Restitution (Haunted Series Book 17)

by Alexie Aaron

  “The poor kid just wanted to save lost souls, and we made her into a teenager’s wet dream,” Mike said, disgusted with himself.

  Audrey called Orion. “I’m frightened. I think they are going to use her and kill her. The cops are taking their time.”

  “I’m on the way. Angelo is on retreat. I can’t contact him.”

  Mia stayed perfectly still. The ghost started to manifest. It wasn’t Lobo, Billy or Yann. It was a young woman who cowered at her feet. Mia reached out a hand of comfort to the ghost. Images of what those two men did to the girl, before strangling her and dumping her body in with the discarded hides, horrified Mia. That was going to be her fate if she didn’t get out of this building. Mia pushed into the mind of the soul and asked, “Is there another way out of here? A phone?”

  “No. I was a temporary secretary. I know they transfer the phones to another location before leaving for the night. I tried everything to get away, but they were always a few steps ahead of me.”

  “Can you help distract them so I can find a better hiding place?”

  “I don’t know. I have been messing with small things, trying to get someone’s attention, but I’m not that strong.”

  “Can you flip the breaker?”

  “I can do that.”

  “What is your name so I can find you again?” Mia asked.

  “Merissa Goldstein,” the ghost said and moved away.

  Mia scolded herself for not going on the walk-through. She wasn’t needed and didn’t want to step on Murphy’s toes. “Whenever I ignore my instincts, I pay for it,” she thought. “Time to tune into me. I can’t count on anyone else.”

  She couldn’t understand why her telekinesis was so ineffectual, unless the fifteen lashes had weakened her demon powers. Mia took inventory of what she did have, a knife and wings, but inside this space, the wings weren’t going to do her much good. Her power seemed to come from the sun. Hey, if she ever got out of this, she should tell Cid that she could be kin to his comic book hero Superman. She thought about the feather inside her. She knew it contained battle memory. Winged battle memory. She had to move to a place where there was overhead room. She took off her sweater and tied it around her waist.

  The lights went out. Mia ran as hard as she could, burst through the door into the processing area, activated her wings, and rose above the tables and machines.

  The police arrived, and Burt and Audrey dealt with them. At first, they didn’t believe them. They called the processing plant, and the line was picked up by the Cicero plant. They had no knowledge of a ghost hunting group. The officer asked for someone to come out and unlock the doors so they could check out the ghost hunters’ claims.

  “Someone is coming out to unlock the doors,” the officer said.

  “Can’t you break in there?” Burt asked.

  “No,” the officer said, shutting them down.

  Audrey called Alan.

  Murphy found the young female ghost. She told him about the woman who asked for the lights to be turned off so she could hide. He was also told how horrifically Merissa had died. He moved into attack position and called out, “Mia, I’m here!”

  Mia turned her head. She thought she heard something in the ether. She couldn’t quite separate it from the ringing in her head that the beating had caused. Mia’s head throbbed. Her hold on rational thoughts was quickly slipping away. Soon, all she would have was her animal instincts to go on. Mia let the demon rise inside her. Demons were survivors. They had a different set of rules. And right now humanity wasn’t getting her anywhere.

  One of the two men walked through the processing area brandishing a flashlight. He had a gun. This must be the security guard. He worked his way around the room. He didn’t think to look up. Why would he?

  The manager walked in. “Rowell, get to the breaker, and get the lights on. I don’t know how she managed it. When I get her, I’m going to turn her inside out before the end. Hey, I may even film it.”

  Mia closed her eyes a moment, trying to still her thoughts. The lights are going on, and you’re going to be a sitting duck with wings. She waited for the guard to leave. She swooped down and viciously planted the knife in the center of the man’s chest. She brought her wings back in and ran through the doors, heading down the ramps.

  She needed to get as much distance between her and the guard as possible. She climbed over the metal bars separating the maze. The residual fear of the cattle was overwhelming, but she had to block it. Her life depended upon it. The lights came back on. Mia found a corner in the shadows. She put on the sweater and made herself as small as she could and waited. “I should have kept the knife,” she thought, then argued, “But it wouldn’t stop a bullet. My wings will, but there’s no room to maneuver. Murphy, where the fuck are you!” she screamed in her mind.

