Haunted

by Kelley Armstrong

  "But something must make this place unpopular with ghosts. And maybe that something has to do with the Nix's visit."

  We slid into the castle through a side wall, emerging in a huge dining room with a table set for twelve and portraits lining the paneled walls.

  The moment I stepped inside, a tingle raced down my spine--an indefinable prickling, like something in me perking up.

  "You feel that?" Trsiel whispered. He had his back to me, scanning the room, body held tight. As I stepped up beside him, he continued, "I told Katsuo--the angel who investigated--that I've felt something here, but he swore he didn't."

  I stared at Trsiel, not so much because of what he said as how he said it. His lips never moved, yet I heard him clearly. He caught me staring.

  "Sorry," he said, still speaking telepathically. "Should have warned you. Is this okay?"

  I nodded.

  "Keeps things quiet. If you need to talk, just think the words."

  "Like this?"

  He nodded. "And don't worry, I can't read your mind. It has to be a distinct thought aimed at me."

  "Like a communication spell."

  "That's right." He looked around, tensing again. "I don't know how Katsuo couldn't feel this."

  "You've been here before?" I asked.

  A shrug. "Once or twice. Sightseeing."

  I doubted that.

  "Split up?" I said.

  He gave me a look that needed no telepathic explanation. I sighed. It was going to be a slow search.

  As we headed deeper into the castle, my sense of disquiet grew, wavering between unease and something almost like anticipation. It wasn't what I'd call a negative vibe...certainly not negative enough to scare away any ghost with an ounce of backbone. Still, it was unsettling. As we searched for what drew the Nix to the castle, Trsiel did his best to keep us both calm with a running telepathic commentary, part castle tour, part historical ghost-walk.

  From the dining room, we went into the Great Hall, a long tunnel-shaped room with an ornate plaster ceiling and more paintings of family members, including some guy wearing a really strange-looking flesh-colored suit of armor.

  Adjacent to the Great Hall was the chapel...and still more paintings of dead guys. These, I think, were the disciples, though my knowledge of Christianity is a bit sketchy. In the center of the wall, over a candle-covered table, was a painting of Jesus on the cross. That one I knew. What really caught my eye, though, were the paintings on the ceiling. Fifteen of them, showing various religious scenes and at least one winged cherub.

  "Doesn't look a thing like you."

  Trsiel smiled. "Ah, but you haven't seen my baby pictures." He looked around. "Now, this, in case you didn't guess, is the chapel. Listen closely, and you might hear the scratching of a vampire, trapped forever within these walls."

  "There's a lot trapped in these walls, isn't there?"

  "It's a popular place. Do you want to hear about the vampire?"

  "Let me guess, he infiltrated the castle as a servant or something, then they found him sucking the blood of some poor schmuck, and walled him up in here."

  "No, they walled her up in here." He glanced over at me. "But, otherwise, you're right. Standard vampire lore. On to the billiard room."

  We walked through a doorway into yet another oversize room, with yet more paintings. Glass-cased bookshelves lined one wall.

  "Looks more like a library," I said.

  Trsiel pointed at a table in the middle.

  "Billiards, and a decent segue into my next story. The second earl of Glamis, known as Earl Beardie, was an inveterate card player. One Saturday night, he and his friend, the Earl of Crawford, played for so long that a servant came in to tell him it was nearly midnight, and to beg him to stop playing, for it was sacrilege to play cards on the Sabbath. Beardie sent him out, saying, 'I'll play with the Devil himself if I like.' A few minutes later, there came a knock at the door. There stood a man, dressed all in black, asking to join the game. The earls agreed and, that night, wagered and lost their souls. When Beardie died five years later, his family began hearing the sound of curses and rattling dice coming from that same room where Beardie had played. They walled it up, but the noises continued."

  "More walling up? Geez, they must have employed full-time bricklayers in this place."

  We continued on our walk. A few minutes later, he led me into a sitting room.

  "And here is a bit of history closer to your time. The Queen Mother's sitting room. This was her ancestral home. She grew up here, and Princess Margaret was born here--well, not in this room, but in the castle."

