by Stacy Gail
“So...James Denton being the true culprit in all this is still a possibility?”
“Yeah. Of course, that would be the worst-case scenario.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Think about it, Kendall. If that’s the case, how do you propose we stop him?”
She started to answer, then realized she didn’t have one. “Can you get this geist?”
“I think so, but that’s not going to solve the problem long-term. If James Denton can control spirits like a puppet master, crossing his current pet geist over would be like taking away a serial killer’s favorite weapon. It won’t stop him from picking up another along the way.”
“We could tell someone—”
“Who? Can you imagine telling the police about this? Please arrest this guy, officer, because he can make spiritual beings commit murder with the power of his mind.” He snorted while skimming the feather over her shoulder. “That’d go over like a lead balloon.”
“No wonder you didn’t want to consider this as a possibility.” As the enormity of the situation sank in, her skin iced over. “How are we supposed to fix this?”
“We’re not. You’ve already done your job.” His lips lingered against her brow. “The rest is up to me.”
She pulled in a breath to ask him what he meant when the high-pitched buzz of her ringtone interrupted. With a sigh, she rolled to the edge of the bed and snagged up the wallet purse she’d left on the bedside table. One glance at the screen had her gaze jerking back to Zeke.
“It’s Abigail Denton. James’s mother.”
Instantly alert, he scooted in behind her, his legs on either side of her while his chin rested on her shoulder. “Put it on speaker.”
“Ms. Glynn, I hope I’m not disturbing you,” came Abigail Denton’s whiskey-soaked voice, and the formal, conciliatory tone made Kendall’s brows inch up. “I’d like to apologize for my appalling rudeness last night. Of course it’s no excuse, but I’m afraid your sudden appearance caught me by surprise.”
“I understand, Mrs. Denton,” Kendall said at length. “I’m so glad there are no hard feelings. Your family has been through enough already, and it wasn’t my intention to add to your burden.”
“Not at all. Naturally you have a job to do, and I think I’m now ready to open up and talk about all that’s been happening.”
The note of acceptance in the other woman’s tone made Kendall’s hopes soar. “I would love to hear what you have to say, Mrs. Denton. I know it’s asking a lot, but would you consider also asking your son James to speak with me?”
“Of course.” Kendall wasn’t sure if she’d imagined Abigail Denton’s hesitation. “Whatever you want. What do you say to a meeting around seven this evening at The Extra Shot coffee shop near Golden Gate Park?”
“No,” Zeke whispered in her ear. “No people. Not at night.”
No people in San Francisco? He couldn’t be serious. “Mrs. Denton, I’m not a fan of crowds these days, and nights are no good for me, unfortunately.” Kendall stalled, searching her brain for an appropriate spot that wouldn’t get her killed by a rampaging, geist-possessed horde. She needed something isolated, yet familiar enough to locals like the Dentons that it wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion. “Do you know Point Reyes?”
This time there was no doubt about Abigail Denton’s hesitation. “I do.”
“I know your son’s final class ends at two, so why don’t we meet at Point Reyes at three? We can get to the bottom of this story once and for all, and tell the world your side of it.”
“You certainly do your homework, don’t you?” There was something dark in the other woman’s tone before a quick clearing of her throat. “Yes, that does sound good, doesn’t it? Getting this done once and for all. All right, I’ll be there at three. Oh, and Ms. Glynn? I’m not a fan of crowds either, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring anyone with you. I’m sure it’ll be easier for me to open up if it’s just the two of us.”
“And so much easier to bump you off if I’m not around,” Zeke muttered after Kendall ended the call, and she looked over her shoulder at him, surprised.
“Don’t get paranoid on me now. Abigail Denton might be a piece of work, but she’s no killer. What’s more, she doesn’t have any reason to kill me.”
“True. But I’m not entirely sure that was Abigail Denton. It was hard to hear over a phone, but I could have sworn there was another voice overlaying hers.”
Kendall looked at the phone in her hand. “I didn’t hear anything like that. The only thing I noticed was that she suddenly remembered her manners.”
