The next week passed by in uneasy silence, the members of Shinee went about thei’r lives as normally as possible, with the addition of Rayne lingering in the background. Nothing that could be considered paranormal happened and it had five men stressed and on edge and one paranormal investigator bored to tears. Rayne knew she shouldn’t anticipate something that the others greatly feared, but that was why she was here after all, to investigate the supernatural and to help, if possible, with putting the thing that haunted them to rest.

But she had seen nothing, sense nothing, her equipment hadn’t pick up anything that even remotely screamed out paranormal. She was at a loss and she didn’t know what else she could do until they took her back to where it all began. While the members of Shinee did their guest appearance on some show or another Rayne was behind the scenes, her EMF reader turned on, her arms sweeping back and forth as she moved about backstage.

After several turns around the area and sighing in obvious frustration Rayne let her arm fall. Not a single drop in temperature anywhere, she wasn’t even able to sense if anything was amiss. It just all seemed so…so normal. How was she supposed to help them if she couldn’t find that which she sought to rid?

“Where are you hiding?”

“Talking to yourself? You know people might think you’re crazy.”

Rayne spun around and shot Minho a startled glance as he and the others filed behind the set. He was smiling and Rayne found that she had been right in assuming that his smile would be boyish. He walked up to her while the others grabbed bottles of water and began nibbling on the spread laid out for them. Minho gestured at the device in her hand. “What is that?”

“It’s an EMF reader. EMF stands for electromagnetic field and this little device helps with finding temperature drops. It’s assumed that when the temperature has had a dramatic drop from the normal than an entity or spirit has absorbed it to use as energy to manifest in our world.”

“And did you…you know find any temperature drops?”

Frustration settling in again Rayne ran her free hand through her hair. “Not a single one. It’s almost as if there’s nothing there. I can’t even get a sense of anything even when I’m close to all of you. I’ve run various tests, set up spectrum cams during the night, motion detectors running constantly day and night along with audio and visual cams. Nothing has been picked up, not sound nor sight.”

Minho took in the information. Relief should have been instantaneous, but if Rayne had been correct in her assumption a week ago then the entity was simply biding its time, storing energy for one big display. It was a disturbing though and Minho didn’t like the thought at all. It didn’t sit well with him and glancing at the others, with the expressions on each of the faces, he knew they were thinking the same, felt the same.

“Minho I need you to take me back. I need to see whether I can find a reason why this thing has lingered. It’s been a week, just what is it that you and the others are waiting for?”

Minho quietly studied her, taking in her appearance, her determination and misplaced excitement causing her already stunning beauty to shine. In honestly he had hoped that she would find some other way to find the answers she needed without having to make him and the other go back to the place that haunted their nightmares, but it seemed that he really had no choice.

He sighed, running his fingers through his short hair in agitation. “I had hoped that you’d find the answers without us having to return to that place, but since it seems that we have no other choice we’ll go when the next storm hits.”

Rayne gave him a quizzical look. “Why do you want to wait until it storms?”

“Because if we’re going to go back there and reenact that night, then we need a storm since it was storming the night we set that thing free.”

“It was? Storming I mean?”

He nodded. “Yeah it was a mother of a storm and we thought it was perfect because we wanted the spook extra spook factor. The way I figure it we got more than we bargained for.” Minho watched as Rayne smiled, her eyes lighting with understanding. “Do you care to tell me why you look so happy?”

“Storms are a big source of energy. Added with the energy from you five, the storm was most likely the deciding factor, the extra boost of energy the entity needed to manifest so strongly. A spirit is only as strong as the amount of energy it takes in.” She grew silent a moment, thinking. “It might well do us some good to wait until it storms that way we get the full effect if we manage to connect with the spirit.”

