To Stop a Shadow (Spirit Chasers Book 2)

by Carrie Pulkinen

  He took his backpack from Tina and bounded up the stairs. Allison rested her hands on the coat rack and closed her eyes.

  “Trent loves that gnarly piece of wood.” Tina laid her hand on top of the rack. “I thought it was ugly at first, but I kinda like it now.”

  Allison opened her eyes and gave it a quizzical look. “I still don’t understand how a piece of wood could have absorbed so much of Trent’s energy so quickly. And yours too. I feel you both, but I don’t see you.”

  “If the shadow has been affecting Trent’s narcolepsy without him knowing it, could it also have been draining our energy somehow? Maybe storing it in the wood?”

  Allison furrowed her brow. “I honestly don’t know. This whole ordeal is so incredibly bizarre. I feel useless.”

  Tina wrapped her arm around Allison’s shoulders. “You’re my BFF, Allie. You’ll never be useless to me.”

  “All right, ladies,” Gage called from the second-floor landing. “This place is brighter than a high school football stadium on a Friday night in Texas. Come on up.”

  Tina swallowed and stepped toward the stairs. Never in her wildest dreams would she have believed she’d be doing this. She gazed up the staircase. “Well, let’s go kick some demon ass.”

  “Look out!” Allison shouted.

  Tina turned to find her friend righting the overturned coat rack. She grabbed her jacket from the floor and tossed it onto the sofa. “Did it fall over again? The arms must be off-balance.”

  Allison shook her head. “It didn’t fall. Your ghost friend pushed it.”

  Tina sucked in a sharp breath, jerking her head to the left and right, but she didn’t see the handless woman. “Is she still here?”

  “I think she pushed the coat rack to stop us. When I caught it, she looked at me and said, ‘Please don’t.’ Then she disappeared.”

  “Why on Earth would she want to stop us from vanquishing the demon that has her trapped?”

  Allison rubbed her arms. “I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “So do I, but we have to help Trent.” They were about to battle a shadow demon. If she had any feelings about it that weren’t bad ones, she’d have to be crazy. The nausea gnawing at the pit of her stomach was natural, the intense feeling of dread squeezing her chest expected. She linked arms with her friend and tugged her toward the stairs. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Gage met them at the top of the steps. “Do you have your scripts?”

  Tina held up her paper. “What language is this?”

  “It’s Latin. Everything is pretty much pronounced how it’s spelled.” He turned to Allison. “Don’t try to do anything with the ghosts yet. We have to get rid of the shadow before you can help the rest cross over.”

  Allison nodded. “Got it. No ghosts.” She faked a smile, but the uneasiness in her expression made Tina’s stomach tighten. If Allison wasn’t confident they could defeat the monster, how could she be?

  Gage held up a container of salt. “Let’s go.”

  Squinting against the brightness of the once-dark room, Tina crossed the threshold into hell. That’s how it felt, anyway. Gage had set up an industrial-strength lantern, emitting 360 degrees of super-bright light, in each corner of the room. Two other intense lights sat on either side of the portal, illuminating the entire space. She stood near the portal next to Gage while Allison poured a ring of salt around the three of them.

  “I’m not sure how much good this will do against a demon,” Allison said. “I’ve only ever used it against human spirits.”

  “Hopefully we won’t need it,” Gage said. “Do you have the blood?”

  Allison held up a clenched fist, the purple tip of the vial protruding between her thumb and forefinger.

  Wooziness made Tina sway on her feet. She had to get this phobia under control. Maybe if she convinced herself it was tomato juice, she could stop the world from turning on its side. It wasn’t like it was coming out of a person. It was just a thick red liquid inside a glass container. Tomato juice. That’s all it was. A cocktail ingredient in their arsenal of demon vanquishing gear.

  She took a deep breath and straightened her spine. “What do we do?”

  “Give me a minute to connect with the portal. Then we’ll recite the incantation and seal it up with the shadow inside.” Allison closed her eyes and rocked gently as she did her psychic thing.

