But Heath didn’t comment as he was looking for Gopher. “Yo!” he called softly. “Goph! You up here?”
There was no reply.
“He’s not here,” I said, already turning toward the door.
That was when Heath’s arm shot out to stop me.
“What?” I asked.
He didn’t reply, but merely pointed down and to my left. I leaned forward and peered over the top of the parapet. A monstrous black shadow strode along the ground just inside the keep, maneuvering up to a door at the very back of the castle, before darting back, then pacing back and forth for a moment before inching closer and closer, then suddenly leaping back.
I held my breath and quivered slightly—hell, I even squeaked a little in fear. The phantom abruptly paused its odd sort of pacing, as if it had sensed my reaction in the ether, and Heath quickly wrapped an arm around my shoulders and whispered earnestly, “Push down your fear!”
I gulped and thought about how similar he was to his grandfather. And that brought me a measure of comfort and I was able to calm my pounding heart.
The phantom stood still for a few more moments, and I had the clear impression that it was attempting to feel the night air for any trespassers. How it had missed our arrival I wasn’t certain, but after a few tense moments it resumed its strange pacing dance.
“Come on,” Heath said softly. “The quicker we search this place, the quicker we can go.”
We took advantage of the fact that the phantom was outside and preoccupied with the back door of the keep, and as quickly and quietly as we could, we inspected every room on the second floor. At one point I suggested we split up to get through it faster, but Heath flat out refused. “No freakin’ way, M. J.”
“It was just a suggestion,” I said, a little wounded.
“Do you remember the last time we split up and you went off on your own?”
He had a point there.
We finished with the second story and there was nowhere left but to go back down to the first floor, where the phantom lay ... lurking.
I could feel the goose bumps form under the many layers of clothing I’d worn, and I stood resolutely at the top of the staircase. “Jesus,” I whispered to Heath, who was standing beside me. “I sooooo don’t want to go down there.”
“Remember to check your fear,” he warned softly. “No matter what happens, you’ve got to try and stay calm and be brave.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Better get it over with,” I said after exhaling, and I started down.
We descended slowly and carefully, one cautious step at a time. My ears were pricked for any hint of the phantom. Upstairs I heard footsteps and creaking floor-boards. “The spooks came back out,” I said in a hushed voice.
“They were probably just waiting for our megawatt magnets to leave the area.”
“At least the phantom’s been keeping a safe distance.”
“Let’s hope it lasts,” he said.
But it didn’t.
Just as I was beginning to relax a little, Heath and I rounded the corner of the last group of stairs and came face-to-face with one pissed-off poltergeist.
Chapter 11
“Jesus!” I shouted, and took a step backward, bumping right into Heath. My body knocked him off-balance and he fell back hard onto the stone stairs, howling in pain.
Meanwhile the phantom itself backed up ten yards from us, hissing like a giant angry cobra before growling and spitting in our direction. I was so scared that I clambered past Heath, back up the stairs and shivered, closing my eyes and attempting to push away the images starting to creep into my mind.
Heath continued to arch his back and moan. “Son of a bitch!” he hissed.
And I think that was what snapped my attention away from my own fears—hearing Heath in pain got me to realize that he was actually seriously hurt. Trembling, I inched my way down the stairs to him. He was curled over onto his side, clutching the stair. His flashlight lay next to him and I could see that several of the loose spikes we’d put into his backpack had pierced the canvas and had actually punctured his skin.
“Ohmigod!” I said, hurrying to undo the buckles and get the backpack off him.
“Don’t!” he cried, his eyes tightly closed and his face pale. “Wait until it leaves!”
I eyed the phantom nervously. It had moved even farther away from us, but it was pacing again like a caged animal, hissing and growling and spitting in our direction. I wanted to cower in fear and shrink away, but a voice came into my head, loud and clear.
Help him, M. J. Help my grandson to safety.
Sam’s presence in my mind gave me courage. As carefully as I could, I eased the zipper on Heath’s backpack open and took out a handful of spikes.
“Jesus!”
he gasped when I rattled them.
“Hold on, honey,” I whispered urgently. “I need these to get us out of here.”
As I removed the spikes, I held them over my head and stood up. The phantom stopped pacing and considered me before it darted forward several feet. I threw several of the spikes right at it and it howled and whirled away. “Stay back!” I shouted. “Stay away from us, you polluted piece of ectoplasm, or I’ll dump the entire backpack of spikes on you!”
The phantom moved beyond the spikes I’d thrown, which gave us a little more room to maneuver. “We have to get you out of here!” I told Heath, coming back to crouch at his side.
His jaw was clenched and he was in so much pain he was making a hissing sound through his teeth. “It’s blocking the way out!” he groaned, looking just beyond the phantom.
I turned my head with dread, and realized the phantom had gone back to pacing again, right in front of the only way out. “Where’s the blueprint?” I asked quickly.
Heath sucked in a breath and moved his hand to his back pocket with a small grunt of pain. I stopped his hand and moved my own into his pocket. With great care I removed the map, unfolded it, and held it under the beam of the flashlight. “There!” I said, pointing to the back of the castle where we’d seen the phantom pacing in front of the door. “There’s a door at the back of the church! We can get to the church from here, then out the back, and make a run for the stairs.”
“Christ, M. J.!” Heath said, his teeth still clenched. “I don’t think I can walk, let alone run!”
I eyed the phantom again and made a decision. “Your backpack has got to come off, sweetheart,” I said, my fingers flying over the buckles. He tried to protest, but I glared hard at him and shook my head. “Trust me!”
When the last buckle was undone, I shimmied out of my sweatshirt and tied the sleeves gently around his neck with the bulk of the shirt hanging in front of him so as not to lie against his back.
