“I found the murder house,” Donnelly said after we had all turned to stare at him expectantly. “Took pictures. Pretty sure it’s still standing.”
He handed his phone around to share the photos, and for a moment, the idea of a necromancer shooting photos on a smartphone made me want to laugh uncontrollably.
“That’s the house,” Teag said, pointing at the building in the center. “The ‘painted lady’ from your vision, in front of the mailbox where Hibbard mailed his postcard is on the left, and the middle house is the one that turned up in my web search.”
Donnelly cleared his throat. “And while I was taking in the sights, I learned a little about that wallet well. Seems the house that stood on that lot was a competitor to Brennan. Everyone knew there was bad blood between them.”
Maybe people knew about the animosity, but no one at the time suspected just how much blood was involved. “So Brennan dumped the wallets down his competitor’s well so that if anyone did come looking for the missing men, they’d not only get the wrong guy but take out his rival.”
“Sure as Bob’s your uncle,” Donnelly said, pointing a finger at Teag. “Got it in one.”
I looked up at Sorren. “So what’s the plan? This Brennan-Brannigan guy and his Chindi have Anthony—and maybe the other missing men, too. How do we get them out?”
Father Anne smiled. “Easy. I read the exorcism, Archie uses his dead-guy magic to grab the Chindi, and y’all storm the haunted house and rescue the captives. Then Chuck does what he does best.”
Chuck grinned. “I make things go boom.”
“Works for me, I said, and looked over to Teag. He squared his shoulders, and a look of quiet, deadly confidence glinted in his eyes.
“Let’s go get Anthony back and burn this son of a bitch.”
Just before daylight, Sorren retreated to the basement to rest. Father Anne and Chuck dozed in the armchairs in the living room. I made Teag lie down on the couch, and I curled up with Baxter on the loveseat. Donnelly mumbled something and left, promising to be back at dusk. We had been up all night, and going into a hunt dead tired was as reckless as going in unprepared. Much as we all wanted to charge in with guns blazing, and as fearful as we were for Anthony and the other missing men, we had to wait for nightfall.
Sorren couldn’t go until after dark, and we needed his supernatural strength and speed. I had the feeling that Brennan’s ghost and the Chindi weren’t going to go down easily. We also couldn’t go barging into a house in daylight for a firefight with a ghost and not find ourselves facing down a SWAT team when we came out. So no matter how we chafed at the delay, we had no choice except to wait until late evening to make our move.
The old house loomed over us, inky against the night sky, blotting out the stars. Chuck’s EMF reader pegged the meter, though he set the audio on silent. No surprise, but it did confirm we were in the right place.
Teag had found the floorplan from the construction documents online, though if Brennan had learned anything from H.H. Holmes, I was betting he’d made some modifications. Still, knowing the basic layout was better than nothing and gave us a plan of attack.
Sorren went through the front door, while Donnelly led the way through the back, with the rest of us behind him. That sent our two most bad-ass fighters in first, the ones with a supernatural unfair advantage. Chuck came in last, watching our backs, armed to the teeth. He wore the same night goggles as the rest of us, everyone except Sorren and Donnelly, who didn’t need them. Now, in the creepy quiet of the abandoned house, I found myself feeling twitchy, ready for a fight.
“You sure we can’t just toss an EMF grenade on each floor and be done with it?” I muttered.
Chuck glared at me. “We could. But that just pushes the ghost and the Chindi into one of the damn secret rooms you know Brennan must have built, and that’s not going to do anyone any good. Or it gets pushed in with the prisoners, and decides to finish them before we finish it.”
So much for doing things the easy way.
We moved carefully, weapons at the ready. Teag and I had everything that we’d brought to the fight at the well, plus a few more weapons we didn’t want to use in front of Kell’s group. Chuck had given both of us retrofitted German H&K signal pistols and shotgun shells full of rock salt and iron pellets. I had a silver knife inscribed with protective sigils, and Teag carried a silver-coated metal whip that curled up like a coiled spring. Knowing we were going up against amped-up ghosts, we both had iron knives, and Teag added an iron cap to one end of his staff.
