PsyCop: GhosTV Part 27

Breakfast was served family style, with a big cauldron of oatmeal being pa.s.sed around each table. One look at the glistening, slimy surface brought back the memory of ectoplasm so sharply that I nearly regurgitated yesterday's spelt. I took a banana instead. The sticker on the peel proclaimed that it was organic in extra-smug letters. I put it back and decided that maybe I'd try the oatmeal after all. After I scooped it into my bowl, I topped it with a big squirt of honey, then drowned it in enough cinnamon to exorcise an evil spirit. Not bad.

I dragged my spoon through the bowl and watched as the beige oatmeal-colored layer eased shut behind the spoon, and then, a moment later, the cinnamon-colored layer. And I wondered if maybe they had huevos rancheros across the street. Lyle would know. I did my very best not to look at him, in case he'd interpret that as an invitation for a "quickie."

I ended up looking at the final empty seat, and I said to Faun, "So, where's your guy?"

"My guy?" She laughed. "You're so funny." Real laughter, or 233.

head-exploding laughter? Sounded like actual amus.e.m.e.nt, not nerves or awkward release. "Myguy is spirit walking." Was that like astral projecting? It seemed like it would be-but if it were, wouldn't she have just said "astral projecting," since she's the big expert? My head hurt. "Does he...spirit walk...often?"

"On the solstices and equinoxes, of course."

Oh yes, of course.

"And whenever he needs guidance from our ancestors." Most of her ancestors were haunting castles back in Europe, but I'd pointed that out enough times at Camp h.e.l.l that it was apparent she was determined to let it roll off her back. I did glance at Lyle then, over at the next table. He was spooning raw sugar onto his oatmeal, smiling to himself. Maybe he really was on to something in regards to Katrina's obliviousness.

"Is there a ritual, or...?"

"Absolutely. Shamanic tradition is rich in symbolism and ritual." The narcissism was killing me, but I forced myself to sound normal and prompt her with, "Such as?"

"Fasting. Drumming. Chanting."

"Peyote?"

"No." She looked down her nose at me as if I couldn't possibly have said something more juvenile. "He's Seminole." Gee, I wasn't as up on my Native American traditions as the chick who used to call herself Faun f.u.c.king Windsong even though she was fifteen sixteenths as lily-white as me. Imagine that. I slashed into the oatmeal with my spoon. Not eating it. Just funneling my aggression.

"Summer solstice isn't 'til next week," I pointed out.

"He's trying to figure out what happened to Professor March."

234.

"By burning sage in her room?"

"Not in her room-I don't see how that could affect evidence, but you said not to touch anything, so we didn't touch anything. He's in our room."

"Our" room? They lived together on campus? Quite the happy couple.

Or were they? Did Faun say the words ProfessorMarch with a hint of cattiness, or was I imagining it because I'd seen that necklace hanging in Debbie's shower? Maybe the three missing women had nothing to do with a bunch of bible-thumpers, and everything to do with the fact that they'd known Chekotah in the biblical sense...and then Faun Windsong found out, and one by one, arranged for them to take a permanent hike.

I must have been looking at her funny, even with that expressionless face I've cultivated over the years, because she said, "Our room is a very sacred s.p.a.ce."

I almost laughed. But the knowledge that Bert Chekotah had been stepping out of their "sacred s.p.a.ce" to stick it to Lisa left me entirely unamused, which killed the laughter dead in my throat. I stabbed my oatmeal a few more times before the other Psychs at my table started looking at me funny, and then I decided that eating would probably be my best bet. It might not be pleasant, but I was pretty d.a.m.n hungry-and at least it would keep my mouth busy so I didn't say something I'd regret.

When I looked down into the bowl, four oatmeal-and-cinnamon colored slashes looked back at me-oozing shut, but definitely there. Not only that, but they spelled out two letters.

TV.

I stirred the word out of the oatmeal and pushed the bowl away.

235.

While I had no definitive proof that "spirit walking" and astral projection were the same thing, I suspected there were only so many types of psychic phenomena in the world-not necessarily six, like the government's got printed on all their pamphlets and brochures.

But few enough that it didn't surprise me when the same mojo went by a different name. And what interested me about astral projection was this: if I could catch Chekotah while he was astral, I might be able to get him to really spill his guts in that same sort of radical honesty Jacob displayed while he floated the ridiculous theory that there was a better a.s.s than his somewhere out in the world. Judging by my prior two trips, if I did manage to drag Chekotah into an astral conversation, I'd probably remember it just fine-and if I was really lucky, he wouldn't.

Jacob thought it was a good plan. When I told him I wanted him to watch over me while I was doing it, he thought it was an even better plan. But even though slipping out of my flesh suit would be the best way for me to take advantage of Chekotah's spirit walk, the knowledge that my right arm had suggested turning on the GhosTV wasn't sitting very well. "I was thinking about trying it without the help of the TV set," I told Jacob.

