Maggie on the Bounty by Kate Danley Read Free Book Online

been on. 
    Our guide was a little too big to
fit into the room with all of us, so he just motioned us through.  "This
is the most psychically active room onboard and we can no longer use it as a
rentable room due to the number of complaints from our guests of haunted
activity.  Look around and I'll meet you here when you are finished."
    "I would think that a haunted
room would actually be a selling point if our employer is hoping to gain the
reputation as a haunted site," Killian murmured.
    "Very 'actually', unless bad things happened to the
people who made the mistake of sleeping in here," I replied.  "Wonder
how bad it was?"
    The room was stripped bare with
nothing but a bunch of broken furniture all over the place.
    Killian inspected
the cracked porthole glass.  "I would hazard a guess it was fairly
bad."
    "Poltergeists.  I can't
believe they want us to try and figure out how to keep poltergeists onsite. 
Most folks pay good money to get these cleaned up."
    "If you were to describe the
differences between a ghost and a poltergeist...?" Killian offhandedly
asked.
    "Ghosts just lurk around and
are annoying.  Poltergeists can move things."
    "Like soap and cans of
soda?"
    "Oh, now, look who is starting
to understand what I was saying about the damned soda cans.  Next time I tell
you about a haunted vending machine—"
    "I am heartily sorry."
    "Damned right you are."
    "Do you need me to apologize
one more time, or are you ready to continue?"
    "Just once more."
    "I am sorry."
    "Excellent."  We shook on
it.
    The tour group was losing its mind
over all the broken things. 
    "Earth humans are strange
creatures," Killian muttered, shaking his head at a shattered marble
bedside table.
    The bathroom lights flickered on
and off. 
    "What the hell?" I said,
jumping.  Have I mentioned how much I hate ghosts?
    "It is most likely an
electrical surge," Killian reassured me, trying to calm me down.
    "Right," I replied,
eyeing the light bulb suspiciously.
    All of the tourists started taking
flash pictures, which sort of defeated capturing the lights flickering on and
off.
    "Perhaps it is only a trick to
make people feel like they are experiencing supernatural powers," Killian
suggested.
    "Or it
is only poltergeists," I said.
    "Or
poltergeists."
    "Don't
agree with me, elf."
    I elbowed
my way out.  I had seen what I needed to see and didn't need to spend another
minute in that room.  Killian followed me out.
    He gave me
a little sideways squeeze.  "Never fear, Maggie.  I shall protect you from
these creatures of your darkest fears."
    Some girls
like a man around the house to squish spiders.  Me, I found nothing as
attractive as a guy willing to squash dead things.  But Killian was missing the
point.  "I will not turn be turning down your offer to go after these
ghosts whenever they do show up, but I think we've got a bigger issue
here."
    "That
being?"
    "Think
of the ghosts as a nice little gathering of bacteria.  You kill off the nice
bacteria and only the strongest, meanest bacteria survive and they start to
infest the place.  Pretty soon you have a nasty colony of resistant bacteria
that are going to make some people very, very sick."
    Killian
nodded, finally starting to get where I was going.  "Something wiped out
the ghosts, and so only the strong..."
    "...est...
    "...strongest..."
    "...harmful..."
    "...strongest,
harmful ghosts remain."
    "You
got it."
    "Again,
I would point out that our employer does not seem the discerning type and would
rather have the dramatics of a stronger ghost than the wisps of the more benign
entities."
    "When
did you turn all mercenary on me, Killian?"
    "When
I became half-partner in the financial success of this tracking business,"
he replied.
    "Listen,
what Julio wants or doesn't want doesn't change the fact that something
powerful came through and wiped out the 'nice' ghosts.  And when something big
and powerful comes through and does an extermination like this, it usually
means something