What's A Ghoul To Do? Part 11

"No, I don't think he's using one. But there may be another energy in the house, and we definitely want to clear the lodge of all grounded spirits, both good and bad."

"If my colleagues back in Germany could see me having this conversation," he said as he shook his head. "I am afraid they would pull my medical license."

I smiled. "It can be a little surreal. That is, until you've experienced what I have."

"You two ready to get going?" Gilley said, wiping his mouth and scooting back his chair.

"Ready," I said, standing up and taking Doc off the arm of the chair. "Do you think someone should check on Helen?" I asked.

"I think it's best to leave her alone for now. I'll call later and make sure she's okay," Steven said.

We decided to leave Doc at the B and B, thinking that with a mischievous and energetic poltergeist loose it might make sense to keep him tucked away at the inn. Twenty minutes later we'd made it back to the Sable hunting lodge without incident. Gilley drove with a white-knuckled grip on the wheel as we came down the long driveway. "You sure you're up to this?" I asked him seriously.

"Yeah," he said grimly. "But I'm still reserving the right to head to the van if things get too freaky."

I laughed and gave him a pat on the back. "Poor Gil. Look what having a crush on an unavailable man has brought you to."

"Say what?" he said, cutting me a look.

"Dr. Delicious. You have a crush."

"No, not that," Gil said. "I was asking about the unavailable part."

I laughed at the serious look on his face. "He's straight, buddy."

"He's European; it's the same as being gay."

"He's Latin," Latin," I said. I said.

"Oh, I stand corrected, corrected, he's not gay ... he's bi." he's not gay ... he's bi."

"Whatever you need to tell yourself, honey," I said, surrendering.

We parked the van behind Steven again and got out to unload. Once we had all of the equipment piled onto the front steps, Steven opened the front door. The three of us walked in, listening intently for the sound of a blaring TV. We were met with only silence, so I turned and began to bring in the equipment. Gil and Steven joined me, though more than once I caught them pausing to listen again.

"Televisions?" Gilley asked once we'd hauled in all our stuff.

Nodding, I turned to Steven. "Is there someplace we can store the TVs so they won't get damaged?"

"There's a wine cellar below the kitchen. They should be okay down there."

I motioned with my hand in an after you after you gesture, and we began with the nearest TVs on the ground floor. While we worked I got a chance to scope out the place in the daylight. It was incredibly impressive for a "hunting lodge." I counted fourteen rooms on the main floor alone, complete with gourmet-sized kitchen, drawing room, solarium, library, formal dining room, sunroom, and indoor pool. The furnis.h.i.+ngs were opulent, mostly French antiques, and suited the place well. gesture, and we began with the nearest TVs on the ground floor. While we worked I got a chance to scope out the place in the daylight. It was incredibly impressive for a "hunting lodge." I counted fourteen rooms on the main floor alone, complete with gourmet-sized kitchen, drawing room, solarium, library, formal dining room, sunroom, and indoor pool. The furnis.h.i.+ngs were opulent, mostly French antiques, and suited the place well.

As Gilley and Steven carefully took the first TV to the wine cellar, I had a moment to myself in the kitchen. Testing the surroundings for spiritual energy, I closed my eyes and sent out my radar. I got a hit right away, but it was elusive. Male energy. Older. A sense of confusion seemed to surround him, and then I felt it drift away. I opened my eyes and looked out the window. The view over the sink showed the grounds, and to the right, the side of the indoor pool's wall extended out from the house.

My intuition was drawn to that area; in fact, I felt a great sense of urgency to go there. Looking left I saw a door that led outside. "Guys?" I called down the stairs. "I'll be right back." I headed out the door.

Outside I held my hand up to block the sun-I'd left my sungla.s.ses inside. I blinked a few times and followed my intuitive instinct, stopping in front of the far wall of the indoor pool. I bent down and touched the ground, which was covered with leaves and debris. In my mind's eye I saw a rake, and smiled. Yeah, this spot definitely needed a little attention. Standing up, I couldn't understand why I'd been tugged out here to this spot, so I looked around. Maybe I'd gotten it wrong?

Behind me was a short lawn before thick woods, which spanned as far as the eye could see. I felt compelled to go to the woods, but decided I'd better wait until after we'd done our baseline test. I turned back toward the house just as I felt another, much stronger pull to my right, and paused for a moment to a.s.sess that pull on my energy. When a spirit wants me to go in a certain direction, I often feel a sense of being tugged right or left. The more forceful the tugging feeling, the more urgently the spirit wants to get my attention.

