The front end formed a ghostly image of Mitsuri’s face. Well, not the pretty face, but the oogy one with the hollowed eyes and grimacing mouth. She looked around at everyone, saw me and bared her teeth.
I nearly came off the floor and out of my own body as she lunged at me.
Something crackled in the air between us like lightning, and the smoky Mitsuri-ghost-thing shot backwards as if it hit an invisible wall. I looked at the candles, my hands up to protect me (like these are the hands of steel) as their flames crackled and spit. The whole thing reminded me of a jury-rigged force field of household items.
I looked at Rhonda. That’s my magical MacGyver!
“Wow,” Rhonda said, lowering her own hands. She and Mom had cowered a good two feet away from me (Hello? Victim over here!) and now moved forward. “I wasn’t really sure that thing was gonna hold.”
Excuse me?
“Wraith…” Mitsuri drew out the name, making it several syllables long.
Rhonda glanced at me. “She’s ready to kill you, isn’t she?” Well duh. I gave her a palms-up gesture. If you think about it, she’s probably blaming me. There she was, choking me, being a good little minion, and then abruptly she’s dragon kibble.
Though she really didn’t look much different now than she did when she attacked me.
“Release me!”
Right.
I looked over at Rhonda and gave her a gesture that hopefully indicated “It’s your show.”
But Mom stepped up to the plate. “Who are you?”
Mitsuri hissed.
I stood and looked around for my board. Where did it go? “I command you to tell me!”
I paused in my looking. Oooh. Good one Mom.
“I am the Bringer…”
And the Bringer was in need of a throat lozenge. Where my stolen voice was a sort of sexy scruffy, this was downright nails on chalkboard. Ah…there’s my board. I’d been sitting on it.
“Who do you work for?”
“No one…”
Rhonda looked over at me. I held up my board. DO YOU WORK FOR REVEREND ROLLINS?
Rhonda asked the question. Mitsuri looked at me to answer. “I protect the pact…”
Say what?
SAY WHAT?
Rhonda didn’t repeat the question, but she did shrug. Mom took over. “What pact?”
“Between the darkness and the false light bearer…”
“You mean between Rollins and someone else? There’s a pact? Like some sort of agreement? Contract?”
Mitsuri nodded, but she still kept staring at me. I noticed too that her eyes were no longer filled with vengeance, but curiosity.
Mom looked at me. “You think she means maybe the contract as in a hit contract? The one with the Archer and—”
Oh, that name just set little missy here right off. She hissed and started this really weird spin around inside her confined bubble. I didn’t know why Mom used the name I’d heard Rollins use instead of my own moniker, Trench-Coat. But it got a reaction. Every time she hit the candle barrier’s edge, it sparked, and the candles spit.
I wondered absently what happened if a candle blew out.
I assumed that would be very bad. Kinda like crossing the streams?
Mitsuri finally stopped and got right up against that barrier, looking at me again. “He has touched you…broken the rules…you walk between…” She actually smiled! “He will not suffer such a creature to live. He will fear you.”
I pointed to myself. Me?
Mitsuri smiled. Ick. Bad teeth. Or at least so in this form.
I scribbled on my board and handed it to Rhonda. “You mean the Archer. He’s stolen my voice.”
Mitsuri nodded. “He had none of his own. The Phantasm does not grant a simple Symbiont such a gift…it is not allowed. Even for the Archer…”
Crap. I was right about him taking parts of me. I hate to be right. Sometimes. Trench-Coat was a Symbiont in some sense of the word.
I scribbled another question, and Rhonda asked. WHY IS THE SYMBIONT CALLED THE ARCHER?
The ghostly thing actually looked as if it smelled something bad. “Because he is branded a rogue. He has defied his master.” Oh. Right. Made sense to me.
Rhonda nodded. “That makes sense—arch is closely related to rogue.” When Mom and I frowned at her, she said, “Sixteenth-century word association.” She waved her hand. “Trust me. If he’s a rogue, calling him the Archer fits.”
I raised an eyebrow at Rhonda. Riiiiight.
