Whispering Graves (Banshee Book 2)

by Sara Clancy

  The beam of Nicole’s light soon joined his as she followed as close behind him as she dared. Even together, the lights did little against the lurking shadows. The whole staircase rattled with their continued efforts, and despite the sound, he still found himself slowing down. All he wanted to do was run back up into the light and get as far away from here as possible. He forced himself to keep going, Nicole right behind, one hand pressed firmly between his shoulder blades. Before he could give in to his urge to flee, his foot found the earth again. What he had thought would be a relief instead resulted in his heart lurching into his throat, hammering until he could barely breathe around it. The soft dirt under his sneaker was proof that he was actually back here. Back in the room where he had almost died.

  The minimal light glanced off the polished surface of the coffins even as they hid within the shadows. It was the Leanan Sidhe’s collection. He had come so close to claiming a place amongst the others. It wasn’t a new thought, but to be here, to see the others, was something else entirely. The sensation hit home with a crippling force as he took his first real step back into the basement. With Nicole’s aid, the glow of their phones beat back more of the shadows and flashed across the polished wood of the coffins that filled the space, each one arranged with care into perfect rows. For the first time, he allowed himself to count them. His lungs nearly squeezed the life out of him as he wondered if they were occupied or if one of them was still empty, waiting for him.

  His head spun as his breath became short and shallow. A cold sweat prickled on his palms as he quickly glanced over his shoulder, searching for Nicole amongst the shadows. Her dark hair fanned around her face, surrendering her more to the darkness than was reassuring. Even though she kept her attention focused around the room, her free hand found his and they threaded their fingers together. He squeezed and she answered with a squeeze of her own. The solid warmth of another human being made it easier to venture further into the room.

  Nicole didn’t release his hand as she took the lead. She cut a beeline across the room, refusing to look anywhere else but the spot on the far wall where she had painted the symbol. He followed without comment, constantly scanning, searching each shadow with his dull light and realizing how little he knew about the space. It was strange that some moments were forever engraved in startling detail within his memory, while others were lost to the fog that the demon’s poison had created within his mind. He could remember the mirror-like eyes of the monster in perfect detail. But any actual words that had been exchanged were reduced to vague notions. His ears echoed with the perfect replica of the sound of Victor’s ripping flesh. He could remember the exact resonance of Victor’s blood as it dripped down from his arm and hit the untreated ground, and the slight slurp of it being absorbed into the dirt. Without his permission, his hand navigated the light over the patch of clumped earth that still clutched the teen’s blood. His attempt to force the light aside only exposed the white viscose goo that Benton had choked on as he overdosed on the paranormal poison.

  Nicole’s hand tightened around his, the insistent squeeze bringing him back to the moment, forcing his head to snap up and meet her gaze. Even the shadows couldn’t rob her eyes from the obvious concern that dwelled within them. Guilt flooded him when he realized that he was failing miserably in actually being helpful to her. He forced a reassuring smile, but couldn’t keep his thoughts from going back to that night again. It was a jarring loss when she slipped her hand free. Instead of heading to the far wall, she drifted towards the nearest coffin. He watched as her fingers brushed over the polished wood, tracing the same path his fingers had been forced to touch in his nightmares. It was distracting and he didn’t see her fingers finding the gap until it was too late.

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  A slave to her curiosity, Nicole forced her fingers around the edge of the top and cracked it open. The scent of decay engulfed them as it crept out from the confines of the coffin. Benton rushed forward to stop her from casting her light into the gap she had created. His hand wrapped around her wrist, but she had already seen the corpse within.

  “Nicole, don’t look.”

  “It’s not Vic,” she mumbled, like that would be his only point of protest. Her brow furrowed as she ducked down, squinting into the space. “We should have brought flowers. When you visit a grave, you’re supposed to bring flowers, right? I should have thought of that. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I’m sure they won’t mind,” Benton said as he inched closer, still not sure if he should stop her.

  Nicole didn’t look away from the gap as she spoke, “He looks like stone.”

  Rust hadn’t yet ravaged the hinges of the once loved coffins. The lid opened with a sound reminiscent of a sigh and clicked into place, holding upright to let her examine the corpse. Nicole edged closer still, her curiosity winning over her disgust. The dim glow of her phone light trailed over its occupant. While the man might have been settled into a peaceful pose, his malnourished and gaunt form spoke of the horrors he had endured before his murder. Her hand trembled as she reached out. Benton flinched beside her but didn’t try to stop her. He wouldn’t have been able to anyway. Biting the inside of his cheek, he watched as she traced a fingertip along the smooth marble of the man’s skin.

  “It’s the zinc coffins,” Benton explained. It was unnerving to hear his own voice bouncing back to him from the damp walls, and he lowered his voice to a whisper. “When matched with humid conditions like the one in this room, decomposing tissue produces a waxy substance, which in time hardens into what you see here.”

  Slowly, she turned just enough to look at him and whispered back, “How do you know that?”

  Benton tapped his mobile phone against his head with a bit more force than necessary. “Each time I dream, bits get left behind.”

