The Sullivan Gray Series Box Set

by H. P. Bayne

  “Yeah, something like that,” Dez said.

  “Come on, Dez, you’re a rational, intelligent person. You know there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “Sure, I’m a rational, intelligent person, and I’ve rationalized Sully’s telling the truth because he’s shown me stuff I wouldn’t have believed otherwise. Hell, if I could go back and not believe in this stuff, I would. I hate it. But it doesn’t make it any less real.”

  Thankfully, Lowell was skilled at knowing when to back off. “I’m sorry. I know he’s your brother and you want to do right by him. All I’m asking is that you keep your mind open to other possibilities, that maybe Sullivan needs the kind of help a professional can give him. Now, I’ve gotten to know Dr. Gerhardt over the years through the industry and he’s a good man, and an unconventional one at that. He’s not one to discount things. He has a keen interest in spirituality, so I’m thinking he would hear Sullivan out. Just consider it, all right? If Sullivan doesn’t seem better or has any further spells, just take him to Dr. Gerhardt. If it’s a mental illness, he’ll know. If it isn’t, he’ll know that too.”

  Lowell seemed willing to accept only one answer, so Dez supplied it.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  It had been a few years since they’d been here, just the four of them gathered together around the breakfast bar in the kitchen of Flynn and Mara’s country home.

  Sully, still effected by the sedative he’d been given on top of the sleeping pill they found out he’d taken before bed, had slept throughout the ride home and was put to bed as soon as they got back. They bypassed Sully’s old room, though, putting him in with Dez for the night. Dez recognized the intensified similarities with their old life here, Sully tucked next to him in bed as he sought refuge from a ghost Dez was helpless to stop. And yet, it had always felt like they’d found some sort of safety, some peace, together. Hoping for some peace, he had hoped for that overnight as he went to sleep with an arm draped across Sully’s body, allowing him to remain alert to any movement.

  At nearly noon, they got up and found their parents in the kitchen, coffee on. Flynn had called in sick for both him and Dez. They had more important things to do today.

  “I know you might not want to discuss this, Sully, but you need to,” Flynn said. “What happened last night?”

  “I thought I told you something in the ER.”

  “You did,” Mara said. “But you were still really groggy and you weren’t making much sense.”

  Sully nodded and launched into what he could of an explanation. “I took a pill before bed to help me sleep. I figured I’d have nightmares, and I just wanted to get through the night without any. I woke up at some point, I don’t know what time. My head felt off somehow, and I was really sick to my stomach, so I went to the bathroom thinking I was going to puke. When I got in there and looked in the mirror, this ghost was behind me, the man I started seeing at the time of that first break-in the other night. I remember thinking if I could just get some sort of response and figure out what he wanted, I could work on getting rid of him. But he just kept staring the way he always does.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Dez asked. “I was up, I would have come.”

  “I couldn’t,” Sully said. “I could barely speak, let alone yell, and I was frozen solid. Last thing I remember he was coming toward me. He ….”

  Dez saw it in his face, the fear as he called up what had happened. He laid a stabilizing hand on the back of Sully’s neck while Mara rubbed his back.

  “Sully?” she said. “I know it’s hard to talk about, but we really need to know.”

  He nodded again and continued. “Um, he … he stepped into me. I felt this chill, like walking into the beer cooler at the Fox. And I watched my face become his, like he was erasing me. The next thing I remember, I was on the floor, blood everywhere and Dez restraining me.”

  “You don’t remember anything in the middle?” Dez asked. “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing,” Sully said. “It’s a blank.”

  That was a relief at least. Not only did it save Sully added emotional trauma, but it meant Dez could keep him in the dark about the apparent attempt on his life. There was one thing, though, that Dez needed to bring up.

  “You …. I mean, he kept repeating this phrase over and over. ‘Blue room.’ That mean anything to you?”

  Sully chewed his lip, but ended up shaking his head in the negative. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean. But I guess it’s a clue, right?”

  “I’m not sure I’m all that interested in clues right now, Sully,” Flynn said. “You could have died last night. If it wasn’t for Dez ….” The unsaid words hung heavy in the air.

  Sully’s response was a pat to his brother’s gut. “Thanks, man. I know that must have sucked for you.”

  “Understatement of the year.”

  “Are Kayleigh and Eva okay?”

  “They’re fine. Kayleigh, no surprise, slept right through it. And Eva sends her love. I’m going to go help her with cleanup in a bit.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “No, you won’t,” Dez said. “I don’t want you in there. It’s handled, okay?”

  “I’m sorry, D. I really am.”

  “It’s not your fault. We just need to get to the bottom of this before the lunatic comes back, all right?”

  “Lunatic,” Sully said. “Remember we were thinking there might be a connection to Lockwood? Is there any way to check whether patients wear something like the clothing I saw on him?”

  “Based on what Dez told me, I checked the Lockwood connection earlier this morning,” Flynn said. “The clothes you saw match what patients wear, but there weren’t any homicides or suspicious deaths that would explain your ghost.”

