body nearly severed.
I stumbled backward. The ghosts roared with laughter.
'Gotcha,' the man said, his head nearly on the floor, walking toward me, insides quivering, his upper half held on only by his spine.
'Jaime?' I heard Hope say, her voice distant.
I lifted my hands to wave her off and murmured something like 'I'm all right'-words that didn't penetrate the pounding of blood in my ears.
The bisected ghost cavorted in front of me, his intestines bobbing. I took a deep breath to steady myself. This was his death body. He'd probably died in some industrial accident and could now revert to that 'form' at will. Knowing this, though, didn't make the sight any less gruesome.
'Jaime?' Hope said again.
'Sorry,' I said as the ghost pranced between us. I forced my gaze to Hope. 'Are you getting anything?'
'I think so. Weak, though. Just random images. Blood, crying… It's faint, which could mean it's old-'
The pioneer woman leapt through Hope. Her scalp was ripped off, bloodied skull exposed over empty bird- pecked eye sockets. I slapped my hand over my mouth as I shrieked.
Hope caught my arm to steady me.
'Just ghosts,' I said before she could speak. 'I shouldn't have interrupted. Go back to what you were doing.'
As I hurried away, the ghosts pranced and darted around me in their death bodies, the Victorian woman wasted and naked-a dancing skeleton sheathed in gray skin.
'Not bothering you, are we?' she trilled. 'Shall we stop?'
'Yes,' lisped the pioneer woman, her tongue half gone, her empty eye sockets turned my way. 'Shall we stop?'
She mimicked the younger woman's proper accent. The man joined in and all three circled me, chanting, 'Shall we stop? Shall we stop?'
'Jaime?'
I turned to see Jeremy in the office doorway.
He strode over, his hand going to my arm. Then he looked around, his face hardening. 'Ghosts?'
I nodded.
The pioneer woman circled Jeremy. 'Oooh, look, a proper gentleman. Isn't he a fine one?'
'Very fine,' the younger woman said. 'Very proper. Too much a gentleman for the likes of this whore.'
I wheeled on her, then chomped my lip hard enough to taste blood.
Don't give them the satisfaction, Nan always said. Let them see they're getting to you, and you've lost.
Jeremy said something, his head leaning down to mine, hair in his eyes, lips moving. Asking me what I was seeing, what I was hearing. I knew I should tell him-get that distance by sharing it, laughing it off. But all I could hear were the damned ghosts.
'She does look like a whore, don't she?' the pioneer woman said, coming close, her eyeless sockets studying me. 'All fancied up with her colored hair and her painted face, acting like she's quality, but she's wearing pants tighter than riding breeches, her shirt's half undone, giving any man who wants it a good view of her titties. Like the fancy ladies at the mining camp. Act like they're something special, but give 'em a dollar and they'll spread their legs fast as any street whore.'
'I got a dollar,' the man said. 'Think she'll give me a ride?'
'Course she will. And being dead you don't have to worry about catching anything.'
They all cackled.
'Did you bring your banishing mixture?' Jeremy asked, his voice finally penetrating.
'Forgot.'
'Isn't
'Fine men like that don't think of such things,' the Victorian woman said. 'They don't know better… until it's too late.'
The pioneer woman snickered. 'And he finds out her cunny's so well used it's like fucking a bucket.'
'I'm going outside,' I said to Jeremy. 'Get some fresh air. See if I can lose them.'
'Oh, you won't lose us, pretty lady,' the man said.
Jeremy tried to accompany me, but I insisted he stay behind. Bad enough I couldn't help him search the house. He argued, but I stood firm and, after a long look in my eyes, he brushed his lips across my forehead, then whispered a suggestion about a coffee shop a block east.
The ghosts followed me out the rear door into the backyard, cycling through the same insults as if they could think of nothing new. I considered making a run for the road and trying to lose them.
'What the hell?' said a voice behind me. Eve strode around to my front. 'Why didn't you call?'
She wheeled on the severed man when he got too close and slammed a kick into the side of his dangling head. His torso flew sideways so fast he toppled.
'Now put yourself together or the next kick is going to knock that half clean off.' She turned on the other two. 'Clothes on. Scalp on. Eyes back in.'
She marched along them like a drill sergeant. 'Is this how you think you get a necromancer's attention? Well, congratulations. You've just placed yourself on their blacklist. No necro, anywhere, is ever going to speak to you, no matter how nice you are.'
The pioneer woman aimed at sulky scowl at Eve. 'Who do you think you are, giving us orders?'
'Let's just say you don't want to find out,' Eve said, peering down at the woman from her full six feet. 'Now-'
'You don't scare me,' the Victorian woman said.
She advanced on Eve. The other woman circled around behind her. The man stepped forward, his hands clenching into fists. Eve stood her ground, looking bored.
'You spooks wanna rumble? I've got a better idea. What you need is a break. A vacation. I'm thinking Scotland. Got some great castles there.'
She drop-kicked the man, then shot an energy bolt into the Victorian woman's stomach. The pioneer woman ran at Eve, then froze in a binding spell.
'Hey, Kris?' Eve called. 'That's your cue.'
Kristof appeared, leaning against a tree, as if he'd been there all along, watching from the other side.
'Sorry,' he said. 'It looked like you were having fun. I hated to interrupt.'
'I was, but now it's time for transport and I could use some help. You take the ugly guy. I'll take the ugly women.'
The Victorian woman squawked as Eve grabbed her arm and that of the still-frozen pioneer woman.
'Back in a jiffy,' she said as she vanished.
UNGRATEFUL
WHEN THEY WERE GONE, I looked at the house. Should I go back inside? No. Not just yet. I crept from the yard and found the coffee shop Jeremy had mentioned. Some Starbucks clone in a strip mall, the kind of place it seemed no neighborhood could be without.
I ordered, calling Jeremy while I waited in line, so he'd know where to pick me up. I told him Eve had shown up and 'solved the problem.' Another day, another rescue.
I sat in a too-comfortable armchair, the kind these places always seem to have, that look so cozy and inviting until you sink down and realize you can't reach your coffee. So you clutch the mug in your hands and tell yourself the comfy chair makes up for the inconvenience.
Two women about my age plopped onto the sofa next to me, though the coffee shop was three quarters empty. They then proceeded to speak loudly enough to entertain us all.
'And I told her, 'You are
