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.
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Text copyright © 2025 Jan Herrington
⚠️ Content Warning: Discussion of death, paranormal activity, planning violence
Last time on TSA
“Don’t be such a scaredy-cat, Viktor. You know we’re in.” Chai chided.
With a sigh, I stood. For both of us, I clanked my sword with the others, glancing at each of them.
“That settles it. Tomorrow we go on the attack.”
“Wooh! Spectral Squad! Let’s gooo!” Chai exclaimed to no one but me.
Coffee, vertigo, a plan. Viktor pushes his connection with the dead until the world tilts sideways. A lead arrives fast, pointing somewhere that makes his skin crawl. The squad has a target and a plan—one of those is solid.
Chapter 21
I awoke in the cabin, Kira sleeping soundly beside me. I was breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. I pressed my face into my hands, sliding them back towards my ears like I was putting on a mask. My hand brushed against the earring, awakening Chai.
“Man, Viktor, that was a wild dream.”
“You—you saw that?”
“Um. I dreamt I was alive and it was Christmas. Everyone was there and could see me.”
“Yeah. That’s what I dreamed too. I didn’t know you could experience my dreams.”
“Man, I didn’t either. I haven’t before. I don’t really sleep anymore. It’s more like I hallucinated whatever you were thinking. It must have been strong enough to bleed over.”
“That’s disturbing on so many levels. Wait—what do you do while I’m sleeping?”
“Stand around mostly. I don’t get tired, but I sit or lay down just to try and remember what it’s like to rest. It never works. But in your dream, I could feel. We’ve got to try that again.”
“Hold on a minute. What if I don’t want you in my dreams?”
“I don’t know, man. I’m stuck with you and you’re stuck with me. Sometimes when you sleep, I’m just gone. Like, I don’t know where I am or what I’m thinking, but I’m not here. Being in your dream gave me presence for the first time since I died.”
“I’m happy for you, really—even though it creeps me out.”
He grinned. “Thanks, man.”
“Are you able to go somewhere else? Walk around?”
“If I get too far away from you—the cross pendant—I sort of fade into the crow. I can’t keep my human form. And if I do it too long, I start thinking like a crow again. So, I mostly just stay by you while you sleep.”
“That’s not helping my unease.”
“Sorry, man.” He shrugged.
“Alright, time for coffee.”
Chai facepalmed. “Of. Course.”
I walked into the kitchen. No one else was awake yet, at least no one was in here. Rue seemed to always rise early and was probably stalking something or someone in the woods. I started a pot of coffee, hoping to relax and ease into the morning before it filled with busybodies.
Sitting in the leather chair, I considered the rally cry from last night and what go on the attack meant. Who do we attack? The Contagion for sure, but I wasn’t even sure who or where he was. Where do we attack? The office building with the lab was gone. The entire thing burnt down from the thermite. When do we attack? That at least was decided. It had to be now. We couldn’t stay on the run forever.
Kira stumbled out of the bedroom still in sleep shorts and T-shirt. “Oh thank gawd, coffee.” They poured a mug and plopped down on the couch, bringing the mug to their face with two hands, inhaling, then sighing. We both liked quiet mornings and just sat there, sipping, saying nothing.
“Morning folks, what’s up?” Finn walked out, dressed in the only clothes he had with him, suit slacks and his undershirt. He had his dress shirt, tailored coat, and tie on a hanger. He was getting ready for something.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
Before he could answer, Rue walked in the front door, shaking snow off her boots. She hung her jacket on the hook by the door. “Good morning. It’s cold out.”
Finn made a toothy grin. “We can see that. Great. Now that we’re all here, big news.”
Yeah, this can’t be good. We all stared at him, waiting. He continued to hold his grin, relishing the attention.
Kira had enough. “Don’t just stand there with that stupid grin. Get on with it!”
“Okay, okay. So I’m going to work.” He looked at each of us, noticing that only Kira looked shocked while Rue and I continued to stare. I was shocked, of course, but that would never show on my face.
