by E. J. Dawson
“That’s not it,” Letitia said. “I think we’re missing something. You never found anything there, did you? Any sign someone was using it?”
“I was only doing maintenance and upgrades,” he said. “Some of the work myself, but I was the only one with keys—”
His voice cut off, face pale.
“What?” Letitia said.
“I didn’t have all the keys,” he said, anger growing with every word. “Because Calbright had another set.”
“The seller?” Letitia clarified and Alasdair nodded. “He was in your office the day I first went to you. Not the father but the son. I thought he wanted to sell it?”
“He also made it a condition of his signing that he kept a copy of the keys,” Alasdair said. “Which didn’t alarm me because we hadn’t finalized the titles.”
“He’s using it,” Letitia guessed. “Or perhaps the spirit is using him. The keys would be the connection between the two…how the spirit is attaching to this Calbright. Just like with the typewriter and Finola.”
Alasdair’s hand clenched the doorframe, wood groaning from his grip.
“It’s where they’ve gone,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”
“Maybe, but we can’t go in blind,” Letitia said. “The old hotel is full of ghosts, not only the one that found Finola.” Letitia rubbed her arms as she said it, studying the picture. “It isn’t common, having it stalk her like this. In fact, Old Mother Borrows confessed she only ever saw something like it happen to me, a spirit’s ability to move from the place it haunts to people and objects. But what if a spirit in the hotel possessed Calbright? What if it’s wielding him through its will?”
“Then we must leave—”
“Not before I’ve scryed,” Letitia reiterated. “If Calbright has taken her, then he might be somewhere else. This is simply where the spirit has come from. We have to know what we’re walking into, and nothing is going to help Finola if we can’t work out…” Her voice drifted off, the sentence unfinished. She couldn’t bear to think Finola already dead, let alone say it.
Alasdair opened his mouth, to deny or yell at her she didn’t know, but he closed it at her hardened expression.
“We need to scout his territory,” she said when he didn’t speak. “It’s the only way to be sure we can get her out alive. You don’t know what these things can do, what lies beyond death, what can come from behind the veil. I do. I need to take all precautions or none of us may get out of there.”
She dropped the papers, and he enveloped her in his warmth.
“Tisha, I…” he paused, and Letitia let herself relax against his chest. He didn’t go on, and she didn’t prompt him, but when he let go she didn’t give him the chance to do anything more. She turned to head toward the stairs.
“I need to know more,” she said. “I need to understand what is happening here. The only way I can do that is reaching out for Finola.”
He didn’t protest, and when they had descended and returned to the parlor, Abby was finishing her brandy.
“The police telephoned,” she said. “They’ve had no sign of her.”
Abby crumpled in her chair and Alasdair went to her side.
“We’ll find her,” he said, embracing her. “I promise I’ll bring her back.”
“She’s all we have left,” Abby sobbed. “Do whatever it takes, Alasdair, but bring my little girl home to me.”
Letitia withdrew to a chair in the far corner. A bowl already lay in place in the center of the table. Not sure of where her handbag or any other tools were, she found a nearby lamp, taking out the wick and dropping several splashes of oil in the surface of the bowl.
Alasdair had been thoughtful in his selection of a terracotta-stained bowl, its dark varnish giving the midnight hue that so helped her visions.
As if sensing her mood, Alasdair led Abby to a waiting maid and shut the door to give them privacy. He came to sit before her in the other single chair.
“Tell me what you are thinking,” he said. “What did you mean upstairs about the hotel and those missing girls?”
Letitia adjusted the bowl, trying to stop the shaking that seemed to have taken over her. “I think the…phantom who haunted Finola has attached himself to a man. Whoever he is, he is living out the deplorable desires of the old hotel manager.”
Alasdair was silent for a long time.
“I know how it sounds,” Letitia said, confused herself. “I don’t know enough about how malevolent spirits work.”
“It’s a delicate topic for you,” he murmured, “but this happened to you once, or nearly happened.”
“It wasn’t the same,” Letitia said, leaning forward. “The spirit was Daniel, and he loved me.”
Alasdair’s face turned blank and Letitia saw her error but plowed on.
“But when I opened myself at the séance to reach him, an evil creature came through, one that wasn’t ever human,” Letitia said. “But the old hotel manager was once human. It may be forcing someone or possessing them into taking small girls to satisfy its urges. We need to investigate it thoroughly because I think the girls’ souls are trapped there, too. And I feel stupid not to have realized sooner that this was a possibility.”
As soon as the words were out, she knew it was true, even if she hadn’t meant to say it.
“You couldn’t have known.” Alasdair’s assurance fell flat.
“I still don’t, and it doesn’t matter anymore. I have to be sure and to do so I have to seek Finola out in a scrying bowl.”
Alasdair stared hard at her, and she didn’t flinch or waver.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No, but I don’t know what I’ll face there or what I might find. I need you to be ready for that.”
“You mean if he’s hurt her,” he said in a dark and dangerous whisper.
