Out Of The Dark (2 page)

"Okay," she tapped the down arrow. "To whom
it may concern, I work with a woman named Maureen who insists the
place we work has Shadow People in it."

I held up my hand and mouthed "shadow
people?" Most of my clients wanted me to gather information on an
employee, or their wife or husband.

So what was a shadow person? Was this a new
code word for a boring co-worker? They were as exciting as shadows?
Could be government spooks.

Rhonda shrugged and kept on reading. "My boss
thinks we're all crazy, but Maureen--she's the hostess--and the
wait staff have all witnessed chairs moving, pictures turning
around, and movement out of the corner of our eyes. They've shown
up in pictures and several customers have complained of seeing
someone standing in the bathroom." She paused and looked up at
me.

I shrugged. I was intrigued, but this was
starting to sound more like an episode of Ghost Hunters than
reality.

I scribbled. WHAT ARE SHADOW PEOPLE?

And Rhonda being Rhonda, tucked the email
into the background and googled the term. We both leaned in close
to read what Wikipedia had to say (not that I endorse anyone to
believe what they read on this site, which is totally user
based):

Shadow People are said to be shadow-like
creatures of supernatural origin that appear as dark forms in the
peripheries of people's vision and disintegrate, or move between
walls, when noticed.

Okay, let me say now,
that
just
creeped me the hell out. And I play a ghost on TV.

"Oh, this is spooky. Zoë, it says unlike
ghosts, these unknowns don't appear to wear clothing and don't feel
as if they were once human. Instead--people have complained of
being menaced, attacked and chased by them."

I sat back and held up my hands. Nope. Sorry.
After TC and Mr. Phantasm--I'm over the spook factory. Even if I am
a VIP member. Uh-uh.

Rhonda flipped back to the email. "One of the
wait-staff fell down the stairs last week and broke her ankle. The
manager is refusing to pay for the workman's compensation because
he overheard her say she was tripped by one of the shadow people. I
think this sucks that this guy can get away with this. The reason
I'm writing you is because an old friend used you to prove her
girlfriend was cheating on her. And I thought you'd be able to
prove these shadow people exist. Please help us."

I glanced at Daniel.

"Well that's weird." Rhonda continued looking
at the computer screen. "I haven't seen a ghost request
since--"

I grabbed up my board and erased. NOT SINCE
SPRITE.

Good old SPRITE. Southeastern Paranormal
Research Institute for Tactical Extermination. Georgia's own brand
of Ghost Hunters, who managed to get my astral self--pre-Wraith--on
film. No shit. They'd been investigating a poltergeist. And Maharba
had sent me in there to investigate as well.

The meeting was not something I wanted to
repeat.

But since then, SPRITE had disappeared, and
the owners--Randall and Herb--were missing in action. I hadn't
heard a word from them in months. Not that I was complaining--but
it was a little odd that right after exposing a ghost on local
television the whole group vanished.

Even their website URL was up for grabs.

"This sounds interesting. I'll book it."

I was shaking my head. She wanted me to go
ghost hunting--which is technically not really my thing--while my
future husband lay in a coma? Me be gone? What if he woke up and I
wasn't there? Would he think I didn't care?

Not to mention I really needed to know what
it was he saw that day--with me holding on to him as he fell. Did
he see me?

Did he think I let go?

These were the questions I had to get
answered.

Mental note:
whine...

I erased my board with my sleeve. Scribble. I
NO WANT TO GO WRAITH. Then after she read it, I erased and
scribbled again. I COULD BE DANGEROUS.

Rhonda did this weird thing with her face. I
mean--I've seen monkeys do that sort of thing--but Rhonda doesn't
have a monkey face.

I sat back.

"Zoë--I know what you can do--you did it to
me. But we're not talking about dealing with the living in this
situation. And if you don't keep up the business, it'll vanish
completely. So--this one sounds pretty easy. And I think it's more
into where we should take things."

Uh huh. That's Rhonda-speak for
Ooooh,
this sounds like fun!

Rhonda didn't usually go on these cases with
me. She stayed at home or did her gaming thing or something while I
went out and went OOB.

