Poltergeeks (16 page)

  Apparently someone was expecting us.

  "Are you going to be okay?" Marcus asked quietly, his voice full of concern.

  "I hope so," I said, matching his tone. "I haven't felt my father's presence since I was a little girl and part of me thinks this is really going to be like two strangers meeting for the first time. Anyway, it has to be done and you know what? I'll take the lingering spirit of my late father over not having him in my life any day of the week."

  Marcus placed a hand on my shoulder and I stopped in my tracks. He turned to face me and said, "You rock, Julie. I just want you to know that."

  I nodded and tried to smile, "Marcus, about what happened in the basement. When you said you thought I was beautiful. I didn't mean to–"

  Just as I was about to apologize for stomping all over poor Marcus' heart the
Doctor Who
theme cut through the eerie silence of the cemetery.

  "Shit," Marcus said, as he reached for his cell phone. "It's Marla. I told her I couldn't help her study tonight."

  A wave of jealousy rushed through me as I snatched the phone out of Marcus' hand and read the text message.

  
DarkChik: What r u doing? Want to hang out?

  I immediately gave Marcus a cold, hard stare and handed the cell phone back to him. "Marla wants to hang out? What is
that
about?"

  "Christ!" he choked. "I don't know what the hell she's texting me for – she's
your
freaking girlfriend!"

  "Well you must have given her your number, Marcus," I said in an accusatory tone. "Hey, if you'd rather hang out with Marla when I'm going through a crisis, don't let my shit stop you."

  Marcus eyed flashed with anger. "Okay. First off, I texted her my cell number because I thought she needed help studying and I was in a charitable mood at the time. And second, when
haven't
I been there for you, Julie? You're my best friend! Third, even if I wanted to hang out with Marla, I'm allowed to do that. It's called being social. So instead of ripping me a new one, maybe you might want to consider the reason I'm here is because I actually give a rat's ass that my best friend's mother is in the hospital and there's some nasty ass bad guy out there who did it."

  Well, that was a first. I'd never known Marcus to ever dress me or anyone down like that in his entire life, so clearly I'd touched a nerve. Did I mention that I'm an asshole with a capital A?

  Marcus thumbed the keypad furiously and I said, "What are you telling her?"

  "Well, it's not really your business what I tell anyone in a private conversation, Julie. But, in the interest of getting on with finding your dad's ghost, I'm texting her that I'm checking in on you and if Marla was really your friend, she'd be doing the same."

  I immediately reached out and placed my left hand over the phone. "Hey, look, I'm sorry okay? I don't know what the hell is wrong with me."

  He looked up from the cell phone and I noticed the angry look in his eyes was melting away. "It's cool. I know you're freaked out right now, but try to remember that I am too. And remember that I'm on your side, Julie. I've always been on your side."

  I could feel my throat tighten, so I clenched my jaw tightly and pushed back the urge to start bawling because I needed to keep it together. Too much was at stake.

  "I know, Marcus," I said quietly. "And I apologize."

  He grunted as he slipped his cell phone back into his pocket. "Fair enough. Are we going to do the ghost hunter thing now? Because it's getting dark."

  "Yeah, let's go," I said. I gripped my backpack tightly over my left shoulder and took a deep breath.

  It was time to meet Stephen Richardson.

 
 

 
 
 

The small wooden sign pointed to a series of graves on the crest of a hill with a view of downtown Calgary. The sun was a thin amber streak on the horizon and the sky was painted with a flat row of clouds in purple and pink hues as the heat of the day gave way to a mild breeze coming in from the west. I could hear the
tick
tick-tick
of the cemetery's sprinklers in the distance and I hoped they were on a timer because the last thing I wanted when seeing my father for the first time in more than a decade was to look like a wet dog.

  Okay so I was a
little
freaked out about meeting him.

  Marcus hummed quietly as we left the asphalt path and wandered between two rows of headstones that curved around a concrete fountain with a statue of an angel holding a trumpet as its centerpiece. The ghost of a woman wearing a flapper's dress with hair in a tight weave and a glittering headband pointed to the other end of the fountain and I felt a faint tingling of spectral energy brush against my face.

