Steak. Medium well. And a tall Sam Adams beer.
Pretty benign actually. He was hungry.
Oohh…steak.
My astral stomach rumbled, and I moved out before he shut the trunk. What was up with that? I just ate a full dinner!
I honestly couldn’t tell you where the hell we were.
The wind had definitely reached the point of monsoon. There were no stars, and the few streetlights I could see didn’t work. I had to rely on their flashlights (they being Beckett, Tiny, Rollins, and two more of the WWE work’n part-time for the gov’ner) and what my spirit-eyes could see.
Oogy.
All oogy. Hell—it was downright fucked up.
I actually shivered in this form, though not from the cold. This place was wrong. I thought I saw movement in nearly every shadow. Faces that appeared and vanished. Voices whispering on the wind. Sets of tiny red pinpoint eyes, blinking at me from the darkest shadows, like ethereal hounds of hell.
Mommy.
They’d parked the limo on the curb of an old-neighborhood street. The asphalt was littered with old clothing, refuse scattered over the patchy grass to the left. I could make out buildings on either side of the street. They looked like brick barracks—long, with tiny wood separators between backyards.
A kid’s Big Wheel lay on its side nearby. The wind blew an empty soda can along the pavement, the sound catching everyone’s attention.
The boys were on edge.
And so was I—but I’m sure it was for entirely different reasons.
There were things here they couldn’t see. But I could. And I knew those things could see me. And they were watching me, whispering about me, following me in the shadows.
I was scared shitless. I felt naked and very vulnerable. I had no way to protect myself in this state, at least none that I knew of. I’d never really had to until a few days ago. I never knew such a place existed in Atlanta, whether physical or the one I walked in. I was in two worlds at that moment, and for the first time, I was really aware of it. The astral world was just as scary as the physical in this area of town.
And I didn’t know where it was or why Rollins would come here.
I needed to call Daniel. I was getting a very bad feeling.
The men—six in all—spread out to flank the Reverend. Rollins had dressed down for the occasion, all in black, down to the trench coat and gloves.
I followed behind as they moved between two of the buildings. I could see them better now and see inside to sliding glass doors. Some places had card tables for furniture while others had little to nothing. Secondhand, broken toys littered most of the tiny concrete slabs at the rear of each place.
I’d been right to believe these were places where people lived. These were housing development projects. We were somewhere in west Atlanta. Probably out on Hollowell Parkway.
Ooh…I was a long way from my car. And my body. Lightning flashed across the sky, quickly followed by the sound of distant thunder. Rain was on its way.
We stopped halfway down in front of an empty slab. Light from within illuminated a sheet-covered glass door.
I’d done that with my first apartment when I couldn’t afford curtains. They’d been gingham with little blue flowers, and Mom had been horrified. She’d gone home that night and made me a whole set for the place.
Beckett pulled a walkie-talkie from his bulky coat and muttered into it.
A movement inside and another of the WWE opened the door.
We all piled in.
I’m sure if I could smell in this state I’d have had a noseful of stale Chinese. Empty boxes littered a card table in the kitchen. Several half-empty liters of Coke and Sprite were on the counter. All the cabinets were open and empty.
I could hear the hum of the refrigerator just under the sound of Final Jeopardy.
“Hey, boss,” someone with a throaty voice and Savannah drawl spoke from the other room as Rollins stepped in.
“McGee,” Rollins said.
I moved past them all to stand in the corner of the living room. This room wasn’t much better decorated than the kitchen. A couple of collapsible chairs, thirteen-inch television, and lots of beer cans.
There was an ashtray near one of the chairs, and a cigarette smoldered in it. Glad I couldn’t smell. Ick.
I was beginning to wonder why we were here. Was Daniel already kidnapped?
“What’s up?” one of the residents asked. He’d been sitting closest to the television and now stood, proudly displaying his gun holster. He was a grizzled-looking man, with baggy black slacks and a soiled white shirt that looked as if the buttons were going to explode at any second.
