Secondhand Sorcery

Hamp crashed as soon as they got to the hotel, and none of them said a thing about it. He’d got himself all worked up on the plane; it was no wonder he was exhausted. They kept talking shop in the main room of the suite for a bit, with the door closed. When that didn’t really get them anywhere, Ms. Troester suggested they go and talk with the boys at the local police station, a couple of blocks away. It didn’t sound very promising to Keisha, but nothing anyone could suggest was likely to get them anywhere; they were one emissor and one clairvoyant, and Germany had plenty of both making the problem their top priority.

That just left one question. “Do we take Hamp? He looked wiped.”

“It might perhaps be kinder to let him sleep,” said Dr. Gus. “You can leave a note explaining where we have gone.”

“Yeah.” She turned over an old study of Ghost appearances to scrawl something on the back, then hesitated. “I don’t know if he’ll appreciate being left alone, though.”

That seemed to baffle Ms. Troester. “Does your commanding officer have a serious medical condition? If so, I apologize for not arranging accommodations, but I was not aware.”

“He’s had a bad experience with familiars. That’s why he walks with a cane.”

“However, we are here under orders,” Dr. Gus cut in. “Perhaps he would like to be treated as so lacking in emotional resilience that he must be supervised, like a small child. I think he would not, but that is beside the point. It is defensible to wake him so that he may come with us, or choose not to. It is also defensible to leave him asleep, with a note. It is not defensible to consider ourselves anchored to this set of rooms, hindering our investigation, for his sake.”

“Fine.” She wrote the note, and after a last quiet check on him—she could feel Ms. Troester’s confused gaze, and felt foolish even doing it—they left.

She felt wrong about it as soon as they shut the door. Whatever Dr. Gus said, she knew Hamp would freak out if he woke up alone in this city. He wasn’t really at risk; there were millions of people in this city, and the Ghost was probably halfway to Stuttgart or somewhere by now anyway. That wouldn’t make any difference to him. But she’d made her choice. She’d just have to hope that they got back before he woke up.

The cops, predictably, were overwhelmed, and they got bounced from desk to desk until they finally found somebody who wasn’t in the middle of handling an ongoing crisis. That landed them in front of an old man named Mueller or something, a forensic accountant who’d been pulled out of retirement to help and then found he didn’t have anything useful to do. A bit like them.

“Money is a weakness of the Ghost’s,” he told them through Ms. Troester—his English wasn’t the best. “Usually we see a certain amount of cunning by malefactors where finance is concerned, some attempt to hide their misdeeds. But the Ghost’s victims are quite brazen, and resort impulsively to characteristic behaviors which automated surveillance algorithms capture at once. I have developed a program to flag and collate these irregularities, bringing them to our attention once they cross a critical threshold.”

That sounded good. “What kind of results are you getting with that?” she asked him.

“Disappointing so far,” he replied. “We can rarely respond rapidly enough to prevent the criminal from using his ill-gotten gains to some terrible effect or other. Also there are false positives, as with everything else lately—in this environment, many people are becoming more reckless in their criminal behavior.”

And that was that. Dr. Gus kept him talking, jotting down notes the whole time, and after ten minutes he had a sheet full of what Keisha assumed were valuable insights. She wouldn’t know; she could hardly follow half of it. It was all theories about the limitations of the Ghost’s thinking as a paraphysical entity, and what that implied about this, that, and the other thing. She supposed she should be glad that he was being productive.

“Bottom line,” she asked him as they left the accountant’s office, “does all that give us an edge on this thing?”

“Not immediately, no. It is only more data. But we cannot fight an enemy whose identity we do not understand. It is frustrating, I know, but this is a necessary first step.”

“Great,” she said, half a second before an alarm went off. “What’s that?” A man burst out of an office down the hall and sprinted past them, nearly knocking her down and not stopping to apologize. “What’s going on?” The alarm was loud; she had to shout.

“I do not know,” Ms. Troester yelled back. “But we should leave the building.”

Not everybody was leaving with them, though. They saw a few more people running as they went down the stairs: mostly uniformed officers, a few men in suits who might have been detectives. They bugged the booking officer on the first floor, who said that some esper had spotted the Ghost again, inside the city.

“Where in the city?”

“Ehrenfeld, across the Rhine. Pardon me, miss.” He turned away as two officers wrestled a large, screaming, incredibly sweaty man into the building.

“I thought you’d given up trying to catch her?” Keisha said as they joined the exodus of officers.

“We have stopped trying to apprehend an emissor,” Troester corrected, “partly because we now doubt there is one. But where she appears so brazenly, trouble almost always follows. We try to have officers on the scene as soon as possible.”

“Fair enough,” she sighed.

And she was right. A good chunk of Ehrenfeld was on fire by the time they got there, and nobody had much time for Americans asking nosy questions. Just getting in past the fire engines and barricades took some doing. By listening in on cop-talk with Ms. Troester, they got the general picture: a small group of unemployed young men, some with military experience, most with substance abuse problems, had decided to burn down the whole district, starting with a string of nightclubs and movie theaters.

