The Lodge (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 15)

by Bryan, JL

  “The sun rises early in the summer,” I told Adrienne. “I bet the hunting party goes to ground at first light, don’t they?”

  “It’s not that close to sunrise.” Adrienne didn’t look back at me; her eyes were fixed on the phone. “What are you doing there, Ghostbuster Barbie?”

  On the screen of Wyatt’s phone, Garit blew the oliphant horn three times, just as he had while Stacey and I stood there cowering that night.

  Three blows had signaled the end of the hunt.

  “So what?” Adrienne asked, while her stallion stamped impatiently like a swarm of bloodthirsty bugs had descended on it. She smacked it again, hard.

  The ghostly hunting party, men and beasts alike, drew back from us, melting away into the forest’s shadows and gloom.

  “Wait,” Adrienne said. “Wait, come back!”

  “Sorry, Adrienne,” I said. “Ghosts are creatures of habit, and that horn ends the hunt for the night. And I’ll bet it’s too close to morning to get them all up and running again. Ghosts usually hate the light. I bet that goes triple for your ancestors, as evil as they were.”

  “Wait!” Adrienne screamed, turning her horse this way and that, reaching out with her bare hands as if she could stop the riders from vanishing. “Please. Don’t abandon me.”

  The man with the bloodless white skin and eyes, her ancestor Garit, looked at her from under his hood—but distantly, as if she were a stranger, or perhaps as if he didn’t even really see her there at all.

  “Great-grandfather Garit, please,” Adrienne pleaded.

  Her dead ancestor turned away and disappeared into the woods, the highest-ranking member of the lodge going to join all the others, doing nothing to aid his living heir.

  The hunting party had vanished.

  Adrienne lost control of her horse; free of its possessing spirit, it was a wild beast again. It had never before been ridden by a human, yet suddenly faced the indignity of finding one upon its back.

  The horse thrashed in a violent rage, then reared up and pitched Adrienne off. It was a long drop to the ground from the tall stallion, and Adrienne landed hard, crying out at the impact and then lying still.

  The angry stallion stomped all around the clearing, not sure which way it wanted to go or who it wanted to punish for its confusion and all it had just suffered.

  “Whoa, boy,” Stacey said in a soothing tone that might have worked if the horse had been remotely tame. We did our best to stay back, away from its kicking hooves.

  Finally, the horse found the same path from which Wyatt and Gary had emerged and galloped away instead of sticking around to trample us all, which was definitely for the best.

  “Adrienne! Are you okay?” Wyatt ran to where Adrienne lay in the dirt, her black hood thrown back to reveal her face.

  Adrienne opened her eyes and moaned. “Stupid horse.”

  “Listen,” he said. “I still believe in you. Part of you. I believe there’s a part that does want to break away and be free of all this. Don’t let go of that, whatever happens. You don’t have to be…this.”

  Adrienne seemed to think over his words for a long moment, then smiled slowly. “You still want to marry me?”

  “Oh, no, the wedding’s totally off.” Wyatt drew back and stood up. “Just, you know, get yourself some really good, really expensive, really long-term therapy, okay? Your family ought to pay for it. It’s the least they can do.”

  “You will not tell me what I need,” Adrienne said, and the air around us turned cold as winter. And I meant winter up north, with heaps of ice and snow burying people’s houses, not the kind we get way down here in south Georgia, where you can still sit on the porch in your tank top sipping iced tea.

  Thick fog formed quickly from the island’s humidity, turning the woods into an almost otherworldly environment, as if the line had blurred between dream and reality, life and death.

  “What’s happening?” Wyatt asked, shivering at the cold snap. He looked again at Gary, the man he’d stabbed, lying motionless and bloody on the ground, and looked away quickly. I felt bad for Wyatt's obvious mixed feelings, but I focused on the thick, icy fog rolling in from the woods.

  Small, fairy-like lights glowed within the fog—candles, each held by a translucent wisp of a maid, their forms and faces barely distinguishable from the fog itself.

