C.H.A.R.O.N., page 1
C.H.A.R.O.N.
A NIGHT VIGIL NOVEL: BOOK TWO
GAIL Z. MARTIN
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Gail Z. Martin
eBook ISBN: 978-1-64795-033-0
Print ISBN: 978-1-64795-034-7
C.H.A.R.O.N. Copyright © 2022 by Gail Z. Martin.
Cover art by Lyndsey Lewellen
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), locales, and incidents are either coincidental or used fictitiously. Any trademarks used belong to their owners. No infringement is intended.
SOL Publishing is an imprint of DreamSpinner Communications, LLC
CHAPTER ONE
Unseen hands lifted Brent Lawson and threw him across the room to land hard against a rusted piece of equipment.
“Chant faster!” he yelled, staggering to his feet.
Travis Dominick never paused, reciting the banishment ritual from memory. He held up a crucifix in his right hand and flipped off his ghost hunting partner with his left.
The temperature in the abandoned blast furnace hovered around freezing, cold enough that Travis could see his breath as he spoke the litany. Their vengeful ghost had grown strong over the years, and while Travis sympathized with the specter’s grievance, the attacks had to stop.
“Release the anger that binds you to this world,” Travis intoned, trying not to be distracted as he glimpsed Brent flying across the room once more. “Accept your death, let go of vengeance, and go into the light.”
“Just tell him to get the fuck out!” Brent shouted, shaking himself off as he climbed to his feet again. He racked his shotgun and sent a blast of rock salt into the air in the direction his ghostly assailant had last been visible.
Cold wind swept through the steel mill, and the strong push of spectral hands came from a different angle, sending Brent stumbling.
“Go to hell, you fucker!” Brent shot again, and this time an angry screech echoed through the abandoned mill.
“Oliver Grant, I abjure your spirit and bind your soul. Let go of this mortal world and move on. In the name of the Holy Trinity and the Apostles, let it be so!” Travis finished the banishment, but another blast from Brent’s shotgun told him that Oliver’s ghost wasn’t going to cooperate.
The salt circle around him bought Travis time, keeping Oliver from attacking as he tried to send the spirit on its way. Brent played defense, trying to distract the ghost and draw its fire. Unfortunately, Oliver clung to the place of his death with single-minded tenacity.
Travis and Brent researched the ghost before heading for the old mill. Oliver had been a foreman and came to his shift unsteady on his feet one night in 1967. Whether Oliver was ill or drunk seemed a matter for debate, but he had tumbled into a cauldron of molten steel, which cremated him alive.
The sullied steel should have been discarded. It hadn’t been and instead was molded into I-beams used in the expansion of that same mill. Oliver’s ghost never left. The haunting eased when the mill closed, but the recent demolition of some buildings on the lot seemed to have woken the spirit.
What the hell were they thinking using that steel? I can’t blame Oliver for staying, but the people he’s hurting had nothing to do with his fall. Several recent deaths among construction workers on the site seemed directly linked to Oliver, and Travis suspected the ghost’s involvement in other equipment malfunctions and accidents.
Oliver’s ghost materialized in front of Travis, glowering with hatred. He matched the few photos Travis had found—a scowling, stocky man in his middle years with a shock of unruly white hair and the face of a boxer. From what Travis and Brent pieced together, Oliver had been an angry, miserable person and an overly demanding boss long before his accident.
So much so that Travis wondered if Oliver had been pushed. Not that he needed help becoming a vengeful spirit.
The ghost’s image broke up like static on a bad TV channel. Travis could not mistake the malice in the spirit’s smirk. The image flickered and appeared in front of Brent, rushed him, and knocked the gun out of his grasp. Oliver’s hands closed around Brent’s throat, and Travis did not doubt that the ghost intended to kill.
Fuck you. Travis launched into the Rite of Exorcism, something he had hoped to avoid. While the banishment ritual wasn’t gentle with wayward spirits, the exorcism—designed to send demons back to Hell—was brutal.
Oliver deserved a bum’s rush to the afterlife, and Travis intended to deliver it.
“Exorcizamos te, omnis immundus spiritus…” Travis began, rattling off the familiar Latin.
Oliver’s spirit flickered as Travis continued the rite.
Brent scrabbled to grab a piece of steel behind him and swung it through the ghost’s torso. It broke the spirit’s hold on his throat, letting him twist away.
Oliver screeched, and his image blurred. But as Travis read the rest of the exorcism, Oliver struggled to re-form. It looked to Travis as if something snatched away parts of the ghost, unraveling him like peeling an apple.
“What have you done to me?” Oliver shrieked. His voice sounded thinner, more distant. The image faded as the tendrils stripped by the exorcism unraveled his soul.
“Not nearly what you deserve.” Brent’s voice was still raspy from being choked.
“Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos!
“No! You can’t! I’m not finished—” Oliver’s shouts grew fainter as his spirit faded, and the last of the ghost finally vanished.
Travis breathed a sigh of relief, and the psychic exertion of the ritual left him drained and hollowed. He searched the shop floor for his partner.
