Blood & Spirits Read Online Free PDF Page A

finally blurt out, “Who sent you here?”
    “Mama.” She doesn’t even glance in my direction.
    “Mama Maiden? The Lady in White? Lucy?” I slide onto the floor on my knees in front of her, my interest piqued.
    She seems a little put off, or frightened; I’m not sure. Looking hard at the scuff marks on her Mary Janes, she nods slowly. “She said I shouldn’t talk about her until we knew each other better.”
    Manipulative bitch. Playing off my weaknesses.
    “Did she tell you why you should be here?”
    “She said I would be safer here. Hidden from the ones who killed me, until she found out why they did that.”
    She’s talking about her own murder so flatly I wonder if she might still be in shock over it. Then it occurs to me – how would the ones who killed her be able to find her after death unless…
    “Who killed you, um, you got a name?”
    “Rachel Kathleen Gregory. Pleasure to meet you.” She accompanies the stilted words with a well-trained head nod. “The shadow people killed me. Mean spirits. Mama says they work for someone, and she wants to find out who.”
    “Why did they kill you? Do you know?”
    I’m screaming in my head not to ask any more questions. I really shouldn’t want to know the answers, but I can’t stop myself.
    “I don’t know. My daddy died before I can really remember, and my mommy died in the hospital last year. I was living with my Aunt Becky, but she works at the strip club and didn’t always come home. Then there was the fire. Mama said that made me ‘emotionally ripe’, whatever that means.”
    I know exactly what it means. It means she had enough psychic energy, built up from emotional trauma, to make her a potent Spirit. It also means, stop asking questions .
    “How old are you?”
    She looks up at me and the corner of her mouth turns up slightly. “I’ll be nine next week.” Her gaze drops back to the floor and her shoulders slump. It never occurred to me that a dead heart could break until right now.
    Damn it! Lucy knew this was a dirty thing to do to me. She knew better. This was intentional.
    I reach out to put my hand on her shoulder and find it instead sitting on the seat, having passed right through her. I pull back slowly and bend lower to catch her eyes again.
    Don’t do it! I’m jumping up and down and screaming my head off on the inside.
    “You can stay here as long as you like, Rachel. This can be your home now.”
    She looks up at me, nervous at first, and then beaming, “You mean it, ma’am?”
    “Yes. Of course I do.” I conjure my best smile for her. “Call me V.”
    Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, before I see Lucy again. She has things of her own to run, with the spirits she’s a matron for, and I know that. I think it’s more likely though that she’s making sure I have plenty of time to become overly attached to Rachel.
    When she does show up, I can’t bring myself to have contempt for her. We discuss the bizarre circumstances surrounding Rachel’s death, and the fact she still has no real leads or explanations. She’s heard of no other example of spirits killing the living, unless that living soul had done something to the spirit in their life. The ones who killed our Rachel were too many in number and too great in power for that to apply. She was only an eight year old girl.
    Lucy tells me that the investigation on her side is ongoing. For me it’s business as usual. Clients in, clients out. I’m taking care of my girls and now a little dead one as well.
    Rachel’s living in the basement and we are spending a lot more time together watching cable, reading together, or playing cards.
    Lucy comes to check in on us and even teaches her, over time, to hold a substantial form for longer periods. Eventually, she learns to hold things and move things like a proper haunting spirit.
    I find myself being so proud of her, invested in her. I’m falling in love with this little girl who never had a chance at