Midlife Demon Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 3

by Mayer, Shannon

  I quickly followed the others out. Robert waited for me on the fire escape, and he stepped in behind me, guarding the rear once more.

  Another boom behind us and then the sound of splintering wood. I hurried down one flight of stairs, peeked in the window of the room beneath Grimm’s—empty—and tried to pull it open. To my surprise, it worked. “Get in!” I hissed at Feish, who had already started down the next flight of the fire escape. She scrambled back up and in, and I slid through behind her and crouched in the dark room. I grabbed Robert and pulled him in after us with a clank of his bones.

  I dragged the window almost all the way shut, leaving just the slightest crack so we could hear what was going on. The banging and yelling continued above us for a few minutes, and then footsteps that obviously had no intention of being quiet thundered down the stairwell.

  I pressed myself against the wall under the window and Feish did the same. Robert crouched in the shadows of the room, hidden from whoever might look in.

  “Davin,” a tenor male voice said, “did you see anyone leave? Could they have gotten it?”

  Gotten it? Wouldn’t he have said “them” if he’d been referring to the pages? I clutched the envelope a little tighter, wondering if Grimm had been hiding something beyond his family history. For the next thirty minutes, feet thundered up and down the stairwell and all through Grimm’s room, along with the moving of furniture. Then all the sound abruptly stopped. There had been no sound of Grimm’s voice, no squealing of a goblin being tortured. Had he slipped past them somehow?

  “I saw Celia’s granddaughter earlier.” Roderick’s voice was faint as if coming from the open window of the room above us. “Could she have been here for it? Is it possible she understands what it is?”

  “No.” Davin’s sneer was obvious, even though I couldn’t see his stupid face. “She’s as useless as the rest of the Hollows Group. And to think she’s got enough balls to go out on her own. She wouldn’t know a powerful item like that if it jumped up and bit her in the ass.”

  I frowned and next to me Feish let out a little burbling growl. I put a hand on her, and she quieted. This was not the time to go defending my honor. Besides, I’d rather be underestimated. That gave me a lot of room to maneuver.

  “I will pay a visit to her,” Roderick said. “I don’t like the coincidence of her being here.”

  I didn’t disagree with him. I also didn’t like the timing—what were the odds that we’d arrived just before the councilmen busted down Grimm’s door? Was it just my luck, or was something pushing us all together? Synchronicity was a true thing, especially in the shadow world.

  “Don’t bother,” Davin said, a sneer in his voice. “I need to speak to Corb. He was supposed to gain her confidence, and given how successful he is with the ladies, it should have been no problem. She’ll spill her guts to him if he presses her.”

  Son of a bitch. I mouthed the words but kept the sound to myself. Corb’s need to confess suddenly made much more sense. He’d been told to get close to me? To use me? And I’d fallen for it, at least to a degree.

  Mother ducking . . . I had to bite my tongue to keep the words inside. The worst part was that he’d apparently told Davin I was useless. And sure, maybe he’d done that to keep the council away from me, but what if he actually thought it was true? Well, whatever his reasons, it was a bunch of hogwash. I was not useless.

  Damn it, my own insecurities tried to swallow me whole there in that dark room, and I had to mentally fight them off before I could take another step.

  Crash had secrets he didn’t or maybe couldn’t share, and it had been obvious from the beginning that I could be nothing more than a passing fancy for him. While Corb was out of my league, too, I’d thought he was at least honest. Damn it. I was an idiot. I’d let myself believe that maybe one of them—

  Nope, I was not going there.

  Well, forget Corb. Hell, forget Crash. At this rate, I’d just stick with Robert, thank you very much.

  I slowed my breathing and worked to focus on the current predicament I was in. Even if all I had was a sticky napkin as a signed agreement, it would hold up, and I would take it to the bank when I got through the next three days.