Mitsuri laughed. And it wasn’t a good laugh, more of an “I’ll get you, my pretty” sort of laugh. “Wraith…the master will not suffer such as you to live.”
WHY?
“You grant absolution, he takes it away. He cannot control you—you must not be allowed to exist. I would take great pleasure in destroying you—but I cannot.”
I was not liking the direction this was going. I was also not understanding any of it.
Mom interrupted. “Is there a way to defeat him? Can my daughter get her voice back?”
Mitsuri turned her attention to Mom. “Release me.”
I looked around the room. Where were Tim and Steve?
Mom shook her head. “You would kill my daughter. You tried once, and you just said you’d try again.”
“I said I cannot!” I was sure the bookshelves shook at that shout. Mitsuri looked back to me again. “She is marked. I cannot touch her.”
“You had no trouble touching her before,” Rhonda protested, taking the words right out of my mouth.
“Different.” Mitsuri hovered closer to the candle barrier’s edge, looking at me as if I were the one trapped inside a pentagram bubble. “Twisted. No longer living or dead.”
Yikes.
I waved at Mom and held up my board. DID ROLLINS KILL TANAKA?
“The Archer killed Tanaka.”
Well, that much I knew. FOR ROLLINS?
“Yes.” Mitsuri narrowed her eyes at me. “But you were there—you know this.”
Just check’n the facts, ma’am.
I scribbled again and held up the board. WHAT IS IT THAT HIROKUMI HOLDS OVER ROLLINS?
Mitsuri frowned. “He holds my master’s promise of life eternal.”
Oh—yeah. That just explained everything. I did my thing again. AND THAT MEANS…WHAT?
She shook her head. “That my master will stop at nothing to get it back.”
Okay, she was looking at me as if I were the stupidest thing to walk on the planet. What is it with the bad guys and their inability to just spill da beans?
Or was it only on television that the evil dude tells the good guys his plans? Wait—that usually didn’t happen till right before the bad dude thinks the good guys are gonna die.
Well, obviously, we were safe since Mitsuri wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the information.
She banged against her prison again. “Release me!”
“If I release you, you will tell me how to destroy the Archer?” Mom butted in.
Mitsuri looked at her and smiled. “Yes.”
I held up my board. NO!!!!! ARE YOU CRAZY?
Mom looked at Rhonda, who was shaking her head with equal fervor. “Nona, don’t. You release her, she’ll attack us.”
“No.” Nona shook her head. “She won’t.” She looked at the imprisoned spirit. “I agree.”
“Release me.”
Mom shook her head. “Tell me.”
The thing screamed. Oh and what a god-awful noise that was. I can only describe it as maybe a billion babies crying at one time. In an echo chamber.
Is that bad enough for you?
“Tell me!” Mom was right against the circle’s barrier—too close for my taste.
Mitsuri banged against the field. Sparks. Sputter.
Hrm…
“The full power of the Wraith must be invoked.”
I blinked. Oh-kay.
WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?
Mitsuri looked at me. “You’ll find out.”
<
br /> I blinked. Okay—Vague. We’re going for vague here.
Oh for the love of Pete! Whoever Pete was! I wanted to choke her just like she’d choked me.
Let’s just go for broke. I erased and wrote hurriedly. WHAT R MY POWERS?
“Enough!” Mitsuri banged against the field again. “You promised to release me!”
Uh-oh. I looked at Mom. Pay-up time. Though I had the feeling that Nona didn’t have the first intention of releasing this nasty thing. Or at least I hoped not, and if so, I hoped she knew what she was doing.
I was clueless. My job was to go OOB, gather, and return. And hopefully with all my parts in place. Evidently Mom’s job was a bit more—I looked at the circle on the floor—complicated. At that moment, of all the worst things that could happen, the one particular worst did.
The door to the shop opened. The bell over the opening rang. And a very cold, very strong November breeze blew out the candles.
All of them.
Poof.
Uh-oh.
Luckily, Mom hadn’t turned all the lights off—only the main ones. A light still showed from behind the counter and from inside the tea shop. And that light illuminated a very ecstatic Mitsuri.
