I rose carefully, and my legs hadn’t forgotten how to support me. Good.
On bare feet, I hobbled from the room. Street lights angled through the big front window, while car lights streaked across the shelves and the counter.
I remembered my watch. Ten-thirty-something. I peered at the window again. It was the night-time ten-thirty, not the other one. I could go out for coffee or make some.
I headed for the kitchen.
Dad. Bec. Rani. Dad was wearing jeans and a sombre black waistcoat over a black T-shirt. Bec looked like she was ready for action – combat pants, a many-pocketed camo vest over a black top. Rani was dressed as I’d seen her last night, and the outfit didn’t look creased even though she’d slept in it. They were drinking something that smelled like heaven.
‘Like some?’ Rani said, gesturing with her cup. ‘It’s moreish.’ She had a sword on her hip. I knew that was worth noticing, but wasn’t sure why.
I rehearsed the words mentally before I had a go at them. ‘Yes, please.’
I sat. Bec was doing something on her laptop. Dad was shuffling a pile of note cards. Rani pointed. ‘You know how to use the Gaggia.’
The actions of finding a cup, measuring the coffee and water and heating up the espresso machine started to make my brain turn over a bit better. By the time I had a cup of very strong coffee and had retaken my seat, I think I could have passed as a human being, as long as no one looked closely.
Dad scribbled something on a card then capped his fountain pen. Bec glanced at me, hit a few keys then shut the lid on her laptop. Rani draped an arm over the back of her chair and sipped her coffee. She looked as if she’d been out for a night of clubbing, then had a sound sleep and a brisk morning jog.
‘So,’ I said after I’d burned my mouth on my first sip of coffee and then immediately had another. ‘We were kidnapped by a bunch of nasty ghost hunters who were quite happy to sacrifice us, and we have a grief-maddened phasmaturgist who is murdering her way across the city.’
‘It’s good to have you back with us, Anton,’ Dad said. ‘You sum up so well.’
‘I didn’t go anywhere. Just to sleep.’
‘You were on the verge of collapsing.’
‘That’s just gravity winning out for once.’
‘Never mind. Rebecca and I have been researching these Malefactors, as Rani called them.’
‘That’s their name for themselves. If you ask me, they need a modern makeover. A new name like EvilCo or Da Dark Boyz. They could have a logo, too.’
‘Describe their leader.’
Rani spoke first. ‘He had a triangular head.’
Dad held up a hand. ‘Enough. That’s Emil Sabry. He’s Egyptian. At least, he was born there three hundred years ago.’
I rolled with it. Shows how many unbelievable things I’d had thrown at me lately. ‘Hm. He didn’t look a day over two hundred. Good genes, I guess.’
‘Magic,’ Dad said. ‘They hunt ghosts and use them to extend their own lives, among other things.’
I tried to imagine living for three hundred years, and all the stuff you could learn in that time. If you were a bad guy, that’s lots of nastiness.
I felt sick.
Dad went on. ‘I’ve been trying to find any mention of incidents like this very close encounter you had with the ghost, but I couldn’t find anything. Maybe with some more details.’
Bec kept her head down, but Dad noticed. He has a sixth sense for knowing when someone was hiding something, honed on me over the years.
‘Rebecca?’ He tapped the table. ‘Do you know something about it?’
Bec looked up and shrugged at me. ‘Anton asked me to look into your sister’s notes. I found something about attracting ghosts.’
‘She was experimenting with that when she disappeared,’ Dad said softly.
‘We were in a dire predicament, Leon,’ Rani said. ‘The Malefactors were going to kill us.’
Dad slipped on his professional mask, but I saw the brief flash of pain before he did. ‘Anton, you must help me take down a detailed account of your approach, your method and anything you can remember about this ghost world you entered.’
‘I will.’ I sipped some more coffee. ‘Any news about our outlaw phasmaturgist?’
I could have called her Stacey Evans, but I didn’t. If we were going to hunt her down, I didn’t want to get all loveydovey and personal. I glanced at Rani’s sword. It had to be a replacement – the Malefactors had taken her original. It might have some serious work to do in the near future, though, so I hoped it was up to the job.
