Gethsemane Hall (18 page)

Crawford’s body, cat’s cradle spread over the tomb. Blood everywhere. Bits of muscle and organ that she didn’t recognize. And her last words to him:
You could hardly be in a more sacred place
. The worst lie of her life, only she hadn’t realized it at the time. She knew the lie for what it was now, though, and she forced intercession for and from Saint Rose from her mind. She started again. “Help me. Speak to me. Tell me what we need to do.” She waited.
I am open,
she thought. The effort was physical. She stretched the skin of her forehead as if it would spread her mind wide.
Answer me, please,
she thought.
I need help so very badly.

Time passed. Enough that she despaired of an answer. She was going to head back to the inn without a single useful idea. She would prove Corderman right. She would traipse off to the Hall tomorrow with Meacham and be a spectacular liability, bringing about the deaths of herself and everyone around her. She had time for all these thoughts. Her arms grew sore, and she lowered them. She became painfully aware of pebbles biting into her knees. She opened her eyes.
I give up
, she thought and began to stand.

The answer came. It wasn’t directed at her, and it wasn’t what she wanted. It was coming, though. The back of her head twitched. She clapped her hands over her ears. There was no sound, but her body was reacting to a rapid thrumming of wings. Fluttering overhead. Darkness huge and travelling. She fell back down to her knees. Stone cut through her jeans and drew blood. Deeper fluttering, thunder wings, leather and insect, muscle, and scream.

Her scream.

And others.

Gray was at the Hall. Metres from ground zero. He had felt a building of power and was standing at the entrance to the crypt, staring at the recess that, for all that he still felt a sense of victory, he didn’t dare approach. He felt the movement, had just enough time to realize an ocean was moving when the force knocked him flat. He saw the ectoplasm rush from below, a black, unified geyser. Then he was out.

The gathered strength threw itself out of the Hall. It rode the sky. It swept over Roseminster. It was the deeper night. It was constrictor. It was severing edge. It was the hate.

Roger Bellingham tried to stay inside. The wind was up (though the trees were still). The night was worse than when Pete Adams had died. The pull was maelstrom-strong, and this time he could sense something approaching. He locked the doors of his house. He pulled all the curtains and blinds. He sat in his reading chair and gripped the arms, fighting the rip tide that was hauling him out to drown. A roar built in his mind, deafening him, greying out his peripheral vision. The strength of Gethsemane Hall yanked at him, and one moment he was sinking his fingernails into the leather upholstery, and the next he was watching his hands unlock, unchain, and open the front door.
No
, he thought.
Stop
, he ordered.
Please
, he begged. Nothing good replied, and he stepped out into dark. He looked up. High above, he saw something coiling.

The people were in their homes and hiding as the siege clamped down. Roseminster cowered from the night, but the night found its way in. It brought the whisper of dreams. It scratched at the mental doors. Roseminster moaned. Roseminster screamed.

Meacham felt it. There was a clawing at her consciousness, something trying to get in. It was an immanence of nightmare. Premonition of what visions might come terrified her. She shook her head, began to mutter “No.” Agency training had included resistance to interrogation, and she was suddenly drawing on those lessons to distract her mind and keep out the enemy. She’d never had to use the skills against a human adversary. They were rusty, now that she needed them against something much stronger. She heard a whimper, looked up and saw Sturghill clutching her head. “One times one is one,” Meacham gasped, reaching out. “One times two is two. One times three is three.” She said it louder, then yelled “
Kristine
” into a raging gale (though the air was still). Sturghill looked at her. “One times four is four!” Meacham yelled, urging.

“One times five is five,” Sturghill called it with her.

They chanted a spell of math and logic, their magic circle against the dream that wanted to speak with them.

The ectoplasm storm looked down. It found what it wanted.

Corderman stumbled away from the window. The room had a standalone wardrobe. He hid behind it.

Hudson clutched the altar. He pressed his head so hard against it that he drew blood.

Bellingham dropped his cane. He stumbled forward in a run that obliterated the cartilage of his knees. He wept his terror. He couldn’t stop the run. Above, he saw the coil descend for him, a funnel cloud of anger.