“Really?” He frowned at the phone as well. “Maybe I’m wrong, then. But I think it’d be best if we erred on the side of caution for this meeting.”
“You think she was possessed? By her son?”
“Jury’s still out on that. I do know that I’m in agreement with whoever you just spoke to. It’s time to end this, once and for all.”
* * *
Point Reyes was a desolate sight, a rocky peninsula jutting out into the Pacific. At the very edge of the peninsula’s jagged tip stood the red and white Point Reyes Lighthouse, a thirty-seven-foot tall, multifaceted tower that had guided countless ships through foggy seas, while a hundred feet below, the ocean pounded against the granite rocks in a ceaseless roar. The lighthouse had been automated decades ago, so it wasn’t surprising to Kendall that the narrow parking area was virtually empty. On a dreary weekday like this, no one would be around for miles. Considering the trouble she’d had lately with populated areas, this was exactly what she needed to feel safe.
Fog swirled around her as she closed her car door. The only other vehicle in the lot was a rusty pickup, but one glance told her it was empty. She strained to hear anything other than the cry of gulls and the pounding surf, but as far as she could tell she was the only person for miles around.
Kendall shivered. Being alone was peachy for her needs, but she couldn’t help thinking now would be a great time for some crazed person to leap out at her wielding a chainsaw.
“Ms. Glynn, is that you?”
Kendall jumped a good inch and wheeled around to look at the three hundred-step stairway leading down the craggy granite finger of land to the lighthouse perched at the very tip. The fog was so thick she couldn’t see where the stairway ended, much less where the voice was coming from. “Mrs. Denton?”
“I’m halfway to the lighthouse. Let’s get this done, shall we?”
Kendall swallowed a sudden lump of acid-filled fear, reminded herself this was her idea, and on trembling legs moved to the head of the stairs the locals called the Stairway to Heaven. “Why don’t you keep talking so I can find you?”
“Hearing someone else in all this pea soup is rather comforting, isn’t it? Otherwise you could be fooled into thinking you’re all alone in the world.”
“Yes.” Kendall struggled to discern if there was any other voice entwined with Abigail Denton’s, but all she heard was James’s mother. “Even though I can hear you, I still feel like I’m alone. Know what I mean?”
“Oh, I’m never alone. I always have someone—or something—nearby.”
Her steps faltered while her stomach knotted itself into sick little knots. “You mean your son?”
“No.” Slowly, the outline of a person emerged. Abigail Denton appeared on the stairway dressed in jeans, well-used sneakers and a purple windbreaker. She smiled up at Kendall with eyes veiled with white. “I mean my little pet.”
Kendall stopped cold at the sight of those eyes, her heart skittering to an agonized halt as terror washed over her like a crushing tidal wave. She knew she had a job to do. She knew she had to keep the ball rolling for a few minutes longer. But the sight of those white-veiled eyes froze her blood to a standstill and drained her brain of every last coherent thought.
Run, was the frenzied message sent to her legs. Run.
But she couldn’t. Not yet.
“I suppose you must be refe
rring to your geist.” At last she remembered how to work her tongue, and she was pitifully grateful her voice only wobbled a little. Her nerveless hand gripped the metal handrail, wet with condensation, while her instincts tried to find an escape route that didn’t involve plunging off the cliffs on either side of her. “For what it’s worth, I haven’t been alone, either. Your pet has been hunting me ever since I saw it in Dave Beamer’s eyes. Isn’t that right, James?”
The shock on Abigail Denton’s face was almost comical before her mouth twisted grotesquely. “I knew it. I knew there was something strange about you. I sensed you knew about my puppet.”
“Is that why you’ve been trying to kill me? Because I was the only one who knew Dave Beamer hadn’t been acting of his own volition?”
Abigail’s arthritic hand was made to seesaw. “Whether you knew what was going on or not was irrelevant. I mean, who would believe you?”
Kendall nodded as though she wasn’t on the verge of hyperventilating. “Then why did you keep attacking me?”