“Brent?”
Brent staggered from the shadows into the sullied light spilling from the filthy, broken windows. “Still alive. D’ya think that exorcism would work if you recorded it and played it double-speed?”
Travis looked at his friend and shook his head with fond concern. “Not a bad idea. We can try it. Of course, if it doesn’t work, we’ll both die. But hey—worth a shot?”
Brent rolled his eyes. “Next time, you fight off the ghost, and I’ll read the fancy Latin.”
“You’re forgetting the whole ex-priest thing,” Travis pointed out. “Bit of an advantage on the exorcism.”
“Show off,” Brent muttered, but his attitude reassured Travis that his hunting partner wasn’t too badly hurt.
“You okay?”
Brent nodded, then winced. “I’ve had worse. But the bruises are gonna be spectacular.”
“Let’s go back to St. Dismas. Matthew can patch you up.”
Brent’s resigned sigh told Travis all he needed to know about his friend’s condition. “All right. Do you think there’s anything left from dinner? I’m starving.”
Travis chuckled. “If not, there’s always peanut butter and jelly and hot tea to wash it down with. Can you walk?”
Brent took a few limping steps. “I’m not going to be entering any dance contests, but I can make it to the car.”
“Matthew will want to keep an eye on you for a concussion. It’s movie night for the residents. How about we eat, watch a good flick, and you can crash on my couch,” Travis suggested.
“Sounds like a plan.”
Travis noticed how Brent winced when he bent to get into Travis’s old Crown Victoria. He wondered if Brent was hurt more than he let on. Typical ex-soldier.
“Do you think Oliver will stay gone?” Brent asked.
“The exorcism on top of the banishment should make it permanent,” Travis replied. “But just to be sure, I’ll get some friends to pull a few strings, report that the new section that used the contaminated steel is a biohazard. That means it will be dismantled and sealed in concrete. We’ll add supernatural protections. That should do it.”
“You hope.”
Travis shrugged. “We don’t get a lot of certainty in this business. I’ll take what I can get.” He glanced at the clock. “We’ll have missed dinner at St. Dismas. How about we stop at Folsom Diner? We can grab a bite to eat and see one of my contacts.”
“You need to see one of your Night Vigil people?”
“Yeah. Darius called and said he had a warning for me. Since his ‘tips’ have never been wrong, I figured I’d better go see what he has to say.”
The “Night Vigil” was Travis’s name for the misfit collection of people with untrained paranormal skills he sought out and tried to save. Having a supernatural skill that went unrecognized, reviled, and denied took a toll. Most of the people Travis had cobbled into a loosely knit found family had damaged themselves and others and now desperately needed a way to atone.
Folsom Diner sat in the Strip District, an area along the Allegheny River where ships and trucks delivered produce, fr esh fish, and other bulk items to the wholesalers that provisioned restaurants and caterers. Since the shipments came in at all hours, the diner was open round the clock to serve hungry truckers and sailors. The food was good, plentiful, and affordable.
A handful of tired men in flannel shirts filled seats in the diner long after the dinner rush had ended. The smell of coffee, bacon, and French fries hung in the air. The glass cooler case full of cakes and pies greeted them at the register and offered the possibility of sugar resurrection, especially paired with a bottomless cup of java.
“Coffee,” Travis ordered for both of them when the server came to their booth. “Just leave the pot. Bring dessert first. I want the coconut cake.”
“I’ll take the lemon meringue pie,” Brent said, holding his cup in both hands like the elixir of life. “And then the burger Blue Plate.”
“Same,” Travis added, figuring simple was best. “And is Darius working tonight?”
The server—her name tag read “Trish”—tucked her notepad into her apron. “Yeah. He’s bussing tables. Should be going on break any time now.”
“Can you tell him that Travis dropped in, please?” He managed a smile. “I’d sure appreciate it.”
Trish nodded like she was too damn tired to care. “Sure. If I see him, I’ll tell him.”
“Dunno if I’d bet money on that,” Brent said after Trish was out of earshot.
“I texted Darius. Trish was backup,” Travis replied with a shrug.
The adrenaline drop after a near-death experience on a hunt wasn’t a surprise after all these years. Travis had been hunting monsters and dealing with malicious supernatural creatures since his mid-twenties when he took his vows for the priesthood and swore his oath to the Sinistram, a shadowy secret Vatican organization that dealt with all things paranormal.
He’d left the Church and cut ties with the Sinistram nearly a decade later, burned out and disillusioned, angry over the betrayals of trust he’d witnessed and experienced. He walked away from the cassock and collar but not the work of fighting evil. So now he ran St. Dismas, a halfway house in a tough neighborhood named for the penitent thief at the Crucifixion, and hunted monsters on the side.
“Father Travis.”
Travis looked up to see Darius standing beside the table and slid over to make room for him on the bench. “Just Travis. Hi, Darius. This is Brent, my hunting partner,” he added with a nod toward his companion. “You said you had something to tell me?”
