Grave Measures (The Grave Report, Book 2)

by R. R. Virdi

  “She’s a master illusionist—”

  “Thank you,” she interjected.

  I glared at her. “She can pass herself off as anyone she wants to—with a little magical help. To her, it’s as natural as breathing.”

  “That’s mildly unsettling,” Ortiz murmured under her breath.

  “Yeah, mildly.” It definitely was.

  Lyshae reached behind herself and pulled something into view. It would’ve been handy if we were hunting Dracula. The stake was the length of my forearm and nearly as thick. The tip was charred black with—if Lyshae had done it right—olive oil. I don’t make the rules on these things.

  “Uh, do I want to know where you were hiding that? That seems like an awfully big piece of wood for you to have been hiding up your ass.”

  Lyshae ignored me. Good humor is wasted on the supernatural. “Take it.” She reversed her grip on it and offered it to me. I accepted it with a slight bow of my head. Despite my occasional rudeness toward her, real respect is something that should be shown to many of the supernatural.

  “Thank you.”

  Lyshae inclined her head as well. “As I made myself acquainted with the asylum and its many occupants, I came across several interesting things.” She paused for a moment. “That was quite poetic, Charles—your writing on the wall. Accurate as well.”

  I blinked, trying to recall all Charles had scribbled down. Apart from the imagery, nothing of value came to me.

  “I spoke with some of the staff here. They provided wonderful insight, and shared some rather touching photographs.” Lyshae’s eyes sparkled with something I couldn’t quite pin down.

  “Look,” I cut in with a wave of my hand, “you have anything that’s actually useful? You know, like a ‘gank this person,’ or ‘the object you seek is here’ sort of thing?”

  She let out a rueful chuckle. “Now, when was that ever part of our bargain?”

  “Get out.”

  Lyshae bowed her head once more. She passed by us with smooth, graceful steps. The Kitsune paused at the door and looked over her shoulder. “Remember.” Lyshae rolled her hand with a bit of flair, displaying three fingers before tucking them away. “You owe me.” She smiled. Each word felt like weighted shackles snapping onto me.

  I let my anger slip by, resisting the urge to cave into it. Lyshae was a problem for another time. She had come through on her end, supplying us with the weapon to kill the phage. There was a young girl who needed my attention, all of it, focused and unclouded by frustration.

  Lyshae opened the door, gliding through it with refined movements no mortal could match. A nurse with a pinched face walked by. She saw Lyshae and froze. Ortiz and I did as well. The nurse’s eyes seemed unfocused as she regarded Lyshae.

  Her head tilted to the side. “Have we…”

  “I’m new here.” Lyshae smiled, her voice sweet and bubbly. She went so far as to bob in place, oozing enthusiastic energy. The nurse shook her head, features still set in a mask of confusion.

  “Oh, yeah, hi.” She extended her hand to Lyshae. They shook, and the nurse moved on.

  Lyshae shot us a pleased grin before moving out of view.

  “Show off,” I grumbled.

  “Bitch,” Ortiz mumbled and I snorted.

  I moved to Lizzie’s bed and fell onto it. My knuckles buried themselves into my eyes as I rested my head atop them. “So, tell me everything that happened.” A yawn escaped my lungs and I forced myself up.

  Ortiz positioned herself against the far wall, leaning against it. “I was here.” She hooked a thumb to the wall she leaned against. “Lizzie—where you are now. She was resting, but still awake. It was like that for a while—quiet. No monsters. No trouble.” There was a bitterness in the way she said monsters.

  The pressure in my head increased. I roped Ortiz into this world not once, but twice. No matter what I did, I seemed to be dragging people into my hellish life of late. Ortiz, Lizzie, and God knew who’d be next.

  “My head felt like I was wearing a ridiculously tight hat while the inside was being pumped full of air,” she said. “That stuff—what’d you call it, Myrk?”

  I nodded.

  “It began filling up the room. I couldn’t make out where it was coming from. It was like a gas grenade full of the crap had gone off. I pressed myself against the wall, trying to keep away from the stuff.”