"Any reason in particular?"

Because I wanted to rebel against my oatmeal. "I just thought I might have a little more control over snapping back into my body if I needed to."

"But that's why I'll be here. I can always wake you up. And besides, since when can you just decide you're going to astral project and fly right out of your body? I thought it was the type of skill that takes people whole lifetimes to perfect."

"I won't know until I try." I took off my shoes and jacket, removed my holster, loosened my tie and sat down on the bed.

"Do you want a drink? Something weak, like a hard lemonade."

236.

The itchy hunger-like feel at the back of my tongue told me half a tab of Valium would not be unwelcome...but supposedly most drugs made it harder to project, not easier. "It's fine. All I need to do is say the magic words-just resting my eyes."

I closed my eyes and folded my hands on my stomach, sighed, and tried to remember what it had felt like to project. Floaty. Foggy. Stuck in a ball pit. I lay still and thought about the sensations, tried to feel those feelings somatically. I remembered...but I didn't feel them. I tried harder, and harder still. Nothing. "How long has it been?" I said, finally.

"Twenty minutes. No luck?"

"Zilch."

"Here, I have an idea." A computer made its "ta-da" startup noise, and then there was the quiet sound of a new keyboard clicking. I kept my eyes shut so as not to undo my twenty minutes of effort. "I'll read a guided meditation for you. Maybe that'll help."

"We can give it a shot."

"Okay, here's one," he said. I settled back on the pillow, and he began reading. "Take a deep breath, and hold it. Imagine your diaphragm stretching, and breathe deeper still...." Breathe in two counts, stretch the diaphragm, out one count. We'd done all kinds of breathing at Camp h.e.l.l. Old news. Jacob reading it-that was new. I could tell he was reading rather than talking, not that he stumbled over the words or anything. But he wasn't smooth, like Stefan was smooth when he induced hypnosis. f.u.c.king Stefan.

He was probably the last person I wanted to think about.

In. Out. Focus on your toes. In. Out. Focus on your ankles. Your calves.

Your knees. My a.s.s felt like it was asleep-my sciatic nerve again, or did that count as a tingle? Maybe it was a tingle. Maybe I was astral, and I just hadn't opened my astral eyes. I opened them. Nope. Still 237.

awake. Closed them. And Jacob kept on reading. Breathe. Breathe.

Focus on my fingers, my hands, my wrists.

"Hey," I said finally, when I was supposed to be focusing on my chin.

"Yeah?"

"It's not working."

"No big deal. Just go to plan B and turn on the GhosTV."

"Yeah but..." I rolled onto my side, opened my eyes, and p.i.s.sed away the last forty-five minutes of focusing and breathing by coming fully awake. I couldn't tell him I was h.e.l.l-bent on disobeying the oatmeal.

That sounded pathetic, even to me.

"We'll turn the amplitude dial down to 1," he said. "How about that?"

"I really don't feel like-"

"Vic, how long do you think Bert's going to be on this spirit walk?

Grab him now, while you can." Do it for Lisa. He didn't say it in words, but his eyes said it plenty.

I didn't want to. Really didn't want to. But....

"Fine." I figured if I was successful and I actually did find Chekotah out of his body, I could have the satisfaction of giving him an astral kick in the astral a.s.s, and he'd be none the wiser in waking life. I settled back down and watched Jacob turn on the set and adjust the dials. "But how will you know to wake me up if I need to come back?"

"I'll watch your face."

Yeah, knowing he was staring at me as I was attempting to drift off wouldn't be distracting at all. "That won't help. I don't think the physical body knows what the astral is doing."

"But yours does. Doesn't it? Isn't that why you remember?" He had me there.

238.

"And as a backup plan, I'll have Lyle call me when Chekotah emerges from his 'sacred s.p.a.ce.' If you're still asleep at that point, I'll wake you up. Deal?"

Jacob Marks. Always making so much G.o.dd.a.m.n sense. I sighed. "Oh, all right. Deal." I closed my eyes, tried to relax myself yet again, and pretended Jacob didn't sound like he was smirking when he called Lyle and talked him into being our sentry.

"Do you want me to read the guided meditation again?" he asked me.

"I guess it couldn't hurt."

"Take a deep breath, and hold it. Imagine your diaphragm stretching...." The totally unwelcome thought occurred to me that Stefan, with his velvet voice, would've probably had me floating already, and it got me so agitated that I sat straight up and snapped, "f.u.c.k this, I hate it. There's gotta be some other way."

"Breathe in two counts...one, two...and out one count." Talk about persistent. That was my first notion, until I whipped around and saw my own head back there on the pillow. Jacob wasn't ignoring me. He couldn't hear me. I looked at Jacob, and then back at myself again. My hair really did look pretty spiffy-but I thought my face looked a little rough around the edges, in the smattering of sparkly gray stubble amid the black, and the creases at the corners of my eyes and across my forehead that announced to the world that forty wasn't all that far off.

