Possibly. He’d managed to do so earlier that day, but somehow, what had been trying to climb out of her Kindle had felt even worse than the demons at the Whitcomb house. Maybe it was only that tonight’s entities had been inside her own home, and the attack had felt like more of a violation than the others.
Still doubtful, she said, “If you’re sure….”
“As sure as I can be,” Michael replied. “And I want to see the place where the attack occurred. Possibly I can pick up something from it. I can do my inspection while you’re packing your things.”
She wanted to ask how much she needed to pack, but she doubted even Michael would know the answer to that question. Probably three days’ worth of changes of clothes should be enough; by that point, they’d both have a better idea of whether it was safe for her to get back inside her house.
The real problem was, she didn’t know if she really wanted to go back. Not after what had happened tonight. Her house had always been a sanctuary to her, but now it felt…tainted.
Haunted.
They were both quiet for the rest of the short trip. When they pulled up to the house, everything appeared tranquil, the light on the front porch shining serenely, the drapes and blinds shut for the evening, with just a hint of the illumination from the lamps inside peeking through.
Appearances could be deceiving, though.
Michael and Audrey got out of his SUV at the same time, although she waited by the passenger door until he came around the front end of the Land Cruiser and stopped next to her. For a moment, he stood there in silence, probably trying to see if he could feel any strange vibes. Then he shrugged and said, “It seems all right. Let’s go inside.”
She nodded and got her keys out of her purse, and followed him up the front walk to the porch, even though she could feel her stomach beginning to tighten with unease. After she unlocked the door, he went inside first, then paused for a few seconds.
“Do you feel anything now?” she asked.
His response was immediate. “No. Where did it happen?”
“Upstairs, in my bedroom. It’s the last door at the end of the hall.”
He walked up the stairs, with Audrey trailing reluctantly in his wake. Every other step, he would go still for a moment, obviously reaching out to feel the vibes of the house. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t sensing anything out of the ordinary, because he kept going and didn’t say anything to her.
Thank God she’d left the lights on. Right now, the upstairs hallway looked innocuous enough, with its shining wood floors and the hand-knotted carpet runner in cheerful shades of blue and cream running down the center of the space.
Under other circumstances, it might have felt awkward to have Michael Covenant entering her bedroom. At the moment, though, she could only be profoundly grateful for his presence. With him there, she didn’t feel nearly as afraid. In fact, she could almost believe the whole thing had merely been her imagination playing tricks on her. An expensive trick, because of the smashed Kindle, but still….
It was still lying on the floor, bits of glass from its shattered screen scattered all around it. She wasn’t sure what would have been worse — to find it still intact, mocking her attempt to block the creatures that had tried to crawl out of it, or to see it broken as it was now, mute testimony to the terrible events of only an hour earlier.
“I still don’t feel anything,” Michael said. His gaze fell on the ruined e-reader, but he only added, “Go ahead and get your things packed. I want to take a look at that while you’re packing.”
Audrey nodded and got to work, moving quickly to the closet so she could get her weekender bag off the top shelf. Luckily, the light switch for the closet was on the wall just outside it, so she could turn on the light and reassure herself there weren’t any monsters in there before she actually stepped inside. A couple of shirts, one blazer — just in case — and that was it for the closet. Everything else she needed was either in her dresser or the bathroom.
As she hurried over to the dresser, she saw that Michael had now crouched down next to her smashed Kindle and had picked it up — but gingerly, by the edges, so he wouldn’t injure himself on the broken glass — and was turning it over in his hands. He was frowning, but that could have meant anything.
While he was preoccupied, Audrey grabbed underwear and a couple of bras, another T-shirt and pair of yoga pants to sleep in, some socks. After that, she went into the bathroom and got out the little bag of travel-sized necessities that she kept under the sink — toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, moisturizer. Another bag held duplicates of her everyday makeup, and she grabbed that as well.
When she came back out of the bathroom, Michael was now standing up, although he still held the broken Kindle in one hand.
“Did you get anything from it?” Audrey asked.
“No,” he replied. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
She explained how she’d been reading the world’s dullest book on the device and had started to nod off…but then saw that terrible vision of the swirling darkness and the hands reaching out for her.
“And a horrible sensation of cold, just like I experienced at the Whitcomb mansion,” she finished. “That was when I threw the thing at the wall and ran.”
“Do you think you might have still been asleep when you saw the vision?” he asked. “I mean, it’s very possible that your subconscious mind could have been working on you, conjuring images like that because of what you saw in the mirror this morning.”
She supposed that could be a possibility, but it had felt far too real. Still, as a psychologist, she knew all too well how powerful the mind could be, how it could make a person see things that weren’t there. And really, the hands reaching out of that dizzying darkness hadn’t been terribly unlike the ones she’d seen in the bathroom at the Whitcomb mansion. Maybe it had all been in her mind….
But then Michael let out a hiss of a breath, and Audrey looked over to see the Kindle he held, saw how dark, oily blood was now oozing from the shattered screen. It wasn’t Michael’s blood; he held the device by its edges, away from the screen, and she couldn’t detect any cuts on his hands or fingers.
