Haunted (A Bishop/SCU Novel Book 15) (19 page)

—

HOLLIS WAS STANDING
in front of the small graveyard between the church and the parsonage when DeMarco joined her.

“The negative energy has lessened, hasn’t it?”

“Reading me?”

“Your shoulders are more relaxed,” he said, maybe answering.

Or not.

Hollis glanced at him, then returned her gaze to the graveyard. “I thought maybe if I stood here long enough, I might sense a different kind of energy. But these are old graves. If anybody waited around long enough for me to get here, I guess they don’t have anything much to say.”

“And Barry Torrance? He died here.”

“Not a peep from him, either. Have to say, I’m relieved by that. I generally don’t see them with the injuries that killed them. Really hoping that holds true here. Assuming I see anything at all, of course. Or hear. Whatever. Right now I barely have five senses.”

DeMarco frowned. “Barely?”

“Yeah. My eyes are . . . acting up.”

“What do you mean?”

Hollis kept her gaze on the graveyard. “The church is white. The parsonage is white, too.”

“Yeah. So?”

“When I look at the church now, there’s a . . . there’s something almost like an aura around it. Red.”

He waited a moment, and then said, “And the parsonage?”

“It’s just . . . All red. The siding, the front door. Even the roof. Sort of white trim here and there, but there’s red dripping or smeared on that. Other places still white, like someone was in a hurry and missed spots, or were on a ladder that didn’t reach far enough. In some places things look . . . distorted, as if I’m seeing just those places through a magnifying glass held at the wrong angle or something. Everything I see is wrong. It’s a house of blood, Reese. So it has to be my eyes, right?”

“Hollis—”

“It has to be my eyes. Maybe the energy up here. Because I’ve never seen anything like this before. Or maybe, hopefully, just because I’m asleep and dreaming all this.”

“I’m in your dream?”

“Of course.” Her voice was abruptly calm and certain when she told him that. “You’ve always been able to hear the whispers of my dreams. The next step was always this one.”

“This one?”

“Walking with me in my dreams. Or in yours, I suppose. We’ll have to figure that out. If there’s time. Later.”

He tried again. “Hollis—”

“Is Braden still on the steps?”

DeMarco turned his head and saw that the black dog was at the steps leading to the front door of the parsonage. His front paws were up a step or two, and his head was turned, his gaze fixed on them.

“I’m not going back in there,” Hollis said.

“Is that what you believe he wants you to do?”

“Don’t you? I’m the only one here who’s supposed to be able to talk to the dead. And I’m pretty sure Braden knows there’s nothing alive in that parsonage.”

“But something you—we—need to know about?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. Maybe he thinks so.”

DeMarco was as certain as he’d ever been that he knew exactly what Hollis was feeling, and despite the lessening of tension in her posture, what his certainty told him was that she was afraid.

He couldn’t remember Hollis ever being afraid.

Not like this.

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. But she didn’t look up at him. She kept her eyes fixed on the center of his chest. And he could see for himself that her eyes were . . . different. The pupils were enormous. And around them was a thin rim of bright, bright blue.

“Hollis, what are you afraid of?”

An odd little smile made an attempt to shape her lips, but it was unsteady. “Ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. We deal with those.”

“Yes. Is this something new? Something we haven’t dealt with before? Isn’t it Samuel?”

She gave a little nod. “It is . . . and it isn’t. Not the man you knew. Not even the madman we knew. I know . . . what’s been watching us. All this time, ever since we got here.”

“What? Not who?”

“It’s . . . a what. Maybe they all start out as whos, and then they get darker . . . and darker . . . and darker. From evil. From soaking it up. Until they’re black. Until there’s nothing left of them that’s human anymore.”

She raised her eyes to meet his at last. “The parsonage. Second-floor window on the left. It’s standing there. Watching us. Not a spirit. Not a shadow. Something . . . old. Something ancient. Something he thinks he created. Something that wants us to go away.”

DeMarco hesitated only an instant, then quickly turned his head and found the window.

And for a split second, he saw a shape in that window.

A featureless bit of utter darkness with the outline of a man.

For a split second.

And then it was gone.

Melanie made sure her apartment door was locked behind her, then made her way downstairs to the lobby where Toby and Annabel were waiting for her. Of their three homes, her apartment was the only one with a lobby, and the other two women had remained there to watch weather reports on the flat screen in a nice little seating area across from the security desk.

Annabel was sitting on the arm of a chair, and as soon as Melanie reached her, she said, “The weather people don’t seem to know what the storm’s going to do. Far as I can tell, on their maps we’re in the colored area that’s somewhere between a dusting of snow—and a blizzard.”

“Figures. Where’s Toby?”

“Restroom.”

Melanie stood there for a few minutes half listening to weather people discussing low-pressure areas and elevations and the abrupt and unusual dip of the jet stream, then felt a sudden jab of uneasiness. “How long’s she been gone?”

Annabel frowned at her. “She went . . . right after you went upstairs,” she said slowly.

Melanie left her bag at her feet and immediately crossed the lobby toward the restrooms, gesturing toward the rather confused-looking security man behind the desk.

