If you read the story before September 1st, 2025, then some things have changed in the story, mainly in Chapter 1. You can read about what changed here, or catch up with the recap below.
The Spectral Agent is my first full-length novel and an experiment. We are independent creators, publishing chapter by chapter as a podcast and text. It’s designed to be heard. We’d love to receive your feedback so we can tell stories better.
Continue reading for Part One (Chapters 1-10) Recap, start at Chapter 1, or find where you left off.
⚠️ Content Warning: This chapter discusses a fictional case involving suicide, death, murder, violence, hallucinations, and paranormal activity.
Viktor sets up a murder board in his apartment and reviews the case so far. What starts with coffee and a handful of sticky notes spirals into a wall-sized web of deaths, a missing kid, and one very talkative ghost. From Olivia’s murder to Klaus’s ditchwater demise, Viktor traces the connections with dry commentary and growing dread. Chai’s not in his head anymore, so he’s finally alone—with the truth.
Case Review (Part One Recap)
[TRANSCRIPT FROM RECOVERED AUDIO FILE]
Is this thing on?
Okay, let's review the case so far—wait, where's my coffee? Ah, there...
This is Officer Viktor Levitsky. I'm officially not on this case, but I'm too far into it. I can’t talk to anyone, so I’ve got to at least talk it out. Maybe these notes will help me solve it.
But first, in case you find this recording before reading the memoir—I'll surely write about this mess one day—spoiler alert: If you haven't read chapters one through ten, this will be a lot of spoilers, but probably won't make any sense to you anyway.
Let's start at the beginning.
I hear a scream and a gunshot from the apartment next door. I bust in the door and see Olivia—my best friend—in a pool of blood. She's definitely dead.
The note beside her is a cliché. I know it's fake, because even though it looks like a suicide, it isn't. She wouldn't.
How do I know that? Well, she is my friend, and also because she says so. She says, “They went over there.” Of course, corpses don't talk, and this is where people will start to think I'm crazy—if they only knew. But it's when everything starts to fall apart.
So, her corpse says that and—oh, yeah—with vivid red flashing eyes—let me drag a line from her eyes to Chai's eyes to my eyes, which are now also red.
Right, so it's at this moment that I know this is a murder.
I look where her eyes darted and see a blood trail and footprints that vanish. I'm not sure if it's a hallucination or something from... Olivia? Or Chai? I'll just add a question mark sticky here—I don't know if it's relevant.
Okay, so I go to get up and—snap—pain seizes my brain. This is the moment I think Chai leaves Olivia and possesses me. He's been a constant pain and a constant companion since.
Anyway, I call the station. CSI shows up, Steve does his “looks like a suicide” shrug—what a douche—and bags the scene. I keep my mouth shut 'cause he won't listen and I'm not playing his "you're the only person breaking in her apartment" game.
I figure maybe the Chief will act like a good cop about it, so I unload the whole laundry list: red eyes, corpse talk, vanishing trail. He unloads right back, giving me forced medical leave.
Yeah... he says, "I'm one of his best", then dismisses me.
Then it seems like he calls someone and says, "It's done". Who is he talking to? Let me jot that question down.
This is what tipped me off that the station wasn't as wholesome as you might think a police station is. Oh, wait, this is 2024—no one thinks that anymore.
But Zoe's still a good cop. She's been helping me with information. But, we're not there yet.
While I worry about the force burying Olivia's death as a suicide, I go to my regular therapy appointment. Dr. Payne just tries to put me on meds—focuses on the symptoms instead of the root cause, as usual.
This doesn't seem relevant to the case, and yet...
If I actually took the meds, would I have not seen the red crow? Were my other hallucinations something else? Have I been medicating away ghosts?
I'll add a sticky note for "Meds" and connect that to "Hallucinations".
Anyway, I don't take the meds. I see the crow, and my life changed forever. It bangs on the window and won't shut up. Typical Chai. So, let's drag a connection from Chai to "Red Crow". Have I seen any other apparitions? I don't think so.
The Crow, a.k.a. Chai, leads me to his girlfriend. The Crow can't talk to me yet, but I can see it. But she can talk, and she tells me about Chai. I call Zoe and get some details on Chai's death. That leads me to the dockyard.
Dockyard at night is all rust and ghosts; I poke around the old crime scene. It's clear there was a gunfight here, maybe some explosions. Then there it is, a black metal cross half-buried like it’s waiting for me.
I touch it, then—bam—it's like I'm there when the gunshots rang out and when Chai died.
Oh, and it's Chai Saetang. Why do I always forget his last name? Let me jot that down.
So, he's the Red Crow, and this— let me connect it —is his cross pendant.
Yes, I still have it, even after... let me try and stay in order here.
So, the first time I touch the cross pendant to my head, it's a fluke. It reminds me of my father's old radio, like something I need to tune to get a signal. That's when Chai appears, like his human self. He starts talking.
