Chapter 3
Chapter Three
CONNOR
Ihit the button on my steering wheel to end my call to Josh as I drive out of the town nearest to Mannix Estate.
He sounded thrilled and relieved that I’m so close, which is actually pretty normal for me.
People with paranormal problems are always happy to see me arrive.
It’s after I’ve resolved things that their attitude sometimes changes.
Not that I blame them—they just want to forget their trauma and get back to their ordinary lives, which is hard to do when someone you know is a paranormal hunter is hanging around.
My very existence reminds them of whatever trauma they’ve just been through.
It’s why I don’t have many friends outside the “industry.”
Well, that and I’m not that nice a person. Turns out, friends don’t like being told when they’re fuckwits. Go figure.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to this job.
I’ve heard of Mannix Estate, of course—it’s one of the most haunted buildings in the country—but since all the ghosts there are friendly, there’s never been a reason for me to visit.
Although now that I know there was a soul-eater there earlier this year, I guess that’s not true.
Also… a soul-eater, and now a body-hopper?
Things aren’t as innocent as Josh and his friends made them sound.
If my suspicions are correct, there’s definitely a reason for me to visit, and it’s not just to oust a mostly harmless spirit.
I speed along the road, mentally calculating how entrenched the body-hopper will be by now.
Denver took me longer to tie up than I expected, and I didn’t get on the road until late Wednesday afternoon.
It’s midmorning Friday now. I pushed it yesterday, knowing how anxious this Skye guy must be—it’s never fun to be possessed—but hunters don’t live to be as old as I am by skipping too much sleep.
Sometimes a good night’s rest and an alert brain are the only things that keep you alive.
I’m thirty-two, by the way, which should tell you all you need to know about the life expectancy of hunters.
Anyway, if the spirit moved in on Tuesday afternoon, it’s had nearly three days to take stock.
Josh said there have only been four more risings since we spoke, but that’s coming to an end, I bet.
It must be ready to get started with whatever its agenda is.
Fingers crossed this is one of the mellow ones that just wants to experience sensations, and not one of the jacked ones that wants to amass an army of bodies it can jump in and out of on a whim.
“You are approaching your destination. Your destination is on the left,” my GPS declares, and I peer through the windshield.
Up ahead, the run of fence is broken by a driveway with a fancy sign beside it.
The driveway leads through a pair of open gates and across an expanse of lawn to a Georgian-style house. I slow the SUV.
Welcome to Mannix Estate, the sign says. Yay for GPS not leading me astray.
The moment I cross through the gates, my suspicions are confirmed.
Positive energy floods me, the kind that comes from a combination of rich mineral deposits and generations of care and happiness…
because it’s true, good thoughts and feelings can have an impact.
Mix that with the right minerals in large quantities, and it all amplifies into a happy place. There’s good juju here.
But that’s not what I was suspicious about.
It’s the other energy that makes me sigh and shake my head. Raw power, with the same head-spinning potency as a bottle of whiskey should anyone be stupid enough to try to absorb it. There’s an open gateway to the otherworld on this property.
Unguarded.
Just… wide open.
I really hope these people have no idea what it is. Because if they know and are up to no good… well, that’s not going to go well for them.
Regardless, I’ll need a gatekeeper before all this is done. “Hey Siri, add ‘find a gatekeeper’ to my to-do list.”
“I’ve added ‘find a gatekeeper’ to your to-do list,” Siri informs me.
“Great.” I follow the signs around to the ample visitor parking and find a space—away from the bus taking up most of one row.
The lot is half full, which is kind of surprising for a weekday morning.
I guess this place is popular. If I remember right, it’s more than just a haunted hotel, but I’m not sure exactly about the details.
The ghosts were the only bit that interested me.
I hop out of the SUV and make sure it’s locked before heading toward the front entrance.
I’m not worried about the car being stolen so much as what’s inside.
A lot of the things in my kit are hard to replace…
and some of them are dangerous. The last thing this place needs is someone accidentally poisoning or stabbing themselves.
Dodging around two middle-aged women tittering over “Mr. Muscles”—whoever that might be—I stride up the front steps and reach for the doorknob. The door opens before I can get a grip, and a big-eyed, messy-haired short guy looks up at me.
