A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder

  He shrieked and tried to block the blows, but almost all of them landed, and I was so amped up on adrenaline, I wasn’t even winded. I was like Jackie Chan after a serious bad guy. Relentless.

  At last he darted away from me and turned to run straight into a wall, disappearing for a good five seconds before he came shrieking back out again. “Ha-ha-ha!” I shouted, knowing he’d likely run right into the spike that Heath and I had driven into that very spot back when we were trying to encourage Gertrude to leave. “That must’ve smarted, eh, Jackie-boy?”

  Jack didn’t even pause to spit at me as he flew up the stairs then, and I gave chase, hot on his heels. He gained some distance between us, but I wasn’t about to let him near Heath again. As I crested the landing, I saw him dart through the door of 4E. I stopped in front of it, panting with fury. Trying the handle, I found it locked, so I settled for banging on the door. “You coward!” I shouted. “I put you away in the lower realms once, Jack. I’ll lock you away again if it’s the last thing I do!”

  “Before then, could you maybe get me to a hospital, babe?”

  I stiffened and turned to see Heath leaning heavily against the wall. His complexion was gray, and he was still bleeding very badly. Head wounds are like that. They’ll bleed for days if unattended.

  I ran to him and tucked myself under his arm again, easing him away from the wall and toward the stairs. Olivera had come up to the fourth floor again, and she had Heath’s jacket, boots, and spike-lined belt clutched in her arms. I gave her credit for coming back to us. Anybody else would’ve fled the building.

  Still, her complexion was pretty ashen too. I hoped she wasn’t about to hurl. I could only assist one helpless person at a time. Figuring that giving her a job might actually steady her, I said, “Can you help support him on the other side to get him down the stairs?”

  Her frightened eyes darted around the hallway, then locked onto mine, and she gave a small nod. Coming forward, she tucked Heath’s belongings under one arm and wrapped the other around his waist.

  We got him down the stairwell and outside of the building with more speed than I would’ve thought. I suppose we were motivated to get the hell out of there.

  Once outside, Olivera and I lowered Heath to the sidewalk, because he told us he needed to sit down for a moment and catch his breath, and I pulled out my cell to call for an ambulance, but the damn thing was completely dead. I pressed my lips together in frustration. “That’s not supposed to happen when I’m wearing so much gear,” I muttered. And then I looked at the only remaining spike at my belt, and I just had a feeling something was off. Taking the spike out of the belt loop, I glanced around and saw a bottle cap on the ground. I lowered the spike, waiting for the sudden clink of the cap rising to stick to the spike, but nothing happened; even when I touched the spike to the bottle cap, the cap never stuck to it.

  “What the . . . ?” I said, stooping to pick up the cap.

  Turning back to Heath because I wanted to get him to a hospital as soon as we could, I found Olivera standing in the middle of the street, looking around as if she was expecting someone. “Where the hell are my guys?”

  “What guys?” I asked, moving back to Heath and getting into position to help him up again.

  Olivera swiveled right, then left, looking up and down the street. “I fired thirteen shots inside that building and no one called the police?” she said.

  “They didn’t hear it,” I told her.

  “What do you mean they didn’t hear it?”

  I motioned to our SUV parked across the street, and she came back to help me get Heath there. “Spooks can have a lot of effect on sound. If they want you to hear them, they’ll make sure you do, but if they don’t, then they can manipulate the environment, just like they do with temperature, to muffle sound. Somewhere along the line, Gerty figured out that the more noise she made, the more people would come up to her floor to investigate. So, she muffles sound up there on a regular basis.”

  “You’re telling me no one heard the gunshots?”

  “Probably not,” I said, straining to carry as much of Heath’s weight as I could. He was starting to stumble and his lids were droopy. I was worried he was about to go into shock.

  Olivera didn’t say anything more as we got the back door open for him and eased him inside. The tank top I’d given him wasn’t soaked in blood, but it had enough on it for me to be very worried. “I need to get him to the hospital.”

