The Voodoo Killings Read online

  I checked my watch: 11:45. I glanced around the bar on the off chance I’d missed Mork toting his metal cooler. Nope. It was usual to wait a few minutes for him…just not this long. I also didn’t like holding this much cash down here. I think Mork knew that—probably why he was late.

  “Is Mork back there?” I asked Lee as she came back around the bar. Cameron had finished his brains, so I slid his empty glass towards her.

  “Hold on a sec, I’m not drinking any more of…” He trailed off when both Lee and I shook our heads at him.

  “No, I haven’t seen Mork,” Lee said, taking a fresh glass and filling it with a mixture that matched the blue umbrella she decorated it with before passing it back to Cameron. “And with luck, I won’t,” she said, retreating to the cooler.

  I snorted. Mork, Lee’s business partner, was many things. Zombie was not one of them. I wondered if that’s what led to all the strife between them. On the other hand, it could just be Mork: he had that effect on people.

  Rumour had it that five years back Lee had hit a rough spot when the morgue technician she’d been using skipped town and her brain supply dried up. Enter Mork, stage right, with a bottomless supply of high-quality, fresh brains. A tenuous partnership was born out of desperation.

  Normally I’d agree wholeheartedly with Lee’s aversion to Mork. But I needed supplies for Cameron.

  I finished my second whisky sour. Two options faced me: stay here and make small talk with Cameron until Mork arrived, or try once more to make nice with Nate and get him to agree to the university gig tomorrow night.

  I slid myself up off the bar stool. Time to see if the late great Nathan Cade had swallowed his pride and reached something resembling a reasonable frame of mind.

  “Lee, watch Cameron for me, will you?” I said, and didn’t wait for her nod. “I’ll be back in a sec,” I said to Cameron. “Stay put. If you forget something, ask Lee. And I want that second glass gone by the time I get back.”

  He swore but pulled the umbrella out and took a sip.

  The washrooms were outside the back door, off a small courtyard that occupied the space between the natural rock wall of the cavern that formed the city and the back of Lee’s bar. It was a throwback to outhouse days. Lee and Mork kept generous-sized mirrors in the bathrooms, pre-set for summoning. Just another service for their clientele.

  “Kincaid?” Lee called, raising her voice just enough that I could hear her. Door handle in hand, I glanced back over my shoulder. She was leaning around the cooler door.

  “Tell Mr. Cade I’m calling in his bar tab tonight,” she said, and smiled, slow and wide, like a very dangerous cat.

  I shook my head. It wasn’t like I hadn’t warned him.

  The electric heaters—Mork’s doing—buffeted me with warm air that smelled of stale peat moss as I closed the door behind me. They were supposed to beat back some of the dampness that permeated all of Seattle and was especially potent down here. The jury was out as to whether they worked, but the smell of decaying moss drove home a crucial detail practitioners who visited the underground for too long tended to forget: the city was never meant to suit the living. It was a place for the dead to rot.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE LATE GREAT NATHAN CADE

  Lee’s improvements had extended into the courtyard.

  Christmas lights, tiny white ones, clung to everything, including the two gas lamps hanging over my head. Strings of them had been woven into a haphazard canopy that stretched all the way to the three outhouse-style washrooms along the rock wall. It was like a night garden filled with fireflies, minus the plants, which wouldn’t grow down here anyway.

  I shook my head. Cheap Christmas lights were not going to scare off bad luck, only the odd drunk zombie or ghoul catching a nap behind the trash. Though I had to admit it was pretty.

  I pushed open the door to the first stall, turned the lamp on and wiped the mirror down with glass cleaner I kept in my bag. Satisfied any residual stains were gone, I pulled out the red lipliner I kept in my backpack in order to contact Nate.

  Nate, you there? I wrote in the top left corner of the mirror.

  I counted thirty seconds before the ghost-grey glass fogged up and letters from the Otherside etched themselves underneath my note in a tight, slanted, capital-letter script—the only way Nate’s writing was legible.

  YOUR LATE, K. WHERES MY APPOLOGY?

  Oh, for the love of…Well, at least he’d had the decency not to write backwards. Just below Nate’s fogged note, I wrote: Learn to spell and maybe you’ll get one.