Her face took on an almost snakelike appearance for an instant before she turned and lunged through the air toward the poor helpless and unsuspecting patron who’d walked in.
Oh bugger Mom for not putting up the sign and locking the door!
But then I saw the patron.
It was Daniel.
Oh…hell!
The next few seconds moved through molasses for me. Mitsuri was heading right for him. Mom screamed for Daniel to move out of the way. Daniel turned and evidently saw Mitsuri barreling for him because his eyes became the size of cue balls through his glasses.
But he was frozen in place.
And in hindsight, I’ve been scared to one spot loads of times. So I understood.
But this was my possible future husband here (well, a girl’s gotta have goals, right?) and Mitsuri wasn’t having him for lunch just because she couldn’t have me.
I was out and in full Wraith form before I could blink. Later on, Rhonda would tell me how neat it’d been to see my body go plop on the ground. I wouldn’t agree, not with the bruises.
Of course I didn’t know what I was going to do. I mean, the thing had chased me astrally all around Rollins’s office that night, and then back through my cord to my body.
This was also the first time I noticed I wasn’t running, but more like flying. Now, I can’t fly. It was more like a momentum thing, or an adrenaline thing. Sort of like when a mom lifts a car off of her baby.
I was in front of that bitch in seconds flat, between her and Daniel. She came up short, her smoky form taking on a more human appearance (more like the Lucy Liu we’ve all grown to know and love), and held her arms out as if backpedaling.
It looked as if she were preparing for something awful. Shaking her head, her mouth wide, her eyes wider. I wasn’t sure what the big deal was at the time, other than the fact that I reached out and touched her.
I mean actually touched her.
The world of the physical stopped as if time suspended itself. My hand was thrust through something slippery as oil, yet my fingers had closed around something solid inside. Small. Warm. Tiny.
With a silent grunt I pulled with everything I had and felt something give between me and what I held on to. It shot out of the oily mass I’d known as Mitsuri and clung to me like a small, newborn child.
Only it wasn’t a newborn, but it was a child. A small, frightened, Asian child. A shadow, lost between the Abysmal and the Ethereal.
I knew this from her—somehow—and as I looked into her face, I saw the skull again, just before she smiled and mouthed the words “Thank you.”
She vanished.
She was just—gone.
The oily mist disappeared as if cleared away by a fan. The astral world still hung about me in its new hue of sooty shadows. Had I somehow released her spirit? Was that what I’d done to Mrs. DeAngelo? There had been no euphoria this time.
Not even a peep. Was it because Mitsuri had already been dead? Jesus, I hated working in the dark. I needed an answer book, and there wasn’t one around anywhere.
I saw Steve and Tim near the farthest end of the room. Two tiny pinpoints of light, no longer in their physical, human shape. Was I seeing them for what they truly were?
Again Mom and Rhonda shone like twin stars of different colors.
“What the…Zoë!” Daniel burst out.
As my hero moved through me I saw silken sheets, skin on skin, mouths pressed together in desperate need as fingers interlaced in a passionate, orgasmic—
I gasped as he continued on to my very unmoving body by the fireplace.
I stood by the open doorway, blinking slowly. Man…was that what he had on his mind? Right now? Making love? Or had he already made love? And that was simply the remnants of a very nice afternoon? There wasn’t any proof that was me I saw. In fact, I’m not even sure that was Daniel, as I’d never seen him naked. But I’d like to think that lean, hard six-pack rubbing against a very flat, tight tummy was his, and mine.
And should I ask him about that? I mean—that image was surely something we could both indulge with—
“What’s wrong with her?” Daniel said. He was holding me like a child, cradling my head against his chest. “Nona—she’s not responding.” He was looking around at the floor and the now very visible pentagram and candles. “What the hell were you people doing?”
Rhonda moved to the door and closed it. She whispered under her breath at me. “Get back in your body now!” she hissed. “Or he’ll start giving you mouth-to-mouth.”
I really didn’t see what the problem was with this.
