Chapter Seventeen #2
You might have messed around with a Ouija board when you were a kid.
If so, you should probably know that they’re actually powerful conduits to the realm of the damned.
Even the cheap, flimsy versions you find in toy stores and New Age boutiques are imbued with traces of dark magic.
When I followed Lex into a small room on the Repository’s main floor, however, I discovered that the board we would be using was the real deal.
“Fancy,” I noted as I peered at its dark, polished wood.
The board sat on a round table bracketed by two chairs in the middle of the room.
Surrounding us were glass-fronted cases holding a wide range of divinatory objects while black candles flickered from every available surface, making spooky shadows crawl and shift across the ceiling.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Lex said as they settled into one of the chairs. “It’s made from the mortal remains of Elsabeth Brünner. The letters and numbers are carved from her bones, and the planchette is stuffed with trimmings of her hair and fingernails.”
“Wow,” I mumbled, skin crawling, “neat.” Easing carefully into the other chair, I decided I wasn’t imagining the watchful malevolence that seemed to radiate from the board. “Who was she?”
“An Austrian medium. She died like a hundred years ago.”
“Uh-huh. Great. And you come in here and chat with her, like, a lot?”
“Technically, I come in here and chat with the spirits of the damned. She supplies the conduit. But yeah, I like to think that Elsabeth and I are pals.”
That was such a weird thing to say that I let it go by without comment. “I haven’t used one of these since I was a kid,” I said, eyeing the board between us. “I feel like I’m at a really spooky sleepover. Maybe I’ll braid your hair when we’re done here.”
“Touch my hair and die.”
“Okay then.” Gingerly, I reached out and placed two fingers from each hand on the heart-shaped planchette.
My skin prickled unpleasantly. Watching as Lex did the same, I then cleared my throat and spoke to the empty air.
“Um. Hi there.” Nothing moved except for the candle flames. “Is this thing on?” I joked weakly.
Lex rolled their eyes.
I cleared my throat again. “Okay. So. Um. There was an incursion here in the building. Two weeks ago. In an elevator.” Was the air growing heavier? “I want to know what that thing was. And how to get rid of it.”
Lex’s pierced eyebrows drew downward. “I thought you wanted to figure out what was making people disappear,” they whispered.
“I do,” I whispered back.
“So what’s this about an elevator?”
“I’ll explain later.”
We waited, fingers perched on the planchette’s smooth surface.
The room was so quiet that I could hear the faint sound of the candle flames as they danced and shivered around us.
The moment stretched. I gave the planchette an experimental nudge, but it didn’t move.
It was like it had been nailed to the board.
“Maybe it’s broken,” I suggested eventually.
Lex gave me a vaguely disgusted look. “How could a Ouija board be broken?”
“I don’t know,” I replied defensively. “Maybe the operating system needs an update. Maybe Elsabeth is on her lunch break.”
Abruptly, the planchette jerked forward. I let out a squeak and pulled my hands back, and the motion stopped. Hesitantly, I placed my fingertips on the dark wood and immediately the planchette began to move again, skating smoothly from one letter to the next in long, curving arcs.
I-H-E-A-R
I glanced up at Lex, but they just nodded meaningfully at the board. Leaning forward, I asked in a hushed voice, “What is the thing from the elevator?”
H-U-N-G-R-Y
“But what is it, specifically?” Lex chimed in. “Does it have a name?”
The planchette twitched violently and then glided toward the letter A. Both of us watched, hardly daring to breathe, as it swiftly spelled out another word.
A-B-O-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N
“Shit,” Lex muttered.
“Is that bad?” I asked anxiously.
“Uh, yeah, it’s bad. Is there anything about the word abomination that seems good to you?”
Uneasy, I stared at the board. “Where is it now?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E
“That’s unsettling,” Lex said.
The planchette vibrated strongly under our fingertips and started to move again, this time with such force and speed that I was jerked forward and then sideways in my chair.
I tried to break the connection but I couldn’t lift my fingers—it was like they were glued down.
Lex’s shoulders tensed as they, too, tried to let go of the planchette.
I-T-S-E-E-S-M-E
“What’s happening?” I demanded hoarsely as the planchette’s violent motion yanked my arms in first one direction, then another.
I-T-K-N-O-W-S
“Something extremely bad,” Lex grunted, straining to pull themself away from the board.
E-S-K-O-M-M-T
“Now she’s babbling incomprehensibly!” I cried.
“It’s German, you idiot,” Lex growled. “She says ‘It is coming.’ ”
E-S-K-O-M-M-T
“What do we do?” I called out desperately. The planchette was now moving so violently that it swung me bodily from side to side.
Lex’s teeth were bared in a pained grimace. “Hang on!”
