Read Online Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) by Maria E Schneider - Free Book Online

it. I owed him the truth, but wasn’t brave enough to admit my transgression. If the energy here was fading, I’d just pillaged some of the last dredges. “She wants to help, but she’s very afraid of the mark, whatever it is.”
    Troy shook his head. “I can’t put her in any danger.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and clenched his fists before shoving them back in. His fingers were their normal gray, although one hand was less formed than the other. That could easily be the whim of In Between or lack of concentration.
    “Can you see anything? Any mark at all?” he demanded.
    I shook my head. “I don’t see anything unusual, but I don’t know what to look for, and she didn’t have time to tell me!”
    “Maybe I can figure it out.”
    “We have to figure it out! The way she described it made it sound like it was a mark that would draw a demon, or whatever marked you, right to you.”
    “No, not we. If Cinderspark is avoiding me, I should be avoiding everyone.”
    Cold fear filled me again, and it had to be worse for him. Loneliness might be just as bad for some people still alive, but I doubted it was as screamingly miserable as it was here. People talk about cold spots, well, wait until you’re on this end. Those spots reach the land of the living because the kind of pain that comes from being a lonely ghost can’t be stopped by a murky curtain. You walk near a lonely ghost, and you’d have to be a serial killer to miss the vibe. It’s a physical pain that, since I’m dead, shouldn’t be felt anymore, but the hurt is real.
    Troy raised one hand halfheartedly and began to drift away.
    “Troy, you can’t tackle this by yourself!”
    Spook came around the tree then, barking. He was having none of Troy’s nonsense. He took his spot, trailing after Troy, leaving me standing next to a juniper that wasn’t mine and with worry that had nowhere else to go.

Chapter 8
    I floated slowly towards home, searching for Martin. He was the only one I knew who might have a clue about demon marks. He seemed to take great pride in knowledge of obscure facts. Either that or he just enjoyed babbling nonsense while pretending to be erudite.
    As the gray drifted around me, I felt a tug to the edge. From the beckoning light, I knew it wasn’t a death. There was still a whisper of a gentle life breeze, the brush more like the magic of Troy’s tree than the opening of the weave to let in a soul.
    It rarely paid to be curious In Between. But energy was energy and who really knew all the reasons a link to the other side might exist? Truth was, I was a moth to a flame where the living side was concerned even though other, more dangerous things were attracted there as well.
    Before I could puff myself closer, a darker gray on gray froze me on the spot. Ghouls lacked the red eyes of demons and hellhounds. Once you were too close, there was nothing but a sucking blackness that would absorb you before you could escape.
    I guardedly watched the shape as I paddled away in the opposite direction as fast as my blob could bobble. If weapons had been available here, I’d happily float around in full Rambo gear. Too bad shotguns never came through. Then again, there were far more dangerous creatures here than myself. With my luck they’d control all the guns. But even something simple would be better than nothing. My hands clenched as though with the memory of holding a weapon of some sort, but it was the ghost of a ghost, an instinct more than a recollection.
    The blotch of gray didn’t follow me, but the moan of misery did. Ah, a spirit then. Other than coating me with sadness, it couldn’t actually do any harm. Martin said the spirits were very old ghosts who had never moved on, either because they hadn’t made their peace or they had gone bad. They tried to take over other ghosts, but had no power to do so.
    I had no idea what he meant about going bad. Did ghosts spoil like meat left sitting out? Did we go rancid if left