Read Love Your Entity for Free Online

hear Ruby had been murdered. Spirits who couldn’t move to the other side often had ties to this world caused by a violent death or some other intense unresolved situation.
    “Who murdered you?” Sierra asked.
    “Hal.”
    “The evil ghost upstairs?”
    Ruby nodded.
    “Shit,” Sierra said.
    “I know.”
    “Start at the beginning. Did you live in this house? Did he?”
    “I worked here,” Ruby said.
    “Worked here? As what?”
    Ruby pointed to her scarce attire. “What do you think?”
    “I didn’t want to make any assumptions.”
    “I was a prostitute. I’m not real proud of it, although I was very good at it. I don’t like to brag but I was the most popular girl in Al’s prostitution ring.”
    “Al?”
    Ruby nodded. “Al Capone.”
    “You knew him?”
    “In the biblical sense?”
    “In any sense.”
    “Yes, I knew him. So did Hal. Hal was in charge of the prostitution division of the business.”
    Great. So the ghost upstairs was a former gangster. That didn’t bode well.
    “And no, I never knew Al in the biblical sense,” Ruby added. “Al never lived here. He had a house on South Prairie Avenue on the South Side of the city.”
    “What was he like?”
    “Forget about Al. This is about me, remember?”
    “Okay, well then … when did you die?”
    “I didn’t just die. I was murdered. On Valentine’s Day in 1929.”
    “That’s the date of the Valentine’s Day massacre when Al Capone’s gang allegedly gunned down a rival gang.” Sierra leaned forward. “Did you know about that? Is that why you were killed?”
    “I was never involved in those kinds of dealings. I was killed because I wanted to leave the business. I was dressed for work at the time, which is why I am stuck in these clothes instead of some mysterious white dress like girl ghosts are supposed to wear.”
    “Spirits often appear wearing the clothes they wore when they died.”
    “Yeah, well, after wearing these garters for ninety years I am sick of it,” Ruby said. “At first I thought this was a version of hell, that I was sent here because I was a prostitute. I thought being stuck here forever was my punishment.”
    “Why is Hal here?”
    “Maybe that’s his punishment. He spends most of his time upstairs. Didn’t you see him up there?”
    “No. You’re the only ghost I’ve seen so far.”
    “His portrait is up there on the wall. The large framed photograph on the wall. He’s smoking a cigar.”
    “Ronan said he smelled a cigar.”
    “I wonder why you can see me and not him.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “How much experience do you have with ghosts?” Ruby asked.
    “Most of the spirits I’ve dealt with don’t go back as far as you do,” Sierra admitted.
    “What does that mean?” Ruby demanded. “That I’ve been here so long there’s no chance of me moving on?”
    “Did you see white light when you died?”
    “Was I supposed to?”
    “Did you see anything?”
    “I saw red. A lot of red. I was stabbed like twenty times. Blood gushed everywhere.”
    Feeling faint, Sierra rolled onto her side and tried to catch her breath. It was one thing to write about stabbings and battles, but it was another to actually be speaking to a ghost who had died that way. She quickly sat up again, reprimanding herself for the momentary show of weakness. She was a writer. She should be viewing this as research. And neither the sight of blood nor the discussion of it had ever bothered her before.
    Ruby was eyeing her suspiciously “What’s the point of you being able to see me if you don’t have the answers?”
    “I never claimed to have the answers to everything.”
    “Okay, how about this one question. What are we supposed to do now?”
    Sierra countered with a question of her own. “Why did you say that Ronan had to stay or we would all perish?”
    “Because he can protect us from Hal.”
    “How?”
    “I’m not sure. I just sense that he can.”
    Sierra had never dealt with a ghost’s intuition before so