Sara dejectedly, and a bit drunkenly, returned to her room and got ready for bed. The multiple doses of bourbon were proving to be an effective cure for her continual insomnia, but the nightmares still troubled her. She couldn't even seek solace in the memory of Shaun's kiss outside a Brixton warehouse anymore, as had been her usual custom; that safe haven had now been condemned and torn down.
After a few more hours of restless tossing and turning, her eyes slowly opened as she was pulled reluctantly into consciousness. She glanced at the clock to read "3:31" through blurry eyes. Still wavering between being asleep and being awake, she thought she felt another presence in the room but couldn't see or hear anything. She focused on the French doors leading to the patio. There was an outline of a shape there, something darker than the night outside. She hesitantly reached over to turn on the lamp.
"Hello, Sara."
"Oh, my God!" she cried, nearly jumping out of the bed and slamming up against the headboard.
Seated in the chair was her former handler Will. Her deceased former handler. His skin was grey and gaunt, his bones almost visible through thinning skin, blood staining the suit she'd last seen him in. "How? Why? How?" she stammered, clutching the headboard.
"Three very good questions," he noted in his posh voice. "But the better question is why couldn't I have decided to haunt you on a night when you were in a sexy negligee instead of your flannel sheep pajamas."
"Hey, stop looking at my sleepwear," she scolded. "Stop being here, full stop."
"Believe me, I'd rather not be here."
"No, no, no. This isn't real." She edged herself off the bed to the other side of the room, trying to put space between herself and the apparition. "You're not here."
"I'm afraid I am."
"You can't be here. Because if you're here, then I've officially gone crazy. So deal with it, you're not here." She opened the mini-fridge and rummaged through its contents.
"Then I'll just have to assume no one informed that you are currently staying in one of the most haunted hotels in the country. You've got to expect a certain level of paranormal activity. By the way, what are you doing?"
"Looking for tranquilizers. Or booze. Either will do at this point."
"Aren't you happy to see me at all? Sara, you're hurting my feelings." He rose from the chair and came to stand beside her.
"You don't have feelings. You're not even corporeal."
He smacked the back of her head.
"Ow!" she cried, straightening up to face him. "Whatever happened to friendly ghosts?"
"I am in death as I was in life," he replied with a shrug.
She just stared at him, trying to discern whether he was really there or a product of too much bourbon. "Okay, wait, this is getting way too John Landis for me. I am going to go crawl under the covers, and when I remove the covers, you won't be here."
"I might."
"What do you mean 'you might'? Look, just go back to heaven or purgatory or your box in the ground and leave me alone."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"You summoned me."
"I didn't summon you," she countered.
"You did. Something in your subconscious has caused me to appear to you. A sense of guilt, or longing, or…"
"Now listen, Will, or whatever you are, I'm nursing a hangover, my heart has been ripped out and stomped on, and my ego has taken a fairly brutal beating. I'm not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed by a piece of ectoplasm."
Will began laughing and took a seat on the edge of the bed.
"What? Why are you laughing?"
"I had forgotten that you talk like that, 24/7, drunk or sober."
"Like what?"
"Like a hyperactive, overeducated American."
"Hey, I have had enough insults for one day," she groaned, sliding back under the covers. "Thanks for stopping by. Now please go away."
He paused in contemplation and turned to her. "You feel guilty that you couldn't save me."
"What?"
"It's the truth, Sara. And whether you're ready to do so or not, you have to confront the guilt that you felt about your inability to save me."
"Of course I couldn't save you. I mean, I was all the way across town, and you…" Memories of that night, of finding his body in a pool of blood on the floor of Malcolm Ryland's flat came flooding back. How she'd felt completely helpless and useless. "You went into a suspect's house completely unarmed. Why would you do that?" she demanded with a flash of anger.
"There's nothing you could have done," he insisted softly.
"If you had just waited a few more hours…"
"There's nothing you could have done."
