Ghouls Gone Wild (28 page)

“Wait,” Gil said, looking at me oddly.
“Who?”

“Never mind.” I said, laying some water out for Wendell who’d gone back to sleep then grabbed my purse and motioned Gilley toward the door. “It’s a long story. I just have to go back to the castle tonight and Heath needs to come too.”

“But who’s going to stay with me?” Gil asked anxiously as he stepped out into the hallway with me.

I shut the door, making sure it was locked, and began to walk down the hallway. “I don’t know, Gil,” I said, exasperated. “We can ask Gopher or one of the other crew to watch over you until I get back.” My partner didn’t look happy, so I added, “Or you could come with us back to the castle.”

“Uh, no. That’s okay. I’m sure one of the others will agree to sit with me.”

“Where did you want to go for dinner?” I asked, trying to change the subject to something lighter.

“How about Greek?” Gil suggested. “I saw this really cool-looking Greek restaurant just down the street. . . .”

 

It turned out that going Greek was a big, BIG mistake. When you’re with someone who is rightfully terrified of any open flame, having a bunch of waiters light cheese on fire and yell
“Opah!”
can cause more than just heart palpitations—it can elicit a rather embarrassing reaction from a scared little queen armed with a fully loaded fire extinguisher.

By the third ruined
saganaki
plate, we were asked to leave. Promptly.

“I’m still hungry,” Gil moaned as he and I made our way back to the hotel. I’d called the other guys on our team to see if they wanted to join us for dinner, but Gopher, Kim, John, and Meg were already out to eat and Heath was likely still sleeping, because he wasn’t answering his phone.

“Well then, you shouldn’t have foamed up the restaurant, Gil,” I snapped. I’d made it only partially through my spinach pie and I’d really been looking forward to some stuffed grape leaves.

Gil was silent for a minute, falling behind me as we walked, and then I heard him sniffle.

I stopped and turned around to look back at him. “Hey,” I said gently. “Come on, Gil. Don’t cry.”

“I want to go home,” he blubbered as big wet tears dripped down his cheeks. “I miss Doc! And I miss Steven. And I miss Mama Dell!”

I closed my eyes to gather my words carefully before speaking. When the waterworks started, Gil could be übersensitive. “Honey,” I said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “It’ll be okay. We just have a few more days to hang in there and then you’ll have your passport back and we can get you out of here.”

“But what if Rigella gets to me before we can get away?”

“I won’t let that happen,” I vowed.

“But how are you going to stop her, M. J.?” Gilley wailed. “I mean, she’s already
killed
people, and she almost
killed
you and me in a fire, and Heath in those woods. How can you shut down something that powerful?”

I squeezed Gil in a firm hug and said, “The same way we always do, my friend. By finding her portal and shoving a whole mess of spikes into it.”

“But if her portal is down in the close, how the hell are you guys going to get near it without her killing you?”

I didn’t answer him because I honestly didn’t know. And that was a major problem. I didn’t know where the witch kept her portal, but I knew it had to be the location in which Rigella was likely killed over three and a half centuries ago, and then called up within the past two weeks by someone living in the village. That’s why finding out who specifically had beckoned the witch forward was so important. We didn’t just need to identify a local murderer; we needed to close up that portal and lock up this town’s scariest spook forever.

“Don’t worry,” I insisted. “We’ll work it all out.”

Because I felt sorry for Gil, I agreed to attempt a meal at another restaurant and he pointed to the McDonald’s right next to the hotel. We ran into Heath there, and he looked very tired and a bit out of it. “You okay?” I asked when I saw him.

He nodded dully. “These pain pills make me feel woozy.”

“Are you feeling up to some ghostbusting tonight?”

“What’d you have in mind?”

“Your grandfather told me we should go back to the castle.”

“Now?”

“After we eat.”

Heath shrugged. “Sure, I guess.” I had a feeling that if he hadn’t been on Vicodin, he might have protested going back there at night, when the witch would be her most powerful. And that should have made me pause, but I trusted Heath’s grandfather, plus we had plenty of spikes, so what was the worst that could happen?

