Ghost College (The Ghost Files Book 1) Read online

  “Okay, Ellen,” I yelled, though it was probably more like a murmur, since my body was in trance somewhere back in the conference room. “Devil Boy’s growing horns in here, and I have no idea what to do next.”

  Her words drifted across my mind, almost like subtitles in a movie: “Go toward the light.”

  I was a little annoyed. We’d made fun of that “Touched By An Angel” crap, where all the problems of the universe were solved simply by helping a dead person resolve a minor family dilemma. But Good and Evil fought on a much larger stage than a Hollywood sound lot, and I needed to break out the big guns.

  Sigmund was now transforming, turning into a beastly creature with sharp fangs, which glistened in the veiled firelight.

  “Go toward the light,” Ellen repeated, and at last I understood.

  I lunged at the creature, half expecting to fall flat on my gut and knock myself breathless—assuming I had any lungs in this ethereal state. Instead, I tackled him and we tumbled toward a yawning pit, the source of the strange light and stinking smoke, and far below came the crackle and roar of what could only be a raging holocaust of fire.

  One of us screamed as we plummeted, and I hope it wasn’t me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Okay, it was me.

  I mean, wouldn’t you? One moment you’re sitting with your wife in a creepy old university, and the next you’re tackling a fanged demon and plummeting into a fiery chasm.

  Yeah, I screamed. Damned straight I screamed.

  The sensation of falling went on far longer than I could fathom. Hundreds and hundreds of feet, perhaps. Thousands. The creature I had tackled was gone, and I was alone, twisting and falling and screaming....

  Be strong, came my wife’s voice. You’re not falling. Everything’s an illusion. He’s a master of illusion.

  I landed far more softly than I would have thought possible. That is, if I was falling at all. Anyway, a slight jolt later and I found myself on my back, staring up into the shadowy depths of another stone chamber.

  I scrambled to my feet, gasping.

  The room was vast. And cold. Shadows and cobwebs everywhere. I rubbed my arms, turning in small circles. The sonorous notes of a piano came from somewhere. I was seriously beginning to hate that sound.

  “Where am I?” I asked. And for the first time in my life I felt real fear. A nearly overwhelming fear. And what I feared most was my own sanity.

  I’m losing my mind. Whatever mind I have, anyway.

  I was a heartbeat away from a full-fledged panic attack when my wife’s soothing voice came to me. Relax, sweetheart. Deep breaths. He can’t hurt you.

  “But where am I?”

  I knew my wife was seeing what I was seeing. Using her profuse skills to access my thoughts and impressions. A form of telepathy I had never experienced before but was damn thankful for.

  Then again, maybe all she was doing was whispering in my ear, back in the abandoned office. Still, I had a sense that she was seeing what I was seeing, and I was glad she was here. Damn glad. Some things you just don’t want to go through alone, and matching wits with a demon was one of them.

  Of course, I still had no clue where I was.

  I heard my wife’s voice in my head. It looks like an old basement. Perhaps the mission’s original basement.

  A basement that no longer existed. “So I’m in another now.”

  I believe so, yes.

  I looked down. My body was glowing, ethereal. Freaking see-through. “I don’t understand what’s happening, Ellen.”

  You’re having an out-of-body experience, Monty. Be strong. Do you see the silver cord attached to your navel?

  I looked, and son-of-a-bitch, there was the cord. “Yes. What is it?”

  It’s your lifeline to your body. You can always come back.

  “And my body is there in the room with you?”

  Sleeping like a baby. Snoring a little, too.

  “Okay,” I said. “I hope I’m not drooling. That would be embarrassing. What now?”

  I don’t know, love. But we need to release Sigmund’s hold on Sophia first and foremost.

  “Where’s Sophia?”

  She’s still in Room Number Nine. She’s frightened, but I can only focus on you. She’ll be fine.

  “So much for paranormal multi-tasking.”

