15 Amityville Horrible (8 page)
Read 15 Amityville Horrible Online
Authors: Kelley Armstrong
Tags: #Kelley Armstrong, #paranormal romance, #ghosts, #necromancy
I looked at them. Ricardo was still on the floor, but the other four were huddled close enough to touch shoulders, all watching me, faces pale, gazes shooting to the blood-sweating wall, then back to me. Waiting for me to save them.
Well, that’s a twist.
I laughed softly under my breath.
“I’m glad you find this funny,” Rory muttered.
“I wasn’t laughing. I was—”
“Hide!” a voice said behind me.
It was Clara, the first victim. She raced past and “hid” in the corner, gesturing for me to join her. I struggled to keep my breathing even. Struggled not to think of what was coming.
“You
do
see something,” Frank said. “Damn it, Jaime. I know you do. It’s them, isn’t it? The girls.”
I took a moment to compose myself and to turn away from Clara. Turn my back on her. That’s what it felt like. A girl was about to be killed behind me, and I was turning my back on her.
“I don’t know what I’m seeing,” I said. “I’m catching flickers—”
“Bullshit,” Frank said.
My head shot up. “Excuse me?”
“You’re seeing them. I can tell by your face. You’re seeing those girls.”
Cameron answered before I could. “Then why would she lie about it? She’s a spiritualist. She’s not going to pretend she
doesn’t
see ghosts.”
“She’s scared,” Frank said. “This isn’t some stage act. She’s seeing real murdered girls and—”
“Frank?” Rory said. “Shut it.”
“I do see something,” I said. “It might be the girls. It might be the killer. It might be a completely separate entity. Or it might be nothing at all. But I’m going to suggest—”
“A seance,” Frank said. “If these ghosts aren’t making contact on their own, they need help. Talk to them. See who they are and what they want.”
I argued against that, of course. But I was the only one who did. Even Ricardo chimed in, translated by Cameron, who apparently hadn’t failed
his
high school Spanish. Ricardo wanted to know what had happened to him. Conversing with the spirits seemed the best way to do that. It wasn’t as if anyone was coming to our rescue anytime soon.
We could hear the occasional faint voice below, as if someone was on the attic steps, but they sure as hell weren’t banging down the door to get to us. Hell, no. We were trapped in a room by supernatural forces. Real supernatural forces. I almost hoped there
were
hidden cameras, or I feared Frank would lose his job when they realized he’d stopped filming.
I didn’t like summoning real ghosts in front of non-super- naturals. What bothered me more, though, was summoning ghosts who weren’t acting like ghosts. Doors slamming and people getting injured suggested a telekinetic half-demon spirit, the only kind that could manipulate objects in the real world. But locking doors without obvious locks? Cutting someone without an apparent weapon? That made no sense, and I was reluctant to open the lines of communication when I wasn’t sure what I was dealing with. But that also seemed like the only way to find out what I was dealing with. So, with trepidation, I agreed.
…
Seance implies a lot of things to a lot of people. To most, it conjures up images of people sitting on the floor, holding hands, burning candles and incense, maybe playing with a Ouija board. None of that is necessary. To talk to the dead, I simply…well, talk. I focus on opening my mind and making contact. Which is always a huge disappointment, so on the rare occasions when I agree to do a seance, I liven it up with props. That wasn’t happening here. I did have everyone sit and join hands, though. It would make them feel better. Frank resumed taping, too.
When I started the seance, Clara’s ghost had faded and Polly’s hadn’t yet arrived. So the room was spook-free. It remained that way as I entreated and cajoled any spirits to appear.
“Why are you doing that?” Frank said finally, as he paused the filming. “You know who they are, so why aren’t you summoning them specifically?”
“That’s not how it’s done. You risk offending the ghost if you call it by the wrong name. Instead, you must remain open to all possibilities—”
“
What
other possibilities?”
Rory turned on him. “What the hell difference does it make to you? Is the studio paying you extra if she conjures a specific spirit?”
“’Course not. But this seems silly—”
“The whole thing seems silly,” she said. “But we’re stuck with it. So, once again, shut—”
The light overhead turned on. Then it flickered out.
