Across the courtyard, Scott had his sword arms up and ready. His fifties teen-dream essence seemed paler than usual, especially against the greaser darkness of his hair.
“Don’t just bust in here like that!” he yelled.
I’d startled him when I’d come in my travel tunnel. Why?
I snapped my saw blades back into ghost arms, my dander up and sparking. “I always bust in here like that! It’s what travel tunnels do!”
When Scott still didn’t give up his blades, a spooky chill danced over me. And when he scanned the lamplit courtyard and the dusky trees beyond the stucco wall, I got an even worse feeling.
Wendy’s voice came again from inside the living room. “He’s on high alert, Jen.”
“What for?” I turned to her.
She was dressed in her basic geek-girl wardrobe—the same temporary Hello Kitty tattoo on her arm, the same kind of black skirt and artistically ripped shirt giving that pink streak in her hair more of a vivid statement. Since she was still clutching the handle of the sliding-glass door, I thought she’d probably thrown it open at the commotion, even though I hadn’t noticed her do it.
“Scott’s been hearing things around here for the past five minutes,” she said.
“Things?” And why only for the past five minutes? It was like something bad had known I was on my way here.
Scott said, “The tree branches keep rattling like someone’s shaking them, and there’re these low, obnoxious laughing noises, too, like someone’s chuckling deep in their throat. But there’s no someone around.”
We all waited for a sec, like Wendy and Scott wanted to prove to me that they weren’t just hearing things. But the only sounds were the fountain lapping softly in the courtyard and a small dog in the distance, probably walking with its human on the pathways.
“I swear,” Scott finally said, drifting down to the concrete, “I’m not fooling about hearing stuff.”
“And I heard what he heard,” Wendy said, “but he made me go inside.”
“You should get back inside,” Scott said.
Before she could do that, I spoke up. “Maybe the dark spirit was around, but since he’s learned to cloak himself, he wasn’t visible to you guys.”
Scott still hadn’t put away his blades. “That’s what I was afraid of. Not that I’m afraid.”
“Of course not.” I wasn’t about to contradict the hot-rod hero. “Did Gavin hear anything?” Was he even home?
“He’s putting in a few extra hours at work,” Wendy said. “He’s got some final designs for a video game, and he needs to sweat out the deadline.”
I was glad and not glad to hear that Gavin wasn’t around. Glad because he wasn’t here to be harassed by this evening’s haunting. Not glad because I hoped that the dark spirit hadn’t targeted him at work.
But most of the not-glad came from how I craved seeing him. Even if there was a whole lot of guilt that went along with the craving.
“So, my killer’s really getting around,” I said. “It’s like it’s getting even stronger, cockier . . .”
My words faded when someone came up behind Wendy inside the condo. I almost drew blades again until I recognized our company.
Eileen Perez, the cleaner who’d been working with Wendy all this time. A dainty lady who couldn’t have been more than forty years old, she had brunet Jackie O. hair and wore a soft pink top and white capris with flat silver sandals. She leaned over Wendy’s shoulder and took a gander outside.
“Something’s definitely in the air besides Scott,” she said.
Wendy nodded. “You got that right.”
Scott pointed to the condo with a blade. “The sounds are gone, but how about you make like turtles and get back inside your shell?”
Wendy turned to Eileen. “He wants us to go in.”
Looked like things hadn’t changed so much since the last time I’d encountered Eileen. She still couldn’t see or hear ghosts. I’d found out that tidbit when the Edgett family had called her to clean their mansion after I’d been haunting it. Obviously, she hadn’t cleaned me, even though Eileen was a true-blue believer in helping ghosts cross over to the glare whenever possible.
I kept my distance, even when Eileen journeyed back into the living room and Wendy motioned for me to come with her.
At my pause, she whispered, “She’s on our team, Jen. We’ve had good talks about this, and now she wants to learn from you and Scott instead of just shooing you into the light.”
“For right now.”
“Let’s go, okay?”
