Industrial Magic

Undelivered Message

The hotel room door was still shutting behind us when Jaime started talking.

"I've got a haunter," she said. "And it's a strange one. I was going to tell you guys, but I know you're busy and I wasn't sure what was going on-I'm still not." She perched on the arm of the armchair, still talking. "It started Wednesday afternoon, before my Orlando show. At first I figured it was Dana, that she knew she was dead and wanted to pay me back for lying to her." Jaime twisted her rings. "I shouldn't have done that… not that I could have told her she was dead-it's not my place, right? But I went overboard with the reassurances. They just came out automatically, like I was doing a show."

She glanced from Lucas to me. When neither of us spoke, she continued.

"That's what I do with my shows, in case you haven't guessed. I make it up. No one wants to hear the truth. Fanny Mae wants to make contact with her dead hubby, and the guy's standing beside me screaming, 'Worried about me? You fucking whore, you weren't worried about me when you hopped into bed with my brother an hour after my funeral!' You think I'm going to tell her that? I tell her the same thing I tell everyone else. He misses you, but he's happy and he's in a good place. And you'd think, you'd really think, that after I've given the same damned message for the thousandth time, that people would wise up, but they don't. Tell them what they want to hear and they never complain."

She inhaled and shifted down onto the seat. "When this spook came knocking, I figured it was Dana, so I came back here to talk to her. But she was gone, and my haunter wasn't, so obviously it isn't her."

"Can't you contact it?" I said.

Jaime shook her head. "That's what's so weird. I can't make contact. Not only that, but it's behaving… well, it's just not following ghost-necro protocol." She looked at me. "Do you know how this works? How a spirit contacts a necro?"

"Vaguely," I said. "Most necromancers I know don't really talk about it."

"Typical. They act like it's some big trade secret. Way I figure it, my friends-the supernaturals, at least-should know how it works. Otherwise, they see me mumbling to myself and staring at blank walls, they're going to figure I've lost it. There are two main ways a spook says hi. If he knows the proper procedures, he can manifest, and I get sight and sound. If he doesn't know the tricks, then all I get is audio-the old voices-in-my-head. Any ghost should be able to do the latter. But this one can't."

"So it's throwing things instead?"

"It is now. Up until today, it's just been hanging around, like a mental stalker. I know it's there. I sense it all the time, as if someone is looking over my shoulder, and it's"-she lifted a hand to show her trembling fingers-"making me nervous. Then to start poltergeisting? That's just-well, I'm spooked, and I'll admit it."

"True poltergeist activity is rare, isn't it?" I said.

"Extremely rare. When I was younger, I did some ghost-buster work to pay the bills. Number one haunted-homeowner complaint? Poltergeists. I went out on dozens, if not hundreds of calls. I found exactly three real poltergeists. The rest of the time, it was clever kiddies looking for attention. I'd tell the people some cock-and-bull about the ghosts wanting to see the family spend more time together, and that usually fixed the problem. Real poltergeist activity, though, means a ghost has found a way to move things in our dimension, and that's a very special talent."

Lucas frowned. "So how does a ghost who can't even contact a necromancer manage to manipulate objects cross-dimensionally? I see the problem. Have you considered the possibility that this isn't a human-based entity at all?"

"Maybe a minor demon," I said. "Or a nature spirit."

"Could be, I guess," Jaime said. "But I'm a necro. I talk to the dead, like my title says. If it ain't dead, why's it bugging me? You guys are the spell-casters-the conjurers-so it should be trying to talk to you. And I'm pretty sure the message is for you, anyway. Until the bookstore, it backed off whenever you two were around."

"Because it thought you were going to convey the message," I said. "But maybe the message is to tell us to start conjuring, so it can communicate. When it realized you didn't understand, it bumped it up a level in the bookstore. So let's try some group conjuring. Among the three of us, it has to find someone it can talk to."

Jaime looked up at the ceiling. "You hear that, Casper? We're going to try making contact, so you can back off now."

After a moment of silence, I asked. "Did it stop?"

Jaime shook her head. "I think the contact problem goes both ways. I can't hear it and it can't hear me. Let me grab my kit and see if we can fix that."

As Jaime opened her suitcase, Lucas's cell phone rang.

"Yes, I'm certainly interested," he said after an exchange of greetings. "However, it may be another week or so before we can see it. Will that be a problem?" He paused. "Good. Thank you." Another pause. "No, I haven't had a chance yet and, ultimately, it is her decision, but I would very much like to see it." Pause. "Yes, I'll let you know as soon as we return to Portland."

