Split at the Seams (33 page)

“My friends, of course.” His smile twitched, making his handsome looks slip. “It really isn’t smart to have two ex-boyfriends in the same group. It encourages vengeance and makes the vendetta much sweeter.”

“So Jonathan is in on this?”

“He’s not in on this particular project, neither is Mr. Marquez for that matter. But we do have a joint venture in common that involves you.”

If I could keep Mace distracted, I might stand a chance of getting the dagger before he could react. “Wow, I feel so lucky. Having a psychopath magnet on me really makes me feel special. Maybe you’re right… I
am
special in attracting twisted assholes.”

He made a hand gesture and two familiar guards materialized out of nowhere. They each grabbed one of my arms before I could dodge them, or grab the dagger. Neither man was gentle as they dragged me along the tiles, my toes skimming the floor, and threw me against a chair at the head of the row. One I hadn’t noticed.

“Strap her in. Make sure it’s real tight.”

The men set forth to follow his instructions, but I kicked one guard in the face and kneed the other. The latter man punched me square in the face and pain exploded on my left cheek. My left eye started to close up, making my sight narrow and lopsided, giving them the upper hand to push me down against the chair, until my wrists were tightly secured with metal straps, and my ankles with leather. The dagger’s scabbard dug painfully into my ankle, but I was still grateful to have it go undetected.

“Mace, don’t do this!” I curved my spine off the chair, but it did nothing to help.

The bastard was standing at the foot of the chair with a predatory gleam in his eyes. I had no doubt he was enjoying this.

“Sierra, it’s time to see how much power you really have,” he said with that lingering smile. “I’ve wanted to do this to you for so long.”

When one of the guards placed the cold, metal helmet over my head, I screamed as an electric shock struck me.

The immediate pain was so intense I thought my brain might explode.

I screamed until my throat felt hoarse, and couldn’t stop as a new wave of agony rushed over me. My body was somehow being torn apart, and the need to be free of the sting eventually subsided as much as the connection to my body.

Instead, I was once again back in the murky gray surroundings I’d first noticed upon entering this room of horrors. This time, everything hit me at once. Not just the haze of continuous spirits floating around us, but the weight of their energy.

If I thought it was bad when I’d first stepped into the building, this was unbearable. But being torn away from my shell meant I couldn’t feel anything physically, I could only sense it.

Summoning the control from somewhere deep inside, I pushed up and off the chair. Standing beside it long enough to inspect my motionless body—matching crimson lines ran down both of my nostrils, curling over my lips and down my chin. My face was a mess, both eyes closed but one of them swollen shut and bruised. The metal helmet strapped over my head looked like it was on so tight it left marks on my lumpy forehead. Blood was being pumped out of my left arm while clear fluid was pushed into my right. There were other tangled lines attached to me, but I couldn’t stay and watch as my body suffered.

Besides, I had no real idea of what Mace was doing.

“
Sierra…?
” Her voice sounded tinny and echoed around us, but I recognized her right away.

I spun around and it felt more like swirling in water. “Ebony, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s not your fault. Guess I should’ve listened to you,” she said. “Why the hell did you end up here?”

“We were supposed to rescue you, but I was taken—”

“Who’s
we
?” Her blue-gray eyes widened as she stared at me. “Please tell me no one else is going to get trapped in here.”

I shrugged but didn’t answer. Deep down inside I knew it wouldn’t take Oren and Conrad long to figure out exactly where I’d ended up, and they would follow. Mauricio was waiting for them, and I didn’t want either to end up like Papan.

Oh, Papan, we’d just discovered each other.

I pushed away all of my fear and sadness. Now wasn’t the time to lose it. He was okay, I just knew it.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked.

Ebony shook her head and opened her mouth to respond, but paused for just a second as a succession of spirits smacked into her chest, bounced off and then hit the wall. The portal was getting bigger, and now looked shiny and ethereal. It was also calling to me, trying to draw me in.

I took a step toward it but Ebony suddenly appeared in front of me. How did she do that?

“Where the hell are you going?” she asked, frowning. Her face looked different in here, haggard and dull.

I pointed at the wall. “He wants me to go in there.”

“Mace wants you to go inside?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“He wants to permanently break the barrier between us and the ghostly patch, and he thinks I can do it.”

Ebony rolled her eyes. “Well, you know you can’t fucking do this, right? You need to get back into your body ASAP and get the rest of us out of here before we become spooks as well!”

“I can’t get back, I’m as stuck as you are,” I said, shaking my head and making the gray place blur. The weight of the energy zapping around us made me feel dirty and clogged. I was pretty sure that if I’d been connected to my body right now, it would itch like crazy.

“Come on, you’re Sierra Fox, the tough spook catcher who can defeat demons! Surely you can beat this bastard.”

“He’s not a demon,” I said. Then something swirled through me and I realized spirits were starting to smack into me as well. Except, when they bounced off me and smacked into the wall, sparks brightened the whole place and the hole widened a lot more. It seemed to be happening a lot faster now.

“Mace sure acts like one.”

Of course, she was right! Mace might not be a demon but just like Troy, Travis, Mauricio and Jonathan, if they all belonged to the same organization…each and every one of them was somehow affected by a demonic entity. It
had
to be what gave them their strength, resilience and their otherworldly talents.

“Sierra, you have to get back,” Ebony repeated. “Are you listening to me?”

I wanted to listen to her advice but something else was fighting to win my attention. I couldn’t help but look past her, and noticed the other girls were all looking at us. No, at me. As if they knew who I was, and like Ebony, expected me to do something to stop all of this, to help them. They looked so young, and I didn’t doubt that at least half of them were barely out of their teens.

