Restitution (Haunted Series Book 17)

by Alexie Aaron

  “In 1942, the silos of the Country Cornflakes Factory went through a thorough cleaning when the plant expanded their grain processing to be able to supply food packets for the military. And that’s when they found the remains of three men. The rats had pretty much taken anything that could identify the men, and they were buried in pauper graves. It would take some digging - pardon the pun- to find which graveyard they were interred in. What I think happened was, that somehow the three found their way into the factory and passed out in the silos, or perhaps, they climbed up the ladder on the outside and fell in. If there was grain inside, their body weight would have pulled them down, and they would have suffocated. If the silo was empty, the fall would have killed them. Either way, a silo full of grain is a dangerous place to be, especially drunk.” Audrey looked around. “Are there any questions?”

  “I’m impressed,” Father Santos said. “If you ever get tired of Mr. Hicks bossing you around, I’d like to offer you a place on my staff.”

  “Stealing my best people out from under me. Shame on you, Father,” Burt said.

  Santos laughed. “As Mia says, I’m just putting the bait out there; she doesn’t have to bite.”

  Audrey blushed. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m used to these guys, and they need me. We are down one girl here. Can you imagine the six of them left to work all this out without a female brain to sort through the crap?”

  “Six?”

  “Ted, Cid, Mike, Burt, Murphy and Jake,” Audrey counted.

  “Jake?” Father Santos asked.

  “He’s our newest member, much beloved by all but Burt,” Audrey explained. “I guess he’s probably best explained as a ghost in our machines. He has chosen to spend his eternity inside the PEEPs computers, helping us out.”

  Father Simon looked at Audrey in awe. “Can I meet him?” he asked.

  Father Santos put a restraining hand on Simon’s shoulders. “Let’s meet him together after we investigate whether it is indeed Leo, Todd and Guy who are haunting the whole-grains room.”

  This seemed to please Simon.

  “Simon’s second love is computers,” Santos explained.

  “He should spend some time with the Martins,” Mike said. “I think that he would be blown away by what they can do.”

  “Martins plural?” Father Santos clarified that he heard right. He’d assumed that Mia wasn’t interested in computers. Ralph had mentioned that, when she was single, she wouldn’t have one in her home.

  “Mia has kept her light under a bushel for quite some time,” Mike said, getting up. “Well, team, Burt’s pills have hit. Let’s get this party started before they wear off.”

  Cid recalled Curly who he had been salting down the sugar room, just in case they missed any of the babes. How the three hackers could label those Amazons “babes” was beyond him. He couldn’t wait to have Mia and Ted see the footage of the PEEPs encounter with the supposedly benign babes.

  He leaned in and started the roll call, “PEEPs and guests, check in. Over.”

  “Burt, following Audrey and Mike into the grain building. Over.”

  “Santos with Simon and Murphy, outside the silo room on standby. Over.”

  Curly arrived. Cid jumped down and disconnected the salt-spreader and cradled the machine carefully as he climbed up.

  A big eyeball greeted him on the main monitor.

  “What?” Cid asked.

  The eyeball morphed into Marvin who was holding a baby Bugs Bunny in his arms.

  “Come on, I’m just being careful. Curly is not my baby. Actually, it’s Ted’s. Funny story about that. We were supposed to make one small enough to fit around Mia’s wrist, but we got sidetracked. And Mia loves Curly so much, we abandoned that project.”

  Cid glanced at the side monitor and called out, “PEEPs, I have activity in the far right corner from Burt’s camera. It’s either our three ghosts stuck together or Cerberus has come a visiting. Over.”

  Audrey approached the three misty entities. They pulled together and hid in the shadowy corner.

  “Audrey, you may want to pull back. If those males had anything to do with the sugar babes, then you could be terrifying them. Over,” Cid explained.

  “Roger that,” Audrey said. She backed up until she stood next to Burt.

