GHOST CRYPT

The Ghost Files #5

by

Chanel Smith

Created by

J.R. Rain & Scott Nicholson

THE GHOST FILES SERIES

Ghost College (Book #1)

by Scott Nicholson and J.R. Rain

Ghost Soldier (Book #2)

by Evelyn Klebert

Ghost Fire (Book #3)

by Eve Paludan

Ghost Hall (Book #4)

by Michelle Wright

Ghost Crypt (Book #5)

by Chanel Smith

Ghost Town (Book #6)

by Chanel Smith

Ghost Writer (Book #7)

by Chanel Smith

Ghost Castle (Book #8)

by Chanel Smith

Ghost Ship (Book #9)

by Chanel Smith

OTHER BOOKS BY CHANEL SMITH

THE PACK TRILOGY

Werewolf Moon

Werewolf Nights

Werewolf Forever

THE HUNTRESS TRILOGY

The Vampire With the Golden Gun

The Vampire in the High Castle

The Vampire Who Knew Too Much

Ghost Crypt

Copyright © 2015 Chanel Smith

Based on characters created by J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson

Published by J.R. Rain Press

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved by the authors. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for reading us.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

About the Author

Ghost Crypt

Chapter One

“How would you feel about putting off returning home?” Ellen asked when I came back from the restroom and settled into the uncomfortable sling that substituted for a chair in Heathrow Airport.

Airports and airplanes were not my favorite places to be, but the prospect of those two entities being a part of getting me back to Southern California and our home had made them somewhat tolerable. Her question caught me by surprise, because I assumed that she was as eager to get home as I was; if not more so.

Initially, we were supposed to be on a direct flight from Brussels to LA, but had been rerouted to London to make an emergency landing. Transatlantic flights wouldn’t press forward if the handle on the toilet reacted a little bit slow, or so I’d been told. Evidently, whatever had caused the emergency landing wasn’t serious enough to send us hurtling to the ground or into the English Channel, but who was going to bitch about being back on the ground to fix a faulty part on an airplane?

“What do you mean by putting it off?”

“I got a call while you were in the loo.” She was always so adept at adapting to her surroundings.

“What sort of call?”

“Another case.”

“Where? In Europe, China, Africa?” It seemed now that we had become an international organization, any place in the world was wide open.

“Actually, right here, in London.”

I’d always had a secret desire to explore London. I would have suggested just that before returning home, if I hadn’t felt that Ellen was in a rush to get back after what we had just endured. “I’m game, but are you sure that you’re up for it?”

“The extra time just being tourists was enough to refresh me,” she replied. “How about you? Are you too eager to get home with your beers or do you want to take a crack at this one?”

“Hmmm… London has some good beer too. Maybe I could add to my collection.”

“If they aren’t all broken already.”

Another thought suddenly came to me. Not only did England have some good beers, but I had heard plenty about the smoothness of some of the single malt Scotch from various parts of the United Kingdom. “I can add a bottle or two of Scotch to my collection as well. Besides, I’ve always wanted to check out jolly ol’ England.”

“They promised to pick up our expenses and reimburse Marcus for the unused portion of our flight home. They also offered us a sizable sum. I’m not sure what it converts to in dollars, but it sounds pretty good in pounds.”

“The last time I checked, the British Pound valued about 40% more than the US dollar. That means almost a buck and a half so let’s do it. Who is the client?”

“TFL,” she replied.

“Who is TFL?”

“I’m not sure at this point. I told them I would call them back and let them know if we accepted their offer. We’ll get more details after that.”

“Call them back. Call them back,” I replied. I had another sudden thought as she pressed the button on her cell. “See if you can negotiate a couple of bottles of single malt Scotch in the deal.”

She frowned at me and I knew it was once again time to close my trap. “I’ll just go find out what we need to do to get our luggage.”

She smiled and winked at me at the same moment that she greeted whoever answered the call. That was her special signal that told me that I was back on track. I strolled toward the small counter that blocked the gate to the plane that was supposed to be arriving to take us on to LA.

“Pardon me.” The thought suddenly passed through my mind to ask if she had any Grey Poupon. I’m not sure what it is about the British accent, but it makes us Americans do stupid things. I restrained myself. “We are planning to stay over in London for a few days. What ought I do about our luggage?” What ought I do? Where did that come from?

“Are you absolutely certain about your plans, sir?” the attendant replied. I swooned a little at the sound of her accent, as well as her penetrating green eyes. I wasn’t the type to be led astray from Ellen – she took good care of me – and so I pressed forward, ignoring the blush that was rising up.

“Quite certain,” I replied.

“Very well, then.” She began to explain to me what needed to be done to secure my luggage and reschedule the flight. The flight numbers, departure times and destinations all rattled around in my head, but as she spoke, she was writing it all down. Thank God that the English were often very thorough. I would never have been able to remember a single part of what she told me.

“Thank you very much,” I said, turning in time to be joined by Ellen, who had finished her call with the mystery person from TFL.

“Are we all set, then?”

There was a little bit of that British accent and the phrasing of the question wasn’t exactly like the Ellen that I had known for years. I didn’t feel so bad, since Ellen was doing it too. I knew that the fact that Americans tend to end sentences with a preposition drove the English mad, but why exactly, did we feel the need to take on all of the idiomatic stereotypes as well? Rather than commenting, I simply pushed the paper with the notes on it toward Ellen.

Getting our luggage wasn’t going to be nearly as easy as the woman at the counter had described. When is anything in an airport easy? As long as a person does not alter course from the rigid line, things work out just fine, but swerve off course and total chaos becomes the norm. To complicate matters, we weren’t certain what hotel we were staying in. Ellen made another call.

“I was told to just give all of our flight information to Rochester and Rochester would take care of everything,” she said, disconnecting from her call.

“Rochester? Seriously?” I chuckled. “Is he the butler or something?” The moment I heard the name, my mind started racing toward where and why I had heard it. I could hear the whiny tone that was used to pronounce it. I knew it was from a serial television program that I’d seen as a kid, but what the hell was it? I also knew I would be haunted by more than just whatever ghost we were being sent to track down. “Rochester,” I repeated it aloud using the tone that I’d remembered.

Ellen gave me that, ‘come on, let’s get serious’ look. “Anyway, our driver will be here in a few moments to pick us up and take us to our hotel, so we need to find our way to ground transportation.”

“Great.” I started looking up at signs and following arrows. “So, what is this case about?”

“Apparently there are ghosts in the Tube.”

“What tube?”

“You know, The Tube. The Underground. London’s subway system.”

“Oh, okay, the Tube.” Something in the back of my mind knew that the Londoners called their subway system the Tube and that I’d heard the term used before; it had just slipped my mind. There was a lot of that going on lately. I wondered if it was a negative side effect connected with being possessed by ghosts, demons and other evil forces over and over again. Rochester. Who the hell was Rochester?

My question was answered, at least in part, a few minutes later when we encountered a man – who actually reminded me of the professor from The Paper Chase – who was holding up a sign with our names written on it near the exit to Ground Transportation. What was the actor’s name? He did the Smith Barney commercials too. Why was my brilliant mind being wasted on such trivial stuff? I started to share my thoughts with Ellen, but decided against it as the man spoke and a strong urge to laugh hit me. He sounded just like the Paper Chase guy.

Passing me another of her looks, Ellen introduced us, clearly the adult in the situation. “I’m Ellen and this is my husband, Monty.”

“I am pleased to meet you both.”

“The pleasure is ours,” I responded. When had I ever used that phrase before?

“Very well, then,” he replied. “Shall we be on our way?”

I couldn’t help feeling that I was being scrutinized and coming up short as Rochester looked down his long, narrow nose at me. He’d probably already surmised that I was not the serious member of our team. If he was anything like old “what’s his name” on The Paper Chase, he probably didn’t approve of my sense of humor.

Ellen always knew when crazy stuff was going on in my mind and she nudged me with her elbow when we got in the car. “What is your problem?” she whispered.

“Smith Barney, they make money the old-fashioned way. They earn it.” I pulled the voice off perfectly, just before Rochester was seated in the driver’s seat of the Rolls-Royce that was taking us to our hotel. He looked up in the mirror at us for an instant. Had he heard my impersonation? I began to think that with him, it probably wouldn’t matter one way or the other; he wasn’t going to approve of me regardless of what I did or said. I wish that I could remember that guy’s name.

“So, what exactly is going on in the Tube?” I asked, regaining my composure and attempting to get a hold on the professional that I really was. I wasn’t exactly sure what had made me so silly; too many ghostly blows to the head, perhaps?

“There is a certain portion of the line that is experiencing paranormal activity.”

“Paranormal activity? Like what, dear?” There it was again… Grey Poupon, anyone?

“Doors on the train opening and closing in the middle of a transport, ghost sightings, inexplicable screams; you know, the usual.” She was as cool and matter of fact about it as always. I realized that some of that attitude had started to rub off on me as well over the last several months.

“And TFL is?”

“Transport for London. They oversee the transportation sector of the city.”

“How did they get your name and number?” It was true that we didn’t exactly take out ads in internationally read newspapers or magazines. We barely even passed out business cards.

“It was through some contractor connection that Marcus has here in London.”

“So, are we going to have time to grab some fish and chips from a pub and drink a pint before we start work?” I was looking forward to experiencing at least a little bit of the local culture, even if we were going to be spending most of our time working.

“I don’t see why not. We have a few hours to settle in before our meeting with Mr. Black.”

“Rochester,” I called out. Yes, I used the whiny tone. “Would you be able to direct us to a top-notch local pub where we might enjoy some fish and chips?”

The driver looked up in the mirror, pained that he would actually be required to speak to me. “Actually, sir, there is a floating pub on the Thames right close to your hotel; lovely view of Big Ben and Westminster Palace.”

I was hooked immediately, though I was certain that the added comment about the view was directed toward Ellen rather than myself. I couldn’t shake the feeling that in the mind of Rochester, I was nothing more than an unpleasant piece of baggage that had to be endured in order to do business with Ellen.

It wasn’t long before we pulled up in front of the Park Plaza Riverbank. I could see what appeared to be Big Ben and Westminster Palace across the river. I was going to be staying very near the queen’s house. Though I needed little help getting in the mood, it was an added touch which only served to increase my excitement.

“Kind of nice to be rid of the Smith Barney, law professor guy,” I commented once we were alone in our room.

“What are you talking about and why are you acting so weird?”

“Rochester. He’s just like that law professor on The Paper Chase.”

“Do you mean John Houseman?”

“Yeah! That’s the guy.” She had at least made the same connection, though it did little to make me stop acting goofy. We took a moment to settle into our room, but I was too excited to sit still. Ellen finally gave in to my childish energy and we started out the door.

Chapter Two

Harold Black was not nearly as stuffy as Rochester, but there was no doubt that he was pretty much all business.

Having enjoyed a pint on the floating pub along with the best fish and chips I’d ever tasted, not that I was necessarily a connoisseur, I had been able to get most of my silliness under control. A portion of that could be linked to the fact that Ellen was becoming a little irritated with me. Since she wasn’t given to being irritated often, I knew that I was behaving badly. I reordered my brain toward being professional, though the Rochester thing was still lingering in the background.

“How can we be of service, Mr. Black?” I asked, taking the lead in order to let Ellen know that I was serious.

“I’m not quite sure exactly,” he replied, wrinkling his brow. “We seem to have some inexplicable goings on between the Vauxhall and Stockwell stations.”

“What sort of goings on?” Ellen asked.

Mr. Black hesitated. Talking about ghosts as though they were a real possibility clearly wasn’t something that he did on a regular basis. In fact, he probably wasn’t any more of a believer than I had been before Ellen opened up my eyes in some very profound and very real ways. I, like Mr. Black, still preferred to try to come up with any other way of explaining the unexplained rather than immediately jumping into the paranormal world. I decided to help him out.

“Mr. Black, strange and inexplicable things aren’t always related to ghosts or paranormal activity. Just tell us what has been reported and we’ll make the determination as to the cause. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.” He visibly relaxed.

Ellen smiled at me, which let me know that I was once again gaining her approval. Because ghosts and paranormal activity were commonplace to her, she often forgot that there were plenty of people who felt extremely uncomfortable with talking about that sort of thing. Putting them at ease about it was often my department.

“Initially, we thought that there was some sort of mechanical failure taking place with the trains. The doors will open inexplicably, and of course, that in turn, automatically applies the brakes and stops the train. The train operators have to close the doors again before the train can move forward. We checked out the mechanical systems, finding nothing amiss. So, we started looking into it a little bit further and discovered that this particular anomaly was only taking place on the line between the Vauxhall and Stockwell stations.”

“That hardly qualifies as paranormal activity, Mr. Black,” I responded. “Perhaps some sort of magnetic field or alternate energy source is somehow interfering?”

“We checked on all of those things as well,” he smiled. We were at least making a professional connection, even if I couldn’t seem to impress Rochester. “The opening and closing of the doors by itself is not what has everyone in a dither.” Again, he hesitated.

“What else has occurred, Mr. Black?” Ellen spoke softly, almost like she was encouraging a child to eat their applesauce.

“Some have said that they felt a cold wind or evil presence, heard voices and have seen images connected with the door openings. There were even reports of horrible screams. All sorts of investigations have taken place along the line between the two stations, but nothing out of the ordinary has been found.”

Mr. Black seemed ashamed of himself because he had called in ‘ghost hunters’ to solve the problem he was facing. However, he also seemed desperate to come up with answers as well. “There is a sense of urgency to have the problem solved.”

“There always is,” Ellen smiled. “Has anyone’s life been threatened or put at risk?”

“Not that I know of; at least, not directly. We are very concerned about the opening doors. It wouldn’t do for one of the passengers to fall from the train. They are, of course, directed not to lean against the doors while the train is in motion, but you know how people are…”

“Yes,” I smiled. “There always has to be one in every crowd.”

“We can’t afford that one. We’ve taken enough heat for the amount of money that we’ve spent in the last several years upgrading and adding lines to help with the increased traffic load because of the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics. We don’t need any more critics, besides the other liabilities and possible deaths that could happen.”

“I’d like to see the train line on a commuter’s map if possible,” Ellen said to the man across the desk.

“Oh, certainly,” he responded, pushing his chair back a little from the desk and pulling out a blueprint drawer from just below the desk’s top. He removed a full color rendition of the various stations across London and the connecting rails. Mr. Black placed the map on the desk and turned it to face his two guests. “The line runs between Vauxhall Station… right here; and right along here the very next stop is Stockwell.”

Ellen shivered involuntarily as she looked at the tiny piece of rail that was being discussed.

“Is something wrong?” I asked instinctively.

“It’s nothing, dear.” That was her code for ‘I’ll tell you later.’ “Can you tell me about anything that might be happening near the area that could have caused a disturbance?” Ellen asked.

“Disturbance to what? What sort of thing are you talking about?”

“Excavations, major renovations, which may have entailed demolitions and such?” she replied.

“We are adding a new line that crosses under the existing one between Vauxhall and Stockwell. Is that the sort of thing that you mean?”

“Have they dug up anything odd? I mean, like, archeological artifacts or anything like that?” Ellen asked.

“The contractors haven’t reported anything to me. There is a great deal of interest and some controversy surrounding the excavation that is going on, mostly from archeological societies and whatnot. There would certainly be a big to do if anything was discovered. They would probably shut down the entire operation if a pinky finger was found.”

“They have a way of swaying public opinion and hanging up progress, don’t they?” There I was again, going crosswise to the green, environmental thing. I simply couldn’t avoid the comment. It did seem like someone was always standing by to throw the kibbutz into new construction projects or any type of progress to protect either something that was long since dead and gone or some fuzzy little tree owl that was on the endangered list. I received a look for my comment and wondered why I hadn’t already learned to keep my mouth shut.

“Mr. Black,” she quickly jumped back into the conversation. “Have you seen or heard anything or did the investigators see or hear anything? Has there been any paranormal activity in the new tunnel?”

“I haven’t personally seen anything and neither have the investigators. Why?”

“I was just hoping you might be able to give me a firsthand account,” she replied.

“Would it be helpful if you had all of the firsthand accounts? I can have my administrative assistant make copies of the claims and complaints and provide those to you.”

“That would be helpful, thank you.” She tapped her lips with a long, sexy finger several times as the wheels were spinning in her head. It wasn’t exactly a convenient time to have amorous thoughts about my wife, but whenever she did that, I could barely contain myself.

Harold Black pressed the intercom button on his phone. For some reason, I hoped that he would ask for Miss Moneypenny. Apparently, not all of my silliness had left me. “Penelope? Could you make copies of the, um, uh, ghost files and bring them to me?” He was embarrassed that they actually had ghost files.

“Mr. Black, would it be possible for us to ride the train between the two stations in question; just to see what turns up?” Ellen asked. The question drew me back to business.

“Of course,” he said. “Actually, I have asked the TFL to provide badges for the two of you. It will allow you access to the facilities necessary; actually any place that you want to go on the Tube. We’ll need to snap a photo of each of you. Penelope will handle that before you leave.”

“What about access into the new tunnel?” Ellen asked.

“I can arrange that. Do you think it is connected to our problem?”

I was on to where she was headed. “How long after the contractors started excavating the new tunnel, did the problems begin to take place?” I asked.

“Two or three weeks maybe.” The expression on his face showed sudden recognition. “About the time they crossed under or came very near to the Vauxhall-Stockwell line. I will arrange access to the new tunnel for you immediately. In fact, I’ll arrange a meeting with the project manager… say tomorrow morning, ten-ish?”

“That would be lovely,” Ellen replied.

I threw her one of her own ‘behave’ glances and received a ‘what?’ look in return. Then she winked at me and smiled. So, I wasn’t the only one who was feeling a bit randy. Ditching the meeting and the whole ghost thing in order to go back to the hotel would have been just dandy with me.

“Penelope, please phone Mr. Hayford and patch it through to my office, if you don’t mind,” he said into the intercom, then leaned back in his chair, had a sudden thought and pushed the button again. “Also, we need to upgrade those security badges to green, giving our new consultants the same authority as my own. Temporarily, of course,” he said as he leaned back into his chair and awaited the call. It was only a moment.

“I have Mr. Hayford on the line.” Penelope’s voice came over the intercom.