“I don’t like how different you are,” came the curled-lip response. “In your own way, you’re as much of a freak as me. I can’t possess you with my pet, and I can’t seem to get a bead on your soul like I can with everyone else, including that guy who keeps saving you. It’s like you’re on a different frequency or something.” Abigail’s dour face scowled. “I wonder why that is?”
“You know what they say—for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” She shrugged, while scooting an unobtrusive foot up on the riser behind her. “Maybe I’m nature’s antidote to the problem that is you.”
“That’d explain why I want you dead so much,” came the careless reply. “And like you said, you now know about me. That’s pretty much a death sentence for you.”
“Yet it seems a part of you wants to be known, James,” Kendall said, stalling. Praying she could buy enough time. “After all, it was your publicly-displayed art that led me to you.”
The white in Abigail’s eyes got whiter. “You looked at my art? What’d you think? Did you hit ‘Like’ and leave a comment?”
Holy crap. “It was very telling. And speaking of communication, I’m not entirely sure I understand how I’m talking to you through this geist. The geist isn’t you. You’re somewhere else, aren’t you?”
“I’m near enough. As for how I’m doing it, it’s no parlor trick. Being a medium isn’t something you choose to be. You’re either born with the gift, or you’re not. I’ve always been able to see spirits, but until recently I never tried to control them and make them my puppets. I didn’t know I could.” The twist of the mouth became worse, a horrible simile of a smile. “Just think of the fun I could have been having all this time, if I’d just had the imagination.”
She shivered, not wanting to even consider the body count. “I get what motivated you for the first two murder-suicides. But why Dave Beamer? What did he ever do to you?”
“It was nothing personal, just a test.”
“A test?”
“I wanted to see how far my range of control went.” Abigail Denton’s body was made to shrug. “I live about a mile away from KPOW, you see. When the lead story was my story, I had the sudden inspiration to see if I could reach that TV dude while watching the results from the comfort of my own home. It wasn’t perfect, sad to say. I couldn’t stop that Beamer jerk from screaming like a little bitch, and he couldn’t even manage to do in his co-anchor. I know now that I need to keep close if I want the job done right.”
“How efficient of you.” It was almost impossible to keep the sick horror out of her tone. But to know there had been no reason other than a brat’s curiosity behind her friend’s death filled her with gut-wrenching anger. “Another thing that baffles me is why you switched from soul-sucking—which no one would have known was murder—to the splashy murder-suicide spree you went on. Did you lose the ability to suck souls out of living humans?”
“You don’t understand anything.” A look of profound disgust crossed Abigail Denton’s face. “It’s exactly as you said—no one knew how amazing my ability was when I first sucked out the soul of my neighbor. Everyone thought she’d slipped into a diabetic coma and died on the laundry room floor, can you believe it?”
“Wow, poor you.” She heard a faint tremor in her voice, a debilitating mix of rage and icy fear. “No one knew what a monster you were...except your neighbor, of course. What did you do with her ghost once you sucked it out of her body?”
“I let her go. I didn’t know I could do so much more with it than just rip it from its shell. I only learned that trick with my dick of a cousin, Matt.”
Kendall’s stomach churned. Just when she thought he couldn’t get any worse. “The geist. He... You did that to your own cousin?”
“He deserved it. The family all thought Mr. Perfect, with his swirly blond hair and full-ride football scholarship to USC, keeled over from heatstroke, but he didn’t. It was me. I’m the one who has the power. And I’m the one who controls Mr. Perfect now.” As if to prove it, Abigail Denton pulled a carving knife out of her windbreaker.
“That’s not how you usually do things.” Out of time, Kendall thought hysterically, backing up the stairs as the coppery flavor of terror filled her mouth. Out of time. “Aren’t you supposed to strangle first, then stab?”
“Mom’s got crappy hands for strangling. But I think her body will last long enough to stab you to death. Or at the very least, I’ll make sure it dies trying.”
And with that, Abigail Denton lunged.
