“Did your district manager see this?” Ethan asked. To him, it was proof positive that there was supernatural activity in the grocery store.
“She says its a problem with the cameras,” Eddie said. “I’ve spent even more money having them checked out.” His hand wringing intensified. “I’m going to lose my job over this. I just know it!”
Christian clapped a large hand on Eddie’s skinny shoulder. “Have no fear,” he said. “We’ll take care of it.” He nodded at Ethan and together they made their way to the dairy aisle.
“Got a read on this?” Christian asked.
“I don’t think it’s anything dangerous,” Ethan said. “At least not purposely dangerous. There’s no menace in the air.”
“Good to know,” Christian said. He unzipped his duffel and brought out six black candles. “I want to draw it in and see if we can reason with it.”
Ethan led Christian through the store, finally ending up in the back where the meat was processed. The cold, tiled room carried the tang of blood. Beef and pork carcasses hung on hooks near stainless steel tables. “The tingling is strongest here,” Ethan said.
Christian eyed the sharp cleavers hung up over the counter. “Let’s hope this isn’t another poltergeist. I don’t want to be dodging knives.” Christian lit one of the black candles and used the melted wax to secure the other candles to one of the tables. Then he opened a small vial and placed a few drops of red liquid in the center of the ring of candles. “Pig’s blood,” he explained. “Works pretty well.”
Ethan held his breath as they waited. The tingling sense became a vibration which turned into a pulsing in the air that made his eardrums throb. “It’s here,” he said.
A sudden breeze blew out the candles. The white, vaporous entity from the camera appeared. Instead of focusing itself on the blood, however, it flitted around the room, toying with them.
Ethan addressed it first. “We need to talk to you.” The thing made a beeline for his face, throwing him off balance and into the side of beef hanging from the ceiling. Ethan grunted in disgust as he made contact with the cold, slimy meat. “Go back where you came from!” he ordered.
“This isn’t working,” Christian said. “Time for the shotgun.”
“Hold up,” Ethan said. “Let me try to reason with it first.” Christian shrugged and stepped back as Ethan moved forward. He held his hands open to show he wasn’t a threat. “What’s your name?”
A low moan came from the vapor. It raised the hairs on Ethan’s neck, but he stayed where he was. It was best not to let the thing know it had him spooked. “Can we talk?”
The door to the meat locker swung open, and the vapor flew inside. Christian immediately slammed the door shut and bolted it. “Ha! We’ve got it.”
“Not likely,” Ethan said. “Ghosts aren’t trapped that easily.”
Christian hurriedly dug through his duffel bag. “I’ve got something in here that will do the trick.” He tossed out several notebooks, a bottle of Gatorade, a clean pair of socks, and a cell phone charger. “Crap. I must have left it in the car.” He dumped everything back into his bag and headed out the door. “I’ll be right back.”
Ethan impatiently shifted from foot to foot while he waited. When five minutes passed, and Christian still didn’t appear, he put his hand on the meat locker door. Worried that the spirit was up to trouble, Ethan cracked the door open.
A fat man in a bloody apron sat on a box at the far end of the cooler. “You’re the ghost,” Ethan said, surprised. He’d never seen one so corporal before.
“I’m Phil,” the ghost said. “Nice to meet you. Or meat you.” He gestured at the trays of chops and packages of chicken.
A ghost with a sense of humor. Well, that was a nice change. “Why are you souring the milk?” Ethan asked. “Wouldn’t you rather pass over to the other side?”
Phil’s face sagged. He looked as miserable as a ghost could be. “Not until I know my wife is taken care of.”
“Your wife?” Ethan asked, surprised.
“Glenda. She’s flat broke and nearly homeless because the store won’t pay out on my benefits.” Phil moaned for emphasis, an empty, pitiable sound.
“The store…wait, you mean this store?” Ethan asked. He came closer for a better look.
Phil scooted away and crossed his arms over his face. “Stay back!”
“I’m here to help you,” Ethan said.
“I said, STAY BACK necromancer!!” Phil roared so loudly that the metal trays on the shelves rattled.
