Wraith

by Phaedra Weldon

  Not worry about something in the yard all night.

  I waited a good five minutes or so, moving slowly over the grass and around the occasional pine tree. When no dogs appeared to be present, I started jogging to the house.

  Along the way, I started wishing again there was some way to like pop in and out of places.

  Mental note: need astral Vespa.

  I reached the house with no barking dogs and snuck around to the front door. I don’t know why I was all hunched over and playing in the shadows—who was going to see me?

  God, I hate it when I’m wrong.

  So I stood and faced the house, standing beneath what I called the front drive. It looked like the front of a hotel, where guests pulled their cars to step in and make reservations. Above me was a huge-ass chandelier with a crystal cross hanging in its center.

  And standing in front of the door were three men in suits, each of them wearing one of those curly-fry wires in his ear.

  Impressive. Anyone’d think the president of the United States was inside.

  Reverend Rollins had pots with pansies set out to either side. That seemed appropriate. I tested my invisibility (since yesterday, with Daniel actually seeing me, I’d been a bit concerned about that) by standing in front of them and lifting up my shirt.

  No response.

  Either I was invisible, or they were gay.

  Or dead. I mean, I’m not like overly well endowed, but I know my boobs have a nice shape. I usually get a response to them.

  I also tested the house for oogy.

  It was full of it.

  Not the same kind of oogy I’d detected the other night when Tanaka was killed. This was something smoother, darker. The entire place seemed shrouded in the wispy shadows that flitted and ducked here and there. I didn’t like them, and I feared they were a new part of my astral sight. Had they always been there before, and I’d never seen them?

  Nasty.

  Breathe, Zoë. Relax.

  Think of the cute detective who could use your help. Think of his cute nose and sexy sideburns. Think of that knee-watering kiss.

  I never said my priorities were in the right place.

  I moved forward between two of the pro-wrestler types, through the oak doors (or it tasted of oak—kinda woody) and into a spacious, Beverly Hillbilly kinda foyer, complete with black-and-white-checkerboard tiling.

  Double doors to my right, double doors to my left, and Beauty and the Beast staircase before me. The kind that ascended about ten steps with a landing, and then split in two different directions. What was it Beast had said—don’t go into the West Wing?

  Can’t say I’d ever seen the television show West Wing either. Glancing about, I caught sight of another burly security person moving from beneath the stairs. He was mumbling into a walkie-talkie, giving a report of all clear.

  Cool.

  I avoided the stairs for the moment. There appeared to be several rooms on the lower floor. I’m sure a smarter snoop would have had a floor plan or something like that. I just sort of worked on gut instinct.

  Standing before the staircase, I sensed something to my right. There was something here, something that really wasn’t part of the physical world.

  If it was Trench-Coat, then I had my proof that Rollins was making deals with the spirit world. And I knew I could use my silver cord to get home protected, like before. But if it wasn’t Trench-Coat—and it was something I’d never encountered…

  Well, let’s not think about that right now.

  I looked from the left to the right. There didn’t seem to be any movement to my left, and the lights were either dimmed or off, but I did see a security guy move about to the right.

  And the lights were on, though I couldn’t see much from my vantage point.

  The right it is. I figured the Reverend would have security. I moved away from the stairs and down a hallway off the main foyer. The sense of oogy increased, as did the number of wispy shadows. I couldn’t see any eyes watching me, but I felt them.

  The lighting was interesting—small, desktop-like lamps stuck out from the wall at regular intervals, illuminating pictures on display. Oh, so it was like a hall of fame kinda thing.

  A set of double doors waited at the end of the hall, and standing outside were two more of the pro-wrestler types. I checked my watch. An hour left. It’d taken longer to get here than I thought. Not much time. As long as I didn’t go corporeal, I should be fine. I’d already prearranged my return to body along my silver cord.

