Wraith

by Phaedra Weldon

  “Neither is being a Wraith, but what the hey.” I held up my hands. “Since when has my life been normal?”

  “And your voice is huskier than usual.” She smiled. “It’s kinda sexy.”

  I shot her a bird.

  I wanted to say more. Rhonda’s observation about my thirst hadn’t gone unnoticed by me, just unchecked. I was always hungry and tired after a long OOB. I just didn’t remember being this thirsty.

  “Ride of the Valkyries” chimed from somewhere in my condo. I had no idea what it was from, but Rhonda apparently did. Her face lit up, and she wiggled her dark eyebrows up and down. “Ah-ha! I think I got a hit.”

  I followed her into my office, the pitcher in tow (I was still thirsty) and she sat down at my computer. Rhonda had been the one to set it all up for me, and she was always ready with the latest software or update. I figured she’d been at her job and had installed something.

  So she’d installed a musical alarm?

  I stood behind her and carefully put down a few more gulps of grape.

  “Would you go get a glass?”

  I poked out my bottom lip. “No, it’s my house. I’ll do what I want.”

  “Kids.” She shook her head, and at that moment, I had another of those really oogy feelings that Rhonda was a lot older than she looked.

  I hated that.

  Mental note: spy on Rhonda.

  She pulled up Entourage mail. There were three messages in her in-box (and two in mine, I noticed with mild interest). Two of those had attachments.

  Rhonda seemed very excited. “My friend in Missouri came through.”

  “Came through?” I downed a few more gulps of grape and set the pitcher down. It was nearly empty. “On what?”

  “Our Reverend friend.” She tapped a few keys. “I tried Googling Reverend Rollins last night to find anything of interest. Nada. Seems most of the search engines just pegged on his religious works. And I found nothing on any kind of item or property that he might have had—lots of speculation in chat rooms and on message boards. Then”—she held up her index finger—“I found a small bit about his former career on one of those boards. Seems he worked in the porn industry for a while, not just behind the camera but in front of it. So I contacted my friend in New Orleans—remember the guy I dated last year?”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. Yeah, I sort of remembered a tall, dark-haired guy with rings in his nose. Come to think of it, Tim had commented he looked like he’d rolled around in a tackle box. “Yeah…Bruno?”

  “Hey, good for you, Zoë. He e-mailed me these.” She moved the mouse and an extremely odd-looking picture plastered itself over my flat-screen monitor.

  “Oh…my,” Rhonda said, and leaned forward.

  I did the same over her shoulder.

  Bare in the buff, lounged on his side to expose his working mechanics, was a very young, very well hung, Theodore Rollins.

  I slapped my hand to my mouth. Oh Jesus! How clichéd is this?

  The title read Fair Play, starring the Tremendous Teddy Rollover.

  “He was a porn actor!” Rhonda blurted out, and started laughing.

  Oh, it was worse than that. I leaned forward and read a bit more of the fine print. Well, if this was the “intellectual property” that Visitar had gotten their hands on, it was certainly enough motive for me.

  “Rhonda, honey. He wasn’t just a porn actor.” I reached over her shoulder and pointed to one of the smaller group shots. “He was a gay porn star.”

  10

  THE ASTRAL

  MOMS are sneaky creatures.

  And they love you unconditionally.

  Mine coerced her minion Rhonda to keep an eye on me for the day, and Rhonda was no schmooze. With the temptation of digging up more information on Wraiths, as well as a free lunch of Shrimp Portafino at Macaroni Grill (mmmmmm buttery, lemony goodness and al dente pasta!), I was a willing captive.

  We visited her friend at the Phoenix and Dragon and grilled her about the guy with Trench-Coat who wanted one of the dragon statues. Nada. Both women remember there being a second person, but neither of them could describe him.

  They couldn’t even say for certain it was a man or a woman. But they definitely remembered Trench-Coat. Vin Diesel lookalike. One interesting note was that he never spoke. The other guy did.

  Rhonda bought a few books on folklore and hustled me out of there when the store’s cat started hissing at me. That was new too. Usually cats loved me, pressed their fur all over me.

