With a sucking, popping crack, the red separated from the green. I pulled harder, trying to draw them to us, to Roberto, to earth.
A gray blob rose up behind Martin, a mass I had thought was a rock or just another shadow. As I pulled, Martin came forward, suspended halfway between his world and mine. With the draw of magic, his arm glowed and radiated ever closer to Roberto’s shoulder and my hand.
The gray apparition darted forward. My grunt of warning came too late.
The shape collided with Martin. As it touched his shoulder, it turned into a hand. The blob resolved itself into a woman. She was as colorless as he, but there was an odd iridescent shimmer about her. Snippets of energy occasionally pulsed across her, relieving the unrelenting gray.
“It’s the girl!” Lynx shouted.
As she knocked into Martin, he flew backwards, still grasping the stone.
The force of his pull would have drawn me and my magic forward if not for White Feather’s strong hold. With a muffled plea, I reached my free hand to White Feather’s arm around my waist. Our rings touched and sparked. I clung to him and kept my grounding to earth, tugging at Roberto and the bloodstone with everything I had in me.
The woman’s eyes burned straight through me, a flash of blue, just before a maelstrom of colors burst across the dead landscape, blinding me. I lost my grip on Roberto and fell back so fast, there was no time to brace myself for the impact.
I couldn’t be certain whether I’d been sucked in or pushed out until White Feather groaned underneath me.
“What the hell was that?” he muttered, spitting sand.
I blinked, wondering just how hard I’d hit my head. Everything around me was a mix of dark shapes looming, waiting to attack.
No, wait. Like fools we were running around Tent Rock at midnight. I tried rubbing my eyes, but other than grinding sand into my skin, it accomplished nothing.
“Dead witches are the worst,” Lynx said right before dropping a whimpering Roberto next to us.
“Do you have a light?” I demanded.
“What for?”
“Lynx, not everyone can see as well as you do in the dark. Or in the light for that matter.”
“Light will just draw attention to this mess.”
White Feather turned on his flashlight. Roberto was shaking like a leaf. He stared at me in horrified silence as though the situation were all my fault.
“You okay?” I sat up and felt for my own head. Sand coated me from head to toe. Being washed in desert must be a prerequisite of the magic here.
Roberto stared down at his hand. I turned it to face the light. He said something, but the magic had shut down, whatever kind it was he wielded. I could no longer interpret his words.
Lynx tilted his head, and asked, “What happened to the rest of the stone?”
I picked up the nugget from Roberto’s palm. “Martin has it. Only the red part crossed back with us. There isn’t a hint of green left in the piece.”
Roberto nodded. He found the strength to stand and began signing frantically at Lynx.
White Feather said to me, “Can you hear me at all?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Martin’s gone. I couldn’t hear you while Roberto was holding open the link. He included me somehow.”
“That must be why you ignored my suggestion that you not go after the bloodstone.”
“Probably,” I hedged.
“And the reason you ignored me when I told you to stop pulling on the stone.”
“How did you know I was pulling on it?” We both stood and brushed uselessly at the sand.
He grunted. “I could push wind into it, but not pull it back. I could feel you there as if I were pushing wind at you. You weren’t listening to me.”
I leaned over and picked up my backpack. “Thanks for holding on to me.”
He reeled me in close. Lips against mine, he said, “Always.”
Lynx said, “Roberto wants to know if you can find the girl.”
White Feather sighed.
“Good question,” I replied. “I don’t think we can find her tonight.” Since I hadn’t recognized her washed-out features and had no idea how to bring her back across if we found her, I had a bad premonition that locating her was only going to be the beginning of our problems. “Maybe now that Martin has the stone, she’ll be fine.”
Roberto signed something, but Lynx was too busy staring where the ghosts had been to bother translating. “We’ll need to find her to be certain.” His ears swiveled once, hearing things only a cat could hear. “I wonder who she is and how she got stuck there.”
No way to know right now. She hadn’t left a calling card. Martin wouldn’t have the energy to reappear and I didn’t want to be here if he did.
I had no way to know that Lynx and Roberto would keep looking without us. Only a fool would delve into something so dangerous.
Chapter 1
When I first died, thoughts of revenge consumed me. I knew how it happened, but had to guess at the why. The guy who killed me hadn’t paid for the crime. Not that I knew whether or not he had been arrested for my death, because I was too busy trying to survive In Between. No matter. He had not paid the correct price including change—because death was the ultimate price.
Yeah, it’s like you’ve heard. Some people cross over completely. I see them sometimes. They slide through in a daze, not seeing, not knowing where they are. Others stare right at me and nod, as though we’re passing on a street. Some of them look right through me like the ghost that I am.
But there are other people here too, as well as other creatures: spirits, monsters, ghouls, imps and even demons. The demons don’t belong here. They spend all their time plotting how to cross through In Between to reach the world of the living. Most of them get spit back so fast it causes a weird bending in the bubble, one that burns them and everything around them. The blue-white flame either ends the horned beasts or sends them back where they came from.
