Ghost Killer (21 page)

With a snarl on the last of her breath, Clare stabbed with the sheathed knife, thought
she heard silk ripping, didn’t care.

She fought for her dog with her mind, too, sending sharp words.
You can’t have him! You can’t claim my Enzo.

A shrieking giggle of mad laughter.
I can have him. He committed THE sin. He is MINE. My doggie. My pet. To torture.
Rippling laughter.
A dog ghost who is different than human, different taste.

Clare shuddered. Ice pelleted her body. She swung and struck and blackness gathered
as she tried to draw breath and nothing came to her nose, her mouth.

Bang! Bang! Bang!
Zach’s gun roared close. She felt hot fingers on her arm, was yanked aside and air
shuddered into her gasping mouth, flowed into her lungs. The night air around her
felt volcanic, burning. Her fingers unfroze and she dropped the knife.

Zach caught it, advanced with deliberate menace, plunging his cane into the snowstorm.
The stick whirled away. He stabbed with the knife.

The cowboy ghost lifted, aimed, and shot a rifle, phantom bullets ripping the quiet,
as loud as Zach’s shots.

Then the apparition of the cowboy shuddered, rippled, became
more
. He—it—lifted his arms.
Begone, foul spirit!
Phrases in no language she’d ever heard, words too high to hear but that Clare could
feel, peppered the air.

With an ululating shriek the swirling snow
thing
zoomed above them.
You are mine to eat! I WILL get you. I WILL be back. You can’t hurt me yet!

The cowboy turned to Clare and Zach, now appearing taller, more muscular, his purple
eyes glaring at them with the Other’s disgust.
I can interfere only once in one of your years. And I would not have done so but you
ABUSE your tool!

“Wha—” Clare began.

You FOOL!
The Other raged.
You will be gone before the night is through. You TORE the silk! The protections will
not work! The knife will call the ghost to you and you will die.

Clare broke.
If I do it will be YOUR fault. You give me NO training, NO help, only obscure comments.
“Begone yourself!” She swept her knife from Zach’s grip and thrust it at the Other.

Get the hell out of me!
yelled the cowboy.

I
— BEGAN THE
Other.

Even I know there is rules. I didn’t invite ya to use my shade, and I don’t tolerate
no bad-mouthing ladies. You just get outta me and onto your other concerns. Now.
The cowboy’s apparition waved as if in a strong wind . . . turned flat and two dimensional . . .
faded in and out like electronics on the fritz, then stabilized into the shape Clare
had first seen. He grunted, shifted his feet, shook out his limbs and rolled his head.
No hint of any ghostly rifle showed.

He frowned, coughed, then nodded to Clare again.
Yep, I’m ready to go on. Think I hafta tell ya, though, that me and Albert Lord and
Buddy Jemmings were friends as kids, and since Al witnessed O’Kelley murderin’ Bob
Ford, we talked about it a lot and he told that story often. I knowed that Buddy lived
to a ripe ol’ age.
The ghost paused to scratch his head under his hat.
His spirit dropped by, like, ta see me afore he crossed over. Anyways, Buddy talked
to those who like to keep tracka old stories, so ya think about that.
Chaz’s chest went in and out as if he breathed. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
And, yah, I’m ramblin’ acuz I’m scared to my boot toes about crossin’ over myself.

“I promise it’s not painful,” Clare said soberly, at least not as far as she knew,
for the ghost. “And I have never seen a spirit go to hell.” Of course she’d only helped
six phantoms leave the gray dimension and head to whatever awaited, but she hadn’t
lied.

Chaz literally brightened. He shuffled his feet, hard to do since he floated about
a foot above the ground.
Good to know, ma’am,
Chaz said.
I warn’t a bad man, but I warn’t much of a good ’un, either. Selfish, mostly.

“All right,” Clare said. “What happens is that I walk into you.” She experienced bits
and pieces of their lives. “And you, um, see where you need to go.”

She handed the sheathed knife to Zach, then held out her hands. “So let’s do this,
all right?”

More fidgeting.
I guess.
He raised his hands slowly and she grasped them. Cold, but not too bad. She hurriedly
stepped into the apparition, flashed on his deliberate and cherished solitary life,
his love for the land more than anything else, an exceedingly brief vision of the
two boys he’d talked about—Albert and Buddy, then Chaz gasped.
It’s beautiful! Just like my spread but . . . but . . . MORE!

Her vision turned sepia as Chaz poofed away.

Clare wobbled on her feet and Zach’s warm arm went around her. Through chattering
teeth, she said, “V-v-ver-y cold night, to-night.”

“I am going to
destroy
that monster. It doesn’t get to hurt people, living or dead, anymore.” His voice
seethed with anger and heat pumped off him, lifting her numbness.

