The Skinwalker Conspiracies - 02 (38 page)

This wasn’t the time for my well-practiced kicks and punches. It was time for me to get nasty and fight like a wrestler. Drawing on the energy inside of me, I jumped down into the soil ready to grapple. The wait for De Soto’s next strike wasn’t very long. He slammed into my back and pain shot through the core of my being. I spun and twisted around, slapping my open hand down on his forearm. Tugging him sideways, I mashed the palm of the other hand into the side of his face, driving whatever spectral power I could call on into the blow.

He kicked and I grunted, but held fast as we took turns trying our best to electrocute each other like some idiotic game where two boys punch each other in the nuts until one of the can’t go on. Getting my arms around him in a series of illegal holds, I squeezed and turned up the juice and it had to be hurting him, because I was getting my own feedback.

“
Die scum!
” De Soto added his own energy into the hellish vortex we’d created. It burned, it ached, but neither of us would give up.

Somehow, we our fight ended up back on the surface and my eyes squinted against the early morning sunlight and the pulses of energy we generated. I could sense De Soto calling on his remaining duplicates trying to gather the energy to finish me.

I was empty and the world spun as my grip weakened. Maybe I’d be able to intercept the energy like last time, but he had the upper hand spinning me away from the phantoms as they merged with him. A greatly diminished Travis wielding my sword, along with Virginia, and a few others tried to destroy the arriving duplicates, but too many were getting through.

The Conquistador’s triumphant howls of victory mocked my feeble attempts to stop him. I was holding on for dear life, or was it unlife at this point ? I couldn’t be sure. Virginia was yelling at me, wanting me to do something, but her words were muffled by the roar of energy surrounding me. De Soto broke my hold and grabbed me by my ethereal throat. The crackling energy in his fist vibrated inside my soul and I was seconds away from being annihilated.

“So you end, Michael Ross!”

I could only smack at him with my left hand grabbing at his vaporous form and pulling to try and make him let go. Then the strangest thing happened. I yanked a duplicate right out of him and flung it about ten feet!

“No!”
De Soto screamed as his eyes grew wide. William Travis, pounced on it and cleaved the duplicate in half before it could merge.

The ancient ghost’s greatest ability was also his biggest weakness. I knew what had to be done. With my own triumphant gurgle of a man being choked, I ripped more of his duplicates away, feeling his grip lessen as I peeled his ass like an onion. His desperate energy release nearly caused a blackout, but I willed myself to stay conscious and kept tearing away at him unraveling the ghost faster than he could pull himself back together.

The moment I knew I was going to win was when he released me and tried to run for it. Travis and Virginia tackled him and I picked myself back up and charged, pushing Travis aside and, quite literally, ripping De Soto a new one. I pulled and tugged, over and over at the specter until nothing remained in Virginia’s clutches.

Sinking to my knees in front of her, I was spent. I gasped for breath, finding the notion to be ridiculous since I wasn’t solid, and turned.

Travis was busy destroying the copies. Some fought, but most flew off in different directions, probably following De Soto’s last impulse to run.

“We’ve got to … We’ve got to…” I was having a hard time putting the words together.

Virginia’s gentle touch seemed to help. “We’ve got to get you into a body, Michael.”

“But De Soto,” I protested.

“All the King’s horses and all the King’s men,” Virginia repeated a line from the old nursery rhyme. She rose and pulled me along with her back into the house. I followed in a daze.

“Silas? Karla?” My words like everything else were a whisper. I was slipping away.

“They’re fine,” she reassured me, leading me back to the bathroom.

My body. Home. I started to go to it, but Mrs. Poe steered me to the dog instead.

“You wouldn’t survive,” she says shaking a finger at me like Mom used to do when I was a kid. “Use the animal as a sanctuary and regain your strength.”

Disoriented and unable to protest, she stuffed me into Lucky. I heard the dog yelp and saw Virginia for a split second through the distorted vision of a beagle before both of us passed out.

Eventually, I came around. At first it was only for a minute or two before the pooch went back to sleep. There was a joke about being “doggone” tired in there somewhere, but the beagle decided that hunger was more important than sleep and got up. We were in Karla’s condo - probably violating the rules about having animals. Lucky’s sniffer found a plate of cold wet food next to a bowl of water. It looked like beef stew and neither of us were interested in quibbling about it.

So we feasted.

Then we drank.

Then we looked around, but the place was empty except for the two of us.

Then we took a whiz on Karla’s kitchen floor. It was better than her expensive carpet.

Hours passed, maybe it just felt like it because I was in a dog, but eventually, a pair of ghosts entered through the front wall. It was Cassandra and Virginia, who was holding her hand. I tried to recall if she’d been injured during the fight and concluded that she must’ve been hurt at some point. Lucky barked, happy to have someone give him attention and I just wanted to know if everyone was okay.

“This is a good look for you, Mike,” Cassandra said. “Bark once if you’re ready to get out.”

