“Responsibility to do what? Walk in there and get mangled? You have no idea what to do.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I? So what’s the plan?”
“I’m going to ask the spirit world for help.”
Corderman barked. It took Pertwee a moment to realize the sound was a laugh gone bad. He cleared his throat. “Good luck to you on that, then.”
One last try. “I’d rather not do it alone.”
“I don’t blame you. But you’re going to have to.”
That was that, then. She left him at his post and walked to the door.
“You’re trying something tonight?” he asked. He did turn around this time and moved to the side so he didn’t have his back to the dark.
“Yes.”
“You’re going to die out there,” he said. There was pain in his voice. He was terrified. He was furious. He still cared.
“I’ll try not to,” she said and waited a second to see if he would offer to come after all. He didn’t, so she left.
Outside the hotel, she stepped into a night that pulsed with currents. Her neck tensed. All right, she thought as she worked to keep her breathing steady and her hair from standing on end, you came out here to do something useful. Do it. She’d been answering on the fly when she told Corderman she was going to the spirit world for help, but the idea made as much sense as anything else. No, it made a lot of sense. Whatever had killed Crawford wasn’t going to be fought with recording equipment. Or arrest warrants, for that matter. Where? she asked herself. Where to go for the help she wanted? The answer occurred to her, and it made her nervous. She followed the logic through, though. She made her way to St. Rose’s Church.
The streets were deserted. All sane people were in their homes and hiding under the covers. She wanted to be there, too. She didn’t want to do this. She was scared. Corderman was right. She was probably going to die, and if she did, it would be knowing that her life had been constructed around a dangerous lie. But that might happen whether or not she tried to fight back. At least this way, she would also know that she had fallen with honour, attempting to do what was right. That counted for something, didn’t it?
The night dripped down the walls of the buildings on either side of her. It watched her. It didn’t answer.
She reached the church. It crossed her mind to go inside, see if Hudson was around. She decided not to. They would both be looking for help on a spiritual plane, but not the same one. She thought that his was even less likely to provide help than Meacham’s material world. She crossed the green to the church, then walked around to the back of the building. The graveyard was a small one, and old. There were no tombstones more recent than the end of the nineteenth century. The slabs were dark grey with grime and green with moss, illegible in the daylight, crumbling bone and rotted tooth in the night. The light from the street was so diffuse in here that the graves seemed to be powered by their own glow.
Pertwee moved to the centre of the graveyard so she had markers on all sides of her. She knelt, closed her eyes, spread her arms, and listened. The silence was deep. She told herself it was peaceful. Her body had trouble believing her. It remained tense. This is the home of the resting dead, she thought. This is a good place. This is where you were taken when the struggles were finally done with, and you could sleep. If the spirits had any memories of — or connections to — this ground, they would be good ones. She tried to open herself up. She wasn’t psychic, or at least no more than the average, but she didn’t believe that mattered. If the spirits were strong enough or interested enough, they wouldn’t need her to be a sensitive. They would make their influence felt. She had plenty of evidence of that. So did Crawford. “Help me,” she whispered. The sound was harsh in the silence. It exposed her. “Help me,” she said again, even more quietly. The words barely escaped her lips. “Help me help you and ...” She hesitated. She had been about to add “Saint Rose.” But Meacham’s theory was sticking with her. If Gethsemane Hall’s reputation was a lie, a distorted response to its tidal pull, then Rose’s sainthood might be part of that distortion. The thought shook her. The faith of many years took a crumbling hit as a shadow pooled under a heroine’s feet.
Crawford’s body, cat’s cradle spread over the tomb. Blood everywhere. Bits of muscle and organ that she didn’t recognize. And her last words to him: You could hardly be in a more sacred place. The worst lie of her life, only she hadn’t realized it at the time. She knew the lie for what it was now, though, and she forced intercession for and from Saint Rose from her mind. She started again. “Help me. Speak to me. Tell me what we need to do.” She waited. I am open, she thought. The effort was physical. She stretched the skin of her forehead as if it would spread her mind wide. Answer me, please, she thought. I need help so very badly.