“Mr. Hayford. How are things going on the project this afternoon?” There was a pause while he listened to whatever the project manager was telling him. “Mr. Hayford, I hate to interrupt; we can talk about this in a little while. What I need to know is if you can meet with our…”

“Investigators,” Ellen quickly provided the word. Saying ghost hunters often made people uncomfortable.

“… investigators concerning the issues along the Vauxhall to Stockwell line. Listen, I was hoping to arrange a time when you could meet with them. Say tomorrow around ten?” He listened again and his expression changed. “Well, yes, those might be connected.” Another pause. “I’m afraid those are questions that you’ll have to ask them. Okay, so tomorrow at ten. Very well, and I will call you back about those other matters in about ten to fifteen minutes.”

He set the phone back into its cradle and glanced from me to Ellen. “It seems that I misspoke before when I said that nothing had happened in the excavation tunnel. There seem to have been some things occurring down there as well, but they had gone unreported until the recent hubbub stirred things up. I’m afraid that I don’t know which stories to believe any more.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Ellen reassured him.

“That’s right, we’ll find an explanation for you,” I added.

“Mr. Jackson Hayford will be meeting with you tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. I will send Rochester to get you at a quarter of 10. I do appreciate your time and your expertise. You’ve come highly recommended and I can already tell that you take a professional approach to the matter.”

“Thank you, sir.” Ellen smiled.

“Penelope should have those copies for you and she’ll snap the photos and get the badges prepared as well. I hope that you have an opportunity to take in some of the sites while you’re here. Also, anything you need, just let Rochester know and he will secure it for you or find someone who will.”

“There is one thing,” I spoke up, suddenly remembering that our equipment was with our luggage. “Our luggage was hung up at the airport and all of our equipment is in it.” It was worth a shot; if he was in charge of transportation, perhaps he would be able to pull some strings and get our luggage to us.

“Yes, of course. I’ll look into that for you posthaste.”

He said the word with such aplomb that I was hoping I would have an opportunity to make use of it myself: posthaste. “That would be very helpful; thank you, sir.”

“It was indeed a pleasure to meet you, Mister Black,” Ellen said, extending her hand gracefully.

“The pleasure is all mine,” he replied, moving from her hand to my own. “Penelope,” he called out. The sharp-looking redhead appeared in his doorway within seconds. “Please take very good care of our guests if you don’t mind.”

“It will be a pleasure. Come along.”

I felt like a schoolboy being escorted to his next class. In only a few moments, posthaste, we were outfitted with our badges and a file folder with what looked like several dozen sheets of ghost stories for our light, bedtime reading. When we left the building which housed the TFL offices, Rochester was standing by, ready to return us to the hotel…posthaste.

Chapter Three

“Whatever you want to do, love,” I said. I had been hoping to return to the hotel for some of the activities that had been on my mind while sitting in Mr. Black’s office, but Ellen was ready to get to work; or at least do some exploring.

“I just think we should take a quick trip on the train to see what happens, if anything at all; don’t you?” The way she looked at me made it impossible to say no. She did that often and I had never complained about it much. “Get the lay of the land, so to speak.”

“Getting laid was on my mind,” I whispered in her ear.

“Stop it,” she slapped my shoulder playfully. “Hold your horses, would you? Let’s just take a ride from Vauxhall to Stockwell and back, okay?”

“Probably a waste of time, but if you insist, dear.”

“Rochester? Would it be too much trouble to have you take us to the Vauxhall Station?”

“No trouble at all, ma’am. It is right on our way to the hotel.”

“Thank you, we appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He responded to her and then looked in the mirror at me, as though I had gotten the answer wrong and at any moment he would chastise me.

You, sir, are a disgrace to this institution and to the rule of law as a whole. It would be better if you were taken out into the desert, buried in an anthill and fed live scorpions until you die. I was getting pretty good at the John Houseman voice, at least in my own mind.

We pulled up in front of Vauxhall station and opened the car door, not yet used to the driver doing that for us. We were already out of the car when Rochester arrived on our side of the car. He seemed confused for a moment. Evidently, those he regularly drove for always waited for him to open the door. We ‘Yanks’ weren’t used to that sort of treatment.

“Would you like for me to pick you up at Stockwell or wait for you here?” he asked.

“How far is it to our hotel?” Ellen asked.

“It’s not far; just follow the Riverside Walkway.” He indicated the direction with a wave of his hand. “I would be more than happy to wait for you.”

“That’s quite alright,” she replied. “I don’t believe that we will have further need of a car this evening.”

“Very well,” he said. “If you need anything, do not hesitate to call.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a calling card and handed it to her. Rochester Nathaniel Ellington and his number was all that it said on a plain, white card.

“Thank you very much,” Ellen replied. “In the morning, then?”

“Yes, in the morning.” Rochester walked around the car, got in and drove away, leaving us to our own devices.

“Very well, love, shall we proceed? Posthaste?” I said, extending my elbow and pushing my nose into the air.

“Posthaste?”

“But of course.”

She gave me another one of those looks. I’m not entirely certain what my problem was. Something about being in London not far from the palace, and, I’d noticed earlier, the MI6 building. I could actually see it across the interchange of streets from Vauxhall station. I was trying to be professional, but there were just too many things stirring up my imagination. Not to mention the fact that I was looking forward to flashing my new badge.

Flashing the badge and going through the turnstile was actually very disappointing. The attendant simply waved us on with a bored expression on his face, like it was an everyday occurrence to have dignitaries such as ourselves riding the Tube.

We hopped on the train and rode it to Stockwell. We got off, used the stairway to cross over to the other side and waited for the train bound for Vauxhall Station, all without incident. I was beginning to wonder if we were going to spend most of our time in London riding the Tube back and forth between the two damn stations.

“So, that was certainly intriguing,” I said as we stood waiting on the platform.

“It’s not like we can make a call and set an appointment to see them,” she replied dryly.

I had started to feel guilty about my silliness and decided that I probably ought to explain myself and apologize. I knew that I needed to be more professional and that she was counting on me.

“Babe, I’m sorry for acting so silly,” I began. “I mean, I’m in London and there are so many things that I love that I can connect to here. I’m just really excited.”

“I understand,” she replied. “It isn’t all bad, I guess. We went through a lot in Belgium. You deserve to cut loose a little bit.”

“I knew you’d understand.” I pulled her to me for a hug. “I promise that I will be totally professional while we’re working.”

“We’re working now.” She grinned.

“Very well, then.” I faked a serious expression and pushed my nose into the air.

“You’re an idiot,” she laughed.

We stood arm in arm, waiting for the train and I was working on becoming serious. I decided to talk about business to show her that I really wasn’t a total dork. “How are we going to make any progress without our equipment?”

“I hope that problem is already being taken care of. After all, I would like to have some clean undies for tomorrow.”

I hadn’t thought about clean undies and socks. I hated to wear stale socks. I always put one change of clothing into my carry-on bag for such emergencies, but the clothing was typically something pretty casual, just to get me through. “You have your emergency clothes from your carry-on, right?”

I didn’t receive an answer, because the train was arriving and people were streaming off. We stepped on and took hold of the handles overhead. There wasn’t much sense looking for a seat since we’d be getting off at the next stop.

The doors closed and we were on our way. I started to repeat my question as the train rolled forward. “You have your emergency clothes in your…”

The door beside us suddenly flew open and the train lurched to a stop. It felt cold… like winter cold. It was as cold as any crypt could have been. Far below the temperature it ought to feel like underground.

“Do you feel that?” Ellen whispered.

“Yes. What is it?”

“It’s a spirit. He’s powerful, but it is a sense of physical strength and confidence. He seems to be searching for something or someone.”

Suddenly one of the other passengers became rigid and screamed. “Nos omnes convincat!” As soon as the words left his mouth, he returned to normal, looking around at the others to see if they had heard him.

All eyes turned toward him for a moment and then looked away as the doors closed and the train started rolling again. Everyone’s eyes turned away, ignoring the brief disturbance.

“Did you catch that?” Ellen asked.

“I did. It was Latin, I think.” We’d dealt with Latin speaking ghosts before. Though I had no idea what it meant, I knew it was Latin. “Nos omnes convincat. I have no idea what that means.”

“I don’t either,” she replied. “There was certainly a strong presence. Did you feel it?”

“I felt the cold, but there are way too many people crowded around me to feel anything particularly ghostly.”

Other people near us were looking at us with odd expressions. I motioned buttoning my lips and glanced from side to side. A crowded train wasn’t any place to be discussing ghosts, spirits and paranormal activities. The stories probably weren’t a secret, but to be discussing it openly was the best way that I knew of for us to be labeled as insane Yanks.

Nothing more took place as the train pulled into Vauxhall Station, the doors opened and we stepped out. We followed the mass of people toward the exit and soon found ourselves back where we had been not more than ten minutes before; minus Rochester and the Rolls-Royce, of course.

Following the walkway toward the river, we stopped at the bank of the Thames and looked in both directions to decide which way we should go. With Westminster Palace and Big Ben to our right, it wasn’t a hard choice to make. The view of them that we’d had earlier from the floating pub had been much closer, so we headed toward them.

We had walked silently while Ellen was scanning over some of the pages inside the “ghost file.” With the view and the river, I was content to take things in and not worry over a Latin ghost. I’d taken several steps alone before I realized that Ellen was no longer keeping pace with me. Turning back, I saw her standing still, staring intently at one of the pages she had pulled out of the file folder. Other people were stepping around her, looking at her with an irritated expression as they passed.

“Ellen, honey, you can’t just stop in the middle of the sidewalk like that.”

She ignored me, continuing to read. I stepped toward her, took hold of her elbow and gently guided her off of the path so that others could walk around her. I saw it as a common courtesy. It annoyed me to no end to be walking in a crowd and have some idiot stop in front of me and start fiddling with their iPhone.

“Check this out. This has happened before. Almost exactly the same way that we just witnessed it. Only he possessed a little girl. The person who made the claim said that it sounded like gibberish. ‘Nose nommy conny cat,’ or at least that is how the person taking the report wrote it. That’s pretty close to what you heard, right?”

“Yeah, pretty close.”

“Come on,” she said, putting the paper back in the file folder and snapping it shut. She became a woman with a mission and I had to kick into my full stride to catch up with her.

“What’s your hurry?” I asked as I caught up to her.

“I want to get back to the hotel so I can look this up on the Internet.”

“You think they have Latin on the Internet?”

“Yeah. Google Translator has Latin. I don’t know how accurate it is, but surely it will give us enough to go on, right?”

“Maybe.”

“You still remember what he said?”

“More or less, but I’m not sure how to spell it.”

“We’ll just keep trying stuff until we get to something that makes sense.”

“You mean that you want this to make sense? I haven’t noticed any of this paranormal stuff making sense.” My attempt at humor bounced off of her without as much as a crusty look.

Back in our hotel room, Ellen immediately dug the laptop out of her carry-on bag and was connected to the Wi-Fi by the time I had finished relieving myself. When the woman is focused, she’s focused. I turned to look out the window of our hotel and across the Thames and Westminster Palace.

“She’s not there, you know.”

I had assumed that Ellen was completely focused on business. Silly me, women have that multitasking thing down to an art form and Ellen was about as good at it as any woman I’d ever known. Except my mother… but that’s another story altogether. “Who’s not where?”

“Queen Elizabeth.”

“How do you know that? Do you have her traveling schedule or something?”

“I don’t know for sure, but she’s probably at home.”

“You’re not making any sense. You tell me that she’s not home, but then you say that she’s at home. I think you’ve taken too many ghostly punches to the old noggin.”

“That’s Westminster Palace, right?”

“Yes.”

“The queen lives in Buckingham Palace.”

She was right, of course. There was no point arguing with her, but much of the wind was taken out of my sails. It was a fantastic view, but some of my interest had faded. I decided that maybe I needed to quit daydreaming and help my wife. “What can I do to help?”

“You could go through those reports in the ghost file.”

“Okay. What do you want me to do with them?”

“How about you sort them into categories. Ummm… sightings, noises, feelings, words and nonsense. Scratch that last one. We don’t know that anything is nonsense yet. Just the four for now would be helpful.”

I jumped into my task. A large number of the claims were more or less nonsense as far as I was concerned, but it didn’t take me long to sort them.

“Hey,” I said, suddenly remembering about the paused discussion in Black’s office earlier that day. “What caused you to shiver like that this morning in the office?”

“I’m not sure, Monty. I took a look at that little block of track and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of loss and death. The cold iciness of a mass grave or a crypt. A mean chill went scampering down my spine.” She returned her gaze to the laptop and continued typing for a few more minutes. “Aha! Nos omnes convincat is Latin, like you thought. It took me a while to figure out how to spell it, but I think the translation for this one makes the most sense. It basically means ‘We will conquer all.’”

I moved over next to her and looked at the screen. “Who will conquer all?”

“Well, since it is Latin, I would guess the Romans.”

I knew enough about English history to know that the Romans had conquered England in the early first century, beginning mostly in the 40s AD. “So, we have a 2,000-year-old ghost legionnaire?”

“That would be my guess,” Ellen replied.

“Why would a 2,000-year-old legionnaire be hanging around here now?”

“That’s the fun part.” She smiled at me. It was the sort of smile that got my blood flowing and my heart hammering in my chest.

I leaned over her and wrapped my arms around her. “I’ll show you the fun part,” I whispered in her ear.

“Yeah? Really?” she purred.

Things were beginning to spark when the phone rang and the two of us nearly jumped out of our skin. Sighing heavily, Ellen reached for the phone. She listened and gave a few “uh huh” and “I understand” replies and then hung up.

I looked at her, waiting for an explanation.

“It seems that our luggage went home without us.”

“Crap! Our equipment! And our clothes!”

“Mr. Black pulled some strings to get it back to us. It should be back here sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, Rochester has brought a tailor and seamstress to provide us with something to wear tomorrow. They are on their way up.”

“I’m impressed, but what about our equipment?”

“We’ll just have to wing it until the day after tomorrow.”

“I’m not exactly convinced that our luggage will ever arrive. It might go to Cairo next.”

“You do exaggerate, dear.” Ellen rose to answer the knock at the door, touching the tip of my nose with a finger as she did so.

“Pardon the intrusion madam, sir.” The portly gentleman bowed slightly to each of us as he spoke. He was followed by an equally portly matron with the sort of glasses that my brothers and sisters always referred to as “cat” glasses.

“Don’t be silly; please come in.” Ellen waved them into the room.

“We just need to get a few measurements and we’ll be out of your way,” the gentleman beamed.

“And perhaps a few delicates for you, madam?” the seamstress whispered to Ellen as the tailor pulled me to one side and began taking measurements. “Something in lace, but not too revealing, perhaps?”

I saw a look of mischief cross Ellen’s face and I knew she was thinking about asking for a thong, but she relented. “That would be fine. Thank you.”

“Will you be needing undergarments and hosiery, sir?” the tailor asked.

“No, actually, I have those, although I lack black socks.”

“Very well, then.” With the measurements complete, the tailor scribbled several notes on the small pad and put his tape away. “Are you finished then, Winnie?”

“Yes, of course,” she replied.

“I’ve been given to understand that the car will be picking you up at twenty of ten in the morning, so we will be back at around nine. We’ll have you both looking smart by then.”

“Yes, that will be fine. Thank you.” Ellen laughed softly.

“We’ll be on our way then, Winnie.” He guided his wife toward the door. “Cheerio, then. We’ll see you, nine o’clock sharp.”

“Thank you,” Ellen replied, closing the door behind them and then turning back toward me with a devilish look in her eyes. “Well then,” she said, moving toward me seductively and making very good use of her best British accent. “I’m feeling a bit randy and I intend to have you feeling quite smart in a moment.”

“Indeed,” I replied, matching her tone and mood. “Posthaste.”

Chapter Four

We were smartly dressed when we took our seats in the leather chairs with extra tall backs in the office of project manager Jackson Hayford’s office and began our discussion.

“I’m given to understand that you believe that the issues that are taking place in the Vauxhall to Stockwell line are related to our Battersea line project?”

“Yes,” Ellen replied. “We believe that the tunnel excavation disturbed someone or something that is likely 2,000 years old.”

Jackson Hayford was as hesitant about admitting to the presence of ghosts or other paranormal activity as was Harold Black; however, he was just as eager to provide some answers to a potential problem for TFL, which was paying a substantial sum to his firm for the project, as well as a potential issue for completing his work.

“You believe that these claims of ghosts in the Tube are true?” He wrinkled his nose as if he had just eaten something bitter.

“After what we experienced last evening, I have no doubt,” Ellen replied, matching his skepticism with an equal amount of confidence.

“What did you experience last evening?” His question was smug, as though he was listening to a child telling a tall tale.

Ellen related the events that had taken place on the Tube the night before. I watched his face for any sign of response, but the man was a complete stoic. I couldn’t blame him; when Ellen and I had first started out on our ghost hunting adventure, it would have taken a great deal to convince me that what was taking place was connected to the spiritual realm.

“I see,” he replied, leaning forward to place his elbows on his desk and create a tent with his fingers. “I’ve heard rumors of such stories being told among the workers in our tunnel. They’re all rubbish, of course. Ghosts simply do not exist; however, due to expediency, I would like to have this matter contained. To do that, we need to discover whatever alternate explanation there is for whatever is going on and dispel the rumors.”

“Would we be able to interview some of your workers?” Ellen asked. She was already developing an enormous distaste for the man, something that she didn’t often do. He had more or less called us liars and that sort of thing didn’t sit well with anyone. I was inclined to be a little bit more patient, understanding that making the jump between non-believer to believer wasn’t an easy one, but there was no mistaking the flashing daggers in Ellen’s eyes.

“I’d rather you didn’t.” His gaze was sharply focused on her in a showdown. “I don’t want any credibility given to their stories.”

My gaze moved from one to the other during the tense pause that ensued. I expected an explosion from Ellen at any minute and was quite impressed that she was keeping herself under wraps. I knew it was time to make our exit.

“Perhaps you could direct us to a library or to someone who could assist us in some historical research?” I asked. I hoped that the change of focus would cool things down a bit.

“I can do better than that,” he replied. “I have a chum who is well versed in English history. He works not far from here in the British Museum. Let me see if I can arrange a meeting for you.”

Ellen looked at me and mouthed a ‘thank you,’ as Mr. Hayford made the necessary phone call to set up the meeting. I knew by her look that she had been close to losing it, but was beginning to regain her composure. It was a good thing that we were a team, each of us often needed the other to step in and defuse potentially destructive situations.

