In fact, examining a sharp cut in the wood, it looked like theyhadreplaced the section. I’d bet that it grew back no matter how many times they replaced the wood. How many times would my client have paid to replace it before shrugging and giving up?
And he hadn’t even told me about it. What a dick.
A hand burst through the center of the circle going straight for my throat.
Six
Ijerked back, falling onto my ass and crab walking away from the literal horror show until I hit the carpet I’d tossed aside. King had thrown up another circle and didn’t even glance at me.
“You good?” he called.
“Yeah,” I said. “I found our spell. It doesn’t look great. I think whatever’s keeping them here is permanent.”
“How permanent?” he asked. “In the foundations?”
The ghost clawed her way out of the circle and came toward me. I flung a handful of salt at her, and watched as it hit her skin, leaving behind burn marks similar to the circle that wouldn’t be sanded away.
“No,” I said. Bowman wouldn’t have put their remains in concrete. She needed them nearby, close enough to touch. “I think they’re under the floorboards.”
While the salt distracted the ghost, I moved back to the circle and pressed my fingers around the edges, looking to see if whoever had installed the new boards had left me a way in. Nothing.
The ghost opened her mouth and, yes, those were fangs. They were the sharp teeth you’d expect to see in a lion or a tiger asthey leapt toward your face. More smoke rose from the circle, and I saw additional symbols appear.
Okay, so maybe my client hadn’t forgotten to tell me about his circle problem. If it was still appearing now, whatever spell the drunk bridal party had done had also reactivated this one. Still, there had to be a reason that the bed was here, and not in a more convenient location.
Why would you want to make this one spot particularly hard to access?
King pulled out his remaining two circles and had his back to me as he held off the two male ghosts. I took a chance and drew a circle of salt around me, reinforcing it by encouraging it to spin in a circle with me in its center. Then I got to work.
As a cover, I chanted a spell that I’d learned to keep my gym shoes from smelling like teenage boy. Still reciting, I drew deep and pressed my magic into the wood. It woke slowly, an elder who had been asleep so long it barely recognized itself. This was the original wood, from a tree that had been felled and sanded and turned into something it didn’t want to be long before almost anything else I’d spoken to.
Hey,I said.I think there’s something underneath you that’s like a pebble in your shoe. It niggles at you, doesn’t it?
The wood groaned, expanding with the moisture in the air, and wondering why it felt so tight. It remembered the cool forest and the deep water that fed its roots.
Yeah,I said.I’ll bet you miss the water. In fact, I bet you miss the whole tree thing. Long branches, tall trunk. Strong. Warmed by the sun.
Confused, the wood shifted. Wood wasn’t as malleable as water, but it held more power. After a moment of thought, the nails keeping the wood secured popped up one by one. The wood splintered and realigned itself. It grew.
A few planks wrapped around each other, slowly, slowly reforming a trunk. Another kinked and twisted, becoming a branch. I saw a pale leaf sprout off of it.
This old and this treated, it didn’t get too far, but enough of the planks loosened themselves that I could pull them apart with my hands.
I withdrew my magic gently, and the wood went back to sleep. I took a long shard of the floor and put it in my bag. Whatever trees they made this floor with, they were strong and old. Which were two things I liked to keep around.
Finally getting under the floorboards, I squinted. Only part of the circle had been ripped up, but with a hard tug, I got a piece that bisected the middle up. Underneath was carnage. Someone had tossed bones and skulls together, mixing up the remains of our ghosts. Shreds of clothing or skin, I couldn’t tell which, wrapped around a few of the longer bones.
My whole spine shivered at the desecration.
No, not at the desecration. The room’s temperature had dropped, turning it into an icebox. King spun, his eyes wide. He shouted something, but it was like hearing under water again.
I swung to the hole in the wall where the ghosts had thrown King through earlier and saw Richmond climb through it like a spider. His hands somehow kept him on the wall, and he turned his head almost a hundred and eighty degrees to give me a look of pure hate.
“Getout,” he said.
“Get out?” I said. “I wouldhappilyget out of this nightmare.You’rethe one who trapped us here.”
This stilled him, and I could see King groan and roll his eyes upward. Then Richmond dropped down, and when he turned he had long teeth and holes where his eyes should have been.