The trigger, reportedly, was a sudden appearance by “Her.” The three perpetrators they managed to catch were convinced that they had saved the country. God had told them that popular entertainment was bringing down divine judgment, and it made perfect sense to them—including the two of the three who’d just visited the clubs themselves last night.

“And it was all perfectly coordinated,” said one sergeant, staring into space. “Perfect. I would have to drill my men for a month to do this so well.”

“What’s the point, then?” Keisha asked Dr. Gus, once they were out of earshot from the cops. “I guess she starts moving away from the city, so everyone thinks they’re done, then she doubles back and pulls something huge just to double the pain?”

“More or less,” he answered. “I would say her goal is to maximize uncertainty; the uncertain is always more frightening than the definite. She establishes an apparent pattern, then breaks it as soon as it has had time to be recognized. Now citizens know they cannot count on a reprieve. It is logical enough.”

“Yeah.” It was getting on towards evening now, and she’d been stateside just long enough to get used to the eastern time zone again. Nothing she could do about it but rub her eyes until she was allowed to sleep again. Coffee would be a mistake, this late in the day.

Fortunately—or not—there wasn’t much left to do in Ehrenfeld. The fire department had things under control now, and the suspects were in custody. She could get in the back of the car, and maybe catch a few early winks on her way back to the hotel.

And she did—but only for a little bit. She was just in that drowsy, not-quite-there twilight state when Dr. Gus jabbed her awake. “Hnh? What? What now?”

“Contact,” he said softly. “Another one. Ahead.”

She refused to open her eyes. “Oh, Lord, Doc. I’m tired here. We weren’t any use at that last one. Can’t we leave this to the locals?” She didn’t even care that the Troester woman could hear.

There was a little buzzing noise, and a pause, and then Anneliese Troester spoke up: “That is not an option, Ms. Graham. This halo is very close to your own hotel.”

She woke up fast. “Are you kidding me?”

“Do you think I would joke about something like this? See for yourself.” And she showed her phone’s screen. There was a bright yellow field superimposed on a map, but everything was labeled in German, and anyway she didn’t know where anything in Cologne was. “The halo covers your hotel and the surrounding area.”

“Damnation. Step on it, then!” Was this a coincidence? It had to be. Or did it? She was too tired to trust her own thoughts. Whether it was a coincidence or not, Hamp would feel it the same way, like a betrayal. An abandonment. And it was. “Come on, move!”

“There is traffic,” Troester said, but a second later the engine picked up. Keisha listened to the driver for a second; it was manual.

“The halo is gone,” said Dr. Gus.

“Good,” Keisha told him, though she didn’t know if it was. None of them knew anything. But she had her magnolia up in her mind, and it steadied her some.

The halo appeared and disappeared two more times before they got back over the Rhine and close enough for her to force the bitch away with Adesina. Usually the Ghost popped up just long enough to raise hell, then ran off laughing. What on earth was she doing here?

Adesina got there long before she could, and found Hamp facedown on the floor, passed out and breathing shallow. Still alive, at least. Adesina stayed to watch him while Keisha got out of the car, sprinted across the parking lot, and took the stairs so fast she got a stitch in her side. At least the halo smothered all the guilt she’d normally feel.

Hamp was still breathing when she got there; she and Adesina log-rolled him together, in case his spine was hurt. His eyes stayed closed when she rubbed her knuckles on his chest. “Hey. Hamp. You with me?”

Nope. Breathing, good pulse, face badly bruised but nothing looked broken. He just wouldn’t wake up. She tried for a couple more seconds, while Adesina went out scouting for other injuries in nearby rooms. Everyone else looked fine; a man in the next room sat on his bed and waved happily at the familiar as she came in.

When Hamp still didn’t come to, she pulled Adesina back to SP level, on the off-chance she was causing this somehow. His eyelids fluttered just a little—promising—but nothing more. She sat and watched him lay on the floor for thirty seconds, his chest barely rising. It was weird, and she wondered if he was breathing enough.

The door opened behind her, and Dr. Gus came in, followed by Ms. Troester. They both froze in place when they saw Hamp. The trailing edge of Adesina’s influence reminded Keisha that now wasn’t the best time for “I told you so.”

Just as she was turning back to look at her CO again, and wondering if she should do mouth-to-mouth or what, he went rigid, then started banging his head against the floor, hard. When she grabbed his head, his body started jerking around instead. His right hand flew up to smack his bruised face, over and over again; she wrestled it down, put her knee on it. The left hand tried to smack him again. “A little help, here?”

Ms. Troester joined in, with a lot of fussing, and got his other arm down, and Hamp couldn’t do anything but thrash in place. Then he stopped, and Ms. Troester screamed and fell over slamming her head into the floor just like he’d been doing. Keisha got up to grab her, only for her to stop abruptly, panting, and Hamp to go back to bashing his skull against the floor. She called back Adesina, and he instantly went limp, breathing slow and shallow just like before.

