Unholy Ground

Chapter 1 Audrey had never been sent to the principal’s office when she was in school, but she imagined this must be exactly what it would feel like — to have some suit-clad authority figure staring at you from behind an imposing desk, complete with steely stare and steepled fingers. Even though she knew she had done nothing wrong, had only tried to stop a demon before it could get away from them all and disappear, she couldn’t quite ignore the impulse to blurt out her guilt about her inadvertent role in their sound operator’s accidental death on the site of the exorcism in Santa Barbara, just so she could accept her punishment and get this whole ordeal over with. Luckily, Michael and Colin, as the show’s executive producers, were the ones doing the talking. “The Santa Barbara P.D. ruled it an accident,” Michael said. He sat next to her, with Colin on his left, and while he certainly wasn’t smiling, he also didn’t look nearly as worried as Audrey felt. “A tragic accident — one that we’re all still trying to come to terms with — but there is absolutely nothing about Susan Loomis’s death that would require us to halt production.” “So you say,” said the cable exec. He was a bony-looking man in his late fifties or possibly early sixties, with slicked-back gray-flecked dark hair and the sort of features you couldn’t imagine doing anything except frowning. In fact, he reminded Audrey a good bit of the actor who’d played Mr. Slugworth in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, and he gave her about the same creepy-crawly sensation down her back. Actually, she thought her world over the past few days had felt a good bit like the terrifying boat ride in the same movie, the one where the boat kept speeding up and speeding up, and you were sure you were going to go shooting over a precipice at any second and get smashed to a pulp. Even now, her hands felt shaky, so she kept them clasped in her lap and prayed that the cable exec wouldn’t notice her extreme unease. “However,” the exec went on, “we’re concerned about the optics of the situation. Your project barely got approved in the first place, and now — ” “Now we’ve got notoriety on our side,” Colin broke in. His sandy brown hair was disheveled, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in two days, blue eyes bleary and shadowed and even more bloodshot than usual. But his voice was firm enough as he said, “People are going to want to watch just to see what was so dangerous about the show that someone died during filming.” Michael winced, and Audrey noticed the way his hand clenched and unclenched on top of his knee. Was he trying to prevent himself from clapping that hand over Colin’s mouth…or maybe giving him a solid punch? She wished she could. Anything to make him shut up, to stop him from saying something that would cheapen the tragedy which had struck the Project Demon Hunters set. Ever since that horrible day, almost a week ago now, Audrey had been wracked with guilt, convinced Susan’s death was her fault. If only she hadn’t gone chasing after her, hadn’t flung that holy water in a vain attempt to stop her — But no, letting their sound engineer go hadn’t been an option. She’d obviously been possessed by the demon that had inhabited young Kayla Vargas’s body until the moment when Michael drove it out while Colin’s camera kept filming. Why the demon had jumped into Susan, instead of any one of the other people who’d been present at Kayla’s exorcism — Colin, or Kayla’s mother Ariel, or Audrey herself — none of them really knew. “Possibly that is a selling point in your crowd, Mr. Turner,” the exec said, voice dripping disdain, “but it is not the sort of thing this network wants to associate itself with. Production on Project Demon Hunters will cease immediately, and you will hand over the footage you’ve shot so far.” “Like hell!” Colin spluttered, but Michael held up a hand. “All right,” he said, tone level, but also with a touch of resignation to it, as if he’d known all along this was where their negotiations would probably end up. “But we get to keep half our contracted remuneration, since we’ve already shot half the season.” For a long moment, the exec said nothing, only stared at Michael with cold gray eyes. Then he gave the slightest lift of his shoulders. “All right,” he said at last. “Needless to say, don’t bother to shop any future projects to this network.” Michael didn’t blink. “That won’t be a problem,” he said smoothly. “There are plenty of other people interested in our work.” “If you say so.” The exec glanced down at his iWatch; Audrey couldn’t tell for sure if he’d had a text come through, or whether he just wanted an excuse to get rid of them. “I’ll expect all your video files by the end of the day. You can make arrangements with my assistant to have them uploaded to our servers.” Colin made a growling noise in his throat, but at least he only gave a single curt nod, didn’t try to protest. “You’ll have them,” Michael said. The exec didn’t appear impressed by this promise. He looked down at his watch again and said, “I trust you know the way out.” “We do.” Michael stood, so Audrey did as well, glad of the chance to escape. After a brief hesitation, Colin got up, too, but she could tell he only did so because he knew the exec would be all too happy to call security and have them thrown bodily out of the building if they didn’t cooperate. In silence, the three of them left the exec’s office, passed the reception desk, and kept going. Audrey cleared her throat. “Weren’t you supposed to talk to his assistant about sending over the files?” “I can send her an email,” Michael replied. “I just want to get out of here.” By that point, they’d reached the elevator. He leaned forward slightly and pushed the button to summon it. “If you think — ” Colin began, but Michael