“I could look at more wallets,” I offered. “Maybe if we put enough of the victim’s memories together, we’d have more to go on.”
“Cassidy—” Teag’s growl told me he worried that I would push myself too hard.
“The longer this takes, the more men go missing—and we don’t know what happens to the men who are vanishing now,” I argued. “If we can get to the bottom of this, maybe it all ties together—the men who disappeared back then, the ones now, the ghosts, the entity. We won’t know until I see what I get from those wallets.”
Teag glared at me, reluctant to agree but I knew he saw the logic in my argument. “All right,” he said, setting a search program to run while he came to steady me. “But we’re not going to try for all fifty tonight.”
“No argument from me on that,” I said, and meant every word.
I managed to get through ten wallets before a headache nearly had me on my knees. Teag got me a couple of ibuprofen, and sat with me, rubbing the tension from my shoulders, until the pain subsided.
“All that, and we don’t know much more than when we started,” I said, feeling defeated.
“Not exactly,” Teag said. “You got a much better look at both Brannigan and the house, even glimpses of the street.”
“They haven’t been enough for us to narrow it down,” I argued.
“Yet,” Teag emphasized. “You don’t know which detail might click at the right time.”
I gestured at the wallets on the table. “I just feel so helpless. What good is my magic if I can’t get answers?”
“This Brannigan guy was good at being evil,” Teag said, coming around to sit next to me. “If he wasn’t, they would have caught him back then. Cassidy, he got away with almost two hundred murders. For all we know, he had magic of his own and used it to fog his victim’s memories. Hell, maybe he anticipated having someone with magic come after him.”
“Sorren said the Alliance was watching,” I countered. “Don’t you think they would have noticed a homicidal witch?”
Teag grimaced. “Okay, then we’re back to a Hannibal-level psychopath. It’s possible. Sorren’s often said people don’t need the supernatural to be evil. Think of all the serial killers who’ve gotten away with their murders for decades because they’re smart sons of bitches and good at covering their tracks. If the police and the FBI and whole teams of detectives take years to put the clues together, don’t beat yourself up for not getting the right answer on the first try.”
Before I could answer, both our phones went off. We gave each other a look of exasperation, then went to different corners of the room to answer.
“It’s all right, Anthony. I’ll be waiting when you get back—”
“Hi, Kell. Okay, thanks for telling me. For the record, I still think this is a bad idea—”
A few minutes later, Teag and I regrouped at the break room table. Maggie had closed up the shop and gone home, reminding us to call her if we needed someone to back us up. She doesn’t try to help out with the fights, but Maggie is an unstoppable force when it comes to having dinner ready along with enough hospital supplies to staff a MASH unit.
“Anthony has to take care of some business before he comes home,” Teag reported. “He’s going to be late.”
“Kell’s still determined to go check out the well,” I answered. “And he wants us to join them.”
“Let’s do it,” Teag replied. “There’s no time like the present for bad decisions.”
Kell had invited Teag and me to go along with the SPOOK crew to check out the old well, and my answer had been that we would catch up with them. The more we learned about the missing men, the more certain I became that any resonance left behind would be powerful and dangerous. Kell and his team were good at paranormal investigation, but they weren’t trained fighters, so battling either humans or supernatural entities was out of their league. I didn’t want them getting hurt, and since they couldn’t be allies on the battlefield, the less they knew about our “extra” abilities, the better.
“It would have been simpler to talk Kell out of coming, and have a go at this ourselves,” Teag grumbled as we parked a few block away and headed toward the empty lot with the well.
“Have you ever tried to talk Kell out of something when he’s fired up?” I countered. “He’s like a kid on the Fourth of July. Once Ryan told us about the wallets, having SPOOK come out and take a look was a foregone conclusion. Bonus points since the property is going to be redeveloped soon.”
