The Shadow Fixer

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Are you in control now?” Kirsten focused on his essence. Alas, he didn’t feel familiar, though seemed to be much older as a ghost than Dorian.

  “Yeah. It’s stopped.” He eyed the lash. “Is that thing necessary?”

  “As long as you stand here and talk to me, no. I noticed you didn’t kill anyone even though you could have.”

  The ghost gestured at the cubicles. “Yeah. Just breaking stuff to blow off steam. Not here to hurt anyone.”

  Dorian let go. “There are plenty of places you could’ve gone off without so many people in the way.”

  The spirit blinked at him. “What part of irrational anger includes having the reasoning capacity to select a safe place to destroy?”

  Kirsten almost laughed. “Okay. What’s your name?”

  “Nikolas Platt. With a k. N-i-k, not c-h.” He grumbled. “People misspelled it constantly before I died. I’m not dealing with it now.”

  “Fair enough. Tell me about the noise. Maybe I can help.”

  Nikolas again grabbed his hair in two fists. “It’s incessant, like bugs under my skin. Gets into my head. Usually, I walk off before it drives me nuts. Tried to ignore it today, but it invaded my head. Made me so damn angry.”

  “If you tell me what the noise is, I’ll try to stop it.”

  “Won’t stop,” yelled Nikolas, sounding manic. “Makes me feel things. Sad. Angry. Wild. I hate it. I hate it so much and it just won’t stop. Dragged me here. Don’t remember picking this place.”

  “Easy…” She released the lash and raised her hands in a comforting gesture. “Calm down.”

  Nikolas let go of his hair, his arms falling at his sides. He had the expression of a confused puppy who didn’t know why the human yelled at him. “Aethervein.”

  “Sorry, what?” Kirsten blinked.

  “Aethervein,” muttered Nikolas—before disappearing.

  “Shit,” whispered Kirsten.

  “Hey, the light orb shot into the floor.” Satomi pointed.

  “At least we stopped the rampage.” Dorian whistled while surveying the room. “Going to be interesting watching the insurance company try to wriggle out of paying this claim.”

  “Yeah.” Kirsten faced Satomi. “Please let your manager know Division 0 will need to document the effects of this attack.”

  Satomi nodded. “Okay.”

  “Dispatch, Wren. Site secure. Need an Admin team here to document the damage. It’s a bit much for me to do alone and I’ve got two kids in the PC. Can’t leave them up there for hours.”

  “Acknowledged, lieutenant,” replied Specialist Wiley. “Standby.”

  “Did you say children?” asked Satomi.

  “In Division 0, ‘take your kids to work’ day occurs randomly, sprung on us at the worst possible time.” Dorian flashed a cheesy smile.

  “I’m the only astral on the West Coast. Was on my way home for the day when the call came in.” Kirsten rubbed her forehead.

  “Ahh.” Satomi winced. “Ouch. Rough. I got the okay to send you video from our security systems. We have seventeen areas of damage throughout the building in varying degrees of severity.”

  “Great. That’ll be a big help.” Kirsten pulled her NetMini off her belt on the way out the door. “Might as well start with the server room over here.”

  * * *

  Kirsten pushed the elevator button for the roof.

  She’d briefed the five-person Admin team, giving them instructions to capture photographs and three-dimensional enviro-scans of all the areas affected by the manifestation. Tomorrow, she planned to return and interview people herself, but for now, she couldn’t make Evan and Shani sit in a patrol craft all night.

  A cool post-sunset breeze flooded the elevator as soon as the doors opened. Weak lights on knee-high posts provided the bare minimum of illumination needed for people to locate their hovercars. In addition to the area being mostly empty, snap-flashes of blue from the patrol craft’s bar lights made its location rather obvious.

  “What the heck is Aethervein?” Kirsten stepped out of the elevator, heading for the car.

  “Either a drug, a gang, or a band.” Dorian shrugged. “Nikolas mentioned music, so I’m going to assume it’s a band.”

  “The old woman from 29P mentioned music, didn’t she?”