She started typing. Argument closed. Rhonda
one, me zilcho.

I pursed my lips and turned my attention back
to Daniel and watched the monitors for a while. The constant hum
and
spith
of the machines, the light beeping noises, all
played out a really weird kind of lullaby...and I was kinda
tired.

Which is why I nearly jumped out of my skin,
literally, when Rhonda spoke.

"Okay--I've said we'll take the case."

And that was that. We never gave clients any
schedule, only the required date of payment, which was usually
within 24 hours of accepting the job. That way they couldn't set up
anything 'cause they just didn't know when it was we'd drop in. And
since I was invisible--they never knew.

Mom came back into the room then, frowning.
She moved to stand next to me, her hands clutched in front of her.
I looked up at her and gave her the best
Yeah?
look I could
muster.

"I fixed it," she said.

I felt a little apprehensive.

"Fixed what?" Rhonda said.

Thank you, Rhonda.

"We're not going to mention the boy in the
bathroom, are we?" Mom looked at me and then at Rhonda. Rhonda gave
her a very good shrug and continued to look at the computer.

I pulled up my board. WHY? NOT THAT I
CARE.

Nona went back to her chair and sat down
before retrieving her biscuit from the sliding table. She slathered
some butter on it--even though she'd already done that. Double
butter.

Something
was bothering her.

I stood and moved closer. She looked up at me
and I held out my hands, palms out in a look of WTF?

"Well, apparently the young lady you saw in
the bathroom with this bartender is the Chief of Surgery's
granddaughter."

Oh.

Blink.

OH!

Mom took a bite of the biscuit and chewed. I
waited. I knew there was more. Mom was taking a dramatic license
with this.

"And apparently he didn't pass out because of
you, but because he was terrified her grandfather would find
out."

"So?" Rhonda said. "I don't think the Chief
of Surgery could actually have him fired, could he? I'm not savvy
on hospital hierarchy."

"I'm not sure it's his job he's worried
about. Tiarra said it was his life he was more concerned for. Even
Tiarra seemed a little--distraught. Apparently the Chief of Surgery
has a reputation of being cursed."

Cursed?

Mom shrugged. "Well she said he was a
magician but I say it's cursed."

I got the sudden image of guy in scrubs and a
mask, wielding a blood covered scalpel and pulling bloody bunnies
out of a top hat.

Ew. What the hell is wrong with me?

"I'm thinking you don't mean like, stage
magician?" Rhonda clarified.

"No, not hardly." Nona set the biscuit down
and looked at me. "And since Tiarra didn't actually see Nancy in
the bathroom--just you--and as long as you keep your
mouth--well--you don't write it down anywhere," she shrugged.
"He'll never have to know."

I looked at Rhonda. She looked at me. Then we
both bore our gazes into mom. "Nona," Rhonda said since she had the
voice but we were thinking as one. "Why'd you blow right past the
part about him being a magician? You care to elaborate on what
exactly that means?"

But Nona was already packing up the picnic
basket. I grabbed up the board and scribbled before shoving the
board in her face.

CHICKEN SHIT.

"Nona," Rhonda said in a very calm voice.
"I'll just go consult the Big Book once we get home. What do you
mean by magician--because I get the feeling this isn't the usual
Houdini routine."

Nona looked from me, to Rhonda, and back to
me. I think she used her really good
'I'll get you my pretty,
and your little dog too'
stare on me. "The word Magician was at
one time, a basic generic term for magic worker. Or Magi. A term of
respect."

"You got this out of the book," Rhonda looked
excited. "I read this. But over the centuries it sort of
de-vovled."

Nona nodded.

I continued to look confused.

Rhonda looked at me with a look that said
I'll use small words
. "Think about the word Xerox. You think
of copiers, right? But Xerox is a brand--hell it's a whole
corporation. And because it was so synonymous with copier, people
started using it generically. Instead of making a copy of
something, you say I'll xerox this."

Okay...I got it.

"Xerox mounted a huge campaign to stop the
generification of their name. If it became a common term, they'd
lose the use of it. It would be diluted."

