Marta shrugged. “What can I say? I didn’t expect I’d ever see you again.”
I met Gail’s stare. “I know what you mean; there’s been a lot of that going around.”
Gail blinked and broke lock on my eyes. “You know Marta?”
“Used to. We were tight in Afghanistan. Marta was our best medic.”
Marta chuckled. “Yes, amoroso, and you were such a steady customer.”
Javier raised a hand. “You two can catch up later. Let’s talk business.”
“I think I’m about talked out with the Morenos,” Gail snapped.
“Now sweetheart, you aren’t being reasonable. There’s plenty for all of us,” Javier said.
“Hah, you guys still selling Native American artifacts on the black market?” The Morenos swapped glances. “I should have known. I haven’t come across anything you could sell and if I did, I wouldn’t let you take it.”
“I don’t see you stopping us,” Javier said. “You can’t go to the police and just telling us not to take something to help fund our work ain’t going to stop us.”
Bruno growled again. He was staring past us at something deeper in the cage.
I turned my head enough to see down the row of shelves. Halfway down the row a spot of light appeared. It expanded, rapidly growing brighter until a glowing semi-transparent figure materialized. “Gail, we’ve got company.”
Gail turned as I lowered the barrel of my shotgun and brought the stock to my shoulder.
The glowing figure raised a hand and a burst of energy swept over us, knocking Gail and me into the cage’s fence and throwing the Morenos and Bruno down the aisle.
Chapter 14 – Specter
I bounced off the chain-link fence, landing on one knee. Gail landed beside me in a crouch; she was already raising her shotgun. I automatically aimed and triggered a shot at the specter. My shot passed through the space it had been, but I couldn’t be sure if the blast made it go away or if it just left on its own.
A moment later, it reappeared at the far end of the caged area. It seemed to solidify, growing more substantial as I watched.
I got to my feet, shotgun at the ready. Gail stood up beside me.
“Okay, we found it. Now what?” I asked.
“I think you guys should keep it busy while we perform an exorcism,” Javier said.
“Sounds good,” Marta said. “I’ll watch your back while you’re working.”
Gail tapped my shoulder and motioned me ahead. I stayed to the left side of the aisle while she moved down the right. Her shotgun was in her hands, pointed ahead, toward the spirit.
“We do what exactly? How do you keep a spirit busy?” I asked.
“Just try to keep its attention. Don’t let it touch you and don’t shoot in my direction.” As an afterthought, she added, “And you probably shouldn’t shoot toward the Morenos.”
“We’d appreciate that,” Marta said with a touch of humor.
Javier began a chant in Latin and the specter’s head snapped in their direction. It appeared to be a dark haired native, clothed in buckskins and leather thigh-high moccasins. His hair was braided into numerous cords, each wound around a talisman. The air around us seemed to drop 20 degrees as it rushed forward. We fired simultaneously and the specter vanished in a swirl of smoke.
I jerked my head from side to side, looking for where it would appear next. “Is that what’s supposed to happen?”
“Pretty much. They lose control over the matter they were assembling to interact with the real world. Depending on the spook’s strength, it could come back in seconds or minutes.”
The air had started to warm again as soon as the specter disappeared, but now I felt it chilling again.
“Above you,” Marta shouted.
I saw a hand reaching down, reaching for Gail’s head. I shoved her sideways with a bump of my shoulder as I raised the shotgun’s barrel and fired directly into the ghostly face floating two feet above me.
“What the hell, Jesse?”
“It was going to touch you,” I explained and swept the area for its next appearance.
She shook her head. “Not a problem, just don’t knock me into the shelves again.”
“You told me not to let it touch me.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter as much if it touches me.”
“Well, crap, why didn’t you say so?” I said and fired into the shelf on my left as the specter reappeared on the opposite side. Shards of pottery and I didn’t know what else were blasted into dust by the blast. “Oops, my bad.”
“Not a problem, collateral damage happens,” Gail said as she fired her own shotgun down the corridor.
For a short time, the storeroom was quiet except for the sound Javier chanting. Then the temperature began to drop again.
This time the specter appeared between the Morenos and us.
“Get down,” Marta yelled.
Gail and I dove for the floor as Marta sprayed iron pellets and rock salt through the air where we’d been standing.
The specter disappeared again, but we stayed on the floor, waiting.
We didn’t have long to wait. The phantom appeared directly beside Javier and before Marta could shoot, it raised its hand and a blast of force knocked Javier over and tore his exorcism book from his hands. Javier flew into Marta and the two slid down the aisle to end up on the floor in a tangle of limbs.
I raised my shotgun, but the specter disappeared again. I scrambled to my feet and swept the room. Gail stood beside me facing in the opposite direction while we waited for Marta and Javier to get to their feet.
A couple of tense minutes passed with no sign of the spook, and then Gail said, “Damn it. It must have gone after one of the professors.”
“Do we have time to go after it or does it just teleport?” I asked.
“I have no idea. I usually only fight them in one location,” Gail said.
“How about you, Marta, do you have more experience with these things?” I asked.
“Some, they don’t truly teleport, but they are fast. I don’t know if
