“Thank you.” As I walked to the bathroom, I felt like my insides had been tied in knots.
Fuck. I’d have to make sure I was never close enough to smell her hair again. I didn’t want to disappoint her.
* * *
It was freezing. I couldn’t see a thing, but I could smell the tang of the lake—rotting fish mixed with pennies. My skin was damp with rain. People screamed in the distance, and the noise made me wince. Hundreds of birds flew past, buffeting me with their wings as they grazed my face.
I opened my mouth to yell, but the air swallowed any sound. It was dark, too dark, and I felt blind and helpless. Thrusting out my arms, I yelped as my hands struck something hard and cold. A statue. Now I realized where I was, and I was frantic to escape.
A soft hand clasped mine, and I pulled away. I didn’t want anyone touching me, especially someone I couldn’t see, but whoever it was remained insistent. The hand grabbed hold of my sleeve and dragged me along. The smell of the lake grew stronger, and I panicked, throwing myself backward, trying to tear my jacket out of that unseen grip, but nothing worked. Desperate, I struggled to yell over the lump in my throat.
“I don’t want to go in the water, Yuèhai.”
Slowly she came into view. A faint glowing light surrounded her. She stared at me with her fathomless eyes, and she didn’t appear threatening—just sad. Deeply, unbearably sad. “You have no choice,” she said.
Waking up, I was startled to hear the rasp of my own tortured breathing in the quiet room. It was dark, but I didn’t remember turning out the lights before I fell asleep. Kate must have done it.
Kate.
She was curled beside me, her body curved against my back, her legs nestled neatly into mine. Her arm was draped over my waist. Her breath was cool against my neck, her breasts soft against my skin.
This was not a good thing to do to a guy if you wanted him to think of you as a friend. What game was she playing? Had she changed her mind? My groin had awoken to the situation long before I had—it was already throbbing, that ache-mixed-with-pleasure sensation.
As if she could read my mind, Kate’s hand worked its way down from my waist. I moaned, forgetting how sweaty I was—forgetting pretty much everything except how much I wanted her. The fingers that gently tugged and teased at the elastic of my pajama pants were confident and skilled. I leaned my head back and felt it touch hers. Her hand slid inside my pants and touched the place that needed her most. Her fingers gripped me, sliding with enough friction to drive me crazy, but not enough to hurt. It felt too good and it had been too long.
“You better stop that, Kate, or I’m going to—”
“Stop what?”
I froze, my dick a steel bar in my pajamas. The hand continued to caress me, but it no longer felt good.
It no longer felt good because Kate’s voice had come from across the room. From the other bed.
“Kate?” My own voice cracked. Squeezing my eyes shut, I shuddered at the alien feeling of someone touching me in a very sexual way without my permission.
“Yeah?” She sounded too alert to have just woken up.
“Can you turn on the light?”
I heard the rustle of her sheets and then a click. The hand released me. The body that had been pressed against mine was gone, but the indent it had made in the mattress was still there. Rolling into it, I lay on my back, gasping. My heart was pounding, and I could feel an answering pulse in my groin. I hoped Kate couldn’t see how aroused I was, but I was too sickened and horrified to care.
“Jackson.” Her voice was soft with concern. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Her bedsprings creaked, and without warning, a cold hand touched my forehead. I flinched away from her touch.
“Oh God, you’re burning up. Are you sick again?”
I opened my eyes a crack. The light made them water, and Kate moved to block the lamp’s glare. She leaned down, so close I could see blue flecks in her green eyes. I’d never noticed them before. “Could you…would you mind getting me some water?” I could hardly make it through a single sentence without feeling like I was passing out. My lungs were heavy with lake water and still filling up. I was drowning in a hotel bed in Hong Kong, but my mouth was full of sand. I desperately needed a drink.
“Here.” Kate handed me a water bottle, but by then I was wheezing. Pushing it away as I choked, I sat up and curled into the fetal position. My lungs ached with every cough, and my throat felt too narrow for air. I realized in a panic that I was going to die. My hands clawed at my neck.
