“Nothing sticks to you that you don’t invite, right?” Cody said.
True dat, little friend. “But you can be tricked.”
Cody perched a tripod in the corner of the dining hall. “Other people can be tricked. Not me.”
“You just haven’t been presented with the right temptation yet,” The Roach said, thinking of Kendra.
“Oh, I’ve had a few,” the teen responded. “Jesus wandering in the desert and all that. Keep your heart pure and you’ll be okay.”
Cody reeled out some black, plastic-sheathed cables, keeping them out of the traffic areas as he set up his sophisticated data-collection system. The paranormal field had exploded with technical gear in the last decade as profit margin sparked its own brand of ingenuity. While a few technogeeks had invented tandem devices to combine various measurements, Cody had developed software that charted information from multiple sources. All the MAC Attack needed was a marketing push and Cody would be set for life.
“We’ve got a visitor,” Roach said. A shadow shimmered in the cut glass of the ornate dining-room door. The round tables were bare, covered by white linen and an air of expectation, as if invisible diners had eaten and were now waiting for dessert.
The door creaked open and in came Kendra. “You guys ever heard of a light switch?”
She flicked on the electric chandeliers, but an incipient gloom still clung to the corners like a permanent stain.
“Ghost hunters do it in the dark,” Cody said.
“Yeah, yeah, and all night long, too. I’ve heard it before. When you going to come up with some new stuff?”
Cody looked past the camera he was mounting to Roach. “I’ve got to get this lady on my payroll.”
“You don’t have any payroll,” Roach said. “Remember, you’re the ‘future of horror.’ You ain’t happened yet.”
As Kendra approached, Cody made a show of swiveling his camera toward her, as if recording her walk. She immediately broke into a stilted, filly-like strut, like a model on a runway. She was overdoing it, a little uncomfortable in her flirting.
“I’m too sexy for my shoes,” she rapped, in a send-up of the old Right Said Fred song.
“Paranormal poster child,” The Roach said. “You’ll be ready to take over for Digger any day now.”
“Cool it, Roach. I’m not legal yet. Besides, I’m going to art school.”
Cody propped a ladder against the wall. “You don’t believe in any of this stuff, do you?”
Kendra sat down on one of the tables, and it wobbled, throwing off her calm insouciance. “Nothing personal, Cody. But I’ll believe it when I see it, and you haven’t shown me anything yet.”
Whoa, she’s good. Roach ogled her as much as he could get away with, noticing how much her figure had filled out in the past year. The pesky little brat was swelling into a full-blown tart. If I were 10 years younger and had a shred less morality...
“What does Digger think about having a heathen in the family?” Cody climbed the ladder to tape a remote thermometer to the wall.
“I don’t think he’s noticed,” Kendra said. “But I talk to my mom all the time.”
“Communing with the dead?” Cody said.
“I call it praying,” Kendra said. “Your mileage may vary.”
Roach checked the electromagnetic levels in the room and marked them down. While Cody’s program would record the data automatically, Roach still found comfort in pen and paper. He’d seen computers go dead along with other equipment, especially when demons needed a handy power source while entering the physical realm.
“Better watch your aura,” Cody said. “Roach says there are some Dark Ones here.”
“I don’t get it,” Kendra said. “If God has the power to throw angels out of heaven, why would He allow them to hang around down here and tempt people with evil, possess them, or whatever?”
“God needs somebody to do His dirty work,” Roach said. “Keeps his hands clean.”
“What do the demons get out of it? I mean, Lucifer got tossed out on his buns because he wanted to be top dog, and now he’s sitting around plotting his comeback?”
“That’s what the Book of Revelation is all about,” Roach said, though that biblical text was clouded by metaphor and poetic nonsense. “The Fallen go for it, they get Earth for a thousand years, just enough for them to get a taste, and then–whammo–God yanks the bone out of their mouths.”
“Okay, so they’re waiting for their day in the sun,” Kendra said. “Then why are they messing around in the meantime? If demons walk among us, how come none of us are possessed?”
The innocence of youth. Where do you think your own sins come from, Digger Junior? And you don’t even have to rely on evil’s influence spreading from within, because sooner or later the Devil’s hammer is going to hit you from the outside.
“Demons can’t work without invitation,” Roach said. “So it’s a choice. That’s what the whole heaven-and-hell thing is all about.”
“Lighten up,” Cody said. “You’re going to give the paranormal industry a bad name. I’d rather be seen as a bunch of opportunistic flakes than Gloomy Doomies.”
“What good are numbers in matters of faith?” Kendra said. “You can pile up specs until the end of time and never come up with an answer to the big question.”
Cody grinned a little at the compliment, but uncertainty clouded his features. “What’s your point?”
“You’re trying to prove the unprovable, Dad’s trying to know the unknowable, Roach is trying to defeat the invincible. We’re all just going through the motions and it all comes out the same in the end.”
“Whoa,” Cody said. “I didn’t realize you were an existentialist.”
She slid off the table, mussing the linen, and headed for the door. “Nah, I’m just a cartoon character. Don’t mind me.”
Roach watched Cody’s eyes as they consumed every detail of the girl’s movement. Confident she was being watched, she gave a flip of her hair, blending shadow and light, and lapsed into a subtle imitation of her catwalk strut.
Yes, he’s watching, you little vixen. But he’s not the only one.
The demon in the corner, which had not yet given itself a name, nodded in agreement.
Chapter 14
“You shouldn’t have tipped the lamp so fast,” Duncan said.
Ann, aiming her digital camera into a mirror so that it caught a slanted view of the third-floor hall, said, “It wasn’t me, it was that cranky old cynic, Gelbaugh.”
“You’re the cranky old cynic. Besides, he was all the way across the room.”
The hall was buckled, the decades warping the wood beneath the frayed gray carpet. The skewed geometry no doubt contributed to paranormal delusions, and Ann figured to play it to her advantage. Using the mirror, she was able to distort the architecture even further. She clicked, and the flash illuminated the grim passageway.
“I wouldn’t put it past Digger Wilson to rig it himself,” Duncan said. “Maybe a thin fishing line tied to the lamp cord.”
Ann took another photo. “Doubtful. He would have played the crowd a little, let the drama build toward a satisfying climax. He’s a showman if nothing else.”
A small group turned the corner at the far end of the hall, led by a middle-aged man in an SSI jumpsuit. While some of the hunters were solemn and had haunted looks about their eyes, this group was boisterous and laughing.
“No respect for the dead,” Duncan said.
“Judging from the roster, most of these people are from established groups,” Ann said. “I guess they all want a paranormal show on the Sci Fi Channel.”
“Light on the ‘science,’ but heavy on the ‘fiction,’” Duncan said. “But I doubt if there’s a lot of demand for the ‘Skeptic’s Channel.’”
“Skeptic? I’m not a skeptic. Skeptics are still open to possibility.”
Ann and Duncan pressed against the wall to allow the group passage. The jump-suited group leader smiled at them and glanced at their name tags. The walkie talkie on his hip hissed and squawked, and Digger’s voice rode a wave of static: “We’ll have to regroup, folks. Please return to the control room.”