Wraith

by Phaedra Weldon

  How was I going to get there—either go Wraith or in body?

  I could get past the policeman outside if I went Wraith. But then I’d still need a mode of transportation. What if I used my new solid abilities as well? This way, I could leave my body here and then travel where I needed, then travel my cord back home in case this turned out to be a raw deal.

  Then I remembered what things looked like when I was in Wraith form. The sooty, smoky things that crawled and spun and flew about. Could I possibly stay in that form to Buckhead? And if I went corporeal, would I still see them all?

  And then there was that skull I’d seen on Daniel’s face. Twice I’d seen it and twice those people have died. Was it a sign? A signal for me? Something telling me this person was marked?

  And was this e-mail meant to cause Daniel’s death, or prevent it?

  Damn, I hate not knowing anything.

  I didn’t have a car. But I did know where Mom kept the keys to her beauty.

  With no sign of Tim in sight, I rose from the bed and was surprised that I felt just wonderful. In fact, I felt better than I had in several days.

  I decided then to go meet this client in my physical form. Lately, every time I’d been OOB, I’d woken up either in a hospital or in the morgue.

  And let me tell you, the only thing to top the morgue would be that waking-up-dead thing. Not gonna happen. I found some of my old clothes in the closet and proceeded to get out of Mom’s latest clown suit.

  Jeans that fit a little too tight (I’d gained weight?). Oversized sweatshirt with a worn picture of Chewbacca on the front. Thick athletic socks (whose are these?) and—no shoes.

  Except for my ugly-duck slippers.

  Hrm. Well, they’d have to do.

  Careful not to make too much noise, I shuffled to the bathroom and flipped on the light. I jumped back from the face looking back at me.

  Now, I’d never considered myself a raving beauty. I was not bad—a little on the unique side. I think it’s because of my coloring, being a bit Mediterranean, but having Anglo features as well as a small sprinkling of freckles over my nose.

  Never mind the overly pronounced white shock of hair a finger thick on the left side of my face. In the bathroom light it was so white it glowed. There was no time to dye it again—not that it did any good the last time. It kinda looked retro but didn’t really detract from the fact that there was something eerie about my face now, something out of place.

  I looked a bit gaunt, my cheekbones a bit more pronounced than I remembered them. Dark circles hung beneath my eyes—not attractive—except to a goth lover. The band around my neck where Mitsuri had tried to kill me was little more than a faint red mark.

  It was my eyes that bothered me. I’d always called them brown. Plain Jane brown. But they weren’t anymore. They were much lighter now, mostly a topaz color. Kinda cool, really. Had that glow-in-the-dark look.

  Was this also a side effect of Trench-Coat’s meddling?

  My hair was in its usual disarray so I combed it down, braided it, and tied it off. It felt a little dry—except for the white streak, which was soft and pliable—and I promised it a nice shampoo at Cortex Salon soon.

  Once downstairs, I grabbed my mom’s oversized long wool coat, her black scarf, and her knitted hat. The keys were by the back door, and I let myself out. The wind had picked up again, and it was cold.

  Damned cold. I should have grabbed her gloves too.

  I checked around the house to make sure the patrol car was still there. Bingo. By the curb. I figured I’d put the Volvo in neutral, roll it to the road, and just crank it when I was far enough away. Luckily there was a side breezeway between the house and the woods where the cop wouldn’t see me.

  I’d just gotten in the old Volvo and put her in neutral when I saw Tim sitting in the front passenger’s seat. I gave another silent scream and threw the car back into park.

  He looked spooky—real spooky. The only light came from the yard lamp from the backyard of the house that backed up to Mom’s fence. Just enough light came through the windshield to show me his face. But the shadows were really shadows, and he was insubstantial. He reminded me of a reflection on glass.

  Only there wasn’t any glass in the passenger’s seat.

  Of course I’d not brought my board, much less a scrap of paper, so I swatted at him. My hand passed through him and connected to the seat.

  Tim had his hands up. “Hey, Nona left the rock in here from yesterday. I just decided to use it. You can’t just go out by yourself—especially after you promised the nice-looking cop you’d stay put. So I took care of the guard for you.” He beamed.

