Voodoo Shanghai, page 44
“Hello, Katy,” I said. “Are you the only ghost left?”
She shook her head, staring at the ground, not making eye contact with me.
“Some of them say we have you to thank. For saving us.” She looked at me then, and all I saw was the shock, and pain, and more than a little accusation.
“I can’t find my parents—what if they’re—” Her ghost choked off the last words and a tear slid down her cheek, falling on my hand.
For a moment, I thought about giving her my usual spiel, about how her death wasn’t fair, she hadn’t deserved it but she needed to make the most of her afterlife…She’d been through enough. “I don’t know if your parents are waiting for you on the Otherside, Katy, or somewhere beyond. But I do know you’ll never find out if you don’t go and look.” After a moment I added, “And if you find yourself on the Otherside, and need someone to talk to, come find me. Ask Nathan Cade, he’ll point you in the right direction.”
When I looked beside me again, she was gone. I hoped that was a good thing, and that she’d manage to find peace somewhere on the Otherside.
Someone drove me back to the hotel, where Liam’s last victim appeared in my bathroom mirror.
“Thank you,” Ingrid whispered.
I wanted to scream, let my anger loose…Despite my best intentions, I had begun to like Ingrid.
I did the next best thing: I reached for the mirror bindings. Before I could unravel them, she said, “There’s a laptop in an airport locker, 2211, my birthday. The key is waiting for you at the hotel’s front desk. It’s paid up for a month. Everything is there…I’m sorry,” she added softly, as I unset the mirror and was left staring at my own reflection.
I slept in the warm, comfortable bed until late that afternoon, my dreamless slumber a welcome relief.
When I woke up, there was an envelope slipped under the door with a generous cheque inside, and a thank you for assisting the FBI. Signed by Stephan.
That he hadn’t delivered it in person hurt more than a little. Inside was a ticket back to Seattle for that evening. Part of me wanted to push, make Stephan talk to me, but the smarter part stashed the cheque and checked in online.
Stephan had my number, he could call any time. Bergen had said to give him time. I’d leave him to his cases, the swamp and the rest of the witches. But I was sorry for the loss of a friend; I didn’t know a lot of people who lived in the world of the Otherside and weren’t already dead. I’d started hoping…what? For something more? Maybe.
Back home in Seattle that evening, there was an e-mail from Aaron, professional and to the point. Clarifying details on the case only, for which I was grateful. I settled back in with coffee and a BLT, and sat down to look at the bag I’d retrieved from the airport locker. I’d send it to the FBI eventually, and let them know a ghost had found it for me. I needed my own questions answered first.
True to Ingrid’s ghost’s word, she’d outlined the whole story and confessed to her part in it. Liam had been feeding on ghosts for a decade. No wonder none of the guests on his show had ever gone back to haunting their families—he’d eaten them.
Ingrid hadn’t known about Johnathan, though he had to have been in the picture for just as long as Liam had been feeding on ghosts. All that anger and vengeance—over a hundred years obsessing over his former master.
* * *
“I can feel the temperature drop,” I called out a few hours after I’d arrived home.
I turned to find Gideon in my kitchen, Johnathan’s journal sitting on the table between us. We stared each other down.
“I thought you hated witches,” I said.
Gideon made a face. “Hate is a strong word,” he said. “Dislike is more accurate. And under the circumstances, we all concluded our business amicably.”
“Was Bergen supposed to die?”
“The workings to extract the soul-eater and his poltergeist from her swamp were difficult, and she was not young. She accomplished what she set out to do. I helped save her grandson and reclaim the swamp. In exchange, they used the swamp to prevent you from dying. It was a fair bargain.” He trailed off, and a silence stretched. “You met Johnathan, didn’t you? It was him, leading the soothsayer, reworking my trap. I didn’t recognize him at first…He’s changed.”
Gideon didn’t say anything more. I sighed and headed to the sink. If he was going to sit there chilling up the room, I might as well boil water.
“Johnathan was not like that while he was alive—jealous, hungry, vindictive, corrupted by the dead,” he finally said. “He was kind, sympathetic, curious.” He stared at the table, lost in his own thoughts. “He’s dangerous now, Kincaid. He’s broken rules of the dead that should never be broken, and his recent antics—Liam, the swamp, I suspect the Jinn and wraith—have attracted attention.”
“Whose?” I asked, shaking my head.
Gideon gave me a wry smile. “Even the dead have our politics. He knows I am hunting him now.”
I took that in. “He said I was useful. That I’d been dead before.” After my return, I’d confirmed it with the hospital in Vancouver. As a child, I’d been dead for a full minute before being resuscitated.
Gideon nodded. “Yes, you have a greater affinity for Otherside because of it. You’re safe enough from him, for now.” He glanced up once more. “Read his journal or not. Our lessons and your workings are suspended for the week.”
Gideon vanished.
I left the book on the table while I steeped my tea, wondering whether I should open it, if I really wanted to know. My curiosity won out. I flipped to a page that had been bookmarked with a black ribbon, one of the ones Gideon had revealed.
