“Relax. He’s not home.” I strapped on the seatbelt. “Besides, I told him everything.”
“You told him where we’re going and he didn’t mind?”
“No, I told him about us.”
He raised a dark eyebrow and leaned forward. “You told him everything?”
“Not in detail, but he knows that you’re a dreamwalker, and that you and I…you know. He also knows it was a dream. Hell, I even told him about the kiss.”
He whistled. “How did he take it? Am I a dead man?”
I shook my head, which dislodged my ponytail from behind my back. “You’ll live, as long as you stay out of his way for a while.”
“Good to know.” He physically relaxed and shifted the car into gear. He was dressed in his police uniform, without the vest or the hat. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to stay home while I check it out on my own?”
“No way, I have to at least try to find out what the hell is going on over there.”
“Fine,” he said as we continued down the road and he turned right, heading towards the city. “But I don’t like it.”
“Trust me, I don’t like it either. This is the last thing I want to be doing on a Saturday night but I have to help Lee.” Besides, I needed to check out the situation at the Tower. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it made me stronger.
We didn’t speak over the rest of the drive to Sussex Street. I gazed out the window as we made our way across the motorway and passed the abandoned part of town. Construction crews were already setting up shop and the crossroads would soon be impossible to spot from here. The Legion Apartments would be built directly over a magical power outlet. If the complex was built, it would become a demonic possession hotspot—Legion’s playground.
Even from this distance, I could sense the hum beneath the earth. It called out to me, so I glanced at my left hand and found the tattoo was glowing. The long pink thread connecting me to the heart of the magical power grid appeared. I’d used this link to find my way back after venturing inside the shadow patch to save captured children.
“Hey, are you okay?” Gareth reached over and tapped the back of my hand. As soon as he did, Hecate’s Wheel appeared on his skin and was quickly absorbed. He didn’t seem to notice. “Well?”
I closed my hand into a fist and the thread faded. “I’m fine, just thinking about what we’re going to find inside the building. I hate that place and promised myself I would never return after what happened last time.”
“You don’t have to. There’s still time to turn around and take you home.”
I shook my head. “No, keep driving.”
In less than ten minutes, we were parked in front of the glass and steel building. Being a cop meant he could park wherever he wanted, and stopping out front would come in handy should we need to make a quick getaway.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Gareth asked.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go, then.” He stepped out of the car.
I joined him on the sidewalk and together, we headed up the footpath towards the place I dreaded. As we marched closer to the doors, my stomach twisted into a thousand knots. I doubted Mace would be stupid enough to be on the premises, but the thought of going inside made me physically ill anyway. I couldn’t help but glance over both shoulders to make sure the telling electric arcs of his approach weren’t on the power lines.
So far, so good.
“What’s up now?”
“Nothing…why?”
“You look pale.”
“This place just feels wrong.” Worse than it had ever felt, as if the very air was polluted with dirty magic. I turned back to face the monstrous structure, which appeared deserted.
“Do you need to go back to the car?”
I gulped in air and let it out slowly. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
We continued on to the automatic doors. They shouldn’t open this late on a Saturday evening. Yet as soon as we were close enough, the doors slid apart and all the lights were on.
Gareth held a hand out in front of me while he peeked inside, his other hand hovering over his gun’s holster. “No security and the doors are open to the public. Does that seem right to you?”
“Definitely not,” I said. Unless someone is waiting for us inside. When I made a move to step into the building, he caught my arm. “What?”
“I can still see you. When are you going to shroud yourself?”
“As soon as we get inside.”
He didn’t look convinced but released my arm and we stepped past the threshold.
The automatic doors shut behind us and a pace later, I felt the air rush out of me because this stinking place was so freaking hot that I wanted to strip my clothes off and scrape away my skin. My skin felt like a gazillion ants were crawling over me. The buzz beating inside my cranium made it hard to think straight. It didn’t take long to realize the buzzing, at least some of it, was comprised of whispers. What was going on in this building?
I lifted my left leg with great effort but when I tried to step forward, I tripped. I remained upright because Gareth caught my arm. Nausea rolled through me, so intense his grip was the only thing keeping me steady.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to get the cover spell going after all.”
“Shit, you’re bleeding.”
“What, from where?” I looked down at myself but my vision blurred.
“From your nose.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of tissues. He shoved them under my nose and then forced my left hand up to hold them.
I pulled my hand away and the tissues were stained red. Shit. If I didn’t get this under control, I was going to bleed out from my fucking nose. I wasn’t going to let some spook-polluted building steal the life I’d been fighting so hard to keep.
“Sierra, where are we headed?”
Not for the first time, I wished my Goddess-touched powers would help me heal even when I wasn’t obliterating demonic patches.
“I can’t stay here,” I said, as blood dripped from the tissues and down my fingers. Even my ears felt like warm liquid was trickling from them. “Get us to the elevator, please.”
