How to Kill a Ghost (2 page)

Deciding I had had enough of waiting, I tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. I entered and called out to Ian. No answer. Houses in Summit’s Edge, North Carolina were not so big that Ian couldn’t hear me calling him from whatever room he occupied, and the layout of Ian’s home matched mine except for the library room addition he had had built on.

I strolled down the hall and headed to his “man cave.” The door stood open, and light spilled into the hall.

“Ian, are you here? I need to talk to you.”

Just when I reached the door, and the interior of the room came into view, I recalled he had said he had errands to run. What I thought would be one evening turned into several. He had at first insisted I put off leaving town until he returned so he could be there to watch over Jake and Monica. I had agreed, especially since Isabelle had needed a little extra time to prepare herself. However, Ian hadn’t returned last night when he said he would, and I had intended to go with Isabelle anyway. Ian didn’t like to tell me his plans in any detail unless I asked specific questions, so it didn’t surprise me that he didn’t update me on his movements.

I grumbled and approached his desk to leave him a note telling him to call for me when he returned. A sound behind me caught my attention, and I turned. Ian stood in one corner of the room, statue still, watching me. I was used to his lack of expression more often than not, as if all his emotions were either nonexistent or hidden deep inside. Having spent quite a lot of my nights in his presence, I knew this man well. I loved him. I had accepted that fact and everything that Ian was. However, tonight, he seemed different. He gave off a strange energy, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“Ian?” I took a step toward him. “Why didn’t you answer me?”

I could have sworn when I began to speak to him, he started in surprise. Why wouldn’t I talk to him? Hadn’t I been coming to his house every day since I lost my body? Considering it the most natural move in the world, I crossed the space between us and leaned into his chest. His arms came up automatically to my waist.

I craned my head to look into those brilliant green eyes I loved so much. Ian smiled, and the world brightened. You must understand that I had seen glimpses of this man’s smile maybe twice, surely not more than that. Yet, here he stood looking down at me grinning as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I forgot myself for a minute and stepped back.

“Wow, that was worth waiting for,” I said, teasing him.

An eyebrow rose in question.

“Your smile. You should do it more often.” I lowered my lashes, suddenly feeling shy. “It felt—good.”

His hand came up slowly to touch my face, but before he made contact I noticed his clothes and frowned. Ian’s style of dress was not outdated per se but he did keep it simple—dark slacks or jeans, a button down collared shirt. Once in a while, he might wear a T-shirt, but not often. He was never swayed by the season or temperature of the day because, by his own admission, he didn’t feel the heat or the cold other than to recognize its existence. That was similar to me who couldn’t tell you if the day was hot or cold unless I picked up clues around me.

Tonight, Ian wore a black and white leopard print T-shirt made of a sleek, stretchy material. While he did have on black jeans to match, they were skinny jeans, tight against muscular legs.

“Sneakers?” I gasped. “Was this your errand, Ian? To change your style?”

I looked into his handsome face, noting the amusement in very expressive eyes. My attention wandered to his hair. He’d gotten a cut. I reached up to run my fingers through it, wishing I could feel the silky threads just as I had longed for with Jake.

“Interesting,” he whispered.

I blinked. “What?” I met his gaze once again, and this time it was different. Not amusement but something darker, angrier, reflected out at me. I shivered and scanned the area around us. Evil seemed to permeate the room, leaking from the walls, or dare I believe it—Ian himself.

I swallowed, and fear gripped me. The one thing—or rather
person
—I feared above all else was Death. This was a being Ian had told me about who came for those who died. In fact, sometimes I fought to stay one step ahead of him. At any time Death could come looking for me and take me away from all those I held dear. The thought frightened me beyond reason, and whenever that darkness surfaced, I scooted out of the area. This was different. First, Death, as I believed him to be, was not necessarily evil. Second, I had never felt Death, or any evil, in Ian’s house.

I stepped back, but Ian advanced to me. He didn’t touch me, but towering over me as he did unsettled me. He still hadn’t spoken more than the whispered word, and I was sure he’d been surprised to see me there. That made no sense.

