Genre: Urban Fantasy

Famous espers (psychics) Yuri and Cain are both hired to investigate a haunting at a mansion. Yuri works alone. Always has, always will. And most others are fakes anyway. Unfortunately, it’s not a ghost that they’re hunting, and Yuri finds she needs Cain’s help.

Part II – Part III

Competition. Yuri didn’t like competition. They lied, they cheated, they accused her of lying – and all of it was condoned in the paranormal television industry. It was encouraged. Nothing beats conflict, especially when cameras couldn’t capture most spiritual activity. She tapped her fingers on the table. Her current competition flicked his eyes towards her, meeting her eyes in a smoldering look.

Cain Beaumont. Twenty two years old, only one year younger than she was, he had been appearing on American TV for a year and had the fan girls to show for it. More than his fair share. Watching subbed versions of his show was a new trend in Japan. Her agent had gushed about the man – how beautiful he was, how stoic, how she wanted to rub her hands all through his black hair. Was it as soft as it looked on TV? This would be the question she would be asked again and again after this was all over, as if she had spent the entire time ravaging his locks. This, just from her agent. She didn’t want to imagine the overwhelming interest from the rest of the female population. Although, up close, his locks looked wonderfully soft and silky.

Bad thoughts. He wasn’t that beautiful, she tried to tell herself. Good looking, maybe. Really an esper? Well, that apparently didn’t matter.

But his eyes… his eyes could be beautiful. Midnight blue, dark and intense, surrounded by dark lashes. He was staring back at her again, meeting her eyes directly. A shiver caressed her spine. His eyes drew you in, forced you to look into his eyes, trapped you there.

Trapped forever, happily trapped.

“Ms. Hizeme?”

Fingers stroked her hand. She snatched it up to herself. Her competition stared at her, as did the other man at the table, the owner of the mansion they were in. Nathaniel Artois, who preferred to be called by his given name, looked the complete opposite of Cain with long red hair tied back so that his gold-kissed face was fully visible.

“Ano… sorry, what?” she asked.

Nathaniel looked at her more gently. His hand was still extended from touching her hand. “What would you say is the cause of the haunting?”

“From what I’ve heard so far, it’s not a haunting,” she replied, cringing inside. She couldn’t remember half of what Nathaniel had said so far. Too busy staring into Little Mr. Beautiful’s eyes. Yuri glared in Cain’s direction before turning back. She was a professional, damn it, and he had tricked her into looking foolish. Cain looked back unrepentant. With those alluring eyes…

Not again. She mentally slapped herself. She wasn’t some fan girl!

Two weeks ago, Nathaniel had contacted her agent, offering a very nice sum of money to come look at his mansion sans camera crew. The redheaded man had recently inherited the mansion after his father died in the hospital. Soon after that, Nathaniel started hearing noises, seeing shadows, and feeling like he was being watched. Trades people came through the house to see if the causes were caused by malfunctions, but they couldn’t find anything wrong. So he decided to hire a number of espers, people who could see ghosts and other spirits, to find the cause. The first three espers had come earlier that week, but they hadn’t found anything before two of them were injured and the other had died in a small fire. That’s when he decided to contact her, and apparently Cain. They were both notorious in their ability to see spirits, and Nathaniel was desperate enough to pay for them to fly around the world to do it.

That’s the information she had been told before coming here. If Nathaniel had been trying to tell her something new, she hadn’t heard. But still, even if she had been paying full attention, she shouldn’t make an educated guess. “I do not want to make assumptions before viewing the place, but most likely your haunting has been caused by negative energy gathering, most likely from a life-long grudge.”

“It’s a ghost,” Cain stated. She resisted rolling her eyes. “There’s obviously a poltergeist.”

“Why?” she demanded, slapping her previously stroked hand on the table. “How can you make that assumption before even seeing the place. Because it’s more dramatic? Because it’ll get you more fame? Because that’s all that exists in your tight little world of yours? Are you a complete idiot?”

She took in a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She couldn’t believe she had reacted so ferociously while on the job. Off the job, sure, even in the middle of the job, she didn’t mind taking a strip out of his skin, but at the beginning of the job? She could be kicked out before she could even prove her ability.

“Because it’s true,” he said, shrugging.

Of all the – “Why the hell would you think that?” she snapped, before realizing that she had lost it again. “Oh, I know why. Even a six year old would know to say ghosts when pretending to be an esper.”

Cain narrowed his eyes. “You can’t prove something like an emotional shadow. You can’t even prove a specific event caused it, and it’s practically impossible to find a house that hasn’t had at least one disagreement in it. You’re the pretender.”

