Author: Dick Wybrow
Date: 2020-01-01 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Mystery; Horror
Description: The world's only dead private investigator is about to meet a god. After Raz Frewer died, he became a ghost named Painter Mann with no memories of his past life. What Painter does know is that he must destroy the realm between life and death known as the InBetween. That means taking out the one who created it. However, this demi-god has kidnapped hundreds of ghosts to harvest their energy for machines that will destroy the living world. Before he does anything, he's got to rescue them. But now there is another threat. Previously, Painter had encountered dozens of other ghosts. Good and bad. Ne
Publisher: Dee Dub Publishing

The Night Vanishing

by Dick Wybrow

At the end of this book get a sneak peek at Book 6

Past Life

Novels by DICK WYBROW

THE HELL INC SERIES

Hell inc.

Hell to Pay

Hell Raisers

The InBetween

The Night Vanishing

Past Life

If you’d like a free copy of Dick Wybrow’s humorous semi-
apocalypse novel The Swordsmen and get free stuff and the
latest updates from the author, click here.

Copyright © Dick Wybrow 2020
www.dickwybrow.com

Edited by Red Adept

Cover by Warren Design

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemble to actual persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission
of the copyright owner of this book.

To Lucy and Josh...

Without you, two strangers would have never made it in
a strange land.

Thank you.

And sorry I drained the last of your weird Irish cream
liqueur…

CHAPTER ONE

Hollow stared at the mirror but didn’t see his reflection, though not because he didn’t have one. He wasn’t a vampire.

“There ain’t no such thing as vampires.”

He was a ghost hunter, although that was not what he and his crew called themselves. Standing in the old Scotsman’s bedroom, he felt his body sway just a little.

Tired.

Get back to it.

Staring into the reflective glass, Isaac “Hollow” Hollister traced his eyes along the floorboards of the wall behind him, as he’d done hundreds of times before. Then in a sweeping pattern, he scanned up and up, searching. He’d described this process many times, especially in that first season. Looking for the “ghost sign.”

Then he stopped describing it because he sounded less and less convincing every time he did.

Halfway up the wall, he’d realized he wasn’t really looking. His eyes were going through the motions, his mind elsewhere. He’d done this with the novels he was reading, especially more recently. He would flip through half a dozen pages and then have to flip back because he hadn’t read a word.

His mind drifted more these days, maybe because he was turning fifty. Maybe it was because he wasn’t sure he had the strength to make it to fifty-one.

He wasn’t suicidal, just tired. Tired of trying to convince others it was all real when secretly he was no longer convinced. The encounter, so long ago now, felt increasingly like a dream.

Tired of the bullshit. Tired of this chase.

However, this bullshit chase made him a lot of money.

“Hollow, come on, man!”

He turned and saw only a brilliant burst of white, a tiny star that blotted out the emptiness of the dark bedroom.

The sunburst wobbled to the right, and in his mind’s eye, Hollow could see Digit with hands on both her hips, head tilted to the side.

After a moment of total darkness, she came into shape and looked around the room, the light from the camera on her shoulder scanning the walls.

Hollow looked down to the digital sleeve, which showed the “vanity cam” monitors of all but one of his crew members. When Digit saw he was watching this, she looked directly into hers and once again said, “Come on!”

He blew out a breath and half smiled. These are the people I hang out with?

“I’m searching for ghost sign,” Hollow said, half growling the last two words.

“Later!” Digit was engaging in her habit of shuffling from foot to foot, as if running in place. They’d had to put gimbals on all her cameras, especially the one trained on her face, so the viewers wouldn’t get motion sickness. “Sapphire says he’s got something.”

Hollow sighed. “Nearly done.” After staring into the reflection, he looked back down at the floorboards again. He’d have to trace up the wall from the beginning and do it right. Who knew, maybe—

“Nah, man,” Digit said. “This you gotta see.”

“You say that every time, Digit. You need a better catchphrase. Especially because you move the subject in the sentence up like that, and it sticks out. First few times, it sounds cool. Aft—”

The room suddenly fell dark, like the heat had been sucked out of it.

Hollow looked at Digit. “Those cameras stay on! We’ve got a webcast, goddammit! Subscribers are hard to come by, and if—”

“Come down into the basement,” Digit said, her eyes dancing as they reflected the moonlight coming through the dirty windows. “This is different. Saff found something.”

“Found what?”

The young woman hesitated and then said, “More.”

This was the thirteenth season of Ghost Wranglers and looked like it might be the last. The past few years they’d seen a steady decline in viewership. The program was too much of the same stuff —not just from them but all their copycats. And since Ghost Wranglers was basically a copycat itself, you ended up with a photocopy of a photocopy and after a while the images faded, becoming dull.

The network head suggested maybe Hollow go back to some of the old devices, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do that.

That was how they’d gotten attention and set themselves apart at first.

These were cowboy ghost hunters. In the early seasons, Hollow had even worn a hat and lasso, which was embarrassing for a dude from upstate New York.

Oh, they had some actual pros on the team, real investigators, and in keeping with that early buckaroo theme, their names fit like a glove.

Hollow followed Digit, moving from the top floor to the second and passing by one of the many bedrooms, this one filled with the strident voices of Doc and Rose. They brought a bit of clout to the show, but sometimes—a lot of sometimes—Hollow wondered if it was worth keeping them around, despite their rep of being bona fide explorers.

They’d had a popular show on the Travel Channel in which they took the viewers along on archaeological adventures. On that show, Doc and Rose were one part twenty-first-century Indiana Joneses and two parts circus acts. Their second biggest audience wasn’t even for a dig. It was when they’d gotten married at a site in Damascus, Syria, at an orthodox Christian church, one of the oldest in the world, with the entire liturgy in Syriac.

However, their highest-rated show was during one of their famous live, on-air fights. This one was in Egypt and had destroyed seventeen thousand dollars’ worth of broadcast equipment and a three-thousand-year-old mummy. It also left a two-year-old burro psychologically traumatized. However, the circumstances around how that happened were never documented.

Under threats from the Egyptian government, they were subsequently fired. They volunteered for a year at a Cairo museum to make amends, but when they came crawling back to the network, their show was as dead as the bones they once dug up.

They begrudgingly agreed to the only open positions available to them, which were on Ghost Wranglers, at that point in its fourth year.

Hollow glanced over at the room, listening to the yelling and banging that came from behind the door.

The owner of the house stood just down the dark and damp hallway, one of her frail hands rubbing at the corners of her mouth. When she caught sight of Hollow, she hurried over.

“Aye, sir, shouldn’t you be going in to see what the fuss is about?”

The Ghost Wranglers’ boss stopped halfway down to the next landing. He said, “They’re okay. If they break anything, I can take it out of their pay. It’s a rider on their contract.”

“I’m worried they’re going to break each other, sir!”

“No, no,” Hollow said and waved a hand. “They had a big fight in the airplane earlier, before we landed on the beach.”

“What on earth were they fighting about on an airplane?”

He shrugged. “Rose wanted the window seat.”

“So they’re destroying my home in round two, are they?”

“Nah,” he said. Then he listened for a moment and nodded. “They’re making up.”

“They sound like they’re wrecking the place!”

“No, that’s definitely making up.”

The woman said, “How can you tell the difference?”

Hollow started down to the next floor again. “It sounds similar, yeah, but when they’re making up, the slapping is more… damp.”

“That’s nasty,” Digit said, moving ahead of her boss, taking two steps at a time now. “Come on, we’re in the basement.”

“Of course we’re in the basement,” Hollow said with a sigh. “And turn your goddamn cameras back on!”

She did, and the penlights around her body lit up the stairs as they dropped deeper and deeper into the house.

On his holster, the one bit of cowboy detritus he kept from the early days because it was actually useful, his smartphone’s indicator light flashed green-yellow-red, green-yellow-red.

“Leave me alone, woman,” Hollow mumbled, not even needing to look at the screen. “Christ, how can I put a show on for you if you constantly want to interrupt it?”

Hollow’s legs just started to burn as he stepped onto the next landing. Another turn, then a door, and he began heading down the basement stairs.

Shit. “Why is it we always end up in basements?”

He clicked on his own cameras. Like all but one of their crew, he had one on his chest, another on his back, and a vanity cam that allowed him to talk directly to viewers. The cam also allowed for various dramatic expressions of reticence, excitement, fear, reluctance, and concern.

Today, they’d show something new.

Hollow entered the damp cellar, just a few steps behind Digit. The odor that smacked him in the face conjured up images of years of decaying leaves, newly uncovered. The ceiling was so low that Hollow had to hunch slightly as he moved toward where Sapphire and Digit, the youngest members of his team, now stood.

They looked strange from behind, like insects that had stumbled onto a web.

Sapphire was facing a wall, arms spread. In the splash of key and fill lights, he had a glow that was almost spiritual. Digit was just off to Hollow’s right as he approached, the young woman with both hands atop her head. Her legs moved like they were trying to drag her forward.

That was when he finally noticed the sound—like a rushing hurricane, but he couldn’t see an open door or window. Then he remembered he and his coworkers were in the basement.

He took another step toward Sapphire, whose sheer robe fluttered wildly in the light.

“No!” Digit yelled, stopping Hollow in his tracks.

Either she’s getting to be a better actor or…

“Saff, what are you picking up?” Hollow yelled, surprised by how thin his own voice sounded. He cleared his throat. “You feeling something here at the wall?”

Slowly the young man reached out. The long billowy sleeves of his flowing shirt fell, exposing thin, pale arms. Softly, his fingertips connected with the damp concrete.

“Saff?” their boss asked. “Sapphire, what’s going on?”

Hollow stepped into the pool of light, catching sight of himself in the nearby float cams, momentarily self-conscious that he’d put on about ten pounds in the last few months. He then reached for the wall.

Feels cold. Damp. Uh, wall-ish. Not like before. Whatever, go with it.

Working through a few script options quickly in his head, he looked at the soft features of the young man’s face. It was splotchy and red. Tears had dried on his checks.

“Saff?”

Sapphire opened his eyes, hugging as close to the wall as he could. Hollow could only watch. Just touching the wall for more than a few seconds chilled him to the bone. Here the young man was hugging the damn thing.

“He’s gone,” Sapphire said and frowned. “It… he is no longer here.”

“Who?”

The strange wind that overtaken the space fell to a whisper.

Sapphire turned and faced the blinding light. Then he shuffled into the dark.

Digit looked up from a device on her forearm. “About two more feet and you’ll hit a light stand. Veer a few degrees to your left, and you’ll find me, Saff.”

Hollow repeated himself. “Who? Who is gone?”

“I don’t know,” the young man said, the emptiness of his voice making the room colder. “He is seeking. I couldn’t hear it well, but he is wanting.”

Hollow clicked on his own light to capture Sapphire and Digit as he approached.

“Seeking what?”

“Not what,” Sapphire said. “Who.”

“Okay, who?”

Saff shook his head and half shrugged, facing a dark corner of the room. Digit was playing back the previous few minutes on a screen strapped to her forearm.

For the moment, they could only watch—as viewers did on TV and the Web—as Digit rewound the tape. Some more tech-savvy fans had already done that, and Twitter alerts were dinging like mad, but the hashtag made no sense to Hollow when he looked at the mentions.

“Hey, what the fuck’s going on?”

The team jumped as a voice from the steps split the darkness. Rose and Doc both looked a little battered. However, no matter what had transpired in the room upstairs, Rose looked better than her husband.

Hollow barked, “Can you not swear on live TV?”

“My Twitter feed is going bananas,” Rose said.

Doc shrugged and smiled. “We’re cable, man. All good.”

Rose sidled next to Digit for a moment, who still worked the monitor. Their tech took a half step away from her.

While they all watched the playback, Hollow stared at the wall. He found what he’d been looking for upstairs.

Ghost sign.

“Can’t be,” he muttered.

Then a voice, the audio small and tinny, reflected around the room. Sapphire had been in the playback. But even Saff didn’t recognize his own words in the recording.

Digit said, “I’ll need to get another camera feed. Hold on.”

Sapphire: “He said he was scared. Needed help.”

“How are we supposed to help?” Hollow wasn’t sure how much of this was just for the cameras.

“Not us. He was looking for someone. The only one who could help. That’s what he said, the only one that could help him. But I didn’t understand the name. It sounded so strange.”

Digit said, “Just let me get the other cam audio. Hold on.”

Rose replied, “You don’t have to. That explains the hashtag we’re linked to. Some other nerds out there beat you to it. Probably that Punq guy.” She held her phone to her boss.

Hollow asked, “Who the fuck is Painter Mann?”

CHAPTER TWO

My name is Painter Mann, and I am the world’s best dead private detective.

I am also the only dead private detective, so I suppose that makes me the worst too. Just so we’re all on the same page here.

After saving the world—no biggie, just sayin’—there was no reason to take a break. I mean, what does that even look like when you’re dead? It’s not like I can go sunning in Cabo or hit Vegas for a long weekend of gambling and peyote-fueled self-discovery.

I left my hometown of Minneapolis behind and went to New Orleans.

In part, I think I went there because it was one of my favorite cities while I was alive, but that’s really hard to pin down. A lot of my livin’ days have turned to ash in my mind, which happens for those of us stuck in the InBetween. But not all of us spooks lose a grip on our memories in the same way.

A barfly I met in Chicago, a ghost with a half cigarette he can’t smoke stuck between his fingers, has a pretty solid memory of stuff that happened a half century ago. That said, he also appears as he did at the time of his death—ciggie burning, half his face gone.

Usually, if you hang around here long enough, you sort of revert to an old memory of yourself—whatever image you’ve got in your mind about what you looked like.

But some don’t do that. Some hang on to that moment of death like a bad mood.

Me, I wander around with no indication of how I was murdered, instead projecting some old memory of how I saw myself. Unfortunately, that memory isn’t from my bodybuilder/runway model days, if I’d had any of those.

No, all day I’m in an old hoodie and dark jeans.

I don’t remember how I was killed, but I do remember the face of the guy who did it. It was time to work some shit out.

The smartest person I know in the InBetween said New Orleans would help me start doing that.

“Why?” I’d said. “Because it’s billed as the spookiest city in America?”

“‘Most haunted.‘ I believe that’s their preferred designation,” the Professor said, sitting at arm’s length from me, making slow, lazy circles.

She lives at the top of a mountain like a guru type should— although it’s Stone Mountain in Georgia. Part amusement park, part open-air concert venue, but mostly it’s a monument to the South’s everlasting resolve over the Civil War.

They ain’t done fighting. Just taking a break.

An odd place for a guru, sure, but I’ve lived in some pretty dodgy places, so who am I to judge?

“What’s in New Orleans that can help me?”

“It’s not a what. It’s a who.”

“Okay, who?”

The Professor looked at me for a long moment. Then, staring out toward the west, as she often did, she sighed.

“Tough call. Because this person will have some answers for you, but it... it’s just a tough call. I’m not sure I should tell you.”

“Why?”

“Because... an association with this person could get you answers. But I’m not sure that outweighs some of the dangers.”

“Either she can help me, or she can’t.”

The Professor stopped her slow spin and put her hands on her knees.

“Okay, imagine you are dying.”

“I’m dead, so--”

She sighed. “Are you going to work with me here?”

“Sorry.”

“Imagine you are dying.”

“Oh, that sucks.”

“But you find a potion that will give you everlasting life.”

“Oh, hey, that’s great.”

“But it’s in a room you can never leave.”

“That sucks.”

“But the room is the size of the Earth.”

“Score!”

“But there is no sun and everything is dead.”

I looked at her. “I think dating you while you were alive must have been a real challenge.”

“I never dated. I was once subjected to a betrothal ritual, but... “ She smiled. “That didn’t quite work out.”

“Jesus, how old are you?”

She shrugged. “Just know that if you go seek out this person in New Orleans, you cannot fully trust them.”

That conversation had put me on the road to New Orleans.

I needed to learn the name of the man who killed me, which meant I’d be putting my work on hold.

Most people die of natural causes, and they whip right past this place.

The InBetween is where you end up when you are murdered and the killer's name is not known. That creates an imbalance, a rift. My job, as the world’s only dead private investigator, is to right that ship. I help those who end up stuck in the InBetween get clear and go to whatever is next.

I’ve sworn an oath to do that.

Frankly, I dunno why. I’m sure I had a good reason when I made that promise. I just don’t remember. All I know is it’s important—or, at the very least, important to me.

That said, after the near-end-of-the-world experience I’d just had, I was ready for a bit of downtime. Calm. A little investigative holiday in the Big Easy could be just that.

But it seemed the world had other plans for me.

On the outskirts of New Orleans, I came across a type of warehouse district, the sort that business folks with deep pockets— or heroic loans at less-than-heroic interest rates—build quickly before city executives can fully sober up from their opening-day celebrations to create proper zoning laws.

The sun was just blowing the steam off its first cup of coffee, peeking up above the horizon to see what a mess everyone made the night before.

For the most part, the city streets were quiet, scattered with blowing food wrappers, empty cardboard cups, and a homeless guy or two.

I stopped when I heard a low growl that seemed to come from a record store.

You couldn’t see in the store’s windows because of all the black T-shirts in the windows—Megadeth, Misfits, Cannibal Corpse—but then I realized the guttural sound was coming from the alley.

There I saw two cats balancing on the edge of a Dumpster, dipping their heads in, chewing slightly, and then doing it all over again.

Below them was something that at first looked like a fuzzy rat. The thing turned out to be a very dirty lapdog, as if some old biddy or Instagrammer had lost track of their pet and it broke free only to realize that the world was not lined with puppy dinners in tiny single-serving tin cans.

On first glance, it seemed to be waiting to devour one of the kitties. However, both cats outweighed the shivering thing. When I saw a bit of bread fall from one of the feline’s mouths and the dog scurry over to snap it up, their relationship became clear.

Sure, a bizarre sort of reversal.

Yet it seemed to work for all involved, so who was I to judge?

The next block up, an elderly couple was working to open their shoebox store for the day. The man sat on his haunches as he twisted his keys at the bottom of the door, while she used a long metal rod to unfurl an awning over the sidewalk.

Just beyond their front window was a quiet act of defiance of the laws of physics—they seemed to have more items inside their store than should fit into a space that small. Bags of coffee and bottles of liquids in every color and a few I couldn’t even name. Boxes of soap, cereal, snacks for the kids, snacks for adults, pasta in every iteration.

When I saw the tiny tins of dog food with puppies flashing forced smiles on their labels, I looked back at the little mongrel by the dumpster, which had its head inside an ice cream container that the kitties had discarded.

“Much better off with that, man,” I said to it.

I watched the old couple move in a quiet rhythm, neither of them speaking but working in tandem to get their little slice of heaven ready for the day.

Then there was a moment I will always remember. Or at least, I hope I always will.

It was small—insignificant for them, maybe—but when the man went to the locked mail slot on the other side of the awning, he and the woman crossed. Each casually extended a hand to the other, and their fingers brushed.

I fought to control a sob, unsure why the sight affected me so, and then kept walking down the street. The moment was lovely, but in the end, it was theirs, not mine to intrude upon.

A quiet, soft morning in an awakening city. This moment was the first in a long time that I didn’t have a care in the world.

I had no idea then how wrong I was.

“Leave me alone!”

In a burst of black—black pants, black shirt, black skin—a man flew past me. He rounded the next corner between a shuttered auto parts store and a bakery with a half dozen livies sitting at tables by the front window. They sat hunched over their morning coffees, staring down and looking for answers in the dark liquid.

None of them, of course, noticed the scene just outside the glass, not even when two more ghosts came around the corner, chasing down the first.

I had no idea what was unfolding, but you know when you see a couple of pricks. It’s human instinct. These two were a particular brand of prick, but I made that call mainly because both sported stupid, old-timey hats. They were the sort you might pick up at a costume store that had to have a going-out-of-business sale due to stocking only accessories that pricks would wear.

Without really thinking, I put a knee out, tripping up the second one as he passed, and he went tumbling ass over teakettle into the street.

With nothing to stop him—he passed through a trash can, newspaper stand, and a late-seventies Buick rolling by—he slid down the street about fifty yards until he could regain his footing.

His buddy had failed to notice and kept running.

The spook got back on his feet, readjusted his stupid hat, looked over at me, flexed his arm, and gave me a wave.

“Hey, man, thanks!”

He then took off after the man in black.

I frowned, annoyed that he hadn’t noticed my expression.

“Shit,” I mumbled and started after them, even though my energy level took a hit when he ran into me. I’d mistimed it and, instead of taking a handful of juice off him, I’d handed a bit over.

Unsure of what I was getting into, I found myself chasing after the three of them. I was a private investigator, not a cop, but I had a thing against bullies, so I started moving without even thinking.

Despite their head start, I do have a strange advantage over most others in the InBetween. While any spook can walk or run, for whatever reason, I can skate.

I don’t actually skate, of course. A shiny pair of Bauer Tuuks doesn’t magically appear to pierce through the soles of my feet, ready for action, as if I were some Wayne Gretsky-Wolverine crossbreed.

But, with a bit of concentration, I can push off with my insteps and move as if I were on a pair of skates, moving faster and faster with seemingly no limit on my speed.

So it didn’t take me long to catch up with the two Hatters pursuing the first guy. Despite the bozo air these guys gave off, I knew better than to think they were harmless. Being stupid doesn’t mean you’re not dangerous.

As we came up to the next intersection, businesses on either side of us waking up to the day, I saw the man in black take a left one block up. Cars stood on either side of the street, choking up the lane, their owners likely attending a church service or something.

I banked to the left, taking the road the two pursuing spooks had just passed, threading between two competing car dealers not yet open for the day. Based on their signs, they both offered low-value cars with high-interest loans.

Sure, spooks don’t have to take roads or sidewalks or anything like that. We can pass right through buildings, no sweat, but you do see everything when you do—paint, bricks, wood, siding, every layer in detail.

It’s the same when you inadvertently pass through living people. That is very blech-inducing. Skin, hair, tissue, and all sorts of various goos and sinew and just blech, blech, blech.

At the end of the road, which branched into a T-shape, I saw a cavernous converted warehouse space with more cars parked in the street. The building had two stories. The top windows split a large banner into three showing a picture of four smiling people, all with whiter-than-white teeth, and the name of some television morning show.

Beneath it, three guys were smoking by some stairs next to a giant rollaway door. Inside that space sat long benches and tables of empty coffee cups.

Moving fast, I glanced to my right and caught sight of the dude in black.

“Hey, man!” I called, and when he turned, I jutted a finger toward the television studio. “Down this street here.” When he didn’t quite get the message, I just shouted for him to follow me.

He disappeared behind a building on the street over.

At first, I thought he’d either not understood or decided I might be with the Mad Hatters, but midway down the next block, he burst through a secondhand clothing store and looked at me with wide eyes.

“Those assholes are right behind me, man,” he said, his voice shaking. “Chasing me for weeks!”

I thought of grabbing his arm. I could move faster than he could, but if I gripped too fast or too hard, I would steal a bit of his juice.

That would break my first rule, so instead, I put an arm out.

“Hold on,” I said. “It looks like there’ll be a small crowd in there. We can get lost in it.”

He grabbed me, snagging a teaspoon of my energy in the process —“Sorry, man”—and I hauled him quickly toward the warehouse ahead.

Behind us, I heard a frustrated yell and knew that his pursuers were now less than a block away, and they would quickly close in. And of course, now they were after me as well.

Sure, I could have kept skating with the guy, but there was a problem with that.

A bit breathless, despite no longer having lungs, he said, “Every time I think I’ve ditched them, maybe a day or two, bam, there they are again.”

We passed the three smoking dudes, who had no idea two ghosts just slid past them.

I said, “Yeah, once you have a bit of an encounter with another spook, it’s almost like a scent or feeling. You wander around long enough, and you’ll get right back to them.”

We rocketed past the empty chairs and table with half-overturned cups.

I knew of very few ways to cut off that scent trail, but something in a distant memory told me I might find an answer nearby.

First, we could take a moment to get our bearings if I was right about what might be on the other side of the studio wall.

“Hold on!” I said as we were about to pass through it, hearing the calls of the two pricks chasing us.

On the other side, the place burst with light—and then laughter.

Deep into the studio space was a brilliantly lit live TV set. Four people lined a flat V-shaped desk that sat upon a rostrum. An older man was standing off to their left at a green wall that stretched from floor to ceiling.

In the monitors above us, the man stood before an animated map of New Orleans.

Fortunately, the audience was lit up like a Friday night football field, too, and I quickly saw why. One of the presenters at the desk had obviously made some remark that got the crowd laughing, and the four monitors hanging from the ceiling cut to a shot of the live audience yukking it up.

The Hatters would come through the wall in a few seconds, so I motioned to the dude holding my arm and nodded to the crowd.

“Let’s hide in with the livies.”

“What?”

Whoever this guy was, he was new to the InBetween. I didn’t have time to explain, so I just led him over and put us next to a large woman, dressed head to toe in pink, sitting with two teens who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.

We wouldn’t be able to sit on the risers—we’d just pass through them—but if our pursuers didn’t look too closely as we stood there, we’d look like anyone else in the audience, just copping a squat and enjoying the show.

Just as the two Hatters burst through the back wall and flinched at the bright lights, the crowd burst into another fit of laughter. I did the same, elbowing my new friend so he would follow suit. The elbow also took back the tiny bit of juice he’d inadvertently snagged from me.

If the spooks didn’t look too closely—and why would they look into a crowd of livies for us?—we’d blend right in.

The two of them did a quick scan, their eyes darting around the brightly lit studio and not really focusing too hard in any one spot. A few seconds later, they dashed for the set, heading toward the big green wall.

My ruse had worked.

They thought we went right through.

One of them clenched his fists and yelled. When they launched through the wall and got back in the chase, I couldn’t help but smile.

However, I’d just caught something out of the corner of my eye.

The moment the Hatter had growled in anger, I looked up at the monitor and saw the old weatherman had flinched slightly, lost his footing briefly, then resettled. This action had drawn a comment from one of the folks at the desk, and again, the crowd laughed.

The man in black looked at me. His face was a vision of relief.

“How did they not see us?”

We needed to wait a moment to make sure the two spooks didn’t double back when they failed to find us on the other side.

I said, “There weren’t looking for livies. And in the bright light, to other spooks, we look just like anyone else here. It’s different in the dark. You and me will stand out whereas livies will blend into the dark.”

“Shit, that explains so much. I tried hiding a couple times down dark streets, thinking they wouldn’t see me.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, you would have just looked like some Casper the Friendly Ghost against a backdrop of black.”

“Shit.”

I told him I’d get him up to speed with what I knew, but before that, we needed to shake the Hatters more permanently.

“Do we have to stay here?” He motioned to the TV hosts, whose expressions had changed in the last minute. “These guys are awful.”

I laughed. “I think we’re good. Let’s find the server room. That should help get them off your tail.”

“The what?”

“I remember something about TV studios. Sets like this, there’ll be a server room that sends camera feeds off to another location, bringing in other feeds, video, audio.”

“Okay. And that helps us?”

“I’ll show you,” I said as the crowd let out another tittering laugh, though it was a little more strained than before. “Let’s make sure those guys are gone first.”

We crossed the set, passing by the weatherman who was bent at the waist, his face red, as if he were laughing at some dumb joke.

Pushing my head through the green wall, I saw the street behind the warehouse studio.

A garbage truck rolled down the street. One guy slowly dropped off the back and loped toward a line of bins.

The other direction held nothing.

For now, we were in the clear.

But before I turned back, I saw something just on the other side of the big truck shaded by the hulking machine. A swirl of movement? For a moment, it looked like… an animal in the shadows?

Something large and frenetic. It looked wrong.

I blinked, and then it was gone.

When I pulled my head back, I said, “Let’s go,” and started toward some workers hidden in the shadows. One woman there pawed at an audio mixer.

He stopped me and said, “Wait. Who are you?”

“I am Painter Mann, the world’s best dead detective,” I said. “But since I’m the only one, technically, I’m the worst too. Just want to be fair about that.”

That was the first time I saw him smile. “You’re dead, and you got a job?”

I smiled back and said, “I’m just trying to help, man.”

Then I noticed two things.

First, something was happening on set. The people in the shadows, the producers, camera operators, and others with clipboards, were all now moving quickly.

And when I’d said those last words, strangely, they’d echoed.

I turned back and saw the weather guy had gone down on one knee, his arms wrapped tightly around his body.

I said, “Shit, what’s going on?”

The old man at the green screen also mumbled, “Shit, what’s going on?”

The man in black came up beside me. “I think he’s having a stroke or something.”

“I think he’s having a stro—”

The old man flinched and then swayed, and I heard a tinny voice call out: “Go to break! Go to break!”

He collapsed.

A moment later, the people in the dark came rushing forward.

The two of us just stared as the room erupted into pandemonium. Many in the bleachers sat in stunned silence; others had pulled out their phones to share with the world what was happening in the studio.

“Nothing we can do here, man,” I said. “Let’s go find that server room before those two goons come back.”

We passed the audio setup and slipped through the wall. It took us a moment to find it—we cut through the makeup room where a woman leaned up against a barber-style chair, eating some potato chips from a bag and sipping wine from the bottle. Then we passed a small sitting room where a man dressed in a green zoo uniform balanced a cage on his lap.

He was staring up at the monitor, watching what unfolded in the studio.

The ferret in the cage, however, was more interested in some little bit of sausage the man was holding, pawing at the wires trying to get to it.

Finally, we found the server room, I nearly tripped over the raised floor. He did and splayed out flat on it, sliding.

“What the hell,” he said, his face pressed into the flooring. “Why didn’t I pass through that?”

Chuckling, I reached out to stop him from going through the next wall. He got to his feet.

“Floors are solid to us,” I said. “Stairs, platforms, that sort of thing. Even balconies.”

“But, wh--?”

“Don’t ask, I don’t know,” I said. “That’s just the way it is.”

We were surrounded by various gadgets blinking and whirring while the sounds of electric fans filled the air.

There were racks upon racks of metal rectangular boxes stacked from floor to ceiling with words like Dell and HP and Lenovo. From the backs of each of these, there was a thick patchwork of thin wires, all different colors, as if they’d been old robots with their intestines split from their bellies.

At least five small color monitors were tucked snugly into the metal scaffolding, as if to justify the chaos. Each screen held a different picture—the studio, remote locations, color bars.

“There’s a ton of electricity passing through here. That should help you out.” I sat down and motioned for him to do the same. “Let’s hang here for a few minutes.”

“What will that do?”

I asked him if he’d heard of the astronomer Carl Sagan. He hadn’t.

“Well, he famously said, ‘We are all made up of star stuff.’”

“Pretty cool.”

“Yeah, he was talking more about the elements that make us up, I think—carbon, calcium and, uh, plutonium.”

“I don’t think we’re made of plutonium.”

“Don’t mess with my smart-guy groove, man,” I said, and he laughed. “It’s rare I get to sound smart, so lemme have my moment.”

“Apologies. Lay it on me.”

“Well, Carl was more right than he knew because, after death, all we are is energy. Like stars, right, just energy.”

“Got it.”

“That’s why energy can transfer when we bang into each other. It’s really the only currency we got in the InBetween.”

“Right. And this room kicks up a bunch of static, breaking that line between me and those assholes.”

I gave him an exaggerated frown. “Don’t get ahead of me, now. I’m learnin’ you something!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said and smiled. He looked happy to be able to smile.

“So, it may sound confusing, but... this room kicks up a bunch of static, breaking that line between you and those assholes.”

“Amazing.”

I shrugged. “We’re just energy now. No bodies. So, any links we’ve got are, as I understand it, just electromagnetic entanglements. This should sort of clear any connection those two pricks had with you. Kind of like turning a computer off and on. A reset.”

He kept looking at the wall.

“We shouldn’t be here, man,” he said. “This isn’t natural. Not the way God would have intended his children to pass through His realm.”

“Uh-huh, totally,” I said. “And you’re right. The InBetween is like some sort of construct built on our reality.”

“Doesn’t feel right. Who did this? The Devil?”

“Well, I don’t know about all of that, but as far as I can tell and from what I’ve seen, I think one of us did it. Humans.”

“How…?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know it was built for one purpose: vengeance.”

“Man, that is what I’m feeling. That darkness is everywhere here.”

“It seems someone was so mad about dyin’ they were able to create this place for, I dunno... payback, I guess.”

“It’s unnatural. It’s wrong.”

I needed to get moving soon, find out my own truths, so I changed the subject. I asked him his name.

“Sue. My name is Sue.”

Of course it was. The man in black’s name was Sue.

He said, “Before you ask, yes, my father did give me that name. And yes, he was a fan of Johnny Cash.”

I nodded at his clothes. “That explains your getup.”

He laughed. “Sort of. I never really did wear black so much. But here I am. Can’t seem to take these clothes off either.”

My turn to laugh came. “Because they ain’t clothes, man! They’re just sort of your perception of you. That’s what happens. You revert to that after a while, so you must have been dead a few weeks, then.”

He nodded, eyes still on where we’d entered from.

Again, I assured him we were safe, but then he shook me off and said, “What happened in there?”

“I think that guy was dying.”

“So, he’s gonna end up here in this InBetween place?”

“Nah, this is just for people who get murdered. It creates an imbalance. My job is to fix that.”

“It was weird, though, right? He was repeating what we were saying.”

“Yeah, some people who are really close to dying can hear the dead. Very few, but that can be helpful.”

“How?”

“I can’t do my work without them. I partner with livies close to death, and they basically do the admin for me. Publish the names of people’s killers. Best when it’s a bona fide article on a news site. That can help the family. But a simple post on Wikipedia or Reddit or sites like that work just as well. Once I can work out who killed somebody, I arrange that post, they clear. Move on.”

“You work with people who are dying? That must make recruitment a twenty-four-seven job.”

“Let’s get you schooled up a bit on some other basics.”

His face softened. “Man, I would appreciate that so much. I so fucking lost right now.”

“I hope it’ll all be temporary.”

“You gonna solve my murder, PI? No need. I know who did it.”

“Yeah?”

He scowled. “It was the Cajun. The shady club owner. Drug dealer. Pimp, I bet.”

“Nice guy.”

“It was strange, dying and all.”

“Well, of course—”

“No, I mean... I dunno, it wasn’t like he wanted to kill me. I didn’t even know the guy. He wanted me after I was dead.”

I looked at Sue. “How do you know that?”

“I didn’t even know the guy; he had no reason to kill me. No, he wanted me, you know, after. My ghost body.”

Recently, I had seen that. Ghosts were being used for their energy, groups of them turned into power stations. The Ghost Mob had done that. Maybe they were back at it with a new partner.

“Do you know if he planned on taking you somewhere? Like a big warehouse space or anything like that?”

“No, whatever he was planning, it was gonna be right there and then. Some ritual.”

“Ritual?”

“Yeah, after I died...” he said but got hung up on the last word for just a moment. He took a moment to compose himself again.

“It’s all right, man,” I said. “It can hit you all at once sometimes. Takes a while to get used to the idea.”

You never really did, but I didn’t bother telling him that. I hoped he wouldn’t be stuck here long enough to find out.

“So, uh, after... it was weird. He did something. Him and, um, there was someone else. But I was there... kneeling, I think. Frozen.”

“For what purpose?”

“I don’t know. Nothing good.”

“Wait, though. You got away, right? So...”

His face darkened for a moment and then saddened.

“There was this girl, who I, I dunno, I thought she was sort of a friend. Anyway, she had sort of been a part of it, lured me away into this room, but when she saw what he’d done, my body dead on the floor, she freaked out. Started hitting him and screaming. Because of that, I freed up and ran. Just ran. But not long after, those two guys were right there on my tail. I’d shake ’em for a day or two, and then they’d be right back.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, I’ve been running ever since,” he said and sighed. “I don’t think she knew what he’d planned. And I don’t think I was the first.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Looking back on it, which I’ve done quite a bit, you can see the vectors, right? This led to that, which led to this. It was part of the plan to set me up.” He stared off for a moment, his eyes watering. “Yeah, I wasn’t the first.”

He was quiet for a moment. I broke the silence.

“But you said she freaked out when she saw you dead.”

He shrugged, apparently lost in thought.

“What happened to her?”

He shrugged again, his eyes losing focus. This was a danger for spooks, especially new ones.

“Don’t do that, man,” I said. “Don’t brood.”

“Brood?” he asked.

“If you let that go too long, you can get into this spiral, lose time.” He was still staring off, so gently I placed a hand on his shoulder. “It makes you vulnerable.” He continued to stare, so I flicked his ear.

“Ow!”

“And we’re back,” I said. “See, that took a bit of energy off you. You’re like an AA battery. Rechargeable, though.”

He rubbed his ear, which he must have done through force of habit, since he didn’t technically feel pain. Or, of course, have an ear.

“Okay, how do I recharge?”

“Just being around gives you a slow trickle charge. Moving is better. I dunno, passing by other electromagnetic fields or however that works. Going over water is even faster, but you gotta get a run-up. And once your battery is full, you can’t trickle any more in. But you can steal it.”

“Oh? That sounds important.”

“More than you know. If I were to bash the shit out of you for a little while, I’d nearly double my juice. You’d be flat out. Not empty but you wouldn’t be able to move for a good long while.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, avoid that. Now, that said, if you are carrying around extra energy, you can only hold it a while. It bleeds off. But it can give you a bit of a boost. But don’t do it at someone else’s expense.”

“Got it.”

“You know this already, I’m sure, but walls you can go right through. No dice for stairs, floors, hills, mountains. Those are solid. Cars, buses, airplanes are out unless you’ve got something with grain, which feels solid to us. Or you can hold on.”

“Hold on?”

“You can put a bit of juice into your hands and sort of grab solid things. It takes practice and a lot of energy, so I don’t recommend it unless you need to.”

“It sounds easier to find something with grain, as you called it, and jump into that.”

“Only way that happens if someone dies violently, suddenly. Usually, it’s from some accident like a car wreck, but anything particularly violent can do that. It’s like a person’s... leftovers. That can give grain to something for a long while.”

He closed his eyes and nodded slowly.

I asked him his full name, and he gave it to me. I said, “Okay, you won’t be here long. I’ll get you cleared.”

“Thanks, Painter.”

“You cool?” He nodded, and I wished him good luck and told him to be careful with strangers. This latter directive got a smile out of him. Dude had a great smile.

I pushed through the wall of the server room and then walked outside into the street again.

So far, my bit of downtime in New Orleans had been anything but. At that moment, though, I was happy that burst of excitement was over. I was convinced things had settled down, and I could get back to why I’d come to the Big Easy in the first place.

I had no idea that those previous ten minutes set in motion events that would change my path forever.

CHAPTER THREE

Leaving the man in black back at the television studio, I crossed the sun-dappled streets of the suburbs and headed toward downtown New Orleans.

Starting into a slow skate, I looked for the river. Skating works exceptionally well on water, which, as I’d told Sue, has a mild weirdness with the spooks in the InBetween. I’m convinced that weirdness extends into all sorts of places I’ve yet to discover.

We don’t get wet crossing a huge body of water. We cross over it like on land. However, we can still go through water when it’s, say, in a tub or something. Not sure why that is. I expect it’s about perception, which plays a far greater role in this pre-afterlife area than anyone really understands.

Except maybe the Professor. She’s the smartest person I know, although I don’t really know her name. I’ve always just called her the Professor. Should be the Guru because she literally sits on a mountain in Georgia, but ah, well. I consider her an adviser; however, she’s often not very forthcoming.

But she knows the InBetween better than anyone I’ve ever met. I think that’s because she’s rumored to have been here hundreds, maybe thousands, of years.

On the other hand, she might have started those rumors herself.

As I skated down the winding Mississippi past towns like LaPlace and Montz, I wove my way through manic flotillas of shipping vessels. I didn’t see many pleasure boats, like around the lakes back home in Minneapolis. Here, it was all business, and given the traffic, business was good.

The congestion made my skate-and-glide across the green-gray water a bit slower than the less popular areas upriver. I could go right through the big boats, but if a spook were on board, I’d smack right into them.

That wouldn’t have to be bad. I find a good number of clients that way—just smacking into them when moving, skating, at high speeds from place to place. You don’t mean to, but sometimes you are drawn to each other.

But, for now, I had personal business in the city.

Weaving through and dodging the massive container boats, I thought back to my last conversation with the Professor again, the one that brought me here.

As always, she’d been sitting on her big rock in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Down below, some local country artist was playing. I don’t love country, but it’s okay when it slides into the bluesy rock stuff.

But after you’re dead, you take what you can get when it comes to music. Tunes are one of the things, almost universally, everyone misses here. You can’t fire up your music files or Spotify or a radio station at will.

“It’s frustrating sometimes,” the Professor had said to me, the newly clear night sky above us. “The music down below reflects off the rock and tree line, so you never get the melody quite right. It’s like the needle doesn’t quite connect to the record.”

“Oh?” I smiled. “So you were alive when records were a thing?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t say that.”

“What about eight-tracks?”

“I’m not so familiar.”

“They’re weird but kinda cool,” I said, lying back on the rock and staring at the sky. “I have a vague memory of a friend whose dad had one in his study, some throwback to when he was a kid, I suppose. Every now and then the music would fade down, and it would click then fade back up. Right in the middle of a song.”

“Annoying.”

“Yeah, it was funny. Like the band was made up of old drunks and they’d all sort of drifted off, passed out for a moment, and the click woke them back up, so they started playing again.”

“What a surprise the format didn’t last.”

I went up on my elbows and looked at her. She was staring off to the west, as she did. Or maybe it was east. To be honest, I’m not terribly good at directions.

But when she thought I wasn’t paying attention, she always seemed to be looking in the same spot. I wasn’t sure whether she was longing for something, looking toward some past joy or love or whatever, or the other possibility—watching out for trouble. Danger. A threat from what, of course, I didn’t know and, out of respect for her privacy, I never asked.

“At least with eight-tracks, though, like records and cassettes and CDs you can hold that in your hand. Like, this is a thing I really like, what’s in here. Looking down at an album cover. I can carry this thing I like around.”

“You can do that with digital music, too, I suppose,” she said.

“Yeah, but it’s just, you know, blips of energy. No substance.”

She shrugged. “Like us, then. The ghosts of the InBetween.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. That notion seemed deeply significant and one that might even help me understand something about my truest, inner self.

So I changed the subject.

“I need to find out who killed me,” I said. “I mean, I thought I knew, but I was wrong.”

She smiled at me. “You looking to finally clear out? Give the name of your killer to one of your Temps and have them put it on the wicked-y thing?”

“Wi-ki-pe-dia,” I said like some kid correcting his mom’s attempt to sound cool. “No, not yet. But one day, it’ll be my time to go. I need to be able to pull the trigger on my terms, so to speak.”

She nodded. “You know, names are powerful. If you discover the identity of the person who killed you, your enemies could use it to clear you.”

“I don’t have enemies,” I said and smiled stupidly. “Just pre-friends.”

“How have you lasted this long?”

“With your help!” I laughed. “You are the wind beneath my wings, Professor.” Then, as if a lightning bolt had struck me, I sat up. “Wait, hold on.”

She smiled.

“Is that why you go by the Professor?”

“You call me that. But, yes, I’ve gone by various names,” she said and looked over at me. “And, yes, none are the real one. No one has that power over me. I will clear on my terms, if that’s my wish.”

I thought about that for a long time.

“Do you know who killed you?” I asked.

“I have what I need to clear, yes.”

“That’s all I’m looking for. If you know how I might find that…” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I mean, we’re friends, right?”

“Or…” She looked at me, smiling back. “Pre-enemies.”

When I looked at her again, I saw something in her eyes, but then she blinked it away.

“Come on. I just need to know.”

She sighed and said, “I can give you the name of someone who might be able to help you. But do not trust her.” She then gave me that person’s name.

I burst out laughing.

“Voodoo Cher?” I asked and then laughed again. “Is that a joke? What kind of name is that?”

The Professor didn’t share my humor. “She knows everything there is to know about the InBetween. However, she is...”

“What? Crabby?”

“No.”

“Lactose intolerant?”

“No.”

“Well-read?”

“No. I mean, maybe, but that’s—”

“Tall but insists on wearing heels?”

“Stop!” the Professor said, covering her ears, trying not to grin. “I was going to say she’s, um, how do you say it delicately? She’s rather, uh, crazy.”

“Oh, oh,” I said, widening my eyes. “I always like the crazy ones.”

The strangest expression then passed across my friend’s face. Before I could decipher it, it was gone.

The smile slipped from my own lips, and I looked away for a moment.

“How do I find Voodoo Cher, then?”

“She can’t leave her home, so you will find her there. She never leaves.”

“Can’t? What does that mean?”

She finally smiled. “You want all the answers in one day? I’ve got to protect my all-knowing status. I don’t need you opening up shop in that frozen wasteland where you live.”

“Don’t talk shit about my Twin Cities, now,” I said. “You live in a city so dumb, they put millions of people in an area with no flowing water supply. No river. That’s why there’s so many flakes here!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Because it’s dry,” I said. “So, you know, dryness makes things, I don’t know. Flaky.”

She squinted. “Are you sure you were once an entertainer?”

“I think so. I believe I was paid for it at some point.”

“They pay Vin Diesel too. Obviously, being paid is not a verification of capacity or ability.”

“What? Hero of the common man, champion of truth,” I said and grinned again. “Do you think when he hands out his phone number to girls, he goes, ‘Baby, here’s my VIN number!’ I would if I were him.”

She looked at me squarely. “I don’t get it.”

“Ah, you were probably born before they invented humor.”

She shrugged. “And clearly, you were born after it had been discontinued.”

Damn. I pointed at her, stood up, and bowed several times. “You win, you win.”

“I always do.”

“Okay, I’m going to go find Voodoo Cher. I’m glad it’s not Native American Cher or feather-and-sequins Cher. I would, however, be very okay with leather-and-fishnets-‘Turn-Back-Time’ Cher.”

“I thought you were leaving.”

“Okay, fine. Where do I find Voodoo Cher?”

“With a name like that? Where do you think?”

I nodded. I waved at her, too, but didn’t wait for her to return the gesture because she never did.

That conversation had put me on a path to New Orleans. I was now sliding past big boats carrying everything from containers of fruit to motorcycles to toys. Everything was in the same wrapper. Who knew what was inside?

All I had was a name. Or what I thought the name was: Voodoo Cher. That wasn’t a ton to go on, so I’d need the help of some local spooks to point me in the right direction.

Doing that could be a roll of the dice. Despite the Ghost Mob taking a massive hit, there are still Blind Spots everywhere. In those places, spooks with bad intentions tend to group together. Sometimes, they’ll send out raiding parties and mug other ghosts— basically taking swipes at some innocent until they take nearly all their energy.

There was a chance Sue had gotten caught up in that. But I had my doubts.

I had a vague memory of New Orleans—or at least I could recall the smell, the wafting sweet-sickly odor of stale beer and something rotting in a dumpster.

However, that may just be the French Quarter.

Taking the river just east of the Seventh Ward, I was really struck by what I saw. In most cities, you might see a spook every few blocks or so. As violent as the US can be, the unsolved murder rate isn’t all that high.

Apparently, that was not the case for New Orleans. I’d been skating down the Mississippi, then I hooked up a canal just before the Lower Ninth. From there, I’d have to walk. It was too dangerous.

It wasn’t dangerous because there were a bunch of bad spooks hanging around—the place was packed with ghosts! I’d never seen so many in my, uh, death.

In the daylight, it can be hard to pick out the dead from the livies, but heading down St. Claude Avenue—woof, people were everywhere. Now, spooks, we can pass right through the live ones.

As I told Sue, the dead, though, are as solid as livies are to one another.

I hooked a left a few blocks then right again when it looked like the dead and living thinned out a bit.

The signs told me Royal Street would take me straight to the French Quarter. I didn’t know why I assumed Voodoo Cher would be there. But I had to start somewhere.

However, before I got there, I was attacked.

CHAPTER FOUR

At the request of the Scottish woman whose house they’d flown eleven hours to see, the Ghost Wranglers were heading to a small late-night market with a list of groceries for dinner.

Hollow used the short trip in the W-1 to work out what to do next.

As usual, the network had a Wrangler-1 vehicle ready to go by the time they’d landed. Along with the crew’s personal body cameras, the W-1 had eight separate cams, all feeding into a satellite or cellular uplink. The vehicle was basically a hundred-thousand-dollar souped-up cargo van. There were actually six Wrangler-1s in various locations around the world.

Well, only five were in working order after Doc and Rose had had a knock-down-drag-out in Perth, Australia. One version of events was that Rose had caught Doc, after a chance encounter with the cohost of another reality TV production in their hotel lobby, trying to suck spider venom from a bite on the inner thigh of the long-legged female cohost of Outback Gold Hunters.

Another version of the story had Doc finding Rose offering said so-called medicinal assistance to the same long-legged female cohost.

Rolling across the dark, chilly Scottish countryside, Digit was shutting down the interior lights after they’d wrapped up the aftershow. When their television program ended, they always had a fifteen- or twenty-minute debrief exclusive to their subscribers.

The network paid them a salary plus quarterly ratings bonuses. The revenue from the streaming and the myriad social media outlets, however, was theirs and theirs alone, so it was a priority.

From a jump seat by the door, Hollow cracked a window and lit a cigarette, drawing complaints from everyone in his crew but Sapphire, who only cocked his eyebrow and waited.

“Hush,” their boss said, but his resolve weakened. He must have felt Saff’s dead eyes behind the dark, round Lennon-styled sunglasses burning into him. After one deep drag, he tossed the cigarette outside. “Happy?”

Sapphire merely said, “No, but I am indeed transitioning from one state to the next.”

“Save your weird for the cameras, ’kay?” their boss said. “All cams and feeds off, Digit?”

She said, “All outgoing, yes.”

“Can anyone really tell me what the hell happened tonight?”

His crew all looked at one another.

Doc spoke first. “Well, me and Rose, we’ve been going through a rough patch, so, I mean, she was bending down looking under the dead guy’s bed—”

“Christ, I don’t mean that!” Hollow yelled. His tone surprised even himself, but he let it stand. He’d convinced himself long ago that a little fear could go a long way. It also meant he didn’t have to apologize very often and that suited him just fine. “Saff, do you really have nothing else?”

“Nothing else?” His voice went from calm to strident in a breath. “I thought I was clear—that was full-on, reaching-into-the-ethereal-plane contact, Hollow. I don’t know about you, but we haven’t seen that in… I mean... well, this is something new.”

Rose yelled, her fists in tight little balls. “Do you realize what you’re saying? I mean, Christ, really?”

“Settle down, hon.” Her husband reached out, and she batted his hand away.

“Shut up, Doc,” she continued. “Sapphire, you’re saying, you’re actually saying… that we had a fucking encounter with a ghost! Not strange apparitions on the playback because Digit cranked up the contrast or, or, or… ‘voices’ that were actually just radio signals bleeding into the feed. You are saying this is the real thing. Ghosts are a real thing.” Rose looked around the dark van as they all just sat quietly and stared off. “I thought I knew this world. I thought I knew. But this... we’ve never seen this.”

“Budapest, four years ago,” Doc said, pronouncing it boo-dah-pesht, twisting the wheel slightly to avoid something in the road. The zippers on his leather forearm bands twinkled as he did.

Digit frowned. “We’ve never been to Hungary, Doc.”

“Didn’t say Hungary,” he said to his rearview, underlining his words with a finger pointing from a leather-clad fist. “Budapest.”

“Moron. You just like saying Budapest.” Rose took a deep cleansing breath, then stretched out, lying like a cat on the passenger seat. She kicked Doc lightly in the back of the head. “I think you think it makes you sound exotic and dangerous.”

When Doc grinned, he showed only his lower teeth. Digit once said they looked like a row of tiny bleach-white tombstones.

“Last time we had anything like that, we were at a pyramid or something,” Digit added.

“Mexican east coast. Two hours in from Cozumel,” Rose said, snapping the leather straps off her forearms. “And I still think that might have had something to do with Saff eating the worm.”

Doc twitched slightly and began to speak but was interrupted by Hollow. “Shut up, Doc.”

Their driver sunk into his seat and gripped the wheel tighter. Tinkle, tinkle.

Sapphire said, “This wasn’t a hallucination. Or, you know, um…”

Hollow helped him out. “Embellishment?”

The young blind man’s head pitched forward slowly. “Exaggeration, let’s say. Enhancement of, you know…”

Rose put a consoling black-socked foot on his shoulder. “We get it, Saff. Gotta give the folks at home a reason to watch, right? A bit of magic.”

“Is your—” Sapphire stiffened. “—foot on my body?”

She pulled it back and smiled. “No.”

Hollow wanted to light another cigarette. “Okay, enough. What did you see?” He winced, throwing an apologetic look at the blind man. “Feel. What did you feel, Saff?”

“It was a man. Old. He was hurting and said he wasn’t… wasn’t supposed to be there. He got stuck or something.”

“Stuck?”

“I don’t think that’s the right word,” Digit said, massaging her temples as she swayed in the van. Doc’s face was half turned toward them, paying less attention to the road than he should. “I didn’t actually hear him. But, you know, I kinda could?”

“But you know it was a him?”

“Yeah, for sure,” the young psychic said. “I think so.”

“Do you think it was the old woman’s dead husband?” Hollow asked. “I mean, that’s why we’re here.”

Sapphire thought for a moment. “Maybe. I only know he was looking for something called Painter Mann.”

“Maybe it’s the name of a place?” Digit said.

“Yeah, they’ve got some weird place names out here. Loch Ness. Stratford-upon-Avon. Dicks Mount,” Doc offered up. “Stratford upon Dicks Mount.”

“Those are both English towns,” Sapphire said. “I thought you were some world explorer—you can’t read a map?”

Rose ignored them. “Saff said before this person—this ghost— was likely looking for someone, right? Maybe it’s a relative or old lover.”

“I’ll run a search routine on the name when we get back to the farmhouse,” Digit said, blowing a lock of hair that dangled in front of her left eye. They all looked at her, and Doc stared at her in the mirror.

The driver asked, “You mean you’re going to Google it?”

“No!” she said. Then she added, “In a yes way.”

Hollow pulled out his smartphone. “I’ll ask around the network a bit. Maybe someone else has heard of Painter Mann. It’d be good to have something up our sleeves before the next ep.“

Rose said, “When is that?”

“We’ve got two more this week,” he said, and the crew gave him a soft groan. “Come on, we get it done the next two nights, and we’ve got four days off.”

“Half of which will be traveling,” Digit said with a sigh.

Sapphire leaned his head up against the cold, metal interior of the van. “Who’s our lead-in this week?”

Hollow spat the name: “Spook Bros.”

The van’s interior filled with groans.

“Frauds, phonies, and swindlers who sell snake oil to desperate people,” Digit said. “We’re better than that.”

“How?” Rose rolled her eyes.

“Because,” Doc said and flexed his arm, “we are better looking!” That drew a slight chuckle. “And I think they might be terrorists.”

“They’re not terrorists,” Rose said, smacking his chin with her black-stockinged foot. Doc grinned.

Hollow thought for a moment. “They do go a bit apeshit. A month ago, they were blasting out those next-level panic warnings about some ‘Ghost Army’ that was going to roll over the planet.” Hollow smiled and let out a half chuckle. “Shit, their YouTube channel, the wide-eyed panic, it was so over-the-top it was parody. But, of course, nothing came of it.”

“I think they’re starting to believe their own bullshit,” Digit said.

“Something we promised we would never do,” Rose said. “So, back to the boss man’s question: What the fuck really happened in the old Scottish woman’s basement tonight?”

CHAPTER FIVE

As the pain from the attack raced up my thigh, I briefly wished I had my baseball bat again.

For reasons I couldn’t explain, the bat was both in the world of the living and the dead. After the Ghost Army was defeated, I hid the bat away. Too dangerous.

That said, I’d encountered all kinds of baddies here but never felt actual pain—real, authentic, card-carrying pain — in the InBetween.

“Muther—!” I looked down, cursing at my attacker.

An orange tabby cat missing half an ear but obviously in full possession of all its claws, sitting on the corner of Port and Royal, had reached out and swiped at my leg.

Cats are the only living creatures that know when there’s a spook around. They can sense us, maybe even see us. However, one thing they cannot do is actually touch us, let alone goddamn scratch a spook.

But it wasn’t like I would punt the thing into the Gulf. While the rules of the InBetween are a bit fuzzy for everyone, I try to live by a set of my own the best I can. For the most part, they work for me.

In a nutshell:

Rule #1: Don’ want no douchey, don’ be no douchey.

I think Jesus said something like “Do unto others,” but basically he was saying don’t be a douche. That shit comes back at you, sometimes when you least expect it.

Rule #2: Steer clear of bad people, including those who just might be bad for you.

If you don’t yet know what that means, you will. Welcome to being human.

Rule #3: Find good people and make them friends.

No one has ever died saying they wished they’d have “drunk more beer,” “worked longer hours,” or “bought a bigger boat.”

And it’s quality over quantity. My friend Gary once put it, “It’s not the number of people at your funeral but the number of tears that fall.”

Of course, he’s a giant, horrifying ghost monster who, by his own description, was clinically insane while alive, so take that with a grain of salt.

But it’s about people.

And, I’m not entirely sure if “people” extends to mongrel kitties with ghost claws. However, I saw no reason to bring on the bad karma. Instead of a swift kick, I gave the creature my best scowl.

It ignored me.

That said, the little fucker had taken a chunk of my energy when it swiped at me, and that made my head spin a bit. I stumbled a few paces in the street until I felt a hand grip my elbow and right me, guiding me back toward the sidewalk.

“I am so sorry about him,” the woman said. “Poor thing has had a terrible disposition since it lost the ear.” The cat let out a low growl as we passed. “Hush, Ferris Wheel!”

“Your cat’s name is Ferris Wheel?” I said, eyes not entirely focused, still reeling a bit from the swipe at my leg.

“Have you seen a Ferris wheel? The most di-vine thing, but I’d be too scared to climb into one of those little cars. They look like big ol’ coffins, you ask me,” she said, giving my arm a slight squeeze. “But I’ve been told up there you can see clear to the coast and halfway to heaven.”

“How does—” I started to say, but I fumbled a bit when I finally looked at her. A pretty woman, she was one of those ladies whose age you could never quite guess. She wore a flowing white dress with ruffles along the skirting and her sleeves. In her hair was a flower.

On her neck, a diamond choker glittered as it covered most of a thick blue-black bruise.

Noticing my stare, she smiled, offered a small laugh, and delicately covered her neck with her hand.

I tried again. “How does your cat, um—how is your cat here? In the InBetween. I’ve never, you know…” As I looked back at it, the nasty creature was licking its paw.

I got the strangest feeling it was only doing that to piss me off.

“Ferris and I are bonded in life and death, and passing on the same day and all, he stayed around to keep me company.”

Adjusting to his new “truth” was strange. Animals don’t end up in the InBetween. Murdered people do. But just as in the world of the living, there would forever be mysteries in the world of the dead.

When I looked at the scruffy creature again, it appeared to be— but wasn’t, of course—smiling. Happy with itself.

Deciding to go with a glass-half-full outlook, I was relieved to have already made a connection with a New Orleans local. Just to be clear, I wasn’t talking about the cat.

“You got any Blind Spots around the city?”

“Blind Spots?” She wrinkled her nose up at me. “They do have some lovely new place where they serve all the food in the dark.”

“I don’t mean that.”

“No lighting at all. Pitch black as people sip their wine, eat a T-bone steak. I suppose they can gobble down as many beignets as they want and nobody would notice,” she said and giggled, clasping her hands to her chest. “For a laugh, I bet the waiters come in without pants and perform all sorts of lurid acts with the confectionery.” She hit me with a knowing glance. “Some places do that sort of thing, you know. That’s why I always avoided the éclairs. But I don’t expect you came here for the food.”

“No, I’m looking for someone,” I said, glancing at the tall, two-story home next to us. The place didn’t have much of a yard. This house stood shoulder to shoulder with the neighboring structures with no windows on the first floor. On the upper level, there were two, large but covered in curtains. Between them was a door that may have once led to a balcony, but that door now led to a ten-foot drop to the porch below.

I stepped toward the berm and found a small wrought-iron bench at the curbside. It took a bit of energy to actually rest there, but sitting can be soothing and helps me think.

Once I got settled, the woman in white came over and sat cross-legged on my lap, proving that, in fact, you didn't need to use any juice to sit down.

Despite how overly familiar the situation felt, she sat there a perfect lady, with an air of pride and dignity. It was hard not to like her. But I admit, I wasn’t trying not to.

“Could you be looking for me? I’m well regarded around these parts.”

“Maybe. Are you Voodoo Cher?”

She rolled her eyes, stood up, and took a few steps into the street. “I most certainly am not that charlatan. She thinks she runs this place, and who knows? She probably does, but that doesn’t mean we have to bow down to her now.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Darlin’, I’m not upset. But I’d suggest you steer clear of that woman. Voodoo has a darkness to it, no matter how good people try to wield it. They say, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ Well, the bad ones turn it into an expressway.”

I settled back in my seat. “A friend of mine suggested I meet her. She didn’t really warn me that Voodoo Cher might be trouble.”

“No, oh, don’t mind me,” she said. “I stay outta her hair; she stays outta mine.”

I realized something. “I never got your name.”

She smiled, fanned out her dress slightly, and curtsied. “My name is less important than my designation.”

“Okay.” I laughed. “And what’s your designation?”

“Your friend, of course.”

I laughed. This woman was charming and odd, and I could probably spend the day just chatting. But the Professor said Voodoo Cher might know the name of the person who killed me. Once I had that, I had my ticket out of the InBetween, though it wasn’t one that I’d cash right away.

The woman in white obviously wasn’t comfortable with long silences. She said, “You can call me Madame Mini. Everybody does.”

“Is that short for something?”

“Yes, I think it was,” she said. “But frankly, it’s escaped me. I don’t know why.”

“It happens here. It affects some more than others. I’m in your boat. Most of my memories are like a mist.” I stood and pointed at the French Quarter. “She down there?”

Madame Mini gave a dismissive wave and then smiled. “Yes. You’ll find her down that way.”

“Any idea where?

“Sure.” The ghost in the white dress wandered toward the corner, bent down to pet her cat, then stood upright again. “She never leaves that place. I hear it’s all tea leaves and tarot cards upstairs, but she’s down in the cellar. Feels more like a cave, but I don’t go down there. Not no more.”

“You got the street address?”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll find her,” Mini said and laughed. “She’ll lead you in.”

“Oh?”

Just before she turned the corner, with Ferris Wheel the cat in tow, she said, “Yeah. She already knows you’re here, darlin’. She’ll be waiting.”

CHAPTER SIX

Walking through the streets of New Orleans messes a bit with your perception of time. You’ll amble past a home built sometime in the 1700s. Next to that stands a big dude with bare arms and a bushy mustache, scratching just beneath his leather-studded faux police cap, keeping ugly people from going inside a private bar.

Added to that blending of yesterday and today were, in equal measures, both the living and the dead taking in the sights, peeking in shop windows.

Since I’ve been dead, I’ve visited a lot of US cities. A few Canadian and Mexican ones too. There was even a quick trip down under.

But in none of those cases could I recall so many spooks in one place. Individuals. Small groups. Walking downstairs, alone or in pairs.

Here, ghosts did a sort of dance to slip around livies. That move came so naturally that it was almost an afterthought.

In spotting a spook from the living, there were subtle clues. You could see it in how they moved their feet as they glided along because it was usually off a bit—sometimes more than a bit.

You might notice an arm or a leg pass through a newspaper stand or light pole.

Or, you might see four scowling pricks in stupid hats, one of them pointing at you and saying, “There he is!”

I wasn’t sure what these guys wanted, but if four strange dudes— and these guys were strange—ever shout “There he is!” in the middle of the street, you have just the one response.

Show ’em the bottom of your shoes.

Running from street to street, I caught a close glimpse at their outfits. They looked like they’d just woken up from an eighties Mardi Gras party.

They wore jaunty vests, one side purple and the other green. Each had a different type of hat on, and all of them looked stupid.

The one who’d called out wore something like a short top hat. The one running beside him had a porkpie or bowler hat.

To be honest, that was the full extent of my hat knowledge save for what I knew about the Indiana Jones-style hat, but none were sporting that one.

The other two were the same ones that had been chasing after Sue, the man in black.

I knew better than to hang around to find out what the Mad Hatters wanted from me—at least, I knew better than to do that when I was at a disadvantage—so I dodged and weaved spooks and livies through the city, crossing and heading left and right every other street.

Smacking into another ghost wasn’t my only problem. Like Sue, they had a bead on me now. Not that we had some connection or anything, but if you really looked for it, you could see what the Professor called “stain.”

That’s the bit of luminescent residue a ghost leaves behind, and it’s very, very faint. It’s a bit like ten minutes after you squashed a lightning bug and smear it on your jeans.

Not super glowy, but if you look, you can see it.

Fortunately, with the number of spooks all hustlin’ and bustlin’ and weaving through livies, any faint trail left behind me should have quickly gotten lost in a crisscross of stain.

However, it was tough not banging into folks. Moving in every direction, I must have clipped a half dozen spooks in the first half minute.

That wasn’t bad for me, since it got me little scoops of energy, but it was a shitty thing to do and went against my Rule #1: Don’ want no douchey, don’ be no douchey.