“Did you really shoot it?”

“At it, into it, didn’t look like it had any effect, but I didn’t know that beforehand.
But we got new data on the perp—perpetrator of crimes.” He urged her a few steps toward
the truck, then paused.

Parked behind them was a truck that even Clare recognized. She sighed. “It’s the elder
Pais, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Zach confirmed, as the man opened his door and shut it with a slam and strode
to them. “I didn’t see when he pulled up.”

“Neither did I,” said Clare. For a minute, embarrassment filtered through her at how
she might have looked as she’d helped Chaz move on. She shook off the feeling. However
crazy she appeared, she’d become a ghost seer and would have to become accustomed
to looking strange—as soon as possible.

Pais tipped the cowboy hat back on his head. “You folks havin’ any trouble?”

“No trouble at all,” Zach said.

“Funny, I heard shots.” He squinted through the night toward where their fight—no
doubt invisible—had taken place. “When I drove up I heard shots and saw you shootin’
at nothin’.”

She didn’t trust his friendly aw-shucks manner one little bit.

“That’s right,” Zach said, copying the man’s manner. “Nothin’ to worry about. No trouble.”

Just as if they hadn’t fought a ghost. The cold space, the wound within her ached.
All of her ached. She shivered.

“Now if you don’t mind, Clare is cold and I want her in the truck.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” Pais tipped his hat to her. “Sure, you go to your truck. But you,
Zach Slade, come back and we’ll check out those shots.”

As if there’d be anything to see in the moonlit dark. Just an empty meadow. Clare
didn’t think any of the bullets had hit the fenceposts.

Since Zach didn’t have his cane, they limped together to the vehicle and Zach opened
the door. She climbed onto the seat. Zach leaned down and tucked the knife into the
correct compartment of her purse.

She shivered as he turned and took his time walking back, then watched as he talked
to Pais, argued about something and Zach refused . . . he touched his back so perhaps
it was showing Pais his gun.

Then they began looking through the meadow. Zach would like his cane.

A noise,
not
a whimper, broke from her lips. He took the danger on himself, just naturally. Those
broad shoulders shouldn’t carry
her
burdens. And she sure didn’t want the evil ghost coming for him.
Her
fight . . . first. She wiggled around until her fingers and toes stopped tingling
and she could move well, hopped back out of the truck and strode over to where he
picked up his cane and examined the battered stick.

“Looks like something chawed on that,” Pais said.

The ex-sheriff was right. The cane had deep gouges, big splinters angled out from
the staff, and the bottom was gone.

“Huh,” Zach said.

“Huh,” Clare echoed.

He frowned at her.

“I just needed to get warm.” Though from now on, she’d consider toting around a thermos
of hot coffee, or protein, chicken soup, perhaps. “How can I help?” she asked, too
cheerfully. “I don’t know what bullets look like.” She tilted her head. “I wouldn’t
think you could find them.” She stared at Pais with a guileless smile. “I’m not sure
why you’re looking.”

His expression clouded, but he jutted a chin. “Just wanted to see that no animals
got hurt.”

Clare exaggeratedly looked around the empty landscape. “Well, chipmunks maybe. Rabbits?
Maybe a coyote? No cows or sheep, for sure.”

She thought the man grumbled under his breath. After letting fifteen seconds pass,
she said, “Are we going to stand around here for long?” She widened her eyes and looked
at Pais.

“No trouble here,” Zach added softly.

“Yeah, yeah.” Pais took off his hat and thumped it against his leg, like Clare had
seen his grandson do.

Sticking his hat back on his head and adjusting it, Pais said, “You folks have a good
evening.”

“Same to you!” Clare caroled. She slipped her arm around Zach’s waist and they stood
and watched as Pais strode to his truck, sending a few glances back at them, then
got in, stared at them, and finally drove away.

“He’s suspicious,” Zach said. He gave her the cane to carry as he put his hand on
her shoulder and they proceeded slowly back to their vehicle.

“So what? I told him the truth up front this morning. Not our fault he doesn’t believe
it,” Clare said belligerently. “There’s nothing to see. Chaz Green moved on. The Other
left. The evil apparition is banished for now.” Memory flooded her and she recalled
Enzo was lost. “Oh.” Though she hadn’t wanted to sob, that word came perilously close
to being one.

“‘Oh’ what?” Zach asked.

Clare filled him in on the conversations she’d had with the evil revenant and what
it had said about savoring Enzo. What the Other had said.

Zach appeared alarmed, and they hobbled faster. When they got to the truck, he looked
at his cane before throwing it behind the seat. “Good thing I packed a heavy duty
extendable metal cane that I can use for hiking.”

