15. Senior Spirit Extraction Specialist
fifteen
Senior Spirit Extraction Specialist
Liam
Iput on my ‘uniform,’ but maybe I shouldn’t have.
I have the worst feeling I’m about to be fired.
I’ve taken a change of clothes in case. That will probably be worse, ultimately, having to get changed there and give it back.
But maybe they’ll take one look at me wearing these too-large overalls and think, ‘Nah, keep him. He takes his shit seriously.’
I don’t know exactly what I’ve done wrong, but I can hazard a guess. Raul probably woke up and told Gerald how useless I am. That I sat there holding my tea while a ghost attacked him. That I showed myself to be a coward and a detriment.
But there’s no point putting this off, so I’m here, ExorSquad headquarters, seven a.m. on the dot, my hand landing on the doorknob, honestly expecting to find it locked, because seven a.m. is actually early as fuck.
But the knob turns, the door swings open, and Ted settles the most malevolent glare I’ve been given in months on my almost definitely anxious-looking face.
He twists sharply, walks to a cabinet, pulls a drawer open, and reaches in. A second later, his hand slaps down on the desk, placing a white envelope in front of me. Probably some kind of severance papers.
I reach for it, but before I can get my fingers on the paper, his other hand slams a gun down on top of it—one of those toy-like guns Raul had yesterday.
I stare at Ted, hoping he’ll tell me what this is all about.
He gets the message and responds first with an eye roll, then a tsk of his tongue. “I assume, judging from the uniform, that you’re not quitting, then?”
“N-no. I’m not quitting. Did you think I was?”
“Most of them do.”
“Well, I’m not most—”
“So you’ll need a gun. And there’s your bonus from Gerald.” His top lip arches sharply with what looks like disgust. “He’s given you a bonus. Or, should I say, he’s had me come in here at seven a.m. to give you a bonus while he sleeps in.”
“A bonus?” I eye the envelope, trying to judge by its heft how much money might be inside. “Is that… I didn’t know you did bonuses like that.”
“We don’t do fucking bonuses like that,” he spits back.
“Well…” My fingers hover over the envelope. “Why do I get a bonus?”
“How the fuck should I know? But there it is. There’s your seven a.m. bonus.”
“Um. Okay. Thank you.” Gingerly, I pull it out from beneath the gun and put it directly in my pocket so I don’t seem too desperate checking it.
“And the gun,” he sighs out, as if I’d forgotten it.
“I don’t know how to use it. I’m sure Raul can—”
“Raul’s quit,” he says sharply, as if that’s my fault. “Gone to join the police force, apparently.”
“Oh. Right.” I shudder at the thought of him with a real gun.
“Which means you are now the most experienced team member on the job today.”
“I’m the…” My breath catches in my throat, followed by a small choking and an explosion of coughing. “I’m the what?”
“Senior Spirit Extraction Specialist.” His eyes remain on me, deadpan. “Do you expect a badge or something?”
“No, I don’t need a badge. But I literally have no idea how to fire that thing. Or when. Or how to extract a spirit at all.”
“Okay, let’s make this fast.” His hands are shaky, and I wonder if it’s rage or lack of coffee, or both. And I don’t know why I feel guilty for that. I’m not the one who called me in here at this time of day.
Even if his hands shake, his movements are confident, emptying a packet of what looks like bullets onto the table, snapping open a side-compartment on the weapon. “These are your plasma pellets. Put them in with the tapered end facing the direction you want to shoot. Got it?”
“Um. Yep.”
He snaps the thing closed. “Point and shoot.”
“But—”
“See the cork board there?” He snaps his head towards a noticeboard hanging on the far wall, nothing but an ad for the ExorSquad job pinned there, which is kind of odd, because surely the only people who will see it are already employed here, but I’m not going to give that too much thought.
“I see it.”
“Point,” he says, with obnoxious insistence on the ‘t’, shoving the gun into my hand.
“But—”
“Point,” he repeats, louder.
“Um—”
He grabs my arm and whacks it up, so the gun is aimed at the wall. Surely he doesn’t actually want me to—
“And shoot.”
“But we’re inside!”
“Pull the trigger!”
He shouts it, and he’s bloody annoying, so I do. I click my finger back, and a bright blue-orange beam shoots across the room with a loud buzzing noise. Heat radiates from it. I feel it on my face, my arms. There’s a small wind that blows up around the office with the force of it.
I let go of the trigger in a fraction of a second, the shock of the powerful burst scaring the life out of me.
The board’s on fire, that advertisement going up in flames.
