Every Breath You Take

by Chris Marie Green

  Please, just not that.

  When we pulled to a stop, I didn’t move, not even when Amanda Lee opened her door and let Twyla and Marg out. Not even when I heard the familiar, joyful sounds of a ghost music war.

  Odd how I could feel the spirits all around, laughing and enjoying themselves, just like they were a world away.

  “Jensen,” Amanda Lee said quietly. “It’s time to let go of the battery. I feel strongly that you’re safe. Believe me.”

  I wasn’t even sure there was much juice left in the battery. I’d bled it nearly dry, so what was there to do but let go?

  Since I was stronger now, I drifted upward, until I saw a cabin come into view. Smoke peeled out of a chimney, floating above the surrounding oaks in a remote corner of this music-war world. Lights flashed in the windows from ghosts playing around with electrical devices like cameras and lamps. A song switched from something with mellow voices—did they call it New Age?—to something romantic from the forties, while the ghosts inside manipulated energy and summoned past tunes, just to amuse themselves.

  “Back at the happy house!” Twyla said with relief, right before she zoomed toward the door, which was opened just a crack.

  The next second, Billy Idol snarled through the air. Twyla had taken over the music war.

  Marg glanced over her shoulder at me as I kept peering through the car window. She waved at me to follow her, then went inside, too. She’d looked comfortable, and I guessed she’d been here before.

  I wondered if Amanda Lee could hear the music. She wasn’t reacting, so I wasn’t sure.

  “Go on, Jensen,” she said. “This is a good place for you.”

  “No lie?”

  “The moment that little girl showed up, I knew why I’d had a psychic vibe about bringing you here earlier. Here I feel . . . hope.”

  I almost didn’t know what the word meant anymore. “And what if your vibes are wrong?”

  She knew I was talking about her whole Elizabeth Dalton thing. She’d had vibes that Gavin was the killer, but I suspected that it’d been her emotions telling her that, not her psychic visions. Those were pretty accurate in other cases.

  Could I count on that right now?

  She wearily pushed back the gray streaks from her face. “I only wish I could tell you something beyond a vague instinct. But, in any case, it’s clear that being around all these kindred spirits will keep you safe.”

  “Or maybe the dark spirit’s already been here, stealing essences and imitating these ghosts and somehow sending you visions that this is the place you should bring me.”

  She looked at me like I was Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, mohawk and all.

  “From what we’ve seen, Jensen,” she said, “your killer can imitate only one ghost at a time, so don’t be paranoid.”

  “But he’s split himself into different parts before, like when he’s fought us.”

  “And those parts have always looked the same—like dark blobs. Don’t let your mind take you to ridiculous places.”

  “Like where? Someplace with a zip code of L-O-O-N-Y?”

  “Jensen.” She pointed toward the cabin, where Billy Idol was still rebel yelling. “Try to help yourself. Don’t be a . . . a wussy about this.”

  Oooh. A wussy. Fighting words. And they did make me feel pussified. When had I ever been this ridiculous before?

  It really did need to stop.

  “Okay,” I said. “Maybe I’ll look for hope in there, then.”

  “That’s a girl.” She offered a maternal smile. “I’ll stay outside in the car so I can call Wendy. We’re going to find a way to get this bastard. And you can ask your friends here if they know any way to help us out, too.”

  Hell, I wasn’t sure how successful I’d be in the getting-help-from-these-guys department. I mean, these were ghosts who liked to have a good time, and that was about it. They’d told me not to get involved with human matters, and look where it’d gotten me. . . .

  When a travel tunnel opened next to the house, I turned to it, on guard. Daniel the hiker from Elfin Forest burst out of it with his Jesus beard and backpack, and he smiled at the sight of me.

  “You tired of hanging around the ghostbusters in the forest, too?” he asked, closing his tunnel.

  I only nodded at his question, checking him out, not willing to give him information about anything. What if he was on the bad side?

  Amanda Lee had already gotten back into the car and shut the door. She didn’t acknowledge Daniel.

  “Wow, Jen,” he said to me. “Your tone’s really not good.”

