Haunted (8 page)

When we’d been together, I’d gone to all of his games. Yet I’d waffled about it every week, telling him maybe I’d show up, if I had the time, but don’t count on it. Of course, I’d never missed a game. I couldn’t resist watching him play, beaming behind his face mask as he whipped around the ice, grinning whether he scored, missed, or got knocked flat on his ass. Even sitting in the penalty box, he could barely manage to keep a straight face. How could I miss out on that?

He’d joined this ghost-world team about six months ago, and by then, we’d been close enough that I’d made sure I was always in the stands to watch.

I checked the scoreboard and wondered whether I should wait for the period break or head back to the hospital and try to muddle through on my own. I was about to teleport back to the return marker I’d laid, when Kristof hit the boards beside me, hard enough to make me jump.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he said.

He pulled up to the side and grinned, his smile so wide it made my heart do a double-flip. Impossible for a ghost, I know, but I swear I still felt it flip, as it had since the first time I’d seen that grin; the gateway to “my” Kris, the one he kept hidden from everyone else.

As he planted his forearms on the boards and leaned over, a shock of hair flipped up from the back, mussed out of place by his slam into the boards. I resisted the urge to reach out and smooth it down, but let myself move a step closer, within touching distance.

“I thought you were in the box,” I said.

“They let me out every once in a while.”

“Silly them.”

Our eyes met and his grin stretched another quarter-inch. Another schoolgirl flip—followed by a very un-schoolgirl wave of heat. He leaned even farther over the boards, lips parting to say something.

“Hey, Kris!” someone yelled behind him. “If you want to flirt with Eve, tell her to meet you in the penalty box. You’ll be back there soon enough.”

Kristof flashed him a gloved middle finger.

“He’s right,” I said, shaking it off as I stepped back. “Time to play, not talk. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being late. I was busy and completely forgot.”

A soft sigh as the grin fell away. “What did Savannah need now?”

“Sav…?”

Having spent days in the time-delayed throne room and that wasteland dimension, I’d forgotten that only hours had really passed since I’d last seen Kristof.

“No, it wasn’t Savannah,” I said. “The Fates have been keeping me busy. Seems you’re not the only one who thinks I need a job.”

“The Fates? What—?”

A shout from a teammate cut him short. He waved to say he’d be right there.

“Go on,” I said. “I can talk to you later.”

“Uh-uh. You aren’t tossing out that teaser and running off. Stay right there.”

He skated back to talk to his teammates, and within minutes was off the ice, back in street clothes, and escorting me outside to talk.

“Bounty-hunting for the Fates, hmm?” he said, settling onto a swing-set outside the arena. “Well, if it keeps you from obsessing—” He bit the sentence short. “If you need to know how to deal with haunters, you’ve come to the right place.”

“You’ve haunted?”

“Surprised?”

I laughed. “Not really.”

“I tried it. Didn’t see the attraction. A hobby for cowards and bullies. But I learned enough to help you take care of this guy. First, we need to teach you how to get past the earth-spooks without being made as a ghost.” He leapt off the swing, landing awkwardly, but righting himself before he toppled. “Ghost lesson number one, coming up.”

“You don’t need to—”

“I know.”

His fingers closed around mine and we disappeared.

Back inside the arena, we switched dimensions, slipping into the living world. On the other side of the Plexiglas barrier, a troop of preschoolers lurched past on tiny skates. Decked out in snowsuits that made them as wide as they were tall, they bobbed and swayed like a flock of drunken penguins, struggling to cross the few yards of ice between themselves and the instructor. One near the middle stumbled, and knocked over a few of her fellows. A cry went up and a gaggle of parents swooped down. A few kids on the edges of the pack decided to topple, too, so they wouldn’t be left out of the sympathy rush.

“You must have taught Sean and Bryce how to—” I stopped, noticing I was alone. “Kris?”

“Eve!”

Kristof slid onto center ice, arms up as he pirouetted in his street shoes. I bit back a laugh.

“Test number one,” he yelled. “How can you tell I’m a ghost?”

“’Cause you’re standing in the middle of a frigging ice rink wearing loafers and a golf shirt, and no one’s yelling, ‘Hey, get that crazy bastard off the ice!’”

