In the hall, I saw the door open and flaring red and yellow energy flooded across the floor as Cara stumbled out, clutching her bleeding cheek. I went toward her, tripping in the sudden flood tide of the paranormal pouring out after her. The worlds heaved and laid a shattering weight over me, pressing me down as I tumbled into the boiling Grey wave. I staggered, concentrating on getting to Cara Stahlqvist across the knife-edge of the Grey between us.
"Cara," I said, reaching to catch her arm. This storm of power didn't feel like the outraged ghost of Bertha Knight Landes lashing at Cara for impersonating her niece. It was sickening and brutal. My limbs weighed too much to move, and I felt I was mired in knee-deep muck and tendrils of avaricious horror as I shuddered and forced my arm to move.
Cara shoved me aside and hurried past. I stumbled back as if she'd swung on me with a two-by-four and gasped for breath I had not known I was missing. I choked on a taste of ice and scorched earth and put my shoulder against the wall, pushing myself away from the flashing, roiling edge of the Grey, at last. It had swamped me for mere seconds, yet it felt like I'd fought against a raging sea for fatal minutes. I felt dizzy.
The force that had flooded out the door drained away in eddies of color, drawing away like an outgoing tide. The remains of the poltergeist had a repulsive, sickly feeling, like a vine that had learned to thrive on poison and grown huge and virulent. It didn't have any distinctive shape this time, but I was sure that's what I'd felt brush past, dragging the edge of the Grey. It was much worse than it had been the day before at Patricia's. Something was wrong with Tuckman's ghost. It was far too strong. The cause might be the power line through the séance room—the power line that shouldn't have been where it was— but even that wouldn't account for the sensation of foulness. Even with it gone, I felt it.
As I leaned against the wall, head down, catching my breath, several other participants ran into the hall and milled about in confusion until Tuckman emerged from the booth with his assistant trailing behind.
I headed for Terry as Tuckman went to calm his flock.
"I need those recordings," I told Terry. He narrowed his eyes at me and looked truculent.
"What do you think I am? Your personal Mr. Step'n Fetchit?”
That took me aback. I'd seen two sides of the racism die in a single afternoon—it was no simple two-sided coin. What were the odds? "You think that my asking for the recordings is demeaning?”
"I notice you didn't ask Tuck," he hissed.
"Tuck's not the systems monitor. You are. But if you can't see past that chip on your shoulder to do your job, maybe I should get them from Tuckman.”
Terry glared at me. In the furious pause we heard the conversation behind us.
"We shouldn't have been thinking about Mark," Patricia cried. "We must have attracted his ghost and now he's upset with us.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Tuckman's lips tighten in suppressed anger. "Don't jump to conclusions, Patricia. I assure you it was no such thing. Monitor readings were as they always are," he lied. "It was all your own doing. All of you. Not the spirit of our dead friend. It's just your own creation.”
Cara was walking back to the group with a moist paper towel pressed to her bloodied cheek. She stopped and listened, glowering at everyone.
"Maybe we shouldn't have been talking about Mark," Ana suggested. "Maybe we were too upset.”
"It must be Mark's ghost—it didn't act like Celia," Patricia insisted.
Cara barked a derisive laugh. "Bull! It acted just like Celia has been lately—mean. There's no damned ghost of Mark! There's no such thing!" She glared at them.
Tuckman shook his head. "I think you're a little upset. . ”
Dale turned and tried to put his arms around Cara. "Cara. . you're bleeding. Let me take you to the hospital.”
She shoved him back. "Leave me alone, Dale. I can take myself." She turned and stalked down the stairs. Her husband stared after her, a moment's bleak hurt on his face.
"She won't go very far," Ian said. "She left her purse.”
"Oh, God," Dale muttered, shivering back to himself. "I'd better take it to her." He darted into the séance room.
I turned to Terry. "I'll be back for the recordings in fifteen minutes. I am not above siccing your boss on you, but I'd rather you chose to do this yourself. Don't force me to knock that chip off your shoulder—you'll look pretty stupid if you get your butt handed to you by a skinny white chick.”
I brushed past the milling group of project members, past Tuckman—who glanced at me with curiosity—and down the stairs to find Cara.
She was standing in the building lobby, staring at something in her hand, when I caught up to her. I peered over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of a creamy stone streaked with amber and brown set in some kind of dark yellow metal. I'm no jewelry expert, so I couldn't tell if it was a real Edwardian brooch or a fake.
"What's that?”
She caught her breath and snapped a cold stare at me. "It's none of your business.”
"Maybe not. Unless it's a brooch you lost that might have been stolen by someone here.”
Her eyebrows knitted together. "All right. It's my brooch.”
"It doesn't seem like something to make much fuss over.”
"It was my great-aunt's! Bertha Knight—oh, damn it, have a little respect. I thought I'd—I thought I'd left it at Mark's.”
Her usual cool reserve had cracked for a moment, but it wouldn't last long. I'd have to pry into her before it froze back over. We locked eyes and I cocked my head a little, inquisitive. "How did you happen to leave it at Mark's?" She wavered.
I didn't. "I'll keep on asking until you tell me, but since your husband is on his way down here, you might want to talk fast.”
"Oh, God. . All right. I left the brooch at Mark's place on Wednesday. We were having an affair and I didn't want anyone to know, so I said I'd lost it. Happy now?" "No. Why didn't you go back for it?”
"I was going to go back for it, but I didn't have the chance and Mark didn't return my calls. One of them must have gotten it from Mark… or stolen it from him," she spat. "Why do you think it's one of them?”
"It has to be one of them. Celia threw it, but it was one of them that made her do it. She's not like she used to be. She's not like the Philip poltergeist Tuck told us about. She's become cruel and spiteful. We used to have such fun…”
"Why couldn't it be Mark's ghost? Maybe you pissed him off." "There's no such thing as ghosts," she spat. "We made Celia up. We control her. Or one of us does. You saw how the session went, didn't you? One of them threw it.”
We heard quick footsteps on the stairs behind us. Cara broke off and turned to look at her husband, trotting down to the lobby holding her purse and jacket over his right arm. He beamed at her, then looked crushed and angry when he saw the oozing red wound on her cheek.
"Come along, dear," Dale said, draping her jacket over her shoulders. "Don't want your lovely face to scar, Cara." He kissed her on the forehead and helped her out the door. Cara. It means "beloved." I stood and watched them until the door swung shut. I almost felt sorry for Dale Stahlqvist. He'd married a trophy—a goddess of quicksilver and steel—and now he had fallen in love with it. He’d forgotten that both quicksilver and goddesses can kill you.
Someone here was just as lethal. Someone had picked up the brooch from Mark's or caused Celia to pick it up, and it had to be one of those who'd been in the séance room. Now they had shown off their cleverness by throwing it back in Cara's face in front of everyone. It wasn't much of a stretch to imagine that someone who thought himself that clever also thought he could get away with murder, bringing the poltergeist along for the ride. It could have been any of them, including Dale or even Cara herself, lying through her perfect teeth about the brooch, though I doubted that. Her distress seemed too genuine to be an act—a much better act than her impersonation of Bertha Knight Landes's great-niece.