When I heard my son’s voice, I slowed my movements, but I was thankful to Ian. I hadn’t heard Jake approaching the kitchen, but apparently Ian had. He fascinated me, and I wanted to get to know him better. What had he seen in his past? How long had he been alive? Did he miss his family and friends from so long ago? Were there other vampires living in Summit’s Edge? I shivered at this thought. Ian looked out for us for his own reasons, but that didn’t mean others would, or even that Ian wouldn’t change his mind and become the enemy. I had to keep that in mind.
I poured Ian a glass of wine and pushed a plate toward him. He ignored the food and sipped the wine. Jake attacked his meal and his glass of milk. “Slow down, Jake,” I said out of habit.
“Aren’t you going to eat, Mom?”
“Of course.” I pretended to, but I was fading fast. No way could I even hold a bite of food in my mouth. I was scared to even try. At first, I had intended to pretend to drink tea, but when I attempted to pick up the cup it rattled. “I’ll eat a little later. It’s been a long day.”
I checked the clock on the stove and found I’d held my form a good twenty minutes and closed my eyes. I tried thinking of an excuse to leave the room, but none came to mind. Sweet peace seeped into my head, and I felt myself sinking into it. A sigh of satisfaction rose to my lips.
“Libby!”
I started and opened my eyes. Ian and Jake were no longer in the kitchen, but then neither was I. I stood next to a king-size bed covered in red satin sheets. I drew nearer and touched the unmade bed. Had I drawn Ian from his rest when I arrived? I turned and explored further. A master bath made me want to weep in jealousy at its size, but the gauze in the sink distracted me.
I whirled to leave only to be blocked by Ian, filling the doorway.
“You were hurt,” I mumbled, concerned, nervous, and confused.
“I am fine. I heal quickly. However, I will need to replenish my energy by feeding tonight.”
A rush of panic surfaced, and Ian frowned. Once again, he appeared to read my mind.
“He’s in my study, reading.” I thought I heard a touch of fascination and pride in his tone. “Your son is interested in subjects unusual to someone of his age.”
I smiled. “He’s always been that way. I can’t keep his nose out of a book, and what he doesn’t understand he wants me to explain to him. It can be tiring, but I love his mind.”
He nodded but said no more. I started fidgeting, clasping my hands together, my gaze darting about the room. Ian wasted no effort or time in décor. Not to say his home was not furnished or well-appointed. To my eyes, the place seemed like a museum. There were no frills, no clutter. No excess or papers lying about. He didn’t even have reading material in the bathroom like many people, which made me wonder about his need to use the facilities. I jerked my mind away from such thoughts before I lapsed into my son’s habit and asked flat out.
“I wanted to thank you for saving Monica. You could have died, and I know you didn’t have to help us.”
His gaze locked on my face, and I couldn’t tell what he thought. “I was not in any real danger.”
“Um, your arms and shoulders were smoking!” I pointed at him. “I can see the bandages under your sleeves, and there’s more of it in the sink. I’ve heard the stories, Ian. I know vampires die in sunlight.”
He tilted his head a little to the side. “You know this?”
The single question made me feel silly and question what I thought I knew. I opened my mouth to answer, but he continued.
“We do not die right away in sunlight, and some, if they are careful and have done a little research, can find a way to minimize the danger.”
I wondered what he meant. “You’re almost like a witch.”
His nostrils flared, and I felt I’d insulted him. “We are all unique in our way.”
“Witches and vampires? Or people?”
He didn’t answer.
“Ian, what happened in the kitchen? How did I end up in your bedroom?”
“You wanted to see it.”
My face flamed. “I would never!”
I didn’t see it in his face, but I had the feeling I amused him. “You end up where you want to be, Liberty.”
I glared at him.
“You do not have to travel as other humans or even as I travel. You can visualize where you want to go and be there. Sometimes it happens without you realizing it.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not.”
