﻿ THE DEAD BEAT VOLUME 1 Death is not an alibi An occult noir serial by Erica Lindquist and Aron Christensen - Smashwords ebook edition - Copyright © 2011 All rights reserved eISBN: 9781452457642 Edited by John McClain, Sean Emerson, Lacey Waymire, Cedar LaBrie and Amber Presley Cover and layout by Erica Lindquist This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. Death is not an alibi. The dead really aren't that different from the rest of us. Some work honest jobs and pay rent on their host bodies every month, right on time. But some of them refuse to play by the rules. Police Exorcist Arphallo Sirus and his murdered partner, Sam Trent, hunt down the ghosts that break the laws of the living and the dead. The Dead Beat is a short story serial. This volume contains the first nine stories. 1. The Restless and the Wicked 2. Death Do Us Part 3. Dressing Down 4. Sealed by Night 5. Blood in the Water 6. Save the Date 7. Taking Prisoners 8. Drink Deep 9. The Death of Arphallo Sirus The Restless and the Wicked "I've got him heading up Fourth Avenue. Red convertible, top down." "Don't they always? The dead want to feel alive." "Do you think he can feel it at all? It's fucking cold out tonight." "Come on, cut it out," said a third voice, crackling over the handheld radio. "Sam's on this channel. Show some respect for the dead." Another voice answered. "It's fine. I'm not that sensitive, kids. But shut the hell up. We've got a job to do." "Yes, sir," said the first voice. "Okay, he's just turned down Southerton." "Good. Hit the lights and let's bring him in," Sam said. "You ready, Arph?" "Yeah." "Let's go." ______ Sergeant Gray was right. It was cold. Police Exorcist Arphallo Sirus flexed his fingers in his gloves. The black leather creaked quietly across his knuckles. His breath steamed and glowed ethereally in the city nightlight. Arphallo's partner stood beside him, still as a statue. PE Sam Trent didn't shiver, didn't blink. He was in his early twenties, several years younger than Arphallo. In one respect, at least. There was no cloud of breath coming from Sam's lips and the swirling wind could not seem to stir his white-blond hair. "Here he comes," he said. "Can you feel it, Arph?" "Yeah," Arphallo answered. He could feel it, like a raindrop trailing down his spine. The sensation was not necessarily unpleasant, but certainly unsettling. Arphallo flexed his fingers again, nervously twisting the silvery thread between them. The rush and rustle of traffic rose to a shriek as a bright red convertible screamed around the corner, scattering honking, shouting motorists before it. Two black squad cars chased close behind. Tires and brakes screeched. Their flashing lights and howling sirens turned the cold city street into a mad nightclub scene. "Now." Trent looked at him. "Now, Arph!" Arphallo jerked his splayed fingers. The silver wire stretched between them into an elongated six-pointed star. Arphallo twisted the center of the star. Silver shined in the moonlight. The lights of the city dimmed and everything seemed to slow to an icy trickle. Arphallo could count his racing heartbeats. One. Two. Three. The bright red car fishtailed wildly and screeched to a stop. A young, dark-skinned man with wild hair jumped out of the driver's seat, holding his head and stumbling out of the street towards the waiting police. Sam stepped in front of the staggering man and flashed his polished pentagram badge. "Kincaid Perth, you are illegally skinriding," he announced. "You have violated the word of Anat-Sin and the laws before the Light. Abandon this body at once and return to the Dark." "Fuck you, man!" the other man shouted. Kincaid shook his head, trying to clear away the shrill ringing that Arphallo knew was making his head throb. "I need this ride!" "You want a body? Then you make the same deal as the rest of us," Sam said coldly. Kincaid turned to bolt the other direction, but the police cars had pulled around and blocked off his escape. Four officers crouched behind the black and white doors. The cops' hands hovered over their guns, every one packed with silver and bone. Those weapons were a last resort only. They had to wait for Arphallo's signal before they could risk the life of the human host. But Kincaid could feel the silver. He spat another obscenity and tried to shove past Sam. Kincaid's body was stronger and much larger than either of the exorcists. Sam grabbed him by the shoulder and jammed a knee into the back of the man's thigh. "Salt him!" he shouted. Arphallo dropped the silver wire and reached into his long black coat for the salt. It was as fine and white as the best cocaine. And twice as expensive, shipped in from the Red Sea and ground at noon in a mortar bowl of willow heartwood. The sealed plastic cylinder almost slipped through Arphallo's gloved fingers, but he tightened his grip and slammed the salt canister up into a rubber-gripped nebulizer. Kincaid pitched forward, off-balance, but he pulled Sam down with him. The two dead men struggled on the asphalt. Punches flew and the pair rolled across the ground. Sam grabbed and Kincaid twisted, driving his knee into the cop's chest. "Get out of the way, Sam!" Arphallo warned. Sam was still tangled with Kincaid and grunting with the effort of maintaining his hold on the larger man. "Just do it, Arph! Salt him!" "Sam–" "Do it, Arph!" Arphallo lunged in and yanked a handful of Kincaid's thick hair. Kincaid pulled away with a violent jerk. Sam wedged his forearm under the man's chin and forced his head back. Arphallo pulled on the nebulizer's trigger and sprayed the fine white salt full in Kincaid's face. It stood out starkly against the body's dark skin. Kincaid stopped struggling and splayed spread-eagle on the ground as though staked out. Most of the salt had hit its intended target, but some had sifted through the air like fine snow. Sam's eyes rolled wildly and he wrenched to one side. His whole body stiffened, but Arphallo had no time to worry about him right now. The exorcist pressed the palm of his glove – studded and stitched with silver runes – against Kincaid's brow. "Maliki n'nas," Arphallo invoked. Kincaid's spine arched and he let out an ethereal scream, eerie and inhuman, like wind howling through skeletal trees. Then the body went limp and flopped to the asphalt. A colorless shadow rose up from the deserted puppet. It loomed over Arphallo, eclipsing stars and city lights. And then it was gone, vanished into the Dark. Arphallo whistled and gestured to the other cops. They rushed forward, speaking quickly into boxy black radios. They would take care of the man who had been Kincaid Perth's unwilling puppet. Arphallo rushed to his partner's side. "Sam? Hey, Sam, are you okay?" The other man's brown eyes were unfocused, searching wildly. He stared at Arphallo. His voice was small and frightened. "Exorcist Sirus, I… was…" Arphallo leaned close, trying to catch the words, but they were lost in the sounds of the city. The other man broke off, gasping. His eyes rolled back and then snapped shut. When they opened again, Sam stared quite calmly up at Arphallo. "Did you get that little prick, Arph?" Sam asked. "Yeah, Sam. I got him." "What about the host? Is the guy injured?" Arphallo shrugged. He didn't know. Sam stood, a little wobbly at first, but quickly regained his balance. He thumped the heel of his hand against his chest. "Fit and young, just the way I like them," Sam said. He turned to talk to the other officers. "Hey, Sergeant Gray, how's the puppet?" "Minor injuries, but he's coming around. We'll get his statement at the hospital." Sam jogged over to the dazed man on the ground as the cops helped him to his feet. Arphallo watched his partner go. Sam was a good cop, one of the best working the Dead Beat, as the others called it. He was brave and self-sacrificing, if sometimes a little crude. Death had that effect, sometimes. Arphallo slipped his hands back into his pockets and followed Sam. Death Do Us Part Sam Trent chomped away on an unlit cigarette as he paged through reports. He pulled out a lighter and thumbed the wheel. Arphallo Sirus looked at his partner over the top of his computer. "Nobody smokes anymore, Sam. I know you've been dead a while, but you know that stuff is bad for you, right?" "Puppets don't age. They don't get sick," Sam said. He twirled the lighter between long, pale fingers. "And they don't get lung cancer." "Well, I'm still alive and I do. Don't even think about lighting up." Sam held up his hands in defeat and slipped the lighter back into his pocket. "You know, back when I was alive, the hippies always used to say that you needed to be pure in body and soul to be a host." "Things change," Arphallo said. "Now we know that it doesn't really matter what's wrong with the host. Hosting freezes even terminal cancer." "Don't get me wrong, Arph. That purity stuff was bullshit even–" Sam was cut short by the sudden and noisy arrival of another cop, a woman with short black hair and wild, bloodshot hazel eyes. Arphallo had seen her around the precinct a few times, but could not remember her name. Something with a Y? "Trent, you need to help us," she announced loudly, slapping a red folder down on Sam's desk. She scowled at him as though somehow insulted. "God, that's a weird face on you." Sam flicked the cigarette away. "Thanks, Sam. You've put on weight." Arphallo was confused. "Sam? What's this?" "Arph, this is Detective Samantha Lefevre," Sam told him. "She's from homicide." No Y. A hot blush prickled Arphallo's cheeks. "Sam and Sam? That's confusing." Sam smiled at Samantha. "Only slightly. She was named after me. Weren't you, little Sam?" Detective Lefevre was not amused. Neither was the taller, slightly overweight man who came jogging and panting up behind her. His shirt was rumpled under a hideous red-and-green checkered tie. Arphallo recognized him and stood. "Detective Hastings," he greeted the newcomer. "What brings you down here?" "Has Sammy filled you in?" Hastings asked. "No," Samantha said acidly. "Trent's been wasting my time." Hastings just nodded, unruffled by her temper. He flipped open the red folder on Sam's desk. Paperclipped to the left side was a photograph of a muscular man slumped over a couch that was covered in blood and printed daffodils. "We've got a murder-kidnapping. Happened early this morning," Hastings said. "The dead man is Max Easter, age forty-six, killed by blunt-force trauma to the face and chest. We're still not sure how, but we're pretty sure who did it. Easter lived with his girlfriend, Thetis Sanders. She didn't show up for work that morning and we've been unable to contact her. Neighbors reported a man who made repeated visits to the house and argued with both Easter and Sanders." "Sounds like a good start, Hastings," Sam said. "Do you have a sketch?" "More than a sketch. We've got a positive ID. The guy's name is Dexter West," said Samantha. She rocked up on the balls of her feet and leaned over Sam's desk. Arphallo wondered if she was going to fall. "But here's the problem: West is just a host. He's contracted his skin out to a ghost, a Mister Anuban Sanders." "Sanders?" Arphallo asked. "Any relation to Thetis Sanders?" "Her husband. Anuban died three years ago in a car wreck." Sam flipped through the folder on his desk. "We'll need to talk to the lawyer who drew up the contract." Detective Hastings nodded, tugging at his ugly tie. "He's in the next room right now. We need your help with the ghost, Trent. The wife has been missing for almost twelve hours. Every minute reduces the chances that we'll find her alive." Sam and Arphallo followed the homicide detectives down a short hallway at a brisk trot. The walls of the next room were plastered with overflowing bulletin boards, full of missing person notices, seasonal advice and precinct reminders. A man waited for them on a worn leather couch, holding a cup of coffee. When the police entered, he stood and offered a firm handshake. "Julian Carver," the man introduced himself. "Miss Lefevre asked me to bring in Dexter West's contract." "Yeah, after I had to call the judge and get a warrant," Samantha snapped. "Easy, Sammy," said Detective Hastings. "He's just doing his job, just like us. He can't go around giving out that kind of information." "Just so," said the lawyer. Carver picked up a pristine white folder from a nearby coffee table and held it out to the gathered cops. Arphallo took it and began leafing through the contents. It was a pretty standard contract, each clause stamped and sealed in black wax. Dexter West's signature was on the last page, written carefully in dark, rust-colored blood. "What can you tell us about the contract?" Sam asked Carver. "Anything strange about it? Odd terms or payments?" "Yes, in fact," the lawyer said with a bobbing nod. His hair was slick and very shiny. "Dexter West is pretty much your standard career puppet. But the ghost, Anuban Sanders, was a problem customer from day one." "How so?" "Sanders had pretty steep demands. Full-time possession, including resuming his job and a physical relationship with his wife, Thetis," Carver said. "He wanted everything back that he had in life. As you can imagine, that kind of hosting is expensive." "But not impossible, even with limited resources," Arphallo said. "Is this all legit?" "Sealed at midnight over Sanders' grave." Carver nodded. "It took a lot of time to find West and negotiate a price, but Sanders finally got what he wanted." Sam paced across the threadbare rug. "So Sanders comes back and wants his life back. Wants his wife back." "But it's been three years," said Samantha. She raked her fingers through her short black hair and then pulled a notebook from the back pocket of her jeans. "I've got the neighbor's statement here. She said she heard Sanders shouting at his wife for betraying his memory. 'How could you forget me? I never forgot you.'" "That's a direct quote. So Sanders comes back after three years and fights through the black tape to get himself a body, but his wife’s moved on. She's with another man," Hastings said. He whistled. "Tough break for any man, living or dead." "So he goes apeshit on the new guy, kills him and takes off with the wife," Samantha said. She huffed in frustration. "Fine, great! But now what? Sirus, you got anything useful for us from the contract?" Arphallo blinked, a little startled that she was suddenly talking to him. He thought for a moment. "Not from the terms of the contract, no. Like Carver said, it's all pretty routine." Arphallo sat down next to the lawyer and opened the folder again. "But I can find Dexter West, his body and the ghost that inhabits it." He opened his black jacket, pulled a folded case of leather and unzipped it. It was full of tiny, delicate implements, each secure in a loop of elastic. Arphallo chose a long, thin glass needle and flipped to the final page of the contract. He scratched Dexter West's bloody signature and held the needle up to the light. Tiny paper fibers glowed on the glass, backlit by the fluorescents, but there they were: flakes of West's blood. There wasn't even a drop of blood on the needle, but it would be enough. Barely. "I need a map of the city," Arphallo said. Detective Hastings nodded and hurried from the room. He returned a moment later with a laminated map, the sort that was on the wall of every office on every story of the precinct building. Arphallo laid it across the table. He took a polished dish, no larger than the palm of a child's hand, from his little leather case. Carefully, Arphallo put a cone of incense on the table and set it smoking with a yellow plastic lighter. Samantha waved a hand in front of her face. "What the fuck is that stuff?" she asked. "Ram's blood and cobalt," Sam told her. "Now shush." Samantha stuck out her tongue at her namesake, but said nothing else. Arphallo held the glass needle over the incense, close enough to bathe the blood in smoke but not so close as to set the delicate fibers of paper aflame. After a moment, Arphallo blew out the incense and removed it from the dish. Next, he chose a glass vial of water and worked the stopper free. "Sam?" he asked. His partner nodded and took the water. With a conscious effort, Sam took a deep breath and then exhaled into the vial. The water inside turned black as ink. Sam handed it back to Arphallo, who emptied the water into the polished dish. "Okay, here we go," Arphallo said. He dropped the needle into the black water. It bobbed for a moment, spun in a few wobbly circles and then righted itself, pointing up to Arphallo's left. "What the fuck is that?" Samantha asked again. "It's a sort of compass," said Arphallo. "It will point to West's – Sanders' – location on the map." He slid the dish to his left, watching the needle as it swiveled flat, and then flipped to the right. A little further and up just a bit… The needle spun once more and then sank, vanishing into the black water. Sam looked over Arphallo's shoulder. "That's down by the river. Shoreline Road, somewhere in the 1600 block," Sam said. "Anuban used to work out there, before he died," Carver supplied. "I've got the address and I'm sure he would be familiar with the place." "That was all drainage before I died. What's there now?" Sam asked. "Storage and hauling, mostly. Rental and storage space for stuff coming up the river," answered Detective