Chapter 17

"I can't believe you two talked me into this," Beth grumbled as she took the next file in the pile and held it up. She put the photo of the missing girl from ten years ago and held it up to compare it to Blue. She took one glance before putting the file into the 'no' pile and going for the next one.

"Its good practice for you," Lady Gray took another sip of tea as she watched the two young exorcists work through the piles of missing person's reports, "you're good at the practical side of the job, but you need more practice on the research side of things."

"Plus you have too much to gain for you to not do it." Zach took another file, went through it to find a picture of the girl in question. When he didn't find one, he placed it in the main pile. "It's a great deal, especially considering what happened yesterday."

Reaching out to Beth had actually been Zach's second choice. The first had been Andrew, but the older man was busy with some sort of project. So instead he'd gone after the young woman instead. A feat which had taken up the rest of the day.

They'd started by asking Andrew for Lady Gray's contact info. Once they had it, they gave her a call only for her to explain that Beth had gone out to buy supplies… three hours ago. It hadn't taken long for Lady Gray to explain the issue.

Apparently, Beth was terrible at directions and tended to get lost super easily. At least when she was in new locations at least. And considering her apprenticeship to Lady Gray involved driving around the country investigating hauntings, that was most of the time.

After explaining his issue, Lady gray gave him the go ahead to track down and recruit Beth.

What followed was an hour of asking around town about a girl carrying a large camera around. Followed by Blue pointing out that she might not even be carrying the camera. A suggestion which explained why they hadn't gotten any responses from anyone.

What followed was another hour of asking for Beth by her general description. A process which slowly whittled down the area of South Palm city they had to search until one man they asked managed to deliver a mortal blow to Zach's moral.

"Oh you mean the girl carrying the large camera? Yeah I saw here near the beach just a few minutes ago." Zach glared at Blue who had the decency to look away before the two took off to the beach.

They found her alone sitting on the beach, carrying her camera and a bag of groceries in her hands. She'd only gone off the path for a second to check out a little store, and when she came out, she was completely lost.

He'd led her back to her hotel, were Lady Gray was waiting for them. She congratulated Beth on making it back so early and let her know they'd be operating in the general area for a while, so she better get used to navigating their new base of operations.

Beth sank to her knees, which was when Zach and Blue made their deal. Help them find a missing girl who could be Blue, and Zach would show her around town. In her desperation, it was an offer she couldn't refuse.

"Let's see, nope, not this one either." She placed another file into the main pile. Before the group was a massive stack of every missing person's report made in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm beach County made in the year span they were pretty sure Blue died in.

Zach had no idea why Lady Gray had given them every single man, woman, and child who'd gone missing, but apparently it was part of the process. According to Lady Gray, they was a good chance they would need the others in time.

"Not this one either," Zach mumbled as he placed another file into the pile of people who couldn't be Blue for whatever reason. He reached for another file and started skimming through it. The missing girl had the right age, matched the general description, and there was no photo to go along with it. He placed it in the main pile.

"This is taking so long," Blue complained as she tried and failed to pick up a file. It uselessly went through her fingers before her arms dropped to the side as she sank in the air. "I wish I could help you guys out."

"Oh don't worry dear. These two are going to need the practice if they want to be exorcists," Lady Gray chuckled before taking another sip of her ever-present tea. "Much like many professions, exorcism is mostly boring research and study. The short burst of pulse pounding terror and excitement are the exceptions, not the rule."

"At least we have that beach party to look forward after a week of all this." Blue sighed as Beth's eye glanced over at her. She finished up with the file she had in her hands and leaned over to Blue.

"Okay, so I heard something about a beach party." She asked, a cat's curiosity in her eyes. "You want to… tell me anything about that?"

"Oh, one of Zach's friends is having a beach party in a week to celebrate Tyler getting out of the hospital," Blue quickly explained as Beth gave a quick smile, "and since she's worried about Zach going crazy from looking at all these dead people, she ordered me to make sure he makes it there."

Blue put her hands on her hips and puffed up her chest with pride. Beth closed her eyes and tapped her finger on the table while humming to herself.

