The Dead Show

by Amanda Fasciano

  For his part, Sam was now keeping a close eye on the little girl at Aiden’s elbow, who was looking curiously at the camera. Most of her brown curly hair was hidden underneath a white bonnet, and a full white apron covered a dark blue dress that seemed to match her eyes. She put a hand on Aiden’s arm, and he shifted again. The girl smiled, appearing to take delight in making the grown man uncomfortable.

  Lauren looked from her side where she heard Sam, to Aiden. “Why are you squirming?” she asked, not wanting to let on just yet that Sam had said something.

  “Sorry, I must be under an air vent, got cold,” he said.

  “Uhh, bro,” Derrick said, looking up, “there isn’t a vent there.”

  Robin looked between the three of them, fear beginning to cloud her features. “Is she here?”

  “Yes,” Lauren said, closing her eyes for a moment. “She’s curious. And mischievous. I don’t sense any malevolence though…” she trailed off as she got lost in thought as she tried to sense more about the spirit.

  The girl looked over at Lauren and lost interest in the camera, beginning instead to walk towards the psychic. Two steps were all she took before Sam stepped forward, moving in between the girl and Lauren.

  “That’s close enough,” he said to the girl.

  The girl canted her head to one side and regarded Sam as if trying to puzzle him out. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, then she turned around and swiped the camera off the table. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter that made Robin jump in surprise. She darted out of the room with a laugh as Aiden and Derrick moved to get the camera.

  “Was that her?” Derrick asked as Aiden waved him off, wanting to inspect his camera for damage. “Was that Emma?”

  Robin’s arms were crossed in front of her chest as she hugged herself. “I think so. I mean, I know Ava said there were two, but all I’ve ever heard about was Emma.”

  “Has Emma ever tried to physically harm you, your husband, or Ava?” Lauren asked.

  “No,” Robin said, shaking her head, a few more wisps of hair falling from her messy bun. “Never.”

  Cadence looked over as Snow came back into the room and went over to him. “The child ghost is real. She came in here and tossed the camera off the table when Sam wouldn’t let her near Lauren. She looked like an old spirit, like Colonial times or something.”

  Snow nodded slowly. “She’s not alone; there is another girl’s spirit here as well.”

  “Should we get Bethany? Help them cross over?” Sam hadn’t moved from Lauren’s side as he asked the question.

  “It doesn’t call for that yet. You forget Sam; our job here isn’t to help every ghost cross over. It’s to help keep the afterlife a mystery and not a proven thing.”

  “Says the man who has proven to them that we do exist and that there is an afterlife,” Sam argued. “Besides, what about Irene Woods? Cadence told me you guys called Bethany in to get the old woman to cross over.”

  “Mrs. Woods was a different case,” Cadence said. “She hadn’t realized she had passed, and she was becoming increasingly more violent to the living because of her confusion. She needed to move on because if left on her own, she was going to hurt someone.”

  “And you call that peaceful?” Sam gestured towards where Aiden was holding his camera, setting it back on the table after having made sure nothing had been broken.

  “Not peaceful, no,” Snow said with a sigh. “But not dangerous either. There is a fine line we walk here, Sam. I can understand your desire to take action, but it isn’t called for yet.”

  Sam looked frustrated but nodded in acceptance of Snow’s order. His lips pressed into a thin line, and he looked down to the floor, shifting his weight from one foot to another. His silent moping was disturbed; however, when the spirit of a different girl came around the corner from the family room into the kitchen.

  “Who’re you?” she asked as she stood at Sam’s elbow, looking up at him. Her black hair was in tight natural curls beneath a white bonnet that stood in stark contrast to her dark skin.

  Sam knelt down and smiled at the girl. “I’m Sam, who are you, sweetie?”

  Cadence smiled a little, unable to keep the wistfulness from the expression or her heart. Her brother would have made an amazing teacher or father. Sure they had finally, after a decade, apprehended the killer. But it still hurt at times to glimpse what he could have become.

