King of the Dead (Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) by Joseph Nassise Page A

good ten degrees from one moment to the next. They circled the couch I was sitting on and focused their attention on me so intently that the hair on my forearms stood up straight.
    Still, getting glared at never hurt anyone that I know of and most ghosts can’t pull enough energy out of the air around them to impact the physical world, so I wasn’t too concerned. Angry ghosts are often like angry people; sometimes it’s just best to ignore them and hope they go away. So that’s what I resolved to do. I closed my eyes and settled in to wait for Denise to finish examining the patients in the next room.
    Until the couch skidded three feet across the room.
    “Quit screwing around, Hunt,” Dmitri said.
    “I’d be happy to,” I told him, “except I’m not doing anything.”
    They had my attention now, that was for sure; any ghost strong enough to move a physical object of that size and weight was capable of causing significant harm if it chose to. Since I was already the focus of their attention, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out whom they might want to take their destructive tendencies out on, either.
    One look with my ghostsight was all it took to confirm that I was in trouble. The ghosts had started to manifest around me, taking physical form. I knew it wouldn’t be long before even Dmitri could see them. Because ghosts tend to fade with time, growing fuzzy around the edges at first and then devolving into formless shapes of light and shadow, I knew this group had been around for a while. They no longer retained their features or individual characteristics and appeared more like gleaming negatives of a person rather than the real thing. Their auras, though, were thick and black, the color of anger, and if there is any emotion more suited to channeling power, I don’t know what it is.
    Even as they swam into view, a wind kicked up, swirling around the room like some kind of miniature cyclone. The chair Dmitri was sitting in began to spin lazily on its axis and the television set in the corner was flung violently across the room to shatter against the opposite wall, all without anyone touching it.
    “Do something, Hunt!” I heard Dmitri yell.
    I knew it was only going to get worse before it got better; that’s how these things always work.
    No way was I going to sit still and let them have their fun. Call me heartless, but right then all I cared about was protecting our hides. If what I did sent them on their way sooner than they wanted, well, tough luck.
    The tune was already forming in my mind as I pulled my harmonica out of my pocket and put it to my lips. One long discordant note got their attention; they pulled up short and stared at me with their dead eyes.
    That’s when all hell broke loose.
    The couch lifted off the floor a good three feet and slammed down again, sending me sprawling. I held on to my harmonica though, and the minute I hit the ground I was playing for all I was worth, a swirling melody that danced to and fro like the devil on a hot summer night in a glade full of witches.
    Okay, not quite that actively, but you get the idea. The ghosts couldn’t ignore it either; the music caught them up and sped them along with the melody, until they were swirling around the room in a mad dance, forcing them to use their energy to stay on this plane instead of tossing it about the room like angry little children. Now it was just a question of who would tire first, them or me.
    Thankfully they had expended most of their energy in the initial onslaught and so it didn’t take long for me to leech the energy from them and stop the manifestations. As they faded away, the charged atmosphere in the room did so as well, until all the anger and misery that they’d called up with them slipped away into nothingness.
    Quiet descended.
    Into the silence, Dmitri asked, “What did you do to piss them off, Hunt?”
    I had no idea.
    As it turned out, it really didn’t matter.
    Angry ghosts were the