by Alexie Aaron
“I don’t know for sure, but it’s as good a guess as any.” Mia picked up the book and sat down at the table, oblivious to the skulls on it.
Ted looked fondly at the macabre image of his fiancée sitting amongst the bones. Her power of concentration was amazing. “Watcha doing, Minne Mouse?”
“Looking for a recipe,” she said as she flipped through the pages. She stopped, drew out a watch chain from a small envelope tucked under a blue ribbon from the Illinois State Fair. “I think I found what the coach used to find Deville’s bones. It would have been personal enough. How he got it was probably a little sleight of hand at the historical society, I imagine.”
Burt looked over her shoulder at Emma’s book. “I seem to remember reading about protective spells involving weapon, bone and time. See if there is a spell involving those three things,” Burt requested.
Mia flipped through the book, running her gloved hand up and down the pages, looking under items pasted in. She stopped and smiled as she asked, “How about a way to keep sparrows out of the strawberry patch?”
“Sparrows were linked to bringing souls from heaven,” Burt said. “Could she not have adapted a soul-barring hex into use in her garden?”
“Are there any more with those, ah, ingredients?” Cid asked as he picked up one of the skulls.
“Damn, here it is. It’s an Aztec conjure for drawing power from the four winds. It’s almost identical but adds one more ingredient.” Mia frowned as she informed them, “Sacrifice.”
“Where was the coach found?” Burt asked Audrey.
“He was hanging from the rafters in the back of the gym,” she answered.
“That’s in the south of the building. The weapon was found in the west. We put his skeleton together on the north side of the school. That means somewhere inside or out in the east is…”
Mia picked up the chain, dangled it and said, “His watch.”
Mike, who had been quiet listening, spoke up, “Let me get this straight. Deville, as he placed his, let’s say materials, to draw power, inadvertently placed items that would keep souls out or in?”
“Lucky bastard,” Mia said. “I wondered, why trouble with infusing the air with salt if he had already hexed the building to keep souls out?”
“Don’t ghosts have souls?” argued Cid.
“They are souls. Sparrows are reported to bring the souls of the dead to heaven,” Burt explained. “Mia’s soul when she is OOBing may have similar physics. Ira too.”
“We removed the rifle. Why don’t you try to get in?” Ted asked Mia.
Mia nodded and slumped back in her seat. She pulled upwards and nodded over at Murphy who was holding out his hand.
They walked together to the building, and Murphy took a step through the wall. Mia tried to follow. She hit a barrier and was repelled. She walked over to the door on the west side of the building and tried again. She again met with an invisible wall of some kind. She moved with super speed and tried every opening she could find. There was no way for her to move into the building. Reluctantly she returned to her body.
She opened her eyes and sat up. “Sorry, I still can’t get in.”
“There are still two other items in play,” Audrey pointed out.
“So if we find one…” Ted looked over at Mia hopefully.
“Two,” she corrected.
“Two of the items, the watch and bones from the power spell and move them…”
“Then she can get in, and Ira can get out,” Audrey said and continued, “If we find the sacrifice, we can take Deville’s power…”
“And set the coach’s soul free,” Mia answered. “In theory,” she added.
“The sacrifice was the coach, but he was buried in the churchyard, I assure you,” Audrey said.
“Sometimes an object of the victim can be as powerful as the corpse,” Mia mentioned. “It would have to be something important to him as a man or as a coach.”
Ted’s face lit up, and he turned to Cid. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“If it’s that Mike is losing his hair, then yes,” Cid teased.
“Hey, I am not!” Mike argued.
Mia started laughing. She tried to talk, but it was impossible; the look on the handsome man’s face was pure horror.
“Okay, I seem to have asked the wrong person. Burt, what do you remember about our gym experience?” Ted asked.
“Besides the torture of running, jumping and climbing?”
“Yes.”
“The effing whistle…”
Cid and Mike both agreed.
