Claimed by Angels & Demons: Book 1 (3 page)

I couldn't help rolling my eyes, "nope."

"Fine then," she said, like she was doing me a favor, "come in. I'm Mrs. Barlow."

I stepped over the threshold and in to a house that looked like it was straight out of an upscale department store catalog.

"Please take your shoes off," she said, all the while wearing a pair of heels. But I just flicked them off, I wasn't about to get in any arguments. I wanted to get this done and get the hell out of here before I was brainwashed and wearing a sweater vest of my own.

"So, how does this work?" Mrs. Barlow asked.

"Well I say a few magic words and presto, no more ghosts." I might as well keep it simple this first time around. I would have time to work up a whole performance later.

She nodded, "I just want to say that I have my doubts about the veracity of the claims made in your advertisement. I don't really believe in these... ghosts," she looked like she was spitting out an undercooked piece of meat when she said the word, "but we have tried everything else, and these disturbances have gotten to the point where my husband and I genuinely fear for the safety of our child. If this doesn't work then we are likely going to have to move, and at a considerable financial loss. So."

I genuinely feared for the
sanity
of her child, growing up in this place. This lady as your mother was scarier than any ghost could possibly be. "Well we offer a money back guarantee," I said, though I had no idea if that was true or not.

"I don't want my money back, I want this whole fiasco to be over with."

I nodded, "well why don't you show me where the noises and whatnot are coming from."

"Very well." Mrs. Barlow led the way upstairs, her heels clicking and clacking on the shiny hardwood floor, and I followed behind. She took the first door on the left, in to a child's room, where son and Dad were playing with a model train.

"This is Layla, from Spiritual Dispersion Services," Mrs. Barlow announced to the room. "This is my husband Mr. Barlow," she said, pointing out the man.

"Donald," he got up and smiled and shook my hand. He seemed quite a bit more human than his wife.

"And our child Henry," Mrs. Barlow said.

Henry, all of five, dressed in little mini slacks and a button down, got up and shook my hand. "How do you do?"

I smiled, "I'm good, how about you?"

"I'm well," he said. "Are you here to get rid of the ghosts?"

I was pretty sure he spoke better English than I did. Poor kid. "I am indeed."

"I cant thank you enough for coming," Donald said, "we're at our wits end with this, it just keeps getting worse and worse and we don't know what to do. We called all sorts of building inspectors of course, our first thought was a faulty pipe, or some sort of rodent infestation, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the house itself. And then stuff starts disappearing, or it's been moved without any explanation... well it's like something out of a movie isn't it?" He smiled, "but I guess this is all just a day's work for you huh?"

"Oh sure," I said, "I've seen it all. You wouldn't believe some of the crazy stuff these ghosts get up to." I smiled and winked at Henry, who was completely enthralled by all of it, but apparently too well trained to say anything when the grown-ups were talking.

"Well the main area of disturbance is Henry's closet," Mrs. Barlow said, walking over to it and opening it up. "Several things have gone missing, and there are quite a few noises, especially at night. Our bedroom is on the other side of the wall and we hear the noises as well."

I wouldn't normally have thought that stuff disappearing from a kid's closet would be cause for concern. I could swear my own closet growing up had had a black hole somewhere inside it, the way stuff was constantly disappearing from it. But Henry's closet was organized with military precision.

"Okay well I'll just throw a dispersion spell on the area and we should be done here," I said.

"That's all it takes huh?" Donald said.

"Seems awfully simple for two hundred dollars...," Mrs. Barlow said in a whisper I was meant to hear as she stepped back from the closet.

I couldn't get out of here fast enough. Now what was that damned latin phrase that Henrietta had taught me? It had sounded so much more authentic than the hocus pocus nonsense that I had been planning on using. Something something spiritus. I remembered spiritus because it was just spirit was an 'us' thrown on the end. Simple but vaguely authentic sounding.

"Something wrong?" Mrs. Barlow said.

