by Brian Corley
“We’re done here, then,” I said. “You’re off to another neighborhood, no more messing with people, no more hauntings. Say it.”
“Fine, I’m out of here, and I’ll keep to myself.”
“You don’t have to keep to yourself. You could consider doing something beneficial.”
He laughed. “Like what?”
“I don’t know … help someone find their wallet or keys sometime.”
“Alright, fine, maybe I’ll do that. What’s your name, kid?”
“Jonah.”
“Jonah, are you going to keep kicking me out of places I want to live?”
“Not if you keep to what we agreed to.”
He nodded and flew off to the west. Once he was far enough away, I floated back to the house to write in the ashes and let Haley know that the ghost was just being silly and was going to go away now. She didn’t seem to care that much and skipped off to her room. Her parents, on the other hand, demonstrated a mixture of relief and consternation at their child’s ability to handle the situation.
The Psy-kicks went about the house and collected the incense bundles, cleaning what they left behind, while Zoe was handed another overstuffed envelope. Cool-haircut Lin called shotgun, much to the visible chagrin of Max, as the group piled into the van. We were headed to a 24/7 diner on Congress known for their banana pancakes, migas, and omelets. Apparently, they went there when we parted ways after our last case and decided it would be a tradition.
The diner was an old Austin institution with a pithy neon sign that welcomed you by apologizing for being open. Inside was an assortment of tables and booths with wood-grained Formica tabletops. The room was decorated with layers of hand-painted murals. I distinctly remembered that it smelled like hot coffee and a well-seasoned griddle from when I was alive.
We ordered a round of drinks—a mix of coffees and iced hibiscus mint teas. The excited chatter of the group hushed as Zoe pulled out the overstuffed envelope for distribution. She counted out that night’s takings in front of everyone twice, then pulled some rubber bands out of her bag to wind individual bundles to dispense.
Zoe cleared her throat and began what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech.
“Another solid night of work, everyone.”
A couple of Psy-kicks smiled and pantomimed excited applause. Zoe acknowledged them with a nod of her head and continued. “This is for the house,” she said, holding up the largest bundle of twenties that would go toward the business expenses, rent, and so on. “This is for our intrepid spiritual guide and his sidekick.”
Max bristled for show.
“Just messing with you, Max,” Zoe said, turning her attention to Quinton, who was sitting next to Max. “This is for you,” she said, tossing Quinton his cut and then going around the table doing the same for everyone else.
After everyone had their cash from the night’s job, she raised her glass of iced hibiscus mint tea and made a toast. “To the best damn people I know—living or dead.”
Smiles and the clinking of plastic glasses and thick ceramic mugs echoed around the table.
At that moment, I missed being able to eat or drink, and deliberately diverted my attention elsewhere in the room. It was surprisingly full at this hour, with people coming in as a final stop before going home from a big night out. A couple tables were full of students deep in their books, studying while nursing their coffees with endless refills.
Next to a podium by the entrance, a man waited to be seated: medium-length hair, slightly sweaty, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I got the impression he was there to see someone, and he scanned the room in such a way that he wouldn’t actually make eye contact with anyone—so unnoticeable that he was noticeable. There were plenty of apps to put people together, and who was I to judge? A waitress came to take him to a table, but he apparently had his heart set on another as he politely gestured and walked to one on the far side of the room.
I turned my attention back to Quinton, who was deep into a joke and about to deliver the punch line. “So anyway, the bartender said to the ghost, ‘You want the same thing as your friend, the skeleton?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m just here for
the boos.’”
The table cracked up.
“Hey,” I crackled through a portable radio, “I’m right here. Sure, it’s funny when the skeleton orders a beer and a mop because there are no such things as skeletons. Well, I mean, there are, just inside bodies.”
The table fell silent.
“Hey man, I’m really sorry. I didn’t think …” Quinton started.
“I’m just kidding. I love that joke,” I said.
Some awkward smiles were exchanged as eyes looked anywhere around the room other than the radio and Quinton. Max ordered chips and queso for the table, and the festive mood returned. More jokes were told, stories were exchanged, and anecdotes shared about that night. Apparently, Tammy almost set the curtains on fire in the master bedroom. Effing Tammy.
I couldn’t help but notice the guy sitting alone at the table on the far side of the room. It had been over an hour, and he was still just sitting there, nursing a coffee while watching us have a great time.
Around the diner, groups started breaking up, and tables began to empty while he sat waiting on someone that probably wouldn’t show—poor guy. It eventually got late enough for us to leave. Zoe paid for the meal and dropped most of the group back at the office/dojo where they filtered out to their various vehicles and rideshares. She drove Max and me back home while we traded stories of the weirdest endings to nights out we’d ever had. Max finished his story as we sat parked in front of the house.
“So I pulled up to her apartment, and she just sat there with this confused look on her face. It took me a few seconds, which felt like forever in retrospect, to realize that I’d taken her back to my ex-girlfriend’s apartment. You’ll be shocked—no second date.”
