Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4)

by Maria E. Schneider

  I fought, screaming at the voice inside my head, shrinking inside myself like I had done the last time something had come after me, but this time, there was nowhere to run. There was nothing but brilliant eyes, shining, promising, enveloping me.

  Music with an actual melody slammed into me like a physical blow, rocking me with vibrations. I blinked, shutting out the red demon eyes for a millisecond. The notes continued, breaking the shrill chords of chaos that the demon was using to hold and choke me. The song started as a strumming, a note that floated and held, sneaking between the crying violin strings.

  “Kyle!” I choked out his name. One eye floated free, finding him.

  He was back on the rocks. He might not be safe there, but it was better than standing by an open portal waiting to be eaten by a demon.

  Kyle played. The notes of Bad Moon Rising faded in and out.

  The demon guffawed and cut the song into bits with flames streaming across his burning instrument. But Kyle’s music had broken the demon’s thrall, one that had gripped me before I had time to realize it. Troy had been like that, helpless against Amy. The only difference was that the demon didn’t want to destroy me. He wanted to possess me. He needed me alive as much as I wanted to live.

  When Kyle changed the song to Help Is On Its Way, I sucked in air that I didn’t yet need to live, and puffed myself closer to Martin and the portal.

  Kyle’s music was stronger now, without the hesitation. His notes didn’t drown out those of the demon, but just as the demon violin tried to cut Kyle’s notes to shreds, Kyle’s song suffocated the noise from the demon.

  Despite the screaming in my head from the raw blistering notes, I hummed along with Kyle’s melody. I wasn’t completely in tune, but then, it was hard to hold the line when flames licked at your eyeballs and a demon pushed at your sanity with broken despair.

  I refused to meet the demon’s mesmerizing gaze again. I focused on the song, holding it to me like a physical presence. It was not fog, it was not In Between.

  I pushed a ghostly foot forward.

  From the other side, the side I longed for, a wind began to moan, echoing Kyle’s music. There was no instrument, but the wind played nonetheless. I focused on the portal. Martin spread his hands, and as I watched, he slid one of the rocks further out.

  I took another step and hit water. I couldn’t afford to stop, not even if a mermaid started chewing on my feet.

  The warlock, White Feather, stood inside the hospital room. His magic drifted on the breeze, squeezing out a flow of music, the sound of wind whistling through a canyon. His life force danced through the air, a beautiful blue flame that had no trouble outshining the burning flames from the demon.

  I grabbed that life force and held it between me and the demon. When Kyle played the first bars of The Devil Went Down to Georgia, I knew it was now or never.

  The demon shrieked with glee. “That song is a stupid myth!! You can’t beat me by outplaying me!” His rumble of rage bounced against the portal, causing it to vibrate under the strain. Martin grunted, and his ghostly hands shook with the effort to hold the opening.

  Kyle missed a note. The music around me shuddered, threatening to fall apart. My own singing wasn’t enough to keep the thread of song together. The demon flamed closer, muscling me aside to fill the tunnel that led to the other side.

  White Feather’s whistling wind encompassed the gap in the nick of time.

  Kyle picked up the tune again, not caring if the story in the song was true. He played with conviction and life even if he was already dead. Music was a living thing, and he was holding onto it and playing for all he was worth. The demon might covet life, but he didn’t have it, nor could he create it with his empty and broken screeching.

  I swam within the odd current of music, one hand clutching the braid. Time to return it to its owner. Ghosts couldn’t cry without leaking, but a part of me was in tears because it wasn’t fair that I had a body to return to and these guys didn’t.

  Kyle kept plucking and strumming notes.

  Roberto yelled, “Okay, I’ve got this end. Now! Hurry!”

  Lynx said nothing, but his hand held mine, and I could feel the sister to the braid in my ghost hand. For the death of me, I could not figure out why Lynx was helping me, but his fingers wrapped around mine was enough.

