GHOST GAL: The Wild Hunt (9 page)

“Smells delicious, Mother.”

“Hello, Alexandra, dear,” the Countess said with a smile before stepping away from the stove to pull her daughter into a hug. “You have excellent timing. Can you join us for dinner?”

“Sure thing,” Alexandra said. “It smells great.”

“Is Joshua with you?”

“No, mother. He had case notes to study for tomorrow and had to spend some time in the law library so I’m flying solo today.”

“Too bad,” her mother said with a wink. “He is going to miss a fabulous meal.”

“His loss,” Alexandra said. “Is Poppa around?”

“He’s in his study, where else?” her mother said with a crook of her head in the general direction.

“I wanted to pop in to say hello and give him this.” She held up the duffel.

“What is that?”

“Just a small present. It’s a work thing.”

The Countess gave a slight shake of her head. “Heaven forbid one of you take a day off every once in awhile,” Catherine groused. “It’s
not like the world is going to stop spinning because the Holzer family takes a vacation.”

“You sure about that, Mother?”

“Let’s say I think it’s a safe bet,” Catherine said playfully.

Alexandra rolled her eyes.

“You two are always working,” her mother added. “Two peas in a pod, you are. Just do me a favor and make sure this present does not leave a mess like the last one did, okay? I spent two days trying to get that mess out of the carpet.”

“I think it’s safe to say this one won’t go kablooey,” Alexandra said with a playful smile that was the mirror image of her mother’s own smile.

“That’s what you said last time,” the countess said playfully before returning to her latest culinary masterpiece.

Leaving her mother to her boiling pots, Alexandra climbed the steps that led to her father’s study on the second floor. The study was one of her favorite rooms in the old house. Decorated in masculine earth tones the large room contained several Oriental carpets over the gleaming hardwood floors and the wood of the furniture was so dark as to be almost black with a seating of aged nail-headed red leather. But best of all, the room had a balcony that looked out over the front lawn and the Hudson River beyond it. She had spent many hours sitting on that balcony while watching the waters flow past on its journey down river.

The study itself was pure Hans Holzer. Shelves lined the walls and were overflowing with books, papers, and the potpourri of assorted odds and ends he had picked up in his travels. Each item in the study had a story, one The Professor would be all too happy to tell should anyone ask. Alexandra thought she had heard them all, but from time to time she would run across some hidden gem in his collection that she had never seen before. She sometimes wondered if he moved things around to see if she would notice or if the ghosts of those who dwelt in the house before helped him out.

“Knock knock,” she said from the doorway as opposed to actually rapping her knuckles on the wood. “You busy?”

A harrumph came from inside the office. “Of course I am,” Hans Holzer said.

She couldn’t see him, but knew he was at his desk, which was piled
high with papers and artifacts awaiting his attention. No doubt, there would also be a reference book or three in front of him as well. Even though he had retired a few years earlier, a man of Hans Holzer’s renown was always in demand on the lecture circuit and more often than his family would like, out in the field. He might have slowed down a bit, but the great Hans Holzer was far from ready to hang up his ghost hunting gear.

“How are you, Poppa?” Alexandra said as she walked over to the desk. She was all smiles as she carefully set the duffel bag on the floor beside the worn oak desk.

“Ah, hello my darling Shura,” Hans said, smacking closed the book he had been reading. He stood and embraced his daughter. “It is good to see you.”

“You too, Poppa,” she said as she breathed in his cologne.

“So, not that it isn’t good to see you, Shura, but what brings you by in such good spirits today? Have you and that Demerest boy finally set a wedding date?”

She sidestepped his playful jab at her fiancé and the fact that neither of them were in any rush to run to the altar. They had told both his and her parents repeatedly that they would take the plunge when they were ready and not a moment sooner. Despite his affinity for referring to Joshua as ‘that Demerest boy’ she knew her father adored the man. “We thought it might be easier just to go to the Justice of the Peace and elope,” she joked.

“Over my dead body,” Hans said, laying it on thick. “I’ve been waiting a long time to walk my beautiful baby girl down the aisle. You wouldn’t deprive an old man of his fondest wish, would you?”

“You’re hardly what I’d call an old man, Poppa.”

“Old enough,” he said and retook his seat. He motioned to an unoccupied chair near his desk. She moved the various papers stacked there to a table that miraculously still had an empty place then pulled the chair closer to his desk. When she turned back to face the desk she noticed a blue bowl still steaming with what appeared to be a Chinese dish of some sort.

“Poppa, I’ve caught you at lunch. You haven’t touched your food,” She said. “It smells wonderful by the way. What is it?”

“Oh, I’ll get around to it eventually Shura. It’s called Mapu doufu, a combination of tofu and vegetables in a spicy chili sauce. Completely vegan, of course. Your mother, dear girl, seems to be able to work
miracles in her culinary creations without meat. And to think that she does it just for me.” The elder Holzer gave a slight grimace as he leaned forward in attentiveness to his daughter.

“You okay?” she asked, noting the wince as he sat down and again as he leaned forward.

“I’m fine.”

“Your back bothering you again?”

“Just a twinge,” he lied.

“Did you sleep at your desk again?” she asked.

“Of course not,” he harrumphed and wagged a finger in her direction. “You know, you sound more and more like your mother every day.”

“Because of my loving concern?”

“I was thinking more because of your nagging.” He said it with a smile as he resumed his reading from the oversized history text open on the desk. He often complained that the women in his life were trying to mother hen him to death at times. Alexandra suspected that he actually enjoyed the added attention, but of course, his male pride wouldn’t allow him to ever admit it.

