JFK Airport, New York City
Passengers rose from their seats and lined up at the gate when a tinny voice sounding as though the speaker could not be more bored with their job called the next flight.
Jennie unfolded her legs, happy to stand and stretch after several hours of sitting in the same position. She and Lupe might appear to be an odd couple among the business professionals and vacationing families, but the mortals only saw a small part of the story. As she rose to her feet, so did the several specters surrounding her.
Although Jennie refused to admit it, in the short time she had been in America, they had become a family to her. Lupe, Carolyn, and Feng Mian waited patiently nearby, and Tanya sat on the chair with Sandra sleeping on her lap.
“You should probably wake her up,” Jennie told her. “She’ll have plenty of time to sleep on your drive home, and I want to say goodbye.”
“Typical,” Tanya complained playfully, her figure coated in a spectral sheen as Sandra’s energy poured into her and kept her unseen.
It had been the only way to get them all through Security to the final terminal without paying the ridiculous prices for flights to the UK.
Not that Jennie couldn’t afford it, but Tanya had protested against accepting any kind of cash handout and argued that her life was in America and not abroad.
“Is it really going to take you guys five hours to get there?” Tanya asked.
“Seven,” Jennie replied.
A few heads turned to stare at the crazy redhead who was talking to no one.
“At least we’ll get in-flight movies, right?” Carolyn asked. “I saw on the website they’re showing the new Stephen King movie.”
Lupe shrugged. “I don’t buy into that spooky stuff. It sounds like a load of shit to me.”
Jennie laughed. “This isn’t a holiday, you know? This is serious business, and I need all of you on your A-game to help me get to the bottom of whatever’s going on over there.”
“‘Holiday?’” Baxter asked.
Feng Mian grunted. “She meant ‘vacation.’”
“Oh!” Baxter replied.
Jennie pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Tanya assured them. “All you’re going to do is infiltrate a world-famous royal institution in order to get to the bottom of the corruption that is plaguing the world that exists between the boundaries of life and total death.”
Baxter laughed. “When you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”
Tanya smirked. “Honey, I’m sitting here borrowing the power of a ghost girl I couldn’t even see a few days ago. Now I’m coasting the spectral world and talking to ghosts. All of this is ridiculous.”
They all laughed. The speaker gave a final call for their flight.
Jennie knelt in front of Tanya and Sandra. She stroked a stray lock of hair back from the girl’s face, causing her eyes to flutter.
Sandra turned sleepily and sat up. “You’re leaving now?”
Jennie nodded, smiling regretfully. “We’ve got to.”
Sandra embraced Jennie around the neck so tightly she almost choked. “Thank you for everything.”
Jennie closed her eyes and breathed in the girl’s aroma. She had taken to modern life well, and Jennie knew Tanya would act as a great role model for her while she was gone. As long as the girl kept Tanya powered with her energy, they would both be visible to each other and would make the best of it. There was a lot she didn’t know about the modern world.
Jennie gave Tanya a small kiss on the cheek. The gesture felt unnatural and strange. Something alien and forgotten in the deepest recesses of her memory itched, and for a moment, she felt the warmth of her mother’s lips on her forehead.
“We need to go,” Baxter told her, nodding at the gate, where the final few passengers were boarding the plane.
Jennie waved goodbye as they left Tanya and Sandra in the departure lounge. Twenty minutes later, they were in the air and heading home.
Back toward England.
Back toward London.
Straight into the heart of the lion’s den.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Midtown Manhattan, New York City
Something strange had gone down in New York City yesterday. Police now patrolled the streets in force, and Times Square was cordoned off for examination by the federal authorities.
Kate Gallagher had spent an hour or so roaming around the square so far that morning. Unable to be seen by any of the boys in blue, she had examined the area to get some indication of what had gone on.
“It came out of nowhere,” an eyewitness told a cop with a notepad from the back of his car. “It was a regular night. We were on our way home from a showing of Kinky Boots. The next thing we knew, it was impossible to see anything.”
A fog cloud had masked the living from being able to see anything. It seemed like the perfect cover-up for something…otherworldly.
Kate eavesdropped on more conversations as she bypassed the cops to get to the people in lab coats who were gathering evidence from the spot the cloud had originated from. Scattered, broken glass confirmed eyewitness accounts of something being thrown to activate the fog, but the compound was untraceable. There were no samples to take.
“Impossible,” one forensic psychologist exclaimed.
“Never in my life…” said another.
Only one man had seemed to have any inkling of what might have transpired in the square.
Kate had spotted him earlier, flashing a badge and strolling around like he owned the place. A guy who could not have looked more like a federal agent if he tried.
His black suit was pristine. He wore dark aviator shades and an earpiece that coiled down into the inside of his jacket. His immaculate shoes reflected the lights on their surface.
The man touched a finger to his ear and spoke so quietly the others could not hear a word he said. Kate heard him clearly. Standing so close to the man, it would have been impossible not to hear.
Whispers of “specters” and contacting “Her Majesty” and “impossible this could have flown under our radar,” were made.
