“Fine, hold on,” he told her, as he stamped over to the desk and rifled through the papers. This time, the sheets really did fly through the air, exploding in great bursts and floating to the ground like large fallen leaves.
Durst’s eyes grew wide as he gripped the table and leaned back in the chair, watching the papers fly by themselves. “Er, Keaton?”
“Not now! They’re just about to announce Alison’s killer. I’ve waited five seasons for this!”
“Yes. Now, Keaton!”
The specter finished his rifling, satisfied by what he’d seen. He crossed back over to Carolyn, just as Keaton appeared in the doorway.
He looked down at the papers littering the floor, eyes trailing several leaves still falling. He held a can of Dr. Pepper in one hand with a straw sticking out the top. “Something the matter, boss? Another one of your fits?”
“Another…” Durst choked on his words. “It wasn’t me!”
“Are you sure?” Keaton asked, clearly unconvinced. “You know what you’re like when you fall asleep on the job. Night terrors and limb spasms. That's the fourth time this week.”
Durst flung his bony hands up in frustration. “It wasn’t… I didn’t…”
Keaton raised the straw to his lips and slurped. He turned back to the office, muttering, “Can’t believe I put the girls on pause for this. I’ve gotta find somewhere new to work. Surrounded by damn crazy people.”
A moment later, the sound of the TV show resumed. Durst was left flummoxed by his desk, his mind clearly whirring as he tried to work out whether something had just happened, or if he’d imagined it all.
“Sorry about that,” the specter mumbled, returning his attention to Carolyn. “No sign of a Cody on the dead sheets. Maybe he’s still in ICU, but I can’t confirm that. There’s not enough time.” He checked his watch again. “You’ve got approximately two minutes until the decision is made for you and you are sent off to the ether. Now, what’s it going to be?”
Carolyn’s lip wobbled. She muttered to herself.
From across the room, Jennie could make out the words “investment,” “family,” “love,” and “wedding.”
The specter tapped his watch. “Tick-tock, Carolyn. Time’s running out.”
“I choose life!” Carolyn blurted. “I’m only twenty-four, goddammit. I choose life.”
“You mean, death,” he corrected.
Carolyn frowned. “I mean life. Living in the afterlife.”
“Yeah, but you can’t undo death,” he told her. “You’re still dead.”
“Really?” she asked. “You’re making me make the biggest decision of my life, and you’re arguing semantics?”
The specter fell silent, then added in a hushed voice, “Biggest decision of your death.”
Carolyn threw her arms up and yelled in exasperation. “Just make the damn thing happen!”
“Big mouth for such a small girl,” the specter remarked. “But you don’t need me for that. It’s already done.”
“What do you mean it’s done?” Carolyn demanded. “I don’t feel any different.”
The specter shrugged. “Well, technically, the choice isn’t in your hands. Did you really think that’ was how death worked? Truth is, some automatically go to the dark side, while others stick around as specters. Most of those who remain have unfinished business that even they may not be aware of, but many just cross over into the big beyond without a chance to argue.”
“You just made me do all that…for fun?”
The specter grinned. “Partly. The other part is that you now know you would have chosen this life—”
“Aha! So it is life?—”
“I meant ‘death,’” he told her.
Carolyn gave him a sharp look. “But you said ‘life.’”
“Anyway,” the specter continued, “here it is. Your afterlife. Your chance to watch over your loved ones and help them. The afterlife can be super difficult to navigate, so I’m here to make you an offer. Give you a chance to make your afterlife easier.”
Carolyn was skeptical. “You? The guy who just tricked me into thinking I had a choice?”
“I know.” The specter smirked. “Ironic, huh? This part of the job is lonely. I have to have my fun somehow.”
Carolyn looked away. “You know, I’ve only just met you, and I hate you.”
The specter stroked his chin. “Seems fair. However, this time, you really do have an option.”
“And what’s that?” she asked.
