A Stitch on Time 5 (11 page)

I shadowed his every step as we reached the open-plan office. A funky smell stained the air and the closed-in stifling heat made me nauseous.

“Ugh.” I covered my nose. “Can you smell that?”

Gareth nodded. “Yeah, and it’s not a good sign.”

Brown partitions separated the area into over a dozen open-space cubicles. These workspaces were used by the spook catchers living and working out of the Tower to file reports, find locations, and general administration. I’d sat in different workstations throughout this space many times. Only catchers who’d been with the company for several years had the luxury of receiving a work laptop, so most had to use these computers.

I made a move to head towards the closest workstation but Gareth grabbed my arm.

“Whoa, where are you going?”

“I just…” I’d gotten caught up in stupid nostalgia for a moment, but that wasn’t why I wanted to get closer. “The desks are bare.”

“I noticed.”

“Why are all the monitors and hard drives missing?” And where were they?

A zing overhead made me jump. I slowly tilted my head, afraid to see what had caused the noise. My heart hammered when I noticed the first spark.

“I assume each councilor has their own office,” Gareth said. He was in cop mode—eyes everywhere, standing tall, and shoulders tense as he kept his weapon drawn in whichever direction he turned. But he hadn’t noticed the sparks.

“Yeah,” I said. That awful stench still laced the air but my focus was on the single arc racing along the ceiling, ripping out wires as it went.

Gareth ducked at the sound, his gun now aimed upwards. “What’s going on?”

I watched the spark glide along, tearing down the false ceiling until it struck one of the five offices surrounding us. The yellow arc progressed along the metal door handle before climbing the aluminum framing of the glass panels. The councilors and Mace liked to work in privacy, but kept an eye on everything and everyone. The arc wormed its way along like a sparkler, catching every metallic frame until it seeped into the closed door of the biggest room adjacent to where we stood—the boardroom.

Gareth strode forward, headed in that direction when something flew across the room, barely missing him. The filing cabinet shattered against the glass of Henry Sallas’s office.

“Shit!” He stood his ground, peering over his shoulder. “Don’t move, okay?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the warped filing cabinet. Throwing it across the room took a lot of strength, and since no one had materialized, I could only assume a spook was responsible. I instinctively thought of poltergeists, but they used their telekinetic abilities to shift objects around the room. Whoever flung this was either aiming for Gareth or trying to keep him from moving forward.

I looked at the boardroom door. The spark was inside, but had it tried to lure us inside with good or bad intentions? My encounter with the will-o’ wisps in the shadow patch—seemingly mischievous spirits who turned out to be helpful—taught me everything isn’t always as it seems.

“Stay where you are, I’m going to check this out.” As soon as Gareth took the first step, the exterior partitions uprooted, ripping free of the bolts securing the base to the carpeted floor.

The walls advanced like one long snake, heading for Gareth. The top smacked him in the back as he tried to get away, pushing him to his hands and knees. Miraculously, he held onto the gun and managed to crawl towards Henry’s shattered office.

The office dividers whipped into the air several times before smashing onto the floor right behind him. The sound was loud, and reverberated beneath my feet.

Gareth rolled over, crab-walking beneath the monstrosity that was about to squash him if I didn’t do something.

My feet were rooted to the carpet, but I couldn’t just stand by and watch this happen. If these office partitions were being controlled by a poltergeist, wraith or something stronger—even demonic—maybe my dark patch would help.

Gareth stopped long enough to aim his gun at the invisible foe. “Sierra, get out of here!” He fired a few shots and the sound echoed inside the cavernous office, the bullets ricocheting off the other wall panels. When he cried out, I knew one had struck him, and that forced me into motion.

Instead of running away from the trouble, I ran towards it. Glass crunched beneath my boots. Screws, bolts and pieces of plastic became obstacles, but the debris wasn’t enough to slow me down.

“Sierra, no!”

