Shifting Shadows

“And Lisa is the only one besides you to have seen your wife’s ghost,” I observed. Lisa, who was beside herself because of how much she loved him, who had gone into the house and was treated to a gruesome sight.

But Rick was still caught up talking about his mother. “My father said she was a psychic vampire,” he said.

I blinked at him. “Hold that thought,” I said, and pulled out my phone.

“Mercy?” Samuel answered his wife’s cell phone. “You know we’re in Ireland, right? And we don’t want to be bothered.”

Belated honeymoon.

“Yes. Sorry. But I really need to talk to your wife,” I told him. Ariana was a very old fae. If what I was worried about was possible, she would know. Maybe she’d know what to do with it.

“Life and death?” Samuel sounded resigned.

“Death, anyway,” I told him. I would have felt worse, but I knew Samuel. If he and Ariana really hadn’t wanted to be disturbed, they wouldn’t have had the cell phone on.

He handed me over eventually. I explained the situation to Ariana, taking my time so I didn’t miss any of the details that might or might not be important.

“So,” I asked her, “is there any way someone of fae blood could kill themselves and make arrangements to haunt someone for the rest of their lives?”

“They would have to have some sort of power source,” she said. “You told me that when you walked into the house, both you and Zack noticed a drop in the emotional intensity of the humans.”

“Yes.”

“There aren’t a lot of ways this could work,” she said after a moment’s thought. “The easiest way would be to quench an object in her death.”

I’d heard that word before. “Like when a weapon is quenched and takes on the personality traits of the person who dies.”

“Like that, yes,” she agreed, “but it doesn’t have to be a weapon.” She gave me a detailed explanation and several possible solutions.

“Okay,” I said, tucking my phone back into my pocket. “There are some fae who can feed on emotions. Literal emotional vampires. Zack and I both felt something odd happen when we walked into the house. Rick was ticked off, and both of you”—I pointed at Lisa and Rick—“were so hot for each other it was uncomfortable.”

Rick looked at me, but Lisa sucked in a breath and looked at Rick. I shouldn’t have done it, but I just couldn’t bear watching them not watch each other anymore. Four years, she’d been in love with him—and he with her, if I were any judge.

I continued as if I hadn’t noticed anything. “But all that dropped when you walked through the doorway. It didn’t seem important at the time. Death magic is not something that the fae are much involved in—that’s a witch thing. But there are some magics that the fae can use to tie the essence of a person to objects—they used to use it to power their blades or some of their magical items.” The essence or spirit was different from a soul. A person’s soul, except for thankfully rare instances, was mostly beyond the touch of magic.

“Your mother, if she learned magic from her father’s family, might have learned how to do that. Or maybe she contacted someone and asked. My expert friend says that usually the . . . the personality fades from such objects. But if your mother could feed herself on your emotions, then she could keep her personality intact indefinitely.”

“You think my mother killed my wife, then decided that she’d kill herself, so she could follow me around and, what? Take care of me?”

“Run off anyone who might compete with her for your affections,” I told him. “Or maybe just anyone who might harm you. You don’t really seem like a hermit at heart—but here you are, living isolated from everyone.”

“Because anytime I went out, anytime I brought anyone home, my wife would make an appearance,” he said. “I thought I was going mad. I worried someone would notice.” He looked at Lisa. “You don’t know. It was horrible for you, I know. But you don’t know what it meant that someone else saw it. I—” She leaned over and kissed him.

Which was lovely and sweet. A second later, the window in one of the upstairs rooms blew out and poured glass all over them. I leaned forward to help, but Zack tackled me around the middle and ran fifty feet before he put me down.

I stepped back from him and opened my mouth.

“I am your bodyguard,” he told me, almost angrily. “You are still limping, and you almost died. I am doing my job.”

“Okay,” I said. The one thing you didn’t want to do to a submissive wolf that you cared about at all was put him in the middle of contradictory orders. Adam had told him he was to guard me. I wouldn’t yell at him for it like I would have any other wolf. Probably one of the reasons Zack had been my bodyguard a lot lately.

Rick and Lisa joined us. Rick had a good-sized wound on his hand, and they both had a few cuts that looked nasty. They’d be feeling them for a few days—but they’d survive. If a big chunk of glass falling from the second story had caught one of them wrong, it could have killed them.

Ghosts are seldom truly dangerous.

The key word is “seldom.”

“If I told you that I think your mother killed herself in a ritual that would put her essence in some object and is, from that object, influencing your wife’s ghost—tried to scare Lisa away because Lisa loves you, and your mother wants to keep you to herself—what object comes immediately to mind?” I asked Rick.

He looked at me.

“That one,” I said. “The one that puts that look in your eyes.”

“But it wasn’t hers,” he said.

“What wasn’t hers?”

“A jade pendant. My father died in a car accident right before I was acquitted. He drove off a cliff with his latest girlfriend—she was seventeen. When I was going through the bag the morgue gave me, I found it. I don’t ever remember seeing him wear it. But I liked it, so I kept it.” He reached up, then looked puzzled. “I still wear it most days.”

“Not when you come outside to work with me,” said Lisa positively. “I’ve never seen you wear any jewelry.”

His face went slack with realization. “This is going to sound weird.” He looked back at the house, where the curtains were fluttering through the broken window. “Okay, not as weird as today has been. But weird enough. I didn’t want to wear it around you, Lisa. It never felt right. I haven’t worn it since you came inside the house—and I always wear it.”