by James Swain
“Who told you about Pelco?” Garrison asked.
“A casino I once worked at. Pelco can search thirty days of video images in a minute. When it comes to catching bad guys, this system is state-of-the-art.”
“I’m impressed,” Garrison said.
“Thanks. So, what did you find?”
Garrison got onto a keyboard and typed in a command.
“Over the past thirty days, the shadow person has been filmed on four different occasions running across Grand Central’s main concourse. I’ll show you the first video we found. Look at screen number three.”
His eyes found screen three on the wall of monitors. A surveillance video began to play. On it, a shadow person ran through the main concourse. It looked like a puff of smoke, and hovered inches above the floor. It moved quickly before disappearing through a street exit. Several people in the concourse saw it pass, shook their heads, and went back to whatever they had been doing, which was how people usually reacted when confronted by a ghost.
The video was short, barely five seconds long. Peter stared at the screen long after it had stopped playing. The shadow person had appeared to be in a hurry. Why?
He shook his head in frustration. He had no earthly idea what any of this meant. The time stamp on the corner of the video caught his eye. It had been shot on Friday night at 11:50.
He shuddered.
The shadow person had been hurrying to reach the Friday night séance at Milly’s apartment on the other side of town, where it had appeared ten minutes later.
“What’s outside the exit I just saw?” he asked.
“A taxi stand,” Garrison replied.
That made sense. The shadow person had taken a taxi. Not in the traditional sense. It had simply hung on the roof and bummed a ride. Ghosts did it all the time.
“May I see the other videos?” Peter said.
Garrison worked his magic on the keyboard. Three videos appeared in rapid succession, shot on the floor of the main concourse. In each, a shadow person could be seen fleeing past. Peter read the time stamps on each video.
The first had been recorded at 1 A.M. on Saturday morning, right around the time the shadow person had invaded his brownstone. The second was from Saturday afternoon, right before the shadow person had disrupted his matinee. The third was from this morning. In each video, the shadow person ran past a newspaper kiosk in the concourse. With the kiosk as a point of reference, the differences were clear.
“There’s more than one of them,” he said.
“What? Are you sure?”
“I compared the images on the videos. They’re different sizes. They’re traveling into the city on the Westchester railroad. Once they arrive at Grand Central, they run across the concourse to get outside, and go searching for me.”
“I thought these things could slip through walls,” Garrison said.
“They can slip into cracks in walls in the same way ghosts can. But they can’t pass through solid walls. No spirit can. That forces them to make a mad dash in order to reach the street. From there, they’re hitching cab rides to their final destinations.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Happens all the time. I need to go.”
“But you just got here.”
Peter had encountered all of the shadow people who’d traveled to New York, except the last one, which had arrived this morning. Was another of his friends about to be kidnapped, like poor Liza? He couldn’t let that happen, and he brushed past Garrison on his way to the door.
“Something urgent’s come up,” he said. “I’ll call you when I’m done.”
* * *
Grand Central was like a small city, and had over a hundred shops and restaurants, and contained everything a visitor could desire. Peter hurried to a jewelry store called Forever Silver inside the Lexington Avenue Passageway that sold hand-crafted necklaces and bracelets.
Peter was in luck. There was a jewelry maker on duty. He was babysitting his young son, a dark-haired boy sitting on the counter, watching the world go by. Peter offered to do tricks for the boy if the jewelry maker would fill his order right away.
“Good luck. He’s got a short attention span,” the jewelry maker said.
“What’s his name?” Peter asked.
“Anthony.”
Peter did his best to entertain Anthony while his father went to work. Peter waved his hands magically in front of Anthony’s face, and pulled a shiny half-dollar out of the boy’s ear, which he split into two. The coins jumped from hand to hand not once but several times. For a finale, he rubbed them together, and they turned into a silver dollar.
Anthony giggled and clapped his hands enthusiastically.
“Want to see some more?” Peter asked.
It was the magician’s first rule. Wait for them to ask for more.
“Yes,” the boy said.
“Anthony,” his father said.
“Please,” the boy added.
Peter continued the show. He removed a piece of string from his pocket, and began to tear it into tiny pieces. Anthony’s eyes did not leave his hands.
“How many necklaces did you say you wanted?” the jewelry maker asked.
“Five,” Peter said. “Each needs to have a five-pointed star hanging from it. Make sure the star has five points.”
“I’ve got some really beautiful diamond pendants on sale,” the jewelry maker said. “They’re our best sellers. The women love them.”
Peter rolled the pieces of string into a ball, and had Anthony blow on them.
“Just a five-pointed star.”
“Do you mind my asking what they’re for? I’m not being nosy. Just curious.”
Peter grabbed the ends of the string and pulled it apart. It had magically restored itself, and Anthony squealed with delight. The jeweler probably dealt with a hundred customers a day. Five-pointed stars weren’t an item that people requested. Peter could have told him that Grand Central was being visited by evil spirits that were trying to kill him and hurt his friends, and that the stars were needed to ward them off, only that would have ruined the man’s day, and he didn’t want to do that.
