by Lori Drake
The spirit manifested in front of Eric, its visage twisted in hate. Chris could empathize. He hated Eric, and the man hadn’t killed him. Yet.
Eric swung the shovel, but it passed through the spirit harmlessly. Spirit-Roger smirked and reached for Eric with clawed hands, but Eric danced backward, nearly knocking Brandon over in the process. The spirit disappeared again, and Eric growled.
“Getting pretty tired of this sh—“
The words died on his lips, and he jerked an elbow up and back, twisting to take Brandon in the face. Chris wasn’t sure what’d happened at first, but when Brandon staggered backward, his knife’s blade glistened wet and red in the pale moonlight.
“Son of a…” Eric pressed a hand to his back. The knife had taken him low, and while it was unlikely to kill him, Chris had been stabbed—twice—and knew just how much it had to hurt. “Okay, now it’s personal.”
Chris couldn’t help but stare. “Now it’s personal?”
Brandon rushed Eric, but this time his Alpha saw it coming. He swung the shovel at Brandon’s head. It was a one-handed swing, lacking in power, but it connected with Brandon’s skull with a dull thud. The knife flew out of Brandon’s hand to land in the dirt, and he ended up on his knees. He scrambled for the weapon, but Eric strode after him like vengeance personified and swung the shovel again. It crashed down on Brandon’s back. The two-handed blow sent him sprawling. He didn’t get up.
“Eric, don’t kill him!” Chris rushed to intervene, visions of Eric killing his brother’s boyfriend generating a hefty spike of adrenaline. He grabbed Eric’s arm and held on even as Eric tried to pull away. “Stop!”
Eric didn’t stop. He kicked Brandon in the side, so Chris did the only thing he could think of: he stabbed his fingers into the wound on Eric’s back. Eric howled in pain and spun, swinging the shovel in a careless arc that Chris was able to duck easily. Then he charged forward, planting his shoulder into Eric’s stomach. He wrapped his arms around Eric’s hips and they both went down, hitting the cold, packed earth hard.
Chris rolled away and got to his feet, but Eric was slower to pick himself up. Eric’s dark eyes glinted.
“I’ll kill you for that,” Eric growled, and in that moment, Chris wasn’t sure if it was Eric or the spirit talking. Was it still in Brandon, or had it hopped once he fell unconscious?
Or was he unconscious? Brandon stirred, rolling onto his back. “Did anyone get the license plate for that truck? What happened?”
Eric’s head snapped to one side, his eyes finding Brandon. Chris’s eyes darted between them. If only he hadn’t dropped his shovel…
“Is that you?” Eric asked, fingers pressed to his wound once more.
“Yes,” Brandon said.
“How do I know for sure?” Eric said, eyeing Brandon warily.
They fact that they were having the conversation at all suggested that neither of them were possessed, but before Chris could comment, everything went black.
Joey had thought the attic was dusty, but the basement was even worse. A single bare bulb illuminated the space, which was crammed with all sorts of relics of the past. Artwork, boxes, furniture, and other household items were stacked haphazardly about. There was a path to the washer and dryer, but it seemed oxymoronic for anything clean to come out of the space. Joey wanted to take a shower within seconds of arriving, and the cramped nature of the room made her stomach clench and mouth go dry. She lingered by the stairs with Jessica while Lucy dove into the stacks, as it were. Standing a couple of steps up, Joey could track Lucy’s cotton-candy-blue pigtails amongst the piles of stuff as she went searching for whatever it was they’d come down here for.
“What is all this stuff?” Joey asked. The question hadn’t done her much good in the attic, but this time it bore more fruit.
“Chris’s inheritance,” Lucy said, climbing up on something to reach boxes stacked on metal shelves at the far side of the basement.
Joey’s brows went up. “This is his parents’ stuff?”
“Yeah, most of it. Some of it was left behind by pack members that moved on, but a lot of it is just the old Alpha’s stuff.”
“Huh. You know, it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder where all that stuff was.”
