A Gift of Grace Read online

  Joe winced, a look of remembered pain on his face, and Nadira grimaced as she nodded.

  “I won’t go that far.” Misam straightened, no longer pushing against the air. “It hurts.”

  “Yeah, it does,” Dillon agreed. “But it doesn’t do any damage. And the more you do it, the farther you can go.”

  “In the car where you died?” Joe ducked to avoid one of the floating white lights. “Does that mean you didn’t die here?”

  Dillon shook his head. He pointed over his shoulder to his mom, still standing across from Noah. “I’m hanging out with my mom.”

  “Hanging out?” Nadira’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Is that American for haunting?”

  Dillon scuffed a foot along the floor. “That makes it sound bad.”

  Joe snorted. “It’s not pretty.” He glanced down the hallway in the direction of his friend. “I hate what we’re doing to Noah.”

  “What we’re doing to him?” Nadira said. “What about what he’s done to us?”

  “He didn’t…” Joe began.

  “No fighting,” Misam commanded, raising a small finger in the air.

  Nadira wagged hers at him. “No scolding.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, pursing his lips. She reached out as if to tickle his stomach and he immediately started to giggle.

  “Seriously, though.” Joe stepped away from the two of them, closer to Dillon. “If you were trapped, how did you get free? Is it something we can do? Because this—” He waved his hand around at the ghosts in the hallway again. “—isn’t doing Noah any good.”

  Nadira stopped trying to tickle Misam. “As if it’s a party for us, being dragged around the world! Misam and I should be in our graves, waiting for the judgement day, and if not there, we should at least be back in Iraq.”

  “Come on, Nadira, don’t start that again,” Joe said.

  “I like traveling, Mama.” Misam slipped his hand into hers again. “It’s fun to go to new places.”

  She sniffed with displeasure, but her lips curved as she looked down on him.

  “You know we’re hurting Noah,” Joe continued. “He’s changed.”

  “I…” Nadira tipped her head from side to side, as if trying to decide whether to nod it in agreement or shake it in refusal, and then conceded the point. “Yes. Yes, he’s different.”

  “Back in the day, he was always smiling.” Joe’s expression was sad as he looked at Noah. “The kind of guy you just wanted to be around, you know? Not a joker, but just… easy. He was real easy. And now, every time another one of us shows up, it’s like it pushes him down a little more, a little deeper.”

  “Does he know we’re here?” Dillon asked, surprised. Noah hadn’t looked at him or shown any sign of hearing them when they’d been talking.

  “No,” Nadira said firmly.

  “Yes,” Joe said equally firmly.

  “Maybe,” Misam said, with another eye roll.

  “It’s hard to say for sure.” Two living people, their heads bent together, walked through Joe, talking earnestly. He paused and waited until their conversation moved away, then said, “He can feel us. It gets cold around him. And sometimes it seems like he can hear what we say.”

  “Sometimes?” Nadira scoffed. “Hardly ever.”

  “I think he’s listening sometimes,” Joe said, his chin set stubbornly.

  “Pfft. You imagine things.”

  “I don’t imagine that he’s always cold.” Joe’s voice began to grow heated.

  “There are some people who can sense when we’re around,” Dillon offered. He’d never met one, at least not that he knew of, but Akira had told him about sensitives, people who got vague impressions when ghosts talked to them. Maybe Noah was one of them. “We can influence them, even though they don’t know that we’re here.”

  “It might not be us, anyway,” Nadira said. “He might have that thing. What do they call it? The soldier disease. PT something or other.”

  “I think he is possessed by a jinn.” Misam bounced on his toes. “It is in his blood, taking him over.”

  “That is rude, Misam.” Nadira’s scolding was gentle, and any effectiveness was probably lost when she shrugged and added, “Although you might be correct.”

  “Noah is not possessed,” Joe said. “But I think we’re bad for him. And whatever’s causing him to collect all these other ghosts isn’t helping. If there’s a way to get away from him, we should do it.”

