Sparks

by Laura Bickle

  Movement caught her eye. As her vision adjusted, she could make out shadows writhing in the darkness, black silhouettes moving down the waiting room to the bricked concourse by the dozen.

  Her neck prickled, and Sparky growled. His gill-fronds twitched and extended forward.

  Anya switched on her flashlight, swept it in the seething darkness. The shadows scuttled away, as if the presence of light was caustic.

  “Hello?” she called out, heart hammering behind her sternum.

  The shadows flitted away. Anya’s grip on the flashlight was slick with sweat. Perhaps coming here alone had not been a good idea.

  The police report had said that the bum’s body had been found in one of the old ticket offices. Anya resolutely put one foot in front of the other to peer inside the cracked remains of the box office. Her light swept the dented counter, through the scarred mouth of the ticket window. There had not been glass here for decades.

  Sparky hopped through the window onto the counter. Anya clumsily followed, sticking one leg and then the other through the frame. She scooted down the counter until she could set her feet on the floor… in what smelled like human excrement.

  “Ugh,” she groaned, wiping her shoe on the wall.

  She shone her light around the litter-strewn office, which smelled like a sewer. A rat scuttled across the cracked floor into a nest of newspaper, startling her. The light picked out a scorch mark on the floor underneath the counter. Anya bent to get a better look.

  This must have been where the homeless man was found. Though no usable evidence remained today, weeks later, Anya had wanted to see it for herself. The perfunctory photos taken of the scene by DPD had shown much the same scene of refuse, with a pair of feet extending from the bottom of the counter. Anya’s light picked out the scorch mark on the floor, and a matching one on the filthy underside of the counter where a roach zipped past. If the fire had started while the man was on the floor, smoke surely would have burned up the entire counter… and the intense heat required to do that would certainly have spread to the nearby trash. Yet, as in Bernie’s house, there was only a black mark remaining, very little evidence to suggest such a dramatic end.

  Anya straightened, chewing her lip. There were glass bottles strewn around, some of them liquor bottles. Perhaps there was something to the theory about heavy drinking creating a stupor that would make the victim impervious to a cigarette burn. But that felt like too much of a reach. Wouldn’t the homeless man have woken up at some point, regardless of how much Two Buck Chuck he’d managed to down?

  Anya slithered back through the ticket window. Shadows wildly chased one another in the flashlight glare as she found her footing.

  She squinted into the half-darkness. Someone was here. And someone had seen something.

  “Hello?” she called out. Her voice scraped the roof of the waiting room. “I’m looking for anyone who knew George. I’m not a cop. I just want to talk.”

  Shadows seethed. A voice squeaked from behind a Doric column: “You ain’t no cop? You a social worker?”

  “No. I’m a firefighter.”

  A silhouette slipped around the edge of the column. Anya shone her light before her, picking out a bearded man wearing an olive green military jacket and a ball cap. A backpack was slung over his right shoulder, and his left hand held a brightly colored bag of donations from a local supermarket known for charitable works. The man looked her up and down, and Anya’s skin crawled. Sparky parked himself between Anya and the man, hackles raised.

  “You don’t look like no fireman. You look like a social worker. And you’ve got shit on your shoes.”

  “I’m not a social worker. And yeah, I’ve got shit on my shoes. I’m pretty sure it’s not mine.”

  The man cracked a toothless smile. “You got money?”

  “I’ve got money if you’ve got information.” Anya didn’t step closer; she didn’t want to spook him. Nor did she want to get much closer to this man who smelled like he hadn’t showered in a year. “Did you know George?”

  “Yeah. He’s dead.”

  “I know. Did he usually sleep back there, in the ticket office?”

  “Yeah. That was his favorite hidey-hole.”

  “Did you ever see any signs of a fire?”

  “The night before he disappeared, he damn near caused a fight. He was cookin’ something in there, something that smelled good, and he wasn’t sharing.” The homeless man frowned and rubbed the scabs on his chin. “Turned out it was him cooking.”

  Anya’s stomach turned, remembering the bacon smell from Bernie’s house. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be that hungry.

