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“I’d hate to have the electricity bill for that,” Camille whispered. But as we moved to leave, there was another sound—a popping, or hissing, or something of that sort, and we slowly looked back.
The house was on fire, burning with a brilliant flame.
“Shit.” Chase pulled out his phone and began to dial 911.
“Wait.” I looked at him. “We can’t let the firefighters go in there—the ghosts are in there, and the demon. Best thing is to just let it burn to the ground. Hopefully, the insurance will pay off and Fritz and Abby can find another house. Because they’re never going to reclaim that one. It’s too far gone.”
Chase gave me a long look, then glanced at the house again. “You know that I can’t…” He stopped. “Yeah…and if anybody asks, we weren’t here to see it start, so we couldn’t report it.”
We waited, watching the house, for another ten minutes and then Roz edged across the street and, taking out one of his little specials, tossed it into the flames, then ran back to us.
“Duck!”
We turned to cover, just in time to miss the explosion. As the house roared to life with an increase in heat and flame, I knew there would be nothing left. Whatever Roz had used had magnified the flames. And there would be nothing to prove that the ghosts had been there, or anything else.
The fire marshal wouldn’t find any concrete reason—so faulty wiring would most likely be blamed. So many of the old houses needed rewiring, and that had been a project on Fritz and Abby’s list. Insurance would chalk it up to accident. And they would get their money and be able to move on.
After another five minutes, Chase called Yugi. By the time the fire trucks got there, the house had imploded and there was nothing left but gutted timbers and a burned-out shell. The basement was open to the rain, the main floor vanished among the flames. Chase talked to the fire marshal, and I’m not sure what he told them, but within a few minutes, we were ready to head out.
“Go home,” I told Camille and Morio. “I have to get my car from headquarters anyway. I’ll meet you later. I may stop in at the Wayfarer to see what’s shaking there.”
They nodded and wearily drove off, taking Roz with them. As I climbed into the prowl car with Chase, I glanced over at him.
“Okay, truth. What the hell were you doing with that little girl’s ghost? I know you were trying to free her from the spirit, but how did you know what to do? And what were you doing?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, really. I don’t know much of what I’m doing lately, especially when it comes to…magic? Psychic stuff? I really have no clue. I just feel this prompting inside and I can’t ignore it till I do what it wants. I knew that I could untangle her from him, if I only had enough time. But it turned into a tug-of-war match. And then, after he vanished, I knew that I could help those kids over to the other side. All I had to do was hug them, pull them in, and they’d be free.”>“What is it?” Chase stopped short when the little girl came into view. “Oh no.”
“He’s tied her spirit to his. Can you do anything?” I had no idea why I thought he might be able to help, but something inside urged me to let him try.
Chase licked his lips as he stared at the girl. “I might. But you have to be ready.”
“Ready to do what?”
“When I give the word, throw yourself between the spirit and her. Are you willing to do that? It could be deadly.” He looked frightened, but I could read the determination in his eyes. Chase hated it when anybody hurt a child—be the attacker corporeal or spirit.
I nodded. “Yeah. Go for it.”
Chase reached out to the little girl. A flicker of energy oozed out from his hands, and the girl turned toward him, eyes wide. She reached out to him, then opened her mouth. A haunting scream echoed through the room.
The spirit, startled, whirled around. When he saw what Chase was doing, he roared—his anger shook the room, and pens and pencils and the cookie plate and anything else that wasn’t nailed down started flying through the air.
Camille and Morio began a low incantation, driving forward as if they were plowing through a whirlwind or hurricane, one step at a time, their palms out, energy crackling before them.
A shriek caught me off guard. I stumbled back, turning to see Roz, still pinned to the wall, but now a knife was lodged in his shoulder.
I raced over to him and levitated up to eye level. As I grabbed the hilt—it was a kitchen knife, like a serrated tomato knife—and yanked, he let out a curse and I stuck the knife in my belt, not wanting it to become airborne again. I tried to pry him off the wall, but to no avail. Blood fountained from his wound but it wasn’t in a vital area and, while it might sting, right now it didn’t put him in danger. But if anything else aimed itself for him, he could be spitted like a rotisserie chicken.
Torn—Roz needed me to protect him, but the spirit was bearing down on Chase—I tried to weigh where I was needed most.
“Go, Chase needs you!” Roz struggled to move his head. “Menolly, you know he can’t fight that creature!”
I glanced around. Things were still flying through the air, but Roz was right. Chase was the most vulnerable. I nodded and, wishing I could be in two places at once, raced back to Chase’s side.
He and the ghost were playing tug-of-war with the girl’s spirit, dragging her back and forth. She was crying, but no sound escaped her lips. I landed by Chase just in time to see a chair come flying across the room at him. I couldn’t intervene directly—the legs were pointed in our direction and one wrong placement and I’d have a stake through the heart. So I dove for the detective, taking him down to sprawl on the floor.
His grasp on the girl broke and the spirit reared up again, his laughter shaking the walls. He lunged for the girl, a lecherous look in his eye, but at that moment, Camille and Morio sent a bolt of energy into him.
Spirits dance and spirits writhe,
