by Неизвестный
“But that stuff doesn’t matter.”
Eli laughed. “Could you write that out on an official girl note for me?”
Valentine smiled. “An official girl note? You are so kooky.”
Eli bobbed his head happily. He was feeling very pleased with himself. First, he’d passed the test by being intuitive and helpful, and now he’d made a stellar joke about girls writing notes to each other to excuse typical guy behavior on a case-by-case basis. Plus, he’d mentioned his girlfriend, so now he wouldn’t have to feel so guilty about looking at Valentine, with her pink shirt and red zip-up hoodie over her nice curves.
Eli stopped laughing abruptly and turned his head away. Looking at Valentine’s nice curves was not okay.
He quickly exited the room, muttering about getting some paper towels for the spilled tea.
Khan was still on the phone, pacing and pinching the spot between his dark eyebrows. As he listened to the caller, he jutted out his square jaw and tipped his head from side to side, stretching his muscular neck.
Eli surreptitiously glanced down at his own biceps while flexing. He would have to hit the gym so he wouldn’t look too scrawny next to Khan. He would start on that magical day everything begins: tomorrow.
Khan’s polite voice was starting to crack at the edges with annoyance. “Sir, did you find that pen and paper yet?” He glanced over to Eli and pretended to shoot himself.
Eli chuckled softly and took a seat on the middle step of a wooden stepladder. He had been on his way to the store’s kitchenette to get paper towels, but that task was long forgotten. Now he watched Khan shoot staples into the garbage. Khan had good aim. Eli’s thoughts wandered to a daydream about taking up target practice.
Eli’s mind could wander surprisingly far, considering it was attached to his spinal column. The thing about Eli’s mind was it could do amazing things, just not for very long. He had the capacity to be profoundly gifted in a number of subjects, but his teachers all agreed he didn’t apply himself.
Apply himself.
What did that even mean, anyway? Apply was something you did with paint or sunscreen or other liquids. Whenever Eli read that phrase, Eli does not apply himself, on his evaluation slips, he always imagined himself piercing the skin of his fingertips and bleeding all over his homework until it was covered in applied Eli. That was pretty much how homework felt to him, anyway.
Khan hung up the heavy vintage phone with a clatter.
“You’d think it would get easier with practice,” Khan said.
“I thought you did a great job,” Eli replied. “For a moment, I was a little scared about coming into contact with this exorcist guy, until I remembered it was you.”
Khan gave him a sideways look, one eyebrow raised. No wonder Khan was so cool. He could move his eyebrows independently. That made anyone ten percent cooler.
“And I don’t scare you?” The pitch of his voice had completely changed from the nerdy-sounding tone he’d used on the incoming phone call on the land line. “I’m a practitioner of the dark arts.” His voice was low and menacing, and his dark green eyes seemed to flicker with an internal fire.
Eli swallowed hard. “You scare me sometimes.”
“Good,” Khan growled. “Because I am one bad-to-the-bone necromancer.” He grabbed a bright yellow mug from the desk and nodded for Eli to follow him. “Let’s make some Happy Tummy tea and plan today’s attack.”
Eli jumped to his feet, making the ladder rattle. “Yes, sir!”
The kitchenette lay beyond the enclosed workshop area where Valentine was still working. Beyond that, another door led to the washroom where Eli had been initiated the day before with an ice-cold shower.
Khan pulled a box of teabags from the cupboard. To Eli’s surprise, it really was Happy Tummy tea, and he hadn’t mis-heard a moment earlier. The tea appeared to be a chamomile and mint blend, along with some other herbs that aided digestion. Khan didn’t ask if Eli wanted any; he just rinsed out another mug and filled the kettle with water for two.
Eli’s gaze came to rest on the roll of paper towels. He thought of Valentine’s attractively tapered waist, and got the sense he was forgetting something. Eli experienced that feeling a lot, and whenever he did, he pulled his phone from his pocket to check the next scheduled location on his route.
