(Continues from Nature’s Calling)

He’s dangerous, but so am I.
Devils have his back and their eyes
scan for my ghost self, yet I spy.
Or I did ‘fore they waved bye-bye. 

Now I’m trapped in Manhattan by
a river with no idea why.

When I’d gathered my scattered wits again,  I looked up and rose through the tunnel’s ceiling, and God knew how many feet of earth to the surface. I glared at the Hudson. Why did the river impede me? Was there some scientific reason my ghost couldn’t cross running water?

I searched my mind and came up empty. What I knew about spooks, I’d learned on the job. And according to the ice maiden, I had been lax about doing my job. So I pivoted and gave the river my back. I stood there with no idea where to go next except the one place I couldn’t go. Sniffing the wind, I searched its scents for a story but all my sniffer got for its trouble was a lot of river tinged air stinking of fish.

As the city woke up around me, lights came on in the buildings I passed. I stopped on the street corner and felt for the dagger. I’d gone to a lot of trouble for it, and I grew anxious as my search turned up nothing. I’d left the damned thing on the train. Maybe I imagined the old man laughing it up with his horned cohorts on the opposite shore. The wind shifted directions hurling an inhuman cackling at my ears. and the onslaught held a dangerous edge and a promise.

Find the earlier parts of this series here.

For OctPoWRiMo, 31 poems in 31 days–all part of one story. Watch me do it.

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