‘She was busy last night.’ Bec swivelled her computer. ‘Barrister Found Dead’ screamed the newspaper site, and it hit me hard enough to hurt. We weren’t fooling around here. We were up against people who killed – and worse.
‘His throat was cut,’ Bec continued, ‘just like Grender. And I’m getting reports through Twitter that someone else was killed last night in a similar way. A judge.’
‘The judge who presided over the case where the truck driver was declared innocent?’ Rani asked.
Bec nodded. ‘She lives…lived…in Jolimont. Lots of police action around there right now, news helicopters. Nothing confirmed, but first reports seem to point this way.’
‘We have to stop her,’ I said.
Rani had her cup on the table. She turned it around in her hands while she stared at it. ‘I’ve already been in touch with the Company of the Righteous,’ she said. ‘I’ve sent them the address of the Toorak mansion we were held in last night. I could tell them about Stacey Evans. They’d bring in plenty of resources and would be efficient in hunting her down.’
‘I don’t like the idea of the Company of the Righteous busybodies taking over Melbourne.’ I glanced at Dad and he gave a small, satisfied nod.
‘It’d be in service of a good cause,’ Rani said.
‘A cause they consider good,’ I said. ‘And along the way, I’m sure they’ll step in and do some cleaning up of good ol’ Melbourne town’s ghosts.’
‘They wouldn’t be able to help themselves,’ Rani said. ‘And they’d be convinced they were right.’
I waved my mug. ‘Bec?’
‘This is our problem,’ Bec said. ‘We should take care of it.’
‘If nothing else,’ Dad said, ‘we owe Grender.’
‘And what does it say if we don’t pay the debts we have to sly, scheming, underhand, shifty weasels?’ I said. ‘If paying debts is good enough for the Lannisters, it’s good enough for us.’
Dad and Bec had waited around for much longer than usual, letting us sleep past shop closing hours, but Dad said he really needed to get home for some sleep himself. ‘I’m not as young as I used to be,’ he said.
‘Time works like that,’ I said. ‘You’ll get used to it.’
Dad offered Bec a ride home. ‘We can put your bike in the back of the van.’
She grimaced. ‘I want to stay, but I think I’d better go. Busy day tomorrow.’
‘Study?’ I asked, and it sounded like a whole other world.
‘Nope. It’s cosplay time this weekend. I have to get started on my costume.’
Rani was instantly alert. ‘What are you planning?’
‘I have this fantastic idea for a Sherlock/Harley Quinn mash-up.’ Bec tapped her false eye with a fingernail. ‘And I can use the red staring eye I’ve been saving up.’
‘You’ll knock ’em out,’ I said. ‘Go, go.’
Bec picked up her backpack. ‘Wait.’ She dived in and pulled out two boxes. ‘Rani said your phones had been taken by the Malefactors, so I went and organised replacements. Leon paid.’
I tried to remember how to get my contacts down from the cloud, a problem that linked to a whole ordinary world that I once knew. ‘New numbers?’
‘Afraid so.’ She handed them over. ‘They’re ready to go.’
Bec explained the features to me, then went on to use it to show me some of her cosplay inspirations. It wasn’t my th
ing, but I had to admit that these people took it seriously. The time that must have gone into some of those costumes.
I’d just finished farewelling Bec and promising her that I’d photograph her costume when Rani jabbed at her phone. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.’
‘It can’t be tragic news,’ I said, ‘not from your tone of voice. But it’s not good news, that’s for sure. Angry-making news is my guess.’
She growled. I mean, actually growled, before answering. ‘Commander Gatehouse has been rerouted back to Melbourne.’
‘Ah. The message you sent to the Company with the location of the Malefactors’ house kicked this off.’
‘She’s been tasked to take over my wardenship of the city.’ Rani swiped the phone so hard I thought it was going to break, then tossed it on the table. ‘I’ll be demoted to some sort of junior assistant dogsbody. Or even sent back to headquarters.’ ‘When’s she expected back here? When do you have to report to her?’
