Ghost Maker

by Robin D. Owens

  A large pavilion set under trees covered the waist-high well-fountain. No one else sat on the bench or waited to fill bottles of water.

  The surround here, too, was artistic and modern, with metal pieces that reminded Clare of a sundial, with a pipe protruding to decant the spring, and behind that, something that looked like a manhole cover. The long, conical basin itself had turned rust red from the iron in the water.

  A true spring, the geyser water came in spurts with a rumble and more rushing liquid than the standard trickle, reverberating like you could hear every inch of the pipe down to the long fall into the earth.

  Zach tasted it and grimaced. “Very carbonated.”

  “Carbon dioxide,” Clare said, reading the information, as usual.

  “And with a definite taste that must be iron.” He smiled and held out his cup. “Here, you finish it off.”

  But this time they filled just one cup with a few swallows. She took the cup, swallowed, and coughed. “Very distinctive.”

  “Not to my taste,” Zach said, looking as if he swept his tongue around his mouth and teeth. “Where’s the fudge we bought in the arcade near Navajo Spring?”

  “I’d rather have mint candies.”

  Zach smiled. “All the more for me.”

  “That’s what you think.” She breathed slowly and steadily, extended all her senses for a hint of a good spirit, got the usual result—nothing. Enzo had done a circuit around the shelter crowded with ghosts, barking and sending them away from Clare. He’d found no special phantom, either.

  She’d have liked to link arms with Zach, but he remained tense from the effect of the thronging ghosts on her, his eyes scanning and watchful. Today he carried his weapon in a holster in the small of his back, covered by a sports coat.

  He gestured for her to lead the way, and she walked back up the path. They’d met no one on the path coming down, and the trail continued to be used by spirits and without human voices or tramping footsteps. Trees scattered between the path and the road, but the street remained easily seen, and no doubt a threat to Zach.

  When they reached his truck, they relaxed in the trapped warmth again. He gripped the wheel and glanced at her, lines in his face evident. “You didn’t pick up on any feelings of a good ghost,” he stated.

  “No. I would have said.”

  He glanced around, hit the ignition, and pulled out. Then he called, Enzo!

  The dog’s name rang loudly in her head, projected by Zach.

  Chapter 13

  I am here! A cold draft flowed into the space between her and Zach, and Enzo’s chill, near-substantial presence leached needful warmth from her.

  “You came and went several times. So you must have been running all over this town,” Zach said, keeping his eyes on the road. “Did you find the good doctor ghost for Clare?”

  Enzo panted, his tongue outside his mouth, but the minor spirit answered mentally, Not . . . really.

  “Not really?” persisted Zach.

  Maybe a hint of a pretty lavender fragrance and the taste of spun sugar and butter and the sound of a mandolin . . .

  “Mandolin?” Clare murmured, wondering where Enzo had even heard of the musical instrument before.

  Wisps, Enzo ended. The healing ghost is here, but I can’t find him.

  Zach grunted.

  “Thank you, anyway,” Clare said.

  You’re welcome. Are we going home now? The Lab swiveled his ghostly head from one side to the other. Can I ride in the truck bed?

  “Yes,” Zach said.

  “Please do,” Clare said at the same time. Then she steeled her spine, turned her head, and looked at Zach. “It’s still early, and I want to continue. If we . . . if we all work as a team, maybe we can find the ghost. Enzo can sniff for all those wisps and I can pay more attention to the, ah, air pressure—”

  “You’re exhausted,” Zach snapped.

  “I want this done.” She paused when she found herself panting, then lowered and steadied her voice. “And to be done, it must be started.”

  Zach pulled into a no-parking zone, angled sideways in his seat, his left hand rested against the wheel as he tapped his fingers. “An hour. We’ll give it another hour. Only.”

  Plenty of time. Even if they quartered the area, drove down every street, they could probably do at least two and perhaps three laps through the town. She nodded. “Agreed.”

  “And we work as a team.”

