The Shadow Fixer Page 17

  Dorian’s on him.

  Kirsten sprang upright, about to run toward the spectral brawl—but stopped short at a child’s voice wailing from the top of a staircase at the right side of the living room. Though the scream had a strange, distorted quality, “someone help me” came through loud and clear.

  She couldn’t risk a child’s life to lessen the chances of a ghost escaping, so she diverted to the stairs, trusting Dorian to handle the specter. Continued screaming led her down the upstairs hallway to the third door on the right. Kirsten rushed over, raising her arm to lash the crap out of whatever spirit threatened a child—but stopped in stunned shock at the sight waiting for her.

  A tween girl treaded water inside a flooded autoshower tube, only twelve inches of air at the top. She struggled to stay afloat, appearing exhausted and about to run out of energy.

  Upon seeing Kirsten, the girl screamed, “Help! I can’t get out!”

  What the hell? I’ve never seen a tube fill up with water before… they’re not supposed to be able to.

  “Don’t be afraid. This light can’t hurt you.” She swiped the lash at the autoshower just in case ghostly influence kept the girl inside, but it passed through with zero resistance.

  “Ack!” yelled the girl. “What is that?”

  Kirsten released the lash and hurried up to the tube. “A weapon that only hurts monsters. Tamsen?”

  “Yeah. Please let me out of here. I’ve been stuck in here all day.”

  “All day?” Kirsten blinked. “Calm down a bit, okay? You don’t need to thrash around. Just float. Maybe step on the handrail to keep your head up.”

  Tamsen fumbled around with her feet until she found the railing, then braced her hands against the tube walls. She didn’t need to tread water at all to keep her face above the surface. She clung in place, long mouse brown hair fluffed out around her in the water, giving Kirsten a sorrowful, pleading stare.

  The control screen, unaffected by the water due to being a hologram, displayed the Plasmahawk ransomware, only it demanded Ͼ200,000. Kirsten gawked. Two hundred grand? What the f—oh… damn virus must demand a percentage or something. It only asked for Ͼ5,000 from Kirsten. She could’ve paid it without feeling too much pain.

  One look into the terrified girl’s huge blue eyes tempted her to enlist Theodore’s help in tracking down Plasmahawk. Maybe she would—after the present ghost craziness stopped.

  Kirsten grabbed the handle, but the hatch refused to open. No surprise it had locked, thanks to the ransomware. Whirring pumps and the motion of the child’s hair suggested the tube still tried to flood all the way, but it must have a failsafe drain preventing it from doing so.

  “It won’t open,” said Tamsen. “I’ve been kicking the stupid hatch since six this morning.”

  “What?” Kirsten shook her head in disbelief. “You’ve been trapped in the shower tube for almost nine hours?” I’m gonna slap her mother.

  “Yeah.” Tamsen sniffled. “Mom leaves for work before I got up. The school called her when I didn’t log in. She came home because I didn’t answer my ’Mini. She tried getting me out but couldn’t do it, so she called a repair guy. He never showed up. Mom started screaming like a half-hour ago. That’s when the shower filled with water. I screamed, but Mom’s ignoring me. What’s going on? Why are the police here?”

  Kirsten pressed a hand to the tube, opposite the girl’s. “There’s a dangerous ghost here. It’s why the tube’s flooded. I’m honestly not sure how it did that. I’ve never seen a shower fill up with water before.”

  “A ghost? Are you serious?” Tamsen pointed at the control screen. “It’s some stupid hacker.”

  “A hacker locked you in, but the spirit made it flood. I can get you out of there, but I need my partner to do it. Can you hang on for a little while longer?”

  Tamsen whined. “I dunno. It’s so cold my legs are numb. And where’s my mother?”

  “Your mom is okay, but she passed out. She’s not ignoring you.”

  The girl shivered. “Mom? She’s hurt?”

  “She’ll be fine. I promise.” Kirsten contemplated putting a hole in the autoshower with the E-90, but the laser would likely pass through without damaging the clear barrier.

  “Am I locked in the shower with a bad guy in the house?”

  “Just a ghost. Not a living bad guy.”

