A Patch of Darkness

by Yolanda Sfetsos

  I’d spent half an hour with Harry Rempel and his wife, reassuring the couple that the ghost in their basement was gone. They were thankful. The house was settled, the temperature rose dramatically, cementing my assurances that everything was back to normal. They were happy, grateful and more than willing to fork over a wad of cash for our services.

  A little guilt swept over me because, for once, I hadn’t actually done anything to get rid of the spook. We weren’t transferring the teenage ghost to another site, or a poltergeist school, or even to a holding cell before he faced court. Nope, he’d been eaten by something else—some kind of entity travelling through the darkness. There was only one type of creature capable of doing such a thing—shadow ghosts, also known as shadow monsters or shadows.

  Those things fit the monster bill better than the ghost one. I’d encountered a few shadows in my time. Although they’re malicious creatures and love to consume just about anything—including humans, particularly children—in their path, I hadn’t seen such control over their surroundings. Or knew they had the ability to consume spirits. I suppose it was possible, but there was something else I couldn’t put my finger on. There was something very disturbing about the whole incident…like, where did the teenager’s spirit end up?

  What the hell were we dealing with? And did it have anything to do with the tear in the fibers?

  My gut told me it did and that scared the hell out of me. It meant horrid creatures were already creeping in from their patch to ours.

  “Where we headed?”

  I opened my eyes.

  Ebony stood on the other side of the car. She was watching me but for once didn’t seem impatient.

  I blinked away the sun, looking but not really seeing her. Too many thoughts were spilling into my mind and I was having trouble holding on to all of them. I’d have to get everything on paper or record it soon, if there was any hope of piecing any of this together.

  A halo of light engulfed my assistant as she waited to be let into the car. I climbed in the already open door and settled into the driver’s seat after reaching to unlock the passenger side.

  Ebony climbed in. “Well?”

  “Are you hungry? How about some lunch?” I asked, though my stomach wasn’t exactly equipped for food at the moment. “We’ve already covered three cases. Feel like taking a break?”

  She looked at me with a quizzical expression. “Are you okay?”

  I looked out the windshield, thinking about our day. If we kept going at this rate on a daily basis, we’d be caught up with all those untouched cases within a fortnight—especially if we shared the load. My doubts about Ebony’s ability to do the work on her own were outweighing my faith in her skill. We’d handled two other cases before the Rempel house and she hadn’t crossed over the barrier for either one.

  When seeing ghosts, a person’s intuitive system is able to connect to an extra sense most can’t access. I don’t think even science knows the how and why of it yet, but I’m sure they’re still trying to figure it out.

  There are varying degrees of sensitivity in gifted people. Some can visit a place and detect a presence nearby while others can actually see the presence manifest as a spook. Other people can even communicate with and touch them. The talent I possess is even greater than that. I’m able to force myself in through an invisible window. The world freezes around me as the ghost’s terrain becomes my temporary reality, sucking me in with the strength of their energy.

  If an individual can’t do that, they aren’t a spook catcher. The catcher gene might be hereditary, but the Spook Catcher Council doesn’t hand out licenses to any old person claiming they can see ghosts. One has to pass a rigorous test and supply familial information proving you are one. It’s like getting a ghostly driver’s license. All Ebony had at the moment was a permit. Yet, if today was any indication, I didn’t know if she’d ever be able to do this. Maybe I’d been wrong about her from the start. Maybe Ebony could only see dead people, not draw them out from their hiding spaces.

  Her humorous comment could be more truth than tease.

  Whatever the case, we needed to figure it out ASAP. And I was still grateful she’d pulled me out before the monster who’d taken the teenage ghost was able to take me too.

  “Hello? Are you still with me?”

  I blinked to clear my vision and stared out at the road ahead of us. The sun’s brilliance was reflecting off the hood of the car. “Yeah, I’m fine. So, how about some lunch, huh? I’d like to speak to you about a few things.”

