Gryphon scoffed, rubbing his forehead. His head was starting to hurt, but in a weird way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Again, let me take you back to that point where you agreed that I wasn’t a screaming fraud. I’m not. I know about Jeff McCandless because he told me not to trust you. Now, do I hear your version of the story or not?”

“I told you to get offa my lawn,” the old dead guy croaked.

“We’re not on your lawn,” Gryphon snapped, casting an evil glance at him. “Now knock it off.”

“Who are you talking to?” O’Leary asked warily. “McCandless?”

“No. Some other ghost, who apparently haunts the lawns of this neighborhood.” He sighed, wishing for the billionth time that he could neither hear nor see the dead. “Now, Jeff.”

O’Leary looked around, as if appealing for help from an unseen force, but there was no one around interested in helping him. He made a vague gesture with his hands, and said, “We can’t talk about him here.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re here to look for Juliet Saltzman!”

He’s scared, Ruby said.

No shit, Ray replied.

“And yet, you’re dodging the question. I have no guarantee you’ll tell me the truth.”

“Yes, you do. I just wanna get this done. I’ll tell you whatever you want afterwards, okay?”

“Everybody’s always on my goddamn lawn,” the old man was muttering. “Always ignoring me, like they think I don’t matter. I do matter, lousy assholes -”

“No one is ignoring you,” Gryphon said, turning back towards the old ghost. “No one else can see or hear you. You get me? You’re dead. I’m sorry, deal with it.”

The old man glared at him, eyes swimming behind glass. “I’m not dead. What are you tryin’ to pull?”

He heaved a broken sigh. “Not another one. Look, friend, you’re dead; very, very dead. You’re what - eighty? This can’t be a shock.”

O’Leary took a step back. “You still talkin’ to that other ghost?”

Gryphon gave him a look that could have blistered paint - that was the extent of his answer. He gave the same look to the ghost, who didn’t seem to care. Or maybe Mr. Magoo just couldn’t see it. “There’s no need to get prickly about it, boy. I ain’t dead.”

“Yes you are. You’re so dead your shirt is out of style. “ Actually, he was wearing a polyester blend shirt, white with narrow green stripes, tucked into tan slacks that could very well have been Sansabelt. He wasn’t sure that was ever in style, or conversely out of style, as it was an “old guy” shirt, and those seemed to exist in a twilight area neither in style nor out. But that really wasn’t a debate to be having with a ghost who couldn’t give a shit about his fashion sense. “I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m talking to this guy now.” He turned back to O’Leary, only to find him giving him a look like he couldn’t believe what a freak he was talking to.

“Are you making this up just to freak me out?”

“I wish. You can answer some questions about you and Jeff for me as we walk the grounds. Okay? And you don’t get to say no.” Gryphon turned and stomped across the yard, not waiting for an answer. He assumed he followed, but didn’t care either way.

They walked the front yard, Gryphon not expecting anything at all, and being unsurprised by the lack of anything. He heard O’Leary tromping behind him, giving off a vague air of disgust. “Jeff was a cop,” Gryphon prompted, peering over the flimsy wooden fence that separated the front yard from the back. The back was overgrown and weedy, with the occasional mystery item tangled within the weeds, looking like the skeletal remains of some long lost robot.

“Yeah. He was an undercover narc,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Something went wrong,” Gryphon prompted.

“Everything went wrong,” he grumbled. “It was a sting, but somebody fucked up, and they knew we were comin’ in. We had to go in early guns blazing, as they’d already brought out their guns.” He paused, sighed heavily. “It was a fucking massacre. Five dead in all, seven wounded.”

“Jeff was among the dead.”

“Yeah. I think he was the first one shot.”

“Lying motherfucker,” Jeff said, suddenly reappearing off to one side. “He knows that’s not what happened.”

“I don’t think you’re being honest with me.”

He heard O’Leary stop walking behind him, and turned to face him. His face was starting to flush a violent red, which he was doing his best to hide. He swallowed hard, sweat starting to bead on his broad forehead. Gryphon felt obscurely bad for him - he was clearly tormented by his own guilt, and yet he couldn’t quite embrace the truth of what he’d done. He was uncomfortable in his own skin, with his own existence; he wore his own bulky flesh like an itchy sweater. “Have you found anything?”

