Truth Seeker Read online

  "Who, her?"

  "I think we have some questions to ask." She looked up at him and smiled. "And I think we're in the right place to ask them."

  "Where are we?" Philippe looked through the swirling snow to see if he could figure it out.

  "Boston, in the middle of the Commons. If it wasn't snowing so hard, you could see the statue up there." She gestured up a little rise.

  "I've never been here." His face heated again. She'd obviously been all over the world, at least the country, and as for him… Well, he had barely been out of state until this misadventure.

  "The Yankee ghosts are the worst gossips. If there's something going on, we'll find out here. Aha." She found her glasses and shook the snow off them. She put them on, and they came back together in green lenses as her garments changed to reflect the weather: long, sturdy leather coat, black boots and jeans, and a soft black hat with a rim that folded back up. "Do I look mortal again?"

  "You'll never look mortal to me." Philippe's romantic statement was ruined when his stomach growled.

  Maggie giggled. "You're probably starving. I could use a bite myself."

  "Surely in a big city like this, there are some all-night joints."

  "Coffee?" She grinned.

  "What else? Wait." He looked around, but all he could see was swirling snow. "Someplace local, right?"

  Maggie nodded and stepped beside him to put a hand on his biceps. "I think I know a place around here…" She sniffed the air. "That way."

  She led him through the calf-high snow to an asphalt path. They followed through the park to a street that, even at this time of night, was crowded with traffic. Philippe squirmed inside with pleasure at the pressure of her hand on his arm. He had known several women through his career as the guitarist for a cover band, but he'd never found one so hard to understand. Of course, this was no ordinary woman.

  "What about here?" Her voice brought him out of his daydreams. "They have bagels, too."

  "A bagel would be perfect."

  They walked past a flour truck, its thick hose extended into the basement, and a fine film covered their black.

  "Drat, my new old clothes." Philippe pretended to be disgruntled as he brushed flour off his coat.

  Maggie cocked her head and looked up at him. "They suit you. You were born a century too late, I think."

  "Or several," Philippe wanted to say, but was interrupted by a barked, "Whaddaya want?" from a man in shirtsleeves behind the counter.

  Maggie gestured for Philippe to order first. After the man grumbled through pouring their coffee and assembling their bagels, they took a booth by the window.

  At first Philippe turned his full concentration to his wheat bagel with sun-dried tomato cream cheese, but once he'd satisfied the edge of his hunger, he noticed that Maggie nodded and gestured to an empty table.

  "What are you doing?" Philippe hissed. He glanced at the bagel assembler, who ignored them. When he looked back and reminded himself to use his extra vision, he could see a transparent young woman in revolutionary-era dress. He groaned. The last think he wanted at this point was to see another ghost.

  "Friend of yours?" he whispered.

  "Who can tell anymore?" Maggie shrugged. "But yes, an old acquaintance."

  The ghost glided to their table and slid onto the booth beside Maggie. Her form, shadowy and translucent, appeared fuzzy around the edges, but Philippe could tell that she had been very pretty during life with large, dark, almond-shaped eyes set in an oval face with a pointed chin. Blond curls peeked out from under her starched white cap.

  "What brings a Truth Seeker to Boston?" Her voice, shadowy like her form, seemed almost a whisper. "We have had no spiritual crime."

  Philippe wanted to ask what brought a ghost to a bagel shop, but a look from Maggie stopped him.

  "I'm not here to track any of the locals, Betsy," Maggie said.

  The ghost seemed nervous, but she looked young. She couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen when she died. She smiled.

  "Then welcome to you and your handsome friend." Philippe blushed and hoped that was a little flush that crept on to Maggie's face as well. "But there are better cups of coffee in town, you know."

  "Oh?" Maggie asked.

  "There's the place of the fairy that seems to attract the mortals in droves." She gave a sharp nod and a sigh. "Aye, nobody here drinks tea anymore, and it's such a part of our history."

  Maggie glanced at Philippe, and he read the question in her face: could this one be part of the conspiracy, too?

