16 – The Closing of a Door, The Opening of a Window

Varn’s bustled with activity when Erika finally pulled up to the old arcade. The cramped parking lot out back didn’t even have room for her truck. Rick’s van took one spot, a smaller SUV took another spot, and the final parking spot was occupied by Leslie’s oversized truck. She had to park behind them, blocking them all in.

Erika stepped out of her truck in a fresh outfit. A simple tank with black mesh layered on top, a short pleated plaid skirt, and some chunky platform boots. A long trench coat kept the October chill away. Carter hopped out of the passenger side of the truck, also wearing new clothes, though he simply bought what was essentially a copy of everything else he wore—jeans and a plain tee with a blue zip-up jacket.

The Kings graciously offered Erika and Carter a place to stay the night. Carter had stayed in Daniel’s room while Erika bunked with Bethany on a rather uncomfortable inflatable bed. As soon as morning hit, Erika had taken Carter out to get some clothes. With the state of their house, she figured they would need to buy quite a few things. Figuring out a place to stay was also on the docket. Leslie said they could stay as long as they needed, for which Erika was quite appreciative, but they couldn’t stay forever.

Erika had things to do. Things that would be difficult inside someone’s home.

The shopping trip and the stay overnight had given her time to calm down, however, and that was the important thing. Short of initiating another seance to try to get The Former Fixer back on the line, there was little she could actively do to track down what happened to her mother now.

It was one thing after another with that woman.

Erika had to hope that she was alright. For now, Erika put on a smile and casual air, even if she didn’t feel it—she had to be strong for Carter.

As for Carter, he was, as ever, something of a blank. Someone less attuned to him might have thought he didn’t care that their mother was missing or that their house had burned down. Erika wasn’t someone else. She saw the way he looked, the way he held tight to his old wind-up watch, the way he pressed it to his ear, seeking comfort.

Hand on Carter’s shoulder, Erika walked past the lifted truck covered in American flag bumper stickers—which she was surprised fit underneath the elevated commuter tracks—and through the wide-open backdoor of the arcade. She was a little surprised at the door being open. Rick struck her as a little too paranoid to leave it unlocked, let alone open.

It made sense once she saw the scene inside.

All the arcade cabinets had been pressed up next to one another against one wall. Bethany, still dressed as if she were cosplaying Wednesday, had one apart from the rest and was dusting it off with a grimy rag. She looked about as happy as a child having their teeth pulled without anesthesia.

Daniel, wearing a cooking apron for some reason, pushed a vacuum across the cleared space where most of the arcade machines had been. Each stroke of the vacuum turned the brown, dust-muddled carpet into a faded violet spackled carpet. A vast improvement, even if it was nowhere near the gaudiness the carpet must have been back in the eighties.

“Pardon me.”

Erika jolted, hopping to the side in surprise.

A slightly older version of Daniel stepped past her and Carter into the arcade, carrying a long folding table in his muscular arms. He set it down in the middle of the vacuumed part of the room and propped up the legs. Running his fingers through his wavy blond hair, he offered her a short nod before heading back outside. The top he wore left little of his muscular shoulders to the imagination. Erika’s eyes lingered on his shoulders, wondering how she had possibly missed him on her way in.

The answer came when he stepped around the side of the lifted truck, which was high enough to hide most of his bulk.

That must have been Victor. She had met Piper, Leslie’s wife, the night before. The King’s eldest son, however, lived at his university’s dormitory.

“Erika!”

With immense reluctance, Erika pulled her eyes off the elder brother and turned to the younger. Daniel cut off the vacuum, offering a hesitant smile now that he noticed her.

“Hey there, Danny,” Erika said. “You ever think about hitting the gym now and again?”

“What?”

“I’d go with you,” Erika said, patting her stomach. Her abs weren’t as defined as they could be, but she was fairly proud of the work she had put into her body. “Used to go regularly. I’ve been slacking off these last two weeks because… Well… Having a gym buddy would be fun if things ever go back to normal.”

“Uh…” Daniel stared, his eyes drawn to the movements of her hands. Boys always thought they could get away with a quick glimpse. Maybe it was confirmation bias, but it was always obvious. He blinked twice, glanced down at her abs properly as they were visible through the mesh top and open coat, then snapped his eyes back up. “You have a tattoo?”