She evidently knew the whole thing was fake, and I knew the whole thing was fake, so why couldn't she just let me get on with it? I glanced back at her, "no just preparing myself, focusing my energy and all that." I was just about to look back to the closet and phone this thing in with a couple of hocus pocus' when I saw a man, dressed in a black suit and tie so impeccable that it made Mrs. Barlow look shabby. He was walking past the door but looked in as he passed and our eyes met, and he paused there in mid-step. He was the most gorgeous human being I had ever laid eyes on, and he, for some insane reason, seemed to be looking at me like he was thinking the same thing.

"Who are you?" I said, completely taken aback.

Mrs. Barlow glanced behind her, to where I was looking, "who are you talking to?"

"The man," I said, pointing. As if I needed to point, he was standing just a few feet away.

"Oh I see," Mrs. Barlow threw up her hands, "here come the theatrics. Didn't I tell you Donald, it's all a big show, they're a bunch of con artists!"

"You cant see him?" I said, becoming alarmed.

Donald looked back a second time, like maybe he had somehow missed a man standing right there the first time he had looked, "Layla there's nobody there."

Henry gripped on to Donald's leg and started to cry.

"That's quite enough of your theatrics," Mrs. Barlow said, "you're scaring Henry." Then she leaned down to Henry, "there's no need to be frightened dear, the young lady is only pretending that there's a ghost to scam money from your father and I."

I looked back at the man, who was completely fixated on me and seemed to be ignoring everything else that was happening. There was no way. He wasn't a ghost, that was impossible. Right? And then I knew what was going on. "Henrietta put you up to this didn't she?"

"I beg your pardon?" Mrs. Barlow said.

"Yea, haze the new girl right? Oh no a real ghost!" I said in mock surprise, then smiled, "I have to admit you had me there for a second."

"I'm confused," Donald said, looking at me like I had lost my marbles, "if there really
is
a ghost then shouldn't you be casting your spell on it?"

I rolled my eyes, "what, you want me to make an idiot of myself? Are you taping this for later, going to show it around the office maybe?" But Donald didn't say a word. "Whatever, fine." I stared the ghost down and pretended to get real serious, "Hocus pocus spiritus disappearus!" I did some jazz hands and then waved my arms in the air for added effect. "There, happy? Can we all just drop the act now?"

"If you think I'm paying you a dime for any of this," Mrs. Barlow said, pointing her perfectly manicured finger in my face, "you've got another thing coming missy."

"Whatever," I said, shoving her finger out of my face, "you people are nuts. This is the weirdest job ever. If I wasn't being paid so much I would be out of here so fast."

"I'm confused," Donald said, "is this some sort of prank TV show, or... ?"

Donald and Mrs. Barlow were both staring at me, completely at a loss, like big men in white suits should be coming to strap a straight jacket on me. "Fine," I said, starting to get really annoyed now, "you don't want to fess up, then how about this." I walked over to the man. They thought they were so damned funny, but I wasn't going to be the butt of anyone's joke. As I got closer I took a better look at the stranger. He hadn't said a word, just continued to stare at me like
he
was the one seeing a ghost. I had no idea what that was about, but it was definitely a little unnerving. He had a hard, clean jaw and wavy brown hair, and his suit hinted at a hard, 'V' shaped chest and broad shoulders beneath, but the thing that made me quite literally miss a step were his eyes. Deep and piercing, and iris' that were inky black. My eyes seemed to be locked on his, and it took a real effort to wrench them away from his gaze.

It was like the stranger's stare had temporarily erased my mind, and I tried to remember what I had walked over to him for in the first place. Finally it came back. I was about to expose their little hazing routine. "If he was a ghost, could I do this?" And I stuck my hand out to poke the so-called ghost in the chest but my finger just kept on going, right through his chest without the faintest bit of resistance. I snatched my finger back and gasped and looked again at the man with the black eyes.

"Seffora, could it really be you? Have you come back to me after all these millennia?" the ghost said.

"What. The. Fuck," I said, backing up slowly. I really, really hoped that this was some sort of very elaborate 3D projection or something, and not an actual ghost. Because ghosts didn't exist. They definitely did NOT exist.

"Naughty word!" I heard Henry say somewhere behind me, but it barely registered, all that registered were mystery man's eyes locked on mine, consuming me like two small black holes.

