Ghost Guard (7 page)

“Nothing,” he raised his palm. “I swear. I just thought with all those spiritualists and psychics and other people on the fringes of the supernatural, there’s no telling what we might encounter. Better safe than sorry. At any rate, it shouldn’t come down to that. Hopefully Abby will be able to use her powers of persuasion and we won’t have to resort to anything drastic.”

“Oh come on, Morris,” Rev snickered. “This is just a routine job.
Small potatoes. So small it’s not even worth our time.”

“Be that as it may,” he said. “We still have a job to do. It was handed down from on high, if you know what I mean.”

“You don’t mean—” Abby looked up.

“Yes,” Morris
nodded. “Mahoney,” and with the press of a button, a balding, obese man’s head and shoulders appeared on the screen. Mahoney, their handler at Para-Intelligence, had a message.

“Hello, guys.
Just a quick word before your next assignment. This one’s a little unusual, I know. But I’m sure you guys can handle it. I wouldn’t let you try if I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I don’t have to remind you that the spirit realm depends on you. There’s a war out there. A war against spirits. And you’re on the front line, risking your own safety for the safety of all the immaterial beings that need protection. I know you’re anxious to get busy, so I’ll end this by saying, good luck, Ghost Guard.”

FIVE

IN HIS ENTIRE AFTERLIFE
, Rev had never witnessed such a diverse juxtaposition of breathers, living or dead. Scores of messy-haired twenty-somethings wearing vintage concert T-shirts and beat-up Converse All-Stars next to clergymen and grandmothers with canes. Rastafarian drummers and musicians. Street performers and magicians. Tattered thrift store clothes alongside suits and ties. All kinds of homemade signs saying things like, ‘Tolerance Does Not End at Death,’ and ‘Cyclists against Prejudiced Spirits.’ And, of course, there were the night vision cameras and digital sound recorders and electro-magnetic field detectors.

“I still don’t understand why we have to be here,” Morris and Abby heard him over the radio as a crackling electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP. Rev heard them fine with no electronic assistance at all.

“It’s our job,” Abby said.

“Yeah, but there are a whole lot of people here tonight.
If we wanted to be low profile, I think we missed the mark.”

“I told you there’d be a lot of people,” Morris answered. “That’s why we’re here.”

Rev had a bad feeling about this group. Hundreds of breathers, packing the downtown park. Too many angry thoughts. Too much negative energy.

He spotted Abby. She had on one of her favorite disguises—a hipster girl with
a vintage men’s flannel shirt, an organic straw fedora, thick horn-rimmed spectacles, big black 80s Doc Martins, and tight, shredded jeans that showed some skin. The whole ensemble made Rev’s nonexistent stomach turn, yet somehow Abby pulled it off.

“Morris, are you absolutely sure about this?” Rev couldn’t shake that feeling. “I mean, we’re exposing Abby to a lot more than I feel comfortable with.”

“You don’t trust me?” Brutus had to take offense. His scratchy, smoldering growl pounded through Rev’s consciousness.

“Of course I trust you, Brutus. That’s not it. This whole thing just has a weird feel.”

With a series of clicks and squeaks, Ruby agreed. She felt something had been wrong from the moment they’d arrived, and it had nothing to do with the number of people. It was something else, something she couldn’t put a finger on.

“Guys, guys,” Morris tried to lend some assurance. “We’ve done dozens of missions. I’ve prepared all the necessary groundwork. All the bases have been covered. Now, we know Sheila Coulson’s ghost might have issues. She tried to attack someone for goodness sake—”

“Allegedly,” Rev reminded him.

“Yes, of course. What I’m saying is if you sense something disturbing, it’s probably our ghost. She’s
most likely troubled, and you’re picking up on it.”

“I don’t know,” Rev differed.

“Can we talk about this later, people?” Abby whispered into her microphone. “I’m kind of in the middle of something, here.”

The event organizers had erected a speaking platform, and several people were on stage. A priest stood next to a rabbi, who
was beside a woman with multicolored dread locks. It looked like the setup to a bad joke. Wedged among the unlikely speakers was Abby, feeling both determined and befuddled.

“Okay, everyone.
It’s
Go
time,” announced Morris.

