Queen of the Dead (3 page)

So, not a ghost then. A thrill seeker? A looter?

The girl shook the pillowcase, and it made a heavy jangling sound, like coins but louder. “Looking for this?” she asked.

“No,” I said slowly, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring at something or someone above my head.

Mrs. Ruiz grunted, and I felt the staircase shake as she started down.

I pulled myself up to my feet and stumbled down the rest of the stairs. I didn’t want to be in her way.

When I reached the bottom, the girl’s gaze flicked to me for split second before returning to monitor Mrs. Ruiz’s lumbering descent. And a delayed realization finally clicked in. This girl
knew
someone else was there. She could see or hear—maybe both—Mrs. Ruiz.

She was a ghost-talker. A real one. Like me.

Holy shit.

“Silver spoons?” The girl shook the bag again. “Really? They left you their mansion and you stole all their good spoons? From more than one set, too.”

Still reeling from my discovery about this mystery girl, I forced myself to focus on the conversation going on. That’s what this was about? Flatware?

“This place was not a gift!” Mrs. Ruiz shouted. “It was a prison, one I would have escaped when the old woman finally died, but she made me tenant of this place instead of giving me the severance she had promised. I did not own it. I could not sell it. After years of devoting myself to her every need, I still could not leave.” Apparently, seeing her recovered hoard had loosened up her vocal cords. Alona would have been impressed.

Mrs. Ruiz slammed her shovel into the banister, like an All-Star player on steroids. The old wood fractured and collapsed. Bits of it sprayed in all directions. She grinned, a horrible, dark expression. She hadn’t been protecting the house from unworthy people, as we’d thought. She’d been protecting her stash, her self-awarded reward that she’d never gotten a chance to cash in.

“That must have really pissed you off.” The girl gave the pillowcase another heavy shake and began backing up, past the still partially open front door, to the study/parlor room.

The place where Alona had found all that strange equipment.

Suddenly, pieces of this puzzle were falling into place. Whatever that stuff was, Alona had been right. It had nothing to do with the demolition. It belonged to this girl and whatever she had planned for Mrs. Ruiz. We’d obviously interrupted her…what? Investigation? Exorcism?

Mrs. Ruiz, her gaze fixed on the pillowcase in the girl’s hand, was following her into the room, like a dog fixated on a liver treat. A sterling silver liver treat.

As the former housekeeper passed me, I moved to follow, even as aching and bloody as I was. I had to see what was going to happen next, once the girl got her into that room.

That was a mistake.

Mrs. Ruiz, evidently deciding that the girl and I were in on this together or that my continued existence was just another affront she could no longer stand, spun around at me with her shovel. I dropped to the ground, flashlight skittering from my numb fingers.

She missed me, but I felt the rush of wind over my head when the shovel passed. And there was nothing to stop her from another attempt now that she had her sights on me. The front door was only about five feet away, but Mrs. Ruiz was much closer.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the girl jerk her flashlight upward.

A bright blue beam emerged from the device, catching Mrs. Ruiz in the right side.

Rage contorted her face, and she angled her body as if to take another swing at me. I flinched away in anticipation. But even as I watched, her fingers twitched around the handle of the shovel, but neither the shovel nor her arm moved. She tried again and again, with increasing panic. The beam seemed to hold her in place where it touched her.

I let out a breath of relief.

Then she reached for me with the hand that was not caught in the beam. Her gnarled and dirty fingers scraped past my nose.

“More to the left,” I shouted at the girl. She swore under her breath and corrected her aim quickly.

The beam encompassed the entire ghost, and Mrs. Ruiz froze. Then her mouth dropped open in a silent scream. A loud buzz filled the air, and I could feel the hair on my arms stand up.

The light grew brighter for a second, and then Mrs. Ruiz vanished with a pop that made my ears hurt.

The girl cut the beam off immediately, letting loose a torrent of swear words almost as vicious and painful as the pop that had preceded them.

“What was that?” I asked, still stunned.

“That was you screwing up my life. Thanks.” Then she turned on her heel and speed-walked into the room with the equipment.

