There are two things the Ministry of Occultism prize most highly in their agents. Firstly, the fortitude to face ungodly supernatural horror without getting paralyzed, and secondly, discretion. The seven years of experience in cat burglary made me extremely well-equipped with the latter, and five days’ experience in a Buckinghamshire manor house took care of the former. Small wonder, then, that they were borrowing me virtually every other weekend.
The Ministry was an eternally short-staffed operation. The government couldn’t hire more than a handful of specialists without making it difficult to pretend that the MoO didn’t exist. And the senior staff had the highest stress level and employee turnover of any government ministry. They relied on the Special Talent Project for most of their dirty work.
The first stage of government exorcism is a subtle preliminary probe to ensure genuine occult activity, carried out by a junior investigator. I’ve never met any of these people in person, but I’d read enough of their field reports to know that they weren’t people I’d like to get trapped in a conversation with at a dull party. When occult activity is confirmed, that’s where someone like me is brought in. Experienced occult researchers scout out the situation, attempt to reason if it’s intelligent, eliminate if it’s not.
On this occasion, I’d been called in after confirmed reports of unquiet spirits in the remains of a council estate in Birmingham. The place had burned to the ground because it was the kind of place where the kids have to get their entertainment from setting fire to the neighbor’s cat. Twelve dead, thirty-four injured—crying shame. Especially for me, since one of the victims had decided to hang around.
I decided to avoid the locals, aware that a government-issue car and a neatly pressed three-piece suit would rub them the wrong way. So at a carefully chosen hour of darkness, I parked my car as far from the reach of hubcap thieves as I could be bothered to walk and made my way to the ruins.
Never before was I more aware of my drastic career change as I snuck through the charred remains of an inner-city slum. I had once made a living separating the overprivileged from their vulgar jeweled trappings; now I was surrounded by the sad remnants of cheap mismatched furniture and inexpensive baby cots. The comfort and security I usually felt in darkness were marred by grim introspection.
I felt a warmth emanating from my inside blazer pocket. I dug out my issued nugget of Magenta, the mystical purple-pink rock that heated up in the presence of magic. It was beginning to glow dully.
Ghosts are hybrids—that is, a soul from a creature of the Scientific Realm infused with magic leaking from the Ethereal Realm. I’m led to understand that nearly twenty percent of all human beings alive today have hybrid souls. Most never manifest magic. It takes an enormously traumatic event to bring out any sort of magical mutation like vampirism or lycanthropy, especially in such a magic-resistant atmosphere as the Scientific Realm.
I held the Magenta out in front of me, letting it guide me through the ghostly trail like a psychic basset hound. It led me up a set of creaking stairs to what I presumed was a bedroom. A blackened network of springs was all that remained of a mattress. I just barely recognized some posters representing Japanese cartoon characters and the melted shell of a high-end PC.
The Magenta would have scalded me if it weren’t for my glove. The ghost was here. The next step was to provoke a manifestation, which was always the difficult part.
As far as I understand it, when someone dies, their three aspects—mind, body and soul—split apart from each other. Ghosts occur when a hybridized human soul dies but can’t let go of something. A soul is a storage unit, saving one’s closest memories. And the best way to provoke a lost soul is an emotional trigger, which can vary from person to person.
“I always loved you,” I said aloud. It was an old trick but worth a shot.
There was no response. I puffed out my cheeks and glanced around. From the evidence, this was the bedroom of a teenager. That made things a little easier, as hormonal as they were.
I sifted through the wreckage of shelves and wardrobes, looking for an indication of an interest or hobby. I found spines from paperback books with what looked like exaggerated Japanese characters on them and what appeared to be video game cases.
“Comics and video games are for babies,” I said, filling my voice with scorn. “God, people who can’t grow up past that stuff make me sick.” I slapped the melted flatscreen monitor off the desk and shoved my foot into the computer tower. “You should get a life and read a real book.”
“Stop it!”
I spun around. Judging by the way he was still holding onto his residual self-image, the ghost was freshly killed. The gray outline of a dumpy young man hung sulkily in the corner of the room. Despite myself, I was impressed. It took a ghost with astonishing levels of control to manifest so clearly and to be actually heard speaking in a distinct, articulate voice. I realized with weary certainty that the Ministry was going to want this encounter documented.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Greg,” came the reply. “Who are you?”
I crouched to bring myself to his level. The important thing was to keep the ghost’s scrappy remnants of consciousness focused long enough to make the necessary inquiries. Don’t give in to the temptation to answer questions; keep asking questions of your own. “What are you doing here?”
“Leave me alone,” whimpered the high-pitched voice.
