Lost Souls

The camera made a sickening swing back to the medium. In the background, a shadow ducked from around the corner of the hall, and then back.

Clayton’s pointing finger extended past Cait’s shoulder. “Stop it there. Go back. It’s not what I want you to see, but this part is interesting too. How’d he get on the floor? Recognize him?”

In the freeze frame, Eddie’s face shone, peeking around the corner.

“The EMT guy who worked on Cait!” Mina said.

“You see that? Somebody else is up here,” Cait said.

“We sure about that? Booger, Clayton!” Sam’s voice rang loudly.

“We’re watching the feed,” came Clayton’s faint voice from a distance. “We’ve already got some great stuff. Orbs, that round smudge Madame Xavier saw.”

“Shush, the only one who can hear you is me,” Cait hissed.

“Uh, who were you talking to?” Mina asked, turning to Cait.

Cait shrugged. “I forget.”

“Seriously, you’re gonna sing that?” Then a beat later, “Sylvia, this is not the place!”

Booger, Mina, and Clayton leveled their stares on her.

Me and my big mouth. The last thing she wanted them to know was that she talked to spirits. But how could she explain away her words? She lifted her shoulders and stared again at the screen. “What did you want me to see?”

Mina glared and hit play again.

“You feel? Can you feel me? That tickled.”

“I didn’t touch you,” Jason said, giving her a quick look.

“Wasn’t talking to you.”

“She still there?” he whispered.

“Sharpie-outlined lips and all.”

The feed stopped again.

Clayton stepped around the chair to stare down like an inquisitor. “Cait, you’re a medium too? You’re talking to her. Sylvia Reyes. You see her. Oh. My. God. Do you realize what this means?”

Cait gave him her meanest glare. “Not a thing, because if you ever air that part, I’ll come after you.”

“I’ll say. And TMI, by the way,” the Cait with the huge mouth in the recording continued.

Cait groaned as more of the one-sided conversation continued.

The camera work got jumpier, the picture jerking, because Mina was getting either jostled or overexcited.

Down the hall, Madame Xavier fluttered her fingers. “I’ve never seen a spirit that dense or large,” she said as she squinted toward them.

A damning, too-long second later. “You’re growing on me, Syl.”

Just as the psychic reached the opening to the other hallway, Cait heard herself shout, “Madame Xavier, come back!”

“I told her not to go within twenty feet of that hall,” Sam muttered.

Thankfully, the recording halted.

“That’s all we have on that part,” Mina said, “but I spliced in the feed from the static camera I had set on a tripod. Watch this.”

No nauseating jerking going on with this part of the tape. A pop sounded as a bulb flared then exploded in the ceiling in the haunted hallway. The taped-off door swung open. A sudden brightness consumed the picture.

Mina stopped the recording again to fiddle with a dial on her console, and the brightness dimmed a notch to show the bright light was a bolt of electricity arcing like a whip out the door.

Madame Xavier turned her head to glance over one shoulder. Her hands jerked up, her back straightening away. “Oh my Lord,” she was heard to say a moment before another whip of light lashed out, wrapped around her wrist, and then pulled back, whisking her off her feet and through the door, which then slammed shut.

Mina hit reverse again, stopping on the slamming door. Then she slowed the recording so they could watch the scene progress, one frame at a time. The opened wall was visible, but liquefying and forming a circle that turned, the center sucking inward, forming a funnel with Madame Xavier’s large body folded in the center, her waving hands near her wiggling feet, the moment she was sucked through.

Three gazes swung from the screen and landed on Cait.

She blew out a breath and met theirs, knowing they deserved an explanation. They’d faced the monster and had lost a comrade. “You were right about this being a demonic haunting,” she said quietly. “He lives in the walls. This hotel has been his killing field. And you’ve found the point of conflux.”

“I knew it!” Clayton punched a fist into the air then jerked it close to his body. “Yes!”

Booger cleared his throat. “If he’s in the walls, can he see us here?”

“I’m not sure. But he knows we’re on to him.”

“Is it safe to be here?” Mina whispered.

“You don’t have to whisper. He’s fed intermittently, over decades. The fact he’s killed twice in just a few days might have drained him. I’m assuming he expends a lot of energy to do that,” Cait said, waving at the screenshot of him sucking Madame Xavier into a vortex.

“While his energy field is low, Booger could do an exorcism,” Clayton said.

Cait shook her head. “I have it on good authority that an exorcism won’t destroy him. He’ll simply move on to another place.”

“Then what can be done?”

“I don’t know. But you’ve been helpful. I needed confirmation that was the spot, although how the bodies were moved from there to other parts of this floor, I don’t know. I suppose he could simply have carried them around when he was in human form, opened a wall, and hidden them.”

“He has a human form?” Clayton’s eyebrows rose. “We could interview him.”

Cait rolled her eyes. “Just because he might not be able to whip up a sucking vortex doesn’t mean he won’t be dangerous. If you corner him into an interview, he will likely still be deadly. Besides, we don’t know who he is.”

Clayton chewed on his bottom lip, then let it go. “So, what’s the next step?”

“Nothing. For you.” She had to credit their enthusiasm. “Your part’s done.”

“But you’re off the investigation,” Booger said, shrugging when she gave him a glare. “You don’t have your usual resources now. Use us.”

She shook her head and pushed up from the chair. “Oh no. You saw what happened to your friend.”

“There’s got to be something we can do,” Booger said. “We could help you with research.”

“I already have my sources.” She shuddered inwardly at the thought of facing Morin without Sam at her side.

“We could stay here,” Mina said. “Keep the cameras going. Let you know if anything changes.”

Cait hesitated, but then slowly nodded. “So long as you all promise me you won’t try to go poking around that hallway.”

Clayton sketched a cross over his heart. “We’ll stay well away from the point of conflux. Can’t start a TV career if we’re sucked in too.”

“I guess you guys could be useful.” As the thought formed, she nodded. “As guests, you can roam the ground floor. Mina, get some shots around the foyer, the dining room, and the bar. If you see anything or anyone who looks or acts odd when you play it back, let me know.”

Mina gave her a solemn nod.

Cait reached into her pocket and drew out her wallet. She handed Clayton her card. “Call me first, but let Sam know as well. If anything goes down, he can’t be left out of the loop.”

“Sure. You first. Sam the very next second,” Clayton said.