The Mediator #4: Darkest Hour

by Jenny Carroll

  "Demonic possession of my household?" I gripped the phone tighter. "Listen, Father D, she may have got my boyfriend, but she is not getting my house."

  Father Dominic sounded tired. "Susannah," he said. "Please, just do as I say. Get yourself and your family out of there, before harm comes to any of you. I understand that you are upset about Jesse, but the fact is, Susannah, that he is dead and you, at least for the time being, are still alive. We've got to do whatever we can to see that you remain that way. I will leave here now, but I'm a six-hour drive away. I promise I will be there in the morning. A thorough administration of holy water should drive away any evil spirits remaining in the house, but – "

  Spike had padded across the room toward me. I thought he was going to bite me, as usual, but he didn't. Instead, he trotted right up to my face and let out a very loud, very plaintive cry.

  "Good God," Father Dominic cried into the phone. "Is that her? Is she there already?"

  I reached out and scratched Spike behind his one remaining ear, amazed he was even letting me touch him. "No," I said. "That was Spike. He misses Jesse."

  Father Dominic said, "Susannah, I know how painful this must be for you. But you must know that wherever Jesse is now, he's better off than he's been for the past hundred and fifty years, living in limbo between this world and the next. I know it's difficult, but you must try to be happy for him, and know that, above all, he would want you to take care of yourself, Susannah. He would want you to keep yourself and your family safe – "

  As I listened to Father Dom, I realized he was right. That was what Jesse would have wanted. And there I was, sitting around in a pair of lounging pajamas when there was work to be done.

  "Father D," I said, interrupting him. "In the cemetery, over at the Mission. Are there any de Silvas buried there?"

  Father Dominic, startled from his safety-first lecture, said, "I – de Silva? Really, Susannah, I don't know. I don't think – "

  "Oh, wait," I said. "I keep forgetting, she married a Diego. There's a Diego crypt, isn't there?" I tried to picture the cemetery, which was a small one, surrounded by high walls, directly behind the basilica down at the Mission where Father Dominic works and I go to school. There are only a small number of graves there, mainly of the monks who had first worked with Junipero Serra, the guy who'd founded the Carmel Mission back in the 1700s.

  But a few wealthy landowners in the 1800s had managed to get a mausoleum or two squeezed in by donating a sizeable portion of their fortunes to the church.

  And the biggest one – if I remembered correctly from the time Mr. Walden, our World Civ teacher, had taken us to the cemetery to give us a taste of our local history – had the word Diego carved into the door.

  "Susannah," Father Dominic said. For the first time, there was a note of something other than urgency in his voice. Now he sounded frightened. "Susannah, I know what you are thinking, and I. . . I forbid it! You are not to go near that cemetery, do you understand me? You are not to go near that crypt! It is much too dangerous...."

  Just the way I like it.

  But that's not what I said out loud. Aloud I said, "Okay, Father D. You're right. I'll wake my mom up. I'll tell her everything. And I'll get everyone out of the house."

  Father Dominic was so astonished, he didn't say anything for a minute. When he was finally able to find his voice, he said, "Good. Well . . . good, then. Yes. Get everyone out of the house. Don't do anything foolish, Susannah, like call upon the ghost of this woman, until I get there. Promise me."

  Promise me. Like promises mean anything anymore. Look at Jesse. He'd promised me he wasn't going to go away, and where was he?

  Gone. Gone forever.

  And I'd been too much of a coward ever to tell him how I really felt about him.

  And now I'd never get the chance to.

  "Sure," I said to Father Dominic. "I promise."

  But I think even he knew I didn't mean it.

  C H A P T E R

  9

  Ghost busting is a tricky business.

  You'd think it would be easy, right? Like if a ghost's bothering you, you just, you know, bust its chops and it'll go away.

  Yeah. Doesn't work that way much, unfortunately.

  Which is not to say that busting someone's chops does not have therapeutic value. Especially for someone who, like me, might be grieving. Because that's what I was doing, of course. Grieving for Jesse.

