Guardians of the Gates - Part 1, The New Breed by Jeff Schanz (best novels ever .TXT) 📖

didn’t like mysteries. He just wanted answers. But answers required waiting, and that, too, agitated him.

He went down to “Lucky’s” basement, which operated as the office for “The Spirits of Savannah Tours.” He sifted through the mail and receipts on his desk. There were two desks: one for reception, with brochures, pens, business cards, and receipt booklets; the other for him with the day’s mail, scattered receipts, post-its to remember things, and a notepad for messages. Framed posters lined the brick walls, depicting famously haunted homes. The wall veneer of soot, mold, and grime had been polished by two-hundred years of use, perhaps as a wine cellar, or slave quarters, or an armory, before it finally functioned as the illustrious headquarters for “The Spirits of Savannah.” The office was dark, yet cozy, similar to bar lighting, with warm light from small sources that created atmosphere rather than illumination. Sebastian had a banker’s lamp on his desk that was enough to work by.

Many people had wondered if “Lucky’s” building was haunted too. Like most buildings in the historic section of town, it was centuries old and had stood through The Civil War. Workers in the bar had described several instances where things had fallen over, or lights flickered, or strange sounds came when it was quiet. Sebastian wondered about it being haunted, and luckily he had an actual ghost to tell him if there were other ghosts around. The answer was negative. Just creaky, rickety wood, and shoddy wiring.

Marcellus had reluctantly done some additional ghostly snooping for Sebastian’s company to best set up their tours. It seemed that Savannah’s “nightlife” was as advertised when it came to how many ghosts were around. However, not all spirits were full-fledged ghosts. Some were residual spirits whose souls had moved on and weren’t attached to the long-dead person, functioning kind of like old recordings on a cassette that lingered underneath the new recordings. The spirits’ energies still walked around and slammed shutters, or rocked chandeliers, but they weren’t capable of interacting with anything other than the house. Just a loop of activity that would play as long as the energy remained. It was still a mystery as to how long those spirits would run on their ghost battery. If their soul wasn’t there, what was giving them the energy? No one knew the answer, not even Marcellus. He only knew things according to his own situation.

Besides the residual energies, there were also fully interactive spirits, “lost” between two worlds. Marcellus had located a pair of young siblings, brother and sister, who had died at the hands of a deranged mother who thought the devil told her he had created her children. As it turned out, her tormentor was LSD, rather than Satan. The murdered siblings were a good ghost tale, but since it happened in the 1960s, it wasn’t as sexy a sell to the tourists. And the house was not completely in the historical district either. It was in an old, yet not old enough, section of town that wasn’t as attractive to tour, which had loads of good ghost activity despite its age. That section of town was an unfortunate mixture of poor people, old folks, students, and gangs. Except for the old folks’ property, nothing was kept clean, and besides looking ugly, the neighborhood was somewhat dangerous depending on time of day. The street where the siblings’ house resided was luckily occupied by mostly the old folks and a few students. Sebastian ended up renting the house, had a crew clean it up, and furnished it for what looked like a ready-to-move-in Victorian family. Even though the real family had never been of that era, it didn’t matter. People wanted to believe in the “old” spirits. The most obvious compromise was a room filled with more modern toys for the siblings to play with. Throughout the day, they played and enjoyed their between-world afterlife in that house. And because they were benevolent spirits, it became a sought after destination for ghost enthusiasts to both visit and occasionally spend the night. Sebastian leased out the rights to certain companies that scheduled these visits and he collected the residuals. Marcellus was thoroughly thanked and was awarded a fifty-inch flat-screen TV for his efforts.

Sebastian was perusing one of the income ledgers that included visits to the siblings’ house when Fee clumped down the stairs.

Orpheus “Fee” Franklin was a black man with snow-white hair and beard, well settled into his senior years. He alternated tours with his two sons, driving the horses and trolley through town, plus helping take care of the horses and supervising the upkeep of the trolley. He also had a talent for telling incredible stories. Return customers would usually schedule their tours around the times when Fee was driving. Fee had originally owned the trolley and half the business. It was an authentic horse-drawn trolley, the track wheels long ago traded in for standard rubber treaded ones. Another man had co-owned the business with Orpheus, and when they parted ways, Sebastian took on the former partner’s share and the remaining debt. Sebastian’s new relationship with Danny Boy produced the symbiosis that made the newly named ‘The Spirits of Savannah’ a true profit for the first time in years.

“Mista Jackson! Ih’s good to have you back,” Orpheus said in his slow, gravelly baritone voice.

Sebastian answered. “Fee. Nice to see you. Good to be back, thank you.”

“Jus’ back from a tour. Went good today. Ghosts was actin’ up nice.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Orpheus pulled a well-worn handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbed his eyes. He dressed in grey Dickies overalls, blue dress shirt, and white bow tie. He would change shirts every day, but the Dickies and bow tie stayed mostly the same. He had a supply of the overalls, several the same color, with one or two denim. He wore an old Stetson hat, formerly light grey, now darker grey, that had been passed to him by his father. Fee was an old man with an ancient soul, and despite the stereotyped southern black-man mannerisms, his father had forged into him the respect that a southern man, regardless of skin color, should have. It just so happened that also came with the speech of the undereducated culture of the rural south. Orpheus was proud of who he was, and he was proud to do what he did. He especially loved telling the stories that his family had collected since they had lived for generations in this city.