  He had a point, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he meant by “took care of the guard.” I cranked the Volvo and pulled out onto Euclid. The patrol car remained by the road and never followed me.

  Tim looked quizzically at me. “Where exactly are you going?”

  Luckily the e-mail was still visible on my cell. I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to him. He became corporeal enough to hold it and read it. Then it sank through him and bounced on the passenger’s seat.

  “This is a bad idea, Zoë. I think you need to show your mom and Rhonda.”

  I shook my head and drove. Luckily, there weren’t any cars on the road, but there were police. That could always be a problem. Especially since I didn’t have my license or insurance with me. I realized this about halfway up Monroe Drive, past my condo. They were with my purse, which I was sure my mom had hidden somewhere.

  Tim faded in and out (which was a bit distracting) but kept very quiet. I didn’t know if he was saving his strength or testing his abilities this far away from his home.

  I turned down Peachtree Road and cruised past Lenox Square Mall, Hotel Nikko, and Dante’s Down the Hatch (a killer fondue place that once had real alligators—don’t know if they do anymore).

  Triangle Park came into view (Yay!), and I turned right into the bank parking lot right before it. I cut the engine and sat still, the windshield facing the statue.

  The Storyteller was an imposing bronze statue of a man with deer’s hooves and a buck’s head. He held a two-pronged staff in his hands that reminded me a bit of Neptune. The statue had been created by Frank Fleming and sat in the center of Triangle Park, which was little more than a triangle of land where Roswell Road and Peachtree Road intersect.

  Supposedly this is where the infamous Buckhead tavern once stood, and the Buckhead is telling the story to the woodland friends (a bronze assortment of forest creatures) of how the tavern got its name.

  Or so I’d heard. I just thought it was a cool landmark. Looked more like Herne the Hunter of the wood who tells tales to Snow White’s menagerie.

  Tim reappeared, looking a bit more solid. “What now?”

  I reached through him and grabbed my phone. It was 5:32. I looked at Tim and mouthed the words “We wait.”

  We were behind the Storyteller, a couple of yards from the circular brick area where he sat on his bronze log. His twin lamps were lit, illuminating the little woodland friends, though I really couldn’t see any detail from this distance, or through the few trees.

  It started getting cold in the car and I wished I’d brought some sort of blanket. I cranked the car and put the heat on. I certainly hoped the mystery e-mailer wasn’t expecting me to sit out there in the cold next to the old buckhead.

  That wasn’t happening.

  About twenty minutes after we parked a huge-ass black limousine pulled in on my side of the car. I squinted at the black window, wishing I had x-ray vision to look inside. It sat quietly, and I glanced to my right. Tim was gone.

  I snatched up the rock Mom kept in there for him and shoved it into the pocket of my sweats. No matter what happened, I wanted him with me.

  I’d just grabbed up my phone when the passenger-side door opened, and a large sumo wrestler stepped out, dressed in a well-cut black suit. I recognized his face.

  Tiny.

  Shit
! These were Rollins’s men!

  I realized then I’d been keeping hope up that the e-mailer had been Joe, and this had been his way of contacting me. And he was very rich with a payoff of a hundred-thousand dollars.

  Beckett emerged from the other side. Damn!

  The car was still cranked and I threw it into reverse, intent on backing the hell out of there, even if I backed over Tiny (though I think that would put a significant dent in Mom’s car).

  Something tapped the driver’s window, and I turned to my left. A very large gun was pressed against the glass. Beckett had moved behind my car, and I looked in my rearview mirror to see him aiming his own gun at me, through the rear window.

  Shit! Damn! I’m toast!

  Tiny motioned me out of the car with the gun. I shut off the engine and unlocked the door. He opened it.

  I slid out of my body. It wasn’t a conscious thought, just instinctive. My Wraith self sieved through the car’s glass and I found myself standing next to Tiny. He looked inside the car at my body, now slumped to the right into the passenger’s seat.

  I thought of Daniel, of the thoughts I’d picked up when he’d passed through me last evening. My body tingled, and I knew I was corporeal.