  You might want to save your jokes for when you’re not alone with a Dark Master who’s had a century of practice being a manipulative bastard.

  “Point taken.”

  I turned slowly, and as I did so the room seemed to shift. Now the stone walls were broken, crumbling. I sensed a great shaking had occurred. An earthquake, perhaps. Time, I quickly realized, meant little in this astral world.

  Yet the piano kept playing.

  And then it stopped.

  The room shifted again, and I saw dirt piled in the far corner. No doubt at some time the basement had been filled in. This was only a partial fill-in, though, and some masonry and timbers protruded from the rubble.

  I heard footsteps. Loud, echoing, clomping footsteps. Whatever was coming didn’t give a shit if I knew it was coming. And with each approaching step, the damned room seemed to grow hotter. Surely, that was my imagination. How could I feel heat in this spirit world?

  The room shifted again, and now I was in a confined space, barely able to move, surrounded by dirt and debris, and I knew the basement had filled in. With me in it.

  Oh, sweet Jesus.

  My worst nightmare. Anyone’s worst nightmare. But the way this night was going, I would probably have worse soon. And still the flames grew hotter. Still I heard the footsteps coming.

  Calm down, honey. Please. You’re safe. You can come back to me at any moment.

  I yanked on the silver chain like a deep-sea diver who has just encountered a pack of sharks. “I’m coming back!”

  Wait. Please. It took a lot for us to get you in this world. We needed Sophia’s help and now you have my help.

  I was nearly out of my mind. So much for skeptical Mr. Believe It When I See It.

  I turned. Or tried to. I couldn’t move. The smell of freshly turned soil was everywhere. I was trapped. Forever trapped.

  Calm, honey. Be calm.

  “I can’t.”

  He’s trying to scare you.

  It was working. I could barely think, barely control myself. And then, just like that, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and love and knew they had come from my wife. The panic began to subside.

  Good, honey. Good.

  “How do I get out of here?”

  He’s controlling the scene. But you can reshape it. Imagine the room when it was open and airy.

  I did. Or tried to. But all I could think about was the bare earth just inches from my face, and the fact that I couldn’t move my arms or head.

  Open and airy, love.

  I thought back to when the basement had been an actual basement. The stone walls. The dirt floor. The deep shadows. And plenty of oxygen. Damp, musty oxygen, but good for the lungs and enough to keep on living.

  I was back. I would have gasped if I’d had physical lungs. Instead, I spun around and realized that I didn’t want to play anymore.

  And how do you think Sophia feels, love? He’s been tormenting her for more than a century.

  Horrible. Miserable. What a bastard. What a demon.

  He has to be stopped. We can stop him.

  “But how?”

  The footsteps continued, echoing loudly. The temperature in the basement seemed to go up as well, and just as I thought that, flames leaped to life along the perimeter of the room.

  And within the flames, silhouetted briefly, was the gaunt figure of Mr. Sigmund.

  He stepped through and into the room.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “So,” Sigmund said, tongues of flame still licking grotesquely around his foppish little cravat. “You’re not as weak and pathetic as you look.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I s
aid. We’d already played the Flame Game, so I didn’t see any advantage in jumping him again and throwing him back into the fire from which he’d emerged. No, if I was going to beat him, it would have to be with my head.

  Two heads are better than one, came Ellen’s thoughts. And two hearts are even better than that.

  “Okay,” I said, extra-loud for Ellen’s benefit. “Tell me what you want, and we’ll go, but we’re taking Sophia with us.”

  “You can’t take Sophia. She’s dead.”

  “You know what I mean. She gets out of here. Release her spirit and we won’t be forced to cast our diminishing fields on you.”

  I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, but I figured he hadn’t kept up with all the ghost-hunting technology and cutting-edge science. Hell, I was so cutting-edge I’d just invented something that could dissolve whatever weird threads held a demon together. If I survived this, maybe I would market it.