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"Would it be fair to guess that all of the people there will either be Zach's age or parents there supervising?" She asked as Blue nodded. "So probably not going to be any alcohol… but when was the last time I got to a party?"

Beth leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling for a couple of seconds before gripping the sides of her chair in a burst of sudden motion.

"Oh my god, the last party I went to was the one right after graduation. That was three years ago." She jumped out of the chair and cradled her head with her arms. "I've been doing nothing but exorcisms for the past three years straight."

"That's not true, we have plenty of fun in between jobs," Lady Gray pouted at her apprentice, "Remember right after our last job? I took you to that delightful crab restaurant in Massachusetts."

"Wait, you've been an apprentice for three years?" Blue floated over to her and suspended herself right in front of the girl's cradled head. Beth pocked her head out from her improvised cover to look the ghost in the eyes. "I figured you'd be done with this whole thing a lot faster than that."

"The apprenticeship program does not have a set time limit." Lady Gray began to explain as Zach set down the files he had. She saw his interest out of the corner of her eyes and smiled at him. "You're paying attention too Zach, good. This is need to know information for you as well."

She set her tea down and took out her phone, setting in on the table as the other gathered around it. "An Exorcist is dependent on three things in order to find work. Research to be able to discover hauntings, reputation so that others will seek you out and hire you, and connections so that those looking to hire you can contact you."

She looked over at Beth who tried not to flinch when she heard the word 'research'. Lady Gray kept going, ignoring her apprentice's discomfort.

"An apprenticeship is meant to help a young exorcist cultivate these three things. Once they have enough to guarantee they won't starve, the skills to take down an average haunting and identify more dangerous haunts, the apprenticeship comes to an end."

"And how's she coming along?" Blue pointed at Beth while giving Lady Gray a snickering smile.

"Well she more than has the skill to take down hauntings on her own, and the camera obscura has enough of a legacy to get her the reputation and connections if she manages to cultivate them. A job which she has done well these last three years. The only thing she has left is…"

Instead of saying anything, Lady Gray just gestured towards the large pile of folders which may or may not have contained the secrets to Blue's past.

"Huh," Zach looked at Blue and then to Lady Gray. "So would my whole evenshadow thing help when it comes to the 'reputation' part or no?"

"Oh it would certainly give you a reputation all right. What kind of reputation depends entirely on you two." She grew a slight grin as both Zach and Blue shuffled back. "I wonder which I'll hear about in the future. The powerful half-ghost exorcist Gestalt, or the foolish boy who allowed a ghost into his body and paid the fatal consequences."

"It'll be the second one," Blue said, her voice taking a harder tone. She floated forward and looked Lady Gray right in the eye. "I'll make sure of it."

"See that you do." Lady Gray grinned again before getting out of her chair. "Well, I've taken up enough of your time as is. I wish you all luck on your research. Beth… don't disappoint me."

"Yes Ma'am," The young woman gulped before going back and taking a folder out of the pile. Zach stared at the two of them before calmly getting a folder from the pile for himself. He flipped it open, spotted the very male photo and closed it up before setting it to the side.

"Just how are these going to be useful?" He grumbled before taking another folder. This one seemed promising. A girl aged fourteen at the time of her disappearance by the name of 'Aoi Yamada'. No picture, but the rest of the identifying information matched up. He closed it up and placed it in the much smaller pile of folders at the far end of the table.

"I'm so going to that party." Beth grumbled after another hour of going through files. Zach and Blue looked up at the sound, before going back to the files. "I'm going to go to that party, swim in the ocean, maybe find some kid's cute older brother or cousin, and I'm going to have fun."

"Well you're out of luck on that end," Zach muttered as he went through another file. "I don't think there's going to be anyone between the ages of sixteen and thirty besides you."

"How are you even going to explain why you're there?" Blue pointed out. "I mean, a woman in her twenties hanging out with a bunch of teenagers seven years younger than her is kind of creepy."

Beth flinched as though Blue had struck her across the face. Zach raised an eyebrow at the motion before putting another folder in the 'no' pile.

"If I didn't have any self-awareness, I'd call you overly dramatic," Blue snickered at Zach's dig at himself, "I'm sure I'll think of something."