A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder

  I nodded, too choked up to reply at first, but finally I managed to squeak out a “Yeah. Yeah I am.”

  “Oh, M.J., you’re gonna make the best mom!”

  I’d had the best mom. In the back of my mind I kept repeating to myself that all I had to do was do what she did, and my kid would be okay. “Thanks, Abs. Thanks for telling me and for being here. I wish you were here in person so I could hug you!”

  “Aw, me too!” She paused again before she said, “Do you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

  My heart hammered hard in my chest. “You can tell that already?”

  “In this case, I can,” she said. “It’s very clear to me, but if you’d rather wait, then I won’t say another word ab—”

  “I want to know!” I cut in. And then I crossed my fingers and said a prayer.

  “It’s a girl, M.J. A little girl. I keep seeing little pink bows all around you. And she’ll have your gift too.”

  I burst into tears. It was exactly what I was hoping for. Whenever I’d envisioned children for myself, I’d always seen a little girl with long chestnut-colored hair and big brown eyes, and I’d picked out her name long ago too. “I’m going to call her Madelyn,” I said when I could speak again.

  “Aww!” Abby replied. “After your mom, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll bet she’ll love that.”

  Just then my phone buzzed. Pulling it away from my ear for a second, I quickly returned to Abby and said, “That’s Heath. I gotta go.”

  “Okay, honey, no worries. And congratulations again!”

  When I picked up Heath’s call he said, “Hey! Where are you? I got your note, but I’ve been waiting for you to come back. Is everything okay?”

  I bit my lip. Should I tell him now? Or wait? Making a quick decision, I said, “No, everything’s cool. I was just on the phone with Abby Cooper.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Well, that explains it.”

  My brow furrowed. “Explains what?”

  “Your mom,” he said. “She’s the one who woke me up. She mentioned you and Abby, and then she kept giving me the feeling that there was a little baby girl on the way. Did Abby mention to you that she’s pregnant?”

  I glanced at all the pregnancy sticks lined up on my desk and started to laugh, and then I couldn’t stop. At last I composed myself and said, “Heath, I think you need to come to the office. There’s something I want to show you.”

  • • •

  Later, around eleven thirty, Heath and I were tangled up together in the soft sheets of our bed, and Heath lifted my left hand to stare at my wedding ring. “Should we tell people we got engaged, married, or pregnant first?”

  I giggled into his chest. I’d never been so happy. Even thoughts of Oruç’s missing dagger felt far away and not nearly as important as they had only twelve hours before. “Maybe we can hire Gilley’s flash mob to dance it out and put it on YouTube,” I said.

  “That’s one way,” Heath said. “God, my mom is gonna freak with happiness! She loves kids, and her first grandkid is gonna get spoiled rotten.”

  I squeezed his hand until he looked at me. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I said. “I mean, this all happened pretty quick.”

  “It did,” he agreed, “but isn’t it awesome, Em? I mean, we get to really start our lives now. No more ghostbusting. No more cable show. No more worrying over bills and mortgages and money. And no more bullshit. Just us. A family. You, me, and our little girl. How perfect is that?”

  “It’s pretty damn perfect,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he agreed and cupped my face to kiss me. Then he said, “And you gotta make an appointment with the doctor. Get some vitamins and stuff.”

  I couldn’t stop smiling. “I will. I’ll make it for this week.”

  “And we gotta meet with the Realtor and put this place up for sale. And I’ll call the builder in Santa Fe and tell him that we’re moving up the deadline. I’ll want us in and settled there before you get too far along.”

  I closed my eyes and thought about the home that Heath and I would share. We’d found the perfect series of lots, high in the hills. One lot for us, one lot for his mom, and one lot for a guesthouse. It would cost a fortune, but Heath and I now had two fortunes between us, so we were covered.

  I would’ve stayed content with him like that right up until Gil and Ayden arrived if it hadn’t been for the fact that my stomach was not having any of the skipping-meals bit. “Babe,” I said when my stomach growled.

