Fragile Spirits (5 page)

21st-Century Cycle, Journal Entry 2:

I have met Vivienne Thibideaux, Speaker 962. We have received and look forward to our first assignment together.

Paul Blackwell—Protector 993

I
didn’t see Vivienne again until the following morning, when I found her in the kitchen guzzling coffee, oblivious to everything but her electronic reader.

I stood in the doorway and watched her for a moment. Her pink hair was tied back in a braid. She wore a long gray shirt covered in skulls and crossbones over tattered black tights and the same boots she’d worn yesterday.

I felt her anger surge when she realized I was there. She wasn’t happy to see me, of course. She turned to say something, most likely something nasty, but Cinda entered the kitchen before Vivienne could get the words out.

Cinda’s voice was musical and pleasant. “Hey, guys! Are you ready for your first assignment?”

“It’s not my first assignment,” I said. It sounded grumpier and more childish than I’d intended, but for some reason, I wanted them to know I wasn’t completely new at this. I’d been Charles’s apprentice for two years, after all. I was qualified and well trained.

Cinda shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. “I meant your first assignment as a team.”

“We’re not a team,” Vivienne snapped, sounding equally childish.

I took a step closer. “Yet.”

She spun on her stool to face me. “Ever!”

“Well, y’all have a great time today,” Cinda said. “I’m off to Galveston.” She scurried from the room as if a battle were about to erupt. Maybe it was.

“Good morning,” I said, sliding onto a stool next to Vivienne.

She pushed a button on her e-reader, changing pages. I placed the file on the bar and opened it. I’d studied it last night, but I’d had trouble concentrating because my mind kept turning over our conversation from the restaurant.

She shifted on her stool, turning away and cutting me off a bit more. I wasn’t getting any good emotional readings from her. Hopefully the IC manual was correct and the soul branding would make her easier for me to read, because multiple lifetimes of this—heck, even one lifetime of trying to decode this complex girl—would drive me crazy.

“Do you want me to brief you on the case?” I asked.

She pushed the page turn button again and didn’t look up. “No.”

“It won’t go as well if you—”

“It’s not going to go at all.” She turned the power off on her reader. “Look, Paul, I don’t need any more time to know that we can’t work together. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. I wouldn’t commit to a day with you, much less multiple lifetimes. Deal’s off.” She slid off her stool.

“We don’t know each other well enough to dislike each other,” I said.

“I know enough.” She picked up her reader and stomped out.

“You’re scared!” I shouted after her. “You’re running away scared.”

She stuck her head around the door. “Nothing scares me. Not the voices I’ve heard since childhood, not this job, and certainly not
you.
”

And she was gone. I buried my face in my hands. Talking to her was like trying to hold a rational conversation with someone from another planet. We just didn’t speak the same language. What was I supposed to do now? I’d been replaced by Cinda, I’d let Charles down, and I’d probably be assigned a desk job. Vivienne might not have been scared, but
I
certainly was.

I grabbed a glass and poured some orange juice. There had to be a way to solve this—to find some kind of peace with Vivienne so that we could at least try to resolve one case together. We might work out if she’d only give us a chance. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done to make her so angry. Obviously, the toxic plant comparison had made her mad, but it was true. Maybe that was it. Perhaps I’d hit the nail on the head, and it pissed her off.

She might have been taught how to read people as a fun trick by her grandmother, but from the time I was a small child, I’d been reading people in order to stay alive, and I was pretty sure I was correct about why she was so abrasive.

“Good morning, Paul,” Charles said.

I almost dropped my glass of OJ. “Good morning, sir.”

He remained in the kitchen doorway, dressed in his usual business suit. “How was dinner last night?”

“Great.” My voice sounded strained. I hoped he didn’t notice.

One gray eyebrow cocked up. “So everything is good between you and your Speaker, then?”

I ran my finger down the condensation on the outside of my glass. “Um, yes. It’s fine.”

He smiled. “But you wouldn’t tell me if things
weren’t
fine, would you, Paul?”

I took a deep breath. “No, sir.”