  A static electricity built in the air, and Tina’s arm hairs stood on end. A heavy dread settled deep in her stomach, and it took all her will power to keep her feet planted to the floor. Her instincts told her to run. Though she couldn’t see the damn thing, she could feel it was there. And it wasn’t happy it couldn’t manifest.

  “It’s definitely open,” Allison said. “There’s a void in the middle of the room. Let’s recite the chant and force the entity back inside.”

  Tina read the words. They seemed to roll off her tongue in a steady rhythm, though she had no idea what they meant. The pressure in the room grew heavy, suffocating, as they called on the shadow and commanded it into the portal.

  They finished the first recitation and started the second. The air buzzed around her. Hot. Electric. An emptiness formed in the center of the portal, like a vacuum. The temptation to step toward it overwhelmed her, and she slipped her hand into Gage’s, hoping he’d hold her in place.

  He gave her hand a squeeze and nodded as they began the third and final repetition of the incantation. The electric sensation in the air strengthened until it felt like ten thousand charged needles pressing into her skin. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain.

  As they recited the final word, the electric piercing stopped. Every negative feeling inside the room was sucked into the portal, and the air grew light and soft. Tina opened her eyes and looked at Allison. “That’s it? It’s gone?”

  Allison pulled the cap off the tomato juice and held her hand over the portal. “We have to seal it with three drops of blood, and it should be gone.”

  Blood.

  Allison tipped the vial, and the first drop splashed onto the wood floor. Tina’s stomach lurched. The second drop seemed to fall in slow motion and landed next to the first with a splat. Her knees buckled. Gage caught her by the waist, and she buried her face in his chest as the third drop fell to the floor.

  “You all right?” He led her to the wall and propped her against it. “Do you need to sit down?”

  “It’s done.” Allison capped the vial and slipped it into her pocket.

  Tina swallowed the sour taste of bile from her mouth. “I’m okay. Are you sure it’s gone?”

  “I don’t feel it anymore. Do you?” Allison said.

  “No.” Laughter bubbled from her throat. “We did it. We vanquished a demon.” She threw her arms around her friend and hugged her tight. “We should call Logan. Maybe Trent’s awake already.”

  “Uh, ladies?” Gage held a device in his hand. “Something’s not right here.”

  As soon as the words left his lips, a pulse of energy shot through the room, slamming into Tina’s chest and knocking her off her feet. The air whooshed from her lungs as her back slammed into the wall. She slid to the floor. One by one, the lights in the corners popped and dimmed in a shower of sparks. Gage grabbed a lantern by the portal and hauled Tina up by the arm. “Definitely not right.”

  Allison took the other still-lit lantern and barreled out the door. Gage followed her out, but Tina stayed glued to the spot.

  Whether it was fear or anger that kept her from running, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was a little of both. They’d done everything right. Gage had double-checked his research. This demon should have been back in hell.

  It billowed in front of her, rising up into a vertical mass of fog. Angry heat coursed through her veins, and she threw out her fist, scattering the smoke. “You can’t have Trent. He’s mine.”

  The fog reformed. Thicker. Blacker. The heaviness in the air pressed into her.


  “Tina, come on,” Allison yelled from the doorway. “You can’t fight it like that.”

  “I will stop you.” She took two steps back before turning on her heel and sprinting for the door, but something caught her foot. She went down inches from the exit. Gage pulled her hands, but the shadow had her by the leg. Her boot slipped off, and she scrambled to her feet, darting through the door.

  They raced down the steps and onto the front porch. Tina leaned against the railing, but Allison dropped the lantern on the steps and marched toward the car.

  Gage put his hand on Tina’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  She watched her friend get in the car and buckle her seatbelt. “What happened?”

  “I think we pissed it off. Royally.”

  “No kidding. What’s wrong with her?”

  He picked up the lantern and let out a sigh. “She experiences this shit differently than you and me. No telling what she saw in there.”