Given how active I am in the InBetween, I’ve been chased dozens if not hundreds of times by now. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m pretty good at losing assholes like the Hatters.

I slowed my run but kept making random turns, ensuring I wasn’t just circling back to the same spot.

At one point, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw some motion to my left, a swirling that, strangely, looked like two creatures fighting. But when I turned, whatever that had been was gone.

As the crowds started to thin a little, I looked around at the structures nearby.

It was hard to tell whether this part of town, just east of the French Quarter, was a retail area sprinkled with residential features or a residential area encroached by retail.

Homes, if they were homes, ran the gamut. Some looked like oversize dollhouses, whereas others resembled haunted houses.

Structures made of wood, stone, and steel, would have made any piggy jealous. All shapes too.

My favorite was something I later found out was called a shotgun shack. I’d seen them before but not this many all over the place.

They basically were shaped like railroad cars: two doors, one on either end, and rooms in between.

Someone once told me they were called shotgun shacks because you could fire your boomstick in one door and it would shoot someone going out the other.

I looked up and caught the name of the street. St. Ferdinand. I wasn’t very religious, even after I’d died, which I suppose would probably be too late anyhow. In any case, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever heard of a Saint Ferdinand.

Totally unfair, sure, but if he were some sort of saint—well, I wasn’t entirely sure why the name “Ferdinand” engendered this in my brain—it felt to me like a Ferdinand would be the saint of good hair.

“Where y’at?”

If I’d had skin, I might have jumped out of it. In front of me was a house behind a wrought-iron fence so short it wouldn’t have stopped a toddler hopped up on sugar cookies.

The front yard was mostly a slab of dark-stained concrete. Behind that, green stairs led to a green porch and then on to a green house, two stories high.

White trim, with a roof for both floors, as if someone had built the home as a one-story job then they went, “Oh damn, we need two more bedrooms” and then just made another floor the same size on top.

On the porch was an enormous man sitting on a porch swing and just swaying back and forth.

And, of course, he was dead.

“You deaf, son?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Fo’ what?”

I blinked. “I’m not sure. Did you ask me something?”

“Yeh, I says, where y’at?”

I looked down at my hands, but they held no answers. I said, “I dunno. When did he leave?”

The fat man said, “What?”

“Sorry man, I got four idiots chasing me and…” I looked down at his hands this time and noticed he was now pointing. Looking straight at me, he casually leaned his right hand down, finger extended, pointing from where I’d just come.

When I looked, I saw two of the Mad Hatters coming for me.

“Shit!”

Seeing a gap between the Green House and the one next door, I sprinted onto the sidewalks, passed through the kiddie fence, and hightailed it down a small alleyway. With dead patches of grass on either side of me, the path terminated in a tall wooden fence with diamond-shaped latticework in the middle, which I quickly ghosted through and made an immediate dogleg to the left.

The good thing about running, I suppose, in the InBetween is once you’ve got a bit of a pace built up, it doesn’t take a ton of effort. You can do it for days.

The bad thing about running while being chased, I suppose, is that if the person (or hat-wearing pricks) chasing you can keep a bead on you, they can do it for days too.

I’d had my share of getting into the hands of shitty spooks, so I wasn’t letting that happen again. But there were still too many other ghosts around to really skate.

For now, I would have to hoof it and keep an eye out for—

“Whoa!” I yelled and banked to my right the moment before knocking two nice ghost ladies on their asses.

Down another street, I seemed to have lost my two biggest fans, but I took another turn and bobbed and weaved through another group of ghosts and livies. I slowed to a trot and then just walked again.

I had a natural sense of direction and felt comfort in knowing I was now far enough away from where I’d seen the fat man in the porch swing.

With a look to my right, I was staring up at the Green House again.

The fat man was just swaying on his porch chair, chuckling as he stared at me, shaking his head in a way that simply said, “Son, you ain’t right.”

I started to say something, but he just kept on laughing at me until I asked, “What?”

I looked down to his hands again, and once again, he was pointing from the direction I’d just come. I took a few steps back and glanced over but didn’t see anyone. Shit, he nearly had me.

When I looked back, he was pointing in the other direction. Yep, two spooks with stupid hats were coming at me.

“Hey, man, why’d you point the other way?”

“I was pointin’ and sayin’ you need t’ run that away, son.”

“How am I supposed to know what your points mean?”

“Hold on now. Me, I’m a certified communicator,” he said, chuckling. “I even useta run ham radio during storms in the old bomb shelter. Had a certificate on my wall. So, if you ain’t understandin’ my communications, the problem is with the receiver.” He waited for a moment. “Uh, that would be you, now.”

“I got it.”

The big guy laughed even harder. If he’d be alive, I would have worried he was going to have a heart attack.

As for the spooks a street and a half away, I was tired of this shit.

Fuck this.

I started running toward them—push, push, push—and it only took a few paces before I was skating, legs pumping like pistons. I pushed harder, and within seconds, I was really, really hauling ass.

The Mad Hatters slowed, their hard faces going a bit rubbery. Then they stopped, spun on a heel, and began running the other way.

I’m a pretty calm dude most of the time, but I’ve got a temper. So, when my blood gets up, it’s hard to turn that off. I felt the rage bubbling through me, one that if I’m honest, was overkill for just a couple of punk-ass spooks trying to roll me.

I wanted to hurt these guys, and that thought felt good.

From somewhere behind me, I heard a voice call out, cheering me on, “Tu way pocky way!”

The words had a strange effect, turning my mind fiercer, more vengeful—vengeance for a crime yet committed. The bloodlust felt like a drug coursing through my body.

Within arm’s reach, I rocketed between the two spooks, and they both jumped, erupting with a stereo squeal. I kept pumping for another block but was worried I’d hit some innocent, so I did a hard arch, my feet one in front of the other in a curved line. Then I slingshotted back toward the two spooks who stood, mouths hanging open, as I flew toward them.

If I hit them at this speed, I would have put them down for hours, no question. Maybe longer. And the little bit of juice that Ferris Wheel the cat had pulled off me would have flowed back and then some.

Then, Rule #1 somehow wriggled through all that inky black rage, and I knew I was losin’ it.

The two spooks were frozen, eyes like bowling balls, so I raised my arms, held my fists in the air, and repeated the battle cry I’d heard moments ago: “Tu way pocky way!”

Like a pair of cartoon coyotes, they split in two different directions and disappeared down alleyways on either side of the street. I think if they’d actually been cartoon characters, they’d have only left behind two sets of curved lines, each with tiny, circular smoke clouds, in their wake.

Sucking in a couple of breaths that took in no air, I calmed myself and came to a stop, once again, out in front of the Green House.

“What does that mean, by the way?”

“Whazzat what mean, cher?”

“You shouted, ‘Tu way pocky way.’ What does that mean?”

He laughed and kicked a foot out at a buzzing fly, which, of course, went right through his leg without a care in the world.

“I dint say that. You da one going down th’ street like a roller coasta car, shoutin’ dat thing.”

“Whatever, man,” I said. I slid through the tiny fence and up the stairs and sat on the porch. “Do you know who those guys are?”

“What guys?”

I laughed at him this time. “Man, do you ever answer a question?”

“What question?” he asked and gave me a smile, a big happy grin with no teeth. “Yeah, yeah, I seen those boys. You right to steer clear of them. They working for a crew ’round here, right?”

“Shit,” I said and cast my gaze up and down the street. “The Ghost Mob. I’ve run into those guys—”

“Nah, nah, no Mob boys, dem. They sometime do some work for a livie in the Quarter.”

“The Cajun.”

The fat man nodded at me, his eyes closed. “Dunno why somebody go and get a job when they dead. Seems like a waste of chillin’ time.”

“Those stupid hats don’t do them any favors.”

“Oh, I rather fond of the porkpie one, meself,” he said and laughed softly, turning his head slightly. “Cain’t find none that fit, though.” An exit wound showed in the back of his bald head, but the wound didn’t come from a pistol or shotgun. It looked like he’d taken a pole in the face, which might explain the missing teeth.

The sun was shining, and despite not being able to feel the air, I knew it was damp and heavy, just the sort of afternoon that went with a sweaty glass of iced tea and a little splash of whiskey. The living have no idea how good they have it. Part of me wanted to enjoy a bit of that chillin’ time he was talking about and hang out for a while, but I had work to do.

“Hey, man—wait, I don’t know your name.”

He smiled that toothless smile. “People they call me Jelly Roll.”

“Right,” I said. “I can see that.”

“Whazzat supposed ta mean?”

Suddenly I was the cartoon character. “Wha, whyaya, I was, I mean, you, I—”

Jelly Roll let out a booming laugh and nearly fell to the ground. Just then, I noticed something. Doubled over and laughing, he wasn’t using any juice to stay in the swinging bench. Usually, since he was a ghost, he’d just slip right through and hit the porch.

Someone had died violently on that bench, and now, Jelly Roll was putting it to use. Good on him. That sort of thing shouldn’t go to waste.

I said, “When was the last time you got out of that chair, Jelly Roll?”

“Why would I vacate meself from such a fine seating arrangement?”

He had me there. It did look comfy.

“Hey, Jelly Roll—”

“Jelly’s fine.”

“Okay,” I said, picking up on the rhythm of his speech. “Jelly, how well do you know this area?”

He nodded, looked off in the distance, and gave me a nonchalant shrug. The proud local. “Ah cher, I been born down yonder ’bout a block, and I die right here in this house. But in my time, I been up and down and around all dese parts. And some parts you cain’t even get to!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Jelly was the sort of guy you had to like. When he laughed big, you could see right out of the back of his head. So, it seemed someone hadn’t found him as fun as I did.

“Okay, local boy,” I said with a grin. “Who needs a map of the stars when I got you, right?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Nothin’ gets past Jelly Roll, now.”

“I’m looking for someone, then. Maybe you can help me.”

Jelly drew his hand across his dirty sleeveless shirt, the kind of shirt we used to call a wifebeater back before we started realizing that was kinda fucked up.

“Man,” he said in a slow drawl. “I heard you maybe was looking for a whole buncha someones.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“You Painter, ain’t you? Painter Mann. The spook PI, yeah?”

“You know who I am?”

“Word get around. I heard someone tell someone that we had the ghost dick in town.”

“Uh, not a big, big fan of that particular nomenclature. To be honest.”

“Either way,” he said and gave me a nod. “You hepped a lotta folks, down this way over dat. Trapped up in some lightning-flash sorta nonsense and they got out because of you.”

I looked at my hands. “I had help from some good people.”

“Your friends gone, then? Passed on through?”

I nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Good on ’em. We all gotta go that way. This place ain’t right. It ain’t supposed to be here, and we all definitely ain’t supposed to be in it. It ain’t natural. This place some seriously bad gris-gris, I tell you that.”

“Right. I’ve heard that,” I said. “Well, not that exact phrasing, but a friend of mine said the same thing. There is something wrong with this place.”

“So, you gonna help ’em?”

I was lost in my own thoughts for a moment. Then I replayed what he said, and it still didn’t make sense. “What?”

“You gonna help find ’em?”

“Help find who?”

“The dis’peared,” he said, then he frowned. “That’s why you came, yeah? Why else would Painter Mann, the world’s greatest dead private di—uh, detective come to N’awlins?”

“Who are… the disappeared?”

He looked at me like I was stupid. “The ones who ain’t here no mo’.”

“You mean they cleared?”

“Nah, they didn’t move on like we supposed to. Nobody solved their murder and set ’em straight so they could go heav’n.” He leaned forward in the swing. “They was here. Friends, family, neighbors. Then one day…” he said and looked off to somewhere far away. “They jus’… dis’peared. You gonna find ’em, ain’t ya? You gonna help make it right for them, ain’t ya?”

His eyes were hard but held desperation. Something personal.

I shook my head. Then I surprised myself.

“Yes.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Hollow lay in bed, staring up at the broken ceiling fan, cursing himself for insisting he take the bedroom on the ground floor. The home’s owner, Mrs. Connelly, had mentioned several times throughout dinner that the room had been her dead husband’s study and, while it was comfortable enough, it had turned unnaturally cold after his death. Several of the local boys had come around and hammered this and boarded up that, but the room was still drafty and damp.

Despite that, Hollow could only sleep well on the ground floor of a home or hotel. He had felt that way since childhood after getting trapped on the upper floors during a house fire… so long ago now.

The woman of the house had hinted that a bit of warmth was tucked away in the bottom of the old curio, in a box of the old man’s scribblings. The contents of the bottle had indeed helped cut the chill, but it seemed no matter how much whiskey he drank that night, he couldn’t get drunk enough to pass out.

So, he just quit drinking and stared at the ceiling fan that he was thankful didn’t turn.

“Maybe this time,” he said and then cursed himself.

A voice in his head said, Hope is a drug that can give you strength you didn’t know you had. But like any drug, over time, it takes more and more to get the same effect. Eventually, it’s merely an escape.

But Sapphire had felt something, heard something in the damp basement.

Hollow had spent a few minutes on Twitter and lurked on the usual websites. #WhoIsPainterMann was trending in a handful of cities around the US and UK.

Of course, these were just the words Sapphire uttered in the heat of the supposed encounter. The boy had insisted they weren’t his own but instead, he was just repeating them.

It was Saff’s nature to be a bit spooky and mysterious. It was actually in the job description.

It took little prompting to encourage him to express the feeling of a tingle or “flutter buzz” as he liked to call them. This was especially helpful when the Ghost Wranglers’ social stats were dipping. A little spiritual NO2.

Earlier that night, Saff had cornered Hollow in the kitchen, insisting this incident had been different.

“I know what I felt,” he had said, drawing his finger around the inner rim of a bowl that the lady of the house had handed him. “I may have been making the sounds of those words, but they were as much news to me when they came out as they were to everyone else.” He sucked the light cream off his finger and groaned. “Man, that’s good.”

“What is that?”

“I dunno. I think it’s dessert. She let me lick the bowl.”

“I think she handed it to you to clean it,” Hollow said. “I don’t think she knows you’re blind.”

“I’m wearing sunglasses in the house. At night.”

“Maybe she thought you were a rock star. Or a drug addict.”

“I will be her heroin-jacked Keith Moon if she keeps handing me stuff that tastes like this,” Saff said.

Mrs. Connelly quickly passed through the room, between two doors on adjacent walls. Then she crossed back again and said, “Did ya see my varnish? I wanted to give the table a rub before I laid out the good china for all of ya. I had it in a small bowl.”

“Uh…” was all that Hollow could get out of his mouth before she disappeared again.

Sapphire, finger frozen in mid-stroke for a moment, stood silently, his head ticking around the room. “Wait, what did she just say?”

“I don’t know, that Scottish brogue, it’s hard—”

“Varnish?”

The word hung in the air, getting heavier by the second until the widow’s voice split the air from the other room. “Found it!”

Saff slowly lowered the bowl onto the nearby counter.

“What you heard was what I heard,” he continued. “What everybody heard.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means, Hollow,” Sapphire said through his gap-toothed grin, “we are closer than we’ve been for a long time. What we’ve got here is a ‘crack,’ and you know what that means.”

“Sure,” Hollow said and nodding wearily. “A ‘crack to a doorway, doorway to a path,’ right? I think I wrote that line in year one.”

“This time is really different, boss,” Sapphire said and then lowered his voice. “Come on, that’s why you do this, right? Have you ever told the others?”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“You hired me to find the fissures and cracks.”

“Exactly, this is your job. On a TV show.”

The boy ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair and said, “Well, I found you one. Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because you’ve been playing the goddamn psychic so long, I don’t know what to believe!” Hollow said. Then he sighed. “All right, I’m sorry, Saff.”

“It’s okay.”

“I know you’ve got, you know, something. A gift or whatever, sure.”

“It doesn’t matter if you know or not,” the other man said. “But when we go in there tomorrow, you better believe it. All that whatever-the-hell quantum realm BS you laid on me, I don’t need your doubt or perception or whatever you want to call it throwing fists of sand at this tiny sliver of light, or we’ll lose it.”

Hollow reached over to the blind man and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know. I hear you.”

“You better. Otherwise, that keyhole slams shut and we may never see that light again,” the young man said. “You may never find her.”

“We don’t even know if this Painter is a her or a him yet.“

Saff lifted his face, the dark lenses of his Lennon sunglasses reflecting Hollow’s image.

“That’s not who I’m talking about, Hollow, and you know it. You got a chance here. A real chance after twenty-five years of looking,” he had said. Hollow’s hand fell from his shoulder. Saff walked past his boss toward the dining area. “Don’t fuck it up.”

The morning was only a few hours away now, so Hollow closed his eyes and prayed that if he did fall asleep, the dreams of the snow wouldn’t return, if just for one night.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As Jelly Roll explained it, “The Night Leaving” might have been six weeks, a few months, a year or even a decade ago.

“But I’m not fussed about time lines and all. I just don’ care much for the ‘leavin’’ part, see?” Jelly said, sitting upright in the chair swing for the first time. “‘Leavin’‘ make it sound like they done it on purpose or they did it themselfs. They didn’t do no leavin’. They was taken.”

I asked, “Taken by who?”

“Whom, yeah? I believe it’s whom in that particular occurrence.”

This fuckin’ guy.

“Whatever,” I said. “Whom took them and whom did that taker take?”

“See,” Jelly smiled and lay back again. “Finally, we got you talking proper N’awlins.”

The answer to the first question was that no one knew.

Or rather, the taker and the taken, they probably knew. But no one else did.

As for the victims of the Night Leaving, they were a bit of everything and nothing. No one special, except to the people they were special to, as Jelly told it.

“But, you know, some ghost who useta be a baker’s assistant here. Some little girl there. Guy who used to sell cane stalk on the street from his granny’s old cart. One dude who died in dat explosion at the docks a few year back. Some dem was old spooks, been here a cent’ry. Others a few months, maybe. Didn’t seem to have no rhyme or reason to it. They were all just, you know, gone.”

“But not stuffed into one of those power stations the Ghost Mob had, yeah?”

“Ah, see, Painter Mann, he knocked them all out and cleared up the sky so we can see stars again,” Jelly Roll said with a grin. “I did miss the stars.”

“Has anyone gone from the Night Leaving come home?”

“Nah, nobody come home.”

I stood up slowly and looked toward the French Quarter again. Since we’d started talking, the sun had crossed to the other half of the sky.

I didn’t realize how long I’d been hanging with Jelly Roll. I started to wonder if time passed a bit differently in New Orleans.

“How many spooks would you say, Jelly?”

“Hard to tell.”

I walked toward him. “Tell it anyhow. I need something, man.”

“I don’t think I count that high, maybe.”

“So more than ten, you’re saying?”

Evidently a bit lost in thought, he suddenly heard what I’d said and hit me with a big grin. “Boy, you just say I cain’t count more than ten? Hell…” He chuckled. “I got fingers and toes, yeah, so I def’ know I can count up to at least 19.”

Sure, I wanted to ask, right? 19? But I didn’t want to get dragged down a rabbit hole. “Fine. Guess, man.”

“I dunno.”

“A dozen.”

“Dunno.”

“Two dozen?”

“Maybe a hundred. Or a thousand.”

“What?”

“Maybe. Might be a bit more, might be a bit less.”

“You had a thousand more spooks in this city than you have now,” I said and looked into the street. With the light beginning to fade, it easier for me to pick the ghosts out from the livies. In just a glance from left to right, I counted maybe fifteen—in about a block and a half.

“Maybe not a thousand,” he said, scratching his cheek. “But, yeah, getting damn near lonely ’round these parts right now.”

“Sure. Place is like a deserted island, man.”

“I’m tellin’ ya.”

A voice called out behind me. “Painter, I thought you were headed into the French Quarter? I feel bad now, like you were just trying to get rid of me.”

“Ah, cher, Madame Mini,” Jelly said. He was now sitting up straighter, stomach sucked in. “I got room here ov’r on this swing if you wanna sit a spell.”

Standing in the fading light, she shimmered. I realized she must have been a real stunner as a young woman. She still was. I also realized that she was now dressed in black.

“You changed, uh, your clothes,” I said, walking down the porch steps toward her.

“Well, evening is approaching, so one must have the proper nightwear, Painter. A girl can’t eschew decorum simply because she’s dead.”

“Right,” I said with a smile. “You can change your appearance. I only know of one other who can do that.”

“And here I thought I was the only one. I need to know who this other fashion-forward woman is. She your girl?”

“No, no. And it’s not a girl. It’s a Gary.”

“A Gary?”

“Well, his name is Gary. And he doesn’t exactly change his clothes so much as, you know, everything else. He can sort of be a monster if he wants. Which is most of the time.”

“That some serious gris-gris, absolutely,” she said. Then she slipped her laced arm through mine, leading me away from Jelly. “Is he friendly?”

“Harmless,” I assured her. “Mostly harmless.”

“I am intrigued now. Especially the ‘mostly’ part, Painter,” she said and turned back to Jelly, blowing him a kiss. “I’ll see you, Jelly Roll.”

“Anytime, Madame Mini,” he said then shifted quickly in his seat, eyeballing the ground below. “As long as you don’t bring that ded blamin cat ’round here. I don’t think he like me.”

“He don’t like anybody anyway.” She waved goodbye and squeezed my arm slightly. This time, she took the smallest bit of juice off me, which was fine. Every now and then, it was just nice to feel someone.

“I still don’t understand how you have a cat,” I said, waving my hand around. “Here.”

“I think he followed me.”

“Is he yours?”

“Yes,” she said. Then she put a gloved hand to her lips for a moment. “At least I think so. I’m pretty sure I named him Ferris Wheel, so I can’t remember if that was before he died or after.”

“He’s a cat. How can you have a cat in the InBetween?”

She winked. “You friend Gary ain’t the only one who got a bit of gris-gris on their side.”

I figured that gris-gris was another word for voodoo. Why would you not call it voodoo? Are there cooler words in the English language than voodoo? Hell, I just said it three times and I’m still not tired of it.

Voodoo. Voodoo, dah-do-do, voodoo.

Okay, now I’m getting tired of it.

Nope.

Voodoo, voodoo, voo-doo-do.

A very cool word.

After a moment, I realized that Mini was leading me through the streets, helping me get to the French Quarter. However, we weren’t taking what you’d call a direct route but something more like what little Billy from the old Family Circus comics would take heading to softball practice. We walked across stones in a fountain, cut through a cemetery, where we passed row upon row of above-ground tombs, and even traversed a playground (where we did indeed walk up the slide then down the ladder).

She seemed happy just to have the company of someone new in town, maybe, although she’d explained that she accompanied me for my own safety.

“You had a few boys looking for you, troublemakers they were, so it can help to take a circuitous route to where ya going,” she said, winking. “But don’t worry. They got nothing out of me, now.”

“Yeah, saw them. The Mad Hatters. Jelly said they worked for a livie in town.”

“Mad Hatters!” she said and burst into a fit of laughter. “Oh, I do love that! I’m going to pass that one around town, they’ll hate it. Mad Hatters! You are such a funny duck, Painter.”

So far, every ghost I’d met in New Orleans was like someone out of a Mark Twain novel. I think they were just like characters in a Mark Twain novel. I actually couldn’t recall reading any of them. Or any books at all. I was pretty sure I still knew how to read, though.

“I’ve seen some livies and spooks working together in the past. Mob stuff.”

“No, they aren’t like that,” she said and patted my arm. “No grand plans for an army to take over the world. They’re working for the Cajun in town.”

“I’d expect in New Orleans, there’s a lot of Cajuns.”

“Sure, but there’s only one ‘the Cajun,’ see? He mainly runs dope and girls. But he’s not someone to be messed with, although I do have an unsettling familiarity with the man.”

“Oh?”

“They say he dabbles in the voodoo. Maybe it’s to fix his teeth. He’s a good-looking boy just a bit too much sugarcane over the years. Teeth ain’t so good.”

“There’s a voodoo spell that fixes teeth?”

“Hopefully. All that sugar rot his teeth black as coal.”

“Wuff.”

“Wuff is right. Never go to the man’s birthday party because if he ever blow out the candles, for sure, at least three, four people gonna pass out.”

As we walked, we people watched—both the live and the dead. Getting closer to the French Quarter, there were more tourists, but they only added to the chaos.

It was impressive how the dead locals would weave around everyone, almost effortlessly. Groups of spooks would just be chatting away and slide in and out of other groups, their volume of their voices going up slightly as they parted, shouting over the ones they were trying to avoid, both live and dead, then returning to normal when they came back together.

“What can you tell me about ‘the Night Leaving,’ Mini?”

The smile that seemed permanently etched into her face wavered. She said, “Not much more than anyone else, I expect. One day they were here, and the next morning they were gone.”

“But it’s not as if all the spooks in town went to sleep and woke up and they were gone. We don’t sleep. In fact, if you were trying to take so many people, the nighttime would be the worst time to do it.”

“Who says they were taken?”

“Jelly did,” I said. “Wait, do you think that didn’t happen?”

“Who knows? Left or taken? What difference does it make in the end?” she said. “Same result. All those people we love are gone.”

Three women with big, teased-up hair parted around us. From what I could make of their conversation, they were talking about some new makeup store in the mall. Why would spooks care about makeup when they’re dead? Then again, if you’re here and into that sort of thing, maybe it helps fill the time.

“But it does matter, right? If they were taken, maybe we can get them back. Find out who might have done this and bring them home.”

Mini stopped and slowly turned to me, placing her hands by her mouth. “Oh my lord, is that why you’re here? Are you going to find all those people?” She nearly leaped at me but apparently thought better of it. Instead, she drew her arms in and hopped once in place. “That is such wonderful, amazing news.”

“Well, I’ll do what I can,” I said. “I’ve got some other business to attend—”

“You would be the hero of our little town for a good long while,” she said, the smile back at full volume. Her eyes actually twinkled. “Some real good folks got caught up in that. And some not-so-good folks, but you take the good with the bad. That’s how life works.”

She turned and looked at the stream of tourists heading into the heart of the city. “That’s it for me. I ain’t supposed to go any further.”

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“Oh, it’s no big thing. Just the French Quarter now,” she said and looked intently at something on the fingertips of her gloves, not meeting my eyes. “She’s just a few blocks up, so that’s inside a line I’m not supposed to cross. Not just me now, just anyone, you know, she doesn’t care for. It’s no big thing. Just the French Quarter now.”

The expression on her face didn’t match the words coming out of it. She showed real pain there.

“Why can’t you cross ‘the line’? Would that start a fight or something?”

“No, Lord no,” she said as she bent over slightly at the waist, looking at me. “I’m always raring for a little row. I don’t mind that. Voodoo Cher make it so I can’t even pass into a part of the city I love. I can’t go no more because she says so.”

“How does she do that?”

“What do you mean how?” She looked at my face, waiting for some sign of recognition. Then she finally said, “Painter, she cast a spell now.”

“Spell?”

“Yes, cher,” she said and put her hand on my arm gently. For the first time, her smile vanished. “Voodoo, Painter. You be careful now. You don’t mess with that kind of power.”

Leaving Mini behind me, I could feel her ahead. She knew I was coming, just like my friend had said.

What kind of spook was she? One that could banish Mini and others from even crossing into the Quarter? One that could feel me coming, draw me in closer?

I muttered, weaving around some drunken livies, “Shit, that is some serious gris-gris.”

CHAPTER NINE

27th of May 1754

We have been on the march for several hours but have taken a brief respite in a tavern that I am told has been shuttered for several weeks over fears of increased attacks from the French. One of my men was familiar with the establishment’s owner and assured us that whatever provisions we take, the family will be compensated.

Admittedly, the men are eager. Maybe too eager, but with the tensions building between our forces and those in the north, I must expect that. A soldier is not meant to spend all his time building fortifications and gathering supplies for a war that never comes.

I expect some of them look at me, a young major, trying to size me up. No question a number of the men feel they should be leading instead of me.

We will no doubt spend the evening marching toward our target, so any moments we might have to fortify our strength and spirit in equal measures should be considered. In part, I will admit only here, it was also a chance to assert my command, the first time for this group.

Also, the rains have soaked us to the bone, and several of the men, especially those from the lower states used to the sun, are already growing a bit pale. The dampness may take them before our enemy does.

We have a full night’s march ahead of us. As I pored over the maps with my second, we both concluded this march through Pennsylvania toward our target will likely end when the sun begins to break the horizon.

The sun would be welcome. As I watch now, several of my men are huddled around the fires in the two hearths, the rains and wind having sapped a measure of their strength.

When given word that the French troops had taken this portion of the Ohio Valley and we were to push them back, the clouds had already begun to stir above us. Some of the more superstitious of our number saw this as a bad omen; however, it’s only weather.

And this I told them.

I expect one day such storms will be long predicted, as the technologies to measure wind patterns and atmospheric conditions increasingly are becoming tools of war.

It’s been explained to me that some believe that one day, we might even send massive balloon squads high into the sky so that we might look down and see the swirl of clouds coming our way from days out.

Maybe decades from now, maybe longer, but it seems evident that within this century, we should be able to predict the weather for weeks, months, even years to come.

What a world that will be! Godlike, knowing the world before it knows itself. A prophet, a forecaster who can reveal the conditions anywhere if given only the location and day in the future.

What great men these will be, loved by soldier and farmer alike!

Within the hour, we will have to be on the march again. The Indian scouts who’ve joined us and are leading our journey are collecting at the windows, keen to keep moving.

Merely three score of us are making this march. And already, I can see that a half dozen have turned feverish.

Despite this, we have a mission to take back what was wrongfully obtained.

My men are eager, and quietly, I will admit this is a chance for a young leader to prove himself worthy.

CHAPTER TEN

I didn’t take three steps over the line that Madame Mini wouldn’t cross, and they were there.

All four of them had been running, which maybe explained why each of them glowed a little bit beneath their stupid little hats. While they were chasing me down, however they may have picked up my trail, they must have burst through the crowds, taking little bits of juice off spooks when they clipped them.

The one with the short top hat was a whole smorgasbord of emotions and all of them soaked in a pissed-off Cajun roux.

I waved at him. He actually growled.

I was safe, though.

Or, at least, safe from the Mad Hatters, as it seemed that Voodoo Cher’s no-go zone applied to them as well.

They knew it too. They ran full steam to within a few feet of Mini and stopped on their tiptoes, as if I’d been pulling away on some spook ferry they’d tried to catch, only for them to get left behind on the shore.

I smiled. “What did you guys do to piss her off?”

Then I thought: What threat could Mini be to someone who could wield voodoo spells?

To their credit as evil spooks, though, none shot their fists in the air or drew a finger across the throat in a you’re dead motion. That would just be rank-amateur bad-guy shit.

Instead, without a word, they all split off into different directions, likely surrounding Voodoo Cher’s no-go zone and waiting for me to come out. Or, who knew, maybe they realized they were late for a movie.

Yeah, the surround thing seemed much more plausible.

Walking into the French Quarter feels like you’ve just stepped onto a stage as an extra in the backdrop of some big production. Everyone is both an actor and an audience member. And with the lights dialed up as high as they were when you slipped up Bourbon, it was damn near impossible to tell spook from livie.

Except maybe to say that the only ones without drinks in their hands were likely spooks.

You might wonder why ghosts would even be drawn into the saccharine sweetness of a faux nightly Mardi Gras celebration.

There’s something to be said for being in the middle of the excitement, even if you’re dead. But my best guess, it was more about the music.

It’s not like you’ve got a device to play your tunes on anymore, right?

Sure, you’re at the mercy of some livie, but I bet if you spent a bit of time in someone’s home (see: haunting), you could probably worm some of your own tastes into the mind of some music lover. Something about “ghost whispers” has a bit of weight. It takes time, and I expect, it’s more often used for less innocuous purposes than trying to fire up some Led Zeppelin or Stevie Ray Vaughan.

But, if I had a few weeks to burn and found someone with a killer music library, that is precisely what I would do with it.

Others? Who knows?

My concern isn’t for the living anymore. It’s for the dead.

But the news of some Cajun dope peddler in town working with spooks was a big concern. I’d seen what could happen when livies and spooks worked together with bad intentions.

That could not be ignored. At some point, I’d have to look into it.

I could feel the slight tug ahead of me, where Voodoo Cher would be.

However, just as I was about to turn down Bourbon Street, I caught sight of a building labeled Historic Voodoo Museum and felt it might be worth a look.

Some gris-gris recon.

I hadn’t confessed to Madame Mini, because it seemed to matter a lot to her, but I didn’t really believe much in Voodoo. Or, more accurately, I believed it as much as I did most other religions. I’m not saying they’re wrong, but I haven’t seen it yet.

As far as I know, I never met God or the Devil, but I’ve met both people and spooks that flew their colors.

So, when someone says they’re praying for a friend of theirs to get well, sure, that might be a thing. I sincerely hope it is. I really do.

But I wonder, in some way, how similar that might be to someone who believes in Voodoo and casts a spell. I suppose with the former, you’re asking for some divine intervention, whereas with the other, you are the divine intervention.

And it seemed the everyday gods of Voodoo were kinda freaky-deaky.

The front door of the Voodoo museum was open, even with the drunks milling about. An alligator’s mummified head was perched above the entryway. The doors, paneling, and trim were all painted with thick black paint that looked like it had been there for centuries.

With just a handful of livies inside and no spooks that I could tell, I took a moment to get my bearings in this strange world. On first glance, a lot of things were instantly unsettling.

Which was probably the point.

Indeed, I saw an entire case of voodoo dolls. From the simple to the complex, they all gave me the willies.

The more elaborate ones were especially spooky. Some had doll-like bodies about the size of my palm, with aftermarket features added on—eyes, mouths, hair. On more than one, those features had been damaged, either through age or intent. Eye blackened out. Mouth sewed shut.

One consisted of the figure of a man missing his legs below the knee, dressed in dirty clothes, with a mostly featureless face and a head turned slightly as if dread forbade him from looking into anyone’s eyes.

Actually, I found the less “constructed” the doll was, the more it creeped me out.

A tiny pink dress was draped over a small straw woman—or girl? —with no mouth, no ears, no real hands or feet. Just black eyes and hair like a bird’s nest. Even without a mouth, it looked like she was screaming.

The least elaborate one first appeared like a twist of rope— pinched slightly at the neck area to delineate the head, then again near the bottom to show where the feet would be. The bottom was frayed out like it had been violently ripped away from its coil.

One braid was draped across the doll’s head. There was a single dot on its face. An eye? The mouth, pinched into a pucker?

Looking closer, I realized it wasn’t rope at all. It was a thick lock of a woman’s hair.

In other areas, there were candles surrounded by what looked like “offerings.” Money, photos, gum, cigarettes, even a couple of cases of lipstick. That no one had taken the money showed the power of belief.

Piss off the gods of Voodoo? Was that worth five bucks?

I saw wood sculptures that seemed like a mix of African, Haitian, and just spooky. I looked at one “sculpture” on the wall near a group of others and realized it was the mummified remains of a cat. The label read Black Cat Juju.

All around were beads and skulls and bottles of potions, boxes of teeth, and small bursts of chaos.

Another place for offerings, this one a totem of petrified wood, was draped with more money, candy, tokens. I wasn’t sure whether those who left that stuff were asking the gods to bring them good luck or to bring bad luck to someone else.

Maybe more unsettling was the hodgepodge of beliefs all swirled together.

Christian votive candles. A Virgin Mary statue with a blade sticking out of the top. Jesus held aloft on a cross, which was stuffed into a skull with two cigarettes coming out of its nose and a faded New York City subway card in its open mouth.

Heading toward the door to leave, I noticed small bursts of symbols that had been painted or drawn on various objects. Simple designs: circles, lines, and crosses. But I found them disturbing, as if they were like bar codes for the mind and when your eyes scanned them, something would register in your brain and make you do something strange.

Like, I dunno, buy stuff.

In the end, that was probably it.

But maybe not.

I left quicker than I’d come in, hooked back left, and headed toward Bourbon but got drawn down a street called Dumaine. From here, you could hear the loud crowds of Bourbon as if they were having a party in the next room.

The street was far from abandoned, but the people there were mostly going to or coming from Bourbon Street. The only difference between the two groups was their ability to walk in a straight line.

I felt her again. Voodoo Cher was pulling me closer.

I was expecting to encounter a home that would be something out of a nightmare. Windows black as ink. A weathered porch with boards twisted like old bones.

Instead, I found myself heading between two buildings. Both were a standard local style, two stories, with a balcony on the second floor of each that ran the short length of the face of the structures. A small fence kept the mildly inquisitive out.

That said, it was a basic wrought-iron fence—if you were interested in seeing something down there, you’d just look through the bars and see, well, nothing. Passing through it, I felt a shiver ripple through my body.

Somewhere, I heard laughter.

Each step I took away from the street’s lights felt like I was being pulled in by one force, while another was urging me to leave.

In a town this old, at least by America’s standards, air conditioning had been an afterthought, so when you walked the streets, there were windows everywhere.

Not in this skinny alleyway between the two houses. No windows to my left or right.

At the end of one, there was a small door.

I should turn around. I bet there’s a lot of other cool stuff back at the museum I missed.

But despite my fear, which I could feel in my throat now like I’d swallowed too large a piece of overcooked steak, I kept moving forward. Part of me wanted to just push my face through the house with the door on it and see what was on the other side.

But that part of me was brash and stupid, and the rest of my parts decided we shouldn’t listen to it ever again.

Then I was overcome with a fit of laughter.

Why the fuck was I walking toward a door? I didn’t need doors. I was a ghost for Chrissake.

I stood in front of it, still chuckling to myself, when a woman burst through, sending a shrill through the rusty hinges. She was all hair and panic, arms waving crazily in the air like she was trying to shoo away a monstrous flying insect, taking more steps than necessary to round the corner.

“Bucket-bucket-bucket—” she mumbled, flying past me and out of sight.

I peeked around the corner in time to see her running back toward me, full speed, with a dented bucket held tightly in both hands. She ran right through me—skin, muscle, blood, bone filled my vision— and passed out the other side.

She made it back to the door before it could swing closed. Strangely, she stopped. With a curious look on her face, she looked back over her shoulder then sniffed the air.

Incredibly, the woman looked right at me, but her eyes darted and danced, not locking on.

The moment passed, and she fired up again and went inside, chattering all the way down the short hall.

I followed her.

There was a small kitchen in the back of the house, raised up on a slight landing.

Every surface held a utensil, device, old recipe book, Crock-Pots, pans, and a bunch of stuff that—well, I had no idea what the hell it was, but it looked like it used to be living.

On the stove was a huge pot of boiling water.

On the right side of the floor was a Styrofoam cooler, lid off. Next to it was a small, black-handled pot.

On the left side of the floor was the biggest fucking spider I had ever seen in my entire life—an angry, tensed, pinkish spider. I screamed like a madman and backed against the wall, which of course I couldn’t do because I no longer had a body, and instead slipped right through and fell a half story outside, landing on my ass in a yard made of dirt and stone.

From the inside, the woman yelled, “Come!”

She was trying to catch the pink spider to… eat it?

Despite everything that screamed at me, “Go away. Spider inside, fucker!” I poked my head back in—feet turned, mind you, so I could bolt at any given second.

She reached for the angry, tensed, shelled (shelled?) spider, and it skittered away toward the cooler, slightly knocking the bucket as it did.

The woman yelled into the other room, but she said nothing I could make sense out of. Barely sounded like English. Let alone words.

She grabbed the bucket again and lifted it, hovering over the corner and searching for her elusive dinner.

In the pot on the stove, briefly, I saw a claw grab its metal edge, hover for a moment, then slowly retreat, slipping back down into the boiling water.

Ah. So, not a pink-shelled spider so much. A crab.

Obviously, I had spooked myself stupid for no reason. I felt like an idiot.

I felt a jab in my lower back and spun around.

“Come.”

A tiny man stood before me, but he was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. He’d mumbled that word because his mouth had been sewn shut. Like his eyes.

His body looked like nothing more than a collection of rags, twisted together with twine, discarded branches, and burnt cloth. The skin of his face was sunken, leathered. On either side of his jaw were two large metal pins, dug deep into the crease where his neck and shoulders met. The dark red balls at the top of them were chipped and faded.

He spoke again: “Waiting.”

My feet implored me to go, get the hell out of there fast!

Instead, I nodded. This was what I’d come for.

And I followed the sewn-up spook down into the darkness.

As we walked the stairs into the cellar, the rotting odor was overwhelming. Ghosts don’t have a strong sense of smell, so I knew that if I was picking up on it, it must be eye-watering to a livie. Of course, while it rather smelled like damp roots or maybe last year’s fall leaves composting, my racing mind saw large piles of limbs, arms, and legs, a torso half chewed.

This, by the way, was not the best mental image to have when traveling deeper and deeper into a spooky basement. I wasn’t even really sure the difference between a basement and cellar except the latter conjured up images of a bit of an earthen hole, facing up to the sky at an angle, with a big, slated wooden door that kept stuff on the outside out and inside in. Like a keep for bad dreams that, if caught by something horrible, you would get tossed into.

For later.

I vaguely remember reading accounts of people who had been held captive. Maybe I’d seen it on cable or something, but the words came with a strained distance—an emotion held at bay as if the story had been told to me by the abducted, who felt the only way to recount the events was to take all the fear, pain, and horror of the experience and put it in a box that would be stuffed deep, deep in the recesses of the heart and locked away.

When you hear stories like that, you think, I wonder what I would have done? Would I have known better? Not turn my back before the surprise blow came? Would I have picked up on the signals to get the fuck out?

Going deeper and deeper into the cellar of the crazy-haired, crab-hungry woman’s home, I wondered if one day I’d be telling this story, right now, to someone. The story of how I got locked away for years. Or maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell it at all.

Everything was screaming at me to get out.

Finally, the stairs ended.

When I saw the beautiful woman, sitting with her legs crossed in the bloodred wingback chair, her skin white as bone, wearing nothing but a hat, her impossibly dark curls covering or casting shadows over the bits of her body that would turn the moment from PG-13 to an NC-17, I felt I’d maybe been too harsh to judge and needed to give this a chance.

After following the sewn-up man down what felt like a half-dozen flights of damp stairs into a deeper and deeper hole, I saw we’d walked to the entrance of a room with no door, just a space draped in dark, warm colors.

There was a fire in the hearth, even though I was sure I’d never seen a chimney outside. The flames looked wrong somehow, like an old video recording of fire that had been played back too many times. Thin, unsure.

“You must be Painter,” the woman said with a smile, sending a shiver all through me. There’s something about a smile from a pretty woman that does something primal to the soul. Not even sexual. But, yeah, probably a bit sexual. Sure, it’s base and sad and all that, but it lifts you up, just a little. Like something beautiful and right approves of you.

She stared at me, her thick red lips parted in a hungry grin. Waiting, indeed.

This woman was beyond beautiful, more than stunning, and it actually bothered me slightly because I felt I was being manipulated. As if I were being treated like some knuckle-dragging, base male who could be toyed with.

She uncrossed her legs and crossed them again in the other direction. And she did it slowly.

Swallowing, I decided maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt.

Voodoo Cher shook her head, eyes locked onto me. “You that boy who runs around doing his own thing. Upset the applecart, that’s what I hear. Is that right? You upsetting the applecart, Painter Mann?”

Trying to be cool, I said, “In that analogy, are you the cart?” I was not being cool. “I, uh, mean, you are not cart-like. Very un-cart-like. Farthest away from cart. One look at you, Madame, anyone would say, I was thinking about a cart but then forgot all about that when I saw you because you are cartless.”

“Charmer, this one,” she said to the sewn-up face guy. He actually smiled. Sort of.

I tried again, fighting off a stutter. “What I meant was… did I upset you?”

She smiled and stood up, did a long circuit of the room. Casually, she kissed her fingertips and then pressed them onto one of the many paintings that hung from the draped walls. In the one she touched was the depiction of a man, a watercolor with swirling dark and violent tones. He was fighting a losing battle with an enormous sea creature, one of his bloodied hands holding back a tentacle; the lower half of his body was wrapped in the monster's grip.

His eyes were blacked out.

She stood in front of the fire, her back to me, as if to warm herself.

And, you know, she had to be chilly wearing just the hat.

I focused on the hat for a moment—because I worried about looking too long anywhere else on her body, since doing that might offend.

Similar to the headgear worn by one of the bozos who’d chased me through the streets, she wore a squat top hat. This one was green and red. A jeweled brooch pinned several fanned-out bird feathers to it.

She walked to the middle of the room and waved me over.

I obeyed because, you know, it was her place. Seemed only polite. Not because she was naked. Mostly not because she was naked.

Like any spook, she glowed slightly in the darkened room. When I got close, she drew her hands around my head, which initially made me flinch. That brought her smile back. I swear I heard a voice ring in my head: Do I frighten you?

I relaxed, and she walked around me for a moment.

As she did, she moved her hands, fingernails red-tipped, around me in a sweeping motion like some dance. Held close together, her index fingers and thumbs on opposite hands formed a type of diamond, and when I stared too long in the space they made, I could feel myself slipping into the gap.

Up my leg and across my chest, face, and head, her hands never actually touched me, but I could feel them everywhere.

Back in front of me again, she looked into my eyes, brought her hands up and—without touching—turned my face slowly left then right.

“You are troubled,” she said, then added, “Painter Mann.”

I started to talk but found my voice catch. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I came here… a friend of mine said you might have some answers for me.”

“Oh? Who is this friend?”

“Everyone calls her the Professor.”

Voodoo Cher frowned. “I don’t know a ‘the Professor.’ Who is she?”

“She’s the smartest person I know in the InBetween?”

That earned me an eyebrow raise. “Oh? But now you know me, cher. Are you ready to reevaluate?”

“Depends,” I said. “Like I said, I’m looking for answers.”

She shrugged and walked past me, trailing a hand behind her. It went up my chest, over my shoulder, and down my back. She never even glanced at me, but I could feel her. She was in total control.

“Answers in a place filled only with questions are valuable.”

I turned toward her. She was seated again. Her long vines of curly hair settled in front of her breasts and poured across her thighs.

Again, I stared at the hat. It was a cool hat.

“I recognized the face of someone I thought had been my killer,” I said. “But they weren’t in the end. I’m not exactly sure how I got that wrong—”

“The mind plays tricks when there is no flesh to hold it.”

“Right, I know. But I need to find out who killed me.”

She frowned, crossing her legs again. “Why, do you want to leave? Who knows what the Next is? Maybe you go to hell? Maybe being here is better.”

“Do you think I’m going to hell?”

“Who knows? Maybe there is no such thing.”

“That’d be nice.”

“Or maybe you stay because you know that it is the only thing on the other side.” She hit me with a grin again.

“No, I stay to… help. To help people move on from here.”

“Why?”

“I don’t really remember,” I said, truthfully. “But I know when I made that pledge to help others… that, at that moment, it was the most important thing in the world to me.”

“And now you want to leave?”

“No, not yet,” I said. For the first time, I saw another chair. It hadn’t been there earlier. I reached forward and, like Jelly’s chair swing, found that it was solid. I sat down slowly. “But, when I’m ready to go, I should be armed with my ticket out. I need to know the name of the person who killed me.”

“And you think Voodoo Cher knows this thing?”

I shrugged. “The Professor seemed to think so.”

“And why would I do this?”

I shrugged again. “Kindness?”

She laughed then laughed harder, buckling forward for a moment. “You are a funny one, Painter Mann. This place we call home, your InBetween, was not built on kindness. It has one purpose.”

“Revenge.”

“You know this?” she said and smiled, approving. “Is that something your ‘the Professor’ told you?”

“I worked it out.” That wasn’t entirely true. My Stone Mountain guru did actually clue me into that, but I’d always known. You felt it everywhere, like some invisible film that can never be washed away.

“Bravo, then,” she said. “You know more than most.”

“What I need to know is who killed me. Can you help?”

“I could but I won’t,” she said and stretched. “I would hate to see you go, Painter Mann. We just met.”

“Well, that sucks.”

It was her turn to shrug. “Life is full of disappointment. Death, more so.”

I gripped the armrests of the chair and turned away, my anger boiling up. When I turned back to say something, she was standing right in front of me. Her flowing hair brushed against my face. From here, I could no longer see that hat.

“You will find answers in the city,” she said, in a low, husky voice that I felt all through my body. “Who knows if you will find the answer you seek, but I will do something for you. Maybe one day, you will again do something for me.”

She raised her hands again over my body, shifting her hair slightly upward so that it no longer covered her own body.

I looked down at my hands, folded in my lap. She muttered something low under her breath in a fast, insistent, and pleading voice that sounded both angry and full of sorrow at the same time.

When her hands came away, the feeling was so strange. There was a noise, then it was gone. Left behind just an echo… a slight, very slight, ringing in my ears.

“Go now,” she said. “You have my protection for a while, while you are in my city. But don’t stay too long, cher. There are things worse than dying. Prisons for the dead, places where you go when you are not to be found.”

“I’ve been in one,” I said, nodding and choking back a sob. “The Ghost Mob’s power stations. Drained me and others—”

“Oh, yes. Those silly things,” she said, putting her hands under mine, and again without touching, she raised me up from the chair. “There are worse places, my love. Far worse.”

Face-to-face, I was slightly taller but felt her tower over me.

I stared into her eyes, and she leaned forward and put her lips to mine. I felt like I’d been hit by lightning.

My vision rolled, and all I saw was blue sky. Then it was like I was an observer, looking down upon myself. No, not down, just floating nearby. At first on the other side of a small window? I was laughing, someone sitting next to me.

Then I fell from the sky and plunged into darkness.

As quickly as the vision had hit me, it was gone, and I was back in the dark, warm envelope of Voodoo Cher’s cellar lair.

She stared into my eyes, a small smile on her face, head moving slightly trying to catch something, as if she were waiting for an answer to some question she’d asked and I hadn’t heard.

I stepped away from her, surprised how hard that was to do.

The small man with the sewn-up face was once again by my side, and I began to move toward the door. I wanted to ask something more but then lost my nerve.

“Thank you, Voodoo Cher. Can I call you VC?”

“No.”

“Okay,” I said as I got to the threshold with no door. Turning back, I smiled. “I see why you keep the room so warm, if you’re gonna walk around naked in it all day.”

She smiled and turned to me square, hands on her hips.

She said, “Naked?” She did a slow spin, in a circle, tracing a hand through the air like something had just come on the radio, and she was about to say, “Oh, I love this song.” I could only watch. I wasn’t sure if the sewn-up guy were watching because, you know, no eyes and all that.

“Painter, I appear to you as you want me to appear,” she said and kept up her spin, a slow dance. “For you, that means I stand before you naked. And make no mistake: when you are here in my domain, I see all that you see.”

“So, you’re not really naked?”

“It’s different with every guest I have, what they desire the most. You? You want to see Voodoo Cher naked.”

I swallowed and said, “Well, that’s awkward.”

Turning, I saw the dude with the sewn-up face take one step ahead, leading the way. Me and Stitches left the warmth and light behind, and I was overcome with a longing I hadn’t felt in...

As I stepped away, I heard some faint noise, far in the background, like a distant song. The more I strained to listen, the harder it was to hear.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hollow’s headset buzzed, and he tapped it twice, hoping to pick it up and hang up in one quick motion.

Instead, a voice ripped through his earpiece: “Oh my god, what am I watching?”

Shit.

He said, “I don’t have time for this, Rachel.”

For a moment, silence. Then: “This isn’t fake? Come on, Hollister!”

“In thirteen years, you’ve never asked me that question,” he shouted over the roar of noise that had engulfed the room. It sounded like the combination of a howling beast and a tropical storm at landfall. With his hand, he searched for the disconnect button on his headset.

“You turn off the goddamn feed, Hollister, and your fucking pandering, two-bit, sideshow, piece-of-shit show is canceled as of now!” the woman said, her voice rattling his skull. Hollow’s eyes cut back to the burst of impossible light in the wall. He only hoped Sapphire and Digit were not yet dead.

“Are you joking?” Hollow growled back. “You want the whole world watching this?”

“Listen to what you’re saying—the whole world is watching, you dumb fuck!” the voice distorted as it yelled these last three words. “The whole world!”

Head of Programming Rachel Southland was still talking, even faster now, but Hollow knew if his crew had a chance of surviving the night, he’d have to get back into the fight. Arguing over whether to cut the feed was useless.

In truth, he knew that was never an option. A wave of shame rolled through him—he just didn’t want the whole world watching if he were responsible for two more people dying.

“Fuck off,” he said calmly and clicked the call away.

“Motherf—” was all the network boss got out before the line went dead.

At the wall, Doc turned toward him, eyes blazing, as he gripped the fabric of Sapphire’s flowing shirt and wrapped both arms around the young man’s calf.

The rest of him was somewhere inside the wall.

Two spotlights shimmied and wobbled, and Doc’s face distorted with exhaustion and fear. “Come on!”

In the chaos, Doc and Rose had worked machinelike with each other, readjusting their holds, while trading bursts of words, expressions, and gestures that had become a unique language between them over the years.

For a moment, Hollow could only stare.

The two of them were fighting to stop their friends from being pulled deeper into the wall, into some oblivion from which they all knew they’d never come back. At the same time, they were trying to hold on to whatever sanity they might have left.

Rose’s fingers straining and knuckles going white as she gripped Digit’s black tennis shoe, she, too, yelled for her boss to do something.

“I’m trying to think of something! Gimme a sec!”

“Faster! We’re out of our depth here! But if this stream breaks—”

“I know, I know!” Hollow shouted back to his two crew members in the harsh wash of brilliant light, cameras pointing at them from every direction.

For the moment, as if at a stage performance of some live horror show, he was in the cold dark shadows, just watching.

“Hollow!”

He broke from his trance and scanned the walls of the Scottish basement, its ancient shelving cluttered with old, rusting farm equipment, mold-stained heavy tarps, and piles of dirt and busted brick.

He wasn’t sure what he was looking for.

The deafening hum near the wall was growing louder, as if coming to a climax that, when reached, would fall away to silence, and their friends would be lost forever.

He wasn’t sure why he knew that, but it seemed inevitable.

“Come on, help me hold it!” The waves of static and preternatural engine whine drowned out the voice to where Hollow couldn’t tell whether the directive came from Doc or Rose. But he knew time was running out.

“Hollow! I’m losing this!”

Panicked, his eyes fell upon a long wooden handle a few feet away. He grabbed it, and as he spun back toward his crew members, he saw the widow standing on the stairs. She held one hand to her mouth, staring at the burst of pulsing light that had once been her basement wall.

He raised his arms in the center of the starburst, the streams of white pouring from the other side, and he saw Rose being dragged deeper inside, despite her leather boot planted high up on the solid part of the wall. In one hand, she had Digit’s foot; her other leather-clad arm was entwined in another’s. This one did not look like it belonged to any of their crew. It was old and wrinkled.

Hollow stared. None of it made sense.

Rose yelled over the din, “I can’t hold them!”

Hollow stood behind the married couple searching for a spot near the bottom of the wall. To his left, Doc gripped the concrete and a fistful of Sapphire’s wispy clothing. One of Digit’s strange devices was nestled in the crook of Doc’s shoulder, snapping the tendrils of light passing between it and the open portal. The apparatus seemed to be the one thing holding the doorway open.

Doc’s hands were shaking, red, and now actually beginning to smoke. He held fast, but the man’s hands were still burning.

He screamed.

Hollow pulled the pickax down and back and desperately wanted to tell them to keep clear, but it seemed the least of their dangers was the pick’s flying rusted head right now.

“Unnfff!”

The tip sent off a spark about six inches above the floor, and Hollow watched closely to see if he could find a way in. He was searching for ghost sign—not the terrifying portal that had sucked in both Sapphire and Digit but something like the handle of a door, a portion of the wall that would appear no bigger than a child’s hand and almost as if a child had drawn it.

He drew the pickax back again.

“Aaaaaa!”

Another chip, a slightly bigger spark, but nothing else.

Hollow braced his leg on the wall, his thigh pressing against Rose. He tried not to put more weight on her because she was now actually shaking. The only things powering her grip were the adrenaline and her fuck-you attitude that refused to let her friends disappear into the hands of whatever was pulling them in.

At an angle now, Hollow lifted the pickax back and—CLANK! He hit the wall with such force, the concrete below it rippled. No, his strength hadn’t done that. Something else had.

There!

He saw it. A glimmer of hope.

He could see the “handle,” the ghost sign he’d been searching for, which the spirit had used to open the door before dragging the two of them inside whatever abomination was holding them.

The “handle” was just to the right of Doc’s foot. The thing was a patch of concrete that looked somehow wrong, just above the dirty and now slimy floor.

“Doc!” he screamed over the roar. “Do not move your foot! I need it for reference, so I can find—”

“What?” Doc yelled back. “I ain’t moving anything. My body’s locked up, man! Do what you gotta do, but do it quick! This fucking thing will be pulling Rose and me in next!”

His head began to scream, and it felt like something behind his eyes was trying to get out. Hollow had to concentrate on taking a breath. He felt as if his body’s automatic systems had short-circuited, and he now had to think about breathing, blinking, everything.

Dropping to his hands and knees, he inched toward the weirdness in the wall. Just above his head, he could feel the vortex throbbing and twisting and bending the world. The crown of his head felt something hot, but it wasn’t heat. The light poured down, and his sloping forehead cast a dark, thin shadow on the wall.

He looked again at the weird patch. Its edges had no real definition. As he slowly reached toward it—

Then what?

The weird spot darkened slightly as if it were a small creature aware that it would soon have to fight for its life. A patch about as big as three fingers puckered a few times. He pulled his hand back.

Could this help him close the portal? If he did, would Sapphire and Digit break away or be trapped on the other side?

This was all he had, their only choice. He just didn’t know what that choice was.

Hollow glanced up, the pulsing vortex so close to his eye line that he stumbled back and saw that Rose, so bravely holding on to their two friends, was being pulled in herself. Like a drowning man taking down his rescuer, those trapped halfway between this world and the next had a death grip on this woman. Her eyes were now squeezed shut, her shoulders twitching, she struggled to hold on to them.

The vortex above him began to widen.

It was trying to take Rose too.

“No!” Doc shouted, gripping harder on the device as if doing so might somehow break the connection. He choked back a sob and said, “Rose, don’t leave me.”

She wasn’t listening. All her strength, everything she had, was directed to holding on to two people. Her effort was their last chance as they balanced on a precipice of falling into the abyss.

Fuck it.

Hollow reached toward the weird spot. It felt so strange—the closer his fingers got, the more he could feel the tug. The pulling sensation ran all the way to his elbow, up to his shoulder, then the back of his skull.

Whatever was on the other side, it wanted him to reach in. It wanted to pull him inside.

But he couldn’t stop now. With his fingers, his hand willing itself forward, he was merely an observer as his hand moved closer to the spot. His fingertips, just inches away now, began to burn, the sharp, white bones of three fingers splitting the fingertips and flaying the skin.

He wanted to scream, but that ability had also been taken from him.

Hollow could only watch.

I’ve failed.

I failed them.

Oozing from the weirdness in the wall, tiny snakes of light bent up and around his ruined fingers. Watching, his only thought was Where will I go?

Hollow could feel it—whatever it was, it was a thinking thing with intent, and it felt strangely… angry, vengeful and female—grip his wrist, arm, elbow, and shoulder, working its way up as light began to wash over his arm.

Finally, he found his voice and yelled. The yell turned to a scream as he tried to hold on to this world, his world.

A shiny black creature snapped in front of him in a quick burst, half blocking the blinding light of the vortex, and he felt his hand ache.

He’d been struck.

The spell broken, he blinked quickly and looked down to see he’d fallen upon his elbow, his wrist curling back from the wall. His hand was not damaged. Perfectly intact.

Next to his hand was Rose’s shiny leather black boot. He looked up to her face. She had one eye cracked open and staring at him. She parted her lips, jaw clenched.

“Don’t… touch it... with your body.”

Hollow leaned back, his breath filling his lungs again. Once on his knees, he realized that Rose had kicked his hand away. He knew she could see something—her mind was splitting between both worlds.

And soon she would be pulled in.

Back up on his feet, Hollow could feel the rage bubbling through him, pushing out the fear—not all of it, but now that terror was only fueling his anger, his determination. He looked down at the pickax once again. Then he heard something behind him.

“Here.”

It was the widow, still on the creaky wooden stairs. As she stood there in her thin, white nightgown, her gray hair falling onto her shoulders in ropes, her face held an expression Hollow couldn’t place.

Fear? Sorrow?

Shame?

He looked down at her hand, and again, she was merely holding on to an old lamp. He raised his hands slightly, unsure what she was telling him. He needed more light? That was crazy. A starburst was coming from the wall, so bright that it hurt the eyes just to be in the same room with it. The light was the last—

“Here.”

She held out the lamp. The sleeve of her nightgown fell away from her wrist, exposing a pale, frail arm, taut and sinewy. Her fingers gripped the lamp like it was a weapon against the evil of the world.

Hollow took a step forward, away from the light and toward her.

Was this a trick?

Did she know the entity on the other side of the wall?

Behind him, Doc yelled, “No, man! Where are you—”

But Hollow felt something. This here, whatever this was, this was right.

“Hollow! Come back he—”

She stood before him, hand extended, offering this old lamp with tiny tassels hanging off its tiny shade, the sort only an old woman would love.

“Here.”

Chaos burst behind him in waves, but he could only stare at the lamp.

“What? What do I—?”

She lifted it slightly, its heavy cord, ancient, thick, and wrapped in cloth. The cord’s fibers came up in tufts like the chin of an old, dying man. Hollow traced the wire and saw that it bent and pooled at the foot of the steps then trailed back to the wall.

The widow had plugged it in.

Again, she said, “Here.”

“Hollow, I’m los—!”

The voices behind him faded as he just stared at the lamp, as if it were the only thing in the world, floating in front of him.

But…?

Suddenly, in one quick motion, the old gray woman raised her other hand, gripped the cord, and pulled her hands apart. She groaned louder and louder, pulling, her arms shaking, until finally her hands came apart and she buckled, exhausted by the quick move, but then she righted herself.

Hollow looked at the lamp in her right hand, confused.

She threw it to a dark corner. The lamp disappeared, and she heard something clang followed by the small thwup-crash of the ancient bulb it held.

In her left hand, the cord, possibly a century old, frayed and bare, sparked as she held it. He looked back to the wall, back to her hand, and she held it forward once again.

“Here.”

Now he understood.

In a quick motion, he nabbed the wire, the ancient cloth wrapping sloughing off in his hand like skin or scales. Then he turned back to the light, back to where the married couple held the other side at bay.

Rose now had the side of her face pressed against the wall. Hollow could no longer see the panicked, clutching fingers of Digit and Sapphire. The leather-clad woman was pulled into the vortex up to her shoulders now, and she refused to let go.

Hollow looked toward Doc, who had run out of words. It didn’t matter. The man’s eyes told him everything.

He fell again to his knees, and Hollow found the weird patch, which was now puckering quickly, possibly looking for another drink of him. He pushed his fist forward and held it there for a moment as if to show his prey the weapon.

The weird patch ceased for just a moment but then turned darker, and Hollow panicked that it was shutting itself down, so he screamed as he pushed the cord forward, thrusting the electric arcing wires into the weirdness. He heard a sound too loud to be heard and saw light too bright to be seen, and he exploded into the worlds there and beyond, and then everything went dark.

Hollow blinked but only saw black.

Then quiet. A long, long spell of nothing.

Finally, when he blinked again, he saw that the black was slightly shiny.

He was on his back. Somewhere above his eyebrows, a voice said, “You are old. Get up, old man.”

The “old man” couldn’t help but smile. He went to sit up, but then his body, every muscle aching, screamed at him, so he lay back down again. He closed his eyes just for a moment.

“Glad you’re back, Digit.”

“Whatever,” the young tech said. “I wasn’t worried. Were you worried?”

Sapphire laughed. “You were screaming like a baby, liar.”

Hollow smiled again and said, “Saff, don’t be hard on her. She got sucked into a wall, right?” Then Hollow stiffened. “Wait, tell me we’re not still on.”

“No, show’s over for tonight. Something about videos of pets with bad haircuts is on now,” Digit said. “But that was a hell of a show! We’ve taken the streams down, so the world thinks you might be dead. That’ll be a good cliff-hanger.”

“Glad to hear you would use questions about my existence simply for a ratings boost,” Hollow said. Then he added in a flat, solemn tone, “I’ve taught you well, my child.”

He ignored his complaining muscles, sat up, and turned to lean back on the shiny leather. When he did, the leather moved, and he fell back again.

“I ain’t a seat back,” Rose said, walked to the basement’s dusty steps, and plopped down. Clad in leather, she now wore exhaustion as well.

Once again, Hollow was staring up, this time at the dark ceiling. Then, a shadow passed over it, and he immediately wished the ceiling would come back. He could take anything but the horror he stared at now.

Standing over him, Doc said, “I was amazing. I think I gained three hundred and thirty more followers on my Instagram. I was very powerful. Hey, Digit, can I get some stills of my rippling muscles gripping your doodad machine as I fought the forces of the next world with my bare hands?”

“It’s not a doodad machine! And no, get your own stills.”

Hollow sighed. “Man, why are you wearing a kilt?”

“Found it in the closet.”

“Great. Where’s your goddamn underwear? I don’t want to see this. Those.”

Rose chuckled from the stairs. “I think he shat it.”

“I did not shit anything! I’m trying to fly my freak flag like the locals. I think I’m going to stick with the kilt for a while.” He took a few strides toward the wall, which was now just plain old concrete. “Shows off my powerful thighs.”

