And Audrey certainly didn’t want to even contemplate the notion that the creature standing a few feet away from her had had sex with a human woman.
“Did Alice know?” she asked, and hated how her voice shook.
“Of course not. How could she? Jeffrey would never have told her the truth. Later on…after I’d taken full control…perhaps she began to suspect the real reason for the estrangement from her husband. Why do you think her children convinced her to put me in a sanitarium?”
Because clearly, they’d begun to notice something a little strange about Daddy. Audrey would have asked why he didn’t try to stop them, but there was no need for that, since the demon already had a plan in place to make sure he remained free and that Henry, Jeffrey’s only son, would pay the price for daring to institutionalize his father.
“I’m going upstairs,” Audrey said, since there was no need to answer his question.
To her surprise, the Whitcomb-demon began to laugh. It was a horrible, high-pitched sound, at odds with the baritone of his speaking voice. In fact, it reminded her of the screeching laughter she’d heard at the mansion in Glendora, the first real sign that something was terribly wrong with the house. “Go ahead and hide,” he said after he stopped laughing, “if it makes you feel better. Just know that you won’t be able to stop me if I decide I want you. And also know that you won’t remember a thing if I do.”
She couldn’t bear to hear any more. Without responding, she fled up the stairs, the heels of her boots clacking on the polished mahogany stairs. In some kind of dreadful counterpoint to the sound, he began laughing again, those shrill cackles tearing at her ears.
No point in looking back. Audrey ran down the upstairs hallway, then went into her room and closed the door behind her. It actually had a lock, although she didn’t know whether it would really do any good. Still, she locked it, then went around the room and turned on all the lights, banishing every shadow, before she retreated to the bed and sat down there, hugging her knees to her chest, trembling so hard, she wasn’t sure if she would ever stop.
She had to get out of there.
Chapter 4
After six o’clock, and no call from Rosemary. Michael knew he should probably try to eat something, but with the way his stomach was knotted up in worry, he didn’t know whether that was such a good idea. Colin and Daniela were still out, and Susan had left as well, saying she wanted to poke around the neighborhood a bit.
That was probably his cue to say he would join her, but he knew he’d be rotten company, what with the way he kept checking his phone every five minutes. Luckily, Susan hadn’t seemed to mind, had only said she hoped he would get some news about Audrey soon and then headed out to the parking lot.
He decided he might as well go out to the courtyard. Although the sun was nearly down, the temperature was still mild enough to sit outside for another half hour or so.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t left alone to brood for very long. Less than five minutes after he’d sat down, a woman in her late fifties approached him. She was on the chubby side and wore her gray-streaked brown hair in a ponytail.
Michael recognized her immediately — Jackie Samuels, one of the owners of the bed-and-breakfast. Her husband Edgar helped her manage the place, although Michael hadn’t seen him so far today. “Hi, Jackie,” he said, figuring he might as well be polite. “Nice evening, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she replied, although something about her manner seemed hesitant, as if she wasn’t entirely sure whether the evening was all that nice. “Has everyone else gone out?”
He nodded. “They wanted to do a little exploring, but I figured I’d stay here.”
“So you’re going to set up tomorrow?”
Now he thought he had an inkling as to the reason behind her diffident manner. Maybe she wondered if they’d used the story about the TV show to get some free rooms here in Tucson, since there hadn’t been much “official” activity going on today. “That’s the plan,” he replied. “We’ll film the intro to the episode, and Colin will get various interior and exterior shots from around the B&B in addition to installing motion-activated cameras in the various rooms. Of course, we’ll keep our eyes open for any supernatural phenomena during all that.” In his mind’s eye, Michael saw the cross slowly hang itself upside down and then trace a circle on the wall as it resumed its original position. Casually, he added, “I did notice the cross in my room.”
Paradoxically, Jackie appeared more relaxed now after that revelation than when she’d first approached him. It was possible he’d set her mind at ease by detailing what the crew planned to do next…and that she felt better now after he’d seen for himself that everything was not as it seemed at the Thunderbird Bed and Breakfast Inn.
“Oh, yes, it does that all the time,” she said. “For a while, I kept trying to put it back where it was supposed to go. But it never stayed put, so I just leave it alone now.”
“It hung itself back in the correct position as I watched.”
Her brown eyes widened slightly. “Really? It never did that for me.”
Interesting. Was whatever spirit that lurked here trying to put on a special show just for him? Maybe even it wanted its fifteen minutes of fame. Putting that question aside for now, Michael said, “Do you have any other crosses here that display similar behavior?”
“We used to. I had a big wrought-iron and wood one that was hanging in the breakfast room. But I couldn’t get it to stay upright, either, so I ended up taking it down.” She hesitated before asking, “What do you think is here?”
“I don’t know,” he said frankly. “I’ve seen the phenomenon for myself, so I know something’s at work, but I’m not getting enough of an impression yet to make any kind of a judgment call. Our show is about demon hunting, and meddling with a cross is often a sign of a demonic infestation, but certain earthbound spirits have been known to mimic the work of demons to confuse the residents of the homes they inhabit.” An idea occurred to him, and he went on, “I think I’ll get out one of our EMF meters and take a walk around the property, see if anything registers.”