  I dove across the water, careful to keep singing, careful to keep drawing music between me and everything else. The jump was similar to gathering pieces of myself to me when I leaked. Jump, but contain.

  The flame from the demon seared one side of the music, tearing at me. I screamed.

  The surface beneath me was crystal clear, a window, but not. There were fish flicking golden tails as they dodged in and out of sight.

  Lynx had his hand out, reaching for me as though I had fallen in the water, as though he would pull me out. He said my name, only he called me Shadow because it was the only name he knew.

  A doctor or a maybe a nurse with long black hair held a hand to my forehead. She wasn’t wearing a smock, but I could feel the warmth of her life force. Unlike the command that had tried to own my soul, her presence was only a welcoming warmth.

  The devil clawed in a panic at the music. The second he neglected to play, I felt the last of the licking flames drop.

  I puffed out the last of my air, aiming for the braid in Lynx’s hand, wondering if I’d make a splash.

  The last thing I heard was Martin, humming the song. For once, he was in tune.

  Chapter 22

  Kyle’s melody was a steady stream across the open portal as I slipped through. His song wrapped around me, a protective life magic. The demon beat against it and me, causing the portal to shudder. Roberto’s magic resembled a fog with an opening. The smoke of his magic cracked from the strain, fine lines splintering the surface.

  The portal bent, but the demon bounced against Kyle’s music. He raised his violin then, his attack paused for less than a second. Perhaps he intended to kill the music with his own evil cacophony.

  In the space of that tiny pause, Troy’s dog slipped in beside me as I tumbled towards the body on the bed. Even without my physical eyes open, I sensed the three-legged ghost come through. He passed right through Lynx.

  The cat’s hand jerked on mine, but he held fast.

  Roberto’s fingers, already held high, darted forward and nabbed the bloodstone from Martin, yanking it free.

  The portal snapped shut, silencing the shrieking ugliness that was the demon version of music without a soul.

  “Got it,” Roberto shouted.

  “I can’t believe you agreed to try that after what happened last time,” Adriel grumbled. She stepped away from him, her arms relaxing at her sides. Her magic, a pretty silver, slid away from Roberto and back into her bracelets. Her magic was full of life, protecting Roberto from sliding across the portal.

  “Tara, how is she?” White Feather asked.

  The girl with the long hair stepped away from my body, but she didn’t answer White Feather. She watched Lynx watch me. The only time he looked away from me was when his slitted eyes followed Spook’s progress.

  Roberto asked, “Is that dog safe?”

  I wanted to speak, but my body was too weak, even though my spirit was now safely in the same room.

  Spook sat his haunches down near my feet and put his ghostly head across my knees.

  “The dog doesn’t look like he’s planning on hurting her,” Roberto observed, answering his own question.

  “She has a dog?” The girl White Feather called Tara peered anxiously around the room, but she was unable to see Spook.

  “Lynx, how is it that you are able to see ghosts so clearly even though the curtain is closed?” Adriel was now tucked protectively under the warlock’s arm.

  The cat shrugged. “Roberto taught me.”

  The witch swiveled to face Roberto. “You can teach that sort of thing?”

  Roberto grinned. His words were less clear to me now, but still unde
rstandable. His fingers flew through sign language as he talked. Lynx translated. “All he had to do was point out that cats have the ability to see spirits.”

  Adriel tilted her head for a second or two. “So you call your ca—” She broke off and shrugged. “Call enough of your magic without changing.” She nodded. “Excellent. Is the dog likely to attack?”

  Lynx shrugged. “He ain’t attacking right now.”

  Tara said, “My work is done.” Her eyes were downcast as she brushed by White Feather and Adriel.

  Adriel stopped her with a touch to her shoulder. “Tara. Thank you.”

  Tara lifted her eyes to Adriel before glancing at White Feather. He nodded his head in agreement.

  “It’s who I am, but in this case, I didn’t do much. She wasn’t sick.” She frowned. “She was just missing. It was weird. Like it would be if you were without your magic. Then she reappeared in a surge. All I did was make sure she connected.” She spun on her heel and walked out.

