Keeper of the Peace (Graveyard Guardians #2) (26 page)

“You can, and you will. It’s best to do it
now before you two become anymore invested than you already
are.”

Hannah was reeling from the topic change.
Her father seemed to take the whole ‘murder a Reaper, go to jail,
get out of jail, kill two more guys,’ thing pretty well. Now all he
cared about was if she told David she was a Keeper. “Dad …”

“Tell him, tonight.”

She nodded. “Okay, but he’s going to think
I’m crazy.”

“You are, and that’s all right. I’m going to
be there with you when you tell him, so will everyone else.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “We better go up to
the house and grab all the booze. I have a feeling everyone is
going to need it when this goes down.”

“I agree,” Hannah told her. “We’ll meet you
back up there, Dad.” With that, they headed down the trails and
across the expanse of lawn, into the yellow farmhouse.

“Dad is nuts,” Hannah claimed as she filled
a cloth sack with beer.

Lucy shrugged and opened the cabinet. “So,
we all are.” She reached up and grabbed the whiskey off the shelf.
“I agree with him. David needs to know. We can’t keep this from him
forever, not with everything going on.”

“Yeah, I know. I just don’t want to do this
right now. Right when things are good between us.” She closed the
sack and put it over her shoulder.

Lucy stared at her, whiskey in hand. “You
honestly think going to jail and saving your boyfriend from
murdering gangsters is considered ‘when things are good?’”

Hannah shook her head, annoyed, not amused.
“You know what I mean.”

Without much else to say, they left the
house. On the way back to the group, Hannah practiced what she
wanted to say to David in her head. She didn’t want him to think
she was a nut case, but really, telling your boyfriend you see
ghosts was grounds for a break up. Telling him that he was with two
guys in the group that could suck his soul from his body was in the
ball park of admitting her to a mental institution.

This was so not going to go well.

If both her father and Lucy thought she
should tell him, the rest of the family would probably agree as
well. And they would be right. If David was going to be with her,
that made him part of the family and they couldn’t hide this part
of their lives from him.

They approached and Hannah took a moment to
admire the glittering silver, red and blue that shimmered around
the graves they were digging. The auras and the souls, all so easy
to see in the darkness.

She noticed that her father wasn’t the only
soul who had joined the group. Scattered about, many of the souls
had come to see what was going on in their little corner. She
smiled, knowing that they got bored with nowhere else to go. Most
souls were connected to their physical bodies and unable to go much
further than where that body was found. So, they were basically
stuck in the graveyard and the only action they usually got was a
funeral.

“Hey, the beer is here!” Jack let his shovel
fall heavily to the ground and hurried over to take the clanking
sack of bottles from Hannah. “Thanks.”

She smiled. “No problem.”

He tilted his head as he extracted a beer
from the bag. “You want one?”

He knew, she thought. They all knew what was
about to happen.

“No.” She shook her head. “But, I am going
to take a swig off that whiskey bottle.” Lucy winked and handed her
the bottle, which she immediately uncapped and tilted back. The
liquid burned her throat and stomach, but she didn’t care. It would
help in the long run.

Jack pushed a beer into David’s hands.
“Dude, you’re gonna need this, and sit down for a few.”

David accepted the beer, but looked to
Hannah, searching her face for answers. “Why am I going to need
this? Hannah … what’s going on?”

She shook her head and took one more swig
before answering. “Just go sit down like he said.” She waved
dismissively at the van.

She worriedly gazed at the bruised and
swollen face of her lover, and hoped that he would stay with her
after he heard everything about her.

“All right.” Hannah stood in front of David
and inhaled deeply. “First things first. Do you love me?”

David’s eyes flicked back and forth between
Hannah and the rest of the group, who stood around her like they
were about to hear an exciting campfire story. “Yes. I always have
and always will.” He answered calmly and then countered with, “Do
you love me?”

She nodded. “Very much, which is why I’m
about to tell you what I really am.”

His expression changed from nervous to
confused. “
What
you really are?”

