Southern Curses (Max Porter Mysteries Book 6)

by Stuart Jaffe

  “What do you want me to say? ‘Oh, hi Mrs. Porter. Thought I’d call because your son’s been cursed by a psychotic do-gooder witch.’ You think that’s a good idea?”

  “Maybe not those exact words.”

  By the time they agreed to call Max’s mother only if he died and then broke off for their separate assignments, noon had come and gone. They still had hours to make some progress, though. Max had no doubt that both Sandra and Drummond shared the urgency he felt. However, no matter how greatly they could empathize, they weren’t the one with the curse. Drummond had been cursed before, he knew exactly what Max was going through, yet even so, Max still wondered if a ghost could truly understand. Except he was a ghost now, too. If he could spend his time moping about feeling alone, then another ghost should also be able to have emotions.

  He tried to shove away these thoughts. He was simply frustrated, and it made his mind wander into ridiculous hypotheticals and manufactured concerns. He needed to do something. Unfortunately, his options were limited.

  Because he wasn’t really dead, he could not access the Other with Drummond. Though even if he could manage that feat, he discovered quite fast and painfully that his ghostly form was tethered to his cursed body. It appeared he could go anywhere within the boundaries of the hospital. However, if he tried to leave the building, he felt a vice grip seize his head and start to pull. The further he went beyond the hospital, the worse the pain. Thus, he stayed behind while Sandra and Drummond did all the leg work.

  Standing alone in his hospital room, Max stared at his body. He could have roamed the halls, but after attempting it once, he decided that had been enough. The halls of the hospital were stuffed with dead people. Seeing them wormed under his skin. Worse, he thought if he spent too much time with them, he might lose that sensation. He might get comfortable with the dead. While he had no proof, he thought that the closer he came to the realm of the dead, the harder it might be to bring him back to the living.

  “Look at you,” he said to his body. “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” He did not laugh. Didn’t even crack a morbid smile.

  He had already adjusted to the sensations of being a ghost. Passing through objects caused him no feeling at all. If he wanted to actually touch something, it merely required a small amount of concentration. However, the pain of coming into contact with the solid world shocked him.

  He knew from working with Drummond that touching things caused pain, had seen it on the old ghost’s face, but he had no idea what the experience was like until he attempted to press his hand against the wall. His fingers burned as if he had placed them against a hot stove. Shooting bolts of pain strafed up his spine right into the back of his head. If he had a stomach, he would have thrown up.

  All the times Drummond had touched the corporeal world in order to protect or help or outright save Sandra and Max, he had endured this kind of pain. Max wished he could buy the man a drink — a double-shot of whiskey. Drummond would appreciate the gesture even if he couldn’t partake in the drinking.

  The other aspect of being a ghost that came as a surprise was the loneliness. Max had only been in this state for a few hours, and he already wanted to tear down the walls. Drummond had endured decades before Max freed him from his curse. No wonder most ghosts are haunting people. They’re bored out of their minds.

  Stuck in the hospital was bad enough for regular patients. Stuck in the hospital as a ghost, especially when there were important things to be done outside of the building, that was sheer torture. Probably part of the reason Mother Hope set things up that way.

  An hour later, when his door opened, Max had to hold back from rushing across the room and hugging his visitor. When Peanut Butter entered the room, Max’s heart swelled and he zoomed into the corner so as not to accidentally bump the boy. He didn’t want PB running off scared.

  Not that the boy would. Before Max had hired him to do odd jobs and general help, PB lived on the streets of Winston-Salem. The kid was tough. Still, he was a boy. Perhaps that’s why Max always thought of him and his partner, Jammer J, as the Sandwich Boys. Not simply because of the obvious PB and J of their names, but because they were so young.

  PB glanced in the hall a moment before pulling a chair beside Max’s slumbering body. His thin fingers fidgeted with his shirt before reaching out and patting Max’s arm. Two quick pats and PB slipped his hand away.