  I looked at the pages in my lap. Then I pointed to them, drawing Feish’s eyes to the stack. Squishing the edges of the pages with my hands, I could feel something hard buried within the stack. My eyebrows shot up as I peeled the layers back at the edges. There, in the middle of the bunch, was a single piece of silver, a fancy coin with images etched onto it and writing in the middle. More of that same Goblinese I couldn’t read.

  I frowned and rolled it in my hand, the silver catching the little bit of light coming in the window. Was this what they were looking for? I was willing to bet at least a dollar on it. Why did I get a feeling that Crash would not only know what it was, but that he might even have been the one to make it?

  Which was reason enough to keep it from him. One of the last things he’d made was a knife that would have been used to off Eric.

  I stuffed the silver item into my bag, considered the pages, and then put them in too. My bottomless bag was probably one of my favorite magical items—it ate up anything I put into it and didn’t saddle me with the true weight of the item. I pulled my hand out and Black Spells of Savannah and the Undead came out with it, stuck to the side of my fingers.

  “Crap,” I whispered. My legs were going numb and tingly, and I slid the rest of the way to the floor.

  The book, though . . . it flipped itself open. Yeah, you heard that right.

  Flipped itself the duck open.

  The pages rippled first one way and then the other, settling on a page with a single line on it.

  Of demon skin and angel wing.

  That one line had my skin crawling as if it were trying to get off my body on its own.

  I closed the book, and shoved it back into my bag, but the thing . . . hell, it fought me. I was wrestling with a damn book. It snapped shut a few times on my finger, and then it grabbed onto the edge of Grimm’s pages and tore them with a terrible ripping sound, like a sticky zipper.

  I punched the book in the cover and shoved it to the bottom of my bag. Grimm’s pages were only a little torn, but Jaysus. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

  Of demon skin and angel wing. That line, though, it was almost as if I’d heard it before . . .

  “How are we going to get out?” Feish whispered into my ear, giving me more than a little spit. “They will be looking for us, and when they find us, they will search us. They will find everything.”

  I nodded. “Thinking. Give me a minute.” We needed a way to hide my bag. That way we’d escape with the object and the pages, even if we were frisked. I didn’t dare leave it behind because Roderick and Davin would no doubt search the building.

  I looked at Robert quietly swaying next to Feish, a thought blooming.

  “Robert,” I said quietly. “Most people can’t see you. I want you to take my bag.” I handed it over to him. “You think you can take it with you when you turn into a single finger bone?”

  Robert slowed his swaying. “Friend.”

  “Yes, can you hide this?” I pointed at the bag on his shoulder, blinked, and he was gone. My bag had disappeared with him, and the finger bone I carried around lay on the floor.

  I scooped it up and tucked it into my bra. If they frisked me that well, they deserved to find a bone in my bra.

  7

  We waited another thirty minutes until the voices from Grimm’s room slid away and the sound of feet faded, leaving us sitting in silence in the dark in a haunted hotel. Robert’s finger bone was tucked between my boobs, and Feish and I moved to the door. The old bedroom in the Marshall House that we hid in smelled musty with disuse, something that had only slowly become apparent to me.

  “You pick up on any ghosts?” Feish asked as we waited by the door.

  “Just that initial pull and then nothing,” I said softly. I wondered at that
. I mean, I obviously had an affinity for the dead, more so after my little dying escapade in the graveyard not long ago. And the ghosts here in the Marshall House were notorious for being aggressive, and in some cases, downright violent if they decided they didn’t like you. And yet I’d felt nothing more than that slight pull toward the stairs, and then another pulse toward Grimm’s hallway and his room.

  Almost like whatever entity was here had wanted me to find Grimm and his pages. Or had Grimm himself drawn me to him?

  Interesting. I tucked those thoughts away and focused on the present moment.

  I twisted the door handle and peeked out. The hallway was empty, which was what we’d hoped for, although we were ready to rumble if we were stopped. Who was I kidding, there would be no rumbling. More like talking smack and making a run for it while they were distracted by my insults.

  If we got caught, Feish would let me do the talking. The story we’d concocted was that we were here doing some ghost hunting for a client, nothing more, and if they questioned it, then I would tell them about the silvery shadows that had led me down the hall.