She shook her head, fighting back the tears. "I'm sorry, Will. I'm so sorry I couldn't save you."
"What's done is done. But there are people now who need your help."
"I don't know if I can do this anymore. I'm so tired of losing the people that I love."
"You're scared you won't be able to save Shaun?" he suggested.
"Oh, please! Shaun is not my concern anymore," she proclaimed, escaping from the bed again and going to look out the French doors.
"He'll always be your concern."
"Someone else has that very special privilege of being concerned now, Will. I need to forget about him. The same way that he forgot about me."
"But you won't because you're stubborn…"
"No, I'm not."
"And you can't because you love him..."
"Yeah, fat lot of good that did me," she sighed, snatching a packet of peanuts from the mini-fridge.
"Sara, I spent years as your handler. It was my job to know your strengths and weaknesses. Getting over a broken heart was never one of your strengths."
She paused and considered. "Do you think it's possible that this new girlfriend of his could, y'know, be a threat to human existence or something?"
"I highly doubt it."
"I guess you're right," she conceded. "Still, she has way more pink in her wardrobe than any normal girl should have. It seems very suspicious."
"Sara, you have a job to do here. You need to focus."
"I'm focused. Totally." She sat beside him on the edge of the bed. "But when I saw him again…he was shirtless, Will. I've never seen him shirtless. I didn't know he looked that good shirtless." She gave a frustrated sigh and fell back onto the bed.
"You're losing focus…"
"Forearms, Will. Have you seen the man's forearms?"
"Forget the forearms."
"Okay. Okay, I'm focused," she asserted, sitting up. "You're right, I need to stop being stupid and childish. Emma can have Shaun. She can deal with his insecurities and his hero complex and his slacker tendencies. They're all hers to enjoy, because I'm over him."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am. All the months that I wasted thinking about him, it's through. It's over. I'm not gonna' think about him anymore, ever again."
"Yes, you will."
She chucked an unsalted peanut at his decaying skull. "You know, this would be easier if you'd stop contradicting me."
"I'm just telling you the truth."
They sat there together in silence, the downtrodden slayer and her deceased handler. She really, really didn't want to cry. It was pointless, it wouldn't change anything, but the tears came unbidden and she was tired of fighting them. "This isn't going to stop hurting, is it?" she pleaded.
"It will, Sara, I promise," he consoled, putting his arm around her as she wept. "Just give it time."
The next thing Sara knew, sunlight was assaulting her eyes and forcing her awake.
"Rise and shine!" Julian said far too happily, throwing open the curtains in her room. With blurry eyes, she scanned the room but found that she and Julian were the only occupants. Last night must have been a dream, she concluded. But it seemed so real.
"How's my favorite slayer this morning?" Julian continued.
Sara responded by placing a pillow over her head. "Your favorite slayer is not a morning person," she groaned from underneath the pillow. "Didn't you get that memo?"
"Yes, it's all there in your dossier. Right underneath your long-standing obsession with the Powerpuff Girls."
"What?" she snapped, sitting up.
"Just trying to get your attention," he said with a smile. "Look, you've slept long enough. It's time to get back to work." He scanned the room, noticing empty bottles from the mini-fridge, empty snack wrappers, and crumpled tissues on the floor. "Sara, have you been crying?" he asked, observing her red-rimmed eyes.
"No," she answered abruptly. "I just…it's allergies. English country air doesn't agree with me."
"Well, get up, get dressed, we have an appointment with the local CID."
"For what?"
"Morning meeting at the morgue. We managed to track down a body."
"Good thing I wasn't planning on eating breakfast."
Julian was on his way out the door when he stopped and turned back to her. "Sara, are you sure you're okay?"
"Well, considering I just had to say goodbye to my last hope for a happy and normal life, I'm pretty good," she replied. "I'll meet you downstairs in fifteen."