Sapphire pointed at Doc. “He definitely shatted.”

“No, there was no shatting! Or shitting! None of that!”

Once again, Hollow sat up and cast his eye across his crew. They were okay. Tired, wiped out, exhausted, but they were okay.

The widow Connelly, still standing halfway up the steps, frowned and said, “You owe me a lamp. That was a good lamp.” She turned and disappeared upstairs. All quiet for a moment, they watched her go.

A low laugh rippled through the team and, for a moment, they just enjoyed being not dead or facing a vortex that split two worlds.

“So,” Hollow said, breaking the silence. “Anyone wanna tell me what the hell that was?”

Digit chewed on a nail as she drew his hand across the monitor on her wrist. Then she tapped at a small tablet. A heavy, sturdy Tuff Built-style computer was at her knee whirling away, images of the past hour flipping across the screen.

Hollow turned away.

“Well, we all know sort of what it was, right?” the tech said. “But a better understanding, that will take some deep analysis. And a lot of snacks. We can eat ’em on the plane.”

“What plane?”

Sapphire spoke next. “Time to head back home. Back to the US.”

“Yeah, I think we’re all tired,” Hollow said. “I’ll talk to the network about a break. Maybe a few weeks.”

Doc said, “Oh, hell no! Shit, we probably got a twenty share tonight, man! On cable! You should see the social media stats. We haven’t been this popular in… hell, we’ve never been this popular! We can’t quit now.”

“Doc, I can’t—”

“No, he’s right,” Rose said. “For as much as it pains me to say. Not because of the ratings.” She snapped a button on her leather arm strap and scratched beneath it. “Well, in part because of the ratings. But we got a new mission. Time to go find this Painter person.”

Hollow was lost for a moment but then remembered. “Right, the name Saff supposedly heard the other night.”

“I didn’t supposedly hear it. In fact, Digit’s heard it now too. When we were inside that whatever thing, that, well, ghost, was there with us. Again, it was looking for that guy. Painter Mann.”

Hollow looked toward his tech guy, who said, “I don’t know what I heard. But yeah, fine, I heard something. It sounded like the same name. But I may have imagined it.”

“Wait,” Hollow said, standing and making old-man sounds. “You guys just got sucked into a fucking wall by that, whatever, spirit or ghost or thing, and you’re looking to help it find this guy?”

Rose said, “Saff says the ghost wasn’t the one who opened up that vortex. Something else did.”

“Right, it spoke to me, in a way.”

“Spoke to you.”

“Yes, images more than words. But again that name: Painter Mann,” Sapphire said. “It’s going to go with us.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“When you jammed the cord into the wall, we got out, and that ghost came with us. It was stuck or something. I don’t really get it. But whatever was fighting us, it was whatever had, I don’t know, trapped it. Or something.”

Hollow walked to the wall and then ran his fingers across it. He knelt to find where he’d taken chunks away with the pickax, but there were no marks. It was pristine. Old, moldy, stained, but not damaged.

Hollow sighed. “Let’s go back to the part where you said you think a ghost will follow us.”

“It’s here,” Saff said, pushing his Lennon glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “In this room.”

“Why doesn’t it just go flit and find this person on its own?”

A shrug. “Can’t. I don’t know what it was saying but something to do with water. It can’t cross a huge patch of water or something.”

“Like the ocean,” Doc said, taking a wide, breezy stance. “The ocean is a huge patch of water.”

“Thank you,” Hollow replied, not looking back. “Helpful. So where are we supposed to take this, Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying it out loud… ghost?”

Digit held up his tablet.

“New Orleans.”

Hollow turned around and faced his group, all sitting and drained. “What? New Orleans. Did the ghost tell you that?”

“No, some chaos on a TV morning show a day or two ago in that city, a clip of the broadcast has gone viral. Their ancient weatherman died on air but not before saying, among other things, the name Painter Mann,” Digit said, turning the tablet toward her boss. “We’re not the only ones trending right now.”

***

Sapphire unbuckled his travel pack and began loading in some of the toiletries he’d laid next to the bed. The handful of shirts and pants he’d brought were already folded neatly at the bottom.

As he tightened the lid on a small travel bottle, he lifted his face once again to the corner of the room.

“We are going to the United States. Would you like to come with us?”

The young blind man looked toward the smear in his vision. The smear was very faint, but in a world of darkness, the very faint could look like a bonfire.

“We’re going to find your friend.” Sapphire watched as the old Scotsman shimmied, moving left then right. He heard a slight electrical arc.

Around him, the room flickered.

He smiled. “I’m actually blind, but don’t worry, I can hear that. I’ve got excellent hearing. The lamp trick works just fine.”

“Is Painter Mann a friend of yours?”

No flicker.

“Can this person help you? Help you move on?”

Crackle.

“But he’s a spirit, yes? Wait, is it a he?”

Crackle.

“Shit. I asked two questions. Which one are you answering?” Sapphire asked and then laughed. “Sorry, sorry. I’m… I’ve never actually spoken to one of you before. This is, I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve waited my whole life for this very moment.”

Sapphire sat on the bed and faced the ghost who, after a few more questions, he learned was a ghost and was indeed a he.

“Is Painter some sort of, um, special spirit?”

Crackle.

“I, uh,” Sapphire said. Then he thought for a moment. “Um, what is he? Listen, I’ll give you letters, and when I hit the right one, you hit the lamp.”

After a few minutes, Sapphire had five letters.

“P-R-I-V-A…”

He went through the alphabet, and at the letter T, the lamp gave out.

Crackle, bzzzt.

Sapphire sighed. “We’re going to need more lamps.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The small man with the sewn-up face took me as far as the second landing and then pointed up the stairs.

“You ain’t gonna walk me to the door,” I said, trying to sound cool but failing miserably. I stood before him, trying to get a reaction. “No kiss? No hug?” I grinned at the horrifying doll-man. His ragged hands then went up, reaching for me, and I flinched slightly.

Arms much longer than they should have been then wrapped around me briefly.

Unsure if I wanted to embrace the creature—although I was the smart-ass who’d asked—I gave him a friendly grip on the shoulder.

He eventually broke away and stepped back, head down slightly, but his expression did not change.

That might have been, of course, because, you know, sewn-up face, sewn-up eyes, and all. Tough to look cheery or anything in that state, I’d imagine.

Again, the hand went out, arm extended and pointing toward the stairs.

My heart ached a bit. I said, “Hey, man, take care of yourself.”

His head jerked slightly, turning to face me.

Then he settled back into its sentinel stance, pointing upward, so I gave him a quick wave and walked up into the wash of light pouring from the kitchen. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been down in the cellar, but the woman in the kitchen had just finished chasing her dinner. She was seated in a small dining room, just off where she’d been cooking.

With the burst of hair, it was nearly impossible to see her face. Her greasy hands fed a greedy mouth with the interior of the crab as she sat at a rickety table covered with plates, bowls, glasses, three different types of lamps, a few books, and what looked like stacks of old newspapers.

“That woman hates an empty surface,” I mumbled as I drifted toward the door.

She appeared to be chastising someone sitting across from her, but from where I was standing, it was someone I couldn’t see. And I didn’t care to. I’d already invaded this livie’s home, and that wasn’t really fair.

I really had no reason and more importantly no right to go poking around her home.

Time to go. Hit the street where Voodoo Cher said I might find some answers. Not necessarily the answers I wanted but answers none the less.

When I looked over at the Styrofoam cooler on the floor, I saw that a bucket was now perched on its lid, keeping whatever might be inside, inside.

As I slipped out of the home—the dirt, paint, splinters of wood, and rusted nails passing through my vision—I noticed again that, strangely, I was using the door when I didn’t need to.

Back outside, it was still dark, but fewer people were in the street, and now spooks, fortunately, were much easier to spot.

Moving toward the cacophony of music and crowd noise, I walked down a few streets, and a low hum that I couldn’t shake began to fade into the background. Time to wander.

In the InBetween, you wander long enough, and you’ll get tugged toward things that are, um, what’s the right word? Relevant? Maybe important?

Not like, you want ice cream, and you end up wandering the streets and bump into a Baskin-Robbins. Hell, I dunno. Maybe that works. Now all I can think of is eating ice cream.

Shit.

Anyway, things you’ve got some connection to or some link with or something within your circle of influence, you’ll gravitate toward them. It’s tough to be more precise than that because, as I’ve said, these rules aren’t written down anywhere.

No pens, no paper here. That little fact can also make it tough to clear spooks because you’ve got to then memorize names and places. Tough to do, as Voodoo Cher said, without a physical brain. But if I don’t help them move on, then it’s up to the living world to solve their murders, or they’re stuck here permanently.

Actually, that may not be entirely true.

I’ve heard some ghosts just slip away. Could just be talk, rumors. However, if it’s true at all, it supposedly takes a very long time. Like even death has given up on you, and you fade or something.

I don’t think that was what happened to those taken during the Night Vanishing. To hear Jelly Roll tell it, they all went at once, and some of them had only recently arrived in the InBetween.

I’d come to New Orleans to find out my own past, but as often happened for me, I’d picked up a case or two along the way. There was Sue, the man in black. And of course, this huge missing-persons case. Or missing spooks, I suppose. Never had one of those before.

How can all those people just disappear?

I’d hoped to start to stumble across some answers by just following my nose.

A scream from a shop to my right made my head snap toward its source. A moment later, that same voice split into peals of laughter. Some tourist goofing around with her friends, pointing out some stuffed creature perched on a shelf.

As I looked around, the only people sober were the dead. All the livies were smashed, and spooks moving through the city just took it all in stride, weaving around them, anticipating a stumble here and there.

I turned down another street just feeling my way.

Doing that could be dangerous too. You can find yourself in trouble just following your intuition around like some spooky divining rod. I was just as familiar with Madame Mini and Jelly Roll as the Mad Hatters. I could easily run into those morons, and I’d be back racing around the streets again.

That said, if I could find Mini, she might help me find a spook who lost someone in the Night Vanishing. Or maybe I’d stumble onto a clue about my own murderer.

Something would come up.

“Shit!” I yelled as I tripped over something and fell face-first in the street. “Goddamn it!”

“Sorry,” a soft, low voice said.

I’d slid a few feet and ended up with my head tucked into an old sewer gap at the curb. No biggie, but if I’d slipped any farther, I could have fallen into the drain. That would be a bugger to climb out of. Inching back as best as I could, I got to all fours then back up to my feet.

I looked around searching for the apologetic spook who’d tripped me up.

A guy who appeared to be in his thirties lay on his back in the middle of the street. His hair was damp.

Two canvas straps were draped over his shoulders. A backpack? That was the full extent of his clothes.

“So, you’re naked.”

He lay there, sighed, and said, “Yeah.”

“That,” I started and then burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. “Shit, man, all my time here, I’ve never seen a naked ghost. And today, back-to-back. It’s like a spook nudist colony up in here!”

I laughed harder. He didn’t join me, so I felt a bit bad and tried to cheer him up.

He looked like he might have drowned, since he had a slight tint to his skin, so I said, “Hey, man, why so blue?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, cracking his eyes open and looking at me with a frown. “You get killed while jogging?”

Great. The perma-naked dude was giving me grief about what I was wearing.

Changing tactics, I asked his name.

“Brandon.”

“Shit,” I said and took a step closer. “Brandon, why are you lying in the street?”

He closed his eyes again and began to sob.

It took a moment for me to convince the naked guy to take a break from lying in the road. Self-pity doesn’t leave you when you die. In fact, it’s one of the few things you’ve got left. You see it a lot in newer spooks, but some can hold on to it for a while.

Sometimes that self-pity evolves into something stronger— depression or rage. Neither is any good, but the latter can be dangerous.

Naked Brandon had fully embraced the former with tanned and toned and very naked arms.

We’d found a clearing just off the main road that looked like it would have been used for small open-air concerts or bake sales or Klan rallies.

The ground had been cultivated and shaped to accommodate an audience. The space was cut out of the side of a hill, like the first scoop of ice cream from the container.

Dammit. I was thinking about eating ice cream again. Very frustrating.

Anyway, while padded seats and folding chairs are useless to ghosts, sitting on an earthen bench works just fine.

We both slid down into the bowl-shaped stands. I motioned to a bench in the third row and sat on another in the fourth.

“What are you up to?” he asked, the lines of his face all pointing downward. “You gonna take a swipe at me? Leave me half-dead?”

“Dude, you’re already all dead.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t want to steal your energy,” I said, settling in and leaning back against the concrete that held back the dirt. “I just don’t want to be staring at your junk the whole time we’re talking.”

He looked down, sighed, and began sobbing quietly again without tears.

I let him go for a minute.

“Why the long—” I said then blinked. “—face, man?”

“For one, I’m dead. And naked.”

“Saw that.”

“Nothing I can do about it. I guess I died this way, so I’m going to spend eternity fucking naked, my dude swaying in the breeze!”

“There is no swaying. Stationary, dude,” I said. “And no, you probably won’t stay this way.” I explained to him how, if he remained in the InBetween for a while, he’d revert to some memory or perception of himself.

Newbies.

He looked at me. “So is this your perception, or did you die in jeans and a grubby hoodie?”

Fuckin’ newbies.

“Listen, I can help you.”

“How?”

I said, “It’s my job. I help people move away from here and on to the Next.”

“You mean like a bus driver?”

I was really starting to dislike this guy.

“No, I’m a private investigator. I get info on who murdered you and work through my people to help you clear out.”

“I was murdered?”

“That’s how you get here.”

“But I was skydiving,” he said. “Chute malfunctioned, and I sank like a rock.”

I said, “Oh, that explains the straps on your—holyfuckingshit!”

Brandon shrugged and looked down to the bottom of his legs, which I’d only just noticed. “Yeah, hit the water feet first. That probably would have hurt a lot if I hadn’t died.”

“Wuff, man,” I said. “I mean, you… wow, that… that’ll go away after a while. But you look like you’re walking on, I dunno, upside-down smashed dandelions.”

“Sorta, yeah.”

“But, like, oozy, fleshy, angry dandelions.”

“I got it, man.”

“Dandelions that, like, Satan might give his girlfriend.”

“Yep.”

“When he’s really, really pissed!”

“I know, man!” he said and crossed his arms over his chest. “I already feel bad enough, all right?”

I tried not to smile. “I’ve seen a lot of dead folks here in the InBetween, but that kinda takes the cake.”

“Good to hear.”

“But not a good cake. The sort of cake Hitler might—”

“Can you stop!”

I was quiet for a moment, which was a bit disheartening because I had easily a half-dozen more analogies I wanted to run through.

At least he didn’t look so depressed anymore.

“Can I ask how it happened?”

“Why?”

“Well, if I know, then I can look into it at some point for you. Maybe I can find out who did this.”

“Nobody did this, man. It just happened.”

I looked at him and smirked. “Sorry to break it to you, man. Someone did this to you. Fucked with your chute or whatever. But you’re here because someone killed you.”

His brief spurt of his anger seemed to drain away then.

“Doesn’t matter. I lost my girl. After I died, I just hung around her for a while. Even followed her to New Orleans and—”

“She was a livie?”

“Yeah, until that bitch-ass club owner!”

Bitch-ass? It seemed Brandon was new to swearing.

“He killed her. I’m sure of it. Then he did something with her.”

“Wait, what? What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “We were going to get married one day, right? Then I died—”

“Got murdered.”

“Okay, murdered. And, I’m ashamed to admit it... when she died, I thought we could be together again. But she’s not here.”

“What does that mean?”

“I saw her after, you know?” he said, ignoring my question. “Just briefly. She was so beautiful, so radiant in the dark.”

“She was a spook, then.”

“Yeah, but before I could get to her, these guys grabbed her. Last time I saw my Andrea. My beautiful Andi.”

“These guys that took her. Were they wearing stupid hats?”

He closed his eyes and nodded.

I sighed. “You’ve heard of the Night Vanishing?”

He shook his head. “I don’t really talk to anyone. Just kinda, you know, lie in the street. It’s a bit comforting. A bit.”

“One night, half the town gets cleared out. Dozens, even hundreds of spooks. In one night. It sounds like your girlfriend might have got caught up in that.”

He sat up straighter and looked at me. “Do you know where they took her?”

I realized that if I could find Naked Brandon’s girlfriend, I’d find the rest of them. This clue was my only one so far.

“What can you tell me about her?”

He slid over on the earthen bench to lean against the wall.

“It was a few weeks back. Or months, maybe?” Shifting on the bench, he twisted and put one leg up on the plank, back again on the cold concrete. I was thankful that he put his knee up.

The whole dude area, as he’d called it, looked like he’d gone swimming one day in the Amazon and the newborn offspring of some poorly developed, blood-sucking aquatic abomination thought he was its mother, latched onto him, and then died.

How did we ever convince women to sleep with us?

“Well, which was it, do you think? Weeks or months?”

“The more I think about it, I don’t know. I’m losing track of time, I think.”

“Could it be longer? Years?”

“I don’t think so,” he said and scratched at a patch on his thigh. “But, to be honest, I couldn’t even tell you how long we’ve have been sitting here talking.”

There was a slight breeze that might have been coming off the water, but I couldn’t smell it. However, it did carry a soft type of moan as it pulled through the trees. Underneath that, again, I could hear that hum. I hadn’t noticed it before when I’d first come to the city. Could it be all the spooks, all the energy in one place?

“Why are you lying in the street, man? Not a good idea. I mean, livies will go right through you, of course, but people like us…”

“Andi used to live in the apartment on top of the shop.”

“I’ll take a look at that,” I said. “What else can you tell me about her?”

He shrugged. “She was a waitress before coming here. Then here in New Orleans, she was, you know, a dancer. That’s where the money is.” He brightened for a moment. “You know, she went back to Pensacola about a week before she was killed.”

“Do you know why?”

“We both used to work there, at a beat-up little restaurant on the beach. Her sister still waits tables there.” He looked off for a moment. “She was in such a good mood when she got back. I’m sure it was because she caught up with her sister Tori. But I’d like to think maybe it was nice, too, because the place reminded her of me.”

The next few questions I asked were met with silence and brooding. I was losing the guy.

I wanted to go see if Jelly Roll could give me any more answers. At least I knew where to find him.

I stood up and walked to the back of the earth-dug stadium seating, looking for a way out. We’d just slid down the wall when we’d approached, which was an easy way in. But there were no stairs at the back, and as I walked the edges, I got slightly freaked that we were trapped in a bit of a bowl and wouldn’t be able to get out.

Brandon didn’t even look toward me. He just pointed at a cut through at the bottom toward the stage.

“Thanks,” I said. I walked to a wheelchair ramp at the side and slid down. For effect, I put my hand on either hip and turned toward the naked guy. When he caught sight of me, just sliding down the ramp, arms akimbo with a stupid grin plastered on my face, he smiled and then laughed.

It doesn’t take much to make someone’s day a little better. Just letting someone know they matter can be enough to give ’em a boost. It’s a small thing that can actually save a life.

Or make death more tolerable, if just for a little while.

When I reached the bottom, I gave him a wave and turned the corner. Then, I spun back and popped my head into the seating area.

“Hey, where did she work in Pensacola?”

“Right on the beach. There’s a place called the Fun Shak. Like I said, we both worked there,” he said. “Hell, I died there.”

“You died at the restaurant?”

“Sorta,” he said. “Just out from the beach. The bar used to set up these skydives, and I finally got up the nerve. And it helped I didn’t have to pay for it.” He looked at me with sunken eyes.

“Why’s that?”

He shrugged. “I’d jumped a bunch in the past, years earlier, so I made a bet with one of the bartenders that I’d parachute naked. It got around, and the bar thought it might be a fun promotion. I thought Andi might think it was kinda hot.” He looked down, gritting his teeth. “Now I got dandelion feet. But at least I don’t have an idiotic hoodie like some wannabe skater.”

“Whatever, man.” I noticed that his anger was bubbling back.

With a wicked grin, he said, “I used to beat up kids that looked like you in high school.”

I sighed and tried to remember he was lashing out because he was depressed and lost his girl. I tried to be understanding. But sometimes I kinda failed.

So, I said, “You know, you can speed up the process of reverting to a perception of who you were once.”

He sat up. “Oh?”

“Yeah, get rid of those crazy feet.”

“How?”

I shot him a serious look. “By singing music by Canadian pop and rock artists.”

He looked at me and blinked.

“You’re messing with me.”

“Fine, don’t do it,” I said. “But I was humming Celine Dion tunes for a day or two, and I came right.”

“I don’t want to end up in a hoodie and jeans, man.”

“No, it’s your perception. What you thought you looked like.”

He scratched his crotch for a moment. “Really? That works?”

“Sure,” I said and started to move away before I began laughing. “Maybe sing some Rush.”

“I don’t know any of their tunes.”

“Alanis Morissette.”

“I’m not an angry chick, man.”

This guy. I said, “Nickelback.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Are you jok—?” I shook my head. “How about Justin Bieber?”

“Oh, I like Bieber,” he said and smiled. Then he started singing something I didn’t even like when Justin sang it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Something is wrong with Florida.

This is breaking news to no one.

A Canadian philosopher once wrote that Florida was so troubled because the state outline looked like a ball-less flaccid penis and was thus the object of ridicule and snickering from surrounding states.

A good friend of mine is a spook back in Minneapolis named Gary. I’ve mentioned him.

Gary is the only person I know who can change their appearance at will. Well, it seemed Madame Mini had done that from daywear to nightwear, but I maybe I just misremembered that.

Gary, on the other hand, can change his entire appearance. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the real Gary. Usually, he’s some form of hell-sent monster. Don’t get me wrong; he’s a lovely guy.

He just looks like the nightmare a nightmare would have.

And he can change it up. An extra limb here. A set of teeth there. Several heads. Spiked tail.

He has opined that he can do this because back when he was alive, he was schizophrenic.

Now he no longer has the damaged or diseased brain, but his perception of reality is just far, far more flexible than anyone else I know. Basically, if I can use an out-of-fashion term: being a bit batshit crazy is a hell of an advantage in the afterlife.

In a similar spectrum, every city and town in Florida is vastly different from the next. From chill retirement community to redneck stronghold to bustling city to stoner haven, it’s definitely the most schizophrenic of the fifty states and two territories, which, come on, we’ve worked out the flag, they should be states.

Puerto Rico is brilliant, and their rum tastes like you’re suckling directly from an angel’s soft, supple bosoms.

There are a few other territories, but I’d throw some weight behind Guam because, listen to that name—Guaaaam. I mean, you want those guys in a fight, right?

“Sir, the aliens are on full-scale attack!”

“I know.”

“Our forces are pushed to their limit! We can’t stop them.”

“I know.”

“How can you be so calm? All will be los—”

“Not today. Send in… Guam.”

They’re probably a peace-loving people, but that just sounds badass. Maybe only to me.

You may notice that right about now, when you’re on the road with no radio and no one to chat with, the mind wanders quite a bit.

I was heading down I-10 from New Orleans and toward Pensacola.

The trip was quite pretty with rows and rows of tall spruce, pine, and oak lining the four-lane blacktop on either side.

Despite being an interstate, the road conditions change from border to border. Louisiana is pretty screwed up. I was told once that was because they’d held out for a long time on changing their drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one, so they lost a lot of federal highway dollars.

I suppose the upshot was that with the roads so bad, all those drunk teenagers couldn’t really get up to speed to do any real damage.

Some parts of the Louisiana road system made you want to pull over and ask if there’d recently been an explosion. Or an alien invasion and no one had Guam’s number.

When I’d crossed the bridge from Mobile to Pensacola, I remembered being there when alive and feeling my hair blowing in the breeze. At one time, I must have had a convertible. Or at least I must have had a friend who had a convertible.

My daydream of the past vanished in an instant when, once again, I saw something in the shadows. On the tree line just at the shore, there was something like a… creature? Or two of them in some sort of tussle.

The next moment, it was gone, and in truth, I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

I found the exit to Pensacola Beach and, after a few minutes off the interstate, I stumbled across my destination: the Fun Shak.

It was midmorning, so the place was just opening.

The locals and tourists who’d overindulged the night before were avoiding the consequences of those choices by refueling on Bloody Marys or glasses of orange juice and champagne. Most of these were older folks with tans so deep their bones had likely turned brown.

Their skin was wrinkled from a lifetime of sunshine and cigarettes. They laughed easily and always welcomed strangers.

But if I wanted any questions answered from a living waitress, I was going to need some help. Casting my eye over the beach, I saw a candidate.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“How do you find one ghost in the most haunted city in America?” Digit asked as tourists and locals streamed past them.

Doc and Rose, dressed head to toe in leather (save for the former’s recent adoption of a tartan man-skirt), leaned against a shiny building on Bourbon Street wrapped in thick tinted glass. The building might have been a car dealership or five-star restaurant. It could have passed for a spaceship, so Doc suggested the Scientologists may be in town.

Their tech was running through tests on each of their three body-mounted cameras.

The blind psychic took a moment to rub a soft cloth over the pair of Lennon glasses, his face turned to the sun.

Hollow looked at his crew.

They looked like a cross between desert wanderers and a kill squad you might send in after less-threatening international terrorists.

Or what you might see outside a casting office for a B-grade science fiction film about an interdimensional scouting team sent to find the lost city of Atlantis.

The old television host smiled to himself.

He was fully aware that with each successive season of Ghost Wranglers on a steady decline in ratings, other newer and better-funded shows were sniffing around his crew.

Digit was a young woman who couldn’t balance her bank account but saw the physics that made the world work. Electronics, engineering, motors—and on one occasion, plumbing. It all just made sense to her.

While Rose and Doc had often spoken about having kids, they’d usually done so with the accompanying phrase “not in this fucking life.” However, Hollow had noticed they said it less and less. And in recent seasons, they were becoming increasingly disenchanted with life on the road.

Sapphire didn’t seem to need or want much of anything. He’d claimed to get into television because it made his parents angry. But Hollow saw the smile that would creep across his lips when things were really rocking. Recently, though, that smile was hard to come by.

They needed this.

Whatever this was.

It had been years since they really, really had something. And whatever this Painter Mann adventure was, it was something.

If this season was going to be their last, they would go out on top and set the bar high for the posers that followed.

“We should go get drunk,” Doc said, and the group murmured, agreeing.

“We’re not going to go get drunk,” their boss said. “I mean, of course, we are, but not yet.”

Theatrically, they all sighed. He smiled and shook his head.

“Okay, Wranglers,” he said.

Rose covered her ears. “Please don’t say ‘saddle up.’”

“Saddle up!”

“Ugh, save that shit for the cameras, Hollow.”

Digit said, “Go for live?” and the others looked at Hollow.

Unlike traditional programs, their show started before it hit the TV, which was one of the things that had made them so popular.

It was also one of the things that made them all so bone-tired. Being “on” for hours and hours was draining.

Hollow nodded, and they all fired up their cameras.

Twitter accounts would broadcast their coordinates, while companion mapping services showed their movement in real time. Several Facebook livestreams and Instagram stories also tracked them.

Digit had set each of them up with Twitch video streaming accounts, which broadcast all their cameras. Fans could watch Doc or Rose or Digit or Hollow. Sapphire never wore one. He said it was because the extra “noise” interfered with his connection to the ether around them. Hollow knew that the young man just didn’t like strangers seeing what he could no longer see himself.

Some fans of the show also had a handful of streaming accounts that took in all those feeds and put out their own “show.” With Hollow’s blessing, Digit had encouraged this practice.

One user had taken it to the next level.

PunqLuk42’s Twitch dashboard showed multiple cameras at once, capturing conversations between team members. Punq also would employ a sidecar window, using text and graphics to explain to new viewers some of the team’s references.

When they spoke about some encounter in the past, Punq would often bring up that old show’s moment in a window pinned somewhere on the screen.

Sometimes, this dashboard experience was even better than the television show, which led the Network’s Creative Development team to try to shut the account down on numerous occasions. However, Punq would merely set up a different account across multiple platforms and do it all again.

Digit had made half-hearted attempts to track Punq down. Once, she nearly found him—she had learned it was a “him”—but he’d slipped away. She’d made it a quiet mission of hers to find out who the guy was but not to stop him. He was raising the profile of their show.

She just wanted to find him so the punk would know that she could.

However, so far, she hadn’t.

The upshot of the efforts of Punq and the hundreds of other lesser streamers—network interference or secret encouragement notwithstanding—was that everything the Ghost Wranglers did, every word they spoke, and every move they made would be followed by thousands of people around the world. When it was showtime for their television platform, that online number would jump a thousandfold.

Doc—a sort of combination Indiana Jones and Bear Grylls type of character, if that character had also taken a few too many knocks on the skull as a kid—was always up for a performance. He pulled away from his slouch against the shiny building, took a wide step, still dressed in his kilt. Sucking in a deep breath through the nose, he said, “The breeze. It tingles, delightfully so. It’s like a lover’s menthol kiss upon mine taint. I feel refreshed.”

“I feel sick,” said Digit.

“I’m with ya,” Sapphire said, not needing vision to know what was happening.

Rose took a step, gave her husband a playful shove, and said, “Let’s go buy some drugs.”

A couple of haggard-looking teens sitting on the curb looked over and laughed. A family of Midwestern tourists gave the strangely dressed and wired-up group an impressive collective scowl.

However, it was the cop—coming out of the shiny police station— who first answered them.

“I’m sorry. I missed that,” the officer said in a thick Boston accent, sipping coffee out of a paper cup. “You are looking to do what?”

Doc stepped forward, taking wide, theatrical lunges, mainly because he could see how off-putting the cop found it. He drew a hand through his thick hair and then reached under his kilt to give himself a brief scratch. Then he placed that hand on the officer’s shoulder.

The cop sipped his coffee, a bored look on his face.

“Sir, where might we find a proprietor who makes their living in the marketplace of stimulants, hallucinogens, opioids, depressants, cocaine, hash, molly, ecstasy, Mary Jane, marijuana, ganja, or weed?”

Sip. “You know those last four, they’re all the same thing, yeah?”

Doc shrugged, his fingers thrumming the cop’s shoulder. “Sure, I just like the cadence.”

Sipping his coffee, the officer casually reached for his belt with his free hand and unclipped his baton.

Doc’s eyes shifted downward. His cartoonish smile twitched slightly.

#DocsGonnaGetBeat popped up on several social media sites. Only second to that on the Ghost Wrangler platforms was #DocsGonnaGetBeatAgain.

With the cop’s eyes at half-mast—but still locked hard onto those of the man in the kilt and leather jacket, leather armbands—he slowly lifted the baton and scraped the other man’s hand off his shoulder as if a small bird had shit there.

“You ain’t from around here, it sounds like,” the cop said, coming straight outta Southie via Houston, Texas. “But our fine state and city frown on the illicit drug trade. It scares the tourists and makes the locals twitchy. It’s also, and I don’t want to get technical for you and your bandmates, illegal.”

“That’s not entirely true, Officer.”

The cop took a few steps toward the young man in the tiny round sunglasses and glanced down at the flowing, white shirt that billowed atop a pair of cloth pants tied at the waist with a rope.

“Wadda you supposed to be? A benevolent ninja?”

“I believe they wear black,” Sapphire said. “Am I wearing black?”

The other man frowned. “You giving me attitude, boy?”

“No, it was a sincere question. I’m blind.”

“It, uh, no--”

Saff interrupted him: “Well, sir, as I understand it, the state of Louisiana has taken a more liberal stance toward cannabis since 2015. In fact, possession has been decriminalized in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.”

“Sure,” the cop said and sipped his tiny coffee cup. Hollow smiled slightly watching the guy. There was no way any liquid was left in the container. “But procurement ain’t the same as possession. You go flashing cash for drugs in our town here, and you’ll spend fifteen days contemplating the meaning of life in a twelve-by-twelve room, shitting in a metal toilet in front of a dozen other strangers who also thought they knew better than me.”

Sapphire swallowed hard. “You folks have a strange definition of decriminalization.”

A shrug. “This is N’awlins. We got our own playbook.” The cop squinted, noticing the flicker behind the young man’s Lennon glasses. “You really blind?”

“Yeah,” Sapphire said. “But that’s only heightened my sense of smell, so, if you don’t mind…?”

The officer stared at him for a moment, nodded, sipped, then only said, “Uh-huh.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “If all of you are done comparing dicks, we’ve got work to do.”

“What?” the cop said, unfazed, and clearly enjoying himself. “You gonna pull yours out now?”

“Sir,” Rose said, “mine is sixteen inches long—”

“Well, hon, I appreciate that, but maybe now is not the time,” Doc said, with an ear-to-ear grin.

“—is made of stainless steel, has a two-handed rubber grip and runs on a car battery,” she added. “I’ll put it up against your snub nose any day of the week.” She then flashed a wicked smile and added, “Officer.”

Digit had her hands on top of her head, and she squinted. “Can we please stop talking about phalluses?”

Hollow felt it was time to speak up. “Officer, naturally, we don’t aim to impugn the fine city of New Orleans. But in our line of work, we have discovered that the local pusher has very intricate knowledge of the lesser, um, established establishments in the city.”

The cop stared at him flatly. Sip. Sip.

The leader of the crew added, “We just want some local intel from one of your street entrepreneurs. I can promise you we’re just looking to buy some information. No one’s looking to buy drugs.”

Doc coughed into his fist. Rose lifted a black leather leg and kicked him in the thigh, which snapped his breath away for a moment.

The cop took a step back and looked at the group. “Oh, wait,” he said, tapping a thick finger against his temple. “I know you guys. You’re from that show. Ghost Busters, yeah?”

“Ghost Wranglers,” Digit said.

“Right, right. Ghost Wranglers,” he said. Sip. Sip. “I tried watching your show one time. It was late, and I’d been drinking. Had to turn that shit off. I only lasted a minute.”

“Can I suggest,” Doc said, rubbing his thigh, “that’s not the first time you only lasted a minute?”

#DocsGonnaGetBeatAgain.

“Listen, Officer…” Hollow said, his hands raised in a surrender stance, as he closed the gap between him and the cop. “…Travis Sanders. We’re just looking to chat. Nothing else.”

Digit looked at the cop’s uniform but couldn’t find the name tag Hollow had supposedly seen.

Sanders nodded and turned back toward the police station. “Fine. I’ll be keeping a close eye, though. Don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

“You got it, Officer,” Hollow said and smiled. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can shoot Doc.”

“What?” Doc said and got another swift kick from his wife, this time to the other thigh. He crumbled to the ground, his kilt briefly lifting.

Digit cried, “Ohmygod, gross!”

Sapphire said, “I think, at this moment, I’m happy to be blind.”

The cop glanced down and then at Rose. “I see why you need your two-handled friend. My condolences.”

Rose flashed him a wicked grin then helped her husband up from the ground. “Ah, nah. My hubby does just fine.”

Ignoring the comment, the cop walked back to the side door of the police station. He looked up, annoyed, then waved his arm around until the automatic door finally opened. “You lot stay out of trouble, ya hear?”

“Hey,” Hollow called after him. “You know where I can get one of those cups of coffee? Seems like a hell of a deal. You get so many sips from such a little cup. So many sips.”

“Can it, Hollow,” the officer said. He slipped into the police station, the door sliding closed behind him.

His crew, stunned, all turned toward him. “You know that guy?”

Hollow smiled. “I know that guy.”

Digit looked down to see a fan stream where the user had found Officer Travis Sanders’s resume and Facebook page and was flipping through several photos that showed a younger Travis participating in what looked like a pub crawl.

Their tech looked up. “He was an old drinking buddy of yours? That looks like… Chicago.”

“Sydney.” Hollow sighed and pulled the penlight camera on his shoulder toward his face. “Punq, stay outta my business. You don’t want to be on my bad side. Got it?”

Digit watched the stream go black and shrink into a white dot like an old tube television. A moment later, it flipped back, now slowly scanning through a New Orleans police department arrest record.

The mug shot showed a man in his thirties, with a tightly trimmed goatee and long raven-black hair. In the photo, he had a strange half-smile.

“There’s a local named Kent Thibodeaux,” she said.

Rose looked over. “Who grins in a mug shot?” She looked closer. “Hmm. He’s kinda hot.”

“And he’s got a handful of aliases but apparently is best known by the nom de guerre Cajun Deaux.”

Rose tightened the strap on her left forearm. “You got an address, Harriet the Spy?”

“Give it a rest,” Digit said, watching the screen for a moment longer, as the arrest record flipped to the appropriate page. “Yeah, I got an address.” She put the address into her GPS on another screen. The mapping app displayed the route they needed to take. “About six blocks from here.”

She double-tapped Punq’s username, giving him—whoever he was, she was going to find out one day, dammit!—a little social love.

Their boss looked up, and Digit gave him a half nod.

“Okay, let’s go find the Cajun.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The living can’t hear the dead.

No one I’ve ever met knows all the rules around any of this. The few of us who pay attention feel pretty cocky that we’ve cobbled together the tiny bits and pieces we do understand. But in reality, we’re like the cave people of the InBetween.

I heard this story once but don’t know if it’s true. That won’t keep me from sharing it, however.

On Earth, about two hundred thousand years ago, Glark the Low-Nippled looked at the heavens and said, “That up there? Those are the eyes of the lightning gods, always watching. If you do something they don’t like, that’s when the fire fingers come down!” But of course, Glark was an idiot caveman. He thought he had an explanation—and many bought it.

It was just totally wrong and stupid.

However, Glark had already had a minor success with his “wipe right, wipe left” campaign in which those of the Many Tribes who’d chosen to live in harmony agreed that, at “the Dropping Grounds,” excrement that seemed potentially suitable for future use would be wiped to the left. The stuff that looked like its producer had eaten something that (or who) hadn’t agreed with them, they would “wipe right.”

Strangely, variations of his “wipe right, wipe left” policy has repeatedly reemerged in a multitude of forms throughout human history. Even dating.

In some way, in post-life, I found Glark pretty simpatico. We are all just the idiot cavemen and -women of the InBetween, coming up with our own deductions, which could be totally wrong.

Not the physics of stuff. If you’re wrong with that, you know it pretty quick: the world—even the world of the dead—has a way of pinging you when you piss in the wind.

So, even that initial statement isn’t exactly true. It should be this:

The living can’t hear the dead... usually.

As best I can, when I’m trying to find a new Temp, I try to vet them a bit. Not too much, since the talent pool is quite shallow. However, for the most part, you don’t want to rock up to a group of old folks and go, “Hey, I’m a ghost. Can anyone hear me?”

That can cause some people who are close to dead to no longer, you know, be close. Just dead.

But, when desperate, you gotta go with that. Or at least some version of that.

There were only a few dozen people on Pensacola Beach. It looked crazy hot, which would explain why the bikinis a handful of women were wearing were mainly made up of not fabric. There was a family on the south side of the beach just outside the Fun Shak. A huge umbrella stood above the dad, and the mom was propped up in some sort of tent that was open on one side, which made it look like a nylon, pop-up doghouse.

Two chubby kids were pawing at their momma for those freeze pops in the plastic tubes, which had appeared to have melted. So, yeah, just sugar syrup in a plastic sleeve. Blech-y, but these kids were jonesing for the things. If you didn’t look directly at them, they almost looked like they were nursing.

These folks were wha-ha-ha-ha-WHITE. Some of it, sure, was the 835 SPF sunblock they’d obviously applied. But otherwise, they were just bone white.

So, they were from either Minnesota or Wisconsin. On vacation.

Looking around their tent, I did not see a little smoky barbecue with brats waiting in a nearby cooler.

So, Minnesota.

Two guys were playing football, trying to get noticed by the girls. But the teen sun goddesses were busy Instagramming and posing and had zero interest in D-grade Tom Brady and D-grade, uh, another football player. (I was more of a baseball guy. I think.)

Sitting within twenty-five feet of the bar—thus within the booze-serving radius—was an old guy sporting a blue baseball cap, red shorts, white T-shirt, and skin like the football the two guys were throwing around. He was trading between sips of his Bloody Mary and drags from an oxygen tank by his side.

“Hello. Hi there. That looks like a tasty beverage,” I said and then cleared my throat. I was going for a soft touch but sounded more like a child molester with ten minutes to kill.

The old fella was watching the water. He stared out wistfully, probably coming to terms with decades of hard-fought regrets. A life of decisions. Some good, some bad. Strangely, he seemed to frown when I’d spoken, but it appeared that that was more about some reflection. Maybe a love that had fizzled out. Or a promise he’d meant to keep, but now, it was too late.

I tried again. “Just wanted to see, you know, if you’ve got a moment.”

Nothing. The guy just looked like he was getting more frustrated with whatever thought had overtaken his brain.

No surprise. As I said, most of the near dead cannot hear us. And since at the moment, my pool was one, the odds weren’t in my favor from the start.

“Okay, sorry, man,” I said and looked farther down the beach. “Just wanted to see if you could hear me. Don’t worry—”

“Yes, I can goddamn well hear you! What, do I have a sign on my back that says, ‘I can hear dead people’? Christ, why don’t you people leave me alone? I’m trying to watch the bikini girls.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“You should be sorry. Trying to just drink in the feminine curves, the skin tone, the way their hair flows when they laugh. The real laughs. Not the ones they’re doin’ for those damn phones.”

“That’s pretty creepy, man.”

“Sue me. I love women. Don’t mean that in a gross way.”

I gave the guy a look. He couldn’t see me, but I gave him the sort of look you could feel.

“Okay, a part of it is mildly gross, I’ll give you that,” he said. Then he took a sip of his red drink and a drag of oxygen. “But when I was their age, I had any girl I wanted.”

“Must have been nice.”

“It was!” he said, eyes lighting up. “I’m not even bragging. Some girls I could just talk to, and within a few minutes they’d climax.”

“I’m sure that’s totally true.”

“Not all of them, usually the chubby ones,” he said, and I realized that my powers of sarcasm were useless against old, semicreepy dudes. “But I didn’t discriminate. I wasn’t a snob about the whole thing.”

“Kind of you.”

“Thank you,” he said and, surprisingly, turned in my general direction. Livies can’t tell where we are when we speak because our voices don’t come from any particular direction. But who knows? That might be my inner Glark talking. “But these girls now, I try to say hi and they laugh at me.”

“Sorry, man.”

“It’s not mean, really. It’s more like ‘isn’t that sweet, the decrepit old guy is talking to us,’ but they have no idea. If I were twenty-five again.” He stared at them for a moment. “Pick any of those girls over there. Back in the day, I could have just read her the dessert menu here, and she woulda climaxed right where she stood.” He eyeballed the group for a moment. “Especially the one in the one-piece.”

“Jesus, okay.”

“But you know they act as if—” he took a deep drag of his O2 but no red sip, “—I was always old or something! I was gorgeous. Beautiful. In a manly way.”

“Listen, I need a hand with something.”

He chuffed. “Why should I help you?”

“Well, I could follow you around and recite poetry.”

“I don’t mind poetry.”

“I’d have to make it up. Can’t vouch for its quality.”

His frown was back. He rubbed the days-old snow-colored scruff on his chin. “So, you’re a prick. You know you’d think people would die and get, I dunno, some sort of reality check. But the handful of ghosts I’ve talked with are mostly assholes.”

“How many have you spoken with?”

“Just a few,” he said with a sip and a drag. “And keep Shark away from me. I remember him when he was alive. He was a DJ at this club, and he was a prick then. Now that he’s dead, doubly so.”

“That happens. Actually, I could probably help the guy.”

“Why would I care?”

“If I can work out who killed him, then he’d clear out. You wouldn’t have to deal with him for, you know, as long as you got.”

“Weeks,” he said and coughed to put some emphasis on it. “Maybe a month.”

“Okay,” I said. “Gimme a hand with something, and I’ll look into it.”

He spun back toward me. He didn’t look directly at me, just off my shoulder, but he was close enough.

“How do I know you can even do that? What if you’re just making this shit up to get me to do you some favor?”

“It’s what I do,” I said. “My name is Painter Mann. And I’m the world’s best dead private investigator. However, I am the only dead private investigator, so technically that makes me the worst too. Just want all the cards on the table.”

“You got a job in the afterlife?”

“It’s a compulsion of sorts. I guess I decided it was something I had to do.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I think because no one else is doing it. And there are a lot of people just trapped. I try to help.”

He rubbed his chin again, making a noise like a bear cub scratching its back against a tree. “Okay. Maybe not so much of a prick after all.” He stood slowly and grabbed the handle on his oxygen tank. It was on a hand cart with big knobby wheels covered in sand. “But you gotta get rid of Shark. He drives folks nuts, rattling shit all the time, knocking stuff off walls. He scares away the cool people. Especially the pretty girls.”

“He’s just in a bad mood. Being dead will do that to you.”

“Nah, he was a prick when he was alive too.” He put his hand out. “Name’s Walther.”

“Walter?”

“No, with an H, like the handgun. I think my parents knew I’d be a pistol, so they called me Walther.”

“Or your momma had a lisp.”

He turned, and this time, he faced me directly. “I expect you spend a fair amount of time alone, son.”

“Yep.”

At that point, we had a tentative arrangement, so I told him what I needed: a Chatter.

Basically, my Temps are two things—either Chatters or Admins. The latter is for publishing the results of my investigation for the world to see. Once that happens, a spook will clear.

My Chatters, well, they chat people up for me. They help me by asking questions of livies who can’t hear me. But they can’t reveal the person is essentially chatting with a ghost.

I told Walther what I needed and added that, as a rule, he should keep my presence to himself.

“No, fine, I won’t tell her. She’s a sweet kid anyhow, got problems of her own. In fact, her sister was killed a little while back. She was a waitress here too. Ended up taking her clothes off for money in New Orleans.”

“Yeah, heard about that.”

“She was a good kid. Just got mixed up with some of the druggie crowd. At least that’s what I’ve heard folks around here say.”

“Let’s see what her big sister says.”

“If she’s up for talking about it,” he said, tugging his oxygen behind him. The sand had clogged up the wheels so bad that he just dragged it. Even when he hit the wooden deck, the wheels wouldn’t turn.

On the hard floor now, I realized the old boy wasn’t wearing sandals.

“That hot sand doesn’t bother your feet?”

“Nah, I lived on the beach, boy. The soles of my feet are thick enough to make armor out of them. That took a lifetime of sun and surf.”

“Handy.”

“Well,” he said and took a drag from his O2. “Maybe a bit too much sun. Payin’ for it now but, ah,” he said, turning to look at the girls. “Worth it. Worth every minute of it.”

I followed Walther inside as he slowly wove around tables and a half dozen overturned chairs. He banged his oxygen tank into a tall structure that looked like a fake palm tree. When I looked up, I realized it was actually an outdoor gas heater designed to look like a palm tree.

The old guy stepped up to the Fun Shak’s beach-side sliding glass door, which had a crack from top to bottom.

Inside, the AC was blasting, and Walther stiffened for just a moment as the sun left his skin.

I could pick up the faint smell of stale beer, a dampness that would get into a place like this and never really leave.

Walther headed straight to the bar. Standing there was a massive muscled guy who looked like he’d taken a big breath earlier in the summer and just never let it out. His T-shirt said Fun Shak Summer Jam ’07.

“You gonna have the Braves game on later?”

“Why?” the bartender asked, putting up his glassware for the day. “They’re at the bottom of the league, Walt.”

“Oh, much better to listen to, then,” he said, climbing up onto the barstool.

Muscle T was pulling liquor bottles, the cheap stuff, from a damp plastic tub and dropping them into a metal mesh railing in front of him.

“Okay, sure, I’ll bite,” the bartender said. “Why is it better to listen to with them when the team’s doing shitty?”

He dropped a Bloody Mary—complete with celery stalk and a glass rimmed with sand-colored salt—right in front of Walther without a word. I didn’t even see the guy make it.

Bartender juju.

“Because the announcers are bored by it all, and they start drinking long before the seventh,” Walther said. “They just sit and tell stories, half calling the game. Hell, it’s almost like calling the game gets in the way. Feels like you’re hanging out with your pals at the ballpark.”

“Why don’t you just go to the ballpark with your buds?”

“First off, I ain’t going up to Atlanta to sit in that abomination. If I wanted to go to the mall, I’d go to the mall.”

“I like it.”

“Sure, but you’re stupid,” Walther said and then held up his hands. “No offense, because you’re a hell of a bartender.”

“Nice guy,” the barman said but smiled despite himself.

“Second, all my ‘buds’ are dead. And of all the ghosts that pester me, none of them have come by to say howdy.”

I thought of explaining that the ghosts of the InBetween were all murder victims. If his old pals hadn’t come by, it meant they’d moved on. That was a good thing, then. Before I could say anything, Walther changed the subject.

“Hey, where’s Tori? I gotta ask her something.”

The bartender slowly shook his head. “Don’t bother Tori. She’s the only one on right now. Let her work, man.”

“There’s a dead guy standing just behind me with a semiofficial inquiry.”

“Dead guy?” Muscle Man said. “Whatever, man. Just don’t upset her. She’s still fucked up over Andi.”

“I know it.”

After a moment, Muscle T nodded to the far side of the bar. Walther took a moment to climb down from the barstool, so I walked over.

Next to a crane machine where you could ostensibly win stuffed dolphins, fish, and squid (who’d want a plush squid?) was a flashy bit of electronics.

This piece of hardware was a long monitor that looked a bit like two fifty-inch televisions stacked one on top of the other. But they were sideways, so the effect was a long, skinny screen that ran from the ceiling to about three-quarters of the way down the two-story wall.

The screen was split into two parts. Four large boxes starting from the top showed the trending social media hashtags on an increasingly smaller scale—world, the United States, Florida, and someplace called Perdido Key. I’d seen that name on the outskirts of town.

At the bottom, it read Fun Shak.

Here, Tori the waitress was hunched over a keyboard covered in a thick, cigarette-smoke-stained plastic cover, slowly typing the day’s hashtags into the establishment’s various social media accounts: #ThirstyThursdays, #FunShakDrinks, #GulfCoastDrinkDeals, and so on.

As I watched, Walther came up behind us, dragging his O2 tank, wheels locked in place.

Shzzzzt… shzzzt… shzzzt.

Tori drew a hand up to the side of her head, ran her purple-tipped fingernails over the top of her left ear, then tucked her hair back. Her eyes flicked to the crane machine, and I realized she’d looked into the reflection of the glass.

Walther caught it too. He gave her a small wave.

She went back to pecking at the keyboard with two index fingers. Chipped fingernail polish tapped slowly as she read from some beer-stained pages on a clipboard.

Walther took nearly a minute to sit down in a nearby chair. After shuffling, turning, adjusting the tube from the O2 tank, and rearranging his man bits so he didn’t sit on them, he eventually plopped down into place with an exhausted sigh.

“Hi, Walther,” Tori said, squinting at the tiny text on the keyboard. “I don’t have time for stories about how pretty you were.”

“I wasn’t pretty!” He sipped from his Bloody Mary and put it on the vinyl seat next to him. “I was beautiful. A beautiful manly figure.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but lock my eyes on his glass. No question that drink was going to spill. It was only a matter of time. You would think a guy that old would know you couldn’t balance a drink on a cracked vinyl barstool.

Just balancing ever so precariously. A little slosh this direction, a slosh that way.

Still, he paid no attention to it. What kind of maniac was this guy?

He asked Tori, “All that hash stuff make any difference?”

Sigh. “Who knows? Someone put a bug in Alison’s ear a year ago. She dropped five grand on her Twitter Tower, and we spend a half hour each morning punching in phrases to justify buying it.”

Walther finally grabbed his Bloody Mary, probably mere seconds before it tipped off the bar seat and crashed to the floor, and took a long pull from the glass.

Her eyes flicked toward the old guy and then back to the keyboard. She sighed.

She was quiet for a moment, just clicka-tap, clicka-tap, clicka-tap as her fingernails poked at the letters.

The old guy pulled out the celery stalk and gave it a huge crunch with his bleach-white teeth, and she finally looked fully in his direction.

“Something on your mind, Walther?”

He put the red drink back down on the wobbly seat—what was wrong with him?—and then met her face. He started to speak, and then his eyes misted over slightly. Tori turned back to the last inputs she had to make.

“You don’t talk about Andi so much anymore,” he said softly, a hitch in his voice. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t seem fine,” he said and sucked in a hit of oxygen from his tank. “You seem like you’re a hiccup away from grabbing Steve the bartender’s Mossberg pump-action and leveling this place.”

She smiled and said nothing.

“If you do,” he said, “hit this Tweet Tower or whatever it is first.”

She laughed. “If I do, I’ll go oldest to youngest. Thin the herd.”

Walther took another crunch of the celery. He said, “Just remember, I look old for my age.”

“Noted,” she said and then softened. “How do you even know about Steve’s shotgun?”

“I’ve been down at the bar a few times over the months when he’s reached underneath with two hands, threatening to pull it out.”

“We still talking about the shotgun?”

“Obviously,” Walther said and smiled. “I did say he used two hands.” He took a red sip. “I’m not even sure he’s got a gun back there, to be honest. Maybe it’s just a threat.”

“Oh, no, it’s back there,” she said. A moment later, she leaned back against the crane machine and rubbed her wrists. She glanced over at the muscled guy behind the bar. “He thinks he’s some sort of tough guy. Says it’s for protection to keep the patrons safe. But the only one he cares about is Steve. He thinks he’s big-time now he’s in the little black book of some gangster.”

I prodded Walther to ask about Andi.

She blinked a few times. “Why are you asking me about my sister?”

“You guys always seemed happy here, working together. Why’d she leave and go to New Orleans?”

“She never really said, but I think it was in part about Brandon. After the thing on the beach, she couldn’t even go out there.” She took a shaky breath. “Why are you asking me these questions, Walther? Are you trying to send me into another crying jag?”

“No, no,” he said and held both hands up, the tube of his O2 tank dangling across his frail wrist. “I got a ghost with me here from New Orleans—”

“Don’t start with that again, man. No one’s interested in your ghost bullshit, and I… just don’t have the patience today to deal with crazy.”

“Good thing you work in a bar, then,” he said and smiled. “Should be smooth sailing for you.”

She tapped away at the computer for a few moments.

“Why would you even say that, man?” she said, punching the keyboard. “A fucking ghost from the city my sister was killed? That’s cruel, Walther. I didn’t think you were a cruel guy.”

“I’m not being cruel, darlin’. I swear it. He’s trying to help. He’s looking into how she, you know, died.”

“She’s gone. Got in over her head and she’s gone.”

I said a few words to Walther, and he nodded, repeating them.

“What do you mean got in over her head?”

“Went to work for the Cajun. I warned her against it, but she was making really good money. Maybe more money than she should have.”

“Meaning?”

Tori’s eyes glazed over for a moment. “I don’t know. He had given her some special job at the club. She never went into details, and I didn't ask.”

Walther nodded, grabbed the celery stick, and then plopped it back in the glass. I gave him a line, and he repeated it.

“Maybe someone should look into those details.”

She let out a low chuckle. “Who? You? What could you find out the cops didn’t?”

Walther’s shoulders rose an inch. “I’m dying. A month, maybe less. I no longer have any wants or needs. A man without needs is the most dangerous human on the planet.”

She glanced at him and then went back to the keyboard. “You drag an oxygen tank with broken wheels around, and I’ve never seen you without a drink in your hand. You wear an adult diaper. ‘Dangerous’ is the last word that comes to mind when I think of you.”

“I wear that particular undergarment by choice. I don’t have to make a dozen trips to the bathroom. It’s efficient,” he said.

“Leave me alone, okay?”

I started to talk, but Walther was working his own plan. “Listen, I lost someone a long time ago too.”

“Your wife left you, right? You told me that. Because you’re batshit crazy, Walther.”

“No, not her,” he said and reached for the glass in her hand. She pulled it back. “I had a daughter once. She died. She was perfect and lovely and was my whole heart. Every bit of it. She was the best thing on the whole godforsaken planet. She had some fluid buildup in her brain and went blind within a month,” he said in a monotone voice, which cracked at the edges. “A month later, she was gone.”

“Fuck.” Tori tried to say something more but faltered.

“I’m looking forward to dying,” he said, his voice shaking. “Because when I do, if there’s a God, I’m going to punch that fucker in the throat.”

“Christ, Walther, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” the old, frail man said. “I drink all day, every day to speed up that meetin’ time. So, I know what loss can do to you.”

Her hands went to her face. Wrinkled and bony, her fingers seemed ten years older than the rest of her. When she pulled them away, her eyes were red.

“Do you really think you can find out what happened to my sister?”

Walther’s mouth hung open for a moment. His head twitched slightly, and he said, “Uh, that’s not, I mean… like I said, there’s Painter, the dead private investigator. He can look into that.”

In a quick move, she went to her knees and grabbed Walther’s hands. “Walther, don’t fuck with me. Are you willing to try? You’re sure?”

“Well, I mean,” he said, his voice phlegmy. “Sure, but—”

She was fighting tears. “I don’t have money to hire anyone, Walther. But you could do it, couldn’t you? You could go find out!”

“No, no,” he said. “Not… I mean the dead PI. He’s—”

“Please don’t be crazy right now. I can’t take it,” she said, tears coming from both eyes now. “Can you try to find out what happened?”

I told the old guy I’d handle it. I wanted a bit more from Tori, anything she knew, but there was no way—

“Yes,” he said and then took a massive gulp of oxygen. “Sure. I can go. I’ll do it.”

She smiled and laughed and cried at the same time. “Take my car. I never use it.”

“I got a car.”

“You do? I’ve never seen you come up in a car.”

“I don’t have a license.”

“This is the Gulf Coast,” she said and squeezed his hands. “I don’t think anyone has a license.”

“That explains a lot, frankly.”

“No pressure, okay? If you get nothing, I understand. But you might be my best chance of finding out what happened to her.”

He stood slowly then gave her a hug. “You got it.”

I told Walther I still needed to find out more from Tori about her sister. About who she might have known. Her friends. And whoever this Cajun person was.

“Can I ask you a few more questions? About Andi? It would help —”

“Sure,” she said and wiped her eyes. “Let me get you another drink.” She turned away from her keyboard, gave him another hug, and then started toward the bar.

Walther took a deep breath of air and smiled a big smile. He whispered to me, “So, those are real. You can tell because if you squeeze hard enough, the fake ones feel like squishy fists.”

Before I could reiterate that Walther needed to stay behind, Tori called back.

“Hey, Walther?” The old guy turned. Her eyes were up at the Twitter Tower. “What did you say your imaginary friend’s name was?”

“Painter.”

She nodded, and a wry smile crossed her face. “Uh-huh. Painter Mann, yeah?”

He said, “Yeah. I think that was it.”

She pointed up to the two big screens on the wall and said, “I see where you got the name. He’s trending right now.”

I went to turn and see what she was talking about, but before I could look up, I got punched in the back of the skull. Everything went dark, and I went down like a duffel bag full of spare car parts.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

27th of May 1754

It seems the rain will not stop and our march has slowed with the damp and cold again, draining the strength of my men. The natives with us, far less dressed for the weather, it would seem, are less affected.

We make a brief refuge in an abandoned barn, long since used. The roof is leaky, and many boards are missing, but it is pleasant to be, briefly, out of the wind and rain.

I have conferred with my lieutenants, our maps spread on well-trampled hay, to be sure that we are on the right path to get to the French encampment.

The men are enjoying a brief smoke while others nibble at provisions from their packs.

However, strange rumors are floating amongst the troops.

It seems I will have to find a way to stop their idle talk because it is certainly challenging the resolve of our younger privates.

I fear some are telling ghosts stories to keep themselves entertained; however, this talk is unhinging some of the young lads.

It’s time to move on so that we might make our way to the fight.

And so that this talk of sightings of strange beasts in the dark, pursing my men, might also end.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“I wouldn’t trust that balcony very much,” Digit said. She then sipped a soda through her metal straw. “Look, it’s warped.”

Rose squinted against the sun. “Is that a balcony? Three windows up on the second floor, no way to get out to it.”

“You could crawl out the window,” Doc said, shutting down his chest camera. He folded the shoulder camera into a low-profile box mounted on his shoulder. “Remember when I used to climb up the balcony and crawl into the window at our parents’ house at night, babe?”

His wife traced a finger in the air along the latticework of the metal balcony. “My parents owned a one-story rambler.”

“They did?”

Sapphire stood at the door, scratching his chin. Hollow marveled at how the young man never shaved but also never had the slightest trace of facial hair.

“Anything?” Hollow said in a worried tone. He wasn’t worried. The tone was just for the hundreds of thousands of streams engaged. He hadn’t seen off-peak numbers like that in… well, never. “You getting any, you know… feelings?”

“Yes,” Sapphire said, his hands extended but not touching the door. “Hunger.”

Doc took a step back. “Wait? Hungry spirits? I don’t like the idea of hungry spirits.” He looked for an address and only saw the word L’Corbeau above the entryway. “Maybe we’ve got the wrong place.”

“No, not hungry spirits. I am hungry,” Sapphire said and put his hands in his pockets. “Someone’s cooking. Smells spicy.”

Hollow turned to his team. “Okay, we gotta go dark. Shut the cams down.”

“What?” Rose said, walking over to her boss. “Do you realize how many—”

“I know, I know,” he said, then nodded toward the stone-colored, two-story house in front of them. “But guys like this won’t take kindly to fifteen cameras bursting into his home. We won’t get anything from him.”

Rose whispered, “Do you see our numbers right now? Are you fuckin—”

Matching her tone, he asked, “You got a better idea?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “We could leave someone out here with a feed. Digit could do a running commentary. It won’t hold all of them but maybe some.”

“I’ll stay outside,” Doc said, then stretched his legs in either direction, giving his undercarriage a fresh breeze. “I mean, I’ll guard the area outside. Make sure no one comes up behind any of you.”

Digit replied, “Uh-huh.”

“Okay, everyone else needs to go dark except Doc. Fold ’em up,” their leader said. “Doc, do a quick rekkie around the block. A little play-by-play, but keep it, you know, Doc-lite.”

Sapphire took a step away from the front entrance. “Don’t go too far, though.”

Doc stared for a moment. “Why not? What’s wrong?”

“Because I’m goddamn hungry! After we talk to the drug lord, we’re getting some of that spicy food they got around here.”

***

Hello, fans. If this is the first time you’ve tuned into my channel, welcome to the fun zone. Be sure to click the plus thingy up on the whats-a-doodle, so you are alerted anytime I go live.

If you’re coming from another Ghost Wrangler team member’s feed because they’ve gone dark, prepare to have your cam cherry properly busted! Doc grins into the vanity camera on his shoulder, pointing directly at his face. He frowns for a moment and looks off cam.

The chest cam shows he’s peeking into a BMW station wagon just outside the home his partners have entered.

Hmm. This is the new series. Not impressed. I do like the option to lie down in the back if the need arises.

He looks back into the primary camera.

Okay, some rules. First off: fuck, titty, cock, ass, balls. If you’ve come from Digit or Saff’s channel, that’ll be the first time you’ve heard such words. Don’t be afraid. They won’t hurt you. And I like them. So if you don’t, put it on mute and look at all the pretty pictures.

The main camera’s visual display shows a huge grin on Doc’s face. Whereas the rest of his team would shoot a left- or right-justified shot to get a bit of the scene around them, Doc’s was a very close zoom on just his face.

You’ve got the three cameras to choose from, but all you’ll really need is the Me Cam. I’ve been described as ruggedly handsome, not my own description… but sure, you may see that in the bio page. It should be enough to delight. In fact, this face has pleased many over the years. I’ve had more ass on this face than a twenty-five-cent mechanical horse outside the Kmart.

His eyes flick to the Me Cam and then back to the street.

Not, uh, the same sort. Of course. Of ass, I mean. That’s— actually that is a terrible analogy. I’ll get a new one. Never mind that now.

Doc gives a nod to someone passing by and says hello.

Up to you, but if you want to take a very quick peek at the camera mounted between my powerful shoulder blades, you might catch a very nice young lady walking past. And, if someone could do a quick screen grab of that, I’d be much obliged.

Doc takes a step toward the sidewalk then back into the street once again as a car passes by. His chest camera shows a skinny road with tall homes on either side and a park near the end of the block.

Rose and I came to New Orleans years ago, honeymoon maybe, I can’t remember… and we went on this carriage ride through the city. At midnight, it was supposed to be some sort of spooky tour, but the only thing spooky was the guy who held the reins of the two horses. He was the tour guide, too, a Scooby-Doo-villain-looking motherfucker.

Doc faces a small structure covered in chipped white paint. The front entryway looks like the louvered double doors of a closet, and the same treatment shows on the single window. A small garage, its dirty white door clamped shut, sits to the right of these.

Above the door, the molding is chipped and fading. On the upper right, it looks as though some animal has taken a bite out of the door, exposing bare wood underneath. The bite looks fresh.

If any of you are looking for a stay in New Orleans, it appears we’ve found your holiday rental. Gross.

Anyway, so the Scooby tour guide tells us that New Orleans is the most haunted city in America. Not sure if that’s in the Chamber of Commerce literature, but, I mean, how do you prove that, right? And what, we’re going to take this old fuck’s word on that? He looks like he combs his hair with a dead cat.

Doc rounds the corner and sighs. Christ, every turn, it’s the same. Badly painted two-story balconied homes with weird little structures sprinkled in. We need to get to Bourbon Street. I feel like a hand grenade! All right, let’s give this street a look then circle back. I’m going to get lost if I walk too far.

