Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Natalie eyed the container that contained the brain.
The coated lead vessel sat innocently on the stainless-steel countertop. Right beside the lab sink and the industrial-sized pump bottle of liquid soap.
Anyone walking into Liam’s lab would never know the unobtrusive container currently was being used to imprison the brain of a vicious, vindictive spirit of a possible serial killer.
The vessel fit right in, looking like something that belonged in a research lab. But Natalie knew what it really was and just being in the room with it creeped her the hell out. To the point she felt the tingle in her spine the moment she walked through the door.
That was one reason she stayed on the other side of the lab, as far as she could from it.
“Did it, you know, put up a fight?” she asked, forcing her gaze off the container and onto something more pleasant. Liam.
His dark brows rose. “Put up a fight? The brain?”
They were battling an evil spirit and Liam was being a smart ass.
She shot him a glare that she hoped expressed exactly how she felt about that. All it did was make his dimple appear.
“No. Not the brain. The… spirit,” she whispered, afraid she might somehow awaken or summon the entity if she spoke about it too loudly.
“No, Natalie, it did not,” he replied in an incredibly loud whisper of his own.
“Do we think it’s working?” she asked, afraid to hope.
He bobbed his head to one side. “It’s been almost forty-eight hours and there have been no new attacks.”
“That we know of,” she added.
“That we know of,” he conceded. “Based on that evidence, I’d say chances are good that yes, it’s working.”
Moderately satisfied, she nodded. She’d walked over this morning before unlocking the shop because she had to do something. Doing nothing but holding her breath and waiting for reports of yet another attack was making her antsy.
But it seemed containing the brain in lead was working.
That was good. She could breathe a sigh of relief and deal with today’s customers without being on edge. But the containment working also meant they’d have to house this thing here in the lab for the foreseeable future.
Possibly forever.
She considered the ramifications of that.
Would she and Liam have to spell out in their wills that this vessel remain unopened forever?
Include some weird post-death condition that people only expected from the Last Will and Testaments of eccentric billionaires?
The type who left their vast estates to their cat.
She didn’t see any other option unless they figured out some way to destroy it completely.
That opened a whole other moral can of worms. Destroying a spirit seemed tantamount to murder. Though if the spirit was a murderer himself…
This was the kind of dilemma ethics professors debated. It was definitely too much for her to consider now when fueled on only one cup of coffee.
All she knew was that they couldn’t return the brain to the Anatomical Donation Program in Albany and risk someone letting it out. Just as they couldn’t tell anyone in Albany why they couldn’t open the container.
Issuing a warning about a malevolent, powerful and cunning ghost attached to the donated brain he’d requested for his lab would ruin Liam’s reputation as a serious researcher.
He’d be marked as a tin-hat conspiracy theorist who believed in evil spirits because his girlfriend claimed she could talk to ghosts.
She wasn’t even sure Liam actually believed in this brain ghost. Was this whole lead vessel plan just a placebo to keep her happy?
Right now she didn’t care either way. As long as this thing stopped hurting people. And left her alone.
She shot the urn-like vessel one more quick glance and felt a tingle of fear chase down her spine. Contained or not, the presence of the spirit and the brain still affected her.
It was probably all psychosomatic. Some sort of spectral PTSD. But she continued to feel… off. Like she needed to keep looking behind her to make sure she wasn’t being followed.
Would this feeling of being watched, being stalked, go away anytime soon? She could only hope.
Meanwhile, Liam stood with a clipboard in one hand and his eyes focused on her. “Was there something you needed? Or did you just want to visit your friend over there?”
At first she thought he was referring to Gabe.
Another smart-ass comment because he knew if she wanted to see Gabe she’d visit his spirit at Harper’s house, not his cadaver in the lab.
But when she realized Liam had tipped his head in the direction of the vessel, indicating the evil brain was the object of her visit, she scowled at him.
“No, I was coming to visit my boyfriend. Smart, handsome, nice, loves me, but I see he’s not here so I’ll leave.”
She spun on a heel but hadn’t taken more than a step before she felt Liam’s hands on her arms.
He no longer held a clipboard as he turned her to face him.
Leaning low, he pinned her with an intense gaze filled with emotion he only showed to her.
“Your boyfriend loves you. But he has to scramble to make a deadline after spending so much time containing his latest research subject in lead. I need to get back to work or this paper is not going to make the submission deadline for publication. So…”
“So?” she asked.
“Did you really just come to see me or did you need something?”
“Yes… and yes. I called a ghost council meeting tonight at the shop after closing. Just to make sure there really haven’t been any new attacks we haven’t heard about.”
He cringed. “You don’t need me there for that, do you?”
“No, not really. Unless you wanted to be there…”
His brows rose. “How about I promise to see you right after your meeting…and show you exactly how much I love you? Good?”
How could she say no to that? That offer was almost enough to distract her from the feeling of dread that had taken up residence inside her.
Almost…