To Stop a Shadow

by Carrie Pulkinen

  Trent stepped toward her and took her hand, but he stumbled. She caught him around the waist before he could hit the floor.

  Logan clutched his shoulder. “I guess you need that shield now, my friend.”

  Trent let his breath out in a huff. “I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not.” Tina’s throat thickened. “It’s already affecting you. There has to be another way.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door.

  He held his ground while Logan’s grip on his shoulder remained. “There is no other way.” He tugged her to his chest. “We’ll do this together.”

  “Okay.” She pinned Logan with a hard stare. “Don’t let him go.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Lamps are burning and so is daylight,” Gage called from the top of the stairs. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “He’s right.” Allison started up the stairs. “If it’s already getting to Trent, we need to move fast.”

  Dread turned Tina’s blood to ice, but she followed her friend, with Trent and Logan right behind.

  “I think you can let me go now, man,” Trent said as he slipped his hand into Tina’s.

  “Physical contact makes it easier for me to share the shield,” Logan said. “So, I’m either going to hold your shoulder or hold your other hand. Your choice.”

  The pressure in the house seemed to thicken the closer they got to the top of the stairs. Nausea churned in Tina’s stomach as she forced herself to place one foot above the other. “Any way you can shield all of us?” Her voice cracked with nervousness.

  Logan shook his head. “I’m not even an expert at shielding myself. Shit still slips through sometimes.”

  “That’s reassuring.” Tina stopped outside the door and squeezed Trent’s hand.

  “He has more control over his ability than he realizes,” Allison said. “And he’s getting stronger every day. I’ve never met anyone who could extend his personal protection to another person.”

  Allison crept into the room and motioned for the others to join her. Tina stuck close by Trent’s side, her leg muscles tightening, involuntarily preparing to bolt at the first sign of trouble, until she spotted her boot lying in the corner.

  Scratch marks were etched into the leather, and the heel had broken off. She gritted her teeth as the heat of anger flushed through her body. “Bastard. I didn’t know it had claws.”

  “I’m sure it can do worse, and I don’t want to waste time getting to know it.” Allison poured a ring of salt around them all. “This is a circle of protection. Nothing may harm us inside this circle.”

  Static electricity built in the air, and a pounding formed in Tina’s head. Something told her a simple ring of salt wouldn’t do much good against a soul-trapping demon. “Do you think the shadow plays by the rules?”

  Allison set the salt container on the floor. “Probably not, but it’s worth a try.”

  Gage handed everyone a paper with the incantation, and they all recited the words. Halfway through the first recitation, the floor began to rumble beneath Tina’s feet. Negative energy buzzed in the air, and, though the walls didn’t move, she couldn’t shake the sensation they were closing in around her. The pounding in her head grew harder. Harder. Until it felt like her brain would bust through her skull.

  She clutched her head with one hand and tried desperately to focus on the words swimming on the page before her. The room seemed to spin as she glanced at each of her friends. The strained looks on their faces said they felt the effects too. “It knows what we’re doing.”

  Allison touched her elbow. “Finish the incantation.”

  Tina forced the words through her tightening throat to finish the first chant with the others.

  An emptiness formed in the center of the portal. Hollow. Magnetic. If she threw herself into it now, would the skull-splitting pounding in her head stop? Could she end the torment by sacrificing herself to the shadow? If she gave in…if she let it take her, maybe her friends would be safe. She leaned toward the gateway.

  “Don’t even think about it.” Allison tightened her grip on Tina’s hand, and a pulse of energy shot through her arm, slamming into her chest.

  Tina shook herself, coming out of the trance and planting her feet firmly on the floor. “Thanks, Allie.”

  They started the second incantation, and the first light in the corner shattered. The shadow billowed in the small strip of darkness, its tendrils reaching out toward the light, only to be jerked back again as soon as it touched it.

  Allison’s eyes grew wide. “The spirits are here. Oh, God, it’s tormenting them.”