Erika lightly patted him on the shoulder. “Nice save,” she said with a sad shake of her head.

“Stop flirting and get back to work,” Bethany snapped, sounding about as happy as if she were getting her fingers slammed in the door.

“Something wrong?” Erika asked, whispering to Daniel.

Not quietly enough. “Yeah, something’s wrong,” Bethany practically shouted back. “Because of you, we’re stuck here cleaning all day. You’re not even helping.”

“Because of me?” Erika said, confused.

“We’re being punished,” Daniel said after a short sigh. “For conducting a seance without adult supervision.”

“Ah.” Erika guessed she understood. Bethany had been thrilled last night, but it had probably been a secret. Erika might have mentioned everything to Leslie while explaining why she needed a place to stay for the night. “I am less than two months away from being eighteen, if that makes me an adult,” she offered.

“Doesn’t count, I guess,” Daniel said with a helpless shrug.

“I probably shouldn’t ask after everything,” Bethany said, now speaking with a fair bit more timidness. She paused, thought to herself, then nodded her head. “Are you alright? You two were gone before I even woke up today.”

Erika plastered on her smile. “Fine,” she said. “I mean… Yeah. Fine. House burned down,” she shrugged. Really, she didn’t care much about that one.

The Fixer was a few hundred years old. Surely, something like this wouldn’t kill them.

Erika didn’t quite know what something like this was, but that was what she told herself.

“If you want to distract yourself, you could put a hex on Billy Horner.”

Erika raised an eyebrow, successfully distracted by the non-sequitur. She shot a questioning glance at Daniel as he let out a soft, exasperated groan.

“She has tried to conduct seances half a dozen times without success. Seeing your alleged success last night only further convinced her that you’re some kind of witch.”

Right. Erika recalled her very first interaction with Bethany—a clipped conversation over the phone, stolen from Daniel while Erika had been staking out her mother’s rendezvous with The Church. In that short conversation, Bethany had called her a witch, having apparently cursed Daniel to make a fool of himself at the dinner table.

But Erika took umbrage with his other remark. “Alleged success? You saw it all.”

“I saw you and our siblings sliding around a bit of wood on top of a table while an EMF reader beeped a little—hardly unexpected in a modern city. Hardly evidence of anything unusual.”

Erika rolled her eyes and shook her head, wondering just how ingrained into his personality that denial truly was. “Then my house burned down.”

“That’s…” Daniel winced. “True. But… not related?”

Erika shook her head before deciding to engage in Bethany’s distraction a little further. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carter watching with far more attention than he normally paid to social interactions. If he was interested in curses too, who was she not to try to give him other things to think about? “What did this Billy do that’s so deserving of my wrath?” she asked, speaking louder to Bethany.

Which just caused Daniel to groan. “Don’t encourage her, please.”

“He made fun of Marla’s weight,” Bethany said, ignoring her brother.

“That’s not very nice. Was it mean-spirited or the kind of teasing boys do when they like someone but don’t want to embarrass themselves in front of their friends?”

Bethany shrugged and huffed. “Does it matter? He made Marly cry. He deserves to be hexed.”

“It’s the difference between some kid who needs a talking to and someone who needs their kneecaps bashed in.”

“Hey now,” the elder King sibling said, stepping back into the arcade with four folding chairs under each arm. They were the heavier metal ones, not cheap plastic like what had been here the other night. “What’s this about bashing in knees?”

“We’re going to hex Billy,” Bethany said, looking up to Erika with an approving nod.

“To have his knees bashed in?” Victor said with a frown.

“He’s just a kid anyway,” Daniel said.

Bethany scowled. “Old enough to know better.”

“And young women are sensitive to these kinds of things,” Erika added. “Trust me, I know.” She paused, considering for a moment, then turned to Bethany and stage-whispered, “Boys are pretty slow with these same kinds of things.”

Daniel put his hands to his hips, looking unamused with that statement.

His older brother set down a chair and unfolded it. “Violence begets violence,” he said. “If you attack someone, they’ll get mad and strike back. You get mad and strike back harder. Back and forth, anger growing all the while, until someone doesn’t get back up… But if there was too much anger left behind, they might get up and hit back one more time.”