Time passed. Enough that she despaired of an answer. She was going to head back to the inn without a single useful idea. She would prove Corderman right. She would traipse off to the Hall tomorrow with Meacham and be a spectacular liability, bringing about the deaths of herself and everyone around her. She had time for all these thoughts. Her arms grew sore, and she lowered them. She became painfully aware of pebbles biting into her knees. She opened her eyes. I give up, she thought and began to stand.
The answer came. It wasn’t directed at her, and it wasn’t what she wanted. It was coming, though. The back of her head twitched. She clapped her hands over her ears. There was no sound, but her body was reacting to a rapid thrumming of wings. Fluttering overhead. Darkness huge and travelling. She fell back down to her knees. Stone cut through her jeans and drew blood. Deeper fluttering, thunder wings, leather and insect, muscle, and scream.
Her scream.
And others.
Gray was at the Hall. Metres from ground zero. He had felt a building of power and was standing at the entrance to the crypt, staring at the recess that, for all that he still felt a sense of victory, he didn’t dare approach. He felt the movement, had just enough time to realize an ocean was moving when the force knocked him flat. He saw the ectoplasm rush from below, a black, unified geyser. Then he was out.
The gathered strength threw itself out of the Hall. It rode the sky. It swept over Roseminster. It was the deeper night. It was constrictor. It was severing edge. It was the hate.
Roger Bellingham tried to stay inside. The wind was up (though the trees were still). The night was worse than when Pete Adams had died. The pull was maelstrom-strong, and this time he could sense something approaching. He locked the doors of his house. He pulled all the curtains and blinds. He sat in his reading chair and gripped the arms, fighting the rip tide that was hauling him out to drown. A roar built in his mind, deafening him, greying out his peripheral vision. The strength of Gethsemane Hall yanked at him, and one moment he was sinking his fingernails into the leather upholstery, and the next he was watching his hands unlock, unchain, and open the front door. No, he thought. Stop, he ordered. Please, he begged. Nothing good replied, and he stepped out into dark. He looked up. High above, he saw something coiling.
The people were in their homes and hiding as the siege clamped down. Roseminster cowered from the night, but the night found its way in. It brought the whisper of dreams. It scratched at the mental doors. Roseminster moaned. Roseminster screamed.
Meacham felt it. There was a clawing at her consciousness, something trying to get in. It was an immanence of nightmare. Premonition of what visions might come terrified her. She shook her head, began to mutter “No.” Agency training had included resistance to interrogation, and she was suddenly drawing on those lessons to distract her mind and keep out the enemy. She’d never had to use the skills against a human adversary. They were rusty, now that she needed them against something much stronger. She heard a whimper, looked up and saw Sturghill clutching her head. “One times one is one,” Meacham gasped, reaching out. “One times two is two. One times three is three.” She said it louder, then yelled “Kristine” into a raging gale (though t
he air was still). Sturghill looked at her. “One times four is four!” Meacham yelled, urging.
“One times five is five,” Sturghill called it with her.
They chanted a spell of math and logic, their magic circle against the dream that wanted to speak with them.
The ectoplasm storm looked down. It found what it wanted.
Corderman stumbled away from the window. The room had a standalone wardrobe. He hid behind it.
Hudson clutched the altar. He pressed his head so hard against it that he drew blood.
Bellingham dropped his cane. He stumbled forward in a run that obliterated the cartilage of his knees. He wept his terror. He couldn’t stop the run. Above, he saw the coil descend for him, a funnel cloud of anger.
