The List

1

Gray Donovan came together piece by piece, a jigsaw puzzle put together by blindingly fast hands. He stretched, frowning at the crackling of tendons under his black shirt. One hand held up the round lamp chained to that wrist, triangular eyes casting orange light around his broom closet office. He turned on the overhead light with a callused fingertip.

Pale eyes glared from the wooden face he wore. Gray hair fell back from his forehead. Even the shade of his skin was a color reserved for the dead. He blinked against the light before going to the answering machine on the table he sometimes used for a desk.

He spent his days in Hell when normal people were sometimes at their busiest so he relied on a recorder for important calls. He had broken down and got a computer with a Internet connection to pay the small amount of bills that said he was alive in the world.

It was a small comfort after years of the half life he lived.

Donovan went to the machine, pulling a pad and pen from under the black tape recorder and phone. He pressed the play button, ready to take notes. People called him as a last hope, but he screened his calls.

He took ordinary jobs, but they had to be finite and able to be completed. Finding a runaway, a con artist, or cheating on either side was bread and butter, but putting down a monster from the pit was extremely more satisfying.

His old fashioned handwriting roughed out ten jobs that he could pursue. He would have to make a phone call to set up the first appointment. He only worked at night, and his clients had to understand that or hire someone else.

And in any case he wouldn't take a job until he knew everything about it.

His curse demanded a certain amount of forethought on what he did. Once committed, he couldn't stop for anything.

Donovan checked the first number, and called. He expected to get someone. The sun had just gone down, and people should be home. He listened as the line opened at the other end.

"Hello." The voice matched the message on the phone. It changed pitch as the syllables fell out.

"My name is Donovan." The gray man blinked. "You called about a problem you were having."

"You came with an excellent recommendation from a friend of mine." The voice wobbled up and down almost like a musical instrument changing rhythms in mid-chord. "I desperately need help. When can you come by?"

"I'm on the way out there as soon as I hang up." Donovan confirmed the street address. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

Donovan hung up, stared at the phone, wondered what he was getting into. He tore the list off the top sheet and slid the pad back under the phone. He doubted he could do all ten jobs in a single night, but maybe he could make a dent in them if he hurried.

Donovan left his office, walked out of the slender brick edifice to a parking lot behind the offices. He owned a brown van with its share of scars from city parking, and other drivers. He used it for stakeouts during the day. It pleased him that people just overlooked a brown van parked on a street. A camera could be set up to look out the tinted porthole without anyone seeing it.

The gray man took a left out of the parking lot, crossed three streets, then took an on-ramp to the Holmes Parkway. He drove pass five exits before getting off the highway and turning away from the bridge over the Holmes. He checked the massive watch he wore on his other wrist before looking for the next street he needed to turn on.

This part of Gull City seemed almost like a separate town from the close packed housing, and rows of buildings. Mailboxes stood at the curb with glowing letters. He saw the house he wanted at the end of a long driveway. A gate blocked his entrance.

Donovan paused at a call box on a pole next to the concrete driveway. He stared at the house while he gathered his thoughts. What could be the problem here?

He finally pressed the call button under the numbered keypad. He might as well find out so that he could pursue it or turn it down. The night wasn't getting any younger.

"Hello." The strange voice sounded even stranger coming out of the tinny speakers.

"This is Donovan." The cursed man looked up at the house.

"Thank you for coming." The voice sounded more relieved than happy. That wasn't good in Donovan's experience. "Just push in the code and then the pound key."

A string of muttered digits followed the statement. Donovan typed them in as ordered. The gate creaked open to let his van pass. He pulled up the driveway and parked in front of the large house. He got out, holding his lamp in his hand as he went to the door.

What could be the problem?

2

Donovan found an intercom with a call button by the door. He thought he heard birds flapping around. He raised his lantern high, orange light spilling out of the triangular eye holes. He listened before pressing the call button.

Something was out there with him, and he didn't like the feeling he was getting. He thought about just getting into his van and driving off. He thought about it, then pushed the button. He was already cursed, not much else could be done to him.

The door buzzed. Donovan pushed it open with his free hand, his lantern still raised to light his path into the dimly lit house. He looked around, wondering where the owner was.

"I'm upstairs." The voice drifted down a staircase to Donovan's left. "Please come up here."

Donovan started up the steps, free hand on the inside rail affixed to the wall. He paused at the landing leading into a second floor hall. He heard bird wings again, but saw no birds. His wooden face twitched as he considered what the problem could be.

He heard sheets shifting down the hall. Experience told him something bad was happening, something he should walk away from.

Donovan walked down the corridor, lantern lighting the way in front of him.

"Mr. Donovan?" The voice came from the last room away from the stairs, dancing up and down.

"I'm here." The gray man paused at the door, assessing the situation. It looked bad to him before he even knew what the problem was.

The client sprawled on his bed, as wide as the mattress. His skin was cracked. Eyes rested in folds of fat and skin that slid along on the bones of his skull. He tried to smile at the sight of the gray man standing at the door.

"I'm not a trainer." Donovan didn't advance into the room. Too many things had sprang from the shells of supposedly helpless victims for him to get too close.

"I heard that you can fix things." The fat man shifted with a whole lot of effort to look at his visitor squarely. "I need help with this."

"What do you expect me to do?" Donovan raised his lamp, playing its light over the room. Only one lamp was lit by the bed. The only other source of light was a lit computer screen with a dancing ball on it. Dark birds covered every inch of surface in the room under the gray man's phantom light.

"These birds." The fat man gestured slowly with one massive arm. "I need you to get rid of them if you can. I can't keep going like this."

"I don't know what I can do." Donovan stepped closer, playing his light around. The birds glared at him with their red eyes. "They seem to be ghosts."

"They fill me up with all these bad memories, bad experiences." The fat man shuddered. "Every night it gets worse. I need to stop them, or I need to die. I don't want to go on living with everything bad that other people did."

The shadow crows flapped their wings but refused to give up their spot on the bed, on the dresser, on the floor. They continued to glare at the cursed man.

Donovan dropped the lamp down on the end of its chain. He aimed for a bird to see if he could hit it with his lamp. The metal pumpkin was his curse and the source of aggravation for monsters everywhere. The fire inside burned everything.

The bird skidded aside with a hop and jump, feathers smoking from the near miss by the cold lamp. It cried for revenge. Its brothers echoed the call.

The multitudes leaped into the air, intent on driving Donovan off with their shadowy talons and fierce beaks. He stepped to the door, swinging the lamp in a circle by his side on its chain. He had grown used to using the thing like a morningstar. One day he would hit something too tough for the lantern, and it would shatter. Then he expected to stay in his daily hell forever.

Until then, Donovan was prepared to fight anything he could touch, and he could touch those birds. At least his lamp could. That was all he needed.

The winged messengers swept down on the gray man, wary of the flaming torch he swung. There were too many for him to stop them all, but for every claw mark he earned, five turned to flaming ash as the lamp sliced the air. More and more birds arrived to answer the rallying cry of their feathered brothers.

"You want to fight?" Donovan's pale eyes swept the growing cauldron of fury that really didn't touch the room itself. "Let's go."

3

Gray Donovan stood in the doorway of the bedroom, slowly backing away from the mass that swirled around him. The lamp on his arm swung in a fiery circle by his side as his enemies flapped their wings in fury, reached for him with shadowy beaks. The lantern smashed any bird that got too close into ash and regret as he tried to think of a solution to his problem.

His curse urged him to finish any job he undertook. He had not meant to get involved, but now that he was, he knew he would have to kill every bird in the house, or drive them away to some other unlucky bastard.

Donovan let the birds push him away from his client as he tried to decide what to do while defending himself. Something drew the birds to the fat man initially. That meant a curse, or a spell of some kind. Maybe if he broke that, he could disperse the pests faster.

That would be the end of the job, and he could go to the next one.

Donovan reversed course, swinging his flail to clear a path. That carried him through the mass of ghost feathers before they had a chance to rake him apart. He headed for the bed, smashing any of the birds that got in his way.

Donovan raised his lamp. Flame cast everything in sharp relief. The fat man stared up at him, eyes becoming holes under the gaze of the lantern. He had been dead a long time from the look of things.

Donovan heard the outraged cries from the birds, heard the sound of terror from the throat of the fat man. He knew what he had to do. He just didn't like it.

Donovan swung the lantern down as hard as he could, trailing flame behind its metal body. The fiery aura struck the fat man in the chest. There was an explosion of screams and feelings. The gray man stepped back as the bed burned.

Something long and sinuous erupted from the pyre, glaring at Donovan with sparky eyes before riding the smoke into the ceiling. The birds followed with cries beseeching the fat man's heart to return.

Donovan shook his head. The house would eventually burn down unless he stopped the fire. He had a moment of indecision before looking around for something he could use to put the flame out. He found a fire extinguisher and let the white cloud do its work. He covered the bed with the cold mist.

A tiny, almost child sized skeleton laid at the center of the fire, charred by what he had done. One hand seemed to have been trying to reach up before the release.

Donovan checked his list before leaving the house. He had seen a lot of things in his half-life. This was one of the things he wished he hadn't seen.

A glance at the night sky told him it was clear of demon birds and things they fed with the evils of others. Stars shone down to tell him everything was well.

He didn't feel like everything was well. He felt like he had done a poor job. He should have thought of something better, some way out. Instead he had killed the man.

Donovan pulled his ripped shirt off, brushed the blood off where he had been cut with the cloth, and wrapped some bandages around the open wounds. Then he got a new shirt and put that on.

When the sun came back up, he would go to his netherworld and return at sunset fully healed. The bandages made him presentable to the next client on his list. Plus he didn't want to bleed all over his van while he was driving around the city.

Donovan got behind the wheel, checked the address again, and pulled down the driveway. He hoped the next one was easier. One hour into the night and he already had one nonpaying customer. That wouldn't pay for his office, or telephone.

He had a feeling the night wouldn't get much better as he drove back toward the highway to head into the underbelly of Gull City.

Donovan listened to his wheels on the highway as he crossed under the velvet sky that was what he saw every night of his cursed life.

4

Donovan checked the address again as he turned on the street given. The numerous cuts the phantom birds had given him had scabbed over so he wasn't leaking blood everywhere. Too bad his shirt was wrecked.

He hoped the customer would understand. Otherwise he could just write this off and move on to the next name on his list.

Donovan's goal appeared to be a small house in the middle of similar houses on a side street bordering a main road. Houses were put up with only one way to get to them from only one road. A tree bent almost double with all the limbs on one side of the tree.

Donovan got out of his van, looking around the empty street. He held up his lantern, letting the orange light play out in front of him. This had the earmarks of a lost and found job. At least there was nothing strange on the front yard as he walked up to the door to ring the doorbell.

The door swung open, revealing an elderly lady who stared up at his gray face. She started to close the door in his face out of reflex.

"I'm Donovan." The cursed man held up his lantern, shining the light on her. "You called me about something."

"You're not quite what I expected." The lady ran her hand through her bound silver hair, a shade lighter than Donovan's own. "I thought you would at least wear a suit, and you smell like smoke."

"What's the problem, ma'am?" Donovan stared down at the lady, letting his lantern drop at the end of his arm.

He wasn't about to tell her he had set his last client on fire to free him from an evil curse.

"I can't seem to find my dog." The lady combed her hair again. "He wouldn't run away."

"I don't usually look for pets, ma'am." Donovan took a breath to steady himself. "Have you tried the pound?"

"Repeatedly." Anger cut through the woman's disappointment. "They're useless."

"What does Fluffy look like?" Donovan had two options. He decided to try and find the dog if he could. This wasn't the first thing he had ever been hired to look for and it wouldn't be the last.

"His name is Buster." The lady went inside her house, leaving the door open. She returned with a picture. "This is him."

The friendly looking face staring up at Donovan belonged to some kind of Great Dane or Mastiff. The fur around its muzzle and chest looked like caramel with darkness covering its back. Brown eyes glittered at the person who took the picture.

"When did you last see Buster?" Donovan handed the picture back. Now that he knew what the dog looked like, there was no mistaking that friendly face.

"I put him outside last night." The lady brushed her hair again. "He likes to roam the backyard a bit before we go to bed. He's really good about looking out for me and sleeps at the foot of my bed."

"Let me look at the yard." Donovan raised his lamp again as the client took him around the house to a fence. As big as Buster seemed to be in the picture, a chainlink fence like the gray man looked at could easily be jumped anytime the dog wanted to take off. Donovan opened the gate and stepped inside the yard, holding his lamp above his head.

"What are you doing?" The lady brushed her hair again, then clutched her housecoat around her tighter.

"I have to look at the scene of the crime before I can start looking for the missing item." Donovan turned in a complete circle, letting the lantern fire light up the world. "The first thing I have to look at is how he got out, where he stepped, was there anything else out here with him."

The lady considered the explanation in silence. Then she nodded in satisfaction.

"Can you find Buster?" She stared keenly at the gray man.

"It depends." Donovan turned again, stopping when he saw what looked like a giant imprint under the glow of the lamp. "I'll let you know in a couple of hours."

"Buster is all I have left from my husband." The lady shivered in the warm night. "I want him back."

Donovan turned his pale eyes on the woman. She backed up from the reflected glare of flame in them.

"I'll do what I can to find your dog." He started walking down the street, letting his light roll out in front of him.

5

Donovan followed the light from his lantern. It revealed things unseen, showed paths taken, and marked his enemies with its hellish fire. Now it was showing him the way Buster had went after fleeing his mistress.

And the cursed man didn't blame him for wanting to run free for a while.

Donovan paused when he reached a hot spot on the sidewalk. He bent down, running his lamp over the round circle it had lit up. Buster had gone into the spot. He would have to go in after him.

He should have known something like this had happened.

Donovan let the light intensify, the eye holes in his lantern glaring at the sidewalk. It marked paths taken, and opened those paths for him. The sidewalk vanished into a long hole receding into the ground. He stepped in, letting the tunnel take him after the dog.

Donovan landed in a familiar spot. He had been here months ago, dealing with a child snatching squid. He looked around for the servitors he had encountered on his earlier trip. Some had only suffered broken pieces, some had been killed.

He should have known something like this was going to happen.

Donovan lifted his lamp up high, and followed the orange light it gave off. It took him toward the palace where he had fought the thing in its lair for the two boys he had saved. Dog tracks marked the soft ground as Buster got used to the purple atmosphere.

Donovan circled the wall before finding a place he could go over without anyone seeing him. Buster must have looked like a snack to the servitors. Not big enough for a boy, too big not to eat. How many other dogs made it down here like this?

Donovan followed the path to a chewed up servitor. The guard was trying to fit a crab arm back in place with the other appendage. Bite marks marked the curved shell armature. The cursed man swung his lamp with all his might before the sentry could react. He left the body next to the front stairs in a sleeping position before opening the doors and stepping inside the shell castle.

Loud barking told him two things. One that he was on the right path, and his quarry was dead ahead somewhere in front of him. The other thing was Buster was a lot bigger than he had thought from his second hand viewing.

He had expected some cute poodle or terrier. What he was hearing sounded like some kind of monster in its own right. He shook his head and jogged toward the sound.

Donovan noted the repaired columns and walls from his last visit here as he moved on, heading for the central feeding chamber. He had battled the queen of the crab men all along these halls and found the way back easily. He paused when he reached the throne room where the giant hydra would appear to eat its dinner.

Buster stood on the other side of the room in a holding pen. He jumped up and down, almost frothing at the mouth. His bark echoed throughout the room. Donovan frowned. Buster appeared to be a terrier with long legs. The dog barked even more when it saw him coming into the room.

"I'm here to take you home." Donovan raised his lantern higher, letting the orange light wash over the dog. Buster growled, but didn't back down like other animals would. "Let's go home, Buster."

Buster used Donovan's free hand to climb out of the cage. He started barking at the ceiling, hopping in place. That ended abruptly when the cursed man grabbed his collar and yanked him under an arm. The gray man ran back the way he came.

The bellow of the tentacled predator followed them as his boots stamped the floor effortlessly.

Buster squirmed in his grip, barking and growling. Donovan spared the dog a glance. The terrier was grinning as he ran.

Donovan reached the door, slamming a crab man out of the way with his lamp. He didn't take the time to finish it off. He pushed through the door, and slammed the coral thing closed on his pursuer. He saw the fracture he had used in the distance.

Time to get out of there.

Donovan ran for the hole, still carrying Buster under his arm. He ignored the clawing of his forearm as he concentrated on making it to the door he had forced open. The wailing told him the hydra wasn't far behind. A spear flew over his head, digging into the ground when it landed.

Donovan grabbed Buster by the neck with a quick drop and catch and flung them both through the hole in the air. He landed on the sidewalk. A tentacle reached through after them, trying to get a grip on either one of them. The lamp bathed it in flame, crisping the edges in a second. The appendage vanished back in the hole.

Donovan took the time to seal the hole up with his lantern before turning and walking away with Buster in hand. The dog didn't bark so much while he hung by the scruff of his neck.

Donovan retraced his footsteps, clumping on the porch when he reached Buster's house. He rang the doorbell and waited. The old woman appeared, pushing in her dentures. Buster began to struggle to get to her. The cursed man handed him over.

"The bill will be in the mail." Donovan turned and started for his van.

6

Donovan checked the third address on his list as he drove across Gull City. Two problems out of ten solved in a few hours. This was the best he had done in a while. Usually his cases took days for him to wrap up.

