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“Are the guards posted outside?”
Rozurial nodded. “They are. And your girlfriend’s here, but she’s taking a nap right now. Nerissa and I are going to stay with Delilah and Iris until you get back. Vanzir’s more effective around ghosts than I am.”
That meant it came down to Camil e and me, Smoky, Tril ian, Morio, Vanzir, and Shade.
Camil e and Morio would probably be our most effective weapons against the spirits, considering the death magic they were able to cook up between them.
“Okay, then. Let’s get a move on. Shade, you and Vanzir can ride with me. Camil e, we’l meet you guys there. Address?”
“Sent to your cel phone,” she said.
And so we headed out, into the night, to rescue a group of FBHs who wanted nothing more than to see me turn to dust. Just one of life’s little ironies.
The city streets sped by, a blur of lights, and the wheels of my Jag silently ate up the miles. We lived out in Bel es-Faire, but it wouldn’t take us long to speed over to the Greenbelt Park District.
The snow was softly fal ing, muting the sounds of traffic, and my windshield wipers kept time with the music as it thundered through the car. Camil e was up ahead, adeptly skirting the patches of ice marbling the road.
Final y, she swung a left turn at Daybreak Loop and I fol owed. Another right and then straight and we entered the Greenbelt Park District. Camil e slowed and I knew she was looking for street names. Another five minutes and she signaled a right turn, and I did the same. Halfway down the block we could see several police cruisers, and I slipped into a parking space right behind Camil e and her men. As they leaped out of the Lexus, Vanzir, Shade, and I slid out of my Jag and strode over to meet them. Silently, as a group, we headed in Chase’s direction.
Chase had cordoned off the road in the opposite direction, and behind the police barricades we could see a smal group of people, al screaming and shouting. Several of them carried camcorders, and a few had other assorted electronics draped around their necks. I immediately recognized them as gadgets for ghost hunting. Oh yeah, this was going to be fun.
“Let us in—”
“I can feel them—they need to be released!”
“Freedom of the press! You’re trampling on my First Amendment rights!”
I glanced at the group as Chase hurried over to us. “Troublemakers?”
“They wouldn’t be if they weren’t so cocky.” He let out a little growl and shook his head. For a moment his eyes shone in the darkness. Eye shine, like a cat. But he didn’t seem to realize it and I decided to leave that little conversation for later, when we weren’t facing big bad ghosties.
“What’s the situation?” I glanced over at the building in front of which we were standing. A simple one-story building, it looked like it had once been a bar or a smal diner. “Hostages in there?”
He nodded. “Yeah, in the basement. At least that’s the last message we got from one of the women trapped down there. Five people are down there. The last we heard, the ghosts were tearing up the joint—ful -on poltergeist activity, swiping passes at the ghost hunters, including claw marks. And we aren’t talking Casper the Friendly here.”
I glanced over at Camil e. “What do you and Morio think?”
She shrugged, looking around. Morio had already gone into a trance, looking for al the world like he was stoned out of his mind. But even I knew that he was off on the astral, feeling out the situation.
“Chase, is there anything else you can tel us? Do you know what this place was? Were there any murders here? This is hardcore Earthside supernatural activity, so something brutal must have gone down around here.”
“I’ve got Yugi running a check on it,” he said, then stopped. “Just a minute.” He pressed his hand against his ear, and I realized he was wearing a Bluetooth earpiece. “It’s him. Give me five.”
Camil e held out her hand and jumped. “I can feel it from out here. You can’t tel me that something horrible didn’t happen here.”
Morio snapped out of his trance at that point. “This entire area is a beacon for Netherworld activity. The energy reads like a cloud of gaseous green pain. I don’t know why, but I think this district has become the gathering place for malcontented spirits al around the city.”
“We can’t take them al on—not at once.” Camil e pointed toward the building. “We’l have to focus on the ones in there.”
“Did you bring the Black Unicorn horn?” I was hoping she’d say yes, but once again, wishes don’t always play into reality.
“No, tonight’s the new moon and it needs to finish charging. It took a long time to recover after my night with the Hunt.” A haunted look crossed her face, and I knew she was remembering. When you sacrifice an Immortal, even if he’s to be reincarnated and chose you as his executioner, you don’t just forget it and go along your merry way. Camil e had been emotional y scarred by the experience, even though it had earned her the mantle of priestess. “You’re going to have to make do with Moon and death magic.”
“Better the death magic,” I mumbled. Camil e’s Moon magic went astray al too often. Although now that she was working under the dark of the moon more, she seemed to be doing a little better.
She’d been assigned the wrong phase since childhood, and it had caused her powers to short-circuit, perhaps more so than her half-human heritage. We weren’t sure yet.
I motioned to the others. “Fal in behind me. Shade, you can walk in the shadows. Wil you slip up ahead and find out what’s going on?”
