Kindred Spirits: The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 6 Read online

  Kindred Spirits

  Book Six of the Marnie Baranuik Files

  A.J. Aalto

  Kindred Spirits

  Copyright 2021 A.J. AALTO

  Cover Design by Greg Simanson

  Edited by Rafe Brox

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to my grandfather, Leonard Crombie, ninety-nine years old as I write this.

  Summers at the farm taught me more about life than I realized at the time.

  You taught me about hard work, preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. You taught me that gorging myself on sour cherries leads to a tummy ache every time. You taught me that raspberries taste best when warmed by the sun, fresh off the cane while the dew is still on the leaves.

  You taught me about integrity, and you taught me the value of having the salt shaker at 1 o’clock to your dinner plate.

  Most importantly, you taught me that there is a time for tea, and that time is always.

  One

  The dead simply cannot resist involving themselves in the business of the living. This isn’t a new revelation for me; as the DaySitter for Lord Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt, I’ve had a front row seat to all sorts of immortal bullshit and general wankery.

  It was marvelously strange being back in Canada again. On the downside, I had to see my family – with whom my relationship status hovered somewhere between “It's Complicated” and “I'd rather eat lint” – as a cover story for being back in the Niagara region. I was actually snooping around for signs of both the revenant Aston Sarokhanian and the Undead Jerkface Who Must Not Be Named Or Pictured Naked. On the upside, I got to see Mr. Merritt, the elderly combat butler at North House, and Constable Patrick Schenk, who had, for reasons beyond mortal reckoning, invited me to visit him while I was in town.

  Taking him up on that, I had my feet up on the dashboard of his personal vehicle, my fuzzy green frog-print socks warmed by the vent blowing up the cuff of my jeans. The interior of the Sonata smelled like paperwork, fabric softener, my snow-dampened sneakers in the footwell, and maple dip doughnuts — there were a couple of those and two cups of coffee balanced on the console between us. The doughnuts had been his treat. True to form, Schenk insisted on paying for everything even though I tried to bill-snipe our drinks.

  It was about a million degrees in the car with the engine running and the heat on full blast; it was unseasonably cold outside for mid-October. I didn't know how long he'd been standing on Municipal Beach before I arrived, staring at the great, dark expanse of Lake Ontario, his impossibly long legs bracing him against a fierce and gusty wind, arms crossed over his chest, silently pondering the night.

  He was still pondering silently, but now he had the dubious joy of my company and the warmth of the car around him. I was used to cops keeping neutral, hard-to-read faces, but Schenk could give Supervisory Special Agent Gary Chapel a run for his money. Some people had a poker face; Schenk had a whole poker body.

  Something had him worried, my clairempathy reported, but I couldn't pick up what it was. Schenk’s hair had turned completely white after our poltergeist encounter, and he had opted for a higher and tighter version of his already-short trim, but that wasn't bothering him, or at least, wasn't the only thing. The sight of me had given him a brief jolt of rueful warmth followed by impatience and defeat. Not the most flattering cocktail of emotions the Blue Sense had ever reported to me, but hardly the worst, either.

  With a decisive slurp, I broke the silence. “You ever really think about the difference between ants and spiders?”

  That earned me all sorts of side-eye. “I know it's legal up here, but that sounds like stoner talk, Cinderblock.”

  I took another nibble of my doughnut. “I mean, besides the obvious, leg count and body shape and such. Think about it. They’re not so different. You see an ant on your beach towel, or your wall, no big whoop, right? You probably just flick it aside,” I said. “But see a spider next to your face and you freak out.”

  He did a double-take at the driver’s side window, then up to the headliner and around his headrest to make sure there wasn’t actually a spider near him.

  My mischievous chortle earned a low growl. “I mean, I don’t freak out,” I went on. “Only big, brave cops do that.”

  I took off the striped hat he’d knit for me and laid it across my lap, giving my scalp a scratch. My hair was starting to grow back slowly, and it was taking a lot of getting used to being not-precisely-bald. I had been both surprised and pleased to see that it was coming in my old, natural ash blonde, not the riotous black and turquoise ghost-hair that had been Brittney Wyatt’s parting gift. I was less Fast & Furious and more Quick & Cranky.

  He slid me another dose of his best side-eye, this one speculative, tentative, and focused on my cranial fuzz. “Let me guess. You got gum in your hair and didn't want anyone's help until it was too late.”

  “Witching mishap.”

  “Self-inflicted?”

  “You're not funny.”

  “But am I right?”

  “Hired help, so, kinda.”