  I waited. A minute passed with no reply.

  I rolled my eyes. Hold a grudge much? Nate, get out of the mirror.

  STILL WAITING, came Nate’s fogged reply.

  I glared at the mirror. “Come on, Nate,” I said, knowing full well he could hear me. Down here the barrier was thinner. Something to do with proximity to water and magnetic fields from the west coast plates.

  SAY IT.

  I sighed. Eventually, Nate would get bored and come out on his own. Unfortunately, if we had any hope of making rent this month, I needed him for a seance. Tomorrow.

  I caved in word if not in spirit. “Fine. Seattle grunge rock reshaped the international music scene. There. Happy?”

  …AND?

  I swore. “Nate—”

  SAY IT.

  Oh, for crying out loud. “And grunge style had significant societal influence that reverberated through the fashion world. Truce?” I gave my grey reflection in the mirror my best stop-screwing-with-me expression. I couldn’t see Nate yet, but I knew damn well he could see me.

  TRUCE was finally scrawled across the mirror.

  “Thank god,” I said. I stepped to the side to give him room.

  Watching a ghost materialize is a rush, even if you’ve seen it a hundred times. An ash-grey fog slid out of the mirror and coalesced in front of me. A pair of red Converse sneakers formed first—Nate usually materialized from the feet up—followed by ripped jeans and a bright-yellow happy-face T-shirt with a red plaid flannel shirt tied around his waist. I don’t think Nate had ever actually worn the damn plaid shirt, just figured it was part of the grunge package.

  His head came last, complete with his dated brown shag. So many things went through my mind. “Can’t afford a haircut?” topped the list, followed closely by, “What idiot gave you a pair of nail clippers?” Ghosts can’t create things. They’re dead, so it’s beyond their scope. But mimicking from memory is well within their repertoire, meaning Nate was perpetually stuck in 1995.

  “Hey K,” he said, grinning ear to ear.

  I crossed my arms. “I hate it when you goad me like this, Nate.”

  His grin widened. “You apologized already. Can’t take it back now.”

  “I mean your haircut.”

  Nate’s smile faltered and he turned to study his reflection in the mirror. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing at all, if you meant it to look like you scalped a ferret and stuck it on your head.”

  He ran his fingers through the mess. “It does not look like a ferret.”

  “While drunk. With a pair of nail clippers.”

  Nate frowned at me. “It’s a social statement against conformity. You just admitted—”

  “I know, I know. No need to rub it in. Now come on,” I said, and opened the door. “I’m having a lousy night.” I gave him and his outfit a sideways glance. “Do people still seriously buy that nonconformity shit?”

  “All the time. Whoa.” Nate darted around me to get a better look. “What’s with the Christmas lights? I haven’t been out of the game that long, have I?”

  By “out of the game,” Nate meant how much time had passed since he’d crossed the barrier. It’s easy for ghosts to lose track of time on the Otherside. Nate was better than most, but he still got jumpy when I moved the furniture around while he was gone, worrying a week had in fact been a month.

  “Lee Ling’s been redecorating. Just wait t
ill you see inside. Now move, I don’t have all night,” I added when Nate blocked the door, the tips of his ghost Converse sneakers brushing the ground. He knew I hated walking through him. Roommates had to have some boundaries, and besides, the rush of cold unnerves me.

  Nate got out of my way then fell in step—or float—beside me. “Nice to see you too, K. I’ve been doing all right. Keeping a positive attitude and all. Found out my ex-girlfriend married my drummer. Appreciate the heads-up on that one.”

  I winced. I’d meant to break it to him gently. “If you hadn’t spent the last week moping, I’d have told you.” Well, maybe. “And my week’s been worse.”

  “How the hell do you get worse than the evil ex marrying your drummer?”

  “Oh, come on. That is not the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. It’s not even the worst thing that’s happened to you in the last two months. And besides, weren’t they already sleeping together before you died?”

  Nate frowned. “Yeah, but now they’re getting married. That’s totally different. Look, Kincaid, I don’t ask for much—”

  “You ask me for shit all the time.”

  “Just take me over to Mindy’s. Five minutes, just so I can talk to her—”

  “No.”

  “Please, Kincaid?”