  It felt mildly reminiscent of something I'd not felt in many years, and I knew we were close.

  "Almost there," I whispered. "I can feel him."

  "Is he going to be a poltergeist too?" Marcus asked nervously.

  "Nope," a voice answered from behind us.

  "Shit!" Marcus blurted. He stumbled over a flat grave marker and landed flat on his face. I spun around and drew on my magic, sending out a wave of compressed force that shot through the midsection of the spectre, blasting a small wrought iron bench and sending it careening ten feet into the air. It landed with a dull thump beside a large poplar tree.

  "Nice way to say hello, pumpkin," the spectre said. "Good reflexes."

  It was my father, and he looked just as I remembered.

  You know, except that he was see-through.

  He was stood about five feet away from me, his translucent arms folded calmly across his chest. He had a smooth complexion and a prominent nose that was framed by a pair of chubby cheeks. His hair was neatly cropped in a military style taper, and I could see that it was thinning along the top. He was dressed in a Spider-Man t-shirt along with a pair of Bermuda shorts and he was wearing sandals with what looked to be white gym socks. Apparently my father had no fashion sense, even in the afterlife.

  Oh, and he was floating about six inches above the ground.

  "Dad?" I said, in barely a whisper.

  The ghost smiled faintly and nodded once. "Too many years have passed since I last saw you and by God, haven't you grown up into a beautiful young woman! You have your mother's eyes and you're as graceful as she looked on the night of our very first date – it was a night like tonight. You know, except we weren't in a cemetery – actually I first met your mom in a line at Peter's Drive-In during the summer solstice. Is it still in business? Best milkshakes in the Western Hemisphere, I swear."

  "It's still there," I said.

  He gave me a mournful look for half a second. "Man, what I wouldn't give for one of those shakes again. Anyway, I've been following you since I detected your magic when you got to the cemetery. You're going to want to work on your peripheral focus, kiddo. It'll save your bacon one day, trust me."

  "But the ghost of the soldier pointed our way up here."

  "To my grave," he said, as he floated over to Marcus who was slowly getting back to his feet. "Who's the skinny fella?"

  "His name is Marcus," I said, hoping like hell that my best friend wouldn't faint in my father's presence.

  "Marcus Guffman?" he said in a surprised voice. "Amanda and Wallace's kid?"

  "Un-freaking-real!" Marcus said in astonishment. "I can see you plain as day! Man, I wish I had my spectrometer because up to now, Julie's been the one who can see ghosts, not me."

  "Just means your mind is open enough to let you see the kinds of things most people turn a blind eye to, kid," he said.

  "You
know
me?" Marcus asked.

  "Knew you. Everything is past-tense when you're dead. Anyway, your mother met Julie's mom at daycare. We had your folks over for dinner a few times. They still alive?"

  "Dad!" I said, shocked that even a ghost could manage to embarrass me in front of a friend. "That's totally
not
cool."

  "Rats. Sorry, kiddo. That came out the wrong way. Here, sit with me for a moment. We need to have a little heart-to-heart and time is running short."

  I walked over and sat down beside him. Marcus kept his distance but eyeballed my father closely. My head was filled with a stew of thoughts and intense feelings that I had no way of processing. Dad had been gone for so long, and now here he was sitting beside me. His vaporous body shifted and stirred with supernatural energy and I had to stop myself from reaching out to touch him out of fear that if his spiritual form were to come in contact with my magical energies, that he might disappear entirely.

  "Dad," I said, as my throat tightened. "I want to stay with you here more than you can possibly imagine, but I need your help like I need air to breathe. Mom is in the hospital. Something attacked my school and–"

  "And you're hot on the trail of the culprit, sweetheart, I know. The spirit world's a big place and word travels fast among those of us who still hang out with the living. You going after whoever did this is pretty brave, kiddo. It's a helluva thing to duke it out with someone who can overpower a witch with your mother's experience and I'm proud of you for fighting back. I just wish I could be the guy fighting back; you're still so damned young."