  Flashes of images appeared to Tina. Fractions of seconds gave her glimpses of the ghosts howling in pain. “Don’t listen to them. Don’t listen to them, Allie.”

  Allison squeezed her eyes shut and clutched her head. “He won’t stop hurting them. He wants them all. They say… No…oh, God. I see Jack with the shadow. If we give him Trent, he’ll get to see Lucy and Emily again. He can’t see them now. The shadow’s keeping them apart. It’s…” She dropped to her knees. “Stop. Please stop screaming.”

  Tina’s heart wrenched at the pain in her best friend’s eyes. She was helpless against Allison’s visions. What could she do?

  “Allison.” Logan knelt, clutching her to his chest. “Don’t channel, baby. Block them out. Let’s finish the incantation.”

  “Oh, shit.” Trent’s knees buckled beneath him.

  Tina caught him by the arm and lowered him to the ground. His entire body fell limp, but his eyes remained open. “Trent! Talk to me. Are you okay?”

  No response.

  “Trent!”

  The shadow demon churned in the corner. Trent stared emptily at the ceiling.

  Tina held his face in her hands. “Please say something, baby.”

  “Is he breathing?” Gage dropped to his knees and rested a hand on Trent’s chest. “He’s alive. Who’s got the blade?”

  “Here.” Logan slid a razor blade across the floor.

  Gage picked it up. “We need to finish the incantation.”

  “We need to get Trent out of here.” She looped her arms beneath his and started to tug him toward the door.

  “We need his blood first.” Gage grabbed Trent’s hand and dug the blade into his flesh. Thick, red liquid pooled on the cut and oozed across his palm.

  The room spun. Tina’s vision tunneled, and her stomach lurched. She stumbled to her knees. Dear lord, this was it.

  They’d lost.

  Allison pinched her hard on the back of the arm.

  “Ouch!” Tina blinked. The room stilled.

  “You are not passing out on us now.” Tears filled Allison’s blood-shot eyes as she rose to her feet and handed Tina the paper. “Read.”

  Tina held Trent’s good hand and turned away from the blood to read the third and final repetition of the incantation. The emptiness in the portal expanded like a vacuum, sucking the static energy into its center. All the air in the room seemed to go with it. She couldn’t breathe.

  Gage counted, “One…two…three drops of blood from the Austin bloodline. That should do it.” He dropped Trent’s hand and rose to his feet. “So why is nothing happening?”

  “And why is Trent still not moving?” Logan scooped him into his arms and started toward the door.

  “Wait.” Tina tightened her grip on Trent’s hand.

  The floorboards rumbled. The vacuum reversed, flooding the room with an electric charge so thick and heavy, she could hardly move. The pressure intensified until her ears rang and her skin buzzed. The single darkened corner grew darker. The shadow began to reform.

  It didn’t work. The portal didn’t seal.

  Tina shot to her feet.

  Three drops from an Austin. From the bloodline of the person who opened the portal. That should have sealed it.

  She clutched her pounding head.

  But an Austin didn’t open the portal. Bertha did. And she was only an Austin by ma
rriage.

  “We need to get him out of here.” Logan moved toward the door.

  “Wait.” She grabbed his elbow. “We need to do the incantation one more time.” And pray she’d be able to accomplish what she was about to do.

  “His blood didn’t work,” Allison said. “We need to get him away from the shadow’s influence.”

  “His blood didn’t work because it’s not his blood that we need. It’s mine.”

  “Of course.” Allison picked up the razor blade. “If Bertha didn’t have any more children after Mabel, then Trent is only related to her by marriage.”

  She swallowed the grapefruit-sized lump in her throat. “And I am Bertha. I have her soul.”

  “One more time. Quick,” Logan said. And they all recited the chant.

  The shadow fought, the push and pull of energy in the air creating a dizzying, nauseating effect. Tina needed to spill her blood on the portal and end this before everyone blacked out.

  Allison held up the razor. “Do you need me to do it?”

