Fragile Spirits (6 page)

She jerked from my grasp. “So?”

“So, it matters. That guy isn’t hurting anyone, and we can help this woman and that Hindered in there. That’s what you are called to do. Help the Hindered pass over.”

She met my eyes directly. “Ah, so now being an entrepreneur has a higher calling?”

“Yes. It’s not about money at all.”

“Says a guy who drives a Mercedes and lives in a mansion.”

I paced in a small circle and glanced at my watch. This was a nightmare. “We have fifteen minutes left to get in there and resolve this case.”

“Rolex?” Her smirk was maddening.

I stopped very close to her, about a foot away, and kept my voice low so that Steve could not hear it. “Why do you have to do this? Why do you piss off everyone around you? What is it about ‘I’m on your side’ that you don’t understand?”

“No one is ever on my side. Ever.” She headed for the gate.

“Vivienne, please,” I called. “Then be on
my
side. Help me out. Please.”

To my relief and surprise, she stopped and her shoulders relaxed. Maybe that was the key; she didn’t want to receive help, she needed control.

I stayed planted in place for fear she’d bolt if I got closer. “It would mean a lot to me if you’d cooperate just this one time and help me resolve this case. I agree that the guy is a jerk. We can’t fix that, but we can help the homeowner. Let’s just go in, find out what the Hindered wants, help it, and get out. It should be simple.”

She came closer until she stood toe-to-toe with me and stared directly into my eyes as if looking for something there. Honesty? Trust perhaps? I held my breath and waited for her answer.

“Your eyes kick ass. They’re almost purple,” she said.

I stared in stunned silence as she tromped up the steps and into the house. No one could ever accuse her of being predictable.

The small farmhouse was in chaos. Crew members crowded together talking. Light cables snaked across the living room floor. A small camera was mounted on a tripod in the corner, and a man held a larger camera on his shoulder.

A tiny woman who looked to be in her early fifties, dressed in jeans and a striped shirt, sat on the sofa next to another guy wearing the same black shirt as Steve.

“I just want it gone,” the woman whined. “I didn’t want all this to-do and hassle.”

The man patted her hand. “We’ll get it out very soon. We appreciate your letting us film it.”

A man laying cables in the corner bumped an end table with his knee, and a vase fell to the floor with a thud. The woman on the couch screamed.

I looked across the room to Vivienne, who was wandering the perimeter, appearing to study pictures hanging on the wood paneling. She met my eyes and shook her head. She couldn’t hear the Hindered.

“Sorry,” the woman said to the man next to her. “It kept me up all night knocking things over. I’m a little jumpy.”

The man patted her shoulder and said something in a comforting tone.

“So, did you get your chick in line?” Steve said from behind me.

My desire to punch him surprised me. “No.” Vivienne didn’t need to be kept in line, she needed to be freed to relax and be herself. I just had to find what made her tick. “My job is to assist her, not control her.”

He whacked me on the back. “Yeah, good luck with that, buddy.”

I looked across the room to find Vivienne studying me. She looked from my clenched fists back up to my face, then to Steve. Because there was so much going on in the room, I couldn’t feel her emotions. Again, she shook her head.

“She hasn’t heard anything yet,” I whispered to Steve.

The woman on the sofa blew her nose into a Kleenex. “The ghost only comes out at night. I don’t know why we have to make such a fuss during the day. I really wish all of these people weren’t here.”

“Sometimes apparitions respond to activity,” the man next to her on the couch said.

“Time!” Steve called. The people in the room scattered and manned their various posts. Two behind cameras, two with reflective boards, and a guy who looked to be dressed as a Native American all stood at the ready.

The woman on the sofa sat up straight and dabbed her eyes with another Kleenex. Vivienne signaled me to come to her from an archway leading to the back of the house. I tiptoed around behind the lights and joined her. “There’s nothing here,” she said. “Maybe the TV jerks are wrong.”

