part0009

“I thought you needed to hear what they had to say.” Dr. Derek Peters, Jefferson County Coroner, ushered Travis into the autopsy room.

Travis steeled himself for what he was about to see. Four bodies lay on the steel tables, just released to the coroner’s office by the cops. The victims had nothing physically apparent in common. One was a middle-aged woman, another a man in his twenties. The third was a teenage girl, and the fourth, an old man. Two were white, one African-American, and one Latina.

“What happened?” Travis asked. He’d long ago gotten over losing his lunch at the morgue except in the most extreme cases, but what twisted his gut now was sadness rather than revulsion.

“Guess which one was the shooter,” Derek said. Travis frowned, not in the mood for games.

“The stereotype says it’s the young guy.”

Derek shook his head. “Nope. The old man. Pulled a gun out from under his newspaper in the food court and started shooting up the place. Thank heavens his aim was lousy, or we’d have bodies everywhere. One of the cops patrolling the mall shot him. The victims are all local. The families know each other. It’s a goddamn mess.”

Travis hung back, still in the doorway. “So what’s the deal? You’re a necromancer. What do you need a medium for?”

“Shh!” Derek looked around out of habit, but Travis had already assured they were alone.

“Validation,” Derek replied with a glare. “I want to know what they say to you when you can’t compel them to show up and talk.”

“Did you summon them?”

Derek shook his head. “No. But spirits can tell I could if I wanted to. So having them talk to you is like confiding in a friend instead of getting called in to see the principal.”

“It’s easier with names,” Travis said.

“Edward Hillard,” Derek replied, pointing to the old man. “Sharon Dillinger,” he added, gesturing toward the older woman. “Dequan Smith and Brandi Ramirez,” he finished. Travis nodded in acknowledgment; knowing the names made their deaths more personal.

Talking to newly dead trauma victims was one of the scenarios Travis hated most. Since leaving the priesthood and the Sinistram, he had helped a few friends among the Pittsburgh cops on cold cases and when leads dried up. If the situation permitted, Travis called in a sympathetic priest like Father Pavel or Father Ryan to administer Last Rites, but if that wasn’t possible, he had bent the rules more than once to offer rest and absolution to troubled spirits.

Unfortunately, no one offered true rest and absolution to Travis.

Travis centered his energy, closed his eyes, and reached out, opening himself to the dead. To his inner sight, the old morgue felt like a crowded ballroom, full of restless ghosts. Some had the faded resignation of long-dead revenants who either could not or did not want to move on. Others felt confused and jangled as if they had not yet accepted their deaths. That was to be expected here in a place few came to peaceably.

He gently sorted through the ghosts, looking for the four he sought. Some of the spirits clung to him, begging for his help. Those he blessed and sent onward. Others avoided him, and a few regarded him balefully as if he might force them to go elsewhere. He ignored them and pressed forward until he found the three victims huddled to one side, and the shooter’s ghost pacing on the other.

Why? Travis confronted Edmund. He looked to be almost eighty and had a frame to suggest that in his day he had been large and powerful. Now he was a shrunken remnant, with too-big clothing hanging from his frame. His mouth twisted down and his eyes were alight with fury.

Thieves, all of them! Out to take what I’ve worked for. They follow me…taunt me…hide in the bushes around my house…trying to drive me out. And I said, “I’ll show them!” He waved one hand as if he still held the gun he had used in the rampage.

Travis fell back a step. Edmund’s ghost undulated with thin, black wisps of smoke that clung to him like leeches and burrowed beneath his skin. His spirit wasn’t quite as covered with the hell-maggots as Henry Laszlo’s had been, but it was only a matter of degree.

Taking a deep breath, Travis composed himself and turned to the huddled victims. Sharon wrapped her arms around Brandi, and Dequan planted his skinny frame in front of both women, presenting a barrier should Edmund attack again.

I’m sorry, Travis said in his mind. The three spirits startled, apparently surprised that he could see them. Do you have any idea why, out of the crowd, he shot at you?