Nona got up from the floor, glared at me, and moved to Daniel. The boy was distraught.
Wow. He cares!
I nodded and sprinted to the fireplace. There I eased back into my body—which was kinda fun since Daniel was holding it so very snugly, and Mom was telling him to give me room to breathe.
Rejoining was easier—no shock this time—but I’d only gone a few feet away and I’d only been gone a few minutes. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
An eyeless skull looked back at me and spoke with the voice of my darling cop.
I screamed.
But no one heard me.
23
DANIEL never saw me in my astral form at the door, nor had he seen Mitsuri at first. It wasn’t until she’d been on top of him. He said it looked like a streak of green smoke with a face in it. Then it’d disappeared, and he’d seen me on the floor beside the pentagram.
And I’d seen a skull on his face. A skull. The death mask.
I’d seen one of these before—on that old lady in the hospital. Right before she died.
And on Mitsuri.
“It’s part of my séance routine,” Nona explained, after she’d made tea, eggs, and some biscuits (mmmmm…biscuits) and honey. She set the ceramic green teapot in the center of the table.
I sat beside Daniel in Mom’s papasan chair, wrapped up in a blanket and feeling a bit tired. I was hungry too—but just too tired to eat. Of course, that hadn’t stopped me from downing three glasses of Sunny Delight.
Oh let’s be honest. I was exhausted. I wanted to talk about the whole Mitsuri thing with Mom and Rhonda, but not with Daniel around. I still wasn’t sure what it was I’d just done. Either way I was wasted and trying really hard not to fall asleep.
Tim and Steve were present, solid and interacting. Which was something I’d not seen them do in a while. But evidently they also thought Daniel was cute, and being here in their own house, they had the power base or strength or whatever to be visible to him. And quite physical, though I’d noticed none of them had passed any plates around.
And Daniel never seemed to notice that neither of them ate. My cute cop gave my mom a very harsh look. “You bilk poor
believers out of money with séance nonsense?”
“Oh no.” Nona was good at this lying thing. “Most of my clients find their answers on their own. I only use the séance as a tool to give them a little push. I never charge for them.” Too good. I was beginning to look at her suspiciously and wonder about things during my own childhood.
Like had I really set fire to the living-room rug that day? I never remembered doing it, and now I wondered if it’d been Mom doing some hocus-pocus, and she’d lied about it.
“That’s good to know.” He looked at me and put a hand on my knee. “It looks like it took a lot out of Zoë. How’s your throat?”
I blew him a razzberry.
He smiled. “Well, I came over to let you know Sergeant Danforth is outside, and he’ll be there all night. He relieved Mastiff and Harding. You are to stay put and rest.”
I really didn’t feel much like doing anything else. Mitsuri was gone, the dragon was up on the mantel as a very nice decoration (though I planned on bargaining with Rhonda about keeping it in my condo—it might come in handy again).
Mental note: sleeeeeep.
“What about that little girl?” Mom asked.
Oh. Bugger! I’d forgotten about Susan! That poor frightened kid.
Daniel shook his head. “I see you shared things with your family. Nothing else. If the kidnapper’s contacted Hirokumi, he’s not talking. In fact, he’s not really communicating with us, period. The captain’s got people stationed outside his office and his home, but there’s been nothing. She’s been missing three days now—and that’s a long time to keep hoping she’s still alive.”
I had faith she was, as long as Trench-Coat kept his spinning red hand of death away from her. I only hoped Rollins had enough control over his little minion to stop that from happening.
I took up my board, shoving Rhonda’s biscuit off of it and scribbled. This was going to kill my wrists. WHAT ABOUT FINDING HER AT ROLLINS’S?
Daniel shook his head. “No reason for a search warrant. There’s really nothing tying him to her disappearance, and as long as Hirokumi doesn’t speak up…” He shrugged.
This was stupid. This was his daughter’s life he was messing with. I wrote up again. I DON’T THINK PORNO THING ETERNAL LIFE.
I really didn’t understand how tired I was till I got blank stares all around. I looked back at my board and shook my head. I erased it. SORRY.
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