DEAD PACIFICA

  Part 9

  Leo Grady staked out my house for a week.

  He and a man built like a brick house called Paul Barrera watched my house for several days, trying to figure out if I was haunting the place since my family still lived there. They got it into their heads that I was some powerful malignant spirit controlled by a cabal of demons, and that I now haunted the area. Given Leo’s limited knowledge about dungeons and The System, I couldn’t fault them for that.

  But it’s also not farther from the truth, I thought.

  According to them, all ghosts and vengeful spirits were creatures of habit who gravitated toward a location that they frequented in their past life like an incorporeal leech. In this case, it would be my lovely, comfy, childhood home. Given the many reported cases of people who had gone missing around the area and Dead Pacifica blasting all of my dirty laundry for the better part of the year, I understood why Leo brought his new friends to my doorstep for a little meet and greet.

  They couldn’t have arrived at a better time for a party I was planning.

  One day, Leo and Paul pretended to be electricians from the utility company coming to check up the house for an emergency inspection. Paul’s background as an electrician worked like magic convincing my father to let them in. Unfortunately, he didn’t recognize Leo from my summer camp days and the two men easily charmed their way inside. My mother wasn’t home during that time as she was staying with my aunt, which meant Leo and Paul had free rein to explore and investigate the house.

  They brought all kinds of strange gadgets and “psychic-enhanced” gizmos or whatever to detect spirits and unnatural creatures. Cases full of blinking machines and humming boxes. I touched one of them out of curiosity, but I didn’t notice any strong reactions from my Core. Maybe a little tickle? But it was not even a little buzz or a flicker of light as my incorporeal form passed through a device Paul had labeled “M.F.G.T” and “Do Not Touch” on one side. A dive into his memory revealed it stood for Mother-Fucking Ghost Trigger.

  They pointed and prodded at every corner of the property to find me. My old bedroom got some special attention, but when they couldn’t find me there, they went down to the basement (I guessed it was because all basements were creepy and scary), and even at an old shed at the backyard, hoping for one ghostly sign. As expected, there was nothing to find. No cold spots. No spikes in their precious, weird-looking meters filled with holy water and rock salt.

  Which was a relief to me since I thought it was going to work at first. But it would have been super cool if it did. I didn’t know why I felt somewhat disappointed, but their gadgets looked so weird and interesting to learn how The Helwing Brotherhood came up with such a thing, it was just such a waste bringing them out here for it not to do anything. Maybe that’s for a good reason, I thought. I made a little note for Oracle to do something about that in the future.

  “Why do you want those things to work at detecting you?” Oracle asked me after a whole day of them demonstrating these devices around my old house

  I grinned. “Well, for one: it will fucking scare their brains out. And two: So I can fucking scare their brains out.” I already had a few ideas how to utilize them during the scenarios. I would have to discuss this with the rest of my crew in how to effectively interject them into the night.

  It took Oracle a span of six milliseconds to compute what I meant. “Ah, I see,” he said. “In Demons words, we’re the assholes.”

  “People are guaranteed to die. Aren’t we always the villain in their eyes?”

  “Fair point, my lord.”

  “And Oracle? Make sure the others watch Paranormal Activity, Creep, and REC before Dead Pacifica arrives in three weeks,” I said.

  Once Paul Barrera walked through me while he had one of those antennae devices out, I pretty much stopped worrying. It might fuck up a real spirit though, so I told my archetypes to stay out of the way. Still, I had to be cautious around these hunters. They did leave two sawed off shotguns in the van with a box filled with shotgun shells and another box filled with shotgun shells with rock salts. They also had lots of weapons from the trunk for all kinds of occasions, and were fully-trained to use them.

  Like the two small groups of hunters before them (who were not associated with the brotherhood and much less trained with a trigger), they also came prepared for a battle.

  Goliath and Sir Lothar will love them, I thought.

  It was an entertaining day to just float around the house and observed all of their Ghost Hunters theatrics, and it made me curious what Leo had been up to these days. Almost a year had passed since we last saw each other.

  In his dreams, I got some context clues of where he was. In the first month, he lived it up in Mexico and Guatemala by drinking, hooking up, and partying every night, mostly to drown out the memories of his delve and the things he’d seen no mortal man could ever forget. Then, he flew to Greece and Turkey for a time, then to Dubai for two weeks, and then to Thailand. Around four months ago, he arrived at Miami with Paul Barrera, who he met in Phuket, and had stayed in the city ever since.

  I activated [ Fractal Omniscience ] every day now ever since his arrival, and delved into his memories and the memories of his companions. It surprised me that he still kept tabs on Tessa Burton now that she was studying in New York at NYU, worried that the memories I’d taken from her would suddenly bubble up and consume the poor girl. So far, Tessa was thriving based on what she and her parents had been posting on her socials, which helped Leo sleep better at night.

  Until now.

  Until he returned to Point Hope.

  His proximity to the dungeon—to me—only intensified his nightmares. I reckoned all veteran delvers would suffer from it eventually, one that I couldn’t stop, but something I could manipulate to great effect. I could enter their dream worlds and fuck with their heads for a laugh, and dwindle a little of their Resolve even before the start of a scenario.

