by T. G. Ayer
The Graylands had its replica of the human plane but it wasn’t the human plane and living humans didn’t belong there.
She didn’t answer so I continued. “Besides, I owe it to all the people who may potentially be in danger to investigate what the hell is going on here.”
The sound of her continued silence reverberated in my head.
“You may think this isn’t my problem, but it is. Do you really think these intruders have nothing to do with your Mika’s death?”
Again, silence was my answer, but I plowed on.
“My arriving here and being shot by a human is too much of a coincidence, especially considering that the attacks on the paranormals back home seem to be the handiwork of humans, too.”
“I do not disagree that they may be connected.”
At least she was talking to me again. “My gut tells me they are. Whoever these people are, they’re here to cover their tracks. The gunman found me with the kids. He knew where they’d be, and he wasn’t shy about shooting to kill either. Those kids are in danger.”
Nerina laughed softly. “They’re dead, Kai. What danger could they possibly be in?”
This time I laughed, in spite of the pain contracting within my shoulder. “I’ve seen the dangers the dead face here. The wannabe demon overlords fighting each other for control. The demons aren’t afraid to take advantage of ghosts who are passing through or those who haven’t passed on yet. As for the dead who don’t pass on—the ones filled with anger and hatred—there is a potential for violence there that we don’t want tapped. Especially since a few of those ghosts are strong enough to traverse the veil.”
“We’re aware of the overlords,” Nerina said slowly. “But we understood that they’d been deposed.”
“Deposed?” I thought about it. “Sounds organized and political.”
“Well, maybe it’s my interpretation.” Something rustled in my head, like paper being moved around. “Yes. We’ve information that a group of resident dead rose up against the demon overlords and pushed them out of the Graylands.”
“Really?” I said, incredulous. “That must have taken some kind of organization.”
“We believe it happened soon after your last visit.”
I stiffened. “Was the revolt led by a Jeremy Ryan?”
“Yes.” Then Nerina paused. “But we don’t have time to talk about that now. Come home and recover. You can go back as soon as you feel better.”
But I knew I couldn’t walk out now. “I can’t leave. Not yet.” Jeremy needed to be warned. Or at the very least I had to see what I could do to help him out if he was aware of the danger.
I’d failed once to save him when I’d found his flayed corpse dumped in the street. He’d remained in the deadlands, refusing to pass through until he’d helped rid the Graylands of the demon factions who wanted to claim the in-between lands for their own.
A wave of dizziness rushed through my head, and though I was flat on my back I felt the room tilt and my body begin to fall. “But I will rest for a bit. I need my strength.”
“And if you don’t feel better after you rest?” she snapped.
“Then I will come straight home. I’m not stupid, Nerina. I know how to take care of myself.”
She snorted. “I have no doubt that you can take care of yourself. It’s the ‘stupid’ part that worries me.”
My eyelids had grown heavy through our conversation and had shut themselves without me realizing it. Even my body felt heavy and crushed to the mattress. Maybe I should go home to rest and then return better prepared for the human ammunition, and with backup.
Then I blinked and Emma’s face floated in front of me, the hazy apparition giving me a comforting smile.
I couldn’t let her down.
“Kai?” Nerina was a distant whisper and I had to concentrate on the sound.
“Yes,” I rasped through a throat now dry and itchy.
“Please don’t hesitate.”
“Huh?”
“When the time comes to attack, don’t hesitate. Kill the bastards or they will kill you.”
I laughed softly. “Language much?” I was glad we were talking in my head because I was too exhausted to speak out loud.
“Just promise me you will kill first and ask questions later.”
Nerina sounded so firm that I knew I wouldn’t get rid of her until I agreed. So I nodded.
She let a few moments pass. “Kailin? Did you hear me?”
I suppressed a laugh. “Sorry. I nodded. Yes, I promise.”
“And take care of yourself.”
“I will,” I said. And let my fatigue and weakness lull me into a deep and healing sleep.
Chapter 41
MY SLEEP WAS DEEP AND dreamless and thoroughly regenerative.
I blinked and opened my eyes slowly, appreciating the fact that my eyelids felt light and weightless. Whatever had affected me earlier, had passed through my system while I’d slept.
Had the bullets been laced with the same type of paranormal poison as the fluorescent blue liquid?
I shifted my head, searching for my alarm clock. Instead, I found myself eye-to-eye with another ghost.
I let out a small shriek of surprise, cutting it off a little too late. That sound alone would have alerted anyone outside in the hallway to my presence.
“Damn it,” I muttered, glaring at the transparent figure. “What are you doing here?” That I was speaking to the ghost of Daniel Chou, the human agent Logan had killed yesterday, was not a surprise. The surprising part was that he was still in the Graylands. He should have moved on by now.
His gaze flitted across my body as if inspecting me for injuries—and lingering a little too long in certain areas. “I’ve got some information for you,” he said.
“You didn’t have much last time we talked.” I didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation but it did.
He shrugged. “I know more now.”
Cryptic. I raised my eyebrows. “How’s that?”
