by Ann Charles
“Right. The old flame game.”
“But only one flame this time,” Cornelius said. “And don’t cross the flames. We’re keeping it simple tonight.”
“Simple. One flame. Got it.” I looked at Doc, who gave me a thumbs-up. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I opened one eye. “What is Cooper supposed to do this time?”
“He’s the gatekeeper for your dead boss. She’ll have to pass through him to join us.”
“Isn’t that sort of detrimental to what we’re trying to accomplish here? I mean, he’s blocking the way.”
“Coop’s the most likely one to see her coming,” Doc said.
“He will step aside when the time is right.” Cornelius sounded so sure about this rodeo, while I felt like I was climbing on the back of a particularly cantankerous bull right before they opened the chute door.
“That sounds like too easy of a job for Cooper,” I grumbled. “One of these days we need to sit him in the center of the circle.”
“Naked,” Natalie added with a giggle.
“Not naked,” Cooper said in a growly tone.
“Doc,” I whispered in the heavy silence before the storm, both eyes open now. “You’ll keep me in your sights, right?”
“That’s the plan, but do not leave that chair, Killer.”
“Aye aye, captain.”
Cornelius began his rhythmic humming, the frequency of which somehow helped me to widen the channel to the other realms or planes. Doc had explained it to me once, calling it aerokinetics, but my ears had tuned out when he started in about vibrational frequency something or other.
I closed my eyes again and tried to clear my mind. It wasn’t easy. I felt awkward for several minutes, aware of every sound in the room. Then I began to worry that Jerry would come back to the office and catch me summoning ghosts. Lord only knew how he’d spin that one. After I moved past those worries, I kept having problems with itches—first my nose, then my right ear, then my neck, and then back to my nose.
“Violet,” Doc whispered, or maybe he spoke in my thoughts—I couldn’t tell. “Focus on the flame.”
Right. The flame.
I turned my attention inward then, picturing a single white candle’s flame flickering in the dark. Cornelius’s humming grew quieter until all was silent. I watched the flame dance in the darkness, letting my breathing slow, my shoulders relax, my focus narrow as the darkness opened up around me.
After some time, I heard a swishing sound, like a sheet dragging across linoleum.
What was that?
“Violet,” I heard Jane call my name. The sound of her voice was so familiar, yet unease made me stay still.
“Help me,” she cried in the dark.
I kept silent, listening, not moving, waiting. I’d been tricked in the dark before. I wasn’t going to fall for that twice.
“Violet!”
This time her voice was right next to my ear, making me flinch. I opened my eyes, expecting to see her wispy form standing in front of me in her old office, decorated with her pictures and knick-knacks while the air was filled with the scent of her favorite perfume.
Only I wasn’t in her office, and there was a definite curdled milk mixed with old roadkill smell in the cold, damp air. Instead, I was sitting on the cobblestone floor next to the locked iron grate covering the Hellhole.
What in the hell happened? I’d done everything Cornelius had said, using only a single flame, not crossing two together.
I looked around, finally seeing what had been lighting up the basement all along—it was the white candle I’d been visualizing in my mind. It sat on the floor in a brass holder halfway between me and the base of the steps leading up to the trapdoor, only the flame was bigger and was spreading light farther than a normal candle.
I ignored the goose bumps tickling their way up my back and pushed to my feet. I moved over to the candle, the ceiling beams just high enough that I didn’t have to duck, but the overhead pipes draped with cobwebs made me dodge and cringe plenty.
Candleholder in hand, I headed for the short set of wooden stairs leading up and out through the trapdoor and into the closet. But when I reached the steps and looked up, I stopped.
The trapdoor was shut.
I set the candle down and climbed the steps. When I pushed on the door, it wouldn’t budge.
My stomach fluttered.
“Stay calm,” I said aloud. My voice sounded muffled, like my ears were stuffed with cotton balls.
I knocked on the door. The thuds were muffled, too.