Kate gave a derisive snort over his shoulder. The man’s hand unconsciously brushed away the puff of air, and then she was gone from the Square.
There would be no more information she could get from the mortals.
Tracing the specters would be the difficult part. Since whatever showdown had occurred, the entire city appeared to be in hiding. Normally, Kate could walk down any street in London and bump into four specters before she’d hit the first corner. But here…
Gordon Owens, a specter with a square jaw and a body that looked like it was crafted by the gods, met her on the corner of Sixth and Thirty-Eighth. “Anything?”
Kate shook her head. “Just a load of mortal mumbo-jumbo. The Beaters have finally shown their faces, but I think it’ll be some time before they determine the truth of what transpired.”
Gordon’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t a fan of Beaters. The US Government’s Spectral Service was a relatively new department, but that didn’t prevent the agents from interfering. Like all of the letters agencies, the people who worked for them believed they were the top dogs in the equation—and now they were involving themselves in this. “Without a spectral unit to guide them, they’re not going to get much more information than we have. There has to be someone around here we can pull the information from.”
Kate nodded her agreement, and they started looking for a witness the mortals couldn’t get to first.
They hunted all over Times Square, exploring nearby alleyways, searching in the subway stations, and even stalking several of the high-rise apartment blocks nearby. They eventually found what they were looking for in the shadow of the Empire State Building.
The specter was howling in the middle of the road. Had she been mortal, she would have been either carted off to the hospital or arrested for public nuisance and removed.
As it was, the cars drove straight through her without consideration.
Kate smiled. She was exactly the type of specter they were looking for. She nodded at the woman and bent to get a grip under her arms. “Let’s get you out of the road.”
Gordon chuckled as he lifted the woman’s legs. “Easy there,” he cautioned when she wailed in his ear.
The woman with the bloated face paused before erupting into even louder high-pitched wails of pain. “You don’t understand; it flares up like this sometimes, particularly after a fall.”
They carried the woman out of the street, ignoring her cries of “careful,” and “I don’t bend that way!” until they were in a quiet space where they cross-examined the witness and tried to deduce what she knew.
The woman told them as much as she could remember. Although the event had transpired only twenty-four hours ago, she insisted her memory was foggy from the pain.
Kate and Gordon did their best to remain patient throughout her recounting of the tale, and soon they had enough information to be moving along with.
The woman was outraged when they said goodbye. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
Gordon gave a patronizing grin. “I’m sure a good nap will cure you of all your ailments.”
The woman scoffed as they walked away. “What do you know about pain?”
The specters didn’t speak again until they were standing outside of the entrance to the Empire State Building.
Kate glanced up at the building, her position giving her the perception of a never-ending monolith piercing the sky.
There were no yellow and black cordons or flashing blue lights around this building.
Kate and Gordon slipped inside easily enough. They climbed the stairs to the top level and came out in the wide, open space which, unknown to the pair, Jennie had exited the day previous.
The lights were off, but they could see well enough to know where they were going.
Kate’s skin tingled at the afterglow of spectral energy still lingering around the room. She followed the energy and passed through a door into a smaller room with a view over the entire city.
“Something happened here,” she murmured. “Something big.”
“You’re telling me.” Gordon reached down and picked up the ghostly bearskin hat, its black fur so dark it had almost dissolved into the shadows.
Kate’s jaw clenched. “Is that… Is he…”
“I don’t know of any other dopey-hatted beefeaters in the US,” Gordon replied with grim neutrality. “But what happened to him?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” a new voice asked.
Kate and Gordon turned in the direction of the door, where a specter in a pinstripe suit leered out from the canopy of his brow. His shoulders were slumped, his entire demeanor one of defeat.
“Who are you?” Kate asked.
“The name’s Rico,” the specter replied glumly. “You won’t find anything here. They’re all gone. Scattered.” He shook his head solemnly. “I’ve never seen anything like it…”
Kate and Gordon looked at each other, then back at the specter. “You saw what happened here last night?”
“Every damned second of it,” Rico replied.
A sly grin crept onto Kate’s face. “Please, tell us everything.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Greater London, England
Jennie hadn’t realized how much she’d truly missed her home until the plane had started its descent over the English countryside.
She grabbed her only bag and practically sprinted through the terminal corridors after disembarking, ignoring the crowded moving walkways in favor of the open spaces on either side. She emerged into the overcast British day, taking a deep breath of the chilly air as she rattled her car keys in her pocket, eager to get back to normality.
Her trip to New York had been the longest she’d ever left her baby in the hands of strangers, and now she wanted to check that she had been taken care of.
A quick inspection at the airport parking facility assured her that the extra £1k she had slapped into the attendee’s hand had ensured her red Shelby GT500 had been given the VIP treatment.
There wasn’t a speck of dust, a scratch, nor so much as a slight build-up of condensation.
“Great work,” Jennie enthused, giving the valet a pat on the cheek. She felt his eyes on her ass as she climbed in. She smirked and revved the engine, setting the car in motion.