  "So the Queen Mother grew up and had a child in a castle known for ghosts, vampires, visits from the Devil, murderous revolts, executions, and torture? You know, this may explain a few things about the British royal family."

  As we continued up a wide set of winding stone stairs to the clock tower, I saw a young woman in a long white dress standing at the landing window. My first thought was not "Ack, a ghost!" but "Hmmm, these Scots wear some pretty strange jammies." As Trsiel had said, the castle was still the private residence of the latest Lord Glamis, with the family and their staff living in a wing off-limits to the daily tours. But then the woman turned, and it was obviously not a nightgown, but a formal white dress.

  She turned from the window, her eyes wide with horror. "They come!"

  She snatched up her skirt and raced toward the stairs, passing right through an urn.

  I glanced over at Trsiel. "I thought you said there were no ghosts here."

  "That's a residual."

  "A residual what?"

  "A residual image of a past event. Some traumatic events burn images of themselves into a place. Like a holographic sequence. When triggered, the sequence replays. Any ghost or necromancer, and some sensitive humans, can trigger them." He paused. "You have seen these before, haven't you?"

  I thought of the crying woman in Paige and Lucas's home.

  "Er, right. I just...didn't know they were called that."

  Trisel grinned. "You thought they were ghosts?"

  "Of course not. I--"

  He threw back his head and laughed. "What did you do? Try to talk to them? Entreat them to go into the light?"

  I glared and stalked past him up the stairs.

  After two rooms of being ignored, Trsiel offered an olive branch by way of a story, one about the woman I'd just seen. The White Lady. Ghost hunters can be the most ingenious breed when it comes to inventing ghastly tales, but ask them to think up a name for the ghost of a woman dressed in white, and they give you "the White Lady."

  She was Janet Douglas, widow of the sixth Lord Glamis. She'd been burned at the stake for witchcraft, accused of conspiring to poison King James V. Her true "crime" was being the sister of Archibald Douglas, who'd expelled the young king's mother from Scotland years before. Political revenge--with a pretty, popular young widow for a pawn.

  Last stop: the crypt.

  I expected to descend into some dark, dank basement. Instead, Trsiel led me back to the main entrance at the foot of the clock tower, through a door to a set of narrow stairs that led up. We climbed the stairs into a long narrow room with a rounded ceiling.

  "What's at the other end?" I asked.

  "The dining room."

  "Oooh, a dining room just off the crypt. Now, that's a feature you don't see very often these days." I looked around. "Okay, where are the stiffs? I really hope they didn't stick them in those suits of armor."

  "This is actually the servants' hall. Where they originally ate and slept."

  "And they called it the crypt? That can't be good."

  Trsiel shook his head and prodded me forward.

  "What? I'm not moving fast enough?"

  I stopped. If I were a cat, my fur would have stood on end. I looked around, but all I saw was a mishmash of antiques, and two small windows at the end of the half-tunnel room.

  "It's strong here, isn't it?" Trsiel said. "The strongest point, thoug
h, is in there." He pointed to the wall. "There's a room on the other side. Legend has it that Lord Glamis walled up a group of Scottish clansmen inside, sealed it, and left them to starve to death."

  "Is it true?"

  He nodded. "That one, I'm afraid, is more than a tall tale."

  "So what we're feeling is another kind of residual. A negative energy instead of a physical form."

  Trsiel went silent, cocking his head to look at the wall, eyes narrowing as if he could invoke an Aspicio power of his own and look within.

  "That can happen," he said slowly. "And it would make sense in a place with such a violent history. Only one problem with the theory. Residual emotion only affects the living. The infamous 'cold spot.' Ghosts don't feel it. Neither do angels."

  "If the Nix was here, I bet her visit had something to do with whatever is making us jumpy--whatever is on the other side of that wall."

  "There's nothing there. I've been--"

  "Doesn't hurt to check again, does it?"

  "It isn't--it's not pleasant in there, Eve. There are--"

  "Skeletons, right? People die, they leave bones. Nothing I haven't seen before."

  He opened his mouth to argue. I stepped through the wall.

  31

  HALFWAY THROUGH THE WALL, I STOPPED, EYE TO EYE socket with a skull. With an oath, I wheeled to see a skeleton leaning against the wall, face-first, hands raised, dark brown streaks above every finger bone...as if he'd died trying to claw his way out.

