How to Kill a Ghost

by Audrey Claire

  Feeling I had left Monica alone with the imposter long enough, I willed myself to my home and listened outside the door before entering. No sounds reached me, so I went in. The person in my body sat on the couch watching TV. Shivers raced over me seeing her so natural and comfortable. I searched the rest of the house and found Monica gone, so I zipped out to her house and discovered her asleep in her own bed. Satisfied she was safe, I returned home. For a solid hour, I hovered in the corner watching the woman. She got up every now and then, to use the bathroom, to search the refrigerator, and complain about my choices of food. I examined my body and frowned. She had put on at least ten pounds if I had to guess. What had she been feeding my body? Anger surged through me, but I forced myself to wait and stay silent. First I would observe—at least until Isabelle and I figured out what to do or Ian gave me insight. I considered risking it to call him, but I hesitated. This might be my only chance to get my body back, and if Tevin arrived as well, I might find this opportunity slipping away.

  Who was she? Where did she come from? A new thought struck me. What if it wasn’t a woman inside my body at all, or what if it wasn’t a human spirit? Thinking that way creeped me out too much, so I tried to clear my mind of all except for taking back my body.

  At two in the morning, the person rose from the couch to return to the kitchen.

  Again! Do you have a hole inside you?

  Frustrated, I floated near the ceiling just above the refrigerator. Below me the appliance sputtered, and I wondered if my state of mind interfered with it. That’s all I would need, to return to my body with a new refrigerator bill. Above the cabinets seemed safer, so I shifted there. The curtains stirred, and the woman and I turned toward the kitchen doorway at the same time. My heart constricted seeing Ian’s handsome face. His cool expression didn’t change seeing my body, but I was certain he knew the woman standing there wasn’t me, and that I hovered nearby. Ian had such control of his emotions, he didn’t even look my way. I heard his voice in my head for an instant say, “This person is...?”

  The imposter’s hands shook, and her eyes widened. Blood drained from her face. She worked her jaw, but no sound came out.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, his voice low and deadly. He advanced a step into the kitchen, and she backed up, bumping into the counter. I found her reaction odd because of the way she had behaved with Monica. Did she fear men, or just Ian?

  “Y-You aren’t welcome here,” she said, stuttering. “Get out.”

  I waited for Ian to find himself propelled out the door, but apparently the power that forbid vampires from entering a human’s home had to be backed up by the human’s real spirit. My own spirit soared at the knowledge, and Ian advanced another step.

  The woman frowned. She scrambled on my countertop for a weapon and pulled a knife from the block there. I knew Ian could move faster than she could ever hope to. Still, he paused. When he did, the woman seemed to find courage. “Why does a vampire have access to this house?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “So you know what I am.”

  “I can spot your kind from a mile away. Why has she given you permission to enter?”

  He folded his arms. “Maybe she does not know what I am.”

  She shook her head. “She’d know after a while. That’s not it.”

  “Oh? You know Liberty that well?”

  The woman laughed, my voice but definitely not my laughter. I hated it and considered dropping a pot on her head to get her to stop. That would be giving my own body a headache, so I resisted.

  “I don’t know Liberty at all,” the woman said.

  She couldn’t. Not calling me Liberty, that’s for sure.

  “Liberty.” Another cackle, which made me cringe. “What a pretentious name. Is it because her mother thought she had found freedom? Tell me, vampire. Why are you able to come in here?”

  “She belongs to me.”

  Seeing the scowl of hatred on my own face made me ill. “You used her! Just like your kind.”

  Ian didn’t appear to be insulted. He didn’t care what humans thought of him. “You are using her body. Are you different? I am Liberty’s friend.”

  “Impossible!” Her shriek echoed throughout the house. “Get out of here now, or I’ll hurt her. I swear I will.”

  Ian flashed fangs. He stood as still as a statue for a few seconds, and then the curtains stirred again as he disappeared. A soft click in the hallway was the only indication he’d opened and shut the front door. The knife clattered to the floor, and the imposter sagged against the counter. She pressed a hand to her chest, panting. I could guess she knew what a vampire could do to a spirit let alone a human body, so Ian terrified her. I also began to realize Ian’s honesty in this case was a mistake. He should have let this person believe I meant nothing to him to gain the advantage. Now it was too late. She would know Ian didn’t want her to hurt my body.

  “Show yourself!”

  I started at the shout and looked down at the woman. She strode through the kitchen, glancing around, and walked out to the hallway.

  “I know you’re here, Liberty. Do you think I’m some kind of fool?” She strode to the living room and searched the empty room there. “Show yourself.”

  I stood behind her and willed myself into the room rather than pass through her. The wicked grin got to me, and I spun away.

  “You want answers, right?” she said.

  I froze.

  “I’m the only one who can answer them.”

  I was scared but desperate. I had no choice. Taking the plunge, I moved to the opposite side of the room and came into view. Her grin broadened. She gave a expansive sweep of her arm and ducked her head a few inches as if to bow. “Agnes Beck.”

  Female. For some reason, that gave me a bit of relief. “Human?”