“What the hell is with that?” Rory muttered.
“I think—” Frank began.
“No one cares,” Rory said.
I lifted my hands for quiet. “I’ll go ahead and call the girls by name. It can’t hurt.”
When everyone settled in, I said, “I’m trying to contact the ghost of Clara Davis. If she’s—”
“
Run
.”
I didn’t jump this time. I’d heard that disembodied voice often enough. But it did stop me mid-sentence. And it stopped everyone else, too.
“Did you hear that?” Cameron whispered.
I looked around. They’d heard it, too.
What the hell?
“Keep going,” Frank said.
I took a deep breath. “I want to speak to the spirit of Clara Davis. If she can hear me—”
“Help me.”
Ricardo leaped up. “
¿Que eseco?
”
“It’s a woman’s voice,” Cameron said. “The first was a man’s. I think it was the killer.”
Frank motioned for me to keep going. Ricardo cursed in Spanish and pointed. The wall was sweating blood again.
“You need to talk to them,” Frank whispered. “They have a story to tell. Help them.”
I looked around. To my left, a shape flickered. It was Polly. Her mouth was working, but I couldn’t hear anything.
“If you’re trying to talk to me, then talk,” I said.
“Who is it?” Frank whispered.
I ignored him. “I want to know what happened to you. I want you to find peace. To do that, I need to speak—”
“He killed me,” she said.
I looked around the small circle. Everyone was watching intently, giving no sign they’d heard her.
“Who killed you?” I asked.
Frank leaned from behind his camera, mouthing for me say who I was talking to. I ignored him. I tried to get Polly to give me any details on her killer, but she started getting frantic, insisting she didn’t know. That wasn’t surprising. Violent death usually wipes the last minutes from a ghost’s memory. Merciful for the ghost; terribly unhelpful for crime solving.
I moved on to asking what she last remembered, but now my audience was getting restless. They were only hearing one side of the conversation—the boring “tell me more” side.
“What’s she saying?” Cameron asked. “It’s a she, right?”
Frank switched off the camera. “We need more, Jaime. The studio will kill us if you actually made contact with a spirit, and this is all we get. Let’s back up. Tell us who she is and what she’s said so far.”
I looked over at Polly. She was kneeing in the circle, skirt pulled demurely over her knees. When she heard Frank, she started to nod.
“I want to tell my story,” she said. “The whole story.” She met my gaze. “Only you can do that.”
Yes, only I could do that. I thought of her terrible death. She deserved peace and justice.
And yet…
My gut said there was more here. Given the choice between following my head and following my gut, there’s never any contest.
I motioned for Frank to roll the camera. “I’ve made contact with the ghost of a young woman.” I described Polly. “She says she was murdered. I’ve been unable to get details of her killer, which isn’t surprising, given that she probably can’t remember those final traumatic moments. What I’m doing now is trying to take her back—”
“You haven’t told them my name,” she cut in.
I turned to her. I said nothing, just turned and looked.
Her face tightened with anger. “I’m Polly Watson. You know that.
Tell
that.”
“What is your connection to this house?” I asked.
“I came to live with my aunt and uncle the summer I was seventeen.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why did you come to live with them? What happened?”
“I had a fight—”
“About what?”
She floundered, mouth opening and closing, as she glared at me. “A boy,” she snapped finally. “It was about a boy.”
“Did your aunt and uncle have any pets?”
Her face screwed up. “Are you interrogating me?”
Frank flicked off the camera again. “What’s going on here, Jaime?”
“She’s making sure the spook is who she says she is,” Rory said. “Like asking for ID. Nothing wrong with that.”
Cameron nodded. “I looked up Polly Watson last night, after the show. Ask her—”
“
Get out
!” a man’s voice boomed through the room.
The door behind Ricardo flew open with a bang.
“
Get out now!
”
Ricardo scrambled up and raced through the door. It slammed shut behind him. Everyone else was still sitting in the circle. Rory and I got to our feet. Cameron followed. We ran to the door and tried it. It was locked.
