Chapter Thirteen
Laney
Laney came to consciousness moaning so much she would’ve put that psychic to shame. Though her eyes weren’t yet open, she felt herself slumped against a wall. Her nose was throbbing—and, as she discovered as she tried to sniff, was clogged. She put a tentative hand up and felt wetness on her fingertips—and a telltale taste of copper on her tongue.
She was bleeding. Though she had a vague memory, almost like a dream, of someone wiping her face.
Her eyes flew open to a dark hallway flickering with candlelight. She remembered her nose breaking against the wall after someone had pushed her.
Adele Lyons?
Still seated, she rotated around. That psychic woman stood a few feet away, trembling and blinking at her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Adele was further down the hall, squeezing a rag of what looked like blood droplets onto one of her candles.
“You broke my nose!” Laney said, her voice slightly nasal. “What the hell!”
Adele didn’t look over at her as she wrung what was probably Laney’s blood onto another candle. “Honestly, I am sorry it came to that. You can be a snotty know-it-all, but you’ve got such a pretty face. But I had to do it so he’d come.”
“You’re crazy,” Laney said. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, and, if there were, they probably wouldn’t care if you broke my nose before they showed up. Jesus.”
Adele looked over and shook her head. “I’m not talking about Silas Bolton, dear. I’m talking about getting that young man to enter this hallway. He’s the poker chip I’m gambling with to get my Bill back.”
“What…” And then Laney heard it: the heavy footsteps on the staircase up to the third floor, moving quickly.
“Lucas!” Laney cried. “Don’t!”
She didn’t know what possessed her to say don’t when she should’ve been shouting for help, but a part of her knew something terrible would happen if Lucas entered the third floor hallway.
Mina was still shaking, her eyes focused on Adele. “What did you do? How?” The woman sounded genuinely shocked.
Adele smiled, and her expression was like a proud mother. “You are a very good battery,” she said. “The other psychic I met said you would be. I knew you’d have the energy to draw the gambler here tonight.”
“How?” Mina repeated, shaking her head.
“I’ve been meeting people like you for so many years,” Adele said. “Some of them taught me how to guard my thoughts, even from psychics as powerful as you.”
“He’s going to take us all.” Mina’s voice had gone hoarse. “He doesn’t play fair.”
Laney’s body gave an involuntary shudder.
The footsteps grew louder and Lucas appeared at the top of the steps under the threshold. She could make out his pale face and dark hair in the dim light.
“Lucas, don’t come any closer!”
“Laney?” he said.
“She’s had a fall,” Adele said quickly. “Banged her nose. She’s confused. We need your help.” She gestured for him to come down the hallway.
Laney thrust out a hand. “Lucas, don’t believe her. She’s lying.” She scrambled to her feet, her purse swinging against her body. A strong wave of dizziness made her lean against the wall. “Oh…”
“Laney.” He rushed forward, his arms outstretched.
Once he entered the hallway, it was like a wire was tripped—or the final domino fell. The heat of the room rose so quickly Laney felt feverish, and along with it came a reeking smell of heat and rot. It reminded her of the smell from earlier, but ten times worse. She wasn’t so sure it was a bug anymore.
Lucas had just reached her and put his arms around her when all the candles sputtered out.
“What the…” she began into the pitch black, just as Mina started talking in a voice that was almost singsong in its childlike terror.
“Silas, Silas Bolton. Pocket Bolton. He’s come.”
Lucas’s arms tightened around her. “No.”
From the far end of the hall, tiny flames began dancing along the ceiling.
“I am sorry about this, Lucas,” Adele began, and her disembodied voice in the dark scared Laney almost as much as whatever was happening down the hall. “He wanted you, all those years ago. So young and fresh. He didn’t like being thwarted. So I’m giving him what was snatched out of his hands. I’m trading your soul to get my Bill back.”
“But Mrs. Lyons…” Lucas’s confused features—all of their features—were growing more visible as the red light of the flames grew at the end of the hallway. The fire rimmed the ceiling and came halfway down the walls, crackling and licking the plaster. “Mrs. Lyons, you sent me birthday cards every year.”
“I don’t regret that,” she said. “You were such a sweet boy.” She stepped behind them, but fear made the rest of them unable to move.
