“Very well, it’s him.”
“What kind of gem was it?” Colin asked me.
“A gray spinel.”
“Not a diamond or sapphire?”
“I like the color gray, and there are few gems that are that color.”
“Do you like gray pearls too?”
“Colin, focus. We need to find out why he needs to talk to us. He has presumably postponed going to the ghost realm for this.”
Colin blushed and nodded his head.
There were tons of questions I would have liked to ask Stephen next, but I knew our time was limited… maybe later if he stuck around long enough. Knowing him though, he would most likely gallivant around the world looking for adventure and people to annoy, I meant haunt.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
The knife vibrated and tried to flip up off the board again.
“I think your question was too broad for him to answer with this rudimentary device. Ask a simpler one,” Colin told me.
First things first, “Is the guardian ghost to be trusted?”
The knife teetered between the plus and minus sign. He didn’t know.
“Is Blake Morlock Jr. the one behind this demon outcropping?” Colin asked.
The knife twisted and pointed towards the plus sign. My heart sank. My childhood friend had turned into an adult fiend.
“Is his father involved?” I asked.
It rotated in a circle for a long time before it finally settled towards the negative. Drats.
“Is Pastor Bob involved?”
Plus sign again.
“Are they trying to summon Isis?”
Y-e-s.
“When?”
The knife nearly jumped out of our fingers as it spelled out the word n-o-w.
Colin looked at me with the same exasperated look I knew my own expression held.
Time for the speculative question, “Can we stop them?”
The knife vibrated and then slowly pointed at the plus sign again. That certainly didn’t embolden me to march right out of this storeroom and attack Blake.
“Can you help us?” Colin asked, while I pondered the implications of Stephen’s last response. This time the knife vibrated and then pointed to the negative. At least he was being honest.
“Where is the ritual being conducted?”
H-o-t-e-l the knife spelled out.
“Was that you back at my house that pulled the book off the shelf and opened it to the sigil I needed?”
No response.
“Is my Grandfather with you now?”
Fierce vibration followed my question, and despite Colin and me pinning the knife down, it finally flew off the glass and landed under a shelving unit.
Colin said, “I guess the séance is over.”
“I would think so.” I wouldn’t be asking him today if he were happy, or if he missed me. He also didn’t say if he was moving on or not, which meant he might continue to shadow me anywhere.
Colin removed the glass and settled it on the floor. I stood and walked over to where my knife had been flung. Under the shelves, my arm went, and I grabbed for my knife. As I dragged it back to me, it caught on something. I lifted it to clear whatever it had caught upon, and then ran my hand over the wooden floor. There was an indention in the floor in the shape of a rectangle. I pushed the empty shelving unit easily a couple of feet to my right and then looked down at it.
Colin came up beside me and asked, “Is that a secret compartment?”
“I do believe it is. Let’s find out what security experts felt the need to hide back here in such an antiquated manner.” I knelt down and slid my knife into the crevice to pop open the lid.
Colin put his hand on my shoulder before I could find purchase in it, and said, “It could be protected.”
“Not by anything I can sense. Can you tell something that I can’t?”
He knelt beside me and sniffed deeply. “Don’t pop it open with the knife. I’m going to crush the lid downward.”
I put the blade away, and scooted back. He raised both his fists and smashed the entire lid in one go. After he went through the flimsy wood as if it were tissue paper, he examined the edges of the opening carefully. He slid his hand under one of the broken boards and removed a hidden spring that was connected to a pin, which was attached to an amber colored glass bottle. Inside of the bottle had to be at least six ounces of a mysterious substance.
“What is that?” I asked while pointing at the bottle.
“That is nitrogen dioxide. If you had lifted the lid, without holding the spring down, the top would have opened, releasing its contents. Its gas alone would most likely have caused your death by asphyxiation, but if it didn’t, then you’d experience coughing fits so fierce that it would make ambulatory movement impossible. All of which would no doubt alert the owners.”
“If they were nearby.”
“Yes, if they were,” he agreed.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“The lid has a small leak, and the gas has a very pungent odor. Now that this is out of the way, let’s take a look at what it was hiding.”
Once we removed the broken wooden boards, we were rewarded with a small arsenal, including a few guns and a couple of small bombs, but no Westinghouse. I took out one of the guns and found its bullet chamber empty, and there were no extra bullets in the compartment either.
Colin reached further down into the hole and pulled out a strange looking pyramid that had been hidden under the guns. It was about five inches tall and transparent, giving it a crystal or even jeweled appearance.
“What is that?” I asked.
“I’m not certain, but if I had to guess it looks rather like a Benben stone.”
“What is that?”
“The ancient Egyptians thought that you could summon entities from one plane to another using it.”
“Does it work?”
“Theoretically, but you need a set of them,” he educated me. “I wonder where the other one is located.”
“If they need this one to complete the set, why would they leave something as precious as this unguarded?” I asked him.
“Maybe the owners of this store were actually against the Morlocks, and they decided to hide it from them.”
