15 – Words Whispered from Beyond Carry Dire Warnings

“Heya,” Erika said, forcing a smile. “Who’s this?”

Daniel walked up to Erika, where she was leaning up against the side of her pickup. He wasn’t alone. At his side, a girl who reminded Erika of a younger version of herself shuffled along. Not in that she looked like a smaller version of Erika, but that she seemed to be going through a phase that Erika had once visited during her middle school years.

She wore a black dress with tiny white polka dots, dyed hair in short braids that rested on either shoulder, and powder on her face to give a paler look to her skin.

“A Wednesday cosplayer?” Erika asked, quite glad she hadn’t stuck around in that phase for more than a few months.

That was the wrong thing to say. Her expression turned from bright and excited to a stormy glower.

Erika’s smile turned ever-so-lightly more genuine at seeing that look on the young girl’s face.

The girl scoffed, eyes roaming up and down Erika. “Like you have room to talk. Ankle boots, slim dress, corset, and lace choker? Guess the telegram from the eighteen hundreds wanting their style back was too slow to stop you showing up in that mess.”

Erika only grinned more. As much fun as it was teasing people, she always liked those who showed a little spine.

“I don’t understand either of your styles,” said the man wearing a plain t-shirt under a simple jacket, jeans, and basic sneakers. “Just wear what’s comfortable.”

Both Erika and the girl gave him a once-over. Neither was impressed.

“This is my sister, Bethany,” he said, carrying on, ignorant of the mirrored pitying looks he was getting. “Beth, this is Erika… my friend?”

“Have a little more confidence, Danny,” Erika said, turning just in time to catch Bethany rolling her eyes. “I assume you’re the one I spoke with on the phone the other evening?”

Bethany chuckled into a brief snort. Her laughter cut off abruptly, leading to her shifting back a step. She quickly glanced at Daniel. “Can’t believe you got him asking about women’s bodies in the middle of dinner,” she said in a rush.

Trying to distract from the little snort?

Erika didn’t comment, simply shrugging. “All I did was ask him to cover for me while I ditched class.”

Daniel cleared his throat with a little more force than necessary. Ears burning red, he nodded toward the truck. “Is that someone else in there?”

“My brother,” she said, tapping her knuckles on the window to get his attention. “Cart. Or Carter, if you prefer. He’s… a bit shy.”

Sure enough, Carter glanced at them just long enough to meet everyone’s eyes for precisely one second each before he returned to having his back up against the window.

“I wouldn’t expect him to talk much. Especially given what we’re doing.” Erika turned back, looking between Daniel and Bethany. “Speaking of… Not to be rude, but—”

“Sorry!” Daniel said, almost bowing in his apology. “I’m stuck babysitting. They said she could go out with me, but I can’t leave her alone.”

“I’m fourteen,” Bethany snapped, taking out a bit of anger on Daniel. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’m in high school now for crying out loud.”

“It’s not my fault,” Daniel snapped back. “I don’t want to bring you along either.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to go. A seance?” Bethany’s eyes practically twinkled in excitement.

Considering how she had acted at the pub, Erika couldn’t exactly disparage Bethany for being excited over ghosts. However, she didn’t really feel it herself. Were they trying to call down any other ghost, she might have been excited as well.

Rather than respond to the girl, she focused on Daniel. “Your dad is gone?” Erika asked, wondering if Leslie was meeting up with Rick and the others again. “At the arcade?”

After the incident at the pub, Rick decided it would be best if everyone were a bit more prepared before attempting to visit the church in search of those archives. He had promised to text her when they started planning it out so that she could stop by, but she hadn’t received any word yet today.

But Daniel shook his head. “No. After… incidents like the one you allegedly went through, Mom and Dad like to go out on a date night,” he said with a grimace.

“Ah,” Erika said, nodding before looking back at Bethany.

An uninvited guest. She had half a mind to turn the girl away here and now. This was a fairly private affair. Daniel was a friend, but Erika didn’t know anything about his sister beyond the obvious. However, if his participation was reliant on her… It probably wouldn’t be that terrible.

“My truck isn’t very big,” Erika said. “Cart’s already in the back on a little fold-out seat. There isn’t a seat behind the driver’s side, though. No middle seat in the front either.”

“I can squeeze in the back! I’ll just sit on the floor.”

