Ghost Dancer (A Modern Magics Story)

by Maer Wilson

  Ghost Dancer

  A Modern Magics Story

  Maer Wilson

  www.ellysianpress.com

  Ghost Dancer

  A Modern Magics Story

  Maer Wilson

  © Copyright Maer Wilson 2013. All rights reserved.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-941637-07-4

  Second Edition

  Editor: Jen Ryan, Imagine That Editing

  Cover Art: M Joseph Murphy

  Formatted by: Rik Hall

  Ebooks/Books are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away, as this is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Other Works by the Author

  The Modern Magics Series

  Maer Wilson

  Novels

  Relics, Book 1

  Portals, Book 2

  Magics, Book 3

  Novelettes

  “Ghost Memory”

  “Unwanted Ghost”

  “Ghost Dancer”

  “Wedding Ghost”

  Collection

  Ghosts of Modern Magics

  Free Download

  Join Maer’s Book Club and get a free ecopy of “Unwanted Ghost.”

  Just click here to subscribe: http://maerwilson.com/join-maers-book-club/

  Dedication

  For Trish Rippie

  Thanks for believing in me and for your encouragement and support.

  Ghost Dancer

  “I need you to save my dog,” said the young dead girl who had materialized in front of our desks. “I want to hire you to find him and save him. I can pay you,” she continued, looking from me to my husband, Thulu, her face serious in spite of her young age. No greeting, just straight to the problem at hand.

  She looked to be about ten years old, slender, with dark skin and black eyes that were exotic. She wore jeans with a glittery shirt and a pink jacket. Earbuds dangled around her neck and she trailed a scent of burnt rubber and roses. She looked familiar, and I realized I’d seen her face on the news lately. She and her dog had disappeared the week before. There was an Amber Alert out on her, but apparently none of the leads had panned out. I glanced over at Thulu, a sick feeling starting in my stomach. He had already focused on our guest.

  We’d been playing a game on our computers, but a client took precedence.

  “We’ll be happy to find out what happened to your dog,” I said. “But first, what’s your name?”

  “Danika Samms. You’re Thulu and La Fi, right?”

  “We are,” I replied as I looked over our young client.

  We dealt with the dead and supernatural all the time, but the dead kids always broke my heart. I steeled myself and found a shaky smile for the young girl.

  “Thulu can’t hear you, Danika, but he’s good at reading lips, so if you can face him that will be helpful.”

  “Cool,” she said as she turned to face Thulu with a sweet smile. “Everyone says you are the ones who will help find stuff. Well, my dog is kidnapped, and I know he’s still alive. I can pay, too. I had some money I was saving in a box under my bed.”

  “When did you last see your dog?” Thulu asked.

  “When that guy killed me.”

  I closed my eyes briefly. I really hated dealing with dead kids and murdered ones were even worse. I mourned the loss of their potential and what they could have accomplished. The pain they had endured brought a feeling of helplessness. I didn’t like that feeling one bit. Yet there was nothing I could do but treat it as business as usual and maintain a professional attitude. Inside though, my stomach churned with anxiety.

  Danika frowned. “That really makes me mad, you know?” She put one hand on her hip. “I’m a dancer. I was gonna be on TV and everything next month in that big talent contest. I’m real good, too, you know? I coulda won that contest.” Her voice wavered between disappointment and frustration.

  “I’m so sorry, Danika.” And I was.

  “Yeah, well that guy killed me and took my dog. And now I don’t get to be on TV.”

  I didn’t tell her she’d been all over the TV for the last week, along with pictures of her dog. I simply nodded my understanding.

  “Danika, are you certain your dog is still alive?” Thulu’s voice was soft, his brown eyes kind.

  She nodded her head. “I’m sure. That guy has him. And he’s pretending to be nice to him, but he’s hurting him. I just know he is. Can you save him?” Silvery tears sparkled in her eyes and my heart broke a little more.

  “I’m sure going to try, Danika. What’s his name?” answered Thulu.

  “Rudy.”

  “What kind of dog is he?” Thulu asked.

  “He’s just a mutt. We aren’t really sure what kinds, but he’s a good dog. Smart too. That guy will hurt him and Rudy don’t deserve that.”

  Thulu leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. I could feel him gather the energy that meant he was going into finding mode. Thulu was a finder. Anything or anyone that was lost, he could find.

  I smiled encouragingly at Danika and put a finger to my lips, even though Thulu couldn’t hear her. She nodded solemnly and hovered over one of the visitors’ chairs across from our desks, hands folded in her lap, legs swinging back and forth.

  We sat quietly and waited for Thulu. His face bore a faint frown as he concentrated. His brown, sun-streaked hair fell across his forehead and there was no trace of the dimples he ruthlessly used to charm the world.

  Thulu and I had been working with the supernatural since we were kids. After college we opened an office where we could see our clients away from the prying eyes of the living and non-supernatural humans. It was an odd, but lucrative business. The dead paid us with knowledge of treasure, lost money or information. We had even inherited our house from a former client.