Nothing happened.
I pounded on it, calling, “Doc! Cornelius! Natalie! Somebody open the door!”
Still nothing.
“Shit!”
I hit the door hard with the meaty side of my fist just to make myself feel better. Unfortunately, I could still feel pain, wherever I was.
Rubbing my hand, I climbed down and looked around the cramped, shadow-filled space. The old cobblestone floor was still visible throughout. The gut-churning smell I’d noticed was stronger. My hunger pains had been replaced with mild nausea.
I picked the candle up again. My hand shook slightly, making the candle flame tremble.
Something moved in the dark corner to my left.
I gasped and turned.
Wait! It was just the shadows rippling due to the flickering candle flame.
I tiptoed back to the Hellhole on the far side of the room, trying not to panic, but my lungs felt hot and tight, making it hard to breathe.
Was I suffocating? “Don’t go there,” the rational half of my brain spoke up.
“Great, now we’re going to go crazy down here,” the irrational other half chimed in.
I stared down at the Hellhole with its thick steel grate and the rudimentary lock, which consisted of a bent bar of steel sealed into a cement base with another rusted bar jammed through it. In the candlelight, I could see only a few of the iron rungs driven into the cement that led down into the hole. It was too dark to see the old miner’s carbide lamp sitting eight or so feet down at the bottom, but I had a feeling it was still there, waiting for someone to pick it up and explore deeper with it.
Fuck. How in the hell was I going to get out of this?
Where was Doc? And Cornelius? Had Jane showed up in her office yet?
Maybe I needed to go out the same way I came in.
I sat down in the same spot in which I’d woken. Placing the candleholder on the floor next to me, I closed my eyes, focusing on the flame inside my mind again.
Come on, Doc, get me out of here.
What if he wasn’t able to see me? What if I was down here alone? What if …
Stop!
I could do this. I could find my way back. I just needed to focus.
The candle flame flickered in my mind, a spark flying off into the darkness. Several deep breaths later, I heard the swishing sound again of a sheet dragging across the floor. All of a sudden, a screeching sound pierced the darkness, making my shoulders pinch up close to my earlobes. When it ended, something clanked.
Focus, Violet.
Was that Doc’s voice? Or was my mind playing tricks on me?
Something smelled bad. I sniffed, gagging on a fetid stench, worse than the curdled milk and roadkill from before. When I coughed, the candle flame went out in my mind, leaving me in an inky blackness.
I opened my eyes and covered my nose.
The scene hadn’t changed. I was still in the room under Calamity Jane Realty, sitting next to the Hellhole with the candle flickering next to me, dammit.
However, one thing was different this time around—something that had my heart beating in triple time.
The steel bar that had been used to lock the heavy steel grate covering the Hellhole had been pulled free and now lay on the cobblestone floor in front of me. That must have been the screeching sound I’d heard when my eyes were closed.
But the thing that had my chest constricting so much that I couldn’t breathe
was the flipped-open iron grate that no longer covered the Hellhole.
I scrambled backward, crab style, afraid of what might come out of the hole and grab me. My hand bumped something when I moved back that clunked as it fell over.
I looked down. The old carbide miner’s lamp lay on its side next to me. I lifted it, frowning. Why was it in my hand now instead of at the bottom of that hole?
Shit. Someone had opened the Hellhole.
Someone who wanted me to go down inside of it.
Chapter Thirteen
My thighs weren’t prepared for whatever was down in that Hellhole. I had little doubt that running would be involved, and right now they were trembling so much that standing would be an achievement. Nor were my lungs ready, for that matter, especially with how tight they felt at the moment. As for my heart … hell, from the rapid-fire banging in my head, the chicken-shit organ was hiding somewhere between my ears.
So that left me with one option—sit here on the cobblestone floor until I woke up from this nightmare.
