This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(47)

Mencheres gave a concurring shrug even as Fabian looked more miserable. “So you just . . . found your way to me with no one telling you where I was?” I asked the ghost in disbelief.

He nodded, almost boyish in his dejection despite the fact that Fabian had been forty-five when he died. “Don’t be angry. Dave tried to call you but it went to voice mail, and I just felt like you were reaching out to me. I rode a few ley lines, not sure where I was going, but somehow I ended up here.”

Ley lines. Spook highways, Bones had called them once. I still didn’t fully understand how they worked, but I knew ghosts used them to get places very fast because they contained some sort of magnetic energy they could ride on. Like bullet trains for the dead, but invisible.

And these ley lines had led Fabian to me because he felt like I was “reaching out” to him. Him, and a bunch of other ghosts, from what Bones had said. Marie’s blood was the gift that kept on giving, it seemed, and each new revelation about its effects only mired me deeper into trouble.

If I’m a ghost magnet, it won’t take long before more than ghosts find me, I thought with dismay. Aside from how I didn’t like that some of them might be Marie’s spies, this presented another problem, too. For the lethal cadre of ghouls out to stop Apollyon by killing me before tensions reached a boiling point, I’d just made myself a much easier target. Nothing said, “She’s over here!” quite like a line of ghosts following after me wherever I went.

“Fabian, I’m not mad at you,” I said in a soothing way, because he was flitting around in obvious agitation and it hadn’t been his fault. How could he know I now had the ghostly version of a dog whistle going off in my veins? “But I’m going to need your help. Are those other ghosts still nearby now?”

He glanced at the windows, which, due to the glare from the lights inside and the darkness outside, were harder for me to see through. Especially since I was looking for people who were transparent, anyway.

“Yes.”

And being so close, they could hear everything I said. No point in having Fabian relay a message for me.

“Alrighty, then . . .” I sighed, leaving the room to look for the front door. After living with Fabian for almost a year, I knew that showing ghosts the same respect I’d show a living—or undead—person went a long way toward winning brownie points with a species that was routinely ignored.

Bones followed me, pointing to the left with a resigned look on his face. At least he didn’t argue about what he’d obviously guessed I was about to do. I went out the front door and saw the many diaphanous forms twirling around the trees at the end of the driveway. I couldn’t see any other houses nearby, but having been in several of Mencheres’s homes, I recognized this as one of his typical, large, off-the-beaten-path locations. In fact, with the steep hills, occasional rocks jutting through the landscape, and woods nearby, it reminded me of my home in the Blue Ridge. Like Bones and I, Mencheres didn’t want to increase his chances of having nosy neighbors get in on his business.

“Hi,” I said to the group. A flurry of activity commenced as at least two dozen hazy apparitions stopped what they were doing and zoomed over to the front porch, hovering around it like the coolest Halloween decorations ever. I was amazed at the range of eras the ghosts represented, like a snapshot of history in a glance. Out of outfits I could recognize, I saw one had on what looked like a Union army uniform while another wore Confederate gray and saffron. One was shirtless with buckskin leggings, another was a woman in full Victorian gear, two wore sailors’ gear, another was in a twenties flapper dress, a few looked straight out of a fifties movie, and a few more might have been cowboys. Only two looked like they were from my time, judging from the cut and style of their clothes.

All we need is some spooky music, a full moon, and a few bats for this to be perfect, I thought irreverently.

“Hi,” I repeated, trying to meet each ghostly gaze at least once so they’d all feel included in my speech. “My friend Fabian tells me that some of you might have just . . . ended up here even though you’re not sure why or how,” I went on. “Normally I’d say that’s fine. The more the merrier, but I’ve got some stuff going on that makes you guys hanging out, um, potentially problematic for me.”

I was starting to doubt the wisdom behind this idea, seeing some of the ghosts exchange confused glances with each other. Fabian rested his hand over mine, the outline of his nonexistent flesh merging with my skin in the closest he could come to an encouraging pat. I squared my shoulders. I’d come this far, might as well plunge ahead and see if the power I hadn’t wanted to absorb from Marie could be used to help me now.

“So while I’d love to see you all again in the future, right now, I need you guys to go,” I said, putting force into the words to make them more than a request. “Please don’t follow me, even if you feel like you should. I also need you not to repeat anything I just said, or anything that you might have overheard before. I know you’ll do this for me, because ghosts are an honorable species, and—” Oh crap, I was just babbling now, and this wasn’t working. None of them even moved. “—and it would really help me out,” I finished lamely.

Ghost Whisperer, my ass, an inner voice seemed to mock me.

Nothing but silence from the spectres. Silence, and complete immobility. My hopes sank. Whatever I’d absorbed from Marie’s power over the dead, it didn’t appear to be the ability to make ghosts leave if they didn’t want to. Either I didn’t know how to channel her powers properly when it came to regular spooks versus Remnants, or maybe there was a special code word she knew that I didn’t—