I stole a glance around the lantern to see the poltergeist shudder strangely. Its skull face disappeared. Long, black claws extended from its wrists. Before I could dart away, it charged at me. Those long claws raked right across my chest as my body was halfway turned.
Pain like no other erupted inside me. White-hot and searing, it spread out across my chest and up my throat.
I need to get out… I need to leave before it kills me. A sixth attempt might have to be my lucky charm. I scrambled toward the trapdoor. I needed more information about poltergeists before I went up against this creep. He was out of control, howling and raging, claws primed and ready to slash again.
My face twisted in agony as I ran, trying to reach the trapdoor before the poltergeist launched a second attack. But no matter where I went, the shadow appeared in front of me, like the worst kind of Whack-A-Mole. It was blocking my exit out of here.
I sent out a wave of Fire followed by a gust of Air to knock the thing back. It barely flinched, and I was starting to feel lightheaded. I hurled another barrage of Fire. Finally, the poltergeist reeled back for a moment, giving me a direct line to the trapdoor. My knees almost gave way as I ran for my life.
Man, I should not feel this weak… this… tired.
Something weird was definitely going on here. I was weakening way too fast for it to be natural.
Tumbling over the edge of the trapdoor, I caught one of the rungs with my foot and scampered down as quick as I could. Another chair followed me through. It careened right past me and plummeted the twenty feet to the ground. I heard it shatter on impact, though I didn’t dare look. Vertigo wouldn’t have been too helpful, when I already felt dizzy as hell.
“Get out! Get out!” The poltergeist’s voice thundered through the lighthouse, shaking the walls. I sprinted down the spiral staircase, feeling the whole thing shudder underneath me.
So much for conversation. The poltergeist really didn’t want to talk, and a deal was definitely off the table. I just had to hope I didn’t die before I made it out of here.
Ponce de León’s rage followed me all the way down, deafening me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw darkness descending. He was following me down, his claws eager for another bite.
But he couldn’t follow me out of the lighthouse, surely. Spirits like Ponce were supposed to be tied to a location.
I barreled out of the building, my thighs burning and my muscles aching. The searing pain across my chest made it hard to breathe. It was working its way higher up my throat. My ankle hurt, too, from landing awkwardly on the ladder rung. Fortunately, there were no tourists around to see me burst through the door. In fact, the fortress had become eerily empty and silent since I’d entered the lighthouse, the sky overhead now dark and ominous.
But that was the least of my concerns.
A powerful gust of wind exploded out of the door and smacked me in the back. I toppled forward, landing in the dirt, right on the ragged cut. And, inside my head, I heard the most terrifying scream:
“Never return here!”
Dragging myself to my feet, I staggered away from the lighthouse, my body barely able to hold me up as I lunged for the nearest wall. I needed to get away. All that screaming was too much, making it feel like my head was about to blow, as well as my chest.
I was almost at the castle wall when a shadow appeared in front of me, blocking my path. What the—? How is this even possible?
Gasping for breath and fighting to stay on my feet, I gave it one last burst of energy. I ran for the wall, getting a second scrape across the chest as I tore past the poltergeist. The pain as he raked the already-raw flesh was indescribable. A howl escaped my throat, every vein in my body ablaze with agony.
Struggling to stay upright, I fumbled for my trusty charmed chalk, then scraped the shaky lines of a doorway into the wall and choked out the Aperi Si Ostium spell. I looked over my shoulder to see the spirit surging toward me. I lifted my palms one last time and sent out a blast of Fire and Telekinesis.
Yanking at the handle, I pushed it open and lunged through. I got a final glimpse of the seething shadow mass as it zoomed toward me, missing me by a millisecond. I took a moment to assess my surroundings, to make sure not even a wisp of that thing had managed to get through.
I’d escaped it… just barely.
“Finch?”
Krieger was staring at me from his workbench. He held a screwdriver poised mid-air, frozen like a substandard mime. Jacob sat beside him, similarly stunned. What could I say? I knew how to make an entrance. A natural gift from my dearly departed mother.
I looked around and saw that they were working on a bronze device. Presumably, the one they’d been tinkering away at before I left for Cuba. It was supposed to be another magical detector to replace the one Katherine had stolen, just souped up a bit. An enhanced version based on Krieger’s memories of the last one, complete with a fingerprint scanner so only vetted magicals could use it.
O’Halloran had been the one to suggest it. As the new and improved SDC director, it made sense that he’d want new and improved things. He thought we could use the device to find rogue magicals and keep them safe, especially after the Katherine debacle. Or “the Blip of Eris,” as I liked to call it. No more cults, thank you very much.
“Yep… sorry about the rough entry,” I said. The strip lighting of Krieger’s office stung my eyes as I braced my hands against my thighs. I tried to pull in a decent breath. Had the air here turned to slime while I’d been gone? It felt like it.
“Are you okay?” Krieger scraped back his stool. The sound splintered through my skull, as if I’d spent last night downing shots of tequila. I kept trying to breathe, but the pain in my chest was overwhelming.
Exhausted, I couldn’t stay upright any longer. My knees buckled, and I crumpled to the floor, panting like a dog.
Jacob leapt up and ran with Krieger to my side.
I winced as they hauled me up by my pits and carried me through to the infirmary. They settled me down on a gurney, buzzing around me like flies. Krieger was tearing things out of a drawer, pulling out reams and reams of bandages as if he were a magician at a kid’s party.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” he said, glancing worriedly at me.
Okay, so maybe I lost more blood than I thought. That was another problem with black clothes—it was hard to tell if you were gushing your lifeblood all over the place.
“Come on, how bad can it be?” I croaked.
“Very bad,” Krieger replied. “What on earth did you go up against, to get injuries like this?”
I smiled. “Tobe Hooper, 1982.”
“What?” Krieger frowned. “What has this got to do with Tobe?”
“Not Tobe. Tobe Hooper.”
Jacob gasped. “Poltergeist?”
“See, and you said making you watch all those old movies was pointless,” I wheezed.
“Are you saying a poltergeist did this?” Krieger paled.
“In my usual roundabout way… yeah.” I sucked air through my teeth as Krieger pressed a wad of gauze against my wound. “You want to go easy there, Krieger? I’d like to keep my ribs intact, if that’s okay with you?”
“Jacob, get Marianne Gracelyn here immediately.” Krieger ignored me, giving Jacob a pointed look.
“What’s she going to do?” I muttered, trying to stop my head from spinning.