I thought about closing my eyes and focusing on the stupid candle flame again, but after this last debacle, I was afraid to try that because of what I might see when I opened them. With my luck, I’d end up down in the dang Hellhole with the grate sealed shut over my head.
I tried to hear over the hammering of my heart, but the basement was so quiet. It was like I was stuck underwater minus the gasping for air part. I pinched the back of my hand as a test, praying this was only an illusion.
The pain felt normal, dang it.
So, if the pinching pain was the same as when I was not stuck wherever I was at the moment, then maybe the muffled sound effect down here was just a product of my panic. I tried to test that theory by snapping my fingers, but my hand was too dusty. I wiped my fingers off on my shirt and tried again. This time the “snap” was there and sounded the same as always, not subdued at all.
A similar snapping sound came from the Hellhole.
I froze, waiting for another sound to follow the first.
Nothing but silence emanated from the hole.
After a nine-months-pregnant pause, I held out my hand and snapped again.
Another snap came from down in the Hellhole.
Could it be an echo? The length of time had been about the same in between my snap and the following one each time.
I snapped twice this time, and then I counted in the silence: one, two, three, fo …
One snap came up.
Only one.
Uh-oh.
I eased to my feet, crouched and ready to run absolutely nowhere since I was trapped down here, but being on my feet made me feel more in control.
I wished I had my mace. Or a crowbar. Heck, any sort of weapon right now would be … I stared down at the rusted rod of steel that had been used to keep the grate closed but now lay free on the cobblestone floor. It was only about a foot long, maybe a few inches more, but it was better than the small piece of black tourmaline in my pocket that Cornelius had given me. So much for that stone repelling negative energies. I was surrounded with nothing but bad juju at the moment.
Inching forward, not making a sound, I reached down for the steel bar. I cringed, expecting something to reach out of the Hellhole and grab me, but nothing did.
I stepped back with my new weapon in hand, practicing swings and jabs. It was a lot smaller than I was used to, but it would have to do.
I picked up the miner’s carbide lamp next. It was small, the kind that would fit on the front of a miner’s hard hat. The brass had dulled with time, but the striker roller in the mirrored plate still moved. I doubted there was any way it would light up after sitting for who knew how long down in that Hellhole, but maybe I could use it as a weapon of sorts.
Turning it this way and that in my hands, I tried to remember how to light it. I’d only seen carbide lamps like this one in the mining museum in Lead. According to the video that Layne had insisted we sit and watch through to the end that day we’d visited the museum, there was supposed to be calcium carbide in the base and water in the top part. I shook it, hearing some clinking in the bottom, but it felt empty up top. Maybe I was wrong about the water part, though. I clicked the valve control lever and cupped my hand over the front, like I’d seen done in the video, and then tried to run my hand across the striker.
Nothing happened.
Of course it didn’t. It wasn’t like I knew what the hell I was doing. Besides, if the top had no water in it … I set the candleholder down on the ground so I could unscrew the little cap on the top. I tipped the lamp upside down. Nope, not even a tiny drop of water in the sucker.
A blast of air whooshed up and out of the Hellhole, blowing out the candle.
Shit.
I coughed and gagged on the musty, curdled-milk stench in the dark, squatting to feel for the candle, but coming up empty. Where was it? I patted around on the ground some more.
It was gone.
Son of a crack whore! The next time Cornelius talked me into channeling a ghost—if there was a next time—I was packing a lighter. No, better yet, a flamethrower.
I stilled, listening, relying on my other senses. The pitch blackness surrounded me, closed in on me, wrapped me in its cold embrace. I shivered, trying not to panic, but judging by my pounding pulse, I was doing a lousy job at it.
“Violet,” Jane called up from the Hellhole.
I didn’t answer her. Heck, I couldn’t at the moment. My heart had scurried from its hiding spot between my ears and was now lodged in my throat, making it hard to breathe, let alone talk.
“Turn on the light and come down here, Violet.” Jane’s voice sounded like she was talking to me through a hollow pipe.
