A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder (26 page)

Gilley stood there blinking for a good ten seconds. At last he said, “Okay, okay. I hear ya. I've got her back, Heath.”

Heath turned again toward the stairs and marched up past me. I looked back down at Gilley, who seemed a little rattled, and when he caught my eyes, I mouthed,
Wowsa!

That got him to grin, and I was relieved. Gilley was a certified genius, like, Mensa smart, but when he got rattled or really scared, he mentally shut down. That was the last thing we needed tonight.

We reached the top floor and Heath and I felt out the space. Gertie poked her head out of Apartment 4C and glared at us. “Gertie, you'd best head back into that apartment and stay there,” I told her. “We'll be making some noise out here, and I'm sorry for that,
but we mean you no harm and we'll leave your floor alone after tonight. Deal?”

She seemed to consider that, and then the head sticking right out of the door faded in front of our eyes. “Sweet Jesus,” Chris repeated from behind me. “How the hell do you guys ever get used to that?”

I shrugged and set my duffel on the floor. “We've seen a whole lot worse. Enough exposure to the nastier spooks and not a lot of the milder ones freak you out anymore.”

Chris shuddered. “What do you think is going to come at us tonight?” she asked.

Heath and I exchanged a look. We'd purposely avoided talking about that because we hadn't wanted to freak out either Chris or Gilley.

But then I considered that there wasn't a point to keeping it from them any longer. What would come, would come, and we were here, so they might as well be prepared for the worst. “Heath and I think that our main threats will be Hatchet Jack, Oruç's demon, Sy the Slayer—whom you haven't met yet, Chris—and we're hoping that's it.”

Chris gulped. “Who else could come, though?” she asked with a quaver in her voice.

I sighed. “We dealt with a spook in Santa Fe that made Oruç's demon look like a cute, cuddly puppy. And a guardian shadow spirit in Ireland that, if he showed, alone would have the power to take us all out. Quick.”

“What about the witches?” Gil asked, referring to
some determined and deadly ghosts from Scotland we'd dealt with a few years back.

I shook my head. “Nope. They at least won't show. That I know.”

“The Grim Widow again?” he asked, and he shivered at the mention of her name.

“God, I hope not,” I said. “Heath and his ancestors took a lot of her firepower out today on the stairs, so we'll see. I'm hoping she sits this one out, because even weakened she's a freaking nightmare to deal with.”

“The . . . the Sandman?” Gil said with a gulp.

I shuddered involuntarily. “God, I hope not, Gil.”

“How long?” Chris asked next. I noticed that she'd lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. The anticipation and the anxiety were both building for her. For all of us, really.

“Could be awhile. Could be any minute,” I said, setting down several canisters of metallic dust. Another one of Gilley's ideas, and we'd barely managed to find a source before the stores all closed, but we now had a dozen small canisters of the stuff, and the dust carried a lovely magnetic charge. I passed two each to Gilley and Chris, then instructed Chris in how to use them. “These are your last resort, Chris,” I said. “They're like a grenade. You set one off, it'll buy you some time to get the hell out of the building. One is to get you to the ground floor. The other is to get you through the door and outside, where you will run as fast as you can until you can't run anymore.”

She considered the canisters gravely. “What do I do with them? Just toss one and bolt?”

I pulled up on the top and showed her the insides. “Flip the top, toss the contents directly
at
the demon or spook that's coming for you, and run like hell.”

“Why are these a last resort?” she asked me next, taking the lid from me and putting it back on the canister.

“Because they may or may not stick to the spook. We've never tested them before, so we don't know. Worst-case scenario, they'll simply create a magnetic cloud that the spook will have to pass through on its way to you, and that's not going to be anything a ghost or even a demon will want to do. It'll wait for the dust to settle, so to speak, before giving chase.”

“Can't it just chase me outside?”

I pressed my lips together. She'd asked me the one question I hadn't wanted her to. “Yes. But we're hoping it won't.”

She palmed the canister and studied it for a long moment. “I hate that plan,” she said at last. “Let's make sure we don't have to use it.”

“I hear ya.”

We took the next several minutes to get set up, and then we heard something downstairs. The four of us stood straight and rigid . . . listening.

No other sound came to our ears, but I pointed to Heath and mouthed,
Action!

“So, what I'm thinking,” Heath said in a loud voice, “is that M.J. can sort of kick the door closed, and if it's dark enough, then we can film it so that the audience thinks there's a ghost behind the door. I'll jump a little when it happens, but make sure that the angle doesn't
get her in the shot so the audience won't suspect anything.”

“Got it,” Chris said, also in a loud voice.

Gilley had written us out a script to help egg Bernard on. He figured that if Bernie suspected that we were big fat fakers, he'd feed that by having us pretend to stage a ghost shoot.

