Five: Out of the Pit (Five #2) (31 page)

“And me, I can go with m’Halli.” Surpy ducked back behind Halli’s legs as a muffin went flying at his head.

“And then what? How do we know the two we’re after will even be there?” Alec looked back and forth between Johnathan and me.

“They’re of the Fae, Alec. They do their best work at night. Plus, your girlfriend said she sees them when she’s leaving work. Her shift doesn’t end until 9:00 at night.”

Alec frowned and ran his hands through his hair.

“What’re you thinking Alec?” Johnathan asked.

He looked up. “I don’t want my mom to get hurt or become scared of me.”

I walked over and sat next to him on the bed. “Alec, she’ll be asleep and locked in her room. You know they feed her all kinds of medication at night to keep her calm. I don’t blame you for being worried about her safety, but… she’s in danger right now. She’s in danger as long as those two are near her. She called the social worker a Demon. A Demon, Alec. And, it knows your mom knows.”

Awareness dawned on Alec’s face. “You’re right. She’s already in danger. Okay, so what’s the plan?”

They all turned to look at me, even Johnathan. I looked at Joe, who’d been unusually quiet during this entire conversation—his shrug was a big help. “Well,” I continued, “we’ll have to go in disguise. Like I said, I doubt there’ll be any patients in there, but there probably will be staff.”

“We can use the new spell we just learned. The
vanesco
spell,” Halli said.

“That’s what I was thinking,” I agreed. “Then we’ll just have to split up and look for them. They shouldn’t be too hard to spot. A freakishly tall, ugly guy and a female with curly blonde hair. I’d bet almost anything we’ll be able to pick them out immediately with our
sight
—we’ll see whatever it is Natalie saw.”

“Oh, yes, yes! An adventure for me!” Surpy clapped his hairy knuckled hands together.

“No,” Seth and I said in unison.

“It would be better if you stay here with Joe, Surpy,” I said. “I don’t think I can portal both you and Halli anyway.”

His face fell. Eyes downcast, he looked at his big feet, sniffed and muttered, “I wanna come with m’Halli.”

“Well, too bad,” Seth spat. “You aren’t coming.”

“When should we leave?” Alec asked.

The clock on Joe’s nightstand read 11:00. “There’s no time like the present.” I stood and grabbed my jacket.

“Aww, presents? There’s gonna be presents? I miss all the fun.” I wouldn’t have thought it possible if I hadn’t witnessed it, but Surpy’s sad face turned even sadder. His bottom lip protruded like a spoiled toddler’s.

“No, dummy,” Seth said. “Present as in now, this moment. Not present like a gift. Duh.”

The Imp stuck his blue-hued tongue out at Seth before ducking behind Halli’s legs again.

“Okay, everyone, get your stuff. We’ll form the invisibility spell here and then portal.” I looked at Joe. “We’ll plan on portalling back to mine and Halli’s room, so we don’t accidentally land on you or Surpy.”

The boys started gathering their gear belts and jackets while Halli and I returned to our room to get hers.

Standing in a group, Halli and I held hands, the three boys linked arms and we each invoked the
vanesco
spell.

Surpy’s gasp told me it had worked. “M’Halli?” he whispered.

“Joe. Can you see any of us?” Johnathan’s disembodied voice spoke.

“Nope. Good job, kids. Just don’t move too quickly and the humans won’t even know you’re there. The Fae are another story. They’ll likely be able to see right through the spell, so don’t count on going unnoticed by them.”

“Okay, guys. When we get there, remember to open your
sight
immediately so we know what
things
might be lurking. Everyone ready?” I tightened my grip on Halli’s hand.

There was a group “yes” in answer.

“On three then. One. Two. Three.”

The now familiar pressure and darkness swept over me as I held tight to Halli’s hand. I’d only portalled a few times since gaining my sight back, and it still made my heart leap into my throat—the darkness terrified me. This was also the first time I’d tried taking someone with me when portalling, and, even though Halli lent some of her strength to the spell, it took longer than usual. Just as I started to worry we were stuck
in-between
, our feet hit the floor of the common room in the forensic unit of the hospital.

I released Halli’s hand and looked around to get my bearings. I didn’t see anyone nearby, so I chanced a whisper. “Guys? Alec? Where are you?”

A whispered reply came from right next to me. “Right here. Glad you made it slowpoke.” Alec was such a talent snob.

“Everyone open your
sight
,” Johnathan reminded us.

I was somewhat surprised to find I could see the faint outlines of my friends with my
sight
open. I supposed that was what the Fae would be able to see of us, too. It did make things easier to be able to tell where the others were.

A quick look around told me there was no one near us. The only other person I saw was a night nurse sitting at the enclosed nurse’s station flipping through a magazine, his feet up on the desk.

“Halli and I will go patrol near the patient rooms—”

“I’ll go with you two,” Johnathan butted in.

I smiled an invisible smile. “Good idea. Seth and Alec, you check the other wing. Heather said they moved Carl to the medium security wing, but in this same building.”

“Didn’t they move Tiffany to another building? How are we going to find her?” Alec asked.