Ted sashays over like it’s absolutely nothing, picks up a fire extinguisher that’s randomly lying on the floor, and covers the wall in white foam. Then he throws it back down as if this is an everyday occurrence. “Not that hard, was it? Point and shoot.”
“But… but your office went on fire.”
He makes a dramatic shrug. “What am I supposed to do when the training room is broken? You’re the one who needs pointers on point and shoot.”
Please take me back to the Cotswolds.
Remembering why I’m doing this, which is obviously for the steady employment and not a morning with my hot client in the Cotswolds, I keep my irritation under wraps as best I can. “Okay. Sorry. Um. Thank you for the ‘training.’ And when should I—”
“Uh-uh!” In two strides he’s behind his desk again, snapping a fresh piece of paper down onto the desk. “Please sign here to say you’ve completed the advanced training module.”
“M-module? That was a module?”
“You’re going to be late,” he snipes. “Hurry up.”
I know I should probably read this before signing it. But it’s not like I haven’t signed about a thousand random work papers for about a thousand different companies over the last few years. So I give him my scribble, and just as I’m passing the pen back, the door opens behind me.
Someone new. He’s wearing the overalls, ghost logo and all. Another Spirit Extraction Specialist! My heart leaps, hoping this guy has some sense, can tell me any of what the hell is going on here.
But Ted’s already snapping out, “You’re late, Fabian. It’s six past.”
“My train was delayed,” Fabian replies, and something about the quiet and resentful drawl puts me immediately on my guard.
It gets worse when Ted then tells him, “This is Liam. He’s a Senior Spirit Extraction Specialist. He’ll be showing you the ropes on the job today.”
“He’s a—” I choke out. “I’ll do what?”
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Ted carries on, as if I haven’t spoken at all, “I have some sleep to catch up on, and you’re both expected at the client’s establishment by nine a.m.”
“Ted, no! You can’t just throw me in the deep end like this. I have no idea what I’m doing!” But even as I’m talking, he’s turned his back and walked away into Gerald’s office. “Ted!”
He’s slammed the door. He’s locked the door. He’s standing there, looking out through the horizontal blinds at me, arms crossed. Waiting for me to leave.
“Ted, can you come out, please?”
He reaches a hand forward and twists the blinds shut.
I just know, if I go over there and try to get in, there’s a very good chance he’ll climb out that window like Gerald did yesterday.
My gaze shifts to Fabian, who’s staring at the closed blinds as if it’s the most boring thing he’s ever seen. And he asks me, “So… are you paying for our train or what?”
Fabian is thin, tall, hollow-cheeked, and white as a sheet. His eyebrow is pierced, his eyeliner is sharp, and his hair is bleach blond with loads of product that makes it spikey.
Unlike me, he has overalls that fit, and I’m kind of annoyed Ted must have got new ones in and didn’t mention it. I’d love to bring that up with him sometime, maybe with Gerald there for backup.
For now, I can only sit here in silence on this train with Fabian.
He pulled out a book the moment we got on, and I’m not a big enough asshole to interrupt and ask what he’s reading, so the conversation has been non-existent.
He’s so quiet that I can’t decide if he’s either scared, or not even a bit bothered by what’s about to happen.
Maybe he’s as sceptical as I was this time yesterday.
Ideally, he’d stay that way, if only I could figure out how to keep him there while I get to the bottom of Archer’s ghost problem. Which just became my ghost problem. Which needs a serious discussion today.
Our stop’s announced, and with it, Fabian closes the book and drops it on the table between us, where I see the title clearly for the first time: Classic Ghost Stories of the Regency.
Something about that makes me almost laugh, and I can’t help but ask, “Like ghosts, do you?”
He flips back a streak of blond and assesses me, as if I’m making fun of him. I’m really not. If anything, it’s probably smart to be prepared. Or, at least, interested.
So I quickly explain, “This place is very haunted. It’s not bullshit at all. I saw one yesterday, full and complete.”
He leans forward, mouth dropping open with more enthusiasm than I thought he’d have in his entire body. “A real ghost?”
“Yep. And it’s dangerous too. Almost killed the guy who came with me yesterday. So you’ll need to be on your guard.”
Instead of looking scared, or even cautious, his eyes grow big, and there’s a smile on the lower lip he drags beneath his teeth. “Very powerful, is it?”
“Yeah. It is…” I cast my mind over what Archer told me last night. “Because it’s old, like Regency old, like your book there. So it’s learned how to move things around, as well as appear to people.”
“Regency?” he whispers, and for all the world he looks like I’m a duke who just invited him to the ball of the century.
“Apparently.” I glance at his book again. “Is that… something you’re interested in?”
He snatches up the book and clutches it tight to his chest. “I have an affinity for the Regency era.”