Baker's Dozen Read online

  “The living can be so trying, no?” she asked, giving me a coy smile.

  I pressed my lips together and nodded, my defeat clear. She knew I was no longer actively working on a case. I walked farther into my office, resting on the large captain’s chair behind my desk. “What can I do for you, Ms. Hermino?”

  “Toni, please,” she said with what probably had been a killer smile when she’d been alive.

  “All right, Toni, how can I help you?” I asked, keeping the sigh out of my voice. If she was bringing out the smile so early, it was going to be bad.

  “You remember the magician? And his stone?”

  Grimly, I nodded. Toni had been paid to steal a precious artifact from a banker named Harry Potter. The theft had been a ruse. The stone hadn’t been. I squashed any regrets I might have felt about not taking my one chance to step into Heaven.

  “You promised me a favor in return for my help.”

  “I remember,” I said, bracing myself.

  “I need you to go find my brother, Beppe—Giuseppe. He’s stopped e-mailing; I can’t get in touch with him.”

  “Living or dead?”

  Toni gave the closest thing a ghost could to a laugh. “You flatter me, thinking I’m young enough to have a living sibling. He’s dead, of course.”

  “And he hasn’t just moved Beyond?” I asked, skeptical. Some ghosts got tired of resisting the siren’s call of the portals. Even though all they showed you was Hell, sometimes it was damned hard to go on existing.

  “No, no, he’s still in Yakima.”

  “Yakima? You want me to go to Yakima? That’s—”

  “What a good friend would do if they were owing a favor,” Toni told me archly.

  “But it’s days away!” I complained.

  “Only hours by car.”

  “Which I can’t afford.”

  “Of course, if you don’t help me, I will just have to explain it to all the other ghosts in my neighborhood why I’m so depressed.”

  I nodded, knowing when I’d been beat. “No reason for you to be despondent. I’ll take care of it.” The ghost community was small, and I needed them more than I needed my dignity. “So he’s just gone missing?”

  “No, not according to his old boss, also dead. He claimed he’d seen Beppe yesterday. He was worried, so worried he e-mailed me. Beppe seemed…faded, like a ghost who was only half there. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  “No,” I said, instantly lying. “I haven’t.” I thought back to the ghost I’d photographed, how unhealthy he’d seemed.

  “Maybe it’s a kind of exotic spell or something,” Toni mused. “What do you think?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  I was afraid, though, that I was going to find out.

  * * *

  As a ghost, I had two options for getting from Seattle to Yakima. The first was to hire a private car and driver, which I would have insisted on if this were for a regular client, with regular expenses.

  Since this was on my dime, that meant the second option: public transportation.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to drive—I’d had a car when I’d been alive and it wasn’t a skill you suddenly forgot once you’d died.

  The problem was that it was illegal for ghosts to drive. Although our side had plenty of lawyers, we’d lost this one.

  Bridges over running water were the primary problem. Each end of the bridge needed to be Fixed. The cheapest way was to attach an artifact or two to each end. They couldn’t be imbedded in the concrete, just glued on.

  Imagine some bored teenager who ignored all the hexes and warning signs around the artifact and pried it loose. Or maybe the original Fixer was in an accident and died, which automatically lessened all of his or her spells, possibly even negating them.

  Now imagine along came a ghost, tooling down the road. As soon as they hit either end of the bridge, they’d be stopped. They wouldn’t be able to go any farther.

  The car, however, would have no such difficulty, and would continue driverless until it crashed.

  I took the light rail out to the airport. I remembered when the trains were new. I couldn’t smell the musty seats but I could see the decay, the glass etched with tags, a layer of grime covering the seat backs, all the poles aged from ten thousand hands grabbing at them.

  At the airport I waited alone. I didn’t even see another ghost in the terminal. Ghosts rarely traveled. It was uncomfortable for us to be too far away from our bones. All the bright advertisements surrounding the ticket counter were for the living.