Father Anne could recite exorcisms and rituals from memory, and coupled with her faith, that was formidable enough. But we had fought together enough times that I knew she had a blessed boline knife that could do a number on corporeal and non-corporeal creatures alike, and I was betting she had a shiv or two somewhere on her person.
We moved slowly from the back of the house toward the central hallway, where we met up with Sorren. He gave a curt shake of his head, indicating he’d found nothing in the front rooms.
“Basement?” I mouthed. Teag and I moved to scout the kitchen, while Father Anne looked beneath the front stairway as Chuck and Donnelly kept watch. Cellars were rare in Charleston given how close we were to sea level, and I hadn’t expected much from the elevation of the house, but it never pays to assume. We returned to the foyer, shaking our heads.
The Brennan house had three floors and probably an attic. Teag and I had poured over the sketchy floorplan, marking where it would be structurally easiest to build in hidden rooms or passageways, and we had shared our notes with the group. “Alicia told her the ghosts said ‘the walls are hollow,’” I reminded them. “So he didn’t just line up his captives in the parlor.”
“Check the walls,” Teag said. His eyes held a dangerous glint. Tension and the need to fight fairly thrummed through his body. He looked cold and resolute, and God help anything that came between him and finding Anthony.
We split off, tapping walls and checking room dimensions, but we couldn’t find any modifications on the first floor. Brennan might have been a psychopath, but he was a clever bastard who managed to evade detection in his lifetime.
“Ghosts?” Father Anne asked, directing her question to Donnelly.
“Plenty of psychic residue, but for a place where so many people died violently, no ghosts,” Donnelly said quietly. “I think we can blame the Chindi. It’s either scared them away or devoured them. And it’s definitely here, watching.”
I carefully avoided touching anything as much as I could, and still my gift had me on edge. When the resonance is strong enough, I can feel it through the souls of my shoes, or in the air like static electricity. The house made me feel sick on a gut level, the psychic equivalent of mild food poisoning. I could sense layer upon layer of pain, fear, hate, and beneath it, a vengeful glee that lived for the game, for the thrill of the hunt.
“Where is it?” Father Anne murmured.
“Moving,” Donnelly replied. “Through the ductwork maybe, or the spaces between the lathe and the studs. Stalking.”
At that moment, every door downstairs slammed shut. The light fixtures, long cut off from electrical power, flickered wildly with an unnatural foxfire glow. The temperature plummeted, and a cold draft grew quickly to a gust that ripped at the stained, damaged wallpaper and sent dust swirling into the air.
“There!” I saw the inky stain seeping down from the stairway like cascading crude oil. Chuck and I moved in the same instant. The bang of his signal pistol came an instant before a pop and a wet squelch. As suddenly as it came, the wind vanished as the lights gave a final flicker and went dark.
“What the hell was that?” Chuck demanded.
“Water balloon filled with holy water,” I said. “I brought a few, although a Super Soaker might work better.”
He laughed and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Not bad. But not as spectacular as the time we got the chaplain to bless the fire hydrant before we opened it up on some dimme-ku
r that tried to attack an outpost.”
Father Anne raised an eyebrow, and I couldn’t tell whether she was impressed or offended.
“It’s gone. Let’s keep moving.” Teag’s voice sounded so tight and curt I almost didn’t recognize it.
“Father Anne and I will take the third floor and attic,” Sorren said. “The rest of you can tear the second floor apart.” We had already decided that the most likely place for Brenner’s bolt holes.
Sorren again led the way with Father Anne behind him, Teag and me in the middle, then Donnelly and Chuck bringing up the rear. Adrenaline made me twitchy as if I’d had too many shots of espresso. Teag’s set jaw, mouth in a hard line, body tensed let me know he was aching to take his fear and worry out on the nearest suitable target. I couldn’t blame him, knowing Anthony’s life hung in the balance.
When we reached the second floor, Sorren and Father Anne split off, and we faced a long hallway of closed doors. I knew from what we had found online about Brannigan’s Rooming House for Men that the second floor had been subdivided into nine “premium” private rooms and that the third floor and likely the attic held additional beds in an open dormitory layout. We had no choice but to search each room.