Gareth didn’t hesitate, just wrapped an arm around my waist and practically dragged me across the expensive marble tiles towards the elevator. Once inside, he pressed the button to close the doors. As soon as they did, I felt like I could breathe enough to think straight and push my thumb against the small panel next to the sixth-floor button. The red light glowed under my thumbprint and access lit up all the way to the twentieth. I usually hit the thirteenth to get to the canister deposit area, but no one would be there to collect anything.
Tonight, we were heading to the councilor’s offices. So I smacked the right button.
As the elevator gained height, I started to feel a lot better. I removed the wad of tissues from my nose and felt my upper lip. No more bleeding and the pain inside my skull eased enough for my own thoughts to be louder than the buzz of foreign ones.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I threw my head back against the cool wall, dreading stepping out of this metal box.
“What the hell happened?” Gareth asked, and he sounded concerned. “Even your ears were bleeding.”
I lowered my head so I could look at him. “Thanks for getting me across the foyer. For a second there, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.”
“Don’t mention it. Just tell me what’s going on.” His hazel eyes were soft and willing me to talk, those thick eyelashes made them stand out even more. He really was good at compelling people to feel at ease. It was a quality I’d noticed since meeting him, and always suspected helped in his job as a police officer. Who wouldn’t trust a sincere man who was willing to listen, and was easy on the eyes?
“Is there something inside this building that can kill you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve gotten nauseated after stepping into this shitty building plenty of times, but even with nosebleeds and headaches, it was never this bad. I can barely stand the heat. The mess of spook activity is enough to make my head feel like it’s going to crack like an egg. This is worse than I thought. If I can feel it down to my very core, I don’t even want to think about how much time is left on this ticking time bomb.”
“Where are we going? What’s on level twenty?”
“The councilor offices,” I said. My mind was turning to mush, but I did feel better the farther we got from the foyer.
When the elevator door opened, Gareth motioned for me to wait before he rushed out. He stepped into the carpeted corridor with his gun aimed to the left and then the right. I couldn’t hear any activity or sense anything unnatural so when he nodded, I wasn’t surprised.
I pointed to our left and let him lead us down the narrow corridor, with its expensive art and crème-colored walls. The carpet beneath our feet was so lush my boots sank into it. The corridor opened into a reception area that held a marble desk and a gold-plated plaque reading SPOOK CATCHER COUNCIL. There was no one behind the desk, which wasn’t strange for a Saturday night.
At least my head didn’t feel like it was about to explode. What the fuck was going on beneath the building?
I made my way around the reception desk and noticed the monitor was missing, as was the hard drive tower. Only the keyboard and mouse remained, discarded and lying useless. There were pieces of paper with scribbled messages all over the desk. I picked up a few but couldn’t decipher the chicken scrawl. The visitors’ register the catchers usually signed whenever they needed to see one of the councilors was sitting to the side, collecting as much dust as the phone. The red line blinked several times, which meant there were messages.
“This desk hasn’t been used for a while,” Gareth said, sneaking up behind me.
“After all the trouble they got into and the ongoing investigation, I doubt they’ve had a receptionist since the incident.”
“Don’t put those messages back.” He stopped me from dropping the pieces of paper. “Pocket them and don’t touch anything else. The last thing we want is your prints all over the scene. I have a bad feeling we’re not going to like what we find on the other side of those fancy doors.”
I swallowed the lump lodged in my throat and nodded.
Gareth stepped past me and headed for the frosted glass doors that led into the main office area. He took a peek, but he wouldn’t see anything past the decorative swirls. The councilors cherished their privacy. He placed a hand over the long aluminum door handle and pressed down before pushing it open.
He held his gun in front of him. “Stay behind me.”
I didn’t say anything, though I secretly wished he’d let me go first because I wasn’t sure if what was waiting for us could be handled with a gun. Still, there was no point in starting an argument or distracting each other.
I shadowed his every step as we reached the open-plan office. A funky smell stained the air and the closed-in stifling heat made me nauseous.
“Ugh.” I covered my nose. “Can you smell that?”
Gareth nodded. “Yeah, and it’s not a good sign.”
Brown partitions separated the area into over a dozen open-space cubicles. These workspaces were used by the spook catchers living and working out of the Tower to file reports, find locations, and general administration. I’d sat in different workstations throughout this space many times. Only catchers who’d been with the company for several years had the luxury of receiving a work laptop, so most had to use these computers.
I made a move to head towards the closest workstation but Gareth grabbed my arm.
“Whoa, where are you going?”
“I just…” I’d gotten caught up in stupid nostalgia for a moment, but that wasn’t why I wanted to get closer. “The desks are bare.”
“I noticed.”
“Why are all the monitors and hard drives missing?” And where were they?
A zing overhead made me jump. I slowly tilted my head, afraid to see what had caused the noise. My heart hammered when I noticed the first spark.
“I assume each councilor has their own office,” Gareth said. He was in cop mode—eyes everywhere, standing tall, and shoulders tense as he kept his weapon drawn in whichever direction he turned. But he hadn’t noticed the sparks.
“Yeah,” I said. That awful stench still laced the air but my focus was on the single arc racing along the ceiling, ripping out wires as it went.
Gareth ducked at the sound, his gun now aimed upwards. “What’s going on?”
