve never seen the light show,” I told her, grinning back. “Trust me, you would get it then. You know how people joke about not going into the light? Well, I really don’t see how you could help it. It’s beautiful.”
She was quiet for a long time, twisting her fingers in her lap. When she did speak, the question she asked made me choke on my coffee. “Did you ever see Daddy, Em? Was he like one of those other ghosts?”
I put my mug down on the table next to the bed and pulled her up beside me. She laid her head on my shoulder, hiding her eyes from me, but I saw the tears dewing up on her lashes anyway. Throwing my arm around her shoulders, I laid my head against hers and sighed sadly.
“No, Kim, I never saw Mr. Evan. And do you know why?”
“No,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Because he wasn’t ever a ghost.” I squeezed her shoulders when she sniffled and tried to ignore the way my own eyes were burning. “Do you know why most of the people I deal with become ghosts? It’s because they loved too much or didn’t love enough. They die with regrets, Kim. They have so much regret that they can’t let go. Mr. Evan loved you and Riley and your mom just enough. The way he died was awful, Kim, but he died with his soul ready to move on.”
“Or maybe the idea of having to deal with you in death, too, was just more than the old man could stand,” a laughing voice said, coming from the doorway.
My head snapped up to find Riley lounging against the frame, smiling at me. Mrs. Val loves to torment me with the story of how, at seven years old, I climbed in her lap and told her I was going to marry Riley when I grew up. What? I was seven! I also thought I was going to live in my Barbie dream house, but that didn’t happen, either. Don’t get
me wrong, Riley is really cute—his last name is Robbins—but somewhere along the line, he became as much my brother as he was Kim’s.
“You know, some things never change,” he drawled, ambling into the room and throwing himself down over mine and Kim’s legs. He grinned from ear to ear before shaking the melting snow out of the ash blonde curls he had inherited from his father and spraying us with water in the process. Kim immediately yelled for her mom; I rolled my eyes.
“Yep, everything is just like I left it,” Riley laughed. “Kim is still a big cry baby, and Em is still rolling her eyes at me. Ah! It’s good to be home!”
“You are so right, Riley!” I said, laughing and leaning over to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Some things don’t change, because you’re still an ass.”
“And you’re a hot immortal chick now,” he retaliated, winking at me. “You still wanna get married?”
“Sure I do,” I purred, leaning close to him. “I just don’t want to marry you.”
“Well that’s a relief,” Nathan said, walking through the door and throwing Riley the look, the one he usually reserved especially for Tyler. “You were supposed to come get them, Riley, not propose to my girl.”
“He really has no sense of humor,” Riley sighed, moving his head a little higher up on my lap and whispering low just to be annoying. “Now, I have a sense of humor. Add that to the fact that I’m practically irresistible, and you get the total package. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider my acceptance of your proposal? Just say the word, and all this could be yours.”
“Your proposal?” Nathan asked, arching an eyebrow at me. “You proposed to him?”
“Um, yeah,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes again as I shoved Riley off my legs, “when I was seven years old. And I didn’t really propose to him, if we’re going to get technical. I told Mrs. Val I was going to marry him. That is so not the same thing. Anyway, I outgrew it. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s kind of a pain.”
“I noticed,” Nathan said, chuckling and holding his hand out to me.
“How was the hunting?” Kim asked casually as I let Nathan drag me off the bed and into his arms for a kiss. “Did you catch anything?”
“Oh, yeah,” Nathan purred, sharing a look with Riley who was grinning from ear to ear again. That was never a good sign. In fact, Kim and I usually ran from that grin. “Tyler is gift-wrapping the package now.”
“Package?” I asked, thoroughly confused, as Kim smiled like the Cheshire cat.
“Come on, baby,” Nathan said, winking at me as he slid an arm around me and started ushering me out of the room. “You’re not going to want to miss this.”
Chapter 33: Facing the Dragon
“Release me at once!”
I stopped just inside the door of the room Nathan led us to and stared, jaw dropping almost to the floor, as that furious howl washed over me. The woman tied to the chair in front of me, her eyes practically barbecuing us all with emerald green flames, looked totally different from the crone I knew. Her hair was down and floated around her all the way to her waist. They had apparently pulled her out of bed because she was still in her nightgown, a form-fitting silk number—funny, I had always pegged her as the high-necked cotton tent type—that did a lot more for her figure than her usual black suits. I was surprised to see that, dressed that way and with her hair down, Constance Cantrell was actually…pretty. Who knew?
And then it hit me what they had done.
“You kidnapped Dragon Lady Cantrell?” I squeaked.
“Yes, we did.” Tyler was leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and a distinctly disgruntled look on his face. “And, as you can see, it wasn’t without its setbacks.”
He turned his head and I saw four long scratches, just starting to heal, running down the side of his neck. In my opinion, he was lucky that was all he had. Personally, I wouldn’t have gone after her without a ready supply of elephant tranquilizers, a muzzle, and some heavy duty chains.
“I insist you untie me immediately, Miss Blaylock,” Ms. Cantrell hissed, her eyes on me. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, young lady.”