“Besides the get offa my lawn guy? No.” He stepped up onto the porch, knocking on the white painted hollow metal door. “Although the lawn in back needs a good shaving, unless they’re planning to film the next Tomb Raider movie back there.”

Gryphon was suddenly overcome by a strange, familiar feeling, a cold wave down his spine that made him shiver convulsively as his fingertips went numb. O’Leary was saying something behind him, but his voice sounded frail and distant, noises from a hallway on the floor below. Standing beside him was an elderly woman, her hair a nimbus of blue rinsed curls, a small, frail body hidden beneath a loose pale blue dress and a tan cardigan held together by a chain clip in the front. She had on clear framed glasses that still seemed thick, riding on the end of her nose. Her eyes were almost colorless, her skin as thin as parchment and almost as pale, lines gathered in the corner of her mouth, at her eyes, under her eyes. Her lips were cracked and knuckles gnarled by arthritis. “I’d let you in if I could, but I don’t seem able to right now.”

Looking at her, he knew all he needed to. “You’re still inside, Hazel?”

“I think so. I’d thought one of my kids would have visited by now. Who are you?”

“No one; just an intermediary.”

“An angel?”

That startled a laugh out of him. “God, I’d hope not. But it’ll be okay now. I’ll make sure you’re found.”

She nodded, her mouth curving downwards in a skeptical frown, but she really had no choice in the matter. Who else was she going to appeal to?

O’Leary grabbed his shoulder, and once again the connection was gone, reality suddenly roaring back in a wave of noise, light, and color that seemed momentarily overwhelming. He shook his head and closed his eyes, trying to gather his foundering wits, as O’Leary continued to rant, “ - fuck’s the matter with you? Do you have seizures or something? You’re always doing this -”

Gryphon spun around and backed up a step, almost falling off the porch. “Call your cop buddies, let them know there’s a dead body in the house, okay?”

O’Leary just stared at him. “You found her?”

“No, I found the current resident, Hazel White. She died last week, from a stroke I think, and no one’s found her yet. If you want to open the door you’ll probably smell it for yourself, but I really wouldn’t advise it.”

“Is this normal? Do you find dead bodies wherever you go?”

“Generally. It makes sense, since I’m apparently death and all, but I must admit that finding someone who died of natural causes is a refreshing change.”

He walked back to the truck, only aware that he’d left O’Leary there on the porch when he asked in a small, disbelieving, “oh-my-god-I’m-with-a-crazy-person” voice, “What d’ya mean you’re death?”

Gryphon stared at him, and wondered if he could handle the truth. Jeff McCandless was standing behind him, arms crossed over his chest, scowling as deeply as Human possible. This man, handle truth? He wasn’t even handling his own very well right now. “I was kidding,” he lied. “Where’s your sense of humor?” He didn’t wait for a reply, just got in the truck.

I like this even less than usual, Hugh said, as Gryphon noticed the lawn ghost still glaring at him from the corner of his eye. But at least he was outside the truck.

“I ain’t crazy about it either, but so far it’s been a harmless diversion.”

Diversion? Ruby replied angrily. There’s some freakazoid serial killer out there! We should be finding him, not fucking around, helping some washed up cop assuage his guilt.

Assuage! Ray said. Wow, I had no idea twenty dollar hookers could use ten dollar words.

Before Ruby could justifiably bite his head off, Sylvio exclaimed, Would you just shut the fuck up? How dare a white trash fuck up like you put anyone down anyways! You were killed in the commission of a felony, you dirt bag asshole! What delusion are you operating under that allows you to feel superior to anyone?

There was a long moment of silence before Ray responded. You got a crush on the hooker, boy?

Did you just call me boy? Sylvio replied in disbelieving anger. It didn’t matter so much when you were dead, but when he was alive, Sylvio was mixed race, half-black and half-white.

Ray, I will figure out a way to knock you out if you don’t zip it now, Hugh warned. And go ahead and make any gay slur you want, but all you’re doing is convincing me you’re in the closet. I know a self-loathing queen when I meet one.

I ain’t no fag!

They all say that, Hugh replied witheringly. At first.

Ray didn’t seem to realize he’d already lost control of the conversation, and kept digging himself in deeper. I ain’t no queer, damn it! I fucked women!

So did I, Hugh said casually. I was once hit with a paternity suit.