  “Technically, she said ‘racket,’ which I believe is ‘old person’ for music.” Dorian chuckled. “Think some kids are blasting music too loud somewhere?”

  “Doesn’t sound plausible.”

  “I’ve heard some people complain about music being so loud—or awful—it could raise the dead. Never expected it to be literal.”

  “Bad,” muttered Kirsten past a smile.

  Dorian jumped at the patrol craft, but rather than go into it, he bounced off the armored shell with a dull thud. “Ouch. Aww… what the hell?” He slapped the door.

  Laughing, Kirsten opened her door and peeked in at the kids. They sat in the back seat, clinging to each other, both seemingly frightened. Bots shooting at the car wouldn’t have scared him.

  “Mom!” yelled Evan, scrambling into a hug.

  “What made you blockade the PC?”

  “There’s a bad spirit trying to hurt us.”

  Shani trembled. “It’s really scary.”

  “He’s gone.”

  Evan jumped back, pointing. “Behind you!”

  The look of pure fear on her son’s face caused her brain to summon the lash as a subconscious reaction. Kirsten whirled around and locked stares with a scrawny, vaporous apparition of pure darkness creeping up behind her. Shadowy claws on oversized hands, long, distortedly thin arms, a ‘hooded cloak’ shaped head, and nothing but a cloud where legs should be pulled a single word to the tip of her mind.

  Wraith.

  18

  No True Quiet

  Few spirits embodied wickedness in the way wraiths did.

  Kirsten swiped the lash at it without hesitation. The wraith zoomed backward, circling to the right and attempting to get to the patrol craft. She snapped the energy whip in its path, again driving it back.

  Shani squealed.

  Kirsten spun to look at the kids, fearing a second wraith. Evan had climbed out of the patrol craft. He stood right outside the door, smearing blood from a cut on his hand over the blade of the sword she kept stashed between the front seats. Spectral light glowed from the red stain, seeping into the metal.

  Dorian fired his E-86 at the wraith, launching pulses of spirit energy rather than a laser beam. The first one hit it in the chest, the next two missing as the creature raced around in a circle, faster than a human could run, going around to the passenger side.

  It fiended to get at the kids like a Lace head chasing a fix, though appeared somewhat torn between them and attacking Kirsten. She jumped up onto the hood and ran to the other side, swinging the lash up into the wraith’s path, warding it off.

  Hissing, the wraith raised its claws, caught in a mental battle between its need to attack the innocent and its fear of the energy radiating from her weapon. Dorian ran to the back end of the patrol craft and resumed shooting.

  The wraith rushed straight toward Kirsten, giving a keening wail.

  She snapped the lash at its vaporous body, meeting about as much resistance as swinging a sword into a standing column of water. For an instant, the inky darkness obscured the intense glow. Despite the relative insubstantiality of the hit, the wraith went flying off to the side, out of control. Kirsten chased after it, striking again and again, missing by mere inches each time as the shadow outpaced her.

  Grr. Damn thing! She pushed herself to run even harder.

  The wraith abruptly reversed, flying straight back at her in an instant. She shrieked in surprise, crossing her arms over her face. A blast of arctic ice washed over her, but the wraith kept going. Teeth chattering, she forced herself to turn, watching the dark spot rush headlong at the kids.

  Evan gave the sword to Shani and ran to the side, waving his arm
s. “Hey. Here! Leave her alone. Get me. I can’t hurt you.”

  “No!” shouted Kirsten.

  The wraith veered to the right, following Evan.

  Kirsten struggled to make her frozen legs move. Screaming like a Vakken Shield Maiden from the Monwyn world, she charged after the wraith despite knowing she’d never get close enough to strike before it reached her son.

  The sword flew in from the side, swiping through the wraith, peeling a six-foot trail of shadow in its wake out of the creature’s body. Shani waved her arm around, the sword swerving and dipping in response. The wraith looked down at itself, then turned its hood toward her.

  Shani screamed in terror; her concentration on Telekinesis shattered, the sword clattered to the rooftop.

  Dorian jumped in front of the girl and shot the wraith in the face, sending a small puff of black vapor out the back of its hood. Shani burst into wailing tears, calling for her mother. The wraith started to turn back to Evan, but upon seeing Kirsten coming, whirled to face her—too late.

