by A. J. Locke
“If that’s to be my fate, then so be it.” It wasn’t easy to say those words or think about the fact that I was sentencing myself to death, but what kind of person would I be if I let this continue? “As for what you can do, there is something. I need to build a case against Renton. He’s doing dangerous experiments using anchored ghosts. Marcus and Cecelia’s ghosts have already been sacrificed, and now that he got Cecelia and her little business out of the way I am certain he will take up the mantle and continue to create anchored ghosts for his own purposes. He is going to use me in some way, and I can’t let that happen. I don’t know what his end game is with his experiments but I intend to find out and stop him.”
“I will help you any way I can. I already sensed that Renton was more than he appeared to be.”
“We need to delve into his past, see if there’s anything we can dig up. These experiments have to stem from somewhere. If we’re to expose him we have to do so completely.”
“It’s likely from his therapy with Dr. Perlysse,” Ilyse said. “Why don’t you do research at the Paranormal Library? Their computers have software like the ones at work, and with your credentials as a necromancer with Affairs of the Dead you should be able to access them.”
“I’ll do just that. But there’s something else I’d like you to do. Ethan called me yesterday in a panic. Apparently he has become intangible again and can’t feel his bind to me. Which is very troubling. I can’t feel it either, but I hadn’t been recently anyway. I told him I wanted him to stay there but I think it will be better for him to come back. I’d like you to go pick him up. He won’t be able to travel on his own or with his family very effectively since he doesn’t have any energy runes. Can you do that?”
“Of course,” Ilyse said. “I will take runes with me. I wonder what is happening with him.”
“He started acting a little ghosty before he left. He fell through a chair. But I thought it was because he was getting nervous about seeing his family.”
“Clearly it is something more. Although if his bind to you is indeed broken that wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
“True, but these things don’t just happen on their own. I’ve wondered if it could have anything to do with Renton’s treatment since it’s supposed to block my own reanimation power.”
“That could be it. I will bring Ethan back and see what I can find out.”
“Great. Just keep him with you. With everything that’s going on I don’t want him to be by himself. I’ll head to the Paranormal Library now. If I find anything I’ll let you know.” I stood up and Ilyse walked me to the door.
“Selene.”
I turned to her.
“I really am sorry that the only way to save your life came with such a terrible price to pay. But I am not sorry that we saved you.”
“I know,” I said. “But I still meant what I said. I won’t do it again.”
“Selene…”
“Let me know when you get Ethan.” I left and headed back to my car. I didn’t want to think about how I was declaring my own death anymore. This whole situation was extremely fucked up. The last thing I wanted was a slow, agonizing death due to the Rot, but I absolutely could not continue to live at the expense of other people’s lives.
I sat in my car for a few moments and tried to clear my head a little and focus on my present. I was still here, and I had work to do. I had to take Renton down one way or another without losing Ilyse and Micah too. And hopefully this thing with Ethan had an easy explanation. Hopefully. I headed to the Paranormal Library.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ah Paranormal Library, we meet again. And since I still had no idea how to navigate though this place, I started at the information desk, where I learned the computers I wanted access to were on the eighth floor.
Once I got to the eighth floor I showed my badge and endured five minutes of small talk with the cherry woman at the front desk before I was able to make it to the computer room. It was relatively empty, there were only three other people here. I headed to a station toward the back and logged on.
The good thing about Renton was that he was an army veteran as well as a high ranking scientist in the government’s Paranormal Sector, so there was a lot of information about him out there. But I wasn’t looking for what was already public information. I was looking for something that could help me build a case against him to Tielle. There was no way she would side with me over her colleague. Of course the flaw in this plan was that if Renton had something to hide it was unlikely that I would uncover it by typing some keywords into a computer.
So I had to be smart about how I did this or else I’d be sitting here all day and have nothing to show for it at the end. Right now I was skimming through Renton’s Wikipedia page. I knew how extremely unhelpful that was likely to be but I had to be thorough. There was a paragraph toward the bottom that chronicled his life. How nifty that the stages of your life could be summed up in a few paragraphs. Something did catch my eye though. I noticed that there was a gap of about four years between when Renton returned from the war and was being treated by Dr. Perlysse, and when he started working for the government. I read the article again, but those four years remained unaccounted for. It didn’t even say if he took time after his recovery to travel or rest, and now that I thought about it, I’d only ever heard Micah talk about Renton in terms of his war life and his government life. What happened in between? I could be reading a lot into this, but something told me this was a lead I should follow. Wikipedia had been more helpful than I’d been expecting. I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest as I thought about what my next move should be. Should I call Micah and grill him? But if he knew wouldn’t he have mentioned it before? Plus, I wasn’t ready to see Micah yet. He was still calling and texting me but I just didn’t want to deal with him.
As I stared at Dr. Perlysse’s name on the screen, I had an idea. Dr. Perlysse had been treating Renton before those four years of radio silence, maybe Renton’s disappearance had something to do with his treatment. I looked up Dr. Perlysse and found out that he had a daughter who lived in the Bronx. He was dead, but maybe I would learn something from his daughter that could point me in a better direction. I already knew there was nothing more this research software could do for me. I looked up the address for Robin Perlysse, then logged out and left the library.