He stared down at his phone, confused by the lack of instructions. He stared at the phone for all of twelve seconds, before he remembered he wasn’t a delivery driver anymore, as of today.
The phone began to ring in his hand.
“Gah!” Eli said.
His phone was usually set to vibrate, but it was definitely ringing.
“That’s the client,” Khan said calmly.
“How did I get your phone?”
“That’s your phone.” Khan poured hot water into the two mugs. “I gave him your number instead of mine.”
“This is the client,” Eli said. The call was from a blocked number. The phone suddenly felt very hot and heavy in his hand, because responsibility was heavy.
Everything in the world that wasn’t the phone became distant and out of focus. Eli tried to hand the phone to Khan, but he wouldn’t take it.
“I shouldn’t answer this,” Eli said, his voice small and swallowed within his throat, barely making noise.
“Hurry up or it’ll go to voicemail.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do what you do.” He hung his head dejectedly. “You shouldn’t have hired me. I’m the wrong guy. It’s complicated, but I simply cannot do what you do. I can’t.”
“Don’t make me fire you, Eli Carter.”
“Do what you have to do.”
Chapter Five
The phone kept ringing.
Khan blew over his steaming mug and looked at Eli with a calm, steady expression.
“You might get fired, but not like this,” Khan said. “Answer the call. I already got most of the details. This one’s a slam dunk. Or, if you prefer baseball metaphors over basketball, it’s a home run.”
Eli stared at his very heavy, ringing phone.
Two beads of sweat ran down his body. One ran along the side of his forehead, and the other ran down his lower back and into his crack. He frowned at the phone. Crack sweat was an omen for him, as it should be for all guys. Rarely does something good happen when your crack is full of sweat.
Eli touched the screen. It flashed green, connecting.
He raised the phone to his ear and tried to answer with the same gruff hello Khan would use for the second half of the con.
Eli’s gruff voice came out sounding like somebody’s grandmother, calling the local radio station to complain about the cats who’d been using her potato patch as a litter box.
“Hellooooo?” Eli said.
A cantankerous male voice replied, “Are you his secretary?”
“I’m new here,” Eli said, still in falsetto.
“I need one of them spirit things. An exorcism.” The man’s voice crackled, and he had the bluntness of someone past retirement age, past giving a crap about politeness.
“Okay.”
“Well?” said the old man impatiently. “Can you send him over right now? I’ve got two poltergeists and they’re driving me crazy. I can’t work, I can’t sleep, I can barely think with all the damn noise.”
“Hmm.” Eli tried to picture the man on the other end of the line. He got an image of a man with greasy gray hair and a beer belly that strained the buttons of his shirt. The look of a day drinker.
In fact, the guy didn’t sound that sober at the moment. Eli remembered some things he’d read in psychology textbooks, before he’d given up on that career path. Excess drinking could cause psychosis, and this man could be imagining his two poltergeists.
Eli looked up at Khan for guidance. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and whispered, “Day drinker. Might be hallucinating.”
“As long as he pays,” Khan replied, just like Eli knew he would.
“Hello?” Th
e voice on the line got louder. “You still there, or do I have to call someone else?”
Eli replied, “I’ll take your address and pass it along, but I can’t make any guarantees.”
Khan said softly, “Tell him it’s cash only.”
“Sir? It’s cash only. He told me to say that to you.”
Khan’s eyes flashed a warning. Eli winced. His crack was now a flood zone.
Of course he knew he wasn’t supposed to reveal that last part, but the microchip that wouldn’t let him lie also made it difficult to stay quiet about things. Not impossible, but difficult.
“How much are you taking me for?” demanded the old man.
Eli relayed the question, and Khan quoted a dollar amount equivalent to an entire month of Eli and Brenda’s rent. Eli passed the number along, and the client begrudgingly agreed to it, then gave the address.
“The house is orange. You can’t miss it,” the man said. “No, wait. It’s purple. Not orange. Damn thing. Purple.”