It’s safer to avoid the edges of In Between, even the one leading to my old haunting ground, pun intended. For some reason, at that edge, I can usually peer through the opaque flesh of the barrier right into the slightly distorted view of my former world. I can see where I used to exist and where I’d much rather be.
Spirits and demons can sometimes force open those edges, and I didn’t want to be where I was right now because a demon was busily cutting through the weave.
I held myself as still as only a ghost can be, but even in In Between there are drafts.
This demon wasn’t close to humanoid; it was of the young, not very powerful variety, but old enough that fire licked the edges of its form. When demons lacked power, they were harder to see in the gray of In Between because instead of bright demon-red or lots of flames, they were more of a curdled dried blood color with a black shadow radiating outward.
This one was pushing at the weave, scratching along the surface with sharp claws, trying to puncture the barrier separating us from the world of the living. I couldn’t decide whether to remain frozen or float backwards. If it detected me I’d be toast, but if it broke through the edge with me this close, the backlash would sear right through me.
I gathered myself downward into a crouch, determined to be nothing more than my name suggests. I have no memory of my living name, but Shadow fits the ghost that I have become.
Ghosts don’t sweat, but we get the shakes. The tremors ate at my concentration. How long did I have to escape?
The demon peeled back another layer of foggy fabric separating In Between from the living world. He gurgled with delight and then let loose a screeched pitch that sounded like raw metal scraping on asphalt. He dug his claws in again, drooling liberally. His fetid breath was a rotting odor so foul, it was a good thing ghosts didn’t need to breathe.
I floated to the right, hoping to slide outside his peripheral vision. How the beast was able to tear away layers as thick as pig fat and at least as stubborn as alligator skin was beyond me, but I’d seen th
e results and been too close to the backlash once before. The damage nearly killed me. I had drifted aimlessly, barely able to move, trying not to hurt for at least a week. If Martin hadn’t found me and dragged me to a safe place...I didn’t want to think about what monster might have claimed me for a snack.
Breathing did nothing for my survival, and it wasn’t the fastest way to move either, but it was my best choice now. Sucking in air and pushing it back out might gain the attention of the demon because breathing belonged to the world of the living, and demons fed on anything with life—or even those that had once been alive.
Despite the danger, I puffed myself backward, stealthy as a ghost.
The edges of this demon were dark, especially around the knobs on the head. The slobbering beast was obviously very hungry. Hopefully it was inexperienced enough to ignore its surroundings in favor of digging and tearing at the fabric of the living world.
By my third breath, I had traveled about six feet. And by my third breath, the thin seam the demon was tearing at shone with colors other than gray. There were only a few more layers between it and the living. If the demon was strong enough, he might pop through without peeling further.
I breathed harder and faster, even though it might get me noticed.
The demon discarded strips of fog behind him like a gravedigger depositing soil.
My eyes remained glued to the seam, not only because I wondered how much time was left for my getaway, but because I too was drawn to the world of the living. My hunger wasn’t the same as that of the demon, but there was still curiosity, envy and loneliness.
Half my brain was hoping for a glimpse of life, the other half was gibbering senselessly about escaping. Amid the expanding light behind the edge, I finally glimpsed a washing machine. Piles of sheets in a large commercial laundry hamper waited next to it.
That figures. You spend all your days hungering for the joy and excitement of life, and you get the laundry day from hell, complete with a demon drooling over a few sheets because they happened to be spattered with blood. I absently wondered if the demon would lick up the dots and bloody blobs. Maybe the sheets wouldn’t even need washing after the demon was done with them.
Thankfully, there were no people visible through the faint layers. If a demon was involved and a human was waiting, it was almost always an idiot attempting a demon binding. The power from that sort of thing could suck half of In Between into oblivion, or so Martin claimed.
Since I was already dead, I didn’t know what would happen if I were sucked into a locked pentagon with a demon, but I wasn’t anxious to find out what kind of pain would result.
Just as the blue behind the layer lightened to daylight, a short woman with gray hair trundled into the laundry room with another bin full of dirty sheets.
The demon bounced up and down as if he’d hit the jackpot.
His focus gave me the opportunity to swoosh another three feet away.
Completely unsuspecting, the lady tossed a bundle of laundry inside one of the washers. The edge of one sheet snagged under the black smock apron she wore, but she ignored it and started the water flowing.
The demon howled. Maybe he had intended to lick all the soiled sheets, bloody or not.
The woman twitched and turned to look behind her, but her eyes roved straight past the demon.
The humpbacked monster gave a gleeful chortle and slowly dug a single talon into the last layer of weave as though he were anticipating the feel of her flesh.
It might have been the water rushing into the washer, or it could have been the demon’s foul presence, but the washer in front of the lady began to vibrate. With one work-worn hand she shoved the dangling edge of the sheet into the washer.
The demon sliced into the weave.
I blew out every ounce of air in my ghostly lungs and hit the fog at a dead run.
The sound of the blast hit me first. The white heat took too little time to catch up.
Chapter 2
The backlash from the explosion rolled me like a ball and threatened to scatter me like soot. The torn edges of In Between ballooned away from the blast, roaring with the sound of a thousand winds. Those pieces were my friends, blocking some of the dangerous debris as the demon was rejected and summarily slapped backwards.