  And pissed.

  Tiny sensed something as well as he turned to his right, closing the car door on my untouched body. His eyes widened as he saw me. I smiled, waved, blew him a kiss, then took a deep breath of astral chi, and rammed the very physical heel of my palm upward into his nose. I heard as well as felt the cartilage break.

  Blood splattered both cars along the doors and glass. He screamed really good as he grabbed his nose and fell backward, landing on the curb and grass beyond.

  Wow—I did it! I’d never done that before!

  Heh—don’t mess with a woman’s astral anger, baby. One down, one to go, and I’m out of here.

  Dizziness washed over my vision. Sooty little creatures like black thread scurried over Tiny’s writhing body as I turned. I nearly fell and put my hand out on Mom’s car—but it sieved through.

  That’s when I saw Beckett, the smart one. He’d used mine and Tiny’s little fight to open the passenger door to Mom’s car. He had Mom’s coat half off my right arm, and was pulling a very long, very sharp-looking needle out of my flesh.

  Sonofabitch.

  What had he shot me with? Why was I dizzy in Wraith form? I lost momentum. I lost control.

  I felt myself slip back into my body, pulled there by my cord. I had no control over my muscles, and my head lolled a bit as Beckett lifted me out of Mom’s car and then fireman carried me over his shoulder. I watched the pavement, only faintly aware I wasn’t wearing the coat anymore. I shivered from a distance before I felt myself lowered into what I recognized was the limo’s trunk. It was getting hard to focus, and a very scary warmth spread throughout my body to block out the November chill.

  I blinked slowly up at Beckett. He gave me a catlike smile. Tiny appeared, his face a bloody mess. He’d used his handkerchief to staunch the flow, but he watched me with intense, wide-eyed fear.

  “Did you see that, Beck? I mean, was that her? That…that thing?” His voice sounded nasal.

  “Yeah, that was her.”

  I blinked at him again. I was losing consciousness. This just wasn’t acceptable. I needed to stay awake. I needed to know where we were going.

  “Don’t touch her, Tiny,” Beckett said from the front. “Boss said as long as she stays doped up on his special sauce, she can’t do that again.”

  “But what the fuck was that she did?” His voice was several inches above normal. I thought he was bordering on hysteria. “That ain’t natural, Beck. She ain’t natural.”

  “Neither was Mitsuri before she went missing. And that dame right there scared her. She’s more than what she looks like. And if I were you, I’d keep my hands to myself.”

  My last thought was that I should have grabbed the antique key, the one Steve was attached to. Steve was a lot bigger man than Tim, and given the proper incentive, I had faith he could kick some serious butt.

  25

  I wanted to throw up.

  I was cold and covered in sweat at the same time. A cold towel was placed against my cheeks, then my forehead.

  “I do apologize for my men’s lack of…restraint with the drug. You weren’t meant to receive so much. But I’m afraid you frightened them.”

  I processed the voice. The information.

  Drug? What drug? Was I still in the hospital? They OD’d me in the hospital?

  Sue!

  The voice sort of sounded like a doctor. It was smooth—someone accustomed to talking to people. But since when did the doctor call the nurses his “men”?

  I rested back on something very cold and smooth. It felt like leather. I needed to open my eyes, but I was afraid to. My stomach still roiled with displeasure. I was just happy I hadn’t overloaded on Mom’s biscuits.

  “Feeling better?”

  I nodded. That voice. I finally forced my eyes open—felt they’d been glued together with Elmer’s.

  What I hadn’t expected was to look up in the face of Reverend Theodore Rollins.

  I’m sure my mad scramble to get away from him was opposite the usual reaction he had from his followers. And I just wasn’t one of them. I was in some sense terrified of this man.

  He reached out and put a hand to the side of my face. I remembered at that moment what had happened—at Triangle Park. Tiny and Beckett. I took a quick assessment of my body—wrists bound with plastic, as were my ankles. But everything seemed to be in working order.

  I tried to go all Wraithy on him at that moment—but nothing happened. It felt as if the Elmer’s in my eyes was sticking my astral to my physical.

