Ghost Dancer (A Modern Magics Story) Read online

  The man grabbed the boy’s hand and started to drag him toward us. Thulu and I moved into the street to allow them to pass. We continued down the block. No way were we going to lead him to our SUV. So we made a brave show of going the opposite direction. At the corner we risked looking back, but there was no sign of the man or his son. I breathed a sigh of relief as I leaned against Thulu.

  “Someone has used cigarettes to burn this poor boy,” Thulu said softly. “Let’s get him over to Ally, so she can give him an exam before we contact anyone.” Ally was the best veterinarian we knew. She was also Thulu’s cousin and my best friend.

  We quickly made our way around the block followed by the two ghost kids. Danika was turning somersaults in the air in joy that we had rescued Rudy, who kept struggling to get to her. Rudy was one smart dog if he was able to see his mistress. It spoke of their bond, and I felt a hitch in my stomach that they had ended up as they had.

  Once we got back into the SUV, Thulu handed Rudy to me. I thanked Parker and asked if he’d like to join us. He smiled and nodded as he and Danika floated into the backseat.

  I carefully looked Rudy over to see the burns Thulu had pointed out. I was careful to not touch them, but the poor pup had about half a dozen burns on his back. Some looked relatively fresh, and were very deep, bloody and oozing, while others had scabbed over and looked like they were a few days old. I was pretty sure the man had done that and recently, too.

  I called Ally, and explained to her what had happened. She and her husband, Brent, owned a popular animal clinic. She told us to bring Rudy in.

  Thulu and I had no pets, although Ally had been trying for years to talk us into one.

  My plan was to get Rudy checked out, return him to his family and hope that Danika could move on. I said as much to Thulu who simply nodded his agreement. And I wanted to chat with Parker some more. We needed to get info to the cops about Danika’s killer and do so without blowing our cover. That was going to be tricky because anonymous tips weren’t always followed up as thoroughly as we’d like and sometimes we had to make several calls to get action. I hoped Parker could give us more information that would convince the cops to investigate the man.

  I had Danika lean forward so Rudy could sniff her, hoping he could detect the scents that I was able to smell. I had no idea how much a dog understood. He wiggled out of my arms and tried to jump into hers. He gave a small yelp when he went right through her and landed on the backseat. He sniffed the air, cocked his head to one side and quickly came to terms with the situation. It didn’t take him long to figure out he couldn’t physically interact with her. He contented himself with lying on the seat next to her, obviously happy in her presence. Now and then he tried to get her to pet him, but of course his little head went right through her body.

  By the time we reached the sparkling clinic, Rudy had settled down. Ally wasted no time giving the little dog an exam, and she quickly confirmed that Rudy was on the thin side, but had been fed, so wasn’t exactly starving. She frowned over the burns and shook her head in disgust. She picked Rudy up and explained that she needed to treat the burns and would bring Rudy back when she was done. Danika danced after Ally. I thought about stopping her, but didn’t.

  Thulu and I remained in the little exam room with Parker floating nearby. We waited for Ally to return with the dog.

  We needed to let Danika’s family know he had been found and was safe, but I wondered if we would be better off turning the dog over to the cops.

  “I don’t want this to be a mess, Thulu,” I said quietly.

  “It won’t be.” His voice was firm and reassuring.

  “Parker, do you know where he put Danika’s body?” I asked.

  Parker frowned. “He’s got a building in back. It’s little, but has a basement that’s deep underground. He reinforced it all with concrete. That’s why no one hears anything. And he tunneled out from the basement so the backyard has this underground area for the bodies. It’s really creepy because it’s like he made his own private crypt. He has everything reinforced with concrete under there, La Fi. He made these weird coffins out of fiberglass or something. Each coffin has a window over the top half of the bodies. And there are lots of bodies down there. He goes and visits them. A lot of the coffins have what looks like mummies inside. I floated in to look at some of them. A few are more recent. Like Danika. ”

  My heart sank as Thulu asked, “How many is ‘lots,’ Parker?”

