The Rising: A Badlands Novel Page 4

  “Give me a minute,” Simon breathed.

  To Vic’s relief, Ross didn’t push. Finally, Simon handed back the empty bottle and accepted Vic’s help to get to his feet.

  “It was a vision—of a psychic attack,” Simon added in a shaky voice. “Experienced from Mike Mitchell’s dying moments. And I’ve got your answer on whether it was suicide or murder. It was both.”

  3

  SIMON

  “What do you mean, ‘both’?” Vic echoed.

  Simon blinked away the impressions he’d received through his Gift. “The man who died did kill himself. But he was forced into it by something supernatural.”

  “Come again?” Ross asked. “How?”

  Simon shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t speak with his ghost. Maybe I can, later, but he’s not here right now.”

  “So how—” Ross looked confused. Vic waited him out, and Simon appreciated the space.

  Simon swallowed hard, trying to still his racing heart from the impressions he had received. “I can sense energy as well as ghosts. Like intuition on steroids. If it’s strong enough, I can tell things about the energy. I’m picking up two types—a very frightened person, and something that isn’t human. The human tried to fight until the end, but the other entity was stronger. For lack of a better word, it possessed him and made him do what he did. At least, that’s what I make of it.”

  Simon hadn’t touched anything, and his gloved hands protected from contamination, but he felt tainted as if he should take a shower to wash off the psychic stain from the energy.

  Ross groaned. “How the hell are we supposed to prove that?”

  “It makes sense,” Vic replied. “That would explain the difference between the scene in here, and what the family swears is true.”

  “I’ll keep trying to reach the ghost,” Simon promised. “No guarantee.”

  Vic guided Simon back outside the apartment. Ross locked the door behind them, and they didn’t speak until they were in the elevator. “I’ll tell Captain Hargrove I brought you in on this,” Vic said. “That way, you get your consulting fee, and he knows what’s going on. I’m just not sure how to pursue a murder investigation against an…entity.”

  “Hargrove’s gonna love that,” Ross mumbled.

  “It all depends,” Simon replied, feeling better the farther he got from the apartment. “We’ve run into a creature that used people to do bad things before. I’m not sure whether in this case it’s a monster or a spirit, but bottom line is, it’s a case of possession.”

  “Like in The Exorcist?” Ross asked with a skeptical expression.

  Simon shrugged. “Everyone immediately thinks about demons when that word comes up, but there are a frightening number of energies that can temporarily ride a person and rob them of their will.”

  “Mitchell’s dead, and even if we can’t satisfy the family with an explanation, whatever killed him is still out there,” Vic added. “We don’t know why it targeted him, so we don’t know if or where it might strike again.”

  Simon nodded. “I don’t think it’s ‘if.’ Definitely ‘when.’ So the question is—does it kill to feed, or for entertainment, or for some other reason? And did it pick Mitchell at random, or is there a pattern?”

  “Yeah, that’s what worries me,” Vic said as they stepped into the lobby. He met Simon’s gaze. “Will you be okay to get back to the store?”

  The psychic residue had been vile, the emotional equivalent of a cross between sewage and rot. Whatever had forced Mike Mitchell to kill himself had not only been malicious, but sadistic. He’d sensed Mitchell’s pain and terror, and the entity’s enjoyment of his suffering. Simon couldn’t keep back a shiver. Vic noticed and slipped an arm around him.

  Simon let out a long breath. “I think so. It just hit me hard.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first one to throw up at a murder scene,” Ross said with a wry smile. “Vic and I have both done it—most cops have.”

  “Now imagine if you didn’t see the blood—you felt the feelings.”

  Ross let out a low whistle. “Fuck. I didn’t think of it that way.”

  “How about I drive you back, and then I’ll walk up to the station from the shop?” Vic’s hand pressed gently on the small of Simon’s back, steadying him. Simon decided to forego his pride, since he still felt wobbly.

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Vic glanced at Ross. “I’ll see you back there. We can figure out how to tell Hargrove together.”

  “Oh, joy.” Ross headed for the unmarked police car, while Vic and Simon walked together to Simon’s Camry.

