by Cutter, Leah
“Just checking on a rumor,” I told her. “A myth.”
“Myth? You? I thought polizia were only concerned with facts.”
I didn’t bother to correct her assumption. Once a cop, always a cop. “Sometimes disproving something is as important,” I said smoothly.
Toni cocked an eyebrow at me.
Maybe not that smooth.
“I’ve heard…rumors that maybe a precious stone was removed from a magician’s house. Care to comment?”
“Ah. If, perhaps, I knew of the possibility of such a thing, how would you show your appreciation?”
I pressed my lips together and rocked back on my heels. I’d expected Toni to deny everything.
It meant she wanted to tell me something.
A too-human laugh interrupted my thoughts. We both looked at the source, then looked away.
The dead rarely laughed.
“A favor,” I said, rolling the dice. “Big or small. Some future claim.”
“Interesting,” Toni said, but she was already nodding. “Yes. A future favor it is.”
Toni grew pensive and stepped forward, her voice a hissing whisper. I easily caught it, whereas anyone living would draw away from the sibilant, haunting tones.
“A precious stone, such as what you’re asking about, if it exists, would be cold, so cold. A little piece, like that,” she said, holding up her fingers and indicating a mere inch. “Very heavy.” Her eyes took on a distant look. “It was—it would not—be right. Not natural. Not good.”
Toni glanced up at me out of the corner of her eye. “Removing such a thing from its owner might not be bad, no?” She ended with a shrug.
I shrugged back. “Depends on who got it next. What they plan to do with it.”
At that, Toni smiled. “Such a person might be very arrogant. They might think they can change the nature of the thing. They’ll just destroy it. No harm done.”
“What if someone was hired to bring the stone back to the magician?”
“I would call him a fool,” Toni said coldly.
When I said nothing, Toni nodded her head once, sharply. “I have guests waiting,” she told me, looking away.
“Thank you.” I turned and headed toward the door, ignoring the whispering humans.
“The magician’s castle—” Toni called from behind me.
I paused.
“It’s more dangerous than the rest.”
When nothing else seemed to be forthcoming, I nodded my thanks and left, walking out of the brightly lit gallery and into the dark of the street. Of course, the night didn’t hide me—no, here I was more visible. I had my own glow, like all ghosts after midnight.
I wished I could change my clothes, somehow. Pull up my collar. Tug on my sleeves. Something to give myself a sense of protection.
I didn’t want to go through with this job. Mr. Potter was a snake. I knew I should walk away before he stuck his fangs in me.
However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going on. A bigger game.
This part of the magician’s story had checked out. Now it was time to go see the arrogant man.
* * *
Mr. A—, short for arrogant, as Toni had so aptly named him, lived only a few blocks away from Mr. Potter, even higher on Queen Anne Hill. A quaint, brick wall separated the yard from the sidewalk, while the yard’s sloping incline separated the house from its neighbors, giving it the impression of a feudal castle snubbing those beneath it. It was done in pseudo-Tudor style, with wide, dark planks separating the white stucco. More than one gable peered darkly over the expanse, sticking out from the steeply slanted roof.
The garden was immaculate, of course, the hedges trimmed with tweezers and the grass probably not merely cut, but each blade filed to a precise angle.
Ghosts generally hung out in one or two places in a house like Mr. A—’s: up in the attic, snuggled into the rafters and listening to the rain, or deep in the cellars.
I’d brought Betsy with me on this trip. Generally, I used her only for photographing cheating husbands or stealthy wives, but Betsy had other talents as well.
The Fixer I’d used for Betsy had been new to the business. She’d had to try more than once to bring Betsy “over” so that I could use her. The Fixer had spent a lot of energy, and hadn’t charged me much money, because neither of us had realized what she’d done until much later.
She’d made Betsy into a spectralgraph.
As easily as I took pictures of humans, I could also take pictures of things such as houses or cars—anything manufactured—and see any residual spectral effect.
I took pictures of the houses next to Mr. A—’s first. I needed to make sure there wasn’t any environmental influence. I seemed to be in luck. This part of the hill hadn’t been declared holy, nor did it contain an ancient burial mound. If it had, every house in the vicinity would have a low-level spectral reading.
Then I took a picture of Mr. A—’s place.
It was lit up like the Castro District on Halloween.
Which meant either it was ghost central, or it housed not just a few, but an entire museum’s worth of powerful artifacts. As I hadn’t seen another ghost anywhere on the street, I had to assume the latter.
Caution told me to wait until broad daylight, when I could approach the house unseen, hidden by the sun.
I told caution where to stick it and climbed the stairs up to the house. That was when I had my first big shock.
The house was Sealed.
Not just the doors and windows locked, no. Every bit of folklore, both the things that did and didn’t work, were employed around the perimeter. A band of salt, at least half a foot wide, had been drawn in a circle around the property. Rowan branches rested on every windowsill. Ba Gua mirrors hung over the door. Bottle trees flush with blessings and curses were planted every few feet.
Why the hell hadn’t Toni warned me about this place?
