Holy: Book 4

A Half-Made Peace

For a whole minute I stood there, baffled by the bright sunlight and glitz about me. The marble and gold leaf décor never looked more insubstantial or welcoming.

"Ma'am?"

An elevator or baggage guy had stopped in the hall while pushing his trolley of luggage. He had the wide eyed look of someone who had just been startled.

"Don't go in there," I said.

"Uh...wait, do you need help? What's down there? Ma'am?"

But I was already in the elevator that had just opened. Some people, vacationers by the look of them, filed out as I jumped in and pushed the number eighteen, praying that whatever was down there stayed down there and didn't, by some paranormal means, shut down the elevator.

By the time the elevator dinged the eighteenth floor I hadn't managed to recover. My heart still raced and my head still spun. The doors opened and Naru moved to step in, but froze at the sight of me.

"Mai," his face snapped to that almost angry concern. "Where have you been? Everyone—"

I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms tight around his chest and letting out a wild sob.

"Mai, I swear, I promise, nothing happened between me and Ms. Hara. I was taking a nap and she just came in, I think the same ghost that effected John and Takigawa effected her—and yes, Ayako told me."

"There's something in the basement," I gasped.

He paused only for a moment. "You went into the basement?"

"It's a man, he almost had me, oh Naru, I was so scared—I was so scared. I was trapped in a corner behind a big tank thing and it got all dark--"

"Slow down, I can't understand what you're saying."

"And I thought you had gone to Masako because you thought I had slept with John or something and I thought I had lost you forever—waaaaahh, Naru, you're a bastard, it was so scary I thought I was going to die, his face was all blue and his eyeballs looked like they were about to fall out of their sockets—you're mean! I hate you! Don't leave me, waaaaaaah!"

A door opened up down the hall. "Is that Mai?"

Naru turned to say something to Monk, but I had him tight. Letting go of him didn't seem an option to me anymore. Getting a whiff of him despite my clogged nose just insured that. I didn't care if I was wailing like a baby and half melted onto the floor, I had my Naru, he'd keep me safe.

Somehow he and Monk managed to coax me into base, where Ayako pried me off him and onto a couch, where John came to my side and Lin was ready with a cup of his sedative tea that he must have made the moment he heard my voice. Good thing Naru was such a tea junkie that there'd be hot water for Lin to use without having to wait.

Masako was nowhere to be seen.

Naru sat down on the coffee table, his notepad in hand.

"I'm sorry, but I need you to calm down the best you can and tell me what you saw."

"It can wait—" started Ayako, but she was silenced with a sharp look from Naru.

And since this was my job, I managed to calm myself enough to speak slower, with some help of Lin's tea, of course. I skipped anything that had to do with Naru and just started with finding the mechanical room and what happened after the forty minutes.

Naru was still madly scribbling by the time I was done. I was grateful to his thick lashes for hiding the injured, bloody whites of his eyes.

"Alright. Let's go, Mai."