The Shadow Fixer Page 22

  “Told you guys I’m over twenty-one.” She waved at them and got in.

  Dorian manifested in the passenger seat. “Being active duty Division 0 does not necessarily prove someone is over twenty-one.”

  “Touché.” Kirsten pulled the patrol craft skyward, the door sinking closed with a soft hiss. “Touché…”

  16

  Too Many Unknowns

  Seventy-eight minutes after leaving The Cat House, Kirsten flopped into the chair behind her desk.

  Two back-to-back 21-47s had come in, both within twenty miles of Sector 2888, the area she’d calculated as the epicenter of the ‘ghost storm.’ At least being on the small side let her change into her uniform relatively easily in the patrol craft on the way there. Both spirits had been more mischievous than dangerous, making noise, breaking things, and generally acting like drunk college students at an off-the-rails party. The first guy ignored every attempt she made to talk, behaving as though he had earbuds in at max volume. When he caused a PubTran kiosk to explode, showering people with sparks and shattered glass, Dorian grabbed the guy and slammed him into the side of a building—as much as a ghost can be slammed into a solid object.

  As soon as Dorian shook him, his entire demeanor changed from limitless drunken energy to a bewildered stare. He’d said, “Damn music” and dove into the ground, seeming angry.

  The second call came in before they even made it back to the patrol craft. A ‘wailer’ as Kirsten unofficially called them, created a scene in a residential apartment tower. The ghost of a young-twenties woman parked herself in the landing of the stairway between the second and third floors, wail-crying like she’d recently witnessed her entire family murdered. Her clothes looked quite dated, a T-shirt with the faces of two men above the words ‘Tears for Fears,’ jeans, strange sneakers with strings hanging off them, and lots of bracelets.

  She’d been cautious, since the spirit gave off serious energy as if quite old, sitting there and trying to talk to her. Nothing she did got the ghost’s attention. Eventually, the spirit looked up from her sobbing, made a ‘what am I doing here?’ face, and walked off. Kirsten asked her what happened to make her cry so hard, and she mumbled something about a song hitting her real hard.

  Kirsten added two more Inquest records to the ever-growing pile, one for each 21-47.

  Lacking the motivation to finish the reports, she drummed her fingers on the desk. Her mind wandered from feeling horrible for the crying ghost to utterly freaked out at Clover enjoying being chained to the wall by the neck to imagining Evan would be working on cit points at the moment, cleaning classrooms. He’d gotten a ton of them for trying to ‘free’ Abernathy, the old ghost who’d been haunting the PAC for years. Upon learning the man’s brain sat in the Archives, he assumed the spirit needed help. Unfortunately, the kids broke a statuette containing a poltergeist and made a bit of a mess. Evan demanded to be given Shani’s allotment of citizenship points since she wouldn’t have participated if he hadn’t begged her to. To Kirsten, it seemed like they gave him too much for what amounted to a well-intentioned accident. Kids who’d done bad things purely for fun because they enjoyed doing bad things didn’t get hit so hard with points. Evan not complaining at all about it bothered her the most.

  He’s not still terrified they’ll make him go back to the dorms, take him away from me, is he?

  At least he’d stopped panicking over his grades. For the first few months, the boy thought if he scored anything less than perfect, they’d punish him by not letting him stay with Kirsten. She folded her arms on the desk, rested her head on them, and tried to cry without making any noise. Anger sometimes made her cry, too. These tears came from her feelings toward Evan’s bio mom.

  “You’re going to have a rough time convincing Div 2 to pursue any sort of official investigation of Carlos Bennett for Mendoza’s death,” said Dorian.

  “I know.” Kirsten managed to keep emotion out of her voice.

  “What’s bothering you?” A chill seeped into her left shoulder.

  “This? Just rage tears. Pissed at Evan’s mom.”

  “You’re angry at yourself?”

  Kirsten barked a laugh, then sat up. “No, the other one.”

  “She’s not his mother, and you shouldn’t waste energy being angry at someone who’s going to end up dead in a year or two, anyway.”

  “What?” Kirsten blinked at him.

  “Overdose, random shooting…” Dorian waved randomly. “Something’s going to happen.”

