This Side of the Grave

  All we need is some spooky music, a full moon, and a few bats for this to be perfect, I thought irreverently.

  “Hi,” I repeated, trying to meet each ghostly gaze at least once so they’d all feel included in my speech. “My friend Fabian tells me that some of you might have just . . . ended up here even though you’re not sure why or how,” I went on. “Normally I’d say that’s fine. The more the merrier, but I’ve got some stuff going on that makes you guys hanging out, um, potentially problematic for me.”

  I was starting to doubt the wisdom behind this idea, seeing some of the ghosts exchange confused glances with each other. Fabian rested his hand over mine, the outline of his nonexistent flesh merging with my skin in the closest he could come to an encouraging pat. I squared my shoulders. I’d come this far, might as well plunge ahead and see if the power I hadn’t wanted to absorb from Marie could be used to help me now.

  “So while I’d love to see you all again in the future, right now, I need you guys to go,” I said, putting force into the words to make them more than a request. “Please don’t follow me, even if you feel like you should. I also need you not to repeat anything I just said, or anything that you might have overheard before. I know you’ll do this for me, because ghosts are an honorable species, and—” Oh crap, I was just babbling now, and this wasn’t working. None of them even moved. “—and it would really help me out,” I finished lamely.

  Ghost Whisperer, my ass, an inner voice seemed to mock me.

  Nothing but silence from the spectres. Silence, and complete immobility. My hopes sank. Whatever I’d absorbed from Marie’s power over the dead, it didn’t appear to be the ability to make ghosts leave if they didn’t want to. Either I didn’t know how to channel her powers properly when it came to regular spooks versus Remnants, or maybe there was a special code word she knew that I didn’t—

  All at once, the ghosts simply vanished into thin air. I’d seen Fabian do the same several times, but it looked a lot more eerie when it was dozens of them dematerializing simultaneously. Even their energy faded from the air, leaving behind only the soft caress of the evening breeze to waft along my skin.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Quite impressive,” Bones said from behind me.

  I turned around to smile at him, relieved that it worked, only to notice that Fabian, too, was now gone.

  “Fabian!” I exclaimed.

  He materialized in front of me moments later, an expectant look on his face.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Guilt stabbed through me. If he was making that offer of his own free will, it would be fine, but Marie’s blood changed the balance between us. Friends shouldn’t be able to compel their friends into doing things whether they wanted to or not.

  “Fabian, you don’t have to do anything for me,” I told him. “You can make up your own mind about what you want to do or not do.”

  “Whatever you say,” he replied, still looking at me expectantly.

  A stifled snort came from Bones. Okay, so this wasn’t as easy as it looked. Damn Marie for making me drink her voodoo juju blood.

  “I order you to do only what you want to do,” I tried again, more strongly this time.

  Now a slight frown stitched between his brows. “I’ve made you angry. Tell me what to do to make you happy again.”

  I threw up my hands even as Bones’s snort became a full-blown laugh. “Kitten, I’m sure there’s a way to fix this in the future, but right now, we’ve more pressing concerns,” he said once he’d controlled his chuckles. “Ask our mate what can help repel ghosts. Can’t have you stopping to do that same speech every few hours, and while New Orleans might be one of the world’s most haunted cities, it’s not the home of every spook on the planet.”

  I shook off my guilt and frustration over Fabian’s sudden lack of willpower enough to absorb Bones’s point. New Orleans did have an unusually high ghost population, which I’d always attributed to its history of disease, war, malaria, natural disasters, and native predators. But Bones was right. If Marie’s blood called to ghosts—and obviously it did, judging from my new popularity with the living-impaired—then the Big Easy should have tons more spooks than it did. Here’s hoping the dampener to Marie’s spectral siren song wasn’t just a natural geographical perk, like an overabundance of alligators. That would be cause for even more notice than a huge posse of ghosts trailing me everywhere.

  Even though Fabian would have heard Bones, he didn’t offer up any information on the topic. Just continued to look at me with an eager expression. I sighed, thinking Ghost Dominatrix probably fit me better than Ghost Whisperer with my new condition.

  “Fabian, if I wanted to try to keep ghosts from following me everywhere, what could I use?”

  He looked worried. “You want to get rid of me?”

  “No, of course not,” I replied, mentally cursing Marie once more. “You’ll always have a home with us; I told you that. This is only for a short time until the situation with Apollyon is fixed. You need to get back to Dave in the meantime, anyway. He’s in danger without you.”

  I assuaged my conscience by reminding myself that Fabian had agreed to accompany Dave before, when he had control over his own actions. This wasn’t ordering him to do something against his will; it was just sticking to the plan.

  I still felt like a heel.

  “Ah, I understand,” Fabian said, smiling again as he stroked one of his sideburns in contemplation. “I can think of two things that, when combined, are hard for many ghosts to be near because they make the air feel bad. One of those is garlic. Not just a few cloves, but many.”

  My mouth sagged at the irony. The plant most fabled to repel vampires was actually part of a ghost’s kryptonite?

  “The other is the plant some people smoke,” Fabian went on. “When large quantities of that and garlic are present in close proximity, most ghosts can barely stand to be near it.”

