Maggie on the Bounty (6 page)

There was a catwalk way up there,
though, and the tour guide pointed up. "People have reported seeing a
ghost-like figure overhead, to hear troops marching around when there aren't
soldiers on this ship."

That was all well and good, pretty
typical Haunted Wherever script.  I always felt like invoking
"troops" was a way to stir patriotic feelings or gain sympathy from
the crowd.  I was so busy judging the tour guide for playing his tourists that
I didn't notice the gaping hole in the middle of the bulkhead until I was
almost in it.  It was... massive.  Just... a hole... in the steel plating
separating one section of the boat from another.  Physically, probably
thirty-by-thirty feet, but crackling with energy along its edges.  I looked at
Killian, "Do you feel that?"

He shook his head.

"What are you even good
for?" I asked.

"Looking good while saving
you."

"Touché.  There is an energy
signature around this whole... hole," I said, pointing at the big opening
in front of us.  "There are fissures in the boundary.  It's like someone
has been digging a tunnel with a teaspoon so no one will notice while they get
ready to bust on through.  This is massive and SO not legal."

Killian gave a low whistle.
"So, do we return to The Other Side to report it?"

"They'll just send me back to
fix it," I said, wishing my cell phone could take a picture of Other
Worldly Energy so that I could send it to my dad.

"Would they pay you to come
back and fix it?"

"I'm getting the feeling we
don't have time to wait for the bureaucratic bullshit machine to spit out the
right paperwork.  I'll send a report as soon as we get into cell territory, but
I'm feeling like this one might be gratis.  You know.  If we don't all
die." 

"Die?" Killian repeated,
suddenly realizing the gravity of our sitch.

I stared at the cracks in the
boundary with a sinking feeling that made the Titanic look like it had just
taken on a little extra water. "Killian, what did we get ourselves
into?"

The tour guide was rounding
everyone else back up.

Killian adjusted his shirt with the
stoicism of a soldier going into battle.  "Well, let us find out."

I sighed, "After you."

We walked out of the cavernous hull
by going up some stairs and through the kind of door you would expect to see
inside a submarine.  Inside was the engine room.  It was a maze of white tubes,
narrow metal walkways, and pipes.  The tour guide stopped us by a door marked
with "13". 

Our guide got very quiet:  "A
young sailor was trapped in this water-tight door, crushed to death when it
closed during a drill.  People report seeing his ghost wandering the engine
room.  He haunts these passages and leaves his mark, a three-fingered oil smear,
on people's cheeks and legs."

The tour guide pointed at an
escalator at the end of the room which would take everyone upstairs to a nice
little museum with exhibits of the ship.  But while his back was turned, I saw
who it was leaving the oil marks on people's legs.  His spindly little hand
reached over the catwalk.

It was a gargoyle.  They look just
like the ones you see on the cornices of church buildings because... well...
those are gargoyles.  They hang out on buildings during the day, come to life
at night.  There is a work/study program that The Other Side runs on the
smaller buildings, but if you hang out on Earth long enough, you can get
yourself promoted all the way up to Notre Dame, which has need of as many
gargoyles as they can manage, let me tell you.

I had no idea what this guy was
doing down here on a ship, though.

The tour made its
way upstairs, chatting and showing off their pictures to one another. I grabbed
Killian's arm and held him back.

"I want to go back to that
swimming pool," I announced loudly, hoping the gargoyle wouldn't catch on
that I was about to find out what the hell was going on.

"I am on board with this
plan," said Killian.

As we walked past one of the
engines, I caught the gargoyle's shadow behind one of the pumps.

I made the sign of the cross. 
"Oh Father in Heaven, I ask for your protection and deliverance," I
prayed.

The gargoyle froze and turned
towards me like a great big hand had reached up and grabbed his head.

I called out, "I see you, I
know what you are, and I think we probably need to have a little chat."

The gargoyle sighed and relaxed,
coming out into view.  He was a little guy, more like a gargoyle that you would
find sitting on a bookshelf than on the cornice of a cathedral, but suitably
gargoyle-scary.  He gave me a taste of his little roar as he admonished me,
"Better be careful calling out those sorts of words.  Crying wolf'll make
us stop paying attention to you."