Of course, the same thing that saved me might kill me. Anytime I was forced too close to the living world, I relived my death, that moment of shocking, mind-numbing pain when I looked down and I wasn’t anymore. Throbbing pangs radiated from every body part as if sharp sand flowed through my fingers. The ice was a cold that cut. As the hurt melted, nothing remained but sloshing gray.
I started swimming through it, much as I had that first time. The fog this close to the border was in strips, interlaced like woven cloth, entrapping me as the pieces strove to weave themselves back together.
I sucked in air as though breathing, but this time it was in search of the damp smell of In Between. The taint of anything burning would be my only warning if I swam too close to a certain fool demon who had just attempted a trick without enough power to pull it off.
My essence fought to stay in one piece as the torn steely bands wove themselves tighter, heedless of the fact that my misty body parts might be tangled among them. Flowing around the weave required changing shape, concentration and something else, something that was the nature of being a ghost. My soul kept me linked together, but when your eyeballs are squished into a thin rope and sideways, you lose a lot of perspective. If I wasn’t careful, I could accidentally leave pieces behind.
Martin had recovered the missing pieces that first time.
My head snaked into one flat piece. That shape didn’t bother me at all so long as my eyes were in place, returning my ability to see straight. I searched out corners that might hold any color other than gray.
“Crap!” I was still too close to the edge. In the shifting weave, a room became remarkably visible. The view was every bit as sharp as when the weave thinned because someone was about to die. There was no pain, so I hadn’t breached the border, but the pressure was building.
I stared hungrily; I couldn’t resist. Maybe I wasn’t even as close as I had initially thought because the walls were grayish and the light was dim. But, no. The room actually was drab. It appeared to be some sort of medical facility with white sheets, stark walls and a bed with a pink bedspread instead of boring white. A shelf along the wall was full of flowers, a teddy bear, a stoneware pitcher and two rocks.
A dark-skinned girl with braids sat on the bed, her legs crossed and a fierce collection of wrinkles slanting across her lips and forehead. She was maybe eight or ten years old.
She stuck her tongue out at me.
I was surprised, but from the way she stared right at me, it was obvious she could see me.
“Go away, stupid ghost.”
A woman came from around the cloth partition. She held a notepad and pen, but looked up and gave me a half smile of acknowledgment. Both of them could see me!
“Everyone thinks it would be so neat to be like a cartoon, seeing ghosts or zapping people with lasers, talking to animals, being cool. It’s stupid. Useless.” The little girl wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth on the edge of the pink bedspread. “Aunt Brenda, make it go away.”
Her aunt smoothed a hand across the girl’s head. “You need to learn to separate your feelings from theirs. Or are you supposing you can smoke that nonsense your older brother does and that will help you ignore it?”
The girl pulled back from her knees in surprise. “I didn’t say I was going to smoke drugs!”
Aunt Brenda rewarded her with a small smile. “I know. But people do. Sometimes even after they get to be my age when they should know better. They never learned to deal with it. It doesn’t matter if you’re like your ma and can feel what is happening miles away to someone you love or if you’re like me and you can see the ghosts.”
Rock, back and forth.
I felt like a sp
y. But the girl and her aunt could see me. They had looked right at me and done everything except say hello and invite me for tea.
“Why do they come here?”
Aunt Brenda turned to me. “Do you know why you’re here?”
I shook my head. I raised both hands and shrugged what would have been my shoulders.
“You will figure it out. You ghosts show up a few times. Then you ask.”
“Ask what?” When I spoke, the curtains moved as though there was a breeze, but the window was closed.
The aunt looked back at the girl. “Then you and me, Espy, we decide whether we can help or not.”
“Why do we have to help?” The girl asked the question floating in my own brain.
The aunt reached out a hand in my direction, fingers splayed. She didn’t touch me; she couldn’t and even so, she wasn’t close enough. “Sometimes we are the ones who need help from the other side. So when they ask a favor of us, we try to help.”
Roberto, Martin’s friend, was like Espy, the little girl. Roberto could not only see us, but talk to us and hear our answers. The girl was able to understand me perfectly. The aunt I wasn’t so sure about, but when Roberto had wielded his magic, everyone near Roberto seemed better able to understand Martin and me.
Still, for me to see them this clearly...I panicked. The edge was thin here, probably because the demon had just tried to force himself through nearby.
I swam backwards as fast as my gray could paddle. Predictably, I hit the wall. The woven fog had already started to close with me almost embedded on neither side. I wasn’t some dumb newbie. I knew that when you hit the wall, you bounce. When you bounce you go backwards, right into the firm line that you are not allowed to cross.
The scream peeled back my face. Oddly, I heard the aunt’s pen drop to the concrete floor.
Espy grimaced as though hit by an echo of my pain as I was bounced backwards and away. Something about her sparked a memory of another little girl holding my hand and laughing up at me as I showed her how to twirl a pretty baton, but the thought disintegrated with the rest of me as the weave sliced me to pieces.
Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) Page 2