Chapter 2
Two
King was already out the door, his gun drawn as he raced down the stairs after his partner. We found Richmond on his back, face white, pupils blown wide. He was muttering to himself, the words faint.
Searching for whatever had hurt his partner, King brought his shoulder closer to his mouth and used his free hand to press the button to speak.
Static whirred and whined like it was a living thing until it finally popped, leaving the radio unresponsive, even when King reached down to his belt and tried twisting knobs.
Pulling out my cellphone, there wasn’t any signal, even though I’d had full bars when I’d stepped into the house.
My brows pulled together and a tight feeling closed around my stomach.
It wasn’t good, and I needed to get some defenses up fast. If King was an alchemist, that meant he had some skills, but alchemy also had some funny beliefs about things like ghosts. No matter how capable he was, he wasn’t going to be any match for what might come.
My shoulders tensed. I was alone, with one civilian, and an alchemist. It was not my best night.
King examined his own phone, clearly seeing that whatever hurt his partner had cut us off. He looked around, still frowning. Glancing at me, Richmond, and the surrounding rooms, still lit in a warm glow, he made a decision quickly.
Bending low, he checked his partner’s pulse and then said, “Richmond. Can you hear me? What happened?”
Richmond’s lips moved, but the words were so soft that King had to bend until his ear was nearly on Richmond’s mouth. I didn’t need to know what Richmond was saying. The ghost had escalated, and I did not want to see what it did next.
“Who? What girl?” King leaned back. His black eyebrows pulled together. “He says there’s a girl. Do you know anything about it?”
I shook my head. “No, sorry. I’m going to go get my bag.”
Without waiting, I sprinted upstairs, grabbing the duffel that Richmond had thrown on the bed.
Retracing my steps, I unzipped it as I moved, pushing aside the pajamas (a gift from Laurel), toothbrush (a gift from my dentist), and booze (a gift for when I’d exorcised this ghost).
At the bottom of the bag, I found the weight that Richmond had complained about.
Pulling out the book, I dropped the bag near where King was loosening Richmond’s collar and belt. He jerked his head up, his lips twitching when he saw the book.
“That’s a spell book,” he said. “You’re a Warlock.”
“Yeah.” It was true enough. I was trained as a warlock, even if I wasn’t one.
His eyes narrowed, and he looked me over again. He didn’t think I was here for a sex-cation like I’d told Richmond, but he had obviously thought I was here for a vacation. Now he was beginning to wonder who I was and what I was doing here.
“What happened to Richmond?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I raised a shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe he had one too many before work?”
King’s lips went thin, and he gave me a narrow look. “You know, now I have to take you in so you can give a statement. I have to search you, your things, the house—”
Rolling my eyes, I held up a hand. “Okay, how about this? I’ll tell you what I’m doing here, and you just keep it out of your reports?”
Already shaking his head, King said, “I can’t promise that because my statement needs to be as complete and accurate—”
“Okay, okay,” I said, snorting. “I bet you were a real teacher’s pet. All glowing comments on the report card about how much of a gift you were in class.”
With a dry look, King took out his notebook from an inner pocket and said, “Subject evades answering basic questions,” as he wrote.
“Fine,” I said. “I’m here because a client was having an issue with the house.”
“The client being the owner?” King asked. “Wait. Start with your actual name.”
“So suspicious. Parker Ferro is my actual name,” I said, watching as he wrote. “F-e-r-r-o. Private Investigator.”
“I assume you have a license to go with the job?” King said.
“Maybe,” I said. “You want to check all my pockets to see if you can find it?”
Thing was, I did have the license, but sometimes I like to poke the bear. You know, just to see what happens.
Raising an eyebrow, King said, “You want me to search you? Anything I found would have to go into evidence.”
So, the bear would take all my supplies, which would leave me defenseless while fighting this ghost. Grumbling, I pulled out my wallet and handed over my pocket license, watching as he noted down the details.
As he wrote, I swept through the pages of the spell book, looking for the ones that Laurel had marked with sticky notes.
