Ghost College (6 page)

“He’s not going to be happy,” said Sophia, her small voice coming out of my mouth in a way that I would never, ever get used to. Same with the odd, static tingling that coursed through me. It was a feeling I had often felt before. A curious one, certainly, and one that was often followed by unusual encounters of one sort or another. My wife claimed that these were moments of spiritual contact.

Well, I was certainly in contact with a spirit now, and my skin was practically electrified. In fact, I was sure the hair on my head would have been standing on end, too, if I weren’t wearing my ball cap. Whether it was due to an outside energy altering my personal electromagnetic field or merely my brain’s physical reaction to a deeply seated fear and primal excitement, that was for the scientists to determine.

“We need to talk to him, Sophia. We will protect you.”

“
He’s a mean man. He scares me.”

“
He can’t hurt you, Sophia.”

I started shaking my head. “He hurt me bad.” I found myself reaching for my throat, and felt a tightening there that actually put some real fright in me. Then the tightening subsided. I gasped.

My wife got up slowly from behind the table and came over to me, where I was still sitting in the chair. She hugged me deeply and protectively. She whispered in my ear, and I welcomed the strength in her voice. The power in her voice. My wife was a badass. “He will never hurt you again, sweetheart. Ever. And soon, very soon, you will be far away from this place.”

“
Heaven,” I said, and I heard the hope in my voice.

“
Of course, angel. Heaven.” My wife’s words were so full of love and hope that I began to weep nearly uncontrollably. I realized how lost I was, how alone I was, how scared I was.

And this woman. This beautiful, kind woman who reminded me of my mother was telling me everything was going to be okay.

And now this beautiful woman was holding me close, like my mother, and it was the greatest feeling in the world. I also felt warm for the first time in a long, long time.

So warm, and so much love.

I continued weeping.

When I had gotten some control of myself—or, rather, when Sophia had—I looked back toward the corner of the abandoned office and saw, to my utter shock, a glowing outline of a door. Faint at first, and then much sharper and brighter.

I looked at the kind woman standing next to me, smiling encouragingly, radiating love and hope to me. A part of me recognized her as my wife, but a greater part of me saw her as the stranger she was. The beautiful stranger.

A goddamned angel.

“Okay,” Sophia said through me. “I’m ready.”

And now I found myself getting up and moving toward the glowing door, reaching for the handle.

Opening it.

Inside, bright light filled the room, and also the sound of a piano playing. There, in the radiant depths, was a man. A very tall and gaunt man sitting behind a glowing piano, hair in a crazed shock of salt and pepper, a black top hat perched on his head. He wore a dark frock jacket, with a gold watch chain looping from one pocket.

He turned and looked at me and I gasped.

“
You are a bad little girl, Sophia.” He tugged on the black cravat around his neck. “Very bad.”

And then he tilted his head, and I sensed that he was looking at me, Monty Drew, the thirty-eight-year-old man. “And you, sir, have no idea what you have gotten yourself into.”

Chapter Fourteen

I took a moment to wrap my head around that. He’s the one who was dead but he’s acting like I’m the one who wasn’t supposed to be there.

He looked like a foppish dandy, or a dandyish fop, one of those know-it-alls that you’d love to punch in the face if they gave you a good reason. Except I was pretty sure my fist would just keep on going right through his head, and I’d crack my knuckles on the piano, assuming the piano was really there.

“
So you’re Mr. Sigmund,” I said. “Or should I say ‘O Dark Master’?”

He slammed the bottom of his fist on the piano keys, launching a low and discordant rumble. “You’re meddling with forces you don’t understand.”

“I understand there’s an unhappy little girl here and my wife thinks you’re the bastard that’s caused all her misery,” I said, though I felt a little queasy, like my head was floating. Maybe the Denny’s pancakes had sat under the heat lamp too long.

“
You and that evil woman think you can impose your human law and order.” He glanced toward Door Number Nine, and I followed his gaze to find the door was gone and we were in some sort of smoky, stone-lined chamber. “You’re just like all the others, afraid to see the real workings of the world.”

“
No, I see it. I get ‘The History Channel.’ But I guess you wouldn’t know about that. Seeing as how you’re so busy playing with the unseen powers and shit.”

I was talking a little tough because I was a little scared. Ellen hadn’t given me any guidance on what to do once I was in here, but I trusted she was working with all her sensory powers to keep the channel open to possibility. In return, she trusted me to follow my instincts.

And instinct was all I had, because I sure didn’t have much experience in dealing with dead dabblers in the dark arts.

Hell, an hour ago I hadn’t even believed in ghosts.

“Okay, sir, if you insist on entering my classroom, I will instruct you in the lessons of a Dark Master.”

The smoke thickened and I batted at it, trying to orient myself. I glimpsed Sophia cowering on the far side of Mr. Sigmund, as if she were shrinking away from whatever horrible confrontation was about to take place. Apparently she had enough sense to abandon her possession of me, and I had a feeling whatever happened next was going to be a little bit on the unpleasant side.

Mr. Sigmund seemed to grow about three feet taller, and I swear his eyes flickered, as if reflecting some kind of hellfire below. For the record, I was a little numb, so I couldn’t get a good grasp of the room temperature, and since it was my soul in Room Number Nine instead of my body, any evidence I could have collected wouldn’t pass muster on a paragroupie Facebook page, much less a peer review.

He began jabbering in more of the Latin mumbo jumbo, and a few words stood out, the “
Non omnis moriar
” that Stevens had made such a big deal out of. Something about how he would find a way to cheat death.

The way I figured it, being a ghost was one pretty damned good way of doing that. Which was fine with me. The fop could float around and chant Latin until Rapture for all I cared, but he had no right to hold little Sophia here against her will.

“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.