“Maybe, but the woman is honestly shaken. She believes something is here. Have you called it or tried to communicate?”

She rolled her eyes. “Here’s how it works: Dead guys talk to
me,
I don’t talk to them.”

She was wrong. Speakers reached out to the Hindered all the time. But I knew enough about her now to know that telling her she was mistaken would backfire. “Have you tried? Sometimes it works.”

“Like, try to get it to talk to me?”

I nodded.

Her fear spiked. “On
purpose
?”

I had been right. She was afraid. “Yes. It won’t hurt you. I’ll be here. If it possesses you, I’ll shove it out if you don’t want it to share your body.”

“Let’s get this straight here and now. The dead guys can just tell me what they want, and that’s that. I don’t do the soul-sharing garbage or possession. Nope. No way.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall. “Seen it, and it’s not gonna happen.”

She’d seen a soul-sharing. “Your aunt?”

She nodded. “Her partner was the one who could do it.”

“Your aunt was a Protector.”

She shivered. “It’s freezing in here.”

It wasn’t. The lights had made it hot. Scorching, in fact. I pulled her farther into the hallway with me. Her skin was cold to the touch. Terror shot through her and into me, causing a thrill and an adrenaline dump.

“It’s here,” she whispered, clutching my sleeve. “Oh, God.” Her fingers twisted in the fabric. “It’s really pissed off.”

I pulled her trembling body next to mine and rubbed my hands down her back to warm her up. “Shhh. It’s okay. I’m right here. Ask it what it wants.”

She shook her head and plugged her ears. “No. I want it to leave me alone.”

“You need to help it. It only wants help. Please, Vivienne.” I took her face in my hands, focusing on transmitting as much calm through my palms as possible. The ends of my fingers felt tingly.

She looked dazed for a moment, probably because of my transmission, then she nodded, stood up straight, and took a deep breath. “What do you want?”

The single lightbulb in the hallway flickered and went out. Flooded with Vivienne’s fear, I pulled her against me even tighter. “He wants them to leave,” she whispered.

A loud pop came from the living room, followed by shouting. Still holding Vivienne, I moved to the archway and peered into the room. It appeared a large stage light had exploded, stopping the shoot. The guy dressed as a Native American was standing closest to us, holding an abalone shell with something burning in it with one hand and a feather in the other. “I only brought enough sage for one shot,” he told the guy next to him.

The homeowner sobbed on the sofa as several crew members swept up glass.

Vivienne’s fear shifted to anger.

“Just hang in there, Mrs. Nelson.” Steve told her. “We’ll be up and running again soon. We’ll start over with the history of the murder that took place in the house and then you telling us about the first time you heard the man in your hallway, then we’ll burn sage in all four corners of the room again.”

“Burning sage?” Vivienne’s voice was a low growl. “She’s terrified, and they are screwing with her. I hate this.”

The woman sobbed loudly from the couch. “Please don’t make me go through this again.”

“Better hurry,” the guy with the abalone shell said, “or we’ll have to cut my part. I’m almost out of smoke.”

Vivienne pulled away. “Enough!” she shouted. “That’s enough. This woman needs help. She doesn’t need to be exploited.”

Steve crossed to us and spoke very low. My adrenaline spiked and my body immediately prepped for a confrontation, because for a moment he acted like he was going to get physical, but he kept his cool. “Get her out of here right now, or I’ll go public about the IC. I’ll go to every media outlet I know and tell them all about you. I know how important it is for you guys to remain invisible. I can fix all of that. Now get out.”

He was evidently satisfied with his threat, because his facial expression could only be described as a gloat. As quickly as it came, it left, replaced by wide-eyed terror.

“Under the boards,” he croaked in a gravelly voice. Steve grabbed his throat and gasped. “Help me,” he said, sounding like himself again. He staggered forward and grabbed Vivienne by the shoulders. “Please.”