  The confession made him restless. The need to flee built up within him until his feet began to edge back towards the staircase. Admitting that there was one foreign mind, still flicking through the recesses of his brain, made it easier for all the others to rush to the surface of his thoughts. He knew that all the voices in his head belonged to him alone, and that others were only memories. But when they combined within one moment, the voices created a shriek too loud to ignore.

  “Can we just check the symbol and get the hell out of here?” he moaned.

  He didn’t believe for a moment that he was doing a good job at covering up the mounting stress he was under. It was more that Nicole was far too captivated by her discoveries for her to notice. Rising up onto her tip toes, she lifted her light high above her head like it would somehow increase the source and give her a better look at the rows of coffins.

  Memories that weren’t his own began to twist around the edge of his awareness, encroaching so softly that Benton didn’t question them. After all, it wasn’t a completely alien experience. Each time he dreamed, the murderers he inhabited left a stain on his soul and a whisper in his head. Now, standing before the Leanan Sidhe’s treasured possessions, the slivers of consciousness it had left burrowed within his brain started to inch to the surface.

  He could feel it. Its dedication to the singular task of making its collections as perfect as possible. The unrelenting pride of what it had created within this room. The grotesquely deformed love it had for each of its victims. Those emotions weaved through Benton’s own disgust until they flowed into each other.

  The polished wood slipped smoothly under his fingertips as he dragged them along the side of the nearest coffin. It was perfect. It was a work of art, chiseled and refined; something fitting of the results of his life’s work.

  “How can anyone do this?” Nicole whispered on a choking breath.

  She looks like she’s admiring the perfection of my work, Benton thought to himself.

  “Time and love,” he smiled. He pressed his hand against the top of the coffin and stroked the surface with a lover’s caress. “They all loved me so much. Now they can love me forever
.”

  The beam of light tilted and focused on his face. He flinched as the light assaulted his unprepared eyes. That split second of reality was enough to jar the Leanan Sidhe from the forefront of his mind. It left a gaping hole within him and he quickly shook his head, rearranging the contents of his brain back into their rightful positions. Blinking into the glare, he couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her gaze.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Not my thoughts.”

  “Please tell me you’re not possessed,” she said with a slight croak in her voice. Her eyes flicked over the room like she was searching for a second exit. “I really don’t have the time for that right now.”

  Benton huffed a laugh. “No. It’s more like daydreaming than anything else.”

  “Does that happen a lot?” she asked, her voice taking on a crisp and all too chipper tone. A happy mask that she believed perfectly hid her concerns.

  “It’s worse when there are reminders,” he mumbled as he rubbed his forehead. Pain sparked across his skin as his finger dug against his bruises. It helped to clear his mind a little more. “Can we please just go?”

  She nodded hurriedly but closed the coffin with respectful care. With renewed purpose, she crossed back to the painted symbol and resumed her appraisal. Every so often, her eyes would shift to him. For all the ones that he noticed, he gave her a reassuring nod. It didn’t matter what he tried, he could tell that she never truly believed him. Her movements became hurried, the light passing over the clumped earth in short, sharp sweeps.

  “Can I do anything to help?” he asked, desperate for some way to convince her that he was in control of himself, or at the very least to be of use.

  “I’m almost done.” That all too excited voice remained. He was starting to hate that sound. “You can wait outside, if you want.”

  The offer enticed a relieved sigh out of him, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Not if it meant leaving her down here by herself, with only the corpses and memories. But he did take to pacing the room, prowling around the edges with a desperate need for a distraction. He moved along the wall, passing his light over the encroaching darkness, making it scatter away from the dim light for the simple reason that he could. Then one shadow refused to move.

  He jumped back when a blotch of white emerged from the ebony abyss and reached for him. His startled yelp made Nicole whirl around, and she charged her arm up, adding the beam of her flashlight to his. It was enough to cast off the darker shadows, revealing the looming specter of Death before him. No matter how many times he saw the living embodiment of the grim reaper, it was a sight he never really got used to. Its body seemed to shift between a solid mass and whispering smoke within the same moment. Real but not. There but so much like a figment of his imagination.

  “Benton!”

  Nicole’s sharp snap was enough to make him turn. Idly, he wondered how many times she had called to him before she resorted to that tone.

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  Benton swallowed thickly and turned back to the figure before him. Death hadn’t moved, the featureless white smear that served as its face watching him from mere inches away.

  “I see Death.”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific,” Nicole said, the startled edge remaining in her voice. “With you, that could mean a lot of things.”

  “Death like the grim reaper.”

  “Oh.” She moved closer to him, her eyes searching the space even though she wouldn’t be able to see it. “Where is it?”

  Breathing heavy, Benton lifted one finger and pointed towards the ghostly shape. While he moved, the specter didn’t. It simply hovered before him, silently watching. The shape consumed so much of his focus that he hadn’t noticed Nicole shuffling closer until she was practically beside it.

  “What are you doing?” Benton hissed, his heart suddenly thundering within his chest until his ribs ached. “Get away from it!”

  “So I’m close?” she asked, one hand lifting as if to try and locate it.

  “What is wrong with you?”

  She sighed like the sound could cover her anxiety. “Could you please be helpful?”