  Tamsen made a face half terrified, half calling her crazy.

  Kirsten kicked the hatch, again contemplating using the laser pistol to take out the metal parts keeping it sealed. Sure, a few hundred gallons of water would flood the house, but the girl would be out—assuming the laser didn’t reflect weird and hit her. She bit her lip, unwilling to chance it. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

  “Hurry!” yelled Tamsen.

  “I will.”

  Kirsten forced herself to leave the kid trapped in the bathroom and rushed downstairs. She leapt over the sectional rather than waste the three seconds to go around it, then darted down the hall toward the dark room. An annoyed man stood in the middle of a room containing various Monwyn and sci-fi props mounted on the wall, a giant holo-bar screen, and two computer desks, one full sized, one smaller covered in girly stuff.

  The man gave off an obvious sense of being a spirit. An ordinary shirt and pants made him look like the sort of guy who spent most of his time sitting around at home watching holovids or logged into virtual reality games. Strong arms suggested he formerly worked a physical type job, though he had a bit of a belly, which backed up her assumption of a stationary home life.

  He frowned at her. “Little late.”

  Kirsten summoned the lash. “Let Tamsen out of the tube, right now.”

  “Whoa.” He blinked, raising his hands, staring at the scintillating bright energy cord. “You can see me?”

  “Obviously.” She narrowed her eyes. “Let her out.”

  The guy waved in a ‘hold on’ gesture, then pointed at the floor behind the larger desk. “Not me. I came here to open the damn shower.”

  Kirsten circled to the side, not fully trusting him despite the weakness of his presence—until she went far enough around the desk to see a corpse on the floor. Despite the dead body wearing a totally different outfit than the ghost—brown utility coveralls instead of casual clothes—she had no doubt the ghost belonged to the remains right in front of her. A patch on the breast of the coveralls bore the name Kenton Macy beneath ‘TMC Onsite Repair.’ Shit. He’s a victim. It momentarily impressed her he’d been able to alter his latent self-image not to appear exactly as he’d been dressed when he died, but he likely hadn’t done it on purpose. How his spirit appeared represented the truest sense of how he thought of himself.

  She lowered the lash. “Sorry. Thought you were the other ghost.”

  “Nah. Some cop ran in and dragged the guy out the wall into the backyard.”

  Kirsten glanced at the back wall, above the smaller computer desk loaded with cute mini-dolls and little unicorn toys. Grunting and cursing like two men having a brawl came from the backyard, but again sounded much quieter than it ought to have.

  “Craziest shit I’ve ever seen.” Kenton raked a hand up over his head. “I get here to fix a stuck shower, right? Goin’ absolutely freakin’ nuts with this ransomware bullshit these past couple a days, right? Soon as I walk in the door, crap starts flying around the living room. The woman who requested the repair is running around in circles. Some kid upstairs is screaming her head off. I see a dude hiding in the back—this room—and he don’t look like he belongs in here. So, I get in his face and he shoves his hand into my chest. Like the dude isn’t even solid. Felt like he stabbed me with a damn giant icicle. Next thing I know, I’m standing here looking down at my dead ass body.”

  “Crap,” muttered Kirsten.

  Kenton smirked. “Little bit of an understatement.”

  “Yeah.” Shit. She squeezed her fists tight. Spirits who could stop a living person’s heart at a touch were the sort of spirits wh
o often had a small conga line of Harbingers following them around waiting for the first chance to pounce.

  “So, this guy was about to do the same thing he did to me to the woman out there, and probably attack the kid upstairs, too. No way could I take a dude that big, so I tried to keep his attention on me. Figure I’m already dead, right? What worse could he do ta me? I kept jumping in front of him, trying to get in his way. Mostly went right through him, but he eventually got pissed and started chasing me instead.”

  “Nice job. You probably saved both their lives. Wait here. I’ll help you as much as I can once things settle down.”

  “Where am I gonna go?” Kenton flapped his arms in frustration.

  She sighed at him. “I’m sorry.”

