Bring on the Poltergeists Read online

  The talk of other people’s tragedies infused their kissing with loss and urgency.

  Eli carried Brenda down the hallway to the bedroom, where they lit a fire bright enough to keep away the darkness for one more night.

  Chapter Three

  The cat wraith returned before dawn.

  It had been chasing rats in the nearby alleys for hours, and was played out, ready to come home.

  Eli and Brenda both looked so appealing in their blissful slumber, like two soft dumplings on top of a delicious stew.

  The cat wraith sniffed them as it circled the bed, feet tick-ticking on the floor. The taste of rat was still in its mouth, along with bone fragments. After a moment, it slithered under the bed, where it found something fragrant between the plastic bins—Eli’s socks. The cat wraith breathed deeply, taking in the delicious perfume and purring.

  Suddenly, something wasn’t right. One of the rats must have been poisoned. It wasn’t digesting, and nausea came, along with bad memories.

  The cold cage.

  The box.

  Darkness, but not the good kind.

  The wraith shifted through smoke and into the form of a house cat. It coughed, then went hurk-hurk and vomited. The partially-digested rat remains landed on top of Eli’s wonderful sock. Now the sock was icky. Yuck.

  The cat squeezed back out between the plastic bins and padded over to the side of the bed. It jumped up on Brenda’s side. As it looked upon her face through feline eyes, it remembered loved ones. Once upon a time, it had been a he, and he had been loved.

  He had been loved by a human girl, and kissed on the shiny black nose, and he had been the luckiest kitty. That was either before or after he had been a god in Egypt. He couldn’t remember the timeline, but being a kitty and being a god had both been good.

  He rubbed the top of his silky black forehead against Brenda’s chin, and then told her his name, from when he’d been worshipped by Egyptians.

  She scarcely stirred in her sleep, but she heard him.

  The cat walked over her chest to Eli, and gave him a sniff. This human’s head didn’t smell nearly as good as his socks. The visible pulse in the human’s neck gave him pause.

  He considered his options for play. Strangulation?

  Nah.

  Eli was a fun toy, but the cat wraith was played out. He curled up at the foot of the bed, where he slept soundly. In the morning, when the curtains opened on their timer, he had a delicious stretch with pointed toes, then turned into smoke and dissipated.

  * * *

  Eli turned off the clock’s alarm and rubbed his eyes. The room was bright, and the curtains were already open. Either Brenda had adjusted the timer on the curtains so they opened before the alarm sounded, as intended, or the alarm clock was losing time at a greater rate than the curtain timer.

  Eli assumed the former, and didn’t even consider the latter, because he knew nothing about para-electrical elements and how they affected their electronics-based surroundings. Few people did.

  “The cat was here,” Brenda murmured sleepily.

  Eli checked his throat for bruising or tenderness. He detected no signs of recent strangling.

  “Are you sure?” He sat up and looked down at Brenda with concern. “Did it hurt you? I’ll tell Khan about it and ask him to do something.”

  She smiled. “His name is Monty, and I think we should keep him.”

  Eli spotted something at the foot of the bed. He leaned forward and stared in disbelief at the fine, black hairs visible on the white duvet cover.

  “We shouldn’t have left that window open in the living room,” he said. “A cat must have come up the fire escape.” He picked up one of the hairs and examined it. He’d never had a cat, but he was fairly certain the hair between his fingers was that of a cat.

  He glanced around the room for something to put the hair in, like an envelope. When he turned back to the hair, it was gone from his fingers. There was nothing on the duvet cover, either.

  Eli cursed softly under his breath and started searching the covers for more fur.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Brenda asked.

  “Did you really see a cat, or are you pulling my leg? And why would you say his name is Monty? Was he wearing a collar with a tag?”

