by Trisha Telep
Velvet looked down at the intersecting loops that formed the symbol for infinity and smiled. “It is, isn’t it? A friend brought it back from the world of the living.”
Amie sat up straight. “A boy?” she asked suggestively, eyes drifting toward Nick.
And before Velvet could stop herself, she let it escape. “Yes. His name was Porter.”
“Ahem,” Nick’s eyes were all squinty with suspicion.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “He’s not even around anymore. Dimmed and moved on, back before you showed up.”
“Hmm,” he grunted and crossed his arms across his chest, clearly done with the conversation and none too happy to be in competition with a dead boy, or even a dimmed one as the case may be.
She neglected to go into details. Velvet had been quite fond of Porter, not in love with him mind you, but in a deep ... like, let’s say. She’d been holding his hand as he dimmed, the light going out within his soul, eyes darkening, his pale translucent flesh crumbling away like a burnt husk, collapsing. If she’d been nostalgic, as so many are, she’d have honored his passing by spreading his ash on her skin. But she had the silver belt buckle instead and that was plenty to remind her of their brief time together. Of their sweet kisses.
Velvet glanced in Amie’s direction and found her grinning evilly. Nick had amped up his irritation to a full glower. In fact, he wouldn’t even meet Velvet’s gaze, no matter how hard she tried.
“Oh Nyx,” Velvet cooed, using his secret pet name. She attempted to slip her hand into his, but he pulled away, glaring out the window at the passing scenery.
Velvet fumed.
This girl wasn’t going to drive a wedge between her and Nick, Velvet would see to that. But that seemed to be exactly Amie’s plan. Though for what reason, she couldn’t imagine. They’d just met, after all.
It usually takes at least three days for people to hate me, Velvet reminisced. Of course, her own judgments ran much quicker than that, and she had Amie directly in her rifle sights.
“You’re dead meat,” she mouthed at the girl, who merely cocked an eyebrow and continued to smirk.
Velvet rolled her eyes and huffed. Staring down the center of the car, she prayed for a violent derailment.
When Velvet finally ventured a look out the windows again, the first thing to catch her eye was the fading red-lacquered glory of the Pagoda of Vermillion rising high into the sky like a monument. It was in full view, despite the fact that they were technically still traveling through the shacks of Boondock Holler, apparently the place hillbillies went to die. Seriously. Velvet saw no less than three toothless souls with banjos. It was quite fascinating in a National Geographic, don’t-break-down-here-if- it’s-the-last thing-you-do sort of way.
“Your neighbors are colorful, at least,” Velvet snarked.
“They are a wonderful, welcoming group. I do adore them.” Amie said sweetly.
Velvet glanced at Nick to find him pleasantly agreeing with the girl. So she sank back into the bench cushion. Of course, she thought. I’m the jerk. That’s me. Of course!
“So, Amie. Why don’t you tell us about this errant undertaker we’re supposed to capture. Do you know him well?”
She nodded.
“You didn’t chase him off, did ya?” Velvet winked at her opponent. “I mean with your sparkling personality.”
Amie grinned mischievously. “He’s handicapped.”
Velvet’s breath caught in her throat.
The girl went on, “He can’t run at all. He wheels himself around in an antique wooden desk chair. It’s quite empowering really. Gets him where he needs to go.”
She glanced at Nick, whose only response was, “Nice going.”
Vermillion’s funicular platform was completely deserted except for a pair of bored adolescents, hands jammed in the pockets of their jeans. When the train car stopped, they rushed to pull the luggage from the roof rack and trailed behind Velvet and Nick, as Amie stomped off ahead.
Amie led them under the high lacquered arch in the stone wall. The ends of the crosspost depicted dragons breathing fire, though the intensity of the flames was diminished by a thick coat of ash settled in their grooves, like some knick-knack you’d find in your grandma’s dusty house. Beyond this, the courtyard of the temple complex spread out like a tent city. A hodgepodge of low structures with corrugated metal roofs—unlike the blue tile Velvet remembered from Chinese action movies—lined up in tight rows. Candles flickered inside cheap dollar-store paper lanterns, a few of them burnt down to expose the wire coil forms that made them look like globes.
Salvaged and often shoddy fixtures and building materials were a sad reality in Purgatory. Most everything needed to be stolen from the land of the living and brought through the cracks between the worlds without being noticed. Oddly enough, the need for subterfuge was the reason the dead were so well-dressed. What else could be misplaced so easily but couture clothing that never sold because of its outlandishness? Velvet hated such extravagant rags, preferring simple factory seconds and combat boots.
