Panther Prowling

  I glanced at our group. “Someone has to keep an eye on Leif. Okay, here’s the battle order. Shade, you’re up front with me. Morio and Camille—back of us. Vanzir, you keep an eye on Leif after them. Smoky, will you bring up the rear?”

  Leif cleared his throat. “What should I do? I’m out of my element here and I’m not even sure what the hell we’re walking into, other than ghosts are involved, and this building scares the shit out of me.”

  I turned to him, catching his gaze. “Listen and listen good. Yes, we are heading into a dangerous situation, but we have to take you with us because of the sword.”

  Leif nodded. “Because Jay’s in there, with my sword and your cousin. And he’s working on freeing Einar from the sword to lead an army of the dead. Right?” Leif had a good memory; that I’d give him.

  “Right. To be able to do that, Einar must take possession of a living body. Apparently he finds Daniel to his liking.” I glanced up at the ruins. “Trouble is, we don’t know if Jay’s already managed to free Einar. If he has, we could be facing a nasty-assed bunch of not-right-in-the-head ghosts.”

  Leif barely blinked. “Got it. So tell me what I should do.”

  “You do whatever we tell you to. You jump when we say jump, duck if we say duck, get out of the way if we say get out of the way. And if you recognize Daniel . . . Leif—do nothing except what we tell you. Don’t even ask why I’m saying that right now. I hope we all come out of this in one piece, but you stand a better chance if you just react without questioning. Whatever you do, don’t try to play the hero. That’s usually a recipe for disaster. Got it?” I felt sorry for Leif. He hadn’t asked for any of this, but because of Einar, he was saddled with it.

  If he was having second thoughts, he didn’t let on. Instead, he straightened his shoulders. “All right. You can count on me. But when this is over, promise me one thing?”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you’ll help me destroy that goddamn sword for good. Father always pushed me to have a son. You have to have a son to inherit the sword. But I’m not about to drape that albatross around another person. If I have to die childless, that’s fine. I’m not giving another generation the headache of always knowing that thing is there, waiting, on the wall.”

  Morio clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll help you. Now, get in line, and let’s take this inside.”

  * * *

  We stepped around the fallen gate, Camille and I cautiously avoiding the iron bars. The grounds of the asylum were overrun by a thick blanket of fern and huckleberry. Scavenger trees had seeded through where the original forest had been logged. Cottonwood and alder—pulp mill trees—grew in dense stands. The tangle of vegetation was interrupted only by a thin path that looked recently cut back. Which meant somebody had come through here and not long ago.

  I jumped as the spirit of a young woman raced by, a terrified expression on her face. She glanced over her shoulder, as if to see how close whatever pursued her was, but I could see nothing behind her. And then she vanished into the forest. This was going to take some getting used to, all right.

  “Are you all right?” Shade leaned close. “Did you just see . . .”

  “What you saw? Yes. I’ll tell you about it later.” I kept my voice low. “Right now, we need to focus on Einar and Daniel.”

  He gave me a searching look, then nodded and turned back to the ruins, scanning along the edge of the giant complex. The hospital had been huge—five hundred people can fit in a small enough space, but the structure had been dizzyingly big, taking up over half a city block. I wondered, how much money had the original owner made from taking in the patients?

  “This is a grim place,” Morio said from behind me. “The despair’s imprinted onto the very grounds. It’s everywhere.”

  The walkway to the building was relatively short, but every step felt like it took us deeper and deeper into a mire. Camille made a sound behind me, and when I turned, she just shook her head. I knew what she was feeling because it was starting to hit me, too—as if we were walking farther and farther away from safety. We were outside, but we might as well have been in an enclosed box, for all the feelings of claustrophobia. The closer we came to the ruins of the asylum, the less I wanted to go in there. It felt like a dank cave, like an open mouth waiting to slurp us up and chew us into bloody pieces.

  I skirted a large chunk of charred brick. “Whatever went down here, this is bad. No wonder this place never attracted any buyers.”