  Our services were pretty basic - deliver messages to loved ones, find lost items and get them to the living, or find someone’s killer in rarer instances. I did the translating and Thulu did the finding. It was a great partnership.

  Danika and I waited for Thulu to do his finding thing. The refrigerator in the kitchen section of our office hummed quietly as the seconds ticked by.

  When Thulu opened his eyes, he quickly nodded at me. He gave an address in a less than savory part of town - that wasn’t too far from the unsavory part of town where we deliberately kept our own office. “Does that sound like the place, Danika?” he asked.

  She nodded uncertainly. “I think so. It’s not too far from where I live.”

  “Danika, can you describe your dog to us? Is he wearing a collar with name tags?” asked Thulu.

  “Well, he’s white and tan and he’s not big, but he has a really loud bark, so he sounds bigger than he is. I don’t really know what kind of dog he looks like. Just a dog. My uncle said he had some terrier in him. Rudy has a green collar and a heart name tag. He had his shots tag on, too.”

  She looked from Thulu back to me. “Can we please hurry? I don’t know how long he has with that guy.”

  I nodded, my attention shifting to Thulu. “How do we approach this?”

  Thulu looked down at the desk where he had started doodling on a notepad.

  “I think we do a door to door saying we lo
st our own dog in the area.” He turned to his computer and brought up a lot of pictures of dogs. “Danika can you look at these pictures and tell me if any look like Rudy?”

  She floated over to join Thulu, and I rolled my own chair over to his as he scrolled through the pictures.

  “There! That looks something like Rudy, only Rudy’s fur is shorter.” She pointed to a picture of a Jack Russell mix and Thulu clicked to bring up a larger picture. She tilted her head to one side as she gazed at the picture. “And Rudy’s legs are shorter.”

  Thulu’s fingers flew over the keys and within minutes the printer slid out a “Lost Dog” flyer, complete with description, picture and a fictitious phone number. He’d called the dog Rudy. I wondered if that would sound suspicious, but I figured only the killer would think that. Thulu quickly printed up some more flyers. For our ruse to work we’d have to go to more than just the killer’s house.

  I mentioned my concern to Thulu.

  “We could call the cops,” he said, one eyebrow raised and a hint of dimples telling me he wasn’t serious. He knew damned well I would not willingly interact with authorities of any kind. Explaining how we knew things would sound nuts, and I had a long-time wariness that the authorities would snatch us up and lock us away in a super-secret lab somewhere.

  “Let’s give this a try.” I said, scowling. “If we find the pup, we can make an anonymous tip.” It wouldn’t be the first time we’d done that over the years.

  We turned off the computers, locked up the office and headed out. Thulu and I shrugged into our winter jackets and set the alarm as Danika followed us. The air outside had a bite to it and it wasn’t the best kind of weather to do house-to-house visits, but hopefully that would make it seem more real. The morning fog hadn’t yet burned off, even though it was almost noon. We slid into our SUV, and I motioned for Danika to join us.

  Thulu drove to a nearby residential district with small, narrow houses and tiny backyards. He found parking around the corner, and we made a show of stapling our flyer to a telephone pole. We knocked on the first door and a tired-looking, middle-aged woman answered. We did our spiel about looking for the lost dog, had she seen him and handed her a flyer. She solemnly said she’d stay on the lookout.

  We repeated the process as we moved farther down the street, closer to the address where Danika’s killer lived. My anxiety level rose with each step, and I hoped it would come across as concern for our “lost” dog. Danika trailed after us, her scent of burnt rubber much stronger and blowing toward us on the breeze. Careful to face Thulu, so it looked like we had stopped to talk a moment, I looked at her from the corner of my eye and asked if she was okay with this.

  “Danika, you can stay in the car if this is too much for you.”

  “I’m okay, La Fi. He can’t see me or hurt me, right?”

  “I doubt he’ll be able to see you. And no, sweetie, he can’t hurt you anymore.” My voice cracked a little on the last words.

  She straightened her thin shoulders and gave me a brave smile. “I’m good. Let’s keep going.”

  A teenaged boy approached us as we moved on. It took a moment for me to realize he wasn’t alive. He was more solid than most of the dead we dealt with and had an energy and life about him that contradicted his ghostly state. He paused a moment when he realized I was making eye contact and that Thulu could also see him. He nodded once to himself, smiled at Danika and joined our group, trailing the smell of peanut butter, with a hint of vinegar. He seemed to be about fourteen, with dark hair and eyes, and the thin look of a teen who hadn’t quite finished puberty.

  “You’re looking for that guy that killed her aren’t you?” he asked without preamble.

  Thulu and I nodded.

  “Are you the people who have that detective agency for the supernatural? I sent her to you. You seem kind of young to be detectives.” His voice was doubtful.

  I nodded. “I’m La Fi and this is Thulu. And we really are detectives.”