Joey ventured down the steps, curiosity overcoming her discomfort. She pulled back the first drop cloth she found. Beneath it was a pile of nursery furniture, everything a kid could need, from crib to dressing table, a small dresser, and a little wooden rocking horse. She wondered if Sara could use any of it, or if she’d rather have new stuff for their little one.
“So, what’s your big idea?” Jessica leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs and folded her arms. Everything about her was wary, from the way she cast her gaze around the room to the way she kept darting glances up the stairs toward the door. They’d left it open. Not just open, but propped open by a heavy case of beer in the hopes of curtailing any ghostly antics.
Lucy pulled a box down off the top of the metal shelves that was almost as big as she was. It was awkward, but she had the strength to manage it. “Um… let me see if I can find it first. No point in getting your hopes up.”
Joey let the drop cloth fall back in place, then leaned over to pick up a painting in an ornate wooden frame. It was oil on canvas, depicting a mountain pass with craggy, snow-capped peaks and a tiny human figure walking along a precipitous ledge, leading a pack mule. The sun—she couldn’t tell if it was setting or rising—made a colorful backdrop. It was masterfully done, and she recognized it as her father’s work before her eyes dropped to the signature at the bottom to confirm her suspicions.
“Ah ha! Found it!”
Joey put the painting back carefully, making a mental note to tell Chris about all this stuff. “Now will you tell us what it is?”
Lucy emerged from around a stack of boxes with a flat board game box in her hands. She held it up for them to see.
“A Ouija board? Really?” Jessica scoffed and turned to start back up the stairs.
“It could work!” Lucy scrambled to follow her, leaving Joey to take up the rear.
“He can possess people. If he wanted to talk to us, he would,” Jessica said, her footsteps heavy on the old wooden stairs.
“Do you want to host him while he does that?” Lucy asked.
Jessica paused on the stairs and looked back. “No.”
“Me either!” Lucy hurried up past Jessica with the box still clutched in her hands.
Jessica met Joey’s eyes. Joey shrugged, and they followed Lucy up into the kitchen. Jessica slapped the light switch on the way out, plunging the basement into darkness once more.
In the living room, Adam was still working on Joey’s phone. Or, at least, that was what she hoped he was doing. He had what looked like two phones in pieces on the coffee table, their electronic guts exposed and vulnerable. Bits and bytes. Joey’s only solace, seeing her phone like that, was the knowledge that it’d been broken to start with. The thing was a lifeline; she felt naked without it.
Ben and Itsuo were standing near the couch, talking quietly. Colt was still staring into the fire. He didn’t even look away when the group returned.
Adam took one look at the box and groaned around the pocket flashlight clenched in his teeth. His glasses had slid down his nose; he looked adorably geeky. He set down what he was working on and removed the flashlight to speak. “That thing again?”
“There wasn’t a spirit to talk to before! Now there is,” Lucy said. She knelt beside him at the other end of the coffee table and pushed aside some of the electronic components scattered on its surface.
“Hey, watch it! I need to know what order to put those back in!” Adam objected, and the two bickered like—well, like siblings for a few moments about whose project should have precedence.
Joey let them and halted near Ben. He leaned over and asked quietly, “A Ouija board? Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Joey shrugged. “What could it hurt? Worst case, nothin
g happens.”
“I’m not sure that’s the worst case,” Ben murmured, his eyes on Lucy as she removed the board from the box.
“He’s already trying to kill us,” Joey pointed out, then nudged him and leaned in closer to whisper, “Maybe we can distract him, buy some time while Adam works on the phone situation.”
“Maybe. Should we wait for the others to get back?”
“Nah. Eric would just get all growly about it being a waste of time. This way, we’re killing time.”
“Let’s hope that’s all the killing that occurs.”
“That’s the optimistic Ben I love so much.” Stepping forward, she raised her voice to a conversational level once more. “Hey, Lucy, let’s just do this on the floor and let Adam have the table.”
Joey settled with Lucy on the floor in front of the fireplace, kneeling with the board on the floor between them.
