Page 56 of Into the Fire

“Just in case it still wants whatever it hid in there, I’m going to do some wardings of my own,” she told them. “Stay close.”

Gabriella spoke the familiar incantation to raise protective wards, turning to each of the four quarters as she wove the spell. For just a second, Simon thought he glimpsed a glowing circle on the floor and a sparkling curtain of light before they winked out.

Gabriella paused, hoping to get a read on what lay inside so they could be prepared to defend themselves. “It has a different feel to it. The second room we found had old traces of magic still clinging to it, from when the hotel’s witches cast spells to contain the landvaettir in the first hidden room. There’s much newer magical residue in this room,” she went on. “Whatever happened here was more recent and the power more chaotic than what the witches left behind. Are you ready for me to break the spells?”

“Very ready to get this whole thing settled, whatever it takes,” Sanderson replied and Simon nodded. Some of the ghosts watched curiously, but Simon noted they kept their distance.

The air around them had grown cold, and the nearby ghosts fled. A rush of flames burst toward them out of nowhere, only to be repelled by the warding and drenched by a sudden magical dump of water that kept it from catching the rest of the room on fire.

“I think you made it mad,” Simon noted.

Gabriella grinned. “Good. Maybe it’ll learn some manners.”

Simon felt a frisson of tension in the room that he associated with the entity, but it did not send fire after them again, and the ghosts kept their distance.

He pulled the door open to reveal a darkened room. The smell of dust and decay hit them, and Sanderson turned on a powerful electric lantern.

“What the hell is that?” Sanderson yelped and recoiled from the heap on the floor that had clearly once been a person.

“I suspect we found Madame Mason,” Gabriella replied. “And if I’m right, her Twilight Compendium of magic is here as well.”

“Magical protections are a lot like spraying against roaches,” Simon did his best to put the concepts into layman’s terms for Sanderson. “You’ve got to keep reapplying or the protection wanes. If recent owners didn’t keep up the rituals and renew the wards, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t, or the room wouldn’t have been sealed up and the entity wouldn’t have gotten loose, then the protections get weaker, especially if someone comes along and disturbs it.

“My guess is that the protections weren’t reinforced. When the Specter Cipher project people used their room upstairs as a liminal space, a place between one reality and another, it might have opened a gateway that didn’t close, or that cracked open once the safeguards weakened,” Gabriella told him.

“But the body…” Sanderson protested in a weak voice.

“The entity must have seen Madame Mason and the compendium as threats and was able to transport them here, since it wasn’t warded.” Simon drew on the research Cassidy had found. “Not an easy trick, and one that probably drained the spirit enough it didn’t do it again with anyone else.”

“Did it kill her?” Sanderson’s voice held real fear.

“Whether it intended to kill her or whether she died of a heart attack from the fright, the result was the same.” Simon eyed the thick tome near the body, the compendium, as if it were a snake ready to strike, glad he had brought a magic-damping sack to remove it.

“Now what?” Sanderson asked in a shaky voice.

“I need to get more light in here,” Simon told him. “We have to figure out what in the book was so threatening to the landvaettir. We have a theory, but it would be good to confirm.”

“Going through the old papers, it mentioned a summoning room,” Sanderson replied. “I wasn’t sure what that meant. I guess the witches’ room was it.”

Simon nodded. “In the diaries, did it reference any magical item that might be buried in the foundation? Maybe calling it a good luck charm or a protection?”

Sanderson thought for a moment. “When they built onto the hotel about sixty years ago, there was a comment about the cornerstone ceremony. Do you think they hid something in that?”

“It’s possible. That would be the right time for the magical piece to be bound,” Simon replied. “Do you know where that cornerstone is?”

A brief look of horror flashed across Sanderson’s face. “Yeah. I do. And right before the spirit started to cause problems, we had a slight earthquake. It cracked the cornerstone.”

Simon nodded. “I’m guessing that broke the protections, or maybe they hadn’t been strong enough to last for decades. Has anyone looked inside the cornerstone?”

Sanderson shook his head. “No, but I can arrange that.”

“Let us be there when it happens,” Simon warned. “Just in case there are still protections in place, even though the original power has waned.”

“We can go after we’re done here,” Sanderson offered. “I’ll just have the same workmen stand by to help.”

“What now?” Sanderson asked. “What do we do?”

“Cleanse the energies and remove the bad vibes,” Gabriella said. “We’ll wipe the closet completely clean, magically speaking. Then we can reinforce the wards and strengthen the protections in both of the other two rooms that were sealed. For when we bind the landvaettir again.”