The White Night (20 page)

I reach for the
poker, leaning over, moving as if I’m swimming in cold molasses, drifting,
flowing to the side. I wrap my fingers around the cool metal handle and spin,
bringing it up, holding the base of it against my shoulder for support, the
other hand high on its neck, aiming it at the base of her throat.

The black-eyed
Lauren Thing understands too late. She tries in vain to halt her momentum,
yowling in fear a split-second before I feel the sharp tip puncturing soft
skin. Her wail becomes a choking gurgle as the poker slides easily through the
tissue, glances off her spine, and protrudes out the back of her neck.

It sounds like
stabbing Eve’s proverbial apple with a knife. What a nauseating noise. I tumble
backwards, onto my rear, as she continues to slide down toward me. I squirm to
the side, pushing the twitching body away.

I hear a wet,
final cough coming from the Lauren Thing, which is then followed by hurried steps
coming up the front porch.

The undulating red
and blue lights on the ceiling fill my chest with relief.

Help. Thirty
seconds too late.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Mike Long

If a lot of this
seems vaguely familiar, it’s because it is.

Black swirling
masses, demonic entities, Ouija boards and séances.

It happens more
often than you would think.

Ghosts, demons,
paranormal thingies that go bump in the night, they all have a myriad of ways
to manifest once they’ve managed to cobble together enough energy. That said,
they’ll often choose the path of least resistance if they’re an intelligent
haunt—rather than a residual one—because why not? If the easiest method gets
the point across, then so be it. If they don’t choose to take a physical form,
or if there isn’t enough energy available, they’ll communicate via EVPs or by
knocking a book off a shelf to either make a point or let you know they’re
present, and that they do, in fact, exist.

Back in Dakota’s
home earlier, when I felt like the entity was junior class, no big deal, I
totally screwed the pooch on that one. I should’ve known better.

Ford
would
have noticed something was off, damn it.

Ford would’ve
taken one long look at that thing and said, “Yep, get out the holy water, it’s
gonna be a long night.”

I fell for the
oldest trick in the book: I allowed that dickwad to convince me that it was
relatively harmless before I had done my homework. I consider myself lucky that
it didn’t pick up my soul by its scraggly, bony fingers and swallow it whole
like an unlucky goldfish at a frat party.

Stupid, stupid,
stupid.

I was so caught up
in All That is Dakota earlier that it could have done some major league damage.
That’s the last time I’ll go into a potentially dangerous investigation with my
shorts down around my ankles and a bullseye painted on my butt.

Then there’s the matter
of Toni and—well, I’m guessing it’s the contractor, Armando, from Dakota’s
description—which will have to be shelved until later. I had expected it,
honestly, and I feel like I should be more outraged, but I’m not.

It’s like you’re
playing shortstop in a baseball game, right? The Paul Bunyan-sized first
baseman from the other team steps up to the plate using a sequoia tree for a
bat, and he wallops a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball into a line drive, straight
at your face. You stand there and watch the ball spinning, hurtling at you in super
slow-mo, and you let it wallop you right in the honker.

I’m upset that it
hurts, yet I can’t necessarily be pissed at the baseball for hitting me when I
stood there and didn’t take action to protect myself.

Anyway. Lots of
shit on my mind that I need to push out of the way so I can be properly focused
on this demonic asshole squatting in Dakota’s beachfront mansion.

Speaking of
Dakota, she’s still sitting over there in the passenger seat, trying to tell me
that she is
most certainly
helping me tonight, that I shouldn’t be doing
this alone, especially not without Ford around.

I hadn’t been
entirely listening until that part.

“What?” I snap.
We’re sitting at the last stoplight before our coastal street that will take us
past homes that cost way too much for what they offer. I flash an annoyed look
at her. “You think I can’t handle this on my own? Let me tell you something: I
do
not
need the almighty Ford Atticus Ford to hold my hand, okay?”

Dakota, bless her,
understands that I’m operating on an accelerated level of stress, and the
snarky, pissy version of me that she’s seeing right now isn’t the standard Mike
Long. My hand is on the shifter. She covers it with hers, soft skin soothing
me.

