What a Ghoul Wants (8 page)

“I lied,” he said. “I told them I was Gilley Gillespie. Your cousin.”

That made me chuckle. “Where is Gil, anyway?”

“Still asleep, I think.” Gopher let go of my hand to pull up a chair. “I knocked on
his door a couple of times and called him on his phone, but you know how hard he sleeps.”

That I did know. Gilley was nearly impossible to wake up once he’d gone into a deep
slumber. His mother used to keep a set of cymbals handy for those occasions when he
wouldn’t wake up for school. To this day Gil can’t listen to the sound of a marching
band without flinching. “Did they give you any information on Heath’s condition?”

“They only say that he’s stable.”

I frowned. That’s all they’d tell me too. “Maybe I should call the nurse and have
her take these IVs out.” I was still pretty cold, but I figured I could warm up on
my own.

But Gopher was shaking his head. “Your temp is still too low, M. J. I already asked
the nurse about you and she said you had at least another hour or two to go before
they’d check your temp again. You have to be above thirty-five degrees Celsius, or
ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit, before they’ll unhook you.”

“What’s my temp right now?” I asked.

Gopher squinted at one of the machines above my right shoulder and took out his phone
to tap at the screen. “You’re at thirty-four degrees Celsius, so that’s. . . about
ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit.”

I glared at Gopher. I knew it wasn’t his fault, but the situation was still frustrating.
He smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Tell me what happened.”

I rubbed my eyes wearily. The jet lag and all the events of that morning were really
taking their toll on me. “It was all a crazy chain of events, buddy.”

“So start from the beginning.”

By the time I’d finished telling Gopher exactly what’d happened from when I’d awakened
that morning to the sounds of a woman crying outside my door all the way to how I’d
ended up here, the nurse had come back in to check the thermometer and pronounced
me warm enough to be released. As soon as I ate a bit of breakfast, that is.

I looked pleadingly at my producer to say something to the nurse so that I could go
see Heath, but he seemed to be absorbed in thought, processing what I’d told him.
It wasn’t that Gopher didn’t believe me; it’s that he’d witnessed enough freaky stuff
to really know the danger we’d just landed ourselves in. Trouble is, when it comes
to facing down murderous spooks for a good bit of footage, Gopher is the first to
volunteer us for duty.

“So you’re saying this ghost actually tried to drown Heath?” Gopher asked the minute
the nurse was out of hearing range again.

I hugged the large bag of hot saline she’d left me with and wondered if I’d ever feel
really warm again. “Yes,” I said. “She pulled him into the water and by the time I
got to them, she’d already dragged him about ten feet under the surface.”

Gopher turned a bit pale. “She’s
that
strong?”

I knew what he meant. Heath was six feet of solid lean muscle. He was young and powerful
in his own right, and a great swimmer, as we’d both watched him do lap after lap to
get some exercise in the pool at the hotel we’d stayed in during our recent trip to
Dunkirk. “She is,” I told him. And then something else quite troubling came to mind.

“What?” Gopher asked, reading my expression.

I bit my lip. “I don’t think Heath was her first victim of the morning.”

Gopher cocked his head. “Meaning?”

“You heard about the clerk who’d checked us in, right? Merrick Brown was found drowned
this morning, his body floating in the moat.”

“Yeah. . . that was tough to hear. I mean, he seemed like such a nice guy.”

“Well, I saw him.”

“You saw him. . . where?”

“I saw him chained to that hag on the bridge inside the castle wall overhanging the
moat. Merrick had this metal collar around his neck, and he was attached to that awful
spook that tried to drown Heath.”

Gopher squinted his eyes at me. “Come again?”

I sighed and was about to explain when the curtain was pulled aside again and a hospital
worker entered the area with a tray of food. “Here we are,” she said merrily, setting
the tray down on one of those sliding bedside tables that scoot over the gurney and
allow you to eat.

Gopher got out of her way as she slid the table into place near my waist. “You’ll
want to eat all that up, miss. Your body burned a few extra calories this morning
and this will help set you back to rights.”

