Split at the Seams (7 page)

I was betting on a little of both, especially after seeing the ley line light up pink all the way to the top of the tower.

When the doors opened, Oren motioned for me to walk out first. I thanked him and took a left. Considering we didn’t really have anything to deliver except a bunch of empty canisters, I still felt obliged to pop in and say hello to Roe. Besides, I hadn’t seen him for a while and Ebony said he asked about me every time she dropped in.

“Ms. Fox, it’s so good to see you!” Roe was already waiting behind the hole in the wall where he received, signed for, and then allowed access into the Collection room. His tooth-gapped smile was always the brightest thing about this place, and I’d actually missed him.

“Roe, it’s great to see you too. How are you?”

He shrugged. “I’m okay, I suppose. I missed you around here. You really should drop in more often.”

“You know how I feel about this place.”

“What have ya got for me today?”

I looked up and down the empty corridor. “Actually, I don’t have a deposit. I’m just pretending I do because I needed access into the building.” I showed him the bag.

“Well, either way, I’m glad you dropped in because I’ve been meanin’ to speak to you for a while.” Roe worked and lived in this building. No one knew much about him, but he was surrounded by secrecy and rumor. The only thing I knew for sure was that the Council considered Roe to be their property.

I despised the way they took ownership of their staff.

“Roe, you know you can call me any time. You’ve got my number.” Ebony made sure she gave it to him as soon as we’d purchased matching mobile phones.

He lowered his voice and leaned forward, making the patchy hair on the top of his ashy skin move awkwardly. “I’ve tried to call ya many times, but none of the calls go through.”

“That’s strange.” Though it wasn’t so strange when I thought about it. This place mostly existed separate from the rest of the world.

“Yes, it is. But it’s okay because you’re here now.” He beamed, though his black eyes noticed Oren loitering behind me. “Who’s this?”

“Excuse me for being so rude,” Oren said as he stepped forward and extended his right hand in front of him. “My name’s Oren McKee. I’m an associate of Sierra’s. We’ve worked together on a few cases. In fact, that’s why we’re here.”

Roe shook Oren’s hand but looked at him suspiciously.

“Listen, Roe, I was hoping you could help me with something.” I paused long enough to collect my thoughts. “Have you noticed anything strange lately?”

He nodded. “Oh yeah, lots of strange things happen all the time. Remember how I told you about Daisy dying last month? Well, Mara’s still in the hospital. I call every day to see if she’s getting better, but she’s still in a coma. There have been other girls going missin’ as well. But after Mara was rushed to the hospital, the Council decided to keep the others within these walls.” Roe looked at the ceiling. “I can hear ’em screaming at odd hours of the night. It’s so sad and hurts me to feel ’em suffering so much, because I know what they’re going through.”

I placed a hand on Roe’s and was surprised to find his skin was warm. “I’m sorry. Do you know what’s going on? What’s happening to them?”

He peered into my eyes, shaking his head. They were so dark I could see myself reflected in them. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I suspect what they’re doin’…” His eyes widened. “They’re coming, and they’re going to escort you out. They must’ve seen us talkin’ on the cameras.”

“I don’t want to get you into any trouble, so I’ll get going.” I gave him the canisters. “Take them so it looks like you signed—”

“No, you take them for another time.” He grabbed a hold of my hand when I tried to pull it away. “Ms. Fox, they’re hurtin’ those young girls and in the process are toying with things no one has the right to muck around with.” His eyes filled with tears. “Go visit Mara at the hospital to see if you can help her. You must get some answers before it’s too late.”

I nodded and took the bag. No point in freaking out about his outburst. I’d known something fishy was going on even before stepping into these humming walls. “I’ll see you soon, Roe.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Come on, Oren.” I grabbed his hand and led him toward the concrete stairs at the end of the floor. Before we reached them, a security guard stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

“Sierra Fox?” he drawled in a deep voice.

I managed a quick nod.

“You and your associate need to accompany me,” the man with a buzz cut said.

“We were just about to leave—”

Oren squeezed my hand and stepped past me. “Okay, young man, we’ll go with you.” He stood very close to him, commanding his gaze while the security guard nodded absently.

“Follow me.” The guard escorted us into the waiting elevator and we descended in silence. When we reached the foyer, I expected to find Mace waiting for us, but he wasn’t there. The guy actually escorted us all the way to the revolving doors. When he got there, he stood like a frozen statue with vacant eyes.

Oren steered me away from the building before anyone noticed.

I didn’t resist or asked him any questions until we were both buckled into the car and I was already driving out into traffic.

“What the hell…just happened?” I tried to catch my breath.

“The dowsing rod was pointing upward. I think the odd
man
at the counter was correct. Something terrible is happening in the top floors of that building. Do you have any idea what offices are up there?”

I dared to glance into the rearview mirror and spotted a bunch of security guards rushing out into the street, like they were looking for something—or someone.

I hoped nothing happened to Roe. The last thing I wanted was to get him into some sort of trouble. He’d seemed really spooked.

“Sierra?”

“Yeah, uh…” I sped up a little, wanting to put as much distance as I could between us and the Council. “The top floors aren’t offices. They’re the Spook Catcher apartments. The trainees and Council-sanctioned Catchers live up there.”

“I think we need to visit the hospital and see the girl who is in a coma.”

I nodded. “Oren, what did you do back there?”

“I simply overrode the guard’s instructions, to get us to safety.”

“What was he supposed to do?”