Jennie tightened her grip on the steering wheel and let the kitty roar.
It felt right being back on the left-hand side of the road. She raced down the M4, the car eating up the dual carriageway as she opened the throttle and gave the car some gas. It responded to her every touch, her intuitive control of the car coming from familiarity. She cut around lorries and sped past the single-file lane of traffic built up on the inside, working its way slowly toward the landscape of London approaching from the distance.
“Jennie!” Baxter shouted, his face growing as red as a specter’s could. “Jennie!”
Jennie tapped “Mute” on her steering wheel and glared at him. Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild cut out mid-chorus and left Carolyn, Feng-Mian, Lupe, and Baxter in uncomfortable silence.
“I’m sorry,” Baxter apologized, the spectral giant struggling to shrink into his seat. “But does the music really have to be that loud? I know you’re excited, but eardrums are fragile things, even in the afterlife.”
Carolyn leaned forward between the seats. “Can specters’ eardrums get damaged by loud noise, then?”
Baxter looked at her like she was a cylinder short of a V8.
Jennie laughed. “You still have a hell of a lot to learn about the ways of living the spectral life.” The rules changed a lot once you were dead, but Jennie had lived around the dead and the living long enough to know that what Baxter was saying was absolute bullshit.
She tossed her phone to Baxter. “If you don’t like my music, why don’t you put something on?”
He fumbled as he caught the phone, spent a few minutes scrolling through her playlists, then gave up and docked the phone in its cradle on the dashboard. “There’s nothing there I like.”
“Nothing?” Jennie grinned, then swerved back into the outer lane to overtake the snarl of six cars ahead.
“Anyway, it wasn’t the music choice,” Baxter continued, “it was the volume. Honestly, after having to endure a seven-hour flight with that baby screaming, I thought we’d get a bit of a chance to relax in the car and prepare for what’s ahead.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Carolyn exclaimed. “That baby would not shut up. Why didn’t the mom do something?”
Lupe scowled. “Los bebés deben ser prohibidos en los aviones.”
“Lupe!” Jennie exclaimed. “Really?”
“What did he just say?” Carolyn asked.
Jennie pouted. “He wants to ban babies.”
“From planes,” Lupe clarified. “I forgot you speak Spanish.”
“It’s not the worst idea.” Carolyn turned to Lupe, confused by his sudden switch of language. “How come you’ve become more Latino since we’ve landed in England?”
Lupe shrugged. “Closer to my homeland, I guess.”
“Your homeland is Mexico,” Jennie reminded him.
Lupe ignored the comment and looked out of the window, watching the rolling hills turn to concrete estates.
Feng Mian remained silent, eyes closed as if in deep thought.
“The point is,” Baxter cut in, swinging the direction of the conversation back to their objective. “We’ve got to have some kind of plan, right? We’re not literally going to be running straight into the heart of Buckingham Palace so we can confront the queen, are we?”
Jennie looked over the top of her glasses at him.
“You’re kidding?” Baxter shook his head, flummoxed.
Jennie raised her glasses and laughed. “Come on, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to go head-to-head with the queen like that? Who
do you think has more understanding of the inner workings of her kingdom than anyone here?” She pointed a thumb at herself. “Trust me, I’ve got a plan.”
Baxter looked at her expectantly.
“What?” Jennie snapped.
“Let’s hear your plan,” Carolyn urged.
Jennie sighed. “There’s really no mystery left in the world, is there?” She tapped a number into her phone, and a moment later, the car was filled with the dial tone.
Several rings later, the phone went to voicemail.
Silence filled the car.
“They’re not very responsive,” Carolyn commented unhelpfully.
Jennie eyed Carolyn in the rearview mirror. “They’re clearly busy.”
Carolyn held up her hands. “Okay.”
“I can try them again later.” Jennie pressed her foot down on the accelerator and slid into the outside lane, overtaking a truck and a couple of family cars.
“So, where are you taking us now?” Carolyn asked, seeing a sign for London City Center streak past.
“Someplace safe,” Jennie told her.
“Is there really such a thing in London?” Baxter asked. “Won’t the queen have all her specters keeping an eye out for us?”
Jennie smirked. “You don’t work in this business for as long as I have without learning a few of the secrets the city has to offer. Trust me. It’ll be a piece of cake.”
Carolyn and Lupe exchanged nervous glances but remained silent.
Piccadilly Circus, London
George Wheatcroft had been a diplomat in life. He had spent his life negotiating deals. He had sat on the bench in the House of Commons and argued with the Prime Ministers of Great Britain until he was blue in the face.
Well, that part had been fun…
Talking had been his life. Guided by his staunch moral compass, his policies and viewpoints were often controversial, but at least they were consistent. If there was one thing George could never be called, it was “two-faced.”
George always wore his heart on his sleeve, and eventually, at the prime age of forty-two, he had resigned from the party when the majority had voted in favor of a policy he could not stand behind.
Rogue, Renegade And Rebel (In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service Book 1) Page 41