“In the afterlife, there are paths you can choose. Allegiances you can make that will benefit you and make it so you’re never alone again. Mentors and guardians who can help you find your feet and become the best version of you in the afterlife. I can introduce you to them.”
Carolyn debated this for a second, overwhelmed by the information she was receiving.
Jennie felt a little sorry for her, to have had her whole life whipped out from beneath her feet, and now she had to process and choose a way to navigate a world she hadn’t even known existed.
It had been similar for her, in a way. Although Jennie was still human, the moment she had first uncovered her gift with specters had unleashed a whole new reality for her.
As a child, she had heard their voices wherever she went. Voices that her childish imagination told her were nothing more than friends who lived in her head. She would play with them, ask them questions when her parents were in the other room, invite them over for tea.
As she’d grown older, they’d started taking shape in front of her. She’d thought at the time that she had given them their voices, faces, and personalities, but she’d later worked out, after a late-night conversation with her parents in which she had spent most of the night telling them about a portly monk she’d met, that there was something more tangible to them than that.
For one thing, how could Jennie have invented monks in her head, when she had no idea what monks were?
It wasn’t until they started performing for her and following her commands that she realized something was different for her.
When her parents held parties, she would harness her powers to get the ghosts to bring her objects behind the adults’ backs. Soon enough, the other kids stayed away or bullied her. She grew reclusive and started to withdraw inside herself.
Why did she need real friends, when she could harness the friends around her and make them do her bidding?
The climax of it all came when Jennie turned eighteen.
She still remembered his name.
Major James Richer had been following her around for a while, obsessed by the girl who could talk to specters. He had befriended her and told her his story. He believed he would go down in the history books, not for the glory of some triumphant war effort, but for being the first man to have been killed by injuries sustained in a car crash.
“It wasn’t so bad, I suppose,” the major had been telling Jennie as he accompanied her down the street while she walked back home from an errand.
It was then that a group of teenage boys saw Jennie talking to herself. They knew her, of course. The whole street knew to look the other way when the girl “touched by spirits” walked by, but on that day, Jennie’d had enough.
Her anger was immediate. She’d latched onto the major and had him hurl himself at the boys. They didn’t know what hit them, but they’d understood that floating in the air, held aloft by the back of their pants, was the result of their teasing.
That had been the final straw for Jennie, the alert flag that had drawn her parents toward finding a proper way to deal with her gift. When the Queen’s Service had come to investigate what the spectral problems had been about, they had been grateful for a solution.
Jennie still recalled the words, eerily dissimilar to the ones the specter in the morgue was saying to Carolyn.
“Do you promise to honor and swear unfaltering fealty to the Spectral Plane?”
Spectral Plane? The specter’s voice bought Jennie back
to the present.
“To honor and protect the Spectral Plane within all reasonable boundaries of the existence of your death? To unite under the banner of the moon, and ensure liberty and freedom for America? Will you swear to forsake all others, including the Winter Court, the crown, and Her Paranormal Majesty?” The specter offered a hand.
Carolyn looked alarmed. She stared at it without comprehension.
“One more step, and you are free,” the specter urged.
Jennie felt anger well up inside her. This girl didn’t know the options. She didn’t know the alternatives. Surely every new specter should at least be given all the facts? Be shown all the right information before making a choice?
Carolyn’s hand moved slowly toward the specter’s.
“Thief!” The voice came from the door. “Liar!”
The specter, Carolyn, and Jennie spun to see a man standing in front of the door. He wore a large white wig, his face was powdered, and he had a beauty spot on his cheek. He wore a jacket last fashionable in the Georgian era over a shirt with ruffles, and his dark shoes shone under the fluorescents.
The gowned specter turned with fury on his face. “You again?”
“Who else?” The new arrival spoke in an aristocratic British accent. “I am here on orders from the queen to ensure that new specters choose the correct allegiance when they swear their fealty. You cannot imagine that this young lady wishes to dilly-dally with your ridiculous rebellion when there is a power greater, more loving, and kinder to choose from?”
