“I’m sorry for your loss.” Jennie meant every word.
Tanya waved a hand. “That was years ago.”
Jennie nodded. “So, at what point did you begin to believe in ghosts?”
“Around the time she visited me in the middle of the night,” Tanya replied. “It was a few days after the funeral. My father kept the curtains open and told me that Mom would watch me from heaven. I couldn’t sleep that night. Don’t ask me why. I guess a thousand thoughts pass through a child’s brain when their parent dies at such a young age. I felt something at the edge of my bed and peeked out of the covers to see a shimmer of something there.”
“A shimmer?” Worthington scoffed. “How cliché.”
Jennie shot him a look, thankful that Tanya couldn’t hear his words.
“And you think it was your mum?” Jennie asked.
“I know it was her,” Tanya replied. “She’d come to say a final goodbye. To check on her baby. Ever since then, I’ve made it my mission to seek out books, texts, artifacts—anything that’ll bring me one step closer to unveiling the truth to the beyond and seeing another spirit in real life.”
Jennie had heard similar tales down the years.
“Here,” Tanya exclaimed. She crossed the room excitedly and took a seat in the spot where Worthington was sitting.
Worthington recoiled, throwing his arms in the air as if receiving a very unwelcome lap dance.
Tanya shivered, but otherwise, she seemed not to notice. “The Turn of the Screw, written in 1898. Look at this.” She traced a finger along a line so highlighted and annotated that the original text was barely noticeable. "I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the appalling alarm of his perhaps being innocent. He’s talking about ghosts.”
“Yes, well, Henry James was always something of a crackpot,” Jennie replied. “The ego went to his head after that book. Big theater goer, though, which I never understood. Sussex to London at that time of the world was a bitch of a commute.”
Tanya raised an eyebrow. “You talk as if you knew him.”
Jennie cast her eyes to the floor. “History major. I geek out about biographies and origin stories.”
Tanya hesitated a moment before returning to the bookshelf and retrieving a handful more books. “They’re all here. All the accounts of ghosts and stories I tracked down of what lies in the afterlife. Look.” As she retrieved quotes from dog-eared pages, she slapped the books and threw them to the floor.
She read from Christina Dodd.
“So, you know you're a ghost?"
I looked at my hands; they were transparent and glowed faintly.
"Can you think of another explanation?”
Mark Ristau:
“Very soon you will find yourself at the end of a dirt road, only inches from a threshold…a threshold into another world—a glorious world, one of infinite possibilities. You’ll be standing there contemplating your next move when a gust of wind whispers, “Have faith.” When you hear those magic words, it’ll be time for you to cross the threshold and begin your journey…”
S. Vest:
“As the years passed, it became clear that Alio was a ghost, not an imaginary friend. Imaginary friends have no borders, but ghosts often do.”
And more.
It soon became clear that Tanya’s entire library was a collection of selected works of fiction and non-fiction centered around the theme of ghosts and sightings of the supernatural. She stood to fetch yet more books but Jennie called her back, saying she’d seen enough.
Tanya blushed as she sat back on the couch.
Worthington recoiled again. “She must be a riot at dinner parties,” he deadpanned.
Jennie fought back a laugh.
“You must think I’m crazy,” Tanya told her. “There are many people who do.”
“Not your buddies in the Spectral Plane, I imagine?” Jennie replied. “They seem to be on your side.”
“All except that traitor Lupe,” Tanya growled, placing her head in her hands. “We were so damn close. I could feel it.”
Jennie saw her chance. “Close to what? What were you guys doing out there? What was that out in the park?”
Tanya took a deep breath through clenched teeth. “Lupe was one of the newest members of our organization. I’ve spent the last six months tracking down ancient artifacts in New York that have been rumored to have been connected with spectral poltergeist activity.” She gave an appreciable grin. “You wouldn’t believe how many ghost stories there are in a city that has only been around for a few hundred years.”
Jennie would.
“During that time, I’ve seen everything from…” She made air quotes. “A haunted kettle to a possessed chihuahua. Suffice to say that my energy for searching grew less over time, and although I had the support of several others I’d met along the way who showed an interest in the afterlife, I was beginning to lose steam.”
Jennie nodded. “Understandable.”
Worthington shifted out from under Tanya. “I bet the kettle didn’t run out of steam.”
“But then I got a phone call from an anonymous source telling me there had been a spike in spectral activity in the city. There were even a few clippings of hospitals reporting strange activity in their wards, a spate of terminally ill patients muttering unintelligibly about swearing their allegiances to people before they died.”
Tanya crossed the room and picked up a battered folder, which she dropped on the table in front of Jennie. The laminated sleeves inside were filled with press clippings of black and white pictures of hospital fronts and baffled doctors. Some showed men and women with unkempt hair pointing at telephones and TV remotes that were clearly held up by a string for photographic effect.
Jennie leaned forward, flattening a sheet of paper that showed a headline saying, “Who ya gonna call?”
Worthington rolled his eyes. “Really? A Ghostbusters joke? Do they not have any other frame of reference? The Others? Poltergeist? The Haunting of Hill House?”