Minutes later, Sara joined Julian at his car, and they drove to the nearest police station in the city of Penrith. On the journey, Julian relayed the news that their supervisor at the Council, Michael Simmonds, had been in touch with a Detective Ashford and that they were supposed to meet with her to discuss the case. They pulled into the parking lot and asked after the detective chief inspector at the front desk. The woman who greeted them was a slender, well-dressed brunette with sharp eyes and sharper cheekbones.
"Detective Ashford, I'm Julian West. This is my colleague, Helen Wellesley. Thanks so much for taking the time to meet with us," Julian greeted.
"No problem," she said with a warm smile. "Michael Simmonds is an old friend. I'm hoping that maybe you two can help us shed some light on this mystery."
The detective led them down a series of stairs and corridors to the morgue. As they stood around the body, Ashford issued the disclaimer, "Remember, this is strictly off the record. If my boss knew I was consulting with some sort of occult investigators…"
"We assure you, we'll be discreet, Detective Ashford," Julian offered. "We're only here to help in whatever way we can."
The detective nodded, seemingly satisfied. She then pulled the sheet back to reveal the body. It was a mass of twisting bones and wrinkled, discolored skin. Sara was briefly reminded of something she'd seen on The X-Files.
"She was found in the woods?" Julian asked, glancing at the victim's file.
"By a jogger yesterday afternoon."
"Cause of death?"
"That's the mystery. Given the state of the body, we can't even pinpoint a time of death. Dental records were the only way to make a positive ID."
"Fingerprints or blood samples weren't an option?" Sara asked.
"There's no blood left in the body."
Julian and Sara exchanged glances.
"No viable fingerprints, either," Ashford continued. "As you can see, there's extreme necrosis of the skin and internal organs. It's almost as if she were mummified, as if every ounce of moisture was drained out of her."
"And there's only one external wound?" Sara inquired, examining the neck out of instinct. "The puncture in the chest?"
"Yes. Judging by the trajectory, it was a straight-on shot to the heart."
"Possible weapon?"
"Well, the wound is circular with a clean edge. Doesn't match a knife or a blade of any kind. Whoever it was had almost surgical precision."
"What about the other missing persons?" Julian asked.
"We're making a thorough search of the woods but nothing's turned up yet."
"Have you discovered any connection between the victims?"
"They've all been young and female. That's about it. Different physical appearances, different lifestyles. We're finding it very difficult to work up a profile on this one."
"You said you'd made an ID. Was she a local?" Sara asked.
"No, a tourist. We get a lot of those this time of year. We checked all the nearby hotel registries. Up until her death, she was a guest at the Eden River Inn."
"The woman who most recently disappeared, she was an employee at the inn," Julian explained.
"Mr. West, I'm well aware of the stories about that inn. But I highly doubt that some local ghosts are responsible for killing this woman."
"Two out of three of the missing women were connected to the inn, Detective Ashford," Sara noted. "Are you planning to wait around for three out of four?"
The detective gave her a stern look. "I'm planning to follow the physical evidence, Miss Wellesley. Until you bring me a signed confession from one of these spirits, I'm afraid that's the best I can do."
Julian and Sara departed the police station, got into Julian's car and began the trip back to the inn.
"So where do we go from here?" she asked.
"We need a complete history of the Eden River Inn. The building and the site itself. We're looking for pagan burial grounds, past paranormal experiences, any incidences of violence."
"We're looking for a ghost?"
"Ghosts don't cause physical harm, Sara."
"There's plenty of evidence to the contrary."
"Like what?"
"Poltergeist, Ghostbusters, The Grudge."
"Anything you didn't see at the cinema?"
"No, not as such."
"When we get back to the hotel, I'll get in touch with the Council, have Nicola go through the archives. I want you to do a thorough survey of the building, talk to employees, regular visitors, anyone that might know anything about the inn's history."
"I'm on it."
"Anyone other than the couple in Room 23," Julian added.
"Well, duh," Sara responded eloquently.