by J. P. Rice
How come it can hit me, but I can’t hit it? The ghost hissed, taunting me, and hit me with an invisible force that launched me against the front door.
I tried to catch my breath as the spirit closed in on me. I kicked helplessly at the ghost and my feet passed through the opalescent fog, doing no damage. A strange force brought me back to my feet with my back against the front door.
Before I could regain my wits, I was flying across my office again, landing with a harsh thud. So much for wearing the nice suit to work today. I loosened the tie and opened the top button of my shirt. The silent spirit assassin shifted its shape to what appeared to be a centaur.
The mythically-shaped gas started pulling in the chill from around the room and the spirit appeared to be absorbing the frost and solidifying. I looked around for an escape route as the centaur’s rear right leg swiped the ground, readying for takeoff.
Smoke came from my black carpeting as the centaur kept striking his foot against the floor. He leaned back and forth, sizing me up, as the ice inside the spirit cracked with the movements. Maybe I could hit this thing with some magic now?
Too late. I watched as the beast crouched and prepared to crush me against the wall. Never thought this would be how it ended. I don’t even know what this was. Sendal Spirits?
Just as the centaur went to spring into action, the front door swung open, and a sexy young vampire rushed through the jamb, bringing one hell of a fury with her. The spirit reacted to the sound from behind and turned to find out what it was.
Carolyn, with full Wolverine-style purple fingernails extended, took an elegant sideswipe, slicing through the body of the horse. A terrible shriek of pain coupled with the sound of shattering ice, and I swear it could have been heard from miles away.
The spiritual body fell to the ground with a plopping sound and the ice melted into the carpet. Carolyn leaned down and quickly extended her nails into the beast one more time. The spirit became silenced and completely disappeared, slowly seeping into the carpet.
“Holy shit, how did you do that? I couldn’t even touch that thing. I assume it was a Sendal Spirit.”
“Probably. That’s why these help.” She flipped around her long fingernails to expose the undersides. Rune symbols from her vampire clan had been etched into the nails.
This woman could kill me at any moment with a simple swipe of her nails. I could feel the power emanating from them as they got closer to my face. Scary, but pretty frickin’ cool too.
“Cheater. I need to grow my nails out too.” I almost asked how they retracted and kept the symbols, but I knew she wouldn’t reveal her secret. “On a serious note, thank you. Very much. We make a pretty good team. You sure you want to leave with all the fun we’ve been having? Hell, we’re just getting started.”
“Ha ha. We do make a pretty good team. You get your ass kicked and I save you.” She stole Reg’s laugh. And she insulted me. Evil succubus. She continued, “I think I need to get out of this town. Does Jonathan know anything yet?”
“I don’t think so. He seems to be pretty frustrated about it too. You probably shouldn’t expect a Christmas card this year.”
She laughed like Reg again. He must have been rubbing off on her. She said, “I’m more worried about a toe tag right now.”
“That’s reasonable. He knows something happened to the two vamps he sent after you.”
She picked up my busted monitor and put it back on my desk. “Too bad that’s where it stops. Dead men don’t tell stories. Not good ones anyhow. This is either going to go one of two ways. He either gets tired of chasing me and totally gives up, or he gets frustrated and sends an army of creatures to find me.”
“What do you think it will be?”
She sighed. “You’ve met Jonathan a few times now. Which one do you think it is?”
I didn’t need to answer and she knew it, indicated by the shit-eating grin on her mug. She was still in battle mode with the tips of her fangs peeking out of her dark lips.
I said, “You look exhausted. Sorry I dragged you out of bed for all this.” I gestured around my destroyed office. “Why don’t we go back to my house before the cops show up and start asking questions. I’ll tidy this place up tomorrow.”
I stayed for a few minutes to patch up the window so that the entire room wouldn’t be a popsicle when I came back. Carolyn and I went back to my house. I changed out of my suit into much more comfortable gear.
