Misguided Ghosts

[Graham Armstrong]

Prompt List

• Chess
  
• Blood
  
• Sunshine
  
• Party
  
• Luck
  
• Silence
  
• Reflex
  
• Smile
  
• Alarm
  
• Summer
  

[Graham Armstrong]

sound the alarm

The lanky kid was very obviously nervous as he stood outside of the big, beautiful house, wringing his hands in each other after he'd rung the doorbell and looking the house itself over like he'd love any excuse to focus on something other than whoever was going to open that door, and he wasn't actually sure what he was expecting.  When Heather appeared, he decided that the pretty blonde sure as hell wasn't it, but he blinked at her and seemed to only get more nervous. 

"Uh, are you Heather?"

"Who are you?"

"Um, my name's Graham.  I'm supposed to find Heather.  She lives here, right?" he asked, wondering suddenly if maybe it was this woman's mother, and that's why she was looking at him so weird for asking for her.  He had no clue.

"Who are you, Graham?"

"I'm just a guy, I swear.  Listen, Eli said to say he sent me, and to talk to Heather.  If she's not here, that's cool, I can come back," he offered, more willing to get the hell out of this situation than do this back and forth, even if it meant telling the man he hadn't gotten her, which would suck pretty hardcore, he'd admit.

"Eli?  Come in," she said suddenly, moving out of the way and ushering him inside.  She sat him down in the living room and he basically expected her to go all 'hostess' on him, but she sat down and pretty much stared at him, which was a little disconcerting.

"Uh, could I...do you have a glass of water?"

"Oh.  Yes, one moment," she said, getting up and returning just a moment later with a glass of tap water, but he wasn't complaining.  He drank from it, still looking around the room, then set it down.  "Eli sent you to me?"

He didn't know that she was seriously wondering what the fuck, considering how capable and stable Eli was, but part of Graham's problem right then was just how fucking powerful Eli was.  Dude intimidated the everloving fuck out of him.  "Uh, yeah, so you're Heather?"

"Yes, what did he say?  Where is he?"

"That's...actually what this is about.  He said he doesn't believe he's asking for this, but he needs you to get Har...Harvard?"

"Harvey."

"Harvey, that sounds right.  He needs Harvey to call some friends and get him a ride."

"What?"  Her confusion was so obvious that Graham almost panicked, wondering if he'd gotten something wrong, but no, that was what Eli had said.

"Who's Harvey?"

"My husband.  Where is Eli?" she asked again, and Graham shifted a little, drinking some more of that water to avoid giving her an answer she wouldn't like.  "Graham."

"He...doesn't know.  I don't know."

Heather's face immediately confirmed what Graham had already come to believe about this Eli guy, and that was that he was very capable, so him not knowing?  There was a reason he'd seemed so damn frustrated.  "If you don't know where he is and he doesn't...how did you talk to him?  Did he call you?"

"Um, in a way.  Do you believe in ghosts?" he asked, completely unaware of the history there, and she just stared at him, nodding slightly.  "Uh, okay.  I see them, and then one day, I saw him, and he sent me to you."

Heather sat and absorbed that for about thirty seconds before she jumped up, shouting through the house, "HARVEY!"

[Graham Armstrong]

blood spatter

After Heather had gotten Harvey on board and they'd both pumped Graham for as much information as they could get out of them, he'd sat tight while Harvey got in touch with what Graham assumed were the friends Eli had mentioned, obviously frustrated with the fact that Graham didn't have a better idea about where they were going except a direction.  Explaining that he had to wait for Eli to show up again didn't make the military man (or whatever he was, Graham didn't know) feel any better about the situation, and he was pretty sure Heather was responsible for keeping her husband as willing to do this as he was, since Harvey didn't seem to believe him for awhile there. 

Fortunately, Eli did show up again, seemingly pleased with the fact that Graham was at least at Heather's house, and with Graham as a messenger between them, he managed to use a pile of maps that Harvey pulled out to figure out where the job Eli had been working was, the direction they'd been flying and the last coordinates the man remembered seeing on the helicopter's display.

"How long after those coordinates did they fly?" Harvey asked, looking to Graham, then flicking his eyes to where Graham kept looking.  He didn't see anything, and even his ability didn't do jack for him right then.  Graham's eyes seemed kind of...white and glazed over, which he knew was something only he was seeing as some kind of explanation for what was happening, but whatever results Graham's ability had, they were beyond Harvey's ability to perceive, just like Eli's.  Pissed him off.

