She complies with the grace of a kid told to wash the dinner dishes.
When the door is open and the spirits move freely again throughout the lab, I switch on my recorder. “You want to talk to them, Sophie?”
“Not particularly.”
“Fine.” I clear my throat. Talking to ghosts seems like talking to myself. I feel unusually self-conscious and theatrical, as if I should be speaking in Latin. Still, I get to my feet. “Hey, Phil. If you and your friends have something to say, we’d really like to hear it. We’re listening.”
The room goes weirdly quiet. All motion stops. With the goggles on I can see ghostly faces turning toward me, too many to count. I can’t make out individual features, don’t know which one belongs to Phil. The cold sets into my bones.
And then my walkie-talkie hums a warning, and Cathy’s voice comes through. “Maureen?”
“I’m busy.”
“Yes, well, what do you want me to do about the middle schoolers?”
“That’s been canceled.”
Silence.
“Cathy?”
“Um, they’re here.”
“Tell them to go away.”
“I sort of let them in.”
“You did what?”
“Mrs. Schrader insisted. She wants to talk to you. And there are kids—” Her voice cuts off sharply and another voice comes on. “Maureen Keslyn? What were you thinking? You can’t cancel same day. There are plans.”
“We have a ghost infestation. It’s not safe.”
“Right,” she says. “Nice try. Dinner at five.”
The walkie-talkie bursts into static, which grows louder and louder until the volume is painful. Jake covers his ears. I fiddle with the knob, trying to turn the accursed thing off, but the radio does not respond. It feels hot. A wisp of blue smoke drifts up out of it, visible in my flashlight beam, and then it makes a sizzling noise and goes completely silent.
“Well, that complicates things,” Jake says into the horrified silence.
“Permission to order in pizza?” Matt asks.
“You’d better. I don’t suppose they can make you pizza with turkey and dressing?”
“It’s four now. It will be a miracle if we can get plain cheese delivered by five. I’ll do what I can.”
“I don’t like this,” Sophie says. “I don’t like this at all.”
Chapter Thirteen
I don’t like it, either.
We need to stick together, or at least work in teams, but Matt has to do something about dinner, and Sophie insists on staying in the lab, attempting to make contact with the ghosts.
She performs her best eye roll, followed by a hair toss. “With all due respect, Maureen, I’m Buffy and you guys are the Scoobies. Who is going to protect whom?”
“What?” Jake says. “Translation?”
“CliffsNotes version—she’s the paranormal ass kicker and we’re the sidekicks,” I tell him. “Look, Soph, even Buffy needed help.”
“They’re not going to hurt me,” she insists. “Leave me a bag of salt, if you’re worried. If things get out of control, I’ll put myself inside a circle until you come to rescue me. Go on. You just stir them up.”
“Me? I stir them up?”
My radio isn’t dead after all. It squawks and squeals. Then Cathy’s voice comes again, tinny and far away. “It’s getting a little weird up here, Maureen.”
None of this bodes well, especially with a Manor full of kids.
“Sophie. Please come with us,” I say.
She shakes her head. “This is my life, Maureen. It’s what I do.”
“All right then. I’ll come check on you as soon as I can.” Matt is already out the door and running down the corridor. Jake stays with me, and I let him help me up the stairs. It goes against the grain, but there could be lives on the line.
An eerie howling sound echoes down the stairwell, mournful and disturbing enough to make me put on a burst of speed. It’s only the dog, Morpheus, sitting in the closet at the top of stairs, his muzzle pointed toward the ceiling.
He whimpers when he sees me, pressing his head against my knees.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “She’s fine.”
He’s clearly unconvinced, refusing to budge from his position, refusing as steadfastly to move an inch closer to the stairs.
Anubis, unsurprisingly, is nowhere to be seen.
We take time to load up with a few extra supplies. Holy water. My spare crucifix. A couple of stakes. Stakes are useless against ghosts, of course, but paranormal activity attracts other paranormal activity. Right now, the Manor is a blazing signal to any creatures within range.
