Kelley Armstrong - Haunted

"Miz Borden," he said, tipping his hat. "How are you?"

The woman looked up with a shy smile. "Fine, thank you. And how are you?"

Before he could answer, a tall man with white whiskers strode from the store, his eyes blazing. He grabbed the woman by the arm and propelled her to the street without so much as a glance at the other man.

"What were you doing?" he hissed.

"Saying hello, Father. Mr. O'Neil greeted me, so I-"

"I don't care what he did. He's a farmhand. Not good enough for the likes of you."

What man is good enough for me, Father? None, if it means you and she would have to hire a second servant to replace me . The thought ran through the woman's mind, spat out on a wave of fury, but only the barest tightening of her lips betrayed it.

Her gaze lifted enough for the Nix to see eyes so clouded with hate they were almost black. The Nix chortled to herself. So she wished her father dead… just like Marie-Madeline. What an appropriate start to this new life.

The Nix reached out and stroked her fingers across the woman's pale cheek. Would you like me to set you free, dear one? With pleasure .

AN EARTH-SPOOK. THOUGH I'D NEVER HEARD THE term, I understood the concept. When we die, most of us go on to an afterlife, but a few stay behind. Some are what the headless accountant purported to be-spirits trapped by unfinished business. Only they aren't really trapped. Like the crying woman in Savannah's house, they're stalled, thinking they have unfinished business.

This could have been the headless accountant's problem, but I'd lay even money that he fell into category two of these "earth-spooks," those who were sentenced to this limbo for a period after death. If so, he wasn't going anywhere until the almighty powers decided he'd learned his lesson. At this rate, he'd be pestering necromancers into the next millennium. But I was about to strike one off his calling list.

Since my quarry was trapped in this plane and couldn't teleport out, following him was easy enough. Although I followed less than fifty feet behind, he never noticed me. I'd changed into a baggy windbreaker and blue jeans, put my hair in a ponytail, and slapped on a ball cap. I kept a cover spell readied, with my blinding power as a backup, though I wasn't sure how well either worked in this plane. I had a lot to learn.

I gumshoed him halfway across the Windy City, taking two city buses plus the el train. Then he marched across the lawn of the ugliest building I had ever seen. It looked like my high school, which-to me-had always looked like a jail. Part of that was my own feelings about formal education, but I swear the architect of that school had a real grudge against students. Probably spent his teen years stuffed inside a locker, and vowed revenge on every generation to follow. This building was that same shit brown brick, that same looming bland facade, those same tiny windows. It was even surrounded by a similar ten-foot fence.

My first guess was, of course: jail. Seemed like a good place to keep Mr. DUI. But when I passed the ancient sign out front, I read: DALEWOOD PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL. So the headless accountant was hanging out in a psych hospital? Didn't seem to be helping.

In the parking lot, I waited behind a minivan until my ghost went in through a side door, where a half-dozen staff members stood getting a quick nicotine fix, huddled against the bitter chill as the sun dropped below the horizon. I crossed the grass-free strip of lawn, skirting past the smokers. Two steps from the door, a beefy bulldog-ugly orderly stepped into my path. I didn't slow, expecting to pass right through. Instead, I hit a solid wall of fat and muscle. Another ghost. Damn.

"Where you think you're going, boy?" he rumbled.

As I lifted my head, he blinked, realizing his gender blunder. "Look, lady, this is private property. You wanna join, you gotta talk to Ted."

I looked him full in the eyes, and switched on my blinding power.

"You deaf or something, hon?" he said. "I know I'm good-looking, but you ain't my type. Stop staring and start walking or I'm going to introduce my boot to your pretty butt."

As quick as I am to correct an insult, I'm just as quick to recognize an obstacle when I see one. Sure, I could probably just kick his ass the old-fashioned way, but that might tip off my quarry. So I murmured an insincere apology and trekked back down to the end of the laneway.

As a kid, when my mother had harangued me to get involved in extracurricular activities, I'd signed up for track-and-field. Was pretty damned good at it, too. Got to the city finals. I can still remember that moment, poised at the starting gate, before a crowd that had included my mother and all the Coven Elders. I crouched, waiting for the starter pistol, then leapt forward… and snagged my shoelace in the gate. Fell flat on my face. And that was pretty much how I felt now. My first job in the ghost world, and I was sucking dust at the starting line.

The worst of it was that, like forgetting to tie my shoe, my mistake was inexcusable. That earth-spook bouncer had clearly known I was a ghost-that's why he'd stepped into my path. How had he known? I'd been careful not to walk through anything. And why hadn't I recognized what he was? Basic afterlife skills. Time to admit I needed help.

My house was in Savannah's historic district. Before my daughter had been born, I'd scoured the supernatural world for greater sources of power, and a few of those stops had been in Savannah. I'd loved the place. I don't know why. Savannah was the epitome of genteel Southern charm, and there wasn't an ounce of gentility or charm in my body, nor did I want there to be. Yet something about the city struck a chord in me, so much so that I'd named my daughter after it. After I died, and had my pick of places to live, I'd chosen Savannah.

My house was a two-story antebellum manor, both levels decked out with verandahs and thin columns looped with ivy. A squat wrought-iron fence fronted the tiny yard, which was filled with so many palms, ferns, and rhododendrons that I had yet to see a blade of grass.

Kristof calls this my "Southern Belle" house, and laughs each time he says it. When he teases me, I remind him of where he's ended up. This is a man who has spent his life in ten-thousand-square-foot penthouses, with every possible modern convenience at his fingertips and a full staff ready to operate those conveniences for him, should he not wish to strain said fingertips. And where had he chosen to live in the afterlife? On a boat. Not a hundred-foot luxury yacht, but a tiny houseboat that creaks as if it's about to crack in half.

Kris wouldn't be at his houseboat now. He'd be in the same place he'd spent almost every evening for the past two and a half years. At my house. He'd started coming by as soon as he'd realized we shared the same ghost dimension. Less than a week after his death, he'd showed up at my door, walked in, and made himself comfortable, just as he used to do in my apartment thirteen years before.

At first, I hadn't known what to make of it, chalked it up to death shock, and told him, very nicely, that I didn't think this was a good idea. He ignored me. Kept ignoring me, even when I moved on to less polite forms of rejection. After a year, I couldn't be bothered objecting with anything stronger than a deep sigh, and he knew he'd won. Now I expected to see him there, even looked forward to it.

So when I peered through the front window, for a second, I saw exactly what I expected to see: Kristof sitting in his usual armchair before a crackling fire, enjoying a single-malt Scotch and his evening reading material-a comic book or a back issue of Mad magazine. Then the image vanished and, instead, I saw an empty fireplace, an empty chair, and a stoppered decanter.