She nodded and kissed his cheek. By the time he’d circled the truck and levered into
the driver’s side, she was studying the knife. He reached for it, and she withdrew
it beyond his grasp.

“Clare—” he warned.

“My weapon,” she said. Turning it over, she scrutinized the silk that had two long
rips and several smaller ones. “The sooner we get back to the hotel and I mend these,
the better.”

“You can fix the sheath?”

“I always carry a small sewing kit in my luggage.”

“Of course.”

The empty hole inside her that the evil ghost had given her last night, and that had
torn a little wider, froze instantly, and still throbbed all the way back to the hotel.

As they turned into Creede, Clare said, “I don’t like having to do this at the hotel.
It might be full.”

Zach grunted. “People could be out at bars and restaurants, or the repertory theater.”

“I looked earlier today. There isn’t any show at the repertory theater tonight.”

“No choice. We don’t know any other place.” Zach sounded frustrated.

“I could run up and get my kit and we could drive and I could sew in the truck . . .”

A short, seething silence. “We don’t know what the ghost could do to a truck. I don’t
think I’d want to find out whether that storm and razor thing could take out a windshield.
Especially if we’re in the cab.”

She sighed. “You’re right.”

“Did the Other say anything about you blooding the knife? It must be a good weapon
now, able to kill the ghost.”

“It may be good enough,” Clare said. “But we need the ghost’s name, its core identity.”
She thought, though, she could test that theory of Zach’s . . .

“We haven’t gone after it with the full power of the knife behind us,” Zach said.

She paused, distressed by his choice of words, then decided to speak. “Zach, this
fight is mine.”

“We’re a team.”

“That’s right and
I
am captain.” She paused. “No, the Other didn’t say anything about the knife but to
scold me because I tore the sheath.”

“Huh. Probably should consider it like a gun, then,” Zach said. “Carry it only if
you’ll use it, and if you use it, don’t screw around. Take both sheaths off and fight
with it.”

Her breath caught, but she nodded her head. “We’ll figure out a good knot that I can
yank and have it open.” She bit her lower lip. “If I need to carry it around, the
sheath is a liability.” She breathed deeply. “Obviously that hasn’t bothered anyone
before me. If the metal sheath isn’t good enough to protect me—us—people—from ghosts—”

“The metal sheath, and the knife itself, is unusual enough to attract attention.”

“Then I will figure out something else.” Her voice nearly broke, so she took another
little breath. “Maybe a tube, a leather tube. After all, it isn’t as if I won’t have
the rest of my life.” She stopped to scrub the bitterness from her tone. “If I survive
this.”

“Coming up on the hotel.” Zach pulled in front and parked. Parking was difficult during
the day, but easy at night.

Clare grimaced. “I’d rather not fight the ghost in a hotel full of occupants.”

“Too bad,” Zach said succinctly, turning off the engine and out of the door before
Clare could say anything else.

As usual, he came around to her door and opened it. She got out, smelled something
odd, stopped and sniffed.

“What?” asked Zach.

She frowned.

He angled his head and drew in a hefty breath. His nose wrinkled like hers. “Dust
and old clothes and a metallic odor.” His nostrils flared. “And . . . wet mold.”

She hadn’t scented that until he said it. “Yes. The ghost, I think. It’s not up in
the canyons.” Her inner sore spot pulsed with a harder ache. “Over by the cemetery,
I think.”

“Logical.”

“Yes, but it’s closer.”

“Still gotta do this.” Zach shut her door, took the few strides to the hotel door
and opened it for her.

“Yes, it may still be upset from our previous . . . contretemps . . . tonight.”

Zach snorted, his eyes gleamed and he smiled. “Really, Clare? Contretemps?”

She flushed a little. “What would you call it?” She took the stairs fast, pulling
out the ribbon in her purse that held the key, sticking it in the lock and jiggling
it, opening the door.

Zach’s voice shot up the stairs. “Confrontations.”

“Oh,” she muttered. She’d continued to move fast, flinging her coat off, letting it
land on the floor. Yanking her empty suitcase up, she threw it on the bed, unzipped
it, then unzipped the pocket that held her sewing kit. She opened the needle and thread
packet up, praying that she already had a needle threaded. As far as she was concerned,
color didn’t matter as much as haste right now.

Closing the door behind him, Zach said, “Scuffles.”

She spared him a glance. “
Scuffles
.”

“Yeah, doesn’t seem like either one of them hurt either of you.”

Her glance became a glare, and she tossed the kit aside. “Linda Boucher died.”

His mouth flattened and he said with heavy irony, “I think the ghost had taken care
of that little item beforehand. A good rock flung at the skull.”