GHOST CASTLE

The Ghost Files #8

by

Chanel Smith

Created by

J.R. Rain & Scott Nicholson

THE GHOST FILES SERIES

Ghost College (Book #1)

by Scott Nicholson and J.R. Rain

Ghost Soldier (Book #2)

by Evelyn Klebert

Ghost Fire (Book #3)

by Eve Paludan

Ghost Hall (Book #4)

by Michelle Wright

Ghost Crypt (Book #5)

by Chanel Smith

Ghost Town (Book #6)

by Chanel Smith

Ghost Writer (Book #7)

by Chanel Smith

Ghost Castle (Book #8)

by Chanel Smith

Ghost Ship (Book #9)

by Chanel Smith

OTHER BOOKS BY CHANEL SMITH

THE PACK TRILOGY

Werewolf Moon

Werewolf Nights

Werewolf Forever

THE HUNTRESS TRILOGY

The Vampire With the Golden Gun

The Vampire in the High Castle

The Vampire Who Knew Too Much

Ghost Castle

Copyright © 2016 Chanel Smith

Based on characters created by J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson

Published by J.R. Rain Press

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved by the authors. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for reading us.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Reading Sample

About the Author

Ghost Castle

Chapter One

Peanut butter and jelly waffles aren’t as bad as you might think, though they are difficult to come by in the French Quarter in New Orleans. The strange look that I got from our waitress when I asked for them was a little bit unsettling. However, after a great deal of persuasion, she finally took on the challenge of serving me my newest craze in eclectic dining; a ten-dollar bill as a tip made it a lot easier for her to loosen up and play along.

Though my previous craze was chocolate pancakes, the story that Ellen had told me about her friend and bestselling author, Diana Curry, as we wandered around the French Quarter, had captured my interest. Most people who visit New Orleans tend to want to try the Cajun cuisine. We’d had plenty of that over the last couple of weeks and I was feeling adventurous.

“PB&Js were always one of my favorites growing up,” I told Ellen when the waitress went to see if there was any peanut butter. She’d rolled her eyes at me and given me that look; the one that was a combination of disbelief and exhaustion. “How bad can they be? We’re just replacing the bread with waffles. And what are waffles? Essentially, they’re bread.”

“Suit yourself,” she said.

“Would you stop with the look?”

“What look?”

“The, ‘I can’t believe that you’re going to embarrass me in public,’ look.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to embarrass me in public… again.”

She’d always thought that my craving for chocolate pancakes was a bit childish, though she had actually suggested that we try and find some after she’d finished her story. “What’s to be embarrassed about?”

“This is New Orleans, Monty,” she reminded me.

“I know,” I replied. “The fact that we have to go inside and allow an air conditioner to blow on us for thirty minutes to get our clothing to stop sticking to us has been a constant reminder.”

“Hey, at least I let you wear shorts and a T-shirt today.”

“Will wonders never cease?”

“Sir,” our waitress cut in, saving me from another argument that I was probably going to lose. She had the beautiful skin tone of the Creole girls that lived in the area and amber-colored eyes that had a similar effect to a lightning strike when she flashed them in my direction. “I was able to find some peanut butter. We have several different jams and jellies to choose from.”

“What do you have?” I wanted to pick the perfect jelly for my experiment.

“The usual stuff; grape, strawberry, peach, raspberry and boysenberry, but we also have one that you might not find outside of Louisiana, if you want to be adventurous.”

“Do tell,” I beamed. I looked across at Ellen and smirked. I was going to be adventurous after all.

“It’s called mayhaw jelly. It’s made from a berry that grows in the swamps. My mama raised us on the stuff. We didn’t have a PB&J lest we had mayhaw jelly.”

“Well, now, that sounds intriguing.” The tone I used was like a man selecting an expensive French wine in a ritzy restaurant. I grinned at Ellen as I made my decision. “Let’s go with the mayhaw then.”

“Alright,” she grinned. “Sounds good to me. Would you like the same, ma’am?”

“Oh heavens no,” Ellen replied.

“What can I bring you, then?”

“To be honest,” she answered, “I haven’t quite made up my mind.”

“I can give you a few more minutes if you like.”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

Our waitress walked away and Ellen started laughing at me. “Never a dull moment with you.”

“Hey, I walk on the wild side. What boring menu item are you going to order?”

“Well, I was looking at the shrimp and the catfish, but I was sort of hoping that some wonderful gentleman would treat me to a special night out on our last night here, and I don’t want to have the same thing for lunch and dinner,” she responded, frowning at the menu.

“Then, why don’t you try the PB&J waffles?”

“Monty, are you out of your mind?”

“Yes, but I’m still with you,” I replied. “You mean to tell me that all of those times that you fed PB&J waffles to Diana’s kid, you didn’t try them?”

“Nope.”

“Not even once?”

“Not even once.”

“That is simply amazing to me.”

“I’ve always amazed you, haven’t I?”

“‘Try them, try them, you will see; try them, try them, Sam I am.’”

I received the full, disgusted and exhausted combo expression with the slow head shaking added in. “I can’t eat PB&J waffles.”

“Sure you can.”

“But this is the French Quarter.”

“And because of that, we’re getting them with mayhaw jelly.” I tried to make it sound even more exotic than it probably was.

“Are you ready to order yet?”

Ellen sighed. She still hadn’t decided on a menu item. She lowered the menu and stared straight at me. There was a daring twinkle in her eyes. “I’ll have the PB&J waffles as well.”

I waited until the waitress was gone to turn the tables on her. “I can’t believe that you’re going to try something new.”

“I try new things all of the time,” she protested.

“Yes, but you never travel all of the way over to my side; the side of the daring and dangerous.”

Ellen was just about to respond when her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, made a strange face and then answered the call. “This is Ellen.”

I watched her wrinkle her brow and lean slightly forward like she did whenever she was concentrating really hard on understanding whoever was speaking to her. “Yes, we are ghost… well, actually, we prefer to be called paranormal investigators.”

She listened a few moments longer, looked up at me and mouthed the words, “I don’t understand him very well.”

“Where did you say you were, again?”

She paused and then made a different, confused face.

“Medellin? The one in Colombia?”

She paused again and looked at me as though she was already in fear for her life.

“Well, I suppose we are available but are you sure it’s safe?”

She listened for several moments longer.

“How much?”

Whoever was on the other end repeated their offer and I saw her eyes widen.

“Well, yes, certainly, that is more than enough, but, again, I’m a little bit concerned about our safety.”

As I watched her and picked up the few pieces of the conversation that I could hear, I was as skeptical as she was. Throughout the 80s and 90s, all you heard about Colombia and more specifically, Medellin, had to do with narco-trafficking, drug cartels, bombings and the war against the police. There hadn’t been much about Colombia since the mid-90s, but it still hadn’t ranked on my top 10 destinations in the world—or even in my top 100. I started shaking my head as she continued listening to the caller.

“I never knew all of that,” she said. “All I ever heard about Colombia had to do with crime and drug cartels.”

She shrugged and stared at me as she concentrated on listening to the caller.

“We’re in New Orleans right now; we’d need to go back to our home in California first and then we could see if we can get a flight.”

There was another long pause.

“Okay, then, we’ll be ready to roll out of L.A. tomorrow morning. Thank you. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“You took the job?” I asked, somewhat surprised that she had agreed to go to Medellin, Colombia. “You do realize that ghosts will be the least of our problems in Medellin, right?”

“Not from what Ariel just told me,” she replied. “I guess Medellin has done a lot of changing in the last 20 years.”

I was about to raise another objection when our waitress arrived with our plates.

“Enjoy,” she beamed as she turned away and tended to an adjacent table.

“I should have gotten the shrimp,” Ellen said, looking at her plate.

“Ah, it won’t be that bad; besides, I promised you a nice dinner.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “And that is going to have to be put on hold as well.”

Chapter Two

I was expecting jungle heat and humidity when I stepped through the doors of Jose Maria Cordoba International Airport and into the cool, mountain air of the Andes. I’d done some homework, but hadn’t really considered the fact that, though we were only a couple hundred miles from the equator, we were nearly 7000 feet in elevation.

The flight in was nothing short of incredible. For as far as I could see, out the window of the plane, there were sharp green ridges and mountains with jagged valleys cutting their crooked paths between them. Cut out of the green slopes were farms and small towns that were clinging to the steep slopes and appeared on the verge of tumbling off of them.

Always the skeptic, I had started to lighten up a little bit when I saw how beautiful that particular portion of the Andes was. It came back in full force when I saw soldiers with PM on their armbands and armed with automatic rifles standing guard over both the immigration and customs officers. They were also very conspicuous throughout the airport. With that type of military presence, they must be expecting trouble.

“I hope you packed a jacket,” Ellen commented, interrupting my thoughts.

It was something of a jab that she was taking at me. She really didn’t need to say much more. We’d had a fairly heated discussion concerning what I was going to wear in Medellin, especially after the discomfort I’d endured in New Orleans. Again, I’d pushed for polo shirts and khaki shorts with flip-flops or loafers and, again, I’d lost; though I’d snuck a couple pair into my bag anyway. I was a grown man. I could wear whatever I wanted. It was a little lie that helped me feel better about myself. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I kept my mouth shut. That isn’t easy for me.

“Ellen?” A man with skin about the same color as mine, with dark hair and green eyes approached us. The only thing about him that said that he wasn’t a gringo like us was the way that he pronounced Ellen.

“Ariel?”

“Yes, yes,” he grinned. He took her hand then drew her to him for a kiss on the cheek. “It is very good to finally meet you.”

Wasn’t Ariel the Little Mermaid? I wanted to ask the question aloud, but I knew that I’d get “the look” if I did.

“This is my husband, Monty,” she said as she stepped away from his embrace.

I really hoped that he wouldn’t hug and kiss me, so I extended my hand and greeted him with a solid grip. “Good to meet you. Ariel, did you say?” I grinned. I caught Ellen’s “look” from the corner of my eye. No doubt, she had already read my mind concerning the guy’s name.

“Yes, I am called Ariel. It is a pleasure to meet you, Don Monty.” His teeth were too straight and too white when he grinned at me. “I hope that the flight wasn’t too long?”

“All flights are too long,” I replied.

“That is true,” he laughed. “I’m afraid that you will have to sit a little bit longer. We still have to drive to Medellin.”

“We’re not in Medellin?” Ellen asked.

“We are actually in Rionegro,” he smiled. “When Medellin built its new international airport some years back, there really wasn’t room down in the valley, so they built it up here.”

He motioned for us to follow him to an SUV that was parked next to the curb. To my surprise, it was a brand new Mitsubishi Montero. I guess that I’d been expecting a beat up, 1974 Subaru or something like that instead of a car that you might actually see driving down the street in L.A.

Ariel insisted on taking our bags at the curb. He opened the hatch, loaded our things and then turned back to us. “Are we ready to go, then?”

Ellen and I had taken a few trips up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains to go camping and had always enjoyed the cool air, the mountains, valleys, trees and grass, but to see all of that, but covered in lush greenery instead of different shades of brown was fascinating.

The road wound in switchbacks through the trees as we rose up toward the top of a ridge. Every so often, there were breaks in the foliage and a farm with a modern sized house would appear and then disappear. Though the houses and properties were decently kept, there was a lack of landscaping and décor. “We’re certainly not in Kansas anymore,” I commented to Ellen.

“Aren’t these mountains beautiful and these quaint little farms along the road,” she smiled.

It wasn’t surprising that she took a more positive view of things. I enjoyed the landscape, but I still had drug cartels and narco-trafficking stuck in the back of my mind. The “quaint” little farms and their Third World feel kept my skepticism in play. We’d been assured that Medellin was safe; probably safer than Chicago, Miami or L.A., we’d been told.

“The farms are called fincas,” Ariel informed us. “Some of them are working farms and others can be rented for the weekend or longer. Many Colombians, especially Paisas, rent fincas for a weekend getaway with friends and family.”

“Paisa?” I asked.

“Paisa, Antioqueño, Montañero; that is what they call the people who live here. Antioqueño and Montañero are older and not used as much anymore. So, mostly, we are called Paisas,” he explained.

“So, you can just rent a farm for a weekend?” Ellen asked. It was sort of an odd concept and I was as eager to know as she was.

“More like a country getaway house,” he chuckled. “They typically sleep anywhere from 6 to 50 people. They are great for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays or just to have a big party. Better than people driving home drunk, don’t you think? Believe me, Paisas love to party.”

I’m not sure what Ellen was thinking as we wound our way up toward the top of the ridge, but I was having a great deal of trouble balancing everything out. I just wasn’t feeling the possibility of a castle in the surroundings and things weren’t adding up for me.

Ellen and I had spent time doing paranormal investigations in and around London and in Germany. We had seen estates, great houses and castles while we were there. What we had witnessed from the Medellin countryside, so far, was little better than some of the shacks we’d seen out in the swamps around New Orleans. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but the likelihood of finding a castle seemed extremely remote.

“You said that your ghost was haunting a castle?” I decided to ask. I might as well get my doubts out in the open. “I’m just not getting the castle feel here.”

Ellen, knowing my skeptical ways, gave me another of her looks, which I brushed aside.

“El Castillo, The Castle, is pretty unique to Medellin,” he chuckled. “You won’t find anything else like it around here. The plan for it was inspired by the castles of the Loire Valley of France. In fact, the original owner brought the plans from Paris in the mid to late 1920s.”

1920 wasn’t a date that one thought of when talking about castles either. That didn’t help my skepticism. I directed a smug look of my own in Ellen’s direction; however, I really didn’t have a response for that little bit of information available. It didn’t matter, though, because we had broken out of the trees and crossed the ridge and the city of Medellin began to spread out before us in the valley below. I’ll have to admit that I was, again, fascinated by the view.

“Welcome to Medellin,” Ariel said when he heard Ellen’s gasp.

“This is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen.” Evidently, it had affected her the same way that it had affected me.

We had plenty of time to take in the city as it filled the valley floor as we descended toward it via another series of switchbacks. As he drove, Ariel began to fill us in on the history of El Castillo.

Chapter Three

El Castillo was originally the home of Jose Tobon Uribe who had brought the plans for the castle from Europe. He occupied the castle from 1930 to 1943 when it was purchased by Don Diego Echavarria Misas and his wife, Doña Benedikta Zur Nieden, who he had married while studying abroad and brought to his hometown of Medellin.

A great benefactor in the development of literacy and the cultural arts in Medellin, Don Diego and Doña Dita, which is what he called her, remodeled much of the castle to make room for classrooms and cultural displays. After only thirteen years of existence, El Castillo was already being converted into a museum and cultural arts center.

In 1971, the castle and its gardens were turned over to the city and was no longer a residence, but only a museum and cultural arts center. It had an extremely short history without any color or controversy surrounding it; something very rare where castles were concerned. My skepticism was on overload until we arrived and watched the castle rise up in front of us. It really was a castle. It had all the features of a castle and a beautiful garden with stone statues and fountains to boot.

“Who would have thought?” I admitted in a whisper as I saw yet another intriguing vista in a place that, as a former member of law enforcement, I had labeled as dirty, dangerous and disgusting.

“It is a castle indeed,” Ellen looked at me with an “I told you so” look. “And a beautiful one too. Look at that garden, Monty.”

We parked the car in a staff lot, exited and began walking toward the large stairway that led up the slope and into the castle. My eyes were working double shifts as they tried to take in our surroundings. I was beginning to get the castle feel that I hadn’t been getting before.

“We will just take a quick tour and I’ll let the administrator explain what has been going on; translated, of course,” he grinned.

We were greeted at the front door by one of the most stunning women I’d ever seen. Her smile was wide, with crimson lips and straight, white teeth. Her eyes were dark with long, thick lashes and at least double those of normal size. She reminded me of a Bambi. Her long, black hair reached down to her waist and glistened when she moved. She was dressed immaculately, showing off a curvy form with slender legs and heels that were at least 4” long. The most stunning aspect about her, however, took place when she opened her mouth.

“Welcome to El Castillo,” she said with a thick accent.

“Thank you,” I replied, hoping that I would receive the same greeting from her that Ariel had given Ellen at the airport. She, who was introduced to us as Jovani, however, was much more formal and extended a slender, perfectly manicured hand to each of us.

Ellen’s smirk when she looked at me was more than enough to inform me that she had already read my mind.

The music of her voice, as she spoke to us about all of the features of the castle and gardens during our tour, was mesmerizing and I was a little disappointed to have to listen to Ariel’s translation. I recalled one of the lines from a country song: “I don’t know what she said, but I sure like the way she said it.” I received a lot of “looks” from Ellen while we were on our tour, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t touching, I was just looking.

As the tour wound down, Ellen was ready to get down to business. “Tell us about the paranormal activity that has been taking place here.”

As Ariel translated, Jovani’s eyes and smile changed slightly. She started into a musical discourse of some length, pausing every few moments to allow Ariel to catch up in his translation.

“We began to experience some light haunting at midnight on November 25th of 2013. It was mostly some items being tipped over without anyone being around, some odd sounds and some paintings being knocked down from the walls or easels. It happened every night at midnight, according to our security officers. The activity lasted for a week and then stopped at midnight on December 1. It was bothersome, but it was soon forgotten.”

“Exactly one week?” Ellen asked.

“Yes. No one saw any spectral forms or anything like that. Had it continued, there might have been more concern, but it was dismissed as coincidence until the same things, but with a great deal more violence, began happening again on November 25th of 2014. When that occurred, we brought in some local people, but they weren’t really professionals. They could feel a presence here and they attempted to communicate with it, but it only seemed to make it angrier and more violent. We were forced to open late every day during that week so that we could clean things up. Many of our exhibits were severely damaged. Just as it had the previous year, it all stopped at midnight on December 1.”

The fact that it was November 23 wasn’t lost on me. They were expecting it to happen again and they were preparing for it in advance by bringing us in.

“You are expecting the same to take place this year,” Ellen said, voicing my thoughts.

“We are. Judging by how things escalated from 2013 to 2014, we are expecting it to be even worse this year. We hope that you will be able to identify our problem and help us to resolve it. It is a great sum of money for El Castillo to put out; however, given the destruction that is predicted, it is a very small price to pay.”

“It is such a beautiful facility,” Ellen responded. “And the displays are priceless. We certainly understand your concern. It is a small window for a full investigation, but we will do our very best to get to the bottom of whatever or whomever it is that is causing this problem.”

“Who?” Ariel asked. “It’s not just a spirit?”

Evidently, Ariel was as skeptical as I had first been about ghosts and such. I’d had plenty of opportunities to change my mind about it. Unless I missed my guess, Ariel would too.

“We’ve found that once we discover who we are dealing with, we can do some background history and figure out how to communicate with him or her. We’ve been very successful in that area. I do need to inform you of one thing, Ariel,” Ellen smiled. “Since you will need to be with us in order to help translate, that you will be very surprised and perhaps even terrified by what you witness.”

I could tell that his Latino machismo doubted what she had just said. I held back a laugh and winked at him. “You’ll see soon enough, buddy.”

Having finished our tour and gotten the gist of our case, there was no point in sticking around any longer and we said our goodbyes. Much to my delight, Jovani’s goodbye was much more personal than her hello. The traditional hug and kiss, though Ellen got the same treatment, put a smile on my face that lasted all the way up until Ellen and I were alone in our hotel room.

What I began to notice as we traveled about in Medellin was that there seemed to be thousands of Jovanis everywhere. Ellen was no slouch and we enjoyed a happy and satisfying marriage, but, as Ariel had pointed out to me in a private moment earlier, “Paisa women are the most beautiful women in the world, no?”

