Unquiet Souls: Project Demon Hunters: Book One Page 4

  If that was supposed to make her feel better, it really didn’t. But this was his show, and she was just the co-host. The control. The photogenic skeptic.

  Fine. Audrey had to hope that if he got really dramatic about confronting an unseen force or whatever, she wouldn’t burst out laughing. She doubted that sort of reaction would play well for the cameras, although of course they could edit out whatever they had to. This wasn’t a live show, after all.

  “All right,” she said. She knew she needed to choose her battles. “Can you tell me anything about the owners?”

  “Robert and Rebecca McGrath,” Michael replied. “At least, those are the aliases we’ll be using to protect their privacy. However, we will be telling the truth about their backgrounds. He’s a developer from Orange County. His wife is originally from Louisville, Kentucky. Apparently she got tired of living in brand-new houses and wanted something with ‘character.’”

  “So they bought this place.” From where they stood, Audrey was able to see into the conservatory, take note of the wicker furniture and potted plants that filled the space. It did look very genteel and Southern, something that might appeal to someone from Kentucky…and definitely not the norm in this part of the world. The San Gabriel Valley actually did have its share of vintage homes, probably more than a lot of people might believe, but mansions like this one were pretty rare. “How long have they owned the house?”

  “A little over six months. They lived here in the fall and into the holidays, but after the first of the year, things started to become unsettled. About a month ago, it all got to be too much, and they left.” Michael’s eyes glinted at her. “Ready to go in?”

  “Sure,” Audrey said, hoping she sounded steady. More than anything, she wanted to ask exactly what he’d meant by “unsettled,” but she had a feeling he’d evade the question, since he probably wanted her to go in without any preconceived notions.

  “It’s all right,” he told her, a flicker of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “The crew’s already inside, and so far, they’re all fine.”

  As assurances went, that wasn’t much of one. Even though she could feel tension begin to knot in her stomach, Audrey nodded, remaining silent as he reached out to open the door to the conservatory. However, she couldn’t help but notice the way the P.A. who’d escorted her here hung back. Staying out of the way because she’d been told to do so, or simply afraid to go in?

  Of course, Audrey couldn’t ask, so she followed Michael into the conservatory and past the wicker dining set there, then through a pair of French doors that opened into the living room. It was a huge space with a conversation area at one end and a piano tucked into one corner, with coffered mahogany ceilings and a large fireplace with a marble surround. The furnishings were very traditional and slightly stuffy-looking to her California-bred eyes, but she supposed they fit the house. What didn’t fit the house were the studio lights set up on tripods, banishing shadows with their glare. Now she began to understand why Daniela had piled on the makeup.

  The crew was already here, standing in front of the fireplace. There were only two of them, actually — a scruffy-looking man with a Steadicam assembly, and a fair-haired woman, probably in her early forties, holding a boom mike. They immediately began to track Michael and Audrey as they entered the room. He stopped in front of the fireplace, and she paused next to him, trying not to look too ill at ease. This was mostly a recap, because she knew they’d filmed a few intro pieces over the weekend without her, but she listened intently. The formal opening sequences would be filmed later; Colin’s plan seemed to be to throw her right into the action in order to make her responses seem more authentic.

  “The Whitcomb mansion,” Michael proclaimed. “Built in 1911 by a railroad tycoon who lost his fortunes in the crash of 1929. Since then, the house has been bought and sold many times, with most of the residents staying no longer than a year. Reports of strange sounds and smells…cold spots and voices in empty rooms. All the classic signs of a haunting, but the latest owners began to fear they were dealing with far more than a ghost.” A pause, those glittering, gray-gilt eyes fixed on the camera. “And that is exactly what my colleague Audrey Barrett and I are here to discover.”

  Audrey knew she shouldn’t smile, so she settled for giving him a sober nod, all the while wondering if she looked as foolish as she thought she did. So far, she hadn’t gotten any kind of feeling at all about the house, except for wishing that she could be somewhere far, far away from here. She and Michael had only been filming for a few minutes, and already she wanted to kick herself for agreeing to be on the show. Somehow, she knew it was all going to be manufactured scares and hyperbole, just like every other ghost-hunter program she’d ever watched.

  Michael began to move and Audrey followed along, doing her best to look purposeful and composed despite her inner turmoil. The camera operator and the sound technician came with them, staying a few steps ahead. Their progress took them from the living room into the dining room, which was also huge in scale, with an enormous table that had twenty chairs grouped around it. Fussy wallpaper, and a patterned rug to match. The overall effect was a little overwhelming, and Audrey could feel her temples begin to pound, although that could have simply been from the smell of dampness that surrounded her, making her wonder how long the house had been closed up.

  “Some of the most startling incidents were observed in this room,” Michael went on. “Chairs piled on top of the table, plates actually moving from where they’d been set even as people watched. So far, our research hasn’t been able to come up with a definitive reason for why such phenomena would be concentrated here rather than elsewhere in the house.”

  That wasn’t just the smell of a damp house that had been closed up for too long — it was mildew, concentrated, powerful, like a shower that hadn’t been scrubbed in months. It was so strong, Audrey could feel herself growing dizzy, even though she knew she shouldn’t show any sign of my discomfort, needed to stay calm and strong in front of the camera.

