“Oh dear God! Why?”
“Relax. All of you!” Cassandra addressed us. “I’m just riding shotgun with Princess Panic to get a quick recharge off her and some additional safety in case De Soto comes back looking for a rematch.”
Come to think of it, she hadn’t looked all that good either, but not nearly as bad as Oswald.
“Get out of me!” Karla hissed sounding like the very definition of a schizophrenic.
As tempting as it was to look for a wall to beat my head against, this wasn’t the time. “Okay, whatever. We get to safety and you get out of her. If you don’t, I make you. Are we clear?”
Karla’s eyes said hell no, but the ghost in charge of her vocal chords nodded and replied, “Crystal.”
“Then let’s get out of here … Wait!” I hopped over some benches and grabbed the carrier with the nervous beagle in it.
“You’re taking the dog?” Cassandra said. Maybe it was Karla. I didn’t care.
With a shrug, I answered, “I might need to practice and I’ve grown attached to the little bugger. Want yours?”
Cassandra made a dismissive motion with Karla’s hand that reminded me of the way Sonya Hodges acted. “No thanks. I’ll stick to humans. Better get rid of the collar, Ross. It probably has a tracking device in it.”
The dog was scared, but I reassured him while unhooking the collar. Sure enough, there was a little silver cylinder attached to it. Tossing it onto the benches, I closed the cage on my new pet. Suddenly, “Fido” didn’t seem like the right name anymore. From this perspective, it no longer fit.
“Lucky,” I said, recalling Oswald’s words to me. “I’m gonna call you, Lucky.”
“I think it would be best if we left, now,” Silas said after clearing his throat.
“Couldn’t agree more. Take Karla’s hand and I’ll go first.”
With Cassandra taking up temporary residence in Karla’s body, Silas didn’t have a problem seeing her. That made our exit much easier. Out in the parking lot, we were faced with our next minor problem – a lack of transportation.
“Who’s up for a walk?” I asked.
“Don’t you have keys in your pocket? De Soto didn’t exactly walk here.” That was definitely Cassandra. The sneer looked out of place on Karla’s face.
I set the dog carrier down and checked my pockets. No key’s, but I had a brand spanking new wallet with several shiny credit cards and a thick wad of cash. That thing rubbing against my side was the latest and greatest Blackberry, probably loaded with the secrets of De Soto’s empire. Not a bad little haul, but short of calling for a cab, nothing that would get us out of here anytime soon.
Opening my hands, I said, “Maybe they’re back inside.”
“What now, genius?” Cassandra was more than a little crabby.
“My car is over there,” Karla sputtered and jerked her right shoulder. “Just let me control my damn body for a minute!”
“You don’t exactly have a purse, Karla,” the Skinwalker replied.
“Keyless entry. Push button start. Dumbass.” Karla fired back … at herself.
“Very well,” Cassandra said.
Karla slouched for a second, almost like fainting, and then straightened immediately.
“C’mon,” she said storming off, forgetting to take Silas Parker’s hand. I picked up the dog carrier and grabbed the preacher’s arm as a bolt of pure white hatred erupted from the ground. The air around us crackled with power and anger. Oswald must have found some energy hidden down there. We locked eyes as I pulled Silas closer to me. Oswald sneered and shot into the sky.
Looking at my friend, I said, “All in all, not exactly one of our better nights.”
“Beats being back in the jungle for me, or the desert for you don’t it?” he answered with a question. “At least we know exactly who’s trying to kill us instead of having to guess. Why don’t we discuss this where there is air conditioning? Even this late, it’s still too hot out here. Everyone keeps saying, ‘Dry heat’ like it’s supposed to make things better, but honestly, I’ll be happy when we can get back to a plain old hot day in DC.”
Part of me enjoyed how Silas could show irritation at times. It reminded me that he was human after all.
Helping him to Karla’s vehicle, I stopped and tensed, noticing a ghost in a dead run across the parking lot. Though I wasn’t in any shape to go up against De Soto at the moment, I already knew he didn’t pal around with folks anywhere his level of power.
“Mike! Is that really you?” Amos Sweet yelled and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s me. Where’ve you been? I thought you were a goner,” I said, but privately my suspicious nature coiled up like a rattlesnake ready to strike. Ever since my best friend, Don Hodges, turned out to be a lackey for Cassandra and betrayed me I found myself less trusting of ghosts in general when they turn up unexpectedly. That probably wasn’t fair to Amos, but being suspicious was part of my new reality whether I liked it or not.
“I ran after you went down and it was obvious Oswald wasn’t going to win. They probably thought I’d gone back to Gettysburg, but I hid in the warehouses a few streets over during the day and watched the place when those birds of his weren’t circling around at night.” Amos said gesturing to the three birds perched on the power lines across the street.
“Crap. I’d forgotten about his animal spies. We better kill them.”