  “Things burn in here a lot,” he said.

  “What kinds of things?”

  “George wasn’t the first person caught fire since I been here. One dude caught fire while walking the tracks… his bag went up like a sack of firecrackers. ’Nother time, a preacher-man came down to ‘save’ us.” The man made air quotes around the word and giggled. “He brought some candy bars, so we listened to him sermonizing. Didn’t have anything else to do. His jacket caught fire and he ran out, swearing like a sailor about hellfire and Satan.”

  “Do you remember their names?”

  “I’m not good with names.”

  So much for interviewing additional witnesses. “What do you think happened?” Anya tried another approach.

  The man shrugged, spat some noisome phlegm on the ground. “I think this place is haunted. I think the ghosts burn shit every once in a while.”

  Anya looked up at the dark ceiling. “I could see this place being haunted.”

  “There’s always strange sounds here. Things moving in the shadows, to and from the tracks. Sometimes you can still hear the trains at night.” His eyes burned. “It’s like this decrepit old joint is still alive, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. I do know.”

  “At least the lady in pink is getting rid of some of ’em.”

  “Lady in pink?” she echoed.

  “There’s a woman that comes around here once every couple of weeks. She brings a lot of bottles and jars. The ghosts disappear into the bottles and jars.”

  Anya’s heart quickened. “Can you describe her?”

  “She’s short, got some meat on her bones. Early fifties, blond hair. Always wears a pink suit and minces around in ridiculous high heels.” The man glanced at Anya’s feet. “She manages to keep the shit off her shoes, though.”

  Anya blinked. That sounded like Hope Solomon. “Did she ever tell you her name?”

  “She acts like she’s too good to talk to us, but she talks to the ghosts. Sweet-talks ’em until they get close enough to the bottle. Then… whoosh! In they go.” The homeless man pursed his lips, extended a filthy hand. “I gave you all the information I got. Hold up your end of the bargain.”

  “Thanks,” she said awkwardly. She reached in her pocket, fished out a twenty-dollar bill. It was all she had in cash, but it felt like a pathetically small amount.

  The man snatched at it, his hand as fast as a cobra striking. He plucked the money from her fingers and melted back into the shadows.

  Anya sighed. Maybe it would be for the best if this place was torn down. She spun on her heel, scanning for more evidence of scorch marks. Her flashlight shone on graffiti, some crude and some elaborate. In several places, she saw red depictions of flames, and one rudimentary sketch of a devil with horns.

  For people like the homeless man, this could very well be hell.

  Shadows boiled in her peripheral vision. They seemed to flow in an unusually ordered fashion, like water. She reached out with her Lantern senses, could sense the shapes and movement of something otherworldly—of ghosts.

  “Hello?” she breathed.

  But they ignored her. Anya suspected they were part of some subtle, residual haunting, some darkness playing over and over again like a stuck record. Perhaps the images of passengers were indelibly recorded in the bones of this grand old st
ructure, moving toward their destinations as they had in life.

  She walked through a puddle on the floor, lit from above by the copper frame of a ruined skylight. She followed the flow of the shadows, moving down through a tunnel to the broad brick expanse of the train platform. Her shoes rang loudly against the brick, and Sparky scuttled on point before her. His glowing amber light cast some relief from the gloom.

  The platform itself was crumbling onto the tracks, exposing rusted rebar like teeth. Here, without the meager benefit of broken windows, the darkness was nearly total. She could hear water dripping and the movement of air swirling around her, much like standing on a train platform in any major city. Instead of people, spirits stirred around her, moving back and forth in lines like ants. She could see only silhouettes, snatches of hats or briefcases or shoes. She glimpsed men and women in modern dress, a teenager with a cell phone, and a woman wearing a poodle skirt and bobby socks. But the images flowed past her in a cacophony of rising voices, parting around her as if she were a stone in a river.