  “Really?” She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Have you finally decided to grant me access to our wonderful business account? Because y’know, the balance is quite high at the moment and I think it may be time to re-decorate the office. What do you think, boss?”

  Boss? Ebony only used that term when she wanted something. “No, it’s not about that.”

  “Then what? Are you going to tell me all about the mysterious man who called you yesterday? Or give me an update about your relationship with Jonathan? Maybe you’re going to fill me in on how you know that weirdo you invited to our office today.” Ebony paused to suck in some air.

  I slipped the key into the ignition, kicking the motor over. “What weirdo?”

  Ebony rolled her eyes. “Duh, that Lavie chick! Are you sure she can help us tonight? She looked kinda loopy to me. I think she has a hard time keeping her head on straight, let alone helping anyone with anything.”

  I had to laugh because I’d thought the same thing several times. “Or that of demons…”

  “What?”

  “Ah, nothing.” I snickered, strapping the seat belt around me. The memory of Lavie sitting at the diner talking about the demon’s head inside her backpack as if it were the most normal thing in the world now struck me as funny. I was losing it. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “Yeah, good idea, I think you’re starting to get a little delirious. It could be work-related. You may be able to claim it on worker’s compensation or something!”

  “Ha, ha, very funny, my little apprentice,” I said, trying to sound mysterious. Instead, it came across sarcastic and even a little nasty. So I put the Fairlane into gear and took off.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Ebony choked on her strawberry milkshake, it didn’t instill much confidence in my confrontation. My question had been blunt and to the point. After holding it at the tip of my tongue all day, I didn’t have the energy to beat around the bush. She wasn’t reacting the way I expected her to. I’d been waiting for a nonchalant shrug and a roll of her eyes—anything but her choking on a fry and a sip of milkshake.

  “Shit, Sierra, what the fuck’s wrong with you?” she asked between coughs.

  “It looks like I should be asking you that question. That’s a guilty reaction, if ever I saw one.”

  “What—are you my mother now?” She wiped her mouth with a napkin and rolled her eyes. “Gee. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

  I sat back in the booth, eyeing her suspiciously. Even after knowing the coffee in this diner was awful, I’d still stopped by Monster Coffee Break for lunch. “I’m not your mother, but if you’re involved in some crazy shit that may affect both of us, I need to know.”

  Ebony cleared her throat. “You don’t need to know what I do outside work hours. That’s my damn business!”

  “You’re still avoiding the question. Have you ever attended one of those group meetings at the chapel on Wallace and Trent? A simple yes or no will do.”

  She glared at me, wide-eyed. Some of her heavy eyeliner had run and made her look ghoulish. “I don’t understand where this is coming from, but I’m not going to get into it.”

  “You better be willing to get into it if you want to keep your job.”

  “Are you saying you’ll fire me if I don’t give you details about my private life?”

  “I’m saying that if you don’t talk to me about something that may involve me, you could find yourself unemployed.
I don’t need nitty-gritty details, I just want the truth. I had a very reliable source who claims you’re involved with this group.”

  “Oh, right, and who might that be?” Ebony coughed again.

  I took a sip of my Diet Coke—no coffee for me—before answering. “Papan.” If Ebony was hiding something from me, I needed to know.

  She threw her arms up in the air. “Oh my Goddess, you’re taking the word of that hack? Come on, Sierra, the guy couldn’t find a damn cockroach hiding under his fridge! Besides—”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Besides what?”

  “That guy’s been itching to get into your pants forever. He’ll do and say anything to soften you up enough to get into them.”

  “Papan and I have a strictly business relationship. We help each other out,” I answered, avoiding her probing eyes. The memory of what had nearly happened between Papan and me last night stated otherwise. Still, she didn’t need to know that. I was just glad it did happen with Jonathan. My heart skipped a beat at the thought. My stomach fluttered as I stared at the salad sandwich I couldn’t eat. I was trying hard not to think about Jonathan, because every time I did, the emotions, scents and actions distracted me. And the presence of the dark patch’s appearance still haunted me. Why had we slipped into it during and after lovemaking? No matter how brief each slip had been, it happened and I couldn’t ignore it.

