Shane sucked in a deep breath. There were tears shimmering in his eyes, but he blinked them back and nodded. “Sorry, Alyssa,” he said. “I can’t.” His voice shook. His whole body shook. But he meant what he said, and Alyssa clearly understood, because she dropped her hand back to her side and drifted back a few feet, then turned and joined the old man in stalking Miranda.
“Help me!” Miranda screamed. With ghosts on three sides, she was rapidly being cornered. It was only a matter of a minute or so until one of them had hold of her. “Do something!”
“What?” Michael asked, and then his eyes widened, as if something had finally occurred to him. “Can I make them leave? As head of the house?”
Normally Shane would have chimed in with something like Who says he’s head of this house? but Shane’s attention was riveted completely on his little sister’s ghost, and it was Eve who said, “Maybe. Try!”
Michael closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, as if drawing strength from the house itself, or at least trying to communicate with it. Claire felt a flicker of energy around her, as if the connection were almost there, and then it died.
“All of us!” she shouted, and waved Eve to the wall, too. She put her hands flat on the old wallpaper and concentrated. Come on, house. I know you’re there. I know you’re still alive; I can feel you…. Come out, come out, wherever you are….
Shane didn’t join them. Claire didn’t think he could. He was almost as fixed on his sister as the ghosts who stalked Miranda were on her…but luckily, that didn’t seem to matter. Three of them together seemed to complete some kind of circuit, and Claire felt a surge of raw power whip through the room. “Hold on, Miranda!” she said, and the ghost-girl took hold of the arm of the sofa as a wave of force swept through the room in an almost-liquid ripple. It passed over Claire, leaving her skin tingling and raw, and when it hit the nearest ghost—Richard—he blew apart into mist. Alyssa was next, and then the old man, just seconds away from touching Miranda with his outstretched hand.
Miranda wavered and went pale and smoky, but then she stabilized as the wave passed her by, into an almost-real transparent form. She slowly let go of the sofa and straightened to look around.
“What did you do?” Shane said. He turned in a circle, frantically looking. “Where’s Lyss?”
“Outside,” Miranda said. “She’s okay, Shane. She just isn’t welcome here anymore. The house put her out.”
“This is insane,” he said, and sank down on the couch with his head in his hands. “Insane.”
Eve sat beside him and put her hand lightly on his back. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Before Claire could go to him, too, there was a thundering volley of knocks on the door, loud as gunshots, and all of them jumped. “What the hell now?” Michael said.
“Whatever it is,” Eve said, “just leave it outside. Please.”
“No,” Miranda said. She took a deep breath and pulled herself up to her full height—which wasn’t very much, but she looked suddenly very adult. “The house is looking out for us now, looking out for me. And it isn’t just ghosts out there, anyway. They can’t make noise like that.”
The knocks came again at the door, and Michael took a few steps in that direction before turning to look at her again. She nodded.
“Please,” she said. “It’s okay. Now that the house is paying attention, it’s not as bad. I think I might be able to…able to help them. It was just so overwhelming, out there alone. In here, I don’t feel as bad.”
Michael didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t seem to know what else to do, either. He flipped the locks on the door and swung it open during the third round of knocking, and outside there were dozens of ghosts, maybe hundreds, a mass of misty waving forms crowded together like zombies on the attack, and standing in the middle of them on the doorstep were Angel, Jenna, and Tyler.
The ghost hunters.
Who apparently couldn’t see any of the ghosts. Ironic.
Angel Salvador stiff-armed a very surprised Michael Glass out of the doorway and rushed up the hallway, followed by Jenna Clark and Tyler, with his camcorder light glowing red. “Hey!” Michael said. “Hey, wait a minute. I didn’t say—”
“Keep rolling, Tyler. We can cut that,” Jenna said. “I know she’s here; I can feel her. Angel, are you getting anything there?” She seemed almost frantic, and there were spots of color high on her cheeks. “Hello, little girl. Are you here? Anywhere?”
“Hey!” Michael shut the door, though for the moment the house itself seemed to be barring the ghosts from drifting inside the opening, and darted around them—not quite vampire fast—and got in their way again. “Hold up. What the hell, man? This is our house!”
“Congratulations,” Angel said. He continued staring at the handheld device he was clutching. “The readings are remarkably strong. I think we’ve found her. It looks like this is her home location.” He looked up at Shane, who was right in front of him, blocking the hallway, and said, “How long has your house been haunted?”
Shane looked past him, to the camera, and then at Michael. Claire would have given odds that he’d punch him out, but instead, Shane turned beet red and burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“Hey!” Eve said, and pushed him out of the way with an irritated glare. “You people, out! Out of our house, right now!” She tried to push Tyler, but he danced backward, clearly used to people going for that move.
Angel cut her off. “Wait, wait, not yet. Let us at least document these readings—do you know the history of this house? Was there anything violent that happened here, perhaps a famous murder? Who were the previous owners? How long have you lived here?”
The blizzard of questions was confusing, and all the time Angel was firing them off, he was moving relentlessly forward. It wasn’t so much that Eve backed off as she was swept out of his way by the force of his momentum, and the rest of them just followed along.
Tyler focused on Eve, evidently liking her Goth look in connection with a haunted house, which Eve didn’t approve. “Hey, get your camera out of my face before I put it in yours!”
“Easy, babe,” Michael said, and grabbed her by the shoulders to pull her back. “We’re fine. It’s okay.” He leaned over to Claire and whispered, “Find out what the hell Miranda wants us to do.” Then he turned the full glare of his smile on the camera. “So, do you want me to show you around, or…?”
“We just need you to get out of the way,” Jenna said. “You kids are what, under twenty, all of you? You’ve got no idea how this kind of thing can turn bad. One careless session with a Ouija board, messing around with tarot cards, you’re inviting spirits to contact you. Once they’re here, you might not be able to get rid of them…even when they start hurting you. I know. It happened to me.”
There was, Claire sensed, a backstory that the show’s viewers would probably all know. Jenna’s face was tight and sober, and there was a feverish believer’s light in her eyes. Claire had an eerie memory of the vindictive ghost of the house’s original owner, Hiram Glass, tearing at her with hatred, and wondered exactly what a younger Jenna might have gone through. She was right. Ghosts could be vicious.
Miranda knew that better than anyone, apparently.
Despite Michael’s winning personality and movie-star smile, it wasn’t working. Michael had a definite effect on girls, when he was really trying…and boy, was he trying. Claire could feel the tingle from five feet away, and it wasn’t even directed at her. He’d always had charm, but lately she’d realized that as a vampire, he was fully capable of wielding it like a weapon—a kinder one, but powerful in its own right.
But Jenna seemed immune.
Claire couldn’t see Miranda, and she had the sinking feeling that maybe she’d lost her nerve and run, but then she saw a ghostly face peeking out from behind the bookcases. Claire headed that way, trying not to look obvious about it. She leaned in next to her and muttered, “Michael needs to know what you’re doing.”