by E. E. Holmes
While I waited for her to return, I thumbed scanned the article on Talia Simms. The paparazzi had managed to snap a few photos of her in a wide-brimmed black hat and oversized sunglasses as she walked through the wrought iron gates of Campbell’s classic Southern plantation house. Even with her face half obscured, her misery was obvious. My first feeling was overwhelming empathy; I knew what it was like to lose the person closest to me, and I understood the near-crippling need for answers that followed such a loss. But right on the heels of that empathy came a surge of anger so powerful that it nearly choked me. The thought that anyone could take advantage of such pain, that someone would twist it and mold it for profit, made me see red. I chucked the magazine onto the desk in disgust.
“I’ll be so happy when Halloween is over and this parade of loons marches back where it came from,” Annabelle grumbled as she flounced back into the office.
“Yeah, but in the meantime, you’ll take their money with a wink and a smile,” I said.
“A wink and a grin, more like,” she said, and flashed me a perfect shit-eating grin in demonstration and for good measure. Turning grave once more, she gestured to the file still on the desk in front of me. “So? What do you think?”
I picked up the photograph of Jeremiah Campbell. “I think this guy is going down. Hard.”
Annabelle smiled again. “That’s my girl.”
“We’re going to have to really think about this one, though,” I said. “It’s not going to be as simple as buying a ticket to an event, like this weekend in Poughkeepsie. Campbell sounds like he’s really exclusive. How would we even get a foot in the door?”
“I haven’t worked that out yet,” Annabelle admitted, “but it definitely merits further research, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely. Let’s get to work on this one. Can I take this?” I pointed to the file.
“Yes, that’s your copy. I’ve got my own,” she said.
“I’ll get Tia to work on it, too. You should call the team and tell them to start packing for Bourbon Street.”
“You’ll see them before I will. Ghost Oracle Live is tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I wish you could come.”
Annabelle laughed. “Me too, but did you see it out there? It’s a madhouse. If I left, Sarah would get eaten alive by vampires and slutty Disney princesses.”
“I know, I know. You need to be here. We’ll kick ass in your honor, I promise.” I said, giving her a little military salute. “I’ll get Hannah to make copies of this file at school, and I’ll give them to the guys when I see them. Good luck with the costumed masses.”
I tucked the file under my arm, ducked out of the office, and began to battle my way across the shop to the front door. The cast of Sailor Moon was still there; they were now ogling an occult-themed jewelry display.
“Excuse me,” I said as I edged behind them.
The nearest girl turned to give me more room, caught sight of me, and gasped. “Oh my God,” she squealed, rummaging in her bag for her phone, which she extracted with fumbling hands, “You’re a real witch, aren’t you? Can we get a picture with you?”
Keeping my face as solemn as possible, I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I don’t appear in pictures. It’s part of my witchy magic. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my coven. Tonight we’re sacrificing children in the woods with our familiars, and they do so hate it when I’m late.”
Annabelle was right—idiots, all of them. I walked away, leaving a stunned silence in my wake.
4
Paranormal Vigilantes
“THAT’S TOTALLY MEDIEVAL,” MILO SAID WITH A CRINGE. “I mean, that’s not even creative—we’re not in the Dark Ages. Where do they get these people, anyway?”
“Catholic school?” I suggested. “Anyway, why should I be offended? It’s the actual Wiccans who I feel sorry for. Imagine trying to peacefully practice your religion while being constantly accosted like that?”
It was early Saturday morning. Tia was already up, dressed, and out for a run along Salem Harbor. Hannah had gone out after her seminar with some friends to celebrate finishing their first major presentations, so I figured she was sleeping in. As for me, I’d been so wiped out from unpacking that I’d fallen asleep with my face in the Campbell file before Hannah had gotten home.
I now had the entire contents of the file spread across the living room rug. I should’ve been working on preparations for Poughkeepsie, but once I’d started reading about Campbell, I couldn’t stop. I was borderline obsessed; Campbell was definitely one of the strangest situations we’d investigated so far.