  “Glad you’re okay.”

  “Okay is a bit of a stretch,” I admitted.

  His lips did their little you-said-it-not-me pucker. “Yeah, I’m familiar with you.”

  I grinned and swatted his shoulder with my hat. It whiffle-swooshed harmlessly against the dark blue nylon of his jacket. I settled in and warmed my gloved hands around my extra-large Tim Hortons cup.

  “You lost someone,” Schenk said carefully. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Shows around the eyes.”

  “Guess I need a more sleep.” I adjusted my scarf to make sure it covered the d
emon king's scar. I didn’t want to talk about Batten’s suicide-by-fang, and Schenk didn’t push.

  He made a noise of agreement. But a whiff of psi told me that he was also having a hard time sleeping. He wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, either.

  “Gonna show me a better time tonight?” I asked. “On our last two dates, I wound up flopping around in dead people water and interviewing the Chicken Whisperer. I'm kinda hoping for Skee-ball.”

  He snorted, presumably at the notion of our missions qualifying as dates. “Thanks for seeing me tonight. I know you’ve got family events to attend.”

  I considered telling him that, even though our relationship was based on ectoplasm-coated corpses washing up on icy shores, I’d rather spend time in his company than that of my own flesh and blood. Probably, he’d be uncomfortable hearing it, so I kept it to myself. Sort of.

  “Five sisters and both parents, and I can’t see them all at once. I mean, I could, but then we'd need more cops and a second hearse.”

  He didn’t pry, which I appreciated. He also didn’t continue, staring through the windshield at the October night. Heavy cloud cover obscured the moon and stars. Lake Ontario was a noisy pool of ink. Even through the closed windows, I could hear the unrelenting susurration of the waves on trucked-in sand and native pebbles, rolling over broken zebra mussel shells, turning the tide into a thick, sharp froth that broke against piles of algae-strung driftwood bleached bone white.

  I waited patiently for Schenk to reveal why he wanted to talk, taking a page from Chapel’s playbook — I let the quiet space remain open for Schenk to fill with his thoughts when he was ready.

  For a while, he filled it with small talk. The early cold snap. His daughters and their various sports teams and school art projects. Vague details about a case he was working on. A pleasant ice wine he’d discovered from a local vineyard. Thanksgiving plans. Pumpkin carving ideas and haunted hay rides. I engaged him with non-intrusive questions to keep him at ease. It took twenty minutes to pay off.

  “It wasn’t like other cases,” he ventured, finally looping back around to the poltergeist we’d found haunting the Welland Canal. There was going to be a certain amount of suck in his life as a cop — that came with the badge. But our case had shown him a darker, uglier, and more convoluted world, not to mention a genuine demon king. The spiritual aftermath of seeing something like that could fuck with a person. Schenk was still standing, but bore physical and mental scars. I regretted bringing him into things that hurt, but was grateful he'd had my back.

  “You deal with this paranormal shit all the time?” he asked. “Voluntarily?”

  “I like to scare the crap out of myself over and over for little pay and absolutely no recognition or appreciation,” I said. “If that ain’t good times, I don’t know what is.”

  He arched an eyebrow and turned his head fractionally towards me. “You might want to get your head examined.”

  “Well, it'll be easy-peasy with this hairdo. Phrenologists will love me.” I kinda-sorta thought he was projecting. “Have you?”

  He laughed softly through his nose, a rueful, rustling sound. “I probably should.”

  “No shame in it.”

  “I know.”

  “But you’re running it by me first.” I snorted softly. “Because I’m obviously the best person to give advice on living a well-adjusted, weirdness-free life.”

  He let out a sharp laugh. “Point taken.” His smile slid off all at once, like melted snow from a warm roof. “I’ve got spirits in my head. Not all the time. Just now and then.”

  Survivor’s guilt. I tried to boil it down to facts so he could side-step the emotions involved. “Distinct voices?”

  “One.”

  I didn’t really want to hear the answer, but Schenk needed to talk, so I braced myself for it. “Father Scarrow?”

  Schenk nodded.

  Ren Scarrow, disgraced exorcist, had been mucking about training ghost-tracking dogs, and was murdered by Mama Captain during our investigation. My body, owned by and Bonded to the infernal, immortal line of the Falskaar Vouras, had always reacted weirdly to Ren Scarrow’s holy presence — I’d felt giddy, uplifted, hopeful, rash-ridden, jittery, and more than a little aroused by his inherent goodness.

  “What's he say?” I asked.