shook his head. “Wait until we’re in the elevator.” Their producer subsided, but Audrey could tell from the heightened color in his cheeks that he was about to blow a gasket. Luckily, he held in his ire until the elevator doors opened and they all got in. As soon as they were on their way back down to the ground floor of the office tower, however, he rounded on Michael. “Way to bend over,” he snapped. “I didn’t know you liked taking it up the ass.” Audrey felt her eyes widen slightly at the casual obscenity, but Michael appeared singularly unperturbed. “Yes, we’re going to send them files,” he said calmly, and shrugged. “But so what? Files can be endlessly duplicated. It’s not like this is all on film or on tape, with only a single copy in existence. You’ve got everything we’ve done already captured on your hard drives. Who cares if we send them a copy?” Colin’s angry flush subsided somewhat, and he even grinned. “I like the way you think.” “But won’t they take legal action if you use the recordings without their permission?” Audrey asked. She hated to be the voice of reason here, but Colin was looking way too gleeful after hearing Michael’s comments…especially since they should all be remembering Susan’s tragic death, not the footage she’d helped film. “Well, it’s not as though I’m going to upload them to my YouTube channel,” Michael said reasonably. “But things get leaked all the time. Who’s to say such a leak didn’t happen after the files were transferred to the cable network’s servers? It’s not as though this sort of thing hasn’t happened before.” That was true enough. Audrey would be the first to admit that she didn’t follow entertainment news very closely, but even she could recall instances where servers were hacked and copies of eagerly anticipated blockbusters began to spread across the internet like viruses. It was so hard to contain information if someone was truly determined to get access to it. The elevator reached the ground floor, and they all fell silent as they exited into the lobby and headed out to the parking structure. Once they were out of earshot of any passersby, she said, “But…what’s the point? I mean, I don’t like information being suppressed, either, but I also don’t see why you’d want to just release those videos into the wild, so to speak. And what about the rights of the people on those videos?” Michael and Colin exchanged a single glance. Were they inwardly laughing at her naïveté? Colin, probably…she doubted Michael would ever do anything to mock or ridicule her. Still, the more time she spent with them, she realized the less she knew about how the business worked. When Michael spoke, however, he sounded patient enough. “Edgar and Jackie Samuels signed a release. So did Ariel Vargas. The McGraths weren’t even in residence when we filmed at the house in Glendora, so that’s not an issue.” He had a point, although Audrey still couldn’t push away all her misgivings. “True, but I still don’t think they agreed to have their stories spread all over the internet.” “If they were that worried about privacy, they wouldn’t have agreed to be on the show in the first place,” Colin said, both his tone and his expression singularly unconcerned. “And since we won’t be directly making any money off the leaked footage, it’s not like they can sue to be compensated.” “We’ll edit everything within an inch of its life, Audrey.” Now they’d reached Colin’s Cayenne SUV and had paused behind it. Michael glanced around, but no one was in their immediate vicinity, so he obviously thought it was safe to continue. “We’ll blur faces, change names, make sure we don’t provide enough identifying details to allow viewers to locate the properties where the videos were shot. That should be enough to protect us from any liability. As for the rest….” He trailed off, and Colin picked up the thread. “I’ve been angling for a show on Syfy forever,” he said. “I add this stuff to my reel, and I might have a shot at it. As for Michael, he’s always selling a book or a conference appearance. This will just get his name out there that much more.” While Audrey really didn’t like how any of that sounded — it all seemed so mercenary — she at least could understand something of their motivations. Besides, she should probably keep her mouth shut. After all, they wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place if it hadn’t been for her not stopping to think, trying to play hero. If she’d only waited, let Michael handle Susan’s sudden, shocking possession — “We’re not going to do anything right away,” he said. His tone was gentle, and Audrey got the feeling that he’d guessed at some of what was going through her mind. “Just exploring possibilities. For one thing, we’ve captured some of the most spectacular paranormal phenomena ever caught on tape. We’d be doing the world a disservice if we allowed all that footage to get locked away where no one could ever see it.” Those motivations sounded a bit more noble. And also, she was reassured by Michael’s comment that they weren’t going to do anything hastily. “Okay,” she replied. He reached out and rubbed his hand up and down her bicep. Just a quick, reassuring touch, but she appreciated it — and was glad they didn’t have to hide their relationship any longer. That was one good thing to come out of the aftermath of Susan’s tragic death. Michael hadn’t seen the need to hide things anymore, not when it was clear that Project Demon Hunters was going to get shut down. They’d all known that was the likely outcome of the tragedy, even if Colin hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the fact, had kept talking as though they could somehow turn this thing around. The meeting with the exec had been a formality, nothing else. “We’re heading back to Pasadena,” Michael said. He gave Colin a careful look. “You going to be okay?”