“Hold up,” Jack interrupted. “You’re the ghost expert. How are you just going to leave without making sure that this thing is legit?”
Dr. Tharos grinned. “He gave us a sneak peek last night. This is probably the closest you’ll get to fighting ghosts without actually doing it.”
Jack shook his head. “Whatever.” He turned to Dr. Kilgore. “Come on, big man. Give us your best shot.”
“Oh, Jack-boy. This is what I live for,” Kilgore responded. He waved at the departing professors. “I will call when we finish.”
The other two professors waved back. “Thanks,” Dr. Byron said in farewell.
Claire turned toward the building as the two professors got on one of the golf carts and drove off back toward the main campus. “All right, what are we getting ourselves into?”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “This is nothing like when we trained for vampires. We had sticks and ankle weights, not a whole building.”
Kilgore nodded. “Vampires rely on strength and speed to fight. Ghosts, not so much. They deceive.”
“Deceive?” Claire raised an eyebrow.
“He’s right,” Marissa agreed. “Most of these things aren’t going to be physical entities we can touch. They’re going to be apparitions, beings that we sometimes see and other times we don’t. It’s by tricking us that they’ll be able to hurt us.”
“Tricking us?” Jack asked.
Claire understood now. She didn’t know what was inside that building, but she knew it would be much harder to trick anyone if you were fighting in an open field. That building, though? “You’ve got a whole bunch of tricks inside there, don’t you, Dr. Kilgore?”
“No, no. I will not trick you.” He was grinning so broadly she thought his face might split open.
This isn’t good, Claire thought. He’s way too happy.
“All right, enough jibber-jabber. Let’s get this over with.” She nodded at the door. “Through there?”
Kilgore pointed at the door. “Through there.”
“Don’t we need anything?” Jack asked. “Weapons?”
Kilgore only shook his head. “Today you will learn how to listen with all senses, not just your ears. Go in there and pay attention. We will see what’s what when you get out.”
This is gonna be bad, Claire thought, her eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about? No weapons? How are we going to fight back?”
“Weapons? What weapons will you fight ghost with? Shoot it with bullets? Slice it with sword?” Kilgore raised both eyebrows at the question.
Claire realized she was in somewhat of a corner here. She hadn’t actually thought about how to fight ghosts. “I…I don’t know.”
Kilgore shrugged. “Well, then, no other weapons. Come. I will teach you the best way to avoid death.” He smiled wide again. “Any other questions?”
Claire looked at Marissa and Jack, and neither had anything. Claire sighed. “Guess not. Let us in.”
The professor nodded. “Very good. That is the right attitude.”
They entered a room that had obviously been constructed with very little thought. It was simply a waiting room, something to hold the students until they were allowed deeper into the “funhouse.” Cheap, thin walls surrounded Claire and her group, giving them very little space for movement.
Dr. Kilgore smiled broadly and handed Claire a spiral notebook. “Here.”
Claire’s brow furrowed as she looked at the cover. “What’s this?”
Jack moved a bit closer to her. “We supposed to papercut the ghost to death, Dr. Kilgore? Want us to tear out ten sheets each?”
The trainer ignored the joke but kept smiling. “These are spells. Spells that I made. Spells for the funhouse.”
Claire flipped the cover open and looked at the first page. She glanced up at him after reading the first line. “Stop headshots?” She glanced back down at the page, feeling Marissa move closer to her side. “Headshot, headshot, Jack-boy is annoying. Headshot, headshot, Jack-boy is getting hurt. Headshot, headshot, make it stop?” Claire raised her head again, not understanding. “The page is full of this. What are we supposed to do? Where are our weapons?”
“Well, I wrote the spell, and that made me laugh.” He chuckled, then tapped the page with a huge finger. “This is your weapon, besides your senses. Most of the time, you cannot see ghosts. You cannot stab one with a stake or shine a light on it. Your weapon is this spell.”
Marissa reached past Claire’s hand and flipped the page. The title of it was Stop knee shots. “This is more of the same, Dr. Kilgore. What is going on?”
