Chapter 799

Well, that settled it. No further investigation was necessary—at least, not to identify the nature of the problem.

Hannah Higgins, the woman suspected of developing telekinetic abilities, had no superpowers at all.

She was haunted by a ghost.

The police cruiser that had just charged toward the crowd hadn’t been dragged forward by some invisible psychic force. A dead man had gotten behind the wheel and driven it himself.

The same explanation accounted for the other strange incidents around Hannah. The bottles and household objects that occasionally flew across rooms? The ghost was throwing them. The unsettling sensation of a bed shaking or an invisible weight pinning someone to the mattress? The ghost again.

As for the entire house shaking violently, that would be an earthquake. Tobias Ford wasn’t nearly powerful enough to move an entire building, so anyone experiencing that particular phenomenon should stop blaming the supernatural and get outside.

In other words, what had appeared to be a straightforward superhuman incident had turned into a full-blown paranormal investigation.

Melinda retrieved the mission briefing and carefully compared the photograph inside with the man she’d seen behind the steering wheel.

"I thought so," she said. "That’s definitely him. Tobias Ford, one of the four employees killed in the laboratory accident."

She continued reading his file, then frowned.

"There’s something else. During the month before the accident, he filed three separate safety complaints with his superiors. All three concerned Hannah Higgins’s section of the facility. Every complaint was dismissed as unsubstantiated."

Melinda closed the folder halfway.

"Looks like he might have been right. Are we about to get dragged into one of those damn stories about a vengeful spirit coming back from the dead?"

Her interpretation was understandable.

Tobias had apparently identified serious safety problems at the laboratory and tried to report them. His concerns had been ignored, and Hannah’s section had remained unsafe. Then the accident happened, killing four people, including Tobias himself.

Perhaps the dead man had returned to settle the score.

"Let’s not jump to conclusions, Melinda."

Evenson rubbed the small goatee beneath his chin.

People had occasionally remarked that his face was too handsome, even a little too pretty. To give himself a more imposing look, he’d borrowed a page from the male Blood Elf aesthetic and grown a small patch of facial hair.

For some reason, it had come in black.

Perhaps that was a side effect of the shadow magic coursing through his body. Or perhaps the hair had been exposed to some unspeakable force on its way through his skin.

He’d stopped trying to figure it out.

"We’ve stood face-to-face with Mephisto, a Lord of Hell, and managed to hold a conversation with him. Letting a wandering spirit get under our skin would be embarrassing."

Melinda gave him a curious look.

"Are you saying my assessment is wrong? Have you noticed something I haven’t?"

"Heh."

Evenson’s lips curled into a faint smile.

"Think about what we’ve seen. That ghost can affect the physical world. He can throw objects around, and he can drive a car. If he can throw a jar, why not a kitchen knife? If he can ram a car into a crowd, why can’t he drive straight into Hannah?"

He glanced at the woman standing near the police barricade.

"If his goal were to kill her, she’d have been dead several times over by now."

Melinda considered that.

He was right. From what they had observed, Tobias’s aggression was directed at people who threatened or mistreated Hannah. His actions had consistently targeted her persecutors, not the woman herself.

That was probably why everyone had mistaken the incidents for telekinesis.

"Then you think he’s protecting her?" Melinda asked. "Some kind of guardian spirit?"

"That’s my best guess."

"Well, he’s doing a terrible job."

Melinda’s expression hardened.

Whatever Tobias’s intentions, his actions had only made Hannah’s situation worse. In addition to being blamed for four deaths, she was now being treated as a freak. The strange disturbances around her had given the town even more reasons to turn against her.

"Maybe he thinks killing her outright would be too merciful," Melinda suggested. "Perhaps he wants to torment her first and let her suffer before finishing the job."

"That’s possible, but it’s not what interests me."

Evenson’s attention had drifted elsewhere.

"What I want to know is why he’s here in the first place."

Melinda looked at him.

That was a fair question.

A ghost had just manifested in front of Evenson Richter, a warlock who had made a habit of dealing with supernatural entities. What had given the poor bastard the nerve? An invisibility cloak and an excess of confidence?

Yet Evenson didn’t immediately attack the apparition or make any attempt to capture it.

Instead, he stood there, stroking his goatee, apparently lost in thought.

"How did a soul escape from Hell and make its way here?" he murmured.

Melinda blinked.

"You’re saying he escaped from Hell? He died recently. Maybe he hasn’t even been sent there yet."

"He reeks of Hell. Whatever happened to him, he’s had more than a passing encounter with that place."

Evenson gave her a sidelong glance.

"You’re not seriously telling me you didn’t notice."

Melinda paused.

Now that he mentioned it, she had felt something strange ever since they arrived. The power inside her had been stirring, as though it had sensed something it didn’t like.