Erika wasn’t quite sure that he was still talking about the same topic. “Is that how ghosts are made?” she had to ask.

“It’s Rick and Anna’s leading theory,” Victor said, pausing as he finished setting out the chairs. He turned a pointed gaze on Erika, staring with dark brown eyes. “At least for spontaneous ghosts, those not intentionally summoned.”

Erika hummed, ignoring the roundabout accusation. Her eyes found Carter, seated on one of the chairs that had been in the arcade when Erika first stopped by, back over by the glass countertop.

Monsters and magicians, devils and ghosts. Erika wasn’t sure how these things could hide away in a modern world filled with security cameras, cell phones, the internet, and international news. Nonetheless, it seemed like they had. The world was a bit bigger than it had first appeared.

And, in all likelihood, she and Carter were those creatures. They looked human, but humans couldn’t break things like she could or bend time like Carter could. The email suggested she was an Outsider-class being. The same thing as The Fixer.

Coincidence?

Not likely.

Shaking her head to refocus back on the conversation, Erika said, “Ghosts seem fairly rare. In the absence of ghosts, the world would probably be a better place if some people had fewer kneecaps. So it is a matter of whether or not a few ghosts are worse than the mass of evil people.”

“Disregarding ghosts, I imagine most of those deserving people are older than fourteen,” Daniel said.

That might be a good point, but Erika wasn’t quite willing to admit that. She just shrugged her shoulders, looking back at Bethany. “It is something of a moot point, anyway. I can’t actually hex people.”

She noted Victor sigh slightly—relieved?—as he headed back outside.

“Not even to embarrass himself in front of his whole family at dinner?”

Erika chuckled as Daniel’s ears tinged red. “Not even then.”

“Ugh. Lame.” With a light huff, Bethany took her dusting rag back over to the arcade cabinets.

“I should get back to work as well. Wouldn’t want Dad to see me slacking off.”

“He out at the moment?”

Daniel shook his head, pointing over to the counter where Carter sat. “He’s in the back. Think he’s telling Rick about last night.”

There was a door behind the counter. An employee area from when the arcade was alive, presumably. Maybe a breakroom or maybe just storage for prizes, spare parts, and whatever else it took to run an arcade. “He wasn’t too upset with you, was he?”

Leslie hadn’t seemed upset the night before when Erika explained what had happened leading to the burning down of the house, but he might have just been sympathetic to the situation while still upset under the hood. Especially with regards to his children, who, likely, should have known better than to mess with spirits.

“Not really. He’s just using it as an excuse to get us here cleaning.” He thumbed a finger toward the parking lot. “Victor being here with all those chairs and tables means he was planning on this before.

“Now Rick, I think he is upset. He’s always been the one to caution the most against messing with things we don’t understand.”

“Yeah, well… You’ll never understand those shadows on the wall if you’re too afraid to leave your cave.”

Daniel rolled his eyes, shifting his grip on the vacuum. Without another word, he headed back to where he had left off cleaning.

Right. He thought this was all fake. Erika wondered just what kind of event it would take to break through that stubborn illusion of normality he had wrapped around himself. From her point of view, the events of last night were obviously supernatural in origin. Yet he shrugged it off. A beeping EMF reader in the middle of the city was expected. A Ouija board just worked on subconscious movements. All the other whirlwind of electronics was… who knew how he tried to explain it to himself?

A fire right after a warning was just a coincidence.

She wondered how he might handle touching something like that cursed alcohol bottle that had shown Erika a brief vision before making her vomit up all that black tar. Would he say it was some kind of contact-based hallucinogen? Or a stress-induced delusion?

Erika headed over to the counter. She thought about just heading inside, but hesitated. She, quite frankly, was not in the mood to be lectured at. From what she knew of Rick, she would be getting a lecture at some point.

For the moment, she distracted herself with her phone. She logged onto the AtomMail account used by The Fixer to communicate with The Church—she had changed the password the night before so she could log in without using her abilities—in the hopes that there would be some information there. She had been checking every few hours, looking for sent or received mail that might point to where Leah was. Or that Leah, fake or not, was still alive at all.

