GHOST GUARD
II
AGENTS OF INJUSTICE
J. Joseph Wright
Text copyright 2016 by J. Joseph Wright
Cover copyright 2016 by Krystle Wright
Author’s website: jjosephwright.com
Artist’s website: http://krystledesigns.wordpress.com/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
It’s my most fervent wish for the whole world to read GHOST GUARD: AGENTS OF INJUSTICE. If you’d like to share it with your friends, please feel free. Just don’t make a material gain off of it, because that would constitute copyright infringement, and it wouldn’t be very nice. Thank you, J.
Dedicated to my best friend, my love, my life…
Krystle
Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women who are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and evil are miserable.
~ Socrates, Gorgias
Chapter 1
Sex with a dead man.
It doesn’t sound like the most gratifying experience in the world. After all, how could a dead man possibly know a woman’s desires? And even if he did know, how could he realistically do anything about it? Turns out sex with the dead, as Abby Rhodes discovered, could be one of the most sensuous, deeply gratifying acts ever experienced.
We’re not talking about necrophilia. She wasn’t screwing a corpse. She was making glorious and passionate love to a ghost. And what a ghost he was. The things he could do. The places he could reach. The intimate knowledge he had. She didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. All her innermost desires were fulfilled instantly. Not even one second after she’d think of it, he’d do it, taking his time. Slowly. Passionately. Skillfully.
She loved the way he loved her. She loved how he whispered her name, Abby…Abby…Abby, his voice gentler than a summer rain shower. She loved his smooth, tender touch by the warmth of the fireside.
A flash in the distance, in the stormy Portland Eastside past the churning whitecaps of the Willamette. Seconds later a clap of thunder brought with it a flicker in the lights. Then the power went out completely, leaving them in sublime and sexy darkness.
“Did you do that?” her tone gave away just enough playfulness while still exhibiting her sensual side. Rarely had she gotten to let that part of her show.
He gazed up as if the answer was written on the ceiling. “No,” and when he said that, the hearth roared with even greater ferocity, surging from a tiny flitting finger of fire to an inferno, blazing and licking the air outside the granite mantle. “But I did do that,” he snapped his fingers and the air filled with song. Their song. Frank Sinatra’s immeasurable vocal silkiness permeated the atmosphere:
I’ll be loving you, always
With a love that’s true…Always
“Rev!” she barraged him with kisses, beginning with his lips and gliding to his cleft chin, then down his sturdy neck to his broad chest. Despite his ghostly nature, he’d manifested to the point of such vivid reality, every part of him solid to the touch. To Abby he was real. He was alive. He was the man she loved.
She kissed across his chest, down to his flat abs and then upward again, returning to that sultry mouth that hung lustily open, awaiting her return with a greedy and playful nibble. His electrifying touch drove her wild with pleasure. She took it back. He wasn’t alive. He was more than alive. Living men couldn’t do this sort of thing, couldn’t provide such pleasure with a mere touch. Rev had something. Sexual magic. Sensual mojo. A preternatural knack for seduction the likes of which the living can only dream. Especially living women. She knew. She was a woman. She’d had her share of prurient liaisons, boyfriends, one night stands. Never in her wildest fantasies had she known such ecstasy, such animal magnetism, such intimacy.
Rev had the kind of green eyes that, if he wanted, could penetrate a woman’s soul. He could bring a woman to orgasm with a mere look. He’d done it before with Abby, though she would never admit it. It had happened the first time they met. This was way before she’d developed her technique for fending off his psychological advances with a mental musical wall. Just project a song, preferably hard rock, into the mind of the psychic intruder and let the games begin. But before then it took Rev seconds and Abby was wet between the legs, breathing heavily, wondering what the hell had happened. When she first saw the shit-eating grin on his face, she marched right across the room and slapped him so fast he didn’t have the chance to dematerialize. At the time she was furious with him for having the balls to even try such a thing. It was rape as far as she was concerned. Now, though, she surrendered to it, gave in to his undeniably virile magic.
Only one thing troubled her. The act of sex robbed a tremendous amount of energy from a ghost. And, deep down, Abby couldn’t ignore that nagging alarm bell ringing inside her head.
“Are you okay,” she stopped just long enough to ask the question, then resumed her passionate play. Rev didn’t answer. He had too much on his mind. He didn’t want anything to spoil the moment. No outside thoughts of missions or rivals like Abby’s old flame Tom Riley or perhaps someone from Rev’s sordid history. The question didn’t even register with him, really. Was he okay? Of course he was okay. He was better than okay. He was making love to the woman he loved. How could he be any better?
Abby didn’t appreciate being ignored, even in the midst of sexual ecstasy. But it wasn’t just that. The fact that Rev disregarded the question sparked a nagging flame of worry in her subconscious. She, above all people, knew the seriousness of a spirit on the verge of ending forever. Rev could simply fade away and never come back. Death for a spirit. They called it extinguishing, and sex made Rev come close on occasion.
“Rev, I asked if you were okay!”
He nuzzled her hair, just above the shoulder. With both hands he followed the curves of her hips to her rear, then up again to her breasts. He loved her body, and she loved how he loved it. But right now she wanted to know for sure this wasn’t too much for him.
