The Sixth Ghost: a supernatural urban fantasy action adventure (Cards of Death book 6)

by Tamara Geraeds

  Then, I’m knocked over, and the room fills with heavy footsteps and a loud fluttering of wings. Only now do I remember the words of the pixie. “You think I was alone here?”

  “Gisella!” I call out. “Use the shadows!”

  When I peer through my eyelashes, I see that the blinding light doesn’t come from the sun at all.

  The troll that climbs on top of me is carrying some sort of lantern, which flashes on and off, giving me a headache. I can barely keep my eyes open, but if I don’t, I’ll never get this heavy creature off me. Its face full of lumps and rotten teeth hovers over me. The giant nose moves as it sniffs my face. “This one smells important.”

  Immediately, two more trolls saunter over to me, and a pixie also joins the party.

  I stay still while I concentrate on conjuring a whirlwind to pick them all up and slam them against the ceiling like the pixie did.

  “Can I have a bite?” one of the trolls asks, only to shove his friends aside without waiting for an answer.

  His foul-smelling mouth comes closer and opens wide. The pixie above my head claps and cheers. “Yeah! Kill him, crush him, show him who’s boss!”

  I push all the anger I have to my hands and throw them up. Between them, a twister forms, and I hurl it away from me.

  The trolls and the pixie are sucked into it. The lantern falls onto the floor and extinguishes. There are more lights in the corners of my vision, but I’m able to ignore those.

  With my eyes fully open again, I can send the twister wherever I want it to go. So I sit upright and steer it toward Vicky, who’s wrestling with another troll. How many of these creatures were in here anyway? We already killed so many before we came in. It’s like a village in here.

  The wind knocks the troll out of the way, and I make sure it slams into the wall, hard.

  I prepare to send it to where Charlie is trying to avoid the ivy stalks created by two nature pixies, but something pushes me in the back. I tumble over and manage to pull myself upright on a column. Without looking, I throw a lightning bolt over my shoulder.

  There’s a pained grumble and a thump, and I turn to face another troll. Near the ceiling, several shadows chase another pixie. She raises a hand, and my feet leave the ground. I try to hit her with lightning, but a ball of grease slams into her face before I can even move. Once again, the floor comes closer, but this time, the landing is softer. A well-aimed blow to the head knocks out the troll I landed on.

  A loud battle cry drowns out all other noises, and all trolls and pixies come to a sudden halt.

  When I scramble back to my feet, I see Maël standing in the doorway, her staff held firmly in front of her. The agate stone inside it burns bright, and Maël’s face is contorted with concentration.

  “Hurry,” she says in between the words of her time spell.

  I stare at the frozen creatures scattered through the kitchen and dining room. “Eh… we can’t hurt them when they’re frozen in time.”

  Vicky starts to pull herbs and candles from her endless pocket. “No, but you could cast a spell to overrule that.”

  All of the Kessleys between us are sucked back into the original ghost. “Brilliant idea!”

  Vicky must sense my hesitation, because she slides all kinds of herbs to me across the floor. “Don’t overthink it. Use these ingredients to make sure we can hurt them even though they’re stuck in time, then repeat the spell you cast outside, to make them disappear.”

  I follow her advice, and about three minutes later, everything is ready.

  I position myself in the middle of the room. “Cross your fingers!”

  CHAPTER 27

  My spell works like a charm. One by one, the trolls and pixies release their last breath and go up in smoke. Maël nearly collapses on the floor. Charlie and Gisella rush to her side to support her.

  “I am fine,” she says, but I can tell freezing time this long took a lot of energy.

  “Why don’t you stay here and rest for a little while,” I suggest. “I don’t think there are more servants in here. Kessley can stay with you.”

  Maël lowers herself onto a kitchen chair and waves my words away. “I will be fine on my own. I will join you in a couple of minutes.”

  “No.” I shake my head firmly. “I don’t want anyone to be alone while we’re in here. Who knows what other surprises Shelton Banks has left behind for us.”