  When I approached the bus, the driver waved me off. “Whoa, there. Where do you think you’re going?” He looked down the length of his reddened nose at me, his eye as watery and gray as the skies.

  “Yakima,” I told him, showing him my ticket.

  “I can’t take you! My bus isn’t set up for your kind.”

  “According to the Interspecies Act, all public transportation must be made readily available for those who require it,” I intoned at my driest.

  The guy rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. But I can’t take you.”

  “Go check your office,” I told him. “Maybe you have an artifact there that you can use.” I may have growled a little.

  His eyes shot up to mine and though he’d grown a little pale, he also straightened up to his full height, so he could look down on me. “There’s no need for that.”

  “Then Fix your bus.”

  The guy walked away, shaking his head. I started wondering how long it would take for me to get to a public phone, if Dean would be around, and if he’d be interested in this kind of case. The Defender’s office had a lot on its plate right now. I doubted they’d hear my case for months.

  Finally the driver came back with a bright star in his hand. “You were right,” he said. He looked over his shoulder. A woman in the company’s uniform stood there, her arms crossed over her chest. She gave me a nod. “We don’t want no trouble,” he added. “I just have to stick this in the storage compartment, under there,” he said waving.

  “Put in on the ceiling in there,” I told him. “I’ll sit on the seat directly over it.”

  He nodded, then went to the very back of the bus and stuck it there.

  Rosa Parks wasn’t one of us, unfortunately. I sat in the back, separated from all the other passengers. Fortunately, ghosts don’t have a great sense of smell, so being that close to the toilet didn’t bother me.

  The sound of the engine did, though. As a ghost I didn’t have a body, so I didn’t get headaches. The noise still grated on my nerves, making me grumpy and tense before we’d even left the city.

  It got worse.

  I’d forgotten how each mile between me and my bones dragged on my soul. I could hear the women a few seats ahead of me exclaiming how beautiful the mountains were, how brilliant the orange trees stood out in the forests of conifers.

  I couldn’t see it. The colors registered, but not their vivid nature.

  My soul grew heavier as we moved further into the pass, the mountain and all that rock weighing it down. I struggled to stay quiet. It would be too easy for the driver to “lose” the artifact fixing the bus if the other passengers started complaining about unearthly noises.

  The air dried out on the other side of the pass. Though I didn’t need to breathe, I still felt my chest tighten. We moved farther away from the rain that cleansed me, inside and out. The hills looked naked, bleached gray with dust and age, covered in barren rock.

  Two military helicopters kept pace with us as we went through the final set of hills from Ellensburg to Yakima. I’d forgotten there was a military base out here. Ghosts, even former commanders, couldn’t be counted on rejoining. Patriotism didn’t stir a dead heart; not much did. Plus, troops wouldn’t fight with us. No matter how conditioned a soldier was, they couldn’t operate efficiently beside the dead. We made the living either too cautious or too foolhardy.

  So ghos
ts and the military didn’t mix, despite all the rumors of secret weapons, drugs, and super spies. I wondered again what exactly I’d gotten myself into.

  * * *

  Toni’s very neat instructions included street names and turns. She hadn’t bothered to mention that the vineyard sat at the top of a hill, steeper than Queen Anne.

  I didn’t bother keeping my groan to myself. There wasn’t anyone I could disturb out here in the middle of nowhere. I’d been damned lucky the bridge leading to this road had been Fixed.

  I thought about flowing up the hill, cutting across the brambles and dried thorns, taking my chances on the loose rocks and dirt. Decided to take the road and its switchbacks instead—both were going to take effort and I already felt drained. It was late afternoon, and I’d only slept a little on the bus ride out, too distracted by each mile between me and my bones.

  Crucified saplings—apple trees with their branches splayed open—lined the dirt road to the vineyard. Wooden crates sat piled in front of them, full of blood-red fruit. At least a dozen workers rapidly picked apples out of the mature trees, filling their overly large aprons. I saw a few ghosts there, wandering lost between the trees. But Toni had specifically said the vineyard, so I moved on.

