I didn’t imagine the poor farm was much better.
“If this were a movie, we’d hear the scary music and know not to go in there,” Brent replied in a voice just above a whisper.
“Nah. We’d go anyhow. Because it’s our job to look for the monsters in the basement,” Travis replied.
The three of us drove over together and left the car about a mile back so we didn’t give ourselves away. Donny, Joel, and the bobcats hiked in wearing their fur. If they had to shift back for any reason, we’d end up with naked shifter monster wrestling, something I didn’t need to see. The two priests drove together, and I figured Otto would get here on his own, however vampires did that kind of thing.
Lights shone from the center section of the massive old building, but the wings on either side were dark. The poor farm was surrounded by forest and still fairly isolated, so there was little risk of someone wondering why the abandoned building was obviously in use.
“How’s the wifi?” I asked Travis, meaning his mediumship mojo.
“Pretty damn strong. Cover me.” He closed his eyes to concentrate. Brent and I were armed to the teeth, so Travis didn’t need to worry. The air around us grew cold enough that we could see our breath, proof that the spirits answered Travis’s call.
I had a sawed-off shotgun and all the ammo I could carry, special rounds with salt, iron filings, holy water, and some other ingredients that might come in handy. My Glock was in my waistband, and I had a Sig Sauer P226 holstered under my arm. I didn’t know if I’d need my Ka-Bar and machete, but I felt better with them than without them.
From what I could see, Brent carried a similar portable armory. Travis seemed to travel lighter, although I could see where his sidearm was holstered and his scabbards for long knives. We also had plenty of salt, iron filings, and holy water in case the ghosts turned surly, and we carried silver because there was a vamp on the loose. Of course, Travis’s abilities were his main weapons and his training as a former asset with the Sinistram. Brent was ex-military, ex-FBI, and ex-cop, which meant I figured they were both more badass than me. I’d just have to keep up and try not to get killed.
After a few minutes, Travis opened his eyes. “Four human guards. Also, zombies—at least, that’s what the ghosts’ descriptions sound like. No idea how many. There’s a bear shifter who isn’t caged, so we can presume he is on Brunrichter’s side. Possibly a vampire helping the mad doc, and someone who might be the Sinistram contact. If that’s true, he’s all mine.” Travis’s voice had gone hard and cold.
“Where’s the target?” Brent asked.
“Second floor, just like the ghost girl told Jon,” Travis replied, and he grinned, showing his teeth. “Let’s go raise a little hell.” In case anyone bothered to check, I texted Travis’s update to the group.
As we crept from cover, I saw five shadows streak across the yard. Donny and the big cats, I figured. I had no way to tell them about the bear since they certainly weren’t carrying their phones.
“I’m here.”
I bit back a yelp as Otto appeared at my side seemingly out of nowhere. Vampire stealth. Travis and Brent cursed and had weapons drawn before I stepped in front of Otto, hands out in appeasement.
“Whoa. Take it easy. Remember—he’s on our side. Otto—these are my friends Brent and Travis. Guys—this is Otto.”
“Don’t be afraid,” Otto said. “I will not feed from you. Mark knows this to be true.”
“We’ve got two more of our folks in human form—priests going after a demon,” I told Otto. “And five shifters—bobcats and a wolf—so they’re friends, not food.”
Otto nodded. “I will remember.” He smiled, and I tried not to flinch at the fangs, but my lizard brain wasn’t completely onboard. “Now, we hunt.”
I blinked, and he was gone.
Earlier, we’d debated how best to enter. I wasn’t keen on trying to scale the drainpipes to get in on an upper floor, and we didn’t know for certain whether the basement had any tunnels that led to the outside. That meant that we were going right in the front door, come hell or high water.
I didn’t see our shifter team, and more to the point, I didn’t hear them, either. Hopefully, that meant they got in without a problem and were headed to the basement. I was pretty sure the priests were already inside, too.
