I looked at Robert quietly swaying next to Feish, a thought blooming.
“Robert,” I said quietly. “Most people can’t see you. I want you to take my bag.” I handed it over to him. “You think you can take it with you when you turn into a single finger bone?”
Robert slowed his swaying. “Friend.”
“Yes, can you hide this?” I pointed at the bag on his shoulder, blinked, and he was gone. My bag had disappeared with him, and the finger bone I carried around lay on the floor.
I scooped it up and tucked it into my bra. If they frisked me that well, they deserved to find a bone in my bra.
7
We waited another thirty minutes until the voices from Grimm’s room slid away and the sound of feet faded, leaving us sitting in silence in the dark in a haunted hotel. Robert’s finger bone was tucked between my boobs, and Feish and I moved to the door. The old bedroom in the Marshall House that we hid in smelled musty with disuse, something that had only slowly become apparent to me.
“You pick up on any ghosts?” Feish asked as we waited by the door.
“Just that initial pull and then nothing,” I said softly. I wondered at that. I mean, I obviously had an affinity for the dead, more so after my little dying escapade in the graveyard not long ago. And the ghosts here in the Marshall House were notorious for being aggressive, and in some cases, downright violent if they decided they didn’t like you. And yet I’d felt nothing more than that slight pull toward the stairs, and then another pulse toward Grimm’s hallway and his room.
Almost like whatever entity was here had wanted me to find Grimm and his pages. Or had Grimm himself drawn me to him?
Interesting. I tucked those thoughts away and focused on the present moment.
I twisted the door handle and peeked out. The hallway was empty, which was what we’d hoped for, although we were ready to rumble if we were stopped. Who was I kidding, there would be no rumbling. More like talking smack and making a run for it while they were distracted by my insults.
If we got caught, Feish would let me do the talking. The story we’d concocted was that we were here doing some ghost hunting for a client, nothing more, and if they questioned it, then I would tell them about the silvery shadows that had led me down the hall.
We walked toward the elevator, hit the button, and stepped in. There was no one with us, and partway down, the lights in the elevator flickered. The car slowed and I let out a groan, hitting the button for the first floor.
“No, no getting stuck in an elevator!” I snapped as I jammed the button harder as if that would get my point across.
The elevator stopped completely and the lights went out. “Are you kidding me?” I yelled into the darkness. “Seriously?”
Feish grabbed my arm around the bicep and squeezed hard enough for her nails to dig in. “Feish, ouch, ease off!”
“I not touching you,” she said softly.
I went very still and looked over my shoulder, not really sure I’d be able to see anything in the pitch black. The pale, shimmering face of a woman peered back at me, eyes focused and unblinking. I couldn’t tell if she was old or young. Only that her clothing was from long since past, likely the eighteen hundreds. Her hair was pulled into a bun at the back of her head with tendrils flowing out from around it.
The hand on my arm tightened and the mouth of the ghost opened.
I heard a word not spoken aloud.
Vampire.
“Oh, for duck’s sake, are you serious?” I whispered, and I most certainly did not use the autocorrect of duck.
The ghost gave a slow nod and then disappeared. The elevator lights flicked on and the elevator began to slide downward to the lobby. I hit the second-floor button, running on instinct.
“What are you doing?” Feish whispered. I looked at her to see her shaking and rubbing her arms. I put a hand out to her and she took it. “It got very cold. Was it a ghost? I couldn’t see what you were talking to.”
“Yeah,” I responded, although I hadn’t noticed the cold as much as Feish obviously did. “We’re getting out on the second floor. We’ll find a way out from there.”
The elevator stopped a second later on said floor. The doors opened and I peeked out, checking both directions. If the ghost woman was right and there was a vampire somewhere around here, I would do my best to avoid the fanged entity. That was not a critter I wanted to interact with, thank you very much.
I kept a hand on Feish and her webbed fingers tightened over mine, trembling slightly. “I think I’d like to not be with you the next time you ghost hunt,” she said.
I slowed as we approached the stairwell that would lead down to the lobby. The light above flickered and went out, and the ghost woman from the elevator made a reappearance and shook her head. She pointed to the door to her left and I went straight for it.
“You see her that time?” I whispered.
“Yes. You think it’s a good idea to trust a ghost?” Feish asked. “Especially when the ghost is here in this place?”
“I’m less afraid of a ghost than I am of what she says is in the hotel.” I tugged Feish along with me. Not that she was slowing me down, but a growing sense of urgency pushed me onward. Like we had to get out of the hallway before something bad showed up.
I put a hand on the door to the room, fully expecting it to be locked. The knob was ice cold, but otherwise, it twisted easily in my hand. I stepped into the dark room beyond it, Feish behind me.
The door clicked shut, and I found myself staring into a room full of ghosts.
And when I say full, I mean ducking full.
Men, women, a few children, all in a variety of clothing representing many periods of time. Some looked fresh, new is the only word I had for them, and others were faded like the silvery woman who’d directed me here. Many were dressed in army fatigues from eras gone by, their bodies still showing horrific injuries.
I took a deep breath, my exhale showing the heat of my body clearly in a puff of mist. Feish was shaking hard, and I didn’t think it was from fear. “The cold bothers you?”
“I’m a river maid. My body temperature picks up on the environment around me,” she said.
“Okay, let’s make this quick.” I dipped my voice low. “You all know I can see you?” One by one, the various ghosts nodded in my direction. “And you know that something bad is happening here?”
Again, they all nodded.
“Here’s the deal,” I whispered. “We have to get out of here. If there really is—” I didn’t want to say vampire out loud as if that would make it more real. Which was kind of ridiculous given that I was having a discussion with a roomful of ghosts. “—that fanged creature here, then we need to go. We need to tell someone.”
The ghosts looked at one another, then slowly parted and pointed to the window. Three strides took us across the room, and I shoved Feish toward the old glass. “You go.” And on a sudden gut feeling, I pulled Robert’s finger bone out of my bra.
“I need the book out of my bag, Robert.”
He stood up, between one blink and the next, swaying there next to me, my bag hanging over his shoulder. I reached for it, dug around in it and pulled out the spell book from the used book store. “I’ll keep this with me.”