The bell tower contained an old bronze bell that was anchored into place and sealed around the edges. There was space for a single bed, an antique oak desk and a matching set of drawers. The wood floor was warped in places and hadn’t been polished in a long time. One frayed Navajo rug bordered the side of the bed.
Adriel and White Feather were crammed inside next to Aunt Brenda and Espy. The aunt had lost weight and worry was adding wrinkles to her face.
The aunt recognized me immediately, the girl shortly thereafter.
She jumped in front of Espy. “You!”
Her vehement reaction wasn’t a huge surprise. It wasn’t every day a ghost showed up in the flesh.
Lynx stepped closer to me. “She’s the one who made sure you got out of the hospital.”
Espy peeked around her Aunt Brenda. “Shadow.” She stared at me with big brown eyes. Her cute braids were starting to grow out, frizzing near her head. She was far more serious than any nine-year- old deserved to be. Fear radiated from her so loudly, it was sound and touch.
“You know my name?” The weave wasn’t such a one-way ticket after all, not for the right people.
“Did you follow us here?” she asked instead.
I shook my head. “I didn’t know where you were, only that staying in the hospital was a bad idea.”
Her Aunt Brenda closed her eyes briefly, her shoulders relaxing. “We sneak out to the park in the mornings, and this afternoon we took a second jaunt because Espy was so restless. I thought you had seen us and followed us back.”
“Leaving here isn’t very safe,” Adriel scolded. “Even with the new protection spell, it’s not a good idea. I’m not certain anything but another soul can disguise her from a demon.”
Aunt Brenda tightened her arm around Espy. “It may not be safe, but she needs exercise. We can’t stay cooped up here forever.” She hesitated. “I’ve watched carefully. It’s hard to tell if anyone follows us. So many people come to eat here.”
That was the point of the place. My mouth was dry when I tried to swallow. I wondered what else Espy had picked up from In Between besides my name. Names were important. They were always attached to the life lines that leaked through. Everyone knew their name, except me. I had forgotten mine, left it behind or it had been ripped from me. But the new name had stuck, and she had felt it from across the weave. Maybe she had picked up other things as well. “Do you know the name of the creature stalking you?”
Espy’s eyes widened. “The stuff in my blood? It does have a name. But it’s all jumbled. There’s more than one name like it’s tacked on every person that it’s touched.”
“Is your name there?” Fear nearly choked my voice.
Every eye was on her. Lynx was barely breathing.
She sniffled and stared at Spook. He had floated to the top of the bell and sat there watching us. “I don’t like to get close to it. I can’t get rid of the blood. The other witches came, the healers. But they said they can’t separate it out.”
Adriel’s head jerked. “Mom and Tara came earlier today. Tara tried the trick she used on the tat ink last year, but it didn’t work.”
I didn’t know what trick had been tried, but the girl was marked just as surely as Troy had been marked. “It’s demon blood. It’s after your soul.”
Aunt Brenda’s face tightened.
“There’s not a lot of it,” Espy reassured her aunt. “And besides, I told you, I keep it away.”
“We have to bleed it out!” her aunt hissed.
I shook my head. “It’s not really blood like our blood. It’s something else. But I don’t think she was infected with much of it. The problem is that if the demon comes through, it can track its own blood. I am not sure it’s possible to hide from it.”
“Even though we’re in a monastery? Doesn’t that protect us?”
Adriel answered for me. “There are old lines of magic here. Some are protective. I’ve added new ones too, here and where you sleep. There’s holy water in the spells. That will help, but I’m not sure it can dilute the smell of the blood.” She turned to me. “Does the demon have any of her blood?”
“I don’t know. It depends on whether anyone extracted blood from Espy after the IV.” I hesitated. “I saw the demon blood mix with Espy’s, but Espy was hiding from it.”
“We moved her out as soon as you told me to,” Lynx said.
