The Lurkers Within: (A Havenwood Falls Novella)

by Danielle Bannister

  “What are you waiting for?” I cried. “You brought me here; you’ve eliminated anyone who could have helped me escape. Just kill me already!”

  They seemed to be dragging this out. Likely to make me suffer. Assholes.

  “All in due time, Tasha. For now, I must rest. One does get full after a big meal, doesn’t one?” Their laughter surrounded me again.

  Just like that, the dark cloud around me dissipated and drifted back through the cracks from which they came. For a moment, I didn’t move. I thought their disappearance was a trap somehow, but I didn’t feel them anywhere in the house. They really had left me alone.

  Time was not on my side. I had to find a way out of this house and fast. I had no idea how long of a “rest” he would need before coming back for me, so I needed to escape while I could.

  In my semi-transparent state, however, doing anything fast was problematic. Since I didn’t have feet that touched the floor, the only way to move was to float, and I had yet to figure out the speed control in this plane, which was maddening all on its own.

  Logically, the first place to try was the front door. I had no idea what I’d do once outside, but I couldn’t just wait around and be a sitting duck. Maybe I could find Roman and haunt him or something until he figured out a way to help me.

  When my hand reached for the door, however, the handle didn’t budge because my hand went right through it. Of course it did.

  “Fuck. Okay. That’s fine. I don’t need to use a door. I’m a ghost now. I can float through shit.”

  Closing my eyes, I moved toward the door, and to my delight, my body easily manifested itself outside as though there was nothing in my way at all. First there was a door, and then, when I opened my eyes, there wasn’t.

  “Cool.”

  There was an intense feeling of relief that I was no longer inside the darkness of the house, even if the outside looked just as dark as the inside. I wasn’t sure if that was because it was night or if everything in the spirit world was dark.

  The first logical thing I needed to do was find a way to reach Eduardo. Maybe the bus hadn’t picked him up yet? If he was still around, he could reach out to the Bureau and try to get a Recoverer here in time. I had no idea if I would be able to make a journey that far away, though I had to try. A six-minute walk was nothing for a human, but light-years for a spirit.

  When I tried to float down the sanded walkway, however, I discovered that I was unable to move any farther. It felt like I was caught on something.

  Glancing behind me, I saw that my lower half was still stuck inside the house. I was half in and half out.

  “What the fuck?”

  I tried moving forward, but my aura did not come out any farther.

  “Shit.”

  I was tethered to the house.

  I chided myself for thinking that because I was only a half spirit, the rules wouldn’t apply to me. It was only ancient and demonic souls that had found a way to merge outside of the space they died in. Even then, it wasn’t more than a few hundred feet, which meant that wherever the Indrori went, he wouldn’t be that far away. That’s why he had no issue with leaving me unguarded. He knew I would still be trapped.

  Yet I refused to believe that I was helpless. There had to be something I could do. Some way to make the traps work. Some weakness the Indrori had that I could take advantage of. I couldn’t be a sitting duck. I just couldn’t be.

  A wave of rage swept over me as I screamed into my prison.

  “Hey, Universe! I could use some fucking help here!” I shouted to no one in particular. I was a firm believer in karma and evil always losing, but right now that picture wasn’t looking so good. “Do you hear me, world? I need help!”

  “Stop shouting already. I can hear you, Jeez Louise!”

  My head whipped around, trying to find where the female voice came from. Was the Indrori back? If so, why was it only one voice I could hear?

  “Who’s there?”

  “My name is Harper Sinclair. I’m a spiritual scribe. You called out for help. Here I am.” The girl’s voice sounded bored. Like she’s said this speech a hundred times before. “Wait. Who are you? You don’t sound like a demonic spirit.”

  “A spiritual what? And demonic? Where the fuck are you?” I floated from room to room, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. I refused to believe it was coming from my own mind. Was this a trick of the Indrori?