“Whew. It’s windy out deh,” he said. Winter weather was never consistent in the south. Windy, rainy, cold, mild: could be any one on any given day, and the next day would be different.

Sebastian had been too preoccupied to notice much about the weather that day, vaguely recalling the whipping winds as he had walked outside, and nodded to Fee.

“No troubles?” said Mr. Jackson, aka Sebastian.

“No, suh. Nothin’ wrong all while you was gone.” Orpheus sat down heavily in the chair opposite the reception desk. “Just tired is all.”

“Hear that.”

“You find what you was lookin’ fuh?”

Good question. I don’t have a good answer. “Still gathering info. Got another trip to make here shortly. Probably. Depends on the answer I get from my people.”

Sebastian didn’t like lying to Orpheus, but he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone his real business. He also lied about his name, partially because he never had an official name. The name Sebastian, like his many others, was an alias. An alias that only The Saints and his brother knew. Most Saints had only two names: their birth one and their Saint one. Sebastian had never had a birth name, and the many attempts at foster names only furthered his confusing name predicament. Eventually, the absence of a stable name became an asset to his anonymity, and certain Saint associates could get him numerous official documents that carried numerous different names. Ironically, he always considered Sebastian to be his real name. But for his Spirits of Savannah business, and his Savannah mailbox, his name was Steven Jackson.

As far as Orpheus knew, Steven Jackson worked for a ghost hunting TV show on the side. Sebastian came up with that excuse while watching the TV show “Ghost Hunters.” Or rather, while Marcellus was watching it. There were so many other similar shows scattered all over both the popular and obscure cable stations, so it would be easy to find a show to serve as Sebastian’s ghost hunting façade. Sebastian picked a real, yet obscure, show on an even more obscure cable channel and pretended to be a location scout. That was the story he fed to Orpheus.

Orpheus thought ghost hunting was legit. He also believed it when Sebastian said that he still saw and talked to his dead brother. Fee was the only person besides Father Augustine that Sebastian ever trusted with that information. Orpheus fully believed in everything to do with spirits and the afterlife. He’d often ask if Marcellus was in the room so he could say, “Hello.” Orpheus didn’t know the extent of Marcellus’ communicative ability, and Sebastian wasn’t going to say. And although he trusted the old man, Sebastian never gave out more information than was necessary.

“I don’t know why you lookin’ elsewhere. They’s enough spirits he’ya to hunt for as long as you want to hunt ‘em.”

“Agree with you. But we go where we’re needed. Not everybody is ok with ghosts in their houses like they are here. They hire us to cleanse the houses.”

“Alright. I understand. People is gonna do what they gonna do.” He tucked the handkerchief in his pocket and smiled. “Mista Marcus he’ya?”

“Hmm?” Sebastian was distracted by some notes on his desk. “No, Fee, not right now.”

“Alright. You tell him ‘hello’ for me when you talk to ‘im.” Marcus was the fake name given to Marcellus. Everybody in the Saints had aliases. Even ghosts.

“Will do. You need a Coke or something? You look worn out.”

“No, suh, jus’ the wind. Takes it outta me. But I got some ice tea in my thermos.”

“Ok.”

“My son’s got the next tour. I’m gonna set he’ya and read for a spell,” said Orpheus.

“Sure, Fee. Go ahead.”

Orpheus pulled a twice-folded wad of newspaper from under his arm. Unlike most of the modern world, Orpheus didn’t like computers. But he did watch TV. So, between newspapers and TV, he kept up on worldly goings-on. He also liked some of the supermarket rags that tended to make up ninety percent of their stories. Although undereducated, he was savvy in other ways, and he didn’t trust what he read. But maybe he saw “Men In Black” one too many times and actually believed there was some truth in those papers. Just hidden, if you read it right. He had “The Globe” in his hands at that moment.

Fee laughed. “Another fool tellin’ everyone he done caught him a Bigfoot. Didn’t he get arrested or something for lying bout that last time?”

“Same guy?”

“Think so.”

If it was the same guy, he had constructed a “dead” Bigfoot out of Halloween costumes and butcher scraps. And then charged admission to see the thing. Probably making more money than me.

Orpheus quietly read his paper for a while. Sebastian just made sure the tallies and receipts matched. Which they did. Orpheus may be old-world in his speech and manners, but he did a perfect job managing the books and the math. Sebastian doubted none of it, he was just killing time and doing a little thinking to boot. No new illumination came though.

“Mista Jackson?”

“Hmm?”

“You ever seen any real werewolves?”

Sebastian’s eyes opened a little wider and he turned to Orpheus trying not to seem too interested. “Why would you ask that?”

“They say that maybe one of them werewolves was a’running around a park in London.”

“Really? You sure it’s not one of those made-up articles? You know how those newspapers are.”

“Oh, sure, I know that. Most’a this stuff is fake. But I saw somethin’ on the news about some crazy animal done killed people in