number for his or her appointed region, funneling them out to the members who worked for him or her. Occasionally, cross-regional cooperation was required, as in the development of new technology, a location with a severe haunting, or the certification test for a new full member. But for the most part, Silas took care of the East, Lucy the West, and John everything in the middle.
But the most interesting and shocking part in all of this bureaucratic info was simply this: John Blackwell’s predecessor, the previous leader for the Central Division, was none other than my father, Daniel Killian.
“I don’t understand. He never said anything.” I sat down heavily in one of the discarded chairs, ignoring the plume of dust that resulted.
We were in the lobby now, away from the last of the smoke and flames while the rest of the members that Lucy, John, and Silas had brought with them finished up. I’d seen lots and lots of those little metal boxes going in and couldn’t decide how I felt about that.
The three of them exchanged a glance, and then John finally spoke up. “Danny and I trained together. It was always harder for him because his mother, your grandmother, didn’t agree with his choice.”
“To serve the living,” Lucy spoke up.
“She didn’t understand the importance of what we do. She preferred to play at helping the echoes.” John made a face, as he paced back and forth in front of me.
Helping the echoes? Oh, the dead, ghosts. That would make sense with the story my mom had told me about my grandmother giving her a message from my mother’s grandmother. A member of the Order would probably never have done that.
“He was conflicted. It wasn’t his fault,” Lucy protested. “He couldn’t see the good we were doing except as harm to the ghosts, and vice versa,” she said to me.
“He started to pull back from his responsibilities a long time ago, right after you were born, but he didn’t actually resign until about five years ago,” John said.
“What about the ‘book club’?” I asked.
John looked startled. “You remember that?”
“No, it was something my mom said.”
He grimaced. “Danny didn’t want anyone else to know what we were doing on the weekends when we worked for the Order, so he started calling it that. Became like an inside joke, I guess.”
“We tried to talk him out of leaving,” Lucy said, pleading with me to understand. “And then he just…”
“Killed himself,” I said.
John and Lucy flinched.
“All of that is in the past. His choices don’t have to be yours,” Silas said shortly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“We could really use someone with your skills. We saw you interacting with them. It’s a smart move when you’re outnumbered,” Lucy said hopefully. She rolled her flashlight between her palms, making the light spin crazily on the ceiling.
“You had to save me in the end,” I pointed out.
“Training,” John said with a dismissive wave.
“Yes, training,” Silas said with a different emphasis on it. “As in, he needs it. Lots of it.”
“But you have the inherent ability to see them, track them, we could tell that,” Lucy said eagerly. “That’s rare, especially without the years of intense practice. You could be a full member in a matter of months.”
The silence held for a long moment, her hopeful words still hanging in the air.
“So what does that mean?” I asked finally. “What do you want from me?” My head was spinning, but not so much that I missed the distinct under current of tension in the room. There was an endgame here, even if I wasn’t sure what it was.
“Undergo formal training, see if you can officially become one of us,” Silas said with a shrug.
“If?” Lucy scoffed at him.
“If he stays in the Central Division,” John said, “he can continue to live at home and—”
“Except your last trainee has not yet completed her certification,” Silas said sharply.
John jerked around to glare at him.
“Silas, don’t,” Lucy said.
“There’s no sense in denying it.” Silas pulled a handkerchief from inside his suit coat and dabbed his face. “Besides, my division has the most extensive resources for—”
“So you keep saying,” John snapped. “But I have yet to—”
“Stop. Just stop,” I said loudly. “Yesterday, I didn’t know about any of this or any of you. And now you want me to make some kind of decision? I don’t even know what I’m choosing!”
“You need some time to think,” Lucy said instantly.
“Not too much time.” Silas tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket with a frown.
“This must be very overwhelming, I’m sure,” John said.
No kidding.
“You have our number,” he continued. “We hope you’ll be in touch with
I nodded. Yeah, yeah. Right away. After I’d had a chance to sort through everything they’d just dumped on me…and maybe taken a look through the boxes and papers my dad had left behind in the basement. I wanted some independent verification on all of this. I got the distinct sense that they might have told me just about anything to get me to come with them.
I walked out through the theater front doors, after Lucy demonstrated they weren’t nearly as boarded shut as they had seemed at first glance, but I had to double-back to the rear of the building for my car.
Mina was leaning against her car when I slipped through the fence into the empty lot.
“Are they fighting over you yet?” she asked as I walked by.
I didn’t say anything.
“Yeah.” She smiled tightly, her face pale in the glare of the theater’s security light. “Thought so. You are cash money, my friend.”
I stopped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She straightened up. “The better the talent in your region, the more jobs you can take, the more money you make.”
“They didn’t say anything about that.”
“Of course not. It’s all about the mission, right?” She rolled her eyes at my apparent stupidity. “All of them work other jobs. My dad’s in construction. Lucy’s a real estate agent in L.A. Silas does something with a bank. The more they make for the Order, the less they have to contribute out of pocket to the cause.”
“There have to be others who—”
“We’re a dying breed. Every generation the gift gets weaker. The Order is going to have to relax their standards soon, or there’ll hardly be any full members after they’re gone,” she said, tipping her head toward the theater. “Except, of course, for you, the wunderkind, who actually ended up with real talent even with only one gifted parent. The
“You make it sound like you’re half blind. You can still see and hear the…echoes.” That term did not sound right. Just the taste of it my mouth felt…wrong.
“Yes, and if they hold perfectly still, I can catch them just fine,” she said mockingly.
“Catching them is not everything. You can help in other ways.”
“By being friends with them, like you?” She grinned at me. “Bet you didn’t tell them that, did you, superstar?”
I looked away.
“You’re going to have to choose, you know. The Order doesn’t exactly endorse free thinking like that.”
I edged closer to her, touched her chin to tip her face to the light. The bruise looked worse in the stark shadows. “And this is how they show it?”
She pulled away. “Training exercises.”
“Right,” I said. “Your dad?” John had seemed like a nice enough guy, except when he’d yelled at Mina. Then…it had been like a glimpse of someone or something else under the surface. I had a hard time seeing my dad, who’d been the most laid-back parent I knew, being friends with him.