  Kessley sits down next to the ghost queen. “I don’t mind staying with you for a while, Mäel. We can get to know each other a bit better while you rest.”

  “Wait,” I interrupt as a sudden realization hits me. “Shelton Banks…”

  Gasps fill the room, and we all look at each other in shock.

  “Shelton Banks is the same guy that killed Vicky’s grandmother?” Charlie says incredulously.

  “He is!” Vicky calls out.

  Kessley crosses her arms. “I told you.”

  “You did,” I confess. “But we heard two different names.” I shoot the others a questioning look. “Didn’t we?”

  They all nod.

  Maël taps her staff against the floor in thought. “It must have been a spell cast by Shelton Banks. Entering his house must have undone it.”

  I shake my head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. We’ve been inside for a while already.” I pace from the living room to the kitchen and back with my hands in my trouser pockets. My fingers touch something grainy, and I come to a halt. “What’s this?” I grab the grains and pull them out. They’re in both pockets.

  “Look at this.” I hold both hands up to inspect the sandy material. The grains seem even smaller than sand, and they glow.

  Vicky puts her hand in her pockets and pulls out the same stuff.

  One by one, the others do the same, except for Kessley, who doesn’t have pockets.

  “Pixie dust,” Taylar says.

  Gisella lets the grains from her pockets slide through her fingers. “The glow is fading. It must have stopped working because we killed the pixie it came from.”

  “So, it was… what? Some sort of hallucination pixie?”

  “An illusion pixie actually,” Maël says. “They can also make themselves invisible, which explains how she managed to dust us without us noticing. She must have done it ages ago.”

  Charlie empties his pockets on the floor with a look of disgust. “I put on clean clothes yesterday, so how come I didn’t know Shelton Banks was… well, Shelton Banks before?”

  “The dust travels with you, even if you change your outfit. It can even cling to you if you do not have any pockets.” The African queen demonstrates that last fact by patting her dress. Two piles of sand form beside her.

  With a frown, I turn to Kessley. “Then why doesn’t Kess have any pixie dust?”

  The sixth ghost answers before Maël can. “Because I joined your Shield after the pixie dusted you.”

  The full meaning of it finally sinks in. “Which is why you knew they were one and the same all along.”

  “Exactly. The man that killed Taylar’s brother is the same guy that killed Vicky’s grandmother.”

  “And the same guy that put the curse on me,” Vicky adds. She wipes her hands on her black pants. “Which means he wants me dead too.” She tilts her head in thought. “And the pixie, one of his servants, got close enough to dust us. Why didn’t she kill me? Or all of us, for that matter.”

  There’s a short silence.

  “Maybe something got in her way,” I say eventually. “It’s definitely something to think about. Why does Shelton Banks want to kill you, and why did he put that curse on you? He’s powerful. He could’ve just ended you or sent you to some other world. What is he waiting for?”

  “For his master to say the word?” Gisella offers.

  “His master?”

  “Satan? Lucifer? The king of Hell?”

  I scratch my head. “You think he works for the Devil?”

  She shrugs. �
��Wild guess.”

  “If that’s the case, we should be able to find proof in here somewhere.”

  “I’ll check upstairs,” Taylar says, already on his way back to the hallway.

  “Yes,” I agree. “Let’s get to work. We need answers.” I nod at Charlie and Gisella to follow him, and Vicky and I decide to start on this floor. We’ve got a lot to explore. I hope we’re able to find something useful in this giant mansion, preferably before Shelton Banks returns. I hope the spell shows us where to look and what to inspect.

  Vicky opens a door that reveals stairs leading down. “He’s got a basement too?”

  I shrug. I can’t say I’m surprised. By the looks of the house and the kitchen, Shelton Banks isn’t the kind of man that stops at “rich”. Too much for us is not nearly enough for him. Why settle for a three-floor mansion if you can also have a basement?

