18 – We All Wear Masks, Metaphorically Speaking

“Honestly? It’s insane.”

Daniel sat at the arcade’s new folding table, staring down at an entire posterboard he had created. It looked like an elementary school science fair project that was mostly done by the parents, except instead of science, this board was more like one of those red-string paranoia boards. He had his elbows on the table and his fingers digging through his short brown hair.

“Someone just shows up and knows what you’re talking about? I don’t know half of what you’re talking about, and I’ve been present for most of it.”

Erika stood on the other side of the table, tugging on a pair of thin leather gloves that she had managed to salvage from her home. The fire marshal called earlier in the day and let her know that it was likely safe to retrieve what belongings she could. The Kings had graciously offered her the use of their basement storage room until she could figure out what to do with it all—not that there was much that had survived unscathed.

She honestly had no idea what to do about it. It wasn’t something she was thinking about at all. The Fixer and-slash-or Leah came first. She could figure out how many ATMs she would have to break into to afford a small house later.

“Let me make sure I have this straight,” Daniel said, pointing at his posterboard. He jabbed his finger at The Church. “These people know everything except some things.”

“Sure,” Erika said, slipping a canister of pepper spray into her jacket pocket. It wasn’t her good jacket. She had no idea what she was going to find and didn’t want to ruin her favorite coat. Thus, she had gone out and purchased a cheap and simple department store barn jacket.

“The… entity you believe replaced your mother, titled The Fixer,” Daniel continued, following one of the strings, “was in contact with them, trying to uncover information about another entity called The Mummy who is in apparent conflict with The Fixer.”

“Right.”

“Then we summoned a ‘ghost’, apparently a person also known as The Fixer—”

“We don’t know for sure,” Bethany chimed in. “Dad says not to trust ghosts since there isn’t anything compelling them to tell the truth.”

Daniel stared at his sister for a short moment before shaking his head. “The ‘ghost’,” he said, adding finger quotes again, “warned us that The Mummy was about to attack The Fixer. We rushed over, but were too late to see anything but a fire. So—” He jabbed his finger toward Erika’s marker on the board, then dragged it along one of the strings. “You contacted The Church under the guise of The Fixer to ask for information from the people who know everything—except that you aren’t The Fixer and who The Mummy is—and ended up with contact details for another entity called The Stalker who is supposed to help The Fixer find you because you have a bounty on your head for breaking into The Church… but you have instead tricked them into helping you find The Mummy and, hopefully, The Fixer. And she agreed.” He paused, staring around the room.

Leslie sat at one end, arms folded and eyes closed. His lips were tight behind his beard, barely there. He had given Erika some instructions in using her newly acquired gun, but she could tell that he wasn’t happy. She wasn’t sure if it was her actions, jumping head-first into this whole ordeal without discussing it beforehand, or the revelation of all these… entities that had him on edge. Probably a combination.

Rick, on the other hand, sat in front of his laptop, dutifully entering into his wiki everything that they had learned and inferred from the general context of the situation. All these factions and people and what appeared to be a whole supernatural community sitting under his nose had been a bit of a shock.

Over at the counter, Anna had set up a little chemistry station. Erika had brought back a few hairs that came from The Stalker. The poor woman seemed especially afflicted with dry hair, dry eyes, and dry skin, which led to her leaving behind a handful of hairs at the diner. Anna sent a few off to a friend of hers with a proper laboratory, but was trying to do something on her own here as well. She even had a little dish of that black tar-like ectoplasm, presumably from Sofia, since Erika’s had gone down the drain, and was mixing it with part of a hair.

As for Sofia, the woman was nervous. Her knee bounced up and down on its own, her eyes darted from person to person, and she kept coming back to Erika to stare before realizing what she was doing and forcing her attention back onto someone else for a moment. This all must have been a big shock to her. Erika knew that she was religious; all this talk of The Church being a major player in this conspiracy probably didn’t sit right with her.

“Am I missing anything?” Daniel snapped, making Sofia jump.

Carter reached a hand forward and, without a word, tapped one of the other entities on the board. The Eclipse. Then he pointed to The Church and finally to Erika.

