The Voodoo Killings (24 page)

I staggered to my feet and reached for the door handle, but it wouldn’t turn. I abandoned the door. No sense calling Cameron since I’d locked him in the office. I grabbed my lipliner out of the toothbrush holder and struggled to get the lid off. Sink meeting chin does not equal hand-eye coordination. At last the cap flew off. The steam was condensing on the mirror and walls and it was getting colder. I was really starting to hate this ghost….

I wiped down the mirror with my sleeve and wrote:
Nate!—GHOST!
I hoped to hell he was paying attention.

To my relief, his face floated into foggy focus. “Kincaid? I can barely see you.”

“Nate, he’s here in the bathroom. Get Cameron.” The condensation collecting on the walls and sink was turning to frost.

“K, I don’t know what I can do—” His eyes widened at something behind me. “Watch out!” A swirl of black smoke flooded the mirror and Nate vanished.

Something akin to a frozen hand clasped my shoulder. I turned slowly to see what was behind me.

The hair dryer cord flew at me and wrapped around my neck, twice, just like the damn dragonfly lights had. I grabbed at the cord, but I couldn’t even wedge my fingers under it. I opened my mouth to scream, but cold air cut me off. I couldn’t make a sound. I couldn’t breathe either, and I tore at the dryer cord in panic. I needed it off now!

As if I was on a leash, the cord pulled me around until I was once again facing the mirror. And the stalker ghost.

As I met his eyes, he loosened the cord enough for me to draw in a breath. I tried to steady myself; fear and panic are like drugs to ghosts, and the worst thing I could do was show him I was scared. “What the hell do you want?” I croaked.

He smiled and the ghost-grey eyes glittered black. “You’re a hard person to corner, Kincaid Strange.”

I swallowed. “You have my full, undivided attention.”

CHAPTER 14

GIDEON LAWRENCE

“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” the ghost said. He disappeared from the mirror and fog coalesced in the room until he stood before me, exactly as he had looked in the mirror, with his close-cropped blond hair and eighteenth-century clothing, all of him tinged with a ghost-grey sheen. The air temperature around me dropped another few degrees at the ghost’s proximity.

“I’m Gideon Lawrence.” He bared his teeth at me in something approximating a smile. “I believe you have something of mine.”

The hair dryer floated up between us and pointed at my face, though the cord stayed loose enough for me to talk.

“I don’t know who you think I am, but you’ve got the wrong person.”

Gideon lowered his head like a large cat about to pounce. “Wrong answer,” he said. He inclined his head at the door. “Nice try with the sage. Might even have kept me out for another hour. Now
where
is it?”

I cut my eyes at the door, wondering if the ghost could keep the hair dryer animated and the door locked at the same time. “I don’t
know what the hell you’re talking about,” I said, sinking to the floor. I wrapped my hand around the metal wastepaper basket behind me. An object thrown at ghosts won’t hurt them, but it usually makes them look. I launched it and lurched for the door.

Before I could get the door open, the cord tightened around my neck and pulled me back. I swore.

“Bad idea.” Gideon
tsk
ed as I struggled to wedge my hand under the cord. “Now let’s try this again. You met with Maximillian Odu earlier today. What did he give you?”

The cord loosened enough for me to get a handful of words out. “I—He didn’t give me anything!”

A translucent hand shot out and gripped my throat. Ice shot through me at his touch. His hand was so cold the muscles in my throat only shuddered: I couldn’t scream. I thrashed, but my arms and legs only passed through him, suffering more unpleasant shocks of cold.

“I’m out of patience,” the ghost hissed. Ice travelled up my throat, sending my teeth chattering. “What did Maximillian want with you?”

“Nothing! I was the one who called Max. I needed help with a zombie problem.”

Gideon’s eyes turned dark. “Wrong answer.”

Desperate, I tapped the Otherside.

When it flooded into my head, I shrieked. There are different kinds of pain—dull, aching, acute—depending on what kind of damage your nerves are receiving. This was all three.

“You’re either much better at your practice or more reckless than I thought,” Gideon said, an edge of wariness creeping into his voice.

I needed all my concentration to hold the globe but still managed to say, “Both.”