“In my vision, I saw Brannigan take one of the men through a closet,” I reminded the others. “Let’s start with that.”
Teag paused. “Why nine rooms? Why not ten?” He suddenly walked toward the end of the hallway, pacing off the distance. “I think there’s something at the end of the hall,” he said when he returned. There aren’t any windows on that side of the house, and the distance from front to back seems too short.”
“All right. Let’s start with that.” I had my athame in my right hand and an iron knife in the other. Alard’s walking stick hung from my belt, but I didn’t plan to burn the house down, at least not until we had found Anthony and the other prisoners. Ghosts didn’t like iron, and the sharp blade would serve against other threats as well. Teag held his staff in his left hand and the silver metal whip coiled in the other.
Overhead, we heard a sudden series of thumps, then Father Anne’s voice shouting in Latin, and Sorren’s curses.
“It’s trying to distract us,” Donnelly said, looking around. “Get moving. I’ll hold it off.”
“I’d like another shot at it myself,” Chuck said, his signal pistol in one hand and an EMF grenade in the other.
Teag and I sprinted to the other end of the hallway, carefully watching each of the closed doors as we went. We tried the last room on the right. It had a shallow closet against the rear wall, but neither of us could find a catch to open a hidden door.
“Stand back,” Teag warned, and drew back with his staff, then smashed the iron-clad tip through the back of the closet. A fine rain of plaster, insulation, and lathe crumbled to the floor, but behind that was a solid barrier.
“That’s not the outside wall,” Teag said through gritted teeth. “So there’s a secret room, but no door from here.”
“Let’s try the other side.” I led the way, athame and knife both at the ready. Not for the first time, I mentally thanked Chuck for the night vision goggles, because it meant we didn’t have to juggle flashlights as well as weapons.
Overhead, we heard more thumps and swearing. Out in the hallway, I heard Donnelly shouting, and Chuck’s muttered curses.
I stopped as soon as we entered the tiny bedroom. “This is it,” I whispered. The room from the vision.” Teag didn’t bother asking if I were sure. He had seen the vision too. I pointed to the small closet in the back corner.
I led the way. Teag was right behind me, watching my back as I reached up like I had seen Brannigan do, running my fingers across the wood trim until I heard a catch snap open at my touch. “There!” I said, a note of triumph in my voice.
The door swung open. But instead of a dark passage, Peter Morrill stood waiting with a twisted smile and lunged forward with a knife aimed to kill.
“Down!” Teag snapped, but I was already dodging. Teag’s staff whirled over my head and the iron cap connected hard with Morrill’s right wrist, leaving no doubt by the crunch that bones snapped. In the next breath, I willed cold force from my athame, throwing Morrill backward into the blackness and keeping him pinned against the passageway wall.
“Where are they?” Teag demanded, hooking his metal whip onto his belt and drawing out the signal gun from his waistband. “Where are the prisoners?”
Morrill’s wrist hung at an odd angle, obviously broken. He should have been in agony. But the look in his eyes was pure crazy, not entirely human. “He took me to be his hands and feet,” Morrill bragged. I felt sick realizing what he meant. Brenner-Brannigan’s spirit needed a solid body to gather prisoners for the Chindi. And whether or not Morrill had originally been a willing host or the possession had driven him mad, he now clearly sided with the monsters.
Donnelly crowded up behind us as the blast from my athame waned. I couldn’t keep Morrill pinned forever.
“Depart!” Donnelly commanded. Father Anne handles the demons, but there’s more than one kind of unclean spirit, and Victor Brennan’s ghost was as foul as they come. I’d never seen someone cast out a possessing ghost before, and I startled when green, glowing liquid began to ooze, then drip, from Morrill’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. His body convulsed, eyes rolling back, limbs shaking. The phosphorescent liquid ran in thin rivulets that left foxfire tracks across his skin and clothing. Morrill’s chest heaved and his breath staggered. Brenner was not letting go easily.
“I’ll keep him pinned,” Donnelly said, sparing a glance to Teag and me. “See to the prisoners. Sorren and Father Anne won’t be able to keep the Chindi bottled up much longer.”
