Bound to the spirits, p.33
Bound to the Spirits, page 33
“Brand and Mx. Vermeer believe she is dead. And they’re hoping that they can locate her remains. Through…unconventional means.”
“I see.” She steepled her fingers on her blotter. “Does Mx. Vermeer have any qualifications I should know about?”
Hamilton swallowed hard, and Harlan could almost see him edging out on a limb he wasn’t convinced would take his weight. “No, ma’am. Other than being a psychic, trained at the Centre.”
“I don’t suppose I could get a demonstration of this ‘unconventional method’ before I make my decision?” she asked.
Morgan nodded, rolling up onto their toes and back like they were stretching or warming up.
Harlan was far less enthusiastic. He didn’t like dragging a ghost to him, away from wherever she was supposed to be, over and over again. He’d been relieved when they’d broken contact and released her.
Still… If there was any chance they could bring closure to Monica’s family, they owed it to her and to them to try.
He nodded.
Hamilton looked him directly in the eyes, then nodded. He brushed past them and closed the blinds over the windows facing the bullpen.
Harlan immediately began feeling something akin to claustrophobia, which wasn’t normally a problem for him. He realized it was more a sense of finality. What if they couldn’t make her appear again?
Morgan took his hand, and this time it came even more quickly—that sense of being drawn tight, stretched until some force slammed into him, through him, then there she was. Morgan gave his hand an extra squeeze, their nails digging in a little. He didn’t pull away, concentrating on the translucent girl in front of them, afraid she’d vanish if he stopped paying attention.
He heard a soft gasp from Captain Sullivan.
Just like before, the girl showed no visual signs of injury or whatever might have caused her death.
She looked around slowly, as though getting her bearings, then pointed to the rear wall of the office, looking in that direction as well.
Harlan tried to do a quick mental visualization. He got turned around inside buildings, especially ones as large as the police station, but he thought it was the same way she’d pointed in his apartment.
“Well.” Captain Sullivan’s voice, sounding a little unsteady, broke the heavy silence filling the room. “And you believe you can follow this…apparition…to the girl’s remains?” Her eyes widened and she shot an almost-guilty look at Monica.
Monica didn’t move or react to her words. She just kept pointing.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Hamilton sounded so certain. It sent a hot rush of emotion through Harlan—pride that Hamilton had such faith in him, equally matched with the terror of disappointing him and losing that faith forever.
The captain came out from behind her desk and cautiously approached the girl, who still didn’t move. “What do you need?” she asked Hamilton, softly.
“I want to keep this small to begin with—just me, Brand and Mx. Vermeer. We’ll follow the ghost and see what, if anything, she leads us to. If it’s nothing, no one outside this room has to know.”
It was almost a question, and the captain nodded in response.
“If we do find her body, we’ll proceed from there.”
“Do it.” They’d clearly been dismissed.
Morgan released Harlan’s hand and the ghost immediately vanished. The room seemed to fill up with air again. They took deep, simultaneous breaths.
Hamilton opened the blinds, and the office felt even less oppressive. He nodded to the captain, turned on his heel and left. Harlan and Morgan fell into step behind him as he led them back to the cruiser.
Hamilton leaned on the car and tapped a finger impatiently on its roof for the few seconds it took them to catch up. “How are we gonna do this?” he asked. “You two have to keep holding hands or at least be touching, right?”
Harlan hadn’t really thought, in detail, about how they’d follow Monica’s ghost. He’d sort of imagined them holding hands and walking.
Morgan opened their mouth, then closed it again.
“Yeah, that’s about what I thought.” Hamilton sighed. “All right, how about this… You two sit in the back of the cruiser. Will she be able to keep up with the car, or will she…lag?”
They both turned to Harlan again, and he ducked his head. “I think she can keep up. Even though they can pass through material barriers, they tend to stay more or less fully inside a room, not standing half in the floor or whatever. I haven’t tried it”—and, honestly, the thought of being stuck in a car with a ghost, even that of a completely non-threatening little girl, was terrifying, but at least he wouldn’t be alone—“but I think she’ll stay in the car with us.”