  His quiet tone raised her suspicions. “What do you mean by that?”

  I mean, Zach said in her mind. That we link like this, mentally, like we can do when Enzo and other ghosts are present. We’re closer this way, and I can sense phantoms easier, almost like you do. Also, I’m more used to searching and tracking someone than you are. I might pick up nuances that you miss.

  She let out a breath through her nose. “Oh, very well,” she said aloud.

  Testing, testing, testing, Zach said telepathically.

  I hear you! Enzo replied, racing through the back of the truck cab to them, then returning to the bed.

  Clare? prompted Zach.

  I hear you, too, Zach. She projected her thought to him. Their connection still seemed a little too close to her, and very annoying to her rational mind. She hadn’t believed in telepathy two months earlier.

  Then let’s go, Zach stated mentally. He turned and entered the traffic.

  Clare sat straight, focused on her ghost seer sense, paying attention to the spirits they passed. Quite a few hovered around Ute Iron Spring, but no . . . one . . . special. You have to drive slower, Zach, she said mentally, almost absently.

  Okay, and we may as well practice this form of communication. Words trailing emotions with them. I like it, Clare.

  Her teeth gritted, she recognized the incipient pain and relaxed her jaw. Again they went through a soothing spot—but that’s all she sensed, a nice place, no person. As Zach had just said, no impressions of any thoughts or emotions. Yet, she marked the location in her mind.

  Zach commented, Yeah, nice neighborhood.

  The momentary serenity dropped away, and as a mass of ghosts seethed from her left, pressure increased.

  Getting through this okay. Crap, Clare, these spooks are damn thick on the ground, aren’t they?

  There are detriments to this plan of yours, she replied primly.

  Yeah, I see them a whole lot more clearly than I’m used to.

  More like I see them, she said.

  Uh, Clare, are they howling? And, like, shredding into—

  Wisps! Enzo put in.

  Yeah, that, shredding into wisps.

  Because they aren’t ready to go on but they’re drawn to Clare, Enzo said.

  She frowned. I don’t see them that way; some are so solid I can make out the cut of their clothes. And, no, they aren’t howling. More like . . . talking. A couple are screaming and running away.

  Zach grunted and said aloud, “Always wonder why people are running from you? That was a batch of them, right there on the road. Aaand we’re through.”

  “I wonder . . . ,” Clare spoke out loud.

  I see them both ways! Enzo said. Real solid when I am with Clare, but sometimes wispy when I’m on my own. They are drawn to Clare but are afraid of her because they are afraid of what comes after death. There are a lot of spirits who remain in this area because they died here and are afraid to move on. Enzo sounded pitying.

  Clare herself continued to revise her own beliefs as to what came after death, and she admitted that it didn’t frighten her as much as it had.

  Do you have your ghost-killing knife? Zach asked, his glance flicking in her direction.

  Automatically she reached down to her bag, touched the outer pocket where the silk bag covered the sheathed knife made of the first Cermak ghost seer’s femur. She blinked, sent a startl
ed thought to him. You think the knife might scare ghosts? They aren’t supposed to feel the knife if it’s in the silk pouch.

  Zach shrugged. We don’t know all of the knife’s properties.

  More data that could be buried in Clare’s great-aunt Sandra’s disorganized and rambling journals.

  I’ll bet you my disability pension that the bone knife can kill any damn ghost there is, good, bad . . . Zach’s lips curved slightly. Ugly, beautiful.

  I would never kill a good ghost with it! We don’t know the consequences. She paused for a moment. The consequences to me for using the knife to harm a good ghost, or the consequences to the ghost, either.

  Zach grunted. Something to think about. Enzo, got any info we don’t on the knife?

  No, Zach. The dog barked and Clare turned to see him standing near the tailgate and staring back at the clump of ghosts they’d driven through. More people here than where we just came from or the hotel that burned down where we first started, Enzo said.

  “But they will be even thicker on the main avenue,” Clare agreed as Zach took that exit on the roundabout.

