A Patch of Darkness

by Yolanda Sfetsos

  “Of course.” Good move, trying to shift the focus away from her problems and on to mine. I guess she really was on her way to getting over the tribulations in her love life. I wish I could deal with things so easily.

  Why Jonathan met with that man at all was really starting to bug me too. Knowing the amulet was in his possession was also not a comfortable thought. Maybe I’d pay him a surprise visit after the Spook Catcher Council. A worm of unease trickled down my spine at the thought of being alone with him.

  Focus. I need focus right now.

  “Good, now have fun at the Council and say hi to Jackie for me!” Ebony pushed off the car and raced up the path leading to her apartment block.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Stepping into the Spook Catcher Council Tower provided instant salvation from the heat outside. The air conditioning slapped me with a cool hand and melted away the sweat making my clothes stick to my skin.

  Too bad I felt nauseous. Being inside this building usually did that to me. There were too many ghosts trapped in here. At least they were all well contained.

  The tall gray building of the Council was situated in the middle of Sussex Street. The exterior consisted of metallic, rigid edges and a lot of glass as an attempt to soften the industrial look. Tall windows were just about everywhere, all tinted. The Council needed to keep many things in the dark, and none of them were actual spooks.

  The Council, who often bitched about funds, owned the building. Most of the offices belonged to them, but several of the lower floors were leased out to other organizations to make a little extra money on top of everything else they were already making. None of those companies had access beyond the fifth floor. The top half of the building narrowed before rising high into the sky. This was where the apartments were located. Most of the executives lived up there, as did the spook catchers who had joined their payroll. Anyone willing to sacrifice a little of their soul—or naïve enough not to know any better—lived rent free, or paid a small rent for the privilege.

  It was offered as a perk. I think it was just another attractive feature meant to lure unsuspecting girls into selling out. It was very easy to get carried away with the luxury of living there, but nothing was ever free when dealing with the Council.

  I knew from firsthand experience.

  I’d spent over half an hour circling the array of one-way streets, trying to find parking. Sure, I could’ve settled for one of the many parking garages in the heart of Sydney, but I wasn’t willing to fork out business-hour rates for a visit that wouldn’t take long. Nope, I finally—after driving past about eight times—found metered parking on Clarence Street. A spot big enough to house the whale of a car I drive.

  It was probably time to start thinking about buying a new car, but Grandpa left me his powder-blue rust-bucket after he died. The ’72 Ford Fairlane meant so much to him, and with us sharing a house, I couldn’t bring myself to break his heart by getting rid of it.

  I often lied about how reliable the car was. The truth wasn’t as romantic—the car was bulky, didn’t have air conditioning, cost a bundle to run, cost even more to insure, and was a bitch to park.

  Maybe I could buy a new car and keep this one as well. Maybe.

  As I approached the large reception area located against the back wall of the foyer, unease swept over me. A cascading wall of water sat behind the reception desk. The light shade of blue sparkled behind the water, which surprisingly didn’t make any noise.

  It took several minutes to reach it because I was purposely taking my time. When I found myself standing behind the marble-top counter, the receptionist looked up. She tried her best to appear friendly.

  “Hi, Jackie”—I flashed the toothiest smile I could muster—“how are you today?”

  Jackie Thompson—ash blonde, pale, smooth skin, slim body, and perfect makeup—stared at me with a look of contempt she couldn’t hide, no matter how hard she tried. We had a history that would never allow us to be friends. She despised me for being more than human and despised herself even more for being only human. Petty reasons neither of us had control over, but she thrived on the illusion of control. It seemed to be the only thing she cherished.

  I never understood her real problem with me. Okay, so it could have something to do with the time we were ten years old and wandered into a haunted house together on a dare. She’d had nightmares for months but I was the reason she made it out alive.

  Sometimes restless spirits can get vicious, and that was my first horrifying experience with one. It’s not like Jackie was the only one who had a shocking night and awful memories to last a lifetime. I came out pretty scarred—both physically and mentally.

  “Hello, Sierra,” she finally said, faking her own version of a smile. Lipstick stained her front teeth.

  I stifled a laugh. It looked like she was still pissed because all she could be in the catcher world was a receptionist. Maybe that was the real reason why she hated me. I refused to give her Ebony’s position when she popped in for an interview, trying to pass herself off as a spook catcher.

  “How’s life treating you?” I asked.

  “Great, just great…and how are you?”

  Last I heard her fiancé ran away with someone else. I think it may have been a man. “Yeah, things are great. It’s good to see you again. It’s been a while.”

  “Never long enough,” Jackie said between clenched teeth.

  “Ebony sends her regards.”

  “Oh good, say hi to her for me.”

  She couldn’t stand Ebony either. Though, she did manage to masquerade her dislike of others a little better than she did with me. Not that it made a difference to me. We weren’t in high school anymore. Her vicious attacks couldn’t hurt me now.

  “Sure, no problem, Jack. How’s the therapy going anyway?”

  She winced. It was so easy to toy with her. “Don’t call me Jack. You know I hate that juvenile name! Just tell me why you’re here so I can palm you off to someone else and get you out of my sight.”

  “Gee, is this how you greet everyone?”

