He pushed to his feet. "We should take a flashlight. I'll grab that. You get our shoes."
Thirty-four
I WASN'T SETTING FOOT —bare, stockinged, or shoed—in that crawl space until I'd talked to the first ghost and asked all the questions Derek had raised.
We went down to the laundry room. Derek took up a position at the side, leaning back against the dryer. I sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, closed my eyes, and focused.
It didn't take long, as if the ghost had been waiting for me. I still couldn't catch more than phrases and glimpses. I told Derek this, then said, "I stopped taking the meds after you gave me that jar. But they must still be in my system."
". . . not medic . . ." the ghost said. ". . . block . . ."
"What's blocked?"
"Spell . . . ghosts . . . blocking . . ."
"A spell to block ghosts?" I guessed.
That got Derek's attention and he shifted forward, arms uncrossing. "Did he say a spell's blocking him? What kind?"
I was about to translate, but the ghost could obviously hear and answered. "Magic . . . ritual . . . important."
"It's important?"
"Not . . . not important," he said emphatically.
I related this to Derek who grumbled about the imperfection of this mode of communication as he furiously scratched his forearm, then said, 'Tell him to say one word at a time. Repeat it until you get it and you say it back. It'll be slow, but at least we won't miss —"
He stopped, his gaze following mine to his forearm. His skin was . . . moving. Rippling.
"What the —?" he began, then growled in frustration and gave his arm a fierce shake. "Muscle spasms. I've been getting them a lot lately."
He peered down at the rippling skin again, made a fist, and pumped his arm, trying to work it out. I was about to suggest he see a doctor, then realized that might not be so easy for someone like Derek. I could see now that it was his muscles, expanding and contracting on their own. A side effect of his condition, I guess, muscles developing in overdrive. Like the rest of him, slamming through puberty.
"Just as long as you don't rip through your clothing and turn green," I said.
"What?" His face scrunched up, then he got it. "The Incredible Hulk. Ha-ha. Incredibly Stupid Movie, more like." His rubbed his forearm. "Ignore me and get back to your ghost."
The ghost had heard Derek's suggestion about taking it one word at a time, and that's what we did. It worked much better, though it felt a bit like charades, him saying a word over and over, and me excitedly repeating it when I finally understood.
I started with questions about the ghost himself, and learned he was a necromancer. He'd been at the hospital when I'd been admitted. Something about stopping ghosts from harassing the mental patients, which I didn't really understand, but it wasn't important.
Ghosts recognize necromancers, so he'd known that's what I was. Realizing that I didn't know what I was, he knew I needed help. But before he could make contact, they moved me. So he'd followed me to Lyle House. Only it was somehow blocked against ghosts. He thought it was a spell, though when Derek challenged that assumption, the ghost admitted that it could be anything from the construction materials to the geographic location. All he knew was that the only places he could make even partial contact with me were the basement and the attic.
As for the bodies in the crawl space, he knew two things. One, they'd been murdered. Two, they were super-naturals. Put those together and he was convinced their stories would be important. He couldn't get them himself because he couldn't contact the dead as easily as he could before he became one of them himself.
"But they were just skeletons and dried up flesh," Derek said. "Like mummies. Whatever happened to them wouldn't have anything to do with us, here, now."
"Maybe," was the ghost's only answer.
"Maybe?" Derek threw up his hands and started pacing, He muttered under his breath, but there was no anger in it, just frustration, trying to work through this problem and see a connection when he really should be in bed, nursing a fever.
"Samuel Lyle," the ghost communicated next. "Original owner. Know him?"
I said I didn't and asked Derek.
"How would I know the guy who built this place a hundred years ago?"
"Sixty," the ghost said, and I relayed it.
"Whatever." Derek resumed pacing. "Does he even know what year this is?"
I could have pointed out that if the ghost knew how long ago the house had been built, he obviously knew the current year, but Derek was just grouching, his fever making it hard to concentrate on this puzzle.
