“I’m not going to be back tomorrow for more filming,” I told him. “We’ve done our part, Gopher, and I doubt you’d find any judge in the land that would find us in breach of contract under the circumstances.”
“Count me out too,” said Heath.
Gopher waved nonchalantly at us as if it were no problem. “Tracy, see if you can’t get Bernard to come back tomorrow. Try to smooth things over with him about having to let him go. We’ll offer him an extra hundred dollars if he shows up tomorrow and does a few sequences. If they’re really bad, we can always edit him out completely.”
Heath and I shared a look, and I turned to Steven and Gilley. “Come on, guys. We’ve got some supplies to get so that we can stow the knife.”
We left the crew to their work, and once we were out in the hallway Gilley had a great idea. “M.J., why don’t Steven and I get the supplies we’ll need, and you and Heath can take it easy for a little while?”
I think my partner was noticing the way I’d been walking—stiffly and with great care, as the cuts on my back and neck were still stinging something fierce. “I’d really love to take a power nap,” I admitted wearily.
“God, that sounds good,” Heath agreed. “You guys don’t mind going to the store without us?”
“We can handle it,” said Gilley.
“It’s fine,” added Steven, leaning in to give me a quick kiss. “Go take your nap of power and we’ll be back soon.”
Heath and I watched Gilley and Steven head out, and then I asked him, “Feel like getting something to eat before we catch some Zs?”
“You mean, do I feel like talking over food about all the crazy stuff that’s been happening here in the last twenty-four hours? Yes.”
I chuckled, and we walked over to the café across the street and ordered a couple of sandwiches and some Cokes.
“So, have you ever seen or heard of anything like what happened back there?” Heath asked when our beverages arrived.
I shook my head. “Can’t say as I have. And I would have doubted that it was even possible if it hadn’t actually happened to us.”
Heath pulled up his sleeve again to have another look at his wounded shoulder. “What kind of a spook does something like this?” he asked me.
I took a long time to answer, but the truth of it was staring us right in the face. “Heath,” I said carefully, “I don’t think it was a spook. I don’t think it was a ghost. I don’t think that anything that once walked this earth made that.”
Heath eyed me critically. “Black magic?” he suggested.
I nodded solemnly. “You know what kinds of evil and unnatural things are said to have talons?”
“Demons,” he whispered.
“Exactly.” And even as I said that I was finding it really hard to get my head around the concept. I’d heard of demons, and I knew people—credible people—who believed in them, but to get swiped by one . . . well, that was an up-close-and-personal confrontation of the freaky kind, and it was making me a believer really quickly.
“Then the question that I have is,” Heath said, pulling my shoulder back gently so the waitress behind me could set my sandwich down on my place mat, “who the hell summoned it?”
I knew then that Heath was under the same assumption I was: that demons were not something that roamed the earth freely, but had to be called up by some foolish and powerful soul in this world. “That’s the sixty-five-thousand-dollar question, now, isn’t it?” I asked. “I’ll bet whoever did conjure it was the same person who laid that knife on the table.”
“So what’s the connection?” Heath asked. “How does the knife fit into all of this?”
I took a bite out of my sandwich and chewed for a bit before I replied. “I think it’s a key.”
“A key?”
I nodded. “I remember reading an article way back when about practitioners of black magic needing an object of power to open the gates to the lower realms and allow passage of a demon into our realm.”
“Wait a minute.” Heath gasped, setting down his sandwich. “You mean to tell me that that thing is now on the loose?”
I felt my eyebrows scrunch as I tried to recall the article that I’d read—but the details were elusive. “I want to say no,” I said, remembering that the clawing had stopped as soon as Steven threw Gilley’s sweatshirt over the knife. “But I think we should put Gilley on research and see what he comes up with. We definitely need to know what we’re dealing with here.”
“I just don’t have any experience with this stuff,” Heath admitted. “It’s really blowing my mind.”
“I hear ya,” I agreed. “My main concern, however, is to put that knife somewhere safe, away from people. We need to contain it and whatever evil thing it’s linked to. I mean, can you imagine if that thing had been let loose in the lobby here at the hotel?”
Heath scowled. “Maybe it already was.”
I stared at him for a full three seconds before I realized what he was alluding to. “The serpent?”
Heath nodded. “Whatever attacked you and me in the lobby wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. It just didn’t feel like a regular spook, you know? And that has me thinking that maybe our serpent’s got claws.”
“We’ve got to take care of that knife . . . and quick,” I said grimly.
Heath glanced at his watch. “How about we pay the tab and try and get about forty-five minutes of nap time before Gilley and Steven get back?”
I reached for my purse. “Works for me.”
“I’m in room one-twelve,” Heath said as he laid some money on the table. “Call my room when you hear from your buddies and I’ll come down to help you with the knife.”
As it turned out I got only about a half hour for a quick nap before I heard Steven and Gil come into my hotel room. “Wakey, wakey,” sang Gilley.
I groaned and rolled over. I’d been having such a nice dream about my mom, of all people, and being roused from visiting with her made me a little melancholy. “What time is it?” I asked groggily.