  Except – and I don't know if this applies to all mediators or just me – I don't really grieve like a normal person. I mean, I sat around and cried my eyes out after the realization first hit me that I was never going to see Jesse again.

  But then something happened. I stopped feeling sad and started feeling mad.

  Really mad. There I was, and it was after midnight, and I was extremely angry.

  It wasn't that I didn't want to keep my promise to Father D. I really did. But I just couldn't.

  Any more than Jesse could apparently keep his promise to me.

  So it was only about fifteen minutes after my phone call to Father D that I emerged from my bathroom – Jesse was gone, of course, so I could have changed in my room, but old habits die hard – in full ghost-busting regalia, including my tool belt and hooded sweatshirt, which even I will admit might seem a bit excessive for California in July. But it was nighttime, and that mist rolling in from the ocean in the wee hours can be chilly.

  I don't want you to think I didn't give serious thought to what Father D had said about my telling my mom everything and getting her and the Ackermans out of there. I really did think about it.

  It's just that the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded. I mean, first of all, my mom is a television news journalist. She simply is not the type to believe in ghosts. She only believes in what she can see or, barring that, what has been proven to exist by science. The one time I did try to tell her, she totally did not understand. And I realized then that she never would.

  So how could I possibly go busting into her bedroom and tell her and her new husband that they have to get out of the house because a vengeful spirit is after me? She would be on the phone to her therapist back in New York, looking for communities where I could go to "rest," so fast you wouldn't believe it.

  So that plan was out.

  But that was all right, because I had a much better one. One that, really, I should have thought of right away, but I guess that whole seeing-the-skeleton-of-the-guy-I-love-being-hauled-out-of-a-hole-in-my-backyard thing really got to me, and so I didn't think of it until I was on the phone with Father D.

  But once I'd come up with it, I realized it really was the perfect plan. Instead of waiting for Maria to come to me, I was simply going to go to her and, well. . .

  Send her back from where she came.

  Or reduce her to a mound of quivering gelatinous goo. Whichever came first.

  Because even though ghosts are, of course, already dead, they can still feel pain, just as people who lose a limb can still feel it itching from time to time. Ghosts know, when you plunge a knife into their sternum, that it should hurt, and so it does. The wound will even bleed for a while.

  Then, of course, they get over the shock of it, and the wound disappears. Which is discouraging, since the wounds they, in their turn, inflict upon me do not heal half so fast.

  But whatever. It works. More or less.

  The wound Maria de Silva had inflicted on me wasn't visible, but that didn't matter. What I was going to do to her certainly would be. With any luck, that husband of hers would be around and I could do the same to him.

  And what was going to happen if things didn't work out that way, and the two of them got the best of me?

  Well, that was the coolest part of the whole thing: I didn't even care. Really. I had cried out every last ounce of emotion in me, and now, I simply didn't care. It didn't matter. It really didn't.

  I was numb.

  So numb that, when I swung my legs out my bedroom window and landed o
n the roof of the front porch – my usual form of exit when I didn't want anyone inside to be aware I was up to something – I didn't even care about the things that normally really mean stuff to me, like the moon, for instance, hanging over the bay, casting everything into black and gray shadow, and the scent of the giant pine to one side of the porch. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

  I had just crossed the porch roof and was preparing to swing down from it when a glow that was brighter than the moon but much weaker than, say, the overhead in my bedroom, appeared behind me.

  Okay, I'll admit it. I thought it was Jesse. Don't ask me why. I mean, it went against all logic. But whatever. My heart gave a happy lurch and I spun around....

  Maria was standing not five feet from me on the sloping, pine needle-strewn roof. She looked just as she had in that portrait over Clive Clemmings's desk: elegant and otherworldly.

  Well, and why not? She isn't of this world, now, is she?

  "Going somewhere, Susannah?" she asked me in her brittle, only slightly accented English.