His wrist monitor buzzes, and Doc looks down. Cool, thanks, Punq. You’ll be my GPS then. If you see any houses of ill repute along this route, be sure to give me a heads-up. He gives a wide grin to the camera.

Buzz, buzz. Doc looks down.

Google it, man.

Doc looks between two structures and sees a gate with a two-story wooden door. A circle is cut out in the middle as a window, with wrought iron twisted into a floral shape.

Christ, that’s a skinny door. They need a sign: No Fatties.

So, anyway, we’re on this spooky carriage ride with the guy and getting him to take us down the really dark streets because, you know, it’s our honeymoon, and we should be back at the overpriced hotel. So, real dark road, and Rose is sitting on my lap facing me and having a great time of it, right? But then her expression changes. I think for a moment—“I’m the king”—but she’s looking at something behind us.

The chest cam catches the front entrance of a home, its electric lantern flickering above the door even in the daylight.

Now, I admit that I was a bit drunk. We might have eaten hash brownies, but if we had, that would have been like twelve hours earlier. And even that wouldn’t explain a woman following us. You could see right through her. White dress, old hat. She was keeping up with the carriage despite not having any legs. Just floating. Softly crying and floating.

Craziest thing, when I look again, her dress has changed. She’s wearing something red. Not revealing at all, big and overly complicated.

Then, poof, she was gone.

***

“You have a lovely home,” Rose said and looked at the glass of wine their host had put in front of her. She eyeballed the liquid inside.

“Thank you,” the Cajun said, sitting in a large armchair half pointed toward the fireplace. Between his hands, he held an iron poker.

Sapphire and Digit both had declined alcohol and now held onto small cups of water.

Hollow glanced over at Rose then took a large gulp of his own wine. Rose shot him a frown. He shrugged.

“How do I know all of those cameras are turned off?” he said with a smile full of dark teeth. Out of the corner of his eye, Hollow noticed Digit twitch slightly. He muttered to himself. “You tell the world you are going to some, what did you say, some drug lord’s house in N’awlins, then you show up at my door? This is not a kindness.”

Rose sat forward and said, “Yet, you let us in?”

“I was curious. You all look like that old band out of New York, years ago.”

Sapphire laughed. “You mean KISS? Run-DMC?”

The Cajun smiled again. “I think the Village People.”

Hollow rolled his eyes and then stood and walked toward the fire. The room was uncomfortably hot, apparently by design. Still, he held his hands toward the flames as if trying to ward off a chill. Rose saw that a sweat stain had already begun to form on his dark T-shirt.

“So, you knew we were coming?”

“Sure,” Cajun Deaux said with a laugh. “Suddenly, everyone now is following the Ghost Ranchers and what they do.”

“Ghost Wranglers,” Digit said.

Eyes hooded, their host offered another half smile. “My apologies. This is a strange job you have. I am not so familiar. We do not own a television.”

“We?” Hollow said, staring into the fire.

“Me. I do not own a television. But I am, of course, on Twitter and all those other horrible things. Necessary. For business.”

At the single knock at the door, the heads of the four guests swiveled. The team was quiet for a moment, waiting.

“Despite my demeanor, let me say I am a busy man. If you require something, please, come to it. I have things that shortly, I must attend to.”

Hollow looked at the faces of his crew and slowly walked back toward his sofa chair, where he plopped down and sighed.

“We’re looking for someone,” he said. “Sort of someone.”

“Then maybe you go to the police. I understand they do that sort of thing.”

Rose gave in and took a quick pull from her wineglass. She then leaned forward. “You said you knew us, right? Or knew of us. Do you think we’re looking for a person? Do you think that’s why we came all this way?” She was offered only a shrug. “We are looking for the dead.”

“Try the cemetery, maybe.” Cajun Deaux casually looked over and pushed the poker into the fire, sending up sparks. “They are all over my city. Maybe you start there.”

Hollow put a hand up before Rose could take another swipe. He said, “We’re looking for a ghost who’s supposedly here in your town. Someone named Painter. Painter Mann.”

“Why would I know such things?” Cajun Deaux frowned. “I am a businessman, not a psychic.”

Sapphire put a hand up. “I’m a psychic. Doesn’t seem to be helping.”

Cajun Deaux fixed him with a look. “For real? Is that true? I could use a psychic. A real one.”

The Ghost Wrangler’s leader said before he could answer, “As you said, this is your city. If anyone knows anything, it’s you, right?”

The Cajun jabbed the poker into the fire a few more times. “Yes, it is my city, sure. Even if I know this, why would I tell you?”

“I’ll pay you.”

“How much?”

There was a double knock at the door. Their host gave no indication he’d even heard it.

“Five hundred dollars.”

“Ha, really?”

“Seven hundred, then.”

The group looked at their boss. Digit said, “Holy shit, Hollow. Let’s not get crazy here.”

The Cajun stood up, went to some piece of artwork on his wall, made some small adjustment to the painting, and came away with just a pinch of gnarled cloth between his fingers, then tossed it into the fire.

He pointed at the door. “How many knocks did you hear?”

Hollow squinted at him. “Two.”

“You did not,” Cajun Deaux said as he stood in front of the flames, which now had a strange blue tint. “Try again.”

Sapphire spoke first. “Eleven.”

The man spun back to him. “Really?”

“At the front door three, then four more.”

“That is seven,” the Cajun said. “You really should—”

“Four more at the back door. One, then two, then one.”

The home’s owner cocked an ear as if trying to catch the words’ echo. “Right, okay. I did not hear those. That needs remedy.” He looked at Sapphire. “Impressive.”

Hollow said, “A thousand dollars. If you know.”

“I will let you in on a secret.” He sat back down and laid the poker against the wall. “So, those knocks are part of my business. I won’t get into it, but I have made about fifteen thousand dollars. Just by sitting here. Just by talking to you.”

Rose grit her teeth. “We are not going to pay you fifteen thousand dollars!” She took an aggressive pull of her wine. Then, with anger still in her voice, she said, “And this is outstanding wine. I would like to know its label and vintage when there is an appropriate time to discuss such matters.”

The Cajun smiled big. “It is a family vintage. Private. You cannot buy it.”

“Why did you even let us in if you were just going to shut us down?” Hollow said and tossed the remainder of his glass into the fire. Briefly, it lit up, the blue tinge darkened. “I thought you were busy.”

He sighed. “You are a curiosity. Especially after your trip overseas. That is why the five of you are in my house.”

Digit frowned. “Doc is outside. There’s only four of us.”

A strange expression passed over the man’s face, then he quickly chased it away with a swipe of his hand. “Yes, my mistake then.”

“Okay, you’re a businessman,” Hollow said, standing next to the fire. “What will it take to find out what we need to know.”

“You are looking for Painter Mann.” Cajun Deaux looked at his hands. Again, an unpleasant grin formed on his lips and turned up the left side of his face.

“I may help you, but I would want something in return.”

“How can we be sure you even know where he is?”

Their host considered this and then said, “This person you seek, he is meddlesome. However, I will let him return to the city for whatever purposes you need him for. Then, I will ask you a favor of you that you will grant.”

“What do you mean?” Sapphire said. “You will let him return?”

“He left N’awlins a short time ago and was expected to return, but then—” The Cajun waved his hand in the air. “Change of plans, but okay, I can allow his return.”

Digit reached out to scratch her arm, but Hollow could see she was doing something with her wrist computer instead. “What does that all even mean? Who are you to say who comes and goes from the city? Especially, you know, dead people. What even is that?”

“Maybe ask your psychic, if he is such a thing.”

“I do all right,” Sapphire said, stiffening.

“Okay,” the Cajun said. “Then you are either lying to me, or you are lying to them. Which is it?”

Hollow turned to the man. Rose could see his hands had clenched into fists. “I don’t want you talking to any of my team anymore.”

“Fine, then you ask him. Does he see or does he not see? If he does not, then this person is useless to you.”

Hollow’s lips went thin for a moment. Then, against his will, he turned to Sapphire and said, “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

Sapphire crossed his legs and looked as though he were going to stand, but then he stopped. He said, “When this joker said ‘five’ earlier, he was... correct.”

The Cajun nodded and clapped softly. “Okay, you do see, then. Bravo.”

Rose said, “What does that mean?”

“That spirit, from the Connelly woman’s home. The one in the wall.”

Digit asked, “In Scotland?”

“Yeah,” Sapphire said. “He’s with us now. In this room.”

“What?” Rose said, stood, and walked behind her chair. “In this room?”

“Sitting on the floor between me and Digit.”

The Cajun frowned. “The blind can see this?”

A shrug. “Not really. He’s just there. I don’t see a person, just a distortion like oil in water.”

“That is all?”

Rose said, “Christ, isn’t that enough?”

Their host said, “You are fighting your own gifts. That will one day make you very ill, I reckon. It must flow through you—”

“I said, I don’t want you talking to my people,” Hollow said, got up and towered over the man. “Do it again, and I’ll deaden the other half of your face.”

The man blinked. “I would advise against that.” Then he walked to the door, slowly and dramatically, and opened it. “I expect Painter will return sometime tomorrow. Maybe tonight. When he does, I will make an effort to make it known to you if it suits my purposes. In return, I want your psychic.”

“What?” Rose said, taking a step toward the Cajun.

“It would only be for a short time. That is all.”

“I don’t like this game you’re playing,” Hollow said. “We’re out. Guys, let’s go.”

The two men faced off as Rose, Sapphire, and Digit filed out the door.

The Cajun said, “In this game, I am already three moves ahead of you. I am a powerful man in this town, but I do have one adversary. I need only one piece of information about her, and that trouble becomes no trouble. She is very close. Your psychic may be able to... glean that from being in this house for a short time.”

Hollow looked out the open door. He said through gritted teeth, “What does ‘a short time’ mean?”

“That will depend,” the Cajun said. “But do this, and you may get what you seek. Don’t cross me.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Yes, of course! Now go into my town and enjoy yourself. If I choose to inform you of Painter Mann’s return, I will expect your psychic to spend an evening here. Maybe two.”

“I don’t trade in human beings.”

“Oh,” the Cajun said, smiling. “But that is exactly what your people do. Treating who you wish like so much cattle to be traded. Slaughtered.” The man put a hand on Hollow’s shoulder, and it was warm enough to feel it through his clothes. As the touch got hotter and hotter, almost unbearable, the man said, “You are out of your depth, Isaac Hollister. Stick to playing the TV hero with the false smile.”

Hollow spun from under his hand and stepped outside.

“Now go. Enjoy my city,” he said with a wave. “Laissez les bons temps rouler.”

He closed the door, leaving the four Ghost Wranglers on the other side.

***

The Cajun stared at the door for a moment. He extended his hand and muttered something under his breath, frowning several times as he spat the quiet words.

He then walked toward the fire, glancing at a figure sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. Once again, he approached a wall hanging depicting a chaotic scene, mismatched fabrics, and wools in dark earthen colors. A casual observer would have given the piece of art a quick glance and then simply assumed it meant something to the artist, whatever that might be.

But for Cajun Deaux, this was part of his collection. Not art, as such, but an altogether different type of craftsmanship. He found a small tuft of hair, from the same spot as earlier, and tugged on it gently, pulling it away from the frame.

“You think that I can help you?”

No, I do not. Painter Mann can. This is what is said. He can free me from this place.

The Cajun smiled his dishwater-dirty-toothed smile. “You think Painter is some powerful voodoo ghost? There is no such thing.”

You lie. There is one, of which you are more than aware. But no, I don’t think Painter is that.

The Cajun twisted his fingers above the fire, and the blue flames flickered. The ghost in the middle of the room stiffened and twitched.

“Do you think I can help you?”

Your sort never has any intention of helping anyone but themselves.

“Ha, maybe true,” the home’s owner said. “So, what magic does this Painter possess that gives him the power to move people from this world to the next?”

No magic, witch. He’s a man who puts in the hard yards to get it done. How is it that you can see and hear me? That is against the rules.

“Rules, ha! I paid for my gift,” the Cajun said, motioning to one side of his face. “And don’t worry, you will play your part now. To help bend these... rules.”

I will give you nothing!

“You haven’t any choice,” Cajun Deaux said. He lifted his hands up above the spirit and muttered. The Scottish ghost made a guttural sound as if being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach. His form then changed, becoming more fibrous, almost like candied flesh.

From a back room, a woman with crazed dark hair came out, swinging a small cleaved hammer and chanting. Her eyes locked on the old Scot, who’d now taken a strange form in the living world.

The ghost could only watch it unfold.

“You will be freed of this place,” the Cajun said as the hammer came down on the side of the ghost’s face. The impact sloughed off a cheek, which fell to the floor. “But, for you, there is no reward.” Another fevered swing of the small jagged metal device, and his brow fell in a slice. “And there is also no retribution, so I may have saved you from that. Take solace in this.”

Another swipe, and the old ghost’s vision split. He was still transfixed, staring into the flame, unable to move. Unable to scream. At the same time—a part of his cheek on the floor, his left eye staring back—he could now see his own body, what remained of his face staring into the flame.

“You will move on but not to the Next.”

The woman ran back to the kitchen, and for a moment, the ghost prayed the ordeal was over, that she’d changed her mind. Instead, she returned, carrying a very large, blackened pot. She gathered the pieces of the Scot she’d already stripped away and tossed them inside, each making a damp thud.

Then she returned to her panicked swinging, as the Cajun above him sang a low, dark hymn.

When he could finally will his left eye to look down at the pot, the old man saw half of his own face staring back at him, wild-eyed and full of fear.

Cajun Deaux said, “For you, now, there is work. And oblivion. For me, it is time to feast.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Christ, I forgot how good that feels,” said the spook named Shark, who stood over me in what looked like some sort of loft. I looked up and saw the bar’s dark, dirty ceiling. A long lamp with Michelob written across it swung in a small arch above a pool table.

“You’re a prick, you know? What the fuck was that about?”

Shark kicked me in the ribs, stealing another chunk of juice from me. He shivered as my energy, my stolen energy, flowed through him.

I tried again. “I’ve got no beef with you, man,” I said, my words slurring. “I have a few rules to live by. I don’t cause people problems, and they don’t cause me problems.”

“You know, for a while, we’d get spooks coming in here hanging around. Old customers or dead beach bums who’d wandered in.” He tapped a foot against my skull as I lay there. A steady rat-tat-tat of juice drained from me to him. “But this is my place!”

“Dude, I am only passing through.”

“Whatever,” he said, trying to sound cool and impassive, but the guy was brimming with ecstasy. “I used to do all of it, man. Coke, ketamine, booze, meth, everything. That’s all gone. All that’s left for us, only buzz left, is this.” Flat on my back from where he’d dragged me up the stairs into the loft, he whacked my foot, making a thwop noise.

“I got no beef with you, man. Just let me go on my way.” I was trying to keep the guy talking as if I could come with a plan to get out of there. Who was I fooling? I couldn’t even sit up. I should have been smarter, kept a better eye out. If I got out of there, I swore that I would be more vigilant.

“Yeah, but maybe someone’s got a beef with you, Painter Mann.” He laughed, high on the juice he was stealing from me, then yelled, “Where’s the beef? Right here’s the beef!”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Who’s got a problem with me? I don’t know anyone here.”

“What difference does it make? I’m into it. It’s been a while.”

I looked around the loft. If there’d been any livies up there, they’d cleared out. Not that they could give me a hand, but I suddenly felt very alone. And worse, something I knew nothing about was going on.

I cursed myself. What a rookie mistake. And now I was stuck on the vomit- and beer-stained floor of a bar in Florida.

It wasn’t turning out to be a very good day.

Shark tugged on a black wire near his mouth. Looking closer, I saw the wire was a tiny mic I’d seen DJs use before.

Grinding his teeth slightly, he said, “Oh shit, yeah. I got this spot behind this upstairs bar where I keep stragglers. For months! Just taking swipes off them. Like a ghost bong! Fuck, I forgot—”

I heard a clang and remembered seeing a ship’s bell behind Steve the bartender when he’d been unloading the bottles of liquor. I thought it had just been for show, some decor.

Shark’s face darkened, he frowned. “Like I’m a fuckin’ dog with that bell.”

The bell clanged again.

Shark went to the rail and looked down. If I could just get a small swipe at the guy, I might have enough juice back to get the hell out of there. As he stared down, I tried to wiggle toward him, moving an inch at the time.

Clang-clang-clang.

“What the fuck is it now?” Shark yelled. He then muttered, “Stupid fucking livie can’t hear me, anyhow.” The dead DJ looked at me with a horrible grin. “Stay there,” he said and whipped past me, a bit unevenly since he was fucked up on all the juice he’d stolen from me.

He tried to give me a quick kick before he passed by, but I moved my arm and gathered every bit of strength I had to punch him in the heel.

“Th’ fuck?” he said and tried to wheel back on me, but already unsteady, he lost his footing and tumbled down the stairs. When he landed, he screamed: “Motherfu—”

Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang.

Shark yelled up the stairs, “Don’t you go nowhere, Painter! Back in one minute!” His laugh bubbled up through the grimy floorboards.

I tried to work out what was happening around me, but my mind was mush. Was Shark being summoned? What the hell was going on?

Below me, I heard one more single clang, even louder than the others. I had to get out of there.

The dead DJ didn’t seem to realize I’d snaked back a handful of energy, but even if he had, he didn’t seem worried. I tried to get to my knees but then realized that was not an option.

“Well, this is humiliating.”

I had to crawl, using just my fingertips like toes. I pulled myself toward the wall. Only way I was getting out was going outside then falling to the sand below. Problem was, once I was there, I was a sitting duck. It would take hours just to get enough juice to stand.

Still, it was my only option.

Finger length by finger length, I moved across the floor. However, once I started going, I could slide. Then I would have to use my fingertips to keep that going.

Below, I heard Shark shouting, and I knew who he would take all that anger out on when he returned.

I sped up.

Finally, at the edge, the top of my head poked into the sunshine. Nothing below but tables, a few overturned chairs, and some leather-skinned old drunks draining beers from a bucket full of ice.

Then, I saw her.

A woman sunning herself in a bathing cap and full-length swimsuit. She was lying in the sand because she’d go right through any lounger.

I hadn’t seen the ghost earlier when I was searching for a Temp. Truth is, though, I hadn’t been looking for one.

I had one shot but realized it kinda went against my principles. No, it absolutely went against my principles. Breaking Rule #1: Don’ want no douchey, don’ be no douchey.

But if I was going to get out of there, I’d just have to apologize later.

Inching farther forward, I worked my way along the wall’s edge, all the while terrified that I’d feel the sudden yank from behind after Shark returned.

When I was nearly above her, just at the corner of the building, I realized her eyes were open.

She said: “Darlin’, you are going a long way to get a peek at a woman, aren’t you?”

Add humiliation to the gamut of emotions I was enduring. And my energy was really low—answering would be a struggle.

She leaned up on an elbow and turned her beautiful face toward the shoreline.

“Wouldn’t you rather stare at those pretty things down the beach? Tanned bodies? The big smiles that haven’t yet been cracked by a real frown?”

Casually she looked back up at me. Shark would come back any second. I needed to jump, and I needed to do it now.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

I knew what I had to do, not just for me but for others I’d made promised to. For this woman, the hit would be temporary, but for me, it’d be enough to get back on my feet again and get out of there.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

I realized I couldn’t. Despite what I felt was important, who was I to decide that I got to take something because I felt the situation warranted it? Why should I get to justify that?

I needed to find another way, but my mind was blank. Exhausted, sorrow filled, and blank.

Rules are written in times of clarity. When we lose that clarity, when we’re desperate, those are the times we most need to follow them. When it’s hard. When everything tells us they don’t matter.

I croaked out, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

She smiled and settled back down, reached up to adjust her big, bug-eyed sunglasses, and put her hands behind her pinned hair. With her face to the sun but never to feel it again, she looked like Ms. July in a fifties pinup calendar.

I drew my eyes toward the opposite ledge. Shark would be at me any second, but if I could at least stay hidden for a while, he might think I’d fled. Then, if I—

“Well, are ya or ain’t ya?”

Startled, I looked back down at the twentieth-century sunbather.

She then leaned up and impressively pulled her sunglasses down her nose. For a ghost, that was not an easy trick.

Noticing my astonishment, she one-upped her previous action. She pulled the glasses off, revealing beautiful steel-gray eyes, and put one of the slick black arms of her shades between her red lips.

She repeated, “Are ya or ain’t ya?”

Again, I could only stare.

“You better make your mind up because that crazy bastard will be back up in that loft soon enough, and you don’t want any of that. He was a cruel livie. As a ghost, he’s worse.”

I choked on a sob. “It’s okay, then?”

She planted both elbows and again put her face to the sun and closed her eyes. I began to wonder if, in fact, she could feel it.

She smiled. “Get on with it.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. Or, rather, I thought I had been told twice. Actually, she might have said it three times. So, um, I didn’t need to be told four times, I suppose.

A quick few finger taps and I felt woozy, so low on juice, and then my head began to spin as I fell from the loft. Everything swirled to dark blues, purples, and blacks, and then suddenly it exploded into light.

My vision filled with flashes, a swath of red fabric, then something like silvery chrome, and then the brilliant sunlight returned.

I tumbled away, end over end a few times, and then was slowed by an encroachment of sod.

About a third full of energy—far more than I would have thought— I got back to my feet and scanned my surroundings. Up top, I didn’t yet see Shark’s face poke out the side of the building, but I wasn’t going to wait around.

Panicked, I looked to the front of the Fun Shak, searching for Walther.

Then, my eyes went back up to the upper floor.

“Don’t worry about Shark now. He never comes back outside anymore. We’re all safer outside,” she said. Then she slipped her sunglasses back on and lay on an indentation in the sand that fit her body nicely.

I wondered if that had been put there by another sunbather or— who knew?—maybe she’d used enough juice to slowly do it herself.

Still, I wasn’t going to chance it. If Walther was going to head back to New Orleans, that could be useful. I’d gotten a bit lucky and found a Temp who was invested in this investigation. Time to get back to the Big Easy.

Taking a few steps toward the road, I turned back, and if I’d had a hat, I would have tipped it to my hero, the fifties pinup girl.

“Thank you, um, ma’am.”

“Darlin’, do I look like a ma’am to you?” She smiled at me, and it was as if she’d taken in the sun and now radiated it from her beautiful face.

“No, ma’am. I think you might be an angel.”

“Well, I’m no angel, sugar,” she said and went back to sunbathing. “But you aren’t the only one in the InBetween with a job. It’s not much of a job, but it keeps some folks safe. Why do you think I park myself on this side of the restaurant?” With a hand, she motioned to the wall. “Sun’s far better over there, baby.”

“Thank you,” I said and wished I could say more. Instead, I asked her name.

She said, “Marilyn.”

Of course. Of course she was. And, yes, she was still stunning.

“And smart too,” I said to Walther after I caught up with him on the road. “A lot of people didn’t know that. She is very smart, despite playing a dumb blonde in all those movies.”

Walther looked back to the beach, his thick-soled sneakers crunching the grit on the sand-swept road.

“She’s only chatted me up a few times,” the old guy said. “Been a long while, though. I thought she’d left. Maybe, you know, we should go back. Talk with her a while.”

“No, no. You’ll have your chance when this is all over. Your spot will be waiting there on the beach.”

We walked for a moment, and I looked at him. His eyes were trained on the horizon. He must have been lost in thought.

“Hey, man,” I said. “I’m real sorry.”

“Sorry for what? I’m up for a little adventure.”

“No, about, you know, your daughter. What you said to Tori. I can’t —”

“Oh, I made that up,” he said and looked at his hands. “Old Army Intelligence technique.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, not sure what to think of that. “You were in Army Intelligence?”

“Nah, but I saw one of those guys on YouTube talking about interrogating suspects a while back. Useful stuff.”

“Does interrogating suspects come up a lot for you?”

“Not usually,” he said. “But I have a feeling that may be about to change.”

He hit me with a wicked grin and then turned back to the road, dragging his tank behind him. I looked down and felt kind of bad about it.

“You know, you should get those wheels fixed. That’s got to be killing your shoulder, dragging that thing along.”

“Nah,” he said and pointed to a skinny, two-story home just ahead on the other side of the street. “I’ll leave this one in the garage. Can’t be dragging it around New Orleans. Some punk will steal it and sell it for drugs or something.”

Now I really felt terrible. “Shit, Walther. You can’t leave that behind. That’s your oxygen, man!”

“Ah,” he said, waving a bug out of his face. “I don’t really need it.”

“Oh, I thought… I mean, I assumed you had some lung, you know, thing.”

“Nah,” he said and took a pull from his mask. “I’m just lazy. The O2 makes getting around a lot better. I got my travel size I can bring with me. I think I left it next to my scuba gear.”

“So, you’re not dying? Is that bullshit too?”

“Nope, I’m still dying. Just lazy.” He crossed the street after a cursory glance back over his shoulder. “If you want to wait in the car, I’m going to make a jug of Bloody Marys for the road.”

“You’re going to drink on the way there? That doesn’t sound very safe.”

“I’m old. I’ve been driving since before this area had proper road. Besides, have you driven I-10 from along the Gulf Coast? You need to be drinkin’.”

I told him I’d meet him there. For one, riding in a vehicle required me to hold on—that would drain energy, and I was too low for that. Needed to recharge.

I planned to make a loop and get across some water. If I could manage it, it’d be worth a quick stop to see the Professor on her mountain. Even with that, I would make it there ahead of him. Skating in the InBetween lets me go much faster than whatever beat-up old car he might have.

We talked about meeting up in New Orleans at a spot he knew. Some place he called The Skull Lodge.

“You won’t find it on any map, though,” he said. “Well, not most maps, nothing you’d buy in the store. But ask around, and one of your dead friends will know about it.”

“What is it?”

He pulled a key chain from his beach shorts and thumbed a button. The garage creaked and complained, raising unevenly as it did.

He said, smiling, “A run-down club for run-down men, Paint.”

When the garage lifted, I did, in fact, see an old car. But it was not what I expected.

Walther obviously could tell my silence meant I was impressed.

He said, “It’s a 1937 Buick Model 46C. I had some grease monkey pull out the old 248 engine in her and upgrade her. It’s a Phaeton, convertible, of course.”

I nodded, checking it out. I said, “Okay, you might get there ahead of me.”

***

Ten minutes earlier, Steve the bartender was getting frustrated.

He was beholden to the Cajun for taking out the local competition. And he loved the free flow of drugs, even though most of the ones he wanted were the sort that helped enhance his workouts and helped him get bigger. They were just as illegal as the other stuff, but this was for health reasons.

He loved being “the man” in the area.

It helped with the girls. At least certain girls.

What he didn’t love was being saddled with having to work with the creepy dead DJ. The asshole was hard enough to deal with when he was alive.

Hell, he didn’t even know if Shark was around most of the time, even if the Cajun had made it so Shark could never leave the bar.

Steve hit the bell again, as he’d been told—clang, clang, clang.

Finally, he got the response that told him Shark was indeed there and listening for instruction.

Clang!

And despite knowing that a ghost, a real ghost, haunted the Fun Shak and that the ghost was essentially on “his side,” it was no less daunting. The dead should be dead. Gone.

“Got a call from New Orleans,” he said to the empty bar around him. “Change of plans. Let Painter go.”

Clang!

Steve drew in a breath and cast an eye around the bar to make sure no one else was watching. His breathing was shaky. He tried to hide how unnerved he was but knew he wasn’t doing a great job of it.

“Just do what the boss says. I don’t know what the plan is, but his word is the word of God. So scrap the earlier instructions. The Cajun wants the guy to head back to New Orleans.”

The bartender waited.

“You got it? Let Painter go. But don’t worry. The Cajun has a plan. He always does.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“You don’t look so good,” the Professor said, and I crossed the rocky plateau on top of Stone Mountain.

The monorail that carried tourists above and across was fortunately, once again, out of order. The location was quiet and serene. Or at least as quiet and serene as you can get on a mountain above a concert venue-slash-theme park.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, throwing an expression of feigned pain at her. “My appearance is set. I’m stuck wearing jogging gear and this adorable face.”

She blinked, her favorite response to me, as she sat cross-legged, her white outfit looking pristine as always. She wasn’t any sort of martial arts master, but, as I’ve said, she did seem to favor their white, dojo-specific clothing.

That is, the outfit was pristine from the front. On her back, there were a number of slash marks. I’d seen them but never brought them up.

“Do you ever wonder if this was always your face?” she said. “Maybe it changed, coming here to the InBetween.”

“Is that a thing? I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“Who knows? Every day I see things that make me question that which I was so sure of.”

“Sure,” I said and sat down in front of her. “But isn’t that the sort of line a guru is supposed to peel out? Do you really believe that?”

She cracked a tiny smile. “What is it you need, Painter?”

“I’ve got some questions.”

She nodded.

“First off, you said Voodoo Cher could tell me who’d killed me.”

“I never said that.”

I started to correct her but then stopped. “Fine, you said that Voodoo Cher would have those answers.”

“I never said that.”

Sometimes, I really felt like pushing my friend off her mountain. And I didn’t mean figuratively.

“Okay, fine. I went to meet her, and she’s worse than you.”

For a moment, I thought the Professor actually laughed. “You have no idea.”

I said, “She hinted that she knew something but then said I would find my answers in the city. New Orleans.”

The Professor thought about this for a moment. She looked off, to the west as she always did, then back at me.

“Do you feel that’s true? Do you believe the answers you are looking for are in New Orleans?”

“I don’t know to be honest,” I said. “I don’t remember ever spending a lot of time in the city.”

“But is it the city itself where you will find your answers?”

I frowned at her. “Do you think asking me endless questions will make me work it out for myself?”

“Do you?”

I spun in a slow circle and said, “You are a frustrating person, you know that?”

She shrugged. “Part of my charm.”

“That’s not what I’d call it,” I said then shifted to cross my legs the other direction. “So, if it’s not the city itself, maybe there’s, I dunno, someone in the city who has the answers for me.”

She smiled. “Is that what you believe?”

“Makes sense.”

The Professor nodded. “Yes, I suppose it would.”

I looked at her. “Something seems off. You’re exceedingly aloof today. If you were less nice, I’d say you were actually being a bit pissy.”

“You know that’s just a not-so-subtle way of saying you think I’m being pissy.”

“Do you think I think you’re being pissy?”

That actually got a proper smile out of her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The smile faded.

“You’re a good person, Painter Mann.”

“Uh-oh,” I said and stopped my spinning. “I always worry when you use my full name. My mother used to do that when she was angry. I think. From what I remember.”

“I’m afraid…” She appeared to think for a long moment and then continued, “When I found you, in those early days, you had such a commitment to finding a way to do something good. You had this sort of—” She smiled, looking at me. “—obsessive need to have a measure of good. You were dead, one of the wandering lost like so many of us here. But, uniquely, you were driven to do something positive. Like you had a ledger and needed to tick off a litany of boxes.”

I fought the urge to interrupt and ask her a question. Something she’d just said didn’t sound right. Instead, I just listened. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d just talked without all the doublespeak. That said, the way the InBetween turned your memories to ash, I didn’t recall much.

I sat quietly.

That was something I learned, I was sure of it, when I’d been alive: Nature whores out a vacuum. Something like that. Basically, if you’re quiet long enough, nature will get someone to fill the silence.

She continued, “You were driven but without a mission, so I helped find that for you. There are just too few of us.”

“Us? Too few of who?”

“Whom, I believe. Too few of whom.”

I always hated “whom,” and I hated it more now. What was the fucking point? It’s a “who” with boobs. Whom does that help?

She continued. “This place is darkness. It’s like some Nazi death camp from your war hundreds of years ago.”

“Wait. Sure, that was a long time ago, last century, but not hundreds of years ago.”

She looked at me wide-eyed then looked away. “Yes, some of us don’t—” She looked back to me then turned from me again. “You’re right, time gets muddled here.”

“I never said it that way.”

“Memories. The past. The future. It gets compressed. Confusing.”

She looked pained. I’ve never known who she was before she was here. From what I could glean, that was a long, long time ago. Again, I stayed silent. Just listened.

“There are so few of the good people in this place. The InBetween wasn’t created for that. Good people are like a cancer here.”

“Or a cure? I’ve been called a lot of things...”

“You are what this place needs. So, I… encouraged you to help.”

“But like you say, it’s what I wanted. It’s what I want.”

She nodded.

“Painter, your work is essential. Small in scale, sure, but very important. You help spirits who need help.”

Slowly, she slid toward me. Then she reached out and nearly took my hands in hers but stopped. I froze. She had never done that before.

“I fear I’ve put you in danger. The forces that created this world won’t like what you are doing. What we’re doing. In the past, I’ve made tiny changes. You are becoming this wildfire, burning brighter and brighter. This place needs that. Oh God, this place is desperate for that. But those dark forces are beginning to see you now. You will be targeted.”

I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t scaring me a little. But, in the InBetween, you’re always kinda scared. This situation was something different. Still, strangely, I felt I needed to reassure her.

“Listen, Professor, I’d be doing this even if you weren’t here. You’re right. I’m compelled to do… something. I don’t fucking remember why, but I know I have to. It’s important to me. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve got any ‘good guy’ complex. I’m doing all of this because I need to. So, this isn’t your fault. It’s what I have to do. It’s a selfish move.”

She looked down at our hands, fingertips nearly touching, and then moved back a little—but not as far away as before.

Smiling, she said, “You’re like this healer coming in to fix the wings of all these broken birds in the cage. So that they can fly out of here. I wish everyone were so selfish in this place.”

“A wing fixer in the cage. That’s good, right?”

She shrugged. “But the cage is in a house on fire, at the foot of an erupting volcano, ten minutes before the Great Flood.”

I smiled. “I don’t think the homeowner’s policy will cover that.”

“You joke. I’m glad you do.”

“You never laugh at my jokes.”

“I didn’t say you were terribly funny,” she said, stone-faced. Then she looked out to the west again. “But there are matters… there are things going on, such evil things, so beyond what you can see right now. Dark, dark things.”

The images she suggested triggered something of what I’d seen while on the streets of New Orleans. And by the riverside just before getting to Pensacola.

“Speaking of which, I have seen something I’d not come across before. Or,” I said, “I think I saw them. Or it. Or something.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t really know. They’re here, not in the livie world. That’s really the only thing I’m sure of. I think.”

This time she was silent. Listening.

I said, “They, um, don’t look right. Like thin, smoky shadows that are sort of torn at their edges. Once I catch sight of them, they sort of ebb away and fade. But it doesn’t look like some spook. Not like… an individual.”

The Professor closed her eyes. “Can you describe it?”

“Not really. It’s there, and then it isn’t. It’s so fast. But maybe because of the way it moves or because it’s just so swirling—it actually looks like two people meshed together into one creature.”

She drew in a long breath. “Do you think they see you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Should I worry about that?”

“When did you encounter them?”

Closing my own eyes, I tried to think. “Not back home, that I remember. Not Minneapolis. But then again, I may have seen them and not even noticed.” I opened my eyes. She was staring at me. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“I should have never involved you,” she said and then began to mutter low. She was starting to freak me out. “But I saw a chance—” She closed her eyes again. “Dammit, I should have never gotten you into any of this.”

“I got me into this,” I said, my voice rising. “Listen, you’re the smartest person I know. An advisor and a friend. But, I hate to break it to you, you are not my master. I make my own choices. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing because I need to.”

She bristled and edged a little farther back.

“What are they? These things—is it something I need to worry about?”

The Professor stood and then walked toward the edge of the flat mountain top. I followed her, and we looked across the park as dusk began to fall. She scanned the grounds, the woods, then she stopped and pointed.

I looked at her for a moment, and then traced her finger to where she was pointing.

“Just watch. There, by the stone monument.”

“This is Georgia,” I said. “The whole damn place is stone monuments.”

“The obelisk near the tree line. By the broken statue. Watch near its base.”

For several minutes, there was nothing. Then, just as I was about to turn away, I saw it.

Fleeting, the shape looked like a person running two directions at once, but that may have been because the person appeared to have two torsos. However, the figure was so wispy, it was impossible to see where one stopped and the other began.

It turned toward us, one head then the other, and disappeared.

I took a step back from the edge. “Did it see us?”

“Is that what you saw?” I nodded and scanned for the creature again. I couldn’t find it. She said, “A chimera.”

“That sounds familiar. Like mythology.”

“Greek mythology, yes. But in this instance, it’s not two beasts that are one. It’s two spirits locked together.”

“Why haven’t I ever seen those before?”

“It’s… difficult to properly explain.”

“Try me.”

She sat down again, and I sat next to her.

“There was a time when they were not here. But when they did appear, they were all time. Always here.”

“You’re right. That makes no sense.”

“It does, though,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. They are always.”

“Always what?”

“Just… always.”

I left it at that. “Should I be worried that I see them? Or that they can see me?”

“They are creatures that don’t belong in a place that doesn’t belong.”

“You’re right. I don’t get any of that,” I said. “So should I be worried about them?”

“Frankly, I don’t know how much I should tell you about them. I know very little frankly, but the more you know, the more they will see you as a threat. If they did, then you should worry.”

“What are they doing?”

“That, I don’t entirely know. They seem far more interested in livies than in any of us. At least for now.”

“So I’m safe then.”

“No, Painter, you are far from safe. If you see one, promise me you’ll do one thing and one thing only.”

I nodded. “Run?”

She looked at me and offered the saddest smile I’d ever seen.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It took me longer than I’d hoped to get back to New Orleans.

I wasn’t sure why, but I couldn’t quite get the speed up I’d hoped when skating back down I-10. Some part of me felt that this was because I was afraid of what I might find. I’d been skittish the entire way back. Every fleeting shadow out of the corner of my eye, I was sure, was a chimera.

Again and again, I was convinced I could feel one behind me, but every time I turned, nothing.

Even then, I couldn’t skate any faster, not like before.

In the city once again, I needed to find Walther and find out about Andi the waitress-turned-stripper-turned-spook.

But first, I had to make a stop.

I stood outside the small door and waited. I smiled at the absurdity of it. Some part of me tried to argue I was just being respectful. Rolling up and barging in on Voodoo Cher didn’t feel quite right.

In truth, I was probably mildly afraid of her. To be more completely truthful, the fear was more than mild. And not because I’m uncomfortable around beautiful naked women. In my opinion, those are some of the best types of women.

Just bein’ honest.

But something about her demanded fear—or respect—or reverence. I wasn’t sure.

So, I waited.

It didn’t take long before the small man with the sewn-up face slipped through the door and stood before me.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt poker night or anything.”

He just stared at me from the top of the short set of stairs. Or at least I think he stared at me. Hard to tell. But even without the eyes, he obviously wasn’t thrilled I’d come by.

Even so, he raised his hand slightly and headed inside.

Winding down the stairwell, I could hear voices below. Male and female. The former wasn’t happy about something. However, I couldn’t make out any words.

We waited around the corner for a few moments.

Then Stitches moved forward again.

Voodoo Cher was standing in front of the fireplace, swaying back and forth as if moving to music.

I sat down.

“I didn’t expect you to return so soon,” Voodoo Cher said, her back to me. “There’s nothing more I can do for you, Painter.”

Looking around the room, I saw she was alone except for the sewn-up dude who had now moved to a corner close to the entryway.

“That would imply you did something before, though, right?”

She continued to sway, her body silhouetted against the licking flames. I hated that I just wanted to stare, so I looked at the strange art that hung on her walls and got lost in the folds of thick fabric. It was the sort of room you’d expect someone to be reading illegal poetry in.

There were about a dozen portraits on the walls with a single human figure in them. Each in some battle-to-the-death scene they appeared to be losing. While the “hero” of the individual paintings were all different, they did bear a similarity to one another.

This time there was just the one chair, hers, so I sat on the floor, legs crossed.

“I thought I heard voices when we first came in,” I said. “Were you talking to yourself? I used to talk to myself a lot. Helps me think.”

She turned toward me, her long dark curls falling across her breasts.

Like any woman—remembering, of course, that this form was, according to her, how I supposedly chose to see her—she knew she had some preternatural power over me, just standing there looking beautiful. Like many lesser men, and I couldn’t exclude myself from their number, some part of me willingly gave her that power, that control.

And no, I don’t mean some physical part of me. I didn’t have a body anymore, so the promise of sex was not a factor. Still, though, that power was undeniable.

“What is it you want, Painter?”

“Well,” I said and looked back at the paintings on the wall. “Your buddy here was chattering away at me as we walked down the stairs, blathering away, and I sort of forgot why I’d come, actually.”

She looked at Stitches in the corner. He turned toward her momentarily and then shook his head, as if in defense. It was a comical scene, the man with basically no mouth trying to give her a “no, I didn’t” expression.

I said, “I’m not finding any answers about who might have killed me, so I’m looking into a case.”

“Hard at work,” she said and leaned back against the hearth. “Good. This world needs people who get things done. Too many are just… husks waiting for something.”

“Husks?”

“I’m sorry. I expect that sounded harsh. Most of the spirits who haunt the InBetween have little value other than the sip of energy they contain. They are vessels waiting for something.”

“They were brought here against their will. They didn’t choose to come.”

“True.”

I waited for more, but she didn’t tell me anything.

“I wanted to ask you about the others. Not spooks like your chatty friend or me or you.”

She smiled at that. “You and I are not the same.”

“Sure, I’ve let myself go. Just need to hit the gym,” I said. “But I mean there are others here. Fleeting. You can see them sometimes, flashes of them, but they fade in and out.”

Voodoo Cher nodded. “Oh? Do you see any here? Now?”

I looked around the room again. The dark corners would swirl if I stared too long, so my mind began playing tricks.

“I think you know what I’m talking about.”

She shrugged, lifted herself from the wall, and slowly walked back toward her wingback chair and sat down. Strangely, I could see her lips moving just slightly without her speaking a word.

She then said, “I know all about this world. No one knows it better, but sure, there may be things that I didn’t…” She stopped, looked off, then looked back with a smile. “In the most lush and perfect garden, sometimes things grow that were never planted. Some lovely flowers, others strangling vines.”

“How do you tell them apart?”

“What difference does it make? Both are intruders and not welcome.”

“Sounds like a garden run by a military dictatorship.”

She looked at me. “Or a god.”

She smiled. “You still haven’t told me what you’ve seen, not really. Maybe it’s your imagination, Painter. Do these apparitions you see trouble you?”

I weighed my options. She was being coy, and I wasn’t sure if I should lay all my cards out on the table. But sometimes, when you drop a card down, it’s not about the card. It’s about how the other person reacts.

“Are the chimeras dangerous?”

Her face was still, motionless, but I caught it. She clutched her fingers lightly. She looked at the wall, stood slowly, and walked to a painting of a knight plunging a sword into the chest of some beast as that same creature tore at the man’s flesh.

She traced the outline of the creature with a red-tipped fingernail.

“How do you know this term?” She turned her face toward me. “Who told you this?”

“No one,” I lied. “It was on my word-of-the-day calendar. Where do the chimeras come from?”

She frowned at me, and it sent a shiver through my body. “I would very much like to know where you heard that word.”

“And I’d like a pony. You said you know everything about this place. Can you tell me anything about them? I’ve seen them before, momentarily,” I said. “But now… I’m not sure. I think I’ve caught a couple out of the corner of my eye.”

“Do you think they’ve always followed you?”

“Don’t know. Maybe I just see them now. Are there a lot of them?”

She looked back at the painting. “More than before, despite the paradox of that statement. A waste of a spirit, actually.”

“What does that mean?”

She walked back to her chair. Again, I could see her lips moving just slightly. However, she said nothing to me.

I tried another tack. “What are they, then? Leftovers of old spooks who’ve been here too long?”

For a long moment she stared at me, it seemed, measuring me up. “They are a distortion. Troublesome, it some ways. But as you say, fleeting.”

Remembering what the Professor had said, as confusing as it was, I played another card. “Despite being, you know, always.”

Again, her fingers clutched slightly. “How do you know this?”

I ignored her question as she had ignored mine. “How are they a distortion, then? Do you know?”

“Of course I do!”

In the corner, I saw Stitches flinch, apparently as surprised as I was that she’d raised her voice. Despite her calm demeanor, it seemed I was rattling her. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but I needed some answers. Any answers.

She smiled then returned to the fire. Finally, she said: “They are… meddlesome. In the grand scheme, they are just aberrations. They mean nothing and are not part of—”

She was choosing her words carefully, but something about the chimeras troubled her.

“They interfere in small, stupid ways. Useless, meaningless,” she said with a shrug. “But, on the whole, they are not a problem.” She looked off, distant. “They won’t get in the way. They don’t matter.”

Stitches moved toward me, and I knew it was time for me to leave. I stood, no less confused.

“So, nothing to worry about?”

She shrugged. “No.”

As I turned away and the man with the sewn-up eyes led me away from her, I realized, if I’d read her right, the chimeras were likely the most dangerous thing in all the InBetween.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I was led back outside again, doing a hop, skip, and jump over the two steps that led to the side door of Voodoo Cher’s home. I began to walk away when I heard a strange sound behind me.

Turning, I scanned the backyard. Then I looked up to the window. Casting a glance at the door, I saw that Stitches was still standing there.

He wasn’t waiting for me to leave. He was trying to talk to me, stitched-up mouth and all. I came back and stood on the lower step.

“I’m worried about you, little brother,” I said, a bit snarkily. “Blink twice if you need help.”

He lowered his head and, with some effort, muttered, “Don’t.”

Stunned, replying took me a moment. And I said, “Don’t what, man?”

He looked back, over his shoulder, then repeated, “Don’t.”

“Don’t come back? Don’t bother your master? Don’t you forget about me? What?” He was making me nervous, and I wasn’t helping things. I tried again. “What are you trying to say?”

“Don’t… let… them… touch… you,” he said, looking pained by each word.

It took me a moment. “You mean the chimeras?”

He nodded.

“I thought they weren’t a big deal. She said they weren’t a problem.”

He looked back over his shoulder and then let his head fall forward again. Slowly, he shook it.

She’d lied to me. I said, “What happens if they touch me?”

He shook his head.

“Come on, you’ve come this far. What happens if they touch me? I die more?”

“You… taken… to… “ He struggled with the pain of trying to speak. Or the fear of retribution. I just waited.

He added, “The… All Time.”

“What does that mean?”

He only shook his head, evidently exhausted by the effort. I asked one final question.

“Is the All Time bad?”

After a few attempts, he finally just said, “Hell.”

***

Back on the New Orleans streets, I wandered, feeling myself drawn to spots all around the city. It was hard to get a read on what each might be. I knew only that each was familiar. Could be a lovesick Brandon lying in the street, could be Madame Mini in her latest gown, or could be something far worse. Like the Mad Hatters or something else I’d felt when I first came into the city.

Couldn’t put my finger on it, but that might have been because I didn’t have fingers anymore.

“Where y’at?”

If the guy’s voice hadn’t been so deep, it would have sounded like the screech of a bird that scavenges around for bits of hot dog but usually comes away with a cigarette butt. The sort of bird that eventually begins to prefer the cigarette.

Standing in the street, I could feel the tugs in all directions. I turned toward the man on the porch of the Green House.

“Jelly Roll, you’re lookin’ trim, brother.”

He smiled. “Well, I bin exercisin’, ya see, Painter.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, so, I was layin’ the other direction the past few days, hear? And den this mornin’, I done switch around, and now I’m facin’ this direction.”

“Don’t overdo it, man.”

He nodded and gave a wide smile, showing me a peek at the green shutters behind him. “Naw, I like to pace meself.”

I shot a look down the street to my left. Something I’d felt earlier was now closer. I inched toward the porch. Time to find Walther and get some answers about Andi the dead waitress.

“You ever hear of a club called The Skull Lounge?”

Jelly laughed his big bear laugh. “Ain’t you funny? Man, this N’awlins. Half the man clubs here is called Skull something or nuther.” He laughed again like he had no care in the world. Which, sure, he probably didn’t.

“It’s in an old church. Maybe that helps?”

He smiled wide. “Boy, you betta said the place you were lookin’ for was made outta brick.”

“A lotta old churches?”

Jelly Roll nodded, trying not to laugh at the dumb tourist.

“Now, there was an old coot useta come up dis way and harass Madame Mini some. I think he say he was at a Skull Lounge. Crazy looking dude, boxer shorts with little garters on his socks.”

Walther didn’t seem like a guy who was into weird shit, but if his Skull Lounge were some sort of octogenarian sex club, I might need to find another Temp.

I thanked Jelly and headed down the street toward Mini’s place, just a few blocks away.

It’s easy to get lost in the city because while no two blocks look the same, they all just look like a jumbled chaos. A smoke shop, standard two-story residences, one-room nursery, liquor store.

I was ripped from my urban planning reverie when I felt a pain split across my calf.

“Goddamn cat!”

The creature glanced up at me with that withering, bored look reserved for cats and beautiful women. The cat had stolen a tablespoon of juice from me not because it needed it but just because it could. It began licking its paw as if it had touched me and was now dirty.

“Where’s your momma, stupid cat?”

It stopped licking, looked up at me, then looked away. Then it actually sighed.

“Fine,” I said, feeling strange about the exchange. “Where is your mother, Ferris Wheel?”

A brief shiver went through the orange tabby, and it licked a paw, drew it across its undamaged ear, and began walking down the street away from me. When I didn’t follow, it turned, stopped, and sat down, staring.

“Okay,” I said and started walking, looking up at the signs as I did. When we reached Port and Royal, there she was twirling in the front yard of her home. She must have been an attractive woman when was alive. And I don’t just mean because of her looks.

“Painter!” she said when she saw me. “I was worried you weren’t coming back.” She came up to me, hands behind her back, swishing back and forth. She was wearing a ball gown, very bright red with breaths of black chiffon here and there. On anyone else, the dress would have looked like a fancy strawberry.

I felt the brief slash of tiny razor blades going through my shin and flinched slightly, but I refused to look down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an orange tail slip into a hedgerow.

I said to Mini, “You look lovely.”

She smiled and did a curtsy. Then she frowned like she’d suddenly remembered she’d left the gas stove on. “Oh, those Hatter boys were looking for you. Yesterday, late, I think. Heard them asking around. I don’t think they are the sort you should be consorting with.”

I was way ahead of her. That was right in line with number two on my Short List of Rules to Live & Die by: Steer clear of bad people, including those who just might be bad for you.

She smiled. “That is an excellent rule.”

“Why were they looking for me?”

Again she flashed her smile and said, “Looks like you are the flavor of the month, honey. Bunch of folks—” She reached for me then stopped, snapping her hand back. “What?” She stepped back for a moment. “What is going on? You feel… funny.”

The look on her face worried me. Briefly, I heard the ringing in my ears again, then it faded.

“What does that mean, Mini?” I smiled and shrugged. “I’m a ghost. I don’t feel anything. Except when your cat swipes at me. I feel that pretty good.”

She softened, but her warmth had faded by a degree. “Oh, don’t worry about ol’ Ferris Wheel. He don’t mean any harm until he does.”

I nodded. “That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” I said. “Hey, Jelly said you had an old-timer hanging around you a while back. Bothering you.”

“Nobody bothers ol’ Mini, now,” she said and smiled, twirling slowly, regaining herself again. “And I have had many gentlemen suitors.”

“I expect you have.”

She stopped, widened her eyes, then looked down with a smile. “That does not mean I took any up on their offer, now. Just boys a-callin’, you know.”

“Did any of these boys wear boxer shorts and garters on their socks?”

“Oh, he wasn’t no bother. I think Jelly Rolly is sweet on ol’ Madame Mini and doesn’t like any other gentlemen suitors coming around my door.”

“He sent me this way, so he doesn’t seem too bothered.”

“But you are a short-timer here, Painter. A traveler, right?” She gave me a sad smile. “Passing through our town.”

“Well, like you, I have a home.”

“Where’s that? Maybe I might like it.”

“You would,” I said. “Minneapolis.”

She closed the gap between us, not by too much, then steeled me with an impish grin. “You a Yankee, Painter?”

“I don’t know that Minnesota played a big role in the Civil War, Mini.”

“They did,” she said, hands on her hips. “They were at the Battle of Gettysburg, First Minnesota regiment killed their fair share of our boys in gray. The South never forgets, now.”

I’m sure I knew this when I was alive, but it was a good reminder: Don’t argue about the Civil War with anyone below the Mason-Dixon line. The North may have won that war, but they’ve lost every argument since.

She twirled again. “Minnesota is too cold for my constitution. I suppose we’ll forever be star-crossed lovers, my Painter Mann.”

“What about the guy in the boxers?”

Mini hit me with that grin again. “Don’t be jealous of some old man, now.”

“No,” I said, trying to keep the conversation light. “Just trying to find where he shops.”

“Oh,” she said then straightened up. “You swing thataway. I see.”

Before I could defend my hetero honor, she waved me off and said, “Skull Lounge. One of the many, but you’re looking for a speakeasy just off North Claiborne. Used to be a laundry. Before that, maybe a watch shop? There’s a timepiece that hangs off the building, a big ol’ clock, but the crazy thing doesn’t work right. Numbers are mostly faded, and the darn thing goes backward, of all things.”

“That should be easy enough to find.”

She moved closer and looked me up and down but stopped an arm’s length away. “Why do they call you Painter?”

I was halfway turning to leave, but the question stopped me. “Why do they call you Mini?”

She put her hands on her hips and shook her head quickly, the hint of a smile still on her face. “Darlin’, it is rude to answer a question with a question. Didn’t your momma tell you that?”

“I don’t remember. Like for most of us, the past is all a jumble.”

“All of it?”

“Well, no,” I said, pointing down the street and cocking my eyebrows. She nodded, and I slowly headed in that direction. “But it’s like an old song you’re trying to remember when another one is playing. Hard to remember. Bits and pieces.”

She nodded and gave me a wave with laced fingers. “Don’t be a stranger. And don’t let this be the last time I see you, Painter Mann.”

I waved back. “It won’t. I promise.”

***

Madame Mini looked down at her dress and felt that it was maybe a bit too brash this early in the day. This was more of an evening gown. She slowly spun, and after she’d made three revolutions, she was now wearing steel gray, ruffles, and long sleeves.

The orange tabby wandered from the bushes and sat on the curb, watching the ghost with a job walk away.

“That one is going to need our help, my darlin’ Ferris Wheel.”

The one-eared cat chewed at something between its claws.

She said, “Oh, now don’t you pretend you don’t like him. I can see you do.” She slowly stopped her spinning and watched as the dead private investigator turned down a street, spun back and went the other direction. Then he turned back again and disappeared.

The cat sighed.

“He’s a good man,” she said, and she wandered toward the steps of her home. “But I tell you one thing. That boy is confused. Don’t know why he calls himself that silly name. It certainly ain’t Painter.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Ah, hell, I only just got here, Paint,” Walther said, his words already slurred. “Who goes to a strip club in the daytime, anyhow?”

Two old geezers sitting at a high top in one corner of the strange little private bar perked up. “Strip club? You ain’t got no lead left in your pencil, Walt! What you wanna go to a strip club for?” The two of them, playing a game of cribbage and sipping what looked like very complicated drinks in rocks glasses, burst out laughing like they might expire right there at the table.

“Shaddup!”

I was unnerved by how casually Walther was with conversing with me, a ghost. I again suggested he keep it a bit on the down low.

“Ahh,” he said, drawing out the word as only an old guy could. Then he took a sip of his drink and a tug from his oxygen tank. “They just think I’m a nut, really. Who knows? I might be. You a figment of my imagination, ghost detective?”

“I hope not,” I said, trying to sound casual. “That would definitely put some wrinkles in my plans.” Still, if he was going to work with me as one of my Temps, I did have rules for a reason. “Listen, it’s not a good thing that livies know there really are ghosts around. Can you do me a favor and—”

“Who cares? Does it upset your balance thing? What if the living knew there was more than just this? Isn’t that a good thing? It’s put my mind at ease a little.”

“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, man,” I said. “Ghosts and livies working together... that doesn’t usually go well. Some try to take advantage of that sort of cross-world access.”

“Like you?”

“That is different,” I said and couldn’t help laughing a little. “I’m special.”

“A special ghost?”

One of the old fellas burst out laughing again. “Walter’s talking to a retard ghost!”

“Shaddup!”

He was pretty lit, but I needed a Chatter if I was going to find out what I needed. Before I could make my point, he said, more quietly, “Fine, fine. I like it better that chumps like those two fools over there have a healthy fear of death anyhow, although you’d never know it, the way they drain those Rusty Nails.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I haven’t seen you without a Bloody Mary in your hand since I met you.”

He took another sip, this time coming out with the celery stick garnish between his teeth. He chomped it, and the remaining half fell back in his drink with a tiny splash.

“Vitamins A, C, and K right there. Potassium and dietary fiber, which helps you poop.”

“Helpful information.”

He slurped the red drink, apparently trying to ignore the celery stick that poked him in the eye a little as he did.

“Tomato juice has all those plus vitamins B1, -3, -6 and -9. Plus magnesium and something called manganese.” He theatrically slurped again to make it clear any conversation about his drinking was officially off the table. “I think I dated a Manganese lady in the war.”

“Fine,” I said. “You’re a health nut. Think of all those people wasting their time with salads.”

“Exactly!” He drained his drink, and before he could order another, the bartender had already dropped one in front of him. Walther then poured it into a sippy bottle like the kind cyclists use. “Now let’s go see some naked ladies!”

He took a step away from his stool and swayed a little, leaning heavily on a hand cart with chipped blue paint.

“Wait, I thought you were leaving that behind? You said you didn’t need it.”

He grabbed the mask and took a pull of oxygen. Then he smiled. “This is my travel tank.”

“It looks the same.”

“You’re not very observant for a private investigator, are ya?” He hit the tank with an open palm, and I heard a double clank. For the first time, I noticed he was wearing two rings on his hand.

Not observant? I just observed that, so…

“Okay,” I said. “It’s a bit smaller.”

“This is my D tank, the 425,” he said. “My main one back at the beach holds more than five times that. The mighty M90.”

“How many do you have?”

He thought for a moment. “Um… several.”

“Noted,” I said, and he started toward the door. This other hand cart was slightly smaller to fit the tank, but just like the other, the wheels were locked up, and he simply dragged it behind him.

I wasn’t sure he was really road ready, but we were in New Orleans. Most people on the street would be several drinks in already. He’d fit right in.

When we’d gotten to the door, I noticed the two geezers playing cribbage were eyeballing Walther, who paid them no notice.

A stairwell led up into the light, and, as we took it, Walt’s tank banged on every step.

Still in his Florida ball cap, T-shirt, and shorts outfit, he’d long ago stopped caring what people thought of him. He got an extra rise out of asking strangers where he might find the Cardinal’s Inn, often adding, “You know, where you give the girls a dollar to take their clothes off?”

The walk took us the better part of an hour, but there was something about old folks and walking. It might drain damn near all their strength just getting out of the chair, but Christ, they could walk for days. But as others have said, walking is just falling and catching yourself. I suppose if you’re able to survive for more than half a century, you have to get good at doing that. Falling and catching yourself. When you stop doing that, it’s all over.

Strip clubs are a bit sad in the daytime. Hell, they’re pretty sad at night, to be fair, but in the daylight, it’s like you can see a sort of grime made up of sadness and resignation.

Out front, the Cardinal’s Inn looked like what might have been an old movie theater, converted. Or possibly a fill-up station.

The exterior was lit up like a Vegas casino, with hundreds of tiny bulbs flashing a variety of patterns—right to left, left to right, down to up, sparkle.

But just beyond the sparkle, the rest of the building was painted black. I wondered just how high their AC bills might be in the Louisiana sun when August came. The building wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to stare too long at, but you could see it hadn’t been painted the same black at the same time.

There were swathes and patches and bruises of very dark blue and very dark purple all mixed together.

The mishmash of patchwork paint across the front of the club belied a brutal history, one that would never fully heal.

The woman at the front window almost seemed out of place. Nice cranberry suit, perfectly coiffed hair. She looked like someone who ran an Audi dealership and took pride in crushing those Mercedes pricks down the road.

As she changed Walther’s cash, she looked up and then back down, grinning. “You boys out for a bit of early fun?”

“Well, I’ve got just weeks to live, so I’m trying to get in as much good-lookin’-lady time I can.”

Her smile didn’t fade, and she said, “Well, I won’t bother trying to upsell you on the seasonal pass, then.”

I missed it at first, but then like an echo in my brain, it swung back and hit me. She’d said, “You boys.” I panicked.

Could she see me?

Then I heard them behind us. Spinning back, I recognized their craggy faces from the private bar. They stood there looking like those two old guys from The Muppet Show had crawled down from their balcony seats, both trying to look inconspicuous. They were old men in shorts with wraparound shades, arms crossed, looking in different directions.

Standing on the street in front of a strip club.

Like Walther, each had booze in a sippy bottle with words emblazoned across its side: Skull Lounge. Next to that was a simple design that looked like a skull with a clock on its forehead.

My Temp didn’t even look toward them. “Two more, then,” he said, and the old Muppet guys mumbled a “thank you,” rushed past us, pushed through the glass doors covered in fingerprints, and headed inside.

Even with the late morning sun blazing outside, the place was dark as a tomb. It was designed to look sexy, seductive, and mysterious. But it was pretty obvious the dark paint, dark tables, and dark furniture were there not only to hide the structural flaws but obviously some of the clientele who might enter the building.

Like those coming in at midday on a weekday.

A deep thumping bass rattled the empty glasses on circular bar tables, their red drink straws bumping like tiny metronomes counting out a hundred beats a minute.

A huge man with no neck and a wraparound headset told the three old guys that there were four theaters (yes, he said theaters), but the main one, “South,” was closed for maintenance. Only the “West” theater had dancers that time of day.

I looked to the right, from where the music and light were bleeding, and through the uneven passageway, I saw a woman swaying, leaning back on a metal pole, her arm draped above her head.

Walther’s two buddies expertly hid their plastic drink bottles behind a forearm. Looking at my Temp, he’d held his the same way. Must be something they taught at Skull Lounge orientation.

Despite the music being as loud as it was, I could speak at a normal level. Those livies who can hear us don’t actually use their ears to do it.

“So this is where Tori’s sister Andi worked?”

“Yeah, the Cardinal’s Inn is where dancers start out when they come to town.”

There were just a few customers. Some groups looked like they were still partying from the night before, obviously with some chemical help.

A table of three guys in suits was looking wired, tired, and sweaty. I watched for a moment, their eyes dancing in their skulls. They were blasted out of their minds. One guy went to take a sip of his beer and flinched when he hit his tooth.

Across the bar at a high-top table sat a dude in a sweatshirt not looking much better. His head was low, slumped at the shoulders. A waitress in a tiny black outfit, complete with bow tie, came by and asked him something. He smiled, shook his head, and gave her a couple of bills.

Down from him, another lone guy sat in a booth. His head was actually on the table.

In front at the stage was a young couple—a guy and a girl—just barely old enough to get in. Both had folded bills in either hand. He was holding singles, and she had fives and tens, so was getting more attention. The look on the young woman’s face told you all you needed to know about the chances the young man had, despite how tooled up he’d be when they eventually left the club.

The two old guys from the club grabbed a booth that was near the stage but far enough away not to look quite so creepy.

For a moment, I was worried Walther might join them, but instead, he kept walking, dragging his O2 tank behind him. A couple of dancers were leaning against the bar on the back wall, and one of them looked up. She was a rail-thin woman with a dark complexion, wearing an outfit that consisted of a bra, underwear, and stockings that were so purple they looked like they might be off the color spectrum.

She smiled at Walther.

He smiled back and pointed to a row of curtains on the far wall.

“You’re not going to do anything weird, are you?” I said. “I can wait outside, if—”

“Oh, hush,” he said, breathing a bit more heavily, but I wasn’t sure whether that because of was the walk or the environment around him. “Don’t you know what this is?”

“What what is?”

He stepped up to one of the red velvet curtains and pulled it back, revealing an oversized, wraparound booth with a small riser in the center.

He said, “This is a champagne room.”

“You should never mix champagne with Bloody Marys. I’ll stand by that.”

“It’s for private dances, Paint,” he said. He walked in and tugged the curtain behind him.

Walther flopped down on the puckered vinyl seating, looked down at something, and then slid a bit farther to his left.

He added, “And like my boy Chris Rock said, ‘There is no sex in the champagne room.’”

I gazed around the room, which wasn’t really a room but an alcove with a U-shaped couch and a thick curtain. Recessed lighting in the ceiling that, no question, was hiding hidden cameras to make sure the guests didn’t get frisky.

“At your age, you can’t say ‘my boy,’ man. Unless Chris Rock is actually your boy.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone. You’re like ninety.”

He choked in the middle of his drag of oxygen. “I’m seventy-two!”

I looked at him. “You are not taking very good care of yourself.”

“Because dyin’ is a free pass to not take care of yourself. That’s the one benefit of the soon-to-be dead. Red meat, chain-smoke, up all night, and sleep late.”

I had to smile at the guy. “And twenty-four-seven Bloody Marys?”

He took a tug off his Skull Lounge bottle and smiled, red-toothed. “Exactly!”

Thin, dark fingers tugged the curtain aside, and the young woman peeked through the gap. “Sir, you okay in there?”

“I’m fine.”

“I thought I heard you talking to somebody?” she said, poking her head in. “You’re not crazy, are you?”

He shrugged. “Poor people are crazy. People with money are eccentric.”

That was all she needed to hear.