And that was what Minho was afraid of. They had had a lull, a short time of peace from the spirit and now they were going to have to actually summon it. He knew that the others were like him, not at all excited about doing such a thing. He sighed and simply nodded in answer as Rayne turned to make another circuit with her little device. Watching her gave him a small amount of relief and a distraction from his thoughts as everything about her filled his being, it was a short reprieve, but one, at the moment, that he welcomed.

 

 

It was nearly another full week before the weather called for a huge summer storm and on the intended day it found the members in their van driving back to where it all started. The atmosphere inside the vehicle was somber, quiet as everyone stayed lost in their thoughts and fear, the only one who seemed remotely excited was Rayne and Minho was hard pressed not to find a way to tie her up and keep her in the van. That protectiveness he had felt before was making itself known the closer they drew to the old, abandoned house, but he pushed it aside. He knew she knew what she doing, but he didn’t like the idea of her going into this at all.

Rayne could almost sense the tension in Minho, it radiated hotly from his body sitting next to hers. If she turned her head even slightly she knew she would see his eyes flashing and his strong jaw tight. The others were quiet, but their nerves turned the air around them thick with uneasiness. She couldn’t blame them, not really, after all they had dealt with this for over three years and here she was asking them to possibly have to face the thing that had haunted them. It needed to be done though. If she could have saved them from having to face it she would, but she needed them there, needed their energy pooled together in hopes of a successful summon.

The uneasiness of the others increased tenfold as they pulled up in front of an old house. Rayne piled out of the van with the rest of them and from the road stared at the crumbling house. Her eyes took in the sagging porch, the peeling and withered paint, the smashed windows, however as dead looking as the house appeared to be it also seemed to be alive. It was almost as if the house breathed, anticipated their arrival, the two large windows in the front, dark and empty staring at them like eyes. From where she stood she could hear the front door screaming on its hinges as the strong summer wind pushed against it.

In her opinion it was the perfect house for an old evil spirit to manifest. The thought gave her a slight chill and she shivered. She felt a warm body press against her back and knew from the tense muscles that it was Minho. His closeness caused another shiver to rack her body, but this wasn’t a shiver of fear. It was of something that Rayne didn’t want to think about just yet, now wasn’t the time. She pushed the feeling away and started towards the house, the others following behind her with her equipment.

Inside they led her to the room where they had held the séance and Rayne got to work setting up video camera and audio recorders, checking to make sure the batteries were all fully charged since she didn’t have any running electricity to use. She set up thermal imaging cams and motion detectors, though with any luck they wouldn’t need them to see the spirit. When she finished she turned to the others, gave them a nod and then stepped back as they placed candles about the room, setting the stage to look like the night this all started.

They were all silent as they gathered in circle around the Ouija board. There was something in the air, something thick with evil and malice and Rayne knew that the entity was among them. The hairs on her arms and neck stood on end and she checked the urge to rub warmth back into her suddenly chilled limbs. Whatever it was that they had unleashed was something dark, something far darker than the spirits of the deceased that she was used to dealing with, this thing was in a whole new league.

Rayne gestured at the Ouija board and the others placed their hands upon the planchette. The stifling summer heat of the room vanished in a blanket of ice, but Rayne gestured again and the others took the cue to begin. Whatever was there with them would manifest, Rayne knew it, could feel it. She could just barely hear a manic chuckle in her mind and her fear spiked, but she swallowed it down, fought it. There was no point in being afraid, being scared gave into the spirit, gave the spirit more to draw from and she wasn’t going to give it any ammo against them.

She settled herself more comfortably on the dusty hardwood floor, her back ramrod straight, her eyes and ears open to anything out of the ordinary. She knew the spirit lurked between its realm and theirs, she just needed it to manifest so that she could tap into it. It was her own special skill, one she had so far kept from the others and she hoped that her skill was enough to give them some answers.

The temperature in the room dropped again, dramatically and in her peripheral she noticed a dark mass of shadows forming, swirling and twisting. The others in the room noticed it as well and stopped what they were doing, but Rayne prompted them to continue. The show, as they say, was just about to begin.