The Ferryman Institute (9 page)

“Maybe it's your lucky day,” Dirkley replied. The navigator moved the microphone on his headset from its stowed position above his brow back in front of his mouth. “Navigator to tower, Ferryman has successfully returned, over.” After he spoke, he looked over at Charlie—“I'm going to put her on speaker”—which he then followed with a series of button presses on the desk.

There was a momentary pause before Melissa's voice came over the air. “Copy that, Navigator, request status of transfer, over.”

Dirkley leaned back in his chair as he spoke. “Transfer of subject complete, over.”

A small whoop came over the radio. “Nicely done, guys! I thought Ethel might have tripped you up a little bit there.”

Charlie snorted at that, mostly because he considered it a bald-faced lie. “I don't believe you for a second,” he said dryly into the speaker. “That was one of the easiest cases I've had in decades. No, centuries. Actually, no, wait—ever.”

Even to a Ferryman with Charlie's experience, the Institute's operation was almost completely a mystery. He didn't know how its death-prediction system worked—not that he particularly cared, really, but the best answer anyone had ever given him on the topic was the three-word response of
It's magic, dumbass
—but he knew assignments were sorted first by estimated time of death (more commonly abbreviated as the ETD), and then by a difficulty ranking. Assignments were divvied up based on their ranking, with the lower-level teams choosing their cases first, thereby allowing the harder cases to filter to the top. An aspiring team could choose something slightly above their designated grade level (which was how they moved up in rank) at the discretion of their manager. How the Institute knew what cases were going to be tough, he couldn't say, but Charlie was aware that only easier assignments came with some information attached—names of people, places, that sort of thing. If Melissa knew his most recent assignment's name was Ethel, then she'd probably gotten it from the assignment notes. If that was true, Ethel should have been too low a case for Charlie's grade level. The only reason Charlie usually had names to work with was because Dirkley was so damn good at figuring them out.

“Whoa, hold on a second.” Melissa's voice had taken on a tone defensive enough to be used as a fortification. “When that case came over the wire, she had all the makings of a crazy cat lady, and you know how difficult they can be.”

“She was
far
from a crazy cat lady,” Charlie replied. “I mean, sure, she lived with a half dozen cats. That's above-average cat ownership, I'll give you that. But I'd barely gotten to cat number three and she was already ready to go.”

“Seven cats,” Dirkley corrected, “and the two parakeets.” When Charlie looked over, he raised his arms sheepishly. “What? She really loved Snowflake and Rosebud. They were important birds to her.”

Dirkley's unerring precision was endearing at times. Emphasis on
at times
.

Melissa weighed back in. “Either way, it was a good job. You guys are making it look easy out there tonight.”

That's because it was
, Charlie thought. “Out of curiosity, Melissa, what was the grade on that last assignment?”

The mild hum from the speaker droned on as the voice on its other end fell momentarily quiet. “Hmm,” she replied. “You know, I don't remember off the top of my head. I'll go back and take a peek after I finish this write-up.”

Charlie stared at the speaker. Something wasn't right. Melissa rarely forgot the grade of a case and, now that he thought about it, hadn't ever forgotten a recent one. In fact, two weeks ago he'd asked her about a case from her first year as his manager. Not only did she remember the grade (an S10, S being the third most difficult rank overall and 10 being the lowest difficulty grade in that level), she'd casually rattled off the grades for the entire day with a stupefyingly sharp memory.

Dirkley's voice interrupted Charlie's train of thought. “Right, let us know about that, Melissa. We're going to get a head start on the next assignment. Temporarily signing off. Thanks.” Dirkley immediately flipped a switch on the desk, the quiet hum from the speaker fading away. Charlie realized belatedly that, not only had
he completely spaced out, but Dirkley was now staring intently at him. If that wasn't enough, the fact that Dirkley had effectively hung up on Melissa—something he never did—was proof enough the navigator felt something was up.

“You all right?” he asked Charlie.

Charlie, who was only gradually coming back to reality, replied: “Yeah. Why?” The words felt robotic coming out of his mouth.

