My face stays hot. “Sorry—Buffy the Vampire Slayerreference. Demons. Poker. Kittens.”
He cackles. “Oh! I totally forgot about that. Ha, no. Just regular cash and mystical objects.”
The doorbell rings, making me jump.
“One of your crazed fans?” Kit mutters as we go to answer it. I find my way toward my window so I can see what’s happening.
However, no one is there. He opens the door wider, peeking around cautiously. His eyes turn down to see a small giftbag sitting on my welcome mat.
“Suspicious,” he comments.
“Yeah,” I agree.
He picks up the gift bag like it could explode any second and brings it to my kitchen. Dropping it on the counter, he digs through the bag, pulling out can after can of a hard seltzer brand I don’t recognize.
“Is this a creepy way to ask me to be a brand sponsor?” I wonder, though I am somewhat thrilled by the prospect.
Kit grumbles unintelligibly. His fingers trace the bottom of the bag, where he finds a card. He tears open the envelope then reads what it says aloud. “‘Thought you would like these. They’re like heaven in a can. Hope you’re doing okay and soaking up some necessary alone time. Matthias.’” Kit clicks his tongue. “Nice guy.”
“He is. Is that all the note says?”
“Uh, after his signature… I don’t know what it means. S1E4.”
“Season one, episode four,” I say without thinking.
“Of what?”
Lore Hunters, I think excitedly. The exorcism episode, it has to be. Aloud, I lie, “Buffy. We have an inside joke about the praying mantis lady. It’s hard to explain.”
“Oh. All right.”
Kit drops the note and heads to the bathroom to start getting ready.
While he does, I ponder the rest of Matthias’s note. The seltzer is “heaven in a can.” Could it be holy water? How did he get holy water into a seltzer can? I suppose magic could logically be the answer to that, if he is as skilled as he implied. The rest of the note means he hopes I’m not possessed anymore—he knows if I wasn’t, I would reach out.
Now I have holy water and an exorcism prayer at my disposal. I just need to find a time to use them.
twenty-four
. . .
Two Years Ago
I satin a coffee shop editing a video of an investigation at an abandoned mini golf course that I was going to post to YouTube. I was adjusting the sound where my steps made too much noise in the crunchy leaves that littered the green turf. The footage showed me taking a tour of the grounds, occasionally featuring my EMF (Electromagnetic Field) detector. Ghosts were known to be able to manipulate and create electromagnetic fields, causing spikes where there shouldn’t be. The lights blinked steadily as I walked around the alligator course, the plane course, the cave, and the hippo with its massive mouth, tongue stained brown by years in the outdoors.
In the video, I moved on, settling myself on the ground before a broken windmill missing multiple blades on its fan. I chewed my nail as I remembered the sudden heavy weight on my chest during this moment, as though someone was pushinginto me. The ghost was using that to communicate how they died—a heart attack.
I replayed a scene, watching myself as I snatched my flashlight from the ground after conversing with the spirit. Just as I started to stand, the fan of the rundown windmill fell off, crashing to the ground and shattering into large wooden shards. I fell back on my ass in shock, letting out a surprised shriek. That was anawesomemoment.
I paused the video, noticing something behind the windmill. When I zoomed in, I could see a shadow, arguably belonging to a spirit, but there was an uncanny effect created by the trees behind it, I guessed, because the shadow looked like it had spikes on the back of its head.Weird.
I wore noise-cancelling headphones, so it took a moment to realize someone was speaking to me.
The man was tall with tan skin and deep-brown eyes. He gazed down at me, cup of coffee in hand.
“Hi,” he said. “Sorry—I hate when people try to talk to me when I’m wearing headphones, but I couldn’t resist.”
I wanted to say, “Well, you should have tried harder,” but chose not to. “What’s up?” I asked, tone flat.