  “We’ll get through this,” Zach said. He sounded like he talked through clenched teeth.

  They reached the end of Manitou Avenue, and came up on the turn back to Colorado Springs. A muscle in Zach’s jaw flexed. “Back again?”

  “Yes, please,” Clare said, frowning a little. The pressure she felt had resolved into a specific sensation. “I think I can, ah, play hot and cold”—more like tingles versus none—“until we find the correct ghost.”

  “Got it,” Zach said. He glanced at her. She seemed determined, and not too exhausted. He drove one block north and took that narrow street. A stream of cold came from the truck bed, then tickled the back of Zach’s neck. I am getting better at sniffing for the healing ghost, too! Enzo added.

  “Also good,” Zach said. He pretty much lied. Like Clare, he wanted this done, but he wanted it resolved immediately, such as now. He worried that all these ghosts might aggravate her wound and worried that she might be hurt looking for the damn ghost to cure her.

  “The end of the road is ahead. We need to head back to downtown or the highway,” Zach said.

  “Downtown, I think,” Clare said.

  Zach heard loud sniffs from Enzo. He always heard Enzo more than saw the ghost pooch.

  Yes, Clare, something . . . I don’t know, Enzo muttered mentally.

  “Stop?” asked Zach, once they reached the main drag again. He’d tucked away his anger. He’d been a cop, and that job demanded patience. He’d learned to let waiting and patience erode anger.

  “No,” Clare said. “There’s something, but it’s so thick with phantoms, I don’t know—”

  “Okay, keeping on.” From the corner of his eye he noted she was more pale than he cared for, and the slight fragrance of her perfume augmented by sweat came to his nose. Clare! His gut clenched. God, he loved her.

  She’d closed her eyes, probably easier to play hot and cold. He sucked in a slow breath and let it out. Think positive. They would find the ghost healer and he’d fix Clare’s wound fast and easy.

  “Angle left when you can,” she said aloud.

  “Coming up on the traffic circle. Your ghosts will get thicker when we head up Ruxton again.”

  “Thanks for letting me know.”

  For once, he scanned the low buildings and Victorian houses crowding the streets for crows, for some indication of his own sixth sense, his sight, that Clare would be all right. Not a black feather to be seen.

  “Take the next right when you can,” Clare said. “I really think we’re on the right track.”

  They reached the conglomeration of phantoms they’d passed twice. He turned right into the driveway before the most distinctive building in the entire town.

  Clare opened her eyes. “I should have known. Miramont Castle. According to rumor, more phantoms apparently haunt here than anywhere else, including the cemetery.”

  “The weird French priest built it, right?” He’d done a quick and dirty search for Manitou Springs ghosts and landed on the castle’s website himself.

  They both studied the great mansion of odd curves and rectangles. Even Zach could tell the building included several architectural styles. Looked like a perfect place to haunt to him. The bottom part was constructed of that local green sandstone, greenstone, and sometimes rose to three stories. Throughout the front those pointy church-like windows showed and at the top large gables were interspersed with square stone crenellations like the top of a castle.

  Yessss! Enzo shrilled. His nose lifted. There is a good, old smell here. I will go find. He took off.

  “And I think I know what, if not who, my healer should be.”

  “What!”

  Her lips had curved and her hazel eyes warmed when she met his gaze. Hopeful. Both of them. “One of the Sisters of Mercy,” Clare said. “An order of Catholic nuns, from Ireland.” A line showed between Clare’s brows. “I didn’t do a lot of research on them. I think they’re at the very end of my era for ghosts.” She pulled out her phone and a few seconds later, the website for the castle showed. “They first arrived in 1895. So, yes, at the tail end of my time period.”

  Zach grunted. “Hard to think why a nun wouldn’t move on into heaven or whatever.”

  “Yes, it is.” She tapped and accessed some info. He still heard the wisp of a sigh. “I’ll have to learn why she didn’t transition and help her.”