“Good for you. And good luck today. I’m leaving town right after Alden and Lenzi’s reinstatement hearing. Cinda will keep you posted if something comes up.”

“Thank you.” I fought the urge to ask him where he was going and how long he’d be away, but after working with him for two years, I understood my place and knew he’d tell me if it was important. He wasn’t my father. He was my boss, and at that moment, the distinction was painfully clear. “Have a good trip.”

He nodded and had to turn sideways as Vivienne burst through the door. She pointed a finger at me, eyes narrowed. “You did this, didn’t you? You’re so set on always getting your way, you involved my grandmother.”

“I . . .”

Charles saluted me and headed out the door. I couldn’t believe he was going to just leave me in this mess.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

She pointed her thumb in the direction Charles had taken his exit. “He pulled the plug on her shop unless I go with you today. What did you do, run and tattle that I wasn’t playing nice?”

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re bailing on this. He must’ve overheard your little temper tantrum when you huffed out.” I took several steps toward her. “I’m a lot of things, but a snitch isn’t one of them. I’m on your side. I’ll
always
take your side.”

No problem reading her at that point. She was so angry, it was hard to catch my breath.

“Why?” she almost yelled.

I took several deep breaths and ran my hands through my hair. “Because it’s what I do. I’m trained to protect and serve my Speaker. My only function is to facilitate your success.”

She stared at me and caught her breath. Her anger ebbed, but I couldn’t read her emotions well enough to tell what had replaced it. She leaned against the counter by the stove. “Sucks for you, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

Her eyes shifted to the open file on the kitchen island. “Well, I don’t really have a choice, do I? What do I need to know?”

Now she was speaking my language. Work. “It’s a TV show filming.” I picked up the file. “The new homeowner called GhostHunters, Inc., to come rid her house of what she calls ‘an evil spirit.’ The owner of the ghost hunter business thinks the house is legitimately haunted and wants us there just in case.”

She took the file from me and thumbed through the top pages. “Is this for the show
Spirit Seekers
? ’Cause if it is, it’s totally bogus.”

“Yes, but they call us in all the time because even though they can’t get rid of ghosts themselves, they know ghosts are legit sometimes and are dangerous.” I took my place back on my stool. “Usually, the IC just resolves the ghost quietly during breaks or after shootings so that nobody’s the wiser and nobody gets hurt.”

“Why?” She closed the file and set it on the counter, then she got back on her stool.

“To help out and to earn money. Not only do we help the Hindered move on, we get paid for it. Lots of entities hire the IC. Police, FBI, even churches. We quietly and invisibly rid the world of hindered spirits and sometimes even help solve crimes using the information given to us by the Hindered.”

She rolled her eyes. “Because you’re just so awesome.”

“
We
are.”

She slipped off her stool. “Don’t count me in just yet, Pauly. I’m being blackmailed into this.”

Dread crept up my throat. She was being blackmailed into it. Who would force her? Certainly not someone inside the IC. I knew that was impossible . . . or was it? Everything I thought I knew had flown out the window when I met Vivienne. What used to be simple now seemed impossibly complex.

I finished off my orange juice and put the glass in the sink. “Are you ready?”

“One sec.”

I followed her out of the kitchen and watched as she bolted up the stairs two at a time. She was graceful and quick, even in her clunky boots. Moments later, she returned wearing a silver-spike-studded black leather jacket.

On the way to the resolution site, I briefed Vivienne on the case. Although she had been given a copy of the IC manual, she said she hadn’t read much of it, so I recited the finer points of a Speaker’s duties in a case like this. She didn’t act interested at all. Hopefully, this would be a simple case that didn’t involve soul-sharing. By all accounts, the spirit haunting the house was simply a powerful Hindered and not a Malevolent.

“What would happen if the IC weren’t around to help the dead guys move on?” she asked, toying with one of the studs on her jacket.

I turned onto a narrow county road. “After being stuck long enough, the Hindered would all become Malevolents and would eventually gain enough power to harm humans.” The pavement ended and I slowed down as the road surface became loose dirt and rocks. “It could mean the end of the living if it went on long enough and the Malevolents became too numerous and powerful.”