  He cleared his throat. “Hey, Ghostman.” PB knew that Max could see Drummond — at least, he knew Max believed that.

  “Hey, kid,” Max said, though the boy could not hear him.

  “Crappy what happened to you. Sorry about it all. Don’t you worry though. I’m gonna make sure Ms. Sandra is taken care of. Me and J, we’ll do whatever we can to help her out. You got my word.”

  “That’s kind of you.”

  “I mean, you been real good to me. I don’t forget that stuff. Not just the little things you did, neither. The coffee and bagels when I was alone and all, well, that was cool, but you took a chance on me. Give me this job with real pay and everything. Jammer J and I, you know, we don’t waste that money. We been saving it. Got a bank account and everything. We even went in together and got an apartment.”

  PB looked around before leaning in closer. In a soft voice, he said, “Don’t tell nobody. I won’t be any use to you, telling you what’s going on the street and all, if they think I’m suddenly a rich man. I mean, don’t get the wrong idea or nothing. This place ain’t nice at all. It’s a real hole. But we can afford it, and I don’t care if it’s got cockroaches and mice. It’s a roof over my head when it rains. And when it’s cold outside, I got some warmth, too. Anyway, I owe that to you and I wanted to thank you.”

  “No need to thank me,” Max said, his mouth open in a wide grin. “You earn your pay all the time.”

  “I don’t want you thinking I’m getting all sappy and stuff, but for an old guy, you’re pretty cool. I think if one of my parents had been like you, I wouldn’t have ended up like I did.”

  PB lowered his head and closed his eyes. He said nothing for several minutes. In the quiet, Max watched and held still. He wanted to speak — really, he wanted PB to hear him — to let PB know that his words did not fall away into nothingness. But as he stood there watching, he suspected that PB preferred his words to be lost.

  “You know what?” PB said, his voice breaking through like a sudden disturbance in an empty church. “I’ve done some bad things. I mean I’m sure you think you know what a guy like me has got to do to survive the streets, but that ain’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking before the streets, back when I had a home and a mom and a dad and all that crap. I did a real bad thing back then. Maybe if you had been around back then, none of it would’ve happened. But I want you to know about it. I really do. I want you to know because you put your trust in me. That whole thing with that haunted house — if Jammer J and I hadn’t done our part, you could’ve been killed. That’s serious trust.”

  He peeked at the door and took a shivering breath. “So, you ought to know the kind of person I am — good and bad and all. Especially since I think some of that past is on its way after me.”

  “Whatever it is, kid, you’re part of the business now. That’s our family. We’ll help you out.”

  A knock at the door jolted PB to his feet. The door swung open and a stern woman walked in. She had blond hair closely buzzed in the back with sharp, pointed ends on the cropped sides. Her grim, dark eyes stood out from her pale skin. Max knew the woman right away, but PB had no clue, and Max had no way to warn him. Cecily Hull had come to visit.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  PB straightened and his chin lifted. “I’m a friend of Max. Who the hell are you?”

  “Where’s Sandra? I know her too well to think she’d abandon her husband.”

  PB shrugged. “Haven’t seen her.”

  “Can you go find her for me?”

  “No.”

  Cecily pulled bac
k. “What does that mean? You can’t or you won’t?”

  “Look, lady, you act like a rich, stuck-up ass, so I ain’t helping you with nothing.”

  Max suppressed a laugh until he remembered that nobody could hear him. Then he let it roar out.

  Cecily dug into her purse and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. “If I give you this, will you deliver a message for me?”

  “I don’t want your money. This room’s for friends and family. You obviously ain’t either.”

  She never faltered. She simply slid the money back into her purse. “You are fortunate that today I have serious matters to deal with. Otherwise, I think I’d enjoy seeing you suffer the consequences of your rudeness.” Her cold delivery had the desired effect upon PB. “You tell Sandra Porter that Cecily Hull wants to speak with her on an important matter. She knows how to contact me.” Cecily turned toward the door, paused, and added, “And she better.”

