Heather Graham - Dark Rites

And now, Dylan had a friend of his own—a ghost friend.

Darlene Dutton was a couple years older than Dylan, but she was equally sweet and innocent. She had been the first victim of the Undertaker murders. And while she had seen justice done, it appeared that she liked learning about the spirit-world-on-earth—and being with Dylan. So it seemed she was sticking around.

Dylan was now an experienced ghost. He was quite capable of manipulating items, like moving a can of pop a few inches or using a remote control. And he had no problem making himself seen to those with the special gift of seeing the dead. Vickie had noticed that while most of the population didn’t see Dylan or Darlene, they did often stop and frown when the ghosts passed, or shiver, as if aware that they’d been brushed by someone or something that they hadn’t seen.

“Alex didn’t show,” Vickie told them.

Dylan immediately looked perplexed. Alex couldn’t see Dylan—he didn’t see ghosts. But Dylan had tagged along with Vickie to a couple meetings with Alex.

He liked the nerdy historian. And he admired him.

“Alex didn’t show? I think he lives for his time with you and other friends with whom he can actually talk a lot of history. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but... It’s weird he flaked.”

“I’ve told Griffin that Alex didn’t show up. We’ll figure out something when he gets here. By the way—since I doubt you guys watched the news at any point—Griffin stopped one of the attackers tonight. A head-smasher, just like Alex’s assault. And the guy killed himself rather than be taken.”

“Wow, heavy,” Dylan said, very serious despite his words.

“That’s extremely scary,” Darlene agreed. She hopped up off the sofa. “Vickie is worried, and Griffin is headed home. Let’s go, Dylan. We need to leave them with some privacy. We’ll go see how Noah and your folks are doing.”

“Sure, yeah, sure, we should get out of here,” Dylan said. He looked worried, though. “Darlene is right. Griffin is going to be wrecked after a night like that. He’ll want to talk.”

“He’ll want to be alone,” Darlene said softly.

“That’s fine,” Vickie said.

“No, you’re in a relationship now. Can’t let it grow ho-hum,” Dylan said, grinning at Vickie.

“Thank you. I’ll remember that!” Vickie said.

“Dylan, really,” Darlene murmured.

“It’s fine. Dylan has enjoyed tormenting me for years, Darlene. And I’m sure it will all be okay.”

“No, none of it sounds okay,” Dylan said. “Alex is a cool guy—it won’t be okay until you know that he’s all right. Don’t forget, we’re always here when you need us.”

“But you don’t need us tonight,” Darlene said firmly.

“Not to worry, Vick—we always come back to haunt you!” Dylan told her, trying for a light grin.

“Haunt me—and help out,” she reminded him. “Remember, I’m quite accustomed to you and that we both—Griffin and I—appreciate the two of you very much.”

“I just wish my parents watched The Walking Dead,” Dylan said, shaking his head in puzzlement that anyone wouldn’t want to watch the series from beginning to end. “And Noah, well, he’s great, he’ll put on anything we want, but...he’s only nine.”

“Maybe in a few years we can do a marathon viewing with Noah,” Darlene said.

“That will be fun!” Dylan agreed, grinning at Darlene. But then his grin faded and he turned back to Vickie. “I will see you tomorrow. We need to know everything that went on with Griffin—and, most importantly, with Alex.”

“Absolutely,” Vickie said.

She watched them go. They both simply disappeared through the wall. When Dylan came to visit when she was home, he made a point of knocking. Only emergencies caused him to do anything less thoughtful or proper.

When they were gone, Vickie tried Alex’s number again. No answer.

Maybe he’d lost his phone. No—he would have called her from another phone. Actually, he’d have been at a store in two seconds to get another—he had a Facebook group that talked about all kinds of history, travel, weird places and such similar things, and she was pretty sure that Alex went into withdrawal if he couldn’t catch up on the latest at every possible opportunity.

She opened the app and checked Alex’s Facebook page.

He hadn’t been on the site in over twenty-four hours.

She called Griffin quickly then. He didn’t answer at first. Frustrated, she plopped down on the sofa in her parlor.

Her phone rang right back.

Griffin.

“You all right?” he asked.

She smiled; she could tell he was trying to keep any touch of anxiety out of his voice. She knew that he’d always be concerned about her—it was part of what he did for a living, and by vocation. He saw too much that was bad.

“Fine. I’m home. In the apartment. I had an idea. Can you trace Alex’s phone?”

“Well, there are a lot of legal ramifications,” Griffin said.

“I’ll report him missing—how about that?” she asked.

“You know, unless we have good reason, twenty-four hours is—”

“We have good reason! He was clunked on the head. He had a police guard for a couple of weeks after. Go figure—he disappears after that guard is taken off.”

“The attacks appeared to be random,” Griffin reminded her. “No community has the manpower to watch victims endlessly, especially when it appears the danger has moved on.”

“I know that.”

“He could be fine.”

“No. I don’t believe that even as a ray of hope anymore,” she said.

“Okay, we’ll take the angle that something is wrong. We’ll get a missing-person report going, and...we’ll get into his phone records,” Griffin said. “I’m in a paper tangle right now as it is—I’ll get Barnes to have a man from the right department get everything started for Alex. Lord, if he’s just off doing...doing whatever scholars do...well, I guess that’s the best-case scenario. But we’ll treat him as a missing person and work on finding him with all possible resources, okay?”

“Much better. Are you coming home soon?” she asked.

“Well,” he told her, his tone ironic, “I’ll be a little longer now.”

“Don’t be too long.”

“You going to make it worth my while?”

“Hmm. You bet,” she told him.

“Aha.”

“I can be full of surprises,” she assured him before hanging up.

Restless, she headed into the kitchen, made herself a cup of tea and then settled down at her computer with the pad of scribbled notes she’d made from research sites and her own library.

Ever since seeing the scrawled quotation on Alex, she’d been looking up Satanism and witchcraft in Massachusetts.

Most of what she could find on witchcraft had to do with the travesty of justice that had occurred during the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. She’d recently turned in a nonfiction book for a university press that had dealt with the Puritan rule in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with a special focus on Puritan ministers. While Cotton Mather had “saved” a few witches, by caring for them himself, he’d also been instrumental in the executions that had occurred in Salem. There had been a few other trials and executions of so-called witches in the colony, as well. It seemed so appalling now and, in her mind, so ridiculous she couldn’t believe anyone had abided it—even in the devil-fearing darkness of the early days of the colony.

Of course, Salem—and surrounding areas—also had a nice population of modern-day real witches: wiccans. They were an acknowledged religion and Vickie had friends among them. They didn’t cast evil spells—they lived by a threefold rule, where any evil done to another comes back on one threefold. It was a pretty good framework for not hurting people!