Watcher of the Dark: A Jeremiah Hunt Supernatual Thriller (The Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) (26 page)

“That should be more than enough time,” I told her, while secretly hoping I was right. Ghosts could be fickle creatures and the one we were going to visit had more reason than most.

37

The sign.

Or, as the locals call it, the Sign.

Perhaps one of the most famous landmarks in the entire world, right up there (at least Los Angelinos think so) with the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids of Giza. Built on the edge of Mount Lee in Griffith Park, the Sign looks down on the city of L.A. with casual indifference, the perfect attitude, I thought, to match the very thing it now stood for, the hope and misery forever bound together in the Hollywood entertainment industry.

Originally built in 1923 as an outdoor ad for a suburban housing development known as Hollywoodland, the Sign has become the symbol of something that’s hard to define. Like the section on an old map marked by the warning, “Here be dragons,” the Sign seems to shout a message all its own, one that on the surface screams “Dreams are made here,” but underneath breeds the harsh cynicism of an industry that can chew you up faster than a spectre-eating demon, present company excluded.

We were here to meet with someone who had experienced that cynicism firsthand and who had succumbed to the dark allure it exuded.

In years past it was possible to scramble up the steep face of Mount Lee to reach the fifty-foot-tall letters fashioned of wood and sheet metal, but erosion, vandalism, and concern for the welfare of those stupid enough to attempt the stunt eventually resulted in a fair amount of changes.

The sign was restored in 1978 and the original letters were replaced by forty-five-foot steel behemoths, designed to last for decades to come. The sturdiness of the structure would make what I had to do here tonight easier, so I was thankful for that, but the increased security that went along with it didn’t have me jumping for joy. I couldn’t blame those in charge, though. The sign had a long history of incidents surrounding it, including the one that had brought me there that night.

In September 1932, an English stage actress named Lillian “Peg” Entwistle used a workman’s ladder to climb to the top of the letter
H
and then threw herself off the top, the first person to commit suicide from the sign.

Durante had given the last piece of the Key to Peg’s ghost. She was the one we came here to find.

After we gained entrance to the place, of course.

In 2000, the L.A. police had hired Panasonic to install a rather intricate security system designed to stop trespassers like me. The system consisted of a perimeter fence topped with razor wire, twenty-four-hour surveillance cameras, infrared detectors, motion detectors, and regular foot and air patrols by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Overall, it was both a comprehensive and effective design.

Thankfully, I had Ilyana on my side and we were going to make short work of the security. Get in, get what we needed, and get out again, all without being caught. That was the mission protocol for the evening and we were ready to carry it out.

Time was at a premium, so we couldn’t make our way down to the sign from above as I would have preferred. Instead, we parked on a side street, cut through several yards to reach the base of Mount Lee, and then began climbing upward.

It didn’t take long to reach the fence.

“Would you mind?” I asked.

“Not at all.”

Ilyana walked forward, grabbed a section of the chain link and tore it free of the pole to which it had been secured. From there it was a simple matter to hold it open long enough for both of us to slip through to the other side.

Knowing an automated call was already going out to the L.A. police, I didn’t waste any time, hustling forward and climbing up the last hundred feet to stand level with the base of the letter
W
as quickly as I could. Ilyana followed, with, I must admit, a bit more grace than I. Once she joined me, we both moved over to the letter
H
.

The feed from the surveillance cameras surrounding the sign was visible from several different Web sites and I wondered how many people were chatting about me on the Internet as I made my way over to the access ladder at the back of the
H
and began climbing upward. Hopefully we’d be long gone before someone tied my image to that of the man wanted for multiple murders by the FBI and Boston PD.

Otherwise, things might get a little uncomfortable up here.

Peg Entwistle had thrown herself off the top of the
H
, so if I wanted to meet her ghost that was where I had to go as well. The wind whipped and picked at me as I made my way up the ladder, and I knew it would be even worse once I reached the top, but there was nothing to be done for it. Hand over hand, foot after foot, I went up that ladder.