I tried visualizing myself in the kitchen, but I remained standing there in front of him. This time, the side of his mouth quirked up.
“You are where you want to be,” he repeated softly, and my face grew hotter.
I redirected the conversation. “Sometimes I feel myself fading, like I’m going to disappear completely, but then I hear…”
“You hear what?” he prompted.
I didn’t want to admit I heard him calling me back, just in case he claimed it was some kind of what I wanted thing. I was learning he had an overinflated ego, and I would not feed into it. Besides, I could not allow myself to be attracted to a vampire. Soon, I would return to my normal life, and put all of this behind me.
“I need to put Jake to bed. Can I come by later, after you’ve um…fed?”
“You may.”
I started to squeeze around him, but he politely stepped aside. I hurried to the doorway leading to the hall and stopped. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I have more questions.”
“Of course.”
After forcing Ian from my mind, I gathered my reluctant son and headed home. When I entered my own kitchen, I met Monica sitting at the table, an empty plate in front of her. She sipped on something hot, judging from the steam, and I peered into the cup to find a familiar dark blown liquid.
“Why are you drinking coffee this time of night?”
She twisted around and squinted. “You have holes.”
“You’re funny.” I kissed her head and then winked out. “Jake is in his room getting ready for bed. I’ll go in, but I need a minute. How are you feeling?”
“Where are you?”
“Here across from you.”
She looked in my direction. “Much better. I’ve been sleeping for hours. I’m sick of bed, and I had a taste for my favorite brew, so I thought why not. Where were you two? I was worried.”
I hesitated. “At Ian’s. I’m going to stop by there a little later on.”
Monica grinned.
“It’s not like that, Monica. There can nev—”
“There can be, and there will be as soon as we find your body. So, does Jake like him?”
I sighed. “He likes his books.”
She waved a hand. “We’re ninety percent there with that kid.”
We both laughed.
“Monica, I did it.”
“Did what?”
I clasped my hands together and floated closer to her. I let her see me just a little. “I held my form for twenty minutes without taking a break, and I actually fixed Jake and Ian dinner by myself.”
“Dinner but it’s nothing?”
I blew out a breath. “That’s what you latch onto?”
“It’s the most important.” She winked. “Good for you, girl. Now go get Jake settled so you can rest. You’re looking a little green around the gills.”
I squeaked, and she laughed.
“Kidding.”
I waggled my finger at her with a threatening look, but the grin broadened. Then she sobered. “Thanks for saving me, Libby. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but I remember that water and choking on it. Next thing I knew I was on the side of the road. You really are something.”
“I…I didn’t do it. Ian did.”
Her eyes widened, and her coffee cup thunked on the table. “Right. I keep forgetting. He knows about you. How did he know we were in trouble?”
I didn’t want to lie to her, but I didn’t want to go into my ghostly wail and how it called things
that weren’t human. She would deduce Ian wasn’t human. That would open up too many cans of worms. So a lie it was.
“He must have been passing by and heard me screaming.” Well, part of that was true.
“I’ll have to remember to thank him the next time I see him.”
I nodded and excused myself from the table. After I had gotten Jake settled and kissed him good night, I winked out. Still too early to go to Ian’s, I thought of where I might go in town to replenish my energy and decided on Gatsky’s. Connected to the restaurant was a room with several pool tables where a few of the locals gathered. I did not want to go in there for fear of the subjects of conversation I would hear, but I needed a crowd. I would check the restaurant first, and if the clientele was too low, then move to the pool hall.
Floating about, catching bits of dialogue from the few patrons in the restaurant made me think I should do this more often. I might be able to pick up clues. I rounded a column and came across an unlikely couple with their heads low and whispering. I frowned. Luis Riley, the news reporter, sat with Sadie Barnett at one of the booths. Sadie’s mouth moved almost as fast as Luis’s hand as he took down whatever it was she told him on a notepad.
“I’m telling you,” Sadie said in a confidential tone when I drew near enough to hear, “she’s not what people think she is.”