She’d dismissed the sensation as a response to the unusual circumstances.

Apparently, she’d been wrong.

And that raised another problem.

A soul that had escaped from Hell should have been trying to conceal itself, not driving a car through a crowd. Instead, this one had chosen to reveal himself in front of a warlock who dealt with souls for a living and a woman who carried the Hellfire of the Ghost Rider within her.

That took a remarkable amount of confidence.

Or an astonishing lack of self-preservation.

"So, what do we do?" Melinda asked. She tilted her head toward the ghost’s last known position. "Should we go and put him out of his misery?"

"Why rush? It’ll be easy enough to deal with him when the time comes."

Truthfully, Evenson had considered capturing the ghost the moment he’d first seen him.

A soul fragment was a soul fragment, after all, and this one seemed substantial enough to be worth absorbing.

But he had reconsidered.

It wasn’t time yet.

Coulson’s team had been assigned to investigate Hannah’s supposed telekinesis. Now they knew the disturbances were being caused by Tobias’s ghost. If Evenson disposed of him immediately, the investigation would probably conclude in short order.

And that would leave Evenson without his cover.

His own mission had barely begun, and he still needed time to recover the item Mephisto had sent him to find. There was no reason to let the operation collapse before he’d even made any progress.

"Things keep getting stranger," Evenson muttered. "I still have no idea what Mephisto wants me to recover, and now we’ve got a fugitive from Hell running around town."

He noticed Melinda watching him with a slightly skeptical expression.

"What?"

"Nothing. I’m just thinking that we’ve encountered quite a few visitors from Hell lately."

"Don’t make the mistake of thinking the boundary between Hell and Earth is made of tissue paper just because we’ve met a few of its inhabitants."

Evenson shook his head.

"Think about it. Mephisto, Blackheart, Locke—all notorious figures with considerable power and status in Hell. Those aren’t random souls wandering the streets. Compared to them, what is this little ghost? Who does he think he is, strolling out of Hell as though he owns the place?"

He folded his arms.

"And you said yourself that he died recently. Look at when Hannah first started exhibiting these supposed abilities. Tobias would have had to die, descend into Hell, and escape again in the space of roughly three days."

He gave Melinda a pointed look.

"Getting a passport and clearing customs takes longer than that."

Melinda fell silent.

Then a possibility occurred to her.

"Unless..." She looked at Evenson. "What if the item Mephisto wants you to recover is responsible for all this? What if it’s causing these abnormalities?"

Evenson’s expression brightened slightly.

"Now that’s a useful theory."

"What exactly do you know about the item, anyway?"

"Absolutely nothing."

He spread his hands in exasperation.

"Mephisto hasn’t told me what it is, how big it is, what shape it takes, or what it looks like. Not one useful detail."

Evenson had about as much patience for the Devil’s working methods as he did for a badly designed quest with no objective markers.

He was doing Mephisto a favor, yet the demon had provided practically no assistance. If anything, the lack of information made the task needlessly difficult, as though Mephisto believed a more frustrating assignment would somehow earn him extra credit.

No wonder some demons were tempted to crack open a devil’s skull just to see what passed for a brain.

Still, Mephisto’s attitude suggested that the item mattered to him, but perhaps not all that much. If it were truly indispensable, surely he would have offered at least a few identifying details.

For now, Evenson had more immediate concerns.

"We need to split up," he said. "I’m going to inspect the accident site."

If Tobias’s ghost was behaving this strangely, the location where he died was an obvious place to start looking for answers.

"You need to go back to Coulson. Keep his attention on Hannah and don’t let him figure out that her supposed telekinesis isn’t real. Buy me as much time as you can."

"No problem."

Melinda could handle that.

Hannah herself had no idea what was happening to her, so there was little risk of her accidentally exposing the truth. As long as Melinda acted as though she knew nothing unusual, Tobias could continue doing whatever he was doing while Coulson investigated the apparent telekinetic disturbances.

His presence might even prove useful.

A little confusion could serve as an excellent smokescreen. And if the ghost got too ambitious, Melinda could deal with him herself. She had enough experience with mystic forces and close-quarters combat to make a nuisance of him.

More importantly, Coulson had to stay away from anything involving Mephisto.

That was for his own good.

With that settled, Melinda headed toward Hannah’s house.

The earlier incident with the police cruiser had left the crowd badly shaken. Although the car hadn’t actually hit anyone, the protesters were now in a near panic. Even the police officers assigned to maintain order appeared rattled.

Then one of them drew his weapon and pointed it at Hannah.

Melinda watched the scene with open disgust.

Amateurs.

Rather than waste time arguing with the officers or trying to calm the crowd, she drew her trusty tranquilizer pistol and fired.