  “Maybe twenty or so? I didn’t want to count them.”

  We had to stop that man; that was first and foremost, but figuring out how to report him without telling the authorities we saw ghosts was going to be tricky.

  Ally returned with Rudy and a serious expression. Danika floated after her with a frown.

  “Hey, guys, where exactly did you get this dog?” asked Ally.

  I gave a nervous glance at Danika. Parker picked up on it and I was terribly impressed with what he did next.

  “Hey, Danika, could you show me where the guy took you from?”

  She nodded and the two popped out of the room.

  Thulu and I explained what had happened. Since Ally was family, she knew quite well what Thulu and I could do. Her face paled as we explained about Danika, her murder and what had happened to Rudy after that.

  “Okay, so we need to let the cops know about all of this, without involving you any more than we have to.” Ally’s voice was firm.

  “How about if we say we found the dog in front of the house and saw his back and brought him to Ally?” I asked and immediately discarded that idea. “Never mind, they’ll want to know why we didn’t call them.”

  “Maybe not, Fi, why would we if we were rescuing a dog sitting by himself in front of a house?” Thulu sighed. “There are all sorts of holes in that story, but I think we need to go with it anyway. I can call that detective friend of mine – Lassiter. I’ll tell him we were investigating another case in the area and saw the dog and you were too soft-hearted to leave him there. We didn’t realize until we got him in to Ally that he was the missing little girl’s dog.”

  “And how do we get him to look in that backyard and find this crypt?”

  “I’ll think of something.” Thulu was still frowning, but he was good at keeping us from getting attention from the authorities. I trusted that he could get someone to look without giving us away.

  We all agreed it was a flimsy story at best, but we needed to get cops to that house and none of us had any better ideas. It sucked, but what else could we do?

  Thulu called Lassiter. He explained that we’d found the dog that belonged to the missing child from the news. The dog’s name tag confirmed his name and his description matched that of the missing dog. He glossed over a lot of details, but stayed with the story that we found the dog in front of a certain house, which might mean nothing, but should be checked out.

  It was a waiting game after that. Not my favorite thing. Waiting sometimes annoyed me, but there really wasn’t anything else to do and we’d certainly done our fair share of it over the years.

  Ally left us in the room when one of the assistants told us the cops were there. Thulu held Rudy as we waited.

  Ally soon returned, leading Thulu’s friend, Jeremy Lassiter. He always seemed nice and was certainly competent or Thulu would not have been his friend, but I wanted nothing to do with him, and always stayed aloof in his presence.

  Inside my heart was pounding. I hated lying. It was a big thing to me to be honest. But I also didn’t want to end up as a lab experiment somewhere.

  Lassiter looked at Rudy’s tags, and checked Rudy against a picture he had. He carefully noted the placement of the tan spots on his fur and studied the shape of his face.

  “Okay, I agree that this is probably the missing dog. Now let me get this straight. You were investigating a case in the neighborhood, saw this dog sitting by himself and the bad burns on his back, so you brought him to Dr. Morgan.”

  “Right, we felt it was im
portant to get him medical treatment as soon as possible. We were worried about infection and didn’t want any more time to pass.”

  “There’s a clinic name on the rabies tag. Did you think of calling that to trace the dog by the shot number?”

  Thulu and I exchanged a look. I shrugged. Not being a dog owner how would we even know that?

  “No,” answered Thulu. “I didn’t know you could do that. With Ally being our cousin, we felt she was our best option.” Thulu was smooth.

  “Right, and after you got here, you realized it was the dog that had been with Danika Samms?”

  “That’s correct. Ally recognized him from the pictures, so we called you.” Thulu continued.

  Lassiter raised an eyebrow and looked from Thulu to me to Ally. I got the impression he wasn’t buying our story.

  “And you want me to go to the house where you found the dog sitting?”

  “Exactly.” Thulu smiled, his dimples showing.

