by Michele Hauf
“Then do what you must. And I will do what I must.”
Amaranthe reached to touch the athame Mel held, and it glowed red when she did so.
“I don’t want to do it,” Mel said. “I’m pretty freaked about all this, actually. But you know me.”
“You couldn’t harm a fly. Don’t worry. It won’t hurt. And you’re right, it will give me peace. I’m sorry. I’ve harmed not only Mom but the entire family.”
“Mel!” Tor shouted.
Over her sister’s shoulder, Mel sighted a gang of zombies charging toward her protector. They were much more agile than one would expect from the undead. In but moments Tor would be inundated.
No time to waste.
Mel plunged forward to hug her sister, and her hands went right through what she realized was a figment. Not even a zombie. “Do it now,” she said. “Say what needs to be put into the universe. Make it real.”
“I forgive Star for what I’m not even sure was her fault.”
“Amaranthe.”
“Very well. It was an accident. Not planned. I was in the wrong place at the right time. Curse that bastard Jacques. I love Mom,” Amaranthe said. “I do.”
Tor’s shout indicated he was not winning, but rather, was in pain. He wasn’t holding the machete. In fact, Mel saw it on the ground, far from where the zombies now surrounded him.
“I will give you peace,” Mel said to her sister.
“And I will leave you with a parting gift. It has to be done. It will reveal his darkest truth. And then you can determine if he is worthy of your love.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. Goodbye, Melissande. I love you. I will see you in our next reincarnation.”
“Promise. Nox restitutio!” Mel recited, and then plunged the athame into her sister’s chest. At the same time, the scar on her palm opened and began to bleed. Tears spilled from her eyes and she cried out. She’d felt the resistance of blade entering muscle. Like her sister was not a ghost but—
“Thank you,” Amaranthe said. Her bleeding hand swept over Mel’s hair. And then she was nothing. Not even ash or mist. Mel simply stood there holding nothing in her arms.
She sniffed at oncoming tears. Smelled blood in her hair. Squeezed her fingers as the blood dripped onto the ground. At her feet, the heart, spattered with her blood, had settled its glow. It looked rather dark and desiccated. And then she heard Tor’s shout again.
Racing out from the salt circle toward the machete abandoned on the ground, she grabbed it. It was so heavy! She needed both hands to lift it.
A zombie snarled at her and pounced.
Mel used her kinetic magic to thrust the blade through the air toward Tor. A zombie leaped for it and missed its target. The machete dropped, landing in Tor’s grasp. The growls surrounding him were silenced as the zombies realized who now held the power.
With a flick of his wrist and a spin of his hips, Tor cut the weapon through the multitude of zombies. Howls and yelps accompanied the ones able to run away.
With determination carving his features fiercely, Tor marched toward Mel. Just when she was close enough to hug him, he pushed her behind him with one arm and raised his gun in the other, aiming toward the zombie who crept toward the salt circle—the glowing heart was in its hand.
“No!” Mel pushed Tor’s arm, and his aim missed the zombie. “It’ll damage the heart! If you destroy it, all the witches in the world will die.”
He met her frantic gaze. “Bollocks.” Dropping the gun, Tor rushed the zombie and jumped onto its back. The heart wobbled and fell onto the grass.
“Duck!” she heard, and instead of looking for her pet, she did as she was told. A zombie soared over her head.
Tor stomped past her, stake in one hand and the machete in the other. He jumped onto the fallen zombie and staked it in the heart, then drew the blade across its neck.
Stumbling backward, he dropped the stake. His foot landed on uneven ground, toppling him to a sitting position. And for the first time, Mel noticed how torn-up and battered he was. He bled from a cut on the forehead. His shirt was shredded. A long slash down one thigh bled onto the ground.
The beheaded zombie body convulsed on the ground as it dechunked.
“Don’t look!” Tor called. He turned and pulled himself up, then caught her and turned her back toward the circle. “You don’t need to see that.”