  We walked toward the elevator, hit the button, and stepped in. There was no one with us, and partway down, the lights in the elevator flickered. The car slowed and I let out a groan, hitting the button for the first floor.

  “No, no getting stuck in an elevator!” I snapped as I jammed the button harder as if that would get my point across.

  The elevator stopped completely and the lights went out. “Are you kidding me?” I yelled into the darkness. “Seriously?”

  Feish grabbed my arm around the bicep and squeezed hard enough for her nails to dig in. “Feish, ouch, ease off!”

  “I not touching you,” she said softly.

  I went very still and looked over my shoulder, not really sure I’d be able to see anything in the pitch black. The pale, shimmering face of a woman peered back at me, eyes focused and unblinking. I couldn’t tell if she was old or young. Only that her clothing was from long since past, likely the eighteen hundreds. Her hair was pulled into a bun at the back of her head with tendrils flowing out from around it.

  The hand on my arm tightened and the mouth of the ghost opened.

  I heard a word not spoken aloud.

  Vampire.

  “Oh, for duck’s sake, are you serious?” I whispered, and I most certainly did not use the autocorrect of duck.

  The ghost gave a slow nod and then disappeared. The elevator lights flicked on and the elevator began to slide downward to the lobby. I hit the second-floor button, running on instinct.

  “What are you doing?” Feish whispered. I looked at her to see her shaking and rubbing her arms. I put a hand out to her and she took it. “It got very cold. Was it a ghost? I couldn’t see what you were talking to.”

  “Yeah,” I responded, although I hadn’t noticed the cold as much as Feish obviously did. “We’re getting out on the second floor. We’ll find a way out from there.”

  The elevator stopped a second later on said floor. The doors opened and I peeked out, checking both directions. If the ghost woman was right and there was a vampire somewhere around here, I would do my best to avoid the fanged entity. That was not a critter I wanted to interact with, thank you very much.

  I kept a hand on Feish and her webbed fingers tightened over mine, trembling slightly. “I think I’d like to not be with you the next time you ghost hunt,” she said.

  I slowed as we approached the stairwell that would lead down to the lobby. The light above flickered and went out, and the ghost woman from the elevator made a reappearance and shook her head. She pointed to the door to her left and I went straight for it.

  “You see her that time?” I whispered.

  “Yes. You think it’s a good idea to trust a ghost?” Feish asked. “Especially when the ghost is here in this place?”

  “I’m less afraid of a ghost than I am of what she says is in the hotel.” I tugged Feish along with me. Not that she was slowing me down, but a growing sense of urgency pushed me onward. Like we had to get out of the hallway before something bad showed up.

  I put a hand on the door to the room, fully expecting it to be locked. The knob was ice cold, but otherwise, it twisted easily in my hand. I stepped into the dark room beyond it, Feish behind me.

  The door clicked shut, and I found myself staring into a room full of ghosts.

  And when I say full, I mean ducking full.

  Men, women, a few children, all in a variety of clothing representing many periods of time. Some looked fresh, new is the only word I had for them, and others were faded like the silvery woman who’d directed me here. Many were dressed in army fatigues from eras gone by, their bodies still showing horrific injuries.

  I took a deep breath, my exhale showing the heat of my body clearly in a puff of mist. Feish was shaking hard, and I didn’t think it was from fear. “The cold bothers you?”

  “I’m a river maid. My body temperature picks up on the environment around me,” she said.

  “Okay, let’s make this quick.” I dipped my voice low. “You all know I can see you?” One by one, the various ghosts nodded in my direction. “And you know that something bad is happening here?”

  Again, they all nodded.

  “Here’s the deal,” I whispered. “We have to get out of here. If there really is—” I didn’t want to say vampire out loud as if that would make it more real. Which was kind of ridiculous given that I was having a discussion with a roomful of ghosts. “—that fanged creature here, then we need to go. We need to tell someone.”