I went downstairs and joined Carolyn and Colossus on the couch. I still couldn’t believe that she’d got my dog to warm up to her, especially if the pooch knew what she had eaten for breakfast. Speaking of which, was it feeding time for the vamp? Who could keep track of her insatiable appetite for blood?
I felt like I was bleeding internally from the ass whipping courtesy of a mystery spirit. Colossus ran under me as I went to sit down, a bad habit he just couldn’t seem to break. Wrenching my body to the side to avoid him, my back locked up for a second. I stretched out the cramp, and slithered down on the couch as my dog jumped onto my lap. Picking up the pillow beside me, I tucked it behind my head.
This day had certainly taken a strange turn after such a promising beginning. I was worried that Felix was correct and these were Sendal Spirits. That crazy brawl in my office had convinced me. Panic rushed around my chest, and I realized I was overmatched.
Worry about my girlfriend and father snaked through my body, mingling with the panic. It erased the pain from the fights I had gotten into this week, which was a plus.
How could I defeat thousand-year-old spirits that combined and consolidated their power into a super-force? The Celtic Gods might need to give me some ancient help to defeat this ghostly group since Carolyn had to use her rune claws to kill it. I needed to get more information on how to battle these spirits.
The meeting with Socrates had been interesting. Perhaps I could get some answers out of the Greek Gods about the Sendal Spirits. Peeking over at my small vampire friend, I couldn’t believe she had saved my life twice.
The most sensible thing to do was to listen to what the Greek Gods had to say. It could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship or just a wasted conversation. Hopefully they can help me get these malevolent spirits out of Pittsburgh.
I talked to Carolyn and my eyelids began to get heavy. I leaned back, mashing my head into the soft pillow, and faded out. Strange dreams swirled inside my head in which an unidentified person was yelling at me. Berating me.
The lids of my eyes slowly flickered open as the voice from my dream became clear.
Satoku screamed, “What the fuck is going on here, Mike?”
Chapter 15
I looked down and knew I was in deep trouble. I had passed out sitting up and my trusty vampire friend had curled up next to me and used my lap as a pillow. Reaching out, I shook her neck and she sat up next to me, groggy.
“Oh. Her? There’s nothing going on here.” I stammered.
That answer did not satisfy my girlfriend. “Nothing? Sure as shit doesn’t look like nothing. Who the fuck is she?”
“Who? Her? Oh, she’s nobody.” Bad choice of words.
She paced the length of my coffee table, chest heaving in and out, full of anger. “Nobody? Nobody? I must be hallucinating then, you know, because I do that all the time. You better start explaining what is going on here.”
I stood up and moved toward her until she put her hand up for me to stop. “She’s part of the new job I am working on.” I turned to Carolyn. “Show her your teeth.”
The vamp smiled, and her incisors extended into sharp fangs.
I explained, “She is a vampire and we are working on a case together. I didn’t want to say anything to you because of Felix. I couldn’t afford to have him running around town talking to everyone about it.”
She shook her head, disgusted. “You’re going to use Felix as an excuse again? Unreal.”
“It’s not an excuse. He’s connected to a lot of supernaturals in Pittsburgh and
this is a very delicate matter.”
She leaned down and stroked Colossus’s chin. “I just don’t know anymore. I get that your life isn’t going to be ordinary, for lack of a better word. I get it. But when I find you passed out on a couch with a sexy vampire on your lap, what am I supposed to think?”
She had made a fair point. “I don’t know. How am I supposed to feel when you ditch me to hang out with another guy all the time?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Felix? I don’t even really look at him like a guy. He’s just a friend.”
“Carolyn is just a friend too.”
Colossus ran to the front door and Satoku stood up again. “Yeah, but there is a big difference here. I’ve openly told you that I was hanging out with Felix. I’ve never kept anything a secret from you. If you showed up at my house and saw me lying in bed with him, I would anticipate the same reaction from you.”