Maybe his luck was changing for the better. That would be something since most of it for the last few decades had been so bad.

Donovan wondered what the third problem could be. He had already dealt with ghost birds and a lost dog. Maybe the next case would be something simple like finding a lost trinket that had nothing but sentimental value attached to it.

His luck couldn't have changed that much for the better no matter how much he wished it had.

Donovan checked his watch as he pulled on the client's street. It was almost midnight. It was late for ordinary business but maybe the client would see him so he could get started before the sun came up over the city's towers. He could do any necessary follow up the next night.

He parked in front of the house that matched the address. He took a moment to catch his thoughts as he looked the place over before getting out. He took it as a bad sign when all the outside lights were on in the middle of the night.

Maybe his luck was running true to form after all.

Donovan got out of the van and headed for the house. A cracked concrete walk curved toward the short brick stoop in front of the faded screen door. Shades covered the windows, but didn't prevent light from every room to keep the night's darkness away.

Donovan pushed the cracked doorbell button, listened to the eight note melody run through the halls beyond the door. He waited for several seconds. Then he pushed the button again.

The door cracked open enough to reveal frightened eyes staring at him. A curly mop of hair shifted one way or the other as the man tried to think what to do. Donovan raised his lamp. The orange light from the lantern pushed the resident back, but not enough where he would close the door out of some reluctance to talk.

"I'm Donovan." The cursed man saw his expectations of a solid job take a critical blow. He might be better off to turn this one down. "You called my office."

"I'm Tabitha Green." The door stayed almost closed. Eyes reflected the light from Donovan's lamp at ankle level. "It's about my cat, Leo. He's run away."

Donovan raised his lamp higher, not voicing his inner feelings at another pet job. Still he promised in his phone book advertisement to find things no one else could. Maybe he should have put down no pets.

"Have you tried animal control?" Donovan winced inside. Someone with as many cats as he saw would avoid the authorities like the plague.

That's like asking a ripped off drug dealer if he called the police to report the theft.

"Those people are useless." Mrs. Green made a dismissive gesture with an arthritic hand. "They couldn't find Greyfriar Bobby."

"I'll have to come inside and look around." Donovan kept the lantern up. "Then I can start looking for your cat."

"Do you have to?" Mrs. Green started almost hopping in frustration.

"I have to start looking from where the cat was last seen." Donovan hoped she would turn down his help, already imagining the clutter he associated with the cat ladies he had dealt with before. "Otherwise there's almost no chance I can help you."

"I guess that's okay." Mrs. Green still hopped, but she also held the door open wider for him to pass. "I don't really like it."

"The faster I get started, the faster you can have Leo back." Donovan stepped inside.

The inside of the house was a surprise for the cursed man. There were numerous cats, but the place only had one chair, a few lights, and a television. Everything was cleaner than some hospitals he had been in. That wasn't the usual pattern he expected from a cat lady.

"Where did you last see Leo?" Donovan turned in a quiet circle, letting his lantern throw light on the staring cats.

"In the kitchen." Mrs. Green led him to another room behind the living room.

Donovan looked around the kitchen, noting it was cleaner than most any place else he had ever stepped into. That didn't jibe with the image of a horde of cats filling the house. He said nothing, merely tried to pick up a trail with his lantern light.

One of the circles he picked out wandered to the window. It was cracked, but not big enough for a cat to squeeze through. Of course if his lamp said the cat went through the window, he knew it was true.

Donovan pushed open the back door, stepped out on a low brick deck. He pointed his lantern at the window. He caught another track leading into the yard. He wondered why the cat hadn't come home. They were notoriously more territorial than dogs and always came home even if they roamed the edges of the neighborhood all night.

They were almost as bad as squirrels in that respect.

Leo had decided to wander down the back yard to a forest of grown together trees separating Mrs. Green's property from the house's behind hers. Donovan would have to force his way through if he wanted to follow.

He decided to get the van and circle around. He could pick up the trail on the other side.

Hopefully Leo was still in Gull City and would be easy to find.

7

Donovan chased his lantern light along the street, hanging the round ball out of his window as he drove. Occasionally the chain rattled against the door as he sped up, or slowed down. He passed where the trail ended and stopped.

Time to get out and look around.

Donovan reeled the lamp in, stepped out of his van, and looked around. The grainy street light told him he was in an old section of town. He figured he was about a mile away from his client's house.

Where had Leo gone?

Donovan didn't know much about cats, but felt they wouldn't leave areas they defined as their home turf. He couldn't imagine a cat would walk a mile down the road in the first place. Not returning seemed just as much out of character. He held his lantern up and turned to shine its light around him.

He saw cat prints. His pale eyes glittered like flames in the orange light cast by his lamp. He spread the beam out in a circle in front of him. More than one cat had walked that way. They all seemed to be headed in one direction.

Donovan looked up and down the street. That time of night and the residents were inside minding their businesses. Good. He didn't want to involve any likely hostage in the way while he looked into this. The situation dimmed his expectation of a successful recovery.

His client would get her cat back, dead or alive.

Donovan followed the prints across the grass, down a gravel alley, to what looked like an abandoned house. He stood outside, looking at the boarded up windows, shattered steps, peeling paint, and general air of sleeping menace. He wanted the cat back, he would have to go in and find it.

Something moved inside the house. The cursed man heard the creaking of boards which couldn't have been made by the wind. It sounded big enough to be a person. Could anybody be squatting inside the place?

Donovan sighed. It was never easy.

Donovan went to the door. He knocked on the bent wood with his unchained hand. The other hand held the lantern ready to use. He didn't know if there was going to be trouble. He just wanted to be ready if he had to brain somebody.

The squatter decided to not answer the door. The investigator could tell that by the fact that all movement suddenly ceased. No one home. Go away. It was the kind of moment when insects stopped making noises because someone had strayed to close.

"I know you're in there." Donovan decided to talk first. It seldom worked, but he didn't like to open with hostilities when he could negotiate. "I've come about the cat. I've come to take him home to his owner."

"This is his home." The voice that shrilled through the door sounded like the cat lady he had expected to find in the first place. "He's staying here with me, and all of his brothers."

Brothers? Donovan wondered how many other cats she had stolen from the neighborhood around her shack. That explained all the footprints he had observed as he had walked up to the place. Still he had to go ahead. His curse refused to pause at the first obstacle. It demanded he do whatever he had to do to solve things.

If he had to beat up an old lady, that was the way the job went.

Donovan stepped back. He raised one foot and kicked the decrepit door with all the force he could muster. Splinters flew everywhere as the panels exploded inward from the blow. The cursed man raised his lantern to get a better look at the granny he was going to have to slap around.

He didn't like what he saw.

First the inside of the house matched the outside. Trash and offal marked everything. The woman he had been talking to was a broomstick in a mismatched Dora the Explorer shirt and short shorts. She had some kind of girdle around her waist. One eyeball stared in shock at the destroyed barrier, the other at a wall to Donovan's left. Scraggly gray hair stuck out like a bush around her head.

The cat at her side yowled at the intrusion. Donovan grimaced when he realized it wasn't one big cat like a mountain lion, but a lot of little cats glued together somehow. The yowl of outrage had come from different mouths all over its body.

"I want Leo back." Donovan stared at the woman. His curse was overriding fear of attack and the horror of what he was looking at. "You can keep the rest."

"I'm keeping them all." The woman raised both hands over her head in anger. "Kill him. Kill him now."

The cat leapt forward.

8

Gray Donovan's wooden face betrayed little emotion at the best of times. A giant lion made of numerous house cats barely made him register more than a twitch of his mouth. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it no matter what stood in front of him.

Donovan swung his lantern at the end of its chain, wrapping the length around the lion's patchwork neck. He didn't know what he was going to do, but if he could slow it down, he could gain time to think.

That was the plan anyway. It didn't work out like that for the cursed man.

The lion of cats slung the investigator around with its great bulk. He couldn't hold the garrote in place. The gray man hit a wall, and crashed through. The great beast turned to leap after him. It had a lot of stomachs to feed.

Donovan got to his feet as quick as he could. The lion stood on the other side of the wall, growling at him. It sounded bad as the individual mouths all contributed to the effect at random intervals. Pairs of eyes gleamed like the facets of some kind of strange jewelry as the giant cat readied to pounce.

Donovan started swinging his lamp in a circle like a lasso. He needed to do something to keep this thing from clawing him to pieces. The head of cats drew back from the hole so that it could try to claw at him. The individual cats clawed with their own talons as the long composite arm reached for him.

Donovan saw movement to his right. The Cat Lady rushed at him with long fingernails outstretched to claw his leaden face. He stepped back, flicking the lamp at her. The round metal ball bounced off her head. She went down with the roar of outrage filling the house like a chorus of the damned.

Donovan swept the silver chain back. The ball reversed its flight, carving a path through the wall. Flames roared from its eyes as it missed the conjoined cats. The animal leaped back, aware that the hellfire rushing pass was more than the normal fire its instincts told it to flee.

This flame sucked something out of it just by shining on it.

The cat decided to run. It bounded across the room. The door hung half open. Once outside, it could flee in any direction. The fire wouldn't be able to hurt it if the giant feline could hide in the urban wilderness.

The darkness beyond was its only security now that it was free of its mistress's control. Once there, it would be home.

Donovan leaped forward, swinging his lantern like a whip. The faceless head flew across the room at the end of the silver chain. It grabbed hold of a leg, wrapping the delicate links around the limb and the felines that made it up. The giant cat rolled to free itself.

Donovan leaped on top of it, knowing that was a bad move. It tried to claw his guts out with its back legs. The chain and lamp formed an anchor that kept it from getting a good swing at the investigator.

That didn't stop the smaller claws from scratching and tearing at him.

Donovan gritted his teeth, and pulled his lamp loose. The leg collapsed in its component parts. The cats lay where they fell, mewing in distress. He knew what he had to do now.

He hoped he wasn't killing the animals.

Flames exploded from his lamp. The light boiled away the magic holding the animals together in the same way it closed doors to other dimensions, and cooked vampires. Cats fell from the body of the beast. Some of them were strong enough to move on their own, most looked half dead.

Donovan kept the pressure on until all the cats were free. Three were dead at its very core. He imagined they had been the first, and held the longest in the weird conjunction. He picked up Leo, cradling him in an arm. The cat pawed at him without clawing.

Donovan went to the phone, keeping an eye on the Cat Lady. He used his shirt to hide his fingerprints as he dialed for help. He left the phone off the hook and quietly walked out of the house. Let the police deal with the loose cats and the damaged witch.

He had done what he had said he would, nothing more, nothing less.

He kept to the shadows as much as possible, noting the arrival of an ambulance by its flashing lights. He kept moving, knowing if the police saw him, they would pull him in. Daylight would make him a fugitive when it arrived as he sat in his cell downtown.

He saw his van, then the house of his client. He checked the big watch on his wrist. It was early in the morning. He still had time for one more job if he hurried. Leo's owner came out on the porch as the gray man walked up the steps.

"Here you go, Mrs. Green." Donovan handed Leo over. "Double his rations and keep him where you can watch him. Make sure he has plenty of water too."

"Thank you." Mrs. Green smiled, hugging her baby close.

"I'll get the invoice for you to sign." Donovan headed for his van to fill out the paperwork.

9

Gray Donovan checked his watch, glad that his wounds had stopped bleeding finally. He could get one more customer in if he hurried. He had a few hours before the sun came up. Solving one more case off his list should be the capper to the night.

He could start on the rest tomorrow night after he reappeared at his office.

Donovan drove his van along a dusty dirt road outside of Gull City. Numerous fences and gates held no trespassing and private property signs. Finally he pulled to a stop in front of a sign that said "Auger's Stables."

Donovan looked at the sign, frowning in the light from lamps shining from below. He knew a little about horses and animals in general, but could think of no reason for anyone to call him to a horse farm. He looked up the long driveway. House lights burned in the early morning hours.

Donovan looked at the open gate and decided to drive up. Better to find out what was going on so he could make a decision. If their problem was unsolvable, he would have to tell them so before his curse tried to force him into a position he couldn't get out.

Donovan drove up the driveway, barely glancing at the white wooden fence passing on either side of the van. His eyes were on the lights he was closing on. Finally they resolved into a brick house at the end of the concrete road as it formed a loop for visitors to keep going and out the gate again.

Donovan pulled to a stop in front of the brick steps leading to the open door. He checked his watch. He debated whether or not he should leave this until tomorrow night when he was fresh. Finally he decided to at least knock.

He didn't have to impress the guy to give him a job. Either he knew who he called, or the job just didn't matter as a major problem.

The door had a brass clanger in the middle of it underneath a spider web window. He grabbed it with his free hand and knocked as hard as he could. The sound of metal on metal was a harsh but loud clicking. Donovan waited then knocked again when no one came to the door. Finally it opened a crack.

"Do you know what time it is?" The round face, neckless shoulders, and cotton house robe around a square body made Donovan wish he had waited.

"My name is Donovan." The gray man held up his lantern, letting the glow light the air around him. "You called about a problem."

"You're not what I expected." Mr. Auger stepped back from the orange glow.

"I had to deal some other problems before I could get to you." Donovan felt a twinge that told him he had a real job at hand if he could find out what was going on. "You want to tell what's going on?"

"It's my stable." Auger pointed out in the darkness. "I think it's haunted."

Donovan glanced in that direction. He couldn't see anything in the darkness. He would have to go over and have a closer look if he took the job.

"Show me." Donovan lowered his lantern so he could look Auger in the eye.

"Let me get dressed. I'll be right back." Auger shut the door. Donovan heard the clumping of feet away from the door. Moments later, the clumping returned. The door opened. Auger stepped out in boots, jeans, and a loose flannel shirt. "I'm ready."

"You said this stable is haunted?" Donovan followed the farmer, lamp held high. The orange light made their shadows dance randomly as they walked.

"I'll explain once you see it." Auger led the way pass two buildings that could have been stables, and down a side road leading to a separate fenced area. A barn stood in the middle of the circular pasture.

Donovan waited. He could tell something was going on by the way his lamp skittered in the air. He didn't know if it was a ghost, or something else, but he did know that Auger did need his help.

"It started a couple of weeks ago and has just grown worse. I tried everything else and nothing worked. Finally someone suggested your name. He said you could solve any problem." Auger clenched his hands into fists. "That's why I called you in the first place."

"What's going on?" Donovan kept his light reaching for the barn as they walked to the gate. Once he had an explanation he could decide whether or not to take the job.

"Every day, no matter how hard we work, the stable fills up with poop. If we don't do anything, it becomes twice as much." Auger shrugged at his unlikely explanation. He wouldn't have believed it himself if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. "It's killing everything around the stalls and in the pasture."

Donovan crossed the pasture. He paused at the gated door to the inside of the stable. He realized that usually they wouldn't even bar the door. The horses could leave and head for the fence if they wanted at any time. His free hand flipped the bar out of the way.

Donovan shone his light around the central aisle. He noted the absence of any animals in the stalls. Perhaps they were at the other two buildings he had passed with Mr. Auger. Something was definitely going on. His lamp marked threads of spellery in the air.

"Something is going on, Mr. Auger." Donovan turned a circle, lantern trailing light behind like a comet's tail. "I don't know what I can do about it, but I can get started and if I don't finish tonight, I can try tomorrow night."

"Thank you." Mr. Auger smiled. "That's the best news I have heard in a while."

10

Gray Donovan walked the central aisle of the stables. His lantern cast its light around him as he turned one way, or the other. His wooden face didn't betray his thoughts as he assessed the situation.

It was a new one, even for him.

The lines of force led back to the door. He stepped outside and held his light up to look at it. Symbols carved in the wood glittered under his examination. Those might be the source of the problem.

Donovan willed the flame to life. He carefully obliterated each symbol. They fought his will as the fire burned from the eyeholes in the metal. Strings lit and burned away as each character became a divot in the wood.

Donovan held up his lamp. The orange light turned one way. Then it slowly moved the other way. The lines were gone.

Donovan's gray eyes gleamed as he walked the central aisle. It looked like Mr. Auger's problem was temporarily taken care of. He didn't think what he had done would go unchallenged. Someone wanted the farm shut down. They wouldn't stop just because he had burned their magic net away.

He expected a call back to deal with the problem again.

He only had a few minutes left. He had better talk to Mr. Auger before he vanished.

Things might escalate once the mastermind behind this found out that he had stopped the works.

He didn't know how much time he had to deal with that.

Donovan knocked on the back door. He waited, lamp hanging by his side. His mind looked ahead to what he had to do to get through the rest of his list, and the matter of Auger's unknown enemy. He needed a trail to follow.

"Is it okay now?" Mr. Auger stepped out on the back porch, eyes red from lack of sleep.

"I think I fixed it for the moment." Donovan looked out over the farm. False dawn had already started. "I don't know how long it will stay fixed. I'll be back later to see if I can come up with a permanent solution."

"Do you know what's going on?" Mr. Auger smiled, suddenly awake and sparkling at the good news.

"Not yet." Donovan didn't want to get his hopes up. "I'll need a list of everyone you know that doesn't like you."

"I don't know anybody like that." Mr. Auger frowned again. "I don't have any enemies as far as I know."

"Write down anyone you have had a dispute with in the last few months." Donovan saw the orange glow leaking above the horizon. "Anybody that sticks out is a bonus."

"What does this have to do with my stable having too much poop?" Mr. Auger looked at the coming sun too, trying to figure out what the investigator was looking at.