“That’s not what I
meant,” she says. “Put the guns away, Tex. I know you’re on edge, but you of
all people know that you can’t go into an investigation with so much negative
energy fogging up your windows. Season five, episode nine, remember? ‘Rule
number one, folks, surround yourself with positive, white light.’”

“You saw that one,
huh?” She’s got me there. We were on that decommissioned navy ship in North
Carolina, and Ford was pissed about something—I can’t recall what—and a
particularly angry spirit, a former sailor, feasted on his negativity. It
soaked up all of that damaging energy and scratched the absolute shit out of
the docent during our initial tour. Last I heard, the guy quit the next day and
never set foot back on deck.

“Top of my list,”
Dakota says. “One of the few times where you took charge. You looked good in
the captain’s seat.”

The light turns
green. I have a little extra lead in my foot. “Flattery will get you
everywhere, Miss Bailey.”

***

“You’ve probably
seen enough episodes to know how this works, yeah? That stuff earlier was just
preliminary. This is the real deal, now that we know what’s in there.”

“I got this,” she
says. “I think.”

We’re standing
outside of Dakota’s front doors, the tall glass ones facing east out over the
Atlantic, suited up and armed like a couple of badass SEALs getting prepped to
storm a terrorist stronghold.

Not really. I’m
carrying a few pieces of ghost hunting equipment with me—I left the paranormal
flatulence detector behind—along with a Batman-style utility belt. Okay,
really, it’s one of Toni’s running belts that carries four eight-ounce bottles
of water for drinking on long distance runs.

Only this water is
blessed. Holy-fied, if you will.

After our big
scare back at Craghorn’s place a couple of weeks ago, where Ford and I went
into that investigation with some decade-old holy water I had lying around, I
decided it might be a good idea to stock up again. I visited a Catholic priest I
know in Kitty Hawk proper, a fellow by the name of Father Duke, and had him
bless a gallon of tap water I brought along. I’m not sure if the Pope and his
many minions would necessarily approve of that process, or if, like, that’s
Catholically legal, but Father Duke has been a fan of
Graveyard
from day
one.

Just don’t tell
his congregation.

So, I have two
digital voice recorders on me, a full spectrum camera, and digital video cam, one
of the sophisticated bastards we used to call spotcams, which led to Ford’s
infinitesimal supply of spank bank material when thousands of spotcamgirls took
it upon themselves to flood his inbox with pictures of ladies in various stages
of undress.

That’s four pieces
of equipment for me, and not nearly as many photos of naked fans.

Dakota carries an
EMF detector, the thermal imaging camera, and a digital camera.

Seven pieces
total, which is really about half of what I’d like to go into this place with,
but here’s my thinking: less equipment means less batteries, which leads to
less available energy for the demon to access. There’s no doubt that he’ll try
to chomp on the batteries like a handful of synthetic energy pills, along with
the spares I brought with me.

However, we should
be able to get a few hours of investigation time in, or it’ll be just enough to
provide him with energy to manifest, albeit weakly, on top of whatever else
he’s drawn from.

The less time we
have to spend in this house, the better.

Well, strike that.
I’d love to hang out here all night and discuss life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness with Dakota.

Just not under
this particular set of circumstances.

Dakota takes one
of the small plastic bottles out of the running belt, examines it, and slips it
back into the empty slot. “Nice fanny pack. Only thing you’re missing are some
black socks pulled up to your knees.”

Eyeballing her
sideways, I fire back, “Hey, you’re the tourist.”

“Not in my own
house.”

“Yeah, but we’re
on
my
investigation. You’re just along for the ride, sister.”

She playfully
pokes my shoulder. “Try to keep up, Fanny Pack.”

It’s fun, this
gentle, friendly bickering. I really enjoy it, which scares the absolute doodoo
out of me since I’m about to take this awesome human being back inside the
prison of her own home.

You know, where it’s
entirely possible for her to become demonically possessed.

No biggie.

