Death's Shroud

by Robbie Cox

  “Do you know what a dybbuk is?” Tansy asked, cutting into the conversation.

  “From what I’m hearing, it means a stalker,” Cynthia snapped, and Regina could hear the worry in the other woman’s voice. She didn’t blame her. Regina hadn’t exactly said things that sounded normal.

  “It’s a ghost of sorts,” Tansy said. “They die under mysterious circumstances and wind up roaming the world, trying to possess a body, so they can figure out how they died.”

  “And you’re saying my mother is one of these dybbuk things?” Reggie asked, shaking his head. “Lady, I don’t believe in ghosts. I think you all need to leave.” He started to shut the door.

  “I’m not a ghost,” Regina blurted. “I know I don’t look like you remember, but Reggie, I am your mother. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m sure we can prove it to you. I’m not trying to scare you, I swear, but I need your help.”

  Reggie just stared at her, his dark eyes pinched. “You look nothing like my mother, lady. I was there when we buried her. I saw her in the casket. It’s an image I will never get out of my head. The last image I have of her.”

  Regina nodded. “I know, but what about the last time you talked to her? Can you remember how I looked then? We sat on your bed. Your sister had just hit you with one of her dolls, because you cut off the doll’s hair. She had made you mad. I sat on the bed with you, a cold rag to your head, just above your eye.” She pointed to his right eye. “You still have a scar, I see.” She smiled. “I had hoped it would fade in time, but the cut went deep. Your father grounded her for a month for hitting you. We laid in bed that night, just you and I, and I held you as we read one of your favorite books, Where the Wild Things are.”

  “You’re making that up to play on his emotions,” Cynthia said as she tried to pull her husband back into the house.

  “No, she’s not,” Reggie said, his voice a soft whisper as he stared at Regina. “I never told anyone about that night. Mom died the very next day, and I forgot all about it.” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes slipping back to narrow slits. “How did you know about that?”

  She smiled, tears now flowing freely. “Because I was there, Reggie. I know it sounds crazy, but I am your mother, and I need your help. I don’t know how much time I have, but these ladies are here to help me find the justice I need to move…” She screamed, doubling over and clutching her stomach with one hand, the other hand going to her head.

  “Mom!” Reggie screamed as he reached for her.

  Tansy and Jayden wrapped their arms around her, keeping her from hitting the ground.

  “Sherri?” Regina wheezed, but the other woman was silent.

  Twenty-Six

  “Regina, what’s wrong?” Tansy laid the woman prone on the porch, afraid to move her until they knew more of what was happening. There was no way Sherri would do this to her, not after convincing everyone to give Regina a chance to say goodbye to her family. At least, Tansy hoped Sherri wouldn’t do it, especially in front of Regina’s son. “Regina? Sherri? Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  Regina huddled in on herself, screaming as she wiggled on the ground, rocking back and forth. “I can’t hear Sherri.”

  “Who the hell is Sherri?” Cynthia asked, her voice laced with annoyance. “What the hell is happening? Is this woman having a seizure or something?”

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Reggie said as he spun to go back inside.

  “No!” Regina cried out, stretching an arm out for her son. “Not…sick.” She took a few deep breaths, reaching out and clutching Tansy’s arm. “Tharon…he’s attacking Sherri, I think. I can’t find…” She screamed again, pulling her knees up to her stomach. “I can’t stop…”

  Tansy looked up at Reggie. “Can we get her inside, lay her down on a couch?”

  “No way,” Cynthia screeched. “We don’t even know her. Or you for that matter?” She spun on Reggie. “Call the police. We can’t let them inside. It could be some sort of setup. Our baby is in there. I’m not letting some crazed woman into our home.”

  Reggie glanced at his wife for a moment, the internal battle he fought quite evident on his face. Another second passed, a second Tansy didn’t think they had, before he faced the others again. Glancing at Jayden, he motioned to Regina. “Help me get her up.”

  Together, Jayden and Reggie picked Regina up off the ground, one of her arms draped around each of their shoulders as they guided her inside the house and placed her on the couch. Cynthia complained the entire time. Regina continued to moan, her body crumbling in on itself.

