Rook & Tooth and Claw by Graham Masterton

of somebody who was actually living at the time. But here’s the interesting bit: they
all
emphatically denied being at the locations at the time they were seen.”
    Jim thought of Uncle Umber, with his eye-witness evidence that he had been back at home when Elvin was killed. Jim had seen him at the college, and yet all the time he had been back at his apartment near Venice Boulevard. “So what’s your conclusion?” he asked Mrs Vaizey.
    “I think my first hunch was absolutely right. The man you saw was having an out-of-body experience. His physical body was lying somewhere else, in a state of trance, while his spirit went out walking.”
    “I saw him again this morning,” said Jim. “He came to the college and confronted me. He said he wanted me to be his friend.”
    “Well, he would. Spirits have only limited powers, outside of the body; and out-of-body experiences are very taxing. If he were to stay out too long, his physical body would be at risk of a stroke or a heart-attack.”
    “What I don’t understand is how he can be nothing but a spirit and at the same time be able to hurt people. He was floating on the goddamned ceiling, for God’s sake, and when I tried to push him he just wasn’t there. Yet he cut our security guard’s face, right in front of me; and of course he stabbed Elvin, too.”
    Mrs Vaizey said, “Spirits have been known to bruise people. You can wake up in the morning and find purple fingermarks all over your body. They’ve strangled people, too. A force doesn’t have to be visible or touchable to do you harm. You can’t see the wind but it can blow you over. You can’t touch smoke but it can make your eyes water.”
    “Smoke … that’s it,” said Jim. “That’s just what Elvin’s sister was talking about. She overheard Elvin and Tee Jay talking about sacrificing a chicken, biting its head off, and they told her to keep quiet about it or else the smoke would get her. Elvin’s father said his grandfather used to give him the same warning, when he was a little boy. If he didn’t behave himself, the smoke would come to get him.”
    “It’s not just ‘smoke’,” said Mrs Vaizey. “It’s ‘
The
Smoke’. It’s what they call out-of-body experiences in Haiti. A man can rise from his body in the night to steal things that he wouldn’t be able to take in his physical form; or to make love to a woman who would never normally let him touch her; or to take revenge on his enemies.”
    “Voodoo,” said Jim. “He said so himself.”
    “You mean you
talked
to him?”
    Jim nodded. “I talked to him in his spirit form, at the college, and I talked to him in the flesh. He wasn’t difficult to find. He’s Tee Jay’s uncle, his father’s brother, a guy called Umber Jones. He virtually admitted what he’s done; but then there’s absolutely no way of proving it, is there? The guy was at home, and he’s got himself a witness who’s prepared to back him up.”
    “And he wants you to be his friend?” asked Mrs Vaizey.
    “He’s threatened to hurt some of my students if I don’t.”
    “Oh, yes; and he would, too. What does he want you to do?”
    “I don’t think I ought to tell you. I don’t want any one of my students put at risk.”
    “I can’t help you if you don’t confide in me, Jim.”
    Jim shook his head. “I can’t. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to any of those kids.”
    Mrs Vaizey pressed her hand over her mouth and stood thinking for well over a minute. Jim stood watching her, feeling as if he had been riding on a rollercoaster all afternoon, shaken and tired and slightly sick.
    At last Mrs Vaizey lifted one finger. “There’s only one thing we can do,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but I don’t see any alternative.”
    “Any alternative to what?” asked Jim.
    “Give me a drink,” said Mrs Vaizey, and she waited while Jim poured her the last of the bourbon. She swallowed a large mouthful, and then she ran her tongue around her