  "Thanks," I said. "How did you know I'd go after who did it?"

  He appeared to take a deep breath and then he exhaled slowly. "Because that's what I would be doing, even if I were out-gunned. Then again, a Shadowcull is pretty much out-gunned every time he or she does the dirty work for the covens. Hell, I'd tag along with you, sweetheart, but I'm bound to this place until your mom joins me in the afterlife."

  Marcus edged closer and appeared to be a bit more relaxed. "I should probably be bouncing off the walls right now because ghosts aren't supposed to be real and here we are in a creepy cemetery talking to one, but what the hell. Mr Richardson, what's a Shadowcull?"

  He shrugged. "If the average, run-of-the-mill witch is responsible for protecting the world of mortals from the things that go bump in the night, then a Shadowcull is the one who prevents that bump in the night from happening in the first place. This city has been without a resident Shadowcull for more than ten years – until now."

  I arched my eyebrows. "What do you mean by
until
now
?"

  He turned his wispy face toward me and gave me a worried look. "It's your birthright, sweetheart. My blood runs through your veins and that sets you apart from all the witches in your order. I'm going to throw caution to the wind here and ask you, why do you think your mom has disavowed her own coven?"

  "Because she hates all that political stuff," I said. "At least that's what she's told me all my life."

  He grunted. "Yeah, that's part of it. The other part is that they'd have seconded you to become a Shadowcull's initiate and you'd be trained up to mete out coven justice to anyone who posed a threat to the mortal world."

  "Coven justice? But I thought that's what tribunals were for!"

  "You're not entirely wrong, sweetheart. But a Shadowcull works outside the boundaries of what the average person would say is
ethical.
He or she is dispatched by a coven to use any and all means necessary to eliminate a threat up to and including the use of black magic."

  I nearly fell off the concrete bench at my father's revelation.
Black magic?
It was black magic that was responsible for putting Mom in the hospital and I didn't want any part of it. "What if I have no interest in being a Shadowcull?" I said indignantly. "Don't I get to have a say?"

  My father's look of concern wasn't going away. "It's your pedigree, Julie, and your magical signature makes you stand out like bonfire at midnight. You have to learn how to defend yourself against the Left Hand Path because they'll be coming after you, and sweetheart, those guys will stop at
nothing
."

  Marcus adjusted his backpack and let out an exasperated sigh. "Here's what I'm not getting: if Julie is supposed to have some kind of special skill because her father was a so-called Shadowcull, well how can she be expected to do what you did in life when nobody has ever taught her? I mean, how can she protect herself?"

  Dad let out an amused chuckle proving that ghosts, apparently, still have a sense of humour. His wispy form disappeared, reappearing less than a second later on his headstone about twenty feet away.

  He pointed to a shovel at the foot of his grave and said, "How does she protect herself? She starts digging."

 
 

 
 
 

Marcus was knee-deep in soil as I kept a watchful eye for anyone who might see us. It was pitch black now thankfully, the quarter-moon concealed by clouds. The only sound that could be heard besides the sound of shovel-fulls of moist earth being dumped into a pile next to my father's headstone was the sound of Marcus cursing under his breath.

  "Aside from being highly illegal, Julie," Marcus griped, "I'm not sure if digging up your Dad's grave while he looks on from the spirit world is either unbelievably creepy or points to the most dysfunctional family in human history. I'm
not
opening the casket!"

  My father's form dissolved from the top of his headstone and reappeared beside Marcus. "There's no casket, kid," my father whispered. "If my body hadn't been cremated, one of my enemies would have dug me up and they'd have probably sold my corpse to a necromancer, and jeez, who wants that? Some of my ashes are mixed in with the soil and there's nothing of any value in my grave unless you know what you're looking for. Just keep your eyes peeled for a copper box because all the answers are in there. Trust me on this."