“Which way?” I ask when we hit the fork.
“Left,” he says. “That’ll get us into the ritual chamber.”
We head down the left tunnel, stopping to cast a light spell when we hit a patch of dead fluorescents. The rest of the tunnel is pitch black. A minute later we see why.
“This is new,” Ellis says, running his fingers along the mortar lines of the brick wall blocking our path.
“Obviously,” I say.
“No,” he says, glaring at me. “I mean it’s new. Like recent.” He digs his finger into the mortar and comes out with small chunks. “Two or three days at most.”
“Is there another way in?” I say.
“From the warehouse, yeah. There’s a trap door that leads to it.”
“I’ll go that way, then,” I say. “You two go back up the tunnel and wait for me in the car.”
“What?” Vivian says. “Why?”
“Somebody bricked this up for a reason,” I say. “Maybe I got Griffin spooked that Boudreau really is back. Maybe there’s something else in there. If it were ten years old that’d be one thing. But the last couple of days?”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Ellis says. “If the elevator’s out there should be a ladder. It ends in a shed at the top.”
“And the trap door?”
“About ten, fifteen feet away from the elevator. Look for a metal plate. It looks like it’s there to hide electrical work. It’s on hinges. Least it used to be.”
“I’m not letting you go on your own,” Vivian says.
“Look, something’s going on. You could help me a lot more by being in the car and keeping the engine running.”
“He’s got a point, Doc,” Ellis says.
She closes her eyes. I can almost hear her counting backward. She’d do that every time I’d done or said something stupid and aggravating.
“How much time do you need?”
“An hour tops.”
“You have an hour. If you’re not out by then I’ll drive that fucking boat through a wall and come get you.”
“Deal.”
We split at the fork in the tunnel. “One hour,” Vivian says before heading back the way we came.
The freight elevator isn’t far. Even though it’s just a simple platform it’s obvious a lot of money went into it. Safety flooring, handrails. Hell, it might even be OSHA compliant.
But it hasn’t seen much use. Old grease and dust is caked on it, except the control lever. Skidmarks in the dust expose the metal floor. So they came down this way, bricked up the passage and went back up. I don’t know if there’s still power to the elevator.
If I go up in this thing it’s going to make one hell of a racket. I opt for the ladder instead. It’s not a long climb and I get to the loading platform in the shed a couple minutes later, doing my best to be as quiet as possible.
I crack open the double doors. See no one. Sun through the windows and skylights casts a gloomy light. It looks like a normal warehouse. Crates, boxes, forklifts. A small office in the back.
I listen for workers, hear nothing but the hum of the air conditioning units on the roof. The trapdoor down to the ritual space is right where Ellis said it would be. A large metal panel with a DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE sticker on it. Next to it is a cement mixer, bags of concrete. Looks like they were going to seal this side of the room, too.
I check for wards like the ones on the shipping container, but don’t see anything. Must figure that anyone inside is supposed to be inside. That or they just don’t want people exploding inside the building.
I grab the latch, pull it open, revealing a narrow staircase. Wide enough for two people to walk abreast. More handrails. That Boudreau, always thinking of the safety of his employees. I look for a light switch when I reach the bottom. Nothing on the walls, but I do bump into a cast-iron candelabrum, almost knocking it over.
I murmur a spell and the candles flare to life, smoke guttering from years-old dust. No one’s been down here for a long time. The room’s maybe twenty by twenty, with plain black walls, ceiling and dust covered floor. A lectern stands against one wall. More candelabra.
On one wall is the tunnel door. The wards on it are more obvious, less subtle. Just as well we didn’t go through it. It’s got the same spells the shipping container had. Only we wouldn’t have been able to see these. I walk across the floor to get a better look and my foot snags on something, sending my sprawling to the floor. I pick myself up.
A series of metal links are bolted to the floor. I brush some of the dust away and see part of a circle in the floor inlaid with silver and gold and inscribed with runes. Deep, rustred stains are soaked into the concrete.