  “I’m here,” he called out. “Where are you?”

  “Cattle ramps!”

  “Coming.”

  Murphy moved through walls, using up power to get to her. Merissa followed him, feeding off of his power too.

  “There you are, you fucking bitch!” Rowell shouted. He started to tell Mia what he was going to do to her before he shot her.

  Mia tried not to hear the torturous words. “Keep your eyes cast down,” Altair had said. This had made her brave. She couldn’t see the demons, and to them, she had looked contrite.

  Mia put her head down and covered it with her hands. Murphy would get there too late. Brian would lose his mother and Ted his wife. She had killed the manager, so she probably would be spending some time with Roumain, unless she could stay here. Would she be tied to the processing plant?

  “Get up, bitch,” Rowell threatened.

  Mia heard the click of what she imagined was the safety. She was going to die. But she would die fighting. She launched herself at the man, using the methods Ted had used in the videogame. Mia concentrated her weight at the man’s midsection and pushed him off his feet. The gun went off, but she didn’t feel it hit her thigh. Mia was working on adrenaline and continued to beat on the fallen man.

  She remembered hands pulling her off. She remembered blood. Then nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ted looked through the glass of the ICU at his battered wife. The swelling from the assault was stopping her from regaining consciousness. Judy couldn’t go in to help because of the police presence. Mia had killed both of her attackers. Until the police could sort all this out, she wouldn’t be having any visitors. Alan had gotten Ted, and only him, this far. Amanda and Charles were on their way. Cid and Audrey were taking care of Brian back at the farm. Ralph and Bernard were somewhere in the Pacific finishing their cruise, and Ted did not have the heart to call them with this news.

  There was a bright light inside the ICU, and Sariel appeared at Mia’s bedside. He put a hand on her head, looked over at Ted, and shook his head before disappearing.

  That wasn’t good. But Sariel only knew battlefield medicine.

  “She’s my granddaughter. Take a DNA sample if you need it,” Orion said, pushing past the guard. He moved to the glass and peered inside before speaking to Ted, “I can’t get her to the aerie in this condition.”

  “Sariel was here. He just shook his head and disappeared,” Ted told him. “With all the magic you guys have at your fingertips, she still lies there dying.”

  “There’s always prayer,” Orion said.

  Mia walked around in the white fog. Was she back in the valley? If so, she would soon see Jerry. There was nothing under her feet. If she was dead, was this where she made her choice? She didn’t want to be dead, but it happened to everyone. She wanted to move on, but she needed to see Ted and Brian one last time. Was this permitted? “Hello,” she called out. Nothing. Her words were just absorbed into the whiteness.

  There was a Dark World; could this be its opposite? A White World, a prison for entities that meant well but did bad things. Mia let loose a string of curses. She laughed and sat down. Why walk? She was tired
. She looked at her body. The feathers at her wrist were gone. She felt for the mark at her throat, and that too had disappeared. She had on a soft, white, cotton gown. Mia felt for the surgery scar on her back, and it too had gone. There was no bullet wound in her leg. She was a blank slate again.

  “Stripped of my battle scars,” she said. “Gee, thanks,” she said to the whiteness. “I know I break a lot of rules. Why are their rules to begin with? Demons have their rules, Angels theirs. Birdmen and Superhumans live by a stranger set of them. Humans try their best to stick to the ones given to them on two stone tablets. I suspect the only one that counts is Thou shalt not kill, and I have broken it twice. I’m sorry, but I saw no other way. I’m not a lamb volunteering to be slaughtered. I’m not that brave.”

  “I’m not going to plead my case here. I will, however, ask you for a favor. I believe you owe me one. Please restore Altair’s wings. He was just being loyal to a friend. In my world, friends are so very important. I have many friends. Some good, some not so good. But I believe, with all my heart, that Altair was given a raw deal.” Mia got up and said, “That’s it. That’s all I have. I’m tired. Unless you have more work for me to do, send me on. Your choice, I’ll not fight you.”

