She looked up at him and shook his head. “I don’t fucking believe it.”
“Okay, get away from him right now,” Jirel said. “If he’s contagious or something…”
She pulled her hands away, held them up in the air as she considered that for the first time. “Shit.”
“Wait here. I saw some hand sanitizer in the kitchen.”
Aviira stood in the mouth of the hallway while Jirel went back to the kitchen. He grabbed the bottle off the counter where he’d spotted it coming in, and when he turned around, Patrick Devaney was standing behind Aviira in the hallway, his green eyes glazed over to white, lifeless orbs. Ice water ran through his entire body and he barely managed to choke her name out.
“Vira!”
She flinched to one side when he yelled at her, and it probably saved her life. The creature that had just minutes before been Patrick Devaney missed a full-body collision by a few inches, though it still brought her down to the ground with it. She hit the floor hard with both arms flung out in front of her and felt something pop in her shoulder. White hot pain lanced up her neck. In a panic she rolled onto her back and tried to push herself away from it as it reared back to leap again.
It never made it to her, because the bullet from Jirel’s .38 blew its face off first. The force of the impact pushed it to the ground on its back. Aviira pushed herself back with her legs as the thing flailed on the floor and slowly suffocated. Jirel grabbed her under the armpits and pulled her away.
“Jesus fuck!”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said immediately, and then, as if to prove her wrong, her shoulder seized up and pain took over from her left ear down to her fingertips. “No.”
Jirel pulled her to her feet and guided her back to the kitchen, keeping a wary eye on the body in the living room. Aviira’s arm was practically dangling from the socket at the shoulder and she was breathing in small gasps.
“Dislocated,” she said through gritted teeth.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Yep. You know how to put one back in?”
He grimaced. “Yeah, but you’re not going to be happy with me.”
“Just do it, you’re not taking me to a hospital.”
He gave another nervous glance over his shoulder at the thing on the floor, as if worried it would come back at them, but it was still. He gripped her hand and forearm and took in a breath.
“Ready?”
“Do it.”
He pulled her arm up and rotated it until it popped back into place. He could tell it had gone back in by the relieved gasp that Aviira sucked in, followed by a string of colorful obscenities.
“Okay?” he said as he put her arm down gently.
She was grimacing and holding her breath while the worst of the pain passed, but she nodded. Finally she rolled her head back and groaned. “What the fuck just happened?”
Jirel was watching the body in the other room with an unpleasant look on his face. “Looks like the Lieutenant here got cursed. That tech at the SPUC office told us that’s how that curse starts, with a cold.”
Aviira got up, holding her elbow, and stood next to him. “So who wanted to curse him?”
“Not sure, but it makes me a little nervous.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
He turned his head to look at her. She looked back at him. They stood there in the anxious, wired silence for a second.
“You’re okay? It didn’t scratch you or anything?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Just caught me at a bad angle. Good thing you saw it coming or it would have taken me out.”
“You’re going to want some painkillers before long,” he said, concern in his voice.
“It’ll be fine,” she said, though her face was already pale. “I’ve dislocated my shoulder before. I’m not going to a hospital.”
“Moira can take care of you. You’ll be flat on your ass by tomorrow if you don’t.” He glanced back uneasily at the body. “Considering the state of things as they stand right now I don’t think we have a day to spare you being flat on your ass.”
She swallowed and could hardly keep the grimace off her face. She was holding her elbow up; the pain was too much if she let her arm dangle naturally. “Fine. Let’s take care of this first. Get the Spooks on the phone and let them take care of this body. I’m not going near that thing again.”
***
“You two are on a roll,” Moira said as she came into her sitting room carrying a bottle of whiskey in one hand and three glasses in the other.
“Though not a particularly good one,” Jirel said.
Moira sat down and poured them each a drink, looked up at Aviira. She was leaning back into the couch cushions, favoring the one shoulder which had an ice pack resting on it. She had one hand over her face and was apparently trying to pretend she wasn’t in as much pain as she was. Moira—a former nurse in addition to being able to banish demons, Aviira learned—had given her a thorough looking over and determined that Jirel had done a satisfactory job of putting the joint back into place and she’d made off with minimal damage to the muscles. Aviira said it was because she’d popped it out of place a few times before, and Moira didn’t necessarily disagree with her. She’d offered her some painkillers, which Aviira had declined.
Jirel was curious how she’d been in the habit of dislocating her shoulder so many times she was practically used to it, but he’d held his tongue.
“You doing all right over there?” Moira asked.
“Mhm.”
Moira shot Jirel a glance and then handed him a glass, thumbed in Aviira’s direction. He took it and tapped her good arm gently, held out the drink to her. She opened her eyes and took it, then eyed the two of them.
“You didn’t spike this with Vicodin, did you?”
Moira maintained a serious face and said, “I always wait until at least the third visit to drug my guests.”
“Good to know.” Her eyes narrowed as she spotted something on the mantel behind Moira. “Is that a skull?”
