The Lurkers Within: (A Havenwood Falls Novella)

by Danielle Bannister

Grabbing the bag, I went into the bathroom. I could feel the spirits following me. A total of eight now, by my count. The ruse of a shower had worked. There was an eagerness in the air that hadn’t been there before. Spirits, much like humans, were horny things for the most part, and I was counting on that for my plan to work. My body was going to have to be my ace in the hole.

  Closing the bathroom door, I opened the bag, thankful to find two of my traps waiting. Each was about the size of a gun with a rectangular barrel. The only way out of this was to get them to combine. One shot to take down many. I might not get them all, but I had five tries to take down as many as I could. It might bag enough to drag Adam out of the house before they could stop me. It was a long shot, but I had to try. I wasn’t going to leave a member of my crew behind.

  Hence the shower. I needed them distracted. I wanted their eyes on my assets, not the sleight of hand trick I planned to play on them. Emboldened, I walked over to the shower, which had a glass door. Perfect. Turning the water on, I unbuttoned my blouse, one button at a time, feeling the energy in the room shift. I swore half of the demonic spirits I caught were just sexually frustrated auras. They had nowhere to put that much pent-up energy, so they took it out on the humans they were stuck living with. I planned to use their frustration today to my advantage.

  As the water warmed, I removed the elastic band that held my French braid in place, working my fingers slowly through my hair to release it into black ribbons down my back. Shrugging out of my shirt, I kicked off my heels as my blouse fell to the floor. I shimmied out of my pants, leaving me only in my black lace bra and panties. They were watching me, and they were pleased.

  Might as well give them the full show.

  Unhooking my bra, I let it fall next to my blouse and then pulled down my panties slowly, making sure to give them the best view as I bent at the waist to take them off.

  Sliding open the shower door, I stepped inside, letting the water saturate my hair and run down my back. Through half-closed eyes, I saw the spirits draw nearer to take in my fully exposed body. So far, so good.

  I took as quick a shower as possible. I was well aware that Adam was waiting. I had to work fast. Turning the water off, I grabbed a towel and dried off my hair. Letting the rest of the water trickle down my naked body, I walked over to the bag. Time to make my move.

  This was Adam’s travel bag, so the traps were mixed in with his clothing, for reasons just like this. I dug around inside until I found one of Adam’s T-shirts. Perfect.

  I yanked the white shirt over my still wet body. Though the view was now obscured, the shirt clung to my damp skin. Eyes on the peep show, boys. Flipping my head upside down as though to finish drying it, I positioned the towel over the bag and “accidentally” dropped it directly over the trap. A moment later, I picked up the towel, with the neatly hidden trap nestled safely inside it. Step one done.

  I made my way to the bed with the towel at my side as though I was merely bringing the towel with me to finish drying off my hair. I placed the bundle on the pillow next to Adam and then went back to retrieve the sleeping pills from the bathroom.

  “I am dead tired. I hope these sleeping pills help make up for the jet lag,” I whispered to myself, but loud enough for the spirits to hear. I popped open the cap and swallowed a handful, dry. I tried not to gag as they went down. I’d assumed they’d taste more like sugar than sand paper.

  As the placebos worked their way down my throat like mini razor blades, I tucked the trap under my pillow, then finished towel-drying my hair. I faked a yawn, tossed the towel to the floor, and pulled the sheets over me. I turned onto my side, away from Adam and facing the spirits. One hand over the top of the sheets, one hand under the pillow. My finger on the trigger.

  Come on, you dirty bastards. Join up so I can knock you all out at once. If Roman was right, there was a very good chance not all of the spirits were even here. His theory was that the Indrori moved around and absorbed souls at will, so if I could take out these eight, it might buy me enough time to recover Adam and get the hell out of dodge. Screw Havenwood Falls. They could find someone more qualified than me to take on this mess. My priority was Adam. Being bait to save him would be worth it.