I pursed my lips. Was genericfication a real
word? I doubted it. But I nodded, yeah I got it. Magician got
turned into a generic term.

"In the past decade or so the term magician
died away, pretty much tumbled back to mean stage magician, which
indicates a trickster. Or say, a false individual."

I thought that one came really far out of the
hat and I was ready to go with it. Sure.

Nona took up the lesson. "One of the uses of
magicians, especially here in the South, is a conjurer, or one who
refutes or creates hexes." She shrugged. "And the Chief of Surgery
here at the hospital has that reputation. Though apparently not all
the staff believe it--there was apparently some sort of soirée at
his house a few months ago and everyone that attended has
disappeared. No one wants to get on his bad side."

Rhonda frowned and shifted her weight in the
chair, the iBook still resting on her knees. "So anyone that's ever
made him mad--"

"Vanished," Nona reached into the basket and
pulled out a plastic half-pint milk jug. "Tea?"

<><><>

I drove back to Mom's behind the two of them,
with Mom at the wheel of her antique Volvo, Elizabeth. I'd recently
gotten that car impounded, after having left it at the bank behind
Story Teller Park.

Long story, build a bridge.

I had a car again. A rental POS. First off,
the heat didn't work, the right door wouldn't open and the driver's
door didn't have a working door handle on the inside. I had to roll
the window down and open the door from the outside to get in and
out.

I was waiting on the insurance to replace my
Mustang. But I wasn't holding my breath. It was Christmas, and
there wasn't anything getting done very quickly. Period.

It was cold. It was rainy. And I was
just--depressed. Once back at the Tea and Botanica, Nona went to
the kitchen while I started a fire and Rhonda set up her computer
and mine in the Botanica where the fireplace was.

A stone dragon glared down at me from the
mantel. A Soul Cage. I stuck my tongue out at it. I'd spent a
little time in that thing, so I had a real special kinda hatred for
it. Foul beast.

After the fire came to life, Rhonda announced
there were about fifty emails again!

When Nona brought in three cups of tea that
smelled of oranges and spice and settled down in her usual straight
back chair, I pulled my dry erase board from Rhonda's backpack and
scribbled on it.

YOU KNOW THIS SURGERY GUY?

Mom nodded. "I have heard of him. But only on
the news and not because of any magical relationship." She sipped
tea and looked at me. "He's going to trial for murder in a week.
His wife mysteriously disappeared a few months ago--and then
another girl disappeared. They found remains near his house and
though no one’s positively I.D.’d the body--suspicion is that it’s
the wife. The D.A. apparently smells a way to gain public support,
so he’s reopening the dead wife's case."

To me it didn’t really make this guy
guilty.

"Oh yeah," Tim said as he appeared near the
fireplace. Steve also made a showing, seated in the matching wicker
chair beside Nona. "She was a bar and restaurant owner, wasn't she?
His wife?"

Nona nodded.

Rhonda and I looked at each other. She looked
back at the computer and then said, "She own just one?"

"Yeah," Tim said. "Real nice place, up in
Roswell. Sitting in the square. It used to be a funeral parlor at
one time, and a general store during the Civil War. The
restaurant's said to be haunted with little Shadow People."

The dead wife of a spooky chief of surgery
owns a restaurant with Shadow People? Oh say it ain't so. I could
see this coming a mile away.

So could Rhonda as she glanced down at the
screen. "And the name of this restaurant?"

"The Livery Bar and Restaurant," Tim said.
"Steve took me there for our second anniversary. You can have
drinks and deserts in the bar upstairs and there's usually live
music."

I heard the email package ding on my
computer.

I waited patiently for Rhonda to acknowledge
what I already knew. This was the same restaurant with the Shadow
People I'd gotten the email from today. She read something and
looked up at me. "Yeah, same restaurant."

This wasn't a coincidence.

"And it gets worse." Rhonda glanced down. "I
just heard back from the restaurant's bartender. Said Maureen
Lafferty was one of the now missing girls--that would put it a week
before she sent that client request to us about the Shadow
People."

Nona was looking from me to Rhonda. "What
Shadow People? Is this a band?"