Give Up the Ghost

by Jenn Burke

  “You okay?” There was a frantic note to his voice and I realized I’d probably been in the otherplane for as long as I felt I was.

  “Tired.” I patted his arms even as I leaned more heavily into him. He guided me to a nearby stool and I sank down gratefully. “Sorry. Was more involved than I thought.”

  “The ghosts—the ghosts are gone?” Ben sat on the floor with Joelle at his side. His throat sported angry red lines and his voice was rough.

  “Gone,” I confirmed.

  Joelle kissed his cheek. “I can’t believe—” Her voice hitched. “He left us. That asshole.” She leaned her forehead against Ben’s temple. He cupped her cheek.

  “Where would he go?” Hudson asked.

  Joelle gave a tiny shake of her head.

  I let out a long, tired sigh. “Look, kid. That asshole ran to save his own skin. He didn’t even look back. Do you honestly think you owe him any loyalty?”

  “He’s going to change the world,” she whispered.

  “Ben gave us the whole spiel—ghosts as energy, isn’t it great, renewable resource, blah, blah, blah. One problem. Ghosts are people.”

  “But he said—”

  “Who? The bastard who just ran out that door? The one who doesn’t know shit about the paranormal? He’s like a fucking kid with his dad’s hunting rifle—dangerous and uninformed.”

  “Wes is a ghost. Sort of. You saw him disappear, right?” Ben said. “And they say that Professor Salzwedel has used his reprogrammed ghosts to steal something and—and kill his uncle.”

  “What?” Joelle whispered. “Kill his—”

  “A ghost pushed him into the path of a delivery truck,” I supplied.

  “Oh my god.” Her hand shook as she brought it up to cover her mouth. “He was so excited the night before last, when our reprogramming was a success. Even more so than when we’d first done it. He was...giddy.”

  “Did he say anything odd?” Hudson asked.

  Joelle shared a look with Ben. “The professor is always a little odd,” she admitted.

  “But that night?”

  “He was talking to something in his hand. I thought at first it was his phone, that he was recording something or talking on speakerphone. But then I got a look at what he was holding, and it was this old-looking piece of jewelry.”

  I perked up. “A brooch?”

  “Maybe. Or a pendant. He kept saying to it, ‘I did it.’ And, ‘Almost time now.’” She shuddered. “It was weird, but if he had—if we reprogrammed a ghost to kill—I didn’t know. I swear it.”

  “Do you know what he’s trying to do?” Hudson swept his gaze around the garage. There were bits and pieces of things all over the place—maybe they made sense to Ben and Joelle, but I couldn’t see how any of it fit together to do anything. “Beyond the energy source thing.”

  “I...” Ben paused, frowning. “I assumed that was it.”

  “But then why the reprogramming?” I didn’t even want to think about how Salzwedel had managed that—as far as I was concerned, that was a secret he could keep. “If he wants them as fuel, and he considers them things, he wouldn’t need to reprogram them for anything. He’d simply need to lure them in, trap them, and then...consume them.”

  “I don’t know,” Joelle breathed. “I mean...you’re not wrong. I just never thought of it that way.”

  So caught up in wondering if they could, she didn’t stop and think. Good god.

  Hudson turned to me. “So why, then?”

  “I have no clue.”

  “You said he needed more ghosts?” Hudson asked, and Joelle nodded. “Where would he go?”

  “Aurora House. That was our source. We have beacons set up to lead the ghosts from the barn to here. They’re still kind of working, even without the one in the barn itself.”

  Jesus, that was a lot of beacons. Aurora House was not anywhere close to Salzwedel’s place. “But he left all his gear.”

  “We loaded some stuff into his car already,” Joelle said, then wrinkled her nose. “Not the best work I’ve ever done, but the professor said they would do.”

  “Do what?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” she admitted slowly. “But I think the idea is that they’ll form a portal to bring in as many ghosts as possible.”