With that, she gave us both a bright smile and exited. I lifted the plastic dome covering
the dish and discovered a steaming bowl of oatmeal with a side of toast. Next to that
was a dish of fruit and rounding out the meal was a fresh cup of tea.

Quite suddenly, I was famished. Diving in, I explained to Gopher what I thought I’d
seen. “I think she drowned Merrick,” I said after taking a large bite of the oatmeal,
which was slightly overcooked, but laced with enough cinnamon to make up for it.

“After she let go of Heath?”

I shook my head. “No, buddy. Before. I’m positive it was his ghost on the bridge with
her.”

Gopher’s mouth fell open. “No way,” he said, and I could see the gears working as
he thought that through. “We’ve got to get some film of him!”

I leveled my gaze at my producer. “We’re
not
doing that.”

Gopher looked affronted. “Why not?”

“Because it’s unseemly, Gopher! I mean, the man
just
died and you want to go shoot his ghost like it’s some sort of circus act? Jesus,
what the hell is wrong with you?!”

“M. J.,” Gopher said, in that way that suggested I was about to get a lecture, “getting
footage of ghosts is what we
do
, remember? And if we don’t get something really good to show the network brass soon,
then neither you nor I will be
doing
much of anything for a while.”

“What about his family?” I protested. God, could Gopher really be
that
insensitive?

“No one said they had to watch the show, M. J.”

I shook my head in disgust. Apparently he could. “You’re a piece of work, you know
that?”

“Oh, well,
excuse me
for trying to keep us all employed,” he shot back testily. He then got up from his
chair and moved to the curtain. I’d struck a nerve. “I’ll be in the waiting room,”
he said tersely. “Have the nurse call me when you’re ready to head back to the castle.”

He left in short order and I let out a sigh. I knew that Gopher received a daily phone
call from one of the network execs wanting to know how our shoots were coming along.
Gopher had fought like hell to get our first two episodes released from the original
network that’d hired us, but so far, they were holding on to the rights pretty tightly,
which meant that we’d been filming for a few months now and had only a precious few
good episodes under our belts, certainly not enough to keep our ratings above the
cancellation bar for the whole season.

Without him saying as much, I could tell that Gopher thought this could be our last
ghostbust if we didn’t shoot something pretty spectacular here in Wales.

I also knew even without asking that there’d be no way that the network brass would
let us come off this location and go find another. In fact, if they learned what’d
happened to Heath that morning, they might pull the plug anyway for insurance purposes.

No, it was either continue with our plans to investigate the ghosts of Kidwellah Castle
or go home and file for unemployment. I could always return to doing readings for
clients and trying to eke out a little extra cash conducting local ghostbusts from
my home base in Boston, but that would mean saying good-bye to Heath, who’d most certainly
head back to his home in New Mexico.

“Dammit,” I swore as I swirled the rest of my oatmeal. I hated being caught between
a murderous ghost and a hard place. I lifted my chin and eyed the curtain moodily.
I didn’t want to make this decision alone, and quite possibly it wasn’t even mine
to make.

After slurping down the rest of my breakfast as fast as I could, I rang for the nurse.
She came and pronounced me fit to discharge. She then helped me get dressed, and I
was gratefully surprised to discover that my clothes had been thoughtfully dried by
the hospital staff, and even though my jeans and undershirt smelled a little musty,
I was glad to put on something warm.

Once dressed I felt close to normal, but still chilled through, and the nurse advised
me that was likely to persist for another few hours. “Find a nice cozy fire and sit
near it for the rest of the day, Miss Holliday. You’ll be back to feeling yourself
by morning.”

“Thank you. You’ve been really kind and I appreciate it,” I told her, pulling on my
boots. “Can you please tell me where I might find the other patient from Kidwellah?
The young man with the name Heath Whitefeather.”

“Come with me,” she said with a wink. “I’ll show you the way.”

I followed behind her anxiously. Until I saw my sweetheart with my own two eyes, I
wasn’t going to be satisfied that he was okay.

We made our way out of the curtained area and down a long corridor before we turned
left and stopped at an elevator. “He’s been moved up to the second floor,” she said,
pressing the button.

