Midnight Reynolds and the Agency of Spectral Protection

by Catherine Holt

  He looked hurt. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe I’m just wasting my time?”

  Midnight winced. “That’s so not what I meant. I think what you’re doing is great,” she said, since it was thanks to his suggestion that she and Tabitha had found their first big clue.

  She hated the idea of him knowing that she was different, but it was tempting to have someone who actually knew what they were doing on their team. And perhaps she didn’t have to tell him everything? Just part of it?

  She opened her mouth to speak, but before the words could come out, a thin strand of pink fog danced around the empty chair at their table. Midnight choked. The only other times she’d seen pink fog was like this was when the spirit of Eliza Irongate had tried to warn her about Miss Appleby.

  So why was she here now?

  To stop her from telling Logan the truth.

  Because it was against the rules, and Eliza had been killed by a woman who broke the rules.

  To remind Midnight that she needed to focus on stopping whoever was draining the Black Stream.

  Besides, if she told Logan, and that somehow messed up the investigation, she might ruin everything. The villain wouldn’t be found. It would continue to rain. Her mom’s wedding would be a disaster, and Peter Gallagher would probably kick her out of the Agency.

  “Midnight.” Logan studied her face, his dark eyes serious. “Have I done something to upset you?”

  “N-no.” She quickly shook her head, still annoyed she’d come so close to messing up. “I just have a lot on my mind. Oh, look, here’s your mom.”

  “Right,” he said, not quite returning her gaze as they both stood up. Midnight winced. The sooner she solved this case, the sooner things between her and Logan could go back to normal.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Ah, she’s awake!” Midnight’s mom looked up from the newspaper she’d been reading in the kitchen’s soft morning light.

  “It’s not that late,” Midnight protested as she stifled a yawn. After her disastrous date that had almost ended in her breaking about six thousand ASP rules, she’d spent the rest of the night trying to figure out why the spirit of Eliza Irongate had visited her. Unsurprisingly, she hadn’t discovered anything.

  Midnight looked around and realized that the kitchen was full of people and cakes. The cakes she was pleased about, but the people were Taylor and Dylan, which made her less thrilled. “What’s going on?”

  “Mom’s getting married. In case it’s slipped your mind.” Taylor’s bangs had grown out, and her blond hair was pushed back behind her ears. The jeans she’d spent four weeks’ allowance on were covered in rips. Dylan’s hair was dark and his eyes were green (Midnight didn’t care what Taylor said, they did not look like emeralds), and his own jeans were equally slashed.

  “We’re tasting wedding cakes,” her mom explained as she folded up the newspaper and got to her feet.

  “That’s today?” Midnight said, feeling a slither of guilt. Taylor was right. It had completely slipped her mind. Which showed just how distracted she was, since putting things into her calendar was usually her favorite task in the world. “I’m so sorry that I forgot.”

  “And kept us waiting half an hour,” Taylor said before turning to Dylan. “You’re so lucky to be an only child.”

  Midnight ignored her and looked at her mom. “You should’ve woken me. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

  “Taylor’s just teasing you. We only just got back from the bakery, and Phil’s not even here yet. Besides, you had your big date yesterday. You’re allowed to sleep in.”

  Midnight’s cheeks burned. Her mom had asked her loads of questions yesterday, none of which she could quite answer. After all, it was hard to know how the date went when half the things that Logan talked about were things that Midnight wasn’t technically allowed to discuss.

  “These sure look good, Maggie. You don’t mind if I call you Maggie, do you?” Dylan said as he lounged on one of the wooden kitchen chairs like he owned the place.

  “Of course not.” Her mom smiled as if there was nothing weird about the conversation. Dylan gave her a thumbs-up before turning to Midnight.

  “And hey, Midnight. How’s school going?”

  “Fine, thank you,” Midnight said, hoping she sounded polite. It wasn’t that she disliked Dylan for anything in particular. But Taylor doted on him so much that it was nauseating. Then again, it was hardly his fault. “You know what middle school’s like,” she added with a shrug.

