Moving through glass was like moving through ice.
Aw-ful. Made my nipples hard. And not in the fun way.
The lobby was nice if not corporate standard. Shiny marble floors, security desk with a dozing, uniformed rent-a-cop in the center chair. And a brief hallway with two walls of elevators.
And since I couldn’t push the buttons, I opted for the stairs.
The oogy drew me to it much like cute on a puppy. Though on a few occasions I paused on the steps and wondered if it could sense me the way I sensed it. And I had a very sharp moment of get the hell out of here, which I promptly ignored.
The feeling settled around the fifteenth floor. And after climbing fifteen flights of steps, I was tired. I do get tired in this form—mainly I think because I’m still attached to my physical body. And if I got tired in astral form, then I was looking at a real heavy sleep when I got back. I was also going to wake up ravenous.
Guess I’m lucky to have my dad’s metabolism too—and not my mom’s. I have a sweet tooth that stretches across the entire state of Georgia.
And this little sidebar was going to cost one entire Sara Lee Strawberry Cheesecake.
The fifteenth floor turned out to be a cubicle farm with window offices around the edges. There were no lights on. With only shadows to point my way, I moved cautiously—the oogy loomed very close, and my stomach twisted into tight knots.
Toward the back of the floor was a long, wide hallway that ran from east to west. There weren’t any offices along the opposite wall. Windows brought the city lights inside, illuminating the cubicles. I had a beautiful view of the IBM building, as well as Georgia Power, with its blaring red-and-black logo.
A door framed in yellow capped the end of the hallway. Beside it were two more doors with little stick figures just visible on their fronts in the gloom. Bathrooms maybe?
Voices filtered through the light-framed doorway. I leaned forward to listen but couldn’t make out what was said. If I’d had to harbor a guess, I’d say it definitely wasn’t English.
Curiosity pulled me closer to the door, and I prepared myself to sieve through just as the gunshot rang out.
I reacted much the same way in astral form as I would in my body. I screamed. Which was bad. Voices carried from the astral to the physical. Or at least mine did. Don’t know why. Even though people couldn’t see me like this, I’d learned they could definitely hear me.
So whoever just fired that gun knew some chick just screamed on the other side. I ducked into the closest cubicle and tucked my tail between my legs like any good fraidy-cat would do.
Let me point out—I’m not really a chicken. But I was born with a wicked-mean need to survive. Invisible or not—the sound of the gunshot means pain, death, or bad guy.
Oh—and panic.
So in astral, hiding is good.
I stifled a second horror-movie scream when the door burst open and a dark-haired, dark-suited man barreled out. The lights from the room behind him illuminated his staggered steps. He stumbled to a full stop in front of the cubicle I hid in.
He spun to face the light as he went down on his knees. The light revealed handsome, Asian features. Blood pooled around his knees, pouring like syrup from a gunshot wound in his chest. I could just make out the ripped shirt beneath the suit jacket and saw the dark, cloudy aura of what I assumed was death surrounding him.
This guy was going fast.
I moved back into the shadows, willing myself to be as invisible as possible. I didn’t know if it’d work—but I sure as hell didn’t want whoever shot him to shoot at me.
Get a grip, Zoë—they can’t see you. I told myself this over and over, but somehow I knew I’d really stepped in it this time. I spied on surly types in business suits—insurance fraud mostly. And paranoid bean counters who worried about their jobs—like the guy I was supposed to be working for tonight.
But bullets? Blood? Murder?
This was Court TV in 3-D. This was America’s Most Wanted in your face. This was Forensic Files pre forensic-ness.
This was not where I was supposed to be.
The shooter appeared then—a pretty impressive silhouette in the door. He wore a long trench coat and what I guessed were military camouflage pants tucked inside high, leather boots. I could make out black shades obscuring his features and a smooth scalp—no hair. In his right hand was a gun.
Oh hell.
