A Ghost and a Hard Place (A Reaper Witch Mystery Book 3)

by Elle Adams

  Then a scream rang across the air, and I let the shadows drop so I could see the real world. My heart swooped downward when I saw Carey and the others at the other end of the bridge… and the third beast was barrelling in that direction.

  In an instant, I stepped through the shadows and appeared at Carey’s side, holding the scythe defensively in front of the others.

  Her jaw dropped. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Borrowed it.”

  Behind the beast, the other Reaper managed to pull himself onto the bridge again, but he was too far off to reach the monster or the scythe in my hands.

  A firm swipe sent the beast on the defensive, but it was bigger than the other two, and I was tiring fast. My head pounded, the scythe felt leaden in my grip, and Carey screamed my name when the beast tackled me from the side and knocked me to the ground.

  Pain spread through my chest as its heavy weight pressed on me. I saw Shelton running in my direction, but the beast was already lunging at the others—

  Then Carey grabbed the scythe from my hand and stabbed upwards. The beast recoiled from the weapon, and I wriggled out from underneath it and was back on my feet a moment later. Carey swung the scythe again, and while she missed, the beast staggered back, not seeing Shelton approaching it from behind. Nor the door’s outline shimmering nearby.

  Seeing I was back on my feet, Carey handed the scythe to me, and I gave the beast another strike. As it staggered back, Shelton gave the beast a firm shove through the door, where it vanished into nothingness.

  Breathless, I lowered the scythe. Its owner stomped over to me and all but snatched the weapon from my hands while I slumped into a sitting position. The creatures were gone, and I’d never felt more relieved in my life. Or exhausted. The two of us looked at one another, then Shelton eyed the students. “Go home. Beat it.”

  “Wait.” I struggled upright. “Drew is with the person who asked the students to summon those beasts, but I expect the police will want to speak to them as well.”

  Cris made an indistinct noise of protest. The others looked too terrified to speak at all.

  Shelton looked at them. “You summoned those beasts?”

  “Debora Lowe told them to,” I added. “She’s at the library with Detective Drew, though she might be in custody by now.”

  A scowl appeared on his face. “Right. You lot, come with me. We’re going to see the police.”

  Amazingly, they did, traipsing after him without objecting. Except for Carey, who knelt beside me with an expression of concern on her face. “Are you okay?”

  “Just tired,” I mumbled. “I’ll be fine after a nap.”

  “Carey!” Allie’s voice rang out.

  Carey twisted around to see her mother, who ran across the bridge to us and embraced her daughter. While Carey explained what the students had done, I sat down and tried not to pass out. As some of my energy returned, I chipped in to add details to Carey’s story.

  “There’s one thing we didn’t find out,” I said. “Who called the Reaper to town? Was it really Faith Murray?”

  “I know who did it.” Mart appeared hovering behind me. “Hey, Maura.”

  “You left the inn?” I reprimanded him. “You’re lucky those creatures are all gone.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “I had to when I saw this guy wandering around. Seems he’s more resourceful than we thought.”

  I looked past him and saw Harold the Reaper, of all people, approaching our group on the bridge. “Wait, you called Shelton to town?” I said to him. “It was you who tipped him off about the beasts?”

  “Yes. Why?” he said, in his usual unfriendly tone.

  “He led me to believe that you weren’t involved,” I said. “Pretty sure he said you were useless and unreliable, actually.”

  “That sounds like him,” he said.

  I frowned. “Doesn’t that offend you?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

  “Right.” I’d never understand him in a million years. “You might have let me know a monster was snacking on the local ghosts.”

  “I hoped you’d stay out of this one.”

  “I was the target.” I gave him an accusing look. “Didn’t know that, did you? Seems Debora Lowe didn’t want a Reaper in town.”

  “Now she has three of them.” Mart snickered. “Too bad. She’s the one who summoned those things?”

  “She asked those kids to do the actual summoning,” I said, addressing the old Reaper. “So we have several traumatised teenagers as well as the Reaper Council having twice the reasons to come nosing around here.”

  “They won’t come,” said old Harold.

  “How’d you figure that one out?” I said. “You contacted them.”

  “I contacted Shelton,” he corrected. “Independently of the council. As the beasts weren’t summoned by a Reaper and were taken care of, I see no reason for the council to get involved.”

  My mouth fell open. “Did you do that on purpose?”

  “What do you think?” he said. “Do you really think I want the council sniffing around my house, forcing me to take on a new apprentice—or worse, bringing an outsider in?”

  I stifled a laugh as he gave a theatrical shudder. He had been looking out for me in a weird roundabout way. Okay, I could have done with a heads-up that there was a soul-eating monster in town, but as it was, we’d left no signs that might make it back to the other Reapers—if Shelton kept it quiet, that is, and it seemed Harold trusted him not to tell tales on me to the Reaper Council. In an indirect way, he’d actually done me a favour.

  Wonders would never cease.

