Dead Matter

3

It was funny how quickly a lovely evening could go straight to hell, all in a span of twenty minutes. The concrete and glass canyons of Manhattan zoomed outside the windows of our minivan cab. It sped along at a brisk pace, unlike the conversation between Jane and me. That had put on the brakes and skidded to a halt… possibly even spun out of control.

“You could have let it go to voice mail, Simon,” she protested, turning away with a flip of her ponytail. She wouldn’t look at me. Instead she pretended to busy herself smoothing her short black skirt over her long, lean legs. “We haven’t been actually out in weeks.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off with her finger pointing in my face.

“Taco Night does not count as ‘out,’ Simon. Especially when it starts off with a monster.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, flipping my phone shut and sliding it into the inside pocket of my leather half trench, “but duty calls. Even more so when it’s Inspectre Quimbley on the phone. It’s another graveyard call coming in. I have to check it out.”

Jane let out a sigh. Her adorable mouth puffed out into a full-on pout. She was playful, but I could tell she was still tweaked by the interruption.

“What if it had been Director Wesker calling?” I continued. “Are you telling me you would have ignored your boss?”

“Fine,” she said. She looked a little mischievous. “But you owe me.” She ran her finger down the front of my shirt.

“I know,” I conceded, trying to switch my mind from date mode to business mode. Her finger tracing its way down my body in the back of the cab wasn’t helping. I looked out the window and tapped on the partition between us and the driver. “Pull over here, please. Just through the light on the left.”

Jane leaned her head over to look out the window. “The Financial District?”

“Great for date night, I know,” I said. I slid a twenty through the window to the driver and got out of the cab before offering my hand to Jane. She took it despite being a little perturbed and let me help her out. To our right was the Port Authority station that now stood where the World Trade Center once had, but neither Jane nor I dared walk toward it. No one from the Department of Extraordinary Affairs went down to Ground Zero these days.

I turned to look at the building nearby as Jane grabbed her purse out of the cab. Trinity Church loomed dark and quiet in front of me, but it wasn’t the church itself I was here about. What I was looking for lay just inside the enormous wrought-iron fence that surrounded the church. I was looking at one of the oldest graveyards in the city and from within it, I could already make out a tornado of ghostly figures swarming up through the air. I felt like I was watching something straight out of The Haunted Mansion. I slid back the side of my coat, and pulled my retractable bat free.

“Drive away,” I told the cabbie. I flicked the switch on the side of my bat, causing it to shikt out to its full length. “Terribly fast.”

The cabbie looked to my bat and then took a look at the swirl of ghostly activity coming from just beyond the graveyard gates. He stepped on the gas and the cab screeched away, its door pulling free from Jane’s hand, slamming shut.

With all the Wall Street day traders and office jockeys in the area gone this time of night, it was as quiet as a crypt everywhere except, oddly, the series of crypts and graves before us. Jane flexed her hand and turned to check out the graveyard spectacle.

“Lovely,” she said. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

I forced a smile. “Nothing but the best for you.”

The two of us stepped forward, looking up at the dark gates of the churchyard. The ironwork rose up at least fifteen feet. Jagged spikes peaked each of the bars that formed the barrier.

“Up and over?” Jane suggested.

I shook my head. “I’m thinking we find a better way in. These are high enough and pointy enough that I’m not comfortable with the idea of trying to climb over them. At least not without giving myself an interesting piercing in the process.”

“Might be hot,” Jane said, giving me a wicked grin.

I gave an uncomfortable one back. “Or disfiguring.”

Rather than get into the finer points of damaging my junk, I shut my mouth, crossed the sidewalk, and edged along the outside of the graveyard until I came to an entrance around the next block that was closer to the main building of Trinity Church itself. The gates there were already pushed open with a person-sized gap in them. Without hesitation, I slid my way through into the cold darkness of the graveyard.

Jane grabbed my hand through the bars of the gate. “You’re going in with just your bat?” she asked.

I nodded.

She wrinkled her nose and looked uncomfortable. “I know I’m relatively new to this whole doing-good thing,” she said, “and I’m not part of your precious Other Division, but shouldn’t this be a job for Things That Go Bump in the Night? Aren’t they the ghost guys?”

I smiled and grabbed her hand, feeling the warmth of her skin in contrast against the late-March chill.

“I’m not just Other Division,” I said, squeezing it. “I’m also part of the Fraternal Order of Goodness. Both of those more than qualify me to check this out. Improvisation is our middle name.”

“Actually,” Jane said, “wouldn’t that make ‘Order’ your middle name?”