Big and spooky (I dubbed him Trench-Coat for lack of a better name) ambled closer to the kneeling, shaking man. The bleeding man looked up. Trench-Coat raised the gun and aimed it at the man’s forehead.
I shivered and kept a hand over my mouth. I should leave! Now! Run right back down my silver cord to my body and never look back.
Cursed is the one that never listens to the voice of Reason. And when you think about it, if I were Reason in this day and age, I’d pack and leave town. No one ever listens anymore.
“I…” The dying man coughed. His hands were now out at his sides in a gesture of surrender. “I do not…have it. Please tell your master…he is being unreasonable.”
Trench-Coat’s shoulders rose once, as if to indicate a tough-shit shrug as he brought the barrel’s end to rest between the man’s eyes.
“Please!” The dying man squeezed his eyes shut. He then said something in Japanese and gave a short bow. I committed what he said to memory (one of the cool things about being a Traveler—I can remember everything I see and hear. But one of the bad things was I remembered it with my subconscious mind, and though it was an exact memory—I couldn’t always recall it at will) as I watched with wide eyes.
I felt like a guilty rubbernecker passing by the scene of a fatal accident. Didn’t want to look, but just couldn’t help it. I had to look at the trainwreck.
I should do something! But what? Moan? Make Trench-Coat think the building’s haunted? Right Zoë, like a guy who shoots people is going to care about a ghost.
Now remember—I’m not a superheroine. I’m not gifted with superpowers, at least not in the Justice League sense of the word. I don’t see this kind of thing every day—shooting I mean. Blood. Gore. Downright meanness.
Okay—so maybe the meanness. You haven’t met my mom yet.
So I guess most of me hadn’t caught on that this was real life—this guy was really bleeding to death kneeling on the floor of this building.
He was really pleading for his life.
When the second shot came, I wasn’t prepared for it. Not physically, not mentally.
The man’s head snapped back as bits of skull and gray matter sprayed the Berber rug behind him, as well as the walls of most of the cubicle I hid in. None of it hit me. Instead, it flew through me and made small splat noises on the computer and desk around me.
Beside the gore-decorated monitor a small, Winnie-the-Pooh frame sat in a pool of viscous blood and bits of bone while a child of perhaps three laughed.
The sound of the bullet entering and exiting the skull was one I’ll never forget. Sort of like cracking fresh, wet celery. I won’t forget the sound of his body hitting the floor either. A squishy, juicy thud.
I bit my tongue to stop myself from screaming. The logical, sane part of me ordered me to leave. To run. To flee.
But I stood there—paralyzed by a fear so familiar—so dark. So helpless.
And as I watched, Trench-Coat pocketed the gun and moved toward the body.
He stood over it.
I looked at his feet. That sane part of me, the practical one that wanted me to take the next elevator down somehow, was glad the bastard would leave a telltale shoe print in the bloodied carpet. Ha! They could catch him from his shoes! See? All those sleepless nights watching Court TV weren’t wasted!
That’s when I noticed he wasn’t leaving any shoe prints.
I watched him move to the other side of the body, just across from my huddled position behind the cubicle opening. I still couldn’t see his face either in the light from the open door. It somehow remained s
hrouded in shadow.
He raised his right hand and a red light appeared in the center of his palm. It pulsed just as a whitish, wispy cloud rose from the body and spiraled upward. It took on the glassy, transparent appearance of the dead man.
Trench-Coat thrust his red-dotted hand at the spirit (well what else would it be?). Again I watched as the Asian man cringed and tried to move away as his elbow was pulled to a pinpoint and sucked into the red dot, much like a tiny vacuum cleaner.
Was he taking this man’s soul? Oh damn. Trench-Coat was a freaking astral sucking Hoover!
That time I did make a noise.
I swore like a sailor.
I wouldn’t have been so upset with myself if I’d have screamed, or at least burped. Made the noise worthwhile.
Though I have to admit, I think I used one of my more colorful metaphoric templates at that moment.
Then he looked at me.