  Brenda stretched and combed her fingers through her tangled, pale red hair. “No collar. He just told me. I can’t explain. It was like a dream, but not a dream. He curled up at the foot of the bed and had a nap, because he was tired from chasing rats.” She rubbed the top of her eyelids, careful not to disturb the thick coating of mascara she wore on her eyelashes at all times, even to sleep. “I think he threw up under the bed.”

  Eli climbed out of the bed and took two steps back, away from Brenda. “A demon ghost threw up underneath our bed? You’re talking crazy.”

  She shrugged. “You’re the one who got possessed. I don’t know why you can’t believe this.”

  He looked at the spot on the bed where he’d seen the fur. It was on Brenda’s side, below her feet.

  Something clicked in his head.

  He decided something.

  Fine, cat wraiths are real.

  And from that moment on, he wouldn’t try to explain away the existence of Monty. The cat wraith was no longer an alleged cat wraith, and it was not a hallucination from mysterious business-card powder or all-natural sleeping pills.

  Along with becoming a believer in cat wraiths, Eli received an unexpected bonus gift.

  Jealousy.

  “He talked to you?” Eli asked.

  “Yes. He told me his name, and then he curled up with his nose in his tail, right at my feet. So cute. So! Cute!”

  “That traitor. He was my ghost. Mine. Not yours, Brenda. Mine.”

  Brenda’s thin red eyebrows pushed together.

  “You’re doing it again,” she said.

  His face twitched. He wanted to stomp his foot. He really did. But he was thirty, or thereabouts. Throwing a tantrum was not appropriate, and he knew it, but he still had all the emotions.

  “Take a deep breath,” she said.

  He was in an emotional freefall. Why couldn’t he have anything to himself?

  “Monty’s your cat, too,” Brenda said soothingly.

  Eli grumbled, and then he shook out his hands, which had been clenched.

  “Fine. We’ll share him,” he said. “But if he starts acting up, we’re getting an exorcism.”

  Brenda got up and began smoothing out the bed covers. Chuckling, she said, “This is our life now. We’re just an ordinary couple, with a ghost cat.”

  Eli winced. There was something he’d been meaning to tell her the night before, but hadn’t. Brenda would probably murder him on the spot when he told her about his new career.

  “About that whole ordinary-couple thing,” he said.

  “Yes?” She looked hopeful.

  Eli winced again and looked around the room for blunt objects that might be embedded in his skull in the next minute or so. He didn’t like the look of the glass candle-holders on the dresser near Brenda. They could do some damage.

  Just to be safe, he walked back over to the bed, picked up a pillow, and handed it to her.

  “What are you doing?” She was smiling, baring her pointy teeth. Eli’s stomach made the sound it usually did when it was trying to digest one of her jam-covered lentil loafs.

  He closed his eyes and blurted out, “I actually accepted a job working for that guy, Khan. I’m supposed to start today.”

  She didn’t say anything. Eyes closed, he braced himself for a bashing-by-pillow.

  Nothing happened.

  “But you have to work today. On your route.” Brenda’s voice was calm and careful.

  He slowly opened his eyes. “You can reschedule everyone, can’t you? I’ve seen you do it in five seconds flat. Please, Brenda. I really want this. I’ll do anything else you want. We can go to that new store that’s just closet organizers and containers. We can pack a lunch and s
hop the whole day.”

  She tipped her head to the side and looked at him with an expression he’d never seen before. Eli’s imagination worked at double time. This was the calm before the storm. She was powering up, plotting something. His eyes flicked between Brenda and the glass candle-holders.

  “I should have told you sooner,” Eli said. “But you have been encouraging me to think creatively about my career. This ghost thing is almost certainly a terrible idea, but it sure is interesting, don’t you think?”

  Brenda swished her pursed lips from side to side, then said, “When I said think creatively, I meant applying for a management position.”

  He fidgeted wildly at the suggestion of a desk job, his hands fluttering at his sides like spooked chickens.