  I turned and saw another skeleton. And another. A half-dozen of them were propped against the wall. At the foot of that wall lay piles of bones. Splotches of dried blood streaked the brick and plaster.

  Walled in.

  My gaze tripped over a pile of bones in the corner, neatly disarticulated and deliberately piled, each marred with scratches. Gnaw marks.

  A movement to my left--Trsiel, reaching to steady me. I shook my head and strode farther into the room. The moment I did, all thoughts of those skeletons vanished as my brain and body kicked into hyperalert mode, every muscle tensing, ears straining, gaze darting about. I definitely sensed something here. Felt it--a heavy, palpable warmth, like a dry-heat sauna.

  "Was I not clear enough the first time?"

  The words whipped past me on a blast of hot air. The demon-repelling spell flew to my lips, but I bit it back. This wasn't the Nix--the voice was male, deep, and resonant. Unsettlingly hypnotic, like the angel's...and yet not like it.

  "Impertinent imp," the voice said. "Did you think--"

  The voice stopped, and a warm current caressed my face. I stood my ground, and started the spell. A low chuckle breezed by my right ear.

  "That will hurt you more than it will hurt me. I see you are not the same as the first. Two demon bloods in one day. What have I done to deserve this?"

  "Two?" I paused. "Someone was here earlier, someone with demon blood. A Nix."

  The voice drifted to the back of the room, as if settling onto the moth-eaten sofa there.

  "Hmmm, a half-demon ghost. I can't recall the last time one of your kind has come this way. Who's your sire?"

  "Answer my questions and I'll answer yours."

  A faint snarl. "As impudent as the other. Do they not teach you respect these days, whelp?"

  "Tell me who it is I'm supposed to be showing respect to and I'll consider it."

  "If you don't know already, then I'm not about to tell--"

  A noise from Trsiel, whom I'd almost forgotten was there, still by the wall. When I turned, he beckoned, backing it up with a telepathic "Let's go."

  A sharp laugh sounded across the room.

  "A third?" the voice said. "Truly I am blessed. And an angel, no less. Forgive me if I don't prostrate myself."

  Trsiel marched into the middle of the room, chin up, trepidation falling away. "Identify yourself, demon."

  "Demon?" I hissed under my breath. "I thought you said there was no demonic activity here."

  Trsiel pulled his chin up higher. "I said, identify yourself--"

  "Oh, I heard you, and I decline the invitation...Trsiel."

  Trsiel's jaw tightened.

  "Okay, forget the introduction," I said. "You said someone else with demon blood was here today. What did she want from you?"

  The demon's chuckle wafted around me. "You honestly expect me to answer that, whelp?"

  "Not for free, no."

  "Ah, you wish to bargain for your answer?"

  "No, Eve," Trsiel said. "Not with him. We'll find another way."

  "I don't believe she was asking your opinion, half-blood."

  Trsiel stiffened. A long raucous laugh swirled around us.

  "Don't like that, do you?"

  "I am a full-blood," Trsiel said.

  "So you've been told, and so you wish to believe, but you know better, don't you? You are no more akin to the full-bloods than this pretty half-demon whelp is to me."

  "Come on, Eve," Trsiel said, wheeling. "He'll tell you nothing but lies."

  "I'm not the one who's lied to you, Trsiel. Oh, but your Creator hasn't lied, has He? He never said you were a full-blooded angel. He just doesn't care to correct that misconception. No sense sowing more dissension in the ranks. Quite enough of that already--"

  "Eve," Trsiel said, voice sharpening.

  "Why don't you ask Him, Trsiel?" the demon continued. "Ask Him what you are. Or does this great warrior of truth prefer the comfort of lies?"

  I turned to Trsiel. "Don't listen to him. He wants you to leave--wants us both to leave."

  "Oh, but I don't want you both to leave. Just him. Get out, mongrel. Thy presence doth offend me."

  Trsiel strode back to the center of the room and planted himself there.

  "See?" the demon said, chortling. "Your defiance gives you away, half-blood. No true angel would have so much pride."