  “My car is equipped with a light box. Let me clear the way for you.”

  I nodded and was about to close the door when Heath lifted his head and looked at us. “Don’t say you shot me.”

  Olivera and I both hesitated. “What?” we said in unison.

  Heath pushed himself up with his elbow and closed his eyes for a moment, as if it was a strain for him to speak. “Don’t tell anybody that you shot me, Detective. You’ll be sent to a desk while IA investigates, and the case will get reassigned to a new detective. One that won’t believe us either.”

  “I can’t do that, Mr. Whitefeather.”

  I bit my lip but then nodded. I could see what Heath was talking about, and, much as I wanted Olivera to sweat out an internal investigation into the unarmed shooting of my husband, I knew that no good would come of it. Plus, reassigning the murder of Phil Sullivan and the theft of Oruç’s dagger to a new detective would only delay tracking down the killer and the dagger—it was a one-way ticket to nowhere fast. And we needed to get that dagger back as soon as we could. Our lives depended on it.

  Olivera’s reaction was different, her mouth was actually agape. “You two can’t be serious.”

  I pointed to the passenger side of the SUV. “Get in, Detective. I want to talk this through with you, but I’m not doing it at the expense of my husband.”

  To my surprise she got into the car without further argument, and I took it to mean that, even though she seemed a follow-the-rules type, she was fearful enough about the lasting consequences to her career if she reported that she’d shot an innocent man at a haunted house. I mean, she’d have to explain why she’d fired off thirteen rounds, wouldn’t she? It wasn’t like Hatchet Jack was leaving fingerprints or anything. Who the hell was gonna believe her?

  I said as much to her on the way to the hospital, and I drove fast, zigzagging my way through traffic, barely pausing at stop signs and hitting the gas at all the yellow lights. We made it to the hospital without incident or a ticket, but I still hadn’t convinced Olivera, so I stopped the SUV a block from the emergency entrance and said, “Get out.”

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Get the hell out of this car, Detective. If you’re not going to play along, then I need you to get out of this car. Now. Find your own way back.”

  “Mrs. Whitefeather, how are you going to explain your husband’s injury?”

  “Oh, for cripes’ sake! Would you freaking call me M.J., and we’ll come up with some excuse. I saw the wound up close. It could be from anything—a fall down the stairs, an accident with a power saw.”

  “We’ll need to get our story straight, Em,” Heath said from the backseat. “I like the power-saw idea. That seems manly.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. He still had his sense of humor, which made me feel he’d be all right after all. Turning my attention back to Olivera I said, “Well?”

  “I’m a by-the-book type of cop,” she replied, and yet her hand moved to the handle.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Tell it to someone who cares about your damn conscience, Detective. Much as I may not like it, we need you on this case. That spook back there, he’s called Hatchet Jack. I dealt with him about six years ago. He very nearly killed me back then, and now he’s come back, along with a few other friends.” For emphasis I pulled down my scarf to show her the bruising I knew was still there. “This was courtesy of a spook named the Grim Widow. She nearly
killed both me and Heath two years ago, and who knows when she’ll strike again. The key is Oruç’s dagger. We either get that back and lock it and all these damn demons down, or all manner of nightmare is going to start haunting this city. You’re our only hope of figuring out what living, breathing person had a hand in all this, and I’m not going to give up that advantage if I can help it.”

  She considered me for a long moment, but then Heath gave a small groan of discomfort from the backseat and I think that decided it for her. “Fine,” she said. “But get your stories straight before you talk to the ER staff. And go with the power-saw accident. I’ll meet you in the lobby, M.J., just as soon as I check in with my precinct and make sure nobody else was injured from one of my bullets at that apartment house.”

  “It’s abandoned,” I told her. “Nobody lives there.”

  “Yeah, well, bullets can travel through walls and out onto the street. I want to make sure a stray didn’t hit anyone else.”

