by T. G. Ayer
When Vee glanced back at the apparition, she found Radhima’s eyes staring down at Vee’s phone. Vee rolled her eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh. As she picked up the phone and pretended to take a call, she had to admit that her imaginary grandmother was pretty smart.
Vee gritted her teeth.
The ghost is a figment of my imagination, for god’s sake. Even I’m beginning to believe my hysterical ravings.
Phone to her ear, she said, “What do you want?” She felt ridiculous. It was too bizarre to be talking to something she’d dreamed up. What the hell was happening to her?
Maybe Bellevue isn’t such a bad idea.
Radhima’s voice was calm. “I want to help you.”
“This isn’t real,” Vee snapped, glancing up at the driver. The man had turned his attention back to the road, although he flicked his gaze back to her every few seconds, as if watching for the slightest hint of crazy.
“It is real. I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to accept.”
Vee sighed. “You’re gone. You can’t come back. This is just…because I want you back with us, because I can’t accept it. It doesn’t mean anything. Just…the grieving process. Which I apparently suck at.” Vee swallowed the hard knot in her throat, tears threatening to spill over any second.
The ghost leaned toward Vee, and her heart stilled. She could feel the warmth emanating from Radhima’s—or rather the apparition’s—arm. Vee’s eyes widened as she stared at the spot which the ghost had touched, and then looked back up at her grandmother’s eyes.
“How can I prove it to you?” she asked Vee softly.
Vee shook her head. This was getting insane. “You can’t prove anything to me. Don’t you get that? I need to work this through at my own pace. I don’t need you…talking to me all the time.” A glance up at the driver showed the man’s sad, empathetic expression. Vee felt awful for misleading him, for making him believe she’d been dumped or abandoned by someone important in her life.
Better than letting him find out you’re talking to your grandmother’s ghost.
Radhima shifted slightly, so she was facing Vee directly. “Do you need more proof? This whole thing is getting a bit tiring. I thought I’d have gotten through to you by now.”
“You can’t get through to me. I’m trying to heal and this…” Vee waved her hand around the back of the car, “…this is all just making it worse.”
“I know dear, but it’s not meant to make you feel worse. If you will just listen to me, then I can make you understand.”
“There is nothing to understand. You’re gone. I’m dealing with it. Don’t make it worse than it already is.” Then Vee paused and glared at the ghost. She found herself wondering for the briefest moment if this ghost was haunting her mother too. She frowned. “You’d better leave Mom alone. She doesn’t need you making things worse for her. She’s got way too much on her mind.”
The apparition sighed and sat back. “They say the worst pain is when a mother loses a child. I can agree but from a completely different perspective.” She turned to stare at Vee. “It must be easy when death takes you away, far from this plane so you can’t see your loved ones, be around them and not be able to touch them or talk to them.”
“This is crazy,” Vee whispered. Something was niggling at her now. This ghost was a figment of her own imagination but what she was saying…they were things Vee had never considered. Was it possible….
No. She shook her head but before she could speak Radhima lifted her hand. “No. Don’t say it. Not yet. If you really want me to leave, if you really truly don’t believe I am real, then perhaps there is nothing I can do or say to change that. But at least take the time to think about it.”
Vee opened her mouth to respond, then shut it without uttering a word. What could she possibly say to the apparition that would even make sense? Then she let out a soft breath. “Fine.”
“Good.” The ghost grinned, looking far too pleased with herself.
Vee pursed her lips and lifted a brow. “Don’t get too excited. I only said I’ll think about it.”
Vee’s warning didn’t seem to have an effect on the apparition, who clapped her hands happily and began to fade away. Then, suddenly the image of the old woman strengthened as she returned, her expression intent.
“Oh, and don’t forget one thing… You’re not so special that you’d go crazy just from the death of a loved one. You lived through and survived your father’s death. Why would you lose your marbles over me? You’re too strong for that. If you weren’t, I’d doubt the gods would have seen fit to choose you are their emissary on this plane.”
With those words the ghost evaporated, leaving Vee alone in the back of the car with a driver who was again staring at her suspiciously. He was right to be concerned about her mental state.
Vee sighed and clicked her phone off.
Just fabulous. She was now actually beginning to consider that her imaginary grandmother could be real. Maybe she really was going nuts. Insanity would certainly make more sense than ghosts.
Vee started as Radhima’s voice echoed in her ear. “And gods and demons? How much sense do they make?”
Chapter 5
Walking into the house, Vee tiptoed across the hallway and hurried up the stairs as quietly as possible. She’d almost made it to the landing when a voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Where have you been?”
Vee turned on her heel and looked down at her dad who was standing at the foot of the stairs holding a cup of tea in his hand. He was frowning at her, studying her filthy clothing, his nose crinkled as if she’d been rolling in cow poop all day. He wouldn’t be far off.
She sighed. “On a case.”
He tilted his head. “You have bhayakara goo on your shoes and clothes, and you seem to have a little bit of pey blood on your face. Not to mention a smidge of brain matter in your hair.”
