The Thirteen Bends

by Shannon Reber

  I nodded to him, my eyes still fixed on Gina. “Did you hear me, Gina? It wasn’t you.”

  “But it was!” she wailed, clenching her fists in her hair. “It was my body. It’s in my memory, seeing Tanya’s eyes as blood drains out of her at my feet. It was MY body that did it.” And she slumped onto the cot next to her, sobs of grief and horror shaking her broad shoulders.

  I had no idea what to say. I was good with computers, not people. I understood how she must feel but I knew she was innocent. The spirit had used her body to do something horrible but she had not done it.

  She would have to come to that realization on her own. I wouldn’t be able to convince her. And if the cops were listening, we had very little time before they sent in people with straitjackets to cart me off to my padded accommodations.

  Quinn peered at me through the bars of her own cell, motioning to the window behind me. “We’re too late. The sun has set. Somebody else is going to die.”

  I shook my head, thinking back through all the things I’d read. There had to be something, some way to stop that ghost from possessing someone else.

  Spencer would be able to stop them with no trouble. Since my phone had been confiscated and I hadn’t been offered a phone call, there was very little I could do. I had to try, though. Someone else’s life depended on it.

  “Hey! I need a phone call! NOW!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, aware that the cops probably had people bellowing in those cells all the time. “It’s an emergency!”

  Nothing happened. The door remained closed. No one came to see what all the commotion was.

  I yelled for so long, it made my throat hurt. Tears welled in my eyes as the darkness outside the windows grew even deeper. Someone would die if we didn’t get out of there.

  When all hope had faded from my mind, the door of the holding area opened and the bark of a dog filled the air. I whipped my head toward the sound, my mouth falling open as Roy bounded his way in. His FBI harness was in place as he ran over to the cell door and stood on his hind legs. He put his front legs on one of the crossbars and rested his chin on his paws as he gazed at me.

  I reached through the bars to hug the shapeshifter. “We have to get out of here. Fast,” I told him frantically.

  “Why?” Roche asked from the door, his arms crossed as he lazed against the wall.

  “Because there’s a serial killer out there who has probably already set their sites on someone new. Please. I’ve worked several cases and have had a hand in solving all of them. Distrust me all you want but do it while we’re saving the next victim.”

  Roche sucked his teeth without moving closer. “You have powerful friends. Even though I want to lock you up and throw away the key, I can’t. I want you to know, though, I’m going to be watching. You set one toe out of line, you’ll be back in a cell and there will be no reprieve by some FBI kid who just wants to get in your pants,” he rumbled, moving to my cell in a slow, methodical way.

  I was furious at him for making that kind of assumption about Simms when it wasn’t even close to true. I wanted to scream at him to hurry up. If I did, he would probably go even slower. I just stood there and waited while someone outside hit the button that released mine and Ian’s doors.

  Roche stood in the way, barring my path as I began to exit. “I think you’re both a con artist and a psychopath. I. Will. Be. Watching.”

  I slunk my way past him, resting my hand on Roy’s head as he leaned his body into my leg. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said to Roy, wrapping my hand around Ian’s as we rushed toward the exit.

  “Madison, this isn’t as clear cut as you think it is. There’s more to the story,” Quinn called after us, her hands wrapped around the bars of her cell.

  I looked at Roche, ready to take my life into my hands by asking him to release her as well.

  “There’s no time, Madison. Go. Save whoever you can,” she said, something in her tone telling me that she knew far more of the story than she’d told us.

  I didn’t have time to contemplate it, so I just nodded to her and ran off with Ian and Roy.

  ELEVEN

  As we ran out of the police station, a big, black SUV pulled up in front of us. I recognized Simms’ vehicle immediately, so we jumped in without hesitation.

  I started speaking before I had even closed the door behind myself. “Campbells Run Road. The third bend. We’ve got a ghost possessing people,” I told Simms, relieved when he didn’t question me.

  Simms took off, his eyes fixed on the road as he sped along. “How do you plan to expel the spirit? Is Spencer coming?”

  “I haven’t even had time to let them know what’s happening. I think it’s going to have to be us,” I said, sighing in relief as Roy nosed a plastic bag toward me.

  I tore it open, frustrated to find that my wallet and the chunk of amber were there but the vial of salt was minus the salt. Then again, it made sense. I was a suspect in a murder investigation and there had been a white powder in my pocket. The fact it made sense didn’t help.

  My necklace wasn’t in the bag either and there wasn’t a bag containing Ian’s stuff at all. It was like the cops were trying to hamper us. I understood that they didn’t know what they were doing. It was hard to be sympathetic, though.

  “Do you have any salt?” I demanded, looking around the vehicle.

  Roy again nosed something toward me. It was a crate containing pretty much every paranormal repellent I had researched in the last few months. Every container was labeled clearly and had a dispersal unit next to it.

  “Roy, will holy water hurt you?” I asked as I picked up one of the containers.

  The shapeshifter shook his head.

  “Okay, the plan right now is to douse the third bend in holy water and bury one of your chunks of agate. If all else fails, we can dump your container of agrimony all over the ground.”

