Shadows of Old Ghosts

by Stephanie Zayatz

  Devaney nodded. “Right, right. Anyway, he works for them. Some political high and mighty or something.” He shrugged.

  “Nice to have friends in high places,” Aviira said.

  “Sure, sure. All right, well, I’ll get out of your way and you can get your investigation going. I’ll leave an officer out front if you could just bring the light up when you leave.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Officer Devaney turned and headed up the concrete steps. When his silhouette disappeared from view, Aviira shook her head and said, “Dork. What, he think that because he’s got an in with an Ancient we’re going to tell him what we’ve got here? Shit.”

  “I’m sure he’d love to bring back a zombie to his commanding officer,” Jirel said. “And then take it to the press.”

  Aviira slipped her bag off and knelt on one knee. She unzipped the bag and took an impressive camera out and fixed a large lens to it.

  “Think we should get the Spooks in here?” she asked as she went through some settings on the digital display on the back of the camera.

  “Well, I sure as shit don’t know what to do with these bodies,” Jirel said.

  The Society task force called Supernatural Prevention and Undercover Containment, or SPUC—Spooks to everyone else—responded when field agents encountered anything otherworldly or undead. They were the ones who cleaned up the messes left by the field agents and, more importantly, made sure nothing ever got out to the greater public about things that didn’t quite stay in the grave. Aviira had no idea what they did with the bodies, and she was pretty sure she was comfortable never knowing.

  She held the camera up and started shooting. “Well, they can get in here and get these bodies out. Maybe get us some identities.”

  “Good start as any.”

  Jirel watched her take a thorough range of photos of the bodies from more angles than he could count. Her stance as she took the photographs told him that she was an experienced photographer and wasn’t just borrowing the equipment for casework.

  While she took pictures, he took a slow walk up and down the cavern to see if there was anything else out of place that they should take note of. If the bodies had been placed in there after they’d died, whoever had put them there had done a good job of cleaning up after. There was no blood, no scuffs in the dirt, no sense that anything had gone on in the room except for the placement of three bodies.

  When he came back up, though, he noticed a curve in the wall that had been hidden in shadow from the other side of the room, and something about it stuck out to him. He moved closer and got the sense that there was fresh mud caked over the top of the wall. He brushed at it lightly and as the dried dirt began to fall away, it revealed something stamped into the wall.

  “Aviira.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Take a look at this.”

  She took one last picture of the room from the front to the back, with the bodies in the foreground. She knew Jirel would be in the corner of the picture, but since he wasn’t blocking anything important, it didn’t really matter. She put the camera strap around her neck and stepped over the bodies to join him.

  He had brushed away the dirt on the wall to reveal what looked like some sort of cult sigil or spell marker. It was a circle about three inches by three inches, inside which was a seven-pointed star. Inside each wedge of the star were runes.

  “Recognize anything about that?” Jirel asked.

  She scoffed. “Hell no.” She stared for a few seconds. She had no idea what the design was, but for some reason she felt uneasy looking at it. Like it was something that was never supposed to be seen.

  “You mind getting a picture?” Jirel asked.

  “Oh. Yeah, guess that’d probably be a good idea.” She shook her head and lifted the camera. As she took the picture, the flash went off for the first time, and the flashbulb made an audible pop.

  “Shit,” she whispered, holding the camera down to look at it. The flash hadn’t gone off once since she’d started shooting. Jirel could see the bulb had completely burst inside the clear plastic casing.

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Aviira murmured. She clicked on one of the buttons to bring up the digital display, but it was unresponsive. Jirel frowned.

  “Batteries?”

  “Must be,” she said, shaking her head. “I charged them up the other day…”

  Jirel glanced over his shoulder toward the stairs. He’d gotten the sense that someone was behind him and thought it was Lieutenant Devaney again, but there was nobody there. He crossed his arms over his chest as something tickled the back of his neck.

  “Oh well,” Aviira said, and removed the lens before putting the camera back in her bag. “I think I got enough to work for us. You good?”

  “I’m more than good,” Jirel said quietly. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Aviira took one more long look around the room and couldn’t help but shiver, and it wasn’t from the cold of the room. There was just something creepy about the whole thing, and the bodies on the floor were just the beginning of it. She didn’t put a lot of stock into ghost stories and rarely found herself afraid of the dark, but there was an undeniable energy about the room that made her never want to be anywhere near it ever again.

  “Hope that sign wasn’t some dangerous magic or some shit,” she said absently.

  He wasn’t sure if she was being serious. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “You touched it and I photographed it. That’s usually how horror movies start.”

  She flicked off the power switch on the utility light and engulfed them in darkness that for a moment felt heavy, thick. Jirel heard Aviira’s breath stutter. In the small light coming from the top of the stairs, he was able to look back and take the light from her.

  “Ladies first,” he said. The sound of his voice cut the thick silence and shook away the feeling of unease that had settled on their shoulders, and he followed her up the stairs. Halfway up, he looked back over his shoulder, certain that there was someone coming up behind him.

