by J. E. Taylor
His thought barreled through my head. I slid the glove back on as we continued through the halls. We climbed another flight of stairs, and my unease grew as our guide explained that the section we were entering used to be for the criminally insane.
My heart picked up, and I swallowed hard as the door creaked open. I nearly choked on the malignant air that rolled out over us. CJ’s hands curled into tight fists as the darkness washed over us.
As much as I wished Lucifer were here in this building, both of us knew the moment Kathy had mentioned tours that he wouldn’t be here. At least not in the buildings with access. But evil did occupy the buildings. The ghosts following us were not made of the same dark components as the wing we entered. I chanced a glance over my shoulder, but the collective of ethereal beings stayed on the stairway. Their faces reflected the same horror riding my blood.
The door closed on them, and Kathy droned on. I froze in place with the door at my back. CJ stopped as well and stepped closer to me. Finally, Kathy stopped and turned toward us, her head cocked like an inquisitive puppy.
I felt it before I heard it. From the end of the hall that was gated off to any foot traffic came a horrific howl. Both CJ and I turned. Just like the other floor we’d visited, there were several ghosts here, but they were darker, baring their teeth like a pack of wild animals. All of them reeked of malice.
And it was aimed squarely at us.
I took a step closer to CJ, and my movement seemed to set them off. They charged, their growls of derision rising until I wanted to block the sound. I couldn’t get my glove off fast enough to blast them. Before any of them reached us, CJ lifted his hand, angel fire shot from his palm, and eviscerated the ghosts with white light.
Their dying screams echoed in the hallway. I covered my ears. The darkness overshadowing this building faded with the screams, and warm relief swept through me.
The tickle present in my head disappeared as CJ met my gaze. It was only then that I realized he had been in my head, seeing what I had been seeing since we’d stepped inside the building.
We turned back to a very wide-eyed and very pale Kathy. Her gaze was still stuck on the last place the burning mass of ghosts had been. When she swiveled to us, CJ shrugged and smiled.
“You still have ghosts in the building, but they aren’t dangerous like these ones were.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder.
“What are you?” she asked, her voice shaking as much as her body.
CJ crossed until he stood right before her. “You will not remember that,” he whispered and exercised the same power I had used to influence the customs agents in Australia.
She blinked a few times, and then her sunny smile was back, along with the droning descriptions of the building we were touring. Whatever darkness had hung over Pennhurst when we’d arrived was gone.
“Is it possible to see the other buildings? The ones you don’t let people explore?” CJ asked after an hour of exploring the buildings on the Pennhurst campus. “We’d just like to see them.”
Kathy led us back to the stairwell we had come up, and when she pushed through the door, the sea of ghosts parted to let her through. I stood on the top step as she and CJ descended. They watched CJ pass with awe inscribed in their faces and then turned to me.
“You are free to go,” I said softly.
“You can see us?” one of the younger girls asked.
I crouched down to look her in the eye and put my hands out. The girl placed her palms on mine. She stared at the connection of our flesh, and her wide eyes found mine again.
“I can see you.” I smiled at her and then looked around. “All of you.”
Kathy and CJ stopped on the landing below and stared up at me.
“What are you doing?” Kathy asked, her voice sharp enough for me to look away from the ghostly posse surrounding me.
“She’s talking to the ghosts,” CJ said.
Kathy’s face paled. “Ghosts?” she asked, her voice filled with fear.
CJ glared at her to shut her mouth.
I looked back at the girl. “They aren’t bad ghosts. They’re just lost.”
The girl smiled back. “No one has ever actually seen us,” she said, and excitement filled her voice.
“Well, I’m a little special that way.” I glanced around as an idea sparked. “Can you tell me if Lucifer is here at Pennhurst?” I figured these ghosts might know.
They shook their heads in unison.
“Is that a no you can’t tell me or a no he isn’t here?”
“No one by that name is here,” the little girl said. “At least not in this wing.”
I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or not. I shook the weird ambiguity away and focused on the ghosts in front of me. Especially this sweet little girl whom I couldn’t believe had been locked up in such a hideous place. “Thank you. You know, I might know someone who can help you get out of this place.”
Every ghost’s eyes widened with hope.
“Join hands,” I said and moved one of my hands from the little girl’s, to the ghost next to me. I stood as they took hands until we had a full loop. “I promise it will be okay.” I smiled reassuringly and looked at the ceiling. “Nick?”
The space next to me shimmered, and in a blink, Nick appeared next to me. Death in person was not intimidating in any way. Even if he put on a cloak and carried a scythe, he would still not be anywhere in the realm of frightening. And when he smiled like he was now, he looked like the proverbial kid next door.
The ghosts seemed to sense what he was and pulled back the way I had when I first encountered him. I kept my grip on their hands.
“Trust me. He is a cool guy, and he will show you some really cool places. You don’t need to be afraid.” I transferred the little girl’s hand into his. “He will take you to a much nicer place than this one,” I added, and Nick gave the little girl an even more dazzling smile.
“Faith is right,” he said, and his voice seemed to soothe the tension.
I put the other ghost’s hand in Nick’s free hand, completing the loop. The connection flowed through every one of them, filling their ethereal forms with light.