“Y-yes…” Letitia said, licking her lips. “But I also don’t want you to be angry with me.”
“What do you mean?” He had stilled, eyes narrowed, and she couldn’t go another moment without expressing the depths of her fear.
“Do you understand that I could lose?” she said, hands clenched on her dress. “The last time…the last time I fought such a thing I killed someone.”
There it was. The confession and the ugliness of it.
“You did what you had to—”
“No,” she said, swallowing past old fears. “A woman was possessed with an evil spirit and I beat her to death over what she did to me. Do you understand how out of control these situations can get? I spoke of risk before, but that is what I truly fear.”
Letitia had refused time and again to help those girls so she could save herself, given that they were already dead. She had feared falling into that darkness or worse—inviting a monster inside of her again.
And for Finola, she would break every rule, even lie to herself about why she was doing it. Though she cared for Finola, she’d risk it all for the man across from her, the man begging her to save his daughter’s life. She couldn’t tell him now that she was head over heels in love with him because she didn’t want him to know he’d cracked the walls around her heart.
But he had to know everything about her past, and what may come, before she tried. She would not lead him blindly into the darkness.
“I don’t have the right to ask…” he said, enunciating each word as though dragged from his mouth.
“I’ve already said I’d do it,” she said, one hand drifting to touch his hand on the table, and she sighed in relief when he returned her grasp. “No matter the cost. I must know, if not for you, then for me.”
He was quick to kiss her hand. He let her sit before the bowl and fall into it, and though it was nothing like her treasured bowl from Old Mother Borrows, there wasn’t a moment to waste.
Letitia leaned forward and reached out for Finol
a.
Chapter 19
Her jaw hurt.
The gag stopped her from speaking. He didn’t like her to talk, not when she knew his thoughts.
It was her only weapon.
“My dad and Tisha are going to find you, Mister Calbright.” She thought it as loudly as possible, pushing with all her might. She saw him start in the driver’s seat, head turned toward her, and knew she’d pushed too hard again when he leaned over the seat to slap her face. It stung, but she was ready for it—she had the memories from her nightmares to prepare her.
His father had such soft hands, ones that handed out sweets to good girls who smiled for him, kind eyes crinkling at the corners, and always gave seconds.
Mr. Calbright’s son was a bastard.
Angry face. Reedy hair, thin lips, narrowed eyes.
Pale as the moon and watery as a pig with diarrhea.
She projected the last thought and Calbright ran a self-conscious hand through his hair.
Light glinted off it, slanted from the street, and flickered as he drove away from the city toward his lair. She knew his filthy mind, but not until too late. She thought the spirit that haunted her dreams was elsewhere, distant. She sensed it in the theater, knew he would come for her, and she went to the bathroom to throw up the nice dinner she’d had. She could not let Abby worry. Wiping sweat from her brow, she was focused on returning to the foyer when she walked out of the restroom and bumped into a stranger.
No, not a stranger, a man who worked with her father. He had a smile for her. Only when she looked into his eyes did she see what lay within. The nightmarish phantom was somehow inside Mr. Calbright.
She wasn’t as astute as Tisha.
He’d hit her, hard, darkness spinning in her head as she fell into his arms. He’d taken her out a back door to a waiting car and shoved her inside. They’d driven for a while before he pulled over and tied her up. The rough rope on her legs and hands roused her but all of her struggles had done nothing. When she screamed, he took a cloth and tied it about her face.
When he looked at her now, she didn’t see the phantom. Her fear faded, only to be replaced by the revulsion of Mr. Calbright, the things he’d done at the forefront of his mind.
She’d wept, shaken her head, drew away from him.
And he’d smiled…
Her only hope was that Tisha could find her and get her father to help. Nola knew now that Alasdair was really her father. It didn’t matter. She’d known for some time before Tisha came along.
All she could do was listen to Mr. Calbright’s thoughts and hope they would find her in time…
Geoff was anxious. He didn’t know what to do. He cursed the psychic for finding the spirit—the spirit who bade him stay, to run to the hotel, to hide, to take one final victim before the end. He didn’t want to die, couldn’t yet. He was on the cusp of great wealth…help his father die and take the money and go somewhere no one would find out about him.
If the girl was right, then someone else knew. No, not someone, that bitch Driscoll hired to fix his damn niece. They knew. They were coming for him for what he’d done…
It made Nola’s skin crawl, and she could face no more of his thoughts.
Nola wanted to taunt him some more, see if she could convince him he would be caught and that her father was coming for her.
But something bade her still, a sliver of awareness prickling over her skin. She forgot the outward thoughts of Mr. Calbright and looked within…
There was a familiar hand on her brow, a tentative touch.
But she saw nothing in front of her face but the back seat of the car.
The hand was familiar. Nola remembered that cool hand from another nightmare, a presence that she knew. Tisha…
Where was she? Where was Nola!
That was more important, and she glanced up at Mr. Calbright. She could tell the lights from houses were fading in the distance. She lifted her head, fighting the bonds to glimpse out the window. They were on a darkened road, driving north—the sea on the left-hand side. A disused road along the coast, not one she recognized.