From inside the morgue’s lockers, a muffled voice cried, “Charles? Is that you?”
The specter’s eyebrows raised. He crossed to the lockers and opened a spectral projection of the drawer to reveal Worthington lying uncomfortably next to a dead body.
“Worthington?” Charles erupted in glee. “Worthington Conrad!”
Worthington hopped out of the drawer and patted himself down. He embraced Charles, then held him at arm’s length. “I hoped I would run into you at some point on this excursion.”
Charles clapped. “I’d heard you were traveling across the sea to assist on this side of the Pond. How the devil are you doing?”
“Oh, you know,” Worthington told him amiably. “I can’t complain.”
Carolyn balled up her fists. The lights flickered as she erupted into a deafening shout. “Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”
The gowned specter opened his mouth to speak but was disrupted when Jennie appeared from behind the divider. “I’m sorry Carolyn, but you’re being misled. You should know what your options are.”
“Who’s she?” Charles asked. He gave a slight tilt forward and sniffed. “She doesn’t smell like a specter.”
The gowned specter turned toward Carolyn suddenly and extended his hand again. “Quick, Carolyn. Before it’s too late.”
Carolyn tucked her hands beneath her arms. “Hold on; I want to hear what they have to say.”
“There is a better road,” Jennie explained, walking through Durst, who was looking at the flickering lights with a terrified expression. “There is a better power to align yourself with. The paranormal court, which is ruled by Queen Victoria. Swear your allegiance to the crown, and you will be under the wing of the oldest and most revered organization to exist in the afterlife.”
“Then this Spectral Plane is just, what?” Carolyn asked.
“They’re nobodies,” Charles told her, his lip curling in disgust. “Imposters. Revolters. Those who have taken up a new fight against the crown and wish to see it torn down. They’re not the first group, and they certainly won’t be the last.”
“Revolters?” Jennie thought. The guy might have been able to speak the queen’s English, but even she knew “revolters” wasn’t a real word.
“Oh, shut your filthy British yap, Lord Tight-ass.” The gowned specter scowled. “We know your game. You’ve been recruiting evil fuckers left, right, and center and drafting them for your cause. Murderers, rapists, drug dealers, you don’t give a shit who you filter into your precious Court.”
Charles placed a hand on his chest. “Excuse me?”
The specter pointed an accusatory finger at Charles. “You’ve gotten so concerned with bringing in the aristocracy and the pompous fuckers into your service that you've forgotten what counts. At one point, even I considered joining your cause, but what you’ve been doing lately is disgusting. We of the Spectral Plane can’t stand it.” He whirled once more to Carolyn. “Please, Carolyn. Would you rather spend eternity with the free, or under the thumb of a selfish tyrant who cares more about keeping the throne than the people she lives to serve?”
Carolyn debated her options. She looked at the gowned specter’s hand and shook it. “I choose the free.”
The gowned specter cheered. He snapped his fingers, and an explosion momentarily blinded the others. When it faded into nothing, they were in the dark. The lights in the morgue had all gone out, and there was no sound but the soft echo of a cackle.
“Well, I think that went well,” Worthington muttered sarcastically.
Jennie sighed. “Shut up, Worthington.”
Chapter Ten
The Plaza, New York City, Present Day
“Someone needs to tell me what in damnation is going on in this city,” Jennie commanded.
Jennie had taken Charles back to her suite at the Plaza and immediately mixed herself a drink, combining ingredients from the minibar to make herself something that looked like cloudy lemonade, but was garnished with an umbrella and a spiral of orange peel.
Charles and Worthington looked absurd together-Worthington, the former Beefeater, and Charles, the pale-faced former revolutionary, both sitting upright in leather armchairs in a modern penthouse suite. Charles had one leg crossed over the other, while Worthington adjusted the straps of his far-too-big hat.