With a smile that showed her perfect teeth with a gap between the front two, she slid an ebony leg through the curtain, and I swear something deep in my belly, which I no longer had, stirred.

“Good, I thought you were talking to somebody, and since I didn’t see anyone else come in here—”

“I was talking to someone. I’m with my dead friend Painter. He’s a ghost.”

“For Chrissake, Walther, stop telling people I’m here!”

Walther added with a shit-eating grin, “He’s thrilled to meet you.”

Without missing a beat, she stepped up onto the small cylindrical riser, already dancing before she got her second thick-plastic platform shoe up on top, and said: “Well, I was hoping it was just going to be you and me. Sometimes when boys are with their friends, they act a fool.”

Walther smiled and promised to behave.

“My name is Dahlia.”

“I’m Walther. I like the name Dahlia. Beautiful flowers and explains the, uh, purple.”

The fluid, perfect motion of her toned arms and legs. The feminine curves. This was a woman who broke hearts with a smile.

Walther said, “You don’t have to do all that if you don’t want. I just wanted to talk.”

I said, “Hey now, she’s an artist. Don’t interrupt what she’s—”

“Okay,” she said and sat down on the vinyl couch next to Walther. She told him the cost of ten minutes, and he agreed. When a waitress poked her head in and suggested he buy the lovely lady a drink, he sighed.

“How many do I gotta buy so you don’t keep poking your head in every two minutes?”

The waitress blinked and then looked over at Dahlia. “Honey, what are you up to today?”

The black woman in the purple lingerie shrugged. “Four. So far.”

The woman with the tray, just a few years older than the dancer, looked back to Walther. “She needs ten before her shift’s up, so why don’t we say… three?”

The old guy took a drag from his tank and shook his head. “Make it six and put it on my friends’ tab. We’re sitting out there in the booth by the stage.” The waitress smirked and walked away.

Dahlia smiled and let out a small breath. She said, “So, do you want to talk, or do you just want to listen to me talk for a while?”

“Is that weird? Just sitting here talking?”

“No,” she said, leaning back on the couch. “You’d be surprised, but a lot of guys just want to talk. Now, not every guy will spend two hundred dollars to talk, but hey.”

Walther coughed slightly and then recovered. “Well, to be honest, they’re paying, not me, so let’s just enjoy the company.”

“Ask her if she knew Andi,” I said.

Walther said, “I was wondering—”

“No, wait. Don’t go straight for that,” I said. “Ask her first how long she’s been here at the club.”

Walther said, “How long—”

“Hold on, we don’t want to spook her.”

Walther said, “I’m sorry, my ghost friend is a good investigator but not used to being around pretty girls.”

“Stop telling people that!”

He continued, “Me, I’m used to it. I was a real looker back in the day.”

“I bet you were,” Dahlia said. She hit him with her killer smile.

“In fact, just by talking—”

“You’re not seriously going to say that to her, are you, man?”

Walther smiled, took a hit of oxygen, and then asked about Andi, the waitress-turned-stripper.

Dahlia’s smiled faded, and her eyes flicked up to the lights above us. She whispered, “You a cop or something?”

Walther, dumbstruck by the question, shook his head. He said, “Yes, I’m a cop. Undercover. I look like an old, dying man in his seventies, but really, I’m a hot city detective with washboard abs and a nine-inch wiggle-stick.”

She smiled. “Aw, I thought you were in your fifties, maybe. Still plenty young to be a cop.”

Walther turned in my general direction. “See? Fifties, Painter! Pah, nineties…”

“Dude, you paid her two hundred dollars. For two-fifty, you would have been forty.”

“You’re a good-looking guy,” she said. “You could be one of those movie cops that drive fancy cars with a girl on both arms.”

Walther took the compliment and briefly stuck his tongue out at me. I still found it odd that he could feel the direction I was in.

When he started to speak again, she flashed her bleached-white teeth and briefly held a finger to her lips. With her other hand, she reached over and twisted a spot on the wall, like it was made of cookie dough and she was trying to pinch off a small part of it.

The music got louder inside the booth, and when she pulled her hand away, I saw a slight divot and a tiny black knob in the wall.

She stepped back up onto the raised silver disk on the floor and did a slow dance, picking up every other beat of the music. She looked down and smiled again. Walther took that as his cue.

“Did you ever work with Andi?”

Dahlia looked up, closed her eyes, swayed her shoulders for a moment, and then looked down. The light in her eyes had dimmed.

“I was wondering if someone might come back and start asking around again.”

“So, you knew her?”

“Not really,” she said. “I work the day shift, and she was strictly nights and weekends. That’s where the money is, so I don’t blame her.”

“Why don’t you work nights and weekends?”

I said, “You’ll regret that.”

Dahlia gave him a sad smile. “I got a little boy and a little girl. I figure their momma should be around when they get home from school.”

The old man took a sip from his drink bottle. “Yep. You were right.”

“What do you mean?”

Walther leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees to hear over the music. “So, why would someone want to kill her?”

The dancer looked around the room, eyes wide. “Whoa, whoa, what’s all that about?”

Walther stood and raised his hands. “No, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spook—”

“Don’t touch me, sir!”

“I didn’t mean—”

“No, I’m saying you can’t touch me, or—”

Outside, I could see the colors shifting, shadows trading for light then back again, and I poked my head through the curtains. Three different shades of fabric passed through my ghost eyes, and I saw the twin of the man we saw at the door. This look-alike made a beeline for our booth, his hand cupped to his mouth.

“Hey, man, I think you gotta go.”

“It’ll be fine,” Walther said, but I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to the girl in the purple panties or me. He sat back down.

“No, man, there is a massive dude coming this way.”

Walther half smiled and grabbed his oxygen mask, taking a few deep breaths.

I tried to calculate what it might take to put enough juice in my fingertips to wrap the curtain around the big guy’s head if it came to that. I’d take a big hit, but it could be enough to give Walther a head start. But then I thought of the tank—no way he was going anywhere quickly.

Before I could come up with another option, the big guy was there, yanking the curtain back.

I raised my fist and knew I’d be good for one blow to his head. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough to knock him out, but he’d feel it and might freak out enough to find the exit.

He glanced at the old man slumped on the shiny couch, one arm keeping his balance and the other holding an oxygen mask to his face. The dancer in front of him put a hand on either hip, frowning at the bouncer.

“You trying to kill my tip? Get the hell out!”

“Come on, Dahl, I was just—”

“You worried about an old man and me? Scoot!” She reached up and, with a flourish, closed both curtains.

I found myself on the other side of the curtain, hand raised in the air, frozen. The guard was in the same shape I was, and both of us just stared. When he turned to leave, I slipped back through the curtain.

She’d dipped her head so the cameras above could only see the top of her hair. Slowly twisting again, she smiled.

“That was kinda fun.”

“You could be an actress, you know?”

She fixed him with a devilish grin. “Yeah, you are a charmer, Walther. I bet you were a real ladies’ man back in the day.”

“You know, just by talking to a young lad—”

“Walther!”

In midsentence, he lifted the squeeze bottle to his lips and drank from it.

He started speaking but then stopped. Then he said, “Listen, you and I know all those TV cop questions. Who’d she know, who mighta been mad at her, did she owe anyone dough and all that.” I noticed his eyes were a bit watery. “I didn’t know Andi really well, but she was always a sweet girl to this old man back home.”

“You knew her?”

“She was a waitress on the Gulf Coast a little while back. I’m dying, so I spend my days on the beach there.”

“I’m sorry, Walther.”

He waved her off. “Her sister, older sister, you know how they can be a little like mommas, right?”

She gave him a sad smile and nodded, her eyes fogging for a moment. “I do.”

“Well, Tori, her sister, is sick about this, as you’d imagine. She just needs some sort of… I dunno, peace. Can you help her heart out a bit? Anything.”

Dahlia raised her elbows and did a quick few moves, gritting her teeth slightly. She then nodded quickly. “Okay, you got about two minutes left of your dance before we have to step out of here.”

“I’m listening.”

The dancer danced slow and spoke fast.

“Everybody liked Andi. I mean everybody. Beautiful, sweet southern girl, right? Every boy’s dream. Hell, every girl’s dream. Especially the clients who just want to talk to a pretty girl.”

“You said that’s what a bunch of clients want, right?”

“I mean, sure, it’s naked girls wiggling their stuff, but a lot of it, maybe most of it, is just guys looking for a bit of attention from a pretty girl,” she said, and Walther nodded. “And she was easy to talk to. So that’s what she did.”

“Why is that important?”

“Because, from what I heard—only whispers now, but I heard the Cajun had been looking for some outta-town girl to work some game on the solos.”

“The Cajun?”

Dahlia looked around the tiny room, shifting her eyes from camera to camera. “Cajun Deaux. He’s the owner. None of the pros would waste too much time with solos, so he needed an out-of-towner.”

Walther shrugged and shook his head. “Solos, then, are the guys…”

“The ones sitting by themselves. Not groups, not frat parties. The loners.”

“Okay.”

“But the tips aren’t as good as when you got a group of horny, drunk guys. So the Cajun was paying her a little extra to talk with the quiet guys. The sorta desperate ones.”

“Why? To keep them coming back and spending money?”

Dahlia got a bit spooked by the question. Her eyes were doing the dancing now, and she looked like she regretted the conversation.

Walther stepped in. “Listen, I’m no police. Just… anything you can tell me would help her sister. She needs to know. I mean, if she was doing more with the, you know, solos…”

She shook her head. “That’s the thing, man. These guys didn’t come back.”

“So she got them to stop coming to the club. Maybe they weren’t spending enough money.”

“You don’t turn away money. Even the nickel-diming ones.”

“So, why make them go away then?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? But some of these guys used to come in the late morning and afternoons, so my customers too. Regulars.”

“And they just left?”

“Disappeared,” she said sadly. “Moved away maybe or worse.”

“Worse?”

“I don’t know. Dumped into Lake Pontchartrain. Who knows?” she said, now whispering as she stepped off the silver disk. Dance time was over. “At least a half dozen of my customers.”

“You remember any names?”

“Clients like it when we use their names, sure,” she said. “There was a cat named Drew, big fat guy. Another real, real tall dude. Jon with no H, that’s how he introduced himself. Clayton, a skinny kid. Then Sue and at least one other guy… what was his name?”

“Wait, wait—what did she just say? The one after Clayton?”

Walther repeated my question.

She smiled. “Yeah, I miss him. He was an IT guy but wore these cowboy boots, two sizes too big. His daddy named him Sue, if you can believe it. Like that old song, ‘A Boy Named Sue.’”

I said to Walther, “I met that guy! Ask her—”

“Time’s up!” The big guy with the buzz cut and headset was back and looking a bit pissed. “This old guy’s got more than his money’s worth.”

Dahlia sighed and lifted her shoe to adjust the back strap. “He’s dying, Eugene. Give him a break.”

Eugene looked at Walther. “You sure he’s not already dead?”

“No, but all the men on the stacks of bills in my pocket are, if you’re keeping score.” Walther stood up and looked like he wanted to punch the guy. I advised him against that. Then, as Eugene yanked the curtain wide, my Temp looked at the stage. “Hey, where are my friends?”

Eugene smiled. I think he had a few extra teeth put in. “They were bothering the other girls.”

Dahlia turned toward him, her hands on her hips. “I doubt that. Why don’t you just leave the customers be?”

“Cheap fuckers were trying to change dollar bills for quarters, for fuck’s sake,” he said, giving Walther the side-eye. “Where the fuck you gonna put a quarter on a stripper?”

“Dancer,” Dahlia said and sighed. “We’re dancers.”

“Then get out there an’ dance! You’ve been in here giving the old guy a prostate massage and missed your songs. Amber had to cover for you, and now nobody’s up there. Not good for business! Get up there and take your clothes off like a good stripper.”

Dahlia slipped past him and headed toward the stage. Walther tried to follow her out the booth but got a meaty paw on his chest. Eugene leaned down. For a second I thought he was going to growl.

“Why don’t you join your friends, old-timer?”

Ignoring him, Walther pushed past as he pulled his tank behind him. A step behind my friend, I heard him mumble, “I will soon enough.”

Despite the no-neck bouncer’s assertion that the stage was empty, there was a dancer up there. She swayed very slowly, her head thrown back, tassels over her large breasts and a larger one between her hips. Unlike the others I saw there, she’d also wrapped herself in a sort of sheer black see-through dress, which flowed around her because of some unseen wind.

She had lovely, feminine curves and was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

“Paint, I’m tired. Let’s head back to the Skull Lounge for a recharge of my drink.”

I couldn’t blame him. “Your new friend knows more. Maybe see if she’ll talk to us when she’s done.”

He looked over at the stage. Dahlia was saying a quick hello to a table of guys who’d whistled as she walked up. Her smile glittered in the pulsing lights above.

“That big no-neck monkey is looking for a reason to tussle, I reckon. We can come back later, maybe catch her outside. First shift ends at two.”

I was going to tease him about knowing the local stripper schedule when I saw something strange on stage. The table of three men whooped and hollered as Dahlia stepped up. The sheer-covered dancer smiled at the sound, lowered her head, and slowly opened her eyes. She blew a kiss in their direction.

Then she shimmied as Dahlia walked right through her.

“Hey, man, I’ll meet you there. I’m going to talk to someone.”

“Time for a refill,” he said. Then he must have realized what I’d said. “Who are you going to talk to?”

“Someone else.”

“Why?”

“That’s the second time that guy’s name has come up. The Cajun. He’s a drug dealer and, apparently, a strip club owner. I just spotted someone who might know about him. And Andi.”

Walther gave me a wave without looking back, his shoulders rounded as he headed for the exit. Behind us, I heard Eugene bark, “Yeah, keep walking, old-timer. I bet it’s Jell-O time at the home. Don’t wanna miss it!”

I looked back toward the bouncer with the headset. For a second, I thought hard about throwing a little life-changing chaos into the smug prick’s life. How might he react to getting a ghost fist in the gut when no one was around?

The DJ switched up the song to something twice as fast, and Dahlia began attacking the stage like a gymnast. Another group— two guys and a girl—walked in and took another table near the stage.

My attention, though, was on the woman in the sheer dress.

She glided off the stage and caught the floor with a bare foot, then she walked toward the far wall. She went up a small set of stairs and then slid into a booth by herself. Now out of the light and in the dark, she had a sheen that the other dancers did not.

Because, of course, she wasn’t like the others. They were alive.

“Can I sit with you?”

Resting in the booth, her arms up on the puckered black vinyl, she cracked an eye open, gave me a smile, and then slid over. Putting a bare foot upon the couch, she wrapped her arms around her leg, giving it a stretch.

“At night, you can’t sit up here because this here booth is a favorite of the creepers.”

“Creepers?”

She smiled. “Oh, I suppose that’s unkind, now. But with all the action down by the performing area, guys acting the fool and waving around their money, the ones that like to watch and not pay for it sit up here in the shadows.”

“Maybe they’re shy?”

She raised an eyebrow. “It’s the shy boys you hafta watch out for, honey.” She leaned back and stretched her arms out again. “This is the only booth where folks like us can actually relax. It’s a shame how that happens, of course, but”—she exhaled deeply—“I do like the chance to take a load off.”

Ghosts don’t need to rest. But it is nice to feel a bit normal again. I leaned back and enjoyed it, feeling a pang of guilt. There was only one way that spooks could sit on furniture like this. Doing that would have been bloody.

She must have seen my expression. She said, “It woulda been a long time ago now. After my time, though. Some other name above the club. Always a bird, though. Flamingo. Pelican.”

“What was it called when you were here?”

She ignored my question. “Boys can get so rowdy. This whole booth’s got grain to it. I can even lay down, stretch out. I’d wager at least four were splattered across this booth. Maybe five.”

Whatever energy or juice that spills out as the residue of violent death can be absorbed by objects. That can give an object grain, as she said. The more violent, the longer that grain seems to last.

“Could be Mafia or something, maybe. Made the wrong person mad. Sometimes you find out too late who the wrong person is,” she said. “I expect that’s what happened to these fellas.”

“‘Keep clear of bad people or just people who might be bad for you,’” I said, quoting myself. “That’s one of my Rules.”

She pulled her legs in again. “That’s a good rule. Wish I’d had that when I was, you know, younger.” She gave me a smile. “These boys didn’t know it either. But in the end, it was probably a mob hit. The real mob, not the ones you took care of.”

For a moment, I was at a loss for words.

That made her smile grow. “The Ghost Mob, right? I understand we all got you to thank for taking them down a peg, Painter Mann.”

“Not just me. I had help.”

Leaning toward me, she put a shoulder to her cheek. “Oh, a modest boy? I like that. I find that very sexy.”

“So you know who I am?”

“Sure, word gets around. What sort of name is Painter Mann anyhow?”

“Irish-Romanian.”

She flashed another smile and then leaned back. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No, no. I wouldn’t do that.”

There was a loud bang near the entrance, and her smile was instantly gone. She whipped her head toward the other side of the room.

A drunk college kid put his hands up and shouted, “Sorry!” A moment later, Eugene was over there, finger in the guy’s face.

The spook dancer relaxed again. Then she said, “You know, I get paid to talk to boys. You gonna pay me to talk to you, honey? Otherwise—”

“I’m out of dollar bills. Although I think some guys I know might have a roll of quarters.”

She hit me with a smile but was, for the moment, all business. “I don’t take payment. It’s given.”

I nodded and then held my hand out. She sat up, playfully, then slowly tapped it, taking a small bit of juice from me. It was the only currency we had in the InBetween.

Unusually, my vision flickered. I saw fabric and light, briefly, then it was gone.

She leaned back, and I swear she purred slightly. “That’ll buy you five minutes. You can chat, or you can just stare if you’d like.”

Increasingly, it seemed like I wasn’t the only one in the afterlife with a job.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

She shrugged. “It’s your money, honey. You on a case, now, Mr. Ghost Private Eye?”

She was easy to like. I asked her name and somehow knew how she’d respond. “What would you like to call me?”

“I’d like to call you by your real name if I could.”

Again, all business, she looked at me and said, “Fine. It’s Kelly.” Her eyes went wide, and she laughed. “Christ, you say it long enough, and you start to believe it. No, that was my dancer name a long time ago. It’s Annabelle. Annabelle Samways.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“Well, if I’m pretending to be someone I’m not and going to show more skin than I would outside this club, it’s Kelly.”

“Let’s go with Annabelle.”

She pulled her arms in and grinned. “You’ve got four minutes with Annabelle, then.”

“Did you know a dancer named Andi?”

“Lotsa girls went by that over the decades.”

“Recently. In the past year sometime. She was from Florida. She’s dead and, well, missing. I mean she, as a spook, she’s—”

“I know what you mean,” she said, and her smile faltered. “Yes, I remember Andi. She didn’t last too long, sadly. Beautiful girl, tall drink of water that everyone wanted to take a sip of.”

“She had a deal with the owner?”

In a moment, she said, “Yes. The Cajun had her in charge of his Lonely Hearts Club, although that wasn’t a name bandied about much. Private enterprise.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“She died.”

“Okay. How?”

“Maybe one of those lonely hearts liked her a bit too much. Wanted her all for hisself. Or it was something else.”

“Like what?”

She stared at me, her smile dimming by a degree. “You have three minutes.”

“Plenty of time. What else might it have been?”

Annabelle looked at the door again, but this time there hadn’t been a sound. On the stage, Dahlia was on her second song and now pulling off her purple bra. She flung it to the stage, meeting with applause.

“Back in my day, you couldn’t get work without at least a D-cup. That girl almost looks like a boy.”

I glanced over. “She doesn’t look like any boy I’d ever met.” I looked back at Annabelle. “So maybe it was one of the loners she was paid to make feel less lonely. Or, you said, something else.”

She laughed. “Oh, baby, she wasn’t paid to make them feel less lonely.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, which question do you want answered, Painter Mann? You are confusing me now. You got two minutes.”

“If Andi wasn’t paid to befriend these solo guys, what was she paid to do?”

A shrug. “She was paid to be patient, in part, I reckon. The tall drink of water would work these guys over a few days. Then, she’d cut some deal on the side, it seems.”

“What kind of deal?”

Annabelle smirked at me. “A lotta these girls do more than dance. They use the club to get clients. For private shows. Elsewhere.”

That didn’t seem to fit. “I don’t think she was turning tricks. She’d been a waitress. That’s a hell of a leap in a few months.”

“Girl has to do what a girl has to do when she wants to eat.”

I wasn’t buying it. I went back to what she’d said earlier. “If not one of those guys, clients or not, you said it might have been something else. What?”

Annabelle sat up and, again, her eyes darted toward the door. “You have one minute.”

I held up my hand again. I wasn’t excited about losing any more juice, but at least it seemed I was getting somewhere. The information would be worth it.

Annabelle slowly shook her head. “You got your time. I hafta be available for other paying clients.”

“Fine,” I said. “Annabelle, this is important. I expect you know about Vanishing Day.”

Her eyes went distant for a moment. “Yes, I know about that.”

“I think Andi might be a part of that. There are a lot of people in this town who’d like to know what happened to their friends. Their family.”

She nodded and looked down at her hands. “I lost friends that night too. Just disappeared.”

“Then help me with this. I might be able to find them.”

“They’re gone, honey.”

“Maybe not,” I said, knowing she was counting down the seconds. “Tell me what else might have happened to Andi. There is a chance I could bring those people back. Your friends.”

She took a long look at the door and then spoke in a low voice. “The club’s owner… I have heard… he uses us. Spooks. Does something to them. Don’t know what. But I expect there’s a chance after Andi was killed, I dunno. He used her too.”

“For what?”

“Time’s up, honey.”

She started to stand, and I again held my hand out. I said, “Please. Those people are lost. I have to help them.”

Annabelle got up and took a few steps away, but then she froze, all her limbs static. She spun back to me slowly, her eyes wide, and she began to move toward me.

“We have to leave this room.”

“Why?”

“Right now!”

She came toward me then slid around the booth and disappeared through the wall. I looked at the door, and a man was there, a livie, scanning the room. Two of the dancers approached him, draping their arms around his shoulders.

As he spoke, I could see his lips moved strangely, like half of his face was frozen. If he’d been older, I would have thought he’d had a stroke at some point.

He locked eyes on me, still talking to the girls.

The livie was staring in my direction. Then he pushed the girls off and headed right for me.

Across the room, he shouted, “Stay there!”

I took that as my cue to go.

Slipping through the wall behind me, I caught sight of the man, moving from the door. In the next room, this one with the word North emblazoned on one wall, I saw him come to the entrance. With his long dark hair, he was a handsome guy, but his face—half of it—was twisted in a strange expression.

“Stay right there!” he said and moved toward me with incredible speed. I was planning on cutting through the next wall, but then I caught sight of something whirling in the dark. A moment later, it was gone.

When I turned back, the livie was right there next to me.

“Wait, you can see me?”

“Yes! I have something you need to hear!” He kept talking, but I now couldn’t hear a word he was saying. Then, the strangest thing happened. I couldn’t move. The livie was coming at me, closing the gap, and I was frozen.

A moment later, he was standing in front of me.

I tried to run but couldn’t. As he’d approached, his eyes were locked onto mine, like I was some animal caught in a trap.

Then, he appeared to grow! He became taller and taller, standing over me, his hands raised, muttering to himself.

I realized he hadn’t grown. I had fallen to my knees, like the faithful to some preacher. Or god.

He stood over me, muttering. The colors around me began to flicker and change, shifting then to bright white.

“I am so glad you came, Painter Mann,” he said in a voice that was both alive and dead. His face no longer looked frozen as he spoke. “I have use for such a person such as yourself.”

Stiff as a board, I could hear my own heartbeat, despite not having a heart. I said, “I’m busy. Maybe I can come back later.”

“No, no, no,” he said and smiled, nearly glowing in the dark. He muttered some phrases I couldn’t make heads or tails of. “You will help me.”

“Like you helped Andi?”

He frowned. “No. And yes. Like you, as you understand it, I have a purpose.”

“I try to help others like me.”

“Noble. But not my purpose. Mine is even nobler. To right a wrong,” he said, muttering again. “And you get to play a part in this beautiful, beautiful plan.”

“I got a pretty full day planner right now, man.”

“We are not familiar. I don’t like being called ‘man.’ To you, it’s Mr. Thibodeaux. Or, many call me Cajun Deaux, which is more fitting at this moment.”

“Let me go, man!”

“You will play a part a most important correction. You and I will make history,” he said with a smile. “That is, we will right history. Then all of this can change. The way it is supposed to be.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

He motioned to a creature now pacing around us. A chimera. I couldn’t make out either of its faces, which were twisted and bubbling as if made from boiling tar. Then another appeared. Each was made up of two torsos and one set of legs.

“Take him back to my home and wait for me there. Tell the woman to prepare her pot.”

Then they grabbed me, and I remembered what Stitches had said. And he was right.

Hell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Maybe we ought to hit a haunted house or something,” Rose said, picking at the remains of her fish taco. She pushed crumbs around the paper plate. “There’s only so many hours we can wander these streets and come up with bupkis until we start losing viewers.”

Hollow nodded, standing in the middle of the street. He looked back at the café, where his team was eating a late lunch. Mostly dressed in black, they looked like mercenaries before some attack on a guerrilla outfit in the Colombian jungle, but instead of guns, they had camera equipment strapped all over them.

He turned to Sapphire, who was sipping a diet soda. Hollow tried to remember the last time he’d seen their psychic eat.

“You not hungry?”

The blind man shrugged. “I’m worried.”

Digit was lazily tapping away on her wrist computer. “The Scotsman? You still can’t feel him?”

“No. Nothing. Not haze, no nothing.”

Doc stood and put his foot on his chair to stretch, his tartan flowing as he moved. “This is the spookiest town in America—”

“Most haunted,” the waitress said, putting a milkshake down in front of Digit. “I hear we spent good money on research to come up with that designation, so it’s best everyone uses it.” The woman straightened up, put a hand on each hip, and sighed. “But, from tell around town, we could lose said designation.”

Hollow gave her a small smile. “Why is that?”

She shrugged. “Recently, they just ain’t so many ghosts no more. Bustlin’ before. Now, many of them just, who knows… went somewhere.”

The group fell silent for a moment and let her words sink in. The server held up the notebook-sized bill folder. “Whose is this?”

Without looking, everyone pointed at Hollow. He nodded and held out a hand, taking the dinner’s bill from her.

Picking up where he’d left off, Doc said, “In this most haunted town in America—”

“Half as haunted,” Digit corrected.

“—your Scotsman probably found some spooky friends and went to have spooky adventures.”

Rose stood up, tossing her spork down onto what was left of her food. She looked up and down the street. It was beginning to fill with tourists gearing up to celebrate the nightly Mardi Gras.

Strumming her fingers on her hips, she walked up to Hollow, who was watching a group taking selfies in front of a hot-sauce store.

He looked over at her as she approached, smiled, then looked at his hands.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

“We can’t just keep wandering around here. The one real lead we had, or supposedly had, was a vague notion that some Scottish ghost would lead us to this super ghost.” She looked back at their group and chuckled. “Fuck, saying that out loud sounds nuts.”

“Sure, but it’s what we’re all about, right? I mean, all the programming bullshit aside, this is why we started doing this. Isn’t it?”

Rose shook her head slowly. “Come on, you know better than that, Hollow. There are no unicorns. There are no witches. No Santa Claus.”

Hollow went wide-eyed and muttered, “Wha?”

She smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “Me and your father have been meaning to talk to you about that.”

He gave her a smile back and nodded slowly. “Yeah, yeah.”

“And despite all of this…” she said, motioning to her gear. Then she held up a hand. “Don’t worry. I’m dark. Not streaming, I’m not stupid.”

“You don’t have to say that, I know you wouldn’t jeopardize us.”

“Okay, but this is starting to jeopardize us. Chasing after this… fantasy.” She put a hand on the side of his face. “I know why you’re doing this. But this isn’t your big chance to make amends with some kid you ran down twenty years ago. You may have started all of this to find her ghost and, I don’t know, apologize or whatever. But that’s just not real, Hollow.”

Despite the softness of her words, Hollow flinched.

Doc, switching the leg he stretched, saw the two talking. “If you guys start kissing, I’m going to be mad. Slightly aroused, sure, but it will be an angry arousal.”

“I think that’s the only sort of arousal you two have, isn’t it?” Hollow asked. “I have the hotel repair bills to prove it.”

The man in the kilt swished the fabric around his legs for a moment, hands on his hips. He nodded. “As you were.”

Hollow clasped her hand between his and held it in between them. “Listen, I will never put my personal thing above this team.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded and then thought for a moment. “Okay, maybe we take a night and chase one at the local haunts. If there was ever a town where you could point a camera and go ‘Look, a ghost,’ it’s this one.”

Rose smiled. “Yeah?” She blinked a few times. “You sure?”

“No, I’m not sure,” he said with a grin. “But you’re right. We need a good spooky show. Haven’t had that since Scotland.”

“Right. Tonight, let’s have a good ol’-fashioned jump-scare, green-tinted night vision, Blair Witch panic-cam show at some creaky old house. Then tomorrow, we’ll pour over the audiotapes, find some voice saying, ‘Leeeaaave,’ and we’ll be right as rain.”

Hollow looked down his nose. “Is that what we do?”

“It’s what people want. And you, my friend, more than anything, are a people pleaser.”

“I have two ex-wives that would argue against that point. In fact, they did. With lawyers. Expensive ones.”

“Then in a day or two, we can give this Painter Mann thing another try but cut bait when it doesn’t pan out.” She fiddled with the dark screen on her wrist. “People want to see there’s something more out there. Wandering around finding nothing? That’s what the everyday people get every day. We show them something else. Even if, deep down, they probably know it’s all bullshit.”

“Is that how it all works?” Hollow said with a laugh.

She shrugged. “It’s a distraction. We provide an escape the everyday people need.”

“It’s more than that,” Sapphire said softly, and Hollow jumped.

“Jeez, don’t sneak up on me, man.”

“I didn’t sneak up,” he said. “Hell, I’m the blind guy. How am I sneaking up on anyone?”

Rose said, “It’s not more, Saff. There isn’t more. This is distraction. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of value in that. It may be the most important thing we offer.”

“We offer more than that, though,” Sapphire said. “Chasing ghosts isn’t just about shaky camera shots and hearing voices in the static.”

The other two were quiet for a moment. Sapphire continued, “Okay, it’s mainly about that, sure, but just on the surface.”

“And that’s what our viewers want to see tonight,” Rose said.

“Right,” Sapphire said. “But chasing ghosts is a promise that there might be something more out there. That the people we love who left us aren’t really gone.”

Rose whispered, “But they are.”

“Are they? Does the love you have for a friend who’s died, or maybe that grandma who made you feel normal when everyone else treated you like a freak… does that love die?”

“No. Of course, it doesn’t.”

“Then they aren’t really gone, right?” Sapphire said, smiling. “We suggest there’s something more. That they’re still here and the love we have for them is real as they are. Maybe they’re even watching over us. Keeping an eye out.”

“That’s both sweet and creepy at the same time,” Hollow said.

“Sure, but it’s also personal, convincing some part of us that when we die, it’s not over. And then maybe the people back here we love, we can still protect them. That death isn’t the end.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “So we should be proud to serve up a comforting lie to the everyday people?”

Sapphire said, putting a hand on both their shoulders, “We give them a small piece of the most valuable thing in the world.”

Hollow smiled and asked, “Premium-level programming on basic cable?”

Rose asked, “Smart, sexy people dressed in leather?”

“Far, far better than that.”

The boss of the Ghost Wranglers nodded. “Hope. It’s a spoonful of hope that the world they see is actually a little bit better than it seems.”

Rose shrugged. “Or just weirder.”

“Same thing,” said Sapphire.

They all stood in silence for a moment. Then Rose said, “You know, the part where you put a hand on both of our shoulders was great. I got tingles.”

“Totally,” Hollow agreed. “Impressive.”

“Let’s recreate that tonight at some spooky haunted house. And I’m starting to doubt you’re really blind, FYI.”

“It was easy,” Sapphire said and moved toward the table again. “You two are pretty ripe; I could smell you from way over there. Maybe it’s time you sent that leather into the dry cleaners.”

They watched as Sapphire returned to the table and went to sit in his chair. As he did, Digit, without even looking up, tapped it out of the way with her foot. All they saw was a small burst of flowing material as he fell to the ground.

“Yep,” she said. “He’s blind.” From the ground, a balled-up napkin flew up and bounced off her head.

“Okay. You win,” Hollow said to Rose. “There’s a house just a few blocks from here. It’s said the lady of the manor has been haunting the place since the turn of the twentieth century. With her dead cat.”

“What?”

“We’ve got a couple freelance camera guys taking some B-roll there right now. Getting shots of the house, interior. Her grave site in town.”

She nodded. “Oh, damn. If you were already planning something, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because I know how you like to lecture.”

“Shit,” she said. “Am I that easy?”

Doc, in mid-tai chi move, said, “Do not answer that question, Hollow.”

Rose said, “I think you need a woman in your life.”

He shrugged. “I’m married to this show.”

“That’s not very satisfying, though, is it?”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But it can’t break my heart and have a court give it all my shit.”

Rose leaned into him. “You’ve got a weird brand of this ‘hope’ thing, I hope you know.”

He nodded. “Let’s get the crew moving. We’ve got about twenty minutes to get to the house of this Madame Min—”

“Hey, got an alert,” Digit said, standing and tapping at her wrist.

Doc spun and pointed at her with two fingers. “Spill it, nerd.”

“Drunk guy on Bourbon is stumbling around shouting about our ghost.”

“What? The Scotsman?” Doc said.

Digit shook her head. “Hashtag Painter Mann, boozed-up retiree, shouting at people, calling for a ghost. Cops are on the scene.”

“Cops? I don’t like cops,” Doc said. “Why are they there?”

Digit hit a few more keystrokes and then nodded. “Punq found the 911 call to the scanner. He’s transcribing now… hold on.”

Rose turned toward Hollow. “I suppose we’re going to wait on meeting the ghost lady of the manor?”

“Well, it’s like you said,” Hollow said, flicking on his cameras and firing up the OLED tablet on his sleeve. “I’m a people pleaser. Time to please.”

Rose sighed. “She waited a hundred years. What’s one more night?” She grinned. “Okay, let’s go hit Bourbon. But tomorrow, it’s the old dead lady.”

“And her dead cat.”

“Whoa,” Digit said. “It says here the guy has… a bomb?”

***

“It’s not a bomb!” Walther said for the third time, wishing desperately his words weren’t slurring as much as they were. “This is my D-tank. It’s for medicinal pur-pusssness.”

A crowd of about thirty people had surrounded the scene, just outside the Cardinal’s Inn. Half of them had their phones out, recording the event. Two police in uniform were pushing the gawkers back, telling them to leave. In the history of law enforcement, however, this had never worked.

The crowd merely took an extra step away and kept watching.

A bachelorette party clustered together to get a group photo, and the old guy with his tank stood in the background.

Detective Travis Sanders stood three arms’ lengths away from the old man, casually sipping his cup of coffee.

“Okay, old-timer,” Sanders said. “You’re making people nervous now. What’s with the tank?”

“It’s my travel tank. I use it… for traveling.”

The detective took a small step toward him. “And where does it help you travel to?”

“What?” Walther said, scanning the crowd, then looking at the cop again. “No, no. When I travel. It’s oxygen. See?” He held up the plastic mask, its rubber tube snapping up like an angry garden snake. Walther took a deep breath, coughed, then took another.

“Okay, what’s the fluid in the bottle you’re holding? Is that also for traveling?”

“No,” he said and took a swig. “But it is also medicinal.”

“In a sports bottle?”

“Yes,” he sipped again. “I’m very sick. Dying, in fact.” He tilted the bottle up and swayed. Then he shouted, “Painter, where are you at? I got a lead.” He then yelled again, straining his already hoarse voice. “Pain-ter!”

The detective nodded toward the two uniformed officers, and they moved closer. “Why don’t you take a load off? You could probably use a lie-down, old-timer.”

“Stop calling me that! My name is Walther.”

“Walter?”

“No, Walther,” the man said. Proudly, he added, “Like the gun.”

One of the uniforms spun toward Walther. “Wait, did he say gun?” His hand went to his hip.

“Settle down, Starsky,” Hollow said, pushing through the crowd, as he moved toward the old man and his tank. The Ghost Wrangler raised his hands up to show that he had nothing on him. The other cop spun toward him.

“Sir, please don’t approach the suspect.” This was the first time the other uniformed man had spoken.

“Suspect?”

Sanders frowned. “I knew I wouldn’t be happy you were in town, Hollow. He one of yours? Man, you need a recruitment drive.”

“I just want to talk to the old guy.”

“My name is Walther! Like the gun.”

“Sir,” the detective said, sighing. “Can you stop saying the word ‘gun’? You’re making people nervous.” Sanders took a step toward Hollow and waved him over. “You know this guy?”

“Sure. He’s a great-uncle of mine.”

Walther scowled. “I never seen that guy in my life!”

The detective said, “Good. Then you can sleep it off in jail.”

Walther blinked and then turned to Hollow. “How’s your mother doing?”

“She’s dead,” Hollow said, looking at the two beat cops.

“Oh,” the old guy said, swaying. “Explains why she’s not returning my calls.”

Hollow turned to his crew, who waited with the rest of the crowd. Rose made a twirling hand motion by her temple. Digit was all smiles, watching the views on social media skyrocket as she streamed the strange moment on the streets of New Orleans.

“Let me calm Uncle Walther down,” Hollow said to Sanders. “I got this. You and your boys can go inside the club and make sure the dancers are sporting regulation-sized pasties.”

Sanders thought for a moment, took a sip of his coffee, then looked at his two uniforms and waved them off. “What? Is this supposed to be like cop privilege or something? You’re coming in here and messing up our big bust.”

“If a drunk old dude on Bourbon Street is a big bust, you got it easy these days.”

Sanders nodded. “I wanna keep it that way. Get him outta here, Hollow. And if he acts up again, I’m going to get Starsky to shoot him.”

The uniform said, “My name isn’t Starsky. It’s Erickson.”

Hollow and the detective looked at the other cop, then at each other. Sanders said to Hollow, “You wanna job? I don’t think Erickson’s gonna make it.”

***

It was funny. In a way that wasn’t terribly funny.

I always envisioned hell to be this thing that was, you know, fire and brimstone and pain and being rammed by thorny devil cock. Some nonstop torture that you endured.

But we all go through hell, even before we die. There’s always one thing that gets us through it.

I remember being broke, sleeping in a beat-up ’77 Toyota Celica on the streets of Mid-Wilshire in Los Angeles, moving the car just twice a week because of the weekly “street cleaning” (which was only a con to tow any vehicles that hadn’t moved in a few days). I remember waking up one morning, my mind broken and my body worse, only to see that someone had left a loaf of bread and a small jar of peanut butter on the hood of my car.

Or in Minneapolis, living in a friend’s attic. Or rather, a friend’s dad’s attic. I’d packed everything up and was heading to New York City to find a distant relative to live with. And I’d stopped by the home of an old high school friend to say goodbye. His father, drunk most of the time, looked up from the couch with bleary eyes and said, “You don’t wanna do that. Put your stuff upstairs and stay there.”

I’d even seen it with kids living in war zones.

A news story about some woman in Afghanistan will always stick with me. Her husband had been killed by war or whatever religious leader had been running the town.

She couldn’t go out during the day by herself. This was forbidden by their religion, at least at the time. So, at night, she would sneak out to find food. She had to. At home, she had five young kids starving.

So, risking being shot in the street on sight, she would climb behind the market stalls, shuttered for the night, where the bread crumbs would collect, the desert winds blowing them against the low cement walls.

This tiny, quiet woman would scoop up the crumbs—through mold, dirt, sand—bring that home and mix it with water she’d collected in an old pot outside her home.

This hero of a human being would then make a type of leavened bread that would keep her young children alive.

News camera had come into their home one day, and the kids were playing. Laughing. One child had some huge flying bug it had skewered with some thread, and it flew around like a spinning toy.

Joy discovered in a hell most of us could never imagine.

I think, but I don’t know, that any horrible, tortuous, bleak, terrible existence forced upon humankind can be endured through the love of others around us.

That was why I think Stitches, the man with the sewn-up face enslaved to Voodoo Cher, had warned me away. Actual hell was not torture or pain or fire.

It was the opposite.

It was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

That was what I felt when the chimera carried me away. There was something about them, some part of their existence that, as best as I can describe it, experienced All Time and the nothingness that came with it.

It’s strange to describe this feeling now so rationally.

But I’ll try.

Picture sitting in a dark room, no light. And you have to stay there for an hour. You could probably do it, sure. You might even fall asleep.

But the dead don’t sleep.

Now imagine that hour is not an hour. It’s an entire day. And then not a day—it’s a month, then a year, then a decade.

Wait.

Really feel that.

A decade of nothing.

Fully aware.

Fully awake.

With nothing.

Nothing to see, nothing to feel. No food to taste, no smells to trigger some lost memory.

Then that decade becomes a century.

That century turns into one thousand years.

You feel every second tick by. Every minute. Every day. Every year of it.

Time itself becomes meaningless. A thousand years versus five thousand? Five thousand compared to a million.

Sitting in the dark, nothing else, it’s more than madness. It’s beyond torture.

That is hell.

I wasn’t sure how long it took to get to the home of Cajun Deaux after the chimera grabbed me. But I had been thrown into the All Time.

Looking back rationally, the trip was probably all of six blocks, just a few minutes.

But in that space, I endured millions, billions of years. Left in the dark. Alone.

Every hundred thousand years—who knows?—I would get a flash of light. The grit of the road beneath me, maybe. Those microbursts of something real, something tactile, were nothing short of ecstasy.

You hear about how people who’ve been held captive and hurt will pray for death. I was already dead. I thought nothing could really hurt me.

I was wrong.

I had never been so wrong.

Easily, I had gone insane thousands and thousands of times. Cried out into the darkness. Begged to be extinguished. All my cries were ignored. I was convinced, often for thousands of years, unable to move, unable to stand, unable to feel anything, that I was the only person left in the universe.

The stories of hell and fire and torture?

I would have traded every soul on the planet, all those billions of innocent people, for just ten seconds of that so-called torture. Just to experience anything.

Then, as quickly as this hell was delivered unto me, it stopped.

My eyes burned as the fire I’d bargained for seemingly came to me.

My request granted, I waited for the demons to tear me apart, as I had somehow bartered the destruction of the entire world’s population for the privilege of being torn apart repeatedly by fallen angels.

When my eyes finally focused, I saw that I was not being broiled by hellfire. Before me was simply a lit hearth, large flames licking its flue.

For the first time in forever, I could hear a sound. A piercing, horrifying sound. Of course, it had been me. I had begun screaming the moment reality, reluctantly, pulled me back.

Who knows? I may have been screaming those billions of years, and this now was the first time I could actually hear it.

This burst of sensation was a joy I cannot to this day describe. The memory of pain in my throat as I screamed. The flickering flames before me. I screamed more loudly, and I was in, well, Heaven.

Then a woman with crazed hair, whose face I couldn’t see, came into the room, something large and shiny under one arm. She struck me with some branch, some talisman she’d carried. She then placed the object in front of me and disappeared into the other room once again.

In two far corners of the room, I saw creatures. The chimera. They’d been the ones who’d grabbed me. They were the ones who’d delivered me into that hell.

And my heart broke.

This was what they endured. Their existence was there in the All Time.

I wasn’t sure what came over me, but my heart was full of pity for these creatures. For the first time I could ever remember, I’d wager the first time in my life, I prayed. I prayed for these wretched creatures. Sure, they’d abducted me, but they’d been commanded by some madman who had some strange control in the worlds of the living and the dead.

And they lived in that hell all the time.

Even though I could not cry—I was just a spook with no tear ducts and no form at all—I wept softly as I begged that these creatures be saved from the hell they endured.

I met the eyes of both creatures—each had two sets—but the ones closer to the floor looked at me strangely. The creatures lowered their heads, looked away, then looked back.

The other sets of eyes, the ones of the creatures upon their backs, looked at me with pure hatred. It seemed completely irrational —of course, so did experiencing billions of years in what may have been a single minute—but I felt like I’d seen those eyes before.

Like a rider on the backs of these tortured innocents, there was one who controlled and manipulated both.

And a moment later, a door behind me opened. I couldn’t move to turn around and see who it was. But I looked up to a picture hanging above the hearth in front of me.

And the eyes I saw in that reflection were the same as I’d seen riding the two creatures.

He was here.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Hollow sat across from the old guy and tried to work out whether he’d lost his mind or was just so drunk you couldn’t tell the difference.

He’d coaxed Walther to take a seat in an area where outdoor shows were held. A handful of benches were set up in an earthen enclave in front of a band shell.

Atop a pole, a board, sealed against the weather, let passersby know a free improv show would begin in the next forty-five minutes then again two hours later.

Rose leaned into Hollow to whisper something, but he waved her off.

“Can you get me something cold?”

She said, “How about an expression of extreme displeasure?”

“I got that already,” Hollow said then pushed a small fold of bills into her hand. “Seriously, give me a minute with the guy. Get some drinks for the crew or something, okay?”

Rose gave him her best hard stare but relented. She then waved the others to a nearby stand that served alcoholic slushies.

“No, Saff, I need you to stay.”

Their blind coworker nodded and shrugged. Hollow stood and walked him to a bench on his left, between the two men.

Walther took a hit of his oxygen tank, eyeballing Hollow.

“I got a friend I need to talk to,” Walther said and took a small sip of his bottle. “I appreciate you stepping in with the five-oh there, but I need to find Painter.”

Hollow nodded as he helped Sapphire to the bench then sat down opposite the old man.

Walther grabbed the plastic mask and sucked in a deep breath that briefly cleared his eyes. He waited, giving a hard stare to the man across from him.

Hollow said, “You okay? You need something to eat or something, ol—” he started then adjusted. “Walther?”

“I got what I need. Why the hell you care what I do?”

Sapphire said, “You seem desperate to find your friend. Are you in trouble?”

“Why?” Walther said. “You think I need your help?”

“No,” Hollow replied. “But you have to admit you weren’t in the best place when we came across you in the street. That detective was ready to take you to the drunk tank.”

“And, I’m pretty sure,” Sapphire added, “at least one of those cops wanted to shoot you.”

“Good.”

“You want to get shot? Was that the idea?” Hollow said, his tone shifting.

Walther stirred in his seat for a moment then sucked down another breath from his tank. “No, I don’t want to get shot. I’m looking for a friend of mine. You don’t know him.”

“Painter Mann,” Hollow said.

“Okay, you do know him. He went looking to find out about some local guy, but I found out that guy ain’t the sort you want to find. Big trouble.”

Hollow looked over at his subordinate, who’d steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the fingertips.

“We came to New Orleans looking for Painter because someone we’d met said they needed him,” Sapphire said. “Do you know anything about that?”

Walther took another pull of his sports bottle. “Can we just cut the crap and move past the part where we all get shocked that we’re talking about ghosts and shit?”

Hollow spread his arms. “You got it. Where is Painter?”

“I don’t know!” Walther said then checked himself. “Why do you want to find him? How am I supposed to trust you with what I know?”

“What do you know?”

“I’m not telling you a goddamn thing until I know you ain’t here to use my man for some sort of exploit he don’t wanna do!”

Sapphire leaned toward the old man and put a hand on his arm. “What does that mean? Are there those who are looking to harm your friend?”

Walther looked at Sapphire then back at Hollow. “What’s with the sideshow? You crazy bastards making some sort of internet streams or something for cash? I heard about this stuff.”

Whereas Sapphire did not have any cameras on him, Hollow had three of them going at once—one on his chest, one on his back, and the vanity cam pointing at his own face. He considered switching them off out of deference to the old man but then remembered what Rose had said to him.

They needed this.

“There are a lot of people pulling for you and your friend,” Hollow said. “From what we’ve heard, Painter helps… other people.”

“Other ghosts,” Walther said.

“Right.”

“Shit, man, if you’re going to do this, stop pussyfooting around! I’m looking for my ghost friend, and if you don’t really believe this goddamn stuff or if you’re just doing it for your streamers or whatever, I ain’t got no time for you.” Walther stood up. “Screw it, I don’t have time for this! I need to—”

“I killed someone,” Hollow said softly. Walther stared for a moment then slowly sat back down. “It was a mistake, sure. But I did that. Years ago.”

Sapphire lowered his head and wrung his hands.

“You ain’t the first to do that,” Walther said, matching his tone. “And you won’t be the last. Was this person a threat?”

Hollow chuckled. “No, no threat. It was dark, and snow was coming down like the end times and icy as all hell. I rounded a corner and smacked into a snowmobile. They’d been on the side of the road, probably waiting for the heavy snow to stop. Visibility…”

“You never told me this part,” Sapphire said.

“It’s hard to talk about,” Hollow said. His wrist display showed that thousands of people were watching, and that number was growing by the second. His secret was out, and life would be different. But it felt right. He continued. “When I went into town, I said I’d seen someone out on the side of the road. I didn’t go into details, but they went out to find them.”

“You never said you hit them,” Walther said, taking a slow sip of his drink.

Hollow nodded. “They found the body of a young woman who was all of twenty-four. Hell, she shouldn’t have been on the side of the road. But she was.”

“What does that have to do with Painter?”

“It took a while, but I learned about the InBetween. What puts someone there. Those who are killed and the killer… goes scot-free. Painter, from what we’ve learned, he stays in that place to help others pass through. Move on. But I don’t want that for the kid. She deserves more.”

Walther frowned. “More? What more is there?”

Hollow sighed, thought for a moment, then just said, “I want to trade places with her.”

After a moment, Walther said, “What’s dead is dead. Gone.”

“I’m not so sure,” Hollow said. “I think your friend Painter may have a different opinion about that. And I’ve heard it’s possible. If it is, I owe the kid that.”

For a minute, the three of them sat there quietly.

“Where is Painter? Is he here in town?” Hollow said.

Walther leaned forward. “Yes, he was supposed to meet me back at the Lounge. But I think he went looking for a guy, a real asshole. Bad news for the living and the dead.”

Hollow nodded. “Cajun Deaux.”

Walther sucked down a breath of oxygen then said, “Last thing he said to me was that he was going after the Cajun.”

Sapphire stood, fists at his sides. “I think that guy did something to the Scotsman. Another spirit.”

“Did something? Like that?”

“Whatever it is, he’s not here anymore.”

Walther jumped up. “That’s it! I gotta find this Cajun.”

Hollow stood up and called his crew over. He turned back to Walther. “We know where he is.”

Walther gripped the handle on his D-tank and slipped his sports bottle into its holster. “Take me there.”

***

I was afraid.

But, after eons of nothing, even fear was pure pleasure. I had to remind myself that this was bad, that this was a scenario I had to flee. But I was frozen, on my knees like a penitent parishioner before a pulpit of fire.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the wild-haired woman move in and out of the room. To be honest, she moved with such a strange panicked grace that I wasn’t even sure when she was in or out. Then it struck me.

I’d seen her before.

She was the woman who’d been chasing the crab dinner. That meant somewhere below me was someone who might be able to help. Voodoo Cher.

But at this point, she might as well have been a world away.

This was the home of Cajun Deaux. He had other plans for me. And I had been foolish enough to think I was untouchable. And now I knelt before his hearth of fire, waiting to hear my sentence.

“You are a strange one, Painter Mann.”

I tried to turn to face him, but I was frozen. I moved my eyes in his direction, but he hung just out of my peripheral vision.

“You say I’m strange?” I said, trembling at the thrill of my own voice. I had to get it together. Too much was at stake. I knew what kind of darkness lay ahead. “You’re the one talking to ghosts.”

He came into view, backlit by the fire.

“I know you felt that you were part of something important. Something that would help others, something that would restore a balance to an unbalanced universe.”

“Don’t,” I said, now feeling a rage course through me. “You don’t get to judge me and what I do. People are hurting in this place. You make it worse!”

“I do not,” he said.

“You stole all of those people!” I said, surprised that I could feel something in my frozen, ghostly limbs. “You are using the spooks trapped here. They were wronged and ended up in this horror of a place, and you use them!”

He nodded slowly as he walked to a wall to my left. The woman with the crazed hair, muttering under her breath, arms swirling above her head, seemed to dance around him.

“They are trapped, as you say. But I give them purpose.”

“You stole them! Twisted them into some horror show.”

“I regret that is what happened, in some way, sure, but it is what I need to do. I am like you.”

“You are nothing like me.”

“You have no—”

“The Night Vanishing. You are a monster!”

Just as he reached the wall, he turned toward me. For a moment, he looked off then back at me. “Ah, yes. The Vanishing. You know of that.”

“Where did you take them? Are they all your chimeras now?”

He looked at me then at the fire. He said, “I thought I could… I mean, they were right there for me, hundreds of them. Like some buried treasure, perfect for what I needed. But I needed to find another way,” he said and then held a hand up to the side of his face that had been stiff when I first saw him across the room at the club. “And I was delivered this, the deadened half of my pretty face. It was supposed to be a punishment, a lesson. But it gave me sight! The dead part of me now can see those like you.”

He was confusing me on purpose, taking me off task. I needed to leave, find some way to break his spell, and get out of there. But it was hopeless. I couldn’t move.

Still, something stirred in me. A spark. A glimmer of something good. I wasn’t the only one to feel it—the dark woman was acting spooked, her movements skittish. Something else was here in the room.

I needed to buy time.

“What do you want with me?”

The Cajun reached for a painting on the wall and came away with something between his fingertips.

“You want to restore balance,” he said. “Many years ago, there was an imbalance, a wrong, long before you or I were ever born. My people are the Cajun, of course. Do you know where that term comes from?”

I stayed silent, trying to get a better feel for the other presence now in the room.

He continued, “From a peaceful people known as the Acadians. They were before Jamestown. Before Plymouth Rock and all of the other romantic views of how this country was formed. They had come to this continent and had a view of life unlike those that followed. Instead of war, they chose trade. Instead of subjugation, they chose harmony.”

“What are you talking about, man?”

“Of course, it would make no sense to you. You come from a race of people, imperialists, who think that new lands are for pillaging, profit, or sport. My people, the first Cajuns, they integrated with the people of this continent. Made them trading partners, friends, and more. Wives. Husbands. That is a world that makes no sense in your reality.”

I watched as the woman with the crazed hair focused on a corner of the room. I could feel the chimeras behind me, but in an area to my left, in the corner, there was something else.

“But they were uprooted, and those who were not banished from their homes were murdered. This peaceful coexistence with the natives, already in motion, was unsatisfactory to the new breed coming in. The land of my forefathers, the sweat and blood poured into our land, was stolen, delivered to the wealthy industrialists of New England. My people, the Acadians, all but wiped off the map. Scattered like rubbish so that our way of life could not take firm root anywhere.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The Cajun twisted something that looked like wool in his fingers as he approached the fire.

He said, “There was a man. He was not Acadian, but he was one of us. The locals called him ‘Le Renard.’ A good man named Joseph. He’d planned to take down the governor and help grow the world my people had created. A proper new world. But he was killed by a coward before he could do so.”

“I don’t care about your family history. You need to tell me where the Vanished are. You need to do what’s right!”

“I am, Painter Mann,” he said. “As one of my chimeras, you will experience All Time.”

My rage evolved into something more intense—fear, anger, and panic on a level I’d never felt before.

He studied my face and said, “Yes, I can see you have experienced that already. I am sorry, but there is no turning back. Madness will overtake you within minutes in the All Time! Focus, go back, and find the criminal who killed Le Renard so that a peaceful people can once again flourish. And then, I will have no need to take any more of your kind.”

He stood before the fire, looking to me like the Devil himself. “You seek balance? There could be no better balance than this.”

The woman in the corner shuffled and shifted. She began swiping her arms at the air. I looked back at my captor.

“What are you talking about? That’s the past! Ancient history. You can’t change that, that isn’t possible.”

The Cajun gave me a half smile and said, “Possible, impossible, and you say this as a ghost talking to a man in the living world.”

“You are delusional. And dangerous.”

“Delusional?” he said, chuckling. “It can be done, as I have already done this. Before the chimeras targeted Le Renard’s coward murderer as they do now, as you will soon do, I had them change a small thing in the past. They prevented a woman from meeting a man who was to be her husband, and their son was never born. The music that boy was to produce no longer exists.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I needed some way to be sure, so I do this, and now this band Cornerback is gone. No trace.” He smiled, but his expression wavered. “Not Cornerback.”

“Wait. Nickelback? You erased Nickelback?”

“Yes, that is the one.”

I stared at him hard. “You are a monster.”

“Everybody hated Nickelback.”

“I like Nickelback!”

“You have terrible taste in music. It is good you are dead,” he said, taunting me. He then held his fingers above the fire. The bit of wool he held hung for a moment. “As a chimera, you will stop the destruction of my people. Within the All Time, you will kill the coward before he kills Le Renard!” He took a deep breath. “And my people will have their destiny returned to them. This will be a better world.”

I tried one last tactic. “And you might never be born.”

He looked at me blankly and then said, “So be it.” He then dropped a small lock of hair, and it fell into the flames.

And then, for the first time since I was dead, I felt excruciating, blinding pain all through my body.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

27th of May 1754

One of my men has been killed.

While I do not make a habit of repeatedly coming to this journal during a raid, I feel that I must get my thoughts together as they are strange and unfamiliar.

The Half King, the Indian leader, says his handful of braves saw several of my men making escape, retreating from the fight ahead. I’m not sure they were fleeing battle, but these rumors of mystical beasts are circulating amongst our number.

We took our rest only half an hour ago as I sent one of my captains, a skilled hunter, to see if he could track the deserters.

A few minutes later, I heard a scream that for all my days I will never forget.

I gathered a small contingent of men, and we went to investigate.

The captain was discovered slaughtered, a bloody hole where his chest had once been. The savageness of it could not have been from a soldier either British or French. When I protested to the Half King, he swore that none of his men would have done such a thing. And local natives knew better to approach us.

However, despite its severity, it’s not so much the gaping wound that I see every time I close my eyes.

It is the man’s face.

Drained white of blood, his face was wrenched into a spasm of terror. His mouth unnaturally wide, teeth bared, his eyes were open and full of fear as if he’d seen the face of Satan himself.

When we returned to camp, I wagered we’d lost another two or three men. Abandoned the march. Or taken?

No, I cannot fall into fancy like so many of my men.

Despite this desire, my brain has begun to play tricks on me.

I have seen things, just in my periphery, that I at this time refuse to put down on paper.

We need to get moving again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Cajun Deaux’s hands hovered above me as the fire twisted and surged with colors I had never seen before.

As pain snapped through the hidden circuitry of my ghost body, his throaty words tumbled over my head, across my shoulders, and down my back.

At first, the feeling wasn’t agony.

Just sensation.

I hadn’t felt my limbs for such a long time. Because, of course, I don’t have them anymore.

Toes to calf to thigh, through my stomach, chest, and arms, up my neck and face, it was as if I were once again taking form.

That queer sensation triggered a memory of my youth.

***

I’m very cold. And seven years old.

Despite the chill of the deep winter, the air in the room is warm, thick and heavy. It’s crowded with other boys like me, each with his father standing over him.

In front of me is a woman, her face a mixture of concern and heartache and love.

Some of the other boys are crying but trying not to show it. Others are flat-out wailing, abandoning the modicum of cool they’d drummed up in their short lives thus far.

In the center of the warming hut, a long wooden bench has been bent into a square, its four corners missing. A second, larger square encircles the first, and that’s where I’m sitting with the woman, a large duffel bag of hockey equipment just off to the side.

A man steps in, striped shirt and skates, whistle around his neck. He stands at the door, and a wind thick with steam and crystal roils around him as if he were just spat out by an ice dragon.

He glares around the room and says loudly but not shouting, “Ten minutes!”

One of the fathers protests. He’s ignored.

“Third period starts in ten minutes.”

The man leaves, stepping back into the dragon’s mouth. As the door closes, its breath falls to the floor like broken glass.

The woman is holding my feet in a large, scratchy towel. My socks are hanging by the fireplace along with those of all the other boys.

“How do I know which socks are mine?”

She smiles. “I drew flowers and hearts on them so we would know.” Catching my expression, she laughs and says, “Or I might have written your initials on them. It’s one of those things. Don’t worry about it. They’re fine.”

She opens the towel, and we both look down. Beneath my shin pads and the threadbare hockey stockings still glittering with snow, my feet are red. Wrinkled. Small.

I look around the room. Some of the crying is now punctuated by sniffling.

“Listen,” she says, lowering her voice. “This is the part where I’m supposed to say ‘it’s okay to cry’ or—”

“That’s not what the other dads are saying.”

“Don’t listen to them. Listen to me. If you feel like crying, then do that.”

What I feel is the most excruciating pain I’d ever experienced in my young life. Our coach had said minutes earlier this was the sensation of blood returning to our feet and waking them up, and that’s why it hurts. But he doesn’t understand. It’s like tubes of boiling acid are piercing each of my calves, forcing the liquid fire into my feet.

It wasn’t pain like being run over by our old Dodge. More like they were going to explode, from the inside out.

The woman glances around the room, unzips her big brown parka, lifts her wool sweater on both sides, and slips my feet up against her hot skin. She lowers her arms and holds my feet. It hurts but feels better at the same time.

“Jesus, they’re like icicles.” She puts her gloved hand beneath my chin and lifts my face.

I whisper, my lips trembling. “It hurts a lot. It really hurts.”

She nods. “If it helps to cry, then cry. But you must make that choice. Don’t let the choice be made for you. You decide what you need right now. And then do that.”

I stiffen and say, “I ain’t gonna cry.”

***

Cajun Deaux laughed at me, momentarily breaking his concentration. He said, “Okay, then, Painter Mann. Good to hear, but you need to concentrate. This will only take a few minutes.”

Increasingly, I felt something like the blood that had flowed into my frostbitten feet as a child slowly fill my ethereal form. And with it came that same sensation of pain. A growing, excruciating pain.

Trying to block it from my mind, I needed to work out what I needed to do if I could do anything. I had to make the choice, ignore the pain, and decide what I needed to do.

I fought hopelessness.

My body—and it was becoming a body, not organs and bones and skin but something else—was frozen stiff. This was all because of whatever spell or incantation the Cajun was muttering.

But then, I felt myself loosen just slightly, as if the surface layer was, not melting, but turning into the thinnest layer of sluice.

Then I realized he was no longer mumbling above me but barking at someone else—the woman with the crazed hair. I needed to pull my mind back and concentrate. Something was happening. Something was going wrong.

“Leave it! You must finish the spell. You have three more incantations, witch!”

“Is something,” she said in a voice that was phlegm and gravel and hatred.

“They’re gone! The chimeras that brought him are working the All Time.”

Straining my eyes, I looked over at her as she hovered, rocking back and forth, about four feet from the dark corner of the room. Her arms slowly raised, like she was a flightless bird threatening to launch into the sky.

“Is something.”

“Is nothing! Finish the spell!” he shouted in a voice that rattled the thin glass of several photographs beneath an old sword mounted on the wall. When he turned back to me, he gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Fuck you,” I said, but my words elicited only a booming laugh from the man. I’d willed all my strength to reach out and hit the guy.

As a ghost, my arm would pass right through him. However, since whatever ritual they were performing had begun to give me actual form in the livie world, I might be able to clock the guy.

However, because I was so stiff, it was the slowest left cross ever thrown. By the time he’d turned back to me, my arm had cocked, and my fist had barely moved more than a hand length toward him.

For a moment, he stared at me with a small smile. “You… should not be able to do that.” He raised his hands over me again and hooded his eyes.

Behind him, the colors of the fire flickered then returned to their original oranges and yellows.

He sighed then growled.

“You idiot,” he said to the woman and motioned toward the wall. His eyes returned to me. “We have to begin again. Get another lock of hair from the Bosch triptych and put it into the flame.”

The woman was moving from foot to foot, apparently unsure, then went to the same frame he’d pulled something from earlier. She hesitated, again staring into the corner.

He said to me, “You are willful, Painter Mann.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“I have no doubt,” he said with a chuckle. “But willful is good. The chimeras have proven their worth but have not yet done what must be. But maybe the willful Painter Mann, when he joins their number, that spirit will be able to keep the madness at bay long enough to do what I ask.”

I wished I could laugh in his face. Instead, I forced my strength into my lips and smiled. “Not going to happen.”

Again, he nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, you are different. You will be my champion. You are the one who will go back and undo what was done, that tragedy that befell an innocent people. You will kill the coward before he can take the life of Renard and set this right.”

“No way.”

“You will,” he said. He barked again at the witch then turned to me. “It’s as you wish too. You have chosen to help those trapped in the InBetween. Those who are suffering. To help them move on. Once this act is done, the chimeras are free. You’ve seen their suffering. It is far, far worse than this place.”

My stomach knotted as I recalled the horror I’d experienced in the All Time. And I’d only been there a moment.

“How many?”

He smiled, but the expression never reached his eyes. “Dozens. More than dozens. And there will be more until this is done. They are in hell, as you’ve seen. Painter Mann, you will free them. Do this small thing, and you will free them.”

I had seen it. And he was right. Perhaps no other creatures in existence were so tortured. And if he was telling the truth, I could end that.

At first, I fought this new idea trying to take root in my mind, but then I began to give in to it.

Save all those trapped ghosts, which I’d sworn to do. And these spooks, the chimeras, suffering unimaginably.