  Tina took the blade. “If Bertha did it all herself, I should too.” She held her arm over the portal and squeezed her eyes shut. As she pressed the edge against her hand, sharp pain sliced through her palm, and something warm rolled across her skin. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

  “And three,” Allison said.

  The hollowness in the center of the room expanded, making the entire chamber feel like a void. A pulse of energy rippled out from the portal. Every light in the room exploded into a shower of sparks.

  “Into the hallway,” someone shouted, and Tina felt herself being tugged into the light. Logan lay Trent on the rug and pressed a cloth against his hand. A burning sensation drew Tina’s attention to her own hand. A trail of bright red blood oozed from her palm to her wrist.

  Her stomach lurched. The room tipped on its side.

  * * *

  Trent lay there, staring at the ceiling, as his friends bustled around him. He’d heard everything that went on in the attic, but his paralyzed view of the rafters above gave him no visual clues to whether or not they’d won. Had they defeated the shadow? Or were they in the hall because the monster still churned in the darkness?

  “Oh, Tina,” Allison said. “Therapy works wonders for problems like this.” Her voice sounded calm. Almost amused, without a hint of panic. Her shoes made a shuffling sound on the carpet as she approached him. She hovered her hands above his head, and a warm, liquid melting sensation spread through his skull.

  He squeezed his hands into fists and released them. He wiggled his toes and bent his knees. Allison’s face appeared above his, and she smiled. “The energy block in your head is gone. Can you get up?”

  “Yeah.” He pushed himself into a sitting position. Logan knelt beside Tina, taping a bandage to her hand. Gage moved in and out of the room, carrying his lights and equipment and arranging it into a bag, grumbling something about how much lantern bulbs cost.

  “This is a liquid bandage.” Allison reached for his hand. “It will sting a little, but it’ll stop the bleeding faster.”

  He winced as she applied the liquid to his skin with a tiny brush. Tina still sat with her back to him. She hadn’t spoken his name. Hadn’t so much as cast a glance his way. Was she disappointed in him for collapsing? Had she finally decided his illness was too much of a weakness?

  Allison taped a bandage over his sealed wound and leaned toward his ear. “She has her back to you because she’s afraid she’ll pass out again if she sees the blood on your hand.”

  “Oh.” The tightness in his chest released.

  “Sorry.” Allison rose to her feet. “I’m not trying to read you, but my nerves are kind of raw right now.”

  “It’s okay.” He stood and examined the bandage on his hand. Not a trace of blood remained.

  Allison stepped to Logan and slid her arm around his waist. “It’s all cleaned up, Tina. I think you’re safe.”

  Tina scrambled to her feet and raced toward him. He caught her in his arms as she slammed into his chest and showered his face in kisses. She laughed and draped her arms over his shoulders. “We did it. Do you feel that? It’s gone. Close your eyes. Can you feel the energy?”

  He closed his eyes and focused on the air around him. If there was some magical energy floating in the atmosphere, he was oblivious to it. “I don’t feel anything.”

  “Exactly.” She rested her head on his shoulder, pressing her body to his and holding him tight.

  His mind flashed back to the first time they’d embraced in this hallway, after Tina’s encounter with the shadow. She’d felt so right in arms then. She felt even more so now. His strong, independent woman had stopped a shadow demon from stealing his soul. She’d saved his life. And his afterlife.

  “What about the ghosts?” Gage zipped his bag and set it near the stairs. “Did they jet when the demon left?”

  “Some of them did,” Allison said. “Do you have my crystal?”

  Gage rummaged through his bag and pulled out the egg-shaped stone.

  “Some of them are going to need our help. I can do it on my own, but it would be easier if we all did it together.”

  “Wait,” Tina said. “We’re going to open another portal?”

  “This one will be exit only,” Allison said. “But there are a lot of ghosts, and I could use some grounding energy.”

  Tina clung to Trent’s arm as they crept back into the room. No electric buzzing in the air greeted them. His arm hairs didn’t stand on end. The walls didn’t feel as if they were closing in. Instead, the room felt like…a room.