“It’s a long story,” the young magician said. “How much longer will you be?”
“Ten minutes, tops.”
Peter went back to entertaining Anthony. The boy looked no more than seven, the same age he’d been when he’d lost his parents. He’d often wondered how his life would have turned out had his parents not been taken away from him at such a tender age. Would he still have become a magician, or would his life have taken another path, and sent him on a different journey then the one he was on now? And would he have met Liza and fallen in love, or would another woman have claimed his heart? There was no way to know; even his psychic powers would not let him look back into past and see what might have been.
The trick ended, and Anthony clapped his hands and giggled with laughter. Ever since Peter could remember, he’d wanted to have a family of his own, and a child he could pass down his magic to. Knowing what he did now about himself, he wondered if he’d dare even try.
“All done. Cash or credit card?” the jewelry maker asked.
Peter paid the jeweler cash and took the gift bag off the counter.
“Sure I can’t interest you in those diamond pendants?”
“Maybe some other time,” Peter said.
20
Leaving Grand Central, Peter hailed a cab from the taxi stand on Lexington Avenue. He needed to hunt down Milly, Holly, Max, Lester, and Snoop, and present them with the five-pointed-star necklaces. It was the only way he could ensure that the newly arrived shadow person would not harm his friends.
He gave the driver an address in the Village, and the vehicle headed downtown. Of all his friends, he considered his teacher to be the most at risk. Max had lost his wife a year ago, and now spent his days traveling between restaurants and taverns in the city, doing magic to keep himself busy. He often acted like he was walking around in a fog
, and would be an easy target.
Peter decided to call Max, and tell him of his impending arrival. As he pulled out his Droid, the phone vibrated as if alive. Caller ID said it was Garrison.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” he said to the phone.
Then Peter answered the call. “Special Agent Garrison, what a pleasant surprise,” he said.
“Where are you?” the FBI agent barked.
“In a cab, heading downtown.”
“Can you get back to Grand Central? I need your help.”
Peter’s priorities would always be to his friends and loved ones, and he said, “I’m sort of busy at the moment. What’s going on?”
“About an hour ago, a surveillance camera at a train station in Westchester picked up a shadow person climbing onto the roof of a New York–bound train. It will be arriving soon, and I’m trying to figure out what to do. That’s why I called you.”
Another shadow person was coming into the city? It was starting to feel like an invasion.
“I was thinking of having a team of agents board at one of the stops, and see if they can root this thing out,” Garrison went on. “Is that practical?”
Peter sat up straight in his seat. “I would advise you not to do that.”
“Look, my men are trained professionals. They’ve seen everything there is to see.”
“Don’t do it.”
“So what do I do?”
“Nothing.”
“They don’t pay me to do nothing. Come on, think of something.”
Ordinary people who engaged with the spirits often spent the rest of their lives regretting it. As a result of their unearthly encounters, ghosts visited them regularly, and they were plagued by otherworldly voices in their dreams. Their nerves became frayed, and they walked around perpetually scared. Garrison had no idea of the danger he was placing his agents in.
“The best thing you can do is to leave it alone,” Peter said.
“Some help you are. Don’t tell me there isn’t a way to fight these things.”
So that was it. Garrison wanted to fight. He was stubborn that way, and would probably try to capture the shadow person no matter what Peter told him. And then there’d be hell to pay for Garrison and his team. “You can’t fight a shadow person. But you can catch it the same way you capture a ghost. Promise me you’ll do exactly as I say.”
“You have my word.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen. The train will pull into the terminal, and the shadow person will stay on the roof until the passengers have departed and the platform is quiet. Then it will get off and creep up the stairs to the exit, and hang by the door. Once it sees an opening in the terminal, it will bolt toward an exit. That’s when you have a chance to catch it.”
“How? With a butterfly net?”
“Turn on the lights inside the terminal to their brightest wattage. It will freeze the thing in its tracks.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Yes. Whatever you do, make sure you don’t touch it.”
“How am I going to move it?”
“You don’t. Unless you want to cause great harm to yourself and your team.”
“What? And leave it there for everyone to see? Are you nuts?”
The taxi had reached its destination, and the driver raised the flag on the meter.
“Call me if you catch it,” Peter said, “and I’ll tell you what to do.”
* * *
Max had made a living doing magic for half a decade. Unlike most stage performers, who lugged around lots of bulky props, his act fit into a small suitcase. The Egg Bag, Linking Rings, Floating Ball, Rising Cards, and an occasional mind-reading stunt made up his repertoire. In his hands, each trick was a masterpiece of deception tempered by delicious patter and funny stories. Max the Magnificent, One of the Better Cheaper Acts.
These days, Max limited his act by performing close-up tricks that fit into his pockets. On Mondays he could be found entertaining the lunch crowd at a Bleecker Street landmark called the Peculier Pub that featured hundreds of imported beers and ales and a menu of traditional British fare. The pub had a low tin ceiling, which magnified the sound of the diners and folks lining the bar, and Max often had to shout to be heard.
