Chapter Seven

Ryan stretched his back, squirming on his sofa as Lisa finished up with her card reading. He’d been zoned out for part of it as he rolled over the idea of trying something different with his life.

“How did I do?”

“Great,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely sure. Lisa had been competent enough in the past he felt it was a safe answer. “Have you worked with Alice lately?”

She shook her head. “Not in a while, but I’ve been wanting to. I know everyone here trades mentorship duties.”

He nodded, thinking if he was giving any weight at all to the idea of leaving with Santino, he’d best start backing away from mentorship. “I think it’ll be good to have you with her, too, right now. She has different strengths than I do, and some align with yours better than mine.”

“I wish I possessed psychometry talent like you.” Lisa sighed, brushing back her bangs.

Ryan managed a watery smile. Most days, he’d like to give up his ability, so why in the name of God was he actually considering a job where he’d have to do more of it? Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight. This could be crazy. What if it ended up saving people like Santino said? That would be worth the ugly he was likely to endure. It would make more of a difference than what he was doing now. “It can be unpleasant sometimes, but other times, it’s very rewarding.”

“But we all have our own gifts,” she said, and he nodded. “Speaking of which, did JayEllen talk to you about a haunting floating through town?”

If JayEllen, an experience paranormal investigator, had called for him, things were serious. He wrinkled his nose. “No. What the hell?”

“They said someone did a summoning in the cemetery, and now there’s a ghost that’s been popping up since the other night.”

A strange frisson of anger surged in Ryan. Could this possibly tie into Cam and Santino? He hated that he even considered it, but things had gotten weird since their arrival. “I guess I’d better give JayEllen a call. And I’ll reach out to Alice so she can give you a call to set up a few mentorship meetings.”

“Sounds great.”

After Lisa left his apartment, Ryan called JayEllen. Unable to meet with him immediately, she asked if he could search for the supposed conjuring point. He made another call.

“Santino, I have something for you.”

“Is this a dirty call? I’m not alone.” He chuckled.

“Well, I was going to say meet me, but not for sexy times, regrettably.” God, did he regret that. “Someone has, in theory, summoned a spirit that’s roaming the town, and JayEllen, another paranormal investigator, asked me to look into it. Want to come to the Cassadaga Cemetery with me?”

“How could I turn down such a weird date? Do I need any ghost-hunting equipment?”

“Do you have any?” Ryan really hoped so because it would be cool, another sign they belonged together.

“I have a recorder, but I didn’t come armed for that sort of paranormal investigation.”

“I’m not sure we’ll need it anyhow. I have a feeling we’ll easily find the summoning site. I’ll swing by your place in a few minutes.”

“Great.”

Ryan grabbed his dowsing rods, just in case, and a bottle of water because who knew how long this would take in Florida’s soul-sucking heat. He quickly hiked up to Santino’s place.

Santino waited at his door and fell into step with Ryan as they hiked toward the cemetery. “So, does this happen a lot?” he asked.

“More than you’d think. Cassadaga has been linked with satanism—which is totally unfair—so we get idiots who try to invoke Satan. Most of the time, they do nothing but make a mess. I’m hoping this is only a ghost they’ve irritated, but whatever it is, it’s running freely all over town.”

“A demon would complicate things.”

Ryan shot Santino some stink eye. “That’s right, think positive.”

Santino snorted. “Let’s say I’ve seen worst case scenarios.”

A cold shiver raced up Ryan’s spine. “And this is what you want me to join up with?”

“It’s exciting.” Santino shrugged as if facing down demons was no big thing. Ryan couldn’t disagree more.

“I’m sure that’s the word for it.”

“So where is the summoning?”

“JayEllen didn’t know, but we’re betting it’s close to the Devil’s Chair.”

“Okay.”

Ryan led the way into the small sandy cemetery. As far as cemeteries went, Cassadaga’s was really rather boring. It didn’t have a lot of interesting stones or monuments. For the most part, it was simply utilitarian, a small space for a small town. Finding the Devil’s Chair didn’t take long. Ryan scowled, finding no signs of anything there.