* * *
Robin Perlysse did not want to let me into her apartment. She recognized me immediately and thought I was here to snatch her ghost from her body. I spent the first ten minutes talking to her with her front door between us because she had quickly slammed it in my face when she saw me. I had now worked my way up to her opening it a crack but she kept the chain on it. Still, it was progress.
“Like I’ve already said Robin, I just want to talk to you about the time your father spent treating a patient about a decade ago. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“I don’t know anything about my father’s work,” Robin said. “So I really can’t help you, now if you’ll excuse me…”
“Wait!” I resisted the urge to hold the door open because she would see it as a sign of aggression and this conversation would definitely be over.
“Look, I just need some help. Do you know anyone who would know anything about your father’s treatment of Renton Morse? It was around the time that your father was breaking grounds with a new rune treatment. Maybe there’s another doctor your father worked with or something?”
“No…I don’t know…”
“Yes, you do. You know something.” I had an idea. “Look, I am here on the behalf of a very serious ongoing investigation. I could get a warrant to search your house solely based on my suspicion that you are hiding something that could help the investigation. Therefore don’t you think it would be easier to just cooperate rather than wait for me and a few others to come back and ransack your house?” I bit the inside of my lip as I waited to see if she would buy my bluff.
She did. Her expression showed that sh
e wasn’t taken with the idea of a home invasion. Who would be?
“Wait here.” She closed the door, and I stepped back and leaned against the porch railing with a smile on my face. Good to know I was still good at piling on the bullshit.
Several minutes later the door reopened and Robin pushed a box out. “That box contains my father’s research on the person you mentioned. He was very old school and preferred to keep hand written notes on his patients. My attic is full of boxes like that. After he died, his practice closed down, and I inherited the contents of it. That’s all I can offer you.”
“This is great, thank you—”
“You can sit on the porch and go through it, but don’t take anything. I will be watching you through the window. You don’t actually have a warrant so if you take off with anything I will call the police.”
“Understood,” I said, giving her a tight smile. She nodded then closed and locked the door, and I could hear her taking up position by the window. Some people. I sat down crossed legged in front of the box and opened it up. I sure hoped Robin didn’t also have a gun pointed to my head while she stood there.
The box was huge; there were a lot of folders, and a lot of paperwork. This was not going to be fun. I picked a folder at random and dove in. Much of it was full of dense medical terms that made my eyes glass over, but I tried to stay focused. An outline of Renton’s injuries was boring, so I moved on to another folder. This one was more interesting. It chronicled Dr. Perlysse’s introduction of his rune therapy treatment and Renton’s response to it. What was interesting was how difficult a time the doctor and his patient had. Not that I had expected it would be smooth sailing. It was also interesting to note that Dr. Perlysse had a psychologist work with Renton because he had been dealing with severe PTSD, and his mental state took a further hit after the death of his sister, wife, and daughter. From what I read, the psychologist was making very little progress with him.
“Violent outbursts, loud swearing, disappearing for hours or days…” My eyes widened. Wow, Renton was a huge mess. On the positive side, the rune treatment was working and Dr. Perlysse was encouraged when Renton showed an interest in how he had developed the treatment, although it was offset by a lot of those violent outbursts he’d mentioned.
An hour later I was still rifling through the box. Dr. Perlysse was not only old school, he was extremely long winded in his notes. All this reading was making me sleepy, and I was almost tempted to ask Robin if she could bring me a cup of coffee. I’m sure she would. Not.
I was reading the notes at the back of a file that had otherwise been filled with a lot of charts I didn’t attempt to try and figure out. I sat up a little straighter because I had finally come across something else that was interesting. Dr. Perlysse’s notes had been chronicling the end of his two years treating Renton, and while he had talked about the success of the rune treatment, Renton’s mental state had apparently not improved. In fact it deteriorated. Over the two years he’d had maybe ten psychologists and made very little progress with his PTSD and grief. I frowned as I read a paragraph where Dr. Perlysse wrote about how he had caught Renton in his lab working with his runes unauthorized. Whatever Renton had been doing had caused a fire and Dr. Perlysse had lost a lot of the paperwork on his rune therapy, which he had been putting together to present to the paranormal doctor community in the hopes that he could get funding to take it further.
