by A. J. Locke
“I suppose you figured a few things out and thought you would confront me.”
“I sure did. I’m here to put an end to your little ghost anchoring business. What you’re doing is wrong, not to mention extremely dangerous.”
“And what do you call what you did to me?” Her high pitched voice was painful to my ears. “You singlehandedly ruined my life, you fucking bitch. Screwing my husband for months, then killing him only to let his ghost rise and disgrace me by kicking me out and leaving me with nothing? You deserve so much worse than death.”
“My affair with Andrew was wrong. I am the first to admit that.” I tried to keep my voice calm because it was clear Cecelia was a woman on the edge. Her voice was ragged, and the hand holding the gun trembled. Not good. “I disrespected your marriage and gave no thought to who I was hurting. As long as you didn’t know I figured there was no problem, but that was wrong. And though it was not directly by my hand, the things I ended up involved in did get your husband killed. But you cannot pin the blame only on me. Andrew’s decisions regarding you were his own.”
“So I should feel OK about the fact that my dead husband dumped me for you? That the reason his ghost is even hanging around is because he wants to be with you?” She took a step closer, and I really wanted to move back but I stayed put. I didn’t want to give her any reason to pull that trigger. It didn’t seem like it would take much. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I never said that.” Damn it how could I talk my way out of this? She was right to feel the way she felt, but she also had a gun pointed at me so I couldn’t afford to just let her ride her emotions to the point where it made her shoot.
“I was somebody,” Cecelia said. Those words came out like a snarl. “High society, high fashion, traveling around the world, living life on a level you could never dream of. That was who I was, what I did. Now, thanks to you, I have nothing. Absolutely nothing!”
“So you decided to ruin my life by burying people around me.”
“I decided to use you for my own gain. Look at where I am! You owe me my life, and I am going to get it back one way or another. When I heard what your new powers could do, I saw an opportunity to rebuild myself. There is no price tag on what people would pay to keep the ghosts of their loved ones around.”
“And you started with your friends, Isabelle’s family. Was Marcus’ family friends of yours too?”
“What better way to get back in with my friends than to give them something no one else could? Isabelle was my goddaughter, and she was dying of leukemia, there was no hope for her. Marcus’s family was one of my biggest clients when I ran a PR firm years ago. I’d known for months that he was dying. When I approached them, they agreed without hesitation and paid whatever I asked.”
“Fair enough.” My arms were starting to burn, man I wished I could put them down. “But it’s more complicated than that, Cecelia. You created anchored ghosts for their families to keep around, but did you know that if those ghosts had unfinished business that did not get taken care of they would turn into an anchored ghost monster that would be impossible to bring down? That’s exactly what happened with Isabelle’s ghost.”
The slight twitch in Cecelia’s expression verified that she hadn’t known that.
“So it seems like you should have also gotten a necromancer to work alongside you in your little business.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Cecelia said. “You found me out so it’s all over. I’ll just kill you.”
I was hoping she wouldn’t say that. Time to move. The box closest to me was labeled scarves, so I knew it wouldn’t be heavy. I picked it up and threw it at her. The box hit her chest and sent her stumbling back. I ran toward her but she recovered, and I had to dive behind the sofa as she released a series of shots. It was apparent that in her high rolling life she’d made time to go to the gun range. And she even had a silencer on it so she could kill me with her neighbors none the wiser. A crazy woman with a gun was one thing, but a crazy woman who knew what she was doing with a gun was even more dangerous. One of the shots went through the sofa and grazed my shoulder. I grunted in pain but I could tell it was a shallow wound. But the next shot to hit might not be.
I heard her coming closer so I braced myself against the back of the sofa and pushed it as hard as I could. The sofa hit her, and she fell, so I jumped over the sofa and tackled her. She started screeching and clawed at me with her free hand while I wrestled with her for the gun. I kneed her in the stomach and was rewarded with an elbow to the side of my head, followed by an even more disgraceful bite as she sunk her teeth into my shoulder. The sharp pain made me lose focus, and even though I managed to get the gun, it fell out of my hand and skittered out of sight. Cecelia scrambled away from me while kicking me in the face. I rolled away, but before I could get to my feet she was standing over me holding a statuette of some goddess, which had been in one of her boxes. I remembered packing it up. It was heavy.
“Your ghost and my husband’s can live happily ever after. In hell.” She held the figurine high and brought it down hard.
* * *
When I opened my eyes my head was pounding. My vision spun and my skull throbbed. I slowly sat up. There was an ache in my shoulder, and I recalled that I’d been grazed by a bullet. When I looked around, I saw that I was still on the floor of the house I’d found Cecelia in. What was surprising was that I was alive. Which was great, but I’d fully expected Cecelia to shoot me in the head after knocking me out.
