How to Kill a Ghost

by Audrey Claire

  “Shoes, toothbrush.” I stopped moving, a pair of pink panties gripped in my hand, not the cute lacy kind but one hundred percent cotton granny panties for that time of the month. What was I thinking? Where would I go, and most importantly, how could I support Jake? Right now, I worked at the hardware store, owned by the ex-mayor of the town, but my hours were erratic at best. The mayor with her own concerns hadn’t bothered me much at all, even when I left the store to investigate murders for Clark—unbeknownst to him, of course.

  I tossed the panties back in the dresser, shoved clothes aside, and sank down on the bed. I couldn’t take Monica with me, and having no family or friends outside of town, I could rely on no one’s help. I couldn’t support myself let alone Jake. Not to mention the fact that Mason and I had joint custody of our son even though Jake lived with me ninety-five percent of the time. I couldn’t just run off and tell Mason nothing. He would go to the police. A ghost wanted for kidnapping. If it were not my life it would be funny. I had to give up and let go.

  I stood. “It’s time to give Jake to Mason and kiss him good-bye.”

  My heart was breaking. This had been a while coming, and from the beginning I considered the possibility. I moved listless through the bedroom door to the hall and down to the living room. Monica lay on the couch with her feet drawn up, a fist tucked beneath her chin. She’d given Jake and me so much. This was enough. I wavered between solid form and transparent then sat down beside her. When I did so, I didn’t make much contact with the furniture. The move was more to give a semblance of normalcy and to make the other person feel more comfortable. I still sometimes freaked Monica out.

  “Monica?” I shook her shoulder. “Wake up. It’s me.”

  I had to talk to her, not just jostle her awake. Her eyes opened to slits. She stilled, and then came to herself. Yawning, she sat up and stretched. “I did it again. Work drains me. I need to find a rich man to spend all his money on me.”

  I forced a smile. She’d been saying that for years. I believed a good man for my friend existed, but I wouldn’t be there when he arrived. “I have to talk to you.”

  “Sounds serious. Are we pulling an all-nighter, and do I need coffee?”

  “No, short and sweet.” I hesitated. The words stuck in my throat. We had had this conversation in the beginning, but at that time, Monica had given me a time limit to find my body in a week. If I didn’t, she had planned to inform Mason so Jake could be cared for. As time passed, Monica—and I—started to believe we could continue with this insane way of living. Now I knew we couldn’t. Tevin might be only the beginning of the danger awaiting us.

  “It’s over, Monica,” I managed at last.

  She patted my hand. “You and Ian? I guess it couldn’t last. He’s weird. I support you and everything, girl, but…”

  “No.” A new thought struck me, and I held up a finger and hurried to the hallway near the front door. “Tevin McClain is not welcome in this house.”

  I said it just in case it needed to be said. At least that was some protection for Jake and Monica—until they left the house. Knowing he could lay in wait for them just to get to Ian and me made me ill, but I had done something, which felt better than sitting on my hands. I started to return to the living room when the bell rang. I froze, thinking I had called Tevin to me mentioning his name like that. I walked over to the door and listened. Isabelle must have sensed me there.

  “It’s me, Libby,” she called softly. “Can you let me in?”

  I pulled the door open, and she stepped inside. She’d dressed all in black from her shoes to her slacks and the blouse she wore, all clinging attractively to her slim figure. Her hands were even encased in black leather gloves. “Are you going out?” I asked although I felt the mono-color a bit severe.

  “No.” Isabelle’s chuckle tinkled in the air. She straightened her blouse. “This is my covert outfit.”

  “Covert?” I blinked at her.

  “Yes, I came to invite you to come along. I want to visit Nessa’s house and see what we can find. I believe she was a witch, so she might have had spell books.” Excitement punctuated each word Isabelle spoke.

  “You say ‘visit’ her house, but don’t you mean breaking and entering?” The prospect didn’t sit well with me, and it shouldn’t have with Isabelle either. How much shame and embarrassment would the two of us bring to Clark if we were caught?