  Vicky gestures at the stairs. “After you.”

  “I can’t wait to find out what he’s done with it,” I say sarcastically.

  Vicky leans over and whispers in my ear. “It’s probably a dungeon.”

  Chuckling to ourselves, we descend. We’re about halfway down when someone calls to us from above. “Wait!”

  I squint against the light from the doorway. “Maël? Is something wrong?”

  Her head goes up and down. “I heard something from below.”

  I frown. “More servants?”

  She joins us on the stairs and holds out her hands. “Not servants. Something darker.”

  “I’ll get the others,” Vicky says, and she blinks out of sight.

  We wait for her to come back with Taylar, Charlie and Gisella. Meanwhile, I prick up my ears to find out what we’re dealing with, but all I can hear is a soft scraping.

  Kessley steps closer and clears her throat. “I can disguise myself as a troll and take a look, if you want?”

  “That’s a great─”

  Maël cuts off my sentence. “No, it is too dangerous. A horrible thing happened down there.”

  She shivers, and it’s as if her chills jump over to me. “What kind of thing?”

  “I cannot sense that.”

  Hurried footsteps approach from above.

  “We’re here,” Vicky says.

  “Okay. Be careful, everyone.”

  I start walking further down. At the bottom of the stairs, there’s a narrow hallway. My hands search for a light switch, but can’t find one, so I conjure a lightning ball in my palm and send it to the low ceiling. A couple of feet away, I spot a closed door. I walk over to it, closely followed by my friends. With a wave of my hand, I extinguish the lightning and count back from three softly. Then I open the door.

  Bright golden shapes move along the far wall like giant ants. The light emanating from them, and from the puddles of gold on the floor, almost blind me.

  The creatures come to a sudden halt when the door creaks. They turn and look at us with giant, bulging eyes, three of them on each round head. Steam rises from the gold on their bodies as it drips down. Their long, pointed noses turn up, sniffing the air as if to determine how dangerous we are.

  “What the heck are they?” Kessley whispers.

  Vicky slowly brings her mace forward. “The demons from the fourth circle of Hell. The punishment there is smelting gold.”

  My whole body grows cold. “What are they doing here? Were they expecting us?”

  “If that’s the case, why are they leaving?” Kessley points at a dark vortex appearing in the wall behind the monsters. “Wouldn’t they stay to fight us?”

  I stare at the demons, backing up and jumping into the portal one by one, and suddenly it hits me. I know it even before I see the limp body in the claws of one of the monsters. “They’ve got the sixth soul!”

  It came out a lot louder than I intended, and my friends interpret it as a starting shot. They move forward as one, and I have no other choice but to join the attack. I adjust quickly, pulling out my Morningstar and aiming it at the golden demon that carries the child we were supposed to save. The spiked ball hits the middle eye, and the monster goes down. The body it carries slides from its grip and comes to a halt about two feet from the portal. Another demon reaches for it with its abnormally long arms, but a big slab of grease knocks it over.

  Maël comes to a halt in the middle of the basement and slams her staff down on the floor, ready to slow the demons down in time. Vicky apparates to where the victim is lying and reaches out to pick it up.

  “Watch out!” I yell as two demons tear a handful of hot gold from their skin and hurl it at my girl.

  Vicky ducks, and the limb body is snatched from under her fingers.

  I haul in my weapon and throw it again, but this demon evades the incoming ball easily.

  Taylar jumps in between the demon and the portal, his shield held high to protect his solid body, his mace swinging wildly.

  I lose track of everything that happens. Steaming gold flies in all directions, maces hit bulging eyes, and there are shrieks and angry cries everywhere. The demon carrying the one we need to save moves in slow motion, but that doesn’t help Vicky. While she kicks several demons in their protruding noses, the small body is thrown into the air. It soars over Vicky’s head and past Taylar’s swinging weapon.

  “Dante!”

  My head swings left at the sound of Kessley’s voice. What is she doing on the other side of the basement?

