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And then something interesting happens. Something I haven’t seen before. The features on the cop’s face change. It’s almost impossible to see, like picking out the current of a river moving beneath the surface. The nose broadens. The cheekbones shift downward. The lips grow thi
“Interesting,” I mutter, and my peripheral vision registers Thomas giving me the is-that-all-you-can-say? face. “This ghost isn’t just the cop,” I explain. “It’s both of them. The cop and the railroad worker, trapped together in one form.” This is the railroad worker, I think, and I glance down at his hands just as he’s lifting one to aim a gun at Carmel.
She shrieks, and Thomas grabs her and pulls her down. Will doesn’t do much of anything. He just starts saying, “It’s just a ghost, it’s just a ghost” over and over very loudly, which is pretty damn stupid. I, on the other hand, don’t hesitate.
The weight of my athame moves easily in my palm, flipping so the blade isn’t pointed ahead but back; I’m holding it like the guy from Psycho did when he was hacking through that chick in the shower scene. But I’m not using it to hack. The sharp side of the blade is facing up, and as the ghost raises the gun on my friends, I jerk my arm toward the ceiling. The athame co
He howls and steps back; I do too. The gun drops to the ground without a noise. It’s eerie, the sight of something that should make a racket and yet you don’t even hear a whisper. He looks at his hand in puzzlement. It’s hanging by a thread of skin, but there isn’t any blood. When he plucks it off, it dissolves into smoke: oily, cancerous tendrils. I don’t think I need to tell anyone not to breathe it in.
“So what, that’s it?” Will asks in a panicked voice. “I thought that thing was supposed to kill it!”
“It isn’t an ‘it,’” I say evenly. “It’s a man. Two men. And they’re already dead. This sends them where they need to be.”
The ghost comes at me now. I’ve gotten his attention, and I duck and pull back so easily, so swiftly, that none of his attempts to strike even come close. I slice off more of his arm as I duck underneath it, and the smoke dances around and disappears in the disturbance my body made.
“Every ghost goes differently,” I tell them. “Some die again like they think they’re still alive.” I duck another one of his attacks and land an elbow to the back of his head. “Others melt into puddles of blood. Others explode.” I look back at my friends, at their wide eyes paying rapt attention. “Some leave things behind—ashes, or stains. Some don’t.”
“Cas,” Thomas says, and points behind me, but I already know that the ghost is on his way back. I sidestep and slice through his rib cage. He goes down on one knee.
“Every time is different,” I say. “Except for this.” I look directly at Will, ready to go to work. It’s at that moment that I feel the ghost’s hands grip both of my ankles and pull me off of my feet.
Did you hear that? Both hands. Yet I distinctly remember cutting one of them off. This strikes me as very interesting just before my head bonks off of the chipboard floor.
The ghost lunges for my throat and I just barely hold him off. Looking at the hands, one is different. It’s slightly more ta
Still, as I’m rolling around with my jaw clenched, trying to angle my knife toward the guy’s throat, I wish that I were built more like Will’s football-playing physique. My lea
“I’m fine,” I say to Carmel. “I’m just figuring him out.” The words come out in an unconvincing, strained groan. They’re staring at me, wide-eyed, and Will takes a jerky step forward.
“Stay back!” I shout as I manage to get my foot into the guy’s stomach. “It’s just going to take more,” I explain. “There are two guys inside here, get it?” My breathing is heavier. Some sweat trickles into my hair. “No big deal … it just means I have to do everything twice.”
At least I hope so. It’s the only thing I can think of to try, and really it boils down to a desperate slice and dice. This isn’t what I had in mind when I suggested we go a-hunting. Where are the nice, easy ghosties when you need them?
I steel myself and kick out hard with my foot, heaving the cop/railroad worker back off of me. Scrambling up, I get a better grip on the athame and refocus. He’s set to charge, and when he does I start slicing and cutting like a human Cuisinart. I hope it looks a lot cooler than I think it does. My hair and clothes are moving in a breeze I can’t feel. Black smoke erupts from below me.
Before I’m finished—before he’s finished—I can hear two distinct voices, layered on top of each other, like some somber harmony. In the midst of my slicing, I find myself looking into two faces occupying the same space: two sets of teeth gnashing, and one blue eye, one brown. I’m glad I was able to do this. The uneasy, ambiguous feeling I had when we came in is gone. Whether or not this ghost has ever harmed anyone, it has surely harmed itself, and wherever I’m sending them has to be better than this, trapped in the same form with the person you hate, driving each other more and more mad with every day, week, year that passes.
In the end, I stand alone in the center of the room, curls of smoke fading and dispersing into the ceiling. Thomas, Carmel, and Will are standing in a huddle, staring at me. The cop and the railroad worker are gone. So is the gun.
“That was—” is all Thomas can muster.
“That was what I do,” I say simply, and wish I was less out of breath. “So no more arguments.”
* * *
Four days later I’m sitting on the counter in the kitchen, watching my mom wash some fu
Tonight. It’s finally here. It seems like it’s taken forever, and I still wish I had one more day. I’ve found myself in A
The dreams have been worse since we came to Thunder Bay. The timing couldn’t be worse. I’m exhausted when I shouldn’t be exhausted—when I can least afford to be exhausted.
I can’t remember whether my dad had the dreams or not, but even if he did he wouldn’t have told me. Gideon’s never mentioned anything either, and I haven’t brought it up, because what if it’s just me? It would mean that I’m weaker than my ancestors. That I’m not as strong as everyone expects me to be.
It’s always the same dream. A figure bending over my face. I’m scared, but I also know that the figure is linked to me. I don’t like it. I think it’s my father.
But not really my father. My father has moved on. Mom and Gideon made sure of that; they hung around the house where he was murdered down in Baton Rouge for nights on end, casting runes and burning candles. But he was gone. I couldn’t tell whether my mom was happy or disappointed.
I watch her now as she hurriedly snips and grinds different herbs, measuring them out, pouring them from the bowl of her mortar and pestle. Her hands are fast and clean. She’s had to wait until the last minute because the Five Finger Grass was hard to find and she had to go through an unfamiliar supplier.