I feel the sweat
leak out onto my palms, hesitating to touch her with the clamminess as she
fiddles with some dials on the thermal imager. “Just in case,” I say, “if
anything happens to either one of us, my cell phone is in my back pocket. Don’t
go fondling my butt if you need it—”

“
Pfffft
.
Gotcha.” The surprised sputtering is real, genuine. I love her laugh.

“I’m serious, though.
We gotta promise to do this for each other. There’s a Catholic priest in my
contacts. His name is Father Duke, same one who blessed the holy water. I’ve
known him for years and we even had him on the show once—”

“
That
guy?
The short round one with the glasses?”

“Yep.”

“I remember
thinking he looked like an owl. He seemed nice on the show. And, appropriately
concerned about the sanctity of your eternal soul before they’d allow you
through the Pearly Gates.”

That’s what he
said on the show, almost word for word. She’s good.

“He’s a good guy. Loved
Graveyard
, not that he necessarily approved of us playing with hellfire,
like you said. Anyway, I’m more worried about you than myself, but if
anything—and damn it, I mean anything—goes funky with me, you call him.
Understand?”

“Mikey’s back in
the captain’s chair. I like it.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are. It
won’t, but if it does, what if I can’t get the phone out of your pocket? Like
you become this crazy, evil, fanny pack wearing version of yourself and I can’t
get near you?”

“Good point. We
can move it room to room during the investigation. Always within reach.”

“Aye, aye, cap’n.”
Dakota salutes me, and then slaps my bottom like we’re about to take the field.
I feel like I’m blushing, but damn, the camaraderie is endearing, which scares
me even more.

I’ve done this
enough to have a certain shiny veneer of confidence, yet the idea of Dakota
having to deal with a haunted version of Mike “The Exterminator” Long,
especially now that I have a well-defined muscle or two, leaves me shaky and
unsure, again, about allowing her to come along.

It’s not a battle
I’m going to win, I know this, so I resolve to take every precaution necessary
to keep her safe.

Which is a nice
idea, in theory.

***

Thirty minutes
pass. Dakota and I maintain radio silence as we execute our pre-determined game
plan. I don’t allow her to leave my sight, but we individually accomplish our
own tasks. She runs EMF checks while I use my GS-5000 to listen to the
background noise and search for any signs of something demonic that Damon Healy
might have left behind. I mean, like, hidden symbols, decapitated squirrel
bones. The standards.

We haven’t been in
here long, but so far, we’re coming up empty. I would’ve expected more, sooner.
I’d rather this son of a bitch manifest on its own, without needing to provoke
it, for a couple of reasons: first, spewing all of that negativity out of my
mouth can cause negative energy to grow and mutate, even if you don’t mean for
it to happen. Positivity begets positivity. Negativity does too. I want to keep
the latter to a minimum.

Second, I’ve never
been sure that it matters, nor has Ford, but if this demon manifests without me
taunting and cursing its good name, that scenario is preferable to some
supremely pissed off entity storming through the gateway to hell, angry and combat
ready, because I insinuated that he enjoyed sodomizing his mother.

When we finish the
first stage of the game plan, which entails fully scouting the first floor, I
call out to Dakota on the far side of the kitchen, “Anything?”

“Flat. Everywhere.
Had a reading of zero-zero the whole time.”

“Figured as much.
He’s hiding out upstairs.”

Dakota is over by
a couple of the larger, ocean-facing windows. She asks if she can open the
blinds, maybe let some light in.

“Um…”

“I know you guys
always liked it pitch black for your investigations, and I know it’ll be night
soon, but maybe—I might feel safer with more light.”

I nod my assent.
“Of course.”
Anything for you, Dakota
. “We only did that to make the
equipment more effective anyway. Although, upstairs needs to stay darker.
That’s where the cameras need to be at their peak.”

Dakota stops in
mid-pull. The clattering of the blinds goes quiet, their weight keeping her arm
suspended. “So this is pointless?”

“‘Fraid so.”

She mock pouts,
bottom lip drooping dramatically, as she lets go and walks over to me. Jokingly,
she says, “If we have to be in the complete dark, are you gonna hold my hand?”

“‘Fraid so.”

It’s easy to see
how delicate flirtations can lead to a major downfall in so many different
ways.