“Ready?” I ask Jake.
He nods, and I unbolt the door.
I take one step and am almost mowed over by a wheelchair careening around the corner on two wheels. It’s occupied by a freckle-faced boy, screaming for his life, pushed by a hellion of a girl who is racing as fast as her skinny legs will move them.
Jake snatches me back from the path of destruction in the nick of time, and forgets to let me go when the danger has passed. His arms are around me, his strong hands holding me by the waist. His body feels warm and solid, dispelling the lingering spirit chill, and it’s oh-so-tempting to slip my arms around his waist and lean my head against his shoulder. My head tilts, all on its own, to look up into a pair of gray eyes as intent as a cat’s.
The expression on his face does something to my heart rate that the entire room full of ghosts failed to do. Before I can make the decision to pull away, a door whips open and a voice cries, “What is going on out here?”
Jake releases me and I swing around to confront Jill, who blinks at the two of us in confusion.
“I heard shouts. Wheels. Running.”
“Normal noises of a retirement home,” I tell her, but her eyes take in the pair of goggles perched on my head, the camera slung around my neck, the EDI device Jake is carrying. Just to be helpful, the lights in the hallway flicker on and off, and a ceiling tile loosens and almost hits her on the head.
She ducks and it crumbles at her feet.
“You’re on a ghost hunt!” she exclaims. “Like on TV. Let me help.”
“You’d be best to stay in your room with the door locked.”
Her eyes travel up to the ceiling and down to the broken tile. “I think I’m safer with you.”
“It’s not your safety I’m concerned about.”
“Oh, come on, Maureen. What am I going to do? You’ve confiscated all my weapons.”
She has a point. There’s also something to be said for keeping her in my line of sight.
“All right. But you stay with me, and do whatever I tell you. Clear?”
“Yes, ma’am!” She salutes, mocking me. Which is fine. She hasn’t seen anything yet.
“Can I wear the goggle things?”
I hand them over, and lead the way toward the stairs; there is no way I am setting foot inside an elevator during a spirit storm of this magnitude. The three of us trail down the hallway, Jill lollygagging behind as she takes in the sights through her ghost vision goggles. I feel the chill of a congregation of ghosts on the stairwell, but they leave us alone. Downstairs, things are not going so smoothly.
Matt is on the phone in the kitchen, his voice raised. “Yes, I know it’s outside your normal delivery area. I promise a hefty tip.”
The fluorescents are misbehaving. They flicker. Once, twice, three times. Then they go into a slow fade, dimming to almost dark before gradually growing brighter.
And brighter.
A loud buzzing worthy of a hive of angry bees fills the kitchen. An incandescent flare of white light blinds me. There’s a sizzle and a pop and then darkness.
“Hello?” Matt’s voice says from somewhere out of the dark. “Hello? Damn it. Phone’s dead.”
Once the light stops dancing in my eyes, I can see the small red glow of the instrument panel on the back of the stove. The green light on the coffee pot. Light
s on out in the hall. They’ve only blown out the kitchen fluorescents for some reason.
I turn on my flashlight. “You’ve already got my attention,” I say. “There’s no need for the drama.”
“Are you talking to me?” Jill asks. The ones I’m talking to say nothing.
“What do you want me to do?”
My flashlight beam illuminates Matt, standing in the middle of the room with the phone in his hand. “Try your cell,” I say.
“No dice. That was dead before the landline.”
“Are they sending the pizzas?”
“Not sure. There was some resistance.”
“Then somebody needs to go down there in person. And one of you needs to corral the Schrader woman. Because if I go talk to her right now, it’s not going to end well.”
“I’ll get the pizza,” Matt and Jake say simultaneously.
I roll my eyes, for all the good it does me, and play my light over the two of them while I make a decision. “Jake, you’ve less experience with the ghosties, so how about if you go after the pizza? Here. Take my credit card. Pay them whatever it takes. Matt, go charm the teacher. How bad can she really be?”
