“Sense anything?” Christian asked.
“Nothing yet,” Ethan muttered. No point in trying to explain about the carnival.
They left the path and continued on across the grass. The closer they got to the tree, the more uneasy Ethan became.
When they were within a few yards of the tree, a cold vapor caressed Ethan’s cheek. “Feel that?”
“No. But don’t worry. I’ve got your back.” Christian lifted his jacket, revealing a gun at his hip.
Ethan stopped walking. “You brought a gun?” The temptation to turn around was so strong that he nearly gave in. He wasn’t sure what scared him more: the spirits or the weapon.
“For protection only. Now, you doing this or what?” Christian seemed on edge, too.
Reluctantly, Ethan pushed outward his his sixth sense, searching for any trace of Sophie’s spirit. “I’m here, Sophie,” he whispered. “I’m coming to you as a friend.”
The spirit hit him with the force of a hurricane. Like a drowning woman climbing onto her rescuer, Sophie’s spirit frantically clung to him, pulling him under into the world of the dead. Terrified, Ethan fought back, thrashing violently and pushing back at her with his sixth sense. “Stop! Don’t!” he shouted. But there was no stopping her. Her spirit assaulted him every way it could, stealing breath from his nostrils and forcing itself down his throat when he screamed. He dropped to the ground.
“Ethan!” Christian cried, but his voice was distant. Christian yanked up him upright, but the moment he let go, Ethan slumped to the ground once more.
Like oil poured into water, Sophie’s essence invaded his. They didn’t melt together, rather, they were two separate things momentarily united. His world became a dizzying mix of real and imaginary. The tree stood there like a beacon of calm, but other images collided in his head. They were a symphony of sound and smell and emotions, none of which belonged to him. “Sophie, let go!” he begged, but she refused. If anything, she poured more of herself into him. The dizzying lights of the carnival, the shrieks and laughter from those on the rides, the frisson of disgust at seeing the rat in the popcorn bag…all of her memories were now his.
“Show me the Reaper,” he demanded. The sooner she did, the sooner he’d be free.
The scene shifted so quickly he gasped. He now stood by the whirling dervish of the Scrambler. Then, suddenly, the sound of tortured metal filled the air. The delighted screams became howls of terror. Ethan ducked as one of the machine’s massive arms flew at him. Acting on instinct, he threw himself aside a second before the thing would have smashed him to pieces. Or was Sophie the one who had escaped? He couldn’t be sure. There were too many things mixed up in his head.
As he lay on his back panting in distress, a woman suddenly knelt by his side. “I’m a nurse,” she said. “Let me help you.” Sophie struggled weakly. The woman leaned forward, as if expecting something. Sophie, however, was on the cusp of death. This memory was fainter than the others and growing dimmer.
That’s when he saw it: a dark, shadowy figure eight feet tall. It stood behind the woman, nearly enveloping her. The dark shadow was unending blackness. A sinister presence ready to suck the soul from his body. Already, he could feel it tugging on him, ready to rip him apart.
“Run!” Sophie screamed at him.
Fear unlocked his limbs. Ethan jumped to his feet and blindly began running. Distantly, someone called his name, but he was too terrified to stop. He was in a place where memory and dream were reality. When he dodged around people he saw, he couldn’t tell if they were living beings or phantoms of his imagination.
He sensed the dark entity behind him. It was grimly amused at his efforts to flee. Ethan put on a burst of speed, too overwhelmed to even notice where he was. All he knew was that if he didn’t escape, his essence would be pulled into that creature.
Something caught him by the back of the jacket and yanked him off of his feet. The blare of horns came like an angry chorus from the road. When Ethan hit the ground, all the breath left his body, taking Sophie’s spirit with it.
“My God, man, you nearly went out like Sophie did.” Christian, his face pale, loomed over him.
Ethan sucked wind, trying to get his breath back. The black shadow was gone, as was the carnival. It was just Christian and him alongside the road.
