But now there were whispers of a second faction, and specters he’d come to know well were choosing to take a rebellious stance instead of the neutral one many had adopted over the years.
A stance he had adopted.
Man, just when you think that the afterlife is going to be peaceful…
Baxter turned onto Seventh Avenue and let the sounds of the sleepy city wash over him. Somewhere nearby, a creature was rustling in the trash-laden alley behind the movie theater. In the nearby apartments came the frantic grunts of a man reaching climax. A few cabs drove lazily by, looking for the late-night custom that came from last-calls and kick-outs in the city’s nightclubs.
Peace was hard to come by these days, especially when your own kind were starting to turn on each other like hungry jackals. Fear made people make crazy choices.
As he strolled down the street toward Radio City Music Hall, he found his mind wandering to the woman and the specter he had met earlier that night.
He had never seen anyone like her. A human who could communicate and talk to specters, of all people!
He closed his eyes and pictured the scene. Remembered the expression on her face as she took down the thugs who’d attacked her. Not a smidgen of fear in her eyes. Not a shudder of hesitation as she took their asses and handed them back on a silver platter.
And to have lifted them, too.
Yes, indeed, there was something about that woman that had his attention, not least the tricksy little weapon holstered to her side.
Not the pistol, no. That kind of shit he’d seen countless times over the years. The Glock was a staple of modern society, something seen in more often Americans’ pockets than TicTacs.
It was the other gun. That one piqued the part of his brain that strived to understand. To know how things worked and examine the cogs and gears that made them function. The gun was unlike anything he had seen before. Easy enough for the untrained eye to mistake for a sawed-off shotgun, but there was something different about it. Something…
Custom.
Saying the word made him shiver with excitement in much the same way experimenting on that 1905 De Dietrich automobile had filled him with such unbridled wonder that he had gotten overenthusiastic with the gasoline and been blown skyward in the resulting massive explosion.
Not a great way to go.
He had to know more. He had to find out more about this woman and the weapon she owned. Learn about the talents she possessed and discover where her gifts came from. If he didn’t, he knew there’d always be that tiny part of him left hollow. Left to wonder if there was something he could have done to learn about that weapon.
And it’s not like he didn’t have all the time in the world to do it.
Well, unless he found himself on the business end of an exorcism.
Baxter gave an amused snort and turned down Forty-Ninth Street, alone in his own little world, until someone called out from behind him.
“Oi, big guy. We need a word.”
Baxter turned to see the brutish woman and her entourage from earlier that evening approaching. Baxter felt his hackles raise but remained calm. He was surprised to see that the lower half of her face had already recovered. Two pale lips protruded from the stump of her face.
“You’ve not said enough already tonight?” he asked.
The woman gave a derisive laugh. She was being guided along by two of her companions, led like a blind woman.
Which was accurate, considering half her head had been blown off.
“I expected a big guy to have a big mouth. Tell me, big guy, where did you find your little mortal companion? She caused quite a stir tonight, didn’t she?”
They closed in on him, the brutes circling him close. The woman’s face was an absolute mess. The only part of her face that worked was the mouth, and even so, her words lacked clarity.
“At least I have my whole head.” Baxter smirked. “Come on, sweetheart; you really need to feel more pain tonight?”
The woman chuckled, the sound like bubbling oil. “No one needs to feel any pain, darling. We just wanna know where you met the girl, and where we can find her. Our contact is very curious to meet the mortal who can talk to the specters.”
Baxter shrugged. “I can’t help you, I’m afraid. She’s gone. Just met her tonight, she did her business, and she’s on her way. Last I heard, she was heading down to Central Park, but that would have been a few hours ago.”
Movement from behind. Baxter felt something move closer to his back.
Or someone.
He reached for his hat and doffed it. “If that’s all you’ve got to say, I’ll be on my way.”
“Get him!”
Baxter knew what was coming before it even happened.
The brute who had moved directly behind him hooked an arm around Baxter’s body and went for his throat.
Baxter ducked swiftly so the brute only got him around the chest and kicked backward off the ground as hard as he could. His weight toppled the specter to the sidewalk, where he became a convenient cushion to soften Baxter’s landing. He rolled sideways off the brute and got to his feet, immediately drawing his revolver.
He took a breath, pausing for a second to let the shock of the landing subside. Although the real-world pains he had experienced in his years of living—and in that fateful moment before death—were far worse than what he felt as a specter, being shot or stabbed as a ghost left its mark, and would be more than uncomfortable.
Check exhibit A, he thought as he aimed the revolver at the woman.
“What’s happening?” she screamed, whirling blindly. “Where is he? Get him!”
The two specters came from either side of Baxter. While he was hardly a small specimen of a man, the other two were larger.
The one on his left threw a mean left hook and caught Baxter’s cheek, while the other wrestled the revolver from his hand. He bent Baxter’s thumb back, and the weapon clattered to the ground as he twisted his arm behind his back.
“Aw, poor baby,” the specter mocked. “Guess you’ll be shooting blanks during this fight.”
