Donn's Legacy, page 26
Striker’s ears pointed toward him, and she tilted her head. The sound of her purring filled the room.
I stared at her. Unlike me, who had to leave my body to walk the astral plane, Striker seemed to move through it and the real world simultaneously. She had seen Horace last night. Had she been able to see through his disguise? Would she know if this man standing in front of us was the same person who had backhanded her while trying to kill me?
She would. I knew it. And if he was standing in front of us now, her claws would be paw-deep in his face.
“She wants the paper.” I relaxed into the deep couch and propped my head on my fist. “It’s this thing she does. She wants you to crumple it into a little ball so she can chase it around.”
“Oh.” Reggie glanced at the typewriter and winced. “Well, she can’t have that one, but I’ve got a few in my wastebasket.”
He retrieved a crumpled ball of paper from the garbage can under his desk and hesitantly threw it out his open apartment door. Striker bolted after it, and I heard her quick feet scampering down the hallway as she knocked the ball around. He sat back down with us and finished pouring the coffee, but his hands shook as he passed the mugs around.
“Are you afraid of cats?” I asked.
“A bit. There’s something otherworldly about them. I know it’s not their fault, but I always feel like they’re looking through me. Judging me.”
“They are,” I confirmed. “At least, Striker is. But she seems to like you. She also thinks every apartment in this house belongs to her, so if you leave your door open, you might find her sleeping on your bed.”
“It’s the best,” Kit said. “It’s like having a cat, but Mac deals with all the gross stuff like litter boxes and vet visits.”
“From what I hear, you’re quite capable of dealing with a number of things,” he told me. “I’d still love to hear about your experiences with the poltergeist at the Franklin cabin.”
I tilted my head. “Okay, but first I need you to explain a few things. Why have you been so rude to me?”
“Rude?” He blinked a few times. “I’ve been rude?”
“Well… yeah. I mean, you acted like I wouldn’t want to read your books, but you write about psychic phenomena, right? And I’m a psychic.”
A divot formed between his eyebrows. “Well, I didn’t know you were psychic when we met. My books are fairly niche; most people genuinely aren’t interested. And now that I know you’re a medium—”
“She also astral projects,” Kit put in.
“Really?” Reggie leaned forward eagerly. “So which is it? Flying ointments or raw power?”
I frowned. “Well, I didn’t use one of those ointments. So… power, I guess?”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not sure?”
Kit elbowed me. “Everything this one does is unconscious. We took her to the Grimshaw Library earlier this year, and she saw a ghost without even trying.”
“Hold on.” Reggie retrieved a black Moleskine notebook from one of the shelves. “Do you mind if I take some notes? Unlocking the Third Eye was more focused on the showy side of psychic phenomena, the things skeptics might call parlor tricks. The book I’m writing now is specifically about psychic mediums, which is why I decided to move here for a while. I’ve got a baseline knowledge of astral theory, but I’d love it if you could confirm a few things for me.”
Compared to our prior exchanges, Reggie was practically babbling. His face was flushed and excited, and I felt terrible bursting his bubble with the truth.
“You probably know more than I do,” I said. “Kit’s right. I’m sort of just bumbling through all this psychic stuff.”
“Oh.” He hesitated, pen in hand. Then he shrugged and scribbled something down. “You still have the practical experience I lack. Would you mind telling me what it was like?”
I wanted to go back in time and shake past Mackenzie for letting her bitterness about Kit’s departure so instantly color her perceptions of Reggie. His gruff manner hadn’t helped matters, but if I’d been willing to put in the effort, I could have had this conversation with him a week before. It would have been nice to be believed by someone in my own house instead of having to drive all the way to Gabrielle’s prison just to have someone take me seriously.
But then, I probably wouldn’t have gone to see her, so I couldn’t hate on my past self too much.
As Reggie filled his Moleskine with notes, I recounted my four visits to the astral plane so far. Kit pursed her lips, and her hand twitched toward her pocket a few times. I was sure she was dying to get this on tape, but I was glad there were no cameras on me now. This wasn’t for show. This was for my sanity.
I went into as much detail as I could remember, and walking through each experience one after another helped me take a step back from them. It was easier to put aside my grief and fear, and I was able to examine my experiences through a more scientific lens.
“There’s so much about it all that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Like, why was I only able to astral project while I was sleeping in my own bed? And it feels like I have this huge gap in my abilities. One day, I can suddenly astral project. A few days after that, I don’t have enough power to channel a spirit who’s sitting ten feet away from me. A week later, I can astral project and channel a spirit all in the same night. That’s weird, right?”
He tapped his pen on the end of his nose. “You mentioned you woke up from your first astral experience holding a wooden box, correct? Had that ever happened before?”
My heart stopped. No, that hadn’t happened before. I hadn’t had Camila’s box with me before. I hadn’t had Camila with me before.
And every time I’d done something extraordinary since then, she had been nearby.
Weeks before, Yuri had told me the reason people looted places like the Franklin cabin was because they believed they could borrow the spiritual energy of haunted objects to enhance their own powers. Yuri dismissed the theory out of hand, and I had done the same, so the truth behind the sudden increase in my own abilities never even occurred to me.