  “Oh, those toys you and that bitch of a wife of yours brought? I already drained them.”

  Drain. That gave me an idea. If the dude needed fuel for his continued existence, he probably preyed on Sophia’s psychic pain and fear.

  Careful, Ellen warned. You’re getting in over your head.

  I noticed she’d said “head” after all that talk of unity, but I could hardly blame her. Sometimes I go a little nutty and it’s best for wise people to stay far away.

  “Look,” I said to Sigmund, in that moldering dungeon of a basement. “Sophia’s probably about used up after all these years. She probably wasn’t all that much to begin with. Why don’t you trade her in for some fresh meat?”

  He laughed, and his eyes turned red again, and the lump of meat beneath his top hat shimmied like a bag of worms. “And you’re offering yourself in her stead? You’re a true martyr, Mr. Drew.”

  “No, I am a human being, which is something you’ve long forgotten about.”

  He laughed even more loudly, his sickening bellow filling the room, and the walls rumbled like the lowest notes on a piano. He tugged at his cravat, twisted the knot free with gnarled, filthy, but strangely elegant fingers, and whipped the strip of cloth in the air to remove the wrinkles.

  That’s how he did it, Ellen said. He choked Sophia with that filthy cloth.

  “Very well,” he said. “I would rather have your wife, but you’ve proven yourself a little disrespectful of the dead. I think you deserve to feel what we must go through, moment after moment, century after century, until all eternity is but one long black river flowing back upon itself.”

  He wasn’t a bad piano player, but his attempts at literary metaphor were pretty lame. But he might be right, and it looked like I was about to find out for myself.

  “Just you and me,” I said to Sigmund. “But first, let the girl go.”

  He gave a bemused smile that resembled a row of chipped, bloody daggers. I swallowed hard.

  He waved the cravat overhead like a rodeo cowboy, losing a little of his Old World sophistication. And Sophia re-appeared, near the door that Sigmund had entered. She cowered, but looked at me with a hope that made my heart turn spastic flips. And now I could see the reddened ring around her neck, where Sigmund must have choked her when he claimed her soul.

  Yes, Ellen said. He murdered her during her piano lesson, but an earthquake erupted shortly afterward.

  And just like that, I could see the whole scene, like a flashback in a movie, except the edges of the frame weren’t blurry. It was as if the events were happening now.

  He was dragging her limp body into the basement as dirt, rubble, and chunks of broken floor joists fell around him. He laughed as the room collapsed, knowing he’d completed his dark mission.

  Non omnis moriar.

  “Not all of me shall die.”

  I shook the vision away and steadied myself, wondering how much of me would be dead after I submitted to this evil son-of-a-bitch. But first things first.

  “Go on, Sophia,” I said.

  I was about to tell her to “Go toward the light,” just like they teach you in online ghost-hunting classes, but Ellen stopped me.

  No, NOT toward the light. Light signals the eternal fire.

  Holy shit. I might have just sent her out of the frying pan and into the fire. Good thing I had my wonderful guardian angel watching out for me.

  “Go on home,” I said to Sophia. “Your mother and father are waiting, and they have a nice peach pie in the oven.”

  She gave me a smile that was worth seven circles of hell, then hop-skipped off through the door and away to whatever awaits those who are allowed to rest in peace.

  Not that it looked like I would get a chance for much peace, judging by the hungry way Sigmund was looking at me.

  Don’t let him sever your cord, Monty. He severs that cord and you really will die.

  I looked down at the glowing, ethereal, silver cord that snaked out from me and to my physical body. Good to know, I thought.

  And he just might be powerful enough to trap your soul in this Godforsaken basement for all eternity.

  Thanks for cheering me up.

  Maybe you should come back, Monty.

  No, I thought. I need more information. I need to know how to destroy this piece of shit.

  The girl has been saved. She’s already passed through. You don’t have to do this.