“I saw you checking out our hostess, Don Monty,” Ellen said, breaking into my reflection. “You just try to keep your eyes and your tongue in your head, mister. And that’s not all that you need to keep to yourself.”

“Oh my God, Ellen,” I responded. She’d opened it up and I was nailed, so I might as well come clean. “There are gorgeous women everywhere.”

“Yes, there are,” she replied. “Including the one that you are married to.”

Chapter Four

In the darkness, before midnight would transform the date from November 24 to November 25, El Castillo took on a completely different feel. Though it had all of the features of a castle and I had been fascinated with it during our earlier tour, the real spooky feel didn’t arrive until we were wandering through the silent halls and I was manning my spectral equipment.

To my disappointment, Jovani wasn’t there to greet us when we arrived at shortly after 11:00 p.m. to start preparing for the arrival of our otherworld guest or guests. I was trying to behave myself and act professional, but as I passed through each of the rooms watching the needle for even the slightest flicker, I was reminded of her voice as she talked about the items that were present.

As was typical, we remained silent, even Ariel, so that Ellen could concentrate on whatever spirits she could feel moving about. One of the drawbacks to living with and being married to a psychic was that she could also read my thoughts.

“Stay focused, Monty,” she whispered. “It’s almost time.”

I glanced at the glowing hands of my watch and noted that it was five minutes until midnight. At almost the same instant, I felt a cool wind pass me and I saw the needle peg on the K2 meter.

“Did you get that, Monty?” Ellen asked.

“I did,” I replied. I wasn’t thinking about Jovani any longer. “Temp registered way down there too. We’ve got something.”

“I felt anger. Not just any anger, but raging, violent anger,” she responded. “He was headed that way.” She pointed in the direction of the Hall of Decorative Arts and we started in that direction.

Before we arrived at the hall, we heard the racket beginning; by the time we arrived, nearly every item on display in the room had already been tipped over or moved out of place. However, our angry guest wasn’t quite finished and framed pictures came flying off of the walls, like someone was running along with a big stick knocking them all down.

“Who are you?” Ellen called out in a loud voice. “Why are you destroying these things? Why are you destroying the culture of your people?”

For a moment, she froze and stood very still. In the next instant, she squealed and put her hand to her cheek. “The bastard slapped me!”

It was stupid of me to get angry, what could I do to a spiritual presence; however, I didn’t particularly care for the fact that he slapped my wife. “Show yourself, you son of a bitch!” I braced for his appearance, but, of course, he didn’t show himself.

“So, what kind of readings did you get?” Ellen asked, trying to recover our professionalism. We’d both lost it for a moment, probably because of the sudden shock of actual, physical contact with Ellen.

I looked at my instruments. My frustration was put on hold for a moment as I concentrated on analyzing the data that had been gathered in the preceding couple of minutes. I’d figured out how to rig the data to transmit to my smartphone—well, okay, I didn’t figure it out. I got the idea and then had a computer geek write the apps to make it happen. With that new bit of technology, I could look at a continuous track of data. “High energy and really, really cold. Like, in the 20s.”

“That tracks with what I felt, but are you sure that’s right?” Ellen responded. We’d already theorized that super cold tended to go along with super angry. Not that the many of the hauntings that we were called in to deal with were warm and pleasant, but in the particular instance of our castle ghost, we were seeing readings down in the 20s. 30s was common, but 20s was unheard of.

“Pretty clear,” I replied, turning the screen of my smartphone toward her. As I moved it so that she could see the screen, I happened to look at her and noticed a reddening handprint on her face. “Jesus, Ellen, you’ve got a handprint.”

“I told you that he slapped me,” she said.

I heard someone gasp and suddenly remembered that Ariel had been with us. Once the action had started, I had pretty much tuned him out. I looked at him and saw that his face had turned extremely pale. “You alright, buddy?”

“Is that really from a hand?” he asked in a trembling voice.

“Sure is,” I replied.

Ellen smiled at him. “I told you that you’d see some pretty frightening things if our spirit showed up.”

“This is nothing, dude,” I laughed.

“But…” The rest of whatever it was that he wanted to say wouldn’t come out.

“Don’t sweat it. You’ll get used to it,” I responded. “Although, that sort of contact is a rarity; even for me.”

“Ghosts can do stuff like this?” He waved his hand in a circle indicating the trashed exhibit hall.

“There was a very strong, very angry paranormal presence here,” Ellen replied. “And, yes, they can do this sort of thing.”

“So, Honey, I saw you freeze and stand really still for a moment,” I said, turning back toward her and to the business at hand. Ariel would have to learn to shake things off if he was going to be any good as our accompanying translator; something that seemed to have become a regular habit. “Tell me what happened.”

“After I shouted at him, I felt him come really close. He circled around me, like he was checking me out. I could feel his anger…”

“Don’t you mean it? If you couldn’t see him, how do you know it was a he?” I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I wanted to make sure that she really meant that the spirit was that of a male.

“He was a male. I could feel it. When he was checking me out, it was a combination of creepy, angry and violent, like I was something that he wanted, but that he thought of me as less than human; like an object to be had. That was right before he slapped me.”

“He was checking you out? Like a perv or in some other way?” I asked. I wasn’t too pleased with what she had already told me. We’d dealt with a lot of different types of ghosts, but a violent and perverted one was a new one.

“Yes, like a perv. It was like he was trying to undress me. I’m ready to take a shower.” Ellen shivered.

I’d seen her get a little bit unsettled a time or two before, but not because she was creeped out. “Not much else we can do here,” I said, surveying the damage that had been done. “He didn’t leave much of anything in place.”

Ariel, having recovered from his shock, walked silently through the exhibit, stopping to set a few items back in place. “Jovani isn’t going to be very happy about this.”

“We didn’t stop much from happening,” Ellen responded. “If what I felt was any indication, this is going to be a tough nut to crack.”

“You couldn’t pick up any thoughts from him?” I asked. Ellen could read a paranormal presence like a book. It seemed strange that she got nothing else from him.

“Just that creepy, leering feeling and violent, violent rage.”

That was at least the fourth time that she’d mentioned violent rage. I didn’t like hearing that. I knew what came of violent rage. I’d seen both the results of what they did and felt that disconnected mindset in the actual perp. Ironically, it was my experience as a law enforcement officer that surfaced at that time; something that I hadn’t used much since I’d taken up the job of head ghost hunter flunky for my wife.

“I can take you back to your hotel now, if you like?” The look on Ariel’s face told me that he was eager to be away from El Castillo. “That is, if you’re finished for the night?”

I looked at Ellen.

“I could really use a shower,” she replied.

“I will fill Jovani in on what happened here tonight. I know she was anxious for some sort of resolution.”

“There will be a resolution,” Ellen responded with some force in her voice. “But it’s going to take some time. I hope that a week is enough.”

Chapter Five

Our first encounter with the ghost of El Castillo didn’t give us much to go on. Our quick trip from New Orleans, back home and then on to Medellin hadn’t left much time for studying ahead like I usually did. I had reviewed the things that I knew about what had taken place in the 80s and 90s in Medellin, mostly because I was concerned about what we might be getting ourselves into, but I hadn’t really studied much about Medellin and what had taken place since the 90s.

My law enforcement background had versed me well in what was going on in the drug trade. In the late 90s, most everything that had once been centralized in Cali and Medellin, Colombia—where the two major drug cartels were located—had moved northward into Central America and Mexico. For the most part, cartels, drug wars and the major control of cocaine coming out of South America via Colombia were all but gone. The Colombian government, aided mostly through logistics and training by U.S. special forces teams, was waging an all-out war against the production, packaging and shipping of cocaine out of the country.

Having cleared out Escobar and broken up the cartel, Medellin had broken free from the bondage that it had been under during Escobar’s reign. With a new lease on life, so to speak, a metro train line had been constructed, which was only a small part of an overall plan to bring Medellin out of being the dark, murder capital of the world and into being named Citi’s Most Innovative City in the World in 2013. The organization cited Medellin’s pristine civic spaces, top-rated public transportation and rich cultural heritage as being the main reasons for presenting the city with the award.

As I read the recent history, it felt as though the Paisas had taken a deep breath of relief and then gone to work to repair their image. It was, however, the rich history of the state, which was known as Antioquia or Antioch, in English, that I began to get a true appreciation for the people that settled in the Aburra Valley region and their strong spirit.

One such story was so intriguing to me that I had to share it with Ellen.

“Do you know that they have a flower festival here every August?” I said as a lead in.

“I saw something about that in some of the travel stuff,” she replied.

“Well, it is linked to Spanish colonial times,” I said. “The first flower festival was little more than a parade of sillateros coming down from Santa Helena with their silletas decorated with flowers.”

“What is a sillatero and a silleta?” she asked.

“Well, silla means chair,” I responded, proud that I’d learned a few Spanish words. “Silletas are, literally, chairs that are carried on the backs of sillateros, sort of like backpacks. Anyway, the parade of the flower festival features thousands of these silletas decked out in flowers and carried on the backs of sillateros.” I showed her photos that I’d found.

“How beautiful,” she responded. “Sort of like the Tournament of Roses Parade, but not quite so commercialized.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they don’t spend millions on these things,” I replied. “Of course, in pesos, they might spend millions, but that’s like $400 U.S. Anyway, the original use of silletas goes beyond the flower festival. They used those chairs to pack produce up and down the mountains slopes.”

Having experienced the steep slopes that were negotiated via switchbacks in a car, I could only imagine carrying a chair strapped to my back and loaded down with whatever goods I was presenting for trade or had traded for and was carrying back up the mountain to my home. However, that wasn’t the most shocking use of the silletas.

“There’s even more to it than that, though,” I began again. “In Spanish Colonial times, the Spaniards hired the locals to carry them either up or down the slopes as a means of travel.”

“They carried people on those chairs?” she asked. She stared at me as if she wasn’t sure if I was telling her the truth or pulling her leg.

I turned the computer screen toward her and presented the story to her. “That’s what it says.”

“I don’t know if that is cruel or extremely admirable,” she commented.

“That probably depends on if you are carrying the chair or sitting in it,” I answered.

I left off the conversation at that point and studied more of Medellin’s history. Originally, the Aburra Valley and Antioquia had been populated by Spanish Jews, fleeing their homes in Europe. Isolated the way it was, the area grew up very different than other parts of Colombia. Two nicknames, Antioqueño and Montañero popped up and I remembered that Ariel had mentioned them when we were traveling to the city from the airport. The natives of the area had taken a great deal of pride in those names, just as they did in the more modern term Paisa. They were a people set apart and a people who constantly desired to prove that they had a can-do attitude.

Like Jovani and the thousands of other women, even the men of Medellin tended to present themselves at their very best. They were eager to please and kept a smile on their faces, though I doubted that they were being paid much for the services that they provided. It was that pride and determination to be their best that had drawn Medellin out of those dark decades and into the modern, innovative city that it was.

With those thoughts as my backdrop, it seemed that a ghost of Medellin’s past was haunting El Castillo. I mentioned that idea to Ellen. “You know, Medellin has made a lot of changes since the turn of the century. It’s as if this ghost lingers from that dark past, don’t you think?”

“Dark, angry, creepy, violent; those words describe the spirit that I felt.” She focused on some unseen distant point as she chose her next words. “Monty, I felt sort of violated. It really shook me up.”

It’s hard to hear such an admission from your wife and not feel a surge of anger, but I tried to push it down. With Ellen already on edge and a little bit off her game, I had to step mine up. The problem, however, was that she was the one who actually had the expertise and who actually knew what was going on. I had learned a great deal by being with her and experiencing the things that we had, but I was still no expert, especially when it came to connecting with, reading and communicating with spirits.

“You know, this was a war zone in the 80s and 90s,” I said. “Either the Medellin cartel was fighting with the Cali cartel; they were killing people that got in their way; happened to be in the wrong place when a car bomb exploded; or they were getting rid of police officers. Having a little experience in that world, what you are describing to me matches up with that era.”

“But who, when and why?” she asked. “Why destroy items at a cultural arts museum or castle or whatever? Why destroy the things of the people? My understanding of Escobar is that he had a tendency to be benevolent with his billions of dollars, especially where civic projects, youth and culture were concerned, so why would our violent spirit be destroying those things?”

“Anti-Escobar, maybe? Reacting against those benevolent projects, maybe? Tens of thousands of people lost their lives here during Escobar’s reign of terror, like to the tune of almost 8,000 per year. There were even close to 9,000 people murdered in Medellin in 1991. That doesn’t count other parts of Colombia and other parts of the world. That’s a lot of ghosts to leave behind.”

“Talk about trying to find a needle in a haystack, right?” Ellen responded.

Chapter Six

Armed with a little bit more background about Medellin and the Medellin cartel, we returned to El Castillo at 11:00 p.m. the next evening. Though it was entirely possible that we were completely off base, we really didn’t have much else to go on. Ellen’s description of the presence that she had felt reminded me of some of the violent criminals that I had dealt with in my past. It was a flimsy lead, but it was the only one that we had.

Our night started in a very similar manner to the one before. We were prepared with the understanding that we were dealing with a violent person and Ellen had spent the entire day working on steeling herself against the feelings of having been violated. I could only imagine how hard it was for her to put aside those feelings, but Ellen was a pro. Not only did she have her game face on, but she was also in the zone.

“I’ve got to try to get him to reveal himself or to speak to us,” she said, laying out the game plan for contact. “We know that he’ll probably go for the exhibit halls, so we’ll stay near those and catch him earlier than we did last night. Ariel, I need you to stick very close to me in case we get him to speak. You may not hear him—more than likely, I will only hear his thoughts—but I will repeat them as quickly as I can so that you can get me a translation. Once we make contact and I am trying to speak to him, you’ve got to give me the words to say. He might hear you or he might not, but if he can hear me, then we can communicate. Can you do that? Are you with me?”

“I think so,” Ariel replied.

“Listen,” she said, looking directly into his eyes. “You can’t go freaking out on me. I have to have you at your best, got it?”

“You will have my best,” he replied.

“Good,” she answered. “Monty, we’re probably going to get some of the best data we’ve had in a while. I don’t know how much it will help us here. We already know that we have a nasty one, but it would be good to get a little bit further into this anger and temperature connection, so stay focused on those instruments, especially if it can give us a heads up on when he comes in. We need to get the jump on him. I’m sure that Jovani won’t be impressed if another exhibit gets trashed.”

I knew that she’d brought Jovani into it as a means of not only delivering a soft jab— that’s what the wicked sparkle in her eyes indicated—but also as a means of motivation. “Roger that, chief,” I responded in my best police radio voice. That was my way of delivering a counter jab, though it didn’t even phase her.

“Alright, we’re ready, let’s do this.”

That last bit was pretty anti-climactic, given that we had nothing to do but wander between exhibit rooms for the subsequent 20 minutes or so. Though I tried to remain focused and detect even the smallest wiggle in my equipment, that long wait wasn’t making it easy. I was just about to look at my watch when I saw a slight wiggle in the K2 meter. “I’ve got energy,” I said. The K2 meter measured changes in magnetic energy that paranormals tended to make when they were present. I turned a full circle, watching the strongest surge of energy and determined which direction we needed to expect our guest to enter.

“Looks like we’re going to the Saint Francis of Assisi exhibit,” I said beginning to move quickly in that direction. “Yep, the energy is stronger in this direction. I’m starting to detect a slight temperature drop too.”

We picked up the pace.

The Saint Francis of Assisi exhibit was a tradition that El Castillo kept every year. As was tradition with the saint since he was alive in the 13th century, El Castillo presented a similar version that ushered in the Christmas season. The centerpiece of the tradition was its manger display. Our guest would be wreaking havoc in that display if we didn’t beat him to it; not that I was sure of how we were going to stop him.

“Okay, temp has gone way down.” At the same time that I said it, Ellen spoke up.

“I can feel him. Here we go.”

I watched the temp dip into the 20s and felt it as well; not like the passing cold breeze from the evening before, but a lingering cold. We, evidently, had his attention.

“Who are you?” Ellen asked. “What are you doing here? Ariel, translate that for me. He’s hanging around, but he’s not speaking and I can’t get a handle on his thoughts.”

“Quien es? Que haciendes aqui?” Ariel translated and Ellen repeated the words as best she could, though they were a bit unsteady.

“What’s going on, Babe?” I asked.

“He’s doing the same thing that he did last night; checking me out.”

“At least he’s not trashing another exhibit,” I replied. “That’s some progress, right?”

“He’s not responding,” she said. “But he’s not going away either. He’s just checking us out.”

Though I hadn’t developed Ellen’s sensitivity, I suddenly felt the same feelings of anger, which Ellen had described, surrounding me. “I can feel him.”

The sensation was similar to the one that I’d had when I’d assisted the FBI in taking down a serial killer several years before Ellen and I had become an item. In fact, it was the first time that I had ever seen her. She had assisted in some portion of the FBI’s investigation and we’d spoken briefly, little more than a greeting, really. I could feel the rage and the evil in the spirit just like I’d felt the same with that serial killer.

“He’s moving away,” Ellen said. She pointed and looked at me for confirmation. “That way?”

Ellen was sometimes more accurate than the instruments once she got tied into one. “Where are you going?” she called out.

Ariel provided the translation quickly.

“A donde va?” she repeated. “He stopped.”

It was fascinating to watch the instruments going nuts. They revealed that he had turned back toward us.

“We’re here to help you,” Ellen said in a calm voice. “How can we help you?”

“Estamos aquí para ayudarle,” she repeated after Ariel. “Cómo podemos ayudarle?”

I held my breath and waited. The needle on the K2 meter was hugging the peg on the upper end and the thermometer registered 23 degrees. I was considering the jacket that Ellen had suggested when we were packing.

“He spoke,” she said. “No me puede ayudar, mona.”

“You can’t help me, mona,” Arial translated.

“Who is Mona?” I asked.

“It’s a term that is used for a blonde haired and blue-eyed person. Males are monos and females are monas. It’s sort of derogatory.”

“I thought that a mono was a monkey,” I responded.

“Don’t forget, this is Paisa,” Ariel answered.

“We want to help you,” Ellen continued, ignoring my side conversation with Ariel.

“Quieremos ayudarle,” I noticed that as Ariel translated, his eyes were still about to pop out of his head, like they were the night before, but he seemed to be doing much better.

“Quien es?” she repeated on her own. Ellen learned everything quickly. I was pretty sure that it meant, “Who are you?”

I watched Ellen’s face. She was definitely in the zone.

“He’s not responding,” she reported. “He’s moving away again.”

Though to most people it would have seemed like a crazy idea, we continued to follow him down the corridor using both my instruments and Ellen’s senses to stay in contact with him. He seemed to be wandering rather than going straight toward the destruction like he had the night before.

“He’s not as angry, maybe?” Ellen suggested.

“He hasn’t torn anything up yet,” I replied. “We’re making progress, right?”

“Wait, he’s turning back,” she said. “He’s not at all happy.”

Suddenly, in a pitched, audible voice that echoed down the hall, sent chills through me and nearly made Ariel drop with a heart attack, he screeched, “Plata o plomo!” And then he was gone.

Chapter Seven

I wasn’t sure if Ariel was going to run or drop. Remembering the bravado that he’d presented before, I moved over next to him with a wide grin and smacked him on the back. “Are you okay, Ariel?”

Startled out of his frozen trance, he turned his eyes toward me, but did not move. After glancing at me, he looked at Ellen and then started searching the corridor. “Is he gone?”