“When was this?” Jennie asked, unable to take her eyes off the clippings as she flicked from page to page.
“A month or so ago,” Tanya replied. “It’s still happening now. I get a phone call a couple of times a day reporting ghost sightings, and I head over to investigate. My name has made something of an impact since I’m always one of the first to check out the scene.”
“Before the pigs?” Jennie asked.
Tanya arched an eyebrow. “Pigs?”
“You know. The coppers?”
Tanya shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“The ‘Ol’ Bill?’ Boys in blue? Bobbies?”
Worthington leaned through Tanya to Jennie. “She’s a Yank, remember?”
Tanya shook her head again. “Nope. Nothing.”
Jennie laughed, the realization suddenly dawning on her. “I mean the police.”
“Oh, the cops?” Tanya chuckled.
“Right,” Jennie replied. “You get to the scene of the crime before they do?”
Tanya chuckled. “Oh, easily. The cops don’t give two flying fucks about some mama’s boy in his parents’ basement proclaiming that his can of Monster has flown off his table and onto the floor, or that his TV turned from crystal clarity to a pile of fuzzy static. They’re off solving real crimes. You know, murders and drug deals and rapes. That kind of thing.”
Jennie thought back to the drug deals she’d seen going on in alleys around New York. She thought of the brutal beating the homeless man was subjected to. “They’re not doing a great job,” she muttered.
“What was that?”
Jennie waved a hand. “So, this spike in reports began around a month ago? How does Lupe tie into all of this?”
Tanya sighed. “Lupe was going to be the key to unlocking it all, I was sure of it. He turned up one day after I was done investigating at an apartment in Manhattan. An old woman thought her
dog had been possessed; turned out to be a bad case of an overly enthusiastic pup. Anyway, as I was leaving the apartment, Lupe was waiting for me in the street. At first, I thought he was another loony trying to get me to speak to one of his long-lost loved ones, but then he told me that he had the gift of being able to see the specters.”
“And you believed him?”
“Of course,” Tanya replied without a shadow of a doubt. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Jennie looked at Worthington for help.
“What are you looking at me for?” he asked. “She can’t see me, remember? If she chooses to be bat-shit insane, that’s for you to deal with.”
Jennie shook her head. “Please continue.”
“He took me back to his apartment and showed me things. Sketches, pictures, items he’d gathered over the years to help him commune with the deceased.” A small smile grew on Tanya’s face. “Their presence was so strong. For the first time in my life, it was like I was sitting next to something I’ve been searching so long for.”
Worthington put an ethereal hand on Tanya’s leg and placed his face millimeters from hers. In a voice louder than necessary, he said, “I guess we can rule you out of having the gift, then!”
Jennie bit her lip to stop herself from laughing.
Tanya didn’t seem to notice, lost in the memories in her head. “For the next few hours, we talked and talked, and he told me about all the experiences he’d had. He told me he could see specters all around the city. Told me he had a way to call them over to our side and have them work with us. Promised me answers to the questions we’ve had since time began.”
“And how did he propose to do that?” Jennie asked.
For the first time since they had entered the organization’s headquarters, a flicker of shame darkened Tanya’s face. Her eyes danced from Jennie to the floor. “Through oaths.”
Jennie’s heart rate quickened, the whole ordeal going from jovial to serious in the flick of a switch. She knew the power oaths had over the mortal after they crossed to the spectral side of the veil. The entirety of Queen Victoria’s reign as the head of the paranormal court was centered around the loyalties and oaths that were sworn to the crown during the first moments after a person chose to remain on Earth as a specter.
It was how Worthington had become a specter under the queen’s rule. It was how all of Jennie’s former specter companions had found themselves under the rule of the paranormal queen. Darwin, Alessia, Hubert, Katrina, and all the specters who came before them, they had all said the sacred words that bound them to the crown and plunged them into the service of the paranormal court.
Not that anyone minded. For those who knew what was to come, it was an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to continue their service to the crown. Those who didn’t believe in the afterlife found themselves pleasantly surprised to be serving the power who ruled the paranormal world.
Yet, these oaths couldn’t have been to the crown. Queen Victoria had stated that there had been an unruly rising in disloyal specters rising in New York City, a whole city going out of control and threatening to revolt against her rule over America.
So, what the hell were these oaths?
Jennie shifted in her chair and met Tanya’s eyes. “You say that like you’re ashamed. What did you do?”
Tanya took a steadying breath. “Lupe took us to the hospitals and hospices across the city and somehow faked his way into visiting those who were within inches of their death. As they lay there gasping in their final moments of mortality, he promised them a better life, a life in which they could still visit their loved ones and watch them grow old.” She looked at the ceiling. “He promised them things. So many things.”
Jennie placed a hand on Tanya’s arm. “What was promised? Who did they swear to?”
“They swore to him. They swore to Lupe, and then they passed.”
She told Jennie about the number of promises that were made. The hundreds of dying souls promised a life in the ever after.
