The Thirteen Bends

by Shannon Reber

  “I don’t get it,” Ian said, still keeping his distance from Tria.

  I kept working. “The downup is the conficker virus. She made her password ‘Quinnficker’,” I said, smiling as I was able to get into their system.

  Ian laughed. “Yeah. That sounds like you,” he agreed, clearing his throat a little. “Uh, do you drink coffee?”

  “None for me, thank you,” she said, giving him a long look. “You’re uncomfortable around me but I’d guess you’re uncomfortable around everything you don’t understand.”

  He didn’t answer, just shifting a few things around in the little kitchenette.

  “I’ve been around people who were afraid of me all my life. I appreciate the fact you haven’t tried to kick me out yet.”

  Ian glanced over his shoulder at her and motioned to me. “We got shoved into the deep end of the paranormal pool last fall. Maddie’s more comfortable with this stuff than I am but I’m not that combative around things I don’t understand.”

  “Spencer,” I sang, reminding him of how combative he used to be.

  He rolled his eyes. “Okay, I was. I’ve gotten a little more comfortable. I don’t want to crawl out of my skin when I see things that can’t be explained anymore.”

  She peered at him before she turned her lips up in a small smile. “Some people are just more open to the paranormal world than others. It doesn’t make you less. It just makes you different.”

  I tuned them out, my eyes wide as I got into the coding of the PSA’s system. It was identical to what I had found in the portal generator. It was the standard 0’s and 1’s, though their coding was mixed with Latin words. I had already known that the PSA had made that tech but to see it in front of me, it was mind-blowing.

  As I looked through all the information listed, it became clear that the PSA had a lot going on. There were medical experiments that did not look like they had the proper approvals mixed with inventions of amazing tech. And if the portal generators were part of what they were capable of, there didn’t seem to be a limit to what they could do.

  The ability to open portals into other realms would give them access to things that could simultaneously make or break our world. I would have to do more research to find out who was overseeing what they did, what the laws were in regards to the technologies from other realms being used in ours. Not to mention other things they could have brought in.

  Then again, that wasn’t what I had gotten into their system to find. I needed to find out where Quinn was and what the big secret was. A company that acted with that much secrecy very obviously had something to hide.

  I checked their employee directory, finding Quinn’s name at the top of a list of names that made my mouth fall open. There were a couple of people whose careers I’d followed with interest, people who were, in fact, my heroes.

  I decided to look into it more thoroughly later, just clicking into Quinn’s file. There was the standard info of name, age, home address, job title, and education. After that was listed her achievements. According to her file, Quinn had been part of the team who had created the portal generator. That was the only thing I recognized but it was obvious she surpassed my intelligence tenfold.

  I read through everything in the file, stopping when I got to the bottom. “Disciplinary holding?” I asked aloud, my eyes going wide.

  Tria sighed and nodded. “I don’t know what they got her on but I’d guess it was for talking to you.”

  “What do you mean ‘got her on’? You told me Quinn was safe.” I could feel my heart rate rise and a pounding filled my ears.

  I had found out I had a sister two days before. No one would take that from me. No one.

  Tria raised her hands in a hold on gesture. “She is safe. She is far too valuable a commodity for them to do any damage to her at all. What they do is kind of like a time-out. When there’s a violation of our contract, they stick us in a room and make us do our work from there. They just cut us off from the outside world.”

  My blood boiled. The trouble was, something niggled at the back of my mind. Tria hadn’t shown up just to tell me Quinn had been put in the naughty chair.

  Tria was a medium. She had sent Quinn out to find St. Perpetua school and try to stop the murders. What else was going on?

  FIFTEEN

  I clicked back into the employee directory and found Tria’s name easily. My blood ran cold as I read her list of achievements. ‘Awaken the spirit of Tillie Klimek’ was at the top of her list. I had done a paper on her in high school.

  Tillie Klimek claimed to have precognitive dreams. She would tell people when they were going to die, joking about their deaths with them. On the day she predicted, her victims did die. She had died in prison in 1936.

  She was a poisoner who killed several of her husbands and one boyfriend. I had found the story fascinating for the sheer stupidity of it. If that spirit had been called back to the earthly plane, a lot of men would be in trouble.

  I read a little further, baffled by the idea of a scientific agency having someone on staff to speak with ghosts. “What do you know about the deaths at St. Perpetua school?” I asked just to give myself time to think.

  Tria leaned back in her chair and puffed out a breath. “Last week, my boss came to me and told me a name. That was all. There was no file. There was no information at all.” She rested her hand on her throat and wrapped her other arm around her core. “The second my spirit group heard the name, they told me not to do it.”

  “Spirit group?”

  She nodded. “Seeing ghosts doesn’t make you a medium. They show themselves to people all the time, though people just brush it off as a dream or a hallucination. For a medium, we can talk to them as easily as I’m talking to you but you always have a spirit group. I have a control, a guardian spirit, a messenger, and teachers. They help me.” She swallowed hard, tears rising in her eyes. “They said not to call on the spirit but I didn’t have a choice. He was another serial killer, the man from the train.”

