Possession by Kat Richardson

push and shove to get his attention, chattering incomprehensibly. I heard Stymak grunt as the darkest one of them shoved unusually hard, rocking him. Stymak’s energy dimmed and took on a greenish tone. “Stop! One at a time!” he said, sounding distressed.
    I snatched at the pushing spirit and crooked my fingers in its tangled energy, pulling it away from Stymak. “Back off, jerk,” I hissed at it, giving it a shake. Flame flashed up my arm and I felt a jolt as the ghost fought back, then faded to a dim shape.
    “Someel otsu vagueish . . .” it muttered, crumbling into black ash and blowing away in the swirling of the Grey, not destroyed but exhausted for the time being.
    “What?”
    But that ghost was gone and another one had pushed itself up to Stymak, talking so low and fast I could barely hear it as more than a chatter of teeth and a clatter of consonants. The last of the three ghosts had something more like a recognizable human face and form over the knot of pale blue energy at its core. It whispered and hissed with the other, the sounds of their voices harmonizing with each other and mixing with the background chorus of ghosts in a quavering dissonance that almost brought sense to the noise, but not quite. I could feel it, like pressure waves, trying to fall into a recognizable pattern but never quite matching up.
    I let go of Stymak’s hand and reached for the two ghosts. The Grey wavered and shimmered, then realigned itself with a jolt. Stymak shivered, shedding his brightness for a moment before it flared back, not so bright as before but without the green tinge. “Who else is like Julianne?” His voice sang on the Grey.
    The ghost chorus replied. “Jorvin. Stermar. Kadon. Derling.” Stymak shuddered, but I resisted touching him again. I brushed my tentative fingers against the ghosts and they flushed with a fleeting spectrum of color, whining like an ancient crystal radio. With a sudden pop, the ghosts sang back: “Kevin Sterling. Jordan Delamar. Sterling. Delamar. Delamar. Sterling. Kevin. Jordan . . .”
    The ghost voices faded as the two primary singers slid away from Stymak, back toward Julianne again.
    In the Grey I saw the dim form in the bed flare into color. The ghosts rushed toward her, swirling again into their desperate, dancing gyre.
    I pushed away from the Grey, coming back into the normal as much as I could. The silver light of the world between still lay over everything in my left eye, but I could see the rest of the room normally. I glanced quickly at Stymak, who looked all right, if a bit pale and shaken, and then toward the bed.
    Julianne sat up like a marionette being raised by a careless puppeteer, her limbs oddly flopping as her head lolled. She picked up the brush she had recently put aside and brought it to the wet canvas with strokes so harsh and slashing that they pushed the built-up paint aside and left a smear across the painting: “DelamarSterling.”
    Then she fell back onto the bed, the heart and blood pressure monitors blipping faster for a few seconds before they reverted to their usual low, dull murmur. Eva Wrothen rushed into the room—I hadn’t realized she was even in the house and her appearance startled me for a moment. Then I turned to Stymak again.
    He was blinking at Julianne. “That’s what the ghosts said.”

FOUR
    “K evin Sterling and JordanDelamar. Do you recognize the names? Could they be the other patients?”
    “I’d guess,” Stymak replied, shrugging. “That is the information you were after, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, but ghosts don’t always give the answers you ask for.” I looked away from him and back to Lily Goss by the bed. “Do those names mean anything to you? Either of you?” I added, turning to fix the nurse in my gaze.
    She blanched, but Goss just looked confused and shook her head. “Nothing,” Goss replied. “I don’t recognize those names. They aren’t anyone I know. Or that Julianne knew, so far as I can