  Not this mini-tiger. She was ready to take my head off.

  What I hadn’t expected was for Rhonda to drive her purple Volkswagen Beetle to my doctor’s office. I evidently had an appointment with the family physician, set up earlier that morning by one Nona Martinique.

  And I had to face it—something was wrong. That morning I’d consumed several gallons of juice, water, and tea, then downed two Evian bottles of water in Rhonda’s car, not to mention gone through her entire stash of Little Debbie Brownies.

  Dr. Melvin Maddox was my family doctor. A tall, Grand Moff Tarkin sort of guy (à la Peter Cushing) who looked scary as hell, but had a bedside manner that would make Mother Teresa seem cruel.

  He’d watched me grow from the age of eight to twenty-eight—and he was the only person in my life who ever openly discussed my father with me.

  Dr. Maddox was also good about delivering bad news. Up front. Intense stare. And full of suggestions. He examined me, took blood samples, pushed and poked the skin around the mark left by Trench-Coat (we neglected to tell him about the bald überspook), then had me drink this foul, thick, orange overly sweet juice.

  Killed my thirst instantly, as well as the craving for a candy bar I’d had since entering the office. And nausea. In spades. Ugh. After an hour he took my blood again, then pulled Rhonda and me into his office (she’d adopted him as her doctor as well).

  “Zoë.” Dr. Maddox sat behind his organized desk in his high-backed black chair. The office had seemed so big when I was a child. Now I saw it as a square, twelve-by-twelve-foot room, with its walls covered in framed certificates, diplomas, and scads of pictures of Maddox’s family.

  A family he’d lost in a tragic car accident three years ago. His wife of twenty-eight years, his two sons, Robert and Joseph, and their dog, Butchy.

  That had been my first funeral, and the worst.

  Parts of Maddox’s office were a shrine to them. And to his happiness while they lived.

  I sat to the left, near the door, ready to make a break for it like I always had. Rhonda stood and looked at the pictures. There were hundreds of them.

  Literally.

  “Give it to me straight, Doc,” I always said.

  “I have no idea.”

  I’d never heard those words out of Maddox before. “Whut?”

  “That mark on your arm appears to be a part of the melatonin in your skin, much like a birthmark. And, there have been documented cases of birthmarks appearing as late as a person’s seventies. I admit it’s odd that it’s in the shape of a hand, but there have been other accounts of birthmarks in the shape of animals or even faces. I think I read once where a woman had one in the shape of Elvis.”

  Snort.

  “But as for your other symptoms, they all fit someone with diabetes. Incredible thirst, hunger, fatigue, inability to concentrate (though you’ve always had that according to Nona), and irritability—”

  I put my hand up before he could comment on that symptom too. I knew Mom thought I was irritable most of the time. I preferred the word cranky. Or colorful.

  “But?”

  “I’m willing to bet your glucose tolerance test comes back negative.”

  “Was that that nasty stuff I drank?”

  Maddox nodded. “Healthy, as always. But I’ll give you a call and let you know the results.”

  “Great. Are we done?”

  “I’m going to prescribe you a mild sedative.” He reached to his right and retrieved a small pad and start
ed scribbling. “Nona said you’d been having trouble getting a good night’s sleep, which might have something to do with these symptoms, but I doubt it.”

  I did not need sleeping pills, and I’d been about to tell the good doctor those were probably for my mother’s benefit when I saw Joseph Maddox step out of the shadows behind his father’s desk.

  Shiiiiit.

  “I’ll let Nona know you passed the physical with all As, and once I have the results…Zoë?”

  I hadn’t noticed him there before, standing in the shadows. I’d known the doctor’s kids. I went to high school with Joseph. We weren’t all that close in social positions. I was poor, he was rich. He was on the football team, and I was a geek who never went to a game.

  But he knew me, and I knew him, the moment he appeared. He looked just like he had the last time I saw him, two days before the accident. Tall, like his father, and extremely pale.

  In fact, he was black-and-white. All monochromatic. An old silent movie.

  Silent because he was talking and I couldn’t hear a word. Rhonda snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Hey, snap out of it.”