Ethan hurried back a few steps. “Necromancer? What’s that?”
“You! You’re the necromancer!” Phil was no longer the friendly butcher. His spirit had morphed back into the wisp of vapor which fluttered around the corner of the meat locker. “I will not submit to your spells!” Phil cried. His voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Leave me alone!”
“You’re confused,” Ethan said. “I’m not a necromancer.”
“You have the death mark,” Phil’s ghost insisted. “It’s branded on your flesh.”
Ethan touched his chest. How the hell had Phil known that? “What does it mean?”
“You’re a servant of Death,” Phil said. His vapor spun in a dizzying vortex. “Now leave me alone!”
“Just tell me what a necromancer is,” Ethan pleaded. “I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
Phil snorted. “I know your kind. You call up the dead and order them to do your bidding!”
“I would never do that,” Ethan protested.
“So you say.” Phil crossed his arms over his chest. “Never trust a necromancer. That’s my philosophy.”
The meat locker door banged open. “Don’t lecture me about my job,” Christian roared at Eddie. “You signed a waiver.” Christian, carrying an armload of water bottles, strode over to Ethan. “There’s always collateral damage when ghosts are dispelled.”
“Do you realize how much this is going to cost?” Eddie demanded. “All that meat you touched is going to have to be thrown away.”
Ethan was about to warn them to leave when Phil’s spirit dove straight for the store manager. Eddie’s mouth dropped into an ‘O’ of surprise as the vapor hit him in the chest. Christian immediately uncapped one of the bottles he was holding and doused Eddie with holy water. A shriek of agony tore through the room, and the vaporous spirit blazed like a comet before retreating to a corner of the room.
“Try it again, and you’ll get more,” Christian told the spirit.
“Stop!” Ethan said. “Don’t hurt Phil.”
Eddie’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “Phil? Phil the butcher?”
A meat cleaver whizzed through the air, inches from Eddie’s face. Eddie shrieked as the cleaver buried itself in the wall behind him. “Phil!” Eddie cried. “What are you doing?”
“He says that the store won’t pay out on his benefits,” Ethan said. “He’s worried about his wife.”
Christian opened another bottle. “I’ll get him,” he muttered and charged forward.
“Wait!” Ethan said. He wasn’t going to learn more about the necromancer thing if Christian dispelled Phil’s ghost. “I need to talk to him.”
“Talk?” Eddie demanded. “He’s bankrupting the store.”
“Sounds like he’s looking for revenge,” Christian said. He advanced on the wisp of vapor, but before he could throw more holy water on it, the wisp transformed into a gaping, hungry mouth. It darted towards Eddie, ready to take a bite.
Eddie shrieked and threw himself on the ground while Christian tossed the entire bottle of water at the spirit. “Get out of here!” Christian demanded. “Go to the other side where you belong!”
Eddie cowered on the tiled floor, his arms held tightly over his head. “It’s not my fault that your wife didn’t get the benefits,” he howled. “You were drunk on the job!”
“I wasn’t drunk!” the spirit yowled. It made another dive for Eddie. The meat cleaver shivered as it tried to free itsel
f from the wall. When it couldn’t, Eddie was lifted bodily and hung by the back of his shirt on one of the empty meat hooks.
“Stop!” Ethan shouted at the ghost. “Maybe we can reach an agreement. Eddie, can you see that Glenda gets the benefits she’s due?”
“Y-yes!” Eddie said. His face was deathly pale. “I’ll try.”
The cleaver finally freed itself and flew towards Eddie. Christian swung the black duffel bag, knocking the cleaver off kilter so that it sank into the side of beef rather than burying itself in Eddie’s skull.
“Don’t try,” Ethan roared at Eddie. “Do it!”
Eddie’s eyes were fixed on the cleaver. “Fine! I’ll do it!”
“Do you swear?” Phil’s ghost demanded.
“Yes! Yes! I swear!” Eddie pawed at his shirt collar, doing his best to wriggle off of the meat hook. He looked like a fish on a line. “Please! Let me go!”
