Page 51 of How I Met Your Murderer

What kind of spirit craved living flesh?

What kind of spirit could possibly make a level-four ghost vanish without a trace?

I had no idea. It wasn’t in any book I’d ever read while I was alive, and it clearly wasn’t in Raff’s handbook. And for the first time, I was afraid.

Afraid of whatever came next.

Afraid of losing Raff before we’d really had a chance to try out this thing between us.

Afraid for him, too.

Because whatever was out there was hungry. Restless. Unpredictable.

And it appeared to be getting bolder.

From the Notebook of Rafferty O'Meara, ExorSquad Spirit Extraction Expert

3rdof October

Entity Name: ? For now I’m calling it Great Awful Ruinous Yoke, or “GARY” for short.

Level: 5, maybe

Year of Expiration: ?

Haunting style: conjures fire, whispers names it shouldn’t know, can possibly absorb another ghost’s energy, really into raw meat, or maybe just killing—can kill living creatures.

Ideas to keep the peace: Run away and never look back. But I won’t leave Eric. I can’t.

Maybe I can learn something from the other ghosts that will help me get rid of this thing, but taking care of Eric comes first.

Even if it hurts me.

No amount of training could have ever prepared me for this.

seventeen

Unfinished Business

Raff

Days to Halloween: 28

At dawn, I drove toward Ballycorven with the van’s windows rolled down, crisp morning air biting at my cheeks as I navigated the many switchbacks downhill. It was the kind of cold that felt clean, sharp and bracing, like drinking ice water after chewing on a stick of spearmint gum. Mist clung to the scraggly hedgerows, drifting low across the road like it hadn’t decided yet whether it wanted to be fog or cloud. The sun hid somewhere behind it all, still trying its best to wake up like I was. At least I had tea.

The world had been hushed since we saw that deer and fox last night, like the land itself held its breath. Even the birds seemed quieter, their calls thin and muted, like they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves this close to the shadows of Ardruin.

I was running on maybe four hours of sleep—if you could call it that. More like drifting in and out while Eric sat nearby with the book I’d bought him. He pretended to read, but it was obvious he was watching over me, eyes just visible above the book, like some kind of guardian angel who had forgotten he was dead. Every time I stirred he’d been there, transparent but visible enough that I didn’t have to strain my eyes to see him. Quiet. Steady.

And every time I’d opened my eyes to find him watching me, something in my chest had tightened—neither fear nor discomfort, but something warm and terrifyingly tender. Something so new I didn’t have a name for it yet.

And then I’d driven away and left him. Gone someplace he couldn’t follow, because the property line of the castle grounds—his death site—formed an invisible barrier he couldn’t cross. He’d tried, but he had been tossed right on his arse at the edge of the lawn.

The guilt gnawed at me, sharp and insistent as I pictured his hazel eyes studying me over the top of that book.

As I drove, I tried not to think, tried to let the cold take over and leave me fully numb to all the wrongs I currently faced. But I wasn’t built that way. I kept flashing back to that deer carcass, its cracked ribs and no recognizable head on the poor thing. Then my mind would jump to the way Eric had looked at me under the stars, like he was memorizing me to take wherever he was heading next. And that led me back to his hand, a hand that had felt warmer than usual as his fingers brushed my cheek. A hand that didn’t chill me, letting me hold it for as long as I liked.

That warmth sank into me, lodged somewhere deep, and now it pulsed there like a second heartbeat that I couldn’t ignore. A new rhythm that I shared with Eric.