The Deputy parked his car by the metal fence. Big signs were attached to it, warning of security and the dangers that lay ahead, though most were covered in a thick layer of graffiti. Weeds grew out of the guttering and had pushed through the cracks in the car park out front.

'I can see why people didn't want it demolished.' Jess gazed up at the gothic inspired building. Gargoyles sat on the crumbling roof, watching them with their soulless eyes. Most of the windows on the bottom floor were boarded up and those higher had been smashed.

But for all the damage it had sustained, it still felt a proud building. A building that was holding it together because it believed in its own self importance.

'Fat lot of good it did them, though. The council can't afford to fix it up, so now it's just falling apart.' The Deputy looked up and down the fence before drawing their attention to a section that had been cut and bent backwards.

'Elijah, don't you have some secrets,' Ash teased him as one by one they squeezed through.

'I've arrested more than a few students from trespassing,' he said.

Ash shivered as they neared the imposing building. Knee length weeds brushed against her legs, like bony fingers beckoning them forward. The sound of their feet on the ruined tarmac echoed, and she glanced behind her to check if anyone was following them. But there was no one.

The Deputy switched on his torch and the sisters pulled out their phones. They instinctively huddled closer together, feeling safer nearer the light.

Away from the streetlights, the darkness swallowed them. If it wasn't for the sound of the occasional passing car, they could have been in the middle of nowhere rather than on the edge of the city.

'This is what you saw?' The Deputy glanced at Ash.

'Yes,' she said with certainty.

'So how we getting in?' Jess asked.

'We're taking the direct route.' The Deputy pulled out a heavy duty chain cutter from his backpack and stalked towards the door.

'Won't someone know we've been here?'

'I don't think we need to worry about that,' Ash answered as the Deputy stepped back from the door.

'The chain's already broken. They've just wrapped it so it looks secured,' he said.

'Security's doing a bang-up job then,' Ash said drily.

'Let's be grateful that they're not,' Jess countered as the Deputy pulled the chain from the door.

'Keep your necklace on,' Ash reminded her.

'I'm going to have to take it off to see the ghosts.'

'Let's just find out what's here first,' begged Ash.

Jess rolled her eyes and headed in first, leaving the Deputy to watch Ash with a frown.

'We may need to use her gift if we're going to find Charity,' he said.

Ash looked away. 'There's still a lot she doesn't know. She hasn't learned how to control her gift. Hell, I don't even know how it'll manifest.'

'I know you worry about her, but all things considered she's handling things pretty well. She's strong.'

'There's a difference between being strong and being reckless.'

'And you can't always baby her. You learnt to manage your gifts and so will she.'

Ash crossed her arms over her chest and fell silent.

The Deputy clamped his mouth shut as she stalked past him.

'Jesse?' she called.

'In here.'

Ash and the Deputy followed the sound of her voice and went into through the first door on the left.

Beer cans and wrappers littered the floor. The walls had been inscribed by numerous hands, some in vibrant neon spray paint, others with simple black biros. The science desks were still in place, but everything else had been gutted. Cupboard doors hung off old hinges, their contents already ransacked for anything that would be considered valuable. Faded posters of the human body stared back at them, the once vivid colours faded back into a garish grey.

'It's creepy.' Jess shivered. 'Do you sense anything?'

Ash stepped forward and trailed her hand across a desk, her fingers coming back with a thick layer of grime, but no visions.

'Nothing.'

'No ghosts?' the Deputy asked.

'Not in this room, at least.'

'Then we should keep looking.' Jess walked past them, her phone held high to guide her way, leaving Ash and the Deputy to trail after her.

They investigated a few more rooms, but the most interesting thing they found was a dead possum and an old sleeping bag.

'Squatters moved in once,' the Deputy said, kicking over the material and finding nothing inside.

'A place as big as this, you'd think there'd be more.' Ash looked around. It was the perfect place to lie low. Practically an open door, lack of security, and room after room to conceal yourself in.

The Deputy trailed his torch over the discarded item before moving on. 'There was an incident. Most squatters don't come here now.'

'What kind of incident?' Ash asked sharply.

'The guy was high on something. Not in his right mind.' But the Deputy's eyes lingered on Jess just ahead of them.

'He saw something?'

The Deputy glanced at Ash. 'A couple of kids found him here huddled in a corner. He'd soiled himself and was blubbering gibberish. We found another squatter dead outside. Post mortem confirmed that it was a heart attack. Not surprising considering the mixture of illegal substances in his blood.'

'And the one that was alive? What gibberish was he talking about?' she demanded.

'The man was an Albanian immigrant. Even after we got a translator, we couldn't decipher what he meant. The translator told us he kept repeating an old Albanian story, over and over. She said it was the legend of Rozafa or Roteza's castle.'

