Believer

by Ravin Tija Maurice

  “I know nothing of any immortals, Doctor. I am not sure how much help I could be.”

  He smiled and pulled a business card from inside his suit coat pocket, handing it in my direction. “Speak to your people. Clearly you are not informed about the world you live in. If you are interested, please get in touch with me.”

  When I did not reach out to take it from him, he put the card on my desk, stood, and walked out.

  I scrambled over the top of my desk, almost falling on my face as I followed him. I wanted to see if he was floating. He smiled and waved to Ramona as he left, getting into a black SUV that was waiting outside.

  “Well fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” I mumbled to myself as I walked back to my office. Eric stood in my doorway.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  “That was Dr. Frankenstein. We need to talk about immortals. This whole thing just upped the weird factor.”

  13.

  I pulled my pyjamas out of the drawer and something fell out, making a thumping sound when it hit my carpet.

  I was surprised to see one of the little tins where Jesse kept his drug accessories spill out on the floor. I hadn’t even known it was there.

  What else did he have stashed around my room?

  I pictured Jesse’s face in my mind, and my vision went milky; my eyes felt like they were vibrating in my head.

  I knew what it meant and my heart sank. The idea of facing him now made me want to vomit. How much of the truth did I want to tell him?

  “How did I get here?” I heard him before I saw him. I tried hard to level out my breathing.

  “Sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose,” I replied.

  “Camille?”

  “Yeah, Jesse. It’s me.”

  “Thank God! Can you explain to me what the hell is happening?”

  “Yeah, I can, but I don’t know if you’ll believe me.”

  I’m not going to cry.

  “Can you look at me?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath, then turned towards him.

  He looked better than he had in the days before he died. He wasn’t wearing a hat or his hoodie, just a plain white t-shirt and jeans. His hair was short and uneven. He looked healthy for a ghost, the healthiest I had seen him look in years.

  “You’re…you are…you’re dead, Jesse. And you’re here because I summoned you. Accidently, but I still summoned you.”

  “I already knew about the dead part. But you ‘summoned’ me? Since when can you do that?”

  “It’s all new to me, hence the accidently part. Long story. The Coles notes version is that my mom bound my powers and a chain of events…unbound them.”

  “Wow. That’s heavy.”

  “You don’t even know the half of it. I am surprised you believe me.”

  “How could I not? Look at what you did,” he began. “Were you there? When I died?”

  “No. We were broken up, remember?”

  He examined my face. “Right. I forgot. I’m sorry, Camille.”

  “Sorry for what? I dumped you.”

  “Sorry for everything. I was horrible to you. I took you for granted. I treated you like a piece of furniture, for no other reason than I could. I know you probably don’t believe me, but I did love you in my own warped way. That is my one regret, and explains a lot about what has happened since I died. You deserve better, and I wish I could give it to you.”

  I sat down on my bed and burst into tears. I tried to form words, but I just sounded like a bumbling mess.

  It took a few minutes, but I was finally able to take a few deep breaths and calm down.

  “I want to believe you,” I blubbered out, “but it’s been too many times.”

  “I’m dead, Camille. It’s not like I can cheat on you now.”

  “So that would be the only time you are truly sorry? When you can’t do anything else? Of course. You’re only sorry because it clears your conscience, and now all you have is time to think.”

  He put his face in his hands, shaking his head in frustration.“That totally came out wrong. I get why you wouldn’t believe me, but I am truly sorry, okay? I hope one day you will find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  I wiped my tears on my hand. “Thank you for saying that.”

  “Does this mean we get to spend eternity alone together?”

  I chuckled. “Not exactly. I am new to this summoning thing, but you don’t stay forever. You go back and forth.”

  “Oh.” He sounded disappointed.“Will you ever summon me again?”

  “Of course,” I replied. “Jesse?”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “What’s it like?”

  “What’s what like?”

  “Death. Dying. What’s it like?”

  “Truthfully, I don’t remember. I remember being at a bar. Burnt Offerings. I remember talking to a girl with dark hair who reminded me of you, but she wasn’t…then I got drunk and things are fuzzy. I remember being in bed here with you, then waking up outside.”

  “Why did you go to Burnt Offerings?”

  “Bucky wanted to. Some friend of Bliss’s who he would not stop talking about. He was obsessed with her. She was a sorority sister or some shit. She was there one night with some friends. I was shocked a girl like that would give him the time of day. But they acted like he was the chosen one or some shit.”

  “He’s dead too.” I had a lot of questions about this ‘sorority sister’ and Bucky being the chosen one, but I wasn’t sure Jesse could answer them. My first reaction was to be disgusted that Bliss could use her brother for some bruja craziness. But if it was a family thing, Bucky would have been well aware of what she was.

  His devastation was hard to hide.“What? How did he die? Who?”

  “From what I know, Lucia Kinkaid had his face bashed in because of Bliss.”

  “I told you. Bliss is trouble with a capital T.”