Enjoying the moment, I made a show out of looking down toward his pants to see if he wet himself. “Still dry,” I announced with a chuckle.

“Monty, stop,” Ellen said, coming to his rescue. “He’s gone. Are you okay?”

“What was that noise; that voice? Was that him?” Ariel asked.

“That was him,” Ellen assured him. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘plata o plomo,’” Ariel responded, still searching his surrounding with his eyes.

“Yes, Ariel, we know that,” I replied. “What does it mean?”

“It means, ‘silver or lead,’” he answered.

“Okay. Is that significant in some way? Does it have some special meaning for Paisas?” Ellen asked.

“It has special meaning for everyone in Colombia,” he responded.

“What special meaning?” I asked.

“It was Pablo Escobar’s policy for dealing with the police or other government officials.” Ariel began to gather his wits and started to explain. He wasn’t searching with his eyes like he was before, but he still glanced around him occasionally while he spoke.

“Paisas refer to money as plata,” he began. “They don’t usually use the word dinero. Escobar’s offer or threat to the police or other government officials was to either accept his bribe or be killed.”

“Silver or lead,” I mused. It sounded pretty gangster, like Al Capone-era gangster, not Tupac gangster. “His war with the police.”

“Yes,” Ariel replied. “Escobar consolidated a lot of power because of that threat. It wasn’t an empty threat. He carried it out on numerous occasions. He used hit men, car bombs and sometimes he used women.”

“Sort of like hired femme fatales?” I asked.

“Very effective,” Ariel replied.

“I can imagine,” I answered, reminded of how attractive Paisa women tended to be.

“Another reason to keep it in your pants.” Ellen nudged me as she spoke.

“Medellin, during Escobar’s time, was number one in the world in breast enhancement surgery. The entire movement was referred to as narco-aesthetics. It became something of a craze. It isn’t quite as common now as it was, but it never completely died out.”

“So, that’s why all the women around here wear those god-awful heels with that are four-plus inches. In the U.S., those are mostly found on hookers and sluts.” Ellen wasn’t particularly fond of heels of any kind, she’d put some on for a formal occasion and she looked great in them, but getting her in a pair of 6” stilettos was next to impossible and to wear them every day; forget about it.

“There are a lot of businesses here that require those heels; we call them tacones, as part of a working woman’s uniform. Their hair kept long and straightened too,” Ariel replied. “It’s been like that for a long time.”

“They require heels and long hair as part of the uniform?” Ellen asked and then suddenly stopped herself, realizing that we had wandered off on a rabbit trail. “No, wait, don’t answer that. We are not continuing with this conversation. Back to the silver or lead thing. What you’re saying is that the police of other government officials were to either accept his bribes or be murdered?”

“Yes. That was his approach to dealing with them. That’s why there was such a long, drawn out and bloody war between the Medellin cartel and the police. The Cali cartel even caught on and started doing the same thing. Between the two cartels, Colombia was very close to collapse. The drug trade wasn’t of a great concern to Colombia until the cartels became so powerful that they began to disrupt the government through terrorist tactics. There are still a few factions trying to do that today. FARC is an example of one of them and the government is negotiating with them. Negotiating with terrorists!” Ariel had gotten a bit heated. “I apologize. It seems that our President Santos has forgotten the lessons that our recent history taught us, but back to the subject. If you were in a position of influence or a police officer and Escobar wanted something from you, you either took his money or you were killed.”

“So, back to our ghost,” I began.

“Spiritual presence,” Ellen corrected. “You have to actually see it for it to be a ghost.”

“Okay, thank you, Honey,” I responded with something of a glare. She really didn’t need to correct me.

“You’re welcome,” she grinned.

“What are the chances that we could be dealing with Pablo Escobar’s departed spirit?”

“Given what Ariel just told us about plata o plomo, it is likely,” Ellen responded.

“If that’s the case, then why do the damage here? Was Escobar connected to El Castillo in any way; like a benefactor?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Ariel replied. “I can get Jovani to look at the historical records of contributions, but I don’t think he was a part of it. Even if he wasn’t, this isn’t the sort of thing that Escobar would do. He tended to be benevolent to the people, especially those that were less fortunate. A lot of his money was put into a number of parks and sports complexes. If he was going to plant a bomb, it was usually near a government building or location where someone who did not accept his bribes might be found.”

“Lobbying via car bomb. How pleasant,” I quipped. “So, we have to figure out why here and what he could possibly want?”

“That is assuming that we’re dealing with Escobar’s spirit,” Ellen reminded me. “We can’t even be sure of that at this point.”

“There’s another question that I have.” My investigative prowess was in full swing. It was because of that particular characteristic of mine that Ellen kept me around; that and to lug around all of the equipment. “What is significant about November 23 through December 1? Is there some special tradition? You don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving here, since that’s a U.S. holiday. There are Christmas decorations going up, but why now, why does he only come during this week?”

“I can answer one part of your question,” Ariel said. “December 1 is Escobar’s birthday. It also happens to coincide with another tradition of Medellin, La Alborrada, which takes place at midnight to welcome in December. On that night, the entire valley and even up into the hills is lit up by fireworks and globos being released into the sky.”

“Okay, you need to define a word for me,” I cut in. “But, first, December 1 is his birthday? Could this be connected to his birthday? Is he having a week-long party? Don’t most people party after their birthday starts, if they’re going to extend it, rather than in anticipation of it?”

“The anger doesn’t track with a celebration,” Ellen said. “Anger would more likely be present in and around the anniversary of one’s death; theoretically, of course.”

“Escobar was killed on December 2,” Ariel added.

“He was killed the day after his birthday?” That was something of an oddity. It almost seemed like someone had planned it that way. Like, maybe they were going to kill him on his birthday, but couldn’t get the job done on that day or someone, at the last minute decided that a man hadn’t ought to be killed on his birthday. Still, you rarely saw the birth and death dates on a tombstone so close together.

“Why stop his activity here on the first, then?” Ellen asked in an exhausted tone.

I shrugged in response. We’d created a lot more questions than we had solutions. “Not much else we can do here,” I said, knowing that Ellen would be drained after having connected to the spirit of Pablo Escobar or whoever it was. “We’ll do some more research on Escobar and see if we can’t come up with something else that is significant about this week.”

We started down the corridor to leave El Castillo and I remembered the word for which I needed a definition. “What is a globo?”

“Globos are small, hot air balloons, some of them have firecrackers of sparklers attached to the bottom of them,” he smiled. “They release them throughout the month of December and on New Year’s Eve too. When they start descending, you can see the children running through the streets hoping to be the one who gets to the balloon first; they’ll save it and get it ready to release it later.”

Chapter Eight

“That was Ariel,” Ellen said, disconnecting the call. “He just got word back from Jovani. First of all, she was impressed that nothing was destroyed last night and hoped that we had already dealt with the situation. She thanked us for getting rid of the ghost and is ready to settle up. I let Ariel know that this isn’t over and asked him to let her know that we still needed to go back there tonight. He’s supposed to get back to me with the arrangements for this evening.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “This certainly isn’t over, especially when it comes to answering the questions.”

“There has to be something that we aren’t seeing; some significance in the life of Pablo Escobar that begins the week before his birthday and ends on his birthday.”

“I have a more immediate question,” I grinned.

She raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to ask the question.

“What was the second thing that Ariel told you?”

“The second thing?”

“Yes. You said, ‘first of all,’ but you never gave me a ‘second of all,’” I chuckled.

“Oh,” she added quickly. “Jovani didn’t find any past records of Pablo Escobar being a contributor to El Castillo.”

“You wouldn’t tear up something that you put money into anyway. Well, most people wouldn’t, but Escobar was a narcissistic nut-job, so who knows, right?”

“Narcissistic, yes,” Ellen replied. “But I don’t know that a nut-job could have built and sustained the drug empire that he did.”

“Okay, maybe nut-job is the wrong term,” I backtracked. “But you have to admit that his plata o plomo policy was way off base where normal behavior is concerned.”

“Well, money is power and power corrupts,” Ellen replied. “You get a little power and you just can’t stop trying to get more. It’s referred to as Hubris Syndrome.”

“They have an actual syndrome for that?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It is characterized by a narcissistic propensity to see their world primarily as an arena in which to exercise power and seek glory. They have the tendency to take actions that seem likely to cast themselves in a good light. They sometimes refer to themselves in third person. And they show contempt for the advice or criticism of others.”

“Wow, yeah,” I responded. “That is a pretty good description of Escobar and my former chief.”

“It’s pretty common for persons in positions of leadership. That is why placing a limit on a leader’s power is important. Where power corrupts, absolute power…”

“Corrupts absolutely,” I interrupted, finishing the saying. I pondered the definition of Hubris Syndrome a moment. “So, Escobar’s benevolence was in order to cast himself in a good light?”

“That and it fed his ability to control those around him. As long as the majority of people saw him as being benevolent and good, it made it extremely difficult for the political leadership to go against him. Look.” She turned her own laptop toward me. “It says that because of his benevolence, even the local Catholic Diocese recognized him as being a good man. That lends a great deal of power in and of itself, but that Robin Hood image, similar to Mexico’s reverence of Pancho Villa, made it so that he was close to untouchable.”

“But how did they balance out the murder and the destruction that he caused?”

“Blind eye syndrome,” Ellen responded with a smile and a twinkle in her eyes.

“That’s a syndrome too?” I asked. It was one that I’d never heard of.

“Well, yeah,” she laughed. “But it’s not a psychological term, it’s a medical one.”

“Okay,” I countered. “Since we’re talking about syndromes, Escobar appears to have had Domicile Syndrome.”

“You made that up, but go ahead,” she laughed.

“Escobar had several very nice homes, not only here in Colombia, but also in Miami, the Bahamas and Spain.”

“He certainly had the money to spend, so, why not? Made it hard to predict where he’d be next as well, I suppose.”

“Well, two of those homes were complete islands. One of those islands was in the Bahama’s group, called Norman’s Cay, and the other was on the Grand Island, which is in the Rosario Islands group off the coast of Cartagena. He also had a home along the Magdalena River to the east of here called Hacienda Nápoles. Hacienda Nápoles had a zoo; in fact, that’s sort of what it is now and they make major dollars, or, actually, pesos, off of it. It’s a major tourist attraction in Colombia. Two more of his houses are fairly close by and we could probably get a tour of them, if you want.”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m not really up for a tour of Escobar’s homes. They have a tendency to cloud the reality a great deal in order to have greater tourist appeal. I doubt it would do us much good.”

“Well, one of the two is very intriguing,” I grinned. The tidbit of information that I had dug up about that particular house was astonishing.

“Okay, tell me,” she rolled her eyes at me, wondering what I had up my sleeve.

“They call it by three different names; la Catedral, el hotel or Club Medellin.” I was proud of the fact that I pronounced the first two in Spanish rather than translating them.

“Okay?” Ellen wrinkled her brow, wondering what the significance the names had. “Am I missing something here?”

“You’re missing a lot,” I responded. “In 1991, the U.S. had really turned up the heat on the drug war. That was in the wake of the Reagan administration’s ‘war on drugs.’ The U.S. was conducting significant operations in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru at the time. You see, the cocaine that was handled by the Medellin cartel was usually bought in the form of paste from one of those other three countries. There were covert U.S. forces all over the place down here during that time and they were supported, though quietly by the governments of all four countries.

“Pablo Escobar’s biggest fear, at the time, was of being caught and extradited to the U.S. to stand trial. He’d made some attempts at knocking out the entire court system of Colombia in order to prevent that from happening. The attempts failed, but the Colombian legislature got the message. They passed a law in their newly written constitution that Colombians could not be extradited to other countries for crimes that they committed. That law was part of a deal that the government was trying to make with Escobar in order to get him to stop his operations and turn himself in. In short, he agreed to the terms, but had his own, private prison built in the mountains above Medellin.”

“So, you are telling me that Escobar was put in prison?” Ellen asked. “I thought they hunted him down and shot him.”

“That was after he escaped,” I replied. “Like who wouldn’t have seen that coming. He had the place set up for him to enjoy the high life. He had parties, hookers and pretty much anything else that he wanted, including the selection of who would guard the place.”

“So, it wasn’t really much of a prison.”

“Not to speak of,” I answered.

“Why escape?”

“He escaped because the Colombian government got word that he hadn’t stopped any of the operations of the cartel; surprise, surprise, right?”

“Not really.”

“They sent some people to transport him to a different facility, but, of course, Escobar probably knew about their plan before they did. Escobar’s forces wiped out the force that came to transport him and he walked out of his prison. But that isn’t the most intriguing part of it all. Just try and guess what Escobar’s private prison is being used for now.”

“I won’t even try.”

“It’s a Benedictine monastery.”

Chapter Nine

“So, where did he die?” Ellen asked.

The question came as something of a surprise to me, since our conversation had been about Escobar’s houses and his special prison, but I could see the wheels turning in her head and I smiled as I started to catch on. “He died on the rooftop of a house in a middle-class suburb of Medellin.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Well, let me read what they have here and see if there is more,” I replied. I read the passage about how Escobar was killed aloud:

The war against Pablo Escobar ended on December 2, 1993, amid another of Escobar's attempts to elude the Search Bloc. Using radio-triangulation technology, a Colombian electronic surveillance team, led by Brigadier Hugo Martínez, found him hiding in a middle-class barrio in Medellín. With authorities closing in, a firefight with Escobar and his bodyguard, Alvaro de Jesús Agudelo (a.k.a. "El Limón"), ensued. The two fugitives attempted to escape by running across the roofs of adjoining houses to reach a back street, but both were shot and killed by the Colombian National Police. Escobar suffered gunshots to the leg and torso, and a fatal gunshot through the ear. It has never been proven who actually fired the final shot into his head, or determined whether this shot was made during the gunfight or as part of a possible execution, and there is wide speculation about the subject. Some of Escobar's relatives believe that he could have committed suicide. His two brothers, Roberto Escobar and Fernando Sánchez Arellano, believe that he shot himself through the ears. "He committed suicide, he did not get killed. During all the years they went after him, he would say to me every day that if he was really cornered without a way out, he would shoot himself through the ears.”

“That didn’t say much about where he died,” she responded. “However, suicide does tend to lend to a troubled spirit. It makes sense that he would return to haunt, but that was more than 20 years ago. Just more questions, no answers.”

I’d done some more searching and discovered the location of the house where Escobar was shot. “I’ve got it. It’s in a neighborhood called La America and more specifically, Los Pinos, I have an actual address; Carrera 79A #45D-94. I don’t know what all of that means…”

“Not important,” Ellen responded, picking up her cell phone, pressing speed dial and waiting for the connection. “I want to go visit the place.”

“I figured as much,” I replied.

“Ariel?” she said as her call connected. “Cancel what I said about going back to El Castillo tonight. Monty and I want to do something different.”

There was a pause as she listened to whatever it was that Ariel said.

“We want to go to this address.” She looked up at me. “Tell it to me again, Monty.”

As I read the address to her again, she repeated it to Ariel. “Do you suppose we can go there around midnight tonight?”

I could tell by the conversation that followed—at least, the part that I heard—that Ariel wasn’t keen on her request. Telling Ellen no, however, was completely useless; she would get what she wanted.

Later that evening, as we traveled to the private residence where Escobar had met his end, I read some more background information on exactly how he was tracked down and killed. I shared it with Ellen and Ariel aloud:

In 1992, the United States Joint Special Operations Command (who were members of USN DEVGRU and Delta Force) and Centra Spike gathered together for the manhunt of Escobar. They advised, equipped and trained a special Colombian police task force that was called the Search Bloc, which had been formed to locate Escobar. Later, as the conflict between Escobar and the United States and Colombian governments dragged on and the numbers of his enemies grew, a vigilante group called Los Pepes (Los Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar, "People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar") was funded by his rivals and a few former associates, including the Cali cartel and right-wing paramilitaries led by Carlos Castaño, who would later fund the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá. Los Pepes carried out a bloody campaign fueled by vengeance in which more than 300 of Escobar's associates and relatives were slain and large amounts of his cartel's property were destroyed.

Members of the Search Bloc, and also of Colombian and United States intelligence agencies, in their efforts to find and punish Escobar, either colluded with Los Pepes or moonlighted as both Search Bloc and Los Pepes simultaneously. This coordination was allegedly conducted mainly for the purpose of the sharing of intelligence in order to allow Los Pepes to bring down Escobar and his few remaining allies, but there are reports that some individual Search Bloc members directly participated in missions of the Los Pepes death squads.

“Didn’t you tell me that it was Search Bloc that finally killed him?” Ellen asked.

I started to say yes, just as we arrived in front of the address. There was a white pickup truck with flashing red and blue lights out front. Policia was painted in green letters on the side.

“The police?” I asked. “Are we doing something wrong? Why the attention?” Having been in law enforcement, I was used to police escorts, but flashing lights in the U.S. meant that something was going down.

“It was the only way that we could have access approved,” Ariel answered. “Tranquilo, they are friends of mine. They are providing an escort into the house.”

“So, why the lights?” I asked.

“They are nothing. They always have them on in Colombia. It makes it easier for people to know that they are around.”

That wasn’t exactly what I was used to in police procedure, but it wasn’t the U.S., so I took him at his word.

The introductions to the police were without a hitch. Surprisingly enough, the owners of the home were very friendly and eager to help out with our investigation, especially after Ellen smoothed things over with them. She had a way of calming people that I admired. The residents, introduced as Don Jaime and Doña Gladis, were curious as to what we were doing, of course, but they smoothed it over with friendliness, offering us coffee, buñelos and a number of other items as we were welcomed into their home.

“Have you encountered any spirits recently?” Ellen asked them through Ariel’s translation.

They hadn’t, but the question caused them a lot of discomfort. There was no way that they had purchased the home and taken up residence in it without knowing the home’s history. Why were they uncomfortable?

The woman of the house finally rattled off what I hoped was an explanation. Ariel’s translation followed and I soon knew why they had become uncomfortable. The family did not want any trouble with Escobar’s spirit and they had had the home cleansed before they moved in. They were afraid that Ellen and I would stir up the kingpin’s spirit again.

“We don’t plan on calling him up or communicating with his spirit,” Ellen explained. “We have reason to believe that his spirit is haunting another place and we are just going to see if there are some energy origins here?”

“El Castillo,” the woman said immediately after hearing Ariel’s translation. She had heard a rumor that there was a ghost in the castle around that time of year for the past two years. “You have seen him, then?”

“We haven’t seen anyone,” Ellen responded. She didn’t go into any further explanation about what we had or hadn’t seen, heard or felt. There was no point in doing that. She simply explained what we were going to do and had me pull out the two instruments to show them to her and her husband.

“This one measures magnetic energy,” I said, showing them the K2 meter. The other was a combination unit that did a number of different things, but I only told them that it measured temperature. Did they really need to know anything else? I decided that they really didn’t and cut it off at those two.

“Let’s go up on the roof then,” the woman said after some moments, satisfied that our brief, midnight visit would bring no harm to her home or her family.

Chapter Ten

Having found no magnetic energy or temperature changes present at the location of Escobar’s death, Ellen and I could only reach two conclusions and she laid them out for me on the way back to our hotel.

“Either he was present during the exorcism and fled that location for another or we aren’t dealing with Escobar’s spirit. It is rare that a spirit would return to a location after 20 years anyway, even after a suicide,” Ellen explained.