  Doing my best to ignore the ghosts moving every which way, I slowly led the way with Shade toward the burnt-out shell. A man in a straitjacket wandered by, whispering aimlessly to himself, and then, to my right, a woman, naked except for a sheet draped around her shoulders, stumbled past, a vacant look on her face like nobody was home. Were they really ghosts? Or were they just flickering images from the past, impressed on the very currents of the air? I couldn’t tell—maybe Greta would be able to teach me how to know the difference, but right now, I had no clue exactly what I was seeing.

  We managed to make it to what had been the large double doors leading into the building. I glanced at my notes that I’d taken from Carter. This would be the main floor, the entrance into the building where the public had come through. If what Carter said was correct, then when we entered, to our left would be the wing leading to administrative rooms, residents’ rooms for the sanest and most pliable inmates, a smaller dining hall, and a recreation room.

  To the right, we should find the remains of a medical room where the families of the inmates were allowed to observe psychological exams. But that’s not where the real medical procedures had taken place.

  Most of the residents’ quarters had been on the second and third floors, along with another dining hall and recreation room. And the fourth floor—that was where the owner and his son allowed doctors to experiment on the patients. It was also where electroshock therapy had been performed, along with other treatments now considered barbaric. The boiler and maintenance rooms had been in the basement. Staircases were on either end of the building, as well as the central area, and elevators—of course no longer in use—had been strategically placed throughout the building.

  The entrance loomed ahead. The doors were still there, but the glass was long gone, and the brick surrounding the area was heat-blasted. Parts of the building were entirely leveled, but here, and to the right—where the medical facilities were—the walls and roof had remained intact, if somewhat precariously so.

  “Somebody should have just leveled this thing long ago.” I gazed to the right. With the way the building had been shattered, it was now a tower.

  Shade stared up at the sooty brick. “The sword’s up there.”

  “Well, at least it’s not a basement this time.” The last thing I wanted to do was head down into the basement where the explosion had taken place. Silas had been incarcerated here for killing his mother, father, wife, and three kids. Yet he had complained to the doctors that “voices” told him to harm the other patients. I didn’t want to run into his ghost, because I had a feeling he wouldn’t be one of the passive ones.

  We pushed through the entrance, and into the inky darkness.

  The daylight vanished as we entered the silent tomb. I could feel spirits passing by now, brushing past me with no sense that I was there. Behind me, Camille and Morio began to chant in a low voice. I wasn’t sure what they were doing, but whatever it was, I welcomed anything to take the looming sense of weight off our shoulders. The building felt like it welcomed us, and that alone was unsettling. I didn’t want to feel welcome here. Welcome here could easily mean, Come in and die. I wanted to get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

  A pale violet light flared and a pentacle surrounded our group. Immediately, a wash of protective energy flowed over me, and grateful, I glanced back and smiled.

  “We need light to see by,” Vanzir said. The n
ext moment, he had turned on a heavy-duty flashlight and handed it to me, producing another for himself. Between the two of us, we managed to shed enough light for all of us.

  There wasn’t much to see, though. A lot of charred timbers, and ashes that had been hardened into chunks by rain. I briefly wondered if the police had recovered all the bodies, but then decided I didn’t want to go there.

  “Over there.” Shade pointed to the right. I flashed the light in that direction to reveal a staircase going up. The heavy metal door lay on the ground nearby, ripped off its hinges by something big and nasty. Lovely, whatever had done that had plenty of force behind it—and hopefully was long gone.

  “We go up, then.” I led the way over to the stairwell. The stairs were concrete, against the brick of the wall, and it looked like the fire had channeled at least partway through the passage because when I put my hand on the railing, it felt dusty. I pulled it away to see that my hand was covered with dirt and soot and whatever else might be living on the rail.

  “Do you think Jay knows we’re here?” Vanzir’s question drifted forward and I glanced over my shoulder. He had moved Leif in back of him, between him and Smoky. We were single file at this point, still protected by Camille and Morio’s protection spell. I was familiar enough with it now to know that it would hold as long as they maintained their focus and kept holding hands.

