James glared at his father. "I did what I damn well saw as my duty, sir! You forged your course, and I sure as hell forged mine!"
The Colonel looked pained. "And so you did, my son. But James, all that is over now. Put it behind you, it's time to move on!"
"I won't do that!" James raised an accusing finger at Joseph. "I will pursue this until that bastard and his spawn are finished, do you hear?"
"You cannot!"
"I will, damn you!" James turned and strode to where Mike lay slumped by the railings. He knelt and laid a hand on the man's shoulder. "This is my descendant!" James looked round at them, his lips twisted into a bitter smile. "He may not look like much, but I shall possess him and mold him. Through him I shall live again, and put right what was done to me." He shot a look of pure hatred at Joseph. "The Cloverdale name shall live again through the rightful heir!"
Martin sensed a surge of power pass through James into Mike. The burly ex-cop stirred and groaned, and rolled onto his back.
"You cannot do this!" the Colonel roared. "It is forbidden!"
James laughed out loud, a harsh bark of laughter that dripped with venom, and gave them a last, triumphant look. As Martin watched, horrified, James poured himself into Mike's body.
Mike stood up, his eyes rolling wildly. His thick lips moved as if unsure of how they should work. "Oh, damnation! I'd forgotten what this was like!"
"Martin! Listen to his voice!" Claudia stared at Mike. "It's James Covington's!"
Martin stepped back, drawing Claudia and Carla with him. "James has fully possessed Mike! He's no longer just a puppet; he is James Covington! Be prepared, this is going to get nasty!"
"Nasty!" Claudia gave him a look of disbelief. "Martin, one of these days, you're going to have to lose that Brit habit of understatement!"
"Yes, sir!" Suddenly, Mike was composed. His stocky form took on an air of studied nonchalance and he laughed at Martin. "Understatement is fine in its way, but this is hardly the appropriate time." He began to walk towards them with a slow, confident swagger. "I am going to get very nasty indeed with you meddlesome people!"
"I don't think so!" Martin retorted, and raised his hands.
He began to chant an old, old invocation, a ward against evil, letting his power feed into the words until they took shape in the air around him and the two women.
James paused, glared suspiciously, then came on. His swagger was gone; Martin could see he now looked more businesslike.
"You have power, it seems!" the spirit said through Mike's lips. "Yet I feel I am the stronger!"
He flicked a meaty hand and a bolt of energy seared the air. Martin felt it impact on his ward; it held. Time to counter-attack.
"Deep peace of the rolling wave to you! Deep peace of the flowing air to you!" he intoned.
"Peace, you…you maggot?" James roared, and unleashed another bolt. It slammed against the ward in a wash of coruscating light. "I. Do. Not. Want. Peace!"
"Deep peace of the quiet earth to you!" Martin responded, and focused on the flickering image of the spirit he saw within the man. "To you and your spirit forevermore!"
A bolt of blue light surged out of his fingers and struck Mike full on. The spirit of James shuddered under the assault, but rallied. "Nice try, human!" he said in a reedy whisper. "Now try this!"
Blackness poured out of his eyes and mouth, swept across the ground and surged around Martin, Claudia and Carla. Martin felt the icy chill of death in the black tide and shuddered.
* * * *
Claudia felt strange. A coldness touched her limbs and she flinched. Beside her Carla was moaning softly, her eyes glazed. Martin was standing stock still, facing the swaying figure of Mike Covington.
Then suddenly there were other people standing near. Figures in the garb of bygone days who had emerged from the cold bright air to take on a solid reality. Two women and two men. One man she didn't recognize, but the other…
"Captain Cloverdale?" she called.
The man turned his head and looked at her in surprise. "You can see us, Miss Mackenzie?"
Claire Cloverdale clasped his arm. "How can she not?" she said urgently. "Miss Mackenzie has a link to us both! Remember the night of the fire, dearest?"
Joseph Cloverdale blushed. "How could I forget that?"
"What's happening to Martin?" Claudia asked urgently.
