By the time I got him into position, Blackie had finished mauling his opponent. De Soto used my hands and spun the porto-prison around.
“So young Mister Ross,” he began. “Will it be the young woman or the old man?”
I saw the look on Silas Parker’s face and the slight nod of his head. My life often degenerated into a collection of terrifying moments. There were firefights in Iraq and a certain roadside bomb that nearly did me in. Those paled in comparison to tangling with ghosts who were already dead and had no fear of repercussions stalking me. When forced into a fight, I could go at it like a caged and desperate animal, but I still knew fear.
Silas was different. He might have known fear at one time, but somewhere along the way, he’d dismissed it. It was humbling to see that much courage in the face of the unspeakable.
I barked three times when he gestured to Karla.
“So,” De Soto said, “You do have control of your animal already. Most impressive, Mr. Ross. When you have mastered this form, we shall try an avian or a reptile next. Each type of animal presents different challenges. Even so, I will have to keep my eyes on you. How noble of the two of you to spare the woman. Perhaps chivalry, she is not dead after all.”
The sound of my voice was really starting to get on my nerves.
“Truly, I respect your decision and salute you, even though I’m going to kill the woman anyway. You see; a living being with a gift is quite rare. Mr. Parker holds no interest for me personally, but others I know may wish to examine him in more detail.”
He was toying with me all along! Fido and I answered with a long and, for a beagle, rather menacing growl. Good dog.
“Much like the animal you currently reside in, this is about breaking you. You will either be broken, or you will be destroyed. When you have existed as long as I have, time is all you have. Take her down to the pit and put two of our finest down there. I wish to hear her screams.”
Over Brother Silas’ protests, Karla was pulled to her feet, but she managed to spit in De Soto’s face. Wiping it away, the conquistador chuckled and then gave a polite wave goodbye to her.
“Damn you to hell!” Silas said, shaking a fist at him.
“Ah, and here I took you for a turn the other cheek kind of holy man. Instead, I find myself in the company of a man spewing fire and brimstone. Go ahead; call on him to strike me down. You won’t be the first. All the rest have been disappointed just the same.”
The conversation continued as my carrier was repositioned and I wasted no time. Perhaps Fido and I had come to an understanding about the urgency of the situation. The beagle practically mashed his snout into the thin metal bars as I pawed at the bars looking for a spot to hold onto.
Straining, I forced the tip of my phantom index finger outward and slowly bent it around a vertical bar. It was exhausting, like trying to do a pull up with only one hand, but I’d made it this far. Now for the hard part … hanging on. Pasting the image of Blackie just outside of the cage made Fido jump backward and I immediately lost my grip.
Damn it! I’d have to try again and take it slower. By the time, I coaxed the dog back to the front of the cage; Karla was already in the pit. One man untied her hands while the other held a gun on her. Thankfully, De Soto was too busy gloating and describing the action to the furious Silas Parker to notice what I was doing. Taking a figurative deep breath, I looped my finger around a bar for the second time and conjured the image of Blackie. This time, I put it further out and made inched it closer.
Fido whimpered, but my index finger was out to the second knuckle and I could see the left middle finger starting to emerge. Quick as could be, I slid it around the bars as well.
C’mon thumb! As soon as that comes out, I know I can make it!
I could feel the toll the effort was taking. There was probably ten easier ways to do this, but Karla’s time was running out. My phantom thumb emerged - the other side to my “tweezers” - and I hooked it through and getting a “solid” grip on the bars.
Too many lives were at stake. Praying this would work, I made the illusion of Blackie charge the carrier. One of the “benefits” of my adventures was I’d been conditioned to expect excruciating pain - small wonder there wasn’t a high demand for people in this line of work. So, it wasn’t a huge surprise that it hurt - quite a bit in fact. The best way to describe it would be to imagine pulling off a really long scab, except in this case, I was the scab being ripped free of the howling beagle.
Fido cowered in the back of the carrier while I pulled my way to freedom.
“What is going on here?” De Soto shouted and turned the plastic crate toward him. I got the satisfaction of seeing my eyes go wide in shock.
My whole ghostly left hand was out, with the right one behind it. Stretching my pinky through the bars, I brushed it against the flesh of my body and the result was explosive.
I snapped out of that beagle like a broken rubber band. One of the first things I’d ever learned as a Ferryman during the fight with Jenny Goodman’s mother was what happened when a spirit came into contact with a person they were anchored to. Even though I was alive, the principle was just the same.
Energy surged into my spectral form drawn from my body and the chump who’d stolen it. The “physical” Mike Ross slouched almost like a drunk or someone suffering a fainting spell.
Going straight for the throat, I bowled him over onto the lap of one of the confused bimbos De Soto had at his side and screamed, “Get out of my damn body!”
“What the hell is going on?” the woman shouted and shoved De Soto aside. His eyes regained focus and fury. My body convulsed and went limp as he separated from it and came out swinging.