“It has now become clear that even though Mr. Morse’s body has been healed, his mind has not. He suffers from debilitating nightmares, is often disoriented, talks to himself or to his dead relatives, and has no less than half a dozen violent outbursts every day. He has also become dangerously obsessed with the idea of rune manipulation, although it is not clear what he is after. After consulting with Mr. Morse’s current psychologist, we have concluded that the best course of action would be to admit Mr. Morse to a sanatorium in order to obtain the aggressive treatment his psyche needs that we cannot provide. White Cross Asylum in Switzerland has agreed to admit Mr. Morse once arrangements have been made. Because of Mr. Morse’s status as a decorated army veteran and the exposure he has gained in the public due to my rune treatment, it has been agreed that for the sake of all reputations involved, including that of his surviving family, that Mr. Morse enter White Cross under an assumed identity. As much as I have marveled at the physical progress he has made, it has saddened me to know that Mr. Morse’s mental state can only be described with such a word as insane…”
“Oh my God.” I stopped reading and just sat there staring with my mouth open. That’s where Renton had been for those four years? An asylum? He was literally bat shit crazy? I blew out a huge breath. Of all the scenarios I had thought about, I had not thought about this one. Although since Renton was doing some decidedly crazy things, I guess it did make sense. He had willingly cut himself just to demonstrate his Regeneration Rune. He had run me off the road just to get his hands on an anchored ghost. And I was sure he had figured out Isabelle’s beastie was anchored and had been on the scene to do something crazy like try to round it up. My hands shook as I thought about how absolutely normal Renton had seemed. So he had been rehabilitated but a smidge of crazy remained? Or was he putting on a masterful performance? No doubt the Paranormal Sector didn’t know about his stint in a Swiss asylum, because there was no way he would have landed his job there.
Renton had gone crazy, and had been obsessed with runes? Much like he seemed to be now. But what the hell was he trying to do with them? That unknown part was what scared me the most. A crazy man who had gained a lot of knowledge and knew what he was doing? Terrifying. And I had let him treat me. It was a miracle he hadn’t set me on fire.
I opened the folder and read some more, and learned that the asylum had sanctioned a specific treatment in order to try and rehabilitate Renton’s mental state. Dr. Perlysse had been a consultant, and together with the necromancer scientists at the asylum, they developed a treatment to use on his brain using runes infused with a mix of energies from just about every source: humans, nature, dead witches, necromancers, and ghosts. The lingo of it all was too complicated for me to try and figure out.
I had read more than enough. But what should my next move be? I needed Tielle’s eyes on these files. She had to learn what Renton was up to so she could stop him. But I didn’t want Micah and Ilyse harmed in the process. Renton didn’t know I had figured him out yet, and I had to keep that upper hand as long as I could. What I needed was a warrant to take these files, since Robin was clear that I would not be walking off the porch with them. I packed up the box and reluctantly knocked on the door. I really wanted to take these files with me.
“I’m going to come back with a warrant for these,” I said to Robin once she’d dragged the box back inside. “There is information in them that will help the case I am working on and save lives in the process.” I added the part about saving lives in the hopes that it would strike a chord with her. And also because it was probably true. Renton didn’t care about people dying to do a favor for his nephew’s girlfriend. I’m sure whatever his personal agenda was, it would also involve death, and he also wouldn’t give a damn. I thought I had hit my quota for crazy, murderous people this year with Larry and Michael. I’d thought wrong.
Robin nodded and closed the door. I headed off her porch back to my car. What to do, what to do?
For now I’d go home and regroup. There was a lot I had to think about. This was a huge, frightening piece of knowledge. A mentally unstable person with knowledge and power was a very scary thing. I personally did not want to go head to head with Renton, but there was no way I could keep any of this to myself. Should I talk to Micah about it? Would he believe me? Or did he already know? Micah had been so secretive and full of lies lately it wouldn’t surprise me if he knew about Renton’s stint in an asylum. He already knew Renton had his own agenda, but seemed not to care too much since his uncle helped him save my life. How could I unravel this but keep Micah and Ilyse out of trou
ble? That was the dilemma.
Thinking of Ilyse made me think of Ethan and this business with him no longer being tangible or feeling his connection to me. I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel as I bit my lip, trying to think of reasons why this was happening and of course coming up with nothing. Yet another problem to unravel. Ilyse was the best resource I had with figuring this out, so hopefully this would be one problem I could easily solve. Something told me that was asking for too much.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Not long after I got home, the exhaustion I should have been feeling over the fact that I hadn’t really slept last night came over me, and I gladly fell into bed with Luna. I was happy for the reprieve of sleep because going over everything that was wrong in my life was giving me a massive headache. When I woke up it was because Luna was licking my ear, which meant she needed to be taken out for a walk. I freshened up and took her for a stroll, and when we came back I filled her food and water bowls.
It was late afternoon, and I was digging into my Chinese takeout when Ilyse and Ethan arrived.
“Selene, something is wrong with him, didn’t you get my messages?” Those were Ilyse’s first words after I opened the door to let them in. Behind her, Ethan, who was wearing energy runes, looked…off. I frowned. He didn’t look sick, he just didn’t seem right. His eyes were too wide and his chest was heaving even though he did not breathe.
“He acted strange the entire ride home,” Ilyse said as they stepped inside.
“Selene.” Ethan just stood there staring at me, then looked at Ilyse, then looked around like he didn’t know where he was. I put my hand on his shoulder and steered him to the couch to sit down.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked Ilyse.
“I’m not sure,” she replied. Her face looked worried. “He’s been acting fidgety and not a hundred percent coherent. I don’t have experience with bound ghosts other than him so I can’t say what’s causing any of this.”