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: Paranormal activity, panic attacks, discussion of past violence and murder
Last time on TSA
Finn went back to work at the org and sent some intel—Anna’s location for tomorrow. Viktor and the rest of the squad planned the attack.
“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.”
A dead graveyard shouldn’t feel this alive. Viktor can feel its pressure the moment they pull up. The squad rolls in with a plan held together by hope and stubbornness. But the denizens of the cemetery are caught up in plans already.
Chapter 22
On the three-hour drive over, we came up with nothing. Absolutely nothing better than the Kira-as-a-distraction plan. I didn’t like putting them in harm’s way, but I couldn’t confront Anna head-on and get the upper hand. Anna wouldn’t be alone since Finn had to assign her a security detail. Distraction and surprise seemed to be the best bet.
Kira rode up front and Chai sat beside me in the back. He probably didn’t need to actually be present and sit, but I figured it helped him feel normal and like part of the team.
I looked at the cemetery on satellite and street views while Rue drove us in her Jeep. The cemetery was from the Civil War era and the last plot was sold seventy-something years ago. I’m not sure who Anna could be going to see that was buried so long ago. I suppose someone could have bought the plot back then and was only buried in the past decade or so.
A good place to start our search would be around the most recent burials. Unfortunately, no one knew Anna’s surname to guess where her family might be buried—assuming it was actually family. There was no dedicated new section for us to home in on. Newer interments were scattered throughout old family plots.
It was a couple hundred acres—not huge, but it had no clean sight-lines. All the roads were winding, mausoleums covered the grounds, and hills broke up the landscape. That would be a problem for Rue and her sniper rifle. We’d have to narrow down the location so she could get set up.
We parked on the street just outside the cemetery. Before we even parked, I felt it. The pressure—an invisible blob that oozed from the graveyard, spilling over into the street, touching me, changing me. I did my best to ignore it.
Chai transformed into the crow. The cloth roof was up because of the winter chill, so I had to roll down the window to let the crow out. I think. I still didn’t understand how that worked. This time, I waited for the crow to get airborne before looking through its eyes, hoping that would be less disorientating. It wasn’t.
I dropped pins in my map app for recent interment sites I found on some public grave databases online. I thought it would be easier to line up the satellite image with the bird’s-eye view of the crow, but crow eyes worked way different from maps.
They could see things on the ground in great detail, but not everywhere at once. It was hard for me to get a complete picture. It was also nauseating switching from my eyes to the crow’s eyes.
“I can’t make sense of this map from the crow,” I spoke aloud in the Jeep.
“Try following the roads,” Rue suggested, her voice still audible to my human body sitting in the Jeep. “This is a dead graveyard, so there shouldn’t be a lot of visitors. Mostly people enjoying the park and history.”
There were many cars in parking spaces and a few on the roads. Security escorts always had a type. The crow flew low and slow in line with the roads, looking for dark SUVs idling on the shoulders. They wouldn’t park in case they needed a quick exit.
The colors the crow saw were wrong. Maybe not wrong, but different. Shadows were darker, but some areas were brighter—like the contrast was cranked up in a photo. Its eyes kept focusing on well-worn footpaths that broke off from the road.
The crow spotted a suspect vehicle and landed on a branch with line of sight. A black Suburban, standard-issue corporate subtlety, standing out like a sore thumb. It idled on a road curve at the top of a hill—a bad angle for sniping.
Through the heavily tinted windows, I could see a driver in a dark suit, but no one else. The crow’s sensitive eyes caught movement and jerked its head toward it, nearly sending me into vertigo. A man in a hoodie and joggers stood by a headstone, face obscured, hands in pockets, head swiveling. A woman in a leather jacket and jeans, dark hair, leaning against a mausoleum, smoking.
Neither looked familiar to me nor had the blonde hair Rue described Anna having nor was a ten-year-old boy. But they looked the type—acting like they were just visiting a hundred-and-fifty-year-old grave while constantly looking around.
This had to be it. I couldn’t see any other figures in the SUV. Maybe Anna was in the mausoleum.
“Rue, they’re at pin echo on the map. Find a spot where you can keep an eye on the SUV and the thugs. Call me when you’re settled.”
“On it.”
While Rue got in position, Kira and I waited.
“So, we’re just going to kill these people?” Kira’s voice pulled me away from the crow.
“Not if we don’t have to. I don’t want to. But they probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill us to keep us silent.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
I hesitated. I hadn’t told them all the details about the meat locker. I’d tried my best to block out that night.
My throat was hoarse—not sure if it was because of flying with the crow, the souls bearing down on me, or the memory of that night. “I have.”
Kira turned, peering around the headrest in the front seat, locking with my eyes. They didn’t say anything.
“I told you about Klaus. I killed him. I drowned him in a ditch. He was trying to kill me, but I killed him first. Then, the night Chaus died, when Klaus died again, I killed two other men. They were also trying to kill me, but it felt—it feels—so fucking wrong.” I lowered my head, no longer able to look into their eyes. They were peeling me apart. I choked back a sob.
