Spirit And Dust Part 1

Spirit and dust.

Rosemary Clement-Moore.

1.

THE LOCAL COPS kept staring at me. I couldn't decide if it was the plaid miniskirt in subarctic temperatures, or the fact that they'd never seen anyone talk to the dead before.

At the moment, I was mostly s.h.i.+vering, but that had more to do with the gray Minnesota afternoon than residual psychic energy, though there was that, too.

"What do you see?" asked Agent Taylor, my FBI handler and the reason-other than the dead man-that I was there.

I had to swallow before I could speak. I like to pretend I'm all Daisy Goodnight, kick-a.s.s teen psychic, when really most of the time I'm all Please don't let me puke in front of the FBI.

The medical examiner had carted off the body of the man I was supposed to read, and a daylong drizzle had washed away any physical traces from the sidewalk. But an afterimage-one that only I could See-remained where he'd fallen, the vivid imprint of his violent death stamped into the intangible fabric of reality.

It wasn't a pretty sight. I mean, the guy hadn't been pretty even before someone had shot him in the head.

"One guy. Big, bruiser type." I gestured to the curb. "Shot here, in the back of the head with a small-caliber pistol, I think." Psychic traces of him smeared the sidewalk and gra.s.s beyond. Unlike bloodstains, they couldn't be rinsed away by the rain. "Bruiser definitely died here, but it looks like maybe he was dragged out of sight, around the back of this building."

Chief Logan, the local guy in charge, exchanged looks with Agent Taylor and his partner, Agent Gerard, but I already knew I was right. Not because I was Daisy Goodnight, kick-a.s.s psychic for the FBI, but because the death was so recent that the details were way more clear than I needed.

Standard procedure was to let me read a murder site cold, with no prior information. And boy, was I reading this one cold. Like, icicles-on-my-belly-ring cold.

Four hours earlier I'd been in Texas-freshman chemistry lab, to be precise, trying not to blow myself up before I'd even finished my first college semester-when I'd gotten a 911 text from my uncle Sam. By which I mean Uncle Sam in the person of Agent Taylor. I'd given a cover-story excuse to my professor-because the feds are a little weird about the whole psychic-consultant thing-then headed outside, where a big black sedan waited for me on the street.

"Hey, Agent Tasty," I'd said, when I saw Agent Taylor waiting beside the car. I liked Taylor, and not just because he was young and really hot for a b.u.t.toned-up guy with a G-man haircut and a newly minted FBI badge. I sort of like liked him, but we worked together and I was still three months shy of legal age, so it stayed within the boundaries of "sort of." None of which kept me from noticing that he did not skimp on the FBI physical training program.

"Watch it, Jailbait," he replied, like he always did. Then he sized up my outfit, which was perfectly adequate for a sunny San Antonio autumn day. "I hope you brought a sweater."

I hadn't. And his partner, Agent Gerard, stick even farther up his b.u.t.t than normal, had refused to stop by my dorm for a jacket.

An hour later, the three of us-Taylor, Gerard, and I-were on a plane to the Midwestern tundra. Their haste made me uneasy, and not just because they'd whisked me off to hot chocolate country in my iced tea clothes. The feds like to exhaust all other avenues of investigation before they call in a psychic. Even me. Which made me wonder why I was risking hypothermia while I looked for clues on the mean streets of Elk b.u.t.t, Minnesota.

The college town was picturesque-dead-guy psychic slide show notwithstanding. Its biggest claim to fame, other than two liberal arts colleges, was that Jesse James botched a bank robbery there.

Taylor had briefed me on that much before we'd pulled up in front of a redbrick building on the Charleston College campus, where bright yellow crime-scene tape held back students who were taking pictures with their phones. It was a girls' dorm, surrounded by lawn and overlooking a small lake in back. Not exactly the low-rent education district.

Bruiser did not look like a college student capped on the way to sociology cla.s.s. He looked like a thug, his spirit traces felt vile, and worst of all, the freshness of his death had slammed me as soon as I'd climbed out of the car.

Agent Taylor and I had been called to a scene this fresh just that past summer, out in the desert, west of Sonora. One kid killed, another missing, the state troopers determined to find any clue, and fast. As soon as I'd gotten my feet on the ground, I'd known the little girl was dead, but it had taken me all afternoon and half of a heatstroke to find her body.

That had been a bad one.

"Hey, Daisy." Agent Taylor's voice yanked me out of memory. "What do you hear?"

He wasn't really asking what the dead were saying. Nothing in his tone-only our code question-gave any hint that he could tell I'd taken a mental step offside. He'd suggested the code when he'd figured out I wouldn't ask for help in front of other officers-especially Agent Gerard.

What do you hear? Was I that transparent, or was he thinking of the Texas desert, too?

"Nothing but the rain," I said, the proper response for "Don't worry, I still have both hands on the wheel." I mean, what was a little ghost brains on the sidewalk?

Agent Gerard, hands on his hips, showing the b.u.t.t of his sidearm in his shoulder holster, said, "Can we get this dog and pony show on the road before it ends up on the effing Tweet-book?"