Hastings. "Lots of dark, empty buildings and not a lot of people." "We can give him the fucking tour when we get there." Samantha scrawled the address in her notebook. "Trent, Sirus, you come along to handle the ghost. Any arguments? I didn't think so. Let's get our asses in gear." Arphallo pocketed his instruments and followed the twitchy homicide detective out into the hall, toward the elevator. Sam and Hastings hurried after their younger partners. ______ They turned off the sirens and lights a few blocks away. Sam drove while Arphallo unrolled a thick envelope of white velvet across his lap. Sam glanced over. Nestled in the velvet were five stakes of polished white oak, each with a single knobby finger bone bound to the wood with neatly coiled copper wire. "Those aren't going to do us much good," Sam said. "They're not going to kick Sanders out of his body." "I know." Arphallo shrugged. He was a little insulted that his partner didn't know him better than that. "But I've got an idea. Maybe we won't need it, but…" Sam whistled at him and Arphallo looked up. The wide road was lined with trucks picking up boxes and tarped-over crates. A station wagon was parked crookedly at the bottom of an empty loading ramp. The doors hung open, but the overhead light was dark, having long since drained the battery. They pulled their black police van to a quiet stop and slid the doors open. Hastings and Samantha jumped out, already girded in emblazoned flak jackets and carrying guns and flashlights in hand. Four similarly outfitted men poured out of the van behind them. Arphallo pulled the stakes from their velvet wrappings and quietly followed Sam over to the other detectives. "Okay, spread out and cover the exits," Hastings ordered. "Sammy and I will go in the front. Trent and Sirus, you're with us." "Wait," Arphallo said. "There's no time," Samantha hissed. "We've got to get in there!" "I know. Please, just a few seconds." Arphallo found a crack in the sidewalk, green with invading grass and moss. With an effort, he drove one of the wooden stakes deep into the small crevice, and then held out stakes to the other four cops, the ones Hastings had told to go cover the exits. "Each of you take one of these," he said. "Drive it into the ground before you go inside." One of them took a stake, eyebrows raised at the bone lashed to the wood. "What if there's no ground – no dirt, I mean – to put it in?" "It has to be in earth," Arphallo told him simply. He distributed the remaining stakes and nodded to Samantha. She shook her head. "What the fuck was that?" "You ask that a lot," Sam answered her. "Later, Sammy. As you said, we're running low on time." "Fine." Samantha gestured and the other cops fanned out to surround the building. Sam, Hastings and Arphallo followed her up the ramp. The rolling cargo door stood closed, but the personnel door was unlocked. Hastings turned the handle slowly and shouldered the door open. It was dim inside. The only light came from a handful of buzzing gray-green fluorescent tubes in the high ceiling. The warehouse was a maze of stacked boxes, clipboards hanging from the corner of each pallet with a list of contents and inspector signatures. But it was – Arphallo had to think a moment – Sunday. There was no one in sight. Hastings held a finger to his lips. Arphallo cocked his head, listening. A small, high-pitched sound echoed through the warehouse. He struggled to make it out. Sam pointed down to the left. He led them through the maze of pallets, towards the sound. Arphallo could hear it better now. A voice… No, two voices: a woman crying and a man pleading. "Baby, don't do this," said the male voice. "I love you, Thetis. I came back from the Dark for you. But it's okay. It's all going to be okay. We'll be together. You'll see." It had the raw, mechanical sound of something said so many times that it was becoming nonsense; gibberish syllables that held no comfort. The woman just sobbed. Samantha Lefevre sprinted around the last tower of boxes, gun gripped in both hands. "Anuban Sanders, you're under arrest!" she announced. "What the fuck is this?" Sanders shouted. "You're under arrest for the murder of Max Easter and the kidnapping of Thetis Sanders!" Hastings leapt out behind his partner. Arphallo took a step to follow Hastings, but Sam grabbed his elbow and pointed to the other direction. They dashed together around the other side of the crate towers and came up behind Sanders. His puppet body was tall and thin, with a hawkish nose and sharp jaw. Sanders towered over a middle-aged woman in a sweat-stained nightgown. She lay with her face pressed into the gray concrete floor, whimpering and weeping. A pair of fuzzy blue handcuffs bound Thetis Sanders' hands behind her. Sanders grabbed his wife by the throat and hauled her up to her feet. The host's long fingers almost encircled her thin throat. "Go away!" Sanders shouted at Detective Lefevre. "I just want to be with my wife!" "You died," Sam said. "She moved on." Sanders whirled to stare at Sam, dragging Thetis with him. Behind Sanders, Hastings and Samantha were closing in, slowly and silently. Sanders tightened his fingers around his wife's throat. "Do you know how much it hurts?" he asked, voice strained with rage and pain. "I loved her and she… she just forgot me!" "She didn't forget you, Anuban," said Sam. "She mourned. But life goes on." Anuban's hands shook with fury, but his wide eyes filled with black tears that streaked his cheeks like spilled ink. Samantha was close now, almost close enough to grab Sanders. "I came back. I came back for you, my love," he said. He kissed Thetis's lips. They were turning a terrible purple color. "And now you won't move on. We're going back into the Dark, together…" Sanders clenched and Thetis choked. She jerked in his grip, trying to shove her husband away. The fuzzy handcuffs rattled around her wrists. Samantha lunged at Sanders. He whirled and lashed out with his free hand. The back-handed blow cracked across Samantha's jaw. She staggered back. Hastings shouted in alarm and leveled his gun at Sanders. Lives were at stake and he was authorized could shoot the host, killing Dexter West for the crimes of the ghost wearing his skin. Sanders wrapped his other hand around Thetis' throat. Her struggles grew weaker. "This isn't my body," Sanders told Hastings. "Unless you've got silver in those bullets, I won't even feel if you shoot me, not if I don't want to. And even if you do, she'll be gone, and so will I. It will be done before you can stop me. I'll find her in the Darkness. We'll be together forever…" "Wait!" Arphallo shouted. He raised his open hands. "You won't find her." Sanders seemed to see the exorcist for the first time. "What?" "You can't kill her. If you do, you'll never see her again. There's a soul trap around this building. If you kill Thetis now, you'll never find her. She'll be stuck." "You're lying. You can't do that!" "I can. You can feel it, can't you? It's cold, Anuban, like ice all around you. Like you're stuck in the ice," Arphallo said. He lowered his hands and held them out to Sanders. "Do this now and Thetis will be gone. But you don't want that, do you? You came back out of the Dark because you love her. You would do anything for her. So let her go." Sanders faltered. His grip on Thetis loosened, but he did not release her. The woman's eyes had fallen shut and her face was a frozen-looking pale blue. Her legs crumpled under her, pulling Sanders off balance. Hastings jumped at Sanders. This time, he didn't react fast enough. Or maybe he just didn't want to fight. Samantha was on her feet again. Hastings wrestled Sanders to the ground as she grabbed a pair of handcuffs from her belt. Sam rushed to Thetis's side and pressed two fingers under her jaw, then leaned close to listen to her breath. Arphallo turned on his heels and sprinted for the door. He had to break the circle. If she died now, she truly would be trapped. ______ The other cops met Arphallo outside a few minutes later, just as the ambulance pulled up to the curb. Paramedics jumped out of the back, carrying a stretcher between them, and rushed up the ramp towards the warehouse. Samantha stood to one side until they passed, then shoved Sanders into the back of the van. Arphallo stopped Detective Hastings on the way out. "Where is he going now?" Arphallo asked, pointing to Sanders. "He'll stay with us. We'll hold him in one of the station's silver cells until his court date. Sanders broke living laws, not dead ones. Thanks for your help with this one, Exorcist Sirus." Hastings looked at Arphallo for a long moment, fiddling with his bright tie. "Would it really have worked? The wood and the bones and all of that? Would you have stopped Thetis from passing into the Darkness?" "Yes," Arphallo said. Hastings looked like he wanted to ask another question, but Sam came down the ramp and clapped a hand on Arphallo's shoulder. "Come on, Arph," he said. "Let's get back to the office. My shift is just about up and it's time to give this body back." Arphallo nodded. Together, they went back to the car. Dressing Down The door before them was once a bright, jolly red, but years of pollution and spray-painted gang tags had turned it into a muddy mess of mixing, running colors. The paint peeled up in flaking ribbons around a pitted brass knocker. Arphallo grimaced. "How did you even find this guy?" he asked. "If I told you, he'd never talk to me again," Sam said. "Bob hasn't stuck around this long by being trusting. The mob killed him once. He's not in a big hurry to go through it again." "Fine." Arphallo was getting tired of being treated like a dumb kid, one not to be trusted with important secrets. And Sam was certainly being secretive. The collar of his trench coat was turned up against the back of his neck and the dead man kept his eyes discreetly downcast, half hidden by a fall of pale white-blond hair. Arphallo grabbed the knocker, but Sam put a hand over his. "No," said Sam with a shake of his head. "You use that and he'll run." Sam knocked four times against the ugly door and waited. A moment later, Arphallo heard the deadbolt rattle. A second deadbolt scraped loudly, then a third, and finally the door peeled open a crack. There was still a steel chain holding the door shut. Arphallo could see nothing on the other side. "It's Sam, Bob. We need to talk to you," Sam said into the darkened crevice. The door closed and then opened again, minus the chain. Inside stood a young woman, a girl that could not have been a day over seventeen. Her golden-blonde hair was tied up in a pair of pigtails, her lithe body only barely covered in a tiny plaid skirt and white blouse. Arphallo felt his face go hot. Beside him, Sam started. "Bob?" The girl winked and nodded. "Get your fat ass inside, Sam. I don't want anyone to see you hanging out on my doorstep." Sam and Arphallo stepped through the door. Bob closed and bolted the door behind them. Inside, the apartment was filthy. There were pizza boxes and empty beer bottles on every table, every counter. A gauzy red thong hung from the ceiling fan and Arphallo averted his eyes from an extensive collection of pornography that overflowed a large bookcase in one grubby corner. "What do you want, Sam?" Bob asked. "Is this your new partner?" Sam looked up and down the barely dressed young girl. "Christ, Bob. What the fuck is this?" Bob laughed. "The body? I figured I was inside enough girls back when I was alive. No reason to change that." "You're a disgusting old bastard, Bob." Bob offered no argument. He sat on the back of the couch and cocked his pigtailed head at the cops. "Okay, make it quick. What do you want?" "The boys from organized crime came to see us the other day. They've been after one of the families, but three of their witnesses have died in two weeks," Sam said. Bob shrugged his slender shoulders. "So? You're dealing with the mob. You know what to expect." "They're being killed in soul traps," Arphallo said. "Every single time. They're good traps, too. Someone knows what he's doing. There's no way any of the ghosts will ever find their way back." Bob flopped back over the couch, showing both cops an unnerving flash of panties. "Tough break," he said in a sultry, breathy voice. "Do you know who's doing it, Bob?" Sam asked. "No legitimate exorcist would do it, not on the books. Someone is moonlighting." "A soul trap isn't easy to make," said Arphallo. "This wouldn't be a hobbyist." "I've got a grandson retiring from the family business next month. I don't want my name on anything for a while," Bob told them. He spread his hands. The nails were painted bright red, just like the door used to be. "Sorry, I can't help you." "You'll stay anonymous, Bob. You know that," Sam said. "Come on, don't fuck with us. You've got to know something. You worked for the mob since the goddamn Prohibition. You have dirt on everyone in the city." "Sorry, Sammy boy." Sam put his hands in the pockets of his trench coat. "You sure about that, Bob? You've been a great help in the past. If you know anything, don't you think someone's going to realize that? Sure would be a pity if they sent their pet exorcist after you with one of those traps before we could catch the guy." Bob sat up. He narrowed his eyes at Sam. His lashes were caked in black mascara. "Don't try to play hardball with me. I remember you when you were still alive. I remember your wife." "I remember yours." Bob glared at Sam. Arphallo found himself holding his breath. Finally, Bob stuck his lower lip out, pouting. "Fuck you, Sam," he whined. "Fuck you, too, Bob." "Who are your boys going after? The Russians? The Italians?" "Neither. They're after one of the Irish families, the Reids," said Sam. "They're moving in on the Flynns' operations…" "Yeah, yeah, I know." Bob thought for a moment. "I think I know who you want. Alexandria Kerry is your girl. She's a junior lawyer and she's on the Reid payroll." "A lawyer?" Sam asked skeptically. "What, all that bullshit and now you don't believe me? Sure she went to law school, but her old man was an exorcist in Chicago. He's the one who taught her the trade, so there's no school records. Keeps the police from sniffing around when they find a soul trap." Sam turned away from Bob. His phone was already in his hand. "I need to talk to Judge Moss. I need a warrant for the office and home of Alexandria Kerry," he said. Bob rolled his eyes. "Wham, bam. Thank you, ma'am," he sighed. "It's always like that with Sam." "Thank you for your help," Arphallo said. "We should have Alexandria in custody within the hour." "Good. You keep her the fuck away from me." Bob stretched his arms up over his head, soft and supple breasts very nearly popping out of his blouse. Arphallo swallowed hard and tried to remind himself of the greasy old bastard inhabiting that curving, nubile young body… Sam snapped his phone closed. "We've got the warrant. Uniforms will meet us at the office. Bob?" "Yeah?" the blonde mobster asked. "That body better be legal, or I'm coming back." "I won't be here, Sam." Sealed by Night Jackson leaned on his shovel. This job used to be so easy. He had been a young man in those first days, before the ghosts appeared and changed everything. Used to be that all he had to do was dig the graves. It was back-breaking work, but it was simple work. The dead never complained. They just slept in silence. We all got to rest in peace. Not anymore. The graveyards were thin places between the Light and the Dark. They were busy places, especially at night. Not just loved ones come to mourn anymore, widows and grandchildren who wanted a quiet moment with the memories. Now the living and the dead came and went every day, every night. Half-formed shapes slid between the tombstones, pale silhouettes like shadows in reverse. The ghosts. A man in a stark, smart black suit appeared out of the darkness. He stepped into the yellow circle of lamplight and waved. "Thanks, Jackson," the lawyer said. "We're all done here." The gravedigger didn't answer right away. He took a bent cigarette from his pocket and lit it. Used to be that a shotgun was enough to keep the robbers and looters away. Now they came in nice suits, carrying briefcases full of contracts. Instead of wedding rings and gold teeth, this new breed of grave robber left the graveyard with signatures of blood and seals of black wax. Stealing life, stealing bodies to give away to the dead. The dead should stay dead. "Sure, I'll pack everything up," said Jackson. "How did it go?" Jackson knew this one – Zarien Brown, a junior partner at one of the firms across the street from the graveyard. The lawyer grinned. His teeth were very white, the same pearly pale as the moon. "First-time host. He was a little nervous at the idea of being puppet to a boxer. He can't get sick, but bones still break and it made the kid a little nervous." "Boxer? Must be Jimmy Costa, over in row twenty-eight. He had a hell of a career. Great fighter." "That's the one. He never gave it up. Now Costa wants someone young, fit and the right size to keep fighting lightweight. The money is going to be great." "Of which you'll be taking a cut," Jackson said sourly. "Hey, we all need to eat," Zarien answered lightly. "We all need to die, too." And stay dead. The lawyer's brow furrowed and he gave Jackson a speculative look. "Hey, have