Fourteen
“Ricardo!” I said, banging on the door. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
“
¡No!
” Ricardo shouted. “
¡Alto!
”
“He’s saying stop,” Cameron said. “Something’s happening in there.”
Cameron tried to body-slam the door while Sal ran to the other one, shouting at the top of his lungs, “We need help! Hey! Help!”
“Fire!” Rory screamed. “Fire!”
That worked. I heard the distant sound of footsteps on the attic stairs. In the next room, Ricardo was still babbling for his attacker to stop.
“Serves him right,” Polly muttered. “Serves you all right.”
I turned to see the ghost standing there, her arms crossed.
“He’s going to kill him,” she said, smirking. “And it’ll be all your fault for not believing me.”
Ricardo screamed. Mid-scream, he was cut short, with an
oomph
. Then, “Who the hell are you?” and, “Hey! Put me down!”
Rory and Cameron both turned from the door to look at me.
“Is that…Ricardo?” Rory said.
I could hear someone working on the attic door now, yelling for tools. Then there was a sharp crack at the door Ricardo had run through. It flew open. Jeremy stood there, holding Ricardo aloft by the back of his hoodie.
Cameron looked from Jeremy to the broken door. “How’d you get that open?”
“I work out.”
“That’s…your boyfriend,” Rory said, turning to me. “What’s going on here?”
“Make him put me down!” Ricardo yelled—in perfect English. “He’s assaulting me.”
“No.” Jeremy kicked a switch-blade through the open door. “I saved you from an assault. Self-inflicted.” Jeremy walked through, still holding Ricardo. “I found him screaming and getting ready to cut himself with that.”
“He’s possessed!” Frank said. “Quick! Pin him down before he attacks someone.”
I gave Frank a withering look. Jeremy lowered Ricardo to the floor but kept a grip on his hoodie. Rory slipped behind Jeremy and retrieved something from the next room.
“Ricardo’s cell phone.” She looked at him. “It seems to be voice recording. Do you want me to stop it?”
Ricardo scowled at her.
She checked out the phone. “Oh, look. Emails. From your editor. About the exposé you’re running here.” She turned to me. “We’ve got ourselves an undercover reporter.”
“He stabbed himself?” Cameron said. “Seriously? That’s fucked up, dude.”
“I suspect he did more than that,” Jeremy said. “There’s sound equipment back there, too, which I’ll wager explains the voice I heard when I was coming through.”
“I had nothing to do with that. It was—” Ricardo’s gaze shot toward us, then away. He squared his shoulders. “I’m still going to expose this fraud. I know the truth. There were no ‘letters.’ There are no dead girls.”
“Sure there are,” Cameron said. “I found them online.”
“
Missing
girls. Not dead ones. That was all faked to see if you’d fall for it.” He gestured at me.
“But she didn’t,” Jeremy said. “I heard her. Jaime never said she saw the missing girls. No matter how strongly she was urged to do so.”
I slowly turned toward the guy who’d been
urging
me so strongly. Frank edged backward as I advanced. Rory strode past me.
“Hey!” he said as she reached into his pockets. “You can’t—”
She pulled out a remote. When she hit a button, a voice boomed, “Get out!”
She looked up at him. “Okay, you can say it now.”
“Wh-what?”
She glanced over at Ricardo. “You, too. Repeat after me.
I would have gotten away with it too…
”
Cameron grinned. “
If it wasn’t for you meddling kids.
”
…
We’d been scammed. It seemed, though, that our enterprising young journalist hadn’t orchestrated the scheme. Frank had discovered what Ricardo was doing and offered him a real scoop, in return for a little extra role-play.
The house had been rigged by Frank before we arrived. He’d put in a sound system with the “ghosts” heard by everyone. He’d added remote-activated locks to mechanically operate doors. He’d even gotten a special-effects buddy to set up the blood-sweating wall.
Yet there were things Frank couldn’t have done. Namely, the ghosts.
Even more importantly, Frank lacked something else. A motive. He hadn’t been hired by Ricardo. Even if he was lying about that, rigging this house took some serious cash. No journalist would have that kind of expense account—and no newspaper or magazine would knowingly pay for a false exposé.
