King of the Dead (Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) (11 page)

Still, getting glared at never hurt anyone that I know of and most ghosts can’t pull enough energy out of the air around them to impact the physical world, so I wasn’t too concerned. Angry ghosts are often like angry people; sometimes it’s just best to ignore them and hope they go away. So that’s what I resolved to do. I closed my eyes and settled in to wait for Denise to finish examining the patients in the next room.

Until the couch skidded three feet across the room.

“Quit screwing around, Hunt,” Dmitri said.

“I’d be happy to,” I told him, “except I’m not doing anything.”

They had my attention now, that was for sure; any ghost strong enough to move a physical object of that size and weight was capable of causing significant harm if it chose to. Since I was already the focus of their attention, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out whom they might want to take their destructive tendencies out on, either.

One look with my ghostsight was all it took to confirm that I was in trouble. The ghosts had started to manifest around me, taking physical form. I knew it wouldn’t be long before even Dmitri could see them. Because ghosts tend to fade with time, growing fuzzy around the edges at first and then devolving into formless shapes of light and shadow, I knew this group had been around for a while. They no longer retained their features or individual characteristics and appeared more like gleaming negatives of a person rather than the real thing. Their auras, though, were thick and black, the color of anger, and if there is any emotion more suited to channeling power, I don’t know what it is.

Even as they swam into view, a wind kicked up, swirling around the room like some kind of miniature cyclone. The chair Dmitri was sitting in began to spin lazily on its axis and the television set in the corner was flung violently across the room to shatter against the opposite wall, all without anyone touching it.

“Do something, Hunt!” I heard Dmitri yell.

I knew it was only going to get worse before it got better; that’s how these things always work.

No way was I going to sit still and let them have their fun. Call me heartless, but right then all I cared about was protecting our hides. If what I did sent them on their way sooner than they wanted, well, tough luck.

The tune was already forming in my mind as I pulled my harmonica out of my pocket and put it to my lips. One long discordant note got their attention; they pulled up short and stared at me with their dead eyes.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

The couch lifted off the floor a good three feet and slammed down again, sending me sprawling. I held on to my harmonica though, and the minute I hit the ground I was playing for all I was worth, a swirling melody that danced to and fro like the devil on a hot summer night in a glade full of witches.

Okay, not quite that actively, but you get the idea. The ghosts couldn’t ignore it either; the music caught them up and sped them along with the melody, until they were swirling around the room in a mad dance, forcing them to use their energy to stay on this plane instead of tossing it about the room like angry little children. Now it was just a question of who would tire first, them or me.

Thankfully they had expended most of their energy in the initial onslaught and so it didn’t take long for me to leech the energy from them and stop the manifestations. As they faded away, the charged atmosphere in the room did so as well, until all the anger and misery that they’d called up with them slipped away into nothingness.

Quiet descended.

Into the silence, Dmitri asked, “What did you do to piss them off, Hunt?”

I had no idea.

As it turned out, it really didn’t matter.

Angry ghosts were the least of our troubles.

15

HUNT

We did what we could to put the room back to rights and sat around a bit longer, waiting for the others. Eventually Gallagher sent word that their examinations of the patients were going to take much longer than expected and had one of his people show us to our rooms in the building next door. Our luggage had been delivered there earlier by another of Gallagher’s men. Dmitri and I shared a pizza for dinner and then called it a night.

The next morning I found Clearwater already up and eating breakfast when I entered the kitchen just after seven. Dmitri was with her, which saved me the trouble of having to track him down as well.

“Good morning,” he said, as I pulled out a chair and settled down at the table between them.

“What’s so good about it?” I replied.

He laughed. “We’re not serving life sentences for homicide yet, for one.”

Leave it to Dmitri to get right to the heart of things.

I wasn’t in the mood for cheery optimism though, and only grunted back at him in reply. I hadn’t yet eaten, but the smell of bacon and eggs was making my stomach churn. I was irritable and more than a bit anxious as a result.

The night had not gone well. I’d awoken several times with my heart pounding and that sense of doom I’d felt as we’d entered the city hanging over me like a cliff about to fall on my head. Even now I could feel that pressure pushing at the edge of my thoughts …

Relax, I told myself.
There’s still time to get out of here. All you need to do is convince them to go with you. That shouldn’t be too hard.

“I need to talk to you both,” I said to them.

“So talk,” Denise replied, her fork clicking against her teeth as she took another bite of her omelet.

I shuffled uncomfortably in my chair. I didn’t think she was going to like what I had to say next, but it needed to be said. I thought about calling up a ghost in order to borrow its eyesight, just so I could see her face as we talked, and then decided against it. Maybe I was better off staying in the dark for this one.

As she waited expectantly, I debated just how to say what I needed to say. I finally decided that straight out was my best option.

“We need to figure out where we’re going and then get back on the road. Being here isn’t safe for us.”

There was a moment of silence.

Dmitri cleared his throat and started to say something but Denise cut him off.

“You want to … leave? Now?”

She didn’t sound as angry as I’d expected her to be and so I pressed on, figuring this was my chance to show her the logic behind my decision.

“Yeah, I do. We all should, in fact. Big cities are dangerous for us, you know that. There’s too much potential for being seen, for being recognized. We should stick to the smaller towns and communities where there’s less of a chance of running into a cop on every street corner.”

“What about the people here, Hunt?”

I shrugged. “What about them? They’re sick. So are hundreds of thousands of other people across the country.”

“And you don’t think we should be helping them?”

If I hadn’t been so damned eager to have her see my point of view I might have noticed the tightness in her voice, the way she sounded as if she was struggling to hold something back, but I rushed on, heedless, and missed the one clue I had that might have told me what was coming.