She paced the room, looking for something to slice up, I guess. ‘Tomorrow. Nine a.m.’
‘Wait. Wasn’t she on her way back to headquarters? Even if she got off the plane in Dubai or Singapore, it’d take her a day to get back here.’
‘So?’
‘But if she’s around for you to report to tomorrow, that means she never left.’
She stopped pacing. ‘She was always planning to take over.’
‘It looks like that. As long as you’re suspicious.’
Rani thought this over for some time, tapping the hilt of her sword in a way that would have made any ghost nervous. ‘It’s a pity I didn’t get that message, then, isn’t it?’ she said eventually.
‘What?’
‘If I had, I’d probably be duty-bound to stand down, or find a base for her or something menial like that.’
I grinned. ‘You know, I’ve heard that the entire network’s been having problems lately. Whole data packets have been dropping out.’
‘That would explain it. A shame.’ She held out her hand. ‘Can you pass me my phone, please?’
I picked it up and the screen sprang to life. ‘No lock?’
‘Please. I need to delete that message from Commander Gatehouse.’
‘Oh. Oh no.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t tell me.’
‘Don’t tell you what?’
‘Does Bec know this?’
‘Anton!’
‘You’re an Erza Scarlet fan.’ I flipped through the pics. ‘You’ve had this phone for ten minutes and you’ve already downloaded dozens of images!’
‘I had a back-up gallery on Dropbox.’ She snatched the phone from me. ‘Of course Bec knows.’
‘And she approves?’
‘Bec approves of any serious fandom.’
‘Yes. Yes she would. And have you, you know…dressed up?’
Rani deleted Gatehouse’s incriminating message. ‘I have been known to participate in cosplay.’
‘Oh. Wow.’
‘Bec and I are going to Supanova.’
‘The cosplay thing? In costume?’
It was with pity she looked at me. ‘Of course in costume.’
‘Can I come?’
She considered me carefully. Her hands were on her hips and one foot went into its tapping routine. ‘On one condition. You come in costume.’
You could have tossed three or four ping-pong balls in my mouth before I shut it again. ‘Me? Dress up?’
‘And properly. None of this male half-cos stuff.’
‘Half-cos. Sounds serious.’
‘Half-cos. You see it with guys who’ve agreed to go with their female friends. Their headdress will be fantastic, their facial make-up will be great, their chest and torso will be okay, then they lose interest. Jeans and trainers down below.’
‘You want me to go the full-cos, if that’s a word.’
‘Yes.’
‘And then I can go with you?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Deal.’ I stuck out my hand. We shook.
I’d work out the details later. It gave me an extra incentive to sort out a bunch of magical assassins and a homicidal phasmaturgist.
Ghost hunting was never meant to be easy.
CHAPTER 23
Rani was tending to the hilt of her sword with some electrical tape. ‘We need to alert the police,’ she announced.
‘Civil authorities? Not part of the program.’
‘Stacey Evans has a list of targets. We can’t protect them all. If the police offer them protection, then they might scare our phasmaturgist off. It’s not much, but I have to do something.’
‘You don’t like to see people getting hurt.’
‘If I can do something to stop it, I will, especially for those who can’t help themselves.’
‘I know how you feel.’
Rani snapped off the tape and glanced at me. ‘Perhaps you do.’
‘I see someone who understands what duty means, but if duty clashes with what she thinks is right…Well, she’ll try to do the right thing regardless.’
‘You make it sound easy.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen the struggle, but that’s good. Doing the right thing when it’s easy is okay. Doing the right thing when the choices aren’t clear, when the outcomes are dire either way, when the going is tough…Well, that’s the real deal.’
A small rough patch on the hilt of her sword was suddenly intensely absorbing. ‘That’s an interesting assessment.’
‘Um. I hope I wasn’t out of line.’
‘I’ll let you know when you’re out of line.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ I rubbed the side of my head. ‘You do, don’t you?’
I ran my hands through my hair and looked for a subject changer. ‘Hey, is that a new sword?’
