Wild Wild Ghost

by Margo Bond Collins

  "You don't sound particularly concerned."

  "I am merely attempting to concentrate." If she focused her attention, she could pull the energy of this strange combined aura, as she did any power source.

  "Stand over here," she directed Trip, standing and moving to the far side of the garden, drawing him with her.

  "Why?" he asked, but he followed her, anyway.

  "Because I need to determine if you are any good on your own, or if I will need to remain physically connected to you in order to make use of this new power."

  * * *

  Ruby was perhaps the strangest woman Trip had ever met. Mere moments before, he had been convinced that she was about to bolt—to take what she knew of the demon that had tracked her to this town and run, as fast as possible.

  She had refused to acknowledge her name.

  Rowan Argent.

  Even after he had put it all together, Trip had wasted a good chunk of time telegraphing the St. Louis office to confirm that he was really working with the Rowan Argent.

  She and her partner were legends among the hunters who still worked this part of the country—almost as renowned for their determination to remain freelance as for their demon-hunting abilities.

  When they went missing in New Mexico, everyone assumed they both died in the fire that had wiped out an entire mountain town.

  That she was here—and more, that the demon that had gotten her partner had possibly followed her—meant nothing good.

  But it also meant that there was almost certainly a connection between the German town's poltergeist and the hell-beast Ruby had fled from.

  Trip suspected it was going to be up to him to figure out what that connection was—and more to the point, how to use it to put the demon down for good.

  Even if Ruby was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to do it.

  She'll simply have to.

  We will do it together.

  Somehow.

  Chapter Six

  Trip closed his eyes and leaned his head back. "Can we dismiss this hellish light?" he asked.

  "Mm-hmm," Ruby said absently, tilting her head and frowning at the pattern the light made when she spun it around her fingers. "Of course." With a single tug on one glowing strand and a spin of her forefinger, she seemed to snap the light away, much as she had the glass that morning.

  The afterimage still burned against the back of Trip's eyelids, but at least the bright glare was gone. He rubbed the back of his hands against his eyeballs. "Were you able to determine anything of any significance?"

  She had spent at least half an hour moving the two of them around the garden as the sun dropped toward the western horizon, testing her control over the light element first as they touched, then as they stood progressively farther apart.

  "It certainly behaves more responsively when our auras are touching." She frowned, flicking against his shirtfront with one annoyed finger.

  "You knew that within the first two minutes."

  "Yes, well, it doesn't hurt to ascertain these things through trial and evidence," she responded primly, folding her hands over one another and peering at him like a displeased schoolmarm.

  Trip's bark of laughter echoed through the courtyard. "Very well, ma'am. What else did you learn in the course of your experiments?"

  With a rueful smile, Ruby dropped down into a chair and relaxed the proper miss act. "Not much. The power itself seems to be very similar to what I used this morning to direct the glass storm. This is more intense and has the potential to offer more strength, but that possibility seems to be in direct correlation to how much you and I interact as I try to use it."

  "If we work together, we're stronger and better?" Trip's voice, always something of a drawl, slowed down even more now.

  "In general, yes." Ruby chewed on her bottom lip as if trying to decide how much to say.

  "Out with it." The circular motion of Trip's hand betrayed his impatience. "What is your concern?"

  Shaking her head, she rubbed her own eyes. "I am not certain that this doesn't have the potential to wipe out anyone who uses it. I am, in a very real way, playing with fire here. I am almost certain that it is this kind of power that the demon has at his disposal. Using it ourselves has the potential to be exceptionally dangerous."

  "What about the poltergeist?"

  Tapping her fingers against the trestle-table, Ruby worked out how best to say something she found difficult to put into words. "I'm not at all certain that the poltergeist and the demon are actually different spirits."

  "What makes you say that?"

  She blew out her cheeks. "Every entity—whether a person or a spirit or a manifested guide from the Other Side—has a specific feeling. A way of behaving. One of my teachers called it a signature. Having once felt your aura, I will always recognize it as yours because it maintains this specific … texture."

  "Does the demon not have one?"

  "No, that's not it at all. The demon's aura is absolutely specific. In fact, it's virtually identical to the one I felt on the poltergeist this morning."

  "Is it possible for two different … beings? … to have the same aura?"

  Twisting her mouth up in a little moue of denial, Ruby shook her head. "Not in my experience."

  "So you're arguing that the poltergeist and the demon are the same creature?"

  "I’m not sure, but they’re too similar for my comfort."

  So after all that experimenting, they were right back to where they had started?

  Of course.

  "We need to trace the manifestation back to its source," Trip announced again. Perhaps this time Ruby would agree.

  "Mmm. Yes. I suppose so," Ruby replied. Clapping her hands once, she stood up and clasped them together in front of her. "Would you care to join me?" she asked brightly, the hint of a teasing smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

  Trip sighed and shook his head, but he too was smiling. "Lead on, madam," he said with a bow and a flourish.

  If I'm going to go down fighting a demon, I might as well do it with a smile on my face…

  And a pretty woman at my side.

  All in all, I've heard of worse fates.