You got a kid? Ruby asked in shock.

Possibly, but not that one. The DNA didn’t match. She got around a bit, let’s just put it that way, and I was the only one of the group of suspects with steady employment and health insurance. I think she went with the best case scenario at first, but the reality was probably ugly. The father was probably an unemployable hobo whose brain was so soaked in alcohol it was officially pickled.

Why’d she sleep with someone like that anyways? Ruby asked. Did he pay her?

No, I’m afraid the answer is simply tequila shooters night. Bars should just hand out morning after pills and tetracycline with them and the Jello shots.

This had completely taken the wind out of Ray’s sails - maybe he realized there was nowhere he could go from here, and also, in his brief time on Earth, Hugh had had more (unpaid) sex than all of them combined (Ruby excluded, for obvious reasons) with both men and women - so he was quiet by the time O’Leary got in the truck. The cop shot him a sidelong glance as he got in, only this time it wasn’t evil, just curious and a little scared. “Were you talking to yourself?”

He shook his head. “To my people. They feel I’m wasting my time here.”

O’Leary sighed wearily. “Maybe we are. I know I’m just grasping at straws here, but when you run out of options …” He trailed off and laid his head against the steering wheel.

“Why is this important to you?”

He was silent for much longer than he should have been. “I’m sure Wax is still active, but I also know he’s smarter than your average trash; he knows how to play the angles. And I think he knows more about what happened to that girl than he’s ever said and ever will say. I need extra-legal means to get the truth out of him, and short of torture, there’s you. If you’re genuine … which I will admit you are, as far as I can tell. You certainly seem to know things you shouldn’t.” He let out a tiny snort of laughter. “Maybe you’re like that guy on that show, that guy who’s jut really observant but pretends to be psychic.”

“I won’t say it again: I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be psychic. And you know damn well I’m not, you’re just having a hard time accepting what I am. Are you also aware that you have condemned Wax to death? If he is guilty, my people will probably kill him.”

O’Leary sat back and nodded, looking tired but not surprised. “I could live with that. I’ve lived with worse.”

“Speaking of which, I haven’t heard the whole story about Jeff McCandless.”

He couldn’t work up indignance or defiance anymore; he was exhausted in both spirit and mind, beaten down by the horrible realities of his own guilt. “No, you haven’t. But I think I’ll need a few beers before I can tell you the rest of it.”

“Fair enough. Let’s go get some.”

O’Leary snapped his head around so fast he might have just given himself whiplash. “It’s not even noon.”

Gryphon shrugged. “So? Haven’t you ever heard of a liquid lunch?”

You’re such a fucking lush, Taneesha accused.

From the look on his face, O’Leary was thinking much the same thing. “Are you even old enough to drink?”

“Of course I am. I’m older than I look.”

Kid, I don’t think you’re of legal drinking age in this state, Hugh pointed out. And you’ve known and ignored this for quite some time. Your poor liver.

He’s with an ex-cop, Ruby pointed out. They’re not going to card him.

“Why do I think you’re lyin’ to me?”

“I have no idea. Do you think I’m lying when I say I need a drink?”

That made him scoff. “No. If you told me you needed a hit, I’d believe ya.”

Was that an insult? Taneesha asked.

I’m gonna guess yes, but only to the kid, Hugh said.

Yeah, well, he’d been called worse.

He leaned his head against the cool passenger window and closed his eyes, the uneven rocking of the truck cab on the rough road about the only thing keeping him awake. O’Leary was talking, but since he wasn’t saying anything of consequence he’d tuned him out. He wanted to believe the killer he was looking for was Wax, it would have made things easier, but his mind kept rejecting the name. His instincts knew something he didn’t, something he hadn’t formulated into words, something that hadn’t fully formed in his cerebral cortex yet. The killer he was looking for was no middle aged sex offender; he was looking for a younger, more methodical and even more deeply fucked up psychopath. Somebody slaughtering people like meat.

A butcher.

That made him wake up, open his eyes. Could it be that simple? No, it couldn’t possibly be. But this guy definitely had experience cutting large bodies into more bite sized portions. Gryphon also realized, with a convulsive shudder, that he honestly thought he was doing them a favor.

“You okay?” O’Leary asked.

