Page 45 of Aftermarket Afterlife

“If it were a poltergeist, it would already be throwing things at us,” said the figure. “It’s just a lingering spirit. Probably some local kid they tortured to death for a dark ritual or something. We’ll send a purifier team in when we’re done sweeping the house.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You will do no such thing. You will leave, right now.”

“Ma’am, I don’t know why you’re so determined to haunt this place, but from the looks of you, you were human when you were alive. The people who own this house aren’t human. They’re monsters.”

“Do tell,” I said, lifting an eyebrow.

The other figure tugged on the first’s arm, muttering something low and urgent. The one who’d been speaking to me sighed. “We’re not here to explain ourselves to a dead woman,” they said. “We need to sweep this place. We’ve heard sounds, and we know someone’s here. We’re not giving them a chance to get the drop on us.”

Meaning the children had stopped crying because Isaac heard the thoughts of people who had ill intentions as they looked for him, and had shushed Charlotte in a way she couldn’t ignore. Good boy. I’d have to give him extra tomato slices the next time we did snacks.

“I’m guessing neither of you has a spirit jar on you, or you’d already be trying to get rid of me,” I said, starting to walk toward them. I don’t have the malleability of a ghost like Rose, but I do have some control over how alive I look. I mentally grasped the slider and yanked it down, hard. My skin began to take on a leprous, rotting look, my eyes sinking deeper into my skull as my hair began to rise in wispy strands around my head, until I looked like I was walking in a cloud of luminescent cobwebs. My clothing melted into a winding shroud, and I knew from past experience that I now looked like death walking, some horrible specter summoned from the pits of hell to ruin their afternoon.

I kept moving forward, speeding up, and watched them flinch with some satisfaction. Sadly, they were right about one thing: there wasn’t much else I could do. If I turned solid enough to start throwing things, they could shoot me, and while you can’t kill the dead with bullets, youcanhurt us—enough bullets and I’d lose cohesion for a while, which wasn’t something I really wanted to deal with right now. I could be eerie as hell at them. I could make them uncomfortable. That was all.

I would never have expected to miss the crossroads, but in that moment, I did. They’d been a larger power source that I could plug myself in to, a bigger predator that would have my back, as long as I stayed too useful to be worth eating. Now, I was just one ghost, alone.

The two Covenant operatives—because what else could they be?—fell back, clearly unnerved. “You will leave this house,” I boomed, in the most sepulchral voice I could manage, deep and hollow and filled with the echoes of the grave. “You will go, or my curse shall be upon ye!”

Something about talking like you’re in the middle of a really cliché Dungeons and Dragons session tends to get under people’s skins, and fast. They fell back again, and one of them grabbed a radio from their belt, raising it to the vicinity of their mouth. It crackled as they pressed the button down.

“I have a confirmed spirit encounter here,” they said. “Apparently female, late teens, white hair, very, very dead. Can you run that through our known list of local hauntings, over?”

“We only know three of the local haunts,” said a weary voice. “None matching that description. You’re probably looking at a white lady or a homecomer of some sort. Mostly harmless, as long as you don’t incite it to attack, over.”

“It, uh, looks pretty incited, over,” said the operative.

“So walkawayfrom it.” Whoever was on the other end of the radio was probably the senior agent for this team, judging by their obvious frustration. “You’re not hunting ghosts, you’re hunting monsters. If anything, the presence of a ghost confirms that you’re very likely in the right location. Keep going, over.”

“Right location for what?” asked a bright, female voice, each syllable slathered so broadly with an Australian accent that anyone who had ever met Shelby Tanner for more than a minute would have known she was playing it up for an audience. The two operatives whirled to look around the corner they were pinned against, their faces concealed by their masks but reflecting the distorted image of a blonde woman in a white blouse and khaki shorts.

“G’day, mates,” she said, still as bright and cheerful as she’d be when meeting visitors at the zoo. It was as artificial as her clichéd Australian phrasing. She waspissed. If they’d been smarter, they’d have picked up on it, not just stood there with their guns pointing toward the floor, presumably gaping at her.

“Was having a kip when I heard you lot shooting up my mum-in-law’s hall; she’s likely to be a bit put out when she gets home from the store,” said Shelby. “Gunshots aren’t usually the way you wake a lady, must say. Can I help you with something?”

“You are a traitor to your species,” said one of the operatives, finally bringing their gun up to take aim—not that aim was that important with an automatic. All they’d need to do was rake their shots across the hall and they’d hit her, possibly several times. And unlike me, Shelby wasn’t dead yet.

I dove into the wall and through the closet on the other side, emerging around the hallway corner in front of Shelby. I snarled at the operatives, trying to seem as terrifying as possible.

“My curse shall be upon ye even unto the third generation if you touch her,” I snarled.

“I thought it was seventh,” said Shelby.

“Seventh is unfair,” I countered. “By the time the curse runs out, no one even knows why you’re haunting them. Three means everyone is still spitting on your grave by the time it’s lifted.”

“Ah,” she said.

Her hair was mussed; that was the only sign that she’d been in bed when these home intruders started shooting up her hall. Shelby’s approach to combat was most often what I considered a sort of weaponized distraction. It was similar to Verity’s, in that both of them banked on their opponents being too off-balance to react quickly, but unlike Verity’s, which was built on sex appeal and sequins, hers was based on seeming like she’d just escaped from aCrocodile Hunterrerun. No one under the age of forty wants to shoot someone who makes them think of Steve Irwin.

Especially not a hot femme Steve Irwin whose breasts had been known to stun whole rooms into silence when she wore shirts with the right neckline. Oh, she was deadly, no matter how you looked at her, but when she was making an effort, she was a reasonable counter to a small army.

“May I ask what you’re doing in my house?” she asked, focusing on the intruders again.

“We don’t answer traitors,” said the one who had gotten their wits back a little faster.

“How am I a traitor?” she asked. “I’m not quite clear on that one. I’m a human being. I’m engaged to another human being. When we bred, we produced a third human being. That seems about like my duty to the species, quite well accomplished. Did I miss something?”

“Our records say there’s a cuckoo living at this residence,” said the second operative. “Ma’am, whatever you think you’re doing here, your mind has been altered without your knowledge or consent. You are a victim. We would prefer not to harm you.” The “but we will” was a silent coda, hanging unspoken in the air like a warning—or a threat.

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