“Don’t tell him,” said the ghost, still sounding like she’d grown up in Aspen Creek, Montana, like I had. Some of the stronger spirits did that—they communicated so forcefully that I heard them without any distortion, as if death granted them a universal language, a quick conduit to my brain without language at all, maybe. I found it very disturbing when they did that. “It would hurt him to know that I watch over him still.”
But she didn’t, not really. This wasn’t truly the woman she resembled, just a skin of personality shed when she’d died however long ago and her soul had gone to wherever souls go. I didn’t know why some ghosts stayed fresh and strong while most others faded—though sometimes it was because the living paid too much attention to the dead. But that didn’t make the ghosts into the person whose face they wore; it just made them stronger ghosts. I’d seen souls tied to their ghosts once, and I’d never again made the mistake of thinking of a normal ghost as a real person. This woman’s soul had gone on a long, long time ago.
I was coming to believe that ghosts were something, though, something that could think and plan and do. Not living, precisely, but not inert, either. It was a belief that went against everything I’ve ever heard about ghosts—but I interact with them more than most people.
Still, even though she was not the person who had been Libor’s wife, she had once been part of her. She knew Libor, and I chose to follow her advice.
“I don’t know, and I’m not going to talk about it long enough to give it more power,” I told Libor. “Look, ghosts are like discarded clothing left behind when a person dies.” Of so much I was still sure. “I’m sorry to distract you from the matter at hand. I wouldn’t have if I weren’t tired.”
“Is it my wife?” he asked softly. “She was a tiny thing, but rounded where a woman should be rounded. Her eyes were blue as a Viking’s.”
“I don’t talk about ghosts I see,” I told him. “No good comes of it.”
The ghost of his wife smiled at me. “He doesn’t like it when people don’t do what he says. I’d watch my step if I were you.”
Another ghost had found its way out to the courtyard, attracted by the attention I was trying not to pay to Libor’s dead wife. This one wasn’t anything anyone would have called pretty. Werewolf killed, I’d guess from the damage. If I were a normal human, I’d probably have been more appalled. But my other self is a coyote. I might not take down humans (or any other large prey), but I’ve eaten a lot of field mice and rabbits. I let my gaze pass over that ghost.
“Is it my wife?” Libor asked intently, and this time there was a bit of growl in his voice.
“I don’t talk about ghosts,” I told him. “I don’t describe them. I don’t name them. I don’t look at them if I can help it.”
We had ourselves a little bit of a stare-down again. Three more ghosts, one of those I’d seen in the main room of the bakery, drifted in. I was busy staring at Libor, and it weirded me out that I still knew they’d come in. Usually I have to use my eyes (or ears or nose or some normal thing) to know when they are around. Evidently not today. Stupid golem.
“Look,” I said. “It isn’t safe to pay too much attention to ghosts. They start to linger, and they pull you in the wrong direction.” My half brother had told me that it was less safe for someone of our lineage to pay attention to the dead than it was for regular people. Too much attention tended to strengthen ghosts and anchor them in the world of the living. Attention from one of our kind was apparently even more energizing.
“I am very old, little girl,” Libor told me. “If ghosts were going to get me killed, they would have done it a long time ago.” He frowned at me with consideration. “You will tell me what I want to know—and I will give you your three days.”
“You want me to describe the ghost I see here?” I asked him. “Though I have clearly stated that it is a bad idea. But after I do this, you will grant me sanctuary for three days.”
“Yes,” he said, sounding half-irritated, half-amused. “Talk for two minutes, a description and maybe a little conversation. Then I and my pack will protect you for three days. I give you the better end of the bargain.”
He was going to get the bad end of the bargain, that was for certain. Fine. I’d warned him, and it was on his head. He was so certain he wanted me to do this—I was going to do it right for him. I closed my eyes and tried to draw upon the power that I’d only touched a time or two on purpose.
There were a lot of ghosts here in the courtyard of Libor’s bakery. More than I’d sensed before. When I reached out to them, it felt as though I were breathing them—bits of pain and fear and terror, most so faint that they’d lost any touch of personality or coherence.
I opened my eyes and looked around. I might have been a little ticked with Libor for not listening to me when I told him it was a bad idea, but I was also concerned about adding any power to the woman who was still petting him. If she could get into my head enough to talk to me without an accent, then she was powerful enough to affect things in the real world. And if I gave her more power while he was still here loving her, I might never be able to get rid of her.
She was tied to Libor already. People tied too closely to ghosts tended to do things like drive their cars into trees, shoot themselves, or drink themselves to death. The dead want to be closer to the living.
So I picked someone else.
“He looks as though he was attacked by your pack,” I told Libor with not-really-faked reluctance. This guy wasn’t someone I’d want to be haunted by. “The suit he is wearing looks like it is from the 1950s, and it looks like he was wearing it when he was killed, because it is shredded and covered with blood.”
Dan, whispered the ghost painfully, though the bottom half of his face was gone. Dan. Under my attention, the misty edges of the transparent body drew together, condensing and solidifying at the same time.
“His name is Dan . . .”
Danek. The ghost’s voice was suddenly stronger, as if my voice on his name was giving him energy.
“Danek,” I said at the same time Libor did.
As soon as I spoke his name, the ghost was as solid as any person I’ve ever seen in my life. I could smell him, could smell his anguish and his sweat. I could see the weave of his blood-soaked silk tie. If I’d seen him on the street, I’d have called 911 for him.
What had that golem done to me? And how?
“Danek is a ghost?” asked Libor, who evidently wasn’t getting the same sensory load as I was, because, though he looked over his shoulder, he wasn’t looking in the right direction.
“Apparently,” I told him.
The old wolf laughed without amusement. “Of course he is. Danek never knew which way to go without someone’s telling him first when he was alive. It makes sense that he’d be the same dead.”
I almost gave my speech about how ghosts are not really the people who died, again, but Libor was one of those people who liked to tell others how the world worked and not listen to anyone who thought differently. I kept my mouth closed.
Libor smiled sourly. “Danek worked for the resistance here, such as it was, during World War II. His resistance group contained some of my pack and was supported by the rest of us. We only found out later, after the war was over, that he’d been working for both sides. He told the Nazis that the people who planned the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich came from the village of Lidice. It wasn’t true, the Nazis even knew it wasn’t true, but they paid him. Do you know what they did to Lidice?”