"We chased off those Doctormans. Able and Sam are safe inside the Round Room," said Max. He dusted off his hands, like it had been a fine fight.
The three old men bobbed there, half in and half out of the trailer wall, in various states of ghostliness. Max looked the most lifelike, for despite levitating, he appeared solid and did not glow. Valente appeared the least alive: flickering, his texture staticky, he emitted the occasional moan. And Cousin Art—well, he was Cousin Art. Covered in weird scarves, floaty, but who could tell beyond that?
Lily stood and latched on to one of Art's scarves. She started unraveling, while he grinned at her from between the layers. When she'd gone around five times, Art's thick black hair showed. Another five times, and his chin showed below his smile.
"It is you!" She pulled off his sunglasses. "Uncle Arturo! Why have you been keeping up this disguise?"
Arturo winked, his bright brown eyes now evident for everyone to see. He appeared a lot more uncle-like now, a hearty-looking Hispanic man in his forties, his smile warm and genial. He removed the winter layers. Now dressed in a white shirt and jeans, he held out his arms to Lily. Lily embraced him, shivering with the cold.
"I'm sorry I had to deceive you, mijita," said Arturo. "It was necessary to evade the Turned Against. They think I'm in the far dimensions, but I escaped, and came back."
"We all came back," said Max. "Even Able. Valente and I never really left. We watched over the young ones, and we waited for the day. The day we could bring back the Four. The day the Coterie would rise again!"
I stood up and shook all three of their ghostly hands. "This is that day!" I said. "I fought the Bellum, and if I didn't destroy him this time, I'll do it in times ahead!"
The old-man ghosts gave a collective cheer.
"Fantástico!" said Valente. "Such brave!"
"Maybe you did destroy him," said Trenton in a tiny voice. "Maybe we don't have to do anything."
"We're all going to do something. I'm in charge of ecto-proofing," said Lily quickly.
"Ah, your chosen companions," said Max. "Oskar, aren't you excited? You're getting a promotion. You will now be a full-fledged member of the Coterie!"
"Uh, sure," said Oskar. He looked from Max to Arturo to Valente with uncertainty. "But I thought the spirit war—isn't that just a spirit concern? We mortals can't get involved in that." He sounded shaky. "Bellum can't even attack mortals, so how does it concern us?"
"Can't? Or won't?" said Arturo. He looked down his nose at us. "I think you'll find Bellum quite capable of inflicting damage to mortals. How do you think we Four got ended? And if Bellum can't do it, he finds someone who can. The Doctormans, for example."
"The Doctormans!" I bolted up, moved for the door. "Are you certain you stopped them? Take me to Sam and Dad!"
I swayed then, had to lean on Arturo's freezing cold arm.
"You're pretty weak yet," he said. "You must have fought one cruxing good fight."
"He tried to get their names. My friends. I didn't give them," I said.
His smile upon me was proud. "Of course not. Heather would never betray the Four. But you should rest now. You're exhausted. I give you my word, your brother and father are safe."
"I want to see them." I huffed and puffed, trying to pull away from him.
I stepped outside the teardrop door. Red-and-blue flashing lights stunned me. I stepped back inside.
"What are the police doing out there?" I demanded.
"Oh," said Lily. "We forgot about that."
Trenton coughed and cleared this throat. "I might have called them."
"Sweetness!" said Oskar, making Trenton turn red. "You never call the police in a paranormal investigation! That's rule number one!"
"I'm sorry." Trenton hung his head. "We thought—well, okay, I thought—Bruce tried to kill Heather with a junk avalanche. And that he'd hidden her body in the laundry room. I saw this movie once . . ." Trenton pushed his hands into his hair, holding it by its curly blond roots, his teeth gritted at the horror of his imagination.
Lily said in her calmest voice, "It might not have been the most logical conclusion to assume a murder investigation was in order. I suspect you elaborated a tad bit on the phone with the police."
Trenton sighed, and his head sunk even lower. "A tad bit," he said.
"It's okay." I flung the trailer door open. "I'll take care of it."
The old-man ghosts hovered inside the trailer, transparent. "You four go on. This is a mortal concern," said Max. "We'll meet up with you at the Vic." They faded away, until nothing but a slight haze remained.
I stepped boldly out of the trailer, went forward to confront the police. After all, if I could fight the Bellum, this should be no sweat. "Come on, you guys."
They trailed after me, Oskar the paranormal expert, Trenton the wanna-be investigator, and Lily the mad scientist inventor, our version of Q. And me. Heather Despair. Their fearless leader. Except . . . maybe I could use some advice.