“Hey,” came a wisp of a voice that I now knew as well as my own. “What are you doing up so early?”
Hannah shuffled into the room, looking even tinier than usual in her oversized striped pajamas and her very fluffy slippers. Her slender fingers were cupped around a steaming coffee mug with the words “Morning People Suck” on it. She must’ve slipped into the kitchen while I was too buried in the file to notice.
“I just can’t stop looking at this new case,” I said, stifling a yawn and reaching for my own coffee, which was now room temperature. I took a swig anyway. That was the thing about me and coffee—hot, iced, burned, lukewarm, day-old, I didn’t care as long as it packed a caffeinated punch.
“A new one? Already?” she asked. “We haven’t even finished with the Freeman case yet.”
“Yeah, Annabelle gave it to me yesterday. I’ll let you study the folder on the drive to Poughkeepsie. It’s pretty intriguing.”
“Great,” said Hannah. She was never one to turn her nose up at new reading material, even a case file.
“Enough about this stuff,” I said, gathering up the papers into a stack and placing them into the file folder. “I got your text but I need details. How did your presentation go?”
Hannah shrugged, biting her lip. “It was okay, I guess. I got that embedded video clip to work, thank goodness.”
“Were you happy with how it went?” I pressed. When I first met Hannah on the day we’d rescued her, she had drawn a protective shell around herself so intense that she could barely interact with anyone, with the exception of Milo. She’d improved a lot—hanging out with new classmates wouldn’t have even been possible for her a year or two ago—but she still wasn’t one to volunteer details, even to me.
“I guess so,” she said with a non-committal shrug.
“Oh please,” Milo sighed, slipping into the room. “She was brilliant!”
“So she actually let you back into the class yesterday?” I asked.
“I was on my absolute best behavior, halo intact,” Milo said, rolling his eyes. “Our girl needed some moral support and a friendly face in the audience.”
“A face I had to force myself not to look at the whole time, in case everyone thought I was crazy, staring off into space like that,” Hannah said pointedly. She raised her eyebrows defensively at Milo. “I told you not to come. I could’ve managed everything just fine by myself.”
“Of course you could’ve,” Milo said. “But I’m a proud Spirit Guide, okay?”
“But really, how’d it go?” I asked.
Milo raised his hand in the air like a fifth grader who wanted desperately to be called on. “Can I tell her? Can I tell her?” he pleaded.
Hannah’s stern expression softened into a grin. “Fine, go ahead.” She folded herself into a snuggly little knot next to Milo on the sofa. How she made cuddling next to a freezing cold spirit look cozy, I still couldn’t figure out, but I didn’t question it anymore. Hannah may have been my sister, but Milo was her soul mate. Pun intended.
“She absolutely killed it! The professor kept nodding and smiling, and checking things off his list. Everyone clapped at the end—and not just politely, but like they knew they just got their asses handed to them!”
Hannah giggled. “It’s a class, Milo, not a competition.”
By way of a reply, Milo shouted grandly to
an invisible audience. “Everything’s a competition. And you won! My baby is a star!”
“Alright, take it easy there, Milo. You sound as hard-core as Mama Rose,” I said. “Seriously though Hannah, I’m proud of you. I know you were worried, even though we all had no doubt you’d do great.”
“Thanks. First major grad school project done!” she said happily.
“Just in time for our first major paranormal-vigilante take down! Are you excited?” I asked.
“Nervous,” she replied, with her smile sliding off of her face as if it had just dripped down into her mug. “Look I’ve been thinking about it a lot since we bought the tickets…
“Here we go,” I muttered.
“Are you sure this is really a good idea? It’s so… public.”
“That’s why it’s such a good idea!” I said, shoving the Campbell file into my bag. I pulled out a second, much bigger file. “Lionel Freeman will never give up this gig unless he’s forced to… it’s too lucrative.”
