Page 84 of Insidious Monsters
I turned and stared at the stranger standing by the cemetery gates.
Wait. I’d seen this guy before.
twenty-three
NANDI
“Back up, Boris, I have the papers.” Devyn stood on the doorstep to Margie’s house, hands on hips. “I know your head of departments already told you to let us in.”
“What? So you can come in and tamper with evidence?” Boris sneered. He was a wiry, mean-looking guy with squinty eyes. “I know what your kind is like. Covering for each other.”
And it was guys like this who gave the PD a bad name. The air beside him shimmered and a woman materialized, older than him but with the same squinty eyes and mean mouth. A relative. Mother, maybe? Her hand was on his shoulder and that usually only meant one thing. She was influencing him. His mood, his thoughts, infecting him with her will.
Yeah, this phenomenon wasn’t too common, but it happened in certain cases. Cases when the deceased was a controlling personality. One who had a huge influence or impact on someone’s life. They refused to let go even after death.
I also knew that telling Boris that his mother was literally hovering over his shoulder would do no good, but I could use this situation to my advantage to speed things along and get us into the house.
I fixed my gaze on the specter, looking right at her until she blinked and focused on me. Her mouth parted in shock because I shouldn’t have been able to see her without her wanting me to, and the fact that I could told her exactly who I was.
I stepped forward, maintaining eye contact with her. “Look, the quicker you let us in, the quicker we can be done and out of your hair.” The specter’s eyes narrowed. “Or we can stand out here and chat. Get to know each other a little better.” I arched a brow, making my threat very clear.
“What you looking at?” Boris followed my gaze over his shoulder and right through his mother.
Panic flitted across the specter’s face. She didn’t want to be found out. She didn’t want him to know she was there. She nodded and removed her hand from her son’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Devyn said. “Open that door or I’m calling your boss.”
Boris sighed, the fight going out of him. “Fine. But make it quick.” He unlocked the door and stepped back to let us in.
“Do you need me to walk around with you?” Quentin asked.
I moved past him into the gloomy house. “No. I’ve got this.”
Quentin and Devyn stayed in the foyer while I moved deeper into the house, into the lounge where the cultists had been slaughtered. The souls might have moved on, but violent deaths usually took a little time to pass over.
I had hope. “Hello? Hello, is anyone here? Please, if you’re here, show yourself. I want to help you find peace.”
If they came out willingly, it saved me from having to exert energy to force them out or step into the spirit plane.
Long seconds passed before the spot by the fireplace began to waver. A figure stepped through.
“Margie?”
She was covered in blood, glasses askew, but her expression was cogent and determined. Some spirits lost their shit for a while, and ones that passed violently either suffered memory loss or ended up gibbering messes. Not Margie. Her gaze was direct and clear.
“This is your fault, you know,” she said.
“Mine?”
“If you’d come with us, then none of this would have happened.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not into playing sacrificial lamb.”
Her mouth turned down. “You had the chance to become one with the Holy. To fuel his greatness, but you turned your back on him, then your meddlesome friend came sniffing and the Holy had to act to protect himself.”
“And he killed you for it? Sounds like a peachy kind of guy.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “We were happy to die for the cause.”
