by Ryan Hill
“Whatever his name is, he can be a big meanie sometimes.” Sam turned, giving me a wink.
I ran my fingers under my chin, giving her the classic non-verbal Italian fuck you. The almost-angel stuck her tongue out at me.
Duffy sprang up and hugged Sam, catching her so off guard, she gasped. I didn’t get it. What was the big deal? She acted like nobody had ever hugged her before. Her eyes beamed with pride.
Gag me.
Duffy buried his head in her chest. The little perv.
“Did people like the ones earlier send you to the bad place?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was really scared. The bad place was so dark.”
“Maybe bring a flashlight next time.” Why did kids get so scared of the dark? Oh, right. Because monsters like me hid in the shadows. HAHA!
Sam’s eyes bugged out. “You’re not helping, Bartholomew.”
Duffy rolled off Sam and sprawled out on the mattress to stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t remember, okay? Can we stop talking about it?”
“I believe him.” Remy entered the room. “Sometimes the really nasty stuff gets buried so deep, people can’t get to it. Especially when it comes to life and death.”
“Doubtful,” I said. “He probably just wants to piss me off.”
“Maybe it is buried away,” Sam said.
Why did Sam always go against me? For once, I’d have appreciated it if the almost-angel took my side in something. Even if I was arguing that no boxing match in the history of the world had ever been rigged. I’d have appreciated a little backup now and then.
Worse than that, she was in my bedroom. Fully clothed. Consoling a ghost-child while a hairy Cajun and a future Hell Hound looked on. It was an orgy of embarrassment I wouldn’t soon forget.
“Or maybe he’s trying, successfully I might add, to get on my nerves,” I said.
“I’ve got an idea,” Remy said. “If the little guy here is willing, I might have something at the shop that can help.”
Sam stood in front of my door, arms crossed. I motioned for her to step aside, but she refused.
“Are we going to Remy’s, or aren’t we?” I asked.
“Not until you cough it up,” she said.
“Cough what up?”
“Your phone.” She held out her hand. “You’re too horny to be trusted with it.”
The reduced-fat angel had a point, so I handed over the phone. Sam turned on her heels, proud of winning that round, and walked out the door, an extra bounce in her step. I shook my head, pride stinging with defeat.
Like most everyone who entered the House of the Rising Sun for the first time, Duffy was in awe. The store was like no other in Raleigh, selling little trinkets and potions that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world. Heaven, even I enjoyed checking out the inventory. Duffy tried to pick up an oversized reptilian claw. His hand went straight through.
“Dang it.” Duffy stomped his foot. “I hate being a ghost.”
“Will this stuff even work?” I asked Remy. “It’s not like Duffy can ingest anything.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” he said. “You need to expand your horizons.”
“I’ve watched The Wizard of Oz scored to Dark Side of the Moon while tripping on LSD, so I’ve already expanded my horizons.”
“Not what I meant.” Remy moved past the bead curtains separating the storefront from the inventory. “But that’s groovy, man.”
I rolled my eyes. Sam, Duffy, and I joined Remy in the back of the store. Remy sat Duffy down in a chair by his desk, then disappeared into the rows of shelves that held all manner of items, from red skulls to purple feathers to green potions.
“Psst,” I said.
Sam didn’t respond.
“Psst!”
“What?” an annoyed Sam asked.
“Can I have my phone back?”
Sam crossed her arms. “I’m not sure you’re ready to think with your brain.”
“Which one?”
“Made my point for me.”
“Come on. That was a joke.”
Sam glared at me, lips sucked in due to aggravation.
Duffy poked at the brown skull on a desk strewn with papers and an old, dusty computer. “What’s Remy going to do to me?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said. “Spooky.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Sam said. “Whatever it is, I promise it won’t hurt.”
“You never talk sweet to me like that,” I said. “Makes me jealous.”
“Yeah, you’re definitely ready to have your phone back.”
Just then, Remy emerged from the shelves. Between his fingers was a small, circular charm hanging from a thin, gold chain. He leaned against the desk, holding the charm in front of Duffy.
