Now

Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

"Beluga?" asked Priest, pouring from a bottle of vodka he had taken out of his bag into a small plastic cup.

"No thanks." Said Lucy, looking out the train's window, "Isn't –"

"Lucy, if you say 'Isn't it too early to be drinking' then as sure as my father once tore my arm off, I will kill you."

Lucy didn't continue and only looked at her feet nervously.

"What are we going to do once we get to Georgetown?"

"I don't know yet."

"Well, that's a relief."

"When I said that I don't know yet, I meant I'll know when I'm there. It's complicated."

"Simplify it for me."

"I couldn't."

"Try."

"You'd either disbelieve me or think it doesn't make sense."

"Honeybee, it's about time you dropped the madam Xanadu act and filled me in."

"What are you talking about?"

"I've been around psychics before, I used to hunt and recruit them to work for the government. None of them fit your profile."

"Parapsychology is not an exact science."

"That may be, but Lucy, I know you're jerking my chain. Why are we going to Georgetown?"

"Because, um," said Lucy with a stammer, staring at her feet, "an angel told me to do so."

"Hmm."

Priest gulped the contents of his plastic cup and crushed it before tossing it aside and reclining in his seat.

"Go on."

"Sometimes when I faint because of psychic influence, I find myself in an alternate dimension."

"What kind?"

"It's a place I used to imagine as a little girl, a world of diamond-encrusted skies and, um, lollipop trees."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I have no idea if I created it or if I only tapped into it, but I think it's my perception of limbo."

"Alright. So, you tried to read McNeil but didn't manage it because of whatever barrier she has, trying it made you sick and you passed out. You were transferred to Limbo and that's where you met the angel."

"Right."

"What did it look like?"

"Like a man. Tall, pale, he had green eyes and red hair. He wore an old fashioned dinner suit. But he had massive wings, black as tar."

"Right. So… what exactly did the angel say? And how did he say it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did he speak Latin, Hebrew or was it a kind of language you were unfamiliar with yet understood."

"He spoke English, with a British accent…. Very upper class."

"Wow, I can't believe you thought I'd find this tale nonsensical." Said Priest sarcastically.

"If you don't want to listen, that's fine by me."

"No, we've gone too far." Said Priest, holding his interlocked fists to his chin as he leaned forward, "Pray continue."

"He just said that it was best that I never read McNeil and said that if I wanted knowledge, then I had to go to Georgetown. He said that, and then had a look at his pocket watch and said it was time to go."

Priest sighed as he took off his shoes and lay on the seat in the train's cabin, saying,

"I don't like Georgetown. There's nothing in Georgetown but politicians and … people who live in Georgetown. Point is; it's boring. For both our sakes, I hope your angel is waiting for us at the train station."

Georgetown, Washington

"So… Mister and Missus Totenkopf?" asked Priest, adjusting his necktie as he and Lucy walked up the sidewalk.

"What are you talking about?"

"Our cover, we're going to meet the realtor. Do you want to pretend to be a married German couple or what?"

"Why can't we just use the aliases Al-Sheikh told us to use?"

"Sure, it would just be a little more convincing if we pretended to be married out-of-towners."

"Can you pretend to be interested in the house and only brought me along as a friend?"

"Alright, if that's what you want."

"Thank you."

"Mona always pretended to be my wife when we were undercover," muttered Priest, "And I already made the appointment under those names, but what the hell."

Lucy rolled her eyes and put on a fake smile as they approached the realtor, a woman of her forties standing by the brownstone townhouse and looking through the top floor windows. She took notice of them and so put on a fake smile of her own, flicked her cigarette onto the street and extended a hand.

"Hi, I'm Eve Adams." Said the realtor, "You must be the Tawten-Copfs, am I pronouncing it right?"

"It's Toe-ten-cough, actually." Said Priest, shaking her hand, "I'm Frank Rose, this is my friend Anna."

"But I have an appointment with-"

"Mister and Missus Rutger Totenkopf, I know. It's just a false name I use to avoid unwanted attention. I hope that's alright."

"Oh, I understand. Would you like to come inside?"

"Yes, please."

"This house was built in 1899, commissioned by an English Lord a few years earlier. The lord decided not to move in and instead sold it to a local Judge." Explained the realtor, walking with Priest and Lucy in toe, through the spacious foyer, almost completely stripped of all furniture save for a clock or a mirror here or there.

"The living room is over there, the kitchen is on the other side of that wall. There are three more floors above, one master bedroom and four other smaller rooms. You can covert any to an office or gym or whatever it is you have in mind."

The realtor stopped and tuned around, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but what it is you do, Mister Rose?"

"I'm a graphic novelist." Said Priest, taking off his hat and coat and hanging them on a rack.

"What, you mean like comic books?" asked the realtor with a nervous cackle, "Interesting, is there much money in that? I mean this place isn't cheap."