His shoulders slumped and I felt a little sorry for him. “I listen. I watch. One advantage of being dead is no one sees you when you hang around.”
I nodded, raising myself up onto my elbows. “I guess so.”
Daniel’s gaze drifted back to my chest.
This ghost was a bit too much of a guy for my taste, and a bra wasn’t sufficient cover. The blood had dried on the fabric of my shirt and now weighed it down so that it sank against my chest on one side. I really needed to find something else to wear. I got to my feet, relieved that my legs no longer felt like limp pasta.
“So what did you find out?” I asked, heading around the bed to the corner by the window where Logan usually kept a small go-bag.
It was exactly where I’d expected it to be and I was glad all over again that this room had remained intact. The last time I’d been in the Graylands I’d visited Tara’s shop. It had been stripped of almost everything useful.
I grabbed the bag and dropped it on the bed. As I unzipped it I looked up, an eyebrow curved, waiting.
Daniel had his thumbs stuck in his pockets and his attention on my breasts. “I was still at the scene when the cleanup crew arrived. They stowed the bodies into their ambulance, then sprayed the place down.”
I rifled through the clothing in the go-bag and pulled out a black tee-shirt. It was better than nothing. “Sprayed?”
“Some kind of solution that destroys DNA and other evidence.”
I looked up to find him studying the lace on my bra as though it contained the secret of the universe. A lecherous ghost? Who knew?
I frowned, torn between clothes and information. If I went into the bathroom to change he might leave before telling me what he knew—or follow me. If I stayed here . . . It was a simple decision really.
“You mean evidence of the ammunition that kills paranormals,” I said.
“Yeah. That spray destroys the molecules and makes them unrecognizable under a microscope.” Daniel jerked his gaze up
to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry about what happened. I never actually meant to hurt anyone.”
I shrugged. There was no point in antagonizing him if he’d come to give me information. “You were just doing your job.”
“I joined the program because paranormals killed my father.”
The words spilled out of him in a rush as if he had to get rid of them before he thought better of it.
“Did they?” I pulled the tee-shirt on over my head, shimmied the fabric down over my body. “Did they really?”
He cleared his throat and looked away from my hard stare. “I thought they did. I joined for vengeance, for a cause. But after I’d made the ultimate sacrifice I found out it was all a fucking lie.”
He began to pace, his gaze shifting from the floor, to my face, to the wall, and back again. Pacing ghost was preferable to lecherous ghost.
“What was a lie?”
“I’d been told he was killed at the whim of some mad paranormal freak. Asked if I wanted payback. They’d train me, give me a chance to avenge Dad. I jumped at it.”
Of course he did.
His hands fisted. “Didn’t even think about it. My training went well. The training missions were successful. Then my superiors suggested kicking it up a notch—and I agreed. I still can’t believe I was so stupid.”
Young. Grieving. Angry. Of course he was stupid. “What did they do?” His words had been far too ominous. Enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“They said it would be only a small change.” His eyes begged me to understand.
I thought I did.
Despite the efforts of our collective paranormal organizations and years of keeping our secrets from humans, someone—the US government?—had discovered enough to start dabbling in cross-species DNA integration. This was not a good thing for anyone.
“Tell me,” I said as gently as I could.
He’d been staring at the rumpled sheets on the other side of the bed. Now he looked up at me, his eyes dark and shadowed. “I can move things.”
My ears began to ring. “It was you who tossed the car over?”
He nodded.
“But if you had that kind of power, why didn’t you kill us?” He could have. He was powerful enough.
He stared at the sheets again. “I’d only moved inanimate objects before. My superior was screaming in my ear to throw something else at you. Roma—that’s my partner—she didn’t like that I’d been chosen for the procedure ahead of her. She was cursing at me the entire time and yelling ‘Kill them’.”
“And yet you didn’t.” I studied his face, wondering at the thoughts behind the mask he’d constructed. “Why?”
He fidgeted, his fingers flicking at the top pocket of his cargo pants. “I’d never killed anyone before. Not even on a training mission.”
Which might have been why he was chosen. He was expendable if he screwed up. “But we were just paranormals.”
He raised his eyes. “I’d never seen a paranormal face-to-face before. Only . . . when I saw . . . I realized what my father meant. In his bedside drawer I’d found a journal. It was empty except for four words on the first page. We are the same. I didn’t understand until I saw you all cowering after I threw the car over. You were scared. You acted like humans. We aren’t that different after all. And it made me wonder if Dad’s death really was caused by paras. Or something else.”
“You think you father was considered a sympathizer.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded.
“And they killed him for it.”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s just a theory, but yes. Like I said before I was still at the scene when the clean-up crew came. They were pissed.”
I blinked. “Why?”
“Because I malfunctioned.” He spat the word out. “The experiment was meant to create hardened warriors that they could control. Their failure to control me meant the experiment needed to be overhauled.”
Yeah. Someone’s head would roll, for sure. “What about Agent Blake?”
He laughed. “He came back after you left. Shit, he was furious. Said our unit was incompetent.” He laughed again. “Made me glad I was dead.”
