The Bone Orchard (7 page)

The horses in the nearby stables began to panic, kicking against their stalls. There were a few shouts for silence from nearby windows. Ezra obviously wasn’t the only one who could hear Boone Jennings’s laughter from beyond the gallows.

“He’s stronger than I am,” Ambrose whispered to Ezra.

“You couldn’t save any of them when you were alive, Marshal!” Jennings shouted, his voice echoing as if in two places at once. “And you can’t save any of them now. I intend to see my bone orchard grow.”

He turned his back on Ambrose, and a moment later, he was gone.

“What happened back there?” Ezra demanded for the third time.

They’d passed several people on the streets as he’d been trying to get Ambrose to talk, and he’d received odd looks each time.

“You got to stop talking to yourself!” Ambrose finally shouted. “Town’s on the alert for a madman killing people involved in that trial; it won’t do for people to start popping up saying that they saw you talking to no one on the street!”

Ezra blinked at him.

“You
got
to be careful, Ezra!”

Ezra nodded. “Of course. You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, just be quiet.”

“Right.”

“And stop looking at me!”

Ezra gave him one more glance, then stared resolutely forward as they hurried back to the Continental and their room. He didn’t open his mouth again until the door was locked behind him.

“What happened? You shot him, didn’t you? Did it hurt him?”

Ambrose yanked his hat off and tossed it at the wall, raking his hands through his hair. “I did. And he pulled the damn bullet out with his fingers and laughed at me.”

“He . . . Oh that’s slightly horrifying. So ghost bullets don’t kill ghosts. I suppose that’s good information to have accumulated.”

Ambrose sighed and plunked down into his rocking chair, looking morose.

Ezra waited for him to expound on what else had occurred, but he could soon see that Ambrose had no intention of doing so. Ezra took a few steps and knelt in front of the rocking chair, catching Ambrose’s eyes. “What else happened?”

“He taunted me. Trying to get under my skin. Said I couldn’t save anyone when I was alive, and I can’t now that I’m dead neither.” Ambrose worked his jaw back and forth, snorting in frustration. “I’m useless, Ezra!”

Ezra reached to comfort him, then stopped himself before he made contact. “That’s not true. We’ll get him. Together.”

Ambrose gave him a game smile. “He said, ‘You can’t kill the devil.’”

“He’s not the devil.”

“You sure?” Ambrose asked, his voice thin as a wisp.

“He’s nothing more than a man who died and stayed here. Just like you.”

Ambrose’s tongue darted between his dry lips. “Do I scare you?”

Ezra sat back on his haunches, resting his hand on the arm of the rocking chair. “Only when you sneak up behind me,” he said with an attempt to laugh.

“
He
should scare you.”

“Well, I can’t see
him
. You, I can see. And you, I . . .” Ezra licked his lips and took a deep breath to settle himself. “You, I care for a great deal. So no, you don’t scare me.”

Ambrose was silent, brooding.

“Don’t go morose ghost on me now, Marshal. We need a plan.”

Ambrose glared at him briefly before his lips twitched on a smile. “Well, we know where he appears now. Waiting there ain’t exactly time smart, but it’s all we got.”

“And just like you in the saloon, he’s disoriented when he first gets there.”

Ambrose nodded and reached out, his icy fingers gliding over Ezra’s cheekbone. He jerked his hand back as if surprised he’d done it, and they sat staring at each other in silence, Ezra on his knees at Ambrose’s feet, wanting desperately to rest his hand on Ambrose’s knee and unable to even brush against him for fear of sending him flying off into the hereafter.

Ezra finally pushed to his feet. “That’s quite vexing.”

Ambrose shoved out of the chair, making a growling sound in the back of his throat. “I’ll be in the saloon,” he practically snarled, and before Ezra could question him, Ambrose grabbed him by both arms and yanked him into a violent kiss. He was cold everywhere Ambrose touched him, so cold that it felt like fire on his lips, on his tongue when Ambrose forced his lips apart and pulled him closer. He could feel the desire coming off Ambrose in waves, feel the anger and desperation and sadness all roiling off him like things Ezra could reach out and touch.

He did reach out, grabbing the back of Ambrose’s neck and holding on, delving his fingers into Ambrose’s hair as the kiss grew more and more ferocious and passionate.

Ezra finally gave in and moaned. His entire body was wracked with shivers, both from the cold of Ambrose’s body and from the desire coursing through him. To be so close to something he wanted so desperately, and yet know it was something they could never consummate, was maddening. Absolutely, positively maddening.

Yet Ambrose still felt solid in his arms. Ezra held tighter to him as they kissed, and the tighter he held, the more Ambrose seemed to calm. He nipped at Ezra’s lips one last time, then pulled back, resting his cold nose against Ezra’s cheek. Ezra kept his eyes closed, leaning into Ambrose, relishing how solid he felt. But then he began to waver, the hard body holding him beginning to dissipate.

He felt Ambrose smile against his cheek. “Worth it.”

Then he stepped away, and when Ezra opened his eyes, Ambrose was gone. The chair in the corner rocked idly.

Ezra glanced around the room, rolling his eyes. “Damn it.”

When Ezra went to the saloon, Ambrose wasn’t present. He suffered through a flash of concern before he moved to the bar and leaned against the battered bar top, intent on waiting for his wayward partner to appear.

“Top-shelf, Inspector?” the barman asked.

Ezra nodded. A moment later, the man set a glass down and poured Ezra’s drink for him.

“Heard about Judge Spicer,” he said, his tone suitably solemn.

Ezra met the man’s eyes. He looked grim, and a little frightened.

