Shadows Fall

by Denise A. Agnew

  As the others left, Roarke kept his arm around Melissa’s shoulders. “Are you okay to continue?”

  She kept her voice low. “I’m fine now. I’m sorry for causing a commotion.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for. Let’s go.”

  When they’d gathered in the main room, and heaviness covered the room. Darcy and Magnus didn’t appear as light-hearted as before.

  “Okay, everyone. That was unsettling, but there’s more to do here. We need to see if we can get more EVPs,” Darcy said.

  “Let’s not bunch together.” Magnus moved to one corner of the room. “I’ll stand over in this corner.”

  As directed, they moved to different areas of the room. Roarke, however, kept his arm around Melissa’s shoulders while she operated the digital voice recorder. He’d put his thermal imager down on a box and didn’t use it.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “You can let me go if you want.”

  Roarke’s face stayed tight, and with his arm around her, he kept a firm grip, as if he needed her contact. It was as if he feared she might slip away never to be found. “No.”

  Unsure what to make of his attitude, she subsided. His touch kept her steady, even if she didn’t want to admit she needed it.

  “I’ll begin over here,” Darcy said from behind a stack of boxes. “Did you make Melissa feel that way? Were you attacking her? Trying to possess her?”

  Melissa’s lips parted in surprise. Was Darcy serious?

  “Are you evil?” Magnus asked.

  “Oh, shit,” Darcy said. “That hasn’t happened to me before.”

  “What?” Magnus asked from his position closer to the cells.

  “I just got a nasty burning sensation down my back.” Darcy popped out from behind the boxes. “Here check my back.”

  Flashlights flicked on as Darcy pulled up her sweater. Five stark red lines pointed north to south on her back.

  “Son of a bitch.” Magnus lifted his camera and started clicking.

  “What happened?” Roarke asked.

  Darcy kept her shirt up while Magnus took numerous shots. Her mouth tilted in a doubtful, almost self-deprecating smile. “Um ... depends on who you talk to. I may have screwed myself challenging the ghosts. If there is something evil down here, this is a possible sign.”

  “Scratches.” Jana stood away from their grouping, her voice hushed. “Scratches from the devil.”

  Magnus snapped one last photo. “Personally, I think it’s caused by a variety of things. I think the devil theory is utter bollocks.”

  Melissa and Roarke chuckled, but it was a nervous chuckle.

  Darcy said, “Enough of that. We all have a right to our theories, Magnus.”

  Magnus grinned. “Even when they’re utter bollocks.”

  Darcy nodded and held up her voice recorder. “Let’s play some of this back. I’m eager to hear what we have, if anything. I’m not waiting for analysis tomorrow.”

  Methodically they checked each session between questions in the cells. Again Melissa was assaulted by strange sensations, and suddenly she knew with overwhelming certainty, that something dreadful would happen. The darkness in this room threatened to strangle, to undo her heart and soul.

  When they reached Melissa’s provoking questions, they got more than they expected. Right after her last question, in one of the clearest voices, a man’s guttural reply said, “I am death.”

  Everyone spoke at once. Darcy pumped her fist. “Would you listen to that?”

  “Oh, my God,” Melissa said, a chill shooting straight up her back.

  “Ah, Jesus,” Jana said, backing away with her hands over her mouth.

  Roarke released Melissa and stuffed one hand through his hair. “No way.”

  Magnus chuckled. “Fucking fantastic.” He glanced at Jana and Melissa. “Sorry ladies.”

  “I’ve heard it before,” Melissa said.

  Jana’s eyes stayed wide, her hands over her mouth. A second later a wild squealing came from Magnus’s radio and they all started. Magnus grabbed his radio and fiddled with it. “What the hell?”

  Every light extinguished.

  Chapter 26

  Again everyone spoke at once, a garbled cacophony. Roarke reached out for Melissa, but his hand hit the side of a box instead. “Melissa?”

  Her hand touched his shoulder. “I’m right here.” His breath returned.

  “Everyone stay calm,” Darcy said. “Battery drain.”

