Phantasm

by Phaedra Weldon

  I turned back to the now-open door to see Mastiff step in. He held his hand out, and I grabbed it and used it as support to stand. “I’m glad to see you.”

  “I’m glad you’re all right.” He smiled. Mastiff really was a handsome man in a suit. Those old uniforms never did him justice. “Did Frasier come blast’n in here?”

  Dags stood a tad slowly, favoring his shoulder, and nodded. “Yeah—through those doors. Joe went after him.”

  “Good. But I’m gonna need the two of you to follow me and give me statements, okay?”

  We both nodded and followed him out through the door. As we walked through the hurriedly moving police and watched as an ambulance arrived, red lights flashing, I leaned in close to Dags. “Where’s Rhonda?”

  “I think she beat it out of there so the police wouldn’t see her.”

  I nodded. Then, “Why?”

  “Because she’s the head of the Society. If her name goes in the paper, it could reflect badly on them.” He was silent as we reached Mastiff’s car. “I know you have your problems with Rhonda—and I can’t blame you. I’d be pissed too. I was pissed off at her for a while—for a whole different reason. And if it hadn’t been for Joe—I doubt I’d ever forgive her. But Rhonda Orly does what she feels she has to—to create order. At least in her way of thinking.”

  Huh? I held up both hands as Mastiff opened his car door and reached in to get his MP3 recorder. Police, paramedics, newspeople, all bustled around us. “I don’t understand. Why were you pissed off at her? Because she had a crush on you?”

  He shook his head. “No.” Dags looked away. I could see his breath in the parking-lot lights. “God, I wish it were just that. There’s so much you don’t know.”

  “What?” I searched his gray eyes, and I saw hurt there. “Darren . . . why did Klinsky say if he kills you, the Grimoire will be his? Rhonda has that Grimoire, doesn’t she? It’s hidden in a safe place.”

  Dags chewed on his lower lip before looking at me, before answering me, and when he did, he closed his eyes as if what he was about to say was painful. “She has a photocopy, but not the original.” He opened his eyes. “Zoë, I’m the Grimoire.”

  19

  So . . . he’s a book

  I didn’t say much after that. I mean—how do you react to your friend telling you he’s a book?

  Could my life get any weirder?

  Wait . . . scratch that. Pretend I never said it.

  We gave our statements to Mastiff. Some muckety-muck named Hessenflow (I kid you not because I asked him to spell it for me) took charge and started stomping about. Since Cooper wasn’t there, I assumed that TC was still walking about in his body. I only hoped he was taking care of that body.

  Dags offered to give me a ride in his truck. I agreed, and sat in stunned silence.

  “You okay?”

  I nodded.

  “You want to ask me any questions?”

  I looked over at him. Oncoming headlights illuminated the front of his face but cast the sides in shadows. “You going to tell me what happened?”

  “Not right now. I say we head on back to the shop, roast marshmallows, and drink hot chocolate.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just stared ahead. Dags . . . was a Grimoire?

  Dags’s phone rang. He slipped it out of his coat pocket and looked at it. “Hey—where are you?”

  I assumed it was Rhonda.

  “Uh-uh . . . no . . . but I did get hit with demon bane . . . Hell yes, it hurts . . . No, but it’s enough to keep the girls in place . . . You sure? I never saw anything like that there . . . Basement? Okay . . . we’re on our way there now.” He punched the front of the iPhone and slipped it back into his pocket. “That was Rhonda. She and Joe are gonna meet us back at the shop. She’s going to call ahead and see if Jemmy can find some Dragon’s Blood.”

  “Some what?”

  “Something that can counteract the demon bane.” He pointed to the bandage on his shoulder that the EMT technician had put on. “It’s not a lethal exposure but it’s enough to smart and continue to smart. The antiseptic isn’t going to cut it.”

  “So . . . what is Dragon’s Blood?”

  He smiled. “Dragon’s Blood resin, extracted from the dragon tree, which is pretty much the oldest tree on the planet and damned hard to find. It’s expensive, but the natural, positive properties and healing aspects are incredible.”