Rest assured I am of sound mind and body, but the story I am about to tell you will put your faith in that to the test. For this story is not mine but that of Gideon Lawrence, a powerful sorcerer’s ghost, and my mentor, teacher, and I dare say friend for these past two years. A cursed soul who carries the anger of a poltergeist wherever he goes.
But that is not where his story begins. It all started in 1052 in a kingship in Northern Denmark, where Gideon fell into the service of a local warlord who wanted to be king…
CHAPTER 24
HUNGRY HEARTS
I got approved for my federal licence almost a week after arriving home. It was waiting in my mailbox. They’d rushed it—a special request from Agent Wolf of the FBI paranormal unit. Aaron had also vouched for me, I saw, despite Captain Marks’s threats. Aaron was on a well-deserved leave of absence. I didn’t know where he’d gone or what he was doing. He hadn’t told me.
But the pang in my heart was small, barely an echo of my former heartache, and I was happy for him. Hoping that he was out of Captain Marks’s manipulative web, and out of mine as well. Maybe we’d patch things up one day, but not without fixing what was wrong with ourselves first. It wasn’t just Marks’s meddling that had poisoned us. We’d both had our hand in that as well.
I took Nate to Damaged Goods to celebrate my new licence.
“K,” Nate said as he nursed his beer thoughtfully, “something Liam said still bothers me.”
“What’s that?” We hadn’t talked much about our trip to Portland. The fact that Sinclair had tried to eat Nate was still a sore spot. It was too close to being bound. Ghosts aren’t meant to face their biggest fears; that’s what the living do.
“He said something about how the dead, no matter how good-intentioned, always corrupt the living?”
I laughed and opened my mouth, intending to tell him that all the proof he needed was the new pile of video games and game consoles he’d convinced me to buy him after the FBI’s cheque cleared. After almost being eaten, he’d deserved the bonus.
But the serious, disturbed expression on his face stopped me. “I don’t know, Nate. Can the dead corrupt?” I shook my head. “I don’t think they can do it any more than the living.” I mean, if you spend all your time hanging out with thieves, are the chances good you’ll become one? Sure, there are enough wayward undercover agents across the law enforcement spectrum to demonstrate that spectacularly. But ghosts, the dead in general? I doubted it.
Nate made a face and stared into his beer as Lee moved around the room, serving her undead patrons. The decor had changed once again. The white lanterns decorated with pink-and-red blossoms had been replaced with light-blue lamps decorated with dark-blue and navy stars and snowflakes. Even the beaded curtain that hung just inside the saloon doors had been replaced with beads of icicles. She’d found them online, though where the hell she’d had shipped them to…
She was trying something new. Seasonal, she’d said.
“Okay, K. Here’s my New Year’s resolution,” Nate said, placing the empty glass down on the counter with a solid thud.
“You’re six weeks off.”
“Chances are I’ll forget by the time we reach New Year’s if I don’t say it now.” He made a show of straightening up on his bar stool. “I’m swearing off white lies. In an effort to not have you turn into an evil ghost binder, or a self-centred, C-list, TV celebrity practitioner, or, you know, Gideon—”
I made a face. I had told Nate about Johnathan, Gideon’s last apprentice, but not about Gideon’s curse. I don’t know if it made me like Gideon any more, but I understood him. A bit. That might even be the same thing.
“I’m taking one for the ghost team.” He took a deep breath. “Starting with the chrome table.” He looked at me, a little embarrassed. “I totally didn’t find it in a dumpster. I paid, like, 350 bucks for it at a vintage place, a guy who’s a huge fan of mine.”
I swirled my beer. “I know, Nate. I found the sticker on the edge.”
“And I may have sabotaged the legs of the old one after you glued it together. I mean, in my defence, it was hideous—and I hated it. Hate me for wanting nice things in my afterlife.”
I sighed. I knew it.
“And what is with this 350 bucks? I mean, twenty years ago you’d find them in the alley all packed up for the dumpster.” I shook my head as Nate continued. “Anyway, he let me give him a down payment—even delivered it to your place for free. FYI, I hate your front-door lock. How do you live with it?”
Maybe open and unfiltered honesty with Nate wasn’t the best thing…
“Oh, and I still owe him 200 bucks. Speaking of which, I need the cash.”
I finished my beer. “Give me the name of the shop. I’ll drop it off and take it out of your piggy bank.” Otherwise, some of that cash would likely find its way nowhere good…
I stood and left cash on the counter for Lee. I had a potential case waiting for me in New York, a financial adviser who had died of a heart attack—and then absconded with all his clients’ money. He was reluctant to tell his partners where he’d hidden it.
It was a refreshing change from serial killers and paranormally tainted murder sprees.
As I walked through the streets of the underground, the frost crystalline on the ground and even a few more lights hanging in windows for the upcoming holiday season, I found myself whistling. And not even minding the cold.
Instead of rain, there was snow in the air. Cold but dry. It looked beautiful in the lamplight, reminding me of Otherside.
I had died, when I was very young, and it had left a mark on me, an affinity for Otherside and a paradoxical hatred of the cold. Maybe even my talent for freehand. I was okay with it—it was a missing piece I hadn’t known I’d been looking for. It gave me peace.
