Chapter 8 #2
Booker was already racing for the car—and likely the guns he kept in there. It wasn’t like we’d kept gear on us while eating, so really he was fetching stuff for Quinn, too.
I stayed planted because, let’s face it, I couldn’t help much.
My best use of time was standing right next to Gwyn and keeping a sharp lookout for anything that might come at her.
I wasn’t prepared for a fight, the only things I had on me were salt and my wits, but I’d do what I could.
If only I had my thermal goggles… Dammit.
Note to self: Go nowhere without gear from now on.
Mack waded in, snagging a ghost almost immediately. Eli laughed and said something like “You’re fucked now, suckers, there’s two of us!” and kept right on going. I shook my head. So young to be so crazy.
Lachlan muttered, “I can barely see outlines of the ghosts, otherwise I’d help.”
“Naw, they’ve got it,” Beau promised, his body language relaxed. “Not that many. They’ve had worse.”
I mean, true. They had. And I could tell from even this distance Mack had it under control. He wasn’t showing a single sign of distress, and right now he was working back-to-back with Eli.
Gwyn sidled up close enough our arms brushed and I glanced down at her. “You good?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes didn’t leave the park area. “It’s just… Wow. Eli’s powerful, I knew that the second I met her, but some of those ghosts are seriously bad. And they still don’t stand a chance against her. She’s fire.”
“One of the top Exorcists for a reason.”
“Whoa! Mack just exorcised one!” Gwyn’s grey eyes nearly popped out of her head. “I know he said he could, but…”
“He can do three a day, no more without exhausting himself. Still, it’s cool as hell he can do it at all.”
“Yeah,” Gwyn breathed, still a little stunned. “Wait, can I do it too?”
She no doubt asked because Mack had told her they were about equal in strength.
Beau leaned around me to say, “I’d be surprised if you can’t. It’s a matter of strength more than talent. Exorcising is raw power.”
“Oooh.” Gwyn bopped a little on her toes, her grin eerily similar to Eli’s right before she went crazy.
Oh no. There were two of them.
Universe, at least give me a heads-up you made more than one, would you? This isn’t nice.
Gwyn and Beau both winced at the same time. Fortunately, Gwyn was still willing to narrate for me. “That looked bad. Uh, a ghost tried to ambush Eli from behind and she… Well, if the ghost had a physical body, it would have broken his jaw.”
I could totally see that. She had done quite the backhand there.
“Is…this an actual brawl?”
“All it’s missing is alcohol,” Beau said. “Wow. I have never seen a fight like this between Mediums and ghosts. This has to be one for the history books.”
Even Booker was firing off rock salt, thermal goggles on.
You knew you’d reached a whole new level of insanity when the anchors had to fight too.
Intense as the fighting was—and I even saw Mack throw a few punches, which was insane—it was over quickly.
Likely because the ghosts didn’t stand a chance.
Mack and Eli bumped fists, grinning like maniacs, and then came back toward us.
Quinn stayed right at his wife’s side, Booker bringing up the rear, gun still locked and loaded, so those two clearly didn’t trust this area at all.
Mack paused, head canted, clearly listening to a ghost. He said something back, made a face, nodded, and then resumed his journey to me.
Uh. “What was that about?”
“Ghost giving us some intel,” he answered with a backward glance. Presumably looking at the ghost in question. “He told me who we were fighting. Said it was part of that almost-demon’s gang.”
Oh. Fuck.
“Gang?” Hannah repeated, like she couldn’t slot these words into something that made sense. “Ghosts have gangs?”
Lachlan also seemed bemused. “So this isn’t a Yank thing?”
“I have never heard of this.” Booker pushed his goggles up, glancing from face to face. “Literally never heard of it. Why would a ghost need a gang?”
“The ghost who relayed the information to me wouldn’t name the leader, just said it’s the almost-demon who’s leading them. The part of the gang we just fought were all miners, though, or at least dressed like them.” Mack glanced at Eli. “What do you say, you think they were miners?”
“I’d be surprised if they weren’t.” Still, she frowned. “Just how big is this gang?”
“He said we’d just wiped out a portion of it.” Mack rubbed his jaw, glancing at Eli. “How many were there, do you think? Fifteen?”
“About, but I’d guess closer to twenty.”
“Four of them escaped,” Mack explained to me. “Toward the very end, when they realized they couldn’t defeat us, they ran for it.”
Smart of them. It wouldn’t save them, in the end, because now we knew they existed, we weren’t going to leave them to wander free.
“The next time we have them like this, we need to set up a barrier of some sort,” Eli said. Her lips curved up to bare her teeth in a very non-smile. “No escaping me next time.”
Oh boy.