  Sigmund snapped the cravat with both hands. “Slow and painful,” he said, although his lips never really moved.

  Maybe I didn’t have to do this, but this had gotten personal. This man, this thing, standing before me wanted to kill me, and, apparently, to torture me for all eternity.

  And if it wasn’t me, it might be someone else.

  Yeah, this son-of-a-bitch had to go.

  My wife, of course, had followed my train of thought in ways that I would never fully understand.

  Be careful, love.

  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  I looked at the entity standing before me. “How do we do this? I’m guessing you’re going to need a neck if you must choke me.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said, grinning, and in a flash of brilliant white light the cravat turned into a long, gleaming dagger.

  “Nice trick, asshole.”

  He grinned. “It’sss no trick,” he said. His sibilants were getting mushy. I think he was getting off on this a little. I filed that information away for later use. Every weakness meant a possible advantage.

  We circled each other in the basement, one astrally projected paranormal investigator and one ugly-as-hell Dark Master. I kept thinking I might trip or stumble over that damn silver cord, but it somehow always managed to orient directly back to my physical body.

  Too weird. Everything is too weird.

  Be calm, love. It might be weird, but it’s also damn real.

  During my private investigator days, the boxing skills came in handy more than once, especially when some clown decided he wanted me off a case.

  Maybe they’d work when some demonic clown wanted to sever my silver cord thingy.

  Perhaps my nearly overwhelming desire to lay one on his kisser contributed to what happened next. Or perhaps I was just losing my mind. But either way, I had somehow managed to will myself to flesh. Or whatever passed for flesh in this non-place. Maybe ectoplasm. I don’t know how to describe it, because I am sure my body was still lying back in the abandoned office where Ellen was, but I felt my body harden like an empty mold being filled with warm wax.

  I rolled my shoulders and tried to get comfortable in my own skin. I noticed I’d put on a little paunch in my middle age. Too many chocolate pancakes. But if I didn’t do this thing right, I’d be spending a lot of time weightless in the near future.

  And in the far future as well.

  “All right, Dark Master,” I said. “Bring it on.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sigmund lunged at me with his knife.

  I don’t know much about black magic, but I know how to bo
b and weave. I sidestepped him easily and heaved an arching, over-the-top punch that would have leveled just about anyone.

  I expected my fist to go straight through him. I mean, I really didn’t expect to connect with anything. But, son-of-a-bitch, my punch landed and landed hard.

  Sigmund reeled backward, arms flailing, his silly top hat tumbling to the dirt floor.

  “Holy shit,” I said, shaking my hand that actually hurt. “How the hell did I just do that?”

  Illusion meets physical laws meets the spirit world, came my wife’s words.

  “So, basically, anything goes.”

  Most anything. There are still laws.

  And when those words appeared in my thoughts, something nagged at me, and hard. And it wasn’t something pulling on that damn silver cord, either. It was something else.

  Laws. There was something there.

  I may not have been a big believer in the afterlife, or ghosts, or the supernatural, but I paid attention. And what I knew about demons—and if Sigmund wasn’t a demon, he was certainly bucking for a promotion—was that they needed to be bound to something. Often something physical. And often something of great importance to them.

  An anchor of some sort. I had my silver cord. He probably had some black cord, or an invisible cord, something tethering him to this world.

  Sigmund regained his balance and turned to me, pulling back his cracked lips to reveal his filthy row of sharp teeth. Blood filled his mouth, which he promptly spat out. The blood evaporated into steam before it hit the basement’s dirt floor.

  It’s all illusion, came my wife’s words. He’s not really bleeding.

  Maybe not, but I sensed I had hurt him. Or, at least, surprised the hell of him. Like Ellen had said, he was new at this.

  We circled again. He rotated the dagger casually in his hand. Whether or not the blade was illusion, I didn’t know. But I did know that I had to protect the silver cord at my navel. Or all was lost.

  I would be very dead, perhaps cut off from my wife forever.