Kell’s team would have all their ghost hunting gear in hand to document activity. Teag and I came prepared with a different kind of gear. Both of us wore several protective charms, as well cloth into which Teag had woven defensive magic. I had my athame and an antique walking stick. Both items carried a strong emotional resonance for me, and served as conduits for me to focus my touch magic into a formidable protective force. Teag had an assortment of blessed, silver and iron knives as well as a staff. He’s a competition-level martial arts practitioner so he can handle himself against foes human and otherwise. We both carried plenty of salt, holy water, and small iron pellets the size of BBs, items that tended to dispel or at least annoy most supernatural creatures.
With luck, nothing would happen, and we could all go home safe and sound.
We were never that lucky.
Teag and I kept to the shadows, moving up on the empty lot along the sides of the buildings, wanting to observe before we made our presence known. The nearest streetlight hung dark and useless overhead, and the next closest gave an anemic glow at less than full power. This area had remained largely residential, although new developments that mixed condos and retail seemed to be moving in on all sides.
“Did you find anything out about the well?” I asked as Teag and I watched from a nearby alley. Since we both have magic, it’s debatable whether having us along on a ghost hunt helps or puts Kell’s team in danger. Some entities are frightened by magic, while others are drawn like moths. I wanted to see what showed up on its own for the SPOOK investigators before we went barging in.
“Nothing interesting,” Teag replied quietly. “We’re at the outside edge of the old Expo grounds, so this section was never built up with Fair buildings. It’s always been residential. A number of the homes that were here in 1901 are still here. Some of them became boarding houses while the Expo was open, homeowners making an extra buck off all the tourists. Pretty enterprising bunch. Since all those out-of-towners were walking right past their doors, the people who owned the houses found a way to earn some extra cash selling fried chicken and pound cake, taking in laundry, even boarding horses in their carriage houses.”
“Sounds like the whole city got in on the excitement. How about the house the well belonged to? Anything special?”
Teag shook his head. “Not that I could find. The owner had no criminal record, didn’t get in any trouble, no reports about problems to the police. He took in lodgers, but there’s nothing in the police files implicating him in any of the disappearances.”
“So how did the wallets end up down his well?”
Teag shrugged. “No idea. I’m still poking around, trying to see if I can find out more about everyone who owned the buildings around the Expo. It’s slow going.”
“Look!” I jabbed Teag with my elbow and pointed. Pinpricks of green light winked on and off on the lot near the well. At another time of the year, I might have wondered if they were fireflies, but we were too late in the season, and the color was wrong. I could hear Kell’s crew remarking as they moved to capture video, audio, and EMF.
“The lights are centering around the well,” Teag noted.
“There’s more of them every second, and they’re… agitated.” If the dancing lights were spirits manifesting, then anything that made them anxious couldn’t be good. I let my athame slip down my sleeve into my right hand, and patted the walking stick where it hung from my belt alongside my left leg.
“The entity is here,” I said, sens
ing the same apprehension I felt at the Archive. “I can’t see it yet, but it’s here.”
“The wind is picking up,” Teag said, glancing skyward. “And it’s supposed to be calm tonight.”
“Gotten colder, too,” I replied, as the air grew unseasonably nippy.
“There!” I grabbed Teag by the arm and turned him toward the broken streetlamp. The shadows that pooled beneath it looked too dark, too solid.
“I really don’t like the look of that,” Teag said, eying the distance between the opaque shadows and Kell’s group.
The resonance I picked up from the shadow thing grew stronger, and through the muddy impressions, I could piece together a sense of purpose, maybe sentience. Enough to know it had Kell’s group in its sight, and the ghost hunters were about to become the prey.
“We’ve got to get them out of there,” Teag murmured, whether he read my expression or picked up something on his own from the entity.
Before I could agree, a cold blast of wind came out of nowhere and swept across the empty lot with enough force to make Calista grab for her audio equipment, cursing a blue streak. Drew bent against the wind, EMF reader clutched in one hand, while the other shielded his eyes from the dust and small debris carried in the wind. Pete hung onto his camera, wrapping his body around it protectively, as he struggled to keep from being bowled over by the gusting wind. Kell grabbed at the edge of the old well, then lost his footing and staggered backward as the old masonry came loose in his hand and gave way.