H-I-L-F-M-I-R
“What does that mean?” I shouted.
“ ‘Help me!’ ”
H-I-L-F-M-I-R-H-I-L-F-M-I-R-H-I-L-F-M-I-R
The two of us were flung back and forth like rag dolls, our harsh breaths the only sound now apart from the soft whisking of the planchette across the board as it continued to spell out one plea after another.
Under my fingertips, the wood shook so violently that I was surprised it hadn’t simply disintegrated.
The planchette suddenly stopped in the middle of the board. It no longer vibrated with unnatural strength—now it shivered like a terrified animal. Then it began to move again, making eight quick arcs.
I-T-I-S-H-E-R-E
I was still spelling out that final message in my mind when the board splintered in half with the dull, sickening crack of a snapping femur.
The planchette fell apart as well, scattering yellowed fingernails and brittle wisps of black hair.
Released from whatever had been holding me, I recoiled from the table so hard that my chair almost went over backward.
Opposite me, Lex had their hands lifted into the air as they stared down at the ruined fragments of the board lying between us.
A dank, musty exhalation of cold air breathed across my face like a despairing sigh.
At the same moment, the candle flames around us shrank to almost nothing, plunging us into near-darkness.
Bolting from my chair, I huddled back against the glass front of a display case.
“What the heck just happened?” I demanded in a shaking voice.
Still seated, Lex leaned forward to examine the splintered wreck of the Ouija board, prodding one or two slivers of bone with a finger. “We got our answer,” they murmured. “Or at least, an answer.”
I stayed where I was, unwilling to go any closer to the table. “It said—” I swallowed. “It said the thing out there is an abomination.”
Lex took one last moment to study what was left of the board before rising to their feet. “Yeah,” they sighed, running both hands along the sides of their mohawk. “And I think she meant a capital A Abomination.”
“And that is…?” I trailed off questioningly.
Slowly, Lex removed their thick-framed glasses and closed their eyes while pinching the bridge of their nose. “You know what, Colin? I think I’ve had enough of you for one day.”
“Hey,” I protested.
Jamming their glasses back onto their face, Lex fixed me with a gimlet stare.
“Thanks to you, I’m swimming in some seriously deep waters now.
First you bring in a seal bearing Management’s signature, and now we just watched an Abomination murder the spirit of a dead medium.
And on top of that, it’s obvious that you aren’t telling me everything.
How do you know this thing was inside the building at all?
” They scowled. “This is not cool, Colin. In fact, this is seriously fucking bad.”
“I didn’t know—” I started to say before they cut me off.
“Yeah, that’s the problem. You don’t know.” With a curt shake of their head, Lex stabbed a finger at the light switch next to the door, flooding the room with fluorescent illumination. Then they started blowing out candles.
I watched in silent dismay. “Look, I’m sorry,” I finally said. “But I’m trying to fix something that went wrong.”
“I’m not messing around with an Abomination,” Lex told me with grim finality.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to hide the fact that we destroyed a priceless artifact while hoping that whatever ended Elsabeth isn’t coming after us now.
Thanks a lot, Colin.” With a last, disgusted shake of their head, Lex opened the door and stomped out.
I lingered in the small room for another minute or so, trying to process what I’d witnessed there.
Then I hurried out into the hallway and immediately came to a halt at the sight of Sunil leaning casually against the wall.
Giving me a slow, lazy smile, he said, “That was quite the commotion in there.”
My stomach performed a series of unpleasant backflips. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I was just passing by,” he said with a shrug.
“Tamsin said the same thing the other day. I didn’t believe her, either. You’re following me, aren’t you? Spying on me.”
Straightening, he moved closer. “Why would we bother doing that, Harris?” Craning his neck, he tried to peer into the room behind me, and when I pulled the door shut his smile sharpened.
“Your friend ran off before I could make sure everything was okay,” he added with an air of false concern.
“Is that the same person Tamsin met in here the other day? You two are spending an awful lot of time together.”
“We’re working on something important,” I told him, trying not to sound defensive.
“Something that’s going to land you in middle management?”
I met his gaze defiantly. “Yes.”
He smirked. “Reading books and playing with toys isn’t going to impress the board, Harris.
It doesn’t matter, though. Kettering’s gone, and until the board appoints a replacement, I have access to unlimited amounts of human resources.
Between that and Tamsin’s connections in Transportation, we’re going to land a new investor for the company.
Something crazy powerful that will make Management cream Their jeans.
” Leaning forward, he fixed me with a malicious grin.
“Maybe we’ll offer it your soul as a signing bonus. ”
“Is that supposed to scare me?” I asked, as if it didn’t.
Sunil shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “Enjoy your time up on thirteen while you can. It’s almost over.” Then he brushed past me and walked away.