you ever offered up your body? At your age, you've got to at least be considering it." "Nope. Never have." "You sure, Jackson? It's a good deal. You won't get any older while you're hosting. You'll make some money and I can have it invested for you. A nice little retirement fund when you wake up. Maybe we'll even be out of this damned recession by then." "Not interested, Zarien," said the gravedigger. He shifted his weight against the shovel. It grated unpleasantly in the rocky earth. A pale, half-formed shape glided past. Zarien inclined his head to the ghost. "Evening, Kore." He looked back to Jackson. "What about when you die?" "No." "Come on, really? Just one stint as a puppet doubles your chances in the Dark. You don't want to be lost out there, do you? Just… gone?" Jackson's grip tightened around the handle of his shovel. "The dead should stay dead, Zarien. Stay quiet and still. I don't want to come back." The lawyer blinked, shocked. "What? Seriously?" "No. No one should come back. It's not natural. The dead should stay dead." "You're a crazy old coot, Jackson," Zarien said, shaking his head. The old gravedigger looked up at the lawyer. "You ever been a puppet?" "Not yet. I've only been a partner for a couple of years. When I get a few more behind the desk, I'll start looking at my own options," Zarien told Jackson. "So you couldn't find your way out of the Dark." "Probably not, and certainly not for a few decades. But I'm not heading there just yet. I'll be ready, when the time comes." He smiled a shiny lawyer's smile and hefted his briefcase. "Well, I better get back to the office and file these so Costa can start training tomorrow." Zarien waved a farewell to the gravedigger and turned to make his way back through the tombstones. Back to his office, back to his coffinwood desk to make more contracts that gave the living away to the dead… It wasn't right. "The dead should stay dead," Jackson said quietly. He raised the shovel up over his head and smashed it down over Zarien Brown's head. The lawyer crumpled in the grass, into a spreading puddle of his own blood. All around Jackson, the damned ghosts wailed and moaned in horror. "The dead should stay dead!" Jackson screamed. Blood in the Water The phone rang. Through the swirling confusion of his dreams, Arphallo could not immediately identify the sound. It wasn't his cell phone, with his ringtone set to a looping clip of Claire de Lune. He sat up and looked around the bedroom. His cell phone was still on the ornately carved bed stand, sitting dark and silent. The phone rang again. It was the house phone, a bulky antique with a yellowing ivory handle. He picked up the heavy receiver. "Arphallo, it's your grandfather." "Yes, I know. You're the only one who calls this number, Grandpa," Arphallo said into the receiver. "Good morning." "How are you, Arphallo?" He picked up the much smaller cell phone and squeezed a button on the side. The display lit up with the time. "Tired. It's six in the morning." "Sorry, my boy. When you don't sleep, it can get a little hard to keep track of the time. Should I call back later?" "No, it's fine. It's about time to get ready for work, anyway." Arphallo climbed out of the deep, wide bed and managed about two steps towards the closet before the cloth-wrapped phone cord jerked him to a stop. The exorcist reached for the closet door, but it was still at least six feet away. How did anyone manage before cell phones? Arphallo picked up the cradle and carried it across the darkened bedroom to see how much more distance he could get out of the wall cord. Almost… He could just brush his fingers against the brass doorknob. "How is work, Arphallo?" his grandfather asked. "Have you gotten a raise yet?" "Good. No. Um… work's fine. Last week, we helped OC bring in one of the local bosses. The trial starts next month. The guy is going to get off – the prosecutor doesn't have quite enough evidence to make it stick – but not before the press rips him apart. He's never going to work in this city again." "That's nice, but isn't it a little beneath your calling? You're one of the most talented occultists I've ever seen." Grandfather Kenneth's voice sounded small and tinny over the phone, so little like the strong tenor that had taught and nurtured a younger Arphallo's interest in Dark arts. "You should be running that whole department." "I know, Grandpa. Thanks for the confidence." Arphallo pulled his ear away from the phone just long enough to open the closet. All of the clothes inside were black, close enough in hue and weave to match. He grabbed the nearest pair of pants and a shirt. "How's that partner of yours, my boy?" "He's good, I guess. I don't really know." Arphallo pulled on his pants and wedged the phone between his head and shoulder as he buttoned them closed. The aged ivory slipped and he had to reposition the receiver a few times before continuing. "You can never really tell with Sam. It's hard to read him. He always says he's fine, but sometimes I wonder if that's just Sam being professional." "Sam Trent is a solid man. You could stand to be a little more professional like that. Make some friends, Arphallo. You'll need them down the road." "Sam's my friend," Arphallo said defensively. He slid his shirt around his shoulders – careful to avoid dislodging the phone again – and buttoned it up under his chin. Arphallo caught his reflection in the dark gray mirror over the dresser and sighed. He looked more like a mortician than a cop. At least it took only a moment and a few fingers combed through his short brown hair to bring it close enough to order. "Do you even know the name of his host?" Grandfather Kenneth asked. "It's… 'A' something. Maybe Alex or Axterion or Armand." On the other end of the line, his grandfather sighed. "You've got to take more time for yourself. Don't work so damned hard." "I thought you said to spend more time making friends." "Arphallo, you know seven hundred uses for silver, but you don't know your partner's whole name. You've got to spend time doing the right kind of work." "Sure, I will." Arphallo checked his cell phone again. "I have to get going, Grandpa. I'll call you tonight." "Be safe, my boy. I don't want you joining us stiffs any time soon." "I won't, Grandpa. Take good care of Mom. I love you all." "Love you, too. Goodbye, Arphallo." "Bye, Grandpa." Arphallo hung up the phone and grabbed his pentagram PE badge, wallet and keys from the nightstand. His coat was still on the floor, dropped there last night as its owner stumbled into bed. Arphallo pulled it back on, checked that his kit was still in the pocket, and grabbed his cell phone. It rang in his hand. Claire de Lune. "Hey, Sam," Arphallo answered. "How do you always know, Arph?" "Caller ID, Sam." On his end, Sam laughed. "Right. That wasn't around when I was breathing. Where are you now?" Arphallo was jogging down the wide, curving stairs. It was still dark inside the house. Sheets were draped over the statues and the piano in the foyer, turning them into caricatures of the ghosts that were Arphallo's trade. "I'm just heading out to the car," he answered. "When you get to the precinct, don't come up to the office," Sam said. "Okay. Where am I going instead?" "Meet me down in psychomantium three. I need you to tell me something about a skinrider." "I'll be right there." Arphallo stepped over the weeds growing up through a crack in the stairs outside. His car sat in the shade of the aging mansion, a shiny and modern black convertible all surrounded by old gray shadows. Arphallo fished his keys from his pocket and dropped into the driver's seat to make the trip into the city. When he arrived at the police station, Arphallo parked in the gated lot outside and went inside and rode the creaking elevator down to the basement. As promised, Lieutenant Sam Trent waited for him in the concrete hallway that led to the psychomantiums. The pale-haired cop leaned against a stained gray wall with arms crossed over his chest, speaking quietly to another exorcist. Sam looked up when he heard footsteps. The other exorcist smiled at Arphallo and excused herself. "Morning, Arph," Sam said. "What's going on today?" Arphallo asked. "What are we doing down here? You hate the mirror room." "It crosses up my eyes," Sam agreed. "But I need you to take a look at this." He opened a heavy door, painted with a large 3, and then followed Arphallo inside. The room was not large, about the size of an autopsy bay. The analogy was no accident – there was a gurney in the center, the body on top covered by a white sheet. An imitation ghost, just like the piano in the foyer, Arphallo could not help thinking. The walls of the psychomantium were covered from floor to ceiling by old-fashioned, silver-back mirrors. They filled the room with a faint, metallic smell that Arphallo could only describe as blue. The mirrors threw back his reflection, clear and crisp and all in undertaker black. But Sam was out of focus. There was another shape superimposed over the other cop's lean silhouette – a little shorter and thicker, skin and hair a shade darker. The dead man in the mirror was much older than his puppet and the center of his chest was stained in a rust-colored blur. Blood? Arphallo squinted at the ghost in the mirrors. It was cloudy and hard to make out. Was that Sam? The real Sam Trent? Arphallo remembered his grandfather's words earlier that morning. How much did he really know about his own partner? "So what's this?" Arphallo asked. "Little present from Hastings in homicide," said Sam. "Is it related to that lawyer they found in the graveyard?" "No. They closed that one inside twenty-four hours. Some graveyard staffer who – get this – hates ghosts. And anyone who deals with them, apparently." Arphallo gave his partner a surprised look. "I don't understand the living sometimes. What do we actually have here, then?" "Fresh body. They found him in a dumpster out behind a furniture store. Xavan-Carver test came up positive." "So someone was skinriding this guy when he died." "Yeah, and they need to know who." Arphallo peeled back a corner of the sheet to take a look at the body beneath. It was a man, a little older than Arphallo, but he could not tell much else. The victim's face was gone. In its place was a huge, ragged red crater. The medical examiner had done a good job cleaning the wound, but the raw, slaughterhouse sight still made Arphallo's stomach clench uneasily. "That's the exit wound. He was shot, execution-style, in the back of the skull," Sam said. "Who was he?" Arphallo asked. "What do we know about him?" "Lucian Fletcher. No dentals, of course." Sam gestured to the toothpick-sized shards of bone, all that remained of the jaw. "But his fingerprints turned up a match. Fletcher spent five years in prison for dealing heroin. Got out about six months ago." "Any enemies? Drug dealers don't always get along with their clients." "Sammy and Hastings are looking into that, Arph. But what they need from you is ID on the ghost who was running around in his skin," Sam told him. "No contract on file?" Arphallo asked. All possessions and terms were supposed to be recorded and available to law enforcement, if they could get the warrant signed. "Nope. Fletcher was street meat. His deal was a black market, off-record contract." Arphallo nodded and folded the sheet back to the corpse's waist. From a vial, he dabbed spicy-smelling dhidin oil on the stitched Y-incision, just over the dead man's heart. Arphallo stopped, uncertain, with his hand hovering over the hollowed remains of the body's head. "This is supposed to go on his eyes," he said. "Make your best guess, Arph. The MEs already took everything they need." Arphallo nodded. He pulled on a pair of gloves from a blue cardboard box on the gurney's shelf. Trying not to wince, Arphallo reached into the broken remains of the dead man's head and applied a dot of the oil approximately where the back of his eyes would have been. Arphallo pulled the gloves off and dabbed a last dot of oil in the center of his own forehead, on the spot that some cultures called the third eye. He closed his own eyes and held his hands out flat to either side, as though balancing plates on them. He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, letting his mind go blank, just as his teachers had told him. It was always hard, this part. Things came to him, wormed their way into the exorcist's thoughts: a sound like singing, too distant to make out the words; faces and smells of baking, of home. Arphallo covered it all in an image of black ice, deep and cold and still. When all was quiet, he let the ice melt away. And then… Blank. Nothing. Into the Dark… "You've got it, Arph," Sam said suddenly. Arphallo opened his eyes. He was sweating. How long had it taken? It was hard to guess, but teachers had told him later that it sometimes took more than an hour of concentration. Arphallo resisted the urge to check his phone for the time. Instead, he looked up at the mirrors. There was a new shape reflected in them, the shadow-form of a man. Unlike Sam's phantom, which led his tall puppet's every movement, this one lay in the empty air a few feet from the murdered body below. It was still as a photograph. Sam walked over to one of the mirrors, examining the reflection closely. "It's a little blurred," he commented. "Sorry. I probably didn't put the dhidin down quite right." "That's fine, Arph. It looks good, considering." "Anyone you know, Sam?" Arphallo asked. "Nope, but I'll get the photographers down here in a minute and send the pictures around," Sam said. He traced the sagging lines of the ghost's body. "Looks like we've got an older guy here." Arphallo went to his partner's side to examine the image. It was blurred, as Sam said, but he could make out a few details. The edges of the silvery monochrome shadow were duller, darker – the sign of one who had died late in life, often of a lingering disease or cancer. The face was lined, with a receding hairline, though the hair itself was still dark. "Look at the eyes," Sam said. Arphallo looked. They were blank, black as coals. Arphallo frowned. He had seen such eyes only a few times. "This wasn't his first death." "Technically, it would have been his second, in any case," Sam corrected. "Have you ever been in a body when it died?" Arphallo asked, curious. "No, but I've known ghosts who have. It's just as bad as the first time, they say. Every single time you die, your spirit might not be strong enough to make it through. It's risky." "But this guy's died repeatedly," said Arphallo. "Let's get an ID on him and find out why." ______ Detective Hastings had an answer for them the next morning. Despite the clear blue May sky outside the windows, Verso Hastings wore a bright green tie with a red felt reindeer and a brass bell hanging from the end. He charged into the office, tie chiming, with a cardboard tray of steaming coffees in one hand and a folder in the other. Hastings dropped into the chair next to Sam's desk and held out the tray. "Good morning. I brought coffee," he said. "Latte for you, Sirus." Arphallo took the cup closest to him, the one with a large L written on the top in black ink. Hastings took the one next to it and offered it to Sam. "Straight up for you, Trent," Hastings announced. Sam accepted the coffee with a slightly strained smile. Hastings nodded and took another white paper cup. It smelled like mocha. There was one more coffee in the tray. Hastings noticed Arphallo looking at it. "That one's for Sammy, Exorcist Sirus," said the homicide detective, referring to his young partner. The one named after Sam Trent. "Is she coming down?" Arphallo asked. "She better not," Hastings said. "She’s up in one of the interview rooms, taking a nap. Sammy spent most of last night getting this together." He opened the folder and pushed it across the desk to Sam, who looked over the papers and photographs inside. Arphallo recognized the first picture, taken in the psychomantium the previous morning. Sam's blond brows shot up and his brow furrowed. "Sammy got us a positive identification on the poor dead fellow," he told Arphallo. "The ghost using Lucian Fletcher's body was Vance Roth. Died at age eighty-seven. Roth had a bad heart. He was in and out of hospitals all over the country getting it worked on, but it killed him in the end." "That must have been expensive," Arphallo said. "The surgeries, I mean, not the dying." "It was." Hastings put his coffee down and pulled a page from the case file. "Roth blew through almost two million. But he could afford it. The man had a lot of money." "What's a man like that doing buying a sleazy off-record body?" Sam wondered. "I'm not sure, but Vance Roth was loaded, worth somewhere in the vicinity of twenty million." "That's a big estate. Who's in control of it now?" asked Sam. "His kids. Three daughters, all by different mothers." Hastings consulted another page. "But only until Roth comes back from the Darkness. Then control reverts back to him." "If he comes back at all," Arphallo said. Vance Roth had come back to the Light, to the living world, only to die again. And again. Often enough to turn his eyes jet black. "Roth's been doing something since he died. Something that keeps getting him killed." "That may be." Sam had drunk none of his coffee. He held it in one pale, long-fingered