My heart constricted in my chest. Was she talking about me?
“Why do you say that?” Luis asked. His eyes gleamed with interest. I had the feeling he would be only too glad to print whatever Sadie told him, no matter how scant the evidence.
“I saw her that night too,” Sadie said.
Too. She couldn’t be speaking of me.
“Everyone knows,” Sadie went on, “Olivia Walsh will do anything to keep her job—even kill her cheating husband.”
“Didn’t the police clear her with an alibi?” Luis asked.
Sadie’s wrinkled mouth shriveled still more. “You would know.”
Luis shoved a hand through stringy hair. “The chief is pretty closemouthed. I told him the public has a right to know.”
Sadie patted Luis’s hand. “If anyone can find out, it’s you, Luis. Now, when do I get my spread on my strawberry tarts?”
The reporter snatched his hand away and stood. “Soon.”
“You better not forget your promise, Luis Riley,” Sadie called after him as he left. “Nobody listens to me, but I know a lot. You hear me?”
A harassed young waitress sloughed toward Sadie, another teen in Summit’s Edge for the summer, I assumed. “Please keep it down, Ms. Barnett. You are not the only customer.”
Sadie pinned the girl with a cold stare and then scanned the restaurant with a pointed look. The few patrons that had been there when I arrived had gone. From Sadie’s position, she was the last, but I felt energy coming from the adjoining pool hall. There were late nighters, and I would soon need to join them.
I considered what Sadie had told Luis about the mayor. Had Olivia Walsh been at the hardware store that night? Or was Sadie lying about it in order to get an article in the paper on her tarts? Had Clark accepted the mayor’s claim of an alibi? And if so, what alibi?
I spent more time than I wanted to in the pool hall and then started out to the street. I remembered Ian’s claim that I could be anywhere I wanted in an instant and decided to give it a try. I closed my eyes and concentrated on his home. I felt nothing around me other than a sense of a different atmosphere, and when I opened my eyes, I gasped. I had landed inside Ian’s home. When I say landed, I have no idea how I got there whether I’d teleported or just flew fast. What I did notice was it took a chunk of energy to perform. However, being fully invisible, it didn’t matter so much. I would spend a few hours alone with Ian, so I would not need to use much energy.
Thinking of being alone with him, I glanced around the room and sighed in relief that I hadn’t landed in his bedroom again. To my mind, that gave the lie to his claim that I wanted to be in his bedroom. The nerve of that man. I had appeared instead inside the room he called his study. A sense of peace and comfort came over me being here. I liked it probably as much as my son.
“You made it.”
I whirled, having not heard Ian enter. He strode with purpose farther into room and dropped into the seat behind the desk. A key slid into the lock on one of the drawers, and he opened it to pull out a small notebook. I watched with curiosity as he scribbled something but didn’t approach to see for myself.
“What’s that?” I asked, despite my resolve not to be nosy.
He glanced in my direction then back to his notebook. “Information I gather.”
I swallowed. “On who?”
“Is this the start of your questions?”
I harrumphed. “Do you have to be so secretive?”
I thought he would go on frustrating me, but he answered. “I do not choose anyone at random to feed from. They must be in good health. I do not switch from person to person. I like consistency. I watch to be sure, and I make my move.”
“L-Like a hunter with his prey.”
“It is the nature of what I am, Liberty. I cannot change it, nor would I want to.”
I wandered closer to him as he shut the book and tucked it away. “I thought you had chosen that man.”
“A poor substitute for you.”
“Oh.” How did a woman take that as a compliment? “Well, I was thinking. You know when you had the barrier up?”
“Yes.”
“If it was still up, would I have been able to blink in here?”
“Blink?” he repeated, staring at me as if I were dim-witted.
“I’ve been thinking of myself as winking out when I disappear. I don’t know the proper terms, but blinking in seems catchy.”
