A ghost you wouldn’t want to stumble across even back when it was alive.
“Talk to me,” Jacob ground out between clenched teeth.
“Hostile—my visual is for shit—two o’clock.”
Jacob inserted himself more deliberately between the dead thing and me. I let him.
“You think I’m playin’?” Its voice was garbled and wet. “Huh? You think I’m fuckin’ playin’?”
It couldn’t actually shoot me with a ghost gun…could it? Jesus. White light.
My neurochemicals scrambled into fight-mode, and as they did, my visual came back. Still flickery. But this time, I was looking right at the spot where the thing appeared.
And I could see a bullet hole where one of its eyes should be. As I glimpsed the bloody socket, the wall behind it lit up with spectral blood spatter. Just for a fraction of a second. But that was more than enough.
I centered myself as best I could as I grabbed for a baggie in my coat pocket and tore it open with my teeth. Salt scattered down my arm. White light found the conduit I’d opened moments ago with Jacob, and mojo poured into the salt so forcefully, the baggie lit up to my mind’s eye like it was radioactive. I lobbed the open bag over Jacob’s shoulder…but as I did, Jacob sidestepped. Not only did he jostle my arm, but another surge of white light arced between us. The baggie smacked the brick wall in a burst of activated salt.
Did I hit my target?
No clue.
And now I wasn’t amped up enough to see the damn thing anymore.
Jacob scanned the area, and scanned again. “I think we got it.”
“You think? I’d know, if you hadn’t grabbed my freakin’ light.”
Jacob stiffened. Muscles jumped in his jaw. But he kept his attention on the task at hand: making sure no one went home possessed. Namely, me. I opened up my crown chakra and pulled. It might all be symbolic, the thing I do when I power up, but I’ve done it enough that it feels like a physical strain—one with very little outward evidence. Like holding my breath, or engaging my “core.”
We both attempted to see if we could tell whether or not the dead guy was still around. The temperature had normalized, and more importantly, I didn’t see telltale hints of ghost peeking out from between the bricks. The more my tank filled back up, the more certain I was that we’d exorcised the crackhead mugger.
Unless we’d only scared him off.
A pedestrian crossed the street to avoid the two of us—me covered in salt, Jacob stiff with anger, clenching and unclenching his fists like he’d pummel the next thing that crossed his path.
“We’ve done all we can do right now,” I said.
Jacob spun around to face me. “My name was in that book. I’ve got a talent. But what good is it if I don’t know how it works?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Really? And how do we manage that? Especially with you shoving me off to the sidelines.”
I cocked my head toward the store. “C’mon. Not out here.” Not in front of the ATM surveillance where God-knows-who was watching.
Jacob’s better at holding onto his anger than I am. As my adrenaline ebbed, I was already ruing the fact that I’d snapped at him. Normally, he could tolerate the random pissy remark. But his abilities were a notorious sore spot—and I’d just given that lingering bruise a good, solid kick.
We threaded up the aisles looking for something loud to camouflage our conversation. The old man who normally cut our keys was helping someone over by the nails and screws. But then I spotted some big metal rolls of chain you could purchase by the yard. I gave one a tug and it made a grinding metallic noise. And, bonus, we wouldn’t have to shell out any of our hard-skimmed cash to buy it. We could just roll it back up when we were done talking.
Jacob and I angled ourselves so the cameras couldn’t see our mouths. I gave the chain a few more yanks, then he rolled it back up. Over the clattering and clanking, I said, “Listen, we both want the same thing here. We’re on the same side.”
“I know.”
“I get that you’re frustrated. There are no practice ghosts, and spirits don’t sit around waiting to be exorcised at our convenience. They take us by surprise and they need to be handled on the spot, and there’s no room for trial and error.”
“That’s not it.” Jacob hauled on the chain and several yards of it unspooled, dropping to a loud pile at our feet. He stared at the chain pile for a moment, then said, “What am I?”
