Psyched (19 page)

Padelski felt for a pulse before sighing with relief. He reached again for the radio and said, “Add an ambulance to that last order for a fire truck, and someone give Jed a call. Tell him we found Monica and he should meet us as the hospital…and….” He sat back and stared in surprise. “What on earth happened to this girl?”

As he gently wiped soot mingled with sweat from Monica’s face, the cop found his hand covered in blood instead. He reached for his flashlight and aimed it at the girl on the ground as Monica started moaning and coughing. She rolled over and curled into the fetal position, shielding her face. Coming to a rest on her side, her shirt rolled up enough in the back to reveal deep scratches all over her back and arms. He turned her back over to get a better look. Her face and neck were covered with scrape marks and deep scratches as well.

Padelski appeared shocked. He looked up at Aisi. “How did you know about this?”

“Kalen. He was with her but…he, uh, went home. He’s kind of freaked out right now.”

Shaking his head, he stood and looked sternly at them. “I need to get my first aid kit and see if I can help this girl before the ambulance gets here. You two stay right here and don’t move.”

“He can’t come look for us if he has to take care of her,” Aisi whispered hurriedly to Vance. “We have to get to the back of the house, where that portal is. Just follow me. We have to make him think we are heading down the road to get away, but I know a little hidden trail that will take us back to the house.”

“Are you crazy?” Vance murmured with wide eyes. “We are in enough trouble as it—and there she goes.”

Aisi bolted down the driveway, and with a banshee shriek, Vance followed. She grinned as she darted past Padelski, who hollered in surprise when she hurtled over where he knelt on the ground. She could hear Vance’s feet pounding the dirt behind her as she veered onto the main highway.

She sprinted down past a rusted mile marker sign right by a bend in the road, and then darted into the woods. Vance didn’t see where she had gone, so she reached out and yanked him into the bush as he was about to barrel past. From the shrub, she could see Officer Padelski coming to the road to see where they went, but as she predicted, he turned back to help Monica.

“We have to be quiet when we come back around the house,” Aisi warned as they worked their way in the near black of a small, narrow trail surrounded by towering trees. “He can hear us from the front if we aren’t careful. It will take the ambulance and fire truck awhile to get here. They have to come from the county seat, thirty miles away.”

“And then what?”

Aisi looked up as she walked. She knew the trail well, but a little more light would make it easier to navigate. The bleak mist had started to break up, and above them, over the trees, an opening in the clouds revealed a couple of stars twinkling above. She stopped for a minute, almost surprised to see them gleaming hopefully at her. “See those stars?”

Vance came to a halt behind her, almost running into her in the dark. She saw just a hint of his shadow, but as he turned his face up to see the stars, a faint blue light glowed enough that she could see the rugged outline of his scruffy jaw and hint of light reflecting from his eyes.

“Yeah. I see them.”

“We play it by ear and hope for the best.”

“That makes absolutely no sense.”

She grinned. “I know.”

“Weren’t you the one who called out Father J for being cryptic tonight?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

He shook his head and looked down, the glimmer gone from his eyes. “That’s it? That’s all we have to go on? Hope?”

“What else have we got?” Aisi demanded.

“Nothing. That’s the problem, Aisi. We have absolutely nothing.”

“Keep your voice down!”

“I feel like Father J just threw us to the wolves and we can’t do anything about it. We have to fight these demons with nothing. They can attack us, hurt us, scratch us, trick us, use our eyes against us, and we have nothing but hope.” His voice carried particular bitterness.

“Pessimistic much?” she responded, unable to argue with a single thing he said. She felt the same way, but what else could they do? Malus got stronger every moment they did nothing. A feeling of intense bleakness began to envelope her, and she blacked out for a split second. The entrance to the portal filled her mind, and a small, black form blocked the red light which rose and rolled like heat waves above a highway on a mid-summer day. The small form had two black pigtails and a tattered nightgown, and she held a ratty old teddy bear. This figure whispered one word over and over:
soror, soror, soror
.

Sister. Sister. Sister
.

She jerked back to reality with her heart beating wildly. “We have to get in there. That’s all I know.”

