“No, that’s not what I mean.” I lowered my hand but stepped closer to say, “Do you know what Oren and Sally are whispering about?”
Lavie shrugged. “Probably just going over the spell one more time, why?”
“I don’t know, something feels…odd.” The witch and the seer were acting stranger than usual. I couldn’t help but feel like they were leaving out a very important detail about this radius spell.
“You’re just jittery, that’s all.” She squeezed my arm. “Can’t say I blame you after everything that’s happened.”
Ebony’s death hung between us, but I pushed it aside. If I let grief shut me down, we’d never get this done.
“Everything’s going to work out, you’ll see.”
I met Lavie’s kind eyes and nodded.
“Lavie, Sierra, get over here!” Sally called, interrupting our awkward exchange.
“Come on.” Lavie took my hand and led me away from the overpass, leaving the normal world behind to enter into a barrier that would hopefully contain the preternatural explosion we were about to provoke.
As soon as we stepped past the small opening, I felt the world shrink away to almost suffocating. This is it. We were going to do this.
Roe ushered Gareth away from the automatic doors. It was time for him to go.
“Hey,” he said when he reached us.
“Thanks for guarding the door and getting rid of those cops,” I said.
Gareth considered the scene, where reporters were crowded nearby and argued with the policemen. “No problem.” When he turned his attention back to me, his eyes were bright and shiny.
“I mean it, thank you for everything you’ve done.” If it wasn’t for him, I probably wouldn’t have survived long enough to do this.
His smile was genuine, friendly. “Take care, okay?”
“We will.”
Gareth ambled past Oren and Sally, offering goodbyes as he went.
As soon as he was on the other side, the witch and the seer stepped in front of the gap with their sack open on the ground. They kneeled and Oren pulled a small athame from his pocket. He handed it to Sally, who ran the sharp blade along the length of her palm. The cut produced blood instantly and she held her hand over the bag, to join the salt and dirt. Oren did the same, and their blood mingled inside.
“Do you want some of mine?” I asked.
“No,” Oren said, a little too abruptly.
“Why not? You know I’m connected to the ley lines in this—”
“Our blood is sufficient,” Sally said. I didn’t like the way she avoided my eyes as Oren lifted the burlap sack and poured the contents along the remaining section. He and Sally placed their palms on top of the circle and chanted words I couldn’t hear.
The circle glowed red when it was sealed, and my ears popped. I gasped for breath, noticing the others did the same. I waited until the crimson shimmer faded and watched Gareth step away from the barrier.
“Let’s go.” Oren stood and helped Sally to her feet.
As I followed close behind, I recalled what the councilor Henry Sallas told me at the diner. He’d been convinced that I could get rid of the dangerous spook energy. I hope he was right. I wasn’t sure how long Mace had withheld these chaotic spirits—or how many there were—but this was going to be a challenge.
Lavie walked beside me, nibbling on her bottom lip as she stared ahead at her aunt. For someone who’d tried to convince me there was nothing strange about their behavior, she sure appeared worried. Had she noticed something I hadn’t about the way Oren and Sally sealed the circle? I was about to ask when the automatic doors opened.
Oren swiped away the police barrier tape and Sally stepped inside. Roe was next, but paused to push both hands against his temples.
All color drained from Roe’s face and my pulse sped up. I was dreading going inside, and his reaction reminded me how spook catchers were affected. Roe, born Rochelle Spooker, shared my talent.
Don’t quit now. This is our last chance to make things right.
Oren moved to stand beside Roe and grabbed one of his arms, while Sally did the same on the other side. My grandfather turned to look at me. “Are you ready?”
I concentrated on what he was wearing—his usual black suit—before doing the same with Sally. She wore an olive green pantsuit with a white blouse beneath. The two looked like they were about to attend a business meeting, not going to blow the building up via magical means. The man between them was dressed in navy blue slacks and a white top. Roe the Collector, Roe the Mentor, and Roe Ready for Battle were one and the same. His powder-blue cardigan reminded me of my car. My poor ruined car.
Stop it, concentrate on the important details.
Yet, mundane thoughts were helping me get my breathing under control and summon enough courage to take a single step.
“Sierra, are you ready?” Oren repeated.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be right beside you,” Lavie said, tightening her hand around mine. “I’ll help you.”
I turned to smile and instead catalogued how cute and youthful she appeared in her baggy black sweatpants and sweater. The crucifix, gris-gris and Star of David tokens hanging around her neck were the same as her aunt’s.
“This building makes my skin crawl,” I heard Sally say as she and Oren continued into the building.
I gripped Lavie’s hand as we crossed the automatic doors and into hell. The heat and energy slammed into my chest, simultaneously sapping the oxygen from my lungs and crushing my skull. It brought me to my knees. Lavie’s hand was my anchor, so I dragged her down with me.
She cradled me in her arms as I struggled to contain the barrage of pain. “It’s going to be okay, Sierra,” she said, smoothing my hair.
“Take a few seconds to get control of your senses,” Sally said. She had a hand pressed against Roe’s shoulder. “I can only imagine how all of this dirty energy is affecting you and Sierra.”