Again there was a sound from downstairs, and Heath rolled with it. “Hey, maybe you can capture some of the sounds from this old building, and we'll tell the audience that the spooks are letting us know they're around. We can turn up the volume when we edit so that it looks to the audience like the sound was much louder.”

“They'll believe anything you tell them,” I said with a laugh.

“Right?” Heath agreed. “Suckers!”

We each made a show of giggling, but it was all fake. I knew that my friends were just as nervous and scared about what was coming as I was, but it was important to set the stage.

“I wish we'd had some of that afternoon action on tape,” Gilley said. “Man, did we show that bitch spook something or what?”

“We did,” I agreed. “She wasn't no thang,” I sang. “Easy peezy.”

As I taunted the Widow and we all laughed again, there was a distinctive sound from below. I knew it well and barely resisted the urge to tremble. It was that same slow, grating sound . . . talons on a hard surface.

Chris gave a small startled squeak, and Heath took her by the arm and sent her far down the hall behind him. Gilley shuffled down the hall too, taking up a stance on my side of the corridor, about six feet farther back than Chris. Before leaving my side, however, he'd handed me one of his extra-long spikes, and I'd seen that he'd put on his metal gloves again.

Once I saw that Gil and Chris were set, I turned to nod at Heath to show him I was ready. He nodded back and picked up the crossbow he'd brought with him. We'd gotten that little number on the way back from getting the metallic dust powder. He had several arrows knocked into place, each one tipped in steel. Magnetized, of course. When Gilley had first seen it, he'd said, “That's gonna leave a mark.”

I was just glad my husband knew how to shoot it. We waited like that in the hall near the landing, watching the top of the stairs for anything that might come at us.

Lucky us, we didn't have to wait long . . .

It came at us from behind, and we never saw it coming. We were so intent on watching the stairwell that none of us considered that the elevator was also a way to access the fourth floor.

I was standing in a defensive posture, hands loaded with spikes, canisters of metallic powder ready to hurl at any spook that got too close, when I heard a
ping!

Instantly I knew what that sound was. I stiffened and turned my head to Heath, who looked at me and said, “Oh,
shit
!”

He and I couldn't whirl around fast enough. Out of the elevator rushed three of my worst nightmares, and they hit Chris and Gilley first.

Hatchet Jack was all but a blur as he bulleted his way toward Gil, who screamed and had no time to get his spike up. To make a very bad situation a thousand times worse, Gil had been at least fifteen feet behind
me. I couldn't have possibly gotten to him in time. That didn't stop me from trying, but Hatchet Jack had already landed on Gilley and was dragging him by the throat toward the elevator.

Gilley beat at Jack, his hands flying wildly, which turned out to be the wrong move, because both his heavy gloves slipped from his fists and flew to each side, taking the spike he was holding with them. Jack barely flinched and simply tightened his grip on Gil's throat, hauling him farther away from me with freakishly terrifying speed. I ran as fast as I could, but Jack moved quicker.

Meanwhile, Chris was overrun by Sy the Slayer. He was much like Hatchet Jack in build and evil grin. He grabbed Chris by the hair, but she managed to swipe at him with her spike and he backed off a fraction. “I can't get a clear shot!” I heard Heath shout as I kept trying to get to Gilley.

I realized that Heath's crossbow was of no use to us as long as Gilley and Chris were in his line of fire.

Waiting at the door to the elevator was Oruç's demon. It stood there with its three long-taloned paws, hideous face, and gleaming white teeth, as if it were simply waiting to be fed.

Judging by the looks of things, Gilley would be its appetizer.

Desperate and terrified for him, I screamed with fury and reached for one of the canisters. Pulling at the lid, I sprinkled a little of the metallic powder on myself before managing to throw it at Hatchet Jack. It covered both him and Gilley, and I realized that I'd been wrong. In their current form, the spooks were solid ectoplasm, as real and dense as any living person, but they weren't alive, just held together by a substance that science had no explanation for.

The metallic powder clung to both Gilley, who was covered in magnets, and Hatchet Jack—who screamed in fury and pain as the dust coated him.

Almost immediately he let go of Gilley, who'd been choking out a small scream the whole time. That was the moment I lunged for his hand, reached him, and pulled him back toward me. I hoped that perhaps Hatchet Jack was done with the fight.

He wasn't.

He came at me in a furious rage, but I was still tangled with Gilley. Jack's bony fingers grabbed my hair, and he jerked my head back so hard my feet tingled. I was knocked off my feet and onto my back, expelling all the air in my lungs as my bruised ribs hit the hard floor. I tried to reach for a spike or another canister, but I couldn't get my limbs to move fast enough.

