Unquiet Souls: Project Demon Hunters: Book One

by Pope, Christine

  “I have to hope so,” Michael said grimly. “Because Colin’s letting everyone know that we’re going to do a later afternoon into evening shoot, and we need everyone at the top of their game.”

  She’d been sort of hoping she’d misunderstood that part of the conversation, since the only thing less appealing to her than going back to the Whitcomb mansion in the first place was having to be there without the protection of a bright, sunny day. “I thought the original plan was to start shooting in the morning,” she said.

  “It was, but since we were delayed anyway, Colin figures it’s a good idea to get some shots with the setting sun, and then some at dusk. He wants it to look as spooky as possible.”

  Although Audrey wasn’t very happy about the idea — to put it mildly — she could see Colin’s rationale for making such a decision. While she knew all too well how frightening the Whitcomb mansion was, the reality needed to be reinforced with visuals for the audience at home.

  And really, when one got right down to it, how much did the time of day actually matter? Both attacks on the Whitcomb property had occurred in full daylight. The assault through her Kindle had happened at night, but that could have been more the timing of opportunity than anything else. In a way, that realization upset Audrey the most, simply because it implied there was some kind of malign intelligence behind all this, that they weren’t dealing with mere automatic reactions based on being in a certain place at a certain time.

  Michael said, his tone gentling a bit, “I know the idea of being there after nightfall is probably frightening, but it will be fine.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m not too worried.” Then, to change the subject — because if she kept talking about it, she knew she’d only succeed in getting herself worked up over the prospect of facing the Whitcomb mansion after dark — she added, “Do you really think Jeffrey Whitcomb drew all those diagrams on the basement floor? That they somehow survived all these years?”

  Michael opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the arrival of the waiter with their breakfasts. After their plates were set down in front of the two of them and they were left alone again, he said, “I don’t know who else it could have been. And that could explain why the phenomena kept occurring, even though his children had gotten rid of all other evidence of his madness.” A pause there as he scooped up a forkful of huevos rancheros and took a bite. Audrey reached down to her own plate to get a piece of bacon, although honestly, her appetite seemed to have deserted her for the moment. Once he was done chewing, Michael went on, “You know how I said that Jeffrey Whitcomb wasn’t allowed to close the loop on his spells?”

  Audrey nodded. “Because his kids had him sent off to a sanitarium.”

  “Exactly. Sometimes, destroying the physical evidence of those spells is enough to cut them off. But in this case, since they overlooked the runes and sigils in the basement, the doorway was still open. Probably the Whitcomb children didn’t even know they were there — those boards we pulled up looked old, as though their father had them put in not too long after the house was built.”

  That made sense. If Jeffrey Whitcomb had installed the floor sometime in the teens, it would have probably appeared to have been part of the original fittings of the house. His children wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary, and neither would the subsequent owners of the house.

  Audrey finished the rest of her piece of bacon, then said, “And maybe that explains the violent reactions of the entities to our discovering the spell circles. Maybe they’re worried that once we destroy them, then they’ll be blocked from coming in.”

  “Very likely.” Michael was quiet for a moment, his expression thoughtful. “Of course, they don’t have to have been called so formally — which is why anyone with any sense knows it’s foolish to use a Ouija board or carelessly repeat incantations, even if they don’t believe in them — but in this case, because a formal invitation was made, they may be compelled to play by the rules.”

  And those rules seemed to indicate that once the spells which had called the demons here were broken, then they would have no way of getting back into the house. Well, that was the theory, anyway.

  The question Audrey wanted to ask — why Jeffrey Whitcomb would involve himself in such dark practices in the first place — she could answer for herself. Michael had said that he didn’t know for sure whether the Whitcomb fortune had come about through demonic intervention, but it seemed the most obvious explanation. He’d sold his soul to the devil, so to speak, and the price he paid was separation from his family, and eventual madness and death. Just as in cards, the house always wins.

  But the people who’d lived there afterward had made no such bargain, and they certainly didn’t deserve to be deprived of their home just because of Jeffrey Whitcomb’s mistakes. In a way, phrasing the problem like that made Audrey feel more resolved to fix the problem confronting them. Of course, she was still afraid, but she wouldn’t allow fear to prevent her from seeing this through to the end.

  For a moment, the two of them were quiet as they ate their breakfasts, as if they knew they needed to keep their strength up for the ordeal ahead. The people at the next table finished their meal and got up to leave. One of them, a heavy-set woman probably in her early sixties, flicked a suspicious glance at Michael and Audrey as she went. Had she overheard some of their conversation? Possibly — the noise level in the restaurant was fairly high, which was part of the reason why they’d thought it was safe to discuss the situation at the Whitcomb mansion. However, the diner wasn’t so loud that a person couldn’t have still overheard what was being said, especially if the person in question was a dedicated eavesdropper.

  Well, there wasn’t much they could do about it now. With any luck, the woman at the next table had concluded that the two of them were both a little unbalanced and left it at that.

