"Ya sure this is the place, Miss?" The cabbie asked, making a face at the decrepit building. "Cause it looks abandoned."

I sighed, glancing at the sticky note crumpled in my hand.

-She sure knows how to pick a meet-up spot.

Then again, what was the Calvary if not grotesquely dramatic?

"Yep, pretty sure," I replied, queasy. His nut-brown eyes regarded me in the rearview mirror with a dose of concern and apprehension.

"Alright, if ya say so," he finally said, clocking the meter. I pushed a fistful of ones into his hand and dragged myself out of the car before I could change my mind and tell him to drive me back.

The building looked even worse up-close.

An ancient, 1940s apartment complex, its sickly marsh green façade was covered with vines, rain stains, and graffiti. The missing windows, half-collapsed terraces, and holes dotting sections of wall spoke of previous attempts to demolish the place, but whoever was helming the project probably realized that it wasn't worth the effort to rebuild anything in an industrial dead zone, and left the thing alone to gather dust, mold, and ghosts.

No, I'm not kidding.

Even standing a good fifty feet from the cavernous hole where the front entrance used to be, I could feel the ethereal energy oozing out of every inch of concrete. This place was infested with angry dead people, their dark feelings making the shadows surrounding the building blacker, the air colder and tasting of ash and stale blood. The atmosphere was something straight out of those urban explorer stories.

And I had to go right in.

-God, I need to learn to schedule all my meetings for daytime.

Haunted locations didn't go well with the dead of night. Still, I shook my head and gathered my courage. Glass and gravel crunched beneath my boots as I crossed the threshold and entered the ground floor. I'd thankfully had the sense to charge my phone, so I could use the flashlight tool to see-though a part of me wished I didn't. The beam of light periodically illuminated old wires hanging from the ceiling, broken lamps, furniture, and abandoned children's toys. The smell was even worse inside, the mold and blood like a steel hand reaching into my lungs to claw at them.

"Hello?" I called out, my voice echoing forlornly through the desolate hallways. No response. I felt like the dumbest horror movie protagonist in the history of ever.

-Is she honestly going to make me climb upstairs to find her?

When another one of my calls went unanswered I realized that she was.

I hissed in protest as I mentally prepared myself to step onto the decrepit stairs. The stone beneath me rumbled, and I silently hoped that they didn't cave in. Pointing my flashlight upward to the nauseating stack of floors above, I saw no sign of movement.

That should have been a relief, but the smell and bitter cold was a clear giveaway that I was most definitely not alone.

-I better get a medal for this.

The first floor was equally abandoned-the sound of rainwater dripping from above was the only noise polluting the oppressive emptiness.

My fingers shook with the cold.

"Seriously is anyone here?" I demanded, pulling my coat on tighter. Though I tried to maintain a hefty dose of annoyance, fear was starting to overshadow it.

Gnashing my teeth I made my way toward the second set of stairs.

Laughter echoed in the distance.

I instantly whirled around, my flashlight trained. The hallways stood empty.

-I so don't want to deal with this right now.

More laughter bounced off the walls, and this time, I could have sworn I'd caught a glimpse of movement in one of the apartment doorways.

-Okay, okay, calm down, breathe, just like you practiced. You know the drill.

I sidestepped a broken cassette player, mentally trying to recount the steps Kevin had outlined in his manual on how to deal with poltergeists.

-Did he say to reveal yourself to them?

Or was that something you only did as a last resort? I honestly couldn't remember. My knowledge of that section of the manual was limited to the first sentence-if encountering an angry poltergeist, run in the opposite direction. Spirits consumed and tethered by their grief were highly hostile, especially to Reapers. If whoever was here had been marinating in their sorrow long, they could deal me serious damage.

The apartment unit was much cleaner than the hallways-other than piping, old wires, and foliage, there was no abandoned furniture or glass in sight. I scanned every inch of wall with the flashlight acutely aware of how pungent the smell was getting.

"Show yourself," I demanded in my best Reaper voice.

Nothing happened. My fingers wrapped around my phone more tightly. Then...

"He's got my baby," a brittle, feminine voice croaked.

I whirled on my heel, pointing the light right to what must've been the kitchen.

A shadow dressed in grey rags stood there, its back facing me. I sucked in another sharp breath, ignoring the acrid taste of mold and blood.

"It's okay, it's gonna be okay. I'm here to help you," I kept my voice even and low, just like I would with any other spirit. But the cold and blackness oozing from this creature were so fierce they were making my head spin. "Who's got your baby?"

My muscles clenched when the figure twitched. The sounds its bones made when it moved reminded me of Arctic ice sheets break. Static buzzed in my ears.

