The Fortune-Teller (II)

The trip the woman's apartment didn't take more than walking for some fifteen minutes. On the road, she had called her work and claimed to have caught a sudden case of fever. She was no actress though, so Jet imagined that the only reason she got away with it was because she was truly exhausted.

Her apartment was located in a relatively nice part of the city, not the best parts, but still nice. It was a fairly new building, made up of steel and cement, and it stood nestled in between two other, older buildings. From what he counted automatically, it was five floors and when he followed the woman in through the building's front door, there was no doorman. It was a nice middle-ground between wealthy and poor.

Thankfully, despite the apparent hauntings, the elevator worked just fine. They rode up in it to the third floor, accompanied by an uneasy silence and the elevator's cheesy music.

Likewise, there was nothing wrong with the hallway in front of Miranda's apartment to indicate any trouble, well-lit and colorful as they were. Jet glanced both ways while the woman unlocked the front door, again with no issue.

He was starting to think that maybe it wasn't a haunting, so much as a building error. That did happen from time to time.

"Hmm." Jet made a point of sounding considering and a little worried as he entered the apartment and observed the room. His eyes drifted from side to side as he tried to take in as much as possible. By his side, the woman hugged her briefcase and asked hesitantly,

"So there is, there is something here?"

Jet nodded without saying anything, letting his silence do the speaking for him. It would make them magnify the problem for themselves, which would make it easier to guilt them into paying him later.

He walked further into the apartment, until he ended up at the living room. His eyes flitted over everything, the pictures hanging on the walls, the unplugged TV, the stained coffee table. "There is... definitely something here."

He heard a gasp from behind him and smiled a little to himself. She sounded utterly convinced that there was something here, so whether there was or not, he was going to sell the idea to her. Jet cleared his voice and closed his eyes, ready to begin his performance.

"Hello!" he called out, by now well-used to the embarrassment of calling out to empty air. "I'm here on behalf of Miranda Moss, the new resident. She's very worried, if I might find out who stays here with her, it would calm her down. You like her, don't you? That's why you haven't harmed her."

A breeze flew through the room, though all of the windows were completely closed. So there was something here.

Laughter, right next to his ear, would have given him a heart-attack if he wasn't already so used to it. The vast majority of the time, hauntings weren't real, but when they were, it was usually only a low-level ghost, not capable of actually doing any harm. This was the reason it was the perfect way to con people into thinking he actually had magical abilities. Anybody could exorcise a low-level ghost, providing they knew how, no magical abilities necessary.

Fortunately, this wasn't common knowledge, due to the bad rep of ghosts. A few high-level ones and suddenly the whole world acted as if they all could tear people limb from limb. Ridiculous.

Jet called out again, "Tell me your name!"

The only thing he got in response was more laughter.

Before he could say anything else, the woman latched onto his arm with a viciousness only scared people were capable of. "Do you hear that?" she breathed out in a whisper, her eyes frantically trying to see something she simply wasn't capable of. Well, neither was he.

It hadn't stopped him yet.

"You don't need to worry." he reassured her. "They have't hurt you, which means they don't want to."

"How could you, how could you know that?" she asked, still with that painful grip on his arm.

Jet sighed and answered, "I just do. I told you, I'm a fortune-teller. This is only par for the course."

She squeezed his arm tighter and pressed her whole body to him in fright. The laughter rose around them like a hurricane, winding around and around. It was high-pitched, like that of a child's. But it was also genuinely happy sounding.

Jet called out once more, "How about you tell me your name and I'll plug the chord for the TV in for you?"

A faint voice, right next to his ear, and an ice-cold breath. "I can plug it in myself."

As if to show how powerful they were, the TV chord got plugged in without anybody visible touching it. It rose in the air and prompted another shocked gasp from the woman holding his arm in a vice-like grip.

"How could it hurt you to tell me your name?" he asked the air around them.

"Hmm... " laughter followed once more, around and around in the apartment. "It couldn't!"

"Then won't you please tell me?" Jet asked, thanking his mother for gifting him her patience.

There was a shadow in the middle of the living room, one that hadn't been there a second ago. It was blurry, and faint, constantly flickering like static on a TV with a bad reception. For ordinary humans, those with no magical abilities, this was the best they see when presented with a low-level ghost, and even that required the cooperation of the ghost at hand. Hearing was easier, because humans had better hearing than they did sight and they were easier to trick, but it was still laughable compared to what even an actual fortune-teller would be able to see.

Thankfully, Jet was well-versed in the art of pretending to be able to see ghost, it was one of his most lucrative businesses, together with the fortune-telling.

Of course, there were people that had caught him be the liar he was, but he was much better at it now.

