“You want me to abandon my post,” Ériu said softly, shock openly displayed on her face, ghostly eyes wide and jaw slack. “How could you ask me to leave them unprotected at a time when they are so vulnerable?”
“All three of them are smart, strong women,” J.T. said. “They’ll be fine while you’re gone. It won’t be for that long.”
“It wouldn’t take that long,” Ériu snapped. “You don’t understand, Jameson. I can’t. I can’t leave them. There’s too few and if they’re corrupted or lost we might as well give up all hope.”
He stared at her ghost. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t understand. No one’s bothered to explain any of this to anyone, so yes, I’m having trouble seeing why you’re refusing to go and save a man’s life right now.”
“Every spirit who lingers is lingering for a reason,” she said, her voice faint and strangled. “Don’t ask me to abandon my reason.”
“You wouldn’t be abandoning anything,” J.T. snapped. “You don’t think that Phelan’s damned important to the future of those children? You don’t think that they’ll need him the way you did when you were small?” The last bit was a gamble, but one he was willing to make. He knew that she and Phelan were close. Odds were good that it was a relationship developed from childhood on.
He refused to believe that she’d be so callous as to refuse to help someone who loved her and she loved in return—a brother, an uncle, a father.
“Phelan needs you now and those kids will need him someday. Don’t tell me you can’t do it because you’re afraid something bad might happen here while you’re away. There are a ton of us who will still be here to make sure that nothing bad happens to them.”
“Fine,” she said. “But you have to guard them for me. I can’t trust anyone else.
“It’s you, Jameson, or I remain here and you find another ghost for this job.”
“Done,” he said without thinking.
Ériu nodded and vanished into thin air.
awesum as ever – keep it up!