Zoe breathed a laugh out. “You’re an idiot. G’night.”
Max grabbed a radio and left.
“You never told me that one,” I said on the way back to the house from the van.
“Yeah, Lisa Underwood,” he said, shaking his head.
“Whooaa, Lisa?! No wonder you never said anything. Dude, that is hilarious. I guess that was after Kara?”
He nodded. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Max, you should know your secrets are safe with me. Partly because you’re my best friend, but mainly because I can’t tell anyone—because believe me, I would tell everyone we know about this.”
Laughing, he shook his head as we entered the house and headed to his bathroom.
“Night, Jonah,” he said, closing the door behind him.
I floated back to my room and picked up where I left off on The Hobbit audiobook and laid back on my bed until the sun started to come up.
Chapter 18
I faded in the next night with the bright light from my door-to-the-other-side illuminating the room and realized for the first time that it was always there when I woke up and disappeared at some point during the night. I wondered when it went away, and if it was some sort of countdown, disappearing earlier and earlier until it stopped showing up altogether. Not letting myself dwell on it for too long, I drifted around the house to see if Max was home. I found a note on the fridge that let me know he was out and wouldn’t be back until late. No work for us tonight then.
I floated into the living room to find a familiar form sitting on the couch with his feet kicked up on the coffee table.
“Hey Seph,” I said, hovering by the TV.
“Hey man, hope you don’t mind. Thought I’d stop by and check in. Heard you’ve been busy.”
He heard? Alright, not bad, so word is getting around about me. That’s cool. Feeling upbeat and emboldened, I floated down with much ceremony into a mock Eames lounger I decided to create,
modeled after one of the pieces I’d seen at DeeDee and Jeremy’s house. Sure, it was a little ambitious and out of place for my little house, but I liked it. To complete the look, I blinked into a velvet smoking jacket and silk pajama pants, while holding a straight-handled pipe in my hand. A plume of ghostly smoke wafted from its bowl.
“To quote a great spaceman—don’t get cocky, kid,” Seph deadpanned. “You’re acting as though it’s a good thing I’ve been hearing about you.”
I cocked a ghostly eyebrow. “Is it a bad thing?”
“TBD,” he replied. “See, we have a set of rules … maybe not rules … but a code we like to live by between … ahh … how should I say … planes.”
Planes? What did he mean—
“What do I mean by ‘planes’?” he said.
Damn—he was good.
“So let’s say Max walks in right now. He looks around, and from his point of view, it’s an empty room. He can’t see you, he can’t see me. For the sake of the illustration, a plane is just another word for a flat surface, and you can layer surfaces—like animation cells. Now stay with me.” He stacked his hands one on top of the other. “On this layer—this plane—we can see him, but he can’t see us. We’re on a different plane. Make sense?”
I nodded. “Sure, makes sense. The layers are on top of each other, and Max can feel when the layers get close because it gets cold.”
“Kinda,” he said, pausing, his brow strained. “What you’re talking about with the cold has more to do with energy. You’re interacting with the other plane and that takes energy. Heat is a neat and efficient form of energy, so you cool down a room. Kind of like how you burned calories from food for energy when you were alive.”
He stopped to think again before continuing. “I’m oversimplifying. Let’s skip the science right now so I can continue on to the point I’m trying to make.”
I nodded, took a ghostly drag on my pipe, and made some Baggins-esque smoke rings.
“That’s cute,” Seph acknowledged and continued. “So take me, an angel. I have access to entirely different planes, and I’m able to interact with both yours and the living’s should I want or need to.”
“So how come I don’t feel cold when you’re around?” I asked.
“You don’t feel temperature at all, Jonah. Remember? That said, I’m a bit of a different animal altogether. You wouldn’t feel a temperature change, but you would—and probably have—noticed a difference being around me. Like the night we met, you probably thought there was something unusual about me.
“Again, let’s not get bogged down in scientific detail for now. Living humans, on the other hand, would only notice what I would want them to notice. We may be casual observers or a test of their hospitality. On occasion, my kind have been heralds of events to come.”
“Like Gabriel,” I interjected.
“Like Gabriel,” he affirmed.
I flashed back to the other night when I tried to talk about Seph with the Psy-kicks but couldn’t. “Why can’t I remember your name or talk or write about you when I’m around my friends?”
He looked down and fidgeted with his jeans. “There are names that are to be known, and names that cannot be spoken. All for different reasons. There are reasons why Gabriel, Michael, Lucifer, or Uriel should be known on the mortal coil.”
“Or Legion,” I interjected again, trying to further prove that I knew things.
“Pssh,” he scoffed. “Legion—could that be more overplayed in modern pop culture? That was a name they used to illustrate the point that there were a bunch of them controlling that one guy. People act like it’s super creepy and scary to say ‘Legion.’ It’s an army formation made up of a few thousand soldiers—that’s it. Then those jerkoffs went on to kill a bunch of pigs. Oooh, big show of power!” He made mock spooky hand motions on either side of his face. “Idiots. Alright, let me get back on track. Think of Jacob—do you know that story?”