  The pictures were all framed the same, about the same size, width, and height. They were all of Rollins—from his college days in football to pictures of him with former president Jimmy Carter (we are in Georgia). There were also pics of him with famous football stars (look it’s Deion Saunders!) and actors (is that Brad Pitt? Mmmmmmmm…)

  As I neared the doors I noticed Rollins’s aging process as well. And as he got older, the pictures changed from stars to men of religion. There was old Oral Roberts (is there not something freaky about a guy claiming to give the word of God through a porn name like Oral?) and Jim Bakker (you gotta be kidding me).

  I finally stood at the door, having had my fill of Rollins’s never-changing cheese smile. I needed a bath. Ick. Two of the suited men stood to either side of the double doors. With a glance at these guys, I sieved between them.

  Only this time there was something else—something felt rough. Not rough as in sandpaper texture, but rough as in tougher to move through. It wasn’t like that weird sci-fi force-field ward thing I’d slammed into in Hirokumi’s office. This was more like… static?

  When I got to the other side I turned and looked back at the door. I couldn’t see anything different about it—not on the astral plane at least.

  I turned back to the sound of an angry voice.

  “What the fuck do I pay you people for, anyway? To stand around here and do nothing?”

  My, my, my Mr. Preacher man. What a potty mouth you have.

  The room I stood in was as spacious as the foyer downstairs. Potted palm trees decorated most of the corners in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. Little knots of chairs and coffee tables filled two spaces where a few of the goons sat while having their asses chewed.

  In the center of the room was the desk to end all desks. Mongo desk. Heck, Beast from X-Men would be swallowed by this desk. It was made of a dark wood. Solid frame. In the front, carved directly into the wood, was the Reverend’s trademark—a cross combo sword slicing into a globe of the world.

  Nice. Violent. But nice. Sort of had that Crusades feel to it.

  Two more comfy chairs sat facing that desk, but I gathered from their slightly tense shoulders the guys sitting in those chairs weren’t comfy. Ah, but it’s never comfy when you get chewed a new asshole.

  I couldn’t actually see Rollins from where I stood. There were too many men in black suits and black leather standing around him. When I did see him, he was the glowing figure in white.

  Glowing because of the bright white suit, white shirt, white tie, and white Dr. Strange streaks along his temples. And there was a light trained on him from above. Kinda giving him that ethereal look.

  And there were shadows surrounding him, like gauzy wisps of torn clothing that hung from his body superimposed on his clothing.

  OOOOOooogy.

  Behind the blaring Reverend sat another set of windows. Only these were stained glass and represented the crucifixion in bloody, gory detail.

  Sick. This guy was just sick. I felt vindicated that I’d chosen the right bad guy.

  One of the standing guys, dressed in a short-waisted leather jacket, held up his hands. He talked like he would have the name Vinnie. “Hey, boss—we was watching him like we always do. But he was with this hot chick this morning, and then we were watching her and they started fighting, and he just disappeared…”

  I looked to the Reverend. The way Rollins stared at this guy—he should have burst into flames on the spot. Whoosh. Reverend F
irestarter.

  “You were supposed to get rid of him. Is that so hard? The man’s known to be accident-prone. Just make it look like an accident. We don’t need any cop snooping around me, or my network. Especially not now. And if you can’t make him disappear—I’m going to take the spin out on all of you!”

  Get rid of him. A cop. Daniel? He was the only one I knew that’d been snooping around the good Reverend. Had he been with a hot chick this morning? They had a fight? Crap…I’d assumed Daniel didn’t have a girlfriend—that he’d been showing interest in me.

  But I’d never actually asked him.

  And they argued. Hrm.

  All the standing guys nodded, and somehow knew they’d been dismissed. I stepped out of their way as they nearly stampeded out of the room.

  The two guys in the chairs remained. They were the ones in suits.

  Rollins gracefully set his elbows on his desk, which I could see more of now. It was pretty much empty, save for a desk calendar and some sort of devotional daily flip thing to the Reverend’s right.

  He looked from one to the other. “Well?”

  I moved around the room to stand beside the desk. That way I could see Rollins and the faces of the guys in the chair. One was slimmer than the other (by about a hundred pounds), with a black, greased-back ponytail and a soul patch. His pockmarked skin reminded me of Edward James Olmos.

