Unquiet Souls: Project Demon Hunters: Book One

by Pope, Christine

  “What do you mean?”

  He came back over to the table and idly shuffled the Zener cards with one hand, making little stacks, then folding them all back together again. “Well, I’d set up the show thinking I was going to be the psychic, and you were going to be the skeptic. But if we’re both psychic….” The words trailed off, and he sent Audrey a rueful smile. “We might have to reevaluate things.”

  A thought occurred to her, and she said, “Maybe it’s not so much that I’m psychic, but that you were sending so strongly, I couldn’t help but receive the images.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” He looked up from the cards. “I’ve known for a long time that I had some abilities, but they’ve never been strong enough to pull off anything like that.”

  For a second, it looked as though he meant to say more. Then he seemed to shrug, and began to put the cards back in the little box they’d come in. Watching him, Audrey couldn’t help asking, “When did you know you were psychic?”

  “Since I was a little kid, I guess. But most of the time I just tried to ignore it. That whole world felt too weird to me, and I wanted to live a normal life.”

  This admission surprised her, because Michael seemed to her like the sort of person who had eagerly jumped into the psychic realm with both feet, so to speak. “What changed your mind?” she asked softly.

  Although he didn’t answer her right away, she could feel a sudden blast of jumbled emotions coming from him. It was so strong that she nearly reached out to grasp a corner of the table to steady herself, but then it faded almost as quickly as it had come, and she had just a second to sort out what she’d felt — confusion, and fear, and worry, and a terrible sort of guilt. “Something that happened a long time ago,” he replied, his tone short. “Something with my family.”

  “What — ?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Now he wasn’t looking at her at all, had picked up the little deck of cards and walked over to a writing desk on the opposite side of the room. He shoved the cards into the top drawer and shut it with a noticeable bang.

  Audrey knew better than to press the issue. People would only open up on their own timetables; she’d had enough first sessions with clients who stared stonily out the window and didn’t say anything to know she couldn’t force someone to divulge what they weren’t ready to let go. The day before, she’d wondered if Michael might be an orphan, but she thought now that he could just as easily have suffered some sort of abuse in his youth. That would explain the lack of family photos, the way he seemed so reluctant to talk about anything personal. He’d created a world where he was in control, and she guessed he wouldn’t be too happy with her for making him realize he wasn’t quite as in control as he thought.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “It’s fine. That’s a period in my life I’d prefer not to talk about.”

  “Then we won’t.” Hoping she could do something to get that brooding expression off his face, she went over to where he stood by the writing desk. “Since we’re waiting on Colin, why don’t we get out of here for a few hours? I haven’t been to the Norton Simon museum in years — that’s not too far away, is it?”

  “No, it’s not far.” His mouth still looked set, unhappy. “But I’m not so sure of the wisdom of going out. Here, we’re protected, but my resources are more limited when we’re in a public place.”

  “We went out for breakfast,” she pointed out. However, he didn’t appear at all convinced by that argument.

  “Yes, but that was before I saw what the demons had done to your house. They’re clearly willing to reach far beyond the Whitcomb mansion to try to hurt you, or at least frighten you. The last thing we need is for an attack to occur someplace in public.”

  “Really?” she returned. “Because I would think an incident like that would be great publicity for the show.”

  He’d been half turned away from her, long, slender fingers playing with some of the papers that sat on top of the desk. Now he shifted so his gaze met hers, and Audrey could see the sudden anger in his face. “Do you really think I would purposely put you in danger like that?”

  “No, of course not,” she replied hastily, realizing she’d just stepped over a line. “Forget I said it.”

  A long pause, and then he said, “I’ll do my best. But for now, I think we had better stay here.”

  What could she do except nod? At the same time, though, she couldn’t help thinking that it was going to feel like forever, waiting until they could return to the Whitcomb mansion the following afternoon.

  Funny how all of a sudden she couldn’t wait to get back to the haunted house….

  Chapter 11

  Trapped here in durance vile. Well, Michael’s house was a lot more comfortable than, say, the Tower of London might have been back in the day, but Audrey hated the feeling of being stuck, of not having even a semblance of freedom. He’d directed her to the bookshelves, and said he had Netflix and HBO if she didn’t feel like reading, and that seemed to be it. Obviously, her asking about his past had upset him, and he wanted to make sure she was safely occupied elsewhere.

  Which was why she spent the rest of the afternoon in his TV room, feet propped up on one of his couches, while she binge-watched the previous season of American Horror Story and he stayed hidden away in the library. From time to time, during quiet scenes in the shows she was watching, Audrey could hear his voice, but he was far enough away that she couldn’t make out anything of what he might be saying. He’d said he had business to take care of, maybe getting things set up for the other episodes of Project Demon Hunters, or making arrangements for speaking engagements once he was done with the show.

  She couldn’t know for sure, because he hadn’t bothered to tell her. That omission made her realize how much she really was just set dressing on the show. She wasn’t calling the shots, or even being invited to provide input. No, Michael and Colin would be the ones making decisions. Which was their prerogative, of course, but it only made her feel that much more of an outsider.

