by Frank Hurt
“She cannot see us,” Barnaby scoffed. “She thinks you are talking to yourself. Like…an insane woman.”
“Right,” Ember said at once to Barnaby and to Jackie. “I’m not a crazy person. You can stop looking at me like that.”
Jackie spoke with a soothing intensity, like one does when one is trying to coax a runaway dog off a busy highway. “I believe you. But you were talking—”
“To myself,” Ember blurted. “I was talking…to myself. I sometimes do that when I’m lost in thought.”
“But it sounded like one half of a conversation,” Jackie said, only partially convinced. “I didn’t mean to listen in, but it sounded like you were on the phone. Only there’s no phone.”
“Silly, yeah?” Ember chuckled again, this time slightly more authentic. “I pretend that I have an imaginary friend and we talk things through. It’s actually quite a normal thing we do back where I come from.”
“That sounds hardly factual.” Barnaby’s abrasive voice boomed. “Your admission may be reinforcing the suspicion of insanity.”
Nancy said, “oh I dunno. She sounds pretty convincing to me.”
Ember waved her hand behind her, trying to gesture for the two ghosts to stop talking. “In fact, sometimes I have to talk more loudly to get my thoughts to cut through the noise.”
“Noise?” Jackie leaned over, trying to see what Ember was waving at. “It’s deathly silent in here, Ember.”
“Hah!” Ember guffawed, a little too gregariously. “Deathly silent! Brilliant! I mean. Right. So what can I help you with?”
There was a pause before Nancy joined the laugh, though hers was sincere. “Oh I get it! Deathly silent. Because we’re…dead. Oh, that’s cold, Ember. Too soon. Too soon.”
Barnaby groaned.
Jackie said, “I tried calling you. Joy tried calling you, too. You missed the staff meeting.”
“I didn’t hear my mobile ring. I suppose I’m a little late,” Ember said. She flipped open her phone and noticed the time. It was almost 10:00. “I have a really weak cellular signal in here. I see I have missed calls.”
“There are a lot of parts of this place where you can’t get a signal. It’s an old building. Thick walls. No windows in here.” Jackie looked around the room. “And I think the heat must not be working. It’s so cold, I can see my dang breath!”
Ember shrugged, acting as though the unnaturally lower temperature didn’t bother her. “Oh, yes. I suspect they purposely keep it colder. To preserve the files, you see.”
Nancy said, “I don’t feel cold.”
“You don’t feel anything, woman,” Barnaby said.
Ember shook her head in an attempt to ignore the apparitions. “How did you know to look for me in here?”
“I found you only after asking Debra if she’d seen you. She said you went into the Archives so…here you are.” Jackie hugged herself and looked around the big storeroom.
“Did I miss anything important at the staff meeting?” Ember suspected she hadn’t, but asked by way of shifting the conversation away from subjects ancillary to diagnosing her sanity.
“Ah, yeah. For our case—as I reported at the staff meeting—I managed to track down next-of-kin for the three missing changelings. I stayed late last night, making calls. It was apparently not unusual for these three to make themselves scarce for lengths of time.” Jackie flipped open a spiral-bound notepad with a zebra-print cover. She flipped a few pages, finding the one she needed. “I met with a family member. Evidently, they were black sheep of their respective families. Actually, calling them black sheep is a disservice to sheep. They were troublemakers, on the outs with most of their family at any given time.”
Ember propped an elbow on the draft table. “Why was that? What had them on the outs?”
“As you probably saw in their personnel files,” Jackie continued, “they dabbled in petty crime. That included stealing from family and friends, if they could be called ‘friends’—anyone they had contact with that I spoke to said these three habitually stole. ‘They’d sell their own mothers if they could.’ That’s a direct quote from Doug Demorrett’s sister, in fact. She said they made their living dealing drugs. She suspected they were making crystal meth, in fact.”
“What made her suspect that?”
Jackie turned the page in her notebook. “They asked a mutual acquaintance to purchase pseudoephedrine. Since the North Dakota state government made restrictions on cold medicine purchases, it’s become harder for meth heads to get access to the quantities they need. It’s not uncommon, apparently, for them to enlist the help of others to buy what they need from multiple sources.”
