Ghost Magnet: A Haunting Urban Fantasy

by Lori Drake

  Jess shrugged a shoulder. “All in a day’s work.”

  “I’ll go get you an ice pack.” Lucy stepped around the debris and hobbled for the door. Sadie lifted her head and looked over at me, barked, then trotted after Lucy.

  “Did Sadie scare it off?” Jessica asked.

  By the time I sat up and scooted around Jessica to stand, my mind was made up. I picked my way across the room to the chair by the door. The bag I’d packed a few days earlier still sat there. “Maybe. No way to know for sure. I’m not even sure which one it was this time.” I grabbed the bag and returned to the bed, stooping to collect a few more articles of clothing from the scattered contents of my dresser on the way.

  Jessica watched me, lips pressed into a thin line. “Time for that trip?”

  “Not yet, but soon.” I unzipped the bag and stuffed the extra clothes inside, cramming in as much as I could. I had no idea where I was going, much less how long I’d be gone. “I can’t stay here, though. Not anymore. It’s too dangerous.”

  She snorted. “Like we’ve never had a ghost gunning for us. We can take it.”

  “This is different. This ghost—these ghosts—they’re not after you. They’re messing with me, and until I can figure out how to make them stop—”

  Her hand on my arm brought me up short. “Don’t we get a say in this?” she said, frowning.

  I shook off her hand and went back to shoving clothes into the bag. “No. Drop it, okay?”

  Not only did she drop it, she sighed, stood, and walked out of the room. I was fine with that. Pissed at me and alive was perfectly acceptable.

  20

  Cat took one look at me and Sadie standing on her back step and burst out laughing. I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about taking me in, much less Sadie, but it didn’t feel right asking Lucy to keep watching my dog, and there was nowhere I felt safer than behind Cat’s wards. It was the one place in town I could hole up and be reasonably certain I wasn’t putting someone else in danger from ghostly temper tantrums.

  I was prepared for any number of reactions. Surprise, indignation, outright refusal… I’d stopped along the way to pick up some chicken soup from her favorite diner to sweeten the pot and was prepared to charm and wheedle, if necessary, to get her to take us in.

  Neither proved to be required. When her laughter gave way to a coughing fit, she waved us inside and clung to the door to keep herself upright. I set my bag and Sadie down—proud of myself for not letting her get her paws wet on the way across the marshy lawn—and guided Cat to the kitchen table to sit.

  While Sadie tested the limits of the short leash I kept her on until Cat gave me the go-ahead to do otherwise, I set the takeout bag on the table and waited for my hostess to catch her breath.

  “Did Chris kick you out?” she asked eventually, flicking a glance between me and my bag.

  “No, it was voluntary. But I think he’ll agree with me when he finds out what happened.” I explained to her about the dresser-wielding spook and Jessica getting caught in the crossfire, watching as her expression shifted from curious to concerned. “I hate to ask, Cat, but can I stay here a few days? Just until we wrap up this investigation. Then I’m going to Mexico to try and get a grip on what’s happening to me. I wouldn’t ask if not for the wards… I know they’ll keep you safe.”

  “Of course, child. You’re welcome to my guest room. You and your little furry friend.” She leaned over and offered a hand to Sadie, who sniffed it before licking enthusiastically, her whole body shaking as she wagged her tail.

  I sank into a chair with a sigh, some of the tension easing from my shoulders. “Amber can have it, I’ll just take the couch.”

  Cat tilted her head. “Amber?”

  The tension returned. “She’s here, right?”

  “No, I haven’t heard from her since she left earlier.”

  “Someone tripped her wards. She was coming back.” I grabbed my phone and called Amber’s mobile. The longer it rang, the stronger the sinking sensation in my stomach. “Something’s wrong. She’s not answering.”

  Cat gave Sadie a parting pat and sat up, but remained leaning forward in her chair, her eyes intent upon me. “What exactly did she tell you?”

