A Villain's POV

Touched by a Ghost

It was as if Knox was being touched. He felt hands on his chest. They were gentle at first, exploring him like a lover. They felt small and smooth, but he couldn't see anything. This wasn't what he imagined possession to be like. Then came her quiet voice.

"We never made love when I was alive. I was a good Catholic girl, now I'm the ghost of a good Catholic girl. You know what that means? I have no more guilt. Necromancers say my soul has already fled to heaven. I don't know about that, but I do know that you will never escape my vengeance."

"This is wrong," he said. "The dead shouldn't take vengeance on the living."

"No one's said anything like that. The dead don't kill the living, but I'm not going to kill you. I want you to keep going for as long as you can and I'll be with you. I'm a memory of the girl you killed; all I have is emotion. I hate you more than anyone has ever hated. The dead are all about vengeance. The only way to make this better is if our ghostly Necromancer calls some friends to help me. Wouldn't you like a party in your body? All the people you've killed or even just a few of them? And you can't ask a Necromancer to banish us. Good luck finding a Catholic priest with the power to send us away."

He cursed her for being right. He had no defense against spirits. They had no blood he could control. Blood Magic was all about the physical. The metaphysical was beyond his grasp. Was this his punishment from a wrathful God? He hadn't thought he believed in God anymore, but faced with being haunted for all eternity, it was hard to disbelieve.

"Would you drive me to kill myself? Would that make you happy?" he asked.

She laughed. "No, I want you to suffer. Maybe some would say it was unfair. You killed me quite quickly, but life and death are never fair. It wasn't fair that you killed me before I had my first kiss, or got married, or even left my awful parents. Now I can touch you and you can do nothing about it. You're still in pretty good shape for a man your age. Have you heard of ghost lovers? Imagine what I can do in your head."

"You were never like this? Are you a demon? I don't believe you really are Sylvanie Dupont. She was an innocent girl."

"The Sylvanie you killed was an innocent young girl. I am the spark of her memory, nothing but a shadow. And shadows are darkness, not light. You face the night and you are afraid."

She was right, but though he hadn't been this afraid for a long time, he had lived with fear back when he knew her as a living girl. His will was strong. He would not fail. He turned his attention back to the outside world.

"What else have you got, boy?" he asked.