Now that we were in the compound, I saw the old original brick warehouse more clearly, the one that had the long, bloody past. Even without going inside, I could feel a brooding heaviness that clung to the building. I wondered whether that was new since the triggering of the supernatural power. I doubted it; the building had too much history.
Three other metal pole buildings filled the area inside the fence. Chuck’s clocks were in Building Three.
He was pretty sure Moran and the demon were in the brick warehouse, Building Four.
“Watch your step,” Chuck said. “There are places where the asphalt is split, and other places where it’s buckled. Easy to turn an ankle or worse. Once we get inside, watch where I walk. Some of the roof fell in with the last big storm. It’s a good thing there’s no power – bunch of electricty lines are down.”
Chuck had insisted that he grab half a dozen clocks from his storage unit before we did anything else.
Sorren agreed to remove the rest of his stash to another location after the demon had been handled. I was afraid that our delay would tip off Moran to our presence too early, but then again, I wasn’t in a hurry to face the demon, either.
It seemed crazy to bother with the clocks when we had a demon to kill, but Chuck pointed out that in case things got out of hand – meaning that we blew up the entire compound – he wanted to make sure he got enough clocks to give him time to put his affairs in order before the rest ran down. Since blowing the place up wasn’t out of the question, and Chuck really thought he would die without his clocks, it made sense from a certain point of view.
Chuck led the way, with Sorren and Mirov behind him. Lucinda insisted on being last, which put me behind Sorren and Teag behind me. I had one of those heavy, military-type flashlights on a carabiner on my belt loop, just in case. I had no desire to be trapped in the dark with a demon, night goggles or not.
The closer we got to the storage buildings, the more uneasy I became. I had been careful to wear my hiking boots because the lug soles had good grip for running, and the rubber insulated me to an extent from contact with the ground. I had found out the hard way that I could ‘read’ the ground if there was enough emotional resonance.
Even so, the collective memories of the storage facility vied for my attention, like distant voices just out of range. So many stories were tied up in the items people stored here. People made all kind of excuses for why they hung onto things they didn’t need, but often, the truth was simple. Storage units held the objects that were too disturbing to keep close at hand and too emotionally important to get rid of. I felt echoes of sadness, longing, and faint hope. So many people had come and gone through this space, both recently and in the Navy yard’s troubled past. The lug soles couldn’t completely insulate me from the power of the resonance.
I glimpsed different emotions as I passed every unit, like feeling a draft of air conditioning on a hot day walking past open doorways. A few of the units were neutral or even happy, but most of the units gave off a sense of resignation and transience. Some of the units stood open, like gaping maws, their steel roll-down doors askew. Trash and leaves had blown into the vacant units that faced the outside. Empty boxes littered several of the units, and I got the distinct feeling that the renters had cleaned out their things in a hurry.
“Cassidy?” Teag gave my arm a gentle shake. “Are you in there?”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m here. There’s just a lot of very strong resonance – much more than I usually get from just walking through a site.”
I took a step and Teag pulled me back sharply by the arm. “Watch out!” he cautioned, and nodded toward where I had been about to walk.
A sinkhole yawned down into darkness. It had been hidden by the shadows cast by the other buildings.
It looked deep, and I didn’t want to think about how far down the bottom might be. Not far from the sinkhole, the asphalt had cracked nearly down to the road bed, then buckled so that the crack gaped open and jutted several inches above the surface of the street. It seemed as if the compound itself had somehow conspired to make it as difficult and dangerous as possible for anyone to enter.
“Mind your step,” Chuck cautioned. This time, a piece of sheet metal roofing lay twisted on the path.
Chuck led us around the obstacle, kicking roofing nails and other debris out of his way. Chuck wasn’t taking any chances. He had his gun in his right hand, and his EMF disruptor in the other. He said he had fought demons with his Black Ops unit. I hoped he had stolen some of that equipment and brought it with him. He was a good guide, moving confidently through the rubble and wreckage.
The green glow of the night vision goggles made the abandoned facility even creepier than it would have been, which was saying something. I liked not making a target of ourselves, but at the same time, broad daylight wouldn’t have been bright enough for me.
Neglect was apparent as we walked closer to the buildings. Charleston’s heat and humidity make for a constant war against mold, mildew, and bugs. Since we’re on the Southeastern coastline, hurricanes and nasty storms are regular visitors. The summer’s brutally hot temperatures tend to fade paint, weaken wood and soften asphalt. Although Stor-Your-Own had only been out of business for six months, it was clear from looking around that it had not been properly maintained for some time.
Were people so utterly deaf to natural energies that they could spend time in and around these buildings and not feel the evil? I wondered. I thought about Flora, whose job required her to walk through each building several times a day to clean up and monitor the site. And it cost Flora her sanity. Chuck led us to Building Three. “In here.”
Stepping into the darkness, I felt as if I had been buried alive. One hand went to my agate necklace, while the other felt for the whorl in my pocket. I closed my hand over my ring, concentrating on dampening my gift and took several deep breaths. The darkness released its grip on me. The collar on my left hand felt warm, and I could feel Bo’s protective presence near me.
Lucinda was murmuring a quiet chant as we moved further into the gloom. A moment later, the door slammed shut with a boom that echoed through the large, empty building.
By the time Stor-Your-Own closed down, the renters said the whole place felt creepy, as if the demon’s taint had activated all the old ghosts, the dark resonance of objects stored there, and the tragic history of the land beneath our feet. So while the demon’s nest might be in Building Four, every building was dangerously haunted, and the threat level was higher than ever before.
We had come into the building by a side door, and it put us at the end of a long row that ran the width of the warehouse. Cobwebs shrouded the corridor like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. Heavy, clingy webs hung down from the ceiling in sheets, and they rippled as the air stirred around us. The surface of the floor seemed to move, covered with roaches. Calling them ‘palmetto bugs’ didn’t make them any less ugly.
I really wanted a flame thrower, anything to make the spiders keep their distance. Maybe it was Sorren’s presence, but the spiders retraced their lines, into the shadows of the high, open rafters. No telling what was up there, watching us.
“My unit is over here,” Chuck said. “Careful where you step.”
Sorren and Mirov used their swords to cut us a path. The stone at the top of Lucinda’s staff glowed, and its faint light kept the spiders back. Roaches skittered around our feet. They didn’t seem bothered by the glow. Then again, they’ll survive nuclear war, so I don’t imagine they’re afraid of much. Their shells crunched under the soles of our shoes with every step.