* * *
Zeke gritted his teeth. It was sheer agony to ignore the throb behind his eyes, a pain that alerted him to the nearby presence of the geist, but he had to stay focused on the ultimate prize.
And right now, that sure as hell wasn’t the geist.
He scanned the cliffs below the lighthouse, the wind whistling in his ears as he rode an updraft on its northern side while the heat wave-like rippling danced in his peripheral vision. But that was okay. For the first time since this wild goose chase began, he could now accept what that bizarre distortion meant.
The puppet master was nearby.
Perfect.
Instinct had Zeke reaching out to pull the shadows around him as he found a good landing spot on the far edge of the structure’s granite foundation, but in a fog bank shadows were hard to come by. Then, as he cautiously rounded the thick white base of the lighthouse and spotted the source of the rippling air, he realized stealth wasn’t necessary against someone who had his eyes closed.
Habit had Zeke tucking his wings in close about his body to silence even the faintest ruffling of feathers as he took in his opponent. He wasn’t much to look at, this so-called puppet master. He was an anemic-looking man somewhere in his early twenties, dressed in thrift-store chic with a gray knit beanie over shoulder-length dirty brown hair, an oversized gray and black plaid flannel shirt and ragged jeans. All that was missing was a skateboard or maybe a cigarette hanging from his mouth to complete the cliché of lost youth.
Then again, most youths didn’t have waves of psychic energy emanating from them to a geist whose presence Zeke felt in every corner of his soul. No matter how underwhelmed he was by his opponent, he had to act before that geist was pointed at Kendall.
“Damn, dude. Do you really think I don’t know you’re there?” James Denton opened his eyes before Zeke could close the distance between them. Shock ricocheted through him when the kid’s black-as-hell eyes locked onto his, and a sudden, sick sensation of enervation slammed into him. His vision wavered, and as a knee hit the ground it dawned on him in a dull sort of way that his opponent was doing to him what he had done to that poor, twisted geist.
His soul was being sucked out.
Through the wavering reality around him, Zeke watched the young man close in, a small trickle of blood coming from his nose. Absently he wiped at the blood with his grungy sleeve and leaned over Zeke, just as Kendall’s scream pierced through the f
og.
“I win,” the puppet master said, smiling.
Chapter Eleven
She should have remembered the superhuman movements of her attacker at the hospital, Kendall thought in a rush as Abigail Denton once again swung her knife, missing her by inches. With the stairway leading to the lighthouse blocked, she spun and ran as fast as she could back up toward the parking lot, speeding up dozens and dozens of stairs in the fastest climb she had ever done in her life. The fog had lifted enough for her to see the top of the stairs, but it was so far away, it looked like it was miles above—
A sharp pain in her calf dropped Kendall like a stone. She belly-flopped onto the stairs, striking her ribs and chin into the risers, but the pain of it didn’t register as she threw a terrified glance over her shoulder.
With her breathing a wet, tortured sound and her sweat-dampened face twisted with dark glee, Abigail Denton stood above her, knife raised for the finishing blow.
Without a thought, Kendall rolled off the steps under the lowest guardrail and onto the rocky bluff. With the stairway built on the crest of the rocky finger of land, the ground sloped sharply downward toward the cliffs, and in a panic she had to jam her heels into the ground to stop from sliding any closer to the edge. Pain spread like wildfire from where the knife had sliced through her jeans and into her calf muscle, the warm gush of blood washing down her leg. Blood also dripped from her throbbing chin where she’d smacked it against the stairs, but there was no time to wipe it away as her assailant leaned over the railing.
“Uh-oh. Now you’re really in trouble.” The white veiling in Abigail Denton’s eyes shifted and swirled like smoke, while her breathing worsened and her complexion turned a muddy gray. “Carved up like a Christmas turkey by me, or a lethal dive off the cliffs. Either way, it looks like these are your last moments of...” The taunting voice squeaked on the last syllable, and the white veil thinned until it was nearly invisible. She blinked and looked down at the knife. “What...?”