Rattling Chains

by T. Strange

  “What’s this—? Never mind. Gimme a sec.” A clatter as Hamilton put his phone down without muting it.

  Harlan winced, pulling his own phone away from his ear and rubbing it. He could distantly hear Hamilton shouting, then another clatter when he returned. Harlan hoped the rustling he heard was a map.

  “Where did we find the first ghost?” Harlan asked, breathlessly.

  Hamilton sighed, but there was more rustling. Harlan assumed he was flipping through his notebook. “Hazelton, between Webster and Berryman.”

  “Mark it on the map.”

  “You think there’s a pattern.” Hamilton’s voice had lost all traces of boredom and now sounded utterly focused. It was a little intimidating to be the centre of that focus.

  “I-I don’t know. I just thought… I saw…”

  “The next was Elora Road.” A pause, more flipping.

  “Then Rutherford Avenue, and today’s was Ava Road.” No pause that time. Hamilton hadn’t needed to consult his notebook. A sharp intake of breath. “Holy shit.”

  “What?” Now it was Harlan’s turn to sound mystified.

  “Where are you?” If he’d thought Hamilton’s voice was focused before, now it was a laser beam.

  “Home. My apartment.”

  “Stay there. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He hung up.

  Swallowing hard, Harlan shivered. He’d heard something uncomfortably close to fear in Hamilton’s normally unshakeable voice.

  Twenty minutes later, almost to the second, Harlan’s buzzer rang. He startled, his heart racing, and a little frightened gasp escaped him, even though he’d been expecting the sound. He touched the response button tentatively, as though afraid it might electrocute him.

  “It’s Hamilton. Let me up.”

  Harlan pressed the button, and a few minutes later he heard Hamilton’s heavy tread. He waited until Hamilton knocked before opening the door. Hamilton held a folded map tucked under his arm. He pushed past Harlan without speaking and spread it on the coffee table. He sat on the couch, hunched forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  Harlan didn’t want to look at the map, didn’t want to see whatever had made Hamilton rush over here with it. The weight of dread in his stomach shifted, but his feet carried him over to the map.

  It wasn’t much, just four dots, but… They did seem to form a rough cluster in the southwest of the Greater Toronto Area.

  Harlan felt a chill when he saw that one of the marks was close to the park where he’d had his picnic with Charles.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” Hamilton said.

  Harlan shook his head, unable to look away from those four scribbled dots.

  “It’s only four. It’s not enough data to be a pattern. And no other mediums have reported finding any of your…wayward ghosts.”

  Harlan nodded. He didn’t speak—and neither did Hamilton.

  Chapter Twenty

  Charles took another sip from the bottle of apple juice Harlan offered him. They’d just finished playing and were winding down for the night. Harlan had spanked Charles while Charles jerked himself off. He’d finished with a drawn-out moan when Harlan commanded him to come.

  Harlan had gotten Charles cleaned up and tucked in, then passed him the granola bar and juice they’d stashed on the bedside table for aftercare. Charles reminded him, gently, that he needed the sugar just as much, so Harlan had eaten and drunk as well.

  Harlan was hard, but not desperately so. Spanking Charles was its own form of satisfaction. For the time being, he was content to press himself against Charles’ warm, sweaty bulk and just breathe in his scent.

  “I think there’s a serial killer in the city,” Harlan blurted, unable to hold it in any longer.

  Charles carefully untangled their limbs and propped himself up on one elbow so he could see Harlan’s face, his other hand lightly stroking Harlan’s side. He gave a soft huff of laughter. “Interesting choice of pillow talk.”

  “Sorry. Fuck, I don’t… I didn’t mean to say that.”

  Charles laughed. “Okay, now you have to tell me.”

  “It’s just… I keep seeing ghosts.”

  Charles snorted, and Harlan nudged him with an elbow.

  “I mean, I’ll go out to a scene, and there’s an extra ghost—the one I was called in for, and another one that shouldn’t be there. They don’t match any unidentified bodies or missing people, but I’ve found four now and…I just feel like something’s really wrong.”

