Unholy Ground Read online

  Then there was her dramatic collapse in the dining room. It was kind of terrifying to watch herself slump to the floor in a faint like that, even though Audrey knew she’d survived it just fine. And then Michael immediately dropping to his knees next to her to check her pulse, make sure she was breathing. Of course, she didn’t remember any of that because she’d been passed out at the time, but a certain warmth went through her while observing his solicitude, the way he’d held her until she woke up.

  Oh, she remembered those strong arms around her all too well. In a way, that might have been when she started to fall for him, although at the time she would never have admitted to such weakness, especially where Michael Covenant was concerned.

  And the terrifying encounter in the master bath, with those entities starting to boil out of the mirror frames. Michael reached over and took her free hand, as if he knew that having to see these things again would be traumatic, even though the demons had been banished from the house and couldn’t threaten anyone any longer.

  “It looks so real,” she murmured, her fingers clenching against his. “For some reason, I was thinking it would all look like special effects on playback.”

  “I know, right?” Colin said, a certain glee returning to his voice. He’d been watching in silence this far but obviously couldn’t contain himself any longer. “It looks bloody magnificent.”

  Audrey could only give a distracted nod, because she was looking at the TV again, watching as the mirrors shattered, flinging glass everywhere. Watching it, she still couldn’t believe she hadn’t suffered a single cut. And because she was watching so closely, she noticed something strange.

  “Did you see that?” she asked sharply.

  “What?” Michael and Colin said, almost in unison.

  “Right after the mirror shattered, but before it became whole again. There’s some sort of weird fuzzy light near the top of my head.” And now it was gone, because right as Michael was saying, Did you get that?, Colin had stopped recording.

  “Roll it back,” Michael said.

  Colin backed up a few frames and then paused the video. Yes, there was an insubstantial, golden-white glow surrounding her head and face, not enough to obscure her features. In fact, it was so faint that Audrey wondered if she was simply seeing a reflection on the TV screen, not something that was actually there on the recording.

  She glanced over at Michael, and he nodded, looking more puzzled than alarmed.

  “I see it, too,” he said. “Interesting.”

  “What is it?” She wished she could be as calm as he about the unnatural manifestation.

  He rubbed his chin with his free hand. “I’m not sure. Could just be an artifact of the lighting.”

  “No,” Colin said at once. “That’s not what it is. You see as Audrey’s backing away? It moves with her. If it was something to do with the lights we were using, it would have been stationary.”

  “A demon?” she asked, trying to will away the chill which went through her at that particular possibility.

  “I don’t think so,” Michael replied. “They don’t manifest like that.” For a moment, he was silent, eyes narrowed as he regarded the still image on the television screen. Then a small smile touched his lips. “I think I know who that is.”

  “‘Who’?” she repeated, not sure she’d heard him correctly, even as Colin said,

  “What the hell are you talking about, mate?”

  “That light.” Michael let go of Audrey’s hand so he could walk over to the television and use his forefinger to draw an outline around the strange, misty glow that seemed to have made a nebulous halo around her head. “I think this is when Jeffrey Whitcomb first glommed on to you, Audrey.”

  Her voice flat, she said, “That’s not possible.” The last thing she wanted to believe was that Whitcomb’s shade had somehow fastened itself to her that early in the process.

  “What’s not possible about it?” Michael had his head tilted to one side as he looked at the image on the TV screen and was studying it with some intensity, but then he glanced back at her, his expression softening. “I’m sorry — I guess it could be a little disconcerting to know you attracted his attention from the beginning.”

  “Just a little,” she managed, then reached for her Chardonnay and took such a large swallow that it was pretty much gone.

  “Let me get you some more.”

  He hurried out of the family room and into the kitchen, and returned a minute later with the bottle of wine. After refilling her glass, he topped off his own and Colin’s. Audrey took another gulp before she put the wine back down on the coffee table.