  But for now, I didn’t aggravate the symptoms. Maybe soon? I already had plenty of ideas how I could use his nightmares to my advantage.

  So, I watched his dreams for the past few nights, trapped in a giant maze. Endless corridors of sweating stone and brutalist architectures under a dark purple sky scarred by lightning. He ran barefoot, breath tearing at his throat, hands slick with blood. He was running away from me, a dark cloud looming and chasing after him, always following just out of sight. When he finally reached what felt like an exit, a giant shape that almost resembled Goliath stepped forward from a corner and opened him from belly to sternum.

  He crawled, dragging his own entrails across the floor, sobbing, begging, promising things to gods he didn’t believe in while unseen things stalked him in the dark, ready to pounce.

  Then he’d wake choking on air, sheets soaked with his own sweat, heart slamming like a fist against his ribcage. Leo had never known a night of peace since he drove past the town’s borders, and it was starting to sink in that coming home was a huge mistake.

  Someone opened the bedroom door.

  “Another nightmare?”

  Casey Porter stood by the doorframe, late twenties with short brown hair with streaks of blonde highlights. There was a faint scar near her left eyebrow from a story she refused to tell Leo or the others. Locked deep in her mind was an awful night against a feral ghoul in the everglades that killed her boyfriend of seven years and sent her in a trajectory toward the embrace of the Helwing Brotherhood and their loose crew of supernatural hunters scattered across The Americas and Europe.

  She took one look at Leo and at the sweat-soaked shirt, the way his chest still heaved, and snorted quietly. “Must be some nightmare then. Is it still the same one? The labyrinth?”

  Leo rubbed a hand down his face. “Same one.” He looked out the window. “Shit. Is it morning already?”

  Casey nodded. “Kincaid wants you to come down for breakfast.”

  “You guys let me sleep in? I called for the second watch.”

  Casey snorted again. “Well, the professor thinks you need it.”

  “You should have woken me up,” Leo grumbled.

  “Don’t worry. I did the watch instead. Nothing happened,” she said. She was about to say like all other nights, but she didn’t quite get why Leo insisted they keep watch while they were in the middle of town, surrounded by thousands of people. The cabin was miles away from Point Hope. Most entities didn’t gather in populated spaces, preferring isolated areas instead. She had nothing to worry about while she’s in town.

  “You coming for breakfast or what?”

  Leo sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be right down. Give me five minutes?”

  “Wash up first? You kinda stink.” Casey closed the door before he could even retort back.

  Leo staggered to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Popped an Advil or two to help with his pounding the headache. The more intense the nightmare, the worse the headaches became. Unbeknownst to him, the urge to delve was getting stronger and stronger within him the longer he stayed within my domain.

  And this need manifested in real life, too.

  Throughout the week, he summoned The Selection Chamber twice on his damn bedroom, replacing a section of the south wall. Thankfully, this fool was asleep throughout the night, suffering from the same repeating nightmare. I had to get rid of the door before he woke up or for his other companions to notice it.

  To my annoyance, The System had used a game mechanic I introduced for my dungeon, and molded it in its own fucking image. Believe me, I tried what I could to stop it. But The System was not something you could just order around. I knew now that it was a living, breathing thing that controlled the universe and treated me like its own digestive system, and so it would not tolerate me fucking up the feeding cycles, and giving it a crippling stomach ache. Though pushing its buttons might be tempting, It was not my plan to piss off The System or their Administrators when I was getting so close to my goal at defeating the cult.

  The door to the Selection Chamber no longer obeyed its first design where I, alone, controlled its summoning. Now, it manifested for any mortal desperate enough for something greater than themselves when they were within my domain. Let’s call it a wish granted, I thought. A chance to change the trajectory of their life. To desire their vain ambition, power, or wealth with aching, open hands. Desire was the key, and The System had learned exactly how to listen for it and exploit a delver’s greed and pride…and trauma…and then teach these broken souls a lesson they’d never forget.

  I taught it well, mimicking how I choose my delvers. That motherfucker.

  After all, weren’t all delvers across the universe just greedy bastards anyway?

  For Leo, it was to find me.

  And Goliath.

  And the strange gem.

  Or it could be the Administrators who were the ones who summoned that door in front of Plum’s diner and at Leo’s bedroom, hoping to bring chaos and a bloody good show for their viewers while being a pain in my ass. If it was, then I’d gather them around and wrangle their necks and choke the life out of them for interfering with my plans. Perhaps an amendment to our contract should be in order. I thought the Administrators would be content with the massacre of Milford’s men, but no essences were collected.

  They were as bloodthirsty as my archetypes, demanding more, more, more!

  Fucking hell.

  But it didn’t change the fact that I had to remain more vigilant than ever since a scenario night could trigger at any moment. Molly Redding was the first, but fortunately, days had past since the accidental fluke. Most of my archetypes were pleased that the System could now summon a scenario and allowing them to play more often. Anything for the love of the game, the hunt, and the kill. Only Duke Henry and his vampire spawns, Mother Gertrude, and Lady Asfrid were annoyed by it. They preferred knowing their prey before it was sprung on them.

  But none love it most than the clowns.