  “My location doesn’t matter. Look, I’m just trying to help. If you’re not a demonic spirit, you must be damn close to one, because that’s the only kind of spirit I can talk to. Unless you’re an angel. Are you?”

  She thought I was a demonic spirit, or worse, an angel. That must mean she was human, and a psychic of some kind.

  “Look, I’m no angel. And I’m not a ghost, either. Not fully anyway. I’m a human.” I looked down at my figure, well, through it. “Sort of. It’s complicated. Where are you right now?”

  I could hear her exasperation in my mind.

  “If you must know, I’m in the woods and was about to take a picture of a nesting red-tailed hawk, but you keep shouting in my head, which is super weird and uber annoying. I’ve never actually heard anyone before, not like this. My abilities have never worked like this. You are kind of freaking me out. So can you tell me what the heck is going on?”

  I decided it mattered little that I couldn’t see this voice or that I had no idea what a psychic scribe was. At the moment, she was the only thing around that might help me figure this mess out. I’d asked the universe for help, and this was what it gave me. I was going with it.

  For the next several minutes, I tried to explain, as succinctly as I could, the events of the last few hours, which even I was having a hard time believing.

  “Wait. You’re up against an Indrori?” came Harper’s stunned reply when I had finished.

  “Yeah,” I said, relieved that she seemed to know what I was up against. “What do you know about the Indrori?”

  “I’m the one it contacted first. I told the Court about it as soon as it happened. Are you Tasha Young?”

  “The one and only.” This Harper must have been the source Roman kept referring to. “Great. So we’re on the same page. How the hell do I defeat it?”

  There was no answer to my question, which I didn’t take as a good sign. Surely, if there had been an easy way to do it, she would have rattled it off just to be done with me.

  “Harper? What do I do?” Still no answer. “Harper?”

  Great. She probably knew I was a goner.

  “Sorry. I’m back. I needed to get another journal. I tore through the last one.”

  “A journal? Why do you need a journal? Are you writing down my final words or something?”

  “No,” she said. Her voice felt rushed. “It’s a long story, but it’s how I communicate with the other side. By writing. Usually, I talk and the spirits answer through writing. You are different. This is backwards for me. Maybe because of where you are. Are you . . . dead?”

  “No, I’m not dead,” I said with more conviction than I felt. I wasn’t dead . . . yet.

  “Of course. Sorry. I don’t really understand the logistics of how we are talking right now. This is all very strange for me,” she apologized.

  “You and me both, kid.” Though I had no idea what Harper looked like, I sensed she was young. I was guessing early to mid-twenties. My entire fate rested on a girl who spoke to spirits with a pen. I was fucked.

  “Tasha, listen to me very carefully. I need to know where you are right now.”

  “I’m in the house hiding from that thing!”

  Harper’s voice became agitated. “You’re inside the actual house on Thirteenth? The big green one? Alone?”

  “Yeah. That’s where Roman sent me.”

  “This was not the plan. I’m on my way!”

  At those words, a reckless plan formulated in my head. I could teach her how to use the traps. So what if no one but me had ever b
een able to use them successfully before? I’d be right beside her. I could tell her where to aim it. It was an option. The only one I had.

  “Oh, and Tasha, try to stay hidden as best you can, though up against an Indrori that’s kind of impossible,” Harper added.

  “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “This is no joke,” Harper warned. “I got a glimpse of this Indrori when it first reached out, and it’s nothing like the other demons and spirits I’ve worked with. I don’t know how the hell you ended up there alone, but I need to let the Court know. We’ll need backup, for sure.”

  “I’m not so sure they would help, considering one of their own set me up. That rat, Roman Bishop, is the one who drugged me,” I spat. If I got out of this, his was the first neck I was gonna wring.

  “That makes no sense. Sure, the Bishop boys like to stir up trouble, but this is insane, even for them. Look, let me handle that. You just stay hidden.”

  Her voice sounded so small against the enormity of the situation.

  “Thanks, kid. Hope to see you soon.”