Mel nodded. Not like she hadn’t seen worse. But his concern bolstered her. And his embrace reassured her like nothing else ever could. In his arms, she was safe. And loved. Now to keep that feeling for their short time that remained.
“Is your sister at peace?” he asked.
He clung to her, and she realized it was for support more than anything. Mel nodded. “She is.”
“You did good.”
“So did you.”
“There’s cleanup to do. Gotta bury the remains. I’ll need some time.”
“You want me to help?”
“Nope. This is what I do. Or did do.”
Please, no. She didn’t want him to leave his life behind. And her.
But that was not her choice.
“I’ll gather my things and wait in the van,” she quietly offered.
“Give me twenty minutes.”
Mel nodded and started toward the salt circle. But she stopped when the pale woman in a long white tattered dress bent over the salt and picked up the pulsing heart. “Oh mercy. Tor!”
Her protector rushed up behind her.
“There’s one left,” Mel said.
“Not this,” Tor said on a gasp. “Charlotte?”
“Who’s Charlotte?” And then Mel remembered. She was the woman who had killed herself because Tor had not been there to rescue her from the ghost haunting her tormented soul.
This was her sister’s parting gift.
Chapter 25
Tor swallowed and reached for the crystal talisman—that he’d handed over to Mel because he had thought he was beyond the need for it. And he had been. But he’d not expected to see the one person who had given him reason for the safeguard in the first place.
How could she be here? He’d never seen her before as a ghost. Of course, he’d always worn the talisman.
“Charlotte,” he said on a heavy breath.
The specter stood in the salt circle, clutching the pulsing heart to her chest as if it were a wondrous child’s toy. Her short red hair flitted about her head and—she didn’t look like a decaying zombie, but her skin was blue. Tor could still remember finding her body that cold February morning. He hadn’t believed a person’s skin could be so blue. And her lips, as well as the bruising under her eyes, were purple black. She’d worn a floaty white dress, one she’d once told him had been her first-communion dress.
The ghost standing in the circle suddenly noticed him, her attention veering from the heart but her fingers clutching deep into the pulsing muscle. “Tor?” Her lips struggled with a smile. “Is that you? What are you—you can see me now?”
He nodded. Behind him, he was aware of Mel’s presence, but she stood off to the side. He had slain all the zombies. He hoped.
Not sure what to do, he stepped toward the circle. “Yes, I can see you, Charlotte.”
“You’ve avoided me for so long. You terrible, terrible man. Why did you do that? I’ve been pleading for your attention. Tearing my hair out to simply get you to notice me. Did I disappoint you when I did as I was told and cut my wrists in the bathtub? Such a peaceful death, that.”
“No,” he said calmly. He had no desire to fast-talk his way out of this one. He needed to face her. But his knees grew weak and his fingers trembled at his sides. He didn’t notice the machete had slipped out of his hand. “I was never disappointed, Charlotte. I loved you.”
“You don’t anymore?” She crushed the
heart, and blood dripped down her white dress.
“If she destroys that heart...” Mel hissed from behind him. “Tor!”
Charlotte took in the witch with a sneer. “I’ve been watching you with her. You notice her. You love her. Why could you never love me like that, Tor?”
Another squeeze of her fingers against the heart pushed out more blood from the thing. Its pulsing had slowed.
He approached cautiously, fully aware that he should not step into the circle with her. That would give her the ability to connect with him on a visceral level. “Charlotte, you should set down that heart. You don’t need it.”
“But it will give me life.” She hugged the thing tightly. “I can feel it.”
Behind him Mel groaned.
Tor turned to look over his shoulder to find Mel had fallen to her knees, and she clutched her throat. Was Charlotte’s squeezing the heart taking away Mel’s life? The life from all witches?
“Please, Char, you can’t have life. You’ll never be as you once were. You’ll always be like this.”