  Good that Clare said that offhand; she’d accepted her new vocation.

  And fantastic that they’d soon find the healer nun ghost, the sooner, the better.

  Clare said, “Apparently the nuns didn’t move into the castle until after 1900.”

  “So she won’t be haunting that building.”

  “No.” Clare angled her phone that showed an old black-and-white pic of a huge wooden house with gables and verandas around the front and sides of the first and second stories. “This was Montcalme Sanatorium, where the nuns worked and lived during the time period I’m sensitive to. Notice the large sleeping porch for consumptive patients.”

  “Sleeping outside in the summer.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wood. Burned down?” Usual reason a big building disappeared.

  “Yes, in 1907, due to an electrical fire. One of the early residents of Manitou Springs was the brother-in-law of Thomas Edison, and the town adopted electricity early.”

  “Huh, but the fire didn’t happen during your time period.”

  “No.” Clare gestured to the left. “Apparently the house itself was located in what is now the upper parking lot of Miramont. There’s also a tuberculosis hut to look at. That will be interesting.”

  Zach negotiated the narrow road, the U-bend, parked in the lot at the top of the hill. No hint of Enzo, but the terraced grounds, steep staircase, and winding paths seemed complex. Clare had hopped out and strode toward a small square building, obviously the tuberculosis hut, though not the standard octagonal shape.

  He caught up with her as she peered through the small window.

  “Nothing’s in there,” she said. She turned and he had to steady her; apparently she hadn’t noticed how close he’d gotten. He kept her in his arms.

  “You’re suddenly chipper. No ghosts?”

  “No, none—” She broke off, puffed a breath, tilted her head. “I think the nuns and those who cared for them all moved on.”

  “Including your healer.”

  She made a moue. “I don’t know. She isn’t here.” She would find this ghost, and help the phantom move on. No one, especially a gentle woman, should be caught in the mist between life and death.

  Zach felt a cool breeze and Clare shuddered.

  No, she is not here, Enzo announced. But I found her from where she lived and her old, old, old trail here! Ano
ther lusty sniff.

  “Definitely a she?” Zach asked.

  Yes, a sister nun like Clare said!

  “She’s close?” Zach persisted.

  Just downtown! Enzo enthused.

  “We’ve been downtown, and driven past it, several times today!” Clare protested.

  She is shy . . . and unhappy.

  Zach figured she’d have to be if she hadn’t transitioned like her peers. And a nun should have zipped right into heaven.

  Clare’s shoulders slumped and her steps dragged as they walked back to the car.

  “Better that she isn’t down there at the castle, if it’s full of haunts.”

  “Yes,” Clare said.

  Think positive. He opened the truck door, picked her up, and put her in her seat, squeezing her and stealing a kiss. “Hey, we found her the first day out.”

  She smiled. “That’s true.”

  Enzo rose from out of the ground beside them and they both jolted. He yipped in excitement and hopped into the back of the truck.

  Chapter 14

  A few minutes later Zach, Clare, and Enzo were in a wide and pillared concrete space where mosaic tiles surrounded Navajo Spring. Plenty of live bodies of all ages loitered around the picnic tables and on the long row of benches, eating and talking. On the other side of the benches, children played around the large number of mechanical rides—cars, elephants, spaceships, trains . . .

  Zach continually quartered the area with his gaze, since Clare’s hand curled around the biceps of his weapon arm. If he wanted, he could see the throngs of the undead, too. But he had to watch the living.

  You’d better damn well warn us of any trouble, dog, Zach sent mentally and privately to Enzo.

  Nothing bad here, no! the Lab replied.

  Clare bit her lip. She had to hang onto Zach to stay grounded and in the present, pass through the shades-of-gray people who didn’t run from her, or even make a path for her, as if they’d learned earlier during their tour of the springs that she wouldn’t bother them. With each specter she walked through, since she initiated the contact, the cold penetrated clear to her bones. And with each spirit she checked her wound. At least it didn’t tear. Yet.