“Carl, there’s an emergency exit just past the restrooms, isn’t there?”

“Yes, Miss James, but—”

Melanie didn’t wait. She checked the ladies’ room quickly, coming out before either the guard or Annabel got there, then turned down the hall to the emergency exit.

Even from several feet away, she could see that a brick held one of the doors just slightly ajar.

“The alarm,” Carl said, somewhere between angry and bewildered. “The alarm is supposed to sound unless we buzz somebody through at the desk. With parking at the side, so many people come in and out that way—”

Annabel said, “Toby wouldn’t have left, Melanie. We both know she wouldn’t have left. Not alone. Not unless . . .”

Melanie pushed the heavy door open and looked outside anyway, but she didn’t expect to see Toby, and she didn’t see her.

“Call the sheriff’s office,” she told Carl.

“But, Miss James—”

“Two people are dead, Carl. Call the sheriff’s office and report that Miss Gilmore is missing.” She turned back to Annabel. “We can check the hotel on the way, just in case.”

“We both know she won’t be there,” Annabel said, her voice hollow. “But I thought it was me. That voice I heard . . . saying he was coming for me next . . .”

“Come on.” Melanie grabbed her bag. “With this storm coming, there won’t be much time to search. We have to hurry.”

—

WHEN HOLLIS OPENED
her eyes, she was utterly unsurprised to find DeMarco bending over her.

“That was a first for me,” he said. “How about you?”

Hollis realized she was lying back on the conference table. On top of files. And on at least two or three pens or markers, because she could feel them pressing into her.

“I had a dream,” she said.

“I know. I was there.”

She frowned up at him. “I thought I dreamed that part, too. It hit me all of a sudden, so I can see how I could have just fallen back on the table when I apparently passed out. Where were you?”

“Luckily, on my way back from getting coffee, I stopped by Trinity’s office, looking for those old maps of the town she said she had in there. Her couch kept me from hitting the floor. I’ve never gone out so fast in my life.”

“Yeah, it was quick. One minute I was talking to Brooke, and the next—”

“You saw Brooke?” Since DeMarco had been undercover in Samuel’s cult, he had actually known Brooke when she had lived as a frightened and traumatized little girl.

“Uh-huh. Apparently, the spirits were being considerate and giving me some time off.”

“They might have warned you.”

“Yeah, I said something along those lines.” Hollis stared at him a moment, suddenly became aware of their positions relative to each other, and said, “Um . . . I think I’d better sit up.”

His faint smile told her that he knew very well why she was uncomfortable.

Damn telepaths.

He straightened, offering her a helping hand.

She accepted it.

“We need to get up to the parsonage,” she said.

DeMarco frowned at her. “Everything I felt in your dream says that’s a bad idea.”

Bluntly, Hollis said, “So is possession. According to Brooke, Samuel picked a weak vessel—but one that still had his own personality. One with a few old grudges against some members of The Group, I think, which is why they’re being killed. The original personality was drawn back here for that, and then when we showed up, Samuel decided to stay.”

DeMarco frowned. “Somebody from Sociable had a grudge bad enough to disembowel a man?”

“I’m making an assumption here, but the
degree
of torture, at least with Torrance, that was all Samuel. I don’t know what the vessel planned to do, but I doubt it was all that. I’m guessing Samuel took control for the sick and showy bits. To gather more negative energy—and for us.”

“It could explain why Abernathy’s neck was severed so quickly and cleanly. No torture at all. He could easily have been killed by someone else.”

“And was, I think. The vessel. I think he’s mad at people, and I think that’s pretty much all that’s left of his personality.”

“So that part is disintegrating.”

“With every evil act Samuel commits, the original personality gets weaker, loses his grip. Because Samuel gets stronger. The original personality can surface now and then, but probably for briefer and briefer periods. Pretty soon, he’ll be gone for good.”

“Why do I feel there’s more?”

“It’s what Brooke said. Samuel picked a weak vessel. Or maybe any human vessel would have been weak when subjected to Samuel’s needs. Either way, the vessel can’t handle what Samuel spent his life learning to handle: all that raw energy. All the power he’s been trying to collect and hold is slowly destroying the other man’s body.”

“I hope you’re not about to say what I think you’re about to say.”

“Yeah, apparently he’s tried more than once to get himself a new vessel. I don’t know who else he tried to invade, but that was the cause of my pounding headache and nosebleed.”

“And yet . . . you kept him out.”

Hollis shook her head. “No idea how. Brooke said he discovered I had my own kind of shield. But that was as far as her helpful streak extended, because she didn’t explain what that meant.”

“All that, and you still want to go back to the parsonage?”

“We have to, Reese. This is going to end one of two ways. Either Samuel finds himself a new vessel and slips away from us again—to fight another damned day—or else we stop him. Here and now.”

“There’s a storm coming,” DeMarco said.

“I know. And we need to get this done before. I have an awful feeling that, if we don’t, when the storm is over there won’t be anything but wreckage in its wake.”

“You were scared up there. In the dream.”

“I’m scared now. But more scared of not going up there. Everything in me says we have to go, and we have to go now.”