"I'm usually able to handle
the wolves on my own," I replied, leaning against the railing. 
"Funny to run into one of your kind here."

"Funny to run into you,
Tracker Maggie," he replied.

"Funny that you know my
name," I stated, suddenly on guard.

"Friend of Killarney."

Was there anything on this boat
that wasn't buddies with our priest?  "That figures."

"He is the current caretaker
of my childhood home," the gargoyle explained.

"Childhood
home?"

"His
church on La Brea."

"So how do you get from a
church on La Brea to a 1930's ocean liner?" I asked.

"There's a chapel
onboard."

I
oh-so-helpfully pointed out, "You're in the engine room, gargoyle..."

"The
name is George," he corrected me.

"Okay,
GEORGE, you're in the engine room.  I don't see a chapel around here."

"It's
topside, but there are too many tourists with a Sharpie pen.  You wake up once
with a gang tag drawn across your forehead and you
decide to do your protecting from a safer spot."

"Fair enough, but the sun is
up.  Shouldn't you be pretending to be concrete or something?"

"The sun isn't up anymore,
Maggie," he replied.

I looked down at my watch.  It was
seven o'clock and sure enough, dark had settled and I didn't even know it. 
Great.  "Okay, so I totally missed seeing the sunset from a porthole
window.  So, you still didn't answer my question.  What's a gargoyle like you
doing hanging out in an engine room like this?"

He pointed to a little retro sign that
most folks would mistake for adorable days-gone-by advertisement.  It read
"Gargoyle Oil."

I looked at him. "Unless Earth
suddenly started making oil from gargoyles, this is an Other Side brand, isn't
it?"

He laughed and hopped across a
couple of beams, "We've been the official caretakers of the Ghost Spirit
since 1934.  Gargoyle Oil.  Nothing better for lubing your parts."

Killian smiled at me.

"Shut up."  I turned to
George.  "So why is an Earth vessel using an Other Side product?"

"You're an idiot, Tracker
Maggie.  The name Gray Ghost doesn't refer to her paint.  This entire ship is a
ghost.  It rides between dimensions.  You get in the right space, and you can
walk right into the underworld.  Been my job to keep the evil spirits away
since 1934."

This was news to me.  "The
entire ship is a ghost?"

"Yep."

"I knew I hated this
place," I muttered to Killian.

He put a hand on my arm to keep me
on task and asked George, "You said that you have been tasked with
battling evil spirits.  Do you know why the more docile ghosts are
disappearing?"

"Vampires," he replied
matter-of-factly.

I hooked my thumb at Killian and
myself.  "Since you mentioned it, we caught one in the men's bathroom last
weekend."

"Only one?  Having you on board
is probably scattering them like cockroaches under a kitchen light.  This boat
has always been a portal for vampires.  What do you think that vortex is?"

"The vortex in the swimming
pool?" I asked.

He nodded.

"I have no idea."

"Maggie, half of this boat has
rooms with no windows, passageways with no light, plus they have to make the
food here for tourist palates that don't like a lot of spice.  You won't find
an ounce of garlic on anything outside the Italian dressing on their salads. 
It is perfect for their kind."

But it was slowly starting to dawn
on me.  My dad and I had built a portal near the San Onofre power plant.  The
power fluctuations made it hard for anyone to find.  You'd have to be a human
lemur to jump through that thing on a lark. 

And the vampires had set this one
up thinking somehow I wouldn't track it down. 

"How long have they been using
it?" I asked.

"Since the boat was built. 
How do you think the vampires got from Europe to the Americas?" he asked.

"Flew?"

A rush of water came through a pipe
overhead.  George grabbed a wrench and made a ten-foot standing leap to tighten
the bolt.  He hung by one spindly little claw as he pulled, lower jaw jutting
from exertion.  "Not with the sun rising before they could make it across
the ocean.  This boat let them do it in style.  And pick up passengers along
the way.  The Other Side is dry where the Earth's Atlantic Ocean lies.  It was
as close to a train that the vampires have ever had.  Pop over here, walk
through the portal in the swimming pool to destinations on The Other Side, pop
back to Earth when they needed to keep going.  It was a highly developed
transportation system."