I touched his hand tentatively. Nothing jumped between us, and I gave it a squeeze. “We’ll figure it out,” I said.
Though how we’d go about doing that, I had absolutely no idea.
6
TAKING UP WITH the FPMP had felt like a pretty strategic move, at the time. Not only would I have access to all the latest and greatest in Psych research, but I’d be able to keep an eye on all the spies who used to be spying on me. Too bad none of these resources were any use in me figuring out what the hell Dr. Kamal had been up to.
A few days after the big ATM blunder, I was called into the Director’s office before I even made it to my desk. Right from the start, I got along with Laura Kim—probably because I was the type of hot mess The Fixer was just itching to put right. But once she found out she was a low-level psychic medium, our power dynamic shifted. Even though she was my boss, I was the only one who could tell her with any degree of accuracy whether or not she was blundering into a random ghost.
Laura Kim sees a lot of me. Not because I’m a particularly high-ranking agent, but because she feels better knowing her office is free from any stowaways of the dead variety.
Ghosts have their ways—they’re unlikely to just crop up out of nowhere—but given Laura’s position, I figure it’s safest to give her office a periodic scan.
We exchanged bland morning pleasantries while I poked through the credenza and gave her miniblinds a quick shake. “All clear,” I said, and then launched into a request while I was still on Laura’s good side. “And so, I was thinking, now that all the weirdness at The Clinic has calmed down, maybe Archives can dig a little deeper on Dr. Kamal. Has anyone looked at the microfiche—?”
“Vic? We’ve been through this already.” Laura took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Our talent is stretched thin as it is. I’m not going to allocate resources to investigating a closed case that’s not presenting any current threat.” She locked eyes with me. “Unless there’s anything additional that’s come to light.”
I knew full well Laura didn’t have the ability to read my mind—but sometimes she sure seemed like she could. “Kamal was at the forefront of psychic research,” I hedged. “If you’re keen on figuring out what makes us tick, maybe his original findings would give us some insight.”
It seemed like a great argument to me, but Laura plowed on ahead without even pretending to consider it. “If you want more insight into your talent, then start looking somewhere that might actually do you some good. I’ve managed to secure a few hours of time from Agent Davis today. I suggest you use it wisely.”
***
Special Agent Darla Davis rode shotgun with me in a standard black FPMP Lexus sedan. Darla looked more like some casting agent’s idea of a fed than an actual government employee. Her black pantsuit was tailored within an inch of its life. Her hair was a shade of auburn never before seen in nature. And her pointy heels could double as a lethal weapon. In some ways, it wasn’t a far cry from the Hot Topic goth chick she’d been back when we first met. Just more subtle, more expensive…and infinitely more authoritative.
The only time I saw Darla was when she was between top-secret assignments. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we were friends—she’d specifically asked me not to invite her to the wedding—but thanks to our shared experiences, we understood each other pretty well. “How’d you end up on Richie duty today?” I asked. “I hope you’re not being punished.”
Darla rolled her eyes. “Director Kim likes to keep an especially sharp ey
e on him, just in case. I suppose I can’t blame her. Personally, I can’t imagine how your Jennifer Chance would manage to find him from the other side, but if there’s anything we’ve figured out about mediumship…it’s that we’ve hardly got half a clue how it all works.”
“I guess. Still—not that I’m angling for your assignments, what with you running off to play ghost hunter every time some VIP decides their house is haunted—we’ve got a pretty good idea of our own capabilities.”
“And?”
I shrugged.
Darla arched an eyebrow. “And you wonder why they’d pick me over you for the high profile cases.” Maybe, back in the day, eclipsing me was something Darla would have gloated about. But although she spent her early career being overlooked and passed over, lately, she’d finally come into her own. “Politicians. I’m the ranking agent, so I’m the one they want. Lots of diplomacy involved, since half the time there’s nothing there to find. Trust me, you see the inside of one governor’s mansion, you’ve seen ’em all. Though it is fun to poke through their cupboards and closets under the guise of checking for nonphysical energy.”
