Spooked (14 page)

“Through the woods. There’s a road on the other side of it. If we just take off down the road in front of the house, they’ll catch us for sure.” She looked at me, her eyes shining under the starlight. “We don’t want that. Especially me. I’ve pissed Lucian off slightly by making it out of there.”

“No shit,” I said. “I thought that anyone who escaped vanished.”

“I did. But not because of him. He hasn’t been able to find me.”

“Why not? How do you hide so well?”

“Look around us.”

I looked. The smoky mist was wrapped around us like a protective blanket. “What is that, exactly?”

“My friends,” she said. “If it weren’t for them, I’d have turned out just like them. Dead.”

***

We made it to the other side of the woods, which edged the side of the main road. The mist moved around us, keeping us enveloped constantly. Our heads came up just above it so we could see where we were going.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re rescuing me?” I asked her.

“I sent my friends in to break you out of there because you’re needed in your town.” She looked at me, her face serious. “More and more girls are going to disappear until whoever is taking them is caught.”

“Can’t your friends help you out there? Don’t they know who is taking them?”

“They might, but it’s not what they do. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. She stood a few inches shorter than me, and she had an hourglass shape that I’d just about kill for. Her boot cut jeans hugged her curves in a way that mine didn’t.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know why they hang around or do what they do. They just do.”

“Are they always around?” I tripped over something, lurching forward, and I felt Fiona’s ghosts push me back into place. Pretty cool.

“Sometimes more than others.” She nodded at something ahead. “There he is.”

I followed her gaze. My heart did a flip-flop and a big grin crossed my face. The Camaro sat on the side of the road, lights off. “Mick.”

“Yup. He missed you. You’re all he talks about.”

My grin turned into a huge smile. “Really?”

She nodded. “Really.”

“You know Mick? How?”

“We introduced ourselves to him,” she said, and I wasn’t sure at first who she meant by “we,” but then I realized it could only be the ghosts who followed her.

“Did he flip out?”

“At first he did. We followed him through the cemetery and he spotted us. I think he wondered whether I was actually in the land of the living or the dead.”

I giggled, imagining the look on his face, realizing that a woman surrounded by mist was following him.

The driver’s door of the Camaro opened and Mick stepped out, smiling as he came toward us. “Lorelei. Thank God.”

I stepped into his arms and nuzzled his neck with my face. I breathed him in, the smell of cinnamon gum and guy soap. “I missed you.”

“I missed you. I was so scared. Thought I’d never see you again.”

“What happened to Delia?” I asked him, fingers of dread clenching my heart.

“I don’t know. I lost her, Lore. I tried to keep up with her but she took some fancy turns and when I found the car again she was gone. The police have questioned her but they’re being really tight-lipped. She isn’t answering her door.”

“She chloroformed me,” I said, horror mounting in my chest, and beneath that, a dull ache for the aunt that I knew I’d lost. “It wasn’t her.”

“Shadow spooks,” Fiona said. “They took her over.”

I nodded. “Lucian had Strummer send them.”

“Lucian’s men probably had a car waiting in an alley somewhere,” Fiona said.

“Jesus,” Mick said. “That’s why she’s been so creepy. She’s been possessed?”

Fiona nodded. “Yeah. That’s a good word for it.”

“Maybe we can get a priest to help her,” Mick said.

“Maybe,” Fiona said, but the tone of her voice made it pretty clear that she didn’t believe that a priest could help.

Mick caught on and changed the subject. “So you’re officially among the missing, as of a few of hours ago.”

“Yeah. I know.” I looked straight ahead, sadness and hopelessness coming over me and making me want to cry. I bit my lower lip.

Mick reached out and pulled me toward him, his eyes tender as he spoke. “I thought I’d lost you.”

I managed a grin. “I’m not so easy to lose. You’re stuck with me, pal.”

His face brightened with a lopsided smile. “Awesome.”

“Yeah, yeah. Can you two lovebirds get into the freakin’ car please, before some really nasty shit comes after us and drags us back to Lucian?”