I wiggled the Ring of Esperance on my finger. If you call me, I must come.
Not yet. I had some mortal concerns to tie up here first. Then . . . I imagined his wide, sunny smile, the way he called me "Aether," those well-dark eyes I could get lost in.
I marched across the sand lot, toward the cluster of blue-uniformed police standing before the double-wide. I waved and smiled. But I admit, my eyes strayed once again to the golden cloud castles in the skies up above.
END
OR IS IT?
Heather Despair's adventures continue in
PORTALS: Heather Despair Book Two
Go to the next page for a sneak preview!
Chapter One
The Return of Heather Despair
In the pale glow of dawn, Slade's Salvage Yard blazed blue, then red, then blue again. Flashing light from the police cars and emergency vehicles illuminated the trailers, the beat-up school bus, the heaps of wood and metal. I stood in the middle of it all, wearing a long, black dress, with a heavy black-stoned ring newly on my finger. Heather Despair, back in the junkyard again.
Around me, police roamed chaotically through the junk. Trenton, Lily, and Oskar, my paranormal-loving friends, tried to reason with a determined police detective. My mother, Shirleen, cried into her hands, still in her pink bathrobe. My stepfather, Bruce Slade, scowled at me.
"She ran away, and that's the last time I'm telling you," he said to a police officer who was attempting to get a statement. Bruce squinted at me. "She didn't like having to follow house rules."
"From the looks of things, your stepdaughter wasn't even living in the house," said the officer.
I stood calmly in the midst of it all. After what I'd been through—fighting the evil Bellum in the spirit world—what was a little police drama? The officer left off questioning Bruce and approached me, a notepad in one hand, his head tilted curiously.
Far back in the junkyard, a thundering crash sounded. The police drew their guns and crouched down, reading for anything.
"Get down!" The detective pushed Trenton and Lily to the sand. He gestured for the rest of us to follow suit. Oskar, Shirleen, almost everyone dropped to the sand.
Bruce ignored him. So did I.
"Any idea what that was?" hissed the detective to Bruce.
"No." Bruce stared at the junk, in the direction of the sound. "Probably just a junk slide. Sometimes animals get in there."
The detective motioned to the police officers, who crept toward the noise, staying low.
"Hey, if you go back there, be careful. Sometimes that stuff will fall on you," said Bruce.
"No kidding," I said. I stood tense, my hair whipping around my face in the sandy wind. Something wasn't right here. I could feel spectricity rising in my body, zapping its blue energy along my spine. Although with my new ring's power, I kept the energy under control—watching, waiting. I'd be ready for whatever emerged from that junk pile.
Bruce was still whining. "Why'd you kids have to go and call the police?" h
e said. "Couldn't you just ask me where Heather went?"
I gritted my teeth. "How do you know where I went?" I said, without looking at him.
"You went to find your brother. Ain't that right?" I could hear him dusting off his dirty overalls.
I said nothing, all my attention focused on the suddenly quiet junkyard. Shouldn't those police have come back by now?
Bruce blundered on. "So when you kids couldn't find Heather, you assumed I killed her and hung her body in the laundry room. Thanks for getting me in a heap of trouble."
The thing is, he sounded nervous. I couldn't focus on it now. Strange flickering light issued from behind the junk, then disappeared. And it wasn't the emergency lights from the cop cars.
Trenton burst to life, yelling, "Don't you even care what happens to Heather? She could have been dead!" He started to sob. I guess it had been a pretty long night for my friends, with me disappearing like that.
I heard Oskar say "Shh," to Trenton, then Lily said, "Mr. Slade. Trenton's got a wild imagination. It might not have been logical to insist a murder investigation was in order. Trenton might have exaggerated—"
Another loud crash resonated from behind the junk. I tensed, held out my sparking hands.
Bruce, behind me, groaned. "Oh no. I think they're in the chicken wire, old box springs, and razor wire layer."
A policeman stumbled out of the corridor between junk piles, limping. I quickly lowered my hands, quenching the spectricity in my closed fists.
One of the policeman's legs bled profusely, his pant leg cut away. His other leg was entangled in chicken wire. "Could you bring me some wire clippers and a first aid kit, please?" he said, sitting down hard on the sand.
Again, the loud crashing from the back of the junkyard. A deafening creak of metal. The policeman paled. "What the—?" He looked back.
I drew out my hands again, blue fire burning in my palms, over the huge, black-stoned ring. My filmy black sleeves whipped around from the force of the spectricity, and I rose slightly off the ground, my toes trailing the sand. The long, black gown I'd returned in trailed under me, hiding my levitation from the mortals. I hoped.