  She swung the lash into the wraith’s torso, commanding the energy cord to coil around and around, holding and crushing the abomination like a hand squeezing an egg. The wraith flailed its shadowy arms, twitching and convulsing for three seconds before exploding in a flash of extreme cold.

  The interior of the patrol craft went dark. Hundreds of post-mounted lights on the roof parking area shut off.

  Kirsten stared at a scrap of ectoplasm writhing on the rooftop, a glowing pale-grey lump of snotlike ooze. She approached the fragment of a once-human consciousness, so consumed by malevolence they’d become a wraith. Similar to a poltergeist, they lacked full sentience, a mindless entity driven to destroy life. The amount of life energy they could absorb from a child tempted them like irresistible candy. Naiveté, idealism, and hope attracted them as well.

  She felt no need to bother Harbingers for such a creature.

  One final swat with the lash splattered the oozeling into a blast of ethereal smoke. The sense of obliteration passed by, this time without guilt of any kind. She’d destroyed a basic elemental form of evil, a dangerous creature, not a living soul.

  Where the heck did a wraith come from out here?

  Lights on the waist-high posts lining the parking rows flickered back on. Her NetMini beeped while rebooting, as did her armband terminal.

  Musical jingles came from the direction of the patrol craft. She looked away from the splat mark at the car. A pair of advert bots hovered by Evan and Shani, each one surrounded by a dozen holo-panels showing toy ads.

  Kirsten sighed and released the lash.

  At least Shani no longer appeared ready to wet herself, instead gazing up in awe at the toys on the screens in front of her.

  Evan mostly ignored the bot, staring at Kirsten.

  She walked up to him, eyeing the sword in his hand. He must’ve run to grab it after Shani dropped it. “Why?”

  “Just in case I had to stop it from hurting Shani.”

  “Why not get back in the car and put the Blockade up again?”

  Evan shook his head. “Takes too long. It would’a got us if I tried.”

  She pulled him into a hug. “You know I don’t like it when you cut yourself.”

  “Yeah. But it’s already gone.” He held his hand up so she could see it.

  His stomach growled.

  The advert bot bombarding him with toy ads switched to food, mostly fried things, nuggets, and so on.

  “It’s damn unnerving how they know people are hungry.” Kirsten couldn’t help but feel hungrier for looking at the tempting pictures. “Thanks, but we have food at home.”

  Both bots drooped, attempting to convey sadness.

  “Shan, you okay?” Kirsten brushed a hand over the girl’s head.

  “Yeah. It made me super scared, but it stopped. Just a mind trick.” She ground the toe of her sneaker into the roof. “Prolly gonna have a nightmare anyway, even if I know it’s a lie. I saw you splat the bad ghost, so I’m not scared of it now.”

  Kirsten ruffled her hair. “Good. Okay, you two. Hop in. Let’s go home.”

  “Are you gonna get squeezy later?” asked Evan.

  My kid was five feet away from a wraith he taunted to come after him. “Yeah.”

  “Cool.” He climbed into the patrol craft. “Me, too.”

  Kirsten got in, set the car to auto-drive home, and created another Inquest file to log the encounter with the wraith. Details in the report for this and Nikolas going on a rampage could wait. “Bleh. I’ll finish them later.”

  “Not like you have any idea who that was or why they showed up here. Nor will anyone, ever.” Dorian shivered. “Hate wraiths.”

  “Yeah.” She stared out the windscreen at the stream of hovercar traffic ahead of them, the sea of taillights mesmerizing. “You think the wraith might have heard this ‘noise’ the other ghosts are talking about?”

  “No clue.”

  “Do you hear any noise?”

  Dorian looked around. “Only the constant advertising jingles. And I do mean constant. There’s no true silence left in the city.”

  “The Beneath,” said Kirsten in a soft, wistful tone. “It’s quiet down there. I used to be able to hear water dripping… of course, I had a plastic bag for a dress and didn’t know if I’d eat any given day.”