He was right, which annoyed me. I had questions, but the whole reason I was there was to get answers the way only I could.

Ignoring the audience of students and cops, I blew into my icy hands, then crouched to lay my palm on the pavement where Bruiser had fallen. Over time, the imprint of his death would fade, but now it was a clear, sharp buzz of connection that raced up my arm like a hit to the funny bone.

Panic and prayer. Not much. Not long. Just Oh G.o.d. A millisecond of pet.i.tion but no contrition. And then nothing.

"He didn't see it coming," I said, the image vivid on my closed eyelids. "I don't get any kind of anxiety or fear. It seems like he was just minding his own business-whatever that was-when blammo. Out of nowhere."

What was kind of weird was that for such a clear death imprint, there was barely a trace of Bruiser's actual spirit, something I would expect only from a much older site.

"Anything else?" asked Chief Logan.

The question confirmed my hunch that there was more going on than just a dead thug on a college campus, but I forced myself to focus and search deeper and wider for any other recent psychic events strong enough to stick.

"No one else was killed. At least, not here." I stood and shook imaginary cobwebs off my hand. I wished I could shake off my dread as easily, but the threads of suspicion had knit together too tightly. "There's someone missing, isn't there? A girl from this dorm?"

"We'll ask the questions," snapped Agent Gerard, making Taylor visibly grind his teeth. Before they could argue, Chief Logan overrode them both.

"The victim," he said, nodding to the sidewalk, "was the driver for a girl named Alexis Maguire. Yes, she is a student here, and yes, she is missing."

"Okay," I said, but I was trying to convince myself. It's okay. She's not definitely dead. It's not like the little girl in Texas.

Taylor had taken a small step closer, as if worried I was going to faint, which I was absolutely not going to do. I was Daisy "Talks to the Dead" Goodnight, and freaking out wouldn't help anyone.

"Okay," I said again, with more conviction. "Let's go hablo dead guy."

2.

I'VE BEEN READING spirit remnants since I was a kid. "I see dead people." The whole shebang.

Because I was raised by a family of witches and psychics, I never thought I was crazy, though I did have some unpleasant moments on school field trips to battlegrounds of the Texas Revolution. I don't think they'll ever let me back into the Alamo.

My gift does tend to isolate me from the living. One, I suppose I seem a little weird-I mean, aside from my wardrobe choices. And two ... Well, everyone wants to know if there's something left of us when we die, but most people are a little afraid of the answer.

I'd stepped off the pavement and was following the psychic smears on the gra.s.s-the trail of Bruiser's dragged body. I moved with purpose, Taylor scrambling to catch up, Gerard and Logan trailing behind as we rounded the building to the stretch leading to the small lake. There was crime-scene tape there, too, but the area must have been searched for trace evidence already, since no one stopped me from crossing it.

"Why are we headed back here?" asked Taylor, a logical question. I'd just said that I wanted to talk to the victim's shade, and usually I did that where someone died, or while holding something of theirs.

"Because he's not there," I said, jabbing a thumb back to where Bruiser had met his end. "There's the imprint of his death, but not enough of his spirit for me to talk to. The remnant must be where his body was hidden."

Only it wasn't. Which was weird. And when I say something is weird, it is seriously weird.

I stopped in the middle of the lawn between the dorm and the little lake. I could picture coeds sunning themselves there on a much warmer day. I didn't have to picture Bruiser's body, poorly hidden by a clump of bushes, because I could See him there with my extra senses. But with a death this new, I expected Bruiser's remnant to be standing there like something out of the Haunted Mansion, or at least a mist or shade I could draw out for a chat.

He couldn't have moved on already, because there were still shreds and tatters of his spirit wisping around the site.

Taylor had nearly run me over when I'd halted so quickly. "What's wrong?" he asked. "You're not going Basingstoke on me, are you?"

That was our code for "batten down the hatches," and it shook me out of my befuddlement.

"I haven't even done anything yet," I said, because Gerard and Logan hadn't caught up. "I'm not that big a wimp."

He glanced toward the older men and lowered his voice. "Well, I don't know what you're Seeing. It's not ... You don't See her, do you?"

Then I felt like a total heel, because when he'd asked me if I was going Basingstoke, he must have been imagining the worst. I mean, he'd been in that Texas desert, too.

There was no sign of a murdered college girl, but before I let either of us be relieved about that, I said, "Give me a second so I can be sure."

With my eyes closed, the spirit traces of Bruiser were bright, vile yellow sc.r.a.ps of fog, eddying closer to me. I ignored them for the moment, ignored Gerard and Logan coming up to us, ignored the damp and cold seeping through my sneakers.

I perceive the spirit world through the five senses already wired into my brain, plus the emotions we all have. I've learned to dial the volume up or down on the psychic impressions-the visit to the Alamo taught me the importance of that skill-but mostly it's like seeing in color. I just do it.

Harder to describe is how I interact with that layer of reality. I pictured my psychic self as a sort of ghost me living in my skin, part force field, part sensory array. When I sought out spirits, remnant traces of human souls, I imagined my psyche rus.h.i.+ng with my blood out into the smallest capillaries of my skin to my pores, where it could mesh with the energies around me.