A timeless classic.
At the far end of the passage, an open pavilion revealed itself. Inside, sitting cross-legged by a low table, flipping through no less than three books at once in a flurry of page turning, was a middle-aged man in an argyle sweater and wool trousers. Unlike so many they’d passed in Vermillion, this soul left his skin unburnished of either powders or ash. He glowed a vivid amber and, noticing them, brightened both in flesh and smile.
“Amie,” he called, rising from the floor elegantly. “Bring our guests up here this minute. I’ve been so excited to meet Jayne’s charges.”
Velvet noticed two more things about the man. He spoke in a refined British accent and he’d referred to Manny by what she assumed was her first name. Jayne. It was weird to hear it. She’d heard people call her “Mansfield,” and many of the older souls talked about her pin-ups and movies when she’d been a living person, but never to her face. You just didn’t do that kind of thing with a Station Agent. Whether she was a sex symbol or not earthside, dead she was a government official. One with certain charms, certainly. And by charms Velvet meant the dagger-like vessels that hung from the hundreds of keys in the Agent’s office. It just wasn’t sexy to watch her gouge a man’s thoughts from the center of his forehead like she was picking pineapple out of some sweet and sour pork.
Sweet and sour. Mmm.
“I’m Howard Barker, the Salvage Father of these little heathens.” He gestured playfully in Amie’s direction.
The girl grimaced and planted her hand on her hip. “What did I tell you about those racist comments?”
“Hush girl, we’re all souls now. Dead is dead and that’s all that matters.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Velvet said and then remembered the envelope. “Oh wait. Manny gave me something for you.”
Nick rushed forward to shake the man’s hand politely as Velvet dug in her pockets for the correspondence.
“Nick Jessup,” he said.
“I’ve heard tales about your exploits. The both of you. You’re quite famous now.”
Velvet pressed the envelope into his palm. “Well, I don’t know about that.”
Barker retraced his steps to the short table, picked up an opener and slit the pink envelope open like he’d skewered an opponent. He read the letter silently, closing his eyes once he’d finished and holding the note to his heart.
Just as Velvet suspected. A love letter.
It was difficult to imagine Manny cultivating any sort of relationship, with all of her responsibilities as an agent, but clearly there was something going on between these two. If she’d had any doubt, the expression of complete serenity on Howard’s face confirmed the truth.
Velvet wasn’t sure what to say—she couldn’t just ask if they were getting it on—so she opted for the next best thing: changing the subject entirely. Scanning the room, her eyes lit on a desk and behind it a wooden chair on rollers. She cocked her head, layered
on the most sympathetic expression she could conjure and said, “Oh, that must be Abner’s chair.”
Amie began to giggle immediately.
“Whatever do you mean? Abner’s chair?”
Velvet should have caught on, but by the time Amie’s giggle had turned into full-blown and very mean-spirited laughter, she’d already started to speak. “You know, the one he’d roll around in, what with his ... handicap?”
“I assure you, there’s no such thing as a disabled spirit,” Barker gruffed. “If you’re looking for some reason to pity the boy, then I’m not sure you’re the right one for the job.”
“I ... uh ... I,” she stuttered, glancing again at Amie’s hideous grin.
“Well.” He slipped the folded piece of paper back in the envelope and trapped it in his pocket. “You’ll be needing to get some rest, I suspect. As you’re clearly suffering from exhaustion.”
Nick, thank God, intervened. “It must have been the fumes from the Boondock Holler bogs or something. Velvet will be fine in a second, sir. I swear.”
Barker softened, brows lilting in a clearly paternal way. “Of course.”
Velvet glared at Amie, raising her fist threateningly as Barker turned away and sank onto his knees in front of the table again.
“I take it Amie has filled you in sufficiently?” he asked, fluffing the silk cushion before settling in.
“I have.” Amie’s stare dared her to disagree.
Velvet smirked—vengeance would be hers like a new pair of combat boots. No one pulled a prank like Amie’s without retribution. “She’s told us the bare minimum, I’m afraid, and about some things there’s likely been a misunderstanding. What we do know is you have an undertaker on the haunt and a need to reel him in.”
“True, true,” Barker said. “Mr. Conroy has been in the daylight for several weeks now. His team started noticing his absences and, when confronted, he’d lie that he’d been taking a walk or welcoming the recently dead. Later, we found that he’d been missing for hours on end. Those hours turned into days. Those days into a week. Not to mention the shadowquakes, but I don’t have to tell you about those.”
Velvet shuddered. They were still rebuilding after the last big shadowquake in the Latin Quarter. They were just lucky to still have a dorm to house the team—half of their block had crumbled like Gorgonzola on a salad.
