by Gillian Zane
“My name is Cassandra Mercier, call me Cassie, call me Cassandra, anything but Ms. Hail. Cassidy Hail was the name for my case. It was made up.”
“So you were lying to me,” he said in a barely audible whisper.
“Yes, I was lying. I had to lie. I’m a dead girl, you were one of the living. That’s what we do here in Karma. We lie.”
“I knew it,” he scoffed.
“Bravo.” That simmering anger boiled over a tiny bit and directed its attention at Drake, even though he was the last person I wanted to be angry with. “And now that you’re in charge of this place, you know why. And you also know why I had no choice. I would have been demoted. The gods only know what They would have done to you if I would have told you the truth. The living aren’t supposed to know about the dead.”
A string of emotions crossed his face that I couldn’t interpret. He closed the distance between us, but stopped an arm’s length away like something was holding him back. He was everything I remembered, down to the light stubble on his chin. It was Drake, sans a few weeks. One of those weeks really mattered to me.
I bit down hard on my bottom lip to keep the emotions at bay. He didn’t need me breaking down in front of him. He was probably already confused by this insane new job, and now me shaking things up. I didn’t need to add lust and angst to the situation. I couldn’t be my usual selfish self.
“So, that’s what you were hiding from me this entire time, that you were Cassandra. And what, you couldn’t–?”
“It’s against the rules. I couldn’t dig into my own past, and I couldn’t remember what happened to me. Hell, I couldn’t remember my parents, what my favorite food was. And I couldn’t even bring up my own damn Facebook page so I could see what my life was like without risking getting demoted. But I needed to know.” I looked away. I couldn’t have him staring at me with concern and pity.
“Shit.” He moved closer and lifted his arm like he was going to touch me. He was so close, and I wanted that touch. I wanted that connection so badly. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed touch, his touch in particular. My skin tingled at the spot where he might place his hand. But he pulled it back, fisting it at his side. It was my turn to scowl.
“Finally trust me, Drake?” I asked, sounding bitter. He turned away and I could have kicked myself for blurting out exactly what I shouldn’t have, but my mind was reeling. I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know what to feel, or let myself feel. I needed a handhold, but it was like I was on a cliff face with nothing but slippery rock in every direction. All I could do was stare at him, memorize the planes of his face, even though there was nothing reassuring in the way he was looking at me.
“Trust? Really. You have to admit your story was a mess, how it seemed suspect? I would have been an idiot to trust you, and Cassandra, I’m anything but an idiot.” He shook his head as he emphasized my real name. I had to admit he was right. He had a good reason back then to think I was hiding something, because I was hiding something. But now he knew the truth. Now, he knew the big secret. Because he was a part of that secret. He was in charge of that secret. In charge. How in the hell had that happened?
“How are you in charge of this place? Why of all people, you?” I voiced my thoughts out loud.
I looked around at his office. It appeared to be a perfect replica of his place when he was alive. He shouldn’t be here. Operatives work up to being the director. You don’t get put in charge right after your death. That’s not how things worked in Afterlife. Not to mention, he wasn’t even supposed to be in this realm. He was some kind of supernatural.
“Nepotism,” he said and paused when he noticed my look of confusion.
“What? Nepotism—like family?” I asked stupidly.
“Yeah, you’ve probably met my…”
7
Mommy Dearest
As though she had been summoned, a door opened in the rear of his office and in walked Persephone. She was a riot of colors and fabric as she sauntered into the office like she owned the place.
“Mother,” Drake finished. His face was that unreadable mask again.
“Stop using that word. Call me Persephone,” she tutted at Drake.
“This? Her? She’s your mother?” I stuttered out.
“A sexual dalliance with a rather compelling human male spawned his birth, nothing else. Don’t use that word again. It has no place within this conversation. Why is she still here? She should be on her case.”
“We have a few details to work out,” Drake said, his teeth clenched, her presence an obvious annoyance to him, like it was to me.
“Work them out in transit. She needs to be set up. Oversight is in a tizzy. She’s been gone too long.” Persephone rolled her eyes. “This was all their fault, of course, but since He’s been so involved lately, I told them I would pop in and oversee things myself.” She smiled like she was doing us a favor by gracing us with her presence.
“Come now, I have the door programmed for her location. And change into something more appropriate. You look wrong for what you need to do. You will not be playing your usual slut role, Cressida.”
I guess I had a case.
8
The Psychic’s In
“She’s your mother? You’re part, what—goddess?” I hissed the moment we were alone. The door in Drake’s office had led us into the women’s bathroom of a small diner. Persephone didn’t even leave the office. She pushed us through the door and tapped her wrist like she was wearing a watch and we were running late. I followed Drake out of the bathroom and into the main area of the diner, but he didn’t answer me until we were on the street outside. I didn’t recognize where we were. Not the city, the street, or even the sky overhead.
“Goddess, really?” He looked at me with the first hint of amusement on his face.
“God, whatever.” I circled my hands in his direction to prompt him for more information.