It would cost only the life of a man, this “coward,” long forgotten by history.

But was he telling the truth?

I saw the woman cross the floor, again holding the tiny piece of wool between her fingers, as she headed for the fire. Still, as she did, she moved slowly, her eyes not leaving the dark corner of the room.

They were both then startled by a booming behind me.

Cajun Deaux looked up, looked at me, and scowled.

Again, a booming echoed through the small room.

I would have to endure the All Time, but this would have to be my choice. Could I go and do this thing and save all of those who were in such pain? All those who were suffering at the hand of this evil man?

I would be fulfilling his wishes, but in doing so…

My mother’s words echoed in my brain: “You need to make the choice. Don’t let the choice be made for you. You decide what you need right now. And then do that.”

My reverie was again disturbed by the pounding behind me. The Cajun looked over at the woman and muttered, “Begin again.” Then he crossed out of my field of vision.

I watched as she tracked his movements through the room, but then she stopped and slowly turned back toward the corner. She crept toward it.

“Is something.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Hollow pounded again on the door.

Off his right shoulder, standing on the small porch, Rose tried to peek through the skinny window adjacent to the door. Through the lightly frosted glass, she could see a thin curtain hanging on the other side. Beyond that was a flickering orange light.

“He’s in there,” she said. “There’s a fire in the hearth.”

On the sidewalk, Digit was shooting Doc doing a play-by-play.

“You may remember this quaint little abode as the home of one Cajun Deaux. A nasty piece of work with a fucked-up face.”

“Dude, not cool,” Digit said, her small wrist cam shaking momentarily.

“Right,” Doc said. “Just half. It’s probably the half that holds his evil eye.”

“Or he’s had a stroke. Can you get off the face?”

Doc smiled. “Now, that may be the first time I’ve heard those words from a young la—”

Digit lowered the camera and hit him with a stare that could melt a statue made from brass balls. Doc paused for a moment then took a deep breath and spread his legs slightly to give himself a refreshing wash of cool air. Then he pointed toward the home again.

“A drunk old man carrying a bomb—”

“Oxygen tank,” Digit said.

“Unclear! Anyway, he says our quarry, one Painter Mann, could be in the clutches of Cajun Deaux. And that man lives here. A man of mystery. No one knows how he’s made his fortune.”

“Everybody knows,” Digit added with a sigh. “Drugs and strip clubs.”

“Sure, but that may not be the totality of it,” Doc said, scowling at Digit and pointing to the house. “Who knows? He may have, I don’t know, a paper route on the side or something.”

She lowered the camera. “This is a waste of time.”

“Don’t lower the camera!” Doc said. “Never take the camera off me. Are you crazy?”

At the door, Hollow pounded again. Next to him, Rose said, “I think I see movement.”

“What are you doing?” Hollow said, looking down at Walther, who was on his knees in front of the door handle.

“I am trying to get us inside,” he said, manipulating a piece of metal into the lock. “This guy knows where my friend is!”

“That’s not a lockpick,” Hollow said with a frown. “It’s a fondue skewer you found in the street.”

“I can pick locks!”

Sapphire stood on the small lawn in front of the home, focusing on what he might feel inside. He shivered and then choked back a sob.

“Jesus.”

Finally, the door flung open, startling the three on the porch. Rose and Hollow both flinched a half step. Walther fell back. The only thing that prevented him from falling over was the oxygen tank behind him.

“What is…” The homeowner stopped midsentence then gave them a smile that moved just half of his face. “And you and your band of strangelings have returned. Village People, no?”

“Where is he?”

“Where is who?”

“You know who,” Walther said, struggling to get to his feet. “My friend was looking for you, and now I can’t find him. He was supposed to meet me—”

The Cajun looked at the old man struggling to his feet. He said, “I can’t imagine you and I share any acquaintances.”

“Painter, goddammit!”

Cajun Deaux fixed Walther with a stare. “How is it you call a dead man ‘friend’?”

Walther frowned. “I ain’t telling you nothin’! He said he was looking for you. So, he’s here!”

“You can speak with this him? How is that possible?”

“Well, maybe,” Walther said. He took a drag of his oxygen and asked, “My voodoo is better than the voodoo you do?”

Cajun Deaux shook his head. “I am Cajun, not a witch.”

***

My head was still swimming, the fire in the hearth taking up most of my vision. Just as the grain in my arms and legs and chest was slowly beginning to loosen and I started to feel like myself again, my mind began to play more tricks on me.

I swore I could hear Walther’s voice.

***

“I don’t trust him,” Rose said, her eyes locked on the man in the doorway. “I don’t trust good-looking people.”

“Thank you,” the Cajun smiled and gave her a nod.

Hollow said: “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Good-looking people get away with murder,” she said, her eyes turning to slits. “And he is very good-looking.”

“Hey!” Doc called from the street. “I can hear you! Can you not hit on the voodoo drug lord, please?”

“Listen, unlike you, I am a very busy man,” Cajun Deaux said. “Can you and your trick-or-treaters get off my porch? I already said that if I hear that Painter has returned, I will alert you.”

“He did return,” Hollow said, trying to see through the gap. The Cajun pulled the door more closed. “Walther says the two of them were even in your club a few hours ago.”

The Cajun shrugged. “This is news to me. I can’t know everything. I am not God.”

Rose frowned. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you might be the other one.”

Hollow took a half step forward. “So not only did you supposedly not know that he’d come back into the city, you didn’t even realize he’d gone into one of your own clubs? Maybe you’re not the badass you make yourself out to be.”

Walther watched as a strange expression passed through the Cajun’s eyes. The man then blinked it away. He said, “I am a fair man. But don’t trifle with me. Trust me when I say I am the most dangerous man you know.”

“Then how is it,” Doc called from the street, striking a pose he’d seen on a Bruce Lee poster years earlier, “that the scariest man in the world wears fucking crocs?”

The Cajun looked at his feet then back at the intruders one last time. “Get off my porch.”

As the door began to close, Hollow put his hand out to stop it. The Cajun’s eyes started to glow.

***

The woman with the crazed hair was inching closer and closer to the corner of the room, and now I could just move my head. I craned my neck to see what had caught her attention.

I had felt something earlier, a presence.

Or maybe I’d been hopeful. The moment the Cajun returned, he would resume his ritual and send me back into that hell. My mind had already been fractured by the All Time. The intense fear of returning had me grasping at straws.

I tracked the woman as she walked, rocking back and forth. Slowly, she reached toward the corner, muttering something in a low and angry voice.

Then she growled, “Aïe!” She snapped her hand back and spun, looking down at the back of her leg.

Suddenly, something burst from the dark corner of the room, which was now filled with light. A twisted expression crossed the creature’s face.

I braced for hell. The chimera had returned for me, and, after an impact of pain and light and fear, everything turned black.

***

Half a head taller, Hollow looked down and met the man’s eyes.

He said, “I don’t trust you.”

“Those are good instincts,” the Cajun said then leaned in close. “But I warn you against making an enemy of me. I have powerful associates.”

Hollow took a step back and spread his arms. “So do I.” He smiled wickedly and looked at his team.

The man at the door looked up and frowned. “Your man there is doing karate kicks in the street, showing his balls to old ladies that pass by.”

Hollow sniffed. “He’s freelance.”

The Cajun slammed the door.

Hollow said, “Let’s go to the club.” He glanced at Walther, who looked like he was ready to take down the door with his bare hands.

“No, if Painter’s in there, we’ve got to get him out!”

“Nothing more we can do here.”

“I agree with the drunk old man,” Sapphire said.

“I ain—”

“Listen!” he said, wiping away a tear from under his Lennon glasses. “The last time I felt the Scotsman, it was here. Now he’s gone. This guy, I don’t know how, but he does something with them. With the dead. With ghosts.”

Rose said, “Okay. We can nab the Cajun and force him to answer our questions. Tie him up and do things, whatever it takes. Leave it to me.”

“No, we’re not doing that,” Hollow said then turned to Walther. “You said when you guys split up, he was going to talk to someone at the strip club. At the Cardinal’s Inn.”

“What?” Walther broke his train of thought and looked at the Ghost Wranglers’ leader. “Yes. Before I left. He said he saw someone.”

“Good,” Hollow said. “Let’s go find that someone.”

***

Inside, the Cajun walked back toward the fire. He looked at the circular rug before it.

The rug was empty.

The woman with the crazed hair was glancing between the floor and the dark corner again.

Cajun Deaux pointed at the rug. He said one word: “Where?”

The woman turned and saw that Painter was now gone. She bristled and muttered something, pointing at her calf.

“What? What are you saying, old woman?” the Cajun said, standing before the empty rug. He scanned the room. “How could he have left? That spell would have… he would still be unable to move.”

She chattered away, motioning to her leg.

“What? Speak!”

“Mordu moi! Ça mord!”

The Cajun blew out a breath of air. “Nothing bit you, you crazy witch!” He walked toward her.

Her interest in whatever was in the corner now evaporated. She pulled her arms in close and shrank back as the Cajun approached. Slowly, he lifted his hand to her head as she backed into the wall.

Softly, he said, “Shh, shh, shh…” Then he grabbed a handful of her wooly hair and said, “Where did Painter go?”

Trembling, she looked back to the dark corner and pointed.

“Was something.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I braced for the madness of the All Time, convinced that despite the wishes of the Cajun—and his assertions that it would save hundreds of souls—I would have little chance of pulling off any sort of “mission”.

No question, this time, my mind would break.

But that horror hadn’t yet come.

Instead, confusion.

Before me an old movie, as if printed on brittle eight-millimeter film, played out to tell some story set in a large, warm home. First came the flash of some scene, party guests then darkness and the smell of straw and soft fur under my small hand. I saw the old eyes of a young horse, and my heart sang (no, wait, not my heart), and I heard then the sound of plates smashing, and I was running upstairs, level after level, running, higher and higher, another step, landing, up another floor.

I was off-balance because I couldn’t pump my arms. They were clutched to my chest as I ran, making each stride cumbersome and labored.

Nearing the top, I saw a door. That was safety and momentary salvation, but just as I reached for it, a man’s whiskey-humid breath rolled over my shoulder. With the smell of sweat, large fingers grabbed me hard and pulled me back.

Angry, eyes wild and bloodshot, he raised his hand, and I ducked away, trying to protect the creature in my arms, and the man roared at me, shoving me. I felt the rail at the small of my back, and then it turned to splinters, and I was falling, falling, falling. I opened my eyes to the world that hurled past me, and I tightened my grip on the furry creature held at my breast, looking one last time at its sad, emerald-green eyes.

Then I perceived just darkness and a nauseating spinning. An awakening, but I didn’t want to open my eyes for fear of what I might see.

I realized that my body was in a prone position. My chest and knees were pressing against something solid. Strangely, my face, turned to one side, felt like it was resting on something… soft.

I chanced a look into the void, and in the swirl of darkness, a figure stared at me.

Fear wracked my mind as I realized the creature had horns and a tail.

Still, it continued to pierce me with its malevolent stare. A slight glint off the beast’s eyes was the only glimmer of light in the room.

The creature then lifted its hand—no, a thick fist. At the tips of at least three of its fingers, I could see its claws.

I braced, waiting for the attack.

But then it did something strange. It licked its paw.

I croaked, “Um… Ferris Wheel?”

Behind me came a sudden rustling, and I heard a voice: “Oh, good. You’re back with us. Darlin’, you had me worried!”

Slowly I lifted my head and eased back up onto my knees. When I turned toward the voice, I saw a lovely woman in a sea-green dress. With her hands in motion, it looked as though she were holding something without touching it.

“You should know not to trust strangers, now,” Madame Mini said, beaming with a smile that lit the room. A thin veil drifted softly from a large, voluminous felt hat. “Especially in a strange city.”

“Oh, it’s almost my second home now. Not so strange anymore,” I said.

“No, Painter, I don’t mean strange unfamiliar. Just strange,” she said, a swirling and pulsing between her fingers. “If I may be so bold, we are actually quite proud of our strangeness here in N’awlins.”

When I struggled to stand, my head swirled again, and I nearly blacked out, which was a strange sensation because spooks don’t sleep. And we certainly don’t black out.

“Now, now, don’t bother standing. You’ve got a lot of bad juju flowing through you.” She hit me with a 200-watt smile and winked. Her face looked slightly different than I remembered. “But Madame Mini will fix you right up.”

I sat cross-legged then flinched, hit with a sharp but brief pain in my flank. I looked over at the cat and nodded. “I suppose I owed you that.” Ferris Wheel considered me and then licked its paw again.

“You can rest here a spell. We’re alone in the house,” she said. “Now we are, at least. There were some folks here earlier. Intruders is what they were with fancy cameras and lights and all such nonsense.”

“Who? Who is here?”

“Nobody, sugar,” she said and shook her head. “Nobody’s going to come in here looking for you. Even if they tried, they couldn’t get in. I’ve now got a protection spell to make sure of that.”

“Wait, so all that talk about the evils of voodoo, and you are, um…”

“A practitioner,” she said and patted my shoulder. “I believe that’s the word you’re looking for. No, I said that you have to steer clear of those with the bad juju. I don’t practice the dark arts, now. Frankly, it’s just no good for my constitution.” She giggled and slowly walked toward me, slowly turning over an odd, luminous ball in her hand.

“So, here in Oz, you’re like Glinda the Good Witch?”

She stopped and thought for a moment. “Now, I don’t like the W-word very much, but the rest of it sounds all right. Although I don’t think I look like much of a Glinda. That sounds like a chubby girl’s name.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a movie.”

“I’m sure it is, whatever that is.” She then muttered something softly and raised her elbows a few times. The warm ball of light made her eyes sparkle.

Finally, I caught sight of her face. Her soft, young features had grayed and sagged. Her lovely femininity still shone through, but her hair now favored the color of pale straw, and her cheeks held less color.

“Wha…?”

She smiled, blushed, and then waved me away. “Oh, Painter, do I look so terrible?”

“No, no. Jesus no, Mini. I didn’t mean—”

“Come on, now,” she said and looked at me square in the face. “I’m only teasing.”

“How did…” I started to say, then I realized it, and my heart broke. “You broke Voodoo Cher’s line, the spell, to protect me.”

“I saved you,” she said and smiled, proudly. “It takes a bit of the ol’ life force to pull that off, but a very competent practitioner of the finer, if slightly darker, arts can do it. Not many. Very few.”

I smiled at her. “I am so fortunate to count you as a friend.”

“Yes,” she said. Then she gathered up the ruffle of her dress and stood. “Yes, you are, Painter Mann.” She smiled.

“How did you find me?” I said. “Thank you, by the way. I didn’t say that yet. You have no idea what he was about to do to me.”

“I know too well what Mr. Thibodeaux was planning. I’ve seen what he’s done to a number of folks, with their leaping and skulking in corners. But my heart does ache for them.”

I nodded. “They are suffering. Worse than you can imagine. I’ve seen it.”

Her face softened. “I’m sorry you went through that. Can you help them?”

Sitting in the spot, I felt like I should lie down. What I would do for a nap. “The number of folks I’ve promised to help grows by leaps and bounds every day. And I don’t seem to be making much progress.”

“I’m sure you’ll do what you can.”

I nodded again. “How did you find me?”

She gave me a small smile then looked away. When she met my eyes again, she had a hard time keeping them. “Um, well. That.”

“Mini?”

“Painter, it was for your own protection now,” she said. “It’s just a type of protection spell.”

“Protection.”

“Okay, tracking.”

I laughed. “You put a voodoo LoJack on me?”

She shrugged.

I tried to clarify. “Like GPS or something.” That didn’t help. “You could see where I was, then?”

“Not all the time. It wasn’t creepy or anything.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t be angry.”

“I’m not! You saved my bacon, and for that, I’m very grateful.”

“Well… you’re welcome,” she said, curtsying.

“Still, in my time, some people might call that stalking. But I’m glad you were my voodoo stalker, Mini. You saved me.”

“Oh, I did nothing of the sort.”

“You did. I owe you.”

“You don’t, Painter. You’ve already done so much. And in part, it was selfish because you said you are going to help find my friends who disappeared in the Night Vanishing.”

My to-save list was getting full. The Vanished. Andi the waitress. The man named Sue. Naked Brandon.

And the chimeras.

Despite their attack on me, the chimeras were at the command of Cajun Deaux. And they were living in a hell that few would even understand.

“And I had help, truth be told,” Mini said. “I was frozen like a monkey statue in the Cajun’s living room when that old hag got a bead on me. It was only because Ferris Wheel distracted her that I was able to make the leap and get you out of there. If I’d tried with her gunning for me, we’d both be on our knees on that carpet. So you’ve got Ferris Wheel to thank.”

I felt another swipe at my side and flinched.

“I think he’s extracting my thank-yous by the clawful.”

Mini laughed, raised her hands, and then threw the ball of light toward my chest, and I felt a surge through my being, a wave of warmth and excitement and something else. Then, for the first time in hours, I could properly move my limbs and turn my head.

I looked at Mini, and at the edges of my vision, in the periphery, I could see tiny twinkling lights.

Smiling, I stood.

“You didn’t hit me with a love spell, now did you?” I said and winked at her. Which was a bit weird. I’m not really a winker. But it was just good to not feel so bad again.

“Naw,” she said, and I swear she looked like she’d blushed. “I prefer the old-fashioned methods for that.”

“Which are?”

“Nice home-cooked meals, a pretty dress, and soft, wet kisses.”

It was my turn to blush. “Mini, you’re a sweet woman, but I do think you’re a little dangerous.”

“Aw,” she said and came in close. “I ain’t all that sweet.” She came in with her lips close to my neck, then she stopped. She blinked a few times and pulled away.

Then she stepped back, and her smile faded just a little.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did I do?”

“Oh, you didn’t do anything. I just… I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“A girl can feel these sorts of things,” she said. “And a voodoo girl can feel ’em even more. You don’t want me.”

“Hey, hey. I like you a lot. You’re my best friend in New Orleans.”

She put her hands on her hips and gave me a playful frown.

I smiled back. “Not just in New Orleans. You are one of my best friends. And not because you saved me from the worst hell imaginable.”

“I’m sure that helped.”

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t,” I said, looking around the room. “I should let Walther know I’m okay, but I’m low on time. Which way is north?”

“North?”

“The Cajun is behind the Night Vanishing, somehow. He’s taken all of those people and…” I thought for a moment about how I should tell her. She did have a soft heart, and I wasn’t sure how well she’d take the idea that the people she cared about were transformed, being torn apart, their minds splintered by the All Time. Then I realized it wasn’t really for me to decide what she should and shouldn’t know.

“What?”

“He’s using them. He’s changed them into something different.”

“The chimeras?” she said and nodded slowly. “You think that’s what’s happened to them?”

“Yes.”

“But there were hundreds of spirits taken that night,” she said and walked to the window. She pushed her hand slowly through the glass. “I’ve only seen a few dozen chimeras.”

“A few dozen? Shit, I’ve only seen two or three, I think.”

“So, that doesn’t account for all of those people,” she said and turned toward me. When she stood in the light, a strange effect for a ghost, you could see the outline of her body through the green dress. “Maybe he has them trapped somewhere. Like a larder that he can dip into, use them when he wants.”

“I think you might be right,” I said. “But it doesn’t explain why he needed Andi to get more spooks.”

Mini cocked an eyebrow. “Who’s Andi?”

“A waitress.”

“A waitress.”

“Uh, a naked waitress. Possibly naked.”

“A stripper? You out making friends with strippers now, Painter?”

“No, I’ve never met her,” I said. “But I think the Cajun was using her to lure guys, loners.”

“Why?”

“He’d kill them. Then trap their spirits to turn them into one of those things. The chimeras.”

She fixed me with a funny smile. “I don’t think he’s that powerful. That pretty boy’s got talent, sure, but he ain’t full-on voodoo.”

I shook my head. “Agreed, but he’s got help.”

She nodded. “The woman who’d cornered me, right. The old hag.” She shivered. “Yes, she oozed bad juju.”

“And that house, it’s the same one that Voodoo Cher is in. He may be working with her.”

Mini laughed. “Oh, no, that’s the farthest thing from the truth. They are mortal enemies if there ever were any. Both on the side of darkness, mind you, but no, they would not work together.”

“Then why are they living in the same house?”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Mini said, taking a few steps toward me. “Keep your mortal enemies in the cellar.”

“He trapped her there?” My friend shrugged. She knew more than she was telling me, but I wasn’t sure why she wouldn’t say. “Either way, the Cajun was sending the chimeras north on a mission. To kill a man.”

“You are going to stop that?” she said, and I nodded. “But why? There are people, good people who need your help here. Hundreds trapped, somewhere close. I can still feel them.”

I nodded. “I’ll come back. We’ll find them, you and me.”

“Promise?”

I crossed where my heart used to be and smiled at her. She then came in close, but instead of hugging me, she put her lips to my neck and whispered softly.

After a few moments, I moved toward the wall and then turned. “Did you… just put another voodoo LoJack spell on me?”

“No, honey,” she said and gave me a crooked smile. “Just some good luck juju. It’s valuable stuff, so I save it just for my very close friends.”

With a wave, I slipped through the wall and drifted to the street.

It was time to stop chasing my tail. Or other people’s tails. Coming into New Orleans, I was always one step behind because I knew less than everyone else already playing this game. I had to get smart and dig into what the Cajun was trying to do. Only then could I stop him and free the Vanished. I now knew where to find some answers.

“In Canada,” I said to myself.

“Oh? What’s in Canada?” said someone behind me. I turned and saw four guys with stupid hats.

I ran.

***

Mini stared at the spot where Painter had been lying on her floor. In its place, a small fuzzy glow, as if his body heat had been left there, slowly dissipated. She’d heard this called “stain” but didn’t much like that word. Stains were unpleasant.

To her, this was “warmth.” A reminder that another spirit had been there. It wouldn’t last, but for now, she sat next to it, her legs folded beneath her body, and traced its outline with a finger.

She turned to Ferris Wheel, who was again licking a paw.

“Painter’s a good man,” she said to the cat, who didn’t seem to care either way. “I’ve never seen a spirit so confused or, I don’t know, deluding himself. Poor, lost man doesn’t know who he is anymore.”

The cat walked over and sat across from her, the warm spot between them.

“Yes, he’s sweet, but he could never be mine,” she said and reached toward the glow, her fingertips brushing it softly. “He’s forgotten, but his heart is for another. Forever.” She smiled sadly at the cat. “Isn’t that the most beautiful thing there is?”

***

Just two of them were behind me now.

I took another corner, moving quickly through the compact streets of New Orleans, but made sure not to double back. I doubted that I’d lost the other two Hatters; instead, they would be waiting to grab me. The ploy was simple, but no question, the two behind me were trying to push me toward the net.

That was one good thing about spending a hell of a lot of time trying to get away from bad spooks. You know their tricks.

But there were always new ones.

“Look at him run!” one of them called behind me, and the other cackled.

I couldn’t get a full skate going without smacking into other spooks, which went against Rule #1. Given that I was on a mission to find their missing friends and loved ones, I expected the townies would forgive the occasional bump.

But me, I didn’t need no douchey to come back my way. I didn’t necessarily believe in karma, but since I’d been to New Orleans, I’d seen a whole heap of stuff I never believed in, so what the fuck did I know?

I hooked a left on Esplanade Avenue then another right. I was zigzagging my way toward a place where I could finally pick up some speed, but then I caught something on my left as I did, so I ducked at the last second.

“Fucker!” I heard a third Hatter say as he’d swiped at my head. He’d missed me, but I’d ducked too far, moving too fast, and I tumbled for a moment.

Fortunately, I found my feet quickly.

Looking back, I saw three of them heading my way. Several spooks who’d just been walking down the street caught sight of the ruckus.

“Hey, that’s Painter!”

I turned to see a group of four ghosts, two older and two younger, looking at me and smiling ear to ear. “You gonna get our people back?”

Another called out, “Bless you!”

I gave them a small wave and started moving quickly. They all turned as the Hatters called out behind me. “You can’t run forever, Painter!”

Of course, that wasn’t true.

As a ghost, you can run forever, and once you get a good head of steam, it takes almost no juice to keep going.

But I couldn’t get enough speed.

Every street I turned down was as littered with the live and the dead.

The former were no big deal—I can pass right through them. Gross but easy-peasy.

The spooks, of course, were a different story. If I knocked into them, I’d take a tumble. Then I’d be easy pickings for the Hatters.

Another left, and it seemed nothing I could do would get me farther away from my pursuers.

They were close enough that I could hear their sickening laugher.

Then I saw something surprising.

Jelly Roll had left his porch and was now sitting on a bench right in front of me. I had no time to stop, but then I saw what he was doing.

Jelly was pointing to the right.

I frowned. Jelly and his fingers were… unreliable. There was still a fourth Hatter running around, and I didn’t know whether Jelly was helping me get away or pointing me toward danger. I made a mental note: if I got out of there safely, he and I would have to work on our signals.

He jutted his finger a couple of times, to the right, and I just had to trust that he was pointing me out of danger.

Two more streets down, I weaved and dodged through spooks.

“Sorry!” I shouted, lightly clipping one young girl, who spun for a moment in place. I looked back and apologized again, but she was beaming.

“Painter!”

The three Hatters were shouting at me, catcalling, and slipped by the girl, one of them giving her a shove. The scowl on her face when she leaned back up told me she may have been a little girl, but she wasn’t young.

“Hey now,” a voice called my attention.

Again, it was Jelly Roll. This time, he was on a lounger at a café that served breakfast all day.

He pointed to a street on his left.

I was finally putting some distance between me and the Hatters, but then a spook, a middle-aged man with a pipe sticking through his chest, came out of an alleyway too fast and I slammed into him, sending us both tumbling end over end.

He started cursing me out in French, but then he caught sight of me and flashed a weak grin. “It’s okay, mon ami,” he said and looked back, catching sight of the Hatters. He motioned with his hands to get moving. The moment I stood up, they were on top of me.

“That’s it!” one of them said, and I felt a fist plunge into the small of my back. I fell to a knee.

Another of them was coming at my head. “Here’s one!” I caught an elbow to the face, but before I could tip over, the third kicked me back upright.

My head spun, drained of juice, and I fell to a knee again. Then I was knocked violently forward with a blow to the back of my neck. I went down.

Through a rain of stomping feet, I could hear their laughter but struggled because every time a blow fell, I caught flashes of faces, of places. Spasms of light then dark. My senses frayed and popped, overloaded—the odor of baking bread, the warmth of the sun on my skin, the cry of an infant, the scorn of an angry lover.

Each kick felt like an electric shock of emotion.

What was happening to me?

Then the blows slowed, and I looked up and saw the man with the pipe through his chest throw the final Hatter off me. He reached forward and pulled me to my feet.

“Go,” he said, pointing down the street. The Hatters behind us were getting back up and off the road. “Go!”

Drained, I ran as fast as I could.

Lumbering at first, I dug deeper and pushed. They once again began pursuing me. I was just ahead of them, cautiously scanning the streets. Out here somewhere was the fourth Hatter.

“Lookee here,” I heard and saw Jelly Roll again, this time on a low concrete wall, pointing left.

“How are you moving so fast?” I shouted as I slipped past.

He shouted back. “I been restin’ up.”

The streets were beginning to look familiar, and I realized, a bit too late, I had doubled back. Looking up to the end of the road, I saw a crowd of people. Not living people.

Lining the curbs on either side was a hundred, maybe hundreds of spooks.

Jelly had sent me into a trap!

I had nowhere to go. To the left and right, the street was lined with ghosts, their faces hard and unpleasant. The scene was like a parade, and I was the only float. Turning around, I realized I was wrong. The three Hatters were getting closer.

At the end of the street lay a dead end. As in a bunch of dead people blocking the road. The parade route ended in a wall of spooks.

One of them called out, “Laissez les bons temps rouler! It’s party time!”

Surrounded, exhausted, all I could do was push forward.

I calculated that if I rushed for a couple in the middle, I might be able to bowl right through them. But as the street lifted and dipped, I caught sight of the group. They were twenty or thirty deep.

No way I could push through.

But, if I was going down, fuck it. I was taking a handful of them with me.

Then, I heard a voice say, “Make a hole, people.”

Once again, it was Jelly Roll. He was sitting on a bench, leaning against its damp cement backing. He grinned at me, and I could see the concrete through the hole in the back of his head.

In front of me, the spooks parted, just wide enough for me to make it through.

I shouted, “All right!”

But they were too close! Just wide enough for me to get through, but each had a hand poking out. It would be like running through thistle.

I only realized what they were doing at the last minute.

As weak as I was, I made it to the human passageway, and as I passed through, each person let me bump into them, giving me a tiny bit of juice as I went. As I moved through, I felt my strength surging back.

They were giving me their energy.

Just a little from each, but it was enough to get back what I needed. And then some.

By the time I exited the other side of the crowd, I was reenergized, bursting with juice!

And it was the best my heart felt in a long, long time.

I glanced as the hole was closing and caught sight of the little girl again. She shouted, “Good luck!”

I smiled. It had been a bit of luck, I wagered. I thought about Mini and her whisper spell.

Sometimes a bit of luck was all you needed. But I had a very tough road ahead and wondered if it would last.

I got my answer almost immediately as the fourth Hatter leaped at me, coming within inches of landing right on top of my head.

He rolled and was back up on his feet quickly. He shouted, “Fucker, I got you!”

I looked up and realized he’d been running across rooftops, tracking me, and avoiding the mob behind me.

His friends hadn’t been as lucky. I heard their shouts behind me, fading in the distance. Turns out they were not enjoying the party.

The Hatter was coming at me, but as I peeled away, I looked up and caught sight of a row of street signs.

They had been put up at separate times, years apart. Different colors, different fonts, different shapes.

One pointed toward the Fairground, another to something called Piety Wharf.

Below that tourists were directed to the Audubon Aquarium. A faded green sign pointed to an old bomb shelter.

Then, I caught the street name.

That gave me an idea.

This area was near Bourbon, a neighborhood I now knew just vaguely but well enough. Instead of skating, I ran quickly down the street two lanes up and banked hard to the right, looking for the rolling hills of the small park and amphitheater.

And the adjacent street.

Behind me, the spook taunted, calling out. I was worried for a moment that he’d been shouting some voodoo spells or something, but he was just a thug. He didn’t have those kinds of skills. Still, thugs had other skills.

Poundy, hurty, punchy skills.

I didn’t want to have anything to do with those either.

Finally, I caught sight of the park and then heard someone softly singing. It sounded vaguely like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

I kept running but slowed, trying not to make it too obvious, and I could feel the Hatter’s fingertips reach for me. He was so close that he nearly had me, and when I made a quick bank to the right, he was right on my tail.

Then I leaped up, hopping over the naked, depressed spook lying in the street.

The Hatter hadn’t made the jump away in time, and, at that speed, he went end over end, tumbling toward the park until he hit the audience area near the band shell and fell into the earthen pit below.

I turned toward Brandon, who lay in the street, now curled into a ball. He was moaning, but to be honest, the guy was always moaning.

“You okay?”

He sighed and shrugged. “Typical.” Then he saw me and brightened slightly. “Hey, you have any luck finding Andi?”

I nodded and casually glanced toward the pit. I could hear cursing.

I said, “I’m working on it. Thanks, man.”

“For what?”

Moving toward the band shell, I kept far enough from the edge, but as I approached, I saw the Hatter leap up and try to grab my foot. I came around the other side and looked down.

“I don’t think the show starts for another few hours,” I said, smiling down at the prick.

He looked around, juice dripping from his fingertips after smacking into Brandon. But despite all that energy, he couldn’t find the way out.

“How ’bout you come down here, and I give you a show?”

He was trapped and had not yet spotted the gap by the handicap ramp. I began to turn away but then spun back. I had to know.

“Why do you work for that livie asshole? The Cajun? You’ve seen what he does to spooks. Why?”

The Hatter looked at me, his scowl melting, and then he chuckled. With the wind knocked out of his sails, defeated, he walked over to one of the earth walls. He slid down and leaned back.

He laughed again. “Self-preservation, cher.”

“What does that mean?”

He thought for a moment, then he leaned his head back and closed his eyes like he was going to take a nap. Finally, he said, “When the Devil comes, it’s better to be a demon than the damned.”

“That doesn’t clear things up.”

He shrugged. “You have no idea what’s going on, do you? For a supposed private investigator, man, you just don’t have a clue.”

“Fine. You’re so smart, you tell me.”

Slowly, he shook his head, rocking it on the soft earth behind him. “You are an ant. Fighting other ants, scrabbling around for crumbs, on the boot of the bass player as the Titanic goes down.”

“You know,” I said, staring down at him. He looked very small in the pit. “For once, I’d love to hear an analogy where good shit happens.”

He shrugged and closed his eyes with a small grin.

The prick wasn’t going to tell me anything, so I took a little satisfaction in just giving him the bird. I began to walk away.

Again, the Hatter just laughed. Then something hit me.

I turned back and looked. His arms crossed, he seemed almost content sitting in his hole. Trapped, resigned, he would just wait it out. In the InBetween, we’ve got all the time in the world.

Brandon had again begun singing the song by singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. I smiled when I remembered Gordon was a Canadian.

The Hatter whistled along, bobbing his foot in time with the sad little song.

Something about that image struck me. A phrase echoed in my mind. Buried treasure.

Then I knew it.

I knew where the Vanished had gone.

Before I could do anything about that, I had to find out about the Acadians.

After I made two quick stops.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Who are we looking for, now?”

Walther turned to Hollow and scowled, waving him off for the moment. From outside the adult entertainment venue, the Cardinal’s Inn, Doc called to them.

“Hey, no rush,” he said, Digit pointing a camera at him, as they both stood in the street. “We’ve got record streamers right now! I will entertain the people with my wit and wisdom.”

Rose turned to Hollow. “That won’t give us much time.”

No one was in the box office, so they walked through the glass doors. The bouncer with the headset recognized Walther and laughed. “You back so soon? Taking your little blue pills again, old man?” He caught sight of the others with Walther. “It’s ten bucks apiece.”

Rose elbowed her boss and walked past the man. Sapphire followed close behind.

Pulling out his wallet, Hollow said, “Really, it’s just the three of us. He’s blind.”

The bouncer glanced at the young man in the flowing shirt. “Five bucks for him, then.”

Once inside, they passed the North stage, which was dim and empty, and moved to where the action was.

Sapphire was feeling through the air, Rose just in front of him. He said, “This place smells like crotch, alcohol, and cigarettes.”

A half-naked woman with a bow tie around her neck passed by them with an empty drinks tray. “No smoking in here, please.”

“I… I don’t smoke,” Sapphire mumbled. “I was just saying…”

Hollow watched Walther scan the room then turned toward the young psychic. He said, “Anything, Saff?”

“I think I’m going to vomit.”

Another barely dressed waitress passed by from the other direction. “No vomiting in here, please.”

“No, it was… I was…”

“Come on, Saff, focus! You feel or, you know, see anything?”

Walther wandered toward the bar, dragging his tank, and put the empty sports bottle on the dark wooden counter. The bartender looked at him, frowning, but after Walther pulled out a small wad of bills, the guy shrugged, turned around, and tipped two bottles into the container. From one bottle pouring something red, and from the other pouring something clear.

Sapphire raised his hands in the air. A human divining rod for ghosts.

“Shit,” Hollow said, reaching for his chest camera. “We should be shooting this.”

Rose grabbed his arm. “You don’t have permission.”

“The strip club won’t care. It’s good advertising.”

“Not from the club,” she said and nodded toward the woman on stage, swaying to the music. “Let’s not be assholes, ’kay?”

Hollow nodded and folded the camera back.

“In the corner, over there,” Sapphire said, pointing. “There is a glow. Fuzzy.”

Slowly taking in the room, her eyes falling on each of the beautiful girls, Rose said, “I think most of the fuzz in this room has been dealt with either razor or wax.”

The young man strolled through the club, fingertips extended, weaving through black-painted bar tables and black seats. The short sets of black stairs all over the club were often lined by tiny, white running lights on either side.

Rose banged into a black ottoman and nearly stumbled over it.

They followed Sapphire as he passed the stage, earning some complaints from a few customers in the first row, then back up another small group of steps. In the back corner was an empty booth.

Sapphire stood in front of it, moving in slow, liquid movements as the others watched. He crept toward the soft bench seating, reaching for the fabric.

“Find anything?” Walther said, and the other three jumped.

“Jesus, old-timer, don’t sneak up on us!”

He took a sip from his newly filled bottle then a drag from his tank. “Is there anyone there?”

Rose and Hollow watched Sapphire gingerly sit down and turn to the other side of the booth.

He said, “Sitting across from me. A glow. It’s a woman, I think.”

Hollow sighed. “This feels like a wild goose chase.”

“Give it a minute,” Rose said.

Sapphire put his hands on the table and spoke softly. “We’re looking for someone. Our friend Walther here thinks he may have spoken with you. Painter Mann. Do you know where Painter Mann is?”

The young psychic was quiet for a moment. Then he sighed. “She’s gone. Nothing here anymore.”

Hollow nudged Rose and nodded to the door. When he turned, he saw Walther already walking away.

“Where are you going?”

Walther called back. “Next door. North stage.”

Rose said, “What’s in there?”

The old man turned and took another hit of oxygen. “Too loud in here. She wants to talk next door.”

***

I lay back, taking in the stars. It wasn’t so long ago—a few weeks?—that we’d gotten them back. The Ghost Mob’s machines had poisoned the sky with a crazed latticework of dull light that blocked out the heavens.

“I never really paid much attention to the constellations,” I said. I could feel myself drifting a little across the flat rock of Stone Mountain, but the process was slow and actually kind of pleasant. “I know Orion.”

“Everyone knows Orion.”

“Fine, so at least I’m at par,” I said. “Maybe the Big Dipper. But it all gets a bit fuzzy after that.”

The Professor wasn’t looking up. She was looking at me. “Why bother?”

“Well, who knows? I always wrote it off as wackadoodle, some of that stuff. Scorpio rising and Venus setting and all that.”

“It is as you say,” she said, frowning. “Wackadoodle.”

“I dunno. When I was alive, I thought ghosts were campfire stories. Then when I was a ghost, I thought voodoo was nothing more than a brand sold to tourists.”

She looked out to the west then back at me. “The world is certainly stranger than we anticipated.”

“And don’t get me started on quantum physics.”

With a slow move, the Professor lifted herself back up and sat cross-legged. She said, “Why would I get you started on quantum physics?”

“No, I was saying don’t get me started. Because I really don’t know jack shit about it, so if I got started, you know, I wouldn’t know where to go.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said. Then, her tone changed. “Painter, I made a mistake.”

“Just the one?” I said and leaned up on an elbow, balancing on my side. “Hell, I’ve made a half dozen since I sat down.”

She gave me a sad smile. “I should have never sent you to New Orleans. Never sent you to Voodoo Cher.”

“Okay, technically, that’s two mistakes. Just sayin’.” Slowly, I sat up. “You know she’s naked? You never mentioned she was naked.”

The Professor frowned. “She’s not naked.” Then a strange expression passed over her face. “Right, right. You see her as you want to see her.”

“I don’t think that’s a thing. I didn’t decide she should be naked.”

“For me, I didn’t decide she should look like Unthar the Wise. Despite knowing she was a woman, still, I saw her as my old teacher Unthar.”

“A dude?”

“Unthar was not a ‘dude,’ Painter. He was a man. A brilliant man.”

“You knew someone whose last name was ‘the Wise’? How fucking old are you?”

She looked out over the trees then back at me. “Thirty-one.”

I laughed. “Thirty-one what?”

The Professor nodded down below us. Once again, near the broken stone monument, a chimera spun in circles, disappearing briefly and then reappearing. We both watched it for a moment.

“Is it always down there?”

“That,” she said, “is a trick question, as you know. But no, sometimes I look down, and I don’t see it there for hours. Days.”

“You’ve not mentioned them in the past. Were they here before?”

She shrugged. “If they weren’t here before, they are here now. And before.”

I nodded. “It might be a small miracle, but I actually understand what you just said.”

“What was that like? The All Time.”

“Horrifying. Not painful, not in a way I could describe it. And I only was there technically for a few seconds or minutes. But in the simplest terms, the All Time is a cold loneliness that stretches out over forever. In that brief period of time, I experienced nothingness for, well, all time.”

The Professor shivered slightly. “I should have never sent you.”

“I asked. I wanted to find out about my past.”

“Did you find out?”

“No, not really. But things work out, in a way. I found out about this disappearance, the Vanishing. Hundreds of spooks just gone.”

Over the next few minutes, I told her about the Night Vanishing. She patiently listened, nodding every now and then. Once or twice, I thought I could even see dampness form in her shapeless eyes.

When I finished, she took a moment, slowly shook her head, and then said, “So what do you plan to do?”

“Right now, I don’t know much. So, I’m going to take a quick trip north of the border, do some recon about his people. And this Renard guy who was killed.” I nodded toward the chimeras below. “That’s why those things are here. The Cajun created them to stop that dude from being killed. He says somehow that might save his people, stop their slaughter or something.”

“Do you think he can do that? Change the past?”

“He already did,” I said with a scowl. “Asshole deleted Nickelback from living history. I expect we only remember because we’re basically outside the livie time line. But this world you see before us is slightly darker without their saccharine pop-rock ditties.”

She blinked. “I like Nickelback.”

“Same! Why’s everybody gotta bag on Nickelback?”

The Professor met my eyes. “Despite the horrors we think we might be fixing in the past, time’s arrow should never be bent. He’s already done so much damage.”

“Right. ‘How You Remind Me’ was one of my favorite songs. The a cappella chorus bit near the end?”

“Sure, but just using that as an example, it may seem inconsequential—”

“I don’t think the world losing the 2005 toe-tapper ‘Someday’ is inconsequential.”

“Can you stop with the discography for a moment and listen?”

“Sure.”

“But picture that some couple met at one of their concerts? Or some dude sat in his car a little longer before going into work to hear the end of a song then saw the girl of his dreams walk by. Now, they would have never met. Their children would have never been born.”

I nodded. Butterfly effect and all that.

“If the Cajun were to stop a man like you describe, some revolutionary, that would change everything. The world around us would instantly become foreign to you and me.”

I thought about the current state of society. The ongoing wars, the poverty, the pain.

“I dunno,” I said, struggling with the words. “Maybe, who knows, maybe that would be a good thing. Fixing something bad in the past might make things, I don’t know—better.”

She pulled away and looked down to see the chimeras once again twisting and flipping below. “It never turns out that way.”

***

“She don’t take dollars, so hell if I know,” Walther said, exasperated. He plopped down on a small black two-seater couch that looked like an open parenthesis. As he did, his oxygen tank started to tip, and only a quick hand from Sapphire made it stop. “Thought you were blind?”

“I am.”

“Then how the hell’d you do that?”

“You are one of the noisiest people I have ever met.”

“Bullshit,” the old man said and twiddled his fingers in front of the young man’s Lennon sunglasses.

Sapphire sighed. “I can tell you’re tugging around an oxygen tank the size of my thigh—”

“You can see the tank!”

“And that you’ve got a rabbit foot key chain in your left pocket with two keys—a large one and a small one—and in your right pocket you’ve got a collection of change that adds up to about two dollars and thirty-four cents. Although—”

“How could you possibly know—”

“—it could be slightly less because I think you may have a Canadian quarter in there.”

Walther dug into his pocket and pulled out his coins.

Sapphire added, “And that you are wearing shorts that are way too short. I’m glad I’m blind.”

“You can hear that?” Rose said.

“The, ugh, friction of the flappy skin as he walks.”

“Goddamn it, I got a moose on money,” Walther mumbled.

Sapphire frowned. “Caribou. Probably a 1995 coin.”

The old man flipped it over and said, “1996! How the hell can you hear the year?”

Hollow had enough of the chatter. The bouncer hadn’t seen them sneak into the North showroom, but he knew without question that the moment they were caught, they’d be out on their asses.

“Enough, what does the ghost want from us? We’re running out of time and need answers!”

“She’s a stripper,” Walther said then paused and put his hands up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. An exotic dancer. She said if we want to talk, she’s gotta get paid.”

Hollow started to speak, but Walther put his hand up to show he was listening. Then he said, “Fine, fine. Yeah, he’s a pal of mine. I’m sure he’d make good.”

“What does that mean?” Rose said.

“She says Painter can pay her.”

“What does that mean?” Sapphire said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Walther barked. “Let’s get on with it. That half-faced asshole has done something with my friend!”

Hollow sat next to Walther and looked at a set of dark stairs, where the old man had been staring. He said, “Ask her if she knows where Painter Mann is.”

Walther took a sip of his drink, wiped his mouth, and said, “She can hear you for Chrissake. She’s dead, not deaf.”

Rose said, “That, of course, makes no sense. You know that, right?”

Hollow looked at Sapphire. “Is there someone really there?”

The young man lifted his head, turned it in a one-eighth arc, then looked down and pointed at the right of the stairs. Hollow walked over to the U-shaped booth and sat down.

“What’s your name?”

Walther repeated her answer: “Annabelle. Annabelle Samways.”

“Annabelle, we think Painter might be in danger. Do you know where he is?”

“She says the Cajun took him. Goddamn, I knew we shoulda bust that door in!”

Hollow ignored him. “Why would Cajun Deaux want Painter?”

“She says that is what he does,” Walther said, taking a quick drag from his mask. “What he’s been doing. He’s been changing spooks into something else. Something horrible.”

Putting an open palm on a small table, Hollow saw his own fingers trembling slightly. “What does that mean? Turning them into what?”

Walther sighed and looked at his wrinkled hands. “Monsters. Annabelle says they slip in and out of the shadows. In and out of time.”

Hollow closed his eyes and shook his head briefly, trying to wrap his head around what he was being told. “Okay, why is he doing it? What are the monsters for? Getting rid of the other ghosts?”

“She doesn’t know why,” Walther said. “She says a lot of their friends were taken in what spooks call the Night Vanishing. Hundreds of them in one night, a few weeks ago.”

“Other ghosts?” Rose said. Walther nodded. “That would kind of jibe with what that waitress told us. She said how the ghost tour people were mumbling about how quiet it got. Like half the town was cleared out.”

Walther took a drag from his mask. “She says this Cajun guy was using some dancers to lure guys away from the club. The loners or maybe the married guys who would sneak here and not tell nobody.”

“Why?”

“They were taken to an apartment on the upper floor. And—holy shit, really?”

“What?”

“She says the Cajun and his witch would kill them, then they’d take their ghosts and turn them into those things. The monsters.”

“How do they do that?”

“She’s crying a little now.”

Hollow put his hand toward the empty seat and said, “I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean to upset you.”

Walther said, “She says they would perform some voodoo ritual which brings the ghost into a sort of physical form. Not flesh but something else. And then, the Cajun… he’d what?”

“What did she say?”

Walther shook his head. “We gotta get my friend out of there, goddammit. She says the spirit of this person would be frozen. Some spell. Can’t move. As they, shit, as they sliced pieces off of them.”

“And then?”

“And then the Cajun would eat them. Slurp them up like warm Jell-O, bit by bit. Slice of the neck, each finger, one cheek, then the other until he’d consumed them whole. It would take a while, several hours. The person… knew what was happening the entire time.”

“Holy shit!” Rose said. “Are you joking?”

Sapphire’s voice hitched. “Can you imagine? Frozen, terrified, watching as you are consumed. Until you’re gone.”

Walther looked at them, his eyes red. “Not gone. Later, Annabelle, sometimes she sees them. They’re reborn into some dark, oily abomination. Then, he’d find another and do it again. Send them out to do something, some task. She doesn’t know what.”

Sapphire turned his head to the side and said, “Wait, why did he need the exotic dancer to get these loners from the club, then? Didn’t he have hundreds already from the Night Vanishing?”

“I suppose he ran through them, needed more,” Walther said. “Wait, Annabelle, did Painter tell you about Andi? When I knew her, she was a waitress. Then she came to New Orleans and started working for the Cajun.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Rose said.

Walther bristled. “It matters to me. And Painter, he was looking into her disappearance.” The old man listened for a moment. “She says Andi had been one of the girls who helped get the loners upstairs. Annabelle reckons she thought that the Cajun was trying to scare them away, get them so they wouldn’t come back because they never spent much money. But when Andi realized what was really happening, she refused to do it anymore.”

Hollow nodded. “And the Cajun killed her.”

“Or had her killed, yes. She’s probably one of those things now,” Walther said and then stood up. “We need to go now. If he’s got Painter—”

“Wait,” Sapphire said. “It doesn’t make sense. The timing doesn’t make sense.”

Rose said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, if a few weeks back, this Cajun guy took hundreds of ghosts, right, and to convert them into these monsters takes a few hours… well, he’d still have plenty of, excuse the term, stock. You said hundreds, so even if it were just two hundred, it would take him more than a month to go through them. Why would he need more?”

Rose blew out an exasperated sigh. “What difference does it make? Maybe some got away or didn’t cooperate, or it didn’t work. If we’re going to find Painter, we need to get back to that house and get in there!”

“What, do you want to barge through the front door, push our way in?”

“Yes!” Rose said. “Saff and Walther can find Painter if he’s in there, and we can get him out.”

A voice from behind them said, “There’s a cellar door. In the back.”

They jumped and spun to see Digit and Doc standing in the shadows. Digit said, “We were getting bored. Sorry. We planning a raid?”

Hollow said, “I don’t know.”

Doc said, “When I was doing some recon before, I noticed that house you were in had these double doors in the back, at an angle pointing downward. They’re probably doors that go into some sort of basement.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Hollow said. “Houses here don’t have basements. The city’s below sea level. They’d get flooded when it rains.”

Doc shrugged. “This one does.”

Rose looked at him. “You were peeking in windows?”

“I worked for a security firm years ago. You never know when that kind of intel comes in handy. And it appears that it did.”

“You,” Rose said and strolled up to her husband, “used to work as one of those rent-a -cops that drive around gated communities and help old ladies find their lapdogs when they’d fall out of an open window.”

Sapphire said, “You mean the guys in tiny Smart cars with the fake plastic badges?”

Rose kissed her husband then said, “Not really a ‘security firm,’ hon.”

“They were metal badges. And we were a firm that did security.”

Sapphire stood and said, smiling, “So we’re going in through the spooky basement? That’ll be great TV.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Walther said, quickly standing.

Hollow turned to the old man. “What? What did she say?”

Walther repeated his question then listened. He shrugged. “She’s gone. I guess our time is up.”

Doc put his fists in the air. “Spooky basement raid!”

Rose pulled one of his arms down. “It’s still breaking and entering, so technically illegal.”

Digit said, “Not technically. It is illegal. Not a little bit. Not sort of. It’s full-on jail time. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

Doc jutted his chin out. “Not if we do it stealthily. Like ninjas in the dark. We will be but whispers in the wind.”

Hollow casually pointed at Doc’s chest. “That camera streaming right now?”

Doc looked down then put his hand in front of his chest: “Not… at this very second.”

Rose smiled. “So much for stealth.”

Walther jumped up, and this time, he knocked the O2 canister over. “Who cares? We’re going in! Where I come from, you don’t let people turn your friends into monsters!”

Sapphire lifted the tank upright. “I think everybody comes from don’t-let-someone-turn-your-friends-into-monsters town, Walther.”

Walther hit him with hooded eyes. “You’d be surprised, son. The things I saw in the Great War.”

“How old are you?”

“Not me, now,” Walther said as he led Sapphire toward the exit. “Documentaries. Very real. Intense stuff. If you kids weren’t watching just superhero movies—”

“I don’t watch superhero movies, Walther.”

Someone called from the door, “What are you guys doing? You can’t be in here!”

Doc replied, “I’ve been trying to tell them that! Don’t worry, we’re going. The old man collapsed, and we had to revive him. Brought him back from the dead, but please, we’re not heroes. Don’t—”

The bouncer’s eyes widened. “What? When?”

Doc put a hand on his shoulder. “He got a short-and-curly in his drink, pulled it out of his teeth, and had a heart attack right in your club.”

“Wait,” the bouncer said. “Not one of my dancers. They’re, I mean, they don’t have, um—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Doc said, zipping past. “He’s safe now. You’re welcome. Time to get him back to the home.”

As they left the club and stepped into the harsh sun, Walther burst ahead, leading the pack and dragging his oxygen tank, which just scraped across the blacktop.

In the street, Hollow had one hand across Sapphire’s back and leaned down.

“How did you know he had a Canadian quarter in his pocket?”

“I got lucky,” Sapphire said and smiled. “The pre-2000 ones are made from nickel, so they’re a bit heavier. They sound different. I took a shot it would have been in the last decade and split the difference.”

“1995.”

Sapphire shrugged. “I was close.”

“You can hear that?”

The Ghost Wranglers’ psychic grinned. “I have very good hearing.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

It was nice to be back in Minneapolis-St. Paul again.

Some part of me wanted to find my friends and forget about all the crazy shit going down in New Orleans. But that wasn’t an option. I had so many spooks counting on me, both the Vanished who were trapped and those waiting for them to come home again.

Passing by a liquor store in Edina, just southwest of the cities, I felt a strong pull to go inside.

That told me all I needed to know about when I’d been alive.

I could get flashes of my living days, usually triggered by seeing something familiar or hearing a favorite song. A strong scent could bring on the burst of an old home movie in my head. Panic does it, too, and I’d had a lot of that in recent weeks.

Panic has a way of waking you the hell up really fast.

You know, there’s more than just fight-or-flight. They don’t tell you about it, but there’s another option.

Fold.

Giving in, turning it all off, and just folding into oneself. As I stood for a moment, looking into the store lined with bottles on every shelf, I could feel the tug of “fold.”

Of the three of them, it was the worst way to get effed.

I said to myself, “I used to do that, I think.”

That might be why I spend my time in the InBetween working so hard to make things right. If not for me, I do it for others. But, sure, it’s for me. I know I get something out of it. Maybe it’s the buzz of control? Of manipulating this “system” that few people seem to understand.

Ego? That makes more sense, in some way. Never did trust “superheroes” who did it all for the greater good. Who does that?

A good guy who does good for selfish reasons? Now that’s someone I can at least believe in. Someone I could relate to.

Although, as I’ve said, I’m not sure what I’m getting out of clearing spooks. Something. And for now, that’s enough.

The door swung open, and a man in a business suit was tucking a small, flat bottle of vodka into his inner pocket as he left. After the bottle was secure, he cut his eyes up and down the street.

“Nobody you saw you, pal. Your secret’s safe with me,” I said. He then hopped into a Volvo, which a Dumpster blocked from view of the street, fired it up, and pulled out.

As the door closed, I caught sight of a cardboard standee. A woman in jean shorts and a parka? Only in Minnesota. At her hip was a brown bottle, the word Leinenkugel’s in script tucked behind her head.

For some reason, the word made me smile.

Then, my vision flipped, and I saw staccato flashes of lights and spinning, gleaming metal. Then, the overwhelming scent of something… burnt?

I muttered, “Is that popcorn?”

“What? What did you call me?”

The street scene returned, and I spun around to the voice that had startled me, catching sight of a hideous monster. The creature was scales and muscle and dripping ooze from its mouth and claws. As I stumbled, it took a step sideways, and I saw its long, lizard-like tail, a clutch of spikes sticking out of the end.

Regaining my footing, I said, “Hi Gary.”

He smiled, and I shivered at the sight. My friend was one of the sweetest people I’d ever met. He was also the most horrifying.

“Paint, where’d ya go? I’ve been looking all around for you for ages.” His smile faded (for which I was thankful), and he looked down at his hands. All five of them.

I stretched out a hand to put on his shoulder but then thought better of it. For one, I couldn’t reach it. Also, I didn’t want to clamp down and drain any energy from him. Of course, he didn’t need it. Gary was not just the only one in the InBetween I knew who could full-on change his form. He also, uniquely, never ran entirely out of juice.

The former thought reminded me of something. “Oh, hey, I kind of met someone like you.”

“Another friend? Is that it? Did you find someone else to be your best friend?”

“Dude, we’re always going to be best friends, right?” This time, I did reach out and touch his arm, gently, but my vision started to flip again. The burnt smell returned, and I pulled back. Dammit. I must have tapped him too hard, stolen a bit of juice.

Rule #1 broken, slightly but not intentionally.

“Oh, by you met someone like me, you mean cool, then?” he said and gave me a big smile, knowing he was being a dork. A terrifying, lethal dork but a dork nonetheless.

“Not quite like you,” I said, starting down the street. I had to make a stop at the Home to catch up with my Twin City Temp. Gary followed, which was cool with me. I missed the guy. “She can’t change her shape and add heads and arms and stuff. But she can change her clothes.”

He frowned, and I shivered again. I think I actually preferred the smile. But not by much.

“Ah, that isn’t so impressive. I can change my clothes.”

“Man, I’m not sure if I’ve seen you ever wearing clothes.”

“Yeah, I am. Look,” he said and used three hands to lift his belly, which was the color of decaying flesh, riddled with blue and black veins. Beneath, he had on a tiny pair of blue biker shorts. “See, Paint? I’m wearing pants!”

“I see that. I’ll never unsee that, sure, but I see that.”

He dropped his belly, and it bounced, stretched, and trembled for a moment until the blue fabric disappeared. “Yeah, I don’t wanna walk around naked. Don’t wanna be gross or nothing.”

He grinned at me, and a fat blob of slobber fell from his mouth. The drool slinked around for a moment. Then when he stepped forward, it gurgled up against the side of his foot and, with a slurping sound, was reabsorbed.

“Yeah, you don’t wanna be gross.”

As we walked up the road, I caught him up on what I’d been doing down in the Big Easy. The conversation made him feel at ease but was good for me too. For one, it helped me remember everything. While you’ve got a mind in the InBetween, you don’t have a brain. Storing stuff away can be hit-or-miss. It’s helpful to go over a bunch of times.

Recalling the past few days to the Professor and now Gary would also help me come up with an idea of what I needed to do.

“I have no idea what I need to do,” I said.

Gary raised two of his arms. “Then just stay here. At home. Hang out. Like we used to. I could help you out around here. We still got plenty of spooks wandering around even with the Ghost Mob mostly cleared out.”

“Mostly?”

“Yeah, they’re here and there. The Blindspot is more or less safe, but you’re still better off avoiding it.” Blinds were in nearly every city I’ve been to. They were the part of the InBetween where bad spooks congregated and found each other. After Gary, some other friends, and I took out the Ghost Mob, they’d all but fallen apart.

The Mob was still around, of course. And they were far from done. They’d come too close, and one day, they’d try again.

“Maybe you should have that, you know, naked Voodoo Cher woman come up here to Minneapolis. New Orleans is a scary town. She’d be safer up here. Being naked and all.”

“Uh-huh,” I said and popped my eyebrows at him. “You’ve got a big heart, man. But to be honest, I’m not even sure if you’d see her naked. To you, she might be wearing a snowmobile suit.”

He thought about this for a moment.

“I think,” he finally said after what must have been some thought, “I would prefer if she were naked.”

When we got to the Shady Hills Rest Home, it didn’t take long to find my Temp, Julius.

After slipping through the side gate and up through the courtyard, we found him in the cafeteria. He was always in the cafeteria.

“Man, how do you stay so thin if you’re eating all the time?”

Julius didn’t even look up from his brownie. He just smiled a big white denture-baring grin that looked even whiter against his dark face. I’d missed him.

He stood, stuffed a croissant into his thick, arctic bathrobe, and shuffled toward the double doors of the cafeteria.

As he passed the threshold, a thick woman with a heavy accent and a hairnet cleared her throat.

“I saw that, Mr. Wilner,” she said. “Don’ like you eating in the rooms.”

Julius reached into his pocket and pulled the pastry out, which was already beginning to crumble in his fingers. A thick piece of lint rested on top of it. He picked the lint off, blew on it, then tucked it into the woman’s shirt pocket.

Holding up the croissant, he said, “You want I should put it back?”

She glanced at it, scowled, and pointed at the door.

When we got clear, in the hallway, the old man chuckled.

“I think she’s sweet on me.”

“Why wouldn’t she be? You’re a catch.”

“I am a catch, Paint!”

“Sure. If nothing else, as long as you had pockets, she’d never go hungry.”

He tugged a piece off the soft pastry and chewed it loudly.

Back in his room, he fired up his laptop. I told him what I needed. As the computer started up, he filled me in on what I’d missed back home.

“I suppose you know that Harry’s passed,” he said.

My heart sank, but I’d expected the news. “He was a bit lost after Mags died. I’m sure he’s happier now.”

“You don’t know that,” he said, staring through his thick glasses at the screen. “You’re stuck in your between place. You told me yourself you don’t know what’s next.”

“It’s waiting for all of us, man,” I said, trying to be philosophical about it. But he was right. I had no idea what was after.

“It’s waiting for you, too, but still you don’t go.”

“I got a job to do, Julius.”

“Job, job, job.” He continued to tap away. “Man dies and gets a job. When I die, last thing I want is a goddamn job.”

“Oh, what do you want?”

He stopped typing and thought for a moment. “Maybe, if I had a choice… I think I might want all those virgins they say you can get.”

“I think that’s Islam. You a Muslim, Julius?”

He started tapping again. “I can convert. I’m sure they’re taking applications.”

“I don’t think it works like that. Besides, I think you’ve got to die a martyr to get the virgins.”

“Don’t want to die a martyr,” Julius said, looking down his nose through the glasses. “Too much admin. For now, I will remain unaffiliated. Gary, what are you?”

“Me?” my ghost friend said. “I’m Lutheran.”

Julius shook his head. “I don’t wanna be that. Don’t like the stinky fish they gotta eat.”

Before Gary could answer, I waved him off. Watching the screen over Julius’ shoulder, I had him click over to a history site about the Acadians. He scanned it and read aloud.

“Says here your Acadians lived for about a hundred fifty years. In a place called... Acadia.”

Gary said, “Well, that’s convenient.”

“They were French but didn’t want to take any side, so instead they made nice with the local Indians.”

I said, “Not sure we really say Indians anymore. Or, um, if they did back then.”

“Knickknacks, these ones were called,” Julius said, squinting.

As he was scanning, I was reading over his shoulder. “Mi’kmaqs.”

“That’s what I said,” Julius mumbled as he read. “So the Brits didn’t like how cozy your Acadians were to the local Frenchies or the Knickknacks.”

“That’s not—”

“So, it says here, they kicked them out. Gave their land to a bunch of other wealthy Brits. Before that happened, they’d killed a bunch of the Acadians and sent the rest all over the place. Bunch of them settled down in New Orleans.”

“Right,” I said. “They became the Cajuns. Any word in there about this Joseph Renard guy?”

Julius opened another window and searched the name but came up with nothing. He then popped over to another few sites. After more scanning, he finally said, “Ah.”

“What ‘ah’?”

“‘Ah’ as in, I found something.”

“Why, I mean, why wouldn’t you just say, ‘I found this thing that says this’ instead of ‘ah.’ Just say the thing you found.”

Julius paused. “I was trying to build anticipation.”

“Whatever, man.”

“Okay, so there was a Joseph Broussard. Leader of the Acadians. He led the Knickknacks and the Acadians in battles against the British Army.”

“That’s him. Does it say who killed Joseph Broussard?”

Julius rubbed his glasses for a moment. “I don’t see that here.”

It didn’t matter. I knew what I had to do already and would find out when I arrived.

“Okay, thanks, Julius,” I said. “My guess is that chimeras are swarming all over the area up in old Acadia, jumping through time, looking for the person who killed Broussard so they can kill them first. I’m going to go find out what I can. Maybe I can, I don’t know, convince them to stop. Or warn the guy?”

“You’re going to Canada?” Gary said.

I nodded. “I am going to Acadia.”

Julius said, “There isn’t any Acadia anymore.”

“I am not going to Acadia,” I replied.

“It’s called Nova Scotia now, I guess.”

I nodded. “I am going to Nova Scotia.”

Julius looked at the name. “It’s a province in Canada. Those are like states but with free health care and bad roads.”

“Helpful.”

“Cool,” Gary said. “I never been to Canada.”

Julius thought for a moment. “Nova Scotia sounds like a Scandinavian version of that science program they got on PBS.”

Gary wiped slobber from his mouth. “What science program?”

Julius scratched his bulbous nose. “The name escapes me.”

“I never been to Canada,” Gary repeated.

I thought about that briefly. I figured I could use the help, but I also knew about what might happen if my friend got on the chimeras’ radar.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea you come with me.”

“Why?”

Julius said, “The roads are terrible.”

“No, not because of the roads, man!” I said. “Because there are these creatures that are looking for Broussard’s killer. They move through time, but because of that, they’re mad. Insane.”

“I can handle that,” Gary said, puffing out his massive, slimy chest. “I used to be crazy! When I was alive, I had schizophrenia, remember?”

Slowly, I shook my head. “This is different. If they touch you, you experience all of time, all at once. It’s the worst hell imaginable and basically never ends. A moment lasts an eternity.” For a moment, I choked on my words. “I saw it just briefly and would have traded a thousand years of torture to escape.”

“I knew it,” Julius said as he pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Canadians seem nice on the surface, but I knew there was something wrong about ’em. Too nice. This confirms my suspicions. They were evil all along. Beady little eyes. Smell like maple syrup.”

“The chimeras aren’t Canadian, man.”

“They all got mustaches because of the cold, but really it’s to hide their devilish faces. The men got ’em too.”

“Dude, Julius, that is not true,” I said.