This particular pull was incredibly intense, much stronger than to the woods or by the pool. Curious, I followed the tug and ended up in front of a large window. Peering through the window, I could see that I was next to the library. I stepped away and felt another tug, this one straight up. I put my hand on my brow again to s.h.i.+eld my eyes from the bright sun and looked up. Something caught my attention in a window on the third floor. I could have sworn I saw a curtain move. I backed up and kept staring at the window. It didn't look open, so no breeze should have ruffled the curtain. Then, one floor below it, I saw one of the sheer curtains give a distinct swish of movement, followed by a dark, shadowy figure pa.s.sing behind it.

"M.J.!" Gilley called, and I jumped.

"What?" I asked as I tore my gaze away from the window to see Steven and Gilley standing by the kitchen door.

"What's up?" Gil said.

"I thought I saw something up there," I said, pointing to the window. "Steven, whose bedroom is that?"

He took a moment to answer, a look of shock on his face. Finally he said, "That is my grandfather's bedroom. And that spot you're standing on is right where they found my grandfather's body."

I moved over in spite of myself. Steven and Gilley walked over, and the three of us looked from the ground back up to the bedroom.

"I thought your grandfather fell from the third story," Gilley said.

"He did. His shoe was found on the ledge just above his bedroom, and the window was open from that bedroom," Steven said, pointing to the bedroom directly over Andrew's room.

"Weird," I said as my eyes moved back up to the window above Andrew's. "I could have sworn I saw movement up there, too."

"You saw someone?" Steven asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I saw something. something. Not sure what, at this point." Not sure what, at this point."

Gilley said, "What did you see?"

"I saw the curtain move first on the third floor, then on the second, and then a dark shadow pa.s.sed in front of your grandfather's bedroom window. My guess is that either someone's in your house or it's Andrew making his presence known."

Turning toward the house, Steven said, "Only one way to find out."

We followed Steven back inside and through the maze of rooms to the front staircase. Climbing the stairs, we made our way to the second floor. "I can't believe your grandfather took all these stairs," Gilley said as he puffed his way up.

"There's an elevator leading from the kitchen to his suite."

"Well, why didn't we take the elevator?" Gilley complained.

"It takes forever and makes a horrible racket." Just as Steven finished we heard it for ourselves, as a loud clanging noise came from a room at the end of the hallway on the second floor.

We ran to the room just as the elevator doors closed. "Come on; it's headed back to the kitchen!" Steven said, and raced back out of the room. We chased after him at full tilt down the stairs as we tried to beat the elevator. As we ran we could still faintly hear the racket of the elevator as it groaned down. Panting fiercely, we reached the landing and ran back to the kitchen just as the elevator came to a stop.

Steven halted in front of the elevator, holding an arm out across my stomach in a protective motion. Gilley came up on his other side and we braced ourselves as the doors slowly opened.

Chapter 6.

With a terrific groaning sound the twin doors separated while I prepared myself for battle against any nasty poltergeist. As the opening became larger my eyes darted about the interior, looking for anything that could jump out at us, but when the doors finally stopped moving we all stared at an empty interior. Gilley blew out the breath he'd been holding, "OhmiG.o.d! That is so weird!"

Steven stepped forward into the elevator. I saw him s.h.i.+ver and asked, "What?"

"It is like ice in here," he said, and turned in a circle with his arms outstretched.

Gilley whipped a digital thermometer out of his back pocket and turned it on. He extended his arm into the elevator and read the gauge. "He's right," he said, moving the thermometer in and out of the elevator. "Fifty-two degrees inside the boxcar," he announced, then took two steps back and reset the gauge. "And seventy-four out here. Definite poltergeist activity," he said, setting his jaw.

"We can't a.s.sume anything yet, Gil," I cautioned, and just as I said this I saw Steven wobble a little inside the elevator. "Steven?" I asked, stepping toward him. I watched as his eyes rolled back slightly in his head and he took an unsteady step back against the boxcar. "s.h.i.+t!" I swore, and rushed to his side, catching him around the waist as his knees buckled and the icy cold hit me.

"I feel weird," Steven said weakly, and put his hand to his head.

"Help me!" I said to Gilley. "We need to get him outside, now!"

"What's happening to him?" Gilley asked as he ran to the other side of Steven and we began to move him out of the elevator.

"He's absorbing too much energy-he could black out any second if we're not quick!" I yelled.

We managed to get Steven outside, which was no mean feat, since the man was substantially taller than both of us. Once out on the lawn we eased him down to a sitting position, and I quickly straddled his legs and grabbed his head, which seemed to be bobbing around on his shoulders. "Steven!" I commanded in a stern voice as I looked into his unfocused eyes. "Listen to me! You've absorbed some of the energy in the elevator. You need to listen to my voice and mentally come to it. Do you understand?"