  “Who is Tharon?” Reggie asked as he stood back up. “And how can he be doing this to my mother?”

  “She’s not your mother,” Cynthia snapped, standing at one end of the couch, arms over her chest in defiant protest. When her husband ignored her, she blew out a frustrated breath, waving her arms in the air. “Oh, for crying out loud. Reggie just call for an ambulance. Please.”

  Tansy glanced at Cynthia for a brief moment before turning her attention back to Reggie. She took a deep breath. If Cynthia had a hard time believing Regina existed in Sherri’s body, this next part would drive her absolutely bonkers. “Tharon is a revenant of Death. He’s been going around Harbor City, killing people in their sleep. So far, there’s been three that we know about.”

  “What’s a…what did you say? Revenant?” Reggie asked, his brows furrowed.

  “Of Death, Reggie,” Cynthia said. “She said a revenant of Death. Get them out of our house.”

  “It’s a demon basically,” Tansy said, her gaze focused on Regina as the woman curled into a fetal position, her arms wrapped over her stomach. She turned to Jayden. “Call your sister. Tell her where we are. And then get in touch with Wanda. We may need everyone for this.”

  “Everyone for what?” Cynthia asked as Jayden yanked her phone from her back pocket. “What is going on?”

  Tansy leaned down next to Regina. “Tharon seems to be trying to kill the owner of your mom’s body.”

  “Can’t you do anything?” Reggie asked, his entire body wound tight as he stared at Regina’s trembling form. “She’s in pain? Make it stop.”

  Tansy stood. “If this was happening outside of her body, I could, but the fact that it’s occurring in her mind…” She shrugged. “This is a little out of my wheelhouse.” She glanced over at Jayden, who was on the phone with Laci. “I can only protect the outside.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Regina huddled in on herself, her body rocking back and forth on the couch. Turning herself inward, she went in search of her body’s host. “Sherri!” she screamed inside of her mind. “Where are you?” She sank in on herself, roaming the dark recesses of the mind she shared with Sherri Rockford, searching for the blonde while keeping an eye out for the revenant of Death. “Sherri, I’m here. Where are you?”

  “Why do you care?” the deep voice asked as Tharon stepped out of the shadows. His robe covered his entire body, the cowl pulled up over his head, revealing only his ominous red eyes of fire. “Weren’t you planning on taking over her body, anyway? I’m giving you your chance.”

  “Laci says she’s on her way,” Regina heard Jayden say. “She says for us to cast a protective shield around her in case Tharon tries to use her to escape.”

  Regina shoved the voices out of her mind, focusing on the demon in front of her. “She doesn’t deserve what I intended to do to her,” she said. “She’s a good person. Where is she?”

  The revenant laughed. “A good person? Please. You know what she did with her life before you stole her body. You heard her tale of desperation and squander. She’s just like the rest of them. They waste their lives, their time on this earth. What has she accomplished with her existence? Nothing! You, on the other hand, want to make evildoers pay for their crime; you want to spend time with your grandson, helping him grow up, helping your son become a better father. Those are things worth living for, not the drugs this woman pumped into her body. She doesn’t deserve this bod
y. Hell, I was going to kill her already, so now you get the body free and clear.”

  “I don’t want it. It’s not right. She tried to help me. She was willing to share her body with me.”

  The demon laughed again. “So what? Now you can have it all to yourself. Why share this body with a junkie? You can do whatever you want with it.”

  Regina took a deep breath. She had to find Sherri, but where would the demon have hidden her? The mind was such a cavern of dark holes and tunnels, she could be anywhere. “I don’t want this body all to myself. I’ll either share it with Sherri or she can have it to herself. It’s hers.”

  “You talk as if the choice is yours,” Tharon sneered. “It’s not. If you don’t want this body all to yourself, then you’ll die with her.” He lashed out with his arm, his fingers sparking red fire to match his eyes, as he sent power into Regina’s chest.