Christian had another bottle of water ready, but Ethan shook his head. He wasn’t sure if the holy water sent the ghosts to the other side where they belonged, or if it completely extinguished them. He didn’t want to take any chances. “Phil, you okay with Eddie’s promise?”
Phil’s spirit once more transformed, going from mist to fat-bellied butcher. He floated over to Eddie who stared at him with wide eyes. “You aren’t trying to trick me, are you?”
“No!” Eddie said. “Get me down from this hook, and I’ll be on the phone to corporate.” The moment he promised it, his shirt tore and he dropped to the ground. Eddie scrambled to his feet and was out the door before anyone said another word.
Phil turned to Ethan. “You’re not too bad a guy for a necromancer.”
“My pleasure,” Ethan said. He was always glad for a peaceful resolution.
“No, I owe you one, buddy. Any time. Any where. Call me, and I’ll be there.” Phil mimed talking into a phone.
“You’ll have crossed over,” Ethan reminded him.
Phil shook his head. “Not until my debt is paid.”
Ethan suddenly had a thought “Wait! Tell me what a necromancer is!” But it was too late. The pulsing sensation Ethan had felt was fading. Phil had already disappeared.
“Necromancer?” Christian asked.
“It’s what Phil called me,” Ethan said. “Because of the mark on my chest.”
For a moment, Christian looked surprised. Then he locked down his expression by clenching his jaw and squaring his shoulders. He looked almost angry. “Let’s go.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Ethan asked.
Christian refused to reply. Instead, he strode to the front of the store and collected his payment from a very chastened Eddie. “I’m calling corporate right now,” Eddie assured them.
“You’d better,” Christian growled. He grabbed the check and went to his SUV. Ethan had hardly gotten into his seat when Christian stomped the gas and raced out of the lot, squealing his tires as he turned onto the main street.
“What’s gotten into you?” Ethan demanded.
Christian sucked in a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’m taking you home.”
“What?! I don’t want to go back just yet,” Ethan protested.
“This is for your own good,” Christian said. He nearly ran a red light in his hurry to get Ethan back to his apartment.
“Slow down and tell me what the hell is going on!” Ethan said.
“I’m giving you a way out,” Christian said. “That’s what’s going on. I never should have involved you in this crap. First Sophie, now you.” He hit his hands against the steering wheel. “I’m a fool!”
Christian turned into the apartment’s parking lot and slammed on the brakes. “It’s been great knowing you,” he said. “Sorry about…well, about everything.”
Ethan couldn’t believe his ears. “Are you kidding me? You’re ditching me?”
“Like I said. It’s for your own good. That tattoo on your chest? It’ll fade away eventually. I think.”
“You think? What the hell is it?” Ethan struggled to remain in control. Then a thought struck him. “Did this happen to Sophie, too?”
“Leave, Ethan,” Christian said. “Pretend we never met.”
“I’ve started this thing, and now I need to finish it,” Ethan said firmly. “But to do that, I need answers. So what the hell aren’t you telling me?”
“I like you too much to tell you that,” Christian said.
Ethan glared at him. “I can sit here as long as you can.”
Christian muttered something and rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Okay. But when I show you, remember that I did my best to talk you out of it.”
The warning sent a quiver of fear along Ethan’s spine, but he stood firm. “Fine.”
They drove back to Christian’s place in silence, and neither of them spoke as Christian led Ethan to the door at the back of the apartment. The door that he’d prevented Ethan from opening before. “This was Sophie’s room,” Christian said quietly. “I think you’ll find what you’re looking for in here.”
Then he opened the door.
Chapter Twenty-two
The moment Ethan entered the bedroom, he knew he’d entered Sophie’s realm. Unlike the rest of Christian’s neat apartment, this place was chaotic, as if it was a reflection of Sophie’s mental state. The walls were papered in her grim artwork, and piles of old books on ghosts and magic sat on the floor. On the dresser was a bleached animal skull and several black candles. Luckily, not everything was bleak. A few Pokémon plushies sat on the bed, and a collection of cosmetics lined the desk.