  “Please. Dylan’s a senior. He’s probably forgotten all about middle school,” Taylor retorted as she draped her arm over his shoulder. Dylan let out a strangled sigh.

  “I wish I didn’t remember. Middle school’s the worst. If you’re surviving, you’re doing a good job,” he said, and Midnight’s animosity faded. “Then again, senior year’s a nightmare too. So much pressure on which college to go to.”

  “Well, considering you’re brilliant, you’ll have your pick,” Taylor chimed in.

  “Except I still have no idea what I want to do, which is why I wanted to take a gap year.”

  “A gap year? I’m not sure I know what that means.” Her mom’s brow wrinkled as she looked up from where she was setting out plates and forks.

  “It’s when you take a year off before you study. Go traveling, see the world, and have some fun. Unfortunately, my folks won’t even consider it,” Dylan explained. “I mean, what’s the point of going to college when I don’t even know what I want to do?”

  “Have you tried talking to them about how you feel?”

  “Until I’m blue in the face.” Dylan sounded bitter. “Unfortunately, my parents aren’t quite as cool as you are, Maggie. I wish they were.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a solution,” Midnight’s mom said just as Phil walked into the kitchen. Her face immediately brightened as Phil caught her around the waist and kissed her on the mouth. Midnight looked away, and even Taylor let out a vaguely disgusted snort.

  “So sorry I’m late. I hope you saved me some cake,” Phil said. He was wearing a leather vest, a huge belt almost as big as his arm, a pair of soft leather shoes, and strips of material wrapped around his legs that Midnight now knew were winingas. At one time, seeing Phil dressed as a Viking was the weirdest part of her life. These days, it barely registered.

  “We haven’t started yet.” Her mom giggled, smoothing down the chain mail on his chest. “I have a coconut, lemon, and cacao, a ginger and orange, or a blueberry vegan cheesecake. Plates are here, and don’t forget to leave room for lunch.”

  Midnight grinned. Usually the only time she got cake was when she was at Tabitha’s house, so she made sure she took an extra big piece of each. Fifteen minutes later, everyone had decided that the coconut, lemon, and cacao was a clear winner, and her mom was emailing the bakery while Phil washed the plates.

  “By the way, Midnight. I spoke to Jerry today, and he’s happy to help with the article. He’s back in town on Thursday, and we’re meeting at the practice hall in the afternoon. Just come along any time after five.”

  “Oh wow. Thank you,” Midnight said, swallowing the absurd wish to tell Logan about it.

  “What’s this for?” Dylan looked up from his cell phone with interest.

  “Oh, it’s some lame article Midnight and her friend are doing about that stupid piece of gold,” Taylor said grumpily. Though Midnight wondered if her sister was really annoyed because she’d discovered her boyfriend might go traveling for a year.

  “It’s not lame,” Midnight said.

  “Whatever.” Dylan shrugged, looking bored by the conversation. So much for Midnight thinking that he wasn’t that bad. She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, the pots hanging over the stove rattled.

  The neighbor’s dog started to howl, and the floor shook as if it were a boat on the sea.

  “It’s a tremor,” Phil said as he dropped to his knees. “Everyone needs to get under the table and hold on to a leg.”

  P
hil’s voice was so commanding that everyone immediately did as he said, crawling their way to the large scrubbed-pine table as the earth continued to shake and roll beneath them. Taylor’s face was leached of color, and her mom’s huge eyes were filled with worry—no doubt thinking about whether to cancel the wedding.

  Dylan brought up an earthquake app on his cell phone, telling them it should be fine because the epicenter was twenty miles away and the quake only registered three on the Richter scale.

  “Hear that?” Taylor said in a wobbly voice as the tremors finally stopped. “Dylan says it will be okay.”

  But, as Midnight crawled back out from under the table, all thoughts of Dylan were pushed to the back of her mind. Whoever had the particle realigner was clearly still using it, and unless she found them very soon, there would be more earthquakes to come.