  ~

  Ted watched the nurses as they checked Mia’s vitals. One looked at the machine and said something that Ted couldn’t hear.

  “Mia, open your eyes, dear,” a kind voice requested.

  Mia did so.

  “You’re in the hospital. Your husband and grandfather are waiting to see you. Can you stay awake for me? I have to get the doctor.”

  The doctor blew by Ted and into the room. She examined Mia and turned to the window and smiled.

  Ted started crying. “Thank God, thank God.”

  Orion put a comforting hand on Ted while wiping tears of joy away with the other. The doctor walked out.

  “Mr. Martin, she is awake. I’m going to let you in. The police will be sending a detective in soon, and then I assume they will kick you out. Make your time count.”

  Mia didn’t recognize the room she was in. There was no comforting Sister Agnes or Margaret Mary. She sensed the lake was nearby. She must be in Chicago. There was a rush of sound, and Ted appeared at her bedside. She did her best to smile, but her face hurt. It hurt a lot. “Teddy Bear,” she said hoarsely.

  Ted looked down at her. “Welcome back, Mia. Where were you for so long?”

  “Not sure. I’m happy to be back though.”

  “Mr. Martin, the police would like you to leave now,” a stern voice said from somewhere in the room.

  “I love you, Mia.”

  “I love you,” Mia said.

  ~

  Mia looked at the man’s face. He looked tired. Mia understood fatigue. Life could be exhausting at times. He had introduced himself, but his name slipped away from her. She tried to concentrate on what he was saying. She didn’t want to make a mistake that would send her to the looney bin.

  “Mrs. Martin, I’m sorry to be doing this, but we need to know what happened.”

  “I understand.”

  “Take it from the beginning.”

  “My beginning?”

  The detective made a wry face. “What happened once the lights went out?”

  Mia told him all she could remember. She lied and told him that she learned of Merissa’s fate from the manager as he was dragging her to the freezer. She needed for them to look for Merissa’s body. She didn’t think this man would understand that a ghost was her confidential informant. “I remember blindly hitting the man with the gun, but that’s all, until I woke up here.”

  He went over her statement again and again, and Mia stuck to her story. She told him over and over again about the manager throwing her down. “I rolled away and climbed up on the butcher’s table to get away from him. When I realized I had no other choice, I jumped at him, sticking the broken knife into him as far as it would go before running away.”

  “We had wondered about the knife. We knew it had come from above. This answers that question.”

  “Will I be charged?”

  The man looked at the small broken woman with the battered face and broken hands, and he shook his head. “It’s apparent you were the victim here and were very lucky to come out of this alive. I will present the facts to the DA, and he will make the call. Stay tough, Mrs. Martin.”

  He got up and left. Ted ran in with Orion behind him.

  Mia let them take care of her and tell her that everything would be alright. She loved them but didn’t trust them, or anyone, anymore to take care of her. “Sometimes you just have to take care of yourself,” she thought. She heard her mother’s voice and winced as Amanda walked into the room, ordering the men out. She watched Amanda as she approached. The nicotine-starved woman was shaking but sound. She straightened her daughter’s covers.

  “Hello, Amanda,” Mia managed.

  “Mia, you are truly amazing. You remind me of my mother.”

  “So you’re acknowledging the Neyers, Amanda?”

  “Someday, I’ll tell you my awful, horrible, bad year, and how I lost my family.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “But I do. I’m very broken inside, Mia. As I suspect you are too. We can’t remember the good things, but it’s so important that we do.”

  “I think the word broken is a bit overused,” Mia said.

  Amanda looked at her sharply. “No, don’t do it. You’re slipping away. You need them.”

  “What good does it do me? I’ve had a horrible few weeks because I put my trust in people. They put me in horrible situations, exploited me, and left me to fend for myself. I don’t need anyone anymore.”

  Amanda slapped her.

  It brought pain and tears to Mia’s eyes.

