Unholy Ghosts

The Restricted Room would probably have more for her, but Goody Glass was manning the desk today, and Goody Glass hated her. The feeling was mutual. Chess didn’t want to ask the nosy old Goody, with her pinched nose and hairy chin, to let her into the room. Too many questions would be asked.

So instead she headed for the cabinets on the far wall, doing a double take when the back of a familiar-looking head appeared. Not Doyle after all but Randall Duncan, another Debunker. If she’d been paying better attention she wouldn’t have confused them; Doyle’s hair was soft, shiny, and well taken care of, whereas Randy’s straggled down his back, a sign that he simply couldn’t be bothered to have it cut.

He stopped as if he felt her eyes on him, his face breaking into a sunny smile.

“Hey, Chess! I looked for you earlier, but I didn’t see you.”

With anyone else she might have asked why, but with Randy she didn’t need to. He’d tell her. Subtlety was not his strong suit.

“Everything good, Randy?”

He nodded. “Heard about the Sanfords. Tough luck.”

“Yeah. Just got a new case, though. Looks like a good one. I could sure use it.”

He nodded. “Couldn’t we all? Or at least, most of us. Guess Doyle doesn’t anymore.”

She rolled her eyes to indicate agreement, and wished he’d go away. Paying attention to him was a waste of time. She wanted to check those files and couldn’t with him standing there.

“Speaking of Doyle…I—I have to tell you something. Something I don’t think you’re going to like, about him. There’s been a rumor about you two. You should know about that, what people are saying.”

“Yeah, Randy, I know. Where’d you hear that?”

He shrugged. “I overheard one of the Goodys asking Doyle about it. He denied it, but, well, I just don’t want to see you get hurt, you know? Doyle’s kind of a user.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m okay, Randy, don’t worry.”

He peered at her from under his thick eyebrows, then nodded. “Okay. Well, if you ever need anything, you know, even just to talk, you can always call me. Really.”

She nodded, just as if that was something she would ever do. “Thanks, I might.”

He patted her arm and left, throwing a little wave over his shoulder before disappearing into the stacks. So one of the Goodys—she bet it was freaking Goody Tremmell, thinking just because she handled case assignments she got to judge the Debunkers, too—thought she’d poke her sharp nose in, huh? No wonder everyone in the complex knew about it. Great.

She shook her head and slid the file drawer out.

C…Ce…Ch. Chester Airport did indeed have a file, a fairly thick one. She grabbed it and took it back to her table.

The airport had opened in 1941, and stayed open for fifty years, never expanding or becoming more than just a small local airfield. There were pictures in the file, surprising ones considering the wreckage she’d seen the night before. It had been a clean little building, sitting tidily in front of the runways like a kid on a church pew.

Old newspaper clippings crinkled against her fingers. Chester had had its share of accidents and fatalities, too. Twenty-three she could see, just in the last ten years it had been open. Of course, more of the small, private planes tended to crash than large commercial ones, but that still seemed excessive to Chess.

Had Bump’s ghosts—if there were ghosts—been around for that long? If she operated on the Church-approved theory that ghosts caused death to feed on the living or out of jealousy, and no planes had flown into or out of Chester in almost thirty years…those would be some damned angry, hungry ghosts right about now. No wonder they went for Bump’s planes like Downside children falling on scraps of meat.

But if someone was doing rituals on the grounds—not if, she knew they were—what might happen there? Had someone tried to Banish Chester’s ghosts on their own, using some cheap piece of copper they’d picked up from one of the many magic charlatans the Church was always trying to prosecute?

She flipped open her notebook. Ask Bump if he’s made any attempts to Banish. Ask Edsel if he recognizes amulet.

The thought of touching it again made her twitch. Magic was legal, of course; how could it not be? How did you make energy, the forces inherent in the earth and the air, illegal?

But not all magic was equal. The Church decided what was and was not permissible, and Chess was pretty sure that what ever was happening at Chester would not have been approved by any Elder in his right mind. She felt guilty just having it—but then, this whole situation made her feel guilty anyway.