Dr. Kilgore nodded and took a step back from the group. “When you fight ghosts, you use spells. We no have spells or ghosts right now. However, you must train as if we have both. There are your spells. What is inside these walls…” Dr. Kilgore stepped back and pointed at the door leading into the funhouse. “There are ghosts. In order to stop the assault, you must get through the spell.”
Marissa shook her head as she flipped the page again. “But all of these are different, Dr. Kilgore. Every spell is different. We can’t memorize them all before we go inside.”
Dr. Kilgore shrugged. “Not my problem. Your problem. Now, I will give you a minute to figure out how you want to strategize, then you’ll go inside, yes?”
Claire didn’t know how much she liked this, but she did know they didn’t have much choice. Dr. Kilgore didn’t wait for a response but simply stepped into the funhouse, leaving them alone in the small waiting area.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Jack remarked. “Headshot? Like, people are going to be trying to hit us in the head?”
Claire nodded and kept flipping the pages. “Yeah. I think so. It looks like we’ll have to read them all to stop the attacks.”
“But there’s only one book,” Jack commented. “We can’t all read from one book.”
Marissa pursed her lips together for a moment, considering. “No. A spell only needs to be read by one person. That’s why there’s only one book.”
Claire nodded, finally understanding. “So one of us reads these, and the other two defend.”
Jack raised both eyebrows. “That means the person reading is defenseless, right?”
Claire shook her head. “No. We’re their defense. And our own defense.”
“So, who’s doing the reading?” Jack asked.
Claire smirked. “Given that you can hardly read, I’m going to go ahead and say Marissa reads, we defend.” She looked at Marissa. “How’s that sound to you?”
Marissa joined in on Claire’s smirk. “I agree. I don’t think it will do us much good to count on Jack’s reading ability to get us out of this. I’ll read the spells, and you two keep them away from us.”
“I resent the remark,” Jack commented. “However, my physical skills far exceed that of Sissy’s, so I’ll go ahead and defend her, as I always do. Probably will need to defend you, too, Claire, now that we’re thinking about it.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Here.” She handed the spiral notebook to Marissa then looked to the door. “Dr. Kilgore! We’re ready!”
The door opened, and the trainer stepped back. “You ready? That quick?”
Jack smiled. “You know how smart I am, Dr. Kilgore. It didn’t take me but a moment to figure out the plan. Yeah, we’re ready.”
“If Jack-boy plans, you are in trouble, but okay.” He stepped back and gestured for them to enter the open door. “Welcome to the funhouse.”
Jack raised an eyebrow and didn’t move forward. “It’s dark in there. I can’t see anything. How in the heck is Sissy supposed to read?”
Dr. Kilgore shrugged in response. “You are smart, Jack-boy. You figure it out.”
Claire glanced at Marissa. “How hard can it be?”
Marissa sighed in response. “I guess we’re going to find out.”
Claire stepped forward but stopped short of passing through the door. “So, what’s our objective here, besides using this
pseudo-spell book to stop the attacks?”
Dr. Kilgore wagged a finger in the air. “That is not pseudo. Here, that is all that matters. Objective? Get to the other side of funhouse and out into fresh air.”
“Again, no other weapons besides those spells?” Jack asked.
Dr. Kilgore drooped his hand and shook his head. “I trained you well enough that your hands should be weapons, yes? For this, you need to use senses. You need listen with your ears. Feel room around you. Weapons are mind and body.”
Jack sighed. “He’s not going to make this easy. Let’s get in there and see what happens.”
Claire nodded in agreement, thinking through the strategy. “I don’t know what the lighting is going to be throughout the place, but we’re going to need something. Marissa, you have your cell phone on you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Claire looked at Dr. Kilgore. “That’s okay?”
The big man shrugged. “Sure. You can use the phone. No matter if you call someone.” He smiled. “No one will come to help.”
Claire ignored the joke. “Okay. You’re going to use your phone to get through those spells. Jack and I are going to protect you, and then we’ll be done. Sound good?”