For the first few blows, I had the element of surprise and the fact he was more than a little groggy working for me, but I could sense he was regaining his strength, just like Cassandra said he could do. The air around us crackled and swirled with energy as the people who couldn’t comprehend what was happening instinctively scrambled away from us.
De Soto wasn’t used to someone who could play his reindeer games, or was anywhere close to his league. That much was immediately apparent. When I hit him sparks literally flew. Fluorescent lights shattered, sending shards of crystal raining down from the overhead. My punches and kicks knocked him all over the wooden bleachers as I looked to do as much damage as possible as quickly as I could. Power and energy shunted through my ghost form and I found I was absorbing some of his energy cloud as well. The blazing power inside me swelled. Free of the confines of my body, I didn’t have to worry about a heart attack.
The conquistador’s eyes opened wide in recognition and perhaps even fear. I could tell he understood the situation. “Help me!” De Soto yelled and three of his dead lackeys responded.
They attacked me, pulling me away from De Soto. Glowing with the fires of retribution, I slammed my fist into the face of the first one, knocking him a good five feet backward. The other two were pawing at me - one from the left side and the other trying to wrap himself around my back. De Soto distanced himself from us, so I couldn’t take any more of his returning energy.
“Come back,” I grunted while pushing the one behind me away with an elbow jab. “It’s only fair, you stole something from me and now it’s my turn!”
Rounding on the ghost to my left, I looped a right hook around that was partially blocked by his shoulder. His counterpunch landed at the same time and we both stumbled awkwardly. I couldn’t waste time with these thugs and let De Soto get back to full strength. The ghost grabbed me again. I let him and slapped my hands on his shoulders. Virginia had said to push the energy out from my hands. It was time to see if she was right.
All I could see was the look on the ghost’s face. I didn’t know him from dirt. He was a thick bodied man with a bent nose and a shaved head who tried to frantically push me away from him at the last second as a torrent of energy engulfed us.
Instead of the shockwave explosion like my cleansing bursts in
Maryland or even when I was fighting Oswald in Dallas, this one was focused and directed, more like Lee’s lightning strike. My opponent fell backward and simply disintegrated into vapors before his head would have passed through the wooden bleachers.
The two closest ghosts were noticeably dimmer and they immediately fled in different directions. Scanning the area, I couldn’t spot De Soto, but I could sense his energy moving rapidly away through the wall in front of me for a brief second before the trail faded into nothingness. I started to pursue, but someone grabbed my shoulder.
Spinning, I was prepared to deal with another one of De Soto’s minions only to find my father standing behind me. I cocked my hand further back ready to deck him.
“Don’t!” he said, throwing his hands up.
“Give me one reason not to,” I replied.
“I’ll give you two. You shouldn’t stay outside of a body for too long and take a look at your friends,” he said gesturing to behind him.
I glanced where he pointed. Silas was face down on the floor and an unhinged Karla was in cowering in the corner of the fighting pit against the chicken wire with a couple of dogs who were currently barking at me, but could turn on her any second. Though I didn’t feel weaker, I wasn’t exactly an expert on this whole out of body experience. Plus, my boosted energy levels were taken from De Soto. What would happen if that ran out? Perhaps the worthless dirtbag had a point.
Jabbing a finger in the direction of my injured friend, I commanded, “Help Silas. I’ll drive off the dogs.” The animals howled bloody murder as I charged at them. Concentrating as I ran my hand across one of the gates that led back to the pens, making it fly open. It took another minute to force both of the mutts to run through. Quickly, I sealed it.
Karla’s face was a study in shifting emotions. Panic, anger, and anxiety dominated, but the darting eyes took in every detail. No wonder that despite all the times Darren Porter broke up with her, he kept coming back. She’s quick on the uptake and intelligent. Clearly, she’d make a better Ferryman than a walking brick like me. Then again, my innate stupidity probably blinded me from the danger I always seemed to find myself in.
“Is that you, Mike?” she asked. “I can feel you near me.”
For a second, I considered going to her side and trying to speak with her, but then I realized how stupid that was when I had my body only a few dozen feet away.
Drifting through the fencing, I surveyed the damage. Dad was … gone. Should I have expected anything else? Stopping at the overturned cage belonging to the poodle yipping for attention, I reached my hand inside and below the surface of the animal, and rummaged around while wondering how many lives an alley cat like Cassandra actually had.
“Ross!” I felt her hand grasp mine. “Pull!”
I yanked and moments later she was free. She sized me up and said, “I keep underestimating you, Ross. William and Edgar were never capable of existing outside of their bodies.”
“I don’t want to make a habit of it. De Soto got away and we need to get out of here. See if you can find Oswald.”
She looked horrible and I didn’t know whether it was from her time inside the poodle or her proximity to the fight and the energy discharge. Turning, I reached down and touched my body. It was a long overdue reunion.
