James Swain: Shadow People

The second book in the Peter Warlock series, 2013

Something didn’t feel right.

It wasn’t the setting. Milly Adams’s luxurious apartment in the Dakota on New York’s fashionable Upper West Side looked as magnificent as ever. Laid out like a photo spread in a glossy home furnishings magazine, each piece of antique furniture was in its proper place, as were the exquisite wall decorations and fresh-cut flowers.

Nor was it the other guests sitting at the table with Peter Warlock. In fact, the group of psychics gathered in Milly’s apartment on this particular Friday evening were the young magician’s most trusted friends. It consisted of Max Romeo, a retired magician who’d trained Peter in the art of legerdemain; Lester Rowe, a puckish Scotsman who gave psychic readings out of his Lower East Side apartment, and ventured north of 14th Street only to attend Milly’s weekly séances; Milly’s beautiful if somewhat spoiled niece Holly, a sophomore at Columbia and an aspiring witch; and the group’s newest member, a blind African-American psychic named Homer, who made his living telling fortunes beneath the arch in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

Everything looked the same, yet something wasn’t right. Peter could feel it in his bones. He’d been leading the Friday night séances since his teens, his ability to channel the dead far greater than that of the other psychics in the room.

The clock on the mantel struck midnight. Striking a single wooden match, the young magician lit the three white candles sitting on the dining room table. “Ready for takeoff?”

“Ready,” the others replied.

They clasped hands and formed a circle. Staring into the flames, Peter began to recite the mystic words that would grant him entry to the world where the spirits resided.

In darkness, I see light: in daylight, I see night.

Shadows as bright as sunshine, the blind able to see.

This is the world we wish to enter.

A movement caught his eyes, and he stopped. On the far wall, a quivering black mass danced beside the portrait of Mary Glover, an infamous Salem witch from whom Milly was directly descended. Peter had never seen anything quite like it. Without warning, the mass slipped into a crack in the wall, and vanished without a trace.

“I just saw something really strange,” Peter announced.

“Was it a ghost?” Holly asked, sitting to his right.

“Not like any I’ve ever seen.”

“What was different about it?”

“It didn’t have a face.”

“Come on. All ghosts have faces.”

“I know they do. But this one didn’t.”

As everyone at the table knew, every ghost had a face, as well as a voice, and sometimes a warped personality as well. “You must be imagining things,” Holly teased him.

“You’re right. After all, there are no such things as ghosts, are there?”

They all laughed. Ghosts and spirits were everywhere, yet people refused to acknowledge them. Instead, they convinced themselves they were imagining things, or that their eyes were playing tricks on them.

“Whatever it was, it’s gone now,” Peter said. “Let’s resume. Is everyone ready?”

His friends nodded in unison.

“Good. Here we go.”

A séance was a ritual with a strict set of rules. Peter snuffed the three candles on the table with his fingertips, then relit them using another wooden match. They again joined hands, and he repeated the mystic words that allowed him entry to the spirit world.

A jolt of electricity went straight up his spine. His world turned dark as his spirit left his physical body and transported itself to the parallel world where the spirits dwelled. He likened the experience to falling down a mine shaft, his arms and legs flailing helplessly in the air.

Finally his fall ended, and he found himself inside a basement with a low, claustrophobic ceiling with exposed beams, a rattling furnace, and a naked bulb hanging by a cord that swung eerily back and forth. It felt like the set of a teenage slasher movie, and he took a deep breath, wondering where in God’s name he was.

Every Friday night, the spirits took him on a dark journey. Sometimes, they sent him into the past, while other times, he was plunged headlong into the future. No two journeys were ever the same. Tonight’s had started badly, and he hoped things would improve.

The sound of a voice caught him by surprise, and he spun around. On the other side of the basement, an overweight man wearing corduroy pants and a blazer with sandy patches on the elbows stood by a worktable. He had a neatly trimmed beard and glasses, and looked like a college professor. He was also talking to himself, and had no idea that Peter was there.

Peter found the man’s appearance odd. Normally, the people he encountered on the other side were downright evil and engaged in unspeakable acts. This fellow wasn’t even mildly scary, and Peter wondered if the spirits had dropped him in the wrong house.

Only the spirits didn’t make mistakes. He edged up next to the man, and noted the items lying on the worktable. There was a handgun, a hunting knife, a ball of twine, nickel-plated handcuffs, a black hood, and a bottle of clear liquid. Definitely not the type of stuff most college professors carried around. He picked up the bottle of clear liquid and read the label.

Chloroform.

Looks could be deceiving. The man was either a kidnapper or a killer.

Or he was both.

That must have been why the spirits had brought him here. To stop a madman.

But who was he? Where did he live? And what did he do for a living? Peter needed that one clue that would help him tip off the police. It didn’t have to be much. Once he had it, the spirits would whisk him back to Milly’s place, the séance would end, and the Friday night psychics would go about the task of figuring out their killer’s identity. Once they did, an anonymous call would be made to Special Agent Garrison, his friend with the FBI, and the wheels would be set in motion for the killer to be brought to justice.

He looked around the basement for a meaningful clue, but came up empty. Then he had an idea. He’d memorize their killer’s features, and pass them on to Garrison, who would find the man in one of the FBI’s endless databases.

Peter studied the killer from head to toe. He needed to give him a name; it would make him easier to remember. Dr. Death seemed appropriate. Dr. Death it was.

Dr. Death consulted his watch and made a face. “Look at the time,” he muttered, and began to place the items on the table into the various pockets of his blazer. Before putting the gun away, he checked the chamber. All six bullets were there. Dr. Death slipped the weapon into his jacket with a little smile. “Uh-oh,” he said aloud. “What’s this?” He pulled a pearl necklace from the same pocket, and shook his head in displeasure.

“We’re getting sloppy,” he scolded himself.

A dresser stood beside the worktable. Dr. Death pulled open the top drawer. It contained a woman’s skirt, neatly folded, and matching blouse. Lying on the blouse was a pair of gold hoop earrings, a gold necklace, and a gold lamé purse.