  “Smart move,” I said. “Then?”

  “Part of the Myrk started acting out. Vines of it whipped around the place like they were trying to grab something that wasn’t there. One of them almost caught Lizzie across the face.”

  My body spasmed at the thought of Lizzie being struck by even a sliver of Myrk. It wouldn’t have been pretty. I couldn’t imagine the horrors she would’ve had to endure. A child exposed to this world, speaking with ghosts, seeing the things she had alongside me. The Myrk would have used all of those things against her. It could’ve subjected her to the sort of visions that leaves someone a dribbling mess. And, for someone her age, it could’ve shattered her mind completely.

  “I would like to say that we were both calm as it happened, but I’d be lying.” Ortiz went on. “I’m sure my heart was beating hard enough to be picked up by seismographs. Lizzie was frozen until that thing came in.” Her mouth twisted in revulsion with the word thing. “That’s when she screamed, Charles. Hearing someone scream like that, a kid no less…” Ortiz broke off as she shut her eyes, resting her forehead on her palm.

  I crossed the distance in a few steps and put a hand on her shoulder. My fingers dug in with just enough force to make it a gentle squeeze. “I’ve heard kids scream like that before,” I croaked.

  It’s never easy hearing it. It’s not something you can forget no matter how much you want to. It’s the sort of thing that digs in, roots itself in your mind, never letting go. The sort of thing that wakes you up at night, leaving you short of breath and your body drenched in cold sweat.

  Ortiz’s eyes widened. She stared at me in silence, mouth twitching on the verge of saying something.

  “I’m sorry, Charles.”

  I gave her a weak smile.

  “You’ve seen a lot of kids get wrapped up in stuff like this?”

  “Enough.” I frowned. “The list’s long enough; too long for me.” I cleared my throat to keep it from drying up completely.

  “Lizzie’s not being added to that list.” Ortiz’s voice changed from dry sorrow to steely resolution.

  “No.” I matched her tone. “She isn’t.”

  Ortiz bobbed her head in agreement. “The one thing I don’t get, though, is—”

  “Why was she taken as opposed to”—I swallowed what little moisture was in my throat—“being killed here.”

  “We’re missing something, Charles.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “And it sucks.” My fingers gripped tighter on the stake. “At least we have this.” I raised the weapon. “It’s something. When we find the phage, I’m going to jam it through its throat.”

  “Once we find it.” Her tone wasn’t accusing, but there was a hint of expectation in it. That maybe I should’ve found out more than I had. “Tell me about your acid trip again.”

  I repeated the details, going over them in my head as I did.

  “So you think you were moving and seeing things in concert with the actual asylum?”

  “I know I was. Remember, I had glimpses through it. I know what I saw.”

  “And the Babylon thing—where’d that come from?”

  I shrugged.

  “You said you remember climbing down stairs?” Her face slipped into a pensive mask.

  I nodded.

  Ortiz brushed the back of her hand against her mouth. “Doesn’t fit. I’ve been here a while and I’m not aware of any stairs. You sure you’re remembering it right?”

  I glared.

  She returned it. “You were hallucinating, remember?”

  “I know.”

  “Okay,” she relented. “You said s
omething about old bricks, lights, and water? That mean anything?”

  I shook my head. “No idea. I’ll tell you this though: it felt real. It was like I was flashing to bits of the….” I blinked as I made sense of it all. I could feel my lips peeling back from teeth. The urge to scream was getting the better of me. The muscles in my forearm quivered, leaving me to clench my hand over and over until the shaking stopped. The far wall seemed the perfect place in which to bury my fist. So did the phage’s face, repeatedly so, until I’d left it a bloody pulp.

  “What’s wrong, Charles?”

  “How old is this place?” I said in a near whip crack like voice.

  Ortiz reeled from the harshness of my outburst. She settled herself a second later. “Decades. I can’t be sure exactly.” She shrugged. “There was another building here before—a hospital. That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “Of course there was,” I growled. “The asylum was built atop the old building’s foundations, wasn’t it?”

  She shrugged again. “Possibly. I’m not sure.”