“Don’t worry, not like an alien or
anything.” She paused and then decided it best to outright say it
and then deal with the details later. “I’m what is called a Keeper.
My whole family is. We protect the souls of the recently passed
from the soul eating Reapers, until they can cross over.”

Hannah sucked in her breath and waited for
it. “Uh …” David’s eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard me. I protect souls.”

“Like, ghosts?”

She nodded. “Yes, like ghosts.”

“From Reapers … who eat souls?”

“Yes.”

She could feel it. This wasn’t going in a
good direction at all.

“And all of you are Keepers?”

Hannah shook her head. “The Estmonds are and
so is Ethan, but Jack and Aiden are not.”

“We are Reapers,” Jack added and Hannah shot
him a glare. “What?” He shrugged. “He may as well know it all if
you’re telling him anyway.”

David began to look as if he wanted to get
up and slowly back away. “I … um, I thought you were enemies with
the … uh, oh for fucks sake, with the Reapers.”

“We are, but Jack is a special case and we
just acquired Aiden in the mix. That is a story for another day.
All you have to know is that they are good guys.”

“Okay. I need to back up for a minute. Can
you all see ghosts?”

Hannah nodded. “We see souls, yes.”

He opened the beer Jack had given him and
chugged half of it down. “I am having a hard time with this. I am a
detective. I go on facts, so I can’t believe what I don’t see.”

Hannah knew this part was coming, so she
approached him and knelt down in front of him, taking his hands
within hers. “I understand. We have dealt with this our entire
lives. But, you can see them too, if you try hard enough.”

He stared into her eyes and she saw
disbelief layered with concern. “I can’t see ghosts, Hannah.”

“You’ve heard stories about how children are
more susceptible to seeing spirits haven’t you?” He nodded and she
continued, “Do you know why that is?” This time he shook his head
and she answered, “It’s because they haven’t learned
not
to
believe. Their minds are open, young, and haven’t been bogged down
with reality just yet.”

“I don’t understand,” he told her and she
nodded. As she continued to stare into his eyes, she knew that he
was truly trying to understand her, he wanted to believe her, yet
reality and the world had burned disbelief into his brain. “Are
there ghosts here right now?”

She glanced over and met her father’s
transparent gaze. She looked beyond him and saw the glittering blue
mist of the other souls gathered around the tombstones, wove in and
out of the trees and a few solidified into their physical form,
like her father could. “Yes, there are lots of souls with us.”

“I can’t see them, or feel them, or
anything.”

She squeezed his hands and locked eyes with
him again. “I want you to try. Close your eyes. Clear your mind and
feel what is around you.”

He followed her instructions without
question. Once his eyes were closed, she kept her hands woven into
his and whispered, “Feel the air, the energy … there are lots of
souls here right now, I want you to open your mind to them and to
the unknown.”

After a couple of minutes, David slowly
opened his swollen eye lids and peered over Hannah’s shoulder. “I
don’t see anything.”

“It’s all right. We can’t expect it to
happen on the first try. I’m just happy you are trying to accept
this instead of shipping me off to a mental institution.”

He smiled and leaned over, placing a kiss on
her forehead. “I would never do that. I want to try again.” He
closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.

While he was focusing, Greg Sr. appeared
beside him. “David.” He reached out to touch his shoulder. His
semi-transparent fingers couldn’t actually make contact and all but
disappeared within David’s skin. David shivered in response. “I
know you and my daughter are meant to be together. I know you will
love her regardless of if this works or not, but hear me … feel
me.”

“I feel strange,” David whispered.

Her father moved his face a bit closer.
“Hear me … feel the energy of my soul surrounding you.”

And suddenly … David’s eyes shot open. “Your
father!” he shouted.

Hannah had never felt such relief as she did
in that moment. It crashed over her in a wave of warmth and love.
“Yes!”

CHAPTER

26

DAVID

Maybe he died back at the trailer. Or maybe
he was in some kind of weird ass coma dream. That would be an
answer to what was happening right now.