“I dunno,” he admitted, rubbing his eyes. One of the victims, one of the ghosts left at the riverside, knew the killer better than they thought. He didn’t know why he believed that, but he did. He’d picked something up and hadn’t even realized it until now.

Clay had made pancakes and soy bacon for breakfast, which wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Clay made his pancakes with carbonated water, so they weren’t as heavy as some, and instead of syrup he poured loganberry jam on them. Again, not bad. And the soy bacon didn’t taste like bacon per se, but it didn’t taste bad.

Clay’s kitchen table was tiny - it could barely accommodate four chairs - and looked homemade from some kind of light colored wood. Still, he easily could have bought it; Clay had some good woodworking skills, and probably could have made furniture for a living if he hadn’t become obsessed early on with ghosts and the paranormal. Now he just did a day job to fund his passion - it had absolutely nothing to do with skill.

Hugh must have told him something about the thing with O’Leary last night, because Clay didn’t ask. Instead, he told him about a phone call that Spirit Guides had gotten last night. “It was from this couple that lives in Salem. They wondered if we did exorcisms.”

Gryphon took a sip of his coffee, and then decided to add about a half a cup of sugar to it. Clay liked his coffee strong enough to peel paint. “They have Linda Blair vomiting pea soup at them?”

A corner of Clay’s mouth quirked up in a smirk. “That’s what I wondered. But no, apparently they just bought this old house, and it has a violent poltergeist in it. They wondered if we could get rid of it.”

“Violent how?”

“The usual. Breaking things, cracking windows, exploding light bulbs, slamming doors until the jamb splinters.”

“I take it they haven’t moved in yet.”

Clay shrugged, spooning more loganberry jam on his pancakes. Today, the shirt du jour was red plaid, and made him look like the Brawny paper towel guy’s cousin. “I dunno, I didn’t ask, but you’d think it’d be difficult.”

Gryphon cut a chunk out of his pancake stack, wondering why Clay gave him so many. Was he trying to fatten him up? “You take the job? ‘Cause I could handle that.”

The fuck you can! Hugh exclaimed. That bastard sounds way unstable.

I’m with the pretty boy, Ruby agreed. You’ve got enough fucknuts as it is.

Was that aimed at me? Ray asked defensively. Ruby didn’t bother to answer him.

Clay looked at him skeptically, brow creasing in concern. “Are you sure? ‘Cause from what you told us, you attract them. I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea since this one was violent.”

He shrugged. “Poltergeists are by nature violent. This one is probably just frustrated that their messages aren’t being understood.”

And some are just violent schmucks, Mr. Aronofsky pointed out. Some of them - and forgive me for saying this - but some of them deserve to be dead and stay that way.

Gryphon knew that; he felt he knew that better than all of them. But he didn’t say it, as he didn’t want to hear the responses from his crew. As it was, Clay’s continued scrutiny was bad enough. His eyes were full of concern and conflict, probably because his burning passion for the supernatural and the constant need for money were clashing violently with his fear that this was a psycho ghost that might attach itself to him. “Gryph, don’t you think … you’re dealing with enough?”

He ate a forkful of pancakes, buying time, but also relishing the taste of the loganberries. It was probably preserves, not jam, but they brought to mind the wild loganberries he’d sometimes collect as a kid. When did he last do that, when he was ten? Certainly before they moved to Edmonds, where every square inch was paved, and you were lucky to find a dandelion growing wild in the cracks in the sidewalk. Finally, he looked at Clay, and caught his eyes, holding them intensely. “One violent ghost is nothing compared to an insane asylum full of them. Lead me to the suburban ghost, Clay; I can take ‘em down without breaking a sweat.”

Or so you hope, Mr. Aronofsky insisted. You can’t get cocky, Gryphon, not when dealing with the dead.

Yeah, haven’t you learned anything by now, you stupid cracker? Taneesha taunted.

Would you knock it off with the racial slurs? Sylvio snapped at her.

Clay seemed dubious, but since he wanted to believe, Gryphon knew he’d get his way. “Are you sure?”

Don’t listen to him! Hugh shouted, making Gryphon almost wince. There was an odd noise, and he realized his coffee cup was shaking, rattling on the tabletop and threatening to slosh liquid over its sides. He grabbed it to steady it as Clay raised an eyebrow at him. “Everything okay?”

“I’m just arguing with my passengers. Nothing new there.”

