Claimed by Shadow Page 0,17
another era as a spirit or in possession of someone. But both states create bigger problems than putting up with an uncomfortable costume for a while.
Leaving my body behind means risking death unless I find another spirit to babysit it while I'm gone. Since the only one usually available is Billy Joe, this is something I try to avoid. Especially in Vegas, where all his favorite vices are so near at hand. The other downside is that traveling in spirit form saps my energy too quickly to allow me to do much unless I possess someone and draw energy from him or her. But I don't even like drinking from the same cup as someone else, much less using their body.
After becoming the Pythia's heir, I acquired the ability to take my own form along for the ride, although that has a downside, too. One possession resulted in an injury to the woman I was inhabiting-in the form of an almost-severed toe-but I'd been able to leave the wound behind when I shifted back to my own body. But if anything happened to me now, I was stuck with it. The upside of my current condition was that ghosts don't have a lot of power over the living. They can cannibalize other spirits under certain conditions, but attacking a living body usually drains them of more power than they gain. Still, there was no reason to provoke her.
"I'll be leaving soon," I said, hoping it was true. "I have an errand to run and then I'm out of here.”
"You aren't in the show, then?" the head asked, looking disappointed.
"Only visiting," I said quickly, since the woman's eyes had started to glow. That's not a good sign in a ghost-it means they're calling up their power, normally just prior to letting you have it. "Really, I want to leave, but I can't yet. Hopefully, this won't take long.”
"The other said the same," she intoned, her dark hair starting to blow gently about her face as her power rose. "But after poisoning the wine, she did not go. Now you are here. This must stop.”
"She?" I didn't like the sound of that. "The only person I brought with me is male. Maybe you've seen him? About five eight, blond, dressed like the Terminator? Sorry," I said, as her forehead wrinkled slightly. "I mean, he's wearing a long topcoat over a bunch of weapons. He'll be back soon and we'll get this sorted out.”
"It is not the mage that concerns us," the ghost said sternly. "You and the other woman are the threat. You must leave.”
"She is somewhat territorial, I fear," the head said, looking sympathetic. "We've been here such a long time, y'see. This land belonged to my family long before they built a theatre on it, and it sustains us." He gave me a cheerful leer. " 'Tis more fun these days. The demmed Roundheads closed all the theatres, as well as the pubs, the whorehouses, and all besides that wasn't a church. They even prohibited sports on Sunday! They were kind enough to behead me before I had to live through that. But we triumphed in the end, didn't we?”
"Uh-huh." I was barely listening. Every ghost I've ever met wants to tell me the story of his life, and if I hadn't learned how to nod and smile while thinking of other things, I'd have been driven crazy a long time ago. And I had a lot to mull over.
From the little I had managed to discover about my position, mostly from rumors Billy Joe overheard, the setup worked like this: if someone from my own era was messing with the timeline, the ball was in my court. It was my problem, and I'd have to fix it. But if someone from another time was trying to interfere, that was the province of the Pythia from that person's time. If that was true, the interference that had brought me here should have come from my lifetime. But the only person I knew who could skip around between centuries was in no position to do so. Billy had checked with some of his ghostly contacts and assured me that the wounds I put in Myra 's spirit form would have manifested as physical injuries as soon as she returned to her body. And there was no way she'd have healed damage like that in a week.
But if the woman the ghosts had mentioned wasn't Myra, she could only be another Pythia.