“You know,” Jacob said, “the protection necklace might be gone…but the shaman who made it could help us.”
“He’s in Chicago?”
“Florida, last I knew.”
“There’s no time—”
“Vic.” Jacob stopped me with a pointed look. “We don’t need him here. Your talent runs ten times hotter than his, but face it, he’s studied longer and he knows what he’s doing. Talk to him first, before you rush in. That’s all I ask.”
It galled me to go crawling to someone I hated for advice, but Jacob was right, Bert Chekotah was the only authority on exorcisms we knew.
Jacob made all the arrangements, then set me up in his office. It was disconcerting, the green light on the webcam and the little box in the corner of the screen with the three of us in it, me scowling, haggard and pale, looking like I’d just been through the wringer. I scowled harder. I would have preferred a simple phone call, less fuss and muss, but given that no one seems to have a common vocabulary for dealing with Psych stuff, I couldn’t deny that a video chat would be our best bet at understanding each other.
Jacob and Bly were both looking grim and frazzled, too. They stood to either side of my chair like a pair of beefy, crop-haired bookends, except Jacob had soulful brown eyes, while Bly had those pale colored contacts that made his irises look hinky. It was all I could do not to stare at them. I watched the contact bar instead. A phone icon lit up green and the computer made ringing sounds. Jacob reached over my shoulder and clicked the icon…and then Bert Chekotah filled the screen.
I did a double-take, because the shaman I remembered was always harried from keeping too many plates spinning in his professional life, and too many women from finding out about each other in his personal life. But the guy settling back in his chair adjusting his headset mike looked about five years younger. His tan was deep and his hair was longer, windswept and carelessly flattering. Instead of the rumpled linen suit in which I always pictured him, he had on a faded T-shirt and a beaded turquoise necklace. He looked like a surfer now, or maybe beach bum stoner, or an artist who made sculptures out of driftwood and sold them to tourists. He looked handsome, too, the type of good looks you can’t really ignore, not if you’re being honest. I’d seen the mewling, spoiled brat inside him, and even so, it was just as hard to keep my eyes off his sculpted cheekbones as it was to not stare into Bly’s creepy contact lenses.
“One thing you need to understand about an exorcism,” Chekotah told us, “is that there are spirits, and there are ghosts. My people believe that everything in the world is imbued with spirit. Not just human beings and animals, and not just living things, like plants, but everything. Lakes. Mountains. Rocks.” He held up a sports drink in a plastic bottle. “Even this. I think that what my people refer to as ‘spirit’ would be called subtle bodies in other cultures.”
Made sense to me. Mediums’ spirits rattled around looser inside them than everyone else’s, too. Maybe our spirit eyes were askew from our physical eyes, and our spirit ears were pitched slightly different. Whatever the misalignment, it allowed us to sense things in that other plane of existence, be it repeaters, or ghosts, or even spectral jellyfish.
“Spirits aren’t all beneficial,” Chekotah said. “Some are tricksters, and it can go beyond harmless mischief. Some enjoy causing pain and suffering. They can’t be exorcised since they’re not really dead, but they can be bargained with, or even appeased. One person’s aggressor might be someone else’s protector.”
“So a pissed-off dead woman who’s hijacking other people’s bodies,” I said. “Spirit, or ghost?”
“The angry remnant of a human being…that’s a ghost.” Chekotah looked grim. “Traditionally, my people kept none of the belongings of the dead—they put the body out for the elements, along with all of its belongings. They left it in the swamp and didn’t look back. Nowadays, though, think about how materialistic modern culture is. No one’s going to get rid of their dead relative’s stuff. It might be valuable, so they’ll want to keep it for themselves, or maybe sell it on eBay. Every last item they hold on to leaves a tiny pinhole that pierces the veil between death, and life. Enough small items—or something with a big enough emotional charge—will weaken that veil enough for ghosts to cling to this world and avoid crossing over. A ghost cares about one thing, and one thing only: luring the people who were once its friends and family into the land of the dead, so it doesn’t have to suffer alone.”