  Simms nodded. “Be careful if you have to use salt. Don’t forget it’ll hurt Roy too,” he reminded me, taking a corner on two wheels as he sped toward our destination.

  I nodded, digging through the box to see what else they had. “The ghost showed herself to me last night but she couldn’t touch me because of my helm of awe. The odd thing was, she was clutching a silver cross as she came at me. I know it was just an echo of who she was but I didn’t think silver in any form was something a dark spirit could handle.”

  Simms shrugged. “I’ve never heard of it but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible,” he told me, flicking his eyes to his rearview mirror. “That friendly cop of yours is following us.”

  I grimaced. I didn’t want to deal with that particular frustration right then. What I did instead was to text Spencer.

  I waited for far longer than seemed right but didn’t get a response. I’d guess they were busy dealing with werewolves. I did my best to tamp down the worry that filled me at the idea of what a werewolf could have done to one or both of them and tried to focus on our case.

  There weren’t a lot of ways to truly banish a spirit. All I knew was how to repel them. Salt and silver were the best repellents but they weren’t foolproof at all.

  “Simms, do you know how to get rid of a ghost?” I asked, seeing the first bend just ahead of us.

  “Spencer’s the only one I ever met who could deal with a ghost.”

  The look on Ian’s face told me he had something to say. There was no time to question him, though. We had reached our destination.

  Being at the third bend in the road made me the tiniest bit uncomfortable considering the fact we were dealing with a spirit who possessed someone’s body to be able to commit murder. Without my helm of awe, I was vulnerable but so was Ian. I knew he had a silver charm that he carried around in his pocket. The cops hadn’t given back his stuff, though. And there were others around as well.

  Cop cars still patrolled and the road had not been closed. There were a lot of people for the nun to choose from both in the possession and victim departments.

 
I jumped out of the back seat with Roy on my heels as Simms screeched to a stop at the third bend. I knelt down and began digging a hole with my hands, burying the agate right there. Since it would take time for the purity of the stone to change anything, I sprinkled a mix of holy water and agrimony all around there.

  My blood ran cold as the figure of the nun appeared in front of me again. There were no screams of pain that time. There was only the burned figure of the woman.

  I expected to feel the darkness of the spirit, the evil that had caused her to brutally kill thirteen girls from her school. As I looked at the figure, the sorrow radiating off her was almost palpable.

  Her mouth worked silently for a few seconds before the whisper of her voice filled the air around me. “Count not my transgressions but, rather, my tears of repentance. Remember not my iniquities but, more especially, my sorrow for the offenses I have committed against You.”

  I gaped at the ghost. She was praying for forgiveness? My brain felt like it might melt under the molten lava of rage that filled me.

  I got to my feet, hearing Ian and Simms behind me but my eyes were fixed on the ghost. I didn’t know what her plan was. All I knew was that no one else could die. I would not allow it.

  Unconsciously, I glanced at the amber in my hand. I had forgotten it was there but some part of me had remembered. The smoky grayness of the crystal inside it was obvious but there was something else. Another color was mixed in with the gray.

  Since it was night and we stood away from any light, there was no way to see. I could take out my phone and shine the light on it. Taking my eyes off the spirit seemed like a bad idea.

  The nun continued to look at me but all of a sudden, her body jerked. Her face went from sorrowful to furious in half a second.

  I could hear a car coming and a very bad feeling passed over me. Roche had followed. The nun was looking for a body to possess so she could kill again. Roche was the perfect mark.

  The fact he didn’t believe would make him blind to almost everything . . . other than me. He’d see me standing there and probably assume I was waiting for my next victim. It could have been funny if our situation wasn’t so perilous.

  I stepped forward so I was right in the ghost’s sights and shook my head. “There have been enough deaths. This has to stop,” I said clearly, suddenly feeling the darkness I had expected to feel all along.

  I still held the container of holy water in my hand. That was probably my best defense against her. The salt would be my last resort.

  The nun’s ghost flickered, appearing directly in front of me, her mouth working silently again. I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. I couldn’t read lips and listening to the psychopathic ramblings of a vengeful spirit probably wasn’t a good idea anyway.

  Because there was no other choice, I brought up the squeeze bottle of holy water and squirted it directly in her face. The problem was, nothing happened. She didn’t vanish or even look like it had affected her in the least.

  She floated all the closer to me, her burned figure flickering as her ghostly nose almost touched mine. “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee,” she whispered and flames rose around us again.

  Like before, I didn’t feel the heat. It didn’t burn me. It was a memory from her life. Could she have set the school on fire or something?

  It was a horrible thought but there was no time to contemplate it. I had to stop her before anyone else was hurt. Since salt was the only option left to me, I said a prayer of my own and tossed it at the ghostly figure.

  Almost instantaneously, she vanished into nothingness. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we only had a very short window of opportunity to block her from killing anyone else.

  I whirled around, tossing the holy water to Ian and the salt to Simms. “We need to purify the ground. I’m going to bury a chunk of agate on each bend and you guys need to do the rest. Fast. Before she comes back,” I shouted, pleased when Roy opened his mouth wide.