“Mhm,” Moira murmured in a blithe tone as she took a drink. “My ex-husband.”
Aviira had to sit up straight to avoid spilling her drink as she coughed on it. When she recovered, she sent a desperate look at Jirel.
“Please tell me she’s kidding.”
He gave a small shrug like he’d had this conversation before. “All I know is that there’s a missing person case under her husband’s name that’s never been solved.”
Aviira stared at him for a long moment and then shook her head. “Now I know why you two get along.”
“Now what?” Moira said. “Have you any leads on whoever this witch might be?”
Jirel shook his head, winced over a sip of whiskey before he set it back on the table. “Got a first name and know that she might be involved with the guy who used to own the house. Best bet is tracking him down, see if he’ll give her up.”
“It sounds like whoever this person is, she’s trying to keep witnesses quiet. The woman who owned the house and the cop who came across the scene, both out of the picture. I mean, maybe the other woman is a coincidence. But definitely not the cop.”
“That woman driving her car into the river wasn’t a coincidence,” Aviira said quietly. “The guy who saw her go off the road saw a shadow in front of the car. That’s enough evidence for me.”
“But why curse Devaney?” Jirel said. “If this person is trying to get witnesses out of the way, why not make it look as coincidental as possible?”
“He saw the bodies in the shed,” she replied. Her eyes went distant for a second. “Maybe the witch did it to let us know that she knows we’re watching.”
“What happened to the cop’s body?” Moira asked. “I don’t imagine the police would take kindly to you taking out one of their own.”
“To be fair, he tried to take me out first,” Aviira muttered.
“Well, obviously that goes without saying, but I doub
t the police will see the situation the same way.”
“Spooks took it,” Jirel said. “They’ll replace it with a lookalike or whatever the fuck they do. Easy enough to make it look like he died of severe complications to a flu or something as long as nobody can see the body.”
“Won’t they want to do an autopsy?”
“We have an insider at the morgue for that. Helps slip in an edited version when there’s some cause of death that the humans wouldn’t like. We put in the official report that we found him dead in his home. That’s all anybody needs to know.”
“We left out the part where you shot his face off,” Aviira said.
“It was either that or stand there and watch it kill you,” Jirel replied, a hint of anger in his voice. “I know we’re not exactly clicking but I’m not that much of an asshole.”
“Easy, tiger,” she said, shaking her head. “I was trying to make a joke.”
He looked away, caught Moira’s gaze. She offered nothing.
After a good long silence, Aviira said, “We need to worry about him coming back for us as a shade?”
“Not if the Spooks took the body. Soul extraction would require rather immediate intervention.”
“Thank God for the Spooks,” Jirel said, leaning back in his seat and shaking his head.
“No, thank God he reanimated with just you two around,” Moira said. “Could you imagine the clusterfuck it would’ve caused if he’d done it at the police precinct? We’d all be done for.”
Aviira shifted in her seat, grimacing as she repositioned the ice pack. “Glad to take one for the team,” she said.
Moira didn’t seem to share her sarcasm. “It could have killed you,” she said softly.
She nodded wearily and closed her eyes. Jirel recognized the look on her face as one that was coming to terms with a close brush with death and trying not to think about it.
“I’ve got a question,” he said, braving another drink. Moira lifted her eyebrows at him. “This curse. Does it have to be done by contact with the victim?”
Moira thought about that for a second. “Not necessarily,” she said. “But it would probably require something like hair to mark the target. Depends on the skill of the witch. You’re dealing with now four Creepers and at least two shades that you’ve witnessed. I’d say this witch is fairly powerful.”
“I suppose what I’m asking is whether we’re at risk without realizing it.”
“Of course you are,” Moira said softly. “You’ve uncovered something that was probably not meant to be uncovered. The person who’s done all this is probably trying to cover their tracks, and if he or she realizes that you’re in their way, I don’t think they’d have a problem attempting to take you out. Two people have already been killed for nothing more than sharing information with you. I’d say that makes you prime targets if you aren’t careful.”
Jirel swallowed. It wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
“She might be hoping that we’ve been threatened enough to back off investigating any farther,” Aviira said. “She has to know that if she takes us out she’s got the entire Society to answer to. As it is she’s killed two humans, not much stir there. Turning Devaney into a Creeper and basically siccing it on us is her way of saying, watch it.”
Jirel was quiet for a bit. He shook his head. “Are we even qualified to deal with this?” He said to Aviira. “I mean, we have a paranormal investigation department. We’re just field agents for fuck’s sake.”
She gave him a long blink. “Probably not, but at this point I don’t think either of us have the luxury of handing it off. Management is probably dying to find a reason to fire me. Ask to give up the case and I might as well giftwrap my badge before I hand it in.”
He shared a look with her and then sighed, looked back at Moira.
She shrugged. “She has a point.”
“So what do we do now?”
Aviira sat forward, repositioning her arm gently. “Go straight for Aiden Dannels.”