CJ squinted up at the lights.
“Y’all ready for an adventure?” Nick asked, and the ghosts nodded.
Kathy swayed on the step, her face slackened in disbelief and her eyes rolled back in her head. CJ reached his arm out, catching our fearful tour guide. But his eyes never left the vision of the ghosts rising to the ceiling with Death himself.
Just before they disappeared, the little girl waved at me.
I waved back and turned to CJ, who held a limp Kathy with one arm and wore a smile of such awe.
“I’ve never seen so many leave so peacefully,” he said. “Usually they are like the ones up there.” He nodded towards the door behind me where the warped and evil ghosts had been.
I climbed down the stairs. “I assumed that bad feeling was them until they wouldn’t cross the threshold on the upper floor.”
CJ nodded. He turned his attention to the dead weight hanging over his arm and tapped Kathy’s cheeks gently.
She blinked and she nearly shot out of his grasp, her gaze darting from me to the stairwell and back.
“You fainted while you were telling us about the buildings out back,” CJ said. His voice held concern as he looked at her.
The air rippled in the space between CJ and Kathy, and she started blinking.
“I…” She glanced around and then back at him. “I haven’t eaten anything today, and all the excitement…”
“Well, if you don’t mind us wandering the grounds, you should get something in your stomach so that doesn’t happen again.” His smile was warm, and she just nodded and headed back to the ground floor and out the door in the stupor that always follows having your mind bent to our will.
We followed out onto the front steps and watched her wander off.
“I hate doing that,” CJ said after Kathy turned the corne
r out of our sight.
“It is unnerving, but I’m not sure we would have gotten out of here without the national media descending on us if you hadn’t.”
He huffed a laugh, and we turned and crossed the overgrown lawn to the rear buildings, which were far worse than what we had just walked through.
“I don’t think he’s here,” CJ said as we stood in front of the dilapidated structure.
None of the foreboding I had felt when we originally arrived presented itself as we looked from one condemned building to the next.
“Gabriel said he set traps. Do you think the ghosts were a trap?”
CJ rubbed his chin and studied the structure in front of us. “Probably not, but I don’t want to underestimate Lucifer, so I guess we’re searching these after all. Just be careful where you step.” He held the rusty old door open for me. “Calling death was a nice touch, by the way,” he said when I walked through.
“I figured they needed to move on.” I stepped into the dark, musty space and held my nose against the need to sneeze. “And Nick owed me a favor.”
CJ drew up behind me.
“He showed up pretty damn fast. I’ll give you that.”
The door clanged closed, encasing us in darkness. If it weren’t for CJ’s bright aura, I wouldn’t have seen the crumbling floor in front of us.
I sneezed despite trying not to.
“Bless you,” CJ said and went to step around me.
“Hole in the floor.” I sneezed twice more.
“How can you see in here?”
“Your aura. It’s bright enough to see a few feet in front of us.” I pulled off my glove and let my fingers ignite, lighting up the rotted entry that we stood in, along with the gaping hole preventing us from going any farther in the structure.
He closed his eyes, and a pulse of power went through my body searching the building like a sonar ping. The pulse returned a few minutes later, and he opened his eyes. “Nothing more than a few birds and rats are alive in this building, outside of you and me.”
“Agreed,” I said. I wasn’t keen on trying to climb down the hole, but I would have if I had felt any twinge of evil, regardless of the danger. We also didn’t run into any demons, so this couldn’t be the place. I closed my hand, and we retreated back into the sunshine.
We still did as much of a walk-through of the other questionable structures as we could, but they were in a similar state of disrepair as the first condemned building had been. Not one of them had fuzzy walls like what we saw in the video, either, although a few had moss growing, but that was the wrong kind of fuzzy.
We started back toward the car.
“You have a choice. Drive to Cedar Grove, New Jersey, or drive to Staten Island after Cedar Grove.” CJ tossed the keys up and down in his hand as we walked.
“Can I just drive to a place to eat instead?” My stomach growled.
He glanced at his watch. “This took a lot longer than I’d hoped.” He pulled out his phone and sent a text to Valerie that we had seen another place on the list, and while there had been ghosts and a very odd tour guide, it certainly wasn’t where Lucifer would have stayed. He let her know we were heading to New Jersey after we grabbed food.
He tossed me the keys. “You’re driving this leg. After we eat, I need a nap, especially since I know I’ll have to use angel fire again before this day is over.”
Chapter 8
I wasn’t sure CJ was happy when I pulled into a restaurant known for its pancakes. But I didn’t care. The thought of a tall stack of sweetness covered in strawberry sauce and whipped cream had made my mouth water enough to turn the wheel. They had other items on the menu, but I already had what I wanted tattooed on my mind before I was even handed a menu.
“Pancakes?” CJ asked as the waitress walked away. His voice held the disdain echoed in his gaze.
“Yes. You don’t see me mocking your dinner choice, do you?” I crossed my arms and sat back in the seat.
He wiped his face and leaned back. “Sorry. Just more stressed than I thought,” he mumbled and smiled up at the waitress as she brought his coffee and my whipped-cream topped hot chocolate.
