On Pins and Needles: Sierra Fox, Book 3 (39 page)

“I can take them,” Ebony said a little shyly.

“Of course you can,” Roe agreed with a nod. “But first you need to recover, and I’m afraid these girls are just about itching to get out there.”

“I’ll take them to the cemetery as soon as I get some things cleared up,” I said with a nod. There were more than a few matters I needed to take care of before getting stuck into the work waiting for me at the office, so helping these girls would also have to wait for the time being. “Are any of them licensed yet?”

“No, they were all still learning the ropes.” He led us from the dusty living room and into a darkened corridor. The navy blue walls were bare but all had imprints where picture frames had previously hung. “And I think Mason hadn’t gotten his hands on them yet, so we can at least be grateful for that.”

“Y’know, come to think of it, I still haven’t got my full license either,” Ebony said.

She was doing so well before everything went to shit that I’d also forgotten. With the problems at the Council, I wasn’t sure how she was going to get it.

“Don’t worry. I’m working on something as we speak. You girls probably won’t need to deal with the Council ever again.” He opened the only door at the end of the corridor. “Which is why we’re headed into the cellar right now—I’ve got something to show you…and it’s probably not what you might be expecting.”

Ebony strolled inside, descending without further instructions.
 

I hesitated in the corridor.

“Are you okay?” Roe asked, with concern etched on his wrinkled face. “I can tell you’re concerned about Ms. Aikan because she seems to be doing such a good job at hiding the turmoil of emotions she must be going through.”

“No, it’s not that.” Well, it kinda was because I’d been thinking the same thing. But my main concern at the moment was where we were headed. “I’ve had some pretty bad things happen in basements.” And one of them had only happened a few days ago.
 

My hand flew up to my throat, double checking that the place Maya had so viciously ripped apart was still undamaged. It might be smooth physically, but just like all of my other scars I could still feel it there. Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning thinking Mauricio’s ugly, black stain was still on my clavicle.

Internal scars were the worst. I looked down at the bandages around my wrists. At least these would eventually heal and scar in the proper way.

Roe placed a hand on my shoulder. “I promise nothing bad will happen in this one. To be honest with you, I think it’s the brightest room in the house. And we don’t call it a
basement
, it’s the cellar—or the Vault, as I prefer.”

“Wow.” I heard Ebony gasp from below.

“Go ahead,” Roe insisted, motioning for me to walk in front of him. “There’s nothing to fear in this house.”

I swallowed my distrust of basements and attempted to wash away all of my bad thoughts long enough to descend into the brightest room I’d ever seen.
 

“What the hell? When did you set this up?” Three of the four walls inside the
Vault
were covered with the square holding cells and levers that connected to the canisters.
 

“It’s been here for decades—just needed to be cleaned up and have a few light bulbs replaced. A little maintenance was necessary on the levers, but it cleaned up real nice.” Roe strolled past me, headed for one of the walls covered from top to bottom with spook holding cells. “My father knew all about spook catchers and he constructed these cells. He simply introduced a more practical way of securing spirits, making it a little easier than my grandmother’s way.” He pointed to the large circle inscribed into the concrete—encasing a triangle. “Years before spooks and catchers were known to the world, my grandmother used this cellar to summon and banish evil spirits. Of course, back then it was nothing like it is now. Spooks weren’t given a trial—they were simply expelled from this patch. The Council eradicated most texts and books detailing our history, but my family kept some of it. Not everyone could afford to have a Collection room of this scale, but they all had a private space to deal with troublesome spirits.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if my grandmother had a place like this. I knew she and Granddad had lived in the house I now owned for years. Then again, she left the spook catching business before getting married, which would explain why she didn’t have a room similar to this one.
 

“This is amazing.” Ebony was wide-eyed. “With a room like this, we don’t need to go to the Council for anything.”

Roe nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to establish. Thanks to the information Jason gathered, I was able to contact several places out of state that actually run their entire businesses, from start to finish, independently. Instead of having a central building where they’re all forced to drop off canisters, they simply carry on the spook catching end of the deal, secure the spooks, and then the local court sanctions hearings for the misbehaving spirits. It’s pretty much the same, though the catchers there also take on the responsibility of banishing the spooks to the ghostly patch. Looks like they might know a thing or two about how it was done in the past…”

I suddenly remembered something both Travis and Troy Slevani had mentioned several months back. They told me that once ghosts were banished into the ghostly patch by the Spook Catcher Council, they weren’t actually going where I thought they were. At the time, I’d had no idea what they meant, but after actually entering that patch when Mace tried to use me as a conduit to shatter the pathway, I’d seen only tranquil spooks moving about their business with no one threatening around.
 

So where exactly did the troubled ghosts go?

“Roe, do you know if the Council is actually banishing the spooks we captured to the ghostly patch?” If anyone knew, he would.

He frowned. “What makes you ask that, Ms. Fox?”

“When I was in the ghostly patch—”

“You were actually in the ghostly patch?” Ebony asked, and her eyes looked just about ready to pop out of their sockets.

“Yeah, I was briefly. Don’t you remember? You tried to stop me but I was pulled in by Professor Spooker.”

“You saw my—you actually saw Professor Spooker?” Roe asked, interest gleaming in his eyes.

I nodded. “He was in pretty bad shape and had turned into a wraith, but was still determined not to let Mace have his way. If it wasn’t for Professor Spooker, I wouldn’t have gotten out of there.”

Roe closed his eyes for a second and nodded, a small smile teased the corners of his mouth.

“There’s a lot I don’t remember,” Ebony said with a shrug. “I think I’ve forced myself to forget a lot of things.”