For a second, I thought the wild wind meant to tumble Kell down the shaft, but he managed to fall away from the well instead of taking a header over the edge. That was too close.
Bounded on three sides by other buildings, the empty lot trapped the wind, which circled with dangerous strength, carrying leaves, dirt, and paper with it.
“Get them out of here!” I yelled to Teag. “I’ll see if I can slow down the shadows.”
I knew from the look on Teag’s face that he didn’t like splitting up, but I had the distance weapons, so we both knew how it had to go down. Teag muttered something under his breath and then sprinted off toward Kell and the others as I drew the walking stick and tightened my grip on the athame. Showtime.
The entity seemed to register Teag’s arrival, because the wind gusted again, harder and colder, and although I was still on the edge of the vortex, the airborne dirt stung where it hit my skin and my eyes burned from the dust. Hoping its attention stayed on Teag and the others, I sidled up closer, sticking to the regular shadows that stretched out from the neighboring houses. My athame and the walking stick could channel powerful magic, but I needed to be within range, which was strongest within about a dozen feet. And that was the weak point in my plan.
Behind me, I could hear Teag shouting above the wind, trying to get Kell’s people to safety. I raised my right hand and leveled the athame, pulling on the strong emotions and memories my touch magic drew from the wand.
Cold, raw force blasted out from the tip of the athame, a bright white jet of power. It hit the shadow entity square on, blasting through it into the wall behind, sending up a shower of brick fragments and carving a depression into the solid wall. The creature shredded around it like mist, undamaged.
I backpedaled a few steps as I watched the entity regroup. The wind grew stronger, whipping my hair and burning my face. It tore at my clothing and made it difficult to breathe. The cycling air carried more debris aloft, battering me with pebbles and sticks, dry leaves and empty paper coffee cups. I’d survived enough Charleston hurricanes to know bigger things could go airborne too, big enough to cause real damage. This needed to end before someone got hurt.
“Cassidy!” Kell’s shout barely carried above the roar of the vortex. I forced myself forward. It took two hands to raise the walking stick, fighting the press of the wind.
Bang. The sound of a shotgun firing at close range made me flinch, and as my heart hammered, it took me a second to realize the shot aimed past me, at the entity. For a few seconds, the wind lessened.
I called up the memories held in the walking stick, of Alard, Sorren’s master, and the power he commanded. The resonance leapt to my touch, and in the seconds before the shadow creature regrouped, I sent a streak of fire arcing from the cane’s tip, blasting against the darkness.
A scream echoed from the walls of the surrounding buildings, and then the tattered shadow caught the last of the swirling wind and rose into the night sky before vanishing. I fell to my knees, ears still ringing from the too-close shotgun blast.
“Cassidy!” Kell sank down in front of me, anxiously looking me over for injuries. I realized a moment later that he had a shotgun in one hand.
“We need to get out of here. Someone will call in the gunfire.”
Kell helped me to my feet. “Rock salt. The shells were filled with rock salt.”
I gave him a confused look. “Why?”
He shrugged. “You told me spirits don’t like salt. Salt cleanses, right? Figured I’d give it a try. It always works for those guys on TV.”
I let myself lean on him, enjoying the warmth of his arm around my shoulder. “You made it blink.”
“And you somehow incinerated it with an old cane, after you pointed a stick at it and blasted it,” he murmured as we crossed the rubbish-strewn lot. “When you’re ready to tell me about it, I’m ready to listen.”
I smiled, despite how worn I felt from the fight. My battle with the entity had taken only minutes, but drawing on my magic takes a lot of out of me. While this wasn’t the longest or the hardest I’d fought, it had still drained me.