hand as he leafed through Samantha Lefevre's report. "Roth's been dead for about five years now. He's had other hosts, at least two others before Fletcher." "More street deals?" "No, legit contracts and good ones. Roth's estate had the money to buy full time skins," Sam read. "Nice deals, too." "Was Roth doing anything with them? Did he go back to work? Maybe he had something to finish," Arphallo suggested. "Roth had long since retired when he died and if he was up to anything, it was strictly off the record. He seems to have lived a quiet – if rich – life," Sam said. He pushed a page across the desk to Arphallo. The younger exorcist looked over it. "But both of the previous hosts are dead, killed while Roth was skinriding. The first host died in a car accident. There wasn't much of an investigation." "The second one was stabbed three years ago," said Hastings. "But they caught the guy who did it. Gareth Mann is currently serving a life sentence in prison for the murder. At the trial, he tried to plead out. He told the judge that someone paid him to kill Roth, but the prosecution wasn't buying it." "Why not?" Arphallo asked." "Mann had motive. He used to work for Roth, when the old man was still alive. Roth fired him. The prosecuting lawyer said that Mann's marriage fell apart after that and without a job, his wife got custody of their daughters. Mann confessed to committing the murder of Roth's host body, but could never point a finger at his supposed accomplice. Mann went away for life." "And now Roth's been killed a third time," Sam said speculatively. "You think he's just that unlucky?" "Not a chance," Hastings replied. "When we look into that car wreck, I think we're going to find signs of sabotage. All three were murders." "You think it might be Mann again?" Arphallo asked. "I don't know, but we should talk to him." Hastings scribbled the name and Mann's prisoner number on a pad of lined paper. "But the best witness would be the ghost himself. Sirus, do you think you could get Roth in here to answer a few questions?" "Maybe," Arphallo said, shaking his head. "It'll be a few days before he comes close enough to the Light for me to get through… if he comes back at all. Roth has died at least three times in the last few years. That's hard on a soul." "We'll talk to him as soon as possible," Sam told Hastings. "Sure. In the meantime, I've got some other thoughts," said the homicide detective. "Roth comes back from the Darkness twice with proper contracts, with good hosts, but they both die, one murdered for certain and another one that might not have been an accident. So what happened? Why change the habit?" "Maybe Roth was getting tired of dying, so he's going off the grid. He makes his next deal with Fletcher, our petty crook," said Sam. He put down his coffee and spread his hands. "No paper trail, few witnesses. Maybe Roth was trying to avoid getting killed again." "That suggests that Roth knew he might be murdered again," Arphallo pointed out. "Moreover, it means he knew that Mann wasn't the problem." "How do you figure?" Sam asked. "Well, with Mann in prison, Roth wouldn't have anything to worry about, would he? Why buy up a risky street contract unless he's still afraid? But that raises another question. If Roth knew someone was murdering him and knew it wasn't Mann, why didn't he say something? Why didn't he call the police or at least speak up during Mann's trial?" Sam and Hastings exchanged a look. Arphallo could see the gears turning as the older cops considered the question. "Maybe Roth bought Mann's line about an accomplice. Maybe he's being paranoid, trying to lay low even though his killer is locked up," Sam suggested. "I don't think so," Hastings answered. "If he's being paranoid, why not come to us? Why not get protection, further investigation? Unless Roth thinks the police can't help…" Arphallo flipped through the case file again and shook his head. "I don't see anything in here like bad blood between Roth and any police officers. No connections to organized crime. Like you said, Roth lived a quiet life." "Wait, what about his lawyer?" Hastings asked suddenly. "He's making a tidy sum every time Roth has to sign a new deal. What's the lawyer's name?" "Diapholese Kane," Arphallo told them. "I've heard of Kane," said Sam. "He's a big name in the Dark circles, a long-time player. He handles a lot of big contracts." "Makes sense for a rich man like Vance Roth to hire someone like Kane. But what if Kane started getting too greedy? He starts killing Roth off so his wealthy client has to sign new puppets. Every time, Kane makes a nice big bonus." Sam whistled. "If that's the case, I can understand why Roth wouldn't say anything. I wouldn't want to challenge Kane. The guy would be a dangerous enemy and he's practically untouchable." "So maybe Roth had to find another way," Arphallo said. "What if that's what the new puppet, Fletcher, is for? A skinriding deal that his lawyer doesn't have any stake in." "But Kane is connected. He finds out what Roth is up to," Hastings said, running with the theory. "Then what? Kane kills Roth again? What does he gain this time?" asked Sam. "I'm not sure, but I intend to ask. I'll ask the boys to bring Kane in for a few questions." "Be careful," Sam warned. "You don't want bad blood with Kane any more than Roth would." Hastings nodded. "I will. Sirus, let me know when we can talk to Roth. We'll bring in Gareth Mann, too, and see if he can talk to us about who hired him to knife Roth. Maybe Kane was the accomplice and we can get Mann to identify him." The detective collected papers and photographs, tucking them back into the case file. "Thanks for the help, boys. I'll be back when we've got something new." He replaced his coffee in the cardboard tray, beside Sammy's, and put it on top of the folder. With a final wave, Hastings vanished up the stairs to check on his sleeping partner and make some phone calls. Arphallo watched him go and then turned to Sam. "Do you really think it could be Kane?" he asked. It seemed unlikely. Diapholese Kane was a powerful name among the living and dead. "Could be," Sam said. "Kane's not exactly a poor man, himself." "Some people can never have enough money. Men have killed for a lot less than Kane was making from just one of the Roth contracts." Sam looked at his partner through the steam that still floated up from his coffee in pale wisps. "But you don't need me to tell you that, do you? Your dad murdered your grandfather over money, didn't he?" "Yeah. My dad was having a hard time paying the bills, so he…" Arphallo shrugged, but every muscle in his shoulders felt like it was cramping. "Anyway, yes. Now my grandfather is skinriding my father's body, giving him back the years he lost." "That's got to be coming up to the end soon." Arphallo shrugged. "Not that soon. Eleven more years." Sam sensed that his partner did not want to discuss it anymore. "How long until you can get a hold of Roth?" he asked, changing the subject. "I'm not sure. I'll go back down to the psychomantium later today and see if I can make a more useful estimate." "Thanks, Arph." Sam stood and carried his coffee to the break room. Arphallo followed. Sam poured the coffee down the drain and tossed the cup into the trash. A blue-uniformed officer sat on the threadbare brown couch in the corner and rolled his eyes. "One of the living would have enjoyed that, Trent," he said. "There's coffee right there," Sam told the other cop, pointing to an aged pot burning in a dented machine. "That stuff tastes like shit. I swear, it's the same coffee maker they had back in your day." Sam shrugged. "Coffee is coffee. I don't need it to stay awake." "Right. No sleep. Don't know if that's great or horrible." The officer on the couch looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Still, it's better than being dead, isn't it?" "Hell yes," Sam said quickly. "You have no idea what it's like in the Darkness." They waited for the dead man to say something else, reveal some secret of the Darkness. But Sam said nothing more. The dead never talked about the Dark. ______ After a lunch bought from the hallway vending machine, Arphallo made his way back down to the basement. Sam offered to come with him, but Arphallo declined. There was no reason to drag his partner down to the mirror room. A red plastic placard in a holder under the door number – 3 – read IN USE. Arphallo ignored the sign and went inside. The gurney had been removed, but Roth's reflection remained frozen in the antique mirrors, floating shoulder-high in empty air. Arphallo paused in the center of the psychomantium. It was hard not to think of his grandfather as he looked into the mirrors. Why am I surrounded by dead old men? he wondered. It was not a bitter thought – Sam Trent and Grandpa Kenneth Sirus were good men, better than most of the living Arphallo had ever met. So what about Vance Roth? Was he a good man? Or was there a reason he was being killed over and over? Of course, men were not in death always as they had been in life. He had been only a young boy when his father killed Grandpa Kenneth, but what little Arphallo recalled of his grandfather before death was far from kind: a pinch-faced and pinch-penny old man that smelled too strongly of peppermint. But after his murder, Kenneth Sirus had become a new man. Arphallo squinted into the mirror. The naked, pale gray shape stared at the ceiling with blank black eyes. Roth's spectral reflection seemed to be frozen about five feet in the air, maybe five and a half. If Roth found his way back and nothing went wrong, he would probably return to the Darkness in two or three days. As he climbed the stairs back towards the exorcism department – all of the doors marked with a white pentagram – Arphallo heard shouting. When he came around the corner, he saw Detective Hastings standing at Sam's desk, but he was not the source of the noise. Hastings' young partner, Sammy, was stalking back and forth. She paused to bang her fist down onto the corner of Arphallo's desk. "Goddamn it!" she shrieked. Every exorcist in earshot – about thirty of them – stopped and stared at Sammy. Her face was red and her short black hair looked frayed. Arphallo waited until Hurricane Sammy had moved on and slipped down behind his desk. "What's wrong?" Arphallo asked. "Sammy's hit critical mass," said Sam. "He was in the middle of a fucking meeting with one of Roth's kids when we showed up! How the hell is this going to look?" Sammy fumed. "Kane had an alibi for Roth's murder," Hastings said. He dodged one of Sammy's angrily flung hands. "We dragged Diapholese Kane, one of the most prominent Dark lawyers in the city, down here for questioning and it wasn't him." "Ouch. Did he have anything to say about Roth?" asked Arphallo. "Not much more than we already knew," Sam said. "What about Mann, the guy in prison for killing Roth's second body? Or the MEs and CSU reports? Anything useful there?" "You telling me how to do my fucking job, Sirus?" Sammy shouted at Arphallo. Arphallo flinched. "What? No, of course not!" "We've got nothing," said Detective Hastings. "No witnesses. No fingerprints, nothing off ballistics. No DNA but Fletcher's and Roth's on the body. Powder burns suggest he was shot at close range. The gun caliber was pretty big, not your casual small arms." "Anything else? The case file said Roth was found in a dumpster behind a furniture store." Sam turned a thoughtful quarter circle in his chair. "What was he doing there?" "Roth wasn't killed there," Sammy said. Her voice was hoarse from shouting. "The body was dumped." "Did you check his house? Was he killed there?" Arphallo asked. Sammy gave him another furious look, but Hastings held up his hand. "Yeah, we went through his house. Nothing out of place, no sign of a struggle or blood spray. We've talked to his daughters and none of them had seen Roth – in or out of Fletcher's body – for two days prior." Arphallo fiddled with the corner of his notepad. He was not sure he wanted to say something, just to have Sammy yell at him again, but the idea tickling at the back of his mind might be important. "You said the only DNA you found was from Roth, the ghost, and Fletcher, the body he was skinriding. Is that right?" Arphallo asked. "Yeah," said Sammy slowly. "So?" "Roth's been dead for five years. Either buried or burned. Ghosts don't leave genetic evidence. So what is Roth's DNA doing on Fletcher's body?" Sam had the case file open again and pulled out the lab results. "CSU got the DNA from some hairs found on Fletcher's clothes. But the back page here says that Roth's body was cremated two days after he died. There's no way those hairs came from Vance Roth. That DNA belongs to your killer." Sammy and Hastings looked at each other. "The daughters," they said together. "They share half of their chromosomes with Roth," Sam agreed. "It's entirely possible that their PCR tests would have matched." "But Roth's got three daughters. Which one was it?" Arphallo asked. ______ Gareth Mann was a short, dark-skinned man with a shiny, shaven head. He wore the orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and sullen expression of a prison inmate. Hastings and Sammy returned Mann to the custody of a pair of black-uniformed prison guards. "He doesn't look too happy," Arphallo said. Sam was lurking in the hallway outside with his partner. They leaned against the frame of the door to one of the interview rooms. "He's serving a life sentence," Sam pointed out. "You wouldn't be happy, either." "I meant Hastings." A moment later, the heavyset homicide detective opened another door, this one right next to the viewing room. Out came five of the young women from the lineup, all refined and with dark hair of varying lengths. Three were stand-ins, but two of them looked shaken, Arphallo thought. Sam gestured Sammy over. "How did it go?" he asked her. "Was Mann able to pick out his contact, the one who hired him to kill Roth?" Sammy must have gotten some sleep that night – the dark circles under her hazel eyes were a little less stark and she did not immediately start shouting. Arphallo wondered if Hastings had slipped her some sleeping pills. Verso Hastings and Samantha Lefevre boasted the best closure rate in the homicide department, but clearly, that success had a cost. "Mann IDed Roth's youngest daughter, Gaelina, for the contract," Sammy said. Was she smiling or grimacing? Hastings emerged a final time, this time leading away another dark-haired woman. She wore handcuffs and mascara streaked down her powdered cheeks. Sammy pointed. "That's her. Mann's lawyer is already calling for a retrial." "Sounds like you've got this case squared away, Sammy," said Sam. "No." Sammy was definitely grimacing. "We took statements from all three sisters before they brought Mann in. We figured it would save us some time." "So?" Arphallo asked. She had not rested that well, it seemed. Sammy snorted at Arphallo. "So, we already know that Gaelina has an alibi for the night her father was shot. She was at a gala opening that night. The press was all over it. She and her little doll-face debutante buddies were on the front page of the newspaper." "Maybe she hired someone else to do it," Arphallo suggested. "Like she did with Mann." "Her financials just don't support it. Without Daddy Dearest's money, Gaelina is dead broke. She couldn't hire a stripper, much less a hitman." "There's the DNA, too. So it wasn't her," Sam said. "Wait, what does that mean?" Arphallo asked. "I thought we were looking at a serial?" "We were wrong." Sam did not sound happy, but not as angry about it as Sammy. "One of the other sisters shot their father and then dumped him behind the furniture store." "Sweet kids," Sammy said. "Now what do we do?" "Now we talk to Vance Roth." They both looked at Arphallo. ______ Arphallo was at the psychomantium early the next morning. He leaned in the doorway, listening and flipped a silver vial in his fingers. When he finally heard the quiet, broken chime like the sound of a shattering wineglass, Arphallo called upstairs. "He's back." A few minutes later, Sam appeared in the hallway, Detectives Hastings and Sammy Lefevre close behind. Wordlessly, Arphallo opened the door and waved them inside. The psychomantium was dark and cold. A single incandescent bulb hung from the center of the ceiling, glowing orange. Fluorescents were not allowed during these sessions. The floor was covered in a layer of salt – someone would come by later to clean it up, once their work was done. The old mirrors that lined the walls did not reflect the detectives or the exorcists standing in the psychomantium. They were full of… something. Something black and smooth, but which eddied subtly, almost invisibly. "Fuck it all," Sammy muttered. "Is this bullshit normal?" "More or less," Hastings whispered back. A single pale shape waited in the center of the tallest mirror. It was Roth, but no longer as a still, out-of-focus image. This Vance Roth was finished, detailed, down to his stark black eyes and thinning chestnut hair. He did not appear to be wearing any clothes, but the slowly swirling obsidian shadows clung to his ethereally pale body. Concealing or constricting, it was hard to tell. Roth glared angrily down his hawkish nose at the police. "What do you want? I don't have anything to say to the puppet