The Skinwalker Conspiracies - 02 (9 page)

That wasn’t good. This guy’s aura was stronger than Taney’s. Hell, he might’ve been in Poe’s league. Good thing I was too! I charged while scooping a pair of cloth baggies filled with iron filings out of my pockets – my ghost fighting equivalent of brass knuckles.

The attacker swept his hand, trying to shoo me away like a fly and I definitely felt something. It was like brushing up against an electric fence – with my teeth. Every car alarm in the parking lot was going off now. The noise was everywhere.

Apparently, he was surprised that his little stunt didn’t hurt me worse or send me flying. I did notice that my hands were glowing brighter than normal. The combination of iron and my powers must have absorbed some of his attack. Part of his power was now mine and I was more than happy to return it to him in a second.

He threw Amos at me, but I sidestepped out of the way. Amos Sweet was in a bad way. I didn’t even spare him a glance and focused on punching.

“Get out of here Amos!” He’d just end up destroyed if he lingered.

The ghost was strong, but not prepared for close combat. Between my wrestling skills, Donnie’s lessons, and my army training, I was off to a quick start. My opponent seemed like he had skills, but was very rusty. He clearly wasn’t used to someone standing up to his first attacks. I got him with a left hook that staggered him and followed with a right to the gut. For some reason I was reminded of the old boxing game that Jimmy Wilkes had on his Nintendo – maybe it was because the guy reminded me of the first guy you had to fight.

Problem was, he was soaking up the damage. He rolled with my next set of blows and got enough distance between the two of us to do his wave thing again. This time, I brought my arms in front and focused on blocking it. It still hurt, but I was right. My defense stopped even more of it this time. This infuriated him. He pounced on me filled with berserker rage.

“What kind of Skinwalker are you? How many souls did Travis sell to get you here?”

Blocking his flailing arms was tough. Were he still living, I’d be surprised if he weighed one sixty-five, but it felt like I was sparring with Don Hodges’ two fifty plus frame.

He knocked me backwards. I used the momentum to whip around and club him with a spinning backfist. I’d never hit anything other than a punching bag that hard. It was like hitting a cinderblock. Pain shot all the way up my arm to my shoulder and I was sure that I’d snapped my wrist.

Clutching it, I saw that I wasn’t the only one who was feeling the pain. The ghost was sprawled on all fours and trying to get up. I delivered a pair of kicks to his side, intending to keep him there.

He caught my third kick and pulled me down. The look on his face was crazed and I felt the air crackling with energy. He was going to do that lightning thing again. That scared me, but not as much as the fire building inside me. My body reacts badly to massive amounts of ghostly energy.

The first bolt hit. It was like doing a belly flop onto that aforementioned electric fence. I thrashed in agony, but didn’t pass out.

The cleansing power in me was building and my chest was on fire. I fumbled with the plastic container on my necklace. The nitro pill came out and I got it into my mouth. It was time to see if it was going to save me. With a little prayer, I slid it under my tongue.

Using my remaining focus, I pushed the power out through my arms at the deranged ghost. It left me as the ghost called his second bolt and the world exploded.

There was a split second of weightlessness, followed by me slamming into the ground. The wrist felt better. Actually, it was just the rest of my body catching up to the pain there.

I took stock of my situation. I was still alive and mostly conscious. That counted for something. My heartbeat pounded in my head, but I was grateful to still have both the head and heartbeat.

About twenty feet from me, I saw the outline of the ghost. Holy shit! He’d survived! He looked about as good as I felt. His aura was dim and flickering. It explained why Cassandra avoided Dallas.

Finding the energy to stand, I made my way over to him.

He glared at me and said,
“So, it’s you, Governor. You came back to finally finish me after all these years?”

“I’m not a Governor. I’m not a Skinwalker and I have no idea who Travis is. My name is Mike Ross and I’m a Ferryman. I’m looking for a Skinwalker. Her name is Cassandra Von Eckels.”

The man stared in surprise.
“You’re not dead?”

“Not yet, don’t plan on dying anytime soon, but I’ve got a score to settle with her.”

“Eckels? I’ve heard of her. Almost killed her once, but she’s a slippery one. Last I heard she’s south of here, down around Killeen.”

Despite the fact he’d almost killed me, we had a common enemy. “Why’d you attack Amos?”

“He’s a ghost,”
the ghost answered, as if it made sense.

“Well … yeah, but I’m guessing you’re the head of the ghosts in Dallas.”

“I’m the only ghost in Dallas.”

“Really?” Things started to get interesting.

“Yes. I get rid of any others.”

The rain was starting to let up and I didn’t want to be seen talking to myself in the parking lot of a loony bin. That couldn’t possibly end well.

I pulled the ghost to his feet and said, “Let’s get in my car. We can talk there.”

Out of the rain, I realized that I was drenched. Hopefully the upholstery in Pastor Duncan’s Caddy wouldn’t need replacing by the time my little adventure ended.

The ghost was a white guy, short curly hair, about my size, but skinnier. We both looked like hell.