Erika took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Given the girl’s clear excitement, she should have expected that. She had been about to say that both should sit together in the passenger seat, but perhaps this was better anyway. This way, no cop spotting her through her untinted windows would pull her over for seatbelt violations or unsafe driving.

“Sounds good. Let’s get going then. I’ve got to have Cart home by nine.”

Getting Bethany sequestered in the back took a bit more doing than Erika expected. While Bethany was a lithe girl, Erika was fairly tall and liked her seat back far enough that her knees weren’t knocking against the underside of the steering column. Bethany had to huddle up, knees to her chest—which wasn’t all that easy in her dress—all while sharing a space with Carter, who did his very best to avoid eye contact at all costs.

Daniel took the passenger seat, though he wasn’t exactly alone there. He had to hold a large backpack of supplies on his lap as they drove off. Things Erika had gone out to purchase before coming out to pick him up.

“K-2 EMF Meter?” he said, frowning as he peered into the bag. “Ultraviolet flashlight… Infrared flashlight. I think I’m regretting introducing you to my Dad and his friends.” He squinted, pulling out a coil of copper wires suspended in oil within a glass canning jar. An old-timey telephone receiver was connected to the coil of wires through a small hole in the lid, kept sealed with a dot of hot glue. Holding that in one hand, he pulled out another item. A wooden board with a glass dome over the middle, which had one long needle on a gauge. “What are these supposed to be?”

“You don’t recognize them?”

“I’m really not into the whole ghost business.”

Bethany, leaning forward to peer between the seats, adopted a heavy scowl. “I don’t know them either.”

“A ululometer and a sthenometer. One measures psychic force, the other measures ‘nervous force’. Allegedly.” Erika shrugged. “Found some guy on Marketshop wanting to get rid of a bunch of old junk like that. Asked if he knew your dad. He said nope.”

“I think you got scammed,” Daniel said, putting the devices back. He paused halfway through. “An Ouija board? You know these were invented by a board game company in like the 1920s, right? They aren’t ancient historical ghost-conversing tools or whatever.”

Erika shrugged again. “A pizza box with letters scribbled on it worked. I figure where the board came from isn’t exactly important.”

Daniel let out a short sigh, shaking his head. “Don’t get your hopes up. If these things ever worked, I think people would know.”

“He’s just mad that you went out and had a real experience while he was stuck with nothing but stories. Again.”

“Oh, like you know,” Daniel said in a snippy tone.

Erika smiled, about to needle both of them, until she caught Carter’s look in the corner of her rearview mirror. “Alright, alright. No fighting in my truck. We’ve got a short drive ahead of us, and then we’ll be there.”

“Where, exactly, is there?” Daniel asked. “Not your house, surely… considering…”

“No. No. Leah is there,” Erika said with a shake of her head. “She thinks I’m taking Cart out for a little pre-birthday celebration without our uncool mom around.”

“It’s your birthday?” Bethany asked, turning to Carter.

His lips pressed thin as he drew in a breath, psyching himself. “No. Halloween.”

Erika gave her brother a reassuring smile in the mirror. Two whole words. Considering he had only known either of the others for a few minutes—and hadn’t even had a proper introduction besides what he heard through the window—that was an impressive amount. Perhaps Bethany’s classic goth style was similar enough to Erika’s that he felt more comfortable?

It would end up a miracle if he made a friend by the end of the night, but maybe she could hope for a few conversations out of him.

“We’re headed to some old apartment building that half burned down a few weeks ago,” Erika said, answering Daniel’s question. “Wanted somewhere close but isolated enough that we aren’t likely to run into people.”

“Is it safe?” Daniel asked.

Erika only shrugged. She didn’t have a good answer. If it hadn’t fallen over in the last three weeks or so, it probably wouldn’t go tonight. According to a few news articles she read, inspectors were optimistic about the possibility of rebuilding, so that lessened the chance even more.

She had driven past just before picking up the ghost-hunting gear. It looked mostly intact from the outside, except the whole top floor was just a husk of char and ash. But they didn’t need to go all the way up there. Just a hallway on the second floor would work. Somewhere a passerby couldn’t just peer through the window; ideally, the room wouldn’t have windows at all to prevent light leaking out.

“Guess we’ll find out,” she said.

From there, the rest of the journey was relatively quiet. Bethany and Daniel asked a question here or there and chatted about school annoyances. Carter closed his eyes and pretended he couldn’t hear anyone.

Eventually, Erika pulled into an old parking garage just down the road from the Gilmore Building.