  Moody, Casper, and Jingles loved to wreck havoc wherever that might be, but they were more content keeping to themselves in the lair they had built at the amusement park. I pitied the delvers who ended up choosing them. The only two delving groups that did were a total party kill. And the things they did to those delvers even made Duke Henry and Lord Zal turned beet red, which I thought was not possible for the undead.

  Leo washed his face and stared at himself on the mirror for a minute.

  “You gotta get yourself together, man,” he said. “You know why you’re here. You know what to do.”

  You need to find that gemstone, he thought.

  Eventually, he went down to the kitchen where the others had already gathered; the room smelled of bacon, eggs, pancakes, and butter.

  Paul Barrera was the first of his companions I met a few days ago. Leo was tall, but Paul was even taller and more muscular, almost like Goliath, someone who looked like they had lived in the farm all their lives and did nothing but carry hay bales, chopped wood, and pushed logs and tires around or something. He reminded me of that red flannel guy on the paper towels.

  Paul recruited Leo into the brotherhood when they met in Thailand. He was hunting a vampire who escaped his lair in New Orleans a year back and hid in Phuket. Leo happened to be the vampire’s prey after a whirlwind night of drinking and partying with tourists and the locals. In Paul’s memories, he stalked this vampire for many nights in Phuket, witnessed a drunk Leo being drugged before the vampire brought him to a dingy hotel room a few blocks away from the dance club.

  But something happened in that room Paul couldn’t explain.

  He had never seen a vampire fear for its life before. Not like this. The vampire was so afraid it tried to claw its own eyes out and ripped out its tongue. The hunter had to take the poor fucker out of its misery (which Paul claimed to be the easiest kill he had ever done against a vamp), and carried Leo out of the hotel before the local police arrived.

  That encounter opened Leo’s eyes to the truth of the world: there were more monsters, they were real, and they were everywhere, just hiding at the periphery of civilization.

  It seemed like the Helwing Brotherhood saw something in that strange encounter, too.

  After Paul took Leo to their home base in Miami, their leaders decided to let him stay as a new recruit. Normally, if they were lucky, they’d find a haunting, demon, or a vampire maybe once or twice a year, and they’d build their mission around it by pouring the resources of the whole organization to fight it. But multiple reports of supernatural sightings and encounters poured in every damn week across the country since the beginning of the year. Every week, something needed killing, and the brotherhood was stretched thin. The more missions they had, the more they put their members in danger, and it was taking its toll on them.

  I’d bet a billion dollars it coincided with the Death Core’s birth.

  I also realized that Leo was acting like a human antenna for supernatural activities due to his connection to me, which kept the brotherhood busy these past few months. None in the brotherhood’s recent history where they had to juggle so many encounters since the Mayflower landed on the shores of the New World, or at their peak when they were once called the Knights Templar, who pulled the golden ears of kings and popes.

  The brotherhood’s leaders were afraid of what this meant. When the hunting grounds had suddenly changed into something alien, it was wise to be cautious, especially when their numbers weren’t as it once was.

  Leo signed on into their club anyway. Asked them to teach him how to kill the things that went bump in the night. He’d been a soldier once. He figured that meant something. Could handle a little heat again, if called to it.

  Since he joined, Leo had been campaigning for the brotherhood to go after me. But these hunters had only been preying on weak vampires, ghosts, and the occasional demon all their lives that they didn’t know what to make of an entity powerful enough to control other monsters and could bend reality to its will. To them, Leo’s tale was a macabre fairytale. For these hunters, only ghosts, ghouls, witches, demons, vampires, and the more tolerant werewolves have existed in this world ever since humans learned how to wield fire and venture out of Africa. Nothing else. As far as they knew, humanity had already wiped out the beasts from myths to extinction a long time ago.

  But a giant plant monster that shoot deadly spikes and grow poisonous, paralytic vines? Undead and unkillable serial killers like Michael Myers? Brutish and giant creatures made entirely out of ice shards that could freeze anyone instantly? A vengeful spirit possessing a literal national forest? And a sentient gemstone with the power of reality?

  No, they’d never heard or seen of such things. Those were just found in the movies filled with tolerable CGI and VFX.

  It was clear to me that the brotherhood didn’t know about dungeons and The System, too.

  Paul Barrera certainly hadn’t heard or encountered one, and neither did Leo’s other companions that were now gathered around the kitchen table, waiting for the stories he had been telling for months to come alive.

  All they did was stay at this rental home for a week, hoping for something they could hunt and kill.

  So far, this little excursion was a dud.

  Paul and Casey were already measuring their drive back to Florida in their heads. They’d come out of curiosity, sure. And to keep Leo alive. He might’ve been new to the trade, but he was Helwing now, same as them. Family counted for something, and they liked Leo, maybe even considered him a good friend. They were treating this past week like a getaway, a mini-vacation that they normally couldn’t get with their busy lives.

  But not to Professor Theo Kincaid, the fourth man of Leo’s party.

  Among the brotherhood, Professor Kincaid thought there might be some truth buried in Leo’s ramblings even when the rest of the leadership denied its existence. That was why he’d come. Not to humor a rookie or to play bodyguard. But to see it with his own eyes. It took quite a few discussions with the board to agree for this mission given how stretched thin their budget was, but he’d take what he could get. Frankly, he preferred a six or even an eight-man team against an unknown threat, but the four of them would have to do. There were a lot of things that still remained hidden in this world; ancient mysteries long forgotten and waiting to be found again. He had always maintained the belief to keep an open mind always when it came to the supernatural.