“Okay, little man,” Remy said. “All you have to do is keep looking at this and listen to my voice. Easy, right?”
Duffy nodded. Remy moved his hand, letting the charm sway back and forth underneath. He muttered something in French, Creole—whatever language was required to get that weird New Orleans voodoo of his working.
The ghost’s eyes followed the charm, getting heavier with each turn, and Duffy’s mouth began to hang open. He’d fallen under the charm’s spell. I hoped some poltergeist drool would drip onto Remy’s desk, but it seemed ghosts didn’t do that. I did have to hand it to Remy; in all my millennia, I’d never seen a lost soul get hypnotized.
“Can you hear me?” Remy asked.
“Yes,” Duffy said in a flat tone.
“I want you to go back to the last day you were alive. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, okay.” Duffy closed his eyes. “I’m there.”
“Good.”
Remy spoke with the same calm and gentle voice Sam used with the kid. The difference was he used a rhythmic cadence that lulled a person—or rogue—to sleep. I shook my head, trying to pull myself out of Remy’s trance. Sam nodded off, then jerked her head back. She was falling under Remy’s spell too. That wasn’t good, since the close-but-no-cigar angel needed to hear Duffy’s story. Partly because it was super important, but mostly so I wouldn’t have to fill her in on what the kid said later.
“Wake up.” I waved my hand in front of her face. Sam focused on me, snapping back to reality.
“Stop.” She hit my arm.
“Take us to when you died,” Remy said.
“I don’t remember the day,” Duffy said. “But we did a field trip to the state capital. The class went to Wendy’s for lunch. Miss Adams said she wanted to show me something before I went in.”
“Who is Miss Adams?” Remy asked.
“My teacher.”
Miss Adams called Duffy into a side alley.
“What is it?” he’d asked her.
And the teacher took off her wig.
“The top of her head was gone,” Duffy said.
“Like a black hole?” Remy asked.
“Yep.”
Remy ran a hand over his beard, his brain processing the story up to that point. “What happened then?”
Duffy had tried to run, but Miss Adams grabbed him by the arm. He screamed for help, but the teacher’s free hand covered his mouth. The kid tried to kick his way to freedom, but all he did was make a slight breeze with his feet.
“I tried to scream,” Duffy said. “But Miss Adams covered my mouth.”
I sucked in my lips. The kid never stood a chance against the teacher.
“There was a big whoosh,” Duffy said. “I didn’t know where I was. There was a man.”
“Do you remember anything about him?” Remy asked. “Maybe what he looked like?”
“Not really.”
“What about a name?” I asked. “Does Peter Heinrich ring a bell?”
“No,” Duffy said. “I think he was a Magister Halo?”
“Caelo,” I said, correcting him.
Interesting. If nothing else, we knew for sure that a Mop Top had taken out young Duffy. The state capita
l and the Wendy’s fast food joint down the street were close to where the one monster had tried to take my suit, along with me. Throw in Duffy’s attack, and it seemed obvious that area was where the Caelo congregated. It made sense, but it didn’t explain why the Mop Tops would kill a kid. It was a barbaric act that typically set off all sorts of alarm bells, both Upstairs and below.
Why hadn’t those bells gone off with Duffy? His death should’ve immediately brought in Heaven’s first responders, even if the kid was more annoying than not. Even more confusing was the fact that it took Sam stumbling upon Duffy for Heaven—or Hell—to notice that a child had been murdered. Those places didn’t need a body to know a death had happened. Both had a sort of soul radar that picked up on unaccounted souls. I’d never come across a death evading that before.
“Try really hard,” Remy said. “Tell us anything you can about this Magister Caelo.”
“He was scary,” Duffy said. “With scales and stuff.”
That didn’t narrow it down. Lots of baddies had scales—me included.
“Do you remember Veronica, Bartholomew’s girlfriend from earlier?” Sam asked.
For the love of…
“She’s not my–”
“Yes,” Duffy said, interrupting me. The little shit.
“At any point in the bad place, did you see her?”
“No.”
Ha! I love this kid.