Deadly weapons for anyone caught in the blast of those things. “I came to see her.”
Wait…her?
Rollins kept his hands in his pockets. “And to congratulate you on your stealth in apprehension. There’s been no word on the local news.”
The man nodded and smiled, exposing perfect white teeth. “I do my job well. A few of my men claimed they saw that contract dude you mentioned.”
Rollins’s expression darkened for a second. “Where? Here?”
“No, near the school where we swiped her. Barnard said the guy was just standing there, watching. When he looked back, the guy was gone. All spooky-like.”
“You don’t realize how spooky. But it means we need to move her now.” He nodded to a door on the wall opposite the kitchen. “She in there?”
“Snug as a bug.”
She. Her. No Daniel? Damn. I’d been prepared to rescue Daniel, be the heroine and all. I moved through the door before they did.
It was a bedroom, with another door on the opposing wall that was either a closet or bathroom (I was thinking bathroom since I’d not seen one out there—and with the amount of beer these guys were drinking—ew).
A single lamp on a pressboard nightstand illuminated the room. A single bed had been set up in the center beside the nightstand.
And on that bed struggled a small girl. No older than maybe ten. She wore the white shirt and plaid, pleated skirt of a private school uniform. Her hands were bound together, then pulled over her head and fastened to the bed somehow—probably the frame.
Her feet were also securely bound, and her mouth was covered in duct tape.
I blinked a few times as the vision of this girl mingled with the vision I’d had of my own body. Held helpless. Gagged. Unable to move. Were these assholes going to rape this little girl?
A shiver attacked my spine. Or had they already?
Christ…I needed to get her out of there!
Remember how I said sometimes kids could see me? Which is why I prefer to have clothes on? Well, this kid wasn’t one of them. I waved and said “Psssst” over and over as low as I could.
Nada.
She was trying so very hard to get free and crying hard, if a bit muffled.
I wanted to let her know I was there—that I wasn’t going to let this keep happening, even though I really wasn’t sure what my plan was. Rollins and his goons were on the other side of that door—and I was just an astral presence.
There really wasn’t much I could do physically—
Wait. Ah—I must have hit my head harder than I thought last night. I can become physical. Oh duh. I’d only done it once, so there was that little worried moment where I wasn’t sure if I could do that again.
I heard a key in the lock.
And right now wasn’t the right time to experiment. Being physical in front of these guys wasn’t my first choice. Since I didn’t know what being physical meant—I sure as hell didn’t want to end up like her.
Or shot.
Okay, now I had to really consider this. If I were physical, and then shot, would it affect my physical body? Or would the bullet just pass through? Wait—hadn’t I wondered that before?
Beckett stepped across the threshold.
Now wasn’t the time to really worry about that. I backed up into the farthest corner, hoping
to become as invisible as possible.
Tiny came in, as well as the grizzly one called McGee. The little girl tried harder to get free.
Rollins came in then and I went ice-cold at the predatory smile on his face. Oh God ew. Was the Reverend a pedophile as well? Had these goons grabbed him some poor child for his personal amusement?
Why wasn’t it that as a spirit like this, I couldn’t open an astral can of whup-ass like in the movie Poltergeist and do some damage?
Of course, there were some other things in that movie that were just too gross, even for me. I’d not been able to eat steak for a long time after it crawled across the counter and spewed maggots.
I guess I couldn’t be a superhero because those were the movies, not real life. Guess that sort of said something about my state of real life, huh?
Rollins immediately went to the little girl and put a hand on her leg. Pervert!
A vibration traveled through my body and I paused. Okay, that was new. Was that a tremor? Some signal that was new that I’d been out of my body too long? I checked my watch. No, I’d been out an hour and a half, almost two. And I hadn’t been solid. So I still had over two hours to go.
Right? Or had that changed too?