Practice makes perfect.

The static-y see-through image blurred in front of him, the edges flowing around it like a river. A child's voice resonated in the room in a gleeful tone. "I'm Joy!"

Jet smiled, pleased that things were finally getting somewhere, and said, "I'm Jet. Pleased to meet you, Joy."

The shadow broke up as soon as it had formed, disappear from his every sense. Due to the unique makeup of ghosts, even their voices couldn't be trusted to tell you their location. They moved as if unhindered by gravity.

The woman finally released his arm, as if the fact that it was a child-ghost with a name made it any less dangerous. Not that it was dangerous, being a low-level one, but still, a little caution would be appreciated. Jet contained his urge to roll his eyes and kept an eye out for the ghost. Perhaps it would make itself visible again? Stranger things had happened.

Two very odd, disharmonious things happened at once.

First, the TV went from playing a children's channel to displaying the war of ants. Second, the walls banged, a loud, noise-cancelling sound that made both him and Miranda wince.

With his hands over his ears, Jet called out, "What is that?!"

The answer came from right behind him, in a pouting voice. "It's Auntie! She always does this when I play, that miserable old spinster!"

Though he couldn't see anything, there was a distortion in the air when he turned around at the same level of his waist. This time, it couldn't even be counted as a shadow, and there were unmistakably no features to make out. There was nothing he had to go on, but Jet was used to that. This was where his bluffing skills came in.

Bending down on his knees until he was looking up at the distortion in the air, Jet let his gaze go unfocused. It helped to make that the ghost didn't catch on to the fact that he couldn't see where their faces were.

Technically speaking, he couldn't see them at all, but they had a tendency to show themselves when confronted by people.

As if wanting to make sure that they would be seen.

Jet was in no way above taking advantage of this fault of theirs.

With his unfocused eyes in front of him, he said, "Would you tell me why you're haunting this apartment? Miranda, the lady who lives here, checked and there's no record of you dying on this property."

Even the distortion vanished from his sight. The ghost had stopped showing itself, then. Nevertheless, Jet didn't let it affect him. Bullshitting was what he did best, so it was what he would continue to do. It was what paid his bills, after all.

"If you don't want to, you don't have to tell me."

After minutes of him staying put in his position, keeping his eyes from focusing, the voice finally returned.

"I'm lonely." it said, in an uncharacteristically weak voice.

The woman walked until she was standing right next to him. Her head turned from side to side, and she eventually settled her eyes on him. "Where are they?" she asked in a low raspy voice.

Jet nodded to the area right in front of him and watched as understanding lit up in her gaze. She directed her eyes to the space and bent forward, trying to look like she could seem them. "Honey," she began. "I get lonely sometimes too, I don't mind having company. If you want to stay here, you can."

Jet furrowed his brow and looked back at her. Despite his confusion, he didn't interrupt her, as her words were clearly having an affect.

Just not really the one he had intended.

This time, the ghost materialized (as much as it was able to) in front of Miranda.

It was still blurry, its image still static and impossible to make out any features. But the room temperature rose as the ghost's happiness did, a common effect of ghosts. It was one of the easiest way to tell if there was a ghost nearby.

Inexplicably, the scent of flowers filled the room.

Standing up straight, Jet watched on as Miranda held out her hand, looking for all the world as if she didn't have a thing to fear. Her breath was steady, her hands didn't shake, her footing was stable and her legs were only bent to bring her closer in height to the ghost-child. Very clearly, Jet had made an error in judgement when he thought that she was spineless. Perhaps it was just that she wasn't good at dealing with people.

Regardless, something gripped a hold of her hand. It was hard to see, like he was seeing it from the corner of his eyes, despite the fact that it was right in front of him. His eyes just seemed unable to focus on it.

"Okay!" that faint voice positively chirped and proceeded to announce, "I'll be your friend!"

This really had not turned out the way he had expected.

Jet smiled though and walked around the woman and the ghost-child to wander over to the apartment entrance.

"Wait, where are, where are you going?"

Jet waved over his shoulder to the lady and without looking back, answered, "Home. It seems I'm not needed her. Lucky everything turned out alright."

"But what about, what about payment?" she asked, sounding honestly confused.

Jet unlocked the front door, threw her one last smile and left her with the words, "Come to the café if you ever feel like it, otherwise, no payment necessary."

That said, he opened the door and stepped through it. When it was finally closed behind him, he breathed out deeply and sagged a little closer to the floor. He dragged his hands through his hair once more and felt relief course through him.

A side-effect of not having any magical abilities was that you never truly lost that sense of primal fear around things of magical nature. It wasn't anything you could control, it just was.