  “It’s not words. Just noises.” He opened his mouth to elaborate, failed, shook his head, tried again. “Terrible, desperate noises. Nothing I wanna hear.”

  “Flashbacks?” I ventured.

  He didn’t look convinced. “You getting flashbacks?”

  I immediately stamped down on my mental control panel, refusing to allow my brain the folly of indulging in my own — given the reins, my asshole of a brain would have gladly showed me all manner of ghastly things, chief among them Batten’s last living moments on the cold, marble floor in the main hall of Skulesdottir, despairing and terrified, surrounded by the smug, gleeful undead.

  Focus on Schenk, not Jerkface, I reminded myself. “When is it happening most often?”

  “Soon as the lights go out.”

  “Are you sure you’re not dreaming it?”

  “I’m not sure about anything,” he said with an exhausted exhalation. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “We did hear some pretty bad things that last night at the overflow pond,” I said. “Those could come back like an iffy seafood enchilada.”

  “How do I get rid of...” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the sides of his head. “They won’t go. I haven’t slept well since it happened. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it together.”

  “You take time off, right? You're not like some kind of super-polite Terminator?” When he showed me a tolerant eye-roll, I promised, “I’ve got some contacts up here that you could speak to. People in the industry who would understand what you’re talking about, PTSD and poltergeists. I could make a couple calls and have someone get in touch.”

  Schenk appeared skeptical, but he nodded again and finished his coffee. I wasn’t in a hurry to leave, so I settled deeper in the passenger seat to stare out through the window fog at the lake and enjoy the familiar, solid safety of the big cop’s company.

  He slid into a more comfortable slouch of his own, readjusting his long legs into a V. I noticed the dark circles under his eyes now, barely visible in the pale glow of the dashboard lights. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Hey, I owe you. You rescued me from flailing in the dead people water and never blabbed about it.”

  “Sure,” he said, “I never told anybody outside the precinct.”

  “Hey!” I squawked, resuming my hat-swatting. “You promised.”

  “It was too good to keep to myself,” he said with a quirk of a smile.

  I stuck my tongue out at him, finished my doughnut, licked my fingertips clean, shoved my glove back on, and said, “Guess I should get back to North House. Mr. Merritt said I could only have the hearse for an hour.” I shoved my knit hat back on in preparation of facing the cold again, and made sure the zipper on my puffy pink parka was up to my throat.

  The feeling of being watched was suddenly strong, but it wasn’t Schenk, and it wasn’t coming from the lake. If there was something else out there in the night, it was content to stay in place. Teenagers, perhaps wondering if it was safe to make out on the beach after hours? This was a popular spot for hooking up, and the extra chill in the air wouldn't dissuade the most ardent paramours.

  I didn't see anyone skulking around, but the sense of being sized up was palpable. Schenk twigged to some subtle change in my posture, and flicked the wipers and defroster on. A moment later, the Sonata's high beams illuminated the beach.

  And the five dead men standing there, waiting patiently for our attention.

  The undead wankery was about to get even wankier.

  Two

  I sucked my teeth and let out a long, hard exhale. Century-old revenants, by the look of their poorly maintained lace cuffs and faded velvet suits. One wou
ld think that living in the shadows would preserve the condition of most immortal wardrobes, but after decades lurking in musty underground bunkers and humid cellars in Southern Ontario, these guys looked like they’d salvaged their great-great-grandfathers’ duds from a crypt, dragged a lukewarm iron over them, and half-prepared for a night at the goth club. These dudes had been wearing these clothes without the benefit of a dry cleaner for some time. Possibly since the invention of dry cleaning.

  Municipal Beach usually smelled of fresh water, fish, sand, and — if the wind shifted the wrong way — the sewage treatment plant. Tonight, all of that was being inundated by a heavy tide of burnt sugar and something else, something unique to whatever revenant bloodline these dilapidated dorks belonged to. I couldn’t quite peg it, even with my DaySitter’s heightened sense of smell.

  I estimated the youngest of them was the dark-haired guy in a Royal Navy uniform. Harry had one like in it his collection, navy blue with gold detailing, and I could tell by the symbol on the cuff that it was the coat of a junior officer, possibly Lieutenant, but I’d have to check with Harry to be sure. The eldest-looking sported long lace cuffs at his wrists and a spectacular gold watch — the sort of watch Harry would insist on calling a “timepiece” — which set off the black velvet of his ensemble. The watch would have to be described in complete sartorial detail for Harry’s delight later, but his facial features would remain indescribable — I wasn’t going to let my gaze wander up to the old revenant’s face. I’m no dummy.