Page 6 of Guarded by the Gargoyle (Hidden Hollow #3)

4

WILLOW

“ O ver here, Mr. Valentino,” I said to Big Nicky and led the way.

I didn’t have far to lead him—Pop-pop had set up a “Spirit Room” on the far side of the shop. Really, it was just a large janitor’s closet which he had converted, but it served its purpose well.

I opened the door and parted the strands of long red beads that served as a curtain. The beads clacked gently against each other as I ducked through them into the tiny room.

Inside there was a small, round table with two chairs sitting across from each other. There were also a few shelves where Pop-pop had placed some props—a real human skull someone had gotten from one of the many above-ground cemeteries in our area, a crystal ball on a golden stand, a set of fancy Tarot Cards with elaborate pictures fanned out to display their gorgeous artwork, and various other mystical looking things.

Pop-pop had never used any of these props—I knew because I had spied on him “communing with the spirits” more than once when I was little. Mostly he just sat at the table, closed his eyes, and spread his arms. Then he called for the spirit of the dear departed. When it came, he allowed it to “Indwell” him, as he called it. Then he spoke in the dead person’s voice, telling their loved one who had paid to hear from them what they were thinking and feeling.

Pop-pop really had his act down to a T, too. I remembered how creepy I used to think it was when his eyes would roll up in his head and his voice would change. It would go all high if he was letting a female spirit “Indwell” him and low and rough if he was channeling a male. It was a weird business, but it brought in a good amount of money.

Come to think of it, that was probably how Pop-pop had managed to keep the shop solvent all those years. Especially if Big Nicky Valentino had been giving him a ton of cash annually just to talk to his dead mother.

Pop-pop, I really wish you would have told me about this yearly appointment, I thought, as I switched on the small lamp with the red shade in the middle of the table and lit a stick of incense. If my Grandfather was going to have me follow his footsteps in the family “business,” the least he could have done was to warn me about it—and maybe leave me some details about Nicky Valentino’s mother so I could effectively impersonate her.

Still, it looked like I was stuck winging it. I just hoped I could do a good enough job to satisfy the Mob boss who was settling in the chair across from me.

“I just want to tell you I’ve never done this before,” I said to him, trying to manage his expectations. “I saw my Grandfather do it often, but I’ve never done it personally.”

“Yes, Giovanni said you might say something to that effect,” Big Nicky murmured. “But he assured me that when you opened yourself, the Power would come. I’m prepared to be patient—as long as you deliver results.”

Well, so much for managing his expectations. I swallowed a nervous lump in my throat and nodded.

“Very well, let us begin. The spirits are waiting to speak to us,” I said, because that was what Pop-pop had always said at the start of a Channeling session. “Tell me the name of your dearly departed and I will attempt to open a door into the next world.”

“My Mother’s name was Myra,” Big Nicky said. “Myra Valentino, may her soul rest in peace.”

“May her soul rest in peace,” I repeated, nodding. I took a deep breath, trying to center my mind and let the atmosphere of the small room work on me. The red lamp shade over the dim light bulb cast the small space into crimson shadows and the sweet and spicy scent of the incense filled my nose. I tried to remember everything my Grandfather had done in one of these sessions—I had to emulate him as exactly as I could.

Closing my eyes, I extended my arms, palms up. And then, familiar words rose to my lips.

“I call upon the Other Place

Another Time…

Another Space…

I call a Door to open Here

To bring the soul I call for Near

I call?—”

There was more to the incantation, but I didn’t say it—because suddenly I felt a cold, damp wind blowing right in my face. It was so strong, it was blowing my hair back—it felt kind of like when you go to the beach and the wind is blowing off the ocean.

I gasped and opened my eyes. Hovering right in front of me—just above Nicky Valentino’s salt and pepper hair—was an actual door. Or at least a doorway. I couldn’t really see the door itself—I could only see the rectangular space where it had opened.

It seemed to be a space filled with fog—gray tendrils of it were creeping out around the edges and I kept seeing flashes of faces and eyes through the mist.

“Oh… wow!” I whispered in awe, forgetting that I was supposed to be a mysterious Medium. I had never seen anything like this in my life. Was I really looking through a doorway into the Other Side? Did I actually have The Power?

I tried to take stock of myself to see if I felt any different—there was a kind of energy humming through me, like an electrical current. It didn’t hurt but it was definitely there—as though I had plugged myself in to some huge, invisible generator or battery. It made me feel buzzy and lightheaded and slightly high.

“What? What is it?” Big Nicky looked up to where I was staring, but he clearly didn’t see anything. “What do you see?” he demanded.

“A doorway,” I said, still staring into the mists. “It’s filled with some kind of fog…fog and faces. But I can’t quite tell what any of them looks like.”