“It’s nearly six,” said Steven. “Did you want to sleep a little longer?”
I shook my head. “Nah.” I sat up on the bed and yawned. “We’ve got work to do. Did you get a box for the knife?”
Gilley held up one of several bags. “We had trouble finding the right-size box that would hold the knife and still fit inside the hotel safe, when Steven came up with the great idea to get a cigar box.” Gilley then set down the bags on the bed and fished around inside one of them, pulling out the perfect-size wooden box for our purposes.
“Nice,” I said with a smile. “And the magnets?”
Gilley fished around inside another bag and came up with a handful of flat magnets. He then dumped the contents of yet another bag onto the bed and showed me some wood glue, metal spikes—in a smaller size than I was used to working with—a hammer, some nails, and a few sections of metal tubing with plastic caps on the end. “Looks like you two had fun at the hardware store,” I said appreciatively.
Gilley and Steven beamed. “Did you want help putting this stuff together?” Gil asked.
“No, but thanks, doll,” I said, getting all the way out of the bed and stretching. “You guys have done great. Oh, but, Gil, I do need some research if you have some time to spare.”
“Always,” he said.
“I need you to look up portal keys in relation to summoning demons.”
Both Gilley and Steven looked at me as if I’d said something funny they couldn’t quite catch. “Come again?” Gil said when I didn’t offer more.
“I think the knife is a key that unlocks portals and allows demons to enter our world.”
“Real demons?” Gil asked, his voice high and pitchy.
“Yes,” I said. “Real demons. The kind that night-mares are made of.”
“These things actually exist?” Steven asked incredulously.
I turned my back to him and lifted my shirt. “Do I need to say more?”
&n
bsp; “No,” they both said quietly. Gilley added, “How the hell do we lock up a demon if it’s come through this open portal, M.J.?”
I let go of my shirt and turned back to face them. “We start by securing the knife. We then do a thorough search of the hotel, and if we find anything of the magnitude that attacked Heath and me, we give it all we’ve got with the spikes and the magnets.”
“You think it’s loose?” Gil gasped.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, reaching to retrieve my sweater off of a nearby chair. “I want to say no; I mean, when Steven threw your sweatshirt over the knife, whatever was attacking Heath and me stopped. So I’m hopeful that it’s contained. Still, we’ve never dealt with anything like this before, which is why I need you to do some research and find out if any other ghost hunter has ever dealt with one of these things, and if they’ve managed to lock it down.”
Gilley shivered, and his expression told me he really didn’t want to stick around San Francisco much longer. “ ’Kay,” he said. “I’ll look into it, but, M.J.?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
I gave him a reassuring smile and squeezed his shoulder. “Trust me, after what went down this afternoon, we will be.”
“I should come with you,” offered Steven. “You may need me again.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart,” I said patiently. Knowing Steven would worry, but not wanting to put someone inexperienced in the middle of things, I held firm on my decision to leave him behind. “I think it’s best if Heath and I go it alone. We’ll wear some of the magnets and do some protection work before we extract the knife, and I promise you, I’ll play it safe.”
“I am not liking that idea,” Steven said, his dark brows furrowing. I couldn’t help it; he just looked so damn cute that I leaned in and gave him a big, long kiss.
“I know,” I whispered when I pulled away. “But that’s the way it’s gotta be for now.”
“She’ll be okay,” Gilley reassured him, but he too looked a little worried.
I grabbed all of the magnets, the glue, and the box and walked to the door. Looking back at them before I left, I reminded Gilley, “You’ll work on that research project?”
“I’ll have something for you by the time you get back,” Gil promised.
“Thanks, buddy,” I said, and left the room.
I headed down to Heath’s room and knocked on his door. There was no answer, so I knocked a little louder and heard a faint, “Coming!” from inside. A moment later the door opened and a bleary-eyed Heath peeked out at me, squinting into the bright light of the hallway. “Is it time?” he asked, his voice husky with fatigue.
“It is,” I said. Holding up the box and the magnets I added, “Can you help me configure this box for the knife?”
Heath opened the door wide. “Sure, come on in.”
I walked into his room and moved over to the little side table by the window. Setting the articles down I took a seat and waited for Heath to flip on a few lights and come over to the table.
He joined me after he’d rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Man, I don’t think I was out long, but while I was out, I was really out,” he said as he sat down.
“I know. I was down pretty hard too before Gil and Steven came back from the store.”
Heath reached forward to inspect the box. “A cigar box is perfect.”
“Steven’s idea,” I said, laying out the magnets and the glue. “How about I glue the magnets and you hold them in place until they’ve dried a little?”
“That works.”
We got to our task without speaking for a little while, and then Heath asked, “So, what’s the game plan once we finish the box?”
“Well,” I said, taking a moment to gather my thoughts. “The first thing I think we’ll need to do is some psychic protection exercises.”
Heath laughed softly. “Yeah, ’cause that worked so well for me last time.”
“You were using protection?” I asked, then realized my double entendre and felt my cheeks blush.
Heath caught it too and he laughed. “I always use protection,” he said with a wink.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling even hotter. “You know what I mean.”
