“’Funner’ isn’t a word, moron,” Jack responded, then turned to look at Claire. “Are they serious right now?”
“I think so.” Claire was three steps from where the dolls stood. She stopped, and Jack followed suit. They’d wait for the dolls to make the first move.
“Ah, fuck it,” the bald doll cursed, sounding decidedly like a man. It bent down and launched itself into the air. The other two jumped with it, moving almost as fast as Frank.
Two of the three came for Claire, while one went after Jack.
They either don’t know or don’t care about the book, she thought as her eyes tracked the two dolls.
The first came for her feet, and the second went after her neck. Screwdriver came for her upper body, and that’s who Claire focused on. Her knife shot out as its small blade tried to stab Claire’s flesh.
She grazed the doll’s side, and a puff of white stuffing exploding. The doll landed a kick on Claire’s shoulder, reversing course with it, moving out her knife’s range.
The kick was hard, much harder than something that small should have been able to generate.
Claire stumbled backward and fell on her ass.
The bald doll was scrambling up her leg, and although it didn’t have a weapon, its mouth was opening and closing rapidly.
The bitch might be missing hair, but she’s got teeth, Claire thought. She lost track of Screwdriver, but used her right knee to slam Hairless in the head. The doll flew off of her and smashed into the railing.
“A little help!” Jack called in a strained voice.
Claire’s shoulder was nothing but bright pain, but she paid it no mind. She drew herself up quickly from the step, her eyes finding Jack. He had two dolls on him now, and Missing Eye had him pinned against the wall, its tiny hands wrapped around his neck.
They look weak, but they’re strong, Claire thought calmly, even as her body reacted like a whirlwind.
Screwdriver was scurrying up Jack’s legs, clearly intent on stabbing him in the crotch.
Claire’s foot smashed into Screwdriver’s face.
The doll flew through the air, arms and legs flailing.
Jack’s face was turning red now, his hands unable to rip the doll from his throat. He couldn’t handle all three, and Claire knew she had to kill at least one of them. She grabbed Missing Eye by the hair, pulling its head back. The thing shrieked, but Claire didn’t slow. She pulled her blade across its neck, and cotton sprayed across Jack’s red face.
The doll went limp and fell to the ground.
“Aghhhh!” Hairless screamed as it jumped on Claire’s back.
Sharp teeth ripped into her flesh. She let out a cry as she reached to try to pull it off, but it was too far down her back.
Jack pushed himself off the wall. “Turn around!”
Claire did, knowing what Jack wanted to do. The teeth kept opening and closing, each bite creating new holes in her skin.
Jack’s knife darted forward, then up. The doll’s back ripped open, more white stuffing falling out. It went limp just like the one before it had, and it fell off Claire. She whirled around and stared at the lifeless thing.
“Fuck you!” she screamed, kicking it as hard as she could and sending it over the railing.
Claire got control of herself quickly, the pain across her back red-hot. There was one more doll to kill.
Screwdriver stood at the bottom of the stairs staring at them, its eyes narrowed in consideration.
“Fuck this,” it said, then turned and scurried down the stairs. Claire quickly lost sight of it in the darkness.
“Should we chase it?” Jack asked, staring after it.
“I’m losing blood.” Claire half-collapsed and half-sat on the stairs. She felt woozy and out of breath.
Jack rushed around behind her and pulled her shirt up.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Claire warned him with a small grin, even though even talking felt like a chore.
“Holy shit,” Jack whispered as the rest of the group ran down the stairs. “She can’t go on. We’ve got to get her out of here. To a hospital or something.”
At least five sets of teeth marks dotted her flesh, and blood was leaking out in rivers.
“Don’t sugarcoat it on my account, Jack,” Claire whispered, still smiling, but starting to see black around the edges of her vision.
Jack’s head turned to look at the FBI agents. “We’ve got to arrange some kind of emergency evacuation. She can’t go up those stairs.”