  "I was," I said, pushing my sweatshirt hood back. I had pulled my hair into a ponytail. Unattractive, I know, but I needed all the peripheral vision I could get. "But now that you're here, I see I don't have to. I can kick your bony butt here just as well as down at your stinking grave."

  Maria raised her delicately arched black eyebrows. "Such language," she said. I swear, if she'd had a fan on her, she'd have been using it, just like Scarlett O'Hara. "And what could I possibly have done to warrant such an unladylike tongue-lashing? You'll catch more flies with honey, you know, than vinegar."

  "You know good and well what you did," I said, taking a step toward her. "Let's start with the bugs in the orange juice."

  She reached up and coyly smoothed back a strand of shining black hair that had escaped from her side ringlets.

  "Yes," she said. "I thought you might like that one."

  "But killing Dr. Clemmings?" I took another step forward. "That was even better. Because I imagine you didn't have to kill him at all, did you? You just wanted the painting, right? The one of Jesse?"

  She made what in magazines they call a moue out of her mouth: you know, she kind of pursed her lips and looked pleased with herself at the same time.

  "Yes," she said. "At first I wasn't going to kill him. But when I saw the portrait – my portrait – above his desk, well, how could I not? He is not even related to me. Why should he have such a fine painting – and in his miserable little office, as well? That painting used to grace my dining room. It hung in splendor over a table with seating for twenty."

  "Yeah, well," I said. "My understanding is that none of your descendants wanted it. Your kids turned out to be nothing but a bunch of lowlifes and goons. Sounds like your parenting skills left a bit to be desired."

  For the first time, Maria actually looked annoyed. She started to say something, but I interrupted her.

  "What I don't get," I said, "is what you wanted the painting for. The one of Jesse. I mean, what good is it to you? Unless you only took it to get me in trouble."

  "Wouldn't that be reason enough?" Maria inquired with a sneer.

  "I suppose so," I said. "Except that it didn't work."

  "Yet," Maria said, with a certain amount of emphasis. "There is still time."

  I shook my head. I just shook my head as I looked at her. "Gosh," I said, mostly to myself. "Gosh, I'm going to hurt you."

  "Oh, yes." Maria tittered behind one lace-gloved hand. "I forgot. You must be very angry with me. He's gone, isn't he? Hector, I mean. That must be a great blow for you. I know how fond you were of him."

  I could have jumped her right then. I probably should have. But it occurred to me that she might, you know, have some information on Jesse – how he was, or even where he was. Lame, I know, but look at it this way: on top of the whole, you know, love thing, he was one of the best friends I ever had.

  "Yeah," I said. "Well, I guess slave-runners aren't really my cup of tea. That is who you married instead, right? A slave-runner. Your father must have been so proud."

  That wiped the grin right off her face.

  "You leave my father out of this," she snarled.

  "Oh, why?" I asked. "Tell me something, is he sore at you? Your dad, I mean. You know, for having Jesse killed? Because I imagine he would be. I mean, basically, thanks to you, the de Silva family line ran out. And your kids with that Diego dude turned out to be, as we've already discussed, major losers. I bet whenever you run into your dad out there, you know, on the spiritual plane, he doesn't even say hi anymore, does he? That's gotta hurt."

  I'm not sure how much of that, if any, Maria actually understood. Still, she seemed plenty mad.

  "You!" she cried. "I warned you! I told you to make your family stop with their digging, but did you listen to me? It is your fault you've lost your precious Hector. If you had only listened, he would be here still. But no. You think, because you are this mediator – this special person who can communicate with spirits – that you are better than us … better than me! But you are nothing – nothing, do you hear? Who are the Simons? Who are they? No one! I, Maria Teresa de Silva, am a descendant of royalty – of kings and princes!"

  I just laughed. I mean, seriously. Come on.

  "Oh, yeah," I said. "And that sure was some princely behavior, killing your boyfriend like that."