“Look harder!” he urged. “Call for her—your Grandfather always called.”

“Myra,” I called, searching the shifting faces in the fog. “Myra Valentino, your son wants to speak to you. Myra, where are you?”

But no one answered. I began to feel nervous. Big Nicky was looking at me expectantly and I wasn’t producing results. I tried again.

“Hello?” I called. “Is there anyone on the Other Side who wishes to speak to Nick Valentino? Anyone at all?”

Suddenly, a face became clear in the mist. It was a woman’s face, pretty but angry and somewhere between thirty and forty. I frowned—had his mother died young?

“Myra?” I asked uncertainly.

“No, I’m not Myra,” the spirit said, scowling at me. “But you asked if anybody wanted to talk to Nicky and I do. I have plenty to say to that rat bastard!”

“I really don’t think—” I began, but before I could finish the face had formed into a long funnel of smoke and rushed right into me.

The spirit dust entered through my nose and mouth, filling me to the brim with the dead woman. Her taste was bitter and acrid, like secondhand smoke, and I could feel myself choking on her anger.

Suddenly my mouth began talking—the dead woman was using my tongue and voice box to convey her message.

“Nicky, you lousy bastard!” she snapped, making me lean forward in my seat to scowl at the Mob boss.

“Mama?” Nicky Valentino looked at me uncertainly.

“No, it’s not Myra—what a horrible Mother-in-Law she was!” the dead woman exclaimed. “She raised you to be a Mama’s boy and look at you—all these years later and still that’s all you are! Just a big baby crying for his Mama!”

I wanted to stop her from spewing the angry words out of my mouth but I had never been Indwelled before and I felt lost and disorientated. According to my Pop-pop, Indwelling was one step below Possession, meaning that the host—in this case me— should be able to expel the spirit inside them. But I had no idea how to do that.

Meanwhile, it seemed that Big Nicky had figured out who was talking to him through me.

“Kitty?” he asked, frowning. “Kitty, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me you big asshole!” she snarled. “Finally I get a chance to give you a piece of my mind!”

It was a very disorienting feeling to have my features making faces that went with emotions I didn’t feel myself and to hear words coming out of my mouth that I hadn’t thought of to say. I felt like a puppet being jerked around on strings, but I still didn’t know how to stop it.

“You were the worst husband!” Kitty went on relentlessly. “Leaving your dirty underwear all over the floor…never putting the toilet seat back down…not to mention the way you cheated on me day and night with anything that would hold still long enough for you to screw it!”

Okay, I really had to stop this. Big Nicky’s face was red with anger and I could just imagine how pissed off he was getting. He had come here for a nice, comforting talk with his dear departed Mom and instead he was being berated by an angry ex.

“ Get out! Get out of me!” I shouted mentally at the dead woman. But I felt her resisting me.

“Not until I have my say! I’ve been waiting twenty years to tell Nicky Valentino what I think of him!”

So much for just asking her to leave. I was going to have to expel her some other way.

I pictured reaching around inside myself like a woman feeling in a dark cupboard. I had an idea if I could get hold of Kitty somehow I could grab her with a psychic hand and yank her out of me, but her spirit felt slippery under my psychic fingertips—slippery and slimy.

“You scum!” Kitty shouted through me. “You womanizing, cheating, lousy, dirty bastard!”

Big Nicky’s face got even redder.

“You can’t talk that way to me, you bitch!” he growled.

Things were rapidly getting out of control. But the next moment, they got even worse because I heard Kitty say,

“I know you had me killed! You had the brakes cut on my car. You wanted me to crash that day.”

Shit—now I was in real trouble. I was listening to the details of a homicide, but not just listening—I was shouting them out loud! Or at least, Kitty Valentino was shouting them through me.

“You killed me! You killed me!” she howled so loudly it hurt my throat.

“Okay, that’s enough!” I snapped at her mentally. “I don’t know if he killed you or not but I can’t have you using my body for your revenge!”

“Too bad, because that’s exactly what I’m going to do!” she snapped back.

She jerked at my body and suddenly I lunged across the table and wrapped my fingers around the Mob boss’s throat! Then I began to squeeze with superhuman strength—strength that wasn’t mine.

Nicky Valentino’s face began to turn from red to a dark plum color—I was actually choking him! I could hear his guards banging on the door of the Spirit Room, shouting for him.

“Boss—hey, Boss! What’s going on in there?”

Oh my God, I had to stop this now! I pictured myself grabbing the spirit inside me—which looked like a long, scaly snake made of grey smoke. I dug my fingernails into the snake’s body and pulled as hard as I could with my psychic hands—my physical hands were still wrapped around Big Nicky’s throat.

Kitty Valentino squawked and struggled. I could hear her shouting in my head.