He stared at him for a long moment, dubious of that, but eventually nodded and gathered up his breakfast dishes, getting up to put them in the sink. “They don’t want to do it?” Clay asked casually.

“They do, they just want to do it without me.”

What are you all worried about? Ruby wondered. I’ll kick its punk ass.

Funnily enough, that was something they could all agree on.

Finally, he asked the question he’d been waiting to ask. “You don’t happen to know of any abandoned stores around here, do you?”

He briefly glanced over his shoulder at him. “Store? Like a department store or a grocery store?”

“Yeah, anything like that.”

“Haunted?”

That made Gryphon smirk. “Is there a haunted one around here?”

“Not to my knowledge. But I’m not sure if I know of any.” Clay thought about it for a little while longer, rinsing out his coffee cup, and in that space of time, he recalled two, although he wasn’t completely sure if they were torn down yet or not.

Didn’t matter to him. Everybody needed a place to start.

****

O’Leary showed up less than hour later, dressed in a black turtleneck, jeans, and a black jacket that had some kind of official lettering on the back. He had a grim look on his face, like he was about to tell him his whole family had died in a fiery car crash. “Problems?” Gryphon asked, just out of polite curiosity.

O’Leary eyed him with a sort of bruised anger, like he thought he was being a deliberate smart ass. “I might need to take you in to make a witness statement. The team found Human teeth on one of the banks; they’re still dragging the river now.”

Gryphon nodded. “You’re surprised.”

O’Leary shrugged a single shoulder and looked away. “Maybe a little. I really didn’t expect a hit.”

“Are we past the whole “I’m a screaming fraud” thing now?” Gryphon openly glared at him until the pressure of his gaze on the side of his face made O’Leary look back at him.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Good. Now let’s go to Wax’s place.” He didn’t wait for a reply, he just tromped down the driveway and got in O’Leary’s truck. There was a faint smell of fried wiring in the air, and Gryphon figured Ruby had toasted some last night. Possibly on accident, and possibly on purpose - it was a kind of fifty-fifty thing.

O’Leary got in the truck wordlessly, casting a caustic sidelong glance before he started the truck. Did he think his people were going to start it up for him?

They were silent for the entire drive, and Gryphon got the idea that O’Leary was brooding. Why? Because of what happened last night? Because parts were found at the river? Both of those things? Neither? Because he still hadn’t gotten over being asked about being “touched by death”? Gryphon decided not to ask. If there was one thing he’d learned from the occasional cop ghost, it was people often talked to fill the awkward silences, and when they ran out of small talk, they could say something damning. Of course O’Leary used to be a cop and probably knew this too, so it’d be a waiting game.

In his mind, he pictured Wax’s home either being a creepy old shack - the Hollywood version of where convicted sex offenders lived - or just a quaint but somewhat isolated house (a tad more realistic), but where O’Leary took him to was a sprawling suburban housing estate, where the homes were all single level prefabs of the same basic design, and all painted in light colors that weren’t exactly pastels, but close. The lawns were all square and sharply green, and the street was neat enough that it had probably been recently cleaned. Why do child and family killers always live in places like these? Hugh wondered.

That’s not true, Mr. Aronofsky countered.

Hell yeah it is, Ray replied. I grew up in a place like this. There wasn’t anything else to do, ‘cept huff in the garage and drink someone else’s dad’s beer while they were gone.

Huff? Mr. Aronofsky asked.

Don’t ask, Sylvio said.

O’Leary drove them down to a pale green house at the end of a cul-de-sac that was , for some reason, spaced differently than the rest of the houses so it seemed to have a bit more distance between its neighbors. The lawn was a bit longer than most but still savagely groomed, and even from here Gryphon could see a whimsical frog planter full of ivy close to the welcome mat in front of the door. Hardly seemed like a threatening place, the former abode of a pedophile. “Who lives here now?” he asked, unlatching his seatbelt. “Have you asked permission for me to go over the grounds?”

O’Leary squinted at him, like it was a funny question. “You don’t need to go in, do ya? Can’t you just do it walkin’ around outside?”

Gryphon scowled at him. “Do what? What is it you expect me to do here?”

He wouldn’t hold his gaze for long. He looked away out the windshield as he shrugged and reached for the door. “Tell me if you get an impression that someone died here.”