My good mood followed me all the way home, even past my unwieldy lock. So much so, I didn’t notice the two missed calls until I was through the door. Mrs. Young. My elevated mood vanished as I called her back. Gideon had told me Astrid was locked up where she couldn’t hurt anyone else.
“Hello? Mrs. Young?” I answered. “I’m so sorry I didn’t pick up—”
Mrs. Young cut me off. “It’s Astrid. Please—we need you to come immediately. It’s—” There was a muffled sound on the other end as she spoke to someone else—presumably Mr. Young. “I’m so tired—and my husband. Please, make her stop!” Her voice cracked at the end.
My stomach sank as I grabbed my helmet and supplies, balancing the phone under my chin. “I’m on my way. Use the sage I gave you and lock yourself in a room, hang the spirit wards on all entrances. Leave the food and joss paper outside—that should distract her,” I hoped. I’d explained the problem with Astrid in Portland, and the fact that the Youngs hadn’t been visited by her after Gideon had dragged her off had left me hopeful. How the hell had she escaped?
Question for later, after I had her trapped.
As I stopped in the bathroom, there was the telltale chill of Otherside. “Nate?”
“You. Wouldn’t. Listen.”
Astrid.
I spun and found her standing behind me. She looked terrible. Her face was pale and red tear–stained, and her hair was dishevelled and dull.
She clutched herself, still appearing in the designer clothes she’d worn on her last visit, though they too appeared the worse for wear.
“Astrid, how did you get out?” I said, backing away.
She shook her head. “I’ve done something terrible, Kincaid,” she said, her voice a whisper, her eyes a pure black as she watched me hungrily.
She was worse. Which meant she’d fed. “What did you do to your parents, Astrid?”
She started crying again, bloody tears dropping on my white-tiled floor.
“This is all your fault,” she said through a sob. “If you had just done what you were supposed to, I would be free. My parents wouldn’t—” She choked off another sob and levelled an angry stare my way.
I went cold as her words hit me.
If you had just done what you were supposed to.
“How did you get by the wards?”
“I had to make a different deal with him because of you!” she said, her voice filled with venom. “I want you to remember that this was all your fault,” she said, and threw a cloud of black powder at me. I shielded my face reflexively, but there was too much. It smelt of ashes and Otherside.
I lost my balance and gripped the counter. I was looking at myself outside my own body. Watching as Astrid slid inside, and with my own face smiled at me, patting my jeans and jacket down.
“Not great, but not bad. Nothing a little cosmetic surgery and a better wardrobe can’t fix.”
I ran at her—and was repelled. I couldn’t touch her—I couldn’t touch anything. I turned to face the mirror. It was me—I shimmered a blackened gold. Astrid had kicked me out of my own body.
Shit. I reached for the Otherside I knew was there, but only had a tentative grasp—it was fluid, more like water. Still, I threw it at her—at me, my body.
That wiped the smile off her face, and for a moment she looked terrified. She swatted at me, but my hijacked arms passed right through me. Her ghost began to leave my stolen body.
That’s it, Kincaid, just a little bit more…
“He said you might try this,” Astrid’s ghost said with my voice through my clenched teeth as I pulled, trying to rip her out. With her own ghostly arms, she reached out and grabbed me. And shoved, straight into the mirror.
I landed on my back, hard.
I sat up and looked around. I was sitting on a stone street, there were lanterns everywhere, and houses, and though I couldn’t see anyone, I felt them there watching me. There were murmurs, low and whispering, getting louder. I stood and turned in a circle, wondering where they all came from.
There were so many lights. It looked like a very old village, of indistinct origin, a mishmash of different styles and tastes—Asian, European, African influences. And the lights, they were all so beautiful…
“Kincaid?” There was surprise in his voice, and I turned to find Gideon standing behind me. But he didn’t look like a ghost—he looked as solid as I did.
“Astrid, she showed up and threw something at me…” I trailed off as I spotted something in the window of a nearby house. It wasn’t human—at all. It was red, with large ears and tusks. The face disappeared as soon as I saw it. I turned back to look at Gideon.
He lowered his head, shooting his own furtive glances at the windows and houses surrounding us. “We have a serious problem, Kincaid,” he said.
Somehow, I didn’t think that began to cover it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you Steve, Cindy, Wally and Whisky Jack for all the support (and or patience) while I edited this. Also thank you to my friends Leanne Tremblay and Mary Gilbert, who read each and every early draft chapter. I don’t know if I would have finished this book, or any book, without all of your feedback and encouragement.
I also want to thank my agent, Carolyn Forde, who picked my first manuscript out of the slush pile and perked up when I described this new project. Also Anne Collins, publisher at Random House Canada. I will never forget the day Anne reluctantly admitted she “liked” my novel, with its voodoo and zombies. And a huge thank you to Amanda Betts for editing this manuscript and helping tease out story nuances. Voodoo Shanghai wouldn’t be in nearly as good shape without her.
There are many other people who have mentored and encouraged me in my writing career over the past few years—thanks to all of you!
Kristi Charish, Voodoo Shanghai