That explanation gave me an idea on how to find Chance’s hiding place, though I wasn’t convinced that all ghosts cared about was death. After all, I had it straight from the source that Jennifer Chance’s big concern was who got credit for her GhosTVs. Not that she wouldn’t get a kick out of inflicting a ton of collateral damage too. “Spirit, ghost, whatever she’s called, how do I get rid of her? Salt? Or something else?”
Chekotah considered my question in this new thoughtful, unhurried manner he’d adopted, then said, “In the beliefs of my people, even a mineral has a spirit. If salt is what focuses your energy, then use salt. The energy comes through you, and you harness that energy with ritual. But ritual is a personal thing. You need to do what resonates with you.”
“I’m not asking you how to focus my ability. I need to know what it is you do to the ghosts once they’re in range that makes them cross over. Do you visualize a door and give ’em a shove through it? Or hit their spirit body with a blast of energy that makes it evaporate? Or…what?”
Chekotah looked startled in his video. So did Jacob and Bly, in the small box down by the corner. I wasn’t accustomed to letting people know I literally saw these things, and I didn’t trust either Chekotah or Bly with my secrets. I didn’t have the luxury of being cagey, though. I needed to stop Chance from inhabiting anyone else.
“I’m in trance for that part of the ceremony,” Chekotah said.
“You must remember something. The Criss Cross Killer, sticking to Jacob. What were you thinking when you scraped him off?”
Chekotah closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and whispered to himself as he rocked back and forth. I shifted impatiently in my seat. Jacob and Bly looked grim. But before I could say, You know what, forget it, I’ll just wing it like I always do, Chekotah spoke. “Hugo Cooper had his feet firmly in this world, but his connection to Jacob felt weak, like a spider’s web. All I had to do was brush it away. He was filled with anger, but it wasn’t enough to keep him here, not without the connection.”
Like the silver cords that connected astral travelers to their bodies. And the goopy tethers that anchored the jellyfish to Dreyfuss’ fingernails. Something was connecting Chance to this world, something only I could see. “So I find the tie, and I cut the connection. Got it. Thanks.”
“And then you guide them to the veil. The door you were talking about might work for this, if you see it as a door. But they won’t go willingly. You need to escort them to it.”
“By visualizing them going through?”
“No, with your spirit. Guide them to the edge of the veil, and then the pull will take over.”
Oh, hell. “Lemme get this straight,” I said. “You project out of your body, grab the ghost, shove it up against the veil, and trust your silver cord to keep you from getting sucked into Deadland too.”
He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Basically.”
I had a hard time believing that someone as selfish as Chekotah would put his own subtle bodies on the line. Maybe the pull of Deadland was strong for actual dead people, but it must not be too intense for someone with a living physical body to call home. Not if that weenie was willing to brave it. Then again, maybe he was stronger than I’d been giving him credit for. It’s not as if mediumship rankings meant anything…not that they’d ranked themselves at PsyTrain anyway. But he had managed to put up those sturdy astral barriers around his room, so maybe he did know what he was doing after all.
“Do you need some chant to help you shift your vibration?” he as
ked. “I could send you some MP3s.”
Chant wouldn’t do squat for me. Those painful experimental psyactives would work perfectly fine. “No. Thanks.”
“Let me know if there’s any other way I can be of help.”
While I couldn’t stand that guy for what he’d done to Lisa, my current situation with Chance was pretty dire. Any ally was a welcome ally. Even Bert Chekotah. I thanked him one more time and then moused around, searching for the button that would end the chat session, while he reached up and took off his headset. And then I saw it.
A wedding band.
Jacob put his hand over mine, guided the cursor to the signoff point, and clicked my finger into the button. Chekotah’s image was gone now, but the image of the wedding band was firmly branded into my brain. That creep had married someone just a few months after the astral debacle? Not only was I enraged for Lisa, and for every other decent woman at PsyTrain, but for his current wife, too. Because if he hadn’t cheated on her yet, I’d lay bets that he’d be sleeping around by New Year’s.
“I’m gonna hit the bathroom,” Bly said, fleeing the room before anyone could tell him where it was. Apparently my bitterness was so pronounced I could use it to deflect empaths.
