Another Time 'Round

"Rock, get down here! Now, fucking now--"

One gunshot. Two. I swore, tearing my headset off, shoving instruments aside to vault over the banister and down to the stairwell. Shit. Shit. At my back, I heard the screaming of infrared sensors and their alarms as I clattered out of earshot, shrill. I jammed my thumb on the handset's button.

"En route, Mull. State position, out."

No answer. Figured. I leapt to the landing, swung 'round the corner. No point wasting breath asking her to acknowledge. If she'd used her gun, that meant an interesting development, and more'n likely she'd be busy.

"Goddammit!"

That shout didn't come over the radio's crackle. And I could hear the struggle ahead, muffled cry, fist hitting flesh. This could get nasty. I yanked my Glock from its holster and flung myself into the cover of a half-finished wall. Breathe steady. Here we go.

Sound was moving, fainter now. Pursuit. I side-stepped the corner, slow and steady, set to fire, and found myself facing a corridor just as dilapidated and empty as the rest of this abandoned high-rise. And dark—I snapped on the little light at my belt, casting a faint and yellowed pool of illumination. There was a shattered window, covered in flapping plastic, white drywall dust that stirred in the biting night wind. Smelled like stale city and old construction and oncoming snow. But not like the supernatural.

I inched forward, barrel up. Felt something thud against the toe of my boot and let my eyes flick down, just for a second. There was a hammer, and a workman's glove. Probably dropped and abandoned at the first signs of a haunting, six months ago. I could understand that. Folk don't like going back into buildings after they've seen a ghost. That's Shauna Mull's job.

I shifted a bit, letting my light flick around and highlight the place. Wires everywhere, busted lights, this whole building was just one big ol' unfinished construction mess. Something caught the corner of my vision. I slid towards it, knelt to scoop it up.

Beretta PX4 Compact in 9MM. It's a good gun. Moreover, it was Shauna's gun, I could tell that at a glance. I shoved it into my waistband and rose, boots crunching the shard-littered floor.

A crash from the stairs ahead of me. And a bellow that wasn't hers. I took off.

There was a cry, and Shauna's voice yelled something I couldn't make out. I hit the stairs at a dead sprint, jumped the railing up a level. My flashlight threw the whole scene into half-illumination; there were shadows dancing on the wall. Her frame, scarecrow-like and blurred with long-limbed flailing, grappled with a dark mass that nearly enveloped her, broad and blurred and indistinguishable. I hurled myself onto the landing.

"Shauna!"

The shape of her opponent shoved at her, abruptly. I fired off a shot, but it hit concrete and ricocheted. Instinct flung me to the floor. Shauna skidded over the steps and toppled back, slamming the wall. But she shoved herself up, away, right past me to where this shadow was fleeing. I scrambled to my feet.

No. Something was wrong. She was swaying, reeling almost drunkenly. Her shoulder hit the rail and she stumbled. One hand was outstretched, grouping for purchase, and even from a flight below I could hear her breathing, labored and wheezing, coughing, gasping—

"Rock," she rasped. The toe of her shoe caught a step, nearly pitched her on her face. "Rock, go after him, dammit, go!"

But the figure was already gone. I hurried to her side instead, snatching at her arm to keep her from toppling over.

"Shauna--"

"Please!"

"He's gone already."

"Goddammit!"

"I know. Hold on. Here, look at me. Look at me, Shauna." I caught her under the chin, tilting her head into my light. Shauna coughed and batted me away.

"Don't…"

I scowled, rubbing my fingertips together. My gloves stopped at the knuckles, and I could feel my skin burning faintly where I'd touched her. What I could see of her bony face had inflamed a furious red. Her eyes were screwed shut, streaming like her nose, and I could see her lashes fluttering frantically as she tried to blink, tears dribbling over her cheekbones.

"It… pepper-sprayed you?"

"He d-did." She pawed at her mouth, haphazardly, and leaned over to spit a wad of mucus that was more akin to a dry-heave than anything else. It mostly hit my boot. She hauled herself upright, abruptly, and would've tripped again if I hadn't nabbed her by the back of the coat.

"Whoa, whoa! Whoa, there. Where're you off to?"