Vivienne’s anger shifted to amusement. “Now, isn’t this something? So, if I help you, you won’t out us, right, Stevie boy?”

He nodded, eyes so huge the white was exposed all the way around them. “Right. Absolutely. Get it out. Make it leave me alone!”

“And you’ll pack up and leave this woman in peace.”

He nodded. “Yes, yes.”

Vivienne placed her hands on her hips. “And you’ll give her all of her money back.”

He paused, then his body trembled all over. “Floorboards,” the gravelly voice growled through his mouth.

“Refund, Steve?” She knocked gently on the side of his head as if it were a door. “Can you hear me in there? Can you answer, or does the ghost have your tongue? Are you going to give this woman her money back?”

“Yes!” he shouted in his own voice.

Vivienne cupped her hand to his ear and whispered something. Steve cried out and crumpled to the floor in a heap. Obviously, she’d gotten the spirit out of his body with her words. Two of the techies ran over and crouched next to him.

“Mrs. Nelson,” Steve said as the guys helped him to his feet. “We can’t help you with your case. We’re going to have to refund you your money.”

“But—” the woman said.

“Sorry.” He straightened his collar. “Pack up, guys.”

Vivienne crooked her finger, and he came over. “You’ll pay the IC its fee anyway.”

Steve’s face grew bright red. “I’ll do no such thing. You ruined this episode. I lost a ton of money today.”

“You pay the IC to get rid of ghosts. Well, once things calm down around here, I’m going to get rid of it. You’ll pay for services rendered.”

He shook his head. “No way.”

She shrugged. “I hope you like having ghoul dude in there with you, then, because if you renege, I’m going to tell him to have at it and jump back in. You’ll be shouting about floorboards until he shoves you out and
you
become the ghost.”

Steve’s eyes opened wide.

She put her mouth right next to his ear. “Because, you see, Steve, ghosts are real. They’re not imaginary TV gimmicks to make you money. And they’re dangerous. I don’t think you’re up to playing with them. Do you?” She stepped away. “Go back to your scamming, and let the ‘chick’ handle the dead guys, okay?”

She walked over to the homeowner on the couch. “I really want to help you get rid of this ghost, Mrs. Nelson.”

“I-I just want to be left alone,” the woman said. “I want everyone to leave. I want to—”

Vivienne took her hand. “I totally understand. But I can come back later after everything has calmed down.”

The woman shot a glance at me and then turned her attention back to Vivienne. “Just you. None of these men. Only you.”

Vivienne nodded. I stepped forward to explain that was impossible, but Vivienne silenced me with a glare.

“Just me. Do you want me to stay and do it now?”

She shook her head. “No. I need get out of here for a while. I’m going to go see my daughter for a few hours.”

Vivienne grabbed a ballpoint pen out of a techie’s pocket and wrote something on the woman’s hand. “Here’s my number. You give me a call when you’re ready, and I’ll come get rid of the ghost without any lights, cameras, or action, okay?”

The woman wiped a tear and nodded. “Thank you. I’ll call you when I’m on my way back.”

Vivienne spun and met Steve’s eyes. “You’re going to leave now. Floorboards forever. Think about it.”

“Pack up,” Steve ordered his crew. Vivienne grinned and strode out the front door. Somehow, even though I should have been mortified, I wanted to applaud. What a scene.

T
here were lots of better ways to handle that,” I said, unlocking and opening the car door for her.

She slid in. “You mean
your
way. The way described in that idiotic manual.”

“Precisely.” I closed her door and walked around the car. “There are rules,” I said, getting into the car. “We have to follow them.”

“Or what?” she said, slumping in her seat. “What’ll they do? Kill us?”

I snapped my seat belt buckle. “If we screw up badly enough, that’s possible.” Her jaw dropped.
Good.
I had her attention finally. “You need to read the manual.”

Several guys came out carrying metal trunks full of film equipment.