I nodded. “But time is warped by the weave. Just because I didn’t see anyone extract blood after the IV doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
Espy made a fist. “It does not have any of me or my soul. Aunt Brenda taught me a long time ago how to shut the ghosts out. I can’t banish them the way she does, but I can shut them out. So when it came for me, I shut it out. But I can’t make it leave.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Can you get it out?”
I clicked my fingernails to signal Lynx and slipped sideways. The tip of Espy’s finger was a boiling black. The energy churned against itself, unable to leave or merge with her energy.
“What about an exorcism?” her Aunt Brenda asked.
I slipped back inside my body. Everyone was looking at me with high expectations. I hated to let them down. “She’s right. She has it contained. By itself it doesn’t have much power. If we banish the demon back to where it belongs, the demon blood may go with it. Or lose any potency. Right now what she carries is more like a mark that the demon can smell.”
“How do we send it back?” Aunt Brenda demanded.
Lynx and Adriel answered at the same time, “We need the demon’s name.”
Espy held up her finger. “There are sounds there, sort of like when I hear the name of a ghost. But I never saw the demon, not the whole thing. Just this thing in my blood.”
“She’s only nine,” her aunt cried. “You can’t expect her to hunt down and exorcise a demon!”
“Maybe one of the names is enough,” I hoped aloud.
Espy sighed. “It’s not exactly a name.” She waved the infected hand. “It’s a sound. More like...like a song, but it’s ugly.”
I shuddered, thinking of the hellish music the demon had played. “Well, that fits. Can you duplicate the sound?”
She shook her head vehemently. “No way. It’s just an ugly scream. There are names, but it’s an awful noise like the time my brother ran over my bike in the driveway. Only it’s longer than that.”
I nodded. “Like a violin played with a rusty metal bow, breaking the strings right in the middle of the notes. But maybe if you can’t play back the names there is someone who can. We just have to figure out how to let him hear what you hear.”
“Can’t I just give him the demon blood? Won’t he hear the sound too?”
All eyes were on me again. “Well. The problem is, he’s dead.” The room sucked in a disappointed breath.
Before dismay could take further hold, Espy giggled. “That’s not really a problem, not for me. I just need to meet this friend of yours.”
“We are not going demon hunting,” her aunt protested again.
“No, no,” I agreed. I turned to Lynx.
He answered before I asked. “Roberto. Maybe we should have kept that guitar a little longer. He might need it to reach Kyle.”
I smiled and clicked my fingernails. Slipping just a little bit sideways, I felt behind my ear before sliding back. “I still have Kyle’s guitar pick. All we need is Roberto to tell the guys where to be. Then maybe Espy can help Kyle hear the name that’s contained in the blood.”
Chapter 32
We retreated single-file down the stairs, but instead of accessing the tunnels, we turned right and used an unmarked door that led to a closet. White Feather did an air check to make sure the hallway was empty before we stepped out. The flooring here was a beautiful new hardwood that matched the woodwork that swallowed the door as it shut silently behind us.
Across the hall from where we emerged there was a door labeled, “Employees Only.” From the sounds behind it, it must lead to the kitchens. An
other door along the hallway led to the employee bathrooms.
White Feather and Adriel left via the door at the opposite end of the hallway that led to the restaurant.
“They’ll meet us out front and drive us back to The Owl,” Lynx explained.
We waited a few seconds before strolling up to the same door they had used. Noise from the front leaked back here, and the only lighting was a small scone.
Lynx fidgeted, his head cocked back towards the hidden exit. He could probably hear whether anyone was close by outside the door, but I couldn’t. If I really needed to know I could have floated sideways or sent Spook, although the dog seemed able to hear too because he stepped forward right as Lynx reached back and grabbed my hand again.
I tensed, waiting for the lights to go out.
His smirk told me I’d been had.
As we slipped forward again, the door marked “Employees only” opened and a lady with a mop stepped through.