  “I don’t get it,” Colin said, speculative gaze sliding toward Audrey and then back toward the TV. “We never had any reports of the house being haunted. Just…infested.”

  “Not all ghosts strive to make their presence known,” Michael replied. He drank some of his Chardonnay, then went on, “And considering how ‘noisy’ the demons were in that house, I’m not surprised no one who lived in the mansion noticed that Whitcomb was there. He probably wanted it that way.”

  “The demons didn’t know he was haunting the place?” Audrey asked. Now that she’d had a few more swallows of wine, her nerves didn’t feel quite as rattled. Still, it was a strange sensation to realize she’d picked up Jeffrey Whitcomb that very first day. It felt like having a wad of supernatural gum stuck to your shoe.

  Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. There isn’t actually a lot of documentation involving buildings that have both regular hauntings and demon manifestations. The evidence seems to suggest that they occupy different realms, so to speak. So it’s possible they didn’t know he was there, or at least viewed him as harmless.”

  “The Whitcomb-demon didn’t think he was harmless,” she protested. Almost involuntarily, one hand went to her throat, where she could still feel the pressure of his fingers as he’d squeezed her neck. “He wanted to make damn sure the real Whitcomb couldn’t give me any actionable information.”

  “The what?” Colin looked back and forth from Audrey to Michael, surprise and consternation warring in his features. “What are you lot going on about?”

  Obviously, Michael hadn’t filled Colin in on everything that had happened at the Colorado mansion. “I had a dream,” she said, her tone short. She had a feeling there wasn’t much point in trying to tell him that the “dream” had really been a projection on the astral plane. Colin might pretend to an interest in the supernatural, but he was far too down-to-earth to believe in astral projection. “Whitcomb’s ghost was trying to tell me the name of the demon who’d possessed his body, but he wasn’t allowed to get that far.”

  From the way Colin’s brow furrowed, she wasn’t sure he still really understood what was going on.

  That was all right…neither did she.

  “We’re talking about different classes of demons here,” Michael said reasonably. He stepped away from the TV, and came and sat back down next to her on the sofa. Audrey wished she could lean into him, have him hold her and offer some reassurance, but she didn’t think it would be kind to indulge in a public display of affection like that, not when Colin was still smarting from his breakup with Daniela. “As I’ve said before, the demons causing the mayhem in the Whitcomb mansion were a lower order of being. Whatever’s living in Whitcomb’s body is a lot smarter, a lot farther up the food chain, so to speak.”

  “A devil as opposed to a demon?” Colin asked, looking eager, and Michael nodded, his expression as troubled as Colin’s was enthusiastic.

  “Wait, what?” Maybe she really didn’t want to know the answer, but Audrey plowed ahead anyway. “I thought we were only dealing with demons here. I thought there was only one Devil, and the rest of them answered to him. Or something like that.”

  “It’s not quite that simple.”

  She shot him an annoyed glance. “Then use words of a single syllable.”

  “Now, now, lovebirds,” Colin interjected. He seemed more amuse
d than anything else. Maybe it made him feel better to see the two of them bickering. “Michael, try to remember that not everyone is as steeped in arcane lore as you are.”

  He let out a breath, but he appeared more impatient than irritated. “Demons are fallen angels…at least, that’s the shorthand for what they are. Just as angels have hierarchies, so do demons. But there are only seven who are generally referred to as devils. Lucifer is one of them, and then there are six others who rank just below him in terms of their strength and cunning: Mammon, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Beelzebub, Amon, and Belial. I’ve begun to worry that Whitcomb may be one of them.”

  Just hearing those names made Audrey’s stomach curdle. They weren’t all familiar to her, but somehow they awoke a deep, atavistic fear. Body cold, she wondered which of them had held his hands to her throat. Beelzebub? Amon?

  And you drove him off with holy water that you made, she reminded herself. You’re not powerless. Never forget that.

