Ghost Maker

by Robin D. Owens

  A sharp cry and a mumble of words came to her ears. No time!

  She shrugged off the jacket, took the knife box out, stuck the silk bag in her jeans pocket. Now neither of her hands were free. She continued to wiggle through the narrow passage, keeping an eye on her feet. That portion of the cave remained larger, but it looked damp and was littered with pebbles, small rocks, and sharp shards.

  She ripped her sweater to shreds, scored the outer layer of her vest armor, but kept as quiet as she could, bumping against the walls, slipping on pebbles. Thankfully, no more terrible sounds came from in front of her.

  “I know you’re there. I can feel your energy drawing near and I recognize you. You’re the one who brought the abomination to my town.” The surprise of his words aimed at her had her jumping, falling against the wall, bruising herself.

  Clare swallowed despite her dry throat, projected her voice. “Funny you should bring up the subject of abominations.”

  A snort of laughter, then a taunt. “Hurry up, dear. I’m waiting the party on you.”

  Arrogant to tell her that. She slowed more, praying Zach and Rossi had used all their professionalism, experience, and charm to convince the policewoman of the danger to the boys, and that backup—any backup—would come. “It’s a little tight for me.”

  “Quit whining, and hurry, hurry, hurry.” He sounded indulgent, so she kept her progress as slow as possible. She thought she heard voices behind her, male and female.

  “I think I’m going to have to crawl. The path is larger on the ground.”

  “I know that, and, yes, I think I’d like to hear you crawling on your belly coming toward me.”

  Clare grunted and shuffled her feet, kept walking. Her sweater already looked like she’d crawled.

  Another turn ahead of her, and light angling beyond. She put down the light. Fumbling with the knife box, her fingers stiff with cold, she opened it, grabbed the knife before it fell, and heard the clatter of the wood.

  Choking and gasping sounds came and she rounded the corner fast, freezing at the sight before her. Two emaciated and battered boys were shackled, wrists and ankles, to the wall. They looked at her from desperate eyes and managed weak moans. Breath stopped in her lungs as her chest constricted. A stray thought that Zach would have seen scenes like this during his career flicked through her mind. Along with the desire to never see anything like this ever again. Time seemed to slow as shock overtook her and she scanned the area. Two boys.

  A shoe scuffed against the rock floor and she wrenched her gaze to the left, where the cave opened into a larger area. Martin stood there, looking much like the other boys, a teenager. No wonder he could lure them into a car.

  She had a knife.

  He had a gun.

  Martin grinned, more a rictus of his human face, with the heavy gray features of an older man imprinted upon them, not hidden at all now, but strong and forceful as if the man struggled with keeping his essence within the teenaged boy. Jonathan O’Neill, the revenant, not Martin Velick.

  The madness in the glazed eyes made Clare think that Jonathan hadn’t integrated well with Martin, was impatient with the body he had.

  If he could, would he escape into death and haunt the gray dimension?

  A new fear to master. She had to end him.

  “Well, it’s Clare Cermak . . .” He hissed her surname in a spine-shivery fashion. “And her very interesting fashion accessory.”

  One of the boys made a sound and, Jonathan-Martin’s gaze still on her, he lifted the boy off the ground where he’d huddled, spread-eagled the child with the chains on wrists and ankles, pulled him away from the rock wall, and slammed him back. Clare saw the thick bands of gray energy—his etheric body?—thrusting from his torso to manhandle the boy.

  Her mouth fell open. She always kept her own etheric body neat and tidy and human-shaped in her physical body. She had no idea a person could—

  The youngster wept.

  Jonathan-Martin creaked a laugh.

  The cacophony of pebbles and rocks echoed from behind her. Jonathan-Martin lost his smile.

  “Did you bring someone with you, Clare? Of course you would. A woman would. Weak, all of you.” Another terrible smile of dead lips with no one home behind the eyes, just a phantom using poor Martin’s body as a marionette. “But neither of those big men you screw will be able to get through the passageway without damage. You tremble, don’t you Clare? Too bad you’re so old.” He licked his lips. “Your fear is tasty. Weak woman fear.”