I scrambled to my feet, grabbing my flashlight from where it had fallen, and followed her more slowly. I watched as the girl gathered up the metal boxes from the floor, yanking the cords out and shoving everything into an enormous black duffel bag she’d produced from somewhere.

“I’m serious. What was that?” After a beat, I realized there was a better question. “Who are you?” The only other ghost-talker I’d ever known had been my dad. And he’d died—killed himself—three years ago. I’d always assumed there were probably more of us, as rare as we seemed to be. It was, after all, passed down through families. I couldn’t be the only one out there to hit the genetic lotto, so to speak. But I’d figured that most of them were either crazy or dead, given that I’d been on one or both of those paths myself until recently.

“I’d get out of here if I were you,” she said. “Ralph is too scared to come in here on his own, but he’ll call for backup.” She slung the now full bag over her shoulder, and headed toward the door to the next room, lugging the generator with her. The pillowcase of silverware and the flashlight device that had saved my life were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they were in the bag as well?

“Ralph…” I had no idea who she was talking about.

“The security guard?” she asked with disdain.

As she spoke, I heard the rising sound of sirens from outside.
Damn.

“Wait. Tell me who you are, how I can find you.” I couldn’t just let her walk away without knowing
something
. Everything I knew about being a ghost-talker had been pieced together from bits of information my dad had reluctantly let slip, and what little realistic information I could find in books and on the Internet. Most of it was very woo-woo, spiritual crap, nothing very practical. The chance to compare notes, to learn from someone else like me, would be huge. And then there was the weapon she’d used on Mrs. Ruiz. If I had one of those…suddenly I could picture a life where I didn’t always have to be on guard.

She turned, exasperation written on her face, and then something else…fear. She dropped the generator and herbag with a speed that surprised me, and whipped the flashlight device from one of the many pockets on her cargo pants.

“Walk toward me,” she commanded. “Now.”

A flutter of movement to my right caught my attention, and I looked over, half expecting to see Mrs. Ruiz again. Instead, I recognized the vague shape of Alona rematerializing, an indistinct blur of blond hair, white shirt, and red shorts.

Thank God.
I let out a breath of relief on multiple counts. “It’s okay. She’s a friend.”

The girl looked at me with a mix of pity and disgust. “You’re a Casper lover.”

I stared at her. “A what?”

She shook her head and put the device back in her pocket. “Idiot,” she muttered.

But I didn’t even know enough about what was going on to contradict her.

She scooped up her equipment again and started to walk away. Then she stopped with a sigh. “If I leave you here, you’re going to get yourself arrested, aren’t you?”

Uh…

“Let’s go.” She gestured at me impatiently. “I can’t risk you blabbing to the cops.”

“You’ve got another way out?” I asked. From what I’d seen, the whole house, other than the front door, was locked down and boarded up tightly.

She smirked. “You don’t?”

She hustled through the darkened doorway to the next room, leaving me to scramble after her.

D
isappearing sucks. It’s literally becoming nothing—simply not existing—for an undetermined amount of time. And that just can’t be good by any measure.

But occasionally, reappearing is worse. As Will’s official spirit guide, I always reappear next to him, usually about a foot and a half to his right. But I never have any idea how much time has passed, and if he’s moved since I was last present, I might be in a completely different location than I last remembered. Which, frankly, is more than a little confusing.

And every once in a while, just to make things interesting, I find myself in the middle of chaos.

“Come on, let’s go.” Will grabbed my arm as soon as I was solid enough for him to do so, and started pulling me along.

“Go where?” I asked the back of his head, which was liberally coated with dust, turning his black hair gray and dulling the gleam of the earrings in his left ear.

We were now downstairs, I could tell that much. I was pretty sure we were in the room that had held all the strange equipment, although it was gone now. Crap. How long had I been out of it? I could hear police sirens outside, and they were getting closer. “What happened?”

Will ignored the questions and tugged me through the darkened doorway on the other side of the room, the beam from his flashlight dancing and bobbing in a vaguely nauseating manner.

And then a flash of movement ahead of us caught my eye. We were not alone.