  Any second now . . .

  The tick of the clock went by painfully slowly. Each second sounded like a drum in my ears. Twenty minutes of trying to keep one eye slightly open was mentally exhausting. Remaining motionless proved easier, however, the longer I lay there. I was growing anxious, ready for them to merge. When were they going to strike?

  After thirty minutes, I had to shut my eyelid because it started to flutter, which would give me away, but before I did, I saw one of the red spirits disappear. Finally! They were merging.

  My finger was still on the trigger as I waited. In the warm cocoon of the duvet, I inadvertently let out a large yawn. I chided myself for allowing it to escape, but so far, the spirits hadn’t backed off. In fact, I swore they merged again, because there was a definite shift in the temperature. When a second yawn ripped through me, however, a slow onset of panic set in.

  I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. They were heavy. Like lead. In fact, my whole body felt numb. My head swam like it was drifting in and out of consciousness. I could no longer feel my finger on the trap. I couldn’t feel any part of my body.

  All at once, reality came crashing down. Roman hadn’t given me placebos. I’d been given the real deal. He set me up.

  I tried to remember how many I’d swallowed. A few I could probably fight, but I easily took six or seven, maybe more. What had it mattered? They were supposed to be fakes. Jesus. Why would Roman do this to me?

  My mind spun as I felt the temperature of the room turn to ice. That could only mean one thing. More had arrived. Paralyzed by the sleeping pills, I could do nothing now. I was helpless. I was the one who was trapped and about to be taken into the spirit realm.

  Chapter 8

  I had been told countless times what it was like to die by the souls I’d managed to recover over the years. The stories were so similar that I knew their accounts must have had at least some shred of truth to them. Even with all that knowledge of existence beyond the living, I was still not prepared for what I saw.

  The transition began on my lips, like a kiss from a lover who had been out in the cold. The chill then webbed slowly across my face, giving me the sensation of having my head submerged under icy water. All warmth drained away as the feeling traveled down my neck, then spread out to each arm. I was conscious, suddenly, only of the heat within my toes, curled tight under the sheets, until they too succumbed to the pull of the spirit realm.

  When I opened my eyes anew, it was with the eyes of a ghost. I had been taken to the other side of the living. Just as Adam had been.

  Turning my head around, I could tell that I was still in the house, but everything was dark and blurry, as though I were stuck in dense fog. Looking down at my body, I noticed that it still looked like me, except for one key difference. I was translucent. That actually brought me comfort. It meant I wasn’t dead. Not fully. Not yet. If I was a full spirit, the edges of my form wouldn’t be quite so defined. I would appear more blob-like.

  I was between worlds, so my physical body was still on the bed, while my aura lay trapped here. Wherever here was. I was on the clock now, too. Only now, there was no one around to help.

  Think, Tasha. Who else could help Adam and me? That, by far, would be the largest hurdle. There were only a handful of people on the planet who recovered souls, and as far as I knew, not a single one was in the United States. The FBI intentionally spread us out on each continent, save for Antarctica, because anyone stupid enough to go there deserved what they got. It made sense logically to be spread out, so we could make sure a Recoverer could arrive at any place around the globe within hours, since time was essential in recovering a soul. However, that also meant the others wouldn’t be able to get to Adam and me in time, even if they knew where we were, which they didn’t.


  That realization hit me like a wall. No one knew where we were. Roman had tricked my team into coming here, so my division had no idea I was even in Colorado, much less trapped in purgatory. Plus, I was scheduled for a vacation anyway, so they wouldn’t come looking for me for at least a week, which would be too late. I’d sent Eduardo away, which meant the only person who knew about our situation was the one person who had sent us here. Roman Bishop.

  I cursed. We were screwed. Getting us out of here alive was entirely up to me. How, I had no idea. The first thing I needed to do was to find Adam. Maybe he had an idea. After all, he was the logistical one of the team. He’d had a lot more time to think about our situation than I had.

