I left them to their sound checks and pulled Striker out of her carrier. A purple harness already covered her torso like a little Kevlar vest, and I quickly snapped a leash onto the silver ring at her back.
“Okay, nice and easy.” I lowered her to the ground. “Don’t make me regret bringing you here.”
She glared up at me from the ground, making her feelings about the harness clear. Her fur stuck out awkwardly around the edges and through the mesh, and her legs were stiff as she took a step forward. She sniffed the floor then scorched me with another fiery look.
“Hey, I’ve seen lots of cats do this online,” I said defensively. “They didn’t seem to have any issues with it.”
In answer, she rolled over on one side and huffed out through her nose. She normally ran all over town with no supervision and no boundaries. I suspected the harness wasn’t uncomfortable; the true source of her tantrum was a lack of independence. But how do you explain to a cat that you’re terrified of them disappearing into the woods, especially when that’s where all the best smells are?
After a few seconds of watching her play dead on the floor, I sighed and picked her up. “Fine, I’ll just hold you. But the harness stays on.”
Daphne wandered over, tugging a few strands of her long hair out of her lavalier clip. Striker’s eyes widened at the sight of the small black hair tie between Daphne’s fingers. A sly smile crossed the tarot card reader’s lips as she wiggled the tie tantalizingly in front of the cat’s face.
Striker earned her name, snatching the tie out of Daphne’s hand with such speed and ferocity that the woman leapt back from us with a yelp.
“Crap, did she scratch you?” I asked.
“No, but it was close. She’s a hunter. Who’s tougher than she looks, huh?” She scratched Striker behind the ears then pulled another tie from her pocket to gather her hair up into a ponytail.
Kit clapped her hands to my left, raising her voice. “Okay everybody, let’s take our places. We’re ready to go.”
Speak for yourself, I thought, hugging Striker to my chest. But ready or not, it was time to face Richard Franklin once more.
Face him, and banish him into the next world for good.
Chapter Eight
I stared around the circle, trying to swallow down the lump of anxiety gathering in my throat. The candlelit scene around me was familiar, but not in a way that comforted me.
Nine of us sat in a circle on the floor of the cabin’s living room. It was the same arrangement as the first time I’d been at a séance, with everyone sitting cross-legged and holding the hands of the people beside them to form an unbroken ring. I glanced down at the light blue tarp below us, which covered the rough wooden planks of the cabin’s floor, and winced an apology across the circle at Yuri. I should’ve thought to bring some fluffy pillows or something for people to sit on.
I also wished we’d brought a nice, large round table with us. It wouldn’t serve any practical purpose; it’s not like we were playing Settlers of Catan or something. But somehow, I thought it would’ve been better than staring at the sharp angles of everyone’s knees.
Instead of a table, we’d filled the space in front of us with twenty-two stout, black candles. Each flickering light was in memory of someone we knew or suspected Richard Franklin had killed here. I thought the visual might help us focus on the importance of our task. We weren’t kids playing with a Ouija board just to see what would happen. If we succeeded tonight, we’d be preventing any other people from joining his list of victims.
The plan was simple. I’d call out to Richard Franklin like I’d done the last time I was here. Once he arrived, we’d use our collective psychic energy to push him into the next plane of existence then smudge the area with sage to be sure no part of him lingered. A small stack of tightly wrapped sage bundles and a cigarette lighter sat in front of each participant. We’d armed ourselves. So why didn’t I feel ready?
From my left, Daphne gave me an encouraging nod. On my right, Graham squeezed my hand and smiled. Striker sat in my lap, her harness secured to my wrist. I realized I wasn’t nervous about her running out of the cabin and into the woods anymore. I didn’t have any space in my brain to be worried about that, not with everything else that could go wrong. Not when, any minute now, I’d summon Richard Franklin here so he could probably kill us all by bringing the entire cabin down onto our heads.
We’re so stupid for being here, I thought. This is idiocy in action.