DeMarco studied her for just a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Here, take your coffee. It’s going to be cold up there.”

He was right. It was freezing.

“Are you sure about this?” DeMarco asked nearly ten minutes later as he came around the front of their vehicle to join his partner. He had parked on the topmost cross street in front of the church and parsonage, at a break in the overgrown hedge where a path meandered toward the graveyard.

“Of course I’m not sure about it.” Hollis didn’t budge from her side of the SUV, just stood there outside the closed door, her hands in her pockets, and stared at the graveyard right in front of them.

To their left was the church.

To their right, the parsonage.

“Trinity wasn’t kidding about freakish weather. That front popped up out of nowhere. Even the weather guy was baffled by it. We’ll have snow starting within a couple of hours, before nightfall, and by this time tomorrow, the only way we’ll get up here is to hike it. No telling how long this area will be all but inaccessible.”

“You really don’t want to go in there,” DeMarco said.

“Like Bishop, you have an annoying habit of usually being right,” she muttered, her gaze fixed on the graveyard. Before he could respond, she said, “One thing I checked on earlier. That preacher who murdered his wife and baby and then killed himself, he isn’t buried here. None of them are.”

“Because it’s sanctified ground?”

“Be a good reason to deny him burial. But according to the newspaper account I read, his parents wanted them all buried back in the family cemetery in Kentucky. I gather it was a very, very private service.”

DeMarco waited a moment, then said, “We both know that where the dead are buried doesn’t have a lot to do with where their spirits end up if they don’t move on.”

“You think I was worried about bumping into them here?”

“Are you?”

Hollis shook her head. “Not really. That is . . . not unless he’s that shadow man who was standing in the window.”

“You seemed to believe that the shadow man isn’t anything human. Not anymore, at least.”

She hunched her shoulders against the growing cold, inside as well as out.

“Hollis?”

“I don’t know what it is. If I had to guess, and I do, I’d guess what I saw in that weird dream was the representation of Samuel. All dark evil. And since we don’t yet know who his vessel is, I couldn’t see him as a person. Maybe it was just that. Or maybe it wasn’t a representation at all. Maybe it was just evil.”

Quite deliberately, DeMarco said, “Even in the dream I caught a glimpse only because I was touching you.”

She didn’t look at him. Rather fiercely. “Well, we knew all that energy at Alexander House would . . . intensify connections. Miranda said as much. So that makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Sure.”

“She also said that connections were tools we could use.”

Hollis thought that sounded . . . odd. But she didn’t say so. Instead, she said, “Maybe that shadow man was from my imagination.”

“I don’t think our connection is quite that deep,” DeMarco said in a thoughtful tone.

Hollis felt her cheeks growing warm and hoped he’d think the cold, fitful breeze was chapping her skin.

Then she remembered he was a telepath.

Damn telepaths.

“Hollis, you don’t have to go into the parsonage. We’ve already been through it. And, so far, nothing about these murders indicates any connection. You saw a shadow in a window—in a dream.”

“Yeah, right after talking to a spirit. A spirit who as good as told me I’d have to fight the devil.”

“Samuel is the devil?”

“Isn’t he? I think he’s up here, Reese. I think he’s been up here most of the time, maybe because of all the weird energy up here. And I think he killed Barry Torrance up here, the way he did, posed him like that, to make sure we’d have to come back. Because . . . he needs a vessel.”

“He’s not getting you,” DeMarco said. “And he’s not getting me.”

“I hope you’re right.” With both hands in her pockets, she chewed on her bottom lip. “That dream. Didn’t you find it odd that Trinity’s dog was in it?”

“I found the whole thing odd,” he retorted.

“Look, I can’t explain it. All I know, all I
feel
, is that what he was trying to tell me in that dream was that I need to go inside the parsonage again.”

“It was your dream,” DeMarco pointed out. “Sparked, you believe, by the encounter with Brooke. Right?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“So why would Braden be included?”

“You want logic from a dream?”

DeMarco raised his brows at her.

“I think Braden is important. That he’s here, like we’re here, for a reason. Maybe it’s to lead Trinity to murder victims. Or maybe it’s something else.”

“Do you want to go get him?”

“I think he’ll be coming.” Hollis frowned slightly. “I am not a precog, so I don’t know where these hunches are coming from. But they feel awfully certain.”

After a long moment, DeMarco said, “Okay.” He held his hand out and waited for her to take hers out of her pocket and slowly place it in his. “Then let’s go see what’s in there.”

—

DEACON SAID, “I
have a headache.”

They were standing outside one of the small cafés in town, where they’d had coffee and talked to another of The Group, this time one of the men. Caleb Lee, who was definitely no killer.

Deacon still felt oddly calm from that encounter; the guy really
was
Zen.

Even so, Deacon also had a headache growing worse by the second.

Trinity looked at him in some surprise, because his tone wasn’t one of complaint or even of someone wishing to convey information. What he was saying meant more than the words.

“Okay,” she said.

“It’s not my headache,” he said.

It took several seconds of bafflement before Trinity remembered that he was an empath. He could feel what others felt.

“I thought that was just emotions,” she said, because it was the first thing she thought of.