  But not as good-looking.

  The other guy was stout. Hell—this guy was fat. Two chins, bald head, and a handlebar mustache.

  That was how they looked physically.

  Astrally, both men had voids on them. They honestly looked like refugees from 101 Dalmations.

  By that I mean darker spots. Kinda like looking at them through a spotted veil. Their auras moved and encircled them so that the spots shifted and changed. Right now I was noticing a definite shift from fight to flight with both of them.

  Looked to me as if they should stand and say “Eet mor chikin.”

  When it came to looking at the Reverend, besides the clinging, wispy Spanish moss, I saw purple. Which surprised me. All of those New Age chakra books I’d thumbed through at Mom’s insistence had said that purple was more of the head chakra, and that was supposed to mean…

  … oh bugger. I forgot.

  I really should pay more attention to this stuff. But honestly, all I’d ever done was snoop to get information, and that’d always been on corporate or business owners. Rarely had I ever spied on well-known televangelists with houses bigger than the governor’s mansion and half of the WWE in patrolling suits.

  Either way, it wasn’t what I’d expected to see.

  The two cow-men glanced at each other. Ponytail answered first. “Well, we ain’t had no luck in finding him. He’s usually surrounded by people.”

  The Reverend pursed his thin lips. He looked at Fatso. “And I supposed Tiny here agrees with you?”

  I giggled. Tiny. The fat one was called Tiny.

  The Reverend immediately looked in my direction.

  Damnit! I have got to learn to keep my mouth shut! No giggling aloud.

  When Rollins continued staring in my direction, the two thugs started shifting in their seats. “Boss?” the ponytail one said. I noticed he was looking nervously about the room himself. “Is he here?”

  “No,” Rollins said distractedly. He continued looking in my direction. When he didn’t see anything (I’d gone rigid as a board—just in case this guy was as weird as my mom) he looked back at his minions. “He’s not here. Even you’d know if he was here.”

  Both minions looked relieved.

  “But the question is still on the table, gentlemen.” Rollins pushed his chair back and stood. Man this guy’s suit just glowed all warm and angelic-y.

  This image just didn’t jibe with the pictures on those videos we’d seen in the e-mail. And of course I almost commented on this.

  I slapped my hand over my mouth. Maybe I should just gag myself before I step out of my body. Sheesh.

  “I’m telling yah, boss, Tanaka’s death hasn’t fazed Koba.” Ponytail definitely seemed to be the one with the balls.

  “You saw him then?”

  Ponytail nodded. “He believes you sent the Archer, but that wasn’t going to frighten him. He’s not budging.”

  Rollins crossed his arms over his chest. The suit jacket sleeves pulled away from the shirt’s cuffs, revealing diamond-studded crosses for cuff links.

  Oh how tacky can we be?

  “Then perhaps I should send the Archer back to make a stronger statement. That is, if I can trust it not to kill again. It was supposed to threaten Tanaka—not kill him. If anyone should have died, I’d have preferred Hirokumi.”

  Pay dirt! Yay! Wahoo! The Reverend really was involved! Daniel’s cop instincts were right.

  Whoa. Wait a minute.

  I blinked. The Archer?

  Was that Trench-Coat? And if so, what did it mean, the Archer?

  Ponytail spoke up. “Boss, yah can’t exactly control it. It does what it wants.”

  “I control him, Beckett. And I did not want a prominent businessman shot in cold blood.” Rollins leaned forward and pressed his hands palms down on his desk. “I wanted his soul destroyed, leaving his death a mystery. There would have been no police involved. And now I’ve got some cop calling me, wanting an interview. He’s already been in to see Hirokumi.” Rollins stood and smiled. “Luckily, the man told him nothing.”

  “How do you know that?” Tiny squeaked.

  I blinked. Wait—he controls the Archer—urm, TC? I took a longer, harder look at the Reverend. Was this a Phantasm? Didn’t Rhonda say they don’t leave their places of power?