But the alternative—leaving the cabin uncleansed so it could lure more people to injury and death—was unacceptable. I stared at the candles in front of us, pictured Connor Miles’ young face, and reminded myself that I owed it to him to follow through with this.
“Ready?” Kit asked. She sat directly across from me, and the lights from her mobile sound board cast her face in a strange shade of green to match her hair.
“No,” I said.
Everyone laughed, but I hadn’t been joking.
“Well,” said Mark from beside Kit. “We’re rolling. So, whenever you’re ready.”
I nodded. Striker shifted slightly in my lap, and I felt the steady vibration of her purr on my legs. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, letting the silence settle around me.
Near silence, anyway. Outside, tires crunched on gravel. My eyes snapped open, and I frowned. Everyone we’d invited was already here.
“Are we expecting someone else?” I asked Yuri.
He shook his head, and I realized there was only one person it could be. The circle broke as everyone but Graham and I got to their feet.
Kit rushed to the window, peered outside, and spat three times over her left shoulder. “I knew it.”
Daphne, Nick, and Stephen joined her at the window, and Stephen began to laugh. “Of course,” he said. “He just couldn’t stay away.”
“Careful with the candles, everyone.” I transferred the still-purring Striker over to Graham’s lap, unwinding her leash from my arm to loop it around his. “I’ll take care of this.”
I walked out of the cabin and into the parking area to intercept our uninvited guest. Even in the twilight gloom, Raziel Santos’s thin frame was easily recognizable as he crunched his way across the gravel toward me. My eyes adjusted, and I saw that he was wearing a nearly identical outfit to the one he’d worn to the cocktail party: a tight, pocketed t-shirt with a vee that plunged too deeply for my taste and trademark tinted aviator sunglasses that sat right on the tip of his nose so his eyes were completely visible above them.
“Don’t worry,” Raziel called. “I’m not here to interrupt.”
“Too late,” I told him, leaving out that I didn’t hate delaying the start of the séance. Not one bit.
He closed the gap between us and pulled something out of his pocket. In the dim, flickering light from the cabin window, I could just make out the rectangular shape of a cell phone. “I’m just here to return this. It’s Nick’s. He left it at the party last night.”
I held out a hand. “Thanks, I’ll give it to him.”
Raziel didn’t pass me the phone. Instead, he made it disappear behind his hand with a small flourish. He craned his head to the side and peered around me in an exaggerated way. “Well… Since I’m here…”
“We were just about to get started, and the cameras are rolling,” I said, stepping slightly to the side to block his view. I cast my mind around for the phrase I’d heard Kit use on nosy neighbors at other investigations. “And it’s a closed set.”
Raziel straightened up and arched an eyebrow at me over his shaded sunglasses. I smothered the urge to rip them off his face—it was night, and the stupid things were doubly unnecessary if he wasn’t even looking through them—and raised both my eyebrows back. We stared at each other silently for a few moments in the cool, still air. Our lack of movement proved too much for my team to handle in silence, and I heard feet on the gravel behind me.
I broke eye contact with Raziel to toss a worried glance over my sh
oulder. Graham waved at me from inside the cabin where he stood at the window with Striker in his arms. Behind me, Kit, Yuri, Mark, Stephen, Daphne, and Nick stood in a line like a makeshift wall erected specifically to keep Raziel from crashing our party. Yuri held one of our electric lanterns aloft. Beside him, Kit’s eyes burned with fury, and Stephen rolled up the sleeves of his sweater dramatically. I turned back to Raziel, fighting the urge to laugh at the mental image of everyone behind me leaping forward to attack the intruder in a cartoonish action sequence.
“Fine,” Raziel said at last, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ll go.”
“Thanks. I’m not trying to be rude or anything.”
“I get it.” He flashed me a wide, mirthless smile, then snapped his fingers. The phone reappeared in his hand, and he held it out toward Nick. “I believe this is yours.”
Nick stepped forward and took it, his eyes narrowed. “Thanks. Where’d you find it?”
