Chapter 29
ALEX
Eduardo had sent top of the line stuff expressed to her from a supplier in Dublin.
He must have done so as soon as possible after Daphne’s collapse – Alex refused to call it a psychic attack on principle, but that’s what the others had said it was.
The speed at which he’d swung into action made it feel even more urgent than before.
If only they were here with her now. Gabe making jokes, irreverent to the last, Arnold triple-checking everything, Daphne waxing lyrical about atmosphere and spirits, Ed setting up all this shit…
Too dangerous. Far too dangerous. The house felt like an oppressive weight on her shoulders. It ate into her consciousness. The shadow of Blaise Chambers fell over everything.
There had been no other obvious incidents though. For that Alex was thankful. Not supernatural ones anyway. The flowers had left her rattled enough. Sharing the truth of all that with Nick had been an unexpected relief.
Nick had knelt on the ground in front of her and had taken her hands in his. ‘Don’t leave,’ he’d said. She tried not to put too much meaning on that. It stirred something inside her she wasn’t aware of needing. Not lust, not that time. Something far more profound than that. ‘I am your guardian.’
She didn’t need a guardian. But the words to express that wouldn’t come. They reminded her too much of Chambers.
But ‘Don’t leave.’ There had been anguish in those two words.
She might not need him, but she wanted him. And it meant so much that he wanted her to stay, that he trusted her to help him and the spirits trapped here. Like Sally.
She couldn’t let herself think about it. If she thought about it, it brought back Sanderson and then she really would have a breakdown.
Alex busied herself with setting up cameras, recorders and checking that everything was fully charged. Finally satisfied, she retreated to the bedroom and sat on the bed, facing the open door and the portrait of Blaise Chambers.
All she had to do was take the wretched thing down and turn it to face the wall. Or better yet, chuck it out a window or something. Nick had promised to get rid of it for her. But he’d forgotten, hadn’t he? It seemed to slip out of memory the moment after it was mentioned.
She couldn’t bring herself to touch it again.
The smirk he wore told her what he thought of her cowardice too.
But last time she’d touched it, she’d fallen down the stairs.
Fallen… or been pushed. It didn’t help that Chambers’ expression made her think of Sanderson, the way he’d looked at her in the courtroom, when he still thought he might get away with it.
Or of Seán in the village, that horrible, knowing, superior sneer.
She had sworn never to do this again but here she was. Investigating. In the last place she wanted to stir up a spirit. Looking right at that bastard’s face.
Diving right in at the deep end, as it were.
She didn’t know why she’d waited until dark to do this. The house was more active at night, but she wasn’t sure she needed that. Perhaps it was just a ghost hunting tradition. No one wanted to believe in ghosts in broad daylight.
She pressed the record button and drew in a breath.
‘Is there anyone here?’
As corny a start as possible really, Gabe would tell her, and hardly good TV, but a really bloody good question when you got down to it.
Was there really anyone there? Or was she imagining it?
This was easy. She had done it a thousand times. Record, ask a question, wait, ask another question. Keep going. Watch the EMF meter, listen out for the REM pod. Record everything. Listen back later.
The boring bit, Gabe always called it.
She stared at the portrait but nothing happened. Blaise gazed back, a small smile playing on his lush lips, his dark eyes amused. She had to stop thinking about him. She was filling in spaces with her own imagination and that would not do.
There was a scientific process to this and she was going to follow it to the letter. She was a professional, not a sensationalist, no matter what the popular media tried to say.
She’d got into this game to solve the mysteries, to provide people with logical answers and to tear down all those misconceptions and charlatans.
It had seen her hounded off the internet and out of the States, and now she was holed up here in the middle of nowhere with nightmares coming out of the woodwork all around her.
She was not going to give in to hysteria and superstition now.
Alex turned off the recorder, standing up and stretching her tense shoulders as she did so.
Some people swore by tape only but she agreed with Eduardo.
The more up to date the tech the more reliable and less likely to introduce errors it tended to be.
Tape could carry traces of something recorded on it before, for example.
She put in her earbuds, keyed up the sample and pressed play.
‘Is there anyone here?’
Her own voice, followed by nothing much. She could hear her breath but that was all. ‘Why are you here?’ Nothing. ‘What’s your name?’ Nothing. ‘Do you have a message to pass on?’ Still nothing.