“Mrs. Ruiz?” I asked. Oh, she and I were going to have words. Most definitely. I mean, what the hell? We had been trying to
help
her. And there was just no excuse for cold-cocking someone like that. It was a bitch move.

“No,” Will said. He sounded grim, but there was also this weird thread of excitement in his voice.

He let go of me long enough to steady the flashlight and focus it on the person ahead of us.

It was a girl, someone I’d never seen before. And yes, I know her back was to me, but with her shabby-looking black cargo pants with the pockets stuffed to the bursting point, boots that looked like army-surplus rejects, and a mass of dark wavy hair on the edge of frizz, I would have remembered her. And scheduled an intervention. Her hair was just screaming for conditioner and possibly a deep oil treatment. She was also carrying the largest duffel bag I’d ever seen, with one of the larger pieces of equipment in her other hand.

“I don’t know her name, but she’s like me,” he said in an undertone.

“Alive?” Duh. I could tell that much by the way she moved, too aware of edges and corners. When you can pass through that kind of stuff, you stop paying as much attention to it. Unless, of course, you’re around Will often enough. I’d lost count of the times I’d barked my shins on coffee tables and banged my elbows on doorways as I moved in and out of the field around him that gave me physicality.

“No, a ghost-talker,” he said. His gaze, fixed on her, was bright with interest.

Well, that explained it. People who could legitimately see and hear spirits were few and far between. Even fewer still were the ones who managed it without going completely insane. The only other one I’d even heard about was Will’s dad, who’d killed himself a few years ago, when the stress of itall had gotten to him. Not exactly a great example to follow.

Still, I didn’t like the way he was looking at her, like she was some kind of miracle delivered to his door. So she could see spirits. Big deal. I could, too.

“Really?” I asked. “She doesn’t look—”

The girl stopped and spun around to jab a finger at Will. “If you and Miss Queen of the Dead want to keep chatting until you get caught, please, be my guest. But wait until I’m clear, okay?”

I gaped at her.
Nobody
talked to me like that. Not when I was alive, dead, or anywhere in between. “Excuse me? Just because you dress like a homeless person with the requisite matching hair-care regime does not mean I’m—”

Will stepped between us. “Understood.”

She nodded curtly and turned back around to start forward again.

I smacked Will’s shoulder and he winced. “What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.

He glared at me. “The police are coming—”

“And whose fault is that?”

“—but she’s got another way out,” he continued. “So unless you want to wake up in jail with me tomorrow morning…”

I shuddered. Wherever he was at 7:03 a.m., my time of death, that’s where I ended up. And I had kind of a thing about germs and public places. Yes, I know I’m dead. It doesn’t make germs any less disgusting.

“Fine,” I muttered.

The girl moved through the dark and dusty rooms without hesitation, even in the poor light. She knew where she was going. Or so I thought until she led us into a dead end, a room near the back of the house with nothing but big boarded-up windows and no door, other than the one we’d used to enter.

Great. “So…either she’s planning a shoot-out, or just hoping if you stand really still no one will notice.” I folded my arms across my chest. I could have left at any time, of course, given enough distance from Will to pass through the wall, but I wasn’t inclined to leave him alone again so soon, especially not with HER.

“‘She’ knows exactly what she’s doing and never invited you along anyway,” the girl shot back with a glare at me.

“Like I need an invitation to watch you fail,” I snapped. My God, she just wouldn’t shut up.

She set the one piece of equipment down—a portable generator, according to the label on the side—and then slung her heavy bag from her shoulder and shoved it at Will. “Here. Since you’ve messed everything up already, the least you can do is be useful.”

“Hey!” I said on his behalf. She didn’t know him well enough to talk to him that way, not like me.

Will shook his head at me, warning me to stay quiet. Right. Like
that
would happen.

The girl ignored us both, reaching through the broken-out window to the plywood covering it.

I snorted. “You’re not going to be able to tear through that with your bare hands—”

With only a small grunt of effort, she shifted the plywood piece until it swung up and to the left. She must have removed the bolts or nails or whatever at the bottom of the plywood and loosened the ones on top until it would swing from side to side. And unless someone walking by happened to see her climbing in or out, they’d probably never notice what she’d done.