Brent and I figured we would plow the road for Travis, and then go after Brunrichter. He and I led the way with Travis behind us, up the broad steps and into the vestibule.
Straight into a dozen zombies with mix-n-match parts.
Brent and I had shotguns at the ready, locked and loaded. We aimed for the skull, and they burst like ripe melons. The cavernous entranceway magnified the sound of the blasts, which boomed like thunder. Travis covered our backs, as more zombies crawled up from the basement.
I’d only gotten a glimpse of the interior with its white mildewed plaster walls that were now splattered with zombie guts. In the center of the room, a big stairway led upward. The steps to the basement were behind those stairs, a dark opening to the lower levels. Boom after boom echoed through the cavernous building as our shells took down the zombies.
It figured that Brunrichter would create his own undead goon squad since toying with life and death seemed to be an obsession for him. It also looked like he’d added some Frankenstein to the mix, changing out limbs and that hadn’t been original equipment.
Gobbets of rotting flesh hung from the wooden banister. None of us had been able to avoid the spray of brains and bone bits. Whatever fringe science or dark magic animated the zombies wasn’t meant for long use. Advanced decomposition left blackened strips of skin hanging from their bones and bloated their bodies. They smelled like two-day-old roadkill in a heatwave.
Our shots punctured those swollen meat sacks, and the liquified organs erupted in a fountain of noxious black liquid that managed to smell even worse.
“God, that’s rank,” Brent said. “And I thought they smelled bad on the outside.”
The zombies tried to block us from getting near either set of stairs, but the longer we blew them to smithereens, the more I noticed that they weren’t attempting to do anything except get in our way. No grabbing or biting, just shambling. One of them ran into the curve of the balustrade and stayed there, walking in place like those battery-operated toy dogs.
“They’re cannon fodder,” I shouted over the noise, and tried hard not to get any spoiled bits in my mouth.
That meant they were either sent to delay us and allow Brunrichter to flee, or to keep us stalled here while more dangerous creatures came to finish us off. If we hadn’t come prepared to fight the zombies, they seemed more likely to pig pile an unwary traveler and subdue him rather than rip a person limb from limb.
It seemed like overkill when a net and a tripwire would have done the same thing. Maybe Brunrichter wasn’t as good at this kind of thing as his legend suggested.
Finally, we downed the last few zombies and held our breaths to see if more would come from elsewhere in the building. Without the din of our blasts, I could hear the roar of a bear from down below, along with the hiss of the big cats and the vicious growls and barks of a dog, confirming that Donny and the shifters had gotten in ahead of us. Damn, but Donny sounded all grown up.
We heard crashing and banging from above, and then an inhuman laugh that sent ice down my spine. Father Jacinski shouted something in Polish, as Father Leo’s voice rose in the familiar Latin rite of exorcism. That meant the priests had also made it inside before the zombie squad showed up. Security didn’t seem to be Brunrichter’s strong point, which might explain how so many of the cryptids escaped.
A guttural voice taunted the padres, hurling insults and blasphemies, and the idea of actually hearing a demon’s voice made my gut clench.
Travis and Brent glanced at each other, a silent conversation, and I almost got the feeling that they regretted not being part of the action. Even though Travis had left the priesthood, I knew he still did exorcism
s, and if God didn’t mind, I figured no one else was entitled to an opinion.
But at the moment, the exorcism blocked our way up the main steps to find Brunrichter.
“There’s got to be another set of stairs,” Brent said, glancing toward the two darkened wings. We had brought flashlights, not knowing what to expect, and I was glad we came prepared.
“Left or right?” I looked to Travis, hoping the ghosts would have a suggestion. He looked as if he were listening to a conversation the rest of us couldn’t hear, and I figured that was probably true.
“Right,” he said, and we headed that direction, sweeping the deserted corridors to make sure nothing lay in wait. We let Brent take point because he’d clearly been trained for this sort of thing. I watched and learned. Travis brought up the rear, and from the unfocused look in his eyes, I had the feeling he was straddling the worlds of the living and the dead, staying with us but also tuning in to the facility’s old ghosts.
