I couldn’t sense anything, not really, but an unnatural chill lingered in the air strong enough to raise goosebumps on my arms. It was something colder, damper than air conditioning could produce. I rubbed my bare arms to try and shake the feeling.
“No,” Mack said grimly. “It’s worse. By about a factor of ten I would say. Cher, you stick with me.”
I’d have no way of knowing something was coming down without him. I had no equipment on me just then. To reassure us both, I put a hand on his shoulder and kept it there.
Eli strode in to stand in the middle of the foyer. There was nothing hesitant about her stride. A queen walking into her own domain would have that kind of confidence. She turned her head, looking every direction as her anchors came to stand at either side, flanking her. “I don’t see it but I sure can see the evidence of it. They didn’t clean up in here.”
True. Glass shards were all over the place.
“We told them not to,” Mack explained. “It was too dangerous.”
“Smart call. We’ll want to clean up some, though, or risk getting cut to ribbons as we work.” She turned and met Mack’s eyes, giving him a serious nod. “It was a good call, stopping where you did and bringing me in. As it is, I think it’s going to take all of us to get this one done. It’s a lot of area, I can tell just from the outside of the building.”
I had a bad feeling about this. “By all of us, do you include Delaney?”
Eli grimaced. “We’ll need his eyes for this. Like I said, it’s a lot of ground. And we’ll have to move very quickly.”
“I’ll watch him,” Quinn promised me. “And squash him if he starts saying something he shouldn’t.”
I wasn’t all too happy about that. But it wasn’t my call, either. “Okay. What do you want us to do?”
“Help them haul the equipment to the front door. Don’t go inside just yet, though.” Eli turned to her anchors. “Someone want to pitch in and help them? I’m going to be setting up seals around the building to ward this place in.”
Quinn and Booker immediately turned to each other and did a quick game of roshambo. Booker won, and Quinn shrugged in resignation. “I’ll go with. Do not come back in here without me, you got it?”
Eli put her good hand on her hip, exasperated. “We’re not stupid, Q.”
Booker backed him up. “No, but you’re excitable. And you make interesting decisions when excited. I got her, Q.”
Grumbling something I probably didn’t want to hear, Eli glared at them for a second before addressing Mack and me. “You game to bust this place tonight?”
“Ready and willing,” Mack promised. “I’m ready to get out of here.”
“Then go get the stuff. I’ll start the prep.”
It was a lot of salt, lights, and such to haul over. Nothing had been unpacked, so we took the time to get the oil lanterns prepped with oil in them and the wicks wet, tested the batteries in the flashlights, etcetera. We wanted to be ready to roll out as soon as Eli gave us the word. With that done, I went to check on her. Eli was down on her knees, a fat piece of chalk in her hand, scribbling something on the sidewalk. I had to squint a bit to make it out. We’d covered the basics in wards, suppressants, and barriers in basic training so I recognized it. I wouldn’t be able to duplicate it, but at least I knew what it was. The circle, with all of its squiggles, was meant to lock a spirit in. Unless something came along to wipe that circle out—like water—it would stay stable for ages.
Our exorcist was apparently not in the mood to fuck around. She wasn’t giving this malevolent spirit a chance to run. I whole-heartedly approved.
I turned in place, looking at the group sitting on the front steps, and gave Delaney a thorough once-over. He looked hangdog. His shoulders were pulled in and slumped, he couldn’t seem to look up past his own shoes, and he only moved when Falisa prodded him. Wow, not emotionally mature enough to take a scolding, was he?
If he pulled his head far enough out of his ass to actually be useful tonight, I’d be very surprised.
Falisa came around to stand next to me. “What’s the plan?”
Eli didn’t look up as she answered. “I want to corner this thing on the main level somewhere. Probably the open common room, so we’ve got room to maneuver. We’re hedging our bets, though. We’ll set up four possible places to trap it so we’re not caught short.”
I liked that, having multiple backup plans. “Where should we start?”
“Start on the third floor and work your way down. If a room is clear, salt it completely and block all access. Line the full room. I don’t want to give this bastard any room to maneuver. I’ll follow in behind and do sigils on all the floors so he can’t pass easily from one level to the next.”
Ken, behind me, commented sardonically, “I thought we were the Salters.”
I glanced back at him in question. I’d not heard the nickname before.
Eli shrugged at him, expression a touch wry. “It’s not that we don’t use salt. It’s just that we generally don’t need to. In this case, I’m not above using anything that will get this thing trapped into a single room. I’m not interested in chasing it about the building for several days.”
That seemed fair enough to me. “Ken, Falisa, if you want to take the right side of the stairs, Mack and I can take the left.”
“Delaney, Quinn, go with them. Work the other side of the hallway,” Eli requested, her attention already back on the circle she was drawing. “I’m done here. Let’s lock this down as quickly as possible.”
Nothing about this process would be fast, so I understood why she wanted all hands on deck. I just dreaded working with Delaney. He must have felt the same way about it as he was reluctant to move and only carried lights in his hands. Like he was already prepared to just drop everything and walk away. Yeah, I didn’t trust him at all.
Still, we had our marching orders. And the sooner we got this done, the sooner we could leave.
17
Brandon didn’t seem to trust Delaney, and I didn’t blame him. I shared the feeling, in fact. Ken looked exasperated with him but didn’t choose to say anything. They fortunately took the other side of the hall from us so we didn’t have to work around him.
We didn’t interact that much as we went into each dorm room, salting along the interior walls. Whoever would have to clean this up later had my sympathies, as we were making a hell of a mess. And I had a feeling it would get worse before it got better.
Entering the fourth or fifth room—I’d honestly lost track—Brandon started on one side, me on the other, shaking salt directly out of the bag as carefully as we could to make a straight-ish line along the baseboards.
“Love. I’m just curious. The spirit you exorcised at Edmée’s. It was doing similar stuff to the one here. Breaking things, overturning furniture, hurting people. I know it was on a smaller scale, but still the same sort of antics. You think it would have gone malevolent eventually?”
“Eh, maybe. It had already become twisted because of its obsession with the house. If people had left the house alone, though, I think it would have eventually gone back to being a normal spirit. It wasn’t trying to be malevolent. This thing, whatever it is, is doing its best to become as bad as possible.”