  I pursed my lips at him. “I think you and Maureen used it before.”

  “On TC—but that magic’s long fizzled out.”

  Uh-huh. A dragon tree. Riiiight.

  Jemmy wasn’t there when we arrived, and everything was locked up tight. I opened the back door, shut off the alarm (my idea—getting the alarm installed), and poured water into the electric kettle and plugged it back in. “You want tea?”

  “Chai.”

  “Sure,” I said, making myself busy in the kitchen. I could hear him in the botanica. He’d turned on some lights and was making book noises, as if looking through the cases. “You need something?”

  He came back in, with a preoccupied expression. “Yeah . . . but you need me?”

  I looked up at the cabinet. They were nice cabinets, installed when Mom redid the room. White, tall with gold knobs. I had the one closest to the sink open and was looking up at the top shelf. Just above it was a fake ivy vine and an Animal Cracker tin. “I see the chai tea up there, but I don’t think I’m tall enough to reach it.”

  “And you think I am?” He grinned.

  I returned the grin and pointed to the stool. “Just grab that, then stand there as I get on the counter—”

  “No, no, no,” he said, waving me away. “You grab that, and I’ll stand on the counter. If I fall, it’s less weight.”

  Uh . . . not sure I appreciate that statement. But he’s cute. He can have one freebie.

  I did as he said, and he used my shoulders for support, then climbed on top of the counter. Once there, he grabbed the tea and handed it down to me. Then he looked back up. “Is that like a real box of Animal Crackers?”

  I glanced up. “No. I think it’s one of those like—collector’s things? Just a box.”

  He reached up for it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen—”

  BOBBY was looking at me from above that box again. That box in the basement. The one that had always traveled with us. The white, unmarked box. I’d never opened it. Mom had always told me it was just a box of old stuff—full of spiders and lizards.

  But there it was—and Mom wasn’t home.

  “Come on, Zoë,” Bobby said, and his voice echoed in my head. “Don’t you want to know?”

  “Know what?”

  I turned—was that Mom?

  But it wasn’t Mom standing there. It was a man. No, a boy, really. A man that looked like a boy. He wore a long dark coat and a dark blue shirt, untucked, and had brown hair. His face was kind but concerned.

  “How’d you get in here?” I asked him.

  He held his hands out to his sides, his palms down. “I just wanted to see how you were doing, that’s all.”

  “Who are you?” I asked, my attention half-focused between the box and the cute guy to my right. Mom was gonna be double pissed off at me if she caught me down here—and with a boy!

  “You don’t belong here,” Bobby said. I looked at him. His usually cherubic face had an odd, lined, shadowy look.

  He looked downright spooky. I mean, I knew he was a ghost and all—but ghosts didn’t usually look like ghosts. Or Hollywood ghosts.

  “No, I don’t,” the man said. “But I’m here—and who are you?”

  “You can see him?” I looked at Bobby, then back at him. “Really?”

  “Yes, I can see him. But what is it you want to know?”

  I pursed my lips and checked my watch. It was a nice watch—one my mom saved up and bought me. It had a small diamond where the twelve was, and my name engraved on the back.

  It was getting too close to when she was suppose
d to be home—and I needed to check on the chicken upstairs. “Look—Mom’s gonna be home soon—and this is a bad idea.”

  But Bobby wasn’t letting it go. He jumped/floated down from where he’d been perched on the box and got between me and the shelf with the box on it. There were about a billion other boxes there too—but that box on top seemed to shine. “You said you wanted to see what’s in the box!”

  “Well, yeah.” I took a step back. Bobby had never yelled at me before. “But I’m more worried about Mom skinning my hide if she catches me down here.”

  “Do you know what’s in the box?” the stranger asked.

  Bobby whirled around, and a strange voice came out of his mouth. Something deep and unfamiliar. “You stay out of this, or I’ll chase you back to your dreams.”

  I stared down at him, though all I could see was the back of his head. “Bobby? That was rude.”

