Duck Duck Ghost (21 page)

“Okay, they’re clear!” Cin shouted at Tristan as he closed the paddock door.

With the way clear, Tristan urged York to move forward. The camel balked a second, then reared his head forward when Tristan tugged lightly on the lead. It was slow going at first. The makeshift blinder didn’t seem to bother the ungulate as much as Tristan thought it would, and after a few hesitant steps, York fell into a fierce trot, habit leading him to the open doors connecting the barn to the paddocks.

As soon as they were free of the structure, Tristan tugged the lead rope free and yanked his draped shirt off the animal’s head. A few of the cattle were gathered up against the fence as if to watch the spectacle, and one let out a soft low at the camel as York plodded up to the small herd.

The air outside was thick with drizzle and wisps of ash. A musty dampness clung to the breeze. The rolling storm front let loose another furious spit and Tristan found himself sluiced with icy water. The rain made the paddock gates slippery, and he fought to get them closed, hoping to pen the animals in before they decided to wander back into the smoky barn. He’d gotten one side closed and locked down when Cin shouldered up next to him, taking the gate pull from his numb, cold hands.

“Shit, you look like you’re about to fall over,” Cin muttered. “Where the hell is Wolf?

“Probably putting out the fire.” It was funny how the embarrassment of his ass and cock being on full view was wiped off his mind with just a spritz of anger. He’d turned on his heel and taken a few steps toward the barn when Cin grabbed his arm.

“Hold up. You can’t go back in there. Stay here—”

“You guys okay?” Wolf called out as he walked carefully across the damp grass. “Fire’s out. Some of the hay’s ruined to shit, but I got enough clear so Sey will be okay for a week. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get across the bridge by then. If not, it’s going to be a trek up and down that gulch.”

“Swear to God, if you don’t let go of me, I’m going to punch you in the balls.” Tristan shook Cin off—yet again. “Wolf—”

“Help him get to the house, Wolf.” Cin spoke over Tristan’s shoulder to his cousin as he approached them. “He’s about to fall over.”

“I don’t need help to get to the damned house,” Tristan spat at the man. “I don’t know who you think your cousin is fucking, but it’s not some damned princess in an ivory tower—”

He’d planned a glorious takedown—or at the very least, a spirited, defiant rant
—
before he collapsed at Wolf’s feet. Gearing up to further challenge the larger man, Tristan grabbed at the fence for support, since the ground seemed to be a bit wavy, and opened his mouth to continue his rant.

A crooning wail cut him off. A very familiar keen spiced with the anger of a young girl cut down before her prime.

She came out of the morning brew of fog and smoke, a figment of drapery and skin. There wasn’t much of her feet. They were more sketches of light and shadow than shapes, and her skeletal hands ended in dips of long black. Her hooked talons scraped through the mists as she drew close, leaving ghostly trails in the damp air.

The ghost hadn’t grown any eyes since the last time Tristan saw her. If anything, her sockets were sunken in, and the skin covering them was parched and wrinkled.

Unlike Petal, Tristan had no doubt Cin saw her. Wolf too. Hell, even the damned camel grunted and gasped behind them. York took off like a shot, disappearing into the murky rolling paddock grounds. The cattle were hot on his toed feet, shuffling after him, hovering some distance away from the humans—and the ghost—their hooves churning up the ground.

“Motherfucking hell.” Cin’s raspy swear echoed Tristan’s own shocked thoughts. “Shit. Is that—”

“Yeah, that’s her.” Tristan edged closer to Wolf. The man smelled of smoke, coffee, and a hint of jam. Sadly, he could have used less jam and more rock salt. “Tell me you’ve got a replica of Lot’s wife on you, Kincaid.”

“Sorry, babe. No can do. All out of moral-lesson icons. Although I’m pretty sure I might have a quarter. But the old cherry tree thing isn’t going to do us much good.”

The specter came closer, wailing and bobbing through the mists. The ground smoked behind her, curls of heat sending plumes of steam up from the muddied grass. She wore an old-fashioned dress, something more Gibson girl era than the sixties attire of the other ghosts he’d spoken to, and quite unlike the other spirits, she didn’t have a friendly air about her.