“You don’t think so?” I asked coldly, remembering all too well what she’d already done. If I needed a reminder, all I had to do was think about the burns that had covered half of my best friend’s body a few hours before. “I’m well aware of what you’re capable of now, Ms. Cantrell.”
“Right now she’s not capable of anything but shrieking like a banshee,” Zan said, coming through the door behind me. “The stuff we shot her up with will keep any powers she has neutralized until we give her the antidote—which I have conveniently misplaced.” I gave him an impressed look and he grinned. “What can I say? It pays to have a girlfriend who was raised by a bunch of witch hunters.”
So that’s how they had managed to kidnap her without losing a limb or two. I assumed that the antidote he was talking about was the same stuff that had been on the arrow Ainsley had shot me with the night I met her.
The fact that the witch hunters had found a way to use chemistry to bind magic was kind of scary. Then, hadn’t I once read somewhere that magic was simply science that hadn’t been explained yet? I had scoffed at it at the time, but maybe that theory had some merit, after all.
The door opened again and Skippy walked in, looking as pleased with their night’s work as the rest of the guys in the room. Mrs. Val and Grams followed him, leading a very weak looking Mrs. Amelia. Our eyes met and Mrs. Amelia smiled at me faintly. She couldn’t meet my gaze for long, however. After a second, she looked away, ashamed.
“What is she doing here?” Ms. Cantrell bit out, looking like she was about a second from an apoplectic fit. “Can’t you see she’s ill? What kind of monsters are you people?”
“Monsters?” I hissed, the word sending my temper spiraling. “We’re monsters? What does that make you, then? We weren’t the ones who sold out our friends! We weren’t the ones who got all those people killed last night! You want to see a monster, Constance Cantrell? Go look in the mirror, then tell me if you can stand to see what looks back at you after what you’ve done!”
She had the nerve to look confused. Was that really how she was going to play it? The innocent act? She had been brave enough to join forces with Hamilton and the sick bastards who followed him, but she wasn’t brave enough to admit it?
“Oh, Connie!” Mrs. Amelia whispered, her face ashen. “Connie, how could you?”
“You don’t honestly believe that nonsense?” Ms. Cantrell snapped. “This girl has lost her mind! You all have!”
“That remains to be seen,” Skippy said calmly. Seeing that I was about to say something much less diplomatic, he took my elbow and turned me back toward the door. “Please excuse us, Ember and I need to finalize our plans. Nathaniel, Tyler, if you would join us? I feel certain the others can contain one powerless female for the few minutes it will take us to get everything squared away.”
He didn’t wait for their agreement but pulled me out the door. I went willingly, afraid of what I might do if I stayed. Monsters. I still couldn’t believe she’d had that much nerve. Yeah, we might be a little different, but we weren’t monsters. Monsters were people like Hamilton and Constance Cantrell. Monsters hurt people because they were jealous or because they allowed their hatred to control them. She should thank every higher power ever worshipped that I wasn’t a monster. If I was, she’d be a smoldering pile of ashes.
I didn’t even realize where we were until Skippy pushed me into the chair in front of his desk and walked around it to pour me a drink. I took it from him and slowly sipped it, taking deep breaths to try to control my anger. When Nathan and Tyler walked in a few minutes later, I was actually starting to calm down. I smiled weakly when they both walked over and laid a hand on one of my shoulders, hovering on either side of me like sentinels protecting royalty.
“The move is nearly complete,” Skippy said quietly, walking back around his desk and taking a seat. “The
most critical are already gone. My guard and a team of witches have been transporting them out for the last hour. The few that remain are not seriously injured and have asked to stay to fight beside us. I have granted that request.”
“How can we be sure they don’t already know about our plans to relocate the injured?” I asked, taking another sip of my drink.
“Shea assures me that she told no one, so the injured will be safe under my guard.”
He leaned back in his chair with a loud sigh and rubbed a hand over his face in a gesture that seemed too old for him. When he looked up again, I saw, for the first time, the power that had gotten him to the position in the Nosferatu that made him the most feared being alive. It was in his eyes, the way he held his head.
“How many of us are there?” Nathan asked, his voice silky and low.
Like Skippy, when I looked at him I saw a different man. This wasn’t my obnoxious, arrogant mate. In that moment, he looked like the warlord I had once compared him to in my mind. His hazel eyes had turned ice cold and there was a feeling of brute strength coming from him. Scary Nathan. I decided I preferred the other one, the one who got on my nerves and made me want to kiss him all at the same time, to the man standing next to me. Scary Nathan was just a little too intense for my taste.
“At last count, the number of us who will face the enemy stands at less than thirty,” Skippy told him before turning to look at me and Tyler. “Even with Ember and Tyler fighting on our side, we are going to be grossly outnumbered. Hamilton is not a fool. After what happened when he tried to burn Miss Robbins, he will call in reinforcements. We need help, and we need it now.”
Skippy and I had talked about it, but it didn’t really hit me until he started using terms like ‘facing the enemy’ and ‘calling in reinforcements’ that we were really going to war. It wasn’t just a figure of speech, it was a reality. I struggled to make it sink in as the guys talked about strategy around me, tried to figure out how I had gone from being just Ember to being the unofficial leader of an army.