This must be where Boudreau kept Ellis chained. Where he chained the people he murdered to create enough power for the spell. But if that’s the case, why aren’t there any Dead down here? I had noticed some dockworkers outside who had fallen from cranes nearby but nothing down here. I close my eyes and put out more feelers. Extend my senses out of the room, out onto the docks. I get nothing, like I’ve hit a wall. Like the place has been cleared of everything dead.
An exorcism would do that. Would make sense. For what he was having Ellis do he’d probably want to keep the area clear as much as he could. Having ghosts wander in when you don’t want them to can muck things up.
Still, I should at least get a feeling of the collected trauma, a sense of dread, something. I hope there’s nothing actively blocking the Dead. Some ward I’m not seeing keeping them out. If that’s the case then I wouldn’t be able to summon Boudreau’s ghost even if it was still around.
I clear a space in the dust, pull out my gear. Get half way done setting up when the floor starts to shake.
A couple of candelabra fall over. Half the flames on the candles still standing sputter, go out. I’m here to call the Dead. Looks like the Dead are calling me.
There’s an implosion of light on the other side of the room. A ghost, hazy but solidifying fast. The feel of magic buzzes along my skin like static. And all those missing dead? Found ’em.
They swarm into the room, a seething tornado spinning around this one ghost. The strength of their collected personalities hits me a like a sledgehammer, a screeching whine in my head. And through all that noise, one ghost punches through loud and clear.
Any doubts that Boudreau has come back are gone.
I bolt for the exit. The room shudders and I trip over one of the rings fastened to the floor. Barrel ass over teakettle into one of the candelabra. One sleeve has snagged in a decorative loop of metal. I try to pull myself up, shake the damn thing loose. The sleeve finally tears free. I struggle to stand and hear a footstep inches from me.
“Hello,” Boudreau says.
Chapter 16
All things considered, he looks pretty good for someone who had his soul turned into shredded wheat. The ghosts swarming his body have receded, become part of him until they’re barely visible. I can see them seething just below the surface. Embedded in his skin, his clothes. He’s wearing the same suit I killed him in. Double-breasted, navy blue. Torn, burnt from the exploding propane tanks. Great purple bruises on his face where I took a crowbar to it. He’s more solid than he should be. More opaque than transparent.
I search for something to say. Settle on, “Hey, Jean,” because what the hell else am I supposed to say?
“Eric Carter. Now this is a surprise.”
“Same for me, lemme tell ya.”
“Come back to finish the job, did you?”
“I—”
“Shut up!” His screaming echoes loud in the chamber. It shouldn’t do that. I should be able to hear him in my head, but he shouldn’t be making actual sound. To do that he’d—
“Shit.”
“Damn fucking right you’re in the shit.” He swings a foot and connects right under my solar plexus. I double over, try not to vomit.
Boudreau didn’t appear with the veil between us. We’re not on different sides of th
e fence, anymore. This is almost as bad as me being over there. On top of that he’s fucking solid. Solid enough to hurt at least. My brain tells me this isn’t possible. But his boot in my chest tells me something else entirely. I don’t know what the hell’s going on. The rulebook’s been tossed out on this one.
“I’m not the one you want,” I say, teeth gritted, my eyes tearing.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, leaning in to give me a good long look. “You’re maybe not at the top of my list but believe me, kid, you’re definitely on it.”
This close and I can feel the power radiating off him like heat from a bonfire. Most of that is coming from his collection of ghosts. Absorbing them, feeding off of them. I see a few small ones under his skin thin out, disappear as he consumes them. Others leave tiny shreds outside his form like loose threads.
Panic wells up inside me. Think fast. It’s a stupid idea, but I can’t think of anything else. “You want Griffin,” I say. “Duncan, I mean. He changed his name.”
“You don’t say. Yeah, I want him. But I’ve got you here.”
“You’ve got him, too. He’s in the tunnel. Waiting to see what will happen. You can’t take him out on your own. He’s gotten a lot more powerful since you went.”
“Horseshit.”