  “I’m sorry,” Vic said when they were both buckled in.

  “For what?” Simon frowned, confused. This was exactly the kind of thing he and Vic had hoped to accomplish when they sold Hargrove on the idea of bringing him in as a psychic consultant.

  “Sometimes I feel like I’m getting you ‘dirty’ with my cop business,” Vic admitted, not yet putting the car in gear. “It’s something that happens with the rookies. You see them come in with these expectations that they’re going to fight crime like Batman and Captain America, and make sure that good triumphs over evil. And then, little by little, what they see grinds them down, and the light goes out.” He reached for Simon’s hand and twined their fingers. “I don’t want to be the reason your light goes out.”

  Simon bent to kiss Vic’s knuckles. “I’m a big boy, Vic. I know there are bad things in the world. I see the ghosts, with or without the police piece.”

  Vic nodded, but his expression looked pained. “I know. But I worry that I’ll change you. You have a good soul. I don’t want to take that away.”

  “I’m not sure about the ‘good soul’ part—”

  “I am.”

  Simon smiled and brushed another kiss over their joined fingers. “But innocence doesn’t last long for mediums. We see things—understand things—through the eyes of the ghosts long before our time. At least working with you, with the department, means I can actually do something about what I see. We’ve caught killers, stopped bad things. That matters.”

  Vic didn’t say anything more as he pulled away from the curb. In minutes, they were back at Grand Strand Ghost Tours. “Are you feeling better?”

  Simon leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Yes. You know I’ll take any excuse to see you,” he added with a tired smile. “So stop worrying. Go fight crime, and I’ll go talk to ghosts. If you find out anything about Mitchell, let me know—and I’ll do the same.”

  “You have a quiet afternoon?”

  Simon shrugged. “I’ve got a new client who wants me to go out to Socastee Manor and de-haunt it. We’ll see how that goes.”

  “Be careful. I have all kinds of ideas of how to spend our evening,” Vic added. “So try hard to stay in one piece, okay?” His joking tone hid the very serious concern Simon could see in his eyes.

  “You, too.” Simon stole another quick kiss, then hopped out of the car and took the keys back from Vic. “See you tonight.”

  When Simon walked into Grand Strand Ghost Tours, he found Pete and Tracey talking at the counter and a hot latte with his name on it waiting for him.

  “Pete said you got called out with the cops,” Tracey said. “That usually rattles you, so I figured I’d bring you a mocha. Sorry I don’t have a liquor license, or I’d have dumped in some Jameson, just for good measure.”

  “Thank you,” Simon said, picking up the cup and taking a long sip. “Much appreciated. It was…awful.”

  “And, as usual, you can’t tell us about it,” Tracey replied with a dramatic sigh. “Confidentiality, blah, blah, blah.”

  “You might not be able to share your scoop, but we’ve got some of our own,” Pete said with a big grin. “Someone’s spotted Blackcoat Benny.”

  Simon shook his head. “I get that you’re excited about the sighting, but dude, that’s an omen that a really bad storm is coming. Like seeing the Gray Man out on Pawley’s Island.”

/>   “I know,” Pete said, although the potential danger didn’t dim his smile. “But it’s so cool!”

  “Okay, fill me in.” Simon gave a long-suffering sigh, but couldn’t help feeling his spirits rise at Pete’s gleeful mood.

  “It was all everyone wanted to talk about at Le Miz this morning,” Tracey replied. She gave her braids a toss, and Simon noticed that she’d added white and clear beads that shimmered like snowflakes.

  “Apparently a couple of guys were fishing down past Surfside Beach. They were out a ways from shore, and when they looked back, they saw a man in an old-fashioned pirate coat, striding up and down on the sand with a lantern. As soon as they saw him, he disappeared.”

  “How sure are you they aren’t making it up?” Simon asked. “Or that someone didn’t prank them? Anyone can buy those coats at a Renaissance festival.”

  “Yeah, but it’s hard to just go ‘poof’ and vanish,” Pete put in.

