Page 1 of Signs and Wonders

1

SETH

“Behind you!”Seth Tanner shouted to alert his partner.

The angry ghost of a woman materialized behind Evan Malone, reaching clawed fingers for his shoulder. Evan dropped to the ground, and Seth’s shotgun blast reverberated in the corridor of the abandoned hospital. Rock salt dispelled the ghost and pitted the decaying plaster walls.

Strong, invisible hands seized Seth by one arm and flung him against the wall, knocking the wind out of him. The ghost appeared again and dragged him to his feet. Seth slashed the air with an iron knife, and the ghost shrieked and let go, leaving livid fingerprints behind.

Then the spirit flickered into view in front of Evan, giving him a hard shove toward the broad central stairwell.

“Evan!” Seth knew he couldn’t reach his boyfriend fast enough to keep him from falling.

Evan caught the railing with one arm, breaking his fall, and raised the shotgun, firing point-blank at the ghost, who vanished again.

“You okay?” Seth asked, breathless.

Evan warily climbed the few steps he had fallen and reloaded. “I’m not dead. Start the banishment. I’ve got you covered.”

Seth wasn’t a witch or a medium, but this particular banishment didn’t require that. He chalked symbols carefully onto the tile floor and set down a salt circle to protect Evan and himself while he worked the ritual.

“Jenny Summers, it is time to move on. You may not harm the living, and you can’t stay here.” Seth spoke the litany from memory. “By all that you hold holy, I beseech you to move on.”

“I didn’t want to die.” The ghost’s voice was thick with pain and loss.

“You are dead and buried. This is not your place. Let go and move on to what lies ahead.” Seth continued the ritual, although his heart broke for the young woman whose life had been cut short by a thirst for adventure.

“I don’t want to go.”

Jenny’s spirit no longer attacked, weakened by the sigils Seth had chalked. She looked young and scared, lost in a place between life and death.

“Your family and friends cherish your memory. But you do not belong here. Go in peace, and do no more harm. In the name of that which creates, empowers, and sustains, and by the will of all those who loved you—move on.”

Jenny’s ghost flickered again and then faded as an icy wind swept through the atrium, making dust motes dance in the light.

“Is she gone?” Evan kept his shotgun racked and ready.

“I think so. At least for now, if not permanently. Milo said that if the banishment didn’t send her on, it would sap her strength so she couldn’t hurt anyone again for a while,” Seth replied. “I tried to get one of the local mediums to come with us, but once they found out where we were going, they all said ‘hell no.’”

“Guess we were just dumb enough to do it anyhow.” Evan’s grin made it clear he relished the adventure.

“Sounds like us.” Seth bumped Evan’s shoulder in agreement.

The abandoned Molly Stark Hospital was legendary for its haunts, but the crazed spirit that attacked them wasn’t from the building’s past as a tuberculosis sanitarium. Jenny Summers was a much more recent death, an unfortunate urban explorer who had come to investigate the hospital’s supernatural reputation and fallen to her death through a hole in the floor.

Unlike the hospital’s other ghosts, Jenny’s angry spirit lashed out at security guards and tour guides who ventured too near the building. That made her a hazard, meaning someone had to set her soul to rest. When the head of security couldn’t persuade any of the local ghost hunters to rid the site of Jenny, he had reached out to Seth’s mentor, Milo, who had tapped Seth and Evan since they were passing through the area.

“These old hospitals were built to stand forever, even when no one needed them anymore,” Evan noted wistfully as they slipped out the back door, locking it with the key borrowed from the security chief.

The four-story Spanish Revival hospital dated from 1929, when it had been considered cutting-edge in its amenities. Huge windows, wide verandas, and courtyards were meant to provide sunlight and fresh air to patients. By the time it shuttered in the 1990s, medical advances had left the huge complex behind.

“There are over a thousand feet of tunnels running between the main building and the outbuildings,” Seth said as they slipped through the cut in the chain link fence. “I’m glad we didn’t have to go down there. The ghosts who won’t move on might not have been as friendly.”

“If you could call Jenny friendly.” Evan turned back to look at the hospital, silhouetted against the sky. Even in decay, its archways and columns, the red-tiled roof, and the Mediterranean lines of its design held a faded grandeur.

“No matter how many times we do something like this, I always wonder why the ghosts stick around,” Evan mused.

“All the usual reasons. Unfinished business. Fear of the unknown. And while they might not have liked being a patient here, for many of them, it was their last home.” Seth mentally wished the spirits well and thanked them for allowing them to come and go in peace.

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