  “I’m sure it’s quiet in the Badlands, too, but I’m not going to live out there to get away from advert jingles.”

  Evan and Shani hummed the music from the Kwik Kleen ads.

  Dorian fake moaned in agony. “On second thought…”

  The kids laughed.

  Kirsten closed her eyes, too choked up to speak at seeing them happy so soon after being near a wraith. Kids can’t imagine what it really would’ve done to them. Why did it show up here? The one time I’m reckless and bring Ev—no… he’s been with me before and no wraith showed up. It would’ve been here, anyway.

  * * *

  Kirsten ended up fixing dinner for Shani as well, since Nila still hadn’t returned from her call.

  A few texts conveyed she probably wouldn’t be home for a while, dealing with a bunch of psionic gang thugs and a hostage situation. After dinner, Evan and Shani cuddled with her on the sofa, both letting their guard down and clinging. The wraith had scared Evan worse than he’d let on. He needed some ‘squeezy time’ as he called it. Kirsten happily obliged.

  When Sam called, Kirsten apologized for missing a chance to have dinner, but he already knew she’d been sent on a dispatch. They talked a little about work, mostly ‘the noise.’ He mentioned some obscure references to unexplained ‘hums’ some people reported hearing in certain places, often attributed to aliens or secret government projects. No concrete information existed about what caused the phenomenon. He also mentioned ELF sound, or extreme low frequency. Theoretically, exposure to ELF could trigger feelings of dread, anxiety, or panic in humans and had been cited as the reason some areas seemed ‘haunted.’

  Of course, neither aerial hums nor ELF sound explained the sudden severe surge in paranormal activity.

  Later, after a Monwyn movie, Shani borrowed one of Kirsten’s T-shirts as a nightgown. Kirsten crawled into bed with a kid under each arm, neither one of them wanting to be alone after meeting a wraith.

  Kirsten didn’t mind.

  She didn’t want to be alone either.

  19

  Plasmahawk

  The following morning, Kirsten spent two hours at the Mayoshi Technology office.

  She ran on four hours of sleep, three triple espressos, and a mocha latte. Both kids had nightmare issues, waking her up—unintentionally—multiple times. Kirsten didn’t blame them, though by the time the alarm went off, she despised wraiths. The child who lived in a house she’d responded to last year with a wraith in it refused to even go inside, clawing the hell out of her mother when the woman attempted to carry her closer to the building.

  Considering neither Evan nor Shani ran screaming at the mere pr
esence of a wraith spoke volumes of their bravery. She couldn’t fault them a nightmare or four. Conjurations of the mind often proved far scarier than anything in reality.

  Still, it made for a rough night. Nila hadn’t gotten back home until three in the morning. She’d be collecting the kids after school today as they’d given her the day off to make up for last night.

  It astonished her the number of people at Mayoshi who’d seen Nikolas appear. She assumed he’d manifested on purpose to scare them out of his way so he could tear up inanimate objects. The handful of executives she’d briefed on the events of last night appeared relieved the company hadn’t been targeted specifically, though expressed dismay in terms of liability. This, of course, meant she would likely wind up in a courtroom at some point within the next six months trying to convince a judge ghosts existed when Mayoshi sued their insurance company for refusing to cover the damage.

  She returned to her desk in the squad room a little after eleven and collapsed in a heap.

  The clock jumped twenty minutes in an instant.

  Kirsten snapped awake and sat up fast, looking around in hopes no one noticed she’d passed out. Dorian’s soft snickering came from behind, but no one alive appeared to catch her. She probably wouldn’t get in trouble for taking a quick nap—after all, they had a barracks room specifically to allow people to catch a few Zs on long shifts. However, it would look bad for someone to be asleep at their desk if a high-ranking officer happened to come by.

  “Hey, Dorian?” She twisted to look at him. “You know the guy in Sam’s office who puts all that stuff around his computer to ward you off?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned.

  “Does any of it really work?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Why? Getting tired of me?”

  She frowned. “No. Absolutely not. Just wondering if there’s a good luck charm or something out there to give me some breathing space. We’ve had more 21-47s in the past three weeks than the entire previous year.”