  Hudson looked at me, horror etched across his features. “He’s going to attract a lot more than ghosts, isn’t he?”

  “Shit, yeah,” I said tiredly. “A lot more.”

  * * *

  We parked on the shoulder of the highway near Aurora House and walked down the drive so Salzwedel wouldn’t hear the car. If he was even there. The barn was a dark, looming shape I could barely make out at the edge of the compound lights. As we got closer to the house, a figure rose from a bench on the porch next to a small outdoor heater. It took me only a second to see it was Kee. I’d called and given them a heads-up that they might have an intruder on the property, but had begged them to do nothing until we got there.

  “I think there’s someone in the barn,” they said in a rush when we were close enough for them to speak at a low volume. “I heard something banging around and I swear I saw a flashlight.” They did a double take at our companions. “Ben?”

  “Hi, Kee,” he said, giving them a wan grin.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

  “You stay here and tell Kee all about it,” I said. “You too, Joelle.”

  “But—”

  “Sit,” Hudson ordered, pointing to the bench. “Stay.” Then he marched off toward the barn.

  I trotted after him. We were going to have to talk about his tendency to command people like dogs sometimes.

  “What’s the plan?” I whispered.

  He cast a look over his shoulder. “Stop him?”

  “Great. Nice and vague. I like it.”

  “The cop part of me has been screaming what the fuck since Ben told us about the ghosts-as-energy plan. It’s wrong, so very, very wrong—but not illegal. Shit, it’s not even believable.” The frustration was evident in his voice. “I can’t arrest him. Not even a citizen’s arrest, because there’s no crime. So what the hell do we do?”

  “Ask him nicely to stop fucking with the planes?”

  “Sure.”

  “Really?”

  “I mean, my plan was to hit him over the head. Yours is much more polite.” He held out a hand to stop my forward progress. “Shh.”

  I froze, waiting, as he tilted his head to listen and tried not to pay too much attention to how the cold winter wind was cutting through my jacket and toque.

  “One heartbeat,” he murmured. “On the ground floor, near the back of the barn.”

  “Where Lexi fell?”

  “Right around there, yeah.”

  We reached the side door and I gently pulled it open, repeating don’t squeak, don’t squeak silently. The universe must have listened for once, because the door didn’t squeak. I waved Hudson to proceed through, since he had the night vision, and I followed close on his tail, my mind whirling as I anticipated the impending confrontation.

  I didn’t think politely asking Salzwedel to stop his experiments would work. But Hudson smacking him over the head wouldn’t, either—at least not long term. The last time we’d been in this position, the bad guy had been a murdering demon who tried to kill Hudson and threatened to kill Lexi and used me to further its own agenda. So yeah, Evan had been totally justified in killing its host body. But that wasn’t the case here. Yeah, Salzwedel was bad. Really bad. But it was hard to justify killing a guy who was murdering people who were already dead.

  There was a moral dilemma I bet the good professor didn’t cover in his philosophy classes.

  Hudson stopped behind a pile of construction debris and lifted up three fingers. Then
he brought down one, then a second, and I prepared to launch myself out to thwart Salzwedel’s plans. As his last finger disappeared, we leaped out from our hiding place—

  And winced at a very feminine scream. A flashlight swung in our direction and I squinted, trying to see past the blinding light.

  “Tiffany?” I shouted incredulously.

  Her scream tapered off. “Y-yeah?”

  Jesus Christ. She was the one who had been testing the electromagnetic whatsit at the Ghost Squad meeting. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Before she could answer, the door slammed open and Kee, Ben, and Joelle joined us. Once he saw it was Tiffany, Ben bent over and breathed heavily. “I thought—I don’t know what I thought.” Joelle rubbed his back.

  “Tiffany was about to tell us what the hell she’s doing here,” Hudson growled.

  The woman in question swallowed audibly. “I, uh... I’m doing more in-depth testing?”

  “Of what?”