"Supernatural," the ghost said. "Lyle. Sorcerer."
That made Derek stop when I relayed it.
"The guy who built this place was a sorcerer?"
"Dark magic. Alchemist. Experimented. On supernaturals."
A chill ran up my arms and I crossed them. "You think that's how those people in the cellar died? This sorcerer, Lyle, experimented on them?"
"How does he know so much about this guy?" Derek said. "He followed you here, didn't he?"
"Everyone knew," the ghost replied. "In Buffalo. All supernaturals. Knew where he lived. And stayed away. Or didn't."
Derek shook his head. "1 still don't see how any of this is connected to us."
"Maybe," the ghost replied. "Maybe not. Need to ask."
Derek hissed a curse and smacked his hand into the wall hard enough to make me wince. I walked over to him.
"Go to bed. You're probably right. I'm sure it's nothing —"
"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying . . . A sorcerer built this place sixty years ago; there are supernaturals buried in the cellar; and now we're here, three supernatural kids. The group home is named after him. Is that significant? Or is it just named after the guy who built it? It seems too much to be a coincidence, but I'm just not getting the connection."
"I can do this. Go back —"
"No, he's right. We need to ask. I just . . ." He shoved his hand up the back of his shirt, scratching. "I feel like crap and it's making me cranky. But we need to do this."
The ghost followed us into the crawl space.
"How do I avoid what I did earlier?" I asked. "Returning them to their bodies?"
Silence. I counted to sixty, then said, "Hello? Are you still there?"
"Stay calm. Focus. But go easy. Soft. Your power. Too strong."
"My powers are too strong?"
I couldn't suppress a smile. I might not be certain I wanted these powers, but it was kind of cool to hear that I had more than the average necromancer. Like taking an IQ test and finding out you're smarter than you thought.
"Your age. Should never be able to . . ."
Silence. I waited patiently to catch the next word. And waited.
"Hello?"
He started again, word by word. 'Too soon. Too much. Too . . ."
A longer pause.
"Something's wrong," he said finally.
"Wrong?"
Derek crawled from the shadows, where he'd been silently watching. "What's he saying?"
"Something about my powers. That they're . . . wrong."
"Too strong," the ghost said. "Unnatural."
"Unnatural?" I whispered.
Derek's eyes blazed. "Don't listen to him, Chloe. So you're powerful. Big deal. You're fine. Just take it slow."
The ghost apologized. He gave a few more instructions, then said he'd watch from the "other side," in case his presence had boosted my powers earlier. If I needed him, he'd come back. One last warning against trying too hard, and he was gone.
Thirty-five
DEREK RETURNED TO THE shadows, leaving me alone, sitting cross-legged again, the flashlight lying in front of me. As much as I'd have liked to use it as a candle, pushing back the dark, I'd set it on its side, the beam directed at the spot where the bodies were buried in hopes that, if the ground so much as quivered, Derek would warn me before I raised the dead.
T
o free the ghosts from their corpses, I'd used visualization, so I did that again. I imagined myself tugging the ghosts from the ether, drawing them out like a magician pulling an endless scarf from his sleeve.
A few times I caught a flicker, only to have it vanish again. 1 kept working, slowly and steadily, resisting the urge to concentrate harder.
"What do you want?" a woman's voice snapped, so close and so clear I grabbed the flashlight, certain one of the nurses had discovered us.
Instead, I shone the beam on a woman dressed in a sweater set. Or that's what her top half was wearing. She was standing, her head brushing the low ceiling, meaning she was "buried" to mid-thigh under the dirt floor. She was maybe thirty, with a blond bob. Her sharp features were rigid with annoyance.
"Well, necromancer, what do you want?"
'Tell her to leave us be," a man's voice whined from the darkness.
I shone the beam in his direction but could make out only a faint form by the farthest wall.
"I just w-want to talk to you," I said.
"That much is obvious," the woman snapped. "Calling and pulling and pestering until you drag us out against our will."
