by Brian Corley
“Oh, I’ve said what I had to say. I trust your friend Debra passed along my message?”
Wow, we’re really dancing around here with the rejoinders. Oh well, why stop now?
“What happens if I don’t want to go?”
“Then I do to Max what I did to you—only worse,” he shot back. The men behind him smiled and shifted their weight back and forth—they looked ready for a fight.
“Worse? You killed me—not sure how you’re going to do much worse. Plus, I’m not sure if you remember, but that didn’t exactly work out for you.” I looked back at the house. “Do you really want both of us chasing you around this plane forever?”
He smirked. “I will admit, you initially managed to gain the upper hand on me, but I have learned a thing or two since we last met. You’re not the only one in this town who’s found himself a supernatural advisor.”
Willard looked pleased with himself, and the guys behind him laughed.
“One of those guys is training you?” I said, scrunching my face. “Look, man, I’m not here to tell you how to go about getting advice, but you can probably do better than any one of those guys. Especially him.” I pointed to the big guy—he seemed to take things personally, and I was kind of pissed off and looking to share the feeling.
Willard blinked. “No—these men are here to assist me.” He looked back at them and said, “You don’t actually think I would take advice from any of these—”
“No offense, I’m sure, gentlemen,” I interjected on Willard’s behalf. “Look, it’s been great catching up here and all, but I’m a little sick of dealing with you and your threats, Willard. I’m getting a little tired of you three as well. I thought we had a deal.”
I gave the guys an exasperated look and held my hands out. I got a couple raised eyebrows and one case of affirmative head nodding.
“Fine then,” Willard said.
He bent down and ghosted a small loose piece of concrete or rock from the road and flicked it at me. It grew as it closed the distance between us and was the size of a bowling ball by the time it reached my chest. I was so fascinated by the process that I forgot to try to dodge it. It connected and flung me back against the house where I bounced off it hard and into the flower bed. It hurt—real bad.
I stood up slowly and tried to mask how much pain I was in while wiping myself down, then stopped to realize there was no dirt for me to wipe off—man, I needed to break that habit.
“Neat trick,” I winced. “Where’d you learn that?”
“Actually, that one I learned from you.” He looked me up and down, taking a beat. “We’ve been watching you for weeks,” he said with a satisfied look on an increasingly punchable face.
“Then you’ll just love this.”
I yelled through gritted teeth as I grew a comically large fist at least twice the size of my body and threw it against the four figures in front of me in a type of right hook that sent the three goons careening down the street and out of sight, while only knocking Willard a block or so away—not that I should be disappointed with knocking someone down the block.
I picked up the bowling-ball-sized piece of street that Willard hurled at me earlier and sauntered his direction, tossing it back and forth between my hands like it had the weight of a pink rubber bouncy ball. This time it was Willard’s turn to get up slowly as I saw three figures running back toward us in the distance.
“Catch,” I said as I threw the chunk of rock in a high arc toward him.
Willard looked up at the chunk as it hit the height of its parabolic momentum and descended toward him. He steadied his body to catch it as it loomed larger and larger the closer it got to him. It overtook him with a cross between a loud clank and a boom as a hilariously large, oversized anvil landed on him and drove him into the ground—or encased him—I’m not sure which actually.
One minute he was there, trying to catch it, and the next he was completely obscured by something I copped straight out of a cartoon. I floated up to get a better view of the scene and saw Willard’s goons hightailing it north as though they were one ghostly comet.
Two hands shot up out of the concrete as Willard gracelessly pulled himself from whatever spiritual indentation the anvil had made. He wobbled to his feet and glared at me, swaying.
“I’ll be back tomorrow night. This isn’t over, Jonah.”
“It should be,” I shot back before he could blink out to wherever he went.
He was gone, and I guessed we were safe for another night. I floated back down and walked back inside to meet the team and come up with a plan.
Chapter 26
I phased through the front door to sandalwood-smelling smoke filling the living room as the speakers played Miles Davis’ “So What.” A Psy-kick was stationed at each of the front windows in the living room, both facing toward the door in such a way that they were half-looking out and half-looking in. Zoe stood about eight feet away from the front door with her peach sword at the ready in case the moment called for her to swing into action. I could tell she saw a figure through the smoke as she crouched into an aggressive stance, the palm of her left hand flat and pushing out as her arm extended, sword in her right arm arcing above her head like a scorpion ready to strike.
I put my arms up, hoping the smoke would outline my surrender.
“Whoa—whoa, it’s just me,” I said, crackling through the speakers of four small handheld radios distributed around the room.
Zoe relaxed as did the other two Psy-kicks by the windows—I had to get their names, although by now, it was just embarrassing that I didn’t know them. Hopefully someone would address them by name sometime soon, and I could learn them. Until then, “hey you” and “aww you” were going to have to do for my interactions with them.
Zoe straightened up and shook out her arms. “It’s OK. It’s just Jonah—we’re fine,” she said, turning on her heel and heading toward the kitchen. The rest of the group emerged from different rooms where they’d been keeping watch.