Ian appeared unimpressed, and I resisted sticking out my tongue at him like a child.
“In answer to your question. No, you would not.”
“What would have happened?”
He hesitated, and dread knotted my stomach. “Let us just say, be very sure there are no barriers wherever you want to go. You should not have any trouble in Summit’s Edge.”
“Even at the two churches?”
He quirked an eyebrow up. “Yes, even there. All are welcome. Is not that the decree?”
“Something like that.”
I told him of how I had learned to stay solid longer, although he had been present for that, and of my other “adventures.” He praised me, and I’m embarrassed to admit, I glowed beneath it.
“I haven’t been able to find out anything substantial. Oh, I forgot I found a note in the mayor’s desk!” Ian looked at me as if he didn’t understand, and I explained.
“Will you inform the chief of police?”
“I’m not sure yet. I don’t want to make false claims and get someone in trouble.”
“A simple statement of fact is not a false claim.”
“Yes, but how would I tell him how I found it?”
“There is that.”
I waited for him to give pointers, but he said nothing. I felt like I was on my own. “Ian?”
“Yes.”
With the direction my thoughts, my heart ached, and knots formed in my stomach. I didn’t want to have this discussion with him, but I had no choice. While I was in this state, I needed to learn all I could—for Jake and Monica’s sake and for my own.
“Why couldn’t I save Monica? I was willing to give all my energy to get her out of that car. I kicked as hard as I could, but I couldn’t get the door open. Was the water pressure too great on the outside, the door crushed in a way I hadn’t seen? I can’t…I just can’t be that helpless again. Please, tell me what I did wrong.”
“You did nothing wrong, Liberty.” His voice cast low and even, soothed me a little. I floated close to him and let him see me. I thought he intended to stroke my cheek, but he folded his hands together as if to keep them out of mischief. “You are not a ghost.”
I frowned. “What do you mean I�
�m not a ghost? I’m in spirit form. You can see right through me.” To demonstrate, I let my lower half pass through the desk.
He scoffed at me. “As I said before, you are still tethered to your body in some way. I do not know when that tether will cease, and you will truly be dead, but for now it is still there.”
“If you can tell I’m tethered, why can’t you find my body?”
“I am not a bloodhound,” he snapped.
“Sorry.” I wandered over to a bookcase and ran a wispy hand across the volumes. I didn’t feel them under my palm. “So because I’m not truly a ghost, I have no power?”
“To put it simply, yes. A ghost can command greater energy to create havoc than you can. What you do is on line with parlor tricks.”
“Thanks for that,” I said on a sour note.
“Your energy runs out faster than a ghost’s.”
I turned back to find his gaze faraway and him rubbing his chin. “My theory is your spirit is still seeking your body as its main source of energy, and everything else is subpar.”
“Junk food,” I provided, and he nodded. “Then if your theory is correct, I should be able to sense my body.”
His gaze shifted to mine. “Precisely.”
“Not precise! I don’t feel anything. What am I going to do if someone I love is in trouble again? I don’t want to risk your life, and I want to be able to help. Finding my body won’t matter if Jake or Monica…” I let the last words fall away because I couldn’t say them. I didn’t even want to think of it.
“There is another option.”
I moved toward him, hopeful. “What? Please tell me. I’ll do it.”
“Possession.”
I blinked. “Sorry, what?”
“You can enter the body of a living human and take control for a while.”
My mouth fell open, and I stared at him trying to find words. Possession to me sounded like something a demon would do. I was not a ghost, but I could act like a demon? No, impossible. I could never.
Ian pushed his chair back and stood. He walked around the desk and strode along one wall of books. “I see the idea is repulsive to you. However, tell me, Liberty, would you not enter a man and use him to save your son? If I had not come to help your friend, but a man stood nearby watching and refusing to assist, would your principles stop you from entering him and forcing him to save Monica?”
Audrey Claire - Libby Grace 01 - How to be a Ghost Page 11