  “This?” She held up her phone with the familiar antenna. “Professor Salzwedel said this was a great location.”

  “And did he mention you’d be trespassing on private property?” Kee demanded.

  “N-no.”

  “Well, come on. Let’s you and I discuss the concept of asking permission.” Kee held out their arm to invite Tiffany out of the barn.

  “Fuck.” I groaned. “I don’t know if he played us, or if this is a coincidence, but—”

  “He played us,” Ben said softly. “He had to know we might tell you that he’d come here. It’d be simple to call Tiffany and get her to come out here. She’s desperate to get good data for her equipment testing, and he’s got cred with the squad.”

  “So where else would he go for more ghosts?”

  “I don’t know,” Joelle said, and at my dubious look, she lifted her hands in surrender. “I really don’t. This was the only place we ever used. The beacon worked great, until—well.” She had the grace to look ashamed at that.

  “Would he try a building that has a reputation for being haunted?”

  “We tried the Don Jail once. There were some blips but nothing usable.”

  I’d heard that the old building was supposed to be one of the most haunted structures in Toronto, but I’d never visited it myself. “Other than that?”

  “I mean, there are a few places around town, but I don’t think he had plans to, uh, access any of them.”

  “Break in, she means,” Hudson interpreted.

  Joelle gave him a sheepish look.

  “So...what? What criteria would attract him to a potential ghost site?” Hudson looked at me. “Do you think he could have clued in about your...plane problem?”

  “I don’t see how. We haven’t discussed it beyond the group and he’s not even involved in the magical community—right?” I asked Joelle.

  “He learned how to draw a circle from an old book.” Joelle bit her lip. “I, uh, have an idea.” At Hudson’s nod, she continued. “Okay, so, a few months ago—before Ben saw the ghost here, and then I met Ben, and... Anyway. The professor was getting impatient and one night, he kind of...ranted about explosions and how they could thin the veil.”

  My breath caught. “Your house.”

  “His house?” Ben echoed.

  “Natural gas explosion there,” Hudson said, starting for the door. “It was all over the papers. Address and everything. Shit.”

  * * *

  Hudson drove through the predawn streets like the hounds of hell were chasing us. I hung on to the oh-shit bar above the passenger window and tried to remember that he’d been a cop for nearly forty years. Driving like a responsible maniac was part of the training, right?

  The streets weren’t empty—they never were in Toronto—but the thin traffic didn’t present much of a challenge. And luck was with us—none of Hudson’s former compatriots spotted our SUV as it wove toward Little Italy with total disregard for speed limits.

  Hudson pulled to a stop at the curb in front of his house, and the SUV slid, knocking sideways and bumping into the curb. He slammed it into Park and wrenched off his seat belt as I did the same. With impeccable timing, Iskander and Evan pulled in behind us.

  “Stay here,” Hudson ordered the kids in the back seat.

  One look at their wide-eyed, pale faces said they’d obey. Which was excellent. I didn’t know what we were going to find in the rubble of Hudson’s house, but I damn sure didn’t want the kids there to witness it. Or to be manipulated by Salzwedel into switching sides again.

  I dashed out of the SUV behind Hudson. Iskander and Evan jumped out of their car, ready to accompany us, but Hudson waved them off. With a pointed look at Evan, he ordered, “Protect the humans.” Power rang in his words.

  The order made Evan’s back stiffen and his eyes flash yellow. “You didn’t have to pull the sire bullshit. Jesus.”

  “Sorry. Instinct,” Hudson called over his shoulder as we approached the fence.

  Before I could slip into the otherplane to walk through it, as I had before, he picked me up like I was some blushing bride on her wedding day, bent down, and jumped.

  Yeah, okay, I made a not very dignified sound.

  He landed on the other side—because goddamn, he’d cleared the fence in a single leap, like he was fucking Superman or something, even with me in his arms—and held me tight to his chest so I wouldn’t feel the impact quite as hard.