  Magnus’s booming voice came through the darkness. “Damn ghosts. Screwing with batteries again.”

  “More than a battery drain. There’s no lights on at all.” Roarke stuffed his digital recorder in his pocket and grabbed his flashlight off his belt. It illuminated with no trouble.

  Roarke walked to the hallway and looked toward the staircase. “There aren’t any lights up there, either.”

  Darcy and Magnus tried their flashlights with no luck. “I wonder if Piers’s equipment is shot to hell.” Magnus tried his radio. “Piers, this is Magnus. Come in.” After a pause, he tried again. “Piers? What the bloody hell is going on up there? Do you have power?” Magnus punctuated with another earthy, colorful curse.

  “Calm down, Magnus.” Darcy’s voice held more authority.

  “I’ll go up and see what is happening,” Roarke said.

  “No, let me.” Melissa’s voice came softly out of the darkness. In the illumination of one flashlight she appeared sheet white. “I need a rest or something. I’ll go sit with Piers a while.”

  Concern made Roarke reach for her. He cupped her cheek. “Are you sick?”

  “I think that encounter, whatever it was, sucked a bit of the energy from me. I’m fine otherwise. I just want to sit out the rest of the basement thing.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Roarke said.

  “No.” She put her hand on his arm. “You need to find out more about your mother. You can’t do that if you’re babysitting me. I’ll be fine.”

  Magnus’s flashlight came back on. “Here, take my flashlight. As long as we’ve got one source of light, and we’ve got O’Bannion’s, we’re good. Besides, we can change out the batteries.”

  “Give it all a minute and the lights will go back on in the entire building.” Darcy stepped into the pool of light from Roarke’s flashlight. “That’s how it’s worked for us before.”

  Wind roared outside, or at least Roarke thought that’s what it was.

  Roarke felt a surge of worry the minute she left, but he reminded himself that she was a strong woman. Yeah, he was concerned, but she could take care of herself. If she wanted to leave the basement, it was probably all the better.

  “Let’s continue the session.” Darcy stepped into the shadows again.

  Roarke felt alone. Darcy and Magnus returned to their respective places, and Jana stood somewhere—

  “Where is Jana?” Roarke asked.

  Magnus shined his light around the room. “Jana?”

  They started searching. Roarke half expected to find her huddled in a corner.

  “She’s not here,” Darcy said with a laugh. The sound held no humor. “Where the hell did she go?”

  “She may have gone up with Melissa.” Roarke wasn’t sure he liked the idea. “That last EVP did her in maybe.”

  “Not everyone can hack this job.” Magnus said. Magnus’s radio let out another squeal. “You know, Yvette usually checks in with us by this time.”

  Roarke heard Darcy fumbling with her equipment. Her radio squawked. “Yvette? Piers? This is Darcy. Come back.”

  More static and annoying squealing.

  “I am death,” Roarke heard behind him. “And I took your mother.”

  He swung around as his heart leapt into his throat. Jana stood there, her eyes blazing with a red that illuminated her entire face.

  Shock held him silent for a few seconds before he managed his next words. “Where the hell did you come from?”

  “From nightmares. From places so dark you cannot imagine the
m.” Jana’s voice was guttural, almost low enough to be a man’s. She took one step toward him. Two.

  Above them a thump, thump pounded loudly on a thousand doors, the ringing a throbbing beat. The heart of this place was alive, breathing and wanting. Roarke felt it in his bones. Every instinct Roarke possessed as a Marine went on high alert. Magnus and Darcy returned to the small circle of light created by Roarke’s flashlight. Roarke didn’t dare take his gaze off of Jana. He didn’t dare.

  Yvette’s voice came over the line, frantic. “Get out! Get out of here! Magnus can you hear me?”

  “This is Magnus, what the hell is going on?”

  “The place is on fire,” Yvette’s frantic voice screamed over the radio. “Get out! We’re outside the recreation center. We’ve been trying to warn you! We can see it on the second floor!”

  All the fire alarms started to scream.

