Tangled Souls (3 page)

“So what’s different? You used to enjoy doing Light work,” Viv said, a serious note to her voice.

“It used to be easy. You’d show them the next stop and off they’d go. No problems.”

“And now?” her friend prompted.

“I have a six-year-old boy, and he won’t go anywhere until he sees his dog one last time.”

“Sounds like a reasonable request.”

Gavenia shook her head. “They’re getting harder each time.”

“You thought they’d always be easy?” Viv asked, deftly wrapping the incense in newspaper and securing the bundles with a Crystal Horizons sticker.

“There’s so much I don’t understand,” Gavenia responded. She still wasn’t being totally candid, even with Viv. Most folks didn’t know about her ability, and those who did couldn’t fathom the personal toll she paid for the ability to commune with the dead.

Some thought the souls just showed up every now and then, like uninvited house guests. They were everywhere: in the supermarket, standing in line at the post office, reading a book on a park bench, at the gas station. Some had crossed over and made the return journey, no doubt on some quest to aid a loved one or a friend. Others had never crossed, but remained on the temporal plane, stuck for whatever reason. Bartholomew Quickens, her ethereal Guardian, said her job as a Shepherd would get better over time. She didn’t believe him.

“Isn’t Bart supposed to help you?” asked Viv, one of the few who knew of his existence.

Gavenia’s eyes swept the store;
he
wasn’t present, no doubt figuring she couldn’t get into much trouble while inside the shop
.
Viv handed her a cup of hot tea without asking if she wanted any, and the lush scent reached Gavenia’s nose in an instant.

“It’s Moonbeam,” she exclaimed. Moonbeam tea was one of her personal addictions, like fresh-baked cinnamon rolls and ice cream.

“I got Branwen over at Earth, Wind, and Fire to let me brew it here, providing I rebate a certain amount for each sale.”

Gavenia grinned. “She can be as mercenary as you are.”

“Worse.”

As she inhaled the tea’s aroma, allowing them to calm her mind, she belatedly remembered her friend’s question. “No, Bart’s not helping. He’s pretty mum about things right now.”

“So what’s the plan?” Viv always had a plan, whether it was for the business or for her life.

“You know me, I don’t have one.”

“Then it’s time you get one,” was the swift reply.

Gavenia shrugged.

“Okay, then, if you could have anything, what do you really want?” Viv shot back.

Gavenia blinked in response. She’d not expected an inquisition during a routine incense run. Agitated, she downed the remainder of the tea in one big gulp. Regret crept through her for not having savored it for as long as possible.

“Someday I want
the Head Office
”—she paused and pointed upward—“to show me a copy of the script so I know what I’m supposed to do with my life.”

Viv leaned over the counter. “You’ve been looking for your purpose
,
as you call it, for as long as I’ve known you. Have you ever thought that maybe you’ve already found it?”

Gavenia shrugged again, unwilling to commit to the idea. It sounded too easy.

“How much for the incense and the tea?”

Her friend took the hint and rang up the sale, dutifully deducting the Craft discount reserved for those who were genuine practitioners.

“Thanks, Viv,” Gavenia said, handing over the cash. She glanced at her watch—two and a half hours before her sister’s flight landed at LAX—and headed for the door, wishing she had time for another cup of tea.

“Bright blessings,” Viv called, “and good luck.”

“Thanks!”

The triple chime heralded Gavenia’s reentry into the real world—the dirty streets, the graying sky. More rain was forecast, and that might delay Ari’s plane.

“Another problem,” she muttered. As she passed the shelter on the way to the car, she dropped coins into the foam coffee cups of three scruffy bums, whispering blessings as she did.

“Thanks, lady,” one said. Their eyes met, and Gavenia glimpsed the humanity buried beneath the urban grime. Unsettled, she hurried down the street. Did she really want to read her life’s script? What if the final scene found her living on a piece of discarded cardboard, clad in tattered clothes, begging for change?

“Goddess forbid,” she whispered, and fumbled for her car keys.

* * *

O’Fallon leaned against the dirty, pockmarked wall to catch his breath as rivulets of sweat ran down his back, sticking his tan shirt to his skin. He was in a surly mood after the unexpected six-story hike from the hotel lobby. A tattered notice stuck to the elevator had announced its demise, and added to the note were misspelled obscenities, no doubt penned by the patrons of this half-star hotel in a futile attempt to vent their frustration. O’Fallon was less inclined to be poetic—a call to a building-inspector buddy was already on tomorrow’s agenda.

The hallway was dimly lit,
every other bare bulb illuminated, with cobwebs hanging from them in streaming gray trails like dusty curtains. A dark-brown mouse nosed its way down the hall, threading a path through the debris on the floor. It paused for a moment as if scenting danger and then continued to maneuver through the rubbish.

While making a mental note to get more exercise, O’Fallon mopped his forehead with a limp handkerchief. He’d been in fairly good shape when he’d been on the force, but the PI lifestyle hadn’t proven to be so healthy with its late night stakeouts and too much fast food. It’d been bad enough when he’d been a cop.