“So Hindered go away when we help them out with what’s bugging them. What about Malevolents?”

I slowed and pulled to the side of the narrow road to let an oncoming car pass. “Well, they ordinarily can’t be given what they want because it’s often an evil intent that holds them here. They have to be weakened until they no longer have the energy to remain Earth-bound. The Speaker wears them down, and the Protector pushes them out when they are sufficiently weakened for resolution.”

She shuddered and remained silent the rest of the way.

The address in the file led us to a farmhouse that stood on several acres on the outskirts of the city. Several vans with the
Spirit Seekers
logo and a few cars lined the dirt road leading to it. The gate to the house was closed, so I pulled up in front of a neighbor’s mailbox and parked.

Vivienne was already out of the car and over the gate by the time I had locked the car. “Don’t get dirty, pretty boy,” she taunted from the gravel walk to the house.

The gate was secured with a padlock and chain, so I climbed over as well. “Shhh,” I hissed. “We don’t want to disturb the shoot. We’re here at the request of the film company. We have to stay out of the way.”

She rolled her eyes. “Like I said, the show is totally bogus. I can’t believe people pay these crooks to come to their houses to do this. It’s a total scam.”

The door opened as she reached the first porch step. A tall, skinny guy in a black shirt stepped out and pushed his glasses up on his nose. He looked right past Vivienne to me as if she weren’t even there. “Hey. Are you the IC guy?”

I nodded.

“Great, I’m Steve Jacobs, owner of GhostHunters, Inc. Thanks for coming.”

“I’m Paul Blackwell.” I shook his hand and gestured to Vivienne. “This is Vivienne Thibideaux, my associate.”

He shook her hand. “Hi, Viv.”

“Vivienne,” she said, pulling her hand away.

He put an arm around my shoulder and led me away from Vivienne to the edge of the porch farthest from the door. “So, we kind of have a situation here. Usually, people call us with ghost stories, and they are just that—stories. This one seems to be credible. We’d just love it if you and your chick could rid the place of this ghost for us before we begin.”

I was beginning to share Vivienne’s obvious dislike for this guy. “She’s not my ‘chick,’ she’s my business partner.”

He shrugged. “I’ve told the homeowner you’re a medium. In the past, you guys have just come in and taken the ghost out with you. Can you do that?”

I looked over my shoulder straight into Vivienne’s eyes. She’d followed us and was only a foot or so behind.

“Vivienne is the one who hears the voices of the dead, not me,” I said, positioning so that she was included in the conversation. “And we’ll try. When do you start the shoot?”

“Twenty minutes. The homeowner is really skittish. She paid us to rid the house of the ghost, and we talked her into letting us film it for an episode of
Spirit Seekers.
She didn’t like the idea at first, but we convinced her finally.” He winked. “Gotta make a living, you know.”

“Yeah,” Vivienne said. “Gaff the poor haunted people while you lie to them, then sell that lie to a TV show and make even more money off their misfortune. Well played.”

I groaned inwardly. She was going to blow the whole deal. Charles would never forgive me.

Before I could say anything, Steve jumped in to his own defense. “Look, sweetheart—”

The rage rolling from Vivienne caused me to hold my breath. Clearly, she didn’t like endearments.

“In most cases,” he continued, “there’s no ghost and we give the people peace of mind. And in cases where they really are haunted, we do the right thing and call you guys.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. “We perform a public service both ways.”

Vivienne put her hands on her hips and glared at him until he squirmed. “So either way you slice it, you’re scam artists.”

Steve’s face went red, and he shoved his glasses up his nose. He opened his mouth to say something, but Vivienne cut him off.

“S’okay, Stevie,
sweetheart.
My grandmother is a fortune-teller. And even though our clients weren’t terrified, I grew up doing the same thing—tell some lies, make them feel good, and take their money—no harm done.” She leaned casually against the porch railing. “I’m right there with you. I just don’t pretend to be a philanthropist.”

“Excuse us a moment.” I took her hand and led her down the porch steps with me. “What are you doing? You are going to blow this whole deal,” I whispered.