patrol," said the old man. "Now let me out of here." His voice echoed as though in a much larger room than the cramped psychomantium. Sammy Lefevre yanked her hands from the pockets of her threadbare jeans and stepped up to the mirror. Roth did not flinch as she jabbed a finger at the glass. "Fine," Sammy said. "You don't want to talk to the exorcists. Then you can talk to me." "I don't have anything to say to you." "Why are you being combative with us, Mister Roth?" Hastings asked. "We're trying to help you." Hastings firmly took Sammy by the shoulder and pulled her back a pace. Salt crunched under their heels. Roth's ghost watched them from the mirror, silent and secretive. "Mister Roth, my name is Verso Hastings. Sammy and I are homicide detectives," said Hastings. "We're looking into your murders." "I wasn't murdered," Roth answered stiffly. "What? Mister Roth, your last puppet was shot in the back of the head. The exit wound obliterated the poor fellow's face. We couldn't even find his teeth. Are you telling me that you don't remember that?" The ghost said nothing. He crossed pale, thin arms over his chest and stared at the living with his black eyes. Death did not seem to have gentled Vance Roth very much, Arphallo thought. Hastings raised his brows at the ghost in the mirror. "What about the last time, Mister Roth? You and your puppet were shot by an old employee, Gareth Mann," said the detective. "You must remember that, at least." "Mann was caught and convicted. I testified at his trial," Roth said. "But Mann maintained that he was hired by someone else," Hastings insisted. "We've caught that someone, Mister Roth. It was your youngest daughter, Gaelina." Roth faltered. His eyes dropped and his frown twitched into something softer, sadder. "You knew, didn't you?" Sammy challenged. "Your own daughter killed you for her inheritance, money that you took back every time you came back out of the Dark." "I knew," Roth said quietly. "I told her not to come to the trial, or else Mann might point her out." "But Gaelina has an alibi for your most recent death," Hastings said. "Do you know who killed you? Based on the DNA evidence, we think it was one of the other girls." "You can't compel me to implicate members of my own family!" Roth was angry now. "I'm not saying another word! You can sweep that salt right up and let me go." Hasting sighed and Sammy threw her hands in the air with an angry groan. "Cut him loose, then," she told Arphallo. "Dead bastard doesn't have to tell us a fucking thing." "Wait," Sam said. "Arph, don't send him off yet." "What the hell is this?" Roth asked. "I haven't broken a single Dark law." "No, you haven't," Sam said. He paced carefully over the salted floor of the psychomantium. "You made your contracts, as the Little Boy tells us we must. But you know all about your own murders, Roth. You made your contract with Fletcher to avoid notice. You were trying not to get killed again." "I haven't done anything wrong!" "What are you going to do if we let you go, Roth? Go find yourself a new puppet? Some poor living soul desperate for a wad of your money?" "What business is that of yours, spook?" "You'll just get your new host killed. You're putting the living in danger by keeping your mouth shut, Roth. You're getting them killed." Sam touched his fingertips to one of the dark, empty mirrors. His ghost cast a faint, barely visible reflection. "Now, how do you think that's going to sit with the Little Boy? You know what the balance with the Light means to him." Roth grew – if possible – even paler. "What?" "I'm dead, too, and if you force me to, I'll bring this before the Little Boy himself. Do you know what's going to happen then? You'll never get out of the Darkness again, Roth." "You can't do that!" Roth shouted. His mirror shivered against the wall of the psychomantium. "Watch me," Sam told him coldly. "Tell us what you know, Roth. Help us stop these murders and suddenly it's safe for you to go skinriding again." Roth stood statue-still for a long moment, lips pursed into a thin line. "It was my daughter," he said. "Which one? Gaelina?" Hastings asked. "No," Roth said slowly. "It was Braellin, my middle girl. The first time." "First time?" "Before, with the car. Her husband works at the shop I took my car to. I think she had him do something to the brakes." "We'll look into it," Hastings said. He scribbled notes on a pad. "I'll need names and dates. What about the third murder, Mister Roth? When you were skinriding Fletcher?" The ghost was quiet long enough to make Arphallo worry. Finally, he spoke. Roth could not meet Hasting's eyes. He stared at Sam as the dead cop looked into the blackened mirrors. "This time… it was my oldest, Jaestina. My girl. After the thing with Mann, I avoided contacting anyone except my lawyer." Hastings and Sammy exchanged a look. "Kane didn't mention that," Hastings said. "He wouldn't," Roth told him. "Not if he wants to keep his job. I didn't call my family. But Jaestina found me. I don't know how. She found me in the new host and called. Asked me to come over to her house. I just couldn't say no." "And then?" Hastings asked. "And then she shot me." "Why the fuck didn't you say anything?" Sammy yelled, waving her arms. "Your own kids – all three of them, no less! – murdered you!" "They're my children!" Roth shouted back just as loudly. "My own blood! How could I rat them out? I spoiled the girls so bad when they were kids, just like their mothers… I'm their father! It was my goddamn right!" Arphallo had been wrong, then. Roth may not have been a gentle man, but he loved his family, in his own way. "But if it was just about the money, why didn't you just stay in the Darkness?" Arphallo asked curiously. "If you didn't come back, they would have inherited it all. If you loved them enough not to turn them in, why didn't you just… stay dead?" Roth shuddered. "I couldn't. You have no idea what it's like there, out in the Darkness." Sam turned to face the other ghost, expressionless. Roth fell silent. ______ Sammy was asleep in an interview room again, after a long all-night session checking into Vance Roth's stories. Arphallo was certain he could almost hear her snoring through the precinct floors that separated them. "It looks like they're all going to pan out," Hastings said, handing out coffees. He sat, smoothing his purple plaid tie over his belly. "We've got all three Roth girls in custody now." "A rich old man being killed by his own kids." Sam sighed and shook his head. "Shit, I wish it wasn't true." "Me, too." Hastings stroked his tie. "I can't even imagine doing this to your own father." "You've got a bunch of your own kids. Would you ever turn them in?" Arphallo asked. "I don't know," Hastings admitted. "But if Roth's daughters were cold enough to kill their own father and three innocent hosts, why didn't they just destroy Roth's ghost? Keep him from ever returning to the Light? That can be done, right? There are ghosts who never come back. What about soul traps?" "Yeah, it can be done," Arphallo told the detective. "A soul trap is tricky, but it can stop a ghost from entering the Darkness. Still, that's different than actually destroying the soul. You can free a soul from a trap. It's hard, but it can be done." "You can destroy a ghost, too, but it takes a lot of power and skill," said Sam. "There aren't many exorcists with that kind of ability. It would have been next to impossible for any of the Roth daughters to hire someone like that." Hastings gave Arphallo a speculative look. "Could you do it, Exorcist Sirus? Could you kill a ghost?" Arphallo didn't answer. Save the Date Arphallo waited in the rain, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his coat and still numbed by the cold. He watched the street, but had no idea what he was looking for. Arphallo considered calling Sam to ask for a description, but decided against it. In the rainy gray evening, everyone looked pretty much the same, anyway; all dressed in long coats and faces hidden under black umbrellas like a crop of dark mushrooms. One woman stood out from the colorless crowd. The coat she wore was bright red and she carried no umbrella. Rain beaded in her curly golden hair. She saw Arphallo watching and wove her way through the evening pack of bodies towards him. The woman in red smiled and extended her hand. "You must be Arphallo Sirus," she said. "Thanks for waiting. Am I late?" Arphallo checked his watch. "Only by a few minutes, but the restaurant is running a little behind." "I'm Lily Davis," she introduced herself. Her hand was still extended. Arphallo took it hesitantly. What was he supposed to do? Shake it? Kiss it? He should never have let Sam talk him into a blind date. Arphallo settled on a brief handshake. Lily's smile faltered. "Well, why don't we go inside?" she asked, gesturing to the doors behind him. "Yeah, sure." Arphallo held open the door, glass lettered in gold leaf. He followed Lily inside and gave Sam's name to a smartly dressed maître d'. A waitress seated them under a wrought-iron arch strung with pale blue lights. "Sam says he works with you," Lily said. She shrugged out of her red coat and Arphallo cursed himself for not thinking to take it for her. The sequined dress beneath glittered, like the rain in her hair. "Oh… yes," Arphallo answered almost too late. "Sam's my partner." "I know. I was just trying to get us started." Lily's smile was back, certain and bright. Her lipstick was the same red as her coat. "Sam talks about you all the time." "Really? What… what does he say?" Arphallo could not imagine the stoic Sam speaking at length on any subject. Much less about Arphallo, who had so little in the way of a social life that Sam had taken it upon himself to set his partner up on a blind date. Lily laughed. "A lot of glowing praise that I hope to verify in person," she said. "Sam tells me that you're an exorcist. One of the best he's ever met, himself included." "Really?" Arphallo asked. "More or less." Lily looked over her menu at Arphallo and winked. "Sam was an exorcist back in his day, but he can't practice anymore. Isn't that right?" "Yes, it is," Arphallo said. "Really? You know about that? Most people don't realize that after exorcists die, they can't make the spells work anymore." "I have a little experience," Lily told him. "I was never an exorcist, but I'm a legal secretary. Dark law has always held a certain fascination." "I guess that's why Sam set us up." Arphallo glanced over the menu. Everything looked about the same; tasty, but overpriced and underportioned. "Actually, I don't think so." Lily put down her menu. As if summoned, a waiter appeared to take their order and then vanished just as discreetly. "What do you mean?" asked Arphallo when the waiter had disappeared into the soft, private shadows of the restaurant. "Sam also says that there's not much in your life besides the work," Lily said. "He told me that you work about seventy hours a week." "It's not that much." Arphallo realized he sounded defensive. Why? There was nothing wrong with being dedicated to the job. "Just when there's a rough case." "All of your cases are pretty rough, to hear Sam tell it." Lily held up a slim hand to forestall Arphallo's argument. "Don't you want to know why Sam did set up this date?" "Yeah," Arphallo answered uncertainly. "I guess so." "Because I'm fun." Lily said it with that bright smile. Her blonde curls lay across her pale shoulders and seemed to caress her skin. Arphallo swallowed hard and told himself to focus. Seven years without a date had frayed anything like skill. He was staring at Lily and had to force himself to look up as the waiter reappeared with two glasses of wine. "Thanks," Lily told the waiter, who inclined his head and left them alone again. "Legal secretary doesn't sound like the most entertaining job. What do you do for fun?" Arphallo asked. He was a little proud of the question. Lily wasn't going to have him on his heels all night. "Everything. I love dancing, skydiving, rock-climbing, riding horses and writing. I've published a few stories," Lily said between sips of dark red wine. "I've even been known to go skateboarding on the odd weekend, when I can get a host willing to let me risk an ankle." Arphallo had just taken a drink of his own wine and very nearly spat it back out. "What?" he asked, breathless. "A… a host? You're dead?" Lily opened her mouth – her puppet's mouth – and closed it again before she could answer. "Sam didn't tell you?" "No. He didn't." Lily lifted her chin and looked at Arphallo for a long moment. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He felt like a suspect under interrogation. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "I was just… just a little surprised. I don't know why Sam didn't warn me." "Warn you? Maybe he knew that you would react like this." Lily sat back and tapped a fingernail on her wineglass. The crystal rang softly. "What's wrong, Arphallo? A ghost can be a case, but not a date?" "No! That's not… not…" "It's okay," Lily said. She actually sounded as if she meant it. "You're young, Arphallo. You've never dated a dead woman before, have you?" "No," he admitted. "I'm young? How old are you?" "Does it matter?" Lily arched one of her blonde eyebrows at Arphallo. "What does age really mean, anyway? How old was I when I died? That has no bearing on how old I am now." "Doesn't it?" Arphallo asked. "A psychology study showed lower ability to adapt to societal changes among ghosts." "I read that article," Lily said. Her tone was challenging, but not angry. "It compared thirty-year-old living men and women to ghosts who had been dead for thirty years. It was a bad sampling." "What? How? They couldn't very well compare the recently dead. They died in effectively the same time period as the study. They don't have anything to adjust to yet." "Ah, but they didn't take into account the age at which the ghosts died," Lily said. She paused as their waiter brought steaming plates of pasta and a basket of dark bread. She inhaled the scent of the food, but did not yet touch it. "A full half of those ghosts questioned were over sixty at the time of death." Arphallo unfolded his napkin and laid it across his lap as he thought. "Okay, I think I see your point. Even the living over the age of sixty lose a lot of psychological adaptability. They may just be retaining that in death, rather than being the result of being a ghost." "Exactly." Lily punctuated her agreement with a swish of her fork. She took a bite of the pasta, covered in a creamy sauce and sprinkled with dried tomatoes. "Delicious." "I'm guessing you weren't that old when you passed. You seem pretty well adjusted." "Maybe." Lily's eyes were mischievous. "Or else I didn't die long ago." Arphallo considered that and then shook his head. "I doubt it. The first year after death is a dangerous time with ghosts. They're afraid of the Dark, and they want to be alive. Desperate to return to the Light. That's when they're most likely to break laws, make bad contracts or even take unwilling hosts." "You don't think I'm the type?" Lily asked. "Not really, no," said Arphallo. He twirled his fork in his clam linguine. "You don't seem dangerous." "Is that all? I might be a very good actress." Arphallo smiled at her across the table. "If you were skinriding an unwilling host, you probably couldn't taste that pasta. You would be fighting with the puppet's spirit and wouldn't settle into the body." Lily put down her wine glass and cocked her head curiously at Arphallo. "Really? I thought the native soul wasn't aware of anything that happened while they were hosting." "They aren't," said Arphallo. "But free will is a powerful thing. If the soul is unwilling, it fights, even unconsciously. It will keep trying to throw off the controlling ghost." "I hadn't heard that. I had heard, however, that some hosts remain conscious through the experience." "It's rare – very, very rare – but it happens. I read about it in college, but I've never actually seen it happen," Arphallo told her. "Besides, I can't imagine Sam sending me on a blind date with a crazy ghost." "Probably not," Lily said with a small laugh. "Sam thinks a lot of you, and that's saying something. Sam's a hard man to impress." "Do you two know each other well?" asked Arphallo. Lily twirled her fingers in a circle. "Sort of. We met in the Dark and he never talked much about his life. He never asked me much about mine, either." "And yet he sets us up on a date?" Arphallo suddenly thought of something. "Wait, you… you are a woman, aren't you? You're not just skinriding one?" Lily blinked, then smiled at him. "Yes, I'm really a woman. Not, I maintain, that it matters. But yes, I'm female." "Oh, good," Arphallo said, relieved. "I've just… Never mind." "I know Sam picked the restaurant – and it's good – but this place is a little tame." Lily pushed her plate out of the way and leaned across the table, speaking quietly and conspiratorially. "There's a great bar just a few blocks away." "A bar?" "And I believe it's karaoke night. What do you think?" "Um…" Arphallo stammered. "I can't sing…" "So?" Lily asked, now grinning. "I have no idea if this body can, either. But it's worth trying, isn't it?" "I guess. I really can't sing, though." "That means you've tried," Lily said slyly. "I can't wait to hear the story, and then