“Okay, well, since we have no other leads at the moment, let’s continue to assume that we are dealing with Escobar’s spirit. Let’s say that he was exorcised from the home. Do we have a timeline for that?”

“We do,” Ariel jumped in. “Don Jaime told me that they purchased the home in 2013. It had been abandoned for several years before that and the rumors going around were connected to the presence of Escobar’s spirit. That was why they had the home cleansed before they moved in.”

“Evidently it worked,” I commented. “So, Ghost Escobar leaves the home where he died and takes up residence at El Castillo? Why not go home? Why not go to Hacienda Nápoles, one of his islands or his former country-club jail?”

“That’s one of several questions that we still have to answer,” Ellen replied.

“So, what’s our next step, boss?” I asked. We never really laid out who was boss, but I always gave her the lead, whenever she didn’t take it.

“I think that discovering what is significant about this particular week will help us a great deal. It ends in Escobar’s birthday, which might be enough, but I don’t buy that it’s a weeklong party. There had to be some other significance.”

“I’m on it,” I said, opening my laptop and starting to get to work.

Ellen reached over and pushed it closed, shaking her head. “Not tonight, Babe.”

She didn’t need to say anything else. The twinkle in her eyes and the smile, even in the dim light of Ariel’s SUV after midnight, was enough to inform me of the plans that she had for finishing out the night or morning, whichever you wanted to call it.

Refreshed and more than sated by Ellen’s passion during the earlier morning hours after we returned to our hotel room, I slipped out of bed, took a quick shower and tried to keep from waking her as I slipped out of the room and down to the dining room with my laptop.

I started to compile a list of significant events that took place during the week between November 23 and December 1. I started to type out a list, just to see if there was a pattern attached to the week.

November 26, 1984: car bomb explosion in front of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá. 1 dead and 6 wounded attributed to the cartel.

November 22, 1987: kidnapping attempt of a Medellin Mayoral candidate by cartel members failed. (Fallout?)

November 23, 1989: 6 helicopter gunships of a joint operation of the DAS, the police and the army aimed at capturing Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa and several of his lieutenants. Resulted in the death of two cartel members, including Escobar's brother and the capture of 55 others. Escobar escapes with Ochoa.

November 27, 1989: bombing of Avianca flight 203 kills 107 people in midair explosion. (Retaliation for the above attack?)

November 26, 1990: youngest member of the cartel Fabio Ochoa begins a protest over decree 2047. (Dealing with extradition to foreign countries.)

November 27, 1991: cartel members ambush and kill son of paramilitary leader, Ramon Isaza. (???)

November 27, 1992: Johnny “the pigeon” Rivera and two of his bodyguards are killed in Itagui by a force of 200 men. (Was a confidant and part of Escobar’s security force, car bomb on December 2, in retribution at the soccer stadium kills 19, 17 civilians and 2 police officers.)

There was nothing more that occurred during that week; nothing that I was able to find. There were other similar attacks throughout the year that, more or less testified against there being any special significance to the week. I was stumped.

“You sure look to be hard at work, for a man who didn’t get much sleep last night,” Ellen said, leaning over my shoulders from behind. I turned and met her lips with a kiss. “What have you found?”

“A big, fat lot of nothing,” I sighed. “There doesn’t seem to be any significance to this particular week, not where the cartel is concerned.”

“Well, then,” she chirped as she sat down in the chair next to me. “I guess we’ll just have to ask him.”

“We’re going back to El Castillo?” I knew we were. The night before had been a long shot, which Ellen had hoped to use as another point of connection.

“An exhibit was trashed last night, so I guess Escobar is back at it. Ariel left several messages on my phone. I’m surprised he hasn’t shown… well, speak of the devil.”

“Did you get my messages?” Ariel asked as he greeted Ellen and then moved to the other seat at the table.

“Got them just now.” She grinned and then looked at me and winked. “I had my phone turned off.”

“So, we’re going back to El Castillo tonight?”

“We are,” she responded. “How bad was it?”

“About like the first night, but more violent. Destroyed everything, basically.”

“So, our being there slowed him down a little, but didn’t stop him,” I commented.

“Are we any closer to a resolution?” Ariel asked. “Jovani is pretty upset.”

“We’re hitting a dead end,” Ellen replied. “We have to get him to talk to us, maybe even reveal himself. Would you be able to handle that, Ariel?”

“I would like to say that I’m getting used to this,” he replied. “But that would be a lie.”

“It takes a while,” I chuckled. “I can tell you that from experience. I didn’t even believe in ghosts before the first time Ellen took me to help her with a case.”

“It still took you a while,” she smiled, taking my hand and giving me a look, but it wasn’t like one of her others; it was one of nostalgia and the fact that she’d been well taken care of in our hotel room bed the night before.

“How do you get used to it?” Ariel asked.

“You just suck it up and do what needs to be done,” I responded.

“I have to be able to count on you to hang in there with us tonight, Ariel.” Ellen’s tone and expression had changed to “all business” mode. “Unless we can communicate with him, we’re going to stay in the dark and it will be impossible to solve this case, understand?”

“I understand,” he replied.

Several hours later, at just before midnight, in the corridor in front of the Art School Students Exhibit Hall, Ariel’s resolve was put to the test.

Contact and communication had progressed a very similar fashion as a few nights before, Ariel was hanging in there pretty well, though our kingpin spirit wasn’t cooperating. Ellen started to get a little bit more aggressive with him after some time.

“Reveal yourself!” she commanded. Ariel translated the order for her and she pronounced it again in Spanish.

When there was no response, she pushed things to another level. “For such a powerful and important man, you sure are a coward!” she snapped. “Reveal yourself.”

“You want me to translate that other part?” Ariel asked.

“Yes, I do,” she snapped, irritated by the fact that we were getting nowhere with the stubborn spirit.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I muttered.

“We have to force something to happen,” she answered. “Translate it again and again until we get a response.”

With still no response, she challenged him even further and started to taunt him. “You’ll slap a woman, but you’re too afraid to show yourself?”

The taunt brought out a great deal more than any of us had expected. In an instant of rage, a spectral image appeared, charged directly toward Ariel until the poor, terrified translator fell on his back after backpedaling faster than his feet were able to carry him.

“Recuerde la Alborrada!” he screeched and then flashed away down the corridor.

Chapter Eleven

It had taken us several minutes to get Ariel settled down enough so that he could speak, but when he did, he told us the translation of what our ghost had said. “Remember the Alborrada.”

“That’s the celebration at midnight on December 1, right?” Ellen asked.

“The ushering in of the Christmas season and, by pure coincidence, Escobar’s birthday,” I mused.

“Not entirely coincidence,” he said. “The significance of the date became much more important in 2008. I’ll explain that in a moment, but I need to tell you something else first.”

“Okay, what?” I asked.

“That wasn’t Pablo Escobar,” he said.

“What? How do you know?” Ellen asked, shocked by the revelation.

“I grew up in Medellin, trust me, everyone knows what Pablo Escobar looked like. That wasn’t him.”

“Wasn’t him?” I repeated. “Then who was it?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, regaining his nerve the more that he talked. “But it wasn’t Escobar.”

“Well, now, another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie.” I repeated the old line from Laurel and Hardy lore. If our ghost wasn’t Pablo Escobar, then we were basically back to square one. After a few moments, I said as much, aloud. “We’re back at square one, then.”

“Not entirely,” Ellen replied. “We’ve accomplished several things. We’ve eliminated Escobar, gotten our spirit to reveal himself and we can deduce that all of this is leading up to something surrounding the Alborrada.”

“You said that you had more to tell us about the Alborrada?” I asked, turning back to Ariel.

“It wasn’t always celebrated here, at least not on the scale that it is now. It will take me some time to explain. Do you mind if we go someplace more comfortable?”

Ariel was still visibly shaken, so Ellen agreed. “Sure, there isn’t much more that we can do here, anyway.”

We left El Castillo and started back down the street that wound its way down toward the avenue where the higher-class hotels and restaurants were located.

“Where’s a Denny’s when you need one?” I quipped. It would have been the perfect place to sit at a table with a cup of coffee, some chocolate pancakes or PB&J waffles and discuss what to do next. We opted for Ariel’s house and the gazebo on the roof, which he referred to as a terrazzo.

“The original Alborrada or Nit de l'Alba was a tradition of Elche, Spain, dating back to the middle ages and continuing today. It is a celebration of the Virgin of the Assumption and is celebrated at midnight on August 13. The city turns off all of the lights and there are several minutes of total darkness before fireworks are launched into the air. Each rocket is to signify the births that had taken place since the virgin birth.”

“How is that connected to Medellin, then and why is it celebrated on December 1?” Ellen asked.

“The word Alborrada has two meanings. In one sense, like the once used in Elche, Spain it is the night of the dawn or midnight before the beginning of a special day, but it can also refer to the outset of a military battle. Before 2003, the Christmas season was ushered in by the first night of the Days of Candles on December 7th. On that night and for several nights afterward, households light candles and place them on their balconies or in their windows, it’s in celebration of the Virgin and—”

“So, what changed in 2003?” I interrupted.

Ellen gave me a look, chastising me for my impatience.

“November 25th of 2003, was the disarmament of a paramilitary group known as the Cacique Nitbarra, led by Diego Murillo Bejerano or ‘Don Berna.’ Six days after the disarmament, the former soldiers of the group distributed gun powder and explosives to be used at midnight, December 1, to announce Don Berna’s return to civilian life. Since that time, though most Paisas connect it with the Christmas season, it has been, more or less, a celebration of the mafia underworld, of which Don Berna—until he was extradited to the U.S. on narcotics trafficking charges in 2008—was the boss.

“He essentially inherited the Envigado Office, which was the mafia headquarters of the Medellin cartel. The following Alborrada was, for obvious reasons, the most spectacular to date, as the underworld elements made a special showing in honor of their boss, who had been sentenced to 31 years in prison in a district court in the U.S. The bosses are still around in Envigado and in the surrounding communities and there is some speculation to how active they are, but it is safe to say that they still control a portion of what goes on in Medellin, but on a much different scale than before.”

The date, November 25 jumped out at me and I couldn’t help noting it. “The timeline from November 25 to December 1 fits our timeline exactly.” I ticked off on my fingers the seven midnights from November 25 to December 1.

“Could we be dealing with the spirit of Don Berna?” Ellen asked.

“He’s still alive in a federal prison in the U.S.,” I pointed out. I quickly looked him up on my laptop, just to make sure. “He’s still alive.”

“Well,” Ellen began again. “I think we can safely assume that this is connected to the Medellin cartel in some way, especially since one of the first things he said was ‘plata o plomo,’ which is a phrase connected with Escobar.”

“So, we’re down to looking for known associates,” I deduced. It was the next step in trying to solve a particularly difficult criminal investigation. “We can build a list and check off who is alive and who is dead.”

“Or we could just get him to tell us,” Ellen noted.

“We haven’t had very good luck in that department,” I reminded her. “If our spirit was a little bit more cooperative, we’d be able to put this together a little faster, but it looks like we’re not going to get that, so we’ll just have to come in through the back door, so to speak.”

“I’m still trying to figure out what this all has to do with the castle. It doesn’t seem to be the location of any sort of controversy, so why is it significant in all of this?” Ellen asked.

“If we come up with a list of known associates, like Don Monty suggested, and then match that against contributors to El Castillo, we might get somewhere,” Ariel suggested.

“Hey,” I grinned. “You’re starting to act like a detective. That’s a great idea. I’ll tell you what, I’ll build the list and then you and I can take it to Jovani in the morning and see if we can come up with some matches.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you.” Ellen’s tone was one of disgust and it matched the look that she gave me. “How about you put together the list and let Ariel and Jovani worry about searching for matches?”

After that, the meeting was, for all practical purposes, finished and we got into the car to be taken back to our hotel. It didn’t take Ellen long to bring up the topic of Jovani when we got back to our room. She didn’t do it in the way that I was expecting, however.

“You didn’t get enough last night, Mon?” she purred as she moved in close to start stroking my chest.

“Do I ever get enough?” I replied in a whisper.

“Evidently not, if you’re still fantasizing about Jovani,” she answered. “Maybe I need to wear you out a little before we go to bed, you know, to help keep you focused.”

Chapter Twelve

Though I didn’t roll out of bed until nearly noon the next day, I was certainly focused. I tried to repeat what I’d done the morning before; sneak into the shower and then out to the dining room, but Ellen was up and met me as I came out of the bathroom.

“How you feeling?” she grinned and then smacked me on my bare ass.

“You’re getting a little bit too sassy for your own good, you know?”

“Yep,” she replied, turning in the doorway, smiling at me and then closing the door behind her. Just to be ornery, I heard her push the button that locked the door.

Not to be outdone, I knocked on the door and then called out. “Does this mean that I can sneak out and track down one of the Paisa girls?”

“Suit yourself,” she replied.

I had no intention of doing anything of the sort and she didn’t bite on the lure that I’d put in front of her. I went ahead and got dressed, hearing water filling up the bathtub. I knew what that meant. Ellen needed some downtime alone. It wasn’t often that she went through the ritual when we were working on a case, but the case we were on wasn’t a typical one.

Ellen told me several times before that when she laid back into the hot water of the bathtub and allowed her entire body to relax, she was able to empty her mind and her spirit and allow both of them a new perspective.

It wasn’t a bad idea. I felt like I was in need of a new perspective as well, but bathtubs weren’t really my cup of tea. A sauna followed by a dip in a cold pool worked better for me, but I wasn’t going to see anything like that anytime soon, so I finished dressing, snatched up my computer and went out onto the balcony of our hotel room.

From the lounge chair on the balcony, I peered out across the city below, which was cast against the backdrop of lush, green slopes. Along the bottom of the valley, I could make out the metro trains transporting their passengers to the various stops along the line. There was plenty of activity along their interstate, the autopista, and the major thoroughfares that I could make out were busy as well. Medellin was a city at work. It was hard to believe that it had, at one time, been held in the tight grip of a drug cartel. With that thought in mind, I opened my laptop and went to work.

The Medellin cartel was led by Escobar, several family members and three brothers by the last name of Ochoa. Looking back at my notes from the day before, I noted that Fabio Ochoa, the youngest of the three brothers had been the one who had started the protests against the extradition decree. I decided to start with him, discovering that he was still alive and well in a federal prison in Florida; ironically, he’d been extradited there from Colombia after relations stabilized with the U.S. and extradition became quite common. Fabio would be leaving federal prison at the ripe old age of 76, if he lived that long.

After Fabio, I was afraid of getting bogged down because I was tempted to look deeper. I could do that later, but I needed to quickly compile a list for Ariel to compare against the list of donors at El Castillo. When I finished, I had 20 names of cartel members living in prison, released from prison or dead. Among those names were the Ochoa brothers, the eldest of whom helped Escobar in founding the cartel. One name on the list really stood out to me. I’m not sure if it was his nickname or the preponderance of information that had been provided by him about the cartel. My attention turned toward Jhon Jairo “Popeye” Valásquez.

Popeye was the bloodiest of Escobar’s hitmen, his chief bodyguard and driver up until he was captured in October of 1992 and served 22 years in prison before being released in 2014.  Popeye was alleged to have ordered the deaths of more than 3,000 people and had killed more than 300 by his own hand. It was certainly a large list and would have put him in prison for life if he had been arrested after extradition was made possible by Colombia. As it was, he served his sentence and was free.

What intrigued me most about Popeye was that he was very willing to give interviews and help out with filling in what went on inside of the cartel. Several of the interviews had been published only a few months before Ellen and I had gotten the call to come to Medellin. As I scanned through the articles, I made a note that he had been assisting Colombian law enforcement in recent operations, though for obvious reasons, no details were given.

I was considering how valuable it would be if we could somehow enlist Popeye’s help to solve our case when I ran across his social media page. “Jesus. What is this world coming to?” I muttered.

“What are you mumbling about?” Ellen asked, startling me as she appeared on the balcony behind me.

“How was your bath, Babe?” I asked.

“I’m renewed and ready to go. What are you looking at?” she asked, peering over my shoulder.

“Would you believe that I’m looking at the social media page of the bloodiest of Pablo Escobar’s hitmen, personal bodyguard and driver?”

“Nothing surprises me anymore,” she laughed.

“The guy has probably forgotten more about Pablo Escobar than most people ever knew about him, except for maybe his wife and his mama.”

“Probably even more than his wife,” Ellen replied.

“The dude served 22 years in prison after being responsible for more than 3,000 deaths. He was released last year and he gave several interviews a little over two months ago. He’s working with law enforcement authorities now,” I summarized for her. “It sure would be nice if we could get his help.”

“We can always ask,” she said.

“Something like that would probably require more time than we have available to us,” I replied.

“Then we better hurry,” she quipped.

“But I don’t even know who to talk to or how.”

“You have his social media page, don’t you?”

“If it’s really him who set it up. It could be a joke or a trap.”

“Then talk to Ariel,” she responded.

“You make it sound so easy.”

“I’m just telling you to give it a try,” she said, walking away. She turned back and added, “Ariel is on his way over to pick up your list anyway, so ask him what he thinks. Remember, he has friends on the police force. He might have other friends.”

Believe it or not, though he was a bit skeptical about there being any chance that Escobar’s former bodyguard would come to help us, he did know someone who could at least make the request.

“How would he be able to help us?” Ariel asked.

“Well, if he was that close to Escobar, then he would certainly recognize our ghost, that is, if we can get him to reveal himself to us again. If he identifies our ghost, then he might be able to provide some leads that will get us closer. I don’t need to remind you that we don’t have much time.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ariel responded. He took the paper that I extended to him. “Is this your list?

“Cartel members, Popeye and Alvaro de Jesús Agudelo, the bodyguard who died along with Escobar.”

“It’s a good start. I’ll get it to Jovani and get started on making phone calls about Popeye,” he said as he turned to leave the room.

“Do the best you can,” I replied. “It’s a long shot, but it’s certainly worth trying.”

Ariel’s best was better than I thought it would be. To my startled delight, Ariel called later that afternoon and informed me that he’d gotten in touch with someone who had delivered a message to the former Escobar bodyguard and that Popeye had called him back personally. He would be coming in to Medellin later that night to help us out.

Chapter Thirteen

“I came because I was intrigued by what Ariel told me about what you’re doing here,” Popeye grinned, speaking in accented English, but proving that he had a pretty decent command of the language. He, like so many notorious criminals, looked like a regular guy, shorter and smaller than one expected a man who had ordered killed or personally killed more than 3,300 people to be.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” I responded, extending my hand toward him. Yes, it was a little strange, but that’s what you do when you have been introduced to someone. “This is my wife, Ellen, she’s the one who is actually in charge.”

Popeye accepted Ellen’s hand, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she responded.

“So,” he said, starting right in, “my understanding is that you want my help in identifying a ghost. I know little more than that, other than you think that he was connected to the boss and that we only have until December 1 to figure this out.”

“That’s the short version,” Ellen said, taking charge of the meeting. It was already 10:30 p.m. by the time he arrived at El Castillo to meet us. There wasn’t much time for a long version. “The spirit that we encountered is extremely angry and violent. He’s been very elusive when it comes to answering our questions or revealing himself…”

“Wait a second,” Popeye interrupted. “If he hasn’t revealed himself, how do you know that he’s there and what his temperament is like?”

I broke in at that point. “Ellen is able to communicate with spirits, feel what they are feeling and among other things, solve their problems. Trust me, she knows.”

“That’s a pretty amazing gift,” Popeye grinned. His expression told me that he was impressed.