“Let me see if I can talk to her.” Tristan took a step forward, only to find himself held back by Cin’s hand on his shoulder. Looking up at the tall Kincaid, he ground out, “You put your hands on me one more time, you’re going to be choking on your fingers.”

“Let him go, Cin.” Wolf tugged at his cousin’s elbow. “Tris knows what he’s doing. Mostly.”

The
mostly
wasn’t exactly the vote of confidence Tristan’d hoped for, but it was going to have to be good enough. It certainly was for Cin, who let him go, but not without Wolf stopping Tristan long enough to mutter into his ear.

“When she’s gone, you and I are going to have a long talk.” Wolf brushed a kiss over his lobe. “Keep her occupied. I’m going to see if Sey’s got some salt lick stuff in the barn. We can use that against her.”

“Deal,” Tristan agreed. “And you don’t have to whisper. I don’t think she can hear you guys. Hell, Petal didn’t even see Cin, I don’t think.”

“Who the hell is Petal?” Wolf asked as Tristan stepped closer to the apparition. “Never mind. Be careful, Thursday. I’ll be right back.”

Tristan didn’t answer. He was focused on the wild-haired phantom floating over the ground in front of him. Her mouth dropped impossibly open, stretching her nostrils down into two stygian ovals as her chin reached the scalloped lace yoke on her dress. An ethereal wind caught the pale frizz growing over her emaciated skull, pulling it up into a corona around her head.

The inside of the ghost’s mouth was as black as her fingertips. There were no teeth, no tongue that Tristan could see. Just an all-consuming inky hole reaching back into a hell only the specter knew existed.

A hell she shared with them when her screams sliced through the dank morning to cut deep, painful furrows into Tristan’s mind.

“Siiiiimooooooooooooooooone!”

It echoed and turned around until Tristan couldn’t be sure if she’d started a new keen, or it was merely the stain it left on his eardrums. Gray tendrils leaked from cracks forming in the skin around her eye sockets. They bled back, caught in the same wind as her hair, and she leaned forward, screaming with all her spectral might at the blond man she’d caught in her spell.

“Who is Simone?” Tristan winced when the pitch of her moan changed. It grew higher, and beyond, in the paddock, the cattle began to howl back in discomfort. From the camel, there was no sound, but then, Tristan reasoned, York
had
taken one look at what was going on and hightailed it off to parts unknown. Another wail, and he was forced to cover his ears, muting the waves of sound assaulting his hearing. “Fucking camel is smart as shit.”

“What is going on?” Daylen leaned over the porch railing and called out to the yard. Of all the times for Sey’s intern to show up, now was certainly the worst as far as Tristan was concerned. The man had to be dead to any spectral activity because he tromped across the back path, heading right to the phantasm. “What’s making that noise? Where’d the kid come from?”

Maybe not so dead to it, because the shriveled-up ghost spun about and reached for the Canadian, and Daylen let out a small scream of his own when he saw her face.

“You—whoever the fuck—”

A screaming rant from the ghost broke through Cin’s warning, and Tristan heard Sey calling out to Wolf in the barn.

“Shit.”

“Daylen! Get back!” His Converses weren’t made for wet lawn. Hell, they were barely made for dry sidewalk, and Tristan slid more than he walked, but at least he was going forward toward the ghost. “Get away from her.”

“You have Simoooooooooooooone.” Her hands curved up, tiny sickles looking sharp enough to cut through flesh. They ate up the light, and Daylen reared back in horror as the reality of what he was seeing sunk in.

“Oh God! What is this? What is going on?” Daylen tried to backpedal, but the ghost was too close. Her arms flung out, as elastic as her jaw, and her hands grabbed a hold of Daylen’s chest, sinking her talons into his flesh.

Too many things happened at once. The man’s chest began to spurt blood, gushing hot streams of red through the little girl’s filmy arms, and his pained screams drowned out even her caterwauling. The cattle began to low and call from behind them, and Cin sprinted across the lawn toward the unsuspecting Daylen. Tristan took off after him, careening wildly over the wet grass. The short distance seemed to be an eternity of running; then suddenly he was on the wraith.

