curtain. Another wave of energy rushed through the room, this time in the opposite direction than the previous one.
“What happened?” Paige asked.
Jordan was no longer swaying or making any noise. At the end of a long inhalation, she snapped her eyes open and said, “It was a skip. Lancroft used this temple to propel him to another one.”
“Could it have been anyone other than Lancroft?”
“Nobody else knows about this temple. My sisters could sense Elsie and me well enough to get you to this house, but if they knew more, they would have sent you straight to this room.”
“Did Elsie get out safely?”
Jordan closed her eyes and thought about it. “I suppose I could contact her to find out.”
“Do you need to meditate or something?”
“No,” the Dryad replied. “I need a phone.”
As Paige tossed her cell to the Dryad, a trembling voice came from the workshop.
“Umm, guys?”
It seemed like so long ago since they’d spoken to Daniels that the Nymar’s appearance surprised everyone in the basement. Rico was closest to the door, so he headed into the workshop to see what Daniels wanted.
“Cole?” Stu asked breathlessly through the earpiece. “What’s the emergency?”
Pressing the earpiece so he could distinguish one conversation from all the others, Cole said, “I need to know how to get rid of a ghost.”
“You found a ghost? Sweet! Where? Let me send a team to wherever you are so we can get some recordings first. Maybe some video.”
“No time,” Cole snapped. “I just need to know how to get rid of it.”
For a change Stu didn’t need to flip through any papers or tap the keyboard in front of him. Once he’d taken a steadying breath, he slipped right into business mode. “Okay. What sort of ghost is it? Can you see it? Hear it? Does it interact with you or is it more like a recording that just repeats itself?”
“Yes it interacts with us. That’s the main problem.”
“I can’t hold on much longer,” Jordan said.
Paige looked at him impatiently, so Cole held up a hand and said, “Quick, Stu. You’re the guys who go after these things. What do you do when you need to get rid of one?”
“We don’t really run into that sort of thing too often. Mostly just finding them is the tough part. Let’s see, you could do an exorcism. I could walk you through it.”
“An exorcism?”
“Oh for crap’s sake, hang up that damn phone!” Paige growled.
“No exorcism,” Cole said. “We’re short on priests around here. What else have you got?”
“Is this thing demonic or was it human? Do you know its history?” Stu asked. “From our experience—”
“That’s it!” Jordan said as tears rolled down her reddening cheeks. “I can’t hold him back!”
Steeling himself for the imminent arrival, Cole turned up the volume of his earpiece. “—problem is that an entity is confused,” Stu continued. “The tricky part is communicating with it.”
“Just tell me what to do before I hang up and figure something out on my own,” Cole urged.
Having organized a small convention on his end of the phone, Stu grunted and wheezed as if about to blow a fuse. A series of loud bumps and cracks were followed by the voice of someone who must have wrestled the headset completely off of him. “Does this entity know it’s dead?” the new person asked.
“Abby? Is that you?”
“Yes, Cole. I’ve got more field experience. Does this entity know it’s dead?”
As Jordon fell to her knees and then drooped forward to prop herself up with one hand, a ripple of energy flickered through the beads.
“I don’t think so,” Cole said as he held onto his spear with both hands and stood between Paige and Rico.
“Then the best thing to do is educate it. After that, it’ll probably move on.”
“Probably?”
“Either that,” Abby said tensely, “or it might really spin out of control.”
Since he couldn’t think of too many new ways for Henry to lose control, Cole asked, “What do I do?”
“Find its grave, an obituary, a funeral notice, or anything else you can physically show to someone that proves they’re dead. The simpler the better. Can you find something like that?”
Shooting a quick glance toward the examination room behind him, Cole said, “Yeah. We’ve got some pretty solid proof.”
“Then try to get the entity to follow you,” Abby told him. “But the disturbance may get worse if a grave was defiled or if other changes were made to its home.”
“What if its body was dug up?”
“Oh, that wouldn’t be good. Especially if the body isn’t in very good condition.”
Cole winced. “That’ll do for now. If I need more help, I’ll call you.” He tapped his earpiece to shut it off but left it in place. Keeping his eyes on the growing wave of energy building within the curtain, he said, “We’re just supposed to get Henry to look at his body. That’ll convince him he’s dead and banish him, or it’ll really piss him off.”
“Great girlfriend you have there,” Paige said. “Real informative.”
Jordan finally collapsed and the beads practically spit out the body she’d been forcing to stay on its side of the bridge.
The long blade at the end of Lancroft’s staff emerged first. Rico was closest to the spot where the old man stepped out and didn’t get a chance to take aim with his .45 before the blade was shoved into his chest. Rico grabbed the staff, fired a quick shot at Lancroft and fell off the blade before it had a chance to do any more damage.
Paige’s sickle cut through empty air as the old man pivoted on his heel to deflect Cole’s spear. Lancroft then used the middle portion of his staff to shove Cole into Paige. It was all she could do to keep from slicing her partner to shreds before pushing him out of the way.
“Henry mentioned you’d found this place,” Lancroft said as the staff shortened into a pike with dual sharpened ends. Dressed in tweed pants and a matching jacket over a white shirt that was now spattered with Rico’s blood, he looked like a college professor at the tail end of a real bad day. The pike whirled in front of him while Lancroft moved toward the doorway with the stark white light flowing through it. “I see you’ve found my lab. You, more than anyone, should appreciate the accomplishments therein.”
Standing near Rico, but keeping her weapons raised, Paige felt a reassuring squeeze on her ankle. The big man was down but only for the moment. “However you’re spreading Pestilence, it’s got to stop!” she demanded. “People are dying.”
“As they always do,” Lancroft replied. “Mine isn’t the first disease to thin the herd. Isn’t it a fair price to pay to rid the country of the shapeshifters and Nymar that have spread thanks to the lackadaisical nature of your generation?”
“Spare me the rants and hand over the antidote. After killing Ned, that’s the only way to get out of this in one piece.”
Lancroft’s eyebrows flicked up and he aimed the pike at the Skinners. He reached out with his other hand to trace his fingers along some of the runes etched into the wall. “Very admirable, but it’s too late for any of that.”
Having seen enough to get a feel for what those runes could do, Cole tucked his spear under his left arm and drew the .45 he’d been given. His first shot clipped Lancroft’s arm, but Cole wasn’t prepared for the gun’s recoil and his next round sparked against the wall.
Despite the blood pouring from his arm, Lancroft showed more anger when he surveyed the damage done by the second bullet.
The voice echoed inside Cole’s mind as well as in the workshop, and came from the same little boy Henry had possessed earlier. He’d pulled away the boards covering the window and, judging by the bloody flaps of skin hanging from his fingers, it hadn’t been easy. Hanging halfway in and halfway out of the basement like something being excreted from the wall, the boy smiled eagerly and forced his way inside.