Corderman howled. The window shattered. Something came into the room for him. Something with talons.
chapter sixteen
home again, home again, jiggety-jig
Corderman’s screams cut through the multiplication tables. They sliced deep into Meacham’s conscience. Sturghill’s, too, to judge by the grief and guilt on her face. The women didn’t move from their room. They didn’t try to help. They stared at each other and recited arithmetic until they felt the winged dark retreat. In the morning, they opened their door and crossed the hallway to the other room. Meacham knocked, a futile gesture of useless hope. There was no answer. She tried the knob. The door was unlocked. She and Sturghill stepped inside. The room was empty. Curtains drooped over the broken window. Glass was spread across the floor. There were some shards embedded in the facing wall. The bed had been upended. The comforter was shredded. The wardrobe was in pieces. There was no blood. “Both of them?” Sturghill wondered. She sounded hardly less afraid than she had during the night.
Dragging footsteps on the staircase. Meacham ducked her head out the door, saw Pertwee staggering up. “Where were you?” she asked.
“Cemetery,” Pertwee answered.
“Edgar wasn’t with you, by any chance?” She didn’t know why she was even trying. She’d heard the attack. She knew the answer to her question. But she entertained a brief fantasy of a terrified Corderman fleeing the hotel after the encounter in his room. Faint hope, no hope.
Pertwee shook her head, looked stricken, and shoved past Meacham. “Oh no,” she whispered, taking in the wreckage.
Meacham thought for a moment. “Go look for Patrick at the church. I’ll meet you there.”
Sturghill and Pertwee headed out. Meacham stopped at the front desk. The day clerk had deep pouches under her eyes. “Bad night,” Meacham commiserated. When the clerk nodded, Meacham felt an unspoken understanding, and she said, “We lost someone. Room 5.”
The clerk nodded again, pain creasing her forehead. “Should I call the police?”
“If you would.”
Hudson was sitting in a pew with Sturghill and Pertwee when Meacham reached St. Rose’s. He had a large bandage on his forehead. He kept touching it gingerly. “What happened?” Meacham asked.
“An accident. I’m fine.”
“All right. Then let’s go.” Now, while she had the momentum of first light. If they waited too long, she would run, no matter what might follow her.
Sturghill raised the problem. “What’s the plan?”
Meacham took a few beats. Like she had any idea. She took a wild shot. “How are you with exorcisms?” she asked Hudson.
He grimaced. “It would help if I were ordained and Catholic.”
“Anna?” she asked Pertwee. “Any ideas?”
“I tried last night.” Terrible hurt in the ghost-hunter’s voice. “There was no help. There was only that attack.”
Meacham looked around the space of the church. If she were ever going to receive the touch of grace, now would be a good time. There was no inspiration. There was vaulted stone and stained glass, sterile heights, and rigid figures, heavy testaments to humanity’s need to construct monuments to the imaginary. There were forces out there, though. She knew that now. Might there not be others? She walked over to the altar, reached out to touch it. She felt the slick cold of marble and nothing else. She glanced down and saw a trace of blood on the side of the altar. She glanced back at Hudson’s forehead. She felt a faint spiritual tickle, a faint seismic reading of darker revelation to come. She shut the premonition down, the same way she’d choked off her conscience during all her years with the Agency. She gathered her strength. Angst was an impediment to action. She turned back to Pertwee and said, “You told me last night that your faith in the spirit world hadn’t collapsed. Has it now?”
“No.” The response was immediate, but a bit too firm: Pertwee working to convince herself as much as the others.
“So what, from your angle, is standard procedure when you have bad juju going on?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anything so huge.”
“Forget the scale for a minute. What would you do if this were just an ordinary pissed-off ghost?”
“Look for patterns in behaviour,” Pertwee answered. “Investigate the history of the location.” Her voice gathered strength as she moved onto familiar ground. “If the spirit were invited in somehow, revoke the invitation. Look for evidence of unresolved trauma, try to bring closure to the spirit. Help it move on. Make it want to go. Lots of them don’t know they’re dead or are afraid to leave.”
“I don’t think this one’s afraid of much,” Sturghill muttered.
