I swallowed down my fear, pulling strength from the comfort Theo silently offered me. "We seek the name of the murderer of Hope. I don't suppose your investigations have led you to a conclusion about that?"
The Hashmallim seemed to swell, blotting out the night sky around us.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Sarah muttered, and ran for the grassy verge beyond the parking lot. I fought down the bile that rose in my own throat, struggling to keep control of my emotions.
"That of which you speak does not exist," the Hashmallim said, its form twisting and turning upon itself in an endless dance of horror.
"Are there any suspects?" I asked, trying desperately to remember the list of questions we'd agreed to ask.
"Portia Harding."
"Other than me," I said, clinging to Theo, drinking in the warmth of his body.
"That which you seek does not exist."
That's the second time he's said that. What does it mean? I asked Theo.
It means something is up, he answered slowly, his mind busily sorting through ideas. I gave him full marks for being able to think while confronting the abomination before us.
I mentally girded my loins, and ventured another question. "Exactly when was she killed?"
"That which you seek does not exist."
If I wasn't at the point where I could quite possibly die of fear, I'd be annoyed at that.
Hmm. Interesting. Theo's words were thoughtful. "Do you mean that Hope was not murdered, that she died from other causes?"
The Hashmallim continued to face me, violating every rule of physics, its flat nothingness sucking the gaze in and holding it. "That which you seek does not exist."
An idea bloomed in my head. I could tell by the dawning enlightenment in Theo's face that it occurred to him, as well.
I cleared my throat. "Are you saying, then, that Hope has not died?"
"Confirmation," the Hashmallim said.
She's not dead, I said in stunned disbelief. Why does everyone think she's dead if she's not?
I don't know, but I intend to find out.
"Where is the virtue known as Hope?" Theo asked the Hashmallim.
"The answer you seek does not exist. The summoning is at an end." In front of Theo, the portal sparked to life again. The Hashmallim drifted toward it, clearly intending on returning to wherever it had originated.
"Wait a second," I said, moving around in front of Theo. The resulting wave of revolting nausea left me staggering against him. "You can't just leave like that. You're the Court police! There has to be something you can tell us about Hope."
The Hashmallim flickered for a moment at the edge of the portal. "In order to succeed, you must first destroy."
Both the Hashmallim and the portal disappeared without any further ado.
"What in the name of Stephen Hawking is that supposed to mean?" I asked Theo.
"I have no idea. This Hashmallim wasn't particularly inclined to give answers, it appears."
Slowly, the horror within me began to fade. Anger quickly replaced it.
"Sweet mother of sanity," I swore, looking at the spot the Hashmallim had occupied. "So help me, once I have your soul back, and this thing with Hope is cleared up, if I ever want to get involved in anything to do with the Court, you have my full permission to beat me senseless."
Chapter 17
"This is downright creepy."
"Meh." I made a half-hearted shrugging motion to accompany the word, trudging along behind the group of people who chattered in excited whispers, occasional startled gasps punctuating their conversation.
Sarah stopped to give me a gimlet eye. "Meh? Meh! This is not in the least bit meh!"
"You're talking to someone who has been to hell itself, and had a chat with the man in charge, not to mention facing down a gauntlet of Hashmallim, which in my humble opinion is a thousand times worse than the aforementioned demon lord. Something so simple as a haunted house holds no fear to the likes of me."
"I almost liked you better when you were a pigheaded skeptic," she answered, making a face.
"Oh, I'm still a skeptic…about most things I am. There are some I won't dispute fall well out of the bounds of what can be explained by existing science," I answered, obediently stopping when the ghost-hunting group leader waved everyone to a halt. "I haven't seen any proof yet that this house is anything other than extremely old and"—I sniffed the air—"evidently inhabited by a very large family of rodents. I wish Theo was here."
"That's the third time in an hour you've said that—ooh, what was that?"
"Sorry, that was me," one of the men in the group called out, sheepishly answering a cell phone that had made an odd buzzing noise.
"Fine, I'll take it back. I don't wish Theo was here—I wish I was with him, instead."
"We'll wait here for the two missing members," the group leader announced in a loud whisper. "They're just outside the building. I'll go meet them at the door and escort them here. While we're waiting, let's take a few baseline readings of this upper floor. Those of you on the communication team may want to get into your meditative states and see if any entities contact you."
"People in a new relationship are always so cloying," Sarah said as she sank down gracefully into a lotus position, adopting a peaceful look on her face despite the cold, damp, and rodent-infested ambiance of the three-hundred-year-old mill we were presently occupying. "You don't see Anthony and me clinging to each other."
I plopped down next to her with considerably less elegance. "You've been married sixteen years. I assume by the time Theo and I have been together that long, I won't mind if he spends the evening off doing mysterious things that he refuses to tell me about except to say that he hopes it will give us some direction regarding the whole Hope situation."
"Hush. I'm meditating."
I hugged my knees as I sat next to a softly humming Sarah, shivering slightly in the cold midnight air. We were on the top floor of one of the oldest standing mills in England, a notoriously haunted mill which had a checkered past that supposedly included several murders, three suicides, and during the 1970s, a rash of Satanic rituals. The interior of the mill wasn't anything special to look at—for the last hundred years it had alternately been used as office space, apartments, and, finally, storage. Although I didn't have the paranormal radar that Theo assured me would come with time, I didn't sense anything in the building that felt remotely different.
"Hey, look," I said softly, nudging Sarah with my elbow. The group leader, puffing slightly at all the stairs, emerged from the staircase with the two latecomers in tow. "It's Milo from the séance."
"Mmmhmm. They belong to the group, I believe."
"I'm going to say hi." I got up and went over to the newcomers with a smile. Milo introduced his wife, who gave me a curt nod before exclaiming that she wanted to spend a few minutes communing with the spirits of the mill.
"The wife is a believer," Milo said to me in a quiet voice. We moved to the other end the room, perching ourselves on a rickety metal table that lurked in a corner. "I've tried to reason with her, but…" He shrugged.
"I know how that can be. I'm not saying I can't accept that there are some things that seem to escape logical explanation…" That was pretty much a given now that my life had become something outside of logic. "…but most people don't even try to look for a reason that things happen. If they see a light in the sky, it must be an alien."