  “Sarah,” she said, her voice quiet and wavering, showing her uncertainty and nervousness. She glanced from Sam over to Aiden and his camera. “I’m sorry, Emma threw things.”

  Snow watched from a couple of feet away, keeping an eye out for the other ghost girl, but not seeing her. Aiden, Lauren, and Derrick were still involved in their conversation with Robin.

  “Sarah, what are you doing here?” Sam asked.

  “She won’t let me leave,” the girl said, her voice as well as her face portraying the sadness she obviously felt at this.

  “Who won’t let you leave? Emma?” Sam frowned in concern as he asked the question.

  The girl turned to look behind her suddenly as if startled. “I have to go.” She turned but disappeared from sight before she even got fully turned around.

  Sam frowned once more as he rose from his kneeling position. He walked over to Snow. “What do you make of that?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Snow replied. His brows were drawn together, and Cadence could tell that her partner was not particularly happy with whatever was going through his mind.

  “Thank you, Robin,” Lauren said as she rose from her chair at the table. “We’ll go over all of this and do a little more research. We will probably need to meet again with you and your daughter. We’ll need to ask her questions about her friend.”

  “Right,” Robin said, sighing in resignation. “I have to be honest, a part of me was hoping you all would come in here and tell me nothing was going on, that it was all my imagination. I was hoping this was all something that could just be explained away.”

  “I can understand that. But I do have to say that, in my opinion, you do have something supernatural going on here,” Lauren said.

  The look of defeat was unmistakable as it crossed Robin’s face. “I understand, I’ll tell my husband, and we will be in touch about a time that is good for you to come back.”

  Aiden closed up the camera as he stood. “If we come up with any other possible explanations in the meantime we’ll be in touch. And if something comes up, and if Emma decides to throw another tantrum like in those pictures, feel free to call us.”

  “Thank you,” Robin said with a weak smile to all three of them.

  Chapter 6

  “You know, we really need a way for them to be able to contact us,” Cadence said as they sat back down in their office.

  Snow paused in sitting as he heard Cade’s suggestion and then finished the movement. “You want a way for living paranormal investigators to contact us? I do believe such a thing flies in the face of what we are actually here to do,” he said.

  “Not really,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. She ran a hand through her loose honey blonde hair, getting it out of her face, as her jade colored eyes were fixated on Snow. “Before, when we were just beat cops, so to speak, yeah. I’ll give that to you, it would have been a crazy thing to suggest. But we’re this new unit now, right? Testing of how we can all work together to subvert all the weird shit that has been ramping up. We work with Aiden and Lauren just as much as we work with Whitfield and Bethany. Sure we have people monitoring the haunted sights and such, but these guys are on the front line with the breathers. We wouldn’t have known about the Irene Woods case if that one woman watching the monitor hadn’t caught that they were at a house.”

  Snow narrowed his eyes a little as he thought over her words. His partner wasn’t entirely wrong, but at length, he shook his head. “We cannot have them directly contacting us, Cadence. However, there is a solution.”

  “Oh?”

  “You
r brother,” Snow said with a smile. “He’s with Lauren constantly now. If they go on any investigations, he can contact us and make sure we know about it. You and he will just have to keep in good contact with each other, and I have little doubt that will be a problem.”

  Cadence nodded after a moment of thought. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I’m just not used to him being there yet.”

  “Considering you just found out about the new assignment yesterday I am hardly shocked. For all I know, Sam’s connection with Lauren could have been something facilitated by others higher up to help us with exactly this issue,” Snow said.

  “You mean Croft?”

  “No, although it could be something he suggested,” Snow said, realizing he had just opened a can of worms. He shifted in his chair a bit, uncomfortable in the knowledge that this was going to lead to a whole conversation about things he really didn’t like to discuss.

  “So who is over Croft then?” Cadence canted her head to one side as she asked the question. “Or if not his direct superior, who is it that would have that kind of authority, to make that call, to make that connection. While we’re on the subject, Croft had mentioned earlier about a changing of the board. What does that mean?”

