Free The Parliament of the Dead by T.A. Donnelly Page B

you need not fear the blender.”
    “A horse that I had stolen was traced to an inn where we had been staying.  Tom was captured, so I loaded my pistols and decided to stage a rescue to make Tom proud.”
    “What happened?”
    “I charged my horse at the constables.  Unloaded my pistols.  And killed Tom.”
    “Why?”
    “It was an accident.  I never was a very good shot.  I waved my pistols about a lot, but I rarely actually fired them.”
    Iona laughed.
    “Miss Ward, this is not funny.  I killed your forebear.”
    “Yeah but...”Iona shrugged,“...hundreds of years ago.”
    “Two hundred and seventy-eight years Iona.  It may be a long time ago to you, but I can remember it like yesterday.”
    They looked at each other in silence for a few minutes.
    Iona seemed to be building herself up to something.  Her head was nodding almost imperceptibly as she cast furtive glances at Arthur.
    Arthur thought she was thinking about her murdered ancestor.
    He was slightly disappointed when she finally spoke.
    “William wants to see you, and I really should go home; my mum will be worried,”she concluded, looking out into the fading light.
     
     
    Chapter Twenty-Six
    Spreading the News
     
    Morag andGibbs spent the evening drifting around London spreading the news of the exorcists’attacks.  Gibbs told all who would listen that the time had come for them to attend the Parliament of the Dead.
    “You m-must come to the Parliament.  Hff Hffnt Walfughn!  None of us are safe until we deal with these b-breathers.  Yeullfnt!”
    Morag followed and observed the proceedings with interest.
    The Parliament had been called for that evening.  Morag and Gibbs took it upon themselves to try and encourage as many ghosts as they could to join them.  At first it proved difficult to find any spirits who would do more than wail, clank their chains or laugh manically.  However, those who were willing to have a conversation seemed sympathetic, and by ten o’clock they felt they had done enough.  They found a nice quiet graveyard and Gibbs spent the next hour-and-a-half teaching Morag about life being dead.
    She found flying quite difficult, but she soon got the hang of moving small objects.
    “S-splendid!”cried Gibbs as Morag lifted up a rather startled-looking cat and gently set it down on top of a broken headstone. “You’re a n-natural.  You’ll be terrorising towns with your head tucked underneath your arm in no time.”
     
     
    Chapter Twenty-Seven
    The life of the Dead
     
    Iona turnedaway from the window and looked at Arthur.  Could he really be the ghost of a long-dead highwayman?  Iona could feel the walls separating what she regarded as fact and fiction crumble. “All my life I’ve longed for some experience of the supernatural.  Now one of my friends is a ghost and he’s not even the first ghost I’ve met in the last two days.”
    A smile flickered across Arthur’s face,“Another ghost; who would that have been, I wonder?”
    “It’s what I was coming to tell you when I ended up taking your walk.  It said not to trust you.” Iona looked cautiously at Arthur, “And another voice in Hanbury Street during your walk told me not to trust you.”
    “Hanbury Street?  Ah, that would be poor Miss Anne Chapman.  She is not a trusting soul.  But then if I had been eviscerated by Jack the Ripper I’d probably be quite bitter too.”
    Iona shuddered,“But why shouldn’t I trust you?”
    “Well, I was a highwayman,”Arthur answered airily,“not exactly a moral paragon.”
    “But surely that was a long time ago?  Don’t ghosts let bygones be bygones?”
    “Alright,”Arthur sighed,“I suppose the real reason they don’t trust me is that they see me as a traitor.”
    “A traitor?”Iona rubbed her head, tousling her hair, the black dye making her scalp itch;“What did you do?”
    “It’s more a case of what I do do,”Arthur replied wearily,“they think I am betraying them by leading my