I had been using Camila’s energy to power myself up.
The next epiphany to hit knocked the breath out of my lungs. Camila was gone. I had let her go, and because of that choice, I would never astral project again.
I hated how much that filled me with regret. I felt dirty. Using a spirit like that… it felt evil. But I would still miss it. How messed up was that?
The next few realizations slammed into me in quick succession, and they would have toppled me over if I hadn’t already been sitting down. What I’d been doing wasn’t unique. Borrowing spiritual energy to astral project?
That was Horace’s entire game.
Did the spiritual energy eventually run out? Was that why he needed so many of them? He wasn’t content to travel around to places that were already haunted to capture lingering spirits, though clearly, he did that too. He was too efficient for that. Why hunt down ghosts when he could make them?
Horace was powerful. I had known that even when I’d thought he was a ghost. But now I knew his power didn’t come from inside him. He stole it, along with his victim’s lives.
Most importantly of all: like I had accidentally done with Camila, he needed to keep his spiritual batteries close. Any time he did anything psychically strenuous—like, say, astral projecting—they’d be nearby. The lives he had stolen, the people he had murdered, the souls he kept from moving on to the next life… they were still out there with him.
Somewhere out there was the place Horace laid his head to sleep.
That’s where I would find the spirits he trapped.
That’s where I would find my mother.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I knew as I climbed into our bed that night that I wouldn’t be able to astral project. There was no point envisioning myself on the back path. Camila wouldn’t be waiting for me. So as my exhaustion from the day’s events tugged me into the arms of sleep, I leaned into it and prayed for a dreamless night.
My psyche wasn’t in the mood to give me what I wanted. I dreamed of Horace, waking several times with sweat drenching my back and my legs tangled in the blankets, clutching my throat and struggling to breathe.
The third time it happened, Graham turned on the light. “It’s okay,” he soothed as I gulped for air. “There’s nobody else here. It’s just us.”
When I finally calmed down, he moved to switch off the lamp.
“Can you leave it?” I felt like a child asking, but I was sure I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if there wasn’t any light to hold back the darkness.
“Of course.”
With Striker purring comfortingly just above my head, I managed to fall back to sleep again. Whether because of the light or because my brain had gotten bored of torturing me, my dreams turned to the more abstract, disconnected scenarios I was used to. Searching through piles of equipment cases for a nonexistent piece of gear. Running down the hallway of my high school, desperate to get to class on time for an important quiz. Calmly listening to Striker explain that she was planning to marry Fang’s cat, Shadow, and that as parents of the bride, we were expected to pay for the ceremony.
Then, abruptly, I found myself in the parking lot of the Yurt in Luck Resort.
Bright sunlight shone down from overhead, and the desert plants in the gardens were alive with vibrant red and yellow flowers that hadn’t been there when Graham and I visited. The roar of the river was far louder than it was in real life, and the breeze carried the fresh scent of piñon pine. My surreal surroundings were a relief; this was a dream, not an astral projection, and I knew that when I woke, I would feel rested.
Someone tugged at my hand. My mother stood beside me, not looking at me as she yanked me toward the first yurt on the left side. She wore a cream-colored, flowing dress that fluttered around her knees, and her brown hair fell down her back in loose curls.
“Mom.” I tried to pull her toward me, but she resisted. I relaxed my stance and let her tug me to the door of the Shamrock unit, the same yurt where I had found Camila’s luggage.
My mother opened the door easily, no kick required. The room looked vacant; the bed was made, the chairs were tucked neatly under the wooden table, and the door to the bathroom was closed. I expected her to lead me to the tub where we would find Camila’s suitcase all over again, together, but she stopped and pointed at the painting above the bed.
“What is it?” I examined the field of shamrocks, which were even brighter and greener here than they had been the last time I saw them. They were nice, but nothing about them struck me as particularly noteworthy.
“Find him,” she said, not meeting my gaze. She kept her eyes fixed on the painting.
I frowned. For a moment, I thought this might be the kind of visitation Grey had described. I just wanted to sit down at the little table and talk to my mom. It would take hours, but I wanted to catch her up on my life and hear more about what hers had been like before I was born. Grey made it sound like a visitation was a conversation, but this felt nothing like I had imagined. As always, my mother felt distant.
Restrained.
“Can you talk to me?” I asked. “Really talk?”
She finally faced me, and her expression was pained. She looked like she wanted to say something—there was a depth of emotion in her eyes that made me think she wanted to say a lot of things—and she gathered both of my hands into hers, squeezing them tightly.
“There’s no time,” she whispered. “I can’t stay.”
I felt the truth in her words. Her form shimmered, and her hands felt less substantial around mine than they had a moment before.
She was fading.
“Tell me,” I urged. “Whatever you’re here to say, just say it.”
“He’s in trouble.” She let go of my hands and pointed at the painting again. “The Irishman.”
“Stephen?” Alarm flooded me, and my heart pounded against my neck.