"Air. N-need air." Her grip clamped down on my collar, digging in. Desperate. "Roof…"

"Well, you're not getting up there by yourself, dumbass. You can't even see."

"S-shut the… the hell up, Rockford."

"C'mon." I slung an arm around her shoulders, nudging her foot to get her going in the right direction. Her breathing was wild, ragged, but I wasn't particularly worried. Her being an ex-cop and my being ex-MP meant OCs were old hat, in a way, for both of us. Part of training. I'd had it, she'd had it. Breathe normal, blink often to cry it out, all that jazz. I glanced at her as we climbed.

"How long?"

"Since back--" She coughed, gasped a bit. "Back there. Before…"

"That's how you dropped your gun."

She nodded. "You got it?"

"The gun?" I snorted. "You're blind. Forget it, champ. Ask me in thirty minutes. I'm not getting shot by you again."

A glowing sign above our heads announced that we'd hit the roof level. I let go of my friend, thinking I might have to put my shoulder to the door, but it wasn't locked. Shauna stumbled through, and I proceeded to half-drag her up the final few steps and out into the open.

The buffet of cold hit me like a slap. She dragged herself out of my hold, took enough wavering steps near to the edge to alarm me, and there dropped to her knees, squinting hard, panting. She was choking a little on her own saliva, or something, and she felt around for the very edge of the building, that obscenely tall, the stomach-clenching drop-off, and she spat again, over the side.

I watched her. I mean, didn't know exactly what else I could do while she was getting herself together again. My hands were hanging limply, and I was still holding my gun. I holstered it, went to crouch by her side.

"Hey you. Let's get away from there."

Shauna only mumbled something. I nudged at her until she finally moved away, crawling 'till we reached a spot more akin to the center and I let her go. Wordlessly, she tugged at her scarf, her gloves, like her burning skin couldn't take the closeness or heat. She yanked her coat off, too, followed by her jacket, and shoved it all into a pile and stayed there on her hands and knees, dropping down onto her forearms to press her brow to the icy concrete of the rooftop.

I knelt, too, but I was feeling the cold far more than she was, that's for sure. I blew on my fingers, and I watched a few tiny snow speckles drift down upon the wind.

"Asshole of a ghost."

"Wasn't a ghost, you idiot." Shauna turned her head to spare me a glare. Or what would have been a glare, had her eyes not been shut. "Ghosts don't use pepper spray."

True. I studied the back of her neck. The skeletal outlines of her hands, clenching, unclenching. Her shirt collar was loose by an extra button, an uncustomary inch of shoulder slipping free. All this, I could see the scars on her darkening from the chill. She had gooseflesh on her ashen body, her bones protruding like some broken bird's, like they would thrust right out of her at any time.

I wished she would eat more. Among other things.

"Call the police, then? If this ghost's just some dude--"

"Not yet."

I sighed. Back to good ol' number four on my list of the Top Ten Recurring Conversations Between Shauna Mull And Myself. "Shauna, you've done your job. Time to hand it over. I'll even call Whilles for you, if you want."

"No."

"It's not your case anymore! For God's sake, stop thinking like you're still a detective--"

"Give me a damn minute!" Her voice was a snarl. Grimacing, Shauna pushed herself up, sitting back on her heels. The motions were so sharp and tense that I almost wondered if she was going to lash out at me, but she only turned away, plucking at the unraveled remnants of her braid.

For a long moment, there was silence between us.

"Look at this city, Rock," she finally said, darkly. "Or close your eyes and sense it, if you want to know it as I am. Can't you feel how utterly stupid it is? What worthless rubbish these dull people build their lives around? In all my life," her voice was edged, "I'd never faced such a cesspool of ignorance and malice and ridiculous sentiment as New York."

I said nothing. I only stared at her back, the faintly visible bumps of her spine through her shirt. Out in the distance, the horizon was lit in lurid blaze of reckless light, and even miles away, Times Square was roaring with spilled sound. Shauna stretched out her arms, then, as if feeling it, gathering, taking hold of it from where she knelt.

"It's fascinating," she murmured. "But all the same, I've become as dull and stupid as they are."