The one titled “Ghosts” was mostly about the lore. Underneath, it described the common types of ghost. It was a long list, with everything from a Chinese Hungry Ghost to a Ghost Orb. I rolled my eyes. Of course Laurel would give me the spell book equivalent of an encyclopedia.
Handing me back my ID, King glanced back at Richmond who was still muttering to himself. Without looking back at me, he said, “I should go outside and use the car radio. The weather must be affecting the signal.”
When he reached for the door, the knob wouldn’t turn. He checked for a lock, but the deadbolt was open. Throwing me a dark look, he moved to a window in the family room and tried opening it, but it stayed stubbornly down.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Maybe the rain made the door and the windows swell up?” I suggested.
“You want to try again, Ferro?” He clipped his words.
“Maybe the storm is making it high pressure outside and low pressure inside?” I said. “Pushing the door shut?”
“That’s—Do you know how much pressure—” He stopped. I raised an eyebrow. “You need to tell me what’s going on. We’re all trapped here. Did you do this?”
His hand went to his weapon, and I looked up at the smooth, white ceiling (can lights, I noticed, unobtrusive and a good use of space).
“My client owns the house,” I said. “And it’s haunted.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“The past few guests have noticed the typical cold spots, strange noises, creepy visions,” I said.
“And you’re a... what, exorcist?” His voice was a flat line, like his mouth. At least his hands had moved to cross over his chest, so he could give me the complete package of I’m-not-amused.
“No,” I said. “I’m a PI.”
He waited, and I waited, and we probably would have waited until the sun came up because Mr. Hot Cop In The Flesh wasn’t more stubborn than I was.
I had decades of disappointing teachers, principals, social workers, and foster parents under my belt.
Whatever the apple polisher had learned on the job could not compare to that experience.
But there was an ominous thump from the second floor and both of us looked up to see the ceiling sag downwards like it was made of latex and someone had just dropped a bowling ball right in the middle.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” King said, stubbornly.
“Really,” I said. I didn’t even bother to point at the horror-show level special effect we were looking at. “Why not?”
“Alchemy tradition says that it’s just tricks and hoaxes,” he said firmly. “With the goal being to scare non-magic practitioners and give more credence to...”
He trailed off, and I finished for him. “Witchcraft.”
In his defense, he looked a bit awkward about the whole thing, his tall frame a little hunched as he nodded.
I rolled my eyes and gestured to Richmond, whose lips were moving in a silent monologue, and the ceiling, which now had a face clearly trying to get through.
It’d be terrifying if I hadn’t seen scarier from creatures that I knew would kill me if I gave them an inch of fear.
“Okay, so your explanation for this is that it’s a trick. By who? Me?”
“Is it you?” he asked, tugging off his bulky rain jacket and bending down to roll Richmond onto his side, one knee bent, hands clear of his mouth. It was a textbook example of the recovery position.
He wasn’t looking at the ceiling or me, and I realized that the reason he wasn’t terrified was that his training told him this was all fake, so he truly believed it was just a trick.
If the stupid hot cop got killed because he was as stupidly adherent to alchemy philosophy as he was to law, I was going to be annoyed.
He was the first guy I’d gotten a ping from in a while, and I didn’t want to end our flirtation with death and dismemberment.
“No,” I said, paging through the book to the sticky note that Laurel had labeled ‘How To Not Die.’ “It’s a ghost.”
His partner settled into the recovery position, King drew a leather notebook out of another pocket.
It was different from the notebook he’d been using to take notes on his case, and the pen he drew out was silver and looked heavy.
The ceiling had finally stopped bowing, and I skimmed the text as he wrote in the notebook.
Laurel’s spell book was relatively clear. There were three ways forward. If we could find the remains, that was the easiest. A simple containment spell would break the spirit’s connection to the physical plane.
If we didn’t have the remains, we could do something similar once we knew the spirit’s name.