“Yeah. He has a way with cold.”
“He must be more furious now considering what I did to his face this morning.”
A worried frown creased his brow, “What did you do?”
“A little bit of cosmetic surgery,” I said with a smile as I lifted my hand and tugged at my panther’s claws. Within seconds my claws sprouted and the ghost flinched.
“Bet he’s overjoyed,” Daniel said dryly.
“I would have done more if he hadn’t been conveniently spirited away.”
I pulled my mind back on track, “Did he say anything else while he was at the scene?”
“No. Actually he didn’t stick around. But when he’d gone my superior told the big guy that Blake wasn’t being as efficient as he’d expected. The big guy said—”
My ears pricked up. “Big guy?”
“Yeah. The other agency guy, he’s a large dude.” He made ‘tall and broad’ gestures. “All blond and blue-eyed like Thor or Conan or something.”
Or Storm.
Chapter 42
STORM.
I DIDN’T WANT IT to be Storm.
“Did they mention a name?” I held my breath.
Daniel pursed his mouth, frowned. “I don’t think they know it. I don’t think even Jones knows it.”
Jones must be the superior. “So what did Thor say?”
Daniel snorted. “That he needed Blake, but if he became a hindrance to the mission he’d be eliminated.”
“Sounds harsh.” Not like the Storm I knew. It couldn’t be Storm. Please don’t let it be Storm.
“They’re all harsh,” He spoke quietly but with a hint of desperation. “They called us bricks. Told us only what we needed to know. Said their organization was the mortar that held us together and made us function as a whole. Cohesively. Bricks follow orders. Good bricks move up the wall.”
Good bricks, my ass. I needed to get moving.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” I said. I shrugged into my jacket as I spoke—and then another question popped into my head. “How did you know I was here?”
He grinned. “Being dead has its advantages. I flit around from place to place. And it seems I can still move stuff.”
“Oh,” I said. That was different.
He nodded so hard that his ghostly hair bounced against his transparent forehead. So strange. “And I can go back home whenever I want to.”
Really different. “Wow.”
“Yeah. The soldier here radioed my superior in Chicago. It’s like I’m connected to whatever they do, so radio transmissions, emails, phone calls—all communications give me the funnies and when I head to Control, I usually find stuff is happening.”
What could I say? We were now past really different and heading into officially weird. “Must be some sort of emotional connection. Because you died under their watch.”
He looked doubtful. “Maybe, but it has something to do with you and your people too. Jones called for an investigation into you and Westin as soon as he got the vid feed.”
Logan? Crap.
“And they sent a couple people to keep an eye on your apartments.”
I had to get back. Warn Logan. “And eliminate me.”
But he was already shaking his head. “Nope. No order came from our department. Or at least nothing after I died. Everything since then had been mainly watching. Even the kill orders on paranormals have stopped.”
What? “Someone gave an order to stop assassinating the paranormals?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Something happened but we didn’t get told what. Next thing, Jones stands us all down.”
So maybe I had a little time to work.
“Thanks for trusting me,” I said. “Thanks for believing we’re the same.”
“They hate you,” he said. “So
you must be okay.”
Yeah. I could follow that logic.
“I had to tell you,” he said, “otherwise you’ll get killed too. They mean business. And they’re way too dangerous to fight.”
“You haven’t had many dealings with paranormals, have you?” I asked, grinning as I straightened my jacket and leaned to grab my rucksack from the side of the bed.
“It doesn’t matter how powerful you are. They are more powerful. You’re no match to them no matter what ability you have.” He hesitated and glanced over his shoulder as if he felt someone at his back. “They know everything about you. And they can manipulate it however they want.”
I didn’t blame him for seeing conspiracies everywhere. “I don’t think the government cares much about our day-to-day lives.”
His fists balled and frustration etched grooves around his mouth. “Not the government. Whoever this Thor guy works for. They are the ones you should be afraid of. And him. “
“And why should he scare us?” Other than the possibility he could be an Immortal, a Titan, or something far worse.
His eyes snapped. “Because he scares the US government, that’s why.”
I could follow that logic too.
“Okay,” I said frowning. “All I can do is be more careful from now on. We can’t stop looking for the killer. If it’s Blake, or even your Thor friend, we will get him.”
“You won’t,” he whispered. “You’ll lose. You don’t know it all yet.”
This conversation had gone on for far too long. “The only thing I’m going to lose is my patience,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m out of time. What don’t I know yet?”
He hesitated, obviously torn, then decided to spill. “There’s a plane—well, not just one, lots of them. Those ones farmers use to drop pesticides over their crops. The big guy is running the show. There’s a connection between the planes and what’s happening to the paranormals. That’s all I know.”
“That’s a whole lot more than I had, Daniel,” I said. Much, much more. “Thank you—and I mean that. Thanks.”
“Your people are in danger—and I mean that. Whatever Thor’s people have planned, it’s something big.” He stared at my face, shaking his head. “You aren’t going to listen to me, are you?”