“Did you find someone to give you blood tonight?” His eyes rounded, and he grinned again. I reminded myself he was a vampire, and if he didn’t consume blood, he could lose control. That meant nothing to me because I was outside of my physical body, but what of Jake and Monica? “Ian?”

His hands shot out and captured me by the arms to draw me closer. The electricity that separated us tickled my skin and must have prickled against his palms. He studied my body, making me blush. I know this wasn’t the first time he had felt the electricity, that invisible barrier that seemed to separate us. No matter how much either of us cared about the other, this would keep us apart. Well, that and the fact that I had no body and had to concentrate to stay visible.

“Y-You’re making me nervous, Ian,” I mumbled. “You’re not talking. Is something bothering you? Did something happen?”

I started getting visions of him hurting one of the citizens of our small town. Ian had assured me he would never and had never killed any humans in Summit’s Edge. At the time I believed him because I had heard nothing to the contrary, and Clark hadn’t gotten any missing persons reports locally. I didn’t want to learn tonight everything changed.

One second I stood in his arms, and the next he drew me to him. My hands came up without thinking to his chest, and he kissed me. I had no time to react or to enjoy his kiss as I had done several times before. Ian held me and then he didn’t. I raised a hand to a bookcase to steady myself, and Ian stood with his back to me. He seemed like a stranger in that instant. Doubts clouded my mind as well as confusion. I opened my mouth to question him once again, but he cut me off.

“I have to take care of something. I’ll be back.”

Then he was gone.

Rather than walk home the way I had come, I winked out and blinked into my own house. Ian’s actions and attitude confused me, and I couldn’t think of a single valid reason why he would ever treat me the way he did. He was never overly warm, but to kiss me and brush me off?

I drifted down the hall to the living room. Monica had fallen asleep on the couch with the TV playing as usual. In his room, Jake slept if not soundly at least better than he had earlier in the day. I floated above him invisible, watching his small chest rise and fall. The conversation with Ian came back to mind, his appearance, his attitude. Was he changing himself because he was dissatisfied with his life? I didn’t have a problem with it.
But skinny jeans, Ian?
I cringed.

Something niggled at the back of my mind, something other than the way he looked. I mentally ran over what I had said and his response. I considered Ian the strong, silent type, but his fluent speech when he did open up, the choice of words, the inflections always took me back to an age far gone. I absolutely loved that about him. However, unless I was going crazy or I was mistaken, the last words he had said to me were—“I’ll be back.”

Ian McClain, born over one hundred years ago in a simpler era outside Boston, Massachusetts was still a product of his time. He might have changed his hairstyle and chosen different clothes, but I didn’t believe he could so easily change his way of speaking.

Ian never spoke with contractions. Not once in all the time I had known him.

I got Jake up from bed the next day, got him bathed, and made him eat something. Most of all, I concentrated on getting liquids into him.

“I’m better, Mom,” he complained when I started to take his temperature again.

“No, you’re not. In fact, I’m thinking about taking you to the doctor’s later.”

“You can’t do that!”

I narrowed my eyes at him, and he reined in his voice level. While he curled up on a chair, draped in a comforter, I changed his bed sheets.

“It’s just a cold.”

“We don’t know that, Jake.”

I leaned far across the bed to get an end of the fitted sheet tucked away.

“Can you go to a hospital, Mom? Won’t the machines break?”

I froze, staring down at the bed, my back to him. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“Ghosts. You know, they break machines when it tries to register that they’re there. I read it in a book once.”

I couldn’t imagine what book he had read this information in, and I hated recalling that Jake remembered most of what he read if it interested him. “That’s nonsense, sweetie. There’s no such thing as…”

“Don’t say that, Mom.
You’re
here.”

I had no words, but I scrounged around my brain for an answer. When a coughing fit hit my little boy, and I turned to find his eyelids drooping, I’m ashamed to admit I felt relief. I tucked him into bed, made sure he had everything he needed, and then tiptoed out of the room.