  “It’s not so easy,” Dillon warned.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” Joe said.

  Nadira’s mouth twisted. She put a hand on Misam’s head, stroking his dark hair. He leaned into her touch. “If it is a jinn, there is nothing we can do without an exorcist.”

  “It is not a jinn.” Joe’s voice held a snap.

  “You promised, Joe.” Misam put up a small finger in warning.

  Joe folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not arguing. I’m just… disagreeing.”

  Dillon stuck his hands in his back pockets and rocked back on his heels, considering the three ghosts before him. He knew of two ways to break the tether holding a ghost to a place. He supposed they’d both work for a tether holding a ghost to a person, too.

  But the first method was too dangerous. He’d been ripped free from his car by a vortex ghost, a spirit trapped between the planes of existence. His friend Akira had saved him by sacrificing herself, but if it hadn’t been for her, Dillon would have wound up lost in a chaotic sea of nightmarish energy. With no way to escape, he would eventually have been ripped apart, his energy dissolving into nothingness.

  It wasn’t a risk worth taking. Vortex ghosts were best avoided.

  The second method might work, though.

  “Have you met any ghosts with a doorway?” he asked.

  “A doorway?” Joe raised an eyebrow.

  “Not the physical kind. But a passageway, like an opening in the air.”

  Joe looked skeptical. “I’ve seen a lot of ghosts, but I’ve never seen a door.”

  “Yeah, me neither.” Dillon made a face. “We need my friend Rose. She can see them.”

  “Where is she?” Joe asked.

  “Back home,” Dillon replied. “In Florida.”

  Joe snorted. “Might as well be the moon. Noah’s not going to Florida anytime soon.”

  “Then we’re just going to have to change that,” Dillon said.

  Nadira frowned. “And how do you plan to do that?”

  Dillon grinned. “I guess I’ll start by calling my mom.”

  2

  Noah

  Silence.

  Beautiful, peaceful, glorious, golden silence.

  It wasn’t truly silent, of course, not even close. Noah was sitting in a crowded hallway, men on either side of him, people walking past, footsteps echoing off tiled floors, snippets of conversation floating by. But at least the damn crying had stopped.

  His shoulders relaxed and he unzipped his jacket. He’d been burrowed into it, shivering, but it seemed to have gotten warmer. He couldn’t get used to how cold it was in the States. Back in Iraq, the guys used to joke that he had built-in AC, but that trait wasn’t nearly so handy during Washington’s chill gray winter.

  “Guardian angels, God will lend thee…”

  Noah didn’t react. The song was a hallucination, just another one of the voices only he could hear. But he would have liked to grimace. He really hated the singing. Maybe not as much as the crying, but it was close. Fortunately, it drifted away, drowned out by all the other noise.

  He let his head rest against the wall behind him, closing his eyes. This business with the grand jury was total bullshit. In the nine months he’d worked for AlecCorp, he hadn’t seen or done anything, illegal or otherwise. Most of his time had been spent in training exercises or sitting around an office in Virginia, waiting for an assignment. His testimony was worth five minutes, if that. Meanwhile he’d been waiting for hours. And not with pay.

  He needed to sta
rt looking for another job. It was a depressing thought.

  Maybe he should go home for a while. Visit his family.

  That thought was even more depressing.

  “Carly? Where are you, Carly?”

  “It’s not right, it’s not right.”

  “Slow down, Tom. You’re driving too fast.”

  His hallucinations were getting worse. When they started, a decade ago, there had just been three of them: Joe, the little boy, and the Arabic woman. Sometimes other voices came and went, but not so often that it was a problem. Lately, though, the voices started and stayed, more and more of them.

  Most of the time, the new ones said the same things, over and over again. It was meaningless, just the static of his subconscious. But there were so many of them. Could he even filter out real voices from the ones his brain conjured up anymore? The clean freak, the crying girl, the singing lady, the angry man, the lost woman, the worrier, the fake Chinese guy… none of them were real.