“Someone’s died everywhere. Do you know how many people have lived and died since the beginning of humanity? If he killed someone inside the house, I may not know from the outside. I may have to go in. Are you prepared for that?”

He got out of the truck and kept his back mostly to him as he shrugged in a defeated, annoyed matter. “If we gotta, we gotta. But why don’t you try this way first.”

Fuck you, Ruby snarled. Let me kick this pocket dictator down, kid.

But as Gryphon got out, mulling over whether he should let Hugh take control for a bit - he’d be less violent than Ruby, but he wouldn’t put up with any bullshit - he saw an old man glaring at him openly from the far edge of the lawn. He was stoop shouldered and balding, with what appeared to be age spots freckling his mostly naked scalp, his watery brown eyes peering at him owlishly from behind large black framed glasses. “Get offa my lawn,” he croaked in a raspy voice.

“I’m sorry,” Gryphon said, humoring the guy. He wasn’t on the lawn yet.

“Sorry for what?” O’Leary asked, still sounding crabby, like he’d caught someone pissing in his Corn Flakes.

“I was talking to the guy.”

He looked around as he popped a toothpick in his mouth, chewing it anxiously. “What guy?”

The old man was still staring at Gryphon from the corner of his eye, and he realized with the slightest chill that the ghost had somehow managed to blindside him. He turned towards O’Leary to tell him that when he froze, mouth open with an unspoken word.

There was a man standing right next to O’Leary, so close he could have shouldered the big retired cop to the ground. He was young, maybe early thirties, with brown skin the color of milk chocolate, and close cropped curly black hair that was little more than a shadow on his scalp. His dark eyes were piercing and almost angry. “You don’t trust him?” The younger ghost asked, nodding his head in O’Leary’s direction.

O’Leary remained oblivious to this, and was now looking at him with a scowl. “What the fuck’s with you?”

But the ghost beside O’Leary said, “You think he’s holding back? You think he’s lying? Good. You should.”

Suddenly time seemed to jump like a bad cut in a film, and O’Leary was shaking him hard by the shoulder. “Ashmore, hey, you there?”

Gryphon shrugged out his grasp as the supernatural circuit snapped, and frowned as he staggered back a step, putting some ground between them. “I’m fine, Jesus.”

“You seemed to space out there for a moment. You get a hit?”

“Kinda.” Gryphon knew he wouldn’t like it, but he had no choice; he felt almost compelled to say it. “Tell me about Jeff McCandless.”

O’Leary’s pale, rheumy eyes widened, and his face paled in shock. Some people just didn’t like visits from old friends, did they?

The truck cab’s door slammed, and O’Leary glared at him fiercely. “You hot wired my truck?”

Gryphon rubbed his eyes and found the transition from the dream state back to reality difficult. “I didn’t. My passengers did.”

He checked under the dashboard on the driver’s side, and didn’t find what he was looking for, which was probably exposed wires. He looked at him again with great skepticism. “How?”

He felt logy, like you always did when you didn’t get enough sleep. “I dunno. Poltergeists are energy, raw and unfocused. They can channel it, make it work for them. I don’t know the specifics of it.”

Neither do we, Hugh admitted.

O’Leary not only looked unconvinced, but stared at him like he was sure he was shitting him and having a good laugh about it. “You know you sound nuts, right? You don’t believe all that stuff, do ya?”

Gryphon just glared back at him and decided to ignore the questions. “Are the police coming?”

He grimaced and looked away, pulling out his keys automatically and then pocketing them in embarrassment. “I told ‘em you said you spotted a body in the river. The dive team will be out in the morning. If this is a buncha bullshit, I’ll bill you for county time.”

“You stop with the bullshit,” he snapped back, too tired to care. “You either want my help or you don’t, but I’m not going to put up with this skepticism shit. Either accept what I tell you, or leave me the fuck alone.”

You tell him, Ruby concurred.

He got an evil scowl for that, but at this point he couldn’t honestly give a fuck. He was tired. O’Leary put his hands on the steering wheel, but seemed in no hurry to do anything else. “Should I take you back?” he said finally. “You’re pretty sopped.”

“I can change my clothes and you can take me to Wax’s old place.”

Fuck you, Hugh said. Call it for the night. You’ve encountered enough dead people.