I shrugged before remembering they could only see a faint outline of me. “I don’t know. If we don’t see her here, we’ll have to figure out a way to get into the other buildings.”

“Let’s get this over with, then,” Alec whispered.

One more glance at the nurse’s station showed that the nurse hadn’t moved. Johnathan stepped up beside me and grabbed my hand. I guided him and Halli to the hallway that led to the patient rooms. Alec and Seth took off in the opposite direction.

We didn’t get far. A locked gate blocked our way just a few steps into the hallway. It was one of those collapsible metal gates and it went from floor to ceiling. The lock wasn’t one I could magically unlock. A badge was needed to open it.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Can’t we just portal to the other side?” Halli asked. “We can see it, we’ll just picture being on the other side of the gate.”

“You’re a genius, Hal.” Johnathan said. “I’ll go first.”

One second he was standing there holding my hand, and the next he’d let go and was on the other side of the locked gate.

“Me next,” Halli whispered.

The outline of her mostly invisible body appeared next to Johnathan’s. It was the fastest I’d seen either of them portal. It seemed that being that close to the destination speeded things up a bit.

It took me mere seconds to portal to the other side. I was getting better—finally. Johnathan found my invisible hand with his and we started down the hallway. The doors to the rooms were solid except for a small window about five feet up.

The lights were off in all the rooms we passed. Another hallway intercepted the one we travelled down. Just sticking out into the intersection, I saw a pair of black boots. As I stepped closer, I saw those boots were connected to a pair of legs wearing navy blue pants. I pulled on Johnathan’s hand as I turned toward the darkened hallway where we found a security guard sprawled out—unconscious but breathing.

“There’s another one over here,” Halli whispered.

“Let’s each take a hallway and then meet back here.” Johnathan gave my hand a squeeze before releasing it.

Even though I’d been thinking the same thing, I was a little surprised at his suggestion. He was usually super protective of me and Halli. Maybe he was finally starting to realize we could hold our own with the bad guys.

He touched my arm as I took a step toward the hallway to my left. “Don’t confront anything you find. Use your necklaces to summon the rest of us to help.”

Halli and I both agreed we would.

The necklace lay heavy against my chest. I felt Johnathan watching my blurred outline as I started down the hallway. I’d taken several steps before I heard him continue down the way we’d already been heading. I smiled to myself. I was so glad things finally felt right with us again. His overprotectiveness was like being wrapped in my favorite old quilt on a cold evening.

The warmth of my thoughts turned to focused concentration as I sensed something wrong somewhere ahead of me. I stopped and pushed myself up against the wall to study the hallway before me, trying to decide what had set off my senses so strongly. My heart quickened as I realized a light glowed through one of the doors at the end of the hallway. That, in and of itself, wasn’t too alarming—maybe the patient in that room suffered from insomnia or something. But, the door was ajar. Light spilled from the cracked door out into the dark hallway. I wasn’t sure, not having ever been in a high security forensic psych hospital at night before, but, my guess was that this was out of the ordinary.

I decided to wait before summoning the others. I wanted to investigate first, to make sure it was worth pulling them from their own searches. I moved slowly toward the open door. I almost laughed out loud as a picture flashed in my mind of the Scooby Doo gang tip-toeing down a dark, deserted hallway, arms bent at ninety degree angles in front of them, palms toward the floor. Their exaggerated movements as their knees came up to nearly meet their chests. I shook my head to clear it of the sudden blast from childhood.

I slowed even more as I came within ten feet of the door in question. I stopped and pressed up against the wall on the same side as the door when I was only a few feet away.

“Wake her up,” a too sweet female voice breathed. “I need to see her terror. I feed off of it. Besides, it makes it oh so much more fun. Especially with this one.”

A deep, gravelly voice grunted in reply.

Those words were enough cause to summon the others. I touched the enchanted chain around my neck and invoked the charm that would let them know I needed them as well as lead them to my location. Torn between waiting for backup or intervening immediately on behalf of the sleeping victim, a terrified scream pierced the air and made up my mind for me.

I was at the door in an instant. I threw it open and crouched just outside the room, sweeping my eyes from one corner to the next. What I saw made my anger flare. Behind that anger was fear. Intense, heart-stopping, fear.

ucky for me, I’m a bit of a hot-head. My anger refused to let the terror take over. Standing over the bed was a huge, grotesque, humanoid creature. It had a wild main of hair that stuck out everywhere. Springing forth from its shoulder blades were two black, bat-like wings. Bloodshot eyes turned toward the doorway where I crouched. I was unable to suppress a shiver as a drop of saliva trailed down one enormous fang and dropped to the ground. Where there should have been a nose, there were only two nostrils about the size of nickels. These flared in and out as it caught my scent. One clawed hand was wrapped around its victim’s wrist. Blood dripped from between its fingers.

The woman screamed again and I looked at her face. My heart dropped when I recognized Natalie—Alec’s mom. A shriek of rage escaped my throat as I shot a bolt of blue lightning straight at the creature’s chest. I ducked and rolled back into the hallway as my spell bounced off and ricocheted back toward me, slamming through the opposite wall. I didn’t have time to wonder what had happened. The creature’s companion laughed. A beautiful, operatic sound.