“That poor woman,” Vivienne said. “I hope she calls me. That was a pissed-off ghost, and I got it to leave that guy’s body by promising I’d clear everyone out. He was as freaked by all that activity as the woman was.”

“What did he want?”

“I don’t know. He kept yelling at me about floorboards. Scared the crap out of me at first.”

She admitted fear. That was a step forward. “And then?”

“Then, I just realized he wanted something and if we helped him, he’d be cool.”

I put my head against the headrest and closed my eyes, concentrating on her emotions.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Are you sick?”

“No. I’m feeling you.”

She laughed, and I opened my eyes. “If that was going on, I wouldn’t ask what you were doing.”

“You really need to read the manual. Protectors can feel Speakers’ emotions.”

“No way!”

“True fact.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not so sure I like that. It’s pretty intrusive.”

“Yeah, but it helps keep you safe. I feel your fear right when it spikes, and I’m ready to help before you can articulate it.”

“So you know when I’m afraid.”

I nodded. “Yep. Your tough-girl routine is pretty transparent.”

“I
am
tough.” She sat back in her seat and stared out the windshield.

“You are. Ghosts are scary. Anyone and everyone is right to experience fear when dealing with them.”

“So, you don’t think I’m a wimp.”

I turned the key in the ignition. “That’s the last word I’d use to describe you.”

“What words would you use?”

I put the car in gear and pulled out onto the dirt road. “
Irritating
and
impulsive
.”

“That’s better than
stuffy
and
predictable
.”

“Not if you want to stay alive. Read the manual, Vivienne.”

“Whatever.”

I turned around in a neighbor’s driveway and turned back out toward the highway. I reached into my console and pulled out my copy of the IC manual. “Here. Dig in.”

She took the book, but grabbed my hand before I could pull it away. Her touch made concentration difficult. “I can read palms, you know,” she said, turning my hand palm up.

I blinked hard and focused on the narrow dirt road.

She chuckled.

I almost gasped when she ran her fingers across my palm. “You have a very long lifeline, Paul. Really long, like you’ll live forever.” Her gentle touch was driving me mad.

I pulled my hand away. “It will be a very short life if I don’t pay attention to the road.”

“In all seriousness, you have great hands.”

I pulled to the side of the road and stopped. “I don’t get you. You clearly can’t stand me, but then, you pull crap like this. I’m not a Ping-Pong ball you can bounce around.”

One side of her mouth quirked up. “Well, now you’ve gone and surprised me, Mr. Predictable. The fact you speak your mind to me doesn’t jibe with how you act around the others.”

I put the car in park. “What others?”

“The people that were at Charles’s house last night. I thought you were weak.”

“But you don’t now.”

“No. I think there’s a lot more to you than I originally thought.”

Her emotions were unreadable, but she seemed sincere. A strange pinching sensation seized my chest for a moment. For the first time since I’d met her, I had a glimmer of hope this could work out.

I put the car in gear and pulled back onto the road. “Don’t get any weird ideas.”

“All my ideas are weird,” she said, tucking some escaped strands of hot pink hair behind her ear as she opened the IC manual to the rules section.

We drove through a burger place on the way home and I didn’t see her after that until evening, when she came barging into Charles’s office while I wrote up our report for the morning’s fiasco.

“The haunted woman called!”

I set the pen down on the desk and enjoyed the excitement flowing from her.

“She’s ready. She’s leaving her daughter’s house and wants me to come get rid of the ghost tonight.” Her smile was contagious.

“What time do we leave?”

“Oh, no. Not us, me only. She was adamant.”

I closed my file. “That’s not how it works. You can’t go alone under any circumstance. It’s why pairs are designated. The Vessel can’t be unattended.”

She put her hands on her hips. “English, please.”

“Did you read the manual?”

She shuffled from foot to foot. “I’m working on it. I kinda fell asleep.”