  “If that’s the case, then it should be easy enough to drive that particular devil out, shouldn’t it?” she asked. “I mean, you can just go through the list of names until you get the right one.”

  Michael shook his head, although there was a light in his eyes that said he was proud of her for trying to think of an immediate solution. “It’s not quite that simple. For one thing, since we don’t even know where Whitcomb is right now, we can’t exactly perform an exorcism. And also, these are beings with immense powers who can come and go at will. As soon as I rattled off the wrong name, he would know what I was trying to do and would most likely disappear immediately.”

  “But you might get the correct name right off the bat.”

  He laid his hand on her knee, and, despite her current worry, she felt a little wave of warmth go up her leg at his touch. Funny how she could be worried and frightened, and yet still want to take him upstairs and tear his clothes off.

  But they had company, so that wasn’t going to happen.

  “All this is conjecture,” Colin said. “Right now, I’m more interested in this ghost and why it’s hanging around Audrey. Too bad we’re not still shooting the show…it would have been a great storyline to weave into things if we could.”

  That comment made Audrey very, very glad that Project Demon Hunters had been canned. No way would she have wanted Colin trying to speculate as to why a ghost had decided to glom onto her and wander in and out of her dreams.

  “I’m not sure,” Michael said. If he’d noticed the way she’d stiffened, he’d decided to ignore it…probably so Colin wouldn’t derive any glee from the discomfort he’d caused her. “Until she started working on the show, she really hadn’t exhibited any psychic ability, except for a couple of extremely isolated incidents. But did Whitcomb’s ghost wake up her psychic powers…or did he sense those powers awakening, and become drawn to them for some reason?”

  She wasn’t sure she liked either of those possibilities, although she didn’t have any alternate theories to offer. While she’d spent a chunk of her life researching psychic abilities, she still wasn’t quite sure what to do about the ones that had suddenly bloomed within her. It all felt very different when you were on the inside of a problem, rather than an impartial observer on the outside looking in.

  “Either way, it would have been something fun to explore.” Colin looked back over at the television. “Should we proceed?”

  “Sure,” Michael said. He sounded tired, and not quite as eager to watch the footage as he had been when Colin first showed up this afternoon. Was he now inwardly fretting about the adversary they faced, or was he simply worried that the rest of the video might show something even worse?

  However, as frightening as it was to watch the confrontation in the basement — Audrey sat on the couch and wondered who in the hell that woman was, the woman who stood there and recited the protection prayer Michael had taught her as she methodically erased the spell signs on the floor — she didn’t see anything she hadn’t been expecting. Likewise with the footage they’d shot in Tucson, although she couldn’t help noting how wrung-out she looked in some of the scenes. Well, that was only to be expected, considered she’d been rescued from a demon’s clutches just a few hours earlier.

  To her relief, Michael stopped things there, saying, “That all looks really good, Colin. But I think it’s time to get those steaks on the grill before it gets too dark outside. We can take a look at the exorcism scene after dinner.”

  Would that be worse on a full stomach, or an empty one? Audrey wasn’t sure, but at least during that terrible episode, she’d mostly stood off to the side and watched, only pitching in to bring water or recite the Lord’s Prayer when needed. Thank God, Colin hadn’t been filming when Michael had attempted to place holy water on Susan’s forehead, and so there was no record of the demon inside her reacting violently, nor any video of Audrey giving pursuit.

  If there had been, the Santa Barbara P.D. might not have been so quick to rule Susan Loomis’s death as accidental.

  The two men went outside after Michael collected the steaks and other fixings from the fridge, where they’d been wrapped in plastic, awaiting this moment. Audrey supposed she could have gone with Michael and Colin, but the sun had nearly set and it was starting to get dim in the backyard, even with the floodlights mounted on the side of the house shining down on the patio.