One by one, they shook their heads. Up close, Travis could see worry and exhaustion in Dequan’s features. Brandi fidgeted in Sharon’s arms as if even in death she could not stand still. Sharon wore a defiant expression, but Travis saw pain and loss in her eyes.

I’ll help you pass over, Travis promised. But I have to take care of something first. You’re safe here.

“Travis!” Derek’s voice echoed in the tiled room, and Travis spun in time to see Edmund’s spirit launch himself in an attack, only to come up short as an iridescent green curtain of power cut him off, then encircled the belligerent ghost.

They want to take my things! They’ll steal me blind. You don’t understand! Edmund’s eyes held the madness of a wounded animal.

“Hold him,” Travis told Derek, who nodded. This time, with Derek’s necromancy to restrain the wild-eyed ghost, Travis did not need to bother with holy water and a circle of salt. He began to chant the ritual of exorcism, and the words sent Edmund into a frenzy, careening against the foxfire glow that trapped him inside. Edmund’s spirit howled and cursed, screaming threats and promising bloody vengeance, but as Travis persisted, the hell-maggots fell from Edmund’s body and wriggled loose from beneath his spectral flesh, burning and turning to ash on the floor.

I have nothing left. Edmund cried, dropping to his knees. Travis didn’t know whether the dead man meant that without his anger, he had no purpose, or whether a reversal of fortunes prompted his shooting spree. But quivering on the floor, he looked spent and empty.

“It’s time to move on,” Travis said out loud, mustering as much compassion as he could for the old man. He turned back to Sharon and the other two ghosts and gestured for them to come closer, while Derek maintained the green, glowing prison around their killer.

“I can help you pass over to the other side,” Travis offered, his quiet, confident tone hiding how much confronting the hell-maggots had rattled him. “Listen to my words, and when you’re ready, just let go.”

The familiar litany of the Last Rites came from long experience, and Travis lost himself in their comforting cadence. His voice rose and fell with the old words, believing in the creative energy of the universe, even if he could no longer, after all he had seen, believe in a god.

His tattered faith sufficed. The warm glow of a summer twilight suffused the room, supplanting the harsh fluorescent glare, and the three victims’ ghosts vanished between one breath and the next. The light shifted as if shadows covered a waning moon. The hair prickled on the back of Travis’s neck and rose on his arms. He turned and stared into a fearsome darkness that drew Edmund’s screaming ghost into its black heart and swallowed him whole before blinking out.

The phosphorescent protective light faded. Travis sagged against the wall, while Derek reached to steady himself against the foot of one of the steel tables.

“What the fuck?” Derek demanded. Derek was one of the Night Vigil, and as with most of Travis’s loose alliance of psychic allies, Derek’s power was only part of his story. His previous position as head coroner in Chicago placed him in the media cross-hairs as an expert witness on high-profile murder investigations.

Derek had reveled in the fame, working hours that left little time for his wife and children. When his testimony helped to put a notorious mobster in prison, the man’s associates retaliated by burning down Derek’s home with his family inside. Taking a nearly anonymous position in a rural county was both penance and self-imposed exile.

“I wish I knew,” Travis admitted, staring at the spot where the ghosts had vanished as if he could still see the doorway. “Talk to me, Derek. I need the big picture. There’s more going on here than just a mall shooting.”

Derek sighed and nodded. “Come with me.” He led Travis to a small break room. They poured coffee and took a seat at the table farthest from the door.

“Jefferson County isn’t Chicago,” Derek said when they settled in. “Yes, we have murders, but not on a big-city scale. Violence out here is personal, most of the time, and usually involves alcohol, old grudges, and jealousy. Bar fights. Someone cheats with the wrong person or decides they aren’t going to take being beaten up anymore. A robbery or a meth deal gone wrong. But lately…”

Derek shook his head. “It’s like people have gone nuts. We’re at two hundred percent of the number of murders from last year, and it’s only fall. The mall shooting today isn’t the only one of its kind. We’ve had shooters in offices, schools, parks, concerts. People are afraid to go out. I’ve had to bring in the coroners from neighboring areas on a part-time basis some weeks because it’s more than one person can handle. If we keep this up, there won’t be anyone left breathing.”

