by H. P. Bayne
Sully froze, eyes widening as they fixed on Eva.
“I won’t get into the rest of it, other than to say my mom came in before things went really far. But it was bad enough. I got really screwed up because of it. Luckily, my mom, messed up as she was back then, was a bear about her kids. She kicked him out and called the police. He was charged and eventually convicted, and he served time in jail for it. And Mom got me in with a great counsellor. I was able to put all the pain and shame someplace where I could get on with my life. A big part of why I went into policing is probably down to what happened to me, so I could help others who went through it, I guess.”
She glanced at Sully. “As strong as I feel now, as far as I’ve come, some things still put me right back there. I know you’re the same. Dez has talked to me about it, when you’ve had a bad time about something and he doesn’t know how to help. With the experiences we’ve had, we’ve got triggers, and there’s no trigger as bad as seeing the people who hurt us.
“I saw the man again a couple of years ago. He was at a bar we needed to attend to make an arrest on an outstanding warrant. I saw him, and I suddenly felt about five years old. Just like that. If it wasn’t for Dez’s support that night—”
Her voice cracked, and Sully’s stomach dropped for a second time since he’d gotten into the vehicle. Eva rarely cried. When she did, it was a big deal.
He reached over, laying a hand on her shoulder until she’d regained control. Before he could remove his hand, she clasped his fingers in hers.
“What I’m trying to say,” she said, “is we have soft spots inside ourselves we need to acknowledge. If you take that man’s energy inside yourself—even for a reason as noble as protecting your brother—you risk falling under the weight of it. If you do, if you become something dark, you might end up doing some really bad damage. Not just to yourself, but to us. There’s got to be another way. If this were any other spirit, Sully, I’d know you could handle it. But not this one. Please, don’t try.”
She gave his fingers a last squeeze before releasing him. He eased out the air in his lungs, mind spinning with everything Eva had told him and everything he no longer had the answers for. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Dez, including facing down the most horrible moments of his life. But Eva had spoken a truth he felt deeply inside himself. He was risking unlocking a door he needed to keep shut. If he opened it, he wouldn’t be saving Dez—he might end up hurting him worse than Blake ever could.
Sully pinched at the corners of his eyes, desperation drawing tears.
“I need to make a call,” he said.
“To who?”
“Marc. Maybe he’ll have an idea about what I can do.” Marc Echoles, a friend who worked as a professor of Occult Studies at the university. Though he didn’t always have the answers, he could often point Sully in the right direction. And right now, he needed direction.
So did Eva, Sully realized. “You need to make the next right. That’s the grid Dez turned down.”
Sully placed Eva’s cellphone onto the centre console where she could see it and pulled out his own handset to make the call. Marc’s cellphone rang once before he picked up.
Check that. His voicemail picked up.
Sully swore quietly and disconnected without leaving a message.
“Probably away for the holidays,” Eva suggested.
Sully shook his head. “It’s his cellphone.”
“Probably busy for the holidays, then.” She offered an attempt at an encouraging smile, not quite passing it off. “I guess we’ll have to figure this one out ourselves. Or is there someone else you can call up to help us out?”
Sully’s first thought was of Raiya Everton, a practicing Wiccan with some incredible skills and knowledge all her own.
Then he thought of someone else. Someone who wasn’t quite a someone so much as a something.
“Ghost train,” he whispered.
He felt Eva’s eyes on him without the need to turn. “What?” Her voice was sharp.
“The ghost train. Remember? The Edge Creek Light. There’s a reaper on the train. If I can pull Blake out of Dez, the reaper can take it from there.” Sully finally faced Eva, hope rekindled inside him, a possible solution at his fingertips. “If we can get Dez and Blake to Edge Creek, the reaper there should be able to help.”
Eva lost a shade of colour. Only then did Sully recall what had happened the last time she’d been out there.
“Eva—”
“It’s okay. It’s to save Dez. It’s okay.”
He touched her shoulder again, then withdrew his hand. She had her own demons, having been forced to fatally shoot a man who was trying to kill Sully.
“Once we get there, you can stay in the car, no problem,” he said. “I can take it the rest of the way.”
“One thing at a time,” she said. “For now, let’s focus on finding Dez, all right?”
Sully nodded. One thing at a time was right. Anything more would be beyond what he could deal with.
8
They drove for what felt like a long time down the grid, their progress slowed by icy patches and recent snowdrifts fingering across the road.
A set of tire tracks backed up the GPS data, telling them they were on the right path.
“Shouldn’t be far now,” Sully said. “Looks like he’s a short distance off the road.” He squinted and zoomed in a little more. “Hang on. Nope, there’s a second road. I think he turned onto it and stopped there.”
He watched the unmoving GPS tracker as Eva navigated their rough path, telling her to slow even more as they neared the second road, currently hidden behind a row of evergreens.
“Should be somewhere behind those trees, I think.”
Eva reached the spot—indeed a road—and stopped.
Sure enough, the SUV sat there, parked haphazardly on the roadway, the piled snow making driving impossible.
Eva pulled onto the approach, enough to get her vehicle off the main road, then turned off the engine and pulled the keys. “If I try to drive in there, I won’t be getting out without a tow truck.”