“He can meet with you the moment you leave here.” His look and tone let me know that the moment couldn’t be soon enough for him.

“Mr. Hayford, I understand from Mr. Black,” Ellen began, using Mr. Black’s name to lend power to her statement, “that we are to be given full access to the tunnel that is under construction.” I had to admire her. She stepped right back in and went straight to the heart of the matter. I could tell by his reaction that, though the entire situation was a struggle, he respected her tenacity.

“It’s against my better judgment, but yes,” he replied. “If it will get this entire debacle over with quicker, I’ll take you in there myself. Would three o’clock this afternoon suit you?”

“That will suit us fine, thank you.” Ellen’s generous smile erased all of the tension that had filled the room earlier.

“Very well then. Have your driver deliver you to the construction site for the new Nine Elms Station.” He rose in his chair, signaling that the meeting was over.

We shook hands and made our way toward the door. I took note that the corner of his mouth cracked a very slight smile as he shook Ellen’s hand.

“Oh, yes, my chum’s name is Henry, Henry Wandsworth. He is expecting you.”

“Thank you,” I replied as he closed the door behind us.

Rochester was waiting patiently for us when we exited the building. He opened the door and ushered us into the back seat and then went around, taking his position in the driver’s seat. He looked up in his mirror, waiting for instructions.

“The British Museum.” I kind of enjoyed getting to boss the crusty old chap about.

It was only moments before we arrived at the museum. I must admit that I was quite taken by how much it resembled the Parthenon and a mood of deep reverence overtook me as we made our way toward the entrance. We stopped at the reception area and asked to see Henry Wandsworth.

“Oh, yes, you are the Yanks that Mr. Hayford sent over, right?” She smiled broadly as she made the statement, evidently intrigued by the opportunity to see some real, live Yanks, though I doubted we were the first to visit the museum.

“The very same Yanks.” I chuckled.

She picked up the receiver, punched a button and announced us to whoever was on the other end of the line. She then placed the receiver in the cradle, still beaming. “He’ll be right down.”

We were in the British Museum and I was giddy with excitement. Maybe chum Henry would take us on an exclusive, private tour. I mentioned it to Ellen and received a half-hearted grin. She was focused on the case; something that I needed to do.

“We’re here for information, Monty,” she said. “Not for a private tour.”

It was a gentle, but firm rebuke. “You handled Jackson quite well. For a moment, I thought you were going to dive across the desk and strangle him. Can you believe the nerve of the guy? He more or less called us liars.”

“Some people need more time to believe than do others.” She flashed her knowing smile at me. “But you made a good save yourself and it was a brilliant idea to arrange this meeting for us.”

“Some of that was Mr. Hayford’s doing. I merely asked for a library.” As badly as I wanted the credit, I didn’t deserve all of it.

Our discussion ended abruptly as the short and balding Mr. Henry Wandsworth stepped through the door behind the reception desk and came around to greet us. He was mostly unremarkable in appearance, but was dressed immaculately, sporting a gold watch on a chain that he was fond of fiddling with as he spoke.

“This is my wife Ellen, and I’m Monty. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wandsworth,” I responded while he nearly shook my hand off. He was a great deal more pleasant than his chum.

“Please, call me Henry,” he beamed. “Are you enjoying your visit to London so far?”

“We are,” Ellen replied.

“Very good,” he replied. He was genial, but like many Brits, tended to get straight to the point. “Mr. Hayford didn’t tell me a great deal about your purpose here. Would you mind filling me in?”

“We are here conducting an investigation of sorts,” I began. “We needed some historical perspective to our situation. Your chum, Mr. Hayford, referred us to you.”

“Very well; what sort of investigation are you conducting?”

“We are investigating the paranormal activity that is taking place in the Tube between Vauxhall and Stockwell stations.” Ellen didn’t usually pull any punches, but she threw a haymaker with that one.

Without batting an eye, Henry responded. “I see. What historical perspective do you require for your investigation?”

“Well, last night, we rode the train from Vauxhall to Stockwell and back. On our return trip, we witnessed a paranormal event,” Ellen began. “The spirit entered a man who was standing near us and he screamed something in Latin and then left.”

“Hmmm…” The man was as much of a stoic as his chum, only he seemed to be mulling over the story rather than dismissing it out of hand. “What words did he scream and how did you know they were in Latin?”

It was my turn. “He screamed nos omne convincat. We’ve dealt with Latin speaking spirits before.”

“‘We will conquer all,’” Ellen added.

“Yes, ‘we will conquer all’ is exactly right. Definitely Latin. How do you believe this is related?” The guy was a true Socratic. He didn’t jump to conclusions and begin to make explanations until he had the facts in place. He also didn’t seem to be fazed by a discussion of ghosts, paranormal activity and a discussion of spiritual activity beyond the physical realm.

“We think it is possible that our ghost is a legionnaire, perhaps 2000 years old,” Ellen answered.

“If he is, in fact, a legionnaire, then he would certainly be that old, perhaps a bit older. Why do you think he was a legionnaire?”

“I felt his presence. He was strong and confident, you know, like a soldier,” Ellen replied.

Henry clicked his tongue for a moment, nonplussed by Ellen’s response. “That would certainly describe a legionnaire. Let’s go visit that particular section of our museum and I’ll mull this over a bit. Shall we?”

We were led behind the door marked ‘private’ and walked briskly through the halls that no typical visitor was allowed to see in the British Museum. With my badge and special access, I was feeling pretty privileged and soaking up every minute of it. We emerged through another door that placed us in a section of the museum that displayed ancient Roman artifacts.

Henry was extremely enthusiastic about his subject and rambled on for nearly an hour as he discussed the Roman presence in England. Though most of the invasion of the conquering of the island took place between AD 43 and AD 80, Julius Caesar had led some expeditions to the island in BC 55 and 54. In fact, London, called Troia Nova (New Troy) at the time, barely existed as more than a small, trading village. Caesar was, of course, opposed by the Celtic people living in the area at the time, though after crossing the Thames – upriver from here, actually near where Heathrow stands now – he finally defeated the combined tribal forces under Cassivellaunus. The conquered ground was not held by Rome, but instead turned over to the Trinovantes who were allied with Caesar.

“There’s even a pretty good chance,” he looked directly at Ellen, “that there were elephants in England long before our modern day zoos brought them here. You see, Caesar was very fond of using war elephants and very effectively, I might add. But that’s enough about the history of Romans in England. I’m more concerned about what sort of connection the area where the Battersea line tunnel is being excavated.

“You see,” he turned his attention back to me, “most of that area, according to the information that we have recorded, was marshland and hardly a place to be doing battle or burying the dead. I must say that this has me perplexed. There was, of course, a shield, we call it the Battersea Shield, found in the Thames a century and a half ago when the river was being dredged. It likely dated back to that time period when Caesar was attempting to cross the Thames, but even it was a good distance away from where the excavating is taking place. I’m afraid I haven’t helped you shed much light on your mystery.”

“You have given us some excellent historical background and I believe it will help us a great deal,” Ellen responded.

Henry was soaking up the attention we were giving him, and his importance in helping us solve the mystery caused him to puff his chest out a bit.

Though I was certainly not bored, I could tell that Ellen was ready to move on. The historic overload was enough for her, though she was doing her best to remain polite. It was time for me to step in again.

“You have helped a great deal, sir,” I said, extending my hand to him. “We really must be on our way. Would you mind if we contacted you again, that is, if we find something else as we go along?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all; in fact, I’d be more than delighted to help in any way I can.” He was beaming and, though I didn’t think it possible, his chest was sticking out even a bit further. “Let me give you my calling card.” He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, drew out a card and handed it to me.

“Thank you very much,” Ellen said, grasping his hand firmly.

“No trouble at all. I love a good ghostly mystery. We’ve plenty of them here in London. Perhaps you’ll stick around and investigate a few of the others?”

“If we do, we’ll be sure to take you along for the ride,” I put in as we turned to walk toward the exit.

“I can take you back the way we came in, if you like,” he offered.

“Actually, we’d like to browse our way back through the exhibits, if that is okay with you.”

“Yes, of course, by all means. If you need anything else, do not hesitate to call.”

As we started to walk away, Henry took out the gold watch, looked at it briefly, snapped it shut, turned and made his way back to the door marked ‘private,’ leaving us alone.

“Friendly fellow, don’t you think?” I used my best British accent as I nudged Ellen.

“I honestly thought he’d never stop talking, but he certainly did a thorough job. We really don’t have time to go through the museum now; you know, right?”

“Yes, I was just afraid that if we went back with him, he’d never stop talking. I’m kind of hungry, since I didn’t have my chocolate pancakes this morning.”

Ellen only rolled her eyes at me.

“Would you fancy a bite and a pint, love?” I asked, extending my arm to escort her out.

“But of course,” she replied, grinning broadly as she took my arm.

Chapter Five

Jackson Hayford hadn’t been any more pleasant when we met him at the entrance to the Nine Elms Station than when we had been in his office earlier in the day.

He wasn’t necessarily a grumpy man, just a very serious and businesslike individual who had a great deal on his plate. I understood how pressure and stress could make a busy man come off the way Hayford did, so I cut him some slack and maintained my professional manner as we made our way through the tunnel.

The man actually became somewhat personable, no doubt eager, as most men often are, to show off the great accomplishments. Though he wasn’t necessarily an overly enthusiastic guide, like one might find as a tour guide on one of the double-decker busses, he did point out several of the unique features and special areas of the construction along the way.

As we moved forward through the tunnel, I could tell that Ellen was starting to get those feelings that she always got whenever things were about to get squirrely. “You okay, Babe?” I whispered, leaning in toward her.

“I’m starting to feel something. It’s a little chillier too, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” I replied. “I wish I had my equipment.” I had nothing that I was used to having. It may have been part of the reason that I was having so much trouble remaining focused on the case. I was, after all, the gizmo operator and technical expert of the team. I felt a little bit useless.

“This might actually be good for you,” she replied. “Make you use your own senses instead of the gadgets. Concentrate, Monty; you have the ability.”

“What’s going on?” Mr. Hayford sensed by the hushed tone between us and our actions that we were up to something.

“Mr. Hayford,” Ellen asked as sweetly as she was able, given their previous confrontation. “Are we somewhere near where this tunnel crosses under the Vauxhall to Stockwell line?”

“We are very close, yes. Why, what’s the problem?”

“I’m beginning to sense a paranormal presence here,” Ellen replied.

“Balderdash!” he snapped. “You’re just superstitious and making yourself nervous. I’m not going to be a part of your foolishness.”

Ellen suddenly drew up. “Wait.” She stuck out a hand as if holding everyone back.

“This is outrageous!”

“Mr. Hayford, would you kindly be silent so I can do my job?” Ellen could be pretty firm when she needed to be.

I nudged Hayford and nodded my head toward her. “She really does feel them; even communicates with them,” I whispered.

“I don’t believe any of it. I thought the two of you are supposed to be professionals.”

“We’re very professional. Normally, I have several pieces of equipment that we measure all sorts of energy fields, anomalies and seismic events. I have some pretty good photos of a few spirits too.”

“It’s all contrived. I don’t know how you two frauds have been able to pull the wool over other people’s eyes; how you’ve gained the confidence of Mr. Black, but you’ve managed to worm your way in and you’re trying to convince me as well. It’s not going to work, I tell you.” He took a few steps forward. Fear rather than anger was actually driving him. “Stop this at once. We will return to the Nine Elms Station…”

“Shhhh,” Ellen looked back at him. “Monty, there’s definitely a presence here. He’s a little bit shy. Come here and help me; let’s see if we can get him to come to us.”

I moved forward and made myself available. I honestly hated it when she had to use me to help channel the energy.

“Relax, Honey, focus.”

I had no sooner begun to relax myself than Hayford let out a bloodcurdling scream that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. When I looked at him, I noticed that he was floating a few inches off the ground. I nudged Ellen. “I think our spirit has arrived.”

“Yes. I’m going to try to talk to him.” She took a few steps toward him. He stood firm, openly defying her. “We mean you no harm. We only want to talk to you. Why are you here?”

The possessed project manager screamed again; or at least, the spirit possessing him did.

“Maybe he doesn’t understand English,” I suggested.

“I don’t think he does. He’s confused, but he’s strong and confident, just like the soldier yesterday, but it’s not the same one.”

“Ni morse gallout ankou!” he screamed, almost on cue. “Ni morse gallout ankou!”

“It’s some sort of warning,” Ellen said. “We need to start backing away.”

“What?” I had never seen Ellen back away from a ghost before.

“Trust me on this one, Monty. We’re not ready for this. Back away.”

I started backing away. Once we took several paces backward, the spirit hurled Hayford at us. I reached out and caught him before he tumbled into the ground. It toppled me over as well, but at least he wasn’t dashed against the rocky floor or the tracks that had been laid.

“What the hell just happened?” he asked in a weak voice, coming to himself.

“Well, Mr. Hayford, one of those spirits that you disbelieve in so firmly just possessed you and spoke to us.”

“I realize that,” he replied. “I could feel it. I heard those words of gibberish coming from my mouth and felt myself floating. What I mean is, how did that happen?”

“That’s exactly why my wife and I make the big bucks, sir,” I replied, patting him on his back as I helped to steady him on his feet.

“Yes. Yes. I suppose so.” He fumbled to grasp something that only minutes before was completely impossible. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I knew exactly how he felt. “I’ve had quite enough. Can we go now?”

“Yes,” Ellen replied. “We can go now. We need to do a little bit more research before we can tackle this one, I’m afraid.”

“Very well, back to Nine Elms then.” Finding his strength or being moved by terror-filled adrenaline, Jackson Hayford set a pretty daunting pace toward the relative safety of the Nine Elms Station.

With Hayford somewhat more stable and back in his car, heading away from Nine Elms, I turned to Ellen. “You’re going to have to explain some things to me. I have never seen you run away from a ghost.”

“There are some powerful forces, cultural and language barriers, involved in this one.”

“There were some pretty powerful forces and language barriers in Belgium too, but you didn’t back down from them. Why now?”

“You didn’t feel it?”

“Yeah. I felt something pretty powerful, but nothing more than those Nazis. What gives?”

“We’re just not ready for this one. We need to know more.”

“You want to visit Henry again?”

“I think we better. I don’t think that was Latin.”

“I don’t know what it was, but it did sound a little bit different. Why was he so overpowering?”

“I don’t know that either. He was like the legionnaire we met last night, but there was something else. It was even beyond what we ran into in Belgium. It was almost…” Ellen’s forehead wrinkled with confusion as she tried to come up with the right words. “Almost alien.”

“Alien?”

“I mean, yes and no. I don’t know.” She was extremely uncomfortable. We’d wandered into something that went even beyond her. It was starting to make me uncomfortable too. I was the strong man, tough guy, protector of my woman; however, when it came to the paranormal, supernatural, spiritual world, she was the strong one. If she was unsure of herself, then I was too.

As we were speaking, Rochester turned up with the car. Ellen had called him as soon as we were back in the Nine Elms Station.

Once we were situated in the car, I looked up at Rochester. There was a concerned look on his face while he watched Ellen. “She’s okay, just deep in thought. Can you take us to the British Museum once more?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

“You suppose we ought to give Henry a ring first?” I asked Ellen.

“Huh?” She looked at me with an absent stare that had me very concerned.

“Do you think we should call Henry?”

“Yes, of course. You have his number.” She handed her cell phone over to me.

Having not yet achieved the wealthy status due international ghost hunters, we had only put the international calling package on her cell phone in order to save some expenses. Luckily it was a worldwide package and it worked as well in England as it did in Belgium.

“Henry Wandsworth. How may I help?”

I hadn’t realized that my call was a direct line to Henry, not even a receptionist, but straight through. I was feeling even more privileged. “Henry, it’s Monty; you know, the Yank ghost-hunter.”

“Yes, of course, Monty. You’re in need of my help already? I thought you’d had enough of my droning on about history earlier today.” There was a light-hearted tone to his voice. It actually helped to calm my nerves. They needed some calming. Ellen simply wasn’t herself and it had me worried.

“We’re motoring back to the museum as we speak. Something has come up.”

“Nothing too serious, I hope.” His tone changed. “How soon will you be here?”

“We just crossed over the Thames,” I replied.

“And you were at Vauxhall?”

“Actually, at the new Nine Elms Station, but that’s fairly near Vauxhall.”

“So you just crossed over the Vauxhall Bridge. You’ll be here any moment then. I’ll meet you at the front.”

“Thank you, Henry. We really appreciate your help.”

“Don’t mention it. I’ll see you in a jiffy.”

I glanced at Ellen again as I disconnected the call. She was lost in deep thought. Was she rattled or was she just focusing intensely? I wasn’t sure, but either way, I hoped that Henry Wandsworth would provide the answers necessary to get her back on track.

Chapter Six

The moment Henry saw Ellen, he ushered us quickly into the back offices and into a small lounge area. He called to one of his assistants to set up tea and biscuits for us and did his best to make us comfortable. Once we were settled in for a few minutes, he sat sipping his tea and waiting patiently, looking from one of us to the other to begin.

“We ran across something a bit frightening, I’m afraid,” I plunged ahead. I didn’t even realize that I was beginning to sound like an actual Brit.

“What sort of thing? How can I help?” he asked. His face had paled considerably.

“We had a run-in with another ghost. It was a little beyond what we’re used to.”

“The legionnaire? They were indeed powerful. I can’t even imagine how powerful they might be as spirits.”

“Not the legionnaire,” Ellen jumped in. Evidently, whatever had such a tight grip on her thoughts had finally let go and she became herself again.

“Not the legionnaire? Then what or who? Did this one speak?”

“Yes, but not in Latin,” I chimed in. I wasn’t necessarily an instant expert on Latin, but I wanted to jump into the conversation.

“What did he say?”

“Ni morse gallout ankou,” I replied.

“Ni morse gallout ankou,” he repeated.

“Yes. That’s what you heard too, right, Babe?” I looked toward Ellen and Henry’s gaze went there as well.

She nodded.

“Off the top of my head, that sounds like the language of the ancient Britons. Roughly speaking, I would say that it means ‘we can never die.’ I’d have to look it up to be sure, but that would be my educated guess at this moment.”

