Geist (11 page)

"You see like this?" 

Yes
. 

It was amazing. I opened my eyes and looked at Joe who sparkled with an almost iridescent light. Almost like he had...fairy lights around him.
"Joe looks—" 

Don't concern yourself with him. 

I looked at Manuel and saw another beautiful woman there...but her image also shifted and changed, though it wasn't as massive or as brooding.
"Why are Morgan and Inanna so different from Mephistopheles?" 

Because he has been a Revenant longer. He embraced this existence not long after Aether. He...
and the Geist faltered.
Wanted this. So he has burned through more hosts than the others. 

I looked at Rhonda—and backed away. 

And then I was back inside of Dags as fast as I could go, and Geist was gone. I didn't know if he just couldn't follow me inside of Dags like that—or he just needed to go somewhere else. Whatever the reason, seeing and feeling through him was gone. It was like going from stereo to mono in an instant. Alice came up beside me and I knew she'd put her arms around me. "Zoë? Darren is upset. What's wrong?" 

"I saw...
something
. I'm not sure what it was." 

"Hey, what's going on? What happened to Zoë?" that was Joe's voice. I looked up at the screen to see through Dags' eyes. They were all looking at me—or rather at Dags. And they were above him. 

"Did I make him faint?" 

"You jumped back in rather fast. He sat back on the couch. But," and Alice turned my face to look at hers. "What did you see? Is it something we should be alarmed about?"

I looked into her soft, smooth face a few seconds before I looked back up at the screen. I could see Rhonda, just to the side of Joe. Jason, Umayma and Tel were all talking together in a huddle behind her. 

Whatever it was I'd seen around Rhonda was gone. If I tried to describe what it was—I couldn't. Because, it just wasn't there anymore. I don't know if my subconscious was just saying HELL NO or if I'd really seen what I thought I saw. "Alice...when you look at people, like at Joe and Jason and...Rhonda...do you see anything else?" 

"What do you mean by anything else?" She narrowed her eyes. "Zoë?"

Maybe as Familiars it wasn't possible to see anything else. Maybe that kind of power only came with Geist vision. I asked that question in my mind—but he didn't appear. Not like he usually did. 

Had I done something wrong by running back into Dags' body so fast? 

"Zoë—did you see something out there? When you looked at someone?" 

I nodded as I looked back at her. "Yeah...but it's gone now." 

"Should we bring it up?" 

Should we? I didn't know. Looking out at Rhonda now didn't show me anything. Not to mention that I wondered how happy ole Jason would be if he could actually see what Mephistopheles looked like. 

"Are you sure it's okay?" Rhonda was saying to Dags. "This is weakening that book's ability to keep you together. Her being inside of you is just killing you faster." 

Alice and I watched and I reassured Dags I was okay. And that I wanted to come back out. 

He stood and I once again became corporeal outside of him. When I looked at him my heart skipped. I was always so amazed at how beautiful he was. And when he looked at me...and leaned in to kiss me so softly like he did—in front of everyone—I loved how he made me feel beautiful too. 

"Can you feel me...like that?" I asked as I leaned against him. 

"I can feel you—" and he squeezed me. "Enough." 

I was going to ask him what that meant but Joe was yelling out for everyone's attention. I'd been in the spotlight enough. Time to see what it was he was so eager to tell us. We all sat down—with Dags pulling me onto the couch with him. He sat back and I sat on his left side. I turned against him with my right arm over his and my head on his shoulder. I saw Alice shimmer in and she sat on his right, dressed in a gray business suit with gray pumps. 

Something felt odd as Joe started to speak. It was the feeling of being watched. I'd had that feeling a lot—and it always creeped me out. I expected to turn and see TC staring me down like he always did. And I was a little surprised I hadn't heard him in my thoughts, making bad quips. 

Instead my gaze rested on Rhonda. She was against the wall beside Daniel, but her gaze was focused on me. I smiled and waved. 

But Rhonda only glared before she looked to Joe. 

Great. The Green Eyed Monster strikes again. 

Oh how right I was going to be. 