Turn on what light? I couldn’t remember if there was a light switch somewhere down here. Could I risk fumbling around in the dark? This must have been what it was like down in Homestake’s mine back in the day, working in total blackness with the only light coming from a … carbide miner’s lamp.
Like the one in my hand.
I looked down at it. Turn on the light.
Yeah, but … Oh! Well, duh.
I closed my eyes and focused on the lamp, imagining a little flame coming out of it like I’d seen in the video.
When I opened my eyes, a one-inch flame was shooting through the center of the lamp and reflecting in the tiny mirror. The glow was brighter than the candle had been, lighting up this part of the basement so that I could easily see into the previously dark corners.
Holding the light out in front of me, I hurried back to the stairs leading to the trapdoor. It was still closed. I pounded on the wood several more times for good measure, but all was silent up above.
“Come on, you guys,” I whispered. “Open up.”
“Violet,” Jane called from the Hellhole in a singsong voice. “Come down here. I need to show you something.”
I tiptoed back to the hole and peeked over the edge, my body already tensed up in a pre-wince at what I might find staring up at me.
The Hellhole was empty.
I blew out the breath that I’d been holding. My heart eased back a little, leaving room in my throat so that I could speak around it.
“Show me what?” I asked.
“The answer to your question, of course.”
What question? Had I asked a question? I’d been so busy freaking out that I hadn’t thought to ask any questions.
Oh, maybe she meant a question being asked up in her office by Cornelius or Cooper or whoever was running the show up there.
I still hesitated, though. Crawling down into a Hellhole was not something to do on a whim, let alone a command from a disembodied voice.
“Come on, Violet.”
Jane’s face appeared in the shadows below, smiling up at me. She was wearing the same sweater and scarf that she had on in the picture that had been displayed at her memorial service. She still looked like the mom from that old show The Partridge Family, except for her eyes. They were more lik
e two pieces of coal. Although it was hard to get a good look at them due to the shadows, not to mention that she was a ghost, and how much did I know about what ghosts looked like? My only experience was with Prudence and her white eyes.
“Hurry up,” she said in that singsong voice again. “Or I won’t tell you my secret.”
What secret? I already knew about her and Ray. “How can I trust you, Jane?”
I needed something more than a shadowy image of her to risk going down into that hole. Some connection that would prove it was really her, or at least what was left of her. Something that would make it worth my while to chase after a ghost.
“I need your help, Violet.”
“With what?”
“Protecting my baby.”
That gave me pause. Jane had been pregnant long ago, way before my entrance into her life. However, she’d lost that child in utero when a no-good son of a bitch had beaten her up during a drunken rage. After that, Calamity Jane Realty had become her “baby,” soaking up all of her time, energy, and love.
Had Jane the ghost found something down in the Hellhole that could hurt her business? A secret that might destroy all of the years of hard work she’d poured into it? Or was this some memory glitch of hers in which her actual child was still alive? Was she replaying her pregnancy and the loss of her baby? What did Cornelius call it when a scene from the past replayed over and over? A residual haunting?
“Please hurry, Violet, before I have to close the gate again for good.”
Crappity crap! I looked around the basement, wishing I had some sign from Doc that going down into the Hellhole was the right thing to do. Then again, what were my other options? To sit here on the floor until what? Maybe down there I could finish whatever quest I was here to fulfill and return to the land of the living.
Stuffing the steel bar in the back of my pants, I lowered myself to the floor and started down into the Hellhole, my foot finding the first rung sticking out of the cement wall without a problem. The climb down went quickly. Before I knew it, I was at the bottom of the hole looking up at a dark circle overhead. I half expected the iron grate to slam shut, but it didn’t.
I turned slowly, seeing the diamond-shaped ward on the wall that we’d seen in a video Jane had taken with her phone before she died. Was this ward to keep something from entering the hole from above? Or was it meant to stop whatever was down here from getting out?