Jake makes a noise in his throat and makes his escape, clapping Matt on the shoulder in sympathy as he leaves.
“Right. Throw me to the wolves,” Matt complains. “Where do you think she’s at?”
“Beats me. If I see her, I’ll tackle her myself. Mission one is to keep the kids safe.”
“I’ll go with Matt,” Jill says, her voice as sultry as any B-movie actress about to be ravished by a ghost.
“No, you’ll stay with me. Go on, Matt. Try the talkie. If it doesn’t work, come find me. I’ll be running patrols.”
He salutes and heads toward the lobby. When I step out into the hallway, nothing seems out of order. The temperature is reasonable. The lights are on. One of the women from Table One is shuffling along with her walker. Her name is Nora, and she’s a kind, grandmotherly type, despite the legion of diamonds that always adorn her.
“Maureen dear, thank you so much for bringing in these children.” She gets hold of me with both of her cool, blue-veined hands. She smells of powder, and up close I can see it settled into the crinkles on her face like fine, white dust.
“I hardly know my own grandchildren. They would be, what, ten and twelve years old now? My son moved to Europe two years ago. He comes home for a visit once a year, but he never brings the children.”
She’s going to go on forever, and we don’t have that long. A shout from the vicinity of the games room tells me I don’t have time to be polite. Neither do I want to leave her wandering around the Manor untended.
“Let’s go see what the darlings are up to, shall we?”
“But I was going to my room to freshen up before dinner.”
More shouts. A shriek. Not all of the voices belong to the kids.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I lean in close to her ear. “Jill and I are both terrible with children. From the sounds of things, they need a little managing. Will you come and help us?”
Nora smiles at that. “Well, surely, dear. If I can be of assistance.”
Fortunately, she uses the walker mostly for balance and can move a little faster than a full shuffle. She also gives me an excuse for my own slower pace. Jill stays with us, walking in silence.
When we reach the door of the games room, I question my choices; I should have locked both women into a room and left them there.
Jill stops in her tracks.
“Merciful heavens,” Nora whispers, putting one hand to her heart.
I see nothing of either mercy or heaven in the scene that meets my eyes. A gaggle of kids and seniors huddle together under the shuffleboard table. The kids look excited and scared; the residents seem dazed. There’s a wheelchair in the middle of the room, lying on its side with one of the rear wheels spinning crazily. A dart, thrown by an unseen hand, whizzes through the air and strikes the target. Bull’s-eye.
One of the kids, seeing me, scrambles out from under the table. A resident grabs her and pulls her back, just as a shuffleboard disc levitates and then drops onto the spot where her head would have been.
That’s it. I’m pissed. I don’t need special glasses to see what’s going on here, but I pause to snap a few photos before going into avenger mode.
“I’m warning you,” I say, holding up my salt sprayer. “I’ll give you until the count of three.”
A dart zooms past my head, so close the feather brushes my cheek, and thunks into the wall.
I start turning the handle, spraying the room indiscriminately with salt.
The floating discs crash down onto table and floor. The darts follow. I wait. When everything stays quiet, I draw Nora into the room. She’s shaking, and I hope she’s not going to have a heart attack.
At my direction, Jill rights the wheelchair and we ease Nora into it.
“Kids, residents, stay put,” I say. “Anybody else, get out now. I’ve had enough.”
Eyes stare at me, like I’m the one responsible for the chaos, like I’ve performed a magic trick. Let them think what they want, as long as they stay safe.
Using the nozzle on the sprayer I paint a line of salt across the threshold of the doorway as I back out of the room. “Now, stay out. Leave the kids alone.”
“Wow!” Jill says, her eyes alight with excitement. “Is it always like this?”
“No. It’s generally very boring.”