  While Audrey watched TV, she had her phone plugged into a spare outlet and charging. Thank God she’d started carrying a spare charger in her purse a few years ago or she would have been in a world of hurt…especially since it didn’t seem likely that she could have wheedled Michael into taking her to the Apple store in Old Town Pasadena to purchase a new one.

  Around six-thirty, just as the last of the daylight began to disappear from the world outside, he appeared at the door to the TV room. She’d long since kicked off her shoes and was reclining there in her sock feet, but so be it. He was the reason she’d been exiled here in the first place.

  “Hungry?” he asked, and she picked up the remote and paused the show she was watching.

  Actually, she was; they’d let their breakfast do double duty and replace lunch, so it had been more than eight hours since they’d last eaten. “Let me guess…delivery?”

  “Of course,” he said, looking unperturbed. “I’ve got take-out menus for Indian, Chinese, Thai, Italian, pizza…whatever you like.”

  What she would have “liked” was to go out somewhere after being shut up here all day, but she knew that wasn’t an option. Since she’d had both pasta and pizza recently, Audrey figured she should try something else. “Does Indian food work for you?”

  “Sure. The menus are in the kitchen — let’s go take a look.”

  She removed her feet from the couch, slipped her ankle boots back on, and followed Michael into the kitchen. He went to one of the drawers there and quickly flipped through a stack of papers, obviously looking for the menu in question. “I take it you don’t cook,” she said dryly.

  “No,” he replied. “It’s easier to order in. Plus, I travel a lot.”

  Yes, she supposed he did, since he went to so many conferences and symposiums. No wonder his kitchen looked so spotless — he never used it.

  “Here it is,” he said as he pu
lled out a piece of goldenrod-colored paper. “Choose whatever you like — I’m not picky.”

  While Audrey enjoyed Indian food, she’d never gotten too experimental with it. She figured she probably couldn’t go wrong with lamb korma and chicken masala, along with rice and naan and vegetables. When she made those suggestions, Michael nodded.

  “That all sounds great. I’ll go ahead and place the order.”

  He pulled out his phone and made the call. She noticed he had the number saved in his contacts, and seemed friendly with whoever was taking the order, so clearly he’d ordered from this place many times before. When he was done, he returned the phone to his jeans pocket and offered her what looked like a genuine smile.

  “It’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. I’ll go ahead and set the table.”

  “I can help — ”

  “No, it’s fine. It’ll only take me a minute.”

  Which it did, more or less. He got out place mats from a drawer and some paper napkins from a dispenser on the kitchen counter, then headed into the dining room. It was a long, somewhat narrow room, with pretty stained glass windows set high in the east wall and large windows overlooking the front yard to the south. The furniture here was also Mission-style to go with the house, dark but not heavy. Although it wasn’t exactly formal, it still felt like a proper dining room, and Audrey wondered a little at it, considering that Michael didn’t seem to eat at home very often.

  “Sorry to slough you off like that,” he said as he went back into the kitchen to get the silverware and dishes — and wine glasses, too. She eyed them but didn’t say anything. While a glass of wine sounded great, the idea of drinking wine here with Michael while they were alone together in his house seemed just a bit problematic. “I had a lot of logistics to handle. You managed okay?”

  “Oh, sure,” Audrey replied airily. “It was relaxing to be able to sit and watch TV. I don’t usually have a lot of time for that. And I checked in with my friend Bettina, let her know I was going to be away from the house for a day or two.”

  “I hope you didn’t give her any specifics.”

  “Of course not,” she said, a little offended by the assumption that she couldn’t keep the goings-on at her house to herself. The only other person who knew anything about what had happened — why Audrey had been forced to flee the place — was Rosemary McGuire, and since Bettina was not exactly Sister We’s target customer, Audrey figured she didn’t have to worry about their paths crossing and the two of them possibly comparing notes.

  Michael nodded, apparently satisfied by the vehemence in her tone. “You okay with syrah?” he asked, going back to the kitchen. “I’ve had it with Indian food a few times, and it works fine.”

  “Sure,” she replied. Well, she was all right with the notion of syrah…what she wasn’t as sure about was drinking here with Michael Covenant. More than once, she’d thought about what it had felt like when he’d held her, even though nothing had happened between them that could be classified as anything more than friendship. She knew she was feeling alone and vulnerable…and that could turn into a problem.

  He fetched the wine in question from a countertop rack, then got out a corkscrew and opened the bottle with an economy of movement that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Michelin five-star restaurant. Maybe he was more of a connoisseur than she’d guessed, although if that were the case, one would think he would have more than the four or five bottles she’d noticed in his kitchen’s wine rack.

  The doorbell rang then, and he went to answer it, taking a quick detour into the dining room so he could put the open wine bottle down on the table there. A quick convo with the delivery person at the door, and a minute later, Michael was back, quickly dispensing the various dishes into serving bowls.

  “Go ahead and sit down,” he said. “I just want to put this in the trash.” He lifted the plastic bag that now held the various Styrofoam containers used to transport the food.

  “Okay.”