  Betsy stiffened. "If you think I've turned traitor," she huffed, "allow me to remind you that I was one of the first Revolutionaries. I would not give up my liberty for anything."

  "We never said anything about traitors," Maggie reminded her. "Tell me what you know."

  "I know that since the accursed place opened its doors, I've not seen my brother James for more than two seconds at a time."

  "I think I remember him." Maggie frowned. "Killed in the same blast that got you, maybe a couple of years older?"

  "Aye, as if that matters once you've reached two hundred." Betsy snorted, and Philippe hid a grin. The girl had spirit, no pun intended. "He tried to get me to join, too, but I had my hotel circuit to keep me busy."

  "Hotel circuit?" Philippe's curiosity got the better of him.

  "Betsy is one of Boston's most famous ghosts," Maggie explained. "She appears at hotels in the area where her house was."

  "It's honest work for a ghost," Betsy added.

  "Wait, I've heard that before." Maggie took off her glasses. Betsy shrieked and started to disappear, but Maggie pointed a finger at her and held her where she sat. The Truth Seeker looked deep into Betsy's eyes. Betsy shuddered and moaned. Maggie put her finger down and replaced her glasses. Betsy slumped in the chair.

  "You know I hate that, Margaret."

  "Sorry, Betsy, it had to be done. We've already been betrayed once." Maggie looked tired, too. "Why did you fight so hard? You're an honest little spirit with nothing to hide."

  "It's a person's right to resist interrogation if they haven't been accused of a crime."

  Philippe coughed to hide a laugh, but Maggie grinned.

  Betsy pouted. "If you want to know what it's all about, you can talk to James. I can take you to him."

  "It sounds like another trap," Philippe pointed out.

  Maggie nodded, but Betsy shook her head. "He'd never betray me."

  "Are you up for it?" Maggie asked Philippe. "You must be exhausted."

  "That's the best part about living in the Pacific Northwest—you get used to running on caffeine in the dark."

  Maggie and Philippe followed Betsy down the main street and through some narrower side thoroughfares until they stood in front of Phanuel Hall.

  "This is James' haunt," Betsy explained.

  "He must be moving up." Maggie looked around. "The last time I was here, he was a dock ghost."

  Philippe smirked—everyone had a hierarchy—and looked around the small square. The squat building in front of them made for quite a contrast with the surrounding high-rises. He jumped as a pale, thin man with the same eyes and hair color as Betsy but with a square, stubborn jaw and a mean mouth, appeared. This glowing ghost seemed more substantial.

  Maggie reached for her glasses, but icy hands gripped all of their wrists and held their arms behind them. Philippe looked up and behind him into the cold, black eyes of a redcoat.

  "How could you trap us, Betsy?" Maggie wailed, a harrowing, wrathful sound that the wind and snow picked up and carried around them.

  "I didn't know." Betsy's cry melted into the wind, and she disappeared.

  James pointed at Philippe. "That's the one she wants."

  "She who?" asked Maggie. She twisted against her captor, a ragged revolutionary soldier, but he held her firm.

  "Not that it's any of your business, golden-eyes, but you'll find out soon enough."

  Philippe struggled, but his captor would
n't let him wriggle off.

  "I had no idea ghosts could be so substantial," Philippe told Maggie as they were marched past the hall, down an alley, and into the back room of one of the chain coffee shops. The door wasn't open, which wasn't a problem, as Maggie and her escort passed right through it, but Philippe came up hard against it as his guard stumbled and went through him and the door. He hesitated—what about Maggie?—but he heard her shout, "Run, Philippe!"

  4

  The boots, although heavy, gave Philippe excellent traction in the snow. The cold air burned his nose, throat, and lungs, but he sprinted back the way they had come. Something cold pressed at his back, and he darted up and down random streets to shake it, but it seemed to follow him no matter where he went.

  As he approached a bed and breakfast, he saw Betsy pop out of a side door and beckon to him. He made a quick right and half-ran, half-tripped through a doorway that a brown-haired young man held open for him.

