by Eliza Lainn
“Stay still!” I shouted again, flooding as much strength into my words as I could.
“Go!” Bronte shouted. “Now!”
“But—”
“Go!” I yelled.
A beat passed and then Bronte said, “They’re gone—do it!”
Sebastian began his exorcism, chanting the Lord’s Prayer while holding up the Bible like a talisman to ward off Whitaker’s outbursts. It was as violent and horrible as anything I’d seen on television—and I could only hear it.
Bronte’s eyes widened. Even Noah stilled as he stared on.
As for me, I could only hear the screams mingling with Sebastian’s repetition of the prayer. They were worse than anything I’d ever heard before, stealing into my bones and turning me cold. Worse than Amara. Worse than Nathan Elgin burning alive. These were the screams you make when your soul is being ripped in half.
Sebastian continued, raising the bible up as his words filled the room.
“He’s moving, Noah!” Bronte shouted.
Noah leapt in front of the door, whirling to square off against Roger. He wrenched his hand from his eye and I could hear the sizzle of his astral form hitting against the barrier as it exploded out from Noah.
Another scream slashed through the air.
The banging doors, the wind, the madness grew.
And then, in the breath after Sebastian’s last word, it all stopped.
For a moment, no one moved. The silence felt loud and sharp in its suddenness.
“Oh my God,” Noah breathed.
“What?” Rose and I asked at the same time.
“He’s…he’s fading. Turning to dust and…and blowing away,” Bronte whispered.
Sebastian sighed and stumbled back to the bed. He dropped onto it, tossing the book aside and wiping at his brow with the back of his hand.
I was surprised to see he was sweating. And that his hand shook. He even looked paler somehow, his shoulders slumped as he bent over and let loose a shuddering exhale. Seth crawled over the bed, sitting down beside him.
“You ok?”
He looked up at me. “Not my smoothest exorcism. Not the worst, either.”
“So, it worked?”
“It worked. Roger Whitaker is on the other side, where he belongs.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“And you’re sure he’s gone?” Mackenzie asked again, following the bellboy out with our bags. She held a white envelope in her hands, and as she spoke, she folded one corner of it back and forth, wearing a crease into it. “One hundred percent? Absolutely sure?”
“Yes,” Rose repeated with an infinite amount of patience. “I’ve shown you the footage, Mrs. Marcus.”
The bellboy rolled his cart over to the waiting Uber we’d called. Together with Noah and the driver, they loaded our suitcases into the trunk.
Mackenzie sighed. “I couldn’t see anything happen really. I mean, the furniture was moving and stuff was flying around and then…it just stopped. I only have your word, really, that the ghost moved on.”
“And Obscurity Consultants,” Bronte added. “They vouched for it too.”
“True,” she mused thoughtfully.
Bronte, Rose, and I exchanged a quick look.
“It’s just,” Mackenzie continued, “I don’t know. I was there. When Madame Amara…when she…I heard her screaming. And the thought of that happening? Again? To one of my guests…”
“It’s not going to happen again,” Rose said sympathetically. She patted Mackenzie gently on the shoulder. “I promise. Your hotel is ghost free—we checked extensively to make sure.”
Mackenzie nodded thoughtfully, then looked up with an expression halfway shy, halfway embarrassed. “You’re taking the last two away though, right? Sebastian told me you were working with a pair of ghosts. And they’re leaving with you, correct?”
“How insulting,” Oliver pouted over my shoulder. “It sounds like she doesn’t approve of us.”
“They’re coming with us,” I assured her.
She sighed, and when she spoke, she sounded a tad apprehensive. “I know, and I trust you, it’s just aggravating. I’m used to being able to check things for myself, to double-check that things were taken care of to my standards. It’s part of being a manager. But here, I have to take your word for everything: our ghost was exorcised, your ghosts are leaving with you. I’m sorry. I don’t want to sound rude or ungrateful. I just really, really hate not being able to determine these things for myself.”
“That’s fine,” Rose said patiently. “We understand completely. And if, after we leave, things aren’t to your satisfaction, we’d be happy to come back out and sweep the place again. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
Mackenzie shook her head. “No, no, that’s fine. You said it was handled, so it was handled. Here.” She handed us the envelope she’d been fidgeting with. “It’s your pay, plus a bonus for, you know, actually sticking around and dealing with the ghost.”
“Thank you,” Rose took the envelope from her. “That’s very generous of you.”
“Don’t mention it. And please, if you’re ever in San Diego again, we’d love to have you. It’s the least I can do—what with you too tired to see the sights or visit the beach.”
“Thanks.”