Darius looked to be in his early twenties, still struggling with acne and confidence. A hairnet covered his locs. He wore a black polo shirt, jeans, and a dishwasher’s apron, and his hands looked chapped from too much time in water.
“Yeah. You said to tell you—”
“You did the right thing,” Travis assured him. “What’s up?”
Darius looked around nervously, perhaps making sure no one was close enough to overhear. “Don’t cross the bridge.”
Travis frowned. “What bridge?”
Darius shook his head. “I don’t know. The images I see—they don’t always make sense. Like catching a minute out of a TV show you’ve never seen before. There was a highway bridge with woods and a river. Except that the far side of the bridge went into fire and darkness—like Hell.”
Shit. Does he know how many bridges there are in the whole fucking state of Pennsylvania?
“Were there other details? An unusual building or a big sign—something?” Travis didn’t doubt Darius’s precognition, but without more to go on, the tip was too broad to be useful.
Darius squeezed his eyes shut, and Travis guessed the young man was trying to concentrate on his memory of the vision. “South,” he said finally. “Painted on a big wall on a building you can see from the bridge.” He sighed. “Sorry. It’s not much. But you said—”
“It’s fine.” Travis saw how skittish Darius was and guessed he feared they would think he had wasted their time. “Visions usually don’t make sense until all the pieces come together. We’ll know to keep an eye out, and it might save our lives. This is exactly what I meant when I told you to call me when you had a tip, no matter what.”
Darius nodded, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Okay. Good. I just want to help.”
Buried in the earnestness, Travis recognized guilt and the desperate need for absolution. He knew Darius’s story, how he had ignored premonitions that ended up costing lives because his ability bewildered and frightened him. The Church had terrified him, made him fear hellfire, and because of that, people died. Just one more reason I left that all behind.
For years, the Sinistram held Travis’s ability as a medium over his head, threatening excommunication or worse. When he realized he no longer cared, he walked away free.
“Your ability is a good thing,” Travis told Darius. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Darius nodded, but Travis saw the doubt in his eyes and hoped that someday it would fade.
“If you see anything else, please call,” Travis urged. Darius ducked his head and nodded, then vanished into the kitchen.
“If we’re going to avoid bridges, we aren’t going far in Pennsylvania,” Brent said when Darius was gone.
“We both know how visions work,” Travis replied. Brent’s ghostly twin brother, Danny, used to pass along warnings from the other side, and Travis’s Night Vigil friends shared information that had saved their lives many times.
“They’re a real bitch. Too much information to let someone sleep at night, not enough to always help avoid what they saw,” Brent agreed. “At least your ghosts talk.”
Travis snorted. “Sometimes. Or they talk in riddles. It’s not like they just lay the whole issue out there. Nothing paranormal is simple.”
Trish brought their dessert and assured them the burgers wouldn’t be far behind. Brent moved as if every muscle hurt, and a bruise on the left side of his face would probably be spectacular come morning.
Travis knew Brent wouldn’t admit how much he was hurting, but he could see the way the other man winced when he moved and bit back a groan as sore muscles protested.
When they finished eating, Travis paid the check and hustled Brent to the car. “Let’s have Matthew take a look and make sure it’s not worse than sore muscles. He can give you something for the discomfort.”
“I’m okay.”
“Sure you are.”
They drove to St. Dismas, and Travis felt glad that Brent had agreed to stay over. He knew his partner was hurt worse than he let on and was grateful that Brent relented enough to allow St. Dismas’s medic check for serious injuries.
Matthew was ex-Army, like Brent. Travis resigned himself to the fact that their shared experience led to an unspoken understanding he would never fully fathom. As long as Matthew gets Brent to take care of himself, I don’t mind being odd man out.
Travis still felt surprised when he thought about the past year; how he had gone from working alone to finding a partner, one with whom he was exceptionally in sync despite their disparate backgrounds. They had hated each other in their first encounter, then grudgingly moved to mutual respect and discovered they made a good team. Travis now counted Brent as one of his closest friends, a “brother by another mother” as it were.
“How do you feel? Really,” Travis asked as he pulled into his parking space at St. Dismas, one of the few perks of management he permitted himself.
“Like I was hit by a bus and dragged for a few miles over cobblestones,” Brent growled.
“Okay. Don’t bite. I texted Matthew while we were at the restaurant. He’s expecting us. He’ll get you patched up and give you something for the pain.”
Brent’s grunt signaled agreement, even though he shook off Travis’s helping hand to assist him from the car into the building.
Jon, Travis’s second-in-command, waited at the door. “What’s the damage? How can I help?”
Travis and Jon were an odd pair. At thirty-three and six-foot-two, Travis was solid, lean muscle, with chin-length black hair and green eyes that were in sharp contrast to the pale coloring of his Irish heritage. Jon was five-ten and forty-something, built like a fireplug, with close-cropped dark hair, wary eyes, and chestnut skin. Jon had been an Army chaplain before St. Dismas, and his military background still showed itself in his movements and tone.