“Nah, I saw the things inside ‘em leave and go into the building right before that big burst of energy. I’m guessing that was you. Anyways, best I can tell, they’re just birds.”
That was good enough for me, but as sad as it sounded, I’d be keeping an eye on Sweet for the time being.
An impatient beep from a car horn got us moving and we piled into Karla’s vehicle.
“We can’t go back to Karla’s place,” Cassandra said.
“We’ll figure it out along the way,” I answered pulling out the Blackberry and giving it a cursory inspection. Seeing that it was password protected, I cursed and opened the back to remove the sim card and the battery. After watching enough detective shows, I knew these things could be tracked by the pings off of cell towers. It wasn’t going to do me any good, at least in the immediate sense, but since De Soto no longer had access to the information on it, this ended up being a net win for “Team Ferryman.” He might not be able to summon reinforcements as quickly.
“We can stay at the McGill’s,” Either Karla or Cassandra said.
“Who’s that?” The other one in that body asked.
“The family I’m house sitting for. They’re still in Hawaii. I’ve got their garage door opener in my glove compartment.” Now, I knew which one was Karla in the conversation.
I realized they were looking at me for the decision. Sure, ask the guy who never made it past corporal for leadership! “Sounds like the best option. Karla drives since she knows where she’s going and the last thing we need is to get into an accident because you two are fighting over the body.”
Yeah, it sounded every bit as ludicrous coming out of my mouth, too.
Looking for any other ways we could possibly be tracked, I was glad she didn’t have a GPS. Silas Parker’s cell phone was taken from me when I was first captured, so I didn’t have to worry about it and I’d heard of implantable chips in pets, but spirits have a way of shorting out electronics and there had already been a transmitter on Lucky’s collar.
Satisfied that I’d covered as many bases as possible, I rested my head against the passenger side window and relax for the first time since getting my body back as the lights of the sprawling Phoenix suburbs blurred around me.
Dozing for anywhere between twenty and thirty minutes, I woke up to Karla shaking me and asking for the garage door opener. I was a bit groggy, but managed to fish it out of the glove box. We pulled in next to a silver Mercedes.
As tired as I was, I didn’t even entertain the usual jealous feelings about people who had it better than me. Odds are any one of tho
se shiny new pieces of plastic in my wallet had more credit on it than I had any business having.
Was it really stealing if it’s in my name? Should I ever get an opportunity to write A Ferryman’s Survival Guide, I planned to include a chapter on odd ethical situations. Stupid shit like this made my head throb harder than usual.
“Mike,” Karla said, breaking me out of my fog as the door lowered behind us. “Make her get out of me.”
“Where’s the love, Karla? You like me when I’m Isabella.”
“Eckels,” I muttered. “Just honor your word.” I considered adding, “for once,” to that sentence, but didn’t. She wasn’t Oswald and she still might be useful.
“Humans,” Cassandra said, forcing Karla’s shoulders to shrug. “Can’t live with ‘em. Can’t live without ‘em. Don’t worry sweetpea, you’re not a keeper anyway. Too much bitch in you.”
She stepped out of Karla’s body and exited through the roof of the car. Miss Thompson shivered violently and I gave her a sympathetic look.
Karla gave me a scathing glare in reply. Obviously, she doesn’t like being the guest of honor at a pity party.
“I’ll turn off the alarm system,” she said and then proceeded to slam her door a bit too hard.
Looking back at Silas and Amos, I decided that there might be a nugget of truth to Cassandra’s last comment. Women, both living and dead, remained a mystery that I didn’t even bother trying to solve.
“I’ve got a handful of ghosts who are loyal to me, Mike. I’d better go get them and figure out what to do next.”
Standing between me and a blissful night of sleep was Cassandra. Over this summer, I’d spent too many hours thinking about the Skinwalker floating in front of me, but still had no idea what her next move would be. The only thing I did know was that her only loyalty was to herself. Perhaps that was the key.
“The way I see it, you’ve got three choices: run and hide, come back here and help me, or sell me out and beg for forgiveness from De Soto.”
“You can forget about the third. He isn’t known for turning the other cheek. It’ll take months or perhaps even years before he won’t destroy me on sight.”
“I recall you saying something similar about William,” I commented. Silas was the smart one, as usual. He’d already gone to bed. I was exhausted, but was still on my feet through sheer force of will.
“Occupational hazard when dealing with powerful ghosts, but I manage. What about you? What options do you have? I can slip out of town. The world is large and I am very good at being small. You should be able to make it out of Phoenix too, but he’ll go after your mother and eventually you.”
“Amos,” I said calling Sweet back from where he’d been looking at the items decorating the living room. The doctors who live here appeared to be Scottish descendants and the walls were decorated with evidence of their heritage. The sword with a pair of spears crossed over it caught my attention and would be a nice start to replacing my lost arsenal.
“What do you need, Mike?”
