Pennies for the Ferryman - 01 (39 page)

I started to head back towards my bathroom, but stopped and went back to the telephone. For a minute, I tried to compose an official sounding statement to the effect that Don Hodges met an unfortunate end after failing to possess a Ferryman. However, my normally biting sarcasm was as pummeled as the rest of my body, so I figured to hell with it and picked up the receiver. Hitting redial, I opted to let Cassandra have the first words.

“Don? What the hell? Why haven’t you left yet? You’d better get your ass up here now!” Cassandra’s voice was shrill and nagging.

“Sorry Cassandra, Don won’t be going anywhere with my body. In fact, he won’t be going anywhere ever again.”

There was a moment of muted surprise before the ghost I’d known as Sonya Hodges responded, “So, you destroyed him. I thought he was ready…I guess I underestimated you Mike. You’re going to pay, though; I’d invested several years of effort on Don.”

“You want your payment, bitch? Come and get it. This is your one warning, Cassandra; I had no qualms putting Don down after what he did. I liked him; he was a friend. You, I never cared for. Don’t cross my path ever again, Skinwalker.” It was probably “tough” talk from a guy who’d spent the better part of the day getting his ass handed to him in one way or another, but I didn’t care.

She laughed at me, but I sensed a hint of fear in her tone. “Mike, I could cross your path all day long and you’d never know it. I’ve seen a
real
Ferryman in action. The way I hear it, you’ve got a long way to go. Besides, it’s not me you have to worry about – William is very much aware of you.”

“Maybe you should ask Don how far I have to go. As for your master, tell him to enjoy his prison. Baltimore isn’t in my travel plans anytime soon.”

“Oh, he’s waited all these years. I’m sure he can wait a bit longer. Besides, William isn’t my master. Until Don told me, I wouldn’t have connected you with William. It was just too much of an opportunity to pass up. However, William still has many followers and allies. You can bet they’ll be coming for you. I’ll definitely show up to watch. Sweet dreams, darling.”
 
 

I hung up the phone and looked at both my mom and Colonel Vincent. “She said Poe has other allies. I don’t suppose they’ll respect your the boundaries.”

“Mike, who were you talking to?”

“Another ghost. She was working with the one that was trying to kidnap me.”

“Poe? Like the writer? Mike, this makes no sense. You called a ghost? On the phone?”

“There’s a type of ghost that can possess the body of someone who’s still alive,” I explained. “This Cassandra I was talking to was Sonya Hodges, Don’s wife. The ghost that just did this to me was my former friend, Don. I’d love to tell you more and I will, but I really have to discuss this with Colonel Vincent, he’s the ghost operating the pen right now.”

The Colonel answered,
“No, they won’t respect boundaries and Justice Taney will make no effort to hinder them.”

“What can you do?”

He shook his head.
“As long as he controls my focus, I can only offer my assistance and perhaps not even that. My men will not move against him.”

I rubbed my aching head finding a new set of bruises. “So, Taney is an obstacle and you’re certain that he won’t lift a finger?”

Vincent drew himself upright still holding the pen and paper.
“When I approached you, it was to see if I could convince you to assist me in retrieving my anchor from Taney’s clutches. I sought only my freedom. In order to assist you, though, I must instead lead a coup and replace the Lord Justice. I have a trump card to play if you need any further reason to act against Justice Taney.”

“Go ahead, a guy who I trusted with my life just betrayed me, I’m guessing it can’t get much worse than that.”

Colonel Vincent sighed,
“From my perspective, it is. I will let you be the judge. Justice Taney assumes that because you have bested me on the field of battle that I loathe you. That is, of course, false. I am wary of what you could become, should you be slain, based on what I know of Poe and what I saw in Porter.”

I was perhaps a little rude, “I’m sorry to be abrupt and I know this is leading somewhere, but my head is killing me. Could you pick up the pace a little?”

“Very well, after learning your full name, Justice Taney made a discovery in his records and brought me into his confidence counting on the notion that I hated you.”

“What did he tell you?” Something warned me that this was going to be unpleasant.

“The Skinwalkers employed by Taney have other duties. They are active suppliers to the Body Market in Philadelphia.”

“What does this has to do with me?”

“It involved a particular transaction involving a fairly powerful body they acquired over a decade ago – a man named David Michael Ross, Senior.”

My world stopped.

How had I not seen it? Dad was part of the Poe bloodline as well! From what little I knew of Skinwalkers, their usual modus operandi was to sever all ties with the rightful owner’s family and skip town, taking whatever they could with them. It was a cold slap in the face and exactly how my father disappeared from my life.

He didn’t leave when I was just a kid. He was taken!

“Mike? Are you okay?” Mom sounded worried.

I ignored her. I needed the whole story. “What did Taney say to you?” My anger was a tangible thing. Everyone in the room could feel it.

“He discovered this and told me that should you prove to be an asset, he would offer this information to you along with possibility of locating and recovering your father, provided it would benefit his organization.”

Vincent was right. I was ready to take the bastard out. “I’m in. We up the timetable and remove Taney now. What happens next?”