Jackie looked up from her notes. “So, it’s entirely possible that these three are not missing at all; they may just be off somewhere remote, cooking meth. Or…”
Ember urged Jackie to finish her thought. “Or…what?”
“Meth labs are hazardous places. It’s a witch’s brew of toxic chemicals. They could’ve succumbed to fumes. Maybe an anhydrous ammonia leak. Maybe fire.”
“Fire, yes.” Ember chewed her lip. This. This is how I’ll bury the case. But I need to find the lab, first. I need to get to it before anyone else does. I underestimated Jackie’s instinct as an Investigator. I need to send her off the trail.
“Which of their contacts reported them missing?” Ember asked.
“That’s the thing, nobody I spoke to admitted to filing the missing persons report. None of the family, none of the friends.”
“Somebody filed that report, incomplete as it was. How did the Deputy Viceroy get it?”
Jackie shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll need to ask him.”
“Right, good,” Ember said. “You do that. Talk to the Deputy Viceroy. I’ll find the meth lab. And…good work, Jackie. I’ll just put this stuff away and get back to work.”
“What were you looking for, anyway?” Jackie stepped up to the drafting table, her manicured nails touching the edge of the weathered old photograph. “All of the files for this case are digitized.”
Ember clicked off the banker’s lamp. “Oh, it’s nothing to do with the case. I…I just like it here.”
Barnaby scoffed. “You are a most unimaginatively incompetent liar, girl.”
Jackie flashed a bemused expression to the other mage. “Really? You like it here? It’s so dang musty and cold. It’s like the forgotten cellar of the world’s most boring museum.”
“Yes. Right. I don’t find it boring. I like reading the old stories, I suppose. The early days of the North American colony. That sort of thing, yeah.” Ember attempted to close the leather-bound book, but a manicured hand got in the way.
“Wait, what did you find? Let me see what’s got you so interested.” Jackie clicked the switch on the green-glass lamp. Light splashed over the sepia photograph. “Hey, I recognize this photo!”
“You…do?” Ember, Barnaby, and Nancy each said in perfect synchronization.
“Sure I do. These are old Malvern dignitaries. I’ve seen this hanging in the Viceroy’s office.” Jackie placed a gel-coated fingernail beneath one of the figures. “Doesn’t this man look like Viceroy Roth?”
“Told you so,” Nancy said.
Ember leaned over the photo alongside Jackie. The two ghosts did the same, their transparent azure figures overlapping with the living.
Jackie said, “I’ll bet it’s his father. Or an uncle.”
“You think so?” Ember asked.
“Why else would the Viceroy keep an enlarged photo of this in his office?”
“I haven’t been in his office, I suppose,” Ember said.
Eighty-grit sandpaper tore against her skull when Barnaby said, “I recognize this photograph. We were celebrating the groundbreaking of a construction project near the railroad depot. That is me to the right. I don’t know who this Viceroy Roth is, but I know the man standing next to me is Billy Colton. The murderous bastard.”
“Are you sure it’s not Viceroy Roth?” Embe
r picked up the photo as she glanced at Barnaby.
Jackie thumbed the wire spiral of her notebook. “Oh I don’t know how it could be. This looks like it was taken well before his time. Look at the way they are dressed! So handsome. This was when gentlemen knew how to dress.”
Barnaby’s voice growled. “No, we were already nearing the end of our lives then. He and I were nearly 200 years old. Add to that…what, 112 years? He would have to be dead by now. It is inconceivable that he would still be alive. This man in the photograph is Billy Colton, of that I am certain.”
Ember tried to focus on what Barnaby was saying, even as Jackie continued talking.
Jackie said, “Heywood wanted you to come brief him when I found you. He’s pretty upset with you for missing the staff meeting.”
“I can tell,” Ember huffed. “I noticed I’ve got eight missed calls.”