Teag and I stepped into a long narrow room, just a little wider than the small bedrooms on the hall. It appeared to run the length of the house, and it stank of sweat and human waste, death and rotting flesh.
Several heaps that might be bodies slumped against the far wall. “Anthony!” Teag called quietly, and my heart ached when no response came.
We moved forward carefully, alert for traps, waiting for the Chindi to make an appearance. I knelt next to the first form, and put a hand out, then withdrew with a gasp and jerked back so hard that I nearly fell on my ass. Two piles of clothing had been men, dead long enough that their eyes and mouths crawled with maggots and the bloated features appeared mottled even in the glow of my night vision goggles. I tried to remember the names of the other men to go missing. We’d accounted for Peter Morrill. I feared Jon Werther and Mike Irwin were the rotting corpses.
Teag choked back a cry and moved forward. The next form groaned but did not wake to Teag’s frantic shake. Rope bound the man’s wrists and ankles securely, and a dirty cloth stuffed in his mouth served as a gag.
“That’s Rand, Alistair’s assistant,” I said, recognizing him from our one meeting. Teag was already moving toward the fourth figure.
“Anthony?” Teag’s voice held a note of fear. He hunched in front of the fourth prisoner who sat with his back to the wall, head resting on his bent knees. Teag tipped his head up and let out a long breath. “Anthony.” Anthony stared at Teag bleary-eyed, and I wondered whether magic or drugs caused the lethargy.
Before Teag had a chance to reach for Anthony, a wave of darkness swept down from overhead, opaque enough to hide the injured prisoners from our view. The energy the creature gave off felt foul, like being splattered with sewage inside and out. Nightmare visions clawed at the edges of my mind. Behind the Chindi, cut off from our sight, Anthony gave a panicked groan. Teag went flying in one direction, colliding with the opposite wall with a grunt, and an invisible force hurled me back the way I came, to land on my back at Donnelly’s feet.
I had no way to get off a shot from the signal pistol without risking a hit to Anthony or Rand. The battle at the well showed how useless my athame was against the Chindi, and the walking stick’s fire would incinerate all of us in these close quarters. I heard Teag cursing as
he got to his feet while I scrambled upright. One hand went for my iron knife, while the other grabbed a squishy orb from my pocket.
Teag and I launched ourselves at the Chindi. I slashed down with my knife, and the blade sank into something neither solid nor mist, dragging down through air suddenly too thick and clammy. Teag lunged with his staff, iron end first, careful to angle upwards so as not to hit Anthony or Rand. I stabbed once more with my knife and lobbed a holy water balloon at the floor with all my might.
Water splashed up as high as my shoulders as the thin latex burst. The Chindi swirled and writhed, but did not completely dissipate. Teag hurled a handful of loose salt from one pocket, and the creature folded in on itself only to unfurl once more, crackling with energy now that it identified us as a foe.
“Fire in the hole!” Chuck shouted from behind me.
I dropped to the floor and covered my eyes a second before a flash of bright light illuminated the narrow room, doubly blinding with my night vision goggles. The oppressive presence of the Chindi vanished.
“That won’t keep him gone for long.” Sorren pulled me to my feet and then reached to help Teag. “Let’s get the prisoners out of here, and then we’ll take care of the Chindi and the ghost.”
I hadn’t heard Sorren join us, and now that I looked at him, I saw the toll the fight in the attic had taken. Blood oozed from a gash on his cheek, and Sorren carried himself in a way that suggested deep bruises, maybe broken bones. Deep cuts scored his back and shoulder. I suspected whatever abuse he had taken from the Chindi would have been enough to kill a mortal, if it did that much damage to a vampire. And while Sorren healed with supernatural speed, the pain of injuries didn’t change, nor would the healing come fast enough to help if we were attacked again.
Teag knelt next to Anthony. He reached out gently to cup Anthony’s cheek and raise his head. “I’ve got you,” he murmured. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be safe.” He used his silver knife to cut through Anthony’s bonds as I did the same for Rand. Anthony at least seemed groggy but conscious. Rand lay still, breathing but completely unconscious.
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