“All right. Good.” He glanced at the two of them. “Vermeer, you’re ready”—Harlan found it interesting that he’d dropped the ‘Mx.’—“but you’re not, Brand. We’ll drop by your apartment to get you some warmer clothes.”
Harlan opened his mouth to protest, but Hamilton cut him off.
“People don’t usually dump a body within walking distance of a police station. Chances are we’ll have to go a ways, and we might have to wander around outside.”
Harlan nodded reluctantly. Hamilton has a point.
“C’mon, then.”
After grabbing a warmer coat and a bright-red scarf Charles had given him, Harlan climbed into the back seat beside Morgan.
“Ready?” Hamilton was behind the wheel already, drumming it with his fingers. He started the car and pulled away from the curb with his usual stomach-lurching speed.
Harlan was used to it, but Morgan let out a little squeak.
He wasn’t sure where Hamilton was going, since the ghost wasn’t there to guide them yet, but that had never stopped his partner before. They might be heading in the direction the ghost had pointed—if it had even been the same both times—but Harlan wasn’t sure about that either.
He knew he should get it over with and take Morgan’s hand, but he wanted a little more time to settle in and mentally prepare.
He’d never been in the back of this or any other police car. It was uncomfortable having a metal grille between him and Hamilton, and the matching grilles on the side windows set off more of the not-quite-claustrophobia that had bothered him in the office.
Deciding he was ready—or at least that he could keep stalling forever if he didn’t do it now—Harlan took a deep, steadying breath and reached out for Morgan’s hand. It was already halfway there to meet him.
This time the connection came even harder and faster than before, the force of it—combined with Hamilton taking an abrupt turn—making him cry out and slamming him against his seat.
When Monica appeared, she was pointing more or less in the direction Hamilton was driving. She was humming with energy.
Harlan caught Hamilton glancing back at her in the rear-view mirror before looking straight ahead again. “Let me know if she starts pointing a different direction. I’ve gotta focus on the road.” He sounded like he was talking more to himself than them, and Harlan noticed his hands flex on the wheel. His voice held the same energy as the spirit, the energy that filled everyone in the car.
“Please do.” Morgan’s voice was tight and afraid, and Harlan hoped they’d be able to see this through to the end.
He could feel Monica draining his energy, even more than his usual interactions with ghosts, and he was sure Morgan was feeling the same strain—maybe worse. Harlan used his gift almost every day, but Morgan had made it sound like they rarely used theirs. And this was a way they’d never used it before. He hoped they wouldn’t have to follow the ghost for much longer.
Chapter Nine
Monica led them by pointing as the crow flew, making Hamilton curse whenever the road they were following ended or changed direction and he had to try and find another route. They didn’t want to stop and take the time to look at a map in case they lost the connection—although Harlan suspected they would have saved time if they had just stopped.
“She’s like the world’s worst GPS voice navigator!” Hamilton laughed, but his teeth were gritted.
Harlan could feel Morgan trembling where their hands met, their grip almost painfully tight. He didn’t want to complain about it in case he broke their concentration. When he glanced at them, he saw that they were biting their lip, their eyes fixed and staring straight ahead.
Hurry, he silently urged Hamilton. Please be patient, he begged the girl.
They left the Greater Toronto Area behind, and the buildings gave way to farmland sprinkled with widely spaced houses and sparse trees. For some reason the open landscape made Harlan deeply uncomfortable. He’d spent his whole life in Toronto, barring a few Centre fieldtrips and a half-remembered trip to…somewhere…with his parents when he was very young. While he still felt safest indoors—mainly because only buildings could be ghost-warded—he was comfortable in the city, surrounded by people and traffic, light and noise.
Here, in the emptiness, he felt vulnerable. Exposed. His reaction surprised him a little. He didn’t like crowds, not at all, but he realized that he liked being surrounded by nameless, interchangeable people.