The room was mobbed, and Peter sifted his way to the back, where he found his teacher doing a card trick for a group of businessmen having lunch at a table. The deck was not cooperating, and Max kept getting the wrong card, much to the men’s’ delight.
Max pulled an ace of hearts from beneath his collar. “Is this your selected card?”
“Nope,” said a businessman drinking beer.
“Rats! How about this one?” From behind his knee, Max made the king of hearts magically appear, and waited expectantly.
“Wrong again.” The businessman snorted derisively.
“Godfrey Daniels! Give me one more chance. I’ll give you a prize if I don’t succeed.”
“What kind of prize?” the businessman asked.
“A very valuable one, worth lots of money.”
“You’re on.”
The businessman tapped his knife against a water glass. A hush fell over the pub, with all eyes glued to the old magician with shoulder-length white hair and frayed tuxedo. Max cuffed his sleeves and displayed his empty palms. His hands were soft and supple. When his fingers danced, it was with the lightness of butterfly wings. A playing card materialized out of thin air.
“Wow,” someone at the bar gasped.
“Name your card,” Max said triumphantly.
“It was the nine of spades,” the businessman declared.
Max spun the card around to reveal the three of diamonds.
A groan went through the tavern.
“You lose,” the businessman roared. “Pay up!”
Max acted disgusted with himself. Reaching into his pocket, he removed the businessman’s wallet, and presented it to him. Next followed the man’s wristwatch, car keys, cigarette lighter, and reading glasses. The businessman grabbed helplessly at his empty pockets while the pub roared with laughter. It was a staple of many tricks to turn failure into triumph. No one did it better than Max, and sustained applause followed.
Max hadn’t lost his touch. The great ones never did. As Peter approached him, he sensed an otherworldly presence in the room. Had the shadow person beaten him here?
“Why, hello, Peter, how are you?” Max asked. “Enjoy the show?”
“It was great. You killed them. I need to get you out of here.”
“But I’m just getting warmed up.”
Peter looked around to make sure no one was listening, then brought his mouth up to Max’s ear. “There’s a shadow person in the room. You’re not safe.”
“No, there’s not. Sit down and have some lunch. The corned beef is very good.”
“I felt it, Max. Come outside with me.”
Peter pulled his teacher toward the front door. Max waved to the crowd on his way out.
“Be back in sixty,” he called out.
* * *
The feeling of an evil spirit disappeared the moment Peter stepped onto the sidewalk outside the pub. Max grinned at him the way an older man smiles at a child.
“See? I told you it wasn’t a shadow person,” his teacher said.
“But I felt something strange in there.”
“And so did I. A feeling of anxiety, yes?”
“That’s right. Do you know what it was?”
“I most certainly do. It’s called electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Ghost hunters often mistake electromagnetic hypersensitivity for ghosts, when it fact it comes from refrigerators.”
“I got spooked by a refrigerator?”
“Afraid so. The owner lets me set up my show in the kitchen. I noticed that a refrigerator had been moved so it backed up onto a wall of the pub. As the refrigerator’s cooling settings cycled on, the electromagnetic field it emitted passed through the wall. That’s what you felt.”
Peter lowered his
eyes in embarrassment. “Sorry.”
“You know what they say. There’s a paddle for everyone’s behind, and yours just got paddled. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my show.”
“Hold on. I have a present for you.”
Peter presented a small jewelry box to his teacher. Max opened it, and examined the five-pointed star. As a rule, psychics did not interfere with the lives of other psychics, or offer them help or counsel. On those rare times that a psychic did reach out, it was for a good cause, and the offer was rarely refused. Without a word, Max slipped the necklace on, and tucked it under his shirt. He nodded appreciatively.
“Thank you, Peter.”
“You’re welcome, Max.”
“I see other gifts in your bag. Who are they for?”
“One of my assistants, and the rest of the Friday night group.”
“Will you be presenting one to Holly?”
“Yes, she’s on the list. Why do you ask?”
Max’s eyes narrowed and he dropped his voice. “Someone was going to have to tell you, so I suppose it should be me. Holly has been scrying on you. She admitted it to me and the rest of the group the other night. I told her to stop, and she got quite upset with me. She thinks the present predicament you’re in with the shadow people gives her the right to play voyeur cam with your life. It’s not right, and I wanted you to know.”
“That doesn’t sound like Holly. What’s come over her?”
“I’m afraid she’s changed, and not for the better. Her crush on you is out of control. The poor girl is head over heels in love.”
Peter rocked back on his heels. He’d known Holly since she was five. He’d babysat her as a teenager, and watched her grow up. How could he have missed this?
“I also sense that Holly thinks you’re in love with her,” Max went on. “Are you?”
“In love with Holly? I have feelings for her, but not like that.”
“Are you?”
“Max, come on. Be serious. This is Holly we’re talking about.”
“Are you?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re avoiding the question.”
The door to the pub swung open and a comely red-headed waitress stuck her head out. “Hey, Max, your adoring fans await you. Are you going to finish your show?”