He tells me he died at the dockyard, obviously, then somehow got trapped in Olivia as a ghost, then jumped to me after she died. So, we can connect Chai to Olivia.
Why did Chai jump to Olivia? It seemed I had to touch Olivia for him to jump into me. He was near her when he died.
He tells me this later, but I'll talk about it here. Olivia was there watching a kid—I'll get to him in a bit—which probably has something to do with why she was murdered.
Oh, and then that's when he mentions "the old" man for the first time. He says he was betrayed. He wants to help me solve Olivia's death because it will give him some payback.
This is when I notice my eyes are turning red, like Olivia's and apparently like Chai's. All of that seems to be connected to this ghost business. At this point, I have to hold the cross pendant to my head to talk to Chai. It's kind of annoying.
Anyway, he makes fun of my coffee habit. Which reminds me, I need to brew another pot. Be right back.
✧✧✧
Okay, I'm back. Where was I?
Oh, so he tells me about this psychic kid. And this is where I realize Chai's memory isn't all that stable. He eventually remembers enough, but it's like pulling teeth to get anything out of him at this point.
Chai doesn't remember the kid's name—it's Ben, but we don't find that out till later.
So, Ben was at Chai's death, and Olivia was nearby—they're all connected somehow. Let me draw the lines.
Moving on.
I check the records office for this kid to see if he's in any missing child reports. But Allie—I mean, Ms. Springfield—plays by the rules and can't tell me anything while I'm off duty. She tells me a funny story though, after nearly giving me a heart attack thinking she knew I could see a ghost.
Oh, and then she says to tell Kira 'hi' for her. How does she know my sister? But, I'm not going to add that to the murder board here.
Another random person falls out of Chai's brain, but it's not the kid. It's some old gang member—Chai calls him the grizzled gangsta'. smh. I go to his house and he tells me the name "Ben".
Before I can high-tail it out of there, he shoots me in the ribs. I shoot him back with... pepper spray. Yeah, I'm a real action hero.
I make it out of his house before he can kill me, and to safety before I freeze. I'll put a note here, but I don't think there's anything else important about that guy. He thought I was working for the gang and didn't want anything to do with them anymore.
Chai helps me realize it's just a flesh wound. Some antiseptic, bandages, and Aspirin, and I'm back on my feet.
Holding a pendant to my head is getting ridiculous. People already think I'm crazy for talking to myself, but walking around holding a cross to my head while I do it really sells it.
We realize that the only way for me to talk to Chai is if some sort of ghost-electric—ghost-tricity?—flow passes through my heart, head, and his pendant in a circuit.
Hm. Let me add a "circuit" and "ghost physics" note.
Chai suggests I get an earring. I hate that idea because I hate needles. I do it anyway, and Chai starts to show some compassion. Maybe he's not just a sarcastic pain in my ass.
Right after that, I meet Kira for our usual café check-in—late, of course—and she claims she doesn't know Allie. Then she drops a bomb: Father’s dying.
It's not really a surprise, and I don't really want to talk to him. It reminds me of Mom, though, and how she used to see things before she was committed. I wonder if maybe she just sees ghosts.
Hm. Family connection... genetic? Let's write that down.
Kira and I bond a little over our mutual family trauma, and that I might be figuring out what type of guy I'm into.
God, that sounds extremely gay.
Siri, erase the last 5 seconds. No, erase. Erase!
Forget it.
It seems Kira doesn't really have a part to play in this case, but it's barely been two weeks. Hm. If I can see ghosts, well, one ghost and Olivia's fleeting moments, can Kira?
I'll write that as a follow-up question.
Oh, crap! I forgot to take the detective exam last week. I probably can't take it while on leave anyway.
Soooo, back to the board—warehouse lead pops out of Chai’s patchy memory. We go there, and it’s stripped clean: shelves, dust, one useless crate. It seems like somebody got advanced warning and scrubbed it.
Did Ben the psychic predict it? The “old man”? Both? He's got to be connected to the old man somehow. Maybe I'll draw that as a yellow line for now.
At the warehouse, Chai tries to explain what happened to him after he died and possessed Olivia. Apparently, without the pendant, Chai could only appear to Olivia as a crow and wasn't able to talk to her.
She must have thought she was hallucinating. That's why she asked me about my past hallucinations the night she was murdered.
Chai tried to jump into other people, but couldn't. He could only go to this "nowhere place". He described it like white-noise, everything all at once, but too much noise to make any sense of it. Not just sound though, all sensations, all at once.
Maybe this has something to do with how it seems like I have to "tune" the pendant to clearly hear Chai. Without the cross pendant to ground Chai, it seems he would devolve into just the crow.
This is a depressing existential subject, so I'll move on. But first, a sticky note for the "Nowhere Place".
New thread: Lenny.
Chai remembers this low-level guy who fed cops scraps. I track him to a bland software office, play "new coworker," he panics, bolts to the stairwell, pulls a switchblade, and I disarm him and pretend to be a Russian Bratva Badass.