His eyes were closed and he was doing as
Hannah asked, opening his mind to the unknown, to what he had been
taught not to believe. The fact that he loved her was only part of
why he wanted so much to believe what she was telling him. The
other half of it was that he had known her since they were kids,
and even then there were a few things that were off about the whole
family. Not to mention they lived adjacent to a graveyard. That had
always creeped him out.

Now, here he was, sitting in that very same
graveyard in the back of Liv’s van, trying to open his mind and see
some ghosts.

He claimed that he had to see to believe and
in a sense that was true. But in reality, he didn’t discredit the
existence of spirits. He had merely come to terms with the fact
that he couldn’t see them.

So, with his eyes closed, he tried to clear
it out, to think of nothing and no one. He even blocked out Hannah
and tried to focus on the energy all around him. On the second try,
his body began to tingle and the words ‘feel me, hear me,’ kept
rising to the surface of the thoughts he was trying so hard to
clear.

And then, suddenly, his mind snapped and he
recognized the voice. It was Hannah’s father, Greg Sr. “Hear me …
feel the energy of my soul surrounding you.”

His eyes flew open and he turned to stare at
Hannah. “Your father!”

“Yes!” Her eyes widened and filled with love
as she grasped his hand even tighter.

And then it all came into focus. Little
shimmers of misty blue formed in front of him, Hannah herself had a
silver glow floating around her. What in the world was happening?
He thought as he pulled his hand from Hannah’s and reached out,
trying to touch the glittering blue in front of him.

“Don’t think too much,” Hannah told him
softly. After a moment, his focus cleared even more and the blue
mist took the form of a man, took the form of Hannah’s father. “Mr.
Estmond …” His voice barely a whisper.

Hannah’s father smiled, causing the wrinkles
on his transparent face to crease and his eyes to light up. “He
sees me.”

“I can see you,” David blubbered. “You’re a
ghost.”

Mr. Estmond nodded. “I am a soul, stuck here
in the graveyard since I can’t cross over yet.”

David shook his head. If he was
hallucinating … or dreaming, he wanted to snap out of it right
away. Mr. Estmond smiled at his actions. “I’m real, son. Well …
sort of.”

Then, he heard Jack’s voice cut through the
night. “This is as good as television. I feel like I need some
popcorn.”

“Shut up,” Lucy scolded.

He tore his gaze away from the Mr. Estmond
and found Jack in the crowd. He had his own aura, only it was a
sparkling red mist, floating around him. Aiden had the same.
“Reapers,” he whispered to himself, but Hannah nodded
acknowledgement of the statement. “Yes. Can you see their
aura?”

David nodded.

“Can you see mine?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “It’s beautiful, silver
and shimmering, just as I imagine your aura would be.”

Lucy stepped forward and knelt down beside
her sister. “There’s more.”

How could there possibly be more to it than
this. The love of his life saw ghosts and protected them from soul
eating Reapers, except for the Reapers who just so happened to be
their friends. “Okay.”

Hannah took a deep breath. “Not everyone who
can see the souls can be a Keeper. Keepers are a born race, we are
guardians and it is something that is passed down throughout the
generations. We have been trained to protect souls since we were
born. All of us,” She gestured to her brothers and sisters. “This
is our graveyard, our station to guard.

“When our father passed away, we found a
trunk in the attic with some heirlooms inside, but we also found
the prophecy hidden within.”

David painfully raised his eyebrows.
“Prophecy? Like a legend.”

Lucy and Hannah both nodded and Hannah
continued. “The legend says that the seventh child, from one of the
seven original lines of Keepers, born on the seventh day of the
seventh month, is the chosen Keeper who will bring forth an end to
the Reapers.” She glanced at Lucy and then added, “And Lucy is the
Chosen One.”

David felt like his brain was going to
explode from too much information. Good Lord, how had her family
been hiding all this for so long?

“The Keepers and the Reapers have been
warring for generations. Now, the Reaper society is after the
Chosen One, since they too know of the prophecy. Jack’s mother is
the Empress of their faction, their leader.”