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“You’re positive I can’t watch?”

I snarled.

“Positive.”

Rune chuckled again.

“Right, all done.”

“What if you get into trouble?” I said, fear a gnarled knot in my gut.

“I won’t,” she said.

“I’m not shutting this door after you,” I said, close to snatching her up and getting the fuck out of there.

I heard her rummaging around. “Fine, but I’m putting down a salt line, it’s mixed with cemetery dirt so it’s pretty potent. You’ll be safe behind it. If the spirit does try to get to you, and the line thins, leave before it breaks. I’ll follow when the job’s done.”

“Not leaving you behind, Jaz. Not fucking happening.”

“Open the door,” she said without answering me. The doors slid open. “And, Rune, please get Ren out of here if you have to.”

I snarled again.

Jasmine

* * *

I stared into the corridor and tried to keep my breathing even. Unlike the other parts of the building I’d seen, this floor had been left untouched. There was grime on the floor and walls, doors hanging off hinges. The hall was lined with several gurneys, worn leather straps dangling down their sides. I took another step and hissed when I stepped on broken glass.

“Jaz?” Ren called.

“Just some glass on the floor,” I called back and kept moving.

I hadn’t told Ren quite how dangerous this was. I’d dealt with poltergeists before, but never alone, always with Zinny. I knew what I was doing, though, and it wasn’t like I had any other choice. We had no leads. The feral was still on the loose and, who knows, he might have scented Ren and left the area. Even if Ren found him, Agatheena might never give me the information I needed. I didn’t know how long I had before Zinnia was trapped in Limbo for good, and the demon library might actually have some answers.

A crash came from the other end of the hall, and I headed toward it, whispering the spell I’d need to send the soul where he belonged, letting it build and slowly swirl around me. I needed the magic to grow in strength, to gain momentum, especially since it was just me.

I peered through the window in the next door. There were papers scattered around the room. An office. Pushing the door open, I cautiously walked in. The emotional energy in the room was dark, sadistic. Whoever had used this office had saturated it in their ill intent, in their cruelty and the pleasure they took from it. There was an overturned filing cabinet, a hole in the wall where it once stood. Files spilled out from the obvious hiding place. I picked one up, flinching in horror when I saw what was inside.

The pictures were old, in black and while, and they turned my stomach. What was documented here was not just images but written in careful detail was pure, unmistakable evil. Torture. The other files I picked up were the same. This creep had worked here, was charged with looking after the patients in his care, and instead he’d abused them, running secret experiments on them, torturing them over and over again.

Another crash came from out in the hall. I dropped the files and walked back out, glaring back toward the elevator when I saw Ren and Rune both watching me. Ren’s face was contorted with fear, and Rune’s was utterly unreadable. I turned away and carried on. If I wasn’t quietly freaking out, perhaps I’d be embarrassed that I was naked again. But right then that was the last thing on my mind. I walked to the next door. It was stainless steel, no window this time. The emotions coming from that room lifted the hair on my arms and sent icy claws down my spine.

I increased the pace and volume of my spell. “What is evil must not walk among the living. Hell, take this soul so dark, remove it from the mortal realm, never to return.” The poltergeist was behind that door. I felt him. He was excited. He knew I was coming, and he wanted to hurt me. Gripping my knife tighter, I flicked out the blade and sliced the final glyphs into my forearms.

Ren’s snarl echoed down the corridor, but I didn’t dare break concentration and look his way.

I let the blood slide down my arms and onto my feet, letting it strengthen my powers as the spell swirled faster and faster within me. My hair whipped around my shoulders from the force of it, and I lifted my arms and cried it out again, then aimed my hands at the door. It flew open, crashing into the wall, and I walked in.

The poltergeist stood beside a gurney and smiled wide when he saw me. There was some kind of contraption that sent ice through my veins on one side and an electrotherapy machine beside that. There was also a table covered in knives and other things he used to cut his patients. A hand drill for the lobotomies he performed on them while they were still awake, and another table with horrifying things he’d obviously used only on his female patients, in his “study” of the reproductive systems. All of it without consent or anesthesia or pain relief of any kind.

“Welcome,” he said. “Please climb onto the table.”

I stared him down, repeating my spell again and again, louder, until I was screaming it, my hair flying around me.

His twisted features contorted further, and he flew at me. I stumbled back but didn’t stop my chant, didn’t slow. He roared when he realized I was protected and he couldn’t possess me.

Hadeon was going to be pissed I was calling on him so soon. “Hell, take back this soul so dark, remove it from the mortal realm, never to return,” I cried, over and over again.