  A door to the right led to a tiny hallway with a bathroom and laundry room opposite each other, the end open to the kitchen. She hurried into the kitchen, hunting for a door out to the yard. She made it halfway across the room before catching a glimpse of motion behind her—a large figure raising a reassembler unit in both hands as if to bash it over her head.

  She whirled around, slicing the lash at the spirit’s chest.

  Evidently not expecting her to see him, the big guy made no effort to dodge. The energy whip tore a gash across his ethereal substance, making his whole body flicker transparent for an instant. The momentary loss of solidity allowed the reassembler to drop straight through him to the floor. He stood there, bewildered, hands still up as if holding it.

  Kirsten swallowed hard, more than a little intimidated by his appearance. The top of her head barely came up to the middle of his chest. Two of her together wouldn’t be as wide as his shoulders. The man’s shaved-bald head bristled with tiny cybernetic implants around the crown and clustered at his temples. His enormous, square jaw appeared to be entirely plastisteel—as did his teeth—both eyes mirror-silver orbs. He wore a voluminous black trench coat open, revealing numerous weapons, hints of an armored vest, and boots heavy enough to kick a dent in a cyborg’s leg.

  She froze in fear, her mind jumping back to the day mercenaries tried to kill her. This guy didn’t look familiar personally, but he had to be a hired killer. Or was a hired killer at some point, the sort of paid enforcer who’d think nothing of drowning a tween girl in an autoshower tube to send a message to a rival corporation.

  The spirit’s confusion at being seen wore off at the same time Kirsten got over the shock of his appearance. Merely a spirit. Nothing she couldn’t handle. Even if the dude had been alive, Suggestion or Mind Blast didn’t care how big or augmented someone was. In fact, the more electronics crammed into a brain, the better for her. The further from human a person became, the less defenses they had against psionic attacks.

  He pulled a giant handgun out from under his coat.

  Kirsten snapped the energy whip at him again, the cord reacting more to her desire than the physical motion of her arm. It swiped through his arm and shoulder, deflecting the ‘shot’ off to the side, a glob of spirit energy zooming harmlessly into the wall. The appearance of a ghost’s attack meant little insofar as power went, merely a representation of the spirit’s former life and preference. Whether this guy shot her using a ridiculous hand cannon or punched her, it would have the same effect.

  The older the spirit, the more it hurt.

  He recoiled from the lash, twisting away to the right while thrusting his left hand at her chest. Kirsten ‘caught’ the incoming hand using her psionic power, holding him back. His massive physical strength meeting her astral power ended up being a roughly even contest, except for her body weight. The spirit pushed harder, shoving her in a standing slide across the kitchen until her back hit the fridge. With nowhere to go, the pressure on her mind increased. She snarled, refusing to let him freeze her heart to a stop. Glowing fingertips teased at the air less than an inch from the fabric of her uniform.

  Dorian stumbled in through the wall, as disheveled as if he’d been run over by a PubTran bus, his expression radiating a sense of ‘oh, F this guy.’ He raised an E-86 handgun and fired. Rather than the green laser it should have made, it launched a small white bolt of spectral force into the assassin’s back.

  The big man grunted. Spots of neon green light appeared at the core of his mirrored eyes, intensifying as he pushed against Kirsten’s power. Instinctively, she kicked at him, but may as well have attempted to punt a hologram. Making herself solid to spirits would definitely backfire on her when dealing with a man this size. To have any chance at a contest of strength, she had to rely only on her mind.

  “I really don’t like this guy,” said Dorian, firing again and again into the spirit’s back.

  “Who sent you here?” yelled Kirsten. “Why this house?”

  The assassin pushed harder, lifting Kirsten off her feet; she slid up the fridge, knocking magnets to the floor.

  Thinking of Tamsen stuck in the tube upstairs gave Kirsten a burst of desperation. She mentally shoved at the ghost, knocking him back a step, and dropped to her feet again. He stopped reaching for her, grabbed a kitchen chair, and swung it. Kirsten dove to the floor; the chair smashed into the fridge, denting it.

  “Die…” rasped the assassin, in a voice too deep to have ever been human.

  “Nah. I’ll pass.” She swiped the lash at him, raking it across his legs at knee level.