As I stood among them feeling their strong need for freedom, I understood we were all in the same boat, but someone had to rock it. There was only one thing I could think of that would do just that.

“Eb, I can’t get back because I don’t know how.”

“Come on, we can’t stay like this forever. We’re in limbo, being used like some sort of net, and I’d rather die than stay here forever.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her this wouldn’t be a state she would linger in forever. I was pretty sure even catchers had a certain reserve of energy that would eventually wither away to nothing. I could already see it on a few of the girls, who were fading in color. Just like the spooks did before they ceased to exist.

No one trapped inside this gray place was going to make it out of this unscathed. The only thing left to do was to contact Professor Spooker. Maybe he had an idea or two about what was going on. Even if Mace made it sound like the professor and I connecting would instantly set his scheme on track, he could be bluffing.

“Sierra?”

I looked at Ebony, trying to shake the bleak thoughts. “I have to get inside.”

She turned to look at where I was pointing. “Are you fucking serious? You’re going to try crossing
into
the ghostly patch?”

I nodded. “There’s no other way.”

“That’s unnatural, and wrong. It might not even be possible!”

Some of the other girls mumbled their agreement. No one thought this was a good idea and I was pretty sure it sucked as well, but what choice did I have?

“I’m going to try.”
I have to try
.

“No, Sierra, you’re like a ball of burning energy, we can all see it around you.” Ebony shook her head. “If you go in, we don’t know what will happen. You’re volatile, can’t you see it?”

She wasn’t making any sense. “What’re you talking about?” I was the same as they were—a spirit forcibly torn away from my body.

“Look at us, and then look at you. We’ve got slight auras around us, but yours is blazing. You look like a ball of energy ready to blow.”

“Maybe that’s the only way.” I took a step away from her before she could try to stop me or convince me this was the insane idea I already knew it was. I started toward the hole in the wall, and had no clue what was about to happen or if I would even go anywhere, but it was worth a shot. “I’m going to save you, Eb.”
That’s what I came here to do.

“I’m not worth so much destruction,” she whispered. “Don’t do what he wants you to.”

Glancing over my shoulder one last time, I looked Ebony in the eye and forced a smile. Then, I did the same to the other girls. None of them returned it, but it was okay. I was scared too.

We were all going to die either way.

At least now, I’d go out fighting.

When I was close enough to the wavering wall, I extended a tentative hand. My fingers went right through, feeling warm and gooey like sticking my hand into warm honey. I swirled both of my hands through the wall, enjoying the solidity of it. At last, something felt real.

I sucked in a breath, ready to step into it, when someone grabbed my hands and pulled me in.

Chapter Sixteen

As soon as I was yanked over the threshold, I collapsed to my knees.

Until now, I hadn’t known living people could even pass into this patch. Then again, whatever I was now, it wasn’t exactly
living
. I was caught in the same state of limbo Mara had told me about in the hospital, and the thought made me feel a sense of dread unlike any I’d ever felt before.

After all the dangerous and bizarre situations I’d found myself in during my life, and especially during the last month, this had to be the worst. What if I couldn’t get back into my body? Or worse, what if I got trapped inside the ghostly patch forever?

That thought was enough to get me moving.

I got to my feet but it took a little longer than usual. Unlike the movements I’d made in the gray-ghost swirling atmosphere, in here I felt like I was moving against a strong current. These spirits were no longer swirls sucked in through the bodies of spook catchers. Here, they looked like images from a hidden projector, and all moved about their business without taking any notice of me, which was probably a good thing.

My feet were floating above the ground, my toes barely skimming the surface below. This reminded me of the dark patch I’d encountered several times, because it always felt as if I were nowhere but everywhere. A completely different pocket of reality, which I was starting to understand might be the measure of different patches.

“I can sense your power,” a male voice said from behind me. “You must be the one she told me about.”

“What?” I spun around, very slowly. My voice reverberated around me as I moved sluggishly, until I was facing an older man. Unlike the other projected spooks, he looked solid. I could see the wavering wall behind him, not through him.

“You’re the one,” he said, extending a hand toward me.

I managed to avoid him by stepping back. “Who are you?”

“I’m Professor Claude Spooker.”

“So you’re the one Mace wants me to meet, why?”

He frowned. “I remember that name…but I’m not sure why.”

“Probably because he killed you, or at least has banished you amongst these ghosts.” It had just occurred to me. The fact neither of us attracted anyone else’s attention but could see each other, made me think the professor might still be strapped to a chair somewhere. How long had he been there? And did it mean that spook catchers weren’t the only ones Mace had included in his pathetic plan? Not if this man was any indication. Catchers were only female, and the professor was clearly a man.

“Ah…” He looked lost. I’d never actually seen what he looked like in life, but right now he was an incredibly thin, short man with dark eyes, a tight mouth, and gaunt cheeks. He looked more like a wraith than anything else, with a shock of white hair sticking up at the top of his head.

“Do you know why you’re here?” I asked. If only I could answer the same about myself.

“You smell nice,” he said, lifting his nose to sniff the air between us. “Like fresh energy. You probably taste sweet too.”

When he jumped me, I didn’t expect it, so I couldn’t dodge out of his way in time. He wrapped his bony fingers around my shoulders and sniffed at my neck. When he bit me it felt as if the world around me shifted. As if the ripples made the whole place shuffle slightly.

There was no pain, just a strange sensation twitching inside me…like I was slowly deflating.