Free At the Behest of the Dead by Timothy W. Long Page B

in a ball. Praying is optional.”
    We walked along a creaking stairwell that was new compared to the rest of the place. Though it was over a hundred years old, the architecture was similar to the roman Victorian buildings in the older parts of this district. Doors were still doors and window sills, though missing glass, were made of brick and wood. Dust covered everything up to a quarter of an inch thick. If we got into a fight, I feared for my allergies. No amount of witchcraft had ever been able to stop the sneezing.
    Detective Andrew s light stabbed out and traced lines across the crumbling walls. When we came to the first drop, I stepped ahead of the detective and she handed me her light without a fuss. I took my time painting the wall with it while sniffing the air. About the only thing I smelled was a shitload of dust. I stifled a sneeze before it could rattle the walls. I stopped at a landing and listened.
    A shape formed ahead. S omething only I could make out. The salve in my eyes was good for more than just seeing in the dark.
    The form was slight , so I guessed it had been a female. She studied me as I studied and approached her. I opened myself to her and waited for her to respond in kind.
    We touched.
    She wasn’t going anywhere for a long time because she couldn’t let go. Her husband had been a good man until they didn’t find gold in California, so they moved to Seattle hoping to start up a carpentry business. His work ethic was not that great and he took to drinking when he lost job after job. He became abusive and one drunken night he determined that she was running around with a piano player. He took one of his hammers to her head.
    I concentrated on the form I thought was attacking people in this area and she did a shimmer , which I took for yes. Her form was vague, like a puff of barely visible cotton ball. The underground slid away from me and I felt her guiding, showing me what she had seen over the last few nights.
    It came late, usually covered in blood. It was massive , with a chest like a bodybuilder, only covered in fur. Elongated snout, razor sharp teeth – it was a creature made for nothing but killing. Then it was a man again and then the thing. That didn’t make sense. If a changer had gone rouge it should be in its animal form, not switching back and forth.
    “What are you doing?” the detective called.
    “Shh,” I hissed.
    “Blame a girl for asking why you’re swaying like a moron,” she mumbled.
    The form showed me the paths it had taken while crisscrossing her abode. It was like an old black and white movie seen through a foggy window. There were ripples where it walked , and I took this for the way the ghost saw things move in our world. The old world intruded on this one and left me confused when I saw the faces of the living among the burned out husk of the under city. Children, men, and women in home stitched clothing. Dogs running in the streets, then the echo of nothingness as tourists wandered the halls.
    There was nothing I could do. Like an addict that refuses to give up their drugs , this one refused to give up their essence. I moved away and gestured farewell. She answered with a sad attempt at a curtsy.
    “We gonna move on or you gonna sit there and shuffle back and forth like a drunk?”
    “I was talking to a ghost. I think I know what we are facing , and I think I know where it headed last night.”
    “A ghost? O kay, Phineas, I can take so much of this stuff before my head explodes, but talking to ghosts?” She had her hand on her forehead, the other tucked into a pocket by one finger. She fidgeted. Was it nerves or the stress of being an addict?
    “What is it you think I do, detective? I deal in witchcraft and I deal with the dead. Why scoff when I mention a ghost? They’re everywhere you know, all around us, but most don’t or can’t manifest. It takes a strong one, usually the recently dead who still have a grip on our world, to be able to show me what