To his surprise, Jackie nodded. “I’ve seen those on ghost-hunter shows. They really work?”
“They absolutely will record anomalous electromagnetic activity. If I find anything, then that would point to ghosts being involved here, not demons.”
This statement seemed to worry their hostess more than reassure her. “If you think it’s ghosts, will you still film your episode?”
“Of course,” Michael said. “I think it might help to show what a haunting looks like as opposed to an infestation. And we can still help you to clear the building.”
Not quite sagging with relief, she said, “Oh, good. Because this thing has been killing our business. We’ve had some curiosity-seekers, but most people just want to have a nice, peaceful stay while they’re on vacation and not have to worry about ghosts or demons or whatever they are interfering with their sleep.”
“One way or another, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” he assured her. From inside his pocket, his phone began to ring, and he sent her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I need to get this.”
“Of course,” Jackie said. “You just come knock if you need anything.”
He gave her an abstracted nod as he pulled out his phone and looked at the screen. Rosemary McGuire’s number. “This is Michael.”
“Hi,” Rosemary responded. She sounded tired and discouraged, and his heart sank.
“You couldn’t make contact.”
“No. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. Izzie and CeeCee and I made a circle, reached out to Audrey — we used the key to the guest house, since it was the only thing we had that she’d recently touched — and couldn’t come up with anything. It’s like she’s been sucked into a void or something.”
“Shit.” With his free hand, Michael reached up to rub his forehead. It felt like a headache was coming on, probably a combination of stress and hunger. “You didn’t get anything?”
“Just that same darkness and cold.” Rosemary paused for a second or two, then said, “I really think I should come to Tucson. I looked up the flights. There’s one leaving at seven fifty-five from Ontario that I could take. I have to connect in Las Vegas, but I’ll still be in Tucson around ten.”
He wanted to tell her no, that he had this handled, but the sad truth was that he didn’t have it handled. Rosemary could be sending herself on a wild goose chase, true, and yet if there was even the slightest possibility she might be able to do something in person that she couldn’t do remotely, they had to try.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll be there to pick you up. You can stay here at the room that was supposed to be Audrey’s.” Even as he made the suggestion, though, he winced inwardly. Although it was a practical enough solution to providing Rosemary with someplace to stay, he hated the sound of it, as if he didn’t expect Audrey to be here any time soon. To cover his unease, he added quickly, “You might have to put up with a few ghosts, though.”
“Just ghosts? That doesn’t sound too bad.” A forced chuckle, and she said, “I’ll go pack. Izzie already offered to drive me to the airport, so that’s handled. I’ll be” — a pause as she apparently stopped to look something up — “on Flight 792. Southwest, arriving at ten-fifteen from Las Vegas.”
Michael reached for the pen he always kept in his jacket pocket, and extracted it and a receipt from Starbucks. Scribbling quickly, he wrote down the information Rosemary had just given him. “Got it,” he said when he was done. “I’ll be there.”
“Okay.” Another hesitation before she added, “We can do this. We’ll find her.”
God, he hoped so. “I know. I’ll see you at the airport.”
They ended the call, and he slid his phone and his pen back in his pocket. Jackie had slipped away while he was talking to Rosemary.
Well, this seemed to provide him with an opportunity to check the property with the EMF meter, as he’d promised. He got up from the table in the courtyard and headed back to his room, then rummaged through the duffle that held several of the meters, along with a couple of spare motion-detecting cameras. Even though he knew Colin planned to set up a series of the cameras the next morning, Michael figured it couldn’t hurt to get a few of them out there now.
Besides, the more things he could do to keep himself busy while he was waiting for Rosemary’s plane to arrive, the better. He couldn’t stop thinking about the darkness she’d described, the way she hadn’t been able to feel even a hint of Audrey’s presence.
What if the darkness she’d felt was death? What if Audrey was already lost to them?
No, he refused to believe that. They’d only made love the one time, but he wanted to think that he’d still somehow feel it if she’d died. Some people might call that crazy, magical thinking, and yet Michael had seen enough phenomena that people would call crazy to realize there was far more to this world than most wanted to admit.
He set up one of the motion-activated cameras in the walkway outside his room, then headed into the common area that had once been the living room of the original adobe house. The email Jackie had sent describing the otherworldly activities in the B&B indicated that quite a lot of disturbances had taken place in this room as well, so he figured it was as good a spot as any to position the other spare camera.
Once he was done with that task, he pulled the EMF meter out of his jacket pocket and turned it on. It was tuned to filter out manmade electromagnetic fields, and so if he picked up anything, it should be ghostly in origin, rather than a “noisy” cable box or electrical panel.
By this point, the sun was gone, and a bluish twilight hung over the desert town. Michael glanced up at the sky, thought he saw Venus clear and bright a few degrees above the western horizon. It was a beautiful evening, still mild and pleasant, and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about Audrey…where she was, if she was all right. She should have been here with him, exploring the grounds of the B&B, enjoying the desert air.