  But there was nothing, only a sheet of blackness and three bodies that he hoped were finally willing to stay in the ground.

  ***

  At Headquarters, their first stop was to drop off Aviira’s photos to have them developed. The Society had an office that was specifically for the archival of case files and important documents that had to be kept on file for any future issues, and it just so happened that the person who ran that office was skilled in photo development and ran copies for agents who had pictures of things—like dead bodies—that shouldn’t be developed at the local Walgreen’s.

  It also just so happened that the person who ran that office was to date the only vampire to ever be employed by the Society. There was no particular law that kept the undead members of the Ancient community from joining the Society or interacting with their warm-blooded kin, it was just that most of them preferred to keep to themselves. Though it was widely accepted that vampires were (generally) of little harm to the public, especially once synthetic blood hit the market, most people still felt a little uncomfortable around them, and that drove most of them to a life of relative secrecy and interaction with others like them.

  Tito’s office was in the basement of Headquarters—which was already below ground to begin with—and attached to his own apartment that had a secured exit somewhere several blocks down the street. He would occasionally come topside for things like Christmas parties—nobody threw a party like Tito—but mostly kept to himself in his office, since he was well aware that many people got a little nervous with him around.

  Aviira liked him. He had been given the virus in the mid-eighties when he was a young and vibrant man who frequented gay bars, which she always thought was ironic because she had a feeling that he had always been worried about a different kind of virus at that time. Now perpetually age twenty-seven (and still frequenting gay bars), Tito still had a flamboyant personality that was the exact opposite of wh
at most people expected when they thought of a vampire. He had been working for the Society before his transformation, and so after his initial recovery and therapy, he was allowed to keep his job. It was in fact convenient that way, because the Society now never had to worry about replacing him when he got too old to do the work.

  She had asked him once if the Society had ever considered not taking him back out of fear he could one day take down an employee. He told her that part of his paycheck included a stipend for synthetic blood, which kept him well satisfied and kept the Society a little less nervous. He said it was way more convenient that way anyway, since “going down on a guy in a dark alley for blood was not nearly as exciting as going down on him for other reasons,” as he’d told her.

  The front of his office looked like a waiting room with a counter at the back of it. Most people came, handed over their files, and left again. Aviira had been allowed behind that counter a few times—she always thought that was terribly indicative of her personality, that one of the few people she made friends with was a vampire—and was surprised that it led into a huge vault that Tito kept immaculately organized. He did have the time on his hands, after all.

  The vault was so deep—and he usually listened to loud pop music while working—that he had a doorbell hooked to the front counter in case someone came in while he was in the back. Aviira set her camera bag on the counter and rang it. The music that could be heard from the vault—Katy Perry—turned down suddenly and was followed by a voice.

  “Be right up!”

  Aviira leaned on the counter and glanced at Jirel. He was taking in the room with a look that said he was trying to be casual. She fixed the roll of one of her sleeves at her elbow.

  “You’ve never met Tito.”

  He looked at her. “Is that a question?”

  She shrugged. “Just assuming. You look nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “Do you really think the Society would employ a vampire if detectives disappeared after visiting him?”

  “Like I said. I’m not nervous.”

  “Okay.”

  Half a minute later, the door behind the counter opened and Tito emerged. He was wearing a pink polo shirt and tight black jeans. He looked professional for all of about three seconds, until he spotted Aviira, and his face dissolved into a huge smile, enough to flash two sets of sharp incisors. It was about the only thing that gave the even slightest impression that he was anything other than normal, aside from being particularly pale for a Latino.

  “Oh hey, girlfriend. Shoulda hollered or I would have come up sooner. How’s it going?”

  “Same old,” Aviira said. “I got some photos for you.”

  Tito noticed Jirel and gave him a friendly smile. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “This is Jirel, my new partner,” Aviira said as the two shook hands. If Jirel was bothered by how startlingly cold Tito’s hand was—most people were—he didn’t show it.

  “Since when have you worked with a partner?” Tito said. “No offense,” he said to Jirel.

  “Since I nearly got my ass fired.” She glanced at Jirel and smirked. “No offense.”

  He shrugged. “Not like I’m any farther away from getting fired either.” His eyebrows went up. “No offense.”

  Tito gave her a sympathetic smile. “You beat up another one? Girl, you gotta relax. Get yourself laid once in a while.”

  “I get laid plenty, thank you very much,” she said, shifting onto one leg and leaning on the counter.

  “Maybe he’s not doing a good enough job then,” Tito said, glancing at Jirel as if to say, “You know what I mean?” Jirel, to his credit, remained neutral.

  Aviira cleared her throat. “You’re supposed to tell me how grateful you are that I didn’t get fired.”

  “No kidding, I get my juiciest gossip out of you. You should let me take you out to one of my clubs sometime. We have a good time.” Tito winked.

  “I don’t think either of your demographics are exactly up my alley, Teets,” Aviira said.