  A wave of dizziness. No, scratch being calm and composed — she had to grab hold of something. She stepped away from Michael and clutched the back of one of the chairs, hoping that would steady her.

  “Audrey?”

  She couldn’t tell whether the concern in his voice was real, or whether he was faking it for the cameras. For some reason, she couldn’t speak. It almost felt as though there was an invisible hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing. From somewhere in the distance, she heard sharp, hissing laughter that grated on her ears.

  “Audrey!”

  With her free hand, she tried to reach out to him. The invisible pressure on her throat increased, and the floor seemed to tilt beneath her feet, as if she stood on the deck of a ship on a stormy sea rather than solid ground more than a hundred miles from the ocean. Terror flooded through her, zinged along her nerve endings.

  The laughter increased, shredding her eardrums.

  Then merciful darkness fell.

  Chapter 3

  Strong arms held her, and Audrey found herself wanting to remain in that embrace. It provided a feeling of security she hadn’t experienced for a long time, a sense that she finally wasn’t alone. A pleasant scent surrounded her…something woodsy and masculine. Her eyelids fluttered, and she found herself staring up into Michael Covenant’s face. His brows were drawn together, but an expression of relief passed over his features as soon as she was able to open her eyes and really focus on him.

  Then she realized he was the one holding her as he knelt in the dining room, with the cameraman and sound technician hovering in the background. Just behind them was the young P.A., who somehow managed to look both worried for Audrey’s well-being and scared out of her mind at the same time.

  “Audrey, are you all right?” Michael asked, his tone urgent.

  “I’m fine,” she said, knowing she sounded irritated rather than frightened. And she was irritated with herself for fainting like some heroine out
of a gothic novel. Where the hell had that come from? She’d never passed out before, not even that one time in high school when she’d been stupid enough to donate blood on an empty stomach. There had to be a rational explanation for her faint. Managing a rueful smile, she added, “I guess I didn’t eat enough for breakfast.”

  From the way his eyebrows lifted, Audrey guessed he wasn’t buying her story. “That’s it…low blood sugar? You didn’t hear anything? Feel anything?”

  “I — ” Part of her wanted to lie, to ignore the strange sounds and smells that had assaulted her right before she fainted. But that would have been cowardly. She needed to tell Michael the truth. That was why they were here, after all — to discover exactly what was happening at the mansion. “There was an overwhelming smell of mildew. It seemed to come from nowhere, but it was all around me. And then there were the voices.”

  “Voices?”

  “Laughing. Evil laughter. It was high-pitched.”

  “Like a child’s voice?”

  “Not exactly.” Audrey hesitated before adding, “It really didn’t sound human.”

  He was silent, then, to her surprise, he looked up at the cameraman. “Did you get all that?”

  A huge grin that split the man’s dark beard. “Everything.”

  Annoyed, Audrey pushed herself out of Michael’s arms and staggered to a standing position. Her knees didn’t feel that stable, but she could use the wall to steady herself. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let him keep on holding her. “You were filming all that?”

  “Of course,” he replied, unperturbed. “The faint —the way I was able to catch you — it was all gold. The viewers are going to eat it up.”

  “I wasn’t faking,” Audrey said, her tone flat.

  “I know you weren’t. That’s what makes it even better.”

  Anger flared, but she held her tongue. This was TV, after all. She knew what she was getting herself into. Or rather, she’d thought she’d known.

  What Audrey hadn’t been expecting were those voices. That smell, worse than anything she’d ever experienced. Even now, her stomach churned at the memory.

  But it was all gone. She couldn’t exactly call the room she stood in ordinary, but it didn’t feel haunted, or possessed. However, if this sort of thing happened here on a regular basis, she could see why the owners had bolted for their Palm Springs condo.

  Her eyes not quite meeting Michael’s, Audrey said, “I need some fresh air.”

  He nodded, then glanced over at the cameraman and the sound technician. “Chris, Susan, let’s take five.”

  “Sure thing,” the cameraman — Chris? — said, and promptly left the room.

  Audrey did so as well, heading back through the living room and conservatory so she could stand on the brick patio outside and take in deep breaths of the cool morning air. In the distance, she heard the sound of traffic passing by on Sierra Madre Boulevard and remembered there was still a real world out there, no matter how creepy and cloistered the mansion felt.

  As she sat down on the edge of the brick planter that bordered the patio, Michael came outside and shut the door to the conservatory behind him. “You’re angry.”

  “No,” she said. “I knew I was signing up to have everything filmed. Just part of the game, right?”

  She’d expected him to agree with her, or possibly make a noncommittal shrug. Instead, he replied, “This isn’t a game. What you experienced in there was real.”

  “But you still made sure you captured the whole thing for the show.”

  “Of course I did. That’s part of the deal. Colin would have my head if he found out I tried to suppress valuable footage like that.”

  Tilting her head, Audrey asked, “What’s your goal with all this, Michael?”

