Title: Orpheus – Don’t Look Back.
Author: The Partisan
Rating: NC-17 for language, graphic violence at the very least to be on the safe side, and who knows what else.
Disclaimer: Mutant Enemy owns the Buffyverse characters, White Wolf owns the Orpheus line of products.
Feedback: It's my first fanfic, I'd love to hear anything good or bad.
Summary: Tara, brought back post-season 6, has taken a job with the Orpheus Group, a company that specializes in private investigators who are, or are able to temporarily become, ghosts, taken from White Wolf's RPG of the same name. It's a work in progress that will be added to as the need moves me.
Orpheus - Don't Look Back
Prelude
This is Radio Free Death, the Voice of the Afterlife. Science thinks it’s shattered the barrier between life and death, but it’s only opened the floodgates. Stop meddling with the affairs of ghosts and close the doors before something follows you back through. You should have left some secrets buried, because now they won’t go back to sleep without a fight.
Hoyt Masterson rolled his eyes and flicked off the television, casting an irritated glance. Radio Free Death’s daily midnight transmission was pretentiously cryptic, and didn’t offer anything of tangible value to him. The mysterious transmissions, seen and heard only by those who, like Hoyt, had traversed into a state of being that was not quite alive, but not quite dead, either. Or at least that’s what the Orpheus Group told its employees.
The Orpheus Group specialized in the post-life business sector, which depending on who you asked, ranged from employing their agents to do simple private eye work, to the far less legal. But that was beside the point for most of the employees…the wages earned more than offset the quibbles of conscience of most of the employees, or at least, the ones who still had a use for money.
Orpheus prided itself in its equal-opportunity employment policy, an inside-joke as the company hired both projectors, and post-life entities. Hoyt was one of the former; a Skimmer, able to use astral projection to separate his spirit from his body for a short period of time, during which he was, more or less, as a ghost. Though, at this particular moment, his spirit resided in his body, rendering him human…more or less.
He fished his cellular phone out of his faded leather jacket and deftly dialed the private line of his immediate superior. Despite the late hour, the phone was answered promptly.
Sarah’s voice chimed clearly through the line speaking softly, “Hoyt, dear boy,” she began, “I do hope you’re not concerned by…”
Hoyt interrupted her briskly, “What concerns me isn’t what an elusive spook with a CB radio has to say. What does concern me, however, is the bullshit I’m getting from HR. I’ve done the solo thing long enough, and after last month…”
“I see, and I appreciate your concerns. We’re working through the final crop, and it’s come down to a matter of their psych evals. Confidentiality agreements prohibit me from elaborating the details of candidate, suffice it to say, however, that we’re attempting to be as thorough as we can in order to ensure you the best possible fit for your situation.”
Hoyt was decidedly not amused. He had never dealt well with people, probably the main reason he became a Haunter, and he dealt even more poorly with bureaucracy. He decided to simplify the matter.
“Fuck the psych evals, alright. Find me a Banshee who can walk and chew gum at the same time and let the rest take care of itself.”
Sarah was momentarily taken aback, but recovered gracefully, “Very well; she’ll be in your office tomorrow morning.”
Hoyt paused, “She?” he queried, but Sarah had already hung up. Not in the mood to debate with himself whether the candidate had already been chosen, or only narrowed down to a few who happened to be women, he instead lit a cigarette, despite the company’s no-smoking policy and walked out of the building towards his car, ignoring the midnight shift clerk’s disapproving glance.
Fuck it, he thought, any partner’s better than no partner.
Chapter 1
Hoyt walked through the corridors of the scenic Orpheus corporate headquarters. Despite the macabre nature of the employees and the business, the building was overflowing with plant life and the walls painted with vibrant colours, though whether it was to put the employees or the clients at ease remained uncertain.
As he rounded the corridor to his office, he noted that the door was ajar, though the lights were still out. He walked coolly to the doorway, and quickly saw the cause: a young woman, undoubtedly his newly-assigned Banshee, had arrived early and had taken the liberty of getting a sneak peak of what she was in for. She was idly studying a set of pictures on the wall, her back to Hoyt. Strangely, none of the pictures seemed to show any sort of family or tokens of a personal life. Two were of apparent local landmarks that she didn’t recognize, and the third featured Hoyt receiving an award from some suit.
Hoyt’s flicking of the light switch snapped the interloper out of her reverie with a start.
“I’m, uh, I’m s-sorry. I really shouldn’t have…”
Hoyt raised a hand, signaling that no offense had been taken, “Nothing wrong with a healthy sense of investigation, just, in the future…don’t get caught.”