He looked right at me!
And I could see the windows on the opposite wall through him. “Sonofabitchmotherfucker!”
Now that outburst just had no imagination, but it sure relayed the way I felt.
He lowered his hand, and the ghost of the dead man disappeared. To Heaven or to Hell, I had no idea. Nor did I really give a good goddamn at that moment.
This guy was looking at me, and I was looking through him! The significance of that moment wasn’t lost on me at all.
Part of the light from the windows finally fell over his face, which shouldn’t have happened. Only solid objects reflect light, which cause shadows.
I don’t make a shadow.
When I looked again, this man did.
What the hell was he? How could he be transparent and still cast shadow?
But I really didn’t have the time to worry about the laws of physics right now.
Because Trench-Coat was taking steps toward me.
“Stay away,” I said. Not exactly a threat. My own voice is sort of gravelly and not something I enjoy listening too.
He didn’t speak. But he kept coming toward me.
Mental note: run you idiot!
I sieved through the cubicle to the next one—in fact I kept sieving in and out of every cubicle wall until I was at the stair door.
And stopped in my tracks.
Trench-Coat was there ahead of me. And I could see his face now, reflected with the red light of the exit sign overhead.
Bald, nondescript, the face of the ordinary man. Nothing I could remember.
He grinned.
Drool poured from his mouth as he grinned at me; but it never touched the floor.
Oh, gross.
He reached out toward me as I backed away. I tried like hell to sieve through the floor at that moment, drop down a few floors to the lobby, but nothing happened. Not even my feet disappeared into the carpet. What the hell? If I could sieve through a cubicle, why not a floor? I had no idea why I couldn’t at that moment.
“I said stay away from me. I saw what you did.” Yeah, like that’s going to stop him. The thing wasn’t even leaving footprints, and I knew he stepped in all that blood!
I asked the creatures of the astral plane: What the fuck was he? Still he remained silent. I turned to the elevator.
He was there.
I turned back to the staircase door.
Again he was there.
I took several steps backward and turned to slip into the cubicles again—and he was there.
There was only one way out—and it terrified me to try. Not because I hadn’t ever used my silver cord to return to my body before—but because I didn’t know if this monster could follow me back to my body!
It would be like showing the stalker where the victim lived. Trench-Coat had both hands out now, reaching for me.
I had to get back to my body. But returning from a distance took a bit of concentration. Going back isn’t a second-nature event for me. I wish it were. Then I wouldn’t have to think about it to do it. It’s not something my subconscious wants. And so I have to momentarily fight with it to return home.
I had no choice but to stand still as Trench-Coat advanced on me, that red dot pulsing faster and faster like a small whirlwind in the palm of his hand. I put up my hands to ward him off and closed my eyes, squeezing them shut much as the other guy had done.
Trench-Coat grabbed my left arm, just below my wrist. He was solid all right—and strong. His touch burned as if he’d held my wrist deep into a flame. I cried out.
But I didn’t lose my concentration.
Yet even as I thought of my body back in my condo, still and cold on my bed, something tugged softly at me.
Beckoned me not to go. It spoke tenderly of peace, an end to pain.
It promised me happiness.
And love. Never to be lonely again. Something touched me with soft caresses along my cheek, my neck…I could almost believe someone kissed my bare flesh.
All I had to do was let go. Just give myself up to it and know endless passion, day upon day of eternal orgasmic ecstasy.
And it appeared on the other side of my eyelids as a red light, pulsating, spinning, whirling.
Come…come…come…give yourself to me…be one with me.
No!
I pushed back and saw my body below me just as I fell into it, and the shock of returning was a fire blasting through every finger to every toe. I convulsed as my muscles fought me, and I heard my heart thundering inside of my ears. I gurgled and choked in the quiet room. It was like being given an electric charge while being submerged in ice-cold water.
As my back arched upward, I screamed long and loud until my throat was raw and I was exhausted.