  Maria's scowl was like a dark storm cloud over her head. "Hector died," she hissed in a scary voice, "because he dared to break off our betrothal. He thought to disgrace me in front of everyone. Me! Knowing, as he did, of the royal lineage running through my blood. To suggest that I would – "

  Whoa. This was a new one. "Wait a minute. He did what?"

  But Maria was off on a rant.

  "As if I, Maria de Silva, would allow myself to be so humiliated. He sought to return my letters and asked for his own – and his ring – back. He could not, he said, marry me, after what he had heard about me and Diego." She laughed, not pleasantly. "As if he did not know to whom he was speaking! As if he did not know he was speaking to a de Silva!"

  I cleared my throat. "Um," I said. "I'm pretty sure he knew. I mean, that was his last name, too. Weren't the two of you cousins or something?"

  Maria made a face. "Yes. I am ashamed to say I shared a name – and grandparents – with that – " She called Jesse something in Spanish that did not sound at all flattering. "He did not know with whom he was trifling. There was not a man in the county who would not have killed for the honor of marrying me."

  "And it certainly appears," I couldn't help pointing out, "that at least one man in the county was killed for refusing that honor."

  "Why shouldn't he have died?" Maria demanded. "For insulting me in such a manner?"

  "Um," I said, "how about because murder is illegal? And because having a guy killed because he doesn't want to marry you is the act of a freaking lunatic, which is exactly what you are. Funny how that part didn't trickle down through the annals of history. But don't worry. I'll make sure I get the word out."

  Maria's face changed. Before, she'd looked disgusted and irritated. Now she looked murderous.

  Which was kind of funny. If this chick thought anybody in the world cared about what some prissy broad had done a century and a half ago, she was mightily mistaken. She had managed to kill the one person to whom this piece of information might have been remotely interesting – Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D.

  But she was still apparently high on the whole "we de Silvas are descended from Spanish royalty" thing, since she whirled on me, petticoats flying, and went, in this scary voice, "Stupid girl! I said to Diego that you were far too much of a fool to cause trouble for us, but I see now that I was wrong. You are everything I have heard about mediators – interfering, loathsome creature!"

  I was flattered. I truly was. No one had ever called me loathsome before.

  "If I'm loathsome," I said, "what does that make you? Oh, wait, don't tell me, I already know. A two-faced backs
tabbing bitch, right?"

  The next thing I knew, she'd pulled that knife from her sleeve and was once more pointing it at my throat.

  "I will not stab you in the back," Maria assured me. "It is your face I intend to carve."

  "Go ahead," I said. I reached out and seized the wrist of the hand that was clutching the knife. "You want to know what your big mistake was?" She grunted as, with a neat move I'd learned in tae kwan do, I twisted her arm behind her back. "Saying my losing Jesse was my fault. Because I was feeling sorry for you before. But now I'm just mad."

  Then, sinking one knee into Maria de Silva's spine, I sent her sprawling, facedown, onto the porch roof.

  "And when I'm mad," I said as I pried the knife from her fingers with my free hand, "I don't really know what comes over me. But I just sort of start hitting people. Really, really hard."

  Maria wasn't taking any of this quietly. She was shrieking her head off – mostly in Spanish, though, so I just ignored her. I was the only one who could hear her, anyway.

  "I told my mom's therapist about it," I informed her as I flung the knife, as hard as I could, into the backyard, still keeping her pinned down with the weight of my knee. "And you know what she said? She said the trigger to my rage mechanism is oversensitive."

  Now that I was rid of the knife, I leaned forward and, with the hand I wasn't using to keep Maria's arm bent back against her spine, I seized a handful of those glossy black ringlets and jerked her head toward me.

  "But you know what I said to her?" I asked Maria. "I said, it's not that the trigger to my rage mechanism is oversensitive. It's that people . . . just … keep … pissing … me … off."

  To emphasize each of the last six syllables of that sentence, I rammed Maria de Silva's face into the roof tiles. When I dragged her head up after the sixth time, she was bleeding heavily from the nose and mouth. I observed this with great detachment, like it was someone else who had caused it and not me.