“Jackson.” Fingers that felt like iron gripped my head. Something hard and plastic pressed against my lips. “Open your mouth.”
I obeyed without thinking and a blast of the most horrible tasting chemical shot down my throat. She’s killing me. Kate wants me to die. All the women in Asia want me dead…
Another blast. I gagged and shoved her aside, collapsing onto the pillow. But already the feeling that I was drowning started to ease. My first inhale triggered another coughing fit, but after a minute or two, I was finally able to take some water. The room was spinning. I closed my eyes, conscious of nothing but the blood slamming through my head. “What happened?” I asked in a voice that was harsh and reedy.
“You were having an asthma attack. Was it your first?” I felt a pleasing roughness against my forehead, and knew she had put a cold cloth there again—such a motherly thing to do.
“I don’t have asthma,” I gasped. The most I’d ever had wrong with me was a cracked rib and a broken arm, both the result of boyhood sports. I got headaches now and then, and occasionally I got a cold, but asthma? Never.
“Correction—you didn’t have asthma. That was definitely an asthma attack. I’ve had asthma since I was a kid. I’d recognize it anywhere.”
I wanted to tell her the truth about my nightmare, but my throat was raw. My gorge rose, and I struggled to sit up. A series of black dots exploded in front of my eyes and I wobbled.
“You need to rest, Jackson. Try to relax. You’ll feel better in a bit.”
“I—I think I’m going to throw up.”
She ran for the wastebasket, much like Erik had several days before, with not a moment to spare. As soon as the plastic touched my hands, I heaved. A gush of fluid came out of my mouth and flowed into the trash. When the liquid rushed over my tongue so I could taste it, I gagged, retching again and again.
By the time I finished, the container was filled nearly to the brim with water. Metallic-smelling water. River water.
~ Chapter Twenty-Four ~
“I think we need to get you to a hospital.”
“No.” The most I could muster was a croak.
“Jackson, you had a severe asthma attack. If I hadn’t had an inhaler with me, you might have died. And I just watched you throw up more liquid than the human stomach is capable of holding. Something is really wrong.”
I shook my head and then wished I hadn’t. The room swam in and out of focus.
Something was wrong, but not with my body.
“It’s Yuèhai,” I whispered, and as soon as I said the name, I could feel the mood in the room darken.
“What did she do to you?” Kate sounded angrier than I’d ever heard her—dangerous—and it filled me with relief, because I was long past being able to defend myself. Whatever her strange magic was, Yuèhai had seriously fucked me up. A one-armed toddler could have kicked my ass at that moment. “Jackson? Jackson!” She seized my shoulders and my head flopped on my neck.
“Please. Don’t. Do. That.” Gasping for air, I swallowed with difficulty. “You’re rocking my world, and not in a good way.”
“Well, at least you still have your sense of humor. Maybe you aren’t dying after all.”
“I will if we don’t get to Hensu.” It had taken a while, and more close scares than I’d ever wanted to have in my life, but I finally realized the truth of what Kate had been saying. Yuèhai may have been dead, but she was more than capable of doing serious damage.
It felt like a few goons with baseball bats had worked me over. Everything hurt. “I don’t think she liked the blog, Kate.”
“She probably doesn’t even know about the blog, or appreciate it. I’m not sure that us going to Hensu is what she wants. One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming they know what a spirit wants them to do. People have human motivations—spirits don’t. And more often than not, people are wrong.”
That reminded me of something. “It’s like The Ring.”
“It’s like what ring?”
“You know, The Ring—that horror movie about a video tape that kills you if you don’t get someone to watch it in seven days?”
“You’re talking too much. Have some water.” Kate helped me sit up, putting her hand on my head to support it while I drank. The water was cool and sweet after that nasty stuff from the river, and we’d gone through at least five bottles of it. Thankfully there was a little store nearby, and Kate ran out and bought more whenever she thought I was sleeping.
