Chapter Seventeen
“Ghost - The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats. The center of spiritual life; the soul.”
Dex
I took the stairs two at a time. I had to get out of this building.
There was this draining tug and pull action going on inside my chest and I wanted it to stop.
It made my stomach clench and my hands shake.
Part of me was sickened with everything that happened tonight, and the other part of me was disappointed it hadn’t ended in death.
I was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, only I couldn’t tell which one was the real me.
I reached the first floor and let out a sigh of relief…
Then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
A dark shape seemed to float around the corner—the same looming shape that passed by Piper’s window upstairs.
I’d stood at the window, trying to catch a glimpse of it, but I never did.
Probably because it was dark, just like the night—until it shifted and moved.
That’s the one thing about the dark. It doesn’t move.
I pushed off the bottom step and took chase.
When I got around the corner, there was nothing but the door leading outside.
I slammed through it and ran out onto the sidewalk.
The shifting shadow disappeared around the side of the building and I went after it, running into a dark, narrow space between the two brick buildings.
It was completely dark here and whatever had been there was gone. In fact, it was so still between the buildings that I began to think I was imagining things. Hell, I probably was.
I turned to go back out onto the street when someone spoke. “You’re the new Escort.”
I turned back, once again seeing nothing at all. “Who’s there?” I demanded.
“Please don’t tell him she saw me.”
“Who?” I replied, looking for any kind of movement.
Then something shifted; the shadows seemed to form into a shape. A shape that really wasn’t a shape. It was very familiar… “Where are you?”
“I’m right in front of you.”
The muscles in my back bunched, expecting a fight, but no threat ever came. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was able to make out more movement, but still no definite shape.
Then it dawned on me.
This was some kind of ghost. Some kind of in-between being, like I was before I got my new body. “What are you?” I asked.
“I’m like you, except I don’t have a body.”
“You’re dead?”
“Sort of.”
“Are you a ghost?”
“A ghost haunts. I don’t haunt.” He sniffed, offended.
“Then what are you doing lurking around Piper?”
“I’m working. Watching her is my job.”
“Who hired you?”
“The same guy that hired you.”
“You’re an Escort?” I asked.
“Yes. A Ghost Escort.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a ghost.”
He made a sudden movement and this time I saw him spread out like smoke. He looked exactly like I had before I got this body, except he wasn’t purple. He was black.
“They call us that because we’re nearly invisible, like a ghost. That’s why we’re the ones who watch the Slated.”
“The Slated?”
“Yes, you call them Targets.”
“So you were hired by the same guy—rich, kinda eerily cheerful—but you didn’t get a body?”
“Ghost Escorts don’t get bodies. The fact that we don’t have bodies is to our advantage.”
He was the one at the college campus. It’s the reason he was able to be behind her one second, then yards in front of her the next. “So you can just appear and disappear, just like that?”
“Well, it’s a little harder than that, but once you learn it’s easy.”
“So I’m not supposed to see you?”
“You’re supposed to, but other people aren’t.”
Made sense. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was standing here talking to myself.
“You can see me because you’re an Escort. We can all see each other. Though, I’ve never seen a purple one like you.”
“How’d you know I was purple?” I asked, holding out my arms to make sure I still had my body.
“It’s how we recognize each other. The color of your essence surrounds your body, but only fellow Escorts can see it.”
“You mean like an aura?”
“No. An aura changes colors with your feelings. Your essence never changes.”
I thought about the man surrounded with the ring of red. Turns out I wasn’t crazy. I’d seen another Escort—another killer.
“How many of us are there?”
“I don’t know. There aren’t as many Ghost Escorts as there are Death Escorts.”
“I don’t understand why you’re watching her.”
“When a person is chosen to die—Slated—they basically become property of our boss. He likes to know what his property is up to. You, uh, are taking longer than expected to finish the job, so he sent me here to watch her and make sure nothing was wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong,” I said, my hands balled into fists at my sides. “I don’t like being spied on.”
“I’m not spying on you. I’m spying on her.”
“Are you going to tell him I tried to kill her tonight and failed?”
“Not if you don’t tell him she saw me.”
That’s right. Piper saw him at the college and she wasn’t an Escort. “How come she saw you?”
“I don’t know. That’s never happened before.”
“She’s very perceptive.”
“I noticed,” he said wryly.
I wished I could see him more clearly. He actually didn’t seem like that bad of a guy—for a sorta ghost. It might be nice to have someone I could talk to about all this. But not a friend. I didn’t have those.
“So what’s your name?” I asked.
“Storm.”
“For real?”
“Something wrong with my name?”
“Nope. I just think it’s kinda ironic your name is Storm and you look like a rain cloud.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I was born to be a Ghost Escort.” It sounded like he was grinning.
“Seriously, though, why would you agree to not have a body?”
“The alternative is worse,” he said.
I shrugged. I don’t really know why, but the idea of being sent to hell didn’t scare me. Maybe because I always knew that’s where I would go. Or maybe because I pretty much lived in my own personal hell all my life so it was nothing new.
“So you’re going to keep watching her, huh?”
“That’s my job,” Storm said. “And if I don’t do it, I don’t get paid.”
“Gotta get those Benjamins.”
“Hey, it ain’t all about the money,” he said. “Ghost Escorts get paid in other ways too.”
“What do you mean?” What other ways are there?
“Time off,” he said meaningfully.
It took me a minute to realize what would be so great about getting time off from following people around.
Then it dawned on me.
“He lets you have a body?”
“Right outta that freaky closet of his.”
I grinned. “It is pretty creepy.”