“That would certainly match the defiance that I felt coming from him.” Ellen said. “But there was more.”

“He said more?”

“No. There was something different about his presence. It’s hard to explain, but there seemed to be an alien element to it.”

“Alien?” Though I didn’t believe it was possible, Henry paled even more as he whispered the question.

His reaction was a little bit disconcerting. “What?” I asked.

“Let me see if I can explain,” he began. “You are familiar with Stonehenge, right?”

“Of course,” Ellen and I answered in unison.

“Well, there are theories suggesting the Celts didn’t actually build it, but that visiting aliens who later began an order of Druid priests were responsible. Sort of like the crop circles and the mounds, you see.”

“You can’t be serious.” I had slowly come around about paranormal activity, spirits, ghosts and all of the things connected to them, but adding aliens into the mix was just a little bit more than I was prepared to handle.

“I’m only repeating theories that others have proposed. I’m not exactly a proponent of the idea myself.”

“I am,” Ellen said quietly. “I didn’t use to be, but this afternoon proved different.”

“What do you mean?” I wondered if she’d been body snatched by an alien and that was why she had been acting so weird in the car.

“I’ve spent the last hour or however long it’s been since we were in the tunnel, going back through what I felt over and over. It wasn’t like all of the others. That is what frightened me so badly. It was beyond what I’ve ever seen before. It was more than a language barrier, but a cultural, formative barrier. Those words aren’t even accurate enough to express it. It was beyond our known existence. Not the spirit himself, but there was another presence. It’s mind blowing.”

I could tell that Ellen was seriously stirred up by what she’d experienced. To be honest, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. If there was something there beyond her experience and explanation and as powerful as she said it was, we might have finally run into something that was well over our heads.

“Did he present himself as a phantasm or a vision?” Henry asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“No. He possessed your chum Jackson and spoke through him,” I replied.

“But Jackson doesn’t believe in spirits. We’ve had plenty of discussions about it.”

“He does now.” I grinned.

“So this ghost forced his way into Jackson?”

“Yes,” Ellen replied.

I suddenly remembered Ellen telling me that she couldn’t get him to connect with us because he was timid. “Babe, didn’t you say that he was timid?”

“At first I thought he was. That’s been bothering me as well. I think, he was actually searching each one of us for something. The right one to possess.”

“Why Mr. Hayford?” I asked. “He was the least open of us all.”

“Because he was the right one of us,” Ellen said.

“Why him? Why in that place? Why now?” My tone was tense. There were more questions than answers. We were getting nowhere. Ellen reached over and took hold of my arm. We sipped our tea and nibbled on the biscuits, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

“Let’s recap what we know and lay out our questions and see if we can come up with some answers,” Henry interrupted the silence. I suddenly thought of Sherlock and Doctor Watson as he spoke.

“On the one hand, we’ve got a Roman legionnaire and on the other, a Celt with possible alien connections.” He ticked off the first point on his index finger. “We have something of a time period spanning from between BC 55 and, let’s say, AD 45, so that gives us a hundred year span. I actually have a theory as to why he chose Jackson, but we’ll come back to that point in a minute. The one that is bothering me is the location. All of the literature I have ever seen concerning the area in question suggest that it was a marsh and often covered by a thick fog. It makes no sense that things are taking place in that particular area. What answers do we have? Not many at this point. I’m afraid we’re no better off than we were before.”

“I think you’re right,” I agreed.

“Why Jackson?” Ellen asked. She had an uncanny way of bringing things back into focus.

“It sounds ridiculous to me to even suggest it, but perhaps he was searching your bloodlines or genetics, so to speak. Of the three of you, Jackson likely has a closer genetic match in his Celtic ancestry. In fact, before the Norman invasion, Hayford was spelled Hegfird in the original Celtic tongue.”

“It’s as good an explanation as we have at this point. As far as I’m concerned, this has gone well past strange and into another dimension altogether. Do you suppose that the legionnaire did the same thing?” I directed my question toward Ellen. “You said that he was searching for someone or something when you first felt his presence.”

“That is entirely possible. Perhaps the man through whom he spoke has Roman bloodlines. I agree with Monty, it’s the best explanation we have at this point. So, how do we proceed? Neither Monty or I understand what they are saying. I don’t even know if we can channel through them in such a way that we can forego the language barrier like we did in Belgium.”

“Perhaps this is where I can be of some help,” Henry suggested. “Maybe if I go with you as a translator, so to speak…?”

“It might be worth a shot, Babe.”

“I’m a little hesitant about it. I’m afraid someone might get seriously injured or die with this one.”

“What alternative do we have?” Henry asked. “We certainly cannot find a solution if we can’t communicate with them. I speak and understand decent Latin and a smattering of Celtic; enough to get by, I think.”

I could see the wheels in her head turning. It worried me that she was actually afraid. It made me wonder if we hadn’t gotten in way over our heads. And just when we’re about to become wealthy international ghost hunters. At least my sense of humor hadn’t been destroyed completely.

“I guess we can give it a shot,” she finally agreed.

“Splendid,” Henry replied. He was a little bit too eager to get mixed up in something that might cost him his life. But I remembered that the British had endured bombings by the German Luftwaffe for nearly four months and actually turned the tide back against the Germans and eventually staged the launching of the Normandy invasion. Brits didn’t scare easily.

“Where should we pick you up and at what time?” I asked.

“You can just come by here. Let’s say nine-ish?”

“Thank you for all of your help,” Ellen said, extending her hand as we all rose to our feet.

“It is a pleasure,” he said. “It can get a little stuffy in here and rather boring to boot.”

“Thank you for the tea and biscuits as well,” I said as I shook his hand.

“Very well, then,” he said, after escorting us to the door behind the receptionist desk. “Nine o’clock sharp. I’ll be ready.”

Ellen and I had had a pretty full day, so we directed Rochester to deliver us back to the hotel.

“I’m afraid that I have some bad news for you,” Rochester announced as we were getting out of the car. “It seems that your luggage has not yet arrived as had been promised. Mr. Black is looking into it. In the meantime, I took the liberty to have your clothing from yesterday taken out to be laundered. If you will exchange what you wore today with the service when they come in the morning, we will do the same tomorrow and each day until the problem is remedied.”

It was the most that I had heard him speak. It was actually a thrill to hear his command of the language in what could only be described as a noble timbre.

“Thank you,” Ellen replied. “That was very kind of you.”

“I hope that I wasn’t out of line by taking matters into my own hands.” It sounded a great deal like an apology, something that I had never expected to hear coming from the man. Maybe I had read him all wrong. Perhaps there was a Winnie the Pooh behind the Eeyore. Good ol’ Rochester. Who the hell was Rochester?

“No. It was quite alright. Thank you,” I replied.

“When might you require my services in the morning, sir?”

He actually addressed me. I had read him all wrong. “We’re to pick up Mr. Wandsworth at the British Museum at nine o’clock. So, before that. How long does it take to get from here to there?”

“Actually, the British Museum is on my way here,” he replied. “I can pick him up first and allow you a little bit more time to sleep in. Every minute counts, you know.” There might have been a small upturn to the corner of his mouth as he attempted something of a joke.

“Yes, of course, that would be very kind,” Ellen answered. “Once again, thank you for your kindness.”

“It is my pleasure. Madam. Sir. Until the morrow.” He turned on his heel and strode purposefully around the car and slid back into the driver’s seat. Ellen and I stood and watched him drive away.

“Extraordinary man, that Rochester,” I said.

“Indeed,” she replied.

“Well then, love, how about a hot shower and room service.”

“Splendid idea.”

We’d survived another day and our humor was still intact.

Chapter Seven

With our luggage touring the world without us, God only knew where, I was, once again, without any of my equipment. We hadn’t seen any indication that we were going to get any pictures, so there wasn’t much point in shelling out the cash to purchase another camera, although, I was tempted to get a disposable one to at least get some photos of our visit to London.

Luckily, we were traditional travelers who believed in dressing up and being presentable in order to fly, so we were dressed once more in our business attire, sending the clothing that had been made for us with Arthur and Winnie in order to be laundered. The tailored clothes were of a bit finer quality and fit a little bit better, but we were both a little more comfortable in our own attire.

I’d enjoyed Eggs Benedict each morning in the hotel restaurant and was beginning to wonder if I had found something to replace my old standby where breakfast foods were concerned. Chocolate pancakes weren’t on the menu and one didn’t just run out to Denny’s in London, although I did do a search just to see if one even existed in the city. I was surprised that there were three, one of which wasn’t far from the British Museum. How I had missed it was beyond me. It was well known that I had what could only be called a Denny’s homing beacon hidden somewhere within my brain.

Rochester arrived at twenty after nine with Henry sitting as tall and straight as he was able in the back seat; a derby hat with a pheasant feather perched atop his balding head. Once more, he was dressed in a custom-tailored suit that probably cost three times what I usually spent on a suit and was sporting the gold pocket watch. I supposed that he had either a cane or an umbrella with a crook in it and I found out later as we were delivered to the Nine Elms Station that he was indeed carrying a cane.

A phone call to his old chum, Jackson, was sufficient to get Henry past the security stationed at the entrance to the construction site and we were on our way. All that Ellen and I had to do was flash our TFL badges.

Ellen had formed a plan of attack during the night, although I wasn’t aware that she had gone without sleep, because I was out like a light after our hot shower, even hotter, stress-relieving action in bed and a surprisingly delicious room service meal. As we walked down the tunnel, she explained what we were going to do to Henry.

“You are the expert,” he replied. I could tell that he was nervous, but he was a true Brit: ‘stiff upper and all, you know.’

The plan was for Ellen to help Henry and me connect with the spirit or spirits and using him as a translator, try to find out why they were there and what it would take to get them to move on. Ellen and I had done it a number of times before, but adding Henry would be a new wrinkle that, truth be told, was mostly experimental. She left that part out when she was explaining things to Henry, although, I think he would have been game to try it anyway.

As we neared the place in the tunnel where we had met our Celtic ghost the day before, I felt the butterflies begin to dance and then I suddenly felt icy cold. I didn’t need my thermometer to measure the change. The paranormal activity was so thick that I felt rushes of wind whipping past me in every direction and Ellen was desperately overwhelmed for a few moments.

“It all seems to be in chaos today,” she called out. “There seem to be a dozen spirits, maybe more. I don’t know if we should try this.”

Since when had Ellen been the one to say that? As much as I wanted to run, I knew we had to have some answers and I hated to leave a job undone, especially since our wealthy international ghost hunting careers depended upon it. Even that wasn’t quite enough for me; however, the way Henry stood firm with his hat pressed down so that it wouldn’t be blown off of his head and his cane rigid beside his leg bucked up my own courage.

“We have to try, Ellen,” I called out.

“Are you sure you want to try it, Henry? This could be a disaster.”

“What choice do we have, madam? We need answers and this is the only way that we will get them.”

“Very well then,” she called out, closing her eyes and taking several deep breaths. “Here we go.”

We formed a small triangle, holding hands, and Ellen talked Henry and me through the process of opening ourselves up to allow access to the spirits. The instructions were a little bit more detailed for Henry’s benefit, but I was surprised to discover that he actually arrived a bit before I did. Our arrival, I must say, felt a good deal like being dumped into the middle of a racetrack with a dozen thoroughbreds bearing down upon us, half from each direction.

“It’s chaos,” Ellen called out. “We have to find one of them to focus on.”

“There are all sorts of different cries and words being shouted.”

“Yes,” Henry replied. “Both Celtic and Latin.”

“Can you understand them, Henry?” Ellen asked.

I barely ducked out of the way of a Celt and Roman who were charging at each other with swinging swords and shields. “We’re in the middle of a battle. I don’t think we’re going to be able to get anyone’s attention.”

“Let’s hold fast a minute,” Henry replied. His voice was calm and in control. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt whenever I’d been transported into the spirit realm.

“Monty, do you see the powerful Celt? He’s stepped aside and is not in the midst of the battle,” Ellen said.

“I see him. Do you see him, Henry?”

“I do indeed. Perhaps we can talk to him.”

As I approached, the large Celt screamed something at me and I froze in my tracks. “What did he say, Henry?”

“He thinks that you’re part of Caesar’s army. Stay back a moment. I’ll see if I can convince him otherwise.”

“Be careful, Henry,” Ellen put in. Henry had already approached and was rattling off something in the Celtic tongue. The Celt visibly relaxed. He responded to Henry in a deep voice that seemed to have a metallic timbre to it. I waited for Henry’s translation.

“He says that you may approach. He wants to know who we are and why we are standing on the battlefield.”

I took several paces forward. “Tell him that we need to talk to him. We want to understand. We mean no harm. Anything else, Ellen?”

“That’s good enough for the moment. I don’t know how much longer I can do this with all of the chaos from the battle,” she said. “Maybe we can try to talk to him when things have calmed down a bit?”

“You don’t think we can just ask a ghost to shut up and let us talk for a few minutes do you, Ellen?” I replied sarcastically.

Henry started rattling away in the Celtic tongue. Ellen and I waited for an answer. I could feel her weakening. “Stay with us a little longer, Babe.”

The Celt responded in his deep, metallic voice again.

“They are a part of a detachment from the army of Cassivellaunus. They were sent to raid the ships that were taking supplies up the river to Caesar’s army. They ran into the fog of the marshes to hide and some of the legionnaires followed them in. Mostly, they search for their enemies in the fog, but sometimes the fog clears and they are able to fight.”

“I can’t hold on much longer,” Ellen called out. “Find out if we can meet him again later.”

I wasn’t sure how one set an appointment with a ghost. It seemed a little out there to me, but Henry dutifully made the request.

Again the Celt responded. After a moment, Henry passed it along.

“He never knows when he will wander this way again. Once the fog sets in again, he might lose his way.”

“I’ve got to bring you guys back,” Ellen said. I could feel that she was weakening even more. “Take Henry’s hand and I’ll pull you out.”

Henry moved toward me and we gripped each other’s hands. I felt Ellen tug sharply and we were instantly back in the tunnel. It was still chilly and there were still several breezes whipping around from different directions, but we were no longer in the midst of the battle. Putting my arm around Ellen, I helped her back up the tunnel until we were away from it all.

“That was rather enlightening,” Henry said. “In a number of different ways.”

“We certainly have a few more answers,” I replied. I looked at Ellen. It had all nearly done her in. “Are you okay, Babe?”

“I’ll be alright,” she replied. “But I must say that I have never experienced anything quite like that before and we’re still missing a few answers.”

“Let’s get out of here and somewhere where we can relax, so we can discuss things.”

“I know just the place, if you fancy a pint or two at this time of the morning; a quiet place to sit and talk. It isn’t far from here at all.”

“Sounds good, let’s go.” I said, keeping my arm around Ellen’s waist as we walked back to the Nine Elms Station.

We called Rochester and were surprised to discover that he had not left. Evidently he knew that one didn’t stay long in the company of ghosts. Once we were seated in the Rolls, Rochester looked up into the mirror as usual, awaiting his directions.

“Do you know the Cavendish Arms, old boy?” Henry asked.

“But of course, Mr. Wandsworth,” Rochester replied.

As we left the Nine Elms Station, my mind was wandering and I was looking out the window as we started on our way to the Cavendish Arms. Though we had been in and around the area several times already, it was the first time that I noticed we were driving down a street called Wandsworth Road. I began to wonder if our Mr. Wandsworth was a member of an influential family. I might have asked, but I turned to look at Ellen and decided to leave well enough alone for the time being.

The Cavendish Arms was pretty much what I expected an English pub to look like. It was quiet at that time of the morning.

“’Allo, ’enry,” the bartender called out when we came in. I immediately thought of Audrey Hepburn. Just you wait ’enry ’iggins, just you wait… I hadn’t gotten completely serious, though I was certainly beginning to feel that things were rather grave. Maybe I had that old British spirit, a sense of humor in the face of danger.

“Top o’ the mornin’ to you, old boy,” Henry responded.

“You’re a bit early to be tippin’ pints aren’t you?” he chuckled as he came around the bar with a towel over his shoulder and extended his hand to Henry.

“Mostly we’re just looking for a quiet place to sit and chat,” he replied.

“This is the place, then.”

“Let me introduce a couple of Yanks who are in town for a few days. This is Monty and Ellen Drew.”

“It’s a pleasure. Hope you’re enjoyin’ London in spite of the company you’re keepin’,” he laughed as he extended his hand to Ellen and me, bowing slightly as he touched her hand. “There’s anything either of you need, just let me know.”

“A couple of glasses of water will do fine for the moment, if you wouldn’t mind,” Henry said. “And that corner booth.”

“I’ll bring the water right out. ’elp yourselves to the booth.”

We settled into the booth, thankful for a quiet, peaceful place to sit and unwind. We’d extended an offer to Rochester to join us, but he had declined. It made me wonder what he did with his time whenever he was waiting for us to call on him. While my mind wandered, the bartender came with our water.

“So, ’ow do you find our fair London town, then?” the bartender asked as he set our water glasses on the table and poured ice water from a pitcher.

“It’s quite lovely,” Ellen said. She seemed to be recovering from the huge energy drain.

“We’ve been a bit too busy to get around to all of the sites,” I added. “But what we’ve seen so far, has been quite impressive.”

“Business rather than pleasure, then?”

“I’m afraid so, but perhaps we’ll get an opportunity to get out and about before we have to start back.”

“What part of the States are you from?”

I realized that it wasn’t that often that he had the opportunity to meet and talk to people from the States. Though we were all a bit antsy to start our discussion, I decided to humor him at least for a few minutes. “We’re from the LA area.” I avoided going into detail, since there are hundreds of small communities and municipalities around the enormous West Coast metroplex that goes by the name of Los Angeles.

“A bit of a chill for you then, I suppose?”

“Actually, it hasn’t been too bad.”

“Well, I’ll leave you alone then. You did ask for a quiet place to talk. With me carrying on, you won’t get that. Just shout out if you need anything else.”

“Thank you,” each of us repeated as he went back to his bar.

Chapter Eight

We sat in silence for a few moments, none of us certain how to open up the discussion. I was looking toward Ellen to lead off, but she seemed to be deep in thought once more. After a few moments, I realized that I would have to open things up.

“So, Henry, tell us a little bit about the battle.”