I slowly circled the house, counterclockwise, seeking a crack in its protection.
Nada.
In the back, where the neighbors couldn’t see, additional protections had been laid: a sticky rope web that had been Fixed. Dancing spectral lights guaranteed to confuse the more weak-willed. Running water from a fountain rolled past half the house like an old fashioned moat.
I had no idea if the house held just as much protection against the living as well. I had to assume it did. I also had to assume that the security cameras mounted every few feet had also been Fixed and were now tracking me.
I had to get out of there before they released their equivalent of Hellhounds.
The moat drew me back. The flowing water had to come from somewhere: a pump, deep inside. It wasn’t a naturally flowing spring. Down, underground, it was being recycled. The circle would be broken there.
A light came on, shining out a second story window above me.
Without thinking, I sank down, into the ground.
* * *
Scientists who have studied the phenomenon have reported that ghosts take on different shapes underground. Some become snakelike; others, more of an amorphous blob.
Me, I’ve always felt as though I grew round, with a hard skin, like a ping-pong ball. I didn’t lose myself or any consciousness, but I know I was very different underground than above it.
Black dirt slid easily around my compact form. Roots parted before me like a tangled curtain. An earthworm blindly kept pace with me as I burrowed through the rich loam.
I couldn’t see anything—at least, not in a human sense, with eyes. I was as sightless as the worm. But I sensed that sliver of a crack before me, like a door just barely ajar, its light spilling out into the darkness. It drew me like the sun draws a seedling, that single bright spot in the unending night.
Coldness bracketed me as I eased inside, my natural form tumbling into shape. I stood, stretched, imagining my vertebrae cracking in relief, though I didn’t feel anything, actually. I almost groaned, but stopped myself just in t
ime.
The room I’d landed in had piles of boxes against the walls. One of the bottom ones had broken open, crushed by the weight of the boxes on top of it. Its spilled contents had disturbed the delicate chalk lines drawn across the floor, a gypsy sigil to keep out the undead.
I skirted the edges of the drawing, pressed up next to the boxes. Whoever had drawn this had known what they were doing. When I reached the door, I snapped a couple of pictures of it with Betsy. Someone, somewhere, probably knew how to break this one from our side.
The hall I stepped into was as plain as the room I’d just come from. It had been recently painted, with a yellowed linoleum floor and doorways lining the walls. If I’d been thorough, I would have looked in each room, taken pictures of the spells I was sure I’d find there.
But the room at the end hummed with power. I didn’t need Betsy’s eye to tell me powerful artifacts lay behind it.
Ghosts looked the same, felt the same, every damn day of their existence.
As I drew closer to this room, the hairs on the back of my neck rose up. An actual shiver went down my spine.
It was too seductive for words.
I walked straight through the door into the room without another thought.
Of course, a sigil lay just on the other side. I’d blundered right into it. Caught like an ant in amber, I couldn’t move, couldn’t sink into the ground or mist away. I was held right there until someone came and freed me.
I tried to compose myself. A security camera had turned deliberately toward me and held me in its sight. Might as well see what was here. Shelves held row after row of artifacts and Fixed items. I didn’t recognize any of them, just felt their power. I looked for a stone, anything that might have felt “heavy” or “cold,” but nothing struck me that way. Or rather, no stone did. There was a doll’s hand that felt “off” to me, and some brown, curled leaves that shifted as if unseen bugs crawled over and under them.
I ignored the first twinge I felt in the center of my back. I was still too busy gawking like some damn tourist.
The second one came with the wonderment of pain.
How was that happening to me? I looked down at the lines drawn in raised chalk. The design appeared to be a standard Chinese holding spell.
Another pain racked me, this time starting in my gut.
Only then did I really notice the second artifact that had swung in my direction when I’d stumbled in. At first I mistook it for a camera, but no, it was actually some kind of gun.
Like the Disruption stones, rumors of these sorts of things had been around forever, some sort of technology that could be used to banish a ghost.
I struggled wildly then, trying to get free. I’d been banished before. It wasn’t fun.
This time it wasn’t the abrupt pain of being shoved from the world. No. This was a pulling, like being quartered with Clydesdales, slowly but inevitably tearing each limb off and away.
I bellowed, shrieked, and moaned, causing the very foundation of the house to shake, but to no avail.
I was torn asunder.
* * *
I became corporeal—or, at least, a ghost again—in the graveyard where my bones lay buried.
Betsy, of course, was gone.
All the portals sprang up, showing images of flame and chaos as I rose. I ignored them and the false comfort of light they provided in the darkness. They looked less out of place than the sign for the cemetery itself. Who puts a flashing neon time-and-date sign at the entrance of a graveyard?
Buses had long stopped running, and no cab would ever pick up a ghost. I started the long walk back downtown. I longed for a cigarette, anything to break the monotony of walking. Though I could move more quickly than the living, it was still going to take a damn long time.
I thought about my options as I trudged back to the city.
Go back to Mr. A—’s and retrieve Betsy. Not practical. Probably not possible. But I’d miss her. She’d been my only touchstone in this existence.
