How to Kill a Ghost (13 page)

I managed to settle down and wondered at her knowledge. Of course she would know all that I had learned in the last few weeks and maybe much more, if she had been around as long as she said. She would know about the banishing and about a vampire being unable to enter a human’s home without permission.

“You know there are vampires nearby?” I asked.

Her face paled. “A ghostly wail can bring them, but you said vam
pires?
”

I stayed silent. Let that frighten her.

“Vampires are the enemy of our kind.”

“Our kind,” I repeated. “We’re…I mean you aren’t human?”

“I said I am, didn’t I?” she snapped. “You’re human too. Don’t get any dumb ideas.”

She advanced toward me, and I wasn’t sure yet if I was ready to confront her in a fight. I felt ignorant, and I needed to know more. She pointed a finger at me, accusing, with displeasure in her gaze.

“What I want to know is what pulled me here.”

I didn’t answer.

“I felt the pull, and then it released me. I stuck around because I want to know what did it in the first place. Why was I compelled to come back to this disgusting town?”

Offense bristled along my spine.

“You don’t look smart enough to have done it.”

Would the insults never cease from this person? Pride made me want to tell her I
was
involved and it took some of my concentration and energy to get the spell working, but I wouldn’t expose Isabelle to soothe my ego.

Agnes muttered to herself. “Apparently, you have more people than I thought that care about you. Not that I knew a lot. I was running out of time. You’re a hindrance, a loose end I need to tie up.”

I didn’t need to ask to know what she meant about tying me up, but I wanted to keep her talking, so I questioned her anyway. Agnes glared at me, seeming to consider how much to admit. “I’m your great-aunt,” she said, and took my ability to speak once again. She cackled. “With however many
greats
tacked on.”

I had no wish to be related to this person, but I didn’t imagine she would lie about such a simple connection. I stayed silent so she could continue—that and I still had no words.

“The ability to skip bodies indefinitely runs in our family. We’re sort of immortal like the vampires, only we have more inconveniences. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“I’m not immortal.” My voice came out high and unnatural, the argument silly. Confusion gripped me so tight coupled with fear that all I managed was denial. I didn’t want to believe we had the same blood, let alone this odd curse, and
curse
could only describe such a heinous ability.

Agnes shook her head in amusement. “You don’t believe it? You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Plenty people pass and don’t go on to their reward.”

“How many can steal another body?”

“I’ve never!” I shouted.

“I have. Loads.” She stepped closer to me, and I backed up. “Body after body, I skipped just so I can stick around. Ordinary people’s bodies only live about two to ten years after I enter it, but our kind. We’re special. The body can live up to thirty years as long as we’re careful with it.”

“You’re disgusting. I don’t believe you.”

She shrugged.

“How did you know you could do such a thing?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.

“I’ve seen family before me do it. In fact, my mother taught me how.”

The story was too fantastical to believe. “If that’s true, then where is she?”

“She was silly enough to…” Agnes fell silent, and I groaned inwardly. I knew she had been about to tell me the weakness, although I couldn’t imagine any for someone like her. Too late, I hadn’t schooled my features, so she knew how interested I was to know the truth. She smirked. “Regular lingering ghosts can’t take over other bodies and kick out the people who own them like we can.”

I shook my head, emphatic that I was not a part of this evil. My actions only amused her.

“Do you want to know what really happened when I took your body?”

“W-What do you mean?”

She pointed to her chest. “I killed the store owner.”

My mouth dropped open. “But we thought... We already…” I covered my mouth, recalling how Luis Riley had been convicted of the crime and even confessed. To think I had been involved with sending an innocent man to prison, it buckled my knees, and I sank to the floor.

Agnes cast me a scathing glance as if she hated that I cared for people. If she had done all she claimed, she must have lost any feeling for others long ago. For a moment, she relented. “Since you’re the bleeding heart type, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll tell you. He wasn’t innocent.”

I echoed my earlier question. “What do you mean?”

“I came to town dying, looking for you. It took me forever to find you because I didn’t know you existed. Your mother was smart. She disappeared before anyone knew she was pregnant. Once I knew you lived, I tracked you down, but I was running out of time. The body I had was dying. I couldn’t hold it much longer. I had to find another fast because I don’t like being outside a body.”