  “No, I reserve it just for you.”

  “You always manage to make me feel special, don’t you, Jack?”

  She rolled her eyes, tapping her blue pen against the desk. “Well, what do you want? Who’s the poor sucker that has to put up with you today?”

  “I need to drop off these canisters,” I said, motioning the bag over my shoulder.

  Jackie’s eyes widened. “Why are you doing it? Decided to give your slave an afternoon off?”

  “Ebony’s not my slave. But hey, if she is, why were you so eager to apply for the job?”

  “I wasn’t eager. A job’s a job, Sierra. You don’t have to get all high and mighty with me about your additional talents. I thought you would’ve outgrown being a showoff.” Nothing could hide the spite in her voice.

  My talent never gave me any reason to show off in front of anyone. If anything, it was always a burden and made me feel different from everyone else.

  When I was a kid, all I ever wanted was to fit in with others, but after the haunted-house incident, rumors started to hound me. Thanks to Jackie, my secret became the focus of childish, whispered conversations. Every time I walked anywhere at school, other kids would stare at me then whisper when I was out of earshot. Some of them didn’t even do that and called me names like freak, ghost girl, spook lover, and ghoul.

  It didn’t end there. The teasing followed me into high school, which made it a thousand times worse when my breasts decided to grow overnight. After that, guys were chasing me down, not because they liked me, but to win the race of being the first guy to get his hands on the “tits of the freaky ghost girl”. I could only imagine what went on during their locker-room conversations.

  Luckily, I caught on to all of that crap and Jackie’s bitchiness early on. I spent a lot of time alone. Only ever had two true friends, and one of them had been dead ten years before I was born.

  I looked down a
t the fake perfection of Jackie and felt sorry for her. She was the one who couldn’t move on because she’d loved being the queen bee back in school. Picking on me had helped raise her social status and pushed mine down. Now she was nothing. Sometimes I wished we’d never crossed paths again. The harsh memories of school always returned whenever I saw her.

  “Okay, you take care and keep on living your boring life. I know where to go from here.” I called with a short wave as I made my way towards the elevators.

  Jackie’s mouth dropped open and the pen slipped out of her fingers. She might think she was fooling others with the charade of her perfection but I knew better. It felt good to walk away after having the last word.

  As I neared the wall of elevators, my body temperature dropped. I pressed the elevator button with the arrow pointing skyward and waited.

  A little fake bell chimed when the doors opened. I looked up and my heart stopped. My eyes met those of another familiar person I hated to run into.

  He was the real reason why I usually sent Ebony to do the drops.

  His brown eyes looked me up and down, the wicked smile never leaving his lips. His clean-shaven face was glowing. “Well, well, fancy meeting you here, Sierra Fox.”

  I cleared my throat. “Mace.”

  He stepped out of the elevator, his long body hidden beneath an expensive navy-blue suit. Every strand of his styled, dark hair was in place as he moved towards me. “It’s so good to see you. Wow, you look great! Age is definitely agreeing with you, darlin’.”

  I didn’t respond. His voice was rousing gooseflesh along my body and I felt lethargic. Mace used to have this effect on me and worse. I used to melt around him, become tongue-tied and in awe until we eventually tumbled into bed. Things always made more sense with Mace Clamber when talking was minimal. He was like an illusion of perfection, and when he did talk, knew exactly what you wanted to hear. But like every illusion, he wasn’t what he seemed.

  The man was a dirty bastard.

  He’s what the Council liked to call a scout, which loosely translated to sexy-man-able-to-seduce-just-about-anyone. His job was to seek out every Australian teenage girl displaying any “catching” ability. His weakness also happened to be sweeping these girls off their feet, and then sucking them right into the greedy clutches of the Spook Catcher Council.

  I hated this man. He sweet-talked me into joining the team fresh out of high school, took my virginity, kept me drugged on his syrupy clutches of forever, and coaxed me into signing a binding contract with them. A contract I broke when I was twenty-one and put me in debt to this organization for breaching it early.

  I was still paying it back, and because of him, I hadn’t been able to enjoy the hard-earned money I made. It was the reason we still had a shabby office. But it didn’t matter anymore because I was very close to paying it off. After that I’d be free to enjoy every cent I earned.

  “Sierra?”

  “Huh?” I asked, so caught up in thoughts of regret that I hadn’t noticed he was suddenly too close. I took a step back but he lightly pressed his hand down against my shoulder and leaned over to lay a kiss on my cheek.

  “Would you like to have lunch after you drop those off?” he asked with a smile and a suspicious wink.

  It took me a few seconds to clear the scent of his spicy aftershave. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, come on, it’ll be like old times.”

  I knew exactly what that meant. Were his conquests making him so cocky he actually thought he could still sweep any girl off her feet, regardless of circumstance or history? Mace was a glorified pimp for this organization. And for the thousandth time I wondered why they chose to turn a blind eye to his tactics.

  “Look, I’m trying to be polite, but if you’re going to be obnoxious about it… I wouldn’t have lunch with you if you were the last man on Earth.” My hands were shaky so I pressed them to my sides.