Oren sighed. “He was supposed to take us to the top of the building where we were to be interrogated. But I don’t think that’s what they intended for you.” He balled his hands into fists. “I’m sorry about this. I put you in the direct line of danger back there but didn’t know they had such immediate plans for you.”

“Shit, this is really bad.” I cleared my throat, trying to wash down all the uncertainty and fear.

“Why would they want to forcibly take you?”

“It’s got to be because of Mace,” I answered. He was either still missing and they wanted to interrogate me about it, or he was hiding inside the building and wanted to make sure I didn’t get away from him again. Neither option sounded good.

“You haven’t been back in the building since the incident at the cemetery?”

I shook my head.

“And Ebony hasn’t been approached?”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“Very strange…”

“Yeah, it is, but we can’t concentrate on that right now. I’m pretty sure I know where they’re keeping Mara. Hopefully we can find something out from her.”

I neglected to mention that I didn’t know how we were going to glean any information from a woman who’d been in a coma for a month, but I was glad we’d escaped the Council.

Though I now understood why I’d physically reacted worse than usual and my nose bled. The Spook Catcher Council was shrouded in a sticky darkness I’d never encountered before, and I was simply reacting.

Chapter Four

It didn’t take long to find Mara. I knew they would take her to a nearby public hospital. Not because the Council couldn’t afford private, but because they thought it clever to hide her in plain view. I didn’t know which room she was in, but Oren took care of it. I didn’t ask how he found out, was just glad when we stepped out of the elevator and headed for her room.

“Wait here for a moment,” Oren said, clutching my arm and stepping past me. “I’ll make sure we can slip by without being seen.”

I opened my mouth to tell him there would probably be a guard stationed outside Mara’s door, but closed it as soon as he disappeared around the corner. He knew what he was doing. Though, after shielding us in a crowded city street and then commanding a security guard like a puppet, I couldn’t help wondering about how strong his witchcraft really was.

Standing in the middle of the hospital corridor with its harsh lighting itching at my skin and the smell of antiseptic, bleach and death tickling my nose, it finally hit me. Oren was very powerful, and I needed to learn as much as I could from him. It was time to stop holding him responsible for ancient family history, and appreciate that he was willing to help me understand how having witch blood could benefit me.

I needed to learn as much magical combat skills as I could.

“Excuse me?”

I spun on my heel and came face-to-face with a young woman wearing a hospital gown. Her long, auburn hair hung like dirty strands of string around her face, her skin looked pale, and her eyes sunken. Even before her proximity forced gooseflesh to sprout all over my body, I knew what she was. My breath misted in front of me as I was compelled to enter the spook’s zone and coughed a few times.

My head throbbed. After the nausea and nosebleeds back at the Council, this wasn’t going to help. Although I was usually dragged into a ghost’s area by their aura, this one had pretty much caught me unaware and zapped me in when I wasn’t ready.

I caught my breath and met her eyes. “Uh, hi…”

“I need to get back to my room.”

I doubted she was headed to her room. Anyone who was hospitalized and emaciated this badly didn’t need to linger in this world. She might not remember right now, but I was pretty sure she’d been battling a terminal disease and lost.

“I need help getting back to my room,” she repeated.

“Can you see the light?” I licked my lips, trying to moisten them. She deserved the peace of moving on to the next patch. I knew exactly what I was talking about because I’d once been tempted by the warm light myself.

The ghost looked up, past my shoulder and said, “I can see a bright light over there.” She half turned away from me and pointed in the opposite direction. “But someone’s calling me down that way.”

“Ignore everything but the light. That’s where you need to go.” My lungs were freezing inside my chest.

This was a different experience for me. I rarely helped spirits move on to the afterlife willingly. I dealt with the ones who refused to stop making mayhem and chaos, or wanted to hurt others. But hotspots like hospitals, cemeteries, haunted houses, or any location where a group of people had died made it hard to shut wandering spirits out.

She took a step.

“No, ignore the voice and head for the light.”

“Are you sure?” She frowned and it made her look a little older than I’d initially thought. “I need to go to the voice, I’m so tired.”

“No, you need to follow the bright light.”

She didn’t answer, and instead turned to walk away.

“Wait!”

“I’m coming,” the ghost girl said, a moment before her image flickered.

Oh shit, not again! “Take my hand.”

The ghost’s lips were moving but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying.

“Go
toward
the light! Turn around and go to the light before it’s too late.”

She did the opposite. Her skinny legs moved and she flickered off completely before appearing drawn out and gray farther down the corridor. Heading toward the same corner Oren had taken.

I sucked in a quick breath and followed, trying to keep up with the flickering image of a ghost, instead of running from it. She turned the corner and continued down the next corridor.

“Wait!” I had a feeling that whatever was calling this ghost girl would take her the same way it had taken Mrs. Wicker.

When I caught up with her and extended my hand, hers was solid enough to grab. I moved with her, holding tight and determined to follow her until she stopped in front of an open doorway.

“I need to go in there,” she said, pointing at a lonely bed in the middle of the room.

“No, don’t!” But it was too late, her hand slipped from mine. She flashed me a small smile and then faded, but not before I saw what looked like a shadowy hand drag her in. Not this again.

A tap on my shoulder made me jump and the coldness of the ghost’s presence faded, leaving me coughing and wheezing as I tried to catch my breath. My body struggled more than usual to adapt to the real world.

“Relax, Sierra.” A cool hand rubbed my back gently.

I hunched over for several seconds, hands on my knees, waiting for the artificial air of the hospital to settle around me. It took awhile, but the comforting hand never stopped its soothing motions and helped keep me grounded. I knew who it was before I looked up.