Page 37 of The Vampire and the Case of the Perilous Poltergeist

Sidnee and I lost any street cred we might have had when we both jumped a mile high. We’d been concentrating so hard that our sharpened supernat hearing had totally failed us. How utterly embarrassing.

Thorsen and his number one bitch, Miller, were staring at us from the doorway, their expressions thunderous.

Sidnee, Danny and I looked at each other as we wondered what to say. No matter what we did, these two bastards would try everything in their power to get us expelled or charged – or both, for that matter. Our options were to answer them and hope for a sympathetic ear, to tie them up and stash them in a closet somewhere – or to kill them. Number one was impossible, and we knew we weren’t going to kill them, so the second option was the most appealing. It was up there with flying pigs and the Chudley Cannons actually winning.

Thorsen leaned against the doorway, his arms folded and a smug look on his face. ‘I said what are you doing?’

Sometimes offence is the best defence, so I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘What areyoudoing here? Do you have Captain Engell’s permission?’ The ‘like we do’ was implicit – and total bullshit.

Thorsen opened his mouth to snarl something that was no doubt witty and cutting, but before he could utter a word an icy wind whipped around the office and sent sheets of paper flying and pens swirling around us.

Saved by Petty Peril! Aoife had come through. The poltergeist wasn’t interested in our company; he was laser-focused on his own agenda, which apparently was saving the academy. And this time, he was showing his actual form – or what remained of it. It was blurry and dark, but unmistakably human.

‘Noooo,’ he wailed as he tore through the room. Anything loose swirled around in a violent storm. ‘Follow,’ he howled – and I realised he was addressing me.

‘You got it,’ I said, a shade nervously. ‘Lead the way.’

Danny, Sidnee, and I leapt up and ran after the debris as it raced out of the door. We shoved past Thorsen and Miller and scampered down the hallway. Thorsen’s eyes were wide as he watched us chase the phantom. The two men followed at what I’d have called a cowardly distance.

The hallway only had two other doors: one on the left and a fire exit at the end. The door to the left led to the building’s plant room and we’d been told during our orientation meeting that it was strictly out of bounds because it housed electrical equipment, pipes and dangerous compounds; it even had a sign sayingStrictly no entry. Naturally, the debris arrowed towards the forbidden door. The ghost went through it, whilst the flying missiles stopped and dropped to the ground.

I tried the door; predictably it was locked.

Despite the warnings, it wasn’t heavy-duty but a regular interior door; it was solid but the locks weren’t special. Luckily, I didn’t need any fancy lock-picking skills I had learned one lockpicking spell, after Connor’s singular attempt to teach me lockpicking had failed.

Carefully blocking Thorsen and Miller’s line of sight, I wiggled the knob while saying the words. That ball of heat in my core warmed some, and the handle turned. I opened the door. It swung open to show a stairway heading downwards. Great: creepy, dark stairway. Check.

There weren’t usually basements in buildings on the islands in the southeast of Alaska because there too much water and sand; most were built on pylons that ran down to the bedrock. I could tell from the sounds coming up the stairs that these steps did indeed lead to the academy’s forbidden plant room.

A long wail that sounded like ‘follow’ screeched up to us. We obeyed Petty’s ghostly command and ran down into the darkness; after all, that always turned out fine for the heroes in horror movies.

‘What do you think is down here?’ Sidnee asked from behind me as we descended the stairs.

‘The furnace and electrical box?’ I said optimistically. I’d be so pissed off if it was a dead body; dead bodies were more of a 2am thing.

She slapped me on the back. Thanks to her supernat strength and my super-slidey socks, I slid down the next three steps. ‘Oh shit! Sorry, Bunny! I meant what is Petty going to show us?’

‘I don’t know.’ There was no need to panic her until I smelled death, and so far all I could smell was stale, musty air. Maybe Pettydidwant to show us an electrical box. Imagine if all of this was because Petty wanted the academy to use a greener source of energy; we could stop his haunting simply by installing solar panels—not that they’d work in the land of perpetual rain.

At the bottom of the stairs the corridor turned sharply to the left and a dimly lit hallway led into a large room that housed the heating and lighting controls. We looked around, trying to find evidence of Petty Peril but he’d lost all his debris at the door and we couldn’t pinpoint his presence. At some point in his ramblings, he’d lost the human-ish form that I suspected had cost him a lot of energy to retain.

‘We can’t see you!’ I explained to him. ‘Do something to show us where you are?’

Nothing happened. Fuck. Had he dissipated before showing us whatever it was he’d dragged us down here for? Sidnee, Danny and I turned and started to search the room that was full of pipes, tanks and valves.

Thorsen and Miller came into the room and stared at us. Thorsen was red faced; we were ignoring him and hehatedto be ignored. ‘If you don’t tell me what’s going on right now,’ he started, ‘I’m fucking arresting you all.’

Sidnee rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, good luck with that. We’re following the poltergeist, you idiot. Didn’t you see him?’

‘I didn’t see anything but you assholes,’ Thorsen said firmly, though his eyes were a little wild.

Sidnee moved closer to him; if she’d been taller, they would have been chest to chest. She prodded him and rocked him on his feet. ‘You are a coward and a liar.’ She punctuated every word with another prod.

Wow! Go, Sidnee! I guessed she was done pretending to be a soft little Miss Suzy. The problem was Thorsen wouldn’t put up with that, not from her. He was a man who wanted his women to cower. If he tried to hurt her, I’d stop him – or she would – and things would get really messy. Maybe option number three wasn’t out of the question after all.

Thorsen’s face turned a mottled purple and his hands curled into oversized fists. The poor guy obviously thought he had theadvantage, and it would have been laughable if the entire room hadn’t been so tense. He gazed down at Sidnee, his lip pulled back in an almost animalistic snarl. ‘You are a pushy little criminal.’ His spittle flew onto her face.

‘Jeez, Thorsen! Say it, don’t spray it,’ she shot back. She rolled her eyes and turned around to leave.

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