Possession

TWENTY-FOUR

I managed to find a pedicab nearby and persuade the owner to take me back to Pioneer Square. He said he’d have to charge me extra for bleeding on his seat, but I didn’t fuss.

Carlos and Quinton stood in a shadow near the door to my office building, waiting for me. Quinton stepped forward and held his hands out to help me from the pedicab’s seat. I flinched with every movement, but I was thrilled to fall into his arms. “What’s a handsome guy like you doing here?” I asked.

“I’d say saving damsels is distress, but it looks like I missed. You’re hurt.”

“I don’t care,” I said and kissed him with all the aching passion and relief I contained.

“I can’t stay,” he said against my mouth. “Will you be OK? I have to get back to Northlake to take care of a few things, but I had to come and see that you were all right. I could feel”—he traced a bruise on my jaw where I’d hit the dock and stroked down to my aching shoulder—“all of this. I wish I’d been here sooner.”

“You didn’t miss anything good. And I’ll be fine.”

“But you know how I love a good fight scene. . . .”

“I suspect we’ll have plenty more in Europe.”

We kissed long and hard enough to garner some whistles from passersby and a shouted “Get a room!” before Quinton let me go to pay the pedicab driver.

“I’ll be back. Very soon,” he said, looking unhappy to be leaving.

“I know,” I said.

He nodded and walked down the street, casting a longing look back before he vanished into the crowd that was beginning to fill the streets again now that the fireworks—real and paranormal—were over.

Carlos was waiting for me by the building’s door. “I took the liberty of disposing of Hazzard,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, turning to pick up the shrine from the sidewalk. Even that little task hurt. “I didn’t think I’d be gone so long, or that I’d end up quite so bloodied and banged up.”

He shrugged, making the world roll and shake. I almost fell over and he had to catch me, sending a spike of ice and pain through me that wasn’t any better than the pain and discomfort I was already feeling from much more corporeal sources. Without the glow of being in Quinton’s presence I was uncomfortably aware of my injuries. My shoulder was badly bruised—though I counted myself lucky it wasn’t dislocated—and I had cuts, abrasions, bites, and more bruises all over. My leg was still bleeding, although my arm had stopped. I could be worse off, I thought. I could be blind again.

Carlos chuckled. Had I said that aloud?

“Come upstairs. Stymak is busy with your guests and you may need some new furniture. . . .”

This time I knew I’d sworn out loud even without witnessing Carlos’s amusement.

I took the elevator instead of the stairs and entrusted the shrine—filled with Limos—to Carlos outside my office door. I knew he wasn’t going to let her out, considering his outrage the night before over what Purlis had started by releasing her to begin with, but I was surprised to see him take a cloth bundle from his pocket and produce a long silver chain from it. The chain smoked and burned when it touched his hands as he wrapped it around the shrine and sealed the wretched thing closed.

“You didn’t have to—” I started.

“I do. And the burns will heal eventually. Better to be sure she cannot escape than to be delicate over a few fleeting injuries.”

I knew how much they hurt him, but he didn’t wince as he closed his hands over the blackened marks on his palms and fingers. That hadn’t been ordinary silver, but I didn’t ask what it was. I just pushed open my office door and went to see what had happened in there. Carlos didn’t follow me.

Stymak was standing, but the other three were seated. Olivia was perched on the edge of my desk with Levi Westman and both looked shaken. Lily, still in her chair, though it was up against the wall now, looked calm, even though she appeared to have lost an eyebrow somehow and a bit of hair at the front of her head. A tower of white light loomed in the farthest corner, the shadows somehow darker by proximity. I started a little at the sight, but no one else seemed to notice it.

I looked them all over as they stared at me. I almost said something about the white light, but somehow it didn’t seem the right time. I felt odd in its presence—like I weighed less and the earth barely touched me.

“I’m sorry for leaving you alone,” I said and I wasn’t sure if I meant the humans or the light. “What happened while I was gone?”