The information came to me quickly, and I struggled to process it while analyzing whether she shared anything I could use against her. She hated being outside a body. Why? I had done so for weeks. Another thought occurred to me. “You came in a body?”

Agnes grinned. “He died, and I dumped him. What a waste. He only lasted two years.”

I cringed at her insensitivity. “Peter Jenkins. That’s why he had a connection to me, because you lived in him.”

I wondered where the original Peter had gone. She’d said we were special, and we didn’t have to leave the realm of the living, so did that mean Peter had passed on after his body was taken? That was so unfair. Agnes had to be stopped.

“What you’re doing isn’t right, Agnes,” I lectured. “You’ve had your life—several of them if what you’re telling me is true. Let others have theirs and pass on to the other side.”

My earnest words were met with peals of laughter. I clutched my hands into fists, wishing I had the boldness to smack my own face as she stood before me. I couldn’t bring myself to do it and felt helpless. Despite learning we had the same ability, her presence overwhelmed me and kept me immobile, not to mention staring into the eyes of a soul that had murdered countless people. I couldn’t act physically, so I used my words.

“You came into the hardware store looking for a body and…”

Agnes sobered. She straightened and met my gaze as she wiped tears from her eyes. “I decided to take the hardware storeowner’s body until I located you. This other person came into the store before I could do it and tried to kill my target. So you see, he wasn’t innocent. That was the luckiest day ever for me because then you came in. I could get you right away.”

Nausea assailed me even while I had no physical makeup. I knew it was all in my head. I zipped away toward the doorway to put more space between Agnes and me, but I didn’t want to leave. I had to hear everything.

I stopped and turned back to her. “Go on.”

She shrugged. “Not much to tell. I took your body and went to dump Peter. When I came back to get the storeowner, he woke up. Turned out he wasn’t dead, so I killed him. I was going to hide his body too, but D—”

She clamped her teeth together, and I watched, waiting. What had she been about to say? Was it the weakness again? I opened my mouth to question her further, but she advanced on me.

“There doesn’t need to be two Libbys.”

I backed into the hall. “You can’t kill me like the others. I’m not physical, and you need my body.” I bluffed. For all I knew she might cast off my body and take another just for the privilege of killing me. I prayed she didn’t know the words to banish me or that somehow it wouldn’t work if she tried to do it.

Agnes narrowed her eyes. “I need just one thing from you. Well, two. Tell me how’re you friends with a vampire? That’s not possible. They are our enemy. Yet, you control him.”

For the first time, I chuckled. “Ian can’t be controlled.”

She shook her head. “No, you have influence over him. Tell me now how you did it, and I’ll get your death over with quickly.”

I stood straighter, more solid, and held my chin high. “You said yourself. I’m immortal. You can’t hurt me!”

Anger burned in her eyes. She took a step toward me, but I held my ground. Inside, I trembled. There might be any number of secrets she kept to herself, ways to make me disappear, never to be seen again. I wavered between a plea and fleeing for my life.

“Liberty.”

I heard him in my head moments before he zipped ahead of me, cutting off Agnes’s access. She stumbled back, banged against a chair, and knocked it over. Her frightened gaze locked onto Ian’s face. I had never seen a person more frightened of another. I didn’t blame her, but I had learned Ian would never hurt me. I couldn’t express how relieved I felt having him there again.

Agnes pointed a trembling finger at Ian. “You can’t banish me while I’m in a body.”

Ian moved in the blink of an eye to catch Agnes around the throat,
my
throat. “I do not need to banish you to get to you.”

She squawked, air restricted. “You’re going to hurt her body?”

“If I have to.”

Agnes’ feet left the floor, and I ran over to them to drag on Ian’s arm. He didn’t budge an inch. “Please, Ian, don’t,” I begged.

His grip loosened, and he let her drop to the floor. She clutched her neck, coughing, face red, eyes wide. She scrambled to her feet and darted toward the door. I started after her, but Ian caught my arm to stop me.

“She’s getting away,” I protested.

He shook his head.

“Don’t you want me to get my body back?”

“We have to figure out how to get her to leave it without harm.”

“But if she leaves town…”

“I will find her. She will never be hidden from me again.”

