"So spill it. What aren't you telling me, boys?" Tasha said with such venom that it was sure to produce a confession from one of those nimrods.
"I'm sure none of us knows what you're referring to, Agent Young," said a man in the corner of the room. He was pouring himself a cup of coffee so Tasha couldn't make out his face, but his voice told her everything she needed to know.
"Agent Duncan," Tasha replied, lowering her eyes in begrudging respect.
Jeffery Duncan was the Lead Spirit Agent. Many years ago he was Tasha's trainer. They had been close once. He had taken Tasha under his wing. He treated her like a daughter. Then his wife got hurt. Tasha spent many days with him in the hospital, praying with him for her to wake up, with no results. The weeks turned into months, months into depression, and finally to bitterness. Tasha did her best to avoid him after that.
She always thought he might have blamed her for his wife's death. She had gotten hurt during a routine training session that Tasha was leading. Jeffrey told her over and over again that he didn't blame her. His wife wanted to be trained by the best, which meant Tasha. She was a good student but got careless and cocky. That's how she fell. She wasn't watching her footing, despite Tasha's warnings, and fell two stories. Broke multiple bones and put her into the comma that still trapped her between worlds. Although James told her over and over again that he never blamed Tasha, the feeling that he did never went away.
Duncan turned around and smiled his down-turned smile at Tasha. It saddened her. He used to be so full of life, so vivacious. Now he just seemed… empty.
"This was supposed to be a routine bag and return," he said. "Something your team was more than capable of handling." He took a sip of his coffee. "I'm shocked that you have come back empty handed."
"There is hardly anything routine about this mission," Tasha snapped, adding a quick "sir" at the end, hating herself for having to do it.
Stan Milton, head of recon, stepped in. He pushed his thin wire frames up the bridge of his nose. "What do you mean that wasn't routine, Agent Young?"
Stan was one of the best minds in the business. Tasha was glad to have him on board for this retrieval.
"Well, for starters, these guys are old. Some of the oldest I've ever sensed, which instantly qualifies this house as a class A capture, not a class D as our instructions indicated. Second, there were at least a dozen spirits in the house, not the one ghoul as listed, and, Jeffrey," she said, turning to him, intentionally using his first name to get under his skin, "they have already sucked out the soul of one of my best agents!"
Agent Duncan's upper lip twitched. That was his tell. He was hiding something.
"I had forgotten how perceptive you are, Tasha." Touché.
The others in the room began to fidget quietly in their own subtle way. They were all in on this. What was going on?
"Fine. You want the truth?" Agent Duncan said, walking right up to Tasha and staring down his nose at her. "They weren't supposed to take Adam. They were supposed to take you."
Tasha felt like she'd been punched in the gut.
"Why you son of a—" Beside her, Eduardo lurched forward to take a swing at Duncan but was instantly thwarted by one of the Feds in the room that was armed with a taser. When Tasha could actually register what had happened, Eduardo was on the ground and his hands were being bound in plastic ties.
"Okay, someone better start explaining what the hell is going on or I walk!" Tasha said loud enough to quiet the mayhem in the room. She was banking on their needing her skills for the rest of this mission, when in truth, she had no idea what role she played anymore. Her whole world was spinning on its axis. The company she thought she knew was keeping something from her. "Why? Why did you want them to take me?"
Duncan smiled. "We merely wanted our best agent inside the ghost world so we could bring an end to their kind once and for all."
Tasha baulked. Their kind. He never used to talk about the spirits like that.
"And you didn't think it would be appropriate to let me in on this little plan of yours?"
Stan started talking before Duncan could open his mouth. "It was a delicate situation, agent. Our intel pegged the house to hold a chief Defier…" That got Tasha's attention. Bagging a chief would be the highlight of her career. No one had ever caught one before.
"With all due respect, Stan, letting us into that house without informing us of what we were up against was unethical and tactically stupid, which is not something you would do. So what's going on?" She directed the last question to Jeffery.