“It’s never…been…this bad.” Roe was doubled over, hands on his knees as he struggled under the same magical strain.
Oren walked onward, scanning our surroundings. “Is that the wall we need to cross?” He pointed a long, skinny finger towards the reception desk.
I’d told them about the secret passage. “Yes,” I whispered.
He headed towards it. Roe straightened and Sally wrapped an arm around him.
“Can you get up?” Lavie asked, gently tugging on my hand.
I nodded and when she got to her feet, dragged me up. The onslaught of energy made my hair stand on end and every nerve ending felt as if it were about to explode. A warm trickle slid from my nostrils, but I ignored it to concentrate on keeping my steps in line with Lavie’s. I thought my head was going to split and spill my brains out onto the floor, but I pushed on. I wiped away the continuous flow of blood with my sleeve and focused on getting one foot in front of the other until we reached our destination.
“Now what?” Oren asked, glaring at the wall.
“Follow me,” I said, stepping past him but not letting go of my friend. Between Lavie and the reception desk, I reached the wall and pushed my hand through. “Stay close.”
Lavie and I were the first to step into the cascading water wall. Air gushed over me but I didn’t falter, and in seconds we’d crossed over. My body ached, but the constant barrage of heated energy wasn’t as bad as it had been in the foyer. Yet what I found made me freeze. I’d known we would end up inside the basement because Lee had warned me, but hadn’t imagined this.
“Oh my Goddess and all the Saints,” Sally said. I peered over my shoulder just as she made the sign of the cross and held Roe to her side.
“What in the hell is this place?” Lavie’s eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them.
Oren stepped up nex
t to me. “I can’t believe anyone would be so irresponsible as to allow this much stained energy to flow beneath our city.” His eyes flashed pink, and he looked pissed.
I guess you don’t need to be a catcher to see this many spooks spilling into our patch.
Mace was a bigger psychopath than I thought.
“What has he done?” Roe seemed to be regaining composure as fast as I was.
The energy accumulation beneath the Tower made my skin vibrate with a horrid pulse, shaking me to the core. At least the barrage of sickness was gone. I could stand, think straight, and concentrate on the mess of spook activity trapped within this concrete structure.
Oren pressed a palm against the sturdy brick wall. “We won’t be getting out this way.”
“It’s okay,” Roe said, pointing across the room. “I know where the exit is, but getting there is going to be a challenge.”
He wasn’t kidding. This room was dark, the only illumination coming from several fluorescent lights strategically placed on the ceiling. It was cavernous and filled with spirit-splitting chairs I thought were destroyed the last time I’d seen them. These ones contained girls—some I recognized, but most I didn’t—and they were all strapped in tight. One of the chairs was empty, and I wondered if that had been Lee’s. The chairs took blood and injected clear liquid into their bodies. Yet there weren’t enough catchers milling around as there were bodies.
The wall to our right opened up into another patch—a jagged, round tear leading into a corridor with spooks moving to and fro. Most drifted in, hovered near the motionless bodies while bouncing off the girls’ spirits to use them as conduits. These were the darkest spooks—human and nonhuman entities catchers had been capturing for years. And they’d coalesced inside this room like it was their home.
This is insane.
“What can we do to help the catchers?” Oren asked.
Roe stepped forward, already unspooling rolls of bandages from his bulging pockets. His nose was bleeding but he didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll take care of the girls.”
I watched him go. With bandages in hand, Roe stood over the closest girl and started the process of disconnecting the IV lines and metal helmets. A silvery blob headed his way, but before it could reach him, I’d already pulled the revolver from its holster and aimed the laser dot to shoot a round of salt bullets. The silvery shape exploded into tiny fragments, which were sucked back into the adjoining patch.
“How the hell did you move so fast?” Lavie asked, with a grin on her face.
I shrugged. Tainted spook energy might affect me, but my reflexes were a lot sharper and both my aim and shooting had improved drastically. Papan was a good teacher. A tap on my shoulder made me turn.
Sally said, “A lot of these entities are more than spooks, I can feel a demonic influence.”
“She’s right,” Lavie added, sliding her wicked axe from the backpack strapped to her shoulders. “We can take care of the demonic-touched.”
The two women exchanged determined glances before running across the room and disappearing into the shadows. The sound of screeching, slicing and dicing echoed around us, but I couldn’t see a thing.
Oren touched my arm. “My job is to stay close to you.”
“Do you know where the open patch leads to?”
He shook his head. “Let’s go and find out.”
I swallowed the discomfort of being in the thick of this overwhelming environment.
The closer we got to the cavity, the more my heart sped. I spotted a line of orbs dotting the top of the torn wall like detonators waiting to go off, and my gut clenched. They were positioned on this side of the corridor.
As Oren and I made our way across the many obstacles, a variety of spooks whipped us with their tails. Some tried to scare the life out of us, or attempted to suck me into their zone, but I remained focused on what we had to do. I couldn’t afford to let the drumming inside my skull slow my progress. It wasn’t easy, not when the group of wraiths in the corridor writhed around each other, as if waiting for instructions.
