“Look, I don't need the mysteries of the universe explained,” I said, getting pissed. “I just want to know how you keep from being overwhelmed.” I wanted to ask him about Alona's situation, too, but I wasn't stupid. He was a stranger with potentially shady business practices and an overly aggressive spirit guide. Caution seemed like the smarter route, at least until I got a better feel for his character. He might not be a member of the Order, but I couldn't be sure that he wouldn't trade information on us to save his own skin.
He shook his head at me again, like I was speaking Japanese despite having been told that he wasn't fluent. “Don't you have anyone else to ask about this? Where is your dad?” he asked.
“Dead.” I folded up the page from the phone book and tucked it carefully into my pocket. “Killed himself. Almost four years ago.” Those words came out more readily now, after so much time, but they were never easy to say.
Malachi sat back in his seat, startled. “I'm sorry,” he said after a long pause. “I didn't know.”
It wasn't something discussed openly at our house, obviously, and I doubted my mother had given much information publicly, in an obituary or anything, if at all. I didn't like bringing it up now, feeling like I was somehow using what had happened to get sympathy or manipulate him into giving me answers. But it was, in fact, the truth. I couldn't go to my father because he was dead. And he was dead because he'd wanted it that way.
So I made myself wait, squelching the intense urge to say, “Forget it,” and walk away.
Malachi gave a heavy sigh. “All right. He did me a favor once. I suppose I owe you the same.”
Guilt and relief competed for priority, with relief winning out only by a slight margin. “Thanks,” I said.
He stepped down from the van. “Five minutes. That's it.”
The back room in Malachi's storefront was decidedly utilitarian and boring, not at all what I'd expected. Walking through the door, I saw a small kitchen/storage area to the right and a tiny bathroom to the left. The main area, where'd Malachi had obviously performed his spirit “consultations,” was a wood-paneled room with cheap white shelving lining the walls and a table and chairs in the center.
There were signs, though, that the decor had once been more exotic, or at least aimed to be. Puddles of purple candle wax stained almost every square inch of the shelving. The metal curtain rod that hung behind the door to the waiting room still held a strand or two of dark beads.
“Crystal ball is already in the van,” Malachi said from behind me, as if all too aware of how mundane the space appeared now.
I couldn't tell if he was kidding.
He pushed past me and dragged a chair away from the table and gestured for me to sit in it. “Ask. Let's go.”
He hadn't been joking about the five-minutes thing, evidently.
“Uh, okay.” I sat down, even though his nervous/twitchy energy was enough to make me want to pace instead. “When I was here the other day, you had me fooled. I would have sworn you were a fake. It was like you didn't even hear or see the ghosts in the waiting room. Where did you learn to do that? To tune them out like that?”
He gave me a tight smile. “I'm not sure that's something I can teach.”
“Seriously, you're going to pull this 'it's a trade secret' bullshit on me? This is my life. I'm just trying to survive.” Before he could respond, I pushed further, struck by a sudden idea. “Is it something Erin does?” She was powerful beyond anything I'd ever seen.
He paled. “Erin. You talked to her?”
Uh-oh. Maybe not the best idea to bring up disloyal spirit guides when I was trying to get the guy's help. “Yeah, she came to see me, but—”
He stalked forward until he was right in front of my chair. “What did she say? Did she claim you?” He leaned over me, suddenly much too close.
Whoa. He'd gone from zero to crazy intense in the space of a few seconds.
I shifted away from him. “Look, I didn't say yes or anything.” Not that it had mattered. But whatever; Malachi didn't need to know that. “She was just—”
“You said no?” he asked in disbelief. “Did that stop her?”
My head was spinning, trying to keep up with this conversation. “Uh, no. But it didn't work. I think the bond with my spirit guide might somehow still be active, even though she's not exactly here anymore.” That was the only explanation I'd come up with that made any kind of sense.
He laughed, too loud and long. “It didn't work?” He straightened up and raked his hands through his hair. “Of course not. The first one strong enough to tempt her, and it didn't work. Unbelievable.” He dropped to his knees, as though his legs wouldn't support him further, and rubbed his forehead as if he were in pain.
“Are you okay?” I asked cautiously.
“I'm great. Can't you tell?” he snapped, his face still in his hands.
Okaaay, then. He wouldn't be the first ghost-talker to have lost possession of his marbles.
Fighting disappointment, I looked past him toward the door. I could make a run for it, no problem. But that would be the end of this conversation, and any future conversation with him, guaranteed. I wouldn't get this opportunity again. And the answers I wanted might be here, just buried under a few layers of whack job.
“Did you want it to? Work, I mean?” I asked carefully, digging a little to piece together what was going on without making him completely flip out. If Erin was the source of his ability to control what he heard/saw, why would he want to get rid of her? Yeah, she seemed to have that same attitude problem Alona occasionally had, but it would be worth it for the kind of peace he appeared to have.
He looked up at me, dark circles under his eyes clearly visible for the first time. “For the last five years I've been haunted every single waking minute of every day,” he said, and laughed, but it sounded weak and sad. “Hell, for that matter, sometimes she wakes me up.”
“I don't understand.” Which was a massive understatement.
He stood up abruptly, pulled out the chair next to mine, and sat in it, leaning toward me. “You want to know how I ignore all those other ghosts? The ones you said were in the waiting room?”
Given the strange, almost fevered expression on his face, I wasn't so sure I did want to know anymore. But I was in it too deeply already.
I nodded.
“I don't. I can't see them.”
It took me a second to catch on. “You mean you can only hear them.” It wouldn't be all that surprising, given what I'd learned from Mina. There were varying levels of ability among ghost-talkers. Even Mina herself had trouble tracking ghosts when they moved.
“No,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I mean, I can't see them, hear them, or even tell they're there.”
I frowned. “I don't—”
“I can only see and hear one ghost.” He held up a finger to illustrate his point. “That is, if I'm not completely crazy, which is always a possibility.” He threw his hands up. “Maybe this is all part of one giant hallucination. Maybe I'm lying somewhere in a drug-induced coma, and this is all in my mind.” He sighed and then shook his head. “Wouldn't that be nice?” he asked, more to himself than me.
I gaped at him.
Malachi noticed before I could recover myself. “Happy now?” he asked. “Got all the answers you want?”
I shook my head. “That doesn't make any sense.”
“If it's any consolation, that's pretty much the reaction the other guy — your dad, I guess — had, too.”
“You're talking about Erin?” I asked, to be sure.