“Alright, why do you destroy all the other ghosts?”

“They could become Skinwalkers.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “But they need to figure out how to do it first.”

“You can’t give them a chance!”

His outburst caused the car’s horn to beep and the wiper blades to jump halfway up the windshield. Here I thought I had an ax to grind. Suddenly, this guy didn’t seem so friendly. “So, who is that Governor guy, you were talking about?”

“He’s the Skinwalker I’m after. Ancient sonnuvabitch. I almost got him about fifteen years ago, but he got away. I wasn’t strong enough to kill him, then. I’ve killed dozens of others since, but I haven’t been able to find him again.”

“How about Travis?”

“You don’t know much history do you?”
He asked.

I resented that. “I’m okay, but tell me what I don’t know.”

“Obviously you don’t know crap about Texas history. William Travis? The Alamo? Ring a bell?”

“I know Crockett and Bowie.”

“Yeah, that’s what all the tourists remember. Part of the reason he’s such a bastard. He was the real commander at the Alamo. He runs South Texas. Every now and then, he sends some of his boys up here to test me. He wants to expand this way, but he won’t while I’m around. Most of them run home to their anchors, like your little friend did. The ones that are too stupid to do that, I destroy.”

Yeah, that meant Amos was back in Gettysburg. I was without his services for a time.

While I was thinking about that, the ghost continued,
“I swing by the mental hospitals looking for Skinwalkers after I search the graveyards. I thought your ghost was one looking for a body.”

“Not all ghosts are interested in becoming a Skinwalker. Trust me; I’ve met more than a few.”

“You can never trust a ghost,”
he replied. I ignored the irony of his statement.

“Eckels and Travis must have had dealings,” I said drawing a logical conclusion.

“Oh, you better believe that.”

“Her last host was in that building. She thinks I should look in Amarillo.”

“Travis would probably know for certain. He’s probably still her supplier. He might even know where the Governor is.”

“Yeah maybe.” I paused to think it over. This dude was all kinds of powerful and Virginia did say I should gather allies. “What do you propose?”

“Travis is nowhere near as strong as either of us, but he surrounds himself with numbers … large numbers. Together, we could take him.”

“You seriously want to attack the Alamo?” My bad idea alarm went off. I’d already wrecked one historical monument in my short Ferryman career. Quite honestly, no one outside of Maryland gave a rat’s ass about the Roger B. Taney and Francis Scott Key museum. It was barely filler on a slow news day. Something told me that if the Alamo ended up in rubble, people wouldn’t look the other way.

“If necessary, but we should try to lure his men out and get him alone,”
the ghost said. I wasn’t certain I liked the gleam in his semi-translucent eyes.

“Let’s take things slowly. I don’t even know your name yet,” I added. After being burned by Donnie, I wouldn’t jump into something headfirst.

The ghost shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“Man, Ross, you don’t know shit about history, do you?”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Who the hell are you?”

He threw his head back and laughed.
“I’m the one and only Lee Oswald.”

“You mean Lee Harvey Oswald?” Okay, I didn’t see that one coming. Despite all I’d been through, there were still things that could shock me.

“Never really cared for my middle name, but everyone insists on using it. Now that you know who I am, I’ll give you three shots to guess why I hate Skinwalkers.”

I vaguely recalled the lovely, and unfortunately attached, Jenny Goodman tell me that I could use my powers to uncover all sorts of juicy tidbits about conspiracies. At the time, I’d laughed her off. Yet, there I was sitting in my car with the answer to the “mac daddy” of all conspiracies.

“So, you really didn’t kill Kennedy?”

“My body pulled the trigger, but it was the Governor aiming the rifle. I was a pretty good shot and probably could have made it, but he was better. Also, I doubted he trusted me. Originally, he planned to kill both Kennedy and his wife, but he hesitated. I’m not sure why.”

I didn’t know what to make of that, so I just tried to concentrate on learning more. “Okay, why did this Governor Skinwalker guy want Kennedy dead?”

“Cuba. He had friends in Cuba. His title of Governor comes from when he was the actual governor of Spanish Cuba. After the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis, his friends there called in a favor to remind the puppet masters in Washington to mind their own business.”

“And you went along with it because you were Pro-Castro. So is Castro a Skinwalker, too?” My head throbbed, both from the battle and now this. It was an occupational hazard.

“I am not sure. If I had to guess, I would say yes - probably another conquistador. The man’s been in charge there for a really long time.”

“Let’s get back to the Governor,” I said. Oswald was easily distracted. Considering he kills every ghost he finds, he must be starved for conversation.

“Yeah, the Governor is a sly one. He built me up and told me how much power I would have and the hero I could become. In the end, he abandoned me to my fate before I had even left the building. That’s when I realized that I really was a patsy. When it looked like I might get away, he tried to possess me again, but whatever happened during the assassination left him low on energy, and I was able to kick him out of my body. That’s when he possessed that cop and tried to take me in, except he forgot that I still had the revolver.”