Remington and Lance stared at Claire’s torn skin, clearly trying to figure out the best course of action. Marissa pushed through the middle of them, sitting down on the steps. “There’s something in here for healing. Just hold on.”
She opened the book on her lap and started flipping through the pages. “Not this one… No… No… Here!” She looked up from the book at Claire’s bleeding back with wide eyes. “Let’s figure out if I learned anything.” She didn’t appear fazed by the wounds, but rather excited that she might be able to fix them.
Claire’s head started to droop.
Marissa began speaking, looking at the thick paper and following along with her finger. “Tui gratia lovis gratia sit cures.” She flipped the page and started again at the top, her headlamp lighting the words. “Tui gratia lovis gratia sit cures.”
“Oh, my goodness.” Jack’s eyes were so wide it looked like they might roll out of his head. He wasn’t watching Marissa read, but Claire’s back.
The bite wounds were rapidly healing. First, they scabbed over, and the blood stopped leaking. Then the torn flesh simply grew beneath the scabs, a process that should have taken weeks happening in a matter of seconds.
The blood that had been dripping down Claire’s back disappeared as if it had never existed.
Claire blinked, the black edges of her vision clearing up, and the wooziness fading.
“Jack, you think you can pull my shirt down now?”
“Oh…yeah, of course,” Jack awkwardly let her shirt go.
Claire stood and turned around, looking at Marissa, who was still sitting on the steps. “Well, I think you know a bit of magic.”
Marissa’s eyes remained on the page. She had a huge smile on her face. “I can’t believe it.”
“You better, kid.” Remington placed a hand on her shoulder. “Because we’re going to need more of that when we get to the top.”
Claire stuck her hand out. Marissa took it and stood. Claire pulled her close and hugged her, the book between them. “Thanks.”
“What about me?” Jack smirked. “If it wasn’t for me, no one would have even noticed.”
Claire turned with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? No one could have figured out I was injured from the way that doll jumped on my back and started chowing down?”
“Exactly,” Jack responded. “It was my quick thinking and reaction that saved your life.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “Thanks so much.”
“What about the doll?” Lance asked. “Are we going to let it go?”
Claire released Marissa and looked down the dark stairwell. After a moment, she nodded. “Yeah. Just be on the lookout as we go forward. If you hear it coming, yell. We’ve got more important things up above.”
Jack groaned. “Frank is lucky I like him. If it was anyone else, including you four, I’d just as soon stay at the university.”
Marilyn and Tina watched the group of five from a small room on the top floor of the tower. Marilyn had cast the spell allowing them to view the stairwell, and now they looked on as the crew slowly made their way to the top. They’d been smart not to try the elevator because no one would have made it out alive.
Still…
“They shouldn’t have gotten this far,” Marilyn whispered.
“What do you think it means?” Tina asked.
Marilyn shook her head. “That they’re tougher than we thought. That’s all. Nothing else. Once they get to the roof, they’re done for. We didn’t call these
ghosts here because they’re strong, we called them because they can’t be controlled.”
Tina nodded, her eyes still on the spell.
“They’re a distraction,” Marilyn continued. “Something to bring this young woman and her friends to us. When we finish with them, we’re going to rocket higher inside the Following. These kids may be tougher than we thought, but when they arrive on the roof, they’ll understand the truth about the world.”
“And what’s that?” Tina asked.
Marilyn’s eyes narrowed, staring at the group climbing closer to death. “That they’re on the wrong side of things.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Jack stopped walking and bent over He placed his hands on his knees, his chest heaving with the effort. “I almost don’t believe it.” He was staring at the door just in front of Claire. “I’m not sure how much I’ve got left in the tank.”
Claire managed to stay upright, although the rest of the group—including the FBI agents—were bent over and sucking in air. “You’d better have enough to kill whatever’s behind this door. We didn’t come this far to ask for a time out. Marissa, you okay?”