“Shush,” I said. I pushed the gate closed between us. “Technically, this was a direct request from the Inspectre.

That means I’m not supposed to involve other divisions. Just wait here, okay?”

Jane looked worried. “You know, the feminist in me really wants to smack you for that, but the rest of me is a little bit too terrified to care. Just be careful, all right?”

“Don’t worry,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “I’m just going to scope things out. Hell, I’d rather you come with me, if it wasn’t for all the paperwork. You saw all the Other Division and joint-venture paperwork I had to do for the monster attack last night.”

Jane nodded, but the look of concern in her eyes told me she was putting up a brave front. I was learning that getting closer to someone meant there was more freaking out to be had when danger crossed either of our paths.

“I’ll wait right here,” she said with conviction in her voice. She gave me a thumbs-up. “You know, to avoid all that paperwork.”

I turned away after giving her a final smile and concentrated on the graveyard. Despite the lights of New York City rising up all around us, most of the graveyard was hidden in the shadow of the church and all I could make out in the darkness was a flurry of activity about fifty feet away from me. A cool wind cut into me as I moved among the headstones with cautious steps, using my bat as a walking stick to help guide me. Moving closer to whatever was going on, my eyes began to adjust to the low light, and I almost wish they hadn’t. The ghostly activity I had seen from outside the graveyard was far more terrifying now that I was closer to it, the apparitions and specters looking far more solid up close. Numerous haunts in varying states of decay filled the center of the graveyard, all of them swarming around a lone shadowy figure pressed up against the side of one of the mausoleums. It looked like we had a live one. Who was this civilian and why wasn’t he running? The lifeless, rotting faces of the long-dead filled the air, and it was more than enough to get me shivering.

As spooked as I felt, I forced myself to put on a brave front. If there was one thing that those four sessions of Cool with Ghouls had taught me, it was that bold talk was a convincing substitute for actual bravado when it came to dealing with the formerly living.

I took a deep breath and tapped my bat on one of the sturdier-looking headstones. It rang out with a metallic clank that ground against the stone.

“Everybody back off the civilian,” I said with anger in my voice. “The cleanup crew is here.”

New patterns arose from the cloud of ghostly figures and a new energy seemed to fill the area. “Him,” a collective voice rang out from them.

I turned to look over at Jane back outside the gates. “They know me!” I said. I could barely contain my excitement. Pride swelled in my chest despite my case of frayed nerves. Clearly word had been getting out about me over the last few months since we nabbed cultist Cyrus Mandalay and shut down his paranormal freak show.

“This is a good thing… how?” Jane said, killing my short-lived sense of pride in an instant.

The cloudy swarm of ghosts turned toward me and started moving in my direction en masse. I stepped back, despite all the Arcana talismans and charms Jane had given me as presents. I was wearing enough of them to blend in at a Grateful Dead show. Jane might be convinced of their power to ward off most of these ghosts, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way if they worked or not. I backpedaled fast, but the floating apparitions were faster.

I waited for the sensation of one of them passing through me to hit, but it didn’t come. Three of the spirits rushed me, but something stopped them just short of touching the leather of my coat. Their inability to get closer frustrated them and although I was thankful for the protection, it made me feel a bit like the Bubble Boy.

“Ha!” I said, trying to avoid a fit of nervous laughter.

The agitation in the spirits grew more apparent as they continued to try to lunge toward me, but it was having no effect. Frustrated, two of the apparitions dashed off across the graveyard heading toward the church. Before following them, I snuck a peek over my shoulder to check on the civilian, but I couldn’t see the shadowy figure anywhere. I turned back to focus on my two apparitions.

“Hey,” I shouted after them, “I’m not done with you!”

And apparently they weren’t done with me, either. They rushed toward the church, both spirits diving forward through the air into two of the stone figures decorating the side of the church. Gargoyles. There was the sound of grinding stone that vibrated in my bones as the creatures came to life, a loud rocky crack filling the air as they tore free from the wall. They landed on the ground and stood themselves up. Their wingspan was twice as wide as my six-foot frame and they stood several feet taller than me. The gargoyles’ eyes were filled with a hellish red glow.

“No fair!” I shouted at the gargoyles.

My words had no effect. It did nothing to slow their pace as they started across the graveyard, their thick stone legs leaving several of the ancient grave markers toppled over in their wake as they advanced on me.

Still, as imposing as they were, I actually preferred them in this form than as ghosts. Solid creatures could be beaten on. I readied myself, hefting my bat up into swinging position. I only hoped that years of acid rain in New York City had taken its toll on the stonework to soften them up a bit for me. Either my bat would give or they would.