I looked around. Sally and Lavie were busy beating up a luminescent being, while Roe had already awoken several girls. When I turned back to the hole in the wall, I realized it had shrunk. The widening closed further as Roe separated the catchers from the machines.
“I have no idea where this leads,” Oren said.
We finally reached the corridor and peeked inside. This was nothing like the ghostly patch, where spirits went before reaching their final resting place. Wherever this led, it was packed with spooks of all varieties. Burr was right—the energy was dirty. Was this the tear he’d referred to? He claimed it led into the abyss. Were the abyss and Tartarus the same place? The thought made me shiver.
I recognized some of the spooks on the other side, many I’d captured myself. Like the spiky-looking wraith that caught sight of me and licked its lips. This one had cut my cheek while I captured it last summer. The memory left me distracted and the spook rushed forward, all teeth ready to bite me. But missed when I shifted out of the way.
“We should step back,” Oren said. “You’re getting their attention.”
“Oren, I captured many of those spooks and stuck them into holding cells before they were to be sentenced.” I sucked in a quick breath, trying to stop my eyesight from blurring. “They’re not supposed to be anywhere near this building, and definitely not with access to this basement.”
“Expel all of them to their rightful place in Tartarus,” Henry’s voice echoed inside my head. I wasn’t sure if it was a memory, or if his spirit was nearby. Either way, did this mean Mace hadn’t just been storing the spook energy below the Tower, but somehow managed to open a pathway into Tartarus?
The wraith reached for me again, this time shooting past the opening to slam into me so hard I fell flat on the ground. Oren rushed to my side, but I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying because the spook had pierced my skin and energy was leaking from me. An orb floated near the wraith and was changing color. As soon as they collided, we were toast.
“Chant a protection incantation with me,” I yelled, sucking in the suddenly icy air. Hot and cold blended like toxic air inside this dungeon.
“What?”
“Take my hand and set up a protective barrier with me. Hurry!”
Oren didn’t hesitate and together we created a safety enclosure just as the two spooks smacked together and exploded. They faded into colorful smithereens and both of us were sent flying across the room, but the incantation held until we released it.
“What just happened?” Lavie ran to us, helping us to our feet. She was covered in blue, glowing blood.
“That’s the first explosion,” I said. “How’s Roe doing? Has he got all the girls?”
He rushed up behind Lavie and said, “I’ve managed to separate twenty girls from the chairs, but another six were too far gone.”
I nodded, their loss stabbing me. Saving even that many was a great feat, if we could get them outside. “Get the catchers out of this building as fast as you can. You said you know how to get out, so take them.”
“What about you?” His eyes were glistening.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“But—”
“Don’t forget the plan.”
Roe sighed. “I’ll sneak them out the back exit, and will take them home.”
I didn’t bother asking how he planned to get so many weak and stunned girls home without a bus, but he could deal with it. “Oh, and take Lavie and Sally with you.”
“No way!” Lavie protested.
“Sierra, we’re staying,” Sally added.
I accepted their choice. There wasn’t enough time to argue. “Roe, please be careful.”
Roe hugged me quickly and ushered the girls past the obstacles and into the back of the room. Most of them stumbled
around on uneven footing, but were awake enough to keep moving.
Another wraith bolted into the room, spotted me and charged. I stumbled from the impact. “Shit, this is getting old, fast.” The wraith changed color and another orb bounced off it. This time we didn’t get the chance to protect ourselves from the detonation, and were sent flying into the brick wall. “I need to get inside and see if I can seal it off,” I said.
“That’s not going to work.” Oren shook his head while getting to his feet. “Those things will surround you and there’ll be no way to keep them from exploding on the wrong side.”
“But I have to do something. We can’t survive these blasts!” Especially since they would soon become more frequent and probably set off a chain reaction. Despite his professions of love, Mace lured me here knowing I would cause the explosion. “We don’t have long,” I said, thinking fast. “I need to let the wraiths surround me and attract the orbs. When they explode I’ll drag them into my dark patch and—”
Oren shook his head. “As clever as that sounds, I don’t think it will work.” He glanced at Sally. “I suggest you set off half a dozen of those things and take Lavie into the dark patch. Leave Sally and me to contain the explosion within the magical barrier.”
“What? No!” I couldn’t believe my ears. “No, that means…” I didn’t want to deal with what it meant. “I like my plan better.”
“Sierra”—Oren took both of my hands in his—“wasn’t the reason for coming here today to save innocent people from being hurt at the hands of this maniac?”
“Of course it was, but not at the expense of you and Sally!”
“There’s no other choice,” Sally interrupted.
“Aunty, you can’t be serious.”
Sally frowned. “Lavie, you and Sierra need to get out of this alive. You have to face the crazed sect and stop Jacinta. Oren and I are the only ones strong enough to manipulate and fuel sufficient magic to keep the explosion within this radius.”
“No!” I screamed. “I won’t let you sacrifice yourselves.” This was the reason they’d used only their blood and refused mine. Had they planned to do this all along?
A Stitch on Time: Sierra Fox, Book 5 Page 26