I’d forgotten. “Strummer.”

“Who is this Strummer you keep talking about?” Mick asked, opening the car doors for me and Fiona.

“He’s one of Lucian’s,” Fiona said. “He can conjure up some very bad entities to come after us, and I’m sure he will, once Lucian discovers that Lorelei has escaped.”

“So they can come after any one of us,” Mick said, starting the Camaro and directing it onto the road. A heavy fog moved in from the surrounding woods and cornfields flanking the road. “Awesome.”

“Exactly,” Fiona said from the back seat. “Now move it, Mick. I don’t know what’s in that fog.”

I turned to Fiona. “Not friends of yours?”

She gave a quick shake of her head. “I wish.”

***

Mick stayed just ahead of the fog. It might’ve been natural, good old-fashioned mist, but we didn’t know for sure. If there was something in it, it was choosing to just follow for now. My nerves were jumping, because if there was something in the fog and whatever it was decided to do more, it could very easily overtake the car, seep into every crack and crevice, and do what it wanted to.

For now, it hovered behind.

“So Delia won’t come out of her house?” I asked Mick.

He was fooling with the radio, punching buttons. Only static came through on every channel. “Whatever it is that’s taken her over is in the house.” He looked over at me. “I sat in your driveway a couple of times. Something smells bad and it’s coming from inside that house. You can’t go back in there, Lorelei.”

I didn’t want to think about what was causing the bad smell. “I know. God knows what’ll happen to me if I do.”

“You need to stay hidden. Stay with me.”

I gave a short laugh. I was starting to feel hysterical.
Get a grip
. “Right. So we’d better figure out a plan, if we ever want things to get back to the way they used to be.”

Mick squeezed my hand. “Things will never be the same, Lorelei.”

“Maybe things will go back to some semblance of normalcy,” I said, not believing my own words.

He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on. So much bad shit is going down in Saints Hallow. To tell you the truth, I just want to get the hell out of there.”

I nodded. A heavy sadness settled over me, on top of the fear. I preferred the fear. Fear could be managed. Sadness was so hard to bear. Saints Hallow had been my safe haven for years. “After we find out what happened to Eliza, Kerry, and Brianna.” I paused, startled that I was saying the words, when just a few short days ago I couldn’t even imagine leaving this town. “We’ll leave. But not before we find out who took them.”

Mick nodded. “Whatever it takes. Whoever it is needs to go down.”

“You can do it, Lorelei. Use your talent,” Fiona said.

“There’s only one problem,” I murmured. “How am I going to probe people’s minds to find out who it is if I can’t go out? I’ll be seen.”

Chapter Fourteen

The prayer vigil at six o’clock that night was for Brianna. The girls in my town were vanishing so fast now it was making my head spin—one every couple of days. What was he doing with them, this phantom who could abduct young girls unseen? If he wasn’t caught, he’d run out of teenage girls to take. Then what? Move on to the next town? Maybe Saints Hallow wasn’t the only town he’d done this to. God knew how many there had been before us. Maybe he just hadn’t been so active before.

Was he one of us? Delia thought he had to be. He had to know these girls. Which meant he knew me. This could be someone I saw every day. Somebody I was familiar with. Someone these girls trusted. Someone I trust.

I pushed out a long breath and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. How could this be happening?

The vigil was being held in the same spot it had been for Kerry and Eliza. Just one more photo added. A steady stream of people came to the edge of the woods, dropping flowers and lowering their heads to pray. I stood farther off in the trees, Fiona’s special mist moving protectively all around me. Once in a while I felt the caress of a hand somewhere on my skin, or the cool breath of a ghost lifting my hair. The movements were distracting, but I had to focus on what I had to do.

I heard a low hum and the wind moving through what was left of the leaves on jutting branches. I remained as motionless as I could, closed my eyes, and listened. Faint whispering reached my ears, and I strained to hear the words.

Please find me. I’ve been here so long
.

“Who are you?” I whispered back.