  Lynx did not watch her go. He was watching me again.

  I forced my eyes open, but that was a mistake. Blinding light cut through my eyeballs straight into my brain. The second I commanded my body, my spirit returned fully to it. The pain felt much like the weave slicing me to pieces. I hoped that hell wasn’t waiting at the other end of the dark tunnel that engulfed me.

  Chapter 23

  Bits and pieces of arguing drifted through now and then. The gist of it was that Lynx knew the hospital wasn’t safe. There were others who disturbed my darkness, working on my battered body. A stomach plug for food was removed. Some cruel idiot tested my reflexes, including exposing my eyeballs to more light.

  I struggled against the invasions until someone offered me food through a straw. Once I discovered it was a chocolate milkshake, I was just plain greedy.

  Twice I pushed away from the pain in my body and floated. The first time I watched from within the room, I witnessed the elderly doctor refusing to grant permission to have me moved.

  The second time, Lynx was there with Patrick, the male vampire. The vampire encased my feet in fluffy socks and draped the sheet up over my head.

  As I watched, Lynx went still, but he stared down at me. “We’re breakin’ you out.”

  “Where’s Spook?” I whispered, but my spirit voice was too weak to be heard.

  When they started rolling the bed with my body, I grabbed hold of myself and lost my senses again.

  In the new location, there were more chocolate milkshakes and way too much vampire. The place was dark, and for hours or days, Patrick or the female vampire, the one I had seen at the blood bank, exercised the body that was me. The female vampire told me her name was Tina, but I had already seen her badge. She told me the day and time and asked me questions that I did not answer.

  In the dim room, I could open my eyes. The bed had buttons to adjust it up and down. I began to test my fingers and arms and adjust the bed myself.

  Once, when the vampires weren’t around, I sat up, but promptly fell back over. The weakness didn’t stop me, however. Crackers and protein drinks waited on a bedside table. I ate every time I was awake. The crackers hurt my throat, but nothing slowed down my appetite. I began to take tentative steps around the room, most of the time without falling.

  The witch showed up with more clothes. I had been watching things from above, roaming the room and flitting just outside of it into a corridor. Spook hadn’t been around since the move. Maybe he went back over, but that didn’t stop the gnawing worry that raged in my guts. What had happened to him? I was on my own here. No money, no friends, no job and no memory of any of those things either.

  I followed the witch back into the room. There was no reason to avoid her, but no particular reason to trust her either.

  “Time to depart,” she told my prone form softly. “If you’re hunted, this is too close to where you were before. It would be too easy to track you.”

  They smuggled me out under cover of darkness. I stayed barely sideways from my body, listening to Adriel rant that I’d be better off with her and White Feather. Lynx didn’t say anything; he just drove the four-door Prius. Spook showed up in the backseat rather suddenly. He pushed his ghost head into the front of the car between Lynx and Adriel.

  The cat flinched. The car swerved into the wrong lane, but only briefly.

  Adriel paused in her lecturing. She might not see Spook, but from her sudden silence, she sensed him.

  “It’s just the dog that came through with her,” Lynx reassured her. He pulled into a drive-through burrito place. After he ordered, he handed Adriel a burrito, and by my count, kept four in the bag.

  “What about the dog?” Adriel asked. “Does he need to be fed?”

  “He’s a ghost. He never complains.” Lynx pulled back onto the road. “I’ve seen him a couple of times, checking things out.”

  “Yeah, there’s an odd flicker there. Not as formed as when he came through with Shadow, but I can see him.”

  We finally turned off onto a short dirt road that led to a dark, isolated stucco house.

  “You can call me any time,” Adriel said. “Our place is as protected as yours. She’d be safer with us. I can call Mom or Tara to check her out if needed.”

  Fear radiated through me. I was at the mercy of these people. I still had no idea who I was, how I got here or where to go next. My memories were flitting pieces at best, the most vivid that of the guy who killed me. But now I wasn’t dead. I still forgot that, especially when I was floating near my body and not in it.