What Harvey couldn't see was Eli himself, which Graham could.  The lanky young man kept wondering if maybe Heather could see something, since she'd occasionally look exactly where Eli was standing like she could see him, but the more she did it, the more Graham got to thinking that whatever she saw was very vague and insubstantial.  He wondered if she could hear any of it.  He wished he couldn't, since Eli was irritable.

"I don't know!  I took down the choppers behind us, and then we went down, so have them look for multiple birds crashing," he pointed out, and as soon as Graham started with, 'he said', he cut him off to add.  "DON'T tell him that I took them down, I don't want him knowing what I do, he doesn't need to know."

"What?" Harvey prompted, looking up at him and obviously waiting for him to finish.

"Uh.  He said look for three helicopters.  The ones chasing them went down, and then his did."

"Eli was in a helicopter crash?" Heather demanded, likely re-evaluating what she knew about what Eli did, but Graham glanced between them as Harvey's head drooped. 

"Okay, but he doesn't know how far from those coordinates it went down?"

"I thought this guy was a genius?" Eli snapped, pushing away from the wall he'd been leaning against and then pressing both hands to the table to stare at the map.  Harvey had marked the coordinates as well as the location Eli had given for the job he was working.  "I overdid it, just tell Heather that I tried that thing from TV we were talking about and it worked, it just knocked me out."

"Uh, Heather?  He said there was a thing from TV?  He tried it and it worked, but it messed him up some.  He said you'd know what he was talking about.  He kind of lost track of how far they went after."

"Heather, what the fuck is he talking about?" Harvey asked, looking to her, but she shook her head and smiled a little, looking like she might cry.  Graham glanced to Eli, who was staring at Heather like it was really upsetting her, and then reached out to wipe at her tears.  She didn't freak out like Graham had known girls to do when ghosty things got too close to them, but she calmed a moment and smiled. 

"Uh," he prompted, distinctly uncomfortable with whatever the hell situation he'd landed himself into.  Were Eli and Heather banging behind Harvey's back?  Oh man, he didn't want to know.  He cleared his throat again, staring pointedly at Eli, who rolled his eyes and stared at the map again. 

"There.  I don't know what it is, but that's where I am," he said after a moment of really looking, and Graham reached out to put his finger where Eli's was.

"He says he's there.  He doesn't know what it is, but he's there."

"There are no military installations out there," Harvey said, brushing Graham's hand aside and marking the location, anyway. 

"It's not military, it's something else, terrorists for Mother Russia, I don't give a fuck.  They're speaking Russian, and Michaels was the only other person from the chopper to survive.  He's working with them, beat the fuck out of me after I got out of the crash and took me with him to whatever that building is."

Graham repeated what Eli had said as faithfully as he could, and Harvey nodded, writing nothing down but committing it to memory.  "Is there anything else he can tell us about the building?"

"Part of it's underground.  That's where I am.  The whole building's freezing, maybe a warehouse or something," Eli explained, and Graham repeated.

"He's underground, okay.  Physical condition?"

That was where Eli hesitated, and Graham looked to him expectantly.  He managed a grim half-smirk, stepping away from the table to grab Graham's shoulder, and the young psychic's whole world flickered in and out for a second.  Graham gulped, eyes widening, and looked to Harvey.  "Uh.  Not good."

"Not good?  What does 'not good' mean?"

"Really?  Listen, man, I already told you he survived a fucking helicopter crash, got beat almost to death by the dude outside the helicopter, and then they took him to some secret terrorist hide-out.  What do you think they're doing with him, genius?  All I saw was a lot of blood and a fucking car battery, and it's not good.  If you're asking for time frame, I'd say top speed is about right if you want him alive," Graham snapped, surprising everyone in the room, Eli included.  Harvey rubbed at his face and Heather looked like she might cry again before she excused herself to go get everyone coffee, and Eli nodded, making a face like he was impressed.

"Guess you have some balls, after all, kid.  If I survive this, I might be able to show you a few things," he remarked, and Graham closed his eyes a second.  If this was the kind of trouble Eli got into, he wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he also wasn't sure how he could turn it down when the other man obviously had such a handle on it.  That wouldn't be a bad thing. 

A second later, Eli was gone, and Graham released a long breath, but he wasn't sure if he felt better or worse about the man being conscious again.  If what he'd seen was any indication, Eli was going back to a lot of hurt right now.  They needed to hurry.