“How long has he been earthside this time?” she asked.
Barker turned to Amie for the answer.
“Nine days or so,” she sighed, a look of concern on her otherwise miserable face.
“That’s a long time,” Nick said.
“Yeah, it is. We really need him back, too. Abner’s absence has had a disheartening effect on both Amie and our poltergeists.”
Velvet’s team had a pair of poltergeists, too. Logan and Luisa were a brother-and-sister act known for their impressively vicious fighting skill and dogged loyalty. In that moment, Velvet missed the two terribly. Not least of all to have some other friendly faces to offset Amie’s near constant venom.
“Can we speak to them? Your poltergeists?” Velvet asked, ignoring Amie. From the corner of her eye, she saw the girl shift, her hand propped on her hip like a warning.
That made Velvet smile.
“Tomorrow,” Amie intervened. “They’re probably sleeping just now. Don’t you think, Howard?”
Barker shrugged. “How would I know?”
The girl rolled her eyes and then stared back into Velvet’s scrutinizing gaze.
“Could we check?” Velvet pressed.
Amie huffed and turned to the two boys who had lugged her trunk from the platform. “Put that in my room while I take these strangers to meet Ho and Charlie.”
Velvet thought she heard the boys mumble the word “witch,” though it was undoubtedly and deservedly something a little harsher. Either way, they were right and Amie deserved it. They stumbled off in the direction of one of the little residences, and Amie stomped off in the other, neglecting to say good-bye to Howard or even direct Nick and Velvet to follow her.
Amie was right though, Ho Min was asleep, but the other team poltergeist, Charlie, was up playing cards with a table of grouchy-looking men. He was a kid of no more than ten when he died, if he was a day; most poltergeists were small and nimble—perfectly suited to their profession as troublemakers. Charlie brightened when he saw Amie approach and, grinning devilishly at the gathered men, tossed his cards on the table.
“Ace-high flush, gentlemen.”
The men groaned, slapped the table, and cursed.
“That’s called getting your ass handed to you.” Charlie gathered the stacks of pressed-paper coins in the center of the table and shoveled them into a cloth sack he produced from the pocket of his robe. “And with that, gentlemen, I’m off to see what my friends want.”
More groans.
Velvet liked the kid instantly. She liked any kid that was a little rough around the edges and didn’t mind showing it. Filled her with a sense of warmth. “You cleaned them out,” she said. “Respect.”
Charlie nodded proudly and looked her up and down. “Thank you, and respect right back. That body is slammin’.”
Velvet gulped. Despite being dead for three years, it always slipped her mind that the “kids” in the City of the Dead might not actually be so child-like. Take this little card shark, for instance.
“So you’ve been around, I take it?” Velvet smirked.
“Long enough.” Charlie slipped past, patted her on the butt, and kept walking.
Velvet leaned in to Nick’s ear. “I’m liking that kid less and less.”
“I think he’s pretty funny.”
“Whatever.”
Amie stood where she was, not even attempting to stop the boy’s retreat. Velvet had to dodge around her to follow Charlie, sprinting down the stone path between the outer wall of the compound and a row of well-appointed houses with gaslight instead of candles, casting warm glows against the painted stone walls.
“Hey,” she called, Nick beating the ground with his feet as he caught up. “Wait a minute.”
The boy ducked into the last house on the left, letting the canvas fabric in the doorway flap close behind him. Velvet poked her head in without knocking.
“Dude, that was too rude.” She pointed at herself and Nick. “Guests here. You understand that concept?”
“Yeah. Yeah. What you want?” He emptied out the sack and started to count the coins on his unmade bed, the covers coiled up on the floor like a dog’s chew toy.
“What can you tell us about Abner Conroy?”
“He’s an okay guy.”
“Okay?” Nick asked. “But he’s a dirty haunter.”
Velvet glanced at Nick, brows raised. He shrugged. His heart wasn’t in those words and never would be. In fact, the two of them would have never found each other, would have never fallen in love, if it weren’t for the fact that Velvet was a “dirty haunter” herself. Though, she couldn’t be blamed, could she? It’s not as though her killer could just be allowed to go on torturing and murdering young girls. Velvet wouldn’t allow it. But that issue had been cleared up long ago, or at least a few months prior, when Manny had found out Velvet’s secret.
“Whatever. Like I give a crap whether he haunts. I’ve got a job to do, and I do it well. We’re all just killing time until we dim out and move on. What’s the harm in slipping through to the other side? It don’t hurt nobody.”