'I've never heard of it.'

'You're telling me.'

'What happened to him?'

'The sheriff had him deported when he couldn't provide any papers. We searched the building at the time to check for any more squatters. And found a big pile of nothing. It must have been some bad acid trip he was on. Seeing things that weren't there.'

'Must have been...' Ash repeated, less certain.

Three dead students. One dead squatter. And one driven close to insanity. But it only felt like the tip of the iceberg to her.

Jess flashed her light over the stone stairs. 'Do we go up?'

Ash went to open her mouth when a vision gripped her. The same stairs, but carpeted and well perverse, and then immediately dusty and dishevelled. But a mirrored sense of excitement and nerves.

She was five steps up the stairs before she realised her sister was calling her.

'You had a vision,' Jess guessed.

'I just saw the stairs.' Which was the truth, but not all of it. Ash withheld the fact that she was sure she was seeing the stairs from two different time periods.

For a reason she didn't understand, the vision scared her. It was different. She'd never had a vision encompassing two different time periods.

But there could be no other explanation for what she saw. In the first, she wasn't alone. Other students had hurried past her, their faces harassed as they dashed between classes. But the second showed the stairs that she now climbed. Bare. Broken. Left to ruin.

And yet there was a connection between them. She just couldn't see it yet.

'It's mostly offices up here and entrances to the main lecture halls.' The Deputy looked into a few rooms but nothing stood out to him.

'Maybe I should...' Jess gripped her necklace, but Ash was quick to shake her head.

'I don't sense another presence,' she lied.

'Then we keep looking,' the Deputy said, taking the lead.

Ash allowed the two to get ahead of her before turning back. There was no one there, but this time she knew they were being watched.

'We only seek the truth,' she whispered. 'Allow us this.'

She waited, feeling the spirits drift away, although they were reluctant. She had no doubt they would drift back soon. The dead always found the living intriguing, and the ghosts had been curious.

She found her sister and the Deputy in a corner office. The windows were the few lucky survivors. One lone screw remained wedged into the door where a name plaque would have been.

'There's a door behind here,' said Jess, pointing her phone behind one of the few bookshelves that hadn't been destroyed or overturned.

She pushed it, and the entire bookcase swung out easily. The hinges barely squeaked.

Three beams of light fell on the concealed door as they gathered around it.

'Why would this be here?' The Deputy wondered.

'It's not that unusual. If this building is as old as I think it is, then people built safe rooms during the Civil War in case they were overrun. People would store weapons, food, even contraband.'

'I see the history degree is paying off.' Ash grinned, seeing the excitement in Jess' eyes.

'Do you know what the building was before it was part of the university?' Jess asked the Deputy, ignoring her sister.

'Couldn't tell you. My family only moved to the area in the seventies. As far as I'm concerned, it's always been part of the university. Until it was shut down in the nineties.'

They lapsed into silence before Jess took the initiative and opened the door.

A cramped space confronted them, no bigger than an old telephone booth.

'A building this size should have a larger hiding hole than this,' Jess scowled, stepping into the room.

'Maybe they were just lazy builders,' Ash guessed. She looked over her shoulder, but nothing lurked in the shadows behind them. The ghosts still hadn't returned. But her unease didn't disappear.

'Or maybe they were geniuses,' Jess said. 'What better way to get your enemies to stop searching than by giving them a piece of what they're looking for?'

'You've lost me,' Ash admitted.

Jess pointed to the room. 'It's fake. A fake concealment to trick whoever was looking into giving up the search. You sacrifice a few bits of food or weapons to make it look as though they've found what you want to hide.'

'Then where's the real one?' The Deputy asked.

'Why build two secret entrances?' Jess countered. She looked around, angling her phone so she could get the best view. A highly carved panel made up the back wall, and she trailed her hands over it.

Chained bodies, emancipated and begging, crawled under a man in military uniform, a confederate flag rippling behind him. More slaves were depicted in various appalling states in different sections of the panel. And above it all was depicted a smiling family dining. A husband, wife and four sons, looking down at the legacy they hoped to build.

'It's grotesque,' Ash muttered. 'The university can't know about this.'

'I wouldn't be so sure,' the Deputy said sourly. 'Hatred still runs thick here.'

Carved into the space under the family's dining table was a motto that Jess translated.

'Under God, our vindicator.' She pressed it inwards and heard the gears tick as the panel slid sideways into the wall.

'Who wants to walk up the creepy steps first?' Ash said.

Rather than answering, the Deputy stepped forward and led the way up the stairs.

'And they say chivalry is dead,' joked Jess.

'After you.' Ash waved her sister's forward. She wanted to be between Jess and whatever she could sense behind them.