“No, I’m going to kill him! Let me kill him! He deserves to die!”

I had no doubt he probably did—you don’t get to be an Organized Crime Boss without committing some pretty reprehensible acts—but she wasn’t going to use my body to kill him. Grimly, I dug my nails in and yanked on the grey spirit snake.

“Get out of me! Get…

OUT!”

The last word came out of my mouth instead of being shouted mentally as I finally got control of my voice again.

I coughed and choked and retched as the roiling gray cloud of spirit dust finally spewed from my mouth and nose. It was like projectile vomiting second hand cigarette smoke and chalk dust at the same time—it left my throat and sinuses as dry as a bone and my stomach was rolling.

As soon as the angry spirit was out of me, I yanked my hands away from Big Nicky’s throat.

“Sorry! I’m so sorry!” I babbled and then broke down choking and coughing—I thought I might puke for real in a moment. The inside of me felt so dry . Dry and violated.

“You fucking better be sorry!” He snatched up the fat envelope filled with bills and stuffed it into his inner pocket. “How the fuck did you let my ex-wife come through? Your Grandfather never did anything like that!”

“I told you, I’ve never done this before!” I gasped and coughed some more. “Please don’t hurt me! I didn’t mean to let her in—she just rushed right into me!”

Nicky Valentino pointed a finger at me.

“I’ll forgive you— if you send her back to Hell where she fucking belongs! Send her back right now!”

“All right—all right!” I held up my hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture. I didn’t know if I really had the power to send Kitty Valentino’s spirit anywhere, but I could at least pretend. Anything to mollify the angry Mob boss.

“Kitty Valentino,” I began, spreading my arms again. “Never again shall you Indwell. I send your spirit back to Hell!”

As rhyming magic went it was wasn’t much to speak of—short and to the point. But I felt a surge of power go through me—as though someone had turned up the electrical charge that was already flowing through my body. The next minute, I saw another doorway being drawn in the gray mist.

This one was outlined with a fiery reddish orange light and instead of gray smoke, I saw black curls of vapor sliding out around its edges, almost like tentacles. Was that what I thought it was? An uneasy feeling began to slide through me, like cold water trickling down my spine.

“Willow my love, no! What are you doing?” I heard my Pop-pop’s voice in my ear. “You must not open a doorway to the Pit!”

But it was too late to take back my words. The door opened and with a whoosh I saw Kitty Valentino’s spirit being drawn into it.

“No! Noooooo!” she wailed but it was like she was being sucked into a vacuum—her screaming face was pulled backwards into the roiling blackness and then she was gone.

I expected the door to close then—after all, it had served its purpose. But it stayed open. And then I saw them—the three sets of red, glowing eyes staring at me from the blackness.

“Oh my Goddess!” I blurted, leaning back abruptly.

“What? What the fuck is it this time?” Nicky Valentino demanded. “Did you send that crazy bitch back to Hell where she came from?”

“I sent her back,” I said, my voice trembling and my gaze never leaving the three sets of glowing red eyes that were staring at me. “She’s gone—she won’t bother us again.”

“Then what are you still staring at?” he demanded impatiently. “And where’s my mother? Can you bring her out to talk to me?”

I couldn’t believe he wanted me to try again after such a disastrous conclusion to my last Channeling. But I didn’t get a chance to answer him because whatever was attached to the glowing eyes started growling.

And then something big and black and shadowy lunged at me.

“Run, Willow my love!” I heard my Pop-pop shout in my ear.

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I bolted up from the table and was out of the Spirit Room in no time flat. I rushed past Nicky Valentino’s guards, both of whom were wearing worried expressions.

“Hey—come back!” one of them shouted, but neither of them followed me—they were clearly too anxious to check on their boss.

I wasn’t going to go back for anyone. They might not be able to see the thing—or things—that were chasing me, but I could. I could hear the growling and snarling and when I threw a glance over my shoulder, I saw the roiling mass of black smoke which was vaguely dog-shaped, was right on my heels.

I ran through the shop, through my tiny apartment, and managed to get the back door open. I thought about slamming it behind me, but I doubted any regular Earthly door was going to stop the beast that was after me. And I didn’t dare to take the time to close it anyway.

Instead, I left the door wide open as I ran into the night, dodging and ducking through dark streets and alleys…

Until I came to the glowing doorframe and heard my Pop-pop telling me to use the key.

I fumbled for the keys in my hand—which would work? The huge iron one as long as my hand or the tiny golden one that was smaller than my pinky?

It was the larger key that came to my fingers first, so I jammed it into the glowing keyhole, which was spilling golden light onto the dirty pavement at my feet.

To my relief and surprise, the key worked. It turned smoothly in the lock and I was able to push the door open.

I ran though it…and into a whole different world.