Ghost Key (20 page)

Maddie looked down at herself. Okay, this was good, she had a sort of body. Looked solid, felt solid; it would do.

“In this state, Maddie, you can look like Cinderella if you want to.”

Cinderella?
Was he serious? “Man in white who allowed this travesty to continue for months,” she screamed, stabbing her hand at him. “Don’t tell me what to say or not to say. You could’ve stopped this whole thing and didn’t. And
Cinderella
? Christ, Charlie. At least choose a less offensive fairy tale.”

Charlie drew back, eyes widening, obviously shocked by the vitriol in her voice. Maddie immediately wondered about the voice part of this equation. Technically, she was outside of her physical body but inside a body slapped together from her thoughts and beliefs or something. And she was in this situation because a ghost possessed her real body. In the event that she lived long enough to make sense of any of this, she seriously doubted she would ever tell it to anyone.

“You finished with your rant?” Charlie asked.

“My
rant
? Do you know what Dominica is doing with my body right now?”

“Your body is being used by the mayor of Cedar Key. But technically, it’s not rape, he’s, uh, having some problems. Besides, you aren’t there. For that matter, neither is he. Now, are you going to hear me out or not?”

“Easy for you to say, Charlie. It’s not your body that’s being defiled.”

“I don’t have a body any more than you do right now.”

“Whatever. Talk away. But the bottom line doesn’t change. Whether I’m in my body or elsewhere is irrelevant. It’s
my body.
And the bitch is using my body as a weapon against me. That’s terrorism.”

“Yes, it is. That’s what they do, Maddie. It’s how they’ve survived for centuries.”

“‘Survive.’ That’s a curious word, you know? In human terms, it implies breath, a heartbeat, warm skin. These fucks are
parasites,
Charlie.”

“I can’t argue with you. ‘Parasitic terrorists’ fits them perfectly.” He paused and fiddled with his Zippo, flicking it open and shut. “What you did today was courageous.”

“It was desperation, not courage.”

“The fact that you were saved by a couple of dolphins has already added to your urban-legend status among the members of Dominica’s tribe. Even though she’s trying to spin this to make it look like it was intentional on her part, most of them know she lost control of you. No one—except Wayra—has ever duped Dominica in that way. You’re her match. You’ve got to spin the narrative to
your
advantage.”

“Great. Now I’m FOX News. The problem with my spinning anything is that she controls my vocal cords.”

“Go back. Play on her fears. Be a Livingston. She won’t survive it. Make her think she’s winning, Maddie. That will make her reckless, careless.”

“But she
is
winning. Once this quarantine is in place, Cedar Key becomes a
brujo
paradise.”

“Or a
brujo
prison,” Charlie said.

Another ghost came into view, an attractive woman with auburn-colored hair, soulful hazel eyes. She touched Sanchez’s shoulder—and her hand went right through him. “Oh, I hate it when that happens,” she said softly.

“The dog sees you, Jenean,” said Charlie. “And Nick definitely felt it. Maddie, this is Jenean, Nick Sanchez’s mother. She’s helping us out with this
brujo
mess.”

“You’re a
chaser
?” Maddie exclaimed.

Jenean’s quick, bright smile could light up the dark side of any planet. “No. I’m just helping out and trying to make amends to my son for everything I failed to do when I was alive.”

“Can Sanchez see you?” Maddie asked.

“When I choose to make myself visible and when he’s in the right frame of mind. At the moment, he’s, uh, completely freaked out by what has been happening. He’s quite taken with you.”

“Why don’t you stick with Nick, Jenean, and I’ll get Maddie back to her body.”

“Unless the mayor is finished with me,” Maddie said, “I have zero desire to return to my body, Charlie.”

Jenean looked sympathetic and patted Maddie’s shoulder. “Just do what Charlie suggests.”

It irritated Maddie that these two ghosts—her grandfather and Sanchez’s mother—gave her advice about how to act, about the decisions she should make, about how she should feel. What the hell did they know about anything? Neither of them could feel what she did, could understand the horror of being imprisoned within your own body, of not being able to move your arms or legs in the way you wanted, of not being able to take a crap when you wanted, of not being able to do a damn thing unless Dominica allowed it.