“It has its moments,” Ellen responded. She didn’t belabor the point, but went straight back to the briefing that she had started to give Popeye. “Other than appearing last night and screaming at Ariel, he has said two things which hold a great deal of significance. The first was ‘silver or lead,’ which you already are well acquainted with and the other was ‘remember the Alborrada,’ which is what he screamed at Ariel before disappearing last night. We initially thought that it was the spirit of Escobar but after seeing his image last night, Ariel assured us that it wasn’t him.”

“The silver and lead thing is Escobar to a tee, but, no, he was ten years in the grave when the Alborrada started in Medellin. I saw my first one last year,” he grinned. “I was otherwise detained before that.”

“Our goal tonight is to either communicate with him again, and draw more information out of him, or to get him to reveal himself in your presence and see if you can identify him. Are you okay with assisting in that?”

“Are you asking if I’m afraid of ghosts?”

“Essentially, yes,” Ellen answered. “The first time that someone has an encounter with a being from the world beyond, it can be very frightening.”

“Okay,” he chuckled softly. “You do know who you are talking to, right?”

“We do,” I answered. That same Latino machismo had been presented several days before by Ariel and he had nearly wet himself three times. Of course, Ariel couldn’t really be compared to the personal bodyguard and head hitman of Pablo Escobar when it came to having been in some pretty scary situations. I did know, however, that I hadn’t been nearly as calm and collected as I would have liked to be my first time either. “It’s more frightening than you might imagine.”

“Okay,” Popeye started in again. “We’re going to try to make contact with a ghost that’s connected to Pablo in some way. Why do we have to solve this before December 1?”

“The past two years, this same spirit has appeared here at El Castillo and destroyed exhibits and torn things up for exactly one week, beginning at midnight of November 25 and ending at midnight of December 1.”

“The Alborrada and Pablo’s birthday,” Popeye muttered. “I can see why your ghost seems to be connected to Escobar. Why here and why during this particular time?”

“That’s what we are trying to figure out,” Ellen responded. “We are hoping that if you can identify the spirit and then give us some background into the person, we might be able to make the necessary connections to answer those questions.”

“Makes sense,” he nodded. “So, what do we do? You’re the boss, right?”

Popeye glanced around at me after the last question to make sure that he had heard me right concerning who was in charge.

“If you are willing to help us out,” Ellen answered. “Then we would like to ask you to accompany us as we get ready to make contact and hopefully communicate with the spirit in, about an hour.”

“Okay,” he said, shrugging. “That sounds simple enough. How do we do that?”

“Monty has some specialized instruments that help us to know when the spirit is getting near to us and in which direction he is moving. Once we are close to him, I am able to ascertain his presence and his spirit. Sometimes, I can read a spirit’s thoughts, but mostly, I am able to read their dispositions. On occasion, when the need arises, we have linked spirits—through an alternate means that I won’t go into at this point—and been able to place Monty or another person in the spirit’s presence instead of trying to get them to reveal themselves. In this case, challenging his courage and manhood has been enough to draw him out.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Popeye summarized. “This spirit is arrogant, angry, violent and only appears when you challenge his manhood?”

“Essentially, yes,” Ellen answered.

“You’ve just described nearly every member, associate member or henchman in the Medellin cartel,” he laughed. “What happens if it’s someone that I don’t recognize? You know, there could be a lot of ghosts associated with the cartel over the span of 30-plus years.”

“That is a possibility, but we won’t know until we try it, right?” Ellen smiled.

“Then I’m in.”

It didn’t dawn on me until Ellen, Ariel and I were wandering through the darkened castle a little more than thirty minutes later that a convicted killer—of not just a few people, but of hundreds who were personally killed or thousands who were ordered killed—was alone with us. To be completely honest, that was more frightening to me than any paranormal encounter we’d experienced.

The interviews I’d read had said that he had been converted while in prison and that he had put all of that behind him and began a new life, but my skepticism was back in full force. Could a person ever, completely get over being something that they had been before? Perhaps a lower-level criminal could, but the man beside me was no lower-level criminal, he was a killer. A chill went through me and I kept a very close eye on Ellen.

Have we just made a really stupid mistake? The thought wouldn’t leave my mind while I got my instruments ready, made sure that there were fresh batteries, not only in the equipment, but readily available and checked to ensure that the Bluetooth connection between the instrument and my smartphone was active.

Bringing Popeye in to help had been my idea. If it was successful and he was able to provide some new leads or maybe even break the case, then it would prove to have been a good idea. However, things could turn bad really fast and Ellen and I would be helpless to do anything about it. I had to force those thoughts out of my mind and focus my concentration. It’s too late now anyway, Monty.

Chapter Fourteen

“Those are some pretty cool instruments you’ve got there; what do they do?” Popeye asked, moving up beside me to examine the two instruments.

“This one,” I said, presenting the K2 meter, “measures magnetic energy. There is a significant increase in magnetic energy during a paranormal event; in this case, it is the presence of a spirit.”

“Really,” he said. “Does it really work? Like in the Ghostbusters movie?”

“Not exactly like in the movies, but yes, there is some pretty significant data to support the magnetic energy theories that surround paranormal events.”

“Cool. And the other one?” He pointed to the other, which was a combination instrument.

“Well, among other things, this one measures temperature. There is a correlation between sudden temperature drops and a spiritual presence. In fact, what we’ve discovered recently is that the lower the temperature, the greater the intensity of the spirit’s anger. This particular spirit has hit some record lows.”

“Doña Ellen said that this spirit was angry. You can measure that by temperature?”

“Well, a combination of temperature and my wife, really.”

“Can she really communicate with spirits and do all of those things that she said?” He leaned in close and whispered the question. “I mean, really?”

“I’ve seen her do some things that I would have never believed possible,” I responded. “She can do things that I don’t understand and probably never will.”

“Who can ever understand the mysteries of a woman? Am I right?”

Having Escobar’s former bodyguard acting so friendly with me was off-putting, to say the least. Aloof or even grumpy would have put me more at ease, but then a thought hit me. What sort of life had he lived? What sort of proper social boundaries and interactions would he have been taught and by whom? What had he learned in prison to help him with proper intercommunication skills? From what I could gather from the interviews I read, Popeye likely remained isolated after prison because a lot of people still wished him dead. He probably never got a chance for any kind of normal interaction, especially in a strange and probably anxious moment.

“This is well beyond those mysteries,” I chuckled. I looked at my watch and knew that we were getting close to the time when our guest would be arriving. “Okay, I don’t want to cut you off, but we’re at ‘go time’ and we need to stay focused, you understand?”

“I understand,” he responded. “Do what you have to do and don’t mind me.”

Moments later, I saw the needle on the K2 flicker. “I got a flicker,” I called out.

“Temp?” Ellen asked.

“No change,” I answered. I watched the thermometer. “No, wait, it dropped a couple of degrees.”

“Got a direction?”

“Not yet.” I watched the K2 and the thermometer at the same time as I turned a full circle. The needle stayed steady at midrange and I stopped. The temperature dropped as well. “This way. You got him yet?”

“Faintly.”

“Okay, let’s move forward, then.”

We started walking in the direction that the instruments were leading me.

“I’ve got him,” Ellen said. “Not as angry tonight.”

“Temp is in the 30s,” I responded. “It’s not dropping much. K2 is pegged.”

“Are you here?” Ellen called out.

Ariel quickly jumped in to do his job.

“Can you tell us who you are and what you’re doing here?”

She waited as Ariel translated.

“He’s circling me like he did the first night, but he’s calmer, not as violent. I wonder what changed. I think he knows that we’re trying to help.” She called out again. “We are here to help you. How can we help you?”

“No puede ayudarme,” he responded.

“He said that we can’t help him,” Ariel translated.

“Quien es?” Ellen asked. “Reveal yourself to us.”

Ariel translated the second part.

“I really don’t want to get nasty like I did last night, so make it easy and just show yourself. We want to help you.”

It took much longer for Ariel to translate and we waited for a response of some sort.

“He’s moving away,” I pointed out, seeing my instruments change. I fixed his direction of movement and started moving in that direction. I glanced briefly at Ellen and then at Popeye. His eyes were wide, but his posture suggested that he was still skeptical. I didn’t have time to worry over that. I moved my focus back to my instruments.

“He’s definitely calmer tonight,” Ellen commented. “But still skittish.”

“Can he hear me if I speak?” Popeye broke in.

I held up a hand in his direction, but kept looking at my instruments. “He stopped again.”

“He’s coming back toward us. Maybe he recognized Popeye’s voice,” Ellen said. “He’s curious. What the hell, talk to him. See if you can get him to show himself or, at least, identify himself.”

“Hey,” Popeye called out in Spanish. “It’s Popeye, who are you?”

“He’s moving in your direction,” Ellen said. “Do you feel him?”

“It’s sort of cold,” Popeye responded. “No, it’s really cold. Is that him?”

“Probably,” Ellen said. “Try to remain calm and ask him to show himself.”

“Who are you?” Popeye called out. “Show yourself. We want to help you.”

“His anger level is rising,” Ellen said.

“That tracks,” I responded. I saw the temperature drop down into the low 20s just like it had before.

“Popeye must have irritated him in some way,” Ellen said.

“I irritated him?” Popeye’s eyes widened with fear. “What did I do? What did I say?”

“He must recognize you. Maybe someone with whom you had a conflict?”

“That includes 90% of Colombia and half of the U.S.,” Popeye responded. “What do I do?”

“Try again,” Ellen directed. “Stay confident and commanding and ask him to reveal himself.”

“Oh great,” Popeye muttered. “Piss him off some more.”

“It will be okay,” Ellen said.

“Who are you?” Popeye asked using a more commanding tone than before. “Reveal yourself!”

At Popeye’s second command, the same spectral form that we had seen the night before appeared and charge forward at Popeye.

“Jesus!” Popeye exclaimed as he scrambled backward away from the specter, but refused to turn away. “It’s you!”

“Popeye!” the specter screeched. “Que haces aqui!”

Scrambling backward and stumbling over his feet, Escobar’s former bodyguard fell on his back screaming and holding out his hands in a protective gesture.

The specter laughed hysterically in a high pitched tone and then, just like the night before, zipped away in a flash of light.

I looked at the wide-eyed expression of Ariel, who, though he hadn’t been the target that night, was still pretty shaken by another appearance of the ghost. I moved toward Popeye, who was sitting up, but had his head tucked under his forearms, which were resting on his drawn up knees.

“You alright, Buddy?” I asked.

He shook his head back and forth several times, but did not speak.

“Do you know who it was?” I asked.

Ellen moved up beside me and held a finger to her lips. “Don’t push him,” she whispered. “Give him a few minutes.”

It had been a while since I’d experienced what Popeye had just gone through, so I had lost a great deal of my sensitivity to it. I’d gotten to the point where I was all business and ready to get the case solved. That sort of approach had been a normal part of my earlier career. Though I’d acquire some tact, thanks to Ellen, I still tended to have the interrogator/cop mentality when I was in the zone on a case.

After several minutes, Popeye raised his head from under his arms and looked up at us. “That scared the shit out of me.”

I was tempted to mock him because of his earlier comments, but thought better of it.

“Did you recognize him?” Ellen asked softly.

“I’ll say I did,” he responded with wide eyes. “And he recognized me too. I never expected that from him.”

“Never expect what from who?” I prodded.

“I never expected Juan David to come at me like that.”

Chapter Fifteen

“When you said Juan David...” I started to ask after helping Popeye to his feet and escorting him along the corridor. “Were you referring to Juan David Ochoa, the co-founder of the Medellin cartel?”

“The very same one,” Popeye responded. “I’d recognize him anywhere and anytime.”

“Well, at least we have an identity now, but why did he get so angry?” I pressed. “The temperature dropped to another record when he recognized you.”

“He’s probably upset about some things that I said,” Popeye admitted.

“It must have been some pretty bad things that you said,” Ellen joined in. “His rage went through the roof when he saw you, though I have to admit that the laughter when he departed was a little bit out of tune with the rage.”

“Juanito was always doing crap like that to me, ever since I was a kid and he was a bigger kid,” Popeye responded.

“You were around him when you were a kid?” Ellen asked. “Not just in the cartel?”

“No,” Popeye answered. “All of my life. We are—were—cousins.”

“You said that you didn’t expect him to come at you like that,” I asked. “How come?”

“I guess that when I recognized him and he recognized me that being family would make a difference. You know, ‘put the past in the past’ and that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, well, evidently he still carries a grudge,” I pointed out sarcastically.

“You think?” Popeye responded.

“Why is he angry with you?” Ellen asked. “What did you say?”

“Both brothers, Juan David and Jorge Luis were knee deep in everything that the Medellin cartel carried out. In fact, long before Pablo came along and created the alliance that became the cartel, the Ochoa family had been trafficking narcotics. They were already moving product in the mid-seventies and Escobar didn’t bring them all together until 1981. I came along later than that. Anyway, when, in 1991, they turned themselves in, they only got five years and I got 22. I brought that out several times and even talked about the fact that Jorge Luis was the one who had really founded the narco-terrorism that went along with the cartel operations. He was the one who trained our people in the use of UR-DEDs.” He looked up at Ellen. “That stands for Utility Remote Detonation Device.”

I’d heard similar stories among criminals before. They always believed that they were being punished too much for their crimes and that other people who had committed much worse crimes had gotten off easy. In nearly every case, I’d had little to no sympathy for their complaints, but in the case that Popeye had just presented, the two Ochoa brothers really had gotten off much too easy. Though in my opinion, Popeye’s sentence was about 80 years too short if the punishment was to fit the crime.

“I guess I could have gotten what Pablo got, or Fabio or Don Berna,” Popeye admitted. “I didn’t serve half of what I deserved for all that I did.”

There was a long silence. Neither Ellen nor I wanted to interrupt it. We waited for Popeye to continue.

“I got a chance to set things right again with Jorge Luis, but Juan David had already died before I got out,” he said. “Juan David had a heart attack in 2013 and I didn’t get out until 2014.”

“That doesn’t seem like much to hold a grudge for?” Ellen commented.

“Yeah, well, that wasn’t all that I said,” Popeye replied. “A lot of the other things that I said probably contributed to their little brother Fabio’s conviction and extradition to the U.S.”

“Yeah, that is probably more likely,” I agreed.

“Like I said before, I made things right with Jorge Luis, but never with Juan David.”

Popeye was quiet again for several minutes and then he looked from me to Ellen and back again. “Did all of that really happen? I mean, we talked to my dead cousin, he charged at me and screamed and then went away, right?”

“It happened,” I smiled.

“It’s kind of hard to believe, now that it’s all behind me.”

“They told me that I’d get used to it,” Ariel joined in. He had mostly been forgotten in the moment, but he’d stood by and listened to the conversation. “You don’t get used to it.”

“I’d just as soon not do it enough to get used to it,” Popeye responded.

“I said that the first few times myself,” I grinned.

“By the way, Don Monty,” Ariel continued, “no one on your list was a donor to El Castillo. I meant to tell you that earlier, but we were focused on getting Popeye here and everything else.”

“Can you think of any connection between Juan David and El Castillo?” Ellen asked. “Why would he pick this place to haunt?”

“I can’t think of any connection, but Juan David had a tendency to wander off and do things on his own at times. Don’t get me wrong, he was a team player and he never went against the cartel, but he had other ventures. He was a horse trainer, and a good one, too. It helped him to isolate himself against things a little bit. He had a raging temper and about the only thing that helped him get it under control was to go off on his own. We just let him go and never thought anything of it. He might have taken an interest in this place and kept it to himself.”

“If he wasn’t a donor, then what?” I asked.

“It’s anyone’s guess,” Popeye shrugged.

“Well, let’s get out of here,” Ellen suggested. “Not much point in hanging around now.”

From Popeye, Ellen and I were able to get a better understanding of the history not only of Juan David, but we gained an even greater understanding of the Medellin cartel and its operations.

It was actually Juan David’s brother, Jorge Luis, who got the Ochoa brothers involved in the business. Jorge had gone to the U.S. and happened across someone who was interested in purchasing some product from Colombia. Jorge decided to fill the order. Juan David made a few buys in Bogotá and before he knew it, he and his two brothers were in it in a big way.

Cocoa paste was bought from either Peru or Bolivia, brought into Colombia and processed. From there, it was either shipped by air or in boats to the U.S. The distribution chain in the U.S. was mostly handled by Jorge, since he had the connections, but Fabio got into it later. That, of course, didn’t stop for Fabio, even after the cartel was broken up in 1992.

Sometime in the late seventies, Escobar, who was already a millionaire from other business interests, bought his first cocoa paste in Peru, processed it and turned a significant profit. Like any other businessman, oblivious to the fact that he was dealing in an illegal substance, he began to invest in more cocoa paste, processing locations and equipment, and modes of distribution. In 1981, Escobar approached Juan David who was an acquaintance of Escobar and also living in the Medellin suburb Envigado. With Juan David’s influence, they put together an agreement with several other businessmen who were dealing in the same narcotics trade and the cartel was born.

What set Escobar apart and made him the boss of the cartel was his fearless tenacity and aggressive means of dealing with anyone who got in his way. His plata o plomo policy was an extension of that aggressive attitude and he had the balls to enforce it. Initially, it was Jorge Luis who carried out a lot of the dirty work, especially training Escobar’s security team and introducing the remote detonation devices. Popeye didn’t come on board until 1986 and the cartel was already firmly established.

With the Medellin cartel becoming stronger in both money and influence among politicians, the Cali cartel, to the south, was beginning to feel like it was being pushed out of business. The Cali cartel struck back, which opened up the drug war that would rage throughout Colombia for more than a decade.

Chapter Sixteen

Listening to the gurgling of the stone fountain in the gardens of El Castillo, Ellen and I were stretched out on a blanket, having just enjoyed a picnic lunch provided by El Castillo. With the castle looming behind us, we looked out across the valley that stretched out below us. The city and its neighboring municipalities were spread out throughout the valley and up both sides. In spite of the steep slopes, the Paisa people had established their homes and businesses, carving most of it out of the surrounding mountains.

“I heard someone make the comment on the plane that most of Medellin stood on edge,” I chuckled. “I can certainly see what he meant.”

The pleasant, spring-like breeze that gently brushed Ellen’s hair back from her face was refreshed and I watched her soaking in the sun while lifting her chin slightly to feel the cool wind on her face. “The City of Eternal Spring,” she murmured. “It is almost impossible to believe that this was a place of untold terrors not much more than 20 years ago.”

“The greedy and twisted minds of men have a way of spoiling creation, don’t they?” I observed.

“How does a person take that first step into something like this?” she mused. “One day, you’re a legitimate businessman and then a new opportunity arises, you buy in, remain oblivious to the damage that what you are doing does to other people and then, suddenly, you are a drug kingpin and head of an international cartel that seems to have no problem with taking the lives of whoever gets in your way. I just don’t get it.”

“The mindset, at least from my understanding, is one of pure selfishness. Yeah, your criminal builds alliances that benefit and offer him protection, but, ultimately, he’d eliminate those with whom he is allied if they no longer serve their purpose. They aren’t a great deal unlike politicians, really.”

“Well, now, Monty,” Ellen laughed. “That was quite a jump. I mean, nobody trusts a politician, but criminal? Sure, there have and are a few that deal in questionable ventures, but is that really an accurate comparison?”

“Hear me out on this, Babe,” I replied. “The mindset that I am trying to get to is the one that both politicians and criminals have; have to have. It is, essentially, a type of arrogance that the end justifies the means and ethics be damned.”