  I narrowed my eyes, searching for that name as well. “Okay, so this guy would travel around on the train and kill people at the stops he chose?” I asked, baffled about why she would tell me that story.

  Tria nodded, a single tear sliding its way down her cheek. “Quinn developed this system that, once a spirit has been called back to our plane, it will hold them. It doesn’t trap them. It just makes it easier for them to remain on this side. It’s hard for them to pass the veil back into the living world.”

  “Okaaay,” I said, waiting for her to get on with it.

  “Someone released the spirit. The man from the train is free.”

  My spine had been replaced by an icicle. “So your agency has a thing for bringing dark spirits back to the world? Why?” I asked through my teeth, my temper far too close to the surface for comfort.

  “Science,” she whispered, her shoulders shaking with sobs. “They think they have the right in the name of science like the lives that are taken are all a part of some experiment.”

  I stood up, my palms rested on the desk as I stared her down. “What does this have to do with the school?” I gritted out, my whole body shaking with anger.

  “I don’t know. All I know is that when the spirit was released, my control brought me Edith. She was fifteen. She showed me her death and said it had happened at St. Perpetua. We hoped you’d be able to figure it out.”

  I scoffed, standing straight and folding my arms. “Oh, right. You’re so noble. You were warned by your group not to do it, you did it anyway, and now two people are dead. Imagine how many men will die when they decide to release Tillie Klimek.”

  Tria blanched, her bottom lip wobbling as she reached for a tissue. “Their deaths are on my hands. I know that. I also know that you are my only hope of figuring it out.” She pulled an envelope from her purse and set it on the desk. “Please, help me find out what I’ve done. I have to find some way to make amends for this.”

  I stared at the envelope, seeing c
ash inside. It made me even angrier but she was right. I would figure it out and I would also find a way to take down the Preternatural Science Agency in the process. They would not get away with what they had done. Neither would Tria.

  I took out my phone and brought up the contract, handing my phone over. “Sign on the line and I’ll take your case,” I growled at her, eager to see what information could be found on her once I had her picture and fingerprint.

  She took it warily and squiggled a signature on the line, handing it back like she might break it or something.

  I took it, then slid the envelope into Erkens’ lockbox under the desk. After that, I sat down and folded my hands on the desk. “What I read said that the thirteen girls were murdered by the nun who ran the school. I saw a nun when we were out there. She appeared in front of me and started quoting prayers and scripture at me. Did your spirits say anything about that or about her?”

  Tria thought about it for a few minutes, her eyes closed as she did. “I’d have to ask. I can’t contact them in here because of your protections. Let me--”

  “We’ll go with you,” I interrupted, unplugging my phone from the charger and walking to one of the cabinets.

  I unlocked it and took down a cross body bag, loading it with salt vials, holy water canisters, and silver knives. As an afterthought, I added a medic kit.

  Erkens had made sure I would be ready for anything, so had made me take a first aid course. I had never used any of that knowledge in real-life situations but I did have the knowledge.

  Ian looked up from his phone. “Where are we headed?” he asked, walking over to the same cabinet I was at and loading a couple of the salt and iron grenades into my bag.

  Tria gave a negligent shrug. “All I need is to be away from your sigils. As soon as I am, Poston will come to me.”

  “And when he does?”

  “I’ll be able to ask him about the nuns of St. Perpetua.”

  “Are you sure he’ll tell you the truth?” I probed, not at all sure I trusted anything she said.

  She stayed seated, her eyes fixed on me. “You don’t trust me. I understand. After what I’ve done, I don’t deserve your trust. But my spirit group is from the higher plane. They don’t lie. They came back to guide me, to help me navigate in their world.”

  Ian motioned toward the door. “Do you prefer a public or private setting?” he asked, not seeming too bothered by her anymore.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He looked at me and gave a slow shrug. “The diner?” he asked, his eyes asking something else entirely.

  He knew me a little too well. He knew the signs of my temper. He also knew that if we were in public, there was less of a chance of me blowing my top.

  I inclined my head and moved toward the door, turning back on impulse to grab my laptop. It had all the information I would need, far more than the spirit of some dead person who apparently helped Tria awaken the dark spirits of two serial killers.

  I had to figure out what was going on. I knew the night before that the ordeal wasn’t over. It was another sign that trusting my instincts was the best way to go. My instincts told me right then, that I needed to see what Tria could tell us.

  SIXTEEN

  By the time we got to the diner, the molten lava of my temper had faded back. It was still present but the urge to rant and rave had eased. Mostly.

  Ian and I walked to our usual table at the back, one that helped to hide whatever I chose to look up. There was no need to hide that day since I was only looking into the history of St. Perpetua school. It was our table, though.

  My favorite middle-aged waitress beamed as she saw us, rushing over to our table happily. “Hey there, dearies. You wanting some food to go with your caffeine today?” she asked, pouring us our coffee and lifting the pot in offering to Tria.

  She shook her head. “I’ll take some hot tea and I could use some breakfast for my dinner too,” she said, placing an order without even looking at the menu.