  “Helpful?” he snapped.

  “Well, It wouldn’t have come here without a reason,” she shot back.

  “Its reason is death,” he snapped. “It’s a fairly simple purpose. Pretty straight forward, really.”

  “That wasn’t when 'It' appeared to you at Vic’s house, remember? It wanted to warn you. So there’s probably something here that ‘It’ wants you to know.”

  “We almost died at Victor’s house,” he mimicked her chipper tone. “Remember?”

  “That wasn’t Its fault,” she defended.

  “And what about Kimberly?”

  “It might have been trying to warn us then too. We just didn’t know how to interpret it.” Turning to the air before her, her unseeing eyes scanned the area as she continued with a soft smile. “I’m sorry about him. He’s under a bit of stress lately. It makes him grumpy.”

  “Don’t talk to It!”

  The look that she gave him was one of pure rebuke. “Death isn’t your enemy, Benton. I wouldn’t have been able to find you if it hadn’t been for It. If it wasn’t for Death, you’d be ... well, dead.”

  “Wait. What?”

  She brushed off his confusion and continued, “It gave me a hint about where to look for you. And I think It’s giving you a hint now. So, please, be helpful?”

  Benton released a strangled sigh and felt himself being pulled under the weight of her conviction. She was going to find a way to do what she wanted, with or without him, so he might as well get ready for a ride.

  “It’s about three feet in front of you.”

  “What is It doing?” she whispered.

  “Nothing. Just staring at me.”

  Nicole squirmed closer to the abyss. Benton’s gut twisted into ever tightening knots as she lifted her hand. The black smoke of death wafted from its being like living tendrils. Death continued to stare at him, unconcerned by Nicole’s progress, but still the air seemed to fill with tension, like a lurking animal ready to strike. Nicole’s breath came in heavy gasps as she reached a little further, the ghostly tendrils twisting around the tips of her fingers.

  “Stop!”

  Nicole froze, her eyes wide, her fingers shaking slightly. But her voice remained pleasant. “Did It move?”

  “You’re touching It.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Does It seem angry about that?”

  “I’m not even sure It has noticed you.”

  Benton staggered back a step, one hand reaching out towards Nicole as the ghostly figure suddenly broke into motion. There was too much distance between the teens for Benton to actually touch Nicole’s forearms, but she still followed his lead and took a few retreating steps.

  “Benton, I can’t see.”

  Death didn’t walk. It drifted, shifting through the air with an unnatural grace until it disappeared behind the lean table pressed against the wall.

  “Benton!”

  He told her what he saw and instantly regretted it as she rushed forward and began to examine the table.

  “What are you doing?”

  “He wants us to do something,” Nicole said with annoyance. “So, I’m doing something.”

  She pressed her shoulder against the side of the rickety but heavy table and began to push. The dirt that layered the floor piled up around its base, making it harder to move, but she kept going with a strained groan. Swearing under his breath, Benton rushed forward, grabbed the side of the table, and rocked it onto its side. It slammed against the floor with a pathetic crack and splintered into kindling. Nicole released a strange sound and glanced up at him.

  “How are we going to fix that?”

  “Why would we?” he shot back.

  The annoyance that played across her face broke when she realized that they really didn’t have anyone to answer to about the destruction. Wi
th a shrug that acted as both agreement and dismissal, she crouched down and trailed her light over the newly exposed wall. A large metal dish, tarnished and eroded with time, was embedded within the damp mud of the wall. She dug her fingers into the soft, crumbling earth, burrowing them deeper until she could get a solid grip on the edge of dish and yanked sharply. But it held solid. Sitting down, she braced her feet against the wall and put her body weight behind the next attempt.

  “Are we sure we want to do this?” Benton asked.

  “I am. I can’t speak for you. I’m not a mind reader.”

  Cautiously eyeing the wall, Benton edged closer and crouched down behind her. With the beat of his heart surging into his throat, he eyed the wall carefully. Death didn’t reappear. Nicole gnashed her teeth as she pushed back harder. With a wet, suction sound, large clumps of earth broke away and the metal dish jerked free from the wall. Nicole slumped back into him, striking his chest hard enough to knock the air from his lungs with a grunt of protest.

  A rush of heated air pushed against him, scorching his chilled skin like a barrage of needles. As it cleared, they found themselves staring down a long tunnel carved into the earth. A light flickered at the far end but wasn’t bright enough for him to be able to get any sense of the distance separating them. The hole was barely large enough to move through, even on all fours, with twisted roots breaking though the surface, ready to snare anyone who attempted to pass.

  “Okay, we’re leaving,” Benton said.

  “What? Now?”

  “Don’t tell me that you actually want to crawl down that thing.”

  “Death wants us to.”

  Benton tried to calm down his anger but couldn’t stop it from drenching his words. “Who cares? Nic, we came here with the sole purpose of checking on the symbol. We’ve done that.”

  “What if the answer we need is down that tunnel?”

  “What if it’s at the end of a Google search?” he snapped back. “Can’t we try that before the possible fire tunnel of death?”

  She twisted in his grip until she could meet his eyes. “Fire tunnel?”