"It may be important." Donovan vanished off the porch, taken away by the coming sun.

"Where'd he go?" Mr. Auger looked at his cleared porch, then stepped outside. Only one footprint marked where his visitor had walked across the yard. At least the van was still there where it had been parked.

Donovan appeared in his office, put back together by the curse that kept him going night after night. He didn't bother checking his messages. He already had a full schedule of jobs ahead.

The first thing he had to do was check with Mr. Auger. He had done the job given, but he had a feeling that he wasn't done with the horse owner. Someone wanted to hound him. They wouldn't stop unless someone made them stop.

Donovan had to do that if he wanted to move on to the next job on his list.

Better make the call.

Donovan dialed the number from last night. He waited for the connection to be answered.

"Auger's." The horse farmer sounded cheerful to Donovan.

"This is Donovan." The investigator pulled out his list and looked at it. "Any change?"

"Hey, Mr. Donovan." Auger's voice went up in happiness. "Everything is good. We cleared out the stables without any problem. Thanks. How much do I owe you?"

"Do you have that list of names?" Donovan wished he could be that happy. "I'll think I'll need it tonight."

"I have it right here." Auger seemed puzzled. "I don't how much good it will do you."

"I'll be out there as soon as I can." Donovan hoped the spell was a one time thing. "Keep an eye out."

"Don't tell me there's going to be more trouble." Auger's cheerfulness dialed down.

"I don't know." Donovan tapped his desk. "I don't want to take chances."

Donovan hung up. He hoped the brain could hold on until he was out there to look things over again. He didn't want Auger to face an escalation without being able to defend himself.

The gray man wished his van returned when he did. Now he would have to call a cab to get out to the stables. He needed some way to get around town without leaving it behind when he left the world of the living at dawn.

Maybe he could get a bike to ride.

Donovan headed downstairs to wait on his cab. He hoped that the driver would show soon. He didn't have all night to wait around.

11

Grey Donovan stepped out of his cab, paying the driver off. He raised his lamp as the yellow car turned in the farm yard and headed back to the street. Everything still looked clear under the orange flame from the metal ball manacled to his arm.

Mr. Auger stepped out on his back porch. He ran his hand through his thin hair as he looked at the investigator. Had he made a bad deal hiring this strange man?

"Do you have the list?" Donovan walked across the yard, hoping to settle the matter on the second night so he could move down his list.

"There's only a couple of names on it." Auger handed over the paper. "I try to avoid trouble as much as I can."

Donovan scanned the names, committing them to memory. He folded the paper and placed it in a pocket.

"What can you tell me about them?" Donovan had a theory. Part of that theory rested on being able to confirm if Auger's neighbors knew enough to hex his stables, and had the will to do it.

"Paul Crews has a small place across the fence line. Every once and a while he gets in a tear about something and blames it on me. So he comes down here and we palaver for a while before I send him home." Auger pointed across the dark fields. "His place is that way."

"The other name?" Donovan hoped that person lived close by too. It would make it easier to check their place out before daylight.

"Loretta Whisenhuit." Auger said 'wise in hut'. "She lives down the road a piece. Every once and a while we have an argument where her sheep and goats should be. I didn't think it was anything serious."

"I'll go talk to these two." Donovan raised his lamp over his head, turning in a full circle. "So far your stables and farm still look clean. If I can't find anything, I'll come up with some other way to make sure you're not bothered again."

"Why would anyone make it where my stable is full of crap all the time?" Auger scratched his head. "How could they do that?"

"I don't know." Donovan started off towards the Crews property. "That's what I'm here to find out."

The cursed man followed the light from his lantern with unerring footsteps. If Crews had nothing to do with what was going on, he would check the other property. If he didn't find anything there, he would try to expand his search.

His rule of thumb was the closest people were the ones responsible. Eliminating Auger and his wife, that left the two neighbors he argued with usually. Expanding from that meant anyone that Auger had insulted that he didn't remember.

Donovan paused when he reached the wire fence. He checked for electricity before hopping over to the Crews side. He kept walking, looking out for a house to home in on.

Sparks blew to life under the lamp's light. Donovan hunkered down to examine the first one. He nodded at the familiar lines carved in a rock half buried in the grass.

A rickety cabin appeared beside a stable that had seen better days before Donovan had been cursed. A rusted Ford pick up from before World War II stood under a tree that formed a shadow like a hanging man as the gray man closed on the quiet scene.

Donovan didn't like the absence of insect cries around him, or the smell of something dead close by. He wondered if Crews would stop if he just laid things out. His experience warned him against too much hope.

He had dealt with too many who had learned some rituals and went off the deep end.

There was something about magic that warped whatever it touched. It reached in and ruined the person who used it. It might take years, but eventually, the magician lost their minds and did something horrible.

How bad had Crews gone over the line with this piece of wonder working?

Donovan paused at the door, listening before he knocked. His lantern made it impossible for him to sneak up on anyone looking for him in the dark. And those runes he had seen had probably alerted the home owner in any case. But if he could just talk to the man before getting into a fight, he could at least say he tried to do something other than punching the man in the face.

On the other hand, Donovan didn't have a problem punching the man in the face if he had to do that if that's what it took to get the job done.

Donovan knocked on the door. He had nothing to gain by waiting.

"What do you want?" The weasel face with squinting eyes and long nose bared crooked teeth at the gray man as the owner pulled the door wide open. Ragged work clothes hung from his hunched body as if belonging to a man twice as large.

"I'm here to talk to you about the spell you put on your neighbor's stable." Donovan raised his lamp. The watery mole eyes squinted narrower in the orange light. "I want you to stop it."

"Get off my land." The hunched Crews jumped up and down, face turning red. "I don't know who you think you are but I'm calling the Sheriff's Department, trespasser."

Donovan let the fire from his lamp burn up, casting light like a flare around him. Crews raised his hand to fend off the blinding glow.

"Stop with the hexing." Donovan turned and started back to the Auger property. "I have been hired to deal with it, and I will if you keep pushing."

"I don't know who you think you are." Crews disappeared inside his house. "But you will regret talking to me like that."

12

Gray Donovan wondered how long he would have to wait before Crews made his move. It probably wouldn't be long. The old man seemed vindictive enough from the short talk they had. That could mean anything, but if he was the master curser, then more of the lines should be reaching for the gray man any moment.

Donovan walked the stables on his own. He had already sent Auger inside his house to wait until the problem was solved one way or the other. The farmer couldn't help in any case. He didn't know anything about the things involved. If Crews targeted him instead of the cursed man, he could be seriously hurt before the investigator could interfere.

And Donovan liked to work alone on dark matters like this. It gave him a defense to hold up to his conscience when he had done something to get things done rather than because it was the right thing to do.

Donovan held up his lantern. His wooden face prevented the smile of satisfaction he felt. Lines of force swirled like a fog at the far end of the stable. The light from the lamp manacled to his wrist revealed them as he paused in the middle of the aisle.

What were they supposed to do to him?

Donovan stepped toward the reaching net of magic. The flame from the metal ball joined to his arm flowed from the triangular holes in its face as he spun it on its chain. The whirling piece of steel hit the reaching spell and caught it up around it. The more he spun the lamp through the air, the more it pulled the magic around it.

Donovan judged his moment, hoping he was doing something to make Crews change his mind about using his magic for bad ends. He flicked the lamp like a morningstar, calling the metal ball back when it reached the end of its silver chain. The magic followed the motion, flicking up and down like a giant wave. The ball he had gathered bounced along the pathway marked by the lines dancing.

Donovan raised his lamp by the handle on the top of the sphere. He followed the receding wave off to one side. He didn't want Crews to try and reverse what he had done and try to catch him the same way. He paused at the stable door, peering out into the darkness of the night. The cursed fire caught sight of the bounding ball once, but not again.

A scream echoed through the air. Donovan had heard similar cries many times. It looked like part of his plan had worked after all. He proceeded slowly toward where he had heard the shout. Some had tried to trick him closer with the same type of cry.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Mr. Auger showed himself with a shotgun as Donovan held his lamp up to mark the scene where his enemy had fallen. The cursed man didn't bother to check if Crews was alive on his side of the property line. The way his bones had snapped showed that his frail body couldn't survive that torture.

"What happened?" Mr. Auger checked the shotgun on his shoulder. "I heard this scream, and followed the light from your jack o'lantern out here."

"Crews is the one who caused the mischief with your stable." Donovan turned to walk away. "I told him to cut it out or else. I guess he felt what he had was more than enough to take me out of the picture."

"It looks like he was wrong." Mr. Auger grimaced at the remembered sight of the smashed body. "What's next?"

"I am going to write up your bill." Donovan kept walking. "Then I am going to call the next client on my list and see what I can do to help him."

"What about Crews?" Mr. Auger followed his grim help back to the yard where the brown van sat. "We can't just leave him out here. That'll attract all kinds of things."

"Call the police and tell them you heard a scream." Donovan made a line for the van. "They'll send someone out to pick up the body."

"You don't look so good." Mr. Auger went to put the shotgun away. "Want some iced tea?"

"I'm fine." Donovan sat in the driver's seat of the van, staring at the night for a moment. "This didn't exactly turn out like I expected."

"Never does." Mr. Auger stepped inside the house to call the authorities. He told the dispatcher they could take their time if they were busy with more important emergencies.

Donovan wrote a bill on carbon paper he used. He set that aside to call his next client. He arranged to meet as soon as he talked to the client. He definitely wanted to be gone before the police arrived.

Donovan handed the bill over and drove out on the street. He could see lights in the distance as he turned his van toward his next case.

13

The brown van rolled along the highway across Gull City. Its driver concentrated on the road, his only concern was to reach the next place on his list and find out what was happening and deal with it if he could. He wondered if all of these jobs were connected somehow but dismissed the idea.

A lot of animal related problems were bound to crop up eventually. This was just his time.

That didn't make it easier for him to like it.

Donovan spotted the exit he wanted and pulled off the highway. He turned across the overpass and headed through the suburban strip to the houses placed on meandering streets just beyond that. The address he wanted was in that twisty maze of avenues.

The neighborhood reminded him of the first customer on his list that he had wound up immolating. He hoped this case had a happier ending to it. Otherwise, he wasn't going to be paid for his trouble.

Donovan spotted the house he wanted and pulled into the driveway. All of the outside lights were on. He blinked in the sudden change from the dark street beyond the mailbox at the edge of the yard. He got out of the van and walked up the flagstone walk to the door.

Whatever the problem, he would know soon enough what it was.

Donovan rang the doorbell. He turned at the sound of movement in the grass. He didn't see anything. He raised his lantern to shed more light on the problem. Something jumped from the hellish light as his hand ascended to shoulder height.

Donovan stepped out of the porch light, lantern raised high. Something moved again. He couldn't see what it was, but its existence caused his ears to track it toward the street. It was quick, whatever it was. Then Donovan heard more rustlings around him. He turned but whatever they were they kept out of reach of his light.

What was going on here?

The door opened behind the investigator. He turned, holding his lantern above him. That made his client raise his hand to shield his face. The orange light glared on his skin, tanning it with the evil radiance.

"Mr. Donovan?" The hand lowered when the light lowered. "I'm Mitchell Woolsey. I'm the one who called you."

"I'm Donovan." The investigator walked up to the porch, still scanning the yard. "What seems to be the problem?"

"It's the deer." Woolsey frowned, stepping back from the door. "They surround the house, make awful noises, but they aren't there."

"Why don't you start at the beginning." Donovan stepped just inside the threshold. He frowned at the hoofbeats he heard against the wooden floor, and the support columns in either wall of the small foyer where he and Woolsey talked.

"My uncle died last week." Woolsey led the way into a wide living room with only two chairs and a large flat television set on the wall over the mantle of an unlit fireplace. "He had several children so I expected them to kill each other dividing up what he had left. Delores, my cousin, and the executor, sent me a vase. It arrived three days ago. After I unpacked it, that's when I started hearing the hoofbeats. I need someone to stop them for me. They're driving me crazy."

"You think these sounds are coming from the vase your cousin sent you?" Donovan looked around at the well kept room. "What makes you think that?"

"I don't have a lot of possessions, very few hobbies, and work most of the time. That's why my wife left me." Woolsey pointed at the artifact in question where it sat in its box. "That's the only thing new around here."

Donovan walked over to the cardboard box. He peered inside, raising his lantern to shine down on the painted black urn contained within. He frowned at what he saw.

"It looks like your cousin sent you a spirit trap." Donovan pulled the vase out of its packaging. The light from his lantern revealed a crack in the pottery wall. "It looks like it was damaged by the shippers, or your cousin sent it like this without realizing."

"What does that mean?" Woolsey took the vase from Donovan, turning it in his hands.

"You have a bunch of ghosts, or worse, wandering your property." Donovan almost frowned. "Congratulations."

14

"I don't believe in ghosts." Woolsey frowned at the cursed man. "You have to be kidding."

"Then you don't need me." Donovan turned to leave. "I suggest you call a pest exterminator."

"Wait." Woolsey stared at something in the yard. "Did you see that?"

"As long as they remain just glimpses in the dark, you don't have anything to worry about." Donovan raised his lantern again, placing a circle of light around him and his maybe client. "It's only when you can see them for an extended period of time that you have to worry."

"How do I get rid of them?" Woolsey stepped closer, staring out in the darkness for something that wasn't quite there.

"Call a priest and ask for a blessing on your house." Donovan shrugged. "I don't know when one would be here to handle it."

"What can you do?" Woolsey seemed to be counting dollar signs in his head and comparing it to the fragments that wandered his yard.

"I don't know." Donovan shrugged again. "I don't have a lot of experience getting rid of ghosts who run from me."

"What?" Woolsey glared at the gray man.

"Let me see what I can do." Donovan took the vase out of the box, examining it in the light from his lamp. He nodded to himself.

The light from the lantern caused the crack in the wall of the urn to run together. The cursed man placed the urn on the ground. He took out a pocket knife.

"I'm going to need some blood." Donovan made a give me gesture with his other hand. "Give me your hand."

"You're crazy." Woolsey snatched his limbs out of reach. "I'm not giving any of my blood to anything."

"Do you want to get rid of the things, or not." Donovan kept his hand out. "I need some blood to act as bait. Maybe three drops."

"Three drops?" Woolsey had the grace to blush at his own cowardice. "Only three?"

"It's not an exact science." Donovan frowned back as much as his stiff face allowed. "I have other people I have to talk to tonight."

Woolsey handed over his hand. He felt a sharp pain in his thumb before he had a chance to brace himself. Then he winced as blood dropped inside the urn from his hand.

"That should do it." Donovan released the hand as he pushed the home owner away from the vase where it stood on the ground. "If it works, my bill will be sent to you."

"What if it doesn't work?" Woolsey felt glad to get away from the urn. It was like the release of a spring.

"Then I'll have to think of something else." Donovan let the light in his lantern die to its lowest. "Right now, I'm more concerned if they turn mean and start ripping up your house. That could be bad."

"Do they do that?" Woolsey took another step back, looking up at his house. His expression was a plea to at least keep the house in good shape.

"Depends on the ghost." Donovan fell silent as he watched the urn. If he was right, all he needed to do was put a stopper back in the bottle if the ghosts took the bait. He could still misjudge and ruin things by not catching them all, not stoppering the bottle on time, even just cracking the vase by mistake if he wasn't careful.

He didn't want to expose Woolsey to the wrath of a ghost. It might take days just torturing him with just their presence until he did something stupid and got himself hurt. He also didn't want anyone innocent hurt by the wandering phantoms, if they were harmful at all.

Shapes formed from a mist leading down the driveway. They appeared to be deer made of silver, with glittering horns reaching for the sky. Their noses edged closer to the urn, perhaps suspecting the trap, perhaps not.

Donovan waited, holding Woolsey back with his free hand. He didn't want the home owner to spook his guests into leaving. He wanted them all to concentrate on the three bloody drops in the vase.

The first deer placed his nose inside the opening, sniffing at the contents. It vanished inside in a stream of greasy smoke. The impossibly long antlers were the last thing to disappear from sight.

The rest of the herd slowly joined its leader, walking into the trap silently. The last looked around as if to say it knew something was wrong. Then it too flowed into the urn, vanishing from sight as smooth as running water.

Donovan clapped the lid on the trap. He picked up the urn, holding it under his arm.

"Is that it?" Woolsey frowned at the gray man.

"Yes." Donovan turned to walk away. "I'll send you my bill."

"I won't pay it." Woolsey crossed his arms. "I don't know what that light show was, but I won't pay a fraud."

"Fine." Donovan raised the urn over his head.

"What are you doing?" Woolsey held up his hands.

"If you don't want to pay, I can put these back." Donovan's wooden face didn't reveal any thing of his inner thoughts. His eyes were just ice on stone. "I don't have a problem with that."

"Don't do that." Woolsey flinched from the promise in the words. "I'll write you a check."

"Your bill will be in the mail." Donovan turned and walked to his van, cradling the urn again. "I expect payment in full if you know what's good for you."

"You'll get it." Woolsey retreated from the investigator. "What are you going to do with that?"

"You don't need to know." Donovan got behind the wheel of his vehicle. He turned the key and rolled down the concrete drive to the asphalt street beyond.

He still had plenty of other work he needed to get done before the sun rose.

15

Donovan drove across Gull City, checking the address he had written in his job book. A call ahead had gotten him a worried voice on the phone. He considered the problem while he passed cars left and right on the expressway.