“Right. There are other people after the bounty as well.” Daniel dropped into his seat, thumped his elbows on the table, and clasped the sides of his head once again. “How are you all sitting around so calm? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. My friend has a bounty on her head like we’re living in the fucking Wild West.”

“Language,” Leslie rumbled, his voice deep and sharp.

A moment of silence followed Leslie’s admonishment. Erika didn’t stop her preparations. Currently, she was trying to adjust the straps of her holster that Leslie loaned her. It held the gun right up in her armpit. She kept trying to comfortably rest her arms at her sides, only to bump into the gun and have to reposition. She regretted asking him for the concealed carry holster now. A gun on her belt would have been far more obvious, but at least wouldn’t have been where this one was.

They were already out here, unfortunately. She had to meet up with The Stalker before long. There wasn’t enough time to head back to Leslie’s home to swap it.

She was beyond grateful for the assistance he had provided. Erika doubted a normal person would have agreed to teach her to use the illegal firearm she illegally purchased. The lesson hadn’t come without questions, but Erika had already planned on telling most of everything anyway. Which brought them to this meeting.

Nobody was sure what to do. Which Erika had expected. These guys were ghost hunters, not… whatever was needed to deal with the situation. Erika wasn’t much better off, but at least she had a clear goal.

Find The Fixer. Find Leah.

She doubted that would solve all her problems. In fact, she was anticipating far more troubles in her future. Although The Fixer hadn’t harmed her or Carter, they still didn’t know if the entity could be trusted—or, indeed, if it would continue to not harm them. Especially now that Erika had likely ruined some plans by drawing The Fixer’s enemy to their home.

Now that she had thrown off the illusion that she didn’t know Leah was fake-Leah, she was hoping to at least get a few answers out of The Fixer.

And, ideally, do something about that bounty on her head using The Fixer’s connections with The Church.

Sofia leaned over to Rick and whispered a few words that Erika didn’t manage to catch. His eyes lit up with an idea as she spoke, and he quickly stood and disappeared into a pile of boxes he had brought in the other day.

“Erika, could I see your phone for a moment?” Rick asked as he returned.

“My phone?” Erika said, pausing what she was doing. “Uh. No offense, but I’m not too into weird old men creeping through my photos. I have sensitive stuff in there, you know.”

“What? No. I’m not—” Rick shook his head. “I just wanted to hook it up to this,” he said, holding up a small rectangular black box, about the size of a credit card and as thick as a finger. It had a long ribbon coming off of one end. “It’s a cheap Bluetooth camera. A little spycam. I can set up your phone to upload everything it sees to my server and—”

“Not beating those creepy allegations, are you?” Erika said, frowning at her baseball bat. It was a bit too long to fit into her new coat and still be concealed. Despite her words, she took out her phone, unlocked it, and slid it across the table. “Do I get a fancy secret spy earbud to hear you yapping?”

“I don’t know about fancy or secret or spy, but I do have an earbud if you don’t have any.”

“Yeah, sounds good. Except I don’t know about you all hearing everything going on. I’m hoping to casually ask The Stalker about a few things, maybe find out what she is and what the hell all these people are in the city. I’d rather I didn’t piss off the person who can track people across the entire city by spilling her secrets. I think I’ve made enough accidental enemies as it is.”

“That’s… a good point,” Rick said, hesitating as he stared down at Erika’s phone, clearly having second thoughts about his plan.

Sofia cleared her throat, drawing attention to herself. She immediately shied away, wincing slightly, only to draw herself up. “When we… When I agreed to be a part of this group, you all sold it as defenders against unnatural forces that regular people don’t know about and aren’t equipped to deal with. I know that meant ghosts—we didn’t even know about any of this stuff—but surely this counts too, right?”

Sofia looked around the group, eyes stopping on each of the hunters. She skipped over Daniel and Carter entirely, but paused on Erika for a longer moment. Sofia flinched again, hurriedly turning back to Rick.

“I’m not saying we’re equipped to deal with these… beings or that they even need dealing with. That Stalker person didn’t harm anyone at the diner when she met with Erika, right? But we just don’t know for sure. The more information we have, the better off we’ll be to decide whether or not something needs doing.”