Since there was no reason to think Wendy was lying about Eileen—even if my first instinct yelled not to trust anyone—I drifted over her head and into the living room, leaving Scott to defend against any more rattling branches and guttural laughing. I’d be able to hear him if he needed me, because Wendy didn’t take me all that far.
She’d lifted the incantations she’d used to keep me and Scott out of this place, so I was familiar with the luxurious digs—the sleek yet warm and spacious sofas, the stone wall with the home-theater equipment, the blond wood floor and pricy earth-toned nude paintings by artists I hadn’t ever heard of. The room even smelled expensive, like polish and money. Affluence at its most humble.
Eileen had removed her sandals and grabbed a thick leather book with Ghosts and Spirits in Our Midst on its cover. She sat on a sofa with her legs bent to the side and her feet delicately tucked under her. She was glancing around like she sensed me.
“There’s another ghost, and you let her in,” Eileen said. “I know this one.”
“It’s Jensen Murphy.” Wendy plopped down on a burgundy sofa across from Eileen. “I told you she drops in sometimes. Jen, how’re things on your end of Boo World?”
“As demented as usual.” I’d catch her up on everything in a bit, after I made totally sure Eileen wouldn’t suddenly try to flush me out of the universe. “Amanda Lee wanted me to brainstorm with you guys. How’s all that going?”
“Not bad, not bad at all. We’ve got a ton of orgonite in the study down the hall, and it took us forever and a day to mold it into pyramids. Do you think that’s why the dark spirit won’t come any closer than he already has?”
“Maybe.” Orgonite was the stuff she’d talked about last time I’d seen her—the catalyzed resin and shavings and blah-blah-blah that turned negative energy into positive. Good thing I was a Mary Sunshine and the stuff wouldn’t affect me like it would an evil spirit.
Wouldn’t it be a stroke of luck if that orgonite was the answer? Score one for us; zero for evil.
By this time, Eileen had scooted to the edge of her wide cushion. She was watching the hairs on her arms rise. “I can feel Jensen’s coolness, her energy. She gives off different vibrations than Scott.”
I thought about my mist issue. Was it like BO to a human who could sense such things?
Wendy laughed. “Eileen, you’re acting like a ghost groupie.”
“Jensen’s not exactly a ghost who comes with a quiet past, so you know I’m interested.” Eileen couldn’t stop watching her arm hairs. “She hasn’t changed since I cleaned your mansion. I’m feeling that she’s still a very determined entity. Now more than ever, though, she believes she’s doing something right, like settling scores. Even if I tried to help her cross over, she’d put up a fight.”
“Understatement doesn’t even begin to cover that,” Wendy said.
I waved a hand in front of me. “Hi. Right here in the room with you.”
Wendy grinned. “Yes, we know you’re still here, Jen.”
Eileen seemed even more thrilled that Wendy was carrying on a conversation with me. But hadn’t Wendy been chatting with Scott, too? Maybe the whole ghost thing never got old for Eileen.
Wendy put on her Mature Adult Face and said, “So . . . brainstorming. We should get to it.”
Eileen was busy reaching into her large bag at the foot of the sofa. She pulled out a handheld recorder and turned it on. When Wendy stared at her, Eileen said, “Just capturing an EVP.”
“Oooh,” I said to Wendy. “Maybe now’s a good time to give her tips, like how salt can just repel us but not hurt us much.”
“I’ve told her,” Wendy said. “I’ve told her everything I know about ghosts.”
“But have you come up with any solutions to our main problem?”
“Like I said . . .” Wendy looked very proud of herself. “We made a ton of those orgonite pyramids, and that’s what’s going to work, Jensen. That’s our evil-spirit death ray.”
Ah. So this was why Amanda Lee had sent me down to the geek condo—because she probably divined that I needed to put some boot to Wendy’s and Eileen’s butts.
“Just curious,” I said. “But did you try some of that orgonite on whatever was rattling those branches?”