“Well, your eyes sort of glazed over and you had this weird look on your face just now. Like . . .” He pantomimed a drooping motion with his hands. “I'd say you looked sick, but clearly I know that's not the case.”

Dirkley continued to study Charlie cautiously. His eyebrows met at an almost exact V, something that really only happened when he was in navigator mode. “I'm not one to pry—well, maybe that's not entirely true,” he added quickly after Charlie rolled his eyes, “but is this . . . um, how should I put it . . .
female
-related?”

“No,” Charlie said. “Not even remotely.”

Despite Charlie's unequivocal response, Dirkley continued undeterred. “Well, I only ask because I know that before you were a Ferryman, you had—”

For a brief moment, Charlie had a vision of her two brilliant green eyes, as if their irises were brimming with molten jade. Half-imagined laughter whispered in his ear, soft and lilting. But just as quickly as the memories came, they were gone again, an all-too-fleeting glimpse of what felt like—if not actually was, in a very real sense—a former life.

“Not girl problems, Dirkley,” Charlie said, cutting him off. He left no doubt in his voice this time that this particular topic was off-limits.

“Right, sure,” Dirkley replied, quickly moving on in the conversation. “I just wanted to throw out there that we're here for
you—me and Melissa are. Well, the whole Institute is, I'm sure. They generally like you. Well, except for the Inspector, but he probably didn't like his own mother. But seriously, if you ever need to talk, you can tell me anything. You're not the most, shall I say,
open
person I've ever met, so I—we—” He gestured at the control room around them. “We worry about you sometimes.”

It was easy to tell that the concern was genuine, even if Charlie found it strange that Dirkley was suddenly so talkative. “Don't let me worry you. I'm fine. Just a bit distracted, that's all. Glad to know you've got my back. I mean that.”

Dirkley gave an almost carefree, goofy smile at that. “Not a problem. It's the least I cou—”

“DAWSON?! IS CHARLES DAWSON HERE?!”

Both Dirkley and Charlie looked in the direction of the commotion. Just over the heads of several groups of Ferryman employees, Charlie could see a young black man in a shabby gray suit running in their direction, a flow of dreadlocks trailing in his wake. “MR. DAWSON!” His voice rose above the general din of the room as he spotted Charlie. The man mouthed something into the headset he wore—what it was, Charlie couldn't say—before picking up speed. He arrived at Charlie and Dirkley's station looking like he had ten things to say and time for only one.

“Thank God you're still here. Ms. Johnson told me you have an assignment coming up, but . . . well, just damn glad you're still here. Agent Campbell,” he said, offering his hand. But any warmth in his facial expression was being smothered by the air of urgency surrounding him.

Charlie shook the agent's hand. “Pleasure. No, we haven't started on the next case yet, but we were about to.”

Campbell hesitated, but only for an instant. “I need your help, Mr. Dawson. It's an emergency.”

The corners of Charlie's mouth went flat. Bad things always followed that word. It was never an emergency surprise party, or emergency free cupcake day.

“Did you clear this with Melissa?” When Campbell's face indicated he didn't recall the name, Charlie added, “Melissa Johnson? You know, our manager?”

Campbell's expression turned to one Charlie would have described as half sheepish, half devil-may-care. “I . . . haven't,” Campbell said.

When Campbell offered nothing else, Dirkley chimed in. “You know there's an established protocol for this, Agent Campbell. The request has to go—”

“I know, Mr. Dupine.” Though he'd interrupted Dirkley, Charlie noted it sounded more out of desperation than annoyance. “But my team is in a situation that's . . . It's bad.”

“How bad are we talking here?” Dirkley's expression had turned stern.

“Bad. We've got practically no info—my navigator can't make heads or tails of the memory feed and it's just about washed out. We know it's a young woman, and that's only because our Ferryman on the ground mentioned it when she called in to ask for assistance.”

“That's it?” Dirkley said. “
Young woman
is all you've got? No age, occupation, family members?” Agent Campbell said nothing. “Name?” Dirkley continued, bemusement creeping into his voice. The agent simply shook his head. “You're joking! Did your Ferryman at least say what the cause of death was?”

