M. Hanover - Unclean Spirits

I spread my hands.

“Knowing that you all believe it isn’t the same as believing it myself,” I said. “And I can’t do this if it isn’t true. I can go to the police. I can hire a bodyguard. I can do a lot of different things, but I can’t kill someone.”

Aubrey was quiet. I wanted to brush the hair away from his eyes. I wanted to ask him to forgive me.

“If you knew that riders were real,” he said. “If you had evidence that the world really does work the way we all say it does, could you trust me about Coin and the Invisible College?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably.”

He was silent for a moment, then sighed and looked up at the moon with me. I could feel the subtle warmth of his body. Somewhere nearby, a police siren rose and faded away. My stomach felt like I swallowed a bowlful of lead shot.

“You’re angry?” I asked.

“What? No! No, I’m not mad. I’m just thinking.”

“Did you believe it? When Eric came to you and told you all about this…this stuff. Did you believe it?”

“No,” Aubrey said. “He had to prove it to me.”

A minute later, he rose and walked slowly back into the house. I heard voices raised in conversation. Midian, Ex. I didn’t think Chogyi Jake ever raised his voice, so if he was talking I might never know. He reminded me of my mother that way.

I had ten thousand dollars in my pocket, less forty that I’d spent on pizza and beer for the bunch of them. I could Google private investigators tonight, make a half-dozen calls in the morning, and set hounds on Randolph Coin’s heels. If he was really the person who’d killed Eric, I could get the evidence and have the bastard thrown in jail for the rest of his life. I didn’t know why that seemed to make less sense than magical vigilantes taking on a society of evil wizards.

I thought of the three small stones dropping at the apartment, one-two-three. It could have been some kind of magical alarm system. It could have been something else.

I put my head in my hands and hoped that my mind would clear. It didn’t.

I heard Aubrey come back out. When I looked over, something was glowing white and blue in the palm of his hand. It said something about my state of mind that I thought it was a ball of witch fire or some other tiny miracle. Then he stepped a little closer, and it was just the screen of Eric’s cell phone. He held it out to me.

“Call her,” he said.

“Who?” I asked, taking the phone. It was warm.

“The woman that called. The one with the dog.”

I looked down at the phone. The icon for voice mail was still there.

“What if she’s with the Invisible College?” I said.

“I’ll take one of the shotguns,” Aubrey said, and something in his voice was light, even though I knew he was serious. I thumbed through the logs, found the most recent missed call, and selected the menu option that returned it. Aubrey sat next to me. The branches of the cherry tree shifted in the breeze.

“Hello?” a woman said. I thought the voice was the same, but it seemed tighter.

“Hi,” I said. “This is Jayné Heller. I think you called my uncle Eric?”

“Oh, thank God,” the woman said. She sounded like she was crying. “Oh, thank God.”

I’D EXPECTED at the soonest, we’d arrange to meet the woman and her dog sometime in the morning. But ten minutes after I ended the call, Aubrey and I were in his minivan headed north for Boulder.

“It used to be left-wing hippie central, kind of the way Colorado Springs is the home port of all the right-wing nut jobs,” Aubrey said. “There were a lot of people dabbling in alternative spiritualities and magic and drugs and things. These days, it’s mostly people who feel like they’re saving the planet because they’re buying groceries from Whole Foods.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Did she tell you anything about what was going on?”

“Just that her dog wanted her to call us,” I said. “I think it has to do with her boyfriend too, but I’m not sure.”

“She was pretty upset, sounds like.”

“Yeah,” I said. Ahead of us, taillights tracked off into the darkness, lines of red in the black. “Yeah, she was pretty messed up. I don’t know what we’re doing, though. I don’t know anything about what Eric used to do.”

“I know enough to start,” Aubrey said. “Hopefully it’ll be simple.”

We turned onto Highway 36, and then sooner than I’d expected, we were pulling onto the South Boulder Road exit. A knot was tying itself in my belly, embarrassment and fear.

I was embarrassed because I was about to go talk to a stranger-a desperate one-about supernatural ghosties slipping into her dog’s mind, and only half of me thought it was possible. The fear was because the other half thought it was.

Candace Dorn’s house was a pretty bungalow with a wide porch, complete with swing. A huge tree commanded the yard, choking out all competition. Even the grass looked thin and unlikely where the tree’s shadow would have fallen in daylight. All the lights were on, the windows blazing, like the woman was trying to push back night itself. Aubrey killed the engine, then reached into the backseat for the leather satchel he’d packed before we left. I grabbed my backpack.

One of the shotguns was back there too. He didn’t take it out, and as we headed up the root-cracked concrete walk to the house, I wasn’t sure if I was relieved at that or worried.

The woman who answered the door reminded me of my high school art teacher. She had dark, curly hair and skin that had tanned too many times, now permanently dark and leathery. She had a dieter’s figure and a pianist’s hands. Something in the way she held herself caught my attention, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Candace Dorn? I’m Jayné,” I said. “This is Aubrey. He’s here to help.”

“Please come in,” she said, standing back. I wondered whether she’d have done the same thing if we’d had a shotgun. Something made me think she would. “Thank you for coming out. I don’t…I just don’t know what to do. I don’t believe any of this is really happening.”

“Can you tell us what exactly is going on?” Aubrey asked.

The house had hardwood floors and pale patterned rugs. Tin Mexican wall sconces threw white light up the walls, and clunky, colorful paintings struggled to give individuality to furniture that all came from IKEA. I noticed that there was a wicker basket by the fireplace cradling a crushed pillow slicked with white and brown dog hair.

“It started maybe a week ago,” Candace Dorn said. “Charlie-that’s my dog-woke up acting really strange. He was biting himself and barking at my fiancé, who he always just loved before. He wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t let me go out of the house. He’s never been like that before.”

“What did the vet say?” I asked.

Candace paced the length of her living room without answering me. Aubrey sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair.

“I don’t believe in…voodoo or whatever,” Candace said at last.

“What makes you think this is voodoo,” I asked. “Or, you know, whatever?”

Candace opened her mouth, closed it, then walked back toward the rear of the house. Aubrey met my eyes with an unspoken question. I followed her.

The kitchen showed some signs of disarray. One of the cabinet doors was resting against the wall, its hinges broken. The wooden table had a long, fresh gouge white as a scar against the dark varnish. Candace walked to the back door, and I realized what about her stance bothered me. My first semester at college, I’d agreed to play tackle football with some friends even though they’d been drinking. I’d broken one rib and cracked another. For a month afterward, I’d walked just like Candace did now.