“Rev!” she forced him to look at her, and when he did, his smooth, clean shaven visage lost a little of its luster. His radiance, something she’d grown to love about him, had dulled, only slightly, yet enough to alarm her. “Your stat-mag energy is low.”
He smiled comfortably. “You worry too much. Loosen up. Enjoy this,” he kissed her forehead softly. “I am.”
What he did next made her convulse with waves of lust. Again and again a rhythmic tide of pleasure washed over her, filling her sweetly with a pleasure unfathomed in the physical world of carnal delights. She was certain no other living woman—in the deepest tantric meditations, in the wildest hedonistic rituals, in the most sumptuous of lovemaking acts—had ever experienced sex this divine.
She didn’t want to stop, and that brought her back to her main concern. How could she allow Rev to continue? Using so much energy. Pushing himself to the edge. She knew Rev had supernatural stamina. He was a one in a billion ghost. But even he had limits. She saw it in his spectral appearance. Rev had a steamy, misty quality, as if he were on fire inside.
“Rev,” her voice failed her. Her knees failed her. He wanted her to shut up. She wanted to shut up. She couldn’t shut up. “Rev!” she pushed away from him, her dress torn, her mascara running. “Rev I think we should stop…your SME is too low.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Come here,”
Without the use of hands, he pulled her closer. She felt her feet slide across the wood floor, legs rigid, stomach in knots. At that m
oment she sensed something she never in a million years wanted to see from Rev, steam originating from his core.
“Rev, you’re releasing residue like a goddam smokestack.”
He examined himself confusedly, checking his arms and shoulders, turning over his hands.
“I’m fine, Abby.”
“I don’t know—” he cut her off with a hungry kiss. A flood of pleasure infected her from head to toe, warming and tingling in all the right places.
“NO!” she shoved him off. “No, Rev. We can’t. It’s too bad for you.”
“We can. It’s not bad. It’s good. It’s really, really good.”
He held her again, and again she pushed him.
“Is that all you want from me, Rev? Just sex? Is that all this relationship means to you?”
“Of course not, I—”
“That’s what it looks like from here!”
Abby turned a shade redder, and her tone went a few decibels higher, proving she was on the verge of one of her famous tirades. No one was more painfully aware of this ominous portent than Rev.
“Now, Abby, don’t get—”
“Don’t ‘Now, Abby’ me! You have a lot to learn about women. Maybe back in the nineteen-twenties you could treat them like objects, but not in the twenty-first century, jerk!”
Rev wanted to get a word in edgewise. Abby filibustered.
“I’m telling you right now, Rev. No more sex. Not until we make sure you’re not going to extinguish, you understand?”
Rev took in a giant breath and exhaled through his nose like a raging bull. One hundred percent pure theatrics. Rev was a ghost. Ghosts don’t need to breathe. Yet they do once in a while merely for effect. And this effect was powerful, because his icy snort blew the curtains asunder and even ruined Abby’s hair.
“Fine!” his voice echoed through the halls of Gasworks like falling timber. With a rush of air and light he faced the opposite direction and didn’t look back. In one split second his physical form disintegrated into a hailstorm of luminous orbs. Like cinders floating above a raging fire, they danced and burned brightly. Then the glowing points of light became a deafening torrent, roaring down the hall to Rev’s office door. In another split second the searing red embers swirled into a shape again, forming Rev’s gorgeously angry physical body. He glared icicles at Abby and, without a word, opened his office door, went in, and slammed it closed.
“FINE!” Abby returned the favor by mimicking Rev’s temper tantrum, marching to her door and forcing it shut with a tremendous heave that cracked its frame.
Morris, in the middle of the hallway, turned to Ruby and Brutus, both of whom were as quiet as mice.
“Get ready, guys,” he said. “Here we go again.”
Chapter 2
Faded papers, dog-eared grimoires, and copious printouts from blog sites spilled from her bed onto the floor. Articles copied from microfiche files and reproductions of newspapers long out of print. Even handwritten letters procured by less than honest means. Young women who knew how to shake their moneymakers could get leering, oily, middle-aged men to give them just about anything. Melissa Hardgrove was one of those young women. Sometimes it took unsavory means to fulfill her latest obsession. She didn’t like to think of it as a little skin for the win. She liked to think of it as getting what she wanted. And right now she wanted anything and everything she could find on one Alexandra Petrovic.
“What is all this shit?” Heather Wood had that look on her face. That same look when she saw geeky Ted Meyer in class, or when she smelled someone fart in the hall. It was that snooty I could buy you all and have you killed look. Melissa hated it.
“It’s not shit, Heather. It’s research. You ever heard of research? Oh, wait. You haven’t. What are your grades this semester? Straight D’s?”
Heather blew a big pink bubble half the size of her face and popped it aggressively, squinting hard. Christy Carmichael, cheerleader, dance team captain, and all around good girl (so everyone thought), acted as middleman again.
“Play nice, girls,” she nodded at Melissa, who expressed her frustration with Heather through an exaggerated sigh. “Go ahead, Mel.”