He passed the exit to drive to Auger's stable and kept driving. That gave him a pang. If he couldn't get done by sunrise, the cab ride back out would be murder on his expenses. Still he should have plenty of time before that happened.

He spotted his exit after another hour and pulled off. He turned and headed into the dark alley under a forest of wild trees and do not trespass signs. He watched the infrequent mailboxes until he found the one that matched the address he had been given. Waiting lights beckoned him into the lane to drive up to the wooden and brick house of his latest client.

Donovan parked to one side, looking around as he walked up to the house. He didn't see anything dangerous yet.

A crash sounded from a stand of trees to Donovan's right. The cursed man raised his lantern, reaching out with the orange light. That earned him a snuffle and the glimpse of red eyes that blinked out as he advanced.

Donovan frowned at the sight of another animal spirit. What was going on? Had every loose totem just immediately flocked to Gull City and its suburbs? Could there be a brain behind the sudden flood?

Donovan backed away from the trees. First he needed to talk to his client. Then he could decide whether he should take the case or not.

He wasn't going to take a job he couldn't finish.

Donovan knocked on the door. He waited, listening to the scurrying inside the house. That was the expected sound of people living in fear. He hoped someone was brave enough to answer the door.

"Can I help you?" A man in his fifties appeared, framed by the light from inside the house. He had a recent cut on his forehead, and bruises on his face. Red Eyes had apparently already did some kind of mischief.

"I'm Donovan." The gray man looked around the yard again, watchful for any other surprises that might be out there in the dark. "You called about your problem."

"You must be mistaken." The man retreated, closing the door on the investigator. "I don't have any problems."

Donovan stared at the shut barrier, wondering what had happened between his call and his arrival. He knocked on the door again. He wanted some kind of believable answer before he headed for his next call.

The man opened the door, looking around before glaring at Donovan. He raised a hand in anger, and a little fear.

"I told you nothing was wrong." He glared at the gray man.

Donovan raised his lantern, letting the flame bathe the man in its horrid glow. The home owner fell back, words stuck in his throat.

"I know something is wrong." Donovan didn't press forward. The lamp light did that for him. "You want to try the truth. Maybe I can still help you with your problem."

"No one can help me." The potential client started to close the door again. "I'm sorry for wasting your time."

Donovan dropped his hand. Someone had done something to make the guy too scared to ask for help. Why? What did it have to do with what he saw?

Donovan turned and headed back to his van. He couldn't force his help on someone. Besides he had other clients to see. As long as Red Eyes let him pass to get back to the street, he would leave things alone.

He didn't hunt monsters for free unless they crossed him.

After that, he had the right to extract recompense out of their hides.

Donovan got behind the wheel and started the engine. He checked the next address where he needed to be. Maybe tomorrow something would happen and this fish would call back to have someone deal with his problem.

Donovan maneuvered the van to point back down the lane so he wouldn't have to drive the whole way in reverse. He put the gas down and headed back toward the street. The stand of trees passed on his left.

Donovan saw red eyes running through the trees. He turned his head to look out the window. A suggestion of giant tusks gleamed in the starlight. They struck the side of his van and scraped down the metal. Then the giant pig was gone as Donovan slammed on his brakes.

The gray man jumped down on the driveway. He raised his lantern to inspect the damage. He would have left things alone.

Not anymore.

16

Donovan walked back to the house. His lamp left a ring of light at his feet. His eyes ranged at the stand of trees where the thing had started its charge.

He could have kept driving in the van. The damage had been confined to the side panels as far as he could tell. That wouldn't stop the motor spinning the wheels and carrying him out of there.

Instead he knocked on the door. This time he wasn't leaving without an answer. Nothing was coming after him and walking away without some kind of injury.

"What do you want?" The same eye glared at him through a crack between the door and frame. "Didn't I tell you to go away?"

"I think you need to give me an explanation." Donovan pushed on the door as he raised his lantern. The owner of the house jumped out of the light as fast as he could. That wasn't enough to hide his features from the lamp's questing light.

"Get away from me." The home owner raised an arm to cover the lower part of his face.

"Your pig attacked my van." Donovan stepped inside the house, playing his light everywhere, chasing shadows away with its anger. "I think you need to tell me something."

"I don't have anything to say." The man kept his arm up. His eyes flashed in the orange light from the lantern.

"Don't make me do anything that you'll regret." Donovan shut the door. "Why are you afraid?"

"I can't tell you what's going on." The man retreated from Donovan's cold gaze. "I don't know myself."

"Let's start with your ugly face." Donovan lifted his lamp. The light rained down on the home owner, blinding him. That was enough for the cursed man to knock the covering arm aside. Snout nose and tusks protruding from thick lips marked the face and explained why he didn't want anyone to see him. "How did that happen?"

"I told you there wasn't anything here, that I couldn't hire you." The man covered his face with both hands. "Why won't you go away?"

"Your pet wrecked my van." Donovan looked around the foyer, noting that it connected to three other rooms. "Start at the beginning. When did the new face appear?"

"Let's go in the kitchen." The changed man turned and started walking. "I need a drink and a place to sit."

Donovan followed, noting pictures had been turned down to hide the man's face from himself. He watched as a beer bottle popped open, and his caller sat at the round kitchen table. Coasters were in place for glasses, and beer bottles.

"My face changed three days ago. My wife ran. She packed her stuff and got out as fast as she could. I couldn't blame her. I would run too if her face had turned bad." The man sipped at the bottle, careful to keep it away from his tusks.

"I called out sick, worked from home while I tried to figure out what was going on. My doctor never saw anything like this. I let him take blood, and try to figure out what was going on. Someone at the doctor's hospital recommended you as an answer." The man stared at his bottle.

"The thing outside?" Donovan gestured with his unfettered hand through the window. He figured it came with the face.

"It showed up yesterday." The man looked toward the front of the house where the trees stood. "Last night when the sun went down."

"So you don't know why this happened to you?" Donovan went to the refrigerator and looked inside. Nothing glowed when he ran his lamp light across it.

"I went to sleep, with my wife, upstairs." The man pointed in the general direction of his bedroom. "I woke up like this."

Donovan played his light on the man, looking for anything that he could use. All he needed was a clue to get started. Then he could follow that trail back to whatever caused the transformation.

The lantern light revealed nothing. Donovan played the light around the room. Nothing stood out under the orange glow.

"Show me the rest of the house." Donovan gestured for the man to lead the way. "There has to be something here we can use."

"What if there isn't?" The pig man sipped the beer as he walked out of the kitchen into the living room.

"You can change your name to Wilbur." Donovan shone the light around, looking for his one clue.

17

Donovan and his new client wandered the house, checking everywhere for anything that might lead to an explanation for the new face. They wound up in the bedroom after checking the rest of the house. Donovan played his light over the room, still looking for something to get him started.

A piece of paper reflected the lamp light back from under the unmade bed. Donovan dropped to one knee to fish it out. He looked it over, wondering why it was blank.

"What was this?" Donovan held the paper up for the pig man to examine. "Was there anything on it?"

"I don't remember." The pig man scratched his head. "I think it had something on it. I think it was some kind of drawing."

Donovan turned the paper over again to reinspect it with his lamp. Faint sparkles drifted under the orange light. This might be the cause of things.

"Did it come in an envelope?" Donovan looked around the room again, swinging the light around.

"I think so." The pig man went to the trash can, searched through it with a snuffle. "Here it is."

Donovan played his light over the envelope. More sparkles danced away under the lamp's regard. He could almost see a sign of some kind pressed into the paper.

"I think this is what caused your problem." Donovan took the envelope and paper and led the way back to the kitchen. "Made any enemies lately?"

"I work as technical support for computer programming systems." The pig man stayed a few steps behind as the gray man settled at the kitchen table. "The only people I see are my wife and my boss. I don't go out very much, do most of my shopping online."

"So there's little chance that you know who's doing this." Donovan considered this information as he spread the two pieces of paper on the table and held them down with coasters. "What about your wife?"

"She's an accountant for a shipping company." The pig man sat down, sipping on his flat beer. "I doubt she knows anyone who can do this."

He waved his hand to indicate his face.

"One of you does." Donovan rested his lamp on the table, looked at the two pieces of paper, trying to discern details he had missed upstairs. "I doubt this was sent at random."

"Nobody can make you look like a pig." The pig man glared at his gray visitor.

"It has been done." Donovan took the bottle of beer from him and turned it upside down with his finger over the mouth. He returned the bottle. His finger touched the symbol he had perceived earlier. The drop of beer chased around the invisible grooves in the paper. "Now that we have the how, we can work out the rest of the questions."

"What do you mean?" The pig man leaned forward.

"The envelope was a trap." Donovan tempered the beer with light from his lantern, locking the drawing in place as he explained his thoughts. "Once you opened it, it freed something to give you the makeover, and summon the big pig outside. I think I can reverse it so we can find out who sent it to you."

"You can reverse this?" The pig man downed the rest of the beer. "I don't believe you."

"The only question is do you want your real face back, or do you want to stay the way you are." Donovan looked up for a moment before inspecting the paper note again. "I don't work without the promise of payment."

"What sort of payment?" The pig man threw the empty in the small kitchen trash can.

"I charge $100.00 an hour." Donovan burned the piece of paper in his lantern. "So far, you owe me for almost an hour just to figure out what changed you."

"No one asked you for help." The pig man held up his hands.

"You also owe me for the damage to my van." Donovan held up the envelope. "If you can't pay, I will take my fee out in kind."

"What does that mean?" The pig man looked around. A stranger in his home had just issued a threat. He needed an escape route.

"Do we really have to play games?" Donovan held up his lamp. The angry light from the triangular eyes framed the home owner in its gaze. "I'm going to help you, and you are going to pay me what I charge. That is the deal. When I am done, your face will be normal and the thing in your yard will be gone. That is what I propose to do. You are going to cover any expense and my rate. Anything else will be negotiated."

"What if I don't want to pay you?" The pig man couldn't raise his hand to shield his eyes.

"Then I expect your friend outside will come inside to deal with you eventually unless something worse happens." Donovan didn't state his belief that the change wouldn't stop at the man's face.

"You win."

Donovan rolled the envelope up and stuck it in the lamp so it would burn.

18

Donovan rode in the passenger side of the pig man's SUV. He held his lamp out the window, letting the light play along the road as they rode back toward the city. He kept his thoughts behind his wooden face.

"Where are we going?" The pig man kept his eyes on the road. This seemed the first time he had left his house in a long time. He seemed to be having a problem driving.

"We're following the trail left by the envelope." Donovan swung the lantern around. "It seems to be cutting across downtown."

"I think you're padding your bill." The pig man glanced over at his passenger. Then he hurriedly looked back at the night road.

"It will go badly for you if you renege on our agreement." Donovan's voice remained monotone, but there was no mistaking the menace in it. "If I have to collect what I am due in person, a pig face will be the least of your problems."

A shudder ran through the pig man's body. He felt flames burning his flesh for a brief second. He had thought about not paying up. The warning sensation caused him to rethink that plan.

"Where are we going?" The pig man felt that was a safer subject of discussion. It might take his mind of the feeling of doom he had acquired.

"We're going to where the envelope came from." Donovan indicated they should get off at the next exit. "Then we're going to talk to the person who gave you your new appearance."

"What makes you think anybody who could do this will talk to us?" The pig man pulled off on the ramp and headed up to where a stoplight regulated traffic.

"This is a type of curse." Donovan indicated a left hand turn. The car drove over the bridge and down the four lane road. "Anything can break it. A talk with the creator might be enough to give us a clue to what that might be. I don't want to just check things at random until I hit a solution."

"Do you think you can stop this?" The pig man looked for other cars before executing the turn.

"As surely as your pig is following us down the road." Donovan stopped the pig man from turning around. "Just drive. Don't look back."

The pig man looked in the mirror. He jammed the gas. The vehicle jumped forward. Donovan glimpsed the mirror on his side. The beady red eyes glared over little puffs of steam.

"Slow down." Donovan raised his free hand. "You're making it madder."

The pig man slowed a little. The ghost boar closed on the bumper but stayed back. Gradually its breathing returned to the vicious normality it enjoyed chasing prey.

"All right, take the next right." Donovan pointed at a house well off the road at the end of a long driveway. "I think that's the place."

"I know that place." The pig man slowed, pulled off the road. He looked at the house, got out of the car. He seemed to have forgotten the pig. "Are you sure this is the right spot?"

"As sure as I can be." Donovan got out of the car, glancing at the pig where it stood. As long as it didn't get excited, there shouldn't be any problems.

He hoped it didn't get excited.

The last thing Donovan wanted was either one of the pigs deciding they needed to complicate things while he was trying to simplify the situation.

"This is Phil Spencer's house." The pig man started to get back into his car. "He's Marge's ex."

"Let's talk to the man." Donovan waved his client to follow. He started across the lawn, lamp lighting the way.

"Do you really think Phil is behind this?" The pig man slammed the driver's door and stomped after the cursed man. Hot breath hovered on his shoulder but he waved it off without looking behind himself. "I've run into him a couple of times. He seemed happy to see Marge go to someone else."

Donovan made no comment as he walked across the grass. In his experience, no one was happy to lose. It didn't matter what the stakes were, winners were happy and losers cursed whatever they blamed for their loss.

Maybe Mr. Spencer would be forthcoming with the true way he felt after they talked.

Donovan walked up the brick steps to the concrete porch, lantern fire playing over the fake apple wreath on the door and the steel pipe wind chime hanging down. He knocked on the door. Maybe he had been led astray by the symbol on the paper. He doubted it.

He expected that Mr. Spencer might be having some personal problems.

Donovan knocked again, aware of stereo breathing, and irritated enough to turn around to demand some personal space. Hot breath on the neck made him all too aware of some of the bad situations he had scraped through with the self same feeling on his gray skin.

The door opened. Phil Spencer didn't look happy to see night visitors. The expression grew darker when he realized who and what stood on his doorstep. Donovan pushed pass before he could speak.

Donovan wondered if Spencer had looked into a mirror lately. He might not have liked what he saw.

19

"Let's have a talk, Mr. Spencer." Donovan played his light around the room. The trail centered in some other part of the house. He started after it.

"You can't just barge in here." Spencer grabbed the cursed man's shoulder to stop him.

Donovan shook him off. His feet was on the trail. Nothing was going to stop him from following it to the end.

"Let's talk about my face, Phil." The pig man grabbed his former rival by the neck, started to tighten his grip. "How did you do this to me?"

"Take your hands off me!" Spencer tried to force the death grip from his porcine features. "I didn't do anything."

Neither men heard, or paid attention, to the loud snuffling outside the front door.

Donovan didn't pay attention to the scuffle. His flame fell on a stack of paper, and bottles of chemicals. This was the source of the curse.

Donovan picked up the single bottle that glowed under the lantern light and a piece of paper. A quill pen joined his evidence collection. He examined them for a few minutes as he tried to think of a solution.

He went back to the wide living room where the two men struggled on the floor. He winced at the head butt the pig man delivered with stunning force. That was enough to settle Spencer down.

"How do I reverse things?" Donovan held up the items in his hands.

"I'm not telling you anything." Spencer coughed. "You can rot in hell for all I care."

"There's two ways we can do this." Donovan weighed the three things. "You can tell us what we need to do. That's the easiest thing and let's everybody get back to what they want to do. Or I feed you to the pig. It will hurt you for a little bit, but there's a certain amount of justice to it."

"You're crazy." Spencer stared at his two visitors. "I would never do that."

"Get him up." Donovan waved his hands. "He's going to the pig."

"My pleasure." The pig man yanked his enemy to his feet. "That might be fun. I wonder if a ghost pig chews before he swallows."

"I don't think so." Donovan went to the door. He freed one hand, and pulled the door open. Steaming exhaust drifted in the air under red eyes.

"You can't do this." Spencer looked at the both of them, drool dripping from his beginning tusks. "It's inhuman."

The spectral boar pushed against the door frame, snuffling to get its prey's scent. The wood cracked as it pushed forward to continue its examination. The wooden floor creaked under its weight.

"I am only offering this one more time." Donovan stepped out of the way so the pig could get a big whiff of Spencer. "Fix what you did, or deal with it."

"I don't know how." Spencer raised both hands. "There weren't any instructions on how to shut it off."

"I say we send him out." The pig man pushed Spencer forward. "He's no good to us if he can't fix what he did."

"I have to agree." Donovan stared at the pig. Its attention was only for Spencer. The curse had reversed but it had only bought a scant amount of time. Once Spencer had expired, the pig man would be back on the block.

That would put Donovan back to square one.

"A woman sold me the bottles, told me what to do." Spencer pushed against the pig man to keep his distance from the snuffling juggernaut halfway through his front door. "That's all I know."

"You told her you wanted the things for revenge." Donovan looked at the bottles. He had a feeling his handle on the situation had presented itself if he could exploit it. "You wanted Marge back, so these liquids were for marking your victim."

"Your marriage is over." The pig man started pushing. "Get over it."

"Don't." Donovan looked at the chemicals again. "Where did you meet this woman?"

"I met her near the Lonesome October." Spencer dug in his heels. "She had a shop a few doors down."

"Let's go." Donovan stepped forward to wave the pig off with his lamp. "I would like to talk to this woman."

"I think he's lying." The pig man glared at Donovan. "There's probably no woman."