 

We left Gil with Meg and Wendell, promising to return before midnight. Gilley looked extremely worried, and he’d made a show of making sure both our tool belts were stocked with extra magnets and the two remaining electrostatic meters. “Please be careful with these,” he insisted. “I don’t know where or when I can get them replaced if they get damaged or lost.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, kissing him on the forehead. “See ya.”

Gopher surprised us by insisting on coming along. “If I don’t have enough new footage to show the network, they’re gonna to get antsy about fronting us the extra cash,” he explained.

I was all too happy to have him along, more eyes and ears to keep a lookout for the witch. Kim and John had gone off to catch a movie, and on the way over to Joseph’s property, I casually asked Gopher about them.

“They’re totally boinking each other,” he confirmed.

“Tactfully put, buddy.”

Gopher smiled. “Oh, excuse me,” he said. “I meant to say they are having
relations
.”

“Well, they make a cute couple.”

Gopher rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he mumbled.

I laughed, “Ho, Gopher! Don’t tell me you’re jealous!”

Our producer’s cheeks turned a shade pinker. “Of who?”

I eyed him skeptically. “Of John. You’re into Kim, aren’t you?”

Gopher put on a good act, appearing aghast that I could accuse him of such things, but we had arrived at Hill’s house just then and had to get back to business.

When we were well loaded down with grenades, flashlights, night-vision cameras, and such, we set off for the back of the house and the castle beyond. Heath glanced up at the sky and remarked, “Looks like rain again.”

I looked up too. “Storm’s coming,” I said, feeling the atmosphere take on a charged energy.

The wind had picked up since we’d left the hotel, and none of us talked much as we trudged down the hill, avoiding Katherine’s cottage, and back up the other end to the crumbling fortress. “So, what are we looking for exactly?” Gopher asked as we carefully stepped around several stones leading to the large hole in the wall.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Heath’s grandfather visited me in another dream and said we would find what we were looking for in here.”

“Did he mention any specifics?” Heath asked.

I shook my head. “All he said was that we should make more of an effort to get into that room at the top of the tower.”

“The one with the door that wouldn’t budge?”

“Yep.”

“Has anyone had any reservations about the fact that we’re currently trespassing?” Gopher asked as we scrambled over the stones into the main hall of the castle.

“I doubt Joseph will mind,” I told him.

“And if he does, we’re the two people who can help him get over it.”

I smiled. “Exactly.”

Gopher held up his camera and turned it on, pointing it straight ahead as he turned in a circle while verbally documenting the date, time, and location for the television-viewing audience. The wind was making a show of howling through the halls and corridors, whipping stray bits of dried vegetation and litter all about.

“And with us on our ghost hunt tonight are our two mediums, Heath Whitefeather and M. J. Holliday.” I yawned into the camera. “M. J.?” Gopher said, tilting the camera away.

“Yeah?”

“Can you
please
try not to look bored?”

I laughed. “Sure thing, buddy. But just for you.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Come on, gang, let’s get this party started,” I said, motioning for my companions to follow me.

I led the way toward the staircase just as a tremendous crack of thunder shook the foundation and reverberated off the walls. “Whoa,” I said. And before anyone else could respond, a bright flash illuminated the interior of the keep, followed two seconds later by another loud explosion, and then a torrent of water fell from the sky.

“Holy Moses!” Gopher exclaimed, moving up the stairs to one of the arched windows. “It is really coming down out there!”

“Good timing making it to the castle before we got soaked, huh?” Heath said.

I was about to agree when another flash of lightning lit up the landscape, followed by a virtually instantaneous crack of thunder that felt almost on top of us, then boomed its way all along the downs. It was so loud and went on for so long that I didn’t immediately notice Gopher’s stiff shoulders and trembling frame.

But Heath did. “Gopher?” he asked. “You okay?”

Gopher turned around and even in the dim light I could tell he was pale. I pointed my flashlight up to his face, which was a mask of fear. “What?” I asked. “Gopher, what is it?”