“Thanks,” she smiled at Christy, frowned at Heather, and then retrieved a large scrapbook from her bed, cradling it like a precious gem.
“What’s that?” the two other girls said in unison. Mel, opening the front cover, revealed several glossy, black and white photographs from over a half century earlier. The places and themes of the photos varied, but one thing remained constant—images of two people, a young man and woman in love. A wedding photo of grand spectacle and ornate design. Honeymoon photos of frolicking in water. Precious mementos of a time long past, of a love long lost.
“This,” Mel said finally. “Is Alexandra Petrovic’s personal scrapbook.”
“Her scrapbook?” Christy was genuinely confused. “How did you get your hands on this?”
Again, Mel only smiled.
“You slut!” Heather stood straight. “You blew the museum curator, didn’t you?”
“Gross!” Mel almost puked. “No!” then her eyes got sheepish and she quieted to a whisper. “I just flashed him, that’s all.”
“Flashed him?” Christy laughed out loud. “You are a slut!”
“Shut. Up!” Mel waved her hand. “I did what I had to do. Guys, Alexandra Petrovic needs our help.”
Heather flipped through the scrapbook pages. Old, tattered images of the world long ago. The clothes were different. The hair styles were strange. She even guessed the way they talked was different.
“Help with what? She’s dead!”
“You know the story,” Mel’s frustration returned in spades. “I shouldn’t have to tell you again.”
“Indulge me,” Heather popped another pink bubble.
Mel recited the tale she had committed to memory. “In 1946, a young inventor named Emile Petrovic turned the scientific world upside down with the development of a method of extracting energy seemingly from thin air. He went on to create a device that utilized this energy to conjure and control certain supernatural beings. It was this device which caught the attention of some sinister forces who conspired to have Petrovic killed. After his murder, Petrovic’s widow, Alexandra Petrovic, made a huge fuss about it, accusing all kinds of powerful and elite people and organizations for her husband’s death. Then, under strange circumstances, the woman died. People say she was wronged, that she was silenced.”
“That’s a really interesting story,” Heather acted anything but interested. “But why do you care so much about Alexandra Petrovic, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Mel. “Ever since we went to that museum and heard the story about her and her husband, I just feel sorry for them. That’s all.”
“Hey,” Heather picked up a printout from the bed, examined the information—some junk from a website that may or may not have been credible—and tossed it down again. “I feel sorry for her too. But what can we do about it?”
“Yeah, Mel,” Christy touched Melissa’s arm gently, almost condescendingly. “This is a little bit…cray-cray.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, because I have news for you,” Mel stopped pretending to hide her irritation. “I think Alexandra Petrovic is here with us.”
“She’s here?” Heather flashed her eyes left to right skeptically. “Now?”
“Well, maybe not now, but—” Melissa reached under her bed and produced a small wooden box.
“What is that?” Heather almost wretched at what Melissa pulled from the box. “Ewww!”
There was one item, one precious and highly useful item, useful to Melissa and her plans. A little white magic. A little spirit conjuring. The item: one lock of hair. Black as night. Shiny and clean even after being shut away in the scrap book for over half a century.
“Is that what I think it is?” Christy leaned closer with indelible interest. “Is it?”
Mel smiled haughtily and placed the hair, bound i
n a purple velvet ribbon, on the open diary, just above the words written in an antiquated, slightly bent, small sloping script.
“Mel, what the hell are you doing with a dead lady’s hair?” Heather turned pale. “This whole thing is starting to really creep me out.”
Melissa glared at her. “I want to contact Alexandra Petrovic. She needs help. I can feel it.”
“What do you mean you want to contact her?”
“Just watch,” Melissa kept her eyes on her work. “Okay,” she looked at Christy, and then at Heather. “Here goes,” she read: “When the time comes for me to speak from beyond the grave, I will not speak. I will shout. I will shriek from the heavens about the injustices brought upon me and my husband. I will return from the grave and make it known to the world what has happened, and then there will be justice for Emile Petrovic.”
When she finished reading, Mel inhaled deeply and added her own words. “Alexandra Petrovic, hear us. Alexandra Petrovic, come to us,” she nodded eagerly at Christy. “Alexandra Petrovic, hear us,” then at Heather, “Alexandra Petrovic, come to us,” getting both girls to repeat with her, however reluctantly: “Alexandra Petrovic, hear us. Alexandra Petrovic, come to us.”
While they chanted, each girl began to take notice of subtle changes in the atmosphere inside Melissa’s rather large, rather cluttered bedroom. First it was a reduction in temperature. Barely noticeable initially. Then the mercury dipped radically and the girls saw their own breaths.
For some unexplained reason, the girls stayed put and kept reciting. And the more they repeated the words, the more strange things began to take place. Odd noises. Crackling plastic like footsteps over empty Skittles wrappers. Or maybe it was the licking of flames at the door. But nothing was on fire, and nobody was walking around. Melissa sat cross-legged, holding the antique diary in her lap. Christy was seated on her knees with her iPhone now skillfully aimed at Mel. Heather stood between them, her head on a swivel.
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