That was what I did in the wet gra.s.s behind the girls' dorm in Elk b.u.t.t, Minnesota, searching for any sign of a murdered girl.

Nothing. A relief, but not in any way an end to my worry.

I opened my eyes and looked at Taylor. Gerard and Logan had joined us. "What's the girl's name again?" I asked.

"Alexis Maguire," said Taylor. "She's a senior, in her last year."

"I don't get any hint that she was killed here," I told them. "But if you give me something of hers, I can tell you for sure if she's still alive."

Chief Logan nodded slowly. I didn't know what he really thought of the psychic stuff, but he seemed to like my professionalism. Which was why I worked so hard at it. "We can do that."

Then I gestured to the image half hidden in the bushes, even though they couldn't see it. "You said Bruiser over there is the driver for the missing girl? Is that some kind of code for 'bodyguard'? Because this guy looks more like a WWF wrestler than a chauffeur."

"Driver and bodyguard," said Logan. "Her father is a rich, powerful man."

Money and enemies. So, the girl came from a political or crime family. And going by my sense of Bruiser, I was thinking crime. I was thinking enforcer.

"How long was his body hidden?" I asked, trying to figure out the weirdness of his spirit traces-not to mention the timetable for the missing girl.

Logan was obliging with answers. "All night. We know that the driver was supposed to take the girl into the city to go clubbing. She never showed up, but her friends didn't think anything about it until she didn't come to cla.s.s this morning. A search turned up the body shortly after that."

So Alexis was the type of girl likely to ditch the club scene but rarely miss cla.s.s. Not exactly the stereotype of a mafia princess.

"Okay," I said, rubbing my hands together, getting blood and psyche flowing. "Let's see what Bruiser has to say."

I crossed the short distance to where his body had lain for twelve hours or so. The gra.s.s had been trampled by the crime techs, but the ground was soft from the misty rain. I squatted and dug my hand into the dirt where blood and brains had seeped from the hole in Bruiser's skull. Since he'd been moved there after the fact, there wasn't more than a trace, but gray matter always made the best connection.

It should have taken just a fraction of willpower to bring him into focus, like tuning in to the right radio station. But nothing about this remnant was behaving normally.

Normally the death imprint and the actual spirit of a person are closely linked this early in the game. The spirit moves on quickly; the remnant-what most people call a ghost-erodes and fades unless something keeps it here.

This spirit was in tatters, something that usually happened with time. But the shreds were strong with personality, which I only Saw with the newly dead or remnants kept vivid by the memories of the living.

The wisps tangled around me, creeping over my skin, crawling up my sleeves and down my collar. I grabbed the threads and knit them together, exerting my will on the frayed-no, torn-edges until they started to mesh.

What could tear apart a ghost?

Suddenly it was done, and the shade of Bruiser stood in front of me-big and brawny, shadowed by his sins and screaming like the hounds of h.e.l.l were after him.

My psyche was the bungee cord holding him together, and his terror earthquaked across that link with a discordant screech. Instinct said to let go, but I clamped down tighter, gripping the reins on Bruiser's visceral panic.

"Stop it!" I shouted over the scream in my head. The agents jumped; they couldn't see or hear Bruiser. I was just a long-legged, red-haired college freshman squatting in the soggy ground, yelling at the air.

"No one is going to hurt you," I said, my voice less shouty but still pitched high with effort. I didn't have to speak aloud, but thinking at him was too much work. My psyche, that invisible ghost of myself, staggered under the effort of keeping the shade knit together. If my attention slipped, he started to dissolve back into bilious fog and discordant screaming.

Seriously. Weird.

A tattered remnant should have been too weak to pull apart once I brought it together. And, yeah, with murder victims, panic was normal sometimes. But this was extreme. I didn't like to admit there was anything ghost-related I hadn't seen before. But this was something ghost-related I had never seen before.

Finally, the shade stopped yelling. He looked around, bug-eyed with terror, jerking with surprise when he saw me.

"Who are you?" Bruiser demanded. "What's happening?"

"I'm here to help you." It wasn't a lie. He could be the vilest vile thing on the planet, but it went against my principles to let a spirit suffer on this side of eternity.

Bruiser was dressed as he had been when he died, in a dark suit and white s.h.i.+rt, jacket bulging over his muscles and a pretty obvious shoulder holster. The shade's hand jerked toward his weapon when he noticed Taylor beside me and Chief Logan and Agent Gerard behind him. "What about them? Cops? I didn't do anything."

"They don't care about you," I told him with authority. You have to let freaked-out spirits know you're in charge. "We just want to ask you some questions."

"What's he saying?" demanded Gerard, who clearly believed enough to boss me around while I was doing my job. "What happened to the girl?"

"Give her a chance," said Taylor. Then, to the confused Chief Logan, he explained, "We can't see or hear what Daisy sees and hears. Whether the ghosts see or hear us depends on the type. Also, she says murder victims are sometimes a little discomposed by the event."

"Scrambled in the head" was what I'd actually said.

Bruiser watched Taylor with a deepening scowl. "What's he talking about? What murder victim?"