  When Amber’s voicemail picked up, I disconnected and dialed again. It gave me something to do while I thought back to our conversation. “That someone let themselves in to her apartment while she was gone, magically. Just like the killer let himself into Mindi’s apartment.”

  I fought the urge to throw the phone across the room when Amber’s recorded voice once again spoke in my ear. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. If only I hadn’t gotten Amber involved in this mess. I’d probably still be spinning my wheels, but at least she’d be safe. Instead, she was in over her head with a ghost she’d been peacefully cohabitating with for months and now… missing. Probably taken by the killer. Whoever the hell he was.

  I lowered my phone to the table with deliberate care and looked to Cat again. “We need to find her.”

  “I agree,” Cat said. “Do you have anything that belongs to her?”

  I pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead. “No.”

  “Breathe, child.”

  I took a deep breath, and then it hit me. “Trish!” I pushed back my chair so fast, it tipped over and hit the tile floor with a loud crack that sent Sadie shooting under the table to cower. I righted it hastily. “I think I can find her. I’ll be right back.”

  When I opened the back door, Trish was standing outside with fists planted on hips cocked to one side. “It doesn’t do a damn bit of good to go bellowing my name if you’re in there.”

  I slipped outside and shut the door. “I know, sorry. Amber’s missing. I think the killer might have grabbed her. Can you help me look for her?”

  She vanished.

  “I hope that was a yes!” I leaned against the door to wait, but she reappeared after only a few seconds, wearing a grave expression. I feared the worst, imagining a disfigured Amber lying in an alley somewhere.

  “I can’t find her. She must be out of range, or behind some sort of ward. I’m sorry.”

  I rubbed a hand down my face. Okay, so it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Or it was, and Trish couldn’t find Amber, not because of range or familiarity, but because the psychic was dead. I pushed the thought aside. It wasn’t doing either of us any favors, and I couldn’t let myself believe that Amber was a lost cause, that I’d gotten yet another woman killed.

  I turned back to the door, putting a hand on the doorknob before realizing that Trish couldn’t follow me in. A glance over my shoulder found her anxious eyes watching me, her fingers twisted together at her waist.

  “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to tell Cat where we’re going.”

  “Going? Why? Where are we going?”

  I sighed. “Back to the watery bitch’s lair.”

  21

  If I said I was looking forward to going back to Amber’s apartment, I’d be a fibber. If I said steely resolve drove me up the stairs without hesitation, I’d be a bold-faced liar. The truth is, my boots felt leaden; it was all I could do not to drag my feet. Only the knowledge that a woman’s life lay in the balance drove me forward.

  I hesitated only briefly outside her door, contemplating the folly of picking locks in broad daylight, but I was out of options. I slid the slim case from my pocket and went to work, manipulating the metal rods as swiftly as I dared.

  Trish practically breathed down my neck. I owed this particular skill to her ghostly instructions, actually, but I hadn’t been a particularly apt pupil. She once told me I had the manual dexterity of a sea lion. That may be true where lockpicks are concerned, but I’m also stubborn as a mule. I caught on eventually, and the deadbolt on Amber’s front door was just like the ones I’d used for practice.

  What I hadn’t practiced was picking locks out in the open like this, when I could be busted by any neighbor coming or going unexpectedly. Sweat beaded on my forehead, an
d I fumbled the picks several times, but once I got the inner workings of the lock to cooperate, the bolt slid in its housing with a satisfying shink. I hastily removed the picks and slipped into the apartment before tucking them away again.

  Inside, it was as quiet as—dare I say it?—the grave. The air conditioning whirred. The curtains were drawn tight, and none of the lights were lit. I fumbled by the door in search of a switch, but even though I found one, flipping it produced no results. The thought occurred to me, somewhat belatedly, that I should be careful about what I touched. This place was Amber’s temple, the one place she wasn’t overwhelmed by visions of lives not her own whenever she touched things. Then again, given the dire nature of the visit, I hoped she’d forgive the intrusion.

  “Are we alone?” I asked Trish. I couldn’t sense any other spirits in the vicinity besides Trish, but I didn’t fully trust myself in that regard.