The bathroom door fell open. Camila’s luggage lay open on the floor. Her clothes spilled out of it, and sitting on top of the messy pile of T-shirts and blue jeans was a wooden jewelry box with an open lid. I walked toward it, dread building in my belly, and peeled back the red velvet lining.
Horace’s runes were there, burned into the wood and fully intact. The world around me faded away until I stood at the edge of a dark forest, holding the box in my hands. Horace was striding toward me across a recently plowed field, his eyes glowing red and his cape fluttering behind him. His lips peeled back, and sharpened teeth gleamed in the moonlight.
“Go!” my mother’s voice whispered in my ear.
The frigid air pierced through my pajamas and numbed my limbs. The box slipped out of my fingers. Horace’s eyes locked on mine. I turned to run, but my feet were trapped, tangled in vines that snaked out from between the trees. I fell to the ground and thrashed, trying to break free.
“Help!” I screamed. “Help!”
A bright light blinded me. I squinted against it. Graham’s face appeared above mine, and his head blocked the glare from the overhead light behind him. His hands gripped my shoulders, and I became aware that he had been shaking me gently.
“Shh, you’re okay.” He leaned back and sighed. “Everything’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t.” I untangled my legs from the sheets and leapt out of bed. “Get your shoes. We have to go right now.”
“Mac, it’s okay. You were having a nightmare. It was just a dream.”
“No.” I pulled a sweatshirt over my head. “We have to go get Stephen.”
“What? Why?”
“Because if we don’t find him now, he’s going to die.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Baxter’s tired engine squealed against the cold as Graham pulled out of the Primrose House parking lot. The faded green glow of the dashboard clock read 5:00 a.m.
I prayed we weren’t too late.
Our breath made tiny clouds in front of our faces as we scanned the sidewalks for any sign of Stephen on the way to The Enclave. We were bundled up warmly with coats, hats, gloves, and scarves. In the back seat, we had Graham’s quilt and a bottle filled with hot water from the kitchen sink. They were the only things we had time to grab on our way out the door.
“You’re sure he’s in danger?” Graham asked.
“Positive.”
I chewed the skin off my lip and replayed what I had seen in my dream. My mother had been so emphatic that Stephen was in trouble. I hadn’t dreamed about her since the last night we spent in New Mexico… the night Elizabeth Monk died. The jewelry box, Horace, the cold.
It all pointed to Stephen dying before sunrise.
I kicked myself for not calling him as soon as I knew Horace was targeting psychics. But I had assumed—falling victim, yet again, to the very thing Gabrielle warned me against—Stephen would be safe so long as the episode didn’t air. How else would Horace know to target him? Or had Stephen somehow stumbled into one of Horace’s traps by accident?
Either way, I should have told Stephen. Warned him. Insisted he come stay with us at Primrose House for… well, for who knew how long. Whatever it took to keep everyone safe.
Graham brought Baxter to an abrupt halt in front of The Enclave. We hurried up the path toward Stephen’s building as fast as we could without slipping on the icy cobblestones. I pictured knocking on the door and being met by a messy-haired Stephen, to whom I’d have to explain why we woke him so horrifically early. He would make coffee, and everything would be all right.
But before we even reached the front steps, that optimistic vision vanished.
Stephen’s door hung wide open.
“Stephen!” Graham shouted, bounding onto the stoop and into the building in two steps.
I followed behind as quickly as my shorter legs could manage. We found no sign of a struggle, either upstairs or down, but Stephen’s bed was empty. All his lights were off. And most worrying of all, his cell phone, wallet, and car keys had been left on his nightstand.
Graham was on the phone with the sheriff’s department before I finished searching all the rooms. “I need to report a missing person.” He rattled off Stephen’s name and address. After a conversation that at once felt far too brief and way too long, he hung up and told me, “They’re sending over a deputy. They want us to wait here.”
“Wait here? Are you kidding? We need to go out there and find him. Now.”
After everything I’d had to talk Graham into doing over the last few weeks, I expected some pushback. But he gave a single brisk nod and gestured for me to step outside. “Let’s go.”
On the porch, the futility of our situation hit me. Stephen had left on foot. We had no idea how long ago that was or how far he’d managed to get. The weather had been too cold for snow for days, and the slick sidewalk held no evidence of even our own footprints from just minutes before.
Even if there had been snow on the ground, I was no tracker. Neither of us had ever been trained to hunt anything down. I walked back to the street, senses on high alert until I reached the curb. There, my vision fuzzed. I stared blankly up and down the road. Which way had he gone? Toward downtown or away? Uphill or down? What if I chose the wrong direction and we just got farther and farther away from him until it was too late?
A panicked sob rose in my chest.
“Okay, Mac.” Graham turned me to face him and rested his hands on top of my shoulders. “Where do we go now?”
“I don’t know.” My eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Think about what brought us here.” His voice was impossibly calm. “You saw something, right? You were screaming in your sleep, so I know it was scary, but I need you to remember.”
Tears dripped down my cheeks as I nodded. “Okay. Yeah. I—I can do that.”
Except what if I couldn’t? What if it was already too late? What if, right now, Stephen’s lifeless body was frozen on the ground, hunched around one of Horace’s boxes?