  “And why would I do that?” Lassiter asked.

  “Because that’s where we found the dog. He’d been fed since he was taken, so someone fed him, someone burned him. It wouldn’t hurt to check the whole area, but isn’t it logical to start there? I mean you do have a missing child, right?”

  The two men watched each other, and I felt as if some secret guy-thing message passed between them. I frowned, but Lassiter put away his phone, where he’d been making notes and turned to me.

  “I’m guessing you have nothing to add to this?”

  “Nope.” I said. Lassiter waited to see if I’d add anything, but I firmly kept my mouth shut.

  He turned to Ally, “Dr. Morgan, is there anything you wish to add?”

  Ally smiled charmingly, as she petted Rudy. “It’s just as Thulu told you. I recognized Rudy from his picture. He’s been fed, but not a lot. He’s thinner than he was when the picture was taken, but he’s mostly in good spirits and is a very sweet boy. I know he must be in pain, but he’s very stoic about it. I hope you find whoever abused this baby and little Danika and make him pay.”

  Lassiter zeroed in on Ally’s last comment, “Dr. Morgan why would you say Danika has been abused? Do you know something else?”

  Ally wasn’t as smooth as Thulu, but did her best as she stammered, “No, of course not. How could I possibly know anything?”

  Lassiter looked her in the eye for a very long moment, but Ally held her ground. He turned to me once more, but I knew better than to volunteer anything.

  He turned to Thulu. “Would you join me outside please, Thulu?”

  Thulu looked at me and gave me a reassuring nod. “Sure thing, Jeremy.”

  Thulu gave my arm a light squeeze as he left the room. I breathed easier with Lassiter gone.

  With the door closed behind them, Ally blew a heavy sigh of relief.

  “Oh my god, La Fi, how do you guys do this?” Ally whispered.

  I shook my head, “Fortunately, we don’t have to very often. Usually Thulu makes an anonymous call or something. We don’t have live animals to deal with. But this time is different. There’s no way we could just dump him at the police station or even here for that matter. We had to have a connection to that house and this was the best solution.”

  “I know, but still, it’s nerve-wracking. Well, I’m going to get back to my other patients. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Will do. And thanks, Ally.” I stood and gave her a hug before sitting back on the padded bench with Rudy next to me. I called Danika and Parker, and they popped in quickly.

  Rudy immediately focused on Danika again, but didn’t leave my side. He didn’t bother trying to sniff her anymore. He seemed content to merely watch her. He was a nice dog. Even I had to admit that.

  “So what now?” asked Parker.

  “Now we hope the cops go investigate that guy.”

  “Do you think they will?” Parker frowned, doubtfully.

  I shook my head. “I have no idea. I sure hope so, though.”

  “What if they don’t?” he persisted,

  “Then we think of something else.” I smiled.

  We were quiet for a few minutes.

  “So what’s your story, Parker? How did you come to be there?”

  “I heard her, but I was too late. I didn’t even think of coming to you guys to help before. I wish I had.” Parker shook his head, his eyes full of pain. “I could have saved her. I could have saved others, if I’d only thought to come to you guys sooner and tell you what I saw.”

  “Hey, there’s no sense blaming yourself. You didn’t know us, so why would you think to come to us.”

  “Because everyone knows you help the supernatural.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Yeah, everyone knows that you help the dead with stuff. But I didn’t even think about coming to you guys until she wanted to find her lost dog.” He ran his hand through his spiked hair. “It seems so obvious now. But you know what? Not all of us need help.” He looked at me, and I nodded my understanding.

  Parker continued, “Some of us are just hanging out and we don’t need anything. But I should have thought about coming to you guys for the living who are in trouble.” His tone was wistful and I caught the feeling of guilt from him.

  “Why would you think of it, though? Unless you had dealt with us before, or you needed help with something.” I changed the subject to take his mind off his guilt. “So, you don’t want to go through the light yourself?”