“Has it been all year? When did it start?” Travis pressed, far more interested in Derek’s story than his lukewarm, bitter coffee.

“I figured you’d ask, so when we aren’t up to our asses in bodies, I’ve been running some numbers.” Derek might have fled the big city, but his methods and perspective were still shaped by major metropolitan best practices.

He pulled out his tablet computer and brought up a set of slides. “See this line? It’s the murder rate for the county for the past five years.” Travis saw a mostly flat line with a few shallow bumps. “And then there’s this year.” The line veered up sharply, almost vertical.

“And it’s not just Brookville or Jefferson County. Centre County’s even worse,” he added, showing another set of numbers. “This is just since summer, and it’s getting progressively more fucked up each month.”

Travis stared at the screen, trying to make sense of the data. “Aren’t most of the people out here older? It’s like some kind of Social Security rampage.”

Derek nodded. “There’s not much for young people to do for a living out here, and they can make more money in the bigger cities. So they leave, and the older people stay. Which is one reason we don’t usually have a lot of murders. But the suicide rate looks even worse—this year.”

“What’s going on?” Travis asked. “Layoffs? Pension fund gone bust? Lots of people get bad diagnoses?”

“No more than usual on all of the above,” Derek replied. “I’ve been researching whenever I’m not stuck in here pulling double shifts. Good thing I don’t have a life,” he added, and while he said it jokingly, that didn’t hide the bitterness.

“Did the people involved have anything in common? Prior employment, family ties, old school friendships…anything?”

Derek nodded. “Plenty of small connections. After all, out here people cross paths because the population isn’t that big. There aren’t that many places to work or go to school. Lots of people are related, by blood or marriage, and they can tell you who’s who, out to third cousins twice removed,” he added. ”But that didn’t cover everyone. Only one thing did. They had all experienced a tragic loss prior to committing the violence.”

Travis gave Derek a look. “Should I be worried about you going postal?”

Derek shook his head. “Whatever’s going on is feeding on fresh grief, not old wounds.”

Travis thought as he stared at the graphs and tapped his fingers. “Any evidence of supernatural activity? You work with enough cops, you hear things.”

“If you mean, is there a coven of bloodthirsty witches cursing retirees into going on killing sprees, the answer is ‘no.’”

“I sense a ‘but.’”

Derek grimaced. “I caught up with Roger. Remember him? The homeless guy who sees death omens?”

Travis nodded. He had connected his Night Vigil people to one another within their area, to watch for signs of trouble and to help each other, since none of his crew came into their abilities or lived with their psychic talents without scars.

“He was almost one of our suicides. Thankfully, someone found him and pumped his stomach. I wouldn’t have picked my gift if I had a choice, but his is worse. I understand why the guy’s messed up.” He shook his head. “So when I went to check on him, he said that for the last couple of months, he’s seen so many omens that he’s tried to hide from people and stays blind drunk most of the time.”

“Shit. Does he have any insights other than that people are gonna die?” Travis knew that Roger’s questionable “gift” had ruined the man’s life, cost him his job and marriage, and sent him spiraling into drugs and alcohol. Roger had given up trying to warn people when the cops arrested him for making threats, and then he realized that the warnings, even if heeded, didn’t change the outcome.

“I think that’s what pushed him over the edge this time,” Derek said. “He was raving about black maggots and creatures with red eyes and sharp teeth. Said they were being hunted.”

“Fuck. I was afraid you were going to say something like that,” Travis replied. “No idea where these creatures came from?”

“Roger just sees the omens. He gets the who and the how, but not the why or the when and where,” Derek said.

“So we know there’s a supernatural component, and the deaths have ramped up in the last four months,” Travis said, running a hand across his arm in frustration.

“And one more thing,” Derek said. “I got on a research streak and started looking for trends. It looks like something similar happened in this area fifty years ago. Lots of articles in the newspapers about it. Violent deaths and suicides spiked, the whole thing came to an ugly head, people thought it was the end of the world, and then…it stopped.”