  16

  I wouldn’t have minded celebrating upon my return to the inn, but instead, I went upstairs for a much-needed nap. I woke up when Drew texted me, letting me know that he’d dealt with Debora and the students and was on his way with an update. I barely had time to wake up properly before he knocked on the door to my room. I hastened to let him in, finding that unfortunately, he was wearing clothes by now. I guessed I couldn’t have it all.

  “I dropped Debora Lowe off in jail,” he said. “The kids will probably be cautioned, too, and we’ve informed the parents.”

  “Is that it?” I asked. “The kids… I know they’re only fifteen, but they could have got someone killed.”

  “I know,” he said. “There’s a limit to what we can do, and from what Shelton told me, the Reaper laws are much too harsh by our standards.”

  I grimaced. I almost felt sorry for those kids, for how they’d been manipulated and deceived. If not for the fact that their irrational hatred of Carey had led them into this to start off with, of course. If they hadn’t been dead set on bringing down her ghost blog and humiliating her, they wouldn’t have wound up falling for Debora’s trickery. Then again, they were still kids, and the Reaper Council’s punishments made a stint in jail look like a party.

  “Did Debora Lowe offer an explanation for her hatred of the Reapers?” I sat back on the bed, fighting a new wave of exhaustion. Man, that fight had taken it out of me. “Except for her grudge against me for getting the former coven leader kicked out of town, I mean?”

  “It sounds like she believed that your presence in town would cause all manner of buried crimes to rise to the surface,” she said. “She’s been watching you for a while.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I’m flattered. Seems I make enemies without even trying. What kind of devious crimes was she trying to cover up, then?”

  “Involvement with Mina Devlin, for one,” he said. “When those kids went to her, looking for information on how to summon a ghost, she took the opportunity to deal with the issue herself by offering the suggestion of summoning up a hellbeast. I doubt she knew what she was dealing with. She said she got the spell from an old book.”

  “I should have known,” I said. “Where is this book, anyway?”

  “Shelton took it.” An apologetic note entered his tone. “He said the Reaper Council woul
d want it in their hands.”

  My mouth parted. “You know what? They can keep it. I’m better off without it in my life.”

  “I thought you’d say that,” he said.

  “What about Faith Murray?” I asked. “Did you let her out of jail?”

  “I did, after a fashion,” he said. “She’s certainly got a temper, hasn’t she? I think she and old Harold would get along well.”

  I grinned at that. “I have to speak to him again at some point, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.”

  “Yes, you should sleep,” he said in stern tones. “You’ve had quite enough excitement for one day.”

  “So bossy.” I leaned back on the pillow to placate him and closed my eyes, unable to keep from grinning.

  A moment later, something brushed my forehead. Had he just kissed me? I opened my eyes, only to see the door closing behind him.

  That was something, though. It really was. I fell asleep with an even bigger grin on my lips.

  The following morning, Carey was back at school, I was back at work, and Shelton the Reaper had vanished from town without so much as offering a goodbye. He stayed long enough to see justice served, and that was all. It’d have been nice if he’d thanked me for helping, but as long as he didn’t say a word to the Reaper Council, he was welcome to do whatever he liked.

  “I can’t believe Harold called him here,” I said to Mart as I worked my shift in the restaurant. “Without asking me first.”

  “In fairness, you couldn’t have got rid of those monsters on your own,” he said.

  “Neither could he.” Yes, I needed to get back into practise with my Reaper skills, but without a scythe, that would prove tricky. Harold would not be thrilled at me if I asked to borrow his, but if something like this happened again, I’d need to be better prepared. Then again, I wasn’t thrilled with old Harold either, and I fully intended to go to speak to him after my shift.

  Carey came home from school that afternoon looking more upbeat than she had in a long time.

  “How was it?” I asked.

  “Good,” she said. “Cris and the others are taking a few days off, but the rest of the class heard the whole story. They also heard about me swinging a scythe at the monster.”

  I grinned. “Which is true. They can’t dispute the fact that you’re way braver than they are.”

  With luck, Cris and her friends would have the sense to leave Carey alone from now on. She’d be able to do all the ghost hunting she liked without worrying about what they did.

  Allie walked over to join us. “Everything okay?”

  “Sure,” said Carey. “The only problem is, a few more people at school have started reading my blog, and I need more content.”

  “Can’t you have a week off ghost hunting?” said Allie. “I think you’ve already had enough excitement.”

  “Yes, but I’m not allowed to mention the hellbeasts, which means there’s not much I can say publicly,” she said with a glance at me.

  “Yeah, we don’t want the Reaper Council coming here after Shelton has already left,” I said. “Pretty sure that isn’t what old Harold wants either. But I’ll come ghost hunting with you next weekend if you like. We’ll pick somewhere relatively harmless.”

  Allie raised a brow at me. “Sure you aren’t going out with the detective this weekend?”

  “I don’t know.” I hadn’t heard from him since he’d left my room yesterday. “I’ll text him after my shift’s over.”

  “Oh, never mind your shift,” said Allie. “Leave early. Think of it as a reward for all you did for us. You can go and surprise the detective at work.”

  “Actually, I have somewhere else I need to go first,” I said. “But thanks.”

