Page 23 of Rattling Bone (OutFoxing the Paranormal #2)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Let’s go!” Nigel yelled, grabbing Oscar’s arm and pulling him toward the door.
Electricity crackled and arced, and something popped, sending a shower of sparks out around them. The stink of burning insulation joined the smell of rotting meat, and every hair on Nigel’s head rose in warning.
“Go! Go, go, go!” he shouted, and kept shouting as Oscar hauled them through the door and broke into a run. Their boots pounded the concrete, slipping on the grit and detritus, but Nigel didn’t dare look back. He didn’t need to—he knew in his bones something was on his heels, a whirlwind of rage that meant to drag them into death to join it.
“Duck!” Oscar cried.
Nigel hit the floor and rolled, not caring about the flash of pain as his body struck the unyielding concrete. Praying that momentum would keep them just out of reach of the dead man pursuing them.
“It worked!” Chris’s voice was high and wild with fear and excitement. “It worked, doc!”
Nigel twisted around, still on his back on the floor. The net stretched between the rail and pipe crackled and flashed as its silver thread conducted energy away from Edwin and into the earth.
Oscar’s big hand closed on Nigel’s arm and hauled him to his feet. “Back, back, back!”
They stumbled back to join Chris, on the far side of the tent. With the spirit’s energy drained so low, he couldn’t sense anything of it, wasn’t sure even Oscar would be able to.
But that was all right. They’d left a feast right in plain sight, just waiting for it.
The EMF meter in the Faraday tent went off, lighting up like a Christmas tree.
Oscar didn’t waste any time. He scrambled to the front of the tent, grabbed the zipper, and closed it in one smooth motion.
Nigel joined him, eyes scanning the overlapping seams along the zipper to make sure nothing had bunched or jammed that might create a break in the cage. But the tent had worked as advertised.
The EMF meter continued to go off angrily. Oscar focused his attention on the tent and said, “Edwin Corbett, you have a choice now. Cross over and find peace, or we carry this tent, with you in it, off the property and leave you there for the rest of eternity. Either way, your days of haunting this place are over.”
For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen, and Nigel’s heart sank. They could try to carry the tent off the property, as Oscar had threatened, through the deep snow, and get back with enough time to deal with Ivan…but he didn’t like their odds of success.
Assuming Agnes would let them leave, even to carry one of her hated enemies away.
The EMF reader flickered, high to medium, then back…then fell abruptly silent and dark.
“Is he gone?” Chris asked.
Oscar nodded. “Yeah. He’s moved on.”
It might have been Nigel’s imagination, but the air felt somehow lighter. “Thank god.”
“Yeah.” Oscar pulled him into a hug. “That idea of yours, to put up the net and hope he’d pass through it, was a lifesaver.”
“Yes, well, I have to earn my keep somehow,” Nigel said shakily. But it was too soon to give into the urge to collapse, so he took a step back. “That just leaves Ivan.” He checked his watch. “Shit. It’s eleven o’clock already.”
Oscar grabbed his backpack from the floor. “Then let’s fold up the tent and get moving.”
* * *
They trudged through the snow to the aging warehouse as quickly as possible, Oscar carrying the folded-up tent beneath his arm. The plan for Ivan was fairly simple, just a variation on what they’d used to trap and remove Edwin. There was no need to reinvent the wheel, after all, certainly not when the clock was ticking.
Nestled safely inside Nigel’s backpack was the old Cloven Oak Whiskey bottle filled with spring water that Mamaw had once set her lips to. Between the bottle and water from the spring that he’d done murder to own, Oscar figured it would be a powerful trigger object for Ivan.
They’d set up the tent, put the bottle inside, Ivan would take a closer look, the EMF meter would go off, they’d zip up the tent, and Oscar would convince him to move on. Agnes would be satisfied and move on as well.
They could do this.
The air of the aging warehouse felt like ice on Oscar’s skin when he stepped inside, and the thick shadows seemed to resist the beams of his headlamp and flashlight. The overwhelming sense of something watching and waiting pushed against him like a physical force, and he hurriedly strengthened his shielding.
“He’s definitely paying attention to us,” he said, stepping further inside and swinging the beam of his flashlight from side to side. “Let’s hurry and—”
A ghastly white face loomed up directly before him.
Like his son and grandson, Ivan still bore the marks of his violent death. The body beneath his severe black suit was distorted where the barrels had crushed him, with fragments of bone jutting through the fabric. Mold crawled across the blue-white skin of his face, and his withered lips drew back, exposing small, sharp teeth.
“Fuck!” Oscar jerked back instinctively and almost dropped his flashlight.
He might as well have; its light weakened, then went out altogether as darkness boiled around them.
“My offspring,” Ivan snarled in a deep voice like the rumble of falling barrels. “A weakling. A fool. I won’t fall for your tricks!”
All the lights went out at once.