  “You mean tobacco.” Wow, guess cigarettes weren’t healthy for anyone, living or dead.

  “Not that plant,” Fabian said, frowning. “The other one that makes people act silly when they smoke it.”

  “Weed?” I burst out. “You’re telling me marijuana is part two of the ghost repellent formula?”

  I couldn’t be more shocked, but Fabian nodded serenely. “Yes. If you have a lot of garlic and marijuana on you at all times, it should help keep most ghosts away from you, though I am strong enough to withstand it,” he added with obvious pride.

  I couldn’t stop shaking my head. Who would ever guess that garlic plus ganja equaled ghosts-be-gone? On reflection, I had smelled a lot of pot and garlic while in New Orleans, but I thought the latter was from the Cajun and Creole cooking, and the former was just a reflection of the city’s party atmosphere. Who knew it was Marie’s way of keeping the ghost population from becoming so large that vampires and ghouls would have to realize something was going on? She must have a pot and garlic field surrounding wherever her house was.

  “Smashing, I’ll get right on procuring both of those,” Bones said, appearing not at all thrown by the idea. “Kitten, tell him he’s to report to Mencheres from now on. Shouldn’t be us anymore, not with all the herbs you’ll soon be sporting. He says he’s strong enough, but we can’t risk the possibility of delaying an important message from him.”

  I repeated that to Fabian, still feeling weird over how he seemed to wait for me to say the same thing before reacting to it. Now I knew how Sigourney Weaver’s character must have felt in Galaxy Quest. “Computer, do we have a beryllium sphere on board?” I muttered under my breath.

  “What’s that?” Bones asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “I will return to Dave now. It shouldn’t be hard to locate him. He said he wouldn’t change hotels again until I came back,” Fabian said.

  I stared at him, wishing I could give him a hug goodbye and once more hating how everything I said hijacked his free will. “This won’t be for long,” I told hi
m, brushing my hand over his face even though it went right through him.

  An incandescent palm covered my hand, no weight or pressure in the gesture.

  “I will not fail you,” Fabian said, and then he disappeared from sight.

  I stared at the spot where he’d been with a sort of grim resolve. Damned if I’d fail him, either. I would find a way to give Fabian his free will back, beat Apollyon without martyring myself—which would also get the ghoul hit men off my tail—and then talk some sense into my senselessly stubborn family.

  I just had no idea how I’d do all those things.

  “Don’t fret, Kitten,” Bones said quietly. “In addition to knowing how to keep most ghosts from flocking to you, we might have had another spot of good luck. I checked my mobile, and Timmie texted me this morning. Thinks a large nest of Apollyon’s ghouls might be gathered in Memphis, according to curious events his sources reported to him.”

  That was good news. It just sucked that we needed to nab one of Apollyon’s minions now more than ever, but according to the headless ghoul from the hotel, they’d vamoose at the first sight of me. Too bad I couldn’t clone myself and have Fake Cat be a decoy somewhere else, making the ghouls feel safe, while the real me snuck up behind them. That would solve a lot of problems, but as cloning had only been accomplished scientifically with sheep, to my knowledge, I was shit out of luck.

  Still, a modification of the same thing wasn’t totally far-fetched. Maybe one of Don’s scientists could design a replica of my face and we’d slap it on a woman of similar height and build. It worked in movies, after all . . .

  “Of course!” I said, feeling a renewed surge of optimism as another idea struck me. “We’ll call Dave and tell him where Timmie’s got a nibble on the ghouls, plus I have to tell him Fabian’s on his way back. We’ll send Ed and Scratch to Memphis, too. Between the three of them, someone has to run into A-hole’s minions before too long. Then we need to test out this garlic and weed combination to make sure it’s enough to keep the majority of ghosts at bay. Once we know that, we’re heading to Memphis, too.”

  His brow arched. “You sound like you have a plan, luv.”

  “Yes I do,” I said, the wheels continuing to spin in my mind. “Part one involves me drinking your blood again. I’ll need all the power I can get. As for part two . . . well, I’ll need to make a couple phone calls.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Baron Charles DeMortimer, who went by Spade so he’d never forget that he was once referred to by the tool an overseer had assigned him, was Bones’s best friend. They’d known each other over two centuries, ever since they were human prisoners at a New South Wales penal colony. Right now, I was pretty sure their long history was the only reason Spade hadn’t gone for my throat at first sight of me. The look he threw me when Bones glanced away said loud and clear that he was fantasizing about throttling me.

  “I’m so glad you called!” Denise, my best friend, said as she hugged me. “I’m thrilled to finally be able to help you out for once.”

  Over her shoulder, Spade glowered at me again when Bones turned away to see if they’d brought any more bags with them. I ignored that, squeezing Denise in return while marveling at her new strength. It reinforced my opinion that this was our best course of action, even though it might take Spade a few years to forgive me for suggesting it. He and Denise had just gotten married recently, and he was very protective of her.