As we went in and the door shut, I asked, “How long will he have to stay here?”

“Oh, that I don’t know, miss. You’ll have to ask his nurse on two.”

I tapped my foot until the doors opened again and we headed down the corridor, where
my nurse stopped at room 221 and knocked gently on the door. “Em?” I heard from inside.

That brought me up short. Somehow he knew it was me. Were we a good match or what?

The nurse opened the door and I poked my head in. Heath lay there covered with the
same bags of warm saline and extra blankets that had covered me downstairs.

“How’d you know it was me?” I asked.

He looked at me dully and blinked in a slow sluggish way. “Gramps,” he said, pointing
to a corner of the room. My eyes flickered there and I saw a small circle of what
looked like vapor expanding and contracting. “He told me you were on your way up.”

The nurse giggled and laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “He was a few degrees colder
than you when he came to hospital, Miss Holliday. He’s still a wee bit daffy, I’m
afraid, but as he warms up, he’ll come round, so not to worry.”

I smiled. If only she knew that Heath wasn’t nearly as out of it as he seemed. I thanked
the nurse for all her kindness again before stepping into the room to close the door
behind me. “Hi, sweetie,” I said shyly, feeling my eyes mist. I wasn’t normally this
sentimental, but seeing him alive and well and breathing was such a relief that I
was overcome.

In return Heath offered me a weak smile and with effort he lifted his arms and said,
“Get over here, woman.”

I moved swiftly to his bed and threw my arms around him. For a moment we just held
each other. “You gave me a hell of a scare,” I told him.

“Look at it from my side.”

I squeezed tighter. “You remember what happened?”

“Yeah.” For a minute he was quiet and then he added, “They don’t tell you how much
it hurts.”

I lifted my chin to look at him. I hadn’t known he was in pain. “You’re hurting? Tell
me where, honey, and I’ll ring for the nurse.”

He shook his head, and I knew that I’d misunderstood. “Drowning. It hurts like a mother.”

I swallowed hard. Jesus. Heath had
actually
drowned.

Behind me I could feel the presence of his grandfather come closer and then his voice
filled my mind.
Thank you,
he said.

Don’t mention it.

“Hey, Gramps,” Heath said weakly.

I turned my attention back to him, and he seemed to be looking at something right
over my shoulder. “You can see him?”

He nodded. “He’s been hanging out with me ever since he pushed me back down.”

I let go of Heath and moved to sit on the bed next to him. Taking his hand, which
was ice-cold, I said, “He pushed you down?”

Heath nodded. “Yeah. I crossed over, Em. It was so cool.”

I felt a terrible chill run down my spine. “You. . . crossed over?”

“Gramps was there,” Heath continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. His eyes were far away
and there was the most peaceful smile on his face. “And my uncle Milt and aunt Bev.
Oh, and my stepdad, Frank, and my real dad! I saw both of them.”

I squeezed Heath’s hand tightly. He was far too excited about having nearly died for
my taste.

My sweetie closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. “I know we hear from spirits about
how beautiful it is over there, but you know what? They don’t tell you the half of
it. It’s like. . . amazing, Em.”

I glanced nervously over my shoulder and saw the small circle of vapor hovering right
next to us.
I don’t like this,
I said in my mind.

He almost wouldn’t go back,
Sam Whitefeather replied.
It took both me and his two dads to get him back into his body.

I had to swallow again. That meant that Heath had come really,
really
close to a true death, and that frightened me to the core.

Thank you,
I told him, realizing I should have been the grateful one from the start.

It was a team effort,
Sam replied, and I could hear his gentle chuckle along with it.

I eyed the temperature gauge next to Heath’s bed. It read 30.8 degrees. They hadn’t
let me out of bed until my temp had been 35, and according to Gopher that was about
95 degrees Fahrenheit, which meant that Heath had been
cold
when they’d brought him in.

He shivered slightly while I sat next to him, and I let go of his hand and tucked
it back under the blankets, pulling them up to his chin. He gave me a grateful smile
and closed his eyes. “Man, I’m tired,” he mumbled, and a moment later he was asleep.