the song." Saving him from having to answer her, Arphallo's cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked the message and jumped to his feet. "I'm sorry," he told Lily. "That was Sam. I need to get back to the station." He fumbled for his wallet, trying to quickly figure out how much he needed to leave to cover everything, but Lily shook her head. "I'll get it," she said. "You can take care of it next time." "There's going to be a next time?" Arphallo asked. Not too eagerly, he hoped. Lily gave him a wink. "Say hello to Sam for me. And tell him thanks for setting up the date." "I will," Arphallo promised. Taking Prisoners Sam Trent waited for Arphallo in a black car, just outside the gated precinct parking lot. It was raining, most of the road markings obscured by the reflections of the city lights. They danced like colorful flames as puddles rippled in the cold wind. Sam pushed the car door open and waved to Arphallo. "Sorry to break up your date, Arph," he called. "Get in." Arphallo ducked into the car and ran his fingers through his rain-wet hair. "It's okay. Lily says hello and thanks." "Does she?" He checked over his shoulder and pulled out into the road. The pale-haired cop smiled. "What did you call me away for, anyway?" Arphallo asked. "Beat officers called in with a potential ghost issue. There were some problems earlier today with a string of robberies and thefts. Small stuff, for the most part, and the perpetrators were not armed." "What's making them think ghosts? And where are we going?" The rain-smeared city raced by the windows to either side. Water drummed loudly against the windshield. Sam pointed at a spotlit green freeway sign. "Downtown?" "Yeah. Uniforms gathered three descriptions. All young and nicely dressed, not really the purse-snatching type. Robbery was able to get identifications on all of them about an hour ago," Sam said. He turned up the windshield wipers to a faster speed as he merged onto the freeway. "Cordan Drummond, Juxtan Florence and Ephram Fox. They're account managers at an advertising agency, with annual salaries in excess of two hundred grand." "Maybe they had some expensive habits," Arphallo suggested. He looked out the window. The buildings grew taller and brighter-lit as they drove deeper into the city's heart. "No one ever has enough money." "Robbery called and talked to families, coworkers, and collected financials. Nothing out of the ordinary, no empty bank accounts. Everything came back clean, except that none of them came into work today and none of them have gone home." "Phones?" "No answer," Sam said. "Any contracts with ghosts?" Arphallo asked. "Nothing on the books," Sam told him, shaking his head and tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel. "And witnesses say that our purse-snatchers were acting strange. Jerky and twitchy, like they were on drugs." "Or like they were involuntary hosts," Arphallo finished. "Do we have a lead on them?" "One of them, Juxtan Florence. The station got a call about half an hour ago from a club downtown, a place called Pulse. Ever been there?" Sam asked. "Of course not." "Well, the bartender at Pulse called asking for help with a customer who is getting out of control. The description was a match for Juxtan Florence. Captain Jakes asked us to test him and bring him in." Sam checked the glowing GPS screen. "This is our exit." Arphallo checked his pockets for his badge and kit. Both were there, as always. "Okay, I'm ready." Sam turned down a crowded road. Pulse stood on the corner, two stories tall and covered in flashing red lights. A line of young men and women – all in too much black makeup – waited impatiently behind the red velvet ropes. Sam parked in front of Pulse and climbed out of the car. A bouncer in black leather tried to tell him to move on, but Sam flashed his pentagram badge. "We're here to pick up your problem patron," he said. The bouncer nodded. "Thanks. The guy starts screaming lawsuit every time we get near him. Who can afford that kind of bullshit these days?" "We'll get him out of here." The big, leather-clad man unhooked the rope and let them through, raising a chorus of groans and protests from those waiting in line. Arphallo followed Sam through the doors. Inside, Pulse was a riot of sound and more red lights. A balcony ringed the dance floor, full of candle-lit tables. Sam went to the bar to talk to the woman behind it – a tall woman with bleached hair and impressive cleavage cinched up into a tight red satin bodice. Arphallo blinked until his eyes adjusted to the dimness. Pulse was packed with close, sweaty bodies. He scanned the crowd. Which one was their man? There were at least a dozen young men in suits on the throbbing dance floor, but most of the cuts and styles were archaic, trimmed with lace or adorned with designs in paint that glowed under black lights. Nothing that an advertising executive would wear into the office. There was a shout from up on the balcony, almost drowned out by the pounding music. A man in a smart gray suit stood on a table and was trying to pull a young woman up to join him. She protested loudly and yanked herself away. Sam reappeared beside Arphallo and pointed just as the man on the tabletop staggered and tumbled to the floor. "That's Juxtan," Sam said. "I'm going to go get him. Grab your wire and cover the exit in case he runs." "It's packed from wall to wall in here." Arphallo had to lean close and shout to make himself heard over the pounding music. "I don't think he can run." "He'll run," Sam said confidently. "They always run." Sam shook a pair of silver-alloy handcuffs from his belt and wove his way through the pack of dancers, up the stairs and toward Juxtan… or the ghost who was wearing his body. As Sam neared, Juxtan caught sight of the handcuffs and jumped to his feet. He reeled, caught himself on the edge of the table and righted himself. Arphallo could not hear what Sam was saying, but as the cop neared, Juxtan hurled a clumsy punch. The blow didn't land, but it forced Sam back a pace. In the heartbeat before Sam could make another grab for him, Juxtan turned and ran. They always run. Arphallo was hemmed in by dancers and curious spectators. They took no notice of his polite requests, intent instead on watching Juxtan stumbling his way cross the crowded balcony. Arphallo shouldered a woman in a short vinyl dress out of his way. Her boyfriend shook his fist, but Arphallo was already shoving past, struggling toward Juxtan as the ghost bolted down a poorly-lit staircase. "Hey, stop!" Arphallo shouted. Juxtan heard him, craned his head and fixed wild, blood-shot blue eyes on the exorcist. "S-screw you," he stuttered furiously. "Leave me the f-fuck alone!" "Juxtan Florence, your soul has been called into question," Arphallo announced. "We ask you to submit to a Xavan-Carver test to verify that you are in control of your own body." "Lotz. My name is Lotz, you d-dumb fuck," said the man in the rumpled suit. Well, that answers the question. But the law required the administration of a test before they could arrest him for illegally skinriding. Lotz, the ghost in Juxtan's body, ran for the exit and Arphallo was too far away to catch him. Sam was still fighting his way down the stairs. Arphallo grabbed the coil of silver wire from his pocket and wove it between his fingers, twisting it into the shape of a six-pointed star. He brandished it at Lotz's retreating back. The embodied ghost's jerky run became a zigzagging wobble and then he pitched forward just in front of the door. Sam jumped the final feet and landed in a crouch just ahead of Lotz. He twisted Lotz's hands up behind him and cuffed them. The skinrider's face had gone pale as marble, and he twisted under Sam. "Fuck o-off, spook," Lotz snarled. "You first, kid," Sam said pleasantly. "Test him, Arph." Arphallo looked around the club. The music was still thrumming, the deep, loud baseline that pounded against his ribs like a second heartbeat. But no one was dancing. Two hundred pairs of black-shadowed eyes watched as Arphallo nervously pulled the leather case from his jacket and laid it open on the painted concrete floor. He chose a circle of clear crystal set in cold iron. "Hold still," Arphallo said. Lotz thrashed, but Sam wrapped an arm around his neck and held the man down. Arphallo pressed the crystal disc to Lotz's forehead and concentrated. "Za dingar shammash uddu kanpa," Arphallo said in a slow, even tone. "Za dingar ninib addar kanpa. Za dingar enli la lugal kurkurrage kanpa!" The crystal clouded and turned an inky black. Sam nodded. "You're accused of illegal possession," he said loud enough to be heard over the music. "You have violated the word of Anat-Sin and the laws before the Light. You have the right to speak to a lawyer and have forty-eight hours to produce your contract to prove a legal agreement with your host. If you are found guilty of violation of the laws of the Darkness, you will be returned to face the justice of Anat-Sin." "Do you understand what we've told you?" Arphallo asked. "You can't k-keep me, you f-fucking spooks," Lotz said. His legs jerked spasmodically. Sam hauled Lotz to his twitching feet and pushed him towards the door. "Let's get him back down to the station," he said over his shoulder, to Arphallo. "Least we can do is pull Lotz out and get Juxtan a ride home." "So much for sleep," Arphallo said, half to himself. Forced exorcisms generated a lot of paperwork. They were going to be at their desks until sunrise… Sam escorted Lotz out to the car and pushed him down into the back seat. Arphallo paused at the door, beside the bouncer who had let them in. "Thank you for your cooperation," Arphallo told the much taller, much larger man. He held out a card. "We apologize for any disruption to your business." Arphallo turned to follow Sam, but paused. He felt eyes on him. A man stood just inside Pulse, watching. At least, it looked like a man. He was dressed all in black, like so many of the club patrons. But none of it was revealing, close, fitted or even thrift-store archaic. This man wore simple black cargo pants and an oversized sweater, with a deep hood pulled up to shadow his face. Arphallo could make out no details of the man's features. "Do you know that guy?" Arphallo asked the bouncer. "Who?" When Arphallo turned back to point him out, the hooded man was gone. ______ "Deputy Luce will take you home, Juxtan," Sam said. "Call us if you hear anything from your friends Cordan or Ephram. We would like to find them as soon as possible." "You think that they're being… used, like I was?" Juxtan asked. With Lotz out of his body, he was no longer twitching and stammering. Just wilting visibly under the strain of a day and night of being an unwilling puppet. Behind him, a window looked out over the city and predawn glow on the horizon. "It seems likely," Sam answered. "They went missing about the same time as you did, and work at the same firm. We'll talk to Lotz, the ghost who was skinriding you, and see what he's got to say." "I'll call if I hear anything. Thank you, Lieutenant Trent." Juxtan shook Sam's hand and then turned to look at Arphallo, who was slumped wearily at his desk, with his head pillowed on his folded arms. "And thank you, Exorcist Sirus. Thank you for getting that ghost out of me." Arphallo gave Juxtan a weary thumbs-up, but did not raise his head from the desk. He was too tired to move. Juxtan let Sam hand him over to the waiting Deputy Luce. She smiled and escorted the handsome young advertising executive away, making lightly flirtatious conversation as they walked down the hall. "Grab a cup of coffee, Arph. We're not done yet," Sam said. "Nnnngh," Arphallo told his desk. Sam smacked the case file across the back of his head and Arphallo looked up. "What?" "We need to question Lotz. We need to find out if he's attached to our other missing advertising execs. Let's get down to the silver cells." Arphallo hauled himself to his feet with a groan. The rest of the department was almost empty. It was way, way too early. They stopped in the break room, but the coffee pot was empty and Sam didn't want to take the time to brew a new one. Arphallo settled for splashing some water on his face and scrubbing his cheeks with a handful of paper towels. The ghost holding cells were only one floor down from the exorcism department, so they skipped the elevator and took the stairs. The gray concrete stairwell smelled thickly of cigarettes. It was strictly forbidden, but not uncommon for over-stressed officers to sneak off for a quick smoke. Arphallo held his breath as best he could until he climbed down to the next floor. An officer sat behind glass woven with a mesh of silver wire. He took Sam and Arphallo's names and badge numbers, entered them into his computer, then waved the exorcists through. Arphallo got a final yawn out of his system and followed Sam down the hall to the third door on the right. "Let's go," Arphallo said. Sam nodded and they stepped inside. The cell looked not unlike the psychomantium in the basement. The floor, ceiling and walls were all covered in shiny tiles, treated with a silver emulsion that turned each one into a mirror. It was several degrees colder inside than out in the hall. Arphallo squinted around the reflective cell until he found the ethereal white shape, out of focus and barely visible. Sam stood behind his partner, hands thrust into his pockets. He enjoyed the silver cells no more than he did the psychomantium. "What the fuck do you want?" asked a whispery, echoing voice. Without Juxtan's hijacked vocal chords, Lotz could barely make himself heard. "Let's start with a name," Arphallo told the pale form. "Is Lotz your first name or last name? Nickname, maybe?" "Let's start with your body," Lotz hissed. "I need a new one!" The smoky shape rushed at Arphallo and then through him. The exorcist felt only a cold wind. Lotz swirled around the tiled cell. "What the fuck?" asked the ghost, confused. Arphallo opened his jacket and showed Lotz the silver pentagram badge, engraved with his name and number. "We don't just wear these because they're pretty," he said. The white mist twisted and seemed to be looking at Sam. The tall exorcist scowled. "Don't even think about it. I wear one, too." "But you're a ghost, like me," Lotz whispered. "And what's going to stop me from just taking the fucking badge, spook?" "They're silver. You can't touch them without a host. Anything that's in stays in, and out stays out. It keeps anyone from pushing Sam out of his host body. Same concept that holds you in this cell," Arphallo said. Sam frowned and stepped carefully close to Lotz's smoky form. "You should know all this. How long you been dead, kid?" "Fuck you!" hissed the ghost. "None of your business!" "Fine." Arphallo sighed and rubbed his eyes. They felt like balls of sand, like they might simply fall apart if he was too rough. "Your death date isn't really the issue. We've got two more missing men, Cordan Drummond and Ephram Fox, friends and coworkers of your hijacked host. Do you know anything about that?" "I've got nothing to say to the fucking puppet patrol!" "This isn't going to go easily for you, Lotz. You were in a host body without any contract. That's a major breach of Dark law. The only reason I haven't thrown you right back into the Darkness is so you can help us find the other two!" "Arph…" Sam said warningly. Arphallo ignored him. "You stole Juxtan's body, his life! You could have killed him during your little goddamn joyride! Now, I need to know what happened to Cordan and Ephram!" "I don't have to tell you shit!" Lotz whispered spitefully. "If you think I'm going to give up my friends, your head is as fucked up as your face, spook!" "You know the other two, then. Where are they? What are their names? "Bite me!" "I've been up all night cleaning this up, Lotz! Give me a name, a location… Give up something so we can fucking find them!" Arphallo snarled. "Arphallo Sirus, that’s enough!" Sam shouted. "We're done here. Come on." After a long stare at Lotz's swirling ghost, Arphallo finally let Sam pull him out of the cell. His stomach felt twisted up under his ribs, tight and unpleasantly acidic. When he had pulled the door firmly shut behind them, Sam stopped, arms crossed over his borrowed chest. Arphallo sighed and slumped against the wall. "I'm sorry, Sam. I don't…" "It's okay, Arph," Sam said. He looked down at the floor, then back up at his partner. "I shouldn't have dragged you down here with no sleep and no coffee. It's been a long time since I died, since I needed any of that stuff. It's easy to forget how bad it can get." They walked together back to the stairs. The desk officer waved and bade them a good morning. "He wasn't going to talk anyway," Sam said as they climbed back up to the next floor. His voice echoed off the concrete walls. "Why not?" Arphallo asked. "Because Lotz is just a smart-ass kid, Arph. This is all a game to him. I doubt he has the slightest idea what's at stake." Sam followed Arphallo out of the stairwell and back to their desks. "He couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen when he died." "How do you know?" "You can just feel it in other ghosts, sometimes." Sam scribbled some notes in the case file. "He talks like a goddamn teenager, too. A modern one. I would bet my badge that even his