I’m Emma. I was taken on my way home from school. I was tricked, and buried here. It’s been so long. Please find me so I can leave. My mother is waiting for me. She stands over me, waiting
.

“I will find you. I promise. There are others I need to find, too. Right now I need silence, okay?”

I felt the mental nod of the ghost.

“Thank you. I promise I will come back and find you, Emma. You can go with your mommy tonight.”

Another mental nod, and the sense of gratitude and relief.

I peered through the fog, into the crowd, and saw all the same people who had been at the last vigil. I didn’t see that anyone was missing, though there could have been. I hoped not.

Mick stood at a spot closest to the very edge of the woods and looked toward me every so often. Mr. Tanner came up next to him and patted him on the back. He said something low but I couldn’t hear what it was.

I closed my eyes and sent mental fingers reaching out to Mr. Tanner. His obsession with Eliza was inappropriate at best, and I wondered what else he was hiding. Gently, I felt around inside his mind.

What I found stunned me. My chin trembled and my eyes welled. It was torture for Edward Tanner to be here, so close to the woods. Teaching at Saints Hallow High School was a form of self-punishment. He believed he deserved to be punished each and every second of every day.

I felt my breath catch as I saw what he was hiding.

Eddie, a five year old boy sitting in the car with his father. A big car, and Eddie’s legs dangling over the big seat. It was a different time: no child seats for kids then. Kids could sit in the front seat. Looking out the window, he saw Emma Perry walking along the sidewalk in a summer skirt, socks, and sneakers, her long, red hair tied in a ponytail that swung with each step.

His father’s huge arm reached across his seat and opened the passenger door next to Eddie. “Go, Eddie.”

Eddie looked at his dad, slightly confused and a little scared and shy.

“She’s right there, Eddie. Go on. Before someone else comes and takes her away from us before we can play with her.”

Eddie didn’t want that to happen. He loved Emma. She was so pretty with her bright red hair, so shiny under the sun. His mommy saw it when they saw Emma and her daddy in the convenience store. She’d called it puppy love, when she’d told Daddy that night at dinner. His daddy had grinned and winked at him. “That’s my boy,” he’d said.

Just like he was saying now, as Eddie slid off the seat and onto the pavement in the parking lot of the school. He stood for a moment, watching Emma walk down the street. She was alone, making the usual trek back from Mac’s convenience store by herself. She didn’t live far at all. Just down the street. Usually Emma’s older sister Kelly walked with her, but not today.

“Now, Ed.” The edge in his father’s tone propelled Eddie to walk quickly toward Emma.

“Hi Emma!” he called to her.

Emma turned and stopped walking when she saw him. She waved and came walking toward him.

“Hi Eddie. Whatcha doing?”

Emma was two years older than Eddie, so she was a bit taller than him. His heart pounded as she came walking up to him. Her eyes flicked to the car behind him, the passenger door still open.

“Just wondering if you want to come play hide and seek with me and my dad.”

She looked behind her toward her street, deciding. Finally, she turned back to Eddie and shrugged, grinning. “Sure.”

That grin always took his breath away. “Okay.”

He turned to tell his dad but his dad was already out of the car, coming toward them.

“Hey Emma. How are you doing?” His dad’s deep voice had taken on a soft quality.

This bothered Eddie because he only heard his dad use that tone with little girls, and he knew that it was not really him. He wondered why he did that. Did he think girls were scared of him?

Did he think they should be?

His dad took off running into the woods. “Last one in is it!”

Eddie and Emma looked at each other and laughed. They both took off into the woods. Emma was faster, because she was taller, and she called over her shoulder to him, “Come on, slowpoke!” A string of giggles floated behind her toward him.

His dad and Emma stood at a large tree, his father leaning on it with one large hand. “Looks like you’re it, Eddie.”

Eddie shrugged. “Okay.”

“Okay, you count to one hundred and Emma and I will hide.” His father looked down at Emma, smiling, his eyes almost glowing. “I know a really good place to hide, Emma. He won’t ever find us.”

Emma gave Eddie’s dad a huge smile. The one that showed the slightly crooked top tooth.