-16-

Murder Most Abysmal

"Yesterday," Joe said as he darkened the lights by remote control and then turned on the computer. The Atlanta Police Department logo appeared on the flat screen behind him. "Before the ambush over at Trevor's warehouse, I'd just come from a briefing about three bodies found within a five block radius of the Fox Theater." He moved to stand by the screen and looked at us with his hands out. "I thought you'd like to see this—and yes I'm breaking all kinds of rules showing you," he put his finger to his lips. "You're not really seeing this." 

Joe pointed the remote at the computer. 

The image immediately shifted to the body of a nude female on a morgue table. She looked like she'd been in her mid-thirties, slightly over-weight (which translates into average, if you ask me), with long legs. But that's not what caught everyone's attention. 

The marks carved into her skin is what made everyone stand and move closer to the screen. 

"Okay, everyone relax. There's more." Joe hit the remote again and we saw her from a different angle. I tensed as I saw the marks—I'd seen them before. 

All of us had. 

Joe continued through the slide-show, which showed two more women, all blond, and all covered in these marks. "Each of the victims were found in an alley—all were half crammed into dumpsters. In each case," and he hit a picture of a large green metal dumpster—real common here in Atlanta—with a human leg sticking out. I knew it was one of the victims because I could see the marks. 

Two more clicks, two more pictures. 

Once the images were done Joe moved the slides back to the beginning and brought the lights back up. He faced everyone with his hands on his hips. "I'm pretty sure you all recognize these marks." 

Umayma spoke first. "Detective—are these Revenants? Is that possible?"

"You tell me." 

Tel shook his head. "We've all been accounted for, haven't we? I'm mean," he looked around. "We're not all here, but we know our numbers within the city. I don't recognize any of those women." 

"Maybe they are Ghouls?" Manuel spoke up. He had a very slight German accent, which was interesting to me because of how he looked. 

Joe shrugged. "The truth is I can't tell. And since Lex isn't here any longer to tell us these things we're flying blind. They've already undergone autopsies, and nothing's popped. Lex did say that a normal examination of a Revenant's body wouldn't immediately reveal their true nature." 

"No," Jason spoke up. "But their blood would. Our blood isn't really human anymore. And the older we are," he glanced around. "The more alien that blood is going to look." 

"I've got a call in to see if there was an order for blood—but the new M.E. isn't a fan of mine and disliked Lex and anybody that ever hung around her." 

Joe had been friends with Lex Takashi, former Medical Examiner, and her First Born named Yamato. The two had worked together on several occasions; Lex generally supplying him with a concoction that would bring astral travelers back to their bodies. It happened a lot with drug users and what looked like an overdose. Joe could inject the bodies, bring them back—sometimes only temporarily and sometimes permanently—and find out what happened to them. He'd done it to me way back when they'd found me in the trunk of my car and pronounced me dead. 

But I'd been with TC then. 

God, that was so long ago. 

What made this so special was that before I became a resident of the Abysmal Plane, Lex's Ghoul and long time mate Mialani had been killed by a spell from the
Grimoire
that utilized these same symbols. Because Mialani was a Ghoul, the spell had only killed her body but Lex's vampiric blood kept Mialani's soul anchored to it. She'd needed me to free her. The separation and loss made Lex go a little nuts in the head and when she was convinced the Grimoire inside of Dags could destroy the Phantasm, she'd stabbed and fed on Joe, then used him as a hostage to get the book. 

If Lex had lived—she became one of Maureen and Sophia's victims and died—I'm pretty sure she and Joe wouldn't be on speaking terms. 

At all. 

Hell, if she'd have lived I'd loved to kick her ass nine ways to Sunday.

"We need to see these bodies," Rhonda said as she approached the screen. "It's obvious that someone or something has that spell." 

"I wouldn't be surprised if this is the work of the Virtues, or at least their Powers," Tel said. "To somehow draw us out so they can slaughter us. The markings look right." 

"Which means they have the spell?" Dags looked around at everyone. "But—I thought it disappeared with Sophia?" 

