I’m sitting in my small boxy office looking at a stack of bills and wishing I could light them up. A smoky scent of Jasmine lazily spirals upward from the incense burner. It usually calms my nerves, but today’s stack of mail has taken calmness right out of the equation and all the incense and meditation in the world isn’t going to make those bills go away. I lean back on my green swivel chair and it squawks.
I hear a hesitant knock at the door. At first I’m sure I’m hallucinating the noise, but then I hear it again.
“Come in!” I yell out.
A moment later the wooden door to my office opens up with a squeak and a balding, pudgy middle aged white guy steps through. I breathe a sigh of relief that it’s not Arnold, my landlord.
“Uh, hello,” the man nervously says. “Are you Ash Danton?”
“That’s what the sign on my door says,” I joke.
The man licks his lips and looks me over.
“I, uh, I thought you’d be a guy.”
“Yeah, I get that on occasion,” I sarcastically reply. Actually I get it all the time. I don’t know if it’s my name or my line of work, or both. Ash could be the name of a man, woman, or other identified person, but I’ve found that being an occultist and an investigator tends to bring certain preconceptions with those labels, namely that you’re a guy doing those things.
“Well anyway, I need your help.”
I beckon the man to a chair and say, “Sit down Mr?”
“Mr. Ackerbee,” he softly replies.
“So how can I help you Mr. Ackerbee?”
“I-I was referred your way by the Hamilton family. They told me how you helped them recently with a haunting in their home.”
“I did help them and I’m glad they referred you my way.” That had been my last case, a one night gig, and I’m glad they remembered me, because that money wasn’t going to cover any of these overdue bills.
Mr. Ackerbee coughs and blinks.
“Would you like me to put out the incense?”
He shakes his head and clears his throat and then continues, “As I was saying, I have a case for you. Lately my wife has been coming home from the gym, really tired.”
“Is this your idea of a joke?” I snap. “I’d expect someone coming back from a gym would be tired.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but she’s tired all time and each time she comes back from the gym she looks paler and paler. She’s not eating as much as she normally would. I initially thought it was drugs, but I looked around the house and her car and I couldn’t find anything. I checked with her boss at work, and he told me she’s been acting strange for the last week as well. And when I thought about it further, I realized it’s when she comes back from the gym.”
“And how do you know there’s something going on at this gym?” I skeptically ask.