Page 108 of Hot Ghost Summer

He chokes on his shock, revealing stained and wonky teeth.

“I… I… Who…?” he splutters some more, skin paling.

Like I had with Theo when I wanted him to feel me—to know I was there with him even though I couldn’t materialise—I generate two electric cuffs that cinch Stoker’s wrists and tie him to his chair.

Panic, pure and unadulterated, floods his system as he thrashes against my restraints. It’s pointless. The more he fights, the more bright sparks arc and leap into his lap and onto the rug beneath him, singeing and burning.

I assume control of the computer before him, and on the screen, I present all the same newspaper articles Theo found, and some he didn’t.

Silently, I show him the plight of Bowen’s Farm, including the video that had driven Theo directly into the path of a revenant—a revenant made by Stoker’s hands. Hands I now have bound and at my mercy.

My Baby had a lucky escape from his fate, but the man in front of me, whose wide eyes reflect the damning images, won’t be spared from his. I need him to know—to feel—the visceral horror he inflicted. Need him to understand how it is to be backed so far into a corner that death feels like the only route out.

“What’s this?” he protests.

But I know that he recognises it, because his torso stiffens and he tilts his head back as if it will help him escape.

“Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?” He tries once more to threaten me.

On the second monitor, I show him a single word: “Murderer.”

For a moment, his breathing stops, and the strain of his gut upon the buttons of his shirt eases. Then his chest heaves with quick gasps.

He opens his mouth, no doubt to deny my accusation, and I bring up a live link to the Metropolitan Police Department’s call-out log. I block out everything except the record of the anonymous call to report two dead bodies at the Bowen’s Plaza worksite not an hour ago.

“I… I don’t know what this is. What do you want from me?” Clear trails of sweat now carve down his temple and along where his jaw is buried in folds of skin.

I replace the word “murderer” with “A life for a life.”

Clicking through the call log, I access the crime scene photos. Two middle-aged men, deceased, one with a fist-sized hole in his chest and the other with a painfully broken leg, lie on blood-soaked, chalky ground. Ground he owns.

The next photo shows a destroyed mobile phone, and the one after that shows the call log they managed to retrieve anyway. I highlight the phone number of the last three calls placed, then slowly type it out on the second monitor.

Unblinking, his dilated pupils follow each digit.

When I connect the call, the shrill ring of his phone pierces the veil of dread that shrouds him.

“No! No, no, no. I had nothing to do with that. Any of it. I’ve been here all night,” he shouts, thrashing harder against my restraints. His heart rate spikes, its tachycardic rhythm driven by surging adrenaline.

Woven from death, my faceless gaze consumes every lie, but I will not be a silent witness. I hack his bank accounts—both the legal and the illegal—his shares and holdings, and his investments and trades. While the main computer screen shows the burning bodies of Bowen’s dairy herd on a recursive loop, the secondary monitor shows me rifling through his assets for blood money.

Fear promotes his physiological collapse and curdles the air.

It’s easy to trace the payments made for Bowen’s Farm in the nineties because Jim Bowen never cashed them; the same amount automatically returned to Stoker’s bank account three months later. He recognises it too.

“Please…” He licks his lips. “No one has to know about this. I can give you whatever you want. You’ve seen what I’m worth.”

Finally, I manifest before him. Bracing my hands on his knees, I seethe, “What you almost cost me is worth far more.”

I type in the full and current value of the Bowen’s Plaza development and transfer it as a donation to Jayne’s rescue farm.

Stoker’s breath hitches.

I lean in close and whisper, “There’s nowhere you can hide from me. If you touch that land, or anyone connected to it again, your money will not be all I take from you.”

The sharp shock of my vow hits like a physical blow, and as he loses consciousness, I withdraw the electrified shackles that hold him in place, and he hits the floor with a heavy and dull thud.

Stoker’s punishment isn’t to die by my hand, as tempting as that may be, but to live the rest of his life under my omnipotent gaze.