The light didn’t reply, but the people all blinked at me for a moment, mute, and then Stymak said, “The candle . . . kind of erupted. I’m afraid it . . . ate your table.”

I laughed more than was called for, relieved that it was such a small thing, just relieved in general. “I’ll get another. How are all of you? And what happened aside from the candle thing?”

“We held on to Linda Hazzard as long as we could, but we lost the other spirits.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I saw them released. They’re gone and free, wherever they went.”

Lily Goss sighed. “I thought they were.”

“How did you know?” Olivia asked, her eyes huge with an expression of awe and excitement.

“I guess God told me.” She smiled. The white light seemed to expand and brush her shoulder, sending a hint of warm summer breeze through my stuffy office. “I think everything will be all right now.”

I took a deep breath and felt lighter with it. “Will it?”

She nodded. “Yes. I’m sure of it. Your friend made that terrible ghost leave. Forever, I think.”

I glanced at Stymak for confirmation and he nodded vigorously, his eyes bright. “Oh, yeah. Banished like a bad dream. I still don’t like him, but he can really pull a ghost’s cork when it needs to be done. I gotta tell you, that was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen in a lifetime of freakiness.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

He shook his head. “No. I don’t think you can. Unless you’ve seen it, it’s not even in the imaginarium of most people.”

“Trust me. I’ve seen it.”

If his eyes had widened any farther, they’d have fallen right out of his head. I gave him a sheepish smile. “I should have warned you about that. I am truly sorry.”

“No, no . . . It was . . . Well. It scared the crap out of me, but the experience was worth it. And I will never see something like that again—I hope.” He seemed more awed than upset or freaked out.

Olivia and Levi nodded agreement, seeming a little dazzled. Goss sat still and looked beatific.

“What about . . . the others?” I asked. “Jordan, and Kevin, and Julianne . . . ?”

The light brightened just enough to notice. “They’re fine,” Goss said, her calm unruffled. “They stayed until we were done with that terrible woman. Then they went away. But they’re fine, now.”

I could only stare at her, agape, a touch awed myself at the calm certainty she exuded.

The whiteness in the corner gleamed and something shot outward from it that was too brilliant to look at. A sound like a clap of wings and thunder shook the office and the radiance erupting from the corner was too dazzling to bear. I closed my eyes, but the searing light could not be blocked. When the flash had died away and I could see again, I glanced at where it had been. The corner was dim and empty and the room was just as it had been before and somehow nothing like it, neither better nor worse yet changed completely. I felt shaken and transparent, but I didn’t want to sit down or go to sleep. No one seemed to want to move at all for a minute or so and the expressions on their faces were beautifully stunned.

Eventually the strange feeling that held us captive faded and we went our separate ways. Stymak went with Lily Goss and Westman said he’d get a cab to the care home. Carlos had already taken the shrine away and I knew there was nothing to worry about on that score. I drove Olivia home and we didn’t talk on the way.

This time I pulled into the driveway to let her out. The house was lit up as if to banish every shadow that had ever lingered in the world. As Olivia ran up the walk, her brother Peter came out and hugged her and swung her around like a child.

“He woke up! Dad woke up!” he shouted.

Olivia squealed and kissed him, hugging him back so hard she knocked the breath out of him. Then she broke away and ran back to me, her stride free and smooth, with no sign of her earlier limp.

“Did you hear? Dad’s awake!”

I grinned at her. “I heard. Congratulations.”

She nearly jumped through the window to hug me. “Thank you!” she whispered into my ear. “You did it!”

“You did it,” I replied. “I just chase ghosts. You, and Levi, and Lily, and Stymak did it. Now go inside. Go.”

She backed away from the Land Rover, grinning wide enough to crack her jaw, then whirled and flew into the house, screaming, “Dad! Daddy!”

I sat there and grinned myself for a while, then drove home elated. We had done something—whatever it was, however we did it—that was good and that felt wonderful.