Midlife Ghost Hunter (Forty Proof #4) - Shannon Mayer Page 0,25

feels like someone is taking him away on purpose. I don’t know why. Maybe Karissa again? She does not give up easy.”

I blinked a few times and put a hand on her shoulder. “I think Crash is more than capable. He can handle whatever he’s got going on, even if it’s something you don’t understand—”

Feish clamped a free hand over my mouth and tugged me backward so hard and fast that I nearly bit the palm of her hand. She tucked us in behind the three-foot-wide post that held up the large station sign that had tugged on my memories.

“That’s not good.” She pointed at four figures heading toward the blue Mustang where Corb was fueling up and Sarge sat in the back seat in a pair of sweats and nothing else.

The four figures were tall, over eight feet easily, and super slim, built like sticks, not unlike that strange Halloween Jack character I’d seen in an animated movie years before. And while no one else seemed to see them for what they were, I knew right away they were supernatural. I mean. . .they were basically animated stick figures, so that alone gave them away. But the flowing gray mist that rolled around their feet was the clincher. It hid their feet and left me wondering if they were walking or floating.

“What are they?” I whispered. I’d never seen anything like them before.

“Wraiths. Bad business those. Like hired thugs but worse of course. Make your limbs into noodles.” Feish held me tightly as if she knew I was thinking of running over there.

“Do we go and help the boys?”

Feish gave a surprised gurgle as if she couldn’t believe how dumb I was to even think it. “We stay here. Probably the council is using them to hunt for you. But how they find us so quick? Maybe tracking Corb’s car?”

I grimaced and crouched a little more. Wraiths? I couldn’t remember learning anything about them from Gran or Eammon in my training, but I pulled Gran’s book out of my hip bag and flipped through it. I really needed to alphabetize the thing. But the wraith section was near the front, and I found it quickly and skimmed the section as fast as I could.

Wraiths are the darkest of all the soul-bound creatures, but they can be bargained with and bought off if you have what they want. They cause confusion of the mind, as if you were drinking too much tequila. Particularly effective against groups because they can mask what you see in front of you. Under the influence of wraiths, you may end up fighting and killing your own friends. They’ll let you attack each other, then strike when you are already injured and damaged by your own allies.

They can be contained by using a combination of circles and spells. Said spells and circles don’t have to be tidy, but they must be completed, or the results can be dire.

Prominently used by the darker magics as enforcers, kidnappers, and assassins.

I looked up in time to see the four wraiths surrounding Corb, who was yelling at Sarge to start the car. Those two were adept fighters, and if they started fighting, I had no doubt one of them would die. I stuffed my gran’s book back in the bag and pulled out one of my wicked knives and managed to unhook her webbed fingers from my arm. “Stay here, Feish.”

She made another reach for me, but I was already running, limping only a little, and headed straight for the back of the Mustang. The three wraiths had fallen in around Corb. They weren’t touching him, but they had their noses in the air, sniffing, and he was on his knees with his head in his hands. “Don’t. Get out of my head!” he growled, and I was pretty sure he didn’t mean me because his eyes were closed.

Sarge was in the back seat with his arms wrapped over his head. “I can’t hear you! This isn’t real!”

So they were both being affected by these things, and I had to hurry my butt up.

Drawing a circle around a beasty was pretty simple if my memory served me right. Usually chalk was used, salt would be better, but I had my knife and it was sharp and I had no doubt it would dig into the ground.

I bent at the waist and put the tip of the knife to the pavement and ran around the backside of the car as quickly

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