  “Of course human, you dunce.”

  I frowned at her. She took me by surprise when she stuck her head out of my body to allow me to see the real her. I stared in wonder and confusion at the older woman, maybe late fifties, early sixties. Her shock of stark white hair had been pulled back into messy bun, and her eyebrows might not have seen tweezers or wax ever.

  I took a step toward her, but she popped back inside my body. I scoured my mind for a way to get her out. “Why don’t you come out so we can speak easier?” I suggested.

  She chuckled. “Do you know how long I’ve been at this?”

  I hazarded a guess just to keep the conversation going, and she laughed again.

  “I am in fact three hundred years old.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “I see you’re impressed. Actually, I was born three hundred years ago—roughly. As you saw by my spirit, I lived to fifty-three, and then my body got sick. I was dying. I wasn’t ready for that, so I swapped to a new body to stay alive.”

  I blinked at her. She’d just told me she decided to take on a new body as if anyone could do it whenever they chose. Instead of giving me understanding, I felt like she’d produced more questions. Before I could formulate just one of my queries, she reached up and brushed the hair off her—my—forehead. My spirit waivered in and out of visibility.

  “This always happens, and I have to switch eventually. But you’re special.”

  I faded out completely and began to wail. My heart shattered into a million pieces. At first I could hear nothing over my own cries, and then she drew closer, screaming at me. “Shut up! Do you want to bring the vampires upon us? Or worse?”

  I managed to settle down and wondered at her knowledge. Of course she would know all that I had learned in the last few weeks and maybe much more, if she had been around as long as she said. She would know about the banishing and about a vampire being unable to enter a human’s home without permission.

  “You know there are vampires nearby?” I asked.

  Her face paled. “A ghostly wail can bring them, but you said vampires?”

  I stayed silent. Let that frighten her.

  “Vampires are the enemy of ou
r kind.”

  “Our kind,” I repeated. “We’re…I mean you aren’t human?”

  “I said I am, didn’t I?” she snapped. “You’re human too. Don’t get any dumb ideas.”

  She advanced toward me, and I wasn’t sure yet if I was ready to confront her in a fight. I felt ignorant, and I needed to know more. She pointed a finger at me, accusing, with displeasure in her gaze.

  “What I want to know is what pulled me here.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I felt the pull, and then it released me. I stuck around because I want to know what did it in the first place. Why was I compelled to come back to this disgusting town?”

  Offense bristled along my spine.

  “You don’t look smart enough to have done it.”

  Would the insults never cease from this person? Pride made me want to tell her I was involved and it took some of my concentration and energy to get the spell working, but I wouldn’t expose Isabelle to soothe my ego.

  Agnes muttered to herself. “Apparently, you have more people than I thought that care about you. Not that I knew a lot. I was running out of time. You’re a hindrance, a loose end I need to tie up.”

  I didn’t need to ask to know what she meant about tying me up, but I wanted to keep her talking, so I questioned her anyway. Agnes glared at me, seeming to consider how much to admit. “I’m your great-aunt,” she said, and took my ability to speak once again. She cackled. “With however many greats tacked on.”

  I had no wish to be related to this person, but I didn’t imagine she would lie about such a simple connection. I stayed silent so she could continue—that and I still had no words.

  “The ability to skip bodies indefinitely runs in our family. We’re sort of immortal like the vampires, only we have more inconveniences. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

  “I’m not immortal.” My voice came out high and unnatural, the argument silly. Confusion gripped me so tight coupled with fear that all I managed was denial. I didn’t want to believe we had the same blood, let alone this odd curse, and curse could only describe such a heinous ability.

  Agnes shook her head in amusement. “You don’t believe it? You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “Plenty people pass and don’t go on to their reward.”

  “How many can steal another body?”

  “I’ve never!” I shouted.

  “I have. Loads.” She stepped closer to me, and I backed up. “Body after body, I skipped just so I can stick around. Ordinary people’s bodies only live about two to ten years after I enter it, but our kind. We’re special. The body can live up to thirty years as long as we’re careful with it.”

  “You’re disgusting. I don’t believe you.”

  She shrugged.

  “How did you know you could do such a thing?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.

  “I’ve seen family before me do it. In fact, my mother taught me how.”

  The story was too fantastical to believe. “If that’s true, then where is she?”

  “She was silly enough to…” Agnes fell silent, and I groaned inwardly. I knew she had been about to tell me the weakness, although I couldn’t imagine any for someone like her. Too late, I hadn’t schooled my features, so she knew how interested I was to know the truth. She smirked. “Regular lingering ghosts can’t take over other bodies and kick out the people who own them like we can.”

  I shook my head, emphatic that I was not a part of this evil. My actions only amused her.

  “Do you want to know what really happened when I took your body?”

  “W-What do you mean?”

  She pointed to her chest. “I killed the store owner.”

  My mouth dropped open. “But we thought... We already…” I covered my mouth, recalling how Luis Riley had been convicted of the crime and even confessed. To think I had been involved with sending an innocent man to prison, it buckled my knees, and I sank to the floor.