  His fingers plucked at the hem of his jacket. He looked so uncomfortable, so fidgety, she just had to ask. After all, she’d seen that kind of nervous twitch before.

  “When did you quit smoking?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  To most people, probably not, but Audrey knew that when you were used to working with clients fighting addictive behaviors, it was easier to notice the tells. “I’m a shrink, Michael, remember?”

  He chuckled. “Right. It’s been ten months. Most of the time I can power through it, but every once in a while, the urge catches me off guard.”

  She could imagine. Nicotine was highly addictive, worse than heroin on some levels. “If you’ve made it this far, you can stay with it. Usually it’s the first month or so that’s the worst.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself.” He reached in his jacket pocket, pulled out a piece of gum, and put it in his mouth. Chewing contemplatively, he said, “That mildew odor you experienced — the owner’s wife smelled the same thing. So did the woman who lived here before her. But none of their husbands were ever able to sense it.”

  “You didn’t smell it?”

  “No.”

  That was strange. True, olfactory acuity varied from person to person, but that mildew odor had been so strong, everyone in the room should have been able to detect it, even if not at the level at which Audrey had experienced the smell. Had she suffered some kind of hallucination?

  “It’s often how they work,” Michael continued. “Demons, that is. They tend to choose one person in a house to target, to do what they can to weaken them. That person often tends to be female, simply because our society still doesn’t put as much stock in testimony by women, often treats them as lesser.”

  Audrey wanted to bristle at his words, but unfortunately, she knew he was only speaking of a sad truth. “What’s their goal, though? To drive someone to mental imbalance?”

  “Basically, yes. What they really want is to torment you to the point where you consider taking your own life, just because by doing so you commit your soul to eternal damnation.”

  Had he really just said that? Eyes narrowed, Audrey stated flatly, “You can’t believe that’s true.”

  Looking grim, he replied, “It’s not a matter of what I believe, but of what the demons believe. They thrive off our mental torment, drink it like fine wine. The anguish a person goes through at the moment they take their lives…that’s something they want to savor.”

  Audrey shivered. She could have blamed the dank, chilly morning, but she was wearing a jacket, and it wasn’t really that cold out. “Have you encountered a lot of them?”

  “Enough to know they’re real.” Michael came over to her, extended a hand. “It’s rough the first time. You’re confronted by something completely other, completely evil. It hits your world view upside the head.”

  “I still don’t know those were demons,” she protested, even as she let him help her up to a standing position. Her knees were still shakier than she wanted to admit. “I could have manufactured the whole thing in my head, just because I was expecting there to be something in this house.”

  He offered her a sad smile. “It’s easier to think that, I know. But you’ll come around. In the meantime, we have a show to shoot.”

  The last thing Audrey wanted was to go back inside that house, but she didn’t have much choice. She’d signed up for this, and she needed to see it through. After her failure to get more grants for her psychic research, after settling for a private practice even though that wasn’t what she really wanted, she needed to have some kind of victory.

  No matter what.

  * * *

  Michael didn’t take her back to the dining room, though. Instead, he sat her down on the sofa in the living room and questioned her again about the “attack.” His words, not hers; she hadn’t really thought of the incident in those terms, but the more they discussed what had happened — with the camera recording every tense moment — the more she realized it had been some sort of an attack, albeit not a physical one. As to why it had been focused on her…she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer to that question.

  Once they were done with the interview, Michael asked Audr
ey if she was ready to go upstairs. She really didn’t want to go farther into the house, but she knew she needed to suck it up and do her job. Anyway, she’d already survived one attack, and now she knew a little more of what to expect. Of course, she was frightened, but she wouldn’t let that stop her. She’d survived the deaths of her parents; she could survive this as well.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and he gave her a satisfied nod.

  “We’re moving,” he told the cameraman and the sound technician, and they all headed up the stairs.

  Audrey didn’t think they were actually all that spooky, mostly because there was a big window above the landing that let in a good amount of light. At least they were doing this in the daytime; Michael and Colin had apparently decided they didn’t need to go for cheap scares with shadowy corners and the two co-hosts blundering around in the dark armed only with flashlights. The contract had stipulated that there might be some night shoots, but either Michael had decided this place was scary enough in broad daylight, or the plan was to start slow and end on a high note with the really terrifying stuff.

  Neither prospect was terribly reassuring.

  They passed several medium-sized bedrooms and ended up in what had to be the master suite, which really didn’t look too frightening, thanks to the windows on three sides and the light-colored bedspread and serene landscapes that hung on the walls. The studio lights sitting on tripods on either side of the door also did a lot to dispel her lingering sensation of unease.

  Michael glanced over at her. “Feel anything?”

  Audrey shook her head. “I’m not psychic, remember?”

  “You don’t think you are,” he replied. “There’s a difference.”

  About all she could do was lift her shoulders. As part of her research in parapsychology, she’d had a fellow researcher administer a Zener psychic test on her — the test that used a series of cards with symbols on one side. Even though most parapsychologists acknowledged that the tests were far from accurate, it was still fun to give it a try, just to see what happened. Audrey’s score had been inconclusive at best, which was fine by her; she’d wanted to study psychics, not actually be one.