Black Howl

“You! YOU!” she screeched, and she pointed her finger dramatically at me. “You stole my life from me. I demand justice!”

And then she flew at me with her arms outstretched, fingers bent into claws.

I stood still and waited for her to pass through me. She did, and I shivered. Ghosts draw energy from the air around them, and it means that they make cold spots. When a ghost passes through you it’s a lot like having ice water poured down your spine.

I waved to Gabriel and Samiel to follow me and walked toward the door. Amarantha flew after me, cursing.

“This is not over, Lucifer’s spawn,” she hissed.

“It is for you,” I said.

“I will haunt you to the end of your days!” Amarantha vowed. “You will never be free of me.”

“We’ll see about that,” I muttered.

We went inside and down to Chloe’s secret lab. J.B. was waiting for us in the hallway.

“Uh, why is your mom hanging around on the roof?” I asked.

“Because she refused the Door,” J.B. said. “She’s been following me around for the last couple of days. I had to have a spell put up around my condo to keep her out.”

“Can I get one, too?” I asked.

“She threatened to haunt Madeline ‘until the end of her days,’” Gabriel said.

J.B. rubbed his eyes. “I’ll see what I can do. Come on—Chloe is anxious to run the tests.”

We crowded into the small room. Chloe’s worktable had been removed. In its place was a tripod with one of the machines on it, and a man tied to an office chair so that he faced the lens. He looked like he was in his mid-forties, paunchy and balding. He was dressed in a jumpsuit that looked a lot like the sort of thing that prisoners wore. He wasn’t screaming, but he kept rocking back and forth in the chair. Chloe was making some adjustments to the machine when we walked in.

“We had to tie him; otherwise he kept trying to bang his head against the wall,” Chloe said apologetically.

Her hair was pink today, and she wore a leather vest with a tiered black skirt. She gave Samiel a very suggestive smile.

“Okay,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Let’s get this party started.”

Nobody spoke as Chloe pushed a button to turn on the camera. Gabriel took my hand and squeezed it. My whole body was taut. The man in the chair went rigid as the scanner met his eyes.

“We’ve attempted to speed up the reinsertion process,” Chloe said as the machine did its work. “It seems, from what we could determine in analyzing the spell, that the memory extraction takes a number of hours.”

“And you think it’s safe to put the memories back in there faster than they were taken out?” I asked, skeptical. A human brain is a delicate and complicated organ. It didn’t seem that quickness was wanted here, but rather care.

“We have no idea if this is safe at any speed,” Chloe said frankly. “I erred on the side of rapidity only because we have so many victims to restore.”

“Plus, we don’t know how many more may be out there. Our resources are taxed as it is taking care of the ones that are already here,” J.B. said. “I’ve got special teams all over the city looking for warehouses like the one you found.”

“I can help with that,” I said, surprised that he hadn’t asked me.

“There’s no point in putting you in charge of a team,” J.B. said. “Chaos follows you everywhere you go, and I don’t need to deal with any more property damage.”

“I don’t think you are taking the long view,” I said, my cheeks reddening. “The people in the warehouse were saved.”

“By J.B. and his team,” Beezle pointed out.

“Who didn’t have to deal with the monster arachnids,” I said.

“Enough,” Gabriel said.

Beezle and I both subsided, glaring at each other.

The man in the chair moaned. We all stared at him. I would have squashed Gabriel’s knuckles into powder if he hadn’t been supernatural. J.B.’s hands were balled into fists in his pockets. Chloe had her arms crossed, her mouth drawn in a straight line. On my other side Samiel slung a comforting arm around my shoulder. Beezle fluttered around the room nervously.

The man moaned again, louder this time, and then he shouted, “Janie!”

He began to thrash in his restraints. I released Gabriel’s hand and stepped forward, only to have Chloe cut me off.

“Wait,” she said.

The man tore back and forth, screaming now. It was a different kind of screaming than when we had removed the victims from the cameras. That screaming had a kind of dull, automaton quality to it. This screaming was a soul-deep cry of pain. Blood leaked from the corners of the man’s eyes.

I started to move around Chloe, to go to the man who was screaming so hard and long it was breaking my heart.

“Wait,” she repeated, her hand on my chest. “The process isn’t complete yet.”

“His eyes are bleeding,” I said furiously. “You think that’s a good thing? He could be having a stroke.”

“Trust me,” she said, her face desperate.

I think she knew I could blast her out of the way if I wanted.

“Wait, Maddy,” J.B. said. “Just wait.”

He sounded as deeply unhappy as I felt. Beezle landed on Samiel’s shoulder and covered his little ears.

Gabriel touched my shoulder, pulled me back to him. “Wait.”