  * * *

  Before they left, Ruby stopped by her room to gather a carpet bag of supplies, then led Trip to the middle of Main Street, in front of the bank. Had this been any other Texas town at this time of evening, now that the worst of the sun's punishing rays had dropped almost below the horizon, there would have been a few couples out strolling along the new-cut streets, nodding to one another and perhaps stopping to visit.

  Rittersburg stood silent and still, as if the residents of the town were waiting for the inevitable attack.

  She glanced at the light beige dirt at her feet, her boots kicking up a miniature dust-storm as she walked.

  "There's no glass left at all," Trip observed.

  "There wouldn't be. I sent it all together, through a process rather like magnetism. Like attracts like. All the glass shards traveled together."

  "All the glass shards in town, or simply all the ones in that storm?"

  She chewed on her bottom lip, attempting to sort through a conflicting welter of images from the morning's work. "All pieces of glass connected to any in that storm."

  "So any pieces that were not flying around, but came from the same larger broken glass?"

  "Would have traveled with the shard-cloud, yes."

  "Do you have any way of tracking their origin?"

  "Possibly." Rolling her shoulders back, Ruby closed her eyes, centering her weight on her feet and allowing what she privately thought of as the energy of the earth to roll through her. As she inhaled and exhaled, that power took root deep in her soul, sparking heat in the touch-points her mentor in England had called her "chakras," after an old tradition from India.

  When she had drawn on her power to banish the glass-storm, Ruby had, without thought, sent an almost electric energy, like lightning, shooting through those poin
ts of connection. This, however, was the first time she had consciously drawn on them in longer than she cared to remember.

  It felt like blowing cobwebs away from a roomful of windows. Gently, Ruby brushed the dust of disuse away from the windows of her soul, preparing to allow more than a simple lighting-crack of radiance shine through. When she had finished mentally rubbing away the grime, she imagined pushing open shutters and allowing whatever was waiting to stream in.

  As before in the garden, the glare of the light almost blinded her, and she made a tiny noise of resistance.

  "What is it?" Trip asked, and Ruby realized that he was hovering next to her, one hand on her elbow.

  "Would you please take one step backward?"

  When he moved away, she found that she had better control over the amount of power streaming through her, and she frowned. "As with our auras, your proximity intensifies the effect of the power I channel."

  "Is that good or bad?"

  "I'm not certain. It might come in handy." Her furrowed brow smoothed out as she closed her eyes again, sinking back into the image of her internal landscape as a room surrounded by glass windows, sparkling clean and streaming with sunlight. With a few more breaths, she drew upon her sense of the morning's glass shards as part of a moving storm, traveling from two particular points, and drawn, she realized, specifically to her.

  "That way, and that." She pointed before opening her eyes, hoping to avoid contaminating her sense of direction with any visual cues.

  "The bank and …" Trip paused, his own brow beetling with confusion for a moment. "The church?"

  Ruby's sharp gasp drew his attention back to her, but she shook it off. "I'm fine. The church was where the demon chose to stage his final battle in New Mexico."

  Why on earth had she thought she could use her gifts with impunity ever again? What had made her think the beast wouldn't track her down, find her again, send her after Flint?

  "Ruby. Look at me." Trip's voice made its way through the haze of terror that had engulfed her momentarily. Her hands shook where he clasped them in his own.

  "Can you examine the church with me?" He gazed into her eyes with his own, so dark and opaque, so different from Flint's. "If not, I can explore on my own."

  With a steadying breath, she firmed her shoulders. "No. I need to do this. If the demon has truly followed me here, I need to help eliminate him. And if the threat is the poltergeist, or truly, anything other than the demon, my aid might still be invaluable. I am prepared to go with you."

  "If you're certain."

  She glanced at the tall steeple and the white clapboard building. Trip was right. This was not New Mexico. Even the building materials were different.

  "I am absolutely certain." Nodding decisively, she squeezed his hands once before dropping them and striking out across the street toward the building. "Let's see if I can determine why the glass came from the church."

  Trip nodded. "Yes. Let's go track down a poltergeist. Or maybe a demon."

  * * *

  Ruby was stronger than he’d thought. She seemed well-prepared to deal with the anxiety triggered by such a strong reminder of the events in New Mexico. She was one tough slip of a woman and he found himself admiring her more and more.

  He had never gone up against a demon himself, but having heard tales of it from other hunters, he wasn't at all certain that he would fare as well.

  Knowing that she was ready to face the monster that had defeated her before did not, however, erase the look of sheer terror he had seen in her eyes. He hadn't fully recognized it before, but it had been fear he had seen banked in her eyes before, from the first time she looked at him—a low-burning fire comprised of dread and grief that threatened to erupt at any moment.

  She's Rowan Argent. Of course she's made up of misery and fright.

  Not that anyone would know it to see her now, walking toward the church ahead of him.

  The rays of the setting sun shot the sky full of pink-gold light, sparkling off the church's single stained glass window.

  The broken glass hadn't come from the building itself.

  Like the rest of the public buildings in the town, the church was undergoing renovations, its wooden exterior being faced with the chalky white stones of the region.

