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Ward’sgrey eyes were snapping with anger, and I had to admit that I was one-hundred percent on board with whatever he was about to do to Richard Bazan.
“You’re dead,” he snapped at the ghost. “I don’t need a goddamn warrant to interrogate youor trap you on this plane of existence for the rest of my lifeif I want to.”
I’m sure it said several not-very-nice things about me, but I was really enjoying watching Ward metaphorically rip Bazan a new one.
The ex-lawyer had been attempting to argue that we had no legal right to summon him or ask him any questions. Which of course wedid, because the law doesn’t actually care what you do to the spirits of people who are already dead. Maybe someday the law would catch up with the fact that dead people were able to be summoned and even, to a limited extent and if you happened to have that ability, controlled, but for now, dead people were beyond the reach of the law, in both good and bad ways.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of dead people mostly retaining their autonomy, but I preferred that autonomy be applied to the ones who hadn’t been assholes in life, more or less like we did with the living and prisons. If the system worked the way it was supposed to, anyway.
Bazan had repeatedly confirmed that he had absolutely been an asshole. The jury was still out on whether or not he was a murderer-level asshole, but he was definitely an asshole.
Yeah, yeah. Takes one to know one, and all that. I’m the first to admit it.
And at that precise moment, I really wished I had the capacity to put my fist into Bazan’s face once or twice. Unfortunately for me, dead people don’t work that way. Trying would only get me a very cold and probably achy fist, possibly with some goo on it. And no alleviation of my frustration with his legalistic pedantry.
Bazan tilted his semi-transparent head up, then looked down his nose at Ward, who really hated it when people did that shit, especially given how utterly unnecessary it was because of his wheelchair.
If there’s one thing you don’t want to do as a dead guy, it’s piss off the warlock-medium who has summoned you and currently pulls the strings on your eternal spiritual existence.
And while I knew that Ward was generally disinclined to start pulling on those strings except in very particular circumstances, our present situation very much seemed to be fitting those circumstances.
“Tell me what someone would want to take from your office,” Ward ground out between clenched teeth—teeth clenched not with effort, but irritation. Sure, some ghosts could make even Ward break out in a little bit of a sweat, but Bazan had thus far not shown any such inclination.
“I do not have to reveal that information,”the arrogant dickweed snapped.
“Actually,” Ward growled back, “you very much do.”
I’d seen it often enough now that I could tell when Ward was forcing his will on a spirit—a tightening of his jaw, a vein that throbbed at his temple, the tension that corded his neck and shoulders, the fingers that gripped the arms of his wheelchair.
Bazan’s eyes went wide.
That also pretty much always happened. It’s almost funny, that moment when a spirit—or a client, or another medium—realizes that they are way in over their fucking head, and not only is the water a lot deeper and darker than they’d thought, but there are goddamn piranha in there with them. They’d thought the piranha was a fucking goldfish.
I enjoyed it every time.
But then Bazan’s eyes narrowed, and he bared his teeth at Ward.“Do not do anything foolish, warlock.”
Hoo, boy. Here we go.
“I could offer the same warning, witch,” Ward countered, although his use of the wordwitchwas a good deal less disdainful than Bazan’s use ofwarlock. Probably because Bazan is a dickbag, and Ward is married to a very nice, very large, witch.
I guess that probably meant that Bazan wasn’t Ordo, although that was already the working hypothesis, given the hole in his head. That said, the Ordo wasn’t above executing their own if they fucked up—see the very dead Frederick Greer, late of Tranquil Brook Nightmare Hospital. But most of their victims weren’t actually members, like the poor nurses who had tried to stop Greer and his cohorts, or the Nids they’d killed for having the audacity to have both magic and Arcanism.
Doc tensed and my skin started prickling, which I knew meant that there was some sort of magical battle going on that I couldn’t see or hear. I suppressed the urge to put my hand on my gun—I still carry it most of the time, but a gun wasn’t going to do shit against Bazan, since a bullet would just go right through him, so the only thing drawing it would do was put everyone still alive at risk.
Bazan’s eyes now looked like they were about to bug out of his face, which probably meant—I hoped, anyway—that Ward was winning.
“There—was—contract—”Bazan gasped out.
“What kind of contract?” Ward’s voice was rough and strained, but he was definitely still more capable of forming complete sentences than Bazan.
Bazan made a gurgling, growling sound, clearly fighting the compulsion to speak that Ward was pushing on him.
“Business—merger—”
“Between?” Sweat was starting to form on Ward’s forehead, which the warlock ignored.