  That saved his life in many occasions.

  Professor Kincaid was Paul, Leo, and Casey’s opposite. Late fifties. Salt and pepper hair. Shorter. Leaner. A man who would lose a fight to a strong breeze. But he carried his pride in his head, not his fists. He’d read every book in the Helwing Estate’s library—some of them twice or more—and spent more than thirty years teaching anthropology and folklore at the University of Florida (when he wasn’t busy studying the real monsters). He was one of the brotherhood’s quiet and respected authorities on this side of the Atlantic.

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  “I think it’s time we go to the cabin,” Kincaid said.

  Paul, Casey, and Leo stopped chewing and looked up at him.

  “Um, you said a week ago we should wait,” Paul said.

  “We’ve swept Mark Castle’s former residence twice. No readings. No anomalies. No residuals. Nada.” He gestured vaguely toward the pile of equipment cases by the wall. “That crosses one thing out of our list, at least. Unless our devices don’t work on him.”

  “They work,” Casey said. “I made sure they were clean and calibrated before we left Miami. We used it at the Moore House last month and they were fine.”

  “I have no doubt about the integrity of our equipment nor your diligence, Ms. Porter.” Kincaid gave her a thin smile. “But we are, by Leo’s account, dealing with an entity that does not conform to established precedent. We are hunting for a gemstone possessed by a spirit.”

  “Now when you put it that way, I sound crazy,” Leo grumbled.

  Casey snorted. “I don’t know what’s confusing about it. Guy’s dead and pissed off. Sounds like every ghost we’ve ever put down. So what if a ghost found some friends in the woods? It’s not the first time a ghost possessed a piece of jewelry.”

  “This is no ordinary gem,” Leo said.

  Kincaid frowned. “There are all kinds of layers to the afterlife. It’s possible that more than half of it we don’t even know yet. This Mark Castle can answer several mysteries that the brotherhood has been in the dark for ages.”

  Casey took a bite of her bacon. “Just point me where to shoot, doc. I’m all for the shoot first and ask questions later kind of gal.”

  Paul leaned back in his chair, wood creaking under his weight. “His haunt must be the cabin then. Didn’t you say that’s where most of them died, Leo? The massacre?”

  Leo nodded. “But something doesn’t feel right.”

  “No kidding,” Casey laughed. “A demonic death cult created a ritual up in the mountains. What can possibly go wrong? We’ve encountered enough cults where they’ll mostly likely end up dead in two years or go homicidal.”

  “I getcha what you mean, man,” Paul said, clapping Leo on the shoulder. “You’ve been saying that since we rolled into town.”

  “I’m telling you. Something’s not right.”

  “It must be the cabin.” Paul leaned forward. “Hey, if you’re scared—”

  “I’m not scared, Paul.”

  “I said I getcha, man. I’m just teasing. It takes a lot to go back up there. I know that.”

  “No, I just want to be sure this town is not, you know, affected by it,” Leo said.

  “What do you feel?” Kincaid asked.

  “I already told you yesterday.”

  “Yes. And I am asking again. Has anything changed?”

  Leo paused, thinking. “No, it’s still the same…I don’t know…I feel stifled.”

  Kincaid tilted his head. “How so?”

  “It felt like…like I’m trapped in that cellar again? When I couldn’t move because of those roots growing around me. Couldn’t scream for help. Couldn’t think. Just this awful feeling as I walk around town yesterday and the day before that? You know? Like there’s something in the wind that’s just filled with this suffocating, noxious air that’s forcing its way down my throat.”

  Kincaid sipped his coffee. “Trauma has a remarkable capacity to reassert itself when one revisits triggering environments.”

  “It’s not that, professor,” Leo said sharply. “It’s not just in my head. It feels like the whole town is the cellar. Like he’s here.”

  “You mean Mark?”

  “Yes.”

  Kincaid frown deepened. “Interesting.”

  Leo looked around the table. “Look, I know that the brotherhood doesn’t want me to come along to this mission. I might have forced it actually,” Leo said. “But I’m fine. I’m good. I appreciate you all coming but I can handle myself. You don’t need to worry about me.”

  The others shared a doubtful look.

  “You know we’re here for you, man,” Casey said reassuringly. “I told you in Miami that I’d have your back.”

  “Me too,” Paul chimed in. “The four of us are in this together. We’ll do this by the book.”

  Leo forced a smile, trying to hide the rush of blood on his cheeks. “Thank you.”

  “You said he’s powerful enough to control other entities, right?” Kincaid asked.

  Leo nodded. A flash of Goliath looming over him in the woods crossed his mind. “Yeah.”

  “You feel his presence everywhere?”

  “Not all the time…but yeah.”

  “Even in this house?”

  A silent nod.

  “And that he watches over everything that night?”

  Another nod. “Yeah.”

  Kincaid’s eyes drifted toward the kitchen window. Toward the trees beyond it, standing still in the morning light.

  “Then…is it possible that he’s watching us now?”