They went up the alley behind the building. All the doors were surely locked and a group of teenagers picking the front doors would get the cops called on them faster than even Erika could break in. From the alley, it barely looked like the fire had touched the building. It was made up of old brownstone brick, just like most of Chicago’s older places. A heavy metal door underneath a fire escape took only a moment and a wiggle of her bobby pin to access.

With Erika holding open the door, Bethany was the first in. She practically skipped inside, excited to be on an adventure. Daniel was next, looking wary beyond belief. He pulled out a flashlight from Erika’s bag and shined it around the walls and ceiling, walking slowly and steadily as if merely looking would bring the building down on top of them.

Carter was last, stopping at the threshold. He looked up at Erika and smiled until he couldn’t quite force it any longer.

Erika dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “We’ll know soon enough. Then we’ll at least… know, you know?”

“If this works,” he mumbled. “I don’t know if I want it to.”

“Same,” she said as she led him inside. The door closed behind them with a heavy thump.

The alley door opened into the building’s laundromat. A set of stairs was just outside it, across from a small swimming pool and rec area. It probably wasn’t the main stairs as this was back well away from the front of the building, but that worked to their advantage, allowing them a way up without having to go past the glass doors and windows.

It didn’t take long to find a good spot. Erika picked the lock to the first apartment they came across and ushered everyone inside. It had been stripped bare, mostly. The building had been undergoing renovations before the fire, leaving most of it empty. All that meant for her was that she had access to a whole room with no furniture or clutter getting in the way.

Bethany and Carter went around, setting up the various ghost-hunting equipment. Erika didn’t really care whether or not she got actual evidence. She wasn’t Rick or the others, but she was curious to know what would work and what wouldn’t. The EMF reader had worked well at the pub, but there was no way Rick would lug all that expensive gear around everywhere if a simple EMF reader could cover all situations.

They didn’t talk as they worked. Well, Carter didn’t talk.

“Pretty sure this one is broken,” Bethany said, holding out an infrared thermometer. She slapped it against her palm several times, staring at the display on the end between each slap. “It turns on, but it is reading the temperature at two Celsius.”

“They’re all second-hand junk I just picked up today,” Erika said as she unfurled a large plastic drop cloth. Daniel stood on one side, keeping it from sliding around the floor, while Erika knelt and painted out a large pentagram with some red hobby paint. “Haven’t had time to test. Just chuck it back in the bag.”

“Great,” Daniel said, watching his sister cross the room. “Now, when nothing happens, we’ll still get an anomalous reading because of faulty junk.”

“Hey. I paid good money for that junk.”

“Uh-huh. And I—”

“What’s this?”

Erika glanced over her shoulder to find Bethany holding the picture frame, frowning down at it. “Ah. That is our anchor. Or fetter. Whatever you want to call it.”

Bethany gave Erika a look, looked at the photo in the frame, then looked over at Carter. “Who, uh, are we summoning tonight?” she asked with a sudden nervousness that, from the short time Erika had known her, seemed uncharacteristic.

“My mother.”

“Oh, I’m… I’m so sorry…” she said, trailing off before a confused look came over her. “Didn’t you say she was back at your home? Or, step-mom, of course. I’m sorry.”

“No. We don’t have a step-mother.”

“Ah,” Bethany said with a note of increased confusion. “Huh. Uh… seances usually only work on dead people.”

“I know. That’s what I’m hoping for.”

“As long as you’re aware, I guess,” Bethany said, shooting Daniel a questioning look.

He gave her a shrug in return.

Erika smiled at their confusion, though it was far from the grin she had worn earlier while teasing Bethany. The topic now warranted a more serious air. Now more than ever, with this bounty on her head, she needed to know just who Leah was. Just who The Fixer was.

The hope this evening was that there would be no result at all. That would hopefully mean that Leah was still alive. If Leah wasn’t alive, the hope was for her to say what The Fixer was, what The Fixer wanted, and anything else that might help in understanding the situation in which she and Carter found themselves.

Things were, frankly, too strange with the fake-Leah going around acting all normal. Erika was sick of it. More than anything, she wanted to know how to react to everything. Should she be angry? Sad? Disappointed? Mourning?

Erika finished the pentagram with a frown on her face. “Cart, you finished?” she asked.

Carter, adjusting a simple digital video camera, hit the record button after facing it toward the circle. “Finished,” he said.