All around me were shouts and screams. Chris sounded like she was in real trouble, and Heath kept yelling at her to get down.

My own situation was quickly deteriorating. Jack
was all over me. The dust still clung to his form, but his anger fueled renewed strength in him. He rained down blows that were as painful as getting punched by a real one-hundred-and-seventy-five-pound man. Somewhere in the background I heard Heath roar,
“Gilley! Get out of the way!”

And then there was a sound, like a
thwack!
, and instantly Jack was off me. Another
thwack!
and Jack screamed. I barely managed to focus my eyes enough to see the third arrow strike him. He reeled backward, his arms pinwheeling as he tore at the arrows. His form began to disintegrate, and he left long trails of ectoplasm on the floor and the walls.

Gilley appeared at my side as Jack melted even more, his body becoming transparent, which allowed the arrows to slide out of him and hit the floor. But the damage from the dust and the arrows was enough to do him in, and the last of his hideous form disintegrated at the foot of Oruç's demon.

Meanwhile, Sy continued to pull Chris down the hallway, dragging her by the hair with one hand while his other arm draped around her neck. He paid no mind to Jack, or what happened to him; he simply dragged Chris toward the elevator doors. I knew he'd either feed her to the demon or take her prisoner before we could get to her. In the hope that she'd survive the latter long enough for us to get to her, I shouted at my husband,
“Heath! Shoot the demon! Shoot the demon!”

He'd been aiming at Sy, but without even looking at me, he immediately changed his aim and let loose another arrow. It hit the demon midchest, and that
beast roared loud enough to shake the walls. I cringed and clung to Gilley, who clung to me as well.

Heath then unleashed a whole volley of arrows, but only one more struck the demon before it vanished into thin air. Heath didn't have a chance to reload before Sy had Chris on the elevator, and the doors began to close. I staggered to my feet and raced down the last twenty steps of the hallway, trying with everything I had to get to her before the doors closed.

I was five feet from her, staring straight into her terrified eyes, when the steel doors slid shut, and she and Sy vanished too.

Heath got to me only a moment later. “Dammit!” he yelled.

I was panting and out of breath but managed to point to the stairs. “We have to get her back!”

Heath tore off down the hallway toward the stairs, and to my surprise, Gilley followed. I took a few steps but couldn't catch my breath. My ribs hurt so bad, the pain was blinding, and I wondered if Jack had cracked at least one of my ribs. And then I put a hand to my belly, remembering the baby. Had I been punched in the stomach? Was the baby all right?

Using a hand against the wall to support myself, I carefully felt around my belly and decided that all the pain was coming from my right side, because I'd been lying on my left side when Hatchet Jack had hit. I didn't think he'd struck me where the baby was, but it was a very close call and one I was determined wouldn't be repeated.

Limping down the hallway as I hugged my ribs, I
paused only as long as it took to pick up the camera, which Chris must've dropped as she fought with Sy; then I gimped after Gilley and Heath, but I didn't know which floor they'd gone too.

I listened carefully but at first didn't hear any sounds. And then I did hear sounds. Screams. Several from my husband.

I cried out myself and shot down the stairs, mindless of my own pain, to the second floor. What I saw there brought me to my knees. Heath was dangling in the air, four or five feet off the ground, clawing at his neck, where Oruç's demon held him. On the ground next to the beast was the crossbow, empty of its arrows.

Gilley was also on the ground, about ten feet away from Heath. His arms and legs were pinned down by Sy and by the Grim Widow, who cackled happily but looked even bonier than she had earlier in the day.

Worst of all, coming down the hall from the elevator were Bernard and Angelica. Chris was being marched in front of Angelica, her arms raised, and it was obvious that the gun she'd brought to the knife fight had ended up in the wrong hands. Bernard had a sinister look in his eyes that wasn't all human. It was far, far creepier, and I knew it to be Oruç himself, currently possessing Bernard.

He held the dagger aloft, and it was wrapped with tape and a small contraption held to it. The demagnetizer. Bernard as Oruç snickered when he saw me. He had something in mind. Something I was quite sure would destroy me to witness.

“My pet is hungry,” he said, while my mind raced to find a way to save them all. My gaze darted from Heath, whose complexion was quickly turning blue, to Gilley, who was being slapped around by Sy and the Widow, to Chris, who looked like she couldn't believe what was happening.

“We'll sacrifice the short one first,” Bernard said, indicating Gilley. “Then we'll do the camera girl and Whitefeather. We'll save Holliday for last.”

I was shaking from head to toe. He had me. He had all of us. There was nothing I could do. If I tried to save Gilley, who was closest to me, Heath would die. If I went for Heath, the demon would snap his neck right in front of me. And if I tried to save Chris, then Angelica would likely shoot her, then me.