The creatures were huge, but their sheer weight slowed them considerably. I was able to run up on one of them, taking a few shots, then circling out of its reach while it swiped at me. With each swing I gave it my all, and with each swing I connected. Chips and shards of stone flew off the creatures, but they kept on advancing.

At this rate it would take me a solid week of fighting them to make any headway. There had to be another way. Backing away, I put as many gravestones between myself and them as I could. As impressive as they were in size, they had a hard time maneuvering around the sturdier gravestones. This didn’t matter much as they pushed their way past, crumbling most of them eventually, but it did slow them up a bit. That was something I could use to my advantage, if the ten minutes I had spent reading the departmental memo “Fight Training 301: The Bigger They Are” had taught me anything.

I ran to the far side of one the stone Goliaths, causing both of them to turn and give chase. I channeled them between two sets of gravestones and looked back over my shoulder to make sure I was leading them to the end of the row. When I reached it, I turned around the last stone and started down the next aisle. To follow, the first gargoyle compensated by angling itself around the last stone as well. Seeing an opportunity to use momentum against the creature, I lunged forward and shoved my bat lengthwise between its ankles. The lumbering stone monstrosity couldn’t stop itself. Its legs fumbled over each other and the gargoyle started to topple… right toward me. I dove to my right to avoid it. It crashed down on top of several other gravestones, crumbling some of them and snapping off bits of itself at the same time. One of its heavy stone hands bounced into my lap, causing a charley horse in my leg with the impact. Using both hands, I quickly pushed it off of me and limped myself up to a standing position. One down, one to go…

The other gargoyle was already tripping over the first one, causing a domino effect. A very weighty domino effect. Before I could move, the gargoyle crashed down right on top of me, pinning me under it with my back splayed across the top of one of the gravestones. This creature, unlike the other one, did not shatter into pieces, remaining animated as it pressed down on me. Hard.

To the ghost inside, the living stone was like armor protecting it from my various talismans now crushed up against it. A genius move on its part, one which left me slowly being crushed to death.

Its stony head craned to face me, its glowing red eyes staring deep into mine. “Why are you defending him?” the gargoyle said. “This living man disturbed us.”

“What?” I croaked out from underneath it.

Before it could speak again, a blinding sear of light arced past me, taking the creature’s head clean off and launching it across the graveyard. The same bolt of light arced back through the figure, this time taking its legs off at the knees. The living stone crumbled apart on top of me and fell to the ground, leaving a large assortment of shattered pieces.

Once the weight was off me, I scrambled down the back side of the gravestone I had been lying on and landed with a thud on the pile of broken stone. My back cried out in pain. I took my time standing up, and turned to look at where the energy had come from. It was pretty easy to spot, actually.

Jane was practically glowing, standing with one hand on a nearby lamppost to leech its power and the other one pointed straight toward me. Her hair was a little frazzled, her body still charged with electricity as little drifts of smoke wafted off her fingers. Before I could think of anything to say to her, I remembered I wasn’t alone in the graveyard. I turned my attention back to my immediate surroundings. The rest of the swirling ghosts were still in here with me. I knelt down to dig my bat out from where it had been buried in the stony remains. Once I had it free, I stood up and started tapping it on one of the still-intact gravestones.

“Listen up, you unliving sons of bitches,” I said, trying to sound as commanding as Connor when he dealt with spirits. “Everyone back to your resting place… now.”

I hoped it would work, but I honestly wasn’t sure it would. I pressed on. “Look what happened to your two friends here. You looking to step up and take a shot? It’s just the two of us against all of you. The little lady packs just as good-if not better-a wallop as I do, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to mess with her. So here’s what I’m going to do.” I pointed at the body slumped by the base of the mausoleum. “I’m going to remove this intruder now, okay? Once he’s gone, you can all rest in peace. This ends here, tonight. I’m taking care of this.”

My body ached and my nerves were shot. If the spirits didn’t obey, I was probably going to collapse soon. The apparitions paused in their tornado of activity, then ever so slowly one by one began heading back into their specific graves. A sense of momentary relief washed over me.

Now there was only the intruder to think about. I went to him as Jane threw open the gates of the graveyard and ran toward us. When I reached the figure, he was face-down next to a gravestone that was splattered with flecks of blood.

Please don’t let him be dead, whoever he is. I need answers.

I reached for the figure, but an overwhelming smell rose from him and I gagged. Patchouli, just like the scent we used to trap and control ghosts for the Department of Extraordinary Affairs. The only person I knew who carried that much on him was…

“Connor?” I said, rolling the figure over.