“Please, no advice, okay?” Maddie said. “You two are more powerless than I am. At least I’m still alive.”
Sort of.

Charlie and Jenean exchanged a glance that suggested they were on the same page of … well, something. Charlie finally said, “The mayor’s essence is withering up, dying. If he dies, Whit won’t be able to use the body. He’s having trouble performing sexually because of it. The only way
brujo
possession works is if the body is
shared
by the host’s essence. Even if the host essence is broken, shriveled up in some virtual
brujo
cell, a
brujo
can use it as long as the essence is alive. When Esperanza was a nonphysical place, it was possible for a
brujo
to simply take over the body while the person’s essence was gone. But once we brought Esperanza into the physical world, the rules changed.”

“Suppose I stay out of my body indefinitely?” Maddie asked.

“Then eventually your body would die, Maddie. Even Dominica isn’t powerful enough to animate a host body by herself.”

“Does she know that?”

“She used to know. But until she seized you, it had been years since she occupied a body for any length of time and she may have selective amnesia about it. I think that’s what tonight’s punishment is really about. Her tribe is operating under the assumption that the bodies they seize are theirs to use however they want even if the host’s essence dies.”

“They’re such
vile
beings,” Jenean said, then wagged her fingers and followed Sanchez and the dog to his VW.

Charlie and Maddie moved across town to the house, drifted through the wall, and stood in the bedroom doorway. Maddie felt strange staring at her half-covered body, arms thrown over her head, her hair fanned out beneath her, the mayor lying beside her. In the moonlight that streamed through the windows, their bodies looked waxen.

“Jesus, I don’t know what happened,” Whit was saying.

“It’s okay,” Dominica told him. “Your host is in that age group, Whit. It’s why so many of them take Viagra.”

“Obviously, the next time we try this, I need a younger host.” He sat up, swung his legs off the bed. “And you need to have someone other than Maddie.”

“I know. It was a mistake.”

“Let’s get a bite to eat.”

“I should get over to the hotel. Why don’t you bring us takeout from Annie’s Café?”

Charlie touched Maddie’s arm—and she fought with herself about how it wasn’t really a real arm, on a real body, even though it felt real—and tilted his head toward the bed.
You’ll be okay now. I’m always nearby, Maddie. And remember what I told you. Play on her fears. Be a Livingston.

Why should I do what you tell me to do? Why should I believe anything you say, Charlie? Aunt Tesso says you’ve been manipulating her since day one. She isn’t here now, so you’re manipulating me. Fuck that.

Then go ahead and stay out of your body, hon, and I’ll be seeing you on my side of life right quick. Look, this is really complicated, okay? Chasers aren’t gods and we’re badly outnumbered.

Maddie hesitated. She didn’t intend to die; she was just nineteen years old. She had stuff to do, places to see, she had dreams. Never mind that she couldn’t think of a single goal except to free herself and see Sanchez again. Never mind that even if she liberated herself, she would be forever contaminated with this
brujo
shit coursing through her bloodstream. Never mind that she would be damaged. She refused to allow this bitch to steal her life any longer than she already had.

She slipped back into her body and apparently did it without Dominica being aware of it. She immediately erected a wall around her memories and her awareness. Even so, she felt Dominica’s irritation that Whit’s host had been unable to maintain an erection.

Maddie snickered, plopped back on her virtual couch, and covered her face with a pillow and laughed out loud.

*   *   *

Annie’s
Café stood in the crooked elbow of a salt marsh on State Road 24, a one-story place that looked as if it had been built of the same driftwood that Sanchez had seen everywhere else on Cedar Key. The tiny parking area was jammed with vehicles and he had to park the cart two blocks away, in a neighborhood of old Florida homes. He held on to Jessie’s halter, making it clear that she shouldn’t stray, and as they walked through the chilly air, he kept glancing around, hoping that Red would show up again. She didn’t and neither did his mother, although he felt her around just as he had earlier out in front of the motel.

“Mom?” he whispered.