"Heather." Trenton's voice squeaked. I looked back at his anxious, big blue eyes. "This Goth look," he said. "Can we discuss this?"
The bullets whizzed through the air without warning, spitting into the sand, pitting the side of the doublewide. I raised my arms high, but my shield was already up. Bullets pinged off the blue layer in mid-air. I watched in surprise as the shield swelled higher and wider, protecting us all. It seemed to react on its own.
From the corridors between junk piles, armed police advanced on us, unloading clip after clip. My shield held, these small mortal projectiles not posing much challenge. Still, I shook in fear. Having five police officers fire pistols at me at point blank range was terrifying, not to mention deafening.
"Stop!" I shouted and pushed the shield. It expanded outward until it collided with the police. One by one, it bathed them in blue. One by one, they fell to the sand, gasping, dropping their weapons, keeling over. When the last one went down, my shield evaporated—like it had never been there.
The detective crawled, then ran forward. He reached the first unconscious police officer, and he cuffed him. He went to each officer, putting their own cuffs on them. He had no trouble. Only one was conscious enough to groan.
While the detective read that police officer her Miranda rights, I inspected the damage.
"Why'd they open fire like that?" I said aloud.
The detective appeared by my side. "Miss, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" He gestured toward the squad car.
"Everything is totally fine," I said, fixing him with a heavy stare.
"We should leave," said Lily, her voice wooden. Trenton shook his head, arms crossed stubbornly. He alone had never been susceptible to the mesmerizing effects of my eyes. But as for everyone else . . .
"Okay, that about wraps it up," said the detective. He nodded to me, shook Bruce's hand, then motioned to the injured officer. The latter had finished prying the chicken wire from his leg and was wrapping his other leg in bandages. He limped over to help the detective usher off the cuffed police officers. Bruce watched in disbelief as they all piled into two vehicles and drove off without a word.
"That's it?" Bruce huffed. "No questions, no statements? Not even going to find out where she's been all this time? Some police force."
Shirleen almost knocked me over with a fierce hug. I put up with it for a few seconds, then I fixed her with my stare. "It's all right now. You can go lie down."
"This whole ordeal has made me so tired. I'm going to go lie down," she said. She did a zombie walk into the double-wide.
"I'll go with you," said Bruce, stomping up the steps. He shot a glare at me, but I fixed him with my eyes, and he kept going.
I blew out a long, slow breath. "Good. Paranormals—we need to talk."
***
Huddled inside the teardrop again, we convened in whispers.
"First order of business," I said.
"Your new look," said Trenton, his nose wrinkling with scorn. "Heather, finally. It just is not you. Oskar and I were thinking, maybe we could take you shopping . . ."
I paid no attention, diving instead under the cot. "Here it is!" I held up my notebook by the corner.
"Not the best accessory choice, Heather Despair," said Trenton. "Oskar was thinking more along the lines of a beaded evening bag."
"I certainly was not!" Oskar hissed. "I like her Goth look. I think she could go lighter on the pancake makeup, but the gown is rather attractive."
"You like that? That sack?" squeaked Trenton. "She looks like a bag of flour. Dark flour. Very evil flour, but still—shapeless and dumpy. It puts ten years on her and brings out the bags under her eyes."
They started to tussle, making the trailer rattle and shake.
"Quiet!" I said. "We're not here to discuss my fashion sense!"
"Oh, that's a pity, because we really need to," said Trenton. "Oskar says—"
"Oskar says we'd better find out what's lurking in this junkyard," said Oskar, placing his hand discretely over Trenton's mouth. "And I do like your gown, Heather. Very classic lines."
"Thank you," I said. "And I agree. We need to find out what caused those police to go berzerk. And I know just who to ask."
About Leslie Edens Copeland:
Leslie Edens Copeland is a kneejerk reaction living in Bellingham, Washington. She writes far too often of ghosts, mortals, transdimensional aliens, paranormal gay love triangles, half-ghosts, portals, deadzines, and magical teenagers. She lives on a super-charged writing ley line with an 18-pound monster cat that may be a Calico puma in disguise, and a 14-year-old creative consultant. Together, they are TEAM DESPAIR, fighting for truth and justice and paranormal tolerance in novels everywhere! (cue triumphant music)
Mortals: Heather Despair Book One is her first book. Soon to be followed by Portals: Heather Despair Book Two, and Spirits: Heather Despair Book Three! Keep on rockin' in the Despair 'verse and Allspeed.
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