Agonal Breath (The Deadseer Chronicles Book 1) (31 page)

As it turned, it didn’t take very long at all for Becky to complete the protective circle on the rooftop. I watched with fascination as she sprinkled drops of a clear liquid from a little plastic bottle all around the perimeter of the circle.

“Witch hazel,” she explained as she dripped the stuff liberally onto the chalk. “It helps to prime the circle.”

“Uh, okay.” I had no idea what
prime the circle
actually meant, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to interrupt her mid-flow.

Becky knelt in the center of the circle and closed her eyes. After a moment where nothing happened, she swept her hands upwards and out to her sides in a sweeping motion, as though she was trying to push something out of the circle. Then she unfolded a purple velvet tablecloth in front of her, smoothed its surface of wrinkles, and laid out two small wooden bowls, a ceremonial knife, and an ornate silver bell on top of it. Lastly, she poured a small amount of salt into one of the bowls and some bottled water into the other.

“I’ll be needing these,” she said as she took up the bundle of candles. “And I’ll need something to stand them in…”

“What about these?” Brandon indicated the energy drinks and bottles of soda that we’d brought with us.

“That’s a great idea!” Together, he and Becky dumped the contents of four of them out onto the roof (well outside the chalk circle) and used Brandon’s pocket knife to punch holes in the tops of the cans, just wide enough to hold a candle without allowing it to rattle around too much. Then Becky slotted a candle into each one and lit it with a disposable lighter that she had probably brought along for just that purpose. “The candles will anchor the protective barrier, helping to give it strength and power,” she explained, placing each one at one of the five points of the circle. Each candle was colored differently from the others, and gave off a different scent.

I realized that she formed the shape of a pentagram. No, wait— it was surrounded by a circle, so I guess it was actually a pentacle.

Personally, I wasn’t much of a believer in magic and mysticism, but it felt strangely reassuring to stand there in the center of that circle surrounded by the candles.

Totally crazy, I know.

Accompanied by her grandmother, Becky walked three times around the perimeter of the circle, moving clockwise, invoking in a loud, clear voice:

“
I declare this circle a place of safety,

a place of healing and light,

a place of protection from evil and all that is dark,

a place where no evil spirit or servant of the darkness may enter,

sanctified by the light of the moon.”

There was precious little moonlight, so I was really hoping that part didn’t matter too much.

It might have been my mind playing tricks on me, but the atmosphere suddenly seemed
different
somehow. In addition to the toxic fumes, it felt as if the air itself was electrically charged, holding its breath in anticipation of something big happening; but outside the circle, things looked to be completely different, nothing more than smoke and heat rising from the floors below.

I ran to the edge of the roof and looked down, ducking back after a second because that was as much as I could physically stand. In that instant, I caught a face-full of choking black smoke, but also a glimpse of flames starting to lick out of the windows on the second and third floors.

The fire was spreading, and spreading quickly.

Coughing to clear my lungs, I stepped back from the edge and closed my eyes, attempting to clear my mind of distractions and center my focus on the spirit realm.

I lost all awareness of the passage of time, and stopped thinking about the fire burning below us, or worrying about the whereabouts of Spiessbach and his team of monsters.

All that mattered to me in that moment was my spirit guide.

Lamiyah, if you can, please come to me. I’m in a lot of trouble — the worst kind ever — and I really,
really
need your help.

Of course, there was no answer; but then, there never was.

I opened my eyes again, blinking like crazy to clear them; they were starting to sting and tear up as more and more hot smoke came drifting across the rooftop.

“Find anything useful?” I asked. Brandon shook his head ruefully.

“Not a thing.”

“I guess it was worth a try. Now if we-”

I never got to finish that thought, because suddenly, without any kind of a warning at all, a figure emerged from the doorway at the top of the stairs. It was bent over at the waist and clutching at the door-frame for support, but even without seeing the figure’s face, I could tell who it was straight away.

Even if the blood-stained strip of rag tied around his leg hadn’t given it away, the shotgun he was carrying sure would have.

Tony was back for blood, and it looked like the douchebag had upgraded his arsenal.

Tony had definitely seen better days.

For starters, he had puked all down the front of his shirt, probably because of all the smoke that he must have breathed in on the climb up here. The fact that he’d even made it to the roof at all was nothing short of a miracle.

His skin was deathly pale, and from the dark stain on his pant leg I was guessing that he’d lost quite a bit of blood before tying it off with that strip of cloth.

But I was focusing more on his shotgun. The thing was single-barreled and mean-looking. Tony clutched it in trembling hands, but then I suppose the thing about a shotgun is that ‘close enough’ is usually good enough.

“You little turds! Sixty grand’s worth of methamphetamine up in flame, and my partner dead…all because of you!”

“I notice he put the money before Jake,” Brandon said to me out of the corner of his mouth.

Tony pumped the shotgun once, making a loud
click-clack.
He swung the barrel around to cover the three of us, huddling together inside our protective circle.

Jennifer had disappeared somewhere, I had no idea where. The smoke was getting so thick that visibility was down to ten or fifteen feet.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Becky had the Glock in her hands and was confidently aiming it right back at him; unlike Tony, her hands were amazingly steady.

A lot of Tony’s bravado disappeared when the pistol appeared in her hands. It’s easy to be brave when you’re the one holding the gun, but it’s a different story when there’s a loaded barrel pointing back at you.