"Honestly, I didn't think you'd go along with the plan," he said.
"What? Capture a chief? Of course I'd do that!"
There was uncomfortable silence as the men in the room avoided eye contact with her. Tasha didn't have time for these head games.
"So now what? Your plan backfired. How do we get Adam out?"
Jeffrey actually started to laugh.
"Backfired? What makes you think it backfired?"
Stan shot me an uncomfortable look of concern.
"Well, for starters, I didn't get taken…"
"Yet."
Tasha looked around the room. Every man's eyes betrayed that they knew something she didn't.
"Explain."
Stan and Jeffrey exchanged a loaded glance before Stan spoke again.
"Adam's capture was a surprise for us—we will admit to that—but we believe they took him in an attempt to make you weaker."
"That's irrational," Tasha said.
"Actually, it makes perfect logic to a ghost." Jeffrey quipped. "If your 'husband' died, then you would be emotionally drained, as you would naturally go into mourning." Tasha frowned. "They can sense your strength, Tasha. Even I can pick up on your stamina, and I'm human."
"But, sir, it doesn't make any sense. Why would they care if I was weak…? Unless…" Tasha swallowed. "They're after me. Aren't they?"
There was an awkward silence that blanketed the white room, confirming her suspicion. "We believe so," Stan said eventually. "We theorize that they've been watching the human world over the years. We think they have figured out we're recycling the souls we catch. All theory, mind you, but this is what our intel leads us to believe. So it makes sense to assume that they've also been watching for who is responsible, for what is essentially their genocide."
Tasha remained silent, unsure of what to say. A first for her.
"It appears that you, Agent Young," said Jeffrey, an odd look on his face, "are the ghost world's Hitler—and they want you eradicated."
Tasha's mouth went dry.
"So they took Adam to use as the bait for me?"
Jeffrey sighed as though he were frustrated with having to explain this whole thing to her.
"That is our assumption, and if we ever want to see your partner alive again, we need to act swiftly."
Tasha grinded her hands into her hips, hating that he was right.
"What do we need to do?"
Jeffrey motioned to Stan. He straightened his glasses again while Jeffery sat down at the conference table and put up his feet.
"When you go back to the house," Stan said, "Adam's body will have been removed. The moment you left the house earlier, we arranged for a 'neighbor' to stop by and see you. She will conveniently notice something amiss and stumble upon the dead body and call the cops. Our men will go in and get Adam out via our ambulance and into our emergency wing. We have our best Recoverer on call to work on him.
"I'm your best Recoverer," Tasha said, blinking at him.
Jeffrey cleared his throat. "Yes, well, you'll be busy, won't you?"
She hated it when he was logical. "Continue, Stan."
"You'll return later tonight, distraught with emotion. You'll even end up taking a few 'sleeping pills' to ward off the sorrow so you can sleep. They will, of course, be placebos." He handed her a small bottle. "You'll pretend to fall asleep, and, in theory, they'll come for you."
"And just what am I supposed to do then?"
Jeffrey answered her with a heavy layer of sarcasm that she couldn't understand. "You snag them before they can perform the capture, obviously. We think the leader will be in on this purge. Your job will be the same as always. Bag and tag. Your government needs you, agent."
Tasha's nostrils flared.
"No. The government is just fine," Tasha spat. "But Adam isn't." She turned to look at Stan. "If this means Adam has a shot, then let's do it."
He nodded. "It's probably the only one he'll get."
***
The next several hours went exactly according to their master plan. Adam was transported out of the house, where Tasha got to see him only through the examination window before they escorted her out of the building. His color wasn't good. Too blue for the amount of time he'd actually been gone.
Eduardo didn't get a chance to see Tasha before she left either. Apparently taking a swing at Duncan got you in more hot water than even remotely necessary. He no doubt had to be detained by HR. Tasha wasn't worried though. She knew she'd see him again. Just like she knew she'd see Adam again. Although, if she were honest, she wasn't sure if it would be in their ghost forms or human ones.