I recognized her from the hospital and finally placed the picture in Amy’s apartment. The cleaning lady was dressed nearly the same as when I’d seen her through the weave doing laundry. She did not wear her name tag with “Julia” this time, but no one paid attention to cleaning staff anyway. If she had smelled Espy and found her outside earlier, all she had to do was grab a mop and show up to clean. No one would stop her and no one but me could see Amy’s face hovering over hers.
Amy’s mother was stooped over and far more aged than the face that had been next to Amy in the photo. Her smile from the picture was nothing but bitter wrinkles now. Dead shark eyes sunken into her face matched the lifeless set of Amy’s ghost eyes floating in the head above hers.
“Lynx!”
Spook yelped a warning and spun around in a dead run back the way we had come, zipping faster than most four-legged dogs. I didn’t blame him. Even without sliding sideways, the ghosted image around Amy’s mother’s head was clearly visible.
Amy’s youth and beauty had been stripped away. A few remaining strands of hair stuck out from her head, like straw pieces clinging to an adobe brick. Her ghost face was a demented screaming thing with elongated teeth and a jaw that was completely unhinged.
Lynx ruined every diner’s meal in the restaurant with a high-pitched cat scream.
I don’t know what he saw. Maybe to him it was just a cleaning lady, but the body that housed Amy spurted forward faster than any normal human was capable of moving.
Lynx grabbed my shirt and twisted it, crushing the pack underneath. I had forgotten about the illusion spell he and Adriel had given me. There wasn’t time for it anyway. Lynx had badly misjudged Amy’s speed and abilities.
My staff was up and behind him as he faced me. I hugged him between the staff and my hands, stopping Amy’s claws from connecting with his back. I knew what her touch could do. She wasn’t stealing any part of Lynx, not his flesh and not his energy. With my arms around him, he was momentarily trapped, but he heard the scrape of danger as my staff connected with her raw power.
The illusion spell snapped into place. Other than an odd wavering fog, it made no difference to me.
Lynx twisted under my arms as I spun sideways and around him, jabbing to keep Amy back.
Lynx yelled, “Run!”
The kitchens and back door were behind us. So were the tunnels, but those led to Espy, and she was Amy’s real target. With matching blood, Amy would have a younger body, a fresh soul and more power.
“Not in this lifetime,” I ground out. Lynx couldn’t fight the thing that was Amy on his own.
Then again, the swipe he took at her arm not only left a bloody gash, it almost tore it off.
White Feather and Adriel burst through the door leading to the restaurant. A stiff wind slammed into Julia’s body, but Amy wasn’t deterred in the least, and she was by far the larger danger.
I snapped the staff at her ghostly figure, dead center with splash of energy meant to kill. No point in wasting my efforts.
The pulse slammed into her, forcing her face down directly on top of Julia’s head. With Amy slightly dazed, the physical shell nearly collapsed. There was nothing of Julia left. Amy must have finally consumed her soul. She may not have wanted to use her mother up, but it was beyond too late now.
Adriel threw something and yelled, but I didn’t see it hit because the lights went out.
Lynx grabbed my staff and yanked me back towards the door we had just exited. As we dove through it, there was a flash behind us. I chanced a backwards glance as I pushed the door closed.
“Oh—No!” My shout was lost behind the door. Adriel had thrown explosive power. Instead of blasting Julia, Amy had sucked it up. The situation had gone from bad to worse.
I stopped. “They need our help!” Adriel and White Feather didn’t know how to fight the gray sucking energy. If she hit Amy again it would only empower her further.
Lynx already had the door to the tunnels open.
Before we could dive one direction or the other, the panel leading up to the bell tower opened. Spook barked. He dashed out, herding Aunt Brenda and Espy.
“Aw, shit.” Lynx said. “Let’s move.”
We were just inside the tunnels when the hidden door to the hallway crashed open behind us.
Chapter 33
Lynx slammed the tunnel door shut.
We had to get Espy clear of Amy. “Run! Don’t stop!” I yelled at them.
“The tunnel door should hold—” It blasted open before Lynx could finish. “Damn! That wood had more spells on it than Adriel’s place!”