Once I’d had enough, she eased me onto the pillow again. I was long past being embarrassed that she had to take care of me. She would have made an amazing nurse.
“The reporter thinks the ghost wants to be rescued, remember? So she gets her out of the well and reburies her.”
“I remember. And then that creepy little kid of hers says, ‘Why did you do that? She never sleeps.’” Kate shuddered. “That gave me nightmares for weeks. I thought the cursed videotape idea was stupid as hell at first, but it ended up being pretty scary.”
“Probably because they stole it from the Japanese. No one can make a scary movie like the Japanese.”
“Yeah, or the Scandinavians. I’ve seen some Norwegian horror movies that rock.”
I grinned even though my lips felt like cracking. It was good to have a normal conversation for a change, if discussing the merits of foreign horror movies after a ghost assaulted me could be considered normal.
“Well, what you said…that’s what it reminded me of. The Ring.”
“I can see that, except that was fiction and this is reality. Don’t underestimate her, Jackson. She’s extremely dangerous.”
“I’m getting that idea.” My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten in hours. I was too afraid of throwing up again.
“Can I get you anything? I picked up some plain cookies and stuff at the store. They shouldn’t make you nauseous.”
The crinkle of cheap plastic made my mouth water, but the thought of getting sick was a serious deterrent. “Not yet.”
“I need you to be strong. You have to eat.”
Groping blindly for her hand, I found it and squeezed. “I will,” I promised. “Just not yet.”
“You still didn’t tell me what happened.”
My cheeks burned. Who says black men don’t blush? How was I supposed to admit I’d let a ghost give me a hand job because I’d thought it was her?
“Did she attack you sexually?”
My eyes flew open. “How did you know?”
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I know that sounds easy for me to say, but it’s actually quite common for spirits to pull this crap—more common than you’d think. Once ghosts make physical contact with a human being—once they realize they can hit us and scratch us and push us, it’s an obvious leap.” She scowled. “And some spirits will stop at nothing to get their way. Rape is a powerful motivator, and it has another advantage. Who’s going to admit that they’ve had sex with something that can’t be seen? And even if they did, who would believe them?”
Since I wanted to hide under the bed, I knew the truth of what she was saying. I certainly wouldn’t have told anyone if Kate hadn’t guessed.
She tentatively touched my hand. I turned mine over and she intertwined her fingers with mine. It felt good…comforting. The last thing on my mind right then was sex. It was nice just to know she was there, and that while she was awake, Yuèhai wouldn’t hurt me.
“I’m really, really sorry you had to go through this. I should have warned you, but I honestly didn’t think she would stoop to that. I should have known. You must feel so humiliated. Humiliated and used.”
“Like I could take a million showers and never get clean. Has it happened to you?”
“Not since I was a little girl, although many have tried, believe me. Why do you think I’m such a light sleeper? It’s one of their favorite tricks—to get you when you’re sleeping. Thankfully, I had no idea what was going on, and I screamed when something lifted my nightgown. My mom ran into the room, and that did it—everything stopped.” She grimaced at the memory. “I guess there was enough human decency left that he wasn’t willing to molest me in front of his daughter.”
I stared at her in horror. “You mean…your grandfather?”
She nodded. “Yep, my own fucking grandfather. How’s that for having a gift, huh?” Kate’s jaw tightened until I could see a muscle twitch in her cheek. “People don’t get that about ghosts until it’s too late. Death changes us, and I don’t mean in the obvious ways. When we die, something leaves—breaks off. I don’t know if it’s a soul or something else, but I can tell you one thing—the spirits who stick around? They’re not the people they were when they were alive.” She sighed. “My grandfather was a good man. Never had a perverted thought about me in his life, I can promise you that. Whatever was left of him would have been horrified by what his spirit was about to do. Thank God my mother spared him that.
“I don’t know who Yuèhai was when she was alive, but I’m willing to bet she wasn’t someone who went around molesting men. I don’t think she was malevolent, either. It’s in her face, you know? She looks so sweet and trusting, and she probably was. But whatever happened to her when she died has warped her beyond recognition.”