  One leaned over Adrienne, and I saw the stitching across her head, and remembered awakening with the feeling that she’d been feeding on me.

  Now she touched Adrienne, and her apparition grew sharper and clearer. Her face was almost exultant as she fed on the Grolman heir’s energy.

  The other maids surged forward, a crowd of hungry ghosts who’d stumbled on a feast. They tore into Adrienne like jackals, licking their lips and snapping their jaws, animated by a century of simmering hatred and suffering.

  Adrienne screamed and levitated off the ground, as if drawn upward by the force of the ghosts’ hunger, their eagerness to feed on her without mercy.

  “Wyatt, help!” she shrieked.

  Wyatt held back, though, staring, clearly not wanting to get in the middle of all that, as though Adrienne were now surrounded by a Somebody Else’s Problem field herself.

  Then Adrienne was ripped away across the ground, dragged by angry spirits into the forest undergrowth like a bleating rabbit captured by dogs. Her screams shrank away into the distance, the fog going with her.

  “What…was that?” Wyatt whispered.

  “Unsettled family business, I think,” I whispered back.

  We looked at the place where Adrienne had lain, and then at where Gary still lay.

  “We’d better get some medics out here,” I said, speaking a little louder now. “And the police. I think Darika has a radio in her office, if we can’t get the satellite back up.”

  “I'm sure I can handle the satellite,” Wyatt said, mechanically and distantly.

  “And we need to check on Darika and everyone at the guest cottage,” Stacey added.

  We took Gary’s keys, and Wyatt led us back the way he and Gary had come. The black security cart waited at the edge of the road.

  As we drove to the guest cottage, the sky overhead was unusually bright, as if a storm had passed, taking every cloud with it, leaving nothing but emptiness and moonlight behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  At the guest cottage, we found Darika sleeping soundly on the sitting room couch, and Farlee and Brad asleep in their beds. Everyone was accounted for except Renoir, who was nowhere in the house.

  We eventually found him lying at the edge of the woods, a tranquilizer dart jutting from his arm, another from his leg. It looked like he’d been dragged out of sight once he was unconscious. He was breathing fine, but he was in for a long nap.

  “Gary must have waited for Renoir to do a perimeter check, then dropped him from a distance,” I said to Stacey after we checked him over. “Makes sense. I don’t think Gary could have gotten close enough to chloroform him.”

  “Should we try to carry Renoir inside?” Stacey looked at the tall, muscular man dubiously.

  “We’ll check Gary’s cart for smelling salts first.”

  At the main lodge, while Wyatt worked on fixing the satellite connection for our phones. I made a radio call for medical help in case Gary and Adrienne were still alive.

  Once the satellite was up, Wyatt focused on getting in touch with his lawyers, which seemed a good move since he’d just stabbed a guy, potentially fatally, and Adrienne was still missing. I wondered if his lawyers would arrive by blimp.

  Stacey and I finally removed our masks after dissolving the adhesive with turpentine. It was not a pleasant process.

  Against my advice, Wyatt accompanied us down into the deep underground temple. I suppose he was desperate to understand what he’d nearly gotten himself into with the Grolmans and their old family cult.

  Stacey and I brought electric lanterns and multiple flashlights. Though the sun was up, none of that light reached down in
to the temple of the death god.

  Wyatt looked ill as he watched Stacey and me using pens to open the jaws of the lodge members’ skulls, mounted on their shelves like hunters’ trophies. We put a coin in the mouth of each one—a penny here, a nickel there. As Stacey had said, hopefully the ferry to the underworld was cheap.

  “Will that really make a difference?” Wyatt asked.

  “It may not,” I said. “But according to their own rules, it may force them to move on to the other side, to leave this island behind and face whatever fate awaits them next. We still need to bury the lodge members’ skulls somewhere appropriate. The victims’ bodies need to be removed from that shaft and given a proper burial, ideally at a Polish or Polish-language church.”

  “Should we move their little headstones, too?” Stacey frowned. “Why did they even have headstones, if their bodies were down in that pit?”