"He's fighting my brother!" Joseph replied, glaring at James/Mike.
"Can't you help him?"
"We cannot!" the older man replied. "James is drawing on the power of his host's life and twisting it to his own dark usage!" The man's face twisted with anguish. "If that fool son of mine does not desist, he will kill young Martin and his host!"
Claudia could now see and feel the surge of powers slamming back and forth between Martin and the possessed form of Mike. She flinched and bit back a cry as Martin rocked under the impact.
"Isn't there anything I can do?" she cried.
"You also have power!" Claire Cloverdale said. "Lend it to your man! Give him your strength!"
"How?" Claudia clenched her fists and cried aloud as Martin rocked again, and sagged to one knee. James/Mike's face was set in a grin of anticipation more horrid than anything she had seen before.
"Let me inside you, and I will show how!" Claire said quickly, moving to her side. "Open your mind to me!"
Claudia stared at her, nonplussed. Then she remembered the night in the hotel room before the fire broke out. She remembered the essence, the feel of Claire Cloverdale's body and soul. The feel of a good soul; a warm and loving wife; a tender mother to be.
"Yes! Yes, that's it!"
And suddenly Claire Cloverdale was inside her, cohabitating her body, looking out through her eyes. Claudia felt her arms rise under Claire's compulsion, and watched, feeling oddly detached, as her hands spread themselves on Martin's back as he rose to his feet.
Like this! Claire's voice sounded in the halls of her mind.
* * * *
Martin was in deep trouble. His carefully gathered power had not reached a high enough level to take on James Cloverdale before the fight began. His ward was being punched full of holes; it was only a matter of time before it failed. And then, he, Claudia and Carla would be exposed to the full malice of the evil spirit.
Desperately he set aside a little power from the ether as he fought, trying to build it up, to husband it for an all-out assault on James when the ward went down. The look of triumph on the spirit's face was more than he could bear.
And it was James who stood more clearly in the mixed images of the man facing him. Mike was dying on his feet, his own life essence being drained at a phenomenal rate by the evil that rode him. Yet Martin suspected James would win long before his host collapsed. The malice emanating from the spirit was palpable.
The ward began to flicker and fail. A discharge of black-hearted power washed across Martin's face, making him shudder and gasp. Cold fingers seemed to rip into his flesh wherever the power touched, as if searching for his very soul.
It was time for that last assault. He reached for the power, his last reserve—and felt a sudden surge of wonderfully fresh and sparkling energy. The ward flared brightly, and easily deflected the attacks directed at him. Martin felt the solidity of it, and let his mind return briefly to the normal world. Claudia's hands pressed firmly against his back. Her breath was warm on the nape of his neck where she leaned close and her perfume hung in the air around him. Love and determination poured into him from her, bolstering him, building up the ward and turning the reserve into an overwhelming force that he shaped and hurled at James with no more than the will and a word.
James screamed and writhed in a halo of blue fire. Martin poured it on, uncaring about his defenses, beating the combined figure of human and spirit back, and back, until Mike was pressed against the railings. James' spirit began to separate from his host, torn from it like a rag, until it stood naked and helpless.
"Mercy!" it cried.
; "I'm not the one to ask, James!" Martin said through gritted teeth, and hurled his last bolt.
With a despairing shriek, James Covington's spirit was hurled away. It shot into a gathering darkness, a ragged, dwindling, pathetic gray figure, until the dark clouds of oblivion closed about it.
* * * *
Mike slumped to the ground and lay utterly inert. Carla seemed to snap out of whatever trance she'd been in since the combat with the spirit. Now she looked at the fallen man with a frown creasing her brow.
Joshua Cloverdale came up to stand beside Martin. He looked at the point in time and space where his son had departed the earth forever, and sighed, a deep, bone-weary sigh.
"I had such hopes of my boy, sir," he said to Martin, and gazed at him with tears in the corners of his eyes. "Never did I think it would come to this!"
"He still needs your prayers, Colonel," Martin replied, and gestured out over the rooftops. "Where he is now, he needs all the help he can get." He spread his hands, feeling helpless in the face of the elder ghost's palpable misery. "I'm only sorry I had to do it."