He looked up, those gray-gilt eyes catching hers. Then he carefully set the Kindle back down on the floor.
“I think,” he said quietly, “that it’s time for us to leave.”
On the drive over to Pasadena, Michael was silent, and Audrey took his lead. Honestly, she didn’t know what that strange, dark blood dripping out of her Kindle meant, except that the incident clearly hadn’t been the byproduct of a fevered and over-active imagination. Right then, she was just glad that she was well away from her house. While Michael might not have been the most reassuring personality in the world, it still felt good to be there in his ancient Land Cruiser. He was certainly better equipped to deal with this situation than anyone else she could think of.
She had no idea what to expect of his house, because images of everything from a sleek, modern condo to an old converted farmhouse had flitted through her mind. However, they pulled up into the driveway of a large Craftsman-style home, probably around the same vintage as Audrey’s own house, except larger and — she guessed, because it was located in Pasadena, not Glendora — much more expensive than hers. The porch light was on, but she couldn’t see much exterior detail because the home was painted dark brown, like many other Craftsman houses in the area.
No garage, only a carport. Michael parked the Land Cruiser there and turned off the engine. “We can go in through the back door,” he said. “It’s closer than going around the front.”
She nodded, then, after gathering up her purse and weekender bag, followed him to a modest little stoop at the rear of the house. He unlocked the door, and they went into a decently sized kitchen, one with cheerful yellow and blue tile countertops, a wood floor, and a cute little table for two placed up against a window that must open out on the side yard. In fact, it looked so prosaic, so normal, that Audrey found
herself beginning to relax slightly.
“Your bio says you live in L.A.,” she blurted out, and he actually smiled.
“Well, that was true when I gave my biography to my publishers. I just haven’t updated it lately.” A glint in his eyes, and he added, “Besides, a little disinformation helps keep the crazies away.”
She didn’t chide him for using that particular term. In his line of work, he probably encountered a whole host of people who had a difficult time dealing with reality. Obfuscating his actual city of residence made sense, unfortunately.
“I’m going to make us some chamomile tea,” he went on. “I figure we could both use a little help getting to sleep tonight.”
“Probably,” Audrey agreed. Despite everything that had happened to her that evening, she couldn’t quite prevent herself from smiling at the thought of him making the two of them tea.
Not that it was a protracted process, because he had one of those instant hot water spigots installed to the left of the kitchen sink, and so the tea was steeping in a couple of big dark blue glazed mugs within a minute. He handed one to Audrey, saying, “Let’s go out to the living room.”
“Sure.”
The main floor of the house included the living room and dining room and other spaces that appeared to be a library and TV area, along with a sort of enlarged alcove off the living room. In there, Audrey was surprised to see a baby grand piano, constructed of warm, mellow-toned wood rather than the usual black. Antique bookcases with beveled glass fronts lined the walls of the living room, and all those bookcases seemed to be filled to capacity, with more books sitting on top, held in place by geode bookends in natural shades of gray and brown.
It was darker in here than in the kitchen, the original dark wood wainscoting still in place, the same dark wood surrounding the windows and appearing once again in the beams overhead. At one end of the living room was an enormous river stone fireplace with a plain, broad mantel. On that mantel sat more books. One wall held a large cross of intricately carved dark wood. The protection he’d hinted at? Audrey had a feeling that whatever wards he had in place here, most of them wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye.
“You can put your bags there,” Michael said, pointing with his free hand at the bottom step. “All the bedrooms are upstairs — there’s a guest room where you can sleep.”
“Okay.” Audrey set down her bags in the spot he’d indicated, glad to know that she’d have an actual room to sleep in rather than the couch, which was a big dark brown leather affair that looked imposing rather than comfortable.
He’d gone ahead and taken a seat on that couch. Luckily, there were two armchairs upholstered in dark green velvet placed opposite the couch, so she could sit down across from Michael without it looking too obvious that she was uncomfortable about sitting right next to him.
Mug of chamomile tea held in both hands, its warmth helping to soothe her before she’d taken a single sip, Audrey looked over at him. It felt strange to be alone here with him in his house, but she wanted to do her best to act natural. “What now?”
“Well, we both get a good night’s sleep. I’m hoping in the morning I’ll have some good news from Colin about getting a replacement camera person.” Michael lifted his mug of tea to his lips and took a very small sip; it was probably still too hot to really drink.
“Do you think it will be hard to find someone?” she asked. In a strange way, it felt good to be talking about a practical problem like finding a new cameraman, rather than returning to the topic of the attack that had occurred at her house not an hour earlier. “I always got the impression that there were ten people for each job in Hollywood.”
That comment earned her a smile — a real smile, one that seemed to alter his features and make her realize that Michael Covenant actually was a very attractive man. But did she want to acknowledge such an obvious fact? Going in that direction might lead her into dangerous territory, especially considering that she was now sleeping under his roof…if only temporarily.
“I think it depends on the job,” he said. “And the problem is that word tends to get around.”
“I thought we all had to sign nondisclosure agreements to work on the show.”