  “Now you’re making me feel guilty for not commanding her to get help.” Kirsten squinted. “Hey, wait a sec. Isn’t that woman incarcerated now?”

  Dorian paused in thought. “Oh, you’re right. Still, she’ll most likely serve two out of seven and be right back in the same situation soon enough.”

  “Cheerful today.” She groaned and poked a finger into her desk terminal’s intangible screen, staring at the information on Elan Mendoza. “How hard can it be to convince Div 2 the guy running The Cat House ordered a hit on a man who owed them money?”

  “If you had some evidence more compelling than your hunch a ghost somehow pulled a contract hit on him.”

  “Damn. We don’t even really know for a fact the ghost did it.”

  “I’m curious why Mendoza’s spirit didn’t stick around.”

  She narrowed her eyes at Dorian. “Maybe he did.”

  “Going to go hunting again? They probably haven’t cremated him yet. I doubt you have the stomach to lop off a finger and use it as a focus.”

  “Ugh. No. I don’t have to track him down if he’s willing to talk to me.” Kirsten took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and concentrated on Beacon, calling out into the aether for Elan Mendoza.

  A few minutes later, she sensed another astral presence nearby, and opened her eyes.

  The naked, slime-covered form of Elan Mendoza stood beside her desk, his facial expression holding the perfect mix of desperation and discomfort for a guy who’d been stuck outside for days wearing nothing more than medical tank gel.

  “Ack!” Kirsten jumped away, grimacing at his dangling intestines. “I forgot about where you were when you died. Was not prepared for the visual.”

  Dorian whistled. “Come on, man. Pull yourself together.”

  “Did you just do something?” asked Elan. “All of a sudden, I get this strange urge to come here.”

  “Yes. I’ve been investigating what happened to you and running into a wall.” She explained being an astral sensitive who can see and speak with ghosts, and how Beacon was the paranormal equivalent of paging a ghost over a PA system.

  Elan paced, his guts swaying around his legs like a macabre skirt. “A ghost killed me, no doubt. Dude was standing right in front of me when I slipped out of my body. He made this face at me like I annoyed him and walked away. Tried chasing him, but I couldn’t go too far away from my body.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “No.” Elan shook his head, then looked down. “Am I going to be stuck like this forever?”

  Kirsten hunted down the list of Inquest files and opened the one for Mendoza’s death at the Ancora Medical building. “A ghost’s appearance is entirely based on what we call ‘latent self-image.’ Ninety-five percent of ghosts initially look exactly as they did at the moment of death. For some, it’s hard to change due to the emotional trauma of being killed. Ghosts who die naturally have an easier time. All you have to do is think really hard about your appearance to change it, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

  Elan kept staring down at himself. Some of his intestines quivered.

  “You don’t recognize the ghost who killed you. Did you kill anyone or were you possibly indirectly involved or responsible for any deaths?”

  “Not without some weird butterfly effect shit.” Elan chuckled. “Like if I took a parking space someone else wanted, and they had to go six spots over, then got mugged and killed.”

  “What does that have to do with butterf
lies?” asked Kirsten.

  “She never took philosophy class.” Dorian smiled. “Don’t mind her.”

  Kirsten smirked at him. “Anyone you can think of who might want you dead or who would gain from your death?”

  “Fred Ruiz is probably going to get promoted into my old job, but it really isn’t likely he’d kill me to get the promotion.”

  “Ex-wife?” asked Dorian.

  Elan slouched, heaving a despondent sigh; his guts hung lower. “No. She wouldn’t want to kill me at all. Leaving me alive hurt more.”

  “Ouch,” said Dorian. “Bad marriage?”

  “No, it was great. I still love her.” Elan looked down. “She wanted a kid or two. I didn’t. So, she left.”

  Kirsten added notes. “What about Carlos Bennett?”

  “Uhh… you know about him?” asked Elan, making a face like a boy caught grabbing cookies before dinnertime.

  “I do. Also met Clover.”

  Elan fidgeted. “Yeah, I guess Carlos was upset with me for not paying him back fast enough. It’s possible he might have wanted me dead or roughed up. Stupid of him to kill me though. Now I can’t pay him anything.”