“Do you really think I would hurt you?”
“Yes.”
It was certainly one of the more coherent spirits I’d reasoned with. Most conversations with ghosts rarely proceed beyond tortured wails. Even one operating on the social level of a child was a historic discovery. “Isn’t there somewhere you’re supposed to be, now?”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Go where?”
“Wherever you go when you’re dead.”
My jaw dropped stupidly. “How are you aware that you’re dead?”
“I just guessed. I am, aren’t I?”
Making the subject aware that they are dead is a major step in an exorcism. Once that has been achieved, a ghost will either immediately pass on to other realms, or become angry and hostile, which would mean performing a banishment ritual. “Why don’t you want to pass on?”
“Nariko,” said the ghost, emotion sticking in its disembodied throat. “I can’t go without telling her I love her.”
Despite what fiction might have you believe, love is one of the least common causes of a ghost remaining in the land of the living. Number one is workaholism. “Who is Nariko?”
“My girlfriend in Japan. We used to talk on Messenger every night. She’s going to be worried.”
I sighed irritably. “You and Nariko can’t have any kind of reasonable relationship now. You have to let the poor girl get over you. Hanging on is just unfair on her.”
I cursed myself for not bringing a camera. The ghost’s face was manifesting clearly enough to recognize a crestfallen look in its features.
“I know you’re probably right. I keep telling myself that. But there’s so much I’ve never had a chance to do. I wasted my whole life. I never even kissed a girl. Why are you checking your watch?”
“No reason,” I said, stuffing my hand in my pocket.
“It’s O.K. if you want to leave. I’m used to being alone.” Its spectral limbs drew up around itself in a mid-air fetal position and it turned its back to me.
A sigh escaped my lips before I could stop it. “You really can’t stay. You don’t belong here.”
The ghost looked back at me with something approaching hope. “Would you take me with you?”
“You’re tied to this location. The only places you can go are here or the afterlife.”
“I’ll just stay here then,” it said, curling up again.
“Hang on, hang on,” I blustered. “There’s one possibility. Was there any possession you spent a particularly large amount of time around?”
There was a thoughtful pause.
Claire occupied the office across from mine at the STP headquarters. She was a bespectacled woman in her thirties, who could often be found organizing morning teas and putting cat figurines on her monitor. She was also extremely psychic, specializing in remote viewing.
“Hi, Sigmund,” she said, poking her head around my door. “You wanted to see m— what happened to your computer?”
I was leaning back in my office chair, tapping a pencil against my desk. “It’s not mine. I took it from a burnt-out building. This is Greg.”
“Wow, I’ve never seen a ghost with such a powerful manifestation. You must be really potent."
Greg’s translucent cheeks flushed with grayish purple. “Thank you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I need a favor,” I said. “Could you kiss him?”
She glanced between the two of us a few times. “Are you serious?”
Greg’s face reached maximum spectral reddening. “It’s O.K. if you don’t want to—”
“You shut up,” I said. “He died without knowing what a kiss is like so I’m of the opinion that getting someone to kiss him might make him capable of leaving this plane of existence.”
She looked him up and down, nonplussed. “How am I supposed to do that? He’s non-corporeal. No offense.”
“I really don’t want to put anyone out—”
“Shhft,” I hissed. “I had an idea. You’re telepathic, right?”
“A bit, yes,” said Claire.
“Could you transmit the idea or the sensation of being kissed directly to his soul? Something from your own memory?”
“It’s worth a try,” she said. “You want me to do it right now?”
“If you would.”
She tapped her chin, humming like a person called upon to tell a joke in a social gathering. “O.K., got one. Hold still, O.K. Greg?”
Magic research is an oxymoron. It’s futile to try and approach magic with a scientific mindset as the two concepts are incompatible. I gather that’s partly why our universe separated into two realms.
Any measuring device would have shown that there was absolutely nothing happening between Claire and Greg—not in physics, chemistry or biology. And yet, an expression of slightly bewildered tranquility formed on his transparent face.
“How was that?” I asked as the two of them separated. I felt like a disgruntled father interrupting a teenage make-out. “Feel any better?”
“Actually, I kind of feel even more depressed,” said Greg.
I threw up my hands. “What did you give him?”
“Just some feelings of my first boyfriend.”
I searched my memory. “The one who died?”
“Yeah.” She snapped her fingers. “You know what? That was probably a mistake.”
“Look, I can just go back to my house,” said Greg.
“Why don’t you want to pass on to the next world, Greg?” asked Claire tenderly. “It’s probably nice.”