But then I heard Heath's grandfather whisper to me in my mind, and suddenly I knew what to do. “You beat us,” I said to Bernard. “You really did. But I can still let our audience know what an asshole you are, and what you've done here tonight.” With that I raised the movie camera and pointed it at Bernard. Chris snapped her head in my direction, and I knew she was ready to make a move.

Bernard stopped his slow trek down the hall toward me, studying the camera. I had a feeling the part of him that was still in control of his mind was intrigued about being filmed. It was all the hesitation I needed. Taking a few quick steps toward him to get within range, I pulled the trigger on the camera several times, pulsing the magnetizer as I went. I stopped when I was about ten feet from him.

At first there didn't seem to be any effect at all, and I wondered if the battery had been drained, but when I looked at the monitor, it still registered a charge. And then Bernard's expression seemed to change. He shook his head slightly, as if coming fully awake, and looked around, and what he saw seemed to terrify him. “Now!” I shouted at Chris, and she reacted by whirling in a half circle with crooked elbow, striking the arm that Angelica was using to hold the gun on her. Angelica never had a chance to pull the trigger, and the gun went flying. Chris then leaped on top of her and wrestled her to the ground, while I went right for Bernard, taking two giant leaps before raising my leg high and striking him midchest with it.

He shot backward and the dagger also went flying. As fast as I could manage, I grabbed the dagger, tore off the batteries fueling the gizmo, and plunged the whole thing into one of the inner pockets of my vest, where it would be completely surrounded by thin magnetic plates. Then I whirled around again and looked toward Oruç's demon, which seemed genuinely confused. But only for a second or two. In the next moment it became very, very angry and began to shake Heath in a way that surely would break his neck.

It was Chris who came to Heath's rescue when she threw a canister of metallic powder at the demon and covered it in gray dust.

It shrieked and dropped Heath, who crumpled to the ground and tried to crawl away on his forearms. He wasn't going to get away fast enough, it seemed, so I yelled to Chris, “Help Gilley! I've got Heath!” and
ran toward my husband. Just as I got an arm underneath him, however, I was delivered a blow that knocked me all the way across the hallway. I hit the far wall and slid to the ground, and the world spun. Heat exploded along my shoulder, and as I dizzily gazed down at myself, I saw a thin stream of red snaking its way down my arm. “M.J.!” Chris cried out, but I couldn't get my chin to lift up from where it rested on my chest. I could only move it from side to side.

I felt the demon approach when the ground underneath my legs vibrated with its steps. The demon, which I'd locked out of its portal, would kill me well before the last of its power drained away.

I tried to get up from the wall, because I knew if I didn't, I'd be dead in about ten seconds, but my limbs refused to respond. I could feel my guide, Sam, urging me to get up, but I just couldn't do it.

At last I managed to lift my chin, and I saw Heath, on the floor ten yards away, reaching out to me helplessly, a look of anguish on his face, and I felt so sad that he had to watch the demon kill me. It wasn't at all what I'd wanted.

Finally, I looked up at the demon itself, and I refused to show fear. It would kill me as I had attempted to kill it, but my soul would be free, unlike its soul, which would always be bound. At least there was that.

The demon raised one of its giant paws, tipped with talons, and prepared to bring it down on me. “Fuck you,” I told it. I tried to say it loudly, but it mostly came out as a mutter.

And then the hand descended, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the deathblow.

But it never came.

Instead there was a loud shout from my right, and then a tremendous percussion of sound. I sank to the side and onto the floor, managing to open my eyes and see the strangest sight: the demon had a crutch sticking out of its eye. It roared in pain and wheeled backward, swiping at the crutch, but then a shadowy figure stepped clumsily over me, making a loud thud on the floor as it did so, and it swung the other crutch it held right at the demon's head.

To my astonishment, the head of Oruç's demon caved in slightly, and it began to bleed ectoplasm. Again, the shadow struck. And again. And again.

The demon continued to wheel away, blinded in one eye by the crutch and unable to fully focus with the other. It ended up tripping over its own feet, and that's when the shadowy form who'd saved me began to beat the demon with determination. By the tenth or eleventh blow, the fight was over. The demon disintegrated. Well, everything but its talons, which clicked to the ground harmlessly.

Meanwhile, Chris was working to free Gilley, and she was doing a tremendous job of it. She'd already dispatched the Widow with the one can of metallic dust she had left, and she used Gilley's own spike to strike the center of Sy the Slayer's chest. He backed away as the demon had, with much noise and clumsiness.

He fell right next to Heath, in fact, and my husband
wasted no time dispatching his ass back to nothingness with one final spike to the head.