“Just like that?”

Derek nodded. “The death toll had been pretty horrific because it wasn’t just the murders and suicides. There were train wrecks, farm accidents, mine collapses, bridge failures. Ministers were calling for wholesale repentance to avert the wrath of God.”

Travis snorted. “Did they ever figure out what was behind it?”

“Nope. When it stopped, everyone seemed so relieved that they didn’t want to tempt fate by looking into it. But those old articles made me go back farther—and look for new info on the current deaths.”

“And you found out there’s a cycle?”

“Bingo. The records were a lot sketchier going back a hundred years, but fortunately they’ve digitized a lot of old newspapers,” Derek replied, showing an unsettling passion for his research. “And from what I could dig up from the headlines and obits, there was the same spate of unnatural deaths and an alarming number of floods, fires, mining, and industrial accidents, and a couple of epidemics, between here and the area around Cooper City.”

“Cooper City, huh,” Travis mused. “Anything special about that area?”

“Just a lot of bad luck, for a long time,” Derek answered. “Not as bad as Peale, but then again, people still live in Cooper City.”

Travis had never heard of Peale, Pennsylvania, but decided he would look it up when he got back to St. Dismas. “All right.” Travis finished his coffee. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thanks for calling me in on this, and keep me posted on what your research turns up. I think you’re on the right track—I just don’t know where it will lead.”

“Watch your back,” Derek warned. “Whatever is behind this has been playing this game for a long time. It’s not going to like being challenged.”

Travis mulled over the information Derek shared as he headed farther east, toward State College. He smiled at all the Penn State signs and banners as he rolled into town, even though he’d gone to Duquesne. Nothing said “football” in Pennsylvania like the Steelers and the Nittany Lions, and he’d grown up watching both ride to victory more times than he could remember.

He found a parking space near the hospital and wound through the corridors to the nurse’s station as close as he could get to the hospital pharmacy. “Paige McLachlan, please,” he requested. “She’s expecting me.” He had messaged Paige from the truck, so dropping in wasn’t a total surprise. If she’d talked to Derek, then she probably knew Travis would come by sooner or later.

“Hi, Travis. Come on back,” Paige greeted him a few minutes later. She had a visitor’s badge in hand, which Travis clipped to his shirt. He followed her through back corridors to the hospital pharmacy, an area that was usually off-limits to non-employees.

“Derek gave me a head’s up to expect you.” Paige got coffee for them from a Keurig in her office. She shut the door and settled behind her desk, gesturing for Travis to take the other chair.

“I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going on,” Travis admitted. “And Derek said that for as bad as it is in his neck of the woods, it’s worse here.”

Paige nodded. She was a thin woman in her early forties, with bobbed brown hair and intelligent blue eyes, and a sense of self-awareness and purpose that made her attractive. “Not necessarily here in State College, but throughout the county, yeah. I think we actually have it a little better here in town, maybe because there are so many resources with the university to head off trouble early. But in the small towns and rural areas…” She shook her head. “It’s bad.”

“Especially around Cooper City,” Travis finished for her.

Paige looked up. “I see Derek really did do his research.”

“Yeah. So…what’s Penny been hearing?”

Paige dropped her gaze and chewed on her bottom lip, a dramatic shift from the confident, professional pharmacist who had greeted Travis at the waiting room. She twined her fingers, looking like a nervous teen. The impression was valid. When her sister drowned at thirteen in a tragic boating accident, Paige spent years learning magic to find a way to be reunited with her. The black magic she found in an old grimoire enabled her to house Penny’s soul inside her body with her own spirit. That gave Paige a simultaneous insight into the worlds of both the living and the dead.

“Something really scary is happening,” Penny said, speaking through Paige. Penny never moved beyond her age at death, so the voice and mannerisms were those of a young tween. “The other people are worried.”

Travis figured she meant the other ghosts. “What are they worried about?” Travis probed gently.

Penny’s gaze flicked everywhere except to Travis. “Things,” she said. She swallowed and gripped the arms of the chair. “Things in the dark. They like to scare you, hurt you, chase you. Bad things,” she said and shivered. “Some people say they can eat ghosts.”