  * * *

  “Midnight Reynolds, is there a reason why you’re asleep in my class?” Miss Anderson, her English teacher, asked on Monday morning. Midnight sat up with a jolt as laughter echoed around the room.

  Actually, there were several reasons.

  She was a ghost protector doubling as a detective. And doing a bad job of it. After the cake tasting, she and Tabitha had increased their efforts to figure out who’d taken the particle realigner. Oh, and after more tremors, the ghost app had gone off at five o’clock in the morning.

  Midnight had been forced to sneak out of the house and go to the pizza parlor on Winchester Road. The whole way there, she’d been hoping she’d find just a good, old regular case of spectral energy. But when she’d arrived, the same putrid smell greeted her as a trash can in the back alley shook with fury at her approach.

  She’d needed more than twenty minutes to release the energy, and the readings confirmed another rupture. Which meant that their villain not only liked looking at headphones at Laine’s Department Store but also ate pizza.

  None of which she could tell her teacher.

  “Sorry.” She stifled a yawn and then spent the rest of the class pinching her arm to stay awake.

  “You okay?” Tabitha asked as they hurried to the library to continue their research.

  “Yes, just tired,” Midnight said as they rounded the corner and almost bumped into Tyson, who was standing by a locker. Tabitha dragged Midnight back around the corner.

  They’d discussed Tabitha’s date at length yesterday while they’d been going over all their research notes, and it seemed obvious that Tabitha and Tyson weren’t a match made in heaven. Then again, Midnight was starting to wonder if she and Logan were any better. Yes, she liked him. A lot. But what was the point when she couldn’t be honest about who she was and what she did? It was like being on tenterhooks the entire time.

  “Did you want to speak to him?” Midnight whispered, but Tabitha shook her head and stepped back against the wall.

  “No, there’s no point. Do you know he freaked out when I told him that the entire Hatten family had been killed by a cholera epidemic? It’s not like I showed him pictures or anything, even though I have loads.”

  “You were very restrained.” Midnight tried not to giggle at her friend’s outrage.

  “Besides, I forgot to tell you that he kept asking about the Irongate mausoleum.”

  “What?” Midnight blinked. “You don’t think he knows anything, do you?”

  Tabitha shook her head. “No, but it was weird. He said a friend had mentioned it to him a few weeks ago, and he was curious to see it. I mean, apart from all of Miss Appleby’s other flaws, her choice in mausoleums was pretty bad. It’s not nearly as fancy as some of the other ones there. Take the Ashdown one. Now that’s a mausoleum.”

  “Right.” Midnight nodded, trying not to smile. However, the smile quickly faded as they reached the library door. Mrs. Crown was guarding it like a three-headed dog. There were also several posters up about what to do in an earthquake.

  “You can only come in if you’re not wet. Oh, and no phones. Can you believe that yesterday someone tried to order a pizza and have it delivered here?” The librarian narrowed her eyes, searching their shoulders for water. After what seemed like hours, she gave a curt nod. “Cleared.”

  “I swear she’s a second away from retinal scanners,” Midnight said after they’d handed in their phones and hurried through before the librarian could change her mind.

  “She’s just protecting the books. You know how stupid kids can be,” Tabitha said in a serious voice. She took her MacBook out of her backpack and stared at the blurry photograph they had from the mirror. It was still their only real clue of what the villain looked like, and they still hadn’t heard back from Alan at the museum.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing else we can do to bring the face into focus?”

  Tabitha shook her head. “I’ve been discussing it with ASP, and they haven’t had any more luck than we have.”

  “It’s so annoying. Still, we will be seeing Phil’s friend Jerry on Thursday. Hopefully he can tell us something.”

  “Sure. Of course, there’s another idea.” Tabitha put the photograph down and held up her pad. There was a neat list of everything they knew, including the latest piece of information. The pink fog that had shown up yesterday. “I still think that we should consider asking Logan to help us. You could speak to Peter Gallagher about it.”

  “You know what the rules say.” Midnight shook her head. “Plus, when I tried to casually ask him, that’s when Eliza showed up. It’s obviously a bad idea.”

