Page 93 of Dead Serious: Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes
She’s right. Every single time I set foot in here, it feels worse. Today there’s a coldness overlaying everything. I can feel it making my bones ache and my skin prickle, but worse than that is the heaviness that presses down on me.
“Viv.” I sip my tea and then take a breath. “One of the reasons I came to see you today was because I want you to know what’s really going on here in the bookshop. We think we’ve figured out why all the ghosts including Evangeline have disappeared. We also know why the atmosphere in here feels the way it does.”
She blinks owlishly and clutches her own mug in both hands as if she too is trying to leech as much heat as she can from the hot tea.
“Why? What’s going on?” She frowns. “I can tell something bad’s coming.”
I nod slowly. “You’re not wrong. You know Bruce told you about the doorway to the afterlife?” She looks at me nervously and gives a small inclination of her head. “Well, there’s something trapped on the other side and it’s trying to get through. The way the doorway works has something to do with alignment.”
“What, like that feng shui stuff?”
“No.” I shake my head, fighting a smile despite the seriousness of the conversation. “I mean like stars and planets aligning kind of thing. Anyway, the entity, for want of a better word, on the other side wants to come through, and if it does, it will bring chaos and destruction. Basically, the end of the world, or so I’m told. He’s going to use the eclipse in three days to open the doorway and–”
“The end of days,” Viv mutters with a frown.
“Something like that.” I nod slowly, feeling the heaviness increase. “Bruce is connected to the doorway somehow. Like physically connected to it. We’ve been trying to figure out how the doorway was opened in the first place and why Bruce is bound to it, so that maybe he can seal it closed permanently, but so far all we’ve been able to find out is that he’s part of your family.”
“What?” Viv replies in surprise.
“You remember you told me Cornelius Crawshanks had two sisters?” She nods. “The middle sister was called Constance—you and Evangeline are both descended from her—but Bruce is descended from the older sister, Cordelia, on his mother’s side. So he’s a distant cousin of yours.”
“Is he really?” she says slowly like she’s digesting that piece of information. “So this bad thing, this entity–”
“We’ve been calling him Chaos for convenience sake,” I tell her.
“Chaos…” she continues. “You think he’s responsible for all the ghosts disappearing?” I nod. “What did he do to them? Do you think he hurt them?”
I study her face and despite all her denials, I think she’s rather fond of Evangeline, enough to be concerned about her and the other ghosts.
“No, actually we think they are staying away on purpose,” I explain. “Before, when the shop was filled with spirits, they charged the place with psychic energy, but Chaos has been feeding off it in order to affect things in our world. The spirits are staying away so they don’t make him stronger.”
“What sort of things?” Her eyes narrow.
“This storm for starters.” I blow out a breath. “I think he was responsible for my boyfriend Danny’s car accident. Beyond that, he also uncovered Bruce’s bones from his hidden grave to force him to confront his unfinished business in a bid to distract him, and he terrorised my dad, who suffers from dementia and lives in a care home in Shadwell.”
“Terrorised? How?” She sets her tea down slowly, her face pale.
“Bad dreams, nightmares, appearing in the corner of his room, a dark shadow emerging from a tear in a mass of black–”
“Tentacles?” she whispers.
“Oh god, Viv.” The words rush from me in a heavy breath. “You’ve seen it too? Why didn’t you say something?”
“Thought it was the booze, or the dope.” She swallows and her gaze fixes on her hands folded in her lap. “But then the nightmares started.”
“What sort of nightmares?”
“Chaos, destruction.” She lifts her hands. “Just like you said. The world gone mad. It was like the end of days in the Bible, an apocalypse. The seas rose up to drown the land, volcanoes erupted, typhoons, monsoons, wars…”
“Viv,” I whisper. “When did the dreams start?”
“A day or so after the ghosts disappeared. Then I kept seeing the tentacles and shadows coming through a rip in the air.”
“Where?” I ask and her gaze unconsciously lifts to the ceiling. “In your flat upstairs?” A terrible wave of guilt crashes over me. “That’s why you started sleeping downstairs, in here?”
She nods and I feel sick. Why hadn’t I thought of this? Why didn’t I check in with Viv earlier? All this time, she’s not just been alone, she’s been scared.
“Okay,” I say firmly as I stand. “Come on.”