  “Come on, Sierra, that’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? I thought we were friends.” Mace lowered his voice and whispered, “Special friends. Why don’t you visit anymore?”

  The elevator door opened again, offering me an escape. I shrugged his hand off my shoulder and raced inside, keeping my back to him. At least the barrier between us helped calm my nerves a bit.

  “We’ve got a lot to catch up—”

  The doors shut behind me and I released a breath.

  The bag by my side suddenly felt heavier. Sometimes it happens. The spooks trapped inside feel what’s going on, where they’re headed. None of them want to end up facing judgment.

  I pressed my thumb print against the small panel next to the sixth-floor button. A red light ignited under it and access to every other floor lit all the way up to the twentieth. I hit the thirteenth floor and the elevator shot upwards. I always wondered if it was an inside joke to make the deposit office for spooks the thirteenth floor, or had it been sheer coincidence?

  When the elevator doors parted, I strolled out and took a left. I was starting to get sick of lugging the two canisters around with me, especially after the incident in the cemetery.

  What could Travis have possibly wanted with a bunch of ghosts stuck in canisters?

  I approached the small hole in the wall up ahead with caution. Behind the opening sat the canister collector. The correct name was the Collector, but that made it sound more important than it actually was. All Roe did was write it up, get the catcher to sign, and then allow access after sighting your license.

  “Good afternoon,” Roe called as I stopped in front of him, “Haven’t seen you in a while, Ms. Fox.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, it’s been a long time. I’ve been busy.” Translation—I try to stay away as much as possible. It was too bad because Roe really was a nice man. We all had to make a living, I suppose.

  He smiled and revealed several tooth gaps in that large mouth of his. Roe—no surname attached—looked human, but there was something odd about him. Maybe it was his ashy-tinged skin, or the way his eyes were always bloodshot and watery. He was far from beautiful in appearance with all that patchy, greasy hair sticking up at weird angles on top of his head yet framing his face, but he was nice and always courteous. I liked him.

  There were all sorts of rumors flying around about Roe. Some claimed he used to be a grave digger, others that he was a mortician with a taste for embalming fluid. Personally, I didn’t care which one—if any—were true. Roe has been the Collector for many years, and was a welcome change from the bastard who manned the position before him.

  “What ya got there for me, Ms. Fox?”

  “Two canisters today,” I answered, pulling each one out of the duffel bag and dumping them on the counter between us, along with my catcher license. No point in correcting the way he addressed me. I’d tried for years to get him to call me Sierra, but he preferred Ms. Fox.

  “Right.” He wrapped his long fingers around one, jotted down the serial number on the side, date and time of collection, and then did the same for the second canister. “I’ll need you to sign them in. Have you emailed in the reports?”

  I nodded before signing the left-hand column, and quickly scanned the list on the clipboard. The page was only halfway full and the name before mine was Ebony’s. Must be a quiet week.

  I passed it back to him. “Business a bit slow lately, is it, Roe?”

  He took the clipboard and nodded quickly. “Seems to me that you and Ebony are the only one’s pulling anyone in nowadays.”

  “Is there any particular reason for that?”

  He popped his head out through the hole in the wall, so I stepped back to give him enough room. When he seemed satisfied that no one was around, he lowered his voice and said, “You didn’t hear it from me but something weird is goin’ on around ’ere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Roe shrugged and a sour look crossed his face. “I don’t know for sure, but one of ’em spook catchers upstairs died the other night while trying to capture a spook. And another was injured p
retty badly. I think she’s in a coma.”

  “Are you sure it’s not just a vicious rumor?” It wouldn’t be the first time someone started something.

  He shook his head. “I believe it’s true. Haven’t seen young Daisy since—she’s the one who died. And Mara’s the one in the hospital.”

  “Mara Jenkins?” I asked, shocked.

  He nodded. “We better get movin’ before them cameras pick up our chatting and the bosses get peed off with me. I don’t like what happens when they do.”

  I shuddered to think what they would do to him, so I moved to the right and stood in front of the locked metal door, waiting for him to buzz me in. After the click, I pushed the heavy door inwards and strode into the bleakly lit room.

  Roe handed back my catcher license and I pocketed it.

  He sat on his stool and motioned for me to go about my business. Roe always sits with his back to me whenever I deposit spooks into the holding cells. Almost as if he doesn’t want to watch.

  I glanced at the three walls lined with holding cells from top to bottom. Each was about thirty centimeters by thirty centimeters, the perfect cube. Not much room for the spook to get comfy but enough to be safely trapped.

  The first canister was as easy a deposit as the capture. Once inside, I peeked in through the small glass compartment to find a faint blue swirl. At least there was hope for this one. It may have refused to move out of someone else’s house, but it wasn’t struggling against its fate.

  The other was still trying to be difficult. I got a nasty zap when I grabbed his canister. “Ouch!”

  “Is everything all right?” Roe asked, still facing the other way.

  “Yeah.” I rubbed my fingertips before grabbing it again. It weighed so much I struggled to lift it with both hands. Slipping it correctly into the opening on the cube as it snapped in tight, the canister looked as if it were in danger of snapping off. I held it up with one hand and used the other to press the release lever located on the bottom of the canister.