“Are you fucking stupid?” Kira blurted.
“No, I—” Finn started.
“Aren’t you burned?” Rue interrupted.
“No, you see—” Finn started.
“They’ll just murder you,” I interjected.
“Look, detective—everyone—shut up and listen,” he scolded. “I’m not burned. They told me to take off. They had a plan for Klaus and they didn’t want me anywhere near that. They don’t know how much I hated him and thought I’d stop them. Of course, I didn’t know what they had planned.”
“So, you’re just going back to them?” Rue crossed her arms.
“No, I’m going to spy. We need information on where Anna is. That’s still the best plan. Find Anna, find Ben. Attack.”
“Okay. Fine. We do need information. Why today?” I stood, unable to shed the nervous energy building up.
“Anna just called to tell me my brother is dead.” His grin had faded. “And, they told me Viktor Levitsky killed him.”
“Oh, uh. What did you say to that?” I held his gaze.
“That I would kill Levitsky the next time I saw him.” He frowned, but he couldn’t hold back his sharkiest grin.
“So then you’re not burned?” Kira asked.
“Seems not. I’ll go there a few days, see what info I can dig up, and come back this weekend. I’ll bring some more supplies—” he held up his hanger, sniffing, “—maybe some clothes.”
Finn grabbed a coffee to go, then headed out. The rest of us discussed what we should do next over breakfast, but no one had a better idea than to wait and see what Finn could dig up.
With nothing better to do, I wanted to ask Chai about something I had nearly forgotten about.
“Hey Chai, remember when Klaus almost shot me?”
Chai appeared when I touched the earring, his grin forming before the rest of him as if he was the Cheshire cat. “Yeah man, that was a fun day.”
I stared. “Fun? Me almost getting shot and drowning Klaus was fun?”
“No. But I got to play Frogger.”
“You— You— You know what, never mind. Remember when you took crow form and showed me that Klaus was pointing a gun at the back of my head?”
His grin didn’t falter. “Oh yeah, right… right, that was badass of me, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah... Can we try again?”
“No way! Let’s go!”
“Wait, I—”
But before I could stop him, Chai was already taking flight to the back door. He landed on the ground, tapping the glass. I didn’t know if he actually needed me to open the door or if he was guiding me. Aren’t ghosts supposed to be able to walk through walls? I grabbed my coat and walked out onto the back deck.
The crow flapped up to the rail, cawed, then leapt into the air. “No—wait!”
My vision warped, expanded, elongated, and zoomed in. The sudden shift made me stumble, I felt my foot hit the deck hard to steady myself, and I saw my body flailing through the crow’s eyes. I felt like I was standing on a surfboard. I couldn’t deal with this proprioception misalignment.
I pushed the crow’s visual feed out of my mind. I imagined turning a dial on an old TV to change the channel. I was dropped back in my body, causing me to fall flat on the deck. While I was sprawled out, the crow landed on the rail and cawed.
I sighed. “Yeah yeah. I’d like to see you do better.”
I started crawling to an Adirondack chair and vomited before I made it.
“Bleh—hold on.” I waved both hands at the bird and walked into the kitchen. After cleaning myself up, I walked out with a fresh insulated mug of coffee and sat in the chair. I took a sip.
“Okay, now that I’m sitting, let’s try that again.”
The crow continued to stand on the rail. I laid my head back, closed my eyes, and imagined changing the channel in my mind. The crow’s eyes blinked, and I blinked at a person sitting in a chair, wearing all black.
“This is crazy.”
The crow didn’t respond. I tried to flap my wings, but I didn’t think I could control the crow.
“Fly!” I said.
The crow stood.
Fly! I thought.
The crow took off and my stomach turned as the forest dropped beneath me. The trees below were draped with snow. The sun was above us. I couldn’t hear the wind or feel the chill that I’d expect the crow to experience. I only felt the hard, cold chair on my back.
What does flying feel like? I thought to the crow. The crow did not reply.
