Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

and humans—the live ones, the dead ones, they weren’t particular.
    Troy nodded. “You’re right, it has been in the last couple of months, but at least one of those demons was the same one you saw when you didn’t know how to get the hell out of Dodge.”
    “Thanks.” I said it again, although he hadn’t been fishing for gratitude. My gray shivered with the memory. The demon had been an older one with big, ugly horns, a forked tail and roiling black mixed with the bright red of molten rock. Troy had had only a millisecond to send in the dogs—and the ’coons, skunks and other animal distractions, saving us both.
    “Where’s Spook?”
    “Out sniffing around. Keeping watch.”
    “For a three-legged dog, he works hard.” And it was my fault he had three legs because he had lost one of his back legs to the demon when he jumped between us, allowing me time to escape. Sadly, what that demon touched could not be recovered.
    “He’s always been a busy dog.”
    “He doesn’t like me.”
    “You’ve said that before.” Troy grinned. “Truth is, I don’t think he likes women, but that must be something that happened dirt-side. None of the women here have been mean to him.”
    I snorted, which for a ghost was more of a moaning groan. “As if you’d allow anyone to mistreat your buddies.”
    “Including you.” He reached out and grazed his hand along what would have been my chin. Most ghosts didn’t bother to touch because of the unsettling lack of a physical barrier. It was just a brush of emotion, much worse—or better—than a living touch.
    “I don’t have much to offer you,” I said. “I haven’t collected a darn thing that has fallen through. I was out foraging this morning when the demon sent me scurrying.”
    “Are you sure it wasn’t an imp?”
    I shrugged. “There’s not much difference.”
    “Yes, there is. Imps are usually on errands. Demons are mostly plotting to go across and stay. I asked Cinderspark about it.”
    “That’s interesting. What does she think about all the demons?”
    Troy shrugged. “I didn’t ask her. Maybe we should though. Ever since we fought off that demon, I’ve felt drained and tired. If demons or imps are attempting to cross, that could mean some are making it all the way dirt-side.”
    Troy had warned me that even though a demon was dirt-side, I wasn’t safe from it. They could see me and reach right through the veil. I was positive I did not want to die the remainder of the way by being pulled back through the weave and letting a demon harvest the pain of my death. I wasn’t that generous.
    “Since Cinderspark goes back and forth, maybe she’ll know something,” I agreed. One day I hoped to be brave enough to ask Cinderspark if she could find out anything about the living woman I had been. So far, every time I had had the opportunity, I stifled the urge. I wasn’t sure if I was hiding my past from her or myself.

Chapter 4
    Cinderspark was cute as a button and about five inches tall if you included her wings. She was probably the equivalent of a nine-year-old human. I didn’t remember seeing a single fairy when alive, but Troy and Cinderspark seemed to have come from a slightly different world than mine anyway. At the very least, we’d left during different times because things he talked about seemed futuristic to me.
    Fairy or no, I was pretty certain Cinderspark wasn’t supposed to visit In Between. But how does a ghost tell a fairy child what to do? We couldn’t threaten to rat her out to her parents unless her parents visited In Between, and I certainly hadn’t seen them.
    After devouring the treats Troy supplied we set out, using a few relatively stable landmarks to guide us to the ghostly limbs of the ancient tree Troy called home. Spook, his three-legged dog, bounded ahead, always happy to check the terrain.
    Troy’s tree was the only place we ever saw Cinderspark. No one knew why the portal existed, but it must have had something to do