  When Trsiel said nothing, a current of hot air snaked from the couch and encircled me, wending its way up my legs, over my torso, and to my ear.

  "You wish to bargain with me, whelp?" the demon whispered.

  "Perhaps," I said. "Do you wish to bargain, demon?"

  "Your Nix annoyed me. You seem, if not properly respectful, at least courteous."

  "Or perhaps you just wish to cause trouble," Trsiel said. "By giving her false information."

  "And what, sweet mongrel, would be the fun in that? There is no 'trouble' to be found in watching a half-breed demon and a half-breed angel pursue an arrogant Nix. The trouble comes when they catch her."

  "You can't trust him, Eve," Trsiel said. "You know you can't."

  When I hesitated, the demon only chuckled, hot breath tickling my ear.

  "When you're ready to bargain, you'll know where to find me."

  A blast of tropical heat, and he was gone.

  We finished searching the castle, but we'd already found what had enticed the Nix here. As for the demon's offer, the cardinal rule of bargaining is to never let your opponent know how badly you want what he has. And the encounter with the demon had left Trsiel unsettled. Better to let him cool off before I raised the subject again.

  Outside the walls, Trsiel turned to me. "The Fates will want us to sit with Lizzie and Sullivan again. If you have a better idea..." He gave a distracted half-shrug. "I'm sure you do, so go ahead and do that. I'll cover the babysitting. If you need me..."

  I grinned. "I'll whistle."

  He nodded, unsmiling.

  I looked over at him. "I have no idea what that demon was needling you about, but it obviously got to you, and if you want to talk about it, I'm a pretty good listener."

  His eyes met mine, and I saw a loneliness and a sadness there that jolted through me.

  "I appreciate the offer," he said softly. "But I won't take you up on it--not yet."

  I did indeed have a fresh plan. Thinking of Lizzie made me realize that I had to speak to another partner, one who'd enjoyed the relationship with the Nix. Getting her to talk would be a challenge, but I had an idea.

>   Given Jaime's response when I asked her to summon Robin MacKenzie, I knew she'd be less than thrilled at the prospect of traveling across the ocean to summon another serial killer. And she did grumble, but it seemed more a token complaint. She didn't have any shows scheduled for the rest of the week, so a trip to Edinburgh wasn't a complete inconvenience. She decided to make a tax-deductible "research" vacation out of it, called her travel agent, and managed to get a last-minute ticket for a flight leaving from O'Hare in two hours.

  When I met Jaime at the cemetery gates, it was almost noon.

  "I don't suppose this can wait until tonight," she said as we wove through a posse of dog walkers.

  "Hey, you're getting better at that."

  "At what?"

  "Talking without moving your lips."

  A tiny smile. "I'm a woman of many talents."

  "And if the showbiz spiritualist thing doesn't work out for you, there's always ventriloquism."

  She shook her head and ducked around an elderly couple bearing wreaths of plastic flowers. "Is there something going on today? Or is it always this busy?"

  "I think it doubles as the neighborhood park." I looked around at the treed landscape, dotted with people out enjoying a rare day of early-spring sun. "The way it should be, really. Otherwise, it's just a waste of good land. It's not like the spooks care whether you Rollerblade over their graves." I glanced at a dog squatting next to a cenotaph. "Although that might cross the line. Hey, you! Don't pretend you didn't see him do that. Get back here and scoop!"

  Jaime laughed. "Sic 'em, Eve."

  "I could spook the dog, but that's not fair. Well, not unless I could spook him so he drags his owner right through that steamy pile o' shit."

  "Speaking of alternate careers, there's one for you."

  "Yeah, and if I don't catch the Nix, that's probably what I'll get: celestial poop-and-scoop enforcer. Probably wouldn't even get a sword. Just a big shiny shovel."

  "Sword?"

  "Don't ask." I instinctively moved aside for a pram parade. "So are we going to be able to do this during the day?"

  "That was my question. Remember? Possibilities of postponement?"

  "Next to none, I'm afraid."

  "Damn."

  32

  CONDUCTING A MIDDAY SEANCE IN A CROWDED cemetery...I'm sure it appeared near the top of the list of "don'ts" in the necromancer handbook.