That little – how dare he – She had been an esper ever since she had been born! She was descended from a long line of miko, Shinto priestesses, who could see spirits, a line stretching over a thousand years! She had years of credibility to her psychic ability! Her reputation was perfect. And yet this stupid American upstart! “Right, because obviously you can either see ghosts or you can’t, and you couldn’t ever possibly feel negative energy!”

“Problems of this scope couldn’t possibly be caused by –”

“You rank amateur!” she interrupted. “If only you spent as much time researching spirits as you did studying my breasts!”

Cain’s eyes flew wide. “I wasn’t – I didn’t,” he tried to protest.

She had thrown him, finally. Victory. But she really didn’t know what she thought when she realized that it was true. The smug smile faded from her lips.

Nathaniel spoke up, startling her. Cain looked a little surprised too, so apparently she wasn’t the only one who had forgotten that their client was still in the room. “Perhaps the two of you would like to walk over the house?” He still had that tender, nothing-ever-upsets-him look.

“Yes, I would like that,” she said, standing up, pointedly not looking at Cain, even though he sat across from her at the suddenly small table.

“I’ll escort you,” Nathaniel said, standing up as well. Cain didn’t move for a long moment, but joined the two of them above the table.

“I would rather view the house by myself,” she explained. “I always view the house alone.”

“With a whole camera crew,” Cain muttered, but she ignored him.

“Ms. Hizeme, with all due respect, people have died in this place just a few days ago while doing the same thing that you are doing,” Nathaniel said. “It would be best if we went together.”

“Being together didn’t stop them from getting injured,” she replied.

“But better safe than sorry,” he said, smiling mildly.

“You wouldn’t want to wind up dead over stupidity, would you?” Cain asked, recovering his own smug appearance.

Great. Her great escape from the blue-eyed phony had been ruined.

 

Both of them were wrong. Well, she was only half wrong, because she had reserved judgement for after the tour. Still, an hour later, they had not hunted up a shadow or a ghost. Not even from the fire, which she put in the definitely odd file.

“This is the left wing of the house,” Nathaniel introduced as he held the door open for them. “There isn’t a lot of activity in this part of the house, though. Not usually.”

Scraping the bottom of the barrel with zero clues.

“So much for the amazing esper Cain,” she said, supposedly to herself, and that’s what she’d say even if questioned.

“Medium Cain,” he said, shooting a glare with those eyes – and oh boy, let’s not go back there.

“Right, because that really matters rather than whether you do not know what you are talking about,” she said, throwing up her hands.

“Ghosts are shy around new people,” he defended silkily. “It could take days until it’ll appear before us.”

“You can also win the lottery if you wait long enough,” she shot back. “Hey, maybe we will be bored to death, and then maybe you would be right.” Although, annoying rival aside, a long investigation suited her needs just fine. She didn’t have another job for three weeks, and if she finished this job early… She didn’t want to go back home. Home was suffocating. A long forgotten shrine, forgotten even by its deity Seiryu, miles from any town or even farms.

“Now, now, you two,” Nathaniel interrupted. She wondered whether it was interrupting her thoughts or her argument with the other esper. Yes, esper.

She took another glance around the hallway. It looked exactly like every other hallway in the place, albeit with different paintings and flowers. A dark reddish brown carpet, beige walls, white trims, and small hallway tables with vases of flowers underneath large hanging paintings. Everything the same, complete clones, even at the end of the hallway, which like the other main floor hallways featured a stained glass window with two vases of flowers. Except for…

She sped up, ignoring the calls of the other two. For a moment, she eyed the red variations of stained glass. But that wasn’t interesting. Turning on her heel, she stared at the wall to the left. An utterly plain wall without a door to match the opposite the wall, but existed solely as a great expanse of beige paint. This wall, from the end of the hall to the column jutting out of the wall, was important. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out why, no logical reason jumped into focus. Yet, still, in the whole of the luxurious yet desolate mansion, there was nothing as interesting as this piece of wall.

Delicate fingers brushed her hair, settling on her shoulder. She didn’t jerk but turned her head, willing to see some spirit. But no, it was Cain, his eyes burning like forgotten souls.

“Yuri?” It took her a moment to realize that he had used her first name. No one used her first name, not since her father had died. It felt vaguely… wicked.

“Ms. Hizeme?” Nathaniel asked, and she blinked. Not those thoughts again! She rotated herself to face him.

“Wall,” she said, simply. One word was all she was sure she could say in a normal voice.