  So was I, and if Denise were still human, she wouldn’t be here now. But she wasn’t really human anymore. A demon made sure of that when he branded Denise with his essence a few months back. Now that the demon was dead, what he’d done to her could never be undone, which made Denise perhaps the most indestructible person on the planet. Hell, if I cut her head off right now, the only result would be a big mess on the floor until another one grew back.

  That wasn’t the only incredible thing Denise could do, which was why I’d asked them to come. I linked arms with her as we went into the living room, letting out a short laugh as Denise said, “Not to be rude right off, Cat, but . . . why do you smell like you bathed in garlic?”

  “Just be glad your nose isn’t strong enough to get a whiff of the weed, too,” I replied wryly. “It’s a, uh, homemade remedy to keep a certain unwanted element away from me.”

  “You’ll keep quite a lot of elements away from you with that particular aroma,” Spade said, wrinkling his nose with such refined distaste that it was like getting a glimpse of him when he was an eighteenth-century nobleman.

  “Yeah, well, good thing I’m not trying to pick up vampires anymore, what with my new stinky perfume,” I said, hiding a smile. Spade must be really ticked at me. Normally his innate chivalrousness would have him replying with a gallant lie about how garlic was all the new rage for fragrances, or that the cloud of weed wafting from me really brought out the shine in my hair.

  Bones gave him a look that said Spade’s lack of warmth hadn’t gone unnoticed by him, either. He poured two whiskeys from the decanter on the credenza, handing one to Spade with less graciousness than normal.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, mate, but I seem to remember my wife risking her life on your behalf twice just this year. So you can’t be sore over her asking your wife for a favor that endangers her not at all, can you?”

  “Of course it endangers her,” Spade replied at once. “If even a drop of Denise’s blood should spill in a place where other vampires might taste it—”

  “Dammit, Spade, we talked about this,” she interrupted him, her hazel eyes narrowing in way that warned of repercussions. “I’m going to live a very, very long time, and I refuse to spend that life in fear like I did before. If this even works, which it might not, you’ll be with me the whole time, right? And stopping this crazy ghoul leader before he gets too many people riled up means more safety for everyone, right? So quit with the overprotectiveness. You wouldn’t want me to act that way with you.”

  “This sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” I whispered to Bones, feeling like I was watching actors play the parts of me and him.

  He grunted. “Too right.”

  “If I thought Denise would be in danger, I wouldn’t ask her,” I said to Spade. Since she’d been branded, only demon bone through the eyes could kill Denise, and that was about as rare as a proverbial snowball in hell. “You want to keep her safe,” I continued. “So do I, which is why Apollyon’s got to be stopped. Even if I was staked with silver tomorrow, I don’t think Apollyon will all of a sudden go away. He’s waited six hundred years to try this power coup, and I’ll bet he won’t want to wait another six hundred or longer until another half-breed pops up again.”

  Spade said nothing for several moments, his tiger-colored gaze traveling over Denise, Bones, and me in turn. At last, he spread out his hands.

  “You’re all correct, of course. My apologies. It seems logic fails me when it comes to my wife’s welfare.”

  Bones snorted. “I know how you feel. But don’t fret. I’m sure Denise will remind you of any flaws in your logic as often as my wife reminds me of mine.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at the dryness in his tone. “Right back at you, honey. You’re pretty good about pointing it out when I’m acting with my fears and not my brain. So I guess we’ve all been guilty of it.”

  The tension in the room drained away, resulting in a few moments of companionable silence. Then Denise cleared her throat.

  “So . . . let’s get started. I haven’t eaten all day to try and gear up for this, and I’m starving. If this works, I’m rewarding myself with enough food to choke a horse.”

  So saying, she got up and stood a little way off from the couch. I went over to her, not really sure if I should say anything or if that would break her concentration. Mencheres and Kira had left, so the house was empty aside from us. No ghosts lingered in the vicinity, thanks to the illegal stink remedy on me and around the house, and the drapes were drawn even though the closest neighbor was a good two blocks away. W
e weren’t taking any chances of being observed by anyone—unless you counted my cat, who groomed himself while throwing occasional glances our way.

  Denise looked me over from top to bottom, her forehead creased with concentration. Then her scent changed, souring from her natural jasmine base to a harsher aroma of agitation. Her pulse sped up as well, breathing becoming shorter, sharper. The air around her thickened as her scent changed even more, now tinged with faint undertones of sulfur. Even though I’d seen this reaction in her before, I couldn’t stifle a twinge of unease as her hazel eyes slowly filled with deep crimson.

  Then Denise cried out, harsh and loud. Her skin seemed to ripple over her features in a misshapen, melted way, like wax held too close to flame. More moans came from her, the sounds almost animalistic in their intensity. She bent over, shudders wracking her body so viciously it looked like her muscles were being torn out of place. Unbidden, my hand rose to my mouth, stifling a gasp. Spade was right. I shouldn’t have asked her to do this. What the hell had I been thinking?

  Denise fell to her knees, her hair falling over her face as a horrible shout wrenched from her. Spade was at her side even before I was, taking her in his arms and whispering to her. I touched her shoulder, heaping recriminations on myself.

  “Stop, Denise, it’s not worth it. We’ll find another way—”