  He staggered to the side, waving his arms for balance and moaning.

  Dorian shot him once every four seconds, hitting every time but seemingly not bothering him much.

  “Irritating,” grumbled the assassin. He spun blurry fast, driving his fist into Dorian’s face.

  Kirsten screamed in anger at the sight of her partner’s head distorting into a four-foot smear of vaguely Dorian-shaped ectoplasm. The rest of him followed it, flying into the wall out of the room. She slashed the energy whip down the assassin’s back again, burning a two-inch deep trench from shoulder to ass. Ghostly essence wafted into the air like smoke.

  The spirit, his expression manic, lunged at her.

  Kirsten ducked the huge fist flying for her face, jumped back from the left cross, and scrambled out of the way of an attempted tackle. She rushed a hasty swipe of the lash across his side as he rounded on her again. The assassin drew his hand back. She jumped to the right to avoid the punch—stopping short with a scream when he grabbed her by a fistful of hair.

  The assassin lifted her off her feet by her hair, swinging her up in an arc before walloping her face-first into the stove. Bright lights flashed in her vision on impact. He mushed her cheek into the smooth, glass cook surface. It took Kirsten half a second to realize what her face touched—and notice the heat building up.

  Too much like Mother.

  An eruption of fear and rage exploded inside her. She grabbed the front of the stove and shoved, jerking her head away from the cooking element before it could heat up enough to burn her. Mother only used it on her hands, never the face. Consumed by pain and wrath, Kirsten thrust the lash like a spear into the assassin’s chest, impaling him, the cord as thick as her arm, nearly twice its usual width.

  Wheezing, the spirit let go of her hair to grab at the wound—his fingers scorched as if he’d clutched a laser sword.

  Roaring in anger, Kirsten yanked the lash out, swung it up behind her, and brought it down over his head. The strike split the spirit in half to the midpoint of his chest, leaving a disoriented, drunken expression on both parts of his face.

  He wheezed, “What are you…?” and pulled himself together.

  She swung the lash again, having gone well past any attempt to be gentle. While she still tried to find the good in every spirit, she doubted this one had any left to reach. At the same instant the lash struck the spirit’s shoulder, a barrage of shiny silver kitchen knives flew at her.

  A wide carving knife stuck in her left thigh, another in her right forearm. One bounced off her left forearm guard with a clank. A steak knife stuck into her left shoulder. Two went over her head, a third slicing her ear as
it passed.

  Shocked at the sudden pain, Kirsten looked down at herself, horrified at the sight of multiple metal handles sticking out of her. The assassin slugged her in the side of the head, launching her into the front of the stove. She bounced off and hit the floor, fires raging in her muscles from the angry knives.

  The kitchen spun.

  Kirsten pushed at the floor, struggling to move before the ghost finished her off.

  He looked up at the ceiling, grinned, and walked out of the kitchen.

  No! No damn way! Shaking from pain, Kirsten pushed herself up from the floor. Her left leg didn’t want to cooperate. If she tried to bend her knee, it would collapse, so she kept the leg stiff and hobbled after the assassin. Dorian’s pained moan came from the computer room.

  As expected, the giant ghost walked toward the stairs. Leaving her alive long enough to know she failed to stop him from killing Tamsen would be his twist of the knife. She’d spend the rest of her ghostly existence carrying the guilt.

  Kirsten refused to let him win. She refused to allow him to hurt an innocent. Faster and faster, she hobbled across the dining room, waving her arms to keep from falling over despite the knives sticking out of them. The assassin paused by Johanna Beck, peering down as if contemplating killing her, too. He glanced up, starting to laugh, but his mirth turned to fear the instant he realized she didn’t lay helpless in the kitchen.

  “You don’t belong here,” rasped Kirsten before swinging the lash with all the energy she had left.

  This time, he tried to jump back, but underestimated her reach. The energy whip crashed down onto his chest, swatting him flat to the floor and setting off a reverberating thunderclap audible only in the spirit world.

  Suri—in Johanna’s NetMini—screamed. The living room holo-bar turned on and off multiple times. Two lights exploded.

  The assassin groaned and started to sit up.