  “We need to feed the two of you, don’t we?”

  “We do.”

  Heath sat up with me still in his arms. “Let’s go out,” he said. “I feel like celebrating.”

  “It’s not even noon.”

  “We can celebrate with brunch.”

  “My baby girl is gonna have the smartest dad,” I said. “Let me take a quick shower and then we can go.”

  “Want company?”

  I smiled slyly. “Isn’t that how the two of us became the three of us?”

  “More than likely.”

  My stomach grumbled in protest.

  Heath put a hand on my belly. “Okay,” he said. “You win. No company. Just brunch. I’ll get dressed. You go take a shower.”

  “We’ll need to talk about a game plan to find Oruç’s dagger again,” I called over my shoulder as I headed to the bathroom.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Heath said. But I knew he hadn’t forgotten about it. Just like I hadn’t. “We’ll call that Detective Olivera after brunch and see if there’ve been any new leads.”

  I closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower, letting the room get nice and steamy. I love hot showers. The only problem is, once I step in, it’s hard to find the motivation to leave.

  Still, I was hungry, and I knew that Heath was waiting, so, much as I wanted to, I didn’t linger.

  Stepping out of the shower, wrapped in two towels, I went to the sink and flipped on the fan. The mirror had fogged over, so I took the towel that was wrapped around my head turban-style and wiped the mirror down. The fan helped as well, and I almost had the mirror clean when a face from my nightmares appeared right behind me.

  A grotesque woman with ratty, dripping-wet hair, sagging eyes, gaunt features, and skeletal limbs smiled wickedly before her bony arm wrapped itself around my neck.

  I got out one tiny squeak before her grip tightened and my air supply was cut off. Clawing at the cold, bony arm, I realized how overpowered I was. She was skeletal, but stronger than hell. “Hello, Mary Jane,” the Grim Widow said, her voice gritty and sinister, just like I remembered. “I’ve missed you.”

  I tried again to scream, but the pressure on my voice box was too intense to let any sound come out. All I could think about was my unborn child, and the instinctual urge to protect her at all costs kicked in. I thrashed and pushed and did my best to double over, all in an attempt to break free of her grip. But nothing was working and I needed air. Finally I rocked backward and kicked out with my left leg. My heel struck the door, and as fast as I could I kicked at the door again. I got in a third good kick before I was dragged backward away from the door.

  By now my vision was starting to darken around the edges and pinpoints of light were sparking behind my eyes. I was blacking out. She was killing me. With cold, deadly precision, this cursed spook from the moors of Scotland was killing me.

  Just when I was losing hope I heard Heath say, “Em? Hey, you okay in there?”

  I couldn’t answer, of course, so I kicked out again and my foot struck the wall. I arched, and in the close confines of the bathroom, my other heel struck the bathroom cabinet. I flailed out with both fists, and each struck something solid. “Em?!” Heath called, his voice rising in alarm. I heard the rattle of the door handle. It sounded locked, but I hadn’t locked it. I thrashed out
one last time, most of my vision now dark and filled with sparks. My fist connected with the door to the shower. The tempered glass held firm against the blow, but it made a nice, loud racket.

  A moment later the door to the bathroom exploded inward. My vision cleared a fraction and I saw Heath standing there, his form lit with a glow that seemed surreal, and behind him stood a warrior every bit as brave, strong, and fierce as my husband. A streak of white that matched Heath’s trailed down from his long black mane, and tied to a braid at the back of his head was a lone white feather.

  The hag behind me hissed and immediately let go. I dropped to the floor like a rag doll and blacked out for a few seconds. The next thing I was aware of was Heath, holding me in his arms; then I was lifted and carried to the bed. A moment later I was wrapped in the comforter and felt him stroking my wet hair. “Babe,” he whispered. “Em, I’m calling an ambulance. Just try to breathe for—”

  A jolt of alarm helped bring me to my senses. “No . . . ambulance!” I whispered hoarsely. With relief I saw that Heath was holding his phone and had only managed to dial a nine and a one.