  “Please come, Libby,” she begged, taking my hand. “I would have come earlier, but I had to visit the morgue. Being a nurse at the hospital came in handy.”

  I cringed. “Why would you do that?” Was it a nurse’s duty that I hadn’t heard of?

  “I needed to consecrate Nessa’s body so she couldn’t be brought back.”

  I gasped, not having thought of that. Her body had been drained of blood. From what I had learned from Ian, all that would be needed was for a vampire to feed Nessa his blood to make her rise. Well, there was some other ritual, but it didn’t interest me enough to recall the details. I praised Isabelle in silence for her forward thinking.

  When I remained quiet, she assumed I resisted going with her. “There might be something at the house to help you.”

  My eyes widened. “Me?”

  “Yes, there are many powerful spells in existence. I haven’t scratched the surface, and they’re not lying around on the Internet for anyone to discover. This might be my only chance, and I have to take it. I know my instincts are right. Besides,”—she hammered the nail home—“there might even be a spell to protect you from vampires.”

  “Vampires.” My interest perked up. If there were some way I could protect myself, Jake, and Monica against Tevin, I was for it. “But what about Ian? Will it hurt him too?”

  Sympathy rose in Isabelle’s expression. I was heartily tired of people feeling sorry for me. “It can’t distinguish between them. I’m guessing you know there’s another one here?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t explain who the other one was. She would probably know soon enough.

  I gave Monica an excuse about leaving and told her we would talk later. Then Isabelle and I left for Nessa’s place. Nessa had rented a house on the south side of town in an area where the nearest neighbor wasn’t as close as Ian’s house was to mine. When we pulled onto the property, Isabelle turned off her car but didn’t get out. “Okay, you go invisible and stay beside me. At the door, you can slip inside and unlock the door.”

  I groaned. “So that’s why you wanted me along?”

  Isabelle winked. “Well, I could use the skills Clark taught me when we were kids.”

  “He taught you how to break into houses?”

  “How to pick a lock.”

  “Hm, good thing he became a policeman.”

  Isabelle agreed. At Nessa’s door, we paused, and Isabelle put her hand out as if to block my path. I could phase through her arm, but I waited. Her lips moved, but no sound came out, and I had the feeling she disbursed a protection spell. She frowned after a few moments and tried again. The fourth time did it, and I passed into the house. With the lights off, I couldn’t make out much except that Nessa didn’t have a lot of furniture. I saw no bookshelves or even a dining or coffee table. Concern that we would find nothing useful here came over me, but I let Isabelle in anyway.

  “Think maybe the police searched already?” I asked.

  She shook her head, surveying the room where we stood. “Not yet. Clark said tomorrow.”

  “You asked him?”

  She started for the back of the house. “Stop worrying, Libby. I can handle my brother. I’ve been doing it a long time, and I’ll probably still be there when he’s an old man, boring me with talk of the good old days.”

  I winced and followed her. She passed through the dining room and ignored the kitchen. Four doors were shut at the end of the hall—one the closet, one a bathroom, and the other two were bedrooms. Nessa had slept in one and the other she had used as a book room.”

  “Jackpot,” Isabelle chirped.
<
br />   “Unless they’re cookbooks,” I countered.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  I didn’t get it but joined her in searching through the books. We dared to turn on the lights, hoping the neighbors’ vision was obscured by the surrounding trees or they didn’t care to report lights in a house that should be empty.

  I started with the first few books, which were romances. I had borrowed a couple from the library, but there were more I hadn’t come across. “You think the family might be willing to donate these to the library?”

  Isabelle didn’t answer. I looked up to find she’d shut her eyes, and I went back to searching. Just as I had joked, there were cookbooks and a host of other subjects. Nessa’s interests were vast, from foreign languages to comic books to romance. She enjoyed nonfiction about the economy and history. I frowned. The room might not be that big, but with some stacks almost to the ceiling, we had our job cut out for us.