Sniffling occasionally, she went through the rest of the file. No complaints of hauntings since it had closed, and nothing noted for the surrounding areas, either, which didn’t mean much. Debunkers were supposed to mark files on all buildings in surrounding areas when a haunting was confirmed, but they almost never did. Chess herself forgot at least half the time.

So aside from the “neglected ghosts” theory, nothing indicated Chester was genuinely haunted.

Of course, nothing had initially indicated the Sanfords’ was genuine, either, and it certainly was.

So much for initial indications.

The Mortons looked like any nice, normal semi-suburban family, struggling to make it all the way to that big cookie-cutter house with thirty feet of grass in every direction around it, but that meant nothing. In fact, it meant Chess needed to be more careful, more on her guard, because the Mortons clearly wanted that nice suburban home. It was all over their smooth, round little faces.

People who wanted things were dangerous. People who wanted things would lie and cheat and steal to get them.

She of all people should know that.

So she stretched her lips into a fake smile and dug out her notebook. “When did you say the manifestations started?”

Mrs. Morton paused for a minute, placing one dainty pink-tipped finger to one dainty pink-slicked lip. “I believe it was about five weeks ago, wasn’t it, Bill, dear? While you were at the convention.” Her gaze returned to Chess. “Bill’s an optometrist.”

“That’s great.”

What was she supposed to say? Bill could examine every eye in the District and she wouldn’t give a shit.

But Mrs. Morton was obviously very proud of the fact that her husband had looked at enough eyeballs to become an expert on them, and the last thing Chess wanted to do at this point was alienate the family.

“I was in the laundry room,” Mrs. Morton continued, “putting a load in the dryer, when I heard Albert here start yelling. It was odd, because Albert is such a brave, quiet boy. Just like his daddy.”

If Mrs. Morton would stop verbally jacking off her husband and son, this would all be done so much more quickly, but then Chess figured it was just about the only sex the woman got. Mr. Morton, silent and pale in his sweater-vest, looked like the kind of man who ate ribs with a knife and fork. Not exactly a wild beast in the bedroom, she guessed, but then what did she know?

“Did you actually see the specter, Mrs. Morton? Or was it just Albert?”

“Well, I didn’t see it that time, no. But he described it so well I felt like I did. Then later I did see it. In the bedroom. Just as I was drifting off to sleep.”

“And what did it look like?”

“It was just horrible. Like a…a ghoul, or something. It made the room so cold, it felt so…evil.”

She gave a delicate shudder. “Gray, and sort of wrinkly. Moldy, if you know what I mean. It wore just rags, might have been a dress once but I couldn’t tell. I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman, but it had been dead a long time. Did it escape from the City of Eternity? I thought they couldn’t escape from there, but then if they really couldn’t we wouldn’t be haunted, right?”

“Some spirits never made it to the City. We’re still cleaning up the old religions’ messes.”

Chess made another note on her pad. Intensely interested in placing blame on the Church. Cannot describe entity with any degree of detail. Then, below that, she added: Vodka. Laundry soap. Toothpaste.

Mrs. Morton must have seen something in Chess’s blank expression, because she added, “Not that we blame the Church! Of course we don’t. But this…this is pretty scary. Poor Albert is afraid to sleep in his own bedroom, and none of us are too comfortable being here by ourselves, and, well, this is our home. And we can’t even sell it, not with some unnie hanging around!” Her hand flew to her mouth.

Chess ignored both the epithet and the exaggerated look of shock on Mrs. Morton’s carefully painted face. When it came down to it, “unnie”—short for “undead”—was one of the less offensive terms she’d heard for them. Sure, it was worse than the Church-sanctioned “ghost,” “spirit,” “specter,” or “entity.” But as slang went it was pretty harmless.

“We hope you can help us.” Mr. Morton spoke up for the first time, his voice surprisingly deep and pleasant for such a slight man.