“That is a good point,” she agreed. “I guess that sort of answers my earlier question, then. Escobar saw the cocaine trade as a means for accumulating wealth; ethics be damned.”

“Exactly,” I replied. It was interesting to me that the entire focus of the case that we were working on was completely different than the others. Where before, we were dealing, almost entirely in Ellen’s world, our case at El Castillo was much more like my old world. The supernatural and paranormal were present, but the puzzle that needed to be solved wasn’t as much in that realm as it was in our natural one. “Does this case seem strange to you?”

“It’s a little bit different than I’m used to, why?”

“It feels more like a criminal investigation to me,” I replied, voicing my thoughts.

“That could be because we’re dealing with a spirit who was part of a notorious crime syndicate,” she smiled.

“Yeah, but we assumed that from the beginning. We don’t usually do that?”

“I don’t usually get leered at and slapped the first time that I meet a ghost.”

“But we started in this direction because of my preconceived ideas about Medellin. When you mentioned arrogance, anger and violence, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that we were dealing with the cartel.”

“Actually, you didn’t arrive at that conclusion until after we heard him scream ‘plata o plomo,’” she reminded me. “It was good that you went in the direction you did or we’d still be trying to figure this out. Without Popeye, we wouldn’t have a whisper of a chance at figuring this out.”

“We’re a long way from there still,” I commented.

“But we are much, much further along.”

“Thank you for suggesting that I try to get in contact with Popeye,” I said. “I have to admit that I really didn’t think that there was any chance that he would help us out.”

“Chance smiles on those who dare,” she smiled.

Chance did smile on those who dared. What they received was always in proportion to what they dared as well. If one dared to cross the line of ethics and right, eventually, chance would deliver to him the rewards for daring to do so. In the case of the Ochoa brothers, Escobar and Popeye, who had all had a hand in dealing out death and destruction, those rewards had been very unevenly distributed. I understood Popeye’s anger at the injustice of it all, but I had also noted that he had accepted it and put it behind him. Maybe a man really could be reformed. Maybe he could change, if he was motivated to do so.

“What did you make of Popeye?” I asked. “Do you believe that he really did change?”

“I do,” she said. “I’m sensing that your skepticism has been in full force again?”

“It’s a habit that I learned in my last job,” I chuckled. “It’s just hard for me to believe that someone who killed or ordered the killing of so many people could really change. I have to admit that having him around you has been a little unnerving.”

“Let me help out with your skepticism from a spiritual perspective. Though my gift is stronger when dealing in the realm of the paranormal, I can also get a sense of a living person’s aura as well. Popeye is at peace, but he still carries a healthy fear of his past.”

“A healthy fear of his past?”

“He doesn’t want to go back and he is very conscious of it. It’s a poor example, but it is similar to a truly formed alcoholic who has that same fear of taking just one drink.”

“So, you think he’s changed.”

“In my opinion, that single characteristic in a person is a pretty strong indicator of change.”

Ellen was pretty smart when it came to those sorts of things and I’d learned to trust her opinion when it came to them. She had studied a great deal of psychology, and even trained for a career in clinical psychotherapy, though because of her gift, she never hung out her therapist shingle. It satisfied me somehow, knowing that she didn’t see Popeye as a threat. It was hard not to like the guy; something that surprised me, given my history with criminals. Besides all of that, he’d provided us with a huge break in our case. I started to think about the case again.

“So, boss,” I asked. “What do we do next? We’re running out of time, so we kind of have to get the most bang out of our buck, you know?”

“I was just thinking about that,” she replied. “We’ve got to get to his problem so that we can get it solved. So far, he’s been pretty standoffish about communication, but I think Popeye is a breakthrough, if we can use him properly.”

“You want to bring Popeye back?” I asked, coming to attention. “He didn’t do particularly well at handling things last night. You sure he can do it?”

“He has to,” she replied. “It will not only help break the case, but will be good for Popeye to make peace with Juan David too.”

“This isn’t psychology, Ellen,” I replied.

“Isn’t it?” she countered.

I had no argument.

“What did you have in mind?”

“It’s going to take a lot of mental preparation for Popeye… What is his real name, by the way? Calling him Popeye all of the time doesn’t seem right. That’s like his gangster nickname. We should call him by his given name.”

“His name is Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vasquez,” I replied. “The maternal name, which is the last one, is usually left off, but, in this case, that’s how he is related to the Ochoa brothers. Juan David is Juan David Ochoa Vasquez.”

“Well, do we call him Jhon, Jairo or both?”

“I suppose we ought to ask him,” I replied. “Now, what did you have in mind for him and the rest of our case?”

Chapter Seventeen

“Okay, Jairo,” Ellen began.

Popeye looked up at her with a startled look. “How did you know to call me that?”

“I’m psychic, remember?” she joked.

Jairo seemed to accept that. “My mother always used that name.”

“Well, it’s certainly better than Popeye,” she responded. She got straight to business. We’d called Popeye, who had stayed the night in Medellin and was about to go back to his hideout in the hills before we called him. “I need you to help us again tonight. I know that what happened last night frightened you, but you’re just going to have to work through that.”

“That’s pretty direct,” he laughed. “I like that. Too many people circle all around what they want to say instead of saying it.”

“We don’t have time for circling,” Ellen responded. “I’ve got to prepare you for something that is going to perhaps be terrifying for you, but if you remain focused on the goal and trust me to guide you properly, you’ll come through it fine. Are you willing to help us?”

“I’ve been scared before,” Jairo replied. “Tell me what you need.”

Knowing Ellen’s plan, I sat back and watched Jairo for his reaction.

“What I want to do is channel you along with Monty to the other side of the veil. What that means is that your body will, essentially, stay in the natural world, but your spirit will pass over into the paranormal world.”

“You can do that?” He looked at her with wide eyes.

“I’ve done it many times and I haven’t lost anyone yet,” she smiled. “Ask Monty.”

Jairo looked in my direction and I nodded.

“Up to this point, we’ve allowed Juan David to control our communication. If we keep that trend going, we’ll never solve this case, which, basically means finding out what it is that is holding Juan David back from moving on toward the light and being set free from the world of limbo where he is trapped.”

Ellen paused, watching his reaction. Satisfied that he’d raised no objections so far, she continued.

“I will be channeling through you and speaking through your voice, but Monty will be there with you in case something goes wrong.”

“Something goes wrong? What do you mean?”

“It’s a tricky situation your first time. Monty can attest to that. He had to do this alone on his first try and I nearly wasn’t able to bring him back. He’s been through this enough now that he has some control over his own conscience and actions while he’s on the other side. He will stay focused on you and make sure that you are okay.

“You will feel some control over your thoughts and emotions, but you won’t have total control. Most of the interaction that you have with Juan David is going to be originating from me and moving through you. That’s the place where you have to relax and trust me, understand?”

“I understand. It is a scary thought, but I understand,” he answered.

“This is going to be good for you as well, because one of the first things that I’m going to do is set things right between you and your cousin. When I finish briefing you on what we’re going to do, you’ll need to fill me in on exactly what you said so that I can have some accuracy.”

“It would be nice to set things right with him. That’s been troubling me for a while, since there was really nothing that I could do about it.”

“So, basically, we have a win-win situation here. We’ll set things right between the two of you and once he is more open to communication, we’ll find out what is troubling him and how we can solve it. Once we solve his problem, he’ll be able to move on and, fortunately, so will you. Now, at this point, you know what is going to happen and what we hope to gain by it, you can either walk away or you can stay in and see this through. However, once you make your decision, you have to commit yourself to it completely.”

Jairo considered what she had said carefully and I watched him, speculating about what was running through his mind. Jairo was the type of person who typically made a decision and stuck to it; damn the consequences. That quality in him was both good and bad, depending on how it was used. It had led him into becoming a killer, but it had also led him to change. If he would commit to what Ellen was asking of him, we would solve our case. If he didn’t, it would be very difficult to remove the phantom from El Castillo.

Jairo looked around him at the castle, out across the gardens and eventually let his eyes come to rest on the distant slope on the other side of the valley. In a somewhat absent voice, he began to voice his decision. “I’ve done a lot of ugly things in such a beautiful place, perhaps not directly involving this castle and these gardens, but this community nonetheless. If I can do something that sets things right, why not begin here at Medellin’s only castle where beauty is cherished, celebrated and shared. I’m in.” He looked directly at Ellen when he spoke those last words.

“Very good,” Ellen replied. “We’re going to practice a little bit, so you’ll understand how to relax and how it feels. I can’t do it a lot or for very long, because I have to conserve my energy for later, so I need you to concentrate fully on what we’re doing.”

“Don Monty,” Ariel called out as he arrived on the wide balcony that overlooked the gardens. “I’ve got the information that you asked for. It took some digging, but I think I have exactly what you wanted.”

Ariel greeted Jairo and Ellen in turn, before turning back to me.

“Let’s take a stroll in the garden,” I told him. “Ellen and Jairo need to work on something without distraction.”

“Whatever you like, Don Monty,” he replied.

I looked directly into Ellen’s eyes, not quite able to completely dismiss my earlier skepticism by leaving her alone with Jairo. “Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be fine, Hon,” she replied with a smile, knowing exactly what was running through my mind.

I glanced at Jairo and smiled. “Relax and have fun. I promise it doesn’t hurt.”

“If you only know how many times I heard and said that,” he laughed.

“Yeah, well…” I shrugged and let the sentence linger, unfinished.

I had focused solely on the negative things that the Medellin cartel had done during Escobar’s reign of terror and it had drawn me back into such a deep hatred that I really needed to balance things out. I wouldn’t have worried about such things before Ellen came into my life, nor for quite a while afterward. But some of what made her such an open and happy person who was at peace was because she had learned to balance things out.

Though I was not one who subscribed to the end justifying the means, learning to understand and embrace the good things that can come out of any situation was a means of balancing things without accepting their negative results. I had read in several of the items that I had studied that Pablo Escobar had been very benevolent in Medellin, even while he was controlling and destroying it. Ariel had compiled a list of Escobar’s benevolence for me to study. He presented it to me as we walked in the gardens.

The list that was handed to me was much more extensive than I had imagined. On it were housing developments, private homes purchased and given to homeless families, sports complexes, soccer fields, donations to civic projects, cultural arts and transportation. An assumption that I had made earlier was beginning to come unraveled and, I must admit, I wasn’t comfortable with it.

Medellin had been held in a tight grip during Escobar’s reign, but at the same time, he was helping to build it up and lay the foundation of the transformed city that Medellin had become. It would take me some time to embrace that thought; balance or no balance.

Chapter Eighteen

The evening began in a similar fashion up until the point where we made contact with Juan David. He wasn’t as angry as he had been before. My thermometer was registering the temperature to be in the mid to upper 30s. With Ellen zoned in on him, Jairo and I sat down and tried to relax. It was easier for me than it was to him.

“Relax and stay focused,” I reminded him. I could already feel Ellen beginning to take me through the process that would lead me into the paranormal dimension. Though I’d gotten used to it, it still took all of my focus to allow it to happen. I felt myself pass through the veil, so to speak, and then Juan David appeared before me. The moment he saw me, he turned in my direction and frowned at me, mostly confused, but slightly irritated as well.

“Are you in, Monty?” Ellen’s thoughts asked me.

“Yes,” my thoughts responded.

“Okay, I’m bringing Jairo.”

Connected through Ellen, I was able to begin to communicate freely through her to Jairo. “Relax, Buddy,” I said in a calm voice and then saw him appear beside me.

“What the hell are you doing, here?” Juan David shouted at him. He spoke in Spanish, but the connection that linked Ellen, me and Jairo together allowed me to understand his words through Jairo.

“Remain calm, Jairo,” Ellen interjected.

“I came to see you,” Ellen replied through Jairo. “I came to make things right.”

“You can’t make things right. No one can. Things are the way they are. They’ll stay that way.”

“They’ll stay that way and you’ll be stuck where you are forever,” Jairo responded.

“What the hell do you know about where I am?” Juan David shouted. “Get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”

“Look, Juanito,” he said. “I made things right with Miguelito and I wanted to make them right with you, but I was still in prison when you died.”

“But you did get out, didn’t you,” Juan David snapped. “Fabio won’t have that same luxury.”

“You mean like your own luxury of only five years?” Jairo countered.

“Easy, Jairo,” Ellen interjected again. “Let me do this. Try to keep your emotions in control.”

“Yeah, well you could have surrendered at the same time that Miguelito and I did and gotten the same deal, but you and Pablo were too damned stubborn.”

“Fabio could have too. He could have chosen to stop, but he didn’t. Him being caught, extradited and sentenced is on him, not on anybody else.”

“It was your blabbing mouth that put him there!”

I could see the rage in Juan David’s eyes and tried not to distract myself by wondering what my thermometer was registering at that moment.

“Focus, Mon,” Ellen reminded me.

“You’re right,” Jairo answered. “In part, yeah, some of the things I said probably did hurt him, but when Fabio was caught, he was acting on his own. None of the rest of us were involved. You know that’s true.”

“It was those damned Mexican cartels!” Juan David shouted. “If I could get my hands on…”

“You can’t, Juanito,” Jairo interrupted. “There are a lot of things that we can’t undo, but we can make our peace and move on.”

There was a long silence between them before Jairo spoke. It wasn’t Ellen speaking through him, but Jairo’s own words. “I’m sorry for all of it, Juanito. For Fabio, for all of what I said and for all of what I did.”

“Yeah?” Juan David said in a much calmer tone as his eyes searched Jairo’s. I could still see hidden agitation there, but it wasn’t directed at Jairo. “I’m sorry too, but like you said, we can’t undo what has been done.”

“But we can move forward and be at peace,” I decided to add. I’m not sure why, but part of what I had been thinking about where balancing things out had suddenly entered my thoughts.

“Monty, what are you doing?” Ellen asked.

I never injected myself into things and it surprised her.

“Sorry,” I replied.

Juan David came toward me, made a full circle around me and then spoke. “You’re the one who was with the mona.”

“I am,” I replied. “She’s my wife.”

“You two and that Paisa have been a pain in my ass for the past several days. So what do you want?”

“We want to help you.”

“Yeah. I already told the mona that you couldn’t help me. Nobody can.”

“Well, the mona is the one who is speaking to you and channeling Jairo and I. There are a lot of things that we can do if you give us a chance.”

“You can’t undo the shameful thing that I did. It’s something I have to do.”

“If you tell us, then we can carry out your wishes. That’s the same as you doing them, no?”

Juan David considered the words for a moment.

“The shameful thing that I did wasn’t done alone. It can’t be fixed alone.”

“I thought you said that it was something that you had to do alone,” Ellen answered through Jairo.

“That must be the mona talking through you, Popeye,” he smiled. The smile was a welcome change. “You can never tell a woman anything, they always bring it back on you later.”

“The superior sex,” Jairo responded. The expression on his face as Ellen’s words came out of his mouth was priceless.

Juan David began to laugh. “Now I know that was the mona. That’s almost as funny as yesterday when I scared the piss out of you.”

“Glad that I could entertain you.” I could tell that Ellen was starting to weaken.

“You better wrap this up, Babe,” I cautioned.

“If we can’t help you, maybe we can bring someone who can,” Ellen suggested.

“Are you sure that you can do that?”

“I’m sure, but it would be much easier if we didn’t have to communicate this way. It would be easier if you would just reveal yourself in the natural world and speak to us.”

“If you bring the person that I want to talk to, then it’s a deal,” Juan David replied. “You have to bring him for the Alborrada, but out in the garden, beside the big fountain in the center.”

“It’s a deal,” Ellen replied.

“I want to talk to Miguelito. I want to watch the fireworks with him and then tell him to set the shameful thing right.”

“What shameful thing?”

“That’s none of your damned business.” He glared at Jairo. “Miguelito knows. Bring him.”

“We will be in the garden by the big fountain for the Alborrada with Miguelito then.”

Satisfied, Juan David started to turn away and Ellen was beginning to draw Jairo out of the paranormal and back into the natural world. He looked at me and said, “Tell the mona that I’m sorry that I slapped her.”

It always takes a moment to recover one’s sense when passing through the veil and coming back into the natural world. I recovered a little bit more quickly than Jairo, but I still felt a little bit woozy when I checked on him.

“You alright, Popeye?” It sort of came out automatically. “Sorry; I meant to say, Jairo.”

“Yeah, I’m alright, just drained,” he answered.

I turned to check on Ellen. She was taking deep, heavy breaths like she was recovering from running a 400-meter race. She would be completely out of it for the rest of the night and well into the following afternoon. I knew that I would have to carry the load, but I hoped that Ariel and Jairo would be able to help.

“You okay, Babe?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m okay.”

“Did you get that last thing that he said?”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

“Okay, well, let’s get out of here. We’ve got some work to do. Unless I miss my guess, finding this Miguelito isn’t going to be easy.”

“Easier than you might think,” Jairo replied. “Miguelito is Juan David’s nickname for his brother, Jorge Luis.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Jairo,” I began. Since I’d begun to try to balance things out, I’d been meaning to have the conversation that I was leading into with Escobar’s former bodyguard. Up until that moment, I hadn’t been able to compile my thoughts and feelings on things. I still didn’t have them together completely, but I had settled some things about Jairo and decided that was the best place to start bringing it all together. “I have a confession to make.”

“You do know that I’m not a priest, Don Monty,” he grinned.

“Yes,” I chuckled nervously. I didn’t often allow my feelings to flow so freely but I was learning and determined to find that balance that I had started to seek. “I was pretty skeptical about you when you first came to help us. You see, I used to be a law enforcement officer and in my mind, just like nearly every one of us, a criminal and a killer is always a criminal and a killer and will never change. You’ve proven that theory wrong. I can tell that you’ve changed.”

“Your theory isn’t as far off as you think,” he replied. “A criminal and a killer is always a criminal and a killer; that cannot be changed. When you take another person’s life, you’ve inserted yourself into a place of authority that is not yours to have. Now, in some cases, my actions were necessary to protect and preserve the people around me, in others, those actions were little more than defensive. You do understand that we were in a war with the Cali cartel among others.”

“I understand that, yes.”

“Well, that’s only partial justification, especially when you consider that we wouldn’t have been in that situation if we hadn’t been participating in the illegal activities that we were.”

I nodded my understanding and he continued.

“Your theory is also correct in that a criminal and a killer cannot change. Given the opportunity to kill or commit a crime again, they will. It takes other people intervening, stopping them from doing what they are doing and forcing them to surrender before they can change. At some point, a choice has to be made. That choice is to either continue clinging to those things that made them a criminal and a killer or to let go of them.”

“That’s true with any change of behavior,” I responded. I pondered his words for a few moments. I was at a similar place. I could choose to learn how to find balance or I could cling to skepticism. Skepticism wasn’t necessarily bad; it kept a person from being a sucker, but too much of it made someone cynical. Medellin was teaching me that lesson, though I didn’t have a full grasp of what I was learning.

“Do you believe in forgiveness and grace?” Jairo asked. “I’m not going to get religious on you and start preaching, Don Monty. It’s just a question.”

The question surprised me and it took me a moment to wrap my mind around an answer. “I don’t think that a person can avoid them and keep their sanity.”

Jairo chuckled. “There’s much more to it than that, but I’ll accept that. What I was getting at, however, is that without forgiveness and grace, there is no power to change and certainly no power to move on. For me, with the long list of things that I’ve done, I have to make it a daily practice. Like what I did with Juan David’s spirit last night. From that and from helping him to set, whatever it is that he did, right, I can move forward. I have the strength to move forward.”

