“Dante must’ve kept the key on him. He hid it somehow while he was living on death row, and took it with him to his grave,” I said in excitement. “It could be buried with Dante’s body!”
“And if Dante’s remains are in an unmarked grave on Institute property, the key is still here,” Kallie added. “If we find his grave, we’ll find the key!”
“Finally, we’re making some progress,” Marcus said in satisfaction. He subconjured Dante’s file for us to look at later.
“We should get out of here, so we can start searching the grounds for the grave.” I spun my chair around, looking forward to leaving.
“We have to return to death row if we’re going to get to the exit. There’s no way out through here,” Marcus said.
I would rather bathe myself in acid than roam back through those cells again, but there was no other method of escape. We left the office behind and entered back into death row. This time, the feeling permeating the air was even worse. Dread settled into my bones and grew more intense the further we got into the cell block.
Oberi’s fur stood on end as he stopped once we got to the middle of the room. He lifted his lips in a snarl and began to emit a harsh growl.
Get back, he told us, planting himself in front of Charlie and me.
I grabbed Charlie’s arm as something materialized twelve feet away. The shadow man. He stood completely still, waiting for us to approach. He knew we’d have to walk past him if we wanted to get to the door.
“He wants us to talk to him,” Marcus said. “He asked me to use my magic to make it so you guys could hear him, too.”
“Fuck him. Let’s just go,” I hissed.
“What are you here for?” a rasping, chilling voice asked. The shadow man hadn’t moved an inch, but I knew that voice came from him.
“I didn’t do that,” Marcus said, and his words held an edge of terror.
I gripped Charlie’s arm tighter and tried not to scream. For this ghost to be able to vocalize what he wanted without the aid of Marcus’ magic meant that he was one strong motherfucker.
“It’s been so long since someone’s been down here,” the shadow man said. “Why not stay awhile?”
“We don’t belong here. We have to leave, and you can’t come with us,” Marcus replied.
“You do belong here. I know who you are. You killed eleven people. I did the same, once. Though I picked them off one by one.”
“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it,” Marcus said. His voice dropped low, to give the ghost a warning.
“Doesn’t matter. They’re still dead. You must feel so much regret for what you’ve done.”
Marcus swallowed as he asked, “Do you regret what you did?”
“I only regret getting caught.”
The shadow man proceeded toward us, one step at a time. My skin began to crawl, and I tried to tell him to leave us alone, but my words didn’t come out of my throat.
Marcus immediately conjured cedar and a lighter. He lit the cedar and took a breath to recite the incantation to scare the ghost off, but the shadow man only laughed.
“That won’t help you now.”
Marcus gave a gasp as the cedar and lighter flew out of his hand in different directions. The cedar went spinning down the hall toward the office, landing in a puddle and fizzling out. The lighter traveled toward the shadow man, who caught it in his palm, where it instantly exploded.
All the cell doors in the block— hundreds of them— came slamming shut all at once. The sound rattled my ears and caused panic to race through my blood. At the same time, the temperature in the room turned from freezing cold to boiling hot in seconds. Sweat began rolling down my skin, and Marcus cried, “Run!”
We went to bolt forward past the shadow man, but he raised his hands, and two cell doors opened beside us. Kallie and Marcus were thrown into the cells, and the doors came crashing shut. They wrenched at the bars, but couldn’t get free.
“Get out of here!” Marcus yelled as the shadow man approached their cells. “We’ll deal with this!”
“It’s a straight shot, just run!” I told Charlie as he grabbed the handles of my wheelchair. He pushed me at a dead sprint as we raced to the other side of the cell block. Oberi remained beside me, snapping at the heels of the shadow man, while Rishi darted ahead of my chair. I heard battle orbs explode behind us as Kallie and Marcus attempted to escape the cells.
Moans erupted throughout the cell block as hundreds of ghosts came flooding out of the cells ahead of us, spirits wearing jumpsuits with cruel, hateful grins. They filtered into the hall and surrounded Charlie and me, so we couldn’t get to the doors.