"Mmm . . . uhmmm . . . mmmm?" Steven mumbled incoherently.

"What's wrong with him?" Gilley asked me in a high-pitched voice.

"I think that was his grandfather in the elevator, and I think he just came in from the mist. Steven's absorbed some of that residual energy, and he's feeling really s.p.a.cey right now. In a minute he'll either lose consciousness or come back to us and start to feel nauseous."

Gilley edged back ever so slightly. "What do we do?"

"Try to talk him back. Buddy, can you get me some water from inside?"

"You want me to go back in there ... alone?" alone?" he asked me, his voice still squeaky. he asked me, his voice still squeaky.

"d.a.m.n it, Gil! Get me some friggin' water!" I snapped impatiently.

"Okay, okay," Gil said, and jumped up to head toward the house.

I continued to hold Steven's head in my hands as I talked to him. "Steven," I said, "you must hear me. I need for you to mentally come forward to my voice. Think about the words that I'm saying. Try to make sense of them. I need you to feel the suns.h.i.+ne over your head and the ground you're sitting on. Here," I said, taking one hand off his face to place his palm on the ground. "Do you feel the texture of the gra.s.s? Can you smell the flowers close by? Really try to sense those things for me, okay?" Steven mumbled again, but after a few blinks I could see his eyes begin to focus. "That's it," I said. "You're doing great. There's a breeze. Can you feel that? And there are birds; do you hear them?"

Steven gave me a tiny nod.

"Good job; you're doing great. Just keep focusing on my voice, and feel everything around you."

"Here's the water," Gil said quietly from my side.

"Thanks, honey," I said softly to him, feeling bad about snapping.

"What else can I do?"

"He's coming back on his own, but it won't hurt to rub his hands and feet."

"I'm on it," Gil said, and quickly moved to take off Steven's shoes.

A few minutes later Steven seemed to be just about back to normal. "That was terrible," he said, holding his stomach. "I feel awful."

"Give it a little time yet," I coaxed. "The nausea will pa.s.s in a minute."

"What happened to me?"

"The elevator probably contained a great deal of your grandfather's energy. It's a small, confined s.p.a.ce that can fill up quickly. So when you went rus.h.i.+ng in there you absorbed a lot of it, and your grandfather had just come in from the mist, or that middle plane. So when you soaked up that energy you would have felt like you, yourself, were going to' that plane."

Steven looked at Gil. "I must be woozy-I can't understand a thing she's saying."

"You're not alone," Gil said with a wink to me.

"In other words, Steven, you probably felt like you were fading right out of your body," I clarified.

Steven nodded. "Yes," he said. "That is a very good way to say what I felt. It was like a balloon. I was feeling like a balloon drifting away."

"Exactly. Now try to take a sip of the water."

He did and then looked down at his feet, where my partner was giving him one h.e.l.l of a foot ma.s.sage. "Gilley," he said with a slight wave. "That is feeling very good, but I think you can stop now."

Gil flushed slightly. "Just doing my duty," he said with a smile.

"I feel better," Steven said after another minute. "The sickness has pa.s.sed. Why did I feel that?"

"No one really knows for sure. But a lot of people who have your experience often feel sick to their stomachs for a short period afterward."

"Will this happen to me again?" Steven asked.

"There's a trick that you can do the moment you feel that frosty, in-your-bones cold. Just imagine that your legs are like the trunk of a giant tree and that your roots go deeply into the ground. The term is called 'grounding,' and it works very well for keeping you firmly in your body."

"I shall do this from now on," Steven said, and took another sip of water.

"Can you stand?" I asked.

"Yes," Steven said, getting to his feet. "I actually feel fine now."

"Great, but I still think you should take it easy for a little while." I looked over at Gilley and said, "Come on, Gil. We've been off protocol since we started this thing. Let's get the rest of the TVs into the wine cellar and get to the baseline ASAP."

For the next half hour Gil and I focused on moving the televisions into the wine cellar as Steven looked on. I worried as we took a very large flat-screen down the stairs that there wouldn't be enough room, but as we came down the steps I could see it was a much bigger s.p.a.ce than I'd antic.i.p.ated. "Wow," I said as we set the television down against a back wall. "This is huge."

"My grandfather loved fine wine," Steven said, following us down. "In his later years, some of his medications prevented him from drinking any, so he gave much of his collection away to his good friends."

I walked over to a rack that still held a few bottles. "I see he kept the best for himself."