  “That’s a very fifties thing to say. You’re going to date yourself.”

  He recoiled. “What do you know of me?” he demanded. The gun lifted again.

  “I know who you pretend you are, Martin Velick,” she said.

  “I do not pretend. I am Jonathan O’Neill.” The boy puffed out his chest, and the ghost that inhabited the body, the larger middle-aged male ghost, expanded his etheric body and his more massive chest beyond the teenaged body he wore. “I am famous.”

  “More like infamous.”

  “People know me.” He pouted a little. “Or they talked about me for a long while, then they forgot.” He shifted in place. “But I wasn’t done yet and I waited. Time and again I went to a dying one, but many bodies looked bad, and a couple of people fought me off.” He snorted.

  Clare thought it had been more than two people, if it had taken him longer than fifty years to manifest.

  “But that was then, and I found some fear to eat when I . . . drifted. But now I’m back and you should fear. You should all fear.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid,” Clare said. She stumbled a step and banged into the cave wall, clacking the knife, exclaiming, and covering the sound of soft, prowling footsteps behind her. Not Zach or Harry, they’d be belly-crawling. The policewoman. Oh, yes, two strong women would stop this specter.

  The killer angled aside, sniffing, even opening his mouth as if he could taste the atmosphere. Clare was too far away to lunge at him with the knife. She shuffled a few steps toward him before he glanced at her and smiled patronizingly. “You can’t stop me, and whatever weird weapon you have can’t stop me. I am too powerful, and I grow more powerful with every life I absorb.” Another glance at the boys, another half step for Clare.

  “Yesss, I savor their fear, it makes draining their energy all the better.” His gun danced from Clare to each of the boys, who watched with fixed and fascinated gazes. “Who should I kill next? I must admit I prefer a knife going all the way through the body so my knuckles feel the last beat of the heart.” He huffed a tiny breath, watched her from the corner of his eyes. “But I can use a gun.”

  “Please, please,” begged the younger child.

  Jonathan-Martin smirked. “They want me to kill you first. They’re just children. And selfish. They want to live.”

  “Everyone wants to live, but some shouldn’t survive past their own deaths.”

  He’d focused on her again. His mouth stretched in an odd grin. He began in a singsong voice. “Take them two by two in dark of moon, then one or two in half-moon, too, and kill them one by one in the weeks to come.”

  A sigh sifted from him as he slanted a gaze at them. “No pretty girls this time.” His lips puckered before he continued. “They wouldn’t come with me. Not even if I found three together.” The phantom inside Martin smiled at Clare. “I’ve found girls are generally smarter than boys.” And that didn’t sound like a teenaged boy, not at all.

  She felt the policewoman’s presence no more than a foot behind her.

  They needed a distraction. Usually she’d send Enzo, but he’d stayed with Sister Julianna Emmanuel, and Clare didn’t want to call either of them into violence.

  “You cocksucking chickenshit bastard, fucking shitless, wus—” yelled the older boy.

  Jonathan-Martin whirled toward him, his mouth dropping open. “
You foul-mouthed—”

  The policewoman pushed Clare in the back, whispered, “Go!”

  Clare staggered forward, caught her balance, rushed forward, brandishing the knife. Jonathan-Martin dodged her, then got a hand on her, shoved her to the larger part of the cave.

  “MSPD, drop your weapon! I’m arresting you for attempted murder—” the officer shouted.

  Jonathan-Martin flung out a hand and the policewoman flew to the side of the cave, smashed, and slid down.

  He spun and fired, and the bullet hit Clare in the chest, sent her backward, and she hopped to remain on her feet. The shot hammered throughout the cave as it ricocheted.

  Clare sucked in a breath, looked wildly around. The boys huddled at their wall, shuddering, no further hurt.

  The policewoman lurched to her feet, face scratched, raised her gun. But Jonathan-Martin shouted with glee and darted all over the place.

  Another, larger boom resounded; the rock under her feet vibrated.

  Enzo charged in, barking, yowling, howling. Julianna Emmanuel streaked after him. She stopped in front of the boys, arms stretched out, screaming. She barely looked human and the cave heated.

