3 Ghosts of Our Fathers (8 page)

“Please let me know how things
go,” Garth said. “In a way I feel responsible for this mess, and if there’s
something I can do to help resolve it, I will.”

“Thanks, Garth,” Steven said.
“I’ll stay in touch. In the meantime, please don’t worry. My father Roy will
know how to deal with this; we’ll come up with something.”

Garth followed them out to the
main doors of the facility, and watched them go down the front ramp and towards
the parking lot.
I wonder what Sean will think of this,
he thought,
turning to walk to his room.

On the drive back to Seattle,
Steven replayed the meeting with Garth in his mind. He was searching for any clue
Garth might have mentioned that could lead them in a particular direction. He
was coming up empty. He grew frustrated at the idea this problem was something
from the past, something his progenitors didn’t take care of. Now it fell to
him to figure it out, and he was feeling resentful.

“There’s got to be something we
can do,” Steven said. “It seems to me like we’re running out of time. I’m just
guessing here, but I get the feeling Frank will be harder to kill when he’s
free of the cage.”

“Yes,” Daniel said, “he’ll be
easier to deal with while he’s in the cage.”

Steven paused. “Don’t take this
the wrong way Daniel, but ‘deal with’ isn’t what I have in mind. Frank’s body
died years ago, and his soul had its hand wrapped around my neck recently.
Hearing Garth’s story, I mean to extinguish the guy.”

“Oh,” Daniel paused. “Killing him
is certainly an option from my perspective. Just using an euphemism.”

Steven simmered on the idea for a
few moments, steeling his resolve. This would not end like Michael or Jurgen,
with life still left in them, problems still waiting to happen. Frank had
threatened him directly and he would find a way to eliminate Frank completely.

“Any ideas on how to kill him
while he’s still in the cage?” Steven said.

“Well,” Daniel said, “the problem
is the cage itself. Without knowing the original terms of the binding, we don’t
know what type it is and what can get in or out. If we can find that out, we
might be able to figure out what vulnerabilities there are and come up with something
that would work.”

“To kill him,” Steven said.

“Yes, to kill him,” Daniel said a
little uncomfortably.

“And if he gets out before we kill
him?” Steven asked.

“You’re right, it’s going to be
more difficult if he gets out. There will be other options if he’s free of the
cage, but he’ll be much more dangerous. If we can figure out how to do it while
he’s still in the cage, that would be best.”

“And by ‘do it,’ you mean ‘kill
him,’ right?” Steven asked.

“Yes,” Daniel said, a little
irritated.

“It seems it’s a word you’re not
very comfortable with,” Steven said.

“I don’t think you should ever be
comfortable killing anyone or anything,” Daniel said. “It should be
uncomfortable.”

Steven decided to let the subject
drop for now. He let the discussion bounce back and forth in his mind instead.
Roy should be home by the time they reached Seattle, and he wanted to talk
about David with him. He remembered Roy convincing him to not pursue Michael
even though he’d been involved in some horrific child murders. He remembered him
and Roy leaving Jurgen twisting in pain in his office after removing his
powers; why didn’t they just kill him? He deserved it. So did Michael. Leaving
these horrible people alive just gave them a chance to recover and pursue more
evil. Even the Manitou had left Jurgen alive. People with the gift seemed to
have a real reticence to kill, even when it seemed appropriate or necessary.
Maybe it was some code.
Like the ten commandments,
Steven thought.
Thou
shalt not kill.
But that was in a normal world where you couldn’t live
forever or trap souls. What exactly are the rules in the world of ghosts?

“Pardon me for just a moment,” he
said to Daniel. He pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through the names,
looking for Jason. He found it and hit dial. He hated others who used cell
phones while driving but this couldn’t wait.

He reached Jason’s voicemail.
“Jason, this is Dad. Would you give me a call when you get this message? It’s
important. Thanks.”

He returned his phone to his
pocket.

“Does Jason know?” Daniel asked.

“About Frank? That’s what I hope
to find out,” answered Steven.

“No, I meant about the gift,”
Daniel said.

“Oh,” Steven said. “No. He
doesn’t. At least as far as I know.”

“Do you think he has it?”

“What, the gift?”

“Yes.”

“To be honest with you I hadn’t
really thought about it.”

“I see. Best to just keep him out
of this?”

