Kelley Armstrong - No Humans Involved

"I haven't been around much lately. And maybe, what's been happening here, it's scared you. But it's over now and I can help."

A sigh. My skin prickled. The wind rustled through a tree and the sigh came again, a loose branch creaking softly.

I talked some more, aware even as I did that they almost certainly couldn't understand me even if they were close enough to overhear. Yet I kept talking, hoping the sound of my voice would draw them in.

The garden stayed silent and still.

I closed my eyes and thought of Rachel Skye, the girl Eve had contacted. A child I knew only as a body in a garden. A young girl, taking a shortcut home from school to see her favorite show, murdered and dumped in a garden. I thought of the others, all the children whose touches and pokes I'd felt, whose voices I'd heard, those who didn't have names and stories and maybe never would, not for me.

I thought of Brendan, little more than a child himself, stoic in his fate, as if it was the price one paid for following a dream. I thought of the young teens I passed on the street in L.A. and Chicago and every other big city, all the lost children. And, just for a second, I thought of myself, of my own child, lost all those years ago.

Something grazed my arm. I opened my eyes to see Jeremy. Drawn by my thoughts, concerned. He glanced at me. Then his attention was snagged by something to the left and he tilted his head, confusion in his eyes. I followed his gaze, but saw only the ghosts standing guard.

Fingers tickled my cheek. More brushed my hair. The whispering began. I went still, straining to hear, convinced I was imagining it. Then Eve stepped through the rosebushes.

"They're here," she said.

WITH THE arrival of the children, my role ended and Eve and Kristof's began. They knelt on the path and prepared to conduct the ritual the Fates had given them. Kristof set up the materials. Eve recited the incantation. Jeremy stood silently at my side. The children patted me and whispered. I don't think I breathed through the entire thing.

When Eve finished the incantation, the touches and whispers of the children stopped. I swear my heart stopped with them. I looked around frantically, trying to catch a glimpse of them, praying something hadn't gone wrong.

Then I saw a faintly shimmering form. Then another. A third. A fourth. As faint as Brendan had been.

Slowly the tallest form materialized. A boy about thirteen. Dark eyed, probably Latino, with hair that fell into his face, reminding me of J eremy. I instinctively smiled, and the boy's gaze went to me, head tilted, as if trying to figure out what I was looking at.

"Hello," I said.

He smiled. "Hi."

Another of the forms materialized. A girl about eleven, with lanky dark blond hair held back in butterfly clips.

"Rachel?" I said.

My voice caught as I remembered what I'd done to her, seeing those bony fingers frantically clawing the air.

"Rachel, I-"

She ran over and threw her arms around me and I swear, for the briefest second, I felt them. Then her hands passed through me. Eve came up behind her and knelt, putting her hands on the girl's shoulders as if to reassure her that she could still touch someone.

Behind Eve, another girl had appeared. A couple of years younger than Rachel, with cornrows and glittering earrings that caught the light as she looked around, uncertain, as if she didn't quite recognize the world from this side of the veil. I walked over to her and bent down.

"Hello, there. I'm Jaime. And who would you be?"

Maybe not the right question to ask a traumatized child, but she met my gaze and smiled, as if finding something she did recognize.

" 'Lizbeth," she lisped.

I looked up at the older boy.

"Manny," he said before I could ask. "Manuel Garcia."

"Todd," said a voice behind me.

"Chloe Margaret Fisher," said another.

I turned to see a boy about eleven, chubby with wild red hair. Behind him stood a pretty brunette around the same age.

"Pleased to meet you, Todd and Chloe. I'm Jaime. This is Eve."

As Eve approached, holding Rachel's hand, I glanced up to introduce Jeremy, but he'd stepped back, out of sight. I nodded. Explaining to the children why he couldn't see them-that they were ghosts-wasn't something they needed yet.

I looked around the group. "Five. I thought-" I glanced at Eve. "There are supposed to be six."

"Number six coming up," Kristof's voice floated from somewhere in the garden. He rounded a bush. In his arms was a small boy, his face buried against Kristof's chest. "This is Charles. He's shy."

I greeted the boy and he nodded, his face still against Kristof.

"We should go," Eve whispered to me. "Before they-"

"What are we doing here?" Chloe asked. "Where's my mom?"

Eve took her hand. "We're going to take you to someone who'll answer all your questions. Then we're going to throw you a big welcome-back party, with all the ice cream you can eat. Vanilla, right? That's your favorite, isn't it?"

The girl nodded, temporarily distracted. Eve started down the path, holding Chloe and Rachel's hand, so Kristof shifted Charles to one arm and reached down. Elizabeth took his free hand. He waved for the boys to follow Eve, then fell into line behind them.

"Never heard of a girl who likes vanilla best," Eve said as they walked. "You must be pretty special. Do you know what my favorite is?"

"Chocolate?" Rachel said.

Eve grinned. "Smart girl. Double-fudge chocolate with brownies. Does anyone else like chocolate?"

Their figures and their voices started to fade as Eve passed them gradually over to the other side of the veil.

"My favorite flavor?" Kristof was saying. "Bubble gum."

"No way," scoffed one of the boys.

Eve said something I couldn't make out, and they all laughed. And that was the last thing I heard. The children laughing.

IN LIGHT OF THE RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS on the Death of Innocence set in Brentwood, spiritualist Jaime Vegas has reevaluated her career and decided to end her regular television engagements on The Keni Bales Show , as well as her semiregular spots-" I paused and nibbled the end of my pen. "Does 'spots' sound too informal for a media release?"

Eve looked up from the floor, where she was doing sit-ups. I was also lying down… in an extravagant king-size bed, room-service champagne in a bucket on the night table, a chocolate in my free hand, a half-empty box propped on a pillow. If I was leaving television, I didn't need to worry about those three extra pounds. And since Jeremy had given me the chocolates, he obviously wasn't worried about them either.

"Don't you have a publicist for this kind of thing?" Eve asked.

"I want to do it myself. What's a synonym for spot?"

"Blot. Stain. Blemish."

I threw a pillow at her. It landed in her stomach, tassels sticking up from her chest. She shot me a glare. I sighed, got up, walked over and moved it for her. As I bent, I admired my new tattoo. Small and tasteful, as the girl at the parlor promised. Jeremy acted embarrassed by it, repeatedly telling me he didn't think the symbol meant anything, but when it was finished I knew he was pleased.

I'm still convinced the rune is supernatural and suspect it has something to do with Jeremy's mother. When I'd shown it to Eve, she'd said it sparked a vague memory, and she'd promised to dig deeper for me from the other side.

As she continued her sit-ups, I returned to my writing.

The Death of Innocence special was dead. No pun intended… though that wasn't stopping the tabloids and trade papers from making them. They had dead children, ritual sacrifice, restless ghosts and a murdered young spiritualist. Against that, raising Marilyn was almost anticlimactic. Instead the network was keeping the footage for a new special: Death of Innocence: Satanism in Brentwood . Todd Simon hoped to get Geraldo Rivera to host.