That's A Rap Chapter Three

It was agreed unanimously that no one should attempt to enter the bedroom again, least of all Olivia.
"We must draw the other spirits away from the main evil entity. He has them trapped by holding them captive with his campaign of fear and persecution." The medium explained.
"So how many are there?" Joanne asked.
"I not sure. The others don't like being near the evil one, they're scared and confused, but they have no choice but to do his biding, they are too weak and confused to defy him." Olivia paused, the intense sadness she sensed all around her, constantly sapped her energy. "There are at least four terrified souls in this house. And one thing I do know. One of them is a young girl, maybe seven years old."
"Oh my God!" Joanne gasped. "We have to help them."
"So who are they?" Carl intervened. "Are they all former occupants of this place?"
"I think there was another building on this site before this one. The souls that are trapped here are probably the servants who served the squire. He was a cruel and evil master when alive and hasn't changed in death."
While Carl and Olivia discussed possible ways of drawing the weaker spirits away from the evil squire, George and Joanne watched with rising concern as the thermometer they had placed in the room began to flash, indicating a significant temperature drop. To begin with, they watched in silence as the digital figures fell steadily. However, when the room became so cold that their breath could be easily seen as thin wisps of white mist, the decision was made to announce the gradual change.
"Is he coming?" Joanne asked, fear evident in her voice.
"I don't sense him," Olivia assured her. "I sense a much weaker presence. I think it's one of the female servants."
Apart from the drop in temperature, Carl detected the rising tension in his team. On this he occasion he was determined to be prepared. Retrieving the night vision camera from its case he began to pan around the room in wide sweeps. If there was anything in that room, experience, or more likely an intuitive gut feeling told him he could capture it for posterity on film. His more mercenary business sense, told him that they had stumbled upon the investigation of a lifetime and would have no problem selling the story to the relevant media.
Seeing Carl's instinctive reaction, George and Joanne employed their respective skills, George employing the use of the EMF meter, while Joanne quickly activated the digital audio recorder.
A consuming silence fell over each member as they went about their relative tasks. Only Olivia's soft voice contravened, as she began urging whatever spirit was present to come forward and communicate with her.
"Is there a spirit person present?" she began. "Come towards me. Use my energy. We won't hurt you. We only want to help you."
"There's something over by the fireplace," Carl whispered excitedly.
George responded by slowly approaching the area, his eyes fixed firmly on the display panel in his hand. "There's something there boss, the reading's getting higher."
"There it is! ... I just saw a light!"
"That's right ... Come closer," Olivia urged. "We can help you! You don't need to stay trapped here any longer. Use our energy and let us guide you towards the light where you will be safe, and free of the evil squire's hold on you."
Carl tracked the small light, it appeared to be holding a predetermined course around the front of the fireplace, displaying varying degrees of luminance, sometimes small and dim, them suddenly bright and motivated as it seemed to become energized before moving swiftly to a new location.
"Geez ... there's another one," Carl announced.
"It's the little girl with her mother." Olivia responded. "Oh the poor child, she's so frightened."
Suddenly a loud bang, echoed from one of the rooms upstairs. Joanne jumped and winced as the sound reverberated painfully into the headphones she had donned.
"I think we might be beginning to piss the old man off a bit," George quipped.
By now Olivia seemed to be totally entranced. A third spirit had ventured towards her sympathetic intervention, and all appeared willing to follow her pleas to ignore the old squire's angry rantings.
"That's right, keep coming forward. He can't hurt you now. He as no power over you, use our energy, it's too strong for him to fight." What Olivia said next took the rest of the team completely by surprise. "Go to the man in front of you ... Go to Max. He's come to guide you to the light and way from the squire. Trust him ... he's a good man."
For a brief moment the entire house filled with deafening bangs and crashes, accompanied by a blast of wind that slammed the library door back against the wood paneled walls. Then instantly, there was silence, utter and complete silence. The atmosphere began to warm as a sense of peace washed over everyone.
"They've gone," Olivia smiled, with an air of obvious satisfaction. "They're safe now."
"What about the Squire?" Joanne asked, removing the headphones.
"He's still here, but he as no power now. He as no energy to feed from."
"How do we get rid of the Squire," Carl began to ask, "If he's so powerful, there's no telling what he's capable of if he gets energy from us."
"The only form of energy he can sap from us is fear," Olivia informed them.
George laughed loudly at the unemotional manner in which Olivia had tried to dismiss any ideas that she wasn't scared.
"Well I don't mind admitting I've got shed loads of fear he can have." His voice began to show his rising level of irritation. "I'm getting a bit tired of the way you lot treat these investigations like some kind of game."
"Come on George," Carl interrupted. "You know how seriously we take these vigils. You've been with us long enough."
"Do I? Do I know?" George had grumbled many times on previous occasions. Often voicing his disapproval at the way situations were being handled. But, on this occasion, it became blatantly clear this was not a usual George grumbling moment, this was heartfelt anger, he was spilling out on them. An experience that did little to alleviate the already uneasy atmosphere.
"How can you say that George?" Joanne contributed in an uncharacteristically harsh voice. "You've seen the hours Carl puts in analyzing and collating all the footage we get. Not to mention the money he's spent on equipment."
"And you think he does all that for his love of the paranormal? Wake up, Joanne. He does all that because that's the business he's in. He's not collating evidence of the paranormal, he's producing spectacular footage to sell to the media network.