  “Move it! Now!” Roarke shouted to his fellow investigators as they started down the hall at a run.

  Before they could reach the end of the hall, Roarke heard the door at the top of the stairs slam shut.

  Magnus grabbed his walkie talkie and yelled into it. “Yvette! The door to the basement just slammed on us! You’ve got to get us out!”

  All that came back was static.

  * * *

  Everything happened at once for Melissa.

  She heard the pounding thumps in the building as she stepped into rotunda and saw the flickering of light all the way down the hallway. She paused there for a second, and that’s when she smelled smoke.

  “Oh, crap.” Her voice sounded light, as ineffectual as it could be.

  Loud voices came from command central, and then a banging noise she couldn’t identify. She grabbed her cell phone and hit 911 as she ran into command central expecting to see Piers working on the computer or trying to start the lights operating again. Piers lay slumped over his computer, a dark stain spreading over his back. Shit. Everything primitive inside Melissa came to life. Run. Hair rose on the back of her neck, heat rushed to her limbs as her heart fluttered and kicked into rapid fire beating. Her fingers tightened on her flashlight. Her other hand clutched the cell phone.

  “911 what is your emergency?” the female voice asked.

  “Fire.” Melissa managed to get the words out. “Tranquil View Condominiums. And a man’s been hurt.”

  Shadows jumped out at her, darkness chasing. A figure stepped into view. He wore the mask—the horrible, macabre mask she’d seen on the person who had run down Jilly’s boyfriend. He was very tall, over six feet and extremely thin. He wore nothing more than a T-shirt, jeans, and boots.

  “Ivan,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  He brought a gun up and pointed it at her. The cell phone slipped from her fingers, and she heard the 911 operator’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. Things slowed to a crawl. She might have expected to feel terror. Something. Instead, stillness overcame her and drove her to stand immobile. The man walked toward her.

  “Please,” she said. “What do you want?”

  He was silent for a moment and the scent of smoke filtered into the room. Roarke. Oh, God. Roarke. A million fears tried to run through her mind all at once, but she couldn’t think.

  “Move it,” the man finally said, and it was a whispery, soft sound that belonged to a man far less intimidating. “It demands a sacrifice. You will come with me.”

  He grabbed her bicep and pulled her toward the exit into the rotunda. She yanked against his hold. “What are you doing? Let me go!”

  Stupid words. She knew in her gut he wouldn’t release her. She feared the gun, of course. If he decided he wanted to shoot her like he’d done Piers, she wouldn’t have much defense. He dragged her through the rotunda, and she saw smoke pouring down the staircase from the second floor. “Wait. Ivan. Wait!”

  “No!” He growled and dragged her toward the doors, shoving her through them into the freezing night.

  “My friends are in there! The place is on fire! We can’t leave them!”

  “I don’t care,” he said calmly.

  Heavy snow fluttered down, the wind barely moving the flakes. No blizzard yet. Ivan pulled her down the steps, and she wondered how he’d gotten here in the first place. As he pulled and pushed her around the building, she saw the other team running from the recreation center to the back of the condominiums. Bradley turned and said something and the rest of them halted mid run. Ivan lifted the gun.

  “No!” Melissa cried out.

  Too late. Ivan’s gun went off. Bradley dropped. Henrietta screamed.

  “No!” Melissa growled her protest this time. “How could you?”

  “Get moving!” Ivan shoved her again, and she slipped in the snow.

  She went down on her hands and knees hard and gasped as rocks cut into her palms and knees. He jerked her upright, twisting her arm as he pushed her toward the graveyard and the forest. Melissa’s mind raced. Fear for Roarke overwhelmed almost everything. God, please get him out. Please, please, please. I don’t care about what happens to me. Please just get him out of the fire. Tears sprung to her eyes but she defied them. She couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not now. Not if she wanted to survive.

  They passed the graveyard. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Where the darkness wants me to go. Where she wants me to go.”

  “Who?”

  “Jana. Jana.”

  “Why?” Melissa wasn’t at all surprised Jana was somehow involved in this. Maybe she really had seen Jana with red eyes.