  “At the moment, yeah.” She floated forward, and I followed her through the darkened apartment, trusting her not to lead me into any furniture. “What exactly are we looking for?”

  My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. “Cat said a hairbrush would be best. It should have her hair in it, which is even better than a personal object.”

  “Bathroom or bedroom?”

  “Bathroom, I guess? You’re the girl. You tell me.”

  Trish snorted. “Where did Leti keep her hairbrush?”

  “I— I don’t remember.” The simple truth of it hit me square between the eyes, staggering in its bluntness. She was slipping away from me more and more with each passing year. I could barely conjure the image of her face anymore; when I tried, I always ended up seeing Trish. Sure, there was a family resemblance between the sisters, but it’d never seemed so pronounced when they were alive.

  Trish curled her fingers around mine, grounding me in the present. “Let’s start in the bathroom.”

  I let her take the lead again, and we soon stood in Amber’s tidy bathroom. The light was better in here, on account of no curtains covering the narrow window high on the wall above the tub. The afternoon sun streamed in through the frosted glass, giving me more than enough to see by. Sure enough, sitting on the counter by the sink was a brush with a wide, square head. I picked it up and peered at it, pushing at the base of the bristles to see if there was some hair there.

  “Jackpot. Let’s get out of here.” I turned to go, but halted in the doorway at the sound of water sloshing behind me. My spirit radar was tingling all of a sudden, so I had a good idea what—or who—I’d find if I looked back.

  Maybe I should’ve kept going and hightailed it out of there. But the thing is, just because you aren’t looking at them doesn’t mean they’re not there. When I looked over my shoulder, Amber’s unfriendly neighborhood ghost wasn’t merely lying in the bathtub. No, she was crawling out of it like it was far deeper than it was, dripping water all over the tile floor. Her mouth yawned open like Munch’s screamer, but at least this time the only thing that came out was a sphincter-tightening screech.

  I brandished the brush in my hand like a crucifix and backed out of the room, not taking my eyes off the waterlogged apparition. “I’ve had more than enough of you for one week, thank you very much. Keep your distance, and I won’t send you back to the in-between.”

  I was bluffing, of course. I had no desire whatsoever to invite another banishing headache, not when I had an evening of rescuing Amber—I hoped—and bagging a magic-wielding madman already on my plate. But what Sandra Ellen Watkins didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me. In theory.

  Sandra crawled the rest of the way out of the tub. She continued her advance, while I backed in what I hoped was the direction of the front door. I jostled a side table, upsetting a vase of flowers. I winced as the vase thudded to the floor, scattering roses and water across the rug but fortunately not shattering.

  “Careful!” Trish said behind me. “This way!”

  I corrected course based on the position of her voice behind me. Naturally, my phone picked that moment to ring. Instinct told me to ignore it, but a number of possibilities flooded my mind. What if it was Amber? What if it was Cat? I fumbled my phone from my pocket and glanced at the screen. Adam’s smiling face greeted me, rabbit ears courtesy of his off-screen sister. I looked from the phone to the angry ghost chasing me from the apartment and back again before thumbing the answer button.

  “Yeah?”

  Sandra shrieked again and lunged closer. I skittered backward in response. Tripping over my own feet, I went down hard.

  “Is this a bad time?” Adam asked.

  Sandra pounced. Her clawed hands went for my throat. I swung the brush instinctively, clocking her upside the head with it. She shrieked again and vanished.

  “Kind of,” I said, scrambling to my feet. “What’s up?”

  “I got that info you asked for. Email ok?”

  “Great. Gotta go, talk to you later.”

  I’m not even sure if I hung up the phone before cramming it in my pocket. I gazed around the darkened apartment warily. The omnidirectional tingle told me that Sandra was still there, and I didn’t want to wait around to find out from which direction she’d come at me next.

  “I’m leaving, okay! Sorry to interrupt your bath or whatever.”

