Sounds came from the hallway, and they were the normal chatter of a ghost-hunting group, complaints about logistics and equipment failure. Kendra wasn’t brave enough to close the door, because then she’d be alone with—
Alone with her thoughts, and no pen and paper to hide behind.
“Mom, where are you?”
“Hey,” someone whispered.
She jumped, though the whisper sounded real enough.
“Who’s there?”
“Me,” said the boy, and Bruce stepped from the shadows.
“How long have you been here?” she said, hiding the quaver in her voice. For just a heartbeat, she’d hoped—or feared—it had been her mother after all.
“Not long,” he said.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Daddy doesn’t know where I am.” The boy’s head hung down and his skin was sallow in the weak light.
“You overheard our argument, didn’t you? Is that what you do, sneak around and spy on people?”
“No, just bored.”
“Well, go be bored somewhere else.”
“You mom’s gone.”
“That’s what I figured. But it’s not any business of yours.”
“Hey, look, 218 is open,” said someone in the hall.
Bruce moved with startling speed and slammed the door. The room was now almost fully dark, lit only by light from the lampposts below.
She couldn’t discern the boy’s outline, so she shouted in the direction of the door. “What did you do that for, twerp?”
He giggled as if playing a game. Someone pounded on the door from outside.
Kendra moved across the carpet, bumping her shin on the coffee table. She bit back a curse and continued to the door, feeling her way in front of her. Voices from outside the door expressed annoyance:
“It’s locked. We’re supposed to hunt here.”
“This is the worst-organized paracon I’ve ever attended.”
“At least the ghosts are having fun.”
Kendra felt along the door until she found the knob, then turned it, bracing herself for embarrassment. Instead, the handle froze.
The room grew darker and Bruce was making a strange noise behind her, halfway between a yowl of pain anda low chuckle. She clawed at the door, desperate for light and air, longing for escape. She knocked on the wood, which was pointless, since the people on the other side were knocking as well.
Fingers brushed across her hair. The little twerp was pestering her, playing games. “Stop it, Bruce. Or I’ll….”
What? Tell on him? Give him a spanking?
The voices on the other side of the door were receding, as if the hunters had given up. “Wait!” Kendra shouted. “I’m locked in.”
The fingers were gone and now there was a squeak, as if Bruce had climbed up on the bed. Then the bedsprings creaked in rhythm, and she could barely make out his form jumping up and down as he cried in a sing-song chant:
“Lock the door and throw away the key,
Stay and play with Mommy and me,
Lock the door and throw away the key,
Stay and play with Mommy and me.”
“Is your mommy here?” Kendra shouted.
He giggled and scrambled off the bed. “No, but yours is.”
Then he crawled under the bed, his muffled laughter almost spookier than his sudden appearance. The little guy had probably gone bonkers, stuck here at the hotel all the time. Nothing to do but find hidden doors and hallways, sneak around and play tricks on the guests, and get people in trouble. She’d probably feel sorry for him as soon as she got done kicking his little butt.
She was kneeling and peering under the bed when the room exploded in light, the door swinging open. Cody stood there in his SSI jumpsuit, a flashlight in his hand.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“Nothing,” she said, trying to act cool, though her cheeks were hot and flushed. “This little twerp—”
She looked under the bed. Nothing there but a rumpled tissue and a thin coat of undisturbed dust.
“I saw Digger leave the room on the video monitor,” Cody said. “When you didn’t come out, I got worried.”
Kendra rose and sat on the bed. “Digger’s not the only one seeing things that aren’t there.”
“You can’t trust anything here,” Cody said. “The MAC Attack is going apeshit. The readings are all over the place. Something’s active for sure.”
“Not you, too,” she said, exhaustion seeping into her bones. Here she was in a darkened bedroom with the stud-muffin Future of Horror, who was apparently paying attention to her whereabouts, but all she wanted was a warm bath and a stack of Red Sonja comics. She was so sick of ghost hunters and their pathetic attempts to reach the Other Side.
“You better get out of here,” Cody said as Digger’s voice erupted in a burst of fuzz from his walkie talkie.
“Nah, I like this room,” she said, lying back on the bed.
“I don’t mean the room,” he said. “I mean the inn.”
“And let the Digger win? You got to be kidding.”
“Damn it, Kendra, don’t be so hard-headed. You don’t mess around with demons.”
She was almost pleased at his anger. Passion was passion, after all, and even though she didn’t quite know what to do with it, arousing it inspired a certain kind of creativity and power. No wonder ghost hunters created their own drama, and invisible drama was the best kind of all. “You better get that,” she said, as Digger repeated his request for all SSI personnel to report to the control room.
“I’m not leaving without you,” he said.
“What’s with people and promises?” she said. “They must have put something funny in the complimentary coffee.”
Cody crossed the room and she closed her eyes, sensing him looming over her. She wondered if he would try anything, but he’d left the door open and he was still wearing that ridiculous jumpsuit. And she wasn’t sure what she would do if he bent close, what with the peeping twerp and the mysterious self-locking door and the fact that she was going to carry her virginity to college. She held her breath and Digger summoned his staff once more.
She sensed Cody’s hesitation, and then the child’s whisper came.
“Stay.”
Kendra opened her eyes. “Did you hear that?”
Cody shook his head. “Come on. The hunt group is coming.”
Chapter 25
The Roach was sure the portal lay below, in the basement.
Intellectually, there was no reason to assume demons would emerge from the ground. Hell was not a lake of fire beneath the surface of the Earth. God had sent the fallen angels to do His dirty work, and so they were as likely to drift down on snowflakes, sluice along on a river current, or ride the wind like the spores of a diseased fungus. No, demons didn’t come from a place—they were everywhere, at all times, in their own dimension and moving parallel to the human world.
In some locations, the fabric between the two dimensions grew thinner, particularly in sites of geographic tension, and The Roach had formed a theory that the nearby Eastern Continental Divide had played havoc here. The blue quartz he’d observed was pocked with crystals, and while the New Age devotees held crystals to be a healing power, The Roach believed energy itself was neither good nor bad. The results of that energy, however, meant the difference between salvation and damnation.
When Wayne Wilson had summoned everyone back to the control room, The Roach had directed his group to rendezvous with the rest of the hunters. He worked best alone, though he wasn’t above using innocents to lure demons into the open. If a spiritually vulnerable person opened themselves to invasion and possession, no demon could resist. The trick was to destroy the demon before it took over the host.