grabbed my purse. The Do Not Disturb sign swung from the door handle as I closed the door and headed downstairs.
The guy slouched over a magazine at the reception desk was the evening clerk; I recognized him from the last couple of nights when I had slunk out of the hotel on my ghost-hunting missions.
'Hi. I'm in room one-fourteen. I'm going out for a bit; will you take any messages for me? Oh, and I left some equipment out, very fragile and expensive equipment, so I don't want anyone going into my room.'
'Not a problem,' the clerk said without even lifting his eyes from his magazine.
I hesitated a moment, then decided to throw caution to the wind. 'Um… I've heard that the room I'm in is supposed to be haunted.'
He looked up at that, frowning at my dark glasses.
'Eye condition,' I told him with a wave at my face. 'My eyes are… uh… sensitive.'
'Oh.'
'Do you happen to know anything about room one-fourteen? Who it's supposed to be haunted by, that is?'
His frown deepened. 'If you'd like another room—'
'No, no, it's not that; the room is fine. I was just curious about the ghost that's supposed to haunt the room. I love history, you see, and thought there might be an interesting story connected to the room.'
'Oh,' he said again, his gaze slipping down to his magazine. 'Supposed to be an old lady and her cat. Died in the room in a fire.'
'The old lady or the cat?'
He shrugged and moistened a pudgy finger to turn the magazine page. 'Both.'
'Ah. When was that, do you know?'
He shot me an annoyed look. 'What's it to you, then?'
It was my turn to shrug. 'Just casual interest.'
He eyed me suspiciously for a moment, then returned to the magazine. 'I heard the old lady died sometime during World War Two. This hotel was blitzed. Everyone made it out but her and the cat.'
Interesting. I wonder why my Summons drew only the cat and not the human ghost? Maybe I didn't use enough dead man's ash. Or perhaps I just didn't have enough strength to Summon a more complex spirit as a human. Former human.
I nodded my thanks to the desk clerk and limped off to find a cab. When you have one leg shorter than the other, riddled with scar tissue that has defied even the most dedicated of orthopedic surgeons, you hesitate to spend long hours on your feet, let alone walking anywhere that can easily be reached by a comfy cab. I used the short cab ride out to the building located near the Southwark Bridge to muse over whether or not the successful Summoning of a ghostly cat meant I'd have luck at the haunted inn.
'Maybe just a smidge more dead man's ash,' I mused aloud before realizing the cabdriver was giving me a worried look in the mirror. I smiled in what I hoped was a suitably reassuring manner and kept the rest of my musings to myself.
Ten minutes later I limped around to the back of a tiny old building dwarfed by a nearby sports complex. About three hundred years ago the small building had been an inn, but had most recently been used as headquarters for a trendy decorating shop. Now it was empty, reportedly due to the unusual and unexplained 'phenomena' that was connected with the inn's distant past. A thin man of medium height stood shivering by the door, waving his flashlight at me as I hobbled up.
'There you are, thought you'd never come. I'm freezin' my arse off here!'
'Sorry. I take it you're Carlos?'
The man stomped his feet, nodding as he pulled out a key and unlocked the door. 'I can only give you twenty minutes. There's a show everyone from SIP is going to, and it starts at ten.'
'A show?' I asked as I followed him into the building, pulling the ultrasonic emission detector from my bag and flipping it on. 'What sort of a show?'
Our footsteps echoed eerily as we walked down a corridor paved with broken flagstones, our breath little white clouds of air that puffed before us. I sniffed, then blew out a disgusted breath. The air was thick with stink from the nearby Thames—the whole building clearly suffered from damp, long fingers of mildew creeping up the wallpapered walls. In addition to the smell of a musty, closed-up building, the sharply acidic note of rodent droppings made it clear that although humans might shun it, four-legged residents found it an entirely suitable abode.
'It's not really a show, per se, more of a test for psychics. It's sponsored by a very powerful medium, Guarda White. She's holding nightly Summonings for a week, trying to assemble a group of proven psychics. Everyone in SIP is mad to try out for a spot on her team.'
It sounded like a bunch of hooey to me. Dedicated Summoners did not perform in theaters for the amusement of the masses. Still, Carlos was my host. It probably was best I not ridicule his excitement.
'Why is she assembling a team of psychics?' I asked as we climbed a dark staircase. I had my own flashlight out now, my sunglasses pushed up as I alternated between scanning the ground in front of me for debris and checking the walls of the common room that stretched before us. The ultrasonic detector was quiet. I paused long enough to pop it back into the bag and pull out the ion detector before hurrying to catch up with Carlos.
'… creating the greatest team of paranormal investigators that Britain has ever seen. It's all pure research, of course, the team being sent out to hot spots to locate and verify entities and disturbances. The team will be paid from a private fund set up by Mrs. White.'
In other words, it was a pet project set up by another fan of the unexplained who likely had more money than brain cells.
'This is the top floor,' Carlos said, the light from his flashlight sweeping in an arc around the area at the top of the stairs. 'That room over there has had recorded temperature drops of ten degrees. The door at the end of the landing leads to the room where a pig farmer was murdered. He's seen only on nights with a full moon, so you probably won't have much luck there. Across the hall is the room where a vicar named Phillip Michaels was set upon by thieves, and left hanging. And to the left'—he turned and shone his light beyond me. I turned my face away. There was no need to scare him—'is the room where the Red Lady is seen.'
'That's the one who jumped to her death rather than submit to her bridegroom?' I asked as I pulled out the infrared scope, juggling the ion detector, flashlight, and scope not too successfully as I headed to the left.
'That's the one.'
I set my bag outside the door and took a reading at the door. There was nothing. Cautiously, so as not to scare any spirits who might be lurking within, I opened the door. It creaked open in suitably eerie fashion.
The room had a couple of broken pieces of office furniture and a strong smell of mice, but nothing that looked even remotely ghostly. One by one I checked my detectors and got no reading. Carlos stood in the doorway, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot as I dictated a few notes on what I was seeing and feeling (cold, and a distinct aversion to mice) to my voice recorder.
I glanced at my watch and realized I had only seven minutes left to examine the rest of the building. I gnawed my lip for a minute, trying to decide what to do. I really didn't want to be left alone in the building, but I did want to try a Summoning after my success earlier this evening. The question was, how much did I want it? I took a deep breath and reminded myself that although I'd seen lots of strange things in my time—not the least of which was a three-legged semitransparent cat currently sleeping in my hotel room—at no time had I ever felt physically threatened. I was a Summoner, after all. I had wards. I was in control, and no one could take that from me. I traced a protection symbol in front of me and said, 'Urn… Carlos, why don't you go on to this séance thingy you want to see? I'll close up here when I'm done.'
I peeked at him through the screen of my hair. He looked hesitant for as long as it took him to realize that the sooner he left, the sooner he'd be warm. 'If you're sure you don't mind being here by yourself?' He looked around and only just suppressed a shudder.
'No, no problem. I don't mind these sorts of places. They're usually very peaceful.' They were until I'd successfully Summoned my first ghost, that was. My palms prickled at the thought of what I might accomplish in a