  “Because those weren’t normal headstones,” I said. “They were records of the lodge’s offerings to their god. We don’t even know if Heinrich is really buried under his big tombstone or if he’s down in the pit. Maybe they glued a boar mask on him before stabbing him to death, because he was ultimately a peasant in Garit's view. Anyway, the island’s cemetery isn’t a cemetery. It’s a temple complex in disguise. That’s probably why Gary was so defensive about it, because he’s a servant of that cult.”

  Wyatt grimaced as he looked down at the distant broken bodies at the bottom of the rocky shaft. “I can’t believe any of this. Obviously, I’ll pay whatever it costs to get the victims where they need to be.”

  Stacey put an arm around him, comforting him, a task to which she was generally better suited than me.

  We placed a coin inside the jaw of each skull, like small deposits into gruesome piggy banks, then hurried to leave that underground temple forever.

  Outside, I passed the huge vault key to Wyatt, the new master of the lodge. “I’m sorry for how everything turned out. Sometimes the truth is painful, and nothing works out right.” That’s me, soft and gentle, bubbling with empathy.

  “I guess I really dodged a bullet with Adrienne,” Wyatt said.

  “So did Stacey and I,” I said. “Nine or ten of them, at least, from her rifle.”

  “She knows her way around a rifle. She says her father and grandfather sometimes take her hunting at their place on Wintertide Island.” Wyatt shuddered, as if that information had recently taken on new and unpleasant possible implications.

  “Yeah, they should probably get some Canadian Mounties or whatever to check that island, too,” Stacey said. “Tell them to look in the sacrifice pit at the hidden temple.”

  “And stick a toonie in each skull, right?” Wyatt said.

  “A two-dollar coin?” Stacey asked. “Wow, those Canadian ferrymen of death are getting paid much better than American ones. Should we have tipped the ferryman better, Ellie? Those are some pretty nasty souls he has to transport, and we barely paid enough to operate a gumball machine.”

  “I’m sure he’s seen worse,” I said. “And speaking of ferries, ours could arrive any minute.” A sound like thunder approached, and I tensed, thinking the hunting party had returned despite the daylight, perhaps to spit our coins back in our faces.

  Helicopters appeared above—police and medivac. Then the local news channel. Then a charter helicopter brimming with local Georgia attorneys retained by Wyatt’s California law firm to hold the fort until they arrived. Some had helped grease the wheels of Wyatt’s lease on the island in the first place.

  “We may not be leaving anytime soon, though.” I sighed. “Who wants coffee?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Gary, surprisingly, was still alive, though in extremely critical condition.

  Adrienne Grolman was found later in the day wandering the western marshes of Satilla Island, bruised, scratched, dehydrated, disoriented, incoherent, and exhausted. She was flown to the local hospital that had a wing named after her family, the same one where Marzena had stayed after narrowly escaping through the marsh. Her family or their representatives would surely arrive to scoop her up before long.

  When the Charleston Crosser arrived at the wharf, Captain Walker and crew were detained by police who were still trying to piece the situation together. Nobody was allowed on or off the boat or island for hours.

  It was nearly dusk when Stacey and I finally approached the ferry and saw the two extra passengers who’d come to join us.

  “You’re a day early!” Stacey said, flinging herself at Jacob, pushing him back onto the ferry rather than letting him step off. “This case is closed, as far as paranormal investigation. We’re leaving as soon as everyone lets us.”

  “Sounds like I was late, then,” Jacob said.

  “How did you get here?” I asked Michael.

  “Your guardian angel thought it was time for me to come.” Michael nodded at Captain Walker back in the wheelhouse. “He said there was a bad storm here last night, but only on this island. And people get hurt in storms.”

  “Captain Walker’s traveled these islands and waterways for decades,” I said. “It’s probably best to listen to his advice.”

  “Especially when his advice means I should see you now instead of later. That's advice I'll always like. So, what happened here?” Michael looked up at the manor house perched on the peak.

  “We’re…definitely bound by a non-disclosure agreement,” I told him.