As if he heard Hugh, O’Leary shook his head. “We’ve had enough fun for tonight. Let’s start again tomorrow.”

Gryphon just shrugged. “Fine. The guys are being followed around by the t.v. show; I’ve got nothing to do.”

“They’re not following you?”

“They can’t. I make their cameras malfunction.”

He grunted and took the truck back on the road. From the noise the engine was making, it was running a little hot - too much spirit exposure, Gryphon supposed. “Just like you hotwire trucks, huh?”

“Exactly.”

Ask this fucker, Ruby insisted. I don’t trust him.

Gryphon suddenly felt sweat oozing from his forehead and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Funny how he was cold for so long. Ruby was getting upset, and the temperature in the cab was raising accordingly. O’Leary looked at him askance. “You really don’t look well, kid. You gonna puke?”

“No. Ruby isn’t sure she likes you.”

“And Ruby is ..?”

“One of my passengers.”

“Ah.” He smiled briefly, faintly, a quicksilver flash of expression. “So I’m charmin’ the dead ladies too, huh?”

“I know you’re trying to be funny, but this is no joking matter. She’s the one who trashed the interrogation room.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise, but otherwise kept his eyes on the road. “So she’s a strong gal, huh?”

Let me kick his ass, she insisted.

“When you’re dead, gender is irrelevant. You could say death was the great equalizer, as everybody is brought down to the same level. The strength of a poltergeist is based solely on how angry it is … and Ruby is easily the most angry person I’ve ever met.”

O’Leary chuckled faintly. “You really have this spooky thing down pat.”

Fuck this noise, Ruby snapped.

The dashboard radio suddenly exploded to life, the volume all the way up to eleven, with Maynard Keenan shouting, “Go ahead and play dead” in one speaker and screaming “Wake up” from the other. Although the noise was almost deafening, only O’Leary jumped in his seat and let out a small, strangled yelp, as Gryphon was too used to this sort of thing. In fact it was sometimes fun to stand near the jukeboxes in bars and make them suddenly turn on, especially if they were broken or unplugged. That really freaked people out.

As soon as O’Leary recovered from the initial shock, he reached over to turn off the radio, and technically did, but the music was still blasting from it.

“He gets the idea, Ruby!” Gryphon shouted over the din.

The music died almost instantly, and the truck engine sputtered, almost dying. Ask him while he’s shaken up, she said.

A glance at O’Leary showed his eyes were wide and white, nearly falling out of his head, while his skin was flushing again. “What the fuck was that?”

“A Perfect Circle.”

There was the briefest of pauses while he worked that out. “Not the song! The whole fucking thing! What did you do to my radio?!”

“Nothing. You just pissed her off.”

He sucked in a hard breath and seemed ready to go off again, but stopped himself before he did. He was starting to realize what a disadvantage he had here. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “That wasn’t my intention.”

Gryphon let a moment pass before he asked, “If I said the phrase “touched by death”, would that mean anything to you?”

He should have just had a befuddled expression crayoned on his face. Gryphon belatedly hoped he didn’t have a heart condition, as he would hate to add him to his collection. “What? Is that a joke?”

“No. Does it mean something to you?”

The truck rolled up Clay’s gravel driveway, the stones crunching beneath the tires like hollow bones. “No. Should it? I don’t even know what it means.”

Kid … Hugh began.

I see it, he thought at him. O’Leary’s hands shook briefly before they tightly gripped the leather steering wheel cover, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed hard. What he had just asked him had unnerved him more than anything else. Why? Considering all that had happened, that was odd. So he did have something to hide. Was guilt driving him now? It could be a great motivator in some people.

As Gryphon opened the passenger door, he asked, “See you tomorrow?”

O’Leary nodded somewhat spastically, checking the radio to make sure it still worked. He clicked it on and some sports talk radio program came out of the tinny speakers. Wow - it hadn’t even been on FM. He wondered how Ruby had managed that, but how had she managed to do anything? It was all a mystery.

He shut the door and walked up the drive, the cold night air biting at him once more. There was a pale blue glow in the closed curtains of the living room window, assuring him that Clay was watching television, and hopefully wouldn’t bug him.

Gryphon went up the back stairs to avoid company, and stripped off his damp clothes as he headed to the bathroom and started filling the bathtub with steaming hot water. He used to have some shame when it came to stripping or going to the bathroom in front of all his passengers, but there was no help for it, and why was he shy about it? He knew everything about all these people, every single embarrassing detail of their lives and deaths. By comparison, he had little to share.

