21. The cave dweller
twenty-one
The cave dweller
JAMES
"James, maybe you should wait for us for this one," Lana says on the phone.
I stumble on a tree root and curse quietly. "It's not my first rodeo, and you two are really busy this time of the year."
"Yeah but this haunting might be too much to handle, even for you. Even the ghosts fear what's in that cave."
An owl hoots in the night, and Pearl chatters from my shoulder.
"We don't have the luxury of waiting, nor can you get away from the hostel. I'll be fine. I'm just going to take a quick look inside, see if Ewan was here, then quickly make my escape before the big bad inside the cave can even say boo."
"You know I love your insane optimism, but I still don't like this," Lana says.
"I'm getting close. I'll text you in an hour."
She sighs. "Be careful. Love you." Behind her, I hear Shirley say the same before I hang up.
The forest path is overgrown and littered with branches and rocks, and even with the flashlight, I can barely see where I'm walking. The darkness is thick under the trees, and moonlight barely pierces through the canopy.
After half an hour, I finally reach the fence surrounding the area. The nearby town closed it off after one too many accidents. People lost their minds while visiting the cave. They saw things, hurt each other, got lost in the dark…
Of course, we know they weren't accidents, but a powerful poltergeist haunting this place. The spirits whisper of a woman who long ago was left in this cave to die. The usual woe is me kind of story that usually turns the dead into an evil entity.
The kind of entity that Earl Lynch feeds upon.
Pearl meows frustratingly from my shoulder as I find the wire cutter in my bag to open us a path beyond the fence. The entrance to the cave waits for us on the other side, wide like an open maw and darker than an abyss.
"Why does it always have to be creepy, dark places?" I mumble. "Can't they haunt a field of flowers during a bright sunny day?"
Pearl meows again.
As if on cue, that uncanny feeling rises as we get closer to the entrance after pushing our way through the gutted fence.
"This place is haunted alright," I say.
I make sure my arsenal is ready: salt, smoke bombs, blade, some herbs, and a mind full of incantations and spells. And of course, my paranormal cat.
Here we go. I walk into the cave.
Almost immediately, I'm faced with a choice. The tunnel bends to the right or to the left. Shirley gave me a quick rundown of the events that happened here over the last century.
One teenager got lost in the cave system for two days.
The local newspaper at the time called it strange, since the system isn't really vast, and the experts have mapped the entire cave.
To this day, they still don't understand where he went.
He swore for him it felt like a few hours at most, stuck in the dark.
A group of campers got chased by something huge in the nineties, and the authorities called it a simple mass hysteria after they found weed in their belongings.
Then follows a list of sad deaths. People who just went in the cave and never came back out alive, their bodies found later by other visitors. They closed the area off ten years ago.
Shirley couldn't find the map of the cave system online, so I'll just have to be careful.
"Which way, do you think?" I ask Pearl.
Her glowing eyes search the dark, and when she stares to the right, her hair puffs out.
"This way then." I follow the right bend. "Did I tell you I fucking hate caves? They make me claustrophobic."
She meows.
"I almost got lost in a cave when I was seven.
My three older cousins took me with them, then they turned the flashlight off and bailed.
I was fucking terrified. The cave wasn't big, and I managed to find my way out.
I bit Sammy's hand hard enough to draw blood—he was the leader of the group.
I got punished for it, my aunts were furious.
But when I got home a few days later, my dad was proud of me for fighting back.
He always hated my mother's side of the family. Cunts and racists, the bunch of them."
I'm blabbering now, trying to ignore the way the air around us gets colder as we walk deeper into the cave. Animal bones and trash litter the ground. I take reassurance in the fact that I have at least three flashlights and my phone on me.
At last, the tunnel widens into a large cavern and my flashlight reflects on a mirroring surface. Water. Not the best time to remember Shirley mentioning someone drowning in the cave.
I aim the light to all corners of the cavern. There are no fresh footprints in the mud but mine. Ewan was never here. We chose the wrong destination.
"Sorry to have bothered you, spirit of the cave. I'll be on my way."
It never hurts to be polite with ghosts when you want nothing to do with them. I don't have time for an exorcism right now.
I'm about to walk back the way I came when Pearl hisses from my shoulder. I whirl, searching for a threat. The dark water ripples.
Uh oh.
A pale face rises from the surface, eyes wide and milky, followed by a long body with scales. The creature looks like a mix between a human and a snake.
A nāga, I realise with horror. A water spirit. It's what the Urchin could have become given another century or two.
Fuuuuuuck.
I take off running. Pearl jumps from my shoulder and takes the lead, her fluffy tail guiding me in the dark.
Lana was right. This was a terrible idea.
I throw a tough-love bomb in front of me and run through the green cloud as it fills the tunnel, hoping I didn't misjudge my trajectory and hit a wall.
Behind me, I hear the nāga let out an enraged scream.
As I approach the exit, I throw another bomb in front of me.
I jump through the orange cloud and come face to face with a tall man.
Our collision is inevitable, and we both crash to the ground.
I drop my flashlight and it lands a few meters away.
As I roll on the grass and dirt, I come to a stop against the trunk of a dead tree.
Somewhere in the dark, Pearl lets out a warning growl. I don't hesitate, I get to my feet and pull out my dagger.
Then my world is turned upside down.
Ewan is getting to his feet by the entrance of the cave.
By some miracle, the flashlight fell close to him and the beam illuminates him.
My throat tightens as I behold him for the first time in a year.