He lowered the camera and held it out to us. “Hit rewind,” he said in a voice we could barely hear above the pouring rain.

Heath took the camera while I moved in to wrap a comforting arm around Gopher, who was shivering even though he was wrapped snugly in a warm coat. I’d seen him mighty scared before, but never like this. This was a new level of fear.

Heath fidgeted with the camera, pressed rewind, causing the images to blur for a bit, then hit play, and out of the camera came the tiny voice of Gopher, telling the audience where we were etc.; then my yawning face came into focus, followed by us traveling up the stairs . . . the beginning of the storm . . . Gopher pointing the camera out the window . . . and then something that made both Heath and me suck in a breath.

The night-vision footage had gone bright green when the flash of lightning had illuminated the landscape, and something large and ominous had come into view. Fergus Ericson’s massive oak tree was in the perfect position to be seen from the window Gopher had been shooting out of. And dangling from the boughs of that tree were the unmistakable figures of three hanging souls. “Jeeeeeeeesus!” I exclaimed, grabbing the camera and pulling it closer to get a better look.

“Did you
see
that?” Heath asked, clicking the rewind button again and almost immediately stopping it before hitting play. This time however, he advanced the footage frame by frame. And five button pushes later he landed on the most incredibly creepy footage we’d ever captured.

“There are people hanging from that tree!” Heath and I both looked out the arched window, but the landscape was pitch-dark and we couldn’t see anything with clarity.

“Keep going,” Gopher said. I took a quick glance over my shoulder as Gopher pressed himself close to both Heath and me, his shivering intensifying. “And get out your grenades,” he added. “Now.”

Just as he said that, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end and I had goose bumps all along my arms. There was also an intense chill in the air, and as I exhaled, I could see my breath. “Uh-oh,” I whispered, just as one of our meters started to make loud little bleeps.

“Is that yours?” Heath asked, handing me the camera before pulling his own meter out to check it. “Yeah, it must be. Mine was off.” Awkwardly he turned his on as well and the needle immediately rocketed to the red zone and bleeped just as loudly as mine.

“Move it forward!” Gopher pleaded impatiently. “Advance the tape, M. J.!”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, fumbling with the pause button. I advanced two more frames and saw something dark appear on the view screen. I squinted, advancing again, and the shape became larger.

“What
is
that?” Heath whispered over my shoulder.

It took two more presses of the button to make it register, but when it did, I nearly dropped the camera. Three shadows riding separate brooms were snaking their way around the castle just beyond the window. “Shit!” I gasped. “Shit, shit,
shit
!”

“Grenades!” Heath commanded. “Uncap ’em and keep ’em close!”

I gave Gopher back the camera and pulled the canisters out of the loops in my belt. I had two spikes out and exposed in less than ten seconds. Heath was having trouble managing his grenades with his cast, so I shoved mine at him and pulled his canisters free. I then handed those two to Gopher, who was just staring blankly into space. “Gopher!” I yelled, to get his attention.

He blinked and looked at me. “I think we should go.”

Another flash and tremendous crash of thunder reverberated through the stone walls. And something else. Something with terrible, malevolent energy. “We’re in trouble!” Heath said in my ear.

“We’ve got the grenades,” I told him. “As long as we keep the magnets exposed, they can’t get to us.”

Heath set his jaw firmly and his posture defensively. At the bottom of the stairs we could see a mist form in the beam of our flashlights. If that weren’t bad enough, something began to sound above the rain and the thunder—something like the angry voices of a mob.

From above and below we heard a cascade of noise that was like a group of people all shouting at once. Shadows came out of doorways to hover in the hallway below, swirling the mist and sending us wave upon wave of intense energy. My sixth sense felt overloaded and my vision became blurry. I felt queasy and sick to my stomach and I found myself trying to swallow, but my mouth had long since gone dry.

Above us, angry footsteps pounded up and down the corridors and then doors began slamming, one after another after another. “What the freak is happening?!” Gopher shouted above the cacophony.