Eli looked around for a pen and paper, but they were standing in the kitchenette, and the nearby area only held the usual trappings of a workplace kitchen.
He repeated the address verbally, committing it to memory. “And the house is purple, not orange.”
“Yes,” the man confirmed, his voice turning cool and metallic as he calmed down. “I’m so glad you’re coming over. My friends won’t visit, on account of the poltergeists. If I’m out when you get here, use the key under the welcome mat.”
“Just let ourselves in?”
“Break a window if you have to. I need this problem taken care of.”
The phone went cool in Eli’s hand, and the caller was gone. Eli still hadn’t found anything to use for writing down the address. “I need a pen.”
Khan took a noisy sip of his hot tea, then said, “Seventy-eight, one, nine, fourteen, octopus, ninety-one—”
“GAH!” Eli yelled. Those numbers were nothing like the ones he’d just memorized.
Khan grinned. “Five-oh-seven Ocean Drive Parkway, sixteenth street, twenty-third annual bluegrass festival, eight, twelve…”
Eli tucked his phone between his teeth and covered both of his ears with his hands. He ran to the front of the shop that way.
He grabbed a felt pen and quickly scrawled the address on his inner forearm. He didn’t use paper, because getting paper would take too long.
Shaking his head, he put away the phone and returned to the kitchen.
“Got it,” he said, showing Khan his forearm.
Khan handed him a mug of herbal tea, which Eli gratefully accepted. From the look of amusement on Khan’s face, Eli knew the day’s slam-dunk job wouldn’t be without its hiccups. He needed the tea to replenish his moisture levels, so he could flood his crack with sweat several more times that day.
“You did a decent job,” Khan said. “This case is going to be an easy one, so relax. We’re in, we’re out, nobody gets hurt.”
“Do you always charge so much?”
“Let’s get through the first day before we start discussing your raise.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Just trying to get myself up to speed. I’m still not exactly sure what my job is.”
“Me neither. I’m making everything up as I go.”
“Really?”
Khan smirked. He reached over to an intercom next to the refrigerator and pressed a button. “Hey, Val?”
She grunted a non-verbal response.
With his finger off the intercom button, Khan explained to Eli, “Val can be intense when she’s focused on something. When you give her instructions, make sure she repeats everything back to you, but in her own summary, not word for word.”
“Sure.” Eli couldn’t imagine himself giving Valentine instructions, but he was familiar with that method, as Brenda used it on him.
Khan spoke into the intercom. “Can you call and reschedule the job we had booked for today? Another one fell into our lap just now. A total open and shut case. Super easy. Our new hire’s going to get his confidence built up today.”
“You’re not going to the bowling alley?” She sighed. “Fine. I’ll let them know.”
Khan thanked her and let go of the button. The lights overhead flickered. He pushed the intercom button again. “Val. Was that you?”
She let out a laugh. It wasn’t a girly giggle, either. It was a throaty, head-tossed-back, mad scientist cackle.
Just when Eli thought he couldn’t appreciate Valentine more, he did.
Khan shook his head and eyed the ceiling lights with suspicion.
“As you may have guessed, I’m the muscle and logistics, while my genius sister designs and builds all the ghost hacking tech.”
“She doesn’t go out on the jobs, ever?”
“No way. She’s too valuable to put in the field. I need someone who’s expendable. A red shirt.”
“And that’s me?”
“Without Val’s traps and beacons, we’re nothing. And it is an arms race, believe me. The ghosts are constantly evolving. Our first generation tech wouldn’t stand a chance with today’s para-electrical elements.”
Eli sipped his tea and listened.
Khan began to pace. “There are evolutionary forces at work, and you know what that means. The strongest will survive. Only it’s not always the strongest, is it? Not the way we think of strength. No, it’s the wiliest. The stickiest. The nasty little things that get into corners and breed like cockroaches, until we’re overrun.”
“The ghosts are… breeding?”