“This isn’t very threatening-looking,” Santino said, surveying the Chair, which was really like the sort of bench seen in many cemeteries.

“Like I said, it doesn’t deserve its bad reputation. I’m surprised there isn’t at least one beer can sitting on it, but if anyone from town spots that nonsense, they tend to clean it up. I honestly expected the summoning to be right here. Guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

“Want to split up?”

“Isn’t that how they always die in the movies?” Ryan grinned.

“True. But it’s broad daylight, which I suppose wouldn’t matter if we’re dealing with a demon.” Santino’s dark eyes sparkled.

“There’s your positivity again.” Ryan snorted. “Okay, I’ll take this side unless you want it.”

“Nah, I’ll start at the other end.”

He didn’t ask what he might be looking for as he jogged off on the sugar sand pathway to the opposite side of the cemetery. Ryan assumed this wasn’t such an unusual date after all for Santino, reinforcing his growing suspicion Santino might really be one of those behind-the-scenes people who did the scouting for paranormal shows. He watched Santino’s khakis-clad butt and strong back disappearing over the small hill. Watching Santino was so much more pleasant than hunting for satanic summoning sites.

Shaking himself out of it, Ryan slowly but surely made his way through his quadrant of the cemetery. He took the dowsing rods out but pocketed them again after they led him first to an angry old man’s spirit he’d encountered many times in the area—it had no intention of leaving—and then to a pair of entities not inclined to resolve into full human form. He got the impression they were female and, more strongly, the sense there was too much activity for the rods to help. He crossed to a favored spot where he’d done a communing-with-the-ancestors thing—the grave of a little boy. Many visitors had left toys for the child’s ghost, especially Hot Wheels.

Ryan stopped dead when he got there, and then bellowed, “Santino!”

He shouted Santino’s name a few more times until the sound of running made him look east. He waved his arm high above his head. Santino raced up to him.

“For a second I thought there was a demon!” Santino rasped, breathing hard. He touched the pendant he always wore.

“I swear if I find who did this, they’re going to wish they had a demon on their side.” Ryan stabbed a finger at the boy’s headstone.

Toy cars had been tossed everywhere. Black candles were shoved into the white sand next to the grave, and demonic sigils spray-painted over the ground and headstone. Ryan’s hand shook, betraying his rage.

“Really? A child’s grave.” Santino touched the little hand-horn combo pendant again. “This will be very bad if they were successful, but I doubt it. I don’t sense anything evil at first glance.”

Ryan squinted at the grave, reading the sigils. “They wrote nonsense, but sometimes intent is enough.”

Santino nodded, his eyes losing focus, reaching out with his psychic abilities, digging deeper than the surface ambience, trying to assess what might have come through, if anything had. Ryan followed suit. He sensed a great deal of anger but nothing he’d consider demonic. Would he know what that felt like? As far as he knew, he had no clue what demons were like.

“I don’t think anything demonic came through, but I do sense something has been riled up,” Santino said eventually.

“Agreed. What I don’t see is the boy. Often, his spirit is here.”

“Well, he might be pissed off someone desecrated his grave.” Santino curled his lip. “I’d like to find the person who did this and seal them in a room with a malignant spirit, and, yes, I know that’s bad of me.”

“No fears. I feel the same. I think the spirits have moved into town, maybe after those who did this—most likely teens from DeLand or Deltona, or worse, tourists. Which means the spirits aren’t likely to find them in town.”

“No kids in Cassadaga would have done this?”

Ryan shook his head. “Unlikely. Also, there aren’t many kids in town. It’s a small one. Lake Helen has a few more, of course, especially within the subdivision. Someone from Lake Helen might have done this, and it would be justice to let the spirits find those idiots. Instead, I’ll wait until tonight when I can get more of the gear going—not all of it works well in the bright light—and JayEllen can help. In the meantime, I can go get something to clean up this mess and set his grave back to rights. I hope he can hear me say that.” He glanced about but wasn’t sure he was being heard.