Another element had just been added to my struggle for finding balance. It was amazing that I had come to Medellin a skeptic. It was amazing, though Ellen had talked to me about it a number of times, that getting a grasp on balance hadn’t really hit me until we were deep into our case at El Castillo. Was it because I’d been forced into my old, police officer mindset that I’d also been forced to take a new look at balance? I still had a lot to work through and didn’t really have the time. We had only one more midnight left and we had to convince Juan David Ochoa’s brother to join us at El Castillo in the garden by the big fountain at midnight.

“Speaking of what happened with Juan David’s spirit last night,” I began. “Have you figured out how we’re going to convince Miguelito to join us?”

Jairo started laughing as he spoke. “This whole ghost story thing is a pretty tough sell, isn’t it?”

“You tell me,” I replied. It was impossible not to laugh along with him. “You fell for it.”

“Yeah,” he answered with a wide smile still on his face. “But I’m a sucker for new things and Miguelito is a pretty hardcore, straight down the road type. You know, tried and true, by the book and all of those other clichés.”

“I know the type,” I mused. “I’ve known a lot of them and was one, well, until Ellen got a hold of me and started running me through the ringer.”

“I doubt there have been many dull moments in her company.”

“Not many that I can remember. There have been several that have made the hair stand up on my neck.”

“I’m not sure if mine have laid back down yet.” He reached to the back of his neck like he was smoothing them down with his palm.

“You know Miguelito better than I do. How do we get him to join us?”

“I’ve got some ideas, one of whom is completely irresistible to him.”

“One of which, you mean?” I corrected him. “Ideas aren’t usually referred to as being a ‘who.’”

“No, I mean who. My idea is a who.” His eyes twinkled as he spoke. “It’s a certain Paisa that can get Miguelito to do anything that she asks.”

“Ah, okay, I get it. You’re bringing out the big guns.”

“My plan is to get her to invite him to a picnic here in order to watch the fireworks; make it out like a special invitation. I’ll see if I can’t get Ariel to help set things up just right.”

“How are you going to explain Ellen and me?”

“I’m just working on Lucia at the moment. I’ve got to get her to bite on what we’re doing.”

His cell phone rang as we were speaking.

“There she is now. Wish me luck,” he said as he pressed the button to connect the call.

From the side of the conversation that I heard, Jairo was inviting Lucia to come and meet with some friends of his from the U.S. He didn’t give her much in the way of details, but it was enough to get her to agree to come meet with us at Hard Rock Café, which was across the street and down the way a couple of blocks. He disconnected the call and held up his thumb.

“Phase one is under way.”

Ellen, having been allowed to rest, was able to join us for our meeting, which was a plus for the difficult task that we had ahead of us. Thankfully, Jairo had a good report with Lucia and she was eager to listen to the plan that we laid out for her.

“You think you can get him to come?” Jairo asked after the plan and its purpose had been laid out to her.

Lucia, who was, basically, an older version of Jovani, looked at him with a surprised expression. “I thought you knew that Jorgito will do anything that I ask him to do. Isn’t that why you called me?”

“We just need to explain Ellen and me,” I put in.

“Don’t worry over that,” she grinned. “I’ll come up with something.”

“The prospect of dealing with a ghost doesn’t bother you?” Ellen asked. “I can assure you that Juan David’s spirit will be there. This isn’t just a lark.”

“I have an aunt with the gift,” she replied. “It sends a chill up my spine, but I can keep myself under control, if that’s what you mean. You probably need to be more concerned with Jorgito.”

Chapter Twenty

Miguelito, Jorgito, Jorge—all the same person, of course—was exactly as Jairo had described him. He was the by-the-book type and was a little bit put out by the presence of all of us together in the garden at El Castillo. We’d gotten him there a couple of hours before midnight, unsure of how to go about explaining our purpose and what we needed from him.

“What’s this all about, Popeye?” Jorge Luis asked. “You roped Lucia into it, so it must be something that I’ll say no to.”

“What makes you think that I’m behind it?” Jairo replied with wide eyes and a wide smile.

“Because I know how you do things,” he replied. “How much is it going to cost me?”

He studied Ellen and me, wondering what business we were in and what Jairo was trying to rope him into. We remained silent for the moment and allowed Lucia and Jairo to carry out whatever plan the two of them had come up with.

Jorge Luis, the middle brother of the three Ochoas, was the logistical mastermind behind the Medellin cartel, as well as being the one who trained the security teams. When you got right down to it, he had been the engine of the operation, along with Carlos Lehder, who was a trusted friend of Escobar. Jorge Luis was not one who would allow you to pull the wool over his eyes and he was a little more than irritated by being led into something that he wasn’t familiar with. For a moment, I was afraid that, even though Lucia and Jairo were there to lend credibility, he would walk out on us before we ever had a chance to ask for his help.

“Do you know anything about this place?” Jairo asked.

“This place?” he asked waving his hand at the garden and turning to indicate the castle. “It’s a museum, gardens, cultural center and fine arts school, from what I’ve heard.”

“It’s a beautiful place, don’t you think?” Lucia said, leaning in close.

“Sure,” he replied. “Probably a good place to watch the fireworks too, but the two of you and maybe, though I don’t know you well.” Then, he motioned toward Ellen and me. “The two of you have something that you’re not telling me.”

Jairo and Lucia exchanged glances and then Jairo sighed.

“I had a conversation with your brother last night.”

“You spoke to Fabio?” He wrinkled his brow. “Last night?”

“I spoke to Juanito, last night,” Jairo replied.

“You’re out of your fuckin’ mind.” Jorge started to rise to his feet.

“Here me out,” Jairo snapped.

Jorge settled back into his chair, crossed his arms and glared at Jairo. “I came here on the pretense of watching the fireworks with Lucia and some friends. This had better be good, Popeye.”

“Doña Ellen is a psychic medium,” Jairo began. “She and Don Monty were called here, because for the past two years, during the week leading up to the Alborrada, the museum has been haunted by a spirit. They called me in because they were having trouble finding out who that spirit was and what he wanted. I didn’t believe at first, but I saw the spirit with my own eyes and even talked to him. It’s Juanito and he asked for you to meet him here tonight when the Alborrada starts, I swear to God.”

“Sounds like a load of crap to me,” Juanito replied. “If this is some sort of joke that you and Lucia are playing on me, just remember that getting even is much more fun.”

“It’s not a joke,” Jairo responded. “You remember how Juanito used to take abuse and take abuse and take abuse? You remember how he would push down his anger over and over until he finally exploded?”

“Yeah,” Jorge unwillingly volunteered.

“He’s been trashing this place, just like he used to do when he finally exploded,” Jairo laughed. “You remember that time that he had to buy Tia Lidia a brand new sala because he’d broken everything?”

“Damn it, Popeye,” Jorge replied. “Why are you doing this? Why are you digging this up and then telling me that you saw his spirit and talked to him? This isn’t funny at all.”

“I would never play such a cruel joke on you, Miguelito. You know that; we’re primos, but we’re like brothers. You have to believe me.”

He looked at Lucia. “Did you see him too?”

“No, but Popeye isn’t playing a joke on you, I promise,” she replied.

He looked at Ellen and me. “No disrespect, but I’m not really buying all of this.”

“It’s not an easy thing to believe,” Ellen responded. “But it would be a very cruel joke for us to be telling you this and it not be true. Monty and I would never be a part of something like that.”

“You’re really a psychic medium?”

“Would you like to see my card?” She passed a business card across to him.

“She’s the one with the gift,” I grinned. “I just pack around the equipment.”

“I’m still not sure about this,” he said, passing the card back to her.

“The museum spent good money bringing us down here to help them with their problem. They believe in us,” Ellen added.

“A fool and his money…” Jorge began the line, but did not finish it.

Ellen allowed a pause for a few moments and then pressed forward with confidence, not allowing Jorge to believe for even a fraction of a second that what she was telling him was anything but the absolute truth. “He asked for Miguelito when he talked to Jairo last night. He said that you would know something about some shameful thing that needed to be set right…” She let that linger a moment.

I watched recognition of something come into Jorge’s eyes and also watched him push it aside.

Ellen started in again. “And he said that he needed you to help him set it right.”

Jorge shook his head slowly. “When did this alleged haunting start to happen?”

“November of 2013,” I replied. “Midnight of the 25th and lasted until the midnight of the Alborrada.”

“Juanito died in July of 2013,” he whispered.

We waited several moments watching his silent struggle with all that he had been told. He wasn’t yet willing to grab onto it, but he had completely dismissed it, rose up out of his chair and left either.

“Don Jorge,” Ellen began in a firm tone. “I’m going to tell you something that you need to know. If you reject it, then it’s on your own head, not ours. Unless you stick around here, meet with your brother’s spirit and help him set right whatever shameful thing was done, then you will never allow him to go free. Your brother’s spirit is trapped in a state of limbo and cannot find peace until this is resolved. You either help him do it tonight, next year, in five years, ten years, however many years you have left on this earth, or you force him to wander without rest for eternity. It’s up to you.”

Most of the time, Ellen was soft spoken and tried to coat whatever she said with honey. She always told the truth, even if it was in a gentler way that was easier to swallow. When she came right out and laid it down the way she did with Jorge Luis, however, it was impossible for a person to continue to defy her. The true talent in what she did, was in knowing who and when to use honey or straight talk. Once again, she had chosen correctly.

Jorge Luis studied her for a few minutes and then let a half grin turn up the corner of his mouth. “You talk pretty straight, don’t you?”

“When teaching a burro to lead, it’s sometimes necessary to use a whip.”

I had no idea where she came across that saying, but it was a good one and it had the effect that she’d been hoping for.

“Alright, Doña Ellen, though I’m still skeptical, I stick around and enjoy the picnic and the fireworks here in the gardens of El Castillo with you folks.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Though he was less than thrilled, Jorge Luis Ochoa had agreed to stick around. There was no guarantee that he wasn’t going to faint or have a heart attack when he saw his brother’s spirit, but we had, at least, won part of the battle. There were still a lot of questions in our minds, but answering questions and understanding why a spirit did what they did, though sometimes helpful, was always secondary to getting them to move out of limbo and into the next world. We were well on our way toward that goal when I glanced at my watch at ten minutes until midnight.

“Don Monty,” Jorge said. “I need to tell you that I’m not particularly impressed with the way this was all set up, but I do believe that wife of yours. She talks straight and she seems to be honest. I stayed because I respect that.”

“She doesn’t just seem to be honest, Don Jorge,” I replied. “She is honest. I hope you’re prepared to see your brother’s spirit.”

“How does one prepare for something of which he is skeptical?” he asked.

The question was much more profound that he knew. “Well, sir,” I grinned. “I guess you can’t. However, from experience, I can tell you that the first time that you see a ghost, it scares the crap out of you.”

“Come on, now, Don Monty,” he said. “You haven’t really seen any ghosts, have you?”

“Several of them, actually,” he said. “I lied to you earlier. I do a little bit more than carry the equipment, but only on occasion. She is still the real talent in this operation.”

“I’ll confess that I want to believe you. I would love the chance to see my brother’s spirit, talk to him and enjoy another Alborrada just like we used to, but I…” He didn’t finish the sentence and was lost in thought for a few moments. “Juanito and I watched our first Alborrada from just a little way up the hill. That first one was to honor Don Berna, after that, we added Pablo’s birthday into our celebration. Most Paisas just see it as kicking off the Christmas season now. I guess that’s okay. What Pablo did, what we all did… well, they are things that are better off forgotten. Let it kick off the Christmas season.”

“I think, Don Jorge,” I responded. “When you help your brother pass on to peace tonight, you’ll celebrate this night in an entirely new light.”

“You meant, if I help my brother,” he smiled.

“No, I meant, when.” For effect, I walked away from him and joined Ellen.

I had no sooner reached Ellen’s side than the first explosions began to light thunder throughout the valley. The cacophony that followed and the explosions of color in the sky went far beyond any 4th of July celebration that either of us had ever witnessed. It was such a spectacular sight that we didn’t notice, at first, the appearance of the ghostly form of Juan David Ochoa. In fact, it was Lucia’s involuntary gasp that made me look to see what was going on.

The drama that unfolded under the brightly lit sky of the Alborrada was close to comical. The spirit of Juan David strolled up to his younger brother, who had his eyes turned skyward and spoke to him in a low tone that we didn’t hear. Immediately, Jorge Luis staggered backward and nearly tumbled to the ground, much to the delight of his older brother’s spirit, whose laughter we could hear over the noise that was completely filling the Aburra Valley and the surrounding slopes from one end to the other.

Though we could not hear their conversation, I watched them interact. It took Jorge Luis a few moments to really believe that his brother’s spirit was there in front of him, but when he did, he seemed to relax and converse with him, even while his brother’s spirit gazed up at the sky and took in the spectacle that was taking place there.

The fireworks continued for close to 30 minutes. Mixed within the explosions of light and color, were the globos, small hot air balloons, slowly drifting heavenward. Long before the celebration of the Alborrada died out, we—especially Jorge Luis—watched the glowing spirit of Juan David begin a similar drift into the night sky. In time, his glowing was mixed in with that of the other globos. It seemed like the most fitting way for his spirit to finally be set free. I squeezed Ellen’s hand and glanced down at her. We’d solved another one together.

“I still have a lot of questions,” she said as the bulk of the fireworks finished and we started to gather up the scattered items that had been a part of our midnight picnic in front of El Castillo.

“We may never know the answers,” I replied.

We were just about finished packing things together when Jorge Luis spoke up. “I need to tell all of you something.”

The announcement had everyone’s immediate attention and all eyes were focused on him in the dim light.

“In 1971, just before my 22nd birthday, Juanito and I did something stupid and impulsive… or as Juanito correctly labeled it: shameful,” he began. “We lived not far from here and had often seen Don Diego Echeverria, the man who had just turned this property over to the city of Medellin, going to and from here at El Castillo to his home in his limousine.

“I don’t remember who came up with the idea first or if we both came up with it together, but we decided to kidnap the don and hold him for ransom. He and Doña Dita were among the wealthiest—if not the wealthiest couple—in Medellin at that time and very high profile. Juanito and I were convinced that the ransom would be paid and that we would walk away with a sizable sum.

“Don Echeveria had been scared at first, but as time went on, he told us that we might as well let him go because he had instructed his wife never to pay the ransom if he was ever kidnapped. We didn’t believe him, of course, but the ransom didn’t come for several weeks and he reiterated over and over his claim that it would never come. After a couple of months, there was still no ransom paid and Juanito and I were beginning to get tired of listening to the old man tell us to let him go. We should have let him go, but we didn’t.”

Jorge Luis paused, looked down at his feet, wiped his eyes and then began again. “We held him until midnight of November 25. It meant nothing at the time, it’s just when we started to do the shameful things that we did.”

He paused and wiped his eyes again. His body shook as the memory overtook him and he fought back the sobbing that threatened to prevent him from continuing. He finally regained control and finished his story.

“We tortured that poor old man every night for seven nights. It was at midnight, what is now celebrated as Medellin’s Alborrada, that his body could no longer take the torture and he died right there in front of us. He was the first man that either of us had ever killed.”

Jorge Luis’ sobbing made it impossible for him to continue. Jairo, knowing far better than anyone present, what demons his cousin was struggling with stepped forward, wrapped his arms around him and held him in the dim light of the gardens of El Castillo.

Chapter Twenty-two

Ellen nudged me and gave me her classic look when we arrived at El Castillo two days later. The nudge and the look were a reminder that she was still my one and only as Jovani stepped clear of the front door of the castle and my eyes lit up. In spite of Ellen’s reminder, I was eager for a Colombian-style greeting from the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

“Don Monty, Doña Elena,” she called out to us, smiling as she was coming toward us with her curvy hips rocking back and forth and her high heels clicking on the stone beneath her feet. “I hope that you’ve enjoyed the last two days of relaxation here in the City of Eternal Spring.”

Ariel had joined us just in time to facilitate our communication with the museum’s curator.

“We have, indeed,” Ellen smiled as she leaned in for the hug and kiss.

I caught Ellen rolling her eyes as I received my greeting and looked at her over Jovani’s shapely shoulder. “You have a beautiful city,” I added.

 “Please come with me,” she said as she started out in front of us to lead us toward the front door. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t help glancing down at the slender legs and nicely rounded features of her figure.

Ellen caught me looking, glared at me and hissed through gritted teeth. “Mon!”

I shrugged as I drew my eyes upward to the back of Jovani’s head and tried to keep them from wandering downward again.

Ariel turned away, stifling a laugh.

Jovani led us to her office inside the castle, the sound of her heels echoed through the hallways as we went. “Ariel filled me in on what happened last night,” she said, dropping back to walk along with us instead of in front. That move might have saved us from a fight later on, though I was already sure that I was going to get an earful to go with my eyeful.

“It’s not often that there are witnesses around to attest to the completion of our task,” I replied.

“It intrigues me to know the identity of those who kidnapped Don Diego, but Ariel refuses to budge on that particular detail. Since Jhon Jairo was one of those who helped out in the case, it gives me a chill to think of who might have been involved.”

We’d agreed among us, before parting, to keep the names confidential. The truth about Don Diego’s kidnapping needed to be brought out into the open, but there was nothing to be gained by pinning it on the Ochoa brothers. By doing so, we would simply be opening a wound that had long since healed over.

“Who is not as important as the fact that you will no longer have an issue here at the museum,” Ellen replied.

We turned into the doorway of Jovani’s office and she directed us toward the seats in front of her desk and then took a seat. “I have someone bringing coffee. Would you like anything to go with it?”

“No, thank you,” Ellen replied for the both of us.

“Let me put together the paperwork that you’ll need in order to get the balance of the fee for your contract,” she smiled as she filled in a few items on the form, scribbled a signature and presented the papers to us. “You will be able to make this transaction at the Banco de Bogota near your hotel. Ariel will assist you in that as well.”

“Thank you,” Ellen smiled, accepting the paper from her.

At almost the same moment, a woman brought a tray with four small cups of coffee on it and set a cup in front of each of us. I’d gotten used to coffee with milk and natural cane sugar in it. I had already been making plans as to how I was going to be able to have that new taste back in the States.

“We contracted the hotel for a few more days as a courtesy and your flight will be on Thursday,” she informed us, passing a folder with plane tickets to Ellen as well. “You are welcome to stay and enjoy Medellin for a little while longer or exchange those tickets for an earlier flight. It’s really up to you.”

It was my turn to say thank you, or at least it felt like it was when she looked at me with her Bambi eyes and smiled while Ariel translated what she had just said.

The next moment, someone was stirring outside the door to the office and Jovani looked up to see who it was. There was a brief exchange and Jovani’s expression changed to a quizzical one before she accepted an envelope and the person who brought it disappeared. Holding the expression, Jovani sunk back into her chair, opened the envelope and turned as white as a sheet.

“Are you okay?” Ellen asked, quickly sensing that something was wrong.

Though Jovani’s eyes were already overly large, they had nearly doubled in size as she looked at the paper that she had drawn out of the envelope.

Jovani said something to Ariel and then turned to Ellen and me.

“She said that you will want to hear this,” Ariel prefaced.

“El Castillo has just received a donation of 10,000,000,000 pesos from a person who wishes to remain anonymous.”

I quickly did the math in my head and came up with the sum in U.S. dollars, given the current exchange rate and shared it aloud with Ellen. “That’s a little bit over $3,000,000.”