Rev collected into his earthly form next to a group
of young breathers shouting and holding up signs. He decided tonight to wear all black, although he was told to blend in with the crowd. A shaved head and metal studs in his cheeks? He couldn’t bring himself to go that far. Besides, his mission was one of stealth, sleight of hand, and trick of the eye.

“Who the hell are you!” a bewildered girl shrieked at him
as he appeared from nowhere. She glanced around. “Where did you come from?”

Rev squinted at her and smiled
, forcing his will into her susceptible mind. She gazed into his eyes and her mouth dropped open. Then she smiled at him as if confused and fascinated at the same time. Still got it.

“Peace-loving, compassionate people of Portland!” blared a voice over the PA
. The crowd quieted down. “I’m assuming you know why we’re rallying today!” Rolling laughter. “Last Saturday night, two young cyclists from our community were viscously terrorized by what has been described as a prejudiced ghost.” Boos, catcalls. The girl next to Rev threw up her hand and gave the thumbs down. He’d never seen such anger toward a spirit.

“Are you getting this,” he asked Morris.

“Yes,” Morris heard him loud and clear.

“Shhh,” Abby faked a smile from the stage.

“I’m Patricia Golden from the League Against Spiritual Harassment, and I’m here to say
No More
!”

Amidst an eruption of emotion, Rev slipped to the center of the crowd. He stopped and awaited his cue. They’d gone over the routine enough times. This was a run-of-the-mill operation.
A defensive measure only. If that didn’t work, they’d have to resort to more drastic methods. He hated drastic methods, unless that meant getting into bed with a beautiful woman.

As soon as he had that thought, he caught a vision of a woman with the most
exotic features. Wide-set eyes. He couldn’t tell what color, or even if they had color. Her strikingly blond hair flowed smoothly against her head, fluid like white rain. She had a smile on her blood red lips.
Was
it blood? He shuddered, not knowing why. He hadn’t been afraid of anything since he’d died. Even the times when he’d come close to extinguishing, he never felt one twinge of concern. Yet this woman. Something about her gave him the sensation of hairs standing on the back of his neck. Funny, since he had no hair. He had no neck. Ghosts didn’t get the chills—did they?

Before he could get a better look, a rather tall, rather large man wearing denim stepped in front of this intriguing specimen. Then more people changed position, and he lost his view of her altogether. He wanted to rise to the streetlights and look from there. The mission called, though. He had to be ready.

“Tonight we’re going to do something that I believe has never been done in the history of ghost hunting,” Patricia plucked the microphone from its stand. “Tonight we’re going to combine disciplines, join forces to drive away this hateful spirit once and for all!”

A collective
‘Yeah!’
Rev felt the tension. He also felt something else. That woman. She seemed to be in his mind. Confusion took over. He grew fearful, wondering if she was a spirit or some other entity. He shook away the thoughts, refocusing on Patricia with the microphone. She leaned close and spoke to a priest.

“Please introduce yourself and tell everyone what you’re doing here.”

The redheaded, middle-aged holy man fumbled with his reading glasses and cleared his throat.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Father Alfred
Dominighini, and at St. Mary’s, I teach a special brand of skill.”

“Exorcism!” a voice called from the crowd. Others howled in approval.

“It wasn’t too long ago when Christianity was seen as a cult, and its worshipers were targets of discrimination. That’s why we’re here tonight, because we know these types of crimes, even when committed by ghosts, can lead to much, much worse actions. Ghosts aren’t held to any type of legal standard. They don’t answer to the laws of the living. I say, let them obey the laws we set forth from now on!”

The human mass heaved forward, and the priest passed the microphone to Abby. She stood straight, letting the anxious feeling in her gut dissolve into determined action. She cleared her throat, the pause more for emphasis tha
n anything else. In her best fake southern drawl, she addressed the gathering.

“H
ey there, y’all! I’m Maggie Mae Gilbert, and I’m from the American Paranormal Research Society. As a spiritualist, I can understand being discriminated against, being made to feel like a second-class citizen. This is a serious matter. Harassment of any kind is serious. And if there’s anyone who knows about being harassed by a ghost, it’s me. Once I conjured the spirit of Elvis. Talk about harassment. The guy was all disembodied hands.”

People looked at one another, not knowing whether to cheer, laugh, or boo.

“I mean it,” Abby responded. “It was horrible. One of the most demeaning times of my life. So yes, ghosts can, and do, commit hate crimes against the living. The question is—what are we going to do about it?”