“I’ll be able to read the book,” she responded, still holding it in her arms. “I don’t know if I’ll be much good at anything else.”
“That’s all I need from you.” Claire kept her eyes on the door handle. “Remington, Lance, the pistols might be more useful on the witches. You are both going to shoot to kill, right?”
“You’ve got it,” Remington called from the back of the line.
“Locked and loaded,” Lance agreed.
Claire remembered all of her training and the mistakes she’d made when chasing vampires. They wouldn’t go through this door without a plan. “Listen up. Jack, you’re with me, and we’re going in first. Marissa, you get behind us. Remington and Lance, I want you watching Marissa’s back and following at a few feet distance. I don’t think those weapons are going to be super useful against so many ghosts. We got lucky in the stairwell. Maybe the witches didn’t think we’d be carrying heat, I don’t know.”
She paused while the FBI agents moved behind Marissa. “We’re probably going to see some awful things in the next few minutes. Maybe they’re real, and maybe they’re not, but we’ve got to keep our heads in the game. Our main goal here is finding those witches and killing them by any means necessary.”
She felt Jack’s hand touch her shoulder. “We’re with ya.”
Claire nodded. “Here we go.” She reached forward and took hold of the door handle. It felt like grabbing ice. She pulled, and it opened easily beneath her strength. She rushed through the door with Jack by her side and Marissa right behind her, and moments later, the agents followed Marissa onto the roof.
Claire’s salt-blade was at the ready, as was Jack’s, but they stopped ten feet out onto the roof, their eyes growing wide and unbelieving.
Jack hesitated right next to Claire. “Um, you think we can go ahead and start back down those stairs?” He turned his head over his shoulder and yelled behind him. “Remington, I need you to get that plane up and running in like, thirty seconds. Because that’s about how long I’m going to be standing up here.”
Claire knew he was joking. She could see he still held his blade in front of him, and he wasn’t moving an inch backward. Still, she understood the fear beneath his words.
Wind and screams whipped by their ears—howls like something straight out of a horror movie. The moon had to be somewhere in the sky, but the thick clouds covered it, plunging much of the roof into darkness. Ghosts flew to and fro across the sky. White and black things without faces, and other odd colors that she’d never seen before. They had to be ghosts, although they were unlike anything Claire had seen so far
Claire was trying to get her bearings when something flew at her.
“Watch out!” Jack screamed.
Claire brought the salt-encrusted knife up, but there was no time to get it in position to defend herself. The ghost was faster than anything had a right to be.
The ghost burst across her body, spraying her with cold water. It disappeared as it did, leaving only a ghastly laugh to echo in its place.
“Holy shit,” Jack whispered.
Claire looked down at her drenched body. She swallowed, recognizing she wasn’t hurt. The ghost had only been toying with her. “You guys okay back there?” she called to the rest of the team.
“Yeah!” Remington shouted over the screeches. “Where’s Frank?”
Claire forgot about the water and the ghosts. They weren’t here for Frank, but finding him meant finding the witches. Her sharp eyes scanned the area as the headlamp did its best to light the wider expanse.
She saw Frank finally. He was tied to a chair on the far corner of the roof, his green body dark beneath the clouded sky. He wasn’t moving, but he appeared to be alive.
He’s not saying anything, Claire thought. She raised a hand and pointed for the team. “There he is. Come on.”
She didn’t wait on Jack, but trotted carefully forward, her eyes scanning for anything coming her way. She felt Jack move into place behind her, but she couldn’t hear if the others were following over the noise of the ghosts.
“Claire, slow down!” Jack shouted. “We need to assess the situation!”
Claire heard him but didn’t listen. She saw her friend, and she had to get him. She would have done the same for anyone else she cared about. It was simply her nature.
She was fifteen feet from Frank when a massive beast that looked more like a demon than a ghost appeared. The Myther had a mixture of hair and tough, thick skin covering its body. It stood on four feet, and had red eyes and a horn sticking out of its head. Rows and rows of jagged, wet teeth filled its roaring mouth.