  “Why didn’t it work? Is it because we didn’t all pour the blood onto the portal? Everything seemed to be going fine until then.” If her stupid fear was the only thing keeping Trent in that coma…

  “It’s possible. But it’s more likely that the blood has to come straight from the source. That Trent needs to recite the incantation and spill his own blood.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  Allison started the engine and honked the horn. Tina hugged Gage. “I’ll call you.”

  “Take care of her.”

  “Always.” She limped toward the car in one boot and a one stocking-foot. The shadow was trying to take her boyfriend, and now it had her favorite boot. There would be hell to pay.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Allison didn’t say a word on the drive back to the hospital, no matter how many times Tina tried to get her to talk. Tina followed her through the parking garage and into the hospital elevator. Allison pushed the button for the fourth floor and grumbled under her breath.

  Tina threw her hands in the air and let out an exasperated breath. “What, Allie? Why won’t you talk to me?”

  Allison clenched her fists. “I knew this wasn’t going to work.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because I felt it in my gut.” She squared her gaze on Tina. “And every time I ignore my gut feelings, something bad happens that could have been prevented.”

  “Nothing bad happened.” The elevator doors slid open, bringing in a gust of chilly, sterile hospital air. “Our plan didn’t work, but we can try again.”

  Allison let her breath out in a huff and marched down the hall, stopping outside Trent’s room. “You could have been killed. We all could have. And if you’d listened to me, rather than rushing in like some vigilante ghost-busting cowboy, it could have been avoided.”

  Tina clenched her jaw and glared at her friend. How dare she fault Tina for trying to save the man she loved? “Put yourself in my shoes, Allie. If Logan were lying unconscious in that bed right now, what would you do? Would you be calm and rational? Or would you be doing everything in your power to help him, whether it put your own life in danger or not?”

  Allison closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Rational thinking does seem to fly out the window when our loved ones are in danger, doesn’t it?” She flashed an apologetic smile and held out her hands. “May I?”

  “Sure.” Tina placed her hands in Allison’s. It had been ages since her friend had read her like this. She watched as Allison’s eyelids fluttered shut and she swayed slightly from side to side. The energy around her felt like a magnet, pulling Tina in.

  Funny. She’d never felt anything when Allison read her before.

  Allison opened her eyes and smiled sadly. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I would feel the same way if Logan were the one in a coma.” She wiped a tear from her cheek and wrapped her arms around her.

  Tina had managed to hold it together all morning, but that one tear sliding down her best friend’s cheek opened the floodgates. Her throat felt as if she’d swallowed a wad of cotton, and the tearing pain in her chest ripped open even more. “I love him so much, Allie.”

  “I know.”

  “What are we going to do? I can’t live without him. I don’t know how I’ve made it as long as I have.”

  “Hey.” Allison put her hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “We’re going to fix this.”

  “How?” Hopelessness consumed her. Guilt gnawed at her heart. She felt useless. She’d let Trent down, and she had no idea how to help him now.

  This whole ordeal was her fault. Trent had wanted to sell the house to a flipper, to get rid of it as soon as possible, and she’d talked him into hanging onto to it. All to make a few more bucks. If she’d listed it when he’d asked her to, none of this would have happened. If she had listened to him instead of being so stubborn…

  “I want to do a past-life regression with you.” Allison opened the door and motioned for Tina to follow her into the room. “I think you have a connection to the house. Your energy is way too strong there for the short amount of time you’ve spent in the place.”

  “Wait.” She paused in the doorway. “You think I lived there in a past life?”

  Logan tossed a magazine on a table and rose to his feet as they shuffled in. “How did it go?”

  “Not good.” Allison gave him a kiss and turned to Tina. “I do. It’s the only way to explain the energy I feel and the way the shadow feels about you.”

  Logan narrowed his eyes. “How does the shadow feel about her?”

  A sinking feeling formed in Tina’s stomach. If she was one of the former residents in another life, that would mean…Oh, no. “If I lived there before, that means I’m related to Trent.”