“The territory would be thrown into chaos, but I would control the largest contingent. I can spare a few of my men to watch over you and your mother.”

“Deal. What about Poe”

Vincent nodded,
“If we can not remove Taney, then we don’t have to worry about the threat from Baltimore. We will need to lure Justice Taney away from his sanctuary. If you propose a meeting to discuss Poe, he will come and likely bring the majority of his inner circle with him. Our assault must dispose of those that remain and destroy his anchor.”
 

“Is it his gavel?”

“I believe so.”
 
 

Mom, of course, was only getting half the conversation. “Michael,” she began sternly, “just what the hell is going on?”

It took a minute for me to compose myself. “He just said that these Skinwalkers possessed Dad just like this one did to me. I met one in Atlantic City. He’d been in somebody’s body for a decade.”

Karen Ross was a tough, grounded woman. People who know her always say how much grit she possesses. In my history of juvenile delinquency, I’d seen her irritated and angry. I thought I’d seen it all. Minutes before, she’d been crushed. Now that look in her eyes scared me.

Her voice was calm, but that was misleading. “I think you need to tell me everything.”

The predawn hours of Saturday March 17
^th
, ironically Taney’s birthday, found me near his home. The museum wasn’t open for tours until the beginning of April. I recruited a ghost from a local cemetery and convinced her to set up a meeting that I had no intention of attending. Meanwhile, I was once again tempting fate and trying to avoid a breaking and entering charge.

Rusty politely declined to come along and shut off the security system, going on at great length about losing his job and any future jobs if he got caught. I also saw that he was a little scared. Oddly enough, I didn’t need to worry too much about cutting the alarm wire; ghosts are pretty useful when it comes to mucking with electronics.

On the good news front, Chuck Candelmas came up with a gizmo made of PVC pipes that were filled with iron filings, attached to a little air charge, the same kind they use in paintball guns. I called it my ghost gun – deadly to the nearly departed, but not likely to get me busted for carrying a firearm. Mom, of all people, was my getaway driver. The family that committed crime together was the family that stayed together.

Vincent entered through the wall and was in the process of disrupting the security panel while I attacked the back door. My lock picking skills were rusty.

Okay, that was a bad pun.

Either way, I managed to get in the door after a minute. Inside, I heard Vincent’s booming voice.
“For the last time, where is Lord Justice?”

“He’s not here, Vincent. Go be pompous somewhere else.”

“Lord Justice left just the two of you here. That’s all?”

Subtle Colonel – very subtle. Stepping into the room with my sword in one hand and Chuck’s invention in the other, I waited until Vincent sunk into the floor before triggering the air charge. The cloud of iron dust was like a blast from a shotgun. It caught one of them, slicing through him. The other ghost faded into an old fashioned ice box, trying to protect himself.

The thrashing ghost was easy enough to finish off. The second one popped his head out of the icebox which gave me the opportunity to hit him with the second cylinder of filings – it wasn’t pretty.

“Where’s your focus?”

“There’s a locked display case in the hallway. The keys are in this drawer.”

A minute later the old leather riding crop was on its way to my mom’s car. I used the keys on the display box that held Taney’s gavel.

The lock clicked and I removed the lid. Reaching in, I grasped the gavel. Something was wrong. This didn’t feel right. Unlike any other focus I’d held, I couldn’t feel any energy – it felt like a lifeless hunk of wood. I cursed myself for leaving my brass divining rods out in the car. It was another setback.

“What are you waiting for? Destroy it! We don’t have much time.”
Vincent demanded running back through the wall.

A menacing voice interrupted us,
“Yes, by all means, destroy it Mr. Ross.”

I turned to face Roger Taney, dropping the useless gavel back into the case – so much for doing this the easy way, but it saved me a trip back to the car.

The grizzled looking specter stared at the two of us with disdain.
“I find myself at a loss to explain the scene before me. Would you care to enlighten me?”

I pulled out my pipe wrench, recalling how Eva had thwarted Vincent’s blade once before, but drew the blade as a secondary weapon. Vincent growled,
“While I lived, I idolized you and was duped into servitude. I will serve you no longer!”

Taney was unconcerned at Vincent’s blade waving angrily.
“Oh, so this is a resignation. That explains your traitorous actions, Colonel, but what of Mr. Ross?”

“David Michael Ross, Senior.”

Taney’s eyes narrowed.
“Well played young Vincent. I salute your cunning. I want you to understand that before I unleash my full wrath upon you. As for you, Ferryman, it seems I shall be making a deal of my own with the caged beast of Baltimore. You dare to stand in the middle of my domain and threaten me?”

Throwing caution to the wind, Vincent lunged at Taney, stabbing with his saber. The blade never found its mark, impacting instead against a flaring shield of energy surrounding Taney. Almost lazily, Lord Justice snapped his hand out and a wave of energy blew Vincent through the wall and filled the room with the roar of gale force winds. I struggled towards him as books pelted me with unerring accuracy. My iron dust was useless in this psychic maelstrom. A gesture from his hand and a knife lifted from the counter and headed straight for me.