“No lie, man. He’s down the tunnel at the fork, waiting. Hoping you’ll take me out for him and then wander down after him alone and get your ass handed to you.” I’m trying to sell this as much as I can without going over the top. Avert the eyes, nervous hand wringing, earnest face. Got the hem of my shirt bunched up in my fists like a freaked out twelve year old. I worry a thread of the stitching out of its track, pick at it to make it longer.
Boudreau thinks for a minute. I can’t tell if he’s going to buy it or not. I’m screwed either way, but this might buy me some more time. “I don’t feel him out there.”
“What, you think he’d be stupid enough to not be shielding himself? Of course you can’t sense him.”
“And he wouldn’t be stupid enough to let you in here on the chance you’d tell me all this, either.”
I can feel the power collecting in the room. He’s drawing in a lot from the ghosts and from the local pool. I’ve never known a ghost who could do that.
“Yeah, which is why he shoved me in here. He figures you for a hotheaded idiot. Thought you’d take one look at me and smear me across the walls. Said something about you never being able to see the long game.”
“Oh, that is so like him,” Boudreau says. “That arrogant motherfucker. He knows fuck all about me.”
“Seems to think he knows a lot.” I go out on a limb. “He’s been working with Henry Ellis.”
That stops Boudreau cold.
“He’s still alive?” he says. “What did he tell him?”
“Don’t know. But I think he said something about a way to get rid of you permanently.”
Boudreau looks at me with the intensity of a lighthouse. “You’re telling the truth,” he says.
Wow. The dead really are stupid.
“All right,” he says, “but I want you in front of me. You so much as sneeze and I’ll rip you to pieces. Understand?”
“You’re the boss.”
I stand up, the pain in my stomach a throbbing ache. It was a good hit. That’s got me worried. Even when a ghost goes poltergeist, pulled to this side and stuck here, they can’t do much more than shake some furniture. He’s no ordinary ghost, that’s for sure. But how much of a ghost is he?
I stop at the door. Tap the runes. “These going to blow if I open the door?”
“Try it and see,” he says, a wicked grin on his face. A grin like that tells me that when he does try to kill me I won’t see it coming. I pull the door open and step through. It’s pitch black. I’m still doing my worried kid routine. Pulling on that thread and winding it around my finger.
“He’s not far,” I say. The corridor is dusty and there’s trash on the floor. Bottles and cans. Somebody knew about it well enough over the years to come down and throw back a few. We’re probably ten, fifteen feet from the brick wall blocking the rest of the tunnel. I’ve got the thread loosely wrapped around my finger, now for the annoying bit.
I trip. It’s almost a pratfall. Bring my hand down onto the edge of a broken bottle. It slices the skin of my palm deep enough to start bleeding.
“What is this?” Boudreau says. “You said you could help me against Griffin. And you’re just some whiny fuck who can’t walk straight. I don’t know why—Oh, you sonofabitch. You’re bait, aren’t you?”
I tighten my hand into a fist, soaking the thread round my finger and focus my will into a spell of binding. Not too powerful. Doesn’t need to be.
“Not quite,” I say. I yank on the string, unraveling it from my finger as I reach out to Boudreau’s swarm of ghosts. I feel the magic grab hold of one of the ghosts spinning around and through Boudreau like a fish on a hook. Like the thread being pulled from my finger, the ghost is being pulled away from Boudreau. It happens so fast all he can do is squawk, and grab ineffectually against the unraveling ghost.
This ghost is attached to another and another and another. They’re all linked, tied together. And they’re all being spun off him.
It’s almost comical. Like unwrapping a cartoon mummy.
I focus on a banishing spell, pull power in while he’s distracted. It’s simple and brutal and only works on less powerful ghosts. It tears open a hole to the other side and shoves the hooked ghost through. And whatever happens to be attached to it.
Boudreau unravels before my eyes, becoming thinner, weaker, clawing at the ground with hazy hands. A tremendous wind blows out from the hole, a hurricane gale that’s pulling in every ghost in the tunnel.