  My husband studied me for a moment. “Love, I’m shaking too hard to drive you to the hospital myself, and Gilley’s not here. I’m calling an am—”

  I knocked the phone out of his hand and it clattered to the floor. He stared at me as if he couldn’t imagine what the hell I might be thinking. Taking a ragged breath, I said, “Can’t go to the hospital. They’ll ask questions.”

  “So?”

  “Heath,” I said, lifting my chin to show him my throat. I knew the area would be red and might have already begun to bruise. “You really want to tell the doctors a spook did this?” I panted a few more times before I added, “They’ll have you in custody and me at a women’s shelter before sundown.”

  Heath paled. He knew I was right. “Shit!” he swore. He looked ready to murder someone. That wouldn’t help us if I ended up at the ER.

  “Can you get me some ice?” I asked.

  He looked again at me, and his expression was so torn, so angry, so guilt-ridden, that I reached up to stroke his cheek. “I’m okay,” I insisted, even though I hardly felt it. “I just need some ice. And maybe some water.”

  Without a word he eased me from his arms and moved quickly from the room. I heard him rattle around in the kitchen, and that gave me time to stare toward the bathroom. Heath had shut the door, which had a hole about the size of his heel next to the handle. I tore my gaze away from it and took note of the magnetic spike on the nightstand next to me, but I still shuddered.

  “Here, honey,” my husband said when he returned with a baggie of ice and some water. I took both and felt only a small sense of relief the moment I took a sip of the water. That’s the worst part about the aftermath of being choked—assuming you survive, it’s hard to find anything that brings relief from the heat of the violence to your throat, your voice, your larynx. It hurts to swallow, talk, and breathe. It’s terrible.

  Heath sat down next to me and laid a few more spikes on the nightstand. “If that bitch weren’t already dead, I’d kill her. Slowly.”

  After a bit I said, “The bigger question is, what the hell is the Grim Widow doing, showing up in our bathroom?”

  Heath was so stiff against me. I could feel his rage wafting out from every part of him. “Hell if I know,” he said. I leaned away from him so that he could get up and pace, something I knew he was itching to do, simply to work off a little steam. “How can any of this be happening?”

  I shook my head, but stopped when the muscles in my neck protested. “I can’t think of a single explanation that makes sense,” I said. “In the past day and a half we’ve encountered three spooks we shut down. None of them should be rearing their ugly heads. Well, except maybe Oruç. But how could his dagger have anything to do with the Slayer or the Grim Widow?”

  Heath paced angrily back and forth. He stopped suddenly and looked at me to say, “I want you to get checked out by a doctor, Em. That hag could’ve hurt you and the baby and maybe you’re not even aware of it.”

  I took that in and checked it against my own intuition. “I’m okay,” I said, knowing it was true. Well, at least physically. “And the baby’s okay too.”

  I then expanded my intuition to get a feel for the room. I wanted to know if there were any other spooks hiding out. To my surprise, there were.

  Chapter 6

  “Whitefeather’s here,” I told Heath.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the corner where I was staring. “He is?”

  “Yeah,” I said, pointing. “He’s right there.”

  The room was dimly lit, as all the blinds were closed, but enough light was seeping in to form shadows against the walls, and one shadow in particular was a little darker, or should I say thicker, than the background it stood out against. The shadow had the vaguest outline of a person. Someone tall and broad shouldered. Just like my husband.

  Centuries ago, when Heath’s tribe was still fairly young, a great warrior named Whitefeather had saved his tribe from an unimaginably evil demon. Whitefeather had entombed it in a sacred clay vessel, but hundreds of years later, grave robbers had broken the vessel and unwittingly released the demon inside.

  That demon had very nearly killed us all, but Whitefeather and Heath had worked together to bind it back up. Afterward, Whitefeather had gone back to the land of spirits with his spirit tribe and we’d not heard from him since.

  Until now.

  “Is he talking to you?” Heath asked.

  “No,” I said. “He’s just standing there. I think he’s standing guard.”