Thus far, there was no activity. It was possible that, because she changed the password, The Fixer would abandon the account. That was an unavoidable risk. If someone were able to track down places where she used her abilities, she couldn’t use them anywhere she cared about.

There had to be a way to stop them from tracking her. Erika could break anything if she figured out the right angle. She just didn’t know how.

For locks, she needed a lockpick and the lock itself. For digital accounts, she needed a login screen and some way of interacting with it. For something more conceptual, like the idea of her, she needed her stash of fake IDs. That one felt like it should get people off her back, but if they were tracking her power rather than her, it probably wouldn’t work.

So, how to break the link between them and her abilities?

The best she had at the moment was simply not to use them. At least not anywhere she planned on sticking around. A random ATM out on some random street felt like fair game.

Erika’s eyes settled on Carter. She had already explained why they couldn’t steal time anymore. They weren’t sure that was necessary—the ghostly warning from The Former Fixer said they were tracking locks breaking, not time stealing.

There were other people out there. Others, presumably, with abilities. Her eyes went back to her phone, this time staring at the saved screenshot of the email mentioning The Stalker, The Eclipse, and the bounty on Erika’s head. This Mummy couldn’t possibly be tracking every single one of them. Maybe that was the solution? Disguise her and Carter’s abilities as something else.

The bounty was another problem. One she had shoved into the back of her mind in the hopes that it might go away.

But it needed dealing with.

Erika started typing out a draft, only to get interrupted a few lines in by the employee door opening.

Leslie emerged from the back room, his expression dour. He glanced around the arcade, taking in the cleaning progress of his children. His eyes finally landed on Erika, who was still seated by the counter with her phone in hand.

“Erika,” he said, his voice carrying a weight that she couldn’t quite place. “Can we talk for a moment?” he asked, gesturing to the room he had just come from.

Erika felt something. Nothing supernatural. Just a weight in her chest as realization struck her. “This is the disappointed dad thing, isn’t it?” She had disappointed her mother plenty of times, but, not having grown up with a father, she had missed out on the other half of the whole dynamic. She doubted there was much difference between the two, but movies always talked about daddy issues.

“Disappointed is a word,” Leslie said, making Erika wince.

He wasn’t her father, but that didn’t make his solemn frown any less prickly. Erika decided she was quite glad she never had a dad to disappoint on the regular.

Phone away, Erika slipped into the back room of the arcade. She hadn’t seen it before, but was right not to have expected much. There was a counter with a sink, fridge, and microwave on one side of the room. The other side held mostly empty shelves. A combination break room and storage room, plus an office, if the desk with Rick’s laptop setup on it was original to the place.

Rick sat behind the desk, his cardboard shipping tube resting against the side of the wooden chair. In contrast to Leslie’s more morose expression, he looked thunderous. Erika wasn’t sure she had ever seen someone look that angry before. His glare immediately put her on the defensive, making her throw up an air of flippancy as she leaned against the counter—a protective mask of the rebellious teenager.

Being something of a rebellious teenager, it wasn’t much of a mask.

“The moment you’re out of sight, you go off and conduct a seance?” he hissed.

“Oh, sorry. Must have forgotten to sign the no-seance waiver.”

“You—”

“Rick,” Leslie cut in, stalling what was surely about to be a profanity-laden diatribe.

Rick turned a momentary glare on Leslie before returning to Erika. “It should be common sense,” he snapped, tapping the side of his head. “You don’t mess with the supernatural or you get burned.”

“Excuse me?” Erika said, pushing back. “The seance had nothing to do with my house burning down except that the ghost warned me of it. We weren’t even on the same side of the city. It went quite well, all things considered. Summoned a ghost, asked a few questions, said goodbye.”

“You took my son and daughter into a situation which could have proved dangerous,” Leslie said, voice soft. “You only became aware of spirits in the last week and didn’t even ask for guidance or supervision from those with more experience.”

Erika wilted at his calm accusation. She didn’t have an excuse for that beyond confidence in her own abilities to see them through any complications. Confidence that, if what happened to The Fixer was any indication, was wholly unwarranted.

