Gheist

by Richard Mosses

  Kat looked at Amy for a moment. Amy was joking. She gave her best practised smile to show she knew. Even a few of the guys laughed. Amy battered her eyelashes in her best display of faux innocence. “And really?”

  “You’re taking on a casino. No one’s ever managed it. I’ve seen the movies. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?”

  It’s not easy reading anything in a ghost’s eyes, but Kat was sure there was something else there. Amy was telling a partial truth. It wasn’t the lie that worried Kat, she realised there was a hunger, a need, possibly even an addiction. She’d seen it in the mirror all too recently. The question was, what was Amy hankering for and if it would pull down the rest of them with it. She didn’t know the rest of her crew well, but she had been with them for a while. A new element, an unknown part, could throw the whole thing out. Vincent and Melchior were also recent team members but her spidey-sense didn’t tingle around them. Well, maybe around Melchior, but that was for different reasons.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kat. “I don’t think you’re right for us.”

  “What?” said Fingers and Amy together.

  “It’s taken us ages to find someone with the right skills,” said Fingers. “Now you’re just dismissing her.”

  Amy just shrugged again. The trademark affect of teen nonchalance.

  “I’m not dismissing her,” said Kat. “I really appreciate you coming to meet us, and maybe like a first date we should have done this in a public place over coffee, but…” And then she knew, she’d seen it in the mirror alright; after the tears over Billy had stopped, long before his body had been found, there had been the anger, the resentment, the hurt. The desire to light a match. “You just want the pleasure of seeing something destroyed. I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter. We have a very specific aim, we’re taking one thing.”

  “Look, don’t get me wrong, lady, but I’m just along for the ride. I promise you, anything I break will all be in the name of a good cause. Yours. I’ve got a pretty good range. I can go just about anywhere in this town. All I want is some help.”

  Kat sighed inside. Here it was, Kat solving the problems of the dead. “So what’s your price?”

  “I need you to do something for me. I need you, and I mean you, to hack into certain parts of the internet and upload a virus.”

  “You might as well have asked me to build you a nuclear power plant. I don’t even have a mobile phone.”

  “A what?” said Amy.

  “Fucks sake. A cell phone.”

  “Heh. Just winding you up. You’re too easy. I don’t want to destroy a casino. I want to destroy a file. One that has been copied and copied and copied and, you get the idea. I don’t have the strength to do it all on my own. So I need you to agree to do it. I’ll take you through it all, but you need to do the work. You don’t even need to do it upfront. That might be unhelpful to your quest for the loot.”

  There was something about her voice. Beneath the bluster and attitude, Kat could sense her vulnerability. “You’re going to have to help me understand this better.”

  “Not until you agree. Then, just you and me.”

  Amy was almost pleading for help. What was this all about? What kind of file was so important? “Fingers, you found her. Is she really worth this hassle?”

  “I think so, boss. She was pretty good in the arcade.”

  “Okay. I agree to help you, but you’ll need to tell me what this is all about. If I don’t like it, we go our separate ways, no harm done. Alright?”

  Amy stuck out her hand to shake on it. Kat did the same even though she just got a shiver for her trouble as Amy passed her hand through hers.

  This could turn out to be more trouble than it was worth.

  24

  “Melchior would like to see you,” said Vincent.

  “Is something wrong?” said Kat.

  “Melchior didn’t say.”

  At least it gave Kat a chance to try out her car. She’d gotten used to a variety of dashboards and gearshifts through borrowing vehicles. Now she could leave it set up for her when she was done and not worry about it.

  In Melchior’s sex shop she said hello to a skinny snake-hipped guy wearing small bird skulls in a necklace. “I’m here for Pink Floyd.” This could quickly start to wear thin if she had to do it too often. Maybe she should get her own dildonic key. Melchior was waiting for her, pacing across the floor. A brown bag sat on the coffee table.

  “You okay?” Kat asked.