Vee’s hand lifted to her head, worried now about getting the muck out of her hair as soon as possible. “Ugh. I have to wash it off.”
She was turning to race up the stairs when her dad said, “Stop.”
The tone was so stern that she had little choice but to obey. The only movement she made was to look over her shoulder and watch as he set his mug down and jogged up the stairs toward her. As he came, he retrieved a little plastic bag from his pocket. Dropping the contents onto his palm, he chose the tweezer and slipped the spatula back into his pocket. Then he reached out with the tweezer and picked something out of her hair.
“When did you come over to the dark side?” Vee asked.
Raj Shankar had seemed resistant from the start, making it difficult for everyone to explain that they’d advanced the mode of paranormal hunting and were now also working with the FBI. Not to mention researching weaponry and magic.
He’d demanded that Vee give up all the nonsense, insisted that she do research instead. Everyone had tiptoed around him, including her mother who had moved into the house to take care of her newly-alive husband. Her other husband had moved out, much to Vee’s disappointment. She’d known Mac would leave eventually and yet she’d hoped he’d change his mind.
Perhaps if her grandmother had been there, things would have been different. She’d have set them all right. But in the end, Mac had moved out, promising Vee that she would always be welcome in his home. And Vee had been left to tend to her oddly subdued mother, and a father who didn’t seem to be all there.
Now, Raj chuckled. “If you can’t beat ‘em…”
Vee scowled as he repeated the process, taking a sample of the blood on her cheek, and finding another splotch caught in the hem of her pants.
Although she wanted to brush him off and race to her bathroom for that much-desired bath, she endured his inspection and remained still until he was done.
“There.” He stood back and lifted the plastic bags toward Vee. “You’ll likely need those.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Vee said, taking the samples. She wasn’t
sure if she should say anything and the awkward silence hung over them for a long moment.
She was about to say something—which would have just been small talk—when her dad cleared his throat. “Right. My tea is getting cold. And you stink.” He turned on his heel and skipped down the stairs to retrieve his mug. “Would you like me to make you a cup?”
Vee smiled and shook her head. “Thanks. But I’m going to be a while.”
“I see,” he gave a small smile. “You’ve turned into your mother.”
Vee scowled and must have looked incredibly angry at the thought because her dad lifted a hand. “I meant that she used to take ages in the bathroom too, primping in front of the mirror, making sure her hair was just so.”
Vee raised her eyebrows. “Now that I find hard to believe,” she scoffed.
He shook his head, a fond smile caving his lips. “Oh yes, she did. Not that she needed it though. Your mother was so beautiful when she was younger.”
“Dad. She’s not old. And neither are you.” Vee smiled, studying his face, finding herself memorizing his features again, as if something was telling her she’d better immortalize every plane and curve because he could be taken from her any minute. In the days after they’d brought him home, Vee had woken in cold sweats, finding herself hurrying to his room to confirm that he was actually there, that she hadn’t imagined the whole thing.
Now she smiled at him, wanting to assure him that he had a long time yet to enjoy life with them. Life with Vee, the way it should have always been.
He shrugged. “Sometimes experience makes you age more than you can ever imagine normal life would.”
Vee’s heart tightened. He’d taken the conversation down a path she wasn’t prepared to go. And he seemed to recognize that as he took a sip of his tea and nodded at Vee.
“Off you go now. You’re stinking up the house.” Without another word, he turned and headed off toward the kitchen and out of Vee’s line of sight.
Vee smirked and hurried up the rest of the stairs and along the hall to her room. Inside, she removed her weapons and left them in a pile on the bathroom floor. Then she sat on the chair beside her bed and began to take off her boots. She was unlacing them when she let out a sobbing breath.
The conversation with the ghost in the back of the car had come rushing back to Vee. No matter how much she denied it, she had to admit that the apparition had made sense. But she didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to spend another moment ruminating on things that were so difficult to deal with.
What if she hadn’t been imagining it? If all along she’d been ignoring her grandmother’s attempts at contacting her. Vee shook her head. No. That makes no sense.
Keep telling yourself that.
Vee threw her boots across the room, not caring when they hit the bathroom door which swung open on impact, barely even paying attention as they skidded along the tiled bathroom floor and came to a stop beside the toilet.
The shoes seemed to have a mind of their own. They probably knew how filthy they were.
Maybe the boots will start talking to me too. That would totally make sense.
Letting out a soft groan, she forced herself to admit—however much she wished it would not be true—that she just had a bad case of denial.
Vee undressed and bagged the clothing then left it on the chair by the door with the samples sitting on top of it within a cooler. She’d take it to her lab later in the morning. She planned on giving them a thorough once-over and hoped they would survive the inspection.
She found it strange that the biological remains of the peymakilir hadn’t turned into ash as yet. Vee had stared hard at the pieces of brain matter that her dad had extracted from her hair. They were in perfect condition. Nowhere near ash, even though they should be white dust by now.
Vee gave the boots one last glare, then forced herself to clean her weapons. She spent a few minutes wiping them down with disinfectant and then polishing them with a few drops of neem oil which always seemed to keep them clean and tarnish free.