  Amanda leaned in. “You listen up, child, and you listen good. You’re headed down a road that will consume you until you forget all the good in this world. I know all about it, having lived it for most of my life. If it wasn’t for your father, I would have ceased to be. You have a husband who loves you, a child who needs you, and friends who depend on you. You have an angel hovering over you, for God’s sake, Mia. You have been chosen, and you have a promise to keep.”

  Mia listened to her words. “I do. I never break a promise,” she said as a lone tear ran down her face. “Where were you?”

  “Locked in the hell you’re entering unless you turn around now.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do what you always do. Forgive too easily, see the good in every entity, and sit on the fucking fence. That is where Neyers sit. That’s how they survived repeated invasions. I’m going to go home soon, and I’d like to bring you and Brian with me.”

  “I’d like to go.”

  “Well then, clean up this mess you’re in, and I’ll be waiting. I promise. Neyers never break a promise.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Mia sat down, easing her healed but tender thigh on the chair. Across from her sat the three partners of Paranormal Entity Exposure Partners, her husband, Mike and Burt. She had given it a lot of thought and had waited until she was healed to know she was making the right decision.

  “Please, I would like you three to listen to me until I am done speaking. What I have to say is important. You need to hear and understand it. Can you do this?”

  Mia waited and looked at each man to get their assent before speaking, “Good.” She squared her shoulders and began, “I can no longer participate in PEEPs as it is right now. I am not innocent in this, but I have let myself be exploited to the point of being something I’m not comfortable with. I am an able investigator and sensitive. I am not the poster woman for every nerd’s wet dream. This is demeaning to me and to every woman who wants to make paranormal investigation their profession. I’m a woman. I have been blessed with a comely face and a kick-ass body. I know this, my husband knows this, but the rest of the world does not have to see it displayed. The world of geeks is, unfortun
ately, mostly male. Females, in order to be noticed, have to show their bodies in sexy cosplay outfits to fit in. Videogames mostly present us as objects. The more powerful we want to be, the less clothing our avatars have to wear. This has to stop, and it stops with me.”

  “If you want me to continue to help you, aid and protect you, you’ll have to make changes. No more scanty costumes. No more sex kitten interviews. I am not yours to play with. Burt, you can continue to use my image in your graphic comic series, as I signed a contract with you, but there will be no renewing that contract, so read the fine print. Alan has assured me that you have five years. Make them count.”

  Mia looked at her husband. “These issues are with PEEPs and not with our marriage. I hope you can separate the two. Thank you.”

  Mia walked out of the office.

  They were silent a moment.

  Burt asked, “Ted, is she serious?”

  “You can fucking see she’s serious,” Mike answered for him. “We almost got her killed.”

  “Mia didn’t tell me she was going to do this, but I can tell that she’s serious,” Ted answered finally. “It’s not just the slaughterhouse. It’s been building. She’s getting hit on by everyone, and she’s confused. Mia is trying to be a loyal wife and still please everyone. We wouldn’t ask Mike to smolder at the camera. Why do we demand her to?”

  “She started it with the BBB,” Burt pointed out.

  “She got pinned into a corner and made the best of it,” Mike said. “I was there. She was fighting off the effects of the Judas Hex. She just wanted her husband to know that she was hot and, maybe, help Richie out at the same time. Mia has no one to help her make the right choices. Amanda was never there for her. On that day, Mia depended on me, of all people, to guide her. What a fucking bad idea was that?”

  “She navigates in three worlds,” Ted said. “In all three worlds, the humans and entities use her femaleness against her. How do you bring down a vital woman? You debase her by using her body. She suffered humiliation in order to restore her honor with the demons so they wouldn’t take our son away or kill me. Angelo has been sniffing around her, not to mention a nephilim, and possibly an archangel. She has had to establish herself as off limits and, in doing so, may have lost a good friend. As a wife, she wants to maintain sexual fidelity, but she is tempted and outmaneuvered at every turn. I don’t know if any of us could have withstood the pressure. I’m not sure I could condemn her if she had succumbed,” Ted said, looking at Mike. “But she is respectfully telling the three of us that we better change our views and policies or she will have nothing to do with PEEPs anymore.”