The ghost followed me in to the room, maintaining a distance of a couple of feet between us. "You've come back to me my love. After two thousand years you have moved heaven and earth and found your way back to me. I'm so sorry my love, I'm so sorry for what I did. Can you forgive me?" He reached out to touch my face but his ghostly hand only slid through my solid skin.

I felt so confused staring in to his inky eyes, like I was under a spell. Was I Seffora, was that my name? I couldn't even remember now. "I can forgive you." I said, a little unsure. What was I forgiving him for? It seemed like it was right at the edge of my mind, just out of reach. Like I had forgotten it just a moment ago. I couldn't remember, but staring in to his eyes I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was sorry for what he had done, and that I must forgive him. I knew from the way he looked at me that he loved me more than life itself. Whatever he had done, that look told me that I could forgive him.

"Wait," the ghost said, "no, you are not her, you are not my Seffora."
"I'm not?" I said weakly. Who was I then? I couldn't remember any of it, my mind was a total blank, all I could see were the two bottomless pits of the ghosts black eyes, hypnotizing me. And in that moment I desperately wanted to be Seffora, I wanted to be the object of the tragic love that I had glimpsed in his eyes. I would have gladly left my old life behind forever if he would have just looked at me like that again.

He finally looked away, at the Barlows, and whatever spell or influence he had on me was broken. I remembered who I was and what was happening and I stumbled back away from the ghost, terrified of the hold he had so easily gotten on my mind. "Stay the hell away from me," I said, trying to make it sound like a threat, but it came out sounding more like a plea.

"How is this possible?" The ghost said, looking back at me, but with no hypnotizing spell this time. He started coming after me as I continued to back away, "you have her face. How is that possible? Were you sent by God to punish me?"

The ghost had tears running down his cheeks, if that was even possible, and he kept stalking me across the room, all because I looked like this Seffora person. Maybe Seffora had been his wife when he was still alive, but could it really have been two thousand years ago? I couldn't even imagine that, spending two thousand years wandering around until you stumbled on to someone who looked just like your beloved, dead wife.

"Who are you? Why do you look like Seffora?" The ghost was starting to get angry that I wasn't answering any of his questions.

I needed to get rid of him. I didn't know if ghosts could hurt the living but I didn't want to wait around to find out. The dispersion spell, I needed to remember that damned dispersion spell.

"What is happening?" Mrs. Barlow hissed behind me.

"It's a ghost," I hissed back, "but I forgot the stupid spell."

"You just said it a moment ago."

"No not that crap, the
real
spell!"

"Well that's not very professional of you," Mrs. Barlow said.

"Lady shut the fuck up and let me think!" I screamed, my eyes still locked on the ghost's eyes. I was starting to feel hypnotized again, like how a mouse must feel staring down a cobra. I resisted it this time, I tried to keep my mind centered, but it was so hard, like trying to hold on to smoke.

"Naughty word!" Henry said again.

"Okay, I muttered, "something something spiritus, come on think, something something spiritus."

"You mean to disperse me?" The ghost said, seeming offended at this idea, "I am no wayward spirit to be so easily dismissed. You
will
tell me who you are human."

"Shut up," I yelled right back at the ghost, "you're not real and I'm going to disperse your ass." I kept racking my brain. The spell would come back to me, it had to come back to me.

"Hoc loco spiritus," the ghost said. "Let us see your pathetic attempt to disperse me human, and then I will have my answers."

He seemed awfully sure that the spell wasn't going to work, but that stupid dispersion spell felt like my only tether to sanity right now, so I tried it anyway. "Hoc loco spiritus," I said in a tentative sort of way, not really sure what to expect but wanting very badly for this thing to disappear. But nothing happened, the ghost didn't disappear, just smiled sadly. I could feel myself slipping under his spell again, my mind slowing, failing, like a drug slowly turning off the lights in my brain. I held my mind in place and tried desperately to think. I needed to figure this out while I could still think straight, but what was I doing wrong? Maybe I wasn't a witch to begin with. But apparently I was the only one that could see the ghost, so there must be
something
special about me. Maybe I needed to chant the spell. Witches were always chanting things in movies, maybe there was something to that.