“I’m fine, yes. Thank you for asking,” I said as I floated into the kitchen.
“Glad you’re OK, buddy,” Max said as he walked over to a two-foot-tall travel thermos. He grabbed a mug off the counter, looked it over, and asked, “Is this one mine?”
He looked around the room for some sort of protest. When none came, he unscrewed the lid of the thermos and poured himself a cup. Max leaned against the counter and took a sip.
“It was mine,” Tammy exclaimed. “Now we’ve kissed.”
Max rolled his eyes and toasted the air with his mug. “Hope you don’t mind the herpes,” he mumbled.
The rest of the group filed in and assumed different positions around the kitchen. Lin, Quinton, and Tammy took seats around the table while Debra helped herself to a cinnamon roll. Max pointed at some of the empty mugs and mimed “which one is yours?” with the use of his eyebrows and his free right hand. He poured her a cup as soon as she indicated which one was hers.
Zoe walked over to the dry-erase board on the fridge and pulled down the long sleeve of her shirt over her hand to smudge out the previous items on the “To-Do” checklist. She pulled the black dry-erase pen out of its holster and cleared her throat to get the room’s attention.
“So, Jonah, you want to bring us up to speed on what went down out there?” she asked, ceding me the floor.
“Wait, before you fill us in, Jonah,” said Max, “I just wanted to say for the record that I don’t, in fact, have herpes.”
Max looked everyone in the eye individually to make sure they understood.
I filled the room in on what happened with Willard and the three goons—maybe embellishing things a bit to make myself look good—and finished with the thought that even though I was able to handle the four spirits tonight, they would be back tomorrow night—probably with reinforcements.
“OK,” Zoe
responded as she paced over to the kitchen table, looking up at the ceiling in thought while tapping the dry-erase marker against her leg. Her free hand braced her weight against the back of Quinton’s chair at the table. “OK, so here’s what we know: we had four spirits here tonight, and Jonah was able to keep them at bay. There is at least one other that is probably stronger than Willard since he mentioned he had a mentor. At a minimum, we’re dealing with five spirits tomorrow night, possibly more. Jonah, how many do you think you can handle at one time?”
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking about it. “Given what I’ve dealt with so far, I could probably handle two or three more without much of an issue, I guess.”
“OK, so let’s think through what happens if you’re overwhelmed. I propose that you retreat to the house through the front door.”
“Why the front door?” I asked.
“One, it will probably be easily accessible given where tonight’s confrontation occurred. I believe their M.O. to be one of intimidation, so I don’t anticipate any type of sneak attack. Two, spirits need to enter through a threshold of some sort—like a door or a window. We can block the other door and windows by replacing the trim with peach-tree wood. We’ve been stockpiling some at the shop for something like this … for this or for an add-on sale to ensure spirits stay out of our customer’s houses for good—maybe as a prevention method for people that don’t have a problem with spirits, but would like some insurance against them.”
“That was my idea,” Max interjected with a raised hand. “Gotta expand that customer base, you know? There are only so many malevolent spirits out there.”
Zoe closed her eyes and motioned with her hands as though she were pushing down energy. “That was Max’s idea,” she said through slightly clenched teeth as she focused back in. “Quinton has been working on a few other swords in his downtime, so there should be enough to go around tomorrow night. We’ll make sure the house is full of incense to try to contain the action to this room as much as we can.
“We’ll clear the living room of furniture, set up our spirit-attracting incense bundles in here. Jonah, you’ll head to your room, which we’ll clear out as well and fill with the attracting-incense bundles. Every other room we’ll double down with the repelling bundles to make sure we focus the fight here.
“Jonah, we’ll need you to confirm you’re safely in your room and we’ll position two from the team in front of your door while nailing a piece of peach-wood trim to the top of the doorframe as soon as you’re in. From there, we’re free to fight back whoever pursues you through the front door. Are there any questions?”
“I don’t think the only ways in are through windows and doors. I go up through the roof here all the time. I’ve also left the Paramount downtown like that as well,” I offered.
“That makes sense though. This is your house, and there may be different boundaries in play if you’re behind or going into your own threshold. The Paramount downtown is a public space, so it doesn’t really have a threshold so to speak,” she replied.
“This was Willard’s house too though. Wouldn’t he be under the same set of rules as I am?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think he has a hold on this place anymore since he left. Max is the current owner of the dwelling, and I think your relationship is feeding the threshold now.”
“OK, that makes sense,” I said.
Debra raised her hand. “Do I get a sword?”
Zoe softened. “Debra, you’ve been brilliant, but we need you to sit this one out. It could get chaotic tomorrow night, but we’ve been practicing for this as a group for some time now—well, not for this specific moment, but how to handle ourselves in tight quarters during combat. We may be battling spirits with wooden swords, but believe me—you’ll feel it if one of these things connects at full swing.”
