Is this job great or what? “Okay, I’ll take six pair. In fact, I’ll take six of everything. Hey, you still have that sonic emitter? It sure helped in San Francisco.” It saved my life when my team was attacked by a giant swarm of mind-controlled birds intent on delivering beaky death. Instead, I reduced most of them to avian goulash. It was just as gross as it sounds.
“Sorry, Kal. We had to recall them.”
I felt the short hairs on the back of my head start to stand up. “Why?”
He became evasive. “Oh, there was a small, itty-bitty snafu that happened to most of the units when they overheated.”
Uh-oh. “What kind of snafu, Alex?”
“Nothing major.”
I gave him a gimlet stare. “Spill, squirt.”
“They tended to … ah … release an abundance of energy due to the sudden proliferation of gasses in a confined space.”
Thermodynamics I understood quite well, thanks to a good old-fashioned edumacation at the University of Nebraska. “They exploded?” I asked incredulously.
“Only a little bit.”
One, two, three, four …. “You gave me a sonic emitter that could’ve exploded?”
He had to grace to look sheepish.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. “Okay, kid, no harm no foul. But will any of these new toys explode?”
“They shouldn’t.”
Freaking awesome.
“And now we go to Jim Daniels who is at the Quint Building waiting for the Bureau of Supernatural Investigation’s new team to arrive. What’s the mood like out there, Jim?”
Cut to Jim Daniels, who grins dead into the camera. He looked good and you could tell he knew it—his hair, despite the breeze, was a perfect brown helmet and his green eyes sparkled. “Well, Nina, there’s an almost festive mood here as crowds of people await the arrival of the next BSI team. The police have their hands full keeping them behind the barricades. Rumor has it that Kalevi Hakala, famous for being the public face of the Bureau of Supernatural Investigation, will personally lead this new team. Agent Hakala is best known as the subject of the blockbuster film, Things to do in Denver when you’re Un-dead, which dramatized his meteoric rise as the Bureau’s longest serving and most effective Agent.”
What a load of crap. I tapped an icon and the image disappeared off the DRAFTlite. I took them off and rubbed the bridge of my nose. The team and I sat in a large conversion van being driven by Wesley Ng, a first-year Agent who’d been recruited after the Chicago incident. Marsha Yevgeny, our Receptionist, sat shotgun, looking classy and sassy in her dark-brown Moi-Même business suit. Her red hair, which fell in ringlets around her ears, contrasted nicely with her pale, freckled skin. If I hadn’t been happily married with a four-month-old son, I’d have given her a serious look.
Damn but I hated to leave Jeanie and the boy at home alone, but I felt so excited to be out in the field again, even if it did look like a three-ring circus run by demented Chihuahuas. I knew deep in my heart that my wife and son would be just fine. Anybody who messed with Jeanie could count on a trip to the ER.
At least she had the Brownies to keep her company.
A couple of years ago, I saved the little guys from a church, or vice versa. Either way, I lured them into a toy Winnebago where they could set up shop. They performed dry cleaning and housekeeping services in exchange for a bowl of milk (they do like Oreos, but the last thing I needed was a house full of fat Faëries). The Sidhe (good and bad) could sense—track, whatever—the little guys, a fact I learned almost too late during an op in San Francisco. Fortunately, Alex covered their Winnebago in spell Shapes to hide them from the Sidhe Spidey Sense. He also supplied teeny tiny spelled overalls made of gold thread for them to wear when they emerged to take care of laundry. Oddly enough, the little guys didn’t mind and confirmed the spell’s efficacy by playing “Only the Lonely” on their miniscule musical instruments.
My stomach felt tight and hot as the van rumbled through downtown St. Louis toward the Quint Building. Five minutes out … five minutes until the television cameras and reporters shoved mics in my face and shouted the inane questions people with working brain cells wouldn’t dream of asking.
I’d never been to St. Louis. I’d never seen the Gateway Arch up close and personal and still didn’t want to. Somewhere in the Quint Building, six people lay dead. Oh, sure, they might not have been dead, just captured or incapacitated, but deep down in the hard places of my soul I knew better. Omicron was deader than disco and it was up to my team and me to find out why and kill whatever dared harm us.