  Stay focused.

  “Uh-huh, right. You may think that, but I know he’s interested in a lot more than just business.” She lowered her arms on the table between us and massaged her temples.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I was with him one time.” She paused, glaring into my eyes as if waiting for a reaction. “And although it was pleasurable, he called your name at the most inappropriate time.”

  I fought the urge to let my jaw drop by grinding my teeth together. The two rude shocks in her statement hit me like a blow to the side of the head. Ebony had actually…with Jason Papan? My mouth dried up at the thought, and I felt a little queasy. Was I jealous? No. No, I was just shocked. He didn’t seem her type. And he’d called my name—when, during climax? I had to steer this conversation back on track.

  “Ebony, stop avoiding the issue and just answer me.”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Okay, look, this really has nothing to do with you but yes, I have attended the chapel. And it’s not some demonic cult like Carleen Hocking suggested. If her hubby was into some weird occult shit, it had nothing to do with the Church of the Goddess.”

  “The Church of the Goddess?” I echoed, taking a small bite out of my sandwich. It was nice, fresh and cool—too bad I wasn’t hungry.

  “Yes, we gather to worship the Goddess of Nature. Mother Nature, Mother Goddess, Gaia—or whatever you prefer to call her. We meet there on Wednesday nights to worship her.”

  “So, if this is just a church, why do you have to meet in an abandoned part of town inside an ancient chapel? You know that place will eventually get knocked down and they’ll rebuild on it.” This was starting to get interesting. Not what I expected at all, especially the information about Papan. I couldn’t believe he’d slept with Ebony, and wondered when it had happened. Where.

  I shook the questions away and concentrated on the blonde sitting across from me. How much did I really know about her? Sure, we’d been working together for over two years and I depended on her to help me run my business. But some people spent their whole lives with someone, never really knowing them.

  Yet, Ebony was helpful and organized. She cared about my business and, as eccentric as she could be, I considered her a friend. And I wanted to help her. She obviously had no idea how to connect to her catcher skills—if she even had any—and had slept with Papan! Okay, I was going off track again.

  I’d also never pegged Ebony as the type of person who actually believed in anything. Faith was something I would never have pinned on her. Rebellion, non-conformist, Goth, maybe even emo, but not faithful.

  “The church is the only place we can afford,” she finally answered with a shrug.

  I sighed. “It’s really that simple?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “And exactly how do you worship this Goddess of Nature?” This was going to be good, I could tell.

  “I’m not gonna tell you, but there aren’t any wild orgies like Carleen suggested. Sure, sometimes we’re naked, but only to become one with the Earth, not so we can jump each other all night,” Ebony answered. She stuck a handful of fries into her mouth. “You can come along if you want to see for yourself. That’s the only way you’re gonna find out exactly what goes on.”

  “They’ll let me in?”

  “Sure.” She munched on the fries. I wondered how she kept so thin eating so much crap. I’m pretty thin myself, but actually have to watch what I eat and drink, plus I try to work out and walk as much as my busy schedule permits. I’d never seen or heard about her doing any form of exercise.

  Well, except for her bragging about sex. So why hadn’t she mentioned being with Papan before?

  Oh my God, why was I totally obsessing over that? I had a boyfriend I cared about. Sure, I still couldn’t bring myself to say I love you but that had nothing to do with Papan. Yet…how far would things have gone if Jonathan hadn’t interrupted?

  “It’s not some secret cult,” Ebony said, stretching her arms above her head. “The priestess posts homemade posters all over the place, and she hands out pamphlets all the time.” Ebony turned to her big-bag-of-goodies—that’s what I nicknamed her so-called purse. The girl had just about everything in there.