“They have to be. Either that or all the rooms at the hotel are booked, if you know what I mean.”
Eli shook his head. No, he didn’t know what Khan meant.
“Standing room only,” Khan said. “Val understands. That’s why she does what she does.”
“How did she learn about this stuff? Did your dad invent some of those things?”
Khan’s eyes got wide under raised eyebrows. He gestured for Eli to step in close.
“Nobody knows how she figured everything out,” he whispered. “Ever since she was old enough to grip a screwdriver, she’s been taking things apart to build other stuff. She’s one of those… whaddayacallit?”
“Savant?”
Khan nodded solemnly. “Yeah. That’s it.” He chugged his tea and slammed the cup down on the counter. “Time to roll out and catch us a poltergeist, my man.”
Eli finished his tea in one gulp, then followed Khan through the shop. Khan handed him camouflage-print bags full of heavy stuff, which Eli strapped onto his shoulders.
Eli commented, “This is a lot more stuff than we took out to Mr. Quentin’s house.”
“It’s the right amount of stuff.”
“If the guy’s got psychosis from alcohol, there won’t be any ghosts.”
“All the more reason to have the right gear.”
Eli shrugged under the weighty bags. “Let’s say there are poltergeists there. Are they really bad? Aren’t they the ones who rearrange your kitchen stuff?”
Khan stopped in front of a cabinet and opened the doors. Without looking back at Eli, he said, “Poltergeists rearrange kitchen stuff, pantry stuff, and then your internal organs. Stomach and intestines. Pulled out so they can play with everything. Get it? They go with a digestion theme.”
Eli didn’t like the sound of that, even if Khan was only pulling his leg. He liked his internal organs where they were. And his external organs, too, for that matter.
He eyed the mysterious things Khan was tossing into a bag. There were six identical objects that looked like stereo speakers, but with domed tops. Next was a white case with a First Aid cross on the side.
“First Aid,” Eli said. “Are you sure this whole ghost hacking thing is safe?”
Khan zipped up the bag. “Who said anything about it being safe? Where’s the fun in that?”
“I don’t know any First Aid.”
“That makes two of us. I only take the kit with me to keep Val
happy.”
“That doesn’t sound smart.”
Khan clapped Eli on the back, between the shoulder blades. “Let’s go. I’ll drive.”
They stepped out of the front door of the shop. It was a perfect spring day, with the air outside being the same as ideal room temperature. Eli took out the keys to the van and held them for a moment.
Khan was a terrible driver, and there was a good chance they’d get in a fender bender before they arrived at the address for the poltergeists.
“Keys!” Khan demanded.
Eli knew he shouldn’t hand over the keys, but he couldn’t say no to Khan.
Chapter Six
Khan started the van’s engine and lurched out of the parking spot with all the care and safety precautions of an amateur lumberjack on Christmas eve, stealing a coniferous tree from the neighbor’s lawn.
Eli buckled his seatbelt. He kept his hands low on his lap and his eyes on the safety airbag packed tightly into the dash.
They drove for a few minutes without incident before Eli remembered to check his inner forearm for the client’s address. His sweat had caused the numbers to smear, but they were still legible. He leaned over and programmed the address into the vehicle’s navigation panel.
“Is the term client or customer?” Eli asked.
“Hmm. When people say client, it sends a certain message. Drug dealers have a clientele. Lawyers call their criminal defendants clients on the witness stand. Client sounds like a euphemism.”
“Okay. Customer it is.” The navigation system automatically included the day’s date, and Eli added Ghost Hackers Customer #1 to the address in the database.
Khan frowned at the navigation display as he crossed three lanes without using the signal light. “Better make it client after all. Customer makes it sound like they’re buying a ghost from us.”
“But it’s already in there. I’ll have to drill down through three menus to change the label.”
Khan grumbled an order, “Do it like the devil wins a court case.”
“What?”
“The devil wins a court case without arguing, Eli.”