His clothes are dirty and in tatters. He got leaner, his face sunken.
His hair grew longer, too, and it looks like he hasn't shaved in months—probably not since Earl Lynch stole him from us.
He looks foreign, and yet so familiar. I memorised his face from all the pictures of him I could get my hands on, from the ones Shirley gave me to the ones I found on social media.
"Ewan…" I choke out.
But when he looks at me, his eyes are entirely black. Now I understand why he always walks to his destinations. There is no world where he could pass for normal. He must have learned that lesson the hard way.
Ewan—no, the ghost—sneers at me. "You… are…"
I'll never get the chance to know what he was about to say because the nāga comes flying out of the cave, screeching, scaled body undulating like a snake and trailing colourful smoke behind her.
Earl Lynch welcomes her with open arms. For a moment, I fear for Ewan, but it quickly becomes clear that the nāga never stood a chance. The water spirit thrashes as the monster takes a bite out of her shoulder. The nāga howls in pain, and I almost feel bad for her. Almost.
While the two entities fight, I search for Pearl in panic. She was smart enough to keep her distance and she finds her way to my side.
"Stay behind me," I whisper as I rummage through my backpack.
She meows.
We planned for this. We always had a plan in case I actually found him.
Now I just have to keep my wits long enough to put that plan in motion.
I find the dart gun and take the safety off.
By the entrance of the cave, the revenant is glowing bright and the nāga is now barely a husk.
I can't let him finish his meal, or he'll just be stronger.
I aim the gun, utter a quick sorry to Ewan, and shoot.
The dart takes him between the shoulder blades.
He jerks and turns to me, anger twisting his pretty face.
There is enough tranquillizer in the dart to bring down a horse, but for a heartbeat I fear it's not enough as he takes a few steps towards me.
Pearl hisses at him. But then his face relaxes for a moment, and he says my name before falling to the ground, head first.
I let out a strangled sob as I stare at his prone body.
I only take a moment to take it all in, but then reason takes over. I don't know how long I have until he wakes up, I need to act fast.
I barely notice the wisp disappearing back inside the cave, what's left of the nāga is retreating. I wonder if a ghost can come back from such an onslaught.
I find what I'm looking for in my backpack: rolled sheets of stencil paper.
We paid a tattoo artist handsomely for them.
The tube of cream comes next. I prop one of my spare flashlights on a rock and I roll Ewan to his back and cut open his clothes.
I cringe when I see his pallid skin and emaciated body.
He hasn't lost his muscle mass but all the extra fat on him is gone.
His muscles are now extremely lean. I wonder if the ghost remembered to feed his human shell most days.
I slather his chest in cream and place the stencil flat on his skin. The design won't be straight, but I couldn't care less. I rub it in until I'm certain the art has transferred. I take the paper off and look at my work. The circle of containment looks stark against his skin.
We don't know if it'll work, but we're hoping it'll keep the ghost contained long enough for us to exorcise him out of Ewan. Just to be safe, I transfer five more designs on his stomach, arms, and back. He's now covered in blue stencils.
I finally relax and sit on my heels. I pull out my phone with a shaky hand. Lana has left three text messages. The cats must be restless. I call her and she answers on the first ringtone.
"James. Are you okay? What's happening?"
I take a deep breath. "I have him."
"What?" she asks.
"I have him. I have Ewan."
She instantly starts sobbing on the phone.
Carrying a six feet two unconscious rugby player to my car is as expected a hardship. He's such a dead weight I eventually have to drag him on the forest floor, dirt and branches be damned. Ewan will forgive me for the scratches and burns.
I heave him at the back of my car with difficulty after tying him up. He's still out cold, thankfully, but his breathing is stable—we did worry the dosage would be too much. Pearl sits on his chest, looking about to gouge his eyes out with her claws if he only moves.
"Be nice," I tell her. "You know it's not his fault he's possessed by the asshole from the basement."
Her tail swishes angrily.
I cover him with a blanket, just in case. I'd be hard pressed to explain this if we get pulled over by the police. "Sorry officer, I just kidnapped my ex-lover to exorcise him from a centuries-old poltergeist." I snort.
I check the time on my phone. It's one in the morning.
I can make it back to Edinburgh before sunrise if I gun it.
Lana and Shirley are already making preparations and setting something on fire to have an excuse to evacuate all the guests for a day.
As I said, we've been ready for this for months. We're playing to win.
I take one last look at Ewan's shape under the blanket, my heart swelling in my chest, and I start the engine of my Ford Capri.
When we finally make it to Edinburgh, both women are waiting for us outside of the hostel, pacing.
The sky is getting lighter and a few early risers are already in the streets.
I drive to the back alley and the three of us carry Ewan inside through the back door.
The girls can't stop the tears from spilling over even as we stumble to the basement with our heavy load.
The guests are nowhere to be found. Lana apparently paid for brunch for all of them in a nearby hotel while they "investigate" the cause of the fire. They promised them the issue would be resolved by noon, so we better hurry.
We chain Ewan to the basement floor with the iron anchors we drove into the concrete.
Months ago, Lana hired a crew to refill the crevice created when Earl Lynch escaped his prison.
Then we carved a confinement circle and poured salt paste in it, now turned as hard as stone.
We just left one part of the circle open, to allow him in, and Shirley closes it now.
We stare at our work. Ewan is still unconscious, chained on the floor, and I feel like crying too.
Now the hard part begins: the exorcism.