  Just like that, the connection I had with Harper was severed. It felt about the same as a door being shut in my face.

  Still, there was good news. Harper was on the way. Possibly with backup from the Court. What a bunch of suits were going to do I had no idea, but then, nothing about Havenwood Falls made much sense.

  For the moment, there was hope. I clung to that small shot in the dark as tightly as I did to the sliver of my humanity.

  Chapter 10

  I tried not to count the seconds since I last spoke with Harper. Just like I tried not to jump at every sound I heard. So far, I was failing on both counts. The Indrori could be back any time, and without Harper, there was no hope of escape. I was a mouse in a cage, waiting for the snake to pounce.

  My fingers ran absently along my waist to where my own snake tattoo was. I could almost feel it wrapping tighter around me, squeezing the life from me . . . much like the Indrori wanted to do.

  I had no idea how big Havenwood Falls really was or where Harper was coming from within it. I was banking on her arriving in enough time for me to teach her how to use the trap before our giant purple people eater came back to dine on my soul.

  “Please, God, if you’re listening . . . Thanks for sending Harper . . . Now, if you get me out of this mess, I’ll . . . stop drinking. No. I won’t. You and I both know that’s a lie. Um, I’ll stop sleeping around. As much,” I amended.

  That’s when I heard a noise. A telltale ringing of my cell phone. Was God calling me on my cell? Curious, I went back inside and into the living room, where I saw it on the couch, face up, where it had fallen out when I ditched my coat before I was forcibly removed from my flesh.

  It wasn’t God. It was Eduardo. Instinctively, I went to pick it up, but, of course, my fingers went right through the cell and into the couch beneath it.

  “Damn it!” What a frustrating place to be in. I was utterly useless and defenseless.

  Because the phone was face up, I could at least read the text message.

  Eduardo: You know, the guys all warned me. They told me you’d burn my ass. I was convinced I was gonna be the one to change that. Guess I was just another notch on your belt, huh?

  I stared at the words illuminated on my screen, hating the truth behind them. While I hadn’t quite finished playing with Eduardo, I would have sent him packing soon enough. After a while, I cut them all loose. So why did his words sting so much?

  Eduardo: You could have just told me you were done with me, you know? I never took you to be a liar. That’s cool. Whatever. Give my regards to Roman. And tell him to wear a hat.

  Of course he thought he’d been dumped for Roman. He wasn’t totally off. If I hadn’t been in this current mess, I may have pursued Roman. I’d be pissed at myself for going after the bastard, but I probably would have.

  Ugh. Roman. That slimy bastard. If I ever got out of this, I was gonna cut his dick off. He’d be lucky if I didn’t do worse after he threw me in this trap. I didn’t care what Harper thought. Roman was involved in this somehow. I just knew it.

  “Tasha? You still alive?”

  My head whipped around toward the front door. A female voice was calling out from behind it.

  “Harper? Thank God.”

  I floated back through the door and got my first look at the person I had only been able to hear in my head. She wasn’t at all like I was imagining, aside from the young part. That, I got right. She was in her early twenties, but she was way more casual than I had presumed. She had on jeans and a ratty old sweatshirt, which nearly swallowed up her petite frame. She wore her long brown hair tied back in a messy ponytail and had on massive hiker boots that looked two sizes too big.

  When I looked back up, Harper was focused on a journal, writing something down. She didn’t seem to notice me floating literally two inches in front of her.

  “Tasha, where are you now? Is the Indrori back?” I saw her write on her pad.

  “I’m fine. I’m standing right in front of you.”

  Harper looked up at me and stared right through me before she frowned.

  “Ah, there you are. Sort of,” she wrote. “You’re like a shadow.”

  I nodded my head. “Well, I only see translucent-like auras in the spirit world, but I can see that you’re solid. Guess that means you’re still alive,” I said.

  Her eyebrows crinkled, and she went back to the journal. For the moment.

  This was one bizarre conversation—me speaking and her writing—but I was more than thankful to have someone here who might be able to help me.