Then I turned around and understood why Cecelia hadn’t killed me. She was dead. She lay several feet away from me with a bullet hole in her forehead and blood pooling under her head. I scrambled to my feet and looked around. What the hell had just happened? Cecelia knocked me out…then someone shot her? But left me alive? Or did they think I was already dead when they saw me lying on the floor? I ran my fingers through my hair, taking deep breaths because I was on the verge of freaking out. Then a thought occurred to me that made me want to freak out even more. Cecelia had died right next to me, and I was a hundred percent sure her ghost would have some unfinished business. I had likely created another anchored beastie.
“Fuck.” There needed to be a stronger curse word that I could repeat while pulling my hair out. Who the hell had randomly shown up here and killed Cecelia? And why? Did they know killing her next to me would create an anchored ghost? Was Cecelia not the only one in the business? Wouldn’t that just be fucking fantastic.
I had to get out of here. Prolonged time in the presence of a dead body was never a good idea. I had to get to Cecelia’s ghost before it turned into a beastie. As I snatched up my handbag, the weight of it made me remember that I had my bag of runes with me, which then gave me an idea. I fished out a tracking rune, channeled some energy into it to activate it, and knelt down next to the corpse.
“Please let there be something,” I whispered. I was tense and hopeful as the seconds passed. Finally, I felt a reaction and released the breath I was holding. There was energy left on Cecelia’s body, which meant whoever killed her had gotten close enough to leave traces of themselves behind. That meant I could track the killer, who hopefully had Cecelia’s ghost. After I was done, I took out another rune and absorbed all traces of myself from the house. Since this was Andrew’s wife, it was likely that Affairs of the Dead would get involved in the investigation, and I didn’t want to risk rune work leading them to me.
I left the house through a window in the back and made my way to my car. As I walked, I noted that the sun was setting, and when I checked my phone I realized that I had been passed out for at least a couple hours. Damn. I’d passed out one too many times for my liking lately. At this rate I was going to suffer permanent brain damage.
I drove a few blocks away then stopped at a payphone and made an anonymous call to the police about Cecelia’s dead body. I didn’t like her or what she’d been doing, but I wasn’t so cruel that I’d leave her body to rot in that house until the stench alerted
a neighbor to make a grisly discovery. Once that was done, I drove home and retrieved my gun. I was eager to track Cecelia’s murderer down, but I wasn’t about to do that unarmed. In my car again, I sat with the tracking rune in my hand so I could attune to where it wanted me to go. Once I had a direction, I drove off.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The area I was driving through was definitely one where you’d expect a murderer to be lurking. It was some backwoods neighborhood in Brooklyn that was the personification of seedy and unsafe, and there were a number of people walking around that I’d bet were up to no good. Guess Cecelia’s murderer was sticking to the clichés. It would have been nice to track him down at the Millennium Hotel in Times Square though.
After letting the tracking rune take me down this road and that, I ended up on a dead end street. Behind the wall were trees and bushes. And probably someone waiting to slit my throat. The tracking rune was still leading me forward so I had to go it on foot now. I was glad I didn’t have a nicer car, it would up my chances of coming back and still having four wheels on it. I parked in the middle of the street and got out.
As much as I hoped that the tracking rune would steer me to one of the houses on the block, the darn rune wanted me to keep going past the wall. After heaving a huge sigh, I slipped the rune around my neck and examined the wall to figure out how best to scale it. The good thing was that it was run down enough to have uneven bricks that stuck out and made for good hand and foot holds. That was also the bad thing though, because the unsecure bricks gave way under my weight and had me on my ass a few times before I was able to get to the top. At this point I was heaving and grimy, and actually anticipated finding someone I could take some aggression out on. After a quick survey of the other side of the wall, I jumped down then took a moment to catch my bearings and see where the rune wanted me to go.
I pushed through the trees and brush for a short time, then the area opened up. Abandoned train tracks stretched out in front of me, overgrown with weeds and vines. Thankfully, the rune had me following the tracks instead of taking me deeper into the bush. Every step I took made me more and more certain that I was heading toward trouble, but I had to find Cecelia’s killer and find out why they’d killed her. Who would have a bigger grudge against her than me? Not that’d I’d have resorted to killing her despite what she had done.
After following the tracks around a bend, I saw that they disappeared into a tunnel in the rock, which was where the tracking rune wanted me to go. Fantastic. I pulled my phone out and opened a flashlight app as I carefully walked to the tunnel. When I was at the opening, I shone my light in, but all it revealed were tracks, garbage, and uneven rock walls. I stood still for a moment, took a deep breath, then headed in.
“So where’s the axe murderer, or rapist, or flock of bats?” I muttered as I walked. It was deathly quiet in here, there wasn’t even the cliché drip of water echoing in the distance, and the quiet only made me more wary. I’d probably empty my gun clip if a mouse ran across my foot at this point.
The tunnel wasn’t a straight shot. The tracking rune had me taking left and right turns, and the path even tilted uphill and downhill at some places. At one point I actually did hear water dripping in the distance, but it faded the further I walked.
Finally, I saw light up ahead and the path began to widen. I stayed close to the walls, and when I got to the opening I hung back and peered out. The pulse from the tracking rune had steadily become stronger and stronger, and was damn near vibrating in my hand now.
