The ghost, denied its grudge and severed from the power that sustained it, screamed and vanished in a wisp of smoke. J rose from his crouch, wincing at the pain in his knees, and checked the area for any remaining malign influences. All clear. He turned around and gave a firm, reassuring nod to the family huddled up together by the wall of the farmhouse. "It's all right, it's over now."

None of them understood English, but they still got his meaning. The kids ran forward first, free of the caution of experience, and before J could blink all three of them were jumping around him and shouting in Portuguese. The older boy sounded like he was lecturing his little siblings but neither of them were listening, too busy pretending they were exorcists themselves. J ruffled the younger boy's hair as he stepped over to their grateful parents.

They wanted him to stay, of course. It was hard to politely turn them down via translator app, but J stuck to his guns, even when the kids joined in. He had to catch a bus to catch a train to catch a plane, he said. He'd already bought the tickets, he said. He was very sorry about it, he'd love to stay, they were all wonderful people and he'd remember them forever, but he had to go, he said.

Very little of it was true (they did seem to be nice people), but J knew he had to leave now. It was a feeling, buried in his bones, echoing in the depths of his mind, that said in no uncertain terms: Don't overstay your welcome. Don't give them a chance to forget their gratitude.

It felt like a message from his former life, and J made a policy of listening when one of those turned up. That was what had made him the best freelance exorcist in the world.

So J disentangled himself from the weeping grandmother, pried the little girl off his arm, and gently pushed the boys away. He shook hands with the solemn uncle, accepted the bag of homemade food from the mother, smiled and waved and said goodbye again, and let the father lead him to the broken-down old truck. They were soon bouncing down the rough gravel road away from the house and towards São Gabriel. The kids ran after them to the edge of the farm, calling and waving.

J waved back, more for the father than for him. He could tell it worked because the man said something approving in Portuguese, but hell if J knew what it was. "Bien...niños," J added, which made the man laugh. He was still chuckling when he turned on the radio and loud, cheerful music filled the truck. J settled himself down to watch the scenery roll by.

It really was a nice place. Green fields, small houses, friendly people. They still listened to radios out here, not approved selections served up by algorithms. The food was homemade and cheap, the roads were dusty and rutted. It was a place only half-touched by modernity, where people still talked to each other, not computers, where grass still grew and kids ran wild. Where ghosts could walk in the night, unbothered by skeptical science. It was the kind of place J wished he belonged.

J snorted softly. Right. And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. This was the kind of place the man next to him belonged, a solid, hard-working family man with a big laugh and kind eyes. Not some sort of amnesiac warlock drifter chained by a past he couldn't remember. The feeling in his bones said it without kindness or pity: you'll belong when you're dead.

Until then, he'd keep rolling through these little, out of the way places where faith and fear lived side-by-side.

Now it was time to roll on. J dug his one concession to modernity out of his pocket and started going through his saved emails, though he already knew what was there. A spirit in Zimbabwe, "mysterious occurrences" in Germany, ghost fields in Cambodia, some sort of curse in Chile...that one was fairly close. Maybe he'd go there next. Negotiate on the beach, catch a plane in Porto Alegre, and jump across the Andes for some easy money. Simple. Clean. Not at all related to the thing he was avoiding.

Subject: Hakuba Shrine. Message: a long quote from Nostradamus about the resurrection of Dracula, followed by a single sentence: Come to Hakuba Shrine at 16:00 on September 2nd. The from address wasn't one J recognized; the name at the bottom was obviously fake. And the words "Hakuba Shrine" scared him almost as much as the name "Dracula".

Being deathly frightened of a fictional character was the most embarrassing secret J had, and it had almost been enough to make him delete the email as soon as he had opened it. But something had stayed his hand, made him go back and re-read the message again and again, until the date was just a week away. It would be a serious financial hit to get tickets to Japan now. And yet...

The man was singing along with the radio as they bounced over the road. It was a cool day at the beginning of spring, when the world began to wake up from its slumber. J, staring out the window, saw the choice ahead of him split cleanly for the first time.

He could ignore the email and stay asleep. Or he could go to Japan and find out what horrors he'd been avoiding for the past 36 years.

The idea of Dracula terrified him. But he knew, the same way he knew not to stay with the kind, grateful people, the same way he knew he'd never belong in any community, the same way he knew how to bind ghosts and kill werewolves: To walk away would be worse.

If Dracula was at Hakuba Shrine, J would go. There was no choice.

Dammit all.

Twenty years. Twenty yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaars!

(or it was back in May)