I ignored Gareth and ducked underneath the partition—which was still whipping its long frame in the air like a viper ready to strike—seconds before it made one final attempt at Gareth’s life.

When the construct pummeled downward towards its target, I stepped between attacker and victim. “Stop,” I yelled, raising my left palm in front of me. The tattoo on the back of my hand shimmered and the spiraling momentum screeched to a halt.

The partition viper whipped back and collapsed into a ruined heap of metal, plastic and carpet.

“Oh my God,” Gareth said. “This is too crazy to—”

I didn’t hear the rest because my ears popped and my chest filled with ice so cold I stumbled onto my knees. I punched my left fist against my chest, willing my lungs to function properly. Every inhale drew me deeper into the spook’s zone. My chest tightened and my lungs were freezing, but after a mild coughing fit, I regained control.

With my next exhale, my breath misted. The office blurred and when I looked around, I couldn’t believe the concentration of spooks blanketing the area. These ghosts appeared larger than life in their animated guise. They were amazing, like nothing I’d ever seen before, which was saying a lot because I’d been seeing ghosts since I was six.

These beings were misty and cartoony, resembling the kinds of ghosts easily imitated by draping a white sheet over your head. Hell, I had one similar in my ad. In their grayish glory, they spun around me. When their balloon frames passed through me, they felt like silk, caressing the very core of me.

I climbed to my feet and concentrated on what I could feel emanating from them—comfort, care, concern. It seemed to contradict the violence they’d exhibited against Gareth.

“Why are you here?” I asked, not expecting a response.

They stopped whirring long enough to regard me with their black button eyes and round mouths. They looked like frozen masks without expression, but I could tell every single one of them was analyzing me. A buzzing like bees stirred inside my brain, sounding suspiciously like chatter I couldn’t understand.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.” But these were undeniably the same whispers I’d heard earlier.

One of them stopped in front of me, eyeing me with dark-filled eyes. They reflected Australia’s red soil as well as the expanse of lush bushland, forests and deep oceans. I recognized the orange beacon of Ayers Rock, the magnificence of The Twelve Apostles being whipped by the ocean off the Victorian coast. The beauty of the Great Barrier Reef blended into the beaches off Queensland’s coast and shifted into the wide expanse of Sydney’s Bondi Beach and past Sydney Harbour. All these well-known landmarks morphed faster, until it all came to a screeching halt in the abandoned part of Serene Hills to reveal an aerial view of the power grid with its multitude of crisscrossing pink ley lines, and the Strophalos seal in the middle of the three-forked crossroads.

The images sparked something inside my head. Passages from one of Professor Spooker’s many books raced through my mind.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” If I was deciphering the imagery correctly, these spirits were the caretakers of the earth—being cooped up inside a building made no sense. “Why are you here?”

“Your language is English.”
Its voice echoed inside my head.

I nodded.

“We were not made to guard metal and glass. We were living in the wild, near the power grid and were periodically worshipped by naked strangers who helped us flourish in this cityscape.”

Professor Spooker claimed that long ago friendly spirits whose only job was to watch over the land existed all over Australia. They helped keep the earth nourished and discouraged animals from ruining sacred sites. Only when anyone dared to threaten the environment they protected, did these spirits become violent. But they were supposed to have gone extinct centuries ago. Hell, they predated the city of Sydney.

Still, this continent had existed long before European settlement and these spirits watched over this great southern land until the human population pushed them out. The professor didn’t know for sure, but had surmised they might even now exist in the wilderness.

Australia had changed over time, but these beings remained.

“You were near the chapel, by the power grid.” The words slid from my mouth before I realized I actually understood what they meant. The Church of the Goddess used an abandoned chapel near Wallace Street for worship, and these creatures accepted their offerings because they were the custodians of the land. Did Hecate do the same?

“Yes, the power we need to travel between patches is there. Not this restrictive energy of specters forcing us to stay.”

“How did you get inside this building?”

The bubbly ghost sighed inside my head and for a moment seemed lost in thought.
“We were captured by a dark force and enslaved within these walls, but we don’t belong in this restrictive place.”