Her leg cramped and she curled back in on herself, muffling a whimper at the tight muscle in her calf she couldn’t touch.
Blinking away the tears, Finola refused to acknowledge panic as she twisted against her bonds, agony warring with her relief as she tried to see more. The features were shrouded in night’s form, but after a while something emerged against the skyline, dark and terrible.
The old hotel.
Finola was very much alone with her kidnapper.
Time, time, time.
Finola heard it—Tisha was trying to speak to her—but they had none left.
Geoff glanced over the car seat at her, blue eyes aflame, thoughts of the secret place he’d hide her before attending to his needs. He’d leave Finola’s battered and broken body on the cold floor and run for Canada.
Help! Finola called through her connection to Tisha, the last reserves of her courage wilting to nothing as the reality of her nightmares came to fruition.
When Geoff touched her to pick her up and carry her to the hotel, she struggled.
They’re coming, she screamed in his mind, falling back on the car seat as he flinched away. They are coming for you, they know what you’ll do, and you won’t get away with this if you hurt me! She’ll hunt you down to the ends of the earth, and there is nowhere you can go where she won’t find you!
The raging whirlwind of her thoughts assaulted him, battering him, invisible fists he couldn’t stop.
He hit her.
“They just got to the old hotel!” Letitia shouted, squeezing Alasdair’s hand so hard she heard the bones crack. She was back in the living room, head spinning as she rose to her feet. “She’s going to try and bide us time, but we have to go, and we have to go now.”
Alasdair rose to his feet. “I’ll get the car.”
“Don’t think about leaving me behind,” Letitia said. “But we’ll need what precautions we can gather.”
“The car has lanterns for breakdowns,” Alasdair said. “The electricity is unreliable out there.”
“Get more. We may need them.”
Alasdair called down the hall for a manservant, but Letitia brushed by and headed for the kitchens.
At this time of night, they were empty. The stove was turned low, but Letitia went straight past it to the pantry.
“Salt, salt, salt,” she whispered to herself, examining the lower levels. There were two bags, and she grabbed both, ducking out of the pantry and trying to think of what else they could bring that might help. As an afterthought, she ran to her rooms and retrieved a vial of juniper oil and her gloves. Best not to get drawn into an unwanted vision, either by touch or by accident.
When she arrived back at the hall Abby was arguing with Alasdair.
“I want to come with you,” she said.
“And I said no.” He held a rifle in one hand and Letitia saw a pistol on his hip.
“You have to call the police,” Abby insisted. “If you know where she is, then this is dangerous, and she’ll need all the help she can get. What about doctors or transport to a hospital?”
Alasdair glanced over Abby’s shoulder at Letitia, who shook her head.
“There can be no one else there,” Letitia said, rather than make Alasdair say it.
“Don’t you want to see Calbright arrested?” Abby spun on her heel.
“We are going into the lair of the creature that possessed your daughter,” Letitia said. “It’s night, it’s dark, and we have to do it because we cannot afford to make Finola wait for daylight.”
Abby’s hands clenched by her side. “I cannot sit here and do nothing.”
“And I can’t take you,” Letitia said. She didn’t even want Alasdair coming, uncerta
in as to what she would face. “Anyone else there may be at risk, and the fewer people I have to think about the easier this will be.”
Abby’s eyes slid closed. “But you know she’s there? That she’s safe?”
“For now,” Letitia lied. “We must hurry though.”
Abby paused and then stepped aside.
Without a word, Letitia left the house, Alasdair by her side. Lanterns sat in the back of the car, and she placed the salt down beside them.
“Something to break chains or locks,” she said, thinking of the specter’s habits.
“There are bolt cutters and a crowbar in the back of the car on the floor,” Alasdair said, laying the gun over the rear passenger seat. Letitia slipped into the front and settled in for the drive.
Alasdair got behind the wheel and the vehicle shot off into the night.
“You can’t shoot him,” she said after several miles had passed.
“Why ever not?” Alasdair bit out.
“He has to pay for what he’s done,” she said. “The families of the girls who were taken have as much right as you.”
Alasdair clenched the steering wheel, and Letitia studied his profile, waiting for the tightness to fade and for him to acknowledge what she’d said.
“It will clear your name, too,” Alasdair said. “Though I cannot confirm he’ll arrive at the station without a beating.”
“He deserves much worse.” Letitia grabbed onto the seat and door at his fast driving. “But we have to focus on the greater threat. Any spirit able to manifest in such a way is going to be the real danger here.”
Alasdair gave a clipped nod. “What do you want me to do?”
“Do as I say,” Letitia said, not sure herself. “But if I am not myself, then you must leave me.”
There was a long silence as Alasdair’s gaze fixated on the road.
“Alasdair?”
“No.” The terse answer denoted his feelings, but she pressed on.
“You do not understand what can and might happen,” she said. “Finola must be our priority. She is ill-equipped to deal with this. She will need you, and you need to do as I ask you so I can ensure that happens.”