  Ian ordered one of their amazing apple crepes but I was too busy reading to notice.

  St. Perpetua school had burned down in 1889. There was no information listed on how the fire started, only that six nuns perished. The thirteen girls who had been killed by one or all of those nuns had been laid to rest . . . right where they had been impaled.

  I read on, my mind trying to make sense of everything. The nun I had seen was burned, so she must have died in the fire. Maybe she’d had a complete psychotic break and had murdered the girls, then gone back to set fire to the building. The only way to know for sure was to put my faith in the woman who awakened dark spirits for a scientific agency with a serious lack of morals.

  I grimaced and looked over at Tria. I didn’t see a monster. I saw a woman in a bad situation trying to make things right.

  She’d specifically said that she had no choice. I would just see about that. I took out my phone and brought up the picture and fingerprint that was taken when she’d signed our contract.

  The fact her name was unusual made the search a lot smoother. She’d told me she’d lived most of her teen years in an institution, so that made things even easier. I was in her medical records within minutes.

  Sorrow filled me as I read through her information. She had been diagnosed as having schizophrenia with suicidal ideation when she was fifteen and was indeed institutionalized. There was a space of several years where there was no record of her at all before she returned to Pittsburgh with a baby.

  Talon Hewitt was admitted to Children’s Hospital with Tay-Sachs disease. It was a fatal genetic disorder. But Talon Hewitt was now seven-years-old and in perfect health.

  Everything clicked into place. Tria had gone to the PSA to find a cure for her son. They had given one but there had been a price. Could they actually be holding her son as a hostage to make her do their bidding?

  All the anger at Tria faded back. My anger had been moved to one place and one place alone. The PSA would pay for everything they had done, not just to Tria but to Gina, Tanya, and Kirby, as well as probably countless others. I would figure this out. No question.

  I turned my eyes to meet Tria’s, startled to see that she was looking directly at me. The knowledge in her eyes made me ashamed that I had snooped into her life like that. I had seen things that were none of my business. I did not feel good about it at all.

  Tria shook her head. “I knew you’d look,” she said and sat back, resting her hand on the table in front of her. “Talon is alive because of the treatments they give him. I was willing to do anything they asked of me at first. Now . . . it’s hard to face my son after all I’ve done. My spirit group agreed to help me work against the company, to try and bring them down. It’s what Quinn and I have been trying to do. It’s no easy feat, which was why we decided to ask your help.”

  I extended my hand across the table. “I will. No matter what, they will be stopped,” I stated, no question in my heart or mind.

  Tria took my hand and gave me a watery smile. “You are an amazing person, Madison. Thank you for caring,” she said and sat back, closing her eyes.

  Ian rested his hand on my knee, giving it a little squeeze as he nodded in agreement with Tria. It was like he sensed the shift in my anger and approved as much as Tria did. It was a comfort to see that but more was the relief of knowing I had been right about the case. Ghost possession had not been my guess but I had followed my instincts and my instincts had been right.

  My mouth gaped when Tria opened her eyes. They had been a rich brown a few seconds before. Right then, they were blue. Holy bluescreen.

  She looked me straight in the eye and I could tell there was more of a change to her. She wasn’t possessed, I was sure. But she wasn’t really there either. It was like she had left the earthly plane.

  After a few very creepy minutes, she blinked again and her eyes went back to their former brown. The look on her face made it clear that her news wasn’t good.

  “They . . . the town’s peopl
e found the bodies of the girls and . . . they burned the school down with the nuns inside.” Tears gleamed in her eyes. “A-another girl was in the school. Six nuns. One girl. The thirteen who were already murdered. It was a massacre.”

  My heart lodged itself in my throat. So much death. So much pain and suffering. The more cases I worked, the more I realized how much people sucked.

  I sniffed, taking in a shaky breath before the words could be released. “The nun I saw was burned, so she was definitely in the school.” I thought about it for a few seconds before I smacked the tabletop. “Edith,” I said, waving my hand in a circle. “Do you know her last name?”

  Tria closed her eyes and concentrated, beads of sweat popping out on her forehead. “M-Mueller?” she said in question form, her body shuddering a little as she spoke.

  I started searching. I had a feeling the girl was the clue we’d been looking for. I didn’t know why. It just clicked like most things did when my mind had worked its way through a mystery.

  I entered the name into the newspaper search feature. The girl’s death record was the first thing to pop up.

  Edith Mueller

  Birth- 21 April, 1874

  Death- 21 April, 1889

  Murdered at St. Perpetua school.

  “She died on her birthday,” I whispered, my throat going tight.

  Tria picked up her mug and held it like it was a life jacket in the storm-tossed sea of her life. “I was taught how to use and control my gift. Most mediums prefer to stick with the light, only to deal with the spirits from the higher plane. I understand that now. I feel tainted by all the horrors I’ve seen and brought back into the world.”

  I looked at her over the screen of my laptop. “You’re only tainted if you knowingly and willingly go against what you know to be right. You’re a mother. You’re taking care of your son. And you’re also working to put a stop to what these people are doing.”