“I can help you,” Santino said. “With the cleanup and tonight, if you want.”

Ryan smiled, feeling better that Santino was definitely one of the good guys. “I’d love it. Let’s go home and get some paint thinner and see if we can strip this off the stone.”

“Will they be back to try this again?” Santino mused.

“If they do, they’re not too likely to get caught. We don’t have our own police force.”

“There might be something else we can do. Let me think on it,” Santino scowled.

In that instant, Ryan was glad Santino was on his side. In the meanwhile, he had a grave to clean and an angry spirit to corral.

*

Santino surveyed the small group in his living room. He was happy Cam had agreed to go to the lake alone to hunt for the nixie, freeing him to help Ryan. She agreed having angry spirits rampaging through the little town wasn’t a good thing. Just because he hadn’t sensed a demonic presence in the cemetery didn’t mean the summoning hadn’t been successful. It wasn’t his strong suit. Ryan seemed better at it, but he hadn’t noticed anything particularly evil. Of course, he wasn’t sure Ryan had experience enough to know if he was sensing a demon versus an angry ghost.

Santino wasn’t thrilled with the idea of spirits freely roaming over the small town and liked leaving Cam alone even less. She was unlikely in any danger; her magical abilities were top notch. She could handle most anything and was usually the one saving his dumb ass. The deepest worry for him was what if the nixie died? They would end up with a floater visible to all. Any magic the nixie had exerted in the area would end if the she died, which would be noticed. Even if the nixie didn’t pop to the surface, if their bones were ever found there’d be questions. Of course, more important, they didn’t want to her to die. She was a sentient being and mostly benign. If she’d been the type to lure people to drown, as some of her kind did, she’d have been dealt with long ago. In the end, the faerie queen would be angry if all attempts hadn’t been made to save the nixie. The queen’s rages were terrifying to behold.

“Santino, are you okay?” Ryan materialized at his side, startling him.

He blinked. “Yes, sorry I was lost in thought. Did I zone out?”

“A little bit, yes.”

“I do that. What were you saying?” He looked between Ryan and JayEllen, an older woman with dark skin, surprisingly smooth skin for her age. She sported wide reflective tape on her vest. He didn’t blame her. Cassadaga didn’t come with a lot of sidewalks, and they’d be walking all over town. With her was her daughter, Savannah.

“JayEllen and Savannah will be taking the area on the far side of town from the lake to the temple.”

“Cam is at the lake practicing her flute playing,” Santino said hurriedly. All they needed was JayEllen and Savannah taking too keen an interest in what Cam was doing at the lake in the dark. “She has a thing about recording in the night breeze.”

“Noted,” JayEllen said. “Music hasn’t been reported, so it shouldn’t interfere with our search.”

“Mostly taps on the windows and cries, right?” Santino asked, flushing. He should have listened better.

JayEllen nodded. “Sometimes in two different parts of town simultaneously. So, they obviously roused at least two spirits. We made a map of the reports.”

Ryan surrendered it to Santino. Hand drawn with scribbles on it, he hoped it wasn’t in Ryan’s handwriting. His lust-addled mind tried to picture romantic handwritten notes in what looked like Klingon or maybe elvish. “That’s a lot of sightings.”

“In just twenty-four hours,” Ryan said. “We’re going to try the divide-and-conquer technique.”

“Got it. And you have some equipment, right?”

Ryan nodded. “Ready when you are.”

“We’ll text if we hear or see anything,” JayEllen said, leading Savannah out of the house.

Santino and Ryan followed them, diverging immediately. They walked side by side with Ryan in the middle of the road. There was so little traffic it wasn’t a worry, especially on the back roads made of nothing but narrow strips of asphalt. Santino didn’t know how they were expected to police an entire town. Usually, ghosts picked a spot, but these riled-up spirits were a special case. This wasn’t going to be setting up in a house with a FLIR thermal imaging camera and some REM Pods. If nothing else, sensing ghosts came easily to him, and Ryan, he had no doubts, was much better at it.