Dr. Kilgore’s smile widened. “What is the saying? ‘Easy-peasy?’ Yes. Easy-peasy.”
Claire didn’t like his grin or how he seemed to be mocking her enthusiasm, like he knew it would be anything but easy.
The door closed behind them, and they were suddenly thrown into complete darkness. Marissa whipped her cell phone out from behind Claire and turned the flashlight on. She shined it on her notebook for approximately three seconds before something smacked it to the ground.
“Ouch!” Marissa shouted as the phone’s glass shattered. Claire turned around quickly, having not seen or heard anything. She reached into the darkness, hoping to grab whoever had hit the phone, but she felt only air.
Jack whispered from beside her, “Well, that went well.”
Claire backed up so she was almost touching Marissa. “Did you bring your cell phone, Jack?”
He scoffed. “Hell, no. I’m not bringing a cell phone around Kilgore, for this exact reason. Sissy’s is dead now.”
Claire sighed. Her hands were still up to do battle, but her eyes were not adjusting to the darkness. There simply wasn’t any light to see with. “Okay, we have to go forward somehow. Marissa, can you see anything on that paper.”
“Not a single word.”
Claire shook her head. No wonder Kilgore was smiling, she thought. He knew what would happen the moment we pulled the cell phone out. “Okay. Jack, get behind Marissa. We’re going to stay in a line and protect her until we can find some light in this place. There has to be a switch or a pull-string somewhere. They wouldn’t put us in here without any light whatsoever.”
She heard Jack moving to the back as he spoke. “Keep telling yourself that. This is looking worse and worse.” Another second passed, then he said, “I’m in place.”
“Marissa, grab my shirt. Jack you grab hers. We’re going to move slowly,” Claire instructed. “Keep your senses as alert as possible because none of us saw or heard them come at the phone.”
“You do realize how dumb this is?” Jack asked. “There’s no way we’re going to win this.”
Claire wanted to turn around and hit him, but she couldn’t see well enough to do that. “Got any other ideas, Jack? Want to turn around and knock on the door? See if Kilgore will let us out?”
“Just go forward,” Jack mumbled.
Claire started slowly. She put one foot in front of the other, careful not to lose Marissa. She understood—or at least thought she did—how this was supposed to simulate ghosts. They could see nothing, making it much harder to defend. They had no real weapons to attack with besides the spells. It was about as close to reality as Dr. Kilgore could make it, which meant they were screwed until they found some light.
Claire heard the movement to her right. She turned, hoping she was in time, although she couldn’t see anything.
She wasn't.
Something hard and cold collided with her chin. It wasn’t an exceedingly dangerous hit, but it stunned her momentarily. She reached out, hoping to grab her assailant, but again found only air.
“Hey!” Jack shouted from behind, and then she heard him hit the floor. He scrambled back to his feet. “I can’t see a damned thing! They just swept my legs out from under me!”
We’re in a bad spot, Claire thought. Her chin was hurting, although she knew not as badly as it could have been. Whoever was in here wasn’t trying to kill them. “Come on. Keep going.”
They walked another ten steps or so, then Claire heard movement again. It was sweeping toward her face. “Duck!” she shouted as she dropped to the floor.
“Ah!” Marissa screamed from behind Claire as the object whacked her hard in the arm. Claire heard the spell book drop to the ground and scrambled to grab it, but a foot connected with her ribs and sent her sprawling. She heard someone else kick the spell book. It slid across the dark ground, lost to the group.
Claire was on her back, and she felt a boot clamp down her throat—not hard enough to injure her, but enough to let her know she wasn’t going anywhere.
Lights flashed on above, and Claire brought a hand to shield her eyes even as she tried to see what was happening.
Three figures stood over them, each with night-vision goggles. One of them still had his boot on Claire’s throat. The other two were behind Marissa and Jack, billy clubs pinned against her friends’ throats.
Claire heard Dr. Kilgore’s heavy footsteps walking up from behind. “You are all dead now. Ghosts got you.”