“Connor?”
Guess he’s the welcoming committee. Not hard to guess who he is, either—he’s clearly had no training, and energy radiates from him all unchecked.
“Yep. You must be Josh.” I stick out my hand, more because I want to get a better measure of him than for politeness.
“That’s me.” He takes my hand, and I barely have time to notice his purple fingernails before the jolt makes me shudder. “Whoa,” he gasps. “What…?”
Behind him, a couple hovers, waiting to get through the doorway.
“Let’s go inside and I’ll explain,” I suggest, dropping his hand, somewhat reassured that if there’s hinky business going on here, he’s not part of it.
Not knowingly, anyway. My overall impression of him is a dependable, sweet-natured guy, a little insecure, who’s had a tough time in the past but is settled and happy.
He’s also got a lot of power. Untrained, kind of wild, but he’ll be a force to be reckoned with once he knows what he’s doing.
“Uh, actually, we need to go outside,” he says, gesturing.
I obligingly step back, and he comes out onto the little stoop, holding the door for the couple before closing it and turning to me.
“We wanted to keep Skye away from all the guests, so he’s down at the farm manager’s cottage. Less chance of any excitement there.”
“Lead the way.” I try not to smirk. Everything he said might be true, but I’m willing to bet a big part of the reason Skye’s not in the house is that they want to keep me away from the gateway, which is definitely somewhere in the building…
one of the bedrooms, I think. It’s on an upper floor, anyway, and that’s probably where the guest rooms are.
I hope they don’t have random hotel guests staying in there.
We follow a path toward a group of outbuildings.
About fifty chattering elementary school kids are scattered among them, clumped in small groups.
I hear the ring of metal on metal, and my hand twitches.
Usually that sound means I’m crossing blades with some kind of otherworld nasty.
Since nobody’s screaming and fleeing, I’m going to assume all is normal.
“What’s going on here?” I ask casually.
“Oh, uh, just a normal Friday. We have two school groups today, this one now and another this afternoon. Ewan’s got back-to-back demonstrations planned in the smithy, and Daniel’s probably showing the kids how to harness a horse to a wagon.
Then he’ll take them to the back field and have them pull up some carrots. ”
I chuckle. “Seriously? Schools bring kids here so they can help you with harvesting?”
“You’d be surprised how much the kids love it.
It seemed weird to me at first, but almost everyone who comes here wants to have a turn at doing things ‘the old-fashioned way.’” He makes air quotes with his hands, the purple of his nails catching the light.
It suits him. “This way—we’ll circle around so we don’t get caught in the middle of them. ”
He leads me in a loop around the barn or whatever, and then we rejoin the path—driveway?
—on the other side. Not long after, the path forks, one side leading toward two long dormitory-style buildings, and the other to a small, neat house.
I’m not surprised when we go that way—I can sense the ghosts and the body-hopper already.
Josh opens the door without knocking but wipes his feet carefully on the mat as he calls, “It’s just me.
” I look down at my running shoes and see they’ve picked up some dust, so I follow suit—with the wiping, not the calling.
Then we go inside, directly into a decent-sized living room space.
I glimpse what looks like a kitchen through a doorway toward the back, and a hallway runs in line from the front door, probably to the bedrooms.
The room is chock-full of ghosts—four of them—and two living people.
One is a nervous-looking but still hot Black woman sitting in an armchair.
The other, slouched on the couch, is a cute man with shoulder-length rainbow hair and a body-hopper possessing him.
I was right that it’s nearly ready to begin its reign of terror—a few more hours, and Skye would have found himself shunted to the back of his own brain.
As the woman stands and Josh goes to talk to her, I take a second to assess the ghosts.
They’re all strong—way stronger than they should be.
That stands to reason, what with the amplification effect of the estate and the open gateway.
They’re all sizing me up too, which I love.
I loosen my shields a tiny bit to give them a thrill.
The teenage-looking one, who by the feel of him is actually one of the oldest, gasps. I pretend not to have noticed and turn my attention to Skye.
“Hi. I’m Connor.”