“This is a little much for me, Kate,” I said in the greatest understatement of the year. “I’ve never believed in ghosts. I used to think that when we die, we die—fade to black, over and out. And now I’m not only supposed to believe in them, I’m supposed to accept that they can attack us and rape us while we sleep?” I should be grateful Yuèhai wasn’t a well-endowed dude, but it was small comfort. Remembering what it was like to have her hands wrapped around the most private part of me made me feel even worse.
Kate smiled—a funny little smile I didn’t like. “You know what they say—it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in the devil. The devil believes in you.”
Isabelle’s scratches still marred her face. In the light from the window, I could see the furrows where the dead girl’s fingernails had gone deep enough to leave scabs. How lonely Kate must have been throughout her life, going through this shit by herself, without anyone to talk to. I could imagine the jokes that would result if I attempted to tell my friends about any of this. I’d never hear the end of it. And even if one of them believed me, I’d never be able to convince them that getting hand jobs from an invisible girl was a bad thing. Until you’ve experienced it, you have no idea how awful it is.
“Why me?” I rasped. “If Harold had something to do with what happened to her…”
“If? I think it’s obvious he did.”
“Why is she tormenting me? Why not him? Why doesn’t she kill him and be done with it?”
“Oh, ghosts don’t want to kill their enemies. That would be like buying a new house and inviting Hitler to move in next door. Why would they want to be stuck for eternity with people they despise, who could now fight them on an even playing field? No, what ghosts want is for their enemies to suffer.”
“So why can’t she make him suffer? Why me?” I asked again, sounding pathetic but not caring much.
“I don’t know what he did to her, but it must have been something terrible. She’s afraid of him, much more afraid than we are—I can feel it. And ghosts can’t connect with someone simply because they want to. If they could, everyone would know they exist, because everyone would hear from their loved ones, and people like me would be out of business. Karma would be a
real thing. No one would murder anyone, because they’d be guaranteed to pay for it.”
“Can you communicate with her?” My sullen mood lifted at the thought. Maybe we wouldn’t have to return to Hensu and play Nancy Drew. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask Kate to talk to her. But in my own defense, I was new to this talking-to-dead-people thing.
“No, she doesn’t want to talk to me. She’s obsessed with you, for whatever reason. The very fact I’m here with you makes her resentful.”
“But can’t you translate? Could you let her know I want to talk to her, and take it from there?”
“You shouldn’t be talking to me. You need to rest. But no, it won’t work. She doesn’t want to hear what you have to say. To her, you’re not a person but a means to an end. Until you do what she wants, there’s not going to be any two-way communication.”
“How am I supposed to find out what happened to her if she doesn’t tell me? I can’t share her story if I don’t know it.” Maybe ghosts could hurt people, but at that moment, I wished I could hurt a ghost. It would have been so nice to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze.
“And that’s why we’re going to Hensu. Now, no more talking. You need to get some sleep so you’ll be strong enough to travel.” Kate walked to the window and closed the drapes. Even without sunlight pouring into the room, it was bright enough to see a little. I was relieved. I wasn’t ready to sleep in the dark yet.
“I’m going to lie beside you, okay? She’s not going to touch you if I’m here. And if you need me, you can tap my arm and I’ll wake up.”
“Okay.”
As I closed my eyes, I felt her get into the bed. After making sure the blanket was pulled to my chin, she lay down on top of the sheets. She even tucked the covers in a little bit, understanding I needed to feel safe from prying eyes and fingers.
I stayed flat on my back. Although Kate was on guard now, I wasn’t going to give anything the chance to sneak up on me from behind.
She didn’t curl up next to me like Yuèhai had, but I could feel our shoulders touching. It worked. Reassured she was there, I was finally able to relax. No woman had ever made me feel safe before. I’d always thought that was my job as a man—to make them feel safe.
City of Ghosts Page 21