Dark Time by Phaedra M. Weldon Page A

 
    Just…me.  
    TC was stronger. Hell, he was joined to the Abysmal Throne. He was the Phantasm. "I want to talk to Zoë. It's important."  
    "No…"  
    "It's about Joe."  
    "No—"  
    Joe? Halloran? I hated to admit that I hadn't kept up with Joe. I hadn't talked to mom. I hadn't kept up with anyone.  
    Inanna fought him physically but I didn't care. My curiosity was still there. You know that thing of mine that got me into all this bullshit in the first place back in that office in Atlanta? The first night I saw the other Phantasm kill William Tanaka in cold blood and then… eat him?  
    Yeah, we're all part of the same dysfunctional family.  
    With a sigh I slipped out. It was easy enough—I used to do it all the time. That was back when I had to go out of body (OOB) to see the Astral plane and become a Wraith. Or the Wraith.  
    I seriously didn't know if there were anymore like me.  
    Usually when my astral self slipped her mortal coil, I looked pretty grisly. Ashen skin, claws, evil black bunny slippers, wings, and Doc Oc hair. But not this time. I noticed this time…
    I looked like me. The swirl of ash that usually covered my skin in all the right places, making my appearance totally PG to fourteen year old boys, became swirls of white mist. It looked like angel hair. Well, like that stuff my mom used to use in crafts. That white, spun glass stuff she told me not to touch because it would get into my skin and make me itch. I never did go back and check to see if it really was spun glass, or she was just josh'n me so I'd keep my sticky fingers out of her stuff.  
    Now my hair looked like that and I wondered if it would make me itchy.
    TC noticed me as well, and eased the now sleeping me, the part Inanna inhabited, to the floor. It was quite a contrast. Her me in darks and me me in…
    Damn…I looked like the toping to a Dragon Con wedding cake!  
    "That's…new…" TC said as he did a slow walk around me. He wasn't leering like he usually did. He looked…surprised and concerned. "I mean you OOBing and Inanna fainting…and you looking like vanilla meringue."  
    I think I liked the leering better. "Screw you. And yeah…it's like…right now new. This is the first time I've tried to OOB since I…" I had to stop and think.  
    "Since you remade that man's arm."
    I looked at him. "You know that was me?"  
    "Everyone does. Your mom had it biopsied, Luv. Your DNA is all over it. In fact, before she left, Dr. Mulhally identified the flesh as being from your heart."  
    "Left? The doc left?"  
    "More like…vanished."  
    I didn't know what to say. Lucy Mulhally had been vital to the Society of Ishmael's medical facility. She was their expert in all things Abysmal and Ethereal and how it affected humans. Like me. And Dags.  
    Damn him.  
    "Where…how did she vanish?"
    "How does anyone vanish?" He smirked and looked more like my TC. My Trench Coat. "Nona suspects it was against her will, from the condition of her apartment. But the Society's best psychics haven't come up with a clear vision of what happened. They're looking for her."  
    Oh. That's good.  
    I opened my mouth then closed it. Then, "You said you needed to talk to me about Joe."
    "Yes. He's vanished too."  
    Joe? I took a step closer toward him and for the first time felt slightly…repelled. It wasn't like a smell or a feeling, but more like a slight pressure. The only thing I could compare it to was when I was kid and moved magnets around and sometimes they pushed each other away and sometimes they attracted. This was the pushing away feeling.  
    From the look on his face, I knew he'd sensed it as well. "What was that?"  
    TC's brows rose on his forehead. "It's the polar repulsion between the Abysmal and the Ethereal. Apparently in that form…" he pointed at me. "You're more Ethereal."  
    "I am not Ethereal!" I was not happy about that. I hated the Ethereal Plane and all the jackasses in it.  
    I used to hate my father because he