  With that she got out of the car and went sprinting toward the door of a Starbucks that I’d inadvertently parked in front of. I figured she’d probably bum a power cord from someone long enough to charge her phone.

  Good. For the moment, she was on our side.

  • • •

  Several hours and one hundred and fourteen stitches later, Heath and I were back at the condo. It’d been a rough afternoon and even rougher evening. The ER doc at the hospital had given us a hard time. She hadn’t bought the whole “My power saw slipped” story. Quite frankly, I didn’t blame her. She might have also noticed how careful I was to keep my scarf up around all the exposed skin of my neck. She sent for a police officer to talk to us—separately—but in the end Heath and I had both stuck to our story that he’d been working in the basement on a woodworking project when he’d tripped, knocked over the power saw, and cut his scalp to the bone. The cop had asked to see my neck, pointing out that I kept fiddling with my scarf, and I’d told him to stuff it. By that time I was pretty grouchy.

  He let us go but gave each of us a pretty good lecture on the statistics of domestic violence and offered us the card to a marriage counselor. Heath had thanked the cop and politely taken the card, and I’d snatched it from his fingers and ripped it up in front of both of them. Okay, so maybe I was grouchy and hungry enough to shiv an old lady for a doughnut.

  Before taking Heath home I stopped by our favorite Indian restaurant and picked up a carryout. My hubby had to take some pain meds and I didn’t want him to do that on an empty stomach. Also, I didn’t want to shiv any old ladies for their doughnuts, so I thought feeding myself might be a good idea.

  I got Heath settled on the couch, propped up with pillows, and covered him with my mother’s quilt; then I settled his plate on another pillow and told him to eat while I went to check on Gilley.

  On the way down the stairs, I stuffed a naan into my gaping maw, chewed quickly, and approached Gil’s door. I heard music on the other side. I knocked and waited, but no one came to the door. I knocked again, more loudly, but still no footsteps inside Gilley’s place alerted me that someone had heard me.

  I began to wonder if things were all right in there, and fished out my keys to let myself in. The moment I entered Gil’s apartment I stopped dead in my tracks.

  He was just coming out of the bedroom dressed in a beaded off-white silk flapper dress, complete with matching gloves, waist-length pearls, and a long black cigarette holder. He was also wearing false eyelashes, green eye shadow, and rose-colored lipstick.

  Of course he shrieked when he saw me. I’ll admit that I shrieked too, but probably for different reasons. “Nice getup,” I said when I’d recovered myself.

  Gil ran a hand along his elbow-length glove, tugging on the end to get it around his forearm. “I like it.”

  “I can tell,” I said, coming into the living room to sit down. I realized that the loud music coming out of Gil’s speakers was a familiar tune. “Where have I heard that before?” I asked.

  “It’s the theme to Downton Abbey,” he told me, using his phone to turn the volume down.

  My brow furrowed for a moment, and then I made the connection. “Sybil?” I asked.

  Gil rolled his eyes and took a seat on the love seat opposite me. “Please. I’m clearly Lady Mary.”

  “Clearly. So . . . this outfit . . . is for what exactly?”

  “Duh,” Gil said. “The wedding.”

  I sat forward. “You’re wearing that to the wedding?”

  Gil appeared offended. “Yes, I’m wearing this to the wedding. What else would I wear?”

  I tossed up my hands. “Gee, I dunno, Gil. Maybe a nice suit or a tux or something.”

  He rolled his eyes again. “Please. A suit to a nineteen-twenties-themed wedding. How gauche.”

  “Nineteen-twenties-themed . . . ?”

  “Yes,” Gil said.

  “I thought you were going with a simple summer theme.”

  “Oh, that was soooo pre-Catherine Cooper Masters, M.J. She suggested a Downton Abbey–inspired wedding and I thought, that’s perfect! For the reception line we’ll have lots of pots of tea and those little tea sandwiches, and at the reception we’ll have games of croquet and cricket!”

  “Who in the wedding party knows how to play cricket?”

  “Michel,” Gil said immediately.

