This is Episode 5-8 of a serial urban fantasy & paranormal story.

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Part 5-8: Hurry

“Fergus?” said Persi, shaking his shoulder. “Fergus!”

“That approach is fruitless,” said Deluxe, the shining whites of her eyes betraying her otherwise calm poise. “I need you or Alena to investigate interplanal solutions.”

“I’m here,” I said, holding off on rejoining my physical self. Looking around the place, I couldn’t see anything that looked particularly evil. Lobster kept on with the barks—an urgent, unbroken string of them—from somewhere in the direction of my room.

“Where’s that book?” I asked, heading toward the dog, sure that it was the cause of the calamity. Ghost-me found Lobster in my room, who was indeed having an absolute fit. The object of his ire was Fergus’ backpack, from which strobed red beams, flickering faster than I could blink.

Deluxe was there a second later, snatching up the backpack and racing back to the living room. Lobster scrabbled after her, snarling and yipping.

“Open it up, it’s going haywire,” I said.

She found the book, and when it was freed from the nylon prison, Lobster yelped and reversed direction, scrambling out of the room. If he was seeing the manic heartbeat of red flares like I was, I hardly blamed the poor pooch.

All the light stopped and seemed to snap inwards when Deluxe flicked open the cover, pointing it at the unmoving, wifiburnt Alena on the couch. A single word was burned onto the first page, shining with all the emergency colour that it had sucked away from the room.

Then it faded away, along with all traces of the brightness. Fergus exhaled noisily, and fell sideways. Persi caught him before he fully flopped. Then he snored.

“Well?” demanded Deluxe.

“Close it up. Coming back to my body,” I said.

I sprung off the couch, muscles sore and bunchy from having been still for so long, and checked on Fergus. He slept. Persi shuffled out from half under him so he could sprawl on the couch.

“Minder wanted a word,” I said, scratching at my arm. I started to itch at the other one too and remembered to stop. “All the book said was: ‘Hurry.’”

“Swap the book again? Get the next one, assuming there’s a sequence,” said Deluxe.

I knew Deluxe would insist that she and I not make the trip out there. Given the presence of perfect-curled Terradyne at Nijinsky’s residence, I was now more inclined to believe in her precautions. Persi might be able to do it alone, but I didn’t like the idea.

“Should we try and wake him?” asked Persi.

“Try,” I said.

It was no use: Fergus was out cold. Deluxe claimed to have some smelling salts stashed away, but I argued that if we forced him up we might break his brain in irreparable ways. The Minder’s call had spent him. Persi on a solo mission made me uncomfortable, but giving Fergus a stroke terrified me. So we nicked his car keys from his bag, and I re-ghosted and joined Persi in his car. She kept her headset off on the way down, so I used the time to catch ‘Luxe up on what I could still remember about the circuit board and the nature of the police that had broken in.

When we got close to the office, on my advice, Persi did a little drive-by to check for the alleyway punks. And unfortunately, they were there. About a dozen people, smoking and being a general nuisance.

She parked a few buildings down and popped on her headset.

“Is there another way in?” she asked.

“I’ve never looked. Maybe?” I said.

“Should we try the other side?”

“No choice, really. But be careful, and be ready to run, alright?” I went from not liking the solo plan to starting to loathe it.

“I can call for help if needed on this end,” said Deluxe.

“Or, we can do it now,” said Persi. “It worked for the house, and when Alena feinted it with Dack—scare them off with the police.”

“I’m not sure it was the police who were the ones that actually showed up to that house,” I said. “I don’t want to draw special attention to this place at all.”

“Find a pay phone and place the call yourself,” suggested Deluxe. “That way you won’t be marked with anything they’d recognize from my actions. I can locate one for you.”

We all felt that this idea beat the heck out of having Persi creep around sketchtown while thugs held court nearby. Ten minutes later, we were parked outside a dirty payphone. Persi spoke through a piece of cloth and tried to lower her voice as she rang in a complaint about kids playing with fire in our little alleyway. It almost would’ve been funny, had the image of the word ‘hurry’ not been swimming in my mind, lit up like a neon sign.

“Dispatch has picked it up,” confirmed Deluxe. “Be vigilant for unusual cruiser or vehicle activity. There should be only one unit visiting according to what I’m hearing.”

And so there was. We returned to our spot near the abandoned John B. Zachary Business Center. Fifteen minutes rolled by like molasses, then a police car moseyed down the street and parked in front of the alley. I ghost-scouted ahead as two officers got out and chatted with the punks, asking if they had a good reason for loitering. There was a mild argument, a strong suggestion from the police for the kids to vacate, and a brief moment when my anxiety assured me that we’d just accidentally incited a shootout. But it passed, and the group eventually broke up and ambled away, making defiant little shows of flicking their cigarette butts in the general direction of the officers.

After the way was clear and there were no signs of anyone coming back, I signaled Persi. She wasted no time, striding into the alley and stairwell with confidence. Worried that the punks still might come back, I waited behind a little longer as she climbed the flights. It was a good thing I did, because I was still in the alley when I heard what my roommate might classify as ‘unusual vehicle activity.’ An engine’s growl grew out from the nondescript noises of the street, until it was an echoing roar all around me.

Then, the unmistakable screech of brakes. A van’s sliding door, footsteps, a slam. Then another excited engine noise bloomed, but I was more focused on the people who’d rounded into the mouth of the alley.

A pack of uniformed people carrying very big guns rolled in, a dozen heavy boots thomping through the be-littered path. A man and a woman led them. He looked like a pert little scientist, and she was a tall beauty queen, if not a little haggard and looking like she’d not slept for a while.

The group halted when the scientist held up a hand.

“Here?” he said.

“There,” said Constable Jimena Barranco, pointing at the door.

 

 

Continued in Part 5-9

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