The dart struck Hannah, who promptly collapsed.

Melinda lowered the weapon with a satisfied look.

There. One shot, one target. Now that was professional marksmanship.

Besides, keeping the woman unconscious would buy them more time than any amount of questioning could.

Meanwhile, Evenson made his way to the particle collider facility where the accident had occurred.

Fitz and Simmons were just finishing their inspection. They were packing away their equipment and discussing a matter that had absolutely nothing to do with their official duties.

The conversation concerned a long-standing tradition at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy.

Like students at any university, new recruits had to endure their fair share of pranks at the hands of their seniors. Fitz and Simmons had experienced the tradition themselves when they first arrived, and neither remembered the experience fondly.

But after surviving their first year, they’d looked forward to their turn.

They would finally be upperclassmen. They could torment the next batch of unsuspecting rookies and give them a proper introduction to academy life.

Unfortunately, both had proved so exceptionally talented that they graduated early.

Their carefully accumulated store of malicious ideas had never been put to use.

It was a tragic waste of potential.

Then they’d realized something.

Their current team had a rookie.

Skye.

Surely they weren’t going to deprive her of an essential part of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy experience?

The two geniuses had quickly reached an agreement. The prank was on.

Unfortunately for them, Evenson arrived just in time to overhear the entire conversation.

The moment he learned what they were planning, his expression darkened.

"You two really have no sense of priorities, do you?" he demanded. "We’re in the middle of an operation, and you’re thinking about pranking a new recruit? Unprofessional. Completely unacceptable."

Fitz and Simmons immediately lowered their heads.

They had clearly been caught doing something they shouldn’t have been doing, and Evenson’s rebuke was forceful enough to make them reconsider their life choices.

For a moment, they even contemplated abandoning the plan altogether.

Then Evenson continued.

"And the worst part is that you didn’t even think to invite me! What, do you think I don’t know how to pull a prank? Or have you simply never heard of my reputation?"

Fitz and Simmons looked up.

They could practically feel their souls leaving their bodies.

How could anyone be so shameless?

This wasn’t even a general S.H.I.E.L.D. tradition. It was a university tradition. A university! Surely the distinction meant something. You didn’t need to have graduated from college to understand the concept.

Apparently, Evenson disagreed.

"Anyway, we’ll discuss this later."

He forced himself to put aside the tantalizing prospect of collaborating on a truly memorable prank and returned to business.

"Are you finished with the inspection?"

"Just finished," Fitz replied, grateful for the change of subject.

"My miniature aerial drones have completed a full survey of the facility. Once we’re back on the plane, we can use the footage to reconstruct a three-dimensional model of the site. If you’d like, I can show you the photographs right now."

"No need."

Evenson glanced toward the damaged building in the distance.

A massive, blackened hole gaped through its exterior, the surrounding structure scorched by the explosion.

"Photographs can be misleading. I’d rather see the place with my own eyes."

With that, he started toward the entrance.

Fitz hurried to intercept him.

"Wait! The energy department warned us that there might be hazardous materials inside. They strongly recommended that nobody enter the building until it’s been properly cleared."

"That’s fine. I’m not worried about that."

Evenson didn’t even turn around.

He’d made his way through the Twisting Nether. Compared with that, a damaged laboratory filled with hazardous substances was hardly frightening. Even if a dirty bomb had gone off inside, he wouldn’t be particularly concerned.

He continued into the building.

And that was when things became interesting.

A normal observer—or even someone examining Fitz’s photographs—would have seen an ordinary accident scene. Damaged machinery lay scattered across the floor. Glass panels had shattered under the heat, and the walls were blackened by fire and smoke.

Evenson saw something else entirely.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the stench of blood assaulted his senses.

The charred bodies of the victims had already been taken to the morgue, but in his sight, their severed limbs still littered the room. Fingers twitched. Hands jerked. Legs spasmed with the last lingering echoes of electrical impulses, as though their nerves hadn’t yet realized their owners were dead.

It was a grotesque sight.

But the bodies weren’t the worst of it.

The walls were coated in thick, black-red blood. It smeared across every surface, as if someone had gone through the entire laboratory with buckets of blood and a brush, determined not to leave a single patch of clean wall behind.

Even the ceiling had been covered.

Viscous, foul-smelling liquid continued to drip from the walls, each drop striking the floor with a faint, wet sound that seemed almost absurdly delicate against the surrounding horror.

And all around him, the screams of the dying still echoed.

The victims’ final moments had left an impression so powerful that their agony seemed to linger in the very air.

Evenson stopped.

His gaze swept across the room, taking in the blood, the severed limbs, and the lingering traces of unimaginable suffering.

He had found something.

The item Mephisto wanted was here.

Or, at the very least, it had been here once.