He sunk into the tub, briefly shocked by the heat of the water, but then it seemed nice as he slid down until his chin was submerged. He was baking very nicely; he’d probably be completely poached in a couple of hours. He closed his eyes and just enjoyed the warmth and silence and empty darkness.

Don’t fall asleep, Hugh warned.

“Just keep me from drowning,” he said, aware that saying that was probably redundant. Like they’d let him die.

There was some grumbling, but it was easy to block it out and drift away.

Soon he was in a darkness of a different kind. It had more of a restrictive shape, and smelled musty enough that he wanted to sneeze. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he saw that the floor was uneven because it was covered in debris. Broken wood mostly - shattered remains of shelves, split planks, chunks of random wood and scattered sawdust. Save for the debris, the place looked both remarkably dark and empty. Something made Gryphon turn, and he saw boarded up windows behind him, shattered glass glistening on the floor like spilled ice. Was this the inside of the empty store front he’d seen earlier? It must have been.

He was trying to figure out why he was here when he heard a noise deep within the building. He couldn’t describe the noise, but it was weird, and he knew that he wasn’t alone.

If this had been a horror movie, the wise thing would have been to turn to one of those windows and get the fuck out of here rather than investigate the strange noise in the dark and creepy place, but this wasn’t a movie. It was a message that someone was trying to send him, although in a deliberately oblique way. Gryphon stepped over rubble and made his way deeper into the empty store, trying not to trip on the leftover detritus and the occasional mouse that scurried from one piece of cover to another. He eventually saw a dim glow of light, and followed it to a corner where painter’s tarps lined the floor and walls. He saw the back of a person - a man; the shoulders were a bit too broad to be anything but a man - wearing what looked like a cleaner’s grey coverall and possibly a breathing mask of some sort. The light came from a Coleman lantern hung on a hook, and he raised his arms and brought them down suddenly, followed quickly by a dull, wet noise. Gryphon looked for blood, but only found a few lazy droplets crawling down the tarps, and starting to puddle near his worn tan work boots.

Sure, yeah, that would make sense. Blood generally only spurted in spectacular ways from live bodies. Dead ones still bled, but it was more of an oozing, gravity forcing the liquid out as opposed to a pumping circulatory system. He killed them elsewhere - out in the van? - and brought the bodies in here for dismemberment. He had much more room to work here, and yet retained his privacy. Of course that begged the question of how the hell he got in here, or even knew about his store. Where was it anyways?

He stepped closer, trying to get a look at the mystery dismemberer, but the breathing mask hid his face. That probably wasn’t a coincidence. The coverall gave no hints or clues as to the identity of its wearer. He decided to take a chance and reached for the mask, intending to rip it off -

- and was woken up by a rumble that seemed to shake his bed. His first thought was “earthquake”, but it faded away almost as soon as he regained consciousness, the grumbling fading in increments. Rain was now lashing the windows - real rain, as opposed to phantom rain - and a brief flash of white light painted the back wall in a vivid slash before dying away. Thunder and lightning then, not an earthquake.

It took Gryphon a moment, but he suddenly wondered why he was in bed. Wasn’t he in the bathtub last he remembered? You’re welcome, Hugh said. Oh, and Clay wants to talk to you before he heads out tomorrow.

“You talked to Clay?”

He didn’t seem to know I wasn’t you, so I just played along.

“And that’s all you did?”

Do you look like you’ve been clubbing?

Gryphon lifted his blanket and looked at himself, searching for a nightclub stamp or a tattoo of some sort. He was wearing nothing but boxer shorts with novelty flaming skulls on them, but nothing else, save for a couple of bruises and scratches from his woods adventure. There were no visible hickeys either, which was always a relief. Not that he minded getting some action, but he would have preferred to have been conscious for it. Well, in most cases - sometimes he supposed unconsciousness was a mercy, considering Hugh’s omnisexual nature.

“I guess not. And as it is anyways, I need to talk to Clay too.”

He needed to find out if he knew where there were some abandoned storefronts around here. Gryphon was sure he’d know the right one as soon as he saw it. Even if the killer had done a good job cleaning up the blood.