  “What if she wasn’t there to stop you? What if she was trying to nudge you into asking him?”

  “It’s impossible to say.” Midnight frowned. Unlike the ghost movies where specters actually took shapes and spoke in a voice, Midnight had only seen Eliza’s face once. The other times, it had just been fog, and she’d been left to guess what Eliza had been trying to tell her.

  “Which is all the more reason to speak to Peter. The fact that ASP haven’t had any more success than we have might mean they’ll say yes, so it won’t be like you’re breaking any rules.” Tabitha took a deep breath. “I know you’re worried that Logan might judge you, but I think we’re running out of options. Just look at your spreadsheet for opportunity, motive, and means. It’s all empty. We have nothing.”

  Midnight opened her mouth and then shut it again.

  Deep down, she knew Tabitha was right. Between them, they were great at research and organizing their time, but solving mysteries was beyond them.

  She let out a sigh. “Fine. I’ll call him.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I’m sorry, I can’t authorize that. We’d have to do a full background check and then train him in the appropriate protocol,” Peter Gallagher said the following morning as Midnight stood outside the school. He was calling from Australia, and he sounded tired. It also didn’t sound like he was going to change his mind. “I know this might seem unfair, but we have these rules for a reason. To prevent people from finding out what we do and creating hysteria. And to stop them from getting hurt. I hope you understand.”

  “I do.” She tried to hide her disappointment. Even though she was scared of Logan finding out the truth about her, she was even more scared of what would happen if they didn’t catch the villain soon.

  Whatever was happening with the Black Stream was causing more and more spectral energy to get trapped in objects. And the worry lines around her mom’s mouth deepened every time she looked out the window. If Logan could help, it seemed crazy not to let him.

  “Okay, well, I have a crisis on the Sydney Harbour Bridge that I need to deal with. Let me know as soon as you speak to the head of security for the museum.”

  “I will.” Midnight put her phone away and walked over to Tabitha, whose face twisted into a frown. “You okay?”

  “Apart from seeing something that I can never unsee? Then yeah, I’m fine.”

  “What are you talking about?” Midnight said before spotting a growing crowd over by the basketball court. She pressed her g
lasses further up her nose, more out of habit than anything else. The rain had stopped, leaving the air thick and heavy like soup, but through the gloom she spotted Malie wearing some kind of rainbow-colored cosplay outfit. Her amazing hair was pulled away from her face, and she had a pink rhinestone tiara perched on her head. Next to her, Sav and Lucy were in similar outfits and hairstyles, but with different colored tiaras.

  “It’s like My Little Pony puked up on them.” Tabitha shielded her eyes as if the bright colors were hurting her. “The thing I want to know is why?”

  “Actually, I bet I know! Remember, I saw Malie at the mall the other day. She was returning something, and I tried to talk to her about being herself around Sav and Lucy.”

  Tabitha’s eyes flashed. “And she laughed at you.”

  “I know, but I can’t hate her for that. After all, I was exactly the same when I was with them. They suck you into their weird world. But, remember I told you that she had a costume rental bag in her hand and said she had a plan?”

  Tabitha gasped in understanding. “Bad cosplay was her plan? Wow. Now I remember why I never wanted to be popular.”

  Midnight laughed as she linked arms with her friend and they walked away from the growing crowd. “Yeah, I’m now starting to think I got let off easy when I was with them. The worst I had to do was dress up as a mouse.”

  “At least a mouse has some dignity,” Tabitha said as they reached the school entrance. “Anyway, enough of them. What did Peter Gallagher say?”

  Midnight’s smile faded. “He said no. I’m really sorry. I swear I tried. I even told him how Mr. Alexander thinks that Logan will end up at MIT because he’s so smart. But Peter just kept talking about paperwork and why it was a bad idea.”

  “A worse idea than letting some crazy person run around our town using spectral energy to steal things?” Tabitha’s scowl was so deep that a seventh grader walking toward them turned and ran in the other direction. On any other day it would’ve been funny. But right now, Midnight didn’t feel like laughing.