Just then, the front door crashed open from the main room, and we heard someone holler, “Release them, and then corral the juveniles into a holding pen!” I could have sworn that voice belonged to Pastor Robert Ensley.
“What room sir?”
“Room 205.” It was Pastor Bob. “And clean up these bodies, the High Priest doesn’t like trash littering up the town. I’m going to check the back room.”
I grabbed the small bombs, while Colin scooped up our coats, grabbed my arm, and then took me out the back door. I wanted to wait for Calidum, but our time here had just run out. It was a good thing that he never had any trouble finding me.
Colin was very decisive in turning right, away from the hotel. I still had the map for the hotel folded up under my blouse to protect it, but I needn’t have bothered, as the torrential rains had finally ended. A clean smell of ozone and dampness filled the air. With only the gas lamps glowing, one could even see that the clouds had started to break up overhead, revealing a brilliantly painted sky filled with stars.
Colin kept me close to the shadows. He tried most of the back doors of the shops we passed, but we found them all locked until we reached a small fish market. In we went, and the smell of rotting fish was overwhelming. Unfortunately, resplugs did little for filtering out odors. I knew that if the stench was overwhelming to me, it must have been unbearable for him.
Colin led us upstairs to the apartment above the shop. There were actual windows on both the front and back sides of the shop, and better yet, there were emergency escapes at all of them. There was even a small balcony outside one of the small sitting areas. This was perfect for spying on the hotel, even though we were quite a ways from it now.
He sniffed deeply and said
, “The owners of this building are dead in the bathroom. They were Ordinaries.” He then took my hand, led me back to a parlor sofa, and then we sat down. “Take out the maps for the first story and the basement of the hotel. I want to look them over again.”
I took them out, and after I spread the plans open on the small table near the couch, I asked, “What are we going to do?”
“I have an idea,” Then he took out the ocular pyramid and held it up above the map.
After a few moments, I asked, “Is there something I’m supposed to be seeing?”
“Open the drapes a little wider please.”
I got up and did as he requested. When I turned around, I found that enough moonlight had filtered into the room to reach the pyramid, and its reflected prism filled the room.
“What is this?”
“This one works with moonlight, while its match is a sunstone. They are probably using the sunstone for their ritual at sunrise, but this one should work for us tonight.” He held it above the middle of the map and the prism’s light, albeit dim, lit up the map. We waited a minute, but nothing other than that happened.
“What is supposed to be happening?” I asked.
“I was hoping that it would find its match.”
“I think the map is mundane, because those stamps certainly weren’t real.” I looked at the weak light as it illuminated the map and added, “Maybe we need to bring the pyramid to the window.”
He stood and walked over to the small balcony. I followed closely behind him. We stopped just before stepping out on the small terrace. The moon had become hidden behind some clouds, so he closed the curtains before turning to me.
“We’ll have to wait now until I can catch another moonbeam.”
It was dark outside, but the street lamps lit up the side of his face. I studied his fine features, and I found myself breathless and queasy at the same time. I wanted so much. Too much.
He took my breath away with his beautifully elegant face and his equally strong frame. I couldn’t help but wonder who would eventually marry him. Certainly, with his wolf genes being recessive, who wouldn’t be loopy for his clever mind and strong convictions? He was lovely. He was perfect. He could never be mine.
As if sensing my morose mood, he dipped his head and pressed his lips to my own. Funny how potential annihilation of the human species seems almost unimportant when someone you have feelings for kisses you. I couldn’t think of anything other than lush green fields of grass and the push and pull of his lips and tongue against my own.
The moon came back out, but I hadn’t noticed. Unfortunately, Colin did, and he pulled away. He smiled at me and touched his nose to mine, even though I felt completely ruffled and frustrated. Couldn’t he have kissed me a little longer?
He opened the door, stepped back out onto the balcony, and held up the pyramid like capstone. It caught the light, and then cast the opposite side of the street in a rainbow of colors, including the hotel. Then Colin tilted the stone up, and out from its tip shot a laser that pointed to a room on the top floor.
“Looks like we have our path,” I glumly pointed out.
“Yes, but they’ll know that we have the moonstone soon enough, so we’ll have to act fast.”
Before I could respond, Calidum jumped into the room. “Calidum, what did you find out?” I asked.
“Close that window!” he snapped. “It is like a gribbob shining its light on you.”
“What did he say?” Colin asked.
“It’s a rare demon with lights that shine out from their eyes. It helps them see predators in the seventh dimension.”
“Is that a new classification? I’ve not seen one of those illustrated in Maccabee’s Demon Classification Castes vol. 7.”
“It’s a minor demon that is harmless. Probably wasn’t worth the page space,” I commented. “Maybe I’ll take you there one day to see one for yourself.”
“You would do that for me?”
Calidum ignored us and said, “Mayor Morlock is dead.” Well, that was a bit of a game changer.
“Do you know how he died?” I asked.
“He was tied to a star and had his major arteries slashed. It looked to me as if he bled to death.” It was ritualistic then.