Baxter struggled against his grip, the right side of his face throbbing. When the brute who punched him came in for another blow, he ducked his head out of his path and head-butted the one holding him square in the nose.
The one holding his arm squeezed tighter in retaliation.
Baxter reached into his pocket with his free hand and withdrew a tiny golden ball covered in intricate etchings. There was a small nodule on the top, which he pressed as he shoved the item into the center of his captor’s chest. “Here, bozo. Try this one on for size.”
The specter looked down in amazement as legs grew from the orb and gripped his skin. A stream of thick gas blew out of the top of the ball, smothering him instantly in a thick fog that forced him to cough and release his grip.
Baxter took the opportunity to kick the asshole in the knee and he buckled to the ground. Baxter grinned in satisfaction at his little invention before he became aware of someone coming at him.
He had no time to turn before two powerful arms wrapped around his chest and dragged him backward. He was slammed into the wall and subjected to the pummeling of fists against his stomach.
From a few meters away, the specter Baxter had head-butted stood shakily on his damaged leg, his hand clamped to his temple. He looked around dazedly, trying to find Baxter. When he saw his comrade attacking the inventor by the wall, he began limping over.
Great puffs of air were forced out of Baxter’s stomach until there was virtually nothing left. He closed his eyes, this time reaching into his other pocket, from which he withdrew a number of small black pills.
Between blows, Baxter managed to shove the pills into his attacker’s mouth. His attack lessened momentarily as the specter made to spit the pills out. Baxter gave a quick upward slap to his jaw and forced the pills to the back of his throat, and a quick two-fingered jab to the specter’s Adam's apple forced him to swallow.
The brute took a step back and clutched his throat. “What the hell?”
“Some pills are bitter to swallow, eh?” Baxter wheezed as he refilled his lungs. “Especially when those are filled with sodium, an element better known for being explosive when it comes into contact with water.”
The specter’s eyes widened.
Baxter grinned. “Yeah, give it a few seconds for your body to dissolve the safety film. You’ll feel a little sore in the morning.”
The specter doubled over and stuck his fingers down his throat. He began dry-heaving, trying his best to cough the pills back up.
“High school flashbacks,” Baxter muttered, realizing suddenly that the other specter’s knee had recovered and he was picking up speed as he came for him. He saw his socket wrench lying on the ground and dodged around the specter doing his best to empty his stomach.
“Okay, enough of my flashy tricks.” Baxter scooped up the wrench and held it like a baseball bat. What are we thinking, Bax? Home run?
The specter coming for Baxter kept his eyes focused on him. He had no awareness whatsoever of Baxter’s weapon.
Baxter swung the wrench in a full arc, and the metal connected with the asshole’s skull.
The specter was thrown to the side, where he collided with a nearby mailbox and dropped to the ground in a heavy snooze.
Baxter nodded smugly. “Still got it.” He walked past the cloud of smoke and back toward the woman who had sent her dogs to attack him.
She knelt on the ground, hands grasped as if in prayer. “Please don’t hurt me. I can’t take any more pain…”
Baxter moved to one knee, staring at where her eyes used to be. “Funny, isn’t it? When we died, we thought we’d escaped it all. We thought, ‘Hey, you know what we’ll never experience again? Love. Pain. Hot. Cold. All that shit.’ Yet, here we are. You, a festering pile of dog shit, and me with bruised ribs and a headache that could kill a horse.”
“Please,” the woman gasped between continued sobs.
Baxter would have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t brought the situation on herself. “The thing is, I like my afterlife easy. I like a cloudless day and a stroll by the Hudson. When shit starts getting in the way of that, I find myself irked. Have you ever been irked…” He leaned closer. “This is that part where you say your name.”
“Joan,” she blubbered. “My name is Joan,”
Baxter nodded. “Great. Have you ever been irked, Joan?”
Joan shook her head.
“Well, it’s not a great feeling,” Baxter told her. “And the only way I think I’m going to be able to forgive you and let you and your men go on your merry way is if you tell me what I want to know.”
Joan sniveled, which seemed impossible given that her nose was mincemeat. “What’s that?”
Baxter smiled as if it was obvious. “I want you to tell me who the fuck sent you, and why the hell you’re so hellbent on fucking up the representatives of the Winter Court.”
Chapter Eight
Midtown Manhattan, New York City, Present Day
Plates littered the table in front of Jennie, the bone-white china stained yellow and brown with grease. In her hands was the final half of the New Yorker deluxe burger—the third she’d managed to work her way through—but she hardly felt full.
“You know,” Jennie told Worthington, picking a chunk of beef from between her teeth with the nail of her little finger. “As great as these burgers are, the table service here is deplorable.”
Jennie nodded to the pile of plates, wondering if the busboys were too busy servicing the restaurant since they hadn’t cleared her table.
Worthington’s nose wrinkled. “Maybe they’re waiting for you to lick the grease from each plate?” He pointed at a small chunk of beef that had broken free of the bun. “You missed a piece.”
“Thanks!” Jennie mumbled through her mouthful.
She was in high spirits. Of the thousands of beds she had slept in during her life, the Plaza’s offered a level of comfort that she had never felt before. She wasn’t sure what thread count the sheets were, but she would try to find a supplier to provide her with the same on her return to England.