  As if he’d guessed what Audrey was thinking, Michael said, “I wouldn’t worry about it. People are going to judge — although maybe she’ll think back to today when she starts seeing ads for the show.”

  Possibly, although she guessed that anyone capable of delivering that kind of stink-eye to people discussing something paranormal probably wasn’t going to be tuning in to Project Demon Hunters.

  Audrey shrugged as she took the last bite of scrambled eggs from her plate. “I’m not worried about it. You should have seen the eye rolls I got from my graduate advisor when I said I wanted to take seminars at the Rhine Institute.”

  He chuckled. “I can imagine. But people are fearful of the unknown. They want things wrapped up in neat, tidy boxes, and unfortunately, that’s not how the universe works.”

  No, it wasn’t. She’d learned that lesson early on, but there were plenty of people lucky enough to never have great tragedy impact their lives. About all she could do was lift her shoulders; Michael already knew her family history, so she didn’t see the point in commenting further.

  “Are you done?” he asked, clearly guessing that she really didn’t want to continue the conversation along those paths.

  “Yes,” Audrey replied. The food was good, and her appetite had recovered enough that she’d eaten almost everything on her plate, but now she was ready to get going.

  Luckily, the waiter came by then with the check, and Michael handed him a couple of twenties and told him to keep the change. Under other circumstances, Audrey might have protested and tried to pay for her part of the meal, but in this case, she just went with it. After all, she wouldn’t have been driven from her house in the first place if he hadn’t gotten her involved with his damn television show.

  They went out to his SUV and got in. But instead of turning north toward Orange Heights, where Michael’s house was located, he got on the 210 Freeway headed east. Audrey sent him a sideways glance, and he said, “I thought you wanted to check on your house.”

  “I did,” she replied. “But you said there probably wasn’t much point until after we were done with the Whitcomb pla
ce.”

  “Maybe not,” he agreed, eyes fixed on the sluggish freeway traffic on all sides of his vehicle. It was much worse going west, toward downtown Los Angeles, but there were still enough people headed in the other direction that even going the speed limit was a vain hope. “But we have the time, and I thought you might feel better to see it again.”

  “Then thank you.” Whether she was really grateful or not remained to be seen. Audrey knew Michael was trying to help, but what if they were attacked the second they walked in the door? So far he’d done a fairly good job of protecting her, but….

  “Not a problem. I have to make sure my co-host is happy, right?”

  She sent him a wan smile and then turned to look out the window. They were passing through Arcadia’s northern borders now, the south side of the freeway lush with trees. Just a few more minutes, and they’d be getting off the freeway at Grand Avenue and heading north and east toward the quiet neighborhood where her house was located.

  Everything looked so familiar, the shops and restaurants and gas stations, and yet it felt strange to be coming back here, knowing what she knew now. There was a dark corner in this friendly-seeming place, a house that had hidden its secrets for more than a hundred years. Somehow, she didn’t think it would be very happy about the two of them dragging its darkness into the light.

  But then they were driving up Vista Bonita, and turning onto her street. Everything here looked very much the same — the neighborhood quiet because most people were at work or school. The sprinklers at the Montoya house chugged away, and Audrey thought she caught a glimpse of Anna Montoya, her across-the-street neighbor, disappearing around a corner as she walked her chubby little dachshund.

  Despite all that, when Audrey looked out the car window at her own house, painted a soft Dutch blue with creamy white porch and trim, she couldn’t help but experience a chill that slowly ran its way down her spine. The house looked just as normal as everything else here on her street, and yet what had happened to her the night before was far from normal.

  “Let’s take a look,” Michael said. He undid his seatbelt and got out, and she was forced to do the same, even though what she really wanted right then was to turn around and drive back to Pasadena and the comparative safety of his house.

  As they walked up the front steps, Audrey noticed that he had one hand resting near the front pocket of his jeans. Did he have another vial of holy water secreted away in there? He’d probably come prepared, which meant the answer to that question was most likely yes.

  Fingers shaking a little, she got her keys out of the inner pocket in her purse, then forced herself to put the house key in the lock and slowly open the door.

  The smell was what hit her first. Not the mildew odor that seemed to come and go in the Whitcomb mansion, but the sharp, penetrating scent of cat urine. Audrey blinked, eyes watering, and then she realized the cat pee was only the tip of the iceberg.

  It looked as though a tornado had blown through the house. All the furniture was toppled over or thrown across the room; the end tables had been jammed into the stair railing, breaking some of the finely turned spindles. Pictures were torn from the walls, frames and glass broken.

  And there, lying on the rug — which appeared to have large yellow urine stains on it — were the family photographs she treasured so much, their frames also broken. It looked as though something had taken them down off the mantel and then stomped on them.

  Audrey let out an incoherent cry and ran over to pick them up, not caring about the shattered glass. Tears began to run down her face as she clutched the crumpled photographs to herself. The rest of the house…that was just things. They could be repaired or replaced. But these pictures were all she had left of her parents.

  Almost at once, she felt Michael’s arms go around her, pull her away from the fireplace. “Audrey, it’s okay. We’ll fix this. But we need to get out of here.”