I turned in the desk chair to face her. “There are three kinds of bodies: open, single-souled, and closed. Being a Speaker means you are an open Vessel. You can accommodate more than one soul in the same body. The Hindered know this and use your body to resolve the issues holding them here.”

She sat on the arm of a leather wing chair. “So I don’t let it in.”

“It’s not that simple. Sometimes they force their way. That’s where I come in. I have the ability to split my soul and put part of it in a Speaker’s body in order to shove the second soul out.”

“So why wouldn’t it bounce into your body?”

“I’m a closed Vessel. My body will accommodate no soul but my own. I can’t be possessed.”

“But regular people can. I’ve seen it.”

I nodded. “Yes, they are single-soul Vessels. The stronger soul wins after a very short time. They can’t comfortably accommodate a second soul for an extended period like you can.”

She sighed. “Okay. So what do you suggest?”

I was stunned she had asked my opinion. “You talk her into letting me come with you.”

“Okay, well, she wants me to come right now, so I’ll call her from the car.”

I grabbed my jacket from the back of the desk chair. “At your service.”

She smiled. “I could get used to that kind of talk.”

A strange, unfamiliar emotion bounced from her, but only for a moment. “I hope so.”

She stood. “Why?”

“Because I’ve wanted to do this my whole life. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.” An entirely different emotion transmitted from her. It felt like disappointment or low-level pain. I slid my jacket on. “You okay?”

“Never been better,” she said over her shoulder as she stomped out the office door.

When we arrived at the farmhouse, the gate was locked. I parked just outside of it and waited for Vivienne to finish her phone conversation with Mrs. Nelson, who was still insistent that she come alone.

“I have a solution,” I said after she hung up. “I can go with you while inside your body. She won’t know I’m there, and I can prevent the ghost from possessing you that way.”

“Can’t you just come along as a bodiless soul, like a ghost or something? Can’t we do it without the soul-sharing business?”

“No. It’s dangerous and painful for me, and I have to get clearance ahead of time for my soul to be detached for any period of time.”

She unbuckled her seat belt. “Or what?”

“Or I could be discontinued.”

“What does that mean?”

I made a cutting sign across my throat.

“Yeah, well, let’s not let that happen.”

“Agreed.”

“Okay, we’ll soul-share. Let’s get on it.”

I started the car.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

“I’m going to leave my body at home, where it will be safe.”

“Nuh-uh.” She reached over and turned the car off. “The woman is freaking out. The ghost is throwing stuff around.”

“Well, either I come in with you, or we leave my body in a safe place and we soul-share.”

“The locked car is safe.”

I took a deep breath. “It’s not. There are too many variables involved. I need to leave it at home.”

Her phone rang. “Hey, Mrs. Nelson. I’ll be there in just a minute. I really want to bring my . . .” She stared at me a moment. “My associate, Paul, with me. Yeah. The guy with me this morning.” Her eyes closed. “Okay. Just me.”

She disconnected the call. “She’s serious about it only being me. She thought you were on Steve’s side, and she’s figured out he’s a crook.”

I shook my head. “You can’t go in alone.”

“Paul, please. What harm can come of it? We’re in the middle of nowhere. What could happen?”

I shook my head. “The rules are clear.”

“Screw the rules. That woman’s freaking out.”

“It’s a bad idea.” Worse than bad. Terrible.

“Look, I read enough of that book to know I’m in charge. You kind of have to do what I say when a ghost is around.” Dread filled me in a sickening wave as I realized I was about to be outmaneuvered. She put her hand on my arm. “Well, a ghost is around, and I say we leave your body here and go on in.”

“Vivienne—”

She withdrew her hand. “Now, Paul. As your Speaker, I’m asking you to soul-share right now in order to facilitate this resolution.”

Shit.
Straight from the book. She
had
read the manual. I had no choice, really. “Have you soul-shared before?”

She shook her head, and a spike of fear came from her. “What do I do?”

“Nothing. I do all the work.”

She rolled her eyes. “I could give you such a hard time about that statement, you know.”