The old expression ‘I feel alive’ pretty much covered it. It was a little like a hangover and I had a bump on my head where it smacked into the bench, but I reasoned it was a good pain. Silas groaned when I turned him over.
“You okay?”
“Mike?”
“Yeah, I got my body back. Do we need to get you to a Doctor?”
“No, I was watching you and De Soto fight when your dad sucker punched me. There’s a joke in there that I should’ve seen it coming.”
Shaking my head, I said, “Typical. He hasn’t changed one bit. I swear! This whole trip has been one big mistake!”
The old man touched the welt on his head and answered, “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve done a lot of good.”
“If you say so, but let’s forget about that for now. Wait here and I’ll get Karla and the others and figure out our next move.”
Episode 27: What Happens in Phoenix
Descending a small staircase leading below the fighting pit, I found a dimly lit room filled with a cluster of animal carriers containing several irate animals. The bodies of a couple of dead dogs were tossed in a heap on a table. The handler had run off in all the commotion from my encounter with the ringmaster of this disgusting circus.
Ignoring the distasteful bit of cigar and alcohol flavored bile that crept up into the back of my throat; I hunted in the dark for Blackie. Oddly enough, the low lighting made it easy to find the slightly glowing pooch serving as a four-legged jail cell for the ghost of Lee Harvey Oswald.
After finding the mutt, I pondered how best to retrieve my not-so-friendly neighborhood ghost without getting bit by a dog that was fighting for its life a few minutes ago. My “phantom tweezers” only extended less than an inch from my fingers. Looking over at the table, I saw several objects that appeared to be tools a dog catcher would use, but lacking the training on how to use this junk, I figured that I’d have to “wing it,” which was par for the course.
“Hang on, Lee. Grab onto my … hand,” I said fumbling for the right words.
Using the same principle that just got me out of a smallish beagle, I pulled on those little tips to get something long enough to reach down into the carrier and fish Oswald out. Like most painful Ferryman experiences, this seemed easier now that I’d done it once. I only felt dizzy, not the whole passing out thing. Still, crouching by the carrier was necessary and the room didn’t move nearly as much from down here. It was like peeling a banana. The real flesh went one way and my spooky hand the other and immediately felt like it had gone to sleep.
Blackie was somewhere between frothing mad and batshit insane. The good news for me - the carrier wasn’t really big enough for the dog to spin around as I reached in through the back of the cage. The dog howled, spit, and tried to turn his head back to bite my ghostly extremity. It took a couple of tries, but I got my fake hand around Blackie’s right hind leg. The dog yelped in pain and I got some feedback as well, but I could grasp Oswald’s right leg and pull.
I played tug-o-war with what felt like a sumo wrestler for a solid minute, but Lee popped out of there and we both sprawled onto the ground. Gasping for breath, I pushed my phantom forearm back in and shook it violently to get the stinging sensation to go away.
Lee didn’t look so good. His aura was much dimmer now than I was used to seeing it, even compared to our fight in Dallas. If ever a ghost could look disheveled, it was him. “Did you get him?”
“He escaped,” I answered his demand. “Right now, we need to get out of here. The police could be on the way.”
“Who gives a shit about the police? We have to track De Soto down! Now!”
The words reasonable and Oswald didn’t really belong in the same sentence. “Get real, Lee. You’re in no shape to take him and I’m pretty beat myself. I won’t be able to do squat from behind a jail cell except be a sitting duck. Now, c’mon.”
“No!” he exclaimed, “We tried it your way. This time we do it my way. We’ll storm his compound!”
I shook my head and turned away. “Do whatever you want, Oswald. I’m not going to stop you. I have real living people who need me right now and he just vanished. I couldn’t track him now if I wanted to and I really doubt he went back to the one place I could find him.”
“Coward!” he shouted. “Just go on then. I’ll kill him myself.”
Reaching the steps, I turned and stared. He looked pathetic. My buddy, Amos Sweet, might be able to take him in this state. “I’m guessing you tried that already and he beat your ass and stuffed you into a dog’s body. At least with me, he did it while I was knocked out. He had surprise that time and I had it this time. If you’re smart, you’ll stick with me.”
&nbs
p; If looks could kill, I’d have lost my newly reclaimed body right then.
He glared at me before saying, “I’ve killed more Skinwalkers than you can ever dream of, boy. Just because you got one over on him doesn’t make you some kind of authority. It just makes you lucky.”
I considered that he might be right, but at the moment, it didn’t really matter how I got my body back. Going up the steps, I shouted at him, “They’ve probably got a stash of energy nearby, Oswald. Better tank up before you go hunting for him. If you come to your senses, find me. If not, good luck.”
Karla and Silas were waiting for me. “Oswald’s free, but I don’t think he’s coming with us. Where’d Cassandra go?”
“I’m in here, Mike.” Karla said. The look of panic on her face spoke volumes.
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