“The whistle, it could be somewhere in that gymnasium. It would probably be someplace hard to get to, so no one would take it,” Mia said.
“It’s in the rafters,” Ted offered. “Maybe on a beam. Perhaps in the same spot the coach hung himself.”
“Makes sense to me,” Mia confirmed. “So the last time you saw the bones they were where?”
“Room 252,” Burt answered. “Deville could have moved them,” he warned.
“Yes, but not far. They have to be in the north quadrant of this school property in order for Deville to continually draw power from them. We have cameras on the outside. We would have seen if the bones made it outside. They are tangible, they would have been seen,” Mia assured them.
“We just need to locate the watch,” Burt said. “A pocket watch is small. It could be anywhere in the east side of that building, upstairs, downstairs, basement,” he listed.
“According to this spell - a wonderful adaptation by Emma Peat – ‘call upon the east wind while the timepiece ticks.’ In her notes she used a battery-operated Casio watch. The Aztecs would have used a sundial. Both didn’t need…”
“Winding,” Mike blurted out. “He has to wind the watch every day or it will stop working. People who have this type of timepiece wind it at the same time every day. “So we need to send in a spy to lurk around the east side of the building and watch where he goes.”
The sound of metal on concrete announced that Murphy had volunteered. Mia turned around and was pleased to see him there.
“You wouldn’t have to stay there all the time. Ask Shelby if he or his men would spell you,” Mia suggested.
Murphy nodded, indicating he’d already thought of that. He turned to go but stopped. He pointed to the edge of the woods.
Mia and Ted whirled around to see the Callen brothers approaching with Dave and Richie in tow.
Chapter Twenty-six
Dave nodded at Murphy as he approached. “We came to see if we could help. The others are too freaked out,” he explained.
“Before you ask, yes, their mothers know where they are. I promised to have them home by ten,” Patrick informed them. “Thought you could use another set of eyes and some muscle. Mason’s just along for the ride.”
“Hey now!” Mason complained.
“Cid and I could use the help. Neither of us has had much sleep in the last few days. We’re seeing double and talking gibberish,” Ted admitted.
“Gibberish? Isn’t that an elfin tongue?” Mia asked.
Ted face broke out in a wide smile as he gazed upon his love. “Yes, a dialect reserved for the tallest of us.”
Cid guffawed and waved Mason and Dave over. “I expect you two remember the rules?”
“Eyes open and mouths shut,” Mason droned.
“Bright lad, my brother,” Patrick commented. “Now why don’t you put us to work? Richie here has some experience with bones. I see you have an assortment from which he can choose.”
“I wouldn’t expect a forensic pathologist to be able to sort this lot out. But if he wants to return the skulls gently to the sea chest, it would be helpful,” Mia assured him.
Richie’s face betrayed nothing. His hands however were trembling. Patrick followed Mike and Burt to the command truck. Mia took this opportunity to talk to Richie, “You don’t have to touch them.” She got to her feet and gently took the trembling skull from his hands. “This here
was once a person who had dreams of glory and honor. He left his family to preserve something he believed in. The spirit of the man is in there right now protecting Ira Levisohn. Even in death there is honor.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Many people think of remains as dirty or cursed. My parent’s livelihood comes from examining the places in which old bones are found. I think sometimes they forget that each one has more than a story behind it but a memory,” Mia said calmly as she laid the skull into the chest. “For right now, we will just place the skulls here. I don’t think we need to do more at this time.” She reached into the chest and picked up a scrap of cloth. She looked at it for a moment before putting it in her pocket. Mia lowered the lid of the chest and locked it.
“Mia, tell me about that thing in the school.” Richie clenched his fists before speaking, “It was a monster that tossed us around as if we were garbage but was smart enough to know the answers to the puzzles and the tests he forced us to take.”
“Richie, I think you could tell me more about him than I you. Let’s see if we can pool our information with Audrey’s and come up with a picture.” Mia encouraged the youth to sit down.