One word. Erika might have tried to draw him into a longer conversation, feeling like it would be good for him to talk with others a bit more, but she found herself in a bit of a bad mood after thinking too much. The sooner they started, the sooner she would have her answers.

The sooner she and Carter could at least try to move on.

“Right,” Erika said, looking around the room. “Everything I read says this works best with an odd number of people, so if one of you wants to bow out…”

Bethany perked up. Despite her having unintentionally trodden upon a sensitive subject in the identity of the ghost with whom they intended to commune, she was practically vibrating in excitement. She had just enough wherewithal to avoid shoving her brother out of the way while shouting ‘Me!’ Instead, she sent a fierce set of puppy-dog eyes to Daniel.

“I’ll keep back,” Daniel said, not even glancing at his sister from the corner of his eye. “Or would it work better if I were out of the room entirely?”

Erika shrugged. None of Rick’s wiki mentioned anything about bystanders.

“I don’t think it would matter, not as long as you aren’t interfering,” Bethany said. At Daniel’s questioning glance, she put on an innocent smile. “Of course I’ve looked up seances before.”

“Sounds good enough for me,” Erika said. “If you want to hang back behind the camera. Maybe point it at anything that looks interesting. Cart, you sit there,” Erika said, pointing between two points of the pentagram. “Beth, next to him. We’ll put the picture between you two and I’ll be opposite.”

Erika took a deep breath, trying to steady a sudden flutter of nerves. The room was dimly lit—the flashlights had been replaced with a few candles set around the pentagram. None of the instructions said candles were necessary, but they just felt right. It was the atmosphere. She could see that even the skeptical Daniel was a little more tense.

Though he could just be worried about their trespassing.

As they settled into their positions, Erika placed the picture frame at the forward point of the pentagram and placed the Ouija board in the center. Just like how it had been at the pub. She hoped the photo was enough to establish a connection.

“Alright,” Erika said, her voice soft. “Let’s begin.”

Bethany and Carter exchanged a glance, the former smiled while the latter focused back on the Ouija board. Both reached forward, touching a finger to the planchette. Erika joined them, ignoring the way Daniel was shaking his head in the background.

“We call upon the spirit of Leah Walker,” Erika began, her voice a quiet whisper. “Leah Walker, we’ve opened the door. Step through and give us a sign.”

Save for the distant hum of the city outside, the room was silent. Erika felt a chill run down her spine, but couldn’t tell if it was from a ghostly apparition or just her nerves. Nothing was happening. No jostling of the planchette and certainly no visions.

She repeated the call, then again once more to be safe. Three seemed to be an important number for some reason, more important than five but less than seven.

Bethany jolted, spine straightening. “Did you feel that?” she whispered, her voice tinged with excitement.

“No.” Carter’s response came as fast as it was flat.

Erika hadn’t felt anything either. She couldn’t help but frown, wondering if Bethany wasn’t just overexcited. “Leah,” she called, just in case. “If you are here, please show us a sign. We need to know.”

She waited. Bethany buzzed. Carter gave her a dull look. In the background, she could hear Daniel sigh.

His sigh seemed to thicken the air. Erika felt a momentary pressure in her ears, like she had been driving up a high hill. The candle flames flickered as the EMF reader began to beep, its lights flashing erratically. Carter jolted, sucking in a sharp breath as he snapped his head to the noisy device.

“That’s a sign, right?” Bethany hissed. She shot a triumphant grin at Daniel, who stepped forward to peer down at the EMF reader with a confused look on his face.

“Probably faulty junk,” he said.

Erika ignored them. Her eyes were on the board. “Is this the spirit of Leah Wal—”

She didn’t manage to finish her question before the planchette was practically yanked out from under their fingers. It slid, dragging them along, to NO.

Erika stared. She stared for a long moment, trying to process a few conflicting feelings. The seance wasn’t a failure. That was good. It wasn’t Leah. That… It was impossible to prove a negative in this situation. No matter how many times they tried, not contacting Leah didn’t necessarily mean that she was alive, only that she couldn’t come to the phone right now.

“Sorry to bother you,” Erika said, “but we were looking for Leah Walker. If you could go back to where you came from and get her for us—”

Again, the planchette didn’t let her finish. A strange squealing noise came from the ululometer’s telephone receiver. It didn’t sound like human squealing. More like the whine of a poorly lubricated engine.