  “I know. I found out the hard way. Lucia was trying to send a message that Bliss belonged to her. Then Bliss shot her in the head and ended up getting claimed by Tobias Kinkaid. I’m not sure they know she killed Lucia though.”

  “How do you know? Bliss is a fantastic liar.”

  “I was there when she shot Lucia. And yes, I know exactly how fantastic of a liar she is.”

  “Well, okay then. Is she still your friend?”

  “Fuck no. Why?”

  “Because she made a pass at me. More than once.”

  “She said you tried to recruit her for porn and your brothel.”

  “That’s absolute crap! Bucky would have killed me…wait, did Bucky kill me?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “How did I die?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. At first they thought you OD’d. But now Kiera is investigating it as a homicide. Or a possible homicide. I’m not sure what the term is.”

  “How’s Rollo?”

  “Not sure. He was nasty to me right after he found out. I haven’t spoken to him much since.”

  “Did he mention Amanda?”

  I groaned. “No. She came with him to your funeral. Other than that, I don’t know.”

  “I’m not asking because I want to know. I’m asking because she is a toxic goddamn succubus. She was drugging me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She was putting drugs in my food and drinks if I didn’t see her for a few days, and when I got sick I would end up crawling back to her. It’s fucked up.”

  Part of me wanted to laugh. Only Jesse could pick up a nut job like that. “How did you figure that out?”

  “I caught her red-handed. That was shortly after you and I broke up and was one of the reasons I got crackhead skinny. Rollo isn’t smart enough to figure that out.”

  “That’s his problem, not yours. Or mine.”

  “Could you talk to him?”

  I laughed loudly, and Jesse looked taken aback. “Absolutely not. He was horrible to me and said some evil shit that I cannot forgive. Besides, what
do I tell him? That Jesse’s ghost sent me?”

  “Wait, back up. You said my brothel. What are you talking about?”

  “I have video of you and Amanda in a brothel downtown.”

  “Were we...?”

  “She was banging an old dude then gave you the payment.”

  He hesitated. “Can you show me?”

  I opened up my laptop and found the video. Part of me didn’t want to show him, didn’t want to rip open that wound that was starting to heal. Another part of me wanted to see his face when he watched it. I wanted a real honest explanation. And an apology.

  I pushed play and put the laptop on my bed beside me. He sat down beside the laptop and watched the screen closely. Sitting that close to him and not being able to touch him was strange.

  Why couldn’t I touch him?

  I reached out and tried to touch his shoulder, but my fingers easily passed through like he was air. I was overwhelmed with a deep and terrible sadness for him.

  He was my first love, my first kiss, my first everything. While I may not have wanted to be his girlfriend anymore, I wanted him to have a regular life. I wanted him to get clean and move on and be a real person. Have a life that his little brother, or his future children, could be proud of.

  Any life at all.

  “I can’t imagine what you must have thought when you saw this,” he said a few minutes after the video ended. “Where were you?”

  “Parked out front with Q. She was also driving the vehicle when I found you and Amanda and we broke up.”

  “Oh,” he stopped, looking across the room as if someone was there. He listened to whatever they said then turned back to me.

  He reached out to touch my knee and his fingers passed right through. He looked at his hand with a mixture of shock and annoyance. His eyes turned up to me then, and my heart sank. It was hard not to be sad for him, even with the drugs and the other women and everything.

  “Listen, the powers that be want me to tell you something,” he said. “They want you to know that if you are not careful, the darkness will consume you.”

  “That’s a little cryptic. Who are the powers that be?”

  “They run the other place I go to. The middle ground is what some of the others call it.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I get loads of cryptic weirdness now that I have powers. I should write a handbook or something.”

  “So if you have powers, does that mean other things exist, like vampires and werewolves?”

  “To make a long story short, yes. The Kinkaid’s are vampires.”

  “Cool,” he looked away again. “I have to go. Will you summon me again, Camille?”

  I smiled. I liked to think I would summon him on purpose. Hopefully, after the first time, it wouldn’t hurt as bad.

  “Yeah, Jesse. I will.”

  “I want to know what happened to me. Will you tell me?”

  “Sure. If you really want to know.”

  He tried to smile, but it was hard when his bottom lip was quivering.

  “So I guess this is goodbye?” he said quietly.

  I held out my hand and he put his just above so it looked like we were touching.

  “No, it’s not goodbye. More like smell you later.” A tear rolled down my cheek.

  “It’s weird to be here like this with you and not be able to kiss you goodbye.”

  “I know,” I replied. I blinked and he was gone.

  In that moment, I felt completely alone, and my grief finally caught up with me. Moving my laptop to my desk, I lay down on my bed and put my hand out flat where he had been sitting. The warmth of the laptop gave the illusion of what could have been.

  At least I got to say goodbye this time.

  My phone rang a little while later. I wasn’t sure how long I had been lying there. I had been thinking about all the things Jesse could have done, if he had gotten to live. The life he could have had if things had been different. If I wasn’t the goddamn prophecy girl.