“Time for you to go to your anchor. I need you to get back to Colonel Vincent and have him protect my mom, maybe convince her to get out of town for a few days.”
“You might need me here. Just call her and tell her,” he said. I couldn’t fault the Union soldier’s bravery. He was woefully outclassed, but didn’t hesitate. Part of me was embarrassed for being wary of him only a little while ago.
“I’m sure I could use you,” I conceded. “But if De Soto sics the police on me, they’ll check calls to my mom. I’m planning on sitting tight for a few days, so that gives you time to get there and back. Plus, I’m not even sure what to say to her at this point. Give my regards to the Colonel and see if he can spare a few men. Who knows, maybe Oswald will get lucky and take him out for us.”
Amos patted me on the shoulder and nodded to Von Eckels before disappearing and taking the long trip home to his grave in Gettysburg. There was a momentary hollowness left in his wake.
“You don’t honestly think that Oswald has a chance against De Soto?” Cassandra said.
“I won’t ever underestimate the power of the criminally insane. After all, you were pinning your hopes on William doing your dirty work.”
“Megalomaniacs can be directed and guided. Psychopaths are a different breed altogether.”
“I need three days,” I said abruptly.
Cassandra had a moment of confusion, but recovered quickly. “Three days for what?”
“Three days before you betray me.”
“I thought we just established that Hernando isn’t one to forgive so easily. Betrayal simply isn’t worth the effort at this time.”
Hardly believing what I was saying myself, I continued, “If we don’t lure him out into the open, he’s just going to lay low and come after me when he’s ready. I’d rather force him to act now. He doesn’t have to forgive you and you can just as easily call him and let him know. He does have to believe that you’d be willing to turn on me. If you ask me, that’s the easiest part.”
She crossed her spectral arms and adopted a sour look in the light of my accusation. “So, you want me to try to bait a trap and force an endgame. Why do you think he’d fall for it?”
“Maybe you heard a different conversation with Amos just now. Instead of me asking him to try and get some ghosts from Colonel Vincent, you heard me tell him to pass along the message to the Colonel that I want to invade now while De Soto’s forces are scattered and to have his troops here in five days.”
The gears began to spin in her treacherous mind. “It has potential, but we’re going to need something more. From my spot in the carrier, I could only sense the battle with De Soto. Tell me what occurred?”
Stifling a yawn, I sat down in a very expensive recliner and talked her through the fight. Karla, holding Lucky, sat down and watched me talk to thin air. She appeared to be exhausted and I knew that Cassandra’s recharge was responsible for it.
Still, I probably looked pretty stupid. Cassandra stopped me at the point where I was absorbing a portion of the power he was drawing into him and seeing all those images. “So, you can use energy like a departed spirit when you are outside of your mortal shell.”
“Wouldn’t have put it that way, but yeah. That’s about the sum of it.”
Von Eckels nodded and seem satisfied with my answer. “Yes. This works. I’ll tell him that you are having Vincent send along some of the anchors of spirits that he considers expendable. Your plan is to absorb the energy released when they are destroyed and use that power to beat De Soto.”
“You think I could really do that?” I asked. The very notion of it made me feel a bit dirty.
“William could and did on several occasions after the death of his physical body. Edgar worried, quite correctly in fact, that the power would go to William’s head.”
I was wide awake now. Cassandra came up with that scheme too quickly. Either she thinks really fast or that had been her plan all along. “So that’s how you were going to make sure William could win. Those ghosts that are loyal to you … you were going to sacrifice them to William. You’re about as cold hearted as they come, you know that, bitch!”
“Oh spare me the righteous indignation, Mike. It’s bothersome and dated. William, Edgar, and Virginia each gave me the ‘all life is precious’ speeches years ago back when they thought they occupied the moral high ground. The funny thing is … it’s not. People live, people die, some move on, and others don’t. Charles Darwin was even more correct than he’d ever imagined. If you manage to stick around long enough without going insane, you’ll see what I mean.”
If Hell did exist and Cassandra finally made it there, I wondered if she’d look around and say, “I could run this place better.”
There was no reasoning with her. I doubted that even my cagey preacher friend could craft an argument that could penetrate Cassandra’s cold and bitter heart.
“Tell him whatever you think will get him to try and attack me, C
assandra. Now, we just need a place to fight.”
“Why not here?” Cassandra said. “I’m sure the house is heavily insured. The home next door is for sale and it looks like the owners are also on vacation. You’re already here, that means no chance of discovery while moving to the next location.”
“Would you rather go back to her place?” She gestured at Karla. Before I could answer, she continued, “Otherwise, if I tell him somewhere else, he’ll get there first and lay a trap for you. That kind of defeats the purpose. Doesn’t it?”
Sadly, she was right. I could send Karla and Silas away the day before. Still, I didn’t have to wipe out a neighborhood in the process.
“Is there a park or something nearby?” I asked Karla.
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