D A N G E R

Erika licked her lips. “Danger?” she said slowly. An unsettling feeling welled in her stomach. Bethany was still grinning, excited beyond belief. Carter… was flat and unreadable.

Daniel, on the other hand, huffed, watching the planchette drag their hands around the board from letter to letter. “You guys are having me on, aren’t you?”

“You can’t be a skeptic forever, Scully,” his sister said with a sneer.

The planchette only paused for a brief moment.

M U M M Y

While everyone else took a turn looking confused, Erika’s eyes widened. She had seen the word. Recently. It had been in the same context as all the other odd words she had seen as of late. The Mummy. It appeared in a single line of text sent in one of the emails from The Church to The Fixer. Erika barely paid it any mind at the time, not finding it relevant to the mystery of what happened to her mother.

Now, she stared. That nervous gnawing in her stomach intensified as a few drips of cold sweat ran down the back of her neck.

The planchette didn’t stop moving.

M U M M Y

S E E K S

B R O K E N

C H A I N S

“Broken chains?” Bethany murmured, thoroughly confused.

Carter was staring at her now with a searching expression on his face. Mummy might not have meant anything to him, but he knew what she could do.

Break things. That was what she did, what she was best at. It didn’t matter if it was a metal fence or digital security, she could break it all. Chains would be child’s play for her. The Mummy apparently sought someone like her.

“Who are you?” Erika asked. “How do you know this?”

F O R M E R

F I X E R

Erika stared, a wave of confusion settling in as the planchette came to a rest. Former Fixer? Former. That implied that there was a current Fixer. Leah? Was The Fixer not a name, but a title passed on?

How the hell did Leah pick it up?

The planchette started moving again without anyone having voiced a question. The electrical equipment in the room was going absolutely haywire. Everything that could beep did, everything with a light flashed, even the little analogue battery tester darted back and forth. Bethany had pulled back, staring around the room with a wary look. Even Carter had scooted back a few inches.

Erika stared with rapt attention, hoping for more pieces to whatever puzzle she had found herself staring at. The planchette darted from one letter to the next, faster and faster with each passing letter. It ripped itself out from under her fingers, moving too fast for her arm to keep up.

F I X E R

I N

D A N G E R

M U M M Y

T R A C K S

B R O K E N

L O C K S

Erika couldn’t breathe. She felt cold, like Daniel had just dumped ice over her back. She had been breaking things like crazy the last few weeks. Far more than she ever used to. From chopping up dozens of ID cards to picking locks all around Chicago.

F I X E R

A L O N E

M U M M Y

M O V E S

T O N I G H T

“Goodbye!” Erika practically shouted.

The planchette slammed home on GOODBYE.

Immediately, all noise in the room ceased. The beeping of the EMF reader went silent, the faint ticking of the Geiger counter stopped, and the squealing of the ululometer petered out.

No one spoke. For a brief moment, nobody said a word. Carter was still giving her a questioning look, eyes wide and lips tight. Bethany stared, jaw hanging open. Even Daniel seemed at a loss. Under other circumstances, Erika might have wondered what excuses for these oddities he would come up with to try to explain it all logically and practically.

“We need to leave,” she said. Erika scrambled to her feet. She felt the weight of the gun in her coat pocket. She was tempted to pull it out now, but hesitated. She was still not fully comfortable with a gun, and if she shot anyone present by accident, she doubted she would ever forgive herself.

Instead, she reached into her coat and drew out the baseball bat. It had been in the back of her pickup. Through that odd quantum possibility, it had also been concealed in her coat.

“Now,” she added when nobody moved.

Drawing the bat and her shout got them to finally move. Carter stood first, less shocked at her behavior. He immediately started collecting the items around the room, starting in reverse order from how he had set them out. She was tempted to tell him to leave them behind, but her eyes came to rest on the picture at the center of the pentagram.

She stood, frozen, staring at her and Carter’s smiling faces. They had tried to call down someone related to them and got the former Fixer. Given the current situation, The Fixer certainly sounded related, but had that been the case in the past?

“What’s going on?” Daniel asked, concerned as well despite his disbelief.

Erika flinched. Carter was trying to roll up the drop cloth with the pentagram paint. She shook her head, grabbing him by the hand. “I don’t know. Hopefully nothing,” she said, taking the backpack from Carter and throwing it over her shoulder. “The Mummy… It was in one of the emails sent to The Fixer. Something about blowing his cover.”