"No, it's not really enough to make someone very affluent. But a book I've written was made into a blockbuster movie, my royalties were very lucrative. Some other movies based upon my work are also in production. You know that movie on the future of Britain released last year?"

"Yes, I remember it! I thought it was gripping, very bleak."

"Actually, the filmmakers barely touched on the topics the original work discussed, and they kind of missed the point. But it made me rich, so I can't really complain."

The realtor chuckled.

"Well, Mister Rose, I think this is the house for you. It has history and character. And would you like to know who one of the previous tenants was?"

"Who?" asked Priest, pretending not to know.

"Christine MacNeil. You know, the movie actress?"

"Yeah, from that movie! Alice-"

"Alice Doesn't live here Anymore!"

"Ah, she was brilliant. But wait, that means..!"

"Yes, this used to be the home of Senator McNeil."

"Whoa! What are the chances?!" Priest exclaimed, "Anna and I were talking about her on the way here. Extraordinary woman, she is."

"I know, isn't she great? I think she's just what America needs. Don't you?"

"Not unless I've turned Republican in my sleep! Ha ha ha! Oh, can we have a look upstairs?"

"….And this brings us to the end of out tour." Said Eve Adams, standing by the stairs on the top floor, facing Priest and Lucy, "You've seen every room in the house. I don't have to tell you this is a much sought-after part of town, and a building like this is very much in demand.

"So, what do you say, Mister Rose?"

"Well, Anna," Priest mumbled, "What do you think?"

Lucy seemed to be in her own thoughts, and didn't respond for a second or two before looking up to Adams and asking,

"Has there ever been damage to this property we should know about?"

Adams didn't seem to appreciate the question; she chuckled nervously as she adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses and said,

"Yes, well, there has been some extremely minor water damage over the years… And, well, there was a fire back in the mid-nineties. I understand someone left the gas turned on. No one was in at the time, no one was hurt, but the fire ran through the whole house. However, and this should be a testament to the perfectly sound architecture of this house, the building itself was largely intact."

"Ah, well," Priest mumbled as he walked down the stairs and, "It is a beautiful house, I'll need to give this some thought. Don't worry; my people will call your people."

"What was that all about?" asked Priest as he and Lucy got into the back of a cab, "Take us to the Admiral Hotel."

"I felt… nothing."

"How's that possible." Asked Priest, "And remind me what was it you were expected to hear or see?"

Lucy raised a hand to rub her eyes in exhaustion, mumbling in German,

"Houses have memories, and those rarely just go away. I tried to tap into it, but-"

"Wait, have you ever done something like this before?"

"The apartment where Shaun and Eel live used to be the home of a man called Kramer, and a filmmaker's before that, mine and Mona's was once the home of a singer called Susan Alexander. Yes, I have done this before. What I was saying is that this house… It doesn't have any memory at all. Tabula Rasa."

"How is it possible? Does it have anything to do with that fire she talked about?"

"A mundane fire might cleanse a house of its memory, but I think its magic, someone purified that house of all that it ever was, the fire may have been part of the cleansing ritual, but it was one powerful enough that this house has lost its power to accumulate memory.

"By the way, reading the realtor, I think that this house has been on the market on and off for several years. I think its tenants find themselves repulsed by it, after a while, unable to make a history in it."

"I understand. So, whatever happened when the senator lived in that house during the seventies must have been washed away by the League, as though it never happened. Question is, how can we find out what it was?"

"I don't know."

"Well, have a vision, then."

"I can't do it on demand; it's not like turning my head to the left and coughing. The Angel told me to come here, so we came. We have to think of something else, we shouldn't count on me receiving another vision, and…… Tell him to go back. Take us back to where we came from."

"Ma'am?" asked the driver.

"Do it." Said Priest, then lowered his voice and asked, "Why are we going back? What happened?"

"I… I saw something."

The two were silent as the driver circled around the block and stopped in front of McNeil's one-time residence.

"Wait here, keep the meter running." Priest ordered the river as he got out of the car after Lucy who had bolted out in a hurry.

When Priest caught up to her, having some trouble with remaining in the shadow of his trilby hat, she was kneeling b a set off stairs, one hand resting on a wall.

"What did you see, Lucy?"

"I saw a ghost."

"Oh, yeah? What did it look like?"

"A man in a cassock. Standing on the street corner, looking at me."

"…What, you've never seen a priest before?"

"His neck was broken, and his eyes were torn out."

"Oh. Ghost it is, then. But what are you doing now?"

"Something about this place… The fire was never here."

"What, these steps? What if they weren't? What are you listening to?"

Lucy took a deep breath and got up, taking her hand off the wall and turning to Priest she asked,

"What kind of name is Karras?"

R&R

Next Chapter

Psychic sleuth Lucy Wagner and her trusty psychic Judas investigate the mystery surrounding the deaths of Fathers Karas and Merrin.