  “Nate, I said no!” Talking to his ex-bandmates and -girlfriend was the stupidest idea he’d had in a long while. Not everyone comes back as a ghost; in fact, most people don’t. Ghosts tend to be those who died young and/or violently, though no one knows exactly why, physics-wise that is. Not only had Nate been young, he’d drowned. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your fault or someone else’s, drowning is always violent, especially where the lungs are concerned.

  He’d died on December 31, 1998, a couple of years before I’d hit junior high and been introduced to the wonderful world of peer pressure and acne. Grunge was in full swing and Nathan Cade, lead singer and front man for Dead Men Tell No Tails (Nate’s spelling sure as hell hadn’t improved any since he’d died), was partying as if there was no end in sight. On New Year’s Eve, he’d had the misfortune to pass out drunk on the front of his boat and slide into the ice-cold Seattle harbour waters. His body never turned up.

  “Kincaid, you’re killing me,” he pleaded.

  I shook my head. A ghost’s impulse control is minimal and Nate had had very little to begin with. “Nate, stop it with the bad puns.”

  “There is no way your week’s been worse than mine.”

  I stopped short of opening the back door. I crossed my arms and turned to face him. “Three hours ago I got a call about a stray zombie wandering the streets of Seattle.”

  His eyes narrowed like he was trying to figure out if I’d made that up. “No shit?”

  “I’ve got Lee watching him right now, and I’ve spent the last hour trying to get enough brains into him to stop him going feral while I figure out who made him.”

  Nate’s brown eyes turned a darker, ghost-grey shade. Some ghosts can tell if you’re lying. Nate was one of them.

  “Shit,” he said. “Okay, you win.” He paused, but then couldn’t resist: “See, it’s not so hard admitting you’re wrong.”

  I swung the door open. “Inside, twinkletoes. You’re helping me babysit.”

  “What do I get out of it?”

  “Beer?” I said.

  “Keep talking.”

  I shook my head. If men are the sum of their parts, ghosts, who have no parts, are the sum of their vices. If someone had told me I’d be rooming with a co-dependent ex–rock star…

  Two years ago, back when I could still raise zombies for a living, grunge hit a resurgence. Open ads to find the ghost of Nathan Cade flooded the paranormal trade journals. Only problem was, no one could find Nate because he wasn’t interested in being found.

  Prompted by the challenge and a need for cash, I made it my business to find him. It turned out that the people who’d tried before me had been offering the wrong incentive. It amazes me how fast practitioners forget ghosts were people, and in a lot of ways still are.

  I spent weeks writing notes on every set mirror I encountered and shamelessly leveraging the local ghost network. Finally, three weeks into my campaign, Nate agreed to talk to me out back of Damaged Goods.

  Saying Nate had been pissed off is putting it mildly.

  I’M NOT SIGNING YOU’RE GODDAM ALBUM, Nate had written.

  Don’t want your autograph, I’d written back. Just want to talk.

  There’d been a pause. Then: I’M NOT DOING ANY CREAPY GHOST SEX THING EITHER.

  Wow. Okay. Umm…Yeah…I don’t even want to know.

  UNLESS YOUR REALLY HOT—LIKE VICTORIA SECRET MODEL HOT…

  Yeah, that’s not creepy at all. Seriously—I only want to talk. If you don’t like what I have to say, we go our separate ways and I won’t contact you again—promise.

  A second later, Nate had materialized in front of me. It’d been a small bathroom, so it’d been cramped, and Nate was dressed like he was on a ghost bender. I think he’d been trying to scare me off.

  “What could you possibly have to say to me that I’d want to hear?” he’d said.

  I’d pursed my lips. Nate had trust issues. Couldn’t blame him, since his old band was trying to rope him into a comeback tour. “I have a proposition for you, one where you can make some money and it doesn’t involve reuniting with your band.”

  The no-comeback-tour clause clearly got his attention…and the money part too. My ghost contacts all said Nate was broke, even by their standards. Worldly possessions are a lot harder to give up than you’d think. And then there’s beer. Ghosts carry appetites from their real life into the next, and anything they’ve done repeatedly—like, say, drinking a cup of tea every day at noon—they’ll muster enough energy to do as a ghost. Nate drank beer. No one in the underground city was letting a ghost skip out on a beer tab.