"So what is making all the
ghosts disappear?" I asked.

"Vampires have been using the
portal too much lately.  Been sucking the ghosts into the boundary."

"Shit."  I turned to
Killian. "Well, I'm now starting to understand why they didn't ask my mom to
take this job."

"Do you think she knew?"

"Are you kidding me?  We were
both here last weekend and neither of us had any clue.  We're all flying blind."
I turned back to the gargoyle. "So, you want to give us a hand tracking
down these vampires?"

He shook his head.  "No can
do, Maggie.  Ever since that incident with the soap dispenser—"

"The death-suds?  Wait!  That
was me!"

"I know.  Since that slipped
past, I got myself a nice little reprimand and order to stick to a more
manageable area.  My territory extends as far as this floor.  I step one foot
outside those doors and there'll be a warrant on my head for you to haul me back
to The Other Side before you reach the portal.  It is a lose-lose."

"Um... I'll get paid.  That
might be a benefit."

George wasn't buying it.  He gave
me a wink and scampered along the pipes like the eensy weensie spider climbing up
a drain.  "Wish I could help, Maggie!  Watch your back!"

B
etween the crackling portal
waiting to happen and the intel that George shared with us, this job was
looking like one big bucket of fun.  Killian and I were up in the museum,
watching flickering footage taken on the boat back in its heyday.  There
weren't any seats, so I just leaned against the wall and stretched out the back
of my legs, trying to pretend that I was a person who gave a crap about
stretching or history.

As the movie continued, my brain started
spinning with excuses for how to get out of this mess. The voice over dude was
saying something about how the world's elite flocked to the Empress Adelaide
for the ultimate in luxury and leisure travel.  Face after face after face I
recognized, and not from the Golden Years of Hollywood.  If these folks were
human, they would have to have had the world's best plastic surgeon.  No, these
were vampires.  I recognized them from their rap sheets and their final moments
on the end of my stake.  It took a little while for the pieces to click in my
brain, but they were slowly starting to work their way into place.

"This entire boat is about
travel and luxury."

"Indeed, that is what the man
on the film just said," replied Killian, pointing at the screen.  "I
assure you I was listening."

"Shut up, what I am saying is
that if vampires want to move across the globe in style, someone has to be
around to take their checks."

"Like the owner of the
boat?"

"No, an intermediary who is
going to ensure that his guests get every luxury while not eating their travel
agent.  He probably collects a hefty convenience fee on top of it.  So, who is
the biggest, richest vampire we know...?"

"Vaclav."

"Bingo.  And I'm not talking
about onboard entertainment."

"Vaclav
is not generally one to entertain."

I tried to let it pass.  I
did.  I tried.  But I couldn't.  "No, Killian, I
was referring to the 'bingo' part
of that sentence..."

"What is 'the bingo'?"

I sighed so hard I think I sprained
a lung.  First waffles, now this...  Killian was missing out on so much in that
elfin forest.  "Bingo.  It's a game with numbers... I'll take you when we
get back to Los Angeles.  There is a drag queen who sells tupperware while she
runs the game in West Hollywood. You'll love it."  I looked back at the
film.

"The
thing that bothers me..." mused Killian.

"What?"
I asked.

"The
thing that bothers me is that there are vampires still using this portal,"
he said.

"Yeah...
I would say that is a little bothersome..." I replied.

"This
boat has been in one place for the past forty years, Maggie.  It was originally
used to get vampires from one spot to the next.  But now it is just an open
door from one side to the next.  What lies on The Other Side of the boundary and
is waiting to cross?  Was this boat placed in the same spot as
a lair?  And if they must construct a portal in the hold, what is so big that it cannot cross
through the vortex in the swimming pool?"

"You
are just a ray of sunshine, aren't you?" I said.

"Merely
here to shed light upon the situation," replied Killian.

"Can't
we just go live in a nice, dark cave somewhere?"

Killian
shook his head.

I sighed and
pointed up the stairs.  "Okay, let's go check out this pool of doom and
see how long it'll be before we find ourselves swimming in death up to our
necks."