  I took the green piece of paper she waved in front of my face. It was folded in two, definitely looked like a homemade job printed on colored paper using a Word document and a cheap-ass printer. Still, it served the purpose.

  A picture of the Earth adorned the front, with an outline of a halo above it. Church of the Goddess was printed in some gothic-looking font underneath the Earth. It even curved beneath, making it look like a smile! The inside was filled with text on both sides and even on the back. I didn’t have the attention span to concentrate on reading it now. I’d have to read it later, though, because our discussion wasn’t over.

  I still couldn’t believe Ebony and Papan actually… “I might come along with you sometime.”

  “Well, we meet every Wednesday at eleven. The next gathering is tomorrow night.”

  “Why so late?”

  “Why not?” She gulped the rest of her milkshake.

  I mentally added it to my to-do list. There was so much going on at the moment that if I didn’t offload some of it soon, I was pretty sure my brain would explode.

  “I’ll be your date, if that’s all right.”

  “Sure, it’ll get the tongues wagging. Do me a favor and don’t mention you’re my boss. I think this’ll actually be fun. I don’t know why you had to pull out the dramatics card to ask me this question, though,” Ebony said. “You know I’m not very conventional. Shit, if anyone should know what the hell that feels like, it should be you—the woman who can now expel spooks without trapping them into canisters. What do you think the Council will say about that little fact?”

  “The Council doesn’t need to know, and I told you I didn’t get rid of the spirit.”

  “Yeah right, delude yourself if you want, but you know they’ll find out and try to use it as an excuse to crush your little business. It thrives more than they ever will.” Ebony snorted. “And what the hell does that mean anyway? If you didn’t get rid of the spook, then who did?”

  I ignored her questions and comments—it was more clutter. I didn’t need more clutter. “I do need to talk to you about that whole ghost thing, but first I need to ask you a question about the church.”

  “Back to that again?”

  “Just answer this honestly, okay? Did you ever meet Roger Hocking?”

  She shook her head. “Nope, I joined the church a few months ago.”

  “And you neve
r heard his name mentioned?”

  “Sure I did. Apparently he used to do a lot of campaigning for them, although I don’t know how he found the time between his occult addiction and business.” She shrugged. “He gets mentioned every now and then, but up until the other day the name didn’t mean anything to me.”

  I met her eyes. I believed she was telling the truth. I decided to drop the Hocking thing for now, we’d get to the house soon enough and actually see for ourselves what this man had really been into.

  “You probably haven’t felt it, but there’s something strange going on with spirits at the moment.”

  “What do you mean by strange?” Ebony pushed her plate forward, sitting back in the booth.

  “I’m not sure, but ever since the incident in the Prevette house, I’ve felt something odd affecting any ghost I come into contact with.” I shivered at the thought of what I had to say next. “I actually saw something strange in the basement.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Ebony, did you see anything of what I performed at any of the jobs today. Anything at all?”

  She shook her head. “I felt the usual signs—the cold, goose bumps, feeling of being watched, that kinda thing. But other than that I didn’t actually see anything.”

  “Not even a hint of being drawn into the spook’s space?”

  “All I saw was you frozen like a statue for as long as it took to get the situation under control. I didn’t see any spook…which reminds me, I better get these canisters checked in before the cutoff.”

  Ebony was right. Six o’clock was the Council’s cutoff time every night, to check in occupied spook canisters. If a registered catcher didn’t complete the delivery, she’d be fined. No excuses were accepted, so there was no way to get out of it since each canister automatically recorded both time and date of capture. We had to follow the strict rules or suffer the consequences. It was the perfect way for the Council to enforce another form of control and line their pockets while they were at it.

  I nodded. “I agree, but before we get going, I’m a little concerned about your inability to be drawn into the spook’s zone. When I’m frozen it’s because my reality’s been replaced with that of the ghost’s, you know that, right? And being what you are, you’re supposed to be drawn in too.” I took a deep breath, pushing my own plate away. “But you didn’t cross over, not once. Can you tell me why?”