Poltergeist

I was stumbling a little, panting, when I came out again at another wall. The silken strand of Celia pointed ahead and upward. I wrenched myself back to normal, pounding to a halt in front of the Harvard Exit Theatre.

Ian worked there, but Ana or Ken might have followed him. I saw no sign of Solis, but everyone was ahead of me. Even if Solis was inside ready to arrest one of them, my capturing the poltergeist could only help. I turned back toward the cemetery, hoping I had enough time to retrieve the ghost-bottle before Celia moved.

CHAPTER 27

I got lucky and caught a bus up to the cemetery to pick up my truck and retrieve the trap for Celia. I left the Rover questionably parked near the theater and bought myself inside. The lobby was busy with a moving crowd of filmgoers—a few faces seemed almost familiar, but none of them was part of Tuckman's group. I peered through the Grey for Celia, my eyes skipping over mist-shrouded faces.

Flashes of jagged time and paranormal streamers of yellow and red tangled over the crowd, vanishing through the ceiling. Whoever I wanted was upstairs. I shoved my way through the crowd and up the steps. I bolted around several normal people on the landing and pelted on to the top floor and through the staff only door to the attic, following the thickening thread of energy and feeling it pulling on my bones.

There were voices above me and I slowed down, quieting my steps along the edges of the treads. So long as they were talking, no one was killing anyone—I hoped. I swapped the silvered glass jar into my left hand and let my right drift to my back. Pistol still snug in its holster under my jacket, I continued up the stair.

At the top lay a low corridor with two doors—one an inch or so ajar. I didn't have to duck, but I could feel the rough ceiling catching my hair as I sidled along the wall toward that door. I drew close and squinted through the opening.

The room was a storage area full of old equipment. Small, half-height doors on each end probably led to smaller attic spaces full of wiring and pipes. Dust-choked slices of light fell through a louvered ventilator just above Ian's head, leaving pale stripes on the floor in front of Ana's feet. Celia's threads were festooned like thick ropes around the room, clothing Ian in spectral illumination, but I couldn't see the entity itself from my position.

"— stupid little slant-eyed bitch," Ian hissed.

"Shut up! Just shut up, Ian!" Ana yelled. "You tell me where you got these!”

She flung a shiny object at him. It jangled to the floor in a sprawl of bright brass, steel, and black plastic.

"Those are Mark's keys. Where did you get them?" Ana demanded, her voice rising in hysteria.

In the mote of light I could just pick out the tubular shape of the bike lock key.

"You want to know?" Ian asked, his face going feral and calculating. "Then come real, real close and I'll whisper in your ear. We'll cuddle up like we used to and I'll tell you everything you want to hear.”

Ana clamped her jaw tight, starting to lean forward.

I could feel the pressure of Celia's presence crush against me and the room flickered red to my eyes.

I shoved through the door.

Airless, sweltering, the room blazed in hot colors and thick coils of Grey energy. Ian and Ana both jerked their heads toward me. I could see a red line, flaring and thick as an ancient python, pulsing from Ian's body. Ana's own yellow thread was spindling away, drawing her, helpless, toward him.

I rushed to her and shoved her out of the room. "Run," I ordered, slamming the door. Then I turned back to Ian. It would be useless, but I drew the gun anyway, hoping Ian would choose to concentrate on the apparent and immediate threat, rather than on his ex-girlfriend. The press of Celia's power pulled back as if the entity were surprised. I knew it was Ian's surprise, but the feeling was eerie nonetheless.

"How 'bout you tell me where you got those keys," I invited. "But I think I'll stay right here—you don't look so cuddly to me.”

His eyes locked on the gun for a moment, then shifted back up to me. There was a quiver of tense uncertainty in the air between us. "You. . you stupid, stupid bitch.”

"You're awfully fond of that phrase. Tell me about the keys.”

"Fuck you.”

I laughed. "Heck of a vocabulary you have, Ian. With that sort of charm, I guess you figured Ana'd come crawling back to you.”

"She did!”

"Didn't look that way to me.”

"I'd have gotten her back. Her and that half-breed bastard.”

"Wrong kind of Indian," I needled.

"Shut up! You don't know what you're messing with. I can hurt you without even touching you! I can take them out the same way." I could almost see him calculating his chance of launching Celia against me versus the risk of a bullet.

"Like you took out Mark?" I asked, drawing on his vanity—hoping his desire to brag would hold him back a moment.

Viciousness dripped from his voice. "He deserved it! I didn't even know I could do it, but it was easy. How could Cara want him when he was faking things I could do for real? He didn't deserve her!”

"And you killed him because Mark had what you couldn't get. What, did you see him with Cara? Or did you follow her to his place?" I heard something moving with stealth toward the door. I had to draw Celia away from whoever gathered their strength there.

Ian ranted on. "She acted like a whore," he spat. "She told me off, but I followed her. When I saw her come out, I was angry and it was so easy! He was a liar and a cheat and it was easy to crush him. And it felt so good—like breaking something you've always hated. I just wanted him dead and he was dead. And it'll be the same with that slut and her fuck toy!”

Ragged instants of memory flared as he screamed at me: wrenching impressions of creatures suffering; the green snap of bone; the powdery smash of plaster and a wash of blood; unholy thrill reflected in a dying eye.

My hand tensed around the pistol grips and I felt the HK's cocking lever compress the spring to the limit. A desire to squeeze the trigger and wipe out the source of those images fought with my urge to puke. But I only looked at Ian and raised a cynical eyebrow.

He glared at me, his stare blazing, his whole form seeming engulfed in flames and fury. The presence of the entity bloomed and expanded at my back, grinding against my spine, teetering on the brink of eruption. I felt flayed and sick with the sudden stink of it—dead things vomited up by the sea to rot on the shore in the reek of half-burned gunpowder.

I laughed at him again. I decocked the pistol and tucked it back into the holster.

"You sad, ridiculous boy. You think you can hurt them with that?" I demanded, jerking my head toward the mass of Celia gathering behind me. "You'll have to come through me first, freak.”

Celia exploded against me as I dove into the Grey I scrambled through the history of the building, finding an open door and dodging through it as heavy boots pounded into the room. Shouts, shots, noise faded into the mist of the Grey as I ran from the u

It howled like Nemesis descending. I stumbled, tumbled, plummeted into void space. . and landed with a jarring thump in something that stank of sewer and boiled with eldritch things. I was somewhere deep in the underlay of Seattle's history. Keeping a hand tight around the ghost-bottle, I clambered back to my feet and ran as fast as the clutching, ravenous mist would let me. I hurtled down a long tu

Celia caught me and buffeted me into an incorporeal wall. My head rang against stone and I slid down into cold. I wondered for an instant what would happen if I died here, but I didn't want to find out and scrabbled away as the entity re-gathered its force.