“They said”—Ruth inhaled deeply—“that the ghost had shown them an image of you, Blissful.”
My heart stopped. “What?”
Alice cut in. “That’s what they said. That the ghost showed them a picture of you.”
“That makes no sense.” Was I supposed to be scared? Worried?
Ruth spoke up. “Then the spirit asked for you, Bliss. The spirit said you need to come.”
“When?” I wasn’t sure I liked being called by spirits.
“Now,” Ruth said. “The spirit wanted to see you right away.”
Well, I guess my date was over after all.
THREE
If ever I had seen a haunted house, this was it.By farthis was it. The home looked like someone had plucked the Addams family’s house from wherever it currently resided and dropped it outside of Haunted Hollow.
Here was the thing—Ruth, Alice and I were committed to cleaning up the bad ghosts in Haunted Hollow—those who hurt people or made their lives generally unbearable.
Most of the spirits in town were happy and kind. They didn’t harm folks. But some of the ghosts who lived in houses—now they were a different story.
A horse of a different color, as it were.
The three of us approached slowly. Alice clutched her handbag as if the thing were an AK-47, which it most certainly was not, nor were any weapons hidden inside.
I mean, what good was a gun against a spirit?
“I wish you’d let us bring the equipment,” Alice bemoaned.
I zipped up my jacket. “You know how I feel about equipment on the first run. We might be able to talk to the spirit, see if it wants to glide on over to the other side. We might not need the equipment.”
Besides—and I’d never told them this—the equipment was actually on loan from the Ghost Team. Technically I was supposed to be using it to help catch Lucky Strike, a big bad I’d actually assisted to the light a while back.
My old boss didn’t know that, though. That’s how I wanted to keep things. Which also meant I had to keep Anita Tucker, director of the Ghost Team, dangling on my hook while I pretended to be searching for Lucky.
No problem. I could do this sort of thing in my sleep.
Ruth inhaled a whiff of air. “I don’t like it.”
“Smell funny to you?” Alice said.
“It does.” Ruth dipped her head toward the home. “Like evil.”
I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t smell evil. Evil doesn’t have a scent, y’all.”
Ruth spit on the ground. “It does, and that there house has it.”
Alice pushed her Coke-bottle glasses up her nose. “I can smell it too. Sort of like coffee and anger.”
I palmed my forehead. Heck, I nearly slapped myself in the head. This was unbelievable. These women were standing here telling me that evil had a stench.
“Y’all, I’ve been in plenty of haunted locations, and evil doesn’t smell. It might emit a feeling, usually described as oppressive, but a scent? No.”
“I smell dog doo,” Alice said. “That could be seen as evil.”
Ruth wagged a finger in approval. “I think you’re on to something there, Alice. The smell of poop goes hand in hand with evil.”