"I didn't m-mean —"
"Can't leave well enough alone, can you? It wasn't enough to shove us back into our bodies. Do you know what that's like? Sitting down, enjoying a nice afternoon, and all of a sudden you're back in your corpse, buried, clawing your way to the surface, terrified you've been trapped by some demented necromancer looking for zombie slaves?"
"I didn't mean —"
"Oh, do you hear that, Michael? She didn't mean it." The woman moved toward me. "So if I accidentally unleash a storm of hellfire on your head, it'll be all right, as long as I didn't really mean it? You have a power, little girl, and you'd better learn to use it properly before someone decides to teach you a lesson. Summon me again and I'll do it."
She started to fade.
"Wait! You're —" I struggled to remember what Simon had called a female spellcaster "—a witch, right? What happened to you here?"
"I was murdered, in case that isn't perfectly obvious."
"Was it because you're a witch?"
She surged back so fast I jumped. "You mean, did I bring this on myself?"
"N-no. Samuel Lyle —the man who owned this house— did he kill you? Because you're a witch?"
Her lips curled in an ugly smile. "I'm sure my being a witch added a little extra dash of pleasure for him. I should have known better than to trust a sorcerer, but I was a fool. A desperate fool. Sam Lyle promised us an easier life. That's what we all want, isn't it? Power without price. Sam Lyle was a seller of dreams. A snake oil salesman. Or a madman." That twist of a smile again. "We could never figure out which, could we, Michael?"
"A madman," came the whisper from the back. "The things he did to us . . ."
"Ah, but we were willing subjects. At least, in the beginning. You see, little girl, all scientific advancement requires experimentation, and experimentation requires subjects, and that's what Michael and I were. Lab rats sacrificed to the vision of a madman."
"What about me?"
She sneered. "What about you?"
"Does this have anything to do with me being here? Now? There are more of us. Supernaturals. In a group home."
"Are they experimenting on you? Tying you to beds and prodding you with electrical wires until you bite off your tongue?"
"N-no. N-nothing like that."
"Then you count your blessings, little girl, and stop pestering us. Sam Lyle is dead and —if the Fates are just— rotting in a hell dimension."
She started fading again.
"Wait! I need to know —"
"Then find out!" She surged back again. "If you think you're here because of a dead sorcerer, then you're as mad as he was, but I don't have your answers. I'm a shade, not an oracle. Why are you brats here, where I died? How should I know? Why should I care?"
"Am I in danger?"
Her lip twisted. "You're a supernatural. You're always in danger."
* * *
"Mission accomplished, but nothing gained. Except more questions," I said as we brushed off our clothing in the laundry room. "Now you can finally get back to bed."
Derek shook his head. "Doesn't matter. I won't sleep."
"Because of this? I'm sorry. I didn't mean —"
"I wasn't sleeping before you got me up." He tugged off his shoe and dumped a trickle of dirt down the sink. "This fever or whatever. It's making me edgy. Restless." As if on cue, his forearm muscles started twitching. "Part of the problem is I'm not getting enough exercise. Tossing a ball around with Simon just doesn't cut it. I need more . . . space. More activity. I think that's what's causing this." He rubbed harder at the rippling muscles.
"Could you ask for workout equipment? They seem pretty good about stuff like that."
He slanted a look my way. "You've seen my file. You really think they're going to buy me a set of dumbbells and a punching bag?" He looked around the laundry room. "You tired?"
"After that? No."
"How about some fresh air? Get out, go for a walk?"
I laughed. "Sure, if there wasn't the small matter of an alarm system standing in our way."
He raked his hand through his hair, shaking out dirt he'd brushed from the crawl space ceiling. "I know the code."
"What?"
"You think I'm going to push Simon to leave and not know the security code? I can get us out, and we really should do a walk around, check out escape routes, hiding places. I don't get to go on many field trips, so I haven't gotten a look at the neighborhood."