"Prone to melodrama, too." I scooted over to join her, taking care not to look over the ledge. Shauna grunted.

"Haven't I always been?"

"Long as I've known you." I studied her expression. Contorted with pain, yes, but it was difficult to tell where her emotions lay. I've gotten used to Shauna's fluctuating moods, particularly when cases take unexpected turns, but where those moods lead her is another matter entirely. Existential crises and self-loathing-fueled breakdowns aren't uncommon. Sure enough:

"What am I doing here, Rock?"

"Trying to see how fast you can freeze our asses off?" I rubbed at my arms. "C'mon, Shauna. It's been a long day. I'll call Whilles, we'll go home and take care of your face, and then you can get to bed. When's the last time you slept, anyhow?"

She pursed her lips, stubbornly. I sighed.

"I could tell you that we're on a rooftop because you were hired to find out if this building has a ghost. It doesn't have a ghost, it has a maniac with pepper spray and so you've done your job. And now you're, what, sulking--"

"Jesus Christ." She gripped at her head, tightly, bending so far forward that her brow was nearly brushing her knees. "I don't understand, Rock, I don't understand…"

"Hey, don't do that." I tugged at her wrists, trying to move her arms away from the sensitive skin on her face. Shauna's only response was to dig her nails further into her scalp.

"Some days I think I'm going insane. What am I even doing here? This isn't right, this isn't where I'm supposed to be. I'm out of place. Jarred. Wrong move."

"Join the club." I fingered my dog tags. She sighed, softly.

"Oh, we make quite the pair, don't we, Rock? Where do you think you'd be now, if you hadn't been nearly exploded?"

"Dunno. Possibly Arlington." There was a twinge in my shoulder that I couldn't help but rub at, possibly out of reflex. "Y'know, I spend a lot of time telling myself that it doesn't matter, Shauna."

Shauna laughed.

The sound set my teeth on edge. It wasn't her usual sardonic chuckle—some kind of half-muffled shriek burst from her throat, her lips curling into a wretched parody of a smile as she rocked herself back and forth, chortling. Hysterical, probably. I could recognize it easily enough. She was still curled into herself and she was shaking, and even when the manic noises had faded, she was quivering and moving, some kind of low moan rattling right through her, her shoulders heaving with her gasps for breath. With that poison she currently had clogging her throat, she was going to pass out if she didn't let herself get air, and I was going to tell her that. I put my hand on her shoulder, and that's when I noticed that all those tears she'd had coursing down her face were soaking the legs of her jeans.

And it struck me. I tugged at her, got her leaning back against me so she could finally breathe. She shuddered a bit when I put my arms around her, but she didn't pull away.

She swallowed. "You're so stupid, Casey Rockford. You've never lived your own life."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"First thing I really remember about that damn hospital is your stupid hat on the table. Same one you're wearing now. Boston Red Sox, five-plus years old, pine tar stain on the brim." She sat up, flopped over onto her stomach to lie against the rooftop once more. There was snow in her ashy hair. I flicked a little off of my cap.

She shrugged, after a little.

"I don't know. I wonder what I'm doing sometimes, Rock."

"Oh, I wonder that about you too, believe me."

She grinned, weakly. "You and a lot of others not so patient."

"Eh, fuck 'em." I stretched, wearily. "Surely they've got better things to worry over than us."

Out in the distance, the noise was growing ever louder, the lights flickering. A chant was starting, obscured to wordlessness by distance and volume, but familiar all the same.

"How long has it been since you cried?" I asked softly, not even expecting an answer. "Did you ever cry after whatever mauled you changed your life?"

If she answered, it was lost in an explosion of noise and fireworks and a flaring skyline. My watch beeped, and Shauna looked to the sallow moon that hung directly overhead.

"Happy new year, Shauna," I said. She scowled.

"Who says?"

"I do, you loser." Groaning, I clambered to my feet, shaking my numbed limbs. "You gonna sit there and catch your death, or do you want to put your things back on, give Whilles a call, and get the hell out of here?"

"No, if I must, and I guess." She stirred marginally, but didn't turn around just yet. "Hand me my scarf?"

I tossed it at her, forgetting that she couldn't see and hitting her square in the face with it. "God, you're so lazy."