I glared at the icon Bert Chekotah had chosen for himself, some Native American stylized feather. The way he hid behind his “I’m so spiritual” crap turned my stomach. “I’m sure he’ll make an awesome husband…and it had better not be Faun Windsong who married him. Because she should know better.”
“No, she’s still in Santa Barbara. I don’t think we’ve met the lucky girl.”
“Good. But whoever it is, he doesn’t deserve her.”
“Yeah, I know, I give it less than a year.”
I was sorely tempted to seize on my indignation and call the guy back before I cooled off. Once I had some time to think about it, I’d probably decide it wasn’t worth getting a few digs in, and Chekotah would still be going around oblivious to what an ass he was. Jacob, standing behind me, settled his hands on my shoulders and dug his thumbs into the muscle on either side of my spine. I hadn’t even realized I’d been gathering tension there. Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between pulling down white light and painful clenching. I rolled my neck a few times and sighed. “Of everyone at the FPMP with a big SUV, you had to bring an empath into our house?”
“So that’s what’s really eating you.”
“If he could see into all your nooks and crannies, I’ll bet it would be eating you too.” I spun the office chair to face him. “It pisses me off. If it weren’t for him strong-arming Richie when I specifically told him not to, Chance would still be in there. We’d know where she was, and we wouldn’t need to go on a ghost hunt right now.”
Jacob planted his hands on the armrests, leaned in, and spoke whisper-soft. “I had my eye on him.”
“I thought he wasn’t your type.”
“I’m serious. Yeah, he’s shifty, and I had my reservations before, but I’ve made my peace with them. If Bly hadn’t read Chance’s intentions and stepped in, she might’ve managed to zap you out of your own body so she could take over. You’re armed. How would you feel if she used your weapon—your hand—to take the rest of us out?”
I tried to swivel away, but Jacob’s hold on the chair didn’t budge. The small struggle, though, made me suddenly aware of the way he was straddling my outstretched legs and leaning over my body like he owned it. When we roleplayed at being bossy, it was all an act for me. For him, though? He really was that butch. In fact, he was probably holding back so he didn’t dislocate my shoulders when he forced my hands over my head and pushed my wrists into the mattress. That was fine in bed—he’d had plenty of practice over the years at being just forceful enough without taking things too far. In terms of Psych, though, he was flying blind.
“Here’s the thing about working as a team,” I said. “I need to be sure everyone’s got my back.”
“We do.”
Maybe. But that didn’t mean they knew what they were doing. “Bly thought I was oblivious that something was seriously wrong with Richie and he pushed too hard.” And Jacob swung a light in my eyes…but the last thing I wanted to do was undermine that enviable self-confidence of his. “You and I need to get on the same page with our Psych talk.”
“Okay.”
The words I used to describe my subjective experience of Psych were painfully dumb, but it wouldn’t do us any good to reinvent the vocabulary at this stage of the game. “There’s energy all around us. Once, when we were all hopped up, you said it felt like vibration. For me, it looks like white light.” Jacob nodded. This wasn’t news to him. But I don’t think he really understood its importance. “You handle this energy, whether you know it or not—Chance couldn’t slip out of Richie until you let go of his arm. If my subtle bodies are rattling around loose inside my shell, I’ll bet yours are fused in so tight it’d take a psychic earthquake to dislodge them. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were actually better at handling the light than I am…but the problem is, you can’t see what you’re doing. I can.”
“Then you’re in charge.” Jacob pressed his forehead into mine, and though Bly was lurking around the cannery somewhere, I felt some of the knots inside me untangle as I focused on Jacob’s nearness, the immensity of his presence. It was big, like everything about him is big. Yet somehow, that huge presence didn’t drown out my essential me-ness, but rather, amplified it.
He glanced at my lips as if considering whether or not we could afford to squander a precious moment for a kiss, and I leaned forward and made that decision for both of us. His lips parted. Our teeth grazed together. I swept my tongue in, bold, and his breath caught. Mine too, sharing this inhalation between us, dwelling for one shining moment in our trust, fortifying ourselves with the single, fleeting kiss, shoring me up before we embarked on an exorcism in which I absolutely could not allow myself to fail.