I crossed my arms. "You can walk out anytime? Get that exercise you need? But you never have?"
He shifted his weight. "Never thought of it —"
"Of course you have. But there could be an alert when the alarm is turned off. Or a record of it being disabled. So you've never taken the chance. But now we should. If we get caught, well, everyone already thinks we're fooling around. We'd get in trouble for sneaking off, but not like Simon and I would if we were caught running away."
He scratched his chin. "That's a good idea."
"And it never crossed your mind."
He said nothing. I sighed and headed for the stairs.
"Chloe," he said. "Hold on. I —"
I glanced back. "Coming?"
Thirty-six
FIVE MINUTES LATER, WE were walking down the sidewalk, the lights from Lyle House fading behind us. We circled the block and mapped out all routes from the house. We were in a section of Buffalo I didn't recognize, one filled with old houses on big lots, where you'd expect to find a Mercedes or Cadillac in every drive. But I could see why it didn't —the billowing smokestacks a few blocks to the east.
After two blocks walking west, the light pollution ahead suggested a business district, which Derek confirmed. Like this neighborhood, it was older and decent enough, but not fancy. No pawn- and porn shops, but no bistros and baristas either. On Simon's rare outings, he'd told Derek he'd seen lots of older, ordinary businesses with plenty of alleys and dark corners.
"When you get to that business area," Derek said, "you'll be home free. If you can't go that way?" He waved east, toward the factory. "Go there. It's all industrial. I'm sure you'd find an abandoned warehouse or two, if yon needed to hole up for a while." He looked around, scanning the neighborhood, nostrils flaring as he drank in the chill night air, probably a welcome relief from his fever. "Will you remember all that?"
"Can you say it again? Slower? Maybe write it out for me? With pictures?"
He scowled. "I'm just checking, okay? It's important."
"If you're worried we can't handle it, there's an obvious solution. Come with us."
"Don't."
"I'm just saying . . ."
"Well, don't."
He walked faster, leaving me jogging to keep up. I could tell Simon was right —the subject was closed to discussion—but I couldn't help myself.
"Simon's
worried about you."
"Yeah?" He stopped, turned, and spread his arms. "Do I look okay to you?"
"No, you look like a guy who should be in bed, nursing a fever, not prowling —"
"I'm not prowling," he snapped, harsher than necessary. "I mean, where am I? On the street, right? Blocks from Lyle House. No cop cars are ripping down the road after me. If anything goes wrong, I can get out. Do you really think Talbot and Van Dop could stop me?"
"The question isn't whether you can escape. It's whether you will."
He paused. While I was gratified to know he wasn't just going to tell me what I wanted to hear, I didn't like seeing how much thought the answer required. Simon had said he was afraid that if something went wrong, Derek might just let it. He'd already decided he belonged at Lyle House. Would he leave even if he was in danger? Or could he see only the danger he posed . . . or thought he did?
"Derek?"
He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Yeah."
"Yeah what?"
He yanked one hand out and scratched his arm, nails digging in until they left red marks. "If I'm in danger, I'll get away and find you guys. Okay?"
"Okay."
* * *
I woke to see a figure on my bed and sat up, Liz's name on my lips. But it was Rae, leaning against the wall, knees up, eyes sparkling with amusement.
"Thought you saw a ghost?" she said.
"N-no. Maybe." I rubbed my eyes and yawned.
"I suppose it's not a good idea to surprise someone who sees spooks, huh?"
I peered around the bedroom, blinking hard. Early morning light poured in. I glanced at Rae's bed and pictured Liz there, toes wiggling in the sunlight.
"Did Liz leave anything behind?" I asked.
"What?"
I pulled myself up, shoving the covers back. "When you moved in, did you find anything?"
"Just a shirt of Tori's. I didn't bother giving it back yet. Not like Tori's in any rush to return that green hoodie she borrowed from Liz. I saw her wearing it the other day. Why? Did Liz finally call?"
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