It didn’t escape me that the peeling paint and moisture-streaked walls looked exactly like the vision Phoebe had described, the one where I was running and covered in blood.
From what Penny’s ghost had told us, the central portion of the building held the main facilities—kitchen, classrooms, staff offices, infirmary. The laundry and maintenance rooms were in the basement, along with the boiler room and mechanicals. That meant the two wings were residential, rooms that once held individuals and whole families who had nowhere else to go.
Fuck, even I could tell that this place was haunted as hell, and I didn’t have a psychic bone in my body. Not only did the hulking monstrosity of a building give me the “creeps”—layman’s language for the gut sense that something isn’t right—but a feeling of doom seemed to ooze from the walls, growing stronger by the minute.
I didn’t like trying to circle around. Cutting through the old wing made us vulnerable. Not to mention that no one was guarding the main entrance. We hadn’t come this far just to let Brunrichter slip out the front door while we took the scenic route to the second floor. On the other hand, I doubted that even he wanted to cut through the middle of an exorcism.
And where the fuck were the vampires?
Our footsteps seemed loud as we hurried down the trash-and-leaf strewn hallway. Before the mad doc claimed the place, it had stood vacant for a long time, open to vandals and the weather. Although, since I didn’t see much graffiti or damage, I wondered if the ghosts had scared most intruders off.
The wing was one long corridor from end to end, with doors opening to rooms on both sides. Even in the daytime, it would have been dark without any windows, and the old light fixtures probably didn’t do much to dispel the gloom. This was the end of the road for most of the people unlucky enough to come here, and I doubted that many left the farm alive.
Up ahead, moonlight streamed through the windows in the staircase at the end of the wing. Brent and I couldn’t sweep all of the dozens of rooms along the hall, so we made damn sure that the doors were shut to avoid nasty surprises. As we neared the end without getting ambushed, my hopes rose.
That’s probably what fucked us over.
Just as we neared the stairwell, a figure sprang from the shadows. Our flashlights gave us a split second to know he wasn’t one of ours before Brent and I opened fire. The shots hit him, doing damage, but he kept on coming at a leisurely stroll.
“Those aren’t going to work,” he said as if we hadn’t just blasted him in the chest. “Don’t run. I’ll make it quick.”
Fucking vampires. I knew better than to make eye contact, but I’d forgotten how damn compelling their voices are, slowing my reactions when even a fraction of a second mattered.
“Suck silver,” Travis muttered, lunging in front of us. He splashed the vampire with holy water with one hand and shot a silver bullet from the gun in his right hand. The holy water hissed and crackled as it scorched the vamp’s skin, but he still managed to dodge the bullet, which dug into the wall behind him.
Brent and I had our silver-edged machetes out, but the vamp was on us before we got close. They’re so fuckin’ fast. Travis couldn’t get another shot without possibly hitting Brent or me, but he drew his silver-coated Ka-Bar and closed in as Brent and I tried to slow the creature’s advance, hoping to pin his arms and avoid those fangs for Travis to strike the killing blow.
The vamp shook us off like we were barely an annoyance, tossing me in one direction to slam against the wall and hurling Brent in the other. We hit hard, with a rain of plaster dust.
The creature favored Travis with a malicious smile. “Oh, I do love a defrocked priest. All that lovely angst.”
Blurred movement sent a rush of air through the corridor, and then the vamp found himself hoisted by his collar and thrown hard enough to skid across the floor and nearly reach the stairwell.
Otto barely spared us a glance. He looked like the killer he was, a very different kind of butcher. “Run,” he told us, and advanced on the vampire he’d come to fight.
Brent and I had climbed to our feet, bruised but otherwise undamaged. Travis lingered just long enough to make sure we were mobile, and then turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, which seemed like the most sane thing we’d done so far.