Greg was becoming noticeably more relaxed around Claire. “It’s scary, y’know, given a choice between what you’re familiar with and something completely unknown. And then there’s Nariko…”
Claire turned to me. “He’s articulate for a ghost, isn’t he? Has Yarrow seen him?”
Yarrow was the Ministry’s head researcher, whom I avoided at all costs. I found his breathless enthusiasm embarrassing. “I’ve got a couple of meetings,” I said, making motions towards the door. “Can you stay here and experiment?”
“Actually, I have to—”
“Much obliged.” I left.
The STP’s IT department had come through and extracted Nariko’s Messenger details from Greg’s fragmented hard drive. A few phone calls later and I found myself that afternoon in the IT department’s office, the phone receiver pressed coldly to my ear.
“So you’re not actually Japanese,” I said.
“Nope,” said Nariko in a southern American drawl. “Reckon I can be anyone I want on the internet, ain’t no law against that.”
A headache was blossoming neatly in the front of my brain. “And you’re not a woman, either,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“It was just a game at first but then I found I was really looking forward to our chats and I couldn’t think of a way to break it to him. I’m real sorry to hear that he died. I didn’t mean him no harm.”
“Yes, well, I wouldn’t worry, Nariko.”
“Frank.”
I sighed. “It’s not your life that just became five hundred times more complicated.”
I stopped on my way back to get myself a cup of the wretched brown nothingness that called itself a cappuccino, then took it with me into a broom closet and shut the door. I found it easier to think in total darkness.
I had no intention of breaking this to Greg. I doubted that learning that his one true love was a burly abattoir worker from Louisiana would give him satisfactory closure. And it would probably make him all the more determined to hang around wallowing in self-pity.
Privately, I suspected that even had Nariko been a socially awkward lingerie model, it wouldn’t have been enough to convince Greg to move on either.
The Nariko thread was fruitless. And I doubted that Greg would willingly step into a banishment circle. There was a temptation to kick it upstairs, but I had that troublesome reputation for decisiveness to maintain. I tapped my index finger against the coffee cup.
When I returned to my office an hour later, Claire was still there. I recognized the exhausted, troubled look of an overexerted psychic. Greg was still hanging miserably around.
“I tried kissing, cuddling, sex, moving in together, and that one time I went tandem skydiving,” she said in a monotone. “I don’t think this is the answer.”
“I’m really sorry,” muttered Greg, although he seemed in a better mood. “I guess it’s going to have to be Nariko after all.”
“Greg, tracking down Nariko may take some time,” I said. “You understand that, as a paranormal entity, national security mandates that you cannot leave the STP facility?”
“I think you mentioned that…”
“I’ve been talking to my superiors and some of the Ministry research team,” I continued, perching next to the ruined computer. “They all agree that you’re a fascinating specimen.”
“He’s not a dissected frog, Sigmund. He’s a human soul,” said Claire.
“Sorry. But in the meantime, while we follow up on Nariko, we were wondering if you’d consider doing your government a great service.”
“What kind of service?”
“Call it consultancy. There are a lot of areas in the field of paranormal research where having someone in your position would be useful. You could teach us more about death and magic than we’ve ever been able to establish.”
His little ghostly ego was visibly inflating. “Could I really?”
“It’s a great career opportunity,” said Claire encouragingly.
“Maybe this is what I needed,” said Greg to himself, excitement rising. “To be useful, to have a purpose, to be totally unique for the first time in my life. I mean, existence.”
“We’ve got a special chamber set up for you,” I said, gathering the bits of computer in my arms. “Facilities for a non-corporeal resident. Follow me.”
“Special,” he repeated, following me down the corridor. “I could— I could really make a difference, couldn’t I?”
“You are special,” said Claire, who was tagging along.
I kicked open the door to the prepared chamber and gently set down the equipment just inside. “I’ll let you get settled in, but we’ll have to talk more about the fine details later.”
Suddenly Greg seemed a lot more alive. He looked me in the eye, and I fancied I saw emotion welling. “Thank you,” he said.
I nodded shallowly as between equals.
He drifted through the doorway, then stopped. “Hang on, this is a broom closet—”
I slammed the door behind him. As it closed, the runes I had carved into the underside completed a banishment circle I had spent the last hour drawing on the floor. The door shuddered beneath my weight and light burst out from the gap underneath as I yelled binding chants at the top of my voice, almost drowned out by the roar of ghostly wind. Finally, a magical cough, a final explosion of pink light, and a release of pungent smoke from under the door signaled Greg’s departure from this mortal coil.
Claire was glaring at me. “You’re a devious bastard, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “That’s why they hired me.”
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