Gideon squeezed harder. “You need to stop this before I do something you’ll regret.”

As my globe settled and I could focus, I realized the ghost was covered in bindings. Thin gold ribbons of inscriptions whirled around him amidst an Otherside haze, criss-crossing his shoulders in tight, orbiting loops. I recognized a handful of the symbols, runes mixed with Latin, but they moved too fast for me to read.

I snared the closest ribbon, reeling it towards me the way I would unravel a zombie binding.

Gideon winced but hung on. I went for another loop, tugging it so that it collided with another in a flash of gold Otherside. The hair dryer cord loosened.

Gideon clenched his ghost teeth. “I mean it, Kincaid, stop that now.”

“What? Or you’ll strangle me?”

Gideon’s eyes glittered black. “No, you’ll kill yourself.”

“Says the ghost trying to kill me.” My lips were suddenly dry and cracking….Odd.

Despite his discomfort, Gideon smiled. “Parched throat and lips? It’s the Otherside starting to burn you up like frostbite. How long do you really think you can hold on?”

Another crack split my lip and I wondered for a moment if the ghost was telling the truth. I ignored the thirst creeping up my throat and the beads of sweat running down my forehead.

Gideon’s body flickered grey. He didn’t let go, but the hair dryer unravelled and crashed to the floor. “Drop the globe and we can talk,” he said.

“No deal. You’ll just kill me anyways.”

Gideon’s lip curled up in a cruel smile. “Oh, you’re killing yourself just fine on your own. The Otherside is stealing the very water out of your blood. That’s what happens when you’ve used too much—or do they not bother to teach that anymore?”

My focus blurred. He was lying, had to be. One of the remaining inscriptions slowed as it wrapped around the ghost’s waist. I snagged it. What is it they say? Third time’s a charm?

Funny how things don’t always go according to plan.

The ribbon of Otherside stuck to the surface of my globe and twisted in on itself until it resembled a corkscrew. Then it began to burrow through my globe.

I tried shaking it off, but it kept burrowing. I tried dropping my globe, but the corkscrew held it in place.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” came Gideon’s voice.

Shit. I shunted as much Otherside as I could in front of the corkscrew, and it slowed.

“Interesting technique, if completely lacking in finesse. And it won’t work.”

“Go to hell.” More sweat ran down my face, a bead of it collecting on my lip. It had a metallic, acrid taste to it.

“I had a sinking suspicion you’d say that.” As the words left the ghost’s mouth, the corkscrew broke into three pieces. For a second I thought I’d won. Then the other two pieces began to burrow at two other sites.

I concentrated on reinforcing not one but three places. More metallic-tasting sweat stung my cracked lips.

“Look, I admire your persistence, but you really don’t want to see what happens when they break through,” he said.

Surely the threads couldn’t turn forever. If I could just hang on for a few more seconds, marshal just a little more Otherside…

I gave him the finger.

Gideon sighed. “I guess we do this the hard way, then.” The three corkscrews split into six.

A high-pitched noise escaped me as I tried to fend them off. I needed more Otherside, so I pulled at the barrier and shunted a new influx of Otherside straight into my globe. I couldn’t remember ever using this much before. Another drop of cold sweat ran down my face and dropped to the floor.

Not sweat. Blood.

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Fine cracks shot from the spots where the Otherside corkscrews were burrowing. The cracks spread, and soon covered the entire globe, reminding me of the black lines that ran over Lee’s face.

Then it shattered into a thousand pieces, as if someone had stepped on a light bulb. I think I screamed. I know I passed out.

—

When I came to, I was frozen and sore everywhere, and thirsty—so thirsty.

I was lying on the bathroom floor, and when I sat up, I saw a small puddle of blood where my face had been. I felt my face and my fingertips came back covered in blood. I don’t think I’d ever had a nosebleed in my life….

“That was getting us nowhere.”

The ghost. Shit. My hand flew to my throat to check for the hair dryer cord.

Gideon said, “I thought for the moment that I’d put the hair dryer away and you could shelve your death wish.”

I turned in the direction of his voice—a little too fast, apparently, as nausea coursed through me. He was sitting on the floor, as much as any ghost “sits.” There was a glass of water within my reach. It took all my willpower not to grab it.