  Was I that transparent?

  He waved at me to follow him as he slimmed himself so he could slip through the gap between the door and its frame, then disappeared inside.

  I still hesitated. Either I needed to believe that Amanda Lee was right about bringing me here or I would have to give in to total paranoia. And that was what my murderer wanted. Superstar Crazy Barbie.

  Well, screw that. If I couldn’t handle another ghost, I sure wasn’t much of one myself.

  Sucking it up, I went inside, and the first thing that hit me was the smell of wood smoke and Mary Jane in the air. I immediately traced the first aroma to a fire in a sunken pit surrounded by stairs, where a few ghosts hung out, chatting. And I found the reason for the ganja smell over in the corner, slumping in a chair with a bunch of long, shaggy dark hair covering his face.

  This was McGlinn, the owner of the house and the only human in the room. He didn’t move except for the smoke leaking through a couple openings in his hair, and he was holding a joint in his hand, numbing himself to the ghosts around him, goose-bumping at our presence, even with the fire going and the heat on.

  As a seer, he knew every one of us who was here, too.

  Others in the room weren’t shy about yelling out to me, though.

  “Jensen!” said a group of ghosts from the corner. Yul, Lee, and Feng had died in a fire in downtown San Diego more than a hundred and fifty years ago, and, like the gamblers they’d been in life, they were playing a game now. It was casually called How Long Will It Take for Me to Piss Off McGlinn by Lobbing Pillows at Him?

  When Feng hardened his ghostly arm and batted a throw pillow from the floor toward the hairy human in the corner, he lost that round. It took a lot to get a rise out of a stoned person, and, based on human experience, I’d sure know.

  I waved to them cautiously, then looked around more. Since this house was built over an anonymous nineteenth-century graveyard, there were a couple Old West spirits here, too. A pioneer-looking woman I’d met once—Penelope, who’d died during childbirth—and Juan Lopez, a foreman who’d worked on Old Seth’s ranch and gotten trampled by a bronco. Old Seth was even here, lounging by a lamp that’d fallen on the floor and taking electrical hits off its frayed wire. He waved to me, too, and I slowly waved back. I hadn’t seen him for a while—he’d gone out of town or something, and I guessed he’d come back to the site of his burial to chill.

  As for Daniel the hiker, he’d taken a hovering seat over a couch across the room, next to McGlinn’s grandparents, who were together in death, smiling and watching over their ancestor. They weren’t dancing cheek to almost-cheek tonight, what with Billy Idol still on and Twyla zipping around the room in a frenzied spaz dance. When she spun out of control and whooshed through McGlinn, who flinched and then took another toke, Daniel applauded dryly, a quiet, amused smile on his face. Grandma and Grandpa just shook their heads like, Oh, these youngbloods.

  Meanwhile, Marg was sitting all alone at the top of the fire pit stairs, probably because most of the fun-loving ghosts didn’t want to be bummed out by a spirit with a doomed X on her chest. She was watching Twyla recover and straighten out her petticoats, laughing off her boo-boo with McGlinn.

  “Hey!” she shouted to the room. “Anyone here know what to do about a
couple of cracked-up ghosts! Ha-ha!”

  That did get a laugh from the Chinese crew in the corner. But then Feng went straight-faced and took advantage of the situation to wipe his hand through the air, erasing Billy Idol and bringing up some cheeky fiddle music, like he was hoping Twyla would start madly kicking up her heels to that.

  No dice.

  I hadn’t realized it, but Old Seth had sidled up to me, with his gun belt, boots, hat, and cowboy beard. I started to think of questions to ask him just to see if he could be the dark spirit.

  “Good to see you again, Jensen,” he said.

  “Haven’t caught you for a while.” Mind . . . still thinking of a question.

  “Just got back from Temecula,” he said. “Boy, that place has grown since my time. But that’s neither here nor there. I was on my way to Amanda Lee’s ’cos there’s someone I’d like to introduce her to, if she can see or hear her.”

  “Amanda Lee’s just outside.”