It had appeared from nowhere.
Claire stuck a foot out, sliding to a stop. Jack almost ran into her.
“Move!” Remington shouted, and Claire knew what was happening. She rolled to her right just as Jack rolled to his left, and the bullets soared through the air.
Claire kept her eyes on the Myther as she came to her feet, hoping that the bullets would kill it.
They didn’t even strike the Myther. They sailed through it as if it was nothing but air, and the creature’s mouth formed a hideous smile as they did.
“Stop!” Claire called. “You might hit Frank!”
The Myther pawed at the ground like a bull ready to charge.
“Claire! What the hell do we do?” Jack screamed.
“I don’t know!” she answered. The Myther rushed forward, and Claire knew instinctively that the bullets might have passed through it, but she wouldn’t do the same.
It was fast, but not as fast as Claire. She sidestepped and swung her knife. It dug into the thing’s hide and blood spurted out, but not enough to make a difference.
The Myther quickly came to a stop, turning around, and Claire heard more shots fired.
It turned ephemeral again, and the bullets whipped right through it as if it were no more than a hologram.
Once they had passed, it solidified again.
“What the hell is this thing?” Jack asked from the other side of it.
“It’s a Cocinique, I think!” Marissa shouted.
“And what is that?” Jack screamed back as the creature’s hooves pawed the ground again.
“Well—” Marissa started.
“Hell, you see what it is!” Claire interrupted everyone. “Now help me kill it!”
The ghost—if that’s what it was—paused momentarily. It seemed to be deciding who to kill first, Jack or Claire.
“I hope this works,” Jack cried over the Myther’s noise. He took a step forward and spit right on its face. “You ugly son-of-a-bitch. I don’t know where you came from, but I know they don’t have toothpaste over there because your breath smells like someone shit it in a bowl and microwaved it for five minutes.”
He spat again. This time his phlegm landed in the Myther’s eye.
It roared, saliva flying from its mouth, and Jack wasted no time. He took off across the roof as the Myther quickly decided it didn’t care who else lived or died as long as it ate Jack for dinner.
Claire didn’t move. She just watched, her eyes growing wide; she understood Jack had just sacrificed himself to this hellish ghost.
The thing was gaining on him, its four legs much stronger than Jack’s two. Still, Jack kept going, his arms pumping and his legs thrusting him forward. He didn’t look back, but seemed to be running directly to the ledge.
Oh, no, Claire thought. He’s going to kill himself.
Jack was two feet from the ledge—and the beast two feet behind him—when he slid. He went down like a baseball player, legs out first, and his foot slammed into the small ledge, stopping him.
The beast leapt, obviously hoping to pounce on Jack, but there was nothing but open space in front of it. It screamed, reality inescapable as it soared over the ledge. Jack’s head turned as he watched the Myther fly beyond their sight.
Oh, my goodness, the thought ran through Claire’s mind as the creature exploded into what looked to be a million shadows, all of them bursting at once and flying into the night.
“You mean I didn’t kill it?” Jack screamed in anger, standing up and watching as the shadows flew away. He turned around to Claire. “All that, and it got away!”
They didn’t have time to deal with his rage right now. Claire whipped back around and looked at Frank. He hadn’t moved, although his eyes were bright.
With fear? Claire wondered. Shock? What?
It didn’t matter. Claire went forward again, not looking back at her friends, only concerned with Frank. She was three feet from him when she realized what his eyes were trying to tell her.
No!
It was too late. Claire would have sworn no one stood next to Frank, only howling ghosts that came and went, but suddenly they were simply there.
The witches.
“Run!” Frank screamed, finally finding the ability to speak.
“No, no,” the witch on the left told Frank. “There will be none of that.”
Paranormal University: Second Semester: An Unveiled Academy Novel Page 21