  “The squeak was cute,” he said with a grin as he put me down.

  “Cute!” I smacked his arm. “A little warning next time.” I glanced up at the fence, noting its height once again. “That was...”

  “Impressive?” His chest puffed up a little.

  My lips twisted in a crooked smile a lot like the one he wore frequently. “Yeah.”

  There were footprints leading up the snow-covered driveway toward the collapsed garage and past the portable chain-link construction fence that had been erected around the two buildings sometime after I’d last visited. The owner of the footprints had ignored the KEEP OUT warnings every few feet. Hudson and I did the same, making our way over snowy lumps—bricks, wood, and other debris, I assumed—toward the rear of the property.

  Looking at the ruin of Hudson’s place didn’t get any easier. This was once Hudson’s sanctuary and now I knew that I’d been the one who’d wrecked it. Not on purpose, but the imp came through because of my magic, so yeah. I’d ruined it. My heart ached.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  He gripped my mitten-covered hand with his bare one. “Not your fault.”

  “Uh, kind of is completely my fault, yeah.”

  “It’s replaceable. You’re not. Evan’s not. I’m not.” He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. It plumed out from his lips, but without as much misty volume as my breaths. “It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t, but now probably wasn’t the time to argue it.

  Hudson’s eyes grew unfocused for a second. “I can hear a heartbeat inside.”

  So either it was some sort of animal taking shelter—such as it was—or Salzwedel. My bet was on Salzwedel, because even a stray dog would think twice about venturing inside the ruin in front of us.

  I slipped partway into the otherplane again since I didn’t have Hudson’s catlike feet and ability to be noiseless. A low buzz reverberated in my ears, but I didn’t know what it was, so I ignored it. Smart? Probably not, but I had bigger things to worry about. We picked our way over the bricks and beams of wood that used to be his home and squeezed between a pair of floor joists to enter the basement. It wasn’t as dark as Aurora House’s barn, thanks to the unintentional skylights, but still dark enough that it took my eyes some time to adjust.

  Arwin Salzwedel stood outside a hastily drawn circle—a circle that would have made Lexi wince, it was so poorly executed. A pair of devices leaned haphaza
rdly on either side of the circle, glowing ominously in the dim light. They barely resembled the finely crafted objects we’d found at Aurora House and in his workshop, which told me that these had been pieced together and put into use without the precise planning evident in other aspects of Salzwedel’s activity.

  Because we’d pushed him to act more quickly than he’d intended? Or was he...what was the term from crime shows I’d seen about serial killers? Devolving? Would that apply here?

  I’d ask Hudson but he’d probably scowl and remind me that real life wasn’t a cop show.

  Salzwedel himself was unkempt, with a few days’ growth of beard and his hatless hair sticking up every which way. Between that and the shoddy tools, I got the picture that he was desperate.

  Desperate people were the most unpredictable.

  As I watched, a ghost appeared above one of the devices—a flicker of a form, with a puzzled frown that morphed into horror as it got sucked across the circle into the other device. The glow on the second device increased exponentially, and with a sick twist in my stomach, I realized it had to be a battery of some sort. He was charging up something, to do something, but I had no idea what.

  From everything Ben and Joelle had said, Salzwedel wanted to use ghosts as a power source. He’d had a sweet setup at Aurora House, a lure to his trap and a completely remote setup. Why take the risk of staying on-site?

  Unless, as we suspected, the whole ghosts-as-a-power-source thing was bullshit.

  And it was a cover-up for something else.

  You know what? I didn’t need the answers right now. We just needed to stop him.

  Hudson nudged me and I nodded, knowing what he was asking. He stood up and in his best cop voice shouted, “Arwin Salzwedel, stop. Let me see your hands.”

  Salzwedel turned and sneered. “You can’t stop me.”

  “This is my property, and you’re trespassing,” Hudson growled. “We can do this nice and easy, where you back off and leave, or I can call in the cops and have you arrested.”