  “True. But maybe they just made it up to get a story going. With the storm warnings, it’s what people want to hear.” Simon really hoped they weren’t going to be in for a bad turn.

  “Maybe,” Tracey allowed. “But the forecasters are upgrading from an alert to a warning. Blackcoat Benny might be right about this one.”

  Simon tried to clear his head on the drive down to Socastee Manor. Sparse tourist traffic meant he didn’t spend much time in the car, but with the radio turned up and the window partway down, Simon felt much better by the time he arrived.

  He had brought protective charms and amulets to help fend off dangerous spirits. The blessed silver bracelet Vic had given him was on his left wrist, and he had a gris-gris bag in his pocket that Miss Eppie, a hoodoo root woman, had made for him. A canister of salt bulged in one pocket, and in the other, he had several loose nuggets of onyx and agate, good for dispelling negative energy. Just in case, since he wasn’t sure what he’d be facing, Simon had also brought an iron dagger and a small bottle of holy water.

  The old house had been grand in its day. It rose two stories tall, with dormer windows and chimneys jutting from its sharply pitched roof. The white-painted, cypress wood walls sat atop a high brick foundation to help protect against flooding. Wide porches on both floors gave the house an antebellum elegance. But in this case, Simon knew, Socastee Manor had been built not just before the Civil War, but before the Revolutionary War.

  Recent years had gone hard on the old house. As Simon got out of his car and stepped closer, he saw cracked windows, roof damage, and peeling paint. Cypress wood was strong, but not completely impervious. Neglect had taken a toll. Gravel crunched beneath Simon’s feet as he walked up the carriageway. He moved slowly, opening his Gift, alert for danger and trying to sense any spirits who might be present.

  The whole place fairly vibrated with restless energy and psychic turmoil. Simon wondered how Trevor and his work crews didn’t feel the discord. Or perhaps they did, without realizing the source. Simon circled the house and spotted a cluster of old gravestones around a huge tree some distance away. The graveyard drew him toward it, and Simon approached with caution, ready for an attack.

  Sadness, frustration, and longing resonated from the spirits entombed beneath the weathered stones. He’d done a bit more reading on the Dunwood family, and the stories hadn’t been happy, despite their wealth and political power. Wives died young in childbirth. Yellow Fever, malaria, and other diseases claimed children. Ships sank, horses threw their riders, and duels went wrong. The Dunwoods were proud and hot-tempered, ruthless in pursuit of their goals, and implacable. They did not go gently to their afterlife or cede control easily.

  “Can you tell me about the haunting in the main house? I need to make it stop.” Simon waited, but none of the ghosts appeared. He sensed fear and wariness from the faded spirits, but nothing that would help him solve Trevor’s problem.

  “Your time is over,” Simon said quietly, addressing the spirits. None of them had enough energy to cause the kind of problems Trevor had mentioned, but Simon knew from experience that having unhappy ghosts around could still spell trouble. “It’s time for you to go.”

  He felt their pushback: silent outrage, stubborn refusal. Simon hadn’t really expected the ghosts to go on their own accord, giving them the opportunity was the polite thing to do. Their refusal meant he needed to move to the next level.

  “What’s happening now to the house is none of your business,” he told the ghosts as he took a canister of salt out of his jacket pocket and began to walk in a circle around the burying ground. He moved quickly, just in case any of the spirits could muster up enough energy to cause harm. When he had finished the circle, he stepped back and regarded the tombstones. Salt repelled ghosts, interfering with their energy. He’d done the psychic equivalent of putting a fence around the cemetery, one ghosts couldn’t cross.

  “If you won’t pass over on your own, then I’m going to make sure that you don’t cause trouble. And since new people will be living here, I’ll make sure someone comes to send you on.” Even though the ghosts were sealed behind the salt line, Simon could sense their agitation. Few people would have dared to deny a Dunwood what they wanted in life, and the ghosts weren’t gracious about not getting their way after death.