“Energy that you could hear from anywhere in the room just by focusing on it.”
“Exactly.”
Maybe Jacob would do better to develop his mystery talent with someone like Darla—someone who wasn’t as dependent on their visual perception as I was. I didn’t always enjoy Darla’s company, but I did trust her. And she’d seen what Jacob could do first-hand when the three of us tracked down The Assassin together at the FPMP. Be that as it may, it would be careless to discuss Jacob with her in an agency vehicle where the whole surveillance team would be privy to my innermost thoughts.
Unfortunately, in terms of keeping anything I wanted to say off the record, Richie’s place was no better. Richie lived in a retirement home where all his needs were met…and where F-Pimp could keep an eye on him. The surveillance was in place mainly for his protection, but also to ensure there wasn’t a replay of the time good ol’ Einstein suddenly jumped three hundred IQ points. I could see the wisdom in not letting the guy just run amok. But all the surveillance definitely cramped my style.
We found Richie in the TV room watching a banal daytime variety show with a few well-to-do old ladies. Did they feel maternal toward him, I wondered? Or would they just keep their hearing aids set low so as not to throttle him for continually talking over the host?
Richie spotted us and groaned, “Oh no.” Melodramatic, as always. “It’s not time to fill out reports again already.”
“You used to be happy to see me,” I said.
“That was before you guys started writing your boring book. Now the only time you ever come to see me is when you need my help.”
Darla met my eyes and smirked. Glad someone found him amusing.
“Come on.” I cocked my head toward the conference room we’d reserved. “Let’s leave your neighbors in peace.”
Richie led the way like he owned the place. Heck, the FPMP had paid him so exorbitantly all these years, maybe he could have…if he hadn’t blown his money trying to buy other people’s affections with random gifts and endless rounds of overpriced drinks.
Like everything else at Richie’s care home, the conference room was ritzy. An urn of coffee and an assortment of pastry was waiting—and not the cheap-o donuts you’d find at a convenience store, either.
“This sucks,” Richie announced. “There’s no whipped cream. It’s bad enough that every time I turn around I’m answering your dumb questions, but no whipped cream? And would it kill them to have some chocolate sprinkles? I’m retired, you know. After fifteen years of outstanding service. That’s what Director Dreyfuss said. Outstanding.” Oh, I’ll bet Richie’s service stood out, all right. “It’s usually twenty years before you can retire, y’know. But Director Dreyfuss had them make a ’seption just for me.”
Was this how I sounded when I asked Darla why she’d been chosen over me for a mission? If so, I wished I could go back in time and slap myself. “Listen,” I told him, “I’m sure the coffee’s fine.”
“Even without sprinkles,” Darla added. She was enjoying this. Probably because she only had to deal with the guy a few scant times a year.
“The coffee shop on Irving Park got sprinkles. You have to ask for ’em special…but they got ’em.”
Obviously, Richie had some sort of ulterior motive for trying to steer us toward a coffee shop. If he absolutely needed sprinkles in order to function, the facility’s kitchen could probably dredge something up. I hate to admit to taking any cues from Constantine Dreyfuss—but in dealing with Richie, sometimes instead of trying to figure out how his mind worked, it was easier to just appease him.
And that was how I ended up in the world’s dingiest coffee shop with not just one, but two of my old cronies from Camp Hell.
I may be no coffee connoisseur, since enough cream will make anything drinkable, but I could tell by the smell alone that the coffee back at the home would’ve been a heck of a lot better than whatever they served here. This made me even more leery about the fact that Richie had asked for this joint specifically. Was there possession involved? Or maybe some non-human etheric entity pulling his strings? I was pondering all the stuff we well and truly didn’t know when I felt him perk up beside me…just as a cashier waved at him.
An extremely busty cashier.
Darla caught my eye and treated me to another smirk. I suspected it was only one of many I’d receive before the day was out.
