Ghosts & Echoes

by Lyn Benedict

  Sylvie looked at the girl sprawled on the floor, stick arms and legs in pink cotton, and snarled. How the hell they thought she’d get better like this . . . People shouldn’t be allowed to have kids, ignore them, turn them into grasping, stupid, spoiled brats, then just abandon them.

  She yanked the dirty sheets off the bed, threw them into the hall, found another clean set in a discreet linen closet, and made the bed in angry jerks that made the whole process that much harder as the mattress billowed and shifted, fighting back. That done, she tapped Bella’s cheek until the girl blinked awake. “In bed.”

  Bella eyed her warily but crawled to the side of her bed, and Sylvie pushed her up into it. “Where did you get the Hand of Glory, Bella?”

  Her only response was a sigh as the girl turned her face into the clean linens, and no manner of name-calling or shaking would wake the girl again. Lips tight, Sylvie put a glass of water beside the bed, scrubbed her hands clean in the girl’s bathroom, and gave it up as a bad job. Why waste time badgering a sick girl who either fainted or obstructed? Any more shouting, and the cops might get called. Her jaw ached, and she forced herself to stop clenching her teeth.

  Was this why Zoe had stopped hanging out with Bella? She’d said Bella was all screwed up. . . . Sylvie needed to have a talk with her baby sister about when you needed to call for outside help. When a problem was too big simply to walk away from. When a problem could get people killed.

  Bella’s breath rasped in her throat; she whimpered and thrashed. The nightmare again, hopefully muted now that the Hand was gone from her bed.

  If Bella couldn’t or wouldn’t give Sylvie the information, maybe Zoe could point her in the right direction. Teenagers were relentless in information gathering. If Zoe knew enough to declare Bella all screwed up, maybe she knew who had gotten her there.

  Sylvie gave her hands a last scrub. Just moving the sheets that the Hand had been resting on made her want to wash and wash, but any germs that survived the preservation were long gone, and any magical taint that had attached to her couldn’t be washed away with anything as simple as soap.

  She stared at the trash can balefully and considered options.

  Ten minutes later, Sylvie walked out the front door, irritated and worried enough that when Eleanor gawked at her—and who wouldn’t gawk at a visitor carrying out a trash can that had a magazine duct-taped over the top—she merely snapped, “You know, for a med student, you’re ignoring one hell of a sick kid. Call a doctor, huh?”

  She walked back to her truck, slapped the trash can in the well of the passenger’s seat, and drove off, every nerve firing. She felt like she was driving a car that someone had loosed a snake into—unseen, but feared in her every anticipatory sinew.

  Zoe didn’t answer when Sylvie dialed her cell, and Sylvie sighed, remembering she’d taken the phone away from her. In retrospect, a really bad idea. A girl should be able to call for help. Then again, if Zoe had just stayed put . . .

  Sylvie dialed her parents’ phone, got the answering machine there, too. She left a terse, tight message for Zoe to call her at once, considered driving home and continuing the Zoe hunt. It was before noon, though. Zoe wasn’t much of an early riser. Wherever she’d washed up last night, she was probably still there, still sleeping the smug sleep of a teenager who’d gotten away with ignoring parental guidelines.

  She could wait a few hours, see if Zoe called in, came by, acted like a reasonable person. Bella sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere, and Sylvie had taken their toy away.

  At a red light, she leaned forward, rested her head on the steering wheel, and sighed. All reasonable, but there was some cold, scared part of her that kept pointing out that Zoe probably had been involved. Teenagers rarely backed off without trying something first. They had to learn things the hard way. Zoe had likely touched the Hand, at least once.

  That nagging worry and the occasional thump of the Hand sliding around in its container made the drive back to her apartment—twenty-six miles of morning traffic and random road workers—more of an ordeal than she wanted to admit. Too many horror movies, she told herself. The Hand was a latent danger, not likely to claw its way free and take her by the throat. The problem with that consoling thought was she’d seen monsters that horror movies hadn’t considered.