  “Shh, keep your voice down.”

  “Danton bugged here now?” she whispered.

  “That’s not who I’m worried about listening in.” Melchior’s eyes darted up.

  Kat nodded. The other half.

  “I know we need to be more involved,” Melchior whispered to Kat. “Passive acceptance is what led us here. I’ve got you something. In the bag.”

  This was all very unexpected. She hoped Melchior, the other Melchior, would see that it wasn’t her that had encouraged this. “That’s very kind of you.” The bag crinkled as she opened it, the paper dry and rough. Inside were some cloth balls. Kat took one out. It was like a small hanky made of velvet, that had been pulled together around items, some soft and others hard, like twigs, and a piece of gold string tied the bag shut. It felt like a small shuttlecock shaped hand grenade. “What does this do?”

  “It should make your team, well some of them, invisible to the defence systems my sister set up. I’m sorry I only had a few materials.”

  “What if Danton has upgraded her security?”

  Melchior smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you there. This is all I could do. I made three. Some of the ingredients aren’t easy to find.”

  “Ingredients?”

  “It’s best you don’t know. And don’t open them, you’ll break them.”

  “I get it, warranty void. Thank you,” Kat said. “What do I do with them?”

  “Attach an anchor to the bag, doesn’t really matter what with, but I’d recommend something secure.”

  “That seems pretty straight forward. I really appreciate you doing this for me.”

  “I wish I could do more.”

  “Careful, I might take advantage of that.” Kat put the charm back into the bag. “Actually, do you have a computer I could borrow for a few minutes?”

  Melchior looked for a moment like something had been lost. “Yes I do. There’s one just here.” Melchior walked over to what looked like a flat panel on the wall and pushed it. It opened revealing a screen and Melchior retrieved a wireless keyboard from beside it. A familiar logo appeared and Melchior entered a password. “There you go. If you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare for my next show, and if I’m late, well, it gets noticed.”

  “Thank you, again.”

  “Our pleasure.”

  Kat opened a browser and did a search for Amy Duncan.

  She’d made it. Usually she wouldn’t get in the door. It wasn’t like there was a bouncer or anything but the social barriers were high. It had taken her weeks of practice using video guides to get her make up done right, her hair just so. The new clothes felt tight and she was still self-conscious, but she’d ditched the glasses for contacts that still felt like they were scratching her eyelids, and no one seemed to know who she was, but the boys finally wanted to. Girl geek done good.

  The homecoming party was just like in the movies, right down to a keg and red plastic cups. She was thirsty, so thirsty. There was even someone DJing in the corner. The music was good and she was gonna dance.

  Bobby kept trying to feel her ass and she was losing the strength to keep batting him away. She needed to sit down for a while. The room was spinning and she felt too hot.

  Maybe another drink. She swayed across the room and stumbled over someone’s leg. Maybe time to go home. But the music was calling. She had another drink. Maybe some air.

  The cool night hit her, and if anything she felt worse.

  The guys, the guys were here, they�
��d help. Who was it? Bobby, Brian, Jock, Westley with his phone pointed at her. So many shadows and shapes. It was darker here, where was she?

  Hands pulled at her clothes. The air was unwelcome on her skin, but her hands couldn’t seem to move to cover herself.

  What were they saying? The guys kept trying to put something in her hands, shoving it in her face. Fleshy, hard and soft. She felt sick, really this time. Something sharp and tangy was raining down on her. Oh god what was happening? She felt it rise up in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Needed air. Couldn’t. Help.

  There was a court case in South Carolina. Amy had been drunk at a party and collapsed outside, presumably trying to get a taxi. Some of the boys had followed her. They’d taken her into an alleyway. All the time calling her a whore, a drunken slut, a cunt. Laughing. When she started choking on her vomit they ran off.

  They filmed the whole thing. Then posted it on the internet for all their friends to see.

  Amy had died that night – it was a snuff movie.