“At least we cleaned up and fixed the kid’s grave,” he said softly as they slowly walked down Massachusetts.

“I’d hoped that would have settled them. Should have known it was too easy,” Ryan replied as a passel of dogs charged a fence, barking and yodeling their alarms into the night sky.

“And the yapping isn’t helping.” Santino wrinkled his nose.

“Schnauzers, they bark at everything. I know the owners. The dogs are all bark.” Ryan shrugged. “And one of the sightings is past here into the bamboo path over to the hotel. We can go through there and circle back toward your place and keep heading west toward the cemetery.”

“Might not have to.” Santino paused, turning toward the dogs and their fence.

Ryan followed him. He cocked his head, studying the house. “I know they’re not home. This is when their D&D group meets.”

“I don’t really want to hop this fence, because look.” Santino pointed to the back corner of the yard.

“I see him. I know he’s played with the dogs before,” Ryan said, a dubious hint to his tone as the boy’s ghost flit closer.

Suddenly, he dive-bombed the dogs, scattering them. The boy’s ghost flew at the fence but pulled off before he passed through to Santino and Ryan.

Santino’s spells were great against the faerie and the like. He was less good with ghosts. He and Ryan had talked earlier, and Ryan’s whole plan was mostly to talk to the ghosts down. Santino didn’t think this boy could possess them, but he didn’t want to find out he was wrong.

“Thoughts about how to handle this?” Santino asked, remembering Ryan believed he was involved in a TV show or something similar. He was expecting Santino to follow, but when it came to ghosts, he was happy to let Ryan take the lead.

Ryan nodded and pulled a little car out of his pocket. “I think he might like this.”

“Give it a shot.”

Ryan held out the car toward the fence. The dog pack had reformed, barking their heads off. “I’ve brought you a toy. I’m sorry your grave was messed up. Santino and I have cleaned it all up for you, and we got you this.” He waggled the car.

The little boy walked through the fence, heedless of the dogs. Santino couldn’t quite spot eyes in the milky face, but the energy shifted. The anger filtered away. Ryan smiled, no doubt sensing it too.

“You like this, don’t you? Want to come home with me and Santino? We’ll take you where you belong,” Ryan offered, and Santino hoped “home” meant the cemetery. Ryan explained earlier the boy hadn’t wanted to cross over, which he found tremendously sad.

The boy flickered out of view, and Ryan jumped. A cold mass enveloped Santino between him and Ryan. “He has hold of your arm, doesn’t he?” he asked Ryan.

Ryan nodded. “I think we can get him to the cemetery now.”

“Let’s give it a try. I’ll text JayEllen.”

They made the hike cautiously to the cemetery, Ryan stumbling and leaning against Santino by the time they got there, as the boy drained his energy. Ryan set the new car with the others on the boy’s grave, and the energy shifted again. Santino reached out, stretching, and registered no energy. The boy had dissipated, hopefully happy to be “home.”

“I think it should be over for him now. He’s happy again,” Ryan said, swaying on his feet. “Did JayEllen text you?”

Santino nodded. “No joy for them. Come on; I’m getting you home.” He slipped his arm along Ryan’s waist, pulling him close. “You’re drained.”

“No argument,” Ryan said, allowing himself to be led away from the cemetery.

“You handled that beautifully,” Santino said, pressing a kiss to Ryan’s cheek.

“Thanks. I’m glad we helped him.”

“Me too. You’re a good guy, Ryan,” he said, and Ryan ducked his head shyly. It was apparent Ryan hadn’t heard that enough in his life, which was a damn shame.

“You too.” Ryan stumbled. “Okay, seriously, we’d better get home.”

“Lean on me. We’ll get there.”

Santino was happy to bear some of Ryan’s weight. This night gave him hope that when he left, Ryan would be coming with him. A happy ending all around as far as he was concerned.