“I brought you a present,” Alexandra said, changing the subject.

Hans raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

She handed over the duffel.

“What have we here?”

“Open it,” she told him.

Not one to say no to his daughter, Hans Holzer obliged and peered into the open duffel. “What have you brought me, Shura?” he asked as he pulled a frosted jar from the bag and held it in his lap. Ever the professor, he turned it around, carefully tracing the lines of blended colors. “It’s smooth,” he said. “Tempered glass?”

Alexandra shrugged.

“It’s beautiful, my dear, but art curios are more your mother’s forte than mine, as you know. Perhaps you should show it to her?”

“No. This one is all yours,” Alexandra said. “I’m guessing you’ve never seen one of these before, huh?”

“A decorative glass jar?” he huffed. “Alexandra, I may be, as you called me, an absent-minded professor, from time to time, but I have visited a museum or two. This is not the first piece of glassware I’ve seen. It’s not even one of the most interesting.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that one.”

He moved in for a closer look. “You’re obviously dying to tell me so out with it, girl. What is so special about this jar?”

“It traps ghosts.”

“I beg your pardon.”

Alexandra tried not to laugh at her father’s bemused expression.

She failed.

He held up the jar by the neck. “Are you telling me that this is an actual containment vessel?”

With a nod and an excited grin, she confirmed it.

“Fascinating.”

“I had much the same thought,” she said.

“I’ve heard stories, of course, that things like this existed, but I never expected to see one, much less hold one in my hands. This is incredible.”

“Joshua and I found forty of them today.” She said it without fanfare, but her father nearly dropped the one he was studying when she said it. The look on his face was priceless.

“Forty?” he echoed. “Where? Where were they hidden?”

“In an abandoned church in the city. One of the… uh, occupants… yeah, let’s call them occupants, escaped from his jar and caused a bit of a ruckus. It wasn’t easy, but Joshua and I managed to get him back in his jar and corked it up.”

Now she had his full attention.

“You took a job?”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you call me? I could have helped.” He sounded sad that he missed out on the adventure.

“Joshua and I handled it.”

“And you actually used the vessel?”

“We did.”

“How does it work?”

She shook her head and shrugged. “No idea. It just sort of… happened.”

“What does that mean?”

“Once the water spirit we were chasing got close to it, the jar just sucked it back inside like a vacuum cleaner or something.”

“Fascinating.”

Alexandra’s grin returned. “You already said that.”

“I may say it a few more times,” he deadpanned.

“I don’t blame you, Poppa.”

“Is it still in here?” Hans asked, setting the vessel carefully on his desk.

“No. This one is empty,” she confirmed. “We delivered them to Samuel for disposition.”

“Good,” he said. “The last thing I need is to let something pesky loose in the house. Your mother would never let either one of us hear the end of it.”

“No, I imagine not. Samuel let me borrow this one so we could study it,” she said.

Hans leaned back in his chair, which creaked with every movement. “I’m surprised. This sounds like the type of item Samuel and his people would want to keep hidden. They do so love their secrets, do they not?”

“They do indeed,” she agreed. “Samuel let us take this one once it was empty. If we can figure out who constructed these and what materials they use, it might come in handy on some of our more difficult cases.”

“He just let you take it?” Hans asked, scratching the stubble on his chin. “That doesn’t sound like something the OAGI would do.”

“Well…”

“Never mind, I don’t want to know,” Hans said, his mind already working the conundrum his daughter had placed before him. “Being able to trap a wayward spirit would certainly make things easier, especially when it comes to transporting one of these wayward souls to the OAGI and OESI.”

“That was my thinking as well,” she said. “Do you think you can figure out how they did it?”

“I don’t know, but I am excited by the prospect of trying,” Hans said, plucking the vessel from the desk and once again inspecting it. “This is an incredible find, Shura. Well done. Well done, indeed.”

He lapsed into silence and Alexandra knew that their conversation was pretty well finished. Ever the professor, the learner, he was entranced by the new puzzle she had placed before him. He would lose himself in studying the jar. If a solution to replicating the containment vessel in the modern world could be found, Hans Holzer was the one who would discover it.

“I’ll leave you to it Poppa,” she said, knowing that he barely registered her words. He waved at her and mumbled something unintelligible as she slid the chair back to where she had found it. She didn’t take offense. Alexandra understood how easy it could be to get lost in solving a mystery. Like her father, she too found herself tuning out the world whenever some mystery grabbed her attention. That laser-like focus had served her well, but also like her famous father, it had gotten her in a spot of trouble on occasion.

She may have gotten her smile and looks from her mother, but her curiosity, her desire to seek out the unknown, those were traits she picked up from her father. Her tenacity, well that was something she got from both of them. Neither Hans nor Catherine were known to sit idly by when they could be leading the charge. That stubborn streak of hers ran through both the Holzer and Buxhoeveden family trees.

As she walked back to visit more with her mother, Alexandra realized that she too was already working on the same problem. Finding a way to trap wayward ghosts for transport would be a big boon to their business. If they could find a way to replicate the process, it would be a big game changer.

By the time she left hours later for the train that would take her back to the city, Alexandra was still searching for the answer. She was so involved with solving this riddle that she did not notice the stranger who followed her from her parent’s home all the way back to her apartment.

She also didn’t notice that when she turned out the lights in her apartment later that night that the same man stood across the street, leaning against the corner of a building, watching her place.

When she left her apartment the next morning, he was still there.

The mystery man fell into step behind her as she walked down the sidewalk.

I
t didn’t take Alexandra Holzer long to realize she was being followed.