He signed off, then pulled out his Day-Timer from his satchel and made a note as Jaime set up her implements on the floor. This time, she didn't bother asking us to leave.

"A real séance," she said as she finished. "Now all we need is sleeping bags and a pillow fight. When I was young, I was never allowed to go to sleepovers, in case the kids tried a séance. Might have given them more than they expected."

We settled onto the floor.

"I'll be casting a general summoning spell," Lucas said. "A mild one, I should say, nothing likely to conjure up anything dangerous."

"I'll do my communication spell," I said. "It's for mental communication with the living, but it might help."

"Mental communication?" Jaime said. "Witches can do that? Cool."

"Not really. It only works if the other party is expecting it and only if they're some distance away, so really, what's the point? Save a few bucks on cell phone charges? The reception is crappier than the cheapest cell provider."

We all settled in, did our thing… and nothing happened.

"Hey!" Jaime yelled at the ceiling. "An hour ago you were tearing apart a bookstore trying to get my attention, and now you can't be bothered to say hello? Do you know who you're talking to? The most famous necro in the U.S. of A. Not only that, but a former Coven Leader and the son of a Cabal CEO. Three powerful supernaturals, waiting with bated breath to talk to you."

Across the room, Lucas's Day-Timer fell from the table.

"I think that means it isn't impressed," I said.

The Day-Timer cover flipped open.

"I believe that's a sign," Lucas said. "Shall I…?"

"Go stand by it and watch," I said. "We'll keep working."

Jaime did her invocation while I cast.

"Nothing," Lucas said before I could ask. "Perhaps-"

The pages started to flip.

"Seems we have a time delay from the ghost world," I said.

"It's turned to the first D page in my address book," Lucas said. "If the spirit is referring to a specific person on this page, I'm not making the connection. My supernatural contacts are coded in another section. These are all humans."

My purse slid off the chair by the door, unzipping as it fell and scattering the contents on the carpet. A moment later, my PalmPilot spun.

"A techno-savvy spook," Jaime said. "Maybe it wants to communicate by text messaging."

"Or, more likely," Lucas said, "it's not techno-savvy or, at least, can't operate an electronic organizer. I believe the message we're supposed to receive is that the correct name is located, not in my address book, but in Paige's."

"How would it know what's in there?" I said, crossing the floor to pick up my Palm.

"Perhaps it doesn't know, so much as assume. Who might you know whose last name starts with a D? Presumably a supernatural."

"That could be a dozen people, maybe more. There's-Wait, we've had other clues. The bookstore. Of all the books in one section, it only knocked down copies of Salem's Lot."

"Witches?" Lucas asked.

Jaime shook her head. "Vampires-but if the spook doesn't know its pop culture, it might think witches."

"It was also knocking down copies of Homer's Iliad," I said.

"Oh, great," Jaime said. "We move from Who Wants to be a Millionaire to 'Final Jeopardy.' Where are we going to find an egghead who's read the Iliad?"

"Uh, right here," I said. "Well, I had to. Required reading for college English."

"It was on my curriculum as well," Lucas said.

"Okay, the high school dropout reveals herself again," Jaime said. "Hey, I knew the Stephen King answer. That oughtta get me a nice parting gift. So what's the Iliad about?"

"The Trojan War," I said.

"With the horse," Jaime said. "I knew that. Any supernaturals in the story?"

"There's an enchantress, Circe-no, that's the Odyssey."

"Unless, again, the spirit is mistaken about its literary references," Lucas said. "If it believed Salem's Lot was about witches, and the sorceress was from the Iliad…"

"Let's start there, then," Jaime said. "Witches whose last names start with D. You're a witch, so the ghost might assume you know-"

"Cassandra," I said, thumping my Palm down. "Cassandra the Prophetess, from the Iliad. Cassandra DuCharme, from the interracial council."

"Let me guess," Jaime said. "This Cassandra is a witch."

"Vampire."

"Even better." Jaime looked to the ceiling. "Is that it? Do we win?"

No response.

"If it can't hear us, it'll need some other prompt," I said. "Hold on."

I grabbed my pen and notepad from the spilled contents of my purse, tore a sheet from the pad, and wrote CASSANDRA. I laid the sheet on the table. Again, the spirit gave no response.

"Well," Jaime said. "Three possibilities. One, we're flat-out wrong. Two, the spook has simmered down because we finally got the message. Three, it's illiterate."

"If the message is Cassandra, I still don't know what that means," I said.

"Why don't you call her," Lucas said. "See whether she can shed some light on this."