by A. J. Locke
Tielle gave the tiniest of sighs in a situation that would have called for a huge fucking sigh.
“Things will be dealt with down here. Come upstairs, get cleaned up, and we’ll talk.”
* * *
About an hour and a half later, Micah and I were sitting in Tielle’s office.
She had a small sitting area near the floor to ceiling windows at the side of the room, so Micah and I sat on the white leather couch while she sat on the adjacent armchair.
We had been given the patching-up and painkillers we needed, and there’d even been a place for us to shower and change. My clothes were ruined, so I was wearing a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that someone had hastily been ordered to go out and buy for me. They were both too big. Micah’s new jeans and shirt fit better. Tielle was wearing another tailor-made pantsuit. Guess she kept her own change of clothes here.
“All right, I’m ready to hear it,” I said, looking from Tielle to Micah. “First of all, I wasn’t even aware that any of the other rooms down there were occupied. Or was that the point?”
“I would have informed you, had there been the opportunity to do so,” Tielle said. “We had initially been trying to keep everything under wraps, but thanks to you and the events of last night, that can no longer be the case.”
“Am I supposed to say sorry? And what are you even trying to keep under wraps? What’s going on? Why did someone explode? I have to admit, I’m having a difficult time with that one.”
“In that room, there was another patient in similar condition to Harvey Whittle,” Tielle said. “And there are three others. Like Harvey, they were victims of an attack by a ghost, but not just any ghost.”
“Don’t tell me…” I said slowly. “Were they like Grant Pano? Ghosts that were supposed to be in the Afterlife already?”
“Yes,” Tielle said. Her severe expression had cracked and she looked tired and a bit defeated. “They were all ghosts from the Afterlife.”
“Fucking fantastic.” I just knew that Grant wouldn’t have been the only one. I really wished he had been.
“The most concerning issue seems to be that after their encounter with these ghosts, the individuals have collected a growing amount of ghost energy within their bodies.” Tielle said.
“Growing?” I questioned.
“Yes,” Tielle replied. “It’s unlike anything I have encountered before. In the first place, only necromancers and reanimators should be adversely affected by ghost energy. Dead witches are built to work with dead energy, and non-paranormal members of the public should not be affected by ghosts, other than those who are sensitive enough to feel a ghost’s presence if one passes by them.”
“Yeah, because when a necromancer or reanimator contracts the Rot, it’s because an overwhelming amount of ghost energy is breaking down their power before rotting their bodies from the inside out. Non-paranormal people have no power for the Rot to target.”
“Right,” Tielle said. “But in this case, all of the victims are non-paras, yet each of their bodies are afflicted with ghost energy.”
“That’s crazy in and of itself, but I still don’t understand what you meant by ‘growing?’”
“It’s as though there’s a connection to the ghost that attacked them,” Tielle said. “Similar to when you were bound to Ethan and remained in constant contact with his ghost energy. That connection is continuing to fill their bodies with ghost energy until they…”
“Explode,” I finished. “This is absolutely insane.”
“We know,” Micah said. “We have tried to have dead witches draw the ghost energy out of them, but it doesn’t make a difference, the energy replenishes itself. And for some reason, we can’t use the ghost energy we draw out to try and track down the ghosts that attacked them. It just doesn’t work.”
“If you were able to apprehend the ghosts, do you think it would help the victims?”
“It’s a step, as they certainly do need to be rounded up. However, we still would not be sure of how to cure these people, even with the ghosts in custody.”
“We’re trying to keep this contained to avoid mass panic in the public, and we’re trying to figure out how to help them,” Micah said. “That’s why we brought them here.”
“Well, it seems the help they need falls along the lines of not having their bodies explode into pieces,” I said. “You have charred-up chunks of a woman down there, Tielle. She has a family that is going to need an explanation. Did they even know she was here? Glenda Whittle certainly didn’t know where her husband’s body was going. That isn’t right.”
“All of their families were informed, as Glenda will be,” Tielle said.
“What a thing to have to inform someone,” I said. I felt like a massive headache was coming on. “A long-gone ghost assaulted your loved one and now they are stricken by ghost energy that grows inside them until it causes them to explode.” I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. “What the actual fuck is going on here?”
“We…we don’t know,” Micah said. He sat with his hands clasped in front of him and his head slightly bent. Both he and Tielle looked distressed.
“Wait, I tussled with Grant in the warehouse, does that mean…”
“Your contact with him was limited,” Tielle said. “If you were to be affected, you would have already showed signs. Meaning you’d be lying on a hospital bed right now.”
“Good to know.” The last thing I’d want was to walk any path similar to that of the Rot again. Although in the back of my mind, I recalled that I was somehow impervious to fatal afflictions now. Would the Rot or this new ghost disease even affect me? I was not tempted to find out.
“Maybe it has to do with the fact that they are ghosts who’d been on the other side…” I trailed off as I frowned. “Ghosts on the other side are different than ghosts on this side.” I didn’t know why I felt like I just quoted someone when I said that.
