Ghost Killer Collection: The Complete Series

Excerpt from Ghost Killer Collection

“Uh, George, a little help here,” Pete said. His voice was low, but the strain and fear came through loud and clear.

“Damn it, we need Billy!” I hissed in frustration. The man standing in front of me was thin and pale, with sallow skin that bore the scabs and scars of a longtime drug user. He gave me a wicked grin that showed a mouth full of rotted teeth, giving him a haunted look, which made sense…after all, he was being haunted. A short time ago, his wasted and abused body probably couldn't have hurt anything bigger than a fly, but since he'd been possessed by a demon from the 1880s, he could do all sorts of things, like trying to kill yours truly. He held a piece of rebar he'd picked up at the mouth of the alley when he and his two companions chased us into it. Now he was rushing me, wielding the deadly metal bar like a sword.

His demon was smiling viciously behind him and I threw myself to the left, kicking up the alley wall and somersaulting back toward him, with my trusty number two pencil leading the way. The demon was powerful and my pencil disintegrated when I stabbed him, but so did he. My body fell through the dissipating grey mist as the previously possessed man slumped to the ground, the rebar clanging loudly on the asphalt. I hit the other side of the alley wall with a solid thud that would definitely leave a few bruises to match the ones I'd already received from the other possessed man I'd relieved of his demon just a few short minutes ago.

“Yeah, well, she didn't get her bell rung on purpose. Now get over—” There was a loud thump and Pete's voice was suddenly cut off as all the air audibly rushed out of his body. The last I'd seen of him, he was being cornered at the end of the alley by a third possessed man using a two-by-four like a baseball bat, and from the sound of it, the demon and his victim were winning. I jumped up and ran to his rescue, coming upon the demon from behind. Pete was slumped against the brick wall and the demon was commanding its victim to pulverize Pete's head with the length of wood. Grabbing another pencil from my back pocket, I stabbed the demon, causing it to disintegrate; his victim fell forward onto Pete, the two-by-four banging loudly as it hit the ground.

Pete groaned, shoved the unconscious man off to the side, and looked up at me. His complexion was ashen and there was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, but otherwise he looked okay. I put my hand out to help him up, and he took it, grabbing his stomach and groaning some more.

“You gonna be okay?” I asked as he staggered to his feet.

“Yeah, just another day at the office,” he said sarcastically. “Did we get 'em all?”

“We got 'em. Let's get out of here.”

I pulled Pete's arm up and over my shoulder and did a walk-stagger towards the mouth of the alley, leaving the three unconscious men where they'd fallen. They were mostly unhurt and would wake up soon, having no idea what had happened to them…probably a regular occurrence considering their drug habits. By the time we reached the opening, Pete was pushing away from me and looking cautiously up and down the sidewalk and street. It didn't look like anyone had paid any attention to the two clean-cut guys that had been chased into the alley by three not-so-clean cut demon-possessed ruffians. We were in San Francisco's Tenderloin District, and the neighborhood watch generally consisted of watching for the cops, not the bad guys doing bad things to good guys.

As Pete and I walked to the public garage in Union Square where we'd left his car, he said, “Man, I hate seeing that.”

“Seeing what?” I asked. I knew he couldn't be talking about ghosts and demons; he'd been fighting them for years, and although it wasn't pleasant by any means, it was what we did.

He nudged his chin toward the other side of the street where a teenage kid stood. “Kids on the street. I mean, look at him…he can't be more than fifteen or sixteen.”

I looked at the teenager. Lightly soiled clothes hung on a gangly five-ten frame, and although his hair wasn't long, it was dirty and unkempt. A lost and confused expression covered his face. He was looking our way, probably because even though we'd just battled three strong demons in a disgustingly dirty alley, we were still the best dressed and most likely the cleanest people in the neighborhood. The Tenderloin is the armpit of San Francisco and unfortunately it's also where many of the city's homeless spend their days and nights, including runaway teens, which he probably was.

It was sad, and all I could muster in response was, “Me too.” When I turned back to look at the kid again, he was gone.

* * *

On a typical day of ghost and demon eradication I worked with Billy Wilkinson. However, she'd been benched for the last few days due to a concussion. Although she had a generally caustic personality, she was also incredibly compassionate when it came to people and their wellbeing. A few days before, she'd been on her daily run and was jogging in place while waiting for a green light. A woman in her twenties approached the corner, texting furiously and oblivious to her surroundings, and walked right into the intersection, never looking up from her phone and almost getting herself killed by an oncoming car. I say almost, because Billy saw it coming and jumped to her rescue, pushing the stupid woman to safety but landing hard on the curb herself, knocking her noggin viciously. Thus the concussion.

Billy was adamant that she didn't need medical attention, but we got her some anyway and the doctor declared her condition severe enough to insist on at least a week of in-home bed rest, or hospitalization. Under protest, Billy agreed to the former. Fortunately for Billy (and anyone who had to deal with her during her recuperation), she's a ghost killer, which means she heals damn fast, making her forced down time a few days instead of a week.

Our little corner of the world had been experiencing some rather nasty ghost/demon possessions recently, and Aris, our fearless leader, didn't think it would be a good idea to send me in alone when the call came in about the current situation in the Tenderloin, so he assigned Pete Cowell to lend me a hand. Pete's ex-military (Special Forces to be exact), tall and strong, with the same high-and-tight haircut he'd been wearing since his service days. He discovered his ghost killing power while stationed overseas. He'd been injured during a training exercise and was taken to the base hospital, where he saw his first ghost. Like most of us, when we see the first one, we're not really sure what it is we're seeing, but some sort of instinct kicks in and we're driven to kill it. Now Pete was one of Aris's right-hand men, and a formable ghost killer to boot, but not nearly as powerful as Billy and me.