Heath continued to chuckle, but he answered in between by saying, “Yeah. I encased myself in a gold orb and called in the big kahuna.”
“Archangel Michael?” It was well-known in the spiritual community that archangel Michael was the go-to guy to help thwart negative energy when you were doing any kind of spiritual work.
“Yep,” Heath said. “And maybe he went to lunch or something when whatever that thing was came out of the ether, ’cause I’ve never been bitch-slapped by something like that in all the time I’ve been doing this.”
I thought back to my own protection in the morning, before the shoot began. I clearly remembered going through much the same ritual. “Okay, so we’ll need to double up on the protection prayers and carry a few of these on us.” I held up the loose magnets for emphasis.
Heath looked up from where he was holding down several pieces in the box and said, “Let’s hope screwing with the electromagnetic field works.”
About half an hour later, after some lengthy meditative preparation in which Heath and I had mentally covered our energy with reflective coating (this works really well for your average encounter with negativity) and called in archangel Michael to be our spiritual security guard, we were on our way back toward the conference room.
We passed the elevator and were traversing the mezzanine when I saw Murray Knollenberg on the other side of the lobby. I waved to him and he came over to us. “Hi, you two,” he said warmly. “How did your television shoot go this morning?”
Heath and I shared a look. “You mean you didn’t hear?” I asked.
Immediately Murray’s expression turned to worry. “Something else bad happened?”
“ ’Fraid so,” said Heath. “Mr. Knollenberg, I’m sorry to tell you this, but there might be a demon loose in your hotel.”
I stifled the groan that wanted to bubble up from my insides, as that wasn’t how I would have broken the news to the already beleaguered-looking GM. Sure enough, Murray turned as pale as one of the ghosties currently haunting his hotel. “A demon?” He gasped.
“We can’t be sure,” I said, giving Heath a pointed look. “But we were both attacked during the shoot—”
“What do you mean, you were attacked?!” Murray interrupted, and the poor guy looked as though he was ready to faint.
Heath pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and showed him the claw marks. Knollenberg’s mouth dropped in horror. “How did that happen? I mean, how is that even possible?”
Again Heath and I shared a look. I said, “We’re not sure, but we think it has something to do with one of the items brought to the set for Heath and me to give our impressions of. We’re on our way back there to make sure that we encase the object so that it can’t cause any more harm.”
“Damage?” Murray nearly shouted, his head swiveling back and forth between Heath and me. “What other damage did it cause?”
I held up my hand in a take it easy motion. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Everything is fine. The only damage was to us. We’ve got the knife temporarily contained under a covering that is holding the negative energy bound, and it should be fine until we can get it into this box.” I held up the box to show Knollenberg that we had things under control, but he hardly looked convinced.
“Oh, my,” he said, and, amazingly, his complexion seemed to lose even more color. Without another word he turned and began to trot off in the direction of the Renaissance Room.
“Great,” I moaned, nudging Heath as we hurried after him. “That’s all we need.”
We arrived at the conference room’s door just as Knollenberg was tugging it open, and before we could stop him he dashed into the room and we heard him shriek loud enough to wake the dead. (Sorry, but it was that loud!)
&n
bsp; “Damn!” I swore, and leaped forward with Heath right next to me. We rushed in after the GM and stopped in our tracks, my mouth falling open far enough to expose my tonsils. “Holy mother of God!” I gasped, staring around the room in disbelief.
The place looked like someone with a machete had had himself a wild party. The curtains were torn into shreds of fabric; chairs were overturned and broken; shattered glass littered the floor; much of the camera crew’s equipment had been thrown around and, I suspected, damaged; holes were punched in the walls; and a giant carved heart was drawn around the antique mirror across the room. But most disturbing of all was the table in the center of the room, where the knife had once been covered with Gilley’s sweatshirt. All that remained of it were a few scraps of fabric and three long talon marks carved deeply into the tabletop.
While Heath and I took in the disarray of the room in silence, Knollenberg was holding his head in his hands and moaning about the cost of repairs.
Finally I turned to Heath and asked, “Why would Gopher leave all this expensive equipment here without posting a guard or locking the door?”
“Huh?” he said, pulling his eyes away from the table to look at me and focus on my question. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said that I don’t understand why the producer on this shoot would leave all of this valuable equipment here to be vandalized without securing the room. You’d think that a member of the crew would have been left behind to watch over this stuff, or at least make sure no one got in here.”
“You think a person did this?”
I glanced around at all the damage and felt my insides tighten at the prospect of facing something nonhuman that could cause so much destruction. “Well, someone human had to have come in here and removed the sweatshirt from the knife, at least,” I reasoned. “I mean, we had it contained as long as the shirt covered the knife.”
“But what if we didn’t?” said Heath. “What if we only stunned it or something?”
I thought on that, and as I did I walked forward to the table where we’d sat for the shoot earlier in the day and looked down at the tabletop. Tentatively I ran my fingers over the three talon marks etched deeply into the wood’s surface. Then I picked up the small shred of what was left of Gilley’s sweatshirt and examined it. Something curious occurred to me, and it was that I could clearly see that the magnets had been ripped off the fabric.