Audrey slid a pad of paper and pencil in his direction. She smiled kindly at the sensitive approach Mia was taking. It was in sharp contrast to how she dealt with Dave, two boys living the same experience but with entirely different ways of coping with the horrors.
“We think that there are two spirits bound together. There is a strong working theory that Stewart King, the coach of the Clinton Cougars, suffered a mental breakdown. It’s quite possible the impact of the poison he breathed everyday destroyed his rational mind. He felt pressure to win trophies for his administrator and sought out a way to bring this about.”
“This poison, what was it?”
“Mercury…” Audrey said and proceeded to tell Richie all about the EPA findings and history of others driven mad by the metal.
When she had finished, Richie asked, “Didn’t anyone see what was happening to him?”
“Sometimes adults turn a blind eye to what is right before their faces,” Audrey answered. “No one would have suspected the gym floor acting as a catalyst.”
“That’s sad,” he said. “But why did he kill himself?”
“It’s a good question. Did he kill himself or was he possessed by the other spirit, Deville…”
“Deville?”
“We’ll get to him in a moment,” Mia assured him. “I think that Coach King dug up the bones of Deville. Perhaps they were mingled in with these others so he took them all. He used the finding spell to separate out Deville’s bones and brought Deville’s spirit back to help him with information the coach needed to know about for casting the spells that would improve his team’s chances at the meets and competitions. Deville, we have found, was a practitioner of the black arts. I think he took over the coach - remember King’s mind was already weak – and then used him to become more powerful by destroying him.”
Richie shuddered. “So the man testing us mentally was Deville. The puzzles were difficult but solvable once we set our combined minds to them,” Richie told the women. “The physical tests and, I think, the psychological exam were the coach. I can see now that there were two different approaches to the tests. But why test us?”
“To find the next mind and body for Deville to occupy and perhaps a spare for his brother,” Mia answered.
“Why do it that way? Why play with us like a cat does with a mouse?”
“Deranged minds and temperaments don’t change after death, at least not in this man. If history is to be believed, he was arrested after he tortured and murdered an entire family.”
“You said something about his brother?”
Audrey went over the evidence they found of the group of soldiers and the suspected betrayal by Andrew Morgan, Deville’s half-brother.
“So there are two of them looking to possess us.”
“I think I weakened Andrew with the rock salt blast. I don’t think he has recovered. Deville, on the other hand, is up and running on three quarters power,” Mia told him.
Richie swallowed hard. “Who does Deville want?”
“Ira overheard the brothers talking, and we’ve determined that it’s Ted and possibly you or John for his brother,” Mia said, putting a hand on Richie’s arm. “But Andrew messed up and got himself shot. I wouldn’t be worried about him at this point.”
“Why did Deville go after Cid then?”
“I don’t know, maybe to use as a hostage? Or maybe decided he was good enough?” Mia shrugged. “I don’t really know.”
“What can I tell you that you don’t already know?” Richie asked.
“You’re the only one that is here now who was in that hellish building before PEEPs arrived. Mason was barely conscious, Dave was outside. You witnessed things, small things, that may help us to understand what we are up against,” Mia insisted.
Richie sat back, closed his eyes and began to speak, “After Dave was thrown out, we didn’t dare leave our seats. Mason kept spouting off, and each time he was dragged from his chair and beaten. It reminded me of the way Manny died. Brutal unseen hands. When Mason shut up, or was no longer awake, the door opened, and we were let free…”
“How long were you in the first room?” Mia asked.
“We were in the first room for an hour, two at most.”
Audrey put the diary down and watched as Richie recounted the stress of the situation, the forced compliance and the fear when they were presented with the first test.
“When we left the room, we took turns carrying Mason. We tried doors and pulled at the metal gates until we found a door that would open for us. Inside the room’s walls were mostly blackboards. Above them were multiplication tables, conversions for the metric system and basic algebra formulas.”