  She took the final corner to her apartment, winced as the Hand skidded within its prison, a sere scrabble that sounded deliberate, and pulled into her parking slot with a rush of relieved breath. The truck door slammed behind her before she’d consciously decided to move, her key already turning the lock.

  Fine. She didn’t want to take it into her apartment anyway. She could leave it there, could be content that the teens wouldn’t be burglarizing anyplace else. Without the Hand, they’d have to deal with alarms and locks like any other would-be thief. That would be way too risky for them. Never mind that using black magic was a magnitude of risk higher. Now that she’d stopped them, prevention dealt with, she could take her time to decide on punishment. She leaned back against the warm steel of her truck, fingers absently rubbing at the claw marks.

  Abruptly, she recalled Wright, left hiding out in her bathroom. This was the problem with compartmentalization. Sometimes, remembering what you’d set aside felt like being blindsided all over again.

  It was past time to face Wright. Problem was, she still didn’t have the first clue of what to say. It was all emotions beating in her blood when she thought of him, of Demalion, of inappropriate kisses and borrowed bodies.

  Her front door opened above her, Wright coming out to overlook the parking area, phone to his ear. He scanned the lot absently, as if he’d been doing it so often that when his eyes caught her, he twitched, nearly dropping the phone.

  She froze; he waved at her, all cheery attention getting, and a quick toothy grin, then bent his attention back to the phone with an expression moving from pleased to irritated.

  Wright was one of the most expressive men she had ever met, hunching shoulders, wild gestures, a voice that angled sharper and sharper. For him to greet her with a smile and a wave, after this morning’s incident . . .

  He didn’t remember it. Or decided to let it go. Hell, from his point of view, what had happened? A little lost time, coming back to himself with Sylvie’s hands on his shoulders. For all she knew, he might think he had been trying to fugue-walk off the balcony, and she had put a stop to it.

  The relief was bitter and strong and made her knees weak. If he didn’t remember, she didn’t have to explain that his ghost was all her doing. That the ghost occupying his skin and thoughts had come to Sylvie for something that had nothing to do with Wright. Knowing Demalion, it might be something as simple and as devastating as getting out his final wishes.

  He’d tried to find Anna D, hadn’t he? His mother. It made too much sense.

  Sylvie climbed the stairs slowly, rising as Wright’s voice rose.

  “Jeez, Giselle, I told you. I’m in Miami. No, not on vacation. I swear. . . .”

  He ran a hand through his hair, re-creating tufts that had disappeared with his shower; his grey T-shirt was damp at his nape. “No, I’m not staying at a hotel. You checked the credit cards? Giselle, I told you—”

  He bumped his head against the balcony post, once, twice; a chip of red paint flecked off into his hair. “This is not a vacation! What does it matter who I’m staying with . . . ? No, I’m not staying with Sylvie.” He hunched a shoulder, half turned, his voice going harried.

  Sylvie leaned against her open door, eavesdropping blatantly. Her name, his mouth. Interesting that his wife seemed to have more concerns about the company he was keeping than his health and condition. Demalion must have been keeping a pretty low profile, even in a confused and fragmentary state.

  “—talk to Jamie? C’mon, I just want to say hi.”

  Sylvie listened as his voice went soft and warm. A son, she remembered Alex saying. A very young one by the simple questions Wright was asking. You played with a dog? Was i
t a big dog?

  Guilt shifted uneasily in her belly. A tiny spur reminding her that Wright’s case affected more than him; Demalion’s hold on Wright could injure a family. Wright was her client. Not Demalion.

  But if he only wanted a chance for closure, for last words, a slower end to his murder, then maybe the possession was a problem that could take care of itself. Shepherd Wright around, keep him safe, while Demalion did what he needed to do, now that he remembered who he had been, now that he’d collected his last bit of soul.

  Wright held up a single finger—just a moment—as she reached the top of the stairs. Sylvie brushed by him, heading for the AC in her apartment and another quiet moment to herself.