"It did," I said. "She took the pages from the
Grimoire
when Maureen opened it—but Inanna's book disintegrated. This can't be the real spell—knowledge of it's all gone, isn't it?" 

"Even if it's not the real spell," Umayma said. "Someone out there
knows
about it. And we'd be fools to think this isn't some message directed at us." She looked around at the group. "We need to see the body." 

"Well," Joe held up his hand. "What we don't need is a whole herd of Revenants showing up on the coroner's doorstep. Now," he pointed at us. "I think Dags needs to go because of his access to Zoë. She is able to release both Ghouls and Revenants in case this does turn out to be one or the other." 

"But we don't know if she can still do that," Rhonda said. 

Jason spoke up. "I think it's worth the risk." 

That's when Joe turned and pointed at Jason. "And you too." 

The Revenant pointed to himself. "Me?" 

"Yeah—this spell nearly killed you. I think when it comes to authentication; you're the best expert we got." 

"But I wrote—" Inanna/Daniel started to speak. 

Joe put up his other hand. "The police know Daniel's face. Remember, he's still wanted for the murder of Ken Cooper." 

Well...that put a damper on things. Yes it was true—he'd killed Captain Cooper. But it'd been an accident, and Daniel hadn't been in control of himself. 

I watched him, noticed his face. But he just looked away toward the glass sliding doors and shoved his hands into his coat pocket. At that moment, I wanted to go to him and hold him like I used to. So much had happened to him—and it was all because he'd gotten involved with me.  

Dags put a hand on me then. A slight pressure. No texture. No warmth or cold. But I knew he was there. 

He too had his life changed by me. Even more so than Daniel had. 

Me. 

I'm just nothing but dumb, bad luck. 

You are the Phantasm
, the many voices of Geist said in my head.
You are the giver and the taker. And you will be the advent.
 

-17-

Trap

"Were all three bodies found about the same time?" Jason asked as we drove from the penthouse over to Decatur. Joe had already called ahead and used a bit of his own mojo to get us into the back. But hopefully not into that same room Lex had always kept—the creepy room with the "special" table. That being her table with the straps and the creepy symbols painted on the walls. 

We were in Jason's car with Nick driving. Nick wasn't going to go in, but he was there for backup just in case. I liked Nick. He was cute and funny when he wanted to be. And when I say cute I did not necessarily mean in a good looking way. Rhonda and mom thought he was handsome. Me? I thought he looked too much like David Beckham during his ponytail phase. 

That and he was a Ghoul. Having rescued Mialani from a fate worse than death a few months back sort of put me in the know when it came to the ultimate fate of a Ghoul. A soul locked into a dead body, irrevocably tied to the Revenant who made them. 

Irrevocable, that is, until true death. 

Nick was probably the oldest Ghoul I knew about, except for Mialani. There was a special bond between a Revenant and their Ghoul—or there was supposed to be. I knew Jason had had a bit of a problem with a few, and with what Rhonda had called a Lamia, back around Christmas. But Nick was always beside him. 

He loves the one that made him
, Mephistopheles said to me. Dags and I sat facing forward in the back of the limo we were in, while Jason and Joe sat on opposite sides.
It's not for me he stays, but for the memory of her.
 

It was sad, really. That Mephistopheles would always have those memories of Nick's lover and Nick would never see her again. Not in life at least. 

"What was her name?" I said aloud. Dags looked at me and then looked at Jason, who was waiting on Joe's answer to his question. He didn't seem to notice I'd spoken. But the First Born did. 

Romina
. 

I thought of Daniel in that instant. Would he make a Ghoul some day? Would that Ghoul feel the same devotion to him? Would he love her? 

Daniel and Inanna could only be as lucky as I have been. 

A smile pulled at the corners of my lips but vanished when I touched on the memory of what I'd seen. What Mephistopheles was becoming was a question for me, but one I'd ask some other time. 

"No, not at the same time," Joe said in reply to Jason's question, then reached into his pocket and retrieved his iPhone. He scrolled through it with his thumb. Ah, technology. We'd gone from painting on cave walls with our fingers, to paper and very sophisticated writing tools—some of which could be used in space—then a return to our fingers.