  Ortiz didn’t have to say anything. The fog that’d been mucking up my mind—cleared. It was easier to see what was really happening here. I pieced together one of Charles’ cryptic clues. “Down below.”

  “So, theoretically, there’s another level in this place.” I lowered my eyes to regard the floor.

  “Below us.” Ortiz caught on and followed my gaze.

  “Below us,” I agreed. “Which explains my little descent earlier.”

  “The flashes of old stone and lighting,” Ortiz added.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Seems like a place we should check out.”

  “Now that you’re not tripping on monster booze,” she interjected, grinning.

  “Sobriety sucks.”

  She snorted.

  I moved to the door and leapt out with a shout. “Allons-y!” I beckoned Ortiz with an exaggerated roll of my hand.

  She rolled her eyes. “Do you even know what that means?”

  “Course I do!” I said, my tone one of mock indignation. “It’s like French for ándale, which is Spanish for something, or goading a bull.” I rolled my shoulders in a mild shrug. “Either or.”

  She shook her head but I could see the edges of her mouth twisting into a smile. “You should think about trying electrotherapy when this is done. It might help.”

  “I once stuck a knife into a socket. That count?”

  She laughed. “You’re hopeless.”

  “Let’s hope not,” I said, moving the tone of the conversation to a darker one.

  Ortiz followed in step as I led the way. I picked up my directional cues from the signs at the ends of the halls. Ortiz knew I had no idea how to find my way back to the sublevel, but she didn’t comment on it. A desk came into view as we turned down another hall. I had seen it earlier.

  I came to an abrupt halt, stowing the stake. I placed my palms over the wood and leaned against it. “Hey.” My voice snapped the attendant out of her computer fixated reverie. It was the nurse with the pinched face.

  “What?” she said in a waspish tone. Her eyes drifted back toward the screen.

  “This place, the asylum,” I said, “does it have a lower level?”

  The nurse blinked several times. Her mouth moved with no sounds coming out. She was caught off guard and took a minute to collect herself. “Well, yes,” she started. “The asylum was built on the foundations of the old one after the Second World War.” Her voice lost the haughty tone as it shifted into one of enthusiasm. A self-satisfied grin slid over her face as she talked about the history of the location. I tuned it out.

  The foundations housed the remnants of another asylum. That wasn’t good news. This place was a bastion of illness. Especially ones of the mind. It’s no wonder the phage was drawn to it. This place maintained a constant type of energy. Over the decades, an innumerable amount of patients had come in with various maladies and emotional instabilities. Every patient was sending out a message in their suffering. And all of them told the phage what it wanted to hear. Weakness, easy prey, and plentiful pickings. The perfect hunting ground.

  Places can develop auras in tune with the dominant emotions within them. I’m not adept at picking up on that sort of thing. My talents lie elsewhere. But everyone’s come close to feeling something like that. It’s why you get that tingling down your spine when entering an abandoned place.

  There’s a good reason it’s been abandoned. Some horror, tragedy or hardship was experienced there. That feeling lingers. It’s also why when you visit your favorite aunt or grandmother, you get a sense of warm and comforting heaviness. The urge to fall asleep and doze. The familiar feeling of loved ones nearby. That smell homes of relatives always seem to have, no matter which relatives they are. You can’t escape those. It’s like being in the company of your best friend. You can just feel it.

  The asylum—no, asylums—were breeding grounds of silent suffering. That kind of energy compounds and always ends up bringing some form of supernatural predator sniffing around. I permitted myself to shut my eyes, imagining how many people had lost their lives to the phage over the years. How many lived in mental agony and torment? How many died without closure? I didn’t want to think about the numbers. They didn’t seem bright, especially if the ghosts were any indication.

  I sighed for the ghosts. I couldn’t do much to help them. All I could do was tack on an extra ass-kicking for the phage atop the one I was going to give it for taking Lizzie.

  My fingers dug into the desk, not going so far as to scratch the surface of the wood. “What’s below this level?” I said, interrupting her history speech.

  “The old foundations mostly. A bunch of stone, service lights, and plumbing.”