  The ghosts looked at one another, then slowly parted and pointed to the window. Three strides took us across the room, and I shoved Feish toward the old glass. “You go.” And on a sudden gut feeling, I pulled Robert’s finger bone out of my bra.

  “I need the book out of my bag, Robert.”

  He stood up, between one blink and the next, swaying there next to me, my bag hanging over his shoulder. I reached for it, dug around in it and pulled out the spell book from the used book store. “I’ll keep this with me.”

  Robert collapsed once more without me telling him, and I scooped him back up, handing him to Feish. They both needed to get the duck out of there.

  Feish looked up at me. “Why are you staying?”

  “Because I have to.” I had no good reason, but there were plenty of ill-advised ones. These ghosts clearly knew things. Something about Grimm, I suspected, and also about a vampire who may or may not be hanging out in the hotel. And they were hiding. Some of the most fearsome ghosts known to Savannah were hiding.

  Feish didn’t require much more prompting, and I watched as she made it to the street and hurried off. When she rounded the corner, leaving my field of vision, I pulled my head back into the room.

  “Okay, you all need to talk to me. Why are you in here? Are you hiding?” I faced the room of ghosts, waiting for one of them to volunteer information.

  The Silver Lady stepped up, her form sliding in and out of transparency. Her hand lifted, palm out to me in a gesture that made me want to press my own hand to hers. I lifted my hand.

  Ghostly skin pressed to mine, and the world around me evaporated. Suddenly people were rushing all around me.

  “You have to get them out of here.” The Silver Lady spoke clearly, only this time she was very much alive and no longer the ghostly woman. Her skirts shushed around us as she hurried between cots of groaning wounded men. “Those that carry the plague are coming.”

  A doctor who looked suspiciously like Tom closed his eyes. “Mercy will not find any of us if they catch us here with the wounded.”

  Time passed, everything happening too fast, like a film put on high speed, people rushing around in front of me as if I weren’t there, and then the world slowed again.

  The Silver Lady stood at the doorway, her eyes locked on it. “They are here. Go. I will stop them.”

  She held an impossibly thin piece of silver, at least two feet long, in one hand
, and in the other she held a hammer. A silver stake. A hammer. Holy duck, she was a vampire hunter.

  She pressed the tip of the blade to the door, took a breath and hammered it through. An unearthly wail lit the air and—

  I hit the ground hard, bouncing backward through the sea of ghosts. Hands hovered around me as if they’d help me to my feet.

  “Okay, okay, so you’re a good ghost,” I said. “I get it.”

  She nodded, then reached out and touched my side where I had the spell book. “This?”

  Another nod.

  I pulled it out and her hand floated over the book, the pages flipping back and forth like they’d done earlier. Maybe it hadn’t been the book. Maybe a ghost had controlled it.

  The pages slowed and stopped.

  Silver moon is the time for the demon skin to be found, and bound, and used to be bidden.

  I grimaced. “Demon skin, really?”

  She nodded and mouthed three words. Find the skin. What in the world demon skin had to do with her showing me how badass she was, I didn’t know. But my instincts said she was trying her best to help.

  The sound of feet outside the door caught my ears, stopping me from asking any other questions.

  The ghosts dispersed so fast that the room’s temperature shot up forty degrees in an instant, the sudden change causing sweat to break out along my spine. “Holy crap,” I whispered.

  The door opened and the outlined figure was distinctly male. “Who’s in here?”

  I knew that voice. And in a split second, I fell into my role playing and the story I’d prepped.

  “Davin, what the hell? Here I am in the middle of a ghost hunt, and I think I had a ghost ready to talk to me, and you just bang down the door like some thug?” I stormed toward him, shoving him out of the way. Bravado was my best bet here. And since he knew I didn’t much like him, I cringed and wrinkled my nose as I passed him. “You smell.” Actually that was true, he really did stink.

  “What?” He stumbled away from me as if I’d kicked him in the shins. Also, not a bad idea.