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I blushed. Ihaddone that. I could still feel myself kind of coming out of a trance when Dev gently pushed on my clenched hands to get me to lower the gun. The time between me rushing in and telling the bastard to freeze and that moment with Dev were kind of a blur. Though a few too many moments between Pax’s and my initial visit to this house and that day were hazy. I was just glad that nobody had been hurt more seriously, and that we’d made it in time before the sadistic fucker had a chance to actually finish what he’d set out to do.
“Everyone good?” Birdie asked. “Make sure to protect yourselves, even though we shouldn’t experience anything too major during the day. Still, the energy in this place is weird and definitely on the dark side, so you never know. And, as we’ve seen on occasion before, if it’s strong enough, it doesn’t matter if the sun is still up or not.”
Wehadseen things during the day on occasion—stuff we weren’t able to explain away. So, I would give her this one. This time. I looked around the room. I saw Dakota wringing her hands, and everyone else nodded in agreement before breaking off to grab what they needed to head to their respective spots.
This was when things got fun.
CHAPTER4
~Paxton~
Ifollowed the ladies up the grand staircase to the second floor, taking a right at the landing in the direction of the currently-under-construction master bedroom that took up the majority of the right wing. I’d been in there before. The space was beautiful with a cream and beige textured finish on the walls and opulent Victorian furnishings. They were still working on the fireplace and the crown molding, and the bathroom was still under construction, only the refinished copper tub in place currently.
Roch had said that his crew had smelled what reminded them of the sewer while in the suite. Had seen tools flying across the room. The window had come slamming down on one of the guy’s hands as he tried to finish the trim, and at one point, two of the crew—guys who spent time togetheroffthe job—got into a fistfight so bad that one of them ended up at the hospital with a fractured eye socket.
When we entered the space, Dakota stopped short. “Whew, boy,” she said and rubbed at her arms. “I wasn’t in here the last time I stopped by. This room is thick.”
I had to agree. It felt wrong. Even more so than the area down below by the crawl space, and that had set off my internal alarms, too. I glanced over at Sky to see her rubbing at her throat. I doubted she even realized she was doing it, but it was clear that the energy of the room affected her, too. I brushed a hand across my crucifix hidden under my shirts.
I grabbed the Handycam and made sure that the battery was fully charged. It often wasn’t so bad during the day, but at night, in places that had residual energies—especially intelligent ones—haunts liked to drain the charge on electronics to muster enough energy to affect the realm of the living.
I started recording and did a pan of the space, making sure to get footage of the so-called hotspot areas. We likely wouldn’t use it for the show unless something incredible happened, seeing as most of the reels for the final product outside of the glamour shots, the introduction, and the outro were night vision, but it was still our job to document anything we did for research purposes.
I focused on Dakota, who had taken a seat on the Queen Anne chair near the fireplace, her Handycam on the side table next to her, pointed her way. She was sitting quietly with her palms turned up on her thighs, eyes closed and breathing even. I knew that she was tapping into her psychic abilities to see what she could sense. Dakota wasn’t as sensitive, and she didn’t have the God-given power that Larken and Dev did, but she was a very gifted medium all the same.
When I shifted to take in the other side of the room, I caught Sky near the bathroom door, her Handycam in her non-dominant hand. She also had an EMF device out and was taking a reading of the space. I walked closer.
“Anything?” I asked.
She lifted the device. “It’s weird. It’s spiky and very inconsistent. The copper tub could have something to do with that, especially if there are magnetized pipes and things are grounded just right, but . . .” She rotated to take in the area to the right of the door, and I saw the meter drop to almost imperceptible levels. She then walked to the other side of the door near the armoire, facing away from the bathroom. “There’s definitely something going on here.” I looked at the device and saw that it was all the way in the red.
She rubbed at her throat again with the side of her thumb, the EMF device still clutched in her fingers. “Hey,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“What?” She looked at me and then seemed to realize what she had been doing. “Oh. Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Just have a tickle or a lump or something. Maybe I didn’t swallow the painkillers I took earlier well enough or I’m allergic to something up here.”