I watched the spark glide along, tearing down the false ceiling until it struck one of the five offices surrounding us. The yellow arc progressed along the metal door handle before climbing the aluminum framing of the glass panels. The councilors and Mace liked to work in privacy, but kept an eye on everything and everyone. The arc wormed its way along like a sparkler, catching every metallic frame until it seeped into the closed door of the biggest room adjacent to where we stood—the boardroom.
Gareth strode forward, headed in that direction when something flew across the room, barely missing him. The filing cabinet shattered against the glass of Henry Sallas’s office.
“Shit!” He stood his ground, peering over his shoulder. “Don’t move, okay?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the warped filing cabinet. Throwing it across the room took a lot of strength, and since no one had materialized, I could only assume a spook was responsible. I instinctively thought of poltergeists, but they used their telekinetic abilities to shift objects around the room. Whoever flung this was either aiming for Gareth or trying to keep him from moving forward.
I looked at the boardroom door. The spark was inside, but had it tried to lure us inside with good or bad intentions? My encounter with the will-o’ wisps in the shadow patch—seemingly mischievous spirits who turned out to be helpful—taught me everything isn’t always as it seems.
“Stay where you are, I’m going to check this out.” As soon as Gareth took the first step, the exterior partitions uprooted, ripping free of the bolts securing the base to the carpeted floor.
The walls advanced like one long snake, heading for Gareth. The top smacked him in the back as he tried to get away, pushing him to his hands and knees. Miraculously, he held onto the gun and managed to crawl towards Henry’s shattered office.
The office dividers whipped into the air several times before smashing onto the floor right behind him. The sound was loud, and reverberated beneath my feet.
Gareth rolled over, crab-walking beneath the monstrosity that was about to squash him if I didn’t do something.
My feet were rooted to the carpet, but I couldn’t just stand by and watch this happen. If these office partitions were being controlled by a poltergeist, wraith or something stronger—even demonic—maybe my dark patch would help.
Gareth stopped long enough to aim his gun at the invisible foe. “Sierra, get out of here!” He fired a few shots and the sound echoed inside the cavernous office, the bullets ricocheting off the other wall panels. When he cried out, I knew one had struck him, and that forced me into motion.
Instead of running away from the trouble, I ran towards it. Glass crunched beneath my boots. Screws, bolts and pieces of plastic became obstacles, but the debris wasn’t enough to slow me down.
“Sierra, no!”
I ignored Gareth and ducked underneath the partition—which was still whipping its long frame in the air like a viper ready to strike—seconds before it made one final attempt at Gareth’s life.
When the construct pummeled downward towards its target, I stepped between attacker and victim. “Stop,” I yelled, raising my left palm in front of me. The
tattoo on the back of my hand shimmered and the spiraling momentum screeched to a halt.
The partition viper whipped back and collapsed into a ruined heap of metal, plastic and carpet.
“Oh my God,” Gareth said. “This is too crazy to—”
I didn’t hear the rest because my ears popped and my chest filled with ice so cold I stumbled onto my knees. I punched my left fist against my chest, willing my lungs to function properly. Every inhale drew me deeper into the spook’s zone. My chest tightened and my lungs were freezing, but after a mild coughing fit, I regained control.
With my next exhale, my breath misted. The office blurred and when I looked around, I couldn’t believe the concentration of spooks blanketing the area. These ghosts appeared larger than life in their animated guise. They were amazing, like nothing I’d ever seen before, which was saying a lot because I’d been seeing ghosts since I was six.
These beings were misty and cartoony, resembling the kinds of ghosts easily imitated by draping a white sheet over your head. Hell, I had one similar in my ad. In their grayish glory, they spun around me. When their balloon frames passed through me, they felt like silk, caressing the very core of me.
I climbed to my feet and concentrated on what I could feel emanating from them—comfort, care, concern. It seemed to contradict the violence they’d exhibited against Gareth.
“Why are you here?” I asked, not expecting a response.
They stopped whirring long enough to regard me with their black button eyes and round mouths. They looked like frozen masks without expression, but I could tell every single one of them was analyzing me. A buzzing like bees stirred inside my brain, sounding suspiciously like chatter I couldn’t understand.
“I don’t know what you’re saying.” But these were undeniably the same whispers I’d heard earlier.
One of them stopped in front of me, eyeing me with dark-filled eyes. They reflected Australia’s red soil as well as the expanse of lush bushland, forests and deep oceans. I recognized the orange beacon of Ayers Rock, the magnificence of The Twelve Apostles being whipped by the ocean off the Victorian coast. The beauty of the Great Barrier Reef blended into the beaches off Queensland’s coast and shifted into the wide expanse of Sydney’s Bondi Beach and past Sydney Harbour. All these well-known landmarks morphed faster, until it all came to a screeching halt in the abandoned part of Serene Hills to reveal an aerial view of the power grid with its multitude of crisscrossing pink ley lines, and the Strophalos seal in the middle of the three-forked crossroads.
A Stitch on Time: Sierra Fox, Book 5 Page 11