He grinned and shoe-skated over to the boards. When he reached the gate, he grabbed the edge with both hands and jumped. Fifteen years ago, he could sail right over it, even in full hockey gear. Today, well…

“Hey, at least you cleared it,” I said as he got up off the floor.

“You know, I hate to complain,” he said, brushing invisible dirt from his pants. “The Fates take away all those twinges and aches of middle age, and that’s great, but would it kill them to give us back a little flexibility?”

I kicked one leg up onto the top of the boards. “Seems fine to me.”

A mock glower. “No one likes a show-off, Eve. And, I could point out, if I’d died at thirty-seven, instead of forty-seven, I’d have been able to do that, too.”

“A good excuse.”

“And I’m sticking with it. On to test number two.”

Before I could object, he jogged into a group of parents hovering around the boards.

“How can you tell I’m a ghost now?” he called.

“Because you’re walking through things. I know all this, Kris. It’s common sense. If I want a ghost to mistake me for a corporeal being, then I have to act corporeal. When I passed by that group of people outside the hospital, I moved
around
them.”

“Ah, but you missed something. Last demo. Professional level now.”

He bounded up a half-dozen steps, then walked into a bleacher aisle. As he slipped past people, he was careful to make it look as if he were squeezing around their knees, even murmuring the odd “Excuse me.” Halfway down he turned and lifted his hands expectantly.

I shook my head. “You would’ve fooled me.”

“Only because
you’ve
never gone haunting. Haunters have to be extremely careful. Bump into the wrong ghost, and you’ll be reported in a heartbeat. Now I’m going to try it again, and this time don’t watch me. Watch them.”

He came back my way, still skirting knees and whispering apologies. I watched the faces of those he passed, but saw nothing. They just kept doing what they were doing, acting—

“Acting as if you aren’t there,” I said. “That’s it. They don’t react to you.”

“Correct,” he said, jogging down the steps. “At that hospital, you walked past a group of people, and not one even glanced your way. That isn’t natural. Especially if any of them were male.”

A wink and an appreciative once-over. Had I been alive, I’m sure I would have blushed. But Kris just smiled and launched into a quick list of tips, the compliment tossed out as casually as a comment on the weather. Typical. Kris knew all the tricks, all the ways to say “I want you back” without ever speaking the words. An offhand compliment, a lingering look, a casual touch—silly little things that somehow sent my brain spinning.

I wanted him back. No question about that. I’d never stopped wanting him, and there were times when I’d look at him, feel that ache of longing, and wonder why the hell I
was
holding out. I wouldn’t be going anywhere I hadn’t been before. And that’s exactly why I wouldn’t take that next step. Because I
had
been there before.

I wasn’t cut out for relationships. I’ve never felt the need to share my life, never sought out others for more than casual friendship and professional contacts. When someone did worm their way in—Ruth Winterbourne, then Kristof, then Savannah—I let them down, making choices that always seemed so right at the time. As much as I wanted to say I now resisted Kristof to avoid hurting him, I knew I was, at least in equal part, protecting myself.

Kris finished his list of tips. “That’s all I can think of, for now. Time to put the theory into practice.”

“Practice? You mean with the haunters? Thanks for the offer, but—”

“It isn’t an offer; it’s a demand. You owe me.”

“Owe you?” I sputtered.

“I tried to give you some work at the courthouse—work that would have given me an excuse to pursue adventures otherwise unsuitable for an esteemed member of the judicial system. You turned me down. Robbed me of the first chance for hell-raising I’ve had in—”

“Hours. Maybe days.”

He shot a grin my way. “Much too long. Now you’ve brought me a replacement opportunity, and I’m not about to let it slip past.”

“So I’m stuck with you?”

His grin widened. “For now and forever.”

I muttered under my breath, grabbed his hand, and teleported us back to my marker.

Before we were close enough to the hospital for the phantom bouncer to recognize me, we skipped around to the back. Once inside, we went in search of our haunters. Didn’t take long to find them. Just had to follow the screams.