Christian herded Ethan back to his SUV and nearly dragged him into the passenger’s seat. He grabbed a black duffel bag from the back and took out a bottle of water. “Drink this.”
Ethan did. His hands shook so hard that he dribbled water down his chin. “It was terrible.”
“I believe you,” Christian agreed. “But did you see the Reaper? What did he look like?”
“What did it look like,” Ethan corrected. “I saw Death.”
Chapter Six
Ethan sat limply in the front seat of Christian’s SUV while Christian drove. Seeing that phantom shadow was unreal. No, it was more like hyper real. As if everything else in the world was the shadow, and the being that Ethan had seen was the only true thing. He tightly clutched the water bottle as he recalled the hungry, black vortex. Even now, he felt its eyes on him. This thought brought a wave of dread so dark that it seemed to throw a shadow over the real world.
Christian cast a sideways look in his direction. “Are you sure about what you saw?”
“Of course I am!” Ethan snapped. “It was the Angel of Death, or the Grim Reaper, or whatever you want to call it. If it had caught me, I know that it would have killed me!”
“Settle down,” Christian said.
“Settle down?! Are you kidding me?!” A million questions raced through Ethan’s mind. At the top was the one he dreaded the most. Was he like Sophie now? She’d seen death everywhere and gone mad. Was that same fate in store for him? He turned and looked at the back seat, not caring if he appeared paranoid. He swore Death was with him right now, just waiting to pounce. Now, more than ever, he sympathized with Sophie.
“How did it start for Sophie?” he demanded. Then, realizing how angry he sounded, he throttled back on the hostility. “What made her see the Angel of Death?”
“I don’t know that she saw Death with a capital D,” Christian confessed, but he kept his eyes fixed on traffic as he spoke. Ethan suspected he was lying.
“Are you sure?” he pressed.
“Look, I don’t know any of this,” Christian shot back. “Sophie told me she saw death, and I assumed she meant she saw a lot of dying. End of story.”
Ethan fought for perspective. This couldn’t be happening. Seeing ghosts was bad enough, but the Grim Reaper? The actual, Angel of Death? It was too much. “Let me out here.”
“You’re miles from home,” Christian argued. “The weather’s nasty.”
“I don’t care! Let me out.”
Ethan grabbed his book bag and got out of the car before Christian had fully stopped. There was a bus stop on the corner, and he’d grab the first one he saw, no matter what part of town it was going to. Anything to put distance between him and the bizarre business Christian had going.
Ethan spent the rest of the day at his computer. First, he looked up the accident at the carnival; the one in which Sophie had died. Sure enough, there were several headlines in the Free Press about how a car had come loose from the Scrambler ride, injuring two and killing one. A blurry picture of Sophie accompanied one of the articles. Christian’s name wasn’t mentioned.
He dug deeper, looking for links to Christian Humboldt’s name. He found a rather plain website that looked to have been constructed on a budget. It listed Christian’s PI business with an address and phone number, but that was it. All other social media site searches came up empty. It appeared that Christian liked to keep a low profile.
The front door opened. “Hey!” David called.
Not wanting David to see what he was doing, Ethan shut down his computer. When he went into the living room, he found his boyfriend carrying several grocery bags. “I’m making you dinner,” David said
.
Ethan was about to protest that it was only lunchtime, but when he looked out the window, he realized the sun was setting. Just how much of the day had he wasted?
“I wanted to make up for our crapfest last night,” David said.
“The anniversary did suck,” Ethan admitted. He helped carry the bags to the kitchen.
“You open the wine,” David said. “I’ll start on the lasagna.” He held up his finger. “But first… a surprise.” His eyes danced.
“Something for me?” Ethan asked, pleased.
“Something for both of us,” David said. “A phone call to my parents.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
David kissed his cheek. “You’ll love this. I promise.” He put his phone on speaker and pressed the button to call his parents. When his mother answered, David said, “Hey, Mom. I wanted to let you know that I won’t be able to come up for my birthday. Ethan and I have plans. Sorry.”
