Page 29 of Signs and Wonders

“How much do you trust Drake?” Evan asked when Travis ended the call.

“Some,” Travis admitted. “I haven’t fought beside him, so I don’t know for sure. That’s why I called Teag instead of having Brent do it. No point in admitting to hacking in front of the FBSI,” he added with a grin.

“Good thinking,” Seth agreed.

Camp Morning Glory looked unchanged. Evan had feared that Swain’s henchmen might have swooped in after their visit and somehow gotten rid of the ghosts, but the prickle on the back of his neck confirmed they were still present.

“I see what you mean,” Travis said quietly after they passed through the entrance gate.

They had already filled Travis in, both about the ghosts who manifested and the dark presence that chased them away. Travis paused right inside the gate and closed his eyes, confident that Seth and Evan had his back.

“You said this was a church camp? The energy is all wrong.” Travis’s face was taut with concentration. “The land has been desecrated. So much death.”

The air around them felt heavy and oppressive as the temperature plummeted. Evan dropped his bag and hurried to lay down a salt circle around them while Seth loaded rock salt rounds into his shotgun. Travis made a larger circle around them with spray paint, adding symbols that were unfamiliar to Evan. They had expected to get farther into the compound before contacting the spirits, but the ghosts seemed drawn to Travis.

Evan tried not to envision a swarm of ghosts milling around them. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Travis saw.

Travis opened his eyes. “There are so many of them. Swain used this as his dumping ground long after it was a camp—and even back when it was. It reeks of blood and evil.” He sounded like he was waking from a trance.

“If you can get names, we can match them to cold cases and missing person reports,” Evan reminded him. “I’ll also try to record you.”

“Spirits of the camp, show yourselves.” Travis’s voice was firm, but not commanding. “Tell me your names so we can give closure to those who love you, and I will help you move on.”

One by one, ghosts flickered into presence all around them. Evan felt the difference in the energy between the working of a true medium and what he and Seth had attempted. Travis’s power felt like an anchor amid the staticky chaos of the spirits, and they gravitated toward his calm.

“Alicia Reston. Lucy Kendall. Kevin Johnson.” Travis began a litany of names as Evan scribbled them down in a notebook, not trusting electronic devices to work right amid all the spectral energy.

Seth remained on guard, even while the ghosts kept a respectful distance well back from the salt circle. Although the day had not been cold before, Evan saw his breath in the air, and he started to shiver.

“Kathleen Corcoran. Dennis Smith. Margaret Connor.” Travis kept going, a seemingly endless list of names. Evan hurried to keep up as Travis kept a steady cadence, acknowledging the roll call of the dead.

All of these people couldn’t have been posse descendants for ritual sacrifices. Did Swain get addicted to the power boost of between-ritual murders? Were they people who got in the way or asked the wrong questions? Or did he take other liberties and abuse his sway over the flock, then need to clean up his mess by getting rid of witnesses and victims?

Evan sniffed, trying to stop the flow of silent tears. He wiped them away with the back of his hand as they ran cold down his cheeks and dropped onto his tablet. Evan dared a glance at Seth, who remained resolute, but looked pale and shaken.

Some ghosts appeared more solid than others. These were mostly young—teens and twenties. The men Evan figured were the deputies’ descendants like him and Seth, the original slate of sacrifices. The women were more numerous, victims of Swain’s depravity and evidence that he was above the law and would not incur any penalty for his deeds.

Finally, Travis stopped listing names. They stood surrounded by dozens of ghosts dressed in the clothing of every decade of the past hundred years.

“Tell me your stories,” Travis said.

Evan braced himself, but the spirits apparently communicated silently to Travis, or he did not lend them the extra energy to make themselves heard.

The campground grew unnaturally silent, as if even the birds respected the ghosts’ confessional. Travis’s expression remained stoic, eyes closed, but Evan saw the ex-priest’s hands tighten in fists, white-knuckled, and his whole body swayed at times like the stories were a body blow.

Finally, Travis opened his eyes. He had paled and wore an expression of grief and devastation. “We will avenge you. Your loss will not be in vain. Now go in peace and be at rest.”

One by one, the spirits winked out of sight. Evan suspected that even more ghosts who remained unseen accepted Travis’s invitation and moved on. He stopped the recording and pocketed his phone. Seth passed him another salt-round shotgun.

“The ghosts are gone.” Travis’s ragged voice and the haunted look in his eyes told Evan that he didn’t want to know the details to which Travis had borne witness.

“Thank you,” Seth said, and Evan nodded. “Was it Swain’s doing?” He handed Travis a bottle of water and a candy bar, which Travis finished off immediately, regaining a bit of his color.

“Yes, Swain was behind the deaths,” Travis said, “and I’ll tell you more later. But we’re not done yet. There’s more—”

Evan felt ice slither down his spine, knowing something bad loomed behind them, the same darkness that had chased them from the camp before.

He racked the rounds in his shotgun and patted his pockets, reassuring himself that he had plenty of ammunition. Seth and he took positions on either side of Travis.

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