A Gift of Ghosts (Tassamara) (25 page)

He turned her over gently. She’d hit the bed exactly wrong.
Blood was running from her nose, he realized, just as her muscles started to
spasm.

Fuck.

The ghost would get stronger.

She wanted him to hurt her.

She needed him to hurt her.

And he didn’t think he could do it.

***

Every step up the stairs took an effort. It was like walking
through a red-tinged blizzard only instead of heavy snowflakes pelting across
her skin, tiny shocks of static were penetrating deeper and deeper as she got
closer to the door. She felt as if she were being flayed, but knew no sign of it
would show.

This was such a bad idea. What was she doing, braving a
malevolent ghost? This wasn’t her—she was a coward! She couldn’t even tell Zane
she loved him, but she thought she could face this?

Walking through the doorway and into Dillon’s room felt like
moving from a snowstorm to an ice storm. She had time for a quick glimpse at a
pleasant boy’s room: wide windows, blue walls, overstuffed bookshelves, a world
map with pins in it above a neat desk. And a woman standing at the end of the
bed, streaked blonde hair in a perfect chin-length bob, fair skin, laugh lines,
a trim figure—she looked enough like Grace that Akira would have known her
instantly anywhere—but her face was bereft with grief and the red energy
surging around her lashed out at Akira like lightning striking.

Akira’s scream strangled in her throat. She felt herself
falling, crashing, burning. The sharp physical pain of hitting her face almost
broke through the agony of passing through the woman’s ghostly energy.

For a moment, the shock was almost relaxing. The stunning
pain left her brain fuzzy. But then as Zane turned her over, she began
resisting the energy, trying to absorb some of it while holding the rest at
bay.

The convulsions started immediately.

Her back arched, her jaw clenched, her muscles spasmed.

She was drowning in spirit energy. It was pouring in on her,
drenching her in power.

Akira was fighting for control of her body, but so was the
ghost.

The pain was intense. But she could also feel Zane’s strong
arms holding her, and a dull throbbing from her face and a warmth trickling
down her chin. What was that?

She could hear Zane’s voice. He was swearing steadily as he
shifted her. What was he doing?

But she could also hear the ghost. She was screaming in pain,
despair, an agony of her own. “I can’t find you! Max? Dillon? Help me, help
me!”

Akira tried to answer her, tried to open her mouth and form
words, but a taste, a warm metallic flavor, distracted her. Shit. That was
blood.

She opened her eyes, trying desperately to see even as Zane
put something up to her face and her contracting muscles tried to pull her in
three directions at once.

He was trying to stop the bleeding, she realized dimly. With
something cotton. It smelled of him.

She could see his frantic face, hear the worry as he cursed,
but most of her sight was taken up with the tornado of red energy surrounding
his mother’s ghost. She was getting stronger, Akira realized. Oh, that was bad.

And now she could hear another voice, too.

Dillon.

Screaming her name.

And then he popped through the bedroom wall next to the
window and Akira, desperately struggling to take in only the energy she could
handle, realized he was caught in the vortex.

Oh, hell.

Akira stopped fighting. She let the energy pour through her,
filling her body, enveloping her in spirit power.

But it still wasn’t enough.

So she let go.

***

Five minutes? That was what she’d said, five minutes until
neurons died.

Zane had ripped off his t-shirt and was holding it to Akira’s
face, trying desperately to stop the bleeding.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She’d taken a hammer and broken her hand.

She wanted him to do the same. Maybe not the hammer part, but
the breaking part.

Could he do it?

But even as he thought the question, her body relaxed, her
muscles loosened, and the seizure ended.

Thank God, he thought fervently, looking down at her as she
blinked a few times and shook her head. That must not have been as bad as she
expected.

“Zane? Honey?” she said, looking confused, and putting a hand
up to her face to push his t-shirt away. “I just had the worst dream.”

Zane froze. The words were wrong. But so was the voice.

She was already pushing herself to a sitting position when he
asked, “Mom?”

“Oh, honey.” Akira put her hand to her temple, squeezing her
eyes closed, as if she had a pounding headache. “What are you doing here?”

“Mom?” Zane repeated himself, as he crouched next to her in
the dim light of the bedroom. “Tell me something that only you would know.” He
didn’t want to believe this. This couldn’t be his mom. It wasn’t possible. And
it was more than impossible, it was flat-out creepy. Could his mom’s ghost
really have just taken over his girlfriend’s body?

She shook her head and laughed faintly. “What?”

“Please, just tell me something that only you would know.”

She looked at him and they were Akira’s eyes, the brown so
dark it was almost black, nothing like his mother’s eyes. But the expression
was wrong.

Just wrong.

“You’ve always been my favorite?” she offered.

His answer was a choked laugh. Now that was right. Not that
he was his mom’s favorite, but that she’d say so, in just that way.

“You say that to all your kids,” he answered automatically.
She did. Routinely. Sometimes even in front of one another.

But it wasn’t good enough. A good fake, a good cold reader,
could have gone for just that soft spot. Every kid wanted to believe that he
was his mother’s favorite. And if it was wrong, it would still make the mark
happy.

“Try again. Something only you would know.”

She shook her head, and then brought up her other hand, so
that she was pressing both temples, expression pained. “I don’t know, honey. I
can’t . . . Shouldn’t you be off with Lucas? I thought you had that job in Paris
this week.”

He stilled. His mother had been a sensitive subject between
him and Akira. He’d never talked to Akira about his mom’s death after those
first conversations. And who else would have? How would Akira have known that
he and Lucas were in France when Dillon died?