  “Sounds serious.”

  “Our clients’ attorneys will be making formal statements.”

  “Wow, very serious.” He drew me closer, as if a boat crew and assorted uniformed officials weren’t all around us. “I’d like to make a statement of my own.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’d better make it in private. I wouldn’t want you to blush in front of all these nice, innocent people.” He raised his eyebrows as I felt my cheeks burn. “Look at that, I already failed. So, are you going to give me the tour of the forbidden island?”

  “No, never. We’re never coming back here. Let me see if the police will let us load the van onto the ferry yet.”

  We could see the stars and the moon by the time the Crosser was underway. Captain Walker was taking us all the way to Savannah, saving us a couple hours of driving.

  In the passenger area, one of the younger crewmates happily entertained Stacey’s questions about wildlife he’d seen from the boat, particularly manatees and dolphins, while we all shared RC Cola and Pringles.

  I managed to slip away for a minute and catch Captain Walker alone.

  “How did you know it was time?” I asked.

  “I expected things to go bad on that island, so I’ve been keeping an eye. Once you know to watch, then you see things change. The birds feel it first, then the fish. The sharks feel it last, or they just don’t care.”

  I laughed, and felt some genuine relief.

  “These things that you do, regarding the spirits, will change you,” Captain Walker said, joke time over now. His eyes remained on the water, watching. “Do you understand it can leave scars on your soul?”

  “Yeah, well, what’s one more for the pile, right?” I forced a laugh, trying to brush off as minor and unimportant any potential damage that constantly walking in the world of death might have done to my psyche, let alone my soul.

  He didn’t buy my fake carefree attitude, though. He didn’t even try it on. “Life is for the living. Don’t bury yourself with the dead. The time for that will come on its own. You can’t stop the tide from changing.”

  “Or the wheel of fortune from turning.”

  “Hey, Vanna White.” He winked. “Lady Luck herself. And what happens at the end of Wheel of Fortune?”

  “The bonus round?”

  “At the end of every show, no matter how much you win or lose, the wheel stops turning and the lights go out. You get three rounds, maybe a bonus round, and that’s it.” Captain Walker thumped the wheel of his boat for emphasis.

  “What if y
ou become a returning champion?”

  “That’s Jeopardy. Nobody gets a second turn at the Wheel. Now, let me have quiet. There’s shoals ahead.”

  Later, Michael and I sat inside the cab of his truck, parked on the ferry, watching the moonlight reflecting on the surface of the water.

  “Some people would say a night cruise is the most romantic kind of date,” he said.

  “You’re just happy for a cheap date where we hang out in your truck.”

  “Always.” He leaned over and kissed me, and it lasted a while, and I was glad we had some privacy inside his truck, shielded by the old blue van, for the rest of the trip. He was strong and warm and mentally stabilizing, and I did my best, for at least a little while, to focus on the living and forget about the dead.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  In that spirit, I agreed to a thing I would normally have declined out of hand, and it terrified me, and ultimately I did it for one reason only: because I knew Michael would love it.

  Okay, I also didn’t want to look chicken in front of Stacey, who was obviously going to be enthusiastic about it.

  It was a few weeks later, close enough to Michael’s birthday that I could pass the experience off as a birthday present, though it was coincidental. I think Wyatt just wanted some closure with Stacey and me to help sever our trauma bonds, or at least that’s what his chef told me.

  At Wyatt’s invitation, we took an afternoon sky cruise aboard his blimp—sorry, his hybrid airship, he does not like it when people call it a blimp, though everyone does anyway. Because that’s what it is, Wyatt, a blimp.

  The interior of the gondola was indeed luxurious, though.

  Farlee worked in the kitchen nook behind a chrome serving counter, blending smoothies and cutting some unfamiliar-to-me vegetables drizzled with vinegar and served with a tiny scoop of red bean paste. I wasn’t sure whether it was any good, because I couldn’t eat a bite. The view was filling my stomach with a big pile of nerves, leaving no room for food or beverages. Hopefully, the chef didn’t take it personally.