  “Cadence,” Snow said with a light sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “We have a few long days ahead of us. I’m not sure now is the time to get into all of that.”

  “You’ve been putting this discussion off for months. Since the day I got here, in fact. If now isn’t the time, Ozzie, then when is?”

  Snow’s sigh of resignation was loud in the quiet room. “Fine, you win. As I told you before, there is no real right or wrong religion, they all say roughly the same thing and breathers embellished from there.”

  “I remember you telling me that,” Cadence said with a nod.

  “We have a kind of governing board made up of deities here, a council of sorts. They are the ones that Croft reports to, and they are the ones who likely would have made the arrangements for your brother’s connection to Lauren,” Snow said.

  “Son what was that about the board changing?”

  “Well,” Snow said, “I’m sure you can understand that because of the different belief systems throughout the world and throughout history, there are a great many deities. Seven are chosen at random to serve on the council.”

  “Seven? Serving the religious needs of the whole world, living and dead?”

  “Indeed,” Snow said with a nod.

  “When do they change out?” Cadence asked.

  “Once a century.”

  “So the ones on the council now have been serving for less than twenty years?” Cadence was thinking, processing the bits and pieces of information together. Snow loved to watch her mind work, but he also feared it a little too. Sometimes, her answers to problems were a bit too uncanny or a little too outside of the box for his comfort.

  “Yes,” Snow said.

  “So the change out before this past one would have been in 1900, correct?”

  “Yes,” he said again with a nod.

  “That makes sense then since Overton was working on this plot in the twenties, and Wolf is connected to it as well, which means Bethany’s murder, Sam’s murder, all of it has been in service to this crazy scheme.”

  “I agree with your thinking. It would seem this group thinks that this non-human creature, the Shaldoxz that Overton was trying to summon, is the true key to accelerating their plans. And of course, the key to releasing Shaldoxz is a great deal of blood.”

  “So while we’re helping with the Owens case and the TV prison show case, we also need to be doing work on trying to figure out who is this person called Wolf. Obviously, he is in contact with someone from this side, someone higher up on the food chain. If we can figure that out, who it is on our side that is orchestrating this, we can stop them.”

  Snow nodded. “I agree, and I hope that we are able to do so. It will likely take all of us working in tandem once more to resolve the situation, however.”

  “Yeah well, right now we have other priorities to focus on,” Cadence said. “Are we bringing Whitfield in on any of this? The Owens or prison cases?”

  “I will contact him tomorrow to see if he will have time for the prison case at the end of the week,” Snow said. “I don’t see any need to take him away from his NHD work for what seems to a simple haunted house case. The NHD has been keeping quite busy of late.”

  Cadence nodded and yawned. “Well, since the excitement for the day seems to be over, I think I am going to go home and rest. You would think after sleeping for five weeks I would be wide awake, but for some reason, I am still exhausted.”

  “I can imagine you are,” Snow said as he rose from his chair and walked over to her as she stood as well. He enveloped her in a hug and after a moment of bewildered stiffness, she hugged him back. “I am glad you are back and doing so well. Now go, get some rest.” He released her from the hug and moved back to his desk.

  “Aww, missed me that much, huh Ozzie?” Cadence grinned at him. She was quite touched at his gesture, but there was no chance that she was going to let it go by without giving him hell for it.

  For his part, Snow lifted one eyebrow and shook his head. “Go home Cadence.”

  Cade grinned and wiggled her fingers in a little wave at him before teleporting out of the office.

  Just as she vanished, Whitfield walked into the office, looking tired and harried, as seemed to be his norm these days. His wavy ginger hair was disheveled, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in some time. He stopped and blinked just inside the doorway, as if not quite believing what he had just seen.

  “Was that―” he began.

  “Yes,” Snow said with a smile. “Detective Riley has rejoined us.”