“We do — or rather, you and the rest of the crew had to sign one. But this isn’t like leaking the latest Marvel script to the media. Rumors travel fast, and it can be pretty hard to prove who started them.” He let out a little huff of a breath, not quite a sigh, and blew on the surface of his tea. “Anyway, I don’t want to punish Chris. Some people can handle this kind of work, and some can’t. I just wish he’d figured it out before we started shooting.”
Audrey began to agree, then realized she wasn’t so very different from Chris, except that clearly, she needed the money more than he did. Would walking away even have helped, though? Somehow, she got the feeling that once a person was unlucky enough to have attracted the demons’ attention, it was very difficult to get rid of them. “I’m sure you’ll find someone soon,” she said, although she didn’t sound very convinced, not even to herself.
“I hope so, because I think as soon as we get the Whitcomb house cleared, your home will be cleared as well, and we can put this incident behind us.”
Until we go to Tucson, Audrey thought. What if whatever we encounter there decides to latch on to me as well?
Although she hadn’t spoken aloud, it seemed as though Michael had picked up on what she was thinking. “I’m very sorry about all this,” he said quietly. “I’ve dealt with infestations far worse than the one in the Whitcomb house, and while I might have personally suffered attacks from the entities involved, no one assisting me — and no one on any of my crews — has ever had it affect them directly. If I’d known that was even a possibility here, I would never have asked you to join the show as my co-host.”
He sounded so genuinely sorry that Audrey almost wished she was sitting next to him on the couch so she could reach over and place a reassuring hand on his arm. Since she couldn’t do that, she said, “Don’t worry, Michael. It’s fine.”
She actually didn’t know whether it was fine, but the words were an automatic form of reassurance, a way to let him know she didn’t blame him for any of this. And truly, she didn’t. Maybe he was putting on an act for her, trying to seem contrite so she would continue to go along with his schemes, but she didn’t think that was the case. She didn’t know for sure how many of these demonic investigations he’d worked on, although she guessed he’d been involved with enough to know how much risk each one presented. He’d miscalculated in this particular instance, but that wasn’t malice, only bad luck.
And, as he’d just pointed out, there was a very good chance everything would go back to normal once they’d gotten the Whitcomb mansion cleansed of its current evil occupants. She had to believe that, because otherwise, she really wasn’t sure what she would do.
Or would her house end up on a future episode of Project Demon Hunters?
Audrey didn’t want to think about that.
For a moment, they were both quiet. The tea had cooled enough that they could take cautious sips now, and it was somehow reassuring to her to sit there and wrap her cold hands around the warm ceramic of the mug she held while she drank the tea. Would the chamomile really help her sleep? It hadn’t in the past, but she still appreciated Michael making the drink. It was a sort of peace offering, a way to let her know he was truly sorry for what had happened today.
As she drank, Audrey allowed herself to make a quick survey of the room. The bookcases were the dominant feature, but he also had quite a few abstract and metaphysical paintings hanging on the walls. They should have clashed with the traditional architecture of the house, and yet she found the combination pleasing because of the warm palette all the canvases shared.
She realized then that she couldn’t see any photos of family and friends, nothing to show that Michael had a life outside his work. While she realized that not everyone felt the need to display photographs on
every surface, their complete absence here was still a little puzzling. It was possible he was an orphan, just as she herself was, but even though Audrey had lost her parents, she still had pictures of her family on the mantel in the living room, and a photo from her parents’ wedding on the sideboard in the dining room.
Well, as far as she could tell, Michael had done his best to make himself a mystery, a man without a past. His professional biographies only went back about seven or eight years. Maybe reporters or investigators had tried to dig into his personal history, but if they’d found anything juicy, she hadn’t heard anything about it.
“The Tucson case sounds interesting,” Michael said then.
“Oh?” Audrey was too tired to inject much enthusiasm into even that one syllable. As far as she was concerned, they needed to get the Whitcomb house wrapped up before they could even begin to think about another paranormal investigation. She needed closure, needed to know that she wouldn’t have to face any further attacks.
He didn’t seem to notice her diffidence, but went on, “Yes. It’s a B&B that’s located in an older part of town. The building dates to the mid-1870s. There’ve been signs of poltergeist activity lately, and the owners want us to come investigate.”
She could see why poltergeists might be bad for business, but she couldn’t understand why a show that focused on hunting demons would get involved in that sort of situation. After she said something along those lines to Michael, he shrugged.
“‘Poltergeist activity’ is shorthand for physical objects being affected by unseen forces. The television thrown at us in the basement of the Whitcomb mansion — you could classify that as poltergeist activity, too, even though the TV was being manipulated by a demon.”
Great. Audrey sipped some more chamomile tea. “I thought poltergeists were usually associated with children in the house.”
“They can be.” Michael put his mug of tea down on the coffee table. “Demons often try to work through children because their minds are more open, which is why so many people associate poltergeists with kids or young teenagers. But it’s not that these kids have suddenly developed telekinetic abilities, but that they’ve unwittingly allowed something to enter their homes.”
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