Travis leaned forward, trying to be confidential and comforting. “Tell me what you’ve heard, Penny. I’ll do my best to protect you and the other spirits.”

Penny fiddled with her fingers, and Travis guessed that she struggled with how to voice concepts far beyond the normal reach of a teen. “They say the things are demons,” Penny said in a voice almost too quiet to hear. “Something called them here, opened a door. But…they’ve come before. Some of the ghosts remember.”

“Who called the demons, Penny?” Travis asked, sounding like he was talking to a spooked horse.

“They don’t know. Maybe they’ve always been here. The demons go away, but they come back again. Always come back.”

Penny’s voice sent a chill down Travis’s back. He knew that for Paige, cohabitating in her body with her sister’s ghost was the best of a bad situation. From what little Paige said about the incident that claimed Penny’s life, it was clear that his Night Vigil colleague blamed herself, although she would have only been a few years older than Penny at the time. Whatever hardships the situation posed was a penance Paige gladly served, unworried about the consequences when it came her time to die.

I’d rather have a lifetime with Penny here on earth than wait and see whether there’s a heaven with her in it, Paige had told him once. And if that would make God throw me out of heaven, then I don’t want to be there anyhow. Not without Penny. Not for the first time, the things Travis witnessed and experienced fighting the supernatural made him doubt everything he had learned in catechism.

“Is someone controlling the demons?”

Penny hesitated, chewing her lip hard enough to raise dark red teeth marks in the flesh, then shook her head. “Don’t think so, but no one really knows. Maybe this is just a bad, bad place. If the demons were here first, we should leave.”

Travis raised an eyebrow at that. He resolved to look up demonically tainted places when he went back to Duquesne’s secret library. “Why do you think that?” he asked.

Penny still did not meet his gaze. “Because they’re old. Really old. Like maybe they were here before people came, ya know? And they’re hungry.” She shivered, then clutched herself, gripping her forearms and running her hands up and down to warm herself. “And it’s going to get worse.”

“How?” Travis asked. He tried to be gentle, but so much was at stake. “How will it get worse?”

“I don’t want to know!” Penny wailed, finally looking him in the eye. He saw the terror of a disoriented young girl, without the filters and sophistication of her sister. “The old ghosts say so. They try to hide each time it happens. Then, new ghosts come.”

Shit, Travis thought. Penny confirmed exactly what Derek’s research had turned up—a cycle of supernatural activity followed by a period where the dark powers went dormant. What was missing was any clue to what triggered the cycle, or how to stop it.

“Do the old ghosts say anything else?” Travis questioned. “How have they kept from being eaten?”

“You have to hide,” Penny told him earnestly, fixing him with a wide-eyed stare. “I might be okay, in here with Paige. I’m not like the others.”

Travis had always wondered whether Penny knew she was dead and hitching a ride with Peggy. Confirming that to be true made his heart ache for both of them.

“I think you’ll be okay,” he comforted. “What about the others?”

“The demons aren’t in control,” Penny said. “I think they just like the food.” She leaned over like she was sharing a secret. “And I think that they’re scared, too.”

Travis didn’t want to think about what might scare demons, although his training and experience gave him some ideas. He had learned the hard way that ghosts weren’t always right and that their sources could be just as much driven by hearsay as the living. Just being dead didn’t make a person infallible.

“Do you know who is running things?”

Penny shook her head, making her dark hair whip from side to side. “No. The other ghosts don’t say much about that. Maybe they’re afraid it might hear.”

Perhaps , Travis thought. Or maybe the ghosts truly didn’t know . “Can you do me a big favor? Can you keep your ears open in case the other ghosts talk about something bad happening that might hurt people? This ‘it’ you mention. I want to stop the demons from hurting anyone else—ghosts or otherwise.”

Penny shook her head vigorously. “Yes. I can do that.” She looked down, suddenly shy. “I’m scared. I don’t want to get eaten.”

Travis gave her a sad smile. “I don’t want you to get eaten, either. And your sister, Paige, is fierce. She won’t let anything happen to you.”

