“You know,” he started, “though we’re not related by blood, you are very much my daughter.”
Oh! Here it came. I smirked in satisfaction. I knew that I hadn’t been too far off.
He continued. “If you were in my shoes, you’d be doing exactly what I am.”
“And what’s that?”
He curled his hands into fists and stared down at them. “I can almost feel the tendons move and see the small muscles tightening. I can have my life back, Blissful. I can regain what I’ve lost. You and I—we can spend time together, time that we didn’t take advantage of when I was living. We can say all the things that we wanted to say and didn’t. I don’t have to live with regrets, and I don’t have to be dead with them, either. I can redo everything.”
Wow. It was worse than I thought. My dad had somehow become his very own Ghost of Christmas Past and Ghost of Christmas Future, all wrapped up into one. Oh yes, and he was also the Ghost of Christmas Present, or whatever the heck that one had been called—you know, the fat, glutinous one who was a lot of fun. If I had to be one of those spirits, that’s the one I would choose. Shocker, I know. I’m not exactly the most joyful person. Let’s face it, I hated the elf decor in this house, but I did like feasting, and I did like large cups of wine.
In fact, I would need an entire cardboard box of wine once this night was done.
“Dad,” I said gently, really not wanting to burst his bubble (and such a large bubble it was, too), “what you’re doing is wrong. You can’t take the souls from others and absorb them into yourself. Lucky seems fine, but I know that he won’t last forever without his soul. He will eventually become nothing. I’ve already seen it.”
And I had. I’d noticed before how he looked weaker, how he seemed more faded. It was a side effect of losing his soul and, my guess was, why he wanted it back so badly.
My father took a step forward, studying me closely. “He threatened you, didn’t he? Said that he would send hoards of spirits to attack if you didn’t stop me.”
“That’s not the point.”
Okay, it might have been a lot of the point, but there was no need to drag my father into all of that.
“Don’t you see? We can stop him,” he said. “If you help me, I can grow stronger; I can stop Lucky from harming you. I can finish him, Blissful. You won’t have to worry about him ever again.”
“But I will have to worry about my conscience.”
He waved away my concern. “What does it matter when you have power?”
“But I won’t be the one with power. You will. You might be solid, you might have strength, but you’ll never be alive again. You’ll never be able to taste the bourbon or smell flowers. You might be able to touch, but you won’t be able to feel my skin. You will be missing the core of what makes you human—not only your senses, but your own soul. Don’t you see what this quest is doing to you? It’s making you hard, where you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
His face twisted in fury. “You don’t see the possibilities. When you go, you can be the same. All we have to do is find more souls.”
Anger bubbled in me. How dare my father think to know my heart. “I don’t want to be like you! I want to be myself. All I wanted from this night was to tell you how much I loved you and that I missed you. But you want to use me for your own purposes, just like you used Lucky when you were alive—to keep the Ghost Team viable. You haven’t changed and you never will.”
His face, for the briefest of seconds, crumpled in despair. But then Dad straightened his spine and took a long step away from me. “I wanted us to work this out. I thought that maybe we could, as father and daughter. I thought it was possible. But since you won’t help me get what I want, I’ll have to get it myself.”
Then it hit me—Sable’s spirit was still floating nearby. More than likely she was still in the house, watching over Tex to make sure that he kept his promise to her.
Dad wanted me to help lure her out. That’s what this whole conversation had been for, so that I could hook her for him, so that he could steal her soul.
Well that wasn’t going to happen, not on my watch. I felt Lucky’s gift burning in my hand. I flung out my arm, and quickly as I did so, Dad vanished, leaving me completely alone.
This was not good. He would search for Sable on his own, but if she had been around, then she would have heard our entire conversation.
I glanced up into the eaves of the room and felt a tingle of electricity pulsing. He was still here, I was pretty sure, though I couldn’t see him.
Warning Sable could lead my dad right to her. No, I couldn’t tell her, but I had to keep her safe somehow. This required more brain power than I had. I needed help, and luckily I knew exactly where to find it.
Chapter 19
“But Blissful, we’re not supposed to be out of the room,” Alice said.
“Just go with it, Alice,” Ruth said. “Like the young kids do.”
Alice stared at her, wide-eyed. “Is that what they do—they just go with it? Is that some sort of strange sexual thing? If so, I’m not interested in learning anything new. You can’t teach this old dog new tricks.”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “We can’t teach youoldtricks, either.”