Ellen’s eyes widened to match those of Jovani. It was a great bit of acting. Ellen had to have known who had sent that donation, but she appeared to be just as startled as Jovani. I could never have pulled off that look, so I clapped my hand down on the desk and said, “That’s great!”

“There’s more,” Jovani announced and Ariel translated. “The note attached says, ‘Please enjoy the first of many Alborradas to come.’”

After spending a few more days in the City of Eternal Spring, Ellen and I were refreshed from the odd hours that we’d had to keep and from the stress that our case had caused us. The donation and promise of many more to come from Don Jorge Luis Ochoa had gone a long way toward filling in the missing pieces of my struggle with finding balance in things.

A life that was taken could never be replaced by any amount of money. Destruction to the lives of other people could not be bought off by contributing to the building up of the lives of others. The end does not justify the mean in any set of circumstances. I would never part from those beliefs. However, Jairo, Jorge Luis and the spirit of Juan David had begun to have a profound effect on me by the time the flight Ellen and I were on lifted off of the runway and started out across the rich, green ridges of the Colombian Andes.

Though not all men took advantage of it, all men had the opportunity to change; even one of the bloodiest killers in the history of Pablo Escobar’s reign of terror. In ways both small and large, even the worst of men were able to set things right again.

Before Medellin, castles had always reminded me of kings, queens, princes and princesses, but at El Castillo, I learned of a new sort of nobility; a nobility that brought things back into balance.

“So?” Ellen said. “You ready to get back home?”

“Sure,” I replied. “But we’ve got to stop off and feed a craving first.”

The end.

Monty and Ellen return in:

Ghost Ship

The Ghost Files #9

Available now!

Amazon Kindle * Amazon UK

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Also Available:

The Vampire With the Golden Gun

The Huntress Series Book #1

by Chanel Smith

(read on for a sample)

Prologue

The breeze was cool and moist and it felt fresh on Veronica’s face, bringing with it the faint smell of orange blossoms and Californian buckwheat; both of which she loved. It was somehow the perfect requiem to the purpose of her visit to the cemetery yard in Whittier that night and as she sat perched atop the steeple of the mission-style building staking out the grounds below her, she felt a wave of purposefulness sweep over her.

There was no way of her knowing how long she would be waiting out there in the night air and the darkness, so she had been sure to feed early and feed well on the fresh supply of hemoglobin that she had picked up from a local supplier a few days before. He was a good, reliable source. A conscientious old Chinese vampire in San Francisco’s Chinatown, he ran a few of the last remaining underground blood dens in the western hemisphere. Once a week, Veronica took a quick trip north to collect her supplies and indulge in a little of the secretive ‘Chinese Tong’ atmosphere that existed in Mr. Tan’s many opium rooms.

Veronica loved the dark underbelly of San Francisco’s trendy sub-culture; the drug scene, the music scene, the gothic supernatural scene that didn’t seem to exist anywhere else in that magnitude besides New Orleans. She felt at home there entwined with strangers dressed in black vinyl on the low leather settees in the darkened basements. While some made love, others got high, and while some fed, many were fed upon. It was symbiotic and undemanding and it drew her in constantly. But her time with Mr. Tan was done for the week and here she was staking out a cemetery, waiting to attend to her latest mission.

A few weeks prior, an elder vampire by the name of Fariha de Sanabria had been sent to the ‘Final Death’ by an unknown killer. The rumors on the street had it that a human had done it. The more she pried, the more Veronica picked up tidbits about the whole affair. It was becoming common knowledge among the L.A. vamps that there was a renegade killer operating in the area. A man who tracked down vampires, broke into their places of abode and gunned them down with a crossbow. A crossbow with silver tipped arrows. Apparently he was damned good, too. He had caught Fariha in the open and impaled her to a tree with an arrow through the heart. Right in the middle of a park over in Yorba Linda to boot.

Fariha’s demise hadn’t bothered Veronica in the least; in fact, she had been more than just a little relieved. The three hundred year old Moor had been as skilled a fighter and killer as they came, and Veronica had not been looking forward to the day when she would have encountered her. And she would have eventually done so, because Fariha was a coven maker and that type of shit did not go down well with modern day vampires.

She ‘stole’ people from their human lives, feeding on them until they were too close to death to deny her. So, of course when she asked them if they wanted to live or die, they chose to live. To live the life she would give them. She had made a record six progeny in the last year and, in the opinion of most of the elder vampires, she was doing a piss-poor job of educating them and keeping them in line. They now saw her and her growing coven of hooligan fledglings as a threat. Why else was she procreating? So the human hunter had dealt with Fariha, and now Veronica had assigned herself to deal with Fariha’s children.

It wasn’t long after midnight that the six dark figures emerged from the crypt below a broken down, neglected mausoleum that seemed to hide in the shade of two weeping oak trees. Veronica caught the scent of death on them and cocked her head to one side as she took a head count. They were finely dressed in what she could only envision was authentic vintage clothing from Fariha’s wardrobe. The leather of their jackets, corsets and pants was aged, yet supple and luxurious; the brocade silks of the skirts and vests shone with gem-like colors and fine needlework. Veronica counted six baby vampires.

They were weak, vicious, starving. It was hunting time and they were working themselves into a mad frenzy. They had gained a bit of a reputation of having no moral standard and no self-control. Since the death of their maker, the pain of her loss seemed to have driven them into further depravity because of late, children, passersby, joggers, commuters, baby sitters… no one had been safe. They killed without discrimination, not even bothering to seek out the feeding houses and blood banks in the area.

Veronica would be sure to wipe them out.

One of the males paused on their way toward the cemetery gates and sniffed at the air as if he had caught the scent of something strange. It took him and the others a few minutes to come to the conclusion that their senses were correct, but that was all the time it took for the Huntress to make it all too late for them. Veronica floated swiftly down from the high steeple and landed soundlessly on the ground behind them. She quickly arranged herself into a position from which she would be able to move among them in a perfect arc. She unsheathed her silver-bladed Katana and the mahogany silver tipped stake and, in the blink of a human eye, she had powered through the group, removing every head clean from its shoulders and driving the wooden spikes straight through every heart.

She twirled one more time and as the tails of her long black coat came to settle around her calves, Veronica looked up and watched the six headless figures burst into flames simultaneously among the headstones of the Rose Hills Memorial Park. She smiled as she walked out of the gates, sheathing her weapons at her side.

***

San Juan Capistrano. The city is the site of the Catholic mission for which it is named, Mission San Juan Capistrano and after Giovanni da Capistrano, a Franciscan saint from the Italian region of Abruzzo. Within its limits can be found one of California's oldest residential neighborhoods, Los Rios. It is the home of the oldest in-use building in California, the Serra Chapel in the Mission. Despite all its rich history, the area is probably best known at present for being the home of both the first vineyard and the first winery in California.

It was also the locale of Johnston McCulley's first Zorro novella, The Curse of Capistrano, published in 1919, which was later renamed The Mark of Zorro after the success of the film of the same name.

It was in a forgotten grotto below the old mission that Veronica Melbourne now sheltered. She had solemnly accepted some help from one of Mr. Tan’s many trusted colleagues to find the place after several disconcerting discoveries of her previous nests. There was nothing more frightening for a vampire of any disposition, than the thought of being discovered and brought out into the light of day as they slept helplessly.

As she sat on the edge of her twin-sized cot and looked around the dark, damp room, she sighed heavily.

I live like a fucking rat! she thought. I really need a paying job, and fast. Maybe if I had a steady stream of income, I could afford a nice, light-tight apartment near the Haight-Ashbury in San Fran. That would be awesome!

Veronica sighed again. She knew many vampires in the California supernatural community, but she didn’t know of even one who lived like she now did. She vaguely remembered being told by an elder vamp about how they acquired property and wealth and managed to live fairly well-to-do lives without having to work a day in their ‘second life.’

She shook her head.

Stealing from the dead has got to be just about as much bad luck as speaking ill of them.

She decided that she preferred the holes in the ground under churches that she had been reduced to than glamoring some dead person’s attorney into adding her to their will or, even worse, some bank teller into keying thousands or even millions into her checking account, knowing full well the poor employee would be subjected to federal investigation and subsequent incarceration for it.

No way, Jose!

But then again, she had always been a prideful girl.

Chapter One

A few days later, Veronica sat in a street side café in the shopping district on Old Town Calabasas, sipping a room-temperature drink and doing her favorite thing; celebrity watching. The waitress attempted to approach her table for what must have been the third time since she had sat down and Veronica noticed when Ryu, her usual waiter, held onto the girl’s elbow to stop her and shook his head discreetly. A few moments later, he went over to her table carrying a small box.

“This came in for you today by courier, Miss Melbourne,” he said, smiling confidently.

Damn, he was so fucking hot. There’s just no way he doesn’t know that!

She took her time looking the man up and down, feasting on him with her eyes, even as her fangs began to tingle and the crimson saliva filled her mouth.

She swallowed hard and barely managed to reply, “Thank you, Ryu.”

Veronica took the box and put it down on the table beside her. As curious as she was about its contents, she returned her gaze to the Asian-American man that was consuming her attention. His arms were long and muscular and completely covered in full sleeves of colorful yakuza style tattoos. She looked closer and noticed that there were traces of black line and colored images peeking out from just above the stiff collar of his white starched work shirt as well.

I wonder if he’s wearing one of those full suit tattoos I’ve heard so much about?

It was difficult to find even the most enthusiastic human canvas who would commit to that these days. Outside of the pain, there was the sheer expense of it to consider too. His right arm showed the brazen defiance of the oriental phoenix as it twisted up his arm, surrounded by flames and petals that were falling from the blooming branches of sakura trees. The left depicted the curving undulating body of the dragon engulfed in billowing clouds and images of Taoist gods and goddesses herding and feeding flowing streams of colorful koi fish.

Beautiful.

Ryu handed her a delivery form and a pen and after a quick glance over it, Veronica signed it and handed it back to him.

“Another ‘Bloody Scary’?” he asked, to which she nodded affirmatively before he turned and headed back inside the café.

‘Bloody Scary’! How amusing! It looks like a Bloody Mary, but it’s really just blood with a plastic stalk of celery in it! And it was served at an appetizing body temperature. Human body temperature, that is.

It was a bestselling drink on the after-hours menu at the Beast café. The proprietors and the night staff at this particular restaurant were what she considered paranormally sympathetic. They were in the know about all kinds of beings of her particular condition – the undead condition – and provided a place where supernatural beings of all types could dine, imbibe and socialize under the guise of appearing quite ‘normal.’

Don’t be so shocked… its Calabasas. You didn’t really think all these beautiful creatures that you worship as celebrities from the other side of the television were human. Did you? Come on, get real!

She picked up the glass and drained it just as the waitress appeared and placed the fresh glass in front of her. It was still warm to the touch, a little bit of style that they had at the Beast which Veronica was ever thankful for. Other places served the hemoglobin chilled, just as it was best preserved. She had heard that some vampires even drank it that way. She, on the other hand, preferred it as close to coming from the vein as she could get it, and that meant it got a cursory zap in the microwave before making its way to the table. Before the new girl could offer her a menu for the umpteenth time, Veronica waved her away and turned her attention to the box on the table. She sliced the tape open with a razor sharp fingernail and pulled the flaps apart.

Inside was a flat, black box which she pulled out and laid on the table. She pushed the two metal clasps open and lifted the lid, her curiosity getting the better of her. On a bed of black velvet, Veronica found a beautiful Beretta BU9. She had always wanted a compact pistol like that. It was the perfect conceal carry weapon; tiny but powerful and certainly deadly. But there was one strange thing about the firearm and she mulled it over in her head as she ran her long, cold fingers over it, lifting it from the case to feel the heft of it in her hand.

The gun was coated in solid gold plating.

As she sat there admiring the weapon, suddenly a soft voice seemed to whisper in her ear.

“Welcome to the club,” it said.

Veronica whipped around in her seat trying to see where the words came from but there was no one in sight. She sniffed the air tentatively, nothing out of the ordinary. Just humans, supes, weres, ghosts, vampires. The usual. She shook her head, raised her nose higher into the gentle breeze that was blowing and took a deep breath.

Hmmm. There’s something else too. What is that? Talc?

Quickly, she placed the Beretta back in the box and noticed a small, black, manila envelope. She took it out of the box and turned it over in her hand. The seal was wax and red. The insignia on it was of an open-mouthed gargoyle.

Who seals envelopes with wax anymore?

The note inside was written by hand in old-fashioned, cursive, calligraphic writing and all it said was:

Welcome to the club.

***

Across the street, on the roof of a luxury car dealership, a little boy and girl sat in the dark, holding hands as they watched Veronica Melbourne keenly in the light from the restaurant and the warm Calabasas street lights.

“It is certain that she will find us now, Alexei. This Veronica Melbourne is an old soul and she is no fool either. She’s bound to figure things out very quickly,” the Grand Duchess said finally.

“Indeed, Anastasia. She will be the first outsider in centuries to know of the Watchers. Perhaps she will be the first of the new breed.”

“So many of us have become tired of this task, brother. I have heard of many of the ancients who rose one day and just walked into the sun to rid themselves of the responsibility and this wretched longevity of life.”

Alexei scoffed.

“It hasn’t even been a hundred years yet, Sister, and I am already tired of living. If we had survived the Bolsheviks, we would have most likely still have succumbed to the natural death many years ago. It has been long and it has been tiresome for me. You know how much I miss both our mother country and the way that beautiful land shimmered in the sunshine, even in the dead of winter.”

Anastasia looked at him with sorrow in her eyes. She squeezed his hand tighter as she rose and pulled him to his feet. They walked like that to the end of the roof and stepped from the edge. As they floated softly to the ground at the rear of the building, she put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close to her.

“Brother Alexei,” she began, her accent full and strong. “Perhaps if she comes to us, we can convince her to take us back to Mother Russia. Would you like that? Would you like to go back to Catherine Palace again?”

The young Tsarevich sighed deeply.

“It is all I can ever dream of, Ana. Ever since that night when Agrippina dug us up from beneath the pile of bodies in that cellar and gave us this life that we now possess. I remember fleeing Saint Petersburg and running for the Finnish border like a common criminal. The last thing I let emblazon itself on my already preternatural retinas was the image of Catherine Palace, our home.”

Anastasia held him close to her again and hushed him like a child. Was he still just a child?

“Perhaps, Sister. Perhaps she will come to us. Perhaps she will agree to take us back and perhaps Agrippina will finally let us go.”

“Would that make you less tired, Alexei? Would you stay with me a little longer then, my brother? Is it possible that you could be happy even?”

“I think that I could, Ana. But only if I did not have to come back here ever again.”

***

The trip from Old Town Calabasas to San Juan Capistrano would have taken a person an hour and a half by car, but the trip took Veronica five minutes. She just ‘zipped’ it. It sounds stupid, but she couldn’t come up with anything more appropriate to describe what exactly it was.

Basically, when she wanted to go somewhere distant, she just pictured it in her mind. Then she would think of the route she would normally have taken there and it was as if as she thought of the route, her body travelled it… just like that. In the space of a thought, she could cover hundreds of miles of distance and arrive wherever she wanted.

Her new lair was located in an old forgotten dungeon below an outbuilding at the Mission San Juan Capistrano ruins. Veronica thought the place suited her style to say the least. It was still ridiculously bare, but after what had happened at the last few places she had holed up in, she was not in any rush to settle in too far. If she had another home ransacked, she would probably lose her mind and go bat-shit crazy on innocent people in the streets around the neighborhood. Someone had found her last three dens and completely ransacked them. The thought of a stranger knowing where she slept helpless during the day was catastrophic, but what got to her the most was that person going through her personal belongings, her dirty clothes, her books and papers…

…touching my weapons! Gaaaah!!!!

Since then she had begun to religiously stash everything of interest in her safe. She used her mobile phone for the Internet and no longer had a refrigerator so she wouldn’t be tempted to keep any blood at home.

Here’s to hoping that no one will be able to find me at this ruined old historic site.

There were plenty of visitors to the place during the day, but the dungeon she occupied was so old and forgotten that it didn’t even appear on any of the floor plans of the mission as it was known to exist at the time. At night, the property was well secured. No one could get in or out without the knowledge of the security team posted there by the historic foundation that managed the place.

Veronica sat on the tiny bed and put her face in her hands. The evening was just getting started and here she was without a case to solve, without an investigation to run, without a date to go out on, or even a lover to satiate her needs. Her mind wandered back to the golden gun and the cryptic message that had accompanied it.

Welcome to what club? How were the members of said club so sure she even wanted to join? More seriously, had her acceptance of the gun compromised her individuality or secretly committed her to something she knew nothing about? She grimaced at the thought of being manipulated. The package had been delivered in advance. Who would have known that she would be at The Beast for supper that evening? Was her stalker at it again?

If the person knew where she would be, then it wasn’t a stretch that they would know who or what she was and what she did for a living. A light gust of wind passed through the room, flickering the flames, scattering the light from the candles and sending strange shadows dancing all over the walls.

Welcome to the club, the voice in her head said again.

What club? Other hunters? Other vampires?

Suddenly Veronica was overcome with a strong feeling of caginess. She got up from the edge of the bed and double checked the safe. The handle didn’t give when she tried to turn it. Of course, she knew very well that if a fellow vampire applied just a little pressure to the lock, it would spring open like a Jack-in-the-Box.

She had to get out of there. The room seemed to want to close in on her and squeeze the very life from her body. She pulled on her black moto jacket and a pair of hiking boots, then set the strange note aside. Carefully, she emerged from beneath the huge stone that guarded the entrance to the dungeon. It was one of three that Veronica had located, and when she found two more exits from the underground chamber, but failed to locate where the caverns had emerged, she had discretely collapsed them. It felt like a night for flying so she stood still outside the entryway and looked to the sky, willing herself to rise into the air and be transported to her favorite perch for thinking: a dark, flat outcrop on Lobster Point that overlooked Lobster Bay on the back side of Santa Catalina Island.

As she landed and took her seat to look out across the dark, brooding waters of the Pacific Ocean, Veronica immediately began to feel that all was going to be alright with the world. She was content for it to be one of those nights where she sat and looked at the black waters until dawn approached before heading back to the mainland to hunker down for a good day’s rest.

What the fuck?

The feeling of serenity had lasted for three hours before Veronica saw something moving across the sky that almost made her drop off the cliff. It was black and sort of glossy and huge… absolutely huge. It flew like a bird… No, like an eagle across the sky, but with much greater speed and agility. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she got a mental flash of the creature.

It was ancient, primeval, powerful, dangerous, supernatural… and vampire, definitely vampire. The only comparison she could make of it was to a pterodactyl, the birdlike dinosaur she had seen in movies and books.

It seemed to be headed out to sea toward a tiny sparkling group of lights which she knew, from her many nights of ocean watching, to be a cruise ship. It was probably headed for Hawaii or Alaska. Her preternatural eyesight allowed her to make these discernments easily, even from the great distance and as she watched more carefully, she saw that the creature carried something, perhaps in its talons.

What is that?

She leaned forward and concentrated harder before gasping and taking a step back. It was a man; a barely struggling being that was dangling helplessly below the creature. Veronica watched in further disbelief as the creature hovered over the brightly lit ship and dropped its cargo on an upper deck, turned around and flew back in the direction of the mainland.

The Vampire With the Golden Gun

is available at:

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About the Author:

Chanel Smith was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She has since moved to Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and two dogs. When not writing, she spends her time training dogs, hiking, biking and anything else that will get her outside in nature.

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Please visit her at www.chanelsmithbooks.com.

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