“Well yes, to the extent he can
be.”

“That’s how I feel about Troy,”
Daniel said, “though it’s Eliza’s decision, of course. I suppose it’s the
natural desire to protect your children. But if it turns out he has the gift, I
struggle with how appropriate it is to deny him the knowledge to develop it. I
mean, if you found out your kid had some special skill, like he was a really good
baseball player, you would encourage him to play little league, right? You
wouldn’t pretend little league doesn’t exist, or worse, bar him from playing
it? That would seem cruel.”

“I suppose so,” Steven said.
“Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“The gift is like being a prodigy
in some ways,” Daniel said. “They take prodigies out of grade school and put
them in college courses so they can advance. Leaving them in elementary schools
just stunts them, frustrates them.”

“I’m confused,” Steven said. “So
you would or you wouldn’t teach Troy how to develop his gift?”

“I’m saying I struggle with that,”
Daniel said. “If he even has it. Eliza doesn’t tell me much about him. But I do
wonder.”

“Last time I saw him, his interest
seemed to rest squarely in video games.”

Daniel smiled. “I sent him that
Xbox. Eliza was pissed but she let him keep it. She told him she won it in a
contest.”

“I hope I’m not betraying a
confidence, but she told me she doesn’t know when she’ll tell Troy.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Sounds
like she’s right where I am. Thanks for telling me. I’ll keep that bit of
information to myself.”

“We’re getting close to my
father’s place,” Steven said. “Do you mind if we swing by and see if he’s
returned from his trip?”

“Not at all,” Daniel said.

“No job to get back to?” Steven
asked.

“I’m a writer,” Daniel said. “I
can make anything work.”

-

Roy looked a little sunburnt.

“How was the trip?” Steven asked.

“Relaxing as hell,” Roy said.
“Dixon knows how to kick back, let me tell you. He’s perfected the act of
relaxation to an art.”

“Glad to hear it,” Steven said. “This
is Daniel. He’s been helping me while you’ve been gone.”

Roy and Daniel shook hands.
“Helping him, are you?” Roy asked. “Sounds like something’s up. Well, follow me
into the kitchen and you can tell me about it. I have a few things to unpack.”

They both followed Roy. Steven
took a seat at the kitchen table and motioned for Daniel to sit as well. Roy
began unpacking several plastic bags. He pulled out a beautiful large shell and
handed it to Steven.

“Look at this!” Roy said. “An
animal lived in that thing. Dixon hit the shell like this,” he grabbed the
shell back to demonstrate, “and the thing crawled out. Dixon stabbed it and we
barbequed it for dinner. Delicious.” He handed the shell back. “Beautiful,
right?”

“It’s a conch,” Steven said,
turning the shell in his hand.

“I don’t remember what the hell
Dixon called it,” Roy said. “And look at this!” He pulled two large bottles of
dark liquid out of the bags. “Local rum! Want a taste?”

“Later, Dad,” Steven said.
“Listen, I want to hear all about the trip but we need to talk to you.”

“What’s up?” Roy asked, still
pulling items out of bags and placing them on the counter.

“Your father, David, pissed off a
man eighty years ago by imprisoning him in a soul cage. Now he’s getting out
and coming after me. After us.”

Roy stopped emptying the bags and
stood still, staring at the kitchen cabinets. He didn’t turn to look at Steven.

“Frank Wilmon,” Roy said, his
enthusiasm gone. “Am I right?”

“How’d you know?” Steven said.

Roy returned to unpacking the
bags. “My father wrote about him in his book. One of the first things I was
ever able to read in that book, because he told me all about him. Frank was one
of the first times my father used his gift. He was afraid of Frank and wanted
me to know about him.”

“And you never thought to tell
me?” Steven said.

“It didn’t seem relevant,” Roy
said. “Just a story my dad told me.”

“Well, that story had his hand
around my neck the other night,” Steven said. “He threatened to kill me. With
you gone I needed some help, and Eliza referred me to Daniel here. He and I
tracked down one of Frank’s kids, an old man named Garth. He lives in Olympia.
We just came from there. He told us the whole story.”

“Why don’t you take a deep breath,”
Roy said, continuing to unpack, “and start from the top. Tell me everything
that’s gone on.”

Steven and Daniel relayed the
entire story, starting with Steven’s first visit from Frank through all the
details of Garth’s experiences.