Before Carl could rebut George's angry allegations, Olivia intervened with her own display of vented anger;
"Stop!" she yelled. "Can't you see what you're doing? If the evil entity in this house can't feed off your fear, then he will resort to feeding from your anger, and you're playing right into his hands. You three have worked together as a team for years, don't you find it just a little strange that you're turning on each other now?"
A stunned silence followed Olivia's warning. All of them realized the wisdom of her words.
"She's right ... I'm sorry boss," George admitted, "You know I didn't mean any of that crap?"
Carl excepted George's apology ungrudgingly, admitting that whatever power was at work around them it was manipulating their emotions, to increase its evil force over them.
"What do we do next, Olivia?" Carl asked, almost afraid of the answer.
"We take it on face to face in a séance!"
Joanne spoke for everyone when she ventured her next question of the medium;
"You're planning a séance in that bedroom, aren't you?"
"It's the only way, Joanne, believe me. We have no choice."
"But, he's too strong for us. How can we compete with the force he has?"
"We have all the protection we need. As long as we stay together and combine our energies. Plus we have ..."
"Plus we have your Dad working with us from the other side, right?" Carl Interrupted.
"Yes! We do, and he won't let anything happen to us."
"This lot just keeps getting weirder by the second," George grinned, in lighthearted sarcasm."
After a brief recession the team filed up to the bedroom. Olivia led the way, outwardly she showed a quiet confidence, which she hoped would inspire courage in the others to pull off what could turn out to be the most intense confrontation of her short yet eventful career.
"Is everyone ready?" she asked, sitting at the table placed in the center of the room on a previous visit. "Let's join hands and begin."
Slowly they all grasped each others hands, each sensing the uneasiness their neighbor was feeling, evident in way all hands were shaking.
"Remember, whatever happens we must not break the circle. If anyone is too afraid to continue, then now is the time to walk away."
Hearing no reply, and seeing the circle still complete, Olivia began calling the spirit of the evil old squire.
Upon the first beckoning from the young mediums lips, a sudden blast of air blew the thread-bare curtains into the room. All heads turned in the direction of the big window, though all hands stayed firmly interlocked.
"Come on, is that the best you can do?" Olivia laughed. "Come out into the open and face the light. "You have no power over us, that scares you, doesn't it?"
The table began to vibrate, slowly at first then building quickly into violent leaps several inches from the wooden floor, each time landing with a deafening bang.
"Come on! Is that the best you can do?" she taunted.
The table continued its angry dance, while small objects launched themselves into the air around the sitters, who sat resolute and determined to maintain the circle.
"So, the evil Squire Thackery is helpless against our life force. We are not the weak lost souls you have fed from all these years. Show us how powerful you are now!
The sitters all turned towards Olivia, each one stunned by outburst of angry taunts and curses. They knew her as a timid and shy person, not this ranting and seething battle hardened spiritualist, ready to take on whatever the other side could through at her, with scant regard of any unearthly reprisals.
When the mediums head fell limp onto her chest, everyone feared she had been struck by one of many objects launched from various quarters of the dark room.
"Should we help her?" Joanne whispered, slackening her nervous grip on Carl's hand.
"No!" George yelled. "Don't break the circle."
When Olivia spoke again, not only was everyone present, ready to break the circle, they were more than ready to evacuate the room and run.
The young woman's lips moved, though her eyes remained firmly closed. The voice that emerged from her dry mouth was not hers. It was the deep, compassionate voice of a man.
"Max? Max Deacon?" George gasped, instantly recognizing it as that belonging to Olivia's dead father.
"You must remain strong, and act quickly," the voice urged. "Squire Thackery is weak now, he as spent his energy on his display anger. Urge him towards me, so I can take him through the light to the other side.
"How do we do that?" Carl asked desperately.
The voice began to slowly fade, as if receding into the distance. "Urge him!" it pleaded several times before finally disappearing, slowly being replaced by Olivia's soft moans as she regained her state of semi-trance.
The sitters remained in silent concentration. As Olivia began her torrade of taunting insults to urge the Squire Thackery out into the open, and towards her father who could then snare him in his superior will and lock him away forever, behind the all consuming light.
"Come on Thackery, you don't seem that powerful to me," she hissed.
The reaction was immediate and intense. Once again the bedroom erupted into violent chaos.
"Don't be afraid, he can't hurt you," Oliver shouted to her colleagues above the noise. Urge him out, concentrate on combining our energies together."
Joanne was the first to show the signs of inevitable fatigue, Carl could feel her grip weakening on his hand.
The relentless onslaught lasted for no more than fifteen minutes, though its effects had left everyone exhausted, none more so than Olivia.
"He's passed over," she gasped breathlessly. He cannot do more harm to anyone."
One by one the sitters released their grip on each other, and sat in grateful silence. Only when a loud metallic click reverberated from behind them did anyone speak
"What was that?" Joanne gasped in renewed horror.
Carl recognized the familiar sound almost immediately and laughed loudly;
"That was just the video camera switching off. We must have left it turned on when we ran out earlier."
"You mean we got the whole thing on film?" Joanne exclaimed, her relief obvious to everyone.
George pushed back his chair and crossed the room, heading directly towards the camera, whereupon he checked out the integrity of the last few seconds of image on the monitor. Every one laughed with relief when he removed the tape from the camera and held it aloft, like a victor proudly hoisting his trophy. "Well boss. That looks like it's a rap to me."