“What’s wrong with me, Tor? I’m like all the other ghosts you can see. Are we not your closest friends? Don’t you like me now? Am I not pretty enough for you? Why did you never want me as a lover? I was so in love with you.”
He’d known that, but he’d only ever felt Charlotte was a friend, and hadn’t been in the frame of mind to start a romantic relationship with another screwed-up person who could also see ghosts and who was slightly mad. Yes, he’d had a bit of better sense back then. Unfortunately, he’d never had the courage to tell her that and had allowed her awkward flirtations. A cruel manifestation of his own cowardice.
“You are so beautiful,” he offered. “But you must stop squeezing that heart. It’s getting your dress all messy. And if you break it, it won’t work anymore.”
She bowed her head over the fading heart, and a teardrop spilled onto it and dripped off in a bloody splat onto her bare blue foot.
“You can have it.” She thrust it toward him.
Tor took a step, but at Mel’s groan behind him, he realized his toe touched the salt circle. He wasn’t sure if it was keeping Charlotte in, and didn’t want to test that theory by breaking the line.
“Toss it to me,” he said. “I hurt my leg and it’s hard to walk.” It was true. And blood did stain his pants leg. But as Charlotte bent to study his thigh, she clutched the heart to her chest again, keeping it well out of his reach and inside the circle.
Charlotte looked up at him and lifted a haughty chin. “You’re protecting her, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. She hired me to do a job. I told you about my work.”
“And look how well you are doing that job. She lies on the ground near death. You can’t take care of any woman, Torsten Rindle. You fail us every time.”
Indeed. And even more reason to step away from the protection business. Who was he to believe he could make a difference by swinging a machete or wielding a stake? Ridiculous. The spirit was right. Mel would be better off without him in her life.
“Failure,” Charlotte repeated. “As a friend, a man and even as a protector.” The ghost let out a throaty chuckle that tightened Tor’s skin and lifted the hairs all over his body.
And with that, Charlotte hoisted the heart high. Blood drooled down her wrist and forearm. A squeeze made it glow brightly, and then she thrust it toward Tor. He leaped to catch the thing in his hands, finding it was difficult to grasp the slippery thing. He stumbled and went down, landing on his back near Mel.
But the growl from inside the circle rolled him to his side. Charlotte’s visage changed, her skin brightening to an unreal blue and breaking open to beam out brilliant red light from within. Her eyes glowed white and her mouth opened to snarl with a toothy maw.
Managing to tuck the heart against Mel’s chest, he heard her whisper, “You have to sacrifice for the dark magic to take her down.”
“Sacrifice? But what? How?”
“She needs to die before the heart does.”
“I’ve never slain a ghost. I’m not sure...”
“Your sacrifice will give her the peace she deserves.”
A bone-crunching howl filled the air. Tor scrambled up to a stand, limped toward the machete and grabbed it. In the distance, he saw movement near the graveyard. “More zombies,” he muttered. “Can a bloke get a break?”
Charlotte’s ghost had increased in bulk and muscle and now stomped the ground outside the circle. The grass browned under her steps. Mel swore and whispered an incantation.
The ghost slapped down a hand on the grass, and it burned a flaming path up to Mel. Her skirt ignited. The witch screamed and scrambled away, leaving the heart lying but inches from the fire. Tor jumped to extinguish the flames.
When Charlotte approached him, he pressed the tip of the machete to her chin. The blade moved through her figment, a useless weapon against an incorporeal specter.
The ghost gripped the sharp blade, and it turned red as an ember. Tor felt the heat of the metal permeate the hilt, and within seconds he was unable to hold the burning weapon. He dropped it.
“Tor!” Mel yelled.
He looked over his shoulder and saw the crystal talisman soaring through the air toward him. He reached to grab it—but at the last second, retracted his hand.
Not seeing Charlotte wasn’t going to change anything. And it would only piss her off all the more. It was time he faced his demons.
The crystal talisman hit Charlotte in the chest, and instead of going through her, it lodged there. She yowled and slapped a hand to it, but couldn’t get it out of her chest.