  But what about the husky contralto saying, “Seriously?”

  Was she real?

  Noah cracked open his eyelids, peering through his lashes. Across the hallway, a redhead stared at her cell phone as if reading a text. He couldn’t see the headset she wore but she spoke as if she had a voice connection.

  “Good that you’re making friends, I guess?”

  Noah watched her, his eyes intent on her lips, matching the movements to the murmured words.

  “A model? Okay, yeah. I see him.”

  She caught his gaze. He dropped his lids hastily. Yeah, that voice was real.

  “Holy shit. That is so cool.” Joe. Not real.

  “I want to do that, too. I want to talk to her.” The little boy. Not real. But he sounded excited, bouncy, like he was jumping around the hallway.

  Noah’s mouth twitched, a faint smile curving his lips. The little boy was his favorite of his hallucinations. A psychiatrist would probably say the boy represented his inner child. If so, Noah’s inner child had a good sense of humor and a great attitude.

  “Allah be praised.” The Arabic woman’s voice. Not real.

  If the boy represented his inner child, maybe the woman represented his inner mom. Noah didn’t know why his subconscious would make his mom Arabic, though. He’d love to ask a shrink, although not if it meant admitting to his hallucinations. No way was he ever doing that. They’d lock him up and throw away the key.

  “Tell her to be careful.” Joe’s voice. Not real. “He knows some of the guys here. She shouldn’t say anything that might get him in trouble. Nothing that sounds crazy.”

  Joe would be the protector, of course. Ironic, since Noah had so singularly failed to protect Joe. But Noah veered away from that thought just as he had for the past decade.

  He straightened, opening his eyes, glancing up and down the corridor, keeping the motion subtle. His fingers itched for the security of a weapon. Not that he was in danger here, of course. But every once in a while, the voices were worth listening to. What kind of trouble had his subconscious spotted?

  “We could talk to people, mama,” the boy said, still exuberant.

  “American people,” the Arabic woman answered. “You’d have to write in English, Misam. Besides, who do you want to talk to, anyway?”

  Noah relaxed. Not this time. They were nonsense words, a nonsense conversation spewed by his overactive brain. No meaning, and definitely not his subconscious alerting his conscious mind to danger he hadn’t recognized.

  “How are you doing that?” Joe again.

  “It took a lot of practice,” a teenage boy’s voice said. “I broke a lot of phones.”

  Noah let his eyes drift over the crowd of people in the hallway, nodding at a former co-worker he recognized. No teenage boys.

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. Another new one. Damn.

  He leaned forward, resting his palms on his knees and stared at the floor, trying to shut out the cacophony in his ears. But once they started, they just kept going.

  The same damn song, over and over again.

  The crying.

  “It’s not right. It’s not right.” The angry man.

  Again and again and again.

  Stress, that’s what it was. AlecCorp had been a lousy job for him. He wasn’t cut out to be a military contractor. Not that he’d done much, but the waiting around got to him. Now that he was unemployed again, the voices would quiet down.

  Yeah, because being unemployed was so relaxing.

  But even the fast food joints seemed reluctant to hire someone with only military experience. Apparently being able to hump eighty pounds and field strip an M4 assault rifle in your sleep weren’t skills prized by the average American employer. Who knew?

  “Excuse me.”

  Noah started, sitting up.

  The redhead stood in front of him, a business card in her outstretched hand.

  “Yes?” His voice was wary. Did he know her? She looked vaguely familiar, as if he might have seen her before, in the distance or in some other context, but he couldn’t put a name to her face. She had the pale, almost translucent skin of a natural redhead, with minimal makeup and her hair drawn back. She wore a suit, with a loose-fitting jacket and skirt, but the clinging t-shirt underneath it coupled with the control in her movements suggested she was athletic, definitely physically fit.

