Sieving through my bedroom window was simple, and I landed silently beside the bed. I felt like some creepy vampire entering a maiden’s room, ready to bite her neck.
Heh.
I can think of a neck I could bite.
Shaking my head to clear the sex visual out—’cause for some reason sex just sets off the Wraith-dar, then I’m like off the charts in oogy—I did the mental shrug I’d started using to shift my body back to the physical plane. I watched as my hands and arms became their plain slightly olive shade—though I had been darker in my younger days. I felt the weight of being physical pull me into the carpet as my bunny slippers took on a more normal look—not all toothy and Tim-Burton-looking.
I used to dress in black—black pants, turtleneck, and slippers. I’d recently started using a black catsuit I’d found at Throb—one of Atlanta’s kinkier stores—which oddly enough I found comfortable. I still braided my hair and decided after seeing the split ends it was time to pay Jameal a visit.
Sighing, I started pulling off the suit as I made my way to the bathroom. Stripping down, I tossed the suit in a small bag I kept under the sink, then stood up—
Directly into the path of Tim and Steve.
Squeaking, I jumped back, and of course did that modified Eve pose to cover my now bare who-who and hee-hees. Not that these two would care either way.
“This has got to stop,” Steve said as he crossed his arms over his chest. Of the couple, Steve was the more mature one—not so much in age before he died, but in personality and responsibility. He had that sort of take-charge persona that I think Mom liked. In fact, Mom thought he was hawt.
Tsk.
Getting a little irritated—since this was the third time these two had greeted me after a night’s work—I stopped trying to cover myself and set my hands on my hips. “Oh? Why, Steve? Wait . . . I know the answer.” I held up my right hand, index finger in the air. “Because I shouldn’t trust the Archer.”
“Not just that,” Tim said from his more distant position by the shower. He was smaller than Steve. Slighter build, with dark eyes and dark hair. I’d always felt closer to Tim and his more gentle mannerisms. He moved forward, becoming almost totally corporeal in the bathroom light. I watched him as he grabbed my robe from a hook and handed it to me. No repulsion. No hesitation. Just purpose. “The fact you’re not moving out of your body anymore. You need to tell Nona, Rhonda, and Joe.”
“Why?” I took the robe and pulled it on before moving to the mirror and turning on the water. I needed to wash my face before I slept. I wanted to take a shower—but the sound of the water running would wake Mom, then she’d be all up in my Kool-Aid about why I was up at six in the morning taking a shower before going back to bed and sleeping all day.
I splashed water on my face and looked at them in the mirror. It always amazed me they had reflections. At least when they were corporeal. Pumping soap in my hand, I scrubbed at my face, hoping to get rid of any lingering piece of that Fetch’s gooed-up remains. I
reeeeally
wanted a shower.
“Oh, let’s say,” Steve said, “because even though you’ve been a bitch now and then, they’ve always stuck by you. Rhonda’s your best friend, Nona’s your mom, and Joe’s hopelessly in love with you.”
Och . . . here we go again.
I rinsed my face and grabbed a towel off the nearby hanger. It smelled of Downy and my mom’s herbs. “Steve, this is really getting old.”
“I’ll say,” Tim said. “Your sleeping till three in the afternoon is driving everyone nuts. And then you spend the nights over at Rhonda’s reading over those old Dioscuri notes.”
“No, not that,” I said, and tossed the towel on the sink. “I mean about Joe. Just stop that already. Joe is a friend. He’s dating Rhonda. End of argument.”
“No,” Steve said. “Joe is in love with you. Dags is in love with you. Rhonda is in love with Dags. You’re in love with a crazy person.
You
are an
idiot
.”
Giving him my righteous bird finger, I turned and exited stage left into my room.
One thing about ghosts—they tend to do whatever they want.
Damn them.
The two were already in my room before I could cross the threshold. I made a shooing gesture at them, dropped my robe, and changed into my Danny Phantom tee shirt and a pair of old cotton loungers I’d snatched from Daniel.
Daniel.
Thinking of him always sobered me. And not in a good way. More of a self-involved guilt trip. I’d tried to see him since he’d been shipped out of state into Maryland. But he’d refused. Screamed in his now-volatile state of crazy.
A crazy I’d given him. And I couldn’t take back.
“I’m sorry,” Tim said, quietly. I knew he realized where my mind had wandered.