“It was most certainly Romans and Celts. Judging by what I could take in by the swords and shields they were carrying and the fact that our Celt said they were a part of Cassivellaunus’ army, this definitely places them during the time of Caesar’s crossing of the Thames. It was initially thought that Caesar crossed the Thames at Brentford, which lies between here and Heathrow, but archives continued to point to a ford further up river near Hampton. What had initially confused a number of archeologists and historians was the preponderance of both Celtic and Roman weaponry dating around BC 54. Some accounts, however, spoke of a place where Caesar’s army loaded boats to carry armaments and supplies up the river to Caesar and his army.

“In a lot of ways, our Celt friend has helped solidify that. He did say that they were a part of a detachment that was sent to raid the supply lines of the Romans. The Romans would have pursued them into the marsh and gotten lost in the fog. Wandering an eternity in the fog, searching for and battling with their enemies. That also explains why the occurrences seem to be quite random where the line between Vauxhall and Stockwell are concerned.”

“But why this particular place?” Ellen jumped in. “Why here, why now and what is keeping them from moving on toward the light?”

“That’s the part of the mystery that we don’t yet know,” Henry murmured. “What I’m sure of though, is that whatever is holding them there has turned the entire tunnel into a kind of time-warped ghost crypt.” He was the next to drift off into deep thought.

“We’ve got Celts fighting Romans in the fog,” I began. For some reason, I needed to summarize everything aloud once more. “They are somehow trapped in the fog, which is why they haven’t moved on toward the light. Is it because the fog blocks out the light?”

“But when the fog lifts,” Ellen said, “which it evidently does every so often, they battle rather than moving toward the light. So let’s back up a second. The legionnaire’s words were ‘we will conquer all’ and the Celt’s words were ‘we can never die.’ So, the fog keeps them from moving on toward the light, but when it lifts, they are so focused on the battle that they can’t or won’t go to the light? That just doesn’t make sense with any of my previous experiences. And there’s that alien presence.”

“What if it’s not an earthly fog?” Henry whispered. We nearly didn’t hear him at all.

“Not an earthly fog?” I asked. “What do you mean? What other kind of fog is there?”

“Are you saying that the fog might be the alien presence?”

“Why not? It would certainly be powerful enough to keep them from going to the light or at least an explanation for why they don’t go when they have what would seem to be a perfect opportunity to? Maybe that’s what is holding them in.”

“You might be onto something, Henry,” Ellen replied.

“Okay,” I said, still having my doubts about the alien angle to it all. “While you two chase aliens, there is still one question we haven’t answered. Why here and why now? What is significant about the location and time? Did the excavation disturb something? We’ve only got half of the picture here and excuse me, but I don’t think that the other half is an alien fog or alien presence of any sort. We’ve got to go back. We’ve got to find out what has been disturbed and why.”

“We do have to go back,” Henry agreed. “We need more answers.”

“Agreed,” Ellen said. “But I just realized that there is a problem.”

Henry and I stared at her and waited.

“We have no idea when our Celt will wander back into the same place once the fog sets in again. Is it hours, days, weeks, months? Remember, our sense of time might not be the same as theirs and we may sit and wait a long time before he wanders into the place again. Riding the train would be essentially useless and I don’t know how pleased the contractors would be with us camping out in the tunnel.”

“She’s right,” I admitted, looking at Henry. “And without you being able to translate, we’re pretty much useless.”

“I suppose that I could take some time off.”

“But can you afford to do that?” Ellen asked. “What if it takes weeks or months?”

Something was bothering me about the whole thing. We had been investigating only three days and we had contact with a ghost on every occasion. Maybe it wasn’t as random as we thought. “Maybe something drew them to us?”

“What do you mean?” Ellen asked.

“The events have been random, right? No chance of making any sort of prediction as to when they would take place. I went through those reports and sorted them. There really was no pattern; yet, each time we have tried to contact them, they’ve been right there, almost like they expected us to be there, right?”

“He does have a point,” Henry agreed. “The chances of you making contact all three times does not seem to fit a random occurrence. The fact that you’ve been in a position to contact them at various times of the day, also adds a set of variables to the randomness that simply doesn’t add up.”

“So any time we go to them, we can contact them?” Ellen asked.

“It has happened every time so far. And twice, I might add, we met the same Celtic spirit.” I said.

“What about the legionnaire?” Ellen asked. “Did he reach out as well?”

“Maybe that was the only random contact.” I suggested. “I remember you telling me that he was searching for someone or something. He was wandering through the fog.”

“You might be onto something,” Henry put in. “When a military detachment becomes separated, they often use a code word or series of words to distinguish between friend or foe when they cannot see them, like in a jungle. It ought to be the same in the fog. ‘We will conquer all’ and ‘we can never die’ are probably codes. They certainly fit the attitudes of our combatants. Of course, if one speaks Latin and the other Celtic, it would seem obvious enough who was friend and who was foe.”

“That makes sense,” Ellen agreed.

“There is something else that doesn’t quite add up to me, though,” I said. “I hadn’t really paid attention to it before, but it suddenly struck me that our Celtic spirit was not taking part in the battle. Why?”

“Why, indeed?” Henry breathed.

It was silent as each of them ran back through the events. I tried to remember the words that Henry had translated. Were there any clues in them? I grabbed onto something that I thought might be a thread.

“Henry, when you translated, you said ‘they are a part of a detachment of Cassi…” whatever. Were you translating his literal wording or reporting your translation?”

“I believe that I was translating literally. In fact, now that you’ve brought it up, I don’t remember him using the first person plural form at all.”

“So, maybe he’s set apart from them? Not one of them?” I was grasping at straws, but we needed an explanation of some kind.

I noticed that Ellen had closed her eyes and was concentrating very hard. I couldn’t be certain, but I assumed that she was probably running through the differences between the two spirits. I held up my hand to stop Henry from speaking and gave her some time. If I knew my wife, she would be able to clear things up for us.

“I don’t think the Celt was a soldier. I didn’t get that sense from him. He was powerful, perhaps more powerful and there was that alien presence around him, both times. It was stronger the first time than it was during the battle, but I can’t be sure. With all of the chaos, I was struggling to focus on him alone. But, when we met him the first time, he was in the fog, which, if it is the alien force, would make it more powerful the first time than the second.”

“But how do we know there was a fog the first time? Neither of us were actually within the spiritual realm. He came to us. Right?”

“If I’m right about the code words,” Henry suggested, “that would certainly be an indicator.”

“I’m really not sure,” Ellen said.

“I think we’ve encountered the next little twist in our mystery,” Henry suggested.

“I’ve got another question.” I felt like I was adding to the problem rather than helping to solve it, but it just seemed like it all had to be laid on the table before it could be examined. “Why, ‘we can never die?’ Why that particular phrase as a code? Is there some significance behind that?”

“There is indeed.” Henry beamed. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. There are two words for death ‘ankou’ and ‘marv.’ The latter is a regular, human death, where the other is considered to be a spiritual death.”

“So, we have a spiritual spirit?” Just saying it made me cock one eyebrow.

“A priest?” Ellen asked.

“A priest wouldn’t engage in the battle,” I replied.

Henry had remained quiet for several seconds while Ellen and I looked at each other, waiting for whatever deep thoughts were spinning about in his head. To be quite honest, there were so many different things whirling in my head that I felt like I was wandering in a fog. I was beginning to get a headache.

“Let me propose a theory,” he said, looking up. We were lucky to have a man who was so knowledgeable of history. Without him, equipment or no equipment, Ellen and I would still be searching in the darkness for clues. We were more than ready to entertain any theory that Henry came up with.

“We have Romans and Celts fighting in the foggy marsh. They are trapped there and can never move on toward the light. In this realm, we are totally unaware of what is taking place for 2,000 years, until someone begins excavating and disturbs something; at which time, they are released into this realm.”

Ellen and I nodded agreement.

“Our Celt is somehow drawn to us. Actually, I should say, one of you two. He is also trapped by the fog, but does not engage in the battles, because he is a Druid priest. The fog keeps them wandering, but there is another fog – blindness or darkness, whatever you will – that is blocking them from being able to move toward the light; thus, though he is not a part of the struggle, our Celt is nevertheless trapped along with the others. The excavation has opened some sort of portal that allows them to interact in this world.

“Here comes the tough part. What if whatever is blocking them from being able to move toward the light is, how shall I say it… extraterrestrial in nature? Thus, Ellen’s ‘alien’ feeling.”

“I think we’ve all gone off our rockers,” I said. It was just too much. “We might as well head straight toward Saturn, take a right to Mars and make a left at Jupiter to get to Palm Springs.” Suddenly everything became much clearer. “Jack Benny!”

“What?” both Ellen and Henry said in unison. They looked at me like I was already on the Palm Springs trip.

“Rochester! He’s Jack Benny’s butler!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Ellen asked.

“I’ve been racking my brain for the last four days trying to come up with where Rochester and that voice I was doing came from.”

Ellen’s disapproving look was back and Henry was completely lost.

“You see, every time I hear the name ‘Rochester’ I hear Jack Benny’s voice…”

“Monty, stop!”

“Well,” I murmured, fully chastised. “It makes about as much sense as aliens keeping the spirits trapped by blocking the light.”

“Yes, I suppose it does,” Henry mused. “But it’s the only theory I’ve got.”

“I think it’s a pretty good one,” Ellen suggested. “So, we have to test our theory. How do we go about doing that?”

I had pretty much checked out of the conversation. I heard them and what they were saying registered, but I simply couldn’t get my head around aliens mixed with ghosts. I’d do what I needed to do in order to help out, but I was really hoping that they found a solution to our traveling luggage issue and I would soon be back to being the gadget man.

“I believe we need to answer three questions before we can proceed further. Which of you is drawing contact, if at all? Are you able to make contact in spite of the fog? Is the fog earthly or extraterrestrial? That of course should lead us to the origin of the fog?”

“Sounds good to me,” Ellen replied.

“So, when do we go back?” I asked. I was pretty sure that Ellen was spent for the day, where connecting with spirits was concerned.

“I don’t think I could make another connection today.”

“Would you be interested in paying a visit to a man that I often consult with concerning the ancient Brits? He’s a member of the New Order of Druids. He lives quite close to here. In fact, we could meet him at Battersea Park, if you like.”

Ellen and I looked at each other and shrugged.

“Sure,” she replied. “Doesn’t hurt to have a few more answers and another head to think through our theory.”

“Can we get some lunch first?” I asked.

“I know an excellent place,” he said. “My treat.”

Those were two of my favorite words.

Chapter Nine

I didn’t like Ewen Egham the moment I laid eyes on him.

In fact, just the sight of him made the delicious, spatchcocked poussin that I’d eaten for lunch begin to rumble in my stomach. Lunch had been one of our best culinary experiences since we had arrived in London and we were both delighted with Henry’s choice, but Ewen Egham just didn’t set well with me.

Ewen was tall and thin with a thick, gray beard that reached midway down his chest. It was untrimmed and seemed to have at least a week’s supply of different meals tangled in it. His hair was nearly as bad, though he had it in a ponytail. Those things might have been tolerated, if he hadn’t seemed to have a distant, demonic leer fixed in his steel gray eyes.

I had seen some pretty horrific things since Ellen and I had started investigating paranormal activity, but Ewen was, by far, worse than anything I had experienced in that realm. I might seem a little bit shallow, but the man was straight up creepy.

When he extended his hand to me during the greeting, it felt like someone had draped a dead snake across my palm and I immediately wanted to find a place to wash up. His voice and the way he looked at me was beginning to make me think that Henry’s “alien theory” might not be as far off-base as I thought. If the Druids were all like him, then as far as I was concerned, it was time for them to phone home.

Luckily, Ellen and I followed along behind Henry and Ewen as we strolled toward the fountains and we weren’t forced to interact too much with him. Henry had taken the lead to explain all that had taken place and, of course, his theory and means of proving it. By the time we had made one round around the fountains, the story had been told and, to be truthful, I was ready to go ahead and call it a day.

I don’t think Ellen was quite as creeped out as I was, but she did seem to be a bit uncomfortable when we sat upon a bench in the shade and began to discuss things further.

“You are a medium, then?” Ewen asked her.

“Psychic, medium, whatever you like to call it. I contact and communicate with paranormals.”

“So you have what the old ones call, ‘the gift?’” His brows raised slightly as he finished the question.

“Yes,” she replied simply.

“And you, Monty, are you a medium as well?”

I had hoped to be left out of the conversation completely, but it seemed that providence was not going to allow me to escape just yet. “Mostly I handle the equipment: cameras, testing gear, that sort of thing.”

“He often connects with the spirits and allows me to channel through him as well,” Ellen added. “In truth, though he isn’t quite as confident about it, he actually has ‘the gift’ as well.”

I appreciated the fact that she didn’t say that I was her assistant and errand boy, but at the same time, I didn’t want much attention focused on me at the moment. What I heard next was actually worse.

“There is no doubt that you are the one that is drawing this spirit,” Ewen began, nodding toward Ellen as he spoke. “As lovely as you are, I’m sure that they are quite eager to be hooking up with you.”

Did the dude just hit on my wife? Right in front of me? It took me by surprise and my reaction was delayed for a moment or the dude would have had a taste of my fist, if I could have found his mouth through the beard. Ellen felt me tense and placed her hand on my chest as well.

“Mr. Egham,” she said sharply. “I want to assure you that both my husband and I are the strictest professionals and are not toying around when it comes to what we do. If you have something constructive to add to our investigation, I would like to hear it; otherwise, we will be taking our leave.”

That’s my girl. Ellen had very smartly put him in his place. If she had not believed that the man might be able to shed some light on our investigation, I wasn’t altogether sure she wouldn’t have kneed him between the legs.

I guess he thought she was an empty-headed bimbo, by the shocked expression on his face. He immediately began backtracking. “I meant no harm by it, ma’am. However, it would seem logical that you would be what has drawn these spirits into a connection, given the information that I have at my disposal. Are you of Celtic origin?”

“I do not know,” she replied.

“What was your maiden name, if I might ask?” He was being a great deal more polite, but I still didn’t like the way he leered at her.

“Agness,” she replied.

“Oanez. That would be the Celtic equivalent. With the number of different language influences upon English, it has been bastardized, of course, but you would likely have at least some Celtic blood in you.”

“Why would that matter so much?” Ellen asked.

“You must understand that during the time that the battle Henry is referring to was taking place, they were being invaded by foreigners, more or less, for the first time. Knowing who was a native and who was a foreigner was extremely important. The ancients had a sense about this sort of thing and, no doubt, in spirit form, they have an even keener sense of ethnicity. Then there is the other factor…” He glanced at each one of us individually. I didn’t think that his eyes could be creepier, but they were.

“What other factor?” Ellen asked.

“If, in fact, our Celt is a Druid priest, or at least of the religious order during that time period, he was very likely an extraterrestrial being, or at least a direct descendant of one.”

There it was again. I still wasn’t buying it, even if Ewen looked like E.T.’s taller, hairier and creepier brother. “Hogwash!” I said. “All of this alien stuff is just a bunch of bunk.”

Ellen stuck out a hand and placed it on my chest as a signal to hold my tongue, as Henry and Ewen turned to look at me as if I had cursed God at the altar of the church. Ellen covered for me well.

“This is a little bit beyond what we’re used to dealing with. Paranormal is one thing, but an alien presence mixed in has me in something of a conundrum as well. I’m not sure how this is all possible. I have no control and no power when it comes to dealing with an alien being.”

I was ready to get away from creepy man and was hoping for a way out, but Ellen still had questions.

“I realize that there are some theorists who believe that Stonehenge was constructed by aliens that later became what we understand to be the Druids; at least, that is what Henry has told us, but why would they still be here and why would they, if our theory is correct, be holding back the Celts and Romans from moving on toward the light? What purpose would they serve? How is it possible that they are trapped?”

“I believe that your Celt is the only one who could truly answer that question, but if there is an alien element to it all, as Henry’s theory suggests, perhaps it is the aliens who have blocked the way to the light. Perhaps a Druid would simply not be able to overcome something that was placed there by a more powerful being.”

Ellen heard what he said and I could tell that she had started thinking about it and searching her feelings concerning what had been said. He’d gotten into her head and I wasn’t pleased about it. I was done. I wasn’t going to subject myself or anyone else to further discussion on the topic of aliens and no one was going to stand in my way this time.

“Alright, great, we have aliens blocking the portal to heaven. Do you hear yourselves? This is ridiculous. We’re leaving,” I took Ellen’s arm and started to escort her back toward where Rochester was waiting with the car. Luckily, she was in one of her deep, thinking trances, or I might have drawn back a nub.

I could hear Henry excusing us and thanking Ewen for his time and within a few moments, his quick steps caught up to me. I think that he was keenly aware of my perturbation and therefore kept his distance and his mouth shut, though I did not doubt he wanted to chastise me for being rude. In my book, the creep didn’t necessarily need my courtesy. He was a huckster and a fraud and I wanted nothing more to do with him.

We hurried into the car without a word being exchanged between us. The look on my face was enough for Rochester to start on his way back toward our hotel without first waiting for directions. It was a good enough guess anyway. Wherever we were going, would likely require the use of the Vauxhall Bridge to get there anyway.

Had we had another destination in mind, I would have had time to communicate it to Rochester. I could tell that Henry was as perturbed as I was, by the way that he continued to look at the watch and snap it shut as we traveled in silence. I had plenty of time to run back over my actions with Ewen Egham and decided that I had been a little bit too harsh. I didn’t like him, there was no denying that, but the real issue that I was having was being forced toward believing in aliens being a part of this entire mess. Regardless of that discomfort, however, Henry wasn’t to blame. I liked the guy and I didn’t like having a wall between us.

“Henry,” I said. “I must apologize. I was a little bit harsh to your friend.”

“He’s not my friend, Monty,” Henry replied. “I have worked with him on occasion in matters concerning the Druid Order, but we are not particularly chummy. But yes, you were a bit harsh.”

Ellen put her hand on my knee and when I turned to look at her, she nodded her head in agreement and smiled. I could tell that she wasn’t entirely upset with me. Henry really wasn’t either.

“Monty,” Henry said after a pause, “I’m not entirely comfortable with all of the alien talk either; however, if Ellen feels there is an alien presence involved and there are theories of aliens being a part of the building of Stonehenge and with the Druid Order before the time of Christ, don’t you think we ought to look into it? Doesn’t it warrant a proper investigation?”