Tor wasn’t sure what it would do to her. It had only been charmed so he couldn’t see ghosts and protect himself from their attack. It symbolized that which had most frightened him. His greatest fear was now standing before him, and...
He stepped up and grabbed Charlotte by the face, one hand to each side of her head. His hands did not go through her figment, but instead he felt her as a solid, cold being radiating with a fiery heat that must be from the crystal.
“I loved you then and I love you still,” he offered. “As family. As two souls who needed one another. We both know ghosts have power, Charlotte. And your mind was half in and half out of the two realms. They would have gotten to you sooner or later, no matter if I had been there that night or not.”
She struggled against his hold, but he held her firmly. The talisman in her chest beamed brightly and he smelled sulfur, as if the demonic were burning its way out of her.
“Take the peace you deserve,” he said. “But if you choose to stay as you are, I will accept that. And I promise you I will never wear that talisman again. I will see you always. I will allow you to haunt me as you see fit.”
The ghost’s eyes teared up, and now her smile was genuine. “You would do that for me?”
He had to. He would. Tor nodded.
She touched the crystal, and now her whole body glowed a brilliant white. “I can feel you in this. Your kindness. Your strength. Your compassion. It’s taking the darkness from me. The spirit that haunted me has been inside me since my death. I haven’t been able to get free from it. Tor...you have released me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your unselfish ways have helped so many. I love you.” She clasped the crystal and pulled it from her chest.
As Tor stepped back, he watched a great spume of black smoke trill out from Charlotte’s chest and dissipate in the air above her head—as if a demon being exorcised.
“It’s gone.” She dropped the crystal onto the grass, and then her figment flickered and dispersed.
“Charlotte!”
Tor dropped to his knees inside the circle and bent over the glowing crystal. And in that glow, he felt the years of friendship they had shared bubble up like laughter. It felt giddy
in his heart and lightened him. And he smiled as he wrapped his arms across his chest.
“Be at peace, Charlotte. I love you.”
Who would have thought the one thing he’d carried with him for years could be the thing to set both him and his lost friend free? He picked up the crystal. It felt light, and it sparkled as if dunked in faery dust. Over the years it had taken on the shadows and dark vibrations of all those ghosts he’d not wanted to deal with. And now...it had been cleansed.
He hooked it at his belt and pushed up from the grass. Brushing the salt from his palms, he shook his head and looked up to the moon. It was lighter now, white and bright, no longer red. It was as if the moon had also been cleansed.
He stepped backward, and his foot crushed the machete blade into the ground. Turning to pick it up, he then saw Mel lying on the ground beneath a spindly maple tree, her eyes closed, the red skirts splayed out like blood. The heart beside her did not pulse or glow red.
“Mel!”
Plunging to the ground beside her, he shook her head, but she didn’t respond. The hem of her skirt had burned, but he didn’t see any damage to her leg. Frantically, he bowed to place an ear over her heart. He could still hear her heartbeat, but she felt cold and lifeless.
“No, it can’t be like this.” He grabbed the heart, which resembled a hunk of dried meat. He shook it. “It’s not broken.” He examined it and found there were no cuts or breaks where he’d earlier seen the blood ooze out when Charlotte had squeezed it. “It’s fine. It was just a squeeze.” There were no burn marks on it from the fire. “Mel?”
The sudden chirring whine of a cicada sounded, and from the tree above dropped an insect that landed on Mel’s chest. Tor watched it crawl slowly across the red fabric up to her shoulder, where it paused and seemed to look at him. He swallowed. A smile was irrepressible. Really?
With a spread of its wings, the cicada rose into the air for a few seconds, then landed on the heart he held. Tor lifted the organ to study the insect more closely.
“I wish I could have known you. I have loved you all my life.”
In response, he felt an overwhelming warmth flood his chest. The meaning was unmistakable. Tor nodded. “You love me, too? I know you do.”