Looking at him, I smiled and moved to the bed, plopping down and turning on my headless-Mary lamp. My old dry-erase board lay at the foot of the bed, my last scribbled FUCK YOU still visible in red ink. “You know I have to know everything my great-uncle did. I wanted to know what it was he did to my dad. I wanna know what else is out there. The man was a bona fide nut job.” I paused. “But he kept good notes on everything he’d seen in the Abysmal. Categorizing them. Labeling them. Listing their abilities. The hierarchy of things.”
“Have you read the notes on the Ethereal?” Tim said quietly. “Those are just as important, if not more so. You’re so focused on the Abysmal, you’re missing the bigger picture. The Ethereals—especially the Seraphim—those are the ones you can’t trust. More so than anything the Abysmal can cook up.”
I rubbed at my face. I understood what Tim was getting at—my dad was an Ethereal being now—had been when he’d conceived me with Mom. What I didn’t want to tell them was that I
had
read a bit on the other plane—my great-uncle took copious and detailed notes—and it scared me more than Daemons, Symbionts, Fetches, and Phantasms.
A
lot
more.
I chose not to answer his question. You know, I’d noticed a lot of that lately—me actually
not
talking. I mean . . . I had my voice back. My voice. And I was choosing not to use it.
What was up with that?
“Zoë.” Tim sat on the edge of my bed, not making any sort of dent in the comforter. That told me he was simply solid but not corporeal. Ah . . . didn’t know there was a difference, did ya? Neither did I. I had learned a lot during my time as a Wraith.
Too much.
I looked at Tim, raising my eyebrows and stifling a yawn. I was soooo tired. “I’m gonna fade out if you don’t speed up the question, dude.”
“You need to at least tell Nona about your new condition.”
I shook my head.
“Have you even tried to slip out of your body?”
To demonstrate, I released my physical self. It plopped back on the pillow, eyes half-open, while me the astral self continued sitting up. My lower half was still in my body, so it kinda looked like I’d half taken off my Zoë suit.
Actually—it was kinda creepy.
“Stop that,” Steve said, joining in the conversation and no longer hovering in the far corner. “Doesn’t it worry you that it’s that easy to just slip out?”
I leaned back into my body, felt the connections resume, and sat back up. I’ll admit there was a more pronounced feeling of “ick” every time I did that. But—why should I care?
Really?
“What am I supposed to do about it? Every time I had the opportunity to be normal—something always managed to step in and screw it up.”
Tim pointed at me. “There it is again.”
“What?”
“That not-caring attitude. Zoë, you’ve always cared.” He lowered his hand. “It’s Archer. Hanging around with that Symbiont—his evilness is rubbing off on you.”
I snorted. “Hardly. And we’re not really hanging around. He’s teaching me.”
“He’s teaching you?” Steve spoke up. “To what?”
I wasn’t liking this. Getting the third degree in my own home was unacceptable. Well . . . Mom’s home. I turned and pushed my feet under the covers, yanking up my pillow. Glancing at the window, I could see the outside getting lighter.
Argh. Maybe I should just, like, limit my outings at night to twice a week.
Sleep was something I was sorely missing.
“Fine. But if you don’t take care of your physical body, Zoë, your astral self will suffer.”
Ah, foreshadowing. Too bad I already knew that.
I knew Steve had left. There was always a lot less pressure in a room when he left.
Overbearing
came to mind. “Tim?”
“Hrm?”
I turned then and saw he was still sitting on the edge of my bed, watching me with those huge brown eyes. “Do you know all the different kinds of things there are in the Abysmal plane?”
He shook his head. “I only know what I’ve learned from you, Nona, and Rhonda. Steve and I didn’t even realize there was an Abysmal plane until Nona moved in, and we met you.” He moved his head to the side, his dark eyebrows flattening. “What is it?”
“Well.” I sat up, wrapping my fingers together like I used to do when I was little and had to tell Mom about something I saw. “We were chasing a Fetch tonight—”
“A Fetch?” Tim leaned forward. “Who was it after?”
I shrugged. “We didn’t know. Archer spotted if first hanging about in a shrub while we were talking. I supposed it was after one of us.”