  A dull roar came from the distance, growing closer. The wind picked up, lashing her hair around her face. Sparky dug his toes into the brick. Anya leaned backward as the sound of a train whooshed down the tunnel, tearing at her with a terrible vortex of wind. She threw up her arms to shield her face from flying debris and the terrible light washing through the tunnel.

  The sound and light receded. Anya removed her arms from her face and opened her eyes.

  Except for her and Sparky, the platform was empty. Every single ghost was gone, sucked away by that terrible wind.

  Witches were often willing to do things other people were squeamish about, and were known to keep the strictest levels of confidence.

  Those were some of the reasons Anya went to Katie for odd magickal jobs.

  Those, and Katie’s baking skills.

  Anya sat at Katie’s kitchen counter, plucking a hot oatmeal chocolate-chip cookie off a baking rack. She juggled the cookie, trying to keep it from scalding her fingers as she crammed it in her mouth.

  Barefoot, Katie swished around the kitchen in a long, crinkled skirt. She’d picked up a polka-dotted apron from a vintage shop that clashed with her plaid pot holders. She looked like Betty Crocker’s demented little sister. The felt kitchen witch strung over the kitchen window jiggled in the breeze, seeming to chuckle at her bizarre fashion sense.

  “I could live on these,” Anya muttered in gooey happiness.

  “Glad to share.” Katie leaned over the sink to lick the dough from beaters. Witches did not fear food poisoning from raw eggs.

  Katie’s cats, Vern and Fay, tore through the kitchen, dodging between the bar-stool legs. Vern, a gray tabby, got hung up around the kitchen table leg, spun out, and scrambled for purchase on the freshly waxed linoleum. He bumped Katie’s leg, causing her to drip dough on the front of her apron. Sparky plowed into the kitchen, feet churning and tail kinked in delight at having someone to play chase with. He chased Vern into the hallway. A faint yelp sounded from the back of the house.

  Katie shook her head, dabbing at the dough on her chest. “I really wish I could see Sparky play with them.”

  Anya spread her hands. Cats could see him. So could dogs and other ghosts. And Anya. The only other person Anya had met who could see Sparky was another Lantern she’d encountered, months before. Her thoughts darkened, remembering: Drake had been her enemy and her lover. He was probably the only other person who really understood her. And now he was dead. Anya felt only a small twinge of grief at that; it had to happen, but she wished she’d had more time with him, to ask him more about what their kind was supposed to do in the world.

  “You said you needed a favor.” Katie stripped off her pot holders, and her fingers glistened with silver rings.

  “I need to talk to Bernie.” Anya said it without preamble. She rested her chin in her hand, staring across the bar at Katie.

  Katie raised her eyebrow, and a teasing smile played around the corners of her bow mouth. “You didn’t ask Ciro. Or Jules.”

  “It’s not DAGR’s case. And neither one of them is my father.” It sounded petulant when she said it, but it was the truth. Ciro had forgotten more things about metaphysics than Aleister Crowley had ever known, but was very sparing and particular in its usage. He would never tell Anya how to get in touch with Bernie. And Jules… Anya was certain that talking with the dead violated Jules’s ethics. No use provoking him.

  Katie shrugged. “Well… we could always try to summon him.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “We could hold a séance. But we’d have to rustle up at least four people.”

  Anya made a face. She could probably rope Brian into it, but Max would blab to Jules.

  “Or we could run down to the toy store and pick up a Ouija board. But I don’t advise it.”

  “Why not?” Anya was genuinely curious. DAGR had gone on a number of runs in which a Ouija board had allowed a ghost or demon into a house, but she didn’t know what made that method better or worse than any other.

  Katie picked up a cookie. “A spirit board is neither good nor bad, in and of itself. It’s just a tool. But modern spirit boards have become too intertwined with the idea of a game. No one takes them seriously, and rarely do people take the necessary precautions. Bad stuff gets in, and most people lack the ability to test the veracity of the spirits they’ve summoned.”

  “There’s no off switch?”

  “They’ve not been trained to break the connection or protect themselves. No magic circle’s drawn, no protective elements are invoked. It’s the metaphysical equivalent of allowing a hitchhiker to ride in your car, and then asking him nicely to get out when you’re done driving.”