He pulled her back. “You saw something.” He wasn’t asking, but accusing. “This evil freak is playing tricks on you again and you’re falling for it. He is going to lure us both into that lair of his and no one will hear from us again. We’ll vanish just like your sister and Monica’s whole family, and you don’t care.”

“I’m just doing what Father J told us to do!” She wanted to yell but she choked on her words instead.

“Every time it looks like we catch a break, everything falls apart. That book we got gives us nothing to go on, and now you’ll probably go to jail instead of college. Better yet, our corpses might spend eternity rotting underground. Why bother?”

Aisi yanked the arm h was holding back from him. “Look, if you want to go back to your motel room and shower this night off, forget anything ever happened and forget we ever met, go for it. I won’t stop you. Take your beepy ghost hunter toys and do your project, and good luck to you. You can walk away from this. I can’t.”

He reached for her again, but this time he pulled her into a comforting hug despite how she struggled against him. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you alone tonight, Aisi, and I won’t. Not again.”

“Who says chivalry is dead?” she mumbled. Melting into him, she buried her face in his chest. He shivered, having left his hoodie back at the house currently in flames, so she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. In her mind, she knew their fight had pleased the demon, and the dissipating growl she heard fading away gave her inspiration.

“Vance, hope really is all we have. If we get mad or feel helpless, he gets stronger. Hope might be the only thing we can use against him.”

“You are the strongest person I have ever met,” he whispered into the dark.

“I’m guessing you don’t get out much, then.”

He ignored her comment. Instead, he leaned toward her. She couldn’t see him, but she felt the warmth of fingers that should have been cold as he reached down and tipped her face to him. His lips met hers. Pleasant tingles washed over her in warm waves as she wrapped her arms around his neck and ran her fingers through his hair.

He stepped back and found her hand again in the darkness. “I’m going to stop complaining and follow you.”

Aisi still felt flustered, and she shook her head to clear it. A good kiss can scramble a girl’s brain a bit. “Right,” she coughed. “Follow me.”

Holding his hand tightly behind her, she led him as they walked single file down the narrow path, past the back of the house. Low-hanging branches and dense shrubs brushed their arms. They passed the dying flames of the house she was glad to see destroyed, as they neared the deep red light blazing from a chasm in the rock. It beckoned to them in the dark.

Chapter 19 Into the Portal

As Aisi and Vance approached the throbbing, glowing light of the portal, another smaller light coming from the woods caught her attention. A cheerful whistle reached them a moment later as the penetrating white spotlight from a head lamp bobbed toward them. An old man in miner’s clothes strode toward them, a bucket in one hand, a pick axe slung over his other shoulder. His iridescent form glowed in the parting mist which still clung to the trees around the woods. He stopped when he saw Aisi and set his axe down with a silent thud.

“Good mornin’, sis,” he said. “I wondered when you was gonna show up.”

Aisi glanced at Vance, who turned to her. “Why did we stop?” he whispered, craning his neck as he looked around for the cop.

“That old guy from the vision,” she muttered back. “He’s here.”

“But he’s dead, isn’t he?” Vance asked lamely, forgetting to be quiet.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she said as softly as she could, rolling her eyes.

“Well, sis, I reckon you’ve got work to do so you best stop chatting with your boyfriend and get crackin’,” the old man told her.

“Do you know how long you’ve been here?” Aisi asked the ghost.

“Sure enough,” the man drawled. “You was just a baby when I got trapped, and I figure you was close to my grandbaby Monica’s age.” His form darkened a deep blue-gray in his anger. “Today I seen her for the first time since she was a baby, and that Malus fellow did her harm. Set his minions on her. If I could….” He shook his head. “But there ain’t nothin’ I can do down here. She turned out right pretty, though, just like her momma. She gonna be okay?”

Aisi nodded. “She’s getting help. I think she’ll be okay.”

She watched the ghost as he hefted the axe over his shoulder again and whistled merrily. He picked up the tune where he left off before vanishing into the haze, his whistle fading after she could no longer see him. She smiled widely as a calm feeling rushed over her. Vance looked at her like she was crazy.

