Chapter 14

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The Deputy parked his car by the metal fence. Big signs were attached to it, warning of security and the dangers that lay ahead, though most were covered in a thick layer of graffiti. Weeds grew out of the guttering and had pushed through the cracks in the car park out front.

'I can see why people didn't want it demolished.' Jess gazed up at the gothic inspired building. Gargoyles sat on the crumbling roof, watching them with their soulless eyes. Most of the windows on the bottom floor were boarded up and those higher had been smashed.

But for all the damage it had sustained, it still felt a proud building. A building that was holding it together because it believed in its own self importance.

'Fat lot of good it did them, though. The council can't afford to fix it up, so now it's just falling apart.' The Deputy looked up and down the fence before drawing their attention to a section that had been cut and bent backwards.

'Elijah, don't you have some secrets,' Ash teased him as one by one they squeezed through.

'I've arrested more than a few students from trespassing,' he said.

Ash shivered as they neared the imposing building. Knee length weeds brushed against her legs, like bony fingers beckoning them forward. The sound of their feet on the ruined tarmac echoed, and she glanced behind her to check if anyone was following them. But there was no one.

The Deputy switched on his torch and the sisters pulled out their phones. They instinctively huddled closer together, feeling safer nearer the light.

Away from the streetlights, the darkness swallowed them. If it wasn't for the sound of the occasional passing car, they could have been in the middle of nowhere rather than on the edge of the city.

'This is what you saw?' The Deputy glanced at Ash.

'Yes,' she said with certainty.

'So how we getting in?' Jess asked.

'We're taking the direct route.' The Deputy pulled out a heavy duty chain cutter from his backpack and stalked towards the door.

'Won't someone know we've been here?'

'I don't think we need to worry about that,' Ash answered as the Deputy stepped back from the door.

'The chain's already broken. They've just wrapped it so it looks secured,' he said.

'Security's doing a bang-up job then,' Ash said drily.

'Let's be grateful that they're not,' Jess countered as the Deputy pulled the chain from the door.

'Keep your necklace on,' Ash reminded her.

'I'm going to have to take it off to see the ghosts.'

'Let's just find out what's here first,' begged Ash.

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