We traced our path back.  It was
late enough that the halls were pretty much cleared out from all but hotel
guests.  There were some folks dressed up in pretty gowns for a fancy dinner
and I heard a couple of them say that there was an interactive murder-mystery
show tonight.  I tried not to think about the fact that if Killian and I didn't
play our cards right, their show might get a bit more interactive than what
they signed up for.

We kept making wrong turns looking
for the pool.  I was having serious trouble tracking down this vortex, and
considering the fact that I was a magical tracker, all the not-tracking-down
was starting to make me feel pretty frickin' freaked out.  Finally, drawing on
our highly advanced skills at reading signs with arrows on them, we got to the
first class swimming area.  Killian looked at me and I looked at him, and we
both took out our weapons. 

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," I replied, and
pushed open the door.

Inside, the room was the same pool
area we saw before, with its mother-of-pearl ceiling and empty swimming pool. 
Except it wasn't empty anymore.  Instead, the pool was filled with this green
glow that rippled its light off the ceiling as if it was phosphorescent water. 
I heard laughter and the sound of splashing.  The pitter pat of tiny feet ran
right across in front of me, the child's giggling followed by a woman's
laughter. 

I looked up at the balcony and
standing above the pool was a woman dressed in a white wedding gown, holding a
child's hand.  The kid was dressed in blue sailor suit.  Gave a whole new
meaning to I'd rather be dead than caught in that get-up.  I'm pretty sure no
one packed these outfits in their overnight bags. 

I looked at Killian to make sure I
hadn't completely lost my mind.  Gotta say, part of me wished this was all
residual hallucinations from one-too-many dimension jumps, but no such luck. 
He saw it, too.

"We are sure
seeing a lot of ghosts for people who shouldn't be able to see ghosts," I
muttered.

An explosion of white light took
over the room.  It was coming from the dressing room, where I had seen the
vortex earlier.  The little blonde girl in the dress whom I had seen on the
balcony before suddenly reappeared and was trying to shout something at Killian
and me. 

A woman in black emerged from the
portal.  This dame was movie-star gorgeous, kind of a Vivian Leigh in a flouncy
1930's gown straight out of a Busby Berkeley flick.  But her swinging good
looks didn't make up for what she was trying to ferry over.

Vampires.  Two of
them all dressed up like they were getting ready for some sort of booze cruise,
complete with Hawaiian shirts and sandals with socks.  I'm pretty sure this was
breaking all sorts of maritime laws.  If not maritime laws, fashion laws.  This
pool area was the perfect place for a vampire to hide out.  No windows.  No
external light.  Just sweet, sweet darkness and all you had to do was put up
with a couple of nosy tourists every couple of hours.

My stake was in my hand before they
were able to look around and figure out where I was.

THWACK!  THWACK!

Two stakes, right through the
heart.

I turned to Killian and held my
hand up.  I could see him trying to remember the appropriate response.  I took
his hand and showed him the high five. 

He nodded his head, remembering. 
"Good job, partner."

The little girl was screaming
silently and all of the ghosts were looking at her like she had lost her
goddamned mind.  But then they all looked at us.

Man, I would have done just about
anything for my mom's gift right about now.  The woman in black's gaze was
enough to make me feel like someone had dumped cold water right down my back. 
She hissed, bared her fangs, and it all finally made sense to me.

The vampires turned a world walker.

Mind you, she was a lousy world
walker, but that's probably why they had been able to convince her to become
one of them and use her powers for evil.  Nothing like being at the bottom of a
food chain to make a girl decide she wants to be at the top of the food chain. 
Literally.  The vamp-walker looked like she wasn't sure whether to come at us
or hightail it through the portal. 

That little kid had some ideas,
though.  She ran down the steps and dashed right out in front of the woman in
black.  She shouted something and the force of that silent shout was enough to
make the woman take a step back.  She looked right and then looked left, and
then vanished, closing the portal behind her.  And as soon as that portal
vanished, the other ghosts vanished, too, to God only knows where.  The little
girl looked at me.

"Thank you," I whispered.

And then she was gone. 

The only thing left as any proof
that what had just happened had actually really happened were the bodies of two
vampires lying poolside, right next to an ancient sign that said
"Lifeguard on duty."