“You’d think Frank would start
with you instead of me,” Steven said, “being David’s son.”

“I was out on the water,” Roy
said. “That’s why he couldn’t reach me. What about Jason?”

“I have a call out to him, waiting
to hear back.”

“So you’re an expert on time,
Daniel?” Roy asked.

“Well, I do know something about
it. I’ve studied it over the years,” Daniel said.

“What do you think?” Roy asked
him.

“Well,” Daniel said, “I think it’s
very dangerous. The cage is definitely collapsing. I figure there’s 48 hours
left before he’s completely free. And he’s picked up some skills while he’s
been in there. Steven’s skin was undulating and twisting where Frank had
grabbed him. His touch left some residual power that was very disturbing. It
might have been very small-scale time shifting on a molecular level.”

“Time shifting?” Roy asked.

“The cells of the skin each moving
backward and forward in time, by just a split second. It would make it appear
that it was moving when viewed in normal linear time.”

“Sounds bizarre,” Roy said.

“It’s dangerous. It’s hard enough
for a human to handle a shift in time if your whole body is involved. What he
did caused a piece of Steven to be out of sync with the rest of him. If he
could cause that effect on a wider area, say on a vital organ like your heart
or your brain, it would probably kill you.”

Daniel paused. “In fact, that
might be the technique of the soul cage. That might be how his soul was removed
from him. He might have found a way to use the same power that entrapped him.”

“So the cage might not be
expiring,” Steven said, “he might be destroying it from within?”

“Maybe,” Daniel said. “Impossible
to know for sure without more information on the cage itself.”

“I like this guy,” Roy said to
Steven, nodding toward Daniel. “He knows his shit. And any friend of Eliza’s is
a friend of mine.”

“He’s been invaluable,” Steven
said. “Without you here I was kind of lost.”

“We need to talk to that face in
the junk pile,” Roy said. “That’s our next move. We need to know where the
garage is.”

“I can call Garth,” Steven said.
At that moment Steven’s cell phone rang. He looked at the display.

“It’s Jason, let me take this,” he
said, rising and walking into the other room. Roy and Daniel listened to half
of the conversation but couldn’t tell what was going on.

Steven returned from the other
room. “Jason is at my house, waiting for me to get home. Daniel, can you make
contact with Garth and find out the location of that garage? I’m going to go
over to my house and talk with Jason.”

“I’ll come with you,” Roy said.

“No, I want to talk to him alone,”
Steven said. “Daniel, are you up for going with us to visit the garage?”

“Absolutely,” Daniel said, “if you
want me along.”

“I do,” Steven said. “Dad, can
Daniel stay here with you while I go do this? I’m not sure where the conversation
with Jason will go but I want to do this on my own.”

“Sure,” Roy said. “He can stay.”

“And Dad,” Steven said, “can I
take all the protection you’ve got sitting around? I’m going to ask Jason to
take some.”

“Sure, let me round it up,” Roy
said, turning towards a cabinet.

“Would that device you gave me
work with Jason?” Steven asked Daniel.

“Yes, it should,” Daniel said.
“Same instructions I gave you. Don’t let it get taken away. You have to keep it
close. I can give you another one – I have several in my backpack in the car.”

“What about the protection you
gave me? Any more of that?” Steven asked.

“I think your father’s protection
is probably stronger than mine,” Daniel said. “I’d use that.”

Roy returned with two large Mason
jars filled with a clear liquid. “I made a ton when we were dealing with
Jurgen,” he said. He handed them to Steven.

“Thanks. Would you mind whipping
up some more for you and me? We’re going to need it too.”

“Sure, I can make more while
you’re gone.”

“Can I watch?” Daniel asked.

“Of course not,” Roy said. “My
father told me to never show anyone how it’s made, except when I pass it along
to Steven here. Family secret.”

“Daniel tells me it’s pretty
potent,” Steven said. “He analyzed it in his lab in Spokane.”

“More variants than I’ve ever
seen,” Daniel said.

“One of my father’s obsessions was
this protection,” Roy said. “He inherited the recipe from his dad, of course,
but he refined it for years, modifying it, making it stronger. Gave me his
recipe just before he died. I’ve been making it exactly the same way since
then.”

 “I’m leaving to go meet Jason,”
Steven said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Steven took the two Mason jars and
left.

-