“Eileen and I were about to bring a couple pyramids out, but Scott told us to get back. Then you came.”
Sigh. Okay. I had to remind myself that there was only so much a human could get done in a certain amount of time, and it hadn’t been all that long since the dark spirit had reappeared to us. Yesterday, as a matter of fact. What had I expected from Wendy and Eileen—miracles?
At least I could contribute to the brainstorming. “There’s something I’ve got on my end. I met a Wiccan ghost and—”
“Shut up!” Wendy said. “Seriously? That’s possible?”
Eileen held her recorder up higher, her gaze wide.
“Yeah. Who knew?” I said. “Anyway, she’ll be contacting one of the humans she guides and telling them our situation, so expect some random Wiccan to get in touch with you soon. They can use protection spells, et cetera, and maybe there’s something you can work out with this witch about putting the dark spirit down.”
“Witch,” Wendy repeated. “That’s so boss.” Then she told Eileen what I’d said.
Eileen crossed herself. “I don’t know about this. Wiccans?”
I kept back another sigh. “Tell her that Wicca isn’t about black magick. Hell, Wiccans won’t get negative with their spells, so we’ll probably be focusing on protection only.”
“Sweet,” Wendy said after translating for me. “How cool is it that we could gather a ghost-team army? What if we recruited the Stalkers, too?”
Eileen frowned. “No, thank you. They’re not the real McCoy.”
Well, well, well. How about that? We had a little ghost-busting competition going on.
“I have a question for Jensen.” Eileen turned off the recorder. “Jensen, can you hear me?”
“Not deaf,” I said.
“Eileen, she’s no Bubble Boy.” Wendy nodded toward the courtyard. Then she obviously realized that I wasn’t up on current events. “That’s what we’ve started calling Scott. He thinks it’s a drag to talk to humans who can’t hear him, so he acts like he’s in a bubble that keeps him from interacting with Eileen. Thinks she asks too many questions.”
“And why not?” Eileen said. “I’ve only come into contact with a few ghosts during my time in my paranormal club.” She slanted her body toward me, showing that she knew I was floating near her. “Jensen, Wendy’s told me all about what you can do—the empathy readings, how you can go into a human’s dreams, how you can make them hallucinate.”
Uh-oh. I could predict what was coming like J. R. Ewing could always predict that Bobby would be dumb about selling oil.
“This would only be for the sake of study,” Eileen said, batting her thick eyelashes like that would help, “but I was wondering if you could show me, say, a hallucination, so I could educate my club about it.”
Her club. Eileen was a churchy, good kind of woman, but I had no idea who else was in her circle. Like, did they knit during their meetings? Exchange brownie recipes after talking about salting us to death? Sure, Eileen had known a solid trick or two when she’d tried to clean me out of the Edgett mansion, but I wasn’t sure she was ready for hallucination prime time.
“Is she for real about this?” I asked Wendy.
“Very.” Then Wendy addressed her. “I told you that ghosts are careful with their hallucinations, especially on innocents. They can drain a human, and ghosts like to avoid that if they can. All around, Jensen and her peeps basically avoid killing people purposely and directly. Not unless their big goal is to be eternally damned.”
“This is for science,” Eileen said. “Besides, I’m sure she’ll know if the hallucination is going south.”
Wendy shrugged at me. I shrugged back. Then she leaned forward in her chair, way more eager for this promise of quality entertainment than she should be. Someday she’d make a good ghost.
Eileen put down the recorder, straightened her legs out from under her until her bare, pink-nailed feet were on the ground, grasped the edge of the sofa cushion, and squeezed her eyes shut like she was about to take off on a roller coaster.
Here goes nothing.
When I touched her neck, she jumped, shocking me. I bolted back because, damn, she was full of nervous energy. And maybe she should’ve been. Since Señorita Jackie O. here wanted the ghost experience, I’d already decided that I was going to give it to her. She’d get a hallucination, all right.