Penny looked up. “I know. Paige is the best sister, ever. She found me when I was lost and brought me home, and she says we can be together forever.”

Travis felt a lump in his throat and swallowed hard. “You’re very lucky,” he said, and if his voice broke, Penny didn’t notice it, and Paige was too submerged in her sister’s persona to hear. “She’ll take good care of you.” He paused. “Thank you for talking to me. Now, would it be all right to let Paige come back? I’ll talk with you again.”

Penny nodded. “I like you. You understand.”

In the next moment, a subtle change came over the woman who sat across the desk from Travis. When she looked up, Paige was back in control, with a sadness in her eyes that went beyond her forty-something years.

“She told you everything she’s told me,” Paige said. The voice sounded so different with an adult’s modulation, but Travis could hear shades of Penny’s younger tones. “I hate to see her so frightened.” She toyed with a pen, a nervous habit. “I didn’t want her to be scared anymore, once we were together.”

Travis shrugged. “The world is a scary place, no matter which side of the Veil you’re on. I just need to figure out what started up the cycle again, and what—or who—has attracted the demons.”

Paige met his gaze. “Do you think they’ll come after her, with me?”

Travis frowned, then shook his head. “No. I really don’t. The situations I’ve run into, people who seem to have the most problems are in turmoil. You and Penny, you’re settled. The loss is old news, and you’re happy together.”

Paige flinched. “As happy as we can be, considering,” she said, as a wistful expression stole across her features. Travis guessed she was thinking of all the life events that might have been, had Penny lived.

“You’re together,” he repeated. “That’s something very rare. Enjoy it.” He didn’t add the rest of what he was thinking. You paid for it.

On the drive home, Travis fielded calls from Jon and Matthew, dealing with a late supplier, an employee who quit without notice, and an argument that broke out at one of the substance abuse support groups. The problems weren’t earth-shattering or even unusual, but by the time Travis hung up, he felt utterly worn out.

At least for the return trip on Route 22, the scenery was different. After the day’s events and the long drive, Travis thought he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He had battled fatigue on the dark, meandering highway, but when he finally stretched out on his bed, he tossed restlessly.

When sleep finally came, his dreams were jumbled, filled with images of vengeful spirits and creatures he had fought. Eventually, the dreamscape cleared to become a darkened plain with tendrils of mist. Even half-awake, Travis recognized that he had shifted from a brain dump of memories to something real, maybe even prophetic.

A figure approached through the mist. The young man appeared to be about eighteen years old, athletically built, and his expression radiated defiant purpose. Travis stared at the newcomer, wondering why he seemed familiar, although he felt certain they had never met.

Travis looked closer at the newcomer and realized the source of the resemblance. He’d bet his paltry paycheck this was what Brent Lawson looked like in high school. “Who are you?”

“Brent’s twin brother, Danny. I watch out for him. Right now, he needs a wingman. So do you. I don’t want him here with me before his time.”

Danny gestured as if indicating everything around him. “The stuff he fights, because of me. Monsters. Magic. Bad stuff. It’s gonna get worse.”

Travis felt a chill at Danny’s warning. He had roused from true sleep and experienced the conversation in a lucid trance, one he would remember when he was fully awake. He had no doubt that the spirit—and the conversation—was real. “Do you know what’s causing the danger? Why are the monsters and the bad stuff happening now?”

Danny shook his head. “I don’t know. Just—watch out for him, okay? I know he can be an asshole,” he added with a lopsided smile, “but he’s a good guy to have watching your back. Tell him I said so—make sure you mention the ‘asshole’ part.”

“How did you—” Travis began, but the vision had already begun to fade. Danny’s ghost raised a hand in farewell before vanishing in the mist.

Travis lurched awake with a gasp, alone in his darkened room. “Shit,” he muttered. Travis felt certain that Danny’s warning was right, but he was also sure that neither he nor Brent Lawson would find it easy to work with a partner. “I just can’t wait to see how this turns out,” he grumbled, falling back onto his mattress in resignation.