When she was done she headed to the bedroom on bare feet and padded to the far wall. A discrete amount of pressure on a specific spot had a panel pop open, and she placed the weapons onto their designated shelves. The secret cupboard had been Mac’s idea. He’d insisted that it would make no sense for Vee to use the weapons room downstairs when her weapons were best stored within her reach.
In case of an emergency.
They all knew what it felt like to have someone taken from their home, from right under their noses. So, Mac and Vee had taken all the precautions necessary to make the house more secure.
Once the weapons were stored, Vee almost ran into her bathroom, scrubbing both her body and her hair under the hot shower spray. After getting clean, she filled her tub and popped a bath bomb into the clear water. The scent of jasmine and cocoa butter filled the bathroom, and Vee inhaled deeply before sliding inside the welcome embrace of the hot water.
Her muscles ached, from the fighting, from the tension. She’d lost track of the number of reasons her body ached these days. Only when the water had cooled somewhat, did Vee rise from the bath and dry off.
Her bed awaited her.
Chapter 6
The next day, Vee headed out to Central Park. Karan’s text had given her directions to the pond and wooden bench near a coffee vendor call Perk You Up.
Her wings still throbbed, but she’d been surprised on waking up to discover that the hole within the iridescent gauzy membrane had closed. A large discoloration and what looked a lot like a bruise still covered the wing, but it appeared well on its way to near-perfect recovery. The rest of her injuries merely smarted, and she’d had no trouble slinging her messenger bag around her torso. She’d figured she was better off traveling ready for action—whatever that action might be.
On the way, she considered the text from Akil and what it meant.
Syama is okay. Bringing her home asap. Expect trouble.
Akil was cryptic on a normal day. But sending texts like this was downright rude. The kid needed to have a little more training on humans and social interaction. The owl-shifter had literally flown into Vee’s life one day and had never left. He’d saved her life and ended up convincing her that he was here to stay. Add that to the fact that he’d been the courier who had delivered her chakra and her conch to her, and she knew she’d never banish him from her life.
He was family.
The way Syama was family.
Vee inhaled sharply and pressed those emotions deeper down inside her as she walked the curving path toward the pond. The wind was brisk and breezy, throwing Vee’s hair around her head. She retrieved a tan beanie from her pocket and slipped it onto her head. She was still a little on the exhausted side after last night’s escapade, and she was feeling a little fragile in the wake of the apparition’s claim of being real.
It was just another day of craziness in the world of Vee Shankar.
She strolled past mothers pushing babies in strollers, and fathers throwing balls to their kids. The pond seemed a little crowded too as a large group of kids huddled at the edges, each eagerly attempting to set their little boats afloat without drowning them. Little waves bounced the multitude of colored boats around, the water churned by the persistent wind.
The wind seemed to be good for something else too.
Up on the hill, dozens of red-cheeked children jostled for position, holding tightly onto their rolled-up strings, tugging at the lines holding their kites aloft. A myriad of colored kites danced high above them, and Vee paused to stare up at the spectacle.
With no snow in the last week, the day was perfect for families—if a little cold. Perfect to remind Vee of her own shattered family, devastated by grief, shocked and in disarray as the dead came back to life and lives were forced to change to adjust.
She blinked away tears of self-pity and focused on the bigger picture. Her life was no longer hers. She had a large role to play, responsible
to the gods now, and not just to the mundane works of a mere human being.
Whatever they had seen in her, she had to make every effort to earn it.
Vee headed for the wooden bench beside the coffee cart and settled on it shifting the messenger back around so she wouldn’t get stabbed by a pointy sheath or gun-barrel. She relaxed, content to just watch the children play, the kites battling for space against the blue sky, the little boats bobbing on the surface of the little lake, no doubt many destined for destruction in head-on collisions or tantrums.
A shadow loomed over Vee, and she tilted her head up, the hand tucked inside her pocket holding a Taser ready.
“You will not need protection against me, I assure you,” Karan said softly before settling down beside her.
“Yeah. So said every serial killer in history.”
Karan let out a soft laugh and met Vee’s gaze. His piercingly dark eyes gleaming with amusement.
Today he wore a white suit with the narrow Nehru collar that he seemed to prefer. His hair was long and touching his shoulders, the wind tossing his locks around his face as though he were a model on a photo shoot.
Looking at him now made it so easy for Vee to believe the man was harmless. Yes, she trusted him more now then she had when she’d first begun to work with him, but she still remained wary, watchful, constantly looking for a sign or a tell that would confirm that something was up with him. Her gut was never wrong, and it had been screaming at her since they’d met.
But not for the normal reasons.
Vee didn’t believe that Karan was a danger to her. Their relationship was mutually beneficial. Perhaps what worried her was his persona. Karan was attractive, oozing sex appeal, and she’d often wondered if he turned it on just to tempt her. But she was immune. He was not her type.
The man was intriguing, but dangerous. He was influential and knew things, dangerous things that people would kill for, would kill him for having. And he was passing much of that information onto Vee.