  “So maybe his death wasn’t deemed suspicious,” Sully said. “Maybe he was murdered and no one realized. It’s a possibility, right? I mean, I’m still not seeing any obvious injuries on him or anything.”

  “How about his wrists?” Mara asked. “Did it look like they’d been cut? It might explain why this happened.”

  “I didn’t notice,” Sully said. “There’s never been any blood on him anywhere that I can see, but I suppose it’s possible he tried to kill himself in the past and that’s what he made me feel last night.”

  “Or it’s possible he was just trying to force you to kill yourself,” Dez said. “Maybe this was an attempt on your life, a way to keep you from digging into something he doesn’t want you involved in. You said he appeared to you the first time the night of that first break-in, right? What if he’s acting kind of like an accomplice to the suspect?”

  Flynn raised an eyebrow. “Seems far-fetched, even by our standards. A ghost accomplice?”

  “Hey, since Sully came into our lives, a whole lot’s become far-fetched,” Dez said with a gentle elbow-nudge into his brother’s ribs. “I’m just saying we shouldn’t rule it out, that’s all.”

  “Fair enough,” Flynn said. “Sully, I hope you never see this guy again but, if you do, see if you can get a look at his wrists. If nothing else, it might be an identifying feature. I’m sure Lockwood is full of patients who’ve attempted suicide at some point, but methods differ. If we can track this guy, hopefully we can figure out what he’s after.”

  Dez nodded at his father’s assessment before adding his own. “So we can stop him before he tries to pull something like this again.”

  11

  Dez headed out immediately after coffee, planning to eat quickly at home before scrubbing the bathroom. He figured he’d have no stomach for much of anything by the time he finished.

  He arrived to find Eva already hard at it.

  “I thought you were going to wait for me,” he said, forgoing plans for a sandwich as he moved toward the soapy water and bleach his wife was working with.

  “I figured you had a long enough night.”

  Dez noted a bead of sweat rolling down Eva’s forehead and the fact the bathroom alrea
dy looked far better than it had. He took the rag she was using and gently ushered her toward the door. “I’ll look after the rest. Would you mind making me a sandwich or something? I haven’t eaten anything yet.”

  “Neither have I, and I don’t think I could manage it now if I tried. How’s Sully?”

  “Better.” Dez launched into his brother’s recollection of last night, before adding, “He wanted to apologize for this. He didn’t intend it.”

  Eva knew about Sully and, unlike Lowell, believed him. “That’s really scary, Dez. You guys are working on figuring this out, obviously.”

  “Yeah, but so far, nada. By all appearances, the guy looks like a Lockwood patient, but there are no records of suspicious death investigations matching this guy. Sully makes the valid point it might not have been recognized as a suspicious death, so that could make things more difficult in terms of identification.”

  “Lockwood must keep a record of deaths at the institution.”

  “Sure, but I can’t imagine they’d just hand them over without a warrant. They’re big on privacy.”

  “We’ll take it one step at a time, then. We’ll figure this out, Snowman, okay? Don’t worry.” She wrapped her arms around him and warmth coursed back through his body.

  Dez enveloped Eva in a return hug, loving the way the size of his arms all but concealed her upper body. It gave him the feeling of security, oddly enough, the sense that he could keep her safe and covered, even if just for a moment. He typically kept the feeling to himself; Eva was a tough, independent woman and a fellow police officer to boot. The last time he’d tried to play protector with her, she’d laughed it off and then taken him to the ground with a playful self-defence tactic. Nowadays, he reserved that kind of talk for their daughter.

  “I didn’t ask because I figured you had it cased, but Kayleigh’s okay?” he asked. “I mean, she didn’t see any of this, right?”

  “I kept her out of the bathroom. She was pissed because we promised her uncle would still be here in the morning, but I just told her he didn’t feel well and that you’d taken him to the hospital overnight. She seemed fine with the explanation and was okay when she left for school, but she’s going to want to see him soon. You know our girl. She won’t be satisfied until she can see for herself he’s all right.” Eva smiled before adding the statement that had become like a mantra around here. “Her father’s daughter.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dez said. “Now, get out of here. Go eat or something.”

  “Are you happy with grilled cheese? I can do those up pretty quick.”

  “Sure,” Dez said. “Just skip the ketchup.”

  The bathroom, it turned out, needed a coat of paint to hide some of the stains, and Dez put the first one on using leftover paint in the garage before leaving Eva to do the second later in the afternoon. There was something else he needed to deal with.

  He was on his way across campus to Marc Echoles’s office when he chanced upon the professor in the area called The Bowl, around which a number of the campus’s original Victorian stone buildings were set.

  Marc was in peak form in the aura-reading department. “What's wrong?”

  Ordinarily, the aura-reading thing made Dez nervous, but today his anxieties were fully employed elsewhere. “You have a minute to talk?”

  Marc ushered Dez toward one of several benches lining The Bowl, most already taken by students enjoying what was likely to be one of the last nice days before fall.

  “It’s Sully,” Dez said. “We think he was possessed by something last night. He slashed his own wrist, would have gone further except I got there and stopped him.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Shaken up, and he needed a few stitches, but he’ll be okay. My bigger worry is what happens next time. I can’t be around him all the time, and neither can anyone else. We haven’t made any headway on this ghost he’s been seeing. He mentioned it to you, right?”