  They stepped inside, the heavy door swinging shut behind them and blocking out the sunlight, and Ruby moved confidently up the center aisle of the nave to the chancel, where she stopped to light a candle.

  "Come look at this," she said, motioning him forward.

  Feeling as if he should somehow show more respect inside a church, Trip took off his hat and shuffled forward.

  "No one else is here, Trip." Ruby's impatience hurried him forward, but she didn't offer any hints when he joined her.

  "What? It's a tray, with a knocked-over cup."

  "One perfectly empty, metal chalice. But look, there's a splash of wine over here, completely on the other side, facing the wrong direction to have come from this cup."

  "So you think maybe there was a wine glass here?"

  She nodded, closing her eyes and allowing her hand to hover over the spot for a moment. "Crystal, I think."

  "One glass wouldn't have been enough to cause what we saw when we arrived."

  "No." Ruby surveyed the domed ceiling above them, then began walking along the walls, holding her candle aloft and examining the darkened corners of the room in the dim, flickering light. "But the glass—all of it—came from inside here, I think. At least, it feels that way."

  Trip took an unlit candle from the same stock that she had mined, and moved to light his candle from hers, planning to follow her lead and search for other sources of glass. As he tipped the wick toward the wavering yellow glow, however, the fire burst out in all directions, expanding in a sudden surge of heat.

  Trip and Ruby sprang apart, and with a cry, Ruby flung the exploding candle to the floor. Burning globules of hot wax landed on Trip's arms where he had instinctively covered his face, leaving behind bright red circles where he shook them off.

  At that moment, Trip realized that Ruby was no longer standing across from him. She had dropped to the floor, where she crouched, whimpering, her arms clasped protectively over her head.

  Before he had time to stamp out the expanding circle of fire on the thin, red carpeting that covered the center aisle, the double doors at the entrance crashed open and a hot wind blew past him, whipping the tiny blaze higher.

  Trip bent down to draw Ruby up and away from the flames, but eyes wide, Ruby stared past him at the fire, and Trip realized that she was repeating two words over and over.

  "Not again."

  Chapter Seven

  Grabbing Ruby around the waist, Trip spun her away from the fire, setting her on her feet behind him before turning back to put out the fire on the carpet.

  As the last of the flames died out under the force of his boots, an ominous rustling, creaking sound filled the church. Something thick and heavy flew past his head and crashed into the nearest wall. As it slid to the floor, he realized it was a hymnal.

  The sound of the book hitting the wall jarred Ruby out of her terror, and she took hold of his hand. Over the sound of the hymnals rising into the air from the pews around him and flinging themselves through the air, she shouted, “Follow me.”

  Only one of the heavy books managed to deal him a glancing blow off one shoulder before Ruby had pulled him around the altar and through the door into the sacristy at the back of the building. He shoved the door closed behind them, leaning against it as several of the books slammed against it, the impacts thrumming through his body and underscoring their near-miss.

  His eyes strained in the darkness.

  “We need a match,” Ruby said, and he heard her rummaging through something. The light flared and the sharp, sulfurous smell was quickly replaced by the scent of melting wax as she lit a candle and held it up while they examined their surroundings.

  The storage room was small and lined wit
h shelves.

  No place for a demon or a poltergeist to hide.

  He breathed easier for a moment, but a quick glance around the church’s storeroom for religious items quickly brought his concern crashing back. There were far too many things in here for the town’s ghost…poltergeist…demon…whatever was haunting them…to toss around. Trip didn’t think it would take the creature long to get down to harassing the two agents where they were.

  “Is there a back door out of this place?” he whispered.

  “I don’t think so,” Ruby replied. Leaning toward the door, she narrowed her eyes. “I don’t hear anything out there now. We could make a run for it.”

  Picturing the long aisle leading to the heavy doors, Trip shook his head. “Did the doors shut? I don’t think we’ll be able to open them to get out, even if we make it that far.”

  “How do you propose we get out, then?” Ruby asked.

  Trip picked up a silver candlestick and hefted it in his hand. “There’s a window on each side of the altar. We can break one and escape that way.”

  Ruby lifted the bag she had held on to—rather miraculously under the circumstances, Trip thought—and said, “But I haven’t completed any banishing rituals yet. If this is not the demon, if it’s merely the town’s poltergeist, I might be able to exorcise it now.”

  “You don’t think it’s some sort of apparition, do you?”

  She shook her head. “Not at all. I do, however, plan to be certain before terrifying these good people with tales of demons and hell-fire.”

  Despite a fast-growing desire to be gone from the haunted church, Trip did not actually disagree with Ruby. There was much to be gained from quickly expelling the ghostly force, and little to be lost.

  Except, of course, possibly our lives.

  “Very well,” he muttered. “I will…” He paused, trying to determine how to complete that thought.

  “Watch guard?” Ruby supplied.

  “Yes.” Testing the weight of the candlestick in his palm again, he wondered exactly how he might use it against an unseen force that created tornadoes of broken glass and caused heavy hymnals to hurl themselves across otherwise empty churches.