  The magic hit her hard, picking her up off the floor, and hurling her through the air. She screamed, both inside her head as well as outside.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  “You didn’t get very far,” Tricia said, spinning to face the trio that busted back into her autopsy room. “Where’s the fire?”

  Laci left Mark Rochester to deal with the medical examiner as she walked over to the table where Emma Croft’s body lay. There was no time to explain or gain permission. They needed to get through the Dream Realm to where Tharon attacked Regina and Sherri. Laci stood on one side of the corpse, staring down into Emma’s closed eyes. “So, what do we do?” she asked, keeping her focus on the woman’s face. “This isn’t exactly like talking to the dead or entering through a daydream.”

  “Hey, get away from that body,” Tricia ordered as she moved over to try to block Nazareth and Laci. “You’ll contaminate the autopsy. Mark, what the hell is going on here?”

  Nazareth took a deep breath. “Emma, we need your help,” he said as he laid his hand on the corpse’s shoulder. “We need access to travel through the realms. We need to find Tharon, the revenant who killed you.”

  “Tricia, look, I know this…” Mark started.

  “Okay, enough talking to the dead people,” Tricia said, waving her hand, shooing the others away from the table. “I’m the only one who talks to the dead. Away from my table.”

  “…looks weird, but I can explain,” Mark continued.

  “Emma, wake up,” Nazareth said. “We don’t have time to play nice.”

  “There will be no playing at all…” Tricia started, but she never got to finish her sentence.

  “Am I really dead?” Emma asked, her eyes fluttering open as she turned to face Nazareth. “I am dead, aren’t I? The demon killed me.”

  Tricia screamed, her hand over her mouth as she fell backward. Luckily, Mark was there to catch her as she tripped over her feet, falling backward. “How…? What…? Oh, my god!”

  “I can explain,” Mark said as he held her, keeping her on her feet. “Well, at least I can try.”

  Laci glanced over at him, concern on her face. “Are you…?”

  “We’re fine,” Mark said. “You do what you have to do. I’ll make sure Tricia understands. Well, as much as I understand, anyway.” He gave a soft laugh as he shrugged his shoulders. “Come on, Tricia. You’re going to wish you had called out today.”

  Laci just nodded as she turned back to Nazareth. “What do I do?”

  “We need a protective spell around the body,” he said. “That way dear Emma doesn’t get up and walk off while we’re traipsing around in the realms of the dead.”

  Laci nodded. “I can do that.” With a deep breath, she stepped away from the table, closing her eyes. She pictured a glowing light at her core, pulsing, ribbons of power radiating from within her. Envisioning the power radiating out of her fingers, she walked around the autopsy table placing a circle of power around the body of Emma Croft. In the background, she heard Mark trying to explain to Tricia the world he lived in over the past month. Once Laci reached the spot where she started, she sealed the circle and built the walls, dome, and floor. When she sealed them in, she turned back to Nazareth. “Now what?”

  “Faeries and demons?” Tricia almost shrieked. “You want me to believe a demon possesses this woman?”

  Nazareth reached into his jacket and pulled out his flask. Untwisting the cap, he took a long swallow, and then sealed it up again, slipping it back into his jacket. With a deep breath, he said, “And now we take a walk.” He turned his focus back down to Emma. “All right, Emma, we’re about to follow the path that’ll lead us to Tharon. I just need you to lie back and relax.”

  “I want to live!” Emma shouted, starting to reach out and grab Nazareth.

  The old man placed his hand on Emma’s forehead and chanted a few words. Emma laid back down, her eyes closing once more. Looking over at Laci, he said, “It’s just like when you did a daydream. Close your eyes, see the line between Emma and the Summerlands, and then take a step.”

  “You did just see a dead woman talk, right?” Mark asked Tricia, standing between the medical examiner and the others.

  “Tharon is walking around in Sherri’s mind, while she’s awake,” Laci said, doing her best to ignore the other two. “Not asleep. I thought he only killed people in their dreams. How is this going to work if they’re awake?”