  There was a long pause. The refrigerator hummed. The clock ticked. Somewhere outside, a few school children laughed as they walked toward the bus stop, followed by their parents.

  Paul cleared his throat. “Cabin it is, then.”

  They arrived at the cabin before noon, parking a little further away and out of sight from the road. From there, they hiked toward the cabin, and Casey frowned once they reached it.

  “Huh. That’s…not what I was expecting,” she said.

  In the crime scene pictures from the massacre that the brotherhood poured over, the cabin looked like a typical two-story building, one you’d normally find in the movies or every time you picture a cabin in the woods.

  Now it looked like something ripped from a luxury retreat catalog. Clean cedar siding glowed warm gold in the sunlight. The windows were enormous with their floor-to-ceiling panes that reflected the sky so brightly they were almost blinding, and there were far too many of them. The whole front of the building seemed made of glass, as if the architect hadn’t heard of privacy before.

  The roofline had been altered and flattened in places, sharpened in others. Steel accents framed the balconies. The back of the property had been expanded into a wide, tiered patio that stretched toward the cliff’s edge, jutting out over the drop with unsettling height. From where a guest stood, they could see the narrow trail snaking below, leading down toward the lake and the boathouse. There was even a a zip-line from the patio balcony to the lakeshore. It was a hit to many of my guests.

  I even added a mini guesthouse next to the patio. Steel beams anchored into the rock held the structure aloft, a sleek little box of glass and timber hanging ninety feet above the forest floor. In the center of its living room was a square of transparent flooring that offered a direct view straight down into the canopy below and its long, dizzying drop. Frankly, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen if someone accidentally fell through it. Same for the zip-line.

  The cabin had clearly been renovated multiple times within the past year. The cover story was that the old cabin had been bulldozed due to its colorful and violent history, and so Duncan Estate (Duke Henry’s fake company) built another structure on its place.

  I made several iterations of the cabin, updating it every two months or so. It was also available in all rental websites for everyone to enjoy! Professionally photographed. Drone footage at sunset. Testimonials carefully curated—a perfect vacation spot.

  All were welcome!

  All were invited to delve!

  Fun! Fun! Fun!

  Dead Pacifica rented the cabin for a great price of sixteen hundred dollars—four hundred per night. Given its notoriety, it was a steal. Again, I didn’t feed on all the guests that rented it. Just the more interesting ones.

  The ones who sought a second chance.

  “So this is where they murdered those people, huh?” Paul asked.

  Leo didn’t answer right away. He had taken a few steps closer to the gravel drive. “It’s not what I remember,” he answered at last. “I remember it…smaller.”

  “Some development company bulldozed the old cabin and built this in its place,” Casey said. She crossed her arms, gaze sharp and unimpressed. “It changed hands twice after the massacre. Third owner hired some architects with that whole sustainability angle and eco-luxury retreat or some crap. I read on the records that the owner’s local? Maybe they’re one of the people of interest we can interview.”

  “We’ll add that to our list,” Kincaid said. “Who’s the current owner?”

  “The Duncan Estate manages the properties around McLaren Forest,” she answered.

  “Leo. Paul. I’ll leave the two of you to handle that and contact them. Get us a meeting by this week, okay? I’d like to know what else they did while building this thing.” And if they couldn’t get the blueprints, Kincaid planned to sneak into their office and steal it themselves. He’s impressed that Leo could break into all kinds of places without breaking a sweat.

  “Unless they filled it up, there’s a bunch of tunnels and a small temple underneath the cabin. That’s where the cult killed Mark and where I was tied up,” Leo said.

  Casey huffed softly. “Never expected it to look like this, though. Looks like some rich prick owns it now.”

  “How are we going to find a gemstone out here? McLaren Forest is not exactly a cakewalk,” Paul said.

  “Last time, it was wedged in a tree. Coach Hodge tried to grab it. Mark might have moved it by now,” Leo said.

  Paul looked at the forest and heaved a sigh. “That sucks. There’s a fucking million trees out here. Where do we even start?”

  Leo turned toward Kincaid. “With the cabin gone…will this still work, professor?”

  Kincaid had not moved much since they arrived. He stood with his hands folded behind his back, studying the property with the patient, clinical interest of a man watching an animal at a zoo.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “evil adheres to a building. A room becomes a vessel or a doorway becomes a threshold.” He shifted his gaze toward the tree line. “Sometimes it binds itself to an object. And sometimes it roots into the soil itself. Into a person’s memory deep enough that no demolition crew can scrape it away. I’ve met stronger spirits. If Mark Castle is as powerful as you say he is, then he will not be destroyed that easily.” He then gave a faint shrug. “But there are many factors we have to learn and gather first before we strike. Even with us here is risky, so keep your eyes peeled.”

  Casey pulled out her phone, thumbs moving fast. “Doesn’t look occupied. I checked the rental listings on the drive up.” She squinted at the screen. “All dates are open until three weeks from now. That’s when—”

  “—when those kids show up, yeah,” Paul finished. He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe we shouldn’t let them stay here, Leo. Maybe we burn the place down? Make sure those kids don’t go poking around? What do you think, doc?”