Tristan didn’t know what he thought he was going to do. He’d hoped to talk to her like he’d done with Ray and Petal, but reasoning with the little girl seemed to be the furthest thing from possible as she raked open Daylen’s chest. Cin passed through her and slammed into Daylen’s twitching body, trying to loosen the ghost’s grip.

She was strong, too strong for Cin to break Daylen free, but where she’d been incorporeal for Cin, Tristan was shocked to find his hands closing over her thin, cold arms.

It was like holding dry ice. Her skin burned through his, and Tristan didn’t think he could hold on for much longer when Wolf came out of the barn, running with a small plastic feeding scoop filled with chunks of dull ruddy fragments. Yanking on the girl’s arms seemed to work, or at least Tristan hoped she was letting go because he’d pulled on her and not because she was turning her attentions onto him.

Wolf got within a few feet of the ghost and flung the scoop’s contents out, yelling at the top of his lungs, “
Fugite
!
Confugo
! Shit—”

“
Terga dare
?” Tristan offered up.

The fragments struck her, and the salt sparked and popped wherever it landed. Her keens broke into a furious howl, deepening in tone until the air rattled with the sound of her shrieks. She began to crack, bits of dust flying off her body, then dissipating in the mist. Tristan fell to his knees and grabbed at salt chunks on the ground and tossed them at her, lighting up her body with more crackling hot lines.

She had turned, her fingers raised to scratch at his face, when he found a large chunk of the broken-up salt lick in the wet grass. Sticky with slime, it was hard to hold onto, but he scooped it up from the ground and flung it, striking the ghost in the remains of her face. He caught a flash of rolling red fire when the skin across her eyes burst apart, and her sockets filled with a flame hotter than the burn of her flesh on his hands.

Then she exploded into a burst of sparks, burning phantom stars into his vision, as if he’d stared into a blazing sun for a moment longer than he should have.

“Fucking hell.” Wolf panted to catch his breath. “Shit, babe. Your hands.”

“I’m okay,” Tristan replied. “Bit red, but I’ve done worse. We’ve got to take care of Daylen.”

The young Canadian was passed out, limp in the cradle of Cin’s arms. With the ghost extracted from his chest, his wounds didn’t seem too bad, but his blood-speckled shirt was probably hiding bruised flesh. Wolf nodded thoughtfully, and the cousins seemed to share a confusingly similar look Tristan liked to call Wolf’s come-to-Jesus glance.

His suspicions were confirmed when Cin hefted Daylen’s unconscious body and stared down at where Tristan had fallen. “I’m going to get him settled in with Sey. Then you, me, and your ghost whisperer are going to have a few words, Wolf. Because it’s too fucking dangerous to let the two of you wander around without a leash. You’re going to get us all killed.”

O
NE
OF
the overhead lights flashed on when Wolf reached the second landing on the stairs. It was an unexpected spark of bright in the gloom creeping through the house, barely a whisper to hold back the darkness coming in from outside. The light danced and flickered for a moment before settling down, and by the time Wolf reached the bedroom, he could make out the hum of the house’s electronics coming on. A tiny red dot shone out from the camera he’d mounted to record the hallway’s activity, but Wolf didn’t need any video to tell him his lover would be waiting for him inside the room.

If the trail of soggy footprints on the floor wasn’t warning enough, the hot, angry look Tristan gave him before he headed into the house did the trick.

He was partially right. Tristan was in the bedroom but not waiting to tear Wolf a new asshole. The sound of water from the shower made Wolf smile, and he slipped into the bathroom, hoping to catch Tristan unaware.

When Sey redid the house, she’d taken one of the long walk-in closets peppering the upper floor and divided its space out into the bathrooms on either side. The added space went mostly to include enormous travertine tile stalls surrounded by glass, a luxury Wolf was certainly now quite glad for. Especially since the stall could hold two grown men and had a bench built in near the forest of showerheads if they wanted to sit under a misting steam and relax.