Free The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1) by C.J. Archer

gruesome
nature of the conversation but I didn't say so. He seemed to suddenly notice I
didn't share his enthusiasm for my own joke and his laughter died. He cleared
his throat and said, "Did you know it could kill ghosts too?"
    "Kill
ghosts? That doesn't seem entirely logical. Ghosts are already dead."
    "What I
meant was a demon can extract a ghost's soul." He tapped his chest. "From
here. The soul can be quite literally pulled out. Not by us of course."
    Why didn't I
know this? Why hadn't Jacob told me? "And what happens if a ghost's soul
is removed?"
    "You don't
know?" I shook my head and he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well
it ceases to exist at all, in any realm," he said. "It has no energy,
no cognitive abilities. It becomes...nothing."
    Oh. No. To
become nothing would be, well, a fate worse than death to use a cliché.
    "So your
friend Jacob must be careful," he added.
    "Yes,"
I said weakly. "Extremely." This information put Jacob’s involvement
into an entirely different context—this assignment could destroy him.
    "Now,
that's all I know. Shall we each find a book and begin?"
    We spent the
next three hours looking through books, making notes and cross-checking facts. Jacob
didn't return but I didn't mind. I suspect I would have found it difficult to
concentrate with him in the room. He was rather distracting. George and I
worked quietly until a footman interrupted us with lunch, which George had requested
to be served in the library.
    "What's he
like?" George asked, in between bites of warm ham. "Jacob Beaufort's
ghost, I mean."
    I paused, the
fork half way to my mouth. Jacob was handsome, magnificent, intriguing and
compelling. I found it hard not to look at him when he was in my presence, and
hard not to think about him when he wasn't. "He seems nice," was all I
said. Gushing about a ghost, particularly to a man, seemed foolish. It was
times like this I wish I had a female friend of my own age to talk to. Celia
wasn't quite the understanding type when it came to discussing men, dead or
alive, unless it was with a view to matrimony and even then she would want me
to temper my descriptions. "I was surprised when you said Jacob didn't
really notice people at school though," I said. "He seems very aware
of others." He'd definitely noticed me. My face still burned just thinking
about his intense stares.
    George shrugged.
"Perhaps he's changed since his death. I hardly knew him but I do know
that his awareness of others did not extend to those outside his circle. How
did he die, by the way?"
    "I was
hoping you could tell me. We haven't discussed it and I don’t want to
ask...just in case." I put my fork down, no longer hungry. It had just
struck me that I'd hit on the reason why Jacob was so solid, so real to me—perhaps
he'd taken his own life. I'd never met a ghost who had, so maybe solidness was
a characteristic of those spirits. I swallowed past the lump lodged in my
throat. The thought was so awful I didn't want to think about it let alone
voice it.
    "You think
he...?" George shook his head so vigorously I worried it would roll off
his neck. "Even from my limited knowledge of him I can tell you Beaufort
wasn't the sort. I've never met anyone so full of life, so content with his
lot. Not to mention he had so much to live for."
    Relief made me
feel momentarily light-headed so I picked up my fork and began to eat again to
give myself something to focus on.
    "I didn't
speak out of turn in the drawing room earlier," George went on. "Beaufort was good at everything. Sport, school, politics. Everyone loved him—students,
teachers even the servants." He chuckled as he poked a potato with his
fork. "And the girls too."
    "Girls! Oh."
Of course there would be girls. Jacob Beaufort was definitely the sort to
attract females.
    Had he ever
looked at any of them the way he looked at me?
    "Sorry,"
George said, "I forgot for a moment there was a lady present."
    I pushed my
plate away, my hunger gone for good. "So you know