  The wine-tasting room sat on top of yet another hill. I paused, gathering my will to go on. I suppose the valley was pretty, with the trees still decked in their autumn colors, the fingers of pink clouds reaching out from the sunset, and the vine stakes arranged like grave markers across the valley.

  More ghosts flitted around the edges of the vineyard. When I looked carefully, I saw three half-ghosts, the ones who seemed even more out of phase with the world. They were easier to see in the dimmer light of the evening, though they didn’t glow like a normal ghost should.

  As I was about to enter the vineyard one of the almost-ghosts stepped out. “Hey,” I called to him.

  He didn’t seem to hear me, kept shambling away.

  I followed him. “Hey,” I said again, getting in front of him so he stopped.

  Dead eyes rose to meet mine. A distinct thrill of fear went through me. “What—what happened to you?”

  The ghost smiled at me, turning that delicious, momentary feeling into revulsion. He was guileless, thoughtless. Whatever personality that gave him cohesion was gone. For me, all I saw was a living Hell.

  “Not just happening,” he insisted. “Is happening.”

  “What?”

  “The Slide. Away and away and away.”

  As if he’d forgotten I stood there, the guy ambled off.

  Ancient ghosts—and there were a few, millennia old—had held onto their wits better than this guy. It wasn’t age that had done this, but something else.

  I rapidly walked along the edge of the vines, looking down each row for more ghosts. Though the vines didn’t grow that high, something about how they were placed made it difficult to see the ghosts. Finally I saw a group standing at the far end. I plunged into the row, the dead leaves of the vines crackling as wind I didn’t feel picked up.

  When I drew closer I saw that two of the ghosts in the group were normal ghosts and one was faded. The two argued with him. I couldn’t hear what they said but I recognized the antagonistic tones.

  I also recognized the third ghost. Toni had been right to be worried. “Beppe,” I called, striding up.

  His two companions took one look at me and walked away.

  Beppe stood alone, forlorn, with the same idiot smile as that other half-ghost. Like Toni, he’d been genetically blessed with good looks: broad shoulders, a strong jawbone, and a royal nose. Most ghosts come to back to Earth clean: No matter what condition they’d been killed or buried in, ghosts tended to wear their Sunday best and looked like they’d had their Saturday night bath.

  However, Beppe had grape stains on his fingers. He’d really loved his life.

  “Hey, paisano,” Beppe called, his words slurred. If I didn’t know he didn’t have a body and thus couldn’t process alcohol, I would have said he was drunk. He swayed, listing to one side. Then he looked up again. “Wait. Do I know you?”

  “Antonia sent me,” I told him, watching as he swayed to the other side. “Beppe, let’s sit, okay?”

  Without bothering to look for a bench, Beppe collapsed to the ground as if his strings had been cut. “Antonia?” he asked, his head in his hands. “Where is she? Is she here?” He looked up, then around, barely staying upright even though he was seated.

  “No, no, she’s still in Seattle.”

  “Ah. Seattle. With her art and her life.”

  I didn’t bother to correct the last part of that.

  “She’s good, no? A good sister. Whereas me—” Beppe heaved an impressive sigh for a being who didn’t actually breathe.

  “What happened to you?” I asked as gently as I could.

  “If I told you, I’d have to share,” Beppe said slyly.

  “Share what? Not that I want any,” I hastened to assure him. I didn’t have to fake my shudder. I wasn’t interested in trying whatever it was that had done this to him.

  “Not gonna slide any to you,” he said, cracking up.

  Ghosts never laughed.

  “Get it?” Beppe said. “Slide?”

  That was the second time I’d heard that word. I took a guess. “Where are you getting the Slide?”

  “Shh,” Beppe said, the sloppy shushing of all drunken men. “It’s a secret.” He purposefully looked up at the sky. “Can’t say. They’ll know.”

