O’Toole House Chapter 26
“Gabs, you gotta be shitting me right now.”
Today was Nick Bana’s final chance at saving his soul. So of course he wasn’t actually here with Gabriella, Father McEnerney, and Gabriella’s cousin Manny in the O’Toole House’s cellar. It smelled significantly better down here now, but looking at it through fresh eyes, Gabriella could see why Manny was horrified.
He was crouched beside the hole in the foundation by the Banas’ washing machine, shining a flashlight into its damp, cobwebby depths. “I can’t legally tell someone whether to buy a house or not, but if you told me you were going to buy this house, I’d kick your ass myself.”
Gabriella laughed as she crouched down beside him like she might understand any of what Manny was doing. But she had enough common sense to know that a big hole carved into the foundation of a house was not a good sign for that house’s health.
“So this guy was storing what, exactly, down here?”
“Materials for demon-summoning rituals.”
“Ah. Glad I don’t have your job. Or yours, Father.”
Manny stood up, wrote something on his clipboard, and kept moving as Gabriella and Father McEnerney followed close behind. Her comms unit crackled as she moved and the sound of Bradley’s muttered swearing came across it.
“You’re back online,” she told him.
“This case needs to end,” he said. “Is everyone alive?”
“As of now,” Manny called.
Manny had never spoken to Bradley before in his life, but the glowering silence on the other end showed Gabriella that Manny had hit his target. “It smells better down here,” Gabriella told Bradley. “You should still stay away for a couple days, but the cleansing worked.”
“Until Nick Bana gets back,” he said. “If he gets back.”
The implications of Nick’s situation had joined all the other things that kept Gabriella awake longer than she’d like at night, and she could tell Bradley felt the same way. But not because they talked about it. No, God forbid.
Here at the house, Manny was handling what Gabriella assumed was his first paranormal case like a pro. He hadn’t given the Father’s Roman collar more than a glance when he arrived. And when Gabriella told him the full story to go with the materials she’d already sent, he hadn’t flinched but he had double-checked that he was wearing his crucifix necklace. “So this O’Toole guy drilled holes in his foundation to stash demon summoning…things?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Frigging genius,” Manny said. “Alright, so you can see where the foundation is crumbling here-” he pointed to the hole by the washer, then to another, significantly smaller, one. “Here. And-” Another hole. “Here.”
“Can those be repaired?”
“Yeah, it’ll be a process but it’s not too bad. But I’m astonished their inspector didn’t…they didn’t get an inspection, did they?”
“No.”
“Motherfucker,” Manny muttered. “Alright, let’s see what other shit awaits.”
Over the next hour, Manny moved through the house, scowling and taking notes as he went. The list of problems continued to grow and Gabriella could only hope that the things he found would add up to a house that was not safe for living in. Maybe this wouldn’t work, maybe these repairs were sensible enough that the house counted as stability for Sarah and Melissa if the demon took Nick.
“Alright, look at this,” Manny said, standing by the fireplace and pointing out some other mess Gabriella couldn’t interpret. “If it’s this bad now, I’m a little nervous to see how it’s looking up top.”
“Do you need to go on the roof and look at it?” Gabriella asked.
“I’ve got a ladder in my truck, don’t worry about it.”
Yes, because that was exactly what she was worried about. Manny continued his inspection, grumbling as he made his way through the house. As they stood in the front hallway afterward, he looked down at his notes. “Okay,” he said. “So the house is a wreck. But unfortunately, it’s not at risk of crumbling to the ground in the near future.”
Fuck. This last possible solution hadn’t worked. And she didn’t trust that the demon would go away once it got Nick. Not with such a demon-rich atmosphere, crawling with potential negative energy from even the possibility of demons having once been here.
“Thank you for trying,” Gabriella said.
“At least his kid will have a root cellar full of demons as a consolation prize,” Bradley muttered.
“Wait, what?” Manny asked, looking up from his notebook.
“Nothing.”
“No, no, what was that about a root cellar?”
“O’Toole’s notebook said he stored things in his home, yard, and root cellar.”
“Hang on.”
Manny hurried out to the backyard and Gabriella went to the kitchen window. She watched as he stood in the middle of the grass with his hands on his hips, turning in a circle to inspect the entire yard.
“What’s going on?” Bradley asked.
“It might not be over,” Father McEnerney said from behind Gabriella.
Manny came back inside. “There’s no indication that the house has a root cellar,” he said. “I saw nothing inside or outside. You’re positive it said root cellar?”
“I’m looking at the notebook pictures McGovern sent over,” Bradley said. “Yeah, it says there’s a root cellar a few times.”
“I assumed he meant a part of the actual cellar,” Gabriella said. “Or it was the holes he was drilling.”
“I doubt it,” Manny said. “Not if he specified a distinct root cellar. It’s not on the house’s floorplan and there’s no exterior buildings he might have meant. Could he have dug his own? I’ve seen a few places where people try to DIY things like that and it never goes well.”
“Maybe,” Gabriella said, her pulse speeding up as she thought. “He was trying to summon demons into the house, so I can imagine he did a lot of this stuff himself.”