But then I corrected myself. That’d been the mist talking, so I shoved back at it, trying to get a more positive attitude.
“Wendy, please tell your friend to relax.” There. Better.
“Dial down your amps, Eileen,” Wendy said.
“All right.” She blew out a breath, raising her hands and lowering them. “Ready.”
I touched her again, and this time I slipped right into her, down past her skin and into her head, joining with her consciousness, unable to control what was about to come at us except for the first image I put into her mind as—
Flying through the clouds, misty, white, lovely . . .
Then a swipe, a wall of black mist blocking everything, cold and clammy. All around us.
What was this, and how could we get out of it . . . ?
We bat our hands at the mist until it suddenly parts in front of us, revealing the living room.
But it’s not really the living room—not with the ceiling gone, exposing a big blue sky. A surfing sky. And the light wood floor bobs below the furniture, liquid, a golden sea.
Wendy is watching us from across the room, her burgundy sofa like a raft, and we laugh as her seat begins to stretch like salt-water taffy, winding into swirling shapes above her, forming the awning on a candy-covered gondola.
“It feels so real,” we say breathlessly, the wind on our skin, the smell of salt and kelp permeating us.
Hallucination Wendy smiles, then reaches over to pluck off a section of taffy. She pops it into her mouth and says, “Mmm.”
When our sofa begins to change shape, too, we hold our breath, overjoyed at the sight of gumdrops popping out over the upholstery. We pull off a green, sugar-coated treat. It melts in our mouth.
So good, just like a day in the park, holding a bag of candy while our madre hugs us to her as we sit on a bench, watching the world go by. Beautiful weekend days, sunny and . . .
Without warning, the room twists, changing back into what it was before—a normal, everyday, average luxury condo with cream and stone walls. Except, this time, Wendy isn’t so normal.
She has whiskers and pale skin, a pink bow by her kitty ears, her almond eyes now round and dark, her nose a yellow dab in the middle of her face, her mouth gone.
“Meow,” she somehow says, just like she’s the Hello Kitty tattoo on her arm.
We’re not sure whether to laugh or be startled. A human cat. A warped view of the teenager we’ve known ever since the ghosts took over her mansion . . .
“Meow?” she asks.<
br />
She’s pointing to something behind us, and our pulse picks up speed, axing at our chest as we turn around. . . .
A lightning flash fries into us, ripping apart time like something has joined us, and as electricity sizzles our sight we see . . .
Oh God.
A formless shape is right behind us, a black blob hovering, tentacles waving from it. One of those tentacles reaches for us and—
In a zap, I barged out of Eileen’s mind, flaring past her skin and into the room, putting an end to a hallucination that’d definitely gone out of control.
Then a scream.
I veered around to find Eileen shivering violently on the sofa, facing what’d become a nightmare.
Wendy was the one screaming, because the blob hadn’t just been in the hallucination—it’d been out of it, too, and it was still in back of Eileen, reaching that tentacle toward her.
The damned thing was real and had slipped into Eileen while she was open. . . .
Fear blazed out of me—I couldn’t stop it—and the blob seemed to peer over its shoulder, right at me, pausing in its grab for Eileen. I could feel it pulling energy from me, eating my fright, charging it up.
Have to stop it, I thought. Have to—
With all my might, I struck at the son of a bitch because I wasn’t going to be its victim again.
Never again.
I used every bit of energy I could to conjure something, anything that might scare it.
And the last thing I expected materialized out of the ceiling.
A wrangler, and it blew through the intact plaster in all a reaper’s gray, bridal-veiled glory. Like sheer wings, its long shroud belled around it as I made it hover over the dark spirit.
I barely noticed that Wendy and Eileen were both gone now because I was too focused on fighting my killer as it reared back from my fake wrangler materialization. Did my killer think it was real? Please?
Did it think its time had finally come?
The fake wrangler lifted one of its gloved hands, crooking its finger at the blobby dark spirit whose tentacles had shriveled into its form, flaccid.
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