  Tina relaxed her grip and let out a slow breath. “This room feels so normal. Normal in here feels weird.”

  Allison set the crystal on the floor by the wall and motioned for them all to join her. Trent stood between the women, holding each of their hands to complete the circle. “Don’t we need salt?”

  “These spirits are anxious to leave. I don’t think they’re going to cause us any problems.” Allison took a deep breath and stared at the wall. “Everyone focus on the crystal and imagine a white light coming down from the sky. This is a portal to the other side. Any spirits still residing in this house should step into the light and cross over.”

  Tina gasped. “I see them. Do you see them?”

  Trent looked at the wall. He could imagine the light around the crystal, but he didn’t actually see it. He didn’t see anything but a rock and a wall. He shook his head.

  “There’s your Aunt Lucy,” Tina said. “She’s waving. Oh! And she has her hand back.”

  “She wants to thank you both,” Allison said. “She’s sorry about scaring you with the coat rack. Since neither of you could see her in the beginning, it was the only way she knew to communicate.”

  Trent chuckled. At least it wasn’t all in his imagination. “I thought I was going crazy there for a while. No worries, though. I’m glad we could finally help.”

  “Jack is here too,” Allison said.

  He gritted his teeth as anger burned in his gut. The man had been out to get him his entire life. He’d almost succeeded. “Tell him to get his ass into the light and never come back.”

  “He wants to apologize. And he says he hopes that one day you’ll love someone enough to understand why he did what he did.”

  The anger in his chest cooled to a mild disdain. He wanted to think that, if faced with the same circumstances, he’d make better decisions and not endanger other people. But he could definitely empathize with the man. He squeezed Tina’s hand. “I already do.”

  He stood there for a while longer, watching Allison, Tina, and Logan looking in the direction of the wall, their eyes focusing on something…but nothing he could see. He gazed at the woman he loved, in awe of her newfound ability. “Can you really see them all?”

  “In flashes. They come in and out, but yes. I see them. I thought it would be scary, but it’s actually amazing.”

  Gage chuckled. “Don’t feel bad. I
can’t see a thing either. I can show you how the equipment works. Sometimes that’s just as cool.”

  “That’s all of them.” Allison released his hand. “And you’re very grounded, Trent. If Tina ever decides to explore her ability, she’ll need you.”

  Tina kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll always need you.”

  He pulled his woman into a tight hug and looked over her shoulder at Allison. “So that’s it? The house is clean? I can sell it now?”

  “I’ll do a general energy cleanse in each room, just to be sure. But I’m confident you won’t be having any more trouble with spirits or shadow demons. Right, Gage?”

  “According to my research, the portal disappears after a blood ritual like that. I think you’re good to go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “I had no idea you were such a good cook.” Tina put the last of their dinner dishes in Trent’s new stainless steel dishwasher and closed the door. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used her own stove. Most of the meals she ate in her apartment were either microwave or take out.

  “It’s not hard to master the BLT.” He put the frying pan away and dried his hands on a pale-yellow dish towel. “Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, Bread.” He shrugged.

  “But you do it with such style.”

  He tossed the towel onto his shoulder. “I felt like I needed to reclaim my kitchen. I started the fire cooking bacon…”

  “So naturally, bacon had to be the first thing you cooked when it was rebuilt.”

  He winked. “Naturally.”

  She took the towel from his shoulder and hung it on a steel hook next to the extra-deep, sparkling porcelain sink. Pale yellow and slate gray tiles formed an alternating pattern on the backsplash that accented the granite countertops perfectly. “You’ll have to give me the number of the contractor you used. They did an amazing job. Probably added ten grand onto the resale value.”

  He grinned and grabbed her ass, pulling her hips to his. “That’s good to know.” He lowered his lips to hers, kissing her long and deep. Goose bumps rose on her skin as he glided his fingers along her bare arms to slip them into her hair. “Speaking of reclaiming things…does all that burning sage and meditating that Allison did in the house really work? All the old energy is gone?”