“Told you.” I glared at Sam. She pursed her lips and glanced down at the floor, and I felt a little vindicated. Not much, but it was at least a check in the “Veronica wasn’t in league with the Mop Tops” column.
“The Magister tried to make me disappear.” Duffy trembled. “I screamed and ran away. I wanted my mom and dad. The Magister tried to get me, but he couldn’t stand my screaming.”
“He’s not the only one,” I said.
Sam elbowed me. “That’s why it’s so strong.”
I looked at her out of the corner of my eyes. She was right. If a soul had enough strength, it could carry its last moment in life through to the next plane. Duffy had been screaming when he died. Now, with no physical limitations, his pipes continued—and they knew no bounds. I wondered if this applied to someone who died while snapping another person’s neck with their bare hands. That would make for one powerful ghost.
“Please.” Duffy winced. His body trembled, his forehead drenched with sweat. Even under hypnosis, reliving a death wasn’t easy. “I want to go home.”
Remy snapped his fingers, like the hypnosis was a cheap parlor trick. “Wake up, Duffy.”
Duffy’s entire composure changed. He went from a shaking, sweating mess to calm in a heartbeat.
“Did you start?” he asked.
“Actually, we’re all done.” Remy rubbed his head; a slightly relieved smile passing across his face. “You did great.”
Duffy didn’t remember anything that happened while he was under Remy’s spell. That made Sam and Remy happy, because it meant the kid was free of the memory of dying. Not me. Duffy had seen behind the curtain. Whatever this Magister Caelo and the Mop Tops were up to, they’d done a Heaven of a job keeping it quiet. Remembering something about them that gave us an edge would’ve helped—but I guessed for the moment, ignorance was bliss. All I knew for sure was if Duffy stayed on Earth long enough, he’d have to face the Caelo in Terra, with or without our help. Because they were coming for him.
And he’d better be ready.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Disrespecting Your Authority
I wanted to kiss Sam. Well, that wasn’t anything new. She was an attractive almost-angel. What was different was the reason. I was so focused on the Magister that I’d forgotten Duffy mentioned someone else while hypnotized.
Miss Adams.
“Beyond brilliant,” I told her. “If you want to get a nice hotel room and make some sweet, dirty love to me, you’re welcome to have at it.”
“Aren’t you sweet,” she said. “Pass.”
This was important, this lead. Because with every attack, the Mop Tops’d had the element of surprise. It was like their wigs were a modern-day Trojan Horse. Since none of the monsters wore a red clown wig, spotting them before an attack was impossible. Sam and I hadn’t had a chance.
Until now.
Dun, dun, dun!
Duffy, little cherub that he was, had given us the name of an active Mop Top.
Miss Adams.
Knowing who the Mop Top was before they attempted to suck us into their black hole gave us the upper hand. We could torch their Trojan Horse, then watch everyone trapped inside die a horrible, fiery death while doing the cha-cha. All that was left to do was follow Miss Adams, let her lead us to the Magister Caelo, bing, bang, boom, take care of that piss-sniffer, send Duffy on to the next world, then put this whole mess in the rearview mirror, hopefully learning zero lessons in the process.
So on Monday afternoon Sam and I went to stake out Duffy’s old school, with the ghost in tow. We arrived thirty minutes before school let out. I parked in the school lot, backing in so the SUV faced the front entrance.
“All we have to do now is wait for the bell to ring,” I said.
“I do that every day,” Duffy said.
“Me too.” Sam turned to the kid. “I always hated waiting for school to end. It took forever.”
Great.
I tuned out Sam and Duffy’s wistful trip down memory lane. The urge to smoke hit me like a cannonball to the gut. I reached into my jacket, then remembered I’d run out the night before. My fingers twitched, begging for the feel of a nicotine delivery device between them.
“Need a smoke?” Sam asked.
“I’m okay.” Lies. I’d smoke a butt I found in a storm drain right now.
“Smoking makes you smell bad,” Duffy said.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and reminded myself that Duffy was a ghost, and therefore ripping out his tongue and stapling it to his forehead like a limp unicorn horn was impossible.