  That worked. “No way! I’m having too much fun still.” He grinned at me.

  “I see.” I wanted to ask how he died, but didn’t want to take away his smile.

  “Well Parker, now that you know us, maybe you can help when you see something in the future? I want you to know you are always welcome to bring us any info you think we can help with.”

  His grin became even wider. “That would be awesome.”

  The door to the room opened and Thulu came back in, followed by Ally.

  “Okay, La Fi, we’re going to keep Rudy here until the family comes for him. They need to take pictures of him, but he will be okay.”

  “And Lassiter said we can go home,” Thulu added.

  “Come on with us, guys. We can wait at the house,” I said to the two kids.

  “Really?” asked Parker. “I always heard that you don’t allow anyone to come to the house.”

  I nodded. “We don’t usually, but I’m willing to make an exception in this case.”

  I gathered my jacket and followed Thulu to the SUV. Danika and Parker floated after us.

  We were all quiet as we drove home. Once there, Thulu and I settled into our family room with glasses of wine and a quick dinner of microwaved soup and sourdough bread.

  “Danika, Rudy will be returned to your family and I’m sure he will be cared for. Is there anything else we can do for you?”

  The young girl floated cross-legged in the air, next to Parker. We all looked at Danika.

  “Thank you for saving Rudy. Will someone let my mom and dad know what happened?” she asked tentatively.

  Thulu nodded. “My friend will take care of that, Danika. Did you have a message to pass on to them?”

  Danika shook her head. “They’d never believe it was from me.”

  Thulu and I exchanged a glance.

  “The only other thing I’d like to do is to dance on TV, but that’s not going to happen. I really wanted to do that show. I would have been so good. I never got to show my cool moves.” Her voice was small and heavy with disappointment.

  I smiled. “You know, there might be something we can do about that. Not on TV, but a friend of ours has a magic show. I bet we could get him to help you and you could do a show for us. How does that sound?”

  “Really?” Her face lit up.

  “Sure. I’ll make a call and see what we can come up with. I bet we can put the word out that there’s going to be a cool show. We can invite some of the other dead to come, too. What do you think about that?” I was maybe jum
ping the gun a bit, but I knew Reo would help.

  “I think that’s awesome! Do you think anyone would come?” Danika bounced in the air.

  Parker answered, “I’ll tell people. I bet we pack the house.”

  I got my phone out and called Reo Malone, a friend with a show at a classy hotel. He was also a telepath, empath, psychic and saw the dead. I explained the situation to him and he was silent. I let him think.

  “Okay, here’s what we can do. I’ll rehearse some with your little friend and we can use my showroom. We can use it for a show too…a matinee, maybe? What do you think?”

  “I think that’s a great idea.”

  “Tell her I’ll call for her soon. I’ll chat with her and see what we can put together. Let her know my abilities are more erratic than yours so she doesn’t get frustrated.” Reo sounded excited about the possibility.

  “Will do.”

  I passed the info on to Danika, who left almost immediately. I knew she’d be in good hands with Reo.

  Thulu left the room, and I heard him talking on his phone in the study. I smiled at Parker and held up one finger to let him know we’d wait. He nodded.

  Thulu soon returned, but his earlier mood had darkened considerably and he motioned me to follow him as he talked.

  “That was Lassiter. They went to the house and it was empty. There were signs that someone had packed in a hurry. The cops searched the back building and they found the crypt and everything in it. They’re searching for him now.”

  “But you know where he is, don’t you?” I asked as I followed Thulu back to the study. My husband nodded as he opened the safe there.

  “Yeah, Fi, I know where he is.”

  I felt my stomach drop at his tone. My voice was shaky as I asked him what I already suspected.

  “Where is he, Thulu?”

  “Here, Fi, he’s here.” Thulu handed me my gun and a box of ammo. I quickly filled the chamber of my .38 Smith & Wesson. I wanted to warn Parker, but of course, nothing much could harm him at that point.

  “How did he know where we lived, Thulu?”