  “Were you going to?” asked Dorian with a hinting smile.

  “Yeah… eventually. Once I uhh, dealt with some stuff.”

  Kirsten looked up from the screen at Elan. “Visited Reinventions?”

  “Wow. You really did talk to Clover.”

  “Yeah. She was pretty upset to learn you died. I think she liked you a lot more than she admitted. Also asked me to tell you she’s sorry for making a big deal about the age gap.”

  Dorian chuckled. “She should make a big deal about it.”

  Yeah. Almost as bad as me having a crush on Dorian. She chuckled to herself, thankful to have gotten over it. He died at thirty-six, so a fourteen-year age gap… plus being a ghost. Mendoza and Clover have twenty years separating them. Definitely creepier. Maybe not as creepy as a girl who had a thing for a ghost, though.

  She let out a long, slow sigh.

  I’d just been lonely, needed someone—anyone—to want to be with me.

  “You think Bennett sent the ghost to take me out?” asked Elan.

  Kirsten shook off her somber thoughts, leaning back in the chair. “Do you know for a fact Bennett did it?”

  “Not exactly,” said Elan, “but there’s no one else who’d want me dead and I didn’t recognize the ghost at all. Never saw him before.”

  “Possibly random?” Dorian tapped a finger at his chin. “Could some aggressive spirit have been roaming the building looking for a vulnerable person in a med tank?”

  “I suppose it’s possible.” Kirsten came close to screaming in frustration but kept an outward calm. “Doesn’t really work for me, though. The report I got from Ancora showed eleven other patients in mid-surgery at the time, four of whom were involved in procedures more critical than removal of intestinal tumors. Brain surgery, two heart surgeries, and a liver regeneration. Killing any of them would’ve been much easier. Why did this ghost only attack Elan?”

  “I’d like to know that, too.” Elan folded his arms.

  “Oof,” said an elderly voice. “Talk about swingin’ in the breeze… Son, you’re taking it too far.”

  Kirsten pushed off the desk, rotating her chair around to face the voice.

  Abernathy.

  “Everyone’s a comedian,” muttered Elan. Again, his dangling intestines quivered.

  The old man gave a wheezy laugh.

  “Abernathy? Do you have any ideas?” Kirsten gave him a brief explanation. “Why would a seemingly random ghost attack him?”

  “Nothing random about it.” Abernathy leaned on Dorian’s desk. “A spirit looking for a random victim would have stopped at the first possible target. From any direction into the surgical area, he had to go past other people to get to this guy… unless he came straight up from below the city. Hmm.” The elder scratched his head. “Maybe he did come straight up. Guess it ain’t proof he ignored other victims to go for him. Oh, well. Theory sounded good at first.”

  Dorian glanced at the old man. “If the ghost did come up from below, directly into Elan’s room, it could also suggest the attack had been deliberate. What is the connection between this ghost and Elan? If Carlos Bennett is involved, how did he manage to hire a ghost to assassinate someone?”

  “Ooh, interesting theory.” Abernathy’s eyes gleamed. “Been a while since I’ve been involved in an investigation.”

  “Eww,” said Evan.

  Kirsten twisted to her right.

  The boy, eyes glowing bright white, entered the squad room, backpack over one shoulder. Shani trailed after him. He grimaced at Elan Mendoza in far too casual a way for a ten-year-old seeing a man’s guts hanging down to his knees.

  “Don’t eat too many hot peppers, son.” Abernathy winked at Evan. “Or this happens.”

  Evan made a flat face in response. The words ‘not funny’ practically scrolled across his forehead.

  “Who are you talking to?” whispered Shani.

  Evan spun to face her. “Don’t look. He’s kinda scary. You’ll get bad dreams.”

  “Okay.” Shani evidently did not peek at Evan—or Kirsten’s—surface thoughts, as she didn’t shriek in disgust.

  “Abernathy,” said Dorian, “why don’t you take Elan, go snooping around Bennett’s office, and see if you can find anything linking him to the attack?”