He stared at me, eyes glittering like a cat’s. “How about we try a civilized conversation? I may have overreacted, and for that, I apologize.”

I snorted.

Gideon indicated my head. “I’d advise against accessing the Otherside any time soon. I’ve never seen a practitioner foolhardy enough to block an attack like that. Especially when they had no idea what they were doing.”

I reached for a washcloth and wiped the blood off my face. “Look, Gideon, if your plan is to ridicule me before killing me, just skip to the killing part. I have a really bad headache.”

“I’ve decided you’re more useful to me alive.”

I leaned my head against the cabinet while I tried to decide whether that was a good thing or bad. “Look, whatever beef you’ve got going with Max, I’m not part of it—”

Gideon raised a translucent hand. “Save your breath. I’m starting to believe you.”

It was my turn to look skeptical.

“Let me put it this way. If you had any idea what was actually going on, you would have given me what I wanted. Unless you’re completely mad.”

“So you believe me because you think I’m an idiot.” Not sure how I felt about that.

“Something like that. A talented idiot, if that makes you feel any better.” A corner of Gideon’s mouth turned up and the smile spread its way to his eyes. “It’s a novel situation for me—a practitioner telling the truth.”

“So what do you want?” I said.

“People from your time so dislike the art of conversation. But fair enough.” Gideon fell silent for a moment, then said, “I had an arrangement with Maximillian Odu, one that was mutually beneficial. I have completed my part in full, but Max has not seen fit to deliver my payment.”

“What is it? Your payment.”

One corner of his mouth twitched up again. “An item of great value to me, as you might have gathered.”

“And you assumed, because I’d met with Max, he’d given it to me?” I shook my head, and immediately regretted it. Holding on to my temple, I said, “You clearly don’t know Max.”

“As his old apprentice, you were one of many possible leads I was pursuing.”

Something clicked. “That’s why you were in the ghost trap downstairs. You weren’t caught, you were checking me out.”

The ghost-grey eyes glittered black again, but this time Gideon didn’t answer.

Maybe it was the headache, but I still didn’t see why he was chasing me. Why didn’t he stake out Max’s house? He had to come out eventually. Then I remembered the coffee shop. Max had even stronger wards around his place. I bet they were strong enough to keep a ghost as powerful as Gideon out.

“You can’t get past Max’s barrier, can you? That’s why you’re bothering with me.”

Gideon
tsk
ed. “Max’s refusal to speak to me makes me suspect he has no intention of paying. And this particular payment has a time limit on it.”

I could see Max taking his sweet time paying, but not dodging a payment entirely. “You still haven’t told me what it is you expect me to do.”

“I need you to deliver a message to him. Tell him I require payment, and if he delivers, there will be no consequences.”

“And why would I do that?”

Gideon glanced at the hair dryer and lifted his hand. It rose. He levelled his hand at me and pointed. The hair dryer turned and floated my way, the cord trailing. “I believe this could be considered motivation. You deliver my message to Max and I will refrain from killing you.”

I tried to scramble back, but I was already up against the cabinet. “I thought you said I was worth more to you alive?”

He glanced around the small bathroom as if bored. “Only if you deliver my message. Otherwise, I might as well kill you.”

“So I deliver the message to Max and you’ll leave me alone? That’s it? No more strangulation by hair dryer cords, dragonfly lights, or any other form of torture and murder?”

Gideon nodded.

“And you’ll stop popping in uninvited?”

That same partial smile touched his face. “I might need you to relay another message. Especially if Max chooses to be…difficult. Do we have a deal?” Gideon extended a translucent hand towards me.

What did I have to lose? I extended my arm, and shivered as his hand passed through mine.

“What’s the message?” I said.

“Simply what I already said. Tell Max that Gideon Lawrence expects payment, and if he pays up, there will be no consequences.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Gideon began to fade into fog just like any other ghost.

“Wait!” It tumbled out before the intelligent side of my brain could stop it.

Gideon ceased disappearing, but did not look happy about it.

“How did you come through my mirror?” I blurted. “And what did you do to my globe?”

Gideon regarded me. “That is the kind of information people
pay me for. And as lovely as you are, you have nothing I need.” He vanished into ghost fog.