Faces appeared one by one, solidifying into full body apparitions—men still wearing their standard prison-issue orange jumpsuits. Their heads were shaved, and identical scars circled their foreheads where the metal had seared their skin.
They looked like shells of the men who had died in the same chair where Alara was sitting now.
A man with dark shadows around his eyes stepped in front of her. “Do you have anything to say? They gotta ask you that before they throw the switch.”
The one with empty gray eyes nodded. “It’s the law.”
“Let her go.” Jared raised the semiautomatic paintball gun. “Or I’ll give you a new set of burns.”
Lukas aimed his own weapon and a vengeance spirit with a jagged scar across his cheek and the number eighteen tattooed on his neck smiled. “Ain’t nothin’ left to burn. Except your friend.”
Jared and Lukas opened fire, the lethal mixture of holy water, salt, and cloves spraying across the walls until they ran out of ammunition. Two vengeance spirits exploded, but a half dozen stood fast.
Priest and I lifted our weapons.
Before I squeezed the trigger, the gun was ripped from my hands.
I searched for a faded form, or the shadowy features of a spirit that wasn’t fully materialized, but there was nothing. Priest was disarmed the same way, his weapon floating in the air next to mine.
Our guns hovered, turned, and pointed directly at us.
Then the weapons changed direction, and the rounds discharged in rapid succession, hitting the tally marks on the wall over and over. When the ammo was spent, the weapons dropped at our feet.
“A prisoner built this chair. That seem right to you?” The spirit with the dark shadows around his eyes appeared. “Saying goes that if you die in this prison, your soul stays here. Don’t matter if you’re an inmate or not—no heaven or hell, just Moundsville.” He lowered the metal cap onto Alara’s head. “Let’s see if your friend makes it out.”
Alara screamed as Darien Shears materialized and clamped his hand over her mouth. He held a finger to his lips. “Shh.”
Flashes of the prisoners’ faces superimposed themselves over hers—the spirit with the shadows around his eyes, the one with the number eighteen on his neck—a parade of faces rotating in front of Alara’s. Each man buckled and strapped in the chair, the metal headpiece secured to his skull.
Each one screaming and writhing in pain the way Alara was now.
Jared and Lukas ran for the chair.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Number Eighteen flipped the switches on the panel.
“It’s okay,” Priest said. “There’s no power in this building anymore.”
The vengeance spirit tilted his head, considering it. “Who said anything about using the building’s power?”
The spirits focused on the control panel, and the indicators lit up one by one.
Oh god.
The last indicator blinked, but the light didn’t fully illuminate.
“Shears,” Number Eighteen called out. “We need more juice. Hit the generator downstairs.”
Darien looked at Alara, then back at the rest of us. “Now don’t go anywhere. Everybody will get a turn.” He vanished, leaving the other vengeance spirits behind.
I scanned the room, searching for a way to escape, when I noticed Priest reach under his hoodie. He pulled out the caulking gun from the hardware store, the barrel loaded with purple cans of cheap hair spray.
What was he doing?
Priest aimed at the vengeance spirits and pulled the trigger, simultaneously igniting the fireplace starters wired to the end of the caulking gun. It was a makeshift flamethrower made from Aqua Net, electrical tape, and ingenuity.
A stream of flames shot out, and Priest scorched the wall from left to right. The prisoners’ faces contorted as the fire burned them to ash—and then nothing.
I ran over to Alara and kneeled in front of the chair, unbuckling the stubborn leather cuffs.
“Come on!” She pulled against the restraints, her face streaked with tears. “Get me out of this thing!”
“I’m working on it.” I fumbled with the ankle cuffs, yanking the last one free. Alara leapt from the chair.
My eyes were still level with the base. A single piece of wood attached the chair to the platform.
A piece shaped like a cylinder.
Someone had cut a crude notch in the wood, the knife marks faint but still visible. It seemed impossible, but I had to be sure. I held my breath and reached inside. The wood popped out, revealing a strip of silver glinting behind it.
In a sick twist, had Darien hid the casing in the instrument of his own execution?
My hand closed around the metal that felt as smooth and seamless as glass.
It looked exactly like the sketch in Priest’s journal—strange looping symbols cut into the outside, and empty slots where the disks slid in place.
Lukas noticed the casing in my hand, his expression a mixture of awe and relief. “You found it.”
Jared’s eyes darted to the door. “We still have to get it out of here.”
“Shears said he was coming back. He might catch us before we make it,” Priest said. “We have to destroy him.”