“Well, I guess when you’re the ultimate death dealer, having bodies in the closet it just like having cereal in the pantry.”
The ultimate death dealer?
The darkness around me shifted and I felt him move. “I better get back. I’m on the clock.”
I guess being reminded he could spend some time in an actual body made him anxious to finish his job. “So you aren’t supposed to kill her? Just watch her, right?”
“Killing would be hard to do without any hands.”
“I don’t know. I almost killed her tonight without lifting a finger.”
“That was a pretty good move, by the way.”
“You saw?”
“Everything.”
I wondered what he thought about my sudden panic. I wondered if he thought that made me less of a man… less of an Escort.
“Anyway, better luck next time.”
“We cool?” I asked. An echo from my past. I used to say those words after every meeting or talk I had with someone on the streets. I guess standing out here in the dark between two buildings had a way of bringing things back.
“Yeah, we’re cool.”
I grinned and held up a fist. “I’d fist bump you, but that might be kind of hard.”
“Like I haven’t heard that before,” he muttered.
I laughed. “Find me when you have a body and we’ll hang.”
“Soon as you get this job done, I’ll get my time off.”
“You don’t get time off until I kill her?”
“Job won’t be over ‘til then.”
“Right,” I agreed.
The darkness seemed to absorb Storm, and everything went quiet.
I tried to listen for which way he went, but all I heard was the sound of my own breathing.
I walked around the front of the building and looked up toward her window.
It was dark. She must’ve gone to bed. Something inside me twisted and tugged; my stomach turned.
What was wrong with me? What was wrong with this body?
I climbed into my car and pulled away from the curb.
Only one way to find out.
* * *
The GPS in my car directed me back to where Mr. Burns lived.
The man at the front gate waved me through without question, probably because he recognized the car.
When I got to the house, I parked and jogged up the stairs to ring the bell.
When Mr. Burns himself greeted me, I stood there gaping like an idiot because I really thought he wasn’t the type of man to open his own door.
He smiled when I stared. “The staff has the night off.”
That seemed to shake me out of my stupor. “You gave me a defective body,” I said. “I want a new one.”
He opened the door wider and motioned me inside. “It’s cold, come in.” Once inside, he turned to me, looking rather amused. “What is wrong with your body, Dex?”
“I think it’s rejecting me.”
He laughed. “Rejecting you? That’s impossible.”
I didn’t like being laughed at. “My stomach always hurts. There’s this weird tugging right here,” I said, pressing my palm beneath my ribs. “And sometimes I feel shaky and dizzy. So, either this body doesn’t like me, or there’s something wrong with it.”
“I can assure you there is nothing wrong with your body,” Mr. Burns said smoothly. “Would you care for a nightcap?”
I didn’t know what that was, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want it. “I want answers.”
“You’re body is merely doing what it’s programmed to do.”
“You programmed it to be sick?” Maybe being a Ghost Escort and not having a body wasn’t that bad if all the bodies this guy handed out were damaged.
Mr. Burns laughed, his thin lips pulling into a smile. “I programmed it to kill.”
Of all the things he could’ve said, that was the last thing I imagined. “You what?”
“Tell me, do you mostly feel the way you described when you’re near your Target?”
“Yes.”
“That’s because it’s your body’s way of reminding you to do your job.”
“I don’t need a reminder.” And if I did, I’d set the alarm on my iPhone.
“It isn’t just you; it’s all the Death Escorts. You all have a physical reaction when you are around your assigned Target. That tugging sensation you described is your body’s way of urging you closer, telling you it’s time to kill.”
He was serious.
“Do you not trust us to get the job done without your reminder?”
“It isn’t a matter of trust. All my Escorts do their job because the alternative is far worse.”
Once again, I wondered why going to hell was that terrible.
Mr. Burns continued. “I’ve found that programming the bodies this way makes it easier for the Escorts. At least for their first few kills, and then they pretty much ignore the internal signals and complete the job on their own.”
“Why would feeling like I want to barf make my job easier?”
“Because instead of focusing on what you must do, you focus on feeling sick and making that feeling go away.”
He used it as a distraction. Almost as a trick.
“Have you always programmed the bodies?” I asked, already guessing the answer was no.
“When I first started out in the Escort business I did not. But there were too many Escorts failing and my losses were great. So I started this and now not nearly as many fail.”
“But some still do.”
“Yes.” He looked at me levelly. “Some fight their own bodies. Some end up warring against themselves. It’s such a shame because they will never ever win.” His voice held a note of warning and I knew it was for me.
Did he know I’d already failed to kill Piper twice?
“Well, now that I know that there isn’t anything wrong with my body, I can focus on my work.”
Mr. Burns smiled. “Wonderful! Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No,” I said, turning back to pull open the front door. Snowflakes swirled inside and landed on my shoe.
“I’ll walk you out,” he said, motioning for me to wait. I watched as he grabbed a long black coat and put it on. Then he reached toward a bowl on a slim table against the wall. The bowl was filled with light-colored stones, just like the ones in his office.
“What are those?” I asked as he chose two and slid them into his pocket.
“Just a little token I like to give people I visit,” he replied and ushered me out the door.
We stepped out into the snow. The big white flakes fell steadily from the dark sky. Snow had a way of blanketing everything, making everything quiet. But tonight, even the heavy white flurry couldn’t silence everything.
“And Dex?” Mr. Burns said as we stepped onto the driveway and headed to our separate cars. I glanced over my shoulder. “Time’s a wasting.”
As I walked to my car, I could’ve sworn I heard the ticking of a clock.