“We need candles,” Lucy said, looking around with a frown. “They always have candles for a séance in the movies.”
Joey bit back a smile. “We’ve got the fireplace. I think that’s the best we can do at the moment.”
Lucy bit her lower lip, but nodded reluctantly. “Okay. So, we both have to put our fingers on the planchette. Just resting lightly, okay? No cheating.”
Joey nodded gravely and reached out, touching her fingers to the edge of the plastic piece in the center of the board. Lucy followed suit. “Now what?” Joey asked.
“Now you start to question the course of actions that led you to this point,” Adam mumbled.
“Shhh!” Lucy shot her brother a tiny glare, then cast her gaze upward. “Roger! Roger Eaton! We beseech thee, speak to us.”
“Um, you know this specifically says not to use the Ouija board in a quote, ‘place where a terrible death has occurred or you will bring forth malevolent entities,’ end quote,” Jessica said, reading from a printed paper in her hand.
“He didn’t die here!” Lucy protested.
“It came with a safety warning?” Joey asked.
“It did,” Jessica confirmed. “And just so you know, don’t ask about God, where the gold is buried, or when you’re going to die.”
Adam snickered.
Lucy sighed, but continued. “Roger! We know you’re angry with us. Talk to us. Tell us what we can do to make things right.”
Joey turned her attention back to the board. Nothing happened, not that she’d expected it to. She sat there quietly while Lucy called out a few more times to the shade. Joey was about to lift her hands and throw in the towel when a phantom breeze blew through the room. The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. She looked up at Lucy, whose eyes were wide as saucers.
“Roger! Roger, is that you?”
The planchette twitched under Joey’s fingers, startling her enough that she yanked her hands away. Lucy’s remained in place, however, and the planchette slid slowly across the board until it hovered over the painted “yes.”
“Okay, even knowing that ghosts are real… that’s creepy as fuck,” Joey said. Lucy shot her a look, so she clamped her jaw shut after that and put her fingers back on the planchette.
“Roger,” Lucy said. “I know you’re mad at us. I can’t say we’re sorry, but we don’t want you to suffer anymore. Tell us what we can do to help you find peace.”
The planchette twitched again. This time, Joey quelled the instinct to yank her hands away and kept them where they were. The planchette shook until it was practically vibrating, then jerked toward the row of letters arched across the board.
“D,” Lucy said. “I. E.”
“This is going nowhere fast,” Jessica remarked. But when Joey looked up, everyone was watching the proceedings intently. Even Adam.
The soul of patience, Lucy continued conversing with the dead man. “I think you’ve made that wish pretty clear, Roger. But is there anything else? Joey says you had a wife. Would you like to get a message to her?”
The planchette moved again.
D. I. E.
“I don’t think she’d appreciate that very much, but if that’s what you want to tell her…”
D. I. E.
“Listen up, you undead fuck,” Jessica said, scowling. “You were a goddamn hunter. You killed our people. We killed you. You had to know that one day we’d get the better of you, so get the fuck over it!”
Silence descended in the wake of her rant. The planchette remained inert as everyone stared at it. Seconds ticked by. The log in the fireplace popped, and Joey jumped. But it was nothing supernatural, just a burning log doing what burning logs did. A few more seconds passed before the planchette moved.
“I,” Lucy said.
Joey stared at the board, watching as the planchette twitched from letter to letter, moving so sharply that it nearly slipped right out from under her fingers.
Lucy continued reading the letters aloud.
“N… N… O…”
17
The next thing Chris knew, he was on the ground. Weight held him against the cold earth, and the scent of dirt, decay, and blood all but overwhelmed him. There was a moment, a horrible moment, when he thought it was the weight of the earth crushing him, but no, there were trees overhead and the sounds of the woods filled his ears, along with the labored breathing of the two men pinning him down.
“I think he’s back,” Brandon said. “Chris, is that you?”
“Yeah,” Chris said. His throat was raw, voice hoarse. The disorientation passed swiftly, but he was left with a lingering sense of wrongness, of violation. In that moment, he vowed never to possess someone without their permission again. “I owe Dean a fruit basket or something.”