  After Philippe landed on the floor, panting, he looked up into the face of his savior and saw that the youth, another ghost, had been burned on one side of his face so that one of his green eyes was closed and the dark brown hair had been singed off. Then the wound healed in front of Philippe's eyes, and the ghost, who had been a handsome young man, winked.

  "Stop showing off, Thomas," Betsy scolded.

  "How did you get them to stop chasing me?" Philippe looked back at the door as though they would tumble in after him at any moment.

  Betsy looked at Thomas, who nodded. "Immortals, like mortals, have places where all but those who are invited are forbidden," she explained. "Only the most powerful spirits can make such determinations."

  "You're not just playing with ghosts and Truth Seekers, my friend," Thomas added. "Your situation is of interest to those all the way up the ladder."

  "There's someone else here," Philippe looked around at the dark timber walls of what he now perceived was a store-room, but although no noise came to his ears, he sensed the presence of another being, like a weight above them.

  Thomas smiled. "You do have some talent. This was my guardian's house, and he keeps himself well-hidden and unable to be detected by ghost-hunters."

  "Stop teasing him, Thomas." Betsy gestured for Philippe to get up and follow her, and Thomas helped him to his feet with icy hands. The expression on Thomas' face as he looked at Betsy sent a pang through Philippe.

  Was he so obvious when he looked at Maggie? How could he have left her in such danger?

  "She'll be fine," Thomas assured him. "Sorry to intrude on your thoughts, but your worry came through your fingers."

  "We hope," Betsy retorted. "No one is supposed to be able to hurt a Truth Seeker, but they were able to restrain her, which is unheard of." Her heels clicked against the hardwood floor in an angry staccato. "That someone would do such a thing… And that James would use me like that." She shook her head. "I'm so mad I could be a poltergeist. No offense, Thomas."

  "None taken." Thomas seemed more amused than offended.

  "Do we not have standards anymore?" She sniffed. "If mother were a ghost… Oh, I'd've liked to have seen what she would have done to him. Taken a lick out of his hide, that's what."

  "She gets like this when she's mad," Thomas explained to Philippe with a twinkle in his green eyes. His shaggy dark hair flopped in his face, and he swept it back with a hand covered in gold rings. He dressed in a more exotic manner than the other spirits, in rust-colored breeches with buckled shoes and a loose-fitting silk shirt.

  Philippe's curiosity got the best of him. "Do you mind if I ask where you came from?"

  Thomas wiggled his fingers, and his jewels flashed. "Not at all. My guardian and I were smugglers. When the British set up a blockade, we ran it to deliver rum and sugar to the colonists. We were caught and both died under house arrest here."

  "Killed yourselves, you mean," Betsy admonished. "At least admit you didn't die an honest death."

  "Well, we can't all be lucky enough to be blown up by the enemy. What the authorities would have done to us was much worse than what we did to ourselves. Took the gentleman's way out, we did."

  "And your wound?" Philippe asked.

  "We burned ourselves alive." Thomas dropped his voice as they reached a door. "They took all our weapons."

  "What's all this clatter?" A gruff voice with a British accent growled at them from the other side of the door. "D'you have the boy?"

  "Aye, sir." Thomas opened the door, entered the shadowy room, and bowed. Betsy curtsied. Philippe wondered if he should do something and started to bow, but a laugh startled him.

  "Act according to the manners of your time, young man. Come give me a hearty handshake."

  Philippe advanced with an outstretched hand, but gasped and snatched it back when a metal hook at the end of a black velvet sleeve came out of the shadows. More laughter.

  "Just kidding, lad. We spirits don't have nearly enough chances for fun."

  The hook faded and was replaced by a tanned hand. Philippe shook it. And tried not to react to its cold clamminess.

  "I like a warm handshake, lad. Sorry if you do. Can't help the conditions beyond the grave, you know."

  Philippe attempted a smile and sat in the chair the hand waved him to. It then drew back into the shadows. Philippe tried to see what, or who, sat there, but all he could make out were twin points of light where eyes would be.