“You heard her. I’m the product of a sexual dalliance, nothing more. And I don’t know much about that part god thing, it never did much for me when I was alive,” he laughed, but it was a bitter laugh, full of every emotion except the one it was meant to convey.
“Damn, Drake,” I said, glancing around me, trying to place myself. Nothing around me was familiar.
“We’re in Delphine,” he said to answer my unvoiced question.
“Across the river?” I repeated dumbly. I never had reason to venture into the more rural neighborhoods of my city. The Delphine area was often mocked by the rest of the city, considered a bit back-water, where the residents liked to listen to classic rock, police themselves, and drive pick-ups. It seemed like another country, but in recent years, residents in search of more bucolic lifestyles had been flocking to this area and driving house prices up.
“You have a very specific case. Oversight was very detailed on this one.” He removed a key on a long lanyard from his pocket and handed it over to me. I held it in my hand, but didn’t grasp it. I looked at him in question. For never having heard of Oversight, I was sure hearing it a lot lately. Had Brandon shielded us from them, or was it because now that Brandon was a part of this group, they were more hands on?
“This is your office.” He pointed to a small house, close to the street, that could have been someone’s charming little cottage home. It had been converted into a commercial storefront, and displayed a sign that read PSYCHIC in big bold, neon letters in the window.
“I’m going to pretend to be a psychic? You’ve got to be kidding me.” I made no move toward the house. This was ridiculous.
“A medium, but let’s go inside, I’ll explain in private.” He glanced at the handful of shoppers wandering the street, which seemed to be a neighborhood converted into commercial properties.
“What is going on, Drake?” My voice was whinier than I would have liked.
“You have a case, you had your little vacation, now it’s time to get to work,” he said frustrated with me.
“Vacation?” I exclaimed. “Try
med leave because I was so fucked up from seeing you get shot.” I didn’t mean to throw that in his face. I hadn’t meant to tell him about those details.
“Wait, run that by me again.” He cocked his head and the urge to let it all out bit at the inside of my cheeks. I fisted both of my hands and tried my best to put a lid on my emotional instability.
“Yep. Didn’t like seeing you die, Drake. Kinda traumatic, they stuck me in some basement to cool down,” I said in a clipped staccato voice. “C’mon, let’s go inside.” I changed the subject but the look he gave me told me that he didn’t believe I was telling him the whole truth. Too bad. He wasn’t getting anything else out of me. I wasn’t going to make an emotional fool of myself in front of Drake. Not until I was pretty sure the Fates weren’t going to be able to fuck us over again. I was still being selfish.
He let me lead the way and I used the key he had given me to unlock the door that led into a front room set up like a store front. There were glass cases full of crystals and jewelry, tarot cards and books on the occult and spirituality for sale. The entire front of the house was expanded to be one large room, with a door at the back, which I assumed led to a store room, or bathroom.
“Quaint,” I said and fingered a stuffed crow that was sitting on top of a bookshelf.
“You are now psychic and medium, Castalia Rosso. You’ve made a name for yourself in the area and have even solved a few cases for the police force in the tri-county area.” Drake picked up a photo album and placed it on a table in front of me.
I opened it and began to flip through articles about Castalia Rosso. Oversight was detailed. There were only five articles, but it was enough. I had recently helped locate a missing teen whose story had gone national. Because of the information I provided, they found him alive where he was being held by a man in the suburbs.
“I’m a pretty awesome medium,” I said and glanced up to find Drake’s eyes on me.
“You are. Enough to get noticed by a team of ghost hunters who have landed themselves a reality show.”
“Oh. This sounds interesting.” Maybe being a psychic wasn’t going to be that bad.
Drake withdrew a small tablet from his pocket and removed a stylus from the side before typing something into it.
“Most of the team in this ghost hunting group is above board, but the two main hunters are your targets.” He turned the tablet around and showed me an image of two relatively attractive people. One was a male, the other a female. They resembled each other; their hair was a tarnished red, almost copper, and their features were small and sharp.
“Brother and sister, twins actually. This is Roselle and Raul. Your targets. They’ve made thousands by scamming people out of their cash, and with this show they are slated to make millions.”
“How do they make millions off of ghost hunting?”
“They get hired by homeowners who believe their house is haunted, and Roselle and Raul come to the rescue and kick the ghosts out, usually claiming they aren’t the dead, but demons in disguise. They charge for this service. They are also hoping with the new reality show that they’ll get a lot more customers.”
“They charge people to clear their houses of demons?” I asked. I didn’t know people actually did that.
“Yes. They have a list of expenses and expenditures that they pass on to the homeowners and these people are usually desperate, or delusional, so they pay it without question.”
“And they’ve made such a name for themselves that they have a television show now?” I asked. It didn’t make sense to me. How could you be a con, but still be praised for your good works?
“A lot of their clients swear by them. They were technically swindled out of thousands of dollars, but because half the time it’s nothing more than the figment of the homeowners’ imagination, an old house, bad plumbing, that sort of thing, having them come in actually does help their problem, since it’s psychological,” Drake said. “Plus, the twins are adept at spotting issues that aren’t supernatural, so they’ll take care of it without the homeowner knowing it.”
“Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say. There was a sucker born every day, wasn’t that the saying? But, if they legitimately helped these people, even if it was all in their heads, why was I getting involved?
“This is just a small part of what they do, though. Their ghost hunts, or fake ghost hunting, is what landed them the television show, and the show is how we are getting you involved.”
“As a medium?” I guessed.
“Yes, the twins don’t claim to be psychics, only scientists. But the network is insisting they get someone in their group that is a medium. Specifically you, since the recent national news story.”
“Go me.” I made a little hooray gesture with my hand and took the tablet from Drake and scrolled through the info sheets. “But, c’mon, really? Their scams don’t seem that horrible to get us involved.” I paused over a shot of the twins posing in front of some gnarled old tree, a noose hanging off of one of its branches. It was macabre, they looked like spirits themselves.
“They’ve made a lot of money off people who are desperate enough to call in ghost hunters, and most of those people have nothing to show for it.”
“What do they do when they are called to a house?” I asked.
“Burn some sage, say a prayer. That’s about it.”
“Again, I gotta say, this seems a bit elaborate to nab a few cons pinching some cash from a few gullible people,” I gestured to the shop around me.
“Gullible.” He gave me a stern look and I shrugged unapologetically. I was just being honest.
“If they really believe they have a ghost and these two come in and make them feel better, technically all is good, right?” I argued.
“What about the ones with real problems, actual demonic activity and poltergeists, the ones they don’t fix?” Drake asked and I stopped scrolling through the case files and looked at him perplexed.
“Uh, real demonic activity…those are real?”
“You’re a Karma operative, a reanimated dead girl, placed on earth to inflict pain and suffering on the deserving, but you don’t believe in demons?” Drake smirked.
“Well, c’mon, you know, like Lucifer’s minions, that kind of thing? Is that real? Is there a Lucifer? Fiery hell regions, that sort of thing? Nobody talks about that in Afterlife.”
“If you think about it, Cassandra, and your job title, another name for a karma operative could be…”
“Oh shut up, I am not a demon. Even though your mother could be mistaken for…”
“Let’s keep that thought in your head.” He held up a hand and shook his head to silence me.
“Fine, okay, I’ll leave your mother out of this. Talk about mommy issues.” I flipped through some cards on the table. They were full of people getting stabbed with swords. Creepy.
“Cassandra,” he barked my name, but I didn’t look up. The girly magazines always said to measure a man by how he treats his mother. I didn’t even know how to rate this particular scenario.
“Ready to focus on the case?”
“Sure. Can you explain to me why these twins are even on our radar?” I insisted.
Drake sighed and picked up the tablet. He swiped a few times on it and turned it around to face me.
The pictures were horrific, mangled bodies, blood everywhere. The pictures were crime scene photos, and from the amount of legs in the photo, it was at least three people.
“The Munez family, they reported strange attacks on their two children, things being moved, cabinets opening, elevated ghost activity. They called in the twins, who declared it was a demon. The twins did a fake ritual and sent the family back to the house. They were slaughtered that night by the entity that was haunting the house. The twins covered up that they had ever been there, and the police think it was done by a serial killer.”
“Crap, what kind of ghost slaughters an entire family?”
“Sometimes things escape, they hate the liv
ing,” Drake said quietly.
“Could any ghost hunter have gotten rid of this thing, though?” I asked as I pulled the tablet from his hand.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I have very little background information on what it could have been.”
“Then, I still don’t know why I’m here,” I swiped through the case file and then stopped as I scanned one paragraph of text. “Oh,” I said. There it was.
“Found it? Does that bring out the karma operative in you?” He asked with a slight hint of sarcasm in his voice.
On top of the scamming people about their fake haunted houses, Raul also has a fondness for installing cameras in the homes, to monitor the ghosts. Especially if there is a young girl in the home. Some of the cameras aren’t as obvious as others, like the one he puts in their bedrooms, showers, and toilet areas.
“I like the part where it goes into detail about how he’ll talk his victims into sex rituals for cleansing purposes. Got there yet?” Drake asked.
“Cleansing purposes, is that what they call it these days?” I laughed and Drake shot me another disappointed look.
“Virgins, according to Raul, attract the dead. So, if there isn’t a virgin in the house anymore…” I swallowed back a few choice words and the taste of bile at Drake’s words. Okay, that put things into perspective. That explains why I was here.
“What a creep.”
“The sister is also aware of the brother’s proclivities and is along for the ride. She likes to watch, since most of it is caught on camera, including the cleansing rituals. She’s also been known to take valuables from the home, claiming the items are possessed and must be quarantined. Usually family heirlooms that are worth a lot of money.”
“This gets better and better,” I mumbled.
“Directive from the top. They both go down, and preferably on camera,” Drake said with a tight smile.
“Consider it done,” I said still flipping through the weird tarot cards.