Haunted Read Free Page B

Listening to her make out with a boy was wrong. And creepy. But now I was stuck here. If Kristof found out I’d left right after him, he’d know I’d seen his point, and I wasn’t ready to admit that. Maybe—
    A sharp oath burst from the living room. I took a cautious step toward the corner. In life, I would have strode over there, defensive spell at the ready. But here? Well, here things were different.
    Kristof stepped from behind the sofa, picking what looked like cobwebs from his rumpled shirt. The back of his hair stuck straight up, as if someone had run a static-charged hand through it. His tie was shredded.
    He gave a fierce wet-dog shake. When he finished, he was immaculate again…except for his tie, which was tucked into his shirt. I plucked it out and straightened it.
    “Let me guess,” I said. “Wrong turn…again?”
    He gave a helpless shrug. “You know how I am with spells.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    I glanced back at the stairs. A sigh floated down.
    I turned back to Kris. “Want a lift?”
    “Please.”

 

    2
    TRANSPORTATION IS MY AFTERLIFE SPECIALTY—MY quest to help Savannah meant I spent a lot of time tracking down sources. In other areas of ghost activity, I’m not so good, though I didn’t think the Fates needed to send me through that damned orientation course three times.
    My afterlife world was a version of earth, with some weird subdimensions that we really tried to avoid. Everyone here was a supernatural, but not every supernatural was here. When I’d died, my first thought on waking had been “Great, now I finally find out what comes next.” Well, actually that had been my second thought, after “Hmmm, I thought it would have been hotter.” Yes, I’d escaped the fiery hell my mother and many others had prophesied for me, but in dying, I hadn’t found out what comes next, only what came next for me. Was there fire and brimstone somewhere else? Were there halos and heavenly harps? I have no idea. I only know that where I am is better than where I expected to be, so I’m not complaining.
     
    I dropped Kristof off on the courthouse steps. Yes, we have courts here. The Fates take care of all major disciplinary issues, but they let us handle disputes between ghosts. Hence the courts, where Kristof worked. Not that he’d practiced law in real life. The day he’d passed the bar exam, he’d gone into business with his family. But here he was, playing lawyer in the afterlife. Even Kris admitted this wasn’t his first choice for a new career, but until they started a ghost world NHL franchise, he was stuck with it.
    Speaking of jobs…Kristof was right. I needed a break. I’d known that for a while now, but couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I knew Kris’s “temp job” wouldn’t be the kind of employment the Fates would approve of, but that was more incentive than obstacle.
    That thought had no sooner left my mind than a bluish fog blew in and swirled around my leg.
    “Hey, I was just—”
    The fog sucked me into the ground.
     
    The Searchers deposited me in the Fates’ throne room, a white marble cavern with moving mosaics on the walls. The Fates are the guardians of the supernatural layers of the ghost world, and just about the only time they call us in is when we’ve screwed up. So as the floor began to turn, I braced myself. When it didn’t turn fast enough, I twisted around to face the Fates myself. A pretty girl threaded yarn onto a spinning wheel. She looked no more than five or six years old, with bright violet eyes that matched her dress.
    “Okay,” I said. “What did I do?”
    The girl smiled. “Isn’t the question: What did I do now ?”
    I sighed, and in less time than it takes to blink, the girl morphed into a middle-aged version of herself, with long graying dark hair, and light-brown skin showing the first wrinkles and roughness of time.
    “We have a problem, Eve.”
    “Look, I promised I wouldn’t use the codes for excessive unauthorized travel. I never