Ghost Light

I was covered in gangrenous ghoul goop.  Try saying that three times fast.

“Get it off!” I choked.

Oh, Oberon’s eyes, get it off.  I flung my hands in the air and ran in a tight circle like a fool on fire.  My eyes were watering so badly, I nearly ran into an ornamental pillar at the bottom of the stone steps.

“Hold still,” Ceff said.

I froze, praying that Ceff could do something to help.  For the first time ever, I needed a white knight.  I wanted to be rescued.

I held my breath and stared at Ceff with wide eyes.  I tried to think positive.  I smelled worse than a charnel house on a hot day, but I wasn’t experiencing nightmare visions.  Miraculously, my skin was untouched.  Too bad I couldn’t say the same for my clothes.

Ceff’s eyes began to glow and he cupped his hands together.  A hint of a breeze brushed past my face as Ceff pulled moisture out of the air.  A ball of water formed slowly between his hands.

“This may tickle,” he said.

A thread of water spun out from the sphere in his hands to run across my arms and down my torso.  Ceff lifted the thread higher and spread the water into a fan to cascade over me.  It was the closest thing to touching we’d managed in a while and it made my skin tingle.

I stared at Ceff and a smile tugged at his lips.  I bit my lip, wishing I didn’t smell like the inside of a rotting corpse.  After a few minutes, the water trickled to mist.

“That’s all the moisture I can manage to pull from the air,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.  I sighed.  There was no way I could go directly to Club Nexus looking and smelling like this.  Making my grand entrance into fae society covered in rotting ghoul guts?  Yeah, not an option.  “I need a shower and a change of clothes.”

I looked up and down the street.  It was after dark and the night crowd was beginning to come out to play.  Pretty soon someone was going to notice that I was dripping liquefied corpse intestines.

The only thing keeping me from curious eyes was the fact that I was upwind from most of the revelers and standing in shadow.  But I couldn’t stay that way for the entire walk home.  The loft was too far away.

“If we can find a bigger water source, can you rinse more of this off?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, nodding.

I pulled a slip of paper from my jeans pocket and squinted at the address.  Marvin’s new digs weren’t far from here.  And where there’s a bridge, there’s usually water.

“Come on,” I said.

I started walking, but turned back to see if Stinky had made it safely inside.  The doors to the vampire’s lair were closed and the stoop was empty.  If I hadn’t stopped to thank the ghoul, I might not be covered in rotting, slimy, dead guy.  I shook my head ruefully and continued walking.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Chapter 17

Thankfully we didn’t have far to go.  A few people scowled and gave me a wide berth, but we stuck to the shadows and made it to the bridge without incident.

The bridge where Marvin had taken up residence was small, a single stone arch over a burbling stream.  Homes and apartment buildings sat on a ridge where the land rose above on either side.  The bridge itself sat low, hovering over the stream where a river had once cut its way into the earth.

As we approached, I heard snores echo from the shadows.  The kid was asleep.

I made sure my booted feet hit every rock on the narrow trail that led down to the bridge.  When we were only a few yards away, I called out to Marvin.  The bridge troll had been attacked in his previous home and I didn’t want to frighten him.

The snores ceased and the kid rolled to his feet, a baseball bat dwarfed in his huge hands.  Marvin had been sleeping armed.  I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or cry.

“Hey, Marvin,” I said.

“Poison Ivy?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s me and Ceff,” I said.

“You stink,” he said.

“I sure do,” I said.

That was one thing about my troll friend.  He got right to the point.  And when a troll thinks you smell bad, you know that you seriously stink.  I started to laugh and gagged, again.  I’d been doing a lot of that since Stinky busted a gut all over me.

Normally, the only thing that comes between me and the contents of my stomach is a return trip to my body after a particularly nasty vision.  But rotten ghoul gunk was a whole new can of maggots.  I covered my mouth and tried to calm the churning in my belly.  I didn’t want to foul Marvin’s new digs any worse than I already was.

When I caught my breath, I told Marvin about our visit to the vamp’s lair and the exploding ghoul.  He was still chuckling as he led us downstream.

“Clean here,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.  “I promise to bring a housewarming gift next time.”

“Don’t stink,” he said.

That was a gift I could manage—so long as no more ghouls exploded on me.