  “Oh well,” he sighed, glancing at Jirel again. “Try to show a girl a good time…”

  “You want these pictures or not?”

  Tito straightened. “Yes. Gimme. Professional pictures or play pictures?”

  She popped the SD card out of her camera and handed it over. “Professional. Wait till you see.”

  “Oh, goody.” He turned on the computer on his side of the counter and waited for the pictures to load up.

  “I hesitate to ask what he means by play pictures,” Jirel said quietly.

  Tito eyed him. “You’re her partner and don’t know about Aviira’s pictures?”

  “We only met two days ago, he’s allowed a pass on that one,” she said, and looked at Jirel. “I pretend to be a photographer in my spare time.”

  Tito snorted. “Pretend. Girlfriend’s one of the best photographers I’ve ever seen. See that?” He pointed over Jirel’s shoulder at a framed photograph of a raven. The photo was so perfectly composed, not a single feather was out of focus, and even though the picture had been taken from an obvious distance, it seemed like the bird was looking directly into the lens with a purposeful stare. It looked almost three dimensional.

  “Girlfriend took that. ‘Bout shit myself when she had me develop that.”

  She shrugged when Jirel looked back at her.

  “Aw, shit,” Tito said as he watched the pictures upload on his computer. “The fuck is that?”

  “Your guess is as good as ours,” Aviira said. She leaned her elbows on the counter and dropped her chin into one hand. “You got any guesses?”

  “I’m undead and I don’t know what that is,” he said. He made one of the pictures larger on his screen and spent a long while looking at it. “Looks like one of those things off a zombie show.”

  “A zombie?” Aviira said.

  He reached across the counter and slapped her arm. “Don’t be a smartass. You know what I mean.” He looked at Jirel. “Sorry hun, but you got yourself a smartass for a partner.”

  He smirked. “Didn’t take me long to figure that one out, strangely.”

  “You can print those out for me?” Aviira said, ignoring the dig.

  “Uh huh,” Tito said. “Should have them ready for you tomorrow. Detective upstairs got me pulling about eight million case files right now. What happened to your camera?” He picked up her camera. The plastic casing around the flash was black.

  “Not sure. The flash bulb cracked when I took the last picture on there. Then the whole thing shut down.”

  The vampire took a closer look at it. “You okay to leave it with me? I should be able to get it fixed.”

  She shrugged. “Not like I don’t know where to find you.” Tito gave her a saccharine-sweet smile and she looked at Jirel. “I’m starving. You?”

  “I could eat.”

  “Cool.” She slapped the counter. “See you tomorrow, Teets.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Tito said, sending that sweet smile toward Jirel. The half-elf gave a small wave and turned to go. When he did, Tito caught Aviira’s eye, put a hand up to his face to block it from Jirel, and pointed at him, mouthing “he’s cute” at her.

  She frowned and mouthed back, “shut up” as she picked up her camera bag and followed Jirel out of the room. Tito was grinning at her as she walked away.

  ***

  The woman who answered the door at the high rise apartment building in Park Hill looked like she would fall over if a stiff breeze hit her. She was thin and pale and had silvery-blonde hair, all of which put the word wispy in Aviira’s head as she took her in.

  Elaine Turner, the owner of the home where they’d found the bodies, led them into her gleaming kitchen and immediately offered them something to drink. They politely declined.

  “You’ll have to excuse the mess,” Elaine said as she poured herself a cup of coffee. Aviira had no idea what she meant, but assumed she was indicating the boxes that were piled in the
living room. Everything else was in immaculate condition. “I started packing before I decided to just get the house renovated and wait to move. In the meantime it’s something of a pain.”

  “How long have you owned that house?” Jirel asked.

  She swallowed. “Not long,” she said. She gave the two of them a long look back and forth. “I’m sorry, you said you were from the Society? That’s the organization that looks after Ancients, isn’t it?”

  Jirel nodded. “Your contractors found something at the house that they wanted us to take a closer look at.”

  She kept a neutral face, but there was a hint of concern in the growing furrow between her eyes. She was young, maybe in her early thirties, but Aviira got the impression that life had served her up something awful recently, no matter what the outward appearances were.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “The shed in the back yard,” Jirel said. “Had you looked back there much?”

  She shook her head. “No. I knew it was in bad shape though. I was planning to have it taken down once I moved in.”

  “A contractor fell through the flooring.”

  “Oh, my goodness. Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. The problem is what he found when he fell through the flooring.”

  Elaine stared.

  “There was a root cellar below the shed flooring and inside it were three bodies,” Aviira said.

  Her face turned to horror. “Bodies—human bodies?”

  They both nodded. Elaine set her coffee down and covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh, how terrible,” she said from behind her fingers, shaking her head. “Oh, no. I had…I had no idea.”

  “Do you have any idea who the previous owner of the home was?” Jirel asked.

  Elaine composed herself and removed her hands from her face, cleared her throat. “Yes. It belonged to a friend of mine, actually. She and her husband used it as a rental property, but they recently decided to sell it. I bought it from them.”