“No!” Padgett screamed, and his image wavered.
“Return to your plane!” Annabelle yelled.
This time, there was no explosion. There was only, like the first night I’d seen a ghost, the diminishing of magic, of energy, of Padgett’s ghostly image.
“. . . god!” he screamed even as his image faded.
And then there was nothing but darkness. After a moment, the cicadas began to sing again outside.
“Not with a bang,” I quietly recited, “but a whimper.”
Ethan stepped beside me. “He’s gone?” he asked Annabelle.
She nodded. “As gone as any of us will be. Well,” she added with a smirk, “those of us who aren’t immortal.”
“We all come to an end,” Ethan said. “Let’s just hope that we come to better ends than this.”
Epilogue
We came bearing ice cream . . . and a gift.
Luc held up a hand when we walked into his room, wagged a finger from his spot in bed. “No more ice cream. I can’t take anymore.” He patted his flat abdomen. “I can feel it destroying muscle.”
“I don’t believe the biology quite works that way,” Ethan said. “But just in case, we found something else for you.”
“For me?” Luc’s face brightened when Ethan handed him the gift. “What is it?”
“A get-well present.”
Luc ripped off the paper, stared down at the box he’d unwrapped. “You got me an EMF unit?”
“It’s just a starter unit,” Ethan said with a smile. “But since it appears the possibility of ghosts in Cadogan House is quite real, it would pay to have an expert on staff.”
Luc looked as happy as a kid with a new bike on Christmas morning.
“Consider it an incentive to heal faster,” Ethan said. “We need you back in the Ops Room.”
“Kelley’s talking about embroidered polo shirts,” I said. As I’d hoped, that put a little fire in his eyes.
“I’ll be down in an hour,” he said, and we left him to get dressed.
“Do you think he’s really ready for battle?” I asked Ethan as we walked down the hallway.
“I don’t know,” Ethan said. “But I suspect he needs the job as much as we need him.” He whipped an arm around me, kissed me hard. “Which isn’t nearly as much as I need you.”
I gave him a wink. “Good. I like you a little needy.”
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” Ethan called out as I continued down the hallway in front of him.
“I know,” I said, grinning back at him. “What are you going to do about it?”
This time, the fire was in Ethan’s eyes.