  Charles raised an eyebrow, shooting Harlan an uncomfortably knowing look. “Have you talked to Hamilton about this?”

  “Yes! And…no.”

  “Mm-hmm?” Charles prompted.

  “He knows about the ghosts. He’s checked hospitals, morgues, missing persons, but…nothing. He wants evidence, and I can’t give it to him. It’s not that he doesn’t believe me, exactly, it’s just…”

  “You haven’t told him your theory.”

  Harlan shook his head. “I know it sounds crazy, I do, but I also know something’s wrong here.”

  Charles laughed softly, kissing the back of Harlan’s neck and making him shiver.

  “Well, I’m glad you feel comfortable enough with me to risk sounding crazy.”

  Harlan snorted. “After some of the shit you’ve seen me do, crazy is the best I can hope for.”

  “True.” Charles kissed him again, stroking a thumb from the crown of Harlan’s head to the base of his neck. “I don’t think you’re crazy. You know that, right?”

  Harlan nodded, burying his face against Charles’ chest to hide his blush. “…There’s more.”

  “Can you talk about an ongoing police investigation with me? I don’t want either of us to get in trouble—though handcuffs could be fun. Do you have any?” Charles offered both wrists.

  Harlan pushed them away, sticking out his tongue. “I’m not that kind of cop and you know it.” He couldn’t suppress a grin, but he soon turned serious again. “And technically, no. Hamilton knows about all of this, but he’s the only one. It’s not enough to convince him. Well, maybe enough to convince him, but not enough to start a full-on investigation. I’m just telling you about…my hobby. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Right. Well, what else?”

  “Wait here.” Harlan squirmed free, wincing as his Charles-warmed feet hit the chilly hardwood floor.

  Charles laughed, flopping onto his back. “As if I could walk after that! It’ll take me a while to get my legs back, so you don’t have to worry about me going anywhere. I’m at your mercy!”

  “Good.” Harlan blushed, smiling softly at the compliment as he left the bedroom to get the map. He unfolded it on the bed.

  Charles sat up, leaning against the headboard. “What am I looking at?”

  Harlan pointed at the four dots with a sinking feeling in his gut. Hamilton was right. It didn’t mean anything.

  Charles leaned forward, examining the marks carefully. “These are where you saw the ghosts?”

  Harlan nodded.

  “I don’t think they’re random.”

  Harlan had been picking at a loose thread on his comforter, and his head snapped up at Charles’ words. “You don’t?”

  “If they were, they’d be all over the place.” Charles tapped four random points on the map. “But these seem…clustered.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “It’s not just because you and Hamilton only work in this area, is it? You’re all over the GTA?”

  Harlan shook his head, then nodded. “I mean, yes. We work everywhere. I’m so glad you see it too. I was really starting to wonder if it was just me.”

  “It’s still not a lot to go on,” Charles pointed out.

  “That’s what Hamilton said.”

  “But…I wouldn’t stop marking them down, if you come across more.” Charles threw an arm around Harlan’s slender waist, pulling him close.

  “I looked it up,” Harlan continued, excited and encouraged. “And it said that serial kill
ers have predictable patterns, right? This guy’s probably based somewhere in here.” He pointed to the centre of the group of dots. “And this is his comfort zone.” He traced a circle with his finger that surrounded the four points.

  Charles stiffened, putting a hand under Harlan’s jaw and gently turning his face. “Why do I get the feeling you’re planning to search that area?”

  Harlan gave a guilty start, unable to meet Charles’ gaze. “If they need evidence to start investigating, someone has to find evidence. These people shouldn’t just be…forgotten. Lost.”

  “And you’re going to be the one who finds that evidence? Yeah, I thought so. At least take me with you while you’re out hunting a serial killer, all right?”

  Harlan shook his head. “Can’t. I can’t see ghosts when you’re around, and they’ll be my best clue that I’m getting close.”

  Charles sighed, letting Harlan go. “I don’t think I can convince you not to go, but please…just promise me that you’ll be careful.”