  The two dicks were charged with second-degree murder, all of them with sex offences including creating images of sexual activity with a minor, the uploader in particular was charged with distributing child pornography.

  Not a single one of them was found guilty. And that video was still out there.

  Kat wanted to rage. She wanted to feel angry. Instead it was just cold empty facts she was faced with. The poor girl’s life taken by cowards. Why didn’t they at least call an ambulance, stick their fingers in her mouth and clear her throat? They were happy to try and stick other parts in there. Why didn’t they do anything? But clearly they had no empathy. As a drunken slut she was less than human. The court didn’t have that excuse.

  She couldn’t really compare her situation, although they’d both had things taken from them by men against their will. Kat did understand. It was crazy. Why did the dead get to rage and have feelings? They didn’t have hearts either. If it was all there in the body at death then perhaps that part passed over. The Ancient Egyptians believed the gods weighed the heart in the afterlife, to see if you’d been naughty or nice. It was the one organ they didn’t take out and put in a jar. That didn’t matter right now.

  Kat did a search for the boys. They wouldn’t normally be named, but the case was so sensational that it was easy to find out who they were. Curious. They were all dead too. In the two years since it had happened they’d variously been in car crashes, gotten electrocuted, had a brain embolism while playing video games, and one even had an unfortunate decapitation by elevator. All inexplicable fatal accidents. It sounded like a classic revenge from beyond the grave M. R. James story for the 21st Century. Someone should make a movie. Even if Kat could, she wouldn’t feel sorry for them.

  And yet Kat herself wasn’t going to go for revenge. If you’re gonna steal from a casino, might as well make it worth your while, right? Shouldn’t the Dantons get some payback for what they’d done to her? Was it the lack of her heart that meant Kat thought in some ways she deserved what had happened to her because she was ‘gaming’, because her choices got her where she was today? How was that different to saying Amy deserved what happened to her? Was Kat really in control of her actions, any more than Amy? She didn’t have to gamble, Amy didn’t have to drink. Both of them had had something taken from them without their choice, irrespective of how they got there. But Kat had borrowed money she didn’t have, she did steal that dress, all to get into the game. In some way she was complicit in the outcome. How would stealing more money make it better? Amy hadn’t done anyone any harm. She just wanted some fun, to fit in. Amy’s assaulters might have gone on to do some good, shown some remorse, or carried on to rape and inflict pain on others. No one would ever know. Death was a more final answer to a problem than lifting a few grand. They didn’t deserve to die, but Amy was a blameless victim. Kat knew she wasn’t.

  25

  Vincent, or rather Carlos, had dug out the old model of the casino. It was sitting on the desk in his office, with the whole crew crowded round. You could lift the roof off and see the layout of the rooms and corridors underneath. All in white card and slivers of balsa wood. It was easier to visualise than using Kat’s sketches and helped Vincent remember more too.

  Unlike one of the towering casinos along the Strip, the Inferno Creek Casino was almost flat. The highest point was Danton’s penthouse on what was the third floor in the central building in the ranch. A few high-profile guest rooms were on the floor below. The rest of the hotel was arranged around a large square courtyard at the rear of the building. The casino and other entertainment was on the first and ground floors below the penthouse.

  The power and utility buildings were outside and slightly away from the main complex in the dry gardens. Water was shipped in and waste taken away daily. Wouldn’t want to mix those up.

  Beneath the casino, on the ground floor, was a sub-level. A warren of service tunnels, the kitchens, security and maintenance, all discreetly out the way.

  Beneath this was the vault. Directly below the penthouse. “We’ve been able to do some discreet investigation. There are two ways in,” said Vincent. “The main vault door itself, opened by keys carried by three people, and a number entered from a small generator carried by the same people. The duty vault manager, Mrs Danton, and Danton Junior. It only takes two of them to open the vault on any given day. The keys have to be turned simultaneously and the key code entered within a minute of that. But most of the time the vault is accessed through the cage on the casino floor. Money and excess chips go down via an air chute and reserve chips are sent up from an automatic dispenser. A few times a day the vault clerk is let in to sort the cash out of the tube chucks and restock the chip ATM. Three times a week a security firm takes the excess cash to the bank.”