This was getting her nowhere.
‘What do you want with me?’ There was a distinct wobble in her voice and she winced. What was she doing? Her hand slid up to the stop button.
And then she heard it.
A whisper, little more than a hiss, right on the edge of hearing.
‘Alexandra. My beloved.’
‘Oh, Jesus. Fuck!’ She hurled the recorder onto the bed without even meaning to. She just didn’t want it in her hands anymore. Unfortunately, it was still playing and something happened to the volume as it hit the covers. And she still had the earbuds in, still connected.
The voice – his voice – roared in her ears.
‘Oh, the things I’ll do to you, now you’re grown.
The pleasure and the pain, all rolled in together until you won’t be able to tell one from the other.
I’ll make you mine, body, mind and soul, mine and my god’s.
We’ll tear your mind apart and remake it as I will.
My Lady de Wilde, the last of them, promised to me for so long, and to my god.
I’ll offer you up to my lord Crom and together we’ll take you apart.
My beautiful girl, the power you give me, the sheer level of lust simmering away inside you.
The god of the hungry grass will take it all and use it, even as I use you.
With my hands on your skin and my cock inside you, we’ll drink you down like fine wine until there’s nothing of you left.
Until all you are is a being of raw pleasure, his and mine, body and soul.
I’ll make you mine forever, Alexandra. And his. Our lover, our plaything, our slave.’
Alex tore the earbuds out and hurled them after the recorder, standing there, breathing hard, her chest heaving with the effort.
Blaise Chambers. It had to be. Who else would talk like that?
And he had plans for her.
Plans which made her body heat in an instant, which made her stomach twist with need. And at the same time, horror, abject terror at the thought.
Who or what the fuck was Crom?
A god, he’d called it. The god of the hungry grass. What was going on?
A broken god of lost places…
That was what Daphne had said. Right before she collapsed.
No… no, right before she collapsed she’d said…
Alex looked up at the portrait where the words hid against the darkness of Blaise Chambers’ coat.
Omnes contra omnes, quos amabant, convertam, et meam, corpus et animam, faciam.
I will set all of them against all of those they have loved, and I will make them mine, body and soul.
One of the REM pods went off, beeping wildly. Then the other, the one outside the door. Both of them, shrieking like tiny black boxes full of banshees.
Alex let out her own cry of alarm. This wasn’t like her. She didn’t get scared like this. But she was never normally alone. She had Gabe and Daphne to rely on, and Eduardo’s calm reassurance, and Arnold’s endless information, cross-checking facts.
Doing this alone sucked.
What had she been thinking?
That she was the big brave sceptic. That she didn’t believe any of this and she was going to prove it wasn’t real. But it didn’t take a lot to be brave when you didn’t think anything frightening could really exist, did it?
And something existed here. Something dark and terrible. Something which knew her name, knew her innermost thoughts, and wanted her in every way conceivable.
She swallowed hard, trying to regain some sense of perspective here. She made herself pick up the recorder again, took a deep breath and played the file once more.
‘Is there anyone here?’ Nothing but silence. ‘Why are you here?’ Nothing. ‘What’s your name?’ Nothing. ‘Do you have a message to pass on?’ Nothing again, same as before. ‘What do you want with me?’
Alex held her breath, waiting for that obscene voice with all its lewd promises, calling her name, swearing it would take her apart and feed her to its god.
Nothing.
Not a single thing. Not a sigh, not a whisper. Not a sound.
‘You absolute fucker, Blaise,’ she growled out loud.
She thought she heard his laugh. Just on the edge of hearing. Because of course she did. He was toying with her. Like always.
And then the power in the recorder just died. Right there as she held it in her hand.
‘Oh, come on,’ she whispered and saw the REM pod lights flicker and go out. No shriek this time. Nothing. She threw herself towards the nearest fixed camera.
The screen was black. The battery dead. Drained completely.
Her breath promptly misted in front of her face and she shivered as a wave of cold swept over her.
Slowly, she dragged her gaze back to the portrait of Blaise Chambers.
He was still smiling at her, his eyes still boring into her soul.
She could imagine his mouth moving as he promised her pleasures and pain that would unmake her mind.