Maybe souls had a scent and Ian knew he could track Agnes’s. I didn’t know, but I trusted him. “There was something else she wanted from me, but you came before she said what it was.”

His eyes narrowed on me. “Can you guess?”

“No. I was so shocked from what she told me, I couldn’t think straight. Ian?”

“Yes?”

I wavered between visible and invisible for a few seconds and then solidified myself. “I’m dying. I saw the mark on my forehead. By taking over my body, she caused me to get the mark. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

He drew me against his chest, and I laid my head there and shut my eyes. Ian raised my chin and kissed my lips. “We will figure it out together.”

His words didn’t comfort me, but I had to accept there might be a spark of hope out there. For now, I needed to concentrate on getting rid of Agnes no matter what happened to me. She couldn’t be permitted to kill again. One way or another we would capture her and end her reign of terror.

“Should you be leaving the hospital so soon?” I asked Isabelle as she packed the last of her things in a duffel bag Clark had brought her.

“We don’t have a choice, Libby. You said yourself you don’t know how long Agnes will stick around. Besides, she might be planning something. This could be our last chance before she disappears, and I refuse to trust a vampire to hunt for her later.”

“Isabelle—”

“Ms. Givens, I’m ready when you are.”

I spun to find Bernie, the local taxi driver, in the doorway. “You called Bernie to pick you up?”

Isabelle handed him her bag and stood with care. She winced in pain, and I rushed to help her. “Do you think Clark would come to get me?”

“I guess not.”

When we arrived at her home, I helped her into the house, and Isabelle waited until Bernie left and we were alone. She sat down in the living room and leaned against the cushions of her couch. “Do you mind making me a little hot tea, Libby?”

“Sure.” I served her, watching anxiously as she set aside the bottle of pain pills Clark had had filled for her. “Aren’t you going to take any? I can tell you’re having trouble. I’m so sorry, Isabelle.”

She sneered at the bottle as if it were poison. “This isn’t your fault, and no more of that stuff. I want you to go to my room please and use this key on the closet door. Inside at the top of the closet is a box. It might be too heavy for you to take down, so if it is, use this key to open it.”

I blinked at all the subterfuge. “Um, what’s in there?”

She chuckled. “A few dried herbs. They will make me feel better. Can you get it?”

I did her bidding, and soon she bent over her books while she sipped tea.

“I think we can do a modified spell.”

“Modified?”

Isabelle looked up. “We’re going to draw Agnes into the circle, and then I’m going to cast a spell to force her out of your body.”

I gasped. “Is that possible?”

She tapped the book. “It’s all here, but it does take a lot of energy.”

“I’m not sure how much help I can be. I started fading the last time, and when you do the spells, I can’t draw from you.”

Isabelle watched me but seemed to hesitate to say what occupied her mind.

“Just spill it, Isabelle.”

“Monica.”

“No! Absolutely not!” I shook my head. “I miss my Jake with all my heart, but I also feel a ton better that I’m no longer constantly tying Monica’s life up to help me. It’s not right, and I just can’t go back to doing that. I can’t, Isabelle.”

“It’s not just you, Libby.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m risking a lot in suggesting her. Remember, I asked you to keep my secret about being a witch. I didn’t want anyone to ever know.”

Irritation battled guilt in me. “You were looking into opening a shop.”

“Herbs. That doesn’t automatically mean a witch.”

“Then we won’t do it.” I stood up. “I won’t use Monica. I’ll find another way.”

“What way? Ask Agnes nicely to give back your body?”

“There’s no need to be rude.”

Isabelle pursed her lips, an eyebrow raised. I refused to give in. “I’ll talk to you later. You need to rest.”

With that, I willed myself home before she could speak another word. I arrived at an empty house, no Jake, no Monica. A habitual sigh escaped me, and I floated around the house without aim. Maybe I was being as stubborn as Isabelle refusing to use Monica. I knew my friend would be there for me in a heartbeat no matter what she thought of Isabelle’s secret. However, just as Isabelle protected Clark from the true darkness in the world, I protected Monica. She knew nothing of vampires. I hadn’t told her about Agnes murdering all those people and stealing bodies. Not that I
wouldn’t
tell her. I just hadn’t spoken with her since Ian had scared Agnes off.