  As Cecily walked out, Max started to follow. At the door, however, he stopped. He looked at PB. The boy had something important to unload, something he had been building up to. But Cecily had interrupted and the momentum had disappeared. Would he try again?

  Following Cecily was important, too — it could not have been a coincidence that she arrived on the same day that Mother Hope had visited. Drummond taught Max a long time ago the likelihood of such things truly being coincidences. “Never happens,” the detective had said.

  Cecily, then. If PB truly wanted to share something with Max, he would do so when Max was conscious. For that matter, Max had to admit that he felt a bit slimy eavesdropping on PB’s private words. The boy had no reason to think Max was listening.

  Stepping into the hall, Max braced himself for the claustrophobic crowd of ghosts. Men and women of all ages filled the hall like transparent statues. They loitered in the halls, paying particular attention to the living, and watched life trickle by.

  Weaving through the throngs, Max followed Cecily to the elevators. He kept bumping into the other ghosts but managed to avoid passing through more than a few humans. When Cecily boarded the elevator, Max joined her. But when the doors closed and the elevator descended, Max passed through the ceiling and remained floating in the elevator shaft.

  His head spun as his instincts told him he would plummet to his death. He paddled his arms and legs about as if drowning. When nothing happened — neither moving toward the walls nor tumbling toward the bottom — he started to laugh and continued until his rapid pulse eased. How do I have a pulse? he wondered.

  By paying closer attention to his heartbeat, he remembered that he was still alive — in a curse-induced coma, but alive. So, he did have a heart beating in his chest, and that apparently connected with his ghost version. Max’s thoughts leaped around from the metaphysical idea of astroprojection to his experiences with Drummond’s limits to wondering if different planes of existence had different physics.

  He chuckled at this last thought. I’m floating in an elevator shaft. Of course, physics is different. Which meant that he could behave differently as well. He needed to sit down with Drummond and learn the basics, but since his ghost partner was unavailable at the moment, Max decided the best thing to do would be to experiment.

  Since motions with his arms and legs had already failed, he tried to use force of willpower. He thought about moving toward the doors. Still nothing.

  Well, how did I get here? I walked. Max wondered if it could be that simple. He had walked the halls without a thought. Why should he think about it? He’d been walking since he was one year old. Perhaps, if he trusted his ghost body and his natural instincts, the rest would follow.

  Max closed his eyes, took a breath, and then simply walked back onto the floor. No problem. He then pictured how Drummond could float around the room and pass through walls.

  Putting his arms in front like a flying superhero, he pushed off the ground. And he floated. Not high, not far, but he did not touch the floor, and he did not fall. If he had to be a prisoner of this hospital, at least he got to have this bit of fun.

  Except Cecily Hull was nothing fun. He lowered back to the floor and attempted to continue lowering through the floor. His body dropped down without any resistance. He did not move fast, but he did move.

  By the time he reached the main level, he expected Cecily to be long gone. However, he found her sitting in a sunlit hall connecting the main entrance with the visitor parking garage. Darker wood panels made a curved wall with large windows. Inside was a conference hall. At the far end, just before the sliding doors to the garage, stood a Starbucks kiosk.

  As the barista served coffee and sweets to a line of waiting customers, Max noticed that he could not smell the enticing aromas. Drummond had often complained about being unable to enjoy the smell and taste of food. It was like watching a movie instead of actually being right there. It put a distance between Max and the solid world around him.

  He hunched his shoulders and looked away. I really am a ghost. Not that he had doubted it before, but the reality of his situation plowed into him.

  Before he could spiral into a series of depressing thoughts, he saw Cecily Hull pull out a cell phone and make a call. Though he could not smell coffee, he could hear people speak, and right then, Max figured no conversation could have been more important to listen to. He drifted towards her, ignoring the watchful glares of three women who, by their dress, died sometime in the 1960s.

  “Well?” she said as a form of greeting.