  Either he was being overly paranoid about the military presence in the area, or not paranoid enough. Only time would tell. “Come on, let’s get going,” I told him, standing.

  “Where to?” he asked, stumbling to his feet.

  “To wherever it is you sleep,” I told him. I figured if I could get him home, maybe I could get him sobered up.

  “No, no, I sleep here, my friend,” Beppe said, awkwardly lowering himself back to the ground. “Between the vines. So I can see the stars.”

  I looked up and shuddered. Too much sky for my taste. Give me a city and light pollution any day. “What about those other two ghosts I saw you with? Will they leave you alone if you sleep here?”

  “No.” Beppe affected another sigh. “They say I’m a disgrace. That I should step Beyond. They are not understanding like you, my friend.”

  I actually agreed with them, but I wasn’t about to tell Beppe that. We each chose our own Hells. “So they don’t Slide? They don’t like Slide?” I wasn’t sure how to use the slang.

  Beppe cracked up again.

  Ghosts laughing. It was just wrong.

  “Naw, they don’t Slide. But you will, my friend, next time?”

  “Next time when?” I asked Beppe, watching as his eyes closed.

  “Tomorrow,” Beppe said, nodding. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” He giggled. It sent shivers up my spine.

  I turned to go, leaving Beppe to what were probably better dreams than mine ever were. The good news was that he was already dead—I didn’t have to wait with him and turn him over in case he threw up.

  “Wait, where you going?” Beppe asked. He pushed himself halfway up, then flopped back down, giving a proper ghostly groan.

  “I’ve got to go see a guy. I’ll be right back.”

  Beppe nodded. “Okay. I just—don’t want to lose you. So many don’t come back up. Slide right through the gates.” He gave another moan, sad and low, the voice of mourning. “Slide just helps ’em—slide away. You know?”

  I didn’t know. But I was going to see if I could find out.

  “Tomorrow, Beppe,” I told him.

  “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” he said.

  Normally, in full night, you could see a ghost. We had our own glow. Beppe barely registered against the dark ground. He looked more like a translucent shell than a full ghost. Still, there wasn’t anything more I could do for him there.

  I needed to get to the library, to do some research. However, i
nstead of aiming toward the main road going back into town, my body turned unerringly toward Seattle as if I were a bird aligned with the magnetic poles. I knew exactly where my bones lay. I ached, deep in my soul, in a manner I’d never imagined possible.

  I made myself walk back toward Yakima instead.

  I could have gone home. I’d fulfilled my promise to Toni: I’d found her brother as well as seen the trouble he was in. I’d never promised to fix it. Yet, here I was. I blamed my human existence and my cop instincts.

  A worm grew in the heart of this lush valley, and I meant to find it.

  * * *

  I didn’t want to be right. The numbers on the screen flickered in the half-light as if ashamed of themselves. I pushed back from the library desk, wishing I could at least fake one of Beppe’s huge sighs.

  The ghost population was decreasing rapidly. Normally it stayed at an even percentage, a golden curve. In the last six months, though people still died and the usual numbers became ghosts, they weren’t hanging around.

  I doubted they were all suddenly finding Heaven.

  “You done?” asked the greasy-haired teenaged ghost waiting for my terminal. He bobbed his head to his eternal music.

  Me, I’d manifested wearing my good cufflinks. They’d been my grandfather’s. I’d always wondered which of my ex-wives had insisted I be buried in them.

  This kid, well, I could see the faint cord of his i-whatever snaking up from the neck of his hoodie and into his ears. I wondered what he listened to. He appeared to at least still like it. I also wondered how long that would last. As I can’t change my cufflinks, he’d never be able to change his music.

  “Yeah,” I said, clearing the page and logging out of my accounts.

  I decided to go the traditional route first, and walked to the precinct downtown. All the historic buildings surprised me—I hadn’t realized Yakima was that old. Very few ghosts hung around those, of course. They stayed near the newer buildings, the graves of their old haunts.