  I tried to sound chipper. “Hello?”

  “Hey! Were you sleeping?” Eric’s voice immediately made me feel better.

  “No, I’m good. What’s up?”

  “I can hear it in your voice, Camille. Spill it.”

  “I accidentally summoned Jesse.”

  He was silent for a moment. “How did that go?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to talking to people I really cared about after they’ve died.”

  “How did he handle it?”

  “Better than I expected. Didn’t make it any less weird though. It’ll be good preparation for when I talk to my mom.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  “Hopefully things have calmed down and life can return to our new normal.”

  I laughed. “New normal?”

  “Yeah, this life will get less crazy, I promise. And I’m here for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “And I sure as fuck hope you’re right. I wish you were here.”

  “I can be.”

  My ears perked up. “I don’t know what Ted would say.”

  “He won’t even see me. I can astral project myself to you.”

  “What? What the hell is that?”

  “The simplest explanation is that I can project an image of myself there with you. It’s still me, I can hear you and everything, but my physical body is not there.”

  “Shut the front door! For real?”

  “Absolutely. One of the cool parts of being the Merlin. We’ll hang up now. You get comfortable, and I will be there shortly.”

  I was grinning ear to ear. “Okay. See you soon.”

  “See you soon,” he replied, and we both hung up.

  Grabbing my discarded pyjamas from the floor, I took a few minutes to make myself presentable after the crying. Mascara trails running down my cheeks were not a good look. Teddy bear in hand, I positioned myself on the bed in such a way that he had plenty of room. After closing my eyes for only a second, my senses were filled with Eric’s warm woodsy scent. When I opened my eyes, he was there, but he shimmered white at his edges. He smiled at me and stroked my cheek. It felt like the soft touch of a feather.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly to him. He stroked my hair, and then gently wrapped his arm around me. It felt like a blanket of him was covering me, his smell all around me.

  “This is good. If I can’t have you with me, this is good too,” I told him. He said nothing. I knew he could hear me, but I wondered if he could reply.

  “I hope you know how much I want to be with you. And I don’t just mean physically. These last few weeks with you have been some of the best in my life, even with the chaos.” I closed my eyes. “I am so glad you are part of my new normal.”

  14.

  The next day, I slept in late. I hadn’t slept that good in years. I had fallen asleep in Eric’s arms. He wasn’t there when I woke up, but I was okay with that. I had sent him a thank you text, letting him know that I wanted to see him again. Soon.

  I had a rare free Saturday morning to myself, so I decided to look through my dad’s files. There were multiple boxes, but I was particularly drawn to the one that happened to be on my desk. It had a weird eerie glow to it that made me think it was important.

  I opened the box and began taking files out. I was impressed with my father’s organizational system. Each file contained information about an object, mostly rare antiques, including photos and various details.

  I scanned through the detailed purchase histories of a few of them and saw they were each bought by The Kinkaid Group or a ‘proxy bidder on behalf of’. I tried to pull out all the purchase histories and found that some were stolen, a few from museums and a few from private citizens.

  At first, I was surprised that someone like Elliot Kinkaid would be such an avid collector, but when I looked further at the files and the randomness of the objects, I couldn’t help but wonder what the connection was that my dad would not have
seen. There were no notes, no reports or anything that expressed what my dad thought, or if he even figured out the significance of these items. He had kept a notebook—one of those small black ones like detectives kept in the movies, that could have contained such personal observations—but it was nowhere to be found.

  Him not seeing a connection was unheard of. Some felt that William Bishop was a brilliant detective. One of the greats. But then you have to factor in my mother. She was smart and clearly did not want us involved in this life. What lengths would she have gone to to keep us out of it? And is her grand deception one of the reasons they did not see Kinkaid coming and got killed?

  My dad never made the connection between these items. Had my mom made sure of that because they had some great magical significance?

  My dad had also started a file on the proxy bidder, who he believed was connected to the robberies. He had very limited information, only a vague description of a woman. Which seemed odd considering how thorough my Dad always was. And that meant one of two things: Either he did not think she was important, or he could not find any information about her. A few blurry surveillance photos from an auction house told me she was tall, probably close to six feet. She would be hard to miss.

  I got a pad of paper off my desk and started making lists that I could use for quick reference. My Father’s files were meticulously organized, so my list consisted of the file number and a short description of the item—just so I didn’t have to dig around all the time—along with a list of the auction houses used and museums and private citizens robbed. I had a good place to start.

  One item in particular made me pause. It was stolen from a private citizen named Damien Barnhill III from his Toronto condo that he only used while travelling, his primary residence being in London, England. The country of origin was listed as England, and I was surprised it was not returned there. The item was a sword, a rather large one, with an intricate handle that was engraved with various designs.

  Something about it looked familiar. I had a flash of my own hand on the sword, and I could feel water splashing around my ankles. I shook my head quickly and tried to snap myself out of it. The memory disappeared, but the great weight of the sword in my hand lingered.