“Oh, I didn’t find it.” Raziel tucked his hands behind his back and his grin widened. “I lifted it from you last night at the party.”
“You picked my pocket?” Nick’s face flushed.
“I meant no disrespect. Isn’t it a sign of respect among thieves to share our skills with one another?”
“Excuse me?” Nick moved in toward Raziel. “Are you calling me a thief?”
“And a liar.” Raziel beamed at him, his hands still clasped behind his back.
“Hey,” I began. “You can’t just—”
Raziel cut me off. “Come on, Nicky-boy. Don’t tell me you’re in that much denial. You steal from people all the time and lie to their faces while you do it.”
“Wh… I don’t… You…” Nick sputtered.
“I’ll give you credit for being a skilled cold-reader,” Raziel said. “It’d be impressive if you used it for something less despicable than fleecing the grieving family members of the recently departed.”
I stared back and forth between them, dumbfounded. And I wasn’t the only one; nobody spoke at all, not even Nick. His eyes went wide, and the red tinge of anger that’d invaded his face seconds before faded into an ashy gray.
“Be honest with us, Nick,” Raziel said, his voice low. “Has a spirit ever actually spoken to you?”
“Of course they have,” Nick growled.
Raziel shook his head and made a low cluck-cluck sound. “I’ve crashed your little shows in Vegas, man. Most people can’t spot a spotter, but me?” He thrust his arm out to the side and a playing card—the ace of spades—appeared in his hand. “A trickster can always see behind the curtain.”
My curiosity got the better of me. “Spotter?”
“It’s a thieving term,” Yuri said from behind me. Sadness filled his voice. “Someone who picks marks out of a crowd, so the nearby pickpocket knows who to steal from.”
“Exactly.” True happiness crept into Raziel’s smile for the first time. “In Nick’s case, they scan the crowd in the lobby and move around the seating area, watching and listening for clues. Clues like tattooed names, or initials engraved on something someone is carrying. And they’re just the tip of the iceberg. How many researchers do you have backstage, stalking ticket buyers online, Nick? Again, it’s almost impressive. But social media makes it too easy these days.”
A vein throbbed in Nick’s forehead, and he clenched and unclenched one fist in time with his pulse. I stared at him, thinking back to the video Kit had shown me. The woman in the audience had been holding a blue shirt. Could it have been a work shirt? The kind with a sewn-on name tag?
“Is it true?” I asked Nick. “Are you a fraud?”
My question seemed to break some sort of spell on him, and he lurched forward. “Screw you,” he told Raziel. “I don’t need this.”
At first, I thought he was about to push Raziel or try to attack him. Instead, he breezed right past everyone, marched off to the SUV, and climbed inside. A moment later, the engine roared to life, and he sped away into the darkness.
“Uh… He was our ride,” Stephen noted.
I turned around to check on Daphne, expecting her to look angry or upset. She just rolled her eyes.
“Typical. Just typical.” She headed back into the cabin, calling over her shoulder, “Are we doing this or what?”
“I’ll just let Amari know I’ll be here for a while.” Raziel tapped something into his cell phone.
Unable to control myself, I snorted when I noticed the artwork on his phone’s case. A hyper-realistic painting of his own face, one eyebrow raised menacingly, glared at me from the back of his phone. Red flames glowed behind him, and the words “veritas vincat”—the same words he’d tattooed across his chest—arched above his head.
Raziel tucked in into his shirt pocket and clapped me on the back. “Lucky I’m here. You said you needed nine, right?”
He followed Daphne into the cabin, leaving me to stare after him in shock.
Chapter Nine
“Did you know?” I asked Yuri. “About Nick?”
My voice held no accusation. Yuri cared deeply about the trust our clients had in us; he wouldn’t knowingly bring a fake psychic onto the show. It was a stupid question, but I’d felt compelled to ask it, anyway.
As I expected, he shook his head. “There were rumors, but there are plenty of rumors about us too. There are always doubters. I’d hoped he was as genuine as his wife.”