Yeah... that sounded cooler in my head.
So, he buys my Russian gang story and leads me to his gang. Right, obviously I need to connect Lenny, Ben, Chai, "old man", etc., etc. to "the gang". I don't even know its name.
I blackmail Lenny into vouching for me with intel I got from Zoe. And there... another line to Zoe.
Oh, she also sent me this file with... well, for now, let's say it was enough to give me dirt on Lenny and solidify my suspicions of the station's cover-up of the gang's activity.
Let's make a sticky for "dossier", that sounds more official. How do you spell it? Dos-see-ay—dos-see-ay—D. O. S. I. ehhh.... screw it—F. I. L. E. "File".
Lenny takes me to this immaculate medical supply store—yeah, walkers and compression socks as a front.
Chai would probably want me to point out the lady who wants “tingly” antifungal cream. That story cracks him up. Well, it would if he was still here—more on that later.
The back of this place is more high-tech than the front. They must be doing some high-end drugs or...maybe some bio-tech? Sticky note.
Lenny walks me to the back, and a few real pros—if it wasn't clear, Lenny is no pro, he's about to fall apart—these pros start sizing me up. One is Mei who treats me like I'm already a corpse and Joseph, who has this face scar.
So let's connect those two to "the gang".
There.
Just when Mei’s about to vote 'shoot me and mop later', the boss—Klaus in his patterned brown suit—slides in like a funeral director. He tells me to “step outside”. That seems like a bad idea, but I don't really have a choice at the moment.
Chai might help, but he's too busy playing Frogger.
Out in the rain, he lets me walk a few steps ahead—classic—I should have already realized what was coming. But I didn't have to, I get this sudden crow’s-eye view, like I’m twenty feet above myself.
I was seeing through Chai's crow-form eyes. It was cool, but I didn't have time to think about it, and we didn't get a chance to try it again. Let me add a sticky for that, draw a line to the crow, there.
Okay, back to the story. I see Klaus raising the gun at the back of my head from third-person. I spin on instinct, back in my own body; gun skitters, and now we’re rolling in gutter water.
He's a lot bigger and stronger than me, but I'm scrappy. I fight him to the ground and get in close to keep him from using his long arms. He manages to open some wounds. Mei will notice the blood later, but I don't think it matters much, considering what happens next.
First, Klaus lets me know that he's talked to my "pals" at the NYPD. So, there is someone working on the inside. Let me draw a line from Klaus to the station. Question mark sticky.
Okay, for this next part, I shouldn't really record any evidence for it, but I've got to say something.
We're down on the ground by the ditch, and Klaus, he’s reaching, feeling for the gun sinking in the filthy runoff, and I shove his shoulders down just to buy a breath; push becomes hold, hold becomes brace, and then he’s not fighting—just a slack shape under the water while the rain soaks into me.
✧✧✧
Yeah... I didn't mean to kill him. Okay, time for a break, I need to cool off.
✧✧✧
Okay, new sticky on the board "Ditched Klaus". Yeah...too soon, but no one will suspect what it means.
Alright, so Klaus is just lying in the water, and my senses finally come back to me. I haul him out and start CPR, but there’s nothing—until suddenly he inhales. When his eyes focus, it’s _Chai_ looking out through Klaus’s face.
So, just like when Chai jumped into me from Olivia, he jumped into Klaus from me. Something about Klaus's body being brain-dead made room for Chai. I wonder why Chai could possess me even though I'm not brain-dead. I think.
What do you put on a case board for ghost re-possession? Because I have a lot of questions there. For now, a sticky will have to do.
Ah, the pendant-earring-cross-thing doesn't work anymore. Since Chai is in Klaus, I don't need it. Why am I still wearing it?
We head back inside, drenched; Mei sees the blood on my face, Joseph does that slow WTF blink, and “Klaus”—Chai—Chaus—just says he was “testing the new Belarusian,” calls me _Dmitri_ like it’s always been my name, and the room exhales instead of shooting me.
Let's put Dimitri and Chaus on the board. Oh, and Belarus, so I don't forget where "Dimitri" is from.
So "Chaus" tells them all, "I'm cool", and they have to believe it because he's their boss. But fricken Joseph doesn't believe it. He, surprise, wants to see me outside. Like Klaus and ol' grizzled gangsta did.
I don't have another fight in me.
Obviously, more happens after this, and I can at least record where I'm at so far. I'll cover what happened later. For now, I'm tired. It's been a long couple of weeks.
Current status: Officer Levitsky is off-duty. I’m “Dimitri” from Belarus, Chai is “Klaus” and no longer dead, Ben is still missing, Olivia is still dead, the “old man” is still...old, and someone at the station is a leak. I'm undercover in a gang whose name I don't even know.
Oh, and Joseph doesn't trust me and wants to see me outside.
Yeah, about that...
Chapter 11 coming soon. Subscribe to be notified.