  “Excess cash?” said Jack, his eyes as sharp as his blade.

  “Each casino must keep a reserve to cover all the chips and slot machine pay-outs on the floor,” said Fingers. “Whatever goes above that, goes to the bank.”

  “You said there were two ways in,” said Kat, focussing on the essentials.

  “I never saw this myself and we should scout this out further,” said Vincent, pointing at the model. “There is a single person lift that goes from the penthouse to the vault. I think it goes to a separate vault within the main vault. I don’t know if there is a way to get from the cash vault, if you like, into this inner vault. I believe this inner vault is where the Dantons keep their special items.”

  “So I can get in through the grid, ride along their security systems, see what the cameras are picking up,” said Amy.

  “Even if you could travel that far from here, the casino isn’t on the local grid. It operates on a mixture of solar cells, a heat pump, and mainly its own gas-powered generator. At the time it was quite revolutionary,” Vincent smiled. “Telephone and internet is routed through a satellite link too. There are no hard lines between there and here.”

  “Okay,” said Amy. “I’ll get there another way.” A look of disgust and anger crossed her face.

  “Anything I can help with?” said Kat, taking Amy to one side. “You need me to move an anchor? Your Mum lives here, right?”

  “Been checking up on me, huh? Can’t say I blame you,” said Amy. “Still feels spooky. Although saves us having that chat as I see you understand what and why.

  “I don’t think going to my Mum will help you. Sure she’s got a couple of my shackles, but I don’t need ‘em. There’s something better, ties in with what I asked you to do. Just go near the location with a download of the video. You know which one.”

  “That’s your anchor?” Kat was surprised. What a horrible torment to be tied to that forever. And given the near permanent nature of the Internet it might even outlast some of the more physical anchors out there. No wonder she wanted it destroyed.

  “Most of us get to forget things, with time. I’m tied to something I can’t remember happening to me. But there it is, showing me what
I missed. So I can never forget, so long as it stays out there. I don’t care if I lose myself as a consequence.”

  “I promised I’d help,” said Kat. “Whatever it takes.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” said Amy. “Wouldn’t want you to be forever scared of using your straighteners again, would we.” Amy smiled like a shark, it made Jack look like an amateur.

  “What about the detectors Melchior told us about?” said Kat, returning to the model.

  “They’re positioned at major intersections and in key areas,” said Vincent. “The penthouse and the vault, naturally, but also the security booth, the casino floor where it enters the sub-level and a couple of the top-end bedrooms. I don’t expect they’ll pick up on Amy looking in, but we’re running blind there. It’s probably better to assume we can be detected.”

  “That’s gonna make moving around a little tricky,” said Clint. “Every way we go one of them things is covering us, unless we go through walls. That’ll wear us down. And I’m betting the vault is made of metal too.”

  “You can’t move through metal?” said Kat.

  “Yeah, course we can, sweetheart. The problem is it wears us out. A thick wall and thick metal is likely to cocoon us, or worse get us to completely forget ourselves,” said Clint.

  “What about meteorite iron?” said Kat, remembering Evelyn’s key and the metal bands in the cupboard and chest with the anchors in her room.

  “That stuff can really fuck us up,” said Jack. “No one’s really sure why. Just sends you straight into a cocoon.”

  “Cold Iron it’s sometimes called,” said Amy. “Good ward against fairies and other supernatural types. According to the myths. That’s why people used to hang up horseshoes.”

  “Surely they’re made from normal iron,” said Fingers.

  “It’s symbolic. Duh,” said Amy.

  “What about silver?” said Jack, flicking open his ghostly blade.