  Mike walked over and extended a hand. “Hello, I’m Mike. I’m a fellow survivor from the sugar room. And you are…”

  “Drunk,” one of the entities said. “Permanently blotto, sozzled, and well-oiled, sir.”

  The other two entities moved out of the shadows and stood leaning against the opening to the center silo.

  Mike looked over at Father Santos and asked, “Is that possible?”

  Father Santos hunched his shoulders.

  “Murphy, can a ghost get drunk, let alone stay drunk?” Mike asked.

  “Depends on the situation. If he believes he is, then he is. It took me decades to figure out I wasn’t tied to the farm like I thought I was.”

  Mike turned back to the entities. “Do any of you remember your own names?”

  “I’m… He’s… I’m pretty sure that’s Asshole,” he said, pointing to the tallest of the wavering smoky columns.

  Audrey put her hand over her mouth to stop her laughter from being picked up on Burt’s camera.

  “If I’m Asshole, then who are you?” he asked the accuser.

  “My dad called me W. O. S.”

  “W…”

  “Waste of space,” the entity said, sliding down the wall.

  “You’re pretty quiet,” Mike said to the middle entity, hoping to get something substantial out of one of the trio.

  “I’m not pretty anything. Are you light in the oxfords?” the entity asked.

  “He means…” Audrey started.

  “I know what he means, and no, I’m not a homosexual, not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Mike grouched.

  “May I?” Father Santos asked.

  Mike nodded and stepped away. Santos walked over and looked at the entities who couldn’t quite form into solid beings, and studied them a moment. He pulled a flask out of his pocket and held it up. “Tell me your names, and you can have this.”

  “Todd Berner, that’s my brother Guy, and the asshole is Leo Geiger,” Todd said, straightening up.

  Father Santos handed Todd the flask.

  The team was surprised. The ghost couldn’t fully manifest, but he could hold a half pint flask.

  “Do you know why you guys are here?” Mike asked.

  “Purgatory?” Todd guessed. “I know I’m dead, but that’s about it. Can you open this for me? I’m having a coordination problem.”

  Santos took the flask back and unscrewed the top before handing it back to the entity.

  The mist seemed to absorb the amber liquid as it was tipped out of the flask.

  “Actually, I suspect we’re in hell,” Leo said. “Those women in the next building regularly take advantage of us. They drain our power, amongst other things.”

  “We wandered over there, see, because there’s this energy river that flows under the sugar room,” Todd explained.

  “Ley line?” Audrey asked.

  “That’s what they had us do, lady. Lay down and…” Todd explained in detail and shuddered. “I’m not opposed to having relations, but so many women over and over… Scary.”

  “Back to the energy river,” Mike prodded.

  “The fast-talking teenagers said that we could ride the river to a better place,” Guy said.

  “Heaven?”

  “Nah, a distillery in southern Michigan,” Leo said. “But, in retrospect, I think that would be heaven.”

  “Fast-talking fellows?” Audrey asked.

  “Guy with thick glasses on, a kid, and a Jap,” Leo told her.

  “Lobo, Billy and Yann,” Audrey explained to Father Santos. “They crossed into the computer earlier.”

  “How did that happen?” Father Simon asked.

  Father Santos looked inte
rested too. “I take it, Mia had something to do with this?”

  “Yes,” Audrey said and then changed the subject. “What are we going to do about Todd, Guy and Leo?”

  “I’m not sure,” Father Santos said, rubbing his chin.

  “The owner wants to redevelop the property but fears that he won’t be able to get anyone to work in the place if it’s haunted,” Burt told him.

  “What’s the name of the distillery?” Father Santos asked the ghosts.

  “Half Moon,” Leo said.

  Burt, catching on to Father Santos’s line of thinking, touched his earcom. “Cid, have Jake research a former distillery called Half Moon,” Burt instructed.

  “While we’re waiting, how about you telling us how you ended up here in the first place? From what we could find, you started off at Hurst’s bachelor party,” Mike told them.