“I don’t think Dez will either,” Sully said. “Looks like he’s stuck.”
“I can’t imagine anyone uses this road anymore. It probably hasn’t been ploughed all winter. If it wasn’t for the ditches, I wouldn’t even know it was here.”
Sully met her eye. “Ready?”
“Gonna have to be. Let’s go.”
They stepped out of the car, Sully reluctantly leaving the heat behind. Nothing good awaited them out here, and he wasn’t looking forward to whatever lay ahead. But he wanted to get Dez out of this as soon as possible, so he set a brisk pace toward the SUV.
Eva jogged around her car to catch up. “Do you see him inside?”
Sully shook his head. “Not yet. But we’re still a bit far.”
He worked on fixing that, walking as quickly as the snow allowed until he reached the vehicle.
No Dez.
“Crap,” he muttered.
Eva moved past him, head bent to scan the ground around the vehicle. Meanwhile, Sully checked the SUV doors. Locked. Just as well, since Eva’s expensive Christmas gift and Kayleigh’s hard-to-get toy were likely still inside.
Eva spoke from a short distance away, drawing Sully’s attention to the roadway behind the SUV. “He left footprints.” One gloved index finger extended toward the road until Sully gained her side. “You can see them here, in the middle of his tire tracks. He went back the way he came. Come on.”
Sully maintained as fast a pace as he could, jogging back toward the road while keeping his eyes on Dez’s footsteps. Back at Eva’s car, they scanned the area, searching the world of white for any specks of black on the horizon that might be Dez. Nothing revealed itself. Nor did similar bootprints show up immediately, plenty of tire tracks having flattened the snow in many places. For the moment, they left the car where it was, scanning the snow for clues, spreading out in either direction when their in
itial search came in empty.
Finally, Sully picked out a print matching those seen on the unploughed road. “Eva! Got something over here!”
She jogged over, lending her own assessment. “Good job. Looks as if he’s headed north. Come on.”
She led the way at a run back to the car, leaving Sully to bring up the rear.
“Hold on,” he called out. “Why don’t we keep walking it? If we’re driving, we might miss something or drive over a clue.”
“We still need the car,” she said. “If he doesn’t want to come willingly, it’ll be a hell of a lot harder for us to drag him all the way back here.”
“Point taken. I’ll walk while you drive. I’d hate to miss something.”
Eva nodded. “Let me walk it though. Working with the police, I’ve tracked more than my fair share of suspects using footprints. It’s second nature. Get in and follow. And keep checking the surrounding area for Dez. If you keep your eyes up and I keep mine down, hopefully we can get this sorted out sooner rather than later.”
In the driver’s seat, Sully crawled along the road behind Eva, scanning the area around them. They continued for what felt like forever, Eva moving at a jog at times but otherwise maintaining a slower pace, head turned toward the ground. Sully had shut off the radio partway along, the merry Christmas platitudes doing nothing for his stress level. Doubtful Burl Ives or Bing Crosby had ever been in the position of locating a missing brother who’d been possessed by an evil spirit the day before Christmas Eve. Just as well too. This wasn’t the sort of thing Sully would wish on anyone.
At last, Eva jogged back to the vehicle, face red from cold as she dropped into the passenger seat. “Holy hell, it’s freezing out there.”
“You still have his trail?”
“Yeah, and he’s been holding a steady path since he got stuck. I need a warm-up, but no point losing time. Keep driving ahead—go slowly. Watch for any paths off the road.”
Her teeth chattered lightly, so Sully cranked up the heat while he drove. He didn’t voice the thought he suspected they both shared: Blake probably wouldn’t notice the cold—a fact that could prove fatal to Dez.
Five minutes turned into ten, ten to twenty. Still nothing to signify and end to the seemingly endless situation.
At last, the land evened into a long, flat stretch, allowing them to see for a good mile in each direction. No Dez anywhere in sight, but something else revealed itself.
“Looks like a yard site up ahead,” Eva said. She turned to Sully. “Let’s get there. I’m willing to bet Blake noticed the same thing.”
Sully pressed down on the gas, clearing the distance to the farm. As they neared, Sully could tell it was an operating farm. A herd of cattle stood in a large pen near a barn, and smoke billowed in a thin cloud suggestive of a chimney. Sure enough, Sully steered into the yard to find a newer SUV parked next to the side door of a comfortable-looking bungalow. Christmas decorations were up. A set of wire-mesh reindeer bent as if to munch at snow in the yard in front of the house, and a large plastic Santa adorned the front step, while a row of icicle lights dangled from the eaves. Snowflake shapes had been placed in the windows, suggesting the interior was likewise decorated.
Sully pulled up behind the SUV and led the way from the car.
“What if he’s here?” Sully muttered to Eva on the way to the side door. “Blake didn’t react too well to me the last time.”
“Let me take the lead,” Eva said. “I still want you close by in case something goes wrong. I can’t imagine a situation in which Blake agrees to come quietly, not if he’s got his own agenda. I hate to say it, but we might have to fight him.”
“I hate for you to say it too,” Sully said.