Now that he had the truth, he didn’t want it.

“Oh, but . . .” she started and then she stopped. She looked
at him for a second, face still, and then she curled in around herself, hands
covering her face, shoulders hunching down, legs drawing up, as if she was
trying to make herself as small as possible.

She hadn’t done that in life. He’d seen her two days after
Dillon died and she’d been stoic. Upright, perfect posture, face composed,
taking care of business. And death had a lot of business attached to it:
funeral homes, newspapers, plans for a service, communications with friends and
neighbors.

He touched her shoulder, feeling helpless. It was old pain to
him. But her grief was throwing him back into that moment. Zane had missed the
police investigation and the expedited autopsy, but he and Lucas had arrived in
the middle of the planning stages, just barely in time to see their mother
before the stroke that killed her, and then take over the planning for a joint
memorial service.

Well, Lucas and Grace had taken over the planning, anyway. Zane
had spent a lot of time playing foosball with his dad.

“What?” Her head shot up. “Dillon?”

Scrambling to her feet, she hurried over to the window,
reaching out as if to embrace an invisible figure. And then she recoiled. “What
the hell?”

She looked back at Zane, and then back and forth between the window
and him as he stood, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Dillon’s dead,” she said. It wasn’t quite a question.

“Yeah.” He answered her. Dillon wasn’t the only one who was
dead, though. Should he tell her?

“What?” she said again, looking down at herself in shock.

Hmm. It looked as if Dillon was telling her for him.

“Oh, my God.” The horror in her voice was so like his mother’s
tone when she got offended over something in the newspaper that Zane almost
wanted to laugh. He could practically see her throwing the paper down by her
bowl of breakfast cereal and swearing she’d never again vote for whatever local
politician had annoyed her.

“This is not okay,” she snapped. “What were you thinking?”

“Me?” she continued, and then she looked puzzled. “Really? I
suppose. Oh!” And then her eyes grew wide and her hand flew up to cover her
mouth. “I thought that was a dream.”

Zane glanced at the clock on Dillon’s bedside table. It was
blinking. No one had bothered to reset the time after the last power outage.
How long had it been already? And did this count as a seizure? Were Akira’s
five minutes still ticking down?

“Mom,” he said. “You really need to go.”

But then he stopped.

This was his mom. He’d missed her so much. The whole family
had grieved for her and still grieved. Every anniversary, every birthday, every
holiday was as colored by her absence as it had been shaped by her presence in
life.

But still, every minute might be putting Akira in more
danger.

She looked confused. “I should talk to your father.”

“No.” Zane’s reaction was immediate and strong, but
instinctive. He didn’t know where it came from, but he repeated himself. “Mom,
no.”

“Why?” She touched her forehead again, pressing her
fingertips against it.

Zane took a step closer to her, feeling helpless, unsure, but
trying to find the words to say what he felt sure was true. A rumble of thunder
sounded from outside.

“He misses you every day,” he finally said. “Every day. If
you talk to him now, today, it’ll be the best day of his life. But then
tomorrow, it’ll be the worst day of his life all over again. And you could be
hurting Akira by being in her body like that. You can’t stay long enough to
talk to him. You have to go. And really go this time. Look for a door or a
passageway or something and go through it. And take Dillon with you.”

Her lips firmed and she frowned.

“Mom,” Zane said, feeling desperate. “Akira told me how to
get you out. Ghosts don’t like pain, she said. If I hurt her badly enough, if I
beat her, you’ll let go of her body. Don’t make me do that.” He didn’t even try
to disguise his horror at the idea.

“Huh,” his mom said. “I gave birth to four children without
painkillers. Nothing you could do is going to hurt more than that.” But then
her gaze softened as she saw his expression. “And you couldn’t do it anyway,
honey.”

“Probably not,” he admitted. If he closed his eyes and tried
to pretend he was playing baseball, swinging a bat? But no. No amount of
pretense would make a difference. “I can’t. So please don’t make me try, Mom.
Please just let go of her.”

She sighed. She looked around the room, and then at the
doorway, and she seemed to be listening. “I’m really very angry,” she said, but
she didn’t sound angry, she sounded sad.

Zane glanced at the clock again. Two more minutes had passed.

“How could you?” His mom said, but it was clear that she wasn’t
talking to him. Come on, Dillon, Zane thought fervently. Convince her to let
go.

“All right.” She turned back to Zane and her smile—it was his
mother’s smile, the wry half-amused, half-annoyed smile she showed when she
signed his report cards, littered as they were with comments like, ‘Could be an
A student if he ever turned in his homework’ and ‘A pleasure to have in class,
but needs to apply himself.’

“Tell your father that if I’m moving on, he should, too,” she
said briskly. “And tell your sisters that I still want more grandchildren, even
though I’m not here to nag them about it. Tell Lucas . . .” She paused and
Akira’s eyes filled with tears, but then she continued. “Tell Lucas I’m sorry I
failed him.”

“Oh, Mom,” Zane’s words were a murmur. She probably didn’t
hear them over whatever Dillon said, though, because her impatient wave didn’t
look directed at him, as she added, “He trusted me to take care of you.”

A flash of lightning was followed by a quick crash of
thunder, and the soft drumbeat of the skies opening.

“All right, already,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Moving
on.”

She looked at Zane and her smile warmed. “I love you, baby.
Be happy.”

“Love you, too, Mom,” he answered, the choke in his voice not
enough to block the clear, strong words.