“Not a bad theory,” Micah said.
“If there’s any chance of it happening to Harvey and the others you have down there, you have to do something,” I said. “No one is going to want to hear that their loved one picked up some ghost sickness and exploded.”
“Nothing we’ve done is helping,” Tielle said. “We have used our strongest runes and have had our most powerful dead witches try to remove the ghost energy but it is not working. We are dealing with trying to draw ghost energy out of human bodies, and the only ones who have that kind of power are…”
“Reanimators,” I finished. “You think a reanimator would be able to draw the ghost energy out.”
“It’s the only option we have not yet explored,” Tielle said.
“Yet is it really an option? Last I knew you were in the business of stripping reanimators, not keeping them on retainer.”
Tielle’s expression tightened, but she didn’t say anything.
“Maybe you could try to ferret one out from the Underground and see how much money you’d have to throw at them to help,” I continued. “Or you could ask me to help, but wait—I no longer have my reanimation power. Even if the existence of some morsel of it is the reason I’m still alive, I certainly don’t know where that morsel is. So I’m pretty much useless. Therefore, what is the plan here, guys?”
Neither she nor Micah said anything. I shook my head. “Ghosts are showing back up from the other side, getting humans mysteriously ill, and they ultimately explode. When Harvey’s wife calls me again, I am going to forward her call to you.”
“Selene…” Micah said.
“I need to know everything you know,” I said, cutting him off. “I get why you want to keep this quiet, but now that I know this much you should know I am not just going to walk out of here and let it go. Refer to the past few months of my life if you need verification on that. Without my reanimation power, I may not be able to see if I can draw the ghost energy out of them, but maybe I can help with tracking down the ghosts. What information do you have on them?”
M
icah and Tielle still said nothing, their somber expressions did not change, and they exchanged a brief glance. I sat back and folded my arms over my chest.
“If you’re gearing up to say you don’t need or want my help, I’d think again,” I said. “Because I’m going to look into this no matter what, so you might as well be on board with it than expend time you don’t have to spare in stopping me. After what I just saw happen to that woman, I need to do something to try and fix this.”
After a few more moments of silence, during which I knew Micah was deferring to Tielle’s decision since she was in charge, Tielle got up to retrieve a file from her desk, which she then handed to me.
“While we haven’t been able to capture any of the ghosts as yet, we know who each of them are from eyewitness descriptions that we then verified within the directory of ghosts with unfinished business.”
The same directory I’d used to find out about Grant Pano. I opened the file and started rifling through the pages. Each of the five victims were listed, along with the name and picture of the crossover ghost that had attacked them.
“Whoa.” I held the file up and pointed at one of the ghost’s pictures. His name was Jack Grom. “That’s the ghost that attacked the ceremony for Renton’s victims the other day!”
“We were recently able to identify him,” Micah said. “I hadn’t had a chance to tell you. A couple days before he attacked the ceremony, he attacked a man named Mark Spatz. Mark had been part of a rival gang. Jack was killed when the two gangs clashed about twelve years ago. When Jack’s ghost rose, it was because he wanted revenge on all the rival gang members. So a necromancer circle was used on him.”
“A circle was used on Grant Pano too. Was it used on any of these other ghosts?”
“Yes,” Tielle said. “That was an interesting common denominator. They were all sent to the Afterlife via a necromancer circle.”
“That has to mean something,” I said. But what? “So, let me see, when Jack crossed back he decided to go after Mark, and then come after me? I went off the rails a bit after my grandmother died, but I can’t say I have any recollection of gang activity.”
“We haven’t been able to figure out why he came after you,” Micah said.
“He’s probably still out there hunting down other gang members,” I said. “Or looking for me again.”
“We have tabs on everyone who might be on his hit list. So far they are all unharmed. The PTF has been actively searching for him and the other ghosts, although they’ve been told to keep their visible presence on the street close to its usual level to avoid inciting panic. A lot of them are working undercover.”
“Well, maybe they’ll find them,” I said, standing up. “Or maybe I will, since I’m on the case now.”
“How exactly do you think you’ll track these ghosts better than the PTF?” Tielle asked.
“I have my methods. Can I keep the file?”
Tielle nodded, though she and Micah did not look convinced that I could help as they walked me to the door.
“Make sure you call Glenda Whittle and tell her about her husband,” I said to Tielle. “If I come across anything helpful or trip and fall onto some reanimation power, I’ll let you know.”
Tielle remained in her office while Micah walked me to the elevator.
“I know you’re going to tell me be careful,” I said as I waited for the elevator to work its way up here. “And I will, so don’t worry.”
“You know I will worry about you regardless,” Micah said. “And Selene, I’m sorry I had to keep this from you.”
“Keep something from me, then apologize for it after. That seems to be the name of the game with us, Micah. And quite frankly I’m tired of playing.”
The elevator arrived and I got on and closed the door before he could say anything more.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The image of that woman’s charred, blown-apart body was very vivid in my mind, and it pained me to think about what it would do to her family when they found out. And there were four more people that it could potentially happen to. Why it happened was less important than figuring out how to stop it. I felt pretty useless without my reanimation power, but there were other ways I could try to help.