So who masterminded this? I had an idea. As for motive, well, that wasn’t quite so clear. But as soon as we got out of that room, I had Jeremy slip off to call Savannah with a few questions for Paige’s database.
I let the kids handle the fallout…I mean, take credit for unmasking the villains. I figured it was a reasonable trade-off. I trusted they wouldn’t make me look like an idiot, and I’d get my share of the limelight later. For now, I had to find the real man behind the mask.
As one might expect, the aftermath was chaotic. It was easy enough to tear Gregor away from the questions and the cameras.
With Jeremy accompanying us, I led Gregor to a second-level bedroom.
“I thought you might need a break,” I said.
“Yes, thank you. It is…overwhelming.” He sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled. “I am still trying to understand everything. There were no dead girls?”
“No, there were. That’s what I came to tell you. I talked to Polly Watson.”
“I thought—”
“No, it
was
her. I’m sure of it.” I told him how I’d seen the girls at the inn and now here.
“That is terrible,” he said, getting to his feet. “You must tell those reporters downstairs.”
“Actually, that’s why I called you in here. I want you to tell them.” I beamed at him. “You have a gift, Gregor. A true gift, and your story really touched me. I’ve had my fifteen minutes of fame. Now, it’s your turn.”
He shook his head. “No, this is yours. You saw them—”
“I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” I took his arm. “Come on. I’ve already seeded the story.”
“Seeded…”
“Oh, I’m sure you know what that means. Your English is a lot better than you let on, which is what I’d expect from someone who lived in the States for most of his childhood.”
“Wh-what? I did not live…”
When he trailed off, I released his arm. “Not sure you want to finish that, considering it’s a matter of public record? So is your real last name. Demidov. I don’t know why you changed it. It’s such a great name. Did you know there’s a family of Russian necromancers by that name? Quite famous. They say one even worked for the Tsars, back in the day.”
“I don’t know—”
“Well, I do. I know you’re a necromancer. You came on this show hoping to make your name by crushing mine. You found Polly Watson’s link to the house and invented a story, which you leaked to Mike. Then you convinced—or bullied—ghosts who looked like the missing girls into putting on a show for me, complete with period costume and tragic death scenes. You hired Frank to help with the scheme. What is he? Half-demon? Telekinesis? Good at slamming doors? Doesn’t matter really. His main role was to persuade me to say on camera that I was seeing the dead girls and the killer. Then you’d refute my claims. When the truth came out, that the letters were fake, it would be obvious I was a con artist and you were the real deal.”
Gregor edged toward the door. “You’re crazy,” he said, dropping most of his accent. “I don’t know what—”
He bumped into Jeremy.
“Hello,” Jeremy said. When Gregor tried to duck past, Jeremy tugged him back. “Not yet.”
Gregor struggled, but Jeremy just stood there, casually holding him fast.
“You know,” I said. “You really need to do more research on the people you try to scam. Do you know who he is?”
“I don’t care,” Gregor said, backing into the room as Jeremy released his hold. “You can’t prove any of this wild story, and I’ll fight you if you try. I know people and—”
Something shimmered in the corner. Gregor noticed it. I did, too. Jeremy frowned slightly, sensing a ghost.
Light flashed, bright enough to make Gregor stumble back. A figure strode through. She was about forty, with long dark hair, and was dressed in jeans, boots and a white blouse. In her right hand she held a four-foot-long sword, glowing with a blue light.
“Goddamn it,” Eve said, striding toward us. “I did not need this. I really did not need this.”
Gregor backed up until he hit the bed. “Is…is that—?”
“An angel,” I said. “A very pissed off one, apparently. Let me introduce you to my spirit guide, Eve Levine. I’m sure you’ve heard of her.”
“What?” Eve said, turning her scowl on Gregor. “He’s a necromancer?” She squinted at his spirit glow, then swore under her breath and shook her sword at him. “You breathe one word of this—”
“I-I won’t say anything.”
“You know what this is?” she waved the sword as he backed into the corner.