It was strange. All her life, she saw the world just a little differently than the people around her. The things she could do that no one outside her family seemed capable of gave her this overwhelming sense of invulnerability. Probably an added sense of superiority as well, even if she tried not to let things get to her head.

Between The Fixer, The Church, all the similar names she had seen in those archives in those emails, and now The Mummy, she could feel the cracks forming in her self-image.

Erika just didn’t know enough. She didn’t know what they all were capable of. She didn’t know where she stood in relation to them.

“Where?” Rick said, retaking his seat. He tapped at his keyboard a few times before turning an expectant glare on Erika.

“Where what?”

“Where did you do the seance? We need to keep an eye on it, make sure you didn’t fuck up.”

Erika considered arguing—everything had gone fine, even the goodbye part, which she presumed was the most important bit. A glimpse of Leslie’s expression from the corner of her eye halted her snip. “Gilmore Building downtown. Second floor, don’t know the exact room number, but it was the first door when taking the alley staircase up.”

“Gilmore Building?” Rick said, looking and sounding surprised. “Why there?”

“It was in the news a week or two ago,” Erika said with a shrug. “Heard it almost burned down. Figured it would be empty. That way, we wouldn’t draw anyone else into it. And I didn’t want to wander out into the woods in the middle of the night to summon ghosts.”

Rick absently hummed as he typed. “First smart thing you’ve said,” he muttered. A little louder, he said, “I had the Gilmore Building earmarked for further investigation since that fire. Had suspicions that things weren’t entirely natural even before the fire marshal’s report came out with some glaring inconsistencies…”

“Guess we have a reason to investigate further, then,” Leslie said, perhaps trying to find something positive in all the shouting and glaring.

However, it reminded Erika of one important thing she felt she had to mention. “Speaking of investigation, you haven’t looked into the Old St. Patrick’s Church any further, have you?”

“Not since Saturday,” Rick said, momentarily pausing his typing.

“Good. Don’t look into it more.”

Rick fully stopped, looking up over his laptop while Leslie’s frown deepened.

“Based on some things the ghost said,” Erika half-lied, “I have reason to believe that the people in that church are far more dangerous than I initially suspected. It is even possible that they are the ones who tracked down my home, although I’m still not one hundred percent sure on that.”

Leslie’s lips thinned behind his beard. “Any word on your mother?”

“No,” Erika said. Pulling out her phone, she looked over her mostly finished message. “I might have a way to find her, but I don’t want to put your family into more danger than I’ve already done.”

She typed out a few more lines.

From: 4736294857493@atommail.000

To: 194573902092@atommail.000

Subject: The Mummy and The Stalker

Body:

My home was attacked by The Mummy last night. I am attaching a picture of a mask, presuming it might aid in your investigation.

I provide the picture with no expectation of an exchange of information, but merely as a taunt. If you cannot find the information, it doesn’t exist? Don’t make me laugh, Cross.

Erika paused her typing, reviewing what she had already written as she tried to remember The Fixer’s tone in the earlier emails. The ones she hadn’t snapped a picture of. The words had been… more hostile? Things like Don’t waste my time, Cross and annoyance at a lack of progress in uncovering details of The Mummy.

With that in mind, she continued typing.

As for your offer of The Stalker’s contact information, I will accept. I’d appreciate your providing it as soon as possible. I would appreciate it if you cancelled your bounties and leave this to me to handle. I will be disappointed if another comes across the subject in question before me.

None of The Fixer’s messages had been tagged with a name, so Erika stopped there. She hesitated one moment, hoping she wasn’t making a mistake.

If Leah was missing, whether kidnapped or simply avoiding Erika because she had discovered The Fixer, someone with a moniker of The Stalker would likely be her best bet at tracking Leah.

It was a lot to hope that The Church would cancel the bounties, but Erika could always hope. Of course, if The Church discovered or realized that this wasn’t The Fixer talking, she would likely be in an even deeper pit. She would have to be wary going forward. Any response could be a trap.

Yet, short of stumbling about, talking to ghosts with these hunters, she couldn’t exactly see a way forward without getting into contact with someone else from whatever community this seemed to be.

She needed more information.

“What are you planning?” Leslie asked.

“Something incredibly stupid…”

Erika hit send.