Night Terror

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Dane didn’t bother pouring himself a drink. He grabbed a bottle at random from his shelf in the Lair, opened it, and took a swig, enjoying the burn. Vodka. It worked. He pulled the crumpled napkin out of his pocket, tossed it on his table, and sat hard in the one chair.

“f**k,” he muttered to himself, and had another drink.

He should’ve left Sean the f**k alone. But Dane had wanted to see the extent of what the Order had done to him—he’d never met anyone he’d been this close to after a mind wipe. And he hated himself for it. All of it. He felt sick. Sean hadn’t remembered him at all.

“Problem?” asked a familiar voice. Dane didn’t look up as the ghost drifted in. Ned was a hundred, maybe two hundred years dead, and dressed generally in that sort of outdated style. He was a transgender ghost who tended to give Dane a heads-up on s**t he needed to take care of, and Dane didn’t mention him to the Order so they wouldn’t get meddlesome.

Getting meddlesome led to unpleasant things. Like mind wipes in the living. In the dead, it could mean anything from registration and monitoring to being sent on. Dane and Ned both liked their arrangement as was. But right now, Dane didn’t want Ned messing with him. He turned in his chair, had another drink.

“I see you’re looking better.”

Ned untied his bow tie, examined it, and began knotting it back up again.

“Yes, well, I had a good long rest. The things I do for you. Eliza could have killed me.”

“You’re already dead.”

“That’s what makes it so terrifying.” Tie finished, Ned leaned back in the air. Must be nice to not have to deal with s**t like gravity and matter on this plane. Or however it was ghosts worked. Dane had never bothered to learn. “What’s your problem?”

“You’re not bringing me one, Ned?”

“You first.”

Dane had another drink, but relented. He’d have to mention to Ned an Order representative had dropped by, anyway. The ghost should probably f**k off for a week or two unless there was something really important going on.

“Order showed up,” he said. “Questioned me. Think what I did to that witch was overkill.”

“He was incensed with you when I bumped into him. I haven’t noticed him around, though, so maybe he has some other mission than coming after you.”

“How long have you been back?”

Ned feigned looking at a wristwatch.

“Not quite two days. I’d guess. Time isn’t the same for me.”

“What is?” Dane had a drink. “No, don’t answer that.”

“Is Sean around?”

“No,” said Dane, so sharply Ned raised an eyebrow at him. The damn ghost knew.

“You fight again, or something worse?”

“Why the hell do you care?” asked Dane. He got up and started pacing. “f**k it. Yeah, they came for him. They wiped his brain. They got to Sean. Satisfied, fucker?”

Ned stopped floating to place his feet on the ground. Sometimes he could be solid, solid enough to touch, even, but now he seemed to be acting serious. Dane glared to the side, had another drink. He knew he should quit. He was going through it too fast and it wasn’t as though he bought the stuff that wasn’t strong. But f**k him, he had just run into Sean, and he was interested, and Dane had turned him down.

He’d friggin’ turned Sean down. All these months together, knowing in the back of his head that this could happen, bringing it up to Sean even, there was the idea that they could keep going regardless. Dane had even counted on a mind wipe at first—spending all night with Sean, the morning, too, since he assumed that would all be erased and he could have back his old life of cutting out in the middle of the night after s*x. But back there, up in Crypt Coffee, when Sean had tried to initiate, Dane found he couldn’t do it.

It felt wrong. He couldn’t start again with Sean. And he was angry and miserable about it.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Ned after several minutes. Probably done waiting for Dane to continue. “I liked him. Were you there for it?”

“No. And you can’t go hanging around with him any more. He doesn’t remember you.”

“He doesn’t remember you either,” said Ned.

The words were gentle, but they made such a rage flare up in Dane, he turned and threw the bottle at the ghost. He half expected to hit Ned, but the bottle passed through him and shattered against one of his walls of weapons. The worst part of it was Ned didn’t even look angry with him for it. Dane flung himself back into the chair.

“That was good vodka.”

Ned ignored him, drifted closer. Not too close. Dane wondered briefly how easily he could hurt the ghost through physical force. Most of what he knew about combating ghosts had to do with sending them on, the goal being permanent removal, not a brawl.

“I didn’t realize you liked him that much,” said Ned. “You could start over. I suspect Sean would be open to it, knowing him.”

“I can’t just start over, asshole. I remember and he doesn’t? It doesn’t feel right.”

“I thought you’d find that kinky.”

“It doesn’t feel right,” said Dane again. He leaned forward, put his head in his hands, elbows on knees. The vodka hadn’t helped settle his stomach enough. “He’s gone. And even if we could, hell, the Order would just be back here to wipe his mind again. They’ll find out. I’ll have to deal with this all over again.”