I’m sure I blushed, but it was too dark for her to see, fortunately. “Touch me.”

“Oh, look who’s getting weird ideas.”

“No. Really. Soul-sharing kind of hurts at first, and contact helps.”

She studied me with narrowed eyes.

“I’m not kidding you. It hurts less.”

“Pain doesn’t bug me.”

I glared at her. “Well, it bugs me. Touch me.”

“Why don’t you touch
me
?”

“Why does everything with you have to be a challenge? The touch is consent. It has to come from you. Touch me, please, Vivienne.”

“I love it when you beg.”

I reached up to crank the key to start the car, and she took my hand between hers.

“Do it, Paul.”

This was it. My first soul-share with my Speaker. I faced front and closed my eyes. “Out,” I whispered to my soul. Beginning with my chest, a burning, ripping sensation filled my body and worked its way out to my extremities. The peculiar feeling of my soul ripping apart and breaking free of my body sort of defies words. It’s nothing that my familiar human body had experienced and is singular to the Protector. “In,” I commanded my noncorporeal form. Much faster than my soul had exited my own body, it entered Vivienne’s.

“Ow! Son of a . . . Ow!” she gasped. “Dang, Paul.”

It’s okay. It’s over now,
I said from inside her body. I couldn’t hear her thoughts, but she could hear mine, just like she could hear Hindered. I could feel her emotions, though, and she was as excited as I was. I felt no fear at all from her.
Are you okay?

“Whoa. Cool. You’re in my head!”

I am. Please take my keys with us and lock the door to the car.

She pulled the keys out. “So how much control do you have in there? Can you make my body do things like the Hindered can?”

Someone has been reading the manual.

“I told you I would. I just didn’t finish it.”

No. I’m only a partial soul. A tendril of my soul is left in my body to keep it alive. Not enough to animate it, though. It takes a complete soul to animate a body. You’ve got the conn, Captain.

She locked the car, and through her eyes, I could see my body buckled into the driver’s seat, looking like it was peacefully asleep.

The resolution began the second Vivienne entered the house. The ghost tried to barge into her body several times without invitation, but my presence kept it out. The average Hindered waited for an invitation, but this one turned out to be a borderline Malevolent and was sick of waiting around. The good news was that he didn’t seem to be looking for revenge, which was what most Malevolents craved.

“Floorboard!”
he said for the billionth time.

“Yeah, I’ve got that,” Vivienne said. “Which floorboard?”

He made groaning sounds, and a lamp flew across the room, smashing against the wall and landing in pieces on the floor, causing poor Mrs. Nelson to scream yet again.

“Now, listen to me,” Vivienne said. “What’s your name to start with?”

“Ethan Hollister Jr.,”
he wailed.

“Does the name Ethan Hollister Jr. ring a bell?” Vivienne asked Mrs. Nelson, who was cowering in a corner.

She shuddered. “He was the previous homeowner. He died last year. It was his wife who was murdered in this house.” She covered her face and wept.

“No!”
the ghost screamed.
“Floorboard!”

Vivienne took several steps closer to Mrs. Nelson. “How was the wife murdered?”

“According to the articles I’ve read, her head was smashed in,” Mrs. Nelson said. “With some type of blunt object. The son is on death row, awaiting execution for the murder.”

“He didn’t do it!”
Ethan moaned.
“Floorboard.”

“And her finger was cut off.” Mrs. Nelson slumped into a chair in the corner. “They never found the murder weapon or the finger.” She began to sob again. “My real estate agent told me about the murder and the rumors that the house was haunted. I just didn’t believe her. I thought it was all nonsense and was glad to have such a cheap price on the home because of silly superstition. My daughter and her husband told me not to buy this house. She won’t even set foot inside it.”

Vivienne jumped and a surge of surprise ran through her when Ethan yelled,
“Floorboard!”
She spun around to face the direction of his voice.