The Mummy was an entity dangerous to The Fixer.

Dangerous to her? To Leah?

There was one thing both Leahs had told her. Both Leahs warned her against overusing her abilities, especially out in public. In the past week or so, she had done more than ignore that one edict. She used her abilities everywhere. It seemed logical—the only way to gather information on the person who had replaced their mother was to make liberal use of everything at her disposal.

She thought back, trying to come up with a list of all the places where she had used her power to break things recently. The old church, various ATMs, and that pub from the other night. Did breaking into computers count?

Erika pulled out her phone as they hurried back down the stairs. A single swipe flung the contacts list down. A heavy thumb on the screen stopped it on the L section. She tapped one of the names without hesitation. Daniel, carrying the camera and tripod, followed along with Bethany at his side without further questions.

“Pick up,” she hissed as the phone started ringing. “Pick up,” she whispered as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “Come on…”

The phone connected on the third ring. “Erika?”

“Where are you?” Erika asked, creaking the alley door open just enough to peer through.

Empty.

“Home, of course,” Leah said. “What’s going on? Are you in trouble?”

“You need to get out of there. Now,” she said, waving her hand to usher everyone out of the Gilmore Building.

“What? Erika, you’re not—”

“Listen to me. Leah, if you’re in there, I need you to leave. Now. No arguing. No questions.” Erika bit her lip, gnawing over revealing anything.

Leah hadn’t answered the seance. She didn’t know who had. There was context that she was missing, some aspect of the situation that made it possible for The Fixer to both be Leah and be dead at the same time. But the ghost hadn’t been Leah. That meant there was a chance that Leah and fake-Leah were one and the same.

If Leah was in there, what chance couldn’t she take?

“The Mummy might be on their way,” she said.

That was it. That one phrase would give up the jig. Fake-Leah—The Fixer—would know that she knew.

The absolute silence on the other end of the phone only confirmed that fact. It stretched on and on. Erika felt like she should break it, like she should say something, but she wasn’t sure what.

“How do you—”

“Are you out of the house?” Erika hissed, finally snapping out of her silence as she and the others entered the parking garage. There were people about, both out on the streets and in the parking structure. None paid them any mind. None looked dangerous.

“No. I can’t leave yet. I need to send—”

“Damnit, Leah. Fixer. Whatever the fuck you are. You need to—”

A noise slammed into Erika’s ear. A loud crackling static. It made her grimace, jolting somewhat as she pulled the phone away from her ear.

The call dropped a second after.

She tried calling back, only to get sent to voicemail immediately.

“Fuck,” she hissed.

It wasn’t until they were on the expressway that anyone else spoke.

“What’s going on, Erika?” Daniel asked, his voice tinged with concern and frustration.

Erika didn’t have a good answer. She didn’t even have a bad answer. The only things she knew were that The Mummy was in some way related to The Fixer and not in a friendly sort of way.

“Ouija boards work through the ideomotor effect. Whatever message you think you got was just unconscious muscle movements driven by—”

“You don’t even know,” Bethany snapped. “That wasn’t unconscious muscle movements. It felt like I was being jerked back and forth.”

“Daniel. Please,” Erika said, biting back on some of her more scathing thoughts. “I know you’re trying to help. Even if that seance was a hoax, that phone call wasn’t.” Her eyes flicked up to the very corner of her rearview mirror. “Any luck, Carter?” she asked, watching as he tapped at his phone.

She hadn’t asked him to, but she could guess at what he was doing.

“Mom’s not answering.”

Erika’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Right when they got confirmation—as good as they could get—that Leah wasn’t dead, this happened. The timing of that warning, followed by the sudden noise on the phone and disconnected call, was suspicious. Like someone had been watching, just waiting for her to call home.

Was that what happened? Now that she had a moment where she couldn’t do anything but think, she was replaying events in her head. Leah and fake-Leah only warned against using abilities outside the home—in front of others. Carter’s account of the first night fake-Leah appeared, using her power to reset the erratic clocks in his room, fit with that. Logically, The Fixer wouldn’t have used those kinds of powers if they could be tracked home. Fake-Leah would have stopped them from stealing time with far more force if it were a real danger.

Erika ground her teeth, now wondering if the seance could have been a trap. She couldn’t see how it could have been a trap—or how someone could anticipate that she would conduct a seance like that—but she didn’t know how ghosts worked. It just felt, in retrospect, like the phone call home had been the thing that had been traced rather than her.