“What?” Brandon said.
“Nothing. Let me up.”
The weight on his arms and chest lifted. Chris pushed himself up into a sitting position. Pain lanced his side. He pressed a hand against his ribs, suspecting one was cracked, if not broken. Everything ached, but at least he didn’t feel like he’d been clobbered upside the head again. Brandon knelt on one side of him. On the other side, Eric sat back with a hand pressed to his lower back. His lips and chin were red.
“What happened? I mean, obviously Roger got me. But are you guys okay?”
“Fine,” Eric said, then spat blood into the dirt.
Brandon said nothing. He looked shaken, and was the first to stand. He collected his pocket knife from the ground and wiped it on his sleeve before folding it up and tucking it in his pocket again.
Chris struggled to his feet, teeth clenched. Pain pushed the breath from his lungs, and for a moment he swayed on his feet, not entirely sure if he was going to remain upright. His vision swam, then corrected as the pain subsided enough for him to think again.
Eric was on his feet again too. “Let’s get moving before he comes back.” He bent to retrieve one of the shovels. Brandon, who was moving better than any of them despite having taken that shovel to the spine earlier, retrieved the other one and handed it off.
Chris walked over to the tarp-shrouded body, but when he bent down to reach for the tarp, pain flared again. “Shit, I don’t think I can…”
“I’ve got it,” Brandon said. He bent and collected the body, tossing it over his shoulder as if it were no more than a rolled-up carpet, and started walking back toward the house.
“Thanks,” Chris said. He and Eric followed in Brandon’s wake. As they walked, Chris wondered what he’d done that had freaked Brandon out. Then again, the whole incident was pretty freaky, and Brandon had done a stint as a meat suit for Roger too. Maybe he felt bad about stabbing Eric and whatever else he’d had to do while Chris was checked out of Hotel Martin. He hoped Joey had been able to retrieve her phone and get in touch with Dean. They needed to end this, before someone else got hurt.
When Lucy finished calling out letters, Joey spoke the word aloud.
“Innocent.”
Jessica scoffed, but everyone else sat quietly, staring at the board.
“What are you trying to
say?” Joey asked, casting a glance around the room at large. She had a brief flash of memory of trying to talk to Chris through Dean, knowing he was there but not where he was. She wished Dean was there now.
When there was no answer, Joey decided to try a simpler question: “Were you a hunter?”
The planchette jerked immediately across the board and stopped abruptly on its target.
“No,” Lucy said. Her pale blue eyes were wide as she looked across the board at Joey.
“Did you kill Micah?” Jessica asked.
The planchette didn’t move from its spot, but it began to vibrate under Joey’s fingers. Then it jerked across the board again, spelling out an answer.
Lucy translated, putting the letters together into a question. “Micah who?”
“Shit,” Joey said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Jessica insisted. “He could be lying, and even if he’s not, not knowing Micah’s name doesn’t mean he didn’t kill him.”
The planchette flew out from under Joey and Lucy’s fingers to sail through the air. Jessica ducked, and it went over her head, smacked against the wall, and hit the floor with a clatter.
“Christ.” Joey pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Does that mean what I think it means?” Adam asked.
“You killed an innocent man,” Ben said.
Itsuo grimaced. “That is bad karma.”
Lucy buried her face in her hands. The others were obviously shocked. Everyone, that was, except Jessica. Annoyance colored her features, and Joey zeroed in on her as she pushed to her feet.
“You knew.”
All eyes turned to Jessica, who blinked. “What? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then what is it? You don’t look shocked or remorseful. You look like you want to punch someone.” Joey walked over to stand in front of her.
“Are you volunteering?” Jessica asked, standing. She towered over Joey by half a foot.
“Go on and try it. See where it gets you,” Joey said. She may have been shorter, but she held the other alpha’s gaze. Like Eric, Jessica was used to the wolves around her backing down. Joey wasn’t about to do that.