  The door flew open, and a wall of air shoved me out of the apartment with enough force that I hit the balcony outside and almost went over it. The door slammed shut, and I stood there clutching Amber’s brush in one hand and the balcony railing in the other, my pulse pounding in my ears.

  Ghosts, I tell ya. No sense of humor.

  22

  I owed Adam. I owed Adam big time. When I got back to the Jeep and checked my email, I had names, pictures, and contact info for every Whenever Fitness employee and member for the last eighteen months. I scrolled through the data, but nothing jumped out at me, so I drove back to Cat’s place while Trish returned to the in-between to see if she could rustle up Mindi. In Amber’s absence, Mindi was the only person who could ID the killer.

  After delivering the brush to Cat so she could work her mojo, I made a sandwich and took it outside to sit on the back steps and wait for Trish to get back. Inaction chafed, but there was nothing else I could do. So I sat there, watching Sadie chase a few timid spirits around the yard. Which isn’t to say that they were running from her, no. They’d just dematerialize when she got too close and reappear somewhere else. The cycle repeated. It seemed like a boring game to me, but Sadie seemed to be enjoying herself, so who was I to judge?

  When Trish and Mindi appeared, I put aside my half-eaten sandwich and grabbed my phone again.

  “Did Trish tell you what I need you to do?” I asked as I unlocked the screen and pulled up the Whenever Fitness roster again.

  “Yeah,” Mindi replied.

  The tinny quality of her voice prompted me to look up, and I blinked as I realized she was barely present. Her form was practically transparent, clinging to Trish’s much more solid hand like a lifeline. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hurry,” Trish said. “She doesn’t have much time.”

  My curiosity could wait. I motioned them closer and held up the phone. “Just tell me if one of these people is the one who hurt you.”

  Mindi leaned down to peer at the phone while I thumbed through the photos. There were a lot of them, but I only got through five or six before she gasped and put a hand to her pale throat.

  “Him! That’s him!”

  I turned the phone around to look at the picture and the associated information. “Are you sure?”

  When I looked at Mindi again, she’d grown considerably more substantial. She nodded vigorously and grabbed my wrist, yanking it up so she could look on the face of her alleged killer again. “Those eyes. I’ll never forget those eyes…”

  His eyes seemed mundane enough to me. It was the rest of his face that I would’ve expected to stand out. It was crisscrossed with scars, and I could hazard a few guesses about why he might be cutting on pretty wom
en.

  “He’s a janitor at your gym… You didn’t recognize him? I mean, the guy stands out.”

  Trish leaned over for a glance and made a face as she averted her gaze.

  Mindi’s ruined face contorted into a poor facsimile of a puzzled expression. “No. Why would I?”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. Guys like this were invisible to gals like Mindi. “I withdraw the question.” I tugged against her ghostly fingers’ grip. She blinked and released my wrist.

  “So, who is he?” Trish asked.

  “Chad Smith.” I plugged the home address listed for him into the phone’s GPS and zoomed out to get an idea of where in Seattle it was. It was south of downtown in an area I wasn’t particularly familiar with. I wondered if Cat’s tracking spell would lead there.

  Trish sat beside me on the steps and leaned over to see what I was doing. “You’re not thinking about going after him, are you?”

  “Um… that depends.”

  “On what?”

  Sadie bounded over and jumped up on me, distracting me momentarily. Her spectral playmates must’ve gotten tired of expending the energy required to evade her. She seemed perfectly fine with Trish and Mindi, for whatever reason. While I did my best to ward off the enthusiastic tongue-lashing she wanted to give my face, I looked at Trish again.

  “On whether or not the coven will let me go along, I guess. Sadie, knock it off.”

  Trish didn’t answer, but she did rattle her tongue piercing against her teeth, telling me she had an opinion about that which she was withholding.

  The door behind us opened before I could decide if I wanted to ask. I twisted to look back at Cat standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. Her eyes were sunken, cheeks sallow. “All done,” she said.

  I shot to my feet, tucking my phone away in my rush to help her. “Holy shit, are you okay?”