  Nazareth leaned on the autopsy table as he stared over at Laci. “Tharon is a revenant of Death, not Dream or Sleep. He just uses the dreams of his victims to kill them, finding it funny. He hides in their minds, while they’re awake, studying them, sometimes twisting them in certain directions. They think he’s that small voice of conscience most people believe in, but in reality, he’s a mini devil, guiding his victims where he wants them to go.” He shrugged. “All of that to say, he can kill them whenever he wants. I’ve known revenants who made their victims jump out of windows at great heights just for kicks. They’re not amiable creatures, you know?” He took a deep breath. “And just as a heads up, it’ll be harder while Sherri is awake. Or Regina, whoever is in control of the body.”

  “How do we destroy this thing once we find him?”

  Nazareth pressed his lips together in a thin line. “Once we trap him inside a mind, we have to destroy the person, so he can’t escape.”

  Laci felt her eyes go wide. “We have to kill Sherri?”

  “Not necessarily,” Nazareth said. “If we can lock Tharon into the dybbuk’s mind, we can cast her out, destroying the revenant in the process. Sherri should be fine.”

  “That’s still murder!”

  “The dybbuk is already dead. Casting her out is just as much a part of a necromancer’s job as destroying the demon.” He took a deep breath. “There’s no other way.”

  Laci nodded as she took a deep breath through her nose, not liking her options. She would figure something out, however, when the moment arrived. She refused to see Regina hurt anymore. Nothing is ever easy, is it? “Let’s do this.” Dropping her gaze down to Emma’s corpse, she looked for the way in that Nazareth described. Closing her eyes, Laci placed a hand on Emma’s forehead, picturing an open door leading to the cliff where she saw Emma in her dream the other day, pictured the cool breeze, the birds flying overhead, the clouds dotting the bright blue sky. Then she pictured herself walking through the door, leaving the cold tile of the autopsy room for the warm cliff, the sun hitting her face, the breeze pulling at her hair.

  Opening her eyes, Laci glanced around at the cliff side, breathing in the crisp air. Emma wasn’t there. Nor was Jason.

  Laci’s eyes went wide, and she spun herself around in a circle, panic gripping her. “Nazareth!” She continued turning in a circle, searching for the necromancer, but he was nowhere in sight. Why wouldn’t he be there with her? Why didn’t he enter the same spot she did? How was she to know where to go if Nazareth wasn’t there to guide her?

  She took a slow, steadying breath. All right. I can do this. He showed me what to do. I just need to do it. She blew out the breath in a slow, steady stream of a
ir.

  Walking over to the edge of the cliff, she glanced downward, shuddering at the thought of Emma falling to her death. She worried about falling, so Tharon had probably done something to her hang glider, causing her to plummet to the earth, at least in her mind. Laci glanced out into the distance, shuddering at the thought of what Emma must have felt in those final moments of her life, a nightmare from which she would never wake.

  Staring out into the distance, Laci realized that was the direction of the dream. In order to find the path between realms, she needed to walk in the opposite direction. That’s what Nazareth told her when he taught her to walk between realms the first time, so that’s what she did now.

  Turning around, she walked away from the cliff’s edge, following whatever trail appeared until the ground shifted, the mountainside fading from sight, replaced by the shimmering darkness of the path she needed to walk between realms. The sky vanished, the mountain disappeared, the world faded into nothingness. Laci stood there, staring around her, as she listened for voices that would tell her which way to go. Follow the voices, Nazareth had said, and so Laci closed her eyes and listened.

  It was late-afternoon, so the amount of people sleeping was less than at night, leaving the amount of voices Laci had to listen to minimal. She worried she would miss where she was to go next. Then she remembered what Nazareth said. Tharon only kills them in their dreams because the demon found it funny. If he could travel through their minds when they were awake, he could kill them while they were awake. She stopped listening for people dreaming and opened herself up to hear all the voices she heard. It amazed her how many she could hear. Voices off to one side sounded like someone daydreaming during a conference meeting, some students avoided listening to their teachers, and people were grumbling through the day. Too many voices, all blending together. There was no distinction between any of them. How on earth would she ever narrow it down?

  You are a speaker for the dead. Nazareth’s words echoed in her head.