  Heath looked from the wall back to me, then back to the wall. “It’s you,” he said. “You’re carrying my baby. He’s protecting the newest member of his tribe.”

  I felt a warmth settle over my shoulders and I knew that Whitefeather was confirming what Heath had just said. It gave me great comfort that Heath’s ancestor was protecting a baby girl as fiercely as he would’ve protected a baby boy. In the land of spirits, they get it. All lives have equal value.

  “How long do you think he can stay with us?” I asked. The longer a spirit had been away from the mortal plane, the harder it was to show up here and hang out. It had to be costing Whitefeather a tremendous amount of energy to linger in the corner of the bedroom. But then, Whitefeather was a tremendously powerful spirit.

  “Probably as long as it’ll take to get you packed,” Heath said, and moved to the closet.

  “Packed? Heath, we can’t leave. What about Oruç’s dagger?”

  “We’re not leaving Boston,” Heath said. “We’re just going to a hotel with lots of people and their noisy energy where the spooks won’t like to follow us.”

  He had a point. Spooks find it hard to connect with people in a crowd. You’ll never see a ghost at a concert, and even the ones that haunt theaters almost always wait for the patrons to leave before they start following the actors and set crews around.

  While Heath got out our suitcases and began to shove clothes into them, I sat numbly with the bag of ice pressed to my throat, shivering a little. It was probably a reaction to the attack. “She picked the exact right moment to come after me,” I said, looking toward the bathroom door again. “I was naked, without any magnets, and the room was filled with steam. The perfect environment for a spook.” (Humidity and ghosts go hand in hand. The electrostatic energy gets amped up when there’s water in the air. Again, why you’ll never find a spook haunting a desert at high noon.)

  Heath paused in the packing of my things. “We’ll have to carry spikes with us at all times,” he said. “Or wear our vests. From now on, we’re never away from some heavy-duty magnets.”

  I sighed and put a hand across my stomach. “Is it ever going to be over?”

  He paused again to look at me, and his eyes were pinched with worry. “We’ll figure out a way to
protect ourselves, Em. We will.”

  The shadow in the corner of the room moved closer to Heath, and Whitefeather seemed to be taking a stand behind his descendant, the same way he had when Heath kicked open the bathroom door. The move suggested that Whitefeather had our backs.

  “I’m kind of surprised your grandfather hasn’t chimed in. I thought we’d hear from Sam by now.” Even as I said that I felt a presence enter my mind. Hello, Mary Jane, he said. I see Whitefeather beat me here.

  I pointed at Heath, then upward. “Speaking of Sam . . .”

  “He’s here?”

  I nodded.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “Nothing other than he’s acknowledging Whitefeather. Hang on while I get the skinny.” Focusing on Sam, I mentally said, Can you tell us what’s going on, Sam? I was attacked by the Grim Widow a few minutes ago, we think Sy the Slayer showed up in my living room last night, and Oruç’s dagger has gone missing and we suspect the demon is free of its bonds.

  Sam’s spirit came closer to me, surrounding me and making me feel truly connected to him. That in and of itself was a very paternally protective thing; not quite a hug, but as close to it as a spirit could physically manage, and when the essence of him surrounded me, there was a note of something . . . something that felt like fear and worry all mixed up—a disquiet that was as intense as his love. And just to let you know how extraordinary that is, I’ve never felt a soul who’d crossed over to the other side emote anything even remotely close to fear. The other side is a blissful, happy place where nothing bad happens; there’s only love and joy and freedom from worry—fear, worry, anxiety, have no place there, but Sam’s energy was giving it off in spades. And that shook me to the core.

  Mary Jane, he said in my mind. I and the other members of your spirit counsel believe a portal has been opened to the lower realms and only those dark spirits whom you and my grandson have sent there have been called through. Oruç’s dagger is at the center of this, but we can’t tell who’s behind the theft. Or where the portal is. It seems to be in motion. And it seems that the darkest demons you’ve entombed in the lower realms are coming for you.