She gave us all a tight smile, no doubt still worried that ghosts would come popping out of the woodwork the second we left. Then she followed the bellboy back into the hotel.
Rose slid the envelope into the camera bag at her shoulder. “Poor thing is scared to death.”
“Do you blame her?” Bronte asked.
“No, not really. I just wish there was some way I could comfort her, prove to her that everything’s fine. But I can’t think of anything.”
“One of the pitfalls of our business,” Sebastian’s voice came from behind us.
We all turned to see him and Seth, their bags packed.
“You do love to interrupt conversations, don’t you?” Rose mumbled. She readjusted her camera bag. “Heading out?”
“Yes. Another case.”
“Already?” Rose asked, a hint of envy in her voice.
Sebastian picked up on it too, judging from his smirk. I expected a smug reply. Instead, his smile softened. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get more cases soon, if you come at all of them with the same determination as you did with this one.”
“I hope so.”
“Trust me.”
She eyed him. “But I don’t though.”
He cracked a smile, then shifted his focus to me. “Stella, a word?”
Bronte and Rose exchanged a knowing look as they retreated to Noah and the waiting Uber.
Another car pulled up behind ours. Sebastian nodded toward it. “Seth, go make sure that’s our car.”
“But I want to hear what you’re going to say.”
“I’ll tell you later.”
Grumbling, Seth trudged off.
Sebastian reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a business card. It was plain, white, and had Obscurity Consultants written in a standard font on the front. On the back, he’d penned a telephone number.
“My cell,” he explained, seeing my confused look. “Directly to my phone, not through Obscurity Consultant’s switchboard.”
“Why would I need this?”
“Ouch.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Kidding,” he chuckled, then exchanged it for a serious expression. “It’s for emergencies. I suspect you’re going to have one here soon, if your powers keep growing like they are.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have never seen a psychic’s abilities evolve as quickly as yours seem to be. It’s not unheard of for abilities to grow stronger as perceptions deepen, but yours are growing at a rate I’ve never seen before. And if it’s because your perceptions are growing stronger, it won’t be long until you run into Type 3 apparitions.”
I felt a chill. “Type 3?”
“Yo
u call Type 2s monsters, right? Then think of Type 3s as demons.”
“Demons?”
“Creatures that were never human to begin with.”
I felt the chill again, this time shuddering as it wormed its way through my veins.
“I’ve only come across one before,” he continued, “and that was with a host of psychics and all the resources I’d ever need to help me defeat it. But you’re small, and don’t intend to insult you by saying it, but Apparition Investigations is largely unprepared to deal with Type 3s. Which is why I want you to call me if you ever come across one, Stella. I don’t care when, I don’t care how far away you are. I’ll come help. I promise.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, my fingers tightening on the card.
Sebastian gave me a tight smile. His eyes shifted past me for a second, then came back. “And I don’t suppose I could convince you to ditch the ghosts?”
“Nope.”
He sighed. “They’re the cause of your perceptions deepening, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. But we’re a team.”
He shook his head. “You’ve got my number. If you need advice or suggestions, you can text me that too.” He made to leave, had a thought, and stopped. “And keep an eye on Rose.”
“Rose?”
“It might be nothing, but she was asking pointed questions about exorcisms when we bumped into each other at breakfast. I think she’s giving serious consideration to learning them—and it would be good for her to, it’ll give her a way to defend herself. But she needs to be careful about how she learns. I pointed her in the right direction to get started, but she can’t rush it. She needs to be methodical and careful. So, just watch her, ok. Don’t let her bite off more than she can chew.”
“I will. Thanks for the warning.”
With a nod, he went to join Seth.
“I’m guessing you both heard all of that?” I asked.
“Yes,” Cyril mumbled.
I waited for him to elaborate—to give me his opinion, input, maybe a swear word or two, but he didn’t. For a beat, awkwardness settled around us.
Oliver cleared his throat. “Guilty, I’m afraid,” he admitted, without a trace of guilt. Then he let out a low whistle. “This ought to be interesting though. Demons, huh?”
“Yeah, stick with me and hell beasts are going to become our daily norm.”
“I was just thinking we needed a bit more life in our afterlives,” Oliver chuckled. “Eh? See what I did there?”
I rolled my eyes the same time Cyril grumbled, “Hilarious.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I collapsed onto my couch. “Heaven. I’m in heaven.”
Bronte wheeled her suitcase into the apartment. She left it beside the one I’d dropped just inside the front door. Then she collapsed on the floor, spreading out and running her fingers through the carpet. “Is it weird that I missed our carpet?”