“How many of these specters now serve under Lupe’s command?” Jennie asked.
Tanya shrugged, deflated. “How am I supposed to know? None? All of them? I can’t see ghosts, remember? I just had to trust what he told me and hope that something came to fruition. Call me crazy—”
“Bitch is crazy,” Worthington muttered.
“But I really thought that he was the real deal.” She nodded her head slightly. “I suppose tonight proves that in some way, he was.”
Jennie cast her mind back to the events at Central Park. The boulder of obsidian splitting as light spilled from within. The birth of two specters who had found themselves trapped in the rock. It was something that she had never come across in all of her nearly hundred and forty years of life. “What did happen tonight? What were you doing in the park?”
Worthington finally sat forward, taking an interest.
“It was our last shot with Lupe,” Tanya explained. “After several months of activity which I grew increasingly uncomfortable with—the Spectral Plane is meant to serve the people to find answers, not give them false hope and promises for an afterlife we’d never see—it all came together for the last effort before we kicked Lupe from the group. He knew about my fascination for artifacts and stumbled across some work I had been doing a few years ago in the city. See, when New York was founded in 1624, it was nothing more than a landmass waiting to accommodate a civilization. Over the years since its creation, there have been a number of…shall we say, interesting incidents that have suggested that magic might have once existed. Curses, burials, rituals, a great number of these have been enacted upon the living and the dead, and there is a wealth of evidence which suggests that some spirits may have actually found themselves trapped within certain natural materials which can be found across the city.”
“You’re saying that black magic has encased spirits in objects?” The idea sounded ludicrous to Jennie, but how else could tonight be explained?
“Think about it.” The keen glint in Tanya’s eye returned. “New York was founded in 1624. Sixty-eight years later, the witch trials in Salem began. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our forebears believed in powers beyond humanity.”
Jennie saw the issue with what Tanya was telling her. “If what you’re saying is true, wouldn’t that mean the spirits encased in these items would be corrupt? Maybe even evil?”
Tanya blushed again. “It was worth the risk.”
Jennie got to her feet, feeling a sudden need to move. Often, she found walking around helped her clear her head and process her thoughts. She stood by the window and peeked through the blinds. Morning was making its way over the city, the purples and blacks of the night sky replaced by a soft pink glow.
“We need to find Lupe, and we need to find these specters,” Jennie decided, looking at Worthington.
Tanya followed Jennie’s gaze into emptiness and moved her head to meet her eyes.
Worthington scoffed.
“You believe me?” she asked, amazed.
Jennie nodded. “Despite how ludicrous other people might think you sound, you’ll be surprised to know that I have a large amount of experience in the arena we’re dealing with here.”
Tanya’s eyes widened.
Jennie nodded. “Yep. Spirits are real, life beyond death is real, and your good buddy Lupe has upset the balance and unleashed hundreds of non-aligned specters into a city that has been under the rule of Our Paranormal Majesty for over a century. You’re an accomplice to this, but you’re also an innocent, so you’re forgiven.”
A strange noise came from Tanya’s mouth as it flapped open and closed. She was stunned.
“Oh, and that cold chill you might be feeling? You’re currently sitting on a specter.”
Tanya jumped up so suddenly it was as though she’d been electrocuted. She stared at the sofa where Worthington was waving at her, unable to see him. She reached forward and waved her arm back and forth through his face, able to feel the
slightest change in temperature.
Worthington sighed. “If only I could reach out and slap her. Do you realize how demeaning this is?”
Jennie laughed.
“Oh, wow. You’re serious!” Tanya repeated the action, a frenzied excitement taking over. “Who is it? What’s their name? Can they see me right now?”
Worthington sat back grumpily and folded his arms.
“There’s no time for that.” Jennie chuckled. “I need you to tell me everything you can about that boulder and Lupe and give me any possible leads on where that freak lives.” Her face grew serious. “We’ve got a specter to catch.”
Tanya’s face straightened. “Okay, but if I tell you all this, promise me you’ll introduce me to your friend.”
Jennie rolled her eyes. “I’ll try, but I should let you know in advance, he’s rather shy.”
Worthington stuck his middle finger up.
Chapter Seven
New York City, USA, Present Day
Baxter roamed the darkened streets of the city with his socket wrench balanced over one shoulder and his other hand nestled safely in his pocket.
He liked this time of night, the early hours before morning. When the city was at its sleepiest, and even the scumbags of the city had tucked themselves away for fear of early-morning encounters with the cops.
It was a time when a man could breathe the air and appreciate having a life after death. Being able to roam in relative safety, knowing humans couldn’t see him, and the worst your fellow specters would do is give you the stink-eye and go down the next street.
Or at least, that was the way it had been until very recently.
“Recently” being a relative term for a specter who had spent the better part of thirty years in the city and nearly a hundred years in the afterlife.
Things had become unsettled; even he could feel that. Sure, there were always fanatics who tried to force you to submit to the crown and swear your allegiance, but they always gave up in the end. The queen might hold a firm grip on Europe, but her power had a lesser influence on this side of the Pond.
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