  “And . . . ?” I replied.

  “He can teach the others,” Gil snapped. “What is it that you want, anyway? I tried to call you a couple of times today, but your stupid phone was turned off. All I got was voice mail.”

  I reached into my back pocket to pull out my cell and show him the display. “Completely drained,” I said, dreading the next part of this conversation.

  Gil leaned forward to hold out his gloved hand and I placed the phone in his palm. “Who’d you get too close to?” he asked me casually, but there was a nervous hitch in his voice.

  I took a deep breath. No way could I keep what was happening from Gilley. It was too dangerous. “Hatchet Jack,” I told him.

  Gil dropped the phone and it clattered to the floor. “Please be joking.”

  “Sorry, honey. He paid us a visit.”

  “Where?”

  “At Mrs. Ashworth’s apartment house.” I then went on to explain everything that’d happened on the fourth floor of that building, pausing only when Gil shrieked, “Heath was shot?!” and quickly explaining that he was okay, but currently laid up on our couch upstairs nursing a wicked-looking scalp wound.

  “Did they shave his head?” Gil asked.

  I frowned. Leave it to Gilley to concentrate on what wasn’t important. “Only part of the one side near the wound. He’s still got his long hair everywhere but around the temple of his left side.” Discounting the big bandage covering Heath’s wound, the new hairstyle didn’t look bad at all. Of course, that could be because Heath was so freaking gorgeous, not much affected his overall sex appeal. “But that’s not what’s important here, Gil—”

  “Said the woman who obviously let her hair air-dry today,” Gil muttered.

  I paused. Gil seemed unusually calm, given the fact that I’d just told him that Hatchet Jack had come back into the picture. Maybe he wasn’t taking this as seriously as I thought he should because Jack had shown up clear across town. “Honey,” I said. “You’re right. I did let my hair air-dry today. But that had less to do with the fact that it was inconvenient and more to do with the fact that the Grim Widow showed up in my bathroom and tried to strangle me to death.”

  Gil’s jaw dropped and for a long moment he simply stared at me. I saw goose pimples line the tops of his arms where the gloves couldn’t hide them. “She . . . she came here?”

  “She did.”

  “Today?”

  “Yep.” For emphasis I pulled down my scarf to show him the bruises on my neck.

  Gil jumpe
d to his feet and came over to me to put a gentle hand on my neck. “Ohmigod,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I knew he was referring to our conversation from earlier. “Because I didn’t want to freak you out and have you pack a bag and leave town.”

  Gil swiveled away from me and marched toward his bedroom. “Where’re you going?” I demanded, getting up to follow him.

  “I’m packing a bag and getting the hell out of town!” he shouted, throwing his hands up in the air with a flourish.

  “Gil,” I said, but he continued to walk away from me. “Gil!”

  “No way, M.J.! I’m not getting into another ridiculously dangerous ghostbust. I mean, it was one thing when some blanket went all poltergeist up in your condo last night, and more of another thing when Jack showed up on the other side of town, but when you tell me the Grim freaking Widow has actually appeared in your bathroom—one floor away from me—that’s my cue to leave!”

  I followed him to the bedroom and put a hand on his shoulder, but he tugged free and practically ran to his closet to pull out his suitcase. “I’ll go to New York and hang out with Michel. He’s staying at the apartment of some friends. It’ll be a bit crowded, but we’ll manage. I should stop by one of the shops in the airport and bring them a gift. Or maybe just send a gift to them and that way I don’t have to bother with bringing it on the plane. A nice cheese selection or a good bottle of wine—”

  “Gil!” I said loudly, standing in front of the closet so that he’d have a hard time getting past me to retrieve his clothes. “Don’t go!”

  “I’m going!”

  “You can’t!”

  “I can!”

  “What about the dagger?”

  “Screw the dagger!”

  “What about us?” Gil paused and I followed quickly with, “We need you, honey. I mean we really need you. We can’t solve this thing without your techy help.”