Julius took a deep breath. Just before he exhibited his talent of falling instantly asleep, he mumbled, “Ah, see? They turned ya. You can’t be trusted no more.”

When Julius began snoring, Gary stepped away from the bed. “Maybe I’ll, you know, hang around here until you get back.”

“That’s a good idea.”

***

“This is where it all happens,” Doc said into his vanity cam. “When the night falls, and you have to steel yourself against the agents of darkness.”

“The plan is to confront the Cajun, catch him in the act,” Digit said, playing it up for her stream. “If we can locate Painter Mann with the help of Sapphire and a dying old man—”

“Hey!” Walther said, his voice muffled by the plastic mask as he took a drag of O2.

“—we might be able to rescue the spirit and free him from this world.”

Walther said, “Painter don’t want to be free. He’s helping people.”

Rose nudged him, pointing at the device that came from the makeshift headgear he’d been fitted with. Digit had fashioned this spare from a discarded bicycle helmet, an old Erector set, and a GoPro camera. A thin wire ran down to the small tablet they had strapped to his back.

“Can you speak into the camera?”

Walther bristled. “Are we on TV?”

“Yes, but more importantly, we’re streaming across all of our social channels. About three million viewers.”

“Holy shit!”

“Walther, we do have kids watching,” Hollow said, adjusting his own cameras.

“Holy shit!”

Sapphire said, “Those are the exact same words, Walther.”

They stood behind the home of Cajun Deaux after trying to sneak down the structure’s side from the front. A small iron gate had blocked their entrance, so they’d gone one street over and cut through the property of the neighbor in the back.

On the side of the home, they saw a small door. But no one was going in that way.

Doc picked up his patter again, grinning for the camera. “Earlier, when I’d done recon, I noticed these two cellar doors here. I determined, using my skills honed as a security expert—”

“Community rent-a-cop,” Rose said.

“Plastic badge,” Digit added.

“I’m doing a scene-setter here!” Doc said. “And, again, metal badge.” He looked into his vanity cam, dead serious. “The plastic ones were for trainees.”

The chirping of a cell phone interrupted his flow. Doc barked, “Stealth mission! On stealth missions, we turn our phones to silent, people.” He continued, “So, you can see these two doors here. They’re very similar to the cellar doors that Aunty Em and Uncle Henry used to hide away from the tornado, leaving Dorothy to fend for herself on the other side.”

Walther said, “I’m not feeling too confident if that fool is going to lead us inside.”

Rose said, “He is not leading us. He’s doing a scene-setter.”

Hollow held his hand over his mouth as he spoke into his mobile phone. Turning away from his camera, he continued the exchange.

“Can’t really talk.”

“You can’t be this stupid.” It was Det. Sanders.

“It’s just a show, man.”

“Sure, I mean, beyond the fact what you’re doing is illegal—”

“Borderline illegal.”

“It’s not borderline illegal!” Sanders said, his voice so loud in the earpiece that several of the Ghost Wrangler crew turned their heads. “It’s illegal illegal.”

“Technically, maybe.”

“Hollow, this is breaking and entering!”

“No, no. We don’t plan on breaking anything.”

“Hollow…”

Doc pointed his wrist camera at the double wooden doors at the base of the home. “As you can see, the doors have been left unsecured. A passing citizen might be worried that the homeowner was in danger.”

Walther pointed at an area just off to the side of the cellar doors. “Why is there a busted lock in the dead grass?”

“Can we leave the old guy out here?” Digit asked, stuffing a pair of handheld wire snippers into the deep pocket of her dark trousers.

“No,” Sapphire said as the tech expert led him toward the cellar doors. Doc opened one door then the other. “We need him. I should be able to see Painter, but Walther is the only one who can communicate with him.”

Hollow saw his crew slowly disappear into the basement. He turned back to his phone.

“I gotta go, Travis.”

There was silence for a moment on the other end. Then Travis said, “This is about that kid, isn’t it? All those years ago, that still haunts you?”

“Seriously, Travis, this isn’t the time.” Hollow sighed. “It’s everything.”

“Anne Miller died of exposure. Coroner said so. You didn’t—”

“I did!” Hollow’s voice got a look from Walther, who watched the others descend into the basement. “I’m the one who lost control of our squad and hit her snowmobile, sent her over the ridge! Not you!”

“You stopped! In the middle of the worst blizzard we’d seen in a decade. Saw nothing,” Travis said softly. “If you’d waited any longer, I would have bled out. I had three holes in me and only two hands. Would you have preferred I’d died?”

Hollow said nothing for a moment. “I gotta go.”

“You want to say you’re sorry? To a ghost?”

“My team is heading in. I gotta go.” With a series of clicks, Hollow started flipping his chest, wrist, and victory cams back on.

“When people are gone, they’re gone, man. Despite what you try to tell your viewers, nobody’s talking to ghosts.”

“Leaving now.”

Sanders raised his voice. “You can’t just go into someone’s home like that, Hollow!”

“It’s totally cool. They must first invite you in. Once they do, it’s fair game.”

“I think that’s vampires.”

“Don’t be dumb,” Hollow said. “There ain’t no such thing as vampires.”

He clicked his phone closed, nodded to Walther, the only other person left standing in the backyard, and then followed him in.

Once they’d gone down into the dark, all on their own, the two cellar doors slammed shut.

In the moonlight, the doors glinted as, once again, the lock clicked back in place.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Despite what was ahead of me, it felt good to be back on a long stretch of road again. Skating toward the Canadian border had gotten me there faster than a car or jet ever could.

Crossing a body of water called the Bay of Fundy, the last leg of my journey, I could feel the slight trickle of energy enter my feet and tingle up my limbs. I’d heard from other spooks that crossing water was dangerous for them. Although they would take a running go at it, they’d eventually lose speed.

There’d even been rumors—ghost rumors, mind you—that some had tried to cross oceans and gotten stuck partway there, unable to move forward or back because they couldn’t get a foothold on the waves.

But with my skating, that had never been a problem for me.

To get a good clip going, I’d gone northeast from my hometown then grabbed the lakes as soon as I could. Halfway across Lake Superior, I was moving hundreds of miles an hour. In fact, I was pretty sure this was as fast as I’d ever skated.

In large part, I was going so fast because I was terrified of the chimeras.

Along the way, they would flash in and out of my vision, never too close but close enough.

Each time I saw one, I pumped my legs harder. And once you’ve got a good clip going, you’re basically gliding against nothing—no resistance—so each subsequent time I got spooked by a chimera and pumped more, I only moved faster.

Julius had popped awake just before I’d left. He’d said Google told him that the trip to Nova Scotia would take five hours by plane and thirty-one hours by car.

I did it in thirty-one minutes.

Not saying I was only fueled by fear of the All Time creatures, but sure, it was a factor. Maybe a really, really big factor in the speed I was going by the end.

Slowing down was tougher, sure, but like I said, I’m able to skate. Now, skates don’t magically appear on the bottom of my feet. It’s about perception or something. I try not to overthink it because if I did, it probably wouldn’t work anymore.

To slow, I turned and hit the brakes, like in my days as a kid hockey player.

That meant twisting my feet sideways. If you were a hockey player, this could always be a fun way to shower someone you were approaching with a spray of snow.

Going as fast as I was, I really wished I could have seen the icy spray such a speed would have spewed out. I expect it would have arced over half the province.

Once in Nova Scotia, I followed a few signs to find what Julius had called a modern-day Acadian info center.

Village Acadien was labeled a “historical settlement” according to the signage. The place was also designated a village historique as I noticed every sign was written in both English and French, even the everyday stuff you see on the street. The stop signs I encountered all said both “stop” and “arret.”

The Canadian sign budget must be enormous. No wonder they’ve got no money to spend on roads.

The Village Acadien was not really some historical info booth. It was a small village that was basically a tourist attraction. Just like in the Deep South in America, some of the most horrific and bloody moments of the past were fully commemorated in 3:1 scale reconstructions and colorful placemats for the dinner table.

Just past the welcome (“Bienvenue”) sign, I came across something resembling a mall map.

The entire village was laid out before me in jaunty colors and miniature representations of the tiny town. Tiny General Store, a tiny Cobbler’s Shop, tiny Printing Shop, and of course a tiny Tavern.

Here and there, just like I’d seen across Georgia, were big wooden signs that retold snippets of the history of the local skirmishes. And that of the lives of the Acadian people. What their daily life might have been like.

But the things that really caught my eye were the snarling chimeras swarming around the place. There had to be fifty, moving in and out of shadows, swirling around signs, popping in and out of time.

Fortunately, in this place, Cajun Deaux’s ground zero, they were far less interested in me.

They were searching for Broussard’s killer or information about who that killer might have been, like me. And, at least for now, they paid no attention to some nobody spook from the Twin Cities.

For a moment, I considered calling out to see if—who knew?— maybe some local retiree that might hear me was wandering around. The messages cut into wooden signposts around the Acadian village were little bite-sized pieces of their world. However, if I was going to find anything about some revolutionary leading resistance fighter from the eighteenth century, I would need to ask some questions.

I passed a woodworking shop and a bakery. Next to the latter was a long building with small windows. Propped up on the roof in wood-carved, looping script was the word Livery, which I assumed was an extremely specialized butcher.

At every building, either passing through walls or stalking the grounds, there were chimeras. Every now and then, I’d see a creature lift one of its heads and look my way; however, the head on the main body seemed more focused, searching but not finding.

By evening, a light mist had fallen. The thin gray blanket hovered above the ground and dampened all sound.

Strange, then, that, for the first time, I could actually hear the chimeras. It took me a moment to realize what the sound was. But with so many in one area, I picked it up. It was like a low grunt, a rooting noise. The sort you might hear when a dog is digging into its haunches with its snout looking for a burrowing tick.

Eventually, I came across the main building. Inside was a small café, just four tables, and a counter where people could order simple foods like chips, popcorn, and ice cream.

“Just like the Acadians used to eat,” I mumbled.

A weary-looking husband and wife sat at one of the tables as their kid read from a brochure. They probably would have had a better time of it had they stopped by the tiny tavern.

An older couple stood by a spinning rack near the counter. She was scanning through refrigerator magnets while he tried on a variety of floppy hats. I wasn’t sure whether these were supposed to be “real, authentic Acadian headwear” or just something the shop could sell for a buck.

A woman behind the counter was scolding a young employee for using too much packing tape on the boxes he was taking to storage.

I was then overcome by a strange emotion welling in my chest. These scenes were simple, banal moments for the livies around me, but until that instant I didn’t realize how much I missed them.

Just living the everyday, gliding through life without any real cares, was what I really missed. If I had a body, I think I may have sat down and watched them. I wasn’t sure whether it would have made me feel good or started me in a weepy bout of self-pity.

Brooding. You can’t give in to it, or you will be consumed by it.

It wasn’t that I felt bad. I just didn’t feel much.

Not like the spook who was circling the old guy trying on hats. He seemed angry. Or crazed. Or something.

“Hey, man,” I said, a bit nervous about approaching him. I couldn’t remember seeing a ghost just losing it like that. “You okay?”

He gave me a quick sideways look. “Il porte tous les chapeaux!”

He was speaking in tongues, which I knew from horror movies and documentaries about Pentecostals meant there was an excellent chance he was possessed. And not a good possessed. One of the bad kinds.

Actually, I’m not entirely sure there is a good kind.

Anyway.

“My name is Painter Mann, and I’m a private detective,” I said, using my go-to greeting because I didn’t know what else to say. “Is there something I can help you with?”

He didn’t answer but just kept circling the old guy trying on hats. I wasn’t entirely sure what he was angry about, but this spook was in a borderline panic. I moved a little closer and could see that his clothes looked a little not-this-century.

Baggy pants tied with rope.

However, he did sport a jaunty mustache (the best kind, in my opinion), which all but confirmed my suspicions. I’m a detective, so I am good at picking up on those sorts of clues.

Given the dress, the ’stache, the slightly smaller stature of those who may have had to forage for food in the lean times, this was a man who time had forgotten long ago. I reckoned he’d probably been killed sometime in the nineteenth century. Possibly earlier.

If I could calm him down, he might be able to give me some idea about Joseph Broussard.

Hell, could this be Broussard himself?

“Hey, man,” I said. “Maybe, you and I could—”

He stopped and spun toward me, seeing the other ghost in the room for the first time.

And he looked none too happy about it.

“Qui es-tu?”

The poor creature was so confused, so messed up, he was just talking gibberish. What had turned his mind to jelly like that?

Then I picked up some subtle clues that he might not be quite as old as I’d initially deduced. For one, he had a somewhat modern haircut: buzzed up either side, longer on the top at a ridge that started just above where someone had inserted a screwdriver.

I noted, too, his shoes were shiny black. Almost mirrors. A farmer or townsperson from the eighteenth or nineteenth century would likely be sporting boots. Dirty and scuffed.

Also, he had a plastic name tag that said Ken.

I spoke softly, “Hi Ken, I’m Painter. You used to work here, huh?”

“Laisse moi seul, enculé!”

One of my very few talents is that I can tell when someone’s insulted me. Some might call it a gift. Others, a curse. But I got insulted a lot when I was alive, so even in a foreign language, I know when someone’s taken a swing at me.

My gift told me that Dimestore Ken had just called me a cocksucker.

The wife of the old fella called out. He walked toward her, still with one of the store’s hats on his head. At first, Ken the Not-So-Friendly Ghost was too focused on me to notice the guy had ambled away.

Then, when he turned back to see the old guy still wearing the hat, he cast his eyes back at me, seemingly blaming yours truly for whatever had just transpired.

“Come on, Kenny,” I said and lifted both hands, palms open, toward him. “Listen, we can help each other out. I can help you move on, let the world know who put that Phillips in your noggin. I just need some inform—”

He then also put his hands up, but they were balled into fists. Then he rushed at me.

“Aaaaaghrrr!”

Just ten or fifteen feet apart, I had to leap to my left to get out of his way. I had no desire for some crazed spook to take a chunk of my energy. I thought I’d cleared him, but then he tagged the heel of my shoe.

When we touched, that brief instant stopped time.

Images, emotions, colors, and blinding pain swirled at me like I’d been tossed into an industrial-sized tumble dryer. I felt like my stomach somersaulted, and if I actually had a stomach, I might have vomited. Still, the wave of nausea drew a type of cold sweat to my skin, and all I wanted was for it to end.

I saw flashes of the shop but then realized it wasn’t what I was looking at right now. It was daylight, morning, and there were boxes and the smell of coffee in the air. Somewhere I could hear a young woman giggling nearby.

Then darkness traded itself for swirls of blue and purple and bloodred and at the last moment, the worst fear I imagined was coming right for me. One chimera was in the corner, and I backed away, but then I felt something searing on my shoulder as another grabbed me for an instant—that horror hit my mind, but strangely it was more distant.

The All Time was all around me, but this time I was an observer. The deep, penetrating sorrow of loneliness and loss played out more like a movie that only took an instant but showed the beginning of time until its end.

I hadn’t been tackled by a chimera.

Ken had.

Somehow I was seeing that moment play back in my mind.

Then the moment was gone, and time started up once again, and I tumbled to the floor.

Quickly, I got to my feet and spun around in time to catch Ken, stumble a few paces, and then burst through the wall, screaming as he did.

Once again, all was quiet.

The couple whose kid yammered away as he read the brochure stood and headed to the door.

The old folks were paying for their stuff as the clerk at the counter motioned to the man’s head, which drew a laugh. He walked over and returned it to the rack.

I looked at the wall. “Hey, Ken. The hat’s back where it’s supposed to be. It’s okay.”

No reply.

I wasn’t sure how long Ken had been subjected to the All Time, but it had been enough to drive him mad. It was tough enough spending what might be eternity wandering the planet, but to do that with a broken mind like his?

Everything in me said, “Get out. Go home.”

I’d made a promise to find the Vanished, but I wouldn’t be useful to anyone if I were insane. If I just headed back to Minneapolis, forgot all about what was going on in New Orleans, and picked up my work there, who would know?

Shame came over me.

Of course, I would know. I’d have to live, or rather, be dead, with the knowledge that dozens of innocent people were now in the hell that was living as a chimera. And also those hundreds of spooks I’d promised to find.

I’d worked out, I believed, what had happened to the latter.

How I would help the chimeras? That was another story entirely. I had an idea of how that might happen, but the consequences terrified me.

I crossed through the small cafeteria seating and was about to head out the other side of the wall when I saw a whiteboard.

At the top, it read Guided Tours.

Written in alternating black and red felt markers, there was a succession of times with the names of two people, the guides, trading between them. The last tour had started ten minutes earlier, so I pushed through the wall to go find them.

In the dark fake town, fluorescent lamps dressed up to look a little like torches dotted either side of the street. Every twenty feet stood another pole wrapped in twine, and above it, a bulb gave off a dull flicker.

“Just like during Acadian times.”

Many of the buildings had lights on inside, and I checked them for the tour group. Quick, cursory glances revealed that while some of the buildings were functional, at least half were just for show. Some you couldn’t go in (unless, of course, you were a ghost), and others you could.

In these latter, beyond the smudged windows, were scenes depicting life back in the eighteenth century.

In one, the interior was split into two parts: two ropes made an L-shaped path from the front door to the side door. In the square portion, a woman mannequin with a kerchief in her hair and bulky clothes was grinding grain into four with a rolling pin. She had the obligatory dusting of white powder on her cheek, which, I imagine, was designed to make her look quaint.

In truth, it made her look a little like an old-timey coke fiend.

On the other side of the ropes, forming an L-shaped section along two walls, a man was trying to load supplies onto a small, weird horse with floppy ears. A wire drilled into the back of the man mannequin’s head held his hat in midair as if while struggling with the beast he’d leaned away from the thumping hooves, and his hat was falling off.

The animal was up on its hind legs, looking very unhappy. Strangely, the horse wore a hat similar to the man’s.

A collection of blankets and burlap bags was midslide on its back.

While I appreciated the effort to create the action scene before me as well as all the extras—the dirty straw laid about the place, the lantern that had tipped and fallen to the floor in the scuffle, the man’s wire glasses sliding down his nose—I couldn’t imagine a scenario where you would have a bucking animal in your house while someone else was grinding flour.

My best guess was these were several scenes put together, maybe something the owners of the village had seen in paintings from the time. Nice enough but odd indeed.

And again, weirdly, even this simple if impossible scenario twisted a pang into my gut. I’d been dead for a good while now—it must have been a year at least—but after that initial feeling of loss of, well, everything, you got used to it.

It was odd to have that longing for life hit me again.

Fortunately, it washed over me and flitted away.

Outside, I heard the soft patter of a woman’s voice. According to the red marker, this was Janice the tour guide.

Slipping underneath the two forever-bucking hooves, I passed through the back wall in search of the voice.

I wound past two more small structures depicting old scenes— one a makeshift infirmary with an older portly guy winding some gauze around a woman’s head and another with a man pounding leather straps with a hammer—when I found Janice and her flock.

It was a small group, just six people. Two men and then what appeared to be a wife, husband, and two kids. The two guys were smiling at whatever she’d just been telling them. The couple—the man looking in his early fifties while she looked midthirties—dutifully ignored their children, who were throwing rocks at each other.

Not stones but big honkin’ rocks. Good thing neither could aim for shit because if any of those connected, that would be an instant concussion.

Lucky for them there was an old-timey infirmary nearby.

“—all recreated. Nearly all the structures from that time were destroyed. Burned by the British soldiers after the Acadians were removed from their homes. The very nice properties were likely spared and given to wealthy New Englanders who’d supported the king.”

“They never came home, then?” one of the guys asked as he sidestepped a flying stone. He raised his eyebrows at his friend, who gave me a squeeze on the arm.

Janice said, “1764. About three thousand returned, but all the land, everything, had already been given to the Brits.”

“‘Where’d the other ones go, then?” the woman asked, her accent giving her away as either Australian or highly inebriated. Possibly both.

“They were split up so they couldn’t reform a colony, so some to Europe, South America, Haiti. And of course Louisiana, those ones became the Cajuns there today. But most died on their journeys or in other ways.”

“Why would you come back if ya lived in Haiti? Island living!” the Aussie man said. “It’s cold as a duck’s balls up here.”

Janice shrugged. “It was their home.”

They then started to talk about the weather, disagreeing slightly over whether the area was, indeed, cold as a duck’s balls, and Janice began to move the group back toward the main house.

Desperate, I shouted, “What about Joseph Broussard? Anything about Joseph Broussard?” but they just kept chattering away about how it got cold a few years back in a place called New South Wales, with kangaroos jumping in the snow, while the two younger guys remarked how the wind whipped through the buildings in Manhattan or some other such stuff.

I stood in the street as they walked away, still shouting and waving my arms in frustration.

Then I saw some movement to my left. One of the chimeras that had been swirling around the infirmary must have heard me. It surged in place, not quite approaching, but it seemed that the creature had been triggered by my shouting.

I decided it would be a good idea to stop yelling.

Slowly, I began moving away from the chimera, and when I turned, I caught sight of the little boy with his brochure. He was looking in my direction as if searching for something. Like he’d heard a noise in the forest.

His weary father gave him a tug on the shoulder. The boy shrugged off his father’s gesture and pointed at another structure. He grabbed a tablet from his backpack, moving forward as he read.

Happy to put some distance between the chimera and me, I headed toward them. When I got closer, I was stunned by what I heard.

“—which was during the French and Indian War. Joseph Broussard became the leader of the resistance and would organize attacks on King George’s troops.”

“That’s great, honey,” the mom said, checking her watch.

“Joseph Broussard even hijacked a ship in the Bay of Fundy— hey, that’s where we took the ferry!”

“Uh-huh, and actually we need to go soon if we want to take it back across.”

“Broussard won a bunch of small battles but was eventually caught and thrown in prison.”

The man rubbed the scruff on his chin and gently put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, moving the kid in the other direction. This time, engrossed in what he was reading on his tablet, the kid went with the flow.

It seemed like too much coincidence that Junior here would start reading about the guy I needed info on. Maybe he’d heard me? I’d recently met a young girl who could hear spooks. Perhaps some kids just had that connection?

I slid up beside him and said, “Does it say how he died?”

“He was married to a wife named Agnes, and, whoa, they had eleven children!”

The mother flinched and put her hand on her belly. She threw a grin at her husband and said, “No, thank you.”

He laughed.

I tried again. “Does it say how he died?”

The kid was staring intently at his tablet, but when I came around to look, he was now enwrapped in some game involving a dog that would get treats for spelling or something.

Totally unrealistic!

I was running out of time, and wandering around hoping to find something out about Broussard was, in truth, a really dumb idea. But the kid must have heard me when I’d shouted.

I looked back to where the chimera had stared me down, and it was still there but now moved in slightly bigger circles, seemingly not paying attention to me anymore.

“How’d he die, kid?” I asked in a slightly louder tone but got nothing. Maybe it had been a coincidence.

Dad reached for the device. “Come on now. Put the tablet away. We’re going.” Again, the boy pulled away, but his dad was done.

Desperate, I tried again and shouted, “How did Broussard die, kid?”

The boy stopped, frozen in place, and again looked around.

He flipped from the game and went back to the text he was reading earlier, scanning it down as he went.

“Come on, now, give me the tablet.”

“Hold on, I gotta find out how—”

Dad snatched the device out of the kid’s hands, which caused a pained expression on the small face. He briefly looked at his hands as if the tablet might reappear.

I was going to try another tack but then noticed two chimeras heading my way from either side of the street. Now, they were very interested in me.

“Shit, that’s not good.”

When I turned back, I saw that another chimera was also heading my way, moving slowly but picking up its pace.

“That’s worse.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Doc checked the monitor on his forearm, saw the images from his vanity cam, and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear.

“We are now all inside, searching for Painter Mann,” he said in a stage whisper. “Of course, he’s a ghost, so we won’t know if we’ve found him.”

Ahead, Walther called, “I’ll know!”

“Right, but that’s only if your ghost friend coughs or if he’s singing show tunes. None of can actually see him.”

Directly in front of Doc, Sapphire said, “I can see him.”

“Okay, says the blind guy, right?” Doc waved his hand around like he was trying to rid himself of buzzing flies. “Point is, we are sneaking into the basement of this home hoping to pop up into the main part of the house and find a ghost.”

Just behind her husband, Rose punched him in the shoulder. “Ghost Wranglers, man. Finding ghosts is a major part of that job description. Stop being such a pussy.”

Doc poured on a huge grin. “No, no. Not, ha, not being a pussy. But this is definitely illegal entry. That’s a crime, and look at this fucking basement.”

“Can you not swear on live TV?” Hollow now brought up the rear after Walther steamed to the front of the group.

Doc half turned his head. “We are on a seven-second delay. They know it’s finger-on-the-button time when I’m speaking.” He winked at the cam. “Part of my charm.”

Another shove from behind. Rose said, “Keep moving forward.”

“That would be brilliant. I’d love to move forward. But we ain’t moving forward. We are heading down. And look,” Doc said and held his palm cam up. “If you had to construct the creepiest goddamn basement ever, it would be this one. We are not heading forward. We are heading down, for Chrissakes. No stairs, this here’s dirt. Dirt! Who has a dirt basement?”

A chirping tone split the darkness, which drew a chorus of complaints. Hollow said, “Come on, this is supposed to be clandestine. Can we at least turn off the cell phones on our secret mission?”

“Sorry,” said Digit. “Not a cell, that’s my—message from Punq.”

“What’s he saying?” Sapphire said.

“Punq says New Orleans is below sea level. That’s why all the cemeteries have mausoleums instead of graves. And don’t have basements.”

“What the fuck does this look like to you, Punq?” Doc said, pointing a finger at his cam. “An abattoir?”

Sapphire laughed. “You know that means slaughterhouse, right?”

“Oh shit,” Doc said. “I thought it meant, like, makeup room or something.”

Rose shrugged. “Same diff.”

Doc looked ahead as the camera lights in front of them disappeared deeper and deeper into the earth. “No basements, huh? This is the basement to end all basements here. Christ, we should turn around and knock on the front door.”

“Pussy.”

“Fine,” Doc said to his wife. “Trade places with me, then?”

Rose yanked on her husband’s right shoulder and slid around his left side. Once he got his footing back, he looked up and caught sight of her hand, which gave him the finger.

He looked down and smiled at her leather pants.

“At least the view got a whole lot better.”

Behind him, Hollow said, “Pussy.”

Up ahead, Walther called out, “Hey, there’s light up here!”

Hollow muttered, “Can we not yell? Secret operation. Is the idea of ‘secret’ lost on everyone on my team?”

Digit laughed. “We are broadcasting live on television to one hundred and eleven countries with four-point-two million streams right now.”

Hollow asked, “Four-point-two?”

Digit spun back, her face lit up in Rose’s headlight. Digit nodded and flashed a big smile.

From deeper in the cellar, Walther reported, “Holy shit, look at this spread.”

“What is it, Walther?” Rose asked.

Hollow sighed. “Everyone’s just yelling now.”

“It’s like an entire living room in all this. Christ, it’s all velvet and plush and fancy paintings.”

Doc asked, “In a basement? A dirt basement?”

“You heard Punq,” Rose said. “There ain’t no basements in New Orleans.”

“Be quiet,” Hollow said. “What did he just say?”

“I didn’t hear.”

Rose called out, “Repeat that last, Walther!”

“I said,” Walther called back, his voice getting absorbed by the damp walls, “I think there’s someone in here.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I could feel the chimeras moving in closer. Hunting.

They cut between structures, big and small. Some of the lights were clicking off, either by timers or some switch back at the main house. That was a problem for me.

In the dark, the dead can see ghosts much easier.

I hoped that if I could just get into some light near other people, I might be okay. You could also tuck yourself away into a burst of noise and electricity, like a television station server room. One of those big old TVs would do, too, but there was little chance I’d find anything like that at the historic Acadian village.

The chimeras were closing in but moving slowly, and luckily, the three had now formed a tight group so I could keep an eye on them. Others hadn’t yet targeted me, but I’d only caught glimpses of them as they snapped in and out of this time line.

I looked up to find power lines. If I got a bit lucky, I might be able to follow them to a transformer that would put off enough electric noise to hide in. At first, my heart sank as I realized there weren’t any overhead wires.

They must be underground, but then another thought struck me.

When I scanned the woods surrounding the village, I couldn’t see any power poles either.

That gave me an idea, so I headed to the edge of the property. Sure, I was moving out of the light, but I was looking for something. It only took a minute until I heard the hum.

Moving toward it, I looked back over my shoulder and saw the chimeras were still there.

Were they closer now?

I passed by a shack about the size of a two-car garage, gave it a quick glance, and saw only a red light inside, trembling slightly. This was where the hum had come from. The problem was, if I just ducked inside, the chimeras would see me, especially in the dark, and follow me in.

So I spent nearly two terrifying minutes, darting in and out of structures as their lights all began to flip off, making a big circle and hoping I wouldn’t double back too fast and come upon the Cajun’s creatures.

After a quick dogleg, I raced for the humming shack and, once inside, hid within one of two electric generators. I waited.

After about ten minutes, I heard one of them slip into the room, snarling and sniffling.

When it finally slipped out, I waited a minute more. I needed to know if all was clear. Spotting a window on the other side of the shack, I shimmied into the other generator. Once inside, I let out a yelp.

“Keep that up, and one of them will be back here quick,” a woman said. She tugged at two pieces of cloth on either side of her head. “But if you can be quiet, I wouldn’t mind the company. Don’t see many of our kind here because of the monsters.”

I nodded, staring.

“I don’t mean you have to be mute, mon ami. Just keep it low, oui?” She lifted a finger to her cloth headwear and extended a hand. I took it instinctively, but when I did, the room around me briefly disappeared, filling quickly with images of dirt floors, fires burning in the hearth, and pots balanced over the flames.

A man smiled at me as he pulled a pocket watch from his brown, sleeveless coat, but before he spoke, the side of his head burst, and he fell. I then saw the panicked faces of children and women dressed in white bonnets and long blue dresses.

Fire, rifle smoke, yelling, screaming, a shot to the chest, my hands bloodied, and then as quick as that rapid succession of sensations hit me, it was gone.

Her hand now pulled back, the woman said to me, “Are you okay?”

I took a quick glance at the front of her dress, looking for blood or a wound. She’d reverted to her memory of who she’d been, no longer carrying around how she’d died.

I nodded. “You’re Acadian?”

She smiled. “Marie Aubert. There was once many more of us. Now there are just a few. The remaining, I mean. Spirits. But now, for the most part, I am alone.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That must be, um, lonely.”

“Of course. But what am I to do?”

“Do you want to leave, Marie? I may be able to help you.”

“Help how? I am stuck here, but it is my home. It is not so bad.”

“Do you remember who killed you?”

Marie darkened. “Oui, a British soldier. Lieutenant Riley. What does it matter, though?”

I told her why I’d come, and she listened intently. She smiled when I mentioned the Cajuns.

“It is comforting to know our people live on,” she said. “But what’s done is done; you cannot change the past. What has happened is written and cannot be unwritten.”

“Tell that to Nickelback.”

“I have never met Nickelback. Is he one of these Cajuns?”

“No, no,” I said, wishing I hadn’t brought it up. “All of these creatures here are searching for one person. Some British officer who killed Joseph Broussard.”

She shrugged. “Ha, Broussard?” she asked with a smile. “A good man, Joseph Broussard. He died. Old men tend to do that.”

I tried again. “Right, he was killed in battle, though. The man I told you about, he is sending all of these creatures here to find his killer.”

“In the past.”

“Yes, in the past.”

“It can’t be done. That is folly.”

“Trust me,” I said. “I think it can. What I’ve seen… the All Time. If one of those creatures can track down Broussard’s killer before that shot is fired, it will wipe out history as we know it.”

“All Time,” Marie said, her eyes distant. “I have seen too.” She nodded to the window. “Those creatures, they are there? They carry that?”

“You touched one?”

She stood and went to the window then turned back toward me.

“I have not always been alone here. Lieutenant Riley, he had come during another of the British raids. He would… look too long, yes?”

I nodded.

“My husband, in front of many people, confronted him in the street. Accused him of immoral designs on not just me but other women in our village. Words were exchanged, but when fists were raised, Riley was no fighter.”

“Sounds like the kind of prick that wouldn’t get the message.”

“Non, he got the message.” The woman looked back out the window. “Riley was trying to make a point, of course. He later challenged my husband, who only laughed. However, this time Riley was armed.”

She went quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Then it went crazy. Other soldiers began to fire. I heard screaming. I looked toward my children…”

“I’m so sorry.”

“But before that grief took me, Riley’s bullet did,” she said. “Not all of the British were so terrible. The man who ran their encampment tried the lieutenant for my husband’s murder. He was found guilty, oui, but merely sent back to Britain, which seemed like little punishment for the death of my family.”

I nodded. “That’s why your husband is not here. His murderer was identified, so he moved on. But why are you still here? If you were named in the trial—”

Marie laughed. “I am a woman. No, Riley was tried for killing my husband and my son, my beautiful little Henri. My daughter and I were of little concern in the eyes of the law.”

“She’s here?”

Through the window, the woman looked up at the stars. “We had seen one of the creatures. Back then I did not see them as monsters.”

“The chimeras?”

“It looked so frightened. And terrifying at the same time. I reached out.” She shuddered. “I will not do that again.”

“Did it get to your daughter?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “But it was so strange. So terrible. I was gone so, so long. But then I returned, and when I did, my Catherine… as I was being drawn into this All Time, I had screamed from her to run, hide. She did. That was long ago now.”

“You haven’t seen her?”

“We were not here in this funny little village,” Marie said. “I have been searching for her. Too long I have been here, though. It is time for me to move on and keep searching.”

Outside, I could hear the huffing and grunting of one of the chimeras.

Like Marie, I had been in the funny little village too long.

“I need to find out about Broussard and who killed him.”

“Why?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. The only thing I can think to do is to, maybe, go back and warn him that monsters are hunting him.” I laughed. “That’s crazy on top of crazy on top of crazy, but it’s all I got at the moment.”

For the first time since I’d met her, Marie laughed. “You cannot do that.”

“I have to! They’re looking for Broussard’s killer. And, eventually, I fear they will find him!”

She shrugged. “Then they will have to find God.”

“What?”

“Broussard had no killer. He died as old men do. Down in America. No one shot Joseph.”

“That can’t be true.”

“It is. I have even seen monuments that your people, in this time, have put up to Joseph Broussard, and they tell of him leading a small group of our people to several places. They settled in a place called Louisiana. No one shot Joseph Broussard. He died a peaceful death.”

“That makes no sense,” I said. My heart sank.

On the other side of the wall, I was sure I could hear more snarling. Fear was twisting my mind.

I was no closer to finding out what I needed to know. The trail had run cold. “The Cajun would have to know Broussard had made it. Especially, if he’d made it down to Louisiana all those years ago.”

Marie walked over and sat back down in front of me. She smiled and raised a hand to touch my face, but I flinched, and she pulled back.

“Then, see? You have little to worry of. No one killed Broussard. There is no history to fix, nothing to change.”

It didn’t make sense. How could the Cajun have gotten that wrong?

Then I realized the truth. “Wait. He didn’t actually say Broussard. He’d said Joseph Renard. Does that name mean anything?”

Her eyes went wide, and then she grinned slyly. “Ha, oui, bein sur, Joseph Renard. Except Renard is not a name but a type of nickname, as you would say. It is what my people called him. He was not one of us, however.”

I listened as Marie told me the story. When she finished, everything was different. Everything had changed.

She looked at me. My face was easy to read. She said, “If this is what the monsters have been sent to change, you have underestimated how dangerous this is, no? How important.”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I do that. It’s like a tic.”

She stood and frowned. “There is nothing you can do, it seems.”

This mission had been taken up to a whole new level. So much was riding on it. New plan.

The Cajun had created the chimeras. If this was going to stop, there was just one thing left for me to do.

“I have to kill the Cajun.”

She looked down at me. “You will not be able to do that. Not now.”

“Why?”

She pointed to the window. I stood and looked outside.

They were all around us. The entire small structure was surrounded by chimeras, swirling and snarling.

“How did they find me?”

“I expect they could see me at the window. I knew standing there would eventually draw them.”

“What?” I moved away from the window that looked onto the village and then to the back, toward the forest. There, too, they’d gathered. Snarling, spinning. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“I am forever lost to this world. My family is gone. Everything has been taken, all because of a British soldier who could not have a woman.”

“But…” I said, pulling back from the window, looking for a way out. “That won’t bring your family back. It won’t stop you from being killed.”

She shrugged. “Non, but if it means a chance that the Acadians live again? A peaceful people do not face destruction? I can do this small thing.”

“Marie, you know this isn’t right!” I said, pushing my face through each side of the cabin. I was surrounded. “You know what could happen!”

“According to you, anything can happen,” she said. “And anything that did happen can change. So, I can be a small part of the change. And now, so can you. These creatures will take you, and you will play your part in changing everything. The way it should have been for my people.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

28th of May 1754

We are being pursued.

At least, this is the feeling of the men, and in this, I feel I am losing control of this command. Many of them have been taken by the superstitious ramblings of a dozen of my men who have obviously been overcome with fever.

Who knew our greatest enemies out here might be the effects of incessant rains, a long night of exhaustive marching, and small-minded interpretations of what God has brought to this world?

We are just a few hours away from the French encampment, and I have learned something of their leader, a French man named Jumonville. He’s said to be a strong leader, but his heart apparently lies to the far north for some squabble up there.

This, to me, is good news. His heart may not be in this fight.

I would prefer to have little bloodshed in retaking the encampment. We are right in this measure, and it will be my task to prove it thus.

However, I am loath to admit that in the lead-up to the battle, my spine is ready, but I must have also succumbed to this fever that is permeating the men.

My quill has held position over these next words for several minutes as I fear writing them down will make me seem mad. Or, if my thoughts are laid out before me in black and white, they might become all too real.

As I said, I must also have become feverish despite not being struck by a throbbing head.

I have seen things.

No, not actually seen but imagined.

All this talk of strange beasts that flicker in and out of the dark and light—at once there, then moments later gone—has me now seeing them as well.

Less than one hour ago, I saw two of them.

One was flitting through a tree just to my left, but I know in truth this was merely rain and wind playing within the brambles.

However, when I sat on a stump to drain the muddy waters from my boots, my vision filled with strange flesh and hair and gray-white skin, and I looked up to see one of these creatures standing above me!

Dropping my boot, I grabbed my pistol and fired at it, like some superstitious fool, and the beast hesitated, snarled at me. However, the bullet itself passed right through and embedded in a tree.

The creature shuddered, a brief seizure—however, not of my doing—and then before my eyes once again disappeared.

This, I know, was all an illusion—a hallucination.

However, they are not gone from me.

I now see more of their number.

And as we head toward the battle with Jumonville, I am ashamed to admit we are also running from strange, impossible beasts that make our hearts go cold.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Hollow was the last to round the corner, and when he did, he let out a low whistle.

“What is this place?”

“It’s obviously a sex room.”

“Doc, please.”

“No, look at it. Drapery on the walls. Leather couch. These paintings, however… not so sexy.” They moved from painting to painting, entranced by each. All the artwork depicted scenes of conquest and death and mayhem. Doc stopped at one that showed a bare-breasted woman with dark flowing hair riding a winged horse. “This one isn’t bad. Despite the broadsword-through-the-demon bit.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Hollow said. “Anyone see a way up?”

Rose pointed to the other side, across the room. “It looks like that side—that way looks like it goes up.”

Digit was tapping away on her wrist monitor, then she caught sight of Walther.

The old man was holding his oxygen mask to his mouth, taking deep breaths. His eyes were wide.

Their tech asked, “What is it, Walt?”

He looked at her and quickly shook his head. Then he said, his breath steaming up his mask, “Someone is talking.”

“To whom?”

“Not to anyone. But she is talking about us.”

***

“You can hear me, old man?”

Walther pulled the mask off and squinted. “Don’t call me that. My name is Walther.” He’d hoped to sound strong, unafraid. But his lips trembled as he spoke. “What did you mean by that? Cattle?”

Voodoo Cher had been circling the group and now slid up beside the man with the silver tank.

“How is it you hear me? Do you see me?”

“No,” Walther said, trying to steady his voice. “You call me old? You sound like the old hag who gave Snow White the poison apple!”

Her laughter made the old man recoil. “Everyone perceives Voodoo Cher differently. As you wish to perceive me.”

“I wish,” Walther said, “to perceive you out of this room and away from us!”

Hollow came up beside Sapphire. “What the hell is going on?”

Their psychic extended a hand toward Walther, half blocking out the light. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Sure, but… you know you can’t—”

“I know what I’m saying, Hollow,” Sapphire said. “But there is a light there, so bright. I mean, I’ve seen fuzzy images and hints of light. But this… this is something different.”

“How?”

“It’s blinding,” Sapphire said. “Like nothing...” After a moment, he added, “So beautiful.”

Voodoo Cher crossed the room and came toward the young man in the flowing shirt and circular sunglasses. She traced a hand down the side of his head. His knees buckled slightly.

“A blind child who can see,” she said. “Oh, what fun that would be. I would very much like to take this boy. “

“You leave him alone!” Walther said, spinning toward the young psychic. “We’re looking for Painter Mann.”

“Really?”

Voodoo Cher circled slowly around the room, letting her fingers trace across the paintings, the drapery, the soft velvet furniture. Walther waited, his eyes jutting between Sapphire, who was tracking her, and where the old man thought she might be.

“We think that he’s being held in this house.”

An old woman’s voice crackled in Walther’s ears, laughing. “You think I would keep him here? No, I don’t have him. I could if I wanted to. But I do not. Not yet.”

Hollow tried to get his team’s attention, but they were transfixed by the scene unfolding in front of them, their eyes jumping from Sapphire to Walther. He opened up his wrist tablet and punched at it.

A minute later, short vibrations occurred around the room. Doc, Rose and Digit looked down at their own wrist monitors and read:

Head to the opposite door. Upstairs. Got a real bad feeling.

Rose scowled and typed back, Are you watching what we’re watching? We are communicating with a fucking ghost!

Hollow looked at the walls and at the fire burning in the hearth. He thumped his device again.

Got a bad feeling.

Doc replied, Maybe he’s right. I think we should go up.

Digit typed, Can’t be Ghost Wranglers without ghosts. We got a ghost right here.

Hollow said aloud, “I’m not sure that’s what we got.”

Walther looked over at Sapphire, who was looking toward the fireplace. He turned toward it, took a drag of his oxygen, and felt a knot growing in his stomach.

He turned back to Hollow, who shrugged. He then looked in the hearth’s direction again.

“Is Painter in this house? Do you know if the Cajun has him?”

Another cackle. “The Cajun, the Cajun. You validate that idiot. It’s his witch that gives him his so-called power.”

“Is Painter in this house?” Walther listened for a moment and heard nothing. He turned to Sapphire. “Is she still here?”

The young man nodded slowly, trembling. “Brighter.”

Walther turned back. “Is that you? Are you trying to talk to me? I can’t hear you.”

Voodoo Cher said, “I have a servant who helps me.”

“She says there’s another in here.” Then he asked her, “Okay, what happens now?”

“He’s waiting by the door that leads up to the house. I cannot—” She stopped and chuckled. “That’s no matter.”

Sapphire spun in a slow circle. “Yes, I can see it. Smaller. Very dim.”

Again, she laughed. “The boy has that right. He is very dim.” She brought her hands together, spinning them slowly in place.

“Wait,” Sapphire said. “She’s getting bigger. I think we should go.”

Immediately, both exits turned to earthen walls.

Hollow ran to where they’d come from and pounded his fist on the dirt, dead roots, and rock.

“Fuck, how did… it’s solid.”

“A dim servant does not serve Voodoo Cher well,” she said. “But all of you will. But first, you must transform.”

Walther scoffed and tried to keep his voice steady. “We’re not here to help you.”

“But you will,” she said. “Let me take care of that.”

The fire in the hearth began to grow.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The sweet woman I’d met just minutes earlier had a new fire in her eyes.

I remembered something that the Professor had told me many times: the InBetween was built for one purpose.

Revenge.

It was unclear how or why, but revenge was the natural order of this place. Marie had found hers, and the world around her fueled that, giving her purpose and strength. No question—in our world, this felt right to her.

“This will not save you.”

“I am not to be saved.” She put a hand to the window and waved the chimeras forward, beckoning them. “Ici! The one you seek is here!”

“Wait,” I said. “Your daughter is still out there, missing. I can help her.”

“You cannot. I have searched for years to find her. She is lost, out there.”

“No, but it doesn’t have to be that way,” I said. Outside, the snarling and growling grew as more chimeras packed around us. Flashes of light, as they collided into one another, danced across the ceiling of the structure. “I am… I can help.”

“You cannot, Painter Mann.”

I nodded. “I can. I can,” I said. “I am what we call, in my time, a private investigator.”

“This means nothing to me.”

“What it means is that I help people like you, move on to the next thing,” I said, stepping closer. “I can help you and your daughter move on.”

“How?”

“I have people that help me. All I have to do is give your name and your daughter’s name to them with the name of your killer, this Lieutenant Riley, and the world knows.”

“What does the world care?”

“That’s how this works. It’s a balance,” I said. “Once your killer is named, then you move on. That’s why your husband and son aren’t here.”

She looked at me sideways. “Is this true? How can I trust you?”

“I am your one shot for you and your daughter to move on, maybe reunite with your husband and son.”

Her face softened. “They are there? They are waiting for us? Tell me! Tell me, are they waiting for us?”

So much rode on my answer, but the truth was I didn’t know. No one on our side knew. But, if I told her that truth, I could risk everything.

So, I didn’t.

“Yes,” I said. “They are waiting. You will be reunited with your family. But not if the chimeras take me.”

She frowned then blinked slowly and shook her head.

Marie went back to the window and shouted, “Here! Come here!”

“Marie!”

She turned to me, her eyes blazing. She then pointed at me and said with a growl, “Go to the far corner of the room. You will know when to run.”

“What?”

“I am trusting you, Painter Mann. Please do not let that be in vain,” she said, her eyes hard. Then she pointed to the wall and shouted, “Go!”

I stepped back and a moment later, she burst through the opposite side, shouting, “Here, here, here, here!” The snarling became a cacophony of growling and barking and teeth snapping, and I could see the flashing of the chimera turn into steady light.

“Marie?”

A moment later, I heard her scream, “Go! Go now!”

Heading in the opposite direction of her screams, I pushed through the side of the cabin, but they were still there! They were hunting once again, moving toward the chaos she’d created. I saw a break in their lines and pushed with everything I had to skate through the gap.

Two of them leaped for me, but I ducked, grabbing my knees as I had done as a child when skating. Above me, they collided in a burst of light and energy and anger.

Then I was past them.

Pumping my legs harder, I took a final glance back, and the last of them were piling onto her. I knew what she had done. I knew what hell she had given herself into. The All Time.

Briefly, I tried to think if I could have done the same, knowingly give myself over to that horror.

But Marie had not done it for me. She had not done it for herself.

She’d done it for a lost child named Catherine.

She had done it to save her daughter.

In that moment, I felt a small glimmer of hope. Despite the InBetween being built by revenge, for revenge. Something else had trumped it. Something else was more powerful.

Love.

A creature gripped in the very structure of this ghost world, the dark, vile foundation the entire place was built on, was able to turn away from revenge because of love.

Pushing my legs even harder, I swore I would make good on my promise.

But I had to take care of something else first.

I had to kill the Cajun.

***

In only minutes, I got across the lakes and down the Mississippi.

Though I had no time to stop in the Twin Cities, I did have to make one quick detour.

At Stone Mountain, I came around the side of the giant rock and no longer saw the chimera that had been snarling and swirling at the edge of the woods. Was it phasing into another time line, or had it joined the others, closing in on Renard’s killer?

Nervous it might appear again, I slowly approached the small stone outcropping it had been swirling around before.

I crept toward the broken statue, looking left and right.

In that part of the park, there were almost no livies, like they could feel the presence of something evil and had instinctively steered clear.

Or maybe, since this was the Deep South, none of them had an interest in seeing this particular monument.

Moving closer, I listened for the telltale snarl and snap.

“Painter!”

“What? Fuck-shit-damn, who’s that?”

I spun around and caught sight of the Professor. She’d come off her mountain and was sliding toward me.

She’d had a grin on her face, and it fell when I’d spun around, fists out, panicked.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.”

She looked around, scanning the woods. “What’s wrong? Are you looking for the creature?”

“No,” I said and again moved toward the monument. My spine was a bit stiffer now that I knew I had a friend close by. “Keep an eye out for it, though, would ya?”

“What is it? What are you looking for?”

As I was face-to-face with the stone carving, my suspicion had indeed turned out to be correct. I turned back to the Professor and told her about my encounter with Marie Aubert.

“That... she was incredibly brave,” the Professor said, eyes cast down.

“I’ll clear her, but first I had to see this,” I said, pointing at the monument. “She told me Renard was not an actual name. It might have been a type of code name so his identity wouldn’t be found out.”

“Okay. Who was he?”

“A French Canadian military officer who was plotting to kill the governor. The governor later signed the expulsion order and broke up the Acadian people. He’d ordered the British soldiers to burn homes and kill those who resisted.”

I walked around the monument as I spoke.

“Renard was actually a man named Joseph Coulon.”

The Professor looked up at the monument and shook her head. “I don’t know that name.”

“Nobody does. Nobody except the few who knew of the secret plot. Somehow the Cajun found out.”

“What happened?”

“Coulon was killed before he could carry it out,” I said. Pointing up. “By a British major. That is who the chimeras are going back and trying to kill.”

The head of the statue had long since been busted off. It probably had been hollowed out and was being used as a firepit in some redneck’s backyard. Or busted up, its pieces strewn in the woods.

But the carved writing in the marble plinth at the base of the statue told the story. With a name I knew well.

A name everyone knew.

The Professor looked at me then back at the monument. “George Washington?”

“This was more than two decades before he became General Washington, leading the fight against the Brits. Back then, he was just some kid leading one of his first commands. Twenty-two years old. He got some bad intel, and it led to a raid of a couple dozen men that killed Coulon.”

The Professor looked at me. “The Cajun’s trying to go back and stop that raid. Kill Washington.”

“Right, I gotta go stop Cajun Deaux. Permanently,” I said, starting to move west. “The chimeras know who they’re looking for. It’s only a matter of time before they find him!”

When I looked up, the Professor stood before me. She parted her arms and said, “Painter, you can’t kill the Cajun.”

“I have to!”

“If you do, he’ll end up here. Alive, he already has powers no man should have. But as a spirit, here in the InBetween, he’ll be so much stronger.”

I’d considered that. “I have a plan.”

“I hope it’s a good plan.”

I slipped past her and spun back. “It’s not. But I don’t have much choice.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

We are taught at a young age that fear is the currency of cowards.

Not directly, of course. It’s not in some primary school lesson plan, at least none of the ones that I have vague memories of.

And there were no ABC Afterschool Specials titled “Now, Don’t Be a Pussy About It.”

I could wax on and on about the difference between being scared as compared to having fear, but that would just be me trying to delay going into the house I stood before now.

I remember reading Dune as a kid, and the hero was, like, this planetary prince fighting evil dudes, and he was taught, “Fear is the mind-killer.” And I suppose when you’re fighting floaty alien bad guys, that might be the case. Dunno. I never have had to do that. At least, not yet.

But I’ve found fear, real, in-your-face fear, makes things pretty fucking clear in an instant, and that motherfucker clears the mind like ripe, on-the-vine jalapeños clear snot.

The real, right-here, right-now, one hundred percent fear.

Standing before the Cajun’s house, fear was the stuff coursing through every vibrating string of my body.

Inside was where I’d been thrown into the All Time.

But waiting outside, the fear that everything around me could vanish—and arguably, me along with it—pressed upon me too. Everyone I’d known and loved, gone. Erased.

“Come on, man,” I said, standing there, willing my legs to move forward. “Now, don’t be a pussy about it.”

Before arriving at the house, I’d found Jelly Roll at the Green House and asked him to get as many of his friends to come here and wait outside. If my horrible plan was going to work, I would need their help.

I took the first step and then another. Then another, and I found myself at the front door. Moments later, I was inside.

At least, my head was inside.

But, you know, recon is a very, very important part of every mission.

And, of course, my ass was still outside, so that was a big factor too.

Pushing forward, I looked around the empty living room. The paintings on the walls were a threat. They wouldn’t come alive, but as I looked, I could see that they held more than just brush strokes.

They weren’t just pieces of art hanging on the wall. These contained bits of hair, twisted and dried root, dead flowers, even what looked like teeth.

These were the components that the Cajun and his witch used to practice their voodoo.

I heard a clank and felt my heart leap to my throat. Someone was in the next room. Listening more closely, I could hear two people clinking utensils and lifting glasses and putting them back down.

Glancing to my right, I saw the reflection in the glass of a large photograph.

Dinnertime.

It was hard to make them out clearly, but the two of them were seated and eating. I shuddered when I thought about what might be on the menu.

Could be chicken and waffles. Could be eleven-year-old dead Girl Scout.

I put that thought out of my mind. I was already freaked out enough. I didn’t need to add a macabre meat loaf to the mix.

In my trip from up north to down here, I’d come up with a vague plan on how to kill the Cajun. The trouble with that plan, of course, was that I had to kill the Cajun. The moment I did that, he’d cross over into the InBetween.

As the Professor had voiced: Here was a guy with voodoo skills in my world?

He’d instantly be one of the most dangerous spooks I’d ever encountered. Even without the ability to pull tufts of hair and toss them into the fire, he had spells. I’d seen what just the one had done, frozen me in place and did something to my ethereal body I never thought possible.

What more did he have that I did not know?

My plan was to trap him in the same place that he’d trapped the Vanished. I had convinced myself I could do that now that I was convinced where they were, but I couldn’t do that alone.

First, though, I had to kill him.

When I was trapped in the room, I’d seen the sword, like from colonial times, that was up on display, high on the wall.

It would take every bit of my energy to hold that and raise it above him for a killing blow.

I would have just one shot. There would be no juice in me for a second swing. So, I had to make the first one count.

Poor timing, sure, but then it hit me: I had never killed anyone before.

At least, I had no recollection of ever killing anyone. For all I knew, I could have been a full-bore government assassin when I was alive. But I doubted that. I expected I was in what you would call a “low-skill” job.

However, I knew what was at stake. This man was a threat to everyone I’d ever known and loved. Of course, that list also included me, so additionally, this was a self-preservation move.

Luckily, I also hated the guy. With a flick of a wrist, like he was sending back a soup he decided he didn’t want anymore, he’d thrown me into the worst hell I could possibly imagine.

I came up with a simple plan. Get moving as fast as I could, pour juice into my hands and grab the sword, then use the momentum to come around the other side of the dining room and drive the blade into his back.

The thought of it made me queasy, but if I did it quickly, I could have the existential crisis once it was over. That is, once I then got the ghost Cajun squared away and secured.

Then, existential crisis.

I went over my run a few times. For a moment, I even considered going through the motions without the sword, but I wasn’t entirely sure I could do that without being seen.

I had just the one shot.

“Okay, stop stalling,” I said, trying to psych myself up. As I did, I noticed a twitch in the reflection in the glass. Had she raised her head when I’d spoken?

I flexed my thighs up and down, like a panther ready to pounce. Or like a ghost about to stab some dude in the back with a nineteenth-century rapier.

I ran.

Within two strides, I was already at full speed, which I needed, because all my strength went into my hands. I grabbed the sword, cut through the first entryway, and headed toward the bright lights of the kitchen.

Leaning to my left, I could feel my head swim as I poured every bit of juice into my hands, balancing the sword as I moved at my top speed. I lifted it high so that its weight would help sink the sword deep into his flesh, but I’d raised it too high, and because I was no longer used to worrying about things like walls, I’d bumped the sword at the top of the entryway—just slightly but enough for the pair at the table to flinch.

It didn’t matter. He had no time to get up. With the blade raised, I aimed squarely between the prick’s shoulders, coming down, down, down. When I was just inches away, my heart sank as I saw his shoulders hunch and move. A thick, scraggly hand pushed him aside, and she’d leaned over the table to push him away.

But she’d paid for it. She caught the blow in the forearm, and it sliced through her skin.

The blade fell onto the table, overturning his plate, and I fell to the floor.

Despairing, I lay there, tapped out. If I could have wept, I would have.

Less than a minute later, my vision swam back to me.

“Where is he, then?” I heard a voice say, chuckling as he did.

When I looked up, the witch was scowling, a towel soaked in blood wrapped around her arm. The blade was still on the table, which held smashed several dishes.

The Cajun stood over me, looking down. Shaking his head, he wore a half smile and just laughed at me.

“Impressive,” he said. “I see why you are such a curiosity to so many, Painter Mann. Me, I have seen spirits move the flames of a candle or even shut a door. But to lift a weapon to kill?” He knelt down in front of me. “You are the champion I have been searching for.”

I wheezed out: “Not happening, man.”

“Do you know why they are called chimeras? They are two creatures as one. Each is an entity I have enslaved to kill the man who would take the life of Renard yet it is intertwined with another.” He reached forward, his hand passing through my form. I was sickened as I caught the sight of skin, blood, tissue, and bone. “That other is me.”

“Bullshit.”

“Each of them carries some part of me. I pay the price for this,” he said, motioning to the dead half of his face. “But I will put my every effort into, when that part of me joins with you, riding you to the time and place it will be done.”

“I won’t do it.”

“You will have no choice. You will do as I instruct, as all the chimeras must. I command them. I will command you, and you will kill this Major Washington for me.”

He stood and looked to the witch, whose eyes I saw for the first time. They looked red, angry, and blazing as she stared at me.

“Prepare him by the fire,” he said then looked down onto his shirt, which was covered in splatters from his meal. “I’ll return in one minute, and we will begin.”

I watched him leave, and she began her low chanting.

I’d failed. And I could feel my body stiffen, losing command of my own limbs as her growling, muttering words fell upon me.

He stood at the door to the living room, the flames dancing on the walls behind him.

“This is a glorious night, Painter Mann,” he said, raising his arms. “The murderer of Renard dies tonight, and my people will change the world.”

He slipped into the next room.

At his feet, as he passed through the doorway, I’d caught sight of something.

The woman barked at me, making low, guttural sounds, and I felt energy feeding back into me, but I was quickly losing control. I tried to stand but could not.

Then, by the door, I saw it again.

Cloth?

No, not quite cloth.

Rags.

“Hey, little brother,” I said my voice weak. “You don’t got a bazooka or anything tucked in your shirt, do ya?”

Slowly, Stitches pushed his face around the corner, the crosses of his eyes pointed toward me. His brow furrowed.

“Can you help me out, man?”

He looked behind him then back at me.

And then he was gone.

I was on my own.

“It’s okay, man,” I said. “These folks are no good. I don’t blame you.”

The witch raised her voice to full volume. With her words ringing in my ears and arms raised in the air, she commanded me to my feet.

As she walked backward into the next room, I couldn’t help but take step after step after step, heading toward the carpet before the flaming hearth. This was where it would happen once again. I would be sent into that hell.

And everything would change.

I had failed. Worse than that, I would be the catalyst that brought about the deaths of millions. Hundreds of millions. They would disappear, never having existed. Because of me.

She raised her arms high above me again, blood dripping onto the floor from where my blade had cut.

I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Then, just as we passed the threshold, I saw him.

Stitches leaped behind her, his hands at his neck, gripping two of the long pins that had been buried there. He pulled them out, raised them up, and then plunged them into the thighs of the witch in front of me.

“Aarrgghh!”

Whereas the sword I’d held had barely made her flinch, despite the gaping wound, these enchanted spikes made her flesh burn. She trembled and convulsed then fell to the floor, smoking, shaking, unable to move.

I felt my limbs go slack, and then I was free. I had full control of my own body again!

Glancing over at the table, I caught sight of the sword.

If I could just—

“No,” a voice said. I turned back to the half man, whose tiny hands were now burnt and black.

“What? I can lift that sword and end her. End this!”

He shook his head and, painfully, he spoke through his sewn-up mouth.

“Your friends.”

“What? Here?”

He nodded and pointed at the basement door.

I said, “What’s happening?”

He moved toward the door, continuing to point.

He said, “Dying.”

***

“Get down, get low!” Hollow shouted as flames filled the room, swirling around like a hurricane of heat and fire and smoke.

“Where are the fucking doors?” Rose called from somewhere across the room.

Doc was on his knees, near the wall of dirt. He choked on the smoke, then said, “Gone.”

Next to him was Walther, who had pressed into the corner, his body flat and rounded.

Digit led Sapphire next to him, as the flames grew even larger.

“Is he okay?”

Doc looked over. “He’s covering up the tank. It’s pure oxygen.”

Digit gazed down at him. “Oh, shit.”

“It won’t matter if we can’t get out of here!” Hollow said, moving along the wall, searching for a way out. “Those flames are burning away what we can breathe! We’ve got to get out—”

Walther shouted something, and Rose came over.

“Are you okay?”

“No!” Walther shouted back. “I’m in a goddamn room on fire!” He then looked toward the flames. “She’s yelling!”

“What?” Rose said, putting a hand to the side of Walther’s face. He was pouring with sweat. “What do you mean?”

Walther turned away from the flames, trying to breathe. He said, “She’s yelling. At someone.”

Rose looked into the terrifying swirl of yellow and red, growing larger by the second.

“Who?” she asked.

***

I shouted again, “Let ’em go!”

All around me, it was a firestorm. I didn’t recognize the strangely dressed group of people in there, but I did see Walther.

My friend cowered on the floor, trying to hide from the deadly flames.

I had to control my rage. The anger fed energy into my body like I’d not felt before, but I had to control it if I was going to help Walther and the strange people with him.

“Painter,” she said, standing in the middle of the maelstrom, like the eye of a storm. She flexed her arms, and the flames grew even larger. “These people will join us in the InBetween and be my soldiers.”

“Everybody’s got staffing problems in this place,” I said. Then I lifted my hands like I’d seen the witch do. I began muttering in low bursts.

She laughed. “You have no powers.”

To my right, rocketing past me, was Stitches, running straight at Voodoo Cher.

With a flick of her hand, the creature of rags was lifted in the air and thrown into the hearth.

The half man exploded, and the fire grew.

She was too powerful. And she certainly wasn’t falling for any bluff of mine that I could conjure up some sort of spell to match her.

Voodoo Cher put her hands on her naked hips and smiled the most haunting and most beautiful smile I had ever seen. In that bizarre, impossible moment, I loved her.

The chick was fucking with my head.

She said, “Help me, and I will make you a god!”

I looked at her. “I already got a job.”

Then, I went with the only play I had: I leaped at her.

I caught sight of her recoiling, but it was too late. I clamped both my hands onto her shoulders. My vision flipped, and everything disappeared.

The screams in the room, the overwhelming smell of burning air, the yellow and orange and bloodred of the inferno—all vanished.

Before me now, in hyperfast blinks, everything turned dark.

Then upon my skin, I could feel the cold chill of a damp night. Then I saw images of animals. Horses and sheep. A rooster I’d loved since I was a child. The perfect smell of wet grass and straw and dung.

The images jumbled.

Before me now was a handsome man’s face pressing toward me, loving, warm. A thrill rushed through me as I felt his sweat mix with mine. My heart was full and aching, all at the same time.

Then he was gone. Now the faces of so many others. Angry, shouting, spitting. Flames again but not from the room I’d just left. These were for me.

Savage and enduring pain—not just the body but the heart—and then blood and flame, screams that were mine but did not sound like my own.

As darkness tried to take me, I reached out for the light—this was mine!—and pulled it back, my ears splitting with an unearthly sound. I screamed and shouted, demanding that it return, and all around me turned to a blinding bedlam of fury.

In equal measure, I felt awe and power and rage. One word echoed through my brain, overtaking everything.

I heard it spoken: “Revenge.”

Then we were back, and I rolled to the floor. The dry furnace heat of the room returned but was different now. Smaller, less intense. I looked at the hearth and saw the flames had dimmed. Next to me, Voodoo Cher lay on her back, kicking and punching the floor beneath her.

“What was that? What did you do?” she screamed. “You have no power!”

Struggling to my elbows, I looked over at her, my body trembling.

“No, but you do!” I yelled as the flames slowly began to return. “As you told me before: You see all I can see.”

Again, I reached over, this time grabbing her arm. Again, the world exploded away from us. I saw the faces of hundreds, thousands of people, coming too fast, too much to take in. I tried to squeeze my eyes shut and heard voices shouting and laughing and screaming and crying.

Then as quickly as they came, they were kicked away by a sudden swirl of mist and darkness. The smell of earth filled my nostrils.

Then, I heard a voice I recognized. I opened my eyes again and saw the face of the Cajun, standing over me, arms raised, his witch by his side.

I fell deep, down, down, down as their faces pulled away. Darkness surrounded me.

Everything was black, but then, once again, it ruptured, and the room around us returned, the flames all but out. Voodoo Cher was trying to get to her feet, her strength faltering, and she swayed like a drunkard.

She turned from me, one hand balancing on her thigh and the other extended to the hearth. The flames returned, spurting to life but too slow for her. She screamed once again.

I stood slowly. “You were trapped down here by the Cajun and his witch.”

She growled at me and pointed at the people cowering at the wall.

“I will make them my slaves. They will kill him for me, and I will be free!”