  Leo’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t answer. It was one of the reasons that pushed him to campaign for a mission back to Point Hope. Those Dead Pacifica kids were poking a large hornet’s nest, and Leo had a funny feeling it was going to get so much worse.

  Kincaid lifted a hand slightly, calming but not dismissive. “Let’s not start committing arson without getting the facts first, Mr. Barrera. We’ll keep an eye out for them. Many groups have rented this property since the renovations. Let’s hope those kids are just as lucky.”

  “Many have gone missing,” Leo added. “And are still missing.”

  “As I said, we’ll keep an eye out.”

  Casey glanced up from her phone and scanned the eaves of the cabin. “I don’t see any outdoor cameras,” she said. “For a place this expensive? That’s weird.”

  “Go check our surroundings. Make sure no one’s actually here,” Kincaid said.

  Paul and Casey split off without another word.

  They moved along opposite sides of the cabin, boots thudding softly against the new deck boards, then crunching over the stone paths. Casey checked doorframes, tested window latches, crouched briefly to peer beneath the elevated foundation. Paul circled wider, skirting the tree line, scanning for motion sensors, hidden wiring, or the faint red blink of a hidden camera lens.

  Still nothing.

  They met at the back patio. From there, they could see the Last Resort manor stood on the opposite shore, half-shrouded by trees but unmistakable.

  Casey pointed at it. “Well, seems like we have neighbors. I think they’re far enough away that they don’t see us, right?”

  “I hope so. The lake’s massive,” Paul said.

  As much as Casey hated to admit it, but it was actually beautiful here. If she had enough money and a place she could retire, she’d choose this place. She imagined waking up to the cool morning breeze, the birds singing, sunrise peeking out of the mountains and reflecting across the waters, and then drinking coffee on this big porch. It’s like a dream, she thought. Then she imagined Derek sitting with her, enjoying a mug of mocha himself, and she frowned.

  She wiped the memory out of her mind. Derek died three years ago, but it still felt like yesterday. Casey could never forget his screams behind her as she ran through the night, begging for help. Begging for her to come back. Calling out her name. Begging, begging, begging…

  She ran and ran.

  If she didn’t, she’d be dead in those woods, too.

  At least that was what she told herself every night.

  “Let’s make a note of that,” I told Oracle. “Find out everything about her late boyfriend. Send the files to me by tonight.”

  As Casey reminder herself to accept and let go of her guilt, for a Death Core, their trauma was sweet, sweet ammunition.

  “You okay?” Paul rest his hands on her shoulder. Casey had gone awfully quiet for a minute.

  “Sorry, just tired. I did second watch last night, so I think I’m still sleepy,” Casey said quickly.

  “I thought I lost you there for a moment. What were you thinking about?”

  “Puppies,” she said. “And fishing.”

  She didn’t want to share her memories to Paul. Unlike her, Paul didn’t have as much of a bloody history with the supernatural. His parents were one of the leaders and important members of the brotherhood for many years, basically a nepo-baby. He was trained by the brotherhood from a young age, and when he got out of college, he started hunting for the brotherhood along with his parents. Paul lived at a nice apartment by Coconut Grove, half of the mortgage already paid by his wealthy parents, and had really nothing to worry about except not use his History degree from Georgia Tech, but instead became an electrician and a diving instructor as a hobby.

  Casey had met Paul’s family many times. They hadn’t been killed by entities or suffered from their cursed scrutiny. Paul was given a choice to either join the family business or live as a civilian. Paul’s brothers chose to be a high school teacher and the other a police officer, who occasionally helped the brotherhood with strange cases the normal police couldn’t solve. The rest of their extended family knew nothing about the supernatural world.

  Casey wished she had that choice.

  Instead, this burden was thrust upon her with blood.

  With Derek’s blood.

  “Hey, do you think there’s creatures down there, too?” Paul asked, changing the subject.

  Casey took a moment to compose herself. “Didn’t Leo say anything about mermaids?”

  Paul grinned. “You know, the day’s still young. I can go for some fishing. I hope they have big tits.”

  Casey snorted. “You’re gross.”

  “Joking aside, Leo did mention the entities here don’t behave normally. Do you believe that?”

  “We’re here, aren’t we? I believe Leo saw something up here. If it’s something we can destroy so that he can sleep better at night, then that’s good enough for me.”

  Paul shrugged. “Honestly, I’d like to see an ice monster,” he paused, grin widening. “I’d like to see it blow up, too.”

  “Hey. Maybe we can finally use those grenades.”

  They did one last sweep before returning to the front and reported to Kincaid.

  Leo walked back to the car and parked it in front of the property while the others were scouting the perimeter.

  “I would prefer to assess the house from the exterior first. I don’t want to break in yet,” Kincaid said to the others. “Disturbing an anomalous space can agitate whatever resides within.”

  “He might be watching us already,” Leo said.

  “Well, let’s find out.”

  Kincaid drew out a small EMF detector from his jacket and pressed the power button. The screen flickered to life with a soft electronic chirp cutting through the stillness. The baseline reading hovered low with normal environmental radiation.

  Oh, this is going to be hilarious, I thought.

  “I think it’s time,” I said to Oracle.

  “Time for what?”

  ‘They’ve been in town a week. It’s kinda rude that I never said hi, no?”