  “What if I’m still not interested?” he’d said.

  I’d shrugged. “Then I turn around, head back into the bar and take this with me.” I showed him the six-pack of Steamworks in my backpack. His favourite.

  He’d glanced down at the beer and back up at me.

  “Just come into the bar, have a beer and hear me out,” I’d said, and crossed my heart.

  I don’t know if it was because Nate was bored out of his mind, or there was beer involved, or the fact that I had a passing resemblance to trustworthy. My money was on the beer. But he’d agreed.

  We worked out a mutually beneficial deal then and there. I’d be the exclusive provider of one Nathan Cade, but only for jobs he wanted to do. In return, I’d cover his outstanding bar tab and he’d get paid. I’d also give him free passage from the Otherside to this side through my apartment and keep his real name a secret. Did I mention that his real name was the other thing I’d managed to dig up? Ghosts have a bitch of a time ignoring them. The only reason Nate’s ex-bandmates hadn’t succeeded in calling him before I did was that Nathan Cade was a stage name. He’d never bothered telling them the real one.

  A few months into our partnership, I started charging Nate rent. Word to the wise: never let a ghost store a PlayStation at your house. No good can come of it. Nate’s not a bad roommate, and he’s a halfway decent friend, too…when he isn’t broke. Nate’s not what you’d call good with numbers.

  “What are you smirking at?” Nate asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said as the door closed behind us. A day would come when Nate would pay his beer tab on time, since, statistically speaking, at some point the day his bar tab was due had to land on a day he had money. In the meantime, I’d keep Lee’s earlier threat to myself.

  “I’ve got us a gig for tomorrow night.”

  “Really?” Nate perked up. “Where and how much?”

  “Five hundred. Two hours, a couple songs. Frat house up at the university.”

  Nate groaned. “You’re whoring me out to university kids again?”

  “Guitar lessons are ha
rdly whoring you out. Scheduling a Dead Men Tell No Tails one-night-only reunion concert? That would be whoring you out.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Nate said, though he didn’t sound so sure.

  “Skip the gig tomorrow night and you’ll see just how far I’ll go to make rent.”

  “Turncoat,” he said.

  “Get over it. You like talking shop, and chances are good they’ll buy you beer.”

  Nate rolled his eyes but didn’t offer up any more arguments. “Any other jobs in the pipeline?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “A D&D group e-mailed me about you.”

  Nate made a derisive sound. For someone who loved video games as much as he did, he harboured an unnatural hatred of Dungeons and Dragons.

  “I made a point of explaining I can’t make you play D&D—”

  Nate stopped me dead by pulling the ghost equivalent of a three-sixty in the bar’s narrow back hall, his body turning translucent grey as he searched for whatever scent he’d picked up on. I had to jump out of the way to avoid getting frosted by a stray arm. “Hey!”

  He whispered, “You didn’t tell me Mork was here. Sorry, Kincaid. You know my Mork policy. I’m riding your coattails till that asshole disappears.”

  “Nate! Don’t you dare—” But it was too late. Before I could dodge out of the way, Nate dissolved into fog and dove at me.

  I winced as the ice cream headache hit. Damn it, I hated it when he hitched a ride. “Get out of me, you little toad!”

  No answer. I swore again. “As soon as I sit down at the bar, I want you the hell out—”

  “Want whom out?” a male voice, just shy of nasal, said behind me.

  I half jumped, and spun. Mork. Lounging in dark corners. Typical. And I could have sworn he hadn’t been there a second ago.

  I was the one who had nicknamed him Mork, after the alien on TV I remembered from reruns when I was a kid. His real name was Michael, but the nickname had caught on. Like Nate, Mork hadn’t changed his shag haircut since the late nineties, but what set him apart from the rest of his high school grunge cohort was his uncanny knack for taking that Seattle stereotype to the point of absurdity. Tonight, for example, he wore a leather duster with a pair of ripped blue jeans and a pair of yellow Doc Martens. Underneath the coat I caught sight of blue scrubs: med school dropout meets grunge cowboy. The look brought to mind an old Stephen King novel, the scary one about the dark tower….