The redhead quirked his eyebrow. “Wall?”

“This wall,” she said again. “Or rather, this part of the wall. Something… there is something interesting about this wall.”

“What’s behind there?” Cain asked. His hand still rested on her shoulder. She brushed it off.

“Nothing,” Nathaniel said, surprised. “The parlour ends just at this column here.” He motioned the column.

“Are you sure?” she asked, but then kicked herself. Of course he’d be sure. It was his house! Presumedly, he had grown up there. He would know the house better than anyone living.

“Very sure,” he said.

Cain moved closer to the wall, so that she had to turn to face him. He stretched his hand out, fingers delicately stroking the paint job. “Did you recently paint?” he asked abruptly.

Nathaniel asked, “What?”

Yuri stepped back, leaning against the small table. This way she could see both Nathaniel, Cain and Wall A at the same time without breaking her neck.

He shook his head. “It’s too clean,” he finally said.

“I have servants to tidy up,” Nathaniel said. If Yuri had said it, her disdain would have been very clear, but Nathaniel answered neutrally and pleasantly.

“There aren’t any impressions anywhere,” Cain clarified. “For a house that’s been lived in so long, there shouldn’t only be one impression in the entire house. It’s been cleaned recently.”

“No kidding,” she said. Nothing behind Wall A, ne? Her sense had never been wrong before. But then again, she had never been so annoyed by another esper on an assignment. The thought just made her even more annoyed.

“The other…” he glanced between the two of us, then diplomatically said, “psychics did an exorcism to get rid of a spirit right before the fire.”

“That would not have done it,” she said. If an exorcism had been successful, he would never have hired two additional and more expensive espers. An exorcism also wouldn’t be able to remove the myriad of imprints, most of which were in no way related to a ghost. “Only a cleansing ritual could accomplish it.”

She was further annoyed when Nathaniel looked to Cain for confirmation. The other man merely shrugged. “I haven’t encountered something that could.”

She laughed, more friendly than she would have thought. “From what I have seen, Western magics have not bothered with any of that. It does not matter when you think it can either be a ghost or a hoax.”

“So an Eastern spiritualist must have done something,” Cain said.

“Not necessarily…” She glanced between the two, and then at the wall. “If this was the case, then Nathaniel would have mentioned it, right?”

“I’ve told you all that I know,” the redhead replied, shrugging a little in an I’m-so-harmless way.

“It must be something else, then,” she said. “Some kind of purifying force or spirit–”

She stopped as she heard the sharp crack behind her. Dreading what she would see, she turned her head up to look above her. But before she could find out, it cracked even louder. She found herself hurled to the ground under a warm, crushing weight. Her body tingled where it touched her.

Dazed, she heard the tinkling sound of glass. Glass shards hitting the ground, glass shards striking each other. But she couldn’t hear glass hitting the wood table. The beautiful stained glass window had burst, not just broken like she had suspected. If she hadn’t been thrown to the ground, she would have ripped her up. Completely shredded.

And the warm crushing weight wasn’t an innocent crushing weight.

“Get off of me,” she demanded, struggling to push the body off of her.

“Do you always treat people who help you with such disdain?” Cain asked as he got to his knees.

“I do not need help,” she told him, crawling away from trying not to get crawl onto any glass, and if possible, kick Cain. The only safe spot seemed to be near the window and its wall, confirming her assumption that the window didn’t just break on its own. She slid against the wall. “And I certainly do not need protecting.”

“But if I hadn’t, you would be telling me off for that,” he said.

“But that’s your problem, not mine,” she told him.

He stared at her, his midnight blue eyes filled with astonishment. “You really would rather be torn apart by glass than be helped by me,” he said, his pinkish lip staggering an “o”.

“Now you understand,” she said. She really didn’t need anyone’s help. She had been on her own since high school, living alone in a dorm room even through summer break. By herself, she had figured out how to earn a living with her psychic abilities. She had stood up to older bullies calling themselves espers, intimidated by the strength of her gift. She contradicted her seniors. She stood tall by herself, if everyone called her a faker. She didn’t need some man she had known for only hours to rescue her, much less welcome it.

“I’m alright, too,” another voice broke in.

They both blinked . Yuri groaned to herself. They had once again forgotten about their client, their especially wealthy client who probably had never expected to be ignored. At least Nathaniel was so good natured as to not take it personally.

 

Cain discreetly eyed his rival medium across the table. She was currently too engrossed in her own thoughts, or picking through the collection of boiled greens on her dinner plate, to even notice. He had never met anyone so dedicated to not liking him. Right from the start, she had taken issue with him, before he had even said anything.