“Viktor, you’re alive. You’re safe. You killed because it was either them or you. I’d choose you every time.”
“Thanks,” I sniffed. “I’d choose you too.”
We sat in silence for a moment. I was about to say something about how I didn’t feel safe right now when Rue called. I answered through my earbuds.
“Hello.”
“I’m in position. I see the two thugs, the SUV, the driver. No other souls.”
“Could you use a different word?” I groaned.
“Oh. Sorry. No one else.”
“What are the thugs doing?”
“The woman is circling the mausoleum. She’s fidgeting with her ear, she might have comms in an earpiece. The guy turned around, but he’s still in position.”
“Wait one.” I muted the phone.
“Rue doesn’t see Anna,” I told Kira.
“Okay, I’ll go and draw her out,” they replied.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We don’t know where she is and there’s too many of her people out there.”
“Oh, now you think it’s a bad idea to use me as bait? Rue will take care of them. This is our chance to get Anna.”
“There will be others.”
“We don’t have time.” Kira undid their seatbelt, slipped out the door, and ran through the entrance gate before I could say anything.
“Kira! Get back here!” I clambered over the front seat to get out of the Jeep, chasing after. Immediately, I regretted stepping into the cemetery, but I had to go after them. “Rue, Kira’s running over there, what do you see?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Okay, Kira’s heading your way. I’m following.”
“The thugs are moving.”
“Don’t let them touch Kira!” I shouted.
“What the hell?” Rue exclaimed.
“What? What is it?”
“They jumped in the SUV and it’s driving off.”
I tuned into the crow again. I saw the SUV driving off and Kira running up the hill. No sign of Anna. Did we misread the situation? Were those people not with the org? I kept running, trying to catch up to Kira.
They were just ahead of me. I was almost at the top of the hill when a force pushed back. The vague, oozing blob I sensed earlier thickened into a swamp. My feet dragged as I tried to catch up to Kira. I tried to yell their name but my mouth was blocked, as if dozens of hands were clawing their way inside.
The swamp turned into an ocean. I was shoulder-deep, trying to walk to the shore. Invisible waves crested and fell on my face, pressing on my eyeballs. My eye sockets throbbed, my head ached like it was being squeezed. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I fell to my knees. I heard Kira scream my name.
✹✹✹
I saw the waves then. Thousands of people were struggling in the currents, all reaching above the water’s surface. They were choking, but all swimming towards me, trying to use me as a life raft. They clawed at my face and shoulders, pulling me under with them.
The crow flew in circles around me, trying to help but it couldn’t land on anything. It transformed into Chai who fell into me—us becoming one. For a moment.
Then the head of his apparition was pulled, stretched from my core. He reached out a translucent hand. I grabbed for it, fingers brushing before he was yanked away, thrown into the deep.
“Viktooooor!”
All I did was watch. I couldn’t close my eyes. The focus brought clarity. We weren’t under water—we were under bodies. Masses of people struggling to be on top of one another—swimmers becoming waves, waves becoming swimmers. Untold bodies undulating, crashing, reforming.
I thrashed against the flow, but it was too much. I was choking on bodies of water that reached up, climbing over one another for air as they dragged me under. They invaded my nostrils, my mouth, my lungs. I realized then that these weren’t bodies at all—they were souls. Every creature still haunting this graveyard swarmed on top of me, pulling me down into their graves.
✹✹✹
Kira
I reached the top of the hill just in time to see the SUV drive off. I spun around, looking for the thugs, but didn’t see anybody. Where was Rue? I didn’t have my phone. How could I be so stupid to run off like this? Where was Viktor? I looked down the path I came from. Viktor was there. He fell to his knees, gripping his head, screaming.
I called to him. “Viktor!”
He started waving his arms in a frantic rhythm. Was he trying to swim? I started running down the hill toward him, then halted in my tracks. The slight red aura that surrounds Viktor when Chai is present turned darker. It was purple, like a bruise. It began to grow as if a tsunami was pouring out from him. Then it collapsed back upon him before expanding again, writhing. I swear it looked like bodies. I couldn’t see Viktor under all that.
“Rue, where the fuck are you?”
This had to be Anna, some sort of ghost bullshit. Where was she? I looked around for something—anything. We were surrounded by mausoleums. How can one place have so many fucking mausoleums?
I saw another aura. Could that be her? One of the mausoleums had a human-shaped green aura standing in front of it. Wait—no. It was inside. I was seeing it through the walls. I ran to it.
The rotten wooden door of the mausoleum broke free as I pulled the handle. Without the walls blocking it, the green aura was brighter. I tackled it, yelling, “Leave my brother alone!”
I hit something solid. A woman. She screamed and hit the concrete with a thud as I fell on top of her. Her wind was knocked out and my chest hurt like a son of a bitch. I rolled off of her onto my back, focusing through the stars in my vision, looking up into a different face.
The cold blue eyes of a boy stared down at me.
Editor’s Note
Well, damn. Fuck ‘em up, Kira!
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