  Wright had folded the blankets and left them at the side of the couch. He’d availed himself of her coffeepot, but had washed out his mug, left it neatly in the dish drainer beside the sink. Tidy-minded, and all Wright’s doing. Demalion tended to let the little things slide. Seemed stupid to think about it now, but Sylvie knew that somewhere in Chicago, Demalion’s bed was still unmade, still rumpled with their mingled sweat. His last day alive, and he hadn’t bothered to make the bed, or throw away the take-out containers from their last shared meal. Death left so many rough edges on a life.

  A car honked outside, and she jerked back to focus. She traded Zoe’s jacket for the lightweight Windbreaker she’d dropped beside the couch the night before, collected her holster for more secure carriage of her gun, and caught Wright as he was coming back in, put her hand up, and ushered him back out. “Let’s go.”

  “Been ready,” he said. “You don’t have a single thing to eat, you know that?”

  “Grocery shopping’s so passé,” she said. “I’m a modern woman. I dine out.” It was hardly her best. It all felt artificial, interacting with him, waiting for Demalion to resurface.

  He smiled, but it was as brittle as hers, his good humor forced. Sylvie, stuck between ignoring his mood and wallowing in her own, opted for investigating his. “So, your wife—”

  “Thinks I’m having an early-onset midlife crisis? Or an affair? God only knows what she’s telling Jamie. He asked if my sleepover was fun. . . .” Long strides sent him down the stairs as if he could outrun his aggravation. By the time she caught up to him, he said, more temperately, “And I felt so much better after my nap.”

  “Yeah?” she said. “That makes one of us.”

  He licked his lip, a quick, nervous gesture. “I didn’t see you leave.”

  “You take long showers,” she said, still clipped.

  Wright stopped on the edge of the parking lot, bent down, and collected a piece of gravel, turned it about in his fingers, before chucking it back to the ground. “I . . . There’s another gap. I don’t remember it. Don’t remember what I did.”

  “It’s all right,” she said.

  “I thought I was going to help you, and you were going to help me. Does lying to me count as help? It’s all right? What does that even mean now? It’s all right—the ghost came back but did no harm? Or it’s all right—you killed it, and it’s all over now? It doesn’t feel over.” His breath was shallow, quick; his worn T-shirt shivered. He didn’t remember, was afraid of what he’d done but still determined to face it.

  Sylvie closed her eyes. Keeping quiet until she knew what to say would be so much easier if she didn’t like Adam Wright. More than that, she respected him. He was scared, but he faced things head-on. Didn’t understand the problem, and instead of closing his eyes to it, started looking for new answers.

  She swallowed, gave out truth that meant nothing much. “Your ghost made an appearance, and it’s all right, because you did the smart thing and came to me. The ghost is benign—”

  “It’s in my skin, deeper than cancer. How is that benign?”

  “It’s probably just a matter of communicating last wishes,” Sylvie said. “We’ll get you through this. Solve this.”

  Solve it, she said, like it was as easy as that. Like solving this didn’t mean losing Demalion all over again.

  Her little dark voice growled, fed her an inverted platitude, designed to disturb. Nothing sane seeks its own demise.

  She crossed the lot, her gait stiff, some of her hope for an easy resolution broken. The truck hadn’t been in the sun long, but when she brushed the metal, it was nearly hot enough to burn. Wincing, she keyed it open, gestured Wright into the cab; he paused on seeing the trash can. “It’s not a snake in there, is it?”

  “Nope,” she said. “But don’t kick it.”

  There was some awkward maneuvering as he folded long legs around it, pink plastic with a copy of Vogue duct-taped over the top, bright spots against his jeans.

  Once he was situated, once they’d started moving into traffic, he said diffidently, “So if he just wants to get out his last requests, why not ask me? Why climb inside my brain in the first place? I mean, in movies, ghosts can talk over radios and televisions.”

  “You know it’s a him?” He hadn’t said anything but blah, blah kaleidoscope before. Why the hell clients just couldn’t be open from the start—he might have spared her some of the shock.

  “Not what I asked,” Wright said, eyes narrowing. He leaned back against the seat, nudged the trash can with the edge of his shoe, and absently reached down to steady it. Next moment, he recoiled, slammed into Sylvie’s space; she yanked the wheel, yanked it back, and kept the truck in her lane through sheer will and effort. “Christ, Wright,” she panted. “What the hell?”