  Spinning around, I realized that my movements in this reality were effortless. I looked down and noticed that my feet no longer touched the ground, but hovered about an inch above it instead. This helped to confirm that I wasn’t fully dead yet. If I was a true ghost, my movements would be coming harder and slower than this. While I continued to exist in both worlds, it seemed I would retain the physical properties of both realms. It was my only advantage that I could see. As the hours ticked on, however, my ability to move would likely be reduced. This was the sort of problem Adam would love to solve. I had to find him.

  Floating around the bed, I searched for any sign of him. While I knew he was on the bed in the human world, here in the spirit world, the bed beside me was empty. He had either moved or had been taken elsewhere.

  “Adam!” The sound that came from my throat sounded foreign against my lips. It was more like a moan than an articulated word. I called out his name again around a tongue that was having a hard time making the right noises.

  As I floated through the room, I noticed that, while I wasn’t completely see-through yet, my aura did have a light blue tinge to it. The aura of a confused spirit. Talk about hitting the nail on the head. Not only was I confused about my actual state of existence, I was confused about how I planned on getting back. I had no traps, no game plan, and absolutely zero clue of how to escape.

  Wait. I did have traps. They were in this very bedroom.

  Determined, I floated toward the pillow I’d hidden the trap under. When I tried to lift the pillow up, however, my hand disappeared straight through it.

  “Shit!” I hissed. My voice came out slow, like maple syrup. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to manipulate objects here. From my understanding, it took spirits years before they could so much as move a lace curtain, and I was trying to pick up a heavy trap?

  An overwhelming sense of dread filled me. I didn’t know what to do. I was in a different world, and I didn’t know the rules. How was I going to get out of here if I didn’t fully understand where here was?

  That’s when I heard a moan that wasn’t mine. A voice that was deep and low but laced with agony.

  “Adam?”

  I floated down the hall, searching for where the sound was, checking the second bedroom and bathroom. I found nothing but dark corners. The cry came again, and this time, I could tell it was coming from below me. I made my way down the stairs and into the living area.

  Heading downstairs was harder than I expected. I had to focus hard to move downward versus just hovering straight across the stairwell. It was maddening not being able to get to him faster. When I finally figured out how to point my aura in the direction I wanted to go, I rushed into the living room.

  Gone was the bright sun and winter landscape from the bay windows of this morning, and in its place was more darkness. There were no street lamps, no Christmas decorations glowing from neighboring houses. The only thing that stood out in the shadows was a faint blue glow coming from the far corner of the room. It was Adam.

  The second I made a move to go toward him, however, the color of the room shifted. Through the floorboards, a deep purple haze seeped through the cracks. Instantly, my training kicked in, suspecting a nerve gas attack, but then I stopped myself. Nerve gas wouldn’t do anything to a spirit.

  With my guard up, I watched as the fog continued to enter the room, this time from every angle—through the walls, around the window frames, down from the ceiling. The smoke converged into one centralized area directly in front of Adam.

  I knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that this was the Indrori. In silent awe, I watched the sheer size and color of this thing as it formed into one giant mass. It was unlike anything I had ever encountered in all my years as a Spirit Agent. The color too—dark purple, ominous and chilling—was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The smoke began to swirl around Adam like a vortex.

  “Leave him alone!” I shouted, although the sound that came out was surprisingly weak.

  The Indrori did nothing to stop the descent on Adam, so I rushed over in my useless form, ready to fight. When our auras connected, however, I felt the true power of the Indrori. In an instant, I was knocked backward, clear across the room, as though an explosion had gone off. My side actually felt like a shard of metal had pierced me.

  The vortex stopped spinning around Adam and changed course—toward me. I held my hands over my head in a feeble attempt to ward the beast off.

  “I knew you were a fighter, Agent Young, but I didn’t expect you to be foolish as well.”

  I whipped my head up, realizing that thing had just called me by my name. It knew who I was.