Talk about planning. I was almost impressed. But momentary flashes of brilliance did not excuse wandering around like someone who used a grocery cart as her closet.

Holding the plywood aside with one hand, she reached back and grabbed her bag from Will, lowering it out the window carefully. Then she followed, swinging her legs over the window frame and then hopping down to the ground.

She twisted around to face us again. “Hurry up,” she whispered to Will, wiggling her hand impatiently for the generator.

As soon as he gave it to her, I half expected her to let the plywood slide shut and then run from the house and us. But she didn’t. She held it open for him, waiting semi-patiently even though he was moving slower than normal. In the waning pale blue light of twilight, I could see for the first time that the back of his shirt was torn and he was bleeding in several places. What all had I missed?

Once Will was on the ground, I leaned forward to start through the window myself. And that’s when the girl let the plywood go with a mocking little smile.

I yelped and jerked back an instant before it would have connected with my head.

Oh, she did
not
just do that.

I shoved the plywood aside and scrambled out and onto the ground. It was darker than when we’d gone into the house, but I could see them both clearly. They hadn’t gotten far, just a few feet from the window. I stalked toward them.

The girl was adjusting her bag on her shoulder when I might have accidentally bumped into her. Hard.

She stumbled forward, almost toppling face-first to the ground under the weight of everything.

“Oh, sorry,” I said sweetly. “Didn’t see you there.” Ghost-talker or not, you do not mess with me. That is rule one. My dad, who is an excellent corporate negotiator, alwayssays that if you let people walk over you once, they’ll turn you into their favorite footpath. Or something vaguely fortune cookie–esque like that.

She recovered her balance and straightened up, shifting her bag back into position. “I don’t have time for this,” she said with an irritated sigh. She turned to face me with something small, silver, and shiny in her hand. It looked like a flashlight, but it wasn’t on.

“No!” Will shouted.

“What is that?” I demanded. “What is she doing?”

“Not now, Alona,” Will said tightly. He moved to stand between us. “Let’s just focus on getting out of here, okay?” he said to the girl. Behind us, the sounds of heavy footsteps and men shouting inside came through clearly even with the windows boarded up. The police were in the house now.

Her gaze darted toward the house and then back to me. “Whatever,” she said. “I’m gone.”

“Wait.” Will started after her. “I still don’t know your name.”

Oh, please.

She whirled around. “Look, playtime is over,” she snapped. “This was my third chance at a containment. And you screwed it up. Get it?”

“No,” he said, sounding baffled.

“Let her go,” I said. “We don’t need her.” Seriously, she was a little shorter than me and not nearly as attractive. And yes, I’m qualified to judge. It’s always important to know how you rank against other females in the immediate vicinity. Know your competition. Not that she was. Competition, I mean. I suppose she did have a bit of an exotic appeal with all of that hair, and her eyes might have been pretty if I could have gotten a better look to judge, but aside from that? Nothing. Well, the ghost-talker thing, I guess.

She laughed. “Princess, you have no idea what you need.” Why did that sound like a threat?

I tried to move around Will to get at her, but he threw up an arm to stop me, and I didn’t want to hurt him further.

“Have a nice life, Casper lover,” she said to Will. “Stay out of mine.” Then she took off at a quick jog, all of her equipment rattling as she went.

Will took a step after her.

“Oh, no.” I snagged his sleeve. “Car is that way.” I pointed in the opposite direction of the girl.

He didn’t respond, and for a second, I thought he might shake me off and chase her anyway.

Seriously?
I felt a tiny squeeze of panic, for the first time in a long while. Would he really do that? Ditch me, Alona Dare, for her, some random girl who just happened to be a ghost-talker?

Oh, I don’t think so.

Yes, I could make it out of here on my own just fine, but that wasn’t the point. We were in this together. Period. End of story.

“Hey.” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Wake up. We need to go.”

Finally, he nodded and we started hurrying in the direction of the car. Thank God.

But that didn’t stop him from looking back after her every ten seconds, or me from noticing it.

Crap. This would have to be addressed.