  “This doesn’t feel right,” Isabelle said after some time.

  “What do you mean? You wanted to come here,” I protested.

  “Not that.” She stood up. “This collection is too broad. Some of the books might interest her, but others seem like filler.”

  I frowned. “So you did know her?”

  “No.” Isabelle tapped her lip and then spread her hands out over the volumes. She moved through the narrow passages between the stacks. “They don’t feel warm as a true reader would love her books. These are… hm, maybe the contents of a bookstore?”

  I considered it. “Maybe. The subjects are broad, but a librarian might like all kinds of books. Then again, Monica only likes reading mysteries.”

  “Exactly. I know what she was, Libby. There must be something here.”

  “She could have come from a smaller town than Summit’s Edge and didn’t have a teacher or a coven like you.”

  Isabelle appeared crestfallen, but then she straightened her shoulders. “It took all of my strength and will plus four tries to get in here. She definitely had training.”

  “Does that mean if we hadn’t come tonight, Clark and his officers wouldn’t have been able to come in?”

  “No, only if you aren’t ordinary or have malicious intent. Clark would have been fine. So, let’s find something, okay?”

  “Okay, if you’re sure.” I didn’t want her to be let down, so I looked through the books faster. Then when I had cleared my half of the room, I began phasing through walls, pausing in between, which I hated because it was spooky. When our hope began to fade, we found a clue. Nessa had cut a slot into the carpet just off center of one wall, and beneath, the floorboards had been manipulated.

  “She wouldn’t have gotten her deposit back with this destruction,” Isabelle joked, but her eyes were wide with excitement as she wrestled one of the floorboards loose. Below it sat a neat little cubbie hole, lined with soft eggshell-colored material to protect the books piled inside.

  The book on top had been tied with silky blue ribbon. Isabelle lifted it out while I leaned over her shoulder. I was interested in the book and the care that had been given to arranging patterns of cloth onto the binder. Nessa had glued them down for an intricate and elegant design.

  Isabelle’s attention had wandered past the diary to the other books. These appeared to be the spells books she’d been looking for. She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Her hand trembled as she removed the first volume from the cubby and opened the cover. She stilled and glanced up at me. “Do you mind, Libby? I’m so sorry, but I must keep our secrets to myself.”

  I understood even as a twinge of annoyance came over me. I couldn’t imagine what Isabelle must have gone through feeling alone growing up, knowing she had to hide a part of herself from the world lest she be judged. In our small town, it would likely happen. There were some who had been ostracized for less. With everyone knowing so much about everyone else’s business, Isabelle’s secret would have been all over town within hours of the first person learning it.

  I picked up the diary and brushed a hand over the cover. The silken surface teased my fingertips. Isabelle hadn’t protested me looking at this one, so I assumed she didn’t believe spells would be written there. Still I hesitated because it was likely Nessa’s private thoughts were written within, and even if she was dead, me reading it would be an invasion of her privacy. Suspicions rose in me regarding Nessa’s reasons for being in Summit’s Edge. My experiences of the last few weeks had taught me to take every opportunity presented and not let the conventions bind me.

  I opened the diary to the first entry and promptly dropped the book on the floor. The thump brought Isabelle’s head up from studying her own volume. “Libby? What’s wrong?”

  “I know the connection,” I said.

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Vanessa was named after her great-grandmother, the original Nessa.”

  “Original?”

  I considered whether to tell her Ian’s history and decided to go through with it. At least most of it. “So, you see, our Nessa was related to the original Nessa who came between the brothers.”

  Isabelle nodded. “And Tevin still holds a grudge. He shouldn’t. It isn’t as if she was his girlfriend after all. To hold on to his anger all this time…”

  “Not just now,” I said, thinking about it and growing cold. “Tevin’s reaction seemed a little extreme. To be honest, I believe he—”

  “May have already been an unbalanced individual.”

  I nodded.

  “Then their maker made it worse by giving him unimaginable power.”

