Laws of Nature -2 Christopher Golden (ebook reader web .txt) 📖

that was the way they had to go. Molly followed him at a quick pace.

"Keep your eyes open," she said. "He's not gone."

Jack knew it, too. He could almost sense Red somewhere nearby, breathing hard, hating them. Could almost smell the creature.

Branches scratched at his arms but he forged ahead, steadily moving uphill. Something was different about the landscape up there. Jack narrowed his eyes and realized that there was a clearing coming up. Thrusting up from the ground, he could see a dark, straight silhouette against the sky. A moment later he realized it was a crumbling chimney.

Jack stiffened. A chimney. The ruins the ghosts talked about.

"Come on," he said, voice falling into a whisper again. "I think we've found what we've been looking for."

Then a figure appeared out of the trees, just at the edge of the clearing.

On instinct, Jack pulled the trigger. The figure slapped his hands to his gut and stumbled backward, and Jack felt a frigid tendril of fear wrap around his insides as he realized it was a human being.

"What are you shooting at?" Molly hissed quietly behind him.

Jack blinked.

The figure he had shot was still standing. And through it, he could still see the crumbling chimney. Jack rushed forward to find the ghost of Artie Carroll glaring at him angrily.

"Why the hell'd you have to shoot me, man? That was totally not cool," Artie instructed him.

"You're already dead," Jack whispered.

He glanced awkwardly at Molly, who had run into the clearing after him and was swinging the barrel of her shotgun around anxiously. The last thing he wanted to do was have a long conversation with Artie right now.

Artie shook his shoulder-length blond hair out and lifted his chin petulantly. "Yeah, no kidding, Mr. Sensitive. But it's still freaky getting shot at."

"Sorry," Jack said. "But, y'know, maybe now's not the - "

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

The phantom turned to look at Molly, who was still on alert, scanning the clearing, ready to fire. Molly shot a questioning glance at Jack.

"If there are ghosts here," she whispered, "can they tell us if we're alone?"

In Artie's endlessly black eyes, Jack saw that the ghost still loved her. No matter what he said, he probably always would.

"I wish you hadn't brought her up here," Artie said.

"Wasn't up to me," Jack replied, a bit miffed.

Artie smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you can't really tell her what to do, can you?" Then the smile faltered and the ghost stared at Jack. "Word got to me that you were in trouble."

"Could use some help," Jack admitted.

With a nod, Artie pointed up, above Jack's head, into the trees. "Might want to start by shooting that big bastard up there."

Startled, Jack turned and swung the barrel upward. Red was crouched on a thick branch that jutted out into the clearing, staring down at them. When Jack noticed him, the Prowler roared and leaped out into empty space.

The shotgun cracked, echoing all through the clearing.

Red flailed and then hit the ground face-first, hard. After a moment, the huge Prowler twitched and started to rise. Molly waited until he began to snarl and climb to his feet before blowing out his spine.

"That's my girl," Artie's ghost said admiringly. Then he turned to Jack. "They left this one and a couple of others behind to kill you. Didn't want to, either. There's a lot of death here. It's a special place for them, I think."

"Yeah. So we heard." Jack gazed around the clearing. The foundations of an old estate jutted up from over-grown grass and scrub brush. What remained of a road ran off away from the spot where they now stood. The chimney looked like a strong wind would knock it over.

"Look familiar, Molly?" he asked.

She nodded. "Like you described. Where the cluster of deaths was on the map."

"Not much of a lair," Jack said. "But a meeting place, maybe."

"Sacred," Molly replied. "That's what the thing said. It's sacred."

Artie had begun to drift across the clearing, the mist where his legs ought to have been shimmering as though blown by some invisible, otherworldly wind. Jack wanted to ask him why it was that sometimes his legs seemed fully visible, and other times they were just wisps, but now was not the time.

"We should go, Jack. This girl . . . I don't think we're going to find her. I think they're gone."

Jack glanced over at Artie - who stood in the ruins of the old homestead with his head bowed, looking down sadly at something Jack knew he did not want to see - and he knew.

"They're gone," Jack agreed. "You're right about that. But the girl . . . they didn't bring her."

The light went out of Molly's eyes then. She closed them, took a few tiny breaths, and then shook her head. "How are we going to stop them?" she asked, as though pleading for an answer.

"I don't know," he said softly, and hated himself for not having a better response.

He walked over to where the specter of her boyfriend stood over the dead girl. Jack glanced up and was startled to see almost a mirror image by that chimney.

He and Molly stood side by side. Before him, he saw Artie standing next to the ghost of the murdered girl. He whispered comforting words to her, but Jack could not hear what they said, nor make out the words from the movements of their lips. And he thought that was probably for the best. Maybe it was not his place to know what words would comfort the soul of a dead teenage girl.

The two phantoms moved away from the chimney. Moonlight passed through them both, and the shadows of the trees and the chimney and the swaying brush fell through them. More insubstantial than the shadows and the moonlight, Jack thought. How this girl, now dead, would deal with it, he had no idea.

Phantom tears streamed down her ghostly face.

And yet Jack did not feel the horror of her