A moment of silence filled the corridor, and then the ceiling of the elevator crashed inward as though hit by a giant hammer. The terrific noise smashed through Ethan’s awareness and made him flinch. Another impact crushed the elevator’s sidewall in like a paper bag and sent Donovan flying sideways into Jackson.
‘Do something!’ Jackson hollered.
Ethan looked desperately at Lopez, who was staring wide-eyed and in disbelief as the elevator began folding in upon itself, as though a giant, invisible hand were inexorably crushing it into oblivion.
Ethan grabbed the doors again and pulled frantically on them but he already knew that there was nothing he could do. He shouted into the elevator.
‘What about the service hatch in the ceiling?’
Donovan looked up and shook his head. ‘Too small! It’s for emergency ventilation, not access!’
Ethan saw Donovan’s normally stoic features crumble into genuine terror as the elevator crumpled and collapsed. The three men inside were forced together, shoulders packed against chests, faces grimacing with fear.
‘Do something!’ Lopez shouted at him.
Ethan stared at the dying men and grabbed his hair in helpless desperation as a razor-sharp shard of metal touched the surface of Jackson’s face.
A deafening crash like a gunshot thundered out from the elevator and then suddenly all noise ceased. Ethan’s ears rang as he stared at the elevator, the three men pinned inside it. Then, quietly, the lights flickered back on. Ethan blinked as he felt warmth caress his arms and face as though the bitter embrace of death had been snatched away at the last moment.
He turned and looked at Lopez, and then they both turned and saw Karina lying on the floor at the end of the corridor, a cellphone to her ear. Karina, her head smeared with a thick trickle of blood, dropped the cellphone and shut it off.
Ethan turned back to the elevator.
‘What happened?’ Glen Ryan asked.
‘You got lucky,’ Ethan said quickly. ‘That thing obviously gets its juice from somewhere and it ran out of gas somehow.’
Donovan, his face pinched between the elevator wall and Jackson’s shoulder, nodded as much as he could.
‘You want to get us the hell out of here? It might come back.’
Ethan pulled his cellphone out of his pocket as he turned and walked back toward Karina. She slowly dragged herself to her feet, one hand holding her head.
‘You want to tell me what that was?’ he asked her. ‘What did you do?’
Karina refused to look at him. ‘Called for back-up,’ she replied flatly.
41
The mirrored-glass exterior of the law school flashed with the reflections of dozens of strobe lights in a flickering kaleidoscope of blues, oranges and reds as Ethan stood with Lopez beside an ambulance.
The body of Muir, the lawyer, was wheeled into the vehicle by a pair of paramedics, his battered remains covered with a black body-bag.
From the entrance of the building walked Donovan, Jackson and Glen. All three of them were carrying water bottles and Jackson had a blanket draped across his shoulders. It had taken the fire service almost two hours to cut them free from the mangled wreckage of the elevator car. Donovan reached them first.
‘Karina did tell you to take the stairwell,’ Lopez pointed out.
‘Noted,’ Donovan snapped, clearly having been divested of every last shred of his sense of humor. ‘Tell me, everything.’
‘It’s not of this world,’ Ethan replied. ‘We don’t know how to deal with it yet.’
Donovan’s features were creased with an anxiety that Ethan had not seen before. The solid rock that was the police chief was crumbling after what he had witnessed.
‘You two know damned well more than you’re telling me. I want to know everything,’ Donovan insisted.
‘So will the manufacturers of those elevators,’ Ethan reminded him. ‘That’s two of them crushed by unknown forces in as many days.’
‘Coroner’s going to have a hard time explaining how the lawyer died, too,’ Lopez said.
Donovan looked at the body thoughtfully. ‘Suicide,’ he suggested. ‘Long fall.’
‘Not long enough,’ Ethan said. ‘That ceiling was maybe twenty feet up. No way he could have got into that mess.’
‘Then it stays with us,’ Donovan insisted. ‘We can’t afford to create a city-wide panic right now.’
‘We told you what it is that’s doing this,’ Lopez said, ‘a vengeful spirit. It’s called a wraith.’
‘I don’t give a damn what it’s called,’ the chief shot back. ‘I want to know how it’s stopped.’
‘It isn’t stopped,’ Ethan assured him, ‘until justice is done.’
‘Justice?’ Glen asked as he joined them. ‘Justice for what, and how?’
‘Whatever happened to that spirit,’ Lopez said, ‘when it was alive, needs to be corrected. It was wronged and it’s seeking revenge.’
‘For what?’ Donovan asked, confused. ‘Even if you’re right, how can we know whose spirit it is or how it was wronged?’
Ethan turned to face Donovan directly, his face barely inches from the chief’s.
‘That’s what’s been bothering me ever since we got out of that building,’ he said. ‘This wraith, supposedly, only attacks the people who wronged it during life. So why would it be going after you three?’
Donovan looked at Jackson and Glen, and shrugged. ‘How the hell would we know? Maybe a disgruntled criminal? Maybe somebody got put away for a crime they didn’t commit and got iced while inside?’
‘Doesn’t match the hits on the clerk, the lawyer or the thieves,’ Lopez pointed out. ‘Fact is, the only thing that ties them all together is the Pay-Go robbery.’
Donovan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘That could mean it’s the wraith of somebody killed on the bridge in the accident, maybe.’
Ethan nodded. ‘Like Tom Ross’s wife or daughter.’
‘You think that’s who’s doing this?’ Jackson uttered, his eyes wide like an animal caught in headlamp beams. ‘Why the hell would they be coming down on us? That accident wasn’t our fault.’
‘They may not see it that way,’ Lopez replied. ‘You ever heard of a poltergeist that could be reasoned with?’
‘This isn’t a goddamned poltergeist,’ Glen snapped. ‘This is the mother of all weird demon shit!’ He looked about for a moment. ‘Where’s Karina?’
‘She’s taking a break,’ Lopez replied.
Donovan looked at each of them in turn. ‘You’ve got jurisdiction of this case but not my officer. Take me to her immediately.’
‘Your officer?’ Lopez echoed. ‘The same officer that we had to carry out of that hall after you took off with your tail between your legs?’
Donovan ground his teeth in his skull. ‘I didn’t see her go down.’
‘Then you weren’t paying enough attention,’ Ethan snapped. ‘You’ll see her when she’s good and ready, not before.’
Donovan fumed on the spot for a moment before he turned away and stormed across the lot between the fire truck and the ambulance. Glen Ryan looked at Lopez.
‘I could do with seeing her,’ he said.
‘She could have done with you not high-tailing it out of there, too,’ Lopez uttered, barely looking at him. ‘She wants you, she’ll find you.’
‘Karina and I are none of your business!’ Glen snapped as he pointed at her. ‘You stop sticking your nose into it or I’ll—’
Ethan’s knuckles pushed against the base of Glen’s throat as with the other hand he grabbed the younger man’s wrist and spun him around. Glen hit the side of the ambulance and found himself pinned there, his face squashed against the cold metal. Ethan peered at him with interest. ‘You’ll what?’