So of course I wasn’t feeling up to sightseeing, wasn’t up to taking in the rich history of the place. I had to be cold and sharp and ready for action. I had to keep my grim resolve if we stood a chance of surviving what lay inside a million tons of steel, concrete, and glass. That said, what I did see of the city looked like the founders had discovered a heap of confusing, whorling deer trails and called them roads. It was like the city planners had been allergic to straight lines.
“Awww, guess who’s all famous and stuff, guys,” said Rat, our team Magician. He sported his own DRAFTlite and must’ve caught the same station. Six feet tall, so skinny he seemed constructed of pipe cleaners and rubber bands, he resembled the nickname he’d been given right down to the buck teeth. He also made most perverts look Amish, possessing the largest collection of porn I’d ever had the misfortune of seeing. Needless to say, no one came within twenty feet of his bedroom for fear of catching something nasty. Rumor had it that housekeeping wore HAZMAT suits in there.
Just looking at him gave me the itchies. Still, we needed a Magician, and I couldn’t be picky.
“Not interested in fame, Rat,” I grumbled, adjusting my Bureau-issue black armor. A combination of Kevlar and NewTanium, it could withstand rounds up to 20mm and made the wearer look pretty bad-ass.
Dove Jacobs grunted, unimpressed by my celebrity. As a rule, she was unimpressed by pretty much everything except her boyfriend Alex. How those two got together was anybody’s guess. It was like watching oil and water mix, or politicians and honesty. As for the rest of the team, they flashed grins, clearly amused by my discomfiture.
One of the other veterans, Billings, lost his smile so quickly it could’ve been an illusion. Big like the human equivalent of a redwood, wide, solid and iron hard, he was unfortunately born without a personality or imagination. He was stern and unflappable behind a beard big and thick enough to house eagles and long enough to make ZZ Top envious. So stoic, he made sloths look like sugar-addicted kindergarteners, but there was no better man to have at your back when you were facing Supernaturals that wanted to turn you into an all-you-can-eat buffet. Something was broken deep down inside the man that had him on the edge of violence 24/7, but considering my own mental instability, who was I to throw stones?
Then there was Buffalo. Easy to smile, quick as a snake, and as deadly a Sniper as ever worked for the Bureau. He sat in his chair at the back of the van, a wide grin splitting his dark face. “Be nice to the boss, Rat,” he said in a pleasant tenor. “Or his wife will turn you into something folks scrape off their shoes.”
Next to him Ng, angular Asian face all serious, merely nodded.
Buffalo continued, “You’re a good Magician, man, but Jeanie is in a whole different class.”
“That’s enough, people,” I sighed, checking my gear, securing all the lethal goodies gathered for this op. Sharp things, check; things that go boom, check; small arms, garrote, and nasty surprises for those that piss me off, check-check-check. Most of what I had on me would scare TSA spitless while the rest was concealed well enough to pass even a thorough search. “We’re almost at the site.”
The team immediately secured their own weapons and other goodies stashed on their persons and donned Faraday coats—long black leather dusters lined with platinum that could absorb a lot of magic.
I felt the van slow and pull to the right. Wesley and Marsha exited to the sound of a roaring cr
owd, an animal noise that shook me to my toes and rattled the vehicle. It was the sound of a hungry mob eager for blood, like that crowd at the Super Bowl that fully expects the players to eat one another with fava beans and a nice Chianti.
“Just swell,” I muttered as the sliding door opened.
A sudden silence crashed over me as I stepped onto the sidewalk. At least a thousand people—not all of them reporters, mind you—stared at me as the others followed behind. I wanted to check my fly to see if it was open.
A thousand voices erupted in a thunder of cheers, and I came close to a rather unmanly flinch. The noise buffeted my ears and stung my cheeks, and I stood there with the others, drinking it in. It rolled over us, around, and through us. It made me feel ten kinds of uncomfortable. So many looky-loos, people who wanted to see what fresh meat was being slid into the grinder. They packed the sidewalks up and down the street and around the corners. I looked up at the Hyatt Regency and saw faces pressed against glass.