Lionel Freeman was a celebrity psychic, which in my opinion made him the absolute lowest of the low. He didn’t just profit marginally from his “gift:” He built an empire on its crooked back. He was the star of his own reality TV show called the Ghost Oracle, where he went around and met with clients while the cameras were rolling; he always had a conveniently timed and comforting message from the deceased ready for each meeting. Freeman had this habit of closing his eyes and holding two fingers to his temple when he “received a message,” as though he could hear the spirit better by pressing a button on the side of his head. It was all so staged, so incredibly insulting—I almost couldn’t believe that people fell for it. The first time I watched the Ghost Oracle, Tia had to take the Dustbuster to the carpet for a half an hour afterward because I’d thrown so much popcorn at the television.
Of course, it was obvious to us that Lionel Freeman was a master at digging into his guests’ backgrounds. But what Freeman’s research didn’t tell him was that Annabelle and I were masters at digging around too. We began reaching out to people who had been featured on past episodes; it was shockingly easy to see a pattern emerge.
People wrote to Freeman with their sob stories, begging to appear on his show. The irony was that those letters probably contained every detail Freeman needed to craft a really convincing lie. Some people even made specific requests—they’d beg Freeman to reach out to their dead father and ask if it was okay to sell the family home. Things like that. And so, of course, these poor people—these vulnerable and confused victims—would turn up for a session with Freeman and get exactly what they’d asked for. Hell, they ate that shit up.
The show had become so popular that Freeman started hosting live events all over the country. Thousands of people showed up; they shelled out absurd amounts of money for tickets, just for the chance that Freeman might invite them onstage with a message from the other side. He held his events in theaters and even small stadiums, most of which were packed to the rafters with the desperate and grieving. This weekend, we would be among the desperate and grieving, too—and we’d put a stop to Freeman’s scam. For tonight’s event, we’d had to buy our outrageously marked-up tickets from price-gouging resellers, but we’d finally managed to get a foot in the door. And a foot was all it would take for us to show the world exactly how much of a money-grubbing charlatan Lionel Freeman really was.
§
A sharp knock echoed from our door, interrupting my thoughts; I jumped up and flung it open.
“Hey—oh! Hi,” I said, rather breathlessly, especially considering that I’d only walked about two dozen steps to the door.
Finn stood in the hallway, kicking at the threshold absently with one foot. “Morning.”
I could feel my pulse quicken in my neck. I fumbled around with my hands, suddenly and inexplicably unsure of what to do with them.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I thought I’d better come for the meeting, so I know what the plan is for today.”
“How did you know there was a meeting?” I asked, frowning. I certainly hadn’t told him about our plans for the morning, and I was almost positive Hannah hadn’t either.
“Jess, it’s my job to know when these things are happening—even if you choose not to inform me,” replied Finn gruffly, crossing his arms.
Finn wasn’t getting away with that, not on my watch. “That wasn’t really an answer to my question,” I said flatly.
“I must admit I was hoping you’d not notice that,” he replied as his expression turned even more truculent.
I felt my blood starting to boil. Part of me wanted to take Finn by the collar and shout, “What time warp do you live in? It’s the 21st century! I don’t need a big strong man to protect me!” But of course—as much as I hated to admit it—it just wasn’t true, at least not totally. The Durupinen did need protection, and only trained Caomhnóir could provide it. The challenges of our calling meant that we sometimes found ourselves in situations that we couldn’t handle on our own—and it seemed I was particularly good at landing myself in these. But we didn’t need the Caomhnóir because they were men; we needed them because they were trained in military-grade defense, and experts in the Castings that kept us safe. If Finn hadn’t been there to do his job, I would’ve been dead several times over by now.
But I swallowed my tirade. Finn and I had had the “invasion of privacy” and “surveillance and spying are illegal” talk one too many times. Nothing I could say would make the slightest bit of difference to how he went about his Caomhnóir duties.