  “The man in the hospital-type garb? He did. He said he’s quite anxious about him and was worried about the possibility of possession.”

  “So he told you he thought the guy was trying to possess him?”

  “I take it he didn’t tell you prior to this.”

  “No, he did not.” That gave Dez one more thing to stew over, but Marc cut in with a possible explanation that took some of the hot wind out of Dez’s sails.

  “He knows this stuff bothers you. I’m sure he thought it wouldn’t help you to know. There isn’t necessarily anything you can do about it and, as you say, you can’t be around him all the time.”

  “Okay, point taken. At any rate, I didn’t come here to sort through what happened in the past. I’m worried about figuring out what to do for the future.”

  “Ah,” Marc said. “But the interesting thing about the world in which Sully’s led you is you can’t tackle the future without first knowing and understanding the past. Ghosts are, after all, a symbol of the past.”

  Marc did this sometimes, got philosophical. It drove Dez nuts. “I know I need to figure out this guy’s past. First, I need to find out who he is. But that’s my problem. In the meantime, Sully’s got one of his own to deal with. I need to know if there’s any way you know of to protect him from this guy getting inside him, anything we can do to prevent something similar.”

  “I suggested meditation and aura strengthening to Sully as a long-term thing, but I understand you’re looking for something a little more immediate than that. I know a woman. Her name’s Raiya Everton and she’s a Wiccan high priestess.”

  “You didn’t meet her in that Black Candle coven, did you?”

  “I did, actually, but I can assure you she remained one of the good ones. She’s since left the coven like I did, and practices mainly on her own. She’s very wise and she knows more than I do about protection against evil. You might consider taking Sullivan to see her.”

  This wasn’t what Dez had been hoping for, the suggestion he go and meet yet another person who walked in a world he dreaded, but if it would help Sully, he was game for just about anything. They’d both gotten to know and trust Marc over the past couple of years. If he believed this Raiya woman knew her way around possessions and evil spirits, Dez was willing to give it a shot.

  “One more thing.” Marc reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a small wooden crucifix. “After Sullivan came to see me, I went home and did some digging through my wife’s old things. Mariel was raised Catholic and, despite the fact she was also a practicing Wiccan, she held to some of her old beliefs. She had this crucifix made out of Palo Santo, a wood from the Amazon. It’s used there by shamans to drive away evil spirits and other unwanted energies. While it’s typically burned as part of those rituals, Mariel had some imbued with holy water and additionally blessed by Raiya back when we first met her. I think Mariel would be fine with my giving it to Sullivan for protection. She would have liked him very much.”

  Dez accepted the small cross, held at the end of a thin, black cord. Marc’s offer was a selfless one, but Dez also found himself doubting. Mariel was, after all, dead; little good the amulet had done her in the end.

  True to unnerving form, Marc read him without Dez’s having to utter a word. “I know what you’re thinking. But keep in mind that while amulets such as this can aid in protection against evil of a more ethereal nature, they hold little power against the evils of our physical world. It won’t stop a bullet, prevent a car crash or—in my Mariel’s case—cure cancer. I can’t tell you how effective it will be, but I know my wife believed in it. And believing in something is the first step to making it so. Belief offers us a very powerful protection, Desmond, regardless of our choice of faith. Something to keep in mind.”

  “Thanks, Marc. I mean it. I’m really grateful to you for this. For everything.”

  “Anytime, my friend. Just look after your brother, all right? I truly think he has the power and the strength to help many lost souls, both living and dead. But he’s still young and he’s learnin
g and, for now, that makes him vulnerable. Not just to this dark spirit, but to many others.”

  Raiya Everton lived in a small Victorian house in the North Bank area, just herself and three cats.

  Dez hadn’t provided a full explanation to his parents about where he was taking Sully. While they believed what Sully saw and experienced, Mara tended to get nervous about the idea of travelling too far down occult paths, particularly since none of them had any real knowledge of that world.

  But Marc did, and Dez was giving that full weight right now. The alternatives, should they not explore every avenue before the ghost returned for Sully, were unthinkable.

  Raiya wasn’t what Dez had been expecting, a short, stocky woman with frizzy grey hair and no makeup on what had likely never been a particularly attractive face. And yet, there was something magnetic about her, about the confident and reassuring smile she showed as she answered the door.

  “I’ve been waiting for you two.”

  Dez pulled up short, his hand on his brother’s arm forcing Sully to do the same.

  Raiya laughed, the sound soothing enough to relax Dez a bit. “Marc told me you were anxious, Desmond. Yes, he called. That’s how I knew to expect you. Come on in, and let’s see what we’re dealing with here.”

  “Relax,” Sully whispered as the two of them closed the rest of the short distance to the front door. “You’re your own worst enemy when it comes to this stuff.”

  “Better the devil you know, Sull.”

  Dez was barely in the door before he found himself surrounded by a trio of cats, rubbing against his legs and standing on back feet against his shins as if wanting to climb him like a tree.