“If I may.” Carolyn stood up and approached Satoku. “I’m sorry Mike, but I’m going to tell her the truth.” The vamp stood within an arm’s reach of my girlfriend, making me uncomfortable as sweat leached out of the skin on my forearms.
Carolyn continued, “She’s not as beautiful as you made her out to be.”
Satoku immediately interjected, head bobbing side to side, “Excuse me.”
The vampire smiled at my girlfriend. I could tell her from experience, that wasn’t going to work. Carolyn said, “That’s not a bad thing if you would let me finish. What I am saying is that Mike talked you up so much that you would have had to float in here as an angel on a cloud. If you heard the things Mike has said about you, let’s just say, I wish I had a guy saying the same stuff about me. He’s scared to lose you and I can see why.”
Satoku said, “Thank you.”
The vampire reached out and put her hand on Satoku’s shoulder. “You’re welcome. You know guys, they’ll admit to their friend how much they love a girl even though they can’t properly express it to her.”
Why was Carolyn so much smoother than me with the ladies? I wasn’t about to stick my nose into this as it seemed to be working out for me.
Satoku agreed, “I guess that is true.”
She rubbed Satoku’s upper arm. “Honestly, I have to tell him to shut up sometimes because he’s rambling on about how great you are. No offense to you.”
“None taken. We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Satoku.” She extended an open hand.
Carolyn reached out and shook her hand. “Carolyn, nice to formally meet you. And I can guarantee you there is nothing going on between Mike and me. I like his friend Reg much better.”
The normal glow on my girlfriend’s face returned, “Isn’t he the greatest guy in the world?”
“He is a peach ready to be sucked.” Carolyn nodded, pulling her lip piercings into her mouth.
Satoku laughed. “I probably wouldn’t use those exact words myself, but good for you two. He is a great person.” She looked around Carolyn to make eye contact with me. “As for you mister, you aren’t off the hook by any stretch of the imagination.”
What? I thought you two just became best friends and you were going to forgive me because of all the good things I said about you.
Satoku continued, “We need to trust each other with everything. I don’t want to walk into another scene like this. I mean it’s not like she’s staying here, right?”
I tried to explain, “Well, that’s kind of, part of the job. She needs to stay close to me at all times. Kind of like with you and Felix.”
The glow disappeared again, and Satoku’s tone harshened, “All right, look. This whataboutism bullshit with Felix needs to stop. He’s waiting for me in the car so I have to get going. Give me a call tomorrow if you want. I need some time to think about this and what I am doing right now.”
“You can look into my soul if you don’t believe me.” I got up to give her a hug goodbye, but she turned her back on me and stormed out the door without a word.
Carolyn said, “You’re lucky I was here.”
“Lucky. I nearly got dumped because you were here. How is that luck?”
She sat back down on the couch. “Putting the instigating situation aside, your stuttering, tongue-tied explanation was pathetic. She’s nobody. Were you expecting me to disappear or something?”
“You could have at least turned into a raven. Look, I’m not very smooth with the ladies. I have social anxiety too.”
“You talk to me just fine.”
She was right. Anything job related made me more at ease. “Yeah, I almost feel more comfortable with supernatural beings. The problem is that Satoku is a Searcher so I can’t even stretch the truth with her because she will find out.”
Her head moved back and her eyes widened. “She’s a Soul Searcher? Thanks for letting me know. I was staring into her haunting green eyes. Of all the conversations we’ve had about her, I figure that would have come up at least once.”
I didn’t talk about it because gifted people could be taken advantage of. “Sorry, but I would never expect her to just stop by out of the blue. Why had she stopped by anyway?”
“She was probably ready to forgive you until she saw me. Ha ha.” She didn’t have the bass in the laugh that Reg had, but she was trying.
“That really isn’t making me feel any better if that is your intention.”
She spoke to me like a baby, “Aw, I don’t like seeing you all sad. You want me to fix you a glass of Jameson?”
I tilted my head and nodded, “I do like my Jameson. Maybe half a glass just to settle my thoughts.”