  After leaving the inn, I made for the cemetery and Harold’s cottage. When I knocked on the door, he yanked it open. “What?”

  “I want to talk to you about Shelton.”

  “What about him?” he said.

  “You called Shelton into town to get rid of those beasts,” I said. “I understand why you didn’t ask me to hunt the hellbeasts myself, but you might’ve told me they were lurking in the area. Then I wouldn’t have been blindsided when they sneaked up on me.”

  “And you’d have left it alone, would you?” he said.

  Well… no. Didn’t mean I was happy about being left out of the loop when I’d been their intended target all along.

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Mart supplied, appearing at my shoulder.

  “Maybe not, but it would have been nice if I’d known what I was up against,” I said. “Shelton couldn’t handle three of them alone.”

  “I assumed it was only one,” he said. “I didn’t know the summoner would be foolish enough to summon three hellbeasts at once.”

  “Debora was fixated on hiding her secrets.” I shook my head. “Pity it didn’t work out for her in the end. How’d you find out the hellbeasts were here, anyway?”

  “Faith Murray,” he said. “She came to visit me when she found out what her co-worker was doing. She didn’t have any proof, and she didn’t want Mina Devlin’s allies getting wind that she knew, so she came to me instead.”

  “Really?” I said. “That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have told me yourself. Why didn’t you help Shelton?”

  “I’m retired,” he grunted. “Besides, someone has to make sure the spirits in this graveyard stay safe.”

  So he wanted to protect them. He really did care. He’d even gone as far as to protect my brother so there was no chance that he’d be devoured during my confrontation with the hellbeasts. I stifled a smile. “You know, there might be others in town who don’t want a Reaper around. Debora wanted to cover up the coven’s crimes, and to be honest, I’d like to know how many others were in on it.”

  His silence went on for a heartbeat too long.

  “They did it, didn’t they?” I said quietly. “The coven caused the floods.”

  The Reaper stepped back and slammed the door in my face. Then his raspy voice came from the crack in the door. “Don’t you ever mention that to anyone aside from me. Not the witches nor even that detective friend of yours.”

  A chill raced down my back. “You knew? But—”

  But the floods had killed his apprentice, along with a large number of the town’s other inhabitants. How could he have let them get away with it?

  “You overestimate my influence,” he growled. “Especially over the witches. Driving the coven leader out of town won’t be enough to put a stop to them.”

  “They even doctored the news reports from the time, didn’t they?” I spoke more to myself than anything. Mina Devlin had written those reports. She’d tried to blame Ed James to divert attention from the real mystery… what had they been trying to do when the river had burst its banks? Was there a reason Eric hadn’t been able to recall anything about his death?

  “I’d advise you to forget all about it,” old Harold answered. “And keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.”

  That was ominous. I suspected he wouldn’t say more, so I turned away from the house. Then I jumped. Drew stood there, waiting for me, as though he’d known I’d be here.

  I can’t tell him. I couldn’t risk him ending up being targeted, too. If Mina Devlin had doctored all the evidence from the time, would we ever find proof?

  “Hey, Maura,” he said. “I wondered if I’d find you here.”

  “We had unfinished business,” I agreed. “I wanted to ask him what he was playing at when he called Shelton to town without telling anyone. I kind of understand why he did it, but he might’ve saved us a lot of trouble if he’d told me as well.”

  “You aren’t wrong,” he said. “Is there a chance the Reaper Council might show up in town?”

  “You know, I’m not sure there is,” I admitted. “Shelton isn’t going to call them. That’s why old Harold picked him to contact.”

  His brows shot up. “He did?”

  “Looks like he wanted to make sur
e he wouldn’t tell tales on us,” I said. “If he hadn’t done that, I’d be a lot madder at him for hiding the truth from me.”

  “I understand that,” he said. “Did Harold know anything more about the case? I think it’s a shame that those two ghosts didn’t get closure.”

  “They’re together now, at least,” I reminded him. “But now that you mention it, it’s not a bad idea to go back to the news reports from the time and clarify that their deaths were caused by the floods and that Ed James was entirely innocent. I know most people don’t know he was a suspect, but for his own peace of mind…”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “I’d also be interested to see what comes out in Debora Lowe’s hearing.”

  “Hmm.” It caught my attention that Mart had vanished, leaving me alone with the detective. For now, I was all too happy to put all this behind us and move on. “Got any plans for tonight?”

  Drew’s brows rose. “I didn’t, but if you’re free…”

  “I am.” I slid my hand into his. “I can promise no Reapers will interrupt us this time.”

  We left the graveyard and walked away hand in hand. I couldn’t say I’d entirely forgotten the threat of the absent coven leader hanging over our heads, but that didn’t mean the old Reaper’s pessimism would dictate my actions. I might not yet have a plan for how to deal with Mina Devlin if she returned, but that didn’t mean I’d forget what she’d done.

  If she came back to town, we’d be ready to meet her.

  Thank you for reading!

  The story continues in Maura’s next adventure, coming soon.

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