Hell's Vengeance: Hell's Vengeance Series Book 3

193 pages

Chapter 2: Beckoning

There was a breeze blowing through the garden, and in most other places, it would have been a nice day. No birds sang in the trees here, of course, and despite the sunshine, there was a gray pallor over the yard. The air had a habitual chill around the house on Berkely Street.

Shane Ryan was seated on the steps, looking out at nothing in particular. A half-empty cup of tepid coffee sat next to him, and the cigarette between his fingers burned slowly.

“You are becoming pensive in your old age, my young friend,” Carl said to him in German. The ghost sat next to him, his eyes directed out at the world as well.

Shane smiled slightly at the curious paradox in the ghost’s phrasing. “Isn’t this what people do? They sit and look at the world and think?”

“Do they? I only know you, and you rarely do this.”

“Must have read it somewhere,” Shane replied, taking a drag on the cigarette. Smoke swirled around him as he exhaled, and then vanished, his own tobacco-born spirit destroyed in moments.

“Spirits don’t do it much either.”

“Except you.”

“In this instance, yes,” Carl agreed. “Because I sense something different in you. You have been home, for too long.”

“I went out for cigarettes yesterday,” Shane countered.

“Being obtuse does not become you.”

“I think I take to it well,” Shane argued.

It was true, though. He had been home for quite some time now with little to do. The few people in his life that he considered friends had been busy of late. The problems that had a way of falling into his lap had not fallen for a while. It gave him more time to himself than usual. There was just not much going on in his world. He should have appreciated that. That was another thing normal people did. They enjoyed calm, non-dangerous lives.

He took another drag on his cigarette just as the phone in his pocket rang. He glanced at Carl who returned the look.

“Have we manifested something to occupy your time?” the spirit asked.

“We don’t manifest.” Shane rolled his eyes as he fished his phone out of his pocket.

“I believe I do.” Carl shrugged.

Shane read Jacinta’s name on his phone screen and pressed the answer button.

“Shane, how are you?” Jacinta said as he pressed the phone to his ear.

“Smoking,” he replied.

She laughed. “Of course. Sorry for calling so early, but I’ve got something here that seems a little weird.”

“Weird how?” The last time he had been with her on something weird, they were taking on the ghost of a serial killer.

“I’m working a suicide case at a halfway house. Thing is, I don’t think it was a suicide.”

“Okay.”

“I knew the vic. Informant of mine. Not a model citizen, sure, but not the scum of the earth, either. Suicide was not in his character, though.”

“Are you saying he was murdered?”

“Yeah, maybe. What’s bothering me more is… well, there have been a string of suicides in the area. A couple in the halfway house, and more in the immediate surroundings. Too many in such a short time. Things are starting to look off. And the halfway house is in a familiar location—it’s right by the meatpacking plant.”

Shane took another drag on his cigarette. “Hawthorn’s meatpacking plant?”

“That’s the one,” she confirmed.

Wyatt Hawthorn had been a member of the Ontario Provincial Police in Canada. He’d also been a prolific serial killer for years. After being killed by the ghost of one of his victims, his spirit took over the body of a man named Chris Jessop. Jessop then headed to Detroit to continue his work, owing in part to an obsession he had developed with Jacinta. Shane had destroyed Hawthorn in the meatpacking plant, but that had been months ago. According to Jacinta, the plant had even been demolished, with a new structure being built in its place already close to completion. It had been that long ago. And with Hawthorn having been twice removed from the world of the living, there was no way he could return.

“You don’t think it’s Hawthorn, do you?” Shane asked.

“No, not him. But if I got a bunch of people offing themselves in the same place where a ghost had done horrible things, it’s just making my alarms go off.”

“Understandable,” Shane agreed. If she hadn’t known the victim, then maybe he’d be less inclined to think something was up. A ghost did have the ability to make a possessed person hurt themselves. But with Hawthorn gone, their list of suspects was at zero. “So, what are you thinking?”

“Maybe it has nothing to do with Hawthorn at all, but something here doesn’t add up. And the timing is just too much of a coincidence. You’ll never guess what I found when I looked into it.”

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