“
Exorcise ‘em!”

“Send ‘
em to where they belong!”

“Send ‘
em to Hell for all we care!”

“Oh boy.
This crowd’s becoming unsettled, aren’t they?” Morris was getting nervous.

“Uh…um,” Abby stammered. Faces contorted into confused expressions. Eyes narrowed. Heads tilted. Skepticism swept across the unruly group, and Abby knew she had to capture them somehow. First, though, she
needed to remember what to say.

“Abby,” Morris whispered over the radio.
“Mistake. Mistake.”

Of course
, she thought. Surreptitiously, she mouthed the words, ‘thank you,’ to the camera on her wrist.

“Let’s look at the situation in front of us and see it for what it likely is,” she scanned the faces. They didn’t look too receptive, but she had to try.
“A mistake.”

Boos and hisses. The crowd was turning fast.

“Now, wait-wait. Just hold on a minute. Hear me out. Remember what I said about Elvis? Turns out that was just a mistake. He thought I was Priscilla. It really was quite sweet, actually. But in the end, it was a mistake. That’s when I realized—most times when someone gets scared or otherwise accosted by a ghost, it’s just a misunderstanding,” she gestured toward the priest. “Even what most would call possessions are just honest mistakes.”

The crowd seemed to go against her even more, and Brutus, formless and invisible to all but the most supernaturally sensitive, drifted closer. Just in case.

“No, no!” she raised her voice. “You’ve got to understand. Ghosts are discriminated against all the time. They are. Come to think about it, the cycling community has a lot in common with the spirits of the dead. Most people think you’re all simply relics of the past, when they fail to recognize you have rights just like everyone else!”

Silence.
For the first time, Abby thought she may have gotten through. Rev, on the other hand, knew better. He felt the negative psychic energy spiking all around him.

“Uh, guys,” he announced. “The natives are getting restless.”

The MC swept the microphone from Abby’s hand, and that calmed down the breathers, if only a little. Abby’s heart sank. This might turn into a long, long night.

“Thank you,
Maggie Mae Gilbert,” Patricia grinned sarcastically. “But I think we all agree that ghosts who commit hate crimes aren’t the kind of ghosts we want to have around. They should be committed to the dust bins of history!”

Another unruly roar.
Rev knew these people were out for blood, or ectoplasm.

Ruby,
squeaking and gurgling as she hovered over the gathering, told her teammates she sensed something strange again.

“Ruby’s right,” Brutus said. “There
is
something.”

Rev locked his senses on one person—the woman he’d seen earlier, amongst the protesters, looking centuries out of time and thousands of miles out of place. She wore a long, dark garment over layers of material that sprang with her movements. An elfish nose, upturned ever so slightly.
Full lips flirting with a smile. He couldn’t keep his focus off her.

Abby cleared her throat over the radio as the strange woman strode up the stairs and onto the platform with the other presenters. The MC appeared indignant at first, gesturing at the scraggly, burly biker-types they’d hired as event security. The bikers just stood there, refusing to come to her aid. She turned to the woman again and her eyes went blank. The woman held out her hand
. The MC gave her the microphone, smiled, then backed away.

Whoever this was, she seemed to have some sort of sphere of influence. Rev felt it.
Her pull. It took much of his energy just to stay above the surface of her immensely deep psychic sea. Gathering his strength, he sent mental messages to his spiritual teammates.

“Brutus, do you feel that?”

“I feel it. I’ve felt it for some time now.”

“Is Abby okay?”

“I won’t let anything happen to her. You can count on it.”

“Ruby?
What are you getting from this?”

Using a
series of clicks, ticks, and whistles, Ruby told them she was moving in. She also asked Brutus if he was sure he had everything under control.

“
Yes, Ruby! Why does everybody keep asking me that?”

“Everyo
ne just relax,” Morris broke through. “Nobody panic. We’re not worth a thing if we panic.”

The woman
waved her hand to the side slowly and, quite by itself, the lectern slid with it. Murmurs and whispers. The woman smiled.

“I am
Elyxa. I believe you need a spirit disposed of? I might be able to help!”

She lifted her hands high
, and a bolt of lightning slapped against the surface of the Willamette, bringing with it a deafening clap of thunder. Most people dropped to their hands and knees. Those who didn’t were trying to run, though it seemed their feet had been cemented into the mud.