  Anya stifled a shudder. She’d had a hitchhiker before, a demon. Picked it up like a bad cold from a teenager who had been playing with a Ouija board. She remembered what it was like, feeling the demon working beneath her skin, controlling her hands and her voice. She would never, ever allow that to happen again.

  “So… where is Bernie now? Is there any way to know?” Anya asked, changing the subject. Her curiosity had been piqued. Had Bernie been sucked into the afterlife? Had he gone to the same place Charon had taken the little girl?

  “I don’t know where he is.” Katie dusted crumbs off her apron. “I don’t think anyone really has the authoritative answer on what happens after we die. But we can still try to summon his ass and see if he responds.”

  She rummaged through her cabinets for a glass water goblet, a container of salt, a dish towel, and a notepad. Katie poured lemon oil on the dish towel and polished the scarred kitchen table to a high, slick shine.

  “I’ll need to dust off your aura, too,” she said.

  Anya nodded. “What do you need for me to do?”

  “Just stand over here beside the table and think pure thoughts.”

  Anya screwed up her forehead. “I spent half the day at the morgue and the other half at a haunted train station covered in shit. I don’t know any pure thoughts.”

  “Then think happy thoughts. Think about sunshine. Puppies. Or getting laid. Just not all at the same time, or you’ll confuse the Goddess.”

  Katie lit a bundle of sage and fanned the smoke over Anya’s body, head to toe. She paused when she fanned the smoke over Anya’s heart.

  “Interesting,” she murmured.

  Anya’s nose twitched. Sage always made her sneeze. “What?”

  Katie squinted. She didn’t squint exactly at her, but through her. “Your aura,” she said. “It’s changed color.”

  “What do you mean?” Anya asked. Katie had graciously scrubbed Anya’s aura on many occasions, but hadn’t noted any abnormalities in it, except when she was hosting a demon. Alarm prickled over her. Perhaps the demon had left something behind.…

  Katie shook her head, sending blond wisps of hair over her shoulders. “I don’t think it’s anything bad. Your aura usually appears to me to be amber, like fire. It just fee
ls darker, blacker. Solid. Like obsidian.”

  “How is that not bad?”

  “Sometimes, when black reaches into an aura, it’s a sign of transformation. It’s not necessarily negative, so just try to suspend judgment about it.”

  Anya’s mouth turned down, dubious.

  Katie fanned the smudge stick over herself and stuck it in the soap dish on the edge of the sink. A wisp of smoke reached upward, tickling the kitchen witch’s bloomers.

  Attracted by the smell of sage, Sparky trotted into the kitchen. He paused, gill-fronds twitching. Fay and Vern hopped up on the counter near the sink, pressing their paws into bits of flour left behind from the mixing. Sparky sauntered beside Anya and looked soulfully up at her.

  “Can Sparky come play?” Anya asked.

  “Sure.” Katie was pouring salt in a circle around the kitchen table, muttering invocations to the four elements. She lit a jar candle in each cardinal direction on the floor: north, south, east, and west. An extra candle in the center of the table was lit, for spirit. “Just keep him in or out of the circle. Doesn’t matter to me which.”

  Anya pulled Sparky into the circle Katie drew around her heels. Katie closed the circle, and Anya pulled out a chair. Sparky arranged himself in her lap, looking at his reflection on the glossy table surface.

  Katie sat opposite Anya. She took a plain stack of recipe cards and marked each one with a letter of the alphabet in Magic Marker. She arranged the cards in a semicircle around the table, and made three more cards that read yes, no, and goodbye.

  “That looks suspiciously like a Ouija board.”

  “One of its forebearers. This type of spirit contact was in vogue when table-tipping, cabinet-knocking, and the like were parlor games in the late 1900s. The difference is, these tools are all consecrated and we’re within the safety of a magic circle. And since we’re not wearing corsets, we’re unlikely to faint.” Katie turned the glass goblet upside down on the center of the table. “May Goddess bless and guard our efforts.”