  Click—ding, and on went the frickin’ light bulb. The minute muscles within my hands and fingers shook as my grip tightened. Charles’ babble wasn’t babble any longer. Every reference, every note was clear. Below the asylum, in the old foundations where the entire waterworks were. Where else would a Babylonian phage be more at home? Access to foul the water, dark, probably quiet, which would work to their auditory advantage. Not only that, but I wagered my ingestion of its toxin served to show me more than a hallucination of old Babylon.

  The phage was a creature of the ancient empire, and it brought a piece along with itself. It had come over from its own pocket of the Neravene. The drug was a part of it as it was a part of Babylon. That’s what I had seen. I peered into its part of the Neravene, hence Charles’ reference to a world beside ours.

  And now I knew how he had figured it all out. The same way I had. The more of the toxin he ingested, the more he saw. He didn’t know what he was recording, or the value, but he knew enough of what he saw. Enough so Ortiz and I could act on it. And we were damn well going to.

  “How do we get there?”

  The nurse recoiled, sliding back in the chair. A slight pressure on my bicep prompted me to turn. Ortiz squeezed my arm, staring at me in concern. I flashed her a look. I didn’t have time for niceties.

  “How do we get there?” I lowered my voice, easing some of the harshness out of it.

  “You can’t go down there. Only maintenance is allowed.”

  I narrowed my eyes and leaned further in. “I’m going to ask you one last time, because a little girl is in danger. You know Lizzie? Yea high.” I gestured her height. “Quiet, sometimes carries a toy.”

  “Elizabeth…Haylen?” she said.

  I hadn’t gotten Lizzie’s last name in any of our prior exchanges. Making a mental note of it, I buried it for later. “Yes. She’s down there.” I wouldn’t lose much in telling her the truth.

  The nurse’s eyes expanded in ballistic speed as her pupils followed suit. “What would she be doing there?”

  “I heard her mention wanting to go down there.” I grasped for any quick lie my brain could produce. “Tell me!”

  She did. A wary look came over. “Charles, you’re scaring me. I’m going to call Do
ctor Cartwright.” The nurse reached for the nearby phone. I lunged, swinging my body onto the desk. My hand made it across, slapping it out of her hand and back into the set. She eyed me, staring like I was disturbed and needed the orderlies called on.

  “Sorry.” I threw up my hands. “Sorry.” I went so far as to rub my arms. “New meds,” I mumbled. “Take some getting used to.”

  She eyed me for several more moments before easing herself into the chair. Her gaze never left me however.

  “We should go,” suggested Ortiz, giving my arm another squeeze.

  I nodded and started to move when I caught sight of something. A picture sat on the desk, the one I had seen earlier. It caused the joints in my hands to feel like they were near bursting. The skin around my knuckles felt too tight, like a plastic bag filled to the breaking point. My gums ached from the pressure of my grinding teeth.

  “Lyshae,” I whispered. “You clever, deceitful, wicked, wonderfully perceptive, twisted bitch!” She saw what should’ve been obvious to me this entire time and had been kind enough to point it out. I’d been too dense to pick up on it until seeing the photograph again.

  I pushed myself away from the desk, legging it down the path the nurse had described. Ortiz caught up. Her hand fell on my shoulder as she walked beside me.

  “What’s wrong, Charles?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Didn’t I warn you about lying to me?” She accentuated her words by digging into the meat between my neck and shoulder with her fingers.

  I winced and turned my neck to alleviate some of the pressure.

  “I saw it on your face. Something’s wrong.”

  “Ackh!” I sputtered. “Alright, alright, I give. Let go with the death touch, Lucy Lawless.”

  She let out a light war cry that was a shade from echoing down the halls.

  I eyed her. “Anyone tell you how hot you are?”

  Ortiz released a rather unladylike snort. “Yeah, being hit on by a guy in a mental institution is the stuff of dreams for women. Try again next time, crazy.” She chuckled.

  I arched an eyebrow. “Takes one to know one.”

  Her laughter stopped, she paused thoughtfully. “You know I can kick your ass, right?”