  Zach and Harry surged into the cave, dirty and bloody. Yelling came behind them.

  Mass confusion boiled around Clare, until a hand grabbed her and hideous-smelling breath puffed in her face. “You bitch.” The gun swung at her head. She jerked and it clipped her jaw. She swung the knife, and her hand steadied and went straight through the etheric body protruding from Martin’s side. She stabbed through the specter, and didn’t touch the human.

  The gray phantom’s mouth made a wide oval O, his eyes turned to full flat black orbs and he shrieked, losing shape, pulling away from the body that dropped. Forming into a humanoid blob seething with anger.

  He hurt those boys! He hurt other boys and girls! He HURT CLARE! He will not escape ME! Enzo shouted and sped after the ghost. Attacking him so he’d plunge into the afterlife? Clare didn’t know. She only understood that she couldn’t stop him, and prayed the minor spirit didn’t get in trouble for whatever he did.

  Jonathan-Martin yelled again, vanished from her vision, and her wound ripped open.

  Julianna Emmanuel screamed and screamed, her shadowy form wavering, staring in horror at Clare and her ghost-killing knife, which dripped long strands of tarnished gray with a hint of silver goo.

  Zach took over, freeing the stunned boys, directing their backup, Harry and the police officers, who poured into the cave.

  Glancing at her from the side of her eyes, the first policewoman mumbled a question to the boys that Clare didn’t quite catch.

  “What knife?” One of the boys asked.

  Chains rattled and someone moaned. Clare flinched and Harry moved to block her view—and, perhaps, obstruct others’ sight of her.

  She turned and focused on the nun. Clare took the silk bag from her pocket and wiped off the knife—not a hint of blood from Martin’s body, though there remained traces of stuff, ectoplasm or etheric threads or whatever. She slid the knife into the pouch, and dropped her left hand holding the thing to her side. She sidled toward the Sister of Mercy, who raised her hands and shrank back into the cave wall.

  White sparks flickered more slowly than usual in the wide dark-cloud eyes.

  I won’t hurt you. I only want to help you move on to heaven, Clare reassured.

  With the KNIFE! the sister cried out.

  Clare tucked the bagged knife uncomfortably in her jeans. Holding up her own hands, she answered telepathically, Of course I won’t touch you with the knife.

  The phantom shouted, How could you do such a thing, KILL someone!

  Okay, that was a question that stopped Clare in her tracks. She supposed the answer, “he was already dead,” wouldn’t work on another dead-but-not-gone spirit.

  He tortured other people. Clare must not compare the living with the dead. He brought them pain, which you, yourself alleviated. He killed people. Must not discuss whether it was their time to die or not, or original sin or whatever else spiritual philosophy she knew nothing about.

  You wanted us to stop him, she said reasonably.

  Stop him, not kill him!

  He was trying to kill us, too, Clare pointed out. He refused to move on when it was his time, Clare tried. He greedily used someone else’s death and someone else’s body and caused great harm, not only on this side of the veil but in your own phantom dimension, too. Clare groped with reasoning that would break through Julianna Emmanuel’s terror of her. Didn’t some of the spirits here stay close to you, fearing him, what he might do if they tried to cross over to the other side?

  The nun wrung her ghostly hands.

  He was evil, Clare said.

  You JUDGED him!

  Okay, that was tough, too. Clare knew that was a failing of hers, judging others. Not being as compassionate as she should be. The nun pushed a good emotional button there.

  Clare rolled her shoulders. Surely there should be some standard rules for considering a person evil. Not only greed, or manipulation. She went with her gut, and answered, He FELT evil to me, bad, revolting. He killed and took pleasure in killing, in causing pain. Is that not evil? How did he feel to you? You once said he was repulsive.

