Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

contacts list and selected “Rhej.”
    The Rhejes were the clans’ wise women, or maybe historians or quasi-priestesses. They
     were all Gifted…and the Etorri Rhej’s Gift was mediumship. Lily had never heard the
     woman’s name because the Rhejes weren’t called by their names, but last month she’d
     given in to curiosity. Rhejes didn’t actually hide their names and Lily had the woman’s
     phone number, so it hadn’t been hard. The name of the Etorri Rhej was Anne. Anne Murdock.
    Anne answered right away. Lily apologized for disturbing her, then said, “He’s back.”
    “That ghost?” Anne was clearly surprised. “What was his name—Hammond?”
    “Drummond. He just showed up again. He’s glaring at me right now.”
    “He still seems coherent?”
    “In the sense you used the word, yeah.”
    Anne made a little huff of frustration. “I wish I could talk to him. I haven’t met
     a fully coherent ghost since I was seven, and she left soon after my mother spoke
     with her.”
    Lily knew what Anne meant by “coherent,” because they’d talked soon after Drummond
     showed up. Most ghosts were more of a habit than a person—some ingrained action or
     fear or moment that played itself out over and over, a ripple cast by the soul’s departure
     rather than the soul itself. Others seemed like real people, able to interact, but
     in a limited way. They often didn’t make a lot of sense to those few of the living
     who could see and hear them.
    But there were a few rare exceptions. Fully coherent ghosts, the Etorri Rhej called
     them, and the experts didn’t agree on what they were, how they came to be, or much
     of anything else, except that they were different from the rest. A coherent ghost
     seemed to be the whole person. He or she remained aware of the living world, seemed
     to perceive it through the same senses as the living, and used language the way the
     living do. Coherent ghosts were like the rest in one way, however. They were tied
     to something—a place or an object or, very rarely, a person.
    How had Lily gotten so lucky? “He says he’s tied to me, but he was gone for over a
     month.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t explain that.”
    “Neither could he. He also says he thinks he’s supposed to be my partner.”
    “Are you asking for advice?”
    “Is there any way to sort the good ghosts from the rotten, lying sons of bitches?”
    Anne chuckled. “Only the same ways we sort the living.If you want to know if he’s lying, that’s certainly possible. He could equally well
     be telling the truth, or the truth as he understands it. We may not know much about
     coherent ghosts, but we’ve no reason to think they’re any less muddled than the rest
     of us.”
    Lily hesitated over her next question—but dammit, she wanted to know. “So could he,
     uh, think he needs to help me out because of unfinished business? And once he does,
     he can…go on?”
    “I don’t buy the ‘unfinished business’ explanation for ghosts in general. Almost everyone
     leaves some kind of unfinished business behind, but hardly anyone lingers as a ghost
     more than a few moments. However, some of the more coherent ghosts strongly believe
     they
can’t
cross over. Either they’re right, or the strength of their belief itself holds them
     here.”
    “So Drummond might be supposed to work with me, and he can’t, ah…cross over until
     he does that. Or pays a debt or something. Or he might be stuck here because he believes
     he’s stuck here.”
    “Pretty much, yes. I’m not much help, am I?”
    Not really. “One more question, and this may be outside your area of expertise, being
     more a matter of…ethics, I guess. Does this obligation thing go both ways? Does Drummond
     being tied to me give me any sort of obligation to him?”
    Anne was quiet for a long moment. “I can only tell you what my mother told me, which
     is what her mother told her, and on back for generations. We have no more duty to
     the dead than we do to the living. And no less.”
    That was not what Lily wanted to hear. She thanked the Rhej anyway, disconnected,
     and looked at the man—or what remained of a man—scowling at her.
    “Well?” he demanded. “Did your friend tell you anything useful?”
    “Maybe.” Making Drummond go away for good was high on her priority list. If he thought
     he had to help her out in some way…but she hadn’t exactly gotten a guaranteeabout that. “You were at the courthouse, you