“I don’t think so.” Tim shook his head slowly. “From what Nona and Rhonda have said, those things are pretty much used for long-distance hit-and-run against physical-plane beings—so—it doesn’t make sense that it’d be after one of you.” He frowned. “Is that what’s got you spooked?”
“No—” I opened my mouth, then shut it. “It’s what showed up while we were chasing it. I can’t—I just can’t wrap my head around it.”
“What?”
I pursed my lips and frowned at him. “Hair.”
His reaction was what I’d pretty much thought it’d be. “Hah?”
“Yeah . . . hair. Big red hair. Or that’s all TC and I could see. Whatever it was—it demolished that Fetch into ectoplasmic goo and was able to hold TC off in a fight. It was strong.”
“Did it destroy the Symbiont?”
I heard that bit of hopefulness in my little buddy’s voice. TC wasn’t exactly his favorite person. In fact, he wasn’t anybody’s. Not even mine. “No—but I could tell it unnerved him. And then it was gone. Just—
vanished
. TC said he’d never felt or seen anything like it—though he did compare its strength to that of the Phantasm.”
“You think it was another Horror?”
“No.” I chewed on my lower lip. “I don’t know what it was. TC told me to scream at it—you know, use that voice. And when I started to—that’s when it left. As if it knew what I was about to do.”
“Maybe it did.”
My phone rang then—scaring the bejesus out of me and Tim. I squeaked and jumped up, looking for it. I usually kept it in my jeans . . . which I’d tossed . . . Ah! In the closet!
Of course.
My iPhone. Yay.
I looked at the incredibly bright screen. Joe Halloran.
I glanced at the time on the phone—6:22 A.M.
This couldn’t be good. I pressed the answer button. “Hello?”
There was a familiar pause as an automated male voice started speaking. “Zoë. Meet me. Down. At the. Morgue. Lex. Has. Our. Kind of. Trouble. Call Rhonda. Need.
Book of
.
Everything
.”
I disconnected. Remember how I said TC had a voice and it wasn’t his? It was actually Joe’s voice. And now Joe was the silent detective. He was lucky Mastiff was a good partner—and the new captain was hearing impaired.
Though—I wasn’t sure he liked me yet.
And Lex.
Lex Takashi was the creepy criminal biologist at the Dekalb morgue. I’d met her—it—back when Daniel killed Boo Baskins. Only we didn’t know he was doing it at the time. Lex was also a friend of Joe’s and was the one who’d originally helped him brew up his concoctions that bring accidental astral walkers back into their bodies. That was how Joe and I met—that night in the morgue when he’d assumed I was one of those accidental tourists on the astral plane. He’d used his potion, and I’d come to life.
What I had learned about Lex just the previous week was that she carried a Symbiont inside of her. But not the kind of Symbiont I was accustomed to. Though my only experience with one was TC. And to be honest, we only called him a Symbiont because Rhonda’s big
Book of Everything
did.
But Lex seemed . . . different. Her Symbiont called itself Yamato.
And I wasn’t really ready to know just
how
different. I pulled up Rhonda’s number on the iPhone and pressed the CONNECT button. Within seconds, she answered—and sounded wide-awake.
I yawned as she agreed to come get me. I was without wheels (I’m broke!), and Mom hid the keys to Elizabeth. Evidently, I forgot to put water in the radiator.
“Oh,” I said. “And bring the BBOE.”
“The wha’?”
“That big-ass book you have covered in human skin.”
She laughed. “So we’re going to see Lex again?”
“Uh-huh,” I tossed my pants on the bed—those were dirty.
Do I have a clean pair somewhere?
I rummaged in my closet as Tim continued to sit on my bed.
“Don’t forget to bring your stakes and garlic.”
I grabbed a pair of pants off the floor and sniffed them.
Ah. Downy. These are clean.
“My what and who? You expecting Dracula or Lestat to show up at the morgue?”
“No. For Lex.” I could almost hear the twinkle in Rhonda’s voice. “You
do
know Lex is a vampire, right?”
!!!
3
MOM
was up the moment she heard the shower—told you.
I hadn’t slept—so I needed the water to wake myself up. When I bounded downstairs, she was in the kitchen and insisted on making one of her calorie-loaded breakfasts. “Uh-uh,” I said, my own stomach twisting up at the thought of buttered biscuits and eggs. Normally, that image would have sent my slobber glands into maximum overdrive. But—not this morning. I was too tired and too keyed up.