  Maddox ripped the prescription for the sedative off of his pad. He started writing something else and handed it to Rhonda. “This is for Nona, and tell her to call me for the instructions.” He looked at me. “Zoë…are you sick? All the color’s drained from your face.”

  I’ll bet. And it should. I was sitting here in my doctor’s office staring at his dead son. Argh. How more confusing could my life get?

  Mental note: never ask that question of the universe; it has a sick sense of humor.

  “Maybe you should take her home and get her to bed?” Maddox was saying to Rhonda. “That syrup might be upsetting her stomach.”

  Oh yeah—my stomach was upset all right. I was looking at a ghost. A ghost I couldn’t hear. But he was sure talking to me as if he knew I knew what was happening.

  I stood with some pulling on my arm and gave Joseph another stare as Rhonda pulled me out of the doctor’s office.

  The sky had turned a bit overcast and the wind cut through my sweater and jeans. Rhonda dragged me into her car, got in, and backed out of the parking lot quickly. Once out on Roswell Road, she slowed and pulled into the parking lot of the Starbucks Coffee across from the Hammond Square Shopping Center.

  She cut the engine but left her radio on softly as she twisted in her seat and looked at me. “What was it? Was it Trench-Coat? Did he show up in the office?”

  I shook my head and watched a small finch, perhaps one of the last remaining in the city before winter really moved in, bounce around on the grooved and pitted asphalt beside the car. A Dumpster sat to the right and I looked at it, read the red-and-white graffiti that read “He’s Coming.”

  And then it hit me as I turned and stared at Rhonda. “You didn’t see it?”

  “See what?”

  “That ghost. There was a ghost standing right beside Maddox. It was Joseph, his dead son.”

  Rhonda looked as shocked as I felt. She stared at the Beetle’s center brake before giving me a stricken face. “Oh nuts, Zoë. I didn’t see anything. I just assumed it was Trench-Coat because I couldn’t see anything. I should have seen a ghost. I always see ghosts—or at least sense them.”

  Nona and Rhonda always saw the same things I saw, except while I was astral. I’d tried to describe the colors and the afterimages, like vapors on a hot Southern night, trails of light that followed the living. I think they got it, or at least got what I meant. But in these past six years of tripping the astral plane, I’d never seen any other ghosts except for Tim and Steve.

  None.

  Until today.

  Oh there was Trench-Coat, but we still didn’t know where the hell he fit into this mess. “Joseph was there, Rhonda. But he was different. All black-and-white. And I couldn’t hear him. Not one word.”

  I looked at her when she didn’t respond for a few seconds. Her kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed, and she chewed on her lower lip. That meant she was thinking. “Well—it would make sense. Wraiths can see through all the planes, Zoë. And there are parts of the Astral and Ethereal that I just can’t see—and now you can.”

  “So.” I rubbed at my head, Too much, Way too much information. “Joseph Maddox is caught in an area of death that you can’t see, but that I can, because I’m a Wraith? Is this what you wouldn’t tell me before? The part you left out?”

  “A little. And you’re becoming a Wraith. I don’t think you’re fully there yet. Sort of like what a person goes through when they transgender. It’s in stages.”

  I glared at Rhonda. “That analogy so sucked ass.”

  “Sorry—best I can do on limited knowledge. Wraiths—by old-world standards—are the harbingers of death. It makes sense that you see all the levels of dead.” She shivered. “And I just creeped myself out. Knowing there are so many states of death. Oh man…I need to read some more.”

  My PDA cell chimed before I could choke a sensible answer out of her. I habitually twisted in the narrow seat and pulled the phone from its leather hip holder. “Hello.”

  “Zoë Martinique?”

  Oh. I knew this voice. Soft. Sexy. A bit of a Southern accent.

  “Hello there, Detective Frasier.” I glanced over at Rhonda, but she’d grabbed up one of the books she’d bought at the Phoenix and Dragon and was thumbing through the table of contents. “How did you get this number?”

  “Well, first off, I’m a detective. Second, do you know how many Zoë Martiniques there are in Atlanta?”

  Touché. “So—what can I do for you?”