She doubted she would know until she got to Leah. The time for skulking about had passed with that phone call. It was time for answers straight from the source.

That determination withered as Erika got off the expressway and arrived in their neighborhood. A heavy plume of smoke drifted above the rooftops of the homes around. Flashing red and white lights lit up the night sky, coming from the fire engines parked in the street. Her street.

Erika parked her pickup a safe distance away, her mind racing. She scanned the scene, watching firefighters move about. There was no actual flame anymore. A few firefighters were spraying down parts of the house, likely to keep embers from flaring up into fresh fire, but most of the emergency must have ended. A few of the neighbors were out, watching from their porches. Some had their phones out, recording it all.

The old Corolla was in the driveway, mostly untouched by the fire. A good chunk of the house survived, even. The damage looked concentrated up at the front, leaving the living room and kitchen as little more than charcoal.

There was no sign of her mother standing about.

“Wait here,” she said, hopping out of her pickup. Not leaving any time for arguing, she hurried toward the largest group of firefighters milling about.

“Excuse me!” Erika called out. “Was there anyone inside? A woman, Leah Walker? My mother. I was on the phone with her when something happened that disconnected the call.”

One of the firefighters turned to her. Probably the one in charge, though she didn’t see any particular insignia to indicate a rank. He stared a moment before slowly shaking his head, his expression sympathetic. “No one was inside when we arrived. I’m sorry.”

Erika couldn’t decide if that was a relief or not. Leah must have gotten away. “What happened?”

“Don’t know yet. Engine 49 was out on a training drill nearby when one of the residents here called it in,” he said, pointing at one of the trucks over his shoulder. “Got here fast enough to keep it from burning the entire house down.”

Erika started to move around him, heading toward the house, only for the firefighter to step in front of her, barring the way. “The structure might not be stable. Can’t let anyone go in.”

“But—”

“Sorry, lady. I have a responsibility to ensure everyone’s safety, including the owners. Nobody is inside, and nothing could be worth the possibility of the roof collapsing on your head.”

Erika clenched her fists, frustration bubbling beneath her skin. She knew the man was right, but the urgency and the adrenaline made it hard to accept. Leah wasn’t around. She had escaped? Or she had been taken. One or the other.

“It’s best if you stay clear and let us do our job,” the man continued. “If you need a place to stay, I can direct you to—”

“I have family friends who I can stay with,” she said, throwing out an excuse as she turned away. “I need to find my mother. She might have gone to them.”

“Hold up. If you’ve got a phone, we can send you updates when it might be safe to return for belongings.”

There wasn’t much in the house. Or rather, there was. Her posters. Her clothes. Her guitar. Carter’s clocks. It would suck to lose any of it, assuming it all hadn’t been damaged in the fire or deluge of water, but none of it felt like it mattered in the moment. Still, it might be good to know. Erika hesitated momentarily before deciding to rattle off her phone number.

With that, she hurried away, only to wind up stopping again a few paces away from the firefighters.

Her foot knocked into something white, standing out against the black asphalt. A bit of porcelain? She glanced at the house, wondering if some toilet had exploded, before realizing that its shape didn’t look like a toilet. It was smooth and slightly curved, but with a shallow depression beneath some grooved lines. Turning her head, looking at it from a different angle, some vague bit of pareidolia hit her.

It was a face. A mask. Part of one. Like some Phantom of the Opera mask, just the forehead and the top part of one eye. Nudging it with her boot revealed long strips of brownish-white cloth attached to its backside. They had blended in with the street before, but the movement made them stand out.

Mummy popped into her mind. Mummies wore bandages.

Erika, wishing she had some barbecue tongs, picked it up and hurried back to her truck. She would ditch it somewhere well away from wherever she and Carter ended up spending the night, but somewhere that she could recover it easily enough.

Tossing it in the back of the truck, she paused with her hand on the door handle.

She looked back at the house, eyes narrowing in suspicion. What were the odds that the moment she contacted a ghost coincided with an attack like this?

The attack occurred the moment she tried to call Leah.

Erika pulled open the door to her truck. She could brainstorm later. Leah—or The Fixer, or whatever—had to be able to handle themselves. That dossier in The Church’s archives said The Fixer was hundreds of years old. Surely they could handle themselves.

For now, she needed to ensure that she and Carter had a safe place for the night.

A safe place to plan their next course of action.