The hoopla lasted for about a minute and slowly died down as Marsha strode forward, red hair shining in the sun. A bevy of reporters tried to lunge for her but were restrained by a cordon of police officers. I noted that at least two hundred cops were stationed around barricades constructed of yellow and black sawhorses. The crowd kept a respectful distance, but cell phones were visible, capturing our images so they could be uploaded to whatever social media site happened to be the big thing nowadays.
Marsha held up her hands and the last of the noise slowly drained away. “Ladies and gentleman of the press, I will start answering your questions now as I call upon you. No interruptions, no shouting out. You will direct your questions to me and me alone. Now, the gentleman from CBC. Yes, you.”
An older man, avuncular and handsome, raised his microphone. “Ma’am, since the disappearance and presumed death of Team Omicron as well the Ali-like return of Kalevi Hakala to the ring, do you still believe that the Supernatural threat inside the Quint Building is a ghost, or is it something else entirely?”
As convoluted as it was, the question was a good one and expected. I felt a stab of gratitude that he’d pronounced my name correctly, Kah-leh-vee Hah-kah-lah. For most American, Finnish sounds like singing “Gangnam Style” while gargling pea gravel. Marsha handled the question like the seasoned pro she was. “As of yet we have not reclassified the Supernatural that currently inhabits the Quint Building because we still don’t know exactly what it is. Although tenants have described a ‘spectral figure,’ details are sketchy. Yes, you from QNN.”
The QNN reporter, a pretty Asian with deep dimples, asked, “What does Mr. Hakala feel about Christopher Higglesworth’s portrayal of him in Things to do in Denver when you’re Un-dead?”
“I’m sure he thinks you could’ve asked a better question. You, in the tan blazer.”
“Jeremy Harper from the Omaha World-Herald, ma’am. Was Mr. Hakala brought back to active status because of this threat? Is it a ploy by the Supernatural Committee to keep the public from panicking?”
“Let me handle this one, Marsha,” I subvocaled. She gave a slight nod as I pressed forward. “To answer your question,” I began, removing my DRAFTlite so they could see my baby blues, “it’s more a matter of timing. Now that my son is a few months old, I’ve been itching to get back in the field. This situation seemed like the perfect opportunity.” A lie, but a comforting one that I delivered with a thousand-watt smile. The press looked ecstatic. I’d been practicing that grin in the mirror.
Marsha wrapped up the press conference with a complete lack of charm that left me impressed, then ushered the team to the glass double doors that led into the Quint Building.
Some place, let me tell you. It was built like an enormous thirty-story kettledrum made of blue-mirrored glass and shining steel, the sort of soulless architecture that seemed to dominate American cities these days.
“Buffalo, spike that door open,” I said, entering a small foyer. According to the file, the strange force had coated the building shortly after, or at the same time as communications with the outside world were cut off.
“With what?” he asked. “It’s not like I carry doorstops on me.”
“Get creative.”
Creative turned out to be several large rocks from the zero-scape area around the building, each weighing a good ten pounds.
As I stepped through the secondary door into the gloom of the main lobby, Marsha called out from behind, “What do you want me to do if that force field returns, Kal?”
There was no good answer to that question. “Wait until morning. And go see if you can restore power to this building.” The heavily tinted floor-to-ceiling windows choked the sunlight down to a trickle.
“Got it.”
I looked around. We were in.
A ringing filled my ears. The DRAFTlite. I tapped an icon. “Go for Kal.”
“Hello, Kal,” said a familiar but welcome drone. “Miss me?”
“Ghost!” I cried. This just kept getting better and better. “You in this with us?”
“Of course. Send a Ghost to catch a ghost. Correct?”
Chapter Five
Rat
Everybody Hurts
Man, I hate the fact that people think I’m a perv. I ain’t no perv. I just have an appreciation for the fine female form. Is that so wrong? I mean, I dig ’em fat, thin, tall, short, all shapes and sizes. I see the beauty in all of ’em. Is that pervy? No, I love women and have a healthy libido.
Well, maybe more than healthy, but that’s okay too because there are women out there who need some prime lovin’ and I’m the guy to give it to them.