Although, he supposed, fewer people probably meant fewer ghosts.
He shivered, abruptly wishing Charles was with him.
Monica’s arm swung in a sharp arc, and Harlan couldn’t help ducking instinctively. It would have passed right through his head, of course, but it was an automatic reaction. And having her icy-cold hand inside his skull, even for a second, would have been uncomfortable.
“She’s saying we need to go left,” Morgan piped up.
“We might have to take gravel roads if we get off the highway,” Hamilton grumbled.
“Then by all means, let’s just turn around and go back!”
Hamilton’s short, broad fingers straightened before curling around the wheel again. “All right. I guess we’re going for a jaunt through the country. Nothing had better happen to my car!”
He turned and kept going as the ghost directed them until Harlan murmured, “Stop.”
For once, Hamilton braked slowly rather than coming to his usual abrupt, screeching halt. Was this how he would drive with any child?
Harlan couldn’t help wondering if it was out of respect for their ghostly passenger.
“What now?” Hamilton asked.
“I-I think we have to walk from here?” Harlan glanced at Morgan for assurance.
They nodded. Not that they knew anything he didn’t, or the other way around, but it felt right.
“Great. It’s going to be dark soon, and I definitely want to go slogging around in mud that I’ll have to clean off my shoes—and out of my car—later.” Apparently, Hamilton was as much of a city boy as Harlan, which helped explain his move from Calgary to Toronto.
Harlan had always thought it was a missed opportunity that he hadn’t moved to Hamilton, Ontario. He could admit, secretly to himself, that his partner’s discomfort made him feel a little less silly about his own.
Hamilton cleared his throat. “Right. Let’s get moving.”
Getting out of the car while holding hands with Morgan was awkward, but Harlan was afraid of breaking contact and possibly losing her forever—or that she’d have to start at the beginning and they’d have to follow her all over again. The sun was going down and Harlan just wanted to go home, back to his apartment, civilization and Charles.
With a great deal of bending, wiggling and maneuvering, he and Morgan managed to slide out on the same side.
At last they were standing side by side in a field, their fingers linked.
“Ready?”
Harlan nodded.
“Which way?” Hamilton asked.
Monica’s ghost pointed straight ahead of them, away from the road, in the direction of a thin patch of trees.
A chill ran up Harlan’s spine and Morgan squeezed his hand. He wasn’t sure if it was to comfort him or out of fear.
Hamilton broke the silence. “Yeah, that’s creepy as fuck.” Even the birds and wind seemed hushed, or maybe it was always this quiet and still in the stupid country. “Y’all ready?”
That startled a laugh out of Harlan. As far as he knew, the closest Hamilton had ever got to the American South was…Toronto. “‘Y’all’?”
“I say ‘y’all’ when I’m feeling sassy! And scared, apparently,” Hamilton admitted. “And I’m from Alberta. We’re the Texas of Canada.”
“True.” Harlan wished they could just stand there by the road, which was at least a sign of civilization, and continue this dumb conversation. He didn’t want to see what the ghost was leading them to. He wanted to let go of Morgan’s increasingly clammy hand, get back in the car without touching them again and go home—to Charles…and popcorn…and all the lights on. Why was a single ghost in the wild so much spookier than a city full of them? At least the others seemed as freaked out as him.
Monica’s spectral form flickered.
Harlan shook his head. This was where he was needed.
He and Morgan stepped forward at the same time. They set off across the field.
Monica led the way, slightly in front of Harlan and Morgan, with Hamilton bringing up the rear.
As Harlan had expected—feared?—she led them straight for the trees on the far side of the field. Each step felt more reluctant than the last, and only the knowledge that they must, finally, be getting close kept him going. He was running on adrenaline alone, and he was sure Morgan was just as exhausted as he was.
The sun was even lower, dusk creeping up around them incredibly fast. And it was dark in the country, dark in a way Harlan had never experienced and didn’t like at all. In his selfish heart of hearts, he now cared less about finding her remains than about getting back to the city where he belonged.