  Desk job? Being cooped up inside an office all day? No way. Not even for three times the pay. He had to be out and about, going from place to place, and solving puzzles, even if they were easy puzzles, like packing different-sized parcels into the back of the van efficiently.

  Carefully, he said, “We both know I’m not management material.”

  She set the pillow down on the bed, then slowly walked around the bed, toward him. She brought up her small hands, her arms stretched out toward his throat.

  Ah, so it was just a little strangulation. Eli could handle that. He closed his eyes and braced himself for throttling.

  What happened next confused him.

  Brenda wrapped her arms around his neck tenderly. She clung to him, her face against his neck.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said.

  His eyes flew open. “What?”

  She squeezed him tighter. “You’re my big, strong ghost hunter.”

  “Ghost hacker.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Mostly trademark, or licensing. I’m not sure.”

  “My big, strong ghost hacker.” She kept hugging him, which he liked.

  When she finally pulled away, they sat on the bed to work out the logistical details. Brenda got her tablet and was able to change some routes around.

  “You can always come back,” she said.

  “I don’t want to bring people their boxes anymore.”

  “You’re so stubborn.”

  “I want to do something cool with my life.”

  “Are you sure it’s this?”

  Eli paused. “I don’t know. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “You could get possessed by ghosts and go insane.” She smirked. “More insane.”

  “Brenda, I’m not crazy.”

  “Right. You just have a microchip implanted in your brain.” She rolled her eyes.

  “That’s quirky, not crazy.”

  She patted him on the back. “You certainly are an original, Eli Carter.”

  He chuckled. “They made me, then threw away the mold.”

  Brenda looked down at the shapes on her tablet screen and flicked some schedules around.

  “I’m happy for you,” she said quietly. “And I’m proud of you. I hope you have fun today.”

  Eli didn’t know how to respond to Brenda’s surprisingly positive reaction. He’d always suspected she had a special sense for detecting when he was having fun, so she could squash that fun. He got an ominous feeling. If you were wrong about people in the past, you were going to be wrong in the future.

  Brenda announced the time and said, “You’d better hit the shower. Actually, no. Just get dressed. You don’t have time for a shower.”

  “I’ll hurry,” he said. “One-minute shower.”

  “But you’re incapable.”

  “Set a timer!”

  He backed out of the bedroom, his eyes on the clock. If he had a sixty-second shower, and then hit mostly green lights, he could drop off Brenda on time.

  He jumped into the shower, intending to keep it really short—a thirty-second shower, to stay on the safe side. But the water was hot and really enjoyable, so he extended it to the full minute. Oh, but he had to shampoo his hair, so he needed to add on a minute for that. You can’t show up for your new job with oily hair.

  Had it even been a full minute already? He tried counting the seconds in his head, but kept getting distracted and having to start over.

  Nine and a half minutes passed, but Eli convinced himself he’d been counting fast, and it was more like five, which wasn’t unreasonable for a shower. He would just have to drive really fast.

  The hot water felt so good.

  One more minute.

  Finally, after thirteen minutes and four seconds, he turned off the water and rushed around in a mad panic, getting ready.

  He’d meant to wear something smart yet casual for his first day at Ghost Hackers, but force of habit made him reach for his delivery uniform. He put on the polyester shorts and dorky shirt without noticing.

  Chapter Four

  Eli parked his van in front of Ghost Hackers, then sprinted up to the door. The shop was dark, but the door was unlocked.

  The phone on the desk at the back was ringing.

  Eli’s new boss, Khan Hart, strolled toward the phone. Khan was about thirty, muscular, and cool as hell, with dark eyebrows and bleached-white hair.

  Despite this, he answered the phone with a polite, meek voice. “Thank you for calling the original Ghost Hackers, where customer service is our passion. How may I help you?”

  Eli chuckled to himself and listened as his new boss asked the potential customer a number of questions, punctuated by nerdy chuckles.

  Khan paced as he talked, a long coiled phone cord acting as his tether to the call. He picked up a stapler and shot staples into a garbage bin.