Joshua Cloverdale looked at Martin, and nodded his fine gray-whiskered head heavily. "You did what had to be done. It is over, sir," he pronounced, then turned away and faded into nothing.
Joseph watched him go. A weary smile tugged at his lips as Martin turned to him.
"It's not quite over, Father," Joseph murmured and looked at Martin. "Mr. Grey?" He saluted. "I'm mightily obliged to you, sir, for all you've done. My wife, daughter and I much appreciate it."
He pointed at Carla, who had walked slowly over to kneel beside Mike. As they watched, she bent forward and drew out something which shone like the sun. "There is the Cloverdale necklace," Joseph said, and gestured to Carla. "I know our great-great-granddaughter will put it to good use. As for ourselves," he went on, looking around at his wife and daughter, "I think we'll be getting along. Goodbye to you, sir." He smiled at Anna-Grace. "We have much to catch up on, my dear. Come."
The ghosts of the hotel faded into nothing, leaving Martin and Claudia standing amidst the swirling winds. Martin held out his arms, and Claudia cuddled close.
"You were wonderful, Martin!" she said.
"I couldn't have done it without you, love," he said earnestly, and, brushing the hair back from her face, he kissed her deeply.
When they came up for air, she gave him a smile. "Oh, I had a little help from an old friend. I was in Claire's body at the first, it was only right she should try mine for size." She shivered; Martin held her against him. "But from now on, the only other person I want inside me is you!"
"Hey, guys!" Carla called, walking toward them. She held up the necklace, and a look of awe came over her face. "See this?" She held the necklace up and let the fine golden chains and set rubies run from one palm to the other. "It must be worth a fortune!"
Martin looked at her and felt his face grow warm. In the sheer pleasure of holding Claudia, he had forgotten Carla was there. "It's all yours, Carla," he said, winking at Claudia. "I think you'll find your uncle will tell you why later."
"What? Mine?" The young woman stared at him open-mouthed.
"Yep, the necklace is yours," Claudia told her firmly. "Now put it away somewhere before the cops get here. It may be difficult to explain why you've got it."
"We'd better take care of Mike," Martin said. "The police will want him for questioning."
Claudia looked around. "Say, where is Mike?"
Martin looked around at the railings. "Damn! Where did he go?"
Something clattered over on the other side of the roof and a faint cry rose in the air.
"Over there!" Claudia pointed.
They ran across, dodging the decrepit debris of the roof garden, until they reached the side bordering the neighboring building. A wide gap yawned between the hotel and the property next door. A deep and hungry void lay below them as they leaned carefully forward to look. The railings here were rusty; three had broken away recently, leaving small nubs of silver metal amongst the red on the stumps.
As they leaned forward, Mike Covington stared back up at them, his hands two white knots of straining muscle as he held on desperately to the railings. His feet kicked in the air as he made futile attempts to gain a foothold. On the ground far below lay the plank he had attempted to use as a bridge to the other building. Two cops appeared in the alley, guns drawn, their figures tiny and foreshortened.
"Up here!" Martin called to them and waved.
Claudia gave a gasp and pressed her hands to her mouth as one of Mike's hands slipped, leaving him dangling by one arm.
Martin reached down, clamped his hand about the man's wrist, and pulled him up, muscles and sinews straining.
"Oh no!" he said, grunting with the effort of lifting the burly man. "There'll be no more ghosts haunting this hotel!"
The End
About the Author:
A native of the County of Norfolk, England, Adrian (44) attended a school in a village right on the North Sea coast before moving on to further studies at college and university. After an early career in the leisure/tourism industry, he worked in the Inland Revenue and local government, before starting his own courier business.
His hobbies include history and archaeology, science and technology, and he has traveled in Britain, the USA, Canada, Hungary and France. He lives within a stone's throw of the beach with his two adorable dogs, Ellie and Suzy.
Mr. Grey and the Hotel Ghosts Page 14