“I guess what they say is true, hmm? Can’t kill the devil.”

“No, I believe you can,” Ezra murmured. He caught the faintest whiff of tobacco smoke, and a moment later, the unmistakable hint of gunpowder followed. Ezra smiled. “And I intend to do it.”

“I was thinking,” Ezra said as they climbed the steps back to their room.

“I wasn’t,” Ambrose grumbled. It made his head pound to disappear from one place and sashay into another without knowing how he’d gotten there.

Ezra chuckled. “About Jennings.”

“I for certain wasn’t thinking about that.”

Ezra gave him a sideways glance and a smirk. It was an intimate little smile, one that made Ambrose’s heart skip a beat. Or twenty. Hell, it didn’t matter, the damn thing didn’t work anyhow.

“As I was saying, I was thinking. You can hold your cigarillo, but you can’t light it because you didn’t die with a match on you. You can fire your gun. You can remove your hat, and it stays off until you . . . whatever it is you do to return to the saloon. Reincarnate or re . . . appear. Something.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wondered, as I was waiting for you, what would happen if you shot yourself with your own gun and your own bullets?”

“I don’t right want to find out,” Ambrose grunted. “Damn, shoot myself with my own gun, huh? And I thought it was a nice kiss.”

Ezra laughed. He couldn’t contain it even as Ambrose shooed him into their room and tried to close the door. People in the hotel’s lobby craned their necks to watch as Ezra stood in the door of his reportedly haunted room, all by himself, cracking up.

“Folks going to have you committed,” Ambrose grumbled. He pushed at the door again, but he couldn’t get it to close. His fingers just swept right through the thick wood.

Ezra had to kick it closed. He faced Ambrose, his laughter fading into a fond smile. “It was indeed a good kiss.”

His smile turned gentler, and there was a hint of longing in his eyes that Ambrose knew was reflected in his own. It gave every word or glance they exchanged, every fleeting touch, the barest edge of desperate melancholy. What they’d discovered between them, this link they shared, was something that could have been very special, something they would never fully be able to realize.

It was perhaps the greatest tragedy of Ambrose’s life, and he’d seen many. He supposed it was fitting to have happened to him in death.

Ezra waved a hand at Ambrose. “I simply meant, the only objects that seem to be real and solid to you are the ones you carry on your person.”

Ambrose looked down at himself, at the outfit he’d lost his life in. “Oh.”

“From the way you described it, your bullets didn’t do Jennings any real harm. But I believe they would harm
you
. Because they’re part of you.”

Ambrose spread his hands out in triumph. “Well, that’s great, we figured out how to kill me! Again!”

Ezra bit his lip on a smile.

“But Jennings didn’t die with any bullets. Guns, knives, no killing pieces at all. Alls he’s got on him is that hood, his shackles, and his hanging rope.”

Ezra began to grin, one eyebrow raised mischievously.

Ambrose stared, lost in how handsome he was when his eyes lit up like that and his lips curved in that knowing smirk. Then Ezra’s point hit him. “The rope.”

“Indeed.”

“We can hang him, maybe.”

“At the very least, we can tie him up. Shackle him down. Surely there’s
somewhere
we can tie him and leave him. The jail, perhaps, where the doors are so heavy even he can’t push them when he’s enraged.”

Ambrose nodded. “Good thinking!”

“Thank you.”

Ezra was practically beaming at him. Ambrose wanted to grab him and kiss him again, but his head was still pounding from the last time, so he restrained himself.

“We still have the problem of when he will be at the gallows. And then there’s the issue of how we get the ropes off him, and then back on him.”

Ambrose sat heavily on the end of the bed. “There’s also the matter of how many lives he can take before we can get him.”

Ezra sat next to him, sighing hard. “We have to trust people to take care of themselves. We’re just two men, here. Well . . . one and a half, I guess?”

Ambrose barked a laugh.

Ezra snickered along with him. “We can’t protect everyone who was in that courtroom. And we can’t go around shouting about a spirit out for revenge, either. Like you said, they’ll lock me up, and then where will we be?”

Ambrose nodded, chewing on his lip. “Life is hard when you’re dead.”

Ezra snorted, then stood, patting down his pockets. “Let me gather some supplies for the evening. And then shall we head back to the gallows and await his return?”

Ambrose followed along, though he wanted to tell Ezra to stay holed up, safe in the room. He had no idea if Ezra would be safer by his side or not, and it wasn’t his place to tell Ezra anything about where to go or be. Ezra might have been an eastern tenderfoot fresh off the rail, and he might have been a little out of his element, but he was smart and brave, and he wore his gun hidden in a pocket of his suit instead of in a holster, like most city cops did. He wasn’t just educated bluster and spectacles playing with a badge; he was merely out of his element. He was extremely competent. And Ambrose loved competence above all else. In fact, Ambrose was completely taken with him.

Taken enough to spend his eternity roaming the earth as a shade if it meant they’d have a few years together. Yes, indeed. It wasn’t like Ambrose had ever put much stock in the idea of Heaven anyway.

They walked together through the hotel, Ezra gallantly holding the door for Ambrose to saunter through.

As the heavy door swung shut, Ambrose turned to scowl at it. “You think he’s so much stronger than me ’cause he’s angry inside?”

Ezra hummed. “It’s a viable theory, yes. The violence of his crimes in life speaks to a mind that was positively sick with anger. Rage so powerful his human instincts couldn’t curtail it, so it took him over, made him into the monster he became. You opened the door to my room when you grew so frustrated that your anger took over. And you were able to take hold of me and . . . and kiss me when you were overcome with emotions that rule the baser human instincts.”