  White Feather was there waiting. He did some weird thing with the wind, floating me into the house, down a hall and into a bed. Halfway there I dove into my body, wanting to know what it felt like to fly. It wasn’t much different than drifting around as a spirit, only heavier.

  Lynx left a burrito and a milkshake on a table that contained a lamp, a dream catcher and a pouch. The room smelled faintly of herbs.

  “You need anything, you call,” Adriel instructed him.

  “Yeah, yeah, got it. I have your mom’s number too.”

  “Tara will help,” White Feather said.

  “He won’t call her, and you know it,” Adriel muttered.

  Their voices faded as they left the room for the living room or kitchen.

  My eyes popped open, and I reached for the milkshake. Chocolate. My favorite, and a thousand times better than the protein drinks. I nibbled on the burrito, but my stomach threatened to rebel. Too much too fast, and it would be more trouble than it was worth.

  Still, I finished half of it. I longed for a hot shower and more food. Escape. Only I had nowhere to run. I still didn’t even know my own name.

  ***

  I slept better than the dead. If anyone spied on me, it was a waste of time.

  Spook was at the foot of the bed, wagging his tail when I next woke. I slid partway away from my body and let him feel the warmth of my hand. “Spook. How are you?” My voice rasped so badly, he probably only understood his name.

  Spook enjoyed the petting, wagging his tail and rolling over for a belly rub. I chatted with him a while before exploring the house in spirit form. No one was about, but I saw a water and food bowl just off the porch outside.

  I hurried back to my body, barely remembering anything other than the location of the bathroom and shower. There was a pile of clothes, probably from Adriel, on top of a table near the window.

  My first surprise was the mirror. The gaunt face was expected, but my hair was the color of ashes, ranging from almost white to a dark gray. When I had stared down at my own body from In Between, my hair had been blonde with darker streaks. Somehow, the gray had managed to leave its mark on me.

  “Too bad.” There were more important things to focus on, like hot water and food. The shower was almost more of a relief than coming back from In Between. I hadn’t needed them there.

  After standing under the hot water until it ran cold, I dressed and explored in person. The kitchen was sunny and
bright, but the cupboards were nearly bare other than a bag of cat food for the bowl outside, animal crackers, chips and a jar of unopened salsa. The fridge yielded two dozen eggs, some tortillas, an entire shelf of sodas and a single bottle of milk that had soured.

  I felt guilty eating without permission, but they had brought me here, and probably not to die since they’d gone to a lot of trouble to keep me alive. I scrambled two eggs, polished them off and then cooked two more. Doing the dishes exhausted the last of my resources.

  The next couple of days and nights were no different. Lynx left another burrito and milkshake. The milkshake was half melted by the time I woke up, and the burrito was cold, but I devoured them without hesitation.

  The next time he showed up in the doorway with a burrito, I was awake. He stood in the doorway with the bag, barefoot. “Hungry?”

  “Most of the time.” My voice was better than my first attempt, but Spook wasn’t much of a conversationalist, so practicing had been limited to a few whispered greetings.

  Lynx brought the burrito and milkshake in and set them down. His eyes never left mine. He acted as though he expected me to sprint away.

  My own reaction was worried wariness, although I tried harder to hide my discomfort than he did.

  “You keep making yourself at home,” he ordered. “Adriel’s been by. You were sleeping. She brought her mom.”

  I didn’t remember the visit. I slurped the milkshake. He backed out, leaving the door open.

  The next morning, when I floated sideways out of my body to check things out, Lynx was in the kitchen. He must have a job to go to every day because he hadn’t been home before.

  He was flipping bacon in a pan. The enticing smell of it was probably what had woken me. My body was little more than bones. I was constantly hungry.

  He turned fast, cat eyes flashing. The fork was up and ready to serve as a weapon when he spotted me. “Shit! You died? Crap!”