“He does make a good point,” Sam said. “Have you thought about e-cigarettes?”
“They’re not the same.” I need the tar, the smoke, the filth. That stuff was good for me. I wasn’t affiliated with Hell anymore, but my diet remained the same. Though, after thousands of years of smoking, I wondered how much of it was habi–
A knock on the window caught me off guard and I jumped. A black leather glove belonging to a cop banged on the window again. What did this yokel want? We weren’t doing anything wrong. I didn’t think.
“It’s the fuzz,” Duffy said. “Are we going to get busted?”
“Be cool,” I said making sure not to move my lips. I didn’t want to tip the cop off to anything suspicious, give him a reason to search the SUV. “He can’t see ghosts.”
“You don’t have to say it like that,” Duffy said.
I pressed the window button and the glass disappeared into the door, leaving nothing between the cop and myself. The smell of leather from the police officer’s jacket filled my nostrils. The cop leaned forward, his baby-faced looks betraying the sense of power and authority he tried to exude. In short, the guy was a clown chomper.
“Help you?” I asked.
“What are you doing?” He laid a hand on the window as if that would prevent me from rolling it back up. Not even five seconds had passed, and I hated this guy.
“Taking in the breeze, exploring the meaning of life, fighting off the urge to smoke,” I said. “You know. The usual.”
“Funny,” the cop said.
I glanced at his nametag. Schaefer. It sounded like spoiled meat an overweight fellow with a nasally voice would put on a sandwich.
Sam leaned across me. “We’re waiting to pick my nephew up from school.”
Her breast brushed against my arm. It felt nice. Made what remained of my horns tingle.
“You can wait in the pick-up line with all the other moms,” Schaefer said.
Oh, the insinuations I could make with that statement.
“That’s kind of sexist,” Sam said. “Assuming only women pick their kids up from school.”
“I call them like I see them,” Schaefer said.
“Can’t we wait right here?” I asked. “We really don’t want to mess with the traffic. We’ve already texted little Johnny to let him know where we are.”
“What’s your nephew’s name?” Schaefer asked. He took hold of the walkie-talkie attached to his shoulder.
“Say you’re picking up John Sagamore,” Duffy said. “He’s my friend.”
“John Sagamore,” Sam said.
“Hey, Deb, this is Schaefer.”
Schaefer radioing in to the school’s front office made me think that this guy wasn’t a real cop.
“Go ahead,” a garbled Deb said through the walkie-talkie.
“I’ve got a couple of stranger dangers here, saying they’re here to pick up a John Sagamore. Can you tell me if he’s a real student?”
“Stranger danger?” I mouthed to Sam, trying not to laugh.
One of Sam’s cheeks raised, narrowing her eye. The stink-eye. Even she found stranger danger hilarious.
“Hold,” Deb said. “How bad was that fish sandwich today?”
“I don’t eat fish,” Schaefer said. “And let’s keep the channel clear.”
“Okay, okay. Got that kid for you. He’s a student.”
“Roger that.”
It took all my discipline to keep a straight face. Schaefer had referred to Sam and me as “stranger dangers,” then told what I imagined was the sweet old lady working the school’s front desk to “keep the channel clear,” as if he were some real cop walking the beat.
“Something I can help you with?” Schaefer asked, noticing the pained expression of non-laughter on my face.
“No,” I said, losing my composure. “Unless you want to keep acting like you’re a real cop.”
“Bart,” Sam said. “I’m sorry, officer, he didn’t mean that.”
“You need to leave my school.” Schaefer pointed across the street. “You can wait over there for your nephew.”
All Sam and I wanted was a simple stakeout. Was that so much to ask? This Schaefer, acting like he was a “somebody” when he was a nobody, was begging for a good, old-fashioned Bartholomew roasting. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to keep everything from spiraling out of control. I needed to keep my mouth shut and focus on the bigger picture. The goal was to follow Miss Adams, establish her routine, and wait for her to lead us to the Magister. Schaefer was a nuisance, nothing more. Demolishing him with my razor-sharp wit and keen intellect wasn’t worth the effort.