The dining room is empty, except for Stanley, a grumpy old cuss who looks ready to stab somebody. “Hate kids,” he grumbles. “Was going to stay in my room, but my TV won’t work. Keeps turning on and off and changing channels. What the hell is all that about, I’d like to know. Probably the government. We need a new president. Goddamn politicians ruining this country.”
With the elevator out of commission, the only way up to the second floor is stairs. My leg is already dragging and on the edge of a full Charley-horse spasm, but I can’t baby it now.
Jill gets five steps ahead of me before she turns around to watch me haul myself up, one slow stair at a time, with the use of the handrail.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Let me help you,” she says, in the tone of a girl scout to an old lady crossing the street.
“Just stay out of my way,” I tell her, shaking off her hands.
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Well, don’t.”
She seems to get the point, stomping ahead of me and then waiting at the landing, arms crossed over her breasts and foot tapping. Raised voices are coming from the library, where a highly contentious Scrabble game is in process.
“I didn’t make that word.”
“Did too.”
“I did not. I don’t even know that word. What does it mean?”
“It’s quixotic.”
“Quicks what?”
“Comes from Don Quixote, meaning—”
“Who is Don Quixote?”
“A character in a book. One you should read.”
“There’s a word made up after some old dude in a book. I don’t—”
“Holy shit.”
“Watch your language, young lady.”
Somebody screams, then laughs to cover it up. “What kind of Scrabble game is this? I for sure didn’t make that word.”
Six chairs around the coffee table. Four kids, two residents. Val sits at the far end, peaceful, palms turned up, eyes closed. Dan, the man at the other end of the table, crosses himself. A slip of a girl, her long hair in tangles down her back, a ball cap pressed firmly on her head, leans forward, entranced.
“It’s like a Ouija board. Only we didn’t ask any questions.”
The Scrabble tiles are arranging themselves without the help of human hands. One at a time they slide off the trays, out of the storage bag, re-forming into words that have no connection to triple point squares or intersection with other words.
“My mom will have kittens,” one of the boys says. �
�I’m not even allowed to watch horror movies.”
The other two look too scared to say anything.
I lift my camera to take a picture of the Scrabble board. Just as I click the shutter, the lights flicker and go out. I take another picture of the board, using the flash, then several around the room for good measure.
Jill starts beating at apparently invisible air with her hands, shrieking loudly. “Get it off me. Get it off me!”
“What is it? Jill, what is it?”
“Cold and—gooey. I hate slimy things.” She collapses to her knees, wailing. All three of the boys are away from the table, stampeding off down the hall. My heart thuds at the thought of the Medusa loose in a Manor full of kids and old people.
Whatever it is, I can’t see it. Jill’s got the ghost-watching glasses. But I do have Phil’s special flashlight hanging from a belt loop. I don’t know how it works. It looks like an ordinary flashlight, but it burned holes in the Medusa during our last encounter. I turn it on and start playing the beam over Jill, just in case. She’s stopped fighting and has her arms wrapped around her head, weeping silently.
“Jill! Are you all right?”
“It’s gone,” she sniffles. “I think.” Her voice sounds thick and uncertain, but she’s stopped fighting. Not the Medusa, then, probably just ordinary ectoplasm.
I leave her to recover and turn back to the room. The girl is still here, watching Val, who has shown no awareness of our presence. Her slim brown hands are moving now, arranging letters in a row in front of her, but her eyes remain closed.
“Whoa,” the kid says.
I pass behind Val’s shoulder and play the beam on what the letters spell in front of her.
DÉJÀ VU JINX
REVELATION
“Cool,” the girl says. “How did you do this?”
Jill gets to her feet, bumping heavily against the table and falling half across it. Tiles cascade onto the floor.
Val startles and jerks, her brown eyes staring as if from a faraway place.
“Ow,” Jill complains, sitting on top of the Scrabble board and nursing her foot. “I think I broke something.”
I ignore her, my focus on Val. “You’re a medium,” I say, watching her face. She nods. Worry creases her forehead, and she looks down at the table where the words she had spelled are scrambled now.
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