“Why?”
“Because if he’s got a secret girlfriend who happens to be a witch, then he’s at risk. That means if we take her out and spin it the right way, we’ve just saved a very important government official from getting turned into the walking undead. And that means we’re golden from here on out.”
She flicked her eyebrows at him and finished her drink.
Moira smiled. “I like her,” she said to Jirel.
At least someone does, Aviira thought.
July 18th – Saturday
***
Aviira went home and sank neck-deep in a hot bath to try and work out the tension in her aching shoulder and slow down the thoughts that were stampeding through her head. She downed a few Advil—Moira had pressed a pill bottle with several Vicodin into her hand as they’d left her house, but she’d left them on the kitchen counter—and crawled into bed with a wet mane of hair and hoped easy sleep would find her.
It didn’t. It didn’t find Jirel, either, which was how he found himself opening his door to Aviira at two in the morning after waking from a dead sleep smelling sulfur.
He almost didn’t recognize her when he opened the door. Her face was pale and he could tell that her dream had rattled her just as it had him. She was wearing green plaid pants over her sneakers and a Star Wars t-shirt and he realized for the first time that she had half-sleeve tattoos on both arms that stopped just shy of her elbows. He didn’t want to stare, but at first glance he caught intricate black and white vines and flowers with birds. Her hair was twisted up into a messy bun on top of her head and he almost wondered if she kept it like that all the time. She’d been so well-composed every time he’d seen her that the natural departure was somewhat alarming.
He forced down the sudden lump in his throat and invited her in.
“I’d call you a nerd, but the tattoos sort of cancel that out,” he said as he walked to the kitchen.
She didn’t seem to understand what he was talking about until she remembered her shirt. “What’s wrong with Star Wars?”
“Nothing. Just that it makes you a nerd. I hadn’t really pegged you for a nerd.”
She shrugged one shoulder and followed him to the kitchen. He’d turned on all the lights in his apartment too. It hadn’t been enough to chase the shadows out of her head, so despite herself, she’d reached for her phone and texted him on the off chance that he’d been woken by another nightmare too. He had made the offer, after all. He invited her up for a drink, she suspected to help take his mind off of things as much as hers.
“Beer or wine? Don’t think I have anything harder, sorry.”
His accent was a little thicker than normal, and despite his lighthearted welcome she sensed distraction all over him. “Beer’s fine.”
“How’s your arm?”
“Hurts, but I think I’ll survive.”
He pulled two Coronas out of the refrigerator and went digging in a drawer for a bottle opener. While he popped the caps, Aviira glanced around the kitchen.
“You are single, right?” she said.
Jirel looked back at her with a start, held out her drink. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re single?”
“Yes,” he said uncertainly. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Your kitchen is freakishly organized. Men don’t tend to organize their kitchens like this. I mean, maybe some gay men I know, but I don’t…” She made eye contact with him for a second. “Don’t peg you for being gay.”
He gave a sweeping glance over the kitchen and something clouded his face. “Well, I can’t take much credit for it. My ex put the place together when we moved in.”
Aviira immediately wished she hadn’t said anything. She took a drink, and the silence got awkward.
Finally, he said, “I could use some air…you?”
“Yep. Air’s good.”
Outside on Jirel’s balcony, the city was quiet and calm and the breeze had a hint of coolness to it. They sat silently in the darkness
for a little until Jirel leaned forward in his chair and said, “I’m sorry, about earlier. At Devaney’s house.”
“Huh?”
“I realized afterward that I called you Vira and I didn’t mean to.” When she continued to stare at him strangely, he added, “I just—didn’t want you to think I was already giving you a nickname or something. You seem a little too professional for that.”
She didn’t even remember the moment. “That’s…no, that’s not a problem.”
“In my first language there’s no word that starts with av, so it takes me an extra second to say your name. I was panicking when Devaney came at you and it just sort of came out.”
“I didn’t even notice.”
“Too busy avoiding being killed.”
“Right.” She considered him in the silence for a bit. She couldn’t quite figure out why he was treading so lightly around her. Finally she said, “Was yours the same dream as last night?”
“Yes.”
She nodded a little to confirm her experience was the same. “What was yours about?”
Jirel took a drink and stared out into the darkness for a minute. “You remember that asshole in New York who bombed the pro-Ancient rally?”
Everyone in the Ancient community and most humans knew about the New York bombing. It had been more than a dozen years but everyone remembered it—even kids who hadn’t been born at the time knew all about it, it was pretty much required learning in schools now. The bomber, some hick twenty-something, planted a homemade bomb right in the middle of a pro-Ancient rights rally and killed thirty-six people in about three seconds. Dozens of people had serious injuries and amputations. It was the worst anti-Ancient attack to happen since the civil rights movement, up until three weeks ago when he had struck again in Atlanta.
She was still a little surprised that he’d asked.
“Yeah, of course.”
Shadows of Old Ghosts Page 9