I then eased the backpack off his shoulders and got one arm through the strap when the phantom suddenly darted forward again. I gasped and reached for a spike to hurtle at the approaching menace. The phantom flinched and backed up to resume its spitting and snarling thing.
I decided then that instead of wearing the backpack, I would hold on to it, and throw spikes at the phantom as needed, because I was fairly certain it planned to follow us. “Let’s go,” I said, and eased Heath’s arm over my shoulders.
He got up with a muffled cry and walked hunched over next to me as we moved away from the stairs.
The phantom sank low to the ground like a crouching tiger, and I did my best to hold my fear at bay. I decided to fight fire with fire and dug into the backpack. “Take that, you flimsy demon!” I yelled, throwing a few spikes at it.
Each time a spike came near the phantom, it darted to the side, spitting and growling and curling up into a ball, but then it would unfold, zip around the spike and continue to stalk us.
We moved as quickly as Heath’s injury would allow, which wasn’t nearly as fast as I wanted to go, but we finally got to the church and eased inside. In the hallway leading to the church the phantom’s snarl became more enraged, but my continual tossing of spikes kept it at bay.
As we moved deeper into the church, the phantom stopped stalking us; instead it remained just beyond the doorway, hissing and growling and making a hell of a racket.
“Why isn’t it following us inside?” Heath said through clenched teeth.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, watching it cautiously. We continued to the back of the small chapel and the phantom appeared to grow more and more agitated the farther away we got, but it made no further move to approach us, even though I was sure the range of our magnets no longer extended to it out in the hallway.
A sudden thought occurred to me as I looked around the church, and I had a theory about why it wasn’t approaching. “It’s the chapel!” I said. “We’re in a holy place of worship, and that thing can’t come in here!”
Heath stopped, which forced me to stop too. “If that’s the case, can I sit for a second?”
“Oh, God!” I said, easing him over to one of the stone pews. “Of course. Sit here for a minute and let me see your back.”
Heath sat down and I slung the backpack over my shoulder, then held the flashlight up and lifted his coat to pull his shirttail out of his jeans. “Easy!” he begged.
I moved as slowly as I dared and pulled up the shirt, exposing his back. I sucked in a breath at the sight.
“Is it bad?”
One of the spikes had punctured a hole right into the bone of his spine, and I was convinced that was the one that was causing the most pain, but much of the middle of his back was bruised and held small wounds as well. From the main wound he was bleeding badly, and I was very worried about him losing too much blood, even though I knew he was lucky the one spike hadn’t severed his spinal column. “It’s not good,” I told him truthfully.
“It hurts like a bitch.”
“I’ll bet.” I lowered his shirt and came around to face him. “We need to get you out of here and we need to do it soon.”
“That bad?”
“Like I said, it ain’t good.”
Heath nodded. “Okay. I’m ready when you are.”
I looked over my shoulder and realized that the phantom was gone. “Uh-oh,” I whispered.
“What?”
“The phantom’s gone.” If it wasn’t trying to get to us from the hallway, I had little doubt it would make its way to the other side of the castle and attack us as we left.
“Shit,” Heath swore.
“Come on,” I said, trying to gently lift him off the slab, but he was heavy and started to swoon on his feet.
“M. J.,” he said, his voice a bit desperate. “I need to sit for another minute. I’m feeling really dizzy.”
I thought about pushing him, but decided against it. If he fainted, then we’d really be up the creek. “Okay,” I agreed. “You sit. I’m gonna see if there’s anything in here we can take with us to help protect us.”
“Here?” he asked. “What’s here?”
“I don’t know,” I told him, my voice sounding a bit desperate. “But that phantom was really put off by the energy in this place, so maybe there’s a crucifix or something we can take with us that’ll have some of that protective energy.”
Heath nodded dully and sat forward hugging his knees. “I’ll be okay in a minute,” he promised. “I just need to wait for the room to stop spinning.”
I looked at him worriedly and sat down to dig through my messenger bag searching for the first aid kit I usually carried but wasn’t sure I’d packed this time.
In the lower inside pocket I hit pay dirt. “Thank God!” I said triumphantly, holding up a small bottle of antiseptic and a few cotton balls. There were even a small bit of medical tape and extra bandages that I could use to help cover Heath’s wounds.
“Turn around,” I ordered as he eyed me.
Heath took a few deep breaths and swiveled around to his knees, propping his head and shoulders on the stone seat.
Carefully I lifted his coat and shirt again and dabbed at his wounds. He cried out only once when I poured the antiseptic directly into the main puncture wound, and I held my hand on his shoulder and told him over and over how sorry I was. And I truly was sorry. After all, I’d been the one that’d caused him to fall back on those stairs.
I felt even more horrible for the pain that I continued to cause him as I treated his wounds. Tears actually leaked out of his eyes, and his hands were clenched into fists so tight his knuckles were white, but finally his labored breathing subsided, and he nodded and said he was okay, but that he was still dizzy.
I then began taking off all my clothes until I got down to my undershirt. With my teeth I managed to tear off a strip of the cotton T and used it to apply pressure to Heath’s wound. Once the bleeding slowed, I used smaller strips and the medical tape to make him a bandage.
When I was finished, he was panting again. “How’re you doing?” I asked, wishing there was something I could do to take away his pain.
“I’ll need another minute,” he gasped.
I sat back on my heels and considered our situation. I still felt terrible for hurting Heath, but I knew I needed to focus on getting us out of there. I quickly put my clothes back on, and slung the pack onto my shoulder. I then went around the chapel, searching for anything that could help.