He was right, of course, and I felt the sting of being rebuked, not by Henry, but by myself. I was a professional. I had always kept my mind open and remained objective about things no matter how off the wall they might be.

I was still sorting things out when we arrived at the hotel.

“Same time tomorrow then?” Henry asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Same time tomorrow.”

As we closed the door behind us and Rochester drove Henry back to the museum, I couldn’t help but be concerned about Ellen’s silence. The smile in the car hadn’t been a ‘just wait until we get home’ smile, but more of a patient, understanding smile. However, I was still worried. It wasn’t like her to sit silently for such a long period of time while we were in the middle of an investigation. She typically directed things and remained strong.

Once inside our room, I wandered into the conversation that I knew was forthcoming.

“You’ve been awfully quiet since we left Battersea,” I started. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been silly and unprofessional the whole time we’ve been working on this case. Now, I’ve been a jerk and nearly blown our best connection for helping us solve this case.” I paced around the room as I spoke, taking note of the continuing absence of our luggage. “And we still don’t have our goddamned luggage!”

She waited patiently for a moment until I sat down on the bed and placed my face into my palms, frustrated. She moved to kneel behind me and began rubbing my shoulders. It felt good and I realized that I was actually in need of some tension release.

“I wasn’t thinking any of those things at all,” she replied. “I was thinking of how far I’ve pushed your limits. When we first started all of this, you were skeptical about ghosts, but you believed in me. You’ve accepted every challenge – kicking and screaming at times, but you’ve taken them on – while at the same time staying grounded in the real world. Your silliness and sense of humor are part of that grounding. This one has pushed us both beyond our limits of understanding and what do I see?”

“What?” I sighed, relaxing a little bit more every moment by the combination of her touch and her words.

“I see you still grounded. I see you still supporting me, believing in me and protecting me.” Her voice was changing and I knew what that change of voice meant; I was more than ready to play along.

“You see all of that?” I had to milk it for a few more seconds, at least. “It’s just hard.”

“If you mean difficult? Yes, I understand.” She moved around in front of me, pushed me back onto the bed and began fiddling with my belt and the button on my trousers. Her voice had that familiar, seductive purr in it. “I’ll show you hard… Posthaste.”

Our lovemaking was a combination of tenderness and savage passion. Both of us had needed a release of the pent-up tension. We continued to relieve it well into the night, only taking time out to order room service and a bottle of champagne to recharge our energy for more.

Chapter Ten

“Where is the other one?” Henry translated the Celtic spirit’s words. “I only see two, but there are three of you?”

“Yes, there are three,” Henry replied.

“The other is a priestess?” the Celt asked. “Why is she remaining invisible?”

“How do I answer him?” Henry asked.

I was there, but I felt more like a bystander, which was fine with me. I’d already had my fun on our other cases, I was perfectly willing to allow Henry to do the heavy lifting.

“Tell him that he is only able to see the two of you, because I have allowed it.”

“Going on a power trip there, Babe?” I laughed. She didn’t respond.

The Celt screamed something at me when he heard me laugh. I drew back a little and waited for Henry’s translation.

“He said, ‘Why are you laughing!’ Maybe it’s better if you don’t do that. It seems to annoy him,” Henry said.

“Sure.” I didn’t need him getting pissed off. I’d been in the company of pissed off ghosts before and I was okay with avoiding it. “Tell him that I am nervous and that I laugh when I’m nervous. And apologize for me, of course.”

As Henry translated my words for him, he seemed to become calmer. Henry continued to translate what Ellen had said.

The morning had started off nearly identical to the morning before. Arthur and Winnie brought our clothing and exchanged them for the others; something that I was growing weary of. I wanted my own stuff, our own stuff and, because I’m sort of on the geeky tech side, I was truly wishing that I had my equipment to test some of what was going on in the tunnel.

Rochester had arrived with the car and Henry sitting straight up, just as he had the day before, checking his watch as we got into the car, half-past nine rather than twenty after like it had been the day before. We’d had our plan in mind and had already begun to execute it flawlessly.

There had been no issues of finding the ghost in the fog, which I must say, as we entered, it was the spookiest “pea soup” I’d ever experienced. It would have done a Sherlock Holmes mystery proud. The eeriness of it was a little unsettling at first, but I had gotten used to it after a few moments. I just hoped that there wasn’t a ghostly legionnaire with a gladius wandering through the fog and ready to run me through with it. I didn’t know what effect it might have on me, but I wasn’t keen on finding out either.

Henry’s translation of Ellen’s reason for not being present seemed to make sense to the Celt and he settled himself on a tree stump. Though I could smell the mustiness of a marsh around me, the stump was the first physical thing that I had noticed that truly placed me in the marsh. I looked around for other signs, but the thickness of the fog didn’t bring anything else to light.

“Why are you here?” Henry translated.

“We, the priestess, would like to ask some questions?” Ellen said and Henry quickly translated.

“Tell him that we would like to help him and the others to move on toward the light.” Again, Henry carried out his task.

The Celt answered.

“Help us toward the light? Is the priestess as powerful as that? Why does she not ask me herself? If she is powerful enough to help us toward the light, then why does she not speak the language and have need of an interpreter? A very bad one; you speak funny. Maybe I am misunderstanding everything you say.”

Ellen decided to ignore his challenge to her power and press forward. “Perhaps I have been too bold in saying that I can help you toward the light. Failing that, however, I want to understand.”

Henry translated and then received a reply. “What is it that you wish to understand?”

“Does the fog keep you from seeing the light? Is that why you are still trapped here?”

Henry indicated the fog around them with a gesture of his hand as he repeated the words in the Celtic tongue.

It was the Celt’s turn to laugh. “This fog does not keep us from seeing the light. It is inconvenient, but it does not blind us like before. Before, we were in a cave and plunged in darkness. We wandered in complete darkness amongst our foes and then we found an opening and wandered up into this dim light and fog.”

That answered one of our questions. The excavation had opened up whatever cave they had been trapped in. Two thousand years of wandering in darkness went well beyond anything I could imagine. It was even a little bit more extreme than the thought of burning in hell.

“Then what binds you from going to the light?” Ellen asked.

“It is a greater force. A greater power from beyond. A power from the stars and the planets. The power that built the great sphere of our ancestors. My ancestors placed me here to stand guard over this place. It is a place that was forbidden. When the soldiers fled here, the power from above was very angry. They closed them up in the cave, and I along with them.”

“Why do they fight one another? Why not make peace and live together in harmony?”

“Because one wishes to conquer and the other will not be conquered,” Henry translated. “He seemed a bit confused by the question. They really haven’t entertained any other thought than to fight, I don’t think.”

“That’s rather odd,” Ellen said. She plunged ahead. “What is the origin of the power that blocks the light? Is there any power that will break it? Is there one powerful enough, more powerful than myself, that can help you and the others through it?”

Again Henry translated and then we listened to a very long discourse from the Celt. I saw Henry respond to him several times. They were in a private discussion in Celt. It wasn’t exactly on the up and up for Henry to take such control of the discussion, but I assumed that he was simply asking for clarification, until he nodded as though agreeing to something with the spirit and then issued the translation to us. At the time, I thought it was odd and that his translation was a little bit short for all of the discussion that took place, but I simply let it pass.

“As he said before… That which blocks them from going to the light is a supreme power from the stars and planets. It has existed long before our world existed and they are highly advanced in their knowledge. Those which were placed here by them mated with humans and produced our race, the race of the Druid priests, to which I belong and to which you, Ellen, also can trace your roots.”

“What?” I interrupted. “Ellen is from an alien race? I read the Mars and Venus book and I know she’s a little different; but seriously, an alien race?”

“Monty. Let him finish.”

“In short, the force is too powerful and cannot be defeated.” Henry paused a few moments, thinking through what he had said before I interrupted him. “Oh, and he said that because of Ellen’s ancestry, she had been able to penetrate through the fog and make contact with him. That was the only explanation for it.”

What he said seemed way too short for me to trust it, but I assumed that he was simply paraphrasing. The discussion that he had with the Celt had to have been clarification, so it was very likely that he had simply translated the basis of what was said rather than the literal translation. It wasn’t exactly what we had agreed upon, but I was ready to get back to the real world and not press things further. I could feel Ellen weakening as well. Channeling two of us, even without the chaos that we had been in before, had to be extremely taxing.

“Are you okay, Babe?” I asked.

I heard the Celt begin speaking again and then Henry translated.

“He wants to know your purpose, Monty.”

“Tell him that I am husband and protector of the priestess.”

Henry translated and then gave the reply. He looked at me as he spoke to Henry. There was a firm challenge in it, like he was calling me out.

“He is perplexed that the priestess has need of either a husband or a protector. Maybe things have changed. Our clothing is certainly very different. He says that he can sense a strength in you, but that it is a strength very different from that of the priestess. He wonders if you would be up to the challenge of freeing them?”

“I thought he said it was impossible?” I looked at Henry.

Henry backtracked a little bit. I saw something suspicious in his eyes as he did so. I intended to get to the bottom of things, but didn’t feel like we were in a place to do so while having a discussion with a 2,000-year-old Druid ghost.

“He did. What he likely means is that since your power is from elsewhere, perhaps you have another way, roughly speaking, of course.”

Something rose up inside of me. I didn’t like being called out, especially where my ability to protect my wife was concerned. I didn’t like the challenging look in his eyes and upon his face and I was ready to step up. “I’ll accept your challenge,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Easy now, Monty,” Ellen said. “Don’t get in over your head.”

“She’s quite right, Monty. You might not want to square off with him just now.”

The Celt looked at Monty and spoke with an angry voice. Monty replied briefly.

“What was that about, Henry?”

“He wanted to know what you said and I told him that you had said you can protect the priestess well enough.”

He seemed to accept the explanation and Ellen seemed to be fading, so I decided it was better not to push.

“We have to go,” Ellen said. “Let him know that we will return.”

Henry translated and then continued another short discourse with him. At the time, I was too caught up in my own thoughts of being challenged to think much of it. They had a common tongue to converse in, for all I knew they were chatting about the weather or the latest soccer scores.

When Ellen pulled us out, I was still fuming. The walk back down the tunnel was a quiet one. Each of us were lost in our own thoughts and experiences. I for one, was not ready to talk about things just yet.

The silence continued as we took our seats in the back of the Rolls.

“Cavendish?” Henry asked.

Ellen and I both nodded, still focused on our own thoughts.

“The Cavendish, Rochester, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Henry said.

“No trouble at all, sir.”

Chapter Eleven

I couldn’t help but notice that Henry seemed a little more distant than normal and that he snapped the watch open and closed, over and over again, as we drove the short distance to the pub. We were greeted in similar fashion to the day before, but I decided that rather than a glass of water, I wanted a pint of stout to take a little of the edge off. Henry ordered one as well, though Ellen stuck with water.

Ellen wasn’t as drained as she had been the day before, but she was still deep in thought. When she finally spoke, her words surprised me. “I’m not one to give up on something, but something about this one tells me that we are in way over our heads.”

The shocked expression on my face must have been classic. I had never known her to throw in the towel on a ghost case.

“What?” she said. “You heard him say that it was impossible. The powers are too strong. I don’t understand everything that I’m dealing with and I don’t want to be responsible for getting one of us hurt or killed.”

“Let’s not go that far just yet, Babe.” I honestly wasn’t thinking about our wealthy international ghost hunting careers coming to an end at that moment, but actually more concerned with seeing Ellen give up on a case. I could see me giving up; well, no, actually, I was equally as stubborn, but it rattled me to see her doing so.

“I don’t trust what’s going on with this one.”

Her doubt rubbed off on me, but I was looking for a way to straighten things out; finish the job. I watched Henry for several minutes. He was acting even more suspicious than he had before. As I watched him, I remembered the long conversation that he and the Celt had had that wasn’t translated for the rest of us.

“Henry,” I began. “What was the conversation between you and the Celt about? You didn’t translate all of it.”

“Clarification mostly,” he replied. His eyes told me that he was covering something up.

“That’s not all it was, Henry. I used to be a PI; I can tell when somebody is lying. Give us the rest of it. Tell us exactly what he said. There really is a way, isn’t there?” I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. He’d tried to keep from revealing the means of helping the trapped spirits go to the light. It made me a little bit suspicious of his motives and made me wonder if Ellen had picked something up that I hadn’t.

“Henry,” Ellen joined in. She could read people nearly as well as she could ghosts. “Is there something that you’re not telling us?”

Henry hemmed and hawed for a few seconds. He was trapped by the two of us and his cover up had been discovered. “By Jove! I had hoped to just let this pass on by. It’s ludicrous to even entertain the notion!”

“Entertain what notion, Henry?” I asked.

“There is a way to allow the spirits to pass on toward the light. However, as I’ve said already, it’s simply preposterous to even entertain the notion of carrying it out.”

“Henry,” Ellen said, smiling. “You’re still not telling us anything. What is the way?”

Henry glanced at me and then focused back on her. “It would require a human sacrifice. Now, I don’t believe it’s to be a blood sacrifice, but rather a human allowing them to pass on into the extraterrestrial world,” he rushed forward, hoping to soften the blow that had already slammed into us like a freight train. “A voluntary ‘body snatching,’ if you will…”

“Henry, slow down a second,” I said, placing a hand on his arm.

He took a long draught of his beer and then looked back at me. “Voluntary body snatching. By Jove, that was a good one.”

“Why did you hold that back from us?” Ellen asked. “We had agreed to be honest about all of this.”

I suddenly remembered Henry’s reaction when I told the Celt to bring on his challenge. The spirit had had sort of a bloodthirsty look in his eyes when he had issued the challenge. He’d been a little too eager to bait me into his challenge. I wasn’t sure what his motivation might have been, but I didn’t trust him. Though, as ridiculous as it sounds, I wanted to prove to him that I was man enough to step up and do what it took. I would have stubbornly stepped up to sacrifice myself, just to prove the point. That’s messed up, Monty.

“So that’s why you told me not to accept his challenge.”

“Yes, of course.” His eyes were shifting back and forth between the two of us. He wasn’t completely off the hook. He was still nervous that we would discover something else.

“What else, Henry?” Ellen asked. She had a way of drawing information out of a person or ghost. She was intimidating with her mixture of straightforwardness and sweetness; it was nearly impossible to hold anything back whenever she asked for something.

I suddenly knew what he was covering up. He was the ultimate Brit, dauntless in the face of a challenge. I had visions of the Red Coats marching in a straight line, dressing up their lines shoulder to shoulder in the face of musket fire from all around them, absolutely fearless. “You told him that you’d do it, didn’t you?”

“In a way.” He hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”

“Henry, you can’t sacrifice yourself for a bunch of 2,000-year-old ghosts!” Ellen shouted.

Her shout drew the attention of the bartender. “Ghosts? Are we talking about ghosts?” He started toward our table. “’Ave you ’eard that they think that the Tube between Vauxhall and Stockwell is ’aunted by ghosts? They say that the bloody things open the train doors while it’s barreling through the Tube. That throws the brakes on, of course. Bloody dangerous, if you ask me. They need to fix whatever it is before some old bloke that’s had a few too many tumbles out an kills ’isself.”

“I was just explaining that very thing to these Yanks,” Henry said. He was working on another cover up for the bartender and a way to get rid of him.

“Did you ever hear the story about that ’aunting in Cornwall a few years back?” he started in. Henry’s plan hadn’t worked. We were settling in for a long day, if we had an English bartender that started telling ghost stories. As fate would have it, however, he had only taken a breath to start his tale when the phone rang. “Ahhhh… wouldn’t you know it. The minute you get started on a good story…” He went back to the bar to answer the phone.

“I wasn’t thinking of sacrificing myself for a few 2,000-year-old spirits,” Henry began. He was pale, and by the way he licked his lips, I guessed that his mouth was dry as well. He had seriously considered doing what he was talking about. “I was thinking of sacrificing myself for that old bloke that the bartender was talking about, a little old lady, a pregnant mother-to-be or a small child. Just like he said. One of these days, someone is going to take a tumble if we don’t put an end to this nonsense.”

“But Hen…” Ellen started.

“Let me finish,” he interrupted. “The two of you have a good life ahead of you. You’ve a good marriage, love and like as not, there are little ones in your future. I, on the other hand, have no wife, no children and no prospects. I am the logical and reasonable choice to take care of this problem and my mind is made up.”

“Henry,” Ellen began. There was a hint of tears in her eyes. “Your sentiments are certainly noble, I cannot argue that, but you simply can’t be serious. As you said before, to even entertain the idea is preposterous. You cannot sacrifice yourself. There must be another way.”

“There is no other way,” he announced. He raised his nose slightly as if he was finished listening.

“You’re taking the word of a 2,000-year-old Druid priest on that? Be reasonable Henry. We don’t know that he’s telling us the truth. Ghosts can be rather tricky and manipulating at times. Believe me, we’ve seen some of the stunts they like to pull. You need to just put the idea out of your mind.”

“Henry, let’s explore more options,” Ellen started in. “Let’s do some more research, get some more historical background and perspective. Let’s explore the alien origins of Stonehenge and the Druid Order more. There must be someone who can help us find another way.”

Henry’s resolve began to visibly weaken as Ellen reasoned with him. “I suppose we could continue researching.”

“That’s right. And Monty’s right too. We don’t even know that we can trust him. You heard me say before that I don’t trust this entire situation. There are entirely too many unknowns for me,” Ellen continued.

“We’re not going to give up on this, Henry,” I joined in. “Ellen and I are just as concerned about someone taking a tumble out of the train as you are. It’s a miracle that it hasn’t happened yet. We’re as invested in this as you are, but we have to remain reasonable.”

“Very well, then,” he began. “I have meetings throughout the morning tomorrow, but I should be available by mid-afternoon. We can continue to do research. Let me see if I can get in touch with some other gentlemen that might be able to give us a little bit more detail.”

We finished our drinks and managed to escape the bar before the bartender got off of the phone; by the sound of his conversation, he was on the line with a supplier. He waved at us as we left. “Come back tomorrow, and I’ll tell you some whoppers!”

We returned his wave and continued out the door. The rather heated discussion in which we had been engaged had left an odd tone hanging between us and we rode in silence back to our hotel. Before Ellen and I got out of the car, Henry asked us to wait a moment.