We dashed for the storage room, pushing Espy and her aunt ahead of us. There were multiple exits from the storage room; maybe we could confuse Amy.
“Uh-oh.” The weave was thinning, I could feel it. “Lynx, get them out of here.” I turned back and set my feet. Amy came through the archway, standing just under the gargoyle as she assessed the situation.
Running was for naught. She was battling the weave, but Julia’s body was no match for the demon forcing his way through.
“Tell me the demon’s name!” I screamed at Julia’s body.
She bared her teeth and reached for me. I was afraid to hit her with energy because the demon might grab it or learn the scent of me if he didn’t already know it.
Music.
The sound of a far off melody drifted through the thinning weave before being abruptly cut off by the screeching chords from hell. Black claws with red-hot tips ripped into the weave.
Amy dragged Julia’s body several steps away. “You’ll not have me,” she snarled. “I have a host, and you can’t have it!”
Tell that to the boar that leaped at the break in the weave. The weave fought against the giant pig, trapping its squealing girth for precious seconds, tearing away at its essence. That only made it easier for the beast. It went from mammoth size to that of a large horse and squeezed through.
The smell of burning offal filled the room.
“Holy—” Lynx snarled and went cat. He could escape faster and better than any of us, but he planted himself next to me.
I smacked the boar across the head before jabbing my staff into its eye. The top of the staff blackened, but I didn’t fear the heat.
The boar bellowed in outrage, swinging its pitted and twisted tusks. Fire leaked from its injured eye, but that didn’t slow it down.
I spun under the lethal horns.
“What the hell is that?” Lynx darted in and out, swiping his claws along one flank, drawing more fire.
“Don’t touch it too long,” I shouted.
Adriel rolled into the room just under the flapping weave where the boar had come through. White Feather sailed in after her, somersaulting through the air and landing on his feet. They were both ready to do damage.
“Don’t touch,” I shouted again.
The weave was doing its level best to repair itself, but discordant notes cracked through, followed at times by a more melodic strumming of a guitar. Kyle was fighting for us, and Martin
couldn’t be too far away either.
“Name the demon,” I demanded again, smacking Julia’s body with my staff. Forcing Amy out of Julia’s body now didn’t matter. The weave had already partially opened. Kyle’s music couldn’t fill the void forever, and the notes certainly weren’t going to wrap protectively around Amy to keep the demon out. She’d kill any music with her demon touch.
Amy dragged Julia’s ruined body closer to the back end of the pig. The feral monster ignored her.
White Feather smacked the creature with a windstorm hard enough to blow over any normal animal. Lynx swiped at it with another bloody hit.
Amy wasn’t headed for the weave even if it wanted her back. That meant she had decided to retreat through the arched doorway we had just entered.
Panicked, and more than a little angry, I flipped the staff to throw it. I hadn’t practiced this, at least not in this lifetime. I loathed the idea of losing my staff even for a second, but there was little choice.
Adriel was suddenly beside me, her arm also back to throw, completing the arc before I could stop her.
“No! Power just feeds her!”
“Yeah, I picked up on that from my first try,” she panted. The packet left a trail of energy, escaping as a beautiful blue silver light even before it hit the gargoyle. The timing was perfect. The stone cracked. The falling gargoyle might not hurt Amy, but it would finish Julia’s body.
Only the gargoyle didn’t fall. The explosion that should have rocked it was sucked away, blowing the gargoyle’s wings straight back. The gargoyle blinked.
Adriel’s mouth gaped open, matching mine.
The beast tucked in and dove, its feet ripping Julia’s head off on the way past as it sailed off the ledge.
Amy’s ghost head now sat atop a body gushing blood.
Lynx screamed then, that same cat bellow that had saved me once In Between. Knowing it as a warning, I slammed the staff hard at the pig while Adriel ducked.
Fighting was natural to me, an exercise that allowed me to beat my fears against something else instead of my own head. I pivoted and hit the pig again, snapping the energy off the end of the staff.
Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) Page 20