“Right here, Nick.” She materialized for a moment at his side, then faded as a car turned toward them, headlights bright, glaring.

“You think the people in that car can see you?”

“You never know.”

“So you’re, like, what, my guardian angel now?”

The car passed and she came into view again. “I’ve been here over a year and have yet to meet anything with wings. Be careful in the café, Nick.”

Like he needed his dead mother telling him that.

“I’ve got your back,” she added, and faded again.

How could a ghost have his back?

Sanchez wondered about the dark-haired man who had told him to get out of the salt marsh. Wayra. He had Googled the name when he’d gotten back to the motel and discovered that in Quechua it meant “wind.” The Quechua people predated the Incas and the language itself was still spoken in parts of Peru and Ecuador. He didn’t know what, if anything, that meant in relation to what was happening.

His BlackBerry jingled, no song this time, just that obnoxious electric chord. Nicole’s text message appeared:

ET, call home.

Hey, I’m here,
he typed.
On Cedar Key
.
Am OK. How’s dad doing? Did Carmen return?

Yes to Carmen. Dad seems better. He won in dominoes today. Holler for whatever you need.

Interesting, he thought, that Nicole apparently had taken what he’d said seriously enough to keep texting and calling him.

Hugs,
he typed, and signed off.

Sanchez, no longer gripping the dog’s halter, entered the café through a screened porch that led to the wide outside balcony. It extended a hundred feet into the salt marsh, with tables on either side and another row straight down the middle. Every table was covered with a checkered plastic tablecloth, easy to clean, but ever so tacky. Burning torches, mounted on posts that extended upward from the railing, cast the area in a surreal light. Half a dozen customers had their dogs with them, and the dogs lay with paws draped over the edge of the balcony, watching fish jump, listening to the sounds of the marsh.

The hostess, a middle-aged woman in jeans and a sweater, showed Sanchez to a table along the railing, but close enough to the screened porch so that he could see the large group of customers on the right side. Red had referred to them as “the real terrorists.” They looked like locals and tourists to him. Were the ghosts inside of them?

Assume nothing is what it appears to be,
Delaney had texted him moments before Maddie had located him earlier today.
Stay with it. And send vid from the café.

The group on the right was loud and boisterous and a couple of the men kept waving the waitresses over, shouting for more beer, more wine, more warm bread, more salads, more, more, more. They ate and drank like gluttons.

He surreptitiously snapped a couple of photos of the group, e-mailed them to Delaney, then to Nicole just for safekeeping. He brought one of them up, enlarged it. With the porch screen between him and the group, the photo lacked the detail he wanted. But the smaller torches inside the porch illuminated the area in a strange, pumpkin-colored light. Pale orbs floated in the air around the group. They looked like water droplets, but the lens on the BlackBerry was dry. Light leaks? Not likely. He glanced up, but didn’t see anything in the air that resembled the orbs in the photo.

He pressed the video button, then stretched his arms above his head, a guy working the kinks out of his back, the BlackBerry cupped and hidden in his right hand. Ten seconds, fifteen, thirty. He lowered his arm, viewed the video. It had captured the balls of light, too. He e-mailed this to Delaney, with a note:
Any idea what these orbs are?

Sanchez thought he might be able to get better photos if he went inside to use the restroom. Just as he was about to stand, an attractive blond waitress came over to take his order. Her nametag read
KATE.
“What can I get you to drink, sir?”

“A Corona. And I’ll take the salmon Caesar salad.”

“Great choice. I’ll bring your dog a bowl of water and some treats, too.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it. Excuse me, but I was wondering if you heard about the incident today with the woman rescued by the dolphins?”

She looked wary. “Uh, yeah. Who hasn’t heard about it?”

“What happened exactly?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you know who the woman was?”

“Why?”

“I’m a freelance journalist,” he lied. “I’d love to interview her.”

“Her name’s Maddie Livingston. I used to work with her.”

“Do you know how I can get in touch with her?”

“She works over at the Island Hotel, at the front desk.” Then she scribbled something on her order pad, tore it off, and set it on the table. “Be back with your drink in a minute.”