Page 63 of Installment Immortality

—Eloise Dunlavy

Worcester, Massachusetts, in a rented room at a cryptid boardinghouse

ELSIE WAS GOOD AT SOCIALmedia. Artie had always been our computer guy, basically from the time that he could reach a keyboard, and so when Sarah had rebuilt him, she’d done it with the memories of a dozen or more people, human, mouse, and other, who believed he was a fantastic computer wizard, capable of doing almost anything.

Trouble was, none of the people who’d been contributing those memories had been computer wizards. So Arthurthoughthe was great with computers, when in actuality, he didn’t know much more than I did. And because he thought he knew everything already, he was remarkably resistant to picking up a book and learning.

Meaning we effectively didn’t have a tech guy. After ten minutes of watching him fumblingly try to match his sister’s trick, he threw up his hands and slumped in his seat. “I give up,” he said. “It’s impossible.”

“She has her brother’s profile friended, but he’s set to private,” said Elsie mulishly. “Do you think we have time to catfish him for access?”

“We don’t even know whether he’s straight, and coming at him with multiple profiles at the same time would probably tip him off that something was going on,” I said. “No catfishing.”

“But—”

“No.”

Elsie made an exaggeratedly put-upon face, and I knew we were going to be okay. Whether it was because I’d gotten through to her or because she’d just decided it wasn’t worth her time to be mad at me didn’t matter. All that mattered was moving forward.

Arthur had spun around in his chair to put the computer to his back, folding his arms. “Couldn’t we just orchestrate a meeting, if we know where they are? Bump into them at a coffee shop or something? Once we see which one of us she looks at like we’re a chocolate cake with thumbs, we’ll know who should be hitting on her online.”

“Okay, one, gross, and two, that would be exploiting your pheromones, which is not okay,” I said. “You know that. Consent matters, and when you go all incubus at someone, they don’t get to consent properly.”

Arthur looked briefly shamefaced—although not as much as Artie would have. I was starting to recognize the differences in their expressions, and some of them were pretty striking. They were like twin brothers, similar but never quite the same.

“These people are capturing and torturing ghosts,” he said. “As long as I don’t actually take advantage of them getting infatuated with me, I’m not sure I count it as an equal atrocity.”

Therewas an ethics-measuring contest I never wanted to get involved with. I shook my head. “No catfishing,” I said again. “All right: we know there are four of them, minimum, two fully trained and from Penton Hall, two more local and maybe not fully equipped for the field. I’m not sure the guy I met in thevan has any training at all, beyond the technical side of things. Heitor… I get the feeling he’s here mostly for his sister.”

“So he won’t fight with them?”

“Oh, assume he will. Just also assume he won’t be quiteassophisticated, tactically.” I rubbed my eyes with the palm of my hand. “This is such a mess. I don’t even know if they have more team members in town.”

“You can find things, right?” asked Arthur abruptly. “Mostly people, but stuff too.”

“If the stuff is important enough, yes, at least currently,” I said. “The anima mundi gave me some extra freedom while we’re dealing with this. Why do you ask?”

“I think a van full of scared ghosts is pretty important. You could try going to the van, and then look to see if it’s parked where they’re all staying. I know you can’t take a phone with you, but you could pop back over here and we’ll be ready to go.”

I blinked at him. I had been focusing so hard on not splitting the party again unless I absolutely had to that I hadn’t considered my own ability to move freely. “That could work.”

“This would be easier if we had Sarah to keep us all in contact with each other, and to bring us to you once you figure out where we’re supposed to go, but we can make it work,” he said, clearly trying not to look pleased with himself. He wasn’t doing the best job. He didn’t need to be.

“We need a plan beyond ‘find them, hit them, go home,’” I said.

“All right,” said Elsie. “Most ghost hunting happens at night, right?”

“That’s when normal ghosts tend to be the most active.” Neither Rose nor I were good examples of “normal ghosts.” We were active when we needed to be—which for Rose meant daytime, since it was easier to get people to pick up hitchhikers when theycould see them clearly, and for me meant whenever the kids I was taking care of were awake. I was nocturnal during their infancy, and then rolled slowly back to a more diurnal schedule.

Whatever the ghosts in those jars had been before they were captured, they were unlikely to have been hitchers or caretakers. Ghosts with jobs are harder to trap that way.

“Okay. Do you think they’ll be done at City Hall by now?”

I paused to consider. “The only ghost that’s still haunting City Hall wasn’t there tonight,” I said finally. “I assume he’ll have to go back around dawn. The people who built the place used the remains of his house in the foundations. It’s why he’s haunting the place. When you have a tethered haunting, it’s hard to stay away past a certain point. But since the Covenant can’t exactly go creeping around the place playing junior ghostbuster in the middle of the day, he should be safe until sundown.”

“And do you think they’ll be goingbackto City Hall?”

“They know there’s at least one ghost still there.”

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