Zoe shifted her attention to Quinton. “Quinton, can you make sure to set up Debra’s house with the peach-wood trim as well?”
Quinton gave her a quick nod, while Debra’s lips pursed.
“I just hate to have to sit this out,” she said. “I’ll at least get my friends together to send some fair fortune your way.”
“Thanks, Debra, we appreciate it,” I replied. “I … uh … I wonder how he managed to find you. He seems to have access to a lot of information.”
Debra cleared her throat, gathered her thoughts, and said, “We shared a consciousness—twice now—if only briefly. You come away with certain insights about the other person after that. It’s possible that he found me that way.”
“Anything you can tell us about him?” I asked.
“He’s complex,” she started. “He simultaneously thinks he’s the greatest guy in the world while also completely worthless. He wants people to respect him, but he doesn’t respect himself. I also got a distinct impression that he knows something we don’t, and that excites him. He feels like he has the upper hand in this situation.”
That made a lot of sense, actually. Hell, I could identify with that. Willard came off to me as someone who was deeply insecure, and his projection of superiority probably fed off the inferiority complex as a coping mechanism. There seemed to be a new sense of confidence tonight though, and that didn’t feel like a put-on.
I thought back to the last few times I’d run into him and realized those weren’t random, chance encounters—he’d been following me. I wondered if he’d just blink over as soon as he faded in to watch the house, to see where I would go. How much patience did the guy have? There were a lot of nights I just stayed in hanging out with Max or listening to a book. More importantly—who was helping him?
The group sat around brainstorming for a few hours until the coffee ran out. We marked off a battlefield area in front and within the house (specifically the living room), and everyone had a station. Zoe would take lead just inside the front door with Quinton and Lin taking positions by the two front windows. Max and Tammy would be stationed just inside the living room but in front of the door to my room. Tammy was to be the next line of defense should the intruding horde make it past Zoe, Quinton, and Lin while Max was in charge of getting the piece of trim nailed into the doorframe as soon as I made it into my room. The two other Psy-kicks were going to be stationed in the kitchen and Max’s room just in case someone made it past our heavily arbored defenses.
Our battle plan was in place with a few contingencies. Hopefully, I could handle whatever Willard threw my way (yet again), but we were ready in case he managed to throw us for a loop. Feeling confident that we’d thought our way around a myriad of what-if scenarios, Debra decided to call it a night as she had work in the morning while the rest of the team decided on a couple more rounds of Frebopple.
Max walked Debra to her car, and Quinton brewed up one last pot of coffee. Zoe pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of her white-boarded plans while Lin set up the game again. One of the Psy-kicks started shuffling the cards. The group fell in formation around the table as soon as Max returned, and Quinton set fresh cups of coffee in front of each person at the table.
Laughter pealed out, fists beat the table, and snide commentary volleyed back and forth round after round.
Everyone had a great night, Max won every game but one, and I let slip that he’d been watching videos online and where the rest of the group could find them. Lin vowed to mine the breadth and depth of the Internet so that they would never again experience a night of such one-sided domination.
She may have been a bit competitive as well.
The group broke for the night, happily intact, and ready to get to work the next day, putting up defenses at our house as well as Debra’s.
Chapter 27
I faded in ready for action and floated up past the roof to see if Willard was out front waiting for me—he wasn’t. Dammit, did he say he was going to be back the same time tonight, or just back tonight? I couldn’t remember, but
I thought he just said “tonight.” Whether he meant to or not, it was a great way to get in my head.
I followed the sound of clinking glasses and laughter to the kitchen where Lin was running point on a new board game. This one had an elaborate set of roadways set up across the board. The Psy-kicks sat around the table, each with neat little stacks of fake money in front of them. I could tell Max was putting his best effort into one of his “nice faces,” which meant he was losing but trying to look like a good sport. The top of the board was laid neatly between the floor and the wall and depicted a bus moving at a high rate of speed with passengers hanging off the sides and on top of it in varying states of dress. It was called Last Chance for Underpants, and it was apparently even more fun to play than Frebopple—or at least its strategies remained unknown and unmarred among the group.
“Not so fast, Lin,” Quinton shouted and threw down a yellow card. “Go back to Topeka, no Abilene for you!”
The table erupted, as apparently Quinton just delivered a severe burn.
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!” I crackled through the speakers.
“Wrong radio, Caesar,” Max replied.
“Thy evil spirit, Maximus,” I said.
“Why comest thou?” he said.
“To tell thee—thou shalt see me at Philippi.”
“Well, then I shall see thee again?”
“Ay at Phillippi.”
“Alright then, see you at Phillippi,” Max said and turned back to the game with a straight face.
The rest of the table looked confused.
“What? Jonah and I were Caesar and Brutus for a play in college.” Max relented and let the group in on what we were talking about. By her expression, I felt like Zoe might have been a bit impressed at just how well-rounded we were, but the rest of the group—not so much. Kids today, no respect for the classics.