  “Love to, but I’m at the end of my energy. We’ll be back sooner or later, probably later, hic,” Todd said, fading.

  “Cid, can you make any recommendations?” Mike asked, touching his earcom.

  “We have energon cubes a plenty, but I don’t know if we should chance firing up the drunks. Over.”

  “Murphy, how do you feel about giving these guys a little juice?” Mike asked.

  “I can manage them if they get riled up,” Murphy said confidently.

  “If you can’t, we’ll have Audrey flirt with them,” Mike said.

  “Ouch, you’ll pay for that, Dupree,” Audrey warned.

  “What are you going to do, tell Mia?”

  He received a glare from Audrey.

  “I answered my own question,” Mike said, wincing.

  “Heads up, Curly is on his way with four energon cubes. I suggest you have Murphy take on as much as he can before letting the boys have any juice. Over,” Cid recommended.

  Burt trained the camera on the three forms as they fed on the remaining energy from the cubes. Instead of misty, smoky forms, three men in their mid-twenties stood in front of them. They wore expensive evening dress. Leo sported a colorful bow tie instead of the standard black tie. He looked around the room as if he was trying to figure out how they had gotten there. He looked up and through the damaged roof, spotting the blinking light from the top of the largest of the three silos.

  “It all started with a bet,” Leo said.

  “We were walking down the street out there, and we had gotten turned around,” Guy explained. “We were looking for a speakeasy called Dominoes but ended up in this industrial area. We smelled the residual aroma of oats roasting and mistook it for a bakery. When we got here, the place was locked up tight.”

  “It was three in the morning, so I supposed it would be,” Todd said, looking at his fingernails.

  “You guys were out pretty late,” Audrey commented.

  “Not really. Sometimes we stayed up until dawn, slept until supper, and went out again. Pretty normal for our group,” Leo explained. He leaned over and dusted off his shoes. “No matter how I try, they just get more dust on them.”

  “You mentioned a bet?” Mike urged.

  “Yes, the bet,” Guy said. “Todd bet me that I wouldn’t climb all the way up to the top.”

  “Did you?” Audrey asked.

  “Yes, and that’s when the problem started. You see, I got my jacket caught on an exposed bolt. Todd climbed up to help me, and well, that went bad.”

  “Both nimrods fell into the silo, Leo said. “I climbed up and offered my hand and fell in too.”

  “I guess we drowned,” Guy said.

  “Suffocated,” Mike corrected.

  “Whatever. The rest was kind of a blur. I think we had a bit of a shock when the building next door blew up and exposed the energy line. We were able to move around a lot more for a while. That was until the broads took over the new sugar building that the owners built over the old flour mill,” Leo explained. “After some time, those kids showed up and tried to help us, but they got tired and called us losers. And then you guys show up with two priests. So I guess our number’s up.”

  “Not necessarily,” Father Santos said, listening to Cid report on the distillery in his ear. “It seems that the Half Moon distillery went out of business, but twenty years ago, it was purchased by the Dempsey brothers. They are currently producing a rye whiskey called Three Guys.”

  “We’re three guys,” Leo said, patting his chest, looking at his friends.

  “What I’m about to suggest is this: Why don’t you guys take that energy line to this distillery to see if you want to live out eternity there? Otherwise, I would be happy to cross you over. I just think that you’d be happier there,” Father Santos said.

  Audrey’s eyes opened wide. This wasn’t the Father Santos Mia had talked about.

  Father Simon nodded his head and added, “We could keep an ear out to see if you’re causing trouble. If you behave yourselves, you can stay. If not, I think that you could spend some time drying out in purgatory before being judged.”

  His superior nodded his head, impressed.