“Monty. Ellen. I sincerely appreciate the fact that you have allowed me to be a part of this. I have grown quite fond of the two of you. I realized only a few moments ago that you are quite fond of me as well. I can be a bit bullheaded and stubborn, and I apologize for that. Please, take a long, slow lunch, enjoy the afternoon and sleep in tomorrow. I’ll put something together and we’ll dive right back into all of this tomorrow afternoon.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” I agreed, extending my hand to shake his. “It would be a tragedy to come all of the way to London and not get to see at least some of the sites. And, old man, we are quite fond of you, you’ve been a Godsend.”

“Agreed,” Ellen added. She leaned in and gave him a soft peck on the cheek.

He teared up as she kissed him and took a swipe at his eyes with a handkerchief that he pulled from the inside breast pocket of his suit. “If all Yanks are as good as you two, then Americans ain’t half bad.”

With that comment made, we got out of the car, said our goodbyes, and watched as Rochester drove away with Henry sitting tall and straight in the back seat.

“I think the old guy lives a very lonely life,” Ellen commented. “We’ve probably been a breath of fresh air to him.”

“Who’d a thunk it. A couple of down home Yanks like ourselves.”

Ellen smacked me in the chest and we started into the entrance of the hotel together.

Chapter Twelve

I could tell that Ellen had something up her sleeve when we went down to the car at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. She’d promised me chocolate pancakes and I was wound up to have some. It had been a while. The waffles in Belgium had been a decent substitute, but the craving for chocolate pancakes was strong and its fulfillment was long overdue.

I ought to have known that something was up when she whispered in Rochester’s ear as we were getting into the car instead of openly giving directions the way we had every time we’d gotten in the car before.

I recognized the route, somewhat. I knew that the Denny’s I had seen on the Google maps was near the British Museum and the route we were on was headed in that direction. Ellen had me fooled with the smile on her face. I believed that she was happy to finally be treating me to some chocolate pancakes.

I suddenly understood her hidden mirth when we pulled up in front of a Denny’s uniform store. “Here’s your Denny’s,” she said, bursting into laughter. I even noted a smirk on Rochester’s face.

“Very funny,” I said. “However, the joke is on you. You promised chocolate pancakes and now you have to figure out a way to provide them for me.”

“Ma’am,” Rochester said. “If you’ll permit me, I know of a place. It is not far from here and well worth the trip.”

Still feeling slightly stung by her joke, I wasn’t exactly certain that the two of them weren’t in on something together. I kept an eye on the face in the mirror, but he gave nothing away and Ellen was acting quite innocent; too innocent. Her joke wasn’t quite finished yet, but I hadn’t yet caught on to what she had planned.

I watched out the window as Rochester took us past Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens and Kensington Palace, where the newest royal lived with his parents William and Kate. The car finally came to a stop in the parking lot of My Old Dutch Pancake House.

“Your chocolate pancakes await you.” Ellen was beaming. She was extremely proud of herself, not only for the joke that she’d played on me earlier, but for delivering on her promise.

“How did you find this place?” I asked.

“I had some help,” she replied, glancing over at Rochester as he stood holding the door.

“Rochester?” I chuckled. “You old dog. I think the two of you had this planned out.”

“Monty, you and Rochester have something in common,” she said.

“We do? What’s that?”

“Chocolate pancakes,” Ellen replied.

“Is she telling the truth, Rochester?”

“I do rather fancy them, sir,” he replied. By the stoic look on his face, you would never have guessed it, so I had to just take his word for it.

“I’ve a truth test for you then, Rochester.”

“What would that be, sir?”

“Come join us.”

“I couldn’t possibly indulge, sir,” he replied.

“If you fancy them the way I fancy them, you’ll join us.”

I could see that he was caving in to my challenge. “I suppose I could have just one, sir.”

I knew that nobody could have just one pancake, but I was thrilled that he decided to join us. It just goes to show that sometimes our first impressions of people aren’t always as accurate as we think. My Old Dutch Pancake House had every flavor of pancake ever invented and then some. As promised, they also had chocolate ones. Rochester didn’t become chummy with us, but we did manage to get him to give us a few details about his background; that is, until the pancakes arrived.

After gorging ourselves on pancakes, we toured Kensington Palace Museum and enjoyed Kensington Gardens. We then headed off to Buckingham Palace, though we were a bit too late for the changing of the guard. We discovered a pricy little pub where we enjoyed another traditional, British lunch and continued to enjoy being tourists until about three o’clock in the afternoon, when Ellen happened to look at her watch.

“We’d best go meet with Henry,” she said, showing me her watch. I was wearing one too, and could have looked at my own. We made our way back to where we were supposed to meet Rochester and found him waiting patiently on a bench in the shade not far from the car.

“Did you enjoy your tour?” he asked as he opened the door for us. I still couldn’t shake the John Houseman from my head entirely, but after that morning’s secrets had been revealed I was starting to see him in a whole new light and he seemed to be a little bit more interested in us.

“We did, indeed,” Ellen replied.

“You’ve your meeting with Mr. Wandsworth, now?” he asked.

“Yes, he is at the museum,” I replied.

Without further discussion, Rochester pulled away from the curb and into traffic headed for the British Museum. I was still duly impressed as we pulled up to the museum. We simply didn’t have architectural structure with that sort of ancient, old world charm in LA. We had a lot of modern artsy stuff, but mostly, it seemed, American architects had focused more on function rather than form in their building designs. Of course, another factor was cost, it would be astronomical to attempt to build anything resembling the British Museum in modern times, on anyone’s budget.

We entered and were greeted by the beaming receptionist that we had been seeing quite a lot of and were surprised to have a message and a note from Henry.

“He left this note on my desk to be delivered to you today,” the receptionist said, pushing it across the counter toward us. Ellen looked at it and then at me, wrinkling her brow.

I picked it up and started reading.

Dear Ellen and Monty,

I had something relating to an archeological find in Wales come up and had to hurry out of town for a few days. I have enclosed several places and ideas for you to visit and contacts that can help fill in some of the pieces to our puzzle.

I realize that without my translation services, you will have some difficulty speaking to our Celt. I would recommend Ewen. Though Monty didn’t particularly take a liking to him, he is still one of the leading experts in anything to do with the Druid Order and understands the Celtic tongue even better than I do. For all of his rather bizarre idiosyncrasies, he is a knowledgeable professional and, I might add, he is already in the loop. I don’t know that we ought to be dragging many more people into this little mystery of ours. Word gets out, you know.

I shouldn’t be long. The enclosed list ought to take several days for you to work through as it is. I’ve also taken the liberty to jot down some of the theories that we’ve postulated and some of the questions that still remain. Just a bit of organization on my part.

Also, while I’m away, please enjoy a little bit of London like a pair of good Yanks.

Best Regards,

Henry Agness Wandsworth

I examined the attached outline and list while Ellen read the letter. When she was finished, there was a very odd look on her face.

“What?” I asked. “It looks like he planned things out very well to help cover for his absence. I’m not so sure that I’m keen on seeing Ewen again for any reason, but if worse comes to worst and we need him…”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She extended the letter to me. “Look at his signature.”

I had merely glanced at the signature, but when she pointed it out to me again, I saw, instantly, what had perplexed her. “Agness? Really? Do you suppose he’s a relative?”

“At least a distant one,” she replied. “It is common for the middle name of an English son to be the maiden name of the mother.”

“I wonder why he didn’t mention it?”

“Well, if you recall,” she began. “When my name was brought out, you and Ewen were in something of a pissing match, and then we left rather abruptly. There wasn’t really a good time to bring it up again. Do you think he always signs his notes that way or is he leaving a message in it?”

“I think we’re overanalyzing this,” I said. “It’s probably just the way he does his signature.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she replied. “I’ll bring it up the next time we see him.”

“Good idea.” I turned back toward the receptionist. “Was there anything else that he told you or did he leave any other instructions?”

“Oh,” she laughed. “Mr. Wandsworth left plenty of instructions, but what you have is the bulk of what was meant for you.”

“Did he give a possible time of return?” Ellen asked.

“He only said a few days, and that he would call if it was going to be longer.”

“Thank you very much,” I said, before Ellen and I exited the museum to return to the waiting car. Rochester had not faltered in his duties, even if he had become a bit more familiar with us. He was waiting with the door open by the time we were at the curb.

“Where is the first place on the list?” Ellen asked.

“The Library and Museum of Freemasonry,” I replied. I had never made the connection between the Masonic Lodge and the Druid Order, but Henry had scribbled a note beside the location telling us that it would help us link from something a little bit more familiar, back to the Druid Order. “We’re looking into human sacrifice.”

“How lovely,” Ellen replied. “But I guess it is necessary if we want to understand the possible reasons behind it and search for an alternative, right?”

“I suppose so.”

Rochester had already started toward the Hall of Freemasonry, where the museum and library were located. We arrived and I was instantly struck by the pyramid-like structure that, to me, resembled the creepy structure where the keymaster and gatekeeper were joined together in the Ghostbusters movie. I commented on it to Ellen and received a raised eyebrow in reply.

“Well, let’s do this then,” I said, sliding out of the open car door and extending my hand to help Ellen out of the car. “I don’t think we’ll be long here, Rochester.” To be honest, I wasn’t in the mood to discuss human sacrifice, the Druid Order, or aliens. None of it was sitting right with me and I was longing for the heady days of “regular” ghost hunting with all of the gadgets at my disposal and plenty of more predictable forces of evil. However, I also knew that we had to be better prepared for our next encounter and we needed to search for a way around human sacrifices.

“Since the late nineteenth century, the official stance of the Freemasons and those of the Druid Order is to ‘harm none.’ Our current sacrifices are herbs, incenses, flowers, oils and that sort of thing,” a man who had introduced himself as Stephen told us when Ellen posed the question. “Historically, that is a different story.”

“We are concerned with a period between BC 55 and AD 45 or so,” I replied.

“Most definitely,” he began. “Julius Caesar wrote extensively about the Celts practicing human sacrifices. Stories and recorded histories of the period from Caesar’s first invasion until the end of the first century are quite common; however, there are no authenticated claims that the practice continued beyond the first century. There were claims in the 5th and 6th centuries when the Roman Catholics were battling for the Christianization of the British Islands against the Irish Catholics who had married a great deal of the Celtic religion with Catholicism, but most of the those claims were never substantiated. They were likely just a form of propaganda against the Irish Catholics.”

“So, what purpose did they serve?” Ellen asked.

“Most often they were a form of healing or restoration, but the person sacrificed was often a willing victim, rather than someone snatched up or drawn in a lottery. The one who laid down his life believed that his sacrifice was the only means of healing or reconciling the balance between humans and the Celtic gods. Of course, we now know, through the advantage of scientific inquiry that those pagan beliefs were greatly mistaken.” He smiled as he finished, then folded his hands and waited for another question.

“That’s a little bit on the creepy side,” I murmured. I was thinking of Henry’s willingness to step forward. In fact, as I thought about it, the discussion between him and the Celt was probably clarification of how the sacrifice was supposed to take place. Likely, he had learned that one must volunteer for the job. I wished that I had been able to hear the rest of their conversation, and was a bit put out with Henry that Ellen and I had been kept out of that discussion.

We spent another hour or so exploring the museum and gathering a few more tidbits of information about Celts, Druids and Freemasonry. It filled us in on some things, but the value of our visit had mostly been taken care of by Stephen.

It was evening when we left the Hall of Freemasonry and headed back to our hotel. We settled in for a hot shower, room service and a little bit of Ellen’s special talent; love making, though we didn’t make a marathon out of it. We were a little spent from touring and were planning an early trip the following morning. It was a trip that I was dreading, but understood was probably necessary; the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), located in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, a little more than an hour’s drive north of London.

Chapter Thirteen

Though unimpressed by what we discovered at BUFORA, I had enjoyed getting a tour of the English countryside north of London. In my opinion, our time in Letchworth was a complete waste and I commented to that effect on our drive back to London.

“I’m shocked that the Torchwood Institute isn’t on Henry’s list,” I chuckled, noticing Rochester’s half-smirk in the mirror. He had, evidently, been amused by my reference to the top secret extraterrestrial defense society from Doctor Who.

“I don’t think it was a waste,” Ellen replied, attempting to keep things professional in spite of my total rejection of the idea of alien involvement in anything, let alone our ghost case. “I certainly have a better understanding of the theory that ties Stonehenge to aliens.”

“I suppose that you like the ‘landing pad’ theory?” I didn’t mean to mock Ellen, but the theory that Stonehenge was built as a landing pad for alien flying saucers to land, seemed beyond ridiculous to me.

“Actually, I was more intrigued by the evidence that suggests the Celts in Britain in BC 2500 simply didn’t have the technology nor the manpower to haul stones that were cut in the Preseli Hills in Wales, nearly 200 miles away. Had they, by some miracle, been able to accomplish that, there is no evidence that they had the tools or the understanding to erect the structure. How did they even quarry the stones? Or do you think the exact stones to fit their structure were just lying around, ready to be picked up by the next lorry that passed by?”

“Seriously, Ellen, aliens?” I replied. She was mocking my disbelief and I was growing impatient with her. I was trying to remain objective and professional, but things just weren’t adding up right. “There has to be another explanation.”

“Perhaps there is,” she answered. “But, I have sensed an alien presence in our connections with these spirits. The Celt makes references to higher, more powerful beings from the planets and stars. Henry even suggested that the human sacrifice that was being asked for was more of an alien abduction than it was a true blood sacrifice. What if the Celt is telling the truth?”

“Yeah?” I replied. “And what if he’s manipulating us into something?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, just…” The truth of the matter was, I didn’t know. I knew that I didn’t believe in aliens and UFOs, but, then, I hadn’t believed in ghosts either. “The UFO sighting near Stonehenge sounds extremely suspicious to me, too. The entire set up of BUFORA is a fraud. They aren’t there to objectively authenticate sightings as much as they are to perpetuate one of the greatest hoaxes of our time. Roswell and Area 51 aren’t even on par with this hokum.”

“Then how do you explain the archeological findings of ancient art and iconography that depict air and space vehicles, non-human, intelligent creatures and artifacts of advanced technology that doesn’t seem to fit with the period when Stonehenge was built?”

“Ellen,” I snapped. “I don’t have an answer to those things. I just know that it wasn’t aliens.”

The sharpness of my reply had created a chasm between us. Though I wasn’t particularly fond of my tone and manner, neither was I willing to accept a cockamamie theory about aliens building a landing pad out of stones from Wales. The rest of the ride back to London and the Park Plaza was made in silence. There was also a considerable chill still between us throughout the evening. Before going to bed, I apologized for my tone and manner and things were a little bit less tense as we drifted off to sleep.

With the trip to Stonehenge planned for the morning, we were up and at it by the crack of dawn. Even Rochester seemed to have a few cobwebs of sleep lingering when he greeted us and opened the doors to the Rolls for our outing of the day.

I was again treated to a fantastic view of the verdant, English countryside and Ellen and I had quickly laid aside the tensions from our spat the day before. You simply didn’t experience anything like what we were witness to on that drive in LA or Southern California, and we were in complete awe.

Even with the photos and information from the Internet, as well as the historical and theoretical origins of Stonehenge as background, I still wasn’t quite prepared for what awaited us when we arrived.

To be honest, in pictures, moving a few stones around in order to make a circle and placing several others on top of them didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. When I actually saw the size and perfectly-fitted shape of the stones, however, I began to realize that without some of the major construction equipment of our modern times, or of even the 19th century, creating what we were seeing would have been a massive undertaking.

To add to it all, standing on the Salisbury plain and looking in every direction, it was quite obvious that the stones did not come from anywhere near the area. The entire thing, to use an old cliché, stuck out like a sore thumb.

If I was right in my thinking, and the ancients had been able to transport the stones from Wales, how long would it have taken them to transport each of those stones more than 200 miles? Ellen’s rather clever jab from the day before about “waiting for the next lorry to come along,” made one corner of my mouth raise up in a half grin.

“What are you smirking about?” she asked.

I swear that I can’t get away with anything around her. “Nothing.” My grin spread further.

“Oh, I know that look,” she said. “Spill it, or else.”

“Or else what?” I played along.

“Don’t make me go there.” She faked a glare. “Tell me.”

There was no use. She was going to get it out of me one way or the other. “I was remembering your comment about waiting for the next lorry to come along.”

“That was a pretty clever jab, wasn’t it?” She laughed.

Things were better between us and, though I hated to admit it, I was beginning to see why the origins of the structure had been so perplexing. I wasn’t quite ready to shift over to the “alien landing pad” theory, but I could understand how, barring what seemed to be impossible circumstances, the explanation held at least a hair’s breadth of a possibility.

As fascinated as I was with the ancient structure, I could tell that Ellen was truly in her element. She was in deep thought or perhaps feeling spirits, like she often did when we were exploring something with a profound impact on history. From what we had learned about Druids being worshipers of the sun and of nature, I’d surmised that Ellen had perhaps come by her tendency toward being green genetically. I had always admired how she saw such beauty and simplicity in some of the most common things in nature and how she could spend hours admiring it. I imagined the Stonehenge had her buzzing in several different directions at the same time.

“So,” I whispered in her ear as I wrapped my arms around her from behind. “Is my powerful Druid Priestess, Ellen Oanez, connecting with her ancient relatives and considering sacrificing some helpless Yank so that her alien gods can come whisk him away?”

“You are impossible,” she replied, leaning her head back for a kiss. “Actually, I’m just soaking it all in. I can see why this was such a sacred place. The sun seems to glisten in the sky. Don’t you think?”

“I hadn’t really noticed it, but, yeah, it sort of does.”

It seemed much too beautiful a place to have been connected to the idea of human sacrifice. We had learned from Stephen that volunteers for being sacrificed were often lowered by a human shaped litter down into a fire and burned to death. That little bit of knowledge linked to what was explained by the guides and guidebooks concerning the cremation cemetery that surrounded the structure sent a chill running up my spine.

“Men do some pretty horrific things to each other in the name of religion and in the belief that they can somehow make things right with God or the gods, don’t they?” I commented.

“Yes, they do, Monty. I thought I had begun to get a handle on it until we took off on this paranormal investigation venture. It has only made it harder for me to understand man’s cruelty and ignorance. What’s worse is that we can’t even claim that we are above it all or more enlightened. We are ‘experts,’ right? But sometimes, I don’t feel like an expert.”

“Wow. Yeah.” What she said was so profound that those were the only two words that I could come up with, but they were enough. We were connected in our understanding, or lack thereof, of the strangest anomalies of the seen and unseen world.