“I agree,” Anna said, turning away from her chemistry set. “Knowledge is power.”

“I saw the woman,” Leslie said, nodding toward Erika. “We were there, prepared to help with holy water, crosses, and a shotgun.”

They had been at the diner, seated a few tables away. Erika hadn’t asked them to come. Leslie volunteered on his own, even bringing his wife and children to make them look less suspicious while still being in a position to help her out if something went wrong.

Nothing had, thankfully. In fact, Erika rather liked The Stalker. From their brief encounter, she seemed fairly easy to get along with, if a bit tired and worn down. That might have just been the night, however.

“She wasn’t a ghost,” Leslie continued. “I’m sure of that. I doubt most of what we had would have been anything more than an inconvenience, shotgun excluded. If there is a way to ward off a being like that without drawing a shotgun in a crowded diner, it is imperative if we have any future dealings with these… beings.”

Daniel, notably, rolled his eyes. From his perspective, that woman at the diner had been just that. A woman. Some random person who showed up because Erika got her number, nothing more.

He hadn’t been sitting next to her when her eyes went all shimmery and intense. Erika shuddered at the memory. The first time, when she had stared at Erika, it felt like she had been taken apart into little pieces and looked over before The Stalker shrugged and started talking like everything was normal. The second time, after seeing the mask shard, Erika had been able to watch the woman a bit more as her eyes practically glowed.

She was certainly not just a random woman.

Carter could steal time. Erika could break things. And now this woman who could find anyone. Combined with The Fixer, the wizard and robot at those archives, and all those files indicating that there were many, many more of these kinds of people out there, Erika was feeling a whole lot less special than she used to feel back when she and her brother’s abilities were a Walker family secret.

“I’m not intending on getting into trouble tonight,” Erika said. “The goal is to meet up with The Stalker, find out the location of this person who was at my home when it burned down, and, if possible, get any kind of confirmation on The Fixer’s whereabouts. I’m planning on making small talk to gather a little more information, but I doubt The Stalker would tell me her weaknesses or how to ‘drive her away’ even if I asked.”

Leslie nodded his head, either in understanding or agreement.

“I don’t know this woman’s capabilities, but I doubt walking in with a spy cam is going to encourage further cooperation if she figures it out. In accordance with my new philosophy of not pissing off magical people more than necessary, I think I’ll skip the wire tonight.”

Maybe it was pure foolishness at this point, but that would allow Erika to keep her secrets as well. In all her explanations, she had still left out the fact that she and Carter probably belonged more to this secret society than they belonged with regular humans. Their abilities, thus far, remained secret. The only thing this group knew was that Leah had been body-snatched by The Fixer.

Sofia didn’t look happy to hear Erika’s decision. Anna just shrugged and went back to her work. Rick had a small frown on his face, but nothing quite as severe as Sofia.

“It’s not like I can’t come back and tell you what she told me,” Erika said, hoping to mollify Sofia and Rick.

It didn’t look like it worked on Sofia, but Rick sighed and said, “That’ll have to do for now, I suppose. I agree that pissing off unknown entities isn’t a good plan. Maybe you could tell her that you’re wired up? But then she might filter out even more of what you might learn…” He drummed his fingers on the table, frowning at her phone, which had since turned dark again.

Erika rounded the table, picked up her phone, and quickly checked what he had been doing. It looked like he had been installing some kind of VPN. Erika quickly disabled the app and slipped the phone into her pocket as she moved around the table a bit more.

Hand on Carter’s shoulder, she pulled him close. “I’ll be back later, okay? You be good and listen to what the Kings say.”

Carter nuzzled into her side for a minute before pulling back. “Be careful.”

“Who? Me?” Erika grinned, grabbing her baseball bat. Resting it on her shoulder, she ruffled Carter’s hair with her other hand. “I’m always careful.”

Every last person in the room gave her a disbelieving stare.

Erika just rolled her eyes. “Right. I’m off.”

“You sure you don’t want someone watching your back?” Leslie asked. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Erika shook her head, though she was hesitant. Backup sounded nice, but it would both limit her options and, frankly, having seen that teleporting wizard, she doubted it would help much. More importantly, she wanted Leslie to be safe.