“Why were you captured?” This didn’t make any sense.

“We were enslaved to guard this metal construct.”

“Guard it from whom?”

“From trespassers.”

“That’s why you tossed the panels at us?”

“Not at you. We wanted to stop the one with the weapon.”

No wonder they’d attacked Gareth.

“Who are you? You feel familiar, like kin.”

“I’m Sierra Fox, a spook catcher by trade. If you let me, I can release you from this forced bondage.”

“How will you do such a thing?”
the spirit asked.
“We cannot get our bearings, cannot feel where we belong. There is too much metal and glass. We can hardly remember our true selves.”

“I can collect and release you where you belong.”

“We would like that very much. We need to continue our work, it’s very important.”
It paused, those fathomless eyes causing my reflection to mirror back.
“The more time that goes by, the harder it becomes to remember what we were meant to do. Are you sure you can help?”

I nodded. This situation might be unlike any I’d encountered before, and I might be face-to-face with spirits of myth, but I was a spook catcher. If I still relied on the use of spook canisters, I might have failed, but not now. Not when all I had to do was lay my hands on them.

“Tell me, why do you feel more than human?”

I laughed. “That’s probably because I am.”

“We will owe you a great debt if you can help us.”

“Don’t worry about owing me. I just want to make things right.” I raised my hands, palms facing the spirit. The tattoo lit up, reflecting pinkish light between me and these trapped creatures.

“You bear the mark.”

“That’s why you stopped your attack, right?”

It nodded.
“You have been touched by our Goddess.”

I could’ve sworn the surrounding misty bodies chanted Hecate’s name.

“I’m going to call all of you to me. You’ll be compelled to come, so don’t fight it.” I licked my lips. “You can trust me. I won’t enslave or hurt you.”

“We will do as you command.”

I stretched my arms out until my palms were virtually in front of the spirit’s grayish frame.
Come to me.

I’d accidentally stumbled onto this simple technique while on my catching sprint. I’d used several canisters at first, but when a particular nasty spook decided to attack instead of approach, I silently commanded it to come to me and it worked. Now, I could draw spook energy directly into my left hand and use the thread of their energy to connect me to the grid. My right hand helped balance me out.

As soon as I compelled these wispy spirits, every single one of them rushed me like a tornado slamming into my palm. As they attached themselves to me, a pink glow surrounded us. There had to be at least fifteen now connected to my palm, their tails serving as strings while their bodies were balloons floating above me.

I sucked in a sudden breath and expelled the chill until I was back in the office.

“I’ll take you home,” I whispered as soon as I’d exited their zone.

“Sierra,” Gareth called behind me.

I spun around. He stood with a confused expression. His gun was now holstered and he was cradling his arm.

“The bullet got you.” I rushed to him, trying not to look at the torn fabric of his shirt or the gash bleeding beneath.

He shrugged and pointed at the filing cabinet, where a bullet was embedded. “It’s just a graze. Still hurts like a son of a bitch, though.” He sighed. “You know, no matter how many times I see you do that, it freaks me out every time.”

“So you keep telling me.” He mentioned it just about every time he saw me enter a spirit’s zone because all he saw was me frozen in time—no motion or speech. Yeah, I could see why he thought I looked freaky.

“Okay, now that all the excitement is over, why don’t we see what’s hiding behind that closed door?” He stepped towards it but I pushed ahead.

“Why don’t I go first, in case there’s another protection barrier trying to keep you away?”

“So it was trying to keep me out, huh? Interesting,” he said, motioning me ahead.

I took a quick breath and regretted it instantly. The rank of spoiled meat was definitely coming from inside the boardroom. Not wanting to draw this out, I wrapped my fingers around the door handle. When no electricity struck me, I pushed the door open.

The stench personified into death.

I recoiled long enough to cover my nose with my hand. The stink was too powerful to ignore, the closed door having contained just how terrible the scene really was.