Corderman howled. The window shattered. Something came into the room for him. Something with talons.

home again, home again, jiggety-jig

Corderman’s screams cut through the multiplication tables. They sliced deep into Meacham’s conscience. Sturghill’s, too, to judge by the grief and guilt on her face. The women didn’t move from their room. They didn’t try to help. They stared at each other and recited arithmetic until they felt the winged dark retreat. In the morning, they opened their door and crossed the hallway to the other room. Meacham knocked, a futile gesture of useless hope. There was no answer. She tried the knob. The door was unlocked. She and Sturghill stepped inside. The room was empty. Curtains drooped over the broken window. Glass was spread across the floor. There were some shards embedded in the facing wall. The bed had been upended. The comforter was shredded. The wardrobe was in pieces. There was no blood. “Both of them?” Sturghill wondered. She sounded hardly less afraid than she had during the night.

Dragging footsteps on the staircase. Meacham ducked her head out the door, saw Pertwee staggering up. “Where were you?” she asked.

“Cemetery,” Pertwee answered.

“Edgar wasn’t with you, by any chance?” She didn’t know why she was even trying. She’d heard the attack. She knew the answer to her question. But she entertained a brief fantasy of a terrified Corderman fleeing the hotel after the encounter in his room. Faint hope, no hope.

Pertwee shook her head, looked stricken, and shoved past Meacham. “Oh no,” she whispered, taking in the wreckage.

Meacham thought for a moment. “Go look for Patrick at the church. I’ll meet you there.”

Sturghill and Pertwee headed out. Meacham stopped at the front desk. The day clerk had deep pouches under her eyes. “Bad night,” Meacham commiserated. When the clerk nodded, Meacham felt an unspoken understanding, and she said, “We lost someone. Room 5.”

The clerk nodded again, pain creasing her forehead. “Should I call the police?”

“If you would.”

Hudson was sitting in a pew with Sturghill and Pertwee when Meacham reached St. Rose’s. He had a large bandage on his forehead. He kept touching it gingerly. “What happened?” Meacham asked.

“An accident. I’m fine.”

“All right. Then let’s go.” Now, while she had the momentum of first light. If they waited too long, she would run, no matter what might follow her.

Sturghill raised the problem. “What’s the plan?”

Meacham took a few beats. Like she had any idea. She took a wild shot. “How are you with exorcisms?” she asked Hudson.

He grimaced. “It would help if I were ordained and Catholic.”

“Anna?” she asked Pertwee. “Any ideas?”

“I tried last night.” Terrible hurt in the ghost-hunter’s voice. “There was no help. There was only that attack.”

Meacham looked around the space of the church. If she were ever going to receive the touch of grace, now would be a good time. There was no inspiration. There was vaulted stone and stained glass, sterile heights, and rigid figures, heavy testaments to humanity’s need to construct monuments to the imaginary. There were forces out there, though. She knew that now. Might there not be others? She walked over to the altar, reached out to touch it. She felt the slick cold of marble and nothing else. She glanced down and saw a trace of blood on the side of the altar. She glanced back at Hudson’s forehead. She felt a faint spiritual tickle, a faint seismic reading of darker revelation to come. She shut the premonition down, the same way she’d choked off her conscience during all her years with the Agency. She gathered her strength. Angst was an impediment to action. She turned back to Pertwee and said, “You told me last night that your faith in the spirit world hadn’t collapsed. Has it now?”

“No.” The response was immediate, but a bit too firm: Pertwee working to convince herself as much as the others.

“So what, from your angle, is standard procedure when you have bad juju going on?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anything so huge.”

“Forget the scale for a minute. What would you do if this were just an ordinary pissed-off ghost?”

“Look for patterns in behaviour,” Pertwee answered. “Investigate the history of the location.” Her voice gathered strength as she moved onto familiar ground. “If the spirit were invited in somehow, revoke the invitation. Look for evidence of unresolved trauma, try to bring closure to the spirit. Help it move on. Make it
want
to go. Lots of them don’t know they’re dead or are afraid to leave.”

“I don’t think this one’s afraid of much,” Sturghill muttered.

“It’s very
strong
,” Pertwee whispered, awe taking her down once more.

“Focus.” Meacham snapped her fingers. “Pretend it isn’t so big and bad and scary. Give me a diagnosis.”

Pertwee bit her lip, concentrating. “It’s growing stronger,” she said. “A lot stronger, recently.”