 
Cam was probably responsible for a lot of the gaps in her memory.

“You should never forget any experiences in life. Whether good or bad, you need to learn from everything that happens to you. But don’t worry. I’ll explain everything more extensively later.” Roe seemed a lot cheerier now.

“Anyway,” I said, trying to catch my initial stream of thought. “Do you know about the spooks, Roe?”

He frowned and crossed his arms over his narrow chest. “The Council hasn’t been forthcoming about a lot of things. Since its conception by Rochelle Spooker, the only people who really know what’s going on are the four councilors and Mace. They’re very secretive for a very good reason. Although we might all believe—just as they convinced the general population—that the misbehaving spirits are banished to the ghostly patch, they’re not.” He paused for a moment. “The ghostly patch is where spirits go when they first accept death and move away from the living world. It’s their first step towards what comes after. Most remain there for some time, while others move on right away. It all depends on the individual.” Roe clasped his hands together. “Now, I’m not sure what comes after, and I don’t believe any of us will find out until it’s our time, but the Afterlife has different paths. And in one of those places is where the evil spirits are eternally sentenced to remain. But the Council hasn’t sent anyone there in a long while.”

“Where are they, then?” I asked, a wave of dread storming over my skin.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

My stomach lurched. There was one person who would know exactly where they were—Mace.
 

One day, I’d make him pay for everything he’d done to help corrupt the system. According to the now-dead Professor Spooker, Mace used to be one of his assistants, so he’d started out small and spread his infectious ambitions for decades.
 

“So, what you’re saying is that the Council isn’t even needed?” Ebony asked.

“Having a figure head was always a way to satisfy the population, to make them feel safe and secure about having girls out there who could actually see the dead and reel them in. It keeps everyone calm—the authorities included.” Roe frowned. “Our world is very unstable and there are so many things humans still don’t understand. By showing them a big, fancy building, it makes them feel like things are being taken care of. When a cluster of smaller operations could do the same thing.” He paused. “In other states, small clusters are all they have. There is only one Council building, and that’s the one in Sydney. They file monthly reports and email them in, but other than that work independently.”
 

“Wish we worked the same way,” Ebony said, fear burning in her eyes. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back in there again.”

“You’re never going to,” I said. No matter what happened, I refused to let her step anywhere near the building. “Besides, the investigation seems to be ongoing. So we might all get our wish.”
 

What were they thinking, sending volatile spooks to some undisclosed place? For all we knew, every one of those spooks could still be inside the building. The thought made me crazy with rage—it would explain my violent headaches and nosebleeds whenever I went inside.

Not to mention Professor Spooker’s body. If he was kept in the ghostly patch long enough to become a wraith and be unaffected by the tranquil spirits around him, his body still had to be somewhere…
 

Roe clapped his hands together and turned to Ebony. “Anyway, how would you like to settle into your room?”

She wrapped a hand around her duffel’s strap and gazed downward. “Um, okay.”

“Just go upstairs and tell the girls to show you which one’s your room, okay?” He smiled at her, causing more wrinkles than ever to collect on his face. “They’ve been so excited about meeting you.”

Ebony took a step towards the stairs but stopped. “Are you sure you can help me?”

“I
know
I can help you, because this is something I live with every single day of my life,” he answered. The smile was replaced with a frown. “What happened to you was awful and no one should ever be forced to go through it, but you’ll survive. I’ve been strapped to that chair and forcibly roused multiple times and I’m still standing, right?”

She seemed uncertain, even hesitant. “Yeah…”
 

I gave her a quick hug, not wanting to overstep our newfound neutral ground. Seeing her strapped to the silver pole and drugged out of her mind on vampire blood had scared the hell out of me, so this felt like a move in the right direction. I never wanted her to feel so desperate. She had people who truly cared about her.

“I’ll call you,” I whispered, untangling my arms from her.

She nodded, but the temporary normalness seemed to have leaked out of her because she was frowning and avoiding my eyes when she turned on her heel and ascended the stairs.

Roe and I stood in silence for a few moments listening to her retreating footsteps until we could clearly hear them above us.

“This room is truly amazing,” I said with a whistle.

“I’m surprised your grandmother didn’t have one.”

“I haven’t seen one in the house.”

“Someone who worked as hard as she did surely had one stashed away,” Roe said, looking thoughtful. “Maybe it’s so well hiding even you can’t find it.”

I chuckled. He could be right. After all the secrets I’d found out my grandmother had kept during her life, I wouldn’t be surprised to find more.

“You don’t have to worry about Ebony, you know,” he said. “I’ll take good care of her. But more than that, I’m going to help her overcome this hurdle.”

“I really appreciate you doing this. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

“Actually,” he began, rubbing his chin. “I think there might be something you
can
do. I’d like to make you a business proposition.”

I folded my arms over my stomach. “I’m listening.”

Roe sat down behind the only desk inside this vast room. He shuffled a few of the pamphlets Papan had gotten for me, and grabbed a clipboard. “I’d like to go into business with you, Ms. Fox. Here’s the proposal.”
 

I took the clipboard and perused the many sheets of handwritten pages. They were all packed with a neat, cursive script. It was a lot to read and consider, but skimming the first few pages gave me a clear idea of what he was suggesting.

“You want to make this a moderate-sized business with room for growth?”

“Without the flashy building, the hundreds of employees, greed, secrets, and ill intent,” he said with a nod. “I would also like this to be a business where we’ve all got a stake in it, not just as far as holding position, but also financially. I find most people care a lot more about something if they’ve got money invested in it.”