Jess didn't argue and climbed the stairs behind the Deputy.

'I think I can hear something,' he said as his flashlight shone over another door. 'On three. One. Two. Three.'

He barged through the door, Jess and Ash hot on his heels just as two identical shrieks pierced the air.

'Well, this is awkward,' Ash said and Jess elbowed her as she turned away, her face blazing red.

The two half naked college students raced to pull on their clothes, recognising the Deputy, who was a regular feature of the university's career fairs.

'This is an off limits building,' he bristled, taking in the dim romantic lighting, softly playing music, and two glasses of wine laid out.

'I-I can explain,' the girl stammered.

'Then please do,' he commanded.

'There's this guy. You pay him and he sets up this place. Keeps it private and romantic for when you don't want prying eyes.'

'His name and contact information,' the Deputy barked.

'I don't know,' she cried. 'It's all done via email. I don't know who he is. He just calls himself the Provider.'

'Then how do you know he's male?'

The Deputy's question drew her up short, and she snapped her mouth shut.

'I..I don't. Not really. I mean, I assumed...' she blabbered.

'Give me his email address. And if I catch you here again, you'll both be arrested for trespassing.' The Deputy gritted his teeth as the girl gave him all the information she could, which could have been described as next to nothing.

'Don't linger,' he snapped, as the two students scurried down the stairway.

Ash stepped forwards and flicked off half the twinkle lights at the battery source, before returning them to full power.

'This is the place from my vision.'

'It's the same place as Charity's photos,' agreed the Deputy.

'So at least we know what she was doing here,' Ash said.

'Isn't going to be easy to identify who she was with. There could be a hundred different prints in here,' he said.

'Maybe that email address will give us something,' Jess said hopefully.

'Maybe.' But the Deputy sounded less than enthusiastic.

'My visions lead us here for a reason.'

'Do you feel anything?' he asked.

Ash hesitated. The lie had come easily downstairs when the spirits had only been curious, but now she wasn't so sure. There was something here. Something dark that lingered just outside of her extra sight. It was like it was goading her, staying in the places that she couldn't see.

'I'm not sure.'

'What do you mean?' Jess demanded.

But Ash couldn't answer as she felt her head explode. The vision was so violent that it forced her to her knees.

Another woman, not Charity, waited so patiently, admiring the room, wearing a simple shift and bra. And then there was only pain and fear as hands closed around her throat.

'Ash!' Jess cried, rushing towards her sister.

'We need to go,' Ash croaked, rubbing her neck.

'Ash?'

Ash looked up at the Deputy walking backwards towards them, his gaze fixed on a form that hadn't been there before. The thing flickered, solidified, and dissolved again. It was a never ending repeating pattern that Ash found lingering torture, but she couldn't look away.

'There's more of them,' Jess whispered.

Another two forms surrounded them, the same as the first.

'The kids that burned in the fire. Were they females?' Jess asked.

The Deputy looked at her as if she were crazy. 'They were male.'

'Then we've got a serious problem, since these are female,' Jess said. 'They're ghosts, aren't they?' Jess helped Ash to her feet.

'Yes,' confirmed Ash.

'But you can both see them?'

Ash turned to her sister. 'There's still a lot you don't know, but trust me when I say we need to get out of here.'

The first ghost flicked her wrist and the door behind her snapped shut with a crash.

'I don't think she's going to let us,' the Deputy said.

The ghost woman surged forward, colliding with Jess as Ash screamed.

A blue light surrounded Jess for two seconds before it dissipated. The other ghosts disappeared like a candle being snuffed out, leaving Ash and the Deputy to steady Jess' quivering body.

'Jesse, are you okay?' demanded Ash.

Jess' eyes snapped open, but lifeless coal coloured eyes had replaced her brown ones. She vaulted out of their grasp and looked at them coldly.

'Retribution,' she said.

Although it was Jess' voice that spoke, Ash knew that it wasn't her sister.

'Let my sister go,' Ash commanded.

'Retribution,' Jess repeated.

'I said. Let. My. Sister. Go.'

'Only she. Grant retribution.' Black ooze spilled from Jess' mouth.

'Jesse, if you can hear me, I'll get her out, I promise you,' vowed Ash.

'What do you mean?' yelled the Deputy, but Ash was already advancing.

Jess pushed her hand forward, and Ash fought against the power forcing her back.

She heard the moment the Deputy lost his fight. The resounding crash made her wince, and she only hoped he was still conscious.

'You can't do this,' she screamed in anger.

'Only she. Grant retribution,' Jess said again.

'Fuck you.' But Ash could feel it, her feet were slipping, and before she knew it she was flung backwards just as the Deputy had been.

Her head collided with the wall, and her vision went black.