Ghosts of Karnak Read Online Free PDF

holing up for a while to lick his wounds, although the one hurting him most was not the cracked ribs or the swollen eye.
    It seemed, though, that his night of rest had left him at a disadvantage. He wondered what this new apparition could signify. He and Donovan had broken a cabal of witches a few weeks earlier, putting a swift end to their occult ambitions, but this sounded different. Was it a message, a warning, a haunting? Whoever or whatever it was, they were hanging around his neighborhood. He supposed he would have to go out that night to look for it.
    “May I enquire how you’re feeling this morning, sir? Recovering well from your ‘boxing’ injuries?”
    Gabriel sighed. “I’m fine, Henry. Really. It’s nothing.”
    “Then perhaps you are troubled by Miss Ginny’s failure to attend your rendezvous yesterday morning?”
    Gabriel looked at Henry as if he’d slapped him around the face. “It’s unlike her, Henry. That’s all. A telegram, a postcard—I can’t help feeling she’d have sent word of some kind that she’d changed her mind.”
    “Perhaps she didn’t,” said Henry. “Are you sure that she wasn’t on the ship?”
    “Insofar as I didn’t see her disembark,” said Gabriel. “If I missed her, she didn’t wait for me.”
    Henry gave a little shrug. “Your breakfast will be ready presently, sir,” he said, and left the room.
    Gabriel watched him go. What was he getting at? That something might be awry? That Ginny had returned to New York after all, but hadn’t wanted to see him? That he was holding himself back for some reason, and hadn’t done enough to ensure his assumptions were correct? He supposed there was only one way to find out.
    He pulled himself up off the sofa, cringing at the sudden pain in his chest. He could hear Henry clattering pans in the kitchen down the hall. He closed the door and crossed to the holophone terminal on his writing desk. A moment later, and a small, wavering image of Donovan’s face began to resolve in the mirrored cavity.
    “Gabriel? Where the hell have you been?” he barked, before his image had even clarified.
    “Busy,” said Gabriel. “I had a run-in with one of the Reaper’s Enforcers. It wasn’t pretty.”
    “For you, or for it?”
    “For either of us.”
    “Hmmm. Well, we didn’t find anything. The Reaper must have sent in a clean-up crew.”
    “He might have thought to send a doctor, too,” said Gabriel. “I’m pretty beaten up.”
    “Well, if you’re up to it, I could use your help.”
    “This business with the apparition?”
    “What? No, of course not. I’m too busy to be chasing phantoms. Whatever that’s about, I’ll bet my last dollar on the fact it’s a couple of kids out to have us all for fools.” Donovan glanced away, looking at something or someone Gabriel couldn’t see. He lowered his voice. “No, I have a dead woman on my hands and it’s… well, it’s complicated.”
    “All right,” said Gabriel. “I’ll be there this evening. Usual spot. But I need you to do something for me, too.”
    Donovan sighed. “I knew this wasn’t just a social call,” he said. “Go on.”
    “Ginny was supposed to arrive back in New York yesterday aboard a steam liner called the
Centurion
. She sent word for me to meet her off the ship, but I waited at the docks and she didn’t show.”
    Donovan shrugged. “Maybe she changed her mind, or caught a different boat. There are a hundred reasons why she might not have been there, Gabriel. She might have decided to take an airship home instead?”
    Gabriel shook his head. “You’re probably right, but something doesn’t feel right. That’s all. I was wondering if you could get a look at the passenger manifest for the ship, just to see if her name’s on it?”
    “I’ll make a call,” said Donovan. “Leave it with me. In the meantime, hasn’t she got an apartment somewhere around Midtown?”
    “A rented place,” said Gabriel, nodding. “She kept it on when she