  “I promise.” And he meant it. His plan was strictly reconnaissance, to see if he could find more ghosts and track them to their source, definitely not to interfere with the kind of serial killer who left ghosts but no bodies. “No hunting. Just evidence.”

  A lighter topic occurred to Harlan. “How’s this for pillow talk? Why did you text me an eggplant emoji the other day?”

  Charles snorted. “That’s actually even better pillow talk than you realize, I think.”

  “Eggplant?”

  Charles’ gaze drifted down to Harlan’s groin and he blushed.

  “Oh. Eggplant.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Depending on need—and the availability of more experienced mediums—Harlan might work twelve hours one day, followed by three days off. There were no predictable rhythms or patterns to his work. It was entirely based on the whims of ghosts and the living people they inconvenienced. A large part of that inconvenience, for him as a living person, was simply travel time. It might take Harlan five minutes to dispatch a ghost, but it might also take him and Hamilton three hours to get to it, followed by another three hours back.

  He added two more out-of-place ghosts to his map—while working, naturally, not during his off-the-clock search, because that was how Harlan’s life worked. He looked for ghosts on his own and didn’t find any until Hamilton was around to be annoyed by them.

  Their locations fit the boundaries of the area where he’d been searching, the killer’s likely comfort zone. He hoped he could find enough wayward ghosts to fill in the map and then find a void where the killer most likely lived or worked and so avoided killing—or at maybe even find the murderer he knew in his gut was stalking Toronto.

  Find ‘evidence’ of the serial killer, he reminded himself. He knew Charles didn’t approve of his search because he didn’t want Harlan to get himself in danger. He suspected Hamilton knew what he was up to as well and was choosing to ignore it, but he also suspected Hamilton wouldn’t want him doing anything dangerous either.

  Harlan had done quite a bit of reading on the subject and watched a few true crime documentaries, which suggested that the best places to look would be abandoned or lightly used buildings—not many of those in the Greater Toronto Area, at least not for long—or single-family dwellings. It was hard to be an apartment-dwelling serial killer. Unfortunately, there were a lot of those in the space between the six dots on his map.

  Almost every day after work—or, if he didn’t work that day, as soon as he woke up—Harlan headed northwest from his apartment into his search area. Sometimes he walked, often getting much farther than he’d intended, because he was concentrating so hard on picking up on ghosts. When he felt up for it, he took the bus to explore the far side of the perimeter.

  He hated taking the bus—he didn’t see many ghosts while in transit, but being surrounded by miserable living people wasn’t much better—but he felt he had to do this. He was, however nominally, a police officer, and that meant it was his duty to help where he could. And he could help these ghosts by finding out who was killing them, hopefully preventing more deaths. If he were right.

  He searched as methodically as he could, marking off each building he could access on his big, paper map, circling the ones he couldn’t get close enough to be sure. In a way, it was like playing Pokémon Go…but with actual ghosts.

  He’d been chased by a dog once, and after that, he’d realized he needed to pay more attention to his psychic and physical surroundings.

  Spending so much time with his psychic shields down, straining to feel the slightest hint of a ghost, was exhausting. Between that and continuing to play with Charles, even being careful and considering both their schedules—not that Harlan really had a schedule, aside from usually having weekends off—he was wearing himself out. He knew it, and both Hamilton and Charles had commented that he looked tired—one gruff, the other concerned—but it was almost a compulsion. No matter how tired he was, he got on the bus or just trudged through alleys between shops and houses.

  He saw old ghosts—a woman in a long dress who stared at him silently until he left, a man in a severe old-fashioned suit whose nonstop crying eventually made Harlan decide he’d be better off searching elsewhere for a while, several factory workers with crushed limbs or skulls, eyes popping out of their sockets.

  There were newer ghosts as well—frozen transients wearing so many layers of ill-fitting clothing that he couldn’t tell if they were men or women, the occasional huddled, half-naked woman trying to hide her raw, rope-burned throat or gaping stab wounds, businesswomen whose ghostly forms were enhanced by eighties-style shoulder pads, with no obvious cause of death—maybe shame.