I asked him, “Did you find out if Lucas was a Necromancer?”
“No, but even if he wasn’t, he’s the lucky one. There isn’t a Necromancer alive that could raise him now.” I knew exactly what he meant. He was just another shade on his way to the ghost realm.
I needed to know if there was anyone else we might be confronted by, in addition to Pastor Bob’s crew, so I asked, “Did you have the chance to check out the hotel?”
“I looked in a few windows, but there is a powerful ward protecting it, so I couldn’t stay for long.”
“How many people would you estimate were still in the hotel?”
“I’d wager no Ordinaries have been left alive that have been left untainted, but there must be at least thirty Users.”
“So many?” Colin asked.
The doppelgänger ghost had evidently returned with Calidum since he whispered in my ear, “Many have been arriving for weeks.”
I looked for the ghost, but for now, he must have been able to make himself invisible. Thank goodness for small mercies. I asked him, “How do you know all this? Being stuck in the Brick’s Securities building must have been a hindrance to your becoming a master spy.”
“The Brick brothers would spend late nights talking. George and Bastian were part of the cult, as were most of the shop owners in town who could use this plane’s powers. It was only at the end when they had a change of heart.”
I told Colin what I had learned from the ghost, and then he asked, “Ask him if the goddess’s spirit will need to inhabit a body or if she will be whole and corporeal when she is summoned.”
The demon ghost could hear us just fine, despite Colin not being able to, and he directly replied, “They are going to sacrifice Millie so she can host Isis until the goddess can be reborn from her.” It only made sense to have a Lux Illusionist as the incubator for an ancient Egyptian goddess. Isis’s race worshiped the sun. Having lived under dark and smutty skies for so long, I wasn’t prepared to start praying to the sun.
The pieces of their plan suddenly fell into place for me, and I had to admit that it had been well planned out. If they succeeded tonight by bringing the old Egyptian gods back to earth, how could we stop a goddess? If she learned how to inhabit a dead body, and split herself into duplicate twins, then there were no boundaries as to how many copies she could make of herself. Also, if there was one of her, there must be a whole host of other ancient Egyptian deities that were bound to follow in her wake. She simply had to put out the welcome mat for them, since the door would have been already opened.
I slumped down in a chair, feeling exhausted. “Why here? Why now? What made them think that they could do this thing in the first place?” I asked rhetorically.
Colin reached down a hand and placed it on my shoulder. “You’re not alone in this. If they left this realm over two millenniums ago, I doubted they left on their own. We were the ones that drove them out of this plane. If we did it then, then there has to be a way to do it again.”
“These people may not even succeed in summoning her,” Calidum pointed out.
“I know many of the floor plans in this town. There is an underground tunnel in this building that runs to the Hotel,” the ghost offered. “Most of the grocers and saloons have one actually. It made deliveries discreet.” That may get us in, but it won’t get us to the top floor. “And I know of a service elevator that should bring you to the top floor, if not the roof.”
I looked up at the three of them, smiled, and said, “Time to go goddess hunting boys.”
Chapter 18
Stones and Bones
Rule number twenty-two: Intent is ninety percent of the law.
“First things first, we need to get into the building without tripping t
he wards on the stones,” Colin said.
“Unless they have recently reinforced them, or fiddled with them to make then only allow particular blood lines, they shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. “If anything, they probably made them inert so they could summon demons within it.
“I’ll need to turn the stone’s power inward and then recharge them to bolster the efficacy. In case we lose this battle, I don’t want any more demon infested people roaming the streets waiting to infect the infantrymen outside the wall.”
“If they gas and then torch the town before you are done, there won’t be anyone left inside to stop her,” Calidum glumly added. He was correct, but the only problem to his logic assumed that we knew how to stop her. Getting to the rooftop was where my plan ended. I didn’t know how to stop her, and I doubted that simply turning the stones against her could prevent her from leaving the hotel.
“The stones should be accessible from the basement,” the demon ghost told me.
“Show me this tunnel,” and then down we went.
···•Ͽ Ѡ Ͼ•···
“Are you sure it won’t cave in on us?” I asked for the third time. The trip down to the fish monger’s basement had been precarious at best, but when we reached the entrance of the tunnel, which was outlined by rotten looking wooden supports, it looked downright fatal. Roots from trees, which bordered the road above us, also zigzagged through the tunnel, making a spider’s web that would be treacherous to walk through.
“Trust me,” the demon ghost said, which made me even more suspicious. At least he had returned his visage to the nondescript male form that he had when we had first discovered him at the security office. I definitely didn’t need Stephen’s visage telling me to trust him.
“I don’t think anyone has traversed this tunnel in at least two generations,” I said.
“From what I heard, it was three; but fret not, it will not collapse this night,” the ghost said.
“Calidum, I would prefer you to burn all these roots away first, but as that might compromise whatever structural integrity remains, could you at least scout this tunnel to its end to check for its stabilization?”
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