  A quick look around proved I was back in Rollins’s office, sprawled out on one of his couches near the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Using that self-assessment gesturing, I felt in my pocket for the rock—it was still there. Which meant Tim was nearby. Though I wasn’t really sure what good that was going to do me if I ended up with cement shoes.

  Interesting how I’d absently equated organized religion with the mob.

  Go me.

  “Shhh…” Rollins’s voice, as well as his mannerisms, were gentle. Fatherlike. Yeah, and most fathers kept their little girls tied up on the couch and drugged. “Miss Martinique, I presume?”

  I stared at him. I nodded. Was there really a point in lying? I was the one who showed up at the park. Unprotected. No backup.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  I’d make a lousy cop.

  “I am the Reverend Theo Rollins. I apologize for the way in which we have to meet—but with your rather unique abilities, I’m afraid it was necessary.”

  He used the word unique the same way the message had. Maybe he was Maharba. I stared at him.

  He just smiled that perfectly white Betty White smile. Dentures?

  I was very uncomfortable this close to him. And it’s not because I thought he was a slimeball as much as there was something…well…oogy.

  Close to the same oogy I’d felt that first night I’d stupidly stepped into the Bank of America building, so gung ho to check out the oogy there.

  But whereas Trench-Coat had been überoogy, Rollins seemed like a minor oogy.

  Mental note: oogy bad. Bed better.

  I really should have just stayed at my mom’s house.

  Rollins frowned at me. He sat on the coffee table in front of the couch, dressed casually in a pair of khakis and white shirt. The sun shone through the windows, over the buildings in the distance.

  Daylight. Full-on daylight. What time was it?

  “You seem very quiet for someone who’s just been—for lack of a better word—kidnapped.”

  Kidnapped? Hey, no one said anything about being kidnapped. And I hoped the look I shot him said that. I motioned with my hands, making a flat palm with my left and indicating a pen and writing on it with my right.

  “
You need something to write on?”

  Duh.

  Rollins moved to his desk and looked around. He came back with a blank legal pad and a pen. I scribbled down a few things and held them up to him. YOUR BOY STOLE MY VOICE. I WANT IT BACK. I ALSO KNOW YOU HAVE SUSAN HIROKUMI.

  Rollins’s eyes widened, and then he smiled.

  And that’s when I realized I’d probably just blown my wad. I suspected up until that point, this guy had no idea how I was involved. Now he did. Even with no voice I’ve got a big mouth.

  “First, let me assure you, I don’t have anyone here but you and my men. As for what you mean by ‘my boy’ stole your voice, how can someone steal your voice?”

  I smirked. Okay, we’ll skip Susan for the moment. Scribble, scribble. You know, if I didn’t get my voice back, my handwriting was either going to get better or absolutely unintelligible. Much worse and I’d fulfill the first qualification for doctorhood.

  YOU TELL ME. YOU HIRED HIM TO KILL TANAKA.

  Rollins’s expression wavered only slightly. But I saw it! I’d hit a button. I only hoped it wasn’t a self-destruct button, and checked to make sure I’d not worn a red shirt.

  “I never hired anyone to kill William Tanaka. And I suppose you’ll accuse me next of being a gay porn star and wanting tapes back from Visitar. I’m afraid you’re as delusional as the cop you’ve been sleeping with. ”

  Ah! I have not! And I resent you accusing me of something I haven’t done…yet.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You have no voice? None?” I shook my head.

  “And you say someone who works for me stole it?”

  I nodded again. Oooh, the Reverend was a bright boy!

  BUD, I SAW THE ARCHER AT THE HOUSE YOU KEPT SUSAN AT. THAT’S WHERE HE TOOK MY VOICE.

  Rollins sat up straight as I watched the color drain from his face. He stared at the legal pad, then snatched it away from me. “You saw the Archer? Where?”

  Okay—I knew faces. Or rather, I understood expressions. And this was a man abruptly on the edge of sanity. He screamed panic at me with his wide eyes and sallow skin. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said this man was terrified.