Across the room, Daphne whispered to Stephen in the flickering candlelight. Raziel watched them from a few feet away, a sickeningly satisfied smile on his face as he sipped from a silver flask. Kit didn’t bother to hide the looks of disgust and loathing she shot at him as she and Mark reset the cameras. Graham sat on the floor with Striker, feeding her an inappropriate number of treats. The cat gobbled them up greedily, oblivious to any human drama.
“What do we do now?” I frowned up at Yuri, needing him to take over the decision making. I’d planned this séance as carefully as I knew how, and it’d gone completely off the rails before it even began. Clearly, I was not experienced enough to pull this off. “Do we reschedule? Wait for Raziel’s team to leave Donn’s Hill?”
Yuri sighed, took off his glasses, and cleaned them with a small cloth while he deliberated. “We could. But that may be more than a month.”
“A month?”
“They’ve booked an extended stay at Penelope’s inn while they film his next special.”
Waiting that long was out of the question. It was already early October, and the closer we got to Halloween, the more likely it became that adventurous teens or amateur ghost hunters would visit the cabin. Connor Miles had already been injured because I’d waited this long to finish what we’d started. We had to do this now.
“Okay,” I said. “Then we’ll shoot with just eight. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
That was a lie if ever there was one. At Gabrielle’s séance, she’d been so reluctant to continue with only eight participants that she’d pulled me in when one of her clients dropped out. The results had been disastrous, but her determination to have nine of us in the circle had to mean something.
“Mac, I made you a promise that you could run this episode. I hope you don’t feel I’m about to break that promise.” Yuri pushed his glasses back onto his face. “Nick was a risk from the start. I’d heard the rumors. But I’d been willing to take a risk on him for one simple reason: he has far more name recognition than we do, which would help the show immensely.”
He watched Raziel for a few moments before continuing. “I don’t care for Raziel’s methods. I know you don’t either. He likens himself to Robin Hood, a thief acting in the best interests of the poor. Or in his case, the grieving. In his mind, the end justifies the means.”
I knew where this was going. “Just like including him would be justified because his millions of fans would watch the episode.”
Yuri nodded, but he pursed his lips momentarily. “More than that, did you ever ask Gabrielle why she favors nine participants?”
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“No. I never had the chance.” A light note of bitterness crept into my voice, and a lump of now-familiar guilt strained at my stomach. It was true that I’d never had the chance to ask her before she’d been arrested, but how many times had I thought about writing her a letter and not followed through with it?
“There’s a superstitious numerical pattern among the psychic community in Donn’s Hill,” Yuri continued. “Two, four, nine, twelve.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Like most of Gabrielle’s methods, it was something she traced back to ancient witches. It ties to nature. Two, for night and day. Four, for the seasons. Twelve, for the months.”
“And nine?”
“Nine is a powerful number. Mathematically magical, strangely compelling, and an ender of cycles. Nine precedes ten, and what is ten but zero all over again? Nine lends strength to séances because the goal is to end one cycle and begin another by helping a spirit move on to the next life.”
I bit my lip and reviewed the group I’d selected to be part of this. Yuri, Kit, and Mark were obvious; they were the Soul Searchers. The four of us formed the foundation of this entire endeavor. Graham and Striker were obvious as well; nobody alive gave me strength and confidence like those two. Stephen, Daphne, and Nick had filled out the last three slots on Graham and Yuri’s recommendations, and truth be told, I hadn’t had strong feelings about them from the start apart from Nick and Daphne’s crowd appeal.
Wasn’t Raziel just another Nick? Why did I hate the idea of him being here so much? Was I so shallow that I’d exclude someone just because I genuinely hated the way he wore those stupid sunglasses everywhere, even at night? Or was I so devoted to Kit that I’d refuse to let Raziel take part just because he’d insulted her?
What we were doing was more important than petty rivalries and prejudices. Richard Franklin had to go, and if that meant rewarding Raziel for his little scheme to get here, so be it.
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