Teag looked us both up and down when we got back to the group. Calista sat behind the wheel of Kell’s car, which was running and ready to go. “Get out of here,” Teag said, clapping a hand on Kell’s shoulder. “I’ll get Cassidy out in the other direction. We really don’t want to explain this to the cops.”
Calista had the car moving before Kell even got his door shut, while Teag and I had already sprinted a block in the other direction toward where we left my car. Sirens wailed in the distance, and we picked up our pace, rounding the corner a few moments before the patrol cars closed the distance from the other direction. I threw open the car door and flicked the locks, then we were gone, heading through the darkened alleys without lights for a few blocks until we were certain we left both ghosts and cops well behind us.
I would drop Teag off at his car back at the shop. “What did you make of tonight?” I asked.
Teag flopped back against the seat and closed his eyes. “Whatever the hell that shadow-thing is, it’s definitely supernatural—you heard all of SPOOK’s equipment going wild. And it’s strong enough to cause a whirlwind like a freaking hurricane.” He opened his eyes and met my gaze. “It could have killed us.”
“My athame didn’t do anything to it. But salt made it flicker, and fire sent it packing.”
“Fire made it leave, but it wasn’t destroyed. It’ll be back—and now it knows you hurt it. It could hunt you.”
I considered that for a moment and shook my head. “I don’t think so. It’s run into me before. And it wasn’t aiming at me—it sent the wind against the group investigating the well. It’s tied to those wallets and whatever else is down there. Somehow, it’s connected to what happened all those years ago.”
“And now? Do you think there’s a connection to the new missing men?”
I thought for a moment. “Yes, but I don’t think we’ve got all the pieces. I’m not sure that what’s happening now is something a black ghost can just mojo on its own.”
“You think it’s got help of some kind?”
I shrugged. “I think we don’t know enough, and we don’t know what we don’t know.” The convoluted sentence summed up my frustration.
“You okay?” Teag asked.
“Yeah. But if Kell hadn’t gone cowboy on us, I’m not sure I would be. Force and fire weren’t enough to dispel it. The salt wasn’t either, but at least it disrupte
d the… thing.”
“I know we usually try to avoid guns for the noise, but maybe Kell’s on to something,” Teag said. Most of the time, knives or relics are enough to do the job, although when we’ve fought creatures that took on human form, silver bullets did the trick. “It wouldn’t hurt to add a shotgun or two, just in case.”
“What’s next? Water balloons filled with holy water?” I realized it was only partly a joke.
“Do you think it would work? Father Anne would bless them. Although she might never let us live it down,” Teag added with a grin.
“Thanks for getting Calista and the others out of there.”
“All in a day’s work. Although I was glad when Kell went after you. Everyone needs backup.”
“Amen to that,” I muttered. I managed a smile. “Don’t you have dinner to cook? Anthony’s going to blame me if it’s late.”
Tired as he was, Teag’s face lit up. “Nah. Everything’s already done, I just need to warm it in the oven. No harm, no foul.”
“So get out of here. You’ve got dinner with your honey,” I urged.
Teag’s grin turned wicked. “Bet you could have dinner with your honey, too, if you gave Kell a call.”
I batted his shoulder in mock indignation. “Maybe another night. Kell’s got a freaked-out team to settle, and I need to go feed Baxter before he thinks the world has come to an end.” I paused, mustering my nerve. “And tomorrow, we’ll tackle the rest of the wallets and see what happens.”
Teag nodded. “Then you better get a good night’s rest and bring a latte with you in the morning, because we’ll be in for stormy weather.”
I waited until he had his Volvo running before I eased my RAV4 around the corner and headed home.
I didn’t expect my phone to ring so late. Baxter and I had just curled up on the couch to watch TV. Dinner had been eaten and leftovers put away, and all that remained was some quiet downtime before bedtime. I’d decided to take Teag’s advice and get some sleep because handling those objects at the store tomorrow would be an emotional rollercoaster.
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