7

WE WERE IN A DARKENED THERAPY ROOM. THE SHOUTS
came from the adjoining room. Using my Aspicio powers, I cleared a peephole in the wall and looked through. Kristof slid onto the desktop to wait, knowing only I could see through the holes I created.

Three people sat in the next room. The oldest was a woman in her late fifties, seated behind a steel desk. She wore a multicolored caftan, enormous loop earrings, and a necklace with an ugly wooden elephant slipping trunk-first between her breasts. The elephant looked scared. I didn’t blame him.

The woman was leaning back in her chair, writing in a small notepad. Over her head, a huge poster screamed,
YOU ARE THE CAPTAIN OF YOUR OWN SHIP
. The photo was the famous
Titanic
shot of Leo and Kate with their arms spread on the bow. Stick me in front of that poster for an hour a week and
I’d
be ready to commit myself.

A man and a woman, both in their late twenties, both dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, sat across from the therapist. The woman had one foot pulled under her, just as comfy as could be. Her neighbor was so tense he seemed to be hovering above the chair, poised to leap up at any provocation.

“No, she’s right here!” the young man said. “Why can’t you see her?”

“Tell me what
you
see,” the therapist intoned.

“I’ve told you!” the man said. “I’ve told you and I’ve told you and I’ve—”

“Barton,” the woman said. “Remember what we say? Anger has no place in our house. Like trash, we must take it to the curb.”

“God, what a bunch of horse crap,” the younger woman said, yawning as she stretched her legs. “Tell her she’s a bitch. A stupid, blind old cow.”

“You’re blind,” he said to the therapist. “If you can’t see her sitting right here—”

“For God’s sake, Bart. Stop being such a pussy. She’s a bitch. Say it to her face.”

“No!”

“What, Barton?” the therapist asked. “What’s she saying to you?”

Barton clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. The younger woman leaned over and whispered into his ear. He tried to brush her off, like a buzzing fly, but his hand passed right through her face.

“Go on, tell her,” the ghost urged Barton. “Better yet, take a swing. Smash her smug face in. Now,
that’d
be real therapy.”

Barton leapt to his feet and took a swing…at the ghost. When his fist passed through her, he threw up his hands and howled. Then he stopped and slowly turned to the therapist, who scribbled furiously. The ghost convulsed with laughter.

I clenched my fists and turned to Kristof.

“Can I smack her? Just one good smack—”

“Oh, we’ll do better than that,” he said. “But first we have to find the others.”

Again, the ghosts gave themselves away, this time not by making patients scream, but by sitting around chatting about it. No one knows why some mental patients can see ghosts. Maybe mental illness breaks down the boundary between possible and impossible, so, like small children and animals, the brains of the mentally ill weren’t always jumping in to edit their perceptions. Or it could be that these people have necro blood, but their families have strayed from the supernatural community. When they began hearing voices and seeing apparitions, everyone around them would assume the problem was psychological.

So when we came across a group of four people, laughing about how they’d made a patient piss his pants, we knew we’d found our haunters. Either that or we’d found the world’s first psych hospital staffed by the National Sadists Institute.

“No, no, no!” said an elderly man with a snow-white Van Dyke beard. “We had one better than that. Ted, remember Bruce? The one you convinced he could fly?”

“Oh, yeah,” chortled a ghost with his back to my wall.

“What happened?” asked a plump teenage girl.

Ted shifted to better face his audience and I recognized my headless accountant. I backed up and motioned to Kristof that I’d found our ghost. He nodded, and I returned to my peephole.

“…sailed clean off the roof.” Ted was laughing so hard he could barely get the words out. “Like Superman. Only, as he soon discovered, he couldn’t fly. Landed right on Peterman’s Jag. Hit so hard his fucking teeth popped out like Chiclets. Peterman was picking them out of his seats for weeks. That’s what he gets for leaving his sun-roof open.”

The haunters roared with laughter.

The old man waved his arms again, like a bird attempting takeoff. “The best part was when the dumb fuck hits the roof. For a second, he just lies there, dying. Then his spirit starts to separate. He looks around, gives the biggest grin you’ve ever seen, then jumps up and dances a little jig on the top of the Jag, yelling, ‘I did it! I did it! I can fly!’ Then—”