“You and…Ethan?” Bev sputtered. “I thought that nonsense was over!”
“We’re a couple,” David said. He managed to hang onto his smile, but it was tense. This was hard for him. Ethan put his hand on David’s shoulder to lend support. “And since we’re a couple, we’re going to celebrate my birthday as a couple.”
“David.” His mother nearly gasped the word. “You can’t be serious.”
“Completely serious, Mom,” David said. “I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but that’s the way it is.”
Ethan’s chest swelled. He’d never been prouder of his boyfriend.
“I’m telling your father!” Bev warned, as if David was a misbehaving child.
“Good. He needs to know, too.”
Bev hung up without saying good-bye.
Ethan flung his arms around David and kissed him deeply. “That was amazing! The best anniversary present ever.”
“It had to be done,” David said tightly. He held onto Ethan like he was drowning. “You’re too important for me lie about how I feel. Even to my parents. Now,” he said, cheering up, “let’s celebrate!”
Ethan’s head was too full of the day’s events to sleep. Not that he ever slept much anyway. Maybe if David had stayed the night, things would have been better. But David had gone back to his house after dinner, leaving Ethan alone with his thoughts.
Ethan picked up his guitar and strummed a few notes. Even holding the instrument soothed him. It had been too long since he’d played. School was to blame for that. He played another note, winced, and began tuning.
His phone rang and he picked up without looking at the screen. Only David would be calling this late. “Hey, Loverboy,” he said.
“Uh…hey.” It was Christian.
Ethan’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “How the hell did you get my number?” he demanded.
“I’m a PI. It’s what I do.” At least he had the decency to sound contrite. “I wanted to apologize for today. I know I put you through a lot.”
“Today and yesterday, too,” Ethan reminded him.
“Can you meet me? We need to talk.”
“We don’t need to do anything,” Ethan shot back. “You need to leave me alone. I’m not involved with this.”
“You are,” Christian said firmly. “In fact, you got involved the minute you started opening up about Kennedy Ladd. Listen, meet me for a drink, and I’ll tell you everything.”
Ethan glanced at his watch. No way was he sleeping now. “One drink,” he said and hung up.
Ethan had passed the seedy bar plenty of times, but he’d never stepped foot inside. It was the kind of place his father frequented. A place meant for heavy drinking in the company of other heavy drinkers.
Christian had already arrived and had staked himself at the end of the bar with a whiskey. There was a second drink waiting for Ethan. “I avoid the hard stuff,” Ethan said, taking a seat.
“All the more for me.” Christian knocked back the drink. There was a unhappiness to him that hadn’t been there before. As if his thoughts and memories were all weighing him down.
When the bartender came down, Ethan waved him away. He wasn’t going to stay long. “You wanted to talk?” He asked Christian.
“I figured I owed you an explanation,” Christian said.
“About the December massacre?”
“About me.” A little light entered his eyes. “I don’t always go around tazing people and kidnapping them.”
“Or threatening them?” Ethan growled. He hadn’t forgotten about the video.
Christian shrugged. “I never planned on uploading the video. I just wanted to scare you into helping. Besides, I did try to ask nice.”
It was true, and Ethan couldn’t argue. Maybe a beer was a good idea after all. He waved to the bartender and ordered a micro-brew. Hearing this, the bartender lifted a pierced eyebrow and gave him a sour look. “Labatt’s or Miller. Your choice.”
“Labatt’s,” Ethan said. “So, what’s the story?” He asked Christian.
Christian grabbed a fistful of peanuts from the bowl next to him and threw them into his mouth, like he was giving himself a moment to think. When he finished chewing, he said, “I always wanted to join the army.”
“What stopped you?” Ethan asked. “The psych exam?”
Christian glared at him. “Funny.” He threw back the other whiskey. “No, it was a guy.”