  Agnes cast me a scathing glance as if she hated that I cared for people. If she had done all she claimed, she must have lost any feeling for others long ago. For a moment, she relented. “Since you’re the bleeding heart type, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll tell you. He wasn’t innocent.”

  I echoed my earlier question. “What do you mean?”

  “I came to town dying, looking for you. It took me forever to find you because I didn’t know you existed. Your mother was smart. She disappeared before anyone knew she was pregnant. Once I knew you lived, I tracked you down, but I was running out of time. The body I had was dying. I couldn’t hold it much longer. I had to find another fast because I don’t like being outside a body.”

  The information came to me quickly, and I struggled to process it while analyzing whether she shared anything I could use against her. She hated being outside a body. Why? I had done so for weeks. Another thought occurred to me. “You came in a body?”

  Agnes grinned. “He died, and I dumped him. What a waste. He only lasted two years.”

  I cringed at her insensitivity. “Peter Jenkins. That’s why he had a connection to me, because you lived in him.”

  I wondered where the original Peter had gone. She’d said we were special, and we didn’t have to leave the realm of the living, so did that mean Peter had passed on after his body was taken? That was so unfair. Agnes had to be stopped.

  “What you’re doing isn’t right, Agnes,” I lectured. “You’ve had your life—several of them if what you’re telling me is true. Let others have theirs and pass on to the other side.”

  My earnest words were met with peals of laughter. I clutched my hands into fists, wishing I had the boldness to smack my own face as she stood before me. I couldn’t bring myself to do it and felt helpless. Despite learning we had the same ability, her presence overwhelmed me and kept me immobile, not to mention staring into the eyes of a soul that had murdered countless people. I couldn’t act physically, so I used my words.

  “You came into the hardware store looking for a body and…”

  Agnes sobered. She straightened and met my gaze as she wiped tears from her eyes. “I decided to take the hardware storeowner’s body until I located you. This other person came into the store before I could do it and tried to kill my target. So you see, he wasn’t innocent. That was the luckiest day ever for me because then you came in. I could get you right away.”

  Nausea assailed me even while I had no physical makeup. I knew it was all in my head. I zipped away toward the doorway to put more space between Agnes and me, but I didn’t want to leave. I had to hear everything.

  I stopped and turned back to her. “Go on.”

  She shrugged. “Not much to tell. I took your body and went to dump Peter. When I came back to get the storeowner, he woke up. Turned out he wasn’t dead, so I killed him. I was going to hide his body too, but D—”

  She clamped her teeth together, and I watched, waiting. What had she been about to say? Was it the weakness again? I opened my mouth to question her further, but she advanced on me.

  “There doesn’t need to be two Libbys.”

  I backed into the hall. “You can’t kill me like the others. I’m not physical, and you need my body.” I bluffed. For all I knew she might cast off my body and take another just for the privilege of killing me. I prayed she didn’t know the words to banish me or that somehow it wouldn’t work if she tried to do it.

  Agnes narrowed her eyes. “I need just one thing from you. Well, two. Tell me how’re you friends with a vampire? That’s not possible. They are our enemy. Yet, you control him.”

  For the first time, I chuckled. “Ian can’t be controlled.”

  She shook her head. “No, you have influence over him. Tell me now how you did it, and I’ll get your death over with quickly.”

  I stood straighter, more solid, and held my chin high. “You said yourself. I’m immortal. You can’t hurt me!”

  Anger burned in her eyes. She took a step toward me, but I held my gro
und. Inside, I trembled. There might be any number of secrets she kept to herself, ways to make me disappear, never to be seen again. I wavered between a plea and fleeing for my life.

  “Liberty.”

  I heard him in my head moments before he zipped ahead of me, cutting off Agnes’s access. She stumbled back, banged against a chair, and knocked it over. Her frightened gaze locked onto Ian’s face. I had never seen a person more frightened of another. I didn’t blame her, but I had learned Ian would never hurt me. I couldn’t express how relieved I felt having him there again.

  Agnes pointed a trembling finger at Ian. “You can’t banish me while I’m in a body.”

  Ian moved in the blink of an eye to catch Agnes around the throat, my throat. “I do not need to banish you to get to you.”

  She squawked, air restricted. “You’re going to hurt her body?”

  “If I have to.”

  Agnes’ feet left the floor, and I ran over to them to drag on Ian’s arm. He didn’t budge an inch. “Please, Ian, don’t,” I begged.

  His grip loosened, and he let her drop to the floor. She clutched her neck, coughing, face red, eyes wide. She scrambled to her feet and darted toward the door. I started after her, but Ian caught my arm to stop me.

  “She’s getting away,” I protested.

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t you want me to get my body back?”

  “We have to figure out how to get her to leave it without harm.”

  “But if she leaves town…”

  “I will find her. She will never be hidden from me again.”

  Maybe souls had a scent and Ian knew he could track Agnes’s. I didn’t know, but I trusted him. “There was something else she wanted from me, but you came before she said what it was.”