  “Well”—there was a pause—“I was hoping I could do something for you.”

  Uh-oh.

  “I was worried yesterday, when you disappeared like that. So I decided to do a little snooping of my own.”

  And then I knew it. He’d found my file.

  My rape file.

  I knew it from the inflection in his voice. The slight lowering of an octave and the now-present sound of concern in his voice. Captain Do-gooder. I wasn’t in the mood.

  “Look, Lieutenant, what happened six years ago was a one-time thing.”

  “They never caught your attacker.”

  True. “My attacker didn’t cause the mark on my arm. I’m not in any trouble.” Well, none that the good men and women of the Atlanta Police Department could comprehend. “So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my life. Ciao.”

  I disconnected.

  I mean…I literally hung up on Hottie-Mc-Copper. I couldn’t believe I’d done that. But then again, I was pissed. Pissed because my mom had set up a doctor’s appointment without even bothering to consult me. Pissed because her little minion here beside me had taken me there, no questions asked. I was pissed because I saw a ghost that she didn’t see, and I couldn’t hear the bastard.

  Pissed because some spooky Vin-man had grabbed me and done something to me, only we didn’t have any sort of answer book of any kind to know what the hell it was we were doing. Pissed because some faceless ice bitch had called me a Wraith (though I kinda liked it).

  And now I had a cop snooping about me in my file. How dare he? And he’d made me remember that damned rape. Asshole. And I had gray hairs!

  The phone rang again. Same number.

  Of course I answered it.

  “Don’t hang up.”

  Uh-huh.

  “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that mark on your arm—”

  “It’s a birthmark, Frasier. Nothing more.” Well, so it wasn’t the whole truth. Maddox did say it had all the indications of being a natural occurrence.

  Not. Natural as far as being grabbed by some muscled guy in a trench coat who killed people, then apparently sucked their souls.

  “I’m sorry. I’m out of line, but I just wanted to help a beautiful woman.”

  Okay, so it was a hokey line. But it was a hokey line used on me. That was different. And now I felt bad. I’m such a wuss. He wanted to help
me. Well, maybe there was a way I could help him?

  “Hey, what do you say to an early dinner? I found some stuff out on your reverend.”

  Pause. “You did?”

  “Oh now don’t go all suspicious. You snooped on me. Why can’t I snoop on him?’

  He laughed. I liked the laugh. Had a nice ring to it. “Okay, I just doubt you’ve found out anything I haven’t already. How about Fado’s in about half an hour?”

  I checked my phone’s clock. It was a little after four. “How about we meet at five? Fado’s huh? Do you ever go anywhere else?”

  “Sometimes I go home, but I figured that might be a bit forward.”

  Uh. Right. Did the cop just come on to me? Nice. “Five.” I disconnected.

  Rhonda was still moving pages. I wanted water. Lots of water. Cold. I was nervous, and when I get nervous, I get really, really sweaty. “Take me home, Rhonda. I got a date with the detective.”

  “You think that’s a good idea?” She didn’t look up from the book under her nose. “I mean, we’re still not sure what’s wrong with you.”

  “Being less a few hairs when I pull it will be wrong with you if you don’t get me home in time to brush my teeth, comb this hair, and change my clothes.”

  Rhonda tossed the book in the back. “Okay. But don’t call me when you do something all Wraithy and frighten the good cop who knows nothing about your little secret.”

  I think my response was perfect. “Tthhhpppttt.”

  11

  I managed to brush my teeth, braid my hair (I started to yank out all the white hairs but figured I’d do more damage than good), and change into a nice pair of jeans, my fake-fur-lined camel boots, and a blue turtleneck sweater, and grabbed the folder of Rhonda’s Rollins research before setting out in my silver Mustang.

  The car was my pride and joy, and the bane of my budget. I’d always wanted the classic lines of a ‘69 Mach One fastback, but desired the interior comfort of one of the late models. So, when Ford came out with the new Mustang with its classic front end and irresistible lines, well, I had to have one.

  I admitted to myself as I pulled off of Virginia Avenue and onto Monroe Drive—I looked good.