Page 10 of Chillingham Castle

Haunt didn’t argue; he knew I was correct. Moments later, Evie arrived and collected the weapon that had nearly ended my life. She said she’d lock it in storage, but we’d just had a huge warning.

“Hate to say it, but you’re right. Look,” Haunt commented, pointing at the monitor fifteen minutes later as we watched the footage back.

Dive hit pause, and I shook my head. On screen, as I turned to stare at the curtains, a dark, shadowy hand yanked the axe loose.

“That’s murderous,” Jack stated.

“Yeah, and we’ve got trouble. This is interactive, cognisant, and free-thinking. That meant harm and didn’t care who was injured,” Suga explained.

I couldn’t disagree.

“Can’t even claim you set something off,” Jack mused, and I turned to stare at him incredulously.

“Wouldn’t you say that was an overreaction regardless of whether I had?” I demanded.

“You’re missing the point,” Jack replied calmly. “It doesn’t need to be triggered to harm anyone. Which means it’s not drawing energy from people to move things. It’s already strong.”

What Jack was telling me sent chills down my spine.

“In other words, it is powerful enough to kill someone,” Lucky murmured.

“Yes, and there’re very few types of ghosts capable of this,” Jack added.

“Don’t tell me we need to get Callie back,” Haunt complained.

“You saying I’m not as capable as her?” Jack retorted.

“No!” Haunt exclaimed as Jack grinned.

“Good, because I was in the game longer than Callie. This isn’t a normal haunting. And there’s plenty we can rule out: residual, banshees, roving mimics—no, it’s not one of them,” Jack mused.

“What are you considering?” Haunt asked.

“Vengeance spirit, or poltergeist, although I’m doubtful it’s that. It could be a demon or several other things, but this has whittled it down a lot,” Jack replied.

“Okay. Let’s finish setting up in twos. We need to ensure Evie understands that staff work in pairs. This is too dangerous,” I said.

The others nodded, but Haunt held my gaze as they left. “You alright? That was a close shave, Lich.”

“I’m fine, Prez. It shook me up, but I feel it was meant to. Looking at that footage, something struck me. The spirit wanted me to see it coming; for a moment, I felt abject terror, and I think it fed off that. Its goal is to kill, but not yet; that’s what my gut says,” I replied.

“Which makes this haunting more dangerous than usual. We’ve dealt with some bad stuff in the past, but this is worrying. We could call for an exorcist,” Haunt considered.

“Nope, that’s just sending somebody in blind. We’ve got Lucky; he can perform an exorcism if we need one,” I responded.

“Will he be strong enough? It took two to deal with the Energy Ghoul at the Mermaid Inn,” Haunt asked no one in particular. That was a damn good question.

Dive

Reaver and I headed for the torture chamber to put the cameras up. The entire place gave me the creeps—knowing everything here had been used to hurt and kill people was awful.

“This was a horrible thing,” Reaver commented, studying the iron maiden.

I glanced over. “Yeah, it wasn’t used as much as everyone believed. But even so, for those who suffered…” I let the sentence lapse.

“They shoved them inside and locked them in.”

“Yeah, and then the spikes are on a system that, when that knob is turned push them into the victim’s body,” I said idly.