“You fucker,” Boudreau says, his voice barely a whisper over the howling wind. “You think you’re so fucking smart, don’t you?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact. Kicked your ass, didn’t I? Twice now, I’m thinking.” I’d stomp on those grasping fingers dragging across the concrete if I could.
“Yeah? Let’s see how you deal with this.” He slaps his hand hard onto the ground, a flash of light appearing underneath it. And with that final act he’s sucked away, an emaciated, wasted shell. Leaving behind this curious little flame on the ground.
It looks a little like a burning egg. So much so that I’m not surprised when it starts to wobble like it’s about to break open. I’m more surprised that it’s here in the first place. Boudreau really did throw out the rulebook. Ghosts don’t cast spells, either.
The egg pulses, and with each pulse it grows a little. Vaguely egg shaped, licks of flame coming off of it. Cracks form on the side as if a baby bird were hatching from it. I’ve seen one of these. It took me a second but I know it now. Stomping out the fire won’t do any good. It’s already too late.
I watched one of these hatch in my parent’s living room fifteen years ago.
I head down the tunnel, slam the door behind me, rush up the steps. I get halfway up the stairs, take a moment to weave together a shield across the steps. It won’t last long and it won’t stop much. But maybe it will buy me enough time to get to the car and the fuck out of here. Screw the cameras seeing me. I’m heading out the front door.
I back the rest of the way up the stairs. Make sure it isn’t right behind me. I clear the trapdoor feeling like maybe I’ll get out of this mess.
And then I hear, “We should have bricked over the entrance while you were in there.”
“This day just won’t fucking quit, will it?” I glance over my shoulder. Griffin, half a dozen of his guys. Nasty looking machine guns pointed at my back. “Hey, you got new guys. You trade ’em in? The old ones were looking a little rough around the edges.”
I keep walking backward, a little more slowly. I don’t want them to shoot me, but I don’t want to be near that trapdoor, either.
“Who else is down there?” Griffin asks. His face is pretty banged up and one of his fingers is i
n a splint.
“Just me.”
“Bullshit. Heard you talking to someone down there.”
A loud groan of wrenching metal below us shows me up as the liar I am. “Okay, maybe not just me.” Sounds like Boudreau’s parting gift got through the tunnel door.
Griffin points to one of his men. “Get him out of the way and cover him. The rest of you cover the trapdoor. Last chance. Tell us who your friend is or my men unload as soon as he pops his head out of that hole.”
“Would you believe me if I told you it was a really nasty fire elemental?”
Griffin nods at the man covering me, who gives me a glancing blow across the forehead with the butt of his gun. More surprise than pain, it still knocks me on my ass.
A deep shudder rolls through the floor, then another. I can feel the concrete beneath my hands grow warm. Panic threatens to consume me, but I force it down. I inch back a little. The noise gets louder. Worry creases the men’s faces. I get ready to move.
A blast of heat and smoke pours out of the trapdoor and a glow like hell’s own furnace. My guard turns away to see what’s going on and I make my move.
I bowl into him, fouling his aim. He stitches a line of gunfire into the ceiling. This is a stupid move, rushing headlong into a mob of armed men. But the thing behind me is worse.
A blast of furnace heat bursts from the trap door followed by a deafening roar like sequoia falling in a forest fire. A wave of flame shoots out, spreading into a form of two thick forelegs, a long sinuous body and a head that’s impossibly huge. It looks like a giant, pissed off weasel made of fire.
More importantly everyone’s shooting at it and not me. Which is a plus any way you look at it.
Chapter 17
Elementals are a pain in the ass. Each one is brought into the world with a single purpose, a simple command. Drown this guy, bury that one, fly me to the next county over. Burn a house down with the people still inside.
They’re not smart, but what they lack in brains they more than make up for in tenacity. They’ll keep going until they accomplish their task, get destroyed, or are ordered to stop by their summoner. Boudreau’s not around to stop it and I don’t know how to destroy it. That leaves option three, me dying, which I’m really not all that keen on.
Dead Things Page 14