Christian lingered in the doorway. “I realize it’s a mess, but I didn’t have the heart to change anything after she died.” He folded a pair of jeans that sat near a brimming laundry basket. “I know it’s silly.”
“It’s not silly,” Ethan said firmly. He picked up another journal and noticed Christian wince. “You’re sure you’re okay with me looking through her things?”
“Not exactly, but where else are you going to get answers?” Christian put his hand on the doorknob. “I’ll leave you alone. Take as long as you need.” He shut the door.
The chaos in the room was overwhelming. Everywhere Ethan looked, there was a reminder of the girl who used to live there. The place even smelled like her. Bubblegum and patchouli, mixed with a little bit of funk coming from the dirty clothes basket.
Not knowing where to start, Ethan paged through the journal he held. The dates were from six months before. Wanting to start at the beginning, Ethan hunted around, collecting other journals that had been scattered around the room. There were eight in all. He put them into chronological order and then began reading the earliest one.
Sophie was more of an artist than a writer, but her observations were painstaking. Reading her diaries was like perusing a scientist’s lab reports. She’d sketched every ghost she’d ever come across, making notes on each one. Ethan marveled at her precise details.
She reported that she’d first come across a spirit at age six when she saw someone she thought was the janitor in her kindergarten classroom. Every day, he’d walk into her class room, smile at her, and leave. She’d tried to say something, but the teacher didn’t believe her, and the other kids only laughed. Ethan felt a familiar twinge as he thought of his own childhood. Unlike Ethan, however, Sophie actively sought out ghosts in order to understand them better.
Ethan sat in the desk chair as he read page after page of the journals. Christian was right. Sophie’s home life had been shit. Her father had left when she was a baby, and her mother worked odd jobs that barely supported Sophie and her two older brothers. Her mother also frequently left her children unattended while she went out to the clubs at night. Sophie’s brothers brought their friends over to the house, something that terrified her. When Sophie turned eleven, she moved in with Christian’s parents, but Christian’s parents moved to Florida seven years later, and she was once more on her own. When she met her bad boyfriend, she ha
d no option but to move in with him. He’d hit her one night when he was drunk, and she’d left him. Unfortunately, he’d refused to let her go and stalked her for months.
Enter Christian. They hadn’t been very close when she’d been living with his parents, but when he got rid of her bad boyfriend, she’d started to see him as a guardian angel. She’d drawn him in her notebooks several times, making him all bulging muscles and flowing, blond hair.
Ethan smiled as he read about Christian and Sophie’s antics. They’d stalked attics and basements looking for spirits. They’d exorcised ghosts from an old church, and had once found money that had been part of an inheritance, thanks to a tip from a long-dead ancestor.
Sophie’s connection to her otherworldly senses was a marvel. She never apologized for it or thought of it as a curse. She loved her supernatural power and had even drawn a picture of herself with a cape. I AM a necromancer, she’d written. As if speaking to the dead was an achievement and not an embarrassment.
Ethan rubbed his eyes and set the journal aside. Sophie had stirred up something in his chest, and at first, he couldn’t figure out what it was. Then it occurred to him. Pride. For the first time in his life, Ethan was proud of his ability to see into the otherworld. It made him special in a good way. His whole life, he’d seen himself as a freak, but after reading Sophie’s journals, he realized that he had nothing to be ashamed of.
He could have stopped reading there. In fact, he should have stopped there. At least for a while. But he hadn’t found what he was looking for. Sophie’s journals were more a daily account of her life, but what he wanted was information about Death itself and what necromancy meant. He reached for the next journal, number seven, hoping it would shed some light.
The moment he opened it, he knew that he was headed down a dark path. Sophie’s normally precise notes had become chaotic. I saw Death last night, and I woke up to find a tattoo on my chest. Something’s happened to me, but I don’t know what. She drew pictures of the Angel of Death, that dark, frightening shadow that had been plaguing Ethan for the past week. She’d also drawn the mark on her chest. It was exactly the same as Ethan’s.
Deadly Spirits Page 13