  What turned and looked at me wasn’t Bobby. It was short, and it looked like him on the outside, but his face—it wasn’t right. His pale skin had turned gray, and his eyes—they were gone. Only sunken, empty sockets.

  His teeth—

  “Zoë! Get out of the way!”

  That made me crouch with fear as the stranger pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them out in front of him, palms facing the Bobby thing. Circles pulsed on his palms, and there was a blue-white light.

  Bobby screamed as the light enveloped him.

  I could see him burning—his dead flesh igniting. And as the light touched me, it was warm—and soothing.

  And then the skin on my left wrist started to bubble and pucker, and my screams began. I scrambled back on the floor to get away from the light—

  ‘‘ . . . 911? Did you test her blood?”

  “Yes, I did. It’s normal. She’s always insisted that whole sugar thing was nothing more than a weird side effect of being a Wraith. And now she’s not one. But that doesn’t explain Dags being out.”

  “There aren’t any signs of struggle or that they were attacked?”

  “Look, woman, I already told you. They both look fine—other than they’re not moving.”

  My cue. “Not moving . . . where?” I managed to ask, though listening to the fuss in the dark had been kinda entertaining.

  “Zoë?” That was Rhonda’s voice. “You okay?”

  “No.” My head was killing me. Little evil gnomes were inside, whacking up the interior to make a nest. “What the hell . . .” And then I opened my eyes.

  Three faces stared down at me. I stared back up at them. Rhonda was directly over my head, so she was upside down. “Can you stand?”

  “Uh . . . maybe.” And then I realized I was on the kitchen floor. And it’s not a big kitchen. It was crowded, and as I turned my head to the left I saw Dags’s profile. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. “What—what the hell—Is he okay?”

  Rhonda had her hand on my wrist, preventing me from reaching out to him. “We don’t know. We were hoping you could tell us why you were both out cold on the kitchen floor.”

  We were?

  I pulled my hand from Rhonda and pushed myself up with my elbows behind me. “We were . . . we were getting chai tea . . . I . . . we were talking and then I heard . . . no . . .” I saw that box in my mind’s eye again. Why was I dreaming about that box? “I don’t know . . .”

  “Dags is coming around,” Joe said. I finished pushing myself into a sitting position and nudged Rhonda out of the way—basically into the tiny hall in front of the stairs and the basement steps.

  I leaned over Dags as his eyes opened. He blinked a few times, then focused on me. “Who’s Bobby?”

  AFTER finding the Dragon’s Blood and a few other things in the botanica, Rhonda made up a poultice thing and had Dags press it against his shoulder. Joe finished up the tea as Dags and I curled up on the couch. We’d both changed into more comfortable clothes—me in my blue plaid loungers and long-sleeved gray thermal top and Dags in his . . . wow . . . blue plaid loungers and a thermal tee shirt. What . . . he buys at the same Kohl’s I do?

  After bringing us tea—man I like chai—Joe sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, talking on his phone, and Rhonda joined us in the papasan, with my laptop in tow. Hrm. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d checked my e-mail.

  Joe ended the conversation. “Well, Detective Frasier—after his oddly heroic move at the Center for Puppetry Arts—has once again disappeared. And so has Cooper. I hope they’re having fun together.”

  My heart fluttered. Cooper not answering. I reeeeally hoped that bastard kept a good eye on that body. If not, I swore that when I went Wraith again, I’d kick his ass.

  “I guess Daniel’s behavior is really bad?” Dags asked. “I mean, this isn’t like him, is it? He’s always been a good cop?”

  “Well, yes and no,” Joe said. “I’ve known Frasier awhile. And he definitely has a dark side. We all do, Dags.”

  “Yeah . . .” Dags said softly. “It’s that dark side that’s starting to worry me.”