  “I think there’s a pretty good bet he does. He’s a necromancer, which means he can probably communicate with the dead, and trust me, there are so many spirits here that he has to have eyes and ears among them.” I tried not to flinch as a man came racing down the stairs at me—or rather, a ghost—and then dashed right through us. A shiver raced down my spine as a blast of cold air lingered in his wake.

  We turned the bend and passed the exit to the second floor. I paused, looking at Shade. “Are we there?”

  He closed his eyes, then shook his head. “Higher.”

  “Then up we go.” We climbed past the third story, then at the entrance to the fourth—which still had its door intact—Shade nodded. “Here. He’s here. Einar . . . the sword . . .”

  Camille and Morio broke hands and drew their weapons. Camille had brought her dagger, Morio had brought what looked like a wand, but I didn’t recognize it.

  At my look, he grinned and held it up. The wand was thin, slender, and straight, wrapped with silver wire and inlaid with numerous gems—what looked like smoky quartz and sapphire in the glow of the flashlight. A pale crystal spike was affixed to the end, and it had some sort of fur wrapped around the hilt.

  “I made this,” he said. “It’s focused on disrupting magical energy. It seemed like it might have a place in tonight’s fight, though frankly, I’ll probably resort to my youkai form when push comes to shove.”

  “Don’t underestimate your intuition.” Camille gave him a quick smile. “You know what you need.”

  I stared at the door. Beyond here, I had no clue of how the layout went. Carter hadn’t been able to send us any schematics. I placed my hand on the door handle and cautiously turned it, easing the door open, but I could have just as easily slammed it wide for all the good my attempts at silence did. The door let out a long squeak as I opened it. If they didn’t know we were on the way before this, they did now.

  “That takes care of that. Let’s go.” I pushed through, followed by Shade and the others, to find myself in a hallway. The hall was dimly lit by the light filtering through some of the windows that hadn’t been boarded over, but my focus hit the end of the hallway, where an archway led into what appeared to be a large room. There must have been doors at one time but they were long gone.

  Shade took off running. “It’s there!”

  I caught up to him, and the others were close on our heels. But as we pushed through the entryway, I realized that we were too late. The room was a swirl of ghosts, but they looked determined, no longer lost. They were surrounding Daniel, who stood there, shirt off, chest bloody but from no wound that I could see, with the sword in hand. Behind him stood another man—it had to be Jay. To his left stood Aslo.

  Leif let out a gasp. “Daniel—I remember.” But he kept his word and did nothing.

  Skidding to a halt, I realized they had been waiting for us. The host of ghosts filling the room looked different than the others I’d seen—not only did they look like they had purpose, but they had shifted. Their auras flared with a pale green light, and their eyes gleamed with a dangerous glow.

  “Daniel!” Camille’s voice echoed from behind me.

  Daniel raised his sword, and as one, the ghosts fell to their knees. He slowly pointed it toward us, and they rose, turning in unison, and began to move forward. I suddenly realized that the others might not see what I was seeing.

  “Ghosts, incoming! I can see them—more than I can count and they look dangerous.” I kept my eyes ahead on the advancing army of spirits, but motioned for the others to move back and spread out.

  Camille and Morio stepped to the left and joined hands and they began a chant. I watched in fascination as whatever they were doing emanated out like a mist to roll over the ghosts, whose auras flared brightly.

  “We can see their outlines now,” Camille said. “Delilah can see the ghosts full on, guys—trust what she says.”

  “Right. Vanzir, protect Leif.” Smoky moved up to my right, between me and Shade, and we all formed a semicircle in front of Vanzir and Leif.

  The ghosts advanced with Daniel following behind, a cruel smile across his face. I didn’t even bother speaking to him—it was obvious Einar was in possession of his body.

  “How do we fight them?” Hell, we didn’t even know what they could do.