The bruising was maybe a little worse, and his nose was bleeding. God knew what all that had done to his brain, but the floor had a good, thick carpet on it. “Ms. Troester. Are you all right?”

The German woman felt her head. “I think so.”

“What happened, just now?”

“I don’t know.” She looked down at her hands. “There was just … pressure. Inside my head. It was too much. I had to get it out. That’s what I think now. I don’t know what I thought then. Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all.”

“Huh.” A direct attack from the Ghost, maybe. Should they feel honored by the attention? “Dr. Gus?”

“It is difficult for me to actually enter trance within a halo. I will try. A moment, please.”

“All right.” They had a moment. Hamp was doing okay. Maybe. They could try calling the hospital, but Adesina would need to go away first, and then he’d start hurting himself again. “This isn’t a coincidence. Why did she attack Colonel Hampton? Just because he’s been attacked this way before? There’s no military point in this. He isn’t even German.”

Ms. Troester shrugged. Dr. Gus, of course, was trying to trance, and didn’t answer. Right. She got up, and looked out the window to think it over, while Adesina stood watch by the door. Keisha assumed that Hamp was targeted on purpose, and probably because he was a special kind of afraid. The Ghost was psychic, and it messed with emotions; probably it could smell them from a long way away.

“I sense no halo outside our own,” Dr. Gus said, from behind her. “Not within my ability to detect.”

“Huh.” She turned around to look at him. “Where do you think she was before?

“As is commonly claimed, I could feel no emissor, no matter how close we became. I venture to suggest that the Ghost actually went inside Colonel Hampton’s and Ms. Troester’s heads, as a host.”

“That seems obvious.”

“Yes, but what seems obvious is not always right. I offer it as a hypothesis, that the creature can, perhaps, retreat to the confines of a single mind, but keep itself partially active, after the manner of a familiar in sovereign protocol. Apparently it is not resistant to valence pressure, possibly because it is not deliberately generated by the host. The phenomenon I witnessed on the way here—a halo coming on and off—“

“Okay, I got it. Makes sense. Do I have to keep Adesina up forever, just to force the Ghost away?”

“I think no. For one, you will have to sleep soon; for another, I do not think our hosts will tolerate the continual disruption. I suggest you release your friend, for a moment, while I observe.”

She tried and failed to think of a better alternative. “Fine. Here goes.” She pulled her familiar back, and watched. Hamp just lay there, immobile as before. For five minutes they watched, and nothing happened.

“I hope we are safe now,” Ms. Troester said in a weak voice. She wasn’t so sanguine now that Adesina’s halo was gone.

“For now,” Keisha agreed. “Maybe. But I want to keep an eye on him. Can you call emergency services? I’ll stay with him.”

She nodded, and wobbled her way out of the room to make the call. Keisha looked up at Dr. Gus. “Any other ideas?”

“The beginnings of one, perhaps.”

“Shoot.”

“Consider the timeline—earlier today, we visited a place where the Ghost had been very recently active. We saw no sign of her, true, but within half an hour of our departure, she attacked Colonel Hampton here. This, to me, is suggestive.”

“Of what?”

“I would like to find out, first, if any German citizens were attacked in this vicinity, or if it was only the poor Colonel. His mere vulnerability is no explanation, to me; this city is full of people in all forms of emotional distress. Surely more than a few must be equally enticing targets as our friend.”

“Okay. So what’s your answer?”

“It is not an answer. I hesitate even to call it a theory. More of a rumination. But if we speculate that the Ghost saw or sensed us in Ehrenfeld—which would not have been hard to do, if it was lingering in the area—and attacked the Colonel here as a consequence, how did it know about him? I do not think either of us, nor Ms. Troester, mentioned him there. In fact, I am nearly certain.”

“So, what? It can read minds? It plucked him out of my brain, or yours?”

“That would be one explanation. I doubt it. That sort of invasive power would very likely register to a clairvoyant, and we may be certain the neighborhood was under surveillance. Also, I think we would have noticed it ourselves. An alternative explanation would be that she knew about Colonel Hampton already, and further knew or guessed that she would be with us. Or, more specifically, with you.”

“Doc, please. I’m tired, and wrung out, and feeling like shit. You can give me the logical proof later. Just tell me what the hell you think is going on.”

“This is all, again, highly speculative. But both of you have already met an emissant with capacities fairly similar to the Ghost’s. We assumed she was destroyed with her master, or died shortly after. There was no reason to think otherwise, in the absence of clear signs of further activity. But, if she was not … “

“You have got to be—Nadia killed him how long ago? A month? Two? What’s she doing in Germany?”

“Either obeying Russian orders, or enjoying herself. Does it matter? This would also explain why she specifically targeted the Colonel. Nostalgia, perhaps—if such a creature can feel such a thing. But hypotheses require testing. I advise you to rest now, while we wait for the ambulance. You can travel with Colonel Hampton to the hospital, and watch over him. I will take Ms. Troester, and conduct my own, very thorough investigation.”