  I understood that he wanted me to place one of the stones in his mouth, so I did. I started running then. I had never moved so fast in my entire life. It wasn’t a short stretch of road but with the guys’ help, it was done in a very short amount of time.

  I was gasping for breath by the time we’d finished, my body massively sore from . . . everything. It looked like I needed to do a lot more cardio. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding but we had won. We had stopped that spirit from committing any more murders.

  TWELVE

  So it turned out that giving a daily report to Erkens when part of my report was that I had been arrested . . . it didn’t go well. He had gotten so angry when I’d told him I’d been handcuffed most of the previous day, he had hung up. I hadn’t even gotten to tell him how it had ended.

  I had a feeling the cops were going to be getting a strongly worded letter from Erkens or a personal visit. I wasn’t sure which would be less pleasant for them. I knew that Erkens viewed me as family just like I saw him. So yeah. I understood his anger.

  I was personally torn between anger and worry. I had gone back to the Harmarville Police station only to find that Quinn had been released. I was pleased that she wasn’t in a cell but I had no idea where she was. Being me, I had gotten her info off her phone when she’d handed it to me the night before. It turned out, her phone was off and the tracker had been disabled.

  I could still find out where she was. I wasn’t sure I should. Maybe she had decided that I was too much like Mom. That was the worse thought I’d ever had.

  My other worry stemmed from the fact the cops hadn’t released Gina. She had confessed to Tanya’s murder and there was evidence. Bloodstained clothes in her apartment were the biggest pieces of evidence against her. And it wasn’t like the cops were going to believe that she had been possessed by a vengeful nun-ghost.

  I flopped back on the couch in my living room and groaned. I should be celebrating our victory from the night before. I didn’t feel like it was a victory for some reason.

  I had missed something. I had no idea what it was. All I knew was that something was wrong.

  Ian walked in and set a plate down on the coffee table in front of me, another plate next to it for him. Simms stepped in as well, Roy behind him. We were quite the merry little band of adventurers.

  Simms sat down in one of the chairs across from us and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Madison, anybody ever tell you to take it down a notch?” he asked, motioning to us. “Last night was a win. Take it.”

  I curled into a ball on the couch and rested my chin on my knees. “How did you find out we’d been arrested?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

  He smirked at me. “Remember when I told you my boss is desperate to talk you into working for the Arcane?” he asked and gave a negligent shrug as he picked up his sandwich. “Anything to do with you that shows up in the database, he’s all over it.”

  Ian glanced at me. “I thought your virus deleted mentions of you,” he said, running his hands through his hair.

  Simms snorted out a laugh. “It does, which is why my boss is so interested in hiring her. Every time he gets a notification that Madison’s name has been mentioned, by the time he gets there, it’s gone. He actually has one of our tech guys assigned to the weighty task of finding a way around your virus.”

  I groaned, burying my face in my knees. “I appreciate the fact you got us out of jail and all but I am not happy about a government agency taking this big an interest in my life.”

  Simms took a bite of his sandwich, chewing it completely before he answered. “As a government agent, I can tell you that you’re not wrong but you’re not right either. My boss just admires your intelligence. He thinks you’d make an amazing asset.”

  I raised my head and rolled my eyes at him. “Buttering me up?” I asked, slowly uncurling myself and leaning forward to take my plate
.

  I set it on my knees and stared at the sandwich. I had to figure out what I’d missed. It was driving me crazy. There was a clue buried in all the information I’d gleaned in the last couple of days.

  I thought about it while Ian and Simms talked. It was true that Gina had been injured when she’d come to the office. Something else had been wrong, though. That was one question I still needed an answer to.

  Gina had smelled like she’d drunk an entire liquor store. But she had been sober. And she had told me she’d showered.

  My stomach clenched so hard, the bite of sandwich I’d taken almost came back up. “She showered and changed out of her bloodstained clothes before she came to see me.” I spoke aloud but I was only speaking to myself.

  Simms leaned back in his chair, contemplating me in a speculative way. “I’ve read about ghost possession. The ghost has access to the person’s thoughts and memories. Maybe Gina was still possessed when she got home. It would explain what you said about her smelling like alcohol. If the spirit was drunk when they committed murder and they come back to do it again, it makes sense that the spirit would remain drunk.”

  “But how did she even get home? Her car was at the murder sight.” I rubbed my hand over my brow, trying to think through everything that didn’t make sense. “And how big was Tanya? Gina told me that she remembered clubbing her, remembered lifting her up onto the spike. That would take a lot of upper body strength.”

  “Gina isn’t a small girl,” Ian said, opening a bottle of Italian soda and handing it to me.

  I took the bottle and stared into the raspberry colored liquid. “What if Quinn was right. What if Gina just murdered her girlfriend and decided to convince me it was a ghost?” I asked even as I shook my head.

  “Maddie, you don’t believe that. I don’t think Quinn believed it either. I think she was trying to help you in some way,” Ian said, glancing at me. “When most people sign some kind of nondisclosure agreement, all they do is avoid being caught talking about whatever it was. The fact that, even after you knew the name of the place, Quinn still didn’t say that name in front of you, it made me think.”