  “Yeah, okay. Good. I’m Parker. I’ve been watching this guy. I got here right about the time he killed her.” He lowered his voice to a whisper only I could hear. “He is one sick bastard. He hurt that little girl really bad.” His eyes took on a haunted look. The irony was not lost on me. He nodded his head toward the house we were making our way to. “He’s not home right now. But I think he’s getting ready to snatch another kid. He’s acting all twitchy.”

  “Is my dog still there? Is Rudy okay?” asked Danika.

  Parker looked at her, his expression sharpened and his scent became more vinegary. “Yeah, he’s there and still alive. The guy’s kid was outside playing and heard the dog in the back and thought it was for him, so the man gave him the dog.” He hesitated and turned his attention back to me and Thulu as if he wanted to say more, but shook his head with a glance at Danika.

  There was something about Parker I immediately liked, and I wondered what his story was. There were plenty of ghosts around and not all of them made their way to us, but a good many had over the years. Parker was different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  “He has a kid?” I asked. “How old?”

  “Yeah, a little boy about seven or eight. He doesn’t have a wife or a girlfriend there though. Just him and the kid.” Parker said.

  Thulu and I exchanged a look.

  “Does he hurt his son?” Thulu asked.

  Parker shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen, but I’m telling you this guy is super dangerous. Because he’s crazy smart. He passes for normal, you know? So you guys need to be very, very careful. He pretends to be nice, but he’s mean.”

  “Where’s the boy now?” I asked.

  “With the man. He took the kid and the dog to the park, but I’m guessing they should be home soon.” Parker pointed down the street in the direction we were headed.

  We made our way to the next house and continued our cover story, while keeping an eye out for a man with a boy and dog.

  Most people weren’t home, so we didn’t leave anything at those houses. I felt bad about misleading the people who were home, but I also wanted our cover story to stick. As we walked up to the next house, a strong gust of wind cut through the air, blowing my hair into my eyes. I shivered as I zipped up my jacket and wound my scarf around my neck.

  We were about three houses away from the killer’s address when we spotted a man, a boy and the dog we were looking for. From the distance the dog looked just like the one in the picture. I had an idea. I nudged Thulu and cried, “There!” before taking off in the direction of the dog at a run. The rest of our little party followed us.

  “Oh my god, you found him,” I exclaimed as I came up on the trio and prayed that Rudy would go along with my ruse, as I scooped him up. The poor dog gave me a startled look, but my hugs must have let him know he was safe with me and all I received were kisses on the cheek.

  I held his squirming body for a moment longer before handing him off to Thulu.

  “Oh, thank you so much for taking care of our Rudy. I was afraid we’d never see him again.” I smiled at the human monster facing me with his mouth open in surprise and the small boy, who was beginning to get tears in his eyes.

  “That’s my dog,” said the small boy.

  The man was flustered for a moment, but he knew that dog could not possibly be ours because he knew who it really belonged to.

  His voice was deep and gravelly when he spoke, “Lady, I got no idea about your dog, but this ain’t him.”

  Thulu had been examining Rudy, who was still squirming to get down. I realized Rudy sensed Danika and was looking at her.

  “He’s still wearing his collar,” Parker said.

  I reached for the tags and found the one that said “Rudy.” I showed the man. “See here? His name is Rudy, just as I said.” I pointed to another tag. “And this is his rabies tag, but his tag with our contact info is missing.” I waved a flyer at the man showing the picture of the dog, but not letting him look too closely.

>   “We lost our dog about two weeks ago,” I improvised. “We’ve been searching all that time and even had a lost dog page set up for him.”

  The man frowned. Two weeks would have been before he took Danika. I wasn’t sure how long he had watched her before taking her, or if he had watched her at all, but I took the chance that he wouldn’t question the timing very closely. I hoped he’d think Danika had simply found our dog and was taking care of him, just as the man had.

  “How did Rudy get burned?” Thulu asked with a frown.

  The man started to back up a few feet, possibly deciding this wasn’t an encounter he wanted to have after all.

  “I don’t know. I just found him wandering and my son loved him, so we kept him.”

  “And just ignored the tags? Didn’t even try to find out where he belonged?” My voice raised in volume and octave.

  The man peered at me sharply and moved closer again. I didn’t like that. “Yeah, exactly like that. My son fell in love with the dog, so I decided to keep him.” His voice was firm, even and gave no hint of remorse. The coldness made me want to get as far away from him as I could, but I didn’t move.

  I glared at the man, getting into my role as a dog owner. “That is just so wrong.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” he demanded, his voice was still even and almost quiet, but with a hard edge that left no doubt he was a threat. A very big threat. His eyes hard chunks of granite, I saw muscles bunch at his thick neck.

  I backed away a few feet, knowing that standing my ground was not the tact to take. Pretending a fear I didn’t feel, I stammered out a few incoherent words.

  “Let’s go, honey,” said Thulu. “We have our boy, so let’s just go.” Thulu’s voice sounded uncertain, and I knew he too had figured out our best bet was to let the man “win.”

  “Daddy, they’re taking my puppy.” The tears in the boy’s eyes tore at me, and I could only look at him as I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but this is not your dog, sweetie.”