"Blind," she grumbled, draping it around her neck. "I'm blind, remember?"

"Oh. You need help?"

"No. Go away." She pushed herself up to her knees, fumbling a little. And then she froze, tilting her head to one side, muscles tensing. "Rock--"

She didn't need to say more. Her look, and the tone of her voice, and then the cold and familiar sound of a gun being cocked behind me, said it all.

I turned, slowly. There by the stairwell stood a slender wire of a young man, swathed a vast robe of black, his face smeared with mottled white makeup. Both of his hands were wrapped tightly around a small handgun, almost frantically, which he'd leveled square at Shauna's head.

"Get on the ground," he barked. "I'll shoot her."

Ah, Jesus. I spared a quick glance to my companion. Typically enough, Shauna wasn't about to bother hiding her satisfaction.

"I see our ghost has returned." Her words were droll. "Or perhaps 'hear' would be a better--"

"I said, get down on the ground." His grip was white-knuckled. "You, get rid of that gun."

"She doesn't need that to kill you," Shauna cackled, as I drew out my Glock and slid it over. I kicked her, warningly. The young man's jaw tightened as he nudged my weapon behind himself.

"Shut up."

"C'mon, Mull." I shoved her flat as I laid myself down. I wasn't about to mess around with a clearly nervous kid with a gun, not if I wanted to start this year out hole-free. Our captor inched forward, uncertainly. Despite Shauna's apparent attempt to get his attention—and gun—focused on me, he was looking her over with no small degree of interest.

"Damn, you're the tallest bitch I've ever seen."

"And you're far too scared to act cocky." She shifted a bit, maybe finally feeling the cold. "I hear your breathing. Never handled a gun? Suppose it's understandable. Even seasoned actors get shaken if they're not familiar—seasoned not the word for it, though, is it? That makeup's professional make, but here you are moonlighting as a ghost-for-hire. Need to make a buck, then?"

"I'm not an actor." His voice was tight. Shauna guffawed softly.

"Of course you are. What other kind of ghost only haunts buildings in broad daylight and avoids weekends altogether? Lovely stagecraft tricks, too, pulling off the act. Found your levitation setup. Must have been a complicated thing to steal, all those wires and hoists. Flash-pots, smoke machines. Typically the overdramatics are a dead giveaway for a hoax, except for that lovely legend surrounding the place. Built over a 1837 graveyard--"

The crack of a gunshot right by my ear nearly made me jump out of my skin; fragments of debris kicked into the air as the bullet skipped over the rooftop and flew into space.

He was grinding his teeth. "I mean it!"

"And your timing is impeccable." Shauna was unruffled. "New Year's celebration in New York? Hardly anyone will hear your shot, if at all. We'll be dead for days before we're found." She paused. "I wouldn't have pegged you as the type, but you have killed before. The foreman?"

"He fell. I-I didn't kill him. Will you shut up?"

"Who hired you? Competing company?"

"Hell if I'm telling you!"

From where I lay, my cheek pressed to cold concrete, I just barely see him fumbling at his pocket, one-handed. Cell phone, maybe. Call his boss, whoever that was, see what to do with us. Now, it wasn't like he had a great shooting stance to begin with, but that little movement put him off-balance entirely, his gaze drifting. A mistake.

Before he could react, I twisted, whipped Shauna's gun from under my jacket, and fired. At the same instant, my friend tried to lift herself up—the bullet skimmed her shoulders, throwing her to the ground, and buried itself into our opponent's leg.

He hit the ground with a yell and I leapt up, bounding over my prone friend to plant my foot square in the middle of the boy's chest. He twisted, jerking his gun up wildly, and found himself staring up the barrel of mine.

"Drop that, kid," I growled. "Do it! I've killed far more folks than you have, trust me."

He hesitated, wavering for just a moment. It was all the time I needed to slam my weapon down, pistol-whipping him across the forehead. He fell back, immediately senseless, blood coursing over his face. I struck him again, for good measure, and then I shoved him aside, snatching up both his gun and my own before scrambling back.

"Shauna--"

There was crimson on her shirt and she lay curled on her side, but when I drew near she kicked at my shin, roughly.