But if remains and identity were in short supply, then things got dicier and the text started reading, “May-chance...” and “Possibly...” It sounded like at that point we’d have to magically duke it out with the spirit until we’d exhausted their magical energy.
If I was on my own, I’d have more confidence. With this alchemist cop nearby, I’d have to be more careful to not expose that the magic I was using wasn’t witchcraft.
Shutting the book, I watched as King finished writing and carefully tore four pages out of his notebook. He placed them at the compass points around Richmond. I watched as a warm green energy woke the circles and then connected them.
“Anchors?” I asked. My understanding of alchemy was mostly based on what you saw on TV and a few after school enrichment classes from elementary school. “You’re okay leaving him?”
“Yes. His breathing is steady and the only way to get out is to figure out what’s keeping us trapped,” King said. “This should protect him while we find out who’s responsible.”
The anchors were small circles with the archaic writing that alchemists used to cast most of their spells. They connected to each other in a graceful outer circle. It was a clean sort of spell, not at all the sloppy work you’d expect from a rushed alchemist.
King examined it and nodded in satisfaction. If he was happy, I wasn’t going to question him. Notoriously picky, I’d seen alchemists refuse to do a spell if there was even a hint that it might fail.
“Well, I’m going to go look for the ghost,” I said. “What’s your plan, officer?”
“I’m going to look for the perpetrator who locked two police officers and a civilian in this house,” he said.
I grinned and raised both eyebrows. “So, you’re coming with me.”
“I guess I am, Mr. Ferro,” King said.
“If we’re going ghost hunting together, call me Parker,” I said.
With a curt nod, he checked his gear. Gun, taser, notepad accounted for, he looked back at me and raised an eyebrow.
“What if we find a ghost?” I asked.
“We won’t,” he said. “This is clearly someone trying to disrupt the owner’s business. They might have another goal, but we won’t know until we catch them.”
“A goal like haunting?” I said.
“Maybe they have a YouTube channel,” he said. “Or a Tiktok.”
“To show off their haunting?”
“To show off their pranks.”
Shaking my head, I said, “I checked the outside pretty thoroughly before I came inside. So wherever the remains are, they’re inside the house. None of the reports said anything about any ghost activity outside.”
“We should go room by room,” King suggested.
I gestured with my hand. “Be my guest.”
Moving forward, hand resting on his taser, he checked the downstairs rooms. I put Laurel’s book in my satchel, my free hand brushing leaves and a couple of small twigs to the side.
The rocks I was less careful about. They’d settled in the bottom of the bag.
I traced my fingers over a bottle, checking for any leakage, but my fingers came out of the bag dry.
King was in the kitchen, and I heard him use a voice that was straight out of the police academy.
“I’m with the SAPD. You need to immediately cease your activities and get down on the ground, hands behind your head.” Firm, an order that would have had a werewolf following directions.
I came into the kitchen, one hand rummaging in my bag for anything I could use. In front of King, there was a figure hovering an inch above the floor. Old clothes, the sort of high neckline that reminded me of a particularly kinky librarian.
Piled high on her head in a complicated knot, her hair looked black. If she hadn’t been faded like a photograph left in the sun for too long, most of her would have looked normal. Her face was where it got real weird.
Behind her glasses, her eyes were two holes in the universe. It wasn’t that they were black, it was that they were literally sucking all the light in the room into them. A lightbulb in one of the can lights made a low pop and rained down delicate glass.
Her mouth was a wide rictus of sharp teeth. She was a werewolf gone rabid, a vampire that somehow looked more dead than the bloodsuckers usually did.
She snapped her teeth together, and the sound ricocheted around the room like a gunshot. With a flicker, she was closer to King, startling him into a shriek. He drew his taser and yelled a warning before pulling the trigger.
The high voltage wires passed through her and hit the kitchen wall, giving the newly installed oven the ride of its life. The ghost roared and flickered again, shoving King back until he hit the kitchen island. Its mouth opened, displaying the shark teeth and a jaw that unhinged.
Great. We were dealing with a poltergeist.