Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

Natalie had been waiting for the knock on her hotel room door. Although she'd expected—and dreaded—that it would come much earlier than this.

Luckily it hadn't come twenty or so minutes ago. Then she and Liam had been nearing the culmination of a most enjoyable, not to mention energetic, romp in that big king-sized bed with too many pillows—most of which were now on the floor.

That timing would have been extremely inconvenient for all of them—Natalie, Liam and whoever was currently pounding on her door.

As it was, Liam was satisfied and smiley even in the face of this very loud interruption to their post-sex bliss.

Luckily, she'd had time for a very quick shower and they were both dressed. They'd been about to leave to get Natalie to the theater if not quite on time at least not horribly late when the knock came.

She pulled the door open and saw exactly who she expected—one of the PNC crew. Sam's production assistant Paulina to be exact. Though she was looking more panicked than Natalie's tardiness warranted.

"Oh my God. Thank goodness you're here," Paulina gasped, bracing against the doorframe as she struggled for breath.

What was this panic about? Of course Natalie was there. Did Paulina think that Natalie had gone missing? That she'd run away, absconding with a bag full of free filet mignon she'd charged to the PNC account in the restaurant?

"I know I'm supposed to be at the theater—" She began to explain but Paulina waved her off.

"No. I need you here."

"What do you mean? Why here? What's happening?" she asked.

"Sam left Letisha here at the hotel with a camera and a sound guy to investigate the upper floors, while she went to the Stanley with the rest of the cast and crew."

Natalie drew back. "What? And Letisha agreed to go back up there to investigate that evil thing?"

Paulina nodded. "Yes. And it started out fine, like any other investigation. For like the first ten minutes. But now there's something wrong."

" What's wrong?" Natalie demanded.

"The stairwell door slammed shut and no one can get it open. They're locked up there on the tenth floor. The crews' walkie talkies aren't working. We stopped getting the live feed from the camera. Natalie, I'm worried."

"You should be! Of all the stupid ideas…" She could only imagine the nightmare of what could be happening up there.

And though she had no love lost for Letisha, even after their recent demonic bonding experience, she couldn't leave her up there, in trouble. Not when she could do something about it.

What could she do? Natalie wasn't really sure. She'd have to figure that out on the way.

"Take me up there," she demanded.

Liam had come out of the bathroom to hear the last part of the conversation and said, "Whoa. No way are you going up there."

"I have to. I can't leave them up there with that thing."

Jaw clenched, he drew in a breath. "Then I'm going with you."

"Damn right you are. I'm not completely insane enough to go up there alone."

At that thought she realized she wasn't here alone. She had more help on her side than just Liam.

The ghosts.

She needed to find them. Both the Mudville ghosts and the theater ones. She'd need all their help if she had any hope of fighting that thing.

And while they were at it, an exorcist might not hurt.

"I need you to call someone at the theater."

"I already called Sam. The minute it happened," Paulina said.

"It's not Sam's help I need. I need someone on site at the Stanley to tell the theater ghosts I need them here with me. It's urgent."

"But none of the cast or crew can talk to ghosts except for you and Letisha."

"That's technically not true. The cast and crew might not be able to hear the ghosts, but the ghosts can hear them. If you tell them I need them here, the spirits will understand."

And they'd come to help her. She knew they would.

She strode out into the hall and grabbed the house phone located on a table between two chairs.

Dialing zero for the front desk, she said when they answered, "Do you have a paging system for the lobby and the restaurant area?"

"A paging system? No, ma'am. This isn't Walmart."

Attitude much?

She squeezed her eyes closed and regrouped. "Yes. Of course not. I'm sorry. Can you possibly transfer me to the hotel bar?"

"One moment," the snide desk clerk said before she heard a click.

A couple of rings later, a male voice said, "Joseph speaking, how may I help you?"

"Yeah. Hi. I'm looking for some friends of mine who said they were going to the bar tonight."

"What do they look like? I'll see if I can spot them."

"Um, yeah, they're hard to describe. Could you maybe just yell?" she asked.

" Yell? " he repeated, as if it were a dirty word. Unfathomable that she'd ask him to do such a thing.

Was she going to have to take the time to go all the way downstairs to try to find Gabe and the gang when Letisha needed her upstairs? Just because the employees of this fancy hotel refused to raise their voices to help locate a patron?

"Please, I know this is out of the ordinary, but if you could just announce in a moderately loud voice that there is a call for Gabe and Millie from Natalie. And that I need them to meet me on the ninth floor."

"All right. I'll give it a try," he agreed.

She breathed out in relief. "Thank you."

Natalie heard the bartender repeat the message perfectly. Then heard nothing but bar noise and chatter.

She replaced the receiver and said, "Let's go."

No need to wait. The ghosts would understand.

If they were within hearing distance of the bartender, at least one of them would figure out she needed help. Harriet and Ricky had felt the darkness on the ninth floor and Gabe and Millie had heard Natalie say she'd never go back up there again. They'd know her summoning them upstairs meant there was trouble.

But that was only if they were still here. How she prayed they would be. She could only hope they hadn't decided to go for a stroll to take in downtown Utica.

"What are you planning to do? Do you even know what to do?" Liam asked as he kept pace with her as they strode down the hallway behind Paulina.

"Not really. Actually, could you search that for me on your phone?" she asked.

He frowned. "Search what exactly?"

"Try how to fight demonic apparitions. "

"Are you serious?"

She shot him a glare. "Do you have a better idea right now?"

"Fine. I'll search," he scowled and pulled out his cell.

A room service tray sat on the floor outside a door in the hallway. Natalie bent and scooped up the salt shaker as they strode past.

Salt was good. Right? Witches liked salt. The good ones. It was good for protection or something like that. She could use all the protection she could get.

She probably should have taken the knife too, but it was only a butter knife, not a steak knife. And she didn't think stabbing the entity would do any good anyway.

"You find anything?" she asked Liam as they walked. Damn, this hotel was big.

"Believe it or not, there's a YouTube video." He handed the cell over to her.

The first video was useless. It was all about embracing truth and denying lies to fight the demons in your life. Since she wasn't about to enter into a debate with this thing and she wasn't even sure it had a brain or a mouth or ears, she navigated to the next video.

It was titled How to Overcome Demonic Attacks .

That sounded promising. She opened it and realized it was just a preacher preaching.

"Ugh. This is no help." She thrust the cell back at him.

Where was a person supposed to go to learn what she needed to know?

She'd just have to figure it out on her own.

Paulina came to a stop at the elevator and Natalie eyed the legs of the table there, wondering what kind of metal they were made of.

Silver was for werewolves. Wooden stakes for vampires. But wasn't lead good for something too? And what would work on demons? Ugh. She was not prepared for this.

She gripped her salt shaker harder as Paulina punched the up button three more times.

Liam handed the cell back to her saying, "Here."

"What is this?"

"It's an article about getting rid of ghosts in your house. It's on a real estate website, of all places, but it was the closest thing I could find to what we need. The church really has the search results for demons all sewn up. But since they keep referring to addictions and porn and anger, I don't think the kind of demons they're talking about fighting are the same as ours."

"I think you're right." But she probably should have checked the hotel drawer for a bible anyway. She was going to need every weapon in the demon hunter's arsenal for this.

Glancing down at the article, she saw that first on the list was sage. Dammit, that was what Letisha used. She hated that Letisha was right.

Second on the list was talking to the entity. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

But third on the list was, hallelujah , salt.