With no way to predict how the situation would unfold, Sully took the wooden steps to the side door. No doorbell in sight, he rapped, then stepped to the side to place Eva in direct sight of the door.
A few seconds passed before the sound of movement from inside reached Sully’s ears. Eva pasted on a warm smile, and Sully did the same. He was relieved when the woman whose face appeared in the doorway met their grins with her own.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” Eva said. “We’re looking for a friend of ours. We wondered if he might have come this way. He’s very tall and—”
“Red hair?” the woman cut in.
Sully and Eva each nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s him,” Eva said. “Is he here?”
“He was. He got stuck on the road, not too far from the highway.”
“Where did he go?”
“Oh, well, he was hoping for a tow, but my husband is replacing a tire on the frontend loader today. He’s got another hour or two of work to do. Your friend—Jim?—didn’t want to wait. He seemed in a rush to leave.”
Sully didn’t doubt it. Even now, Blake might be under the impression he’d killed Sully earlier today. Last thing he’d want was to stick around anywhere long enough to give the police a chance to catch up to him. Of course, he could simply jump out of Dez’s body anytime he wanted and leave Dez holding the bag.
Or could he? Maybe it wasn’t as easy to get out as in, like climbing out of a deep river with strong currents. Even if he could get out easily, why would he want to give up Dez’s body? He was young, strong and solid—everything a bully like Blake would yearn to be. He’d have to search long and hard to find another human being as big and as powerful as Dez.
The lady hadn’t quite answered the question, so Eva asked again. “Do you know where he went?”
“Not precisely. My husband offered to give him a lift into town, though. They must be there by now, as long as the roads weren’t bad.”
“McCoy Falls?” Eva asked.
The woman shook her head. “Kimotan Rapids.”
Sully’s heart dropped. If Blake disappeared into the expanse of the city, it might be next to impossible to locate him. “Is there any way you could contact your husband and ask where he dropped Jim off?” he asked.
“He doesn’t often answer his cellphone, I’m afraid. He hates technology. I can ask him when he gets back?” Her voice rose in a question.
Eva smiled. “I’d really appreciate it. If you have someplace to jot it down, I’ll leave you my cellphone number.”
“Of course. Step inside for a moment while I get a pen and paper.”
As the woman headed farther inside the house, Sully gladly stepped into the entryway, pushing the door shut behind Eva to seal in the warmth. His relief was short-lived, his thoughts instilling in him a whole other kind of chill. His brain spun through scenarios, all the things that could happen before he was able to pull Blake from Dez.
Eva turned and waved him toward her. He leaned over, allowing her to whisper to him. “Do you think the man Dez is with is in any danger?”
Sully gave it some thought before shaking his head. “Blake could be plenty charming with adults when it suited him. It was the kids in his care who had reason to worry.”
“But you’re an adult now, and he went off on you. And he was going after the people living on his old property.”
“They were intruders to him. As for me, I was a threat to him, and he knew it. It was pretty obvious I was there to remove him from the place. The guy who’s driving him around now is doing him a service. He has no reason to hurt him.”
At least, Sully hoped not. Fact was, years had passed since Blake had been separated from his body. Time did things to ghosts, same as it did to living people. Being trapped in a single location, alone and with nothing but dark memories to occupy oneself—that would do something to a spirit. Blake’s family was gone and he was alone. He probably carried with him the knowledge someone had made it happen. He’d be traumatized, he’d be furious and he’d be paranoid—a bad combination at the best of times. Add booze to the mix, as it seemed Blake was eager to do, and you ended up with a powder keg primed to blow.
When the lady returned with a small notepa
d and a pen, she jotted down the number Eva gave her. Sully provided his, in case; then, he and Eva both took out their phones and keyed in the woman’s number and her name—Brenda—saving it in their contacts.
“We really appreciate this,” Eva said.
“You’re very welcome. He seemed quite stressed. I mean, anyone would be after getting stuck and having to walk several miles in the cold. But I had a feeling there was something more. I felt bad for him. I think my husband did too.”
Sully and Eva thanked her one last time. After receiving another promise Brenda would call once she spoke with her husband—Keith—they left.
For a while, they drove in silence, Eva back behind the wheel. Sully finally turned to her, mouth opening to speak, but he promptly shut it. Though she wasn’t crying, her face was tight and hard, her hand clenching the wheel hard enough to impede circulation.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Eva.”
Her body seemed to sink, shoulders dropping, spine softening, facial muscles changing her expression from hardened to worried. “I guess I was really hoping he was there. Every minute he’s under that bastard’s control is time he might do something he shouldn’t. Or he might get hurt. I mean, he’s already done some really bad stuff. What’s to stop him doing worse?”
Sully could think of nothing to say in response—he couldn’t argue the point, not given what had happened earlier. He settled for the next best thing, laying a hand on her shoulder.
He left it there until the skyline of Kimotan Rapids came into view through the windshield.
9
They had gone as far as they could—for now, anyway.
Eva pulled into a truck stop on the city’s northeastern limits and parked so they faced the highway. Sully headed inside to hunt for snacks but couldn’t find anything he thought he could stomach. He settled on a couple of bottles of soda, paid and returned to the vehicle.