  “What do you want me to do, my lord?”

  I smiled. “I have an idea.”

  The numbers twitched on the device. Kincaid frowned slightly, adjusting his grip. “I’ve got something.”

  “Already?” Casey stepped closer, boots scraping against the gravel. “We’re not even in the cabin yet.”

  The reading climbed.

  Ten milligauss.

  Twenty.

  Thirty.

  The device emitted a soft beep with each fluctuation.

  Leo leaned in from Kincaid’s other side.. “Is that sound bad?”

  “Electromagnetic interference can indicate—” Kincaid stopped.

  The numbers surged again.

  Paul chuckled. “Yep. There’s something here. Should we break in?”

  “One moment.” Kincaid’s jaw tightened. He angled the device away from the cabin, then back again, as if triangulating my location, but the reading only soared higher as if the interference was all around them, continuing to climb to the three digits.

  “Let’s stop it at five hundred,” I told Oracle. “I think that number looks good for a haunting, no?”

  Oracle chuckled and did as told.

  Kincaid’s eyes widened. “That’s not possible,” he murmured.

  The device gave a piercing, continuous tone as the numbers shot higher still. For a fraction of a second, I realized I might have nudged it a bit too enthusiastically as the sensor turned red and the numbers read five-hundred and ten.

  Casey leaned over his shoulder. “Holy shit. We’ve never had a reading like that before.” She looked up at him. “I can’t remember, but what was the highest number we’ve gotten?”

  Kincaid didn’t answer immediately. A memory flickered behind his eyes. A farmhouse in Vermont. A young woman strapped to a bed. A demonic cackle emanating from her yawning mouth.

  “Around two hundred and fifty,” he said finally. “Five years ago.” He did not add that two of the four men who entered that barn had not walked out.

  “EMFs aren’t exactly reliable,” Paul offered, though his voice had lost some of its earlier bravado. “There could be some nearby power lines. Maybe some underground cables? Could be anything.”

  “Yeah, but in the middle of nowhere?” Casey shot back.

  Paul shrugged. “It’s not the first time.”

  “Should we try the others?” Leo asked quietly.

  Kincaid nodded once.

  They moved to the trunk and took out a reinforced briefcase lined with foam, filled with the same collection of devices Leo and Paul had brought into my home days ago.

  I told Oracle to go wild on all of them.

  “What the hell…” Paul muttered when he opened the case.

  Every display blinked warning lights. Every sensor pulsed red. For a moment, no one spoke. They stood there in the bright safety of midday, and every instrument they trusted insisted they were standing at the center of something enormous.

  Something very much alive.

  “Should we summon the door?” Oracle said, eager to start a delve.

  I shook my head. “It’s too early for that, my friend,” I said. “Let’s give them a little appetizer.”

  I turned on the car’s radio. Take me Home, Country Roads by John Denver started playing through the speakers, dialing the volume up so the music swallowed the parking lot.

  Leo took a step back from the car, eyes brimming with fear. “He’s here.”

  “I can see that.” Paul reached in to close the case, and all the beeping stopped.

  “Interesting.” For Kincaid, an entity who didn’t devolve into violence right away was a good sign. Spirits would rather take the trespassers out rather than communicate with them like in the movies, which meant the spirit around him—aka me—was intelligent. At least that’s what he hoped. “Nice trick you got there,” he said to the radio. “Thanks for the warm welcome. Is this Mark Castle we’re speaking to?”

  Reading into his thoughts, he was trying to figure out what kind of spirit I was. He fished something out of his pocket, a small vial filled with dirt and murky water. He held it up, and in a few seconds, it started to simmer and bubble. He put the vial back in his pocket. Kincaid didn’t like what he saw. The vial was holy water from the River Jordan mixed with the soil and dirt of Golgotha—the hill where Jesus Christ was crucified. It confirmed to Kincaid that a demonic presence was here. Spirits were easier to fight than demons.

  Paul, Leo, and Casey keep a watchful eye on the trees.

  I didn’t answer him.

  “Not the talking type, I see,” Kincaid said. “We mean you no harm.”

  I scoffed. They had every intention of killing me. Some of it noble, hoping to free me from what they deemed was a curse thrusted upon me. All spirits deserved to rest, according to them.

  “We seek to understand your predicament, Mark. Maybe we can help.”

  Again, I did not answer.

  “Didn’t you say it spoke to you?” Casey whispered to Leo.

  Leo nodded and stepped closer to the professor. “We should leave,” he said. “You got what you came here for?”

  “What about the cabin?” Paul asked.

  “And the gem?” Casey added.

  “We know it’s not the Castle residence. We confirmed he’s still here and possibly the gem, too. Fuck going into the cabin unless you guys have a death wish,” Leo said. He didn’t like it when my attention was on them. It felt like my eyes were burrowing on his back.

  Kincaid nodded. “What he said. No need to overstay our welcome,” he said.

  He didn’t like how their devices were going crazy even when they hadn’t even stepped foot in the cabin. The professor expected my presence to be stronger inside the house and not outside of it, which meant I was a spirit that was not confined to one location. Most spirits were the opposite, and a spirit unconstrained was dangerous.

  There was no need to break into the cabin after the little light show I gave them.