“Do you think that it’s possible that Henry – or the Celt, actually – was telling the truth? Do you think that a human sacrifice is the only way to set those ghosts free and, in turn, prevent any disaster in the Tube?”

“Babe, I don’t know what to think, to be completely honest. I think both the Celt and Henry believe that it is. To tell the truth, even after the past few days of looking a little deeper into things, I’m still drawing a blank where alternatives are concerned.”

“Me too,” she sighed. “It is so hard for me to admit defeat, but we seem to have bitten off more than we can chew on this one. I can’t sacrifice someone to prove or disprove a theory, but I’m coming up blank where any other solution is concerned.”

“So, what do you want to do?” I asked.

“I want one more visit with the Celt,” Ellen said.

I know my face reflected what I knew would have to take place; actually, who would have to be brought in to make talking to the Celt possible. Like I said before, I couldn’t get away with anything around her.

“I know that you don’t like him, Monty. I’m not fond of him myself; he gives me the creeps. But without Henry, he’s our only option.”

“Can we at least call and see if Henry has made it back or left a message or something first?” The idea of having any contact whatsoever with Ewen Egham turned my stomach.

“Sure, Babe,” she replied. “We can try to get a hold of him first.”

“You ready to head back to London Town?” I asked.

“Sure,” she replied. I could tell that she was somewhat reluctant to leave, but we had pretty much experienced all that Stonehenge had to offer.

As we were walking back toward the car, I was doing something that I sometimes do when I’m in deep thought. I was looking at the ground and strolling along slowly. Had I not felt such a heavy burden concerning our dilemma, I might never have seen the metallic glimmer deep in the grass that flashed in my eyes. Curious, I stooped to see what it was. Pressed down into the soft soil, nearly covered up completely was a gold pocket watch and chain, almost identical to the one that I had seen Henry fiddling with.

“Hey, Babe, look what I found,” I said, dangling it by the chain so that she could get a look at it.

“That’s almost exactly like Henry’s,” she replied. “Won’t it be a hoot to be wearing that the next time we see him? Does it work?”

I stopped to open it up and noted that all three hands were standing still, oddly enough, straight up on the hour of twelve. Giving it a wind, I listened to it and heard the sound of the mechanism ticking away inside. I looked at my watch and reset it to match. “Yeah, it seems to work just fine.”

I put the watch in my pocket and we got in the Rolls for the drive back to London.

Chapter Fourteen

Though I would rather have had a root canal without anesthesia, I found myself walking alongside Ewen Egham in the tunnel of the soon-to-be Battersea Tube Line. We had tried to call Henry several times the evening before without getting a response and had even made one last ditch effort to find out if he was back at the museum or had even checked in earlier that morning, but our efforts to contact Henry failed and we were stuck with option B.

The best way for me to describe Ewen’s enthusiasm about being called upon to help out was: oily. When I came up with that word for him I wasn’t thinking about sweet-smelling, glistening, extra-virgin, olive oil; more like the stuff they dumped into the grease vat after it had been used up deep fat frying fish and French fries at Long John Silver’s.

The fact that we needed him, made him even worse to tolerate. He had, of course, felt that it was necessary to expound upon his vast knowledge of everything Celtic as well as the Celtic culture as we walked down the tunnel. His efforts were mostly aimed at impressing Ellen; something that also wasn’t sitting well with me.

His continuous monologue had made the walk from the Nine Elms Station to where it crossed under the Vauxhall to Stockwell line seem further than the trip we had taken to Stonehenge the day before. In fact, the continual drone and the focus that Ellen and I both were putting into blocking out and ignoring him made us walk right past the site.

“That’s odd,” Ellen said. “Shouldn’t we have felt a chill and known that we had arrived? The other day, it was close to freezing.”

“You know something, you’re right,” I replied. “The last two times we came down here, I hadn’t located the place by physical features so much as by the temperature drop. I think we walked right past it without feeling a thing.”

Our conversation had brought on the first pause in Ewen’s oration since we had met him at the Nine Elms Station entrance. But it was short-lived. “You know, I just hate it when you misplace your ghosts.”

Not only was it an irritating comment and another one spoken by a voice that we had been attempting to block out, but it was my line. I glared at him. Shit! I’m turning into Ellen.

“Where are the numbers?” Ellen asked.

The day that we had made our first visit to the tunnel with Mister Hayford, we had learned that the numbers on the tunnel walls were reference points for maintenance crews. I looked both ways, up and down the tunnel, but couldn’t see any numbers.

“Let’s backtrack until we find a number,” I suggested.

We started back from whence we had come until we encountered one of the numbers on the wall.

“5656,” Ellen said aloud, reading the number. “Do you remember the number where we met the spirits?”

I did, actually. Though I’d been a little bit too busy with Jackson Hayford being possessed and the body being flung at me to comment about it at the time, I had felt that it was sort of fitting that the number on the wall was 5666.

“We were at 5666,” I replied. I expected another comment from Ewen, but none was forthcoming and we continued back to where we saw the number 5666 stenciled on the wall.

“Okay?” Ewen said when we stopped and started looking around. “What do we do now? Do we hold a séance? Is there some sort of call that we use?” Obviously, though he was well versed in Druidism and Celtic culture, he was entirely lost when it came to dealing with paranormal activity.

“Damn! I wish I had my equipment. If I could take some readings, it might help us figure out where to go or what to do.”

“There are no readings to be taken, Monty,” Ellen replied. “There’s nothing here.”

“But I know this is the right place,” I replied.

“Every inch of this tunnel looks exactly the same to me,” Ewen put in. “You’re certain that you have the number correct?”

“Very certain,” I said, through clenched teeth. I had moved beyond loathing Ewen and was ready to go into beat-down mode. I glared at him instead. He caught the hint and kept his mouth shut while Ellen and I tried to figure out what had gone wrong.

“Should we search the entire tunnel until we find something? Maybe they are wandering in a different place now?” Ellen was grasping at straws. She had wrinkled her brow to the point of looking as though she was in pain. None of it was making sense to her.

It wasn’t making sense to me either. The thought of walking all of the way to the Oval Station, which would be the next place that we could exit the tunnel, was not ranking high on my list of things to do while in London, especially when it would likely mean listening to Ewen droning on about his great accomplishments in life. However, we were professional investigators and continuing forward until we either encountered the ghost or reached the Oval Station was the right thing to do.

“I guess that’s what we have to do,” I sighed.

We continued on in silence, Ellen and I in deep thought as we wondered what had taken place and Ewen likely loading up his verbal arsenal. The silence didn’t last long, as Ewen launched into telling every ghost story that had ever been told in England since the beginning of time, or at least that is what it seemed like.

The long and short of it is that we walked from the Nine Elms Station to the Oval Station without any drop in temperature or any other indicator of paranormal activity from Ellen’s more highly accurate psychic senses.

By the time we reached the Oval Station, I was seriously considering the human sacrifice option. I would have eagerly sacrificed Ewen, for any reason in particular; however, when I remembered that the one being sacrificed did so voluntarily, I was ready to step up. Anything to escape the continual racket of his voice would have been preferable to another minute of listening to him.

Ellen and I had given up discussing the case any further. Neither of us wanted to hear Ewen’s comments, nor were we entirely certain what to discuss. We were both stumped. In all of our previous cases, none of the ghosts had simply vanished into thin air.

When Rochester arrived with the car, we thankfully avoided the uncomfortable prospect of giving Ewen a ride home. Ewen was content to ride the North line back to his home near the Balham Station. We also had a message given to us by Rochester that had come from the man who was paying us for our work.

“Mr. Black would like to know, if it isn’t too much trouble, would you be available to meet with him and Mr. Hayford in his office after lunch?” Rochester asked, after closing the door behind us and sliding into the driver’s seat.

“No trouble at all, Rochester,” Ellen replied.

We weren’t going to have a great deal of time to put together an explanation for the sudden disappearance of the ghosts from the Tube, but it had been several days and it was time for an update.

Rochester made the call to Mr. Black and then looked in the mirror awaiting instructions. When neither of us answered, he cleared his throat to get our attention. “Lunch? Madam? Sir?”

Neither of us was quite ready to form a reply. “I’m not sure where to go.” I looked at Ellen and got a shrug in response.

“Might I suggest a place?” Rochester asked. “It isn’t far from Mr. Black’s office.”

“Yes, please, Rochester; that would be lovely of you, thank you,” Ellen replied.

After a few moments of riding in the car, I broached the subject that was working both of our minds into overdrive. “What do you think happened?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Would they have moved on to a different location or suddenly found their way toward the light?”

“It’s highly unlikely.”

“Do you suppose they relocated to another part of the Tube?”

“I don’t think that the Tube was necessarily significant. The excavation was, but for the most part, they had stayed pretty local to that particular crossroad, so to speak.”

She was technically right; but like she had already expressed before, nothing about this case had been normal and she hadn’t understood it from the very beginning. “So, what do we do?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What do we say to Mr. Black and Mr. Hayford?”

She only shrugged.

“Should we try to call Henry again?”

“It’s worth a shot, I guess.” She took out the phone, dialed Henry’s number and waited. I heard the sound of someone answering the line, but couldn’t make out the actual words.

“Ma’am, this is Ellen again. Have you heard anything from Henry yet?” She paused while she listened. I was hopeful that we were finally getting some sort of explanation. “Thank you, no, there’s not much point in leaving another message.” A short pause. “Yes, a very pleasant afternoon to you as well.”

She disconnected the phone and looked at me, shaking her head. “We’re not the only ones trying to get into contact with him, evidently. They are growing concerned.”

“Me too.”

“I guess all we can do is tell them what we know.”

“Tell who what we know?” Ellen’s ability to think about two or more different things at the same time often lost me. I typically only think about one thing at a time, and I was thinking about Henry.

“Mr. Black and Mr. Hayford. We’ll give them a run down on what we found, the research we did and tell them that we simply lost them.”

“I don’t think that we should say we lost them just yet,” I replied.

“What do you want to say, then; that we ‘misplaced’ them?”

“You know you and Ewen are beginning to get on my nerves.”

“How?” She was confused that Ewen was even mentioned in the reference.

“You two are stealing my lines.”

Chapter Fifteen

“I understand that the two of you were privy to seeing Mr. Hayford receive a scare that he won’t be forgetting anytime soon,” Mr. Harold Black stated, not long after we had taken our seats in his office. The overall tone of the room was very grave. Ellen and I were squirming in our chairs. We weren’t exactly sure what to expect from the visit, but it certainly hadn’t started off well.

“I assure you,” I began, “we had no intention of giving Mr. Hayford a scare. In fact, we ourselves were taken somewhat by surprise by the turn of events.”

There were a half dozen, long beats and then a smile cracked open upon Mr. Black’s face. He looked toward Mr. Hayford and winked. “I told you we’d give them a bit of a start. Do you see the look on their faces?”

Mr. Hayford, completely out of character from what we had seen of him before, began to laugh heartily. “You’ve given them a scare indeed.”

Ellen and I, well behind on the joke finally began to come around as the two men slapped their knees and made merry at our expense. It was really quite odd after the very serious meetings that we had held with each of them not more than a week before. However, feeling the tone in the room make a dramatic switch, we soon joined in, not quite sure what was going on, but willing to participate as long as it continued to be light-hearted.

“Actually,” Mr. Black said after we had all regained control of ourselves, “we brought you here to congratulate you on a job well done and to issue you a check for the promised sum.”

Ellen and I both looked at each other with shocked expressions. We had finished the job? How had we finished the job? We hadn’t removed any ghosts? We didn’t even know where they were.

After several moments, I couldn’t hold out any longer. “I’m… we’re not sure that we understand.”

“Oh, I see what you’re doing,” Mr. Black said. “Do you see what they’re doing, Jackson? They’re trying to turn my own joke back on me. It won’t work. You’ve accomplished the task and we couldn’t be happier. There is no telling what sort of catastrophe you have helped to avert by removing those menacing spirits from the Tube. You both deserve a hearty well-done.”

“We appreciate your compliment,” Ellen said. “But we’re not quite certain the job has been finished.”

“Oh, Mr. Hayford and I believe that it has. You see, for several weeks, we were receiving news of at least one incident on the Tube involving the mysterious opening of doors, screams, cold chills and what have you; often several each day. It was driving us mad, you understand. Without any control, we were set to have to close down the line until we could come up with a solution. The liability of an accident… Well, you understand.”

“We are going on day four without a single incident,” Mister Hayford added, beaming with delight.

The complete turnaround of Jackson Hayford was enough to make us wonder if an entire legion of spirits from the loony bin hadn’t possessed the man; it was utterly perplexing. I was about to object, but was cut off when Mr. Black punched the intercom button on his phone.

“Penelope, bring in that check.” He beamed.

Ellen and I could only stare at each other as Penelope came into the room with a sheet of paper in her hand. She placed it on Mr. Black’s desk and turned to walk out. Mr. Black took a pin from the holder on his desk, rapidly scratched his signature to the bottom and handed the page with the check attached to the bottom over to me.

I was speechless. Ellen had only told me that it was a tidy sum that we were to get for doing the job, but I hadn’t expected to see the fourth zero in the total. “I… I’m not sure we deserve…”

“Nonsense, old man, you deserve that and more. Isn’t that right, Mr. Hayford?”

“It is, indeed. The two of you have done my firm, TFL, and the citizens of London a tremendous service, not to mention some poor mother who might have lost her son when the doors to the train suddenly snapped open at the wrong moment. Please accept it as a small token of our gratitude.”

Our hands were shaken and we were thoroughly patted on the back and ushered out the door before we had a chance to protest further. It didn’t seem to do any good whenever we tried. As we stepped out of the office, Penelope was waiting with airline tickets to fly us back to LA. We were dizzy in the confusion. Only hours before, we had discovered that we had lost the ghosts completely and had no idea how to explain what had happened. We believed that we had utterly failed, only to discover that we were now leaving England with a sizable check for services that we weren’t entirely sure we had rendered.

The confusion did not fade during our trip back to the hotel. Neither of us was sure what to say, nor were we sure what to do. When we had left our room that morning, we were certain that we had failed to do our jobs and that we were stuck in an impossible situation that might take weeks to unravel. When we returned to our room, we were a good deal richer, had successfully completed our job, and were on our way home. If those circumstances weren’t enough to leave us dazed, sitting neatly beside the dressing table in our room was our luggage.

The night was spent sorting through things and trying to contact Henry once more. We wanted to at least say goodbye before we returned to LA. However, he had neither turned up at the museum nor called. They had begun to look into his whereabouts, assuming that if he was at an archeological site, he might have been out of reach by cell phone or any other means.

The following morning, after eating breakfast in the hotel, I snatched a London Times off of the rack and dropped my coins in the hopper. It would help pass the time on the plane. We were packed, ready to go and waiting by the concierge desk by 9:00 a.m., when Rochester pulled up in the Rolls, helped us in the car, placed our luggage in the boot and started off toward Heathrow.

We were each saying our silent goodbyes to London and still sorting through what all had happened along the way to the airport. Rochester was once again very solemn whenever he looked up in the mirror. I wondered if the old boy had sometimes gotten attached to the people that he shuttled around and had formed a sort of shell around himself to avoid the heartache.

I wasn’t sure how Ellen felt, but I was going to miss the old bugger.

As he helped us out of the car at the airport and took our luggage out of the boot, there was a nervous silence surrounding us.

“Well, Rochester,” I said, extending my hand. “It has been a true pleasure.”

“Indeed it has, sir,” he said, accepting my hand. The tiny bit of mist in his eyes caused mine to draw toward the surface and I stepped away, blinking back tears.

Ellen stepped in, giving me a reprieve from possible embarrassment, wrapping her arms around the neck of the startled chauffeur and planting a kiss on his cheek. “I’m going to miss you, Rochester.”

“As I will miss you, madam,” he said.

With our goodbyes said, we stepped back into the chaos that was Heathrow International Airport. After enjoying a couple of beers in the lounge and purchasing a couple of bottles of duty free, single-malt Scotch, we made our way to the gate where we sat down in the slings that passed as seating in the world’s airports to await our flight. I reached into the outside pocket of my carry-on bag and extracted the London Times that I had bought earlier and smoothed out the creases to start to read. My eyes were instantly drawn to one of the headlines:

HISTORIAN FROM BRITISH MUSEUM MISSING

I scanned the article quickly and then began reading it aloud to Ellen.

“Authorities and the British Museum are expressing a great deal of concern over the whereabouts of Dr. Henry Agness Wandsworth, who had reportedly left for an archeological dig in Wales earlier in the week. The sixty-two year old historian was scheduled to either call in or return within three days after his departure, but failed to do so. Museum officials contacted the authorities yesterday in order to investigate whether the historian ever arrived at the dig site in Wales. Authorities in Wales confirmed that he had not.

“Dr. Wandsworth is a descendant of a prominent member of the London community and an extremely prestigious academic, having published numerous journal articles on topics concerning ancient Britons before, during and after the Roman invasion of the British Isles. Henry was living alone in the family’s aged estate home at the time of his disappearance. Neighbors who had been questioned about his recent activities say that he was rarely active in the neighborhood and that he might have gone months without being seen by them.

“‘We (London Police) are flummoxed by what has happened to Doctor Wandsworth and are chasing down every possible lead that might lead us toward any information regarding his activities in the past week and any possible connection with foul play,’ the London Police spokesperson said. ‘At this point in time, he seems to have completely vanished.’

“The investigation is continuing today as authorities are still piecing together some explanation as to the whereabouts of Dr. Wandsworth and hoping that a possible lead will soon turn up.”

Ellen’s eyes were wide with shock when I finished reading and turned to look at her. “You don’t think?” she breathed.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the watch that I’d found at Stonehenge. A sinking feeling went through me as I opened it up to check the time and discovered that once again, all three of the hands had stopped pointing straight up at the twelve. I snapped the watch shut and turned to look at Ellen. There were tears threatening to spill over the rims of her eyes and the sight of them drew mine up as well.

“Yeah, I do.”

The End

Monty and Ellen return in:

Ghost Town

The Ghost Files #6

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About the Author:

Chanel Smith was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She has since moved to Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and two dogs. When not writing, she spends her time training dogs, hiking, biking and anything else that will get her outside in nature. Please find her on Facebook.

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