Like he thought he damn well should be able to see. But, of course, he couldn’t.
“Get behind me,” he snapped. He was the True Stiff, the human shield. Not me. But of course I wasn’t about to let him take charge. He couldn’t see it.
Though, for that matter, neither could I. Not until panic-induced white light thundered down to refill my reservoir, and the shape of a man flickered into being. I caught a glimpse of a guy in a hoodie, with the hood cinched up tight and his face in shadow like the Grim Reaper. Just a flicker, then the visual was gone again. “Don’t be stupid,” the ghost barked out—holy shit, they read minds now? “Gimme the fuckin’ money, asshole, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off.”
My perceptions rearranged themselves as an array of ghostly flash cards sprang to mind. Repeater? Not with that temperature drop. Slippery? Definitely, a half-seen thing that was only partially tuned in, hard to get a bead on. Sentient? Maybe, but not particularly self-aware, not if it thought our money would do it any good. Something in between a repeater and a lucid spirit. A screwed-up ghost that hadn’t figured out it was dead.
A ghost you wouldn’t want to stumble across even back when it was alive.
“Talk to me,” Jacob ground out between clenched teeth.
“Hostile—my visual is for shit—two o’clock.”
Jacob inserted himself more deliberately between the dead thing and me. I let him.
“You think I’m playin’?” Its voice was garbled and wet. “Huh? You think I’m fuckin’ playin’?”
It couldn’t actually shoot me with a ghost gun…could it? Jesus. White light.
My neurochemicals scrambled into fight-mode, and as they did, my visual came back. Still flickery. But this time, I was looking right at the spot where the thing appeared.
And I could see a bullet hole where one of its eyes should be. As I glimpsed the bloody socket, the wall behind it lit up with spectral blood spatter. Just for a fraction of a second. But that was more than enough.
I centered myself as best I could as I grabbed for a baggie in my coat pocket and tore it open with my teeth. Salt scattered down my arm. White light found the conduit I’d opened moments ago with Jacob, and mojo poured into the salt so forcefully, the baggie lit up to my mind’s eye like it was radioactive. I lobbed the open bag over Jacob’s shoulder…but as I did, Jacob sidestepped. Not only did he jostle my arm, but another surge of white light arced between us. The baggie smacked the brick wall in a burst of activated salt.
Did I hit my target?
No clue.
And now I wasn’t amped up enough to see the damn thing anymore.
Jacob scanned the area, and scanned again. “I think we got it.”
“You think? I’d know, if you hadn’t grabbed my freakin’ light.”
Jacob stiffened. Muscles jumped in his jaw. But he kept his attention on the task at hand: making sure no one went home possessed. Namely, me. I opened up my crown chakra and pulled. It might all be symbolic, the thing I do when I power up, but I’ve done it enough that it feels like a physical strain—one with very little outward evidence. Like holding my breath, or engaging my “core.”
We both attempted to see if we could tell whether or not the dead guy was still around. The temperature had normalized, and more importantly, I didn’t see telltale hints of ghost peeking out from between the bricks. The more my tank filled back up, the more certain I was that we’d exorcised the crackhead mugger.
Unless we’d only scared him off.
A pedestrian crossed the street to avoid the two of us—me covered in salt, Jacob stiff with anger, clenching and unclenching his fists like he’d pummel the next thing that crossed his path.
“We’ve done all we can do right now,” I said.
Jacob spun around to face me. “My name was in that book. I’ve got a talent. But what good is it if I don’t know how it works?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Really? And how do we manage that? Especially with you shoving me off to the sidelines.”
I cocked my head toward the store. “C’mon. Not out here.” Not in front of the ATM surveillance where God-knows-who was watching.
Jacob’s better at holding onto his anger than I am. As my adrenaline ebbed, I was already ruing the fact that I’d snapped at him. Normally, he could tolerate the random pissy remark. But his abilities were a notorious sore spot—and I’d just given that lingering bruise a good, solid kick.
We threaded up the aisles looking for something loud to camouflage our conversation. The old man who normally cut our keys was helping someone over by the nails and screws. But then I spotted some big metal rolls of chain you could purchase by the yard. I gave one a tug and it made a grinding metallic noise. And, bonus, we wouldn’t have to shell out any of our hard-skimmed cash to buy it. We could just roll it back up when we were done talking.
Jacob and I angled ourselves so the cameras couldn’t see our mouths. I gave the chain a few more yanks, then he rolled it back up. Over the clattering and clanking, I said, “Listen, we both want the same thing here. We’re on the same side.”
“I know.”
“I get that you’re frustrated. There are no practice ghosts, and spirits don’t sit around waiting to be exorcised at our convenience. They take us by surprise and they need to be handled on the spot, and there’s no room for trial and error.”
“That’s not it.” Jacob hauled on the chain and several yards of it unspooled, dropping to a loud pile at our feet. He stared at the chain pile for a moment, then said, “What am I?”
I touched his hand tentatively. Nothing jumped between us, and I gave it a squeeze. “We’ll figure it out,” I said.
Though how we’d go about doing that, I had absolutely no idea.
6
TAKING UP WITH the FPMP had felt like a pretty strategic move, at the time. Not only would I have access to all the latest and greatest in Psych research, but I’d be able to keep an eye on all the spies who used to be spying on me. Too bad none of these resources were any use in me figuring out what the hell Dr. Kamal had been up to.
A few days after the big ATM blunder, I was called into the Director’s office before I even made it to my desk. Right from the start, I got along with Laura Kim—probably because I was the type of hot mess The Fixer was just itching to put right. But once she found out she was a low-level psychic medium, our power dynamic shifted. Even though she was my boss, I was the only one who could tell her with any degree of accuracy whether or not she was blundering into a random ghost.
Laura Kim sees a lot of me. Not because I’m a particularly high-ranking agent, but because she feels better knowing her office is free from any stowaways of the dead variety.
Ghosts have their ways—they’re unlikely to just crop up out of nowhere—but given Laura’s position, I figure it’s safest to give her office a periodic scan.
We exchanged bland morning pleasantries while I poked through the credenza and gave her miniblinds a quick shake. “All clear,” I said, and then launched into a request while I was still on Laura’s good side. “And so, I was thinking, now that all the weirdness at The Clinic has calmed down, maybe Archives can dig a little deeper on Dr. Kamal. Has anyone looked at the microfiche—?”