The Voodoo Killings Read Online Free PDF

bitch, the mirror was real…which meant the ghost had to be real too. I grabbed Cameron by the arm and moved him a step back.
    “What the hell is that?” Cameron said as the ghost turned his attention from me to him.
    Cameron now took his own step back, dragging me with him. His reaction didn’t surprise me. He was dead. What he saw in the mirror was a far cry from the Renaissance man I saw. Ghost or zombie, when the dead see the dead, it isn’t pretty. “Cameron, say hello to your first ghost,” I said.
    “I’d rather not,” he whispered, as if afraid he might cause the ghost to jump out at him.
    The ghost tipped his head to study Cameron, a movement that looked as though he was fighting against molasses. What could cause a mirror to do that? A faulty set?
    Cameron tensed again as the ghost, with a great deal of effort, turned its attention back to me. Since he couldn’t be more than a hundred years old, he was probably an actor who’d died in costume—or, worse, onstage. Not a pleasant way to go. “Don’t worry, Cameron, it can’t hurt you,” I said. That was more or less true.
    Even in Cameron’s basket-shy-of-a-picnic zombie state, the look he shot me said he wasn’t buying it.
    “Just don’t make eye contact with it, okay?” I said, trying to decide what to do. On the one hand, I was not okay leaving a ghost in some art exhibit. On the other hand, I had enough troubledealing with Cameron. The ghost wasn’t going anywhere; chances were he’d still be there when we got back.
    Oh hell, five minutes wouldn’t kill us.
    “Cameron, hold tight for a minute,” I said, and tapped the barrier. The nausea hit me hard this time, not surprising since this was the second time I’d tapped it in an hour. I held on to my stomach as cold Otherside flooded my skull. Ghosts are mostly harmless, but I did not like the way this one was now sizing me up. I clenched my teeth as another wave of nausea hit, stronger than the last one. I was going to be feeling the after-effects later.
    Still, I forced myself to hold the Otherside until my globe finished forming. When it did, my view of the mirror shifted.
    Not one piece of inscription had been placed on the mirror to filter it. A mirror without any filter is like, well, an open flame to a moth. The mirror was a giant grey beacon broadcasting to every ghost in a hundred-mile radius. No ghost could resist the chance to communicate across the barrier with the living. No wonder the Renaissance man was moving with so much effort. Who knew how many ghosts were jostling behind him for a spot?
    I was looking at a ghost trap.
    What kind of asshole would do such a thing? It was like turning a bear trap into art. No wonder the ghost looked pissed. Who knew how long he’d been stuck there. And who the hell in my building could have set it? Anyone who’d sat for more than twenty minutes in a community college paranormal class, that’s who. All you had to do was learn the most rudimentary setting inscriptions and tap enough Otherside without passing out. Now adding filters, that was trickier….
    The logical, obvious solution was to go meet Mork, take care of Cameron, and deal with this later. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave the mirror like this; I’m not that mean.
    I glanced at Cameron, who was still watching the ghost from a safe distance. His bindings seemed stable enough.
    I switched my attention back to the mirror. First things first: get the ghost out of the way. I focused on the Renaissance man. “Sorryyou ended up here tonight, buddy. I’m sure this was the last thing you expected,” I said. I might not be able to hear him, but he, and all the rest of them, could hear me. One push ought to do the trick.
    Before I could force the ghost out of the way with Otherside energy, he stepped back into the grey cloud of fogged nothingness and disappeared.
    What the hell?
    A jumble of backwards-written messages uncoiled over each other as the ghosts in the mirror fought