"Dammit, Rock, you shot me!"

"You shot me when we were in Japan!" I hauled her up, fumbling at the buttons of her shirt, enough to peel it back and look. Despite the length of it, straight across her upper back, the wound superficial, no more than a nasty graze.

"Just a scratch." She pulled away from me with a sniff, tugging at her clothing. "Daresay the shirt might be ruined. I'll live."

"Hell of a scratch." Still, I went to collect her jacket and coat and gloves. "Are you happy now? We got the ghost. I'm calling Whilles and we're getting out of here, unless you want to try and find more ways to get yourself injured."

"No, I think I've had enough for tonight." She stood still as I helped her to bundle up once more, guiding her arms back into the sleeves and assisting with her buttons. "That is, unless you'd like shoot anyone else?"

Well, couldn't really think of any retort of to that. "Sometimes I think I'm your goddamn mother," I grumbled instead, straightening her scarf. It earned me another kick.

"Shut up and make the phone call. Hopefully our fine detective friend hasn't decided to go forth and drink overmuch tonight."

Oh, God. New Year. I pulled a face as I scrolled through my cell's contacts. Whilles and Jefferson and the usual crew always resided near the top, and that probably said something about my life, that my phone was full of cops and CSIs. "That reminds me. I'm missing a perfectly good pub crawl with Buck and company for this, bitch."

"Clearly that not-boyfriend of yours has no notion of how to show a girl a good time. Unlike me. And if I can beg your pardon, I think I'm going to sit down before I fall over."

It was more akin to some kind of collapse, but whatever. She'd had the kindness to do it next to our unconscious prisoner, though, and I could keep my eye on both of them while I made the call. By the time I hung up, she looked half-asleep, though I knew far better than to think so.

"Boys are en route," I told her, stuffing the phone back into my pocket. "Paramedics, too. Not that you'll want 'em."

She huffed indignantly, nudging the kid with the toe of her sneaker. "He needs that more than I do. Unless I'm mistaken, I heard the sweet sound of a minor skull fracture?"

"Oh, I do hope so. 'Least he could get for our troubles." I crouched, reaching out to pat him down, purely out of habit. I found a wallet in the back pocket of the jeans he wore beneath the robe, and in the front, a used can of pepper spray.

"And that's lovely," Shauna remarked, as I handed it to her. "How kind of him to save it."

"Probably still has some in it, so be careful." I set about unlacing the guy's shoelaces. Not a fantastic way to tie someone up, but it works. "I'm not helping you home if you're gonna be a dumbass and spray yourself."

She smirked. "Oh, you would."

"I wouldn't. Your little butt would freeze solid up here and I'd have no remorse about it whatsoever. First thing I'd do is go home and pitch all your nasty-ass instant coffee…"

"Mhm. Mind lighting a cigarette for me?"

I did so. She smoked in silence until the metallic wailing of sirens broke through the distant veil of celebratory noise. I rose and went to peer over the building's edge, cautiously. New lights were flickering below me, blue and red.

Shauna clambered to her feet as well, groaning. "And here come our favorite lads, starting the year out just right."

I hummed a little under my breath. Another year just right? I flicked a bit of snow off my jacket, pensively. Guess this made it a couple years now that I'd been tailing the world's biggest nutcase in her search for ghosts and monsters. And a new one was stretching out in front of us like the biggest chasm I could imagine. All new chances for adventures and annoyances and missed dates with Buck and Mongolian death worms eating my leg and…

As always, she seemed to sense my thoughts; I glanced over to see a reddened slit of one gray eye peering out at me, sharply, and a smile playing around her lips.

"Up for another one?" she asked me.

There were footsteps on the stairs. Police were here. I looked at her, and I looked at the kid at our feet. And I shrugged.

"Let's see what happens," I told her, and grinned.











"What the hell is 'Auld Lang Syne' supposed to mean, anyhow?"

"'Old Past Times', I think? Something… my grandma told me once. I forget. Goddammit, Shauna, I can't take it. Spot me a smoke."

"No, you're doing well. Whyever would we want to sing about that?"

"Fuck if I know. Champagne?"

"In a coffee mug? Thought you'd never ask."