“Pete Adams,” Sturghill suggested. “He stirred it up.”

“Not as much as we did,” Hudson put in.

“And we were doing the same kind of thing he was,” Meacham summed up. “So investigating it unleashed it. How?”

Sturghill said, “The big events started when Richard opened the way to the caves.”

“And we found the tomb,” Hudson added.

Meacham nodded. “So we took the cork out of the bottle. What’s happening now?”

“Negative spirits thrive on fear,” Pertwee said. “They want to be noticed. The fear gives them strength.”

“This one’s doing a good job. But if I’m following you, all we need to do is find out why it’s angry and make the problem go away.”

“Assuming the ghost is human,” Sturghill said.

Pertwee folded her arms. “I think it is. It’s focused on the place and on that tomb. I don’t think an inhuman spirit would be that specific.”

“So that’s where we start.” Meacham felt her lips turn up in a sour smile at the cornball she was about to speak. “We look for the truth and use it to set the bad ghost free.”

Hudson looked up. “That’s what Richard said he wants. He’s looking for truth.”

Well?
Meacham thought. That was good, wasn’t it? No reason to feel a chill breeze at that idea. No reason for the gooseflesh on her arms. “Fine,” she said. “So let’s do it with him.”

“That’s what he asked me to do.” Hudson sounded ashamed.

The gooseflesh wouldn’t leave. She changed the subject. “Patrick, I asked Anna about her faith. What about yours?”

“What about it?”

She wondered if he was being evasive. “How is it holding up?”

“Why does it matter?”

Ah. Trading questions for questions, and so showing his hand. Not good. “Because we’re going to need every conceivable weapon we can come up with to win this. Anna’s going to use the strength of her belief. We need yours, too.”

“I thought you didn’t believe.”

“I don’t. At least, not in your God. I don’t think so, anyway.” The coldness of the marble. The emptiness of stone. “But I goddamn well have to accept the reality of something out there, don’t I? So here’s the deal. I don’t know what, if anything, is going to work here. But you and Anna at least have a tradition behind you. Yes?”

Hudson nodded. “Yes.”

“And what’s the value of a faith that isn’t tested?”
Dirty pool, girl. Yeah, but you fight the war any way you can. Boost the troop morale. Convince them they can do what they probably can’t.

More shame on Hudson’s face. “It’s been hard,” he said.

She eased off. “I know.”

Still, his spine seemed to straighten. “You’re right, though.” He looked at Pertwee. “What do you think? Maybe our systems are complementary.”

She smiled. “Would be nice if we’re both right, wouldn’t it?”

As long as you’re not both wrong,
Meacham thought. She caught Sturghill’s eye, saw her thinking the same thing, and warned her with a glance to keep it to herself.

Instead, Sturghill asked her, “So where does that leave us?”

“You can pray too, you know,” Hudson said. “There’s nothing to stop you.”

“Except doubt and hypocrisy,” Meacham replied.

“Doesn’t answer my question,” said Sturghill. “If anyone has turned out to be completely wrong about how things work, it’s the two of us. What can we bring to the party?”

“You’re a magician. You’re a performer. You must have picked up some improv skills along the way. I know I have. So we stay on our toes.” Meacham shrugged. “A certain pigheaded independence of mind might not hurt, either.”

Sturghill actually laughed. “Do you have any idea how weak that sounds?”

“A pretty fair idea, yeah.” Meacham faced the trio of sad sacks.
Here’s your black bag team, honey, ready to open up a can of regime change on the nasty ghost.
She put her hands on her hips. “So now that we have that settled, shall we join the party?”

When they emerged from the church, Meacham saw Kate Boulter standing beside the war monument. She wondered how long the detective had been waiting there. Boulter approached. Meacham noticed the pouches under her eyes, the tautness of her lips. “You spent the night here, I take it,” Meacham said.

“Yes.” And not well, from the looks of it. Good. Nice to know others were being force-fed the gospel. The truth was spreading.

“Am I still the pain in your ass?”

“No. Where are you going?”

“Back to the Hall. We lost another friend.”

“So did the town. One Roger Bellingham.”

Pertwee looked like she’d been punched. “What happened?”

“You tell me,” Boulter said, sounding old and scared and dead. “Many heard him scream. We found his stick. That’s it.”