  Why the Archer?

  “I have faith in the old man to keep his quiet. But as an added insurance, I wanted the cop to disappear. But I also have sources.”

  Sources. The only other person in that room had been invisible me. Sent there to spy on Hirokumi and Frasier. No—it couldn’t be. Was the Reverend actually maharba@maharba.com?

  I was going to be sick. Thinking about the e-mail addy again, I thought of the moniker. Maharba. Where would that word come from? In code, first breakdown was to try the word backwards. Abraham.

  First of God.

  Oh Christ on a cross. I wanted to find something really hard and bang my head against it. I’d just turned in my lame-ass report to him this morning. I’d avoided all the spook stuff.

  “Can I trust either of you to at least lean on the cop to back off?”

  That perked me up. I didn’t want anyone to lean on Detective Hottie.

  Except me.

  Beckett smiled. “I don’t think you’ll need to worry about him. Apparently he’s not exactly a cop in good standing. Even if he found anything out—I doubt his boss would listen to him.”

  “I can’t depend on that. And I can’t wait on Hirokumi’s damned sense of honor. I need that document back. And since Tanaka’s death seems to have had little effect—we might have to put on a different kind of pressure.” He rubbed at his chin. “We could arrange an accident with the cop and frame Hirokumi.”

  Daniel! That’s twice I’d heard them threaten my cutie-cop. Nothing had been said in a direct confession, but I’d gotten the proof I’d needed, and I wanted to warn Daniel.

  “A document” didn’t sound like porn tapes. But it did sound more like “intellectual property.” Either way, Hirokumi did have something that Rollins would kill for. Had killed for.

  But what was the point of this? Surely Koba Hirokumi wasn’t in the game of extortion. He was rich. He was powerful. What would he need with threatening some two-bit televangelist?

  This wasn’t making any sense.

  And if I’d been on the ball, I might have put something together just then.

  But nooooo.

  I had the information I needed—though of course inadmissible in court. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I knew if Daniel would believe me.

  I had to reevaluate. I now knew that a
powerful businessman had acquired some valuable document belonging to a famous televangelist, who had hired a supernatural creature to threaten him.

  Sounded like bad television to me.

  I checked my watch. A little over half an hour. I’d used up more than I’d thought in getting to Rollins’s house. Hunger plucked at me, like the echo of my physical stomach growling. There was half a pint of Java Chocolate Chip in the freezer and a pair of warm, fuzzy SpongeBob slippers with my name on them.

  That’s when I realized my feet were cold.

  I looked down at myself. I wasn’t supposed to feel like that—unless I’d somehow made myself visible?

  No. No one saw me. So why the cold feet?

  The doors to the office burst open at that moment. Both thugs were on their feet, guns drawn (where did those come from—and so fast!) and aimed, their bodies shielding the Reverend.

  In fact, three more of the suited wrestlers stepped in after the intruder, their own guns drawn.

  It was then I saw her.

  Or rather didn’t see her.

  Her face, that is.

  “Theodore,” came the smooth voice from the void. “There is a problem. I’m detecting a presence…”

  Mitsuri.

  Hirokumi’s secretary/seer in the Reverend’s house.

  I almost swore—but didn’t. Good for me!

  Instead my watch alarm went off. Ack! Rhonda and her thirty-minute warning!

  She turned and looked at me.

  Looked at me. This wasn’t my fault! I hadn’t said a word!

  And this time I saw her face and nearly lost my appetite. It was as if during her time in Hirokumi’s office she’d worn a mask. Ew! And right now I wanted her to put that mask back on!

  There was a face now—but not any normal face. This thing had pale, bone-white skin, smooth as baby powder. There were no eyebrows below a high forehead. The nose was little more than a rise, a small bump with two holes. Its mouth was a thin line, and its eyes…

  Its eyes were dark, hollow pits like the empty sockets of a skull. What the fuck was Mitsuri? Okay, so the missing face should have been clue one she wasn’t human!

  “The Wraith!” She pointed to me. “The Wraith is here!”