  “Oh, good! How is she doing? Is she back to work or just up and around?”

  “Back to work,” Snow said, answering Agent Whitfield as the man sat at his own desk in the office. “I have to say I am surprised to see you. We understood that NHD had you buried under a mountain of work.”

  “They did,” Whitfield said with a sour look. “I think Croft must have come up and said something. They took a bunch of stuff off my desk and told me to finish up a couple of projects by the end of the day. I just finished a little while ago. I figured I would check in here before heading home.”

  “Excellent timing. We’ll likely need your assistance with the Barrington Prison case,” Snow said.

  “Barrington Prison?” Whitfield’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “Yes. You know of it?”

  “Yeah, it’s not a good place. You will need me. Is that where the television show is going? There is some very nasty stuff there,” Whitfield said.

  “Yes, that is where the television show is apparently set on investigating,” Snow said.

  Whitfield sighed and cradled his chin in his hand. “Hmm…I’ll have to think about the best way to approach this.”

  “Why don’t you sleep on it and then you can advise both Cadence and me tomorrow morning,” Snow said.

  Whitfield nodded and rose. “I’ll see you in the morning. G’night Snow.”

  Chapter 7

  The hotel that the television show personalities were staying at was a five-star hotel, complete with the exclusivity and elegance that accompanies such a rating. Aiden entered the restaurant attached to the hotel and felt under-dressed in his button-down shirt, tie, and jeans. One glance at Lauren and Derrick told him that they felt just as uncomfortable despite both of them having dressed better. Derrick had actually worn a suit which had astonished both Aiden and Lauren, as neither had known the young man even owned one. Lauren had dressed to the nines, with a cocktail dress, heels, make-up, jewelry, the whole shebang. Aiden knew she didn’t get dressed up like this often.

  Sam hovered around the trio, an unseen presence. He noted one spirit near the bar, and the two nodded at each other in acknowledgment. Sam had no idea if the ghost was a spi
rit of the restaurant or there for one of the patrons or workers, and he wasn’t leaving Lauren to go find out either.

  The maître d looked Aiden up and down with blatant condescension in his expression. “Reservations?” he asked, holding a pen over the notebook on his podium.

  “We’re here to meet with Attic Noises Productions,” Lauren said as she interposed herself between Aiden and the man. “They’re expecting us.”

  As the trio was led back into the restaurant by the maître d, Sam took a better look around. The walls were paneled in a dark wood that not only matched the flooring, but the woodwork on the tables, chairs, and booths as well. Each table had a candle in a honeycombed style glass holder, plus wall sconces of frosted glass emitted a low, romantic light. That low light reflected off the ceiling, which had been tiled in burnished copper, each tile having a design in relief on it. They followed the man through the restaurant, to a scarlet, velvet curtain which the man pulled to one side for them and gestured for them to enter. “The V.I.P. area,” was all he said. Once they were through, he let the curtain swish closed behind them, once more obscuring the area from the curious looks of other diners.

  “Hey! Now the party can start,” a male voice said from across the room. Long legs made short work of the space between them and he was in front of the trio, extending his hand to shake in moments. He matched Aiden in height and build, but he had a thick head of black hair and was clean-shaven. “I’m Liam, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “I’m Lauren,” she said, shaking the offered hand. “This is Aiden, and this is Derrick.” She introduced each in turn, and they nodded as their names were said.

  “And I’m Tina, but everyone calls me Teeny,” a woman said as she stepped forward. It was obvious why everyone called her Teeny, the woman couldn’t have been over five feet tall and might have weighed ninety pounds soaking wet. It was in contrast to Liam, who was almost as tall as Aiden was. Liam and Teeny were rocking the modern goth look with dark hair, dark clothes, and lots of silver jewelry.

  After introductions and handshakes were made, the group ambled back to the table and took their seats. A waiter came out of a concealed door in the back of the room and took drink orders, making sure everyone had their menus. Liam took that opportunity to order one each of every hors d’oeuvres for the table.