Meacham said, “We’re going to try to stop this thing.”

Boulter’s eyes flicked up to the cross at the top of the spire, then back to Meacham. “Anything I can do to help?”

Meacham heard her own exhausted sense of duty in Boulter’s tone. “Yes,” she said. “Run. Fast and far away.”

It occurred to Meacham that they could call a taxi to drive them down to the Hall. They might have been able to beg a ride from someone, too. Maybe even Boulter. But she didn’t suggest the idea. She didn’t want to bring anyone else nearer the house than necessary. And she wasn’t in a hurry to be there herself. So they walked, as they had before. The first time, she had thought she knew what she was heading into. Now, all she knew was bad trouble. She didn’t want to go. For all her cheerleading, her most conscious desire was to flee the country. Going back, though, was easy.

When they reached the gate, they found it open, Gray or Gethsemane Hall welcoming them back. She had hoped she would feel a gravity-pull of reluctance as she crossed the threshold back into the Hall’s domain. She was walking into a jungle with a very large predator loose. Her fight-or-flight instincts should be screaming holy hell. Instead, the return was an easy, comfortable slide down a chute, a surrender to the pull of the house. Her body was almost relaxed, relieved not to be fighting the current anymore. She noticed that she was starting to trot, her legs eager to be back. She forced herself to slow down, saw the others catch themselves. She feared her acceptance, wondered if she would ever again be able to leave of her own will.
It’s laughing at us
, she thought.

Down the path and through the woods, out from under the guardian yews (their branches reaching out in hungry welcome), and there was Gethsemane Hall again, brooding over the strength that coiled within. As they approached, Pertwee asked, “Where do you think he is?”

“In the caves,” Hudson answered, no hope in his voice.

He was wrong. They entered the open door and found Gray in the Great Hall. He was lying on the table. He raised his head when they entered, lifting a great weight. He blinked at them for a moment, then creaked upright, rubbing night from his eyes. “Were you attacked?” Meacham asked.

“Sideswiped.” Meacham saw him do a headcount. “Where’s Edgar?”

“Gone,” she said. Meaning:
dead and eaten
. Like Crawford.

“And why are you back?”

“To stop this.”

Gray nodded. He seemed detached, as if watching a philosophical debate that he found interesting but in which he had no investment. He cocked his head at Hudson. “Not here for the truth, Patrick?”

“That, too,” Hudson said. “That’s how we’re going to stop this thing.”

Gray thought that one over. “Good enough,” he said and clambered off the table. He stretched. Joints cracked. Meacham noticed bruises on his arms and the side of his face. He saw her looking. “Fell hard,” he told her. “So, fellow truth-seekers, where do we start?”

Meacham felt Hudson stiffen beside her. Gray’s flippancy was weary, hard-earned, but it was still flippancy. His face, meanwhile, wasn’t joking. It looked driven. It was the face of a man who
knew
a truth or two and wasn’t planning on keeping it to himself. “The caves,” Meacham said. She would parse Gray’s attitude later.

“The tomb,” Pertwee said, specifying.

Gray smiled. “Where else?”

They brought rope. They brought lamps. They brought nerves.
It’s still early,
Meacham told herself.
It’s still day
. No way to know that down in the caves. Noon or midnight, no difference there. She wondered if the anger in the Hall cared for the time of day.

They made their way slowly, Gray in front and testing the ground. He stopped when they reached the lake. He shone his light on the blackness. “Don’t touch it,” he warned. “Take a good look, though.”

Meacham crouched at the shore, examined the liquid where Gray’s light skimmed it. She saw the slow shifting movement, not so much tide or ripples as breath. She saw droplets that were still ink in the light. “What is it?” she asked.

“Ectoplasm,” Gray said.

“
Black
ectoplasm?” Pertwee objected.

Gray shrugged. “Come up with a better name if you want to,” he said.

Meacham backed away. The urge to plunge into the lake hit like a nightmare. Her heart stumbled as it sprinted. “Jesus,” she muttered.

Gray moved on. When they reached the site of the cave-in, they tied themselves to the rope and skirted the hole one at a time. Meacham gave it as wide a berth as she could, clinging close to the wall. Once everyone had crossed, Gray made them pause again. He shone his light so the beam passed horizontally over the hole. “Keep watching,” he said. Then: “There. See that?”