  The young woman’s hands went to her rosary. I don’t know these things. I must think on this. And you, and your offer—

  Do I feel evil to you? Clare demanded. She was losing the nun, and the hope she’d had that Julianna Emmanuel would heal her etheric wound, which darn well throbbed. You paid a price in pain and energy every time you damped a dying person’s pain and helped them separate from their body, didn’t you? I, too, pay a price every time I help a spirit move on, and the two times I used the knife. Feeling self-conscious and manipulative, she pulled opened a rip in her sweater so Julianna Emmanuel could see the torn-open wound, let her expression show her pain and emotional wringing this had put her through, and the echoing shock of the events.

  I . . . I must think. I am a Sister of Mercy! The nun began to fade.

  Haven’t I shown mercy! Clare called with her mind. And did that possessive ghost show any mercy?

  But Sister Julianna Emmanuel wisped away.

  Chapter 32

  Clare came back to reality with a thump. She turned away from the wall she’d been facing and let out a sigh of relief when she saw the two broad backs of Zach and Harry shielding her from the Manitou Springs police and the El Paso County deputies.

  Thankfully, Martin’s body and the boys were gone, and Zach took her arm and led her along the edge of the cave, avoiding the crime scene people who’d moved in. As usual, the authorities wanted to question them—her—about the events.

  On the way back, she picked up her solar light, knife box, and the discarded jacket that held the knife sheath. At the truck, she secured her ancestress’s knife in the lockbox before they left the vehicle and exited to the building that housed the Manitou Springs police department.

  Zach made a quick phone call to Rickman, who picked up on the first ring. His voice sounded amused when Zach insisted on waking up their clients and demanding they take care of Tyler Utzig. That one of those clients they’d haul out of bed was an attorney seemed to please both Zach and Tony. Mr. Rickman also stated that another operative of his would provide personal protection for Tyler immediately.

  Once in the police station, Zach limped and used his cane more than usual, but otherwise walked the walk and talked the talk of cops. Clare had been through enough police interrogations and debriefings by now that she managed to answer calmly and sat straight enough that her etheric wound didn’t tear further. She kept her emotions locked down—easy to do since, like all the other times she’d been in this situation, she was weary to the bone. She also answered their questions as truthfully as she could without saying anything about the supernatural aspect
s of the case.

  Clare gave them the story she, Zach, and Harry had created. Absolutely nothing about ghosts—the promenading ones through Manitou Springs, the young French nun with healing hands before and after death, and definitely not the spirit of Jonathan O’Neill inhabiting poor Martin Velick’s body since the auto crash in March . . .

  She stuck to the tale. Martin watched her and stalked her, and Harry, a trained bodyguard, had noticed him, so they trailed him. And Zach had received another anonymous call. The law enforcement people understood the first rationalization, but didn’t like the second anonymous call. Clare tried to be very straight with them, though she thought sadly that she was learning to lie very well.

  No one asked about her profession as a ghost seer, or anything about phantoms. The one person who’d seen the knife and mumbled about it got strange looks from the others. Neither Tyler nor the other boy mentioned the knife.

  As the hours passed, information trickled in. They’d found cameras and recordings. In them, Martin had referred to himself as Jonathan O’Neill, and Clare hoped that eased some of the teenager’s parents’ horror and grief.

  They’d come in, of course, and answered their own questions. No, Martin hadn’t been the same since his accident nine months before. Clare didn’t know whether that would comfort her in the same circumstances, but her heart ached for the boy’s mother and father. Somehow she didn’t think that Deli Delish would survive, or that the Velicks would stay in Manitou. Jonathan O’Neill had killed a family and a business when he’d used Martin.

  The law enforcement personnel didn’t know what to make of Martin believing himself to be Jonathan.

  When Clare and Zach finally left, an hour after Harry, the police and deputies had decided that Martin had suffered a serious personality change after his accident and decided to copy Jonathan O’Neill’s crimes. As Zach drove them back to the resort, Clare told him of her conversation with Julianna Emmanuel.

  To her surprise, Zach replied optimistically. “She’s a good woman—a spirit as compassionate as Enzo, but he calls her a more major spirit than he, so she’s a whole lot better than the Other. The entire situation, then the relief of us saving the boys, and you taking Jonathan O’Neill out with the knife, and her not being needed to minimize pain and help a boy die, traumatized her. She’ll come around after the shock of all that is over.”