"You can do that later." Donovan pushed against the huge boar with the fire from his lamp. The quadruped danced on invisible hooves. "Right now I want to make sure no one else is out there doing bargain basement curses. Stopping Spencer means nothing if someone else is really behind this."

"It would make me feel better." The pig man relented at the cold gaze directed his way.

"Let's go, gentlemen." Donovan pushed past the physical outgrowth of the curse. "I don't have all night to chase phantoms. I want some kind of resolution before the sun comes up."

"You're driving, Spencer." The pig man pulled his tormentor outside by his shirt. "You know where this shop is."

"He's right, Spencer." Donovan walked toward the Ford Spencer had in his driveway. "It will be faster than driving down on our own and looking around."

"I'm not going with you." Spencer dug in his feet again. "Why should I help you?"

"I don't know if you realize this but your curse backfired." Donovan pulled the door open. "If the lady doesn't give us an antidote, then you are going to have problems yourself. If Marge didn't like one of you turning into a pig, what makes you think she'll like the other?"

Donovan pushed the seat forward for the pig man to sit down in the back. He got in the passenger seat. Spencer got behind the wheel as the ghost boar sniffed him. He hurriedly closed the door and started the car.

"Let's go." Donovan settled in his chair to watch the city go by.

20

Donovan held his lamp up to look at his reflection in the glass door. He had been by this shop many times and had paid it no attention. The Lonesome October down the block was a place he liked to frequent between jobs. He had seen the small shop but had ignored it.

He wasn't being paid to deal with any problem it might have been creating, so it wasn't his business.

Donovan stepped back to look up at the windows on the upper story. He had a feeling the owner lived above her shop. Light didn't leak out from the portals above, but that didn't mean someone wasn't looking down at him and not liking what they saw.

"This is where I bought the things." Spencer's blood had drained from his face. "Can I go now?"

"You have to be kidding." The pig man pushed him towards the door. "You started this. And if you don't help me, we're in the same boat."

Donovan knocked on the door after checking his watch. They had wasted precious time driving across town to Spencer's house, and then more time driving to this hole in the wall. He needed to get things settled before the sun came up. He hammered the door again.

Lights snapped on inside the building. Donovan peered, noting a line appear under what could be a door. Then the door itself swung open to reveal a woman in a kerchief and belted robe. She paused when she saw what waited at her threshold. The gray man knocked again.

"We're closed." The proprietress refused to walk closer to the door. The cursed man's lamp warned her something was wrong, and possibly she recognized her handiwork in the pig faces Donovan's client and Spencer wore. Whatever the reason, she stood at the edge of the other room and made no move to unlock the door. "Come back in the morning."

"I don't have time for this." Donovan grabbed the door. Something tried to push him away. He felt it scorch his skin slightly. The burning couldn't stop him pushing the door open, the light from his lamp burning into the room beyond the glass frontage. "I need a cure for what you did."

"I command you to leave this place in the name of Samedi and St. Christopher." The proprietress pulled a sack out of her pocket and shook it. "I forbid your existence with the help of all the saints and the loa."

"That won't stop me, lady." Donovan held up his lantern, casting blinding light across the shop. It seemed to moan as the fire flared from the eyeholes. "Give me a cure and I'll leave you alone. Otherwise you'll have to talk to the pig we brought along."

"You cannot command me, phantom." The woman shook her bag, damping down some of the extensive light. She frowned at the candles that had started to burn on their own. "This is my sanctuary. I do as I please."

"I have been hired to take off the curse from this man you sold to this other man." Donovan stepped into the room. Things danced in the shadows but he paid that no mind. "All I want is a cure and then we'll be gone. I'm not negotiating, I'm not dickering for it."

"What makes you think you can force such a thing from me?" The woman opened the bag and pulled out a finger bone. Sparks of light drifted to the pointing end of the severed digit. "Begone, demon."

Donovan walked forward, struggling against the forces rushing to rip him apart. His lamp blasted through something dimming the air, tearing apart shadows and the presences they hid with fierce flames. The finger bone caught fire and turned to ash in a matter of seconds.

"Do you want to keep going?" Donovan swept his lamp in a circle, ripping lines of lettering away with his hellish flame. "My word is good for what I want."

"What is your name?" The woman went to her counter. A frown crossed her face as she inspected the things in the display case. Some of the ingredients were scorched beyond use. She gave him an angry look but his impassive face could have meant anything.

Emotional expressions seemed to hate the gray mask and burning eyes that watched her movements.

"My name is Donovan." The cursed man approached the counter, letting the fire from his lantern clear the way without thought for an honest compromise. He had often had to use the metal part on the skulls of those that thought that talking would cover some scheme.

"If I break the curse for your client, what do I get out of it?" The lady felt safer with the wooden counter as a shield from the gray man.

"I'll let you continue your business with the condition that you don't bother my client again." Donovan gestured for the pig man to come forward. "If our paths cross again, I am more than willing to ask for a solution to what was bought rather than squeeze it out of you."

"How do I know that you will keep your word?" The lady turned her face from the cold gaze that answered the question.

"This is my bond." Donovan dropped his lamp on the counter, letting it crack the boards making up the top. "And it's yours."

"Come here, man." The proprietress gestured for the pig man to come closer. She touched his face with her long hands. "I have just the thing for you. I will return in a few minutes. I need to mix some of the ingredients together."

"We'll wait." Donovan gestured for her to go ahead.

The lady left the room. Clanging and singing echoed from wherever she had gone to do her cooking. Donovan waited patiently for it to end, ignoring the glances from both of the others. If the woman did something, the lamp would do something back.

A deal was a deal.

The lady returned with a bottle of vile smelling liquid. The fumes spread through the room bringing retching with them. She held the glass bottle out.

"You must drink it." She shook the bottle.

The pig man took the bottle, looked at Donovan who crossed his arms. He drank the antidote in one long pull, afraid that if he stopped, he would never have the courage to start up again. He handed the empty bottle back, trying to keep his gorge down. He wiped his mouth with a shaking hand.

His face dripped its new features, a tusk falling to the floor and fading away. He rubbed his face, smiling at the familiarity of its topography.

"What about me?" Spencer tried to hold the pig back with his shoulders.

"What about you?" Donovan nodded at the witch as he led the former pig man from the shop. "You're not part of the job."

21

Gray Donovan reached his office before dawn. He filled out paperwork for the jobs he had completed. Then he called a wrecking service to pick up his van before the sun came up. He left instructions for them to leave it at a body shop with a mandate to fix it.

The repair bill would go in the pig man's bill.

Donovan looked out his window, peering between drawn blinds at the city around his little space. He still had time for one more call before the light caught up with him.

When the sun went down, he could get a cab to his next job if he had to get there bad enough.

Donovan dialed the number left on his answering machine. He doubted anyone would answer his call, but he could leave a message if they had a machine or service. Then he could check his machine when he came back to life.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end sounded like a woman. She sounded nervous enough to be the same person who had left a message on the cursed man's answering machine.

"Is this Mrs. Cleese?" Donovan consulted his notepad. "My name is Donovan."

"This is Rhea Cleese." Relief replaced the nerves. "I have been wondering if you would ever call back. Don't you listen to your answering machine?"

"I have been busy." Donovan's monotone lent nothing to his words. "I will be glad to come by tonight to talk about your problem."

"Come by in a few minutes." Mrs. Cleese seemed to be checking the clock. "I can tell you the problem over a cup of coffee."

"That won't be possible." Donovan eyed the rising lightening of his shades. "If it's that important, lock yourself in until I can get there. As soon as I know what your problem is, I can start working on it tonight."

"When can I expect you to be here?" Mrs. Cleese definitely seemed impatient now that she had someone she could complain to about their lack of work ethics.

"As soon after sundown as I can be there." Donovan hung up the phone.

People who lived in the real world couldn't quite grasp Donovan's twilight existence. And he was loathe to explain it, knowing that unless the person he was talking to had encountered something similar the chances of belief were slim to none. Therefore from his perspective it was better to forestall any argument over something that was physically impossible for him to do.

Mrs. Cleese could like it, or lump it. It was the same for him either way.

At least it was the same until he agreed to fix whatever trouble had prompted her to call him. After that, getting the job done no matter what would drive him until it was completed.

The sun blazed against the outside of the shades, lighting them from without. Donovan placed his lamp on his desk. He gradually began to fade, stripped apart molecule by molecule. Finally the fire in the lantern died, the eyeholes curiously empty as the morning set the day shift in motion.

The sun climbed over the city, crossed the apex of its arc, then started down the other side. The city moved like a busy hive while it commanded the air. As the first shades of purple swathed the sky, things began slowing down. Only when the star was fully ensconced in its nightly repose did Donovan's lantern come to life. Flame vomited out, putting the cursed man back together whole and ready to continue his nightly sorties.

Donovan called a cab service to start his night rounds. He would check on the van the next sundown if he had time. Right then he had promised to hear his newest client's sob story. He might as well get on with it. If there was nothing there for him, he could move to the next job before midnight so he would have time to at least scope that one out before the sun came up.

Donovan waited impatiently for his cab to arrive in front of his office building. When it finally arrived, he gave Mrs. Cleese's address and settled in the back to think. That prevented him from saying some harsh words to the slow moving cabbie.

Donovan watched the buildings get older and shabbier as the cabbie descended into Gull City's Wolverine Patch. The pedestrians that started walking the street as the car rolled along went from respectable to getting along to poor and desperate. It matched graffiti and the numerous liquor stores they passed. Finally the taxi stopped in front of an old tenement.

"Are you sure you want to get out here?" The driver looked in the mirror at his fare. "This is a dangerous place for a white man."

"Looks dangerous for anybody." Donovan paid the tab and got out of the car.

The gray man headed for the security door of the apartment building. A crowd stood around, smoking and drinking. Some of them pointed at him. A few moved to block the door.

"There's a toll for using our door." The loudest and bravest grinned at the cursed man with a gold collection on display. "You want to use it, pay up."

"Do you really want to get in my way?" Donovan stared at the thug. "Here's your chance to walk away clean."

"Wrong words, moron." The guns came out then.

22

Gray Donovan spun his lantern at the end of its chain as he stepped forward into the small mob. His reflexes carried him far against faster monsters. The first man in front of him caught the metal ball in the face. He went down, blood spurting from his smashed nose and mouth.

The second man brought his pistol around, trying to squeeze the trigger before he could aim at the cursed man. The investigator let his lamp swing him around on the rebound. The chain wrapped around the gun toting arm before the hood could pull away. One yank and the man spilled into his standing friends. They all fell down.

Donovan didn't give them a chance to get back up. That would be asking for too much trouble. He brought his lamp down again and again. He paused when he was sure they couldn't oppose him.

Donovan gave the leader one last kick in the head before taking their weapons and destroying them with quick hammer strikes with his lamp. The metal bent and stove in from the vengeful lantern's touch.

"Don't ever get in my way again." Donovan went to the door. "I'll really be angry then."

Donovan stepped inside the security door. He looked around the shabby foyer, noting the cracked floors and decorated walls. Some of the mailboxes were held together with tape. The gray man figured the apartment that belonged to the Cleese woman was on the fifth floor from the apartment number. He didn't trust the elevator enough to carry him up to the floor. He started up the stairs.

Donovan paused at the fifth floor. He looked down the hall, checking numbers. He nodded when he saw the right one. Time to meet the lady and see what her problem was beside the four men he had already dealt with downstairs.

He hoped none of them were related to her. That might make things awkward for him to take any job from her.

Donovan went to the door and knocked on the wood face. He noted one door cracking open to watch him from down the hall. He expected night visitors were far from the norm. He waited stolidly for the door to open so he could do the interview and decide to take the job or pass it.

"Who's there?" The voice behind the door sounded familiar.

"My name is Donovan." The gray man felt more eyes on him. He ignored the feeling. "You called about a problem."

The door opened to reveal a stately black woman, dressed in the fashion of the seventies, with graying hair done up on the top of her head in some kind of bun. She glared down at the shorter investigator. He returned her gaze with his usual indifference.

"You don't look like much." Mrs. Cleese didn't step back from the threshold. "How do I know you can do the job?"

"I need to know what the job is, I need to know if you can pay your bill, and I need to think I can fix it." Donovan simply looked inside the apartment. He admitted it looked like a place that had a careful hand maintaining it. "On the other hand, I have a few more jobs to do so I can pass on this one sight unseen."

"They told me you were a cold one." Mrs. Cleese stepped out of the way. "Come in so we can talk in private."

Donovan stepped inside the apartment, running his light over the place out of habit. He took up station near the door, standing under a picture of Jesus.

"This is about my Cecilia and a girdle." Mrs. Cleese settled on the couch, watching her visitor. He could have been a mannequin at the department store the way he froze in place. "The job is simple. I need you to find Cecilia and take the girdle from her and burn it like I should have done years ago."

"When was the last time you saw her?" Donovan didn't express pleasure at what seemed like a simple enough job to do. It was almost the simplest thing he had done in a while. He wondered what the catch would turn out to be.

"Last week." Mrs. Cleese almost cracked. "I told the police but kids run away from home all the time. Someone told me that you can find anything. I thought they were joking but I'm desperate."

"What's so special about the girdle?" Donovan placed the lamp on a nearby chair. This was the catch. He could feel it.

"I don't know." Mrs. Cleese looked at the family photos that stood in cheap plastic stand-ups on an end table. "We found it in some things from my mother's house. Cecilia wouldn't stop looking at it. When she left, that was the only piece of clothing missing other than what she had been wearing."

"So you think the girdle had something to do with your daughter running away." Donovan saw the answer in the way Mrs. Cleese looked away. She knew it made her sound like a loon so she wouldn't say it, but she did blame the girdle for luring her baby away.

"I'll talk to her." Donovan thought that sounded noncommittal enough so he wouldn't be stuck in a job he couldn't make work. "I can't promise to bring her home, or get rid of the girdle. But I can find her and find out what's going on."

"When can you get started?" Mrs. Cleese got to her feet, a smile not quite crossing her stern features.

"I'll need to look at Cecilia's room." Donovan picked up his lantern, ignoring an outburst of flame from the eyeholes as it took in the form of the task he had set himself. "That should give me enough of a scent to follow as long as nothing has happened to her in the last few days."

"Do you really think you can find her?" Mrs. Cleese showed Donovan a small room just off the main living area.

"If I can't, she's already dead." Donovan played his lantern light in the bedroom, looking for something he could use and not what existed in front of his eyes.

23

Donovan and Mrs. Cleese stood across the street from a club named the Amazon. A line had formed at the velvet rope blocking the entrance. The gray man noted that the bouncers appeared to be large females in dark suits.

"Is Cecilia in there?" Mrs. Cleese glared at the young crowd littering the sidewalk across the way. "Don't they have anything better to do?"

"I'm going to go over and ask the door men if they have seen your girl." Donovan pulled a picture from his pants pocket. "After that, we'll have to see what develops."

"What if they don't want to let you in?" Mrs. Cleese paid more attention to the security detail. The women had arms bigger than their heads.

"I want you to wait here." Donovan looked down both sides of the street. "That way I don't have to look out for you."

"I can look out for myself." Mrs. Cleese drew herself up in a tall, straight line wrapped by a long coat. "I don't need some young'un to look out for me."

Donovan turned his gray gaze on her. He seemed to be calculating if he should tie her up and leave her tucked in the alley down the block. He just seemed to be doing it in such a way as someone would read a shopping list. Finally he shrugged.

It wasn't his problem if the client got hurt if they didn't listen to him.

Donovan headed across the street, heading to the head of the line at an angle. His lamp hung from his wrist, spinning idly as he moved. The picture rested between thumb and index finger of the other hand for instant showing. He wanted to be able to swing the lamp if something came up. Mrs. Cleese followed along behind him, handbag over a shoulder. They ignored the calls from the line.

They weren't going into the club to drink and dance. They were following the trail the lamp lit in the air from the tenement to the dance palace. Party goers were the least of what they were prepared to deal with at that moment.

"How's it going?" Donovan knew the only things he projected were indifference and impatience at the same time. "I'm looking for this girl. Have you seen her?"

"What if I told you no?" The warrior woman looked down on the gray man. "What do you think of that, snow flake?"

"I would think that you were liar and wasting my time." Donovan shook the picture. "The girl. Have you seen her?"

The bouncer grabbed Donovan's black T-shirt. She yanked him forward, muscular arms contracting hydraulically. The cursed man swung his arm. The lamp arced around, dragging its chain behind it. The silver links wrapped around the amazon's arms. The investigator pulled back on the arm, tightening the lasso, pulling her arms together.

Donovan pulled against her as she tried to get out of the makeshift rope trap he had forged. He put the picture away so he could grab his lamp with the other hand. He used that metal ball on her face so he could get pass her into the club.

The other door woman charged over from her spot by the line. She felt a solid impact against her face and went down. Something like a bell ringing followed her slow fall to the sidewalk.

"Has anyone seen this girl?" Donovan waved the picture at the head of the still frozen line. Someone remembering Cecilia would confirm the lamp's hound dog ability.

No one came forward. Some left the line and started down the block. If they had warrants, being caught by police responding to the beating would be stupid.

Some just didn't want to get involved in other people's problems.

Donovan headed up to the doors. He kept the picture handy, but his lamp even handier. He doubted he would get a friendly response from those inside. He pushed the door open and crossed the foyer toward the main area of the club.

"Did you have to do that?" Mrs. Cleese was at his shoulder. "That was nasty."

"I don't like to be touched." Donovan scanned the gyrating crowd through the spinning bars of light from the ceiling. A bar took care of anyone who might be thirsty after their exercise. He didn't see the girl.

"I don't see her." Mrs. Cleese started to go down into the dance area to look around.

"Stick close." Donovan grabbed her arm, and leaned close to shout in her ear to be heard. "Let's start at the bar."

The cursed man pushed through to where the bartender put a drink down on a napkin for a customer. The thin woman raised an eyebrow at the odd couple.

"What can I do for you?" The bartender leaned close so she could talk.

"We're looking for this girl." Donovan showed her the picture. He kept an eye out for more bouncers to descend on him at any second. "Have you seen her?"

"Sure." The bartender pointed at windows above the dance floor. "That's the boss. She's upstairs."

Donovan put the photo away as he turned from the bar. He headed for the concealed ramp that should take him to where Cecilia waited. The look on Mrs. Cleese's face told him that she didn't know her baby girl ran such a high dollar place.

Donovan didn't pause when he saw the girl gorillas converging to block his path to the end of his job. He just kept walking, nudging people out of his way as he went. The light from his lamp spilled out in front of him as a warning to any who dared cross his path at this point.

Time to find out what was really going on.

24

Donovan started up the ramp to the office rooms above the dance floor. His lamp burned the air as it swung free at the end of its glimmering chain. He heard Mrs. Cleese at his back, but paid her no mind.

As long as she stayed out of the way, it wasn't his problem. He wasn't there to protect her.

Donovan paused when the door opened to reveal more female guards in tight suits. Then he went ahead anyway. If they wanted to stop him, they could join others who stepped in his path at the wrong time.

"We're looking for a girl." Donovan didn't bother to hold out the picture. The bouncers only looked interested in throwing him out. "We were told she was up here."

"We don't know anything about a girl, cracker." The head bouncer pointed with a finger like a branch. "I think it's time for you to go, and take your skinny hussy with you."

Donovan kicked the guard in the shin before Mrs. Cleese could show how much of a skinny hussy she actually was. He gave her a push out of his way as one of the other three swung a fist the size of a Christmas turkey. The cursed man ducked under, swinging his lamp against her legs with a flick of his wrist. The metal lamp rebounded as he pushed the off balanced guard into the last of the detail. He passed through the door as they tried to untangle themselves. Mrs. Cleese stepped through before he closed and locked the doors on the guards.

"What now?" Mrs. Cleese looked back over her shoulder before examining the hall they were in.

Donovan raised his lamp. Flame leapt from the eyeholes. A single thread bounced in the air in front of the pair. He started after it, urged to finish the job no matter what.

Donovan paused in front of the door the thread had entered. He tried the door instead of kicking it down like he wanted. He didn't feel the need for violence now. He stepped into the office beyond, holding an arm out to keep Mrs. Cleese behind him in case there was some more obstacles he would have to take care of before he could proceed.

"Hello, Mother." Cecilia Cleese sat behind a desk near the window. The overhead drowned the spinning lights from below. It didn't drown the glitter in her eyes. "What brings you to my humble establishment?"

"I've been worried about you, baby." Mrs. Cleese tried to push past Donovan, but a gray arm held her back. "You've been missing for a week. I was half out of my mind. If you were okay, why didn't you call?"

"I felt that our familial ties should be severed for the time necessary for the relaunch of my establishment." Cecilia stood, a smile crossing her face. Her neat black dress perfectly showed off the glittering gold of her heirloom as it wrapped around her hips. "I assure you that I am well and of sound mind."

Mrs. Cleese looked at Donovan. He read the fear in her eyes. He simply walked forward, lamp held high. The light roamed the office as he took a moment to gather his thoughts. He doubted Mrs. Cleese wanted him to bash her daughter's head in with his lamp.

"How long have you been stealing bodies?" Donovan's light caused items around the office to catch fire as the lantern swept around him. He ignored the shouts of freedom he heard below the normal range of hearing and the vanishing comets blasting to nothingness. "Let's start with that."

"I do not know what my mother has been telling you but I am very well indeed." Cecilia pointed to the hall behind them. "I am going to have to ask you to leave if you do not mind. I have a club to run."

"Who do you think you're kidding?" Donovan stepped forward, playing his light before him. "We both know better than that."

Cecilia raised her hand. Red sparks formed a giant facsimile of her appendage, formed a wall between her and the fire starting to shine on her. The twin beams pushed to the right and left of her like flashlights in water.

"I have laid claim." Cecilia's voice fluctuated as she spoke. "I will not be driven back into the darkness."

"I have been hired to return Cecilia Cleese to her mother." Donovan pressed forward, trying to crack the shield in front of him by force of will. "I'm prepared to let you seize someone else's body if you give up Cecilia's. I think that's the best way to resolve this."

"I already have what I want." Cecilia pointed at Mrs. Cleese. A spear of light jumped out. Quick reflexes carried the mother behind a couch for visitors before the blade could hit. "I do not see any reason to give it up."

Donovan pressed against the shield, ignoring the fires breaking out in the office. The possessed Cecilia changed her shield into a hand to grab him and squeeze. She smiled when she saw that it was working at first. Then the lantern light blasted through the prison even as it scorched his gray skin. He fell forward, swinging the lamp. The silver chain wrapped around the girl. He yanked her close, fumbling with the girdle.

"Get away from me." Cecilia drove a blade of light into his chest, searching for his heart. Once she squeezed that out of existence, her mother would slowly follow.

It had been a long time since she could torture someone at her leisure.

Mrs. Cleese hit her daughter with her purse. That shook the club owner up enough that Donovan flung her against the window without resistance, cracking it. He yanked her back into a fist.

Donovan worked the hasp of the girdle, pulling it free before Cecilia woke up from the blow he had dealt her. He rolled the cloth up in his hands.

"You might want to take her and go before I finish the job." Donovan watched the Cleeses leave before he began feeding the girdle through one eyehole into his lantern's flame. He almost smiled at what he heard coming from inside the metal ball.

25

Donovan taped over the stab wound with napkins from the bar. The mood in the bar had changed from the jubilance that had gone on before. He noted that the Cleeses had made it to the door and were heading out. He thanked the bartender and made his way to the door himself. People cleared out of his way.

Maybe he reminded them of a ghost.

"How can I thank you?" Mrs. Cleese held her baby tight to keep her from falling down in the street.

"A bill will be in the mail." Donovan checked his list, then his watch. "I have to be going."

Donovan turned and started walking. He had to find a cab to get to where he was going. Maybe he could catch a night bus if he were lucky. Either way, he had some traveling to do if he wanted to reach his destination in a timely manner.

He made a note to fill out the paperwork and put it in the mail for the Cleeses.

Donovan spotted a bus stop sign ahead. He checked his watch. He jogged over, smiling when he heard the roar of an engine. Time to catch the bus and move on to the next job.

Donovan settled in a seat near a window about halfway down the length of the bus so he could see the street signs. Very few people were on the bus. That was good. He didn't feel like having strangers intrude on his thinking space.

"Please give that back." A quavering voice cut through Donovan's thoughts. He looked around, wondering why he couldn't ride the bus in peace.

Several of the younger passengers had decided to torment an older, shabbier, thin guy huddled in a surplus Army jacket, khakis, and boots mended until the leather screamed. It was a contrast to the high dollar jackets and designer sneakers the small mob wore. They seemed to be struggling over a box with APPLE written on the side.

Donovan spotted his stop, thinking he had a walk about a mile to get to where he was going from there. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. It didn't make that much of a difference to him either way.

Donovan got up, headed to the back door to get off. The preppy thugs eyed him as he walked toward them. That was enough for the bum to yank back his box and also stand up. Donovan pushed the door handle to get off. If the young guys got off and went a different direction, then he was willing to let things stand as they did.

He wasn't a hero that stopped bad things from happening.

The bum got off behind Donovan. He pushed through his tormentors, hopping down to the sidewalk. He spotted the light from Donovan's lamp trailing down the sidewalk and followed at a fast clip.

Donovan glanced back at the bum's footsteps. The last thing he wanted was company. He frowned as much as his face allowed as the rich kids got off the bus too. It looked like he was about to get involved in this little thing whether he wanted to be, or not.

"Nice night?" The bum fell in beside Donovan, looking at his wooden face.

"What's your name?" Donovan didn't bother to look over at the lined face.

"It's Atlas." The bum looked behind them. "Those guys are following us."

"They're following you." Donovan held out a hand. "Got a dollar?"

"I guess so." Atlas searched his pockets. He came up with a handful of change. He passed it over like he was waiting for a magic trick.

"I can't spend all night looking out for you." Donovan pocketed the change without counting it. "If your friends keep following to the corner, I'll ask what's going on and try to reach a peaceful solution."

"What if that doesn't work?" Atlas hugged his apple box closer.

Donovan looked down at him. He didn't bother to spell out plan b. Either everyone walked away, or only he and Atlas were walking away.

Donovan paused at the corner, making sure Atlas was behind him when he looked back down the street. The toughs came on. A couple smiled, seeing easy prey. The cursed man wondered why they wanted the box so bad. He put it down for spite and meanness.

"What's the problem?" Donovan held his lantern by the handle to shine its light on them. "Why don't you walk away."

"What if we don't want to do that?" One of the smiling ones came to the front of the group. "What you going to do, tough guy?"

"Do we really need to do this?" Donovan shook his head. "I'm sure you don't want to have to explain why you're hurt to your master."

"When the sun comes up, the police will find two more corpses in an alley." The leader came forward, perturbed that this gray man dared challenge his pack to a showdown.

"When the sun comes up, the sanitation department will find four more piles of ash on the sidewalk." Donovan shook his head. "You won't live if you come any closer. Walk away. Chase this guy down tomorrow night."

"Dude, maybe we should walk." One of the lesser vampires tugged his leader's shoulder. "I think that's him. The lamp guy."

"So much the better." The leader smiled to display his overbite. "We'll have our prize and the man who burned up Scarpetta."

Donovan swung his lantern in an easy throw. The silver chain wrapped around the head vampire's neck. He pulled and the chain sliced right through the undead flesh as the lamp flew back to the cursed man's hands. Ash exploded upwards.

Donovan moved forward, swinging his lantern in a circle. The other three vampires moved to meet him. He couldn't possibly kill all of them before one of them put the bite on. Then they would deal with Atlas and splitting the credit.

Donovan threw the lamp again. The ball wrapped the glittering chain around the lead vampire's neck, who suddenly regretted having the fastest reflexes. The lantern wrapped around the second vampire's neck as he paused to rethink the strategy. The third vampire, the one that had issued the warning, ducked the hurling metal before it could snare him.

Donovan pulled the smoking metal through the vampires he had captured. They exploded in a volcanic cloud. The last vampire turned and grew wings to fly off. That might be trouble later, but the cursed man had done the job he had been paid to do. That was all that mattered.

"Walk on." Donovan nodded to the shivering Atlas. "Your way should be clear until tomorrow night."

26

Donovan walked to his next destination. He wondered what the job could be. The message on his machine had been vague. He only had a few calls left from his list. Then he could check the machine again and make another list.

He found the address tucked into a row of brownstones pushed together. A small garden had been made from window hangings. Lights shone in the front windows. That was a good sign.

Donovan walked up the three narrow steps to the front door, and knocked. He checked his watch, noting he still had some hours before the sun came up and stopped whatever he was doing. If he wrapped things up fast enough, he still had the rest of his list to get through.

"Yes?" The man who answered the door appeared owlish with his thick glasses, round face, and doughy build. He frowned at the gray man with his stab wound, and dusting of ash.

"I'm Donovan." The gray man held up his lantern. "You called about some problem."

"Thank you." The man stepped out of the way. "I have been waiting for you. I have an extraordinary problem. I heard you were the only one who could help me."

"What's your problem?" Donovan stepped inside the brownstone, playing his light over the foyer as he went. Nothing stood out.

"I'll show you." The home owner led the way to a living room, with wide glass doors looking out on an enclosed lot behind the building. An alley seemed to run behind that from what Donovan could see from where he stood.

A bull made of concrete dominated the yard, looking out over rows of flowers, and bushes. A bench sat beside a fountain of running water. A small shed stood in the corner of the lot at the very back.

"Someone keeps moving my bull." The client opened the back doors. "I just don't know why, or how."

"You want me to find out who is moving your bull around?" Donovan opened the doors and stepped on the low deck that abutted the building.

"Do you think you can do it?" The owl blinked at the blank expression on the other's face.

"I'll need your personal information for my billing." Donovan swept his light back and forth. "I only work at night. If it's being done in the daytime, I don't see how I can help you."

"I understand." The owl smiled. "When can you start?"

"Right now." Donovan walked into the yard. He inspected the ground around the bull, and the flowers. The client was right that his statue had been moved. Traces of a circle marked the ground.

Someone spun the heavy stone around bit by bit.

"Let's fill out your paperwork." Donovan headed back to the brownstone. "Then I want you to tell me what you did before you noticed the bull had moved."

"All right." The client led the way to a kitchen area. He got out his wallet while Donovan took out the pad he carried with him for expenses. A few minutes later, the cursed man had a small invoice and tab marked out for Ronald Wisely. "The police said there was no way to protect my yard when it wasn't anything really serious."

"I don't know how serious it is." Donovan put his notebook away. "You're paying me to put a stop to it. What did you do before you noticed it moved?"

"The only thing I do is turn in for the night, cut the lights, set my alarm." Wisely pointed to a keypad on the kitchen wall. "I usually do that in about an hour."

"If nothing happens tonight, I'll make arrangements tomorrow." Donovan went to the front door. "Go do your routine, on time, no change. I'll be back in an hour to set up."

"Do you think you can stop this?" Wisely held the door open.

"It depends on what happens." Donovan started down the steps. "Remember to act normal."

Wisely shut the door as the gray man started down the street. His surveillance equipment was back at the office, and his van was in the shop. That left him limited options on what he could do that night. He turned some schemes over in his mind while he walked.

He needed to appear to leave to whomever was watching the brownstone. His visit would be seen as out of the ordinary and might lead to the pranksters leaving off for a few days if he looked like he was sticking around.

And Donovan didn't want to wait long to stop the pests now that he had taken on the job.

Donovan found a phone kiosk at a convenience store. He needed to call his other clients and let them know he was going to try and meet with them about their problems as soon as possible. He pulled the notebook out and dialed the numbers. His brief conversations let him know they were still holding on. He assured both of the clients he would be out to see them as soon as he could.

First he had to deal with what looked like idiots having a good time.

Donovan checked his watch as he headed back towards Wisely's place. He turned down the alley behind the row of brownstones and moved down the gravel road to where the wooden fence blocked the view of the back doors. He hopped the fence carefully, and moved to the gardening shed. He waited quietly in the dark, lamp's flame less than a firefly spark.

Donovan hoped the vandals arrived before the sun came up. Once he wrapped this up, he could see about renting a car instead of trying to catch public transport. That took too long.

27

Gray Donovan waited, checking his watch. His time grew short. If the vandals didn't arrive soon, he would have to think of other measures.

Donovan froze as the sound of the fence shaking to his right. This might be the people he was waiting on. He peered out of the shed. Dark shapes moved across the yard.

Donovan waited, counting the enemy before he did anything. They looked like kids to him. He wondered why they would engage in such a prank. It didn't seem to be much fun if the victim didn't react more than a simple police call.

The four shapes assembled around the bull. Donovan noticed they left the rest of the yard alone. That was very restrained for a bunch of clowns. In his experience, collateral damage happened at the scene of the crime.

Donovan slipped from the shed, lamp's fire still damped down. He walked to where the four men, boys, strained to shift the stone around on its pedestal. He stood there, watching, before he raised his lamp and let the fire flare high.

"How's it going?" Donovan let the fire play on the four trespassers. "The statue is supposed to stay in one spot. You know that, right?"

The boys took one look at him standing there like a vengeful ghost. They decided to break and run.

Donovan took one step and swung his lamp. The chain wrapped around the legs of the closest runner. He went down on his face. The cursed man kicked him in the head as he looped the chain around the next one in line. The third went down because he tripped before Donovan could do anything to him. The investigator stepped on him as he chased the last one to the fence. A gray hand hooked an ankle and down he went.

Donovan wrapped his catch in silver links, using his lamp as an anchor. He thought about kicking them some more. He decided that would be vindictive. The job was done. All that was left was to let the normal processes of the world take over.

At least, it hadn't been some kind of monster.

"Somebody want to talk to me?" Donovan yanked the four boys toward the statue. "What's up with moving the bull around?"

"We don't have to tell you anything." One of the boys glared at Donovan from the pileup. "Let us go."

"Fine with me." Donovan headed for the back door of the house, keeping the chain tight so his captives didn't have room to wiggle free. "My job here is done."

"Wait!" One of the younger kids held up his hands. "Everyone knows Wisely has buried treasure under this cow thing. We were trying to get it out."

"Good going, numb nuts." One of the other boys clouted the rat on the head. "Now Wisely will move it."

"All this is over buried treasure?" Donovan stopped. "So the plan was to rob Wisely?"

"We don't want to rob him." The leader seemed to be surprised at the thought. "We just want to dig up the treasure and take it."

"That's considered robbery." Donovan shook his head. "So if you were shown there was nothing valuable in this so-called vault you would leave Wisely alone?"

"There has to be something there." One of the boys spoke up from the pile. "I see him bringing stuff out here all the time. That's how we found out the bull turns."

"Do we have a deal, or not?" Donovan yanked on the chain a little. "Otherwise I have to call the police."

"If there's nothing there, we'll leave it alone." The spokesman looked at his buddies to see if they agreed with the deal. Numerous head shakes told him he had said the right words.

Donovan wanted to finish his job. He couldn't guard Wisely's bull forever, and his captives seemed the sort to keep prying until they found out what was buried in the garden. It seemed the easiest way to get rid of them was to show them whatever was there. If there was treasure, he would recommend the home owner to move it to some more secure place.

If there wasn't, the boys would move to terrorizing someone else in the neighborhood.

Donovan grabbed the bull by the horns and spun it on its base. He heard a click and the thing slid out of the way to reveal a hole. The gray man paused. Maybe he had done the wrong thing this time in the name of expediency.

Donovan lowered his lamp into the hole while keeping the chain wrapped around his catch. He didn't want them to get ideas and try to flee while he was distracted.

The lantern spun on its chain as it dropped inside the shaft. It revealed smooth concrete walls with no ladder on any side. If there was a treasure at the bottom, how did Wisely plan to get it out with no way down?

A few seconds later, Donovan spotted a skull at the bottom of the shaft. He frowned minutely as more bones became evident under the lamp light. It seemed the only treasure in the shaft belonged to memory.

"I want you to go home and call the police." Donovan pulled his lamp up. One flick of his wrist coiled the chain back to its usual length. "Do it now."

The boys scrambled for the fence as the lights came on in the brownstone. They looked at the windows as they made their escape as fast as they could scale the wooden slats. The gray man looked at the windows, wondering what to do now.

At least the job was technically over.

28

Donovan walked to the back door of Wisely's house, trying to decide what to say. He didn't expect things to be easy. The man had a burial ground in his back yard.

The gray man knocked on the door as hard as he could. Wisely should at least know the job was done even if it wasn't to his liking. It was another piece of work that would net Donovan nothing.

Donovan waited patiently for several minutes. He wondered if the kids were calling the police while he stood there. He checked his watch. He knocked again. He couldn't stand there all night. Other people needed him.

Lights finally came on upstairs. Then another one over the stairs leading up there. Then another one in the room behind the glass door. Wisely stood there in his house robe and slippers peering at the cursed man. Finally he opened the door.

"What happened?" Wisely looked around the backyard, frowning at his moved bull statue. "Did you catch the vandals?"

"Yes, but I had to let them go." Donovan lifted his lamp to shine on his client. "You didn't tell me the whole story, Mr. Wisely."

"I don't understand." Wisely put his hands in the pockets of his robes.

"You have a number of skeletons down at the bottom of a shaft concealed by the bull." Donovan's gray eyes glittered in the shadow cast by his raised lamp.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Wisely's frown deepened.

"Either case, it's a police matter now." Donovan shook his head. "I expect them here any minute."

"What have you done?" Wisely's round face looked more like an owl than ever.

"I told your vandals to call the police." Donovan waited for the blow up. He was used to his clients doing that when the job didn't turn out the way they wanted. "The police will want to look at the skeletons in the ground."

"You were supposed to stop them from finding that so I wouldn't have to do anything myself." Wisely loomed over the gray man. "You did exactly the opposite of what I wanted."

"The vandals aren't coming back." Donovan shook his head. "The job is done. The bill will be in the mail in the next few days."

"I won't pay it." Wisely struggled to get himself under control.

"You would be advised to pay it when it comes." Donovan lowered the lamp. "You won't like it if you don't."

Donovan turned to start out of the yard. His work was done for the moment.

Donovan heard steps behind him on the grass. He turned, raising his arm. Wisely brought a knife down, aiming for his back. The cursed man's forearm caught the other man's. The blade glittered from street lights on the streets outside.

Wisely pulled his knife back to stab again. Fury warped his face. His life had been wrecked by this gray man. He wanted something back before the police arrived to start the process of putting him in a cage.

Donovan wrapped the chain of his lamp around the Wisely's wrist to keep the knife at bay. He pulled, turning to one side. The killer fell to the grass, exhaling his breath.

"Remember to pay me when the bill arrives in the mail." Donovan kicked Wisely in the head hard. He pulled the chain loose and started to the front of the house. He didn't know if the blow had done anything more than causing a crack of pain in the killer's face. It didn't matter one way or the other. The job was done, and he was the authorities' problem when they arrived if they arrived before Wisely could clear out.

Donovan walked on the sidewalk. Lights were in the windows of the houses around Wisely's. He hoped the kids had the sense to call the police like he had asked. He should make sure, but decided that wasn't his worry.

His next job had to be done and dealing with the police would take up too much time.

Donovan decided to head to the nearest convenience store and call a cab. That would get him to the next client without too much of a delay. Then he could find out what the problem was and try to fix it before the sun came up.

Police sirens echoed down the streets as Donovan pulled out some quarters for the payphone in front of the store. Cars in police colors flew by on the way to Wisely's house. He watched idly as the patrolmen lit up the house with flashlights.

Donovan dialed the number of his next client and waited for him to pick up the phone. His eyes tracked back to the chaos at Wisely's while he waited. The policemen stuffed him in a car. A bruise started to rise on his face in the shape of a bootprint.

Donovan decided he should have kick the man harder.

The cursed man spent the next few minutes talking to his new client and arranging a meeting. He called a cab service and got a cab out to pick him up. By the time he was done, more vehicles were out on the street in front of the house with lights flashing.

Donovan watched Wisely ride away as more and more people in uniforms and suits show up. The treasure hunters had stirred up a hornet's nest. He wondered if there would be anything left of the elegant garden when they were done searching for skeletons in the ground.

Donovan watched the clock until the taxi arrived. He gave the driver the address and got in the back. He watched the road stretch out as the cab took him to his destination. Reggae music accompanied the cursed man as he got out of the car and started up the walk to the quiet house.

At least lights were on to show him someone was waiting for him to finally arrive and look into things.

29

Donovan paused at the door of the house. He could hear faint sounds through the door. He decided to knock instead of walking away. He still had to talk to the person that called him before making his decision.

He hoped he didn't have to turn this client into the cops like the last one. He had already had a couple of nonpaying jobs in the last few days. The last thing he wanted was one more.

Donovan knocked on the door. He listened for someone to walk to the portal. Footsteps alerted him before the wood pulled back on its hinges.

"Are you Mr. Donovan?" A teenager held the door to keep it ready to slam shut in the gray man's face.

"You said you needed help." Donovan wondered what was going on. Where were the parents?

"Yes." The boy looked around on the street. "I don't have a lot of time. My folks might be home any time now."

"Your problem is your parents?" Donovan's wooden face hid his amazement. He shouldn't be surprised, he supposed. Every teenager's parents were against them.

"I don't have a lot of time to explain." The boy stepped out on the porch. "There's something wrong with them. I need you to find out what. Can you do it?"

"Maybe." Donovan pulled out his pad and pen. "I hope you have a job. I charge by the hour."

"I don't have a problem with that." The boy watched as the gray man filled out some notes in his notebook. "When can you look at them?"

"As soon as they get home would be best." Donovan handed the notebook over, indicating he should sign on the line. "That way I can find out what's wrong and deal with it."

"I don't know when." The boy shrugged. "That's part of their new thing. They come and go anytime they feel like it."

"Don't worry about it." Donovan checked his pad. "I can wait until sunrise, Elliot. After that, I'll try again tomorrow, or the next day."

"What can I do?" Elliot smiled for the first time since Donovan knocked on his door. Relief made him seem younger.

"Stay out of the way." Donovan gestured for him to go back inside. "I don't want to worry about you while I'm trying to figure out what the problem is."

"No problem." Elliot stepped inside the house. "Please find out what's wrong."

The door closed softly as Donovan watched. It seemed a simple matter. He hoped there was nothing complicated about it. He hoped, but knew that all of his cases tended to have complications. Why else would anyone call a man who could only work by night like a vampire, and arrived any time after the sun went down when normal people were asleep.

Donovan turned and pressed up against the wall of the house, taking refuge in shadows. He wondered why parents started acting erratically. Drugs came to mind first. Other things also dropped in on his thoughts. Drugs were easy. The other options would mean more work on his part.

Donovan watched the street, holding his lamp by the handle. He wondered how many more nights he would be doing this very type of thing while waiting to confront some monster from the depths. He wondered what it would be like to have a normal life and do things like other people did.

Donovan spotted a couple coming down the street. They were skipping hand in hand along the sidewalk. That must be Elliot's parents.

The gray man raised his lamp, feeling it heat up. Something was wrong just from the feeling crawling along his arms. He started down the porch to block their access to the house.

He felt it was better to talk to them first before allowing them in the house to menace his client.

"How's it going?" Donovan played the light from his lamp on them. They shied away from the orange glow, covering the red glints from their eyes as the light moved across their faces. "Elliot asked me to talk to you."

"Who are you?" Elliot's dad had a booming voice rumbling like thunder. "My son has a vivid imagination."

"I doubted anyone could imagine an extra shadow." Donovan pointed at their feet. One set of shadows fled from the light, falling behind them. The other set danced on the sidewalk at their feet.

Elliot's parents growled at the cursed man. Dad came in, bringing a meaty hand down toward Donovan's head. Mom went for his legs. He didn't like the sprouting fangs in their mouths as they tried to sweep him off his feet.

Donovan backed away, frowning at the bestial shapes that surged forward at the adult feet as they came after him.

30

Donovan raised his lamp. He had the feeling that curing Elliot's parents wouldn't solve the real problem. On the other hand, he wasn't going to allow them to rip him to shreds in their changed state.

Flame washed out of the lantern's triangular eyes, flowing over Elliot's parents like a spotlight. That erased the changes in their appearances and personalities as their shadows ceased to exist in the harsh orange light.

Donovan let the light fade after a few seconds. The adults looked at themselves and each other with the same questions. He had seen it before in possessions. The other side took over and reduced reality to a dream.

Donovan looked at their shadows. The elongated darkness from the eclipsing of the streetlights no longer danced. They mimicked the horses perfectly.

Many things could cause a possession. Religious ceremonies around the world asked for their gods to take over their supplicants. Curses called forth things to destroy an unknowing target. Sometimes something got loose and wanted to have a little bit of fun with a human.

Donovan's job was over with the freeing of the parents. That was a symptom. They might be ridden again unless he looked at the source. That was a separate job as far as his own curse was concerned.

Donovan played the light from his lamp around the street. He nodded at what he found. He rang the doorbell. He might be wrong about the job being over.

"Did you find out what was going on?" Elliot peered through a crack in the door.

"Not yet." Donovan watched the parents stagger towards their door where he stood. "They seem to be okay for the moment. I'm going to have to look at what caused the problem in the first place. You should be safe, but watch their shadows until I get back. If they start moving on their own, get out of the house."

"Moving?" Elliot couldn't hide the disbelief. He had put things down to drugs from the look on his face.

"You'll know it when you see it." Donovan stepped out of the way as the adults paused wearily on the steps to the porch. "When they start moving, leave."

Elliot stepped out of the way to let his folks in the house. He looked at Donovan, then nodded. He could handle this for the moment.

Donovan raised his lantern as he turned from the door. He hoped the boy would be all right, but something permanent had to be done about the possessions. That meant tracking the spirits back to their source.

That was something he could do with the light of his lamp.

Donovan followed the twin spider lines floating in the air with the light from his lantern. The glowing threads led back the way the horses had approached. He checked his watch as he walked. The sun would be coming up in a few hours. He had to wrap this up fast.

The lines led along the gloomy streets to a mass of threads radiating from what appeared to be a burned out store. Donovan turned left and right to look the direction of the web's outreach. He wondered how many were hooked to the spider's nest.

Donovan walked to the front of the discolored building. He made sure to stay clear of the web as he examined the charred remains. All of the lines descended to a drawing on the floor in white dust. A bottle of alcohol and some smoked cigars lay to one side of the diagram.

Donovan decided the best thing to do was get rid of the web. That would free everyone under control by the spirits. It might also draw out whomever had conducted the ceremony in the first place if he was lucky.

Donovan raised his lamp, burning away the webs that had covered the blasted out front of the place. He stepped inside, cautiously approaching the dusty picture. The control lines descended into the center of the drawing and on to somewhere else.

Donovan turned his light on the anchor. The eyes opened as wide as they could. Flame struck the lines at their base and started burning their length. He watched as the invisible display went up in a cloud of light as the gossamer threads floated up into the sky and came apart in drifting sparks that soon vanished.

Donovan turned his lamp on the small opening to the spirit world. His flame roared against the floor, burning away the gap from the real world.

Donovan scattered the drawing with a boot. He had found the source of the problem and dealt with it, but he still didn't know who had cast the spell in the first place. From the look of the web before it was destroyed, plenty of spirits had been turned loose in the city before he had sent them back to where they belonged.

He might meet some of them when the sun came up. He doubted they would be happy.

Donovan played his light around the store. He could stop what he was doing right now. He had fulfilled his obligation. He could return to Elliot and say he had stopped something from happening.

Donovan watched as footprints appeared in the char. Maybe he should talk to that person before he went back to report in to his client. If Elliot's parents could be possessed once, they might be targets again.

Besides there seemed to be more going on than he knew at the moment.

Maybe the owner of the footprints could tell him something.

Donovan followed the feet as they flashed in and out under his lamp's influence. They led him to the back of the store and out the rear exit. He found an alley. One print pointed to a convenience store glowing in the dark. The cursed man followed, noting the prints steered from the store as they crossed the parking lot.

Donovan kept going, wondering where the feet were taking him. What was the connection to the store? Why the calling of spirits? What was the gain?

The last question bothered him the most. Calling on spirits for anything required something to be given to them.

And some spirits asked for more than they were willing to give back to their petitioners.

Donovan followed the prints to an apartment complex. One look told him which door he should knock on. He walked up the metal steps to the floor he wanted, trying to think of how he should put his request.

31

Donovan's lamp revealed a web across the door. He thought it was to keep people out since fear rolled off of it. He pushed the lantern closer. More lines lay beneath the outer layer. He wondered what they did.

Donovan pushed the doorbell. He wasn't there to burn the guy out. He only wanted him to stop messing with Elliot's parents. One couple not included in the spirit riding should not be that big a deal.

Of course, things didn't always go as planned.

Donovan heard movement in the apartment. It spoke of preparing in a hurry. It didn't approach the door. He wondered if the priest knew who he was already and was readying some kind of scheme to do something about it.

Donovan pressed the doorbell again. He didn't want the priest thinking of some way to send him to his daytime residence for good.

The door swung open. A skinny man stood there in the remains of a bathrobe and pajama bottoms. Sweat rolled off the ebony crown of his bald head.

"What do you want?" Venom filled the man's almost yellow eyes as he glared down at the gray man standing at his door.

"My name is Donovan." The gray man held up his light, shining it in the other's face, burning threads of smoke under its stare. "Someone has hired me to change the behavior of some of your possessed clients. I would appreciate it if they were left alone from now on."

"I don't know what you're talking about." The priest started shutting his door.

Donovan swept the webs on the door aside with his lamp. His foot hit the door and he was on the inside of the two bedroom just that fast.

The spirit wrangler reached into the pocket of his robe. He pulled a bottle that resembled what you put peanut butter in. His hands tried to pull the stopper out. Sniffing the contents would be enough to get this gray man off his doorstep.

Donovan knocked the glass jar out of his hands. He didn't know how much he could stand up to a possessing spirit, but he knew that he didn't want to try. The gray man did not want to share his mind with anybody else.

"All I wanted was a little talk." Donovan pushed the man backwards so he could advance into the living room of the place.

"I have nothing to say to you." The priest looked around his apartment for something useful.

"I know you opened a door to the spirit world and released some of the dead with the promise of a second life." Donovan shone his light around him, burning away any web of a spell he saw. "I don't have a problem with that."

"Then why are you bothering me?" The priest's face didn't reveal anything other than annoyance. If he had a master plan, and the plan was derailed, shouldn't he be angry at least.

"Because I have been asked to keep my client's parents free of your possessing spirits." Donovan let the orange light glow from the eyes of his lamp. "That means I want you to leave them alone if you do this again."

"Is that all?" The priest crossed his arms. "Why should I do that if I knew what you were talking about?"

"Because I will have to come back here and do something that you won't like." Donovan turned to go to the door. "That's the deal."

"I refuse any such arrangement." The cleric stepped to a drawer and slung it open. He picked up a box as Donovan turned around. "Instead I will send your spirit away and I will restart my spell. If they possess the ones you care about, then so be it."

The priest opened the box, pointed the mouth of it at his uninvited visitor. White light wrote on the air, reaching into the gray man. The investigator started shaking.

"I think I will put something hungry in your body and send it after your loved ones." The priest shook as the light tried to recede into its resting place.

Donovan's lamp lifted his arm. The flaming eyes glared at the spirit conjurer. Then the fire rushed out. It struck the bathrobe, hurling the man away in the middle of burning cotton. The box slammed shut after it hit the thinly carpeted floor.

"You should have taken the deal." Donovan slammed the metal of his lamp against the wood of the spirit box. The engraved cube shattered into short spears. "Then you could have gone ahead with whatever insane plan you were thinking about without any more interference."

Donovan shook his head. He poured flame on the other man. The priest tried to protect himself with some kind of shark tooth talisman. The fire blew the priest up. Ribbons of light faded away to nothing as they leaped from the burning corpse.

Donovan turned from the pyre. He closed the door on the fading bonfire. Smoke sputtered away from its hug against the ceiling.

Donovan walked away from the apartment, hoping no one looked out a window and spotted him. The police knew him. He didn't want to explain what had happened to them. They wouldn't believe him anyway.

He headed for Elliot's house to write out a bill. The boy would be relieved that his folks were out of trouble. That didn't matter to the gray man as long as he paid the bill.

Donovan checked his watch. He still had a few hours before dawn. He could at least look at the last job on his list. He didn't expect to finish it in the short time he had left.

The gray man tracked back to his client's house. He knocked on the door. Elliot peered out with a smile.

"I don't know what you did, but you're awesome." Elliot jumped up and down on the porch. "Thank you."

"Just pay your bill when you can." Donovan handed him a note. "I have to get moving to my other client."

32

Donovan traveled across town to the last address on his list. He probably had more jobs lining up on his machine at his office. He needed to get his van fixed, or get another car in the meantime.

Trying to find a cab in the middle of the early morning was driving him crazy.

Donovan hitched across the city by latching on to the back of moving vehicles and riding until he could jump off the back. That was the best he could do at the moment. He walked the last two miles, checking his watch.

The sun would be coming up soon.

Donovan found the address he wanted written on a mailbox at the end of long gravel lane heading out of sight under the shade of dozens of trees. He spotted a light on floating in the dark.

Donovan raised his lamp to light his way as he walked down the driveway. Something smelled. He looked around, hoping that he wasn't walking with a skunk. That was the last thing he wanted to run into in the dark.

A werewolf, or a vampire, was acceptable. A skunk was not.

Donovan reached the front door. The light shone in a window above and to the left of the wooden panel. He didn't see movement. Maybe they had gone to sleep already. He spent a moment debating whether or not he should knock. His fist banged on the panel.

They had called him. If they didn't want to talk to him now, he could put it down to a wasted trip.

Donovan waited on the short, wide stoop. He listened for his last client. He didn't want another dead body to end the night.

After a few seconds of waiting, Donovan knocked again. He would knock three times and then head back into town. He didn't want to wait around all night.

Footsteps sounded on the floor inside the house. They creaked toward the door. The portal opened a crack. Then it opened wider to reveal an older woman in a bathrobe. She glared at Donovan from beneath a mop of iron gray curls.

"Do you know what time it is, young man?" The lady of the house tried to brush her hair back but it fell back over her eyes.

"My name is Donovan." The cursed man lifted his lantern to light up the stoop. "Did you call me about a problem?"

"That was days ago." The iron lady looked him up and down. "You stink."

"Is there a job, or not?" Donovan lowered his light. "I don't have a lot of time."

"I don't know." The iron lady stepped out of the way. "Come inside and have some coffee with me. I'll tell you about it and maybe you can tell if there's anything you can do."

Donovan stepped into the neat foyer. He looked around. A living room hooked around to the left to the kitchen at the back of the house. A dining room hooked around on the left. A set of stairs led up to bedrooms hidden by the walls. He followed his new client to the kitchen, waiting for the first words to tell him what was going on.

"My name is Marjorie Cash." The iron lady put some coffee grounds in a filter and loaded it in a coffee machine. She pressed the start button after adding water. "A friend of mine told me about you. I decided to give you a chance before I moved away."

Donovan looked around the kitchen. Light from his lantern revealed little dots on the cupboards and appliances. He didn't comment on the story so far. Some of his customers did recommend him to others.

"I'm being haunted." Mrs. Cash went to the refrigerator and pulled out a half eaten cake. She cut two pieces and put them on plates. She pushed one plate over to Donovan. Then she handed him a fork. She put the rest of the cake back in the refrigerator. "That's the only way I can describe it."

Donovan pulled up a stool and sat at a counter with his cake in front of him. He waited for the rest of the story. He had already seen a lot of hauntings in the last few days. What was one more?

Maybe the Santeria priest had sparked more than he had bargained for with his piercing of the spirit world. If that was the source of the problem, it was closed for the moment.

"Things move around on their own, they vanish for days, and then there are sounds." Mrs. Cash dug into the cake. Her slim form said she wasn't worried about any calories for any reason. "The sounds are the worse."

Donovan nodded. He didn't commit to anything yet. He didn't want to sign on to a job he couldn't complete.

"I want the sounds to go away." Mrs. Cash poured two cups of coffee. She added milk and sugar to hers. "I can live with things moving around. It's almost a game by now. The sounds have to stop. I can't stand them."

"Where do you hear them?" Donovan sipped his black coffee. Once he started looking, it didn't matter what made the sounds if he could find a trace to follow back to the source. "That will be where I will start."

"Upstairs." Mrs. Cash pointed up with her fork. "I hear it around my windows."

Donovan sipped his coffee while he thought. This should be an easy job. All he had to do was look around and shut things down.

How hard could that be?

"I'll look into it." Donovan pushed the cake away. He took one last drink of his coffee as he stood up. "If there isn't anything I can do, I will tell you."

"When can you start?" Mrs. Cash finished her plate and coffee. She poured another cup.

"Right now." Donovan headed towards the stairs. "The quicker I do a look around, the better."

"I didn't expect that." Mrs. Cash followed, arms crossed. "I thought you would look around in the daytime."

"I can't do that." Donovan headed up the steps, boots sinking into the carpet as he walked.

Mrs. Cash hurried to keep up. She had been told Donovan never paused when he was asked to clear something. She could believe it now that was witnessing him in action.

She hoped he could do it.

33

Gray Donovan ran the light of his lamp along the window sills in Mrs. Cash's bedroom. Little cracks ran through reality from what he could see. Apparently whatever she was hearing actually existed somewhere else.

He expected as much.

All he had to do was seal the cracks and that should take care of the problem for Mrs. Cash. If they broke out in another part of the house, he would have to come back and deal with it. If not, his customer could pay the bill with a smile.

The cracks meant something was poking in on his reality. Evidently the windows were some kind of common point between the two. The physics didn't matter as long as the universes were kept apart.

Mrs. Cash might lean to look out her window on somewhere else and fall there. Then the trouble would be whether or not they could come from that side.

Donovan paused in his examination. Something caused a noise on the other side of the closed window. That couldn't be good.

"Do you hear that?" Mrs. Cash stood at his ear. "That's the sound I hear. It sounds like a cow, doesn't it?"

Donovan nodded. It certainly did sound like a cow calling others in a herd. The call sounded close enough to be in the room with them. He expected that it emitted from the other side of the cracks he had found.

Donovan raised his lamp to burn the cracks away. First sounds, then pictures, then a crossover to the other side had been his experience up to that point. He didn't see any reason not to try to prevent that. Mrs. Cash seemed like an innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The cracks widened into rips. A sky filled with lightning and steel gray clouds revealed itself outside the window. Donovan stepped back, pushing Mrs. Cash behind him. He couldn't allow a paying customer to be hurt if he could help it.

"That doesn't look good." Mrs. Cash picked up a candlestick from her dresser's top.

"Just keep away from the window and you should be fine." Donovan walked closer to the rip. He checked the sides to see how far it extended in his reality. How long would the rip stay open seemed the most important question at the moment.

Donovan heard the calling of a cow again. He looked out on the cloudy vista beyond his reality. A thing resembling a longhorn stood out there with flames for a hide and lightning where the horns should project from its head. It pawed at the misty ground with one hoof.

Donovan didn't see any more of the steers loitering about. He wondered if that's why this one remained outside Mrs. Cash's window. Could it have lost its herd? That was a simple question which could lead to a simple solution to his current problem.

If he moved the cow on, and sealed the crack between the worlds, Mrs. Cash's hearing strange sounds would stop. It didn't look any easier than that.

The hard part could be making it happen.

Donovan reached out over the sill. He felt the cloud that brushed up to the house's outer wall. It seemed solid, if a little slippery. He would have to be careful if he didn't want to break a leg.

Donovan slipped through the window, using his lantern to light the path in front of him. He spotted prints leading away from the window hanging in the strange air. Mrs. Cash's house must sit on a herding trail from the looks of things.

Donovan examined the cow from a small distance away. He wanted to see what the problem was but he wasn't going to step within reach of those wicked flickering horns. That would be asking too much.

The cow had stepped inside some kind of hole. It couldn't pull its foot out. It snorted as it eyed the gray man with an eye made of gold. No one should touch it without permission.

Donovan didn't see anything to do about it at first. He had no desire to burn the flesh from his hands no matter how short the time he would be hurt. He needed some way to free the cow without it trying to gore him.

He needed a shovel.

"Don't move." Donovan turned and jogged back to the window standing without support. He pulled himself over the edge. Clean air full of the perfume Mrs. Cash preferred took over from the wet atmosphere he had just stood in.

"What's going on?" Mrs. Cash brandished her candlestick. "What is that?"

"Do you have a shovel?" Donovan took her elbow and pulled her to the door. He hoped she had more sense than to go out there on her own. "I think I can use it to get rid of your problem."

"I think I have one in the garage downstairs." Mrs. Cash stared out the window.

"Could you show me?" Donovan kept his grip as if he expected her to jump out the window at any moment. "The faster we get this done, the better."

"Of course." Mrs. Cash turned and led the way from the bedroom. "Was that a cow?"

"I'm more worried about cowboys right now." Donovan wanted to push her down the stairs but held back.

Mrs. Cash moved fast but not as fast as he wanted. He counseled himself to patience. He still might have plenty of time before anyone came to check on the cow. Maybe it was wild in its neck of the woods.

The faster he had that shovel in his hand, the better he would like it.

Mrs. Cash stepped through a door off her kitchen. Donovan followed. They stood in a section of the garage given over to laundry. A rack of gardening tools hung on the wall about halfway down. She pulled the shovel down and handed it to the gray man. He weighed it in his hand, hoped it would do the job.

34

Donovan returned to the bedroom with the shovel hooked under an arm. He hoped his plan would work. This might be the easiest case he had worked in the last two days. He didn't have a lot of time to do what he had to do.

The sun would be rising in a few minutes. There was no telling if that would affect the other place, but it would send him to his daily torment without a by your leave.

So he had to do what he could in the little time that he had left before that happened.

Donovan jumped the window sill and slid along the cloudy surface beyond. The mist tried to push him off course but he used the shovel to propel himself along like using an oar to paddle a canoe down a river.

Donovan paused out of the cow's reach. He judged distance with the help of a thumb before he dug a divot out of the gray ground. The clump turned into a gray mist that ran from the surface of the blade. The cow mooed again, calling for help.

Donovan worked to dig a trench so the cow could work its trapped leg into the channel and towards freedom. Several times it snapped at him. He used the flat of the shovel head to give it a whack. That caused it to recoil from the sizzling metal.

Donovan wished he had a lead rope to loop over the cow's head so he could pull it forward on the track. The angled path should be okay for it to walk to freedom. He hoped it hadn't broken a leg. That would put a crimp in his plan.

Donovan walked to the rear end of the beast. The cow turned its head to follow him with its eyes. It called again for aid. The investigator smacked its rump with the shovel. The metal sizzled against its hide.

The cow took a step forward. It took another. It shook its head. Then it ran to solid footing. It started to turn on the gray ground. No one smacked its face and got away with it.

Donovan hurried for the window. He didn't want the thing charging into Mrs. Cash's house. The harm it could do itself, and her home, could be extensive the way its hide burned.

Donovan paused in front of the opening when he realized he wasn't going to outrun the cow. He didn't want to hurt it, but he wasn't going to let it stab him with those horns waving from its head. He needed to make it change course.

Donovan dropped the shovel, and started swinging his lamp. The silver chain clinked as the metal ball wailed through the air. Flames jetted from its eyes hungrily. The cow stopped when it saw the lantern flicking through the air in front of it.

Donovan didn't know if it was because the lantern seemed to be silently daring it to cross an invisible line, or if the silver in the chain manacled to his arm created an aversion just from the sight of it.

He was happy that swinging his burden convinced the longhorn to rethink its charge.

He had expected to try and beat its brains out with the lamp before jumping through the window. A quiet retreat was more his speed.

Another cow called from a distance. Donovan couldn't see it out there in the gray lighting of the place. He waited for the next move. He had been in a stampede once. He hoped this didn't turn into one.

Donovan's cow looked over its shoulder. It looked at him with his spinning chain. Then it turned and started trotting into the distance.

Donovan stopped the lamp from spinning, and let it drop down to hang by his leg. He kicked up the shovel with its corroded blade so he could grab the handle in one hand. He backed up to the window.

Time to close things down and give Mrs. Cash the bill she had to pay. Then he could start walking until the sun came up.

Things should be fine for her after he closed up Cow Heaven.

He didn't like the fact there were more than one of the beasts close enough to charge him if they decided to do that. He could stop one maybe, but he doubted he could keep a second from heading through to talk to Mrs. Cash.

Donovan handed the shovel through the window. Mrs. Cash stared at the corrosion before stepping out of the way. The gray man stepped through the open portal. He needed to close the rift down and write out his bill.

"What did you do to my shovel?" Mrs. Cash shook the tool at him.

"I sacrificed it for the greater good." Donovan shone his fiery light on the window. The edges of the tear gleamed under the lantern's glow.

"What are you going to do?" Mrs. Cash put the shovel next to her wooden dresser.

"I'm going to close this door so you can live in your house." Donovan grabbed the two sides at the top of the tear and pulled them together and held them in place. He shone his light on the seam, burning it together.

"How are you going to do that?" Mrs. Cash crossed her arms.

"I'm going to pull the sides of reality together and burn them closed." Donovan pulled the next section together and continued his task. "There shouldn't be another problem with this once I'm done. If something else happens, call me and I'll do what I can to fix things again."

"Can't you close it for good?" Mrs. Cash raised a hand to shade her face from the reflected glow from the welding.

"That's what I am trying to do." Donovan moved his hands to the next piece. "Reality was worn thin by that cow standing there is what I am guessing. If they keep moving on their side, the patch should hold. If they come back and stay in that same area, the patch might break down."

"I understand." Mrs. Cash stepped back. "Should I move out?"

"That's up to you." Donovan knelt to pull the bottom of the tear together. He concentrated his light on the seam. "It should be safer here than anywhere else, but you never know what could happen."

"Thank you for your honesty." Mrs. Cash picked up the shovel. "I have to take this back to the garage."

She left the room as Donovan continued to pour his light on the rip. He stepped back when he was sure that the patch was going to hold. The wearing on reality might bust apart his stitching at some later date but the job was done to the best of his ability.

epilogue

Donovan sat at his desk. His answering machine flashed but he hadn't checked it yet. There were only two messages on it according to the counter. He would check them in a moment.

Donovan looked at his notes. He filed the ones where he didn't expect payment. There was no point in trying to charge the kin of dead people.

The rest he broke down into a list of hours and a fee charged by how much damage he had taken in the course of fixing things for his customers. Atlas and his apples were marked down for his dollar which made him the lowest charged of the people he had helped the last few nights.

Mrs. Cash had the minimum after that. Sealing the rift had only taken half an hour, and he hadn't been hurt by the cows.

Donovan finished turning his notes into reports to help his billing if he needed to back his claim up. He knew that small claims court was not going to help him get his money.

On the other hand, most of the people that Donovan dealt with knew better than to try and cross him for something as simple as money.

They had been in bad situations that no one else could help them with. He doubted that anybody helped out of that hole would try to stiff him. And if they did, his lantern would not be pleased.

Donovan pushed the play button on the answering machine. If it was two more cases, he could set off and get started on them that night.

"Mr. Donovan. This is Elliot. I just called to let you know my folks are doing okay. I don't know how I'm going to pay you, but I will."

Donovan smiled. He would send a bill but didn't hope to get his money any time soon. Elliot needed to get a job first before he could think about paying for his parents' freedoms.

The second message started.

"My shovel is completely ruined, Mr. Donovan. Pieces of it are gone. I hope you give me a discount for wrecking the thing. Oh, before I forget, I have had a sound sleep. Whatever you did has worked better than I expected. I'll call again if I hear the sounds again."

Donovan smiled. He pulled out Mrs. Cash's bill and wrote in a discount for a new shovel. It was the least he could do for using it to free the cow. And he wasn't one to quibble as long as he got a little money.

Donovan put all the bills in envelopes. He decided that he could take the night off. It wasn't his usual night, but he could go to the Lonesome October for dinner, and then take in a picture show. Then he could read a little before the sun came up.

First he had to put his correspondence in the mail.

Donovan closed up shop, shut down the lights, and locked up. He walked onto the sidewalk, turning to head for the closest mailbox. He dropped the letters in with a slam of the lid. He still needed to get his van fixed but there was nothing he could do about that at the moment.

Donovan checked his watch, looked up at the hazy night sky. It would be nice to see a complete sunrise for once. Too bad that as soon as the sun looked down on him, he had to report to his punishment.

Donovan walked the city streets. People surrounded him on all sides, but he moved like a ghost among the throng. He remembered past versions of the city as he marched on. He wondered if the city would look radically different in the future as it looked so different from when he had first arrived.

He wondered if he would even notice the transformation. Did anyone ever look at the world while they were going about their business? Would he even be there to see it?

Donovan took the moment to look around at the people still moving around him. He had already walked the earth for centuries. He would walk for a few more centuries until his manacle opened and released him to the call of time.

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