Jack sounded like he was having a tough time breathing as he spoke. “Yeah, well, you didn’t give us much of a chance. Now get your goon off me.”
The men holding Jack and Marissa stepped away, as did the person pinning Claire to the ground. Dr. Kilgore extended his hand and helped lift her up. “You lasted five minutes in here, no more. Now you are bruised, but if this was real, you would be dead.”
Jack stepped forward, his anger showing. “What did you expect to happen? It was pitch-black, and we couldn’t read your stupid spell book. How were we supposed to win?”
Claire shook her head, looking at the floor. They were both right. They would be dead, yet how were they supposed to kill ghosts when they were literally defenseless? “We have to train harder for this,” she whispered. “It’s going to be different. A new kind of challenge. We failed today, but we will get better.”
Dr. Kilgore nodded with a smile. “Yes. Get better, not mad, Jack-boy. Getting mad will only make you dead. Getting better will make sure you stay alive.”
Marissa raised her hand slowly. “Ummm, who’s paying for my phone?”
Chapter Eight
Marilyn Tensle was fifty-eight years old, although she didn’t look like it. Men who saw her on the street would say she wasn’t a day over forty, and even that might be pushing it. Marilyn hadn’t had any use for a man in thirty years. Or a woman either, for that matter. Her looks weren’t a byproduct of diet, exercise, or plastic surgery, but because she used what some people called witchcraft.
The dark arts had treated her well for the past thirty years, and up until the Veil’s tearing, she’d thought she known everything about said arts.
Marilyn quickly came to understand that she didn’t really know much.
She’d been able to see the creatures that came through, even when other adults couldn’t. She knew why, of course. She was a witch.
Not the kind in movies who rode broomsticks and had huge moles on their noses. No, Marilyn was a real witch. One who practiced actual spells and hexes. So, when a werewolf had walked by her on the street, Marilyn had known exactly what she was looking at.
The werewolf sensed she could see it. The creature stopped and bared its fangs, but Marilyn wasn’t scared. She’d been more intrigued than anything else. She’d whispered a quick warn
ing, and the creature’s teeth had disappeared behind its lips before it whined and hurried on down the road.
Marilyn had looked around at that point, wondering if anyone else could see the huge wolf-like beast.
They think it’s a dog—if they can see anything, she mused as people moved out of its way. They don’t seem overly fearful.
Marilyn had watched the massive creature hurry down the road, scared of the witch and the pain that she’d made it feel.
That’s when she knew things were changing, and that they’d never go back to the way they were. That’s when she knew she had to be on the right side of this change.
Two years later and she was on the right side, although she wasn’t fully sure how large the side was.
Right now, she was sitting outside a cafe in downtown Miami. Tina Reynolds sat next to her, each of them with a cup of tea in front of them. Tina was five years younger than Marilyn and looked even younger. Age remained a stranger to both of them, although it was catching up to Marilyn slightly quicker.
Tina was a witch too, and when Marilyn made her decision to leave the coven and strike out on this new path, she’d invited only Tina. The rest of the coven, well. Their ideas on this change were very different.
The other witches had focused on the light arts, thinking that they could somehow… Hell, Marilyn didn’t truly know what the rest of those bitches thought, and she didn’t really care either. If they didn’t want to be on the right side of things, so be it.
Marilyn did, and so did Tina.
That’s why they were here at this café. And the rest of the coven? They were practicing spells in a basement, hoping to understand something they would never be able to.
“He should have been here twenty minutes ago,” Tina commented, a slight twinge of worry in her voice.
Marilyn knew the time, and that the mystery man was late, but that was okay. “He’ll come. They need us, and what we’re doing here is more interesting than anything else they’ve got going on.”
Tina reached down and took a sip of her tea. To the outside world, she was as calm as a Hindu cow, although Marilyn knew her well enough to know she was nervous. And why shouldn’t she be? This was the first time in a year they were meeting with someone inside The Following. It wasn’t Marilyn’s name for the organization, but she was going along to get along.
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