"You've got my baby," it whispered, turning its head to face me. Through the curtain of slimy black hair, I could make out an eyeball. Wide, hungry, and as dark as the deepest pit of hell. Dark spots bloomed all over the gray rags hanging off the figure's skeletal frame. Blood. It was blood.

-Oh crap.

I barely managed to take a step back when the creature released a guttural shriek, lunging straight for me. Instantly, the searing cold permeating the air became a living force. It seized me by the shoulders, knocking me right on my ass. I howled in pain and tried desperately to scramble away, but the darkness, oh that cursed darkness bore down on me, pinning me in place.

"No, no, no!" I screamed, the thing on top of me. Its icy cold claws pawed at my flesh in a frenzy. Her touch felt like a thousand needles stabbing into my skin.

Since it was incorporeal, its blows couldn't really deal me physical damage-but its darkness was like a vacuum, sucking up the Reaper magic that fueled my body, and kept me tethered to this world.

"Get off, get off!" I shrieked, trying to break free. No dice-I was punching empty air.

-Good god, I'm going to die!

Or at least get sucked into the In-between. I may not have remembered that entire section of the manual, but I knew why Kevin said to avoid poltergeists-they had the power to suck Reapers into the In-between. Forever.

However bad my job was, getting stuck in an ethereal dimension where angry poltergeists dwelled was way worse.

"Please, please, stop, help, help!" I kicked harder, the darkness like claws, scraping against my internal organs. The creature unleashed yet another guttural scream. This time, it wasn't one of feral life-force hunger.

"Hey, asshole!" a light, musical voice sliced through the oppressive black. "How about you sink your teeth into someone your own size?"

Suddenly the force pinning me was gone. I gasped, coughing up dust and mold, and immediately scrambled to get away. The flashlight was in my hands in an instant-I shined it around me in a panic, searching for the source of the howls bouncing off the walls. The cursed thing was flying in circles above me like an angry hornet-relief seized me when I noticed the thin, translucent cord wrapped around it, almost like a leash.

"About time!" I fired, as Evangeline smiled wickedly.

"Nice to see you too, little Violet," she said, yanking the thread back. The poltergeist howled in fury, the cord forcing it toward her. With a quick flick of her wrist, Evangeline dove into her back pocket and produced a small glass pinball the size of a ripe plum. Inside it, plumes of grayish smoke swirled.

"Time for you to take a chill pill, lady," Evangeline laughed, corralling the poltergeist to her while simultaneously shattering the glass.

The grayish smoke exploded outward like a bath bomb, enveloping the hideous creature. It screamed, its unnaturally long limbs contorting in agony. Once the gray tendrils had sucked up the monster fully, the cloud collapsed on itself, retreating into the ball like a vacuum.

I stared at the now intact ball, watching the smoke inside slowly darken from gray to black.

"Close your mouth little Violet. You're not a fish," Evangeline shot at me, extending her gloved hand.

I released a breath of relief, my muscles like liquid.

"You dick!" I exclaimed, swatting her away. "Where the hell were you? That thing could have killed me!"

Evangeline crossed her arms on her chest, the strange synthetics of her gravel grey robes rustling.

"Wouldn't that be something? Seeing as how you're already dead," she quipped, her plump lips curling into a wicked smile.

I gritted my teeth.

-God, I really hate Revenants.

They were arrogant bastards, the whole lot of them. But I supposed that came with the territory-protecting the world of the living could make one develop one helluva superiority complex.

Ghost Busters on steroids-at least that's what Mason called them. Truth was, Revenants were our cousins of a sort-humans who were neither dead nor alive, but stuck somewhere in between, their job was to track and exorcize poltergeists who had refused to move on the traditional way. Though they didn't exactly have proton packs or an Ectomobile, they were still well equipped to handle rowdy spirits. For one, while they shared some of our wicked healing abilities, unlike us, they could freely walk the In-between, without their energy trapping them on the other side permanently.

That ability alone made them ideal guardians, capable of protecting the living from the dead intent on sucking your life force out. It was why they called themselves the Calvary-the elite squad that smashed through hordes of feral poltergeists. If you ask me, they valued themselves a bit too much.

-But you still need them.

If there was anyone even remotely capable of helping me with Logan's Frankenstein ass, it was a Revenant. The bonus point was that Evangeline sucked way less than the rest of her uptight brethren-even though she was practically incapable of taking anything seriously. We went back, the two of us. She was actually the first Revenant I'd met when I'd joined Kevin's list of employees. Since then, she'd done quite a few ghost busting jobs for me. And by me, I mean Mason, who had a knack for pissing ghosts off enough to get them tethered to Earth.