Weariness weighed on me even as I floated around the house, no direction, no ideas. How would I get Jake to let go of the idea that I was a ghost? By his own admission he’d been harboring these suspicions for a while, and I had confirmed them by fading out. What was I going to do?

My front door opened, and Ian strode in. I hesitated to approach him when previously I would have tumbled into his embrace. I knew the problem wasn’t all on my end when he didn’t hold out his arms for me, and my heart ached.

“I want you to leave Summit’s Edge,” he said.

Those were the last words I expected to hear. “What?”

He repeated what sounded like a command, and I frowned at him. “Jake is sick. I can’t leave him. No, I
won’t
leave him.”

“Take him with you. Pack what you need and leave tonight. I will escort you to the edge of town, and after that you should be fine.” He started past me as if he expected I would head into my room to pack right away, as if I would not question his order. I stood my ground.

“Why are you pushing me to leave all of a sudden, Ian?”

He stopped with his back to me. I waited, but he didn’t turn around to face me. “Do not ask questions.”

I grabbed his arm and tugged. If Ian didn’t want to look me in the eyes, no amount of pulling on him would get him to turn. He took his time pivoting on his heel. His expression was as closed as it always was. No, he appeared even colder, so distant I resisted a shiver. “We have been more than acquaintances or even friends. You’ve been acting funny, and I want an explanation!”

He watched me in silence.

I put my hands on my hips. “I’m not budging until you say something, and you can’t make me.” That last part sounded a tad childish, but I pushed the thought from my mind. I could be stubborn when I wanted to be.

“You know we cannot be together. Just leave.”

I gasped. Hurt tingled to the roots of my hair. A few minutes passed before I could pull myself together enough to respond. “So, that kiss was good-bye?”

Fire seemed to crackle in his eyes. “What. Kiss?” Each word was a sentence of its own, threat permeating the sounds, but not toward me.

My patience had come to an end, however, and I refused to explain every detail of how he had made me feel both earlier and now. If he didn’t care, why should I? “In your house.”

“When?”

“Stop these games, Ian. You know when. I don’t—”

“When, Liberty?”

I had hoped to break him of the habit of using my full name, but with our relationship crumbling around my ears, I doubted it would happen. I didn’t speak, and he grabbed for my arms. I winked out and floated away from him. He followed my movements with an angry glare, proving it didn’t matter if I was visible or not, he saw me. That had always pleased and scared me. Being outside my body separated me in a sense from living people, but I had kept my sanity knowing it would never be the case with Ian. Now this.

He shifted his shoulders, appearing to release tension. Anger in his visage faded, and he spoke in a soft, non-threatening tone. “Tell me when I kissed you…
please
.”

“Earlier tonight. I needed to talk to you and was hoping you were back and didn’t tell me.”

“I returned a few moments ago.”

I opened my mouth but snapped my teeth together. Ian’s hair was styled the way he always wore it. He had dressed in blue jeans and a powder blue button down shirt. “Ian, I think—”

He moved toward the door, a blur with his vampire’s speed. I was faster. I willed myself in front of him, and he braked before crashing into me. A frown wrinkled the skin between his eyebrows.

“I want to know what’s going on,” I demanded.

“It is not important for you to know.”

“Are you trying to protect me or just push me away because you’ve changed your mind about us?”

“Your focus should be on finding your body, Liberty.”

“I
am
focused.”

He reached for me, stopped, and reached out again. When he drew me close this time, I let him. I longed to feel warmth in his touch, but neither of us had that to give. A vampire had no warmth, although I had hugged him right after a feeding. While I couldn’t feel it, he had told me he generated warmth at that time for a short period. We were so unnatural. I sensed his worry. Ian had reasons of his own to push me away, and while it angered me that he couldn’t trust me with the truth, I trusted him enough not to write him off.

He raised my chin, and I waited, expecting a kiss. His gaze locked with mine, and I forgot time for an instant. This wasn’t anything new, but it was different. For a few milliseconds, my disconnect wasn’t spent alone with Ian calling me back. He occupied this space and time with me, and I knew in that moment he felt the same thing I did. Pushing me away wasn’t what he wanted to do. He thought it best. I longed for the details.