But I could handle any magical job the boss could toss my way—no doubt about it. Dove Jacobs (what kind of name is that?) gave me a crusty look every time she thought I wasn’t lookin’. It was enough to give a fella a complex. As for Kal, he never gave me any grief, but I could always tell he was none too thrilled to have me as team Magician. Screw ’em both with an egg beater.
Wish I coulda talked to the press, given them an interview with a real live Magician, but our Receptionist made it plain that there would be no repeat of the Sixer fiasco. What a tool, ruinin’ things for the rest of us.
I looked around the ginormous lobby of the Quint Building. Okay, I felt like a country bumpkin at Trump’s mansion, but gee-whiz, that place could teach a billionaire oil sheik a lesson or two about opulence—although the bullet holes here and there, along with some shattered glass, took some of the charm clean away.
Imagine if you will (to quote that guy from Twilight Zone) a three-story-tall lobby done up in red-veined Italian marble, a cylinder that swept up to glass-lined balconies (some destroyed by gunfire) framed in silvered steel. Twin mahogany staircases branched up and away from the wide redwood semicircle of the reception desk, curlin’ to the second floor where I could just catch a glimpse of dark wood doors leading into business offices. Red banners floated above our heads, at least a dozen, emblazoned with Chinese dragons in shades of green, blue, and silver.
“Rat!” The voice cut through my wool-gatherin’ sharpish and bounced around the lobby a few times.
“Yeah, Kal?”
“Quit gawking. You got a forensic spell or something that can help us find out what happened here?” The big guy’s face looked carved in the same kinda marble I was walking on.
I shook my head. “Not really, boss. But if you need a fireball or jump spell, I’m your man.”
He looked like he was gonna spit a curse, but somethin’ caught his eye. “Everyone, keep a look out.”
Billings, another really big guy, nodded and unslung his AR-15, ready for bear. Dove Jacobs (a tasty morsel—nearly broke my arm last year when I told her she had a great rack … why can’t chicks take a freakin’ compliment?) soft-stepped her way to the reception desk just as the lights flickered on. Someone was Johnny-on-the-spot, turnin’ the power back on, and I tapped a virtual icon on my DRAFTlite, killin’ the enhanced vision for low-light situations. As f
or Buffalo and Ng, they stayed close to the boss, curious as to what he’d found.
Kal knelt down over what looked like a dried puddle of blood next to the window. There was a big streak of brown to match the one on the floor. With one gloved hand, he pulled somethin’ from the center of the mass. There was a scrapin’ sound like duct tape pullin’ free from skin as he worked it free.
For the first time I saw a crack in Ng’s face. Nice to know he could actually feel somethin’. For a while there, I thought he was part Vulcan. “Is that an eyeball?” he asked.
The white and blue orb was all crusted in brown. Yep, an eyeball all right. Gross.
“Sure is,” Kal confirmed quietly. “Sixer’s. Just like Tylan said in her report.”
Buffalo chimed in, “That’s messed up.” He looked like he wanted to hurl, not that I blamed him.
“Tylan said Sixer shot himself with his own weapon. Shot his eyes out, looks like.” Kal seemed oblivious to the gruesome orb in his hand, as if he were a million miles away. “Now what would make a three-year veteran like Sixer kill himself?” Those scary blue eyes settled on the window. “What force could keep a bullet from penetrating glass? Anyone hazard a guess?”
In my two years in the Bureau I’d seen a lot of mean and dirty things, things that would make most Straights run gibberin’ for the hills, but my experiences put a hard coatin’ on my soul, so starin’ at that eyeball didn’t faze me too terrible much.
Ghost put his two cents in, his (its?) weird, creepy voice hittin’ us all through the DRAFTlite. “I have a question for everyone. Where is Sixer’s body? It should be here, where it fell after he committed suicide. In fact, where is the rest of Omicron?”
And wasn’t that a thought? Still, the spook was right; there shoulda oughta been a body, or bodies. Ghost creeped me out some, but I’d rather have him on my side than a dozen hard-core types. I noodled on that thought for a moment before a not-so-great idea hit me ugly between the eyes. Maybe more than ugly, like downright put-a-bag-over-her-head-before-you-screw-her lookin’ idea that had my stomach bubblin’ with acid.
The Spirit in St. Louis Page 5