  “Well, fancy that. It’s a fine day all around. Me and my guest just stopped here because she wanted to pay respects to the ghost upstairs.”

  McGlinn’s uncle Kevin, who was in a time loop, repeating his last moments as a kid dying of cancer.

  I inspected Seth. He sure looked like the cowboy I knew. Talked like him, too—and my killer hadn’t even managed that with Randy when he’d imitated him.

  I burst out with, “What was the name of the woman you almost married in life?”

  Totally normal and not weird, right? But he’d told me the answer in passing once, when he was in a thoughtful mood, so it seemed to be as good a question as any.

  “Come again?” he drawled.

  “Humor me.”

  Then he got an ahhh sort of look on his face. Chances were he’d heard about the circumstances of my killer’s raging return.

  “Jessica Allsworth,” he said. “A widow who could bake a pie like the devil but sing on Sundays like one of God’s own.” He had a fond gleam in his eyes.

  I didn’t think you could fake that because the gleam looked like memories—the kind I wanted to keep away from the dark spirit.

  Old Seth’s gaze narrowed under the brim of his hat. “What’s with Twyla? She’s a mite more . . . energetic . . . than usual.”

  “It’s a long, ultrafun story on my end, and Twyla just happened to be around for the extra ultrafun part.”

  “And this ultrafun story of yours . . . Is it about your killer?”

  I nodded.

  Old Seth took that in while stroking his beard. “So, was Twyla talking about you when she mentioned being cracked up?”

  I nodded again, then took another scan around the room without even thinking about it. As I wondered if my killer had done an essence switch with at least one ghost in this room, I sure felt cracky.

  “Yup,” Old Seth said. “I can tell Twyla was talking about you, all right. You need some positivity, little girl. And here I thought that Amanda Lee was the only one who might benefit from talking to my friend. Ain’t life grand?”

  My alarms were going off. “Who’s this person you want us to meet?”

  “She has what we used to call good medicine. I know Amanda Lee’s been bothered by all this murder and mayhem, so I wanted to see if I could help her out.”

  Whoa. Amanda Lee’s vision. Had she felt this good medicine through her vibes and brought me here to benefit from this visitor, too? Heck, she was good.

  But had she been feeling hope for her or for me?

  “Come on,” he said, gesturing toward the direction of the stairs.

  “Seth, I’m not going anywhere with anyone alone.” Even if he’d already given me hope that he was himself.

  Ha. See? Hope. Just what Amanda Lee had predicted I’d find. We were halfway there.

  Old Seth was patient. “All right, Jensen. Ask me any question you want, and I’ll show you that I’m not some coot pretending to be me.” He opened his arms, welcoming the challenge.

  I still had that hope, because he’d done really well answering the first question. And if Seth was leading me to whatever Amanda Lee had felt in her vibes, I had to go with him.

  I felt someone looking at me from across the room. Marg. She was keeping an eye on me. I motioned to her, and being the sharp cougar she was, she got Twyla’s attention and meandered over.

  “I don’t go anywhere without these two nowadays,” I said.

  Old Seth frowned through his dusty beard. “Is this a female thing?”

  “Yes, Seth. A very female thing.”

  He shrugged.

  Marg leaned toward me. “What’s this about?”

  Old Seth said, “I’ve got a friend visiting, and I think she’d be good for the long lip Amanda Lee’s been wearing. Now it appears Jensen needs some light in her life, too.”

  I looked at Marg, then nodded, and we followed him up the stairs. When we got there, the party wasn’t as loud, and the silence only drove home the fact that the last time I’d been up here, it’d been with Randy. That made my heart area hurt. I missed him and Louis. Missed everyone. Missed being able to trust that the ghosts I was with weren’t going to turn on me.

  We were heading toward a room where the door was always kept closed. McGlinn’s uncle Kevin had died in there years and years ago, and I was pretty sure that the sight of him wasn’t about to cheer me up.