“What is it?” he asked quietly.

“It just feels like things are almost normal. Who knew I would miss my ghosts?”

The whistle which died out on her right caught her attention as she spun left and saw the miner’s headlamp bobbing along again, coming toward her on the same path he walked a moment before. “Wait,” she muttered. “He’s coming back.”

“He left?” Vance asked, confused. He kept twisting as he stood, like he expected Padelski to ambush them from behind and lock them in cuffs. The fire still blazed behind them, and they jumped in surprise when the walls of the blazing house collapsed. They edged closer to the portal, away from the heat and leaping flames.

“You’re back,” Aisi said to the ghost when he stood before her and set his axe down, just as he did before.

“Good mornin’, sis. I wondered when you was gonna show up,” the old man said again.

“You’re trapped here,” Aisi said as it hit her. “Is anyone else trapped like you? Do you see a light anywhere?” Her heart thudded wildly.

The echo of a man scratched his head, his headlamp tilting up slightly, lost in thought as he mulled her words over. “I don’t see no light,” he replied. “That Malus fellow, he keeps it all blocked so we don’t ever see the way out. Or if we find somethin’ his helpers hold us back. He likes his trophies, see. We figure there’s gotta be a way out he don’t know about, so we keep trying.”

“Who else is stuck with you?” she demanded, forgetting to speak quietly.

“I’m the only ghost, if that’s what you mean,” he told her, before he repeated, “Well, sis, I reckon you’ve got work to do so you best stop chatting with your boyfriend and get crackin’.”

The man swung his axe over his shoulder and vanished again, only to walk his loop again, ignoring them this time as he whistled past. The old man was stuck where he died, doomed to walk his last route over and over until he got past Malus and his minions. He had some awareness of his plight, but he was stuck on repeat. The words he spoke washed over her and their full impact hit her hard, like someone kicked her in the gut.

More trapped…but none dead.

What if Nakia hadn’t died?

What if she, like the old man, was simply stuck?

Aisi and Vance stood before the deep ember glow of the light from the portal, its bright glow aided by the dancing flames behind them. The small rocky hole into which the old miner vanished years ago, now large enough to walk into if she crouched, pulsated with a light which beckoned and warned all at once. Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding since she heard the man say ‘we.’

“We have to go in there, don’t we?” Vance asked. He stood tall and looked like he wanted to be brave, but as he squeezed Aisi’s hand, she felt his trembling. She squeezed back, remembering for a minute that she was a girl with a cute guy and hoping he didn’t notice how sweaty her palms were.

“I do.”

“We do,” he corrected, his voice full of grim determination.

The old man behind them, on another loop, repeated his first greeting as they stepped forward. Aisi took in a deep breath as her heart jerked so hard she felt like it was trying to break through her rib cage. It turned out that walking headlong into what might be your tomb wasn’t so easy.

“Ladies first?” Vance asked grimly.

“Well, yeah. I’m the one with all the super powers.”

“I got your back,” Vance promised, moving behind her to follow her down the shaft.

“Hey, sis!” the miner called just as Aisi ducked down to enter. With her hands leaning onto the warm, sooty rock, she turned back to look at him. “Don’t you go in there without that book and cross. Keep ‘em tight in your hands, you got that?”

Aisi straightened and pulled the small black book and the cross from the front pocket of her hoodie. “Thanks.”

“It might not help you the way you think, but just hold tight.”

She twisted to watch the old man vanishing again, only to whistle past them one more time as if they didn’t exist.

“What do you see, Aisi?” Vance asked. He looked worried. “I think the demon is using your visions against you again.”

“It’s just a ghost,” she assured him. She turned to face him, eyes aglow. “Vance, more people are down there.” Her heart now beat in anticipation instead of anxiety as she ducked her head down and clambered in, with Vance close behind.

Once she entered, she realized she had enough room to stand. She stretched up to touch the gray stone surrounding her as her hands brushed rock colder than ice. Despite the hot red glow at the entrance, the light around her now burned a dim blue-white, sparkling like crystal even in the darkness, as if someone flipped a switch and turned on a black light.