“I’d like to, sure,” I said, “but that’s just it. I can’t help them. Neither can Dmitri. Of the three of us, you’re the only one who can, but since they’ve got their own set of healers, I honestly don’t see why we should put ourselves in danger by staying.”

She wasn’t having any of it.

“I’m supposed to be here, Jeremiah.”

“Says who?” I countered.

“My vision.”

Just how was I supposed to answer that? It’s like being asked if you were still beating your wife. No matter what you said, you were screwed. On the one hand, if I told her that I believed in her vision, I was dooming us to remaining here for as long as she felt necessary. If I went the other direction and told her that I didn’t believe her vision actually meant anything, I was calling into question her entire belief system, which wouldn’t win me any points either.

Still, I gave it a shot.

“That’s not true, Denise, and you know it. Your vision showed you a city, that’s all.”

“A city I recognized as New Orleans.”

We needed to leave. I knew that right down to the very core of my being. If we stayed, something bad was going to happen. Why was it so hard for her to understand that our time here was done? Why didn’t she get it? I wanted to pound the table in frustration.

I tried to reason with her instead.

“If that’s the case, Denise, then where are the flames? Where is the raging fire that you told me about, the one that consumes everything around you?”

She didn’t say anything.

To drive home my point, I said, “Your vision showed you a city in flames, not one full of plague victims. These people are sick, Denise, but no one’s spontaneously combusting.”

Almost casually, Dmitri said, “Fire purifies. You root out an enemy; you burn out an infection. Maybe that’s what she saw.”

I could have killed him in that moment, but thankfully Denise waved away his comment. “I know what I saw, Hunt.”

“I don’t doubt it, Denise. I’m not questioning what you saw, simply how you’re interpreting it. If we’re going to go, we need to do it now, before it’s too late.”

I shook my head. “Besides, your friend Gallagher seems to have everything under control.”

The minute I said it I knew I shouldn’t have.

One offhanded remark.

That was all it took to turn the tide against me. The atmosphere in the room instantly changed. When Denise spoke, her voice was full of icy disdain.

“Oh, so that’s it?” she asked.

“That’s what?” I asked.

“You’re jealous.”

I recoiled as if bitten.

“I’m what?”

“Jealous. It’s got nothing at all to do with those people in there, does it? You just want to get us out of here because you’re jealous of my past relationship with Simon.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She’d had a relationship with Simon?

“Jealous? What the hell would I be jealous about?”

But she wasn’t listening anymore.

I heard her violently shove her chair back and felt her looming over me in anger.

“Feel free to leave, Hunt, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to help those people in any way that I can. Not because I’m getting something out of it, but because it’s the right thing to do!”

She stalked past me.

On her way out of the room she said over her shoulder, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Hunt.”

I sat there, at a loss for words.

What the hell had brought that on?

Me? Jealous?

At last, Dmitri spoke. “You can be a complete ass, you know that, Hunt?”

I glared at him. “Shut up and stay out of it.”

I heard him stand up.

“You’re probably right, Hunt. There probably isn’t much she can do for those people in there.”

I knew he was pointing over his shoulder toward the warehouse adjacent to Gallagher’s apartment.

“But the right thing to do is to try.”

He snorted.

“If you had an ounce of brains in that thick head of yours, you’d do the same. Stop being such a self-centered jackass, Hunt, and think about someone else for a change.”

He left me sitting there fuming.

16

ROBERTSON

The Bureau kept a number of Learjets in a hangar at Washington National, and it didn’t take long for Robertson to arrange to have one of them carry him and Agent Doherty on their fact-finding mission to Tennessee. The flight passed without incident, and it was just after three in the afternoon when they disembarked at the McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, obtained a rental car, and headed for the headquarters of the highway patrol district.

Much to Robertson’s surprise, Agent Doherty was not only a good driver but he knew when to keep his mouth shut and didn’t pester him with questions during the short trip. That was a good sign; maybe the kid would actually get somewhere inside the Bureau. He made a mental note to keep tabs on Doherty once the Reaper case was over.

They checked in with the desk sergeant, who informed them that Officer Hendricks was currently on patrol and it would take fifteen to twenty minutes for him to return to the district headquarters where they now were. The sergeant sent a young patrol officer to get them both coffee and then directed them to an interview room where they could wait for Officer Hendricks’s arrival.

It was closer to forty minutes by the time Officer Hendricks arrived. He entered the room with his hat in hand, curious why two federal agents had flown out specifically to see him. He was younger than Robertson had expected and there were several fading bruises on his face.

Robertson didn’t waste any time in getting down to business.

“Is this your report?” he asked, sliding a copy of it across the table to Hendricks.

The other man looked it over for a moment, then sighed dramatically. “Yeah, that’s mine.”

The senior agent frowned. “Something wrong, Officer Hendricks?”

The other man looked up and met his gaze, his expression full of resignation.

“I just knew that thing was gonna come back and bite me in the ass, that’s all. Shoulda kept my mouth shut.”

That attitude wasn’t going to help them at all, Robertson knew. He had to get the other man on their side as quickly as possible, and the best way to do that, it seemed, was to tell him the truth.

“On the contrary,” he said, “that’s the last thing you should have done. We’re not here to cause you any trouble, Officer. In fact, we believe you have information that might provide a break in a major investigation.”

Hendricks took a moment to digest what Robertson had said, then asked, “What investigation is that?”

Robertson saw no need to mince words. “The Reaper case.”

Hendricks’s eyes lit up upon hearing the name, but the special agent wasn’t finished.

“We believe the man you saw was Jeremiah Hunt, the principal suspect in that case. If it was, you’re frankly lucky to be alive, as he’s killed more than twenty people in the last ten years, including several police officers. I’m hoping there’s more to the incident than what you put in your report. Often it’s the little, seemingly insignificant details that make the difference in capturing animals like this guy. Understand?”