“There, there. Stop struggling. I’ll have you free of those ropes soon, and you’ll have a room to play in with lots and lots of toys. Would you like that?”
Even in this dim light I could see the indecision on the child’s face. Free and lots of toys? That sort of outweighed the scariness of being all cooped up in this room. And tied up I guess. Or it did for a child. For me, I was thinking of toys as torture devices. I had no idea what this pervert was planning on doing with this child, but this was beyond hiring an astral hit man in my opinion. He needed to be arrested and put in a cell with a man who would sodomize him!
She shook her head and tried to say something. I’d thought he’d pull the tape from her mouth.
No. Instead he rose, a smile still glued to that sick face. This guy was an A-plus menace. With this kind of knowledge, Daniel could put him away for life.
So I figured what I needed to do was hang around, see what would happen, and then follow them and report back to the detective. I could catch a cross sign outside, get a street name, travel back through my cord, and call Daniel. Then he could rescue the little girl and book’em, Danno.
That is, if I left this little girl in this monster’s hands.
I wasn’t sure I could do that. Having been raped in my early twenties, I wasn’t sure I’d have survived as easily if I hadn’t have been able to escape my body. But I knew not everyone could do that. I didn’t want to see her ruined or her childhood taken away from her. It wasn’t this little girl’s fault she’d been snatched.
Now her parents—where were they?
Rollins nodded to Beckett. “Get her ready—I want her moved tonight. We’ll send a message to her father in the morning.” He gave a slow smile, and I swear his perfect, white, even teeth glowed in the dim light. “Let Hirokumi suffer tonight—just as I’ve suffered.”
Hirokumi?
I looked back at the girl again—at her beautiful Asian features. She was Koba’s daughter! I wanted to punch a duck. Of course—this was one of those “more drastic measures” the asshole had spoken about when I’d been in his office, before all hell broke loose.
So this guy wasn’t such a pervert—well he was but not a pedophile—he’d kidnapped the kid to get to Hirokumi. And they were moving her.
I had to stick around and find out where. I also needed to watch my time.
I looked around as they filed out of the room. I should head outside and find the street signs and do my great plan.
The little girl had stopped struggling and was now just sobbing into the gag.
Oh I couldn’t stand this. I needed to comfort her—tell her it was going to be all right. But to do that I’d need to go solid, and that would indeed decrease my astral time. But as I watched her, I knew I had no choice. I had to help her.
I’m so stupid. Especially looking back on things.
I closed my eyes and tried to do as I’d done before. Wishing I could talk to this little girl—that she could see me—and that I could touch her. I expected the arm to start burning as it had before, but it didn’t.
It didn’t work.
Damnit. Was there some secret password that I’d had before and didn’t have now? I closed my eyes and tried again, trying to remember what it was I’d done in Fado’s that afternoon. I’d wanted to talk with Daniel.
No, in truth, I’d wanted to kiss Daniel. Really bad. And thinking of kissing Daniel made all the right parts stand at attention, including every astral hair on my body.
The mark on my arm turned to fire.
And in seconds I was corporeal. I knew this because the little girl started talking into her gag. And she was looking at me. I turned to her and put a finger to my lips, trying to get her to be quiet.
Her eyes widened even more and she started mumbling something into the gag again. Actually, it sounded more like she was screaming “look out.”
Curse me and my dim-wittedness.
I straightened and turned around, intent on heading outside and getting an exact bead on where we were.
I found myself face-to-face with Trench-Coat.
Blind terror. I’d always yelled at the ditsy heroines on-screen—the ones who hesitated and were captured by the bad guys, because you know, they just shoulda seen that one coming. I’m smarter than that—I always knew I’d be more careful.
Well, I was feeling pretty sympathetic with those ditsy heroines at that point.
I hesitated. Shocked. I hadn’t heard him. Sensed him. I should have been able to sense him, shouldn’t I have? But there he was, in his black leather coat and black shades.