I saw a lake on the horizon. Can we fly over the lake?
The crow turned left and headed towards the lake, arriving after a few minutes. Dark water reflected dancing shards of sunlight as the crow landed on a branch. I suppose it needed to rest. My head was splitting in two, so I tuned out, returning to my body.
A few minutes later, the crow landed on the seat across from me, then transformed back into Chai. “That was awesome, let’s do it again!”
“I think I need to rest after that.” I brought my hands up to rub my temples with circular motions.
“Ah, you’re a buzzkill.”
“I’m going to nap.”
I lay in my bed and was out the minute my head touched the pillow.
✹✹✹
My phone vibrated in my jacket pocket. I guess I was still wearing it in my sleep. A call from Finn’s burner phone.
“Hello?” I mumbled.
“Hey, I know where Anna will be tomorrow,” Finn responded.
“Oh?”
“She wants me to take Klaus’s place. She wants me to lead the thugs.”
“Congratulations...?”
“No, not really. But it does mean that I know where she’s going to be because I have to assign the security detail.”
I wasn't sure what to think about that. "Where's she going to be?"
“You’re going to have to come back to Brooklyn. Tomorrow, she’s going to Cypress Hills.”
My heart filled with a familiar sense of dread. “The cemetery?”
“Yeah.”
“Is there a funeral there or something? Didn’t they stop burying people there a hundred years ago?”
“No, not a funeral. It’s the birthday of some old relative or something. I dunno.”
Were they having a birthday party at a cemetery or was she bringing gifts to the dead? One of those probably made more sense than the other. “Will you be there?”
“No, I’ve got to go to the med supply store and figure out what the hell everyone is doing.”
“Alright. Thanks for the info.”
We hung up. I stayed there in bed, trying to formulate a plan. I’ve always hated cemeteries. Every time I go near one, I feel like I’m drowning. I guess I was fidgeting with the earring because Chai spoke.
“Don’t worry, Vik. I’ll be there with you.”
“I’m more worried about the other ghosts that haunt those places...”
“You can’t see them, right? Why do they bother you?” Chai questioned.
“I’m not sure. I think I can feel them. I think I can feel all ghosts around me. Crowded places press in and push down on me. Sometimes I feel like there’s more there than I can see.”
“I don’t feel that. I haven’t seen any other ghosts.”
“Really? I just assumed all ghosts could see all other ghosts.”
“Guess not, man.”
At dinner, we discussed the plan with the rest of the squad.
“Is she really going to see someone’s grave or is this another setup?” Rue asked.
I frowned. “Maybe. But I don’t think we have much of a choice. We need to get to her.”
“What about Finn?” Kira said between bites.
“He can’t be there. It’s just the three of us.”
“And me, duh,” Chai corrected.
“And Chai,” I amended.
“Okay, so we just pull up in a graveyard, guns a blazin’—pew pew pew.” Kira mimed two pistols shooting around the table.
“Perhaps something more subtle,” Rue recommended.
“Right, Rue, you take overwatch.”
“Naturally.”
“Chai and I will do recon. Chai will turn into crow form and I’ll watch through his eyes. We’ll find Anna before entering the graveyard.”
Kira blinked. “Wait, what? Crow form?”
“Yeah, did I not tell you all that? Chai can turn into a crow, and I can see through his crow eyes. We practiced this afternoon. Ghost physics.”
“Ghost physics? Viktor, I don’t think you know what those words mean.” Kira did not look amused.
I ignored the remark. “Kira, you’ll be the distraction. You walk up to Anna, get her talking, then I walk up behind, tase her then tie her up. Rue can snipe anyone that comes to her aid.”
Kira’s eyes went wide. “Um, doesn’t she know who I am? They tried to kidnap me, remember?”
“Maybe. But that will make her even more distracted.”
“I think this plan can be improved,” Rue said.
“I think this plan is stupid,” Kira said.
“Well, we don’t have much information to go on. We’ve got a three-hour drive early in the morning. We’ll have more time to plan on the way.”
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