  Eli stood on the customer side of the counter, unsure about crossing over.

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Khan said into the phone apologetically, “but what you’re describing sounds serious. Two of them? Gosh. Two poltergeists. Would you be satisfied if we just scared off the biggest one?”

  Khan turned to wave at Eli. He held the phone to his ear with one shoulder while he beckoned for Eli to push through the gate at the front counter and come back.

  Eli stepped through, glancing around for signs of Khan’s sister, Valentine. The shop was narrow and deep, somewhat open at the front, then progressively more labyrinthine as he went deeper. He heard the sounds of movement, and caught a glimpse of someone with a brown ponytail, clanging around in what appeared to be a workshop.

  Khan kept talking on the phone, so Eli walked over to the doorway to the workshop. Unlike the front of the shop, which held shelves of old household appliances ready for sale, this room held the same things, but in a dismantled state.

  Valentine huddled over a workbench, examining a circuit board through a magnification lens. Her brown ponytail swung with the slight movements of her head.

  Eli took two tentative steps into the workshop, cleared his throat and asked, “Is that—”

  He didn’t get to finish asking his question, because Valentine startled at his voice, the sudden movement of her arm knocking a mug to the concrete floor.

  Eli apologized and ran into the room to help clean up the spill on the floor. He didn’t have any towels, though, nor were there any in sight. What he did do was make the spill worse by trampling through it.

  “Oops,” he said, stepping through the spill a third time.

  Valentine didn’t seem upset about the broken mug. She stared at him with an amused expression.

  “You must have quiet energy,” she said. “Not many people can sneak up on me like that.”

  Eli pointed to his feet. “These shoes are very quiet. People don’t find me quiet, though. I drum a lot.” He demonstrated by tapping on the counter with two fingers. “Like this.” He kept drumming until the social awkwardness reached a crescendo and he stopped. He put his hands in his pockets.

  Valentine sat on a tall stool—the rotating kind—and she spun around to get something from the table behind her. She grabbed a tool the size and shape of a
potato peeler. She swiveled back and waved the tool up and down between them, as though scanning Eli.

  “What’s that?” Eli asked. “Khan used something like that back at the farmhouse. Ooh, blinky lights. What does that mean? Can I touch it?”

  Valentine studied the tool in her hand as it pulsed with multicolored flashes of light.

  “Interesting,” she said.

  “What did you do? What’s so interesting? Can I try?”

  She set the tool back on the work surface without any explanation.

  Eli really wanted to play with the scanner. His fingers started drumming inside his pockets. He walked through the spilled drink a few more times.

  Valentine went back to her work, ignoring him.

  He listened to Khan, on the other side of the doorway, finishing his scam.

  Khan said meekly, “Listen, my boss is away today, so I’m going to do you a favor. I know a guy. He’s the real deal, a necromancer slash exorcist. I’ll give you his number, but I’ve got to warn you. Only call if you’re desperate, and it’s your last resort, because he won’t be cheap. And he only takes cash. That’s not a problem, is it?”

  Eli listened to Khan pacing while he waited for the potential client’s response.

  “I could never do that,” Valentine commented to Eli.

  “Me, neither. Your brother’s a real pro.”

  “He’s a pro all right.”

  She pulled on a pair of safety glasses and reached for a tool that resembled a woman’s curling iron. Eli remembered the tool from high school. It was a soldering iron, for melting beads of metal on circuit boards.

  Now she was looking around for something. She glanced over Eli, then at the shelves beside him, then the pile of circuit boards and housings across the workbench, then over to a pile of parts on the other side of her.

  Eli smiled. She had the soldering iron in hand, so of course she was looking for the soldering wire. A spool of it was right in front of her, practically touching her left hand.

  He stepped forward, crunching through the spilled tea and broken mug yet again, then reached out and tapped on the spool of soldering wire. “Your wire is right here,” he said.