Find Mr. Potter and tell him I’d failed. Then I’d be out my fee as well as my camera.
I couldn’t think how Toni might be able to help. She’d already warned me. I didn’t have a thing she wanted, I was certain. And I already owed her a debt. I certainly couldn’t pay her to go steal Betsy back for me.
With the sun rising, Hell’s bells sounding in the blazing light, I was too tired to think anymore. I went back to my room instead, collapsing on my bed and hoping that something besides nightmares would come in my sleep.
This time I dreamed of being banished and never able to come back, floating amorphous above the graveyard like a lonely cloud.
I can’t say it was an improvement over dreaming about Hell.
* * *
By midafternoon I finally decided I’d had enough of pretending to sleep. I was still no closer to a plan of action. Mr. A—, of the impenetrable house, still had the Disruption stone, and given the number and strength of the other artifacts he had, I was almost ready to believe that myth.
And now he had Betsy. Her usual seat on my desk looked naked without her. This place was still a dump, barely room to walk, a mere mattress on a rusted iron frame, but it was where I hung my hat, and Betsy made it, if not home, at least mine.
I knew Mr. A— would have either fixed the crack in his defenses or he would have widened it, placing a trap on the other side.
That didn’t stop me from going back there when I realized that the clouds had burned away, leaving miles of blue sky and bright light.
After a bus ride of being trampled on and brushed through, I felt exhausted and out of place. I didn’t stop my groan when I looked up that steep hill I was going to have to climb. It wouldn’t be physically tiring, not as it might have been when I’d been alive. It took will, though, and I’d been pushing myself for a while.
The sound shone blue beneath the hill, boats and ships, large and small, skimming across it. Wind I couldn’t feel swirled the dried leaves on the sidewalk. I couldn’t smell the air, but I knew it would be crisp and clean.
The fake Tudor house looked the same as the night before: dark windows, perfect lawn, graceful walk—
—that led to a gaping-open front door.
I told myself it was my former detective instincts kicking in. Mr. A— was far too paranoid to leave his front door open. Something had to be wrong.
Honestly, though, I just wanted a way into that house.
I raced up the path, flowing as fast as the wind, when Mr. Potter stepped across the threshold. He shook hands with Mr. A—, the pair of them laughing.
I couldn’t help my low growl. They appeared to be on very cordial terms.
I pushed myself into a bush next to the walk. Twigs rammed through my gut and lungs, branches pinned my arms. Though I didn’t need to breathe, my lungs felt constricted, as if there weren’t enough air. If I could sweat, despite the cool day I would have felt it trickling down my forehead and back. I made myself stand very still, blending into the bush, fading with the light.
Though Mr. Potter wore different glasses that day—white-rimmed, very European—they didn’t help him see me.
Or he never would have brought Betsy out of his bag.
* * *
I waited until full night before I went to beard the magician in his own den. I wanted him to see me this time. I’d wasted away the rest of the afternoon in a park, sitting on an isolated bench facing the trees. No other ghost came by, just a wind that made the living shiver and the trees dance. I had no arguments planned. I just wanted to finish this. Get Betsy and run.
Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy.
The windows of Mr. Potter’s house that looked out over the street were leaded in the upper part: old glass that ran with time, looking heavier than it ought to. When I drew near, I figured out why. Mr. Potter’s house had protections similar to Mr. A—’s. Someone had drawn lines of protection around every gray shingle on the walls as well as on the lead of the windows. Knotted
rope lay against the foundation, salt infused to its core.
I walked around the house, keeping to the stone walkway, not daring to step off it in case there were other traps I didn’t see.
The crack in the house’s protection was deliberate. The door to the root cellar had been left bare.
No choice but to go in that way. I flowed through the door but didn’t step onto the floor. Who knew what kind of sigils had been engraved there?
However, I was overly cautious. The neat tile floor of the laundry room held no chalk, paint, or dried chicken blood. A navy blue washer and dryer sat in one corner and Mr. Potter sat in a chair next to them, reading something on a tablet. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said, putting his reading material down and standing. “I need to pay you the rest of your fee.”
“You lied to me,” I told Mr. Potter’s retreating back.
“Not a big lie. Not really. Toni did steal the stone from me, to help me shore up my defenses. Mr. A— had bet me that no one could beat his, which more than made up the fee I’m paying you.”
Only then did Mr. Potter realize I hadn’t followed him. I’d seen too many sigils and curses in his buddy’s house. I wasn’t going to be caught again.
“Don’t you trust me?” Mr. Potter said, seemingly aggrieved.
“No, I don’t. Now give me Bet—my camera. And never contact me again.”
A loud, human groan came from behind the door Mr. Potter had opened. He gave me an odd half-smile. “That might be someone hurt. You should go see.”
I stayed where I was. If there was a person in there, I couldn’t do anything for them. I couldn’t touch them. Chances were the presence of a ghost wouldn’t comfort them, either.
Another groan slithered through the air.
“Damn it. Potter, what are you playing at?”
“Come see,” he said, beckoning.
I should have left. Hell, I should have run as quickly and as far away as I could.