“Kind of.”
“Genesis tells the story of Jacob wrestling an angel but doesn’t give his name. Two things—maybe three—to take away from that. One: Jacob started wrestling a guy—a regular human guy—that he later realized was an angel after he put his hip out of socket and gave him a new name. Two: the writing never mentions the angel’s name. Three: it’s a weird story that doesn’t give much detail. It just makes it seem like some random guy goes up to him and they start wrestling—all night. There had to be more to the story than that.”
He made an interesting point. Did Jacob just wait around for people to come by and wrestle?
“Alright, but how?” I said. “I couldn’t even remember your name in the moment.”
Seph’s eyes sparkled a little, and he clapped. “Aha! Yes. Because you don’t have the authority. You’re on a different plane of existence now, Jonah. There are different rules, but they’re not written down. This is a no-man’s land.
“There is a set of rules for the living—whole books of them. You live your life, and then you move on. However, you decided you didn’t want to move on. Do you realize the will you had to exercise to do that?”
Apparently it was a rhetorical question because he picked up quickly where he left off.
“You’re beholden only to basic universal laws now. The one you want to know about just happens to be what humans—flesh or spirit—can and cannot be aware of. Not should not—cannot.”
I nodded my head, acting as though I understood, but I didn’t really.
“Which brings me to my next point—you’re bumping into one of those laws now. Humans are supposed to live their lives and make their choices based on the world they’re living in. With few exceptions, they’re not supposed to be influenced by otherworldly interactions.”
“What are you talking about? Me talking to my friends and clearing out spirits from people’s homes?”
“Yes to both, and add the fact that you’re in an actual business with them.”
“I don’t understand though. The people we’re helping are already interacting with spirits. If anything, we’re helping enforce the law by stopping the interaction.
“Also, you said they’re not supposed to be influenced by otherworldly interactions, but you just talked about two of them with Jacob and Legion. In fact, there are examples all through the Bible of God intervening in humans’ lives—testing this guy, delivering this nation, condemning this one. Playing favorites left and right.”
Seph fidgeted with his jeans again.
“Trying to figure out how to dumb it down for me?”
I asked.
He laughed, looked down at the Xbox controller on the coffee table, and held it up.
“No, no, sorry. You made a good point. This is an imperfect analogy, but maybe you’ll follow. You know that college football game you love?”
I nodded, trying to help the story along.
“You play in a mode where you start with the existing teams, then recruit guys to build it up over time. The school you pick isn’t the best, so you have to start that first season with two-and three-star guys, then you get better prospects season over season as you win more games, right?”
“Yep,” I replied.
“You find yourself getting attached to that three-star talent who overachieves, remembering all those rounds of recruiting visits and the day you got him to commit. You start him immediately because of his upside, and he becomes your go-to receiver as a freshman even though you have higher-rated players on the roster, right?”
I nodded, “Uh-huh.”
“So, you still love your team, but you’re playing this guy because you recruited him last season and he was the first person to say ‘yes’ to your school in the game.”
He took a breath to see if I was following. I nodded my head yes, and he continued.
“OK. Now you decide to create a player and name him something crazy to ma
ke your friends laugh when they watch you play, a player that you use all the time so they can’t miss it—like a quarterback or defensive end. Dozens of guys on the roster, but you pick your favorites.”
“Yep,” I replied, wondering where he was going with this.
“Or your soccer game. Your players message you and tell you they’re unsettled and they want more game time, so you give it to them because they asked. Or you loan or sell them because they keep asking, replacing them with players you scouted and put in your academy, again putting players on the roster because they’re young with upside and you’re the one that found them. Sometimes you sim games, or even seasons, and sometimes you want to be involved.”
“OK, so God plays favorites.”
“Well, yeah, occasionally. He created everything. He can do what He wants. You play favorites when you create players within a game you had no hand in designing. They’re simulations—they’re not even real. Imagine if you came up with the idea, created a world—beings with free will—and then set them loose to see what happened. It took six billion years to get this planet ready for a few thousand years of civilization.
“He’s busy, you know? This isn’t the only place He created. You look at the stars in the sky, and you have to know some of those support life. Earth is just His favorite. He created humans in His image, as flawed as you all are, and He picks favorites sometimes. Moses, Abraham, David, Paul: He intervened in their lives and plenty more that aren’t written down.”
“Don’t forget John, George, and Ringo.”
“Nah, Paul is obviously the favorite.”
“OK, we’ll talk about that another time. So I still don’t get how I’m breaking any laws by intervening. The people I’m interacting with have already been influenced by otherworldly forces.”
Seph nodded and gave me a sympathetic look.
“It’s a gray area. Look, you have to know by now that if angels exist, then so do demons—right?”