‘Your father gave it to me.’
I gave it the old double-take. ‘We’re a bookshop, not an armoury. Where’d he get it?’
‘From a locked cupboard, behind a panel in the secret room.’ She unsheathed it. It was unornamented, with a simple wire-wound hilt – now complete with contrasting electrical tape – and a brass crosspiece. ‘I had to put in some work with a whetstone, but it’s sharp enough for now.’
She swung it a few times. ‘Is that the Aragorn move or the Legolas?’ I asked.
‘Aragorn. Viggo is the best.’ She sheathed it. Shnick. ‘Your father said it came from the Company of the Righteous many years ago.’
‘From before this split we’ve heard about, I’m guessing. I’m looking forward to when we sort everything out and I can interrogate him about that, and a few other things.’
‘Family secrets,’ she said a little sadly.
‘Let’s put that on the agenda,’ I said, ‘unravelling a few family secrets of your own.’
She turned away, with her action fairly and squarely leaving that painful matter aside. ‘Because of the way you’ve gone about your business, you haven’t needed weapons, have you?’
‘I hope you’re not suggesting that it’s time for me to learn. I haven’t changed my mind.’
‘Why not? You’ve seen how useful they are.’
‘True.’ And with Rogues popping up all over the place, swords could get more useful than ever. ‘But it’s a mindset thing with me. Remember the hammer problem? I don’t want all ghosts to start looking like ghosts that need to be chopped up.’
‘What about self-defence?’
‘That’s where running away comes in. If they can’t catch me, I don’t need to defend myself.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not a fan of waiting around until your Commander Gatehouse comes back with her reinforcements.’
‘I know what you mean, and I’ve been thinking. What exactly was Stacey Evans doing at Grender’s flat?’
‘Apart from killing him, you mean?’
‘Grender was dead when we arrived, but Stacey Evans was still there. Remember when we first saw her? She had an armful of folders.’
‘That’s right. I’m guessing that after she killed Grender, Stacey was looking for something. But what?’
‘Nice thinking, Sherlock,’ I said. ‘You think we should go and have a poke around?’
‘I’ll drive.’
We had to get to Docklands to pick up her car, but on a night that apparently had hordes of nasty imported ghost hunters scurrying around and Rogue ghosts all over the place, we had a dull trip.
Hooray.
Once we paid the humungous overtime fine, we buzzed through South Melbourne. I started to pick up on my Melbourne Guide responsibilities, but at Rani’s nods and murmurs, I changed tack.
‘I know nothing about cars,’ I said as we edged past the greenery of Albert Park. ‘What makes Aston Martins so special?’
‘They’re the best, that’s what.’ Rani grinned, touched the accelerator, then eased off. ‘How long do you have?’
She lost me after the first few minutes with her talk of eight-speed gearboxes and twin-turbo engines, but I listened hard, mostly to the enthusiasm in her voice.
I like enthusiasm, for just about anything. People who are apathetic about everything are hard going. Enthusiasm beats apathy hands down.
It was after one o’clock when we made it to Grender’s place. His street was far enough away from Acland and Fitzroy Streets to be quiet.
‘Too quiet?’ Rani asked.
‘A place can never be too quiet for me. I reckon I’ll be lying in my grave and complaining about the racket from the neighbours.’
We kept to the shadows and slipped around to the back of the property. Some of the flats had lights on.
Rani used her bracelet to get us through the gates that guarded the back stairs and then we were up to Grender’s back door and inside, seeing in the dark like cats.
‘The cleaners have been in,’ Rani whispered. ‘The Company of the Righteous is nothing if not efficient.’
‘I’ll remember that next time I need a murder scene fixed up.’
The place was still sad and shabby, though. The body had gone, and the carpet that had been underneath it, too. The floor was well scrubbed, as far as I could tell, but that was the extent of the crime-scene makeover. The trashed flat was still a trashed flat. Furniture was still overturned. Papers were all over the place. Cupboards had been emptied. Bookshelves heaved over.
Gap Year in Ghost Town Page 20