  “Maybe it was all a game to him,” I speculated. “They live forever, and I can only imagine how dull life would grow over time. Maybe they begin to manipulate circumstances for their own entertainment.”

  “We don’t know the reasons, and like you said, if Tevin told the truth and the man is dead now. Good riddance.”

  “That’s true.” I went back to scanning the diary, trying to understand Nessa better. She hadn’t been very consistent with her use of the book. I learned she had been close to her family and because of it visited with her great-grandmother, who lived in a small cottage with a caretaker up north. Nessa had sat at the woman’s knee listening to stories of vampires. I raised my voice to Isabelle. “Listen to this. ‘Nana seems more listless now. She keeps staring into the shadows, shifting in her chair like she’s nervous. She mutters things like ‘not yet, not yet.’ I don’t know who she’s talking to. Maybe there are long passed loved ones who have come to escort her home. I feel sorry for her.’”

  I stopped reading and looked up at Isabelle. She had gone pale, and I knew Isabelle knew what I did. Death was near, and Nessa’s great-grandmother might have sensed him coming. Maybe she even saw him. I speculated on what he looked like. Was he creepy or a handsome gentleman? Did he look like a dark angel, or even a light one? Thinking about it made me nervous like he stood in the room with us, so I pushed the thoughts away.

  “Is there anything else, like a clue to whether Nessa knew Tevin?”

  I flipped through the pages, scanning the tight script. “Yes, here’s something else. ‘He appeared in my room one night. I was so scared I couldn’t move. At first I thought he was a common thief, but then he flashed his fangs. He wanted me to be afraid, and he succeeded. If he thought I was helpless and afraid, he was wrong. I had learned from Nana he existed, and a part of me didn’t believe it. I had worked hard on my skills, lived with a witch as her apprentice for years, learning all I could. My amulet would keep me safe, but in that instant, I took it off…’”

  Isabelle let out a small squeak of alarm. “Why would she do that? He couldn’t glamour her if she had it on. It was her only protection if she couldn’t utter a spell.”

  “Maybe she could say a spell.”

  Isabelle frowned at me as if disappointed in my ignorance. “Do you know how fast she would have to be? Those creatures aren’t human. Their speed is unmatched. The only way to overcome them is
to be prepared.”

  “She said she practiced for years.”

  “Libby.”

  I went back to reading. “‘I removed the amulet so he wouldn’t know. I’m not a witch by nature. He wouldn’t sense it in my blood. I learned with trial and fire. I protected myself so he couldn’t glamour me, but I let him think he did. I will work with him, and then when I know his plan I’ll kill him.’”

  We sat in silence thinking over what Nessa had shared. I guessed that she had figured out by what Tevin said to her that he had a plan of revenge on someone. He had looked her up specifically to get back at Ian.

  I read on. “‘I wanted to kill him for thinking he could use me, but when I thought of Nana, I wanted more than that. She’d told the same story over and over, her mind in the past. I thought how many more of these creatures exist with us humans ignorant. I want to expose them. So I’ll work with him for now, and before he dies, everyone will know the truth.’”

  Tears flowed down Isabelle’s face. “She failed. Poor woman, with so much planning, a life devoted to avenge her great-grandmother. All of it lost.”

  I felt choked up too, but in my ghostly form I couldn’t cry. The pressure of loss stuck in my throat, and emotions running high made my hands fade. The book plopped onto the carpet.

  We had a record here and spell books. I had Ian on my side. I wanted to believe Nessa hadn’t failed but passed on her knowledge. She would help someone, maybe even me.

  “Isabelle?”

  She bent over a spell book with wide eyes and murmured her response.

  “What will Clark make of Nessa’s death?”

  That got her attention. She looked up. “Drained of all her blood.” Isabelle paled. “It’s not a good idea for them to find out about vampires.”

  “To protect Clark?”

  “To protect us all. Libby, what do you think the vampires would do if a regular human learns of their existence? Sit back and accept it?”