In the car ride back to the house, Tasha opened the Tupperware of chopped onions Stan had diced up for her. When she was about a block away, she brought the container up to her face and inhaled deeply. The burning tears began at once. She placed the container on her dashboard and drove the rest of the way in a blurred, painful weeping mess.
Putting on her acting hat, Tasha fumbled out of the car, knowing she would be watched from the windows. She made sure to stick a few onions in her balled-up tissues so she could recharge her tears, if needed.
When she came into the kitchen, her phone was pressed to her ear. Her rehearsed call was about to begin.
"I can't believe it either, Mom. He seemed fine when I left this morning. I mean, he looked tired, but I didn't know he was…" Inhale onions in the tissue. "What am I gonna do, Ma?" Sniff. Sniff. "Thank you for taking Eddie tonight. I need to be alone right now. I just want to curl up in my bed and forget for just a few minutes that this whole thing happened. I'm so emotionally drained I can't think straight."
The energy in the room literally buzzed around Tasha. She could almost hear their excitement hovering around her.
"I will, Ma. I promise. I'll call when I wake up. Thank you." Her fake call ended. More tears, more weeping. Oh the horror! Tasha may have missed her calling as an actress.
Upstairs, she crawled onto the bed. After a few minutes, she dumped out her purse and grabbed the placebo pills. Melodramatically, she flipped off the cap and downed a small handful of them. Tasha continued to moan, waiting for the spirits to come closer. They were all around her now. At least four or five, with more coming every few minutes. They would probably try a group steal. It would be less of a risk to them. They are smart, ironically, for not having brains. Duncan was right. The leader would be coming. She could sense a major aura heading her way.
Closing her eyes against the burn of the onions, she slipped under the covers and curled up in a ball.
Waiting.
When will they do it already? Adam didn't have much longer. A good nine hours had already passed. Who knew how long it would take her to actually find him once she was in the ghost world? Presuming, of course, she'd know what to do when she got there.
In her warm cocoon, Tasha inadvertently let out a large yawn. For a moment, she thought nothing of it, but when a second yawn ripped through her, a slow onset of panic began to set in.
Opening her eyes, she felt it immediately. The early tingle of sleeping pills shutting down her systems.
They didn't give her placebos. They gave her the real deal.
She'd been set up.
Her mind raced as she tried to remember how many she swallowed. A few she could probably fight, but she easily took six or seven, maybe more. What had it mattered? They were fakes after all.
But why would they give her real ones? Unless… they didn't want her to capture the spirits.
Did they want her to be legitimately taken? But that would mean they were sacrificing two of their best agents! And they were risking losing their best Recoverer. The whole thing felt familiar somehow. Then it hit her. This was just like how those other agents in Canada died. Three Recoverers. Gone. All under Duncan's command.
The realization of it all made her fume. He was killing off the Recoverers.
Her eyelids grew exceedingly heavy as she fought to stay awake. The chill of the room began to seep into her bones. She could tell she was surrounded by them now. Young and old spirits alike, all closing in on her, and she was absolutely helpless to do anything about it.
Tasha's brain raced in her last conscious moments, trying to think of some motive, some reason Duncan, the man who had once been so kind to her, now wanted her dead.
A morbid thought twisted inside her gut. Could he have made a trade with the spirits? Their lives for the return of his wife's? She'd read articles that such reversals were possible but had never actually seen it done… articles she'd picked up off Duncan's desk. That was it. The realization was crippling.
Sleep was calling her, pulling her toward her final moments, and she was powerless to stop it. She opened her eyes and made out the unmistakable shadowy aura of the leader, one she instinctively knew wanted her dead.
Tasha tried to scream in protest, but her voice was lost to the world and her mind was following close behind. A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye as they closed down on her one last time.
Ghost of a Girl
A Betty Boo, Ghost Hunter Story
Beth Dolgner
"What am I supposed to wear to a séance?" I had been staring into my closet for the past ten minutes and had finally called my best friend Daisy for some advice. This adventure had been her idea, anyway.