  The voice of it was neither male nor female, but somehow a combination of both. The Indrori was communicating with me, but not through any mouth that I could make out. In fact, there was nothing resembling a human form, save for vague skull-like shapes that danced within the smoke. This, more than anything else, confirmed for me that there was definitely more than one soul inside him. There were too many skulls for me to count as they swirled in and out of the smoke.

  “Leave him alone,” I said again, barely able to see Adam’s aura through the Indrori’s.

  “Or what? You’ll swat at me again?” The ripple of different people’s laughter danced around the room.

  “Take me instead,” I shouted. “Let him go and take me!”

  “Oh, such chivalry for the man you’re not even screwing. I would have thought you’d save that loyalty for the one you are. Where is the boy-toy, Eduardo, by the way? And don’t lie to us again and say he’s skiing.”

  “How . . .” I couldn’t even form the sentence. How would the Indrori possibly know about my relationship with Eduardo? We’d only used our cover stories at the house. How could the Indrori know we were more intimate?

  “Oh, Tasha, we know everything about you. Right down to the way you like to be fucked.”

  My mouth opened to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. The confidence with which it spoke made me believe it knew that and more.

  “We have been watching you since your birth,” It said. “One or more of us have been following your journey very carefully.”

  They had been stalking me. That wasn’t at all freaky.

  “Why?”

  “Why? Oh, come now, Agent Young, surely you know why the spirit world would be interested in you.” The voices echoed around me in chorus.

  Despite my very unstable situation, I found myself getting defensive. The work I did was noble, when you got right down to it. I was helping rid the world of harmful spirits.

  “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but whatever it is, it’s with me, not my partner. Now let him go.”

  Laughter filled the room. It came from every side, like a souped-up version of surround sound, except this really was all around me.

  “You honestly don’t know why we have a problem with you?” They asked. “You, a being who has the ability to eradicate our very existence? You who, with a simple pull of a trigger, can destroy decades’ worth of work a spirit fought for? You can’t fathom why we might take a vested interest in you?”

  The truth was becoming uncomfortably clear.

  “Agent Young, you, and those like you, are creating the genocide of my kind, and you mean
to tell me that you don’t understand why we want the problem eliminated?”

  And there it was. My crime laid out. I was the ghost world’s Hitler, and they wanted to end me.

  The only trouble was I saw no way to prevent the Indrori from doing just that.

  Chapter 9

  The Indrori moved as one giant mass as it circled me from all sides. I could feel the hatred from the spirits within pouring onto me. They wanted to finish the job they started by removing my soul from my body. To a human, the worst they could do as a demonic spirit was leave a few claw marks on the flesh. Together, as one united form, however, they had enough combined energy to literally remove my soul from my still-living body. It left me vulnerable to whatever torment they had in mind next.

  “Stop!” Adam’s barely audible voice said from behind the Indrori.

  “He’s taking a rather long time to die, don’t you think?” The Indrori sighed. “It’s been annoying listening to him whine, but we needed a reason for you to stick around and not run away. We knew you wouldn’t be able to resist saving your partner. Even if it meant sacrificing yourself to get here.”

  Wait. They think I came up with the plan to be taken on my own? Does that mean Roman isn’t working with them?

  “Now that you are finally here, however, we have no need for your partner.”

  The Indrori’s energy left me then and began to swarm around Adam.

  “No! Stop. Your issue is with me!” I shouted. “Take me instead.”

  At that, the Indrori paused. “All in due time, Agent Young.”

  The purple haze grew thick and dark as it circled Adam. There was one scream of agony from his lips, then it was cut off. The mist from the Indrori flowed into Adam’s aura until it dissolved into the dark violaceous haze of the Indrori. In a matter of seconds, Adam was no more.

  “No!” I screamed, but even as my lips parted to make the words come out, I knew it was too late. Adam’s soul had been consumed by the Indrori.