Or maybe it was nothing personal. She looked like the kind of women who repelled men with her iron cast glare. She was pretty enough, although her blue t-shirt and jeans didn’t greatly contribute to her looks. He had seen pictures of her wearing a soft blue kimono in a Japanese magazine, and in that she had looked beautiful. More feminine, more traditional, more elegant… and less ball breaking. In a kimono, she had class. She looked like you could approach her and not end up in the hospital.

But then again, she got along alright with Nathaniel.

She perked up an ear, as if trying to listen to something faraway. He strained at his own hearing, but all he could hear was the clink of silverware against china, the sounds of breathing and chewing, the general sounds of a house.

“Is there something wrong?” Nathaniel asked. Cain felt like glaring at him, but he had a level of professionalism and his trademark aloofness to maintain. Although right now, those two qualities seemed to be a very bad thing to maintain right now.

“Can you not hear that?” she asked. She looked straight at Cain, a dare in her eyes, but was quickly distracted by the sound again. If there was a sound. But, Cain grudgingly allowed, she did have talent. She wasn’t the faker he had accused her of being. If not, she never would have found that wall before he had found it. If he had found it. He had only realized there was something special about that wall as he inspected it. Passing by casually, he wasn’t sure that he would have caught it.

“What does it sound like?” he asked. Competition aside, it was childish to argue with her when she continued to prove herself.

“Singing,” she said, breathless, “singing.”

Cain felt a pull in his nether regions. He pushed the thought aside. “Like a person singing? A woman, or a man?”

“Nothing so mundane,” she said, turning her eyes back to him. “Like something… like something…” She stopped and laughed. “It sounds like a description I read once. But it’s completely ridiculous. It couldn’t possibly be, impossible…”

Her breathing came in harder and harder, until she was gasping. He tried to ignore her heaving bosoms. Eyes wide, staring at nothing on the table, she looked terrified.

“Yuri,” he said, reaching across the table, grabbing her hand. She ignored him, still breathing frantically. Nathaniel was halfway out of his seat, but Cain was faster, dashing around the table. He grabbed her shoulder, shaking her.

“Stop that,” she snapped, but at least that was normal.

“You were having a panic attack,” Nathaniel said, making it to her side. Not that he was needed. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, fine.” She noticed that he still had his hand on her shoulder. Again. This was becoming a habit. “Stop touching me,” she said, slapping his hand away with her own.

“You should lie down,” the other man said. Yes, that was a good idea.

“I’ll take her,” he said, and added nastily, “so your dinner won’t be spoiled.”

The redhead gave him a sharp look, edged with something dangerous. Something unlike the redhead revealed so far. He couldn’t trust that man.

“No, I can go by myself,” she said, standing up shakily. His own hands shook with the urge to steady her.

“Ms. Hizeme,” Nathaniel said, “I must insist.”

“Fine, whatever,” she said, and physically pushed Cain out of the way in a huff. He sighed to himself, and followed her.

After trudging down the entire length of the hallway, she snapped, “I do not know why I always have to be with you. So what if there was a fire?”

Ice ran through his veins. “Do you know what it’s like to be burned alive?” His voice was rough, too rough from emotion. But Yuri seemed far too self-involved to notice. “Having your skin burn into charcoal, suffocating in the smoke, desperate to escape but unable to. Not having the air to. Trapped. Suffocating.”

Not self-involved enough by half. Yuri glanced at him, for once silent and not picking a fight, but examining him. Analyzing him. A sorrow in her eyes that he didn’t like. Naturally, he glared at her. That trick never failed. All anguish left her eyes as she huffed, turning away from him, storming up the stairs while he followed more gracefully. Like an ocean to her firestorm.

“That did not stop that other psychic from dying,” Yuri finally said as they came up to the next floor. “The others were right there, and yet one still died and the other two are in the hospital. Do you really think that dying together is better than only one of us?”

“Dying alone is painful,” he said. “Surviving even more.”

“I can really see why you have such a fan following,” she said sarcastically. “Mr. Tortured Soul.”

He shrugged, trying to shake off the remnants of the solemn mood. “At least this way, we don’t have to waste all our time validating your supposed sightings.”

“Do you not mean your supposed sightings?” she demanded.

They finally reached the floor their assigned bedrooms were on. Cain lengthened his stride to catch up to her.

“I’m not the one pretending,” he said, and jumped out of the way of her fists. Such a violent young woman. No one had warned him about that. Usually the female mediums or investigators tried to cosy up to him, not beat him into the ground.

