Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan(65)
"Gosh, Rose—I mean, you could have been seriously hurt." Jamie takes a step forward. He's starting to realize that he left me to face the Maggy Dhu alone, and even if his conscious mind is rejecting the reality of the Black Dog, part of him knows exactly what he did. "Are you all right? Did the dog hurt you?"
"Like I told Angela, I'm fine. How's Tom? Did you manage to stop the bleeding?"
Deflection is one of the most useful tools in my particular toolbox. "No," says Physicist Two—Katherine, she's Katherine, she's the one who's terrified but not currently in danger of dying. She steps aside, giving me my first clear look at her pale, shivering companion. "I keep thinking I have, and then he starts bleeding again. We need to get him to a hospital."
A hospital isn't going to help him; not at this point. I can see the shadows around him, gathering like a burial shroud. If Laura were here, I'd kill her. I don't care if she's Tommy's one true love, there's a reason the living don't interfere with the dead.
This is where I should walk away. And I can't. "Hold this and stay here," I say, thrusting the spirit jar into Jamie's hands. "Whatever you do, don't drop it. Angela, I need you to clean up as much of the salt as you can. Make sure there's nothing left that can be considered a circle."
"What are you going to do?" demands Marla.
I sigh. "I'm going to beg."
***
"I stand here open-handed and begging for your mercy, I stand here hopeful and contrite. I stand here ready for your judgment." I hate begging. It always feels so much like...well...like begging. I ball my hands into fists, plant them on my hips, and demand, "Well? You owe me. I let you out of that damn jar. Now get your spectral ass over here."
The air chills, fills with the scent of dried corn and harvest moons, and the haunt appears. She gathers herself out of the night, wrapping her translucent body in the semblance of a cotton nightgown. Her hair is long and glossy, stirred by a wind that I can't feel. She's on a level of the twilight that I'm not native to. For right now, that's fine by me. "Who are you?" she asks. I can barely hear her. That's fine, too.
"I'm Rose Marshall, I'm the one who let you out of the jar, and I'm the one you're about to do the favor for. We clear?"
Haunts aren't the smartest things on the ghostroads. Something about the transition between the living and the dead seems to burn out about half their brain cells. It makes them shitty company, but it also leaves them suggestible, which is a bonus from where I'm standing. She frowns, perplexed, and asks, "What favor?"
"There's a man inside the diner. He and his friends conjured a Maggy Dhu by mistake, and he got bitten. He's not supposed to die yet. He doesn't have the right smell. I need you to fix it."
I'm right about this haunt being new, because she just looks more confused. "Fix it?" she asks. "How?"
"He's dying." I shrug, gesturing toward the diner. "Kiss him."
A kiss from a haunt can kill the living or heal the dying. It's one of those nasty double-edged swords the twilight is so fond of. Kiss the haunt too soon and it's goodbye, you silly mortal coil. Put it off too long, and all the kiss will do is guarantee that you'll be coming back as a haunt yourself. I'm gambling a little--Tom could be further gone now than he was when I left him—but I don't think so. He was holding on pretty tightly when I came outside.
"No more jars?"
"No more jars," I promise, and just like that, the haunt's gone, soaring toward the diner. She vanishes through the window, and the screaming inside starts all over again.
This time, I don't bother hurrying as I walk toward the sound of screams. I'm done with good deeds for the night.
***
"It was amazing," Angela says, grabbing my hands for what feels like the seventy-third time. "This...this glowing figure came right through the wall, and she kissed him, and his arm just healed! Like it was never hurt in the first place! It's a miracle!"
"Uh-huh," I agree. Katherine and Tom have the spirit jar that contains the Maggy Dhu. They've promised to seal it and drop it into the nearest lake without telling the others, and that's good enough for me. If they decide to play Pandora, well, they can't say I didn't warn them.
"And Jamie got the whole thing on film!"
No, he didn't. "Uh-huh."
"I'm sorry I was such a bitch before," says Marla, walking over to us. Jamie is half a step behind her. They both look shaken. Shaken enough not to do this sort of thing again? I guess only time will tell. By the time it does, I plan to be as far away as possible. "I thought you were just looking for cheap thrills. I didn't realize you knew more about this than we did."