While he waited for his heart rate to calm, he realized the hotel should be bustling with all sorts of illicit activity—dopers and winos and a few down-on-their-luck prostitutes working the halls. Instead, it was unusually quiet.

O’Fallon fished the tarnished brass room key out of his jacket pocket. That key had cost him a ten spot, and he’d still needed to bully the manager to get it. As he paused in front of the room denoted by the tattered crime-scene tape, it was easy to imagine the scene on the day Benjamin Callendar’s body had been found. A couple of uniformed cops would have kept the curious at bay while the homicide detectives interviewed the tenants and traded dark humor. A suicide in a dive like the Hotel LeClaire didn’t make for a compelling case, despite the fact that the kid was too middle-class to be here.

He slipped the key in, but before he could turn it the door fell open, the lock broken. He muttered an oath for the wasted ten bucks.

O’Fallon hesitated at the threshold and dug into an inner pocket to retrieve his rosary, his armor against that which was not of this world. He clutched it in his right hand and, after whispering a short prayer, he edged into the room. His pulse pounded in his neck. A streetlight cast a thin trail through a grimy window, one of its panes broken, the edge of the ragged glass glowing from the faint illumination. The buzzing whine of a mosquito echoed near O’Fallon’s ear and he swatted at the insect in irritation.

A flick of the light switch yielded a harsh glow that did nothing to mitigate the squalidness of the surroundings. O’Fallon’s eyes glanced around the room, taking inventory out of habit. The drapes were threadbare, the carpet of questionable pedigree, and a scratched table sat near the window. A dilapidated wooden chair was only inches away from the lumpy twin bed. His eyes settled on the tightly braided white rope and followed it from the ceiling down to where it had been severed, no doubt to remove the body. The chair sat beneath it, tiny bits of plaster flecked on the seat and the carpet beneath. The remnants of a shoe print remained, visible testimony to the victim’s last moments.

He stepped closer and reached out his hand to touch the chair, the contact like a bolt of lightning through his body. O’Fallon felt the vision coming, though he had no real name for what would encompass him. Sweat sprang to his forehead and his temples pounded in time with his heart. His head burned, on fire from within. Vision and hearing collapsed, tunneling inward as if he were sitting in a darkened movie theater. He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to let go. To fight it meant failure.

He was entirely vulnerable during these moments, and that frightened him witless. As with a seizure, there was no control, no sense of what was happening around him, only the grand movie playing in his head. He saw images, heard voices, sounds on a scale that made a pin drop exquisitely painful. The film was not whole, but sliced into fragments and then thrown high into the air as if by a capricious child. He only saw the bits that floated by his eyes, and they were pitifully few. The rest streamed toward the dark cutting-room floor, untouched by his gift.

He’d never been able to explain it, even to another psychic, for the vision process seemed to be unique for each seer. Some came by the gift in a series of gradual revelations, each vision building on the next. Others hit the wall, hard. His had been the latter, the Morelli crime scene the trigger. He’d seen what no man was meant to see—the torture, violation, and slaughter of two innocents; the fragments in vivid color, no intimate detail spared. That was the hell of his gift, his curse.

As O’Fallon’s mind grew dark, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, hoping he’d be less likely to fall that way. The first piece drifted by: murmured prayers for forgiveness. He saw the powder-blue eyes of the deceased, heard Hail Marys, and smelled greasy pizza. He felt the man’s remorse, how he knew he would never grow old, never see his family again. Icy fear gripped O’Fallon’s heart as voices tumbled over each other, calling the dead man’s name.

He saw a flashing image of a rosary, intricately carved and of considerable age, clasped in pale, shaking hands. Then he saw Benjamin’s face—tears washing down reddened cheeks, a thick strip of white at the neck.

O’Fallon struggled to pull himself away from what was to come, knowing that if he remained he’d share the victim’s moment of death. He heard the protesting groan of the ceiling beam and then nothing. Mercifully, he’d been spared that final agony. A cold wind blew through him, chilling him to the marrow, as the screen went black. Silence enfolded him as he lost his ability to stand.

O’Fallon found himself on his knees, shivering intensely, his forehead nearly touching the muddy brown carpet. He shook his head, and a spray of sweat flew in an arc. A wizened face appeared within his field of vision, accompanied by strong, alcohol-laden breath.

“I thought I had it bad,” the man said, his voice full of boozy concern. He offered a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. Without hesitation, O’Fallon took a swig and let the liquor burn down into his gut.

“Thanks,” he said, handing back the bag. He looked into the old man’s jaundiced eyes and felt reassured. This one wasn’t a crazy.

“You okay now?” the wino asked, taking his own pull from the bottle.

“Yeah.” His actions said otherwise: he rose unsteadily, using the wall for support.

The old man stood as well, his knees creaking. He gazed upward at the severed rope, and sadness came to his worn face.

“I’m sorry he’s dead,” he said, and shuffled into the hallway.

His words reverberated within O’Fallon’s hazy brain. The old man seemed to care about what had happened in this room, and that might be a place to start. O’Fallon stared at the rope for a few moments more and then crossed himself, the final tribute of one member of his faith to another.

“
Kyrie eleison
, Benjamin,” he intoned. “May God have mercy on your soul.”