  After Audrey and Burt had swept a salt-free path, Murphy moved down into the flooring of the sugar room and was gone for a while. He rose back up and smiled. “It’s a ley line, and when I asked to go to the Dempsey Distillery, it took me there. When I asked to come to the Country Cornflakes Factory, it brought me back,” he reported. “It’s a small operation, probably six buildings, but they have the whiskey stored in a large cavern under their property. Looks heaven-made for these sots.”

  “I feel like we’re transferring our problem to someone else,” Burt confessed.

  “Maybe yes, maybe no,” Santos replied his eyes lighting up. “I’ll keep an ear out. And if they experience anything they can’t abide, I’ll offer them your services for free. How’s that?”

  “It makes me feel better,” Burt admitted.

  Murphy moved over to the three men. “Follow me, and I’ll take you there. If we get lost, think ‘Dempsey Distillery’ and you should get there,” he instructed.

  Burt focused the camera on the floor of the sugar room and watched as the four of them sunk into the floor. After a while, Murphy rose again. Burt and he walked back to the control truck together. Without the camera, Burt couldn’t see him, but he had a feeling that the farmer was close by.

  Audrey greeted them with a mug of hot coffee.

  “Before we start cleaning up, Father Santos, I have a question.”

  “Yes, Audrey.”

  “This decision to let the drunks go to the distillery instead of crossing them over isn’t your normal modus operandi.”

  “No, it isn’t. This investigation was originally Mia’s, was it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I thought to myself, what would Mia do, and I came up with this.”

  “She would be proud of you, Father, very proud,” Audrey said cheerfully.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Mia walked alongside her husband out onto the grounds of the estate. The mountains surrounding the place were magnificent. The air was cold, but the fur wraps kept both of them warm. Michael’s servants had fashioned a crib for Brian, and he was presently taking his long nap. This was the first time the Martins had a moment to themselves. Mia leaned against Ted.

  “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

  “No, do you?”

  “No, geography isn’t in my skillset. I bet Cid could tell you by the mountain range,” Ted said.

  “I can’t navigate worth a damn when I’m flying,” Mia confessed.

  “You found me.”

  “Sariel found you. I even got lost on the way home,” she admitted.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” he said, changing the subject. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather be at the farm, but this is a hell of…” He looked around him and corrected, “A heaven of a place to be for a while.”

  “You have to be going nuts without something to work on.”

  “Actually, while you were resting, Altair and I were worki
ng on a way to track the missing angels and their kin. This way, they won’t need Mark to find them.”

  “Are they still recalling angels?”

  “Yes, the threat is still there. Something called the Cynosura have their teeth into part of the demon community and vice versa. They are funding terrorist groups so attention is diverted away from the problem at hand.”

  “And that is?”

  “The benefits we thought we had established for the poor and downtrodden are being taken away. The rich Cynosura are buying up land and will displace more people unless those people work for them.”

  “Feudalism,” Mia said, shivering.

  “That’s a theory. But fear not, it’s not everybody and not in every country, yet. We still have a chance to turn things around.”

  “I notice you are saying we.”

  “Oh, Mighty Mouse, I’m in this too. If we are going to have more children, we better insist on them having a future.”

  “I love you, Batman,” Mia said.

  “I know,” Ted replied. “Mia, do you feel any different? From all accounts, you lost a quarter of what was inside you.”

  “Hmm, let me think. I’m not as hungry,” she offered.

  “How do you feel about me?”

  “I love, esteem, and desire you,” she said.

  “Phew!”

  “Why?”

  “Well, Altair said they were worried that your sexual appetite would be gone.”

  “How embarrassing,” Mia said, pulling the hood of her robe over her head, hiding the hot flush of embarrassment. “Is it common knowledge?”

  “Um, evidently, you tried to seduce Sariel, and they think you did the same to Angelo. You also pulled a number on Michael.”

  Mia sunk to the ground and pulled the robe atop her.

  Ted looked down at what was once his wife but now resembled a furry rock. He squatted down, lifted a corner of the robe, and peaked in. “Do you remember any of this?”