Which was the next move she made, and he found himself suddenly flat out on the carpeted floor, her small breasts pressed into his back. Ignoring every thought he found flitting through his head, he cried out, “What the hell?”

She shushed him. “Do you not see that?” She used that tone that implied he must be an idiot (or worse, a fake), if he couldn’t, or needed her to point it out to him. Somehow, he doubted the tone had only been aimed for him.

He raised his eyes, unable to move his head unless he wished to bash it into her face. Which would naturally spur more argument, and whatever slight supernatural disturbance would be completely forgotten. “What exactly?” He felt disgusted and inferior, needing to ask that. Just as her tone implied.

“A shadow, circling above us,” she said. It was amazing how all personal animosity disappeared as soon as she involved herself in her work. He didn’t know if it was sheer professionalism, or a deep interest in her work. Or maybe she just didn’t hate him as much as she believed.

He stared up at that ceiling, straining his eyes and his gift. He caught a shadow, but it was more like a hummingbird’s wings, only visible for a moment, less than a second, before reappearing in another place. He wondered how fully formed the shadow appeared to Yuri’s eyes.

Could she really be a stronger medium than he was?

“I see it, but…” He didn’t know what to say to follow the butt. “It can’t be a ghost, unless it’s a hummingbird’s ghost.”

Yuri chuckled. He felt the vibrations through her chest. “Yeah, it does look like that. But it is not a ghost at all.”

“Another kind of spirit? Or caused by a ghost?”

“A spirit, I think,” she said, shifting. The movements made him painfully aware again that half her body was pressed into his. And he liked it.

She was hesitating, he realized. “But…” he suggested.

“It tastes like a shikigami,” she said. She hadn’t used the word “feel”. It made him respect her just a bit more. Feel was too much of an imprecise word.

“Shikigami?”

“A spirit that is bound to a person, usually some kind of magic practitioner, or to a greater spirit,” she explained. “They must do the will of their master.”

So, there was obviously a mastermind (or master-spirit) behind the paranormal activity. “Could a magic practitioner with shikigami be able to do a ritual cleansing?”

“Yes,” she said. “But this shikigami is really weak. If this shikigami is on par with the level of power of the practitioner, it is doubtful that that practitioner would be able to cleanse the space so completely, especially with a recent death.”

“Which means…” Well, he had to admit she was the better in this situation, he could at least be a man and ask for explanation when he needed it.

She suddenly stood up. The shock of cold made him shiver. Slowly he got to his knees as well.

“Should you not be taking me to my room?” she said, instead of answering. He gave her an annoyed look.

“Should you not be sharing intelligence with your partner?”

“Now is laughable, you as my partner,” she said, and laughed as if to prove it. She quickly disappeared into her own room. He stared at the door, frustrated in more than one way.

 

Yuri collapsed onto her bed. Cain was, apparently, completely oblivious. Or rather, a distinct failure in adding two and two together. Someone or something had sent the shikigami as a message – that was really the only use of a such a weak shikigami. You wouldn’t let just anyone see it, give them a chance to destroy it and make connections between you and it, if you were trying to hide. Obviously. And that shikigami was meant to be seen. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have continued hovering above them after she had first noticed it. If it had zipped off quickly, she might have even doubted seeing it herself.

She was supposed to be resting. Not that she had agreed, but at least it gave her privacy. She needed to think.

A wall that wasn’t a wall, or at least a very special wall, a shikigami and an unsung song. A cleansed house. Uneasiness grated her stomach.

Bang – Bang – Bang – Bang!

She jumped, landing awkwardly on her elbow. But at least that awkwardly allowed her to get her to her feet quicker.

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!

That sounded like someone hitting a door. The sound came quicker, more urgent. Another sign from their haunter?

“Yuri!” Cain screamed. She raced into the hallway to his guestroom, which visibly shook under the beating Cain delivered, yet still wouldn’t budge.

“Cain?” she asked through the door. The pounding paused. “What is wrong?”

“The curtains caught fire,” he said. “And the door’s stuck. There’s no fire extinguisher, and I can’t get into the bathroom.”

“What were you doing?” she asked, incredulous, jiggling the door knob. She searched for any blockage.

“Nothing,” he yelled at her between pounds, equally exasperated.

“You must have done something,” she told him.

“Just help me with the door,” he grumbled, his ire washed out by a coughing fit. “Before I’m burned alive. It’s spread to the –” he coughed, “spread to the…”

Charcoal tendrils of smoke curled out from under the door. Oh, crap.

 

To be continued…
Part II