“If you wanted, I could pretend I’d never met him before,” said Ned, although the look on his face made him seem mildly appalled to offer it.

Dane shut his eyes.

“What, again and again, every time he gets his mind wiped?”

“If that’s how you want to handle it. You could ask him what he wants this time around.”

Dane didn’t like the idea of going through first times again and again with Sean, breaking him in to what Dane did when not running Crypt Coffee. He could try to keep it a secret, but Sean was too smart for that. He’d either break up with Dane or, more likely, figure it out, like he had last time. No, this didn’t fix the main problem.

“And we have to see him go through this again and again. Order mind wipes aren’t painless, Ned, and I know s**t about long-term effects.” Dane clamped his mouth shut to keep himself from going on. He hated himself for allowing this to happen. He didn’t know why he hadn’t tried harder to do something about it.

“You could beat yourself up for it or you could let me tell you the reason I showed up,” said Ned.

Dane was ready to take the out. He unfolded himself and looked up.

“What is it?” He really hoped it was something to kill.

“Not sure specifically. But there’s definitely something happening that could use your talents. Outside of town, farms have been losing cattle.”

Dane scowled and reached for a new bottle. Whiskey, something he liked too much to throw, even if he got pissed with Ned again.

“I don’t give a f**k about cows, Ned. You got a monster sighting or some s**t? I have an urge to kill something that needs a good frickin’ killing.”

“It could very well be a monster. This is why I’m telling you—the situation is unusual. Something’s been picking off cows and eating them, something that’s also ripped apart dogs left out to scare it off. It’s dangerous enough that even my fellow ghostly acquaintances are avoiding the area for now. And you know when they do that it’s often something for your capabilities.” Ned paused. “If you’re going to stay sober enough to drive yourself out there.”

“I’ll deal with it in the morning,” said Dane. It was Friday, and he wanted to be miserable. Maybe he’d go home early, let his baristas close up, and drink himself to sleep. Maybe he would delete Sean’s number. “Where is this happening?”

“Out past the west side of Bleu Falls, mostly to the north of the tree farm and nursery. I’d guess it’s a monster of some kind. Anything you’ve dealt with before?”

“No idea. There weren’t many cows where I was last at. There’s about a billion monsters that’ll eat raw burger, so it could be anything. Probably something vicious, if it takes out dogs, too, no problem. Even monsters aren’t inclined to start a fight they think they’ll get too damaged in.”

A bit of a mystery, a bit of a problem. Good. Dane needed a simple cryptid kill to help him get over everything. This should reboot him. He’d been hoping for a real monster kill since he got to Bleu Falls, and this one seemed like a challenge. It was always more interesting when he might get hurt.

Getting hurt on the job reminded him he still wasn’t done being sore from the s**t he and Sean went through on the island. And thinking about that made him disappointed he couldn’t drag Sean into this. The professor liked a good mystery, and had proven himself a fast and creative enough thinker on his feet to be a definite asset. He’d have been a good person to have around.

“Stop that,” said Ned. “You’re thinking about him.”

“Thinking about how he’d do all my research for me,” said Dane.

Ned breathed out hard in amusement.

“I believe that.”

“I don’t need your frickin’ sarcasm,” said Dane, glaring at him. “We weren’t serious to begin with. I’ll get over it being an unnatural ending. So I miss out on telling him off in our final fight. We weren’t going to settle down together or any s**t like that.”

“You don’t have to sell it to me,” said Ned. “I was here to talk about cows.”

Dane motioned sharply with a hand.

“Great. Message delivered. Why don’t you go?” When the ghost hesitated, Dane drank aggressively at him. “Ned.”

“You’re not acting stable, even for you.”

“So what, you’re going to mother me?” asked Dane, and Ned winced. s**t. Bad term to use around him. “Spy on me. You care if I drink myself to death?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Dane—you’re one of the few friends I have. I won’t say that makes you a good one.”

“Yeah, well, same to you,” said Dane. He put the bottle to his lips again, pulled it away without drinking. “You know this means you ought to stay low for a while. The Order agent—some asshole calling himself Simmonds—is going to be in Bleu Falls for a while, tying up the loose ends. He might come back here and question me again. I never mentioned you. Figured you didn’t want to be listed or sent on.”

Dane thought Ned would appreciate the heads-up, but instead the ghost flared a little. Dane was only pissing him off more. Today had given him more proof he was s**t at interacting with even people he tried to have a simple relationship with.

“I’ve been around longer than you can comprehend and you think I can’t be discreet? You act like your meager ten years in the Order means you’re well trained—consider how little time that is to me.”

“Oh, f**k off, Ned,” said Dane. He didn’t want to deal with this.

“I heard that the first time,” said Ned. He left Dane to work out what that meant in peace.