The Ghost and the Ghoul by Jodie Seibert

Author:Jodie Seibert [Seibert, Jodie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781947104051
Publisher: Criss Cross Press
Published: 2019-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Geminia the Ghost stared at Gautier the Ghoul in horror and terror.

“I would never choose you,” she said when she at last got back her voice.

“You will. You belong with no one else. You will outlive any you come to love,” he said, sneering at the last word. “Mortal lives are so fleeting.”

She shook her head in denial.

“You forget that I could simply kill you and it would be so easy.” At her widened eyes, he grinned again. “All I have to do is move your body from the betwixt-and-between into either world. That arrow has wood from the Ghast tree. No amount of healing magic can help you. And there is no way you could survive such a wound in the human world. I made sure that arrow pierced your heart.”

She was shaking again.

“Think about what I said. I am in no hurry. But still, come back in a week. Otherwise I might just kill you,” he said, a bored look on his face.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

“In a week,” he said. “Go now, but remember you must return.”

“But how can I leave? And how can I return here?” she asked.

Gautier reached into his tunic, pulling out a set of keys hanging from links on a chain about his neck. Detaching one, he tossed it to her. She didn’t catch it, and had to pick it up from the stone floor.

“That will lead you back from whence you came,” he said, before turning away to walk to the wall of blood, whose vials he began to lovingly caress with the pads of his fingers.

“But you have not told me how I will get back,” she said in a small voice. “You gave me no key to get back here.”

Glancing back at her with a sort of sick lust in his eyes, he smiled a confident yet cruel smile that made her shiver.

“All those of the Gloam know the way. Now go. And think about what I said.”

She turned before he could change his mind and fled.

Once through the wall she ran as fast as her feet could take her to the nearest tree, shoving the key in with trembling hands. So scared was she that she ran through the betwixt-and-between, or as close as you could run in that strange place that was nowhere and everywhere.

She shot out of the other tree so fast that she ran straight through another tree in her disembodied form before she stopped and looked wildly around her.

“Geminia?” a voice spoke. “Is that truly you?”

“Taurean?” she gasped. “You waited for me? Are you alright? Is everyone alright?”

“Yes,” he said, after he emerged from behind a tree. “After he … took you with him, his goons left. Most everyone had fled by then. I do believe the only purpose behind the attack was so he could take you with him. What happened?”

“He just wanted to talk. I think he wants to convince me to join him.”

“Would you join him?”

“I’d rather die!” she said, and she had to laugh at the strange appropriateness of her words.

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