Page 18 of Bad Medicine

“I don’t know anything abouthim either,” I told them, as I’d told them a dozen times already. “And hehasn’t given me his last name. He’s the council’s man, and they’re…different.For all I know he doesn’t even have a last name.”

“You think he’s a wizard,” Maxaccused.

I gaped at him. “How do youknow that?”

Then Jeff came back into theroom pushing a small cart loaded with coffee, cream, sugar, and cookies. Iwasn’t turning that down. By the time we’d finished our snack, his husbandArnold had arrived, darkness fell, and their nightly visitor swept through thehouse like a wailing wind, her tears as cold and sad as a bleak winter rain.

Chapter Nine

For a few seconds, we all stoodstaring silently at each other. Joe could hear her; Max could not.

Joe grinned, though it was asickly sort of grin in the midst of all the heartrending howling. “His brain isa computer. There’s no room for mystical shit.”

“You see,” Jeff told me, “whatwe have to put up with?”

Arnold held up a long finger.“She’ll enter the room in a few minutes. Will you be able to see her?”

“Yes,” I replied, but I didn’twant to wait for her to enter the room. I started walking toward the archeddoorway. “Do you mind if I…?”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Jeffsaid. “Do what you need to do to shut her up.”

“Just help her if you can,”Arnold said, apparently the kinder of the two. “She sounds agonized.”

“She’s agonizing,” Jeffretorted.

“Want me to come with you?” Maxcalled, as I hurried from the room.

But I was following the voiceof a ghost who did indeed sound agonized, and I didn’t answer. I didn’t needcompany. I’d buckled on my belts and sheaths before I’d left the car. I’d puton my big-pocketed jacket as well, and everything I’d need was either in thosepockets or strapped around my body. I had a spirit trap with me, just in case.

Some spirits were malevolentand didn’t want to leave. Some were trapped and couldn’t leave. And some werejust trying to figure something out before they would—or could—leave the housein which their trauma had happened. From the sound of her pain, this spirit hadexperienced a whole hell of a lot of trauma.

I found her in the upstairsmaster bedroom. She crouched near the corner, her forehead pressed against thewall, and she wailed. I knelt beside her. “Hey. Hey there.”

She was young, maybe nineteenor twenty when she’d died, with huge dark eyes, curly black hair, and a vividring of red bruises around her slender throat. She stopped mid-wail and jerkedher head around to look at me, and though she saw that I was looking directlyat her, it still took her a few long seconds before she really understood.

“Hi,” I said. “I’ve come tohelp you. Tell me your story.”

She gazed at me for a minutelonger before finally putting her stare back on the blank wall. “I can’t leavewithout him,” she whispered. “It’s been a long time. I just appear here, overand over and over, stuck in this loop. No one could hear me when I tried totell them, to beg them to get him out of there. He woke up and tried to get out,but he was too weak and the wall was too strong. On the other side of this wallare furrows where he tried to dig his way out. I was there, but he couldn’thear me. I started crying then and I haven’t stopped.” She looked at me then,and there was a depth of pain in her eyes I could barely stand to look at. “Ican’t stop. Get him out.”

I didn’t know why things workedthe way they did. I didn’t know why the spirit of the male behind the wallcouldn’t communicate with the spirit at my side. But I knew why she remained.

She needed someone to see him.

“Who did this to you?” I askedher. “Did the same person kill you both?”

“My father. He killed me, andhe waited for Joshua. I’m behind this wall, too, but I was already dead when heput me there.”

“Your…” I closed my eyes andtook a deep breath. “Your father.”

She gave me a sad smile. “GetJoshua out of there.”

“I’ll get you both out. But youknow what? Joshua has already crossed over. When you’re free, maybe—”

She finished my sentence. “MaybeI can go find him.” She stood and drifted to the middle of the room. “Thisworld can be a dangerous place. I’ll be glad to go somewhere better.”

“Your father. Is he stillliving?”

“He died six months ago.”