  “They did this, didn’t they?” she asked, forcing the words past the terrible knot in her throat.

  “Yes…and they’re still here. I can feel them.”

  He’d barely finished that last sentence before something went screeching overhead, a dark form whose shape was so hideous, her mind didn’t want to make sense of it. Wings…scales…glowing yellow eyes. Now she could hear that same screeching laughter tearing at her ears, and she cringed.

  With his free hand, Michael pulled a vial from his jeans pocket. As the entity came shrieking back toward the place where they stood by fireplace, he flung the contents of the vial at it, saying, “You were not invited here. I cast you out, send you back to darkness!”

  The water hit the demon’s flesh and it screamed, smoke rising from welts that had suddenly appeared on its scaly skin. Taking advantage of its distraction, Michael pulled Audrey out of the house and slammed the door behind them, then splashed the remainder of the holy water on the doorframe, as though by doing so he could create another barrier.

  They ran to his Land Cruiser and jumped in, and he sped away from the house with a squeal of tires that probably would have brought all her neighbors to their doors…if they’d been home. But because all this was taking place at ten o’clock in the morning, no one was around to see the two of them running from her house as though the Devil himself were after them.

  For all Audrey knew, he was.

  Once they were on Foothill Boulevard, heading back toward Grand, Michael spoke. “I am so sorry about your house, Audrey. I had no idea they would retaliate in such a way…I thought they would be content with driving you from your home.”

  She pulled in a hitching little breath, then another. Tears still burned in her eyes, but she tried her best to blink them away. “It’s not your fault,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. She realized then that she still clutched one of her photographs, although the broken frame must have fallen away as she and Michael fled for the door. “You couldn’t — couldn’t know that was going to happen.”

  “Still.” He shook his head, mouth tight with anger. “We’ll take care of the house for you. The show’s insurance should cover it. If not, I’ll handle it myself.”

  “It’s all right — ” Audrey began, but he cut her off.

  “No, it’s not all right.”

  They turned onto Grand, going back toward the freeway. She sat in silence, not sure what else she could say. It had been bad enough to know that the demons had tracked her to her house, had forced her to leave. Even then, at least she’d known it would be there waiting for her once she and Michael were done with all this. But now — she didn’t even have that hope to cling to. It would probably take weeks to get the mess completely cleaned up, and she didn’t know for sure how bad the damage even was. She’d only gotten that quick glimpse of the living room and dining room. What if the demons had trashed the kitchen, destroyed the upstairs as well?

  How could she ever feel comfortable there again, even if the insurance took care of everything?

  That thought was enough to get the tears flowing again. Audrey sat there, feeling them roll down her cheeks, not bothering to do anything to stop them. Michael reached over and laid his hand on top of hers. He didn’t say anything, but right then it was enough to feel the warmth of his skin, to know the reassurance of having someone there next to her.

  And beneath the sorrow and loss was anger, a growing rage at these terrible entities who delighted in torture and pain, who didn’t care who or what was destroyed as long as they could take some pleasure from it. She could feel her body tensing with that rage, and at once Michael’s hand tightened on hers.

  “Don’t,” he said, and she looked over at him in surprise.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t let anger take control of you. That’s what they want. If you allow negative energy to control you, then you’ll be that much more susceptible to them.”

  Intellectually, Audrey understood what he was saying. It really wasn’t that different from the sort of thing she might have said
to someone she was counseling. Because rage and resentment could eat away at a person, could turn you into the very thing that hurt you in the first place.

  But this was so hard, almost harder than overcoming her anger toward the gunman who’d taken her parents’ lives. Because he hadn’t targeted them specifically. It hadn’t been any kind of personal revenge; they’d merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time. This, though — this destruction had been designed to hit her where it would hurt the most.

  This was personal.

  “I’ll do my best,” she managed, and Michael squeezed her fingers one more time before he returned his hand to the steering wheel. He was turning onto the freeway on-ramp, and so she could see why he would want to have better control of the vehicle.

  “You have to,” he said, “because we’re going to come up against these things very soon, and I need to know you can handle it.”

  Audrey swallowed. “You’re not going to cancel the shoot?”

  “I wish I could,” he said. “But we’ve already been delayed once. I doubt Colin’s going to let us push back another day, especially after all the favors he called in to get us another cameraman on such short notice.”

  Right.

  In her misery, she’d forgotten all about that. The show must go on, right? Never mind that her life had been turned upside down. What she needed to do now was take her anger and turn it into resolve, a resolution to face these things down and send them straight back to hell. Because if she and Michael didn’t succeed, they’d never leave her alone. She realized that now.

  Audrey took another breath, then shifted in her seat so she faced Michael.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  Chapter 10

  They didn’t talk much on the rest of the drive back to Michael’s house. He was frowning, but since that seemed to be his usual expression, Audrey really didn’t think much of it. As he pulled into the driveway, she could feel that frown mirrored on her own face. Yes, he’d given her a sanctuary here, but that couldn’t last forever.