“Put the gun down, girlie.” He licked his lips nervously.

“Is that the best you’ve got? You put
yours
down, buddy.”

“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a little standoff, doesn’t it?”

“Not for long,” I put in helpfully. “Pretty soon we’ll all burn to death. Or choke. Pick your poison, basically.”

“Shut up!” Tony snarled.

I shut up. He was starting to realize that he wasn’t in control of the situation, just like he hadn’t been in control down in the cellar, and that could make him even more unpredictable and dangerous than he was already.

“Oh no, I’d really like to hear more. Do please go on.”

Four heads turned at the same time towards the newcomer. He had spoken quietly, barely in a whisper, but somehow we had all heard it.

“Oh,
great,
” I muttered under my breath.

Marko von Spiessbach and his entourage had arrived at last.

“Now, why can’t we all just be
friends?
”

Spiessbach had lost the surgical mask, which put his weasel-face on full display. It wasn’t much of an improvement, because now I could see his smirk more clearly.

The dead doctor and his nursing staff from hell had appeared out of the smoke to our right, seemingly unaware of the smoke that was making all four of us flesh-and-blood people cover our noses and mouths to try and get some relief.

“You really are in a bit of a pickle, aren’t you children?” he laughed, spreading his arms wide in apparent delight. “It really would be so much easier if you would just come with me now and save us all any further inconvenience, hmmm?”

“Why don’t you come and make us?” Brandon growled. Not the most adult response, I thought, but I totally agreed with the sentiment.

“Perhaps I shall.”

He snapped his fingers lazily, gesturing in our direction. Spiessbach must have had his goons pretty well trained, because the ghostly nurses and orderlies reacted immediately, closing in on us instantly. They were moving much faster than a live person could walk or even run.

Suddenly, they stopped dead in their tracks.

Those faces I could see which weren’t covered with masks looked confused, as if they’d slammed into an invisible brick wall. Thwarted, they began to hiss and whine, clawing helplessly at the emptiness in front of them. It was almost as though there was an invisible cage made of glass surrounding us, because their hands kept slipping and sliding off of thin air.

Becky’s protective circle was working. Awesome.

They looked back to Spiessbach for guidance. He hissed at us, all pretense of politeness suddenly gone. Now there was only malice left in that face, raw and naked malevolence written on the angry features.

Noticing them for the first time, the dead surgeon’s eyes swept appraisingly across the still-burning candles and the chalk outline which connected them.

“A protective circle,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “How
clever.
”

“Who the hell
are
these people?”

Tony had swung the shotgun around towards Spiessbach. His hands and arms were shaking so badly now that he could still have hit
us
with the blast instead of his target.

“Marko von Spiessbach, M.D. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

When Spiessbach turned to face Tony, the meth dealer must have caught sight of something (I’m guessing it was the ragged hole in the back of his head) that spooked him. He jerked the trigger on the shotgun, peppering the air behind Spiessbach with buckshot. Not affected in the slightest, the surgeon smirked again.

“That really wasn’t very nice, was it, hmmm?” As if to emphasize his point, he brought out a scalpel from where he’d been hiding it behind the small of his back.

Tony was in real danger. If the energy levels inside Long Brook were strong enough that even somebody as materialistic as him could see the ghosts, they were almost certainly able to manifest in as physical a manner as they chose to.

Spiessbach slashed out with the scalpel. Acting on instinct, Tony somehow managed to dodge the worst of it, but the glowing blue blade still managed to slice his right cheek open to the bone. Bright red blood sprayed from the wound, and even from across the roof I could see muscle or tissue glistening wetly underneath the gash in his face.

Slapping his free hand to his cheek, the meth dealer howled in pain. Instead of trying the shotgun again must have decided that fleeing was his only viable option.

The problem was, he decided to flee straight towards
us.

Becky tracked him all the way with her pistol, but for whatever reason she never took the shot. I found it hard to blame her for that. Despite what my dad had drummed into me, I would still have had a hard time putting a bullet in a man that wasn’t actually pointing his gun at me.

Shooting him would have been totally understandable, and maybe even forgivable, but it could still have felt like cold-blooded murder.

Besides, it looked as though Tony wasn’t coming our way for vengeance any more; the dude was plainly desperate for protection. I don’t know how long he and Jake had been cooking meth down in that cellar, but it didn’t seem likely that they’d encountered any of Long Brook’s resident ghosts before now.

He was getting a rude awakening to the fact that there were
far
worse evils in the old sanatorium than his petty little criminal chemistry set.

I barely had time to scream “look out!” and try to body-block him, but it was pointless anyway. Even in his weakened condition, the wiry crook was running on pure adrenaline —
and
he weighed more than I did.

Knocking me aside, Tony shoved his way into the middle of our circle, where he set about trying to hide behind Becky, the only armed member of our team.

Unfortunately for all of us, I wasn’t the only thing that got knocked aside. One of Tony’s sneakers had grazed the soda can that marked the edge of the circle nearest to us. The can wobbled, making the candle flame flicker for a moment, before totally going out.

The candle fell sideways out of the can, rolled four or five inches across the rooftop, and lay still.

“Oh, crap,” Becky said. “He’s broken the circle!”

And with a sudden victorious roar, Spiessbach’s accomplices rushed us.