“Well only one of those was from me,” Jackie said. “The other was from Joy. I don’t think Heywood tried calling you.”
Ember retrieved the Motorola Barrage and flipped it open. She tapped the down-arrow through the call log. There were six missed calls in a row, all from the Ronald Schmitt residence. Why would the Schmitts be calling me, much less a half dozen times in a row? Something’s wrong.
Nancy’s thin whistle voice joined the chorus. She agreed with Jackie—who could not hear her—that the men in the photo were indeed handsome. She lamented the crease across the other faces—who folds photos, anyway?
“Shall we get out of this cold and check in at the office?” Jackie asked.
Barnaby was grumbling about Billy Colton and his onetime friend’s treachery.
Ember’s thoughts were no longer in the room. What’s going on at the Schmitt farm? Did someone discover the burial site at Rik’s? Did someone follow me when I interrogated the spies?
“Wright,” Jackie said. “You can’t just take things from the Archives. Not without special permission from the Department of Information. They’re dang particular about these things.”
Ember was slipping the photograph into her attaché case. She was not even aware she was doing it.
“I’ve got to make a call,” Ember said.
“But the photo,” Jackie said.
“Be careful not to scratch it,” Nancy said.
Barnaby boomed, “whatever you think is important about this case of yours, you must make the pursuit of Billy Colton your priority, girl. You owe me that.”
Ember stopped, mid-stride, and held up a hand. “Everyone, stop talking! Let me think for a tick.”
“But you just stuffed the photo in your case,” Nancy whined. “It’s fragile.”
“I am telling you, girl,” Barnaby growled, “This is not a request. I demand answers. I demand justice!”
“Um,” Jackie said, glancing around the room again. “What do you mean by everyone? Are you hearing the voices again? Are you seeing more than one of me in here? Tell me, Wright, how many of me are there?”
Ember clenched her teeth, her gaze focused at first on the floor, then at the chattering voices. She hastily drew a sphere of mana and flung it outward. “Go. Away!”
When she extended her arm in an arc, the energy released in a sudden, invisible burst. Though the mana was invisible to Jackie, the resulting shock wave was not. Papers rustled, boxes vibrated, overhead lights flickered, and generations-old dust shook loose from every shelf. A cyclone of air circled around Ember, swirling up and out, past Jackie and through the azure, transparent figures beyond.
And just like that, the two ghosts were gone.
16
Call Ember Wright for all Your Demands
As the artificial whirlwind dissipated, disturbed dust began to settle, blanketing the Archives in a redistributed blanket of fine particles.
Jackie’s scarlet hair was volumized as though she was a cartoon character who had been recently electrocuted. Her eyes were tiny porcelain saucers, wide and unblinking as they stared at Ember. Her jaw had gone slack, her clothing coated with increasing quantities of fine dust.
“Dang,” was all Jackie managed to say at first, after she remembered how to work her jaw. Then, “what just happened? I felt that. What did you just do?”
Ember didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t entirely know what she had just done, herself. One moment, she was feeling overwhelmed by the three voices yammering at her concurrently. The next, she somehow and suddenly dismissed the two ghosts. Sent them away. Away how? Away where?
“I’ve got to make a call,” Ember said as she slung the strap of her leather case over a shoulder. “I think someone’s in trouble.”
Whatever it was the other mage saw in Ember’s fire-blue eyes, it made the newly puffy-haired woman meek. She said nothing about the photograph nor bureaucratic rules and protocols. She did start to say, “trouble? I can help—”
“No. I’ve got to handle this,” Ember shook her blonde locks as she advanced to the egress through a fog of dust.
“But what about Heywood? What should I tell him? He’s gonna be upset.”
“I couldn’t bloody care less,” Ember growled. “Tell him whatever you want.”
Jackie stammered, “okay. I’ll just…I’ll just go ahead and put these boxes back where they belong for you.”
Ember hadn’t heard the response. The door had already swung shut behind her, leaving a puzzled, moderately disheveled Jackie alone in a settling cloud of dust. The vast room was suddenly silent but for the distant, irregular whir of the dehumidifier’s fan.