"Focus on your toes...."

I glanced down at my solar plexus in search of a silver cord, but there wasn't one. I felt my forehead, and again, no luck. Not with anything cord-shaped. But it did feel taut, kind of like my sunburned scalp. I looked back at my body again. As much as I didn't care for the fact that it was aging, I preferred that to the alternative. When all was said 239.

and done, that body was still mine. I'd prefer some guarantee that if I roamed, I'd eventually find my way back to it.

But some things in life don't come with guarantees.

I swung out of the bed and stood, and the floor felt firm beneath my astral feet. Was Jacob's red energy s.h.i.+elding me, or was I s.h.i.+t outta luck because he was awake? I took a good look at him and searched for the red energy. For the veins. "Notice your thighs." He smirked.

"Your b.u.t.tocks. Your lower back."

No veins. And he couldn't even say the word b.u.t.tocks with a straight face. Still, I had faith that he would keep my sh.e.l.l of a body safe while I was out. "Okay, mister," I told him. "I'm trusting you not to let anything nasty happen to me while I go put the thumbscrews to Chekotah."

And with that, I pictured the instructors' wing of the building, steeled my astral body, and hurtled through the wall.

240.

Chapter 27.

Either the other two times I'd already projected had been good practice for me, or we now had the GhosTV at just the right setting...or maybe a little bit of both. Morning cla.s.ses were in session. The only other person in the hallway was a fifty-something lady in a flowered smock with a housekeeping cart, an iPod and a vacuum cleaner. I considered calling to her, waving, trying to see if I could make her see me. She looked physical, but I wasn't really experienced enough to attest to her physical state with a hundred percent certainty. Besides, if she was astral, she probably had her astral iPod turned up good and loud, so she wouldn't hear me either way.

I thrust my head through the first door. Empty room. Moved on to the next door. The same. It occurred to me that I should have told Jacob to ask Lyle which room was Chekotah's "sacred s.p.a.ce." I might not be able to read the number on the front of it, but I'd at least know which floor I should start on. Some rooms had plants and pretty curtains and natural light. Some were sleek and Asian-inspired. None of them had personality like Debbie March's room had-and that thought just made me all the more determined to wring an answer out of Chekotah.

Frilly room. Plain room. Room with pentagrams on the walls and candle wax on the dressers. Room stuffed with books. I challenged myself to a little game of guess-what's-next as I moved on to the next room, decided it was time for another frilly room, stuck my head through the doorway to have a look-and found myself sprawled in the hallway with my feet sticking through the opposite wall and my 241.

head half-sunk through the floor. d.a.m.n. I half expected to find little astral birdies tweeting in circles above my ringing head.

I definitely needed to start being more careful about where I stuck my body parts.

More cautiously, now, I reached out with my astral fingertips and touched the door. It felt as solid as a physical door. No reason I needed to use the door to get into that room, right? I touched the wall to the side of the door. It felt equally as solid. I worked my way down the wall until I felt the flex-and-give I was accustomed to, and I carefully put my hand through. When the wall didn't complain about it, I followed with my head to take a look.

The room was frilly. The bedspread was lacy and the walls were covered in pressed flowers with fancy frames. While I wasn't entirely sure I'd find a whole bison hide on the wall of the room Bert Chekotah shared with Faun Windsong, I suspected there'd at least be a dream catcher or two. I'd overshot.

No problem. I'd approach Chekotah's room from the side. I felt my way around the flower room. Every wall was permeable, except for the one it shared with Chekotah's room. d.a.m.n. All right. How about the ceiling? I rose up easy as you please, patting myself on the back all the while for my fine control of my subtle bodies, pushed my head through the ceiling, and found myself face to face with a dried up racc.o.o.n carca.s.s. I jittered back a yard or two and told myself to stop being a smug jacka.s.s and start paying attention.

I scanned the attic. No ghosts. Nothing glowing. Nothing hinky, other than the long-gone critter.

Good.

And, hey, at least the body marked the spot where I'd come up through the rafters so I could get my bearings.

I felt my way along the ball pit of the floor, pus.h.i.+ng my fingers 242.

through every few feet as I worked my way toward Chekotah's room.

I knew when I'd found it, all right. My fingers bonked against the ceiling like it was made of cement. I could trace the whole perimeter of the room, it turned out, all by poking around and seeing where my hand didn't break through.

I routed myself back through the frilly room and then down another floor in an attempt to come at Chekotah from below. There was an empty cla.s.sroom down there, unused, judging by the way the furniture was stacked inside as if it had only been put there for storage and not for actual use, and the sheen of dust covering everything.

There were rows of books lining the wall, the types of texts you'd find at Sticks and Stones. Someone had drawn a sun with a smiley face in it on the whiteboard. How f.u.c.king optimistic.

The ceiling was rock solid. Great. Now what?