I didn’t think that was it at all, but I didn’t push. I walked to the other side of the room and got some shots of that area and the massive walk-in closet—another place that Roch had said caused some issues with his crew—and then panned back over to Dakota before silently getting closer. I glanced over my shoulder to see that Sky had disappeared into the bathroom. I knew if she needed me to corroborate something, she’d holler, so I stayed where I was and watched Dakota.
She took a deep breath and then wiped her palms on her jeans. I noticed she looked a little tense, the skin around her eyes and mouth pinched a bit more than it should be, especially given she’d gone into her meditative state. She was fidgeting more, too, and generally didn’t when she was working, so I figured it might be a good idea to check on her.
“Dakota. Everything okay?”
She took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. With her eyes still closed, she answered. “I’m fine. But . . . I’m getting all sorts of stuff. Which is actually kind of strange given that it’s still daytime. Means there is a whole lot going on here. And whatever it is has a ton of energy. There are two distinct entities in this room alone. Right now. One is a powerful male presence, very take-charge. Assertive. Maybe even aggressive. The other?” She shook her head. “I can’t pin it down; it’s slippery. But it sets off all my alarm bells. The voice in my head is sibilant. Seductive. Not right at all. And I think it might be speaking in tongues. It makes me feel sick to my stomach.” She opened her eyes and pinned me with a stare. “We might be dealing with more than we bargained for here, Padre. Do you have your gear?”
I nodded and felt my stomach clench. When Birdie had come by a couple of weeks earlier, she’d immediately said that she felt as if at least one of the presences was on the dark side, but we hadn’t had time to get more than that. Regardless, we were prepared to potentially encounter a malevolent entity. Figured we’d likely have to deal with some residual poltergeist activity as the crew had claimed. But an intelligent, non-human spirit was something altogether different—if that’s what this was. We’d have to worry about oppression. Brace against possession. The skeptics in our cast and crew who didn’t naturally shield against such things would be particularly vulnerable, even if their disbelief took some of the evil’s power away.
Despite my sordid past with the Church and the loss of my collar after an unsanctioned exorcism—something that was one hundred percent necessary to save a child’s life—I was still a recognized demonologist. I had the necessary educational background to do what needed to be done. I also had the inner strength, balance, and confidence. The archdiocese didn’t like to claim me, but they didn’t have a choice. I had proven myself as an expert in the field before things went south. Had been given permission by the Holy See to do what needed to be done. Despite the fact that they’d excommunicated me because of their backwards beliefs outside of the one that should matter—the belief in the Holy Trinity, and the safety of humankind and their souls—and I could no longer give or receive certain sacraments and couldn’t perform major rites of exorcism, I could still do the blessings and minor exorcisms required. And I was still a recognized expert in the field. I had the piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life to be deemed what they called alay faithful, and thus able to perform minor rites and blessings.
And where the Church wouldn’t dare to step in—which was often—or wasted too much time deciding if it was worth it for them—also often—I did. Still, I wasn’t sure I was up for something big if that’s what this ended up being. It had been a while since I had been in the thick of something really bad. I had contacts, of course, people I knew who could do what we might need and assist me in the rite of major exorcism if it came to that, but they were those I wasn’t too keen on reaching out to. People from my past that I liked to keep buried as much as possible.
Thinking of the skeptics and nonbelievers on our team, I immediately thought of Sky and felt as if I should go and check on her. “You good?” I asked Dakota.
“Yeah, I’m gonna try and get some more, but I’m going to be careful. I don’t even want to do any automatic writing in here. I don’t feel safe without additional precautions. There’s clearly already a doorway open. We don’t need to let anything else in before we’re ready. The boss and Birdie haven’t done their thing with the property yet, setting the circle and opening the way, and we’re not as protected as we probably should be.”
“Be safe,” I said and then nodded and headed to the bathroom. I panned the area with the camera and swore I saw something but figured it was probably just an optical illusion. But the camera had been on, so we’d review the footage later for any light anomalies.
Sky was in the corner by the tub, sitting on an upholstered bench that had been built into the corner of the walls with storage underneath, her Handycam propped near her. Her kit was open at her feet, and I saw her messing with something I didn’t recognize. Trying not to startle her, I knocked a knuckle twice on the doorjamb.
Her head jerked up anyway, and her eyes went a little wide. “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. What’s up?”