Ember said nothing to Rodger when she stormed through the Security Office and to the elevator. Taking long, purposeful strides through the ground floor lobby, she didn’t hear nor acknowledge Ami’s casual pleasantries. She was not intentionally rude; her mind was fixed only on getting to a quiet place where she could make a call. Where she could receive news that she feared must be dreadful.
The Schmitts hardly ever call me, never mind multiple times in a row. Did someone find out about the bodies? I thought I was careful. Was I followed?
Or worse, did something horrible happen to Rik? An accident at one of the drilling rigs? A fire?
Her imagination moved faster than she did. She had her phone out and initiated the connection just as she exited the rear door of the Parker Building into the alley where employees parked.
The line rang in her ear as she reached her pickup.
Stephanie answered.
“What’s going on?” Ember breathed into the phone. “I’ve got a half dozen missed calls from you. Is someone injured?”
Stephanie sighed. “Nothing’s wrong. Well, at least that’s my take on it.”
A man’s voice rose in the background behind Stephanie. She answered, “yes, it’s Ember on the phone. Okay, talk to her, but I really wonder if you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Who is that?” Ember got into the Ford’s cab and closed the door to her makeshift phone booth.
“It’s Roy. He’s the one who called you. Here, I’ll pass you along to him.” Stephanie sounded exasperated.
“Ember,” a gruff voice took over. “It’s Roy. Roy Turner. We need to talk.”
“We’re talking, Roy. What’s going on? What’s all this fuss?”
“They’ve been holding out on us.”
“What’re you talking about, Roy? Who has been holding out?”
Roy breathed into the phone. “My cousin Trina told me that the Deputy Viceroy knows of a cure. A way to fix us. He’s a musician—a Level 5 Arts Mage. He’s written some sort of song. Something that can pull our subforms from Aedynar and back into us. They’ve had the cure all along. They just aren’t sharing it with us.”
Ember frowned at the pickup’s dashboard. “Your cousin Trina? How did she come by this information?”
“She knows someone who works for the Deputy Viceroy. Or in the embassy office at least. He told her.”
Ember thought of the hapless man who sat in on the Department of Investigation staff meetin
g yesterday. She pictured the mustard stain on his shirt, his whimsical, childlike musings regarding the importance of meetings. She was skeptical and didn’t hide it. “You’re telling me that Geoff Shadbolt told your cousin that he’s created a cure.”
“Well, not directly,” Roy admitted. “She knows someone who’s friends with someone who works for the Deputy Viceroy. Word got out to her.”
“A friend of a friend of a friend? That’s your definition of credible evidence?”
“Yes.” Roy sounded indignant.
“Right. I don’t know what your cousin thinks she knows, but I highly doubt that she’s telling you the truth.”
Roy’s voice went up an octave. “Trina wouldn’t lie to me!”
“Alright, alright. Settle down.” Ember pinched the bridge her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m not saying she’s lying but maybe she’s overstating things. Or her friend of a friend of a friend is, at least.”
“What if this is true?” Roy asked. “Why’re you so quick to dismiss this?”
“I’m not dismissing—”
“You are! You’re telling me this is a lie.”
“Okay, fine, I’m being dismissive. I apologize. Roy, this is just such a difficult thing to believe and it’s not made any easier when the source is just a secondhand rumor. What does Doctor Gloria say about this?”
“That old hag?” Roy laughed humorlessly. “She’s dismissive too. She said she’s leaving us in a week, and we’ll be on our own to figure things out. You’re all circling the wagons, keeping us in the dark. It makes me think all you Malverns are covering something up. We need answers.”
“You stop right there, Roy Turner.” Ember subconsciously mimicked Muriel Schmitt’s maternal tone. “Doctor Gloria is an esteemed professional who’s been dedicating her time and talent to helping you and the other afflicted changelings. I’ve been dedicating my time to help, too. And you’re going to turn around and make an accusation like that? Where do you get the nerve?”
“Well you won’t talk to the Deputy Viceroy. Nobody is willing to help—”