  “Because she is the one. The conduit. The evil is here. Can’t you feel it?” His voice broke. “I must do what the evil wants. It needs food. It needs to live. A sacrifice must be made.”

  Keep him talking. “Did you start the fire, Ivan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jana told you to do it?”

  “Of course. We’ll be lovers, and have a baby, and make evil that will grow inside her. The fruit must be spread.”

  Melissa wondered if he was just mentally ill or more. What did it matter? She had to find a way out of this mess. They were inside the tree line now, and the treetops rustled and the wind began to stir to life. It whispered. Clouds broke open and there was only enough light to see by the moon. She heard shouting in the distance, and then sirens far, far away.

  “Ivan, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Keep going bitch. Beyond the light. It has to be dark for what we need to do.”

  His words chilled her. For the first time the iciness surrounded her and her body shook. Without her coat, she had no shelter against the outside. She would have to do something soon. Darkness surrounded them. She could hardly see the trees in front of her, and she put out her hands to help guide her. How the hell did he see with the mask on?

  “That’s far enough,” he said.

  An explosion ripped the night, and the fire at Tranquil View ripped upward through the roof and illuminated the forest so she could see. Horror gripped her with sharp talons as she registered multiple things at once. His face. The power of the explosion ripping the building apart. Fear for her friends. More than anything, her stark and knife-sharp fear for Roarke. It splintered her in half. If he was dead—

  Ivan took off his mask. His face was as bad as the mask. Not because his countenance proved hideous, but because he was beautiful in the coldest way she’d ever seen. His blond hair hung in a full, curly mass down to his shoulders, and his features were cut from granite—marble white. Lifeless. Death itself. As the voice had spoken in the basement, this was walking death. That’s when she saw the needle marks tracking both of his arms.

  “Ivan, let me help you. You don’t need to hurt anyone else.”

  He didn’t smile. He had no expression, no understanding but lifelessness in those blue eyes. “No. I won’t hurt anyone else after tonight. Our plan will be complete.”

  “Whose plan, Ivan?”

  “Jana’s. My mother’s. We’re all members of New F
rontier you see.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “To kill those who stand in our way. To use the power of the evil to bring our church to full power. To show people the true way to live.”

  “But you’re Christians,” she said, her voice hitching. “You don’t believe in harming other people.”

  Again, no expression on his face. None. “We are the power. And the evil inside Tranquil View will give us what we need. We will shed it when we have what we need.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Domination. All the debauchery. The loose morals. The flagrant disregard for our values. You. You are part of the problem. A woman with a mind of her own. A bitch for Satan.”

  “You’re working with evil, Ivan.” Her voice trembled, her body shaking from cold and numbing terror. “You’re working with the evil you want to prevent.” She said her next sentence knowing it might be the last thing she ever thought or ever spoke. “You’ve become the evil you’re seeking to destroy. Don’t you understand?”

  Suddenly the wind swirled sharply, and above its howling, she heard the sharp snap of the fire as it roared and consumed. Snow gathered and concentrated, whirling around his entire body like a separate force at his command. He glanced around, and for the first time she saw his eyes widen and his face transform with expression. Fear. Utter fear. Of what?

  The wind howled again, the sound so high-pitched it was like a scream. Behind him, for a second, she saw a female figure dressed in the clothes Roarke’s mother had worn when they’d found her earlier today. Melissa couldn’t speak. The figure shrieked, crying out so loudly Melissa heard it above the wailing wind. Ivan whirled and shot at the figure. Nothing happened as the figure continued to scream, and that’s when Ivan turned toward Melissa and lifted his gun. She dove to the right. The loud retort of the gun exploded in her ears. A second gunshot rang out. She expected to feel the sharp bite of a bullet.

  “Melissa!” Roarke’s broken voice shouted into the night.

  She heard footsteps, and she sat up. She was just about to call out to Roarke to watch out for Ivan when she saw the man laying face down in the snow as a dark stain spread across his back. Roarke raced toward her, and her heart leapt with joy at seeing him alive.