The woman, who had apparently decided that avoiding eye contact was the swifter course of action nodded her blonde head quickly and took a seat facing the desk, chiding herself mentally for not waiting to be offered a seat first.
“Hoyt Masterson,” he offered, extending a hand, “Skimmer, Haunter.”
She shook his hand, surprised to note that his grip was hardly as strong as she’d been expecting. Hurriedly, she added, “Tara Maclay. Banshee and Sleeper…formerly, nevermind.”
“Formerly a Spirit,” Hoyt added flatly then added, “Word gets around. You’re not the first one to cross back like that, but your situation is still one of the more remarkable ones.”
Tara’s expression flashed somber a moment, as memories she had tried to put behind her came back into her present.
“It’s…a long story,” she offered as a concession, “most of it, even I’m not really clear on.”
Hoyt nodded, wondering for a moment if Orpheus might know more about Tara’s predicament than she, herself did. Even still, he noted, Orpheus didn’t have the medical expertise necessary to create, or repair, a heart in such a manner. Whatever it may have been, he dropped the subject, to Tara’s relief.
“First off,” Hoyt began a speech he had worked on in the shower a few hours earlier, “set aside any altruistic notions about what you might have taken this job for. We’re not the Salvation Army, we’re largely of the ‘take-the-money-and-run’ ilk, and leave the moral absolutes at the door. You’re here, because you’ve brushed up with death the wrong way, and like the rest of us; something’s changed within you. Now, you’ve gotten a glimpse of the world underneath this one, and you’re willing to use that edge to better your own situation.”
Tara nodded, slightly uncomfortable with the moral ambiguities.
Hoyt continued, “Right now, the media’s under the impression that we’re a glorified psychic medium call center; a Van Praagh incorporated. We’re not. We’re a private investigative firm that uses agents who are either like you and me, and can fake being dead, or ones who are the real deal. Either way, when we’re on the job, we’re undetectable when we want to be, and needless to say, that has its advantages. Combine that with the native abilities that we have, when projecting, and you can see why Orpheus gets the results that can justify the fees we charge.”
Tara interrupted, “We don’t do anything, you know, illegal here…do we?”
Hoyt paused, looking away from her, clearly trying to frame his answer delicately, “I’m not going to say that there hasn’t been a job here or there that’s tested the waters somewhat, but for the most part, the seedier jobs go to NextWorld, or Terrell & Squib. We’re not mercenaries, or assassins. Though…we’re also smart enough to realize that there are those, who have our talents, but not our morals.”
This seemed to satisfy Tara’s concerns, Hoyt observed. He then decided to defer from his more prepared material, and work off the cuff.
“Have you ever projected?”
Tara shook her head, “No,” she hastily added, “well, not exactly. Not with Orpheus, at least. Back when…Back before, I think I had a…” she paused, unable to describe a period of her life she could barely make sense of, let alone put into words.
“An out of body experience?” Hoyt offered.
“Yeah, I guess you could call it that. I don’t really remember much about it, but…that’s what it was.”
Hoyt eased into his chair, trying to look more comfortable than he felt, but not quite succeeding. As a Haunter, he had an affinity for places, things, and objects…people often seemed alien to him. Which, in itself, was one of the main reasons he had requested a Banshee. Attuned to emotion more than any other type of spirit identified, a Banshee would make up for his shortcomings, and hopefully, he would for hers as well.
“Go to the Crypt, talk with the techs. They’ll sort you out. It takes a few hours to put you under, try not to worry too much. The first time’s frightening for all Sleepers. We’re going to look into a few things, and I need you incorporeal.”
Tara grimaced; she hadn’t expected to have to go through with this quite so soon. She also envied the Skimmer. Though Sleepers could stay projected for weeks, even moths at a time, she’d have gladly traded the longevity for the ability to project on a whim like a Skimmer. However, for whatever reason, and despite her affinity for things metaphysical…she had never, in all her training, been able to achieve a state of astral projection. It worried her more than she liked to let on.
“Thanks, Hoyt,” Tara spoke slowly, as she rose from the chair to leave, “I guess I’ll see you in a few hours.”
Hoyt nodded, turning his attention to some paperwork that didn’t need his attention, but it provided a buffer from the tension he could feel from her, and from his inability to deal with people’s more personal problems and anxieties. He justified this to himself by saying that if he projected a cool, uneventful exterior, she’d be less nervous about her first time. It was a lie, and he knew it.
Edited by: The Partisan at: 3/3/04 1:20 am