  “I wish Ivana was here to gather them up.” Camille took Morio’s hand and they began a low chant, building the energy between them.

  Smoky let out a long breath, and an icy wind swept through, followed by a hail of sleet. The weather didn’t faze the ghosts, but managed to engulf Jay, Aslo, and Daniel. The former two stumbled, but Daniel kept his footing, and raised the sword again. As the ghosts reached striking distance, a noise echoed from behind me and Vanzir let out a shout.

  I turned to see the Viking warriors—the guardians of the sword—appear. They silently moved forward to meet the oncoming spirits. There was a pause, a moment where everything felt poised on a fulcrum, and then Daniel brought his sword sweeping down, and with a cry, the ghosts were on us.

  The spirit of a young man was facing me. I wasn’t sure what to do to him, but when he raised his hands and grabbed me around the neck, I started to choke. Fuck! I’d better do something and I’d better do it fast. I brought Lysanthra up and stabbed him in the head. The ghost groaned as the magical silver hit his aura, and he stumbled back, but did not dissipate. I jumped back a step. At least I could affect him.

  He glared at me and then did a double take as I flipped him off. At this point, I didn’t care if they realized I could see them. Maybe it would give them a little scare, though as to what a ghost might be frightened of . . .

  “That’s it! What can scare a ghost?” I held Lysanthra out, aimed at the ghost who was giving me a dirty look now.

  “Well, they aren’t afraid of dying, I can tell you that!” Vanzir, his usual smart-assed self, answered from behind me.

  “Oblivion. Delilah, can you use your powers of oblition on these spirits?” Camille stumbled back, no longer holding hands with Morio.

  “No, I can’t—it’s not allowed—” I stopped as Camille let out a shout and then went flying back against the wall as a burly ghost hit her head on in the stomach. Arms out, he was headed toward her throat.

  “He’s going to try to choke you! Move!” I wanted to help her, but the ghost on me took another lunge and I darted to the right, unable to get past him. I couldn’t see what happened to Camille but I heard her scream and then caught a glimpse of her once again flying through the
air. She looked alive, though.

  As I tried to duck out of reach, the guardians of the sword moved in to begin fighting the biggest ghosts in the group. They tangled in what looked like an eerie WWE match.

  Meanwhile, Shade pushed his way over to an open area in the large operating room and rapidly shifted form. It never failed to amaze me when I saw him in his dragon shape—a skeletal dragon, bones an earthy brown, with glowing topaz eyes. Every step he took, his bones clattered and moaned, and he was as terrifying a visage as anything we’d ever come across, except he was my lover and there was no way I could fear him. I was simply in awe of his natural form.

  He let out a loud roar, and this time, not only did Jay and Aslo fall back, looking petrified, but Daniel along with them.

  “Drage! Drage!” Daniel stumbled back, his eyes wide.

  So Einar could be frightened of something—good to know. Shade bore down on him and I had the sudden fear that he’d eat my cousin whole. Because, Einar’s soul or not, the body belonged to Daniel.

  But I had turned my back too long, and the next moment, my ghost attacked me again, his hands burning with an icy fire as he once more grabbed me by the throat. I stabbed wildly with Lysanthra, but this time he evaded my attack, his grip tightening. I struggled to breathe and dropped my dagger, instinctively reaching to loosen his grip but I couldn’t latch hold of him.

  Then he was gone—vaporized, as one of the ghostly warriors broke through and stabbed him with a flaming axe. He looked down at me, then smiled softly and moved on. I grabbed my dagger and staggered to my feet, trying to figure out what was going on.

  The ghosts were thick and fighting with the warriors. Their single-minded focus told me that Einar was fully in charge of them—they might as well be zombies on a spiritual level.

  Morio held out his wand—I wasn’t sure what he was doing but I could see tendrils of energy flowing from the crystal on the end. Camille looked ragged, but she had charged over to his side, and clapped her hand over his. Together they began to chant something that made my stomach shift.