Richie insisted on paying for our order—one regular black coffee for Darla, one regular coffee with cream for me, and one double-mocha extra whip monstrosity that made my teeth ache just looking at it. The FPMP would’ve been happy to pick up the tab, but Richie was eager to look like a big shot, so we let him pay. No doubt the tip he scrawled on the credit card receipt was outrageous. Hopefully, it would leave him in a less obstinate frame of mind.
Once we were all settled well out of earshot of the neighborhood book club, Darla and I consulted our notes. She was on a spiffy tablet. I still preferred good, old-fashioned paper—it made a more satisfying sound as I riffled through the pages. “On the subject of possession,” I said, “we’re trying to get an accurate idea if there are any preliminary warning signs involved that a medium could use to his or her advantage.” If it was anything like a migraine, for instance, where a brief aura preceded the event, it would give the victim time to act. I, for one, would appreciate enough fair warning to zip-tie myself to the nearest heavy object and toss my sidearm across the room.
“Possession of what?” Richie asked.
“Spirit possession.” I thought I sounded pretty patient.
“Why would you ask me about that?”
“Because you’re a medium.” That statement was met with a look that seemed too dense to be serious. “A medium who’s experienced an instance of—”
“Nuh-uh. Nothing like that never happened to me.”
Darla emitted a very lengthy and heartfelt sigh.
I pretended Richie Duff wasn’t already dancing on my very last nerve. “It might feel like a time jump—like realizing you don’t know how you got where you are.”
“I dunno nothing about that.”
“Or you might retain some awareness of what you’re doing but feel like you’re in a daze—”
“Nope. Sorry. Can’t help you.”
“Okay, how about this? Let’s think back to your last place of residence. You disassembled a television set—”
“That’s not a crime. It was my TV. I could do what I want with it.”
“Look, this isn’t an accusation. We’re trying to establish a baseline of experience—”
“It was my TV,” he insisted…and then he sent his big, syrupy mass of coffee toppling so it disgorged itself all over the table. Darla grabbed her tablet and I grabbed my notes—now christened in the upper left corner—while Richie feigned remorse. “Oops.”
“I’m moving to that
table by the window,” Darla said with only a modicum of disgust, as if she hadn’t really expected much from Einstein to begin with.
I grabbed a wad of napkins and joined her, leaving Richie to flit around the mess he’d made while the buxom cashier came over to help contain the spill. Gingerly, I blotted the edge of my notebook. “I don’t think he’s gonna give us anything.”
Darla considered. “I don’t think he has anything much to give. We want to find out what the precursor to possession might be…and maybe there’s nothing to find.”
Frustrating enough to make me understand, in some twisted way, how I’d come to be locked in a room with a dead body at the tender age of twenty-three. Seeing the people I’d known way back then always left me a touch maudlin, eager to devolve into victimhood and self-pity. Fortunately, I had more pressing issues than my pathetic origin story—and I suddenly realized that here, now, in this off-the-beaten-path location, I finally had a chance to talk to Darla without the entire FPMP listening in.
And hopefully, a chance to recruit her to help me get some answers.
“So…Darla…you read my report about the possession at Mid North Medical pharmacy?”
She flicked through her tablet. “That sounded like a real barrel of laughs. Non-physical entities?”
“Forget about the habit demons. What do you remember about Dr. Kamal?”
“Why? What did you leave off the report?”
For all that we didn’t spend much time together, Darla knew me pretty darn well.
I meant to make a negligent “oh, you know how it is” gesture—but only succeeded in thumping my plaster cast against the table, which very nearly left us with another coffee tidal wave on our hands. “What I saw when he was possessing the pharmacist wasn’t a hundred percent Kamal, because he’d merged with the entities. But what was left of him…it recognized me.” I glanced down at my notebook with its coffee-stained corner, which reminded me of another notebook—the one Sergeant Warwick diverted from evidence so I could investigate. The one with Jacob’s initials inside. “It got me to wondering…can you help me find out what Kamal was after?”
Other Half (PsyCop book 12) Page 4