“Car accident. An ugly one,” Campbell said as he pulled out a form from his jacket pocket. He turned to Charlie. “My Ferryman—her name is Jennifer Smalling—she's a rookie, Mr. Dawson. I spoke to her on the phone and she's in bad shape. She's panicking and I
think she's barely keeping it together. If someone doesn't go in there, we're going to lose her
and
the assignment. We've got an ETD in five minutes and—”

“No,” Dirkley interrupted. “Absolutely not. No way. Get your Ferryman out of there, but please leave Charlie out of this. We've got assignments of our own to take care of. Someone dropped the ball somewhere, and shame on them, but there's no way we can pull this one out of the hat. I'm sorry, but no.”

Charlie glanced over his shoulder in moderate shock. Five minutes ago, he would have classified Dirkley being curt to someone in the same realm of impossibility occupied by the Cubs winning the World Series and honest politicians, but now he'd done it twice.

Campbell frowned but gave a surprisingly even-tempered reply. “I understand what I'm doing is out of line. I'm not proud of this. But the Ferryman in there is my friend. Maybe slightly more than a friend. I convinced her she should take this case, and right now, the fact that she's completely in the shit—that's on me. But more importantly, there's a spirit who's about to be denied her chance at the afterlife unless someone does something. So with all due respect, Mr. Dupine, if you were in my shoes, wouldn't you ask the only person in this entire Institute who's
never
failed an assignment to try and rescue yours?”

Dirkley said nothing. Charlie, however, had already made up his mind. He knew who Jen Smalling was, had talked to her a bit about random things recently in one of his better moods—welcomed her to the Institute, gotten a sense of her past, that sort of thing. She was a pleasant girl, had only been a Ferryman for a year or two, which was almost nothing in Ferryman time. Not that it mattered. Even if she'd hated his guts, it wouldn't have changed Charlie's decision.

“Give me the form.”

Both Dirkley and Campbell immediately turned to Charlie. “I'm sorry?” the agent said, clearly not anticipating that request.

“The form, the form,” Charlie said, waving his hand toward himself. “That's the form for the case, right? I need it.” As soon as Campbell offered it halfway, Charlie whisked it from his grasp. “Here's what I need from you, Campbell. Call in the code and tell them I'll be assisting. Get someone to cover my next assignment. Also, get medical on standby, particularly someone who can do a psych eval. Got that? Jen's probably going to be shaken up when she comes back.”

“Hey, Charlie—” Dirkley began, rising out of his seat now.

“Call the code in, Campbell,” Charlie said. The agent scrambled to get his headset mic back over his mouth. Scurrying a few steps away from Team Dawson's area, he began speaking at a rapid clip.

Dirkley, however, wasn't having it. “Charlie. Charlie! Hey, stop!” People turned to look, and realizing that, Dirkley quickly lowered his voice. The sharp tone, however, remained. “What the hell are you doing? There are other Ferrymen here—ones certainly more than capable of taking this on, might I add.”

Charlie, meanwhile, was stuffing the form into his jacket. No time for a clipboard on this one. “He didn't ask
other Ferrymen
, Dirkley—he asked me. It's a little crazy, I know, but how could I say no to that?”

“Great, it's crazy—glad we can agree on something. As for saying no, it's easy: you just say no! Why are you doing this?” Dirkley demanded in the same hushed but increasingly strident voice.

“Any information you can get, I need it relayed to me. I know you're working in a nearly nonexistent time frame, but anything at
this point is better than nothing. A name would be great, for starters.” Charlie took a step away from the desk, but stopped. Dirkley looked completely helpless at the situation unfolding before him. Charlie, who had reached inside his jacket for his Ferryman Key, replaced it momentarily and turned to face his partner. “Look, I can't help it, Dirkley. I know I can do this. I don't
know
if someone else can. Does that make me an arrogant son of a bitch? Maybe. Probably. I don't know. But tell me I'm wrong, Dirkley. Go ahead. Tell me.”

“This isn't the time for sarcasm,” Dirkley replied. His face was a revolving door of expressions: horror, resolve, concern, horror, resolve, concern.