  "I apologize for not showing my face, but I haven't yet caught on to young Tom's trick of transforming it, so mortals find me gruesome. Most immortals, too, truth be told. Young Betsy can't stand to be in the same room with me for too long. But she keeps coming back. 'Tis amazing what love will do."

  Philippe glanced back, and Thomas dropped Betsy's hand.

  "Get along with you, young'uns. Give the lad and me some privacy."

  "Yes, Rothfeather," Thomas said before he and and Betsy disappeared. The ghost in the shadows sighed.

  "I apologize for the rudeness. When we're with mortals, rare though it is, I tell them to act as they do and walk in and out of rooms like polite spirits. Just disappearing like common ghosts…" Metal clinked as the old smuggler shook his head.

  Philippe continued to gaze at the twin points of light as they moved from side to side. They stopped and returned his stare. He looked away.

  "I like a man who makes eye contact, even with someone who doesn't have eyes."

  "I wish my gaze was as talented as Maggie's, sir. Not that I distrust you…" But not even his second sight showed him anything.

  "You should, lad. You should be suspicious of all of us, except for that redheaded gal. That one can't lie. A rare treat in a woman, that." A third gleam appeared beneath the other two—a grin with a gold tooth?

  "How am I going to rescue her?"

  "That one can take care of herself." But Philippe heard the same note of doubt that he'd heard in Thomas' voice.

  Rothfeather's statement sparked a question.

  "What is she? I mean, what is a Truth Seeker?" Philippe asked.

  "They're a supernatural law-enforcement agency. Or at least they fancy themselves as such. Can't lie. Or not supposed to, anyway." A flash of gold in the shadows told Philippe that Rothfeather waved away his curiosity – mostly. "There are more important issues to discuss, lad. Related issues."

  Maggie was a cop? He should've known—it all clicked into place when he thought about it, which he couldn't help. Nor could he prevent the pang of disappointment that she hadn't originally come looking for him specifically. Philippe shifted his weight—regardless of who or what she was, she had risked her life for him, and he had to do something for her, not have a long discussion with a ghost who had all the time in the world. But if he was to have help, he needed to go along with the discussion. Hopefully related issues wouldn't take too long.

  "I do have some questions."

  "As I do for you." The spirit settled back in his chair. "How long have you been able to see ghosts?"

  Philippe tried not t
o show his impatience. What the hell did that have to do with anything? "It's hard to explain. Before it was just shadows, shapes in the corner of my eye. But since I've been in the tunnels…" Philippe shrugged. "I can see them very clearly now, especially when I'm with Maggie." Worry twisted in his gut. She'd shown him a layer to the world he'd never suspected. And gotten trapped by it.

  "An honest answer. We'll get along fine, you and I. Next question: how did you end up in the tunnels?"

  Philippe told the old pirate the same story he'd related to Maggie, but a shorter version. The pinpoints of light moved up and down as the ghost nodded.

  "You probably felt a compulsion, as they like to say, to go in that store-room, didn't you?" Philippe nodded, and the spirit when on, "Only one with talent could do that. There are a few in each generation. My Tom was one of them. That's why, even after death, he can affect the world of the living."

  "You mean, as a poltergeist?"

  "That's it, lad. Every generation of the living produces those who can communicate with the ones on the 'other side,' as your television personalities like to call it. Some make money speaking to departed loved ones, some go insane, or think they do because they see and hear things that others don't. And some, like you, stumble into it by accident."

  Philippe felt that there should be more. "And…?"

  "What do you know about ghosts?"

  Another question. Philippe stifled a sigh. "They're human spirits, souls, I guess, who got stuck here after being separated from their bodies. Maybe a violent death tied them to a certain area like you, Tom, and Betsy… Maybe they have something left to do…" He stopped. "I guess I don't know as much as I thought I did."

  "I'll tell you three things that you have to remember, Philippe. First, those that stick around aren't happy because one needs an earthly body to enjoy earthly pleasures. Second, they're so jealous of humans for what they have and experience without appreciating it that some of those spirits don't stop at just scaring them."

  Philippe shivered as he remembered Beauregard.

  "And third, if they could find some way to get past those limitations of being body-less, they would do anything to do so."