There was a dark shape approaching from beyond the flames—too far, farther than the spot where the hallway should have ended.
“What’s happening?” The strange sight and smell made Laney woozy. She moved closer to Lucas, whose strong arms held her fast.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s happening again. She’s right; it wants me.”
She shook her head.
That thing in that tunnel—tunnel?—at the end of the hall was shaped like a man, but it didn’t move like one. It walked on two limbs—but no, it lurched—their way. It moved heavily, its stomps echoing down the hall, its body pulling to the left like it was weighed down. The sound of coins jangling followed it, but in an incongruous way, like a movie with the audio slightly off. The noise was an echo, perhaps a memory of whatever the thing had been when it was alive.
“What…is…that,” Laney breathed.
The dark shape was indistinct, and the top looked funny until Laney realized it was wearing a hat. Its head was bowed, the brim hiding whatever features it may or may not have had. If this was Silas “Pocket” Bolton, who’d sold his soul to the devil—she couldn’t believe she was considering it—maybe greed had followed him into the afterlife, where they used a different sort of currency.
And now it wanted Lucas.
It must’ve known it had them mired in fear, sticky in the tar of their own doom, because it was in no hurry. Things that moved quickly were undoubtedly scary; a creature that could rip out your throat before you had breath to scream was the stuff of nightmares. Yet as the milliseconds ticked by, Laney learned firsthand that there was a more exquisite terror in monsters that crept towards you at their own slow, torturous pace.
Mina made a low keening sound. “So hungry,” she whispered. “You’re not safe.”
Lucas inhaled sharply.
“It’s here,” Mina said. “It’s here, it’s here, it’s here…”
It was now entering the actual hall, its head still bowed and the sound of coins clanking in its wake. Its outline became clear with the light from the flames nipping the walls behind it. As it came closer, the stench grew. Charred wood and rotting corpse, like the very breath of hell.
Lucas stirred. “Laney—Laney, you’ve got to run.”
But how could she when she couldn’t even feel her legs?
It was almost halfway down the hall now.
“Silas Bolton!” Adele called behind them. “I have brought you something you want.” Her voice was ringed in fear, but her tone was clear and strong. Determined.
“Years ago, you wanted this boy,” she continued, “but he got away from you. Here, take him now. I have brought him to you as a trade.” Her voice broke off in near-sob. “Take him and give me back my Bill.”
The heat grew, and flames moved towards them like hungry tendrils, and the thing stopped in the middle of the hallway.
It wore a pair of pants and a shirt, tarnished and old. The clothes seemed to fit the body in a peculiar way, like underneath it was just bones and melting flesh.
Lucas shoved Laney behind him. They stumbled backwards, to the wide area near the top of the stairs. “Go,” he said, pushing her toward the steps. “All of you. Run.”
Mina’s face was awash in firelight and contorted in pain. “I’m making it worse. He’s using me. I—” She cried out, slamming her hands over her ears.
“Go!” Lucas shouted again, and the young woman barely nodded before turning to trip down the steps.
“I’m not leaving without my Bill,” Adele said, standing firm on the other side of the hall, her red-washed cheeks stained with tears.
Laney didn’t move. “You think that thing is actually going to give you what you want?” Laney shouted at Adele. She grabbed Lucas’s arm. “Come on, let’s both go.”
“No, it wants me. Go!”
In response, a wave of heat and stench washed over them and the sound of clanking began again. In the midst of their arguing, it was approaching, and soon it’d be too late for anyone to escape.
“Don’t be such a damn hero,” Laney snapped. She grabbed him again but it was as if he’d turned to stone. Every inch rigid in fear, and yet the look on his face was something like—acceptance?
“No,” she said. “No, no, no.”
Her purse was still slung across her body, and she unzipped it quickly, digging in the contents until she found what she wanted. The paycheck from the magazine, the only money she had left.
Laney knew greedy people. She’d been raised by two. She knew what they needed even before they knew it themselves. This guy obviously hadn’t evolved much in the afterlife. Hungry indeed.
She stepped out in front of Lucas and Adele, between them and the inferno. “Hey, Pocket Bolton.” She waved the paycheck in the air. “You ever see one of these?”