“The men weren’t in this room,” Mia told him. Take your time and tell me everything you remember,” she encouraged.
“I got a sinking feeling that this was a math room. Troy was pretty high at the time. He picked up a piece of chalk and began writing profanity on one of the boards. Chuck warned him to stop, but the kid is a loose cannon. It wasn’t long before we all paid the price for his graffiti. The lights went out, and I felt a chill as the room got really cold. I’m not talking chilly, I’m talking walk-in freezer cold. My lungs burned as I fought for air. I remember sinking to my knees and then nothing. I must have passed out. When I woke up, I was sitting in one of those desk-chairs. The others were also sitting in the chairs. We were facing the front of the room. On the board was written, ‘For each rule broken, one of you will die.’”
“Josh asked, ‘What rules?’ I cringed, expecting more punishments, but instead a piece of chalk rose from the sill of the board. I figured it was being controlled by the thing that beat up Mason, the ghost. It began writing on the board. We only could see the movement of the chalk. Lines of behavioral rules similar to the first room were written. Halfway through a sentence the writing stopped. The chalk was returned to the sill. The door flew open and closed and all was silent for, I don’t know, five minutes or so, and then the door slams open and closed again and the chalk resumes writing.”
“When was this, what time?” Mia asked him, excited. She looked over at Audrey and met her eyes.
“There was a functioning school clock over the board, I remember looking at it and thinking as the chalk began screeching, writing those hellish instructions on the blackboard, that considering the company I was with, there would be no abiding by the rules, and I was going to die at eleven fifty-five, the same time that Manny died.”
“Was it eleven fifty-five in the morning or night?” Mia asked.
“I don’t know. Wait. Let me think,” Richie pleaded.
The women watched as the young man worked out something with his fingers. “Night. Almost midnight,” he answered finally. “Why?”
“Excuse me a moment.” Mia got up and ran ov
er to the entrance of the command center.
“Hello, look who’s here, Minnie Mouse, and she’s out of breath. Everything okay, dear?” Ted asked.
Mia quickly explained that she had important information she just learned from Richie. She told Ted about the math room incident.
Ted walked over as she was talking and climbed out of the truck. “You’re thinking he went to wind the watch, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes, why else would he leave? Dave was no threat, and we weren’t here yet. I’ve got to get this information to Murphy. Have you seen him?”
“Would he be that handsome fellow with the devil-may-care attitude leaning against the van, eavesdropping on Mike, Burt and Patrick?”
Mia turned in that direction and smiled. “I think it is. He looks like he’s up to something.” Dave and Mason, who were listening in on Mia’s revelation, moved to where they could see the trio of men. Cid continued to fuss with his project on the table, oblivious to the four of them.
Murphy raised his axe and let it drop hard beside them. The resounding crack made all of them jump.
Mike let loose with profanity, proving that he was fluent in several languages. Burt threatened Murphy with more curses, and Patrick brought down the Holy Mother’s damnation on the ghost.
Mia called over, “Gentlemen, we have children with big ears here. You mind watching your language? Murph, could I have a moment?” Mia asked sweetly, waving him over.
“If I ever catch sight of you, axe man, I’m going to teach…” Mike started to say but realized he didn’t stand a chance against the farmer and shut up.
Murphy’s face told Mia that he was damned pleased with himself.
“So this Murphy, he’s a bad ass, right?” Mason asked Dave.
“He’s not someone… something… hell… Don’t mess with him. He carries a blade that can fell a redwood with one swipe,” Dave exaggerated.
Mia let him get away with that, amusement dancing in her eyes.
Ted coughed, “Bullshit,” and walked over to tell the men what Mia found out from Richie.
“Deville may wind his watch at or around midnight,” Mia told Murphy. “Find out where it is, but don’t move it yet. We need to coordinate the removal of all the protections. That means finding the whistle and the bones too. Once they are gone, I can go in after Ira. Be careful. He can’t know what we are doing,” she warned.