Manny hurried down the cellar stairs, his heavy bootfalls hammering on the old wood as he went. Gabriella and Father McEnerney ran after him, getting downstairs as Manny stood in the center of the cellar. Again, he had his hands on his hips, looking around the entire space.
“If he was doing creepy shit, he probably wanted privacy,” Manny said. “Look for anything down here that might indicate an old door. It could be hidden or just blocked up.”
Gabriella took the far left of the cellar while Father McEnerney took the space just beyond the stairs. Manny inspected the floor and all three worked silently for a few minutes. Gabriella ran her hands along the old fieldstone. Like before, it was cold and parts were a little damp from the thawing ground. And then it was soft again, with that nauseating spongey feeling.
“Manny!” she called.
Manny hurried over as she continued to press on the stone. The spongy material crumbled in her hand, first in flakes, then in large chunks.
“This goes about six feet across,” Manny said as he pulled out his tape measure to confirm it. “Gabs, hold that for me, honey.”
He pulled the measuring tape across the spongey material and marked the other end with a sharpie. Then the measuring tape crackled as he hit the button and pulled it back into its plastic case. “Even heavy rain or snow isn’t going to do this to stone,” he said.
He pulled out a knife and stuck it into the wall, where it sank easily into what she’d assumed was stone. Then he pulled it out to reveal the blade was covered in white dust. “This is plaster,” Manny said.
He looked at the wall, doing some quick muttered calculations. “Who sold these people this house?”
“House flippers, I think.”
“Right, yeah,” Manny said, looking back down at his blade. “I’m going to want these motherfuckers’ names so that no one buys a house from them again. But I think we might have solved your problem here.”
With Nick and Sarah’s permission. Manny brought in a small crew about an hour later. Gabriella and Father McEnerney waited with the Banas in the kitchen as Manny and his guys worked downstairs.
Nick paced the room as Sarah stared out the window into the backyard. Gabriella sat down next to her. “Are you alright?” she asked.
Sarah shrugged. “I’m not the one whose soul is on the line,” she said softly.
Gabriella had no idea what to say in response, but Sarah stood up. “I’m making tea,” she said. “Who wants tea?”
Gabriella didn’t particularly want any tea, but she wasn’t going to turn it down if Sarah needed something to do right now. Nick went to join Sarah at the stove, but she rejected his help with a sharp jerk of her head and he sat down silently beside Father McEnerney.
A little while later, Manny’s bootfalls on the stairs pulled Gabriella away from a text conversation with Bradley about the tension in the room. Nick and Sarah both stood up, Nick attempting to move toward Sarah while she stepped away from him.
“Your entire south-facing foundation is destroyed,” Manny said from the cellar doorway, wiping a dirty hand across his forehead. “We were right, someone attempted to build a root cellar beside your existing cellar, but they messed it up. There’s no ventilation inside and only a little into the house, so its deteriorating and collecting moisture. But more importantly, it destroyed the foundation of this house. I don’t know, guys. It’s certainly not safe to live in, you probably had about one good storm before the entire left hand side of the house started to sink even more.”
“Even more?” Sarah asked.
“Have you not noticed your house is crooked?” Manny asked. “It’s not the floors, it’s the foundation sinking because there’s no support under it beyond plaster that the flippers slapped up there. Yeah, it’s lasted for eighty years before that, minus whatever repairs those guys made. But that was an empty house with no additional pressure on those walls. You get a family living in here, more furniture, more weight, it’s a ticking time bomb and I can’t think of how you would fix it.”
This was it, this was their solution. Gabriella held her breath and glanced over at Father McEnerney, who was watching Manny.
“Not that you’d want to fix it,” Manny continued, looking from Nick to Sarah and back. “His attempt at a root cellar is now straight mold and it’s coming into your cellar through the wall. So between the instability and the mold, I wouldn’t pass this house in a million years. No inspector would. So next time you buy, get the inspection.”
He looked sternly at both Banas. Sarah was looking at the ground, but Nick turned to Gabriella like he wasn’t sure what to believe right now.
“So it’s unstable?” he asked, a tinge of hope in his voice.
“Yeah, that’s one word for it,” Manny said.
Nick laughed desperately, turning as though to hug Sarah. Sarah shook her head. “I hope this works for you,” she said as she stepped back.
“Sarah-”
Manny turned to Gabriella, who tried to ignore the drama going on a few steps away. “I’ll send a full report to your email,” he said.
“Thank you so much.”
He turned and shook Father McEnerney’s hand. “Great meeting you, Father,” he said.
“You as well.”
“Tell your camera buddy it was nice to meet him too. And if any of you ever need a home inspector, give me a call,” he said. “That goes for all of you.”
Gabriella still couldn’t imagine a situation where she might ever be able to afford to buy a home. But she didn’t say anything about that as she walked Manny back to his truck.
He hugged Gabriella tightly. “Hey,” he said. “You see James, tell him we’re here if he needs anything, alright?”
She nodded into his shoulder. Manny squeezed her one last time, his grip not quite as deadly as his brother’s, before getting in his truck. Gabriella watched him go as she adjusted her comms unit.
“We still don’t know anything for sure,” Bradley said over comms.
“I know,” she replied. “But we’ve done what we can.”