  After a brief hesitation, Audrey took the seat at the left, rather than the one at the head of the table. Maybe as his guest she should have sat down in the place of honor, but she wouldn’t have felt comfortable there. When he returned a moment later, his gaze flickered toward her for a few seconds. However, he didn’t comment, only went to take his own seat and put a paper napkin in his lap.

  She followed suit, and then he poured the wine. Not a huge amount, only about halfway filling their wine glasses, but still….

  He raised his glass and Audrey clinked hers against it, although she didn’t really know what they were toasting. Her newly awakened psychic powers? Being alive and whole and relatively safe, despite everything that had happened over the past few days?

  Maybe a little of both.

  The two of them sipped some wine, then were quiet for a bit as they both dished up the food. After they’d had a few bites of lamb and rice, though, Michael said, “I got a call from Colin right as I was finishing up in the study. We’re definitely on for tomorrow.”

  Audrey hadn’t known there was a possibility of yet another delay, so this news made her simultaneously worried and relieved. “He’ll be able to handle the camera work?”

  “He thinks so. Or rather, and I quote, ‘You just show up, and I’ll make sure this bloody camera gets it all, one way or another.’”

  Even though she’d only met the producer that one time, she could almost imagine hearing those words spoken in his quick, lively accent. “He’s kind of a force of nature, isn’t he?”

  “That’s a charitable way to put it. I’m sure there are a lot of people in Hollywood who might think of a few other terms to describe him.”

  Audrey smothered a smile, then reached over to take a sip of syrah. It did go well with the food. Maybe a little too well. She’d have to watch it. “How did you two meet each other?”

  Michael drank some wine as well. When he was done, he said, “Colin showed up at a conference where I was giving a talk on demonic oppression and possession, how to spot the warning signs, what to do if you think demonic forces are working on you. He told me he loved my spiel, that he wanted to do a show about it.” A shake of the head, and he speared a piece of lamb on his fork, then chewed it thoughtfully before continuing. “It took some convincing before he won me over.”

  “Why?” she asked, genuinely curious.

  “Because I wanted to be as respectful as possible. This is a subject that can be easily sensationalized, and you can lose sight of the fact that, underneath all the phenomena, the spectacle of a house truly being infested by demons, there are usually some very terrified people who need your help. I didn’t want to turn it into a sideshow, like those exorcism tours down in Mexico.”

  “The what?” Audrey stared at Michael. Had she heard him correctly? “Exorcism” and “tours” were not usually words she would put together in the same sentence.

  “There’s an underbelly to the tourist industry that specializes in tours to all sorts of macabre venues,” he explained. “Drug lord houses in Colombia, sites of mass murders here in the U.S. — and tours in Mexico that can take you to observe an honest-to-God exorcism. Or at least, that’s what they claim is happening.”

  “I thought the Catholic church was very secretive about exorcisms.” Not that her research had been extensive, but most of the accounts Audrey had read made it sound as though it required a good deal of persuasion and documentation to even get the church to agree to send someone to investigate a case. She couldn’t really see the church getting on board with basically selling tickets to watch someone get exorcised.

  “It is, but we’re often dealing with village priests here, people in poverty-stricken areas. The promise of some much-needed cash is often enough to get them to overlook their misgivings. Also, it’s hard to say whether all of these are true exorcisms, or whether they’re working with people who simply need psychiatric care. Unfortunately, in some places in the world, it’s a lot easier to ask your local priest to perform an exorcis
m than it is to get to a city and seek real psychiatric help.”

  Yes, she knew that, all too often, mental illness had been confused with some sort of possession, and the problem persisted even today. And it appeared that practices such as what Michael had just described weren’t doing much to remedy the situation.

  “That’s very unfortunate.”

  “Yes, it is. And that’s why I want to be careful with this show. Of course Colin wants it to be all about jump scares and hyperbole, but I think we’ll be able to find a happy medium.”

  Oh, Audrey was pretty sure the images of that…whatever it was…trying to claw its way out of the mirror in the master suite of the Whitcomb mansion would be enough to scare most people. Too bad she and Michael hadn’t caught the incident in the basement on film, but she had no doubt that the removal of those terrible runes and sigils would be enough to prompt another assault.

  And Colin would be filming the whole thing.

  “I’m sure you will,” she said, and hoped she actually believed those words. Strangely, though, she was glad Colin would be there, if for no other reason than this show was his baby, and he had a vested interest in making sure everything went smoothly. She didn’t think she would have been able to put the same amount of trust in someone who was squeezing the production company for hazard pay and who’d thought it was a good idea to extort even more money above and beyond what was already promised.

  Michael didn’t exactly smile, but he did look more relaxed as he went on to talk about where the team would be going after Tucson. It sounded as though Santa Barbara might be back in the running, although there was a ski lodge in Aspen that he wanted to check out, and a former boarding house in Bisbee, Arizona. That would make four shows out of the six that had been budgeted.

  “I’d like to have the final episode be somewhere on the East Coast,” he said. “There’s so much material in that part of the world. But Colin keeps harping on the budget, so we’ll have to see how it shakes out. At least I’ve got the first four planned, though.”