The bartender plunked a beer in front of Ethan, slopping amber liquid over the side of the glass and dousing Ethan’s sleeve. Ethan hardly noticed. “You got on the wrong side of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, didn’t you?” he guessed.
“Close. I was fresh out of high school, a young, dumb kid who made a move on the wrong man. Earned myself a dishonorable discharge.”
“And the guy?” Ethan asked.
Christian signaled the bartender for another round. With his size, he could probably drink a fifth and not feel a thing. “Lied through his teeth. Accused me of coming onto him. Got up a gang of his friends to beat the crap out of me.” Christian pulled up his shirt, revealing a scar near his navel. “One of them had a knife.”
“I’m sorry,” Ethan said.
Christian lowered his shirt. “Well, it taught me something about loyalty. And to be careful who I trust.” Christian’s next round arrived and he picked up the shot glass, tipping it towards Ethan. “Sophie was someone I could trust. She was younger than me, shorter than me, and a whole lot weaker than me, but she always had my back.”
“You miss her.”
“Like hell,” Christian agreed. “Kid sisters tend to do that to a guy.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Ethan said. As an only child, he’d often envied David his relationship with Tessa.
Christian finished his last drink. “Kidnapping you was wrong, and I apologize for that. But I did it for Sophie. I had to. I can’t let Sophie’s death be in vain. That December massacre can’t happen. Can you understand that?”
“I guess I can.”
“So what do you say? Will you keep helping me?”
Questions swarmed like mosquitoes, each one with its own, stinging uncertainty. After the Kennedy Ladd fiasco, Ethan had promised himself that he wouldn’t work with the police again, no matter what. Yet, more and more, he felt drawn to Sophie’s plight. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good enough for now,” Christian said. He paid the bar bill and walked with Ethan to the parking lot. “I’ll make you this promise,” he said when they reached his SUV. “I won’t approach you any more.”
“Thanks,” Ethan said sincerely.
“Unless it’s life or death,” Christian added with a wink and a grin.
Ethan couldn’t help but laugh. He walked away shaking his head and wondering how the hell he managed to get mixed up in these kinds of things.
Christian handed him a business card with his phone and address. “I’m not giving up hope on you yet.”
That night, Ethan dreamed…
Though it was too dark to see anything, the s
creams came through loud and clear. Each one was crying out in pain and begging for help. Ethan raced through the blackness, arms outstretched, trying to find the survivors. They needed someone to provide assistance. They needed him.
Someone grabbed his ankle. It was one of the dying. Dropping to his knees, Ethan took the victim’s hand. “Help’s coming,” he promised. Someone had called the police; he was sure of it. But when the hell would they get there?
Someone else clutched at him. Another victim. “Help me,” she begged. “I’ve been shot!”
Ethan tore off his shirt to bind the wound, but the darkness made him helpless. If only he could see! “Where are you hurt?” When the woman didn’t answer, he reached out to touch her. His hand met with something warm and sticky. “Tell me where you’re hurt!” he begged.
More voices called to him, each one pleading for his attention. Where were the ambulances? Why wasn’t anyone helping him?
Finally, red and blue strobes approached, bathing the entire place in eerie, frantic lights. Ethan recoiled in horror when he saw the number of bodies surrounding him. They were piled in haphazard drifts across the tarmac. Ethan jumped to his feet and ran towards the ambulances. “Over here!” he shouted. “They’re all over here.”
“They can’t hear you.”
Ethan whirled, coming face to face with a young woman he’d never met but immediately recognized. Sophie.
“Where am I?” he demanded. “What is this?”
“You know.”
It had to be the December massacre. It was just as Sophie had described it in her journal.
“Only you can stop this,” she told him. Her pixie-like features were pinched with worry. “No one will listen. No one will help.”
“I can’t-” he started.
“You have to! Christian needs you. I need you. Most of all, they need you. Please, Ethan.”
Deadly Spirits Page 4