As soon as they stepped past the first tree, Monica disappeared. Even worse, it somehow got darker and Harlan realized she’d been casting a faint glow, at least for him. Harlan was almost completely blind now. The last of the fading sun was blocked by the trees, which suddenly seemed darker, thicker and more menacing. Harlan cursed as he tripped over a root—or a body, his treacherous mind suggested. He couldn’t see, and he pulled his hand free of Morgan’s. They frantically reached out for each other in the darkness, Morgan groping around in a way that made Harlan think the ghost had shone for them as well.
They clasped hands again, but nothing happened. They squeezed each other’s hands at the same time, as though there might be a bad connection or something.
Harlan shook his head. “I don’t think she’s coming back.”
“Good,” Hamilton said. “She shouldn’t have to see this…whatever we find. I know she’s already been through it, and I know it probably doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, but I’m glad she’s not around while we…”
Morgan let go of Harlan’s hand, slowly.
He flexed it to get the sensation back. It was full of pins and needles.
They shook their head. “I can’t. I can’t. I’m…sorry.”
Hamilton caught up. “Hey, you’ve done your part. More than.” He glanced over at Harlan, who nodded. “You wait here.” He turned on a flashlight and beckoned Harlan forward with a tilt of his head.
Harlan frowned. “Why didn’t you turn that on earlier?”
Hamilton shrugged. “I didn’t want to mess up your…ghost stuff.”
Harlan shook his head but didn’t say anything. He wished very much that he could stay there with Morgan—he was so exhausted—but he knew he had to follow.
Hamilton forced his way through the dense underbrush like a bull moose, the yellow circle of his flashlight bouncing along in front of him, while Harlan scrambled after him, tripping over everything. Thorns scratched his face and hands and caught on his scarf. Several times he was whipped by branches that Hamilton released in front of him, and Hamilton’s grunted warnings didn’t help when Harlan couldn’t see them.
Even though the night was cool, he was sweating already, and he felt like he’d only taken three steps into the woods.
He was never leaving the city again. Not for anyone, human or ghost.
“Stop.” Hamilton came to a halt so abruptly that Harlan walked into him. He held his arms out, completely blocking Harlan.
“What is it?” Harlan stepped on a dry twig and of course it snapped so loudly it was like he was in a fucking cartoon.
Hamilton turned to frown at him but lowered his arms. “Give me your scarf.”
“What?” Harlan clutched it. Charles had given it to him. It was one of the few brightly coloured things he owned that hadn’t come with his apartment.
“Brand, please.” Hamilton’s voice was almost a growl. “I’m standing over the body of a little girl, it’s pitch black, we have no jurisdiction here, we need to call the OPP, we’re probably going to be here all night and we need to flag this spot so we can find it again. Give me your damn scarf.”
Harlan handed it over without another word, stumbling back a few steps. He didn’t want to see her body if he didn’t have to. He didn’t know how long she’d been dead, but he was relieved that he didn’t smell anything—and that he didn’t have to see her ghost while standing at the site where her body had been dumped like garbage. He wanted Charles more than ever, but the best he could do was dig his nails into his palms.
“Thank you,” Hamilton said, pointedly, tying the scarf around a tree. He shooed Harlan back along the path he’d made, which Harlan’s blundering had widened.
They gathered Morgan as they passed, the three of them retreating to the car.
Hamilton radioed in that they’d found a body outside the GTA and needed the Ontario Provincial Police. As soon as he’d finished, he leaned against the car with a sigh. “Like I told Harlan, we’re probably going to be here all night explaining this mess. You two can fight each other for the back seat until the OPP gets here.”
Morgan’s lips were pressed together so tight that they were white at the edges. Harlan could see their hands shaking, even from several feet away in the dark. Their hair colour and length kept changing, and he saw them close their eyes and clench their fists each time it happened, like they were fighting to control their power. Every time they started looking Charles-ish, he felt a little queasy. As much as he would have liked to lie down, at the moment he just wanted to stop looking at them.