Dusting off my doggie operating system, I complied. “Good” she continued. “Your body is at the hospital, I just came from checking on you. You’ve been there for the last thirty-six hours. The doctor’s think you’re in a light coma.”

Looking around, I barked a couple of times until she got the idea that I was asking about the others.

Virginia took over. “Karla Thompson is fine. She’s spending the day in the company of her parents. I am afraid to say that Mr. Parker is also at the hospital. He fell down the stairs and injured his hip. Unfortunately, it required surgery. Do you need assistance getting out?”

I barked once, feeling guilty at needing the help and my friend’s predicament. At least he was still alive.

Virginia grabbed Lucky’s left paw and helped yank me out. Lucky looked up at me and panted as I stood. It wasn’t easy, but I seemed to be getting the hang of it.

“Thanks,”
I said to Virginia. She seemed to blush slightly.

“It was nothing,” she said quickly as her expression returned to the usual serene look that usually was there. “I am just pleased to see you.”

I was slightly bothered by the reply.
“Didn’t you already know how it was going to end?”

“No,” Virginia replied, “You misunderstand my powers. I can see possibilities, a nearly unlimited amount, and I have to focus to make sense of it all, but I can nudge events in a certain direction and let the cards fall where they may. My power is like running with an overflowing pot of water and trying not to spill any. If I try too hard, I only spill more and once spilled, there is no way to undo it. My power is a gift and a curse. Every action we take opens new possibilities as others disappear like they had never existed.”

“I was supposed to yell at you for what you put Tabitha Lawrence through, but I guess you were doing what you had to do,”
I said, hoping the departed spirit would understand if we ever met in whatever comes next.

“I make mistakes, too often,” Virginia admitted appearing contrite.

“I can vouch for that. Several times over, in fact,” Cassandra said rejoining the conversation. “Are we ready, Ginny? I was getting bored out in the car. Misty isn’t one of my more patient bodies.”

Virginia’s repentant look melted into one of annoyance. “And the princess finally receives the crown she’s craved for so long.”

I could literally feel the long history between the two of them.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Cassandra answered in a sugary-sweet voice.

“Seriously?”
I said, looking at Virginia.
“You’re leaving her in charge?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Poe said. “Someone needs to bring order to this area. It might as well be her.”

“So, it’s the lesser of two evils?” I commented.

“No,” Virginia answered. “It is more like ‘the devil you know,’ from my perspective. I am also reasonably certain it won’t be as easy as she suspects.”

“What happened to my father?”
I’d already made certain Silas and Karla were okay. With the important people covered, I could spare a moment to ask about his condition.

Cassandra replied, “I’ve got him cooling his heels south of the border until the fallout from this blows over. To be honest, he’s not really interested in talking with you right now. He gets to act like he’s in charge, but I’m really running the show, unless you’re interested in staying around? I could make it worth your time.”

The sour look on my face probably conveyed my answer better than my,
“No, I don’t think so.”

She shrugged off my reply, glanced at a picture of Karla on the table with her arms around Darren Porter, and said, “I see. That’s what I figured. Suit yourself. Maybe when you’re older and wiser, Mike.”

“Typical,”
I muttered ignoring her and thinking about the guy with the name on my birth certificate.
“He just ran off again.”

“Don’t take it so hard, Michael,” Virginia interrupted my musings. “Your father was content being a kept man. His anger at you is really just a reflection of the fact that he will now have to take responsibility for his life. Sometimes the child must be the parent.”

Cassandra laughed. “At least I know where you get your anger issues from. Pity he doesn’t have anything near your talent, but I’ll get what I can out of him.”

Strangely enough, the thought of Cassandra constantly on his ass about things made me smile. They deserved each other.

Concluding that standing here was wasting time, I said,
“Okay, I want to go get my body back.”

“It’s time for me to go as well,” Virginia announced.

“You’re leaving? Just like that?”

Virginia nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. I need to be somewhere else and doing something else. Don’t be surprised if someone else is here when you return from the hospital in two days. Until we meet again, farewell.”

“Her leaving isn’t what should worry you, Mike,” Cassandra said, her giddy sarcasm cast aside and some very deep-seated anger showing through. “What should is knowing that one day she’ll come back.”

Virginia scowled and actually looked hurt before she vanished.

“Was that really necessary?”
I asked.

Cassandra also turned away and started for the driveway. I couldn’t see her face, but I heard her words. “One of these days, if I ever feel like talking about it Mike, remind me to tell you how I died. C’mon let’s go.”

 There were plenty of things to feel bad about, Silas getting hurt, a bunch of dead dogs, the ruined house a vacationing family returned to, and through all that, I couldn’t spare much sympathy for either Virginia or Cassandra. Virginia Poe did meddle in people’s lives. Maybe she had good reasons, but that didn’t make everything right. Cassandra? She played with real human beings like they were Barbie dolls. Even as I floated to her convertible Porsche, she was primping herself using the rearview mirror inside the body of that dancer I’d met in Amarillo, Misty, and looking pleased with the result.