“You saw it yourself,” Charles answered. “The Spectral Plane is a nuisance who appeared several months ago and began plotting a rebellion against the crown. They’ve been lying to new specters by the dozen, beating any recruitment attempts we’ve made by offering a life better than the one we have to offer.”
“What’s better than service to the queen?” Worthington replied. “She’s the longest-reigning monarch of the paranormal court, her power so great that service can only reap bountiful rewards. What could be greater than that?”
“Freedom,” Jennie answered quietly, though clearly not quite enough.
“What good is freedom in the afterlife?” Worthington snapped. “Freedom is dangerous. Freedom is anarchy. Do you think the world was built on a system of freedom? No. It was built underneath a hierarchy revolving around the powerful and the forgiving.”
Charles nodded. “You saw what happened with the American Revolution, didn’t you? Thousands of soldiers dead, just for the sake of freedom. Will freedom bring our lives back? No. Freedom just sent humans by the thousands into the great abyss. If America had learned at the time that the crown’s rule is compassion and love, none of that would have happened.”
“I thought it was a good thing that America got its freedom?” Jennie retorted, instantly throwing her hands up in a defensive gesture as Charles glared at her. “Don’t the Americans love their freedom? And, no. Do you really think I look old enough to remember the Revolution?”
“But look what it did to colonial rule,” Charles replied, ignoring Jennie’s last comment. “The moment Britain lost America, its Empire began to collapse.”
“So?” Jennie commented. “For humans, independence was the way forward.”
“You are thinking too much with your ‘living brain,’” Charles reprimanded. “Think of it this way. The paranormal world has centered around the British monarchy for thousands of years. Every time a reigning monarch dies, they take over the mantle of the paranormal king or queen.”
“There are no other superpowers,” Worthington replied. “A few small rebel groups, but none with the strength of the crown. That’s how
the paranormal world keeps on turning. Without order and loyalty, what is there left to keep everything under control? You’re a human who understands specters, right? You know what happens when specters turn down a bad path. It’s chaotic. It’s worse than anarchy. It’s dangerous for humans.”
“Fine, fine. I hear you,” Jennie relented. She took a long sip of her drink and looked out over Central Park. The trees were dark, the outline of the park illuminated by the sodium arcs.
“There’s just one thing that makes no sense to me, though,” she told Charles. “That guy back there, he said that the caliber of converted was lessening? That the queen was allowing scum and dirtbags to serve the crown? What did he mean by that?”
“Oh, you know how it is.” Charles chuckled dismissively. “Enemy propaganda at its finest. They’re hardly going to tell the people they’re converting to their cult that everything is sunshine and rainbows on the other side, are they? No. I wouldn’t pay attention to them. In fact, it’s been my job to try to help them see the opposite.”
“And what a fine job you’re doing,” Worthington told him dryly.
“I beg your pardon?” Charles sat up straight in his chair and pointed his finger at Worthington. “You haven’t been here, Conrad. America is different from England. Did you know that Americans believe their trousers are pants? Have you ever heard anything so preposterous?”
Jennie and Worthington both shook their heads.
“Whatever is going on,” Jennie told them. “We need to find the truth behind it all. I had begun to think that the Spectral Plane was nothing more than a human organization who believed in ghosts but couldn’t prove it. Now we’ve discovered there’s a whole group of specters with the same name out there.”
“Maybe they were accidental conversions?” Worthington suggested.
Jennie sat on the countertop and served another measure of the cocktail into her glass. “What do you mean?”
Worthington scratched his head. “Well, when a spirit swears to someone in the afterlife, the words have to bind them to someone, right? We swear to the crown, and Victoria earns our allegiance. If the Spectral Plane members were humans, forcing people to swear to…whoever, then the specters must have found someone to bind to.”
Rogue, Renegade And Rebel (In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service Book 1) Page 10