We ended up getting wasted. I went over to my office to tidy things up, but in my drunken stupor, I most likely made matters worse. When I returned home, Reg and Carolyn were hanging out, actually making out, so I went to my room with the dog.
The next day I woke up to a familiar signal. Gretchen called with another horrible progress report. The uprisings were multiplying and so were the murders of young Japanese women. No sign of my father. The only plus was that she didn’t ream me out over the incident with Satoku and Carolyn.
I crawled out of bed with Colossus jumping up my lower legs. I was going to meet the Greek Gods today. I had to get into the office and make a few calls before Socrates showed up. I only had two nice suits, so choosing an outfit was easy. I wanted to look good for the Gods.
My dog and I shared a quick breakfast and I shuffled down the street to the office. I opened the front door and realized I hadn’t helped during my drunken cleaning yesterday. The mess had just been pushed into the corner of the office.
I had reassembled the phone from my desk, but I needed a new computer monitor because mine had been smashed when the spirit had taken the shape of an ogre. Good times. Nah, great times.
I sat down in the wobbly chair at my desk and looked at the phone. No messages or missed calls. I dialed up Rebecca and Roy to check on the progress of their haunted barn.
The phone rang three times and a female voice said, “Hello.”
I fired up my Bogart speak. “Hi, is this Rebecca?”
“It is.”
“Hi Rebecca, this is Mike Merlino. I’m the detective who stopped by your house a few days ago and I just wanted to check in and see how things were going.”
She sniffled. “Well Mike, after we burned the rest of them boxes, things have been a lot calmer around here. I’d like to pay you if it keeps up, but I’m not sure how long to wait to make sure they will never come back. I also don’t know if it was something you had done or my husband burning the boxes.”
“That’s never a guarantee that they won’t come back, unfortunately. In fact, why don’t we just forget about the fee for now?” I was going to make a pile of money from the boxes that they didn’t want, and charging them on top of that seemed a bit cruel. I’ll probably end up giving them a cut of the profit too.
“Really? What if we need you to come back?” She sounded flabbergasted.
“I’ll do it free of charge. I understan
d what it is like to deal with those spirits. I did find out some interesting historical information if you’d like to hear about it.”
I told Rebecca about the boxes, leaving out the valuation and my intention to auction them off. I felt a bit guilty, but they didn’t need the money nearly as much as I did. I hung up the phone and looked out my patched-up window. Through the cracked glass, I saw a slightly overcast day.
My tie was choking me, so I loosened it as the phone rang. Unidentified number. I waited for it to ring four times before picking up the corded receiver.
Let’s go for another ride, Humphrey. “Hello, Mike Merlino, Private Detective.”
“Well looky at you. A private dick trying to sound tough.”
I faintly recognized the deep male voice as he continued, “I got a job for you. Why don’t you kill yourself?”
“Who is this?” I just needed to hear a few more words.
“It’s the man what’s gonna kill you.”
It was my father.
Chapter 16
Although his voice was much deeper, almost guttural, his horrible grammar gave him away. The tone was different from when I visited him the other day. I ditched my accent, and said, “And how are you going to do that, tough guy?”
“Oh, I’ve been running with some pretty powerful friends lately. Seems to be that I am much more powerful than you when it comes to harnessing magic. My blood is purer than yours, small fry.”
Oh, fuck me. He knows about our shared bloodline with Merlin. The Red Cavern of demons had gotten to him and cultivated him into a weapon they could use to cause destruction. “I’m not scared of you, old man. Why are you coming after me anyway? Don’t you have better things to do now that you are out of jail?”
He chuckled. “I’m doing this for fun. You think I forget about stuff. When I went away, you ditched me. Come to see me five years after I got sent away and you were still gonna let me rot. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
I guess he wanted to get into it. “Do you really think I should have visited you? You put fucking cigarette butts out on my arm when I was a little kid. You beat the shit out of my mother.”