Behind us, I heard crashing and curses as the two vampires squared off against each other. On our own, we might have gotten in enough shots to take the vamp before he got one of us—maybe. I had a gut feeling Otto could handle him. The clash sounded like a dinosaur wrecking crew as wood splintered and plaster cracked.
We could still hear the demon’s shrieks and the distant roar of a bear. Fuck my life. How do I get myself into these things?
We ran back the way we came, flashlights bobbing and sending a crazy pattern of light that bounced off the walls and painted streaks of light on the floor.
“Fuck. We’ve got company.”
Four silhouettes strode toward us. Shoulder-to-shoulder, they blocked the hallway. I figured we’d found the human guards.
Travis and Brent flung open one of the closed doors and dodged inside on the left, while I did the same on the right as bullets splintered the wood and thunked into the heavy plaster walls.
Brent and I swung out from cover into position seconds later, firing the shotguns, then retreating into the dark rooms. Two of the goons cried out, and I hoped we’d hit the mark.
We’d thumbed off our flashlights so we made harder targets. The long-empty space held a damp chill and smelled of mold and rodent nests. I didn’t want to think about what else might be in the shadows, dead or alive.
The goons fired back, a fusillade that sounded like we’d stepped into a war zone. When it let up, Brent and I dodged back out to squeeze off a few more rounds. A bullet grazed my shoulder; others whistled by closer than I wanted to acknowledge. I heard Brent curse through gritted teeth, and I wondered if he’d been hit, too.
“Fire in the hole!” Travis yelled. I didn’t know what he was doing, but experience had taught me to duck and cover. I dropped to a crouch, wrapped my arms around my head and hugged the wall, with eyes squeezed shut, heart pounding.
Light flared so brightly my vision went crimson for a second, and the boom nearly deafened me even with my forearms pressed against my ears. That flashbang grenade couldn’t have done good things for any of the goons we hadn’t shot. I wondered what it had done to Otto and the vamp.
As quickly as I could see again and get my balance from the sound blast, I swung back out for another round and caught sight of Brent in my peripheral vision, doing the same.
Four men lay on the ground, groaning in pain.
“Cover me,” Brent said, as he and I inched from our hiding places and turned our lights back on. “I’ll zip tie them.”
Travis and I kept our guns trained on the downed men as Brent made short work of binding their wrists and ankles.
“We hit three of them, but nothing looks life-threatening,” he reported. “I don’t think they’ll bleed out before we’re done.
”
I felt a warm trickle of blood running down my arm and chest that I hadn’t noticed before. It was hard to tell when we were all covered in zombie guts and vamp blood, but it looked like Brent had gotten nicked, too.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Through and through. Travis tied it. I’ll be okay until we’re out of here.”
“We still need to get to the second floor,” I pointed out. “Come on.” We headed for the stairs at the end of the left-hand wing, another long dark corridor filled with unknown peril. Behind us, I could hear Otto and the vamp still duking it out, and I wondered if they’d bring the building down around them before either one gave in.
To my astonishment, nothing jumped out at us before we reached the stairs, and we headed up warily. The sounds of Father Leo and Father Jacinski’s exorcism grew louder, both their chants and the shrieks of the demon. It seemed like it was taking forever to send this particular fucker back to the pit of Hell, and I wondered whether he was just an upper-level demon, or if something else anchored him here.
Now that we’d made it to the second floor, I had no idea where we’d find Brunrichter. But before we could start flinging doors open and searching rooms, I heard a god-awful sound from the stairs we had just climbed, a thudding-scratching-wheezing noise that could only have one source.
“Bear!” I yelled as a hulking, furry brute pounded up the last few steps and came charging from the stairwell.
I had enough light to make out the bared fangs and the glint of murder in the creature’s eyes as it barreled toward us.
We couldn’t outrun it, and there was nowhere to go without barging into the center atrium and landing in the middle of an exorcism. I had seconds to react, not even enough time for my sorry life to flash before my eyes. Before I had a chance to think, I went down on one knee, pulled the grenade launcher from its sling, and fired.
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