Which was why right now I was heading to Jamaica, Queens, to where Carlos, the Underground tech whiz guy Ethan had told me about was holed up. If his hacking skills were as on point as they were last time I went to him for help, then he should be able to get me access to the information I wanted.
Once I was in Queens, it took some time for me to remember where to find Carlos. Ethan’s directions could barely be called that, and even though he’d written them down for me, that piece of paper was long gone. So I wracked my memory, trying to recall which desolate side street was the one I needed to be on. After about half an hour of slow driving, I stopped and parked. I knew I was in the vicinity, now I just had to ferret out that abandoned juice bar.
Twenty minutes later, I had found it and was heading up to Carlos’ stuffy hideout after stopping at an ATM to get money for his fee. When I emerged off the ladder, I didn’t see Carlos, but I heard him swearing and soon caught sight of him bent over one of his servers. He moved from that one to another, swore some more, then repeated the process, moving from one piece of equipment to another, tripping over wires, cursing, and not seeming happy about anything he was fiddling with.
Didn’t seem like Carlos and his computers were having a good day. I cleared my throat and he looked up too fast and fell backward with the momentum. He scrambled to his feet and looked over at me. I gave a little wave.
“Hiya, remember me?”
“Uh, yeah,” Carlos flashed a smile as he scratched the back of his head. “Couldn’t forget you even if we hadn’t met before. You’ve been all over the news. You’re a hero.”
I’d forgotten about my new reputation in the media. “Right. Well, I need your help again, or are you busy?” I looked around at all the whirring, beeping, flashing equipment.
“I’m just having some technical difficulties with my machines,” Carlos said. “They uh…well, some of them are overheating and I’ve been having blackouts, some of my computers have shut down completely…”
He was bent over one of his computers and seemed to be talking more to himself than me now. “Which is crazy because they all have very sufficient internal fans, plus the software is all up to date and the firewall…”
“Windows. You need windows in here to get better ventilation. All this stuffiness can’t be good for the amount of computers you have.”
“And windows would be bad for business.” He straightened up. “But yeah, I can help you. What do you need?” He headed over to his desk and I met him there. He sat down, cracked his fingers, and then wiggled them over the keyboard in anticipation.
“Are you able to take someone’s picture and run facial recognition to see if their image has been picked up by traffic or security cameras?”
Carlos snorted. “That is the most basic of basic hacks. I could do it with my eyes closed.”
“Well, feel free to keep them open, you don’t have to impress me.” I took out the file Tielle had given me and showed him Jack Grom’s photo.
“I need you to find any recent footage of him that you can.”
“No problem.” Carlos took the paper with his picture and scanned it. Once it was on the screen, he did some computer magic that got rid of all the text on the page until only the photo remained. Then his fingers started flying over the keyboard.
Jack was currently a ghost, and ghosts did not normally show up on camera and in photographs, but when I had encountered Jack, he’d been wearing energy runes. And to beat up Mark Spatz, he had to have been wearing energy runes too. Which he’d undoubtedly procured from the Underground. Therefore I was certain Carlos would not come up empty-handed.
Sure enough, about five minutes later, Carlos made a sound of triumph.
“I’ve got footage from multiple cameras that p
icked up this guy,” he said.
“Let’s have a look.” I braced one arm on Carlos’ desk and leaned forward to get a better view of the screen.
“This one is from a week and a half ago,” Carlos said. That timing was before he’d attacked Mark or me.
Carlos brought up the first video file and played it. It appeared to be from a building’s security camera. I couldn’t be sure what neighborhood it was. The quality wasn’t stellar, but when Jack came into view, I could tell it was him. All the video showed was Jack walking by.
“Well, I doubt that was very helpful to you,” Carlos said. “Let’s try another.” He played another video. We watched three more like the first one before I finally saw something interesting. Carlos had brought up more security camera footage, but this time he was able to jump from different camera views since the building they belonged to had cameras all around the perimeter.
In the first couple video streams, Jack was striding past, but he seemed different than in the last videos, almost as though he was stalking something. His fists were clenched and his gaze remained straight ahead as he moved forward.
Maybe this was when he’d attacked Mark Spatz?
Carlos switched to another camera and it showed Jack walking down an alley between two buildings. He ran forward and seemed to grab hold of something, although there was nothing else in front of him that I could see. But I didn’t have to see; it was soon very apparent what he was doing. His forearms remained rigid and his body started shaking slightly.
“He’s absorbing a ghost,” I whispered. My mind flashed to the memorial when I had seen him absorb Leora. Because the other ghost in the video wasn’t wearing energy runes, I was unable to see them, but it was just as well. I didn’t want to witness another ghost being sucked out of existence and feel helpless about it all over again.
“Absorbing?” Carlos said. I could see his disbelief from the corner of my eye, but my focus was still on the screen. After Jack was done, he squared his shoulders and left the alley. The cameras lost him soon after.