"Well, it's New Year's Eve, so you should dress nice," Daisy said. "But not too nice since we'll be sitting around in an old house."
"That narrows it down. Blue jeans are out, and so is the prom dress from my senior year of high school." I was frowning into the phone, even though I knew that Daisy was grinning on her end. "Seriously, this is the craziest idea you've ever had. I don't know how you talked me into it."
"Because, Betty, you love ghosts and you didn't have any other plans for New Year's."
Daisy was right on both counts. She and I, along with her fiancé Shaun and our friend Lou, were part of The Savannah Spirit Seekers. We had started the paranormal investigation team a year before, during our junior year of college. And I didn't have any other plans for the holiday because I was single—I'd broken up with my boyfriend Mark after realizing that his interest in the paranormal bordered on obsessive. "Fine," I huffed out a breath. "I'll figure out something."
"We'll pick you up in two hours!" Daisy said goodbye and hung up the phone before I could protest again. I didn't believe in psychics, so the idea of going to a séance seemed silly. As far as I could tell, psychics were just people with strong intuition and a lot of good guesses. Daisy had been so enthusiastic about the idea, though, that I couldn't turn her down. Besides, it beat sitting on the couch watching TV until midnight.
By the time Daisy and Shaun arrived at my house—I was spending the holidays at home with my mom and enjoying being in my own room instead of a dorm—I was dressed in a dark red dress, and I had a short black velvet jacket over it to keep out the chill.
Daisy squealed when I opened the door. "Betty, you look amazing!" I returned the compliment whole-heartedly: Daisy's petite body looked great in a slinky black dress, and her curly blonde hair was tamer than I'd seen it in months. Beside Daisy, her fiancé Shaun looked out of place, his red hair brushed back carelessly and his button-down shirt already rumpled.
"Let's go get this over with," I said, but Daisy's excitement was beginning to work its magic on me. I was smiling by the time Shaun pulled into a curbside parking spot outside the historic home where the
séance would be taking place.
My smile didn't last long. It was hardly cold out, but I shivered as I stepped out of the car. Savannah, Georgia, is the most haunted city in the United States, and as a paranormal investigator, I was used to confronting things that go bump in the night. But this house had always given me the creeps, even in broad daylight.
The house was a two-story brick structure with wide columns across the broad front porch and an equally wide front door. Judging by the architecture, I guessed that the house predated the Civil War. It was rundown but still pretty, and for the last few years, it had been used as offices for an architecture firm. I didn't know how the people who worked there managed to cross the threshold every day. The house just felt wrong, like something had crawled inside it and died years ago, leaving the whole building slightly rotten. I'd been past the house many times while growing up in Savannah, and the air around it always seemed heavy.
I felt a tug at my sleeve. "Come on, Boo, it's going to be a fun night." Daisy strode confidently up the steps to the porch, even though she had once admitted feeling the same way about the house. Daisy was intuitive, and I had learned to trust her hunches. Why she was ignoring that intuition now was beyond me.
I took a deep breath and followed Daisy and Shaun toward the door. Shaun rang the doorbell, and within seconds it was opened by a tall, gangly man with long blonde hair. "About time," he said, a wry smile tugging at one side of his mouth. "This is the scariest thing I could possibly imagine."
We had met Lou at a local paranormal convention and liked him immediately. He was amazing with electronic equipment and could find even the tiniest scraps of paranormal evidence on our tape recorders and cameras. Tonight he was wearing a black tee shirt and black cargo pants, which was about as dressed up as Lou ever got.
"How can it already be scary?" I asked, pushing my way past Lou into the house. I found myself in a long hallway, and I heard voices coming from the room to my left. As soon as I stepped into the room, I turned back to Lou. "It's downright terrifying," I whispered.
The Stroke of Midnight: A Supernatural New Year's Anthology Page 10