  Max leaned in to hear the voice on the other end, but Cecily kept her phone pressed tight against her ear.

  “That’s not good enough.” She crossed her legs as if swatting off flies with her feet. “I need more than accusations ... I know it’s true but I need proof, and the only one who could provide that is Devan.” Her lips twisted down as she listened to the response. “I don’t care ... Then you tell him that either he finds Devan or he finds the fastest route out of North Carolina, and that goes for you, too ... Look here, Mr. Pescatore, I have been pleased with the work you have done so far. I know your ambitions and you know mine. If you want to be positioned to benefit from my rise, then you must be willing to get involved in all aspects of my work. Sometimes that gets messy. You understand? This family has been mired in dark swamps of sin for a long time. If I am to bring us into the twenty-first century, it means that none of us can afford to act as if we’re above the stench. Not yet, at least.” Her lips twitched upward but the rest of her face remained stoic. “That’s a much better response. Go to work now. I look forward to hearing of your success.”

  As she placed the phone into her purse, Max heard Sandra’s voice. “What are you doing down here?”

  She had spoken to Max, but Cecily answered, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Sandra glanced down at Cecily. “Ms. Hull? What’s going on here?”

  Max went over to give Sandra a kiss, almost touched her, before he remembered he was a ghost and contact would only cause her pain. “This shouldn’t surprise you. I’m cursed and the Hull family shows up.”

  “Please, Mrs. Porter, I come on urgent business.”

  “No,” Sandra said. “My husband is in a coma. I have no interest in hearing about your problems.”

  “You know better than that. From the very start, your husband’s actions tied our families together. He threatened to expose some of our darker secrets should anything happened to him.”

  “That was years ago, and since Tucker’s return, it seems the journal is of no value now.”

  “Let’s not verbally gamble when we both know I hold the stronger hand. The journal always has value. And as such, if the Hulls have a problem, then so do the Porters. We are tied together. So, may I come up to the room with you, so we can talk?”

  Though her muscles stiffened, Sandra said, “You can go wherever you want.” She thought for a second. “What is it you do want anyway?”

  “I thought that was obvious. I want to hire you.”

  Chapter 5 />
  Rising through ceiling after ceiling, Max had time to worry. He wanted to zip back to his room, but flying upward took more effort than dropping down. By the time he joined Sandra and Cecily, the two women had seated near his comatose body, steady glares firing between them. Max wanted to ask Sandra what had happened, but he knew to stay quiet. Drummond had taught him long ago that listening often produced better answers.

  Cecily tugged on her silk blouse and straightened her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have expected more cordial behavior. After all, money does not give one manners.”

  “That explains you a whole lot better.”

  “Careful, Mrs. Porter. I’m willing to trade barbs because I want your services. But don’t think you are irreplaceable. Continue to be this rude to me, and I will make sure you regret it.”

  Max floated behind Cecily, but before he could open his mouth, Sandra threw a venom-filled look at him. He ran his fingers across his lips, zipping them up, and then mimed tossing away the key.

  To Cecily, Sandra said, “You’ll have to forgive me, but our dealings with the Hull family have never gone smoothly, and on top of that, my husband is right here in bad shape.”

  “Apology accepted. I, too, am under a great strain, so if I’m a little curt, you’ll understand why.”

  “Jeez,” Max said. “If that’s true, she’s been under a strain since the day we met her.” Max waved off Sandra’s glare and made another lip-zipping motion.

  Sandra said, “Please, Ms. Hull, tell me what you want to hire our little firm to do.”

  Cecily rubbed her palm against her side. Her fingers looked bony and sharp. Though she could not see Max, she appeared to react to him anyway, snapping her hand back to her lap, then lacing her fingers tight to keep her hands still.

  “The Magi Group,” she said with a bitter snarl. “They are moving against Tucker. I want you to help me stop them.”

  “You want to stop the Magi from taking down Tucker Hull — the man you are actively trying to take down. Why? You could have them do all the work for you.”