Reaching the top, I paused to catch my breath with the city of Los Angeles spread out below me. Lights gleamed and glistened and from here the town looked like a jewel in the night. It was a beautiful sight and I took a few seconds to drink it in.

Then, just to remind myself that all is not as it seems, I triggered my ghostsight.

The city below me was transformed. Angels warred over downtown, riding the air currents like massive eagles, swooping and diving as they slashed and hacked with the weapons in their hands, spilling blood onto the streets below. Darkness lay about much of the city, creeping insidiously into areas that had previously been bastions of light and power, now grown cold and dark with the futility of their inhabitants. I stood there, a watcher of the dark, and felt it watching me in turn.

It was enough to make me shudder and turn away.

Enough dillydallying, Hunt,
I scolded myself, and dug my harmonica out of my pocket. Putting it to my lips, I began to play a summoning song.

It was a soft, gentle melody, a wistful song of lost hopes and dreams, of desires unfulfilled. I’d never heard it before, but I knew it was right just the same, just as I’d known that the ghost of the long-lost actress was the final piece needed to solve the puzzle.

I played until the smell of gardenias washed over me.

It was Peg Entwistle’s favorite scent of perfume and one of the signs I was looking for.

Slowly I turned around and there she was, standing about five feet behind me. She was slim and good-looking, with short-cropped blond hair and a crooked little smile. She was dressed in a skirt and top; her jacket, shoes, and purse had been left behind on the ground, neatly folded.

At first I thought she’d seen me, for her attention was focused completely in my direction, almost unnervingly so. But then she started walking toward the edge and I realized what was happening; she was going to throw herself off the
H
just as she had some eighty-odd years ago. If she did, it would be nearly impossible to get her to manifest herself again in time to make the meeting. I was going to get one chance at this!

I pulled out my harmonica and began to play, letting the full force of my emotions pour into my music. Peg managed a few more steps, closing roughly half the distance to the edge. I tried different styles and tunes as I searched for the right one.

So focused was I on getting it right that I nearly jumped out of my skin when a police helicopter came roaring over the hill behind us. A spotlight speared down from above and it didn’t take long for it to find me standing there atop the
H
. I knew they couldn’t see Peg and wondered what was going through their minds as they looked down from above to see me swaying there, harmonica to my mouth and weird strains of music pouring forth, a modern-day Nero fiddling while the city below me was lost to darkness rather than fire.

My question was answered seconds later as the booming voice of the chopper’s PA system split the night. “This is the Los Angeles Police Department. You are trespassing on private property. Climb to the top of the hill behind you and wait for the arrival of other officers now en route.”

I didn’t bother to acknowledge them in any way; I was focused only on the song pouring out of my instrument, knowing that if I were to be distracted now I’d lose my tenuous hold on Peg’s ghost and destroy any chance we had of getting free of Fuentes.

The music was working, there was no doubt about that. Peg had stopped her inexorable walk toward the edge of the sign and was standing there, as if in indecision. A few more minutes and I’d have the link I needed to get her to release the rest of the Key.

The voice boomed again, the spotlight still holding me in its grip. “I repeat, this is the Los Angeles Police Department. Continue to ignore our instructions at your own risk. Officers are on their…”

There was a shattering of glass and the light went out. The PA boomed a final time, “Shit! Shooting at us!” and then went silent as the chopper banked away.

We were in deep trouble now.

Can’t be helped
, I thought.
Focus on the music, nothing but the music. Get the Key …

As I continued to play, Peg stopped, turned, and looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time since I’d arrived. There was an intelligent spark in her eye, an awareness to her features that hadn’t been there before.

She stared at me, opened her mouth, and spoke.

“Do I know you?”

The music faltered, then stopped. Ghosts don’t normally speak, and I’ll admit it caught me off guard.