  No, it was better to stay here where it was warm. She set the table and put out the bottle of Zinfandel that Colin had brought, then fetched the ingredients for the salad, washed the lettuce and spinach and patted it dry, and started shredding it into the big glass bowl Michael had left out for her earlier. Idly, she wondered where he’d come by all the items he had in the kitchen, since he’d already admitted that he didn’t cook much. Had he bought them because he thought they might come in handy someday? Had they been gifts? That really didn’t sound too plausible; he didn’t seem to have many friends, and clearly he had no contact with his family members.

  The salad done, she took it out to the dining room table, although she was waiting until the rest of the food was cooked to add the dressing. As she went back into the kitchen to get the vinaigrette from the refrigerator door, she stopped suddenly.

  Once again, Jeffrey Whitcomb was standing there, watching her. Somehow, the warm light from the fixtures overhead made him look even paler, made the shadowy hollows in his cheeks stand out that much more.

  Although she doubted she would ever get used to the way he came and went, his presence now wasn’t quite as disconcerting as it had been the night before. “Hungry?” she asked, her tone flip. “I can put out an extra place setting.”

  His thin lips lifted in the barest of smiles. “You must have your little joke, of course.”

  At once, she felt slightly contrite for the way she’d teased him…and also glad that she’d already mentally prepared herself for another of these meetings. “Sorry about that. But — I know Michael would like to talk to you. Let me go outside and fetch him.”

  “I did not come here to talk to Michael.” A pause as the ghost’s black stare moved to the kitchen window. Although Michael and Colin weren’t visible from this angle, it was as though Whitcomb knew exactly where they stood. “Indeed, he wouldn’t be able to hear me even if I wanted to speak with him.”

  “You’re saying only I can talk to you?” The cold was back, tracing its way down her spine, but Audrey made herself meet his gaze and ask, “Why?”

  For a few seconds, he didn’t respond. Then, brows drawing together slightly, he said, “I’m not entirely sure.”

  Audrey tilted her head at him. She didn’t believe that statement for a single second. “Come on, Mr. Whitcomb — you’ll have to do better than that.”

  This time, he didn’t offer her even one of his thin-lipped smiles. He stared back at her, face impassive, but with an odd bewilderment in his night-black eyes, as if he himself was somewhat baffled by the situation. “If I knew, I would tell you. However, I would be lying if I said that I d
idn’t enjoy our conversations, on some level. It has been a very long time since I was able to speak with anyone.”

  “You haven’t spoken to anyone else?” she asked, compassion stirring within her despite what she knew Whitcomb had done during his lifetime. “No one since…?” It seemed too crass to say, since you died, but she had a feeling he knew what she meant.

  He didn’t respond directly, but moved toward her. Only a few steps, but even that was enough to make her retreat slightly, to feel the tile countertop at her back. Even though she got the impression that he didn’t mean her any harm, she still could feel her heart racing in her chest. No matter how you looked at the situation, it was damned disconcerting to be confronted by a ghost like this.

  “Even spirits have their constraints,” he said, and now he seemed sadder than ever. “Especially me.”

  “Because of what the demon did to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me his name,” Audrey said desperately. “That’s the best way for me — for us — to help you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she shot back. “You were starting to tell me, that one time on the astral plane. He stopped you. But he isn’t here right now.”

  For a few seconds, Whitcomb didn’t reply. He only stood a few feet away and regarded her carefully. Then, to her surprise, he offered her a smile, a real one this time. The shift in expression still couldn’t quite make him handsome, but Audrey could see why Susan/Eleanor might have fallen in love with the demon who’d taken on this form…could understand why Alice, who was supposed to have been a beauty, had once agreed to share his life.

  “You remind me of my late wife,” he said. “Not in looks — Alice was quite fair — but in spirit, in determination. You have her fire. That’s good, Audrey. You’re going to need it.”

  Even as she opened her mouth to reply, the kitchen door swung inward, and Michael and Colin entered with the spoils of their barbecue session. At once, Whitcomb’s ghost disappeared.

  Well, damn.