Ghost Slayers

Chapter Twelve

By Relm

"You know Sylphiel, Gourry was so disappointed that you weren't there today." Filia said with a smug smile.

Sylphiel went red in the face. "What exactly did he say?"

Filia's grin grew larger. "That he thought you were going to there. And that he was hoping to talk to you because he wanted to ask you out on a romantic date."

"He did not say that!" Sylphiel flustered.

"Oh yes he did. Just ask Amelia that is exactly what he said."

Sylphiel shot a look at Amelia who was so engrossed with what she was doing on the computer screen that she wasn't paying attention to what they were talking about. "Well Amelia is that true?"

"What? Yeah sure whatever." Amelia mumbled.

Sylphiel's face turned a darker shade of red. "No that's not true you two are lying!"

"Okay maybe I might lie but Amelia almost never lies."

Sylphiel was going to make a remark to that when the phone started ringing.

"I bet that's Gourry right now to ask you out for a date." Filia mused.

Sylphiel glared at Filia and answered the phone. "Hello this is Ghost Slayers, Sylphiel speaking what can I do for you today?" Once she heard the other voice on the phone she paled. "Officer Gaberieve, how are you?"

Filia laughed out loud and would have commented if Lina hadn't dragged her out of the room.

"Filia leave Sylphiel alone. We have work to do. You know the stuff we get paid for? Now c'mon."

"Okay Lina. Let's pack. What kind of equipment do you want to pack?"

"Well we still have most of our equipment in the car, so we'll use that. It's more of a decision on whether or not we all are going to go. Because if we are we'll need to pack one more pack." Lina surmised.

"With no visual confirmation and only minor physical activity I'd wager that it's not a giant threat. I don't see why we all would need to go. Plus it might be a good idea to have someone stay behind to answer the phone and baby sit Zelgadis."

"Chances are he'll follow us to wherever we go."

"Well I'm sure if you ask him nicely he'll stay at GS HQ. He seems to like you Lina."

"Who wouldn't?" Lina smirked. "I'm just so darn loveable. But all kidding aside as much as Amelia isn't going to like me for this, I think I'll want her to stay behind again. I have a feeling Zelgadis' computer is going to be harder to crack then a normal one."

"You know I love techy tools we use but some days I think we could do jobs faster and make more money if we had a piece of the spiritual cleansing market."

Lina shook her head. "No way I'll ever go for that. Even is we hired on a professional shaman, priest or occult specialist as part of out as part of our crew. I'm not disputing the effectiveness of it, but it's just too risky. Back when I hadn't formally formed the company and when I was operating from my home I had this job at an old house that was supposed to have been 'cleansed' by a spiritual guru. But the idiot was a novice and got his symbols wrong and instead of forcing the spirits out of the house it became a magnet for the over worldly. And these were some very nasty violent spirits. The owner of the house wanted to sell the place buy he couldn't sell it haunted as it was."

"How did the job go?"

"Terrible. I ended up with a dislocated shoulder and a couple bruised ribs and I only got rid of one of the masses. Back then I didn't have the equipment as well made as they are now, so they shorted out a couple more times then I would have liked. But needless to say I didn't get paid for the job. Though the guy offered to sell the house really cheap to me. I even considered buying it for use of the Ghost Slayers Headquarters."

"So why did you pick this place instead? Was the house in worse condition?"

"No the house was in great condition. The police station was cheaper. Plus the worst injury I've ever gotten here is Slime in my eyes. This place has more charm." Lina patted the wall and more plaster fell from the ceiling.

"Yeah, charm." Filia said while coughing from the plaster dust.

"But back to my point I'd rather use science to deal with spectres instead of charms and ritual cleansing."

"Yeah that's probably right. Anyway it might be a good idea to see how the chamber is doing. I'm surprised with the cost of our electric bill the police has raided the place in search of a grow-op." Filia laughed.

"Yeah is old Bill still there or did he finally move on?"

"Bill moved on yesterday."

"That's a relief." Bill was the spirit they got on their last job. He was a stubborn poltergeist that Lina wasn't sure would ever move on. Even though their company is called 'Ghost Slayers' the ghosts aren't actually 'slayed'. Originally Lina made a ghost containment unit to contain the ghosts but when she played with the electrical components she found out that the ghosts reacted to the frequencies. It actually relaxed them and some were so content that they let go of their grievances and move on to the next world. Since then Lina modified the container and turned it into a chamber. A sort of waiting room for spirits.

On the way to the ghost chamber Zelgadis joined Filia and Lina.

"Hi Zelgadis do you want to see what we do with the ghosts we catch?" Lina showed him the chamber while Filia checked the machine.

The chamber looked like a glass room with wires and that lined the bottom of the outside.

"We take these metal boxes and put ghosts in them. The boxes go into this here." Lina showed Zelgadis the machine at what would be the door of the chamber. "The ghost is transferred to this specially powered room that emits certain kinds of electric fields. The ghost's bodiless souls resonate with the currents making them calmer. The goal is to make them as relaxed and as peaceful as we can so that they will crossover. Most poltergeist and angry spirits are full of negative emotion and that prevents them from carrying on to the next life. That traps them here on this plane of existence when they shouldn't be here anymore. But you're not a ghost as far as we can tell so we're not about to put you in here." Lina said with a smile.

"Everything looks good Lina, it should be fine for tomorrow if we need it."

"That's good."

Zelgadis for whatever reason seemed in a trance while looking at the transfer machine. He reached out to touch it but did so hesitantly. It was like he wanted to touch it but was afraid to do so.

"What's he doing?" Filia looked to Lina.

"I don't know."

Zelgadis' finger tips made contact with the metal and all of a sudden jolts of electricity shot out from the machine and coursed through Zelgadis. His eyes went wide and his mouth hung open with a silent scream.

"Filia turn it off!" Lina pleaded.

"I did it's not responding!"

The lights flickered as the machine transferred currents of electricity through Zelgadis who was in very obvious pain.

"Filia!" Lina screamed. "TURN IT OFF!" She went to pull Zelgadis away and was amazed when her hands actually grasped something solid. She pulled with all her might and Zelgadis' fingers lost contact with the machine and the two of them fell to the floor with a loud thud.

The machine stopped pulsing electricity and settle back to normal.

Lina immediately went to Zelgadis to see if he was okay and was shocked by what she saw.

Zelgadis whom before looked like a transparent ghost was now flickering. One moment he looked solid and real like a living person and then he looked like a ghost again. He kept flickering back and forth between the two like a light bulb flickering between on and off. But then his body stopped flickering and settle back to his transparent state once more.

"Zelgadis are you okay?" Lina went to touch Zelgadis on the shoulder and as expected her hand went right through him. 'I touched him before. How is that possible?'

"I think so." Zelgadis spoke in a soft voice.

Filia and Lina's jaws dropped in surprised. A spirit that once was forced to silence could speak once more.