"Haha, funny, Reaper dead, never heard that one before. Seriously though, did we have to meet up at Poltergeist central? You know what these suckers can do to Reapers."

Evangeline shrugged, stretching like a cat that had just woken up from a nap. I inwardly cringed at the sight of her bones, prominent through the thin fabric of her robes. She'd always been extremely skinny-most of her kind was. A running joke at the Mortuary was that Revenants were storks in human form. Why they looked like bones with skin I have no idea, seeing as how they still had enough strength to lift a firetruck with one hand.

"Hey, you were the one that panic dialed me with a massive emergency that couldn't wait till tomorrow. I had to multitask."

I exhaled dusting myself off. It was insane just how warmer the apartment had gotten now that the poltergeist was neutralized.

"I was being hyperbolic you know. I didn't mean that you had to drag me into your hunt."

She winked, picking up the glass ball, and examining the swirling smoke inside.

"Ah but then I wouldn't have had the perfect bait. You know how these suckers love you guys. Something about undead ass makes them go absolutely bonkers. Like a feeding frenzy."

"That has got to be the grossest analogy I've ever heard."

She laughed, the pearlescent color of her skin matching perfectly the color of her teeth. She unclasped the satchel slung over her shoulder, and dropped the little ball in. The soft clinking sounds I heard clued me into the fact that the poltergeist woman hadn't been Evangeline's first catch of the night.

"And that's why it's perfect," she rose, towering over me, like a circus performer on stilts. "So, you wanna tell me what crazy mess your reckless crush has made now?"

I deadpanned. "Why does everyone always assume Mason is the one that has screwed up something?"

She sucked in her cheeks, "Hmm, let's see... common sense, past experience, just you being here. Need I go on?"

She patted me on the shoulder and we began descending the decrepit stairs.

"No, that's not... hey what's that supposed to mean?"

Evangeline snorted. "You're kidding, right? You're practically his number one fan. I actually wouldn't be surprised if you had a mini shrine in your room drawer, to honor your beloved Kurt Cobain knockoff."

A wave of terrible heat attacked my cheeks. "What? No, I don't! That's stupid!"

Evangeline shrugged. "Hey, no judgment from me. But if you want some advice, start charging him for clean up services. That way, you aren't just a love-struck idiot he's milking."

The heat was turning my vision red, and I balled my fists.

"Oh my god, I'm not in love with him! We're just friends! And he isn't 'milking' me for help, I don't even..." I groaned into the air, the rage making me sputter.

"Or you can just ask him out," Evangeline's mouth curled into an infuriating grin. "A real-life Lady and the Tramp. You could make a pretty cheese soap opera out of that. Televisa would air that shit in a heartbeat."

"What?! That is so not..."

"Not that you two aren't a soap opera already. I don't think any other Reaper has called on me to hunt as much as you two have. You're like a bottomless pit of ghost-related fuckery," she laughed, turning her back to me. In my distracted fury, I hadn't realized we were already outside and had stopped just in front of Evangeline's metallic grey Ducati bike. "I'm not complaining though-beats having to sit on my ass at Base, bored out of my skull."

She rifled through her gear and strapped it in place. When she faced me again, her arms were crossed on her chest. "So, are you finally gonna tell me what he's screwed up now? Or will I have to guess? Pity I don't have a bottle of Jack around. We could make a wicked drinking game out of this."

I deadpanned at her, my jaw practically scraping the floor.

"Look, I'm gonna ignore everything you just said cause we have more important things to deal with right now."

"Good idea, since the truth is hard to argue against."

I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip.

-Why did I call her again?

Evangeline wasn't that bad, but my God, she knew how to test my patience. It was like the girl had only two settings, 100 and 150-everything, at once, all the time. Being around her was like downing an energy drink spiked with extra caffeine and a pound of sugar.

"Again, I'm ignoring that! Back to the problem. The reason why I called you is 'cause there was an... incident, during one of our reaps."

"An incident? Ooooh, sounds spooky. Tell me it involves multiple ghosts Mason has pissed off. I've had a bet with a few of my guys."

I sighed. "No, and it isn't Mason's screw up this time. Not completely at least."

Evangeline's slender brow shot up. "No way. No way! You? Damn, I did not see this coming-I owe Killian a beer. The hell could you have done?"

I pressed my lips, reminded of the disappointed look on Kevin's face.

"I thought you knew better."

I was supposed to. And the fact I hadn't sucked ass.

"Well, it's kinda hard to explain," I paused, regarding the curious arch of her brows. Only she would treat this as a game. "I think... I think you should see him for yourself."