No Humans Involved
Page 67

I summoned Botnick repeatedly, with no luck. Not surprising really. Rigor mortis had set in and the body had cooled, meaning he'd been dead for hours.
Newly dead spirits don't hang around long before someone whisks them off to the afterlife, and once they're gone, necromancers can't make contact until the powers-that-be decide they're ready to receive visitors. Still, I tried, in case Botnick hadn't been scooped up yet. I was about to give up when I spotted a shape slipping through a stack of boxes across the room.
"You!"
I advanced on the ghost. It was the voyeur from the night before. He started to fade.
"Don't you dare," I said. "Unless you want to be reported for loitering at the scene of an unauthorized occult gathering, I'd suggest you tell me what you saw."
"I didn't-"
"Yes, you did. You're the only witness to a murder and you'd better tell me what you saw or you'll add 'failing to remain at the scene' to those charges."
He peered at me, his eyes narrowing. I tried to look severe. Even fierce. I think I blew it when I went for fierce.
"Pfft," he said and started to fade.
A bolt of energy sliced through the boxes and hit him in the stomach. He yelped and stumbled. Eve strode from the crate pile and kicked the man's legs out from under him. When he fell, she planted her boot on his throat.
"Feel more like talking now?" she asked.
He yowled as she ground her foot into his neck.
"Oh, stuff it. You can't feel pain, remember?" She leaned back and fixed him with a look. "Or, considering your 'proclivities,' I'm guessing that's the tragedy of your afterlife, huh?"
His eyes narrowed to slits. "I deliver pain, bitch. I don't receive."
"Right. So that convention in Hawaii eighty-nine, wasn't it? So that's not you I see wearing the grass skirt and getting Eww. Let's stop right there."
His face went slack and his lips parted, as if to ask how she'd known that. Then he settled for spewing invective.
"Oh, quit your bitching," Eve said. "I'm not here to discuss your sex life-much rather not, thank you. You're going to tell the nice lady-"
"I'm not telling either of you anything."
She began again, in the same calm tone. "You're going to tell-"
"You've already admitted you can't hurt me, so how are you going to-"
"Hold that thought." Eve lifted a finger, then looked at me. "Could you?" She motioned with her still-raised finger, telling me to turn around.
So she didn't want me seeing how she was going to persuade the ghost to speak. I could have protested that I wasn't skittish-I'd just found a dead body and hadn't runscreaming from the room. An old argument, and not worth rehashing now. So I settled for a glare, and turned my back, resisting the urge to cross my arms.
Jeremy and Hope had already figured out that I wasn't talking to myself. From behind me came a commotion of muffled cries, most of it "bleeped" out, the rest incoherent babbling.
"-sorry, very sorry-didn't understand the situation-no offense intended-none at all-"
I waited. More babbled apologies.
Then, Eve, impatiently, "Are you done? Because we really need to get on with this, preferably before the cops show up."
"Yes, yes, but I just want you to know, I meant no disrespect. I-"
"-didn't understand the situation. Well, now you do. So shut up and answer our questions. Jaime?"
I started to turn around.
"Uh-uh," Eve said. "Gotta keep looking that way or we aren't going to get the truth out of this bastard."
The ghost yelped in protest. "I will. I assure you, now that I understand-"
"-the situation. Got that part. As for telling the truth, let's just say I like to be thorough. So the-" her next word was bleeped, "-stays. Got it?"
"Whatever you say, ma'am. Or, er, is there a proper form of address? I've never met-"
"Ma'am is fine. Jaime?"
The ghost-Stan, as he finally introduced himself-had been hanging around the basement last night, hoping for further excitement after our hasty exit. The cult members had followed us a little ways into the tunnel, but retreated once they hit the drop-off. Upstairs, Botnick convinced them that nothing had been touched, no doors left unlocked, and, had anyone broken into the basement, it had probably just been some vagrant or addict who came in through the tunnel looking for shelter.
The man had left then, but the woman had hung around, obviously suspecting something was up, and only left when Botnick went with her. Stan stayed. Jeremy returned and wandered around, picking up Botnick's trail, then left. Twenty minutes or so later, Botnick came back alone, probably hoping we'd show up again. He'd stayed for an hour, then made a phone call on his cell. He'd had to go upstairs to get decent reception. Stan hadn't followed, so he hadn't heard the content of that call. Botnick had then done some wandering of his own, nervously pacing as he waited.
A couple of hours passed. Then Stan heard a cry and a thump. He'd gone up to find Botnick facedown on the floor, unconscious, surrounded by three dark-clad figures. They seemed to have come up on Botnick from behind and knocked him out before he could say a word.
Jeremy had me press Stan for details on Botnick's attackers, but he could give little. And whatever Eve was doing to him, it meant he couldn't lie.