  Harlan released the ones who were willing to go, the ones who aggressively defended their ‘territories’, the ones he sensed were on the edge of going rotten and causing problems in the future. Dealing with them now meant he, or another police medium, wouldn’t be called out later because of them.

  He left most of them alone, and most were content to offer him the same courtesy.

  They all belonged, as much as any ghost belonged in the world of the living. None of them had the visceral, discordant resonance of the four ghosts he’d found where there shouldn’t be any.

  Day after day, street after street, ghost after ghost, and Harlan was no closer to proving—or disproving—his theory. He ended each cautious expedition with a mixture of frustration, relief and excitement.

  Charles asked about his ‘hobby’ often. He seemed genuinely interested in hearing about the ghosts Harlan encountered and relieved that he hadn’t found anything more frightening than bats swooping out of the darkness or more dangerous than rotten floorboards. He didn’t tell Charles about the dog. He knew Charles would prefer he stop looking completely, but he seemed to understand that Harlan couldn’t, and he offered what support he could.

  Harlan was tired, but, overall…pleasantly tired. Too exhausted for his usual involuntary night-time ritual of revisiting the day’s failings and social gaffes. He’d never slept this well or fallen asleep so easily as far back as he could remember. He started taking less of his bedtime medication, falling asleep faster and staying asleep longer, often sleeping straight through the night for the first time in his life.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “You can still change your mind, you know.” Charles leaned up to plant a soft kiss on Harlan’s jaw.

  Harlan nodded, absently. Part of him—a big part, perhaps the majority—wanted to give up here and now. But…there was a heat in his blood—part curiosity, part arousal.

  Charles tugged his arm, giving it a gentle shake. “You might want to try relaxing, then. You look more afraid now than you did the first time you came down here, and you knew there was a ghost then. Not that ghosts are exactly unusual for you, but still…”

  That startled a laugh out of Harlan. He made a conscious effort to relax, feeling the tension in his body now that Charles had pointed it out. He didn’t
know how to explain—maybe didn’t want to admit—that Charles was exactly right. He was more afraid now—terrified, even—than during his first visit to the dungeon, even though that had been one of the first ghosts he’d dealt with professionally, he’d still been overwhelmed by life outside the Centre in general and Hamilton in particular.

  The sight of all the bondage equipment, lurking in the near-dark like prehistoric creatures hauling themselves out of a primordial swamp, made him want to turn and run, and he knew it was ridiculous. Nothing down here would hurt him unless he wanted it to be so. And the plan was for him to hurt Charles. Consensually.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Charles chuckled. “On a chair, I mean. If this is freaking you out.” He nodded at the empty dungeon. “We could even have a drink, if you’re not up for playing.”

  Charles had stressed from their initial conversations about BDSM that—in his book—alcohol and kink never mixed.

  Harlan shook his head. This had been his idea. If they were rushing things, it was at his suggestion, not Charles’.

  “You’re safe here,” Charles rumbled, one large hand slowly kneading between Harlan’s shoulder blades.

  He was safe, Harlan realized, in a way that probably hadn’t occurred to Charles. Only the two of them were in the dungeon, and Charles’ presence ensured that they were truly alone. Or, at the very least, no lingering spirits would be able to show themselves. They could still be watching, but Harlan did his best to push that thought out of his mind.

  He tried to relax again, more successfully this time. “I want to do this,” he said, pleased at how steady his voice sounded.

  Charles didn’t say anything, but his grin spoke for him. He trailed his fingers down Harlan’s arm, catching his hand and kissing each fingertip in turn. “Let’s start with the spanking bench. It’s something we’ve done before, just…more.”

  Harlan nodded again, not trusting his voice to sound so steady a second time. He followed Charles deeper into the dimly lit dungeon. Charles stopped beside a piece of furniture that looked like a large, wooden stepstool upholstered in black leather. Not very intimidating.