  Allison shrugged. “Distantly, maybe.”

  Logan chuckled. “Tina and Trent are related?”

  “That’s gross, Allie.” Tina rubbed her arms to chase away the icky feeling forming in her veins. “I don’t want to know if I’m related to him. What if we’re cousins or something?”

  Allison shook her head. “It would be so distant, it wouldn’t matter.”

  Logan ran a hand through his hair. “Will you girls please stop ignoring me and tell me what’s going on?”

  Allison told him what happened at the house. “And I think Tina is connected to all this in a much deeper way than we originally thought. So we’re going to do a past-life regression to see if she can remember anything.”

  “Shit.” He pulled Allison into a hug and kissed the top of her head. “On that note, do you mind if I go grab some dinner?”

  “Sure.” Allison looked at the clock. “Be back in an hour? We should be done by then.”

  He raised a hand to Tina. “Good luck.”

  “I’m going to need it.” She plopped into the chair next to Trent’s bed and laced her fingers through his. Feeling the warmth of his skin and watching the rise and fall of his chest sent a flood of reassurance through her body. He was only sleeping, and she would figure out how to wake him up. “Tell me what to do.”

  Allison pulled a chair across from Tina and settled into it. “This isn’t stage hypnosis. In fact, it’s not hypnosis at all. You’ll be in complete control of yourself the entire time. If it gets too intense, all you have to do is open your eyes, and you’ll be back in the present. Now take five slow, deep breaths with me.”

  Tina closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as Allison counted.

  “In two, three, four, five. And out two, three, four, five.”

  She repeated the breathing count four more times, and warm, liquid relaxation flowed through her body.

  “I’m going to take you into a meditative state, but, in order to do that, you need to be completely relaxed. We’re going to start with your feet and work our way up.”

  Allison guided her through relaxing every muscle in her body, from her toes to the top of her head. When she reached her fingers, Tina relaxed her grip on Trent’s hand but kept her palm resting in his. Whereve
r Allison was about to take her in her mind, she needed Trent’s touch to ground her to the present. To the time that really mattered.

  “Now, I’m going to count backwards from ten. As I do, I want you to picture the house in your mind and imagine the numbers floating away, evaporating into vapor.”

  As Allison slowly counted, Tina imagined the house. She pictured the façade, with its cheerful blue paint and crisp white trim. A little girl with blonde ringlets and a yellow dress giggled as she ran up the front steps into the house.

  Tina could barely focus on the numbers as she followed the girl into the foyer and hung her scarf on a familiar coat rack by the door. The rest of the furniture she hadn’t seen before, but it held a strange familiarity that made no sense at all. Was she really seeing something from a past life? Or was her mind only telling her stories? Keeping her eyes closed and her body relaxed, she gently parted her lips to speak. “Allie, how do I know if what I’m seeing is a past life or if it’s just my imagination?”

  “How are you seeing things? Can you see yourself…your body…there in the image? Or does it seem like you’re looking at things through your own eyes, like you’re actually there?”

  Tina took a deep breath and focused on the image. In her mind, she glanced around the room. The only person she saw was the little blonde girl, lying on the floor, playing with a wooden doll. She raised her hands in front of her face and focused on the ring adorning her left hand. A brilliant round diamond perched atop a gold setting shaped like the petals of a flower. On either side of the stone, the band formed the shape of a bud with intricately designed leaves accenting it. The little girl giggled, pulling Tina’s attention away from the ring, and darted up the stairs.

  “I think I’m seeing through my own eyes. I can’t see my face.”

  “You’re in a past life. Look around. What does the house look like? The furniture? Can you figure out the time period?”

  She walked into the living room and turned a circle. “The furniture is an old style. Thick upholstery. Heavy, dark wood. But not creepy-looking like the furniture from Trent’s uncle. It’s pretty, and it looks brand new. Like it hasn’t been used much. And it doesn’t look very comfortable.” Hadn’t she seen it in a dream?