Resigning myself once again to his job as my friendly neighborhood stalker, I waved Finn through the door. I was almost polite about it, too.
“You’re early,” I said, following him through to the living room. “The team won’t be here until…”
“I know that. I wanted to speak to you before the others turn up,” Finn said, pulling off his leather jacket and draping it carefully over the back of the nearest chair.
“Good morning Finn,” said Hannah quietly. She wiggled up from the sofa and went into her bedroom, with Milo in tow. Finn nodded to her as she left. These days, Hannah liked to give me and Finn plenty of space.
“Well then, fire away,” I replied, plunking myself back down on the floor and reaching for my coffee.
He sighed, as though he already knew I wouldn’t like whatever he was about to say. I perked up a bit, putting myself on guard.
Finn began carefully. “I recognize that I have no authority over where you decide to go and what you decide to do…”
“Correct,” I interjected. “But I have a feeling that whatever you’re going to say flies right in the face of that assessment, doesn’t it?”
Finn didn’t answer my question, but instead dropped into the chair closest to me and said, “It does, yes. I’ve come to persuade you not to go through with this trip.”
“Seriously, Finn? You’re going to start that right now, four hours before we’re supposed to leave?”
“Yes. Now’s the perfect time,” Finn insisted. “I’ve been looking into this event. I think it’s much too large and much too public for you to tackle, even with the team backing you up. I appreciate your mission, Jess, but there’s got to be a better, more private, way to take this Freeman fellow out.”
I felt my hackles rise, as they so often did whenever someone made the merest suggestion that I couldn’t do something. “We’re prepared, Finn. We’ve researched Lionel Freeman for months, and we know exactly how he operates. This is going to be a piece of cake.”
“And what if you get caught?” he asked. “What if you get arrested?”
I laughed. “Arrested? For what? We’re not doing anything illegal! We’re not breaking in—we purchased tickets, just like everyone else.”
“And what about the surveillance Iggy and his lot will be doing? Is that also one hundred percent on the up and up?” Finn asked.
I squirmed a little. “Probably?”
>
Finn scowled. “Getting the police involved—potentially or otherwise—is too risky. Have you considered how this might jeopardize our security? Did you ever stop to think about that?”
“Oh, Finn, get a grip on yourself,” I groaned. “I’m not going to go charging in there with a ‘Durupinen Vigilante’ T-shirt! We’re just going to surreptitiously upset Freeman’s usual bag of tricks so that he can’t take advantage of anyone else.”
“Really? Surreptitiously? Are you capable of doing anything surreptitiously?” Finn asked.
“Yes, surreptitiously. I’ve been doing this stuff for over a year, and none of the Durupinen have even noticed. This isn’t our first rodeo, Finn, it just happens to be our biggest. Look, if you’re so worried about it, stay here. Stay out of it. That way you won’t get in trouble with the Durupinen overlords!”
Finn’s face turned red at my words, and his features twisted into a furious, knotted expression. “There’s no question of your going without me, so I suppose I’ll just have to be prepared to tidy up your mess. I don’t know why I bothered bringing it up. You’ve never listened to a word I’ve said in my life! Why did I think you’d start now?”
“I did listen to a few of them,” I said quietly. “But they didn’t mean much, in the end.”
Finn opened his mouth with every intention of arguing with me, but I met his eye, challenging him. He somehow turned even redder, snapped his mouth shut, and stalked off into the kitchen. I sat and watched his retreat, hoping my words had hurt him. I wanted—needed—Finn to feel a tiny portion of the hurt that ached and ached inside every time he looked at me.
I tore my gaze away from him and found Hannah and Milo peeking out of the bedroom at me; of course they’d heard everything. The pity in their faces was unbearable.
“Jess—” Hannah began.
“Let’s have some breakfast, then get everything in the Freeman file organized for a final review,” I said, refusing to look at either of them. “The team will be here soon, and we have a lot of prep to do.”