Mortals: Heather Despair Book One

by Leslie Edens

  “Any idea what that was?” hissed the detective to Bruce.

  “No.” Bruce stared in the direction of the sound. “Probably a junk slide. Sometimes animals get in there.”

  The detective motioned to the police officers. They crept toward the noise, staying low.

  “Hey, if you go back there, be careful. Sometimes that stuff will fall on you,” said Bruce.

  “No kidding,” I said.

  I stood tense, my hair whipping around my face in the sandy wind. Something wasn’t right here. I could feel spectricity rising in my body, zapping its blue energy along my spine. With my new ring’s power, I kept the energy under control—watching, waiting. I’d be ready for whatever emerged from that junk pile.

  Bruce was still whining.

  “Why’d you kids have to go and call the police?” he said. “Couldn’t you just ask me where Heather went?”

  I gritted my teeth. “How do you know where I went?” I said, without looking at him.

  “You went to find your brother. Ain’t that right?” I could hear him dusting off his dirty overalls.

  I said nothing, all my attention focused on the suddenly-quiet junkyard. Shouldn’t those police have come back by now?

  Bruce blundered on. “So when you kids couldn’t find Heather, you assumed I killed her and hung her body in the laundry room. Thanks for getting me in a heap of trouble.”

  The thing is, he sounded nervous. I couldn’t focus on it now. Strange flickering light issued from behind the junk, then disappeared. And it wasn’t the emergency lights from the cop cars.

  Trenton burst to life, yelling, “Don’t you even care what happens to Heather? She could have been dead!”

  He started to sob. I guess it had been a pretty long night for my friends, with me disappearing like that.

  I heard Oskar shush Trenton. Lily pushed her big glasses up her nose. In her typical logical tone, she said, “Mr. Slade. Trenton’s got a wild imagination. It might not have been logical to insist a murder investigation was in order. Trenton might have exaggerated—”

  Another loud crash resonated from behind the junk. I tensed and held out my sparking hands.

  Bruce groaned. “Oh no. I think they’re in the chicken wire, old box springs, and razor wire layer.”

  A policeman stumbled out of the corridor between junk piles, limping. I quickly lowered my hands, quenching the spectricity in my fists.

  One of the policeman’s legs bled profusely, his pant leg cut away. His other leg was entangled in chicken wire.

  “Could you bring me some wire clippers and a first aid kit, please?” he said, sitting down hard on the sand.

  Again, the loud crashing from the back of the junkyard. A deafening creak of metal. The policeman paled.

  “What the—?” He looked back.

  I lifted my hands, blue fire burning in my palms over the huge, black-stoned ring. My filmy black sleeves whipped around from the force of the spectricity, and I rose slightly off the ground, my toes trailing the sand. My long, black gown trailed under me, hiding my levitation from the mortals. I hoped.

  “Heather.” Trenton’s voice squeaked. I looked back at his big, anxious eyes. “This Goth look. Can we discuss this?”

  The bullets whizzed through the air without warning, spitting into the sand, pitting the side of the doublewide. I raised my arms high, but my shield was already up. Bullets pinged off the blue layer in mid-air. I watched in surprise as the shield swelled higher and wider, protecting my friends and family, the detective and the wounded officer. The shield seemed to react on its own.

  From the corridors between junk piles, armed police advanced on us, unloading clip after clip. My shield held, these small mortal projectiles not posing much challenge. Still, I shook in fear. Having five police officers fire pistols at me at point blank range was terrifying, not to mention deafening.

  “Stop!” I shouted and pushed the shield. It expanded outward until it collided with the police. One by one, it bathed them in blue. They fell to the sand, gasping, dropping their weapons, keeling over. When the last one went down, my shield evaporated—like it had never been there.

  The detective who had questioned me moved first.

  “Stay back!” he shouted to the rest of us.

  He ran to the first unconscious police officer and cuffed him. He went to each officer, putting their own cuffs on them. He had no trouble. Only one was conscious enough to groan.

  The detective read the conscious police officer her Miranda rights. I inspected the damage.

  “Why’d they open fire like that?” I said aloud.

  The detective appeared by my side. “Miss, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” He gestured toward the squad car.

  “Everything is totally fine,” I said, fixing him with a heavy stare.

  “We should leave,” said Lily, her voice wooden.

  Trenton shook his head, arms crossed stubbornly. He alone did not seem susceptible to the mesmerizing effects of my eyes. But as for everyone else . . .

  “Okay, that about wraps it up,” said the detective.

  A glazed look on his face, he stumbled to the injured officer. The latter had finished prying the chicken wire from his leg and was covering his other leg in bandages. He limped over to help the detective rouse the cuffed police officers. Bruce watched in disbelief as they all piled into two vehicles and drove off without a word.

  “That’s it?” Bruce huffed. “No questions, no statements? Not even going to find out where she’s been all this time? Some police force.”

  Shirleen almost knocked me over with a fierce hug. I put up with it for a few seconds, then I fixed her with my stare. “It’s all right now. You can go lie down.”

  “This whole ordeal has made me so tired. I’m going to go lie down.” Shirleen did a zombie walk into the double-wide.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Bruce, stomping up the steps. He shot a glare at me, but I fixed him with my eyes, and he kept going.

  I blew out a long, slow breath. “Good. Paranormals—we need to talk.”

  * * *

  Trenton, Oskar, Lily, and I huddled inside the tiny, metal teardrop trailer, speaking in whispers.

  “First order of business,” I said.

  “Your new look,” said Trenton, his nose wrinkling with scorn. “Heather, finally. It just is not you. Oskar and I were thinking, maybe we could take you shopping . . .”

  I paid no attention, diving instead under the cot. “Here it is!” I held up my notebook by the corner.

  “Not the best accessory choice, Heather Despair,” said Trenton. “Oskar was thinking more along the lines of a beaded evening bag.”

  “I certainly was not!” Oskar hissed. “I like her Goth look. I think she could go lighter on the pancake makeup, but the gown is rather attractive.”

  “You like that? That sack?” squeaked Trenton. “She looks like a bag of flour. Dark flour. Very evil flour but still—shapeless and dumpy. It puts ten years on her and brings out the bags under her eyes.”

  They started to tussle, making the trailer rattle and shake.

  “Quiet!” I said. “We’re not here to discuss my fashion sense!”

  “Oh, that’s a pity, because we really need to,” said Trenton. “Oskar says—”

  “Oskar says we’d better find out what’s lurking in this junkyard,” said Oskar, placing his hand discretely over Trenton’s mouth. “And I do like your gown, Heather. Very classic lines.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “And I agree. We need to find out what caused those police to go berzerk. And I know who to ask.”

  About Leslie Edens:

  Leslie Edens lives in Bellingham, Washington. She writes far too often of ghosts, mortals, transdimensional aliens, paranormal gay love triangles, half-ghosts, portals, deadzines, and magical teenagers. She lives on a super-charged writing ley line with an 18-pound monster cat that may be a Calico puma in disguise, and a 15-year-old creative consultant. Together, they are TEAM DESPA
IR, fighting for truth, justice, and paranormal tolerance in novels everywhere! (cue triumphant music)

  She has written lots of other books you really should check out!

  Mortals: Heather Despair Book One is followed by Portals: Heather Despair Book Two, and Spirits: Heather Despair Book Three.

  The Half-Ghosts series details the adventures of the next generation of spiritualists and ghosts: A Spirit Prince, Aether’s Half, and Royal Reunion.

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