death wasn't long ago. Lotz doesn't know any of the rules, even the basic ones." "What the hell do we do now? If Lotz won't talk, where does that leave us?" Arphallo asked. He raked his fingers through his hair. He needed a shower. "It leaves you in your car, heading home," Sam said. He pointed back toward the elevator. "Go get some sleep, Arph. I'll call you when I find something." "What about you?" "You know I don't need to sleep." "But you're way over your eight hours in that body," Arphallo pointed out. "It's okay. I'll take some time off when this is done. Go home, Arph." Arphallo didn't have the energy to argue. He collected his keys from his desk and trudged down to the parking lot. ______ Claire de Lune. Arphallo jerked awake and grabbed his phone off the mahogany nightstand and checked the name on the little glowing screen. "What is it, Sam?" he said into the receiver. "I need you to meet me at the Von Heller on Sixteenth Street." "Did you find something?" Arphallo asked. He sat up and grabbed his pants from where they lay draped across the foot of the huge bed. He barely remembered the drive home. "Yes, but we weren't the first to find it." "What?" Arphallo tucked the phone between his shoulder and jaw as he wrestled with his belt. "Just get down here." ______ When he arrived at the Von Heller, a nervous-looking hotel manager led Arphallo up to the fifth floor to where Sam was waiting for him. The expensive hotel room was a mess, with furniture overturned and a smashed mirror scattered in shining shards across the floor. The air reeked of sulphur and there was salt everywhere. The room looked as though a brief but brutal snowstorm had torn its way through. Blue-jacketed crime scene unit technicians picked their way through it all, taking photographs and collecting evidence. "Hey, leave that for now," Sam was saying to one of them as Arphallo came in. "I want to preserve the scene until my partner can take a look." "I'm here, Sam," Arphallo said. "What's all this?" Sam turned and nodded to him. "Sorry to get you up again so soon, Arph. You probably only got a few hours of sleep." "It's okay." Arphallo stopped at the sound of someone being violently ill nearby. "What was that?" "That's one of our missing guys, Ephram Fox. He's busy puking his guts out." "Drunk? Or hung over, I guess." "Nope. It's not the drugs, either. The station received a 911 from the lady in the next room about an hour ago. She heard a crash and then shouting." Sam shook his head and pointed to the door that Arphallo had just entered through. "When the officers showed up to take a look, they found the lock busted and Ephram Fox was puking into a pile of salt." Arphallo glanced at the door chain, ripped out of the splintered wooden frame. The bedroom was on his right, the bathroom where Ephram was being noisily sick on the left. In between was a sort of sitting room. A broken bottle of whiskey lay next to the overturned table. There was a bag of what looked like brown sugar ripped open on the carpet, but which Arphallo suspected was probably heroin, all mixed in with the salt. But Sam didn't think that those were the source of Ephram's illness, and Arphallo had to agree. The salt, the stench of brimstone… "This was an exorcism," Arphallo said. "I thought so, too. We've put in calls. It wasn't any of our boys who did this." "A rogue exorcist?" Arphallo suddenly remembered the man at the nightclub. "Wait, there was a guy watching us at Pulse. Cargo pants and a hoodie. I couldn't see his face." "We made a pretty public arrest," Sam said. "You don't think he was just a looker?" "No," Arphallo insisted. "He wasn't dressed for clubbing. He was there for something else." "He might be our guy. He could have been after Lotz, but had to back off when we grabbed him." Arphallo crouched and pinched up some of the salt. It was course-ground. He touched it to his tongue and spat. "This is just table salt. He had to use a lot of it to get the job done." "It wasn't a very good exorcism," Sam agreed. "But this rogue was good enough to find Ephram before we did." The toilet flushed in the next room and a man staggered out, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He was a little older than Juxtan had been, about Arphallo's own age. His dark blond hair was disheveled and lank with sweat. "What the hell is going on out here?" he panted. Sam had been kneeling next to Arphallo. Now he stood and extended a hand. "Good morning, Mister Fox. I'm Sam Trent and this is Exorcist Arphallo Sirus." "Hell no," Ephram groaned. "No. No way. No more exorcists." "The man who performed your exorcism – badly, I might add – was not a police officer," Sam said. "Are you feeling any better, Ephram?" "I guess." He leaned against the wall and sniffed his sleeve. "What the hell is that? Vodka?" Sam pointed to the shattered bottle on the floor. "Whiskey. The ghost that was joyriding your body had quite a night planned. We need to ask you some questions about that. Do you think you can answer a few?" "I don't know how much I can tell you," Ephram said with a shake of his head. He pressed his fingers to his temples. "Christ, what day is it? I don't remember a thing." "But you know that you were possessed?" Arphallo said. "I woke up to some salty freak screaming some gibberish and grabbing my head. That's an exorcism, as far as I know. As soon as I saw him, I guess he knew that the ghost was gone and he took off." "Did you get a look at the guy?" Sam asked. He took his notebook from his pocket and looked at Ephram. The rumpled man shrugged. "I don't know. Average looking. Short, dark hair and dark skin. Latin, I think." "Do you think you could work with a sketch artist to put something together?" "I guess so." "Can you remember anything before that, Mister Fox?" Sam asked. "You and two other employees of your firm went missing on the same day, under similar circumstances. We've got one of the ghosts in a cell, and that rogue exorcist sent the other one back to the Dark, but we need to find Cordan Drummond. Is there anything you can tell us about your possession?" Ephram scrubbed his forehead with his sleeve. "I woke up and headed in to work. I parked my car in the garage across the street and then… and then I woke up here, with that exorcist." "Can you remember anything else?" Arphallo asked, hoping for something more helpful. "Sorry, no." Sam nodded. "Well, thank you for your help, Mister Fox. When you're ready, one of the officers here will take you down to the precinct office to work on that sketch. After that, they'll take you home." "Thanks," Ephram said. Sam and Arphallo walked out of the hotel room, leaving the crime scene unit to finish their work. In the mirrored elevator, Arphallo looked at his partner. "We're down one ghost, but up one off-beat exorcist. We still don't have a lead on where to find the last of Lotz's friends," he said. Sam raised one eyebrow. "All true. But I think we can get Lotz to talk now." "How do you figure?" Arphallo asked. "You said yourself that he wouldn't give up his friends." "But now we've got another exorcist on the case," Sam pointed out. "We might be able to get Lotz to help us find his buddy before the rogue does." Arphallo hoped Sam was right. ______ Arphallo was still tired. Upon their return to the police station, he detoured to the second-story robbery department's break room for coffee, but Sam took the cup from his hands and dumped it down the sink. "What was that for?" Arphallo asked. "No coffee," said Sam. "Yeah, I got that part. Why the hell not?" "I want you just as grumpy as you were this morning," Sam explained. Arphallo sighed and obediently followed Sam up the smoky stairs to Lotz's cell. The wispy shape eddied and cast pale reflections in the silvery tiles. "Back already, puppet patrol?" hissed the young ghost. "You lonely or something?" Arphallo leaned beside the door, arms crossed over his chest and rested his head against the cool wall. Sam sighed, looking up at the spot where Lotz floated like a captive cloud. "I'm afraid not, buddy," Sam said. "We found Ephram, the host one of your friends was skinriding, the tall one with dark blond hair. But not before someone else got him." "Flint? He's gone?" Lotz whispered. "What the fuck you playing at?" "Another exorcist found your friend, Flint, before we did and kicked him back to the Darkness," Sam told Lotz. "It wasn't a police exorcist. A rogue. And it wasn't a nice piece of work." "Eviction is eviction. Don't see that it's anything different than what your boy there did to me." Lotz leveled a nebulous white finger at Arphallo. "You're young," Sam said gently. "There a lot of things you don't know. By taking unwilling hosts, you and your friends have broken one of the major laws of the Dark." "For that, you're facing something a lot worse than death or the Darkness," Arphallo added. "If you had paid a little more attention, you and your dumbass buddies might not have ruined everything for yourselves." "Easy, Arph. Lotz, tell us how to find your other friend, the one using Cordan Drummond's body. What's his name?" Sam asked. "Why the fuck should I tell you? Soon as you find him, you're just going to send us both back to the Darkness!" Lotz snarled. Sam was wrong. The kid wasn't going to talk. Arphallo pushed himself up from the wall and grabbed his gloves from his belt. The silver sigils stitched into the leather flashed in the sterile light of the cell. "You want to go back? You have no idea what you're in for, Lotz," Arphallo said. He pulled the gloves on over hands stiff with fatigue. "Hell, I don't even know. No ghost will fucking tell me. But I gather that it's not nice." "Hey, you need me!" Lotz protested. He flinched back into the corner of the cell. "You can't fucking touch me, spook!" "Come on, Arph. Back off. He's just a kid," Sam said. He turned back to Lotz. "So is your friend. Tell us about him." "If I don't want to go back, then I better stall you fuckers, right? Right? I don't tell you anything and I just stay here…" "And your friend is out there, just waiting for that other exorcist to find him. Help us find him first. What's his name? Where is he?" Sam asked again. "I don't…" Lotz trailed off. Arphallo clenched his fists, making the leather creak across his knuckles. "Your friend Flint didn't get a nice exorcism. It hurt. It sent him screaming into the Dark. And if you don't help us find your other pal, he's getting the same." "It… I… This is my fucking fault," Lotz whispered. He wilted onto the floor like a low fog. "It was my idea. We heard about the contracts you have to make to come back to the Light. You got to have money or something else worth selling to the living. We didn't have any of that shit, so I said we should just go grab our own rides." "Your friend's name," Sam reminded the ghost. "Who is he?" "Hex," Lotz sighed. "Hex Smith." Sam wrote the name down. "Do you know where we could find him?" "He's got a girl. Hex is probably with her." "You know where she lives?" ______ "Hex Smith, open up!" Sam called through the door. "It's the police!" Arphallo waited on the other side of the door, fingers wound with silver wire. The dark, narrow hallway was papered in peeling red like dried blood. Through the thin door, they heard the heavy hammering of running feet – running away. There were muffled voices and a rustling thump. "I'm taking us in," Sam said. Sam grabbed the doorknob and looked surprised when it turned. It was unlocked. The tall cop kicked the door open, slamming it against the wall. Arphallo ran inside, yanking the wire into its star configuration. A very naked Cordan Drummond twitched on the floor of the cheap studio apartment, back arched and eyes rolling wildly. Salt dusted his hair and was scattered across the stained carpet. A girl – no more than seventeen years old, Arphallo guessed – was tied to a chair in the corner and gagged with a twist of torn bed sheet. Tears streamed down her cheeks and soaked her sheer nightdress, making it cling to her skin. She grunted against the gag and jerked her head to the right. Arphallo looked up at the window just in time to see a dark-clothed shape jumping over the rail of the fire escape and dropping down into the alley below. His partner dove out the window after the fleeing exorcist, shouting for him to stop. When the other man didn't even slow, Sam vaulted over the edge of the escape and gave chase. "Sam!" Arphallo shouted. "Sam, no! He's an exorcist!" What if he banished Sam from his host? But Sam was already gone, vanished around the corner of the next building. Arphallo rolled the salt-dusted Cordan onto his back and pressed the Xavan-Carver crystal to his forehead. When the exorcist invoked the spell, the circle of crystal darkened. The exorcism had not been completed and Hex was still in the body. Arphallo slapped a pair of silvered handcuffs around his wrists. "Hex Smith, can you hear me?" Arphallo asked. Hex's stolen body groaned. That was probably a yes. "You're accused of illegal possession," he said. "You have violated the word of Anat-Sin and the laws of the Light. You have the right to a lawyer and have forty-eight hours to produce your contract and prove your legal agreement with a host. If you are found guilty of violation of the laws of the Darkness, you will be returned to Anat-Sin to face sentence for your crimes," Arphallo announced. Hex groaned again. Arphallo left him on the floor and went to the girl bound in the chair. He sawed at the ropes with a knife until the last one snapped free. The scantily-clad and tear-stained woman grabbed Arphallo's wrist and begged him not to take Hex away. Arphallo was still apologizing when Sam returned. In spite of his spirited chase, there was no sweat on the dead cop's pale skin and his chest remained breathlessly still. Arphallo extricated his hand from the girlfriend's grasp. "Where's the other exorcist?" he asked. Sam shook his head. "I lost him about two blocks from here. We'll bring in CSU to see about collecting some prints, but the guy was wearing gloves. I don't think they're going to find much." "Damn it." Arphallo rubbed his sticky, swollen eyes. "Let's get Hex out of this body and put him in a cell so I can go home and get some sleep." They hauled Hex to his feet and half carried, half dragged him downstairs to the car. His girlfriend paced them the entire time, begging the exorcists to let Hex go and not to call her parents. ______ "Hey, not just yet," Sam said. He kicked a chair into Arphallo's path as the younger cop was heading toward the elevator. Arphallo sighed and dropped down into the seat. "What's up?" he asked. "Just got the background back on Lotz and his friends. Jamie Lotz, Flint Jordan and Hex Smith all have records. Juvenile, so they're sealed by the state," Sam read from a folder. "But I've got records of their deaths. All three died in a car wreck. Lotz was driving a stolen Stravati and Flint and Hex were in the back." "Stealing cars when they're alive. When they die, stealing bodies is almost second nature." Arphallo didn't feel victorious for catching Lotz and his friends. There was a sick clench in the pit of Arphallo's stomach. "You did a good job scaring Lotz in there, Arph. I never thought you could pull off the bad cop routine." Arphallo scowled at Sam. "I could probably pull off a murder if you keep taking away my coffee." Sam smiled and shook his head. "Nope. I've known killers, Arph. You couldn't do it." "Fine." Arphallo waved his hand. "What about Lotz and Hex? They're just kids, Sam. As soon as a judge hears their case, those boys are going back into the Darkness. Flint is already gone." Sam's gaze dropped and he actually took a deep breath. "It's not going to go well for them." "Can't the Little Boy go easy on them?" Arphallo asked. With Lotz and Hex safely removed from their hijacked bodies and locked up in silver-tiled cells, it grew harder to be quite so angry with them. What they had done was a mistake, but maybe they could learn from it… But Sam raised his brown eyes to Arphallo's. "The laws of the Dark aren't like the laws we enforce here, Arph," Sam said heavily. "They aren't made by lobbyists and they don't change with every election. The Little Boy didn't make them, and he doesn't enforce them. He only teaches us about them. Dark laws are like the laws of physics. You let go of an apple and it will fall. When those kids get back to the Darkness, they are going to fall." Arphallo looked back at his desk, at the half-finished report sitting in front of the computer. Sam followed his eyes and arched an eyebrow. "You thinking of getting back to work?" Sam asked. "I think I'll take some time off to rest up after all this," Arphallo said. "I'll take care of the paperwork in a few days. Maybe next week." Sam nodded slowly. "I think I'll do the same. No need to rush things." "See you in a few days, Sam." "See you, Arph." Drink Deep The drive back was quiet. Sam considered turning on the radio, but the stuff that passed for music these days was rough, crass shouting about drugs, blood and sex. Even the oldie stations no longer played the songs that Sam knew. So he drove in silence. It was getting late. The sun sank down behind the city's angular skyline, setting the clouds afire with color. At least, Sam assumed that the pale streaks across the heavens were colorful… Looking out at the world through his