  Still, corralling the spirits with salt meant that they weren’t going to add to the problems inside the house. From what Trevor had told him, Simon felt certain that the ghosts of Socastee Manor weren’t limited to those in the cemetery. He tuned out the pissed off spirits behind him and focused his Gift on the manor house itself. Before he got closer, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to let Trevor know he had arrived.

  Houses absorbed impressions of the people who lived there. That explained what some called “stone tape” recordings—the imprint of a spirit’s energy that remained in an infinite loop but without sentience. Those ghosts—often referred to as “repeaters”—were like the old man on his bicycle or the man with dreadlocks down on the boardwalk. The ghosts weren’t really present to interact, they had just left a remnant of themselves behind.

  Many old houses had repeaters. They didn’t hurt anyone, and new residents sometimes became fond of them, considering the ghosts to be part of a house’s character. Simon sensed more than one repeater at Socastee Manor, which might be an unwelcome surprise to a hapless worker, but not the cause of the kinds of issues Trevor described.

  As Simon headed up the steps, he felt a darker energy that stained the house. In his inner Sight, it was just a wisp of smoke, a whiff of garbage. Whatever the entity was, it had an edge of malice that put Simon on the defensive. He wrapped his right hand around the protective silver bracelet. The blessed metal strengthened his resistance, and he felt the tainted presence draw back. It didn’t leave, and Simon felt sure it would continue to watch him, but just having it keep its distance felt like a win.

  “Simon! I was afraid you might have changed your mind.” Trevor opened the door and greeted him with a handshake. “Come in. Let me show you around.” He gestured toward the rundown interior. “I’m afraid it’s not much to look at now, but if we can ever finish the renovations, it’ll be a real showplace.” Despite the difficulties the job had caused, Simon heard pride in Trevor’s voice and excitement about the possibilities.

  “You can see that the house has good bones,” Trevor said. A long hallway led from the front door to the back door, with four rooms opening off of the corridor, and a wide wooden stairway leading to the second floor. Water damage and lack of temperature control had stained the pine floorboards and discolored the old wallpaper. But beneath the grime, Simon noted the architectural details that once made Socastee Manor famous for its grandeur.

  “The crown moldings and baseboards are hand-carved and so is the balustrade. And we’re lucky that the mantles didn’t get vandalized or stolen,” Trevor went on, leading Simon from room to room. Without furniture and unheated, the house felt forlorn, almost brooding.

  Simon kept his psychic shielding high, in
no hurry for a repeat of what happened at the murder victim’s condo. Even so, the ghostly resonance flared strong enough that he struggled to sift through all the impressions.

  So many unhappy, unquiet spirits left an imprint in this place. Simon wondered if any of its residents had truly been happy. If he had to name just one emotion, it would be hunger, an emptiness that could never be satisfied. From what he knew of the Dunwoods, that void encompassed both greed and unfaithfulness, an all-consuming need to have more, which was never enough.

  Simon felt the malice of ghosts whose bitterness bound them to this ruin, and the pain of those whose lives were ruined in the never-ending quest for “more.” As he sorted through the images and the psychic impressions, he knew something else for certain—murder had been done in this place, more than once.

  He moved toward the grand stairway and felt a sudden chill. Someone had died in this spot and hadn’t completely left. A glance out the window showed him a landscape from long ago, and he caught sight of slaves going about their business, seeing to the chores of the manor. Their restless ghosts haunted the land just as certainly as the spirits of the Dunwood family who refused to leave their decaying mansion.

  Another presence lingered at the edge of Simon’s awareness as if it were watching and appraising, trying to size him up. It was strong and angry, remorseless and cruel. Simon had no desire to go up against it now. He reached into his pocket and gripped a mojo bag Miss Eppie had given him and shook his blessed silver bracelet—a gift from Vic—so it lay against his skin.

  The baleful ghost vanished, but Simon knew it would be back.

  “Simon?” Trevor asked, still standing where Simon had left him when they’d come into the foyer.

  “Sorry. Just…getting a read,” Simon said with a wan smile. The ghostly presences felt distant, some of them too faint to notice, as if they’d provided a warning and withdrawn. Simon had no doubt that the message was “get out.”