  “A capital idea!” Abernathy thrust a finger into the air. He tried to grab Elan’s hand, but slipped away, staring at breathable gel glooping off his fingers. “Son, you need to work on your manifestation. C’mon.”

  The two ghosts headed off into the wall.

  Dorian patted Kirsten on the arm. “Go on. Take the kids home and decompress. You’re already here late.”

  “All right.” She locked the terminal screen. “You realize what you just did, don’t you?”

  Dorian feigned innocence.

  “You sent Abernathy to a place full of cats.”

  “So?” asked Dorian.

  “I’m talking about the actual cats. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”

  Dorian cringed. “Oops.”

  17

  The Worst Possible Timing

  The constant, dull thrum of electronics filled the patrol craft, slightly louder than the whirr of hovercars in the traffic lane outside.

  Concerned at such quiet inside a vehicle carrying a seven- and ten-year-old, Kirsten peered back at the kids. Evan appeared to be asleep. Shani had her nose in a datapad, the glow of the screen in the dimness making her look as if she told ghost stories around a campfire. She watched Evan breathe for a moment before facing forward again. Sitting in a quiet patrol craft while auto-drive carried them along at traffic speed amounted to staring at a hypnotist’s watch.

  Burning off citizenship points didn’t involve any truly heavy work, mostly wiping desks, sweeping floors, sometimes organizing shelves. Basically, boring tedium. Sometimes, the kids helped clean up the mess of projects, parties, or events.

  He tries so hard.

  Six minutes away from home, an alarm tone came from the console. A brown-haired, vaguely Hispanic looking woman appeared. A line of text at the bottom read [A-SPC Wiley, T.] The shock of having an actual adult, someone in Division 0 Admin with an E4 rank, working dispatch stalled her mute.

  “Lieutenant Wren,” said Specialist Wiley. “We have a 21-47 in progress. Your presence is required at the Mayoshi Technologies building in Sector 3150.”

  She grabbed the control sticks and squeezed them hard. “Uhh, copy, Dispatch.”

  “Is something wrong, lieutenant? You don’t sound very confident.”

  “I’ve got my kid with me as well as another.” She bit her lip. Shani hanging out with Evan late at school meant Nila had to be stuck at a crime scene somewhere. Maybe I could drop them at Sam’s?

  “Just go,” said Evan.

  “What?” Kirsten stared back at him.


  He pointed at the dispatcher’s hologram. “She said 21-47. Those aren’t too bad. Just go. I promise we’ll stay in the car unless it’s dangerous not to get out.”

  Dorian appeared in the passenger seat. “I realize we start cadets off on the young side, but these two are still a bit small.”

  “Wouldn’t stop Burkhardt from sending them into the field if they were powerful enough,” deadpanned Kirsten. “If he knew about me when I was ten, he’d have sent me into the field. Maybe not given me an E-90 yet, but I’d have been activated.”

  “He’s a butthead,” said Evan.

  Kirsten chuckled. “Don’t repeat that out loud at school.”

  “Willow said they want her to sign up ’cause she’s like real advanced with Pyro.” Evan swiped his hair off his face. “She can do stuff Shani’s mom can’t even do.”

  “Nuh uh!” yelled Shani. “Willow’s cool, but she’s just a kid.”

  Evan looked at her. “Can your mom stand in fire and not burn?”

  “I dunno. Who does that?” Shani scrunched up her face. “Why would she even try?”

  “She didn’t want to. Bad people tried to hurt her,” said Evan.

  “Oh.” Shani cringed guiltily.

  Dammit. It could be another wailer, something harmless. “Okay, fine. But you two are to stay in the patrol craft.”

  “Yes, Mom,” said Evan. “Only reason we’ll get out is if something bad happens inside the car.”

  “Wiley, confirm. We’re en route.” Kirsten turned on the emergency lights and audible warning system. Multiple cars up ahead swerved or dipped as their drivers panicked at the sudden presence of police lights behind them and a siren noise coming from their sound system—at least until she pulled up out of the traffic lane and accelerated around in a turn.

  Specialist Wiley appeared confused. “We? You’re including the children?”

  “No, my partner. Dorian. Check my file.”

  “Never gets old.” Dorian chuckled.

  “People not believing in you?”