“It’s very strong,” Pertwee whispered, awe taking her down once more.
“Focus.” Meacham snapped her fingers. “Pretend it isn’t so big and bad and scary. Give me a diagnosis.”
Pertwee bit her lip, concentrating. “It’s growing stronger,” she said. “A lot stronger, recently.”
“Pete Adams,” Sturghill suggested. “He stirred it up.”
“Not as much as we did,” Hudson put in.
“And we were doing the same kind of thing he was,” Meacham summed up. “So investigating it unleashed it. How?”
Sturghill said, “The big events started when Richard opened the way to the caves.”
“And we found the tomb,” Hudson added.
Meacham nodded. “So we took the cork out of the bottle. What’s happening now?”
“Negative spirits thrive on fear,” Pertwee said. “They want to be noticed. The fear gives them strength.”
“This one’s doing a good job. But if I’m following you, all we need to do is find out why it’s angry and make the problem go away.”
“Assuming the ghost is human,” Sturghill said.
Pertwee folded her arms. “I think it is. It’s focused on the place and on that tomb. I don’t think an inhuman spirit would be that specific.”
“So that’s where we start.” Meacham felt her lips turn up in a sour smile at the cornball she was about to speak. “We look for the truth and use it to set the bad ghost free.”
Hudson looked up. “That’s what Richard said he wants. He’s looking for truth.”
Well? Meacham thought. That was good, wasn’t it? No reason to feel a chill breeze at that idea. No reason for the gooseflesh on her arms. “Fine,” she said. “So let’s do it with him.”
“That’s what he asked me to do.” Hudson sounded ashamed.
The gooseflesh wouldn’t leave. She changed the subject. “Patrick, I asked Anna about her faith. What about yours?”
“What about it?”
She wondered if he was being evasive. “How is it holding up?”
“Why does it matter?”
Ah. Trading questions for questions, and so showing his hand. Not good. “Because we’re going to need every conceivable weapon we can come up with to win this. Anna’s going to use the strength of her belief. We need yours, too.”
“I thought you didn’t believe.”
“I don’t. At least, not in your God. I don’t think so, anyway.” The coldness of the marble. The emptiness of stone. “But I goddamn well have to accept the reality of something out there, do
n’t I? So here’s the deal. I don’t know what, if anything, is going to work here. But you and Anna at least have a tradition behind you. Yes?”
Hudson nodded. “Yes.”
“And what’s the value of a faith that isn’t tested?” Dirty pool, girl. Yeah, but you fight the war any way you can. Boost the troop morale. Convince them they can do what they probably can’t.
More shame on Hudson’s face. “It’s been hard,” he said.
She eased off. “I know.”
Still, his spine seemed to straighten. “You’re right, though.” He looked at Pertwee. “What do you think? Maybe our systems are complementary.”
She smiled. “Would be nice if we’re both right, wouldn’t it?”
As long as you’re not both wrong, Meacham thought. She caught Sturghill’s eye, saw her thinking the same thing, and warned her with a glance to keep it to herself.
Instead, Sturghill asked her, “So where does that leave us?”
“You can pray too, you know,” Hudson said. “There’s nothing to stop you.”
“Except doubt and hypocrisy,” Meacham replied.
“Doesn’t answer my question,” said Sturghill. “If anyone has turned out to be completely wrong about how things work, it’s the two of us. What can we bring to the party?”
“You’re a magician. You’re a performer. You must have picked up some improv skills along the way. I know I have. So we stay on our toes.” Meacham shrugged. “A certain pigheaded independence of mind might not hurt, either.”
Sturghill actually laughed. “Do you have any idea how weak that sounds?”
“A pretty fair idea, yeah.” Meacham faced the trio of sad sacks. Here’s your black bag team, honey, ready to open up a can of regime change on the nasty ghost. She put her hands on her hips. “So now that we have that settled, shall we join the party?”
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