Queen of the Dead

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.

2 Alona

Disappearing 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.