I don’t remember how long I lay half-sprawled across the single-sized bed. I remember finally being able to move my arms enough to push myself up. I had to look around the condo—I had to know that thing hadn’t followed me.
I didn’t want it to know where I lived.
And as I moved, I became aware of the pressure on my arm where the Trench-Coat creepy grabbed me.
The horror of what I’d nearly done—that I’d actually considered letting go forever and accepting the red light’s promise of passion and sex—fueled me forward. I stood on shaky legs and stumbled about my home, absently tucking my burning left arm beneath my breast.
I turned on every light I could find as I slowly made my way through the single-story condo. My living room, kitchen, bathroom, spare bathroom and bedroom that housed my office where I’d returned. Last, I went to my bedroom and turned on the lights there.
I smelled blood everywhere, yet there was none in my home or on me. It was ethereal blood.
Death blood.
Each step on my feet was like walking after they went to sleep. Tiny pins and needles stuck into my skin in a kabillion different places.
I had to turn the wards on. I had to make sure nothing unbidden could get in.
An associate with a penchant for creating the magical out of the mechanical (the one who’d made my neato-watch) had set up a mechanism that created a warding bubble around my home. I have no idea how it works, and I’m sure Rhonda doesn’t either—it’s just a gift she has.
Like me being a Traveler. She’s my Magical MacGyver. If you can imagine it, she can build it.
The throw switch was in the living room, near the door. The clock above my TiVo read 11:33.
The metal of the handle felt good against my palm, and I felt as well as heard the low hum the warding bubble made as it was activated. I’d never really used it before. Never believed in it. Why would I? I’d never seen anything other than myself on the astral plane—nothing like I’d witnessed tonight.
Now I celebrated that I had it. That it worked. According to Rhonda, nothing astral or ethereal, or uninvited, could get past it. Not even a vampire.
Well…not a very big vampire.
I wanted to collapse right there on the spot. Me in my black cat-suit and slippers. I felt beaten—not just physically—but spiritually.
/> And I was scared shitless.
I did what any normal twentysomething did when she just had a really bad night.
I called Mom.
“You have reached Nona’s Botanica and Tea Shop, located in Little Five Points. Our regular store hours are…”
I hung up. Mom had the machine on, and I remembered then it was her bridge night. She wasn’t home, and she wouldn’t have her cell phone on.
I wanted my mommy.
I dialed Rhonda’s number and got her voice mail. What did she do on Tuesdays? Clubbing? Gaming? Where was she?
There was no one else I knew to call (not anyone on the physical plane who could actually pick up a phone). No one else who knew about my line of work, about what I did.
There wasn’t a man in my life. Hadn’t been for nearly three years. There was no one living other than my mother who I kept close ties with.
So I pulled myself up and limped back to my bedroom. I locked the door, leaving all the lights on, ran myself a hot bath. After dumping my clothes on the floor, as well as my neato-watch, I curled up with my knees to my chin in the water, wanting nothing more than to have myself a little pity-party.
That’s when I saw the mark on my arm. I moved it out in front of me and turned it to one side, then the other. In stark contrast to my slightly olive skin was a perfect red handprint just beneath the wrist where my watch sat.
God…and it felt like the thing was still holding on to me.
Putting pressure on it. Squeezing it hard enough to break. I pulled the arm in close and cradled it with my right hand.
I glanced at the floor, at my pile of clothes, and saw the watch. To anyone else it resembled a clear, pink plastic Power Puff girls watch. Only the LCD screen was blank, visible only on the astral plane.
I leaned over the side and picked it up.
And there, just below the clasp, on the left band, was a melted area in the shape of a fingertip.
I tossed the watch away, back to the floor.
What if that thing could track me down and kill me? How could I stop it? And what the hell was it?
I felt dirty. Tainted. Much as I had that night, nine years ago, when a man forcibly took my innocence and exchanged it for hell. The first night I left my body, and looked down upon my rape.
Wraith Page 2