If something happened to her, she did not doubt that he would take in Carter.

Her excuse, however, was much simpler. “Don’t want to spook The Stalker by showing up with a whole group of people.”

“I could ride my bike around the area,” Anna said, leaning up against the wall. “Give you a quick escape if something does go wrong.”

“That… sounds like the best option,” Erika said, nodding her head.

She would be heading out to meet The Stalker, but they presumably wouldn’t be meeting directly under their target’s nose. That meant there would be some travel required. Erika didn’t know if they would be traveling on foot or in a car, but even after they arrived, she didn’t know what the situation would be. If she could send a quick text to Anna and get an instant ride away from danger, she might not have to worry about leaving Carter alone.

“Right,” Anna said. She shut off the propane tank next to the burner before grabbing her motorcycle helmet off the counter near the chemistry set. “Going to stop home to pick up a few things. Text me your location when you get there, and I’ll hang a few streets away.”

“Sounds good,” Erika said, somewhat relieved to have backup without compromising. “I’ll see you there. Or, I hope I don’t see you there. That would mean something bad has happened.”

With that, and one last hug for Carter, Erika hopped in her truck and started driving.

Twenty minutes later, she pulled into a small public parking lot down in the Lower West Side. One she had been to before. There were several live music venues in the area that Erika frequented. If only she could have been so free tonight.

Hadn’t Kassandra mentioned that Hellstorm was playing just last weekend? She missed it.

Erika shook her head and stepped out of her truck. A fairly average-looking SUV was parked next to her. The only thing notable about it was its heavily tinted windows, making it impossible to see inside. But she didn’t need to. Outside the SUV, The Stalker stood, wearing a thin white dress with a single black ribbon pulling it tight around her waist. Her eyes were open, shimmering, as she stared off into the distance.

She wasn’t alone. A woman wearing a flashy suit jacket with no undershirt stood with her, flipping a pen between her fingers. An older man stood on the other side of her, smoking a cigarette.

“Stalky,” the woman said upon Erika’s arrival. She reached out like she was about to touch The Stalker’s shoulder, only to have her hand snatched out of the air.

The Stalker’s eyes refocused, losing that faint colored glow. She held the woman’s wrist for a moment, staring at her without using her ability, before releasing her as she looked to Erika.

“You’re here.”

“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” Erika said.

The Stalker looked to the woman at her side, raising an eyebrow.

“We got here less than five minutes ago,” the woman said, chipper despite the way she was rubbing her wrist. “Nice ride, by the way.”

Erika hesitated. From the tone in the woman’s voice, she could not tell if that was sarcasm or not. The old beat-up pick-up was hardly what she would have called ‘nice’ in any meaning of the word. At the same time, who knew? Maybe the woman appreciated older cars.

“It gets me around and doesn’t draw attention,” Erika said noncommittally. “And you are?”

“My cultists,” The Stalker said in a dismissive tone before the woman could properly answer. “Ignore them. They are only here for support if something unexpected occurs.”

“Right,” Erika said slowly, filing away the term ‘cultist’ along with all the other strange terminology she had heard in the last few weeks. “I take it nothing major has changed since earlier?”

“Nothing has changed at all,” The Stalker said with a small frown. “I’ve been keeping periodic tabs on our target. It hasn’t moved. Not even light pacing around a room. The dead do not register to my senses, so it must be alive, and yet it simply hasn’t moved.”

Erika hummed, thinking it over a moment. “Do you see inanimate objects?” she asked after a moment, deciding to get a little more information on how The Stalker’s power worked. “By which I mean, are you seeing the other part of the broken mask rather than its wearer?”

“I see beings. Perhaps a being inhabits that mask, but I’ve seen parasites before. It doesn’t feel the same.” The Stalker shrugged. “Not impossible. We’ll find out.”

Parasites. Another word to file away. “So,” Erika said, “we headed far from here?”

“A few blocks. We scouted earlier, narrowing down the location.” The Stalker turned and started walking, her two minions following a few steps behind. Erika moved alongside her despite a mild discomfort at having strange people at her back. “It’s somewhere in the Historical Gallery and Cultural Museum.”