  “Wasn’t me,” he said. “All ghost.” He looked wrung out, eyes glossed with tears, as if he’d stared too long into the sunlight. He raised a pointy elbow, shielded his face. Traffic rushed by on either side, and the blaring of horns faded to a memory.

  “Convenient excuse,” she said, less to needle him, and more to give him space to recover. “It wasn’t me who broke your lamp; the ghost did it. Honest . . .”

  He gave her a shaky grin. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  He folded his hands in his lap, braided his fingers, rubbed at the pale spot where his wedding band had been, frowned, looked at her with an expression shading toward unhappy.

  Some information seepage, she thought. He had a glimmer of memory trying to make itself felt. Since she’d rather get out and walk the rest of the way to the office, full on summer heat and all, than talk about that horrifically inappropriate kiss, she shifted subjects firmly. “So what else do you know about him?”

  “Not a lot. I didn’t lie,” he said. “I’m not an idiot, Sylvie. You consult a specialist, you tell ’em your symptoms. It’s just . . . I don’t know the words. Like a blind child, trying to describe the world. All I got are feelings, sensation, nothing real. Nothing I can grab hold of. Your name was the first real thing. Only real thing.”

  He stared blindly out the windshield, not even squinting in the sunlight, utterly focused inward.

  “When it started, it was like a rat tweaking in my brain, all twisted round, biting at everything. Panic all the time, on both our parts, I guess. Me ’cause I never know what I might do; him ’cause he didn’t know what he was. Then I got to you, and it changed. Got better. Still all activity, no purpose, but better. Can’t really make it sound right.”

  The idea of Demalion waking scared and fragmented woke strange hurts in her chest, made it impossible to speak. She blinked furiously and changed lanes.

  “It’s all different now.”

  “How?” And her recovered voice was ragged enough to make him jerk in his seat.

  He tangled his hands in his hair, drummed out a beat on the back of his skull; it made her think uneasily of knocking on a door, waiting to see who would answer.

  “This morning . . . He’s clearer now. Got real feelings. Not just panic and confusion. In fact, he’s kinda—” Drum tap on his neck, the quiet thump of flesh against flesh.

  “Kinda what?”

  He folded his arms across his chest, gave her a brush of eye contact. “Worried. Guilty. Excited. Like a baby gangbanger psyc
hing himself up to do something he’s not sure of.”

  “I see,” Sylvie said, slowly. She didn’t like that description at all.

  “He also feels . . . stronger.” His hands strangled each other, went white and tight, though the rest of his body strove for casual. “Like he’s more there.

  “So, you going to tell me what he did to get you all handsy?” Wright interrupted her musings. His question was abrupt, hostile in tone, though she imagined it was fear that fueled it.

  “Nothing important,” Sylvie said. “You weren’t out long, half an hour max, and most of that time you were couch-bound.”

  He nodded, but gnawed on his lip as if he wasn’t sure he believed her. Wanted to, but doubted. He shifted, bumped the can again, and his attention jerked back to it.

  Sylvie gripped the wheel tighter, eyed the traffic warily, but the moment passed without Wright or the ghost freaking out again.

  “That’s . . . vile,” he said. “How can you . . . Where did you get that? What is it?”

  Sylvie verified that the trash can was still tightly sealed, the cover of Vogue flattened over the top, shiny with duct tape. Answering him truthfully was likely to lead to argument, but it would also get them off the ghost topic. She’d had about as much of that as she could stand; he might be thinking it through, but she was remembering Demalion in her arms again, even with the wrong flesh pressed against hers. Remembering Demalion’s blood, a fine, sticky spray that had stained her face and hair and clothes, seeped into her pores, gotten into her nail beds, and taken days to scrub out.

  Her stomach wanted to eat through her skin, anxiety burning as hot and painful as a flame. He came back. But how? The Furies devoured souls as well as bodies.

  “Sylvie?”

  “It’s the burglars’ magical tool.” She hastened into speech. “In the can.”

  “You found them?” His concern melted away into pleasure and surprise. “That was quick. Bet that went a long way to making the local PD like you better.”