  She bends over and picks something up. When she turns back to me, I gasp. A copy of the victim lies motionless in her arms. Now I see that it’s not a child at all. It’s a troll.

  “There’s another one,” Kess says.

  I shake my head in horror. That’s not another one. That’s the same troll. Its soul has already left the body. If the demons manage to take it with them through the portal, Satan can open another circle of Hell.

  “Leave it there,” I tell Kess. “We need to save the other one.”

  She places it back hastily, and a whole stack of coins rolls from its pockets with a loud clang. The evidence of its sin, greed. It must have dug into Shelton Banks’ money supply.

  No time to ponder that now. I turn back to the fight and find myself face to face with a steaming demon. It wraps its long arms around me and squeezes. I yell in pain as the gold burns through my clothes and skin.

  Ice, turn to ice!

  Frost collects on its nose, and it shakes its head. But it doesn’t let go.

  I picture a large block of ice coming down from the ceiling and landing on the three-eyed head. A second later, the demon is flattened. It goes up in black smoke.

  I pick up the chips of ice that came off on impact and press them onto my arms and chest. They relieve the pain only a little, but it’ll have to do for now. I’m about to dive into the fight when Kessley calls out from behind me, “Move out of the way!”

  I step aside, and a giant version of the golden demons stomps by. It has the same round body and head, but it’s almost three times bigger. It pulls itself forward using its long, twiggy arms. Melted gold flies in all directions as it launches itself at the demons closest to the portal.

  “Watch out!” it calls out with Kessley’s voice.

  The other ghosts apparate out of her path while Charlie and Gisella roll away.

  The Kessley monster knocks several demons aside as if they’re bowling pins and slams into the wall with a loud crash. Pieces of plaster fall down and disappear into the puddles of gold. Kessley sinks her sharp teeth into several demons’ necks, and black smoke fills the air around her.

  I use the momentary confusion of the monsters to hit them with small blocks of ice. I hit a couple of them, but they only screech and keep fighting. Taylar has turned to follow the demon carrying the troll’s soul. Charlie is getting to his feet, a ball of gel in his hand.

  They’re both too late.

  I yell as the troll is carried through the portal. The remaining demons flee after it before K
essley gets the chance to knock them over and tear them apart. She comes to a halt inches from the portal and wipes some gold and grease from her bald head. Panting hard, she turns back into herself and shoots a smile at me. “Did we win?”

  I lower my hands. “No, they took the soul with them.”

  Without hesitation, she turns back to the portal. “Then we go after them!”

  She steps forward. Taylar pulls her back just in time. “No!”

  She almost tumbles backwards, but he catches her.

  “Why not?” she asks, straightening her dress.

  Maël waves her staff in their direction. “That portal leads to the fourth circle of Hell. It is too dangerous for us there.”

  “But the soul─”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that anymore,” I interrupt her. “If we’d known the soul was here, we would’ve come down sooner. But we didn’t.”

  Vicky pats my shoulder. “We still only lost two souls and saved four.”

  “We should’ve had six wins,” I say. Then I take in the solemn faces around me. “But Vicky is right. We’re still ahead of Lucifer. They had another win, and that sucks. But he’s still stuck in Hell, and we’re going to make sure he stays there. Forever.”

  “Hear, hear!” Taylar calls out, and Vicky, Gisella and Charlie join in.

  Maël and Kessley are distracted by something on the floor that’s blown our way by a mysterious wind.

  Kess points at it. “What’s that?”

  I follow her gaze and frown. It’s not hard to recognize the objects. “The Cards of Death.”

  “How did they get here?” Vicky wonders aloud.

  I squat down. “I have no clue.”

  When I pick them up, they crumble to dust immediately. A confirmation of the bad news: we lost another soul.

  “I found something else,” Charlie calls out. I hadn’t even noticed him walking to the other side of the basement.

  “Look at this,” he says over his shoulder. “I think it’s some kind of secret room.”