“Absolutely,” Oliver chuckled, his voice floating through the room.
“It is soft,” I allowed.
Rose came in next. She headed straight for the couch, picked up my legs, and sat down with them in her lap.
I bent my head around so that I could look at her. She’d been her usual self until halfway through the plane ride back. After a hushed conversation between her and Noah though, she’d gone bland and distant. And then, at the airport, instead of him piling into Rose’s car with us, he’d called himself an Uber.
“You ok?” Bronte asked softly.
I turned to see she regarded Rose with the same hesitant concern I felt.
Rose sighed and dug the palms of her hands into her eyes. “I don’t know. I think we have a problem.”
“Noah, a problem?” Oliver asked, his voice tinged with heavy sarcasm. “How absurd.”
“You noticed how he was on the trip,” she continued after another long sigh. “Quiet, distant, moody. I kept waiting for him to bring it up, to volunteer to talk about it instead of me pestering, you know?”
“And did he bring it up?” I asked.
She ground her palms into her eyes once more, then let her arms fall onto my legs. “He’s worried about what happened in the graveyard. With the Gomez case.”
“Understandable,” Bronte nodded, “since you two told me he’d killed a ghost.”
“That’s the thing though,” Rose mumbled, “he’s not concerned about that. He told me that he really doesn’t feel all that much about what he did—he’s done it before, before he met us and started working with Apparition Investigations. And that’s what’s concerning him. That he still can’t view ghosts as people. He still sees them as after-images, shadows, not the real soul but just the leftovers. And he’s worried he won’t be able to fit into Apparition Investigations because of it. That he won’t mesh with me because of it…”
Oh no.
I glanced over at Bronte. Her eyes widened as she moved up into a sitting position. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t want to quit, because he doesn’t like the idea of me going off without any way of protecting myself. But he told me, if given the opportunity, he would have exorcised Roger before he devolved to a…a Type 2. And he knows that’s not a philosophy that’s going to fit in well with the rest of the group, especially our two ghost members.”
“Damn straight,” Oliver grumbled.
“Are you…”I hedged, sliding my legs out of her lap and swinging up so that I was seated beside her. “Are you two still ok?”
“I think so. But he’s seriously been considering breaking up.” Her voice fell flat. “And I know, in the grand scheme of things, that might not sound like much. But I like him. I really like him. I just…I don’t know how we can have a relationship though, when he’s fine with murdering ghosts.”
“We need to keep him on,” Cyril said. “To change his mind.”
“Cyril thinks we should try and change his mind.”
“That’s the thing though. I don’t know if he can. Or he wants to. He’s been hunting ghosts a lot longer than we have. He’s killed so many. I just…I don’t know.”
The room fell into silence. Rose continued to stare forward, her face blank, her eyes even emptier.
This was the worse I’d even seen her. Her anger was fire and explosive. She reacted like a gunshot when things frightened, scared, or upset her. But now, she was shutting down. Collapsing into the ice I would have expected to come from Bronte.
I wasn’t sure what to do with her like this. I didn’t know what she needed.
“As if I needed one more thing to worry about,” she mumbled, “right after I quit my job.”
That jostled me out of my inaction. “You did what?”
“I quit. To do Apparition Investigations fulltime. It felt like that right thing to do.”
“Oh,” Bronte whispered, trying to mask her surprise.
Rose gave a sudden, sharp shake of her head. She stood up from the couch, took in a deep breath, and then put her hands on her hips. Her power pose. “No point dwelling on things we can’t deal with today. First things first, Noah is right about the fact that I need to defend myself. And I think I know how to do that.”
“Learning exorcisms.” She glanced over at me and I shrugged. “Sebastian mentioned it.”
“Learning exorcisms,” she agreed. “He pointed me to a few resources that would be of great help, considering, you know, I’m not aligned with the Catholic church or anything. He said since we’re likely going to be a national organization, instead of an international one, that I should focus just on Catholic exorcisms for now.”
“Good think you’ve got the preacher-father,” Bronte added, trying to find something optimistic and hopeful to contribute. “You’ve got a solid religious foundation to work from. Has Sebastian offered to, I don’t know, mentor you or something?”
She shook her head. “No. He did give me Obscurity Consultant’s number though, and said someone there might be able to help, if I absolutely needed it. He thinks, be
cause I’m not a psychic, that they’ll share information without trying to recruit me. He offered to put in a good word.”
The card Sebastian had given me suddenly felt heavy in my pocket. Why had he given one to me and not to Rose?
Oliver whistled. “Guess learning exorcisms ranks too low on the Sebastian meter. It’s demons or bust for him.”