“I was actually hoping we would find him earlier rather than later,” he said after the waitress left. “That way I wouldn’t have to continue to play different scenarios over in my head.”
He tried to smile for me, but it didn’t work. I knew exactly what he was talking about, too. The quiet times like this were when the what-ifs became darker and more violent, and the stretch of time only ate away at my confidence instead of bolstering it.
He chuckled and stared into his coffee. “You and I are alike in that manner.” He lifted his gaze and shrugged. “The time allows us both to cultivate our doubts instead of building up our defenses.”
I took a fingerful of whipped cream, but instead of sucking it off my finger, I flicked it at CJ. It was childish, but I didn’t need him voicing my thoughts with his own spin on them. It stopped inches from his face, and his eyebrow rose. The glob shot back at me, heading straight for my forehead.
I couldn’t help but laugh and caught the cream in my palm. I promptly licked it off my glove.
CJ grinned and nursed his coffee. “I get why Alex likes you.”
“Thanks. I think.” I wiped my hands on one of the napkins and glanced towards the kitchen where our waitress was gathering our plates. “I haven’t had a second to really breathe and be myself since my mother died. It’s just been one thing after another. So…” I shrugged.
“So, when you see a chance to be outrageous, you take it?”
I shook my head and flicked my gaze to the approaching waitress. She arrived before I could formulate an answer. She set my plate down and then CJ’s.
“Thank you,” I said and picked up my silverware, then dug into the tall stack.
CJ picked up his loaded burger, and we both devoured our meals.
“No,” I finally said. “But I do take my chance to provide levity when it presents itself.”
“You don’t talk like you were raised off the grid.” He wiped his mouth and crumpled his napkin.
“And you do talk like you were born with a silver spoon.”
“You mean like a pretentious ass?” He smiled.
“I didn’t say that. You did. Besides, Tom never talked down to me.” I found myself saying more than I would have had we stayed holed up at the house with everyone around. Somehow being alone with CJ made me a little braver in sharing my thoughts.
“But I have.” He closed his eyes and hung his head. “You’re only sixteen. So yes, I have treated you like a child because you are. I don’t want to boost you beyond what you can do because it’s unwise to make you think you are invincible. I’m trying to help you not repeat the same mistakes I’ve made.”
“I’m not you, Mr. Ryan.”
He leaned on the table on his elbows. “No. You’re better than I am. You’re almost as smart, too. So, I’m a little harder on you because of that. Just like I was strict with Alex. Between you and me, he’s even smarter than I am, but I’ll never admit that to my son.” He looked out the window behind me. “Lucifer is smart, too, so the combination we are up against is formidable enough to scare the crap out of me. He knows we both want my son back.” He bit his lip and met my gaze. “I’m afraid he may have already destroyed that possibility.”
I recoiled in the seat. What CJ had insinuated left me cold and hollow inside.
“We have to be prepared for that reality. Both of us.”
My gaze darted around the restaurant, and he took the cue, peeling off enough for the dinner along with a hefty tip. He led me out to the car, but instead of climbing in the passenger seat like I thought he would, he went around to the driver’s side and put his hand out for the keys that I’d put in my pocket.
“Are you sure?” I hesitated with the keys in my hand.
“Yes. Dinner helped, and we do have some things to discuss on the off chance we win this.”
&n
bsp; “Thinking optimistically?” I asked as I placed the keys in his palm.
“Well, I think we’ve beat the other alternatives right into the ground. Don’t you?”
He was right. I had envisioned every awful scenario as we’d traveled down from Maine. I nodded and circled around to the passenger side.
He started the car. “Let’s not talk about failure. If we by some miracle pull this off, we have to figure out a way to try to fix what those videos destroyed.”
“How?”
“I have an idea, but I’m still figuring out if it will work or not.” He sucked his cheek between his teeth for a moment. “But for it to work, there can’t be a trace of the bodies. No bone, no blood, nothing to trace back to any of them.”
“You want me to burn the place down.”
He glanced at me. “No. We need to purify it with angel fire. And then maybe burn the place down just to be sure, but I’m not certain that will be needed.”
I thought about how I’d decimated an island in the South Pacific. “I’m not sure I have the angel fire thing under control like you do.”
“You really leveled an island?”
“It was a small island,” I mumbled under my breath and looked out the window.
“Well, then, I’ll have to be the one who does the clean-up. We don’t need you going nuclear and wiping out an entire town from the map.”
“If Alex is holding my hand, I should be able to control it.” I crossed my arms and cringed at the whine in my voice.
He nodded.
Silence filled up the car, and I fidgeted in the seat. “Is that it? That’s your big idea?”
He chuckled and glanced at me. “The second part of my idea has to take place in Paradise Cove. But I have never tried to film a spirit, so I’m not sure it will even work. I asked Valerie to take some videos on her camera to see if they appear normal on film. So, we will know by the time we get to the next stop whether it works or not.”
It was a brilliant idea.
Film Naomi and Gabriel with a time stamp at a later date than what Lucifer sent to the television stations would wipe out whatever damage Lucifer did to Alex’s future if there was video proof of everyone alive.