Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

Chapter 22

A hotel full of living, breathing demons, and a weakling like this comes along?

The Roach was almost annoyed that such a puny residual would dare show its face, sort of like a peg-legged pirate stumping onto the marble mezzanine at the royal ball. But you dealt with the entities as they came. It was all part of the training. It was all part of the War.

The hunters behind him were no good, too busy oohing and aahing and thinking about what they’d be blogging next week. The problem with paranormal tourism was that, when it came to crunch time, they tended to get in the way of the real work. But, like the demons, they were a necessary evil.

They made good bait.

The entity appeared to be the Jilted Bride, though the descriptions had varied over the decades before settling into an acceptably homogenized urban legend. And though the bride was already losing steam, failing to draw enough power to pose for a photo, The Roach wasn’t willing to let it go without a fight. So while the hunters behind him fumbled to bring their cameras and EMF meters to bear, he pulled a vial of holy water with all the deftness of a Wild West gunslinger.

He thumbed away the rubber stopper and sent a clear arc of water across the wall, flicking his wrist so the path of the water widened. If the spirit was a demon in disguise, it would piss and moan, and if it were merely a possessed puppet, it wouldn’t feel pain but should dissolve on contact.

The water splashed on the wall and carpet, and the bride stood there frozen, her face locked in the sick misery of her eternal death.

“Did you see that?” said a woman in black, Terry was her name, who’d been pestering him non-stop during the hunt. From the lack of hot water in the shower to overpriced Manhattans in the bar, she’d expressed her displeasure at every opportunity. And though she’d squealed with fear at the bride’s appearance, she now was pushing her way through the group, her jaw slack in rapture.

“Careful,” The Roach said.

Terry evaded The Roach and reached for the vanishing entity. “Don’t go.”

A man in cowboy boots, evidently her husband, rushed forward as well. “It’s a residual, honey.”

Ignoring him, the woman said to the spirit, “If you need to draw power, you can take it from me.”

The Roach had found ripe bait. You’re lucky it’s not a demon. That’s practically opening up the refrigerator door to your soul and letting Evil sample the buffet.

As the image faded away to nothing, the group of hunters broke into chatter.

“Did you see that?”

“What was it?

“I couldn’t get my damned camera to work–”

After the image had faded, one disturbing impression remained. For a flicker of a second, the Jilted Bride’s arm had been superimposed over Terry’s skin, as if Terry had penetrated the entity’s spirit stuff. And a sleeve of dust was visible in the air overhead. Maybe the phenomenon had tunneled out from a peculiar hole in the heavens, and the entity hadn’t been a demon after all.

An angel? Angels were just as common as demons, but tended to be ineffectual. The Roach had learned never to count on them at Crunch Time.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” The Roach said. “I believe we’ve just had an encounter.”

“Anybody get a reading?”

“EMF was flat.”

“Her eyes were so sad.”

“We’ll corroborate this later,” he said. “Let’s get some baseline readings in case she comes back.”

Terry wiped at the water The Roach had spattered across the wall. She sniffed the substance on her finger.

“What’s this?” she asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Protection.”

“From what?”

“I hope none of us have to find out.”

Terry’s husband took her arm. “Let’s check our audio and see if we got any EVP’s.”

She shrugged away from his grasp. “I paid to be here and I didn’t come to see this clown play ‘Exorcist.’”

The rest of the group, whom The Roach figured was as tired of the woman’s complaints as he was, gathered close to hear the confrontation.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “SSI policy puts the safety of the hunters first.”

“Safety? From what? She didn’t exactly look like the Bell Witch.”

“I got a picture of an orb,” said an overweight man who leaned on a wooden cane, balancing precariously while he checked his viewfinder.

“Dust,” said another man. “I saw it swirling when you hit your flash.”

“No, it was energy,” Terry said. “I felt it.”

“Whatever it was, it’s gone now,” said a weasel-faced woman.

Oh, yeah? Then what’s watching us from the end of the hall?

The Roach’s original count of active demons was six, but it figured they would try for seven if possible. While the number “666” had gained infamy because of its purported role as the Mark of the Beast, scholars had traced old translations and found the number had been recorded in error. Besides, the Holy Bible was hardly more than a field guide for the surface struggle. The real battles waged outside the pages, in rare air and poisoned darkness. Seven was appropriate, a number of magic, mystery, and perfection.

“Where’s Artie?” a woman said. “He was right behind me a second ago.”

The Roach looked down both ends of the corridor and at the locked doors lining each side of the hall. A quick head count showed he had indeed lost a group member. He hoped Artie was sitting on the stool down at the bar, indulging in spirits of the liquid kind, but the energy in the ancient structure had grown palpably stronger, and The Roach wondered if a demon had taken Artie for a spin across the dance floor.

The Roach activated his two-way radio. “Digger, I got a Lost Boy.”

Cody’s static-filled voice came back, the signal saturated with noise so that the words were barely audible. “Digger’s a Lost Boy, too. What’s the prob?”

“We had a sighting and someone must have fled the scene.”

“He wasn’t scared,” said the woman. “He loves ghosts.”

The Roach nodded while ignoring her. Paranormal tourism had all the inherent risk factors of traditional outdoor adventuring, with the same fear response and endorphin rush. The Roach frowned upon speed dating with the dead, but he figured he could best serve on the front lines where the metaphysical bullets flew hot and fast. He’d learned long ago that just closing your eyes to a problem didn’t make it go away.

And there was wisdom in the old saying about being careful what you wish for.

Because he wished a demon would invade Terry and shut her bitching mouth.