colorblind rented eyes was like staring at old photographs. Not an unfitting analogy, Sam thought. His entire life was like a series of outdated snapshots. Dusty, forgotten and relegated to bottom-shelf scrapbooks in this modern age. The drive took only half an hour, and then Sam was pulling into the sunken parking lot and riding the elevator up to the loft apartment that he could never think of as home. Sam knew the right key by feel, but when he twisted it in the lock and stepped inside, there was no feeling of comfort or relief at his return. Sam flipped the lights on and sank down on the stylish white futon. A newspaper lay on the glass-topped coffee table. Sam considered pouring himself a cup of wine and reading it, but what was the point? He would not be able to taste the wine, and the news would be inevitably depressing. He went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face and scrubbed at his cheeks with the clean white towel. Sam stopped, staring at his reflection in the mirror. It wasn't like him to brood like this. Sam Trent was a soldier, or he had been during the Second World War. He did as he was ordered, fought in defense of innocent lives. It was a simple life. A good life. When the war was over, Sam had not wanted to give it up. So he joined the police force. It seemed like a good way to keep fighting for those who could not fight for themselves. That was a long time ago, before the ghosts. Sam grimaced at his reflection, at the face he wore but which was not his own. That was before he was murdered. But his own death was long ago now, before Arphallo was even born. Sam had only struggled up to the Light fifteen years ago, after twenty-eight years of… nothing. Not even the Darkness. For most ghosts, if they did not return within a few weeks, they were gone. Just gone, forever swallowed into Emptiness. Not for the first time, Sam wondered if his unusual absence had… distorted him, somehow. He licked his dripping lips. He could feel the water, wet and cold, but could not taste it. Did water have a taste? Sam wasn't sure anymore. Most ghosts enjoyed the full range of their hosts' senses. Touch and smell and taste… They leapt at the chance to enjoy worldly pleasure once more, from food to sex to drugs. But Sam's senses were dulled, somehow blunted. The whole world was a movie that he watched from the back row of a darkened theater. No, Sam reminded himself sternly. That wasn't true. He was a cop, and a good one. He helped people every day, living and dead. Being a ghost meant that the exorcism spells and rituals no longer worked at Sam's command, but that made his expertise no less valuable. I was one of the first police exorcists in the world, damn it! Sam stared into his host body's dark eyes. The biography provided by his lawyer said that they were brown, though the biography mentioned nothing of color blindness. Someone had not been as careful as they should have been. Brown eyes. Sometimes, Sam thought about asking Arphallo about it. About his eyes, about his strange lack of senses… Arphallo Sirus was a talented and often brilliant exorcist. He knew instinctively many of the things that Sam did not. It was not simply his more recent, more modern education in the Dark arts. Arphallo was young for an exorcist, a rank not usually achieved until about age thirty. Arphallo was still three years shy of that, but well deserving of his duties. As he always did, Sam decided against bringing the problem to Arph. His partner's youth was its own issue. Arphallo had joined the police right out of college, without any other sort of real-world experience under his belt. As a result, Arphallo was prone to floundering, letting himself drown in the work. He had no ability to maintain any kind of detachment. Perversely, it often made the job more difficult. The young exorcist was irritable and snappish with witnesses, or shy and withdrawn from fellow officers. No, Arph had his own problems. Adding to them would help no one. Sam nodded to himself in the mirror. It was a modern one, without silver in the reflective backing. Sam could see only his host's face, without even a faint shadow of his own features. Sam ran his hand along his cheek. It was smooth, young. Younger even than Arphallo and thinner than Sam had ever been, even during his trimmest army days. And handsome, Sam admitted, in a wan and ethereal sort of way. It was a pity that he could feel so little in this body. How many years since Sam enjoyed a woman's touch? Not since his breathing days? Sam returned to the living room. Where would he take a woman, anyway? Here? Sam laughed quietly to himself. Not likely. It was not his apartment. A hotel? It would have to be a cheap one; Sam saw very little of his paycheck. Most of it went to Sam's host as fee for the high-risk use of the healthy young body. Any woman content with a low-rent room was not worth Sam's time. Besides, it was not as if he could be sure to get much pleasure out of any time with one. Sam did not know how far his lack of sensation extended and found himself reluctant to explore the problem. It was almost as if Sam could not properly possess his host's body, like Lotz or those other kids who made puppets of unwilling humans. Sam shook his head. He was long overdue to leave this body and return control to its proper owner. He tore the topmost page from a nearby pad of paper and scrawled a quick note. Sorry to return your body so late. A case came up that required some overtime. Arph and I are off duty for the next week. I'll be back next Monday morning. Enjoy your weekend. - Sam Trent He signed his last name without thinking. It was an almost ridiculous formality in a letter to the man with whom Sam shared a body. The long-dead exorcist sighed and leaned back on the futon. He closed his eyes and let go, relaxing his hold on the body. Releasing his shape, Sam always imagined, like ice melting into formless water and simply slipping away. Sam fell into the Darkness. ______ Asher Janson opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, painted the same blank white as the futon cover. He did not sit up, did not look at the note Sam had left. Asher didn't need to. He had watched Sam write it. He threw an arm across his face. The skin felt hot, sweaty. After almost two solid days with Sam in control of his body, Asher was used to the cold, breathless feeling of being skinridden. Preferred it to the sticky reality of living flesh. His eyes watered, dripping salty heat down his cheeks. Even with his lids closed, the bright bursts of color were too much. Too bright, too rich after two days of black and white. What would Sam do if he ever found out that Asher watched through his eyes? Not just his eyes… Even Sam's thoughts were no secret to Asher. What if the ghost ever asked Arphallo about the strange, dull sensations, the color blindness? Asher's heart raced and hammered against his ribs. Cold sweat pricked on his forehead and ran into his hair. Arphallo did not know yet, but how long until he figured it out? Asher curled into a tight, unhappy ball at the end of the futon. Then what? There had to be some rule about it, some law about wakeful hosts. And then Sam would break his contract and go find some other body. Asher would be alone again, trying and failing to manage his own pathetic life. Everything was so much better with Sam Trent in control. The old, dead soldier was collected and confident in a way that young Asher Janson could only admire, with no hope of ever emulating. The five years since becoming a host were the only ones that seemed right at all. Sam never had to call Asher's alcoholic mother or visit his father's grave. As a boy, Asher often wondered why his father's spirit had never found its way back. But as years of abuse and struggle crept by, he understood. Emery Janson had nothing to come back to; certainly not his failure of a son, the gangly teenager who had trained day and night but still only barely managed to make it into the police academy. But Sam Trent had come back through the Darkness. Strong, certain and with the skills to return to an already impressive career. If Asher could not be a success, he could play host to someone who was. At least, he would once Sam returned on Monday. The Death of Arphallo Sirus For the hundredth time, Arphallo Sirus promised himself that he would buy a coffee pot. Or maybe a proper espresso machine that steamed the milk, too. But later. For now, he would just have to make the drive out to the nearest coffee shop. Arphallo grabbed his keys from a lacquered brown bowl beside the door and checked to make sure he had remembered the new book. There it was, in the deep pocket of his coat and just waiting to be read. He grinned to himself and hurried out to his car. Arphallo slid into the driver's seat and pulled away from the ivy-covered old mansion. The road was shrouded in fog. Skeletal, leafless black trees loomed up out of the gloom and vanished once more as Arphallo drove past. The ancient Sirus mansion squatted on the city's edge, miles distant from his nearest neighbor. No other cars shared the dark, misty road. Arphallo's phone rang. He considered ignoring it – Sam was gone, back in the Darkness until next week – but it might be a call from someone else at the precinct. Arphallo slid the phone from his pocket and checked the name on the screen. Lily Davis. He smiled and tapped the glowing green Call button. "Good morning," he greeted her. "Afternoon," Lily corrected with a laugh. Arphallo felt the hot prickle of a blush crawling up his neck and cheeks. "Sorry. I've been sleeping in the last few days. I guess I lost track of time." "Are you driving?" "Yeah, I'm on my way out to the coffee shop." "You shouldn't do that," Lily scolded mockingly. "You're going to wreck your car. Why the odd hours? Work?" "Sort of. We're off for the next week to recuperate." Arphallo hesitated. "It wasn't a great case. The ghosts involved were just kids. They didn't really understand what they were getting themselves into." "I'm sorry," Lily said. She sounded as though she meant it. "Maybe I can help you take your mind off things." Arphallo's mood lightened considerably. "Really? What are you thinking of?" "You said you were off for the next week. Why don't we try that date again? You still owe me singing," Lily said brightly. "And then, maybe some dancing." "I'm not very–" Arphallo started, but a shadow separated itself from the gray fog and bolted out into the road. It was a cat, black all over but for a single white paw, as though the little beast had stepped in a puddle of paint. The cat froze in the middle of the street, eyes wide and dark. Arphallo shouted and stomped down on the brakes. His phone slid out of his hand, bounced off the passenger seat and down onto the floorboard. The road was wet with a thin sheen of water gathered from the clinging mist, but it was enough. Arphallo's wheels locked. The tires skidded across the glistening pavement. He lost sight of the cat, the trees and anything else as his car spun in wide, wild circles. Arphallo yanked on the steering wheel, turning into the screeching spin and pumping the brakes in vain. With a thump and loud squeal, the car heaved up over the side of the road. Arphallo caught only a frozen heartbeat glimpse of a great pillar of rough shadow, the trunk of a great oak tree. He threw his arms up across his face and the whole world shattered to the sound of tearing metal and breaking glass. ______ Wake up, Arphallo Sirus. Or something like that. There were words, but not in English or Sanskrit or any other language that Arphallo knew. They filled his thoughts as though they were his own, but Arphallo knew that they belonged to someone else. He was never so calm, so serene. Wake up, Arphallo Sirus. Arphallo stood – apparently alone – on a perfectly smooth plane of pure white. His clothes were gone, but that hardly seemed important. Arphallo was dead. But where was he? Was this the Darkness? The name hardly seemed to fit. This is a part of the Dark, said the voiceless white. One of the quiet/still places. Arphallo felt something warm against his fingers. Startled, he looked down. A little boy stood beside him, holding Arphallo's hand in his own. The boy looked to be seven or eight years old, with dark skin and straight, long hair that was even darker. Unlike Arphallo, the child wore clothes: flowing pants and a simple shirt in a coarse linen weave. His feet were bare. Welcome. The boy looked up at Arphallo with deep black eyes and smiled. "I died, didn't I?" Arphallo asked. "In the crash." Yes. "Who are you?" A thought occurred to him. "Sam?" he asked skeptically. The boy's smile widened, turning his eyes into mirthful crescents over his rounded cheeks. No. Sam is elsewhere/resting/dancing. The young ones call me the Little Boy. I am Anat-Sin. Anat-Sin? The guide and lord of all the dead, arguably the ruler of the biggest nation in the world? If he still had working lungs, Arphallo would have gasped. He staggered a step and sank to his knees, head bowed. The smooth whiteness under him was surprisingly warm and soft, as though he knelt on a great mattress. Arphallo felt the small hand on his shoulder. None of that. Look at me, please. Reluctantly, the dead exorcist did so. Kneeling now, he was face to face with the Little Boy, staring into the child's dark eyes. You are not supposed to be here, Arphallo. It is not yet your time. "I… I don't understand," he said slowly. Things are moving in the shadows, Arphallo. Things that threaten the Darkness and the Light. Anat-Sin's small face was grave. There are billions of souls in the Light, many times that in the Dark, and all of those uncounted bright sparks yet to be kindled. They do not realize that their lives and deaths hang balanced against the most tenuous and terrible of forces. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand," Arphallo said again. Nor do I. Not entirely. Anat-Sin smiled again, a self-depreciating little curl of his dark lips. I am charged to maintain the order of the Light and Dark, but even I do not know the future/what is to come. But I have been dead a very long time, since long before the sacrifice of the saint Christ or the founding of his church. I am the oldest of those in the Dark. I have learned secrets/truths. There are currents, changes in the greater sense of things. I feel them like the wind on my face. Arphallo still had no idea what was going on. Not much was known of the Little Boy. He was the first ghost to reach out to the living and the only ancient spirit at all, the only one born or dead before the 1950's. Anat-Sin had been the negotiator of the accords between the Light and Dark, a ghost of such power that his name alone was an invocation of the Dark arts. Even so, no one could claim to understand Anat-Sin. Who could guess at what he saw, what he knew? The world is not as it is supposed to be, but I fear that if we do not act, any hope for forgiveness/mending may be forever lost. A Little Boy changed everything… I must send you back. Not to a host body, but to your own. You must live, Arphallo Sirus. You must wake. "You can do that?" Arphallo asked incredulously. "That's impossible, isn't it? I mean, I've studied the Dark arts for years and I've never read a reliable account of someone returning to their own body." And so you never will. Return to the Light, Arphallo. Before he could ask what that meant, Anat-Sin touched a small brown finger between Arphallo's eyes. The smooth whiteness rose up like a surging tide of milk. It washed over Arphallo, swallowing him. ______ "Arphallo Sirus? Are you awake?" He opened his eyes and immediately closed them with a groan. The blinding light retreated and he looked up again. A worried-looking woman in a blue paramedic's uniform tucked the penlight into her breast pocket and placed a gently restraining hand on Arphallo's forehead, just above his eyes. "Don't move, Mister Sirus. You've been in a bad auto accident. It's rather a miracle that you're still with us, but it looks like you're going to be okay," she said. "How did you know to come out here?" Arphallo asked in a thick, rasping voice. "Who called you?" The paramedic checked a clipboard. They were inside an ambulance, metal walls covered in equipment and monitors. "Lily Davis placed the call. She said that she was on the phone with you and heard a crash." Arphallo laughed. It made his ribs ache and the laugh turned into a wheezing cough. "She said I was going to wreck the car." The paramedic frowned down at him. "Do you remember anything about the accident, Mister Sirus?" "A cat ran out into the road. I tried to stop, but that just put me into a spin. Then I hit the tree," Arphallo answered. "Anything after that?" Arphallo thought. He shook his head, eliciting another frown from the paramedic and a reminder not to move. "No," he said. "Nothing until I woke up here." ______ More books by Erica Lindquist & Aron Christensen: The Reforged Trilogy: Anvil of Tears Sword of Dreams Hammer of Time Forged: 4 Reforged short stories In the House of Five Dragons Fireflies (a short story collection) The Dead Beat (a short story serial) volumes 1 - 3 Whisperworld Hangman's Cross (forthcoming) The Burning Noose (forthcoming) My Guide to RPG Storytelling (nonfiction) My Storytelling Guide Companion (nonfiction) by Aron Christensen