Shaking my head, I said, “But then, he’s here in this place. The InBetween.”

She smiled. “He is no match for me.”

“Like I wasn’t?” I said. “He trapped you down here. They trapped you down here. Their power, together, would be here. And they’ve already stopped you once.”

Her smile fell.

“But I have a plan,” I said. “I will kill him and trap him in a place he cannot escape. The world will be free of him. You will be free of him.”

She considered me for a long moment. After looking around the room, she said, “How do I know you can do this?”

“I am the world’s best private investigator.”

“That doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

I frowned. “It means I’m pretty good at working shit out. Let me and my friends take care of this, and you’ll be free.”

She paused for more consideration then raised her arms again. Looking at me, she said, “If you betray me—”

“Why would I do that? You scare the shit out of me.”

That got one last smile from her, then the flames retreated into the hearth. She walked the length of the undamaged room, turned her back to me, and once again sat in her plush, wing-backed chair.

***

“Is everyone okay?” Hollow said.

The doorways were back. Everyone sucked in deep breaths, coughing out smoke. They were weary, sweating, but still alive.

Walther stood up, took a sip of his drink and a drag from his mask, and smiled.

He said, “Thanks, Painter. Funny. We’d come to save you.”

***

I told Walther about what had happened upstairs, and anger began to boil on the man’s face.

“She’s let you go,” I said. “But I have to make good on my promise, or you’ll never be safe.”

“But you said he’d be even more powerful where you are.”

“It’s a risk,” I said. “But I know where to put him. I just got to get him there.”

“What are the odds of that?”

I whispered, “Not great. But it’s all I got.”

I looked back at the hearth. Voodoo Cher was staring into the flames. There was no sign of Stitches. He’d sacrificed himself to help. One day, I’d have to find him and set him free. Wherever he’d gone.

I headed for the way back up as Walther told the people with them, a strange group, what I’d told him. They were just behind me when I passed through the door into the living room.

My heart froze when I saw the chimera. In the far corner of the room, spinning and snarling. Two beings twisted together in an unholy fusion, lurching and heaving in several directions at once.

The creature on top then snapped its head toward me, locking its fierce eyes on mine.

Then, I turned and saw those very same eyes once again. The Cajun stared at me as he stood before the fire.

“Where’s your wife?” I said, eyeballing the sword that was still on the kitchen table. When I took him down, I would have to get those waiting outside—Mini and Jelly and anyone else I could—to help corral him. The idea was a bit of a long shot, but I felt that together, we could lead him to where the Vanished were being held.

Free them and imprison him.

“She is not my wife,” he said with a half smile. “She’ll be back shortly. And then we can fin—”

The crew with Walther burst into the room, and he took a step back.

“What are you doing in my house?” the Cajun shouted at them, but before anyone could answer, there was a pounding at the door.

“Open the door, Kent Thibodeaux!” an angry voice called from the other side. “You’ve got people in trouble in your basement!”

The leader of the strange group called out, “Travis? It’s Hollow! We’re okay!”

Moving slowly from the corner, the chimera took several steps, now stalking the man who’d just shouted. I lurched forward, yelling, and both of its heads snapped toward me.

“Hollow!” the man called Travis shouted back. “You and your crew have to come out here. Man, I told you not to go in. I’ve got two officers with me. You’re all coming with us. Now!”

While they were busy with the man at the door, I saw my chance.

I raced into the kitchen, poured energy into my hands, grabbed the sword once again, and wheeled around the corner, this time avoiding walls and doorways and molding. Finally, I came around, sword raised, aiming once again for the back of the Cajun.

At the sound of the shot, I flinched and dropped my weapon.

The sword clanked to the floor.

Then the Cajun fell on top of it, clutching at his chest. Blood poured from the wound.

Across the room, the entire group of livies stared. Walther stood in the middle. In his hand was a pistol, still smoking.

The door cracked and split on its hinges, and a man in a crumpled suit flew in the door with two uniformed officers who had their pistols raised. They caught sight of Walther.

“Drop it!” they shouted at once, and he did as they’d told him.

They all began arguing, shouting, but I was watching the Cajun.

He stood up, but his body still lay on the ground.

He was a spirit now and all smiles. His image still had the hole in his chest. He looked at his body and chuckled.

Then he waved his hand over his spook body, and the hole that was there disappeared.

“Oh shit.” I ran toward the wall to get the rest of the spooks waiting outside, but the ghost of Cajun Deaux grabbed me and held me up like a doll.

“You are going nowhere, Painter Mann,” he said. Then he squeezed me, and I felt the energy drain from my body into his. He began to glow, taking in my juice.

The chimera bellowed in an unbelievable roar; it shuttered and flexed, doubling in size. As the Cajun grew stronger, so did his monster.

Walther grabbed Digit by the shoulders and barked, “Is that camera live?”

Travis now had his gun out too. “Let go of her right now, step away, and put your hands where I can see them or I will shoot you dead.”

The Cajun laughed. His glow turned a deep red, and I felt pain course all through me. He leaned into my face and said, “I will be the most powerful entity this world has ever seen!”

Another roar, and I heard the chimera thump-thump-thump toward me.

“Is that camera live?” Walther shouted again.

“Let go of her!” Travis put a bead on the old man’s head.

Digit’s eyes watered as Walther shook her. She finally said, “Yes. Yes, it’s live!”

The ghost holding me reached into my body, and I could feel the darkness pulling at me. I was once again being dragged into the All Time.

“I confess.”

Hollow said, “What?”

“I confess to killing that man,” Walther said.

The Cajun stopped and looked toward the old man. He shouted, “No! No!” He let go of me and raced toward Walther, but I spun and kicked out the Cajun’s legs, and he tumbled to the floor.

The man named Travis said, “Hold on, you’ll need a lawyer, old-timer. Don’t say anything else.”

The Cajun got back on his feet and leaped toward my Temp. This time, I couldn’t stop him.

But Walther already knew the stakes: “I confess to the murder of Kent Thibodeaux.”

“Noo—”

Then the Cajun was gone. His murderer known, he cleared and went on to the Next.

As I’ve said, I don’t know what was waiting for us after this. But, if there were any real balance to the hereafter, I could guess where he might end up.

I only hoped it involved thorny devil cock.

I looked over at the chimera. With its master gone, it was now panicked, confused. Then, it began twisting back onto itself, racked with pain.

“Oh shit,” I muttered.

Its eyes blazed but not at me this time. The two heads faced each other, the one below baring its teeth and suddenly leaping for the neck of the other. It began spinning again, more violently now, faster and faster, growing unbelievably bright, until I had to shield my eyes from the sight of it.

I heard the roar again, rising in pitch, then there was a loud crack! and a brilliant flash of light.

The creature stopped spinning. It lay, softly moaning, taking deep, heaving breaths.

When it sat up, it was no longer a chimera. It was a man not much older than thirty wearing long shorts and a pricey Chicago football jersey. He lifted his head up toward me with eyes wide and jumping around the room.

Waving, I said, “Go Bears.”

Slowly, he stood, looking down at his body. Turning to leave, he got halfway through the wall then spun back. Across his face was a big, brilliant smile.

He said only: “Thanks.”

Then he was gone.

One of the uniforms was putting the handcuffs on Walther. The other picked up the old pistol on the floor.

The old man said, “Be careful with that. It’s an antique Walther PPK.”

I looked at my friend. “Of course it is.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

28th of May 1754

Dawn has come, and the time for action is upon us.

In the light and haze, I can see that a handful of the men we began with are now no longer here. It is not clear whether they’ve abandoned their posts because of the fight ahead... or the rumors of specters said to be hunting us.

I must note: reports of sightings of the strange otherworldly beasts have come to a halt. That is likely because those perpetuating the falsehoods of these sightings have finally cowered away into the night.

At my command, the Half King sent two of his braves ahead to find the French encampment. Find it they did; however, they report they were likely fired upon. Our hope for surprise may have been dashed, but this only spurs me to take action sooner before they can prepare for our assault.

The Half King warns of an ambush, but I am schooled in how to defeat that easily enough.

Two of my men tell me the French officer we are set to face has been conspiring with those in an encampment to the far north. Those who would resist the British king in a strange lifestyle where both white man and native mingle, one culture indistinguishable from the other.

Again, of course, these are only rumors.

But my men insist this officer is part of a secret rebellion. His nickname is Renard or “the fox,” charmingly enough.

I will admit, if only here in this journal, I admire this Jumonville. They have established a harmonious colony that seeks only self-governance, peace, and prosperity. A formidable imperial force sees that as a threat—or more likely an opportunity to take it for itself.

It’s dangerous to admit, but I secretly harbor similar feelings. That our American colonies might do better without the oppressive heel of an overseas king.

That is treasonous to even write down, and I expect these words will never be read and instead fed to the fire that has just cooked our breakfast.

Despite the man being our enemy, I very much would like to talk with this Jumonville and hear the tale of how the Acadians have created such a society.

And how they plan to push back their oppressors.

However, the Half King has bloodlust in his eyes and, with reason, hates the French. I’ll have to find the man before the Half King gets a hatchet into his skull.

Whatever happens, this in the grand scheme is a small skirmish. As I’ve said, this battle is a chance for a young major to prove himself.

I expect the events of today, within the story written of this New World, will soon be forgotten.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I stood in the holding cell as Walther tried again to find a comfortable position on the cot. It was tough seeing him pull up the small blanket, knowing that he’d given up his freedom to help me, a dead guy.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Paint.”

“What?” I said. “Man, I don’t—”

“Ha, I’m just teasing you, boy! But you’re being awfully quiet, and it makes me nervous.”

“I’m sorry. I just feel awful,” I said. “I should have taken care of the Cajun. Now, you’re stuck in here.”

He shrugged and began riffling under his bed. “Ah, won’t be long. I don’t got but a month to live, so at least I can go out in style.”

“I can’t help feeling like I failed you.”

“Failed? I can tell the waitress at the Fun Shak, Tori, how her sister died. She stood up to the Cajun. If you’re gonna go, standing up for what’s right’s a good way to do it.”

I nodded and felt my mouth and eyes go watery. Despite... ah hell, who knows?

“Yeah, we did good, huh?”

“And don’t forget. You said that sumbitch was going to have George Washington killed!”

“Right.”

“Hell, I stopped that. Me!”

I cleared my throat. “Well, I mean, it was a collaborative effort, right?”

He pulled something into his lap, sighed, and leaned back on the cold, concrete wall.

“Do you know anything about, you know, the other side? Not your place, but after that.”

“We call it the Next,” I said, sitting down in front of him. His eyes didn’t move when I did. “I suppose that’s because it’s all anyone knows about it. It’s just, you know, the next thing. No one knows.”

He nodded.

“I hope I see my family,” he said, his eyes misting. “Sounds like a fairy tale, but I don’t know.” He looked at me. “I kinda want the fairy tale. I miss my wife.” His shoulders shook. “I miss my girl.”

Looking at him, my heart broke. He hadn’t been lying to Tori when he’d said his daughter had died. She had. For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

“Ah, don’t be sore. I told you I’d made it up cause I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. When you get old, it seems all people got left for you is pity. Well, there’s also the disdain, but mainly there’s pity.”

“Good thing I avoided old age, then,” I said with a chuckle.

“Aw man, sorry. Here I am wallowing, and you never had…”

His thought was interrupted by an odd slurping sound. I looked up at Walther and couldn’t believe what I saw. “How the hell did they let you bring your damn Bloody Mary bottle in here? It’s a jail, man!”

He smiled with red-stained teeth. “It’s N’awlins, son. They do things different here.”

“Let’s not announce that to everyone, how about that?” someone behind me said. “I’m not entirely sure that Travis would approve.”

“Ah, he seems like a good guy, Hollow,” Walther said. “They didn’t let me bring the tank in since I don’t really have a prescription or nothing.”

“Well, they don’t want anyone hanging themselves with tubes, right?” the man named Hollow said as he took a seat on the other side of the glass. “Hey, I’m sorry, but I heard you talking when I came in.” The livie stared at his hands briefly. “Is he here now?”

“Painter? Yeah, but he’s got people waiting on him. Outside,” Walther said, pulling up his blanket. “So he ain’t staying.”

“By people, you mean, um, ghosts?”

“No, I mean, his accountant and stylist.”

Hollow frowned. “What?”

“Yes, for Chrissake. Ghosts.”

Hollow leaned forward and extended his hand. Walther handed him the sports bottle through the gap, and Hollow took a sip and gave it back.

“Not bad,” he said. “Travis says there might be a case to make for self-defense.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, they found a sword next to the Cajun’s body. It’s called a rapier, I think he said. I’ve talked to my crew, and they are starting to remember how he threatened you with it. Then you shot him.”

Walther laughed. “Was that you, Paint? You were gonna stab him with a sword?” He laughed again, more loudly this time.

“I told you I had a plan, man!”

“Can you ask him something for me?” Hollow said. “Can you ask Painter if—”

“He isn’t deaf, Hollow. Ask him yourself.”

“Okay,” the man said. “Painter Mann? Have you ever heard of a young woman named Anne Miller? She’s someone I’ve searched for a long, long time. Died many years ago. It was an accident but…”

His voice trailed off.

I explained to Walther how I hadn’t and wouldn’t.

“Painter says that it doesn’t work like that. Those stuck in the InBetween, they’re murder vics where the killer was never ID’d.”

“‘The InBetween’?”

“Yeah, between here and the Next,” he said. “No accident victims.”

“Maybe he can ask around for me. They say she died of exposure, but it was me who’d hit her. I killed her.”

For a moment, I watched the emotions play across Hollow’s face. I saw something there and told Walther.

“You a mind reader now, Paint?” my friend said and laughed. “Painter says he thinks that ain’t the whole story, Ghost Wrangler. Is it?”

Hollow chuckled to himself, leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. He laughed again and then shrugged.

“About a year after... that day in the snow, I saw something,” he said. “More than saw, I guess. In this busted up warehouse, I’m up on an upper floor and didn’t see that some kids had thrown a tarp over some bits of wood and...” He sighed. “There was a hole, and I go down hard. Fell about fifteen feet to the story below.”

“Holy shit, that gotta hurt.”

Hollow nodded. “But I’m lying there, pipe through my leg, bleeding. Yelling and screaming, you know? I’m there half the damn night, but at some point in all of that, there’s this--” He stopped and shrugged. “It’s a blur. But it’s light, and I can feel emotion. Pain from this whatever.”

“Were you dreaming?”

Hollow shook his head slowly, smiled and shrugged again. Then he looked up. His lip was trembling. “I saw her eyes. All I could really, you know, make out. Her eyes. And, ah hell, she said ‘your fault.’ All she said to me. ‘Your fault.’”

“Jesus, Hollow.”

The man slumped a bit lower in his seat. “She was right. It had been my fault,” he said then looked away and blinked a few times, quickly. “It’s kind of why I got into… you know… all of this.”

Through Walther, I told him I would look into the matter, but I also asked for a favor in return.

Jelly Roll and the others were patiently waiting for me outside, so I left to see them. Before I did, I told Walther I’d be back.

“You better,” he said, smiling. “You know what they do to pretty boys like me in prison?”

***

Hollow walked into the station and found Det. Travis.

They spoke about the case and Walther’s chances of getting out. Depending on the judge, it could go either way. Then he asked if Travis would write up a file on an old murder case and post on the online police blotter.

“Yeah, I suppose. A murder here in N’awlins?”

“No, actually. But Paint—err, Walther says it’s very important. It won’t really matter to anyone but those involved.”

He shrugged and pulled out a pen to write the names down. He spelled the last name out loud: “A-U-B-E-R-T. That right?”

“Yes.”

“Marie and Catherine Aubert. Killed by a Lieutenant Riley. I’ll have to check it out, but if it matters to you—”

“It does.”

“Then no big deal. When was this?”

“Long time ago. Long, long time ago.”

***

It was late. Or early, depending on how you looked at it.

The city was clearing out, and the bars were closing up.

“Where we going, man?”

I led Jelly Roll and naked Brandon past the amphitheater where I’d finally worked out where the Vanished were all hidden.

“It started bubbling up in my mind after I met you, Brandon. But then when one of the Hatters got trapped down in the pit there, I realized where the Vanished were.”

“What does that mean? What do you mean when you met me?”

“I’d tripped over you lying in the street and damn near slid into a street drain. When I looked down, it was just black.”

“Goes under the city. Wait, you think they’re in the sewers?”

“At first I did, but if that were the case, anyone trapped could just call out at a drain until someone heard them.”

“Right, the sewer system ain’t that deep,” Jelly Roll said. “Part of the problem we got in this city. Nothing drain too good.”

“Then I remembered what you said, Jelly. About being a certified communicator.”

Jelly puffed out his chest and looked over at Brandon. “Dat’s right! I had a certificate on my wall.”

“He used to run the ham radio during hurricanes. In the city’s bomb shelter,” I said. “The Cajun had called the Vanished ‘buried treasure.’ And that’s exactly what they are.” Then I looked across the city. “Can you take us to that place, Jelly?”

As he headed through streets and across a park, we gathered a dozen or so other spooks. If I had this right, it would take a few of us.

When we got there, he pointed to a hill.

“That’s man-made. Back in the fifties, they built a shelter that went under the city. There’s a mess hall and sleeping quarters, radio room, even a clinic down there. But it all abandoned now, in ruins.”

“Which likely means the stairs going deep inside have collapsed by now.”

I went to the door, which had been welded shut.

“Move slowly, we don’t want to all fall in,” I said as we slipped inside. Looking in the deep, deep hole, I could just catch the reflection of water below. I called down.

“Hello? Hello, is anyone down there?”

No reply came.

I looked back to the group of spooks waiting, hoping I was right. Jelly Roll came up beside me, and his voice boomed down into the void.

“Angela! Marion! Anybody?”

After a few more seconds, we got something back.

In a small voice, someone said, “Hello? Is there someone up there?”

Jelly spun toward me, excited, and started to move toward the hole, but I warned him he’d just fall in like the rest.

For the next few minutes, we formed a human chain. Rather, we formed a spook chain, one person holding on to the next. By the end of it, about fifteen of us formed a sort of rope to get those below out.

When the first of the Vanished returned, many were weeping. No real tears. Ghosts don’t cry. But the emotion was real enough.

After a few hours, the park was crowded with spooks. Not just those we’d freed. Word got around the city, and people started turning up by the dozens.

Some came down to finally be reunited with loved ones. Others were just there for the spectacle of it.

After they’d all been freed, two hundred thirty-seven people, I scanned the crowd and looked for Mini but didn’t see her.

I’d have to stop by her house and tell her the news. And say goodbye.

Jelly Roll was hugging a young boy when he looked up and saw me.

“This is Alexander. He’s been here longer than most of us. Brave kid.”

“I’m not really a kid,” he said. His shoes were leather, fastened with rope. His clothes were the color of dirt. Up top was a hat too large for his head and looked like a double boiler pot made of felt.

“Now that is a cool hat,” I said.

Then he smiled and waved at me. “You the guy who got us out?”

“Nah, there was a bunch of us. I just got lucky and worked out where he’d hidden all of you.”

“He? Who’s that?”

“The Cajun. He was using spooks, converting them into... ah, doesn’t matter now.”

Alexander rubbed his chin, looked back at the group, and then at me again. “The Cajun didn’t put us down in that bunker. I wouldn’ta put it past him to be involved, but I never heard anyone mention him.”

“Then who rounded all of you up?”

“That’s the weird part,” Alexander said. “It was a bunch of different people. In fact, everybody got dragged down there by someone else.”

“Like an army of people?” My heart clutched. Had the Ghost Mob gotten back on their feet already?

“No, no. They weren’t strangers. Me, I looked up that night and saw Joe Haley come out of the dark. I hadn’t seen him for years. Centuries, really!”

“That’s crazy. Do you think this Joe guy had something to do with it?”

Alexander shook his head. “No one else saw him. It was different for everybody. Old friends, relatives. Someone said she’d seen an old tutor of hers.”

Jelly Roll shrugged. “How would all those people get involved in some craziness like this?”

I thought for a moment and said, “You guys had never seen them around?”

“No, even crazier is that my friend Joe died on the farm. Horse got spooked when they were out plowing. Head was crushed. He wasn’t murdered.”

“Then… that doesn’t make sense.”

But then it did.

Everyone saw someone different. Or, maybe, they saw someone they wanted to see. I knew one person who had that kind of power. When I’d seen her, she’d been naked, long flowing hair. Actually, I suppose I’d had it in my head Voodoo Cher might be another version of Cher.

Like Barbie. Maybe my version—or vision—of her was the singer-actress-animal-rights-activist as she might appear as a voodoo princess.

Obviously, I had some deep-seated emotional problems.

“I’m going to go talk to Voodoo Cher.” I started heading for the Cajun’s house, but then Jelly stopped me.

“Ya can’t. People saying she gone.”

“Wait, I thought she couldn’t leave the house. Some spell?”

Jelly shook his head. “When the Cajun—”

“Ah, shit, that’s right,” I said then realized I was missing a big part of the puzzle. “Wait, why did they imprison her down there? Were they using her for something?”

“Well, Cajun Deaux wadn’t no angel, that’s for sure, but Voodoo Cher had a hate for the living like you don’t know. Now, Jelly don’ like spreading rumor...”

I nodded. “Spread, man.”

“Okay, so, rumor was she was gonna use all them spooks, their energy, to do something about, you know, gettin' even. Had designs, you see?”

“No, I don’t.”

“She want everyone, all of them, gone. Every last one of the living dead and gone. The Cajun had his own plans, not good ones now, but they didn’t involve, you know, wiping out the entire people race.”

There had to be more to the story. “I don’t accept that the Cajun and his witch were doing anything to save the world.”

“Nah, they was bad folk, no question. Selfish in they design. But I hear someone hired the Cajun to pen her up. No one knows who. Still, that worked for him since to do whatever he was doing, her thing couldn’t happen. At least that’s what I been told.”

What had I done?

“And I let her free.”

Jelly put a hand on my shoulder. “Nah, Painter. You freed all these people. Hundreds of spooks that would have been trapped down there for who knows how long. At least until ol’ Cher was ready to use ’em.”

“For what?”

With a shrug, Jelly said, “Don’t think too hard on it. You did a good thing.” He turned and looked at the young boy—well, he was young in appearance—who was laughing with a couple of women. “Thank you for bringing back Alexander and all of our friends. We owe you, Painter Mann.”

“I dunno,” I said. “Think I may have made things worse.”

“Look at the faces of the people here, now. Look at our fine city. You think this place looks worse?”

For now, I took in his enthusiasm and enjoyed it. For now. Then another thought came to mind.

“Where’s Mini?”

Jelly looked at his thick fingers. “She ain’t here no more. She was keeping tabs on Voodoo Cher. I think maybe she’s doing that now. Maybe trying to find her.”

Then it occurred to me. Maybe the Cajun and his witch hadn’t been strong enough to keep the voodoo woman in the basement. But combined with spells from Madame Mini?

She’d said she had an “unsettling familiarity” with the man. I remembered that old expression about “the devil you know.” Had she begrudgingly partnered with the Cajun and his witch to keep Voodoo Cher trapped?

I felt a sharp pain in my calf and spun around.

Jelly said, “She left her cat behind, though.”

“Oh, shit. Who’s going to take care of it?”

“Nobody gotta take care of that mangy old thing,” Jelly said and laughed, drawing a growl from the creature. “No feedin’ or nothing. It just do what it want.”

I watched as the cat missing half its ear leaned and rubbed against my leg in the same spot where it had swiped.

“Oh, now you like me. Now your momma’s gone, huh?”

“Be good to him. He’s had it rough, that li’l mutt there,” Jelly said, and started walking toward the group. “Don’t be a stranger, Paint. You one of us now so you always gotta home in N’awlins!”

“What ‘be good to him’? I’m not a cat person.” I looked down and frowned at the creature. “You need to go find a new momma, Ferris Wheel. I ain’t it.”

***

I was going to keep good on my promise to be with Walther for his last remaining days. They were moving him to the Louisiana state penitentiary while the prosecutor worked out what to do. He still hadn’t been officially charged, but what was the point of putting a guy on trial when he’d be dead within weeks?

“Maybe I’ll go to Bermuda for a while,” I said, leaning back and staring up at the night sky above Stone Mountain.

Lying on her back, the Professor said, “Bermuda’s nice. I was there a long time ago now. They’ve got shells on the beach as big as your hand.”

“Were you there when you were alive or dead?”

The Professor rolled toward me, propped up on one elbow. “When are you going to get it in your head those sort of delineations don’t really mean anything? Painter, your life isn’t over. You’re one of very few on the planet who knows death isn’t the end. You’re alive now. Just not living.”

“I’m far too tired for deep philosophical discussions.”

“Okay,” she said, lying on her back again and staring up. “Letting us ignore the fact, of course, you’re dead and can’t get tired.”

“Emotionally tired. That’s a thing, right?”

“I don’t think so.”

She was probably my best friend, but she had a hell of a way of cheering people up.

We talked about the stars for a little while, something we both liked to do. Then after a few minutes of quiet, she got back to business.

“You going back to the Twin Cities?”

“After I go see Walther. He doesn’t want to be alone, and he did save four hundred million people, so I think I can hang for a few weeks.”

“You’ve got a good heart.”

“Despite, of course, not having a heart.”

Finally, I broached the subject I wanted to. Getting straight answers out of the Professor was hard, but I felt I’d earned it.

“She made this place, didn’t she? Our world,” I said. “The InBetween.”

The Professor was quiet for a moment. She sighed and said, “Knowing that is very dangerous for you. She’ll see you as a threat.”

“Me? What kind of threat am I? The things she can do.” I laughed. “It’s funny. I told her she can’t play God. But, I guess, in this place, she kinda is.”

“How did you find out? About Voodoo Cher.”

I’d thought about this a lot on my way back to Georgia to see the Professor.

I said, “I think something happened to me when I was in the All Time. When I touch other spooks, I now see things. Their past, their death.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“When I touched her, I saw… flashes of her. Hidden parts. Stuff I can’t even get my head around. But I felt that blackness, the hate.”

“Revenge,” the Professor said. “She was killed by a mob because she loved a man she wasn’t supposed to. When alive, she had known something about voodoo. But it must be more than that.”

Once again, my friend stared off to the west. “When she was murdered, she used the power she had to create a place between the living world and the Next. She wants to punish not just those who had killed her but all living people.”

I nodded. “Take away life like it had been taken from her.”

“Yes.”

The InBetween hadn’t been forged by God or Devil. That realm had been borne out of anguish, hate, and a twisted form of the most powerful force in the universe.

Love.

Voodoo Cher created this place for revenge. Revenge against all living things.

I thought for a moment. “I’m going to destroy the InBetween.”

“Oh?” the Professor asked, and I could hear a small smile in her voice.

“It’s not supposed to be here. All these people I’m trying to help clear, help move on to the Next? That won’t be necessary if I destroy it.”

We didn’t speak for a long time.

Then, my friend asked, “Do you think you can do it?”

I leaned over and looked at her, my head resting on the stone below us. The Professor’s eyes were closed, and it all became clear to me.

“That’s why you sent me to see her,” I said. “It wasn’t just to find my way out. It was to find everyone’s way out.” She didn’t answer, so I asked, “Isn’t it?”

She repeated her question: “Do you think you can do it?”

I laughed. “You mean fight God to destroy her Heaven?”

“She is not God.”

“Right. Then maybe she’s the other guy,” I said. Then I fell silent. At that moment, I had the strangest déjà vu.

Then, I thought, Voodoo déjà vu? Déjà voodoo?

“I gotta go find Walther,” I said, stretching. “Then maybe go fight the Devil.”

She smiled then casually pointed above her head. “Just take that thing when you go.”

I heard a low growl and then a hiss.

“I’m not taking him anywhere. He’s following me, now.”

“Uh, huh.”

“What? I am not a cat person. Certainly not a dead cat person. I know that about myself.” Then I felt a strange warmth as Ferris Wheel the cat rubbed up against the top of my head. “But I’ve been wrong about who I think I am before.”

“You have no idea.”

“What?” I said. “You’re no help. And you’re supposed to be this big smart guru.”

“Not how the whole guru thing works. I can’t give you the answers. You’ve got to come up with them yourself.”

“Even if it means I wind up dead.”

“Hate to break it to you, kid. You are dead.”

I looked up at a constellation I wished I could remember the name of.

“Nah,” I said. “Not yet.”

End

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank, first and foremost, the early readers of The Night Vanishing: Gene Black and Paula Knox. Also, to my friend at the other end (of the Earth), author Jack Roach. Your insight is a treasure to me, and this book is better because of it.

A big thanks, too, to Christopher Locke of the Independent Book Publishers Association. You are a force of nature, man.

And, as always, to my lovely wife Tiffany Wybrow, who tolerates me when I’m “behind the closed door” writing and still loves me when I come out. You are my best friend.

DEAR LOVELY, GOOD-LOOKING READER…

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A preview of Book 6 in the Hell inc Series:

Past Life

CHAPTER ONE

I felt the impact. Didn’t hurt of course, I don’t have a real body anymore, it’s one-hundred percent Casper. But it surprised the hell out of me.

I’d fallen into some sort of deep hole. Underground, somewhere beneath the bandshell. I knew the asshole chasing me would be up there searching, wondering where I’d gone.

Funny thing. That’s exactly what I was doing.

What the hell?

Surrounding me was the sort of dark that can make an atheist reconsider their options. Admittedly, I’m more of an agnostic. But in some cases, an agnostic is just an atheist with commitment issues.

If this hole was very deep, getting out would be hard. Or impossible.

I tried not to think it was impossible.

Dizzy from using all that juice, I lay there listening to the distant, echoing chatter of a couple of transients arguing up top about whose space was whose.

Then I heard him. Through all that dirt and stone and Georgia clay between us, his voice was faint. But it still sent an icy chill through me.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered.

I froze on the spot, willing him to go away. For a long, long minute, I just waited, listening.

It was hard to discern the movements of ghost from livie, but I’d been able to pick up on the differences. The sound ghosts made wasn’t actually sound. It was hard to describe. Intent?

Up top, I heard the guy sigh and curse under his breath. He’d bought it. In his mind, I was gone, maybe halfway across the county or the country now.

I could hear him shuffling away to leave, but he said, “We got a score to settle, you and me. What you did to my girl. Payback is coming.”

Then he was gone.

Despite myself, I exhaled. Just a habit from being alive, but it still felt cleansing.

“That boy got something in for you something fierce, now.”

My calm snapped away like I’d been electrocuted, and I sat up, quickly pushing my arms out reflexively to ward off any attack. Whoever had spoken, I couldn’t see them. That didn’t make sense.

Only another spook could have seen me, and in the dark, whoever it was, they would glow. How were they hiding from me? Why were they hiding from me?

Trying to sound tough, I asked in a growl, “Who are you?”

In truth, my tough sounded too plaintive. My growl sounded like it had come from some skinny stray dog’s empty stomach. Instead of establishing I was some badass mother not to be messed with, I’d sounded more like a pig-tailed toddler in the back of a station wagon whining that I had to go pee.

The man just chuckled, deep throaty, sing-song.

“Why can’t I see you?” I asked, my voice quivering. “You’re not… You’re not using voodoo or something, are you?”

The chuckle turned to a full-body laugh. The guy said, “Voodoo? Boy, what the hell is wrong with you? Sound like you had a hellacious time of things.” Another laugh. “Voodoo! I bet you got stories.”

I wasn’t going to be taken in by some folksy guy trying to play like he wanted to trade tales. Strangers can be dangerous, and I didn’t trust anyone who wasn’t, well, me.

“Why are you hiding?”

“I ain’t hiding.”

It was quiet for a moment, then I felt the guy move closer and shot him a warning. “I don’t like to be touched! Back off.”

Another laugh.

I growled, trying not to shout. “Why can’t I see you?”

The laughing turned into a sing-song sigh. He said, “Because you got your eyes closed.”

Oh.

When I opened them, I got a quick bead on my surroundings. We were in a long tunnel, earthen and damp. On one of the walls was a long strip of weather-rotted wood with rusted chains hanging off it. At the ends of the chains were broken manacles.

I looked back to the man who’d spoken to me. He kept smiling, but only nodded, as something silent passed between us.

I asked, “How do I get out of here?”

He leaned back against a wall, putting his hands behind his head. “You don’t.”

“What does that mean?”

He closed his eyes and shrugged. “S’pose you might as well rest up, get used to it for a while. I’ve been down here a hundred-fifty years.” He then opened one eye and smiled. “Give or take. And trust me: it take more than it give.”

One day earlier…

CHAPTER TWO

The Death of Mechanic Ray Scones

“Hey, Google, play the Rolling Stones,” Ray Scones said as he tossed his keys into the small wicker basket under the light switch. He sighed as he pushed his front door closed with a shoulder before walking into the dark house.

A tinny voice said, “Playing Stone Roses on Spotify.”

“Ugh, no!” he said, his head falling forward. If nothing else, Ray was happy Trish wasn’t home. She didn’t like it when he came in smelling like oil, dirt, and grease. In the summer, she would often make him go in through the garage. “Like a dog or something,” he’d tell the other guys at the Audi service shop to howls of laughter.

For the next few days, Ray would have the house to himself because his wife was trying to finish a script she wanted to submit to Netflix, a TV pilot she’d started at a weekend creative writing course down in Atlanta.

Apparently, all the Big Time Writers would hole up in hotels to finish their great works, so Trish Scones was now doing the same. It wouldn’t be the Ritz, but it was still more money than they both would have liked to have spent.

Ray had agreed, mostly because it was something that made her happy. And a very small part was that having the entire house to himself for a few days was a bit of freedom. Like being a bachelor but without the soul-crushing Tinder swiping.

Right now, more than anything, he just wanted a beer and to sit down to watch TV. He would have to get out of his clothes first. If Trish came home and saw grease stains on the couch from his coveralls, she’d shit kittens.

“Play the Rolling Stones,” he tried again, unlacing his work boots.

Silence.

Ray sighed. “It’s like playing Mother May I,” he mumbled. “Hey, Google, play the fucking Rolling Stones.”

Lights whirred across the small surface of the Google Nest Mini Trish had bought him for his birthday. She’d gotten it on a two-for-one deal, but he knew of course that she’d just wanted one for herself. Giving it as a birthday present had been the equivalent of when a kid sneaks a cookie then hands one to their sibling: “Look, I got you a cookie too!”

The robotic voice said, “Playing the Funky Tones on Spotify.”

He swore softly and walked into the next room, while some odd bass-and-keyboard monstrosity bled out throughout the first floor. Another speaker in the kitchen had picked up the beat, pumping the lyrics through the house: “What, what? Listen, can you smell that? Listen, listen—can you smell that?”

Ray sighed. “The hell does that even mean?”

Instead of asking the tiny device to turn on the kitchen lights—who knew what it might do instead?—he flicked the switch with a greasy finger, making a mental note to clean it up later. Again, he could ask the “smart” speaker to set a reminder for him, but he worried it might instead donate the contents of their savings to some Save the Pandas charity.

Ray reached for the fridge, but then hesitated and looked at his hands. At the sink, he ran them under some warm water and grabbed an embroidered hand towel to strip off some of the grime. When he looked at the towel, he saw the monogram: TSD.

Ah, shit. One of Trish’s towels that weren’t supposed to be used as towels, something that never quite made sense to Ray. Another sigh.

He went back to the light switch, wiped off the greasy smudge there, and then pocketed the towel to dispose of it later—or maybe burn it.

After rummaging around the fridge—pushing aside some Greek yogurt and knocking over a couple tiny bottles of something called Yakult—he finally came out with the beer. He closed the fridge and saw someone standing in the doorway.

Ray took a step back and gripped the bottle tightly. His first thought was to throw it at the intruder. Then he saw what was in their hand.

“That’s my gun,” he said, his voice shaking with a sickening mix of fear and rage. “How the hell did you get that?”

* * *

Ray Scones stood in his kitchen, a faint humming in his ears. Confused and disoriented, he looked around to such a strange tableau. He couldn’t process it right away. Swaths of dark red were smeared across the walls.

He heard his back porch bang open. The screen door bounced— one, two, three—like it always did. He’d planned to fix that when he had time.

When he looked down, he noticed a big thick pool, like a can of dark-red paint had been kicked over. And then he saw himself—lying on the floor.

“What the hell?” Ray looked at his hands again, grease-stained and dirty. Trish was going to be so mad with all the blood everywhere. He reached for the towel, but he couldn’t get his hand in his pocket.

He tried again.

Then he looked down at his coveralls. He could see the pocket, but dammit, his hand would not slip inside! Above that gap, he saw the flesh of his chest, burnt and dripping with blood and gore.

Ray screamed, stumbled back, and passed right through the wall into the living room. He screamed again, and then stumbled to the floor.

A figure stood over him. “You’re all right,” the man said. “But, sorry to say, you are dead. Don’t worry. Happens to the best of us.”

From the floor, Ray shrieked again.

“And you’re going to have to stop screaming. It attracts the…” The other ghost put out his hand, but Ray flinched away. “No one can hear you. I mean, I can hear you. You’ve got a hell of a set of lungs. Not that you really have lungs anymore.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Sorry man,” the other said. “Like I said, you’re dead.”

“Wh-Wh-What, where… how can…?”

“Well,” the man said and knelt down next to Ray, who was now up on his elbows. “The how is, far as I can reckon, that the young man who just skedaddled out of here shot you.”

“No.”

“Yes, that’s about the whole of it,” the man said, scratching some peach fuzz on his chin. “As for the where, you are now in the InBetween. It’s where people like you, like me, get kinda caught up when we’re killed.”

“No, no, no!”

“Listen, I can help you,” the other man said. “That’s what I do. I help others like you. Ghosts.”

Ray scanned the room, his eyes dancing in their sockets. “How?”

The man stood back up. “I’ll look into who that kid was, so that the world knows who killed you. It’ll rebalance everything, and you’ll get out of here. To do that… I need you to take a look at something. Get up. Come with me.”

“W-W-What? Why?”

“As I said, it’s my job.” The man smiled. “My name is Jimmy Withy. And I am the world’s best private investigator.”

CHAPTER THREE

My name is Painter Mann, and I was in trouble.

You might think that was an odd state for a ghost to be, sure. If that is your thought, then you don’t know much about being dead. Can’t blame you. I didn’t know much about that sort of thing until I’d died.

The dead don’t sleep, so I spent a lot of time wandering around. And window-shopping.

At that moment, I wasn’t staring into the shops of Marietta Square —a heavy-metal T-shirt and record outlet, a rundown wedding dress store, and a hole-in-the-wall bar called Wicked Lester’s. I was flying past them, without a second glance—oh, except for that “Kill ’em All” black shirt, which was new—taking each corner as quickly as I could.

It was dark, so I could easily be seen. And I was being chased. Again.

In my early days in the InBetween, maybe a year ago now, that had happened a lot. I still worried about getting caught by black-hearted thugs like the Ghost Mob. They had been hell-bent on waging war on the living, and I’d gotten tangled up in the middle of it.

But after I took out their power grid—one that could give physical substance to an army of the dead—they’d fallen apart. Drifted away. Some might have even passed on to whatever was Next.

However, that would only happen if their individual killers had been identified. That was how it worked. Those stuck in the InBetween were there because they’d been murdered and the perp hadn’t been identified yet.

Perp.

That was a new term for me. Sure, I had faint memories of hearing “perp” in TV cop shows, but I’d never felt comfortable just whipping it out. Still don’t. But my new instructor, a cop in suburban Atlanta, he used it like others say cat or danish.

Being the world’s best private investigator, or rather the best dead private investigator, carried a lot of responsibilities. Well, just the one —I had to find the names of peoples’ killers so the dead could move on.

But just because I was the world’s best dead PI didn’t mean I was any good at it. I wasn’t. So that mantle of “best” came with a caveat: I was the only one. So I was also the worst.

And given my skill set, “worst” was probably a better way of introducing myself.

That was why I’d taken up an apprenticeship with a cop in Marietta, Georgia, named Paul Barnes. He was smart about this investigator stuff. And the best part: he muttered when he thought and when he read. That gave me insight on how to work stuff out.

Of course, I was a ghost. He didn’t even know I was there. However, that was not the case of some bad spook who’d zeroed in on me yet again.

A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed he was back there, moving quickly. Nowhere near my top speed, but no one else in the InBetween could “skate” like I could. He was running fast, though, faster than any other ghost I’d seen here.

Over the past few weeks, I’d ditched this guy again and again. I’d never seen his face up close, but I could feel him. He’d become familiar to me.

After another street, I took a quick left and whipped by a covered streetlamp, where three teenage girls were smoking. They didn’t blink an eye as I rocketed past, and the smoke ignored me entirely.

Turn, run, turn. If I weren’t so scared, I would have smiled. Dude must wonder why I keep to the streets.

The main reason was the stain. That was the residue from other ghosts who’d passed through an area, kind of like those nifty motorcycles in Tron but not so solid. In those crisscrossing trails along the streets of Marietta, I could hide my tracks.

There!

The light was low this time of night, which was bad for spooks. In the dark, we glowed like those little sticks they put on toddlers at Halloween—tiny green-white plastic fingers bobbing as kids ran from door to door.

That was why I was gunning for Haynes Street. There I would find what I called “Electric Avenue,” a long, wide sloping field on the edge of town.

Straddling the grass in a long line were these hulking, ten-story-tall steel-lattice towers. They looked like a battalion of War of the Worlds invaders that had lost contact with the mothership and just stopped. They now waited silently, awaiting further instruction. The long-dormant monsters held up the thick black ropes that powered the city. All that electricity could give a ghost cover, too, since the stain they left behind got lost in the static wash.

I passed by the field and raced up the street, planning to double back and rabbit away. Those were his words, not mine: “Run, rabbit, run!”

I made my one-eighty and started scanning from left to right, but he was out of sight. I hooked right, about to shoot down Electric Avenue, thinking it would be time to pour on the gas and lose him.

But he’d worked me out. “There you are!”

Oh shit.

He’d been tucked behind a row of tall Georgia pines, waiting. The spook raced at me and drunk on some brew of frustration and fear, I tried something different—I ran toward him. He’d not seen that move from me before, and he faltered, planting his feet.

Within spitting distance, I juked quickly to the left, then again to the right, and went around him like a stock car avoiding a crash on turn two.

The prick was almost as quick, though, shooting an arm out at me and, just as I passed, his ghostly fingertips nearly caught me on the elbow. I felt a drop of energy dip out of me as it passed into him.

That was the big fear. That was what I had to, had to avoid. Losing my energy, my juice.

Enough playing with this guy, time to turn on the speed. I began pumping my legs as I had as a kid, moving faster and faster and faster.

When he called out, I couldn’t help it—I glanced back.

“Painter Mann! Where ya going? Just wanna talk, fella. Slow down. Let’s catch us a beer!”

Then he laughed in a way that rippled through me, turning my stomach sour, despite no longer having a stomach. That was the first time I’d ever heard him call my name. He knows me?

Maybe he didn’t want to cause me any harm? Maybe he’d needed help? For an instant, my legs slackened. I started to turn, but then saw he was coming full steam toward me.

Nah. No time to catch up.

I rocketed back to the square—a lot of light there—but now he was moving. He could run even faster than he’d let on. Really pouring it on.

As I made the circuit, doubling back, I again caught sight of the smokers, but they looked different. Two instead of three now. That was when I noticed one of them was now on the ground, the others helping her back to her feet.

Behind me, the ghost cackled with delight.

Wait? Did he use some juice to knock one down?

No time to think about it, I hooked the corner and sprinted down the block.

“Come here!”

“Shit, man!” I shouted. Holy hell, he’d caught up to me. His grubby fingers—and they were grubby—took a swipe again, nearly grabbing my arm. For the first time, I got a good look at him.

The hands of a workman, scarred and dirty. The sleeves of his thick coat looked like they’d been fashioned from wool and bailing wire. The look on the old guy’s grizzled face, deep lines and some blackened teeth, told me he was really looking forward to beating the hell out of me and stealing my energy.

Time to end this dance for now. I forgot all about being coy, gritted my teeth, and started pouring on the gas.

“Time to skate,” I said.

Faster and faster, I moved. The trees, buildings, and homes began to blur, and I felt myself lift just slightly. It was not as if actual skates appeared on my feet—at least I didn’t think so. But once I was “skating,” I could move faster than anything else on the planet.

I figured the most remote part of the United States would be a bit northwest, so I pointed that way, hit the afterburners, and didn’t stop until I saw the sun coming up. I slowed when I saw tall trees, a vast clear blue lake, and snow-capped mountains.

“Huh,” I said when I’d finally slowed down. “That is a picture postcard.”

Anyone who’d never seen the Canadian Rockies in the sun was missing out. After a few moments to take in the sheer beauty of it, I turned in the direction of Atlanta and headed back toward where I was, for now, calling home. It would take me a few hours, so I would use that time to think.

Who the hell is that guy?

CHAPTER FOUR

Ellie Walsh had been a very good cop and a very good investigator. She would remind herself of this as she dressed.

When she laced up her shiny black shoes. As she draped the Saint Christopher cross around her neck. While grabbing her big hat for the sun, umbrella for when it rained, and a small bag of candy to break the ice.

Those around her wouldn’t have described it such, but it was all armor.

After nearly two decades since retiring from Ireland’s Gardaí, her shoes were the same department-mandated sort when she was on the job. She still wore them because they fit so well. Or, at least, that’s what she’d told herself.

Saint Christopher had been a concession to her late father, a cop who’d always hoped he would have a son who might pick up the torch.

He’d gotten Ellie.

Dad had eventually come around to the notion that his daughter would be the son he’d never had. And he’d insisted she wear the cross.

She carried with her the skills both her parents had taught her. Some were obvious; some weren’t. Ellie knew she looked like some little old lady, maybe a killer gin rummy player, but she was and always would be a cop.

Ellie sighed. All that effort to get ready with nowhere to go. Then there was a knock at the door.

When she went to the foyer of her house, she saw a uniformed woman through the glass, who gave her a small wave.

CHAPTER FIVE

The large man looked like he should have been a wrestler. Or, in the cop uniform, maybe a male stripper with breakaway clothes and a police cap resting jauntily to one side on his large head.

Scribbling in his notepad with the tiny, chewed pencil, he almost bumped into the lead detective, Marietta Police Detective Paul Barnes.

“Anything from the neighbors, Sampson?”

The officer dropped his arms. “Really, sir?”

Barnes laughed. “Sorry, I’ve heard it around. It’s a compliment, boot. And you’ve been trimming down good. Otherwise, you coulda been called Sasquatch.”

“Were those the only two options?” The big man blinked. “What about Hulk?”

“You ain’t that green, Officer Filoialli,” Barnes said, eliciting a small smile from the big man. It seemed the detective was one of the few who could actually pronounce his name right. “Anything useful?”

“Seems the deceased lived alone—”

“Mr. Morgan,” Barnes said, crouching down to take another look at the body. “His name is William Morgan. Let’s not put ’im on a slab just yet. That’ll come soon enough.”

Filoialli nodded, as if taking notes on another pad, this one in his head. “Yeah, so I spoke to the surrounding properties. All places pretty much like this one. Originally, this here was supposed to be just the two houses, but they sold so fast, the developer chucked another three on this lot to make some easy money.” The officer looked around, tugging at the waistband of his slacks. “Messes with the drainage, according to the lady next door.”

“Helpful. Anything about Mr. Morgan?”

“Right. Retired, wife may have died a few years back. It seems he doesn’t talk to anyone, mostly stays at home. Next door lady says when she moved in, she used to call over hello when she saw him, but the old guy just ignored her. Oh, a few of them mentioned a bird.”

Barnes nodded. “Saw the cage. No bird.”

“Yeah, very squawky, apparently. Especially in the morning, but compared to the previous occupants—some low-level meth dealers —no biggie.”

“Ya should look into local crackheads,” an old woman said, standing in the doorway of the attached garage. One arm was wrapped through the loops of a large brown purse. The other hand was gripping the handle of an orange umbrella, its tip poking into the cement. She leaned into it.

“Who are you?” Detective Barnes asked, standing up.

From the threshold, she looked around the scene. “Maybe they buried some stash, came back for it.”

“Ma’am, you can’t be back here,” Barnes said. “Joseph, who is this woman?”

“It… uh…” The large officer pulled out his pad and flipped through it for a moment. “I think—”

“Ellie Walsh,” she said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I live a block over. One of your officers said the man who lived here was killed.”

“What?” Barnes said. “They told you that?”

Ellie smiled. “Not on purpose,” she said. “She’s a young and bright officer, though. She’ll do all right for herself. Might not yet be ready for wit-stats, but it’ll come to her.”

Barnes frowned and called out, “Can someone take Ms. Walsh out of here, please?”

“Did you say ‘wit-stats’?” Officer Filoialli said. “Your accent is, uh, troubling. Is that Irish?”

“I don’t have an accent. All you lot do.” The woman took a step forward. When the Atlanta sun hit her, a straw boater hat shaded her face, its drawstring hanging loosely around her ears. “Witness statements, Officer Joseph. Wit-stats.”

“Officer Filoialli.”

“Apologies,” Ellie said and grinned. “Would you like a lolly? It’s hard candy, because the soft stuff gets stuck in my teeth. Well, they ain’t my teeth, but I paid good money for them.”

Despite himself, Barnes smiled, looking at the old woman. She was holding out a small white paper bag, its top curled down to expose a rainbow of tiny spherical shapes. Officer Filoialli stared at them, reached forward, then stole a glance back to his senior.

“Go ahead,” he said and sighed. “Then get her out of here.” He caught the woman’s look and added, “Please.”

Ellie said, “Don’t take the green ones.”

“Why not?” The uniform’s hand hovered over the bag.

“Because I like the green ones,” Ellie said. “Those are for me.” She pointed a finger at the top of the small sack. “Plenty others in there, all of them good. Get ’em sent over from the old country.”

The big cop pulled one out, held it in his hand for a moment, then popped it in his mouth.

“Purple, good choice,” she said. “It signifies royalty, devotion, and ambition.”

“Tastes like grape.”

“It also signifies grape,” Ellie said, nodding.

“Okay, okay.” Barnes walked over to the other two. “Enough. Can you please take the lady inside now? And don’t you know you’re not supposed to take candy from strangers?”

The officer smiled and crunched the purple candy. “Not a stranger. She said her name is Ellie.”

“My crime scene is no place for Ellie, so—”

“Detective, I assure you there’s nothing here I ain’t seen before,” Ellie said, craning her neck around Barnes. “Seen plenty of dead bodies in my day.”

“This one of yours, then?” Barnes asked.

“Nah,” she said, moving to walk around the cop. “Mine I always tossed in the channel, takes ’em out to sea.”

Barnes sighed and gently grabbed her arm. “Ma’am—”

“I am not a ma’am,” Ellie said, her eyes darting around William Morgan’s backyard. Its owner lay next to an array of lush, well-tended plants. He had a claw hammer in the back of his head. “I’m a detective sergeant with An Garda Síochána, Wicklow. And you’ve got a dead man in the garden.”

“Thank you, Detective Sergeant Ellie Walsh, but I can’t imagine anyone called Ireland’s National Police, unless there’s something I’m not aware of.”

“Oh,” Ellie said, then grinned wickedly. “I expect there’s a fair bit of that.”

“How can you be… I mean, you’re like a hundred,” Filoialli said.

“Seventy-four,” Ellie said and popped an eyebrow. “And I’m retired.”

When she began to move forward, Barnes took a step toward her. “Ah, if you are former police, you’ll know we can’t have you mess up the crime scene. I prefer—where did those come from?”

Ellie was holding up her hands. Both were covered in gloves similar to what the detective was wearing. Except they were pink. “Had ’em in my purse.”

The officer said, “You carry around crime-scene gloves?”

“Never know when you’ll need ’em,” Ellie said and gently pulled from Barnes’s grip. Surveying the area, she kept on the stones of the path, cautious not to leave any marks. There was a high fence all around the property—dark wooden boards staggered so no one could see through.

Along the back was a raised outcropping with railroad tiles, about two feet up the fence line, that looked a little like a giant window box running the length of the property. To her left was a gleaming metal shed. Fifteen feet from the shed lay William Morgan.

For a moment, she just looked, taking it all in.

On the windowsill to her right, Ellie saw a dozen glass jars, about the size baby food was sold in. Half of them had seedlings inside, basking in the sun. With a quick move, Ellie snatched one of the empties and tucked it into her purse.

When she looked back toward the dead man, Barnes stepped in and blocked the view with his body.

“You knew Mr. Morgan, then?”

“No,” she said. “Never spoke to the man, but I did see him at the coffee shop up the road.”

Barnes nodded. “He ever there with anyone?”

She shook her head. “Old fella was there every day like clockwork, every morning, but in more than a year, I never once saw him speak to a soul. Not even the staff.” She then cocked her head, looked back to the house, and said, “Huh. Well, right. That’s one mystery solved.”

“Do you know anything about him? Wife? Kids? Job?”

Again, she shook her head, temporarily lost in thought. The detective sighed and jammed his hands in his pockets.

“Listen, I appreciate you… being here, but we are working a crime scene,” Barnes said. “Can I get you to please go inside and give a full statement to one of the unis?”

“Already did.”

“Then, um, detective sergeant—”

“Oh, please. Just Ellie.”

“Right, then please, Ellie, can you vacate my crime scene?” Barnes tried to get a lock on her eyes, but she was moving her head around like a bird. “As, you know, a professional courtesy?”

The old Irish detective gave him a smile. “Sure.”

Barnes turned toward one of the officers and called out. “Officer Patches.”

“Patching, sir.”

“Right, Officer Patching,” Barnes said. “Can you help Ms. Walsh to the front of the house?”

The tall, lanky cop stood up and asked, “Who?”

When the detective turned back, Ellie Walsh was no longer standing there.

* * *

Upon my return from the Canadian hinterlands, I’d gone to the police station to look for Detective Barnes and get back to my PI training. After searching the place—and avoiding the screaming spook in there, losing her mind—I heard a couple of officers talking about Barnes being at a murder scene in south Marietta.

I headed toward the house of a man named William Morgan.

* * *

Ellie could hear Barnes outside talking with the other officers as she stood in the dark, sweating. The Atlanta heat had cranked up in recent days, making the temperature inside the metal shed almost unbearable.

An hour before, a neighbor had called in to say they’d heard a groan and crash, insisting someone go over and check on the old man in the garden. A short time later, William Morgan was found dead.

Several young uniforms were dispatched to door knock the neighborhood. When one arrived at the retired Irish detective’s home, she’d employed what fellow cops derisively used to call the “Ellie Walsh kung fu-sion technique.” A skill she’d learned from her mother, it was speaking quickly with open-ended declarative statements, surgical interruptions, and wild assumptions that triggered the other party to involuntarily reveal the very thing they’d tried to keep secret.

Flustering the officer, she’d learned that William Morgan had been murdered and was now laid out in his backyard.

Now standing in the dark, she could hear the footfalls of the cops on the other side. She sighed, knowing that, even with the protective covering on their shoes, they would inadvertently change the scene just by walking across the lawn.

Two fingers to her neck, Ellie checked her pulse and said, “Good.”

Her heartbeat was fast. The heat was starting to do some damage, so even if she didn’t get what she wanted she would soon have to get out. But she had also felt the trickle of sweat down her neck and even more rolling down her back, and that was also good news. That would help.

For the next few minutes, she stood there in the shed, the empty jar in one hand, its lid in the other.

When she came out a few minutes later, breathing harder than she wished she were, the lid was on the jar.

“That ain’t the toilet,” a young cop with an unfortunate mustache said. He smiled at her. “You lost, ma’am?”

“No, officer,” Ellie said, wiping the side of her face with her wrist. She’d long given up brushing powder on her sallow cheeks, so she had no concerns about getting stains on her pristine white shirt. “But I think I found your sense of humor in there. It’s locked up tight in a box with no key.”

Hearing her voice, Detective Barnes, who was down on one knee inspecting the deceased, spun around. “Jesus Christ, what are you still doing here?”

“She was in the shed,” Officer Patching said.

Ellie caught the expression on Barnes’s face. “Don’t worry. I didn’t touch anything.”

“I don’t care—”

Before he could finish, Ellie held up both of her hands, one still clutching the empty glass jar.

Barnes pointed at it. “Ms. Walsh, please put that back where you found it.”

Officer Filoialli appeared at the door to the garage. “Detective Barnes, I did some—”

“Why is she still here?” Barnes pointed at Ellie, who was closing the shed, holding just the edge of its metal door.

“I thought she left.” The officer shrugged. “Okay, we finished up some initial neighbor wit-stats—”

“Christ,” Barnes said, groaning. “Don’t say that word!”

“It’s a good word,” Ellie said.

“Don’t use it,” Barnes said, not looking at the woman. “It’s not a word. She made it up!”

Filoialli looked between them. “All words are made up.” Fighting back a smile, he continued, “No recent visitors. Never heard arguments over this way. There’s a daughter that comes by once in a blue moon. The man in the gray house thinks she stops by when she needs money.”

Barnes shot a glare at Ellie then turned back to Filoialli. “You get a name?”

“Well, yeah, his name is Wil—”

“No. The daughter,” the detective said and saw the answer on the man’s face. “When you go back, get that.”

“Will do,” the officer said, looking at his notes. “But no one seemed to want to see the old g—er, Mr. Morgan dead.”

Barnes sighed and rubbed his face.

“Except the bastard who put the claw hammer in the back of his shiny head,” Ellie said, drawing another scowl from the detective.

William Morgan was dressed in his gardening clothes and, looking at the beautiful display of plants and flowers around them, it seemed he got use of them. Barnes wondered now if it were some kind of cruel irony that he lay, ready to be planted himself, among the foliage.

“Don’t look like he put up much of a fight, so he may have known who did it.” The big officer looked around the scene. “Maybe the daughter?”

“Steady on, officer,” Ellie said. “The nasty end of the hammer went through the top of the skull, and he’s a tall glass of lager. So, they’d have to be—”

Barnes shot her a look. “Why are you still here? For the last time, Officer—”

“But look,” Filoialli said. “See, he was probably tending to those gardenias, hunched over. She could have come right up and—pop!”

The old man’s sun hat was the only thing slightly askew. It had fallen a foot away from his head. There were no cuts to his hands or any defensive wounds, at least on the initial inspection. They would have to wait for the crime-scene guys to make the final determination.

Barnes walked over, and when he crouched down, both of his knees cracked.

“You need more fish oil, Detective,” Ellie said, shuffling the paper bag of candies back into her hand. “You got the knees of an eighty-year-old.”

With a pen, he moved some of the old guy’s hair out of the way. Pictures had already been taken, so he could refer back to them if he needed. He worked slowly and deliberately. He frowned at the short gash just beneath where the claw hammer had entered the skull.

“They didn’t get him on the first swing,” he said, thinking aloud. “Took a second shot and sunk that good. Mr. Morgan would’ve been knocked out, dead probably a few seconds later.”

“Didn’t take his hammer with him, yeah?” Ellie said, popping one of the candies into her mouth. “Maybe in a hurry.”

Barnes pointed to the shed. “No, it came from…” he said, but then looked back to the body. “Hmm.”

The former detective rolled the sweet around her mouth, which to the man examining the body, sounded like a skeleton running the hundred-yard dash over a cobblestone road.

He stood slowly, craned his back in an arch, and rubbed his flank. Then he looked toward the shed again. “It’s not one of his, is it?”

She smiled. “Ah, ya got there.”

Barnes pointed down at the tool. “That one’s some cheap department store brand.” He then motioned to a hand spade and weeding fork. “It looks like all the gear our man has is the good stuff. Stanley, Craftsman.”

Ellie nodded, scanning the beautiful backyard. Bursts of flowers on plants and bushes that could make an old man believe in love again. Or send him into an allergic fit.

“At least,” the detective said, turning to her, “that’s what I saw before you hopped inside.”

She shrugged, offering the white bag to him. He gave a short shake of the head but still watched it all the way as she stuffed it back into her purse.

“Fine, fine,” he said, exhaling. “You gonna tell me why you locked yourself inside the old guy’s shed for ten minutes. Must have been a hothouse.”

“It was.” She crunched, then ignoring the question for a moment, she nodded to the body. “The old guy’s got a sunburn lifting off his arms.”

“So?”

“Means he was out here for a little while before one of the Pep Boys gave him a permanent headache,” Ellie said and swallowed. “Dead folks don’t burn.”

Barnes took this in, nodding slowly.

“So, he’d have been out here for a while,” she said. “That means either his attacker was hanging out in the garden with him, which is possible… or he’d been hiding. Best place would be that tin box.”

The detective walked over to the shed and reached for the door. He looked over his shoulder and gave her a half smile. “Okay to open the door now? It is my crime scene.”

“Fine. I got what I needed.”

Inside, all of Mr. Morgan’s tools were lined beautifully along the wall, on pegs and shelves. A lawn mower took up about a third of its floor. It looked almost brand-new, despite obviously having been purchased many years ago. Hanging on one hook was a gleaming claw hammer.

With a gloved hand, he eased the door closed then opened it again. “I dunno,” he said. “Anyone coming out of there could have made a hell of a racket.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered, of course.” Ellie shrugged. “There’s a light above the front door, so, yeah, the killer coulda come out playing with a marching band.”

“A light?”

Ellie turned and pointed to the house. “Just above the front door. Another by his phone, plugged into the wall. Little blister thing.”

Barnes sighed. Shit. He’d missed that. “He’s deaf.”

“None of the neighbors mentioned that,” Officer Filoialli said.

“He never talked to the neighbors,” his superior said.

Barnes looked back at the only item Ellie had taken into the shed with her. It was now sitting empty in the shade next to the house.

“Why’d you go in the shed, then? Listening for… you know, inspiration?”

“If you’re going to be making fun of me, then maybe I should go home?”

“Would you?” Barnes smiled then put both hands up in a surrender motion. “First—what is the jar for?”

Ellie walked over, grabbing her umbrella and the glass jar.

The detective joined her in the shade, which dropped the air around them about ten degrees.

“I expect Mr. Hammer Man was probably hiding in the shed, waiting for our boy down there to come out,” she said. “Might have been the better part of an hour.”

“So?”

Ellie handed him the glass jar, then leaned on her umbrella. “So, I was reading a magazine the other week, waiting for the doctor, who takes for-ever.”

“You sick or something?”

“Nah, nah,” she said, waving her hand. “IVF clinic. Thought I’d finally give it a go.”

Barnes laughed, slightly hating himself for beginning to like the old bat. “Fine, don’t tell me. The magazine?”

“Yeah, so there were these scientists, in Japan, and they found you could get a crook’s DNA sample from, if the conditions are right, the smallest of places.”

She pointed at the jar. This time, the detective squinted and finally did see something in the jar—a small spindly creature with a tiny red sack for a belly.

“A mosquito.”

“Yeah,” she said. “If our man had been in there a while, he mighta been someone’s breakfast.” She ticked the jar with a fingernail. “Hopefully, that fella there.”

She then took out a tissue, nibbled on her nail for a moment and pressed the paper to her finger. It came back with a spot of blood. She put the tissue on top of the jar the detective was holding.

“Use that to determine the body juice that’s mine and if there’s another set of DNA markers in there,” she said, smiling now. “You got an ID.”

“Right,” Barnes said, slowly shaking his head.

He watched as Ellie started to leave. She pointed to the house. “Mind if I take one last look around? Won’t touch anything.”

“No!” Barnes said. “You’re not a cop anymore, Ms. Walsh, and all you’re going to do is muddle this scene. You know that!”

“Uh, detective, I’m going to hit some neighborhood hangouts.” The barrel-chested officer shifted his weight. “Got a bunch more of those wit-stats to take care of.”

Ellie laughed. “Ah, that again,” she said. “Actually, I did make that up.”

“What?” Filoialli said.

“Needed a bit of validity with the two of you borin’ into me, so… I know how you American coppers love a good bit of jargon. It’s good, though, yeah?”

Filoialli nodded. “I like it.”

She smiled, lost in thought, then said to Barnes, “I’ll come by later.”

“Don’t come by later,” he said, instantly regretting how harsh it had sounded.

Ellie took one last look at the scene. “I’ll spot you lunch, okay? Pig’s Ear over on Memorial. That’s where you lot hang out, isn’t it?”

Barnes didn’t get a chance to respond, because she’d already slipped into the house and was gone. He looked back at the man lying prostrate on the ground, his hat turned upright like it was filling with sunlight.

Barnes lifted the glass jar to his face; the tiny creature inside was making a fruitless attempt to drill through the glass. He muttered to himself, “Right. Right.” Then he called to his officer, who was two steps away from leaving, “Filoialli.”

The big man came back over, walking as though he were on the balls of his feet. Barnes glanced at the door then the windows.

He lowered his voice and said, “Write this up and then get it to the lab. Have them check to see if the blood in that little sucker matches anyone we got on file. Exclude whatever’s on that wadded-up tissue too.”

The officer nodded. “Why?”

Barnes smiled. Walking back toward the dead Mr. Morgan, he said, “She read it in a magazine.”

Keep the fun going! Grab Past Life on Amazon.

Just search “Dick Wybrow Past Life” to find it.

Table of Contents

- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
- CHAPTER NINETEEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY
- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
- CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
- CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
- CHAPTER THIRTY
- CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
- CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
- CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
- CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE