Page 50 of Darkness

“So, your spirit comes from there to here. Then what? You stole someone’s body?”

Farren fought not to be offended. He’d heard every manner of derogatory comment in the ten years he’d been in this realm. Morrisey likely meant no offense and had every right to satisfy his curiosity. They were partners, after all. “No. I didn’t steal a body. I would have let myself die first. Since only what most people refer to as spirits cross over, I was what you might describe as a spirit or a ghost. I heard we’re mostly electrical impulses. From what I know now, if I hadn’t found a body, I’d have eventually just ceased to be.”

Morrisey stared from across the table, intense dark eyes riveted to Farren’s. “Die, you mean.” He averted his gaze.

How should Farren answer the question? “It’s not quite so simple.”

Morrisey shifted his attention from where he’d been studying the table. “You didn’t have a body, so you found one.”

“Yes. A young man overdosed on drugs. The commotion drew me to the place. All these people, hovering over him, administering antidotes, performing what I’ve come to learn as CPR. I tried to tell them he’d already gone, but they couldn’t hear me. I got closer and slipped into his body.”

“Like you did with the guy at the hospital.”

“Yes. But today, I stayed only long enough to gather information from our victim.”

“You stayed with the overdosed guy.”

“His name was Farren Austen, and he made his living as a model, but the customs of my realm followed me here. In Domus, people would have classified him as an entertainer. My mind doesn’t work like his, so I left that aspect of his life.”

Morrisey studied Farren for several moments. “You said you were a cop there. In the other realm.”

The calm, rational questions and acceptance of the answers gave Farren hope. He didn’t mind repeating himself to get the point across. “Yes. Immediately upon being revived, I tracked down the dealer who’d sold fentanyl-laced heroin to my host.” Farren shook his head, recalling grim memories. In some ways, he thought of Farren in his original form as a younger sibling. “Although some withdrawals are in the mind, my new body went through withdrawals too. Not a good time. I was tempted to give up more than once.”

“So, the original Farren is dead.”

“Yes. He hung around for just a brief time after I found him. Once sure he’d breathed his last, I settled in. Tentatively, at first, to ensure he wasn’t coming back. I have some healing skills, and with the paramedics’ help, cleared enough drugs from his system to preserve the body. Some travelers can heal certain ailments so they can survive in a dying body. Other diseases, such as advanced cancer, not even the most skilled of us can help.”

“Not even the whatchamacallits? Healers or whatever.”

“Nutrixes?”

“Yeah. Those guys.”

Farren shook his head. “Sadly, not even Nutrixes.”

Morrisey fingered the napkin-wrapped silverware. “How’d you wind up with the FBI?”

“Without a job or calling, I reverted to my old ways, like I said, tracking down the dealer responsible for Farren’s death and ensuring his arrest for drug dealing and two other deaths, since I couldn’t prove he’d killed my host. Then I felt a portal open and went to investigate. Leary was in the area, heard a scream, and ran toward the sound. Two men held a third man on the ground, while another opened a portal, though Leary didn’t understand what he saw. A powerful traveler summoned a spirit from my realm, intending to give them the young man’s body. When the group saw Leary, they charged. I stepped into their path.”

“Then what?”

“They ran, but I lost them.”

“What about Leary?”

“He identified himself as a member of law enforcement and thought he was losing his mind by what he witnessed.”

“What did he witness?”

“A spirit trying to enter a body, though he couldn’t actually see. He only felt the wrongness and saw the victim convulse. Once the intended victim was safe in an ambulance, I had a talk with Leary. He didn’t believe me, but gave the benefit of the doubt.

“His superiors, like yours, didn’t believe his report. Also, like you, the FBI came calling. Turns out they’d known about travelers for some time. Hoped to use us to their advantage.”

Farren stopped talking when the server arrived with their meals. Once the boy departed, Farren resumed his tale while Morrisey slathered his plate with ketchup. “They mentioned a puzzling case. I offered to help and found my first instance of a traveler torturing people to feed. My performance impressed them, and they asked me to join the team in Atlanta. Until then, they’d only had units operating in New York and California, where the largest known populations of travelers exist in the US.” No telling how many travelers lived in less populated areas.

Morrisey sped his chewing, then swallowed hard, prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. The motion somehow fascinated Farren. “Feed. What do you mean, torturing to feed?”

“On their emotions. An energy flowing through the very air in Domus nourished us. Like air, most breathed it in. Here, the essence is lacking. The closest substitute is human emotion. The more intense the emotion, the greater the nourishment.” Farren lifted knife and fork and emulated Morrisey cutting into his meal.

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