  She smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I understand you have a problem.”

  Noah raised a brow. “Yeah?”

  He had several problems that he knew about. Being stuck in this hallway was one. Being unemployed was another. But there was something about her expression, the sympathy in her gray eyes, that sent a tremor of unease down Noah’s spine. What did she know?

  “It’s a problem I’m familiar with.” The words were even, but her smile was rueful.

  What was she talking about? Noah’s voice felt stiff as he said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Mmm.” She nodded acknowledgement and the sympathy in her eyes deepened. Lowering her voice, she stepped closer to him. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  Before he could respond, the door to the grand jury room opened. The redhead glanced over her shoulder and Noah straightened, as heads turned and conversations dropped off. All eyes were on the door as a witness exited, relief written on his face, and the door closed again.

  The energy in the hall stayed heightened. Lawyers muttered last-minute instructions to their clients and witnesses fidgeted, tugging at suit sleeves and straightening ties.

  The redhead turned back, pressing the card upon him. Noah took it, gaze skimming over it.

  General Directions, Inc.

  Tassamara, FL

  555-347-9779

  [email protected]

  He flipped it over. No name, no scrawled message. “What is this?”

  “You’ll have to go there in person.”

  Before he could ask more questions, the door to the grand jury room opened again. A woman checked a clipboard and called out, “Sylvie Blair?”

  The redhead glanced over her shoulder. “My turn, I guess.”

  Sylvie Blair? Noah had heard that name before.

  The redhead turned back to him. “Ask for Akira.”

  “Akira?” Noah recognized that name, too, but only from the animé. Were real people actually named Akira? He scowled.

  The redhead frowned back at him, worried lines appearing between her brows. “Say that Dillon sent you. He wants to help.”

  “Sylvie Blair?” The woman called out again, louder, her voice impatient.

  “Help how?” Noah asked.

  The redhead opened her mouth, glanced around, then let out her breath in a controlled sigh. “Not here. I can’t explain like this and I don’t have the time. But go to Tassamara. You won’t regret it.”

  Turning away from him, she muttered, “Best I can do,” almost as if the words weren’t directed at him. He watched her go, still frowning, as she crossed to the grand jury
room and introduced herself to the woman with the clipboard.

  “Sleep my dear…”

  “Oh, my, this floor. Carbolic soap, that’s what I need.”

  “You’re driving too fast. Slow down…”

  “Who’s Akira?”

  “Ama hina kaychu.”

  His voices were babbling again, talking one over another. He could even hear the mellifluous mystery language that was his subconscious pretending to speak Chinese. Noah didn’t understand Chinese, but he recognized it well enough to know his hallucination was doing it wrong.

  “Fraternizing with the enemy?” The question sounded disgruntled.

  Noah almost ignored it before realizing it came from the man sitting on the bench next to him. “What?”

  The guy nodded toward the doorway. “That’s her. The one who killed Chesney.”

  Noah glanced back but the redhead had already disappeared into the grand jury room. His brows rose. She hadn’t looked like a killer.

  He looked down at the card in his hand again. General Directions. So many rumors had been flying around in the wake of AlecCorp’s implosion. What had he heard about General Directions? But the story, whatever it was, didn’t come back to him.

  “You know this place?” He showed his neighbor the card.

  The guy grunted. “Sounds like some New Age crap.”

  The guy on the other side of him craned his neck forward. Noah tilted the card in his direction.

  “Think tank,” the guy said. “Consultants. And research.”

  Noah could almost see the invisible quotation marks around the word ‘research.’ “What sort of research?”

  “Spook stuff.” The guy leaned back again, falling silent.

  Noah considered the card. Spook stuff, huh? He should throw it away. But there was no trash can nearby, so he slipped the card into his pocket. He didn’t know what Sylvie Blair wanted from him, but one AlecCorp was enough for a lifetime. No way was he going to Tassamara.

  A month later

  The voices were driving him crazy.