I started to back up—to say something—but his movements were faster than a cat’s and he had his meaty paw wrapped around my throat, cutting off any hope of a scream.
I was solid.
And so was he.
And it hurt! Bruises on bruises.
I couldn’t breathe, and I tried to hit him with my fist. I also tried some of those neat defense moves I’d learned during defense class—with the kung fu punch and the twist. But I had no balance, no means of leverage with his hand clamped firmly around my throat.
I also had no air, which was odd because I was technically astral and had no need to breathe—was it my body that struggled for air in the trunk of my car?
The sleeve of his coat melted as fleshy, bloody, snakelike appendages shot out and grabbed at my wrists, my shoulders, and my legs. In seconds I was wrapped in shreds of flesh, blood, and what looked like veins.
I was gonna puke.
Then he raised his arm, lifting me up and into the air. I tried to become ethereal again—tried to concentrate on my cord. I didn’t know if my panicked state prevented me from concentrating, or Trench-Coat’s chummy embrace did.
I started gasping for air.
I still fought, struggled to get free. I was certain my physical body was choking as well, convulsing as I did to get free—and breathe.
My body! I tried to find my cord, but I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t sense it. I couldn’t relax long enough to let my body pull me back. Was I too far from it?
He was going to kill me—and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.
Trench-Coat raised his left hand and I saw the swirling red light (evidently he was ambidextrous on the soul-sucking ability), and I closed my eyes.
No! This was not how things were supposed to go!
Damn it! Goddamnit!
Being this close to death I probably should tidy up my language, but I was also fucking scared. If it took my soul, that meant God wouldn’t get it, or Yahweh, or whoever the hell was in charge these days. Would it somehow get trapped inside of baldy here? Would I simply cease to think and feel?
And have pleasant dreams about my cute cop?
Trench-Coat never
made a sound. Not even heavy breathing. He did cock his head then, and for the first time I noticed he was still wearing those black shades. I had never seen his eyes. He lowered his left hand, the swirling-eye-of-death disappearing away with it. He smiled, showing perfect white teeth (what is this with the teeth in this story?).
Then something flickered out from between those perfect dentures.
I blinked. What the hell…
His grin widened—and it flickered again.
Holymotherfucker—it was a forked tongue. A little, bitty, black forked tongue. Just like a snake! He had a forked tongue!
And then he did the ultimate—he pulled me closer to him as he turned his head to the side.
Our noses touched. Smells abruptly poured in from all sides. I smelled the day-old-chicken smell of decay in the house, the earthy scent of mildew in the bathroom nearby, and I smelled him. And he smelled of death. Of mold and earth, bloated flesh. He kissed me.
I pressed my lips tight against the tongue as it pushed harder and harder to get into my mouth. What horrified me more was my body’s betrayal. I was actually excited to have him so near me. I felt warm, overheated. Flushed. My thighs swelled, and I felt a familiar, cloying need to have him closer to me. A part of me.
Inside of me.
Oh God No!
When I resisted my body’s urges, one of the fleshy appendages slid over my nose, successful in cutting off my breath.
I saw stars and tried to scream.
I opened my mouth for air as I felt him relax his hold on my throat.
He slid his tongue in deep. I screamed.
And all the world fell silent in a single instant.
19
The Ethereal
EVERYBODY has one of those dissecting stories. You know, it’s against my religion to chop this seven-year-dead testosterone-enhanced frog (enhanced because I refuse to believe those things can grow that big in nature—ugh!) ones.
I had mine too. Didn’t do it. Got a C+ though. But it wasn’t because of the actual cutting part—I’m not that girlie.
It was the smell of the formaldehyde. Twisted my stomach up something terrible. So I got a doctor’s excuse—one of the doctors my mom was seeing at the time wrote it out for me. I really didn’t care about the grade, just getting out of that room and away from that smell before I hurled was all that mattered.
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