“It’s kind of sweet, yes,” Teag replied drolly.
I happened to glance out the window, and I saw a figure in the shadows across the street. Teag seemed to sense the shift in my mood, because he sobered immediately. “There’s someone out there,” I said.
“Moran?”
I shook my head. “Not tall and skinny enough. I’ll go to the front door. You go around the back and see if you can catch whoever-it-is by surprise.”
He nodded. “I’m on it.”
I moved to the door, keeping out of sight of the big glass windows in the front of the store. Then I counted to one hundred to allow Teag to get into position before I threw open the door.
Our stalker was gone.
“No one there,” Teag said, shrugging. Neither of us wanted to go beyond Lucinda’s wardings.
“Maybe we’re jumping at shadows. Ready to see what Sorren left us?” I asked. We had come into the office that morning and found a small package on my desk with a note from Sorren. The note said that it was something he had found scouting ‘the location’ and I should look at it when Teag could help. I took that to mean that Sorren thought it would pack a psychic wallop and so I should have Teag around to anchor me.
“Absolutely,” Teag replied. “I thought we’d have a chance to look at the package much sooner. I never expected to be so busy today.” Teag walked with me to the office after making sure the door was locked and ‘Closed’ sign was turned.
Sorren had left me a paper bag, folded and tied with a string.
“Do you want me to open it, just in case?” Teag asked.
“Sure, but I’m not getting any vibes.” I answered. Teag wasn’t as sensitive to objects as I was, but if it was really bad, he’d know.
“Sorren’s sense of humor?” Teag asked as he removed a worn, muddy baseball cap from the bag.
“He said he was going to see if he could verify the location of the activity for Mirov. It could be nothing and it could be bad, real bad,” I said.
“But if you read it… I could practice my grounding on you. And if it’s real bad, I can pull you back quickly. Lucinda and Sorren thought that ability would come in handy.”
I stared at the hat in his hand for a moment. There were about a million ways this could go wrong, or at least become highly unpleasant, but if we could figure out how to bring down Moran and his crew, a little discomfort was worth it. “Give it here,” I said with a sigh.
“Better sit down, just in case,” he warned. “Let me prepare my cords and I’ll put my hand on your shoulder.”
He didn’t have to convince me. We closed the office door. Teag made a hot cup of tea with plenty of sugar and had it ready to revive me if the vision was too intense. I sat down and took a few deep breaths. Then I held out my hand for the hat.
Teag placed the hat in my hand and I felt the reassurance of his hand on my shoulder. The hat was unremarkable, a cheap gimme cap, with the logo of a hardware chain on the front. It was filthy, torn and probably one of thousands produced at some factory in China. But when the fabric of the hat touched my skin, I felt that tingle.
The person who dropped this hat hadn’t been evil. But he had been terrified. I wrapped my hand around the cap and let my eyelids flutter closed, focusing on the vision. The store faded around me, and my inner sight took over.
I WAS IN a dark corridor. Scared. Mildew and dust and a faint odor of moth balls hung heavy in the air. My flashlight cast a glowing circle that jittered from my shaking hand. I was inside one of the storage facility buildings, clutching a box in one hand, as I tried to hold both it and the flashlight. I fumbled to put a lock back on one of the storage unit doors.
Something was coming. I felt it. I heard something shuffling along the tiled floor, maybe something being dragged. It was the kind of sound that gave any sane person the urge to run, and that’s what I was trying to do, just as soon as I got that damned lock back on the door. Damn! I should have brought my gear… didn’t think it was quite this bad.
The sound was closer. I looked up, staring into blackness. I set the lock and pocketed the keys and eyed the distance between where I was and the doorway.
I tucked the box under one arm like a football player and led with the flashlight, like a frightened quarterback. My running footsteps echoed, but the shuffling noise was still behind me, and getting closer. I pushed my way outside through a broken door and out into the night air, and I picked up speed. I wanted to look behind me, but I’d seen too many horror movies or maybe I’d looked back on a previous trip, because I kept my eyes focused on the hole in the fence, and the safety of the high grass on the other side. I’m getting sloppy. I should have been prepared.
The air ahead was muggy and warm. But behind me, there was an arctic blast that raised my hackles.
Whatever was chasing me hadn’t stopped at the door to the storage building like it always had before.
I’d figured on the chase, called it a calculated risk. Out here, I thought I was safe, although I knew that nowhere inside the fence was really safe. Considering how dangerous the rest of the Navy yard was, I guess it was all relative.
I was almost to the fence when I felt something tugging at my shirt. Terror gave me the adrenaline for a last burst of speed, and I tore free. I was scrambling under the fence, desperate to get through when the metal caught my hat and cut my scalp.
The vision disappeared.
I came back to myself a little quicker than the last time and calmer. I was leaning back, breathing hard as if I had been the one doing the running. My heart pounded in my ears, and I felt a sheen of sweat on my forehead and arms. Teag was standing next to me, his hand still resting on my shoulder as he daubed my face with a cool washcloth.
“I’m back,” I said. I took the cloth and pressed it against my temples. After a moment, I took the hot cup of very sweet tea into my hand, and took a few sips, willing the sugar to revive me. “That helped,” I said. “I’ve never been this clear after a reading. We may have hit on something. It was very similar to when I used the ring.” “Glad to be of service,” he joked in his most serious ‘butler’ voice.
“Were any of the people you called from the storage facility men?”
Teag nodded. “Three of them, but only one phone number still worked. I got an older guy who told me to stop harassing him and hung up. Never even got a chance to say hello.”
“That could be the man I saw in the vision.” I recounted what I had seen, while Teag listened with concern.
“You don’t know how old that vision is,” Teag said. “But it could mean one tenant is brave – or desperate – enough to go in there after whatever he left behind.”
“It wasn’t the first time he’d gone inside,” I said, sorting through the images. “He had a plan and a route, but something surprised him. I don’t think whatever’s in there ever went beyond the building after him before.”
“That means it’s getting stronger,” Teag replied. He made a cup of tea for himself and came back with a package of cookies from the Honeysuckle Café. “It also makes the storage facility different from the other sites we’ve been to.”
“We figured that,” I said, nibbling on a cookie. “The murders are feeding the demon, helping it gather strength. Let’s call the man from Stor-Your-Own again and see if we can go over to visit him. If he knows his way around, maybe he’d be willing to guide us in – especially if it means he might be able to get to his things more safely in the future.”