Not only that, but the hotel was quiet. Considering the Plaza overlooked Central Park and was located in the very center of one of the busiest metropolitan cities in the world, the room was soundproof. In fact, had it not been for Worthington tripping over his own feet and waking her up, she might have slept right through the night.
“I don’t understand where your appetite comes from.” Worthington’s eyes were fixed on Jennie’s mouth, a mixture of intrigue and disgust on his face. “You have such a skinny frame.”
“You’re just jealous because you can’t taste food,” Jennie retorted. “Here…” She leaned across the table and shoved the burger where Worthington’s mouth was. The burger hovered in the space as he stared at her with a bored expression.
Across the restaurant, one of the busboys pointed to Jennie, snickering behind his hand.
Worthington heard him and turned to see what was going on. “See? Maybe that’s the reason they won’t approach you. You’re a lunatic feeding a burger to thin air and talking to no one.”
Jennie smirked. “I’m talking to you.”
“They can’t see that.”
Jennie shrugged. “I don’t care. Do you think I haven’t gotten used to the strange looks and the sideways glances after living with specters since the nineteenth century? I’m long over it, my man. Maybe you should get over it, too.”
Jennie finished her burger, every last morsel, and sat back with a satisfied feeling. “American food isn’t bad.”
“What were you expecting?” Worthington looked across the restaurant. It was getting busy—peak hour in the city. Couples walked by the restaurant in dresses and suits, many ready to head to the Theater District and catch a show. A few families tried to wrangle their energetic children, to no avail.
Jennie shrugged. “Not sure. After all the adverts and TV shows I’d seen, I was expecting everything to taste like grease and fat. Turns out, there’s flavor and good meat. Maybe I’ll stay here a while, except I’d get fat eating like this all the time.”
A busboy came over to the table and scooped up the plates as Jennie finished her sentence. He shook his head disapprovingly, making an effort to speed up and get out of her way.
“It was a compliment,” she called after him as he disappeared behind the door to the kitchen. “Well, there goes his tip.”
“You should tip,” Worthington told her. “When in Rome, and all that.”
“What? What if I got shitty service and didn’t want to tip?” Jennie argued.
Worthington continued to stare around the restaurant. “It’s just how they do it here. If you don’t like it, you can always go home.”
“Oh, sure. The queen would love that. If I knocked on her door, she’d…” Jennie’s voice trailed off as she wondered what would happen if she knocked on the queen’s door and told her she’d abandoned the job because she didn’t like the Americans’ tipping system. She’d seen the queen angry before, but rarely at her.
She settled her bill—with a tip for the busboy—and walked through the restaurant toward the exit. As they neared the door, Jennie saw what Worthington had been staring at this whole time.
A young specter in a long and elegant gown, who’d died in her early twenties, was sitting in a booth next to a living man who looked as though life had hit him over the head repeatedly.
Jennie winked. “She’s cute, huh?”
Worthington pulled his eyes away as the specter looked up from her former lover.
Jennie’s hands glowed white and she shoved Worthington out of the door, the force enough for him to fly straight through the glass into the street.
“What was that for?” he complained.
“We’re here on business, remember?”
Worthington gave her a sour loo
k. “That didn’t stop you from shoveling burgers down your throat until you were fit to burst, did it? I’ve seen pelicans eat more gracefully than you.”
Jennie let the comment slide, placing her hands in her pockets as they headed out into the city.
Worthington followed her in silence, knowing that when Jennie got her mad on, it was better to leave her to her thoughts.
Now that they were out in the crowded side of New York—with patrons spilling out of bars and restaurants and celebrating the end of their workday with copious amounts of alcohol and a promise of sex—she began to notice specters here and there.
She wondered what the difference was between her life and that of a specter. Her gift had granted her long life and talents that would make any man or woman green with envy, but what was it actually like to have passed over the border into death? How different would it really be?
She walked past a specter so obese that he had to shuffle to walk and waved at him.
The specter performed a double-take and was left open-mouthed as Jennie walked on by.
Back in London, there weren’t many specters who she didn’t know. Considering that most who passed into death vowed their fealty to the crown, there was a constant line of new blood joining the Supernatural Court.
Since Jennie was utilized as the queen’s primary agent, even if they didn’t know her by look, they’d know her by name, which kept the wheels greased and kept the system working. Non-aligned specters were met by the court’s Royal Recruiters and, nine times out of ten, the recently deceased would give their allegiance to the crown under the promise of a better afterlife and a helping hand when the time came to exorcise themselves into the final abyss. The darkness which lived beyond death.
Those who refused were granted a license to live in the afterlife, with the anecdote that they may only reside within the boundaries of where their mortal relatives lived.
Which sounded great, to begin with. But after watching over their own family for years, they’d begin to get bored. When their former lover decided to finally move on and shack up with the neighbor’s son, they’d get angry. An angry ghost trapped in his old residence who wants only to stop or intercept any chance of romance will find himself doing nasty things within the boundaries of his powers.
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