  “So . . . what’s the plan?” Harper asked.

  “You come in, I show you how to use the spirit trap, we capture this jackass, and somehow get me home in the next four to five hours.”

  “What happens after five hours?”

  “Oh, nothing major. Just that I can’t come back to the land of the living after that. The brain doesn’t function away from the soul after that long. So we’re kind of on a clock here. Let’s hope I didn’t lock the door when I came in, or you’ll have to break in.”

  “Right.”

  She tucked her journal under one arm and placed a hand on the door. If I had breath to hold, I would have as she turned the knob. Mercifully, it opened without issue.

  “Finally, something goes my way,” I said as Harper walked into the house. Her eyes were wide as she scanned the place, probably expecting to find the Indrori.

  “How long do you think we have until it comes back?” I could hear her fear inside my head. This wasn’t fair, me dragging her into this. It wasn’t her fight, but without her, I was defenseless. I wasn’t able to save Adam, but I was going to make sure that Harper wasn’t hurt. Somehow.

  “The gun is in the bedroom. Through the living room, top of the stairs,” I said, knowing we had little time to play with.

  “Gun? You never mentioned a gun. You said trap. I don’t know how to fire a gun!”

  Her writing was shaky. I was freaking her out. I couldn’t have her bolting on me. Not when I didn’t have any other options.

  “It is a trap. I shouldn’t have said gun. Bad choice of words. It works sort of like a gun in that there is a trigger to pull, and I guess it’s sort of shaped like a gun, but you won’t be killing anyone with it.”

  I wasn’t sure if I made it worse or better.

  “Okay, right. I can’t kill anyone because they are already dead.” She bit her bottom lip as she looked down at the words.

  I didn’t mention that she could kill me if she didn’t succeed, but that likely wouldn’t help her nerves.

  “Exactly. You’ll trap the Indrori, and I’ll bring them back to the feds, and we’ll dispose of them properly.”

  Harper looked at me funny. “Dispose of? You can’t get rid of a demonic spirit. It’s not possible. You have to send them back to Hell or the Infernum. It’s the only safe place for a spirit as evil as the one after you.
”

  “’Cause that worked so great before.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe it, but the Court will help make this right again.”

  “How long have you lived here?” I asked.

  “I was born here,” she said, putting down her pen and then holding up her wrist. On it was a tattoo of a writing quill. I nodded, remembering what Roman had told me about the town branding not only their supernatural people with magical tattoos, but their visitors, too. The quill seemed fitting for her power.

  An errant thought slipped through my mind. What kind of tattoo would I get and where would I put it? I chided myself for the thought. A tattoo being placed on me required that my soul wasn’t going to get sucked out and that it found a way to get back into my physical body. Two things that seemed beyond hope. At best, I could try to take this thing down so no one else would be taken, or at the very least, weaken it until someone from the Court could.

  “In all seriousness, Harper, what makes you think this thing won’t just break out again if we find a way to cage it again?”

  “That’s up to those with higher pay scales than us to figure out,” Harper wrote. “Getting them back there is going to be the tricky part. I can command demons, a few at a time, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to control that many spirits, so let’s hope your trap works.”

  “Control demons?” I asked. “You know what? I don’t wanna know.”

  “So, this gun—trap thing—I just point it at the Indrori, and that’s it?”

  “Yeah, point and shoot,” I said. It was a good thing she couldn’t see my face, or she would have seen the lie there. It was a tad more complicated than that, but the less she knew about the odds of it working, the better. A nervous trigger finger didn’t help anyone.

  “The traps are up the stairs. In the bedroom, first door on the right.”

  Harper nodded and headed for the stairs. I followed her, trying to urge her along faster, but also trying not to freak her out.

  “There should be one in the bag right near the bed,” I instructed when she made it into the bedroom.

  “Oh my god,” Harper wrote, stopping once she saw the bed. She was looking at Adam’s face-down, limp body. Mine was lying beside his.