I relaxed into the familiarity of his mouth…and then I felt it. The gentle tug. Startled, I pulled back. “Did you feel that?”
The moment was ripe for a wisecrack, but Jacob must have sensed I was dead serious. “I’m not sure. I mean…” he broke eye contact and glanced away, somewhere in the vicinity of my ear. “It’s always intense.”
“I’m not talking about—”
“I know. Neither am I. Not entirely.”
I squirmed my hands up between us, grabbed him by the face, and squared up his eyes with mine. “Listen. I’ve been gorging on white light all day. I’ve seen Jennifer Chance puppeteering Richie’s body and I’m spooked as hell. That can’t be me on the end of her strings, get it? That can’t ever be me.”
“I get it.”
“So you can’t grab my light. Heat of the moment, things get crazy…you’ve gotta keep your head on straight.”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying that when I kissed you, I—?” We stared at each other for a long moment, and when I didn’t back down, he said, “Can I try it again, just to see if I can feel it? If it’s safe, I mean, if you don’t think I’ll siphon out all the—”
Since I still had him by the face, it was up to me to pull him into the kiss. I doubted he’d steal the whole shebang. Last time he did that it was a different situation entirely, with sky-high adrenaline and a very disturbed ghost in the room. Besides, even if he did nab some juice, it couldn’t hurt to rev him up before we charged into battle. I’d have time to replenish on the way back to FPMP headquarters. His mouth was hot and wet against mine, but his tongue was shy. Now he was really holding back. I could feel a tremor in the arms of the chair where he gripped them so tightly his hands shook. I moved slowly. We didn’t have the time to be leisurely, but I wanted to forge the connection right. My tongue skimmed the edges of his teeth, but no telltale tug followed. Even when I tuned in to the great glut of light I’d been hoarding, it was all still there, roiling around inside whichever subtle body contained it.
I tongued him deeper, encouraging him to try and take
it from me, but I could tell that light wasn’t budging. Whatever he’d been doing before when I felt that tug, it wasn’t happening now. Anxious to get going, I gave a little push…and then the floodgates parted.
My world went as bright as a sunrise over a fresh snowfall, but without the accompanying squint-inducing pain of overtaxed pupils struggling to adjust. I felt the light rushing into him through this connection in the physical, this kiss. It could have been any kind of touch, though, from a pinch to a caress. I don’t think that detail really mattered. What escalated the luminous flow was our intent.
I ended the kiss gently. The transfer had been substantial, but I still had a sizable stockpile remaining. Jacob’s eyes fluttered open. His cheeks were flushed. “You felt it,” I said. I didn’t need to ask. His awed expression said it all. “So that’s the mojo at the heart of it all. If you grab it from me, you might as well tie me up before I shoot anybody, and then fly that asshole Chekotah out here to evict Jennifer Chance. If I can see the white light, it’s likely she sees it too, and she’ll slip in the second she spots an opening.
Jacob’s eyebrows twisted up earnestly. “Wait a minute, who says this has to be a liability? If I can drain your white light, shouldn’t I be able to top it off too?”
I typically cede to Jacob’s greater intelligence, experience, and overall competence on all matters. Psych, however, was my thing, the only arena in which I had an advantage. I didn’t want to burst his bubble, but given the stakes in this game, I couldn’t afford to coddle him for the sake of—
He crushed his mouth to mine and jammed his tongue in, hard. His hand slid into my overcoat and grazed my holster while his fingertips dug into my ribs. His breath came in ragged huffs—and my physical body was starting to think this exchange was more about getting its rocks off than gathering light.
And then I felt it, like pins and needles, like a whack on the funny bone or a deep huff of aerosol propellant, an edgy, squirmy, frighteningly exuberant sensation that morphed from tactile to visual as it passed from Jacob’s body into mine…from his spirit into mine. Sparkling, buoyant light. The same stuff as mine, but with a slightly effervescent cast imparted by the act of forcing itself through both our filters. My breath caught, and my groin throbbed. My physical body wanted to do something completely different than ghost hunting with this heady potency coursing through my veins.
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