“Ah … no, no you don’t know me,” I stammered out nervously. “I’m a friend of Michael Durante’s though.”

“Oh, that Michael,” she said, smiling and blushing as if they’d done something more than a little risqué together.

I really, seriously, didn’t want to know.

“Michael gave you something to watch over, didn’t he? He’s asked me to come collect it for him.”

I blinked and she was holding the final part of the Key, turning it over in her hands as she looked at it curiously.

“Doesn’t seem like much,” she said.

I agreed. It didn’t seem like much. Sometimes the smallest, most inconspicuous things can cause us all to stumble.

I hoped like hell this wasn’t one of those times.

“May I have it?” I asked.

The chopper was still hovering out there in the darkness, the thump of its rotors pounding out a rhythm in the sky above. Sirens could now be heard in the distance too, growing closer with every passing second, and I knew we were just about out of time.

Now or never.

Peg was still lost in thought, turning the piece of thick metal over and over again in her hands, as I stepped forward and snatched it out of her grasp.

The minute my hands touched the metal, Peg vanished.

Leaving me the proud possessor of the final section of the Key.

A key that was our ticket out of this mess.

I jammed it into my pocket and ran for the ladder.

Ilyana was waiting for me at the bottom.

“Do you have it?” she asked, over the ever increasing sound of the sirens.

“Yes. Let’s go!”

I turned to do just that but apparently Ilyana had something else in mind. I hadn’t taken two steps before she snatched me up, slung me over one shoulder like a potato sack, took off down the hillside while the just arriving police officers at the top of the bluff looked down and watched us go in sheer disbelief.

I wanted to wave, but decided not to press my luck.

38

The warehouse chosen for the meeting stood by itself at the end of a long pier opposite a massive container ship. Stacks of cargo containers stood nearby, piled eight high and five deep. Next to the front rack were two of the oversized cranes that were used to load the containers onto the ships, silent and watchful.

Fuentes’s Escalade was parked in front of the warehouse, as if flaunting his presence and daring someone to make a move against him when he was this far outside his sanctuary. I nearly smiled to see it; after all, I knew what lay in store for him.

Ilyana pulled the car to a stop a few yards away from Fuentes’s and we both got out. I had my harmonica in my pocket but had stashed the final piece of the Key inside the cushion I was sitting on. I had no idea if Fuentes would be able to sense its presence if I carried it into the warehouse with me, nor how it might react when it was brought into close proximity of the other sections. Better safe than sorry; I could always retrieve it later if and when I needed it.

“Let me handle the explanations,” Ilyana said and I nodded in agreement. She turned away, headed for the entrance, but when I moved to follow I was nearly overcome by a wave of dizziness so great that it threatened to bring me to my knees. I shook my head to clear it, took a few tentative steps in the direction Ilyana was headed, and then hustled to catch up.

As I came through the door to the warehouse, I saw Fuentes and Rivera standing together in the center of the room watching the door expectantly, each with a smug expression on his face. When Rivera’s gaze shifted to something over my shoulder, I knew I was in trouble.

There was motion in the shadows to my left and I had a split second to wonder where the heck Ilyana had gone as what felt like a twenty-pound sledgehammer slammed into the side of my face. I went down like a side of beef, my face bouncing off the cold cement floor of the warehouse practically before my brain even registered that I’d been struck.

I lay there, dazed and most definitely confused, blood leaking from my nose and mouth and dribbling down the side of my face to the warehouse floor. I thought I heard male laughter coming from what sounded like very far away, but I couldn’t seem to get a fix on it any more than I could get my arms to push me back up off the floor.

I heard footsteps approaching and then someone squatted down in front of me. A hand reached out and patted my cheek affectionately. It took a moment for Ilyana’s face to come into focus.

She smiled at me, then said, “You may be a good fuck, Hunt, but you are one naïve son-of-a-bitch.”

Another pat on the cheek and then she stood.

“Oh, one more thing. This is going to hurt. A lot.”