No, he was painting too rosy a picture there. The way they had left things suggested that she probably would have done whatever she could to stay out of his orbit, except for those times when Colin was actively shooting the episode and she had no choice but to interact with him.
He should have apologized right away. That had been his biggest mistake — well, after concealing the truth from her in the first place — and now he cursed his stubbornness in believing that he hadn’t done anything terribly wrong. Lies of omission were still lies.
Well, he couldn’t do anything about any of that now, but if — when — they found her, he’d have to make sure that he told her what a screw-up he’d been. Anything less, and he wouldn’t have done fairly by her.
The courtyard and pathways that wound in and around the main house and various outbuildings that made up the Thunderbird Bed and Breakfast were all picked out in solar landscape lights, so he had no trouble making his way around the property. While he walked, he kept glancing down at the meter he held, but so far it hadn’t emitted a single beep.
Which could either mean that whatever presence lurked here really was demonic after all, or the ghosts had taken the night off. Just because a place was haunted didn’t mean you’d necessarily get consistent readings from day to day. It was part of the reason why these investigations tended to span days or weeks — the researchers involved had to get some kind of baseline they could use to measure abnormal activity against.
Well, the upside-down cross in his bedroom had been pretty abnormal. Something was here, even if it had decided to play hide-and-seek tonight.
He crossed the courtyard once again and then cut over to the tiny five-space parking lot, where the Jeep Grand Cherokee he’d rented for the trip stood in lonely splendor. Colin’s rented white van was gone, as was Susan’s Subaru Outback. Michael stood there for a long moment, feeling the gentle desert breeze ruffle his hair, staring up at the sky as the stars began to come out one by one, hard and bright, clearer than they could ever hope to be in Southern California.
The EMF meter was quiescent in his hands. He angled his left wrist so he could squint through the darkness at his watch, the glowing hour markers telling him that it wasn’t quite seven-thirty yet. Once again his stomach growled, but he ignored it. He was in the middle of something here. He could always get a bite from a drive-through as he was driving to the airport to meet Rosemary, although that would make for a very late dinner.
What did it matter, though? What if Audrey, wherever she was, hadn’t eaten anything? What if she was hungry and cold and frightened?
He didn’t want to think of her that way. Despite the losses she’d suffered in her life — or maybe because of them — she was tough and strong, someone who would continue to fight even if she was scared out of her wits. Michael knew he’d never forget the way she’d kept working on erasing those spell circles in the Whitcomb mansion’s basement, even with demons attacking on either side. How many other people could have managed to do what she’d accomplished there?
That was the image of her he held now, of her forging ahead no matter what. Whoever had taken her had very likely underestimated their prey.
Now he was walking past the parking lot, to a gravel-paved area that separated the main part of the bed-and-breakfast from a small building, probably a storage shed of some kind. As he approached it, the EMF meter suddenly went wild, the needle swinging all the way to the right as it emitted a series of high-pitched beeps.
Something was hanging in the air in front of the storage shed.
Not the dark shape of a demon, but an amorphous blob of hazy, pale light, so insubstantial that Michael could see the outlines of the building through it. His pulse immediately accelerated, but he’d experienced enough of these encounters that he was able to ignore his atavistic response to such an apparition, could say calmly, “I’m Michael. What are you trying to tell us?”
It remained floating there. For a second, it seemed to grow more solid, and th
en it was nearly transparent again, its edges attenuating into nothingness. And then, before he could even blink, it seemed to shrink down into a ball of brilliant white light before racing past his head and disappearing.
Colin’s going to be really pissed he didn’t get that on camera, Michael thought.
As unnerving as the encounter had been, he hadn’t gotten any sense of evil from the ghost, or entity, or whatever it was. If anything, it had seemed almost benign, as though it had wanted to communicate with him but didn’t know how.
His gaze moved to the storage shed. Was there a particular reason why the ghost had decided to manifest here?
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the super-bright penlight he always carried with him. After he turned it on, he shone the beam on the small building in front of him. It had brown wooden siding and white trim around the door, and didn’t match the historic B&B at all. In fact, the shed looked like the sort of thing you often saw sitting in the parking lot of a big-box home improvement store. Probably Jackie and Edgar hadn’t worried too much about whether it fit in with the architecture of their property, tucked away back here as it was.
Definitely not the sort of place you’d think was haunted, unless the ghost was attracted to the location itself, and not the portable structure that had been placed on it.
Frowning, Michael walked all the way around the storage shed. It didn’t have any windows, no way in or out except the door in its front wall, which was secured with a padlock. Tomorrow he’d have to ask Jackie if she could open it up so he could look inside. Whatever was in there — if anything — could wait for the next morning, when Colin would be here to film the thing in case it turned out there was something interesting inside.
Still, at least the apparition he’d seen seemed to prove there was some kind of presence here on the property, even if he couldn’t quite determine what it might be. That might cheer Colin up a little. Michael wouldn’t allow himself to get too excited about what he’d seen — he was still far too worried about Audrey to take any particular satisfaction in learning the B&B did seem to be haunted.
Unbound Spirits Page 5