  But, in the hall’s darkness, I could make out the gray, glowy form of a woman ghost sit-hovering in front of Uncle Kevin’s door. She was thirtyish, had dark, shiny hair that streamed down her back like Rita Coolidge’s, and she might’ve even been Indian, too. Like, down-from-India Indian. Oddly, though, she also had on a bike helmet.

  And she was meditating.

  Twyla’s loud whisper hung over the music from downstairs. “What gives, Seth?”

  “This is Kalli.” He whispered, too, hitching his thumbs over his gun belt, just like an Old West slinger. “When I went to pay respects to an associate in Temecula, I met her. Being as friendly as she is, she said yes to coming down here with me until she needs to recharge back at her death spot.”

  Twyla wasn’t appeased. “Like, how do you two even get along?”

  Seth chuckled. “Are you asking me how I tolerate her if she isn’t a gingham-wearing girl from the graveyard under this house?”

  “Ghosts mingle,” I said. “Yeesh, Twy.”

  Instead of barking back at me, Twyla smiled a little with her dark-lipsticked mouth. So did Marg. They were glad that I was showing some life, not cracking up. Congrats to me.

  As Kalli kept meditating, Old Seth whispered her death story to us. “She died a year ago in a bike accident on her way to work. Caregiver for the elderly.”

  Affection rode his voice, and Twyla loudly cleared her throat, not even being obvious about pointing out a possible attraction between Seth and Kalli. It’d been a long time since he’d courted the widow Allsworth, after all.

  Kalli folded her hands in front of her chest, then bowed from the waist toward the door, her hair streaming over her shoulders. When she floated to a stand, she pushed back both sides of her hair until they trailed down her back, then smiled at us.

  Wow. I’d never seen such a shiny, nice smile.

  “Hello,” she said. “Sorry I didn’t say that sooner, but I was in the middle of putting out good energy to Kevin.”

  Twyla butted in. “If you’re, like, trying to get him out of his time loop, good luck. Ghosts have tried everything for that kid.”

  “Oh, I know.” She didn’t take offense to Twyla’s brattiness at all. “It’s my first time in this house, and I thought I would give it a go.”

  First time here. It was like Twyla, Marg, and I had hackles that had stood up all at the same time. Trust no stranger.

  Trust no one.

  She frowned at our vibes. So did Old Seth, even
while he was giving Kalli our names and death stories in introduction.

  Then he said, “I wanted them to meet you, Kal. This gal here,” he jammed a thumb in my direction, “is going through a rotten time, and I figured if anyone could lift her spirits, it’d be you.”

  Again, I thought of Amanda Lee’s vision.

  Kalli’s laugh chimed. “First you want me to meet your depressed human friend Amanda Lee, and now you’re looking out for a ghost friend? You’re very sweet, Seth.”

  She turned to us, smiling some more. I had the feeling she was taking measure of how shitty my day had been, just by vibing me.

  Old Seth said, “Tell them more about what you do, Kal.” He didn’t even wait for her to talk, he was so excited about the chick. “She won’t even leave this plane because she says it’s her summer land. She likes being a spirit guide for the loved ones she left behind. How’s that for a purpose in Boo World?”

  That was her tether—being a spirit guide? Interesting. Would a dark spirit even be able to take the essence of someone so positive and corrupt it for himself?

  I was starting to like Kalli more and more. It’d be great to find a sort of haven here, even if that haven was another ghost and not a place.

  “Maybe I should explain,” Kalli said in that light voice. “I believe in living life in the present, no matter where I am. I believed that on the earthly plane, too.”

  Twyla went for it again. “So why’re we talking to you? Are you gonna be our spirit guide who gives us some happy-happy-joy-joy?”

  Old Seth laughed. “She mentors humans, not ghosts. Guiding is a part of her religion. Isn’t that right, Kal?”

  “You could say that.”

  She winked at him, and the manly man ghost-blushed.

  Marg got in on it. “Oh? Which religion?”

  “Wicca.”

  No reaction from any of us. I had expected her to say Hinduism or something.

  “Holy crap,” Twyla finally said. “You’re a witch! Did you guys hear that? Seriously, where’s your broomstick?”