  Kincaid hopped into the car and the others did the same. Once the doors were closed and Casey turned off the radio, he turned to Leo. “You were right. It’s powerful.”

  Casey paused behind the wheel. “What are we dealing with here, sir?”

  “Just drive. It might still be listening.”

  Kincaid prided himself with his intuition when it came with the supernatural. Although Leo might have inherited a talent of attracting other entities, Kincaid had studied and worked with it all his life and knew what to look out for. It’s more of a feeling than just reading it from countless books. And what he felt when he was talking me was pure dread, like wanting to claw out of your own skin to escape, or needing to come home and never leave the door again, or wanting to hug his wife and never let go. Something he had never experienced or felt at any sites of hauntings. At any place where an unnatural entity had burrowed and called home. This was far stronger than he could imagine. That surprised him.

  And scared him.

  When they drove past the gas station, Kincaid turned to the others. “There’s definitely a demon there. It’s kinda funny though.”

  Casey snapped her head toward him. “How’s any of that funny? It was creepy.”

  “If the entity there is Mark, then it appears he simply activated our equipment and overwhelmed the sensors. Some of those devices weren’t even calibrated for spirits. One was tuned for ghouls. Another for lycanthropy.” A thin smile tugged at his mouth. “Sure, it was frightening to witness, but it makes me wonder if he was just screwing with us.”

  I laughed.

  He wasn’t wrong.

  “Are you saying the gear we brought with us isn’t going to work on him?” Casey asked the professor.

  Kincaid thinned his lips. “I have a sneaking suspicion most of them don’t work at all.”

  Paul let out a breath through his nose. “So he was fucking with us.”

  Kincaid gave a small shrug. “We’re talking about something that wiped out a cult.”

  “Not just it,” Leo said quietly. “There were other things that attacked us that night.”

  “I no longer doubt the veracity of your claims, Leo. A demon controlling other monsters,” Kincaid smiled. “What a time to be alive.”

  “Is that possible?” Paul asked. “They don’t exactly like each other.”

  “There’s much we don’t about this world and the universe. I think we have stumbled into one of its grander mysteries, my friends,” Kincaid said.

  Casey rolled her eyes. “Oh. That’s just great,” she said sarcastically. “You sound excited, doc.”

  “Well,” he said lightly, “I thought nothing could ever top Peru.”

  That shut them up for a second.

  Leo glanced at him. He wanted to ask about Peru. I could see it in his face, but he pivoted his thoughts back to the topic. “Do you think you can convince the rest of the brotherhood to come here?” Leo asked.

  “We’ve gotten proof your entity exists,” Paul added. “And that it’s real.”

  “And potentially powerful,” Casey said.

  “Yes,” Kincaid agreed softly. “Potentially powerful. Potentially demonic in nature.” He looked out the window as trees blurred by. “I’ll speak to them. This mission was already extended as a courtesy for what you’ve done for us in your brief time with the Brotherhood.” A small exhale. “I only managed to convince them when I mentioned a cult might have summoned an entity. Cults get their panties wet, you know.”

  Leo stifled a smile despite himself. “Better late than never, I guess.”

  “But we’ll need corroboration about these other creatures,” Kincaid continued. “Right now we’ve confirmed a demonic presence. Nothing more. Letitia and Colter may support an escalation, and if I ask extra nicely, they’ll send a backup crew, too. The other three will argue that a four-man team is sufficient per protocol.”

  “I’ll tell you now this isn’t a four-man operation,” Leo said. “And we shouldn’t wait to find out the hard way. Ever since I got here, my dreams have gotten intense. It’s connected. I know it is. It feels like a message.”

  Kincaid turned in his seat to face him fully. “And what message is that?”

  Leo swallowed. “That he’s building toward something. Something big.”

  Silence settled over the car. The road hummed under the tires.

  “There’s one other thing,” Paul said.

  Everyone except Casey looked at him.

  “Maybe we can reach out to the Institute, professor?”

  Leo blinked. “Who the fuck are the Institute?”

  “They’re not something you need to concern yourself with, Mr. Grady,” Kincaid said quickly. “We don’t need to involve the feds.”

  Leo’s eyes widened. “The feds know about these things?”

  Casey chuckled. “They’re the government. Of course, they do.”

  “They’re a small group, I think. Super secret and top-level shit, but with Uncle Sam’s fucking pockets,” Paul explained. “The brotherhood isn’t exactly a fan of them, but we’ve crossed paths before. Worked with a couple cases together, too.”

  “They’re not exactly a fan of us, either,” Casey pointed out.

  “How come this is the first time I’m hearing about this?”

  Casey shrugged. “It never came up.”

  Kincaid’s expression hardened. The warmth drained out of him. “We are not involving them. We need approval from the others anyway.”

  Paul opened his mouth to add something, then closed it under the professor’s stern glare. He sank deeper into his seat, which looked impossible when the top of his head was a couple inches away from the ceiling and the car they were in felt cramped for a man of his size.

  Leo didn’t look away from Kincaid. “Are they something we have to worry about?”

  Kincaid was quiet for a moment. Long enough that the hum of the car filled the space between them.

  “I doubt this is even in their orbit,” Kincaid said, hopeful.