  “Daniel’s had a pretty rough time lately. I mean, realizing you were married to a real bitch. And then finding someone like Zoë, and getting the shit beat out of you on top of a building and enduring a coma for a couple of weeks. Then having your ex-wife murdered in your house. Having to go through the trauma of being a suspect and finally when you think it’s all good—you can hear your girlfriend that said she couldn’t speak in your head—but you don’t know it’s your head and you think it’s your ears and then you see—”

  I closed my eyes and remembered the argument. That night—in the botanica. Jemmy had left and it was just us.

  “But I heard you!” he’d shouted at me.

  I’d shaken my head and tried to make him hear my thoughts—because that’s what he had to have heard, right? Me talking to Charlie, Lt. Charlie Holmes, Daniel’s deceased mentor.

  And when I’d thought about it—the situation made sense. We’d discovered that only a near-death or actual-death experience and a possession by me would allow someone to hear me in their minds.

  And since he’d met with that near death by TC’s hand—when I’d placed myself inside of him after my own body had been taken—didn’t that qualify him?

  But then—why hadn’t he heard me more than that once?

  But I’d known there was something else that night—I’d seen it in his eyes. He wasn’t the same man that night as he’d been earlier in the afternoon when he’d put roses on the back porch and insisted he should come with me to the warehouse.

  Something in that instant had changed him.

  Something he’d seen.

  He’d walked out of Mom’s shop, insisting he needed time to think.

  He’d had a month. No word. Nothing. Not a smile, or a card, not even a phone call to see how my mom was doing.

  And here I was—still pining over the loss of something I feared I’d never really had.

  And what was that, exactly?

  Ah. Yes. A normal life.

  “Okay, Zoë,” Rhonda said. “What is this dream you keep having?”

  I told everyone about the dreams, then Dags gave an account of the dream he’d just had, which was an exact match to what I’d just dreamed.

  Joe sighed. “So let me get this straight.” He pointed to me. “You’ve been having these dreams about a ghost named Bobby and a white box. But each dream’s been a little different.”

  I nodded.

  He pointed at Dags. “And you just had the dream, or rather were a part of the dream she just had when you two were snoozing on the kitchen floor.”

  “Apparently.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t get it. There’s no weird connection between you two, is there?”

  Dags and I looked at each other. He winked. That made me snicker.

  “What?” Rhonda asked. She hadn’t cracked the laptop open yet.

  “Nothing, really,” I said. “For me, sometimes the dreams are just so damned real.
Like they really happened.”

  “Well, is there a white box in the basement?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah, I think there is,” I said. “I mean, I always remember there being a box that looked like that, but Mom always told me not to touch it.”

  Wind picked up outside and made the windows behind us crack. I shivered and was glad Joe had lit another fire.

  Rhonda had her arms crossed over her chest. She was looking at me and Dags really hard. “Did you see and talk to ghosts when you were younger?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t remember if I did. I mean . . . a lot of my childhood is a blur. Except for those memories that Mom’s real strong in.” Like the snowflake incident.

  “Remember how I said you used to glow to those that watched you? And then you disappeared? How old are you in that dream?”

  “Uhm . . . I think I’m like twelve.”

  She shot a look at Joe. He wasn’t watching her. Instead, he got up and ambled into the kitchen. I heard a drawer in the kitchen open, rattling, then he came to the arch with a flashlight. “You talk among yourselves. I’m going to have a look downstairs for this box.”

  I nodded as he opened the basement door and disappeared.

  “Zoë, you vanished off the radar about that age, calculating your date of birth with the correspondence of additional stars in the heavens. Your parents kept your birth pretty much a secret as best they could.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your father insisted. I believe he wanted his daughter to lead a very normal life. With no strange things happening.”

  I thought of Bobby, and I knew on some level the dream was more of a memory. But the memory always got to a certain point and ended. “So what happened?”

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of like you are now. It was like you were Irin, then you vanished for eight years. Then bam! You’re back and stronger than ever.”

  Dags set his mug down on the coffee table. “So you’re thinking that the same thing that happened then might be what’s happened now? That’s all great—but what exactly did happen?”

  Rhonda looked at me. “Zoë, do you remember anything odd that’s happened lately? Some weird occurrence? Maybe even a blackout like you just had?”