The tracks led into an underground station that was as worn and abandoned as the tracks. The room was large and cavernous, and full of debris from the crumbling walls and ceiling. So far it didn’t seem as though there was anyone down here, but the tracking rune was still guiding me. I kept following its pull, trying not to trip over rocks and old, broken tracks, until I came to a back wall. The rune led me right to the wall but wanted me to keep going. I looked at it questioningly, wondering if it had malfunctioned, but it was unlikely that it’d suddenly go wonky for no reason. So logic would have it that there was something behind the wall.
I pressed and poked around the wall for a few minutes, thinking there had to be some kind of secret doorway or something, and trying not to laugh at myself because I was looking for a secret door in an abandoned underground train station. Not to mention the fact that I was here because I was trying to track down a murderer.
After pretending like I knew what I was doing for a few minutes, I must have finally done something right because part of the wall gave away and moved aside. I took a step back as cool air drifted past me from the opening. I sighed. What was it with me and finding hidden places where bad guys lurked?
“Here goes nothing.” I eased through the opening and emerged into a very large room that was starkly different than the rubble strewn station I’d just been standing in. The floor was made of stone, but the walls and ceiling was paneled in wood and there were several doors on the right and left walls that led to other rooms. Bright, fluorescent lights shone down, so I guess the electrical system that operated the train station still worked. My eyes had quite a few things to take in since there were many large, wooden tables throughout the room strewn with various objects, the most recognizable being runes. There were also runes etched into the floor and walls but I did not recognize them. There were papers strewn everywhere, and bottles full of colorful liquids or powders.
I had that uneasy, tingly feeling at the back of my neck as I walked further into the room, trying to make heads or tails of what the hell I had just stumbled on.
I headed over to one of the tables to rifle through the contents. A few sheets of paper caught my eye, and I picked them up.
“Project Alchemy Body Regeneration Project,” I read. Body Regeneration? There were a lot of notes scribbled on the page in every direction, so it was hard to make sense of what the notes were about but I tried.
I heard a noise and realized someone was approaching. No, not someone, it could only be Renton. Finding papers with Project Alchemy written on it made that clear. And shocking. He had to have been here somewhere since this was where the tracking rune led me. I quickly put the papers down and ran over to the other side of the room where there was a huge rock formation. The perfect hiding place. I just hoped my thumping heart would not give me away.
Moments later, one of the doors opened, and I heard Renton’s voice. “You should go tonight. She won’t need it again so soon but now is a good time to do it.”
What almost caused an audible reaction from me was the fact that the next voice I heard was Micah’s. What the hell? If he was back from dropping Ethan off then why hadn’t he called me? Especially since I had sent him that text about following James.
“Are you sure I can keep doing this without them noticing the runes are depleted?”
“No one checks on those runes,” Renton said dismissively. “Once a reanimator is stripped no one gives a crap about them or their power. They keep it under lock and key and that’s about as much thought as it’s given.”
Micah blew out a sigh. “Fine. But what am I supposed to do once I drain all those runes?”
“Travel,” Renton said. “There are paranormal buildings that house those runes all over the country, hell, all over the world.”
“Not sure how I am going to keep Selene in the dark if I suddenly start traveling all the time.”
“That’s for you to figure out,” Renton said. “You begged me to find a way to save her life and this is it. She will need to keep absorbing reanimation power as long as she wants to live. Well, since she doesn’t know about it, as long as you want her to live. Though I don’t see why you did not want to tell her the truth.”
“You know why,” Micah snapped. I’d never heard him take that tone with his uncle. Hell, even Renton sounded different. Less pleasant for sure.
“Oh right, the part about how every reanimator whose power she absorbs dies since reanimators can’t live if their
power no longer exists.”
I think my head almost exploded.
“Those people are close to death with their reanimation power stripped anyway. Selene is doing them a favor.”
“She wouldn’t see it that way,” Micah said. “Unlike you, she isn’t heartless.”
“Watch your words,” Renton said. And his voice was decidedly more sinister now. “I broke a lot of rules in order to help you save the woman you love. The woman you said you would do anything to save. Don’t throw that gift back in my face.”
“I’m not,” Micah said. “I just wish people didn’t have to die so Selene could live.”
“But do you regret it?”
“No,” Micah said, voice low. “She’s alive. And she will continue to be alive as long as she’s treated.”
“That’s what I thought. Now here, take the runes you need to transfer the reanimation power. I will make sure the security cameras are down tonight, but you will only have twenty minutes to get in and out before they’re back online again